The Marquesa's Necklace (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1)

by P. J. MacLayne

  “Leaking to whom?”

  The men exchanged glances. “And that’s the million dollar question,” Elijah said. “We don’t know yet.”

  “But don’t they have Rufus and Eric in custody?”

  “Who?” asked Lando.

  “Rufus and Eric. The guys who kidnapped me.”

  “There was only one person with you last night,” Elijah pointed out.

  I thought hard, trying to remember. “Probably Rufus. Not his real name. Rough looking guy? About my height, but heavier?” A lot heavier, but I didn’t want to sound vain.

  “That sounds like him. I didn’t get a real good look while I was tying him up.”

  “You’ll have to tell us that story when we get back,” Scotty said as he picked up a couple of empty boxes. “But if we’re going to get anything done today, we need to take off.”

  “Give me a call when you reach the target,” Elijah said. “I’ll monitor your progress, and convey any questions back to Harmony.”

  Lando paused when he reached the doorway. “Are you going to be okay if we leave you alone with him?” he asked, inclining his head towards Elijah, and flashing me an exaggerated wink. “Maybe he should go and I should stay.” I worked hard not to smile, but Elijah must have seen the wink too. The empty paper cup that Elijah had been holding followed Lando out the door.

  Listening to the police band was interesting for all of about five minutes. Besides, I had too many questions trying to fight their way out of my head to sit quietly. Elijah was busy working on a laptop. Until the guys brought me back my contacts I couldn’t play solitaire or anything.

  I waited until it seemed he had reached a stopping point. “Can I ask you something?”

  He didn’t glance away from his screen. “Sure.”

  I took a deep breath. “Just who the hell are you? And why have you been following me? And how did you find me last night? I mean, I’m grateful you did, but it’s a little strange.”

  He put his laptop on the table and swiveled to face me. “Last question first,” he said, reaching out to adjust the gauze that protected my wrist. “I used your cell phone to find you. That’s why it’s so important to keep it turned off now. If I can find you that way, so can someone else.”

  “I thought tracking only worked when someone was making calls.”

  “Not any more. Besides,” he swallowed hard, “I installed a tracking app on your phone. One day at the library, you left your phone lying on the table. It only took a minute, and now I can track your phone from mine.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he held up one hand. “Last night was the first time I used it. If it hadn’t been an emergency, I wouldn’t have invaded your privacy.”

  When he put his hand back down it settled gently on top of mine. I let it stay, liking the warmth against my skin. “How did you find out I was in trouble?”

  He grinned. “Another app. This one monitors police communications. Sort of a scaled-down version of what you’ve been listening to.”

  As he talked, more questions popped into my head. How did he get a hold of my phone? Just how long had he been following me, or tracking me, or whatever? And why? I pulled my hand out from under his.

  “Why were you listening anyway?” I demanded, needing answers, wondering what he would do if I walked out the door. I began to question if he was really the good guy he made himself out to be, or if I’d just moved from one kidnapper to another.

  His mouth twitched. I looked for a matching twitch in his cheek, and yes, it was there. I could almost see the gears turning in his head. I waited. He sighed. His cell phone buzzed. Damn. He answered. “She’s right here,” he said. He handed the phone to me. “Luke wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ve got two guys here saying you sent them. Name tags say Pete and George.” Luke said.

  “Pete and George?” Elijah nodded his head furiously. “Yeah, I gave them a list of stuff to pick up for me.”

  Luke’s voice became indistinct as he called to Joe in the background. I could make out footsteps walking away. Joe must have been taking Lando and Scotty upstairs. Piper was barking feverishly. “They can’t hear me now,” he said softly. “Are you sure you’re okay? They seem a little shady.”

  I giggled. “They really are sweet,” I said. “Like the brothers I never had. And ask them to check out your computer. Didn’t you say it was running slow a few days ago? They might be able to help.” I looked around at all the equipment in the room. They certainly seemed to know what they were doing.

