I tried to busy my mind by creating different seating charts for the reception, but it was hard to focus on the minutiae of who sat next to whom at the moment. Once, just for fun, I made a worst possible seating chart sitting people apart from their spouses and trying to put polar opposites next to each other. That afforded me a few minutes of smiling, but that was all it was worth. My mind couldn’t let go of the fact that I didn’t know where my future husband was at this minute.
I texted Sabine at 3 a.m. asking her to pick up the food truck this morning and drive it to Elm Street. I had to try something. I wasn’t going to sit in the food truck all day and wonder what happened to Land. First, Sabine would have known immediately that something was up. I was able to hide my emotions sometimes, but I knew that after a full night of worrying that I wouldn’t be able to conceal what I was feeling.
Sabine was not the type to implement a plan. If she could find out who was responsible, she would march into the middle of danger and start fighting. There was a time for force, but this was not the right moment. I had no idea who had taken him, but an investigation into the people behind this might leave me surprised. So many different groups had a hand in this venture that I wouldn’t know who to trust.
The other thing was that I only had one lead. Land had been following the people who had been tailing Sabine. If I followed her as well, perhaps I would see who was interested in her movements and from there I could determine a plan. It seemed harsh to put Sabine out there as bait, but I knew that she would gladly agree to the plan to help her brother, and I trusted that her martial arts skills could protect her in most situations.
So by 4 a.m., I was dressed and on my way to watch Sabine go to work. I sat a decent distance from her apartment, which was in the same complex as Land’s soon-to-be-former apartment. I parked on the street and waited.
I hadn’t been sitting there long when I heard a thump, a loud noise coming from the rear of the car. I looked in the mirror, but couldn’t see any explanation for the noise. Then it happened again. The car shook a little this time, and I froze, remembering the bullet holes in the back of Land’s car. Was someone behind me, planning on doing the same thing to me?
The car bounced again, and I turned up the radio to mask the noise. There was no way that I was leaving the car now. First, the car was shrouded in darkness so that Sabine wouldn’t notice me. However, that also meant that it was hard to see what was going on outside the car. Plus, I kept remembering that Land had been doing this same thing when he’d disappeared. I wanted to stay in the car, where I could get away quickly if need be.
Sabine had yet to come out, and now the noises from the car were louder still. I was reminded of The Tell-Tale Heart, where the noise of the heartbeat had drowned out everything else. The car was having its own moment.
Finally, Sabine’s car pulled out of the complex and on to the road. I put the car in drive and felt the back end jump as we rolled down the road with no lights on. At this rate, I would not be able to follow Sabine without notice. The car was acting very peculiar, and I could still hear what sounded like a person near the back end of the car.
I looked behind me again, but saw nothing. Finally, unable to deal with the situation anymore, I pulled into a well-lit gas station and slid up to a pump. I opened the gas cap and started pumping. The back end continued to bounce wildly.
I took a deep breath and slid my key into the trunk’s lock. It popped open and the light in the trunk illuminated its interior.
Land was bound and gagged in the trunk!
I quickly untied his hands, so that he could help me with the rest of the knots. He removed the gag from his mouth, while I untied his legs.
“Took you long enough,” he said by way of a greeting. “I’m all cramped up in here.” I helped him get out of the trunk. He leaned on me a little as he stood on his own two legs. He was wobbly as he walked around to the car door.
The gas station manager had come out of the building to see what was going on. He approached carefully with his phone gripped tightly in his hand. “What’s going on out here?” he asked with a slight tremor in his voice. “Anything I need to be involved in?”
Land cleared his throat. He’d sounded a bit hoarse, which I put down to his screaming earlier. “Long story, but we’re fine. She’s the one who is helping me here.”
The man nodded and walked back into the station, making it clear that he had locked the door after entering.
“So what happened to you? I’ve been so worried.” I didn’t let him answer. I squeezed him into a big hug and kissed him with all the worry and frustration of the last six hours.
When I finally let him go, Land said, “I got caught with my guard down. I’m lucky they just locked me in the trunk of the car. I was sloppy.”
I pulled back and looked at him. “Are you okay? You’re never sloppy.”
He gave me a smile. “I’m a little preoccupied with getting married this week,” he said. “I was too busy thinking about vows and rings. They got the jump on me.”
“Start from the beginning, and tell me everything,” I said after a second’s hesitation. Granted that I’d just discovered my fiancé in the trunk of my car where he’d been waylaid and trussed, but I also knew that we only had three days in which to figure out what was going on and turn it over to the police in time for the wedding. Time was of the essence.
Land gave me a wary look, as though he didn’t trust my sudden interest in what he’d done. “Well, I took your car and started to follow Sabine. After about fifteen minutes, another car slid in behind her and began tailing her too. It was a fairly amateur job. They didn’t seem to mind if she saw them or not. I wasn’t sure what they hoped to achieve by that.”
I nodded. “Right, if Sabine saw them, then she wouldn’t be inclined to do anything other than just go home or try to lose them.”
