Gabe’s face stayed blank. He reached down to pet Ali, who was sitting beside him. “You think that’s why he took on an accomplice?”
I nodded. “Yes! He felt he had to so that he could keep up his reputation as a jewel thief. And the sideline of sex toys also fits his disability in a way.”
Gabe reached out and touched my shoulder. “You’ve thought this through. What do you think this disability is? And why do you think he has it?”
A rush of nerves skittered through my chest. But I had to know what Gabe thought. If I was right, maybe it would help us save Angel. “Well, at Angel’s house, Mitch was furious on the phone. He basically said that any man with a functioning dick could fuck the mark.” I spit it out fast. “We know that Mitch’s method was to charm and seduce older women, probably get them drunk and wear them out with sex. Then when they were in a sated and alcohol-induced sleep, he walked out with their jewels. It was clean and simple, and I think it fed some superiority complex he has about women.” I met his gaze. “But what if one day he couldn’t get it up anymore?”
Gabe winced. “Ouch, babe.” He let go of my shoulder and paced to the bathroom area and back. “You could be right. Impotence in someone like you describe might send him over the edge. And that would explain the year of no activity of the Casino Jewel Thief.”
But how could we know for sure? “Gabe, the woman you just talked to, do you have her number?”
He nodded.
“Call her, let me talk to her. We know she slept with Zack the night her necklace was stolen. But maybe Mitch tried before Zack.”
Gabe’s dark eyes narrowed. “And he failed.” He pulled his cell phone out and rolled through his address book. Then he put the phone to his ear. “Winnie? This is Gabe Pulizzi. I have a solid lead on your necklace, but I have to ask you a question.”
I waved at him. “Give me the phone.”
“Better yet,” Gabe said into the phone. “I’ll let my associate ask you. Her name is Samantha.”
I took the phone. “Winnie? I’m Samantha Shaw. I need to ask you if you dated a man who looked a little like Richard Gere that you met at the Daystar Casino anytime in the last few months or so.” I went on to describe Mitch as best as I could remember him.
Winnie said, “Well yes, a couple of months ago. It didn’t end well.”
She sounded like a nice lady. “I’m sorry to ask you this, but was he impotent?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“We’re still putting it together. Was he angry?”
“I had to insist he leave. I had a room at Daystar and threatened to call security.”
“Thank you, Winnie. You’ve been a huge help. We’ll tell you more as soon as we have solid information.” I said good-bye and gave the phone back to Gabe. “It was him! He couldn’t get it up and Winnie had to threaten to call security. She was staying at Daystar. So now we know he’s impotent. And that he tried and failed with at least one woman. He reacted angrily.”
Gabe slid his phone back onto his belt and prowled the motel room, keeping an eye on the unconscious Zoë. “So he comes up with a solution by taking on an accomplice. He hires a younger, more virile man to compensate, but Zack screws up. Now he has another problem, because he’s told Zack enough for him to be dangerous to his connected friends. And, hell,” Gabe stopped in front of me, “he might have hated Zack for being able to do what he no longer could. It would explain the rage and his compulsion to finish the job, to get the necklace.” He fixed his gaze on me. “To beat the women screwing up his carefully laid plans.”
I nodded. “Because he wasn’t going to let Angel and me, mere women like those he is used to seducing and manipulating, get the better of him by getting away with the necklace.”
“What about the sex toys? Are they supposed to replace his limp dick?”
I cringed at his word choice, but I had been thinking that. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s his backup plan. He trains Zack to take over as the Casino Jewel Thief, and to the connected people he steals for, it looks like he just wants to retire. Then he will need another job—selling sex toys. And who does he try to sell the sex toys through? Another woman that he thinks he can manipulate—Angel.”
Gabe’s dark gaze locked onto me. I felt the tension of those long seconds, a connection between us, a bond. Then he shifted slightly and said, “It fits. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was setting himself up to eventually demonstrate sex toys to more wealthy women and make off with their jewels.”
