I hadn’t spent much time in West Ribbon as a child, largely because my friends lived in the same school district as I did. My interaction to other kids was limited to track meets and the occasional run-ins at the mall, but mostly, we stuck to our own. I hadn’t thought much about where someone like Mohammed would live, but it made sense that he would live here.
He parked his taxi between two freshly washed minivans and turned off the engine. “Miss Samantha, I hope you don’t mind, I bring you to my house where I live with my sister. It is safe here.”
I looked up at him. “Thank you, Mohammed, but I can’t put you or your sister at risk.”
“Miss Samantha, I think we can help you. Please come inside.”
I had little choice but to acquiesce. Everything I owned, every contact I had with the outside world, was scattered in that parking lot of the Motel 6. Mohammed was my lifeline.
The front foyer of his house was warm and inviting. The walls were painted a soft powder blue. A wooden table sat under a painting of women weaving bowls out of straw. On the table was a similar bowl filled with potpourri. An oven door opened and closed and soon a spicy scent filled the air.
“My sister is cooking.” Mo said. “Are you hungry?”
“It’s awfully late for dinner, isn’t it?”
He laughed. “She is not making dinner. She is making crackling bread for tomorrow.”
Despite how great the air smelled, I didn’t think I could eat. Not after having bullets fired at me. “Mo, may I use your phone?” I asked. “I need to make a couple of calls.”
He held out his cell phone. “I will give you privacy.” He left me in alone and went to the kitchen.
I called the police station and left a message for Detective Loncar. “Tell him Samantha Kidd called. I’m okay, but I need to talk to him about the shooting at the Motel. This isn’t my phone. I’ll call him tomorrow.” I hung up. I hesitated for a few seconds before calling Nick. His was the only phone number that I had committed to memory. He didn’t answer. “It’s Samantha,” I said. “I’m checking in to see if you heard from your dad. I lost my phone so don’t try to call me back. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I held the phone for a few additional seconds, and then hung up.
A pretty, dark skinned woman with bright green eyes and high cheekbones came out of the kitchen. She wore a loose tunic and baggy pants both cut from a batik-printed cotton fabric. “Hi’ya,” she said. “I’m Keisha.”
I held out my hand. “I’m Samantha.” She wiped her hands on her apron and then shook mine. “You have a lovely home,” I said.
Mo responded. “My sister is a hairdresser, but cannot find work because she doesn’t know English as well as I do. But she is good. She can help you,” he said again.
“You said that before. I don’t want to be any more trouble than I already have been.”
“You are not trouble,” he said. He turned to Keisha and said something in a language that I didn’t recognize. Her face lit up and she looked at me. She answered him and then clapped her hands together. She said something to me, but I didn’t understand. I looked at Mo.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what she said.”
“It is simple solution. She needs head and you have one. I tell her she can have your head.”
I stepped away from them. “Nobody can have my head,” I said.
Mo looked worried. “Your head. In the back of the car. It came off of the body that your friend placed into my taxi. Is that not what it is called? Head with hair? My sister needs to practice. Head in taxi—the head in the taxi—would be perfect for her to practice.”
“The mannequin head,” I said. Relief flooded me. “Yes. That head is available.”
Keisha, who had been looking concerned while Mo and I clarified exactly whose head she was getting, bent down and lifted a large plastic tub filled with scissors, combs, flat irons, and blow driers. She pulled a long, flat case out of the side of the box and opened it up on the table. It was filled with thick, glossy black hair. She looked at me and then waved her hand up and down next to her own shiny hair.
“Make hair longer,” she said.
“Extensions,” I said. “That’s what we call them.”
She tipped her head and assessed me. “Diff’rent for you, ya?”
“It would be different.”
“Would ya like ta try?”
In light of having been shot at mere hours ago, “different” seemed like a good idea.
