“Did something happen with you and Hal?”
Andi sniffled and shrugged. “Hal was a mistake . . . one in a long line of mistakes.”
When she began to cry, Carly put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, why don’t I make some coffee and we’ll talk about it?”
Andrea looked up and nodded. “I could use some of your coffee. I miss it. You make the best.”
Carly stood and walked to the kitchen, praying for strength and the right words. She’d never seen Andi shed a tear over any guy. Something else was going on, and she wanted to do and say the right things for her friend.
While she started the coffee, Andrea went to the bathroom to wash her face. As the coffee dripped, Carly grabbed a couple of mugs and wiped off a clean counter for something to do. Never having seen Andrea in such a state, she was at a loss. She remembered her mother’s words: “She needs to know she’s loved. And job or no job, man or no man, Jesus will always love her.”
Carly drank her coffee black but knew Andrea liked flavored creamers. She opened the refrigerator and thanked God there was still some creamer inside. She put it on the counter with the mugs and a spoon. Andi came into the kitchen just as the coffee beeped finished.
Carly filled their mugs and waited at the table while Andi doctored hers. “So what’s going on?”
Andi sat down and took a sip. “I was with Hal yesterday when you put out that 998—that you and Nick were shot at.” She shivered. “I didn’t realize how scared I was that something could happen to you.” She choked back a sob. “Oh, Carly, I couldn’t bear that, especially with the way I talked to you the other day.” The tears fell.
Carly didn’t know what to do but let her cry. When she composed herself, Andi looked at her over the rim of her mug and said, “I almost lost everything—my job, my self-respect, and my best friend. You’re like the sister I’ve never had, and I’ve been so stupid.”
“Andi, I—”
She held a hand up. “No, let me finish. I never got over my mom’s crash. You remember how she almost died?” Carly nodded, and Andrea continued. “John walked away unscathed. And then he was in church praying for her when it was his fault she was hurt so bad!” She grabbed a napkin and blew her nose. “But you’re not John, and I was treating you as if you were. I’ve always thought Christians were hypocrites, but if I’m honest, I know you and your mom aren’t. But I’m reserving judgment on Nick for now, okay?”
Carly relaxed a tad. “Fair enough.”
“Bottom line, when you told me you might reconcile, I just panicked. I don’t want to live alone. I hate that there isn’t someone to talk to when I come home, someone who listens and understands and who doesn’t want anything from me. I even hate that there’s no dog wandering around getting hair on everything.”
She paused but Carly stayed silent, the lump in her throat telling her she’d be as big a mess as Andi if she tried to speak.
Andi swallowed and continued in a broken voice. “I envy what you and Nick have. I know you think I hate him because he cheated. But as twisted as it sounds, I hate him because he might really have changed enough for the second time around to work. When you broke up and moved back in with me, I’d forgotten how great we got along and how good a friend you were. Even though I called you judgmental, you were anything but. You just accepted me, no matter how out of control I got. I—” Her composure broke again, and this time so did Carly’s.
Carly got up and grabbed her weeping friend in a hug even as her own tears fell. “Hey, you are the sister I never had, Andi. Of course I accept you. I love you.”
The two sobbed, and Carly felt Andi’s tight grip. After a few minutes, Andi pulled away and reached for the box of Kleenex on the counter. “I have to get through this; I really do. There is so much that needs to be said.” She blew her nose again.
Carly smiled and took the box. “You better get it all out. Look what you did to me,” she said as she took several tissues, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes.
Sniffling, Andi said, “I’m sorry I stormed out of here the other day. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I may be losing you as a roommate, but I don’t want to lose you as a friend. I’ll even be nice to Nick.”
“Andi, all is forgiven. I was never mad at you—a lot frustrated, but not mad. And I don’t want to lose my best friend either. There’s just one thing I need to get off my chest.”
“What?”
“I really think you should reconsider your relationship with Sergeant Barrett.” She made a face and felt the knot in her stomach evaporate when Andi laughed.
“You’re so right. There’s a lot in my life that needs to change.”
Carly refilled their mugs, and they left the kitchen to get comfortable in the living room.
“Tell me about the kidnapper bringing the baby here and everything that happened yesterday.”
Carly did. When she finished, Andrea leaned forward, brow crinkled in a frown. “So your pastor is actually the kidnapper’s uncle?”
“Yeah, he was scared away from fighting for her ten years ago. His faith failed him. He’s really torn up about it.”
“But he’s still the pastor?”
“Yeah, of course. Why?”
“Well, gosh, Carly, he’s the pastor. How can his faith fail? Isn’t he supposed to be perfect? That doesn’t happen to you and Nick.”
Carly put her coffee down. “What do you mean? Of course it does. No one has perfect faith 100 percent of the time, especially not me and Nick.” The bumpy road she and Nick had traveled to reconciliation came to mind. “Why would you think that?”
Andi sat back, looking perplexed. “I don’t know—you’re so good, so noble, not at all like John. I figured to go to your church, to be a Christian, would mean being more perfect than I can ever be.”
