Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  His sister didn’t have a clue. “I got life in prison, Tracy. My lawyer made sure of that. No chance for parole. Ever.”

  “So, what now?”

  “I’ve already paid Mike Gabaldon a visit. I got the scumbag to admit he was paid off. Just as I thought.”

  “Mike Gabaldon? Your lawyer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. Whoever paid him to keep me in prison has done a decent job of staying out of the picture.”

  “Have you talked to anyone else?”

  “I think it’s best if I keep you out of this. I never should have asked you to meet with me.”

  “What do you need your computer for?”

  “There’s a lot that’s not adding up. I thought maybe I would find some info there. I have to get going. How’s mom holding up?”

  “She’s doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. There are federal agents are all over the place. Mom kicked them out of the house, but the men in black are lined up on the street right outside the front door. All the neighbors are talking. You know how Mom hates that.”

  The waitress brought his coke, then asked Tracy is she wanted anything.

  She declined, and then quickly filled him in on family news: Aunts and uncles, cousins he couldn’t remember. Mom, it turned out, had recently been laid off from her job at a Macy’s Department store.

  “If you and mom need money,” he told her, “I could talk to Colin and see what he can do to help you two until I can get my hands on my share of the business. There’s got to be close to three million in the account, and that doesn’t include stock.”

  She pulled at her hair on the side of her head, a nervous habit she’d developed when she was just a kid. “Don’t worry about us,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”

  He noticed the rock on her left finger. “Something you want to tell me?” He gestured at the ring.

  “Oh, this.” She swallowed. “I’m engaged.”

  He frowned. “Since when?”

  “Oh, gosh…it’s been a while. Beginning of the year.”

  The sound of her voice, the way she looked at him, the fact that she’d hadn’t been to prison to visit him in the past two years…it all made him look at her in a new light. He leaned forward, his gaze roaming over every bit of her face. “You look different, Tracy. Younger. Did you have something done to your face?”

  “What? Me?” She smiled, but it was an uncomfortable, anxious smile at best. “Of course, not. My fiancé is doing well, but I would never waste his money on something like that.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Benjamin Finch. He’s a banker.”

  He felt his jaw tense.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I just can’t help but wonder why you and Mom didn’t feel the need to tell me you were engaged.”

  “It’s my fault. Mom wanted to tell you, but I asked her not to.” Tracy looked away, feeling guilty no doubt. “I didn’t want you to feel like you were missing out.”

  “That’s real nice of you, Sis, but its bullshit. When you visited me in prison—when you were still coming—I couldn’t look into your eyes without seeing shame. Or maybe it was disgust I saw there. You really believe I killed Dirk, don’t you?”

  She said nothing.

  “Thanks for the support, Sis.” He stood, and tossed a few bills on the table. “Tell Mom I love her and that I’ll give her a call when it’s safe to do so.” He left the deli for the bright light of the afternoon sun and walked toward the post office, where he could see the Volvo in the distance.

  Angry with himself for letting his sister get to him, he thought about going back and wrapping his arms around her, something he hadn’t been able to do in a very long time. But how would he ever be able to hold her tight if she thought he was a murderer? Even Angela, a complete stranger, believed in him. The notion sent a fire through his belly, pushing him to speed up. He needed to find Dirk’s killer.

  A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

  A man stood on the street corner by the signal. Jason noted his height, a bushy beard, bulbous nose and sunglasses. When he noticed Jason watching him, the fellow turned and pretended to check his phone.

  Jason kept walking. Eyes straight ahead, he focused on two ladies drinking coffee and eating pastries in front of a donut shop. But when he glanced over his shoulder, he wasn’t surprised to see the bearded man following him.

  Keeping a brisk pace, he stayed on course.

  What could this guy want? Jason aimed to find out.

  ***

  Angela was relieved to see Jason heading her way. She was about to roll down her window and talk to him, but he glanced sideways and began scratching his throat.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Once he passed the car, he made a run for it, heading toward the street.

  She kept her head low, pretending not to notice that someone was running across the parking lot after him. Another man, tall and slender with thick blond hair, suddenly appeared from around the corner of the building, gesturing wildly with both hands for first guy to hurry up and go after Jason.

  After both men disappeared, she started the engine and made her way around the building. The guy who had been madly gesturing was now climbing into a black Explorer. She made note of the license plate number as she drove past, then headed in the direction she’d seen Jason go, her adrenaline soaring.

  Catching a glimmer of Jason’s white T-shirt as he cut into the empty parking lot of what looked like a junior high school, she drove past the man who was following him, making sure not to look his way. But in the rearview mirror, she saw something in his hand glinting in the sunlight. A knife?

  Her heart plummeted.

  What was she supposed to do now?

  She made a U-turn and headed back toward the parking lot where Jason and the other guy had disappeared. She followed a narrow driveway until a guardrail stopped her from driving closer to the school’s soccer field.

