Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (32 page)

He grinned his crooked grin
and blushed. 

I grabbed Axton’s hand.  “Now
your turn.  Tell us everything.”

“And start from the
beginning,” Eric said.

“Okay, so, like, I went to
this club and the next day I asked you to take my backpack.  Remember, Rose?”

“I remember.  Where was the
club?”

“In this warehouse, well it
used to be a warehouse.  But now they have poker and stuff.”

“Where was located?” Eric
asked.

“In the city.  And it was a
pretty dicey neighborhood.  But the people there were dressed up in really nice
togs.”

“Here you go, honey.”  Ma
handed him a chocolate chip cookie she’d pulled from her quilted tote bag.

“Thanks.”   He let go of my
hand and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth and washed it down with a swallow
of beer.  “I can’t tell you why I was there, you know, for personal reasons.”

“It’s okay, we already know
the trouble Pack is in,” I said.

“Really?  Because he told me
it was a secret.”

“Yeah, well, we got it out
of him.”

“Rose has been working every
angle to find you,” Steve said. 

“Thanks, Rose.”  Axton
tipped the bottle in my direction.

“I had a lot of help. 
Anyway, back to this club.”

“Right.  So Pack got me the
invite.  I went to get info on Sullivan.  You know about him?”

I nodded.  “Yeah.” 

“Okay, while Sullivan and
Henry watched the poker game, real stealthy like, I sneaked into the back
room.” 

“Clever.  Then what?” Roxy
asked. 

“There was a laptop sitting
on this desk, so I removed the hard drive.”  He leaned back and nodded, a
little grin on his face.

“Then what?” Roxy asked. 
“Are we going to have to pull each and every detail out of you?  Just tell us
the story already.  Jeez.” I could tell she needed another piece of gum or a
new patch or maybe both. 

Axton looked a little hurt. 
“All right, keep your panties on.  So, I removed the hard drive, stuck it in my
jacket pocket, and made like the wind. 

“Then I drove back to my house
and called Pack with the good news.  But Pack was, like, pissed.  He didn’t
want me to take the whole thing, he just wanted me to hack into Sullivan’s
computer.  Like I had that kind of time.”  He looked at Steve and Eric.  Eric
shook his head and Steve scoffed.

“But then, I noticed this
big ass SUV following me around.  That’s why I gave you the backpack, Rose.  After
I came home from work that night, I heard a car pulling up in front of the
house.  I looked out the window and there it was, the SUV, and it was blocking
my car.  Then I saw Henry.”  He took a long drink of beer.  “So I ran to my
room and jumped out the window.”

I huffed out a frustrated breath. 
“I could just slap Joe.  I asked him a dozen times about that night and not
once did he mention a very large man in a very large SUV looking for you.”

Ax shrugged.  “You know he’s
a little scattered.  He can’t always remember stuff.”

“Wait a minute,” Ma said,
“how did they even know who you were?”

“Sullivan told me his entire
club’s set up with cameras.  So they saw me steal the hard drive.  Plus, I
think they already knew who I was.  I used Pack’s invite to the club and they
had my stats, you know?  It was freaky, them knowing so much about me.”

I thought about the files I
had stolen.  Yeah, Sullivan knew exactly who Axton was. 

“Anyway, I ran through the
neighborhood and hid behind some bushes.  That’s when I called you, Rose.  But
I saw the SUV trolling the street, so I hung up and hopped the fence and lost
the phone in a drainage ditch.  I decided I better keep moving, in case I was,
like, captured, which I totally was, by the by.”

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“I hid out in someone’s shed,
and the next morning, I hitched a ride to Sunset Lake.  Packard and I worked
that out ahead of time, if I got in trouble, go to the old lake house my family
used to own.”

I held up a hand.  “Whoa. 
Packard knew where you were?”

“Yeah, he didn’t tell you?”

That jackhole.  “No, he
didn’t.  Sorry, Ax, finish your story.”