The adrenaline crash, coupled with the soothing sensation of Keisha’s nimble fingers weaving the extensions onto my head, made me sleepy. Nobody knew where I was, and that felt safe. It also felt solitary. I’d pushed everybody away in order to protect them. In twenty-four hours I’d gone from sharing a bed with Nick to hiding out at a stranger’s house. I’d given my cat to my best friend. Pritchard didn’t have to come after me with a loaded gun. The isolation would destroy me instead.
After Keisha had finished, she wrapped my head in paper towels and led me to the sofa. Mo had put out fluffy pillows and sheets. I took off my sneakers and sat down. Keisha held the paper towels around my head as I reclined, until my head rested on the pillow.
“Thank you,” she said. “Is good to practice on live head.”
I squeezed her hand. Considering the bullets that had been fired at me, having a dead head wasn’t that far outside of the realm of possibility.
The next morning, over cracklin’ bread and black coffee, Mo, Keisha, and I watched the news on a small portable set. A reporter stood in the Motel 6 parking lot describing the scene.
“Reports of an altercation in the parking lot were brought to the attention of the hotel manager. Motel guests claimed to see a woman throw a backpack at a taxi driver and then leave in a separate cab. Police have also found evidence of gunfire, but no one claims to have heard shots fired. Guests have been moved to another, unnamed motel while local police investigate what happened here.”
Not only would Loncar have been tasked to investigate the shooting, he’d be out of a place to stay. I needed to let him know what had happened. Except, aside from the gunfire, I didn’t know what had happened.
I finished my breakfast in silence. There’d been no mention of finding my phone or my wallet. Had Pritchard taken them after I left? Did it matter? He already knew where to find me. He knew much more than that. He knew I was staying at the motel. He had arrived in a taxi. He had known about my arrangements, that the only person I would have trusted was a person driving a yellow cab.
And when he called this morning, he’d made not one but two references to the poker game where Nick’s dad had supposedly been last night.
How had he known? The room must have been bugged. No—that wasn’t likely. I’d been in Detective Loncar’s room, and there was no way anybody could have known that we traded. The bug must have been on me the whole time.
I’d been so careful to change my appearance, to drive a different car, and to try to fake him out. I’d even been carrying around a backpack instead of a handbag. And the only things I’d put into that bag were my wallet, my phone, my lipstick, and my pen. The retractable pen that Pritchard had given me the night he'd first been at Retrofit.
I hated that pen.
On the bright side, the pen was now in one of three places: the shooter’s possession, with the police, or in the Motel 6 parking lot. I didn’t really care which of those options was the right one. The only thing I cared about was that the pen was no longer with me.
“Miss Samantha, I will take today off and drive you wherever you would like to go,” Mo said while Keisha cleared the dishes.
“No,” I said. “I appreciate all you’ve done. Both of you. But I can’t involve you in this any further. Take care of your sister. Maybe you should go away for a few days. I’m going to be okay.”
“This does not seem like a very good idea,” he said. “You are unprepared for danger.”
“Not for long. I have a plan.”
The only ri
de I accepted from Mo was to a small shop that I’d passed about a hundred times and never paid attention to until now. It was between a used record store and a dry cleaner, and had a wooden sign out front that simply said Spy Store. I thanked Mo profusely, brushed my new waist-length hair back over my shoulder, and went inside.
The interior of the spy store was brighter than I’d expected. Rows of glass cases lined the perimeter, with room enough behind them for the salesman. He was dressed in a suit jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. His hair looked like a toupee, but considering I was about twelve hours into having thirty inch long extensions, I was less critical of his choice than I might have been otherwise.
He looked up at me and nodded his hello. “If you need something, let me know.”
I scanned the case of merchandise in front of him and spotted an assortment of pens that looked just like the one from Pritchard’s desk.
“I need something,” I said.
He put down the magnifying glass and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.
“I need a couple somethings. There’s only one problem. I don’t have my wallet or credit card. Maybe we can work something out?”
“Lady, this isn’t that kind of a store.”
I blushed. “That’s not what I meant. Do you take internet orders?”
