His lecture stung a bit. But he was right. Angel and I had kept reacting to everything that happened. And we should have called the police on our cell phones as soon as we got outside the house or in the car. I nodded to Gabe, understanding that Angel and I needed to have our stories straight. “Right, when we got to your house, we told you to call the police while we tried to calm down. We were very scared.”
Gabe opened his mouth, then closed it when Vance and the uniforms came back out. The uniforms ignored us and headed for their car.
A bad feeling slid into my stomach. Kind of like the feeling I got when TJ or Joel come into the house from school with that droopy teenage shuffle. That was usually bad news.
But Vance had a fast, rolling stride. His suit moved with him, pulling nicely against his strong swimmer shoulders. His brown gaze pinned the three of us, while his jaw clenched and unclenched. The flight urge joined my bad feeling.
Vance stopped to tower over me before I could run. Somehow I had ended up standing in front of Gabe and Angel. “What?” I said, desperately trying to imagine what had him so pissed. Was there a note pinned to Zack’s chest that said I had killed him? Had another body turned up? What?
“You have one minute to explain your game to me. Calling in false reports is a crime. Pulizzi,” Vance lifted his gaze to Gabe over my left shoulder. “I’ll see that your license is pulled for this.”
“For what?” I demanded.
Angel didn’t bother with demands or questions. She simply turned left and ran into the house.
I liked her idea. Going into a house where there was a dead body seemed better than facing Vance. Without looking at Gabe, I turned and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. I heard Gabe and Vance follow us. No one said a word.
We stepped into the living room. My heels clicked over the wood floor, while Gabe and Vance had a much more solid thunk-squeak. I assumed Angel had gone into the bedroom. I headed toward the hallway.
Why wasn’t Vance stopping us? Cops were touchy about crime scenes. He’d been pissed that I’d gone into Angel’s house and walked around when we thought Angel had been kidnapped.
When we reached the hallway, my chest got that sudden empty feeling. My adrenaline kicked up another notch and confused fear roared in my head. But I kept going. I had to know. I turned left down the hallway and stopped when I got to Angel’s bedroom door.
Angel stood about three feet from her bed, looking down. Her face was pale, with angry red splotches around her nose and mouth. She glared at the bed, then looked up at Gabe, Vance, and me as we stood in the doorway.
Angel said, “Zack’s gone. Who stole his dead body?”
14
I stared at the empty bed in Angel’s bedroom.
Dead bodies do not get up and walk away.
Any sign that Zack had ever been on the bed was gone. The covers had been smoothed out into a perfectly made bed. What the hell was going on? Angel and I had seen him! The pepper spray had clouded my vision, but I knew I had seen Zack on that bed with a blackened hole in his forehead. I could still see it in my mind.
And where was the can of pepper spray? I’d dropped it after spraying myself, but I didn’t see it anywhere.
I turned to Gabe, feeling desperate. “He was here. On the bed. I saw him.”
Gabe watched me with dark, troubled eyes, but the rest of his face was blank. “I believe you.”
“I don’t.” Vance stepped past me to stand at the corner of the bed, between Angel and me. He turned slightly to stare at me. “First, Angel is kidnapped, then she’s not. Then you find the stolen diamond necklace from Daystar, then it’s stolen from you. Angel’s car is firebombed while the two of you are meeting with Zoë, who supposedly is the one who stole the necklace from you. A very convenient way for Zoë to disappear and Angel to collect insurance money.” Vance took a breath and turned to glare at Angel. “Then the two of you find Zack Quinn dead on this very bed,” he waved at the bed. “But somehow, in the one-hour-plus time delay it takes you to call the police and report a murdered body in your house, Zack gets up and leaves.” He turned to leave.
“Vance!” God, where was he going? I knew he was furious, but he wasn’t just going to leave, was he?
His shoulders tightened, but he turned. “What, Shaw?”
“You can’t just leave. Can’t you see? Angel’s in danger!”
He looked at Angel, then me. Then he shifted to Gabe. “If I were you, Pulizzi, I’d cut my losses. These two are trouble.” Looking back at me, he said, “I have real cases with real dead bodies to solve. Have a nice life.” He left.
