by Dale Mayer
“Maybe it isn’t,” Gavin noted.
“Maybe,” she murmured. “Still weird.”
“It is,” he said.
“So what purpose is there for going to the actual site?”
“I’m tracking the vehicle now,” Gavin said, between bites of food. “I want to see where it went and when it arrived.” Finally he said, “Eureka.”
“What?” Shane asked, looking at him.
She studied the two men with interest. They were both plowing through the food at a rapid rate; meanwhile it was obvious they were on the hunt for something on their laptops. She could feel the excitement shimmering in the air. She understood it—and approved of it at the same time—but it was a little disconcerting to see them so focused. She’d often been told that she had a similar level of focus, but she hadn’t really seen it in the actions in others.
“It arrived an hour beforehand. I don’t have any cameras to show that they had anybody in the vehicle with them.”
“Wait. What?” she said, shaking her head. “Are you really thinking that a government vehicle dropped us off there?”
“What we need to know,” Shane said, “is where the cameras for the underground parking are because that is where you would have been taken.”
“Somebody must have seen something,” Gavin said. He shoved the last piece of steak into his mouth and hopped up. “Time to find out exactly who and what.”
She shoveled her food down as fast as she could, hating that such a great meal was not getting treated as such. But she would not be left behind. As they walked toward the door, she grabbed several of the muffins and croissants, put them in a bag before placing them in her purse, and raced after them.
At the door Gavin turned, stopped, and shook his head. “Hell no.”
“Hell yes,” she said. “Nonnegotiable.”
“And what benefit is there,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, “to having you with me?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but there will be one. I promise.”
He snorted at that. “No, you’ll be in the way.”
“I will not,” she said defiantly.
He glared, but Shane laughed and said, “Come on. Let’s go, or I’m leaving you both. We don’t have time to debate it.” And, by then, she’d locked her door and moved quickly behind them. “Do we tell the others?”
Gavin looked at her and said, “Steve picked us up. In a government vehicle.”
Immediately her lips pinched together. “Do you think he’s involved?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I sure hope not. I’ve known him for a long time.”
She nodded. “I’ve known him for a couple years at least. He doesn’t seem like the type.”
“No, but you also don’t know who and what might have yanked his chain.”
“I don’t think people yank his chain much,” she said cautiously.
“Really?” he asked. “How do you see the relationship between Steve and Melinda? Because, from what I saw today, he’s a man who’s had his chain yanked pretty damn hard.”
That shut her up. She hated to even think that Steve was involved, but the innuendo in Gavin’s words meant that he also wondered if her sister was involved. Rosalina tried to be dispassionate as she thought about her sister, and Melinda’s potential involvement in something like this. It was just so not her. Her sister wasn’t into this level of drama or pain, but she was very much into glory. So could Melinda have twisted this into something to put her face back on the front page again? “I don’t know why she would have had anything to do with this.”
“She?” Shane asked, as they took the elevator down to the lower floor.
She glared at him. “If Steve is involved, then I’m automatically thinking that potentially Melinda is too.”
“Oh, interesting that you would bring that up,” Gavin said, “because, yeah, I did wonder.”
“Of course you did,” she said. “I don’t know why you would have even gotten to that though. What does she get out of it?”
“That is my question to you,” he said.
“I can’t see that she gets anything out of it,” she replied. “She’s already high up in the company. She’s already the apple of their eye.”
“Would that have changed?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She was led to a small car and given the back seat. She took it eagerly, happy to be in the background and to watch everything going on. When Gavin failed to explain, she asked him, “What do you mean by that?”
Gavin drove, but he looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Do you think there was a falling-out between your parents and your sister? Was there any reason for them to be changing Melinda’s role within the company? Were they setting up a trust or something similar, and potentially she would not be getting as much as she thought she should?”
“I don’t know why,” she said in bewilderment. “And, if something like that were going on, I don’t know anything about it.”
“Are you privy to family discussions of that nature?”
“Only if they involve me,” she said. “Just because I’m not the favorite doesn’t mean that I’m despised or hated or not wanted.”
At the men’s silence, she hoped they at least understood the point she was trying to make.
“But maybe there was some recognition of an imbalance in the relationship,” Shane said slowly, as he twisted around to look at her. “What are the chances that your sister wouldn’t have liked that?”
“Hell no, she wouldn’t have liked it,” Rosalina said. “But that doesn’t mean she would do something this serious about it.”
“What would it take for your sister to do something serious?”
“Something like kidnap my parents?” she cried out in horror. “I can’t imagine.”
“Well, spend the next few minutes while we drive,” Gavin invited, “and just think about it. What would be a worst-case scenario that would cause your sister to do something so drastic?”
Rosalina sat back, hating to even contemplate it. But, of course, the answer was obvious—if her parents were cutting her off. If they kicked her out of the company, and she was demoted out of the family for whatever reason. But Rosalina couldn’t imagine that ever happening.
