by Jeri Odell
“So what did you discover?” Sarge gazed in Eli’s direction.
“The janitorial service cleans the building every Saturday.”
“That’s out. We’d stall the case for another week.” His eyes shifted. “Delanie?”
“The receptionist, Lisa Konica, is a single mom with two teenage boys. Both have had minor scrimmages with the law. She needs her job. I think she’s the way for us to go.” She glanced at Eli, looking as if she expected an argument.
“What’s your plan?” Sarge asked.
Delanie shared her idea.
“You have anything better?”
Eli shook his head. “The night guard wouldn’t necessarily have access to files.”
“All right, then. You two head out and conquer the world. Get the warrants and paperwork in place. I’ll arrange for a temp to step in this afternoon. I know the perfect policewoman for the job. Name’s Mildred. She’ll whip their office into shape in no time.”
“We’ll get it all done before noon,” Eli promised.
They took care of all of the arrangements and at noon were waiting outside the bank building to tail the receptionist. Other than the frosty silence, she and Eli were still simpatico. They worked well together. And other than the empty ache in her heart and the sadness in his eyes, she could almost pretend life was status quo.
“She’s leaving the building,” announced an officer planted near the elevator on the third floor. Eli glanced at Delanie, and she gave him a nod, letting him know her earpiece worked and she’d heard.
Another announcement came from the cop planted on the first floor. Eli had parked near the receptionist’s car, and they’d trail her off the property in case those security goons were anywhere near the site.
The plan was flowing perfectly. Lisa Konica climbed into her car and drove out. Eli followed at a respectable distance.
“Target en route. Thanks, guys,” Delanie said into the radio.
“Over and out, then.”
“Wonder where she’ll go for lunch.”
Eli didn’t respond to her ponderings other than giving a shrug.
The woman drove toward Delanie’s part of town, turning into Plum Tree Plaza.
“I’ll bet she’s going to Emerald City.”
❧
Eli glanced up at the sign. EMERALD CITY ESPRESSO & TEA CAFÉ. No surprise that Delanie knew about this place. Any spot in Reno that sold designer coffee, she had a handle on.
The receptionist entered the restaurant with her purse and a book. “Let’s give her space—let her order and settle in. Then we’ll join her.”
“Okay.”
They waited a few minutes to walk in, then got in line to order at the counter. Delanie wore a cap and had her hair up. Without the belly and her trademark hair, they figured the woman wouldn’t recognize her until they approached.
Eli perused the whiteboard with the menu printed on it. They had soups, salads, sandwiches, quiches, and pastries. Girl food, if you asked him. Delanie would call this place quaint; he, however, thought it was just plain weird, yuppified to the max.
The one nice touch was a fireplace with a roaring fire. Perhaps Ms. Konica would grab one of those plush couches near the fire.
Once she ordered, she settled in a cozy chair in the corner and opened her book. He and Delanie ordered drinks and sat in a chair on each side of the unsuspecting receptionist.
“Excuse me.” Delanie removed her hat, her silky locks falling over her shoulders.
“You! Get out of here right now, or I’m calling the police,” Ms. Konica hissed.
“At your service.” Eli whipped out his badge. Delanie followed his lead.
Ms. Konica swallowed hard and laid down her book. “What is this about?”
“Your employer.” Delanie leaned forward. “What can you tell us about his activities?”
“Look.” She paused when the waitress brought her salad. “Thank you.” Ms. Konica set the salad aside on the coffee table. “I do my job, nothing more, nothing less, and I don’t get involved in the clients’ personal dealings.”
“Are you familiar with the term accessory?” Eli asked.
She glared at him. “I work for an attorney; of course I know and understand legal terms.” She acted calm, but her quivering voice belied her demeanor.
“You give us what we need, and we’ll keep you out of what comes down.” Eli leaned toward her.
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m a single mother, and I’m all my boys have.” She sniffed. “Their dad’s been MIA for years. They need me.”