A someone-walked-over-my-grave shiver pulsed up my spine. Two things, then, were driving Mitch: deep anger over his impotence and a deep drive to go back to what he loved: stealing jewelry from women. He was a man desperate to keep his identity. The kind of desperate that fueled rage and violence, and Angel was at his mercy. “We’re out of time. I have to call him.”
Gabe put both hands on my shoulders. “Which brings us back to Mitch’s plan. He means to get that necklace back, then he has to kill both you and Angel. He’s a very pissed-off man.”
I could see the threat of danger to me stripping away the veneer of civility in Gabe. He was struggling with the animalistic urge to drag me to his house and handcuff me there where he could keep me safe. I tried to use a little of Grandpa’s magician’s diversion technique. “Maybe I can use his problem to talk to him. Be understanding, blame all the women for his problem, something to buy time.” I took a breath and addressed his needs. “Time for you to get in there and save us. You know, like a hero.”
He grinned. “Clever way to stroke my ego, so I won’t notice you putting yourself in danger.”
I shrugged. “Did it work?” I was going to save Angel. I just hadn’t worked out the details so that Angel and I would get out alive.
His grin flattened. “No. But we’ll figure out a way to get Angel. First, we have to find out where she is. I have a call into Vance. I’m assuming you didn’t call him?”
I looked up at Gabe. “I called you. I told Hugh to call the police, specifically Vance, to tell him all that he knows. Including that Angel was kidnapped. I figured Vance was more likely to believe Hugh.” I looked down at my watch. “We’re running out of time.” It had been fifty-five minutes.
He nodded. “Call Mitch from your cell. Tell him you have the necklace and ask where he wants to meet you to exchange the necklace for Angel. Be very compliant and anxious to please, except that you insist that Angel better be alive and well when you get there. Tell him that if it looks like Angel’s been harmed, you will bolt right to the police with the necklace.”
Fear churned up my stomach. I didn’t want to screw this up, but I had to do it. I went back to the bed, sat down, and picked up my cell phone. Gabe sat on my right to listen in. I dialed Angel’s cell phone, then both Gabe and I listened.
Mitch answered, “Do you have the necklace?”
“Yes.” Please let me get this right.
“Ten minutes. You have ten minutes to get to the abandoned movie theater on Mission Trail or I start hacking off parts of Angel.” His voice was low, slightly angry but confident.
He was sure he had me under control. “Wait!” I frantically tried to remember what Gabe had told me. “How do I know Angel’s alive?”
“Hold on.”
I heard a ripping noise, then, “Ouch, you stupid prick!”
My insides turned a sick liquid.
Gabe covered the mouthpiece of the phone and mouthed, “Tape.”
Oh. Tape pulled off Angel’s mouth. My stomach calmed down.
Then Angel came on the phone. “He’s got a knife, a gun, and a problem with women.”
“Angel! Hold on, I’ll—”
Mitch came back on the line, “You’d better bring the necklace. Alone in ten minutes, or I’ll start with that bitch’s tongue. Come to the boarded-up door on the side of the theater.”
He clicked off.
I jumped up and ran for the door.
Gabe caught me by my shoulders and came around to face
me. “You are not going in there alone.”
“He’ll kill her!” I meant to scream the words but they came out a tortured whisper.
His face went cop hard and he bore his gaze into me. “You will do what I tell you, or I will handcuff you inside my truck and leave you behind.”
Gabe didn’t bluff. The dangerous man beneath the almost-civil exterior was in full view now. I knew he meant it. I fought to be as tough and calm as he was. “OK. But, please, we have to hurry!”
He let go of me and glanced down at Zoë. “We can’t leave her.” He went to Zoë and picked up her wrist. “She should be awake by now. Her pulse and breathing are fine. I don’t have time to see if she’s playing possum.” He scooped her up in his arms. “Check outside, then open the back of the Jeep.”
I yanked open the door, feeling a draft of cool night air. No one was outside, so I ran to the Jeep and opened the back. Gabe followed with Zoë and put her inside. Then he looked at me. “I need some stuff from my truck. Get in the driver’s seat. Ali and I are going to hide in the backseat.”
