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Authors: Jennifer Apodaca

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Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required (21 page)

BOOK: Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required

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I snapped my gaze up. “He was furious at Zack when he called us at Angel’s house. So why did he use an accomplice? Has he ever done that before?”

After taking a drink of coffee, Grandpa answered, “There’s no mention of a previous accomplice. The women all have similar descriptions of the man they slept with who then made off with their jewels.”

Gabe added, “Which means he’s changed his MO by having another man seduce the woman and steal the jewels.” He looked at Angel and me. “What exactly did Mitch say on the phone?”

Angel said, “He killed Zack because Zack screwed up. I was never supposed to get the necklace. Zack put it in the wrong sex-toy kit. I guess Zack was supposed to get it back and failed.”

“So Mitch killed Zack.” I didn’t get it. “Grandpa, was there any violence in the newspaper articles and stuff you read on the Internet?”

“No.” Grandpa looked through some notes he had made. “Unless you consider plying a lonely woman with alcohol, which resulted in being hungover, violence. The Casino Jewel Thief is known for being seductive, charming, and nonviolent.”

Even more confused, I tried to think it out. “But he sounded violent on the phone. Angry. On the edge. What changed?”

Gabe watched me. “Go on, Sam.”

I shook my head, unable to put it together. “He said something like ‘most women are romanced into submission. ’ ” What did that mean? “Would ‘submission’ mean he uses charm or seduction to control women? I guess he’s not a big believer in female intelligence.”

Angel put both her hands flat on the glass-topped table. “He was smooth. At the time, I thought he respected a woman in business. He said all the right things, complimenting my business, showing he’d researched me. He appeared successful, so I guess I thought he was branching out from whatever business he was in. Single, no ring on his left hand. But it was all a sales pitch, a method to seduce me into selling his sex toys.”

I stared at Angel, stunned by how much she had picked up. Mitch
had
said all the right things to her, getting her attention and interest. How had he known what to say? How had he picked Angel? I reached out and put my hand over Angel’s.

Gabe zeroed in on something Angel had said. “Business. Exactly what was Mitch, the successful jewel thief, doing trying to hawk sex toys?”

Good question. “And back to Zack. Why have an accomplice?”

Gabe leaned back in his chair. “Putting those two questions together, the answer might be that Mitch was trying to go legit and start a business selling sex toys. Maybe training his replacement—Zack. He probably expected a cut of the profits from Zack for a while.”

I was amazed that Gabe could put that together. But it made sense—criminals probably got tired of hiding from the law. But why did he need to train someone to take over for him? “Replacement? But Mitch works for himself, doesn’t he?” I really didn’t grasp the criminal way of business.

Gabe said, “Remember you told me that when Mitch called the two of you in Angel’s bedroom, he said that Zack screwed up and that his clients don’t wait patiently?”

I nodded and looked at Angel. She nodded, remembering it, too.

Gabe added, “I think we are dealing with a smart, ruthless jewel thief who is connected.”

I whipped my head around to Gabe. “Connected to what?”

Gabe’s mouth twitched.

Breathless, I said, “The mob? In Lake Elsinore?”

Gabe blasted me with a full-on grin. “No, not in Lake Elsinore. Mitch might be from anywhere, Sam. If he’s the Casino Jewel Thief, the theory is that he goes shopping for a certain kind of jewelry. Once he spots something close to what he’s looking for, he probably takes a picture of it and shows it to his client. Once the client gives him the go-ahead, he steals the piece, and gets a very nice fee from the client.”

“Oh.” This was not good. “Oh! That means Mitch has promised someone this necklace.”

Angel added, “And that someone might be nasty if the necklace isn’t delivered on time. The kind of nasty that motivates Mitch to be nasty to anyone who stands in the way of getting that necklace.”

Now it was starting to make sense. “Like us.” Shooting Zack in the head definitely rated as nasty. Another thought slammed into me. “That’s why he had to kill Zack—he would have known about Mitch’s connections if Mitch was training him as a replacement.” Which made Mitch even more dangerous. I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee. “So what do we do now?”

Gabe said, “I have the victim’s name and information. I’m going to talk to her, try to get as much information from her as possible. I’m sure that Mitch made the first contact with her, maybe even getting a picture of the necklace with a hidden camera, or maybe a cell phone camera, to show his contacts. Then I’ll go to the casino and see what I can get there. Barney’s going to follow the sex-toy trail. See if he can find Mitch that way. Maybe a sex-toy Web site—anything he can think of. I’ll ask around Daystar to see if anyone else talked to a man who was selling sex toys.”

