Random Acts of Malice (Holly Anna Paladin Mysteries Book 3)

by Christy Barritt

  “Haven’t we had enough of parking lots?” My feeble attempt at a joke fell flat.

  Jamie ignored me, looking at me instead with determination in her gaze. “Talk to me.”

  My smile faltered, and I glanced down at my hands, trying to find the words. “Things weren’t supposed to work out like this for Chase and me.”

  “Where’s all that optimism you’re known for?”

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever really had my heart broken before, Jamie. I’ve always been so careful with guys. I saved my first kiss for the man I was going to marry.”

  “Chase.” Jamie sighed. “You’re in love with him. Of course you’re upset. If you weren’t upset, then something would be wrong with you.”

  “It’s just hard to let go and accept change sometimes. I originally wanted to help him, but now I’m starting to think that’s a bad idea. He wants space, so I should give it to him.”

  “Keep praying about it. And remember—we still don’t have all the facts.”

  “There’s also the dead body. That has made all of this even more complicated.”

  “The police are handling that. We did our part, albeit a bit unconventionally.”

  I leaned back in the seat, grateful to turn my thoughts away from my broken heart for a moment. “Let me just think out loud for a minute, because none of this makes sense. Chase is seen with Peyton at the track. Chase leaves the track. Men follow him and leave a gun by his Jeep. The men also leave a body, most likely shot with the gun left near Chase’s Jeep. The said men then call the police. Fast-forward to the next day. Chase is heatedly arguing with a man.”

  “And the Creeper Van finds us at the track. Don’t forget that.”

  “How can I? Add all that, and what do you have? I’m clueless. These secrets are killing me.”

  “Only time will give us the answers.”

  I rubbed my forehead, knowing her advice was spot on. “These are going to be two of the longest weeks of my life.”

  Jamie cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. “Girl, it wasn’t that long ago that doctors gave you less than a year to live. Are you sure these two weeks will be the hardest and longest?”

  I leaned back and sighed. “When I thought I had only a year to live, every moment seemed to go by too quickly.” I frowned. “Now that I’m waiting to hear about Chase, time is dragging. Life is complicated like that.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?”

  “I’m just going to return to normal life, Jamie.” I shook my head with determination. “I’m going to forget about everything I’ve seen. I’m going to let Chase come back to me with answers. I’m going to let the police figure out what happened to the man left in the woods. It’s the only solution I can live with. I can’t continue to spy on my boyfriend. And, since I can’t speculate on murder, I’m going to have to face the fact that I can’t solve the world’s problems.”

  “Admitting that is half the battle.”

  I elbowed my friend. “When the time comes, when Chase returns home, I’ll own up to my mistakes. Maybe he’ll own up to his also.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, my throat constricted.

  “What is it?” Jamie asked.

  I pointed to the traffic light. “It’s the panel van from every horror movie ever made.”

  “What?”

  “The van that dumped the dead body. It’s right there.”

  Chapter Seven

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I mumbled, panic trying to seize me.

  Jamie’s bottom lip dropped as she shook her head and stared at the van. “It doesn’t make sense how they located us. It’s like we have bright, flashing lights saying, ‘Over here!’”

  She had a point. There was something more going on here. We’d lost that van in Louisville, and somehow the driver had found us again. I didn’t have time to ponder it now.

  “I think we should ditch the van,” I mumbled. “At least for the moment. It’s too recognizable to them.”

  “Listen to you—sounding all professional and everything.” Jamie looked me up and down like I’d morphed into a different person. “I agree. Maybe we should distance ourselves from the van and see what happens.”

  I glanced around, trying to assess my options. It was times like this I wished I did have some Navy SEAL training. Finally, my eyes stopped on a building. “Think we can make it to Burgerville over there?”

  “I say it’s worth a try.” She patted the dashboard. “Be safe, Love Bug.”

  “Since when do you call your van Love Bug?”

  “I didn’t until now. Okay, let’s go.”

  Carefully, we climbed out of the van. We remained low, ducking behind other vehicles as we hurried across the parking lot. Hopefully, those men would assume that we’d gone into Walmart. That was, if they even saw our van at all. It was dark, and there were a lot of cars here. Really, the odds of them finding us were small.

  I popped my head up to check their status. As if in response to my thought, the van turned into the shopping-center lot.

  My stomach sank. How were they tracking us?

  There was so much here that didn’t make sense. I didn’t have time to squat and analyze at the moment. Hide first. Analyze later.

  “Jamie, they’re onto us,” I whispered, still moving toward the restaurant. “Somehow they know exactly where the van is.”

  She peered up before jerking down behind a car again. Her eyes were wide, and I could tell she wanted to do the Diva, but it was too hard to execute while in a hunched position.

  “To say I’m floored would be an understatement,” I muttered. “You just need to color me stupid right now.”

  “Stupid isn’t your color. It looks awful with your complexion.”

  Her reply surprised me so much that I snorted. “We need help—on more than one level.”