Delanie patted the woman’s hand. “We know that, and we want to keep you out of this. There are several ways this can play out—the choice is yours. You can give us the information we seek about the baby-selling ring, or we can charge you and run you in.”
Terror filled Ms. Konica’s face, and Eli knew she was aware of more than she’d admitted to knowing.
Delanie continued. “You go back to work this afternoon, and we gather the needed evidence to make the bust. Choice two, you call in this afternoon with a long-term excuse—mother with cancer, death in the family far away in another state. Offer to set up a temp. We send in an undercover policewoman. In the meantime, you and your boys are taken to a safe house and kept under twenty-four-hour surveillance until this is over. It’s your call.”
Ms. Konica buried her face in her hands.
“I know this is tough.” Eli’s patience wore thin. “But you should have resigned the minute you knew your boss was involved in anything even slightly shady, let alone a class B felony.”
She raised her head and glared at Eli. “That’s easy for you to say. Do you have two kids to feed and no one in the world to depend on except yourself?” She spat out the words. “Mr. Benavides pays me very well.”
Delanie also glared at Eli. “I’m sure what Detective Logan is trying to say is that, unfortunately, you’re in a difficult position, which results from working for a man who isn’t honest.”
Ms. Konica nodded her head. “Can you send us to Kansas? My mother is there, and her health is failing.”
Delanie glanced at Eli. He deemed her far too compassionate. “We’ll see what we can do. Meanwhile, call your boss,” Eli instructed.
She pulled out her cell phone, searched her phone book, and found her boss’s cell number. Her hand was unsteady. She hit TALK and put the phone to her ear. “Mr. B., it’s Lisa. My mom’s health is failing, and I need to catch a flight to Kansas this afternoon. I’m having a temp sent in.” She paused. “Thank you, sir. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. I’ll keep in touch.” Her breathing was hiccuppy, indicating she’d been crying. Everything about the call rang genuine.
“Delanie, why don’t you visit with Ms. Konica while I call Sarge?”
Delanie nodded and encouraged the woman to eat her lunch.
Eli stepped outside. “Sarge, Eli. Send Mildred in.”
“Good job.” Sarge’s voice boomed over the cell phone.
“Thanks. Delanie wants to know if we can send Ms. Konica and her boys to Kansas.”
“Not yet. After it goes down, we’ll talk. Right now I want to keep an eye on her. Make certain she doesn’t decide to alert her boss.”
“Got it.” Frankly, Eli didn’t feel the woman deserved any special favors.
“We’ll get Mildred in there and have you and Delanie posted in the office you used the other day. She’ll be wired, and her code word will be blue. You hear ‘blue’—you move.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll meet you there this afternoon, and we’ll get set up. I’ve got warrants for video feed and bugs. The whole crew will be there at two, ready to go.”
“See you at two.”
Eli returned to the café. Ms. Konica was finishing her salad. Two plainclothes officers showed up to escort her to pick up the boys and get them settled.
Eli recapped his phone conversation with Sarge on his and Delanie’s drive back. He dropped her off to chan
ge into a business suit, then ran home to do the same. When he picked her up not thirty minutes later, they headed back to the bank building.
The afternoon bustled with activity. Luckily George Benavides had court, leaving them open access to the office for a couple of hours.
Sarge brought Mildred over for a quick introduction. Eli wasn’t sure what he expected, but a chubby, fiftysomething with attitude wasn’t it.
“So you two young things got my back, right?”
“Right,” Eli affirmed.
Delanie echoed his answer.
“Okay, enough niceties. I’ve got to get over there and on the phone with Lisa Konica so I can pick her brain and learn the ropes. I gotta do this job well so old Georgie will keep me around.” Mildred smiled and was gone.
By four, everything was in place. Eli and Delanie could watch the office from the monitors across the hall, seeing and hearing everything in the waiting room. They’d placed bugs in the attorney’s office, as well.
