Trudeau had beamed his phone display onto the patrol car’s interior screen, and Roxy watched the pulsating red dot as it tracked Charles’ and George’s movements. They were gaining ground, but not quickly enough.
“I just hope George isn’t involved, and he’s safe,” said Roxy. “I hope this isn’t a getaway drive.”
After five minutes, the red dot slowed to a crawl.
“Fantastic!” said Trudeau. “We can catch up with him. Look at the screen. Where does it say he is? What’s the location?”
Roxy peered at the display. “Louiswood Industrial Park.”
Trudeau spoke into his radio. “35 stand down. 43 covering.”
“Is it just us following him now?” Roxy asked.
“Yep. I don’t want to spook them. It’s just you and me, kid.” Trudeau looked over at Roxy and winked. She felt a shiver of fear run down her spine for the first time.
They continued weaving their way through traffic, driving through stoplights, sirens blaring all the way along South Claiborne Avenue until they were within a half-mile of their prey. Trudeau turned off his siren and then his lights as they quietly turned into the industrial park. At a crawl, they edged their way around the buildings, each corner they navigated bringing them closer to the red dot on their screen. Both of them were on edge, but silent and alert. As they rounded the fourth building, Roxy gasped. “There!” A white Mercedes sat outside one of the buildings, the rental car company sign still hooked around the rearview mirror.
“I’m going in,” Trudeau brought the car to a halt and unbuckled his seat belt. “Hmmm, what am I going to do with you?” he said, frowning. “I’m going to have to leave you in the car…”
“Let me come with you. Please?”
“Much too dangerous. You’d be a liability.” Trudeau wouldn’t consider it. He had parked the squad car a little way down so that they had a clear view of the rental car and the building it was parked next to. He’d also avoided setting off the motion sensor floodlights. They were shrouded in darkness. “Looks like they’re in a warehouse,” Trudeau said, sizing up buildings around the lot.
“Please let me come.”
"No. What if you got shot?” he said. “I can’t let you out. I can’t. I’d probably go to jail myself. You’re going to have to get down in the back and make sure you’re not seen.”
Roxy frowned and pursed her lips like a truculent toddler.
“Or maybe I should take you back to the station and lock you up.”
“No!” said Roxy.
“Either way, I should wait for backup. It would be safer.”
“But we don’t have time! George or Charles might be in danger!” Roxy desperately wanted to enter the warehouse with Trudeau, but she had to see sense. “Okay, look, I’ll lie down in the back and keep quiet.”
Trudeau fingered his radio. “I’m calling for stealth back up, no sirens or lights. When they get here, stay down, y’hear?” He unbuckled her seat belt. “Get in the back now, and quickly.”
“All right, all right,” Roxy grumbled. She had a thought. “Hey! I can track you while you’re inside. Give me your personal phone. You keep your police issue one.”
“How will that help?”
“I’m not sure, but it can’t hurt. We can talk too.”
Trudeau thought for a moment. “Fine. But don’t you tell anyone about this. Got it?”
“Not a soul,” said Roxy. “Promise.”
Trudeau helped her out of the car and into the backseat. In his haste, as he shut the door, he failed to notice that the lock didn’t quite catch.
“Can’t you take my handcuffs off, you know, just in case I need to rescue you or something?”
Trudeau squinted at Roxy, assessing. “No chance, you might escape. Then I really would be in trouble.” He handed her his personal phone.
Roxy huffed. “Call your phone then and keep the line open. Oh, and put it on silent.”
“It’s already on silent,” Trudeau said icily. “I’m not stupid. Don’t overstep the mark, okay? I’m the cop here.”
“Sorry,” Roxy said.
“See you in a while.”
Roxy crouched in the backseat, waiting as Trudeau moved carefully toward the building. The phone in her lap lit up.
“It’s an abandoned warehouse,” she heard him whisper. “There’s a whole bunch of rusting car parts, covered in dust. Cardboard boxes disintegrating.”
“No sign of Charles or George?”
