“The note on the body was my idea,” Swayze said with pride. “Just a creative touch. I got a great photo of that too.”
Lisa shook her head. “Another one who’s dumber than a box of rocks.” She shrugged. “But he’s family, so what can I do?”
“Family?” I turned to look from Swayze to Lisa. I saw no resemblance.
“First cousins,” she explained. “But he’s more like a brother since my parents raised him after his mother died and his dad took off. He’s been helping me with a few odd jobs since he moved here. He has a real talent for it as long as he doesn’t get too creative.” She emphasized the last word as she glared at Swayze.
I wondered about Lisa’s childhood. What kind of family turns out not one but two psychopaths?
“I still don’t understand why you need Odelia,” Greg said to Lisa. “Why not just take Elaine out and be done with it?”
Another sick smile raced across Lisa’s face. “Where’s the poetry in that, Greg?” Lisa took a couple of steps closer and smiled again. “John isn’t the only artist in the family.”
“I’m sure the police and the feds have gotten Glick to talk by now,” Greg said, “and they know it’s you and not Elaine who killed Zach.” I didn’t look at Greg. I didn’t want to give away that he was playing Lisa about Glick. I didn’t know his plan, but I was along for the ride.
“I doubt that,” Lisa said. “You see, when I contacted him, I let him believe I was Mother and that I had reconsidered the job. He thinks he hired her.”
“But you do a lot of the killing for her crew,” I noted. “It doesn’t matter who set the deal up.”
“I’m still in the dark about why the body was left in Odelia’s car,” Mom said.
“Good question, Mom,” I said, “unless it was to flush out Elaine all along, like the police first thought.”
“Yep,” Lisa confirmed. “I needed to get you involved, Odelia. I knew the more the police suspected you, the more likely Elaine would let down her guard to protect you.” She paused and shifted her stance. “I’ll admit, your mother wasn’t part of the plan. But after John screwed up at your house and you hit the road, I had to use your mother to bait you here. Now I’m using you to bait Elaine. Once we’re all together, you’ll all be out of my hair for good.” Lisa gave us another insane smile. “I promise it won’t hurt…too much.”
My mother started crying, and then I heard something dripping. Looking down, I saw that my mother had lost control of her bladder. Urine was running from her chair onto the concrete.
“I’m so sorry, Odelia,” Mom said between quiet sobs. “I should have stayed put.”
“Is the old lady pissing herself?” Swayze asked with disgust.
“What do you expect?” Mom shot at him through her tears. “I’m old, and I asked to use the bathroom ages ago. I asked twice.” It was nice to know that even in the face of death and with wet drawers, Mom was still a pistol.
“Let’s move this along,” Lisa said with annoyance. “Call Elaine and tell her to meet you here.”
“I can’t call her,” I said. “I don’t know how.”
“Don’t play any dumber than you already are, Odelia,” Lisa said, her voice getting edgy. “I know Elaine gave you a burner phone so you could keep in touch.”
“I don’t have it,” I told her. I showed her my hand. “This is my personal cell phone. Swayze said to bring the phone. He didn’t say which one.” I wasn’t about to tell Lisa that the police had the burner.
“What about you?” she asked Greg.
“Elaine gave us only one,” he answered. “I brought my own cell with me.”
She turned back to me. “Where’s your purse?”
“In the van,” I said. “Swayze said to leave it there.”
Lisa rolled her eyes—not at me but at her cousin. “Go back out and get the phone,” she ordered him. “I can watch them.”
He backed away as if afraid she would shoot him in the back for his transgressions.
“And shut the damn door this time,” Lisa barked. “It’s getting cold out.”
Once at the door, Swayze made his way out and closed it behind him.
“When he gets back,” Lisa explained, “you will call Elaine and let her know where you are. Tell her Zach’s killer grabbed you, and you managed to sneak a call.” She aimed the gun at my mother. “Make it convincing or else.”
Mom shut her eyes tight. “Don’t do what she says, Odelia. She’s going to kill us all anyway.”
