Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required

by Jennifer Apodaca

  “Christ,” he hissed into the phone.

  I tried to believe that he was commenting on traffic, not my losing the necklace. “Angel and I made arrangements to meet with Zoë to trade R. V. Logan’s real identity for the sex-toy kit with the diamond necklace. Only Angel’s car burst into flames and Zoë got away before we could get the sex-toy kit back.”

  “This just gets better and better.”

  I was pretty sure that sarcasm was directed at me, not the traffic. Going into defensive mode, I said, “I tried to call you! Catwoman wouldn’t put you on the phone! After that, she wouldn’t answer calls from my cell phone or the Heart Mates landline. And I left a message on your beeper service. Anyway, Angel and I came up with a plan.” Before he could give me his opinion on that, I went on, “But we stopped by Angel’s house first and found Zack on her bed with a hole in his forehead. Then the phone rang and it was Mitch St. Claire. The man who gave Angel the sex-toy kit at Daystar.” I shivered. Had Mitch been in the house? Was he following us right now?

  Gabe broke in, “Tell me what he said.”

  “He knew Angel and I had found Zack, like he was watching us or something!” I had to control myself. I focused on Lake Street, noticing that we were going through the green light at Riverside Drive. We passed Burger Basket and Del Taco. “He said he killed Zack because Zack screwed up. Something about putting the necklace in the wrong sex-toy kit. And that if we didn’t want to end up dead like Zack, we’d better get the necklace.” I tried to remember the last part, “He has a client waiting—and it’s not the kind of client that waits patiently.” Whatever that meant.

  “Listen to me, Sam. You are in the car with Angel, right? Drive to my house. Use your key, get inside, lock the door, set the alarm and stay there. I’m on my way.”

  My brain kept going, working on it, trying to make sense of the mess. “Wait, Zack stole the necklace for Mitch. Mitch said Zack put it in the wrong sex-toy kit. Angel and I were never supposed to have that necklace.” It wasn’t our fault.

  “Sam, get to my house. Now. Do not waste any time.”

  Shit. I felt the urgency in his voice. We were in serious danger. New fear sprang to life in my heart. “The boys! Grandpa!”

  “Don’t say anything else. Nothing. You and Angel haul ass to my house and lock yourselves in. I will call Blaine and send someone out immediately to look after them. Sam, trust me.”

  Trust him. What choice did I have? And what was Gabe trying to tell me? Don’t talk. Don’t say anything more? “All right.”

  “I’ll take care of TJ and Joel, Sam.” Gabe hung up.

  I stuck Angel’s phone back in her purse, put it on the floor, and picked up my purse. I had to find Gabe’s house key.

  Angel looked over at me. “What?”

  Still searching for the house key, I said, “Gabe wants us to go to his house. We are not supposed to say anything else.” I found the key on my key ring and put my purse down to look at Angel.

  She turned her head, meeting my eyes.

  We had been friends for a very long time. I saw in her green eyes the same conclusion I had reached—that there might be a listening device in my car. Almost certainly, there was a tracking device. That was most likely how Mitch had known we had taken his phone-call bait and were at Angel’s house when he called.

  Just like there must have been a tracking device on Angel’s car. The burned-out wreck of Angel’s car and the bullet hole in Zack’s head were clear evidence that Mitch St. Claire was not playing nice.

  We pulled up in front of Gabe’s house. Worry for Grandpa and the boys gnawed at me. I had my seat belt off and the car door open before Angel turned off the engine. I ran up to the door and jammed the key into the lock. I shoved the front door open, went to the wall, and deactivated the alarm.

  Angel came in holding both our purses. She closed the door and locked it.

  I reset the alarm. Then I went into Gabe’s office behind the front door and picked up his phone.

  I doubted there was any kind of bug on Gabe’s phone. I punched in the phone number and held my breath. One ring. Two—please let them be all right.

  “Hello?” TJ answered.

  Thank God. I tried to force a normal voice past my dry throat. “Hi, TJ,” I hoped my voice sounded normal. “How was school?”

  “Fine. What’s going on, Mom? Gabe called and Grandpa locked up the house and set the alarm.”

