by Liz Wolfe
Paige felt sick to her stomach and clamped her lips against the urge to scream. Her hands balled into fists with the need to knock down his door and demand an explanation. At that moment, she thought she might actually be capable of murder.
After Robby hung up, Paige forced herself to wait a few more minutes and took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. She couldn’t go in there if there was any chance he would think she’d overheard him. Finally, she knocked and opened his door.
“Hope I’m not interrupting.” Paige pasted a smile on her face.
Robby looked up. “Come on in, kid. I’m just getting some stuff organized.”
“I wanted to give you my cell phone number so you can get in touch with me. I’m staying with some friends until my apartment gets fixed up.”
“Oh, yeah. Hadn’t stopped to think that you wouldn’t be staying there.”
Paige scribbled her cell phone number on a scratch pad, ripped the paper off, and handed it to him.
“You going back to work soon?”
“I’ve got another couple weeks off. Thought I might as well take it.” She shrugged.
“Good idea. By then, we’ll have this whole thing wrapped up. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
Paige ran back outside where Connor was waiting in the truck and jumped into the driver’s seat. Starting the engine, she pulled out into traffic and told Connor about the conversation she’d overheard.
“You really think he’s in on this?”
“No doubt.” Paige sighed. “This means no more cops. We have to get some evidence on our own.”
“What about the FBI?”
“Right now, I don’t trust anyone. I’d rather contact them after we know everything.” She braked to let pedestrians cross the street, then took a left.
“And how the hell are we going to do that?” Connor asked.
“We’ll find a way.” Paige drove for a few more minutes, then turned into a strip mall.
“This is where I interviewed with Wade when he recruited me for the show,” she explained when she parked.
Paige got out of the truck, and Connor followed her to the sidewalk in front of an empty storefront. There was a sign on the door with a phone number in case anyone wanted to lease it. Paige scribbled down the phone number, and they got back in the truck. She called the number as they drove back to the hotel.
“Enterprise Leasing.”
“I’d like to talk to someone about leasing an office I saw.” She gave the woman the address and waited while she was transferred to an extension.
“Yeah, what can I do for you? You’re interested in the office in the old Woodrow building?”
“Yes, I’m trying to track down a person who rented the office. I don’t know when he would have rented it, but he was there just a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, me too, lady. Guy took a six-month lease, used it for a month then disappeared.”
“Sounds like the jerk I’m looking for. Do you have a name?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t give out confidential information like that, but what the hell. Maybe you’ll have better luck finding him than I did.” She heard papers being shuffled and a loud slurp. “Here it is. Culver Productions.” He read off a phone number. “It’s been disconnected, though.”
“Thanks for your help.” She looked at Connor. “Dead end.”
Back at the hotel, Connor ordered a pizza while Paige made a pot of really lousy coffee in the coffeemaker the hotel provided and mulled over the situation. When the pizza arrived she ate a slice and felt better. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number of the clerk at her former precinct.
“Hey, Nadine, Paige here.”
“Hey. I haven’t heard from you in ages. You must be pretty busy with the whole PI thing. Jody told me you were going on vacation. Was it good?”
“Yeah, it was great. Caribbean island—lots of sun and fun. I’m back in town but I’m still on vacation for a couple of weeks. Could you do a favor for me?”
“Sure, what’s your pleasure?”
“I need to get some information on a guy. Name’s Wade Culver.”
“Would this be a new boyfriend?” she teased.
“Something like that.”
“Good for you. Smart to check him out, too.”
“That’s what I thought. You want me to hold on while you check?”
“Sure. You got a hot date with him tonight?”
“You could say that.” It’d be a hot date if she could track him down and fry his sorry ass. “How’s everything at the precinct?”
“The usual,” Nadine said. “Pervs and perps. And that’s just the cops.” Nadine laughed. “You miss it?”
“Not a bit. I like doing my own thing. I miss some of the people, though. How’s my old partner doing?”
“Derek’s fine. He and the new partner didn’t work out all that well, and Captain’s got him on mostly desk duty til he gets another partner. And Derek’s chomping at the bit to get back on the street.”
“I guess we were all that young at one point.”
“Lucky you, the computers are working at lightning speed. Here’s the info,” she said and rattled off the facts. Paige wrote down the pertinent information, including Wade’s address.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Some guy was in here looking for you yesterday. Nice looking guy. Your new beau?”
“Maybe. Did he have a name?” A shiver crawled up her spine. It had to be Wade or one of the Hunters.
“He didn’t give me a name. He was early thirties, longish blond hair, nice eyes. He had that whole charm thing going on, you know?”
Wade. Did she have the worst luck, or what? “Did he say what he wanted?”
“Nope, just asked if I knew where to get in touch with you. I told him you didn’t work here any more, but that I’d get a message to you if I could. But he declined my offer and left.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, the boyfriend must have bucks,” Nadine said. “He owns a Hummer.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Paige said. “Thanks, Nadine. I owe you one.” She closed the phone and stood up.
“I got an address. Let’s go.”
Connor picked up another slice of pizza and followed her out of the room.
When they got into the truck, Paige handed him the slip of paper with her notes from Nadine.
