“Nope. Just wanted to be comfortable.” She fished herself a slice out of the box, and when finished, she shot to her feet. “Let’s find that ring!”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m having a pang of conscience, but—”
“Nonsense. If you find the ring, it will put your mind at ease.”
“It will?” Madison found fault with her friend’s reasoning. She’d probably have more questions. Like was the proposal lost or simply delayed?
“Come on, let’s finish what you started.” She grinned at Madison, her hook baited.
“Fine.” She closed the lid on the box and got up. “What did you tell Lou when you left?”
“That he and Garrett were driving me nuts, and I needed girl time.” Cynthia’s face fell somber. “I need to ask you this, but what are you going to do if there isn’t a ring?”
Her friend certainly didn’t hold back when she was drinking, and Madison didn’t want to dwell on the possibility. Before she and Troy had gotten together, they had both been burned by love. He had a wife who had cheated on him with his best friend. She had her scum of a fiancé who she’d found in bed with another woman. She used to be fine with a level of commitment that kept them exclusive without the old-fashioned need to tie the knot. But these days, the tying of the knot was all she could think about. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Or what if you find out he was never going to propose? Are you going to ask him to mar—”
“What? No! I might be a modern woman, but he’s gotta be the one to pop the question.”
Cynthia held eye contact and eventually nodded. “I get that. I even respect that.”
“I’ve already searched the house everywhere I could think of.”
“You’re sure you checked everywhere?”
“I’m pretty sure.” Madison sighed and bit her bottom lip.
“Okay, he might not have hidden it in the house. You have a shed out back, right? Maybe it’s in there? Oh, or in the garage?”
Madison went to the kitchen and through the door to the garage, flicking the light switch on the way. Then she stopped.
They didn’t use the garage for their vehicles for a reason. They were also looking to up-size for a reason. Apparently, part of that reason was to have more space to house all Troy’s crap.
“I never would have pegged Troy as a hoarder.” Cynthia stood in the doorway, crossing her arms.
“The man isn’t perfect.” But Madison thought he was close to it, but if he broke her heart, she’d kill him. Possibly literally. No, she wouldn’t… Yes, maybe… No…
“I don’t think he would have hidden it out here. I mean—” Cynthia gestured around the clogged area “—how would he even get to it?”
“True that.” Madison met her friend’s gaze.
“Let’s check the shed.”
Madison grabbed the key, donned her coat and shoes, and Cynthia slipped into hers. Madison put the back light on, not that it reached the outbuilding, but it lit the patio. Hershey followed them outside, sniffed around, and did his thing.
Madison activated the flashlight on her phone and unlocked the shed. “It’s not powered, so you might want to—”
Cynthia took out her phone and turned on its light.
They went inside and rooted through the cabinets and drawers. At least there was walking space, unlike the garage. Maybe if Troy moved some crap from the garage to the shed, she might be able to squeeze her Mazda 3 into the garage.
They searched for what felt like a long time. Eventually, Cynthia made the call.
“It’s not here.” She sounded almost as dejected as Madison felt. Every time a spot turned up empty, she doubted herself more. Maybe she didn’t know him.
“Hey, wait.” Cynthia perked up, her eyes sparking in the limited light of their phones. “You looked everywhere in the house, but by everywhere, did that include places you don’t normally go? You tried the kitchen?”
“You’re killing me.”
Cynthia smiled. “The laundry room?”
Madison gripped Cynthia’s forearm. “I didn’t look there.”
Both of them hurried back into the house, intent on beelining it for the laundry room, but Hershey wanted inside, and Madison had to stop to wipe his feet. “You go on ahead.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” She cleaned Hershey off as quickly as she could make her hands work and caught up with Cynthia.
Cynthia was elbow deep in the cabinetry.
Madison didn’t ask if she’d had any luck, because if her friend had, she’d have told her. Asking and being told something to the effect of “nothing yet” would have just burrowed a deeper hole in her heart.
Cynthia withdrew a lidded chest the size of a shoebox from one of the cabinets. She held it up to Madison as if to ask what was in there.
“Wouldn’t have a clue. Open it.” Madison stepped closer to her friend.
Cynthia braced to flip the lid. “Oh, I can’t.” She shoved the chest at Madison.
She took it and looked inside. A small box sat among other bric-a-brac.
Time stood still. Madison’s breath froze. Her heart sped up.
She gave the chest back to Cynthia and took out the small box.
“Who’s killing who? Open it,” Cynthia urged.
Madison exhaled and cracked the lid, saw the contents, and snapped it shut again. She dropped the small box back into the chest. “Put it back. I never should have—”
Cynthia set the chest on the folding counter and opened the box. “Princess cut. Square shape. White gold.” Cynthia met her gaze, and her eyes were watered up. “This ring is beautiful, Maddy.”