“You’re wrong, Vance!” I shouted after him. “Angel and I had nothing to do with this! It was a mistake that necklace got stuck in the sex-toy kit that Mitch gave Angel!”
Gabe put his hand on my shoulder. “Stop, Sam.”
I turned on him. “Stop? Vance thinks Angel and I are in some kind of cahoots with Zack! He thinks—”
Gabe sighed. “What’s he supposed to think, Sam? Look at it from his point of view. You’ve been set up, babe. Both of you. Whoever this guy calling himself Mitch is, he’s used events to his advantage.”
“But Vance should know better! He knows me!”
Gabe arched an eyebrow.
Cripes. Gabe was right. Vance and I purposely avoided getting to know each other very well. I understood his cop side. Methodical, follow the clues, by the book, cop. And he hated that the town treated him as an outsider. Not that long ago, I had misjudged Vance. He’d paid me back by kissing me in front of Gabe. It had ended predictably with the two of them fighting. So yeah, maybe Vance had a sexual response to me, but he didn’t know me.
Our proof was gone, and Mitch was killing people to get that blasted necklace.
I had to pull myself together. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here before another dead body appears. I have to get home and check on the boys.”
When we got home, we found Grandpa surfing the Internet while Joel and Ali played hide and seek with a tennis ball. Joel told Ali to stay in the kitchen while he hid the ball somewhere in the house. Then he told her to find it. The game involved lots of running, barking, yelling, and laughing. Ali always found the ball. Once Joel had hidden the ball in the covers of his top bunk bed.
Ali had climbed up the ladder and found it.
Damnedest thing I ever saw. Well, next to a dead body that disappeared. Grandpa made live people disappear in his magic shows, but they always came back.
Ugh, was Zack’s body going to come back? I had to get a grip.
Ali came racing out of the back rooms with a wet green tennis ball in her mouth. She met us as we walked into the dining room, dropped the tennis ball in front of Gabe, and then stood up on her hind legs. She put her front paws on Gabe’s chest and barked.
He rubbed her ears. “You found the ball, huh, Ali?”
She barked again, jumped down, and came over to say hello to Angel and me. Ali never jumped on us, only on Gabe. Joel came in behind Ali. Seeing my son helped me to feel grounded. “Hey, Joel, where’s TJ?”
He rolled his eyes. “In your room with the door closed talking to his girlfriend. Me and Ali couldn’t play in there.”
I smiled at Joel. For a second, all the rest of the horror slid away as I looked at my younger son. “Ali would have found the ball no matter where you hid it.”
He laughed. “I think she cheats, Mom. What’s for dinner?”
Gabe answered, “Pizza.” He pulled out his cell phone and handed it to Joel. “Order a couple of large ones and have them delivered.”
Joel took the phone from Gabe, then asked, “Are you on the case, Gabe? About Angel’s car getting blown up?”
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t blown up, Joel. Set on fire.”
“Whatever.” He looked at Gabe.
Gabe said, “Yes, I’m on the case. But since I fired my assistant, I don’t have anyone to order pizza for me.”
Joel grinned. “Do I g
et paid?”
“In pizza.”
“Cool.” Joel went into the kitchen to look for the phone number to call in the pizza.
We had to get to work and figure out what to do next. I took off my jacket, then said, “I’m going to put this in my room. Then we’ll get started.”
Grandpa stood up from his computer and looked at Gabe. “There’s no Mitch St. Claire in any files I could find at Daystar. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Crap. Why, just once, couldn’t some bad guy leave a clear trail of breadcrumbs that led us right to him? I headed down the hall. At my bedroom door, I knocked once, then walked in.
TJ sat on my bed, leaning against the wall. He was twirling the phone cord around his finger, then un-twirling it. “I don’t know if I can go anywhere tonight. My mom’s . . . uh, hang on.” TJ covered the mouthpiece. “I’m on the phone, Mom.”
I set my purse and my jacket on my bed. “So I see. Who are you talking to?”
His face closed up tight. “A friend. Can I go to Max’s house tonight?”
I could tell from the look on TJ’s face where this was going. “I’m sorry, TJ, but no. It’s a school night and I want you to stay home tonight.” Besides, there’s a dead body floating around somewhere in Lake Elsinore, and a seriously pissed-off jewel thief/murderer. I opened my closet door to hang up the jacket.
“Mom! It’s just Max’s house. I go there all the time.”
Turning around, I looked at TJ. He had stood up and angry red colored his face. With my calmest voice, I asked, “Do you want to have this discussion right now while your friend is on the phone?”
He put the phone to his ear. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” He hung up. “Mom, why can’t I go to Max’s house after dinner?”
I remembered being TJ’s age. First year in high school, desperate to fit in, and now he liked a girl. He wasn’t ready to share that part of his life with me. Lord, that stung my mother’s pride. But it didn’t hurt as much as the thought of something happening to TJ or one of his friends because of this mess with Mitch St. Claire and the diamond necklace. I said, “It’s too dangerous, TJ.”
“Mom! I’m not a baby.”
I closed the distance between us. Though his whole body was rigid with anger, I put my hand on his tense shoulder. He was taller than I was, which forced me to tilt my head to look him in the eye. Time to let the boys know what was going on. “I know that, and so I’m going to tell you the truth. Someone is trying to hurt Angel and possibly me because they accidentally gave us a stolen diamond necklace. We didn’t know it until I found the necklace this morning. Today, Angel and I found a dead man on the bed in her room. By the time we got back there with the police, the dead body was gone. These are very serious people, TJ. It’s not just you I’m worried about either. What about your friends, what if they get hurt?”
I watched TJ assimilate this information. His face pinched tighter as he struggled with hard facts that interfered with his romantic feelings. God, I felt for him. Finally, he looked up at me. “I really wanted to go.”
I hugged him. “I’m really sorry, TJ.” Pulling back, I looked at him. “You like this girl, huh?”
His ears turned red. “She’s a friend.”
“What’s her name?” I wanted to sound casual but I suspected I sounded like a mom.
“Kelly, but I wanted to go to Max’s house.”
I stared at him. “To see Kelly.”
He shuffled. “Maybe.”
I sighed. “TJ, wanting to see Kelly over at Max’s house is fine. As long as there’s an adult there and you aren’t lying to me. Kelly can come over here once we get this problem solved.” I didn’t dare tell TJ that I was dying to meet this girl. To move past this, I said, “Why don’t you call Kelly and Max back, then come have some pizza with us, OK?”
He sank down on the side of my bed and picked up the phone.
I hesitated a second longer. Had I done the right thing? Here we were, TJ and I, on the threshold of something important, and I didn’t know if I had said the right thing. Done the right thing. I desperately wanted TJ and Joel to move seamlessly and painlessly through adolescence.
But that wasn’t going to happen. I took another look at TJ.
He waited for me to leave before calling Kelly.
Yep, my son was growing up. Yet I was damn proud of him for managing his huge adolescent disappointment at not being able to see Kelly that night. I left the room, pulling the door closed behind me.
I went back down the hallway to the smell of fresh coffee. Grandpa, Angel, and Gabe sat around the glass-topped dining-room table, drinking coffee. I went to the coffeepot and poured myself a cup. “Where’s Joel?”
Grandpa looked up from the table. “He’s brushing Ali on the back patio. We don’t want him to answer the door for the pizza.”
I took my coffee to the table and sat down next to Gabe. Glancing to my right, past where Angel sat, I saw Ali sitting still while Joel brushed her. He had a brown paper bag to dump all the fur into. Both my sons were safe.
Time to get busy. Up till then, I had thought that Zack was the bad guy, the one we had to worry about. But Zack was dead, and Mitch was the one behind this whole mess. I looked to my left at Gabe. “Where could Mitch put a dead body? It can’t be that easy to keep moving a dead body around. Obviously, Zack wasn’t killed at Angel’s house, since there was no blood. He had to be put there after he was killed.” Who did that? God, who shot someone through the head, then carted the body around to scare the life out of people?
Gabe looked at Angel, then me. “We have to assume that Mitch is here in Elsinore. Zack’s house would be my first guess, but I’m sure the police have looked there. What we need to do is to put what we know together. The information from a friend of mine at Daystar, Barney’s information from the Internet and his Triple M group, and information from the two of you.”
“But if we find Zack’s body, Vance will believe us! Grandpa has Zack’s address.” We needed Vance to believe us. Then he could bring down the full weight of the law to find Mitch St. Claire.
Before Mitch killed Angel.
The need to do something ate at my insides.
Gabe said, “Sam, Vance is not dumb. He’s been looking for Zack. He’s checked out Zack’s house probably more than once. I said it was my first guess. Face it, a town like this has a number of places to dump a body. Zack could be at the bottom of the lake, in the outflow channel, in an abandoned building, in an open field . . .”
I put my hand up. “I get it.” I hadn’t touched my coffee. “So where do we start?”
“With Mitch St. Claire. Barney couldn’t find anyone named Mitch St. Claire registered at the hotel at Daystar, or that worked there, used a credit card there, or had done anything else traceable.”
Frustration had me squeezing the cup of coffee. “Dead end.”
Grandpa spoke up. “Not entirely. I’ve been doing a little research, looking for jewel thieves that hit casinos. I’ve found one that looks like it could be our guy. He seduces the woman, then steals her jewelry. He’s known as the Casino Jewel Thief.”
I asked, “Any chance you have a name and address?”
Grandpa shook his head. “The cops believe he’s purposely picking casinos because there’s so many people moving around. Plus there’s the shame factor—older women being seduced by a younger man, then getting their jewelry stolen, are usually a bit slow to report the theft. They are humiliated.”
I could imagine. We women did like to build our little fairy tales.
Grandpa added, “But I think he’s slipped up this time by using an accomplice.”
I snapped my gaze up. “He was furious at Zack when he called us at Angel’s house. So why did he use an accomplice? Has he ever done that before?”
After taking a drink of coffee, Grandpa answered, “There’s no mention of a previous accomplice. The women all have similar descriptions of the man they slept with who then made off with their jewels.”
Gabe added, “Which means he’s changed his MO by having another man seduce the woman and steal the jewels.” He looked at Angel and me. “What exactly did Mitch say on the phone?”
Angel said, “He killed Zack because Zack screwed up. I was never supposed to get the necklace. Zack put it in the wrong sex-toy kit. I guess Zack was supposed to get it back and failed.”
“So Mitch killed Zack.” I didn’t get it. “Grandpa, was there any violence in the newspaper articles and stuff you read on the Internet?”
“No.” Grandpa looked through some notes he had made. “Unless you consider plying a lonely woman with alcohol, which resulted in being hungover, violence. The Casino Jewel Thief is known for being seductive, charming, and nonviolent.”
Even more confused, I tried to think it out. “But he sounded violent on the phone. Angry. On the edge. What changed?”
Gabe watched me. “Go on, Sam.”
I shook my head, unable to put it together. “He said something like ‘most women are romanced into submission. ’ ” What did that mean? “Would ‘submission’ mean he uses charm or seduction to control women? I guess he’s not a big believer in female intelligence.”
Angel put both her hands flat on the glass-topped table. “He was smooth. At the time, I thought he respected a woman in business. He said all the right things, complimenting my business, showing he’d researched me. He appeared successful, so I guess I thought he was branching out from whatever business he was in. Single, no ring on his left hand. But it was all a sales pitch, a method to seduce me into selling his sex toys.”
I stared at Angel, stunned by how much she had picked up. Mitch had said all the right things to her, getting her attention and interest. How had he known what to say? How had he picked Angel? I reached out and put my hand over Angel’s.
Gabe zeroed in on something Angel had said. “Business. Exactly what was Mitch, the successful jewel thief, doing trying to hawk sex toys?”
Good question. “And back to Zack. Why have an accomplice?”
Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required Page 19