“No priors. No known…what’s that word?” Connor held the paper up and pointed to a word.
“No known aliases.”
“This is his home address?”
“Hard to say in that area. We’ll know when we get there. It was the one on his driver license.”
“Hummer?” Connor asked, looking up from her notes. “It’s what he drives.”
“Figures,” Connor said. Paige couldn’t help grinning at him.
She took a left, drove a few blocks, took a right, and drove down the street slowly. “There it is.” Paige pointed to a short, squat building next to a warehouse.
“Lousy place to live,” Connor said.
The street was dark and quiet. She pulled the truck to the curb in front of the address Nadine had given her.
“Look at the sign on the warehouse.” Paige pointed at the sign over the doors that read Eastland Industries Distribution Warehouse.
“Are we going in?” Connor asked.
“Not yet. I want to make sure that’s really Wade’s office.”
“It has to be his place. It’s right next to Eastland’s warehouse,” Connor said.
“It won’t hurt to be sure.”
“Never does.”
“Once we see Wade going in there, we’ll be sure it’s his office. After he leaves, we’ll know it’s safe to go in.”
“Good idea. Wonder when he’ll come by.”
Paige shrugged. “No way to tell. We can sleep in shifts.”
They traded off sleeping every two hours. It was a long, boring night. At four Paige woke up to take the next shift
, and it was obvious Connor was in pain.
“Take one of your pain pills and get in the back seat for a nap.”
“I’m all right,” Connor insisted.
“No, you’re not. You’re not going to be any good if you’re not sleeping and in pain.”
“Fine.” Connor pulled the pills out of his pocket, swallowed one, and got into the back seat. He was asleep in ten minutes.
Zoe pulled on a black cat suit and soft half-boots. She strapped a fanny pack around her waist and slipped out of Shelby’s house. She’d backed into the sloping driveway so she could put the car in neutral and coast down the driveway and halfway down the block before starting the engine. Shelby would have a fit if she knew what Zoe was doing.
At three-fifteen, Zoe pulled up to the condo complex where Howell lived. Two minutes with the lock picks and she was inside the courtyard. Another minute to clip the correct wires on the control box for the security system, two more minutes with the lock picks on the front door, and Zoe was standing in Howell’s entryway.
Damn, she hated having to do a job when there was someone in the house. But there was no other option this time. She glanced into the living room, hoping Howell had left his PDA lying out. No PDA, but his briefcase was on the dining room table. She crossed the living room silently and opened the briefcase. Nothing but papers. That meant she’d have to search for the device. And it was probably in his bedroom.
Zoe climbed the stairs, thankful they were carpeted. There were three doors in the hallway at the top of the stairs. The doors were open, and she could see bathroom fixtures through the center doorway. She turned left and looked in the room that Howell had set up as an office. It didn’t appear he used it much, and the PDA wasn’t on the desk.
She moved to the doorway at the other end of the hall. Howell was sleeping in the king-sized bed. The table on his side of the bed was cluttered with books, papers, a coffee cup, and a couple of beer bottles. His PDA was perched on top of the books, less than a foot from his pillow. At least he was facing away from the table. Zoe took a calming breath and slid into the room. Howell rolled over just as her hand touched the PDA, and she froze. But Howell continued sleeping, and she snatched the PDA and backed out of the room.
Zoe stepped into the bathroom and unzipped her fanny pack. She heard Howell’s bed creak. Damn. He was getting up. She sprinted down the hall and into the office. The only place to hide was in the knee well of the big desk. Grateful that she was small enough to fit, Zoe crawled into the opening and hoped she wasn’t readily visible. She watched as Howell padded naked into the bathroom. The toilet flushed, and Howell went back to his bedroom. Zoe breathed when she heard his bed creak.
She waited five minutes to be sure he went back to sleep, then pulled out the device and plugged it into the PDA. The download completed in just a couple of minutes, and Zoe held her breath when the device beeped, hoping Howell was sleeping deeply enough to not hear it. She waited a moment, but there was no sign that he was getting up again. Slipping the device into her fanny pack, Zoe crept down the hallway, slipped into Howell’s room and left the PDA on the stack of books.
By four-thirty, she was sitting at her desk, downloading the contents of Howell’s PDA to the similar model she’d bought that afternoon. Shelby was going to be thrilled.
At five in the morning, the neon lights of the diner at the end of the block flickered on. A few minutes later Wade’s bright yellow Hummer swung around the corner. The door to the warehouse rolled up and he drove in. What the hell was he doing in Eastland’s warehouse at this hour? Paige got out of the car and moved over to the open door.
Wade had parked his Hummer at the far end of the building, close to the loading docks. One of the docks was open with a truck backed up to it. Several men were unloading wooden crates with forklifts. The scene didn’t make any sense to Paige. Why would Wade be supervising the unloading of trucks? She slipped along the wall in the darkened building, hoping to get close enough to hear something.
When the men were finished unloading, Wade spoke to them for a few minutes, and they left. Paige hugged the wall in the shadows trying to not breathe until they were all out the door. As soon as they were gone, the door rolled down again. Wade walked over to another door, unlocked it, and went inside. She guessed it was a door to the smaller building next to the warehouse.
