The Hard Way: Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers 5

by Annika Martin

  “Denko would’ve covered his bases,” Odin said. “It’s just a theory.”

  “Still! God!” I hugged my arms around myself. “It’s almost a good plan.”

  Odin looked grim. Could this be why he felt watched?

  “Say something, you guys. What if it’s Denko? He figures out who I am and my connection to my sisters. He engineers a suspicious incident, knowing we’ll come.”

  After a silence, Thor said, “Our fear was always that he could arrest your sisters or illegally detain them, threaten to hurt them if we don’t turn ourselves in. This would be better, actually. If this is Denko, he could snap us up without your sisters ever knowing you’re not dead. All he’d do is ruin them and cause the death of Tim Zietlow. With this plan, he doesn’t have to detain and threaten your sisters. He doesn’t wind up with three civilians to deal with. Causing a suspicious salmonella outbreak is effective and efficient. And he knows we started doing detective work…”

  “Oh my god. What if you’re right?”

  “Just a theory,” Odin said.

  “Oh, just a theory,” I said. “That our greatest enemy has us in the palm of his hand. But it’s just a theory, so…”

  “No, it really is just a theory,” Zeus said, pulling to the side of the road. The conversation had turned dead serious. “I don’t think it’s the likeliest of the possibilities. Nancy Zietlow really did seem cagey.”

  Yet he’d pulled over. It was decision time.

  “I’m inclined to stay and deal with this situation,” Zeus continued. “I’m not seeing that we have a choice now.”

  “I’m so sorry I got us into this.”

  “You didn’t get us into anything.” Thor pulled me into a bear hug, spoke close to my ear. “If it’s Denko, he hasn’t made his move yet.”

  “I don’t care who it is now,” Odin said. “Somebody fucked with Isis’s sisters. We stay. We fight. If it’s Denko, he has us by the balls now either way.” He glanced up, dark and dangerous in the rearview. Our eyes met. Shivers went over me.

  “Thank you,” I said in a small voice.

  “Your family is our family,” Zeus growled, pulling back onto the street in a decisive, angry way.

  I nestled my head onto Thor’s shoulder, trying not to get my fake nose plaster on his sleeve. I’d spent so long fighting for that farm all by myself. The four of us were a family now. We fought for the farm together. We didn’t have a home of our own that we could feel safe and cozy in, a place that we belonged, but we’d damn well make sure my sisters had it.

  “We need to solve this fucker fast. Let’s see if anybody else knew about the unplugging,” Zeus said. “If we can trace this thing to Rhonda’s husband or to Nancy, that would be really fucking helpful. It would mostly rule out Denko. Thor, go back to the sisters and really figure out if they told anybody.”

  “Talk to Vanessa first,” I said to him. “Impress on her how important it is to figure out if anybody else knew. You can tell her straight that somebody might be screwing with them, and she’ll get it out of Candy or Kaitlin. That’ll be more effective than gathering the three of them.”

  “Got it.”

  “And find out who Rhonda married.”

  Thor smiled. “Of course, goddess.”

  “Where do we go?” I asked. “While Thor talks to Vanessa?”

  Odin exchanged glances with Zeus in a way that told me they were thinking the same thing, doing a secret agent ESP thing. “Question,” Odin said. “How does Andy feel about older women?”

  “What? Andy and Nancy Zietlow? No way.”

  “Absolutely no way?”

  “Well…”

  “We’ll go and talk to Andy,” Zeus said.

  Chapter 8

  We dropped Thor off at the B&B so he could take the other rental car to talk to Vanessa. Odin, Zeus, and I took off on a route that brought us past the entrance to Sunny Sisters, a route we’d specifically avoided the last time, but I wanted to see.

  I was crumbling, a little bit. But I could see the farm, right?

  As we passed, I took in everything I could—our big blue house with the wraparound porch, the fence along the road with the off-color portions I’d helped my dad fix. Our old Jeep by the shed. Tiny puffs of white, grazing in the distance.

  What if this was an elaborate Denko plan? He was a zillion times more dangerous than a homegrown Baylortown adversary.

