Suddenly, I knew the whole story. Anxiety Guy's thoughts came at me in a tsunami, unbidden. The house had belonged to his recently deceased older brother, I realized, and Anxiety Guy was trying to close out the estate. There was some kind of pressure on him…
The guy stirred in the back seat, half-asleep, and I knew the rest of the story. His brother was deep in debt to people who had no sense of humor. They wanted their money, but nobody could find the cash. The deadline was tomorrow.
Anxiety Guy was moaning in his twilight sleep, fighting off demons that would become very real tomorrow. He was whimpering when I stopped the car in front of the darkened mansion.
Anxiety Guy leveraged himself out of the Prius and stumbled off in the general direction of the mansion’s front door. He was so forlorn, I couldn’t stand it any longer. My number-one rule was: don’t tell the normals about my talents. But there were exceptions.
“Hey!” I called out to my departing passenger. “It’s in the breast pocket of his leather jacket.”
The man whirled and gaped at me, open-mouthed.
I hit the gas.
A few minutes later, my app chimed one last time. Anxiety Guy had left me a $100 tip.
♦
Vonda called me the next morning for another shopping safari. She was easier for me to read now, I think because she trusted me now that I’d worked for her for a little while. Plus, she was happy today — very happy.
Okay, so I snooped. Vonda’s stream of consciousness was like listening to pop radio: lots of bling, not much depth. She was laser-focused on her looks, but not out of vanity; it was a means to an end, and that end was Uncle Ethan.
According to Jack, Schneider believed that Vonda's goal in life was to be a trophy wife. I remembered the photo in the condo, Uncle Ethan's arm casually draped around her waist. To him, it was probably just a casual gesture, a way of pulling her closer into the group; to her, it was confirmation of his growing affection. All she needed were some expensive clothes to look the part, and some time alone with him to convince him to make her the next Mrs. Uncle Ethan.
Good luck with that, sister, I thought with a smirk. If Ethan were anything like his nephew Jack, he’d see her coming at him from a mile away. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t met him yet: he was keeping most of the continental U.S. between hunter and prey.
I grinned to myself. If I drove for these people long enough, it was going to be fun to watch this soap opera unfold.
Chapter Nine
I’d promised to spend Saturday with Cody. The plan was for lunch at the casita, then a nice long hike and a late picnic in the Superstitions. My telescope was still hidden in the condo garage, so there wouldn’t be any stargazing — but I was pretty sure we could find some other way to keep ourselves occupied after supper.
It was a great plan, but we never made it past lunch.
Cody already had the barbecue charcoal glowing when I got there. We avoided talking about our weeks while he crisped up the maple bacon and tossed buttered sourdough bread on the grill. I strolled into Luna’s vegetable garden and picked succulent leaf lettuce and lush, ripe tomatoes.
As we carried our bounty indoors, Angel followed us.
“Well, hello!” I said to the cat.
Bacon, Angel purred as she wrapped herself around Cody’s legs.
“You okay?” he asked me as we carried our sandwiches to the table. As soon as Cody sat down, Angel claimed her perch across his knees.
“Just a little weirded out, I guess,” I said. It was time to come clean. I told him what I’d found in the condo.
He sat up straight in his seat. “Time to get that warrant,” he said, his jaw set.
I nodded. “Something’s going on over there,” I said. I told him about the errand I had run for Schneider.
“Receipts?” Cody asked. “He’s the CFO. I wouldn’t think he’d usually handle anything that low-level.”
I agreed. “Yeah, and why would something like that be so urgent he’d send me all the way across town for it?” A thought occurred to me. “Do you think he knew that Vonda and Lindsay would be out? Is that why he didn’t take it with him when he left?”
Cody was thinking about it.
“I'll tell you something else," I said. "When I was in the condo by myself… " I was having trouble finding words to describe it. "There's a weird vibe in that condo."
“Define ‘weird’.”