“That was the odd thing about it. She didn’t do either. She went to the bank and then to the secure lot, and then called a cab to take her home. She stayed home for about three hours, and then headed out to a nightclub. I didn’t see the car follow her there, but when I got out of the Buick at the club, I got hit from behind.”
“Did you see who did it? Are you sure it was the guys who were following her?” I used the plural since it would not be easy to carry 180 pounds of dead weight to a car’s trunk and hoist him into it. The act seemed more like the efforts of multiple men, which suggested a group like the Croatians who were now in jail.
“I didn’t see a thing. That’s what is so curious. The guys who were following Sabine couldn’t be the same ones who caught me off-guard like that,” he said. “They didn’t have the skills.”
“Do you really think that there are multiple groups of people following Sabine? Why? She’s barely involved in this case. She wasn’t even at the right bar last Friday. She was at the casino when we found Carona.” I was perplexed by the turn of events. Nothing so far had connected Sabine to any of the events in Capital City. So why were they interested in her? I told Land what Sabine had shared with me. One of the Croatians had been in town for at least two years, which meant that they were using locals for this plan.
“That’s too odd. If they’re doing something illegal, it’s best to use professionals from out of town. If you’re from a city, there are too many people who can recognize you and report your whereabouts to the police.” Land’s face showed its confusion as well as his exhaustion.
“I thought that it seemed odd. This isn’t like most of your espionage cases, which makes me wonder what’s really involved here. So what happened next?” I asked.
“I woke up sometime during the night. I could see I was in a trunk. From the contents, I knew it was the Buick. So I merely had to wait until you came out to go to work, and I started making noise. The rest you know.”
I stopped asking questions long enough to check his scalp. If he’d been hit hard enough to render him unconscious for a few hours, there could possibly be a concussion. I
checked in the trunk, but didn’t see any signs of nausea or bleeding.
“Where are we?” Land asked, looking around the gas station. “From the distance you traveled, you should have been on the other side of town.”
I explained my purpose in following Sabine to see if I could see the men who were following her—he same ones that Land had been following.
“What did you find out?” he asked, waiting for me to continue. “Did you find them?”
“I found out that there was a man in my trunk, and I didn’t learn anything else. No one was following her this morning.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Why follow her sometimes? Or perhaps they were pulled off the tail on her, which is even stranger.”
I chalked it up to the head injury since he’d just got done telling me that they were incredibly obvious amateurs. I would have to be a complete bumbler to have missed them, if that were the case.
“Yeah, I’m sure. So what do you want to do now?” I asked, looking at my watch and at the ashen gray face of my fiancé.
“Take me to your place. I’ll take a nap there, and you can get ready for work. We still need to make a living. Someone needs to pay for this wedding,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.
Chapter 9
I was at work by six and serving coffee by 6:15. Sabine didn’t ask what had happened to me, and since Land was safe and sound, asleep at the apartment, I didn’t feel like I needed to tell her anything about last night’s events. Danvers certainly wouldn’t be sharing the details with her, so I thought the secret safe.
Detective Danvers showed up shortly after that, and in a few words, I told him that Land had been waylaid and put in my trunk. Sabine was busy working and ignoring Danvers, so I didn’t need a reason to leave the truck for a minute to explain what had happened. He seemed genuinely relieved to hear that Land was doing fine, though he was disappointed that Land hadn’t seen the people who had crept up on him.
Danvers walked away with his coffee, which he’d conveniently forgotten to pay for. In most cases, I comped him the coffee, but typically he goes through the motions of pretending to want to pay. I wasn’t sure if he was feeling cocky this morning or if he was just tired like the rest of us.
I still had my lingering doubts about Danvers. He could easily be the mole on the police force. I knew that Land had always warned me not to trust him, and he’d worked with Carona at one point. He would know her well enough to know her weak spots, such as her love for puzzles to get us to find her. Could he possibly be leaving the clues? Since he had lived in town for a while, it would make sense that he would use facilities and people who were also here.
Sabine looked at me strangely when I returned to the food truck. “What was that about?” she asked.
“Nothing, just wedding details,” I lied.
“Anything I should know about?” she asked, still watching me. Was it just me today, or did everyone seem like a suspect here? I was hypervigilant, watching everyone’s expressions and movements.
“Not really. Land wanted him to pick up some things for the bachelor party Thursday.” I kept my eyes on the landscape outside of the truck. Two more businessmen came up, and I decided that the conversation was done.
However, as soon as I had handed the men their change, Sabine asked, “What are we doing for a bachelorette party?” She gave me a naughty grin, like this was something that I would enjoy. I had no desire to get drunk or go to a strip club the night before my wedding. I would prefer a glass of wine, and a final review of my lists to make sure that everything was covered. I had to be bright and chipper for the big day.
“So did you make it here okay today?” I asked, changing the subject entirely. It was irksome that Sabine was being followed by these people for no apparent reason. I wanted to get to the bottom of this.
“Yeah, no tails today. That was so weird.”
“Do they think you know something about Carona and her disappearance?” I asked, thinking of the holes in the rear window again.