“Won’t she be looking for you to come here with her?” I asked Lisa.
Lisa shook her head and smiled. “She thinks I’m off running down a lead on Zach’s killer, like she told me to do.” She paused and listened. “What in the hell is taking that moron so long?”
“It’s probably at the bottom of my purse,” I offered. “It’s a big bag. Greg calls it my luggage.”
“Wheel on over to the door,” she said to Greg, “and tell the idiot to just bring the whole bag in.”
Greg didn’t move. Nor did he take his eyes off of Lisa for a second. He was still in his cobra stance. Hot, high tension was coming off of him like a cut electrical wire, but I wasn’t sure Lisa could feel it or noticed.
When Greg didn’t move, she said, “Never mind.” Keeping the gun on us, she sidestepped to the door. As she did, Greg gently nudged me, pushing me toward the nose end of the truck. I immediately understood what he meant. He wanted us to take cover behind the front of the truck. We were just inches from turning the corner, but I wasn’t sure we could all make it before Lisa noticed.
Bending down to Mom’s ear, I whispered, “Keep your mouth shut no matter what happens.” Slowly I wheeled Mom around the end of the bumper, getting her to cover first. She’d buttoned her lip as I had asked.
Lisa was at the door. When she looked back, Greg and I hadn’t moved, and the edge of Mom’s chair was barely noticeable. “Quit wasting time and bring in the whole damn purse,” Lisa yelled at the closed door.
I took the opportunity to edge closer toward the bumper myself. Not that it would do us any good once Lisa returned, but doing something was better than doing nothing. Maybe Greg had a plan to rush them, although I wasn’t sure what he could do against two pistols. Hand to hand, he could definitely hold his own.
Greg nudged me again toward cover. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered.
Then I understood what he meant. Swayze should have been back by now or at least he should have answered Lisa. Somebody outside might have grabbed Swayze and was now waiting for Lisa to show her face. I wasn’t sure who it would be, though. We hadn’t made the call to Elaine, and the police didn’t know where we were. But one thing was for certain: if there was a gun battle, it would come from the direction of the small door with the yellow outside light, and it could happen at any second.
I rounded the corner of the truck myself and saw Mom straining to see over the hood. Her neck was extended so much I thought her head might pop off. Gently I turned Mom and eased her, chair and all, down to the concrete. If I wasn’t afraid of the truck falling off its blocks, I would have shoved her under it for safety. She moaned and tried to protest. “Shh,” I said and turned her gently on her side so that the chair faced out, giving her at least some protection against flying bullets. Then I hunkered down next to her and poked my own head over the hood to see what was going on. Greg rolled himself behind the truck with us and kept watch.
Preoccupied with trying to decide what to do, Lisa had stopped paying attention to us just long enough for us to take cover. But now she was turned our way, gun aimed, and it was clear what she intended to do. We were now her hostages. Without knowing what was going on outside and what had happened with Swayze, Lisa was hedging her bets. If she needed a hostage, she had three. If she didn’t and Swayze was just delayed because he was taking a leak, what was the harm?
With the gun pointed at me, she waved me over. “Come here, Odelia. Make yourself useful.” When I hesitated, she aimed t
he gun at Greg. That changed everything. “I’ll shoot him, then your mother. Or you can come here like a good girl. Which will it be?”
I stood up and slowly started for her.
“Take me instead,” Greg said to Lisa.
“How gallant of you, Greg, but no,” Lisa told him, coming closer and keeping the gun on him. “Odelia would make a much better shield.” She waved her free hand at me. “Come on, Odelia. Get that fat ass of yours over here.”
Slowly, I made my way toward her. When I was within a couple feet of her, she indicated for me to walk toward the door. As soon as I got in front of her, she grabbed a fistfull of my hair and poked the gun into my back. Together we shuffled forward. I glanced over my shoulder at Greg. He was slowly wheeling out from behind the truck, anxiously watching, worry etched deep on his face. Lisa jerked my hair to straighten my head forward. I called out in pain.