Angel’s silky ears peeked above the edge of the table. Trust him.
“Secrets. It feels like somebody’s keeping secrets.” I struggled to explain. “Vonda spends money like it’s going out of style.” I told Cody about her trip to Fashion Square. “Now Schneider’s sneaking around, having me grab paperwork in the dead of night that he has every right to pick up for himself during the normal workday.”
“Schneider’s the chief financial officer, right? So you think that something’s going on with Uncle Ethan’s money?”
“Maybe, but I think there’s more to it than that. Schneider’s up to something, too — and whatever it is, he’s keeping it from Vonda.”
Cody shook his head. “Office politics at its finest.”
“Office politics that got Jack killed.”
“Maybe,” Cody said. “Are you comfortable still driving for them?”
“Even if I quit right now, they can still find me. They know where I live, and anyway, these people run an international corporation. I'm not sure any place is safe until you figure out what happened to Jack. What's that old saying: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer? I think I'll be okay."
Cody didn’t look too sure. “Keep your eyes open,” he said. And then, he said something that surprised me. “And listen to your vibes. Keep your antenna up. Your life could depend on it.”
“My vibes? I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
Cody grimaced. “Just the opposite. I spent my whole childhood trying to keep my mother out of my head.”
“I’m not trying to pry.”
"Luna didn’t have to try, either.”
I gently put my fingers under his chin and raised his eyes to meet mine. “Cody, do I look like your mother?”
He grinned. Point made.
I saw Angel squint her eyes. Trust him, she said again. Show him who you are — what you are.
“Do you trust me?” I whispered.
Cody thought for a minute. His eyes looked deep into mine. Finally, he nodded.
I went out to the SUV and retrieved my sandalwood box from the console.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Cody as I placed it on the table and opened it to reveal my Victorian doorknob.
Cody sat back in his chair and let out a long breath. His face filled with apprehension, but there was something else there, too. I saw excitement.
He nodded. “So how do we do this?”
“We don't do anything." I took a white barrel candle from the mantle, lit it, and placed it in the middle of the table. Cody's eyebrows went up.
“I just need to sit here and concentrate for a minute,” I whispered.
I heard Angel’s soft voice in my head, coaching me. Take a deep breath; settle down.
Since when do cats know how to do this? I silently asked her.
Cats are apex predators. Angel yawned. From my perspective, it looked as if the cat’s head unhinged; the gaping maw ringed with needle teeth was certainly intimidating. Angel slowly closed her jaws and looked at me, smug. We know how to focus.
I opened the sandalwood box and gently placed my doorknob on the table in front of me. I ran my hands around the surface, clearing the crystal of any psychic dust bunnies. I put my hands to the side of the base, palms up as Maggie had taught me.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them to focus deep in the center of the doorknob. Who killed Jack Carruthers? I asked silently.
The doorknob’s core clouded. I forced myself to stay in the moment as the rainbow formed and then resolved into a very munda
ne image. It was so ordinary that it broke my concentration. I looked up at Angel in confusion.
“I don't understand," I said. "All I saw were the people who worked with Jack: Vonda mostly, and Lindsay. Jack was standing off in the corner behind them." I looked up at Cody and grinned. "Jack looked pissed."
“Schneider wasn’t in the picture?” Cody asked.
“Well, it wasn’t really a picture. It was more like a surveillance cam. They were just doing ordinary stuff. Lindsay was on the computer, and Vonda was on the phone. Schneider wasn’t there. It looked like an ordinary workday.”
Cody stood up and looked over my shoulder, then sat back down, looking sheepish. Angel looked amused.
“Were you seeing this in real-time?" Cody asked.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. I’m brand-new at this.” I thought about it. “I don’t think this was happening right now. I think I was seeing something from around the time that Jack was killed, but I don’t know what it means. What am I missing?”
I saw Angel raise her head. She watched me with her bottomless green eyes as I heard her soft, purring voice. Ask what you need to know, not what you want to know.
