by Brenda Novak
He bit her earlobe before his tongue traced the sensitive rim. “I know which one you’d choose.”
Suppressing a shiver, she batted him away. “Leonard should already be in jail,” she grumbled. “Instead, he’s dusting off his résumé in hopes of taking my job.”
“He doesn’t have your job yet. So stay focused. We know that whoever’s killing illegal immigrants is free to move around at night. He probably lives in town or close to it. He might smoke. He hates Mexicans. And he uses a .45 with a silencer.”
“That could be half the town. And we don’t know if the perpetrator is a ‘he,’” she said, but Rod’s reference to the silencer reminded Sophia that Starkey had a lead on a man who was selling silencers out of his garage. She mentioned it and added, “He’s supposed to meet with him tonight.”
“Will he call us afterward?”
“I think so.”
“Starkey seems like a pretty loyal friend.”
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to get her to explain her relationship with Starkey, or if he was merely making an observation. “He’s not a bad guy—for a Hells Angel.”
Rod moved onto his back. “Van Dormer left me a message. Probably left you one, too, but since you turned off your phone you might not have gotten it.”
“Not yet.”
“The autopsies are scheduled for tomorrow.”
Now that Rod was no longer touching her, she felt as if he’d taken away the warmth and relief she’d been feeling. God, she was in trouble where he was concerned. She was in trouble all the way around. “The Sanchezes or…”
“Stuart, too. You’re not the only one feeling the pressure. Vonnegut’s catching grief, too, for not getting to them sooner.”
“It doesn’t help that he’s been sick. On top of that, he’s about to retire. All he cares about is golf.” The air conditioner came on so she used it as an excuse to curl up against him. “Stuart was the last one killed, but I bet he’s first when it comes to the autopsies.”
Rod put his arm around her, making it more comfortable for her to lie on him. “Of course. My father’s a friend of Mayor Schilling.”
“You mean the Wizard of Oz?”
“The what?”
“Nothing.” She used her foot to drag the throw blanket down from the couch. “What do you think they’ll find?”
“That Stuart’s heart shriveled up and turned black long ago.”
“Seriously,” she said, sharing her blanket.
“That he drank too much. That he should’ve done more to stay in shape. And that he was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.”
Sophia bit her lip as she considered the possibilities. “His stomach contents might help establish the time of death.”
“It might even tell us who he was with.”
She raised her head. “How so?”
“If it’s…say…a teriyaki burger with pineapple on it, he probably bought it at Big Ed’s Burgers. Big Ed’s is famous for that, right?”
“Oh, right. So if we know he ate there before he died, we can interview the employees on duty and find out roughly when he was there and whether or not he was with someone.”
“Careful,” Rod warned. “You’re starting to sound hopeful again.”
“Cautiously hopeful,” she said. “I don’t see how the UDA killer can be responsible for Stuart’s death, too. Stuart doesn’t fit the profile of the other victims. And the way he was killed doesn’t feel like a reprisal. Maybe I could believe that if it was one of the ranchers who’d been shot, but what I saw makes me think he was lured out there.”
“And yet the killings are somehow related,” he said. “The timing would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
Sophia agreed. But how were they related? And what about that distracting business with her stepfather’s telephone number on the refrigerator of the safe house? “What we know is too sketchy and random. It won’t come together.”
“Be patient. There’s an answer. There’s always an answer.”
“But will we find it before I lose my paycheck and head to Montana?”
“You won’t like Montana.”
She’d already realized she couldn’t leave Bordertown, not until Rafe was older. But it was alluring to think she could break away if she really wanted to. “You don’t know that.”
“Maybe not. But I do know you’ll have a better chance of keeping your job if we get back to work.” He rolled over and got up, then extended his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s get dressed so we can visit your father’s feed store.”
“Now?”
“Why not? It’s dark and I happen to know that none of the local police are on duty. Perfect time for a break-in.”
As she let him pull her to her feet, she said, “We don’t have to break in.”
“We don’t?”
“No.” After closing the curtains and turning on the lights, she retrieved her purse. Then she fished out the key she’d dropped in her coin pouch earlier and held it up. “I’ve got this.”
“That’s for the feed store?”
“According to the neat little label that was above it, yes. Fortunately, my stepfather’s very particular about his things. His spare keys are neatly organized and readily available, provided you have access to his house, of course.” She smiled broadly. “It was right there, hanging inside a cupboard in my mother’s kitchen, exactly where it used to be when I was living at home. I grabbed it while she was heating up my dinner, and she never had a clue.”
Rod gave her bottom a pat. “Way to go, champ. See? This isn’t over yet.”
26
Leonard’s hand shook with eagerness and anxiety as he sat in his truck and dialed Gary O’Conner’s cell phone. He knew Gary couldn’t be happy with him. In his determination to ruin Sophia, he’d gotten impatient and possibly a little overzealous and flung some mud at Gary in the process, but this was the perfect way to repair their relationship.
