“Amanda,” Teresa said from the side of her mouth. “Chill.”
Amazingly the woman’s gaze softened. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna quit just as soon as things slow down a little. I’m working double shifts at the coffee shop, and the bills just keep coming.” She put the cigarette back in the pack and returned it to her pocket. “And that business with Ronnie didn’t help. Be glad you can’t find him. He’s bad news. Likes to hit women.” She looked down and crushed the already battered cigarette butt again, shredding the tobacco and bits of filter into tiny flecks. When she lifted her eyes, they contained no trace of her former bravado. “I didn’t kick him out,” she said quietly. “He left. I wanted to kick him out, but I didn’t have the guts. I was afraid of him. I’ve been on my own a long time. I know the score. I can take of myself. But that one, he’s bad news. He put me in the hospital first time I talked back to him. After that, I didn’t talk back, but when he gets high, it don’t matter. He just likes to hit people. Best I could do was keep my kids out of the way.”
Amanda shivered. Great. The man trying to bully her into giving up her home and place of business took drugs and hit women. Last time she checked, she was a woman.
“Oh, I know he can be charming,” Janice continued, “but don’t let that fool you.”
“We won’t,” Amanda assured her. Charming? Apparently she and Janice had different definitions of that word.
“He tells a woman what she wants to hear, but then when you let him move in, you find out what he’s really like. I tell you the truth, I was happy when I found out he was cheating on me. When he said he was leaving, I had to bite my tongue to keep the smile off my face.”
“Couldn’t you have called the police or taken out a restraining order on him?”
Janice gave a short, bitter bark of laughter. “Oh, honey, you live in a completely different world. You really think a piece of paper or a cop thirty minutes away is going to stop somebody like Ronnie? You got any idea how many women get beat up or killed when the man’s under a restraining order or while she’s waiting on the cops to get there?”
“No, I guess I don’t.” Amanda moved her arm to her side and felt the reassuring outline of her .380.
“He’s not so tough,” Teresa said. “Amanda chased him down the street in her bare feet, throwing rocks at him.”
Janice gave a burst of real laughter, delighted laughter, then coughed some more. “I’d have liked to of seen that.” Her expression sobered. “Next time you see him, you go in your house and lock the door. He’s mean, and he’s got some really bad people after him that are even meaner than he is.”
“You mean besides us?” Teresa asked.
Janice shook her head. “You don’t have any idea about bad people.”
Amanda and Teresa exchanged amused glances. Teresa had been married to a man who extorted millions of dollars from people, one of whom murdered him. Amanda had been married to a small time con artist who incurred the wrath of a megalomaniac who killed him and tried to kill Amanda. Then there was the evil trio that killed Dawson’s parents and kidnapped his brother.
“We actually have had some experience with really terrible people,” Amanda assured her.
“You and me, we probably got different ideas of terrible people. Let me tell you about Ronnie.”
Teresa gasped. “There’s more?”
Janice nodded. “There’s a lot more. He doesn’t like to work. I bought him an old car and did my best, but I wasn’t making enough money to support him and my kids. So he decided to sell a little meth. Only problem, he got greedy and ripped off his dealer.”
Amanda shuddered. “That was the only problem?”
“Well, it was the worst. Now I got some dangerous people coming around, scaring my kids, trying to get information from me about Ronnie, and I’d tell them if I knew, but I don’t. If them people find out Ronnie’s coming around you, they’ll be coming around you too.” She looked both of them up and down again. “And I don’t think you’ll know how to protect yourself. Rocks aren’t gonna scare these guys.”
“I don’t just have rocks,” Amanda assured her. Though the image of crazed drug lords in her parking lot was a little scarier than just a crazed Ronald Collins.
Teresa opened her hand and displayed her little purple stun gun. “This is more than a rock. Over a million volts of electricity.”
Janice did not look impressed. “Whatever it is Ronnie wants, give it to him and get away. It’s not worth your life.”
Amanda shook her head. “He wants my home and my business. He won’t get it. I’m filing a lawsuit against him.”
Janice’s eyes widened. “Your business? What kind of business? Is it big and open and not close to your neighbors?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It depends on what you consider close. I’m not out in the country or anything. I have a big double lot, far enough from my neighbors that people don’t complain about the noise of my motorcycles.”
Janice’s thin lips tightened. “He said he’d found a place that would make a good meth house. Said the people he ripped off would be willing to take it in exchange for their money. Honey, he’s not gonna stop at anything to get your place and give it to them to save his own hide. If you’re smart, you’ll just let him have it.”
Amanda lifted her chin. “He’ll get my shop when Lubbock has a foot of snow on the fourth of July. If you should happen to hear from him, you tell him I’m looking for him.”
Chapter Fourteen
Amanda, Teresa and Charley rode in silence back to Amanda’s shop. When Teresa pulled into the parking lot and the wind was no longer rushing past them, blowing away their words, Amanda released a long sigh of frustration. “We still don’t have an address for Collins.”