  Relief sagged through me. They were safe. Except for the worry in TJ’s voice. “I’m not exactly sure, TJ. But remember there’s been some people breaking in over at Angel’s house?”

  “Is Angel all right?”

  “Yes, TJ. She’s right here with me at Gabe’s house. We are fine, I promise.” What was I supposed to tell him—that we had found a murdered body on Angel’s bed? No. At least not until he had to know. Start with something he could handle. “While Angel’s car was parked in front of Smash Coffee, someone tossed in a device that started the car on fire.” Tons of people had seen that, so TJ and Joel were going to hear about it soon enough. Better to hear it from me first.

  “Mom?” Joel’s voice came on.

  I guessed he had picked up the second line in my room. “Hi, Joel.”

  “Who set Angel’s car on fire?”

  “We’re working on that. Gabe will be here in a little bit to help us. Are you guys OK, Joel?”

  “Yeah. Was it a big fire? Did the car explode, like on TV?”

  I smiled. “Not like TV. Just flames, no explosions. Let me talk to Grandpa now, OK?”

  “Mom,” TJ’s voice sounded like a man’s. “You and Angel be careful.”

  “We will. I’ll try to be home by dinner.” I waited while the boys went to get Grandpa.

  “Hi, Sam. Gabe called. Everything is locked up and Ali’s inside with us. Plus, you know, I’m armed.”

  “Armed with what?” I knew that came out as a screech. After seeing that bullet hole in Zack’s forehead, I never wanted to see another gun.

  “Switchblade and a pen that shoots pepper spray.”

  I closed my eyes and sat down on the edge of Gabe’s desk. All I wanted was for my grandpa and sons to be safe. “Grandpa, you guys stay there, OK? Gabe sent a guy over to keep an eye on the house. Don’t leave the house,” I added.

  “Sammy, stop fussing. We’re fine. Gabe filled me in a bit. I’m doing some research on the Internet, trying to find out who this Mitch St. Claire might be. You and Angel stay where you are until Gabe gets there.”

  They were fine. Alive. Fine. “OK, Grandpa. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

  I hung up and went looking for Angel. I found her in Gabe’s kitchen. It was actually a combination kitchen and family room. She had turned on the big screen TV to a news station and was currently looking through Gabe’s refrigerator.

  Even under tremendous stress, with her life crumbling around her, Angel was beautiful. Her black leather pants hugged her long legs, her tan tank top showed off slender, toned arms and nice perky breasts. But I could see the restless tension in her tight shoulders and the anger in her stiff back.

  I also saw a rare fragility in her. It tugged on my heart. I walked around the bar and across the kitchen to her. “Let’s sit at the table.” There was a kitchen table by a door that led to the backyard.

  Once I got her to sit down, I went back to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. Then I went to the table, sat down across from Angel, and slid one of the waters across to her.

  Angel took it and unscrewed the lid. After taking a sip, she said, “So this is all one big mistake? Zack put the diamond necklace he stole into the wrong sex-toy kit. I was never supposed to get that necklace.” She turned her gaze to look out the window that was set in the top half of the door.

  “That’s what I got from what Mitch said. I guess that Zack and Mitch realized it. Then Mitch sent Zack to break into your house Friday or Saturday night to find the sex-toy kit and get the necklace back. Zack had to be panicked when he couldn�
��t find it.”

  Angel turned her eyes to me. “So he tried again last night, broke in and waited for me to get home. Then used a gun to scare me into telling him where the necklace was, but then you showed up and we chased him off.”

  I took a drink of my water, hoping it would stay down. “Remember this morning when Vance insisted there were two cars at my house? We know one was Zoë, right? What if the second one was Mitch, and he put a tracking device, and maybe a listening device, on my car? You were no longer at your house, so he’d have no way to find you but through me. He had the flyer to my open house at Heart Mates. Finding me would be easy.”

  She rolled the cold bottle of water between her hands. “How did he know where my car was? Assuming he threw the firebomb in there. Unless Zoë did it before she came into Smash Coffee.”