  The phone buzzed again. Another call was coming in. “I have to go now, Luke. But would you check my mail? And give Piper a treat for me. I miss him. Bye.” I handed the phone back to Elijah and turned away, not wanting him to see me wipe a tear out of my eye. I slipped the headphones back on and resumed listening to the everyday happenings of small town USA.

  Elijah carried on a conversation with either Lando or Scotty. From the corner of my eye I watched as he paced the room, his left hand tucked into his armpit while the right hand held the cell phone to his ear. At one point he stopped dead in his tracks and rocked back and forth. “Where was it?” he said. “No, leave it alone. We don’t want them to know we found it.” He turned his back to me. “Where are you putting ours?” he asked softly. Not softly enough. Even through the headphone and the police chatter, I heard him. I glared in his direction, burning holes in his back. He kept digging himself in deeper and deeper. Unaware, he started pacing again.

  The guys stopped and picked us up lunch from the Burger Barn on the way back. I was glad I’d asked for a salad, because as good as those fries smelled, I had another priority besides eating. Like a long hot shower and changing into clean clothes. A burger would be cold by the time I got around to eating it.

  I was putting in my contacts when there was a knock on the door between my room and Elijah’s. “Come on in,” I called, blinking my eyes rapidly to settle my contacts in place. Hallelujah, I could see clearly again! I examined my lip in the mirror. The swelling was gone, and only a small scab remained. Elijah caught me in the act.

  “What happened there?” he asked.

  I grimaced. “Rufus. He decided to show me who was boss.”

  Elijah’s face turned red. That was no blush. He let out a string of curse words. He was as good at it as Joe. “If I had known that,” he said, “I would have…” He blew out a loud breath. “No, I won’t say it. But if I am ever alone with him, I’ll show him what I think about hitting a woman.”

  I decided not to tell Elijah I was tied up at the time. I didn’t want him to have a heart attack. He put down the metal box he held. “Come here,” he said gruffly. “I want to take a look at your wrist.”

  Obediently, I held it out for him. Gentle fingers ran across the skin. I was surprised when a tingle ran up my arm and almost snatched it away. Did he notice?

  “I don’t see any sign of infection,” he said. “But keep it wrapped up for a couple of days.” He didn’t release my wrist but looked into my eyes. “I can help you if you like. I brought some fresh gauze.” He finally let go of me and picked up the box. It was a first aid kit. “It might not hurt to put some antibiotic ointment on it,” he continued.

  I shut my eyes for a moment. The tenderness in those blue eyes scared me. What scared me worse was the way my heart reacted.

  It stopped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I gave myself a mental slap. No way I was falling for this guy. I didn’t trust him, right?

  Thank God he didn’t notice my reaction. He finished taping down the gauze over the sores on my wrist and pulled the sleeve of my blouse down to cover it. “Are you ready to eat?” he asked.

  I eyed the boxes scattered across my room. “I should put away my clothes.” What I really wanted to do was rinse out my underthings and hang them up to dry.

  “After you eat.” He smiled. “Scotty has something he wants to show you. You can chow down while he shows off his latest achievement.”

  I followe
d him to the far room. Somehow they had managed to fit more computer equipment into the now cramped space. Elijah dumped a stack of wires off a chair and held it while Lando pulled my salad out of the mini-fridge and, with a bow, handed it to me. “Dinner is served, m’lady,” he said with a grin. Scotty sat with his back turned, banging away on the keyboard.

  I had only taken two or three bites before he exclaimed, “Got it!” I peered over his shoulder to see several pictures arranged on his screen.

  “Here’s the hallway,” he said pointing to the top left corner. “And this one,” moving his finger down, “Is the lobby downstairs.” He grinned. “I hijacked the hotel’s security camera display.”

  “And that’s my living room!” I pointed to the upper right-hand picture.