When we got to the door, she called out again, “John, where are you?” There was no answer. “Whoever is out there,” she called from behind me at the door, “I have three hostages, and I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in all of them, with Odelia first in line.”
Putting me squarely in front of her, Lisa jerked my hair again like I was a disobedient horse she was riding. “Open the door,” she told me.
“What?” I asked. Mom wasn’t the only one who might experience a bladder issue. Who knew who or what was out there?
“I said, open the door,” she repeated. “Turn the knob, then give it a hard kick. It opens out.” She pressed the gun deeper into my back.
I reached out and slightly turned the knob, unlatching the door. Using my hair, Lisa guided me back a few steps. “Now,” she said in a low, demanding growl like a junkyard dog about to bite.
Balancing on my left leg, I shut my eyes tight, raised my right foot, and kicked the door open, expecting a spray of bullets to hit me full-on. Behind us I heard Greg scream, “No!”
twenty-seven
Silence. No hail of gunfire. No yelling or shouting, just silence. Lisa still had a grip on my hair and was walking backward, pulling me along with her. I opened my eyes and scooted back, trying to backpedal faster than she was ripping out my hair.
The first thing to come through the door was a surprise. It wasn’t the end of a gun, it was a person—Nathan Glick. He was in a dirty dress shirt and trousers, and his arms were secured behind him. His face was battered, and his lips were sealed with tape.
“Let Odelia go,” a familiar voice behind Glick called out. “She’s not a part of this.”
“Part of what?” Lisa said, not loosening her grip on my hair. She backed up as Elaine Powers stepped into the building using Glick as a shield and took several slow steps toward us.
“What’s going on?” The question came from my mother. “I can’t see a thing.” I was glad I’d put her on the ground. The last thing Mom needed was to see her only daughter used as a human shield in a gunfight. She’d already lost one child to violence.
“Shh, Grace,” Greg said. He wheeled forward, slowly coming closer. Lisa must have seen him out of the corner of her eye because she shifted us so that her back was against one of the workbenches and she could watch both Greg and Elaine on either side of her.
“I know you used Odelia to get me here to ambush me. John just told me everything about your plans,” Elaine said to Lisa, keeping her gun trained on Lisa from behind Glick. “You didn’t have to do that, Lisa. You could have come to me and said you wanted to go solo. I would have supported you. I’m tired and sick and getting out of the business.”
“Sick?” Lisa asked with surprise. My eyes shot open at the news too.
“Yes,” Elaine confirmed. “I have liver cancer, and it’s spread. According to the doctor, I only have a few months to live. That’s why I’ve been helping the girls who wanted to leave the crew start over. I would have done the same for you, if you’d asked.” Elaine took another step forward. “Let Odelia go, and I’ll turn all the business over to you now. You had to have known that I was grooming you for this.”
I felt the grip on my hair loosen and started to get hopeful. Then it tightened again.
“Where’s John?” Lisa asked. “Did you kill him?” The gun went from my back to the back of my head, and I thought I would faint.
“He’s outside,” Elaine answered, “and quite alive.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lisa said with a snarl.
“It’s true,” Elaine said calmly. “I promised Odelia here that I wouldn’t kill him.” Without taking her eyes off of Lisa, Elaine asked me, “Didn’t I, Odelia?”
I nodded and managed to squeak out a feeble yes.
“I would have walked right into your trap unprepared if not for my gal here,” Elaine told Lisa. “But when she told me the creepy guy at the press conference yelling her name was named John Swayze, I knew something was up.”
“There’s no way you could have connected John to me,” Lisa shouted at Elaine. “You didn’t know about him.”
“You know what your problem is, Lisa,” Elaine asked with a tired half-smirk, “and always has been? You underestimate people. You always think you’re the smartest one in the room, but you’re not.” Elaine paused, taking a deep breath while her comment hit its mark. “I always run background checks on the people who work for me—and their families. And I rerun them every so often. I knew that your parents raised your cousin and that his name was John Swayze, and I knew that John Swayze had moved to California a few years back. When Odelia mentioned his name, I knew you were up to something.” Elaine laughed, then winced. “You might not be the smartest person in this room, but you’re certainly smarter than your cousin.”
