“No. Suffice it to say that we are trying to break the back of a criminal operation that extends into many countries. I am not here with you. I am a figment of your imagination.”
Room service knocked and I opened the door, not sure what to expect. A little uniformed guy stood with two carry out lattes on a tray. He conveyed them to our table and left with a tip.
Alice opened hers and took a dainty sip. “I love caffeine,” she said with closed eyes.
Mine was steaming, and I set it aside, waiting for more revelations from Alice, the figment of my imagination.
“We’re prepared to give you an incentive to distance yourself from this. If you don’t take it, we may put you someplace you don’t want to be.”
Meddling was getting more and more lucrative. Of course, I was interested.
“Take the trip to Sydney and lay low for a month or so. We arrange to pay your expenses at a location of our choice in Sydney for the time you are there. We make a car available and provide a daily stipend.”
“Then you will know where I am if I need to give evidence, and you can protect me at the same time.”
She smiled. “Clever girl. You figured it out. The criminals have taken an interest in you. We are doing you a favor.”
“Sort of like a witness protection program.”
“Sort of.”
“What kind of danger am I in?”
“The criminals know that you helped Cody. That you know about the rifles. It is nothing to them to delete such a person who does not meet with their approval.”
“Delete.” I wondered if I would go to the recycle bin.
“You cannot help the Lodge family anymore. You cannot be an alibi. We will take care of all that.”
“We?”
“Let’s call it a loose confederation of agencies.”
“I see. What will happen to Jake, Hudson and Opal? If I’m not their alibi, the police could charge them with arson.”
“That’s of small consequence. We’ll work a deal with local authorities.”
“Small consequence? How did they get involved in the first place?”
“Through Albert. Cody is a bumbler. Albert should never have brought him in. Jake and Opal took matters into their own hands when they shouldn’t have.”
“You left out Hudson.”
“Hudson is one of ours. We take care of him.”
The shock waves from that pronouncement reverberated about the room and nearly knocked me flat on the floor. “One of yours? What does that mean?”
She finished her latte and sat back.
“I’ve told you enough. Don’t worry about your friends any longer.” She opened her purse and withdrew an envelope and pushed it across the table “Here. This should cover it. It’s a ticket for tonight’s flight to Sydney on Qantas and a travel voucher. Are you in?”
I wasn’t sure. I needed some time to think. She was giving me a persuasive out and protection. I had been trying to get to Sydney for days. I did not want to meet the bad guys. It made me nervous to have their interest in me confirmed. I opened the envelope. There was a one-way Quantas ticket in my name and a money order for $5,000.
“Do you think that will cover it?” she asked.
“I think so. Where am I staying?”
“One of our people will meet your flight and take you to where you’ll be staying.”
“You are assuming that I trust your people.”
“You have no choice. If you don’t leave we’ll keep everyone on the hook for arson. No deal with the locals. Jake and Opal will be in a difficult position.”
“I see.” I was being blackmailed and didn’t like the feeling. I sat back and gazed around the room.
“What’s your hesitation? It seems pretty clear to me what you need to do. We’re offering you a fabulous deal. You get to stay alive. Believe me, this isn’t easy for me to arrange. You should be grateful.”
I looked at her. “But why me? I’m of small consequence. I believe that is how you put it. You’re going to an awful lot of trouble and expense to remove me.” Maybe I didn’t know as much as they thought I did. I didn’t know who her people were. They could be any government agency. They could be a gang of your everyday criminals. Why were they so interested in getting me out of the picture?
She didn’t answer but stood and moved the curtain aside slightly. “Do you see those men across the parking lot? The ones sitting in the brown Chevy?”
I looked. I saw shadowy heads in a dark car. That was all. It gave me a creepy feeling like they were looking straight at me. I nodded.
“Those are the men I’m telling you about. I am offering you a means of escape.”
“Where are Jake and Opal? Opal wasn’t in her room when we went looking for her. Jake is looking for all of them. Have you kidnapped them?”
“Opal is with us. Jake soon will be. We’ll move them out today. We’ll make sure they get to Oregon. That is, if you play by our rules. One of our people will come to escort you. You need to sit tight here until then. We will personally deliver you to the airport and your flight.”
“I guess I have to decide now. I don’t get to sleep on it.”
“That’s correct. I need you to sign on the dotted line right now.”
“Where’s the pen?”
Chapter 15
An expense paid vacation to Australia was now part of the incentive package. But I wasn’t sure about the remodel job and ranchette.
My cell phone rang.
Jake said, “Fiona, you okay?”
“Alice just left. She said she’s taking care of everything.”
“Alice? You’re kidding. What did she want with you?”
“She offered me an incentive to leave the country real fast. I’m awash in incentives. I didn’t realize the criminal life could be so lucrative. I’m definitely in the wrong field.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think so. I hope so. I’m not sure. What about you?”
“I haven’t found anyone. They all seem to have disappeared. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. I’m glad you’re still here.”