“All the time.”
“So if you had an order paid by credit card, you’d fulfill it, right?”
“Sure.”
“What if the customer wanted to come in and pick it up in person? Would you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I know my credit card number by heart. If you let me use your computer, I’ll place an internet order so you get paid, and then you can give me the stuff.”
He looked skeptical. “This is a store that sells spy stuff. There are a lot of people who want to see me shut down. I can’t take a chance that you’re not who you say you are.” He stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. “Who did you say you were?”
“Samantha Kidd.” I leaned in and dropped my voice, hoping to play to his conspiratorial side. “I was shot at in the parking lot of the Motel 6 by Fairmont Avenue. You probably heard about it on the news, right?”
His expression, body language, entire demeanor changed. “Yeah, I heard about it.”
“Here’s the thing. The guy who shot at me knew exactly where to find me. I think he had a bug planted on me. I think it was a pen. It looked like that one,” I said, tapping the glass above the display of pens. “I’m going to need one of them. And some pepper spray. And a lock picking tool. Do you have a lock picking tool?”
By the time I left the spy store, I’d not only convinced the spy shop employee that I was who I said I was, (funny, he managed to not say his name the whole time) but that I wasn’t going to rely on the police to help me and that men should not wear short sleeved shirts under suit jackets. He must have believed me because he let me use the store phone, which he assured me had an anti-tracking, anti-bugging device on it. I’m not going to lie. As soon as Loncar told me my house was safe for residence, I was going to install one of them.
I’d made two phone calls. The first to Detective Loncar’s direct line.
“It’s Samantha Kidd,” I said.
He cursed. “Are you okay? I’ve been trying to find you since we heard about those gunshots at the motel.”
“I’m okay. I left before your team showed up. I have information for you, but I need something from you first.”
“What?”
I paused. “A ride to my house.”
“Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t a taxi service.”
“Hear me out. There’s a sheet of paper in the trash can in my kitchen. It’s folded into fourths. You can fish it out of the trash yourself if you want, but my cat threw up on it, so you might want to wear gloves. It’s a copy of four ID cards that I found in Pritchard Smith’s briefcase at Retrofit before all of this happened. And in case you’re interested, I’m pretty sure he’s the person who shot at me at the motel. From the driver’s seat of a yellow taxi cab, which explains why I’m not all that excited about calling a cab to drive me around town or taking my own car.”
“What about Uber?”
“You see the kind of people I meet. I’m not that trusting of strangers.”
I pictured him in an internal debate over the pros and cons of chauffeuring me around town. “Tell me what you remember about this morning.”
“I made arrangements with a taxi driver to come to the motel—”
“I told you to stay put.”
“He’s been cleared of suspicion,” I said. I forgot that the detective disliked when I used phrases I’d picked up from the movies. “I checked him out. He’s really a cab driver. Licensed with the cab drivers association and everything. Want to check yourself?”
“No.”
“I was going to have him drive around town with a mannequin in the back seat of his taxi to throw off the scent of my trail.”
“If you had stayed in the motel room like I asked, there’d be no trail to follow.”
“All I wanted was some clean underwear. Is that such a big deal?”
Loncar was silent for a few beats. “Walk me through your morning.”
“I was waiting for the taxi to arrive. I saw headlights and looked out front. A yellow taxi pulled into the parking lot. The car swung around and the driver fired at me. I dropped my backpack and ran. Make sure your team goes over the building well. The gun didn’t make a very loud noise, but there were a bunch of shots fired. One of them hit Mohammad’s taxi.”
“Who’s Mohammed?”
“The taxi driver I called. He showed up right after the first taxi. I dropped my phone and ID in the parking lot, so right now, I have nothing.”
Loncar coughed and then cleared his throat. “I’m not getting an address on this number. Where are you calling from?”
“The spy store on Casey Street.”
“I know the place. Keep an eye out for me. Guy who works there isn’t going to like it if I have to come inside.”