  And it wouldn’t just be us in trouble. If it was Denko, there would be no clues to exonerate my sisters with. Vanessa would lose her court case because it would be over before it started. She would go to jail. My younger sisters would be alone in the world. Those sheep would be sold along with the farm. Probably killed. I was spiraling into a dark place now.

  Odin caught my eyes in the rearview. “It’s not over until it’s over.”

  I said nothing, just looked my fill until we hit the Millers’ land.

  We didn’t announce ourselves this time, just went to the shed. I don’t know how they knew Andy was in there—my guys often seemed able to see and hear things beyond the regular human spectrum of seeing and hearing, like dogs or something.

  Andy picked up a wrench when he saw us coming.

  Zeus shook his head. “That’s not how you want this to go.”

  “What?” Andy said. “I’m working on this tractor. It requires tools.”

  “This is not,” Zeus repeated, “how you want this to go.”

  Andy’s lips parted slightly. Defiantly, he tossed the wrench.

  “Who did you tell?” Zeus demanded.

  “What?”

  “About the tossed cheese,” Zeus said.

  “What? No one. I mean…the authorities, the FDA…”

  Zeus closed in on him. “We’re not talking about the authorities or the FDA.”

  Andy looked helplessly from Odin to me and back to Zeus. “What?”

  The guys weren’t saying anything. I figured this was one of those spy things with letting the subject sweat, so I stayed quiet. Andy actually looked at me twice in the nervous space. It was still weird to be so close to him and have him see me as a stranger. Is this what it would be like to be a ghost?

  “We just came from Nancy’s,” Odin said. “Does that help?”

  With a furrowed brow, Andy studied Odin’s face. He seemed almost impatient when Odin didn’t say anything more. “And?”

  “You told her about the tossed cheese?” Zeus said.

  “Nancy Zietlow, we’re talking about?” He looked at all our faces. And not the door. Did that mean anything?

  “Is there another Nancy?” Odin barked.

  “A few,” Andy said.

  There were a few other Nancys in Baylortown, actually. But that probably wasn’t helpful intel.

  “You really want to tell us about this Nancy thing,” Zeus said, closing in on him.

  “What? That I told Nancy? You want me to tell you even if it’s not true? Is that what you want?”

  Zeus frowned. “You know what we don’t like? People fucking with us.”

  Andy looked confused and little outraged. “This seems like it’s going beyond an insurance investigation.”

  “Going beyond is our job description,” Odin said.

  “Our insurance company takes this shit very seriously,” Zeus added.

  “I don’t think your job description includes threatening people. And the law might have something or other to say about that.”

  “You can go ahead and try and sue us for that, and you know what our employers will do?” Odin said. “They’ll laugh. Because they’re a fucking-g insurance company and they run the fucking-g world. And we’re very expensive investigators because we always get to the truth. Nobody hides anything from us.” He moved closer, and it was maybe a little bad that I was finding this whole thing utterly hot. Finding his power and darkness hot. “The information got around somehow. We’ll trace it either way. But if we have to trace it to you the hard way, we’ll make you pay.”

  I could s
ee Andy mouth something. It looked like what the fuck.

  “Got something to share with the class?” Zeus demanded.

  “Yeah. If Nancy or anyone found out about the tossed cheese, then one of the girls told. Because I swear, I told nobody.”

  “Not even your mother?” I asked. Because it was the kind of thing a farmer would say around a dinner table—the Sunny girls had to toss eighty pounds of cheese today or whatever. It’s news.

  “Why? I barely talk to her.”

  I nodded. It was all coming back to me—his shit relationship with his mother, his carelessness with women.

  “You’re holding something back,” Zeus said.

  I agreed—I could feel it. I guess their spy mojo had rubbed off on me, but also, I knew Andy. A player and a weasel.

  “Bro, I’m answering your questions! With the truth—”

  Zeus grabbed his collar and pushed him up against the wall. “There’s something you’re not telling us.”

  Odin looked over at me. They were enjoying fucking with Andy. Maybe I shouldn’t have filled them in on Andy’s shitty boyfriend escapades.

