Dead Wrong (2 page)

Why didn’t I see the signs?
Ramona had tried so hard to tell her. The way he’d pressured her about marriage so soon after they started dating. Insisted she spend all her free time with him. Discouraged her from making new friends. He claimed his possessive nature was all about love, but she wasn’t stupid. She should have known better.

I fell for this guy’s line. He looked great in his uniform, and the sex was incredible. I let him talk me into getting married because I . . .

Lynnette shook her head. What did it matter? She tried to shift her busy brain into neutral while she took deep slow breaths. “Quiet, quiet,” she muttered.

After dozing off and on until mid-morning, Lynnette gave up on sleep. She sat on the edge of the couch with her head bowed and wished her father was still alive. He had been her anchor, the one person she could always talk to. Without him, living in this new town, she felt completely alone.

Thoughts of her father would have to wait. It wouldn’t be wise to dwell on her grief, not if she wanted to maintain her anger and resolve. She sat up straight and whispered, “Bullshit. I will not live like this.”

She returned to the bathroom and examined her face in the magnifying side of her hand mirror. That only made the blooming bruises look worse. She combed her dark hair forward around her face, but it was too short to hide the damage. She dabbed liquid foundation around her nose and right eye. The swollen eyelid was going to attract attention. Using the ice pack a couple more times might help. There was plenty of time before she could leave.

She went out the kitchen door that led to the garage and retrieved her big-ass pair of sunglasses from the car’s console.

Back in the kitchen, she made a pot of coffee. A half hour later, when she heard Carl moving around the bedroom, the pot was nearly empty. She did her best thinking over coffee, its dark roast aroma and warmth both comforting and energizing.

Focused now, she made a plan. Fixing Carl’s lunch on schedule seemed wise, even if she didn’t want to see or talk to him. Not now. He’d become a stranger in an instant, and she didn’t know what he might do next.

As she made sandwiches, she thought of all the things that might go wrong, her mind throwing out one question after another. Would she make too much noise if she used the food processor? Would he notice she’d picked a patch of mold off one corner of the bread crust? She hadn’t brewed a pot of tea for iced but used instant instead. Would he taste the difference?

It shocked her to be so afraid in her own home—the one place she thought would be a safe haven.

A handful of chips and an apple, peeled and quartered the way he liked it—surely he would be satisfied with that. After Lynnette set Carl’s plate on the table, she rinsed off the paring knife and left it beside the sink.

The screened patio off the living room seemed like a good place to eat her lunch while she stayed out of Carl’s way. Juggling a plate with her own sandwich and glass of iced tea, she struggled briefly with the security lock on the sliding glass door. Outside, the pink stuffed cushions on the patio furniture smelled of mildew. It no longer mattered. She sat in the chair across the table from the glass door so she could see Carl when he entered the living room. After a few minutes he approached the door, made eye contact, watched her for a moment, and walked away. The garage door rumbled open and then closed.

Miami, Florida
Wednesday, January 22

Sammy Grick rang the mansion doorbell twenty times, but Mrs. Ortega never answered. Hired to pick up a package from Mr. O’s house and deliver it to him in Los Angeles, Sammy didn’t want to screw up a good thing. Pleasing the boss was the only way to keep this job making big money. Mr. O paid his best gofers well. Paid a lot better than collecting insurance from property owners and kicking the shit out of the skims.

Sammy banged on the door with his fist loud enough to wake the fucking dead, even though the doorbell had echoed from inside each time he jammed his thumb on the button.

No one answered.

Sammy pulled his cell phone out of the computer case he carried and called his boss.

“Mr. O, she’s not here.”

“What?”

“Mrs. O isn’t answering the door. I don’t think she’s home. Should I pick the lock?”

“No, that’ll set off an alarm. There’s a key in a jar under the bush by the garage door. When you get inside, if the light on the alarm pad is green, enter 7329 to turn it off. Then I’ll tell you what to do.”

Two minutes later, with only a brief glance at the hoity-toity furniture in the dining room and the glassed-in wine closet that ran the length of the hall to the restaurant-sized kitchen, Sammy climbed the winding staircase to the master bedroom to loot his boss’s wall safe according to his new instructions. Fucking screw-ups. Why did it always happen to him? Like the time he hijacked someone’s baby by mistake.

