Trapped by Revenge: A Shelby Nichols Adventure (17 page)

I nodded my agreement, deciding I could communicate without words too. That worked until a waitress came to our table and asked what we wanted to drink. “I’ll have a Diet Coke,” I said before Ramos beat me to it.

“Make that two,” he added, smiling at me. The waitress handed us our menus and left.

“What happened back there?” I asked, not able to hold it in any longer.

Ramos scowled and pursed his lips. “I think we were set up.”

For some reason, that hadn’t occurred to me. “What? You think the secretary had something to do with it?”

“No, not her. I don’t think she had a clue. But someone knew we’d be there.”

“How did they know that?” I asked. “We didn’t even know we’d be there until Jordan told us about the ledger. So how did they know?”

“I don’t know, but somehow they knew about the ledger, and had to get to it first because it has the judge’s name in it. Then they set up the alarm to go off just for us.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

Ramos pulled the note out of his pocket, “Because of this.” He handed it to me and as I read the words, a chill went down my spine. It said, ‘Better Run!’ I glanced at Ramos, feeling the blood drain from my head.

“Does that mean they’ve been watching us?” I whispered.

“I don’t know, but it’s possible.”

The waitress brought our drinks and asked if we were ready to order. Just the thought of food made me sick to my stomach. Ramos took one look at me and ordered a burger and fries for both of us. “You’ll feel better if you can eat something,” he said.

I shook my head. “I’ll never be able to eat again,” I answered. “This is awful. Instead of making some progress on the identity of the judge, it’s just one more nail in my coffin.”

“It’s not that bad,” Ramos said.

“Yes it is,” I disagreed. “The police probably showed up at the house after we left, right?”

“Um…yeah, I’m sure the police are all over it.”

“Do you think they’ll make a connection to the secretary?” My breath hitched. “Because if they do, she’ll tell them she gave us the key, and they’ll know we were there after the ledger. Once they find out I was there, it will be the motive they need to arrest me for murder. Everyone will think I went there to get the ledger to hide the reason I killed Killpack.”

“But you didn’t kill him,” Ramos said.

“That won’t matter! I’ll be stuck in prison awaiting my death, just like that poor guy on death row!”

Ramos didn’t know what I was talking about, but from the rising panic in my voice, he knew I was about to lose it, and reached over to cover my hands with his. “Shelby, calm down. It’s not as bad as you think. I’ve got some ideas about what to do next.”

“Really? Like what?” I hadn’t picked up anything from his mind, so this surprised me.

“Well first off, I just want you to know that if things get to that point, I’d be happy to take you somewhere safe.” He was thinking South America, since he spoke Spanish. My mouth dropped open in astonishment since I’d been daydreaming about South America too. Then he was thinking he might have to leave me there while he hunted down the bastard that set me up.

“No,” I said. “I mean, thanks, but I couldn’t do that.”

“It’s not negotiable,” he growled. I began to protest, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “If for some reason it looks like you’re going to prison,” he said, “I will get you out of here.” He didn’t think it would come to that, so he was confident of his offer.

“Really? You think we’ll find out who is doing this to me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. How did he hope to figure it out?

Ramos was thinking that the note had changed everything, and no one messed with him and came out on top. No one. “Because,” he answered. “We have more to go on now. We knew someone set you up from the beginning and planned this whole thing. But now the pieces are starting to fall together.”

“How?”

“The killer likes to leave notes. The first time was the note with your name on it at Killpack’s office, and now this note from the safe. He is also good at cracking a safe, and that narrows the field down. And most important, this killer, or thief, is tied to a judge. The thief is probably under the judge’s thumb. Think about it. The thief wants to stay out of jail, and the judge wants certain things taken care of. A perfect deal for both of them.”

“Wow.” I was impressed. “So how will you track him down?” Ramos glanced out the window and I inhaled sharply. “Do you think he’s been watching me? Is he out there right now?”

“No.” Ramos shook his head, but he thought it was a possibility.

“So you’re thinking that if you watched me, you might find the other person watching me?”

Ramos smiled. “Maybe.”

“That would never work, because whoever is watching me knows you. They’d spot you before you ever spotted them.”

“They might spot me.” Ramos’ eyes narrowed, “But I’m not the only one who can watch someone.” He was thinking this was Manetto’s city, and he had lots of resources the thief could only dream of.

“That might be true,” I said. “But this thief might have friends he works with too you know.”

“I hope so,” Ramos said. “It’s always easier to track down a group of people than it is just one person.” He was thinking about spreading the word to everyone in Uncle Joey’s organization, then talking to all the shotcallers in the gangs and all of his contacts in the city. Someone was bound to know of a good thief in town. He could even put out an offer for a job to crack a safe and see who took the bait. From there he was sure to get a lead on this guy one way or the other, and once he had him, the judge didn’t stand a chance.

“Um…okay. That just might work,” I said. All at once my shoulders relaxed and the tightness in my chest subsided. “Wow, I feel better.” Just then, the waitress brought our food, and the smell didn’t nauseate me like I thought it would.

“Good,” Ramos said. “You ready to eat?”

“Yes, I am.” I couldn’t eat much, but I managed to get some of it down and felt better for it. Soon we were done, and it was time to go.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” I told Ramos. “It was good to get away.”

“You bet,” he said. “We’ll find this guy.”

“I hope so. What about the key? Should we take it back to Jordan?”

“No. I think we should stay away from her.”