“I barely even heard about her while she was in town. I was at the casino that night. I was nowhere near the action. I can’t explain it. What could I know?” She shrugged and went back to preparing condiments for later in the day. Her reaction was the same as mine: bafflement at the interest by whatever people were involved in the matter.
Land pulled up about 1:30, and I quickly ran over to see him. Sabine had wished me well and told me that was her wedding present to me. I was fine with her gift. I hadn’t really expected someone who was spending money on a new dress to buy me something anyway.
I stepped into the food truck, and Land was waiting for me. He kissed me and gave me a smile afterward. He was still looking a bit ashen, but his color was much better than it had been earlier that morning. “Danvers was by early today. I told him that I found you in the trunk.”
He nodded. “He called me after that. You didn’t tell me that you met Lenora,” he said with a grin.
He knew that I wasn’t a big fan of Danvers, especially now that he had dumped Sabine. The animosity ran through many of our investigations, and while he was more civil to me now that Land and I were together, I still wasn’t his biggest fan. I knew that Lenora would be the latest in a string of short-term relationships that he maintained.
I shrugged. “She’s not worth mentioning. She’ll be gone in a week or two.”
Land laughed. “Probably so, but what did you think about her?”
I took a second. I hadn’t really given her much thought, considering my fright. I’d been worried about Land. Combined with the notion that she wouldn’t be around long, I had dismissed her without much attention. “Why are you asking about her?” I said. Land was not usually the type to gossip. He made his own opinions and stuck to them. For him to ask about my impression of her meant that he had an ulterior motive.
“I find it odd that he started dating someone around the time that this operation began. I was thinking about people in the police department who have been working on the matter with Carona. Most of them have been there 10 or 15 years. That’s not to say that someone couldn’t turn, even a long-time cop, but all of a sudden Danvers has a new girlfriend—and she’s way out of his league.”
I had to admit that he was right. Danvers was probably an eight on a good day, but she was runway model material. I recalled the long legs getting out of the truck and the toss of her almost-white hair. She had been laying it on thick, presumably for his benefit.
“Don’t tell him that I said anything,” Land continued. “It’s just a hunch, and if I’m wrong, I don’t want things to get awkward between us, at least not until after the wedding.”
I nodded. “No worries, I won’t say a word.” Land had been warning me mostly not to tell Sabine. As Danvers’ ex-girlfriend, I was sure that Sabine would have appreciated the chance to rub it in his face that he’d been played by vanity and a spy. “So how are we going to approach this?” I asked. I knew Land well enough to know that if he had an idea about someone, he also had a plan to find out if his idea was right.
His mouth set into a thin line. “I hate to ask, but I thought maybe you could invite her out to dinner. You could use the pretext of getting to know her before the wedding and all that.”
I was surprised. Usually he wanted to keep me as far away as possible from crimes and investigating, yet here he was asking me to have dinner with the possible mole in the police department. “Sure,” I replied. “I can do that, but I’ll need to explain it to your sister. I’ve been a part of Team Sabine ever since the break-up, and I don’t want her to think I’ve defected to the couple vs. the singleton now that I’m getting married.”
“Fine,” he sighed, “but make it generic. Tell her something like that you want to find all of her flaws and report back.” I had to hand it to him. Land knew his sister. She would ask for something much like that if I went to dinner with Lenora.
I told him that I’d call Danvers later to get her phone number and then mak
e plans. Land was coming over tonight, so we’d have a chance to talk before I went to dinner with her. I wanted to learn what types of things he specifically wanted to know about the woman.
Chapter 10
I’d had to act fast, since the wedding was coming up. She’d agreed to meet me for dinner on Wednesday. With the wedding in only two days, my mother had been annoyed that she’d have to take care of more of the details so I could do dinner with a guest. I heard several deep sighs on the phone when I’d explained the situation to her. “You don’t have time to solve this case. What happens if you don’t have any flowers to carry down the aisle with you?” Her exasperation was clear.
I tried to mollify her by saying that I’d stop by after dinner to help. She grumbled, but it was settled that I would be stopping by to handle the last minute flower arrangements and one more look at the seating chart.
I decided to push things a bit by suggesting 101112 to Lenora for dinner. I was a bit surprised that I’d been able to get reservations, but perhaps after gunplay in the restaurant, business might have dropped off. She agreed, and we set a time to meet.
I was back to driving the Buick today, so I parked down the street again to hide the car. When I entered, I looked around. The décor showed none of the signs of the recent attack. I thought back to how scared I’d been when the man had pulled his gun and pointed it at Carona. I gave a little shiver, then shook it off, and went to look for Lenora.
She’d already been seated at the table and was sipping on a glass of white wine. “I have to say that I was very surprised to get your call. I would have thought I’d be the last person you’d want to have dinner with.”
I gave her a small smile. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“I just figured that since you’re marrying into the Mendoza family, and Sabine is in the wedding that you would not appreciate Jax dating someone new.” She flagged down the waiter and ordered a drink for me.
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