A Box Full of Trouble

by Carolyn Haines

  “Miguel stole the most personal of Jennifer’s jewelry so he could prove the affair and blackmail Jennifer so she’d have to control Layla. But Layla stole the jewelry back from him. He must have known she’d put all these flash drives all over the place and that’s why he was trying to burn her apartment and the Drapers’ house—to destroy the evidence.” Abby is practically shouting and I rub her cheek and meow a word of caution.

  “Absolutely, if you can’t find the evidence against you, destroy it. Burn it.”

  “But how did Layla figure out about his stealing the book?”

  Victor turns once more to the computer monitor and scrolls down. “She might have been blinded by love—that’s her phrase—but eventually she realized Miguel wasn’t a good enough writer—or thinker—to have written the book that made him semi-famous among constitutional law scholars. When he stole her law review article, she realized he was a plagiarist.”

  Abby takes up reading over Victor’s shoulders. “Once Layla sank her teeth into it, it was only a matter of time before she found out what he’d done. She is, after all, an excellent researcher.”

  “When Miguel was a lawyer, he represented a professor from the University of Miami School of Law and found a copy of an old manuscript the professor was using in writing his own book on the Marshall Court and how it changed the history of this country. Only that professor died before he finished.” Victor paused in his reading. “I bet if we Google that professor we’ll find out he died under suspicious circumstances.”

  “So, with that professor out of the way, Miguel took the manuscript and passed it off as his own.” Abby rubs my head, but as nice as it feels, I can’t purr. Instead, I jump down, run to the door and yowl.

  They both look at me, but then Victor turns back to the computer. I yowl again. We need to be finding Layla. Now. Miguel believes this whole ordeal is over with Emmett’s arrest. He has little reason to keep Layla alive any longer.

  But Abby and Victor keep chatting on, as if time didn’t matter at all. I head butt Victor’s arm, but he ignores me as he keeps reading the computer screen.

  “Layla found the only other existing copy of the old manuscript that the Miami professor was using, a surviving copy in the Library of Congress. An archivist there emailed her scans of the microfilm made from the original.” Victor points at the screen as if Abby would doubt him. “For Layla to put the whole story together like this, you know she knew she was in danger from Miguel. The mugging probably tipped her off that the stalemate was over, but I’m guessing she didn’t really know what to do—other than leave a new flash drive with all this info.”

  “She wasn’t at home the night of the fire.” Abby looked at Victor as if for confirmation. “And the mugger had a plastic knife, for heaven’s sake. So, Layla probably thought Miguel was just warning her. Since they’d been lovers, she probably thought that he wouldn’t really hurt her.”

  “Yeah, she misread him for sure.”

  “That night in the library, he said something about Layla doing research in the Library of Congress, and she acted weird, and then she ran outside in the hallway. And called Emmett. And later you.” Abby scrunched her fingers through her hair. “That’s when she realized he knew she’d found out about the book. So, she was calling reinforcements—she thought you and Emmett could protect us in the library.”

  Abby shook her head, her expression distressed. “What I thought was this weird sexual vibe between them was just plain old-fashioned fear. How could I have misread it so?”

  “Don’t blame yourself. Too much was going on.” Victor fingers the flash drive in the USB port. “But after Miguel tipped his hand, Layla hid this flash drive with the whole story on it in the umbrella stand.”

  “Why hide it? Why didn’t she just give it to me?” Abby sounds hurt. “Didn’t she trust me?”

  “I figure she was trying to protect you—and she was still mad at me, so she couldn’t give it to me. Who else did she have? She couldn’t give it to Phillip or Delphine. So, she hid it. I bet there’s another one somewhere we haven’t found yet.”

  “No—” Abby says. “She sent the info on this one to Jennifer. She told Jennifer the whole story. She had to have. That night at the library, as soon as we got to the basement, she typed like crazy on her laptop. I bet she was emailing Jennifer.”

  “But…” Victor hesitates. “Why Jennifer?”