“No.”
Trudeau was silent for a while. “I think they must be upstairs.”
“Be careful.”
“I’m doing fine, thank you very much,” he whispered back sharply.
With her cuffed hands, Roxy tried to reach through the grille that separated the front from the back of the patrol car. She wanted to see if she could manipulate the dashboard display and get another view of the scene outside the car, but it was impossible.
How could she get into the front of the car? She looked around. There were no interior handles to the back seat doors. She sat impotently for a few moments before, with a sudden burst of energy she shoved the half-closed passenger door with her shoulder so hard it burst open and she fell out onto the tarmac.
Roxy quickly righted herself and opening the front passenger door with her cuffed hands, scurried into the seat. She slipped down low and closed the door oh-so quietly. She held her breath. There was no movement outside and no sound from Trudeau’s phone. She turned to the dashboard display, reaching out for it, but manipulating the screen with her hands cuffed together caused her to overbalance. She ended up flat on her face, sprawled across the driver’s seat, her behind in the air.
She wriggled herself upright and tried again. This time she ended up with her head in the driver’s footwell. She stared at her handcuffs, then looked around. She gave a big sigh. “Sorry, Trudeau,” she whispered. One at a time, she wriggled her wrists out of the cuffs. Her hands were so slight and fine-boned that it wasn’t difficult, although she did need to lick the back of her right hand to ease the cuff past her knuckle. Her left hand came out more easily.
Roxy grinned. Now she could reach forward and play with the screen.
“Are you walking or still?” she whispered into the phone.
“Walking,” Trudeau whispered back. “Now stop talking. Only reply when I tell you to. I’m going up the stairs, and they may well be close. Be quiet now. Don’t announce yourself.”
She could hear the sound of his police-issue boots on the steps. Don’t announce yourself. She hardly dare breathe. Then, the most horrifying sound came through the phone’s speaker. It was a muffled voice, begging, pleading.
George! Roxy recognized the high timbre of his voice.
“Police! Put down the gun!” Trudeau yelled. His voice came through the phone so loud that it hurt Roxy’s ears. There was a bang, a gunshot. Roxy clenched her jaws to stop herself from crying out. She heard a groan.
“Officer down! Officer down!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“HE’S RUNNING AWAY!” Trudeau ground out, his voice tight with pain. “He’s going down the stairs. He’s going for the car!”
“What do I do? Are you okay?” Roxy whisper shouted into the phone.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He’s shot me in the leg. I can’t get up.” He let out a holler of pain. “I just hope… is backup there yet?”
Adrenaline flooded Roxy’s body. She turned to look frantically around her, but there were no police cars that she could see.
“Nope,” Roxy said desperately, willing them to come. “Just me.”
“Stay down,” said Trudeau. “Just in case… stay down… Don’t let him see you.”
“Okay,” said Roxy. “Hang on in there. Shall I call an ambulance?”
“No. Just stay where you are and get down.”
Roxy slid down the front seat, hiding herself in the footwell, keeping as still as a mummy. She heard a noise, like a can being kicked, then
someone swearing. She sat up just a smidgeon so that she could see the entrance to the warehouse.
The sight took her breath away. Charles, dressed in his slacks and white shirt, was running or rather lumbering away from the scene. He was not a fit, lithe man. Instead of getting in his car, he passed it, and she saw him toss a something into the bushes just beyond the warehouse. He disappeared down an alleyway between two other buildings. Roxy quickly looked at the map on the screen and saw that it led to a six-lane street than ran through the business district.
Before Roxy knew what she was doing, she was out of the patrol car, running after him as quickly as her legs would take her. He was a lot bigger than she was, he had a good head start, but he wasn’t fast. And she was so light she could practically float through the air.
“Charles Romanoff!” she hollered as she turned the corner between the buildings. Shocked, he turned immediately and stepped into the motion field of another floodlight. Immediately he was illuminated in bright white light. He put his hands up like a cat preparing to fight. Roxy, benefitting from the shadows, darted around the edge of another building and found herself in a small cul-de-sac. Darn! She could hear Charles’ footsteps, and momentarily he slunk around the corner to face her with his hands curled like claws in front of him!