He was supposed to pick up Mr. O’s Lexus from a hotel parking lot and take it to the airport. The key wouldn’t work, and Sammy panicked, scared he’d be late picking up Mr. O. He rigged the ignition, thinking he had the right car and the wrong key, and took off. Six blocks later, he heard the noise in the back.

In any other situation, Sammy would have fingered the son of a bitch who’d messed him up, taken him down and kicked the bastard until nothing but a pile of bloody gunk remained. But Sammy couldn’t blame a baby for sitting in the car seat where his whore of a mother left him. He sped back to the hotel parking lot, screeched the car to a stop at the rear of the lot, and backed it hard into a concrete post. Twice.

The baby wailed.

“That’s what your fucking stupid bitch mother gets for leaving you alone!” he had yelled as he struggled to free himself from the seatbelt. Then even louder, “Why do they put the son-of-a-bitching buckle under your ass?”

It was a good thing Mr. O never heard about that one. Mr. O would have fired him, right after he’d built Sammy a new asshole. This new courier job was his best chance to make good and get more responsibility, do something more respectable than smashing fingers with a ball-peen hammer or hoisting bodies into dumpsters that reeked of rotten meat. “Do this job right and you’ll make a bundle,” Mr. O had told him. “Fail me and you’re fucked.” So what happens first thing on this new job? Sammy has to call in and admit something had gone wrong before he was even inside the mansion’s front door.

“You have everything you need,” Mr. O had told him during one of his phone calls. “You have the cell phone I gave you. Use only that phone when you call me. I gave you a laptop and a case. You have the code to get inside the security gate. I’ve informed Mrs. Ortega that you’ll pick up my package Wednesday morning. Your ticket from Miami to Los Angeles is reserved. Go to the ticket counter for your boarding pass. I can’t afford any delays. Do you understand that, Sammy?”

Like I’m deaf and dumb.

Sammy figured out who the real fuckup was when he got to the ritzy house in that ritzy neighborhood called Pelican Cove and discovered Mrs. O wasn’t home. Then the safe combination Mr. O gave him didn’t work. He was fiddling with the numbers for the fourth time when he heard a door close somewhere in the house.

Mrs. O walked into the bedroom in a white terry-cloth robe, her hair wrapped in a blue towel. Sammy nearly had a heart attack on the spot.

“What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?” she screamed.

Sammy gasped. She stood on the other side of the bed, too far away to grab. His heart pounded as he sputtered, trying to come up with a good answer. “I rang the doorbell and you didn’t answer.”

Mrs. O dashed to the bedside table and yanked the drawer open. The next thing Sammy knew, she had a Luger pointed at his head.

“Put that old thing down before it goes off!”

“Benny told you how to get in, didn’t he? That son of a bitch.”

“Mrs. O, I’m supposed to pick up a package here. Mr. O said you were expecting me at ten o’clock.” He glanced at his watch. “I was right on time.”

Sammy wasn’t the fastest thinker in the world, and he didn’t always see the big picture when he made his plans, but he did notice details. The manual safety was still engaged on the Luger, and he could tell Mrs. O didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. He put his hand out and took a step in her direction.

She tried to fire as soon as he moved, glanced at the safety, released it, and raised the gun again.

Charging around the bed with amazing speed for his size, Sammy bulldozed into the woman and knocked her off her feet. The Luger flew out of her hand and skidded under the bed as he took her down.

Sammy landed on top of her hard enough to break her ribs. He lay there and tried to catch his breath, squashing the life from Mrs. O’s body while she beat at his sides and made gurgling noises that irritated the hell out of him. He bounced his bulk against her chest to shut her up. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her jaw sagged. He felt for a pulse in her throat. Nothing.

His right knee hurt like hell and the smell of Mrs. O’s soap was strong enough to jam up his sinuses. He shifted to one side and rolled off her body.

Stupid broad. I told her to put the gun down.