  With shaking hands and her insides doing flip-flops, she found a pen and quickly jotted down the license plate number she’d set to memory.

  Then she looked around. All she saw were trees. Everywhere. She couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Jason could be in serious danger.

  Making a split-second decision, she turned off the engine and grabbed the gun from the glove compartment. With it gripped tightly in her hand, she hopped out of the car and ran toward the sound of a dog barking wildly in the distance.

  Pine trees and oaks surrounded the school campus. Only halfway across the soccer field, she already felt winded. But she forced herself onward, climbed over a four-foot chain-link fence, and snagged her shirt, ripping the sleeve as she fell to the other side.

  Where did they go?

  Heart racing and legs trembling, she followed a dirt trail that led her through myriad trees. She hurried past a row of homes protected by a high wooden fence and a German shepherd out for blood. The dog shoved its snout through a loose board and its low growl unnerved her as she passed the animal. By the time she made it to the top of the hill, she was winded.

  Bent over, one hand on her side, she lifted her head for another look around. There were homes to her left and a vast lake to her right. Having no idea which way to go, she headed toward the water, once again running as fast as her legs would take her. She stopped when she caught a glimpse of the bearded man sliding down an embankment toward the lake.

  From her vantage point, she was able to spot Jason. He was hiding, hunched down behind a large grouping of boulders.

  ***

  The heat was unbearable.

  Jason thought back to the last time he’d been in Granite Bay, when he was twelve and he and his dad had gone bass fishing at Folsom Lake. But no time to go down memory lane now. The big guy was closing in on him. He could hear the sounds of his boots kicking up rocks and dirt. Jason tensed, preparing himself, an
d the moment he heard labored breathing, he pounced.

  They rolled around on the ground. His attacker had to have sixty or seventy pounds on him. Sharp rocks and branches left behind after the water levels dropped cut into Jason’s arms and neck.

  They both strained, grunting and gasping, each trying to get the upper hand.

  A sharp pain in his side sucked the breath right out of him.

  It wasn’t until his attacker attempted to get to his feet that Jason spotted the knife in his hand and realized he’d been stabbed. Blindly, he reached out to his side for the sharp rock he’d seen earlier. Instead, he claimed a fistful of sand and dirt and threw it into the guy’s face. The man cursed and covered his eyes, giving Jason a chance to try and wrest the knife from him, but it was no use. He had to be six-five, two hundred and fifty pounds, at least.

  Jason’s attacker got the better of him and rolled on top of him, the sharp tip of his blade hovering a few inches above Jason’s chest. Dizzy and weak, he realized he couldn’t hold him off much longer.

  “Drop the knife or you’re dead.”

  Jason squinted into the sun and spotted Angela. She was pointing a gun at the man’s head.

  When the idiot looked over his shoulder at her, Jason pushed him off of him, rolled to his right, grabbed the rock he’d been looking for earlier, and bashed it against the guy’s head.

  He toppled over with a thump.

  “Is he dead?” Angela asked, worried.

  Jason reached into the guy’s pocket and took his cell phone. He found a wallet, too, and flipped through the contents. “He’s breathing. He’ll be fine.” Pulling out cash and an ID, he said, “He doesn’t appear to be a cop or an FBI agent.”

  Jason thought about waiting for the guy to come to so he could force him to talk at gunpoint, but there were too many houses overlooking the lake. It wouldn’t surprise him if someone had already called the police. “We better get out of here.”

  “Take this,” Angela said, handing him the gun, “I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Jason shoved the cash, ID and cell phone into his pocket and then took the gun.

  Her gaze fell to his blood-soaked shirt. “You’re hurt!”

  “Barely grazed. Let’s go.”

  She put out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Give me the guy’s phone. Hurry.”

  He did as she said, watched her open it, push a button, then lean over and press the guy’s thumbprint to the button on the phone. Nothing happened.

  She used his other thumb next. “It worked.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Unlocking the phone so we can see his contact list and then setting it so there’s no longer a password to get in.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about computer searches and phone technology.”

  “I would love for you to think I’m a techie geek, but biometric technology isn’t exactly new. Most ten-year olds these days know how to scan their fingerprint and use that instead of a passcode.”

  “Impressive all the same.” He looked around. “Done?”

  She nodded.

  By the time they made it back to the car, they heard sirens in the distance.

  Angela helped him into the passenger seat, then scrounged around in the back for a moment.

  “What are you doing?” Jason asked. “We’ve got get out of here. Now!”

  She secured both passenger side doors and climbed back in behind the wheel, tossing him a clean shirt. “Use that to stop the bleeding.” She backed out of the narrow drive and sped across the parking lot, fishtailing onto the main road.