But it isn’t on my finger… Tears burned her eyes. She didn’t know what she should be feeling or how to react. She was a mix of anger, happiness, shock, distrust, confusion. “Put it back,” she said.
Cynthia did as Madison had asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t have a clue.” Ironically, for all the emotions whirling through her, she felt numb, not knowing which one to latch on to, which one she felt more, which one she wanted to believe. Was her relationship with Troy over? The “lost proposal” the apt description?
“For what it’s worth,” Cynthia said gingerly, “he was going to ask you.”
“Yeah. Was.” Madison sniffled. “What made him change his mind?”
Cynthia pulled her into a hug, and Madison let herself cry. Just when she’d given herself over to believing she had the real deal with Troy, love slapped her in the face again.
-
Twenty-Three
Madison managed to convince Cynthia that she’d be fine and just needed to crawl into bed and get some sleep. But sleeping was the last thing she had on her mind. For one, between the coffee and that bloody ring on her mind, the Sandman wouldn’t be visiting. And second, Cynthia had left in a cab just before eleven, so Madison should have time to get in position behind Club Sophisticated and see if the mystery woman showed up.
She parked her car a couple spaces down from where she had the night before and set out for the dumpster. So far, the pizza she’d eaten had stayed down, but she wasn’t too confident it would remain that way if the garbage stank anything like it had last night.
She approached the back of the club and eyed the dumpster. Still overflowing and with a stack of the bags next to it, bigger than last night.
Joy, oh bliss.
Only thing in the positive column: there wasn’t any sign of Claws. Maybe Madison’s luck was turning.
But even with that thought, the ring flashed more dominantly in her mind and drilled home the fact that Troy hadn’t proposed, and he might not ever. She tried to view the ring’s presence being a promising thing, though. Surely if he had changed his mind entirely, he would have returned the ring. That is, unless it
was final sale.
She took shallow breaths as she wedged herself next to the dumpster. Now life became a waiting game. Oh, how fitting, as it seemed to summarize her entire existence.
She pulled up her camera and looked through the lens periodically, more for something to do. For a long time, no one was exiting the club. Then the door finally opened.
Someone in a half-apron. Kitchen staff. Lighting up a cigarette.
The stench from the secondhand smoke carried across the night air and made her gag. It smelled so potent she would have thought the man was standing right next to her, not twenty feet away.
The man was fiddling with something on his cell phone, the screen’s light bleeding into the night and casting him in its glow. Twentysomething. Black hair. Tanned complexion. Tattoos on his forearm. She could only distinguish darkened areas, not design. She snapped a few photos back to back. Once she got the images uploaded to her computer, she could zoom in and take a better look.
The door opened again. At first, she couldn’t see who was there.
“Hey,” the kitchen guy said.
The person at the door then fully emerged into the alley. Mystery woman.
But, shit, what was Madison going to do? If she came out of her hidey hole and followed her now, the smoker would see her.
The woman was making her way west, the same direction she’d left in the other night. She was wearing a different coat—cream-colored with a fur-lined hood. Expensive. It came to mid-thigh, and she was wearing black dress pants and pointy-heeled boots.
Madison watched as her form became smaller, then she turned her attention to the man. Still playing around on his phone. She had to decide whether to follow the woman or forego it until another night. She was already here, but if that man spotted her—and without knowing who he was—maybe it was too great a risk to take. But even if he saw her leave in the same direction as the woman, he wouldn’t know who she was or that she was tailing her. She was being more paranoid than necessary.
She got out from behind the garbage, and at the first rustle of the bags, the man looked over.
“What the—” He shone his phone’s light on her, and she turned her face downward, seeking obscurity under the hoodie.
She hustled along the alley to follow the woman, who was about a couple blocks in the distance. The woman turned left down a side street.
Madison pulled up the map of the area in her head. That would be Walnut Street.
She hurried her pace even more and cursed that she was starting to get close to a slow jog. But she had to be proactive, just in case the woman’s picture didn’t garner a hit in the facial rec databases. But if the mystery woman did pop up on facial rec and she was connected to the Mafia, how was she going to talk herself out of that one with Cynthia? She could just ease out by claiming, “Whoa, small world,” or something like that, but would Cynthia buy it? Not likely.
Each step, she was mumbling expletives. At least she had her gun and her badge if worse came to worse tonight.
She rounded the corner on Walnut, and the woman was getting into a silver town car. Madison held out a hand to hail a cab. Something was working in her favor as one pulled over just as the town car was pulling away.
She got into the cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Madison held up her badge. “I need you to follow the silver town car coming up on your left…but keep your distance.”
“Aye, we don’t want them to know we’re following them.”
“That’s right. Do it right and there’s a good tip in it for you.”
“You got it.” The driver smiled at her in the rearview mirror and merged into traffic, keeping a few car lengths back from their mark.