After struggling to his feet, he pulled up his pant leg and dabbed at his scraped knee with his handkerchief. That made it sting worse. He half-heartedly nudged her head with his foot. The sight of her, sprawled like a rag doll, her eyelids wide open with nothing showing but the white parts, freaked him out. The towel had fallen to the floor, and her wet hair stuck out on all sides, making her look like that broad with the snakes on her head. He shivered and turned his back.
The bitch should have answered the door.
She had screwed up his job and maybe his life. She had no one to blame but herself.

He returned to the wall safe and tried three more times, studying the numbers on the slip of paper before he spun the dial. No luck. He sat on the edge of the bed to think. After a few minutes, he pulled the laptop case to his side, retrieved the cell phone, and made another call.

“Mr. O, I got a problem.”

Sammy heard his boss draw in a deep breath before asking in his heavy Cuban accent, “What’s wrong now, Sammy?”

“It’s this combination you gave me. It don’t work. Are you sure you gave me the right numbers?”

“Shit. Maria probably changed it and didn’t tell me. Look on her desk. She keeps a copy of the combination taped to the inside back cover of her day calendar.”

A minute later, Sammy picked up the phone he’d placed on the desk. “Got it, Mr. O.” He carried the phone to the safe and held it to his ear while he tried the combination with his free hand. “Okay. It’s okay. I got it open.”

“Is there an envelope inside?”

“Yeah, one of those flat brown ones, and other stuff. There’s a big pile of cash, too.”

“Open the envelope and tell me what’s inside.”

“Uh, looks like some checks.”

“That’s what I need. Take the envelope and leave everything else where it is. Don’t forget to shut the safe and spin the dial.” Mr. O paused, but before Sammy could say anything else, he added, “You better get out of there before she comes home. She’ll go nuts if she finds out I told you how to get inside.”

Sammy didn’t know what to say. Should he tell Mr. O what he’d done? Wait until he got to L.A.? Never mention it? He was pretty sure Mr. O would shit coconuts when he found out his wife was dead.

“Is something wrong, Sammy?”

“Look, Mr. O, I’m sorry. What happened isn’t my fault—”

“What do you mean? That she didn’t show up? Don’t worry about it.”

“No. It’s—”

“Tell me about it when you get to L.A.,” Mr. Ortega said. “Go to the airport. Take the envelope and guard it with your life. Make sure you have the phone with you. When you get here, come straight to the hotel and call me. I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll—”

“Sammy. Don’t mess with the envelope. Put it in your briefcase and don’t let anyone else see it. Don’t even look at it again. Understood?”

“Yeah, understood.”

“I mean it. Don’t open the envelope again.”

“Got it. I got it.” Sammy said, ending the call.

Damn, the checks must be a real big deal.

He should have taken a better look when he had the chance.

As he transferred the brown envelope to his laptop case, he noticed a slim box and peered at the pieces of jewelry inside. Red stones, looking expensive against the red velvet lining. If he took them, Mr. O would figure it out.

He thumbed through the huge stack of cash and decided Mr. O couldn’t possibly know exactly how much was there. The handful of hundreds pulled from the middle, just in case Mr. O marked the top and bottom, fit nicely into one of the inside pockets of the case. Afraid he’d lose the cell phone if he carried it in his pocket, Sammy stuffed it in the case as well.

He checked his watch after he closed and locked the safe. Plenty of time. All the stuff he had snatched rested safely in the case he was to deliver to Mr. Ortega. He’d move the cash to his own pocket before he landed. No doubt Mr. O had a good reason for not taking the goods with him when he left home. Probably had his wife steal something while he did business out of town so he couldn’t be blamed.

Mr. O was a crook and a mean son of a bitch. A big-time, rich-as-sin, vicious slimeball. Sammy didn’t understand why his boss had never been caught, had never served even one night of jail time as far as Sammy knew.

He pushed Mrs. O’s body aside and braced himself against the bed as he knelt to look for the Luger. It lay within easy reach. He pulled it out. Older than he’d thought, like a World War II souvenir. Probably worth something. The gun would be safe stashed in the trunk of his car at the Miami airport until he returned from L.A. He’d figure out what to do with it later.

Glades, Florida
Wednesday, January 22

Lynnette checked her watch. Eleven-thirty. Carl’s appointment was scheduled for one o’clock. She wondered if he planned to come back to the house before his appointment, then decided to wait until noon before she made her move.