Roxy was panting with fear. Half-crouched, she looked up at him. “You killed Meredith, didn’t you?” Charles stared at her, motionless. “And you kidnapped George because…why?” Charles continued to stare. He made no movement or sound at all.
“Because we thought he was on to us. He was getting way too cocky. You know, what with his magical powers and all.” Roxy’s eyes widened, her mouth dropped open, astonishment wiping away the fear that she felt as her mind went blank. For there, in front of Roxy, walking from around the back of a building, a gun aimed straight at her, was Terah Jones.
“Terah!”
“Yup, pretty girl. You had no idea did you?” Terah’s lip curled in amusement, her black eye patch bisecting her face. The two German Shepherds strained against their leashes in front of her, their muzzles absent.
Roxy looked back and forth between Terah and Charles. Charles was still in his fighting stance, a silent tension causing every muscle in his body to tremble. In contrast, Terah stood calmly, confidently, next to him, a small smile on her face. “Sit!” she commanded the dogs. They deferred to her immediately, sitting at her feet.
“What’s happening here? What have you to do with all this? Are you telling me that all that talk about you and Meredith in high school was lies?” Roxy was incredulous.
“Oh no, it was all true,” Terah cackled. “I knew Meredith in high school, alright. She was a drug dealer who got caught. She was controlling and toxic and manipulative. But more than that, she ruined my life. That boyfriend Meredith stole from me? That was Charles. This eye patch? It covers the injury I sustained when I crashed my car minutes after Meredith told me she had stolen him from me.”
Roxy swung wildly around to Charles. She was having a hard time believing that this pink, bald, portly man was formerly a high school football player with flicky brown hair and a motorbike. “It was Terah you were having an affair with, not your nursing administrator at the foundation?”
This seemed to shake Charles from his stupor. He came to life. “What? Stacey? Good lord, no. Stacey’s a good friend, but our relationship is purely platonic.”
Roxy wasn’t sure Stacey saw things in quite the same way. “And what about when you went missing? We were all terrified for you.”
Charles lowered his hands. He spoke quietly, deferentially, like he was explaining to a patient about a surgery he was about to perform. “I’m sorry about that. I was with Terah. She and I were high school sweethearts before I started a relationship with Meredith. We got back in touch five years ago. We’ve been together ever since. I should never have let Meredith come between us in the first place. I was a fool.”
“But I don’t understand. Why were you at the séance, Terah?”
Terah shrugged. “Meredith invited me. She had no idea that I was having an affair with her husband, and I think she genuinely wanted to reconnect. Little did she know I’d harbored murderous thoughts about her for years. I found her approach quite amusing, and the séance was the perfect opportunity to pop her off. We hit on a plan to eliminate Meredith so that we could move on. We’d already wasted too many years because of her, and she would never have left us alone. She was vengeful and hateful and would have followed us and haunted us for the rest of our lives. We had to be rid of her once and for all, no matter the cost. Charles agreed, didn’t you, Charles?”
Charles started to pant. Beads of sweat poured down his face, and he dabbed at them with his perfect, white handkerchief. However, he said nothing. It was as though he was as much under Terah’s spell as the two dogs now appeared to be.
“You two are sick.”
“And you’re dead.” Terah’s voice hardened as she edged up closer, nudging the dogs out of her way, the gun still pointed at Roxy. “You’ve been playing with fire, Roxy Reinhardt, talking, and questioning, and investigating. People who do that? Well, they get burned.”
They were a few feet away from each other, but not so far apart that Terah would miss if she fired her gun. Roxy felt like a target at a shooting range. In the distance, she could hear the wail of sirens and imagined the spinning blue light atop the police cars.
“The police are coming for you,” Roxy said evenly, her voice trembling only slightly. “You’re not getting away with this. You’re not going to kill me, you’re going to rot in jail for the rest of your lives.”