  “Who else? After Miguel’s crack about the Library of Congress, Layla must have been scared of Miguel, especially since he knew we were in the basement. So, she probably emailed him that she’d hidden the flash drive with all the info and told someone that if anything happened to her, they should send it to the cops. And that somebody was Jennifer, though of course she wouldn’t tell Miguel that. Why else would Jennifer say the word ‘Marshall’ to me?”

  I yowl another warning at Abby and Victor, but Abby’s thoughts must be spinning so wildly in her head she ignores me.

  “That’s why Miguel had to kill Jennifer and burn the house.” Victor’s voice is loud with excitement and he hops out of the chair and takes giant strides about the room. “He knew Layla told Jennifer and also told her about the evidence about the damn book.”

  “Let’s email Layla’s info to Delphine and those detectives. And to the Texas Law Review and the whole world. Then we’ll call Lucas.” Abby curls into the chair in front of the laptop and starts typing as Victor reaches deep into his pocket.

  “Here,” he says, offering Abby a business card. “I knew I had Lucas’s email.”

  Abby types something. “There, I’ve got the document attached. Let’s send it, then call those detectives.” Abby’s finger hovers over the mouse.

  “Wait, no.” Victor suddenly puts his hand on top of Abby’s to stop her from hitting send. “This is our ransom. We might need to trade this flash drive for Layla.” Victor runs his hand through his unruly hair. “Miguel knows Layla had something like this flash drive that he hasn’t found or he would have just killed her. He’s holding her, I’d guess, until she tells him where she hid the last of the flash drives.”

  ”But where would he be holding her? And where is he anyway?”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Abby’s finger hovered over the send button. She wanted the world to know what Miguel had done and the sooner the better.

  “Why don’t we call Rizzo and Lucas?” Abby thought maybe this was the time to pull in the detectives.

  “Because they won’t try to negotiate with him. They’ll just arrest him and we might not find Layla in time. If he’s got her tied up somewhere without her insulin and the cops lock him up, she could die before anyone found her. If we can’t find her on our own, we have to contact Miguel and offer to trade the flash drive for Layla and we have to mean it. He’d know the cops wouldn’t make a trade like that and let him go.”

  Abby nodded. She didn’t like it, but maybe it made sense.

  Victor glanced at the wall clock. “He’ll be teaching his American Jurisprudence class in just a few minutes. So he’s at FSU now and he’ll be there at least an hour, probably more. We need to check his house while he’s at the law school.”

  Abby didn’t know where the professor lived, but she knew how to find out. She pulled up the Leon County Property Appraiser’s official website and typed in Miguel’s name.

  “Here’s his address,” she said. “One of those new townhouses at the edge of downtown Tallahassee, near the law school. But he couldn’t have taken Layla there—somebody would have seen them.” Abby frowned, thinking hard. “He said something to Phillip about a place by the lake, but there’s nothing listed here about another property.”

  “There’s that big lake in Grady County, lots of cabins and get-away places. Maybe it’s there?” Victor suggested.

  Abby pulled up the Grady County property appraiser’s office and typed Miguel’s name. “Yes. Grady County, right across the state line, only thirty miles from here.” Abby kept reading. “A lakeside cabin, smal
l from the description. Sounds isolated.”

  “That’s where he’d take her,” Victor pounded on the back on the couch. Trouble meowed as if agreeing.

  Abby scribbled something down on a piece of paper, forgetting for the briefest moment that Miguel was a dangerous man who had already killed. “I’ve got the address. We can sneak in and find Layla and get her out of there while he’s still teaching.” Abby spoke without hesitancy, but her heart raced. “And if he’s there, we negotiate with the flash drive.”

  “Let’s go.” Victor paced, jangling his pickup keys.

  “Wait a minute, let me Google-map the address.”

  * * *

  Maybe I have more faith in Lucas than they do. Maybe I’m not currently love-addled. But it seems to me that the email to Lucas needs to be sent. Now. While Miguel is teaching and Abby and Victor are spinning around the living room getting ready to rescue Layla.