  “Take a left onto Auburn Folsom when you get to the end of this road. Eventually, we’ll get onto the freeway and head west toward Sacramento.” He pulled his bloodied shirt over his head and used that to stop the flow of blood. It took some maneuvering, but he slipped into the clean shirt and then adjusted the position of the seat so he was no longer upright and in plain view.

  “That’s not a graze. It’s worse than you thought, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  He gave her Colin’s address.

  “Do you really think you can trust him?”

  “I have no idea who I can trust any longer.” Although he’d never allowed himself to consider Colin as someone who might frame him for murder, he also knew it was time to get real. Everybody was a suspect. He couldn’t forget that. His life was on the line. And what about hearing Sophie’s voice in the background when he’d called his friend? What was going on between those two?

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Sophie. When I called Colin from the payphone this morning, I heard her voice in the background.”

  “Are they living together?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s time I found out.”

  “We need to pull over and take care of that wound of yours.”

  “Not yet. Get out of the area first. I’ll be fine.” He winced in pain. “Thanks for the help back there. How are you holding up?”

  She kept her eyes on the road. “I’m fine.”

  Sirens blared as a police car sped past in the opposite direction.

  “Did your sister bring the computer?”

  “Nope. She couldn’t find it.”

  “You really think that’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for?”

  “Someone spent a lot of money to make sure I stayed in prison for a good, long time. As I told you, I’ve had a few years to think about this. And everything always comes back to that damn computer. The answers have to be there and I’m the only one who can find them.”

  “How?” she asked. “What is it you think you might find?”

  “I was in charge of finance. My laptop was connected to the company’s network. I wrote a program that kept track of every deposit and withdrawal made since day one. It was still running when I left. I need to follow the money trail. Any and all withdrawals made in the year following my indictment could possibly lead me to the culprit.”

  “Unless the murderer is someone outside of the company. What about all the different women Dirk was seeing? Did you ever meet any of them?”

  “No. I just heard stories. He mentioned a woman named Pam once. I think there was a Jenny, too, but he didn’t say much, and to tell you the truth, I had no interest in hearing about his love life, so I never asked for details.”

  “A pissed off woman. Isn’t that a common motivation for murder? Did the investigators ever consider that maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  He released a heavy sigh. “It always came back to my fingerprints on that damn knife.”

  Angela sighed, too. “You should rest.”

  A few minutes later, she merged onto the freeway and headed west. Fifteen minutes after that, she exited near Colin’s street and pulled to the side of the road.

  Jason opened his eyes.

  “We’re getting closer,” she told him. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. Stay low in case anyone is keeping an eye on Colin’s house.”

  It wasn’t long before they arrived. His seat was as far back as it would go. “Take a drive around the neighborhood,” Jason told her. “Keep your eyes straight ahead, but let me know if you see anything suspicious or anyone sitting in parked car.”

  She did as he said. Two blocks away she saw someone sitting behind the wheel of a dark sedan. “Don’t move,” she said through her teeth. “They are definitely watching his house. What should I do?”

  “Just keep driving. Don’t look around. As soon as you can, get back to the main street, and I’ll give Colin a call.”

  Angela didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she made a right and could no longer see the sedan in her rearview mirror. Once she pulled onto the main road, making sure to stay at the speed limit, she gave Jason the all clear.

  He reached for the stolen cell phone and mad
e the call. “Your house is being watched,” he told Colin the minute he picked up.

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “Not important. Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes. They showed up about an hour ago. I didn’t have any way of letting you know.”

  “Nobody came inside?”

  “Two agents took a quick look around the house. Before they left, they said they would be keeping an eye on the place. Rick Berner is the agent in charge. He left his card and told me to give him a call if you phoned or showed up.”

  “I’ve got a problem,” Jason told him. “After I met with my sister, a couple of goons were waiting for me. I took one of them down, but not before he cut me with his knife.”

  “How bad?”

  “Not sure yet. Any idea where I might be able to lay low for the night?”

  “Yeah, I do. After you called the last time, I thought of somewhere you’d be beneath the radar for a while. Do you remember where Sophie’s mom used to live?”

  Jason grimaced as he tried to readjust himself in the seat. “Did she move?”

  “No. She passed away three months ago. Cancer. Sophie hasn’t decided what to do with the house yet, so the electricity and water are still on. There’s a key hidden under a rock next to the rose bush by the front door.”

  Jason remembered that Sophie and her mother had been close. He’d liked the woman. She lit up a room, just like her daughter. “Thanks. We’ll head that way.” He confirmed the address.

  “If the activity around here dies down, I’ll come see you.”

  “One more question,” Jason said.

  “What is it?”

  “After you sold the company, what happened to my computer?”

  “D.M.S. Protection kept all the computers in case they ever lost a file. Want me to give Dennis a call?”

  “No. Leave it be for now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Her phone vibrated.

  The moment she saw the number on the screen, she pushed the switch on the microphone and picked up the call. “Is it done?” she asked, her voice masked.