by Emily James
“What’s she doing here?” Elise asked the desk clerk.
I think she meant it to be a whisper, but the waiting area was empty except for me. The only noises were the ruffling of the papers the desk clerk had been looking through and the rattle of the furnace pushing not-nearly-warm-enough air out of the vents.
The temptation to answer her myself was almost more than I could handle, but I didn’t want to be one of those snarky women. I’d always found that women like that were a lot more fun to read about than they were to know, and I already had enough barriers to break through in Fair Haven without adding a reputation for snarkiness on top of it.
“Nicole?” Erik’s voice called from my left.
I glanced up and he waved for me to join him. Once we were both inside his office, he closed the door tightly behind us.
He sank into his chair and nodded toward the one on the other side of the desk. I opted not to sit. I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t butting into this investigation. This was more of an evidence drive-by.
He gave me his characteristic not-quite-a-smile smile. “I’m almost afraid to ask why you’re here after our conversation this morning.”
I swallowed down an extremely unladylike snort. I couldn’t blame him if he was wondering what trouble I’d already managed to get myself in to after we talked this morning. I was probably more familiar with the way to the police chief’s office than most of the long-time residents in Fair Haven were. At least this time I could set his mind at ease.
“I got permission from Noah’s family to look around his house for anything that might point to who could have wanted to hurt him.” I laid the folder and envelope on the desk. “I found the name of the man I think Noah owed money to and some…”
I didn’t know how to describe the photos of Noah with the girl-woman. If it turned out she was underage, I’d have to fire him no matter how nice he seemed or how hard a worker he was.
“Some what?” Erik asked.
He hadn’t reached for the pile of documents, and the way his lips turned down made me want to squirm. He clearly thought I’d done something outside the lines to get whatever I wanted to show him even though I’d told him how I came by it.
“Some photos I think you should see. They were in his house as well.”
He still didn’t reach for the documents, and my chest tightened. Didn’t he believe me?
Erik rubbed at the shoulder where he’d been shot in January. We’d hoped he wouldn’t have any lasting side effects from the wound, but he’d confided in me at our last breakfast that he was still having trouble controlling his aim when he fired his weapon at the range. The doctors said he needed to give it time, but he was starting to be afraid of being confined to desk duty forever, even after the powers-that-be hired a new police chief—a task they seemed to be in no rush to complete.
He must have realized what he was doing because he dropped the hand he’d been massaging his shoulder with to the desk. “I can’t look at any of that, and you need to take it with you when you go. Put it back where you found it.”
I took a step backward. Of all the things I’d thought he might say, that wasn’t on the list. It reminded me too much of how Chief Wilson denied the truth and turned a blind eye to what was happening in Fair Haven. But I also knew Erik wasn’t like that, so he must have a good reason. “Why?”
“This isn’t an open investigation, and nothing in what you brought proves someone attacked Noah. If I look at it now, and later we do find evidence suggesting Noah was attacked, I won’t be able to use it. So put it back in his house, where you found it, and don’t mention it to anyone else. I don’t even want to know where in the house it was.”
I sank down onto the edge of the chair that I’d turned down before. I saw his point, but that left my biggest concern unanswered. “I’m worried that whoever did this won’t consider it finished because Noah’s still alive. They could smother him in his bed and no one would know until it was too late. Isn’t there anything you can do without compromising the department or a future case?”
Erik cracked his knuckles, something I hadn’t seen him do before. It must be a sign of the additional stress he was under with the investigation into the department and his questionable recovery on top of running the department. “I can’t give him a protective detail as long as it’s classified as an accident. I could call the hospital and ask that only people on a list I’ll give them be allowed to visit him.”
My shoulders slumped. It was something at least, and it should be easy enough for Erik to explain if he was asked. A question had been raised by people close to Noah about whether it was really an accident or not, and he was taking precautions to protect a citizen should this turn out to have been intentional.
It didn’t guarantee Noah’s safety, though. It was more like a bailing bucket on a boat with a hole. Someone could still sneak past the nurses. They couldn’t watch Noah’s door every minute, especially given that the patients on the floor far outnumbered the staff. And once someone slipped inside, a staff member would have to actually look in the door to Noah’s room to see someone was in there.
And if Noah did recover, he’d be out in the world again, giving whoever attacked him a hundred more opportunities to do it again. This time, they’d probably make sure he was dead before they left.
Why didn’t they make sure he was dead the first time? the annoying voice of logic in my head whispered.
I didn’t have an answer for it, and sitting like a mannequin in Erik’s office was only wasting his time and mine.
I rose to my feet, grabbed up the evidence, and turned for the door. Despite the pictures of Noah and the girl-woman, his bookie still seemed the most plausible option for who’d hurt him. If it’d been over money, there was one way to ensure Noah’s safety that didn’t involve the police.
I’d find his bookie and pay Noah’s debt myself.