“What about Angel and me?” This could take too long.

“Stay here in the house and try to contact Zoë. If we get that necklace back, then we have something to give Vance.”

“Wait! That’s why Vance came here when he got my voice mail that I found the necklace. He knew that necklace was connected to the Casino Jewel Thief. That’s why he was so furious when things kept going wrong. He wanted to solve the Casino Jewel Thief case.”

Gabe nodded.

“But why didn’t he believe me about Zack being dead?”

Gabe’s face hardened. “Because both of you look guilty. And Angel looks desperate.” He stared at her. “You have thousands of dollars on your charge cards, your business is not making a profit, and you’ve sold off more than half your stocks.”

“Been busy, haven’t you?” Angel answered, her voice cool and uninterested.

“You weren’t honest with Sam about your financial problems. That made her, both of you, look guilty.” Gabe said flatly. “And stuff like taking off to Vegas when she’s expecting to meet with you . . .” He stopped for a second, his eyes blazing in anger. “Pointlessly worrying her.” Each word came out an accusation.

They stared at each other in icy anger. My boyfriend and my best friend.

The phone rang.

I jumped up to answer it just as the doorbell rang. As I said, “Hello,” I saw Gabe get up, take out his gun, and go to the front door.

“Samantha.”

My back snapped rigid. Zoë! The necklace! The need to fix this whole mess solidified in my words. “Zoë? Thank God, where are you?”

“Never mind that. You have one more chance to tell me the truth or I’m throwing this paste necklace into the lake.”

I barely noticed Gabe walking back into the dining room carrying two boxes of pizza. “No! Zoë, you don’t understand! That necklace . . .”

“All you’ve done is lie to me!” Her voice rose to a screech. “I trusted you with my heart! I told you R. V. Logan is my heart mate, but you lied to me! I don’t care what this necklace is. Tell me R. V. Logan’s real name and address or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . that . . . creature . . . was not R. V. Logan!”

“Zoë! Calm down. I’m sorry that I gave you a fake name and address for R. V. Logan, but you have to listen to me.” I fought to get my voice into a soothing tone. My heart slammed against my chest and panicked sweat trickled down my back. I had to get that necklace. In hindsight, I saw that pretending Hugh was R. V. Logan had been a mistake. “Zoë, tell me where you are.”

Silence.

“Zoë?”
Calm voice, calm voice,
I reminded myself. She sounded crazier than usual. “Listen, Zoë, you might be in danger. I want to keep you safe. Tell me where you are.” Angel slipped up close to me to listen. I glanced at Gabe where he stood next to the table.

His face was set as cold as Italian marble.

“I want R. V. Logan’s real name and address, Samantha. No tricks.”

How was I going to get her to listen to me? “That necklace is stolen, Zoë. It could get you killed.”

“Tell me who R. V. Logan is.”

Talk about a one-track mind. I blinked and looked over the handset into Angel’s face. What was I supposed to do? Vance already didn’t believe us, and telling Zoë that Vance was R. V. Logan would make things worse. Vance would kill me. But Angel could die! On the other hand, all I had to negotiate with Zoë for the necklace was R. V. Logan’s identity. “Zoë, just tell me where you are. I’ll come to you and tell you R. V. Logan’s real identity.”

“I don’t trust you.” Click.

She hung up. “Damn it!” I wrenched the phone from between Angel and myself, and slammed it down on the base.

“Mom?” Joel said. He came in from the backyard with Ali.

I fought to keep from screaming. I looked at Joel. “It’s OK, Joel. I’m just mad at myself. Can you go tell TJ to get off the phone and come eat pizza?”

Grandpa got up and came around the table. “Come on, Joel, let’s go round up your brother and take our time doing it.”

Joel opened his mouth, then shut it and went with Grandpa through the long kitchen. They disappeared down the hallway.

Gabe closed the distance between us. “Still protecting your detective, Sam?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Hey, I was ready for a fight. Someone to yell at. Someone to blame this whole mess on.

Gabe softened his voice. “Why didn’t you just tell Zoë who R. V. Logan is?”

Was he that dense? “Because it’s all I have to negotiate with to get that necklace back!”

A black cloud of danger rolled over Gabe’s face, darkening his eyes and thinning his mouth. “We are out of time to negotiate. Are you sure you aren’t protecting Vance?”

Cold fear dropped into my stomach. Was Gabe right? Had I just endangered my best friend’s life to protect Vance? Omigod. Automatically, I defended myself. “Don’t be stupid!” I shouted.