“Anyone asks,” Sarge informed Delanie and Eli, “you’re private investigators, recently leaving a bigger firm and starting your own.”
Both nodded.
“Mildred’s hours are eight to five, so yours will run seven thirty to five thirty. No need to come in to the station; just be here every morning with your lunch in tow. The less attention you draw to yourselves, the better, so lay low.”
“Got it.” Eli saluted Sarge.
“Mildred will keep her wire on until she’s safely in her car. Her safety is priority one; catching the crooks is number two.”
Sarge looked both Eli and Delanie up and down. “I hardly recognize you two. No need for the executive attire if you’re both private eyes; so come to work tomorrow looking less like lawyers and more like MacGyver.”
Eli laughed. “I’d rather look like him any day than wear these duds.” He pointed at the only suit he owned.
Sarge left, and Eli and Delanie hung out watching monitors. George Benavides returned and greeted Mildred.
“He seems pleased,” Delanie said, watching their interaction on her screen.
“Yeah, what a great decoy. Who’d ever guess she’s one of us?”
Delanie glanced at Eli. “Do you think he was suspicious?”
“I think anyone in his boat would have to be—all the time. That’s a rotten way to live, always looking over your shoulder.” Eli’s own words convicted him. That was exactly how he lived—never trusting, never opening up, keeping himself closed off from anyone over fourteen, always looking over his shoulder for the next raw deal to hit his life. His heart pounded faster at the discovery.
He and Delanie waited in silence until both George and Mildred left the office. They exited together and walked to the garage. On the way George asked her about her family, how long she’d lived in Reno, those sorts of things.
“She’s perfect,” Delanie said in awe.
Mildred was a natural, so calm, so real, so unassuming. She bid “Georgie” good-bye at the elevator. They could hear the heels of her pumps clicking against the cement. Once Mildred was inside her car, they heard the buzzer, the engine turn over, and the seat belt click shut.
“Sitting duck safely in her car,” Mildred quipped. “Until tomorrow, over and out.”
“That’s our cue.” Eli removed his headphones and shut down his computer. “Ready?”
He drove back to the department so Delanie could pick up her car and he, his bike.
“I’ll meet you in our new office in the morning. ’Night, Eli.” Delanie exited her side of the car before he had a chance to get out and open her door.
“See ya.”
He decided to go straight to the youth center. Tonight was labeled family night, so all of the guys stayed home, helped with chores, played games, whatever. He was teaching them to initiate relationships and make things happen within their families. He recognized the irony in that but wanted them to have better memories than he did as a boy.
When Eli entered the center, he spotted Chief Cooper. Eli sauntered over to him, hoping to appear casual. Inside, a million questions rolled around. “I was hoping you’d be here. Can we talk?”
“You bet.” The chief shook his hand. “I haven’t taken the time to tell you how good it is to have you and your brood here so often.”
So he’d noticed.
“Let’s go in the office. We can shut the door and have some privacy.”
Eli had never been in the office. It contained a desk and two upholstered chairs. The chief settled in one and motioned for Eli to do the same.
“What’s on your mind, son?”
Chapter 12
Eli sat in one of the wingback chairs facing the chief. “I had some questions regarding your message a few weeks ago—why bad things happen to good people and vice versa.”
“I’ll do my best to answer.”
“I assume Delanie already told you my story and my struggles with God.”
The chief had a blank expression. “No. The only thing she’s shared with me is your expertise as a cop and how much she’s enjoyed working with you.”
Though he fought it, the revelation touched his heart with that warm, fuzzy Delanie feeling. “I just assumed you taught that lesson because I’d shared those same questions with your daughter the day before.”
Chief Cooper smiled. “Purely a God-thing, son. I had no idea you struggled with those issues, but God knew. Maybe He’s beckoning you to Himself. Did He use me to answer some of your questions?”