  Andy just gaped. “What do you want?”

  “We want what you’re not telling us. You know how we know you’re keeping something from us?”

  Andy shook his head.

  “Experience.”

  “I swear,” Andy said.

  “We’re waiting,” Odin said.

  “There’s nothing. Ask me any question and I’ll tell you the gospel truth.”

  “What are you holding back?”

  “I don’t know what you want!” Andy said.

  Zeus waited, but Andy wasn’t coming out with it. Zeus put his face close to Andy’s. “Do you know what an accessory to murder is?”

  “Wait—what? Murder?”

  “Yeah, murder,” Zeus growled. “And accessory to murder is when you withhold something germane to the investigation. And we will come across that thing, and we’ll know it when we see it. And we will go to the police on it.”

  Andy shook his head, seeming outraged. Was it possible he wasn’t hiding something?

  Zeus let him go. “Come on,” he said, heading out. Odin and I followed, trudging out of the barn and onto the trail leading back to the house and the driveway.

  “You really think—”

  “Shhh.” Odin shoved something into his ear.

  We continued to the car in silence and got in.

  “Why didn’t you push him more if you really think he’s withholding something?” I asked Zeus.

  “I put a bug in his pocket,” Zeus said.

  I sat up. “To listen to him?”

  “Shhh,” Odin said again.

  Zeus lowered his voice. “We’re seeing if he calls Nancy, or who he calls. If he told somebody, he’s calling them right now.” He put the car into gear and drove off, partway down the road, then pulled onto the shoulder.

  I could now see that Odin had an earbud in. “He’s working.”

  “Maybe he texted the person.”

  “This isn’t a texting situation,” Zeus said. “Trust me. People up to something, especially if they’re scared of being found out, they don’t text. They feel like it leaves a trail. They talk, being vague as possible.”

  “Clanking,” Odin said. “He’s just working on that tractor.”

  “There’s something he’s not telling us,” Zeus said. “Maybe it’s not related to the crime. Could be something else. Did you feel it, Ice?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have the radar you do.”

  “Just tune in. Deep inside you. Your impressions.”

  I tried to tune in, but whereas my guys seemed to have high-tech radar with digital signal processing when it came to liars, I had some messy little tea leaves and a Hello Kitty ring. “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Odin pulled the earpiece out. “He’s not calling anyone.”

  “Record it.”

  “It’s recording,” Odin said. “But if he was going to call somebody, he would’ve.”

  “Agreed,” Zeus said, all official and military. “What I really would like is a bug on Nancy. We should’ve thought of it, because I’d like to see who she called after we visited. We need ears on her.” He fell silent. “Dammit.”

  We just drove, and I could tell by the silence in the car, and by my guys’ shuttered expressions, that each of us was streaming our personal dark thoughts. Mine had Vanessa in a women’s prison like on Orange Is The New Black. And a legion of SWAT teams descending on us at Margie’s, gunning us down among broken cupids. Or taking us off in separate cars, and that’s the last I ever see of my guys. And them being held in dark little rooms where they tell everything in exchange for a reduced sentence for me. That’s the kind of thing they’d do.

  Back when I was stuck in this town, I’d dreamed of a life of adrenaline and wild escapades. But back then, the only stakes I’d imagined were my own safety.

  Now the stakes were these men I loved more than anything, and when I thought of what could happen to them, it made me lose my nerve. It made me want the opposite of risk. We were in a car. Together. We could go find Thor and run.

  “We need a break,” Zeus said, echoing my thoughts. “We need to know this isn’t Denko, because if it’s Denko, everything changes.”

  “I feel like somebody is watching us still,” Odin said. “I can’t shake it.”

  Zeus looked hard at Odin. “Okay, buddy. Let’s assume somebody is. From here on out.” He took a turn. Took another turn, then a U-turn. Eventually he must have felt satisfied there was no tail, because he pulled into the Walmart.

  “Shopping?”