“Terah…” Charles looked panicked.
“Shut up, Charles,” Terah said.
“No!” Charles took off, running as fast as he could back to the Mercedes. Roxy didn’t take her eyes off Terah as Charles receded in her peripheral vision. The dogs, sensing the heightened tension of the situation, started up again, barking, bearing their teeth, strings of drool hanging from their gums.
Terah dropped their leashes. “Go!” She pointed at Roxy.
Backed into the corner of the cul-de-sac, Roxy’s eyes grew wide. Her hands scrambled at the surface of the building behind her. Panic began to overwhelm her. Instinctively, she half-turned to shield herself from the onslaught that was about to be unleashed upon her. She closed her eyes tight, crouched over, and threw her arms around her head. Every muscle in her small body fired, they were as hard as concrete, as she waited...
“Down! Down! Sit! Sit!” It was Terah. She was pleading. “Please.”
Roxy opened her eyes just slightly and peered out the corners of them. Instead of attacking her, the dogs had turned their menace on Terah. The two dogs circled her. Terah had dropped her gun and put up her arms to protect her face as the dogs jumped at her, growling. Strong and heavy, they succeeded in knocking her over. She curled into a fetal position as they stood over her, snapping their teeth, dominating, and intimidating just as a patrol car squealed and skidded to a stop across the end of the cul-de-sac. Roxy jumped up and down, waving her hands like a maniac. It was Johnson!
“I thought you were off duty!” Roxy cried.
“I thought you were in a jail cell!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“READY?”
ROXY WAS standing at the entrance to the loft. Sam was behind her, his hands over her eyes. It was good to be so close to him, to take in his smell and his comforting, strong vibe even if she couldn’t see him.
She heard a clattering behind her followed by voices—Dr. Jack, Elijah, George, Nat, Evangeline, and Sage.
“Oh, hi guys.” Sam didn’t sound quite as cheerful as he had a moment earlier.
“We’ve come to see the unveiling.” Nat’s voice.
Privately, Roxy didn’t get what all the fuss was about. Sure, Sam had stained the floor and installed the light fittings and mirrors, but there was no furniture in the room, so it was hardly worth all this unveiling and covering her eye
s and all. Frankly, it was a little embarrassing, but she decided to be a good sport about it.
“Okay, ready. Let’s do this,” she said.
Sam lifted his hands away from her eyes. Roxy opened them. She gasped.
The loft was finished! Completely finished. The walls were a beautiful, crisp white. The floor was so deeply navy blue that it looked like an ocean beneath her feet. Even better, Sam had installed a crystal chandelier that cast down sparkling splinters of light that made the floor look as though the sun was glittering upon waves. There was a large four-poster bed, complete with white and blue linens, and a white antique armoire and a white closet. Light blue velvet curtains were draped at the windows while white nightstands with brass lamps with blue shades finished off the look.
On top of one of them was a beribboned basket of custom cookies that on close inspection had been decorated with the Funky Cat logo, a cat wearing a trilby hat at a jaunty angle and holding a saxophone. Even Nefertiti matched the decors as she curled up on the white fluffy rug, so well camouflaged that there was a real danger of stepping on her.
“What!” Roxy said. “Am I dreaming? How did you do all this, Sam?”
Sam looked at her innocently.
“Sam?” she warned.
Sam put his hands in the air. “Okay, okay, I admit it, Nat and I hatched a cunning plan behind your back.”
Roxy spun around. “You!” she said to Nat.
Nat grinned. “Well, I had to do something while I wasn’t cooking. It was easy-peasy. Sourced the furniture at the flea markets and painted it all white. Bought a few trimmings to pull the look together, Elijah made the cookies, George and Sage blessed the space, and voilà!”
“My goodness,” said Roxy, walking all around the room. “This is really special.” She turned to her friends. “You guys!” She felt a little tearful. “This is incredible!”
3 Louisiana Lies Page 20