  “I don’t think Zoë’s involved. It doesn’t make any sense. If she was involved, why would she contact us? She has the necklace. I think Zoë is exactly what she seems to be, a crazy fan.” I twisted the cap on and off my water bottle as I tried to make sense of this. “So how did Mitch know where your car was? What would be the point of blowing it up?”

  She stopped rolling the bottle. “Anger.”

  I thought about that. “We pissed him off.”

  Angel nodded. “And everyone in town knows Hugh and I don’t get along. It’d be easy for Mitch to find that out and then use it to manipulate me into racing over to my house to see his ultimate threat—Zack dead on my bed. It looked like an execution. I’ll bet there’s no evidence on that body to link him to the killing, but it’s a definite threat to me. To us.”

  “God Angel, I’m so sorry about the necklace! I can’t believe I lost it. I would give it to him just to make him go away.”

  “He won’t go away until both of us are dead.”

  My stomach cramped, but I forced myself to nod. It was true. “So we think he had a tracking device on your car? When did he put it on there? How? Did he double back to my house this morning after Vance left?”

  Angel dropped her gaze and started peeling the label off her water bottle. “That’s possible. I don’t think he knows where my mom lives. Or he could have found the car at Heart Mates this morning.”

  That was logical. But what was she not telling me? “Angel?”

  She looked up and opened her mouth when we both heard the mechanical whirring of the garage door opener raising the large door.

  Either Gabe was home or we were in more trouble.

  Angel jumped up and ran to her purse. By the time I got to her, she had her gun.

  Hell. More guns. But I didn’t want to get shot by Mitch, so I kept my mouth shut. I had dropped my big canister of pepper spray after I unloaded half the can into my own eyes. I dug around in my purse and came out with my key ring. It had a small canister of pepper spray.

  A hallway ran along the kitchen and family room, then down to the bathroom and bedrooms. Right across from the family room was a door to the laundry room. On the other side of the laundry room was a door to the garage.

  I went to the laundry room door and eased it open.

  I looked past the washer and dryer to the door at the other end of the room. The handle turned. It had to be Gabe. Who else would have a garage-door opener? I held my breath. Angel stood next to me and gripped her gun in two hands.

  I didn’t doubt for a second that she’d shoot if it was Mitch.

  Gabe opened the door and stepped in. His gaze took in both of us, then he moved to the side and Dee came in. She was carrying a large video cam bag over her shoulder. She had on a black bikini top over her size-A boobs and black gauzy pants with flip-flops. She swept past me, turning to go around the corner into Gabe’s office.

  This probably wasn’t the time to wonder just what was on that video. I turned around and went to the couch to drop my keys with the pepper spray canister back into my purse.

  I felt Gabe behind me. “Sam, what happened to your face?” He put his hands on my shoulders to turn me around.

  I really didn’t want to tell him about the pepper spray. “Why weren’t you answering your own cell phone?”

  His face tensed. “Apparently, Dee set my cell phone to forward my calls to her cell phone. And she turned my pager off, so I didn’t know you left me a message.”

  Crap, I kind of had to admire that bit of ingenuity. “And you didn’t know?”

  He shrugged. “Never looked. Had other things on my mind today.”

  “Yeah, like bikinis.”

  His mouth twitched. “I like women in bikinis. But that’s not what was on my mind.”

  “Work?”

  “Sex toys. And you.”

  “Oh.” Guess Dee’s bikini didn’t compete with Gabe catching me with a vibrator. Oh boy.

  “Now, what happened to your eyes? They are all red, and you’ve got black stuff running down your face and on your clothes. You’re a mess.”

  I glanced down to see blotches of mascara on my pink tank top. Looking back up, I said, “Crying?” Which was only slightly less humiliating than spraying myself with pepper spray.

  “Nice try. Looks more like pepper spray. Then I could believe you were crying.” He zeroed in with his dark eyes; his hands on my shoulders went rigid. “Did someone get you with pepper spray?”

  I gave up. “Yes. Me. I sprayed myself.”

  His grip on my shoulders eased. “You’re OK?”

  I forced myself to nod. I didn’t have a hole in my forehead, so all things considered, I’d say I was OK.