“I know what you’re trying to say,” she said, “but I just can’t see how something like this would even be possible.”
“Well, you haven’t told us what we’re talking about yet,” Gavin said. “So what are you saying?”
“I can’t imagine,” she said, “that she would ever get kicked out of the family or the company.”
“Interesting, but is that really what it would take?”
“Absolutely,” she said, “that is what it would take.”
“Okay, something to understand then.”
“No,” she said, “not at all. There’s nothing to understand because that scenario would never happen.”
They just nodded silently, sharing a quick look.
She couldn’t stop shaking her head. “I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say.”
“Maybe not,” Gavin said, “but potentially something is there.”
She shook her head harder.
“What’s her relationship like with her children?”
“She loves them,” Rosalina said, glad that she could at least reinforce that relationship. “She’s a good mom.”
“Okay,” he said. “So she’s a devoted mother.”
“Good,” Shane said. “What about as a wife?”
“No,” she said, “not so much there. But I don’t know all the details. I don’t have the kind of relationship with her that we would talk about something like that.”
“Right,” he said, “but every detail, no matter how small, is important.”
“I wish you would look at other suspects though.”
“But your sister makes such a good one,” Gavin said drily. “She’s so positive and so helpful and so worried about
your parents.”
She winced. “When you talked to her, she was really bad, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she was. Actually she gave me a much deeper insight into what your life would have been like in the family.”
“You only saw her in this mood,” she said. “You haven’t seen her when she’s all sweet and sunshine.”
“I can’t even fathom that side of her. If so, she’s very much a split personality, isn’t she?”
“Not clinically though,” she said. “I hate to say it, but there is a bit of a manipulative person inside.”
Gavin snorted, and she sank back, realizing that he already understood her sister a whole lot more than most people ever did. She wondered at that. It wasn’t just that her sister managed to keep the ugliness inside; her parents knew of this but never saw it. They had only ever seen the bright sunshiny child they loved and raised. They were doting parents, receiving all that sweet sunshine that Melinda had to give.
And Rosalina understood that, since she had been deemed the interloper, she hadn’t seen the same sweetness from Melinda that her parents had seen. So it made for a very confusing childhood as Rosalina tried to figure out what was wrong with her. And no way to get an answer now or back then. When she realized the men were exchanging hard glances, yet nobody was talking, she leaned forward and whispered, “What’s the matter?”
Shane, his voice intentionally against her ear, whispered, “Looks like we’re being followed.”
Before she could turn and look, he anticipated the move and grabbed her face. “Don’t turn around. Listen. Stay crouched down a bit, just in case.”
“Just in case, what?” she asked.
And, in that moment, the window behind her shattered.
Gavin swore as the back window exploded behind him. He quickly shifted lanes and kept on moving, his foot flat on the accelerator as he moved around and through the heavy traffic.
“That was close,” Shane said cheerfully.
“Too damn close,” Gavin said. “I wasn’t expecting them to do something like that in the middle of traffic.”
“I did get a license plate number,” Shane said.
“Good. Any tracking on it yet?”
“Stolen last night apparently,” he said.
Gavin just nodded because, of course, it was.
“Why would they shoot at us?” she asked, feeling surprisingly calm.
“Either to take you out or to take us out. Maybe they are afraid you saw something, heard something you shouldn’t have? Maybe they are tying up loose ends?” Gavin said. “So how many enemies do you have?” She stared at him from behind the seat, and he could feel her gaze drilling into his head. But he couldn’t take the time to turn to look at her.
“I didn’t think I had any,” she said faintly, “but this is making me reassess the situation. On the other hand, I imagine you have a lot of enemies.”
He let out a bark of laughter, as he once again shifted lanes and came around the block, coming up behind where they had originally been shot. He passed the spot where the back window had exploded and asked, “Did you get caught by that at all?”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine, although my hair could be a bit of a pain in the ass to clean.”
“I hear you there,” he said. “Hold on.”
“What am I holding on for?” she asked. “Aren’t you taking us back to the hotel?”
Shane smiled at her and gently said, “Of course not. We’ve drawn them out into the open, so we’re coming around to set a trap.”
Gavin laughed, unable to resist taking a look at her face in the rearview and seeing the horror on it. “You’re the one who insisted on coming. Remember that,” he said cheerfully.
“You guys are way too happy over this,” she snapped. “Do you realize you could have been killed?”
“We could have been,” Gavin said, “but we weren’t.”
“But they’ve still got the gun,” she exclaimed.
“And we’re easier to spot now,” Shane said, “being the ones missing the window and all.”
As Shane kept working on his laptop, Gavin switched lanes and said, “Look ahead, four cars on the right.”
“Quite a jam up there,” he said.