Carly laughed. “No, no, no. God doesn’t ask for perfect people. He doesn’t even demand perfect faith. We can’t be good enough or perfect enough. We have to trust Christ to be good enough for us.”
Andi’s expression was one of interest, and that was the opening Carly needed. As they continued to talk, the morning dawned bright and clear, and before the pot of coffee was finished, Carly shared with Andrea about a love that was perfect, that would never leave her or let her down.
33
IT WAS 9 A.M., and Andi had left for a meeting with her union rep over her suspension. Carly was tired but happy that she and Andi had mended their relationship, and she didn’t want to go back to bed. She had decided on a swim when her phone buzzed with a text from Alex: Need your help.
As she started to respond, she realized that Alex had not been around any of the chaos she was pulled from bed for the morning before. Maybe he’d sleep through a fire, but if nothing else, the 998 should have gotten him up. As a spark of worry grew, she typed back, Where are you?
Home. Come here.
On my way.
She’d just put the phone down to take a quick shower when it buzzed again. This time it was Nick calling.
“Glad you’re up. I thought I’d come by and take you to breakfast. We can take Maddie to the dog beach after.”
She told him about Alex’s text.
“Ohhh, I guess food can wait. I’ll come get you—we’ll go together.”
Fifteen minutes later, Carly climbed into the plain car Nick was now driving. She noticed he’d come prepared again. “Glad you don’t think I’m overreacting,” she said.
“No, you’re right. Alex has been all over this from the start. For him to not show up yesterday is odd.” He waited a beat, then continued. “After all, he considers you a rock star.”
“Ha. You jealous?”
Nick gave her a warm smile. “What? Because he seems to have totally forgotten that I was out there in Riverside too? Nah.”
Carly chuckled. As they turned the corner onto Alex’s street, Carly saw the black Town Car parked in front of his house. And two men were getting in it.
“Nick.”
“I see them,
” Nick said as he slowed the car.
Carly grabbed the car radio and gave dispatch the information. She was about to read the plate when the car’s horn sounded and it started rolling forward.
“He’s going to split,” Nick said, punching the accelerator.
The car burned rubber and took off down the street.
“We have to check Alex,” Carly said, and Nick took his foot off the gas.
Just then a man ran out of Alex’s house and across the yard in the direction the black car had gone.
Nick punched it and pulled the wheel to the right to cut in front of the man on the sidewalk. The man slammed into the front fender and rolled over the hood.
Carly’s door was partway open as Nick threw the car into park. Both of them leaped out at the same time.
By the time Carly rounded the front of the car, Nick had one of the man’s arms. She jumped in and grabbed the other. Together they lifted the cursing man from the ground and bent him over the hood of the plain car. Nick gripped his wrist in a tight control hold. Carly finally heard the sirens of responding officers.
Nick turned to her. “I’ve got him. Go check Alex.”
Carly paused only long enough to grab her backpack from the front seat. Jogging to Alex’s door, she pulled her handgun from the pack and held it at the ready when she reached the porch.
The door was open. From the steps she called out, “Alex?”
Fear blossomed in her gut. Sperry was desperate enough to burn down his own apartment building. What would he do to Alex?
Sucking in a breath, she stepped cautiously over the threshold about the same time the sirens came to a stop and she knew backup was there.
“In here.”
As she turned toward the living room, her breath whooshed out with relief. Alex was on the floor, one elbow on a chair while the other hand held a cloth over his face, and he was okay.
“What were they after?”
Alex gave a weak shake of his head. “They pushed their way in right after I texted you. Talk about déjà vu—I thought I’d be safe from intrusions like this with Drake and Tucker in jail.”
Just then Nick came rushing in. “Do you need medics, Alex?”
“No. I think I’ll live, though I probably need a dentist. I think I’ll lose a tooth or two.” He dropped the cloth from his face and Carly saw that he’d been smacked around. When he started to get up, Carly and Nick stepped forward to help him. “First a shotgun in the face and now a beating in my own living room.”
“The uniforms have the guy. Looks like Boxer, one of the three who work for Sperry, but he won’t say why he’s here. And he wants his lawyer.”
“Three guesses who his lawyer is,” Carly said in a huff.
“Cynical today, aren’t you?” Alex said with a lopsided grin.
“I’m that and more. What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain. Help me into the kitchen.”
Once he was seated in the kitchen, Carly found a plastic bag and put together an ice pack.
“What did they want from you?” Carly asked once Trejo had the ice on his face and they were all seated at the table.
He ran a hand over his puffy face, new bruises forming over old ones, and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I’ll tell you about them in a minute, but first I’d better tell you what happened last night. You aren’t going to be happy with me, but I saw Mary Ellen.”
“What?”
“She came here. She got my address from the registration in the glove box, and she came to give me my car back and apologize for taking it—and to ask for my help.”
“Alex! Why didn’t you call? She’s wanted for kidnapping, for heaven’s sake—”
“She’s a scared kid. She was babbling about a fire and a threat and barely getting away. What would you have done?”
“I would have called the police! We need to get to the bottom of this. We can keep her safe.”
He sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have done that, but I wanted to find out what was going on, and I thought I could do a better job getting information from her than the cops could.” He shrugged and then winced. “The girl is street smart maybe, and definitely a survivor, but at the core she’s still a kid. You said yourself that you didn’t think she planned and executed the kidnapping on her own.”
“I still want her in custody so we can get some answers! For two cents I’d arrest you for aiding and abetting. She gave you your car back?”
“Yeah, it’s in the garage. She said she’s sorry; she feels responsible for Harper’s death, says it was her fault he got arrested. He was the only person she knew she could trust. As far as the baby goes, she did her best to take care of him. She said she’s only one step ahead of Sperry. That unless she gives him back what she took, he’ll kill her.”
“He’ll probably kill her anyway if he has the chance. Did she tell you what she has that he wants?”
He looked away.
“Alex, did she say what she took that belongs to him?”
He sighed. “I hate being a snitch. But yeah, she did say she took something out of his safe. Apparently she had keys that Harper took from Sperry. He had told her once there was something in the safe at the house in Riverside that she could use, something that would be insurance.”
“What?”
“I didn’t get a chance to ask.”
“You guys had a nice long conversation and you didn’t ask her what she took?”
“Look, Edwards, I thought about asking and I thought about calling you when she was at my house, but I knew she’d bolt. What was I supposed to do, tie her up? Anyway, I fed her and listened to her tell me what she wanted to tell me and I hoped to talk her into seeing you, but then the storm troopers came.”
“The storm troopers?”
“Yeah, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They came to my house and practically hauled me away in handcuffs for being a victim.”
“ICE? Why did they want to talk to you?” Carly wondered if that was why Wiley was so ready to dismiss Las Playas PD, because ICE was involved. Made sense because of the human trafficking aspect of Sperry’s crime.
Alex leaned back, his puffy lip causing him to speak with a sort of lisp. “She’d been here about an hour when two ICE agents knocked on my door and said they wanted to talk to me about what happened out in Riverside. Now, I don’t mind talking to them, but Mary Ellen was sitting in my kitchen. Call me paranoid, but I wasn’t going to tell them she was there. I tried to get rid of them, put them off until later. I guess they took my attitude as evasive, and next thing I knew they were asking me if I wanted to be arrested. So I poked my head in the kitchen and told her I would be right back, make yourself at home, that kind of thing. ICE kept me four hours, and when I got home, she was gone.”
“Four hours? What did they want to know?”
“Every minute detail I could remember about being in that cellar.” He moved the ice pack to a different spot on his face. “They wanted to know everything the illegals said, everything Grant said, and everything I saw and heard. I must have repeated the story twenty times before they decided they had it all and let me go.”
“And when you got home, Mary Ellen was gone.”
He nodded. “I waited, hoping she’d come back. But when I realized she wasn’t going to, I texted you to tell you what happened. Then there was a knock, and Boxer pushed his way in. He had a friend with him, a big guy with a gold tooth in the front.”
“Just the two of them?”
“Three of them came to the door. The third guy—” he put the ice on his eye—“Gold Tooth called him Casper. He must have been the driver because right after they grabbed me and had me restrained, Gold Tooth told him to go get the car ready. After I told them I couldn’t help them, I guess they weren’t sure what their next move would be. Gold Tooth left to call the boss and told Boxer to hang on a minute.” Alex moaned and again moved the ice pack around his face.
Carly scrubbed her cheeks with her h
ands and looked at Nick, who had been listening quietly.
“We have to tell Nelson,” he said to Alex. “You could be in trouble for not calling when Mary Ellen was here. For all you know, you might have saved yourself a beating.”
“I’m a big boy. I can take the consequences.”
“She didn’t give you any idea about where she’d been staying?”
“I got the impression it wasn’t in one place. I asked her about relatives or friends and she just shrugged.”
“How is she getting around without your car?”
“I don’t know. I told her to go to you; I said she could trust you—after all, she left the baby with you.”
Carly’s hands flew to her hips. “Yeah, by the way, how’d she get my address?”
“I have GPS in my car. Your address is on it.” He hiked his shoulder sheepishly.
Carly just shook her head.
“Did Sperry’s goons know Mary Ellen had been here?” Nick asked.
Trejo frowned and then winced. “They acted like they did. I mean, they kept asking me for some package she left me, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, I got the impression they were bluffing.”
“They weren’t bluffing on your face.”
“I know, but it seemed like they were trying to find out how much I knew about the girl. The car was in the garage; they didn’t know she’d brought it back.” He looked from Nick to Carly. “They might be shooting in the dark, trying to find out anything they can. They might visit you next.” He pointed at Carly.
Carly glanced at Nick, and she knew from the expression on his face that he was thinking the same thing she was. He spoke it out loud.
“Or they may visit Jonah.”
34
“WHO’S JONAH?” Alex asked Carly as Nick pulled out his cell phone to call the station. One of the officers who had responded to their radio call had come into the house, and Carly asked him to do the paperwork to recover Alex’s car.
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