  “I’m going to call Vance and tell him about the body. Then we will meet him at Angel’s house. You and Angel will tell Vance that you were scared and came to my house to call the police.”

  I nodded, then looked past Gabe to where Angel was sitting on the barstool. “Vance will believe us now, Angel. Once he sees Zack—” I shuddered at the memory. “Anyway, he’ll know we’ve been telling the truth.” That was the only good news in this whole mess. Now we had proof—Zack. I could show Vance the cut on Zack’s finger, which I guessed he had done with the knife the first time he broke into Angel’s house. Surely they could do a DNA test on the blood on the kitchen towel. Then there was the bandage on Zack’s arm where I’d hit him with the wine bottle.

  Angel nodded and slid off the barstool and walked over to sit on the back of the couch. “We think there’s a tracking device or something on Sam’s car. Maybe there was one on mine, too. Vance will see those, too.”

  Right. At least we had proof this time. I looked up at Gabe. “Why did you tell us to come here?”

  “Because I thought the same thing. It’s what I would do if I were desperate to get a diamond necklace back.” Gabe arched an eyebrow. “What I’d like to know is how Mitch got you to Angel’s house.”

  He never missed anything. “Mitch called Angel and said he had stopped by her house and saw a man fitting Hugh’s description running out of her atrium, and getting into a car just like the one Hugh drives.” And we had fallen right into that trap.

  “That didn’t strike you as strange?”

  I sighed. “Not as strange as seeing Angel’s car suddenly burst into flames.”

  Gabe moved his hands on my shoulder to the tight place behind my neck and rubbed gently. “At least you and Angel are safe. For now, anyway. I’m going to call Vance.” He dropped his hand, turned, and went to the phone.

  I sat next to Angel on the back of the couch. Neither one of us wanted to go back to her house, to where we’d found Zack.

  Gabe hung up just as Dee walked back into the family room. “Everything’s put away,” she said.

  Gabe looked at her. “Get your stuff. We’ll drop you at home on our way.”

  Her face flushed with color. “But I’m your assistant!”

  He met her gaze. “Not anymore.”

  Detective Vance met us in front of Angel’s house and zeroed in on me. “Where’s the dead body, Shaw?”

  Gabe and Angel stood on either side of me. Gabe said, “Have
you been inside yet?”

  Vance shook his head. “I was waiting for the uniforms. Unlike you, I have procedures to follow.”

  I felt Angel move, probably ready to tell Vance off. To cut her off, I said, “The body is in Angel’s bedroom. It’s the room on the left side once you get to the hallway. It looked like he’d been shot through the head.”

  Vance reached into his shirt pocket and took out his notebook. “Who found him? What time?”

  Angel said, “Sam and I found him.”

  Vance wrote something down, then looked up. “And why did you leave?”

  Angel’s voice lifted to a brittle sound. “Because we got a phone call threatening us. We were afraid the killer was watching us. So we left.”

  “Why didn’t you drive to the police station if you felt threatened?”

  I’d had enough. “Maybe because you haven’t been exactly helpful, Vance. Maybe because you keep trying to blame everything on us instead of doing your job. Maybe, Detective Vance, because the police haven’t been able to find Zack, even though we told you he attacked Angel with a gun, then we find him dead on Angel’s bed. Did it ever occur to you busy police officers to watch Angel’s house? Zack had broken in there twice in just a few days!” God, I was furious. Red-hot, tired of everyone blaming me, furious.

  A marked police car pulled up. Two uniformed police officers got out, a female with short blonde hair who looked like she was in her late twenties, and a newbie-looking man with a buzz cut and a tendency to bounce.

  Vance waved the cops over, then glared at me. “Don’t any of you move.” He turned with the uniforms to go into the house.

  We stood on the sidewalk leading up to the atrium. “Gabe,” I looked over at him, “are Angel and I in trouble? What should we have done? We were just so scared that we wanted to get to someplace safe. If there’s a bug on my car, we didn’t want Mitch to find us or to lead him to Grandpa and the boys.”

  He looked down at me. “Babe, you have to start thinking. You are reacting, not taking control of the situation. But you and Angel are probably all right.” He pinned me with a look. “We called the police as soon as you got to my house.”