“Alice says Opal is okay and that you two are going to Oregon. She said Hudson is, and I quote, ‘one of ours’. Trouble is she wasn’t forthcoming with a lot of details. Where are you?”
“I’m at the door, let me in.”
I opened the door cell phone still to my ear. Jake shut his phone and walked inside.
“Jake, the bad guys are in the parking lot, and Alice says they are after us. She’s providing us – you, me, Opal – a safe out so the bad guys don’t get us.”
“Fiona, are you sure you aren’t hallucinating? You’ve been under a big strain lately. You wouldn’t be making all this up, would you? You have a very active imagination.”
“Jake, she offered me money and a ticket to Sydney.”
“What about Hudson and the arson and all that.”
I shrugged. “She says she’ll take care of everything. Look.” I handed him the envelope she gave me. “Look inside, if you don’t believe me.”
Gingerly, like I had just handed him a bomb, he peeled open the envelope and whistled. “You’re telling the truth.” He ran his hand through the disarray of his dark curls. “I can barely think. You sure Opal is okay?”
“Alice said she was in their safe keeping.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Jake, I’m going to Sydney. I’ll lay low for a month, and then I’ll be back in touch.”
He lifted my chin with his finger. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
“You have a nasty habit of eluding me.”
“I’ll reform.”
“Will you come to Oregon?”
“I have a house and job waiting there, don’t I?”
He smiled. “You bet.”
Someone banged on the door.
“Who is it?” I called through the door.
“Friends.”
“That must be my escort. Here we go,”
I said. “Alice said she was sending someone to escort me to the airport.”
I opened the door a crack only to have it slam into me, forcing me backward into Jake. Two men in brown suits muscled their way into the room. One whacked Jake so hard with a hand chop he crashed to the floor. The other had his hand over my mouth and my arm up behind my back in an excruciating grip. He smelled of onions. He wasn’t tall but made up for it in width and grip. The other guy kicked the door closed.
“Listen good,” Onions said. “You will not make a fuss or we kill you. But that would be messy and hard to explain. Nod your head if you understand.”
I could barely move my head up and down.
“Good.” He eased his nasty smelling hand off my mouth and relaxed his grip. Of course, I couldn’t speak I was so scared. I looked at Jake who was crumpled on the floor. I was impressed with how fast they operated. Very impressed.
“Did you kill him?” I said, rubbing my maltreated arm. “You’ll be sorry if you did.” My brave self wanted to whack them with something, wanted to go out fighting.
Onions laughed. “Wow, I’m scared. Your boyfriend, he’ll be fine. Little headache, maybe.”
“What do you want with me?”
“We want to know what you know. We seen you at the Lodge place. We want all the information you have on Alice and Albert and Cody and their operation.”
“I’m an interior designer. I found Albert dead on the library floor and somehow got pulled into this ridiculous mess.”
Onions manhandled me into the room and shoved me down on the bed, which, unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten to use much. The other guy watched Jake.
“Girlie, you know a lot more. You been hanging with these people since Albert died.”
“Did you kill Albert?”
“We should have. Dumb bugger couldn’t do a job right if he wanted to.”
“Did he work for you?”
“We thought so, but then Alice muscled in.”
I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was sharing information with me because my life wasn’t worth much in the grand scheme of things. That was unnerving, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking more questions. Curiosity was my one weakness.
“Muscled in? What does that mean?”
“It means she wanted a cut, too.”
“Alice? She was Albert’s co-worker. She’s a good guy.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
“Nice try, girlie. She was his squeeze and the wife’s.”
“The wife? You mean Olivia?”
“I mean whoever was the broad living with Albert. Alice was doing them both. We got that on her. She was willing to pay money to keep that quiet. Trouble is she stopped paying us. You’re going to help us get our money.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “I know absolutely nothing.”
“I don’t believe you. We want to know where Cody has the rest of the rifles we paid for, and he hasn’t delivered. He shorted us.”
Missing rifles was bad enough but Alice’s convoluted involvement in this whole thing was making my head hurt. I kept glancing at Jake to see if he was coming to. I didn’t want to be in this alone, and I was worried they’d done him permanent damage.
“Don’t worry about him, girlie. He’ll be fine. But you won’t be if we don’t find them rifles and our silence money.”
It was now clear why Cody wanted our help. Why he had to talk to us. He hadn’t delivered on his part of the bargain. That’s why they wanted him. I wondered why he hadn’t delivered but now wasn’t the time to go through a bunch of scenarios, not with the ugly looking guy in front of me making menacing faces.
“You have a funny accent,” I said. “Where are you from?”
“What?” he said. “Don’t make fun of me, girlie.”
“My name is Fiona, it is not girlie.”
“I don’t care what your name is. It won’t really matter if you don’t level with me.”
“You know, I wish I knew where the rifles were. I would tell you. But I didn’t know about them until the day before the fire.”
“Are you the one who set the fire? You were trying to get rid of the evidence, so’s we can’t find the guns.”
“I thought you set the fire. Cody said you set the fire to get rid of the evidence.”