Raw fury wiped out all remnants of the flat cop look on Gabe’s face. His Italian heritage bloomed into hard cheekbones, flashing dark eyes, and a cold voice. “Want to talk stupid, sugar? Stupid is giving Zoë a fake name in Smash Coffee to protect Vance. Whose name did you give her?”

I glared at Gabe. “What were we supposed to do? Just give her the name? As it turns out, she didn’t bring the necklace with her anyway! She said we’d get the stuff back after she verified the information.” I was surprised I remembered that, since Angel’s car had exploded into flames right about then.

He leaned in closer. “Whose name?”

What difference did it make? “Hugh’s.”

“Christ.” Gabe hissed it at me. “Did you really think you could pull that off?”

“We had a plan! We were going to Hugh’s house to catch Zoë when she showed up, and then we’d get the necklace back from her!”

“How’d that little plan work? About like all the rest of your plans?”

He was really ticking me off. “What’d you want me to do, Pulizzi? Make an appointment with your assistant and hire you?”

“Sugar, that would have been the first smart thing you did. But you didn’t, so here I am, trying to keep you and Angel alive. And what do you do?”

I was pretty sure he didn’t want me to answer that question.

“You play with the first solid lead we get, protecting Vance. Why is that, Sam? Why are you so afraid to piss off Vance?”

“I was trying to find a way to meet with Zoë! I would have told her!” I wanted to believe I would. Vance hadn’t done anything to help Angel. He had called me a liar. And yet, I understood the stigma that romance writers endured. For Vance, as a cop, it would be a hundred times worse.

“But she doesn’t trust you, because you’ve already lied to her, right? That leaves you with a missing necklace, a missing body, and a determined killer. So here’s the new plan, Sam. You and Angel stay in this house. No one leaves this house.” He turned and stalked off toward the door.

I followed him. “Where are you going? I thought you said no one leaves this house! Who do you think you are, telling me I can’t leave my own house?”

He stopped when he had his hand on the doorknob. Every muscle in his body was pulled tight enough to snap. He turned his frigid fury on me. “I’m the private investigator that’s going to save your ass. That’s who I am.” He yanked open the door and slammed it closed behind him.

T
he slamming of the front door was still ringing in my ears when I heard Gabe’s truck roar to life out in front.

Angel came up beside me. “Your boyfriend is pissed.”

“Jealous. Vance is a sore spot for him. The fact that Dee had forwarded his calls from his cell phone to her cell phone isn’t helping. Gabe’s got that whole hero-complex thing.”

“And he loves you.”

I stared at the closed door, still unable to believe he’d broken the rules this morning. We were supposed to dance around that issue. On the other hand, it made his anger at me easier to deal with. He might be mad, but at least he cared enough to be mad. And he was coming back. “Doesn’t give him the right to be high-handed and so damn male.” Telling me to stay home and let him fix everything. Yeah, right.

“No man saves my ass.”

I turned to Angel. “I’m not against a man saving my ass occasionally, but I won’t be told to stay home while he does it.”

She pursed her mouth thoughtfully. “And it has to be reciprocal. If he’s gonna save my ass, I have to save his once in a while, too.”

“Good point.” I nodded while my mind ran over everything. “Though right now, his ass doesn’t look to be in as much trouble as our asses are.”

“True. Which means we’d better start thinking of ways to save our own asses. I know just where to start.”

I shifted around to face her. “Hugh?” I could see why Gabe thought Angel had lied to me, but he was wrong. The truth was that I hadn’t heard Angel. She’d been trying to tell me something about Hugh, and I hadn’t wanted to hear it.

With a level gaze, she said, “Hugh.”

The boys and Grandpa came down the hallway. Joel was first and asked, “Mom, where’s Gabe?”

I decided I would continue the conversation with Angel in the car. To Joel, I answered, “He went to do some work. You guys get started on dinner. Pizza’s on the table. Angel and I also have some work to do. Grandpa, can I take your Jeep?” My car was still at Gabe’s house, plus it was probably crawling with electronic bugs.

“Where are you going, Sam?” Grandpa held a handful of paper plates and napkins.

I started to answer when I heard a knock at the front door. Angel hurried into the dining room and grabbed her purse, which held her gun. Grandpa set down the paper plates and napkins and pulled out his switchblade.

Why were all the people I knew so weapon-happy? “It’s all right. It’s probably the babysitter Gabe sent over.” Gabe might be mad, but he wouldn’t leave us unprotected. Chances were good he had called whoever was at the door before our little fight. I looked through the peephole, then opened the door and said, “Blaine.”

My assistant walked in. “I smell pizza.”