7
As soon as I was back in my car, I did a search on my phone for George Abbott within the county. Since Noah didn’t have a record of missing work, he couldn’t have been driving too far away, unless he was simply placing his bets over the phone on horse races or something like that. I doubted he was gambling remotely, though, because Russ did say he’d gone somewhere to gamble the last time he slipped.
Either way, my search for George Abbott came up empty.
I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. This was so frustrating. All the books featuring private investigators and concerned citizens solving crimes made it sound simple. Gathering any sort of information without the help of the police was definitely harder than they made it seem.
“Stop whining,” I said into the middle of my steering wheel. “That’s not going to help Noah.”
I straightened up and rolled my shoulders. It made sense that a bookie wasn’t going to take out a Yellow Pages listing. His business was probably word of mouth, which meant that locals might know where to find him. The problem was, most of the locals I knew well enough to ask weren’t going to be inclined to tell me. I couldn’t ask Erik, and I knew Russ and Mark wouldn’t tell me even if they knew, for fear that I’d do exactly what I planned to do.
The only person I could think of who might know where to find George Abbott and who would be willing to tell me was Oliver. Hopefully he was still at the hospital.
The phone rang six times before anyone picked up.
At the sound of Oliver’s voice, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Sorry to bother you again, but I think I might have figured out who Noah owed money to. Does the name George Abbott sound familiar?”
“Not really, but like I said, Noah didn’t tell me who he was gambling with. I think he was trying to protect me from getting caught up like he did. He knew I wanted to be part of the police department, and if I’d gotten into anything like that, it’d be over for me.”
There was a hint of bitterness in his voice. He was no longer working at the police station because he made a mistake the
night I came in after hitting a body in the road. Even though it wasn’t my fault that he’d lost his job, I still felt bad about it. Now wasn’t the right time to say how sorry I was, though. If I reminded him of the role I’d unwittingly played, he might not help me out anymore, regardless of the fact that I was trying to protect Noah.
“And you don’t know of any Abbotts who live around here?”
A static-filled tap came through the phone, like Oliver bounced a finger off the back of the phone while he thought. “I think the Sports Bar and Grill out on 96 might be owned by an Abbott.”
That sounded similar to the charges I’d seen on Noah’s credit card bill to a 96ers Bar & Grill. That could be the one Oliver meant.
I thanked him, hung up, and searched for the address. It wasn’t far from here, but it was also already the middle of the afternoon, and I should be back at Sugarwood. But if the sap started running again, who knew how long it would be before I could slip away again. It was now or never.
I put the address into my car’s GPS and followed its directions out of the police station parking lot.
After the third turn I took, the dark gray car that had been behind me at the first traffic light was still there. The anxious-panicky feeling I sometimes got slithered up from my stomach and into my throat.
Even though I was on my third turn, I’d passed multiple roads and businesses. What were the odds that someone else would be taking this exact route? It was the path to Interstate 96 and the best way to get to Grand Rapids, so it wasn’t impossible.
I still couldn’t convince the hair on my arms to lie flat, though. It was like I’d rubbed a balloon over my skin.
Pulling into the parking lot of the nearest business and going out the backside would cost me less than a minute, and my GPS would automatically recalculate my route. A slight detour was worth it for peace of mind.
I hit my turn signal and swung into the furniture store parking lot on my right. I wove my way around the building and out the rear exit onto a different street. The dark gray car would continue on its way because they hadn’t been following me, they’d lose me even though they had, or I’d know for sure that someone was tailing me.
I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and checked my rearview mirror. A dark gray car pulled slowly around the corner of the furniture store.
My hands clenched around the steering wheel, fingernails digging into the material. Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
The odds were way too long to be believed that the dark gray car had gone this way as well by coincidence. I needed to call 9-1-1 or call Erik. Which was the smarter option? Erik would send someone right away, whereas the 9-1-1 dispatcher would probably ask why I thought I was being followed, but calling Erik could put him in a bad spot again with the higher-ups who were questioning his every decision.
The car pulled out onto the road, and the sun reflected off the side. What looked like lettering glinted into view so quickly that if I’d blinked at the wrong time, I wouldn’t have seen it. The only vehicles I knew with stealth lettering were unmarked police cars, but why would a police officer be tailing me? Erik might have sent someone to tag along after me and keep an eye on me before, but there was no way he could allocate police resources that way now with an internal investigation under way.
Wait a second…I thunked my head backward into my headrest, the memory of Elise scowling at me in the police station fresh in my mind. The police weren’t tailing me. Elise Scott was. She must still think I’d had something to do with Noah’s condition.
Normally I would have been cheesed, but right now I could use it to my advantage. I didn’t relish heading off to talk to Noah’s potential bookie on my own. If Elise wanted to know what I was up to, I’d offer to let her join me. Hopefully she’d see it as an olive branch and a sign of my innocence rather than as me trying too hard to win her over.
I threw on my four-ways and pulled off to the side of the road. I rolled down my window, and as the dark gray car drew even with mine, I stuck out my arm and flagged them down.