“Do you think the police will question her?” I asked. “Because if they do she’ll probably tell them all about our visit. That would be very bad.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s not much we can do about it now.” He was thinking we could always kill her, but he certainly didn’t want to do that.

“Heavens no!” I said, shock pouring through me. My outrage turned to chagrin when he chuckled. “I don’t think that’s a joking matter.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said, instantly contrite. “So I think if the police question you or me about the key, we should tell them we were going to check the safe, but there was an alarm going off in the house, so we split. Sound good?”

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. They wouldn’t believe me, but it was better than nothing.

“You could always tell them we took a drive up here. The waitress will remember us. Then we’ll be off the hook for that at least.”

“No way, that will make me look bad, as in ‘cheating on my husband’ bad.”

“That’s exactly why it will work, because it’s something you wouldn’t want anyone to know, which makes knowing it sound legit.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, ready to hit my head against the table. This was not making me feel any better. “Whatever…we’ll just have to see what happens.”

“In the meantime, I’ll track down the killer, and you’ll be off the hook. You won’t even need to worry about anyone finding out about ‘us.’” He said that last part with a teasing smile, and I smiled back.

“Then we’d better go so you can get to work.” I said.

I enjoyed the ride back. The warm glow of Ramos’ offer sustained me for a little while. Then the closer we got to the city, the more anxious I became. Some of that was probably because when three-thirty approached, my internal clock went off, reminding me I wasn’t home where I should be when my kids got there. I hadn’t left a note or sent a text or anything. It was too hard to get my phone out of my purse on the bike, so I tried not to worry about it too much. Around four I couldn’t take it anymore and finally asked Ramos to pull over so I could send a quick text to my kids, telling them I would be home later.

I noticed a few voicemails waiting for me, and scrolling through them, saw a couple from Dimples. I wondered what he wanted, but decided not to listen to them in front of Ramos. If it was bad news, I just didn’t want to know.

We were nearly to Thrasher Development when my stomach started to churn with stress, probably because of the messages from Dimples. Maybe I should have listened, just so I’d know if I should go home or leave the country with Ramos. Not that I really would, but what if he was ready to arrest me? What would happen then?

I sighed, knowing I couldn’t do anything rash without giving Ramos a chance to find the thief, even if his methods seemed somewhat far-fetched. Ramos pulled into his parking spot and I wearily got off the bike. I took off my helmet and jacket while Ramos opened the trunk of his car and stashed everything inside.

“I’m just going to get home,” I said. “You’ll let Uncle Joey know what happened, right?”

“Sure babe. I’ll call you when I catch the guy.” He was thinking he’d enjoy beating the shit… His sharp gaze turned to me and he shrugged. “Um… see ya.”

I said goodbye and hurried to my car, eager to get home and out of sight. Before I drove away, I decided to listen to my voicemails from Dimples just to get it over with. His less than chipper voice asking me to call him a.s.a.p. sent little stabs of pain into my stomach. I wanted to put it off, but the stress of wondering what he wanted was killing me, and knowing what he had to say couldn’t be worse than what I was thinking, right? He picked up on the first ring, like he’d been waiting for my call.

“Hi Dimples, it’s me. What did you need?”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“On my way home. Why?”

“Where have you been?” I didn’t answer right away and he swore under his breath. “Did you break into Killpack’s house?”

“What? No!” I said. Since we’d used a key it wasn’t considered breaking in. “I didn’t. Why? What’s going on?”

He sighed loudly. “Someone broke into Killpack’s house and took something out of his safe. The only reason we found out about it was because the house alarm went off and a neighbor called us.” He sighed again, showing his distress. “It chaps my hide that we missed the safe when we did our sweep of the house. It might have contained what we needed to exonerate you, and now it’s gone.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not.”

My breath caught. “You’re not ready to arrest me, are you?”

“No. Bates is breathing down my neck, but we’re not quite there yet. Just… be careful, and don’t do anything rash, like leave the country or anything. All right?”

“Um… sure,” I said. “Call me if you find anything, or you know… if you’re going to arrest me. I’d like to prepare my family.”

“Sure Shelby, I will.”

I disconnected, feeling worse than ever, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and hide. If I didn’t get some good news soon, I’d think there was no way out of this. Not when Dimples sounded so sure he was going to arrest me sometime in the near future.

I got home and tried to spend some quality time with my kids. They distracted me for a little while, but they had their own stuff to do, so I hurried into the kitchen to make dinner. I opened the refrigerator door several times, but couldn’t seem to find anything in there worth fixing. Totally depressed, I decided to order a pizza and forget about making dinner. Besides, I didn’t have an appetite, and just thinking about food made my stomach a little queasy.

Needing a distraction, I picked up the novel I was currently reading. After a few sentences of not comprehending a word, I set it down and took out my notebook. There had to be some clue I was missing. Something that was probably staring me right in the face and I hadn’t seen because it was too close. All I came up with were two words. Damn and hell. Not much help there.

Chris came in, and I hurried to wrap him in the biggest hug I could, needing his arms to hold me tight. “Bad day?” he asked.

“Yes. Please tell me you have some good news, because it looks like they’re about to arrest me for murder.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“Dimples told me it didn’t look good and not to leave town.”

“That’s bad,” Chris agreed. “Well, I didn’t find much, only that Jim’s attorneys have exhausted all avenues of appeal for a stay of execution. All that’s left is going to the governor. The only problem with that is the need to have concrete proof of some kind that will cast doubt on his guilt. It has to be something that wasn’t included in the trial.”

“Then we should find the janitor. He thought someone else was there and never said anything. Don’t you think that should count?”