Gavin nodded. “Looks like they’re caught in that. And, sure enough, it looks like there may have been a bit of an accident, probably happened when they were shooting.”
“So, what are you thinking?” Shane asked.
“I’m wondering about pulling off to the side here and having a talk with him,” Gavin said.
“Chances are they’ll get out and bail before we can get there.” Shane looked at Gavin.
“Right,” Gavin said, “so you first.” He said, “Three, two,” and, just like that, with perfect timing, Shane bolted from the passenger side, raced across the traffic, and came up to the vehicle that he suspected had shot them. It was the right license plate number. Gavin moved their car over, ignoring the horns sounding around him. Considering the early evening hour, there was traffic, more traffic than he had expected to see. “Is it always crazy busy like this at night here?”
“It’s a tourist town in the peak of the season, so that would be yes,” she said. “I can’t believe you let Shane out like that,” she said. “He could get shot.”
Then she did something that really surprised him. She slipped forward between the two seats and sat in the front.
“Now you’ve just taken Shane’s spot,” he said. “So where will he go when he’s trying to get away from trouble?”
She glared at him. “You’re just saying that to piss me off.”
He laughed. “What we’re trying to do,” he said, “is capture the guys who shot us. Are you telling me you don’t want to know who they are?”
“Of course I do,” she said, “but are we getting anywhere in all this nightmare?”
“We are,” he said. “And they’ve just shown their hand, which means they don’t want us finding anything more.”
“But we didn’t find out anything,” she snapped.
He stayed quiet because he’d stirred the pot with both Melinda and Steve, and then this happened. He didn’t know why they were behind this shooting, but it was interesting that her sister, Rosalina, was in the car that got shot at. “Any chance that your sister wasn’t supposed to be there at dinner last night?”
“She wasn’t coming at all on this trip,” she said. “And then she decided to come with Steve and the kids.”
“And what about dinner?”
“No, Dad dragged her out,” she said. “The kids were not feeling well, so she planned to stay home with them, but my father wouldn’t let her.”
“So, in theory, she wasn’t supposed to be a part of that kidnapping at all?”
Rosalina slowly turned to look at him and asked, “What are you trying to say?”
He gave her a bland look. “Maybe nothing, but maybe, just maybe,” he added quietly, “the reason you two were released was because she was never supposed to be kidnapped in the first place.”
“No, but then she could have been released and not me,” she said, stoutly refusing to believe her sister had anything to do with this.
“True,” he said, with a nod. “Quite true.”
He just smiled a knowing smile.
Chapter 6
“I don’t like the look on your face,” Rosalina said bluntly.
“A lot of people don’t,” he replied, equally blunt.
“You need to think about somebody other than my sister.”
“I’m thinking of all kinds of people,” he said. “Your sister just keeps fitting nicely into the damn role.”
“She loves my parents,” she said.
“Good,” he said, “that would work in her favor.”
“It could be Steve,” she said, “but I already told you about Melinda’s ex-husband. It could easily be him as well.”
“And potentially still in love with her and not wanting her to get hurt. Yes,”
he said, “I can work with that.” Rosalina sagged ever-so-slightly in place, and he laughed. “I’m not trying to fit a person to the crime,” he said. “I’m trying to find the right person who did it.” He pulled the car into a ground-level parking lot.
“It doesn’t sound like it,” she said quietly. She looked around and asked, “How come we’re here?”
“Because we’re about to have company,” he said. A vehicle pulled up and parked in front of them. He looked at her and said, “Grab that laptop, will you? And make sure you have your purse.”
She looked at him, shocked, but reached behind and grabbed her purse, shaking it free of the shattered glass that covered it. Then she grabbed the laptop that Shane had left behind in the footwell and hopped out. Gavin walked with her, studying the top of her head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Glass,” he said. “Do you have a comb in that purse of yours?”
“Yes,” she said. “Why?”
“Because when we get to this car right here,” he said, nodding at one nearby, “I suggest you take a quick moment,” and he emphasized that word very clearly, “and comb some of it out, so you’re not transporting it everywhere.”
“Is that so we don’t leave a trail or for my own health?”
At that, he gave a bark of laughter. “Both.”
She didn’t understand him, yet wanted to, as he led her to a vehicle parked in front. She didn’t even know who was inside the car. As she got closer, she bent down to see Shane holding a gun on the driver. She gasped and said, “Oh, my God.”
“Comb your hair,” Gavin directed her swiftly. “You do it, or I do it.”
After handing over the laptop, finding her comb in her purse, she bent over and immediately ran her comb against her scalp, trying to loosen any of the glass particles. And then watched as Gavin grabbed her shirt at the shoulders and gave it a shake and then her pants.
“Are you trying to remove all trace?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said, “but it’s not possible.” Then he opened the passenger door and shuffled her in and took up a spot beside her. “We’re in,” he said to Shane.
“About time,” he said. “Meet Henry.”
