Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (13 page)

“Hmm. She attacked you
and never said a word. That’s interesting. To be clear, you’d never met her
before she attacked you?”

“Didn’t I just say
that?”

“Didn’t
I
just
say your cooperation is the key to my departure?”

He reminded me a lot
of my father: a bully. Unfortunately for him, I don’t let people bully me
anymore.

I saw the corner of
his mouth twitch. He certainly didn’t like it when someone talked