For two full breaths, the car didn’t look like it was going to stop. It moved past me. Then the brake lights burst to life, and the car jerked to a stop. It backed up down the road until I was staring straight at the passenger’s side window.
It rolled down.
The person inside was hard to see clearly in the shadows, but Elise’s dark hair and tight bun seemed to be her trademark.
“How did you know?” she asked, her voice full of exasperation bordering on frustration.
I planted an elbow on the edge of my window. “I spotted the word Police in reflective paint.”
“I meant how did you know I was following you.”
“When you’re raised by two criminal defense attorneys who want you to follow in their footsteps, you’re drilled from the time you can talk to notice details, especially ones that seem out of the ordinary.” I shrugged. “That, and I’m paranoid.”
Elise huffed a sigh. “Would you tell me where you were headed if I asked?”
I gave her my best calling-a-truce smile. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you with me.”
Elise decided I should ride with her rather than the other way around, which wasn’t all that unexpected. Since she was convinced I’d whacked Noah in the head with something hard enough to crack his skull, she wasn’t likely to let me drive her out to who knew where. If I was riding with her in a police cruiser, she maintained a certain level of control and safety.
We left my car in the furniture store parking lot, and I gave her the name and address of where I’d been headed.
“Hot date with a new boyfriend now that Noah’s no use to you anymore?” Elise asked.
Her tone was ambiguous enough that, had I not known already how she felt about me, I wouldn’t have known whether to interpret it as biting or teasing.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek—hard. Just because she chose to be snarky didn’t mean I had to be. Had to remember that. “I’m actually hoping to find Noah’s bookie.”
The car swerved slightly and I grabbed the arm rest. Note to self: Don’t drop surprising information on someone who’s driving.
Before Elise could answer, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and pulled the car off onto the shoulder. Whoever was calling, she didn’t want to put it through the car. Were police cruisers even equipped with Bluetooth? Maybe I was reading too much into it.
“Hey, sweetie,” Elise said to whoever was on the other end, her voice measurably softer than when she’d spoken to me.
She tilted her shoulders away from me. “No, don’t worry. I promise the tooth fairy will still come even if you couldn’t find your tooth.”
Another pause as she must have been giving the child she was talking to a chance to reply.
“I’ll be home before bedtime, okay?” she said. “Now go wash your face, and Grammie will help you with your spelling.”
When she ended the call, she pulled back out onto the road, and at first, she refused to even look at me.
Finally she shot a hard look in my direction. “I don’t spend a lot of time talking to my kids while I’m at work. But I’m a single mom, and I don’t want them to worry I’ve taken off like their dad did.”
She wouldn’t get criticism from me, but I didn’t know how to tell her so in a way that wouldn’t sound patronizing.
“Why are you going to see Noah’s bookie?” Elise asked, officially closing the window on any conversation about her kids. Any surprise she’d felt before was gone from her face and posture.
I tucked my hands under my thighs to warm them up. I’d forgotten my gloves in my car. “Erik…Interim Chief Higgins said there’s nothing he could do to protect Noah from whoever might have hurt him until the situation is declared a crime. The only person I know of who’d want to hurt Noah is his bookie.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t going to tell Elise about the pictures of the girl-woman when Erik hadn’t wanted to see them. “I figure
d that if I paid Noah’s debt, he’d be safe.”
“I see,” Elise said in a way that reminded me eerily of Mark when he didn’t know how to respond to whatever I’d just said.
Her lips thinned, and we rode the rest of the way to the Bar & Grill in an awkward silence. At least I found it awkward. I’d never enjoyed long silences to begin with, and certainly not with someone I barely knew. My instinct was to fill it with small talk, but Elise didn’t strike me as a small-talk kind of woman.
She pulled the cruiser into a parking space to the side of the Bar & Grill.
She sat still instead of immediately releasing her seat belt and reaching for the door handle. “Do you want me to wait in the car?”
I paused with my own hand on the button for my seat belt. I’d assumed she’d insist on coming in and listening to everything I said in case I’d hired George Abbott to “deal with” Noah for some infraction.
Elise swept a hand down the front of her uniform. “He might not admit to being Noah’s bookie if I’m with you.”
Oohhh. I saw what she meant now. She must be working the odds in her head, and she’d decided that if it wasn’t me who attacked Noah, the bookie was the next best option. She’d oblige me if it also helped her. “That might be for the best. I’ll tell you if he says anything that could help the case.”
I climbed from the car and went in the front door. Inside it smelled like French fries and beer, and the Bar & Grill was more crowded than I would have expected for a weekday afternoon. At least half the tables were filled, and ninety percent of the patrons were men.
Large-screen TVs lined all the walls, tuned in to different sporting events, from horse racing in what looked to be Florida to hockey. A couple of the stations even seemed to be playing foreign games, since I wasn’t sure what game it was where men ran around with sticks that had little nets on the end.