I started the Jeep while Gabe shut Zoë’s motel door and got some stuff out of his truck. He and Ali got in the backseat. “Go, Sam.”
I backed out, passed the motel office, then made a left from the motel parking lot to the street. I was shaking so hard, it was an effort to steer the Jeep. “What do I do? I have to go in the theater.” I made a right turn onto Railroad Canyon Road.
“Drive past the theater and turn around, dropping me before you come back to the theater. Then I want you to drive in and spend a few minutes searching around the Jeep for the necklace. Put it on your neck for safekeeping. Spend at least four minutes. Get out with Ali, then call Mitch on your cell phone. Tell him you are there at the theater, but that you need him to tell you how to get in. If he says anything about Ali, we know he can see you. If he gives you a hard time about her, tell Ali to wait outside.”
He wanted me to stall and keep Mitch distracted. “What if he kills Angel? I don’t want Ali to get hurt, either. What are you going to do?” I got into the left-hand turn lane, which would put me on Mission Trail. There was a McDonald’s on my right and across the street on the left was a Burger King. Neither one of those could satisfy my desperate urge to get to the theater and find Angel. We had to get there in time. We had to save her.
Gabe’s voice floated up from where he was crouched on the backseat as I made the left turn. “Kids break into that theater once in a while. I tracked a runaway who tried to hide in there. I know a way in that I am banking Mitch doesn’t know about.”
It was dark, after eight now, so few cars were on the street. I braked for a red light. On the right was the Thrifty’s shopping center and the stoplight let people leaving that center make a left-hand turn.
If I got into the left-hand turn lane, that would take me between the boarded-up buildings that were once the town’s Kmart and movie theater. I struggled to keep my thoughts focused and organized. “So once I get in, what do I do? Give him the necklace?”
“Stall as long as it’s safe with the necklace. Fumble with the clasp around your neck, that kind of thing. I’ll be there, babe. I’m going to try to get in long enough before you to locate where Angel is. But I won’t let Mitch hurt you.”
I shuddered, and felt Gabe’s hand settle on my shoulder from the backseat. The light turned green. The movie theater slid past, a silent, boarded-up ghost of Lake Elsinore’s past. One of the big dreams of a bright future that Elsinore had a nasty habit of chewing up and spitting out.
God, I loved this town. It took real guts—fortitude—to live here.
I drove past the next traffic signal, then made a left turn onto a dark street. My hand shook when I put the Jeep in park.
Gabe opened the door, got out, and came around to my side and opened the door. “It’s been only five minutes. Lock up and wait here another few minutes. Then take as much time as you dare when you pull into the theater parking lot.” He leaned down and kissed me. Not a fast brush, but a seconds-long kiss boiling over with emotion.
Then he was gone, melting away into the dark shadows. I pulled the door closed and locked it. Ali made her way through the seats to climb into the passenger seat next to me. I reached out to my dog. “He’ll be OK, right, Ali?”
She licked my hand.
I looked over at her. “How’s the shoulder?” My dog never complained. Mitch was going to answer for hitting my dog with his car.
Ali sighed and found a comfortable spot on the seat to lie down on.
I looked at my watch. Two more minutes. I counted to one hundred and tried not to think about Zoë Cash bound up with tape in the back of the Jeep.
I would go to jail for kidnapping. My head throbbed in time to the fearful pounding of my heart. Swear to God, I never meant to get into this much trouble. It just happened. All we did, Angel and I, was take what we thought was a sample sex-toy kit from a seemingly legitimate businessman.
OK, in hindsight, it was possible we should have been a little more careful. I started the Jeep. Maybe Angel and I had been a little reckless in accepting a sample sex-toy kit from a stranger in a casino. But Angel didn’t deserve to die. Alone, scared, and thinking her life had meant nothing.
I made a three-point turn and then a right on Mission Trail. At the signal, I turned right into the parking lot of the boarded-up buildings.