She stepped out of the car onto the hard surface of the parking lot. Heat swirled around her in the slight breeze and drifted up from the concrete. A mockingbird launched into a lilting tune in her bullet-riddled live oak tree. Maybe the mockingbird was just a visitor, but he was her visitor, his serenade for her. It was her heat, her concrete, her tree. She’d painted the building, cleaned the grease spots off the floor from the former auto repair shop, pulled up the gross green carpet in the apartment to reveal hardwood floors, repaired the holes in the parking lot. After all that work, she was not going to let some cheap hood steal it from her and turn it into a meth lab.
“I think Janice knows more than she’s saying,” Teresa said. “She’s scared of Collins.”
Charley snorted. “He’s just a two-bit punk. Amanda, you called his bluff. You’re not afraid of him, are you?”
Amanda thought about it. She’d been afraid of Roland Kimball, Charley’s murderer, the first time she met him. But Collins was, as Charley so aptly put it, just a two-bit punk. “No. Maybe I should be, but it’s hard to be afraid of somebody after he runs away from you. Right now anger trumps fear, and I’m really angry at him.”
“Me too,” Charley said.
He should have thought of that before he signed over her property to Collins.
“Now that we’ve established where Collins isn’t, want to grab some burgers and go by my place?” Teresa asked. Amanda interpreted the go by my place to mean Teresa was offering to spend some time trying to get rid of Charley.
Amanda thought about it. She really, really wanted to go to Teresa’s and get rid of Charley. But it would have to wait. “That sounds great, but I need to go in and do some work, give Dawson some relief, let him go home early. He has to pick up his little brother from school.”
“Maybe later?”
Much as she wanted to say yes, some things had to take priority. “I need to be here in case Collins drops by again.”
Teresa nodded. “I understand. But this time instead of throwing rocks at him, you might think about calling 911.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “My dad’s a judge, remember? I know how likely it is that Collins is going to be convicted for hanging out at my garbage bin. He’s been very careful so far
not to leave any evidence that could land him in jail. I have no idea what he was planning to do before I interrupted him last night, but all he did was look at my trash.”
“He may have been looking for documents so he could steal your identity,” Teresa suggested.
Amanda shook her head. “After being married to Charley, it’s not like I have an identity worth stealing.”
For once, Charley had nothing to say.
“How about I get my crystals and cards and bring them back to your place? It might even be easier to help Charley since this is sort of his home base.”
“Okay, sure. But be warned, my apartment isn’t as tidy as yours.”
Charley frowned. “No, it’s not. You wouldn’t feel comfortable there, Teresa.”
“Sure I will,” she replied airily. “I’ll go by my place then pick up some burgers and rings and meet you back here in a couple of hours.”
Teresa started her car. Amanda turned toward the shop.
“Oh, one more thing,” Teresa called after her, and Amanda looked back. “I’m bringing my sleeping bag and spending the night. You may need help if Ronald Collins shows up.”
“No, I can handle it!” But Amanda’s protest was lost in the roar of Teresa’s engine as she pulled out of the parking lot. Amanda shook her head and walked toward the shop. “Not bad enough I’ve got a ghost who won’t listen to me. Now I’ve got a friend who won’t either.”
“Yeah, I think that was pretty rude of her, inviting herself over like that. You should call her and tell her not to come.”
“Ha! You liked her well enough until she started talking about helping you move on. Now you think she’s being rude.” Amanda reached the door of the shop. “Get over it.” She opened the door and walked in.
Dawson looked up from where he sat on the floor working on a design on a fuel tank. “How’d it go?”
Charley darted past her. “Be sure and tell him how your boyfriend hugged you and whispered in your ear.”
Doing her best to ignore Charley, Amanda told Dawson about the events of the day.
Dawson shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of that. Why don’t you stay at my place until this blows over? Grant can move in with me, and you can have his room.”
“Thanks, but if I do that, who’ll be here to chase Collins off the next time he tries something? I’m not going to run from that creep.”
The shop phone rang.
“That’s probably Detective Daggett. He called a little while ago. Said he couldn’t reach you on your cell. Sorry. I should have told you.”
Charley folded his arms. “Well, isn’t that sweet? He’s worried about you.”
Amanda went into the office and answered the phone. Charley was right beside her.
“Amanda, it’s Jake.”
“Amanda, it’s Jake,” Charley mimicked.
Amanda turned her head and moved away in an effort to avoid Charley. “Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”
“I was getting concerned. I called your cell phone several times, and it always went to voice mail.”
Charley moved close, pressing his head to the phone. Again Amanda turned away and again he moved with her. Though she knew the effort was futile, she tried to shove him away. Her hand passed through his chest.
“Amanda?” Jake asked.
“Oh, uh, yeah, sorry. My cell phone. Teresa drives as fast as I do, and in a convertible, you can’t hear anything over the noise of the wind. Then I left it in the car when we went up to talk to Ronald Collins’ girlfriend.”
“Who?”
Damn! Dealing with Charley had distracted her to the point she’d said something she hadn’t intended to say. She sighed and told Jake about Collins. “So now I’m trying to find him so Sunny can have him served.”
Jake was silent for a long moment. “This man threatened you, shot your tree, burned your truck, and you caught him looking through your trash. Did it ever occur to you to call the police?”