  “Yep, I installed a miniature webcam. Just took a few minutes. Luke and Joe were so busy watching Lando pack up your clothes they didn’t even notice me doing it. Now we can hear and see what’s going on in your apartment.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked it. “Wait a minute. Did you bug my place?”

  Lando grinned. “You catch on fast.”

  My brain was whirling furiously. “Someone else planted a bug, too.”

  Scotty nodded. “Our scan found it on the bottom side of one of your bookshelves.”

  I pursed my lips. “Probably happened the same time as the break-in,” I guessed. “Any way of telling who did it?” Had Detective Thomason done it, I wondered, or someone else?

  “Without taking it out and dismantling it, no. Unless we happened to spot someone parked in a black van across the street twenty-four hours a day,” Scotty replied. “The one we installed works through your wireless at the apartment, so we don’t need to be close to listen in.” He pointed to the block in the lower right of the screen. It looked like a flat line, wavering only slightly.

  I hadn’t spotted any unusual vehicles in the neighborhood the last couple of weeks. Problem is, I don’t pay attention to that sort of thing.

  “By the way, we changed your password to connect to the internet,” Lando said, “To something more secure. When it’s safe for you to go home, we can change it back.”

  Or not. If they could hack in and change it, so could someone else.

  “This is all good,” I said, waving my hand towards the setup. “But there’s something you haven’t told me yet. Just who the hell are you guys and why are you doing this?”

  Lando and Scotty suddenly had urgent problems with their laptops. “It’s all you, boss,” Scotty muttered. I swiveled around to face Elijah.

  “Well?” I asked. I put the plastic container with my mostly uneaten chef’s salad on the floor under my chair. I stood, moving in close to him, trying to make him uncomfortable. He took a step back.

  “A friend asked me to do him a favor,” he started. “To make sure you were all right.”

  “A friend? Like Detective Thomason?” I asked.

  “No, not Detective Thomason.” Elijah hesitated. I crossed my arms and stared at him.

  “Janine? Sarah? Are you going to make me play a guessing game or are you going to tell me?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. For a big strong man he was certainly acting the coward.

  “She’s going to need to know sooner or later,” Lando said. “You might as well go ahead and tell her now.”

  “My name,” Elijah said, looking down towards the floor, “Is Matthew Elijah Hennessey.”

  As I ran to my room, I slammed two doors behind me. I piled the boxes of my clothes on the bed. Too many for me to carry very far, but Sarah would come and pick me up, I was sure of it. I needed to talk to her anyway, and warn her about Eric. If I called her first, I would have time to gather up the rest of my things before she got here.

  I picked up the receiver of the phone on the desk, held it to my ear and reached to dial. No dial tone. I punched the button on the main part of the phone a few times, and got nowhere. Frustrated, I pulled the phone cord, cursing loudly. When it whipped by me, I realized what was wrong. It was unplugged!

  With the receiver still in my hand, I bent over to see where the phone jack was. All I needed to do was plug the cord back in and I could place my call. Maybe I should call 911 first. And then Elijah’s hand was on my arm. “Don’t do it, Harmony, please.”

  My self-defense classes finally paid off. I swung around, hit his cheek with the receiver, elbowed him in the side, and then kicked him behind his knee. He yelped in pain and dropped to the floor. I stood over him, glaring. Lando and Scotty, alerted by the noise, came rushing into the room and started laughing. I glared at them too.

  “You did that?” Scotty asked, grinning from ear to ear and pointing towards Elijah.

  “Yes, and I’m not sorry.” I poked Elijah with my foot. “I think he’ll survive.”

  “Can I get up now?” Elijah asked. I nodded and backed away. I’d dropped the receiver, but both hands were clenched into tight fists. “Would one of you get me a bag of ice?” he asked, rubbing his cheek as he stood up. “I’m going to need it.”

  Scotty, still laughing, left. Lando, shaking his head, asked “Do you want me to stick around to protect you, Eli?”