The phone rang several times before transferring to voice mail. Was Gary already asleep? He had to get up at five every morning to open the store at six. The ranchers depended on those early hours; that was when they rented most of the farm equipment, which meant Gary went to bed early….
Hanging up without leaving a message, Leonard checked the clock on the dashboard. It was ten-thirty. Did he dare call Gary’s house? He had to tell him that Sophia was on her way to the feed store.
A car came down the street and turned into the tiny brown house on the corner, but Leonard wasn’t worried about being seen. The moment he’d realized that Sophia and Rod would be leaving, he’d driven several blocks away, winding deeper into her neighborhood rather than risking a chance encounter on her street or the main roads. He didn’t need to keep Sophia and Rod in view to know where they were going. He’d heard them make their plans.
He tried Gary’s cell phone a second time, got his voice mail again and decided to try his house. Hoping Anne wouldn’t answer—he knew how touchy Gary was about anything that might arouse her curiosity—he waited through three rings. He was about to give up when he finally heard a man’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Gary?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s me, Leonard.”
“Uh, hello, Mac. Hang on a sec, will ya?”
Mac was Gary’s brother who lived somewhere in Texas. Leonard had never met him, but he’d heard Gary talk about him on occasion.
There was some rustling and talking in the background. When Gary spoke again, his voice was low but filled with annoyance. “What do you want? Why are you calling me here?”
Leonard turned off the listening device that’d enabled him to hear Rod and Sophia’s conversation—and the grunting and groaning that had gone on before. Who would’ve guessed Bordertown’s straitlaced chief of police could be so hot, he thought with a pang of jealousy. “I tried your cell. You didn’t pick up.”
“Because it’s nearly eleven o’clock. We were in bed. Did you ever think of tha
t?”
“Sorry, this can’t wait.”
“Sure it can wait, because we’re not speaking to each other anymore,” he said. “What the hell do you think you were doing, flashing that naked picture of Sophia around and telling everyone it was mine? She’s been all over me like flies on shit ever since. And if my wife gets wind of the rumors, so help me—”
“I had to do it,” he interrupted. “I had to get Sophia riled up, make her look bad.”
“Make her look bad? Idiot! You’re making me look bad, too!”
“No, I’m making you look like the luckiest man in the world. There isn’t a guy in town who doesn’t want a piece of that.”
“What about my wife?”
“Calm down. You’re making too big a deal out of it. Anne won’t believe those rumors, anyway. She loves you. Trusts you. Besides, it worked. Neil called tonight. Sophia was just given thirty days’ notice.”
There was a brief pause. “She’s being fired?”
“Sure as the sunrise. And if you give me the support I need to get her job, I promise your life will get a lot easier.”
Gary was too tempted by the money he could make with Sophia out of the equation to hold a grudge over the picture, and Leonard knew it. “That’s something,” he mumbled.
“Exactly what we’ve been hoping for, buddy.”
“So that’s it? That’s why you called? To let me know?”
“No, that could’ve waited until morning.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“Sophia’s on her way to the feed store. Somehow Rod visited the safe house and saw your phone number. They’re trying to figure out why it was there.”
“Oh, God. That’s what she was looking for.”
“When?”
“Earlier, here at the house. I caught her in my office.”
“I heard her say something about that, too. She found your gun. So if it’s any danger to you, you might want to make it disappear while you still can.”
“I already knew she found my gun, but where did you get the information? How did you ‘hear’ it?”
“That’s none of your business. I’m doing what you pay me to do. That’s all you need to know.”
“And now you’re telling me she’s on her way to the feed store.”
“That’s right. She’s trying to uncover your link to the safe house, like I said. Bruce’s bastard is with her.”
“Son of a bitch! What now?”
“What do you mean, ‘what now’? Isn’t it clear? You have to stop her.”
“How? If she already knows I’m connected to the safe house, keeping her from searching the store won’t solve the problem.”
“It’ll keep her from getting the proof she needs.”
“She won’t give up. I know her.”
“Then maybe you should do something…permanent.”
Gary’s voice was a harsh whisper. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
“One who’ll spend the rest of his life in prison if he doesn’t act quickly.”
Several tense seconds passed. “I hate that woman,” he complained. “She’s been the bane of my existence from the beginning.”
“Then have the balls to take care of it! Get rid of her.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’d be doing you a huge favor. You hate her even more than I do.”
“At least I’m man enough do what needs to be done.”
“You think you could put a bullet in her head?”
For months, Leonard had dreamed of little else. “Without a second’s hesitation. Is that what you want? Because it’ll cost you a pretty penny, since I’d have to do Rod at the same time.”
“You’re so cavalier,” he said bitterly. “Did you kill Stuart? Did you shoot him in the head the way you’re talking about shooting Sophia?”
Leonard’s hand tightened on his cell phone. “No, I didn’t. Why do you have to bring that up?”
“Because I believe you did kill him. And he was your friend.”
“I’m telling you I didn’t. But this isn’t about friends. This is about business.”