Something Maggie said the last time I trained with her suddenly clicked in place. “I’m asking the wrong question,” I said.
I took another deep breath and gazed back into the core of the doorknob, searching for the center. “Who is responsible for Jack’s death?” I said aloud.
This time, there was no confusion. Vonda, alone, stared back at me from the cloudless glass.
♦
The afternoon ended abruptly. The text was terse: pick us up private air come now.
I think Cody was secretly relieved. “Maybe I’ll head to work for a little while, after all.” I didn’t need to pick his brain to know that he wanted to expedite that warrant now.
Schneider was waiting for me outside the private aviation hangar. As I pulled up, he made eye contact with me and motioned for me to park and wait. Once he saw that I understood, he turned on his heel and walked to a private jet that gleamed under the apron lights like a jewel.
The jet’s cabin door was open, its airstairs unfurled. A uniformed attendant stepped onto the concrete and waited at the bottom of the steps beside Schneider.
The man who appeared in the doorway looked like he would be more at home lifting a few with his friends after work in a blue-collar pub, than in a tony private jet. I recognized Jack’s Uncle Ethan from the framed photo in the condo, but this time he did not look happy. He nodded to Schneider as he came down the steps. Uncle Ethan said a few words to his CFO, and I saw Schneider point in my direction.
Uncle Ethan headed toward me; Schneider trailed behind. I emerged from the driver seat and stood ready at the front bumper.
“Good evening, Mr. Carruthers,” I said as they approached the SUV. I opened the rear passenger door for him, and Schneider got in behind the driver seat.
“Stella, isn’t it?” he asked, but he was distracted. “Jack told me good things about you.”
“Thank you. I’m glad I had a chance to get to know your nephew,” I said. “Is there any luggage tonight, sir?”
He shook his head as he settled into his seat.
Schneider was simmering a slow burn. It was something about missing money. Schneider was the chief financial officer, so that made sense, but I couldn’t catch the details.
Uncle Ethan was upset, too, but for a different reason. He was a lot easier to read; I understood that his employees were his only family, now that Jack was gone. Tonight, he was struggling with having to fire someone close to him. My money was on Schneider.
Both men did a lot of arguing inside their heads, but not a word was spoken as I drove them to the condo. Schneider was out and striding to the door the moment I put the car in park. Uncle Ethan sighed and opened his own door before I could get out of the car. He was walking slowly toward the front door of the condo, shoulders slumped and head down, as I pulled out of the driveway.
♦
Schneider summoned me back an hour later and installed himself in the rear passenger seat of the SUV before I could get out to open the door for him. He was engrossed in his phone, and he gave me no instructions as to where he wanted to go. I decided to wait him out. When he didn’t look up, I finally asked: “Are we waiting for Vonda and Mr. Carruthers?”
Schneider sounded grim. “Mr. Carruthers has already departed. Vonda is no longer in our employ. Take me to the plane.” He went back to whatever he was doing on his phone.
I know it was bad of me, but I was dying of curiosity. And, after all, hadn't Cody just told me that I should listen to my vibes?
I shamelessly picked Schneider’s brain to learn the story.
Vonda had been embezzling — big time. I realized that was what Schneider had been hiding: his investigation. But he wasn’t hiding it from me; he was hiding it from Vonda. That envelope of receipts that I had retrieved for Schneider contained the evidence of her dips into the condo’s household fund, but that was only the beginning.
Tipped off by those irregularities, Schneider had done a deep dive into all aspects of the operation under her control. What he found was widespread plundering. Vonda, apparently with the help of Lindsay, had skimmed off a small percentage of everything she touched. Those small percentages added up to very large dollar amounts.
Did it also add up to murder?
As I drove, with Schneider’s mental ruminations rumbling in the backseat like a busted woofer, I worked through what I knew — or thought I knew.