The second call was to Nick. He answered halfway through the first ring, like he’d been waiting for my call. “Have you heard from your father yet?” I asked.
“No.”
Wrong answer. If this was Pritchard’s move, then I had to outsmart him. I bit my lip. Tell Nick my plan or not? I couldn’t risk tipping my hand and having him say no. If I was going to pick a public fight in order to distance myself from him and keep him safe, I was going to have to keep him in the dark. “Nick, I’ve been thinking about last night and I think we should talk about what’s going on between us. Meet me in the parking lot outside of Retrofit in twenty minutes.”
“Kidd, I’m a little preoccupied. Can’t this wait?”
I took a deep breath and steeled myself. “There isn’t going to be a better time, Nick. We need to talk. Today.”
Chapter 17
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
I was ready for a fight.
True to his word, Det. Loncar had pulled up in front of the spy store not long after I’d called him. He didn’t ask about the bag I carried and I didn’t volunteer information about its contents, either. He navigated lefts and rights through West Ribbon until he turned onto my street. Soon enough, he pulled into my driveway.
“Can I have my keys?” I asked.
His expression changed. “They’re in my desk drawer.”
“What are they doing there?”
“Keeping you from entering your house.”
“You know, you should be nicer to me. From what I heard on the news, you’re out of a hotel room and I have a spare sofa.” I hoisted my bag of spy gear out of his car and carried it around back.
I’d once read that seventy-five percent of people hid a key to their house within five feet of the door. There had been a period of time when that was true for me too, only it had been Nick and Eddie who hid the key, not me. I’d never gone in much for conformity, so
the last time I locked myself out of the house, it had been a challenge figuring out how to break in.
I set the bag down by the back door and walked to the picnic table. “Grab an end,” I said to Loncar.
“What for?”
“I need to get to the second floor window. The screen is bent and if I can pop it out of the frame, I can disengage the faulty latch and raise the window enough to climb in.”
Loncar looked up at the window for a few seconds. “You didn’t just come up with this plan, did you.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’ll work. Trust me.”
We carried the picnic table to under the window, and then stacked the benches on top of each other on top of it. I was happy to be in sneakers and not heels. I climbed the stack of furniture, removed the screen, and tossed it to the ground. It landed a few feet from the detective. The wooden bench under my foot snapped in half and I grabbed the window to keep from falling.
Hanging from the side of the building was no less terrifying today than earlier in the week.
“You okay up there?” Loncar asked from the ground.
“Peachy.” I pushed off what remained of the bench and hoisted myself into the window. What I hadn’t wanted to tell him was that the window led to my bathroom. A sloppy landing would put me right in the middle of the commode. I pulled myself through the opening, used one hand to shut the toilet seat, and then eased my way through until I was resting on the thick aqua rug. I flipped over and stared at the ceiling, breathing in and out, in and out. I was starting to believe my house was cursed.
The door to the bathroom opened. Loncar stood, upside down. I rolled over to my stomach, got onto all fours, and then stood up. “How’d you get inside?” I asked.
He held up a set of tools. “In case of emergency,” he said. “When that bench broke, I figured I had your permission to enter the premises.”
“You could have told me.”
I gave Loncar the copies of Pritchard Smith’s various IDs and he left. I changed out of the I Got Tied Up In Ribbon! sweatshirt and into a rust colored jog suit that my mom had scored when I was a kid. The patch on the sleeve was embroidered with the slogan, “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!” in marigold thread. She hadn’t been a smoker, but the offer of a free sweat suit emblazoned with a positive message had been too good to pass up. After collecting barcodes from the cigarette packages of all of her friends, she obtained the knit ensemble, wore it exactly one time, and then packed it away in a box that she’d left in the attic. I found an old pair of Reeboks in the back of my closet and laced them on. I tied a yellow and rust paisley scarf over my new waist length hair, and left.
Grand Theft Retro (Style & Error Mystery Series Book 5) Page 11