The town car made a right five streets west of Walnut, down First, and headed north. The farther they went, Madison concluded they must have been headed to one of the north-end, upper-crust neighborhoods. Her suspicion was confirmed when they pulled toward the gated community of Deer Glen.
“What would you like me to do now?” the driver asked her.
“Just pull up to the gate. I’ll show them my badge.”
“Will do.” The man sounded far more excited than Madison felt. In honesty, her stomach was tossing, and her chest clenched with anxiety. If they messed up in any way and that woman knew they were following, depending on who she was, they could be in danger. And the driver was her responsibility.
“Like I said before, just keep your distance.”
The driver pulled over and waited for the town car to go through the gate, then he rolled up. The trick was to have a decent amount of space between them and the town car but not so much that they lost track of their mark.
The security guard came over the speakers, and the driver announced his passenger as police.
There was a click, then the guard got out of the gatehouse and approached. Madison had her window down and her badge held up in preparation.
“Detective with Major Crimes, Stiles PD.”
The guard was in his thirties, but his half-mast expression indicated he was bored with his job. He glanced at her badge and returned to his little gatehouse. The arm went up, and the taxi driver took them through. He stopped on the other side. He looked left, then right, then left.
“I don’t see them,” he said.
“I don’t either.” She was swearing in her head when she caught a vehicle’s taillights several blocks down on the right. “Turn.” She pointed in that direction, and the cabbie moved. “Maybe just a little faster,” she suggested.
Her phone rang, cutting through the otherwise silent cab with the urgency of gunfire. Caller ID said it was Troy. She could avoid answering and he’d probably just conclude she was asleep, but she felt she owed him more than that, and he rarely called when he was working. She answered. “Everything all right?”
“Sure, except I’m curious why you’re not home.”
She saw the town car make a left and pointed erratically for the driver, but he was already on top of things.
“Madison?” Troy prompted.
“What? I…”
“Where are you? I’m home; you’re not.”
“Oh.” She gulped. She hadn’t even let his return factor into her decision to carry out this little rogue mission. “I’m following a lead,” she pushed out, satisfied it wasn’t exactly a lie, though he’d assume it had to do with the murder case. But could she really be held responsible for what he assumed?
“When will you be done?”
“I don’t figure too long.”
The garage door was lifting on one of the monster homes on the right side of the street. The light from inside spilled onto the drive, not that it was necessary. Landscape lighting had the house illuminated like a piece of artwork.
The town car pulled into the garage, and the door lowered.
The cabbie parked at the curb a few houses down. Far enough away? Hopefully.
“Ah, Troy, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll be home soon.” She didn’t wait for his response and hung up.
She leaned forward on the bench seat and hunched down to get a good look out the window. Decided to slide over.
The place was palatial and had terra-cotta roof tiles and an arched double-door entry with columns.
“What do you want me to do now?” the cabbie asked.
Madison noted the number on the house they were parked in front of—4432—and that numbers decreased in the opposite direction from where the mystery woman had entered. That meant that it was likely 4438. “Just drive past at a normal speed and take me back to where you picked me up.” She could have had him take her directly to her car, but she wanted some space between her and this little mission.
The cab was put into motion, and Madison watched closely to confirm the number as they passed the house. Worse case, she could confirm it
with Google Maps, but she found the numbering in bold, black letters.
Any other time, she’d go into the station and run a reverse-address search, but with Troy already wondering where she was and her promise to be home soon, she’d follow through. But tonight, if she fell asleep, she’d be having dreams about 4438 Wedgewood Crescent and its mysterious occupant.
-
Twenty-Four
A good sleep had been a hopeful wish. When Madison had returned home, Troy was snoring and so was Hershey. She got a lazy tail wag for a greeting. Between thoughts of how she’d disappointed Troy again, and finding the ring, and having the mystery woman’s address on her mind, she ended up getting out of bed by six that morning. She even successfully pulled it off without waking Troy.
She headed to the station, stopping for a Starbucks caramel cappuccino and an impulse buy of a cranberry muffin. Only because there was a mix-up with the baker, they didn’t have anything chocolate. But maybe she should expand her diet to include foods other than just chocolate, burgers, and pizza. After all, she’d finally shed some of the extra pounds she’d been carrying around, and it would be nice if they stayed lost.
She set her drink in the console and caught a whiff as it passed under her nose. Normally pleasant and something that would have her salivating, instead the smell had her stomach contracting into a raisin. She took a tentative sip and swallowed. That wasn’t going to stay down, no way, no how. How frustrating! She’d been able to live with the nausea and dismiss it, but now it was greatly interfering with her life. She needed answers.
Her doctor’s office wouldn’t be open yet, but the minute it was, she’d be calling.
She parked in the station lot and went for her desk, carting her Starbucks with her. Sadly, the cappuccino was bound for a garbage can, but the fate of her muffin was still unknown. When she tossed her drink, she felt for Terry being around her when she was caffeine-free.
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