Beauty and the Feast (28 page)

With a sigh, Eva pulled out the Napa Valley phone book to look for the church’s phone number. Hopefully someone had turned in her cell phone. The church’s office was closed. After six rings, voicemail clicked on. Eva left her home phone number and her office number and asked the secretary to call if she had any information for her. If no one turned in the phone by tomorrow morning, she was going to have to cancel her cell phone service and buy a new phone. Great. She could add that to her growing list of expenses.

Eva looked up at the sound of a loud knock. The office door had automatically locked behind her. Two Napa police officers stood framed in the glass doorway. Shit. The real Jerry Harding probably wrote down her license number and did call the cops.

Eva found herself reluctant to rise from her chair, but she knew she didn’t have a choice. She walked to the door, wondering exactly which shoe was about to drop now.

“Can I help you?” she called through the door.

“Do you work for this agency, ma’am?” one of the officers called out, also through the door.

Eva nodded her head in the affirmative.

“Can you please unlock the door, ma’am? We’d like to talk to you.”

Eva looked at the officer. “About what?” she asked.

“Ma’am, please open the door. We just want to ask you some questions.”

Eva decided she’d better put a good face on things. She pushed on the door with her hip and it opened outward. The two officers moved out of the way.

“What can I help you with, officers?”

“I’m Officer Scott. This is Officer Whitson. May we come in, ma’am?”

“Of course.” Eva ushered them inside. She pointed to the available chairs but both men preferred to stand.

“Are you the owner of this agency?”

“No, sir, I’m an employee, but I’m in charge at the moment. The owners are out of town until Wednesday. They’re camping on the Russian River and they don’t have cell phone service.”

“And you are?”

“Eva Raines.”

Officer Whitson pulled out a pad of paper and wrote down her name.

“Do you live here in Napa?”

“Yes.”

“May I have your address?”

Eva gave the man her address and home phone number. “I lost my cell phone yesterday at a catering job,” she said, irritated with herself for sounding as if she was apologizing.

“Where?”

“The little Catholic church up in Yountville. Somewhere in the parking lot, I think. I don’t know. So far I haven’t been able to find out if anyone has turned it in.”

“Ma’am, did you go into San Francisco yesterday?”

Eva shot him an odd look. “Yeah, why?”

“Why did you go into San Francisco?”

“To purchase some items for a catering job that fell through. Are you here to ask about that? Because if you can help me, that would be great.”

“No, ma’am. We’re here because a credit card belonging to a woman who lives in San Francisco was reported stolen Friday night. The bank traced a rather large amount charged on that card to this business.”

Eva rubbed her chest. The tightness was increasing again. “Yeah, well, that’s what I’m talking about. A gentleman called me and hired me to do a last minute catering job. That’s the credit card number he gave me. Actually,” she thought for a minute, “now that I think about it, he put his wife on the phone and she said it was her credit card. I ran the card number and it went through.” Eva reached behind her. “Here’s the contract I faxed to him. The credit card receipt is stapled to it. You can see that he signed the contract and his wife signed for the credit card charge. There’s a time and date on the top of the fax.”

The two officers looked over the fax.

“Did you ever see these people face to face?”

“No, but they sent me to a bogus address today. When I got back here and tried to check the credit card number to see if I could cover my expenses, the card was refused.”

“Where did they send you?”

Eva pulled up the address and what she assumed was a phony cell phone number. She handed the sheet of paper to the officers. “The address is actually correct…well, what I mean is, a man named Jerry Harding does live there, but not the Jerry Harding who ordered our services. I met him. There’s no way he’s involved. He kicked me out of his house. He didn’t know anything about this. And nobody is answering the cell phone.”

“This is a 415 area code,” one of the officers pointed out.

“Yeah, so?” asked Eva.

“Are you sure you didn’t meet with this person when you went into the city yesterday?”

“No, of course I didn’t meet with him. I went to buy the caviar he ordered. It’s in my car, sitting on ice in a cooler, if you want to see it.” Eva pointed. “Right out there, the blue Toyota. Why on earth would you think I met with him?”

“So you could get the stolen credit card, and maybe go on a shopping spree?”

Eva was taken aback. “Surely you don’t believe that? Why would I do something like that?”

“Because your bosses are out of town. You have a friend in the city, you saw an opportunity and you ran with it.”

“Sir, I would never do that,” she protested. “I’m the victim here. This guy, whoever he is, scammed me and now I’m stuck with over two thousand dollars worth of food and wine that I’m going to have to pay for myself. I don’t have a stolen credit card. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to use it to buy caviar and wine.”

“What would you use it for?”

“Nothing!” Eva exclaimed. “I didn’t steal a credit card.”

“Then you won’t mind coming down to the police station to answer a few more questions and give us an official statement.”

“Yeah, to be honest, I do mind. I didn’t do anything wrong, officers. I’m the one who got screwed.”

“All the more reason to come down to the station, Miss Raines. If what you’re saying is true, then somebody decided to play a pretty nasty joke on you and it would be in your best interest to find that person.”

Eva sighed. She didn’t want to go to the police station. She wanted to climb into her bed, pull the covers over her head, and have a good cry. But in the immortal words of the
Borg
, Eva decided that resistance was futile. She hoped to God Officer Scott would let her sit in front. If he made her sit in back, the day’s humiliation would be complete.

Gabe grabbed his ringing phone. “Eva?”

“No,
Señor
Abbott, this is Luis.”

“Luis, did you find Eva?”

Gabe and Marsha were in Gabe’s hotel suite, distractedly discussing their interview schedule for Monday. Quincy was half-watching a pay-per-view movie. Some action flick. Gabe wasn’t entirely certain what the movie was, but regardless, it contained a lot of gunfire. The sound didn’t help settle the roiling in his gut.