Calvin, although he was still in the wind according to Cody, was in the clear. That left Cody frustrated and out of suspects. But now, knowing about Vonda’s financial shenanigans, maybe not so much. I knew for a fact that Vonda knew how to find the GPS lot; she’d been there hunting for Jack the day he went for his job interview.
So what about Lindsay? Schneider believed that she'd been helping Vonda embezzle from the condo account. It wasn't much of a stretch to think that her involvement went deeper. Maybe there were promises made that, once Vonda married Uncle Ethan, Lindsay would step up into Vonda's current job. Everybody wins.
Except, of course, Jack. If he was heir to the throne, then Vonda might inherit Uncle Ethan’s personal funds, but the corporate piggy bank would be beyond her reach. People have killed for less.
Chapter Ten
With Vonda fired and Schneider and Uncle Ethan headed east on the company jet, there was no one to summon me on Sunday morning. I took advantage of the situation by sleeping in until Cody pounded on my door.
“So, you don’t answer your phone anymore?” Cody said good-naturedly as he stepped inside.
I yawned.
“Great look!” he said with a grin, looking up and down my old concert T-shirt, flannel sleep pants and fuzzy slippers. I smoothed down my spiky bed head.
I punched him lightly in the arm. “Hey, if I’m too much woman for you…”
The kiss I got in response told me he thought he could handle it.
“Throw on some jeans,” he finally said. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
♦
We ended up at the Chuckbox, a venerable burger joint on the edge of the university mobbed by students and faculty alike. We sat on old wooden barrels and split an order of fried zucchini and a Tijuana Torpedo, an iconic burger with jalapeño jack cheese melted between two patties and topped with a green chili.
I eyeballed the last zucchini.
“Have you thought any more about what I said?" Cody asked, snatching the zucchini from beneath my grasp.
“Hey!”
He smirked. “Want to split another order?”
I reluctantly shook my head. I didn’t even want to think about how far I would have to run to work off the calories we’d already consumed from that tray, even though it was worth every mile.
He tore the last zucchini in half and split it with me. As he dipped his half in ranch dressing, I told him about listening in on Sc
hneider’s thoughts.
“You were right,” I said, explaining what I heard. “Anyway, Vonda’s gone,” I said.
Cody shook his head. “Fired, maybe, but not gone. If you’re right, then she’s just gone to the top of the list of suspects in the murder of Jack Carruthers. That means you are in danger.”
“Me?” I heard my voice rise. “I’m just the driver.”
“You’re a witness. Didn’t you tell me that you first met her when she came to the GPS lot looking for Jack? You can prove that she knew where Jack parked the SUV. Just tell me you booked her ride through your app?”
“She paid cash.”
Cody looked grave. “Then it’s your word against hers. And if you’re not around to testify to what you know…”
I popped my half of the zucchini into my mouth to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. “You’re saying she’s coming after me?”
“What do you think?”
I didn’t want to think about it. “So, what do I do?”
“Don’t suppose you’d consider a week or two’s vacation someplace far away? Canada, maybe? Acapulco?” He was teasing, but he was serious.
“Cody, we had this discussion before. They're going to find me wherever I go."
Cody took my hands in his. “Then I guess we better find her first and put an end to this.”
♦
Schneider had fired Vonda, but he hadn’t fired me — yet — so after my brunch with Cody, I headed for the GPS lot, his warnings ringing in my ears. For the rest of the day, I walked around with my head on a swivel. I read the thoughts of everyone who walked past me in the airport, every rider juggling luggage on the Sky Train, every rideshare passenger in the back seat of the SUV.
By nightfall, I was tired of being on my guard. Constant vigilance is exhausting and, in the end, I let myself be lulled by the safety of familiar surroundings.
That’s how they got me.
I’d driven a couple of rides and then made my way back to the GPS lot, feeling sentimental and hungry. I decided to head for Blue Mesa Tacos to hoist one in Jack’s honor.
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