“Yeah, why didn’t you just call him, let him take care of you?” Charley sniped.
“No,” Amanda said, again trying to turn away from Charley. “What could you—they do? There wasn’t any evidence.”
“Really? You’ve seen what Ross can come up with even when there’s no sign of any evidence.”
A chill darted through Amanda’s head as Charley pressed closer. “So now Ross is a magician?” Charley asked. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” Amanda said, “maybe I should have called.” It was difficult to focus on what Jake was saying when Charley was in her face. Literally.
“I’ll come by tomorrow and take a report.” He paused. “I could come by tonight and watch your place.”
“Sure he could,” Charley said. “Watch it from your bedroom? I hope you can see what he’s trying to do, Amanda.”
Amanda could only see one thing…that Charley was becoming more annoying by the second.
“That’s not necessary,” she assured Jake. “Teresa’s coming over to spend the night.”
“And bringing her little purple toy? You have to be within arm’s reach of somebody to use that thing.”
“I’ve got a .38 revolver in my nightstand as well as the little Colt Mustang I had last night. I don’t have to be very close to hurt somebody with either of those.” She twisted around but Charley had no problem following her movements. It was too late in the year to wish for a tornado to come along and blow him away. Probably wouldn’t work anyway considering the ease with which he’d remained perched on Teresa’s convertible.
“Hang on a minute,” Jake said. “I want to check something.”
A click and an echoing silence told her she was on hold. She took the opportunity to turn to Charley. “I am going to kill you if you don’t stop that! Oh, I can’t kill you because Kimball beat me to it, but I can have Teresa send you to the middle of an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean! You’ll never even get to smell fajitas again, much less taste them!”
“What do you want me to do? Just step aside while another man takes my wife?”
“I AM NOT YOUR WIFE!”
“Hello?”
In her fury, Amanda had not heard the click of Jake returning to the phone. “Hi, yes, I’m here.”
“Hi, yes, I’m here,” Charley mimicked.
“Who were you talking to?”
“Nobody. Myself.”
“You told yourself you’re not your wife?”
“Yeah, uh, it’s therapy. Since Charley was killed before our divorce was finalized, I sometimes reassure myself that we’re not married, that he’s not coming back.”
“Fine,” Charley snapped. “I’ll leave and I won’t come back.” He vanished through the far wall of the building.
Unfortunately, she knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t go far.
“I just did a quick check on Ronald Collins. There are a couple of men with that name in the system. The one you described has been arrested for everything from drunk driving to murdering a man in a bar fight.”
“I know. Everything but kidnapping and arson.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know that?”
“Dawson checked him out on the Internet.”
“So you know the man’s violent, but you don’t want a trained police officer guarding your house tonight?”
Good grief. Men and their egos. “I don’t want you to have to stay up all night after you’ve worked all day. Really, I’ll be fine. But if Collins shows up tonight, he won’t be.”
“You do realize you can’t shoot him unless you feel your life is in danger.”
“I don’t expect to have to shoot him. I’ll put a pile of rocks beside my bed. You and Janice Horne may think he’s a scary dude, but I’m not worried.”
“And that worries me.”
“Okay, it’s time to leave this subject. You couldn’t have called me to harass me about Collins since you didn’t even know about him until after you called. Any luck finding Eduardo?”
“Maybe.
We have a couple of theories. But that’s not why I called.”
Amanda hoped and feared he was calling to confirm their Saturday night date. If Teresa didn’t do something with Charley tonight, that date could be a FEMA-sized disaster.
“How about Mexican food for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Sounds good. I love Mexican food.” She refused to think about the evening she and Teresa had eaten Mexican food and Teresa had given Charley his own margarita. Somehow she was going to prevent him from coming along with Jake and her.
“Pick you up about six?”
“Sure. One more thing.”
“Okay.”
“What did you find out about Eduardo?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“So this is a one-sided deal? I tell you everything I find out, even give you evidence that rightfully belongs to Teresa…and, by the way, she’s not very happy about that…but you won’t tell me anything?”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
Amanda clenched her lips. She wasn’t going to get into an argument with Jake. This was the first chance they’d had…and might ever have…to talk in private. She wasn’t going to ruin it by being snippy.
“That pretty much sucks.” The words slipped out in spite of her good intentions.
“Yeah, I guess it does. Okay, I can tell you this much. We’re pretty sure Eduardo’s dead.”
“That’s no surprise. Teresa told you that already. Have you found his body?”
“Maybe.”
Maybe? “Is this related to Anthony’s murder?”
“At the moment, all we have is a theory. I may have some answers I can talk about tomorrow evening if Ross gets his tests finished by then.”
That sounded promising. “Is Teresa still a suspect?”
“She’s a person of interest.”
“Suspect, person of interest, whatever.”
“Tomorrow at six.”
Amanda smiled as she hung up the phone. True, she was a little miffed at Jake because he was withholding information, but she was excited about seeing him in a non-murder related setting. And Charley was still missing. Maybe he’d stay gone for a few days. Maybe she and Jake would be able to get together without him. Maybe he had decided to cut her some slack. Maybe he had even moved on.
3 The Ex Who Conned a Psychic Page 15