  I prance over to the opened laptop and I hit send.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Abby read out the directions as Victor sped through a series of narrow roads in Grady County as they rushed toward Miguel’s lake cabin. Trouble sat tensely in Abby’s lap.

  The drive took them thirty-five minutes before they found the long, dirt road that Google-map promised them led to the lake cabin’s front door. “Let’s walk it from here. Element of surprise and all that just in case he’s there.” As he spoke, Victor pulled the pickup off the paved road into a thicket. He pulled an extra switchblade from his locked glove compartment. He put the knife in his pants pocket.

  Abby wished he had a gun, but between the knife and Trouble, they’d surely be safe enough.

  “Let’s just pray he’s teaching at FSU and not here.” Abby shut her eyes for a second and said a quick prayer. Beside her, Trouble issued a quiet meow.

  They crept silently up the edge of the heavily treed dirt road, with Trouble keeping his nose in the air, sniffing. Abby marveled at what a beautiful place Miguel had, though the distance from any civilization was a bit disconcerting. No doubt this was where he took his lovers. She wondered how many students he had seduced in the place.

  Even hurrying, it took them ten minutes to find the actual cabin. The building came into view when they rounded a sharp curve in the road. Abby paused, drawing a sharp intake of breath. Trouble halted briefly, before easing a few steps ahead of her.

  The curtains were drawn, bushes were overgrown, and the place had an air of abandonment, yet it was undeniably a beautiful, lush spot on a small lake. But best of all, there was no little red sports car or any other vehicle in the driveway. Abby started toward the house.

  They hurried, keeping to the heavy bushes as they approached the front window. Abby pushed past Victor and looked inside. She didn’t see Layla, but she saw the plastic container with the blue lid where Layla kept her insulin. Scattered vials of insulin littered the table. “It needs to be refrigerated,” she said, a new burst of fear for Layla rising in her.

  “I’m calling Lucas. Since Miguel’s not here, we won’t need to negotiate with him and we might need some help.” Victor said it in a tone of voice that didn’t invite discussion. He pulled out his cell and started punching in numbers.

  Abby tiptoed away from him to look in another set of windows. This time she spotted Layla, tied to a chair, her head slumped to one side. Abby called out to Victor, forgetting the need to be quiet. “I see her, I see Layla.” Trouble let out a resounding meow as if to second Abby.

  “Damn it to hell and back,” Victor said. “I can’t get a signal. We’re too far in the woods.”

  But Abby barely heard him. She was racing toward the door and to Layla, Trouble moving ahead of her, running full out.

  Chapter Fifty

  Victor cursed his dead phone. So much for that “can you hear me now” ad.

  Maybe it didn’t really matter. Surely they could just scoop Layla up and get back to his pickup long before Miguel’s class ended.

  He ran after Abby and the cat, catching them both in only seconds. Together, they sprinted to the front door. It was locked, and Victor saw at once it was a deadbolt. “I can’t pick it without some tools,” he said.

  “Try the back,” Abby said, but she was already eyeing the wide, low-slung window by the door.

  Victor sprinted around the house. As he ran, he heard the shattering of glass and spun back to the front. Abby hadn’t waited. She’d busted through the glass with a large rock.

  Once he reached the front, he scooped up Trouble, not wanting the cat to cut his feet, as Abby kicked the shards of glass out of the frame.

  “Careful,” he said, as she crawled through the opening.

  A moment later, Abby opened the front door and Victor hurried inside. Once past the busted glass, he dropped Trouble on the floor as he ran toward Layla. Abby was already there.

  “She’s unconscious.” Abby patted Layla’s cheek and then checked her pulse. “Her heart rate is slow.”

  Victor scanned the litter on the table for any blood sugar monitoring device but saw none. If Layla was suffering from low blood sugar and they gave her insulin, they could kill her. But if her blood sugar was spiking high enough to make her unconscious, and they didn’t give her insulin, she might die.

  They had to call 9-1-1.