  “We need to get up on Nancy,” Odin said, and he didn’t mean it in a sexy way. I followed the three of them in. Apparently getting up on Nancy required a trip to Walmart. I didn’t see the connection, but Odin and Zeus were in their spy hive mind about it.

  We headed in. Odin grabbed a hand basket, and we went to housewares. The two of them started throwing in tools—screwdrivers, slipknives, and other suspicious items. We then trekked to electronics where Zeus picked out an iPhone and Betty Boop phone case. “Are we doing a break-in?” I asked. “A break-in that we’re live-tweeting?”

  “Close,” Zeus said. “When we were at Nancy’s, did you see what kind of phone she had? Out on the table? The phone and the case?”

  “No,” I said.

  “We did,” Zeus said. “And she bought it here. Luckily.”

  “What’s the thinking?”

  “Odin’s going to steal her phone and replace it with this one, which will be dead of course.”

  “Because we’ll fucking-g break it.”

  “And we’ll lose our follower. If we have one.”

  They got a laptop computer, too—a cheap PC.

  Odin picked out a hat and coat. A disguise. “We can’t use that car.”

  “But Thor has our other car,” I said. “We don’t have three cars.”

  “No, we don’t have three cars,” Zeus said crowding me up against a phone-for-assistance kiosk. He touched the collar of my shirt. “Who are we, Ice? Do you need a reminder? We have three hundred cars.”

  I grinned. “Riiiiight.”

  We bought the stuff, and Odin went into the bathroom to change. Zeus walked me to one of the big arrays of doors. “You stand right here. You’re just waiting for somebody. See what you see out there.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Zeus disappeared.

  A little while later, Odin came out. He walked like an old person, bag in hand, and passed by like he didn’t recognize me. I barely recognized him. I never understood how much you could disguise yourself through posture until I hung around with my guys.

  Odin headed out into the crisp, sunny afternoon and disappeared into the sea of cars. I watched people come and go. One of them would be getting their car stolen.

  Eventually, Zeus came back, not in a disguise. “Let’s grab some fries. Thor just texted�
�he needs more time. And we need to set up the computer for Odin.”

  We went to the grubby little Walmart fast-food café and split an order of french fries. He unwrapped our new laptop and charged it up. He asked me things about the town. Some of the questions related to the case, but most weren’t. He wanted me talking, wanted my mind off Denko. Or maybe he wanted his mind off Denko.

  We went through several orders of fries.

  Odin came back not even an hour later and slid in across from me, next to Zeus.

  “Got it?” I asked.

  “Fuck, I even got the car back into almost the same parking spot. I’m the shit.” He pulled out a phone and set it on the blue plastic tabletop. Nancy’s phone.

  “Sweet,” I said.

  Zeus angled the laptop to Odin, who plugged the phone into the side. Odin was our resident techie, and he was being all techie for sure. His amber eyes began to move back and forth, reading the screen. He hit keys now and then.

  I lowered my voice. “You’re breaking in?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He took a fry. “Could take a while. Not as long as if she’d updated her operating system.”

  “I can’t believe you just walked in and switched Nancy’s phone.”

  Odin looked up. “She doesn’t even lock her doors.”

  Thor arrived while we were waiting for Odin’s program to work. He slid into the booth on my side. “Your sisters didn’t tell anybody. I’m convinced.”

  “You let Vanessa talk to them alone like I said?”

  “Yeah. I took a walk around the grounds and let her talk to each of them.”

  He’d walked the grounds. “How does everyone seem?”

  He shrugged. “Same. I told Vanessa we were looking into foul play, and she’s all over it. She knows she’s being framed. She also heard the rumors that Nancy Zietlow was having an affair. Just for the fuck of it, I suggested Andy Miller was the boyfriend. She thought it was hilarious.”

  I nodded, wishing I could’ve been there to laugh with my sister about the idea of Andy going after Nancy Zietlow. Nancy had to be fifteen years older than him. But more than that, Nancy had that sophisticated-lady thing going on, whereas Andy was more like, sup, dude.

  I made Thor tell me every little detail of what my sisters said and how they seemed and even what they were wearing.