There was another silence, one that told Leonard Gary was in turmoil.
“We don’t have all day,” he reminded him.
“We’re talking about my stepdaughter. That’s a lot to consider.”
“It’s you or her. Consider that.”
“Are you sure you can do it without getting caught? If my wife ever found out that I—”
“Relax. I’m going to be the chief of police, remember? It’s not as if I won’t be able to cover up whatever I want.”
“But if you turn that feed store into a crime scene, the police will cart everything away and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. I can’t risk that.”
“What’s there?”
“Everything! I’m running a business. That means there’s paperwork.”
“Fine. I can call you when I’m done, give you a chance to collect what you need. I’ve got to do it there. We may not have another opportunity.”
“You expect me to go down there and…what…step over two bodies to get to my files?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He sighed heavily. “Can’t you just…take them out in the desert and shoot them?”
“There are two of them, and one happens to be an ex-SEAL. I think surprise is my best option. Don’t you?”
Gary didn’t react to the heavy dose of sarcasm. “I don’t want a bloody mess.”
“A bloody mess is better than a life sentence. Maybe the next time you have to worry about blood, it’ll be your own. Those yard fights can get pretty brutal, from what I hear.”
Still, he wouldn’t commit.
“Come on, man. Make a decision. She’s linked you to the safe house. That makes her a threat to the whole operation.”
When Gary finally spoke, his voice sounded strangled, but there was no mistaking the sudden resolve in his words. “Fine. Do it,” he said, and disconnected.
Rod felt more pressure than ever to solve the UDA murders. He’d come here to help, had big plans for making a difference and for finally proving, to himself if no one else, that he was better than anyone here had given him credit for being. Instead, he’d gone straight for the one thing he should’ve left alone. And now, thanks to his involvement, Sophia was in more trouble than she’d been in before his arrival.
So much for improving the situation…
He had to fix the damage he’d done so he could leave without regrets. At this point, that was the only way to clear his conscience. He just hoped that whatever they were about to find in Gary O’Conner’s feed store would make a difference.
“You got it?” He was hunched beside Sophia at the back door. They’d driven his Hummer but parked it down the street, at the Firelight, so it wouldn’t be sitting in the lot.
“Yeah.” The key seemed to fit smoothly. A second later, the door swung wide, but a beep warned that they had about sixty seconds to turn off the alarm system.
“Did you know he had security?” Rod asked.
“No. Why would anyone worry about someone breaking into this place? It’s not as if he leaves any money here overnight. I can’t imagine it would be easy to fence a tractor.”
Rod switched on one of the two flashlights they’d brought with them and pointed it in various directions. “People will steal anything. Just tell me you have the code to shut the damn thing off before we get busted.” The feed store looked completely innocuous, exactly as he would’ve expected. But that intermittent beeping was a problem. He might be able to protect Sophia against a physical threat, but not criminal prosecution.
“I don’t have the code! I didn’t realize we’d run into this.”
“Maybe I can stop it.”
“How?”
“Help me find the pad for the key code.”
The beams of both flashlights bounced as they jogged to the front.
“I’ve dealt with a few systems,�
�� he said. “If this one’s typical, it’ll be somewhere logical—and handy.”
“But what good is the key pad if we don’t know the code?”
The beeping ground on his nerves. “The guts of the system will most likely be close by.”
“Here.” Holding up her flashlight, she motioned to a shelf below the sales counter.
Rod cut the wires seconds after the alarm began to make a racket. Then they stood in the sudden silence, listening to see if there’d be any response from outside.
When nothing happened, Sophia sagged in relief. “You think you killed it before it could signal the monitoring company?”
“I doubt it. I just stopped the bell so it wouldn’t attract any attention from the street. But—” he examined the complexity of the system “—this looks new and expensive, far more expensive than you’d expect to find in Bordertown.”
The phone rang.
“That’s the alarm company.” Grabbing her hand, he started guiding her to the back door. “Let’s get out of here.”
She pulled out of his grasp. “There’s got to be a reason he’d go to the trouble and the expense of installing security,” she said. “We have to look around. There’s something here he doesn’t want anyone to see.”
“We’ll go to jail for breaking and entering if we don’t make a run for it now.”
The phone had already rung three times.
“Let’s go!” he insisted, but she dashed in the opposite direction.
“What are you doing?”
Sophia held up her hand for silence and did exactly what he was afraid she’d do—she picked up the handset. “Hello?…Yes. No, it’s nothing…. Mmm-hmm…. Sophia St. Claire. I’m chief of police here in Bordertown…. I received a call that someone with a flashlight was lurking around the building. My stepfather owns it, so I’ve got a key…. Place looks fine…. I don’t know the code, but there’s no need to wake him. Just take down my badge number and verify my identity through county dispatch. Sure, no problem….” She laughed, then gave her badge number. “Lucky for everyone, I happened to be just around the corner. That’s it…. Mmm-hmm…. Thanks.”