  As we came to the edge of the line of cars that concealed us, I glanced back. The van was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean much. It could be anywhere.

  I wasn’t going to stick my neck out enough to see. They had the potential to be close, and I didn’t want to give away our presence.

  Quickly, we darted across the open space between the rows of cars. We only had about five more rows to go until we reached the burger joint in the distance.

  We followed the same routine for row after row. Stop, check, go. Stop, check, go.

  Finally, we reached the safe haven of Burgerville. We straightened as we walked inside, trying to appear normal—even though we felt anything but. There were probably seven people inside, most of them eating grease-laden sandwiches and sipping bubbly, sugar-infused sodas at various tables and booths scattered throughout the space.

  The smell of grease turned my stomach. That, on top of the blaring AC, made me feel sick, almost feverish, even though I knew I wasn’t. We bypassed the counter where employees waited to take our order and grabbed a table by the window instead.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Jamie’s jaw hardly moved, almost as if she feared someone overhearing us.

  She was spooked. I hardly ever saw my brazen friend spooked.

  But we were dealing with killers here, and they weren’t exactly being secretive about their obsession with us. Back at the horse track, they hadn’t even tried to hide the fact they were following us.

  I straightened as something in the distance caught my eye. The van was creeping by Jamie’s, scoping it out to see if we were inside. “There they are. They’re looking for us.”

  “We’re in public. They wouldn’t do anything to us here, would they?” Jamie asked.

  “I hope not.” I glanced around at all the people in the restaurant. Thank goodness there were no children. But there were four college-aged adults, two middle-aged women, and a fiftysomething man who looked like he might be a trucker. Had we put all these people in danger?

  “Should we call the police?” I asked.

  “What if they ask questions about what happened at the Belmont Apartme
nts?”

  My stomach sank. She was right. The more information we revealed, the better the chance that we’d look guilty. We had to play it safe.

  How were these men continuing to find us? That’s what bothered me the most. It just didn’t make sense.

  I supposed they could have seen us fleeing the van. Or they could assume we’d come into the restaurant, since it was the closest building. Or . . . “Jamie, what if these guys are somehow tracing our cell phones, just like I’m tracing Chase?”

  She narrowed her eyes in thought. “How would they have gotten our cell information?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Jamie mumbled. “Do you still have that bag of cashews in your purse?”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “I need it.”

  I set my purse on the sticky table in front of me, trying to make a mental note to sanitize it later.

  I didn’t ask any questions. I handed it to my friend, and she emptied the nuts onto a napkin and then stuck her phone in the Ziploc bag.

  “I need yours too.”

  I fished it from my purse, gave it to her, and watched as she added my cell to the collection.

  “I’m going to put this in the bottom of the trash can in the restroom. If those men aren’t tracing us, I’ll come back and pick it up before the restaurant closes. If they are, then these men will end up in a women’s restroom.”

  “Have I ever told you that you’re brilliant?”

  “A girl can’t hear those words enough.” She did a cutesy shoulder bump but quickly sobered.

  As she disappeared into the bathroom, I kept my eyes on the parking lot. Sure enough, the van started to head this way. My heart raced at the realization. What would those men do if they got their hands on us?

  I didn’t want to find out.

  I rushed to the bathroom, almost knocked over by the obnoxious odor of bleach. “Jamie, we’ve got to go.”

  She had her nose turned up and her hand halfway down the trash can. On a normal day, she’d never reach into a public waste disposal. In a fight for her life, absolutely. “Coming.”

  We rushed out the door on the opposite side of the building. The only thing I saw was a Dumpster at the edge of the dark lot. I grabbed Jamie’s hand, and we ran in front of the drive-through window until we reached our hiding spot. In the distance, I saw the van pull up to the restaurant.

  If those men were tracking us, how exact was their location device? They’d obviously have to have money in order to afford the kind of technology that would pinpoint us down to the precise place. Based on their van, they weren’t that rich.

  The bad feeling in my gut continued to twist harder and harder, deeper and deeper.

  “They’re going inside,” I whispered. “Jamie, we’re in trouble.”

  Just then, a bleep bleep sounded directly behind us.

  I turned around and spotted a police car there.

  And based on the look in the officer’s eyes, he thought Jamie and I were up to no good.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m sorry, did you say you think someone is following you?” The police officer was on the younger side, or maybe his baby face made him look that way. But his attitude was the polar opposite of his appearance: it made him seem callous and old, like he’d heard one too many stories to easily accept what we told him.

  I knew our story sounded a little off the wall, but the officer could give us the benefit of the doubt, at least.

  Apparently, someone at the restaurant had called the police on us after surmising we’d left a suspicious package in the restroom. I couldn’t blame the caller. We had looked sketchy.

  Police lights flashed behind us, illuminating our faces. Meanwhile, the zip of traffic from the interstate created a type of static noise in the background. Every detail seemed ingrained in my head.

  “It’s true,” I told the officer. “There was a black van that followed us here from Louisville.”