“No
Señor
Abbott. I haven’t found her, but I do know where her phone is.”

“Her phone? What? Where?”

“
Sí, Señor
, her cell phone. It is at the church. I called the phone number and a woman answered.”

“A woman?” asked Gabe. “Not Eva?”

“No,
Señor
, it was the secretary from the Catholic church, the church where Eva worked last night. She said someone had found the phone in the parking lot early this morning and they’d turned it into the office.”

“Has she seen Eva? Has she spoken with her?”

“No,
Señor
. She has not seen her, but then, she was out of the office most of the day. She said she merely answered my call because she was hoping it was the owner of the cell phone.”

“Did you go by Eva’s house?”

“
Sí, Señor.
I drove to her house, but her car was gone. I waited for an hour to see if she would return, but she did not. I left a note on her door.”

Gabe felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. He could barely breathe. He rose to his feet and began to pace. Quincy appeared in the doorway, listening to the conversation, as Gabe continued. “What about the church? Did you go by the church? Did you check to see if her car was still in the parking lot?”

“Sí.
Her blue car was not there.”

“Her car wasn’t there?” Jesus. Gabe had a ticking time bomb inside and if he didn’t hear something about Eva soon, he was going to explode. Something was very wrong. He knew it.

“Tell him to call the cops,” he heard Quincy say. “Tell him to find out if there’s been an accident… or better yet, you call them. You’re Gabriel Abbott. They’ll take you seriously.”

Gabe decided his brother was right. He told Luis he would contact him the minute he had any word about Eva.

Just as Gabe clicked off, Marsha’s cell phone rang. She grabbed it, trying not to disturb her boss. Marsha listened in silence, then she stared, wide-eyed, at Gabe.

“Gabe, it’s Jennifer, from the office. She went in today to check messages. She picked up a message for you. I think you need to listen to this yourself.”

“Marsha, I can’t think about work right now. Can we do this later?”

“No, Gabe, the message is about Eva.”

“Mr. Jamison, this is Gabriel Abbott. You have information for me about Eva Raines?”

“Yes, Mr. Abbott. I’m sorry to bother you and I’m sorry to leave such a cryptic message, however, I have a responsibility to protect my client’s confidentiality.”

“I don’t really give a flying fuck about your client’s confidentiality,” Gabe said impatiently. “My concern is only for Eva. Where is she?”

“First let me reassure you that Eva’s safe. According to one of my contacts, she’s being held at the Napa police station,” Eddie Jamison replied.

“Being held at the Napa police station!” Gabe exploded, “Why the hell is she at the Napa police station? What the hell is going on? Is she all right?”

“Please Mr. Abbott, I swear that Miss Raines is unhurt, but she was the victim of a very dirty trick and I’m on my way to Napa right now to try to rectify the situation.”

Gabe sputtered for a moment. “Jamison, you’ll have to forgive me, but you aren’t making any sense. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. What reason could the Napa police possibly have for holding Eva? What kind of dirty trick? What the hell is going on?

Edward Jamison sighed. “It’s complicated, Mr. Abbott.”

“I don’t care if it’s brain surgery, Jamison. I want to know what’s going on. Now.” Gabe motioned to Marsha. He put his palm over the receiver. “Call Luis. Tell him to get down to the Napa police station and make sure Eva’s okay. Tell him to get there as quickly as he can. Then call Ted Rose at home. Say it’s an emergency. I want him at the Napa police station in case Eva needs a lawyer. He can send the bill to me. And get me two seats on the next plane home. I don’t care what it costs.”

Gabe removed his hand from the receiver. “Mr. Jamison, I want you to explain, right now, in plain English, exactly why in the hell my woman is at the police station.”

* * * *

Eva sat in a hard, cold, metal chair beside Officer Scott’s desk. He’d gone to get a cup of coffee. He asked Eva if she wanted one and she’d gratefully answered, yes. She leaned an elbow on his desk and rested her head on her hand, closing her eyes. She was so bloody tired, and she had no idea how much longer they’d keep her. She’d answered every question she could, given them all the information she had. There was nothing else she could do but hope they believed her story. And why shouldn’t they? It was God’s honest truth. The big question in her mind was, why would someone do this? Pretend to be Jerry Harding, hire her for an expensive catering job, use what was apparently a disposable cell phone and give her a stolen credit card number? She’d never done anything to anyone, at least, nothing that would deserve this kind of retribution. Unless… Eva lifted her head and opened her eyes… unless the credit card wasn’t stolen but whoever did this reported it stolen after they’d already gotten her to spend her own money.

Officer Scott returned with her coffee. “It’s not the greatest,” he said, “But it’s high octane and you look pretty beat.”

“Thanks,” Eva nodded. “Officer, whose credit card was it?”

“Hmm?” the man replied as he sat down at his desk.

“Whose credit card was reported stolen? The credit card this guy used to hire my services.”

“Oh, some woman in San Francisco.”

“What’s her name? Can you tell me her name?”

“Yeah,” the man shuffled through some paperwork. “The card was reported stolen sometime Friday night by a woman named Lindstrom, Karen Lindstrom.”

Eva sat very still, staring at the floor, trying to control her temper. Trying to breathe. That woman. That awful, horrible woman. She should have known. Damn it. She should have known she’d try something like this.

Eva raised her head. Officer Scott was looking at her, an odd expression on his face.

“You know this person?”

“No. I don’t know Karen Lindstrom,” replied Eva, trying to keep her voice even. “I know her daughter or her sister or her niece, Stephanie Lindstrom. She did this. She’s responsible for all of this. I promise you, Officer, that card was not stolen. Stephanie Lindstrom did this. She’s the person who set this whole thing up.”