  Elijah looked at me as he brushed himself off. “As long as he doesn’t make any funny moves, I’ll let him live,” I growled.

  “Okey-dokey. I think I heard something interesting happening on the police scanner anyway.” Lando strolled out of the room, whistling.

  The muscle in Elijah’s cheek was twitching. “Was that necessary?”

  “Instinct.” I shrugged. “You startled me. You’ll know better than to sneak up on me next time.” My anger started to fade.

  Smirking, Scotty handed a bag of ice to Elijah, high-fived me, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  I sat down on the only chair in the room. The other one had been moved to the room I now called “the command center.” Elijah, after looking around, took a seat on the edge of the bed. “So I guess I should explain.”

  “That would be a good thing. Maybe you can start by explaining why you didn’t tell me you’re Jake’s brother.”

  “Cousin, actually. But we lived only a few blocks apart and growing up, we were inseparable. And I didn’t tell you because I figured you would react exactly the way you did.”

  Fair enough. “So how long have you been spying on me?”

  “I wasn’t spying on you. Jake asked me to check up on you once in a while. He was worried about you.”

  “And you dropped everything to do that?”

  I swear he blushed. “Jake talked about you so much I couldn’t resist checking you out. I found it hard to believe that a woman had actually tamed him. And when I saw you, I understood why.”

  “Then you started stalking me? I’m sure that’s what Jake wanted.”

  “No.” Elijah paused. “No, I just dropped into town occasionally. At least, until the day your car blew up.”

  “It was you!” I remembered the report about a man in a brown suit leaving the scene. “You blew up George!”

  “George?” He smiled, but I let it slide.

  “My car.”

  “Not me. I spotted some shady-looking guys fooling around under your car, and I was going to take it to a friend to have it checked out. I learned to hotwire cars as a teenager, when I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Friends of Jake’s, mostly. I thought I could get the car back to you before you missed it. Anyway, I’m not sure what they did to it, but I was able to jump out before it caught on fire. After that, I came back to town a lot. I was worried about you.”

  With good cause. “Did you follow me in D.C.?” I asked.

  “I don’t know who that was. As far as I can find out, it wasn’t any of the government agencies. If they were following you, you’d never know. I think it’s the same people who grabbed you last night.”

  I quirked one eyebrow in an unspoken question.

  “I’ve been monitoring the police for quite a while now.” Elijah grinned and then
hurriedly put the ice back on his cheek. “Let’s just say I have unauthorized access to their computer system.”

  Great. Another hacker. “And who do you suppose these people are?”

  “My theory is it’s someone Jake crossed along the way. He never did stop hanging out with the wrong crowd. But if we knew what they wanted, it would help us figure it out.”

  “I know what they want,” I said quietly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Back in the command center, I told the three men about the attempted robbery, and the information that Eric had revealed to me the night before. I described the necklace, unable to put into words its elegant beauty. At some point, my salad had been shoved back into my hands. I gobbled down a few bites as Lando fiddled around on his laptop and brought up several images on his screen.

  “Is this what it looked like?” he asked, choosing and enlarging one.

  I quickly swallowed. “Not quite. The necklace Jake gave me had more rubies.” I pointed to the chain. “There was another group of jewels here and here. You can’t really see it in the picture Elijah gave me, and that’s the only time I wore it. Where did you get the picture anyway?” I asked, glancing at him.

  “The one I left for you in the library? Police files. They were already investigating the two of you,” Elijah said. “Probably had someone undercover or in plain clothes in the restaurant that night.”

  “Did he tell you what it was worth?” Lando asked me as he navigated to a different web page.

  “No, and I didn’t ask. I realized it had to cost more than I was comfortable with so I gave the necklace back to him. I assumed he returned it to the store.”

  Lando let out a low whistle. “Are you sure your cuz wasn’t into distributing illegal pharmaceuticals?” he asked Elijah, pointing to some small print on the computer monitor, too little for me to read from my chair. “Because that’s a hefty price tag.”