Onions rubbed his square chin. “You’re testing my patience. You’re making me crazy here, girlie. I may have to use a little persuasion if you don’t stop being cute.”
The other guy pulled something out of his suit pocket. With a click it snapped out into a blade. Shades of West Side Story. I didn’t like my part in the drama.
“If you don’t start talking,” said Onions, “we relieve your boyfriend of some of his body parts.”
I nearly fainted. Here I was in a luxury hotel, in an upscale neighborhood, with three nice incentive packages in the offing and these two have to show up. I should never have answered the door.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“What?” he said. “Ivan, take off that guy’s little finger.”
“No, wait. Stop.” Now I was getting mad because that weasel Alice had double-crossed me. She sent these guys to torture us. It was all a hoax to get us to talk.
“Talk.”
“I’ll talk if you let Jake go.” This was sounding very noble.
“You ain’t exactly in a position to make any deals, girlie.”
“I’m not kidding you. Jake doesn’t know anything. I was the one did all the deals with Cody. You let him go then I’ll talk. Where is Cody by the way?”
“We knew where Cody was we wouldn’t be here with you. We’d be frying his ass instead.”
I didn’t like the imagery of an ass frying.
There was another knock on the door. Maybe help was on the way.
“Who is it?” I called before Onions could answer.
“Your escort.”
Why couldn’t they have come first?
Onions pulled a knife and held it to my throat. “You tell them to come back later. Got it?”
I nodded cautiously against the tip of the blade. We did a twosome shuffle to the door.
“I don’t need any,” I said through the door.
“This is your airport transport. You’re expecting us.”
Alice wasn’t kidding. Bless her heart. Maybe she was still on the good guys’ side although the good-bad line was very blurred.
“Just a minute,” I called through the door.
I turned to Onions. “I better talk to these people. Alice sent them. If I just send them away, she’ll know something is wrong.”
“Pull the big guy away from the door,” said Onions.
Ivan tugged Jake to the end of the bed and dumped him on the floor.
“Now, girlie, first you put the chain on, open the door a little crack, and tell that guy you need more time, come back in an hour.”
I did as directed, thankful we had only an hour left of torture time, and looked to see who was there. Hudson was standing behind another man who I had never seen before. My eyes went wide. I wanted to throw open the door and hug and kiss Hudson into oblivion. But I, of course, couldn’t. I kept staring at him until I felt a little prick against my arm.
“I’m not ready,” I said. “I need about an hour yet. Could you come back?”
“Alice said we take you now,” said the first guy who had one of those 1960s buzz cuts. “Sorry but those are the orders. We can wait out here if you want but we aren’t leaving without you.”
Hudson gave me a reassuring smile. I motioned with my eyes toward the room. That’s all I could think to do.
Onions pulled me inside and pushed the door shut. “Did you recognize that man?”
Good, he didn’t catch on that there was more than one of them. “No, I don’t know who he is, but he isn’t leaving without me.”
I forgave Alice and silently thanked her for sending Hudson. He wasn’t wearing the butler attire, rather a black windbreaker. He looked very clandestine.
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Onions shoved me to where Ivan stood over Jake.
“We got a problem. Alice sent a guy to take this broad to the airport. He won’t leave without her. We’re trapped in here with the two of them.”
Ivan said, “Shit. Let’s kill them now and battle our way out of the room.”
Onions seemed to consider that. “Messy. Ratko don’t like messes.”
Who was Ratko?
The house telephone rang. Onions said, “Don’t answer.”
It rang and rang and rang.
“Someone knows we’re in here,” I said. “They may come looking for us.”
“Who wants to talk to you?” said Onions.
“I’m supposed to talk to the police about the fire. I’m wanted for questioning.”
Onions frowned. That obviously had no part in his plans. “You mean the police might be phoning you?”
The phone kept ringing. The three of us studied it. I wasn’t sure who else might want something from us. Maybe it was Jake’s buddies. The police were a possibility. Alice said she was going to make it right with the local authorities, but I wasn’t sure how that would play.
A voice with tones from the bottom of a well said, “Hello? Somebody answer the phone.” Jake was coming to.
I sidestepped Ivan and Onions and knelt to try to help him.
“Jake, Jake, can you hear me?” I said, smoothing his rumpled clothes.
“Someone should answer the phone. Why don’t you answer the phone, Fiona?”
At least he knew who I was. “Lie still. You had a terrible blow. Just lie still. Can you open your eyes?”
One eye popped open. “My neck is killing me.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Ivan and Onions stood over Jake.
“These guys did it,” I said. “They want information.”
Jake’s other eye popped open. “Who are you?” he said to the two heads leaning over him.
“Don’t matter who we are. It’s what we want. We want the rest of them rifles that Cody stiffed us on. You know anything about them rifles?”
Jake eased up on one arm and winced. “One of you guys hit me?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“That’s very unfriendly.”
“Listen, buddy, we don’t have time for pleasant conversation. We want them rifles. Where’s your friend, Cody? He knows where the rifles are.”
Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery) Page 16