I didn’t see anything. No cars, no lights. Behind the abandoned movie theater was the Lake Elsinore Resort and Casino rooms. But I doubted they could hear much. The theater had been soundproofed to play the movies and not bother the people in those rooms.
I turned right toward the theater and stopped. Where was Mitch’s car? It could have been behind the theater, but Gabe had told me to stall. I knew the boarded-up door that Mitch wanted me to use to get inside the theater. It was the side door that faced the other boarded-up building that once had been a Kmart. In case Mitch was watching somehow, I put the Jeep in gear and crept to the front of the theater, then around the far side. Once there, I looked around, working to get a confused expression on my face.
Then I turned the Jeep around and went back to the front. I idled there, and made a show of bending down and getting my purse. I fumbled through it, then put it back. I looked around the Jeep.
Was Zoë awake in the back? I hadn’t heard anything.
Finally, I leaned back against the seat and lifted my hips to get my hand into the front pocket of my jeans. I pulled out the necklace.
There wasn’t much light, but the cool necklace glittered. I carefully unhooked the latch, then slid it around my neck. Bending my head down, I secured the latch.
A quarter-million dollars around my neck, yet it felt like a hard, dead weight over my collarbones.
I reached across Ali again to the floor of the passenger seat and pulled my phone out of my purse.
Ali lifted her head and watched me.
I looked at her amber eyes in the dark car. “I have to do this right.” I dialed the number to Angel’s cell phone.
Mitch answered, “You better be here.”
My heart kicked up to a furious throbbing. Fear and adrenaline roared in my ears. “I’m here. In the front. I have the necklace. But all the doors look sealed with boards.” I glanced at the front of the movie theater. The marquee had only a few letters remaining from when it had read: This Theater is Closed.
His voice was calm now, cooler and suave like it had been in the casino. “Very good, Samantha. Pull around the left side of the theater, the side that faces the other boarded-up building. Do it now.”
Here we go. I glanced over at Ali. She watched me with her bright eyes. I inched the Jeep toward the edge of the theater, then turned right. I stopped at the door. It looked solidly boarded-up. There were a couple of big splotches of white paint to cover up graffiti; tagging was a fair-sized problem in this town. I took a breath. “OK, now what?” I wanted to scream at him that Angel better be OK. But I knew Gabe was in there, and I wa
nted to keep Mitch focused on me.
“Get out and walk to the door.”
“Uh, I have my dog with me.”
“The dog that chased my car?”
I had to fight down the sudden hot urge to scream at him that he’d hit my dog and I’d get him for that. “Yes. You . . . uh . . .” Keep him distracted, don’t get him mad, I reminded myself. “She was hit by your car. She’s not a threat.”
“Leave the dog in the car.”
I reached over to stroke Ali’s head and said, “Stay here.”
She didn’t like that and sat up to watch me. I hoped she’d obey me.
I got out of the Jeep and pushed the door to make it look closed, but I didn’t latch it. Then I turned and looked at the boarded-up door to the theater. To Mitch on the phone, I said, “Now what?”
“The outside board will swing to the side. Push it and step inside.”
That sounded like the kind of idea that ended in murder. From the cocky confidence in Mitch’s voice, I knew he thought that he’d already won. “Uh . . . why don’t you just meet me at the door. I’ll give you the necklace and you release Angel.”
“Or I could start cutting Angel up.”
“No!” I fought down panic and remembered that I needed to keep Mitch distracted so that Gabe could find Angel. Maybe he’d get her out to safety, then help me deal with Mitch. “I’m coming in.” My natural cowardice felt like a huge hand tugging at my back, trying to get me to turn around and run like hell. I fought down the urge and forced myself to walk to the door.
It looked like the board was bolted in several places. I reached out to the right edge and shoved.
It moved. The bolts were either fakes, or they had been cut through. My hand shook, but I pushed the board far enough to see inside.
It was one of the theater rooms. There was a glow of light to my left. I squinted and tried to see it.
“Come inside and let the board fall back.” Mitch’s voice came from behind that light.
Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required Page 24