Shutting the door and locking it, I said, “How long ago did Gabe call you?” He had his blue button-down work shirt hanging loose around his jeans, but I’d have bet my car he had a gun tucked into his pants.

“At least he called me.” Blaine picked up a plate and selected a couple of pieces of pizza. “More than I can say for you, boss. I closed the office.”

“I’m sorry, Blaine. I should have called you.”

He waved away my apology and looked at the boys, who were piling their plates with pizza. “I got some new bearings for your skateboards. We’ll put them on after dinner.” He bit into a fully loaded slice.

“Cool,” Joel said.

“Mine needs new grip tape,” TJ set down his cheese pizza and looked at Blaine. “Do you know how to put that on? I have some.”

“Easy to do. I’ll show you and you can put it on,” Blaine said.

“Did you bring your board?” Joel asked.

Blaine got up and went into the kitchen. I heard him open the fridge, probably looking for a drink. When he came back carrying a beer, he said to Joel, “Of course I brought it. This time I’ll jump over the two of you long ways.”

What?
“No!” I shouted. “Blaine, do not—”

All three of them were laughing. I’d been had. Cripes. Joel used the back of his hand to wipe sauce off his face and leaned across the table. “Mom can’t even stand up on a skateboard! Gabe can, Grandpa can, but Mom falls off.”

This brought another round of laughter.

I marched into the kitchen. “Yeah, well, maybe Mom can’t pay for those boards, either.” I picked up my purse and kissed both boys just to annoy them. Then I stopped next to Blaine and put my hand on his thick shoulder. “Thank you.” I meant for more than just protecting my sons.

He drank his beer. “No problem, boss. Everything is set for the open house tomorrow night. It’s going to be a solid turnout.” He picked up his beer and took a sip, then added, “You know that suite next to us that was available?”

The one I had been lusting for, with visions of expanding Heart Mates? After slinging my big black purse over my shoulder, I went into the kitchen to pour two glasses of milk for the boys. Even if this open house brought me enough clients to lease that suite, I wouldn’t have enough money left to furnish it right. I really didn’t need that much space. Setting the glasses on the table next to TJ and Joel, I glanced over at Blaine. “Of course I know the suite. Did the owner drop the price?”

He shook his head. “Nope, but a new tenant signed papers on it today. A year lease.”

Damn. There went my dream of opening up the wall between the two suites. I’d even thought of asking Angel to come in with me so we could work together. It would be big enough for two businesses. And with two budgets, we could have made it look more upscale. “It wasn’t the right time for us to expand, anyway.”

“Sam, you never answered my question.” Grandpa carried a glass of iced tea and set it down at his place. “Where are you going?”

“To Hugh’s house. We want to find out a few things from him, including if he got any information from Zoë. We told Zoë that Hugh was really R. V. Logan,” I explained.

Grandpa grinned at that, then said, “You told me that you think Zoë went to that conference
Romance Rocks
magazine holds, right?”

I nodded yes.

“Then I’m going to see if I can crack into the conference attendance logs and find what I can on Zoë. Maybe there’s a cell phone number or something. I’m going to stay on the Mitch-the-Casino-Jewel-Thief trail, too.” He came back to stand between Angel and me. “You two be careful. Take Ali and check in by phone every twenty minutes.”

Careful. Right.
I’d dropped my can of defense spray after dousing my own eyes, and that can had disappeared from Angel’s house. Mitch was good at tidying up. I repressed a shiver that revealed my terror of Mitch St. Claire. “I’ll be right back.” I ran into my bedroom and opened my closet door. I reached inside and pulled out the box of stuff that Grandpa and the boys had ordered for me through the Internet. I found my stun gun in the box and dropped it into my purse. There were advantages to suitcaselike purses sometimes—like room for storing weapons and sex-toy kits.

I went back out to Grandpa at his desk and kissed his cheek. “I’m taking my stun gun. We’ll be careful. Tell Gabe where we are when he calls.”

Grandpa studied me with his fading blue eyes. “Not
if
he calls?”

That struck me. Somewhere along the way, I’d begun to believe in Gabe and me. “He’ll call. And he won’t be happy to hear Angel and I left the house.”

He smiled. “He won’t be surprised. Just be smart. The stun gun is a good idea.”

I looked over at Ali, who had stationed herself at Blaine’s right leg to stare at his beer. “Ali, Blaine is not going to give you any beer. You’re coming with us.”

Blaine laughed. “She’s waiting for me to look away so she can steal it.”

“Ali,” I warned her.

She sighed a huge gust of doggy disappointment, then got up and trotted to the front door. She liked going for rides almost as much as she liked beer.