“God knew. Maybe He’s beckoning you. . .” The words reverberated through his head and his heart. You’re proving to me that You’re real, aren’t You? “You answered some of my questions, but now I have even more.” Eli filled him in on the details of his background—the ugly truths of his life.
The chief’s compassionate eyes matched his daughter’s exactly. “I’m sorry, son. No boy of twelve should have to deal with those kinds of things. I’d stake my life on the fact that God’s heart was as broken as yours. I believe His perfect plan for twelve-year-old boys would be flying kites and playing with puppies, not drugs, funerals, and missing mothers.”
His words brought tears to Eli’s eyes but also comfort to his heart. “If what you said is true, that bad things happen because of man’s sinful choices and not because God wills them, can God forgive me for all the things I’ve said against Him?”
“He can, and He will. All you have to do is ask. Have you heard the story of the prodigal son?”
Eli shook his head. “I don’t think so, not that I can remember, anyway.”
Chief Cooper proceeded to recite the story of a boy who’d taken his inheritance, left home, and squandered it on parties and friends. “When he had nothing left and hunger forced him to eat with the pigs, he decided to return home, if only as a hired hand, and beg for his father’s mercy.”
Eli didn’t exactly understand what was happening, but he felt different inside. His heart had softened somehow over the last couple of months as he’d spent time here at the youth center—softened toward God. He no longer felt angry with Him, no longer blamed Him for all of the rotten stuff in his life.
The chief’s voice had grown softer and a bit raspy. “While the boy was still a long way off, the father ran to him. He threw a party in his son’s honor. ‘My son was lost and now he’s found.’ ” He swallowed hard. “I’ve been that boy, Eli. I chose what I thought was the good life.” He cleared his throat. “The good life isn’t women and parties. The good life is the joy and peace that come from walking in obedience and living for the Lord. And just as He did for me, He’s waiting to welcome you home.”
Eli could barely breathe past the wall of tears lodged in his throat. “How?” He could scarcely get anything else out. “How do I find my way home?” A single tear rolled down his cheek.
“Just talk to God like you’re talking to me. Tell Him you want to accept His forgiveness for. . .name a few things that come to mind. Tell Him you want to come home.”
/> Eli nodded.
“Would you like a few minutes alone with God?”
Again he bobbed his head, unable to speak. His throat burned.
“I’ll give you about thirty minutes, and then I’ll come back and we can pray together.” The chief grabbed a Bible off the desk and flipped through it. He handed it open to Eli and pointed to a passage. “Here’s the story if you want to read it for yourself.” He quietly shut the door on his way out.
Eli hung his head and cried as he hadn’t cried since Ronny’s funeral. He listed the sins that came to mind in his conversation with God and asked Him to forgive them. Just as he couldn’t see the wind but often felt its presence, he knew God was right there, and he experienced His love.
After he finished praying for himself and his dad, he reread the story in Luke 15. Eli understood not being worthy to be called God’s son, but he also knew that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, he was indeed worthy. As he read in verse twenty-four, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” Eli knew he’d been found, and he, too, felt like celebrating.
The person he’d most like to celebrate with was Delanie, but that wouldn’t work. He asked God to help him forgive his brother, his mom, his dad, and all of the other people who’d hurt and disappointed him along the way. He longed to find freedom from yesterday and freedom from his feelings for Delanie.
Chief Cooper returned and hugged Eli and then prayed for him, asking God to grow Eli into a man of the Word, a man of prayer, and a man of integrity like Daniel. After his prayer he presented Eli with a brand-new Bible. “Start with John. And remember life is going to happen—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and through it all, God’s provisions can be seen if we look for them.”
“I’ll remember that, sir.”
The chief stopped, his hand on the door handle. “And when you’re ready, I’d like you to share your testimony. Who knows? It might be just what someone else needs to hear.”
Eli grinned. He felt a hundred pounds lighter. “Will you give me a couple of weeks?”