  “Abby, try your phone. Call for an ambulance. And for Rizzo and Lucas. I’ll cut her loose.” Victor pulled out his switchblade and in no time had the ropes cut away from Layla. Dropping the knife to the wood floor, he lifted her from the chair and carried her over to a couch near the front door. As he rested Layla on the couch, she slid sideways, still unconscious.

  Abby snatched her cell from her pocket and started punching numbers. “No way,” she said as she looked up in shock at Victor. “I can’t get a signal.”

  “Damn it!” Victor shouted. “Stay here, I’ll bring the truck to the cabin so we can take her straight to a hospital.”

  “Look for a landline,” she said.

  “You look. I’ll run back to the truck.” Victor glanced down at Trouble. “You stay here and watch out for Abby.”

  Victor started for the front, but before his hand reached the knob, the door flung open.

  In the entrance way, Miguel stood, holding a large gun in one hand and a rope in the other. Trouble swiped at Miguel’s leg, but Miguel aimed a vicious kick at him, knocking him a few feet away.

  When Trouble rolled to a stop, Miguel lunged forward and kicked him again, once more knocking him a few feet in front of him.

  “Leave him alone.” Abby cried out and stepped toward Trouble, but Victor jumped in front of her and blocked her. He shoved his hand in his pocket and felt for reassuring coldness of his switchblade—but he’d dropped it on the floor after he cut Layla loose.

  “Be still.” Victor whispered as he hovered in front of Abby. He wanted to keep his body between Abby and the man’s gun, but he also wanted to block Miguel’s view of the knife.

  “You people just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Miguel pointed the gun at Victor’s gut. “Here I was, coming back to get rid of Layla once and for all, and I see your pickup half-hidden in the bushes.” He grinned. “Not a good judgment call on your part.”

  Neither Abby nor Victor moved. But Trouble rolled over, and, limping, crept toward them. Victor glanced down at him, wondering how badly Miguel’s kicks had hurt the cat. Trouble rubbed against Abby’s leg as if to reassure them he was all right, but kept going away from them. Victor cocked his head, just far enough to see that Trouble headed straight to the switchblade.

  Acting quickly to distract Miguel, Victor made a lunge toward him. Miguel side-stepped and pressed the gun against Abby’s stomach. “Try that again, and I gut-shoot her.”

  Victor stood still, but glanced out of the corner of his eyes to see what Trouble was doing. The cat was sprawled out on top of the knife. While he looked like an injured cat, Trouble also effectively hid the knife from Miguel’s view.

  Trouble meowed,
with the sound low and plaintive. As Victor once more glanced at him, Trouble looked up toward the bookshelf and meowed again. But this time his cry had a distinctive, clear tone. Trouble was trying to tell Victor something.

  Victor followed Trouble’s gaze and saw a large clock in a heavy-looking marble stand sitting on a bookshelf. Below it, on a desk sat a laptop with the lid opened. The laptop appeared to be attached to a series of cables, with a black modem by it.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Miguel said.

  Victor focused back on Miguel, momentarily ignoring Trouble.

  “You’re going to tie Abby to that chair.” Miguel pointed the gun toward a ladder-back chair by the kitchen table.

  “Abby, sit.” Miguel held up the rope.

  Abby didn’t move.

  “Do it unless you’d rather see your boyfriend get shot.”

  Abby gave Victor a look that said she was sorry, and she sat.

  Miguel tossed the rope to Victor, who caught it handily. “Tie her up, and make it tight. I’ll be checking.”

  Victor stretched the rope out in his hands, wondering how he could tie her up and yet leave some leeway.

  No, Victor knew he couldn’t risk it. He had to wait for a better chance to fight back.

  “What are you going to do?” Abby leaned forward in the kitchen chair as if she might stand up.

  Miguel stepped closer to her, his back now to Trouble. “After your friend here finishes tying you up, I’m going to tie him up. Then I’m going to set the kitchen on fire. I’ve learned a good deal about accelerants and arson since my first attempts—and how to plant clues. At this point, not much reason to make it look accidental as I’ve set another, better trap for Phillip.”

  “Shoot us first. Don’t let us burn.” Victor’s voice was steady, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Abby shivered.