“So I broke in and was there
four days.  I couldn’t call you because the phone and electricity had been shut
off.  But they had some bottled water in the garage and some canned veggies, so
I made do.”

“How did Sullivan find you,
hon?” Ma asked.

“I don’t know.  Saturday
afternoon, I’m on the deck soaking up some rays, next thing I know, Henry’s hauling
me out to the SUV.”

“I saw a picture of you bound
and gagged, Ax,” I said.

“Did they hurt you?” Eric
asked. 

 “Henry smacked me around a
little.  ‘Where was the hard drive?  What had I done with the hard drive?’ 
Then Sullivan played good cop.  If I told them where it was, they’d let me go
home.  But I kept quiet.

“They only let me have
water.  No food.  But then yesterday afternoon, Ron comes in with a sack of
burgers and bunch of video games.  Wouldn’t tell me why.”

I squeezed his hand.  “I
called Sullivan yesterday, told him I had access to the hard drive.  I wish I
had called him sooner.  I’m so sorry, Ax.”

He squeezed back.  “It
wasn’t your fault.”  Ma passed him the cookie bag and he let go of my hand
again to eat.

“By the way, look what I
found when I searched the house.”  I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the
files, then reached into my belt and snagged the USB drives I’d stolen from
Sullivan’s desk. 

“This is Pack’s file,” Eric
said, taking it from my hand and paging through it.  “It has all his financials. 
How much he makes, what he owes, credit reports.  Plus, there’s personal info
in here.  Stuff about you, Ax, and your mom, random pictures of everyone in the
family.  It wouldn’t have been hard to find out about the house at Sunset Lake. 
People do what’s familiar.”

Ma angled her head so she
could read through her trifocals.  “Here’s a file on Martin Mathers.  And
another on Arthur Briggs. ”

Eric whistled and rubbed his
head.  “The mayor?  Man.”  He blinked a few times then looked at me.  “What
have you done, Rose?”

“She did the only thing she
could do,” Roxy said.  “She took out an insurance policy.”

“I thought I could make two
or three copies of everything and put them in different—hopefully safe—places.”

Steve looked up at me. 
“That’s good thinking.”

Eric rubbed his hands
together.  “Okay then, I guess we should start scanning all this crap.”

“I know I don’t have an
appointment,” I told the receptionist for the third time, “but I need to see
him today.”  I pointed to a chair in the waiting room.  “And I’m going to sit
there until I do.”  I flounced away and sat down next to a side table piled
high with news magazines.

I had already left Dane four
messages.  The optimistic side of me said he was probably tied up in court or
busy with a client.  The rational side said he was avoiding me.

I picked up a magazine and
flipped through the pages, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything.  The copies
of the files burned a hole in my bag.  I barely kept myself from checking every
five minutes to see if they were still there. 

They were very detailed, containing
financial records, personal stats, and the amount each person owed with coordinating
dates, times and bets.  It was all very factual and impersonal.  I read over my
own file twice.  It was a little sad how thin and boring it was.  But at least
I didn’t owe Sullivan money.

Ma gave me the day off so I
could take care of business.  I went to the bank and opened a safe deposit box
to hold one hard copy and one set of memory cards.  She advanced me a week’s salary
to pay for it.  I wasn’t too happy about that, but since I’d emptied my bank
account buying stuff like underpants and secondhand sweats, I had to suck it
up.

I glanced at the clock every
few minutes.  The woman sitting next to me gave me the stink eye.  Probably because
I kept shifting in my chair and clicking my nail nubs against the arm rests.

An hour later Dane walked
into the office accompanied by a beautiful blonde in an expensive navy suit. 
She smiled up at him, laughing at something he’d said.  A little bolt of
jealousy zapped my chest and I jumped to my feet, wishing I’d worn something
nicer than break-Axton-out-of-jail sweats. 