Once we got settled in the Jeep and were on the road, I looked over at Angel. “Tell me about Hugh.”

She kept her gaze on the road ahead of us. “I don’t believe it was a coincidence that Hugh was at Daystar last Friday night. He was so pissed at me, believing that I was destroying his work and marriage, that I think he was up to something.”

“Like what?” I made a left turn onto Grand, then a right onto Lincoln. We were heading down toward the lake. Near the bottom of Lincoln, before Riverside Drive, we would take another left into Hugh’s tract. Angel had a few brief minutes to fill me in. “What would Hugh do?”

Ali stuck her head over Angel’s shoulder and Angel petted her. “I don’t know. My guess would be that his intention was to undo any promotion I did for Tempt-an-Angel Lingerie.”

“Did he know you were going to Daystar to promote your lingerie?” Did Hugh even know that Angel had a deal with the Silky Men?

“He knew. I told him that I didn’t have time for his accusations because I had to leave to go to Daystar. Unlike him, I take care of my business and my family.”

Damn. I knew where this was going. Angel was a smart and independent woman, but like all people, she had needs. She had been married to Hugh for years before finally leaving him. That old need to have him care had surged and . . . “You told him about your mom.”

Ali licked Angel’s neck, then put her head back on her shoulder. Angel reached across with her right hand to stroke Ali’s head. “I told him. He screamed at me that I was a ballbuster. Said I drove my dad away, and that I drove him into the arms of Brandi and he wasn’t going to let me destroy that, too.”

“Oh, Angel.” Now I understood her reaction when Linda Simpkins had commented that she’d seen Angel’s ex-husband at Daystar the Friday night before. Hugh, the sniveling rodent, had driven a sharp blade into Angel’s raw wound. God, the thing was, I could see Hugh doing exactly what Angel said—going to Daystar to try to destroy her efforts to get more clients. The man had no finesse, so to him that would seem like a good plan.

But was that really what had he had ended up doing? “So we need to find out exactly how Mitch knew so much about us—enough to know that telling you he saw a man matching Hugh’s description running from your house would be pushing your run-right-home button.” We would find out soon enough. I turned left onto Hugh’s street, but stopped the Jeep a few houses away from Hugh and Brandi’s place. I looked over at Angel. My beautiful, smart, sexy, and practically fearless best friend was struggling to stay composed. Her face was drawn tight, and her right hand stroked Ali’s head gently. “Now I wish I’d brought Gabe. He’d kick the shit out of Hugh,” I said.

Her mouth twitched. “That’d be fun. We should save that for a better time. Maybe get some popcorn and a camcorder.”

I laughed, then got serious. “Tell me everything that happened last night when you came over here.”

Angel shifted around in her seat to face me. “I parked right across the street from Hugh’s house. It took him about fifteen minutes before he spotted me. He came out of the house and strolled across the street. I got out of my car and demanded to know what he was doing at the casino Friday night.”

I tapped my finger on the steering wheel. “He told Gabe and me that he was just there drinking ’cause Brandi was gone.”

Angel nodded. “He tried to tell me that, but I told him that everyone in town knew Brandi had left him because he’s a loser.”

I stopped tapping my finger and grabbed her arm. “What did he do?”

“Predictably, he said I was the loser and that he was gonna show me and Brandi. He was gonna be successful. He had friends that I didn’t know about. Brandi was gonna be surprised when she came back.”

“Friends?” I asked. Who could Hugh have been talking about? Was he mixed up in this whole mess as some kind of revenge on Angel?

“That’s what I asked him. I demanded to know if he knew Zack Quinn. He swore he didn’t know who I was talking about. I didn’t ask him about Mitch last night, because we didn’t realize he was involved. You hadn’t found the necklace yet, and as far as we knew, Zack was still alive.”

I nodded. It was true. We had just thought Zack was a crazy stalker or after something we didn’t know about.

Angel went on, “I told him that if I found out he was behind Zack’s breaking into my house and threatening me, I’d destroy him.” She turned away from me.

“What did he say?”

She didn’t move. “He said I was good at that. Look at what I’d done to my family and our marriage.”

Hugh had to die. I reached past Angel for my purse on the floor of the passenger side.

“What are you doing?” Angel asked.

After I got ahold of my purse, I put it on the console between the seats and started digging around for my cell phone. Ali stuck her nose in there to check for beer. “Going to call Gabe. I need his gun to shoot Hugh.”

She put her hand on my arm. “Sam.”

I looked up. “You think I’m going to sit back and let him say something like that to you?”

She smiled. “No. That’s why I hadn’t told you until now.”

BOOK: Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required

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