  I glanced behind me. A crowd had gathered inside the restaurant at the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at us. Who needed to go to the movies when you could watch your fellow citizens be humiliated in public?

  An employee emerged holding our cell phones. His shoulders were puffed up, like he’d just cracked a major case, as he handed the cashew bag to Officer Bunch.

  “What was in this?” The office turned his nose up at the dirty bag.

  “Cashews.”

  He quickly shoved the bag toward me. “Nut allergy. Take this. Please.”

  What I really didn’t want was for Officer Bunch to ask for my name. All I had to say was “Paladin,” and he’d most likely know I was related to the state senator from Ohio. Stories like this had a tendency to make the front-page news. Reputation was very important to my family, so that turn of events wouldn’t be well received.

  The officer stared at the notes he’d jotted on his pad of paper. “And this so-called van appeared out of the blue at Wyndmyer Park in Kentucky?”

  “So-called van? I think I know what a van is. It was definitely a van.” Sarcasm, as unbecoming as it was, tinged my voice. I turned my back to the audience at the windows. “But, yes. When we pulled over for gas and saw the van pulling into the shopping center, naturally, we were frightened. The van is recognizable. We knew it was the same one.”

  “So you hid your phone in a trash can in the bathroom?” He both squinted and scrunched his nose as if disgusted.

  I sighed. This officer hadn’t even given us a chance, and that was unfortunate. Meanwhile, the real bad guys had gotten away. “I know it sounds crazy, but we thought maybe these guys were tracking our cell phones somehow.”

  “How would they have gotten ahold of your cell phone?”

  Jamie seemed to sense my rising frustration and stepped forward. “We have no idea. Remotely, maybe.”

  He shook his head, looking unconvinced. “I’m pretty sure that’s not possible.”

  I tapped my foot, ready for this crazy ride to end—all of it. I just needed to resume my boring life of working and volunteering. Part of me wondered if that was even a possibility. I knew it wasn’t, not until I’d done everything I could to help Chase.

  “Well, technology is amazing, and when you’re scared, anything seems like a possibility,” I murmured.

  His expression remained unchanged. “Where are these men now?”

  “They must have seen you here and driven away,” I said.

  He finally lowered his pad of paper. “Would you like to file a report?”

  I glanced at Jamie. Did we want to? It might be nice to have something on file. On the other hand, this might eventually link us back to the whole fiasco at the apartment complex. I couldn’t take that chance.

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” I finally said. “We don’t have a so-called license plate or even a make and model.”

  “You sure?” Officer Bunch looked like he couldn’t care less, and if he heard my so-called jab, he didn’t give any indication.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. It looks like they’re long gone now.”

  “I’ll let this go, then. This time. You two ladies stay safe and stay out of trouble.” He gave us a stern glance, something similar to what a father might give a child who denied eating out of the cookie jar.

  I didn’t bother to say thank you. Instead, we climbed back into Jamie’s van, feeling spent. What a night. What a week.

  What a life.

  Jamie cranked the van and started down the road. We’d have time to talk as we traveled. Parking lots appeared to be full of bad luck and bad memories, so I had no desire to stay here any longer than we had to.

  “I’m getting scared, Jamie,” I said. “This has all blown up.”

  “You can say that again. These guys are after us. They have to know that we know what they did.”

  “Are they trying to kill us?”

  “That’s my best guess.”

  I shivered. “What are we going
to do?”

  “We just need to sleep on it right now. I’m not thinking clearly. I only want to react.”

  We crossed the Brent Spence Bridge into Cincinnati. Just a couple of hours ago, I couldn’t wait to be home. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  My house was located only a few minutes over the bridge in an area called Price Hill. The neighborhood itself had gone downhill in the last several decades, but some buildings offered glimpses into the treasure it had been at one time. I liked to think my family home was one of those places. It was Tudor style with an immaculate lawn and a spotless interior.

  Jamie slowed as we approached my house. “Is your mom still out of town?”

  “Yeah, she’s visiting some family down in West Virginia. Why?”

  “You shouldn’t stay by yourself tonight.”

  I sucked in a breath at her implications. “You think those men know where I live?”

  “At this point I don’t know what to think. How about if we both camp out here tonight? In case they are tracking us, I don’t want to lead these guys back to my house. Especially not with my brothers being there.”

  She had three kid brothers, adopted from Haiti. She liked to act like she didn’t like them, but she was actually a mix between mama bear and mother hen when she was around them.

  “I’d actually feel a lot better if you stayed here. Thank you.”

  She found a space on the street and put the van in park. I took a glance down the road as I climbed out. I didn’t see the black van anywhere. That was good. Maybe we’d somehow lost them.

  I wished I could be confident they wouldn’t find us again.

  I doubted my theory about the cell phones now. At first I’d thought someone could have tracked them remotely, but Officer Bunch made it sound like a near impossibility. It would be a long shot. Besides that, I hadn’t been away from my phone, other than when it was in the trash can. The likelihood that someone had grabbed it and begun tracing me seemed slim.