Again my hair was jerked, but at least the gun barrel wasn’t against my skull. From the corner of my eye, I saw Greg inching forward again. There was only a couple of yards separating all of us but it felt like miles, especially between Greg and me.
“So you did call Elaine and tell her you were coming here?” Lisa asked me. “You knew it was me on the phone? How?”
I nodded slowly. Snot was running from my nose down over my lips. I lifted a hand to wipe it away, but Lisa yanked my hair again. “Don’t even think about moving.”
Instead, I sniffed and said, “You called me dumber than a box of rocks. Only you call me that. And I knew Elaine would never take Mom.” I coughed. “But I never called Elaine. I don’t have the phone anymore. It’s not in my purse, like I said.”
“Then how did you know to come here, Elaine?” Lisa asked. “Even if you did know about John?”
“Call it a hunch,” Elaine answered. “That and I slipped a tracker into Odelia’s bag when I last saw her at her mother’s.”
“You what?” asked Greg, inching closer still.
“Oh, please,” Elaine said with a smirk. “I knew you two wouldn’t stay put, and I wanted to keep an eye on you. She has so much junk in that bag, I knew she wouldn’t notice it.” She steadied the gun. “Now come on, Lisa, let these good people go, and you and I can iron out our issues in private.”
“And what about him?” Lisa asked, indicating Glick. “You should have used John as a shield. I don’t care a damn about this loser. I’ll shoot through him to get to you.”
“I brought him here as evidence,” Elaine answered. With her free hand she ripped the tape off of Glick’s mouth. He let out a short shriek of pain. “Tell them what you told me,” she demanded of Glick. When he didn’t respond, Elaine belted the side of his head with the gun, as Swayze had done to Greg. He cried out again. “Tell them who kidnapped Zach Finch,” she demanded. “If Odelia and Greg are going to die, they at least should know the truth first.”
Through sore, torn lips, Glick said, “We kidnapped him. Zach was in on it.”
“Zach set up his own kidnapping?” I asked right before Lisa yanked my hair again. “Ow!”
Glick nodded. “He hated his father.” He spat on the ground, and I could see blood in the spittle. “We planned the whole thing. After
the game, we dropped Zach at home. Then, later, Ben and I went back and picked him up. He only pretended to go into the house. ”
“What about Chris Cook?” Greg asked. “He told the police he saw Zach go into the house.”
Glick shook his head back and forth slowly. “Zach only acted like he was going in. We used Chris to set that up. He’s not that bright, so we didn’t trust him to be in on it.”
Greg rolled his wheelchair back and forth in a nervous gesture. “So you guys made the ransom call and, after the money was delivered, split it, then Zach took off?”
Glick nodded. “Pretty much, but Zach took most of the money because he needed to lay low and start over. But we did okay with our shares.”
“And you’ve known where Zach’s been all this time?”
Glick shook his head again. “Only during the first few years.”
“But why kill him now? And why kill Jean?” I asked.
“After a couple of years, Zach was spotted just outside Las Vegas.”
“So that sighting of Zach was real?” I asked.
“Yeah, he was living there.” Glick cleared his throat. “Then Zach’s mom died, and everything changed. I hadn’t been at Aztec very long when that happened. Jean met me one night and said she was leaving and meeting up with Zach. She did it without any notice to anyone but me, probably because of Zach.”
“Was Jean in on the kidnapping too?” Greg asked.
Glick nodded. “Yeah, from the beginning. Her plan was to work at Aztec after college, get some good experience in the international market, then leave for someplace else. I was surprised when she up and moved so quickly. She claimed it was because Zach was all she had now, and she wanted to be with him. She said he needed her. After she left, they both disappeared, and I never heard from them again.”
A Body to Spare Page 25