When he saw me his eyes
widened in surprise.  “Rose.”  The blonde had been mid-hair flick when he
stopped.  She looked at him in confusion for a second, and then stared at me. 
And not in a happy way.

“Sorry I’m here unannounced,
but I need to talk to you.”  I looked from him to the beautiful woman now
glaring at me.  “In private.”

“Of course.  Is everything
all right?”

He took my elbow, his
companion forgotten, and steered me toward the inner office door.

“Dane,” she said sharply.

He stopped and turned back
to the blonde.  His hand, still clamped on my elbow, forced me to turn with
him.  “I’m sorry.  Rose Strickland, this is Amy Phipps.  Amy, Rose.”  He nodded
his head between us.

Amy smiled.  Sincere,
professional, with the right touch of warmth.  I wasn’t fooled for a minute. 
“Are you a client of Dane’s?”

“No, Rose is a friend,” he
said, answering for me. 

“So nice to meet you, Amy,”
I said.

“Excuse us.”  Dane led me
away again.  Over my shoulder, I smirked.  Her phony smile turned to a scowl.

He hustled us into his
office and shut the door.  The office was on the small side, with one window
and a large desk.  A glass-covered case containing books of codes and statutes
stood next to it.

“What’s wrong?  What
happened?”  He set his briefcase on the floor and settled me into one ugly
green client chair before dropping into the second chair, angling toward me so
our knees almost touched.

“Axton’s back.”

“That’s great.”  He pulled
me into a hug.  It felt nice.  Plus, he smelled good, like cedar and coffee. 
He finally leaned back a bit, but kept his hands on my shoulders.  My knees
were wedged between his now.

“How did this happen?  Did
Sullivan just let him go?” 

I cleared my throat.  “Not
exactly.”

“Did Axton escape?”

I took a deep breath and
shifted my gaze to his tie.  It was navy with little red dots in a diamond
pattern.  “Not exactly.”

He dropped his hands and sat
back in the chair.  “All right, tell me.” 

“Roxy and I broke him out.”

“What?”  He stood, and with
his hands in his pockets, he began pacing the length of the small office.  Six
steps to the window, pivot, six steps to the wall behind me.  Rinse and repeat.

“What the hell were you
thinking?”  

“I was thinking I needed to
get Axton out of there.  And since Sullivan has the Chief of Police in his
pocket… Anyway, I need to hire you.”

Dane looked out the window,
his back to me.  I could see the line of tension in his shoulders.  “Yes, of
course.  But you might need a more experienced defense attorney.  One of the
partners, maybe.”

“Why would I need a defense
attorney?”

He faced me then.  “I assume
you’re worried about Sullivan pressing charges.”

“Sullivan pressing charges
against me?  He broke into my place first.  And he kidnapped Axton.  Wait.  Before
I tell you anything, Dane, I need to hire you.”

He looked at me for a long
time.  I think he was debating whether or not he wanted me to tell him anything
at all.  He nodded.  “All right.  I charge four-fifty an hour.”

I pulled a bill out of my
pocket.  “I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

He pinched the bridge of his
nose.  “God.  All right.”  He grabbed the money and tucked it in his pocket. 

I took a deep breath and
paused before unzipping my bag and pulling out the stack of papers.  “I borrowed
some files from Sullivan and made copies.  I need you to take a set and hide them.”

His face blanked, like what
I said hadn’t even registered.  Then his face turned a dull red.  He threw his
hands in the air.  “My God, Rose, have you lost your mind?  You stole…”  He realized
he was almost yelling and lowered his voice to whisper.  “You stole files from
Sullivan?  The man who kidnaps people?  The man who broke into your home and
destroyed everything you own?  That man?”  His brows lowered over his eyes and
his jaw began to twitch.

“More like borrowed than
stole.  And I don’t think he actually did that last one.  Destroyed all my
things, I mean.  I think that was someone else.”

“Who?” he yelled again. 
“Who else would have done it?  That nitwit with the ear holes?”