Paige crept along in the shadows and saw Wade on the phone in the office. Moving to the open crate, she looked inside. There were small cardboard boxes marked with part numbers. Several boxes were open. Half of them contained some kind of metal parts, the other half contained bags of cocaine. Maybe heroin. Possibly powdered sugar, but she was betting on cocaine or heroin. That certainly explained several things.
“Well, look who came to visit.”
Paige turned around slowly at the unwelcome sound of Wade’s voice. Even more unwelcome was the gun he held. He waved it toward the door.
“In there.”
“What’s this all about, Wade?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you all about it. Later.”
The fact that there was going to be a later didn’t encourage her all that much. Wade opened a storage cabinet and pulled out a length of thin rope. When he wrenched her hands behind her back, Paige held her arms stiff, hoping he wouldn’t notice the small knife tucked into her belt, under her T-shirt. He tied her hands together then pushed her through the doorway and into a wooden chair.
He picked up the phone receiver and punched in a number. Paige hoped it would be a long call. Pulling her knife from its holder at the back of her belt, she started sawing on the rope. It was an awkward angle to work at and made the sawing much slower than she would have liked. Evidently no one answered the call, because Wade punched in another number.
“Wade here. I’ve got the Blackwell woman.” He paused and listened. Paige sawed harder on the rope. “Yeah, no problem. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything until you’ve had a chance to talk to her.”
Paige’s hands were sweaty, and the knife slipped a little, nicking her wrist. Wade laid the gun down and picked up a pen, scribbling something on a pad of paper.
“Okay, I’ll call Dennis, and you get in touch with Nathan. We’ll meet you there.”
Finally, the rope’s last thread broke. Before she could do anything, Wade picked up the gun, slammed the phone down, and turned to her. So much for the element of surprise.
Paige winced when he grabbed her right arm and hauled her to her feet. Her arm came up around his and she grabbed a handful of his shirt at the back, pushing her hip against his stomach. She pivoted and tossed him over the chair and across the room where he landed, with a satisfying thud, on his face.
Running around the chair, she grabbed the arm he was holding out to fend her off. He kicked out, sweeping her legs out from under her and she landed on her back, her head bouncing off the wooden floor. Paige fought the dizziness and shook her head to clear it. Wade was standing over her, the heavy desk lamp raised over his head. She dodged the lamp when he brought it down, rolling to the side and up onto her feet.
They faced each other, both breathing hard. Wade threw a roundhouse punch to her face, but she ducked and aimed a front kick at his groin. He must have realized she meant business because he punched her shin when she kicked. Paige yelped and stepped back. Wade rushed her, his shoulder landing in her stomach, knocking the breath out of her. Before she could recover, he picked her up and slammed her into the wall. Paige slid down the wall, sucking in a ragged breath.
“Fucking bitch!” Wade planted a boot in her stomach, knocking her newly found breath out again. She rolled over to her hands and knees, coughing and trying to get her breath again. He grabbed the back of her hair, but his fingers slipped through the short tresses. He let go and grabbed the collar of her shirt, yanking her head up.
“This time I’m going to kill you. But I’m going to take my time and enjoy it.”
Paige toppled over when he backhanded her, rolling to her side.
He pulled his leg back and slammed his boot into her ribs. Paige was sure at least one of them cracked. She lay still, gasping for air, every breath sending a blinding pain through her.
Wade walked over to the desk, pulled a cigarette out of a package, and lit it. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he leaned against the desk and looked down at her. He took a couple of drags and put the cigarette in the ashtray. Before she could get to her feet, he took a fistful of her shirt again, jerking her to a half sitting position. Paige reached for his arm and he punched her in the side, sending another searing pain through her ribs. She started to crumble to the floor, but Wade lifted her and threw her against the wall again. Paige felt her back bounce off the wall and then hit the floor, knocking over a table. Darkness started at the edge of her vision and tunneled in.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
PAIGE HUNG ONTO BARE THREADS OF consciousness. She heard the crash of the coffeemaker hitting the floor next to her. She forced her eyes open and lay there just trying to breathe. There was broken glass from the coffee carafe, but none of the pieces were large enough to be useful.
Wade walked back to the desk, picked up his cigarette, and took another drag, grinning at her. She managed to get to her hands and knees again, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Bastard.” Paige spoke only to distract Wade from her hand moving toward a fork.
Wade put his cigarette down and moved in front of her, pulling his foot back to kick her again.
Paige gathered all her strength. This was her last chance. She barely dodged his foot and plunged the fork into his leg with all her strength. He screamed and Paige stumbled to her feet and staggered out the door, moving as fast as she could. The loading dock was still open and she focused on it. All she had to do was reach the loading dock opening. Pain throbbed through her midriff, confirming her suspicion of a broken rib.
She gritted her teeth against the pain and hobbled down the alley at the back of the building, dodging winos and jumping puddles, holding her side. Turning the corner, she spared a glance back to see if Wade had followed her. Limping from her bruised shin and holding her ribs, she finally made it to the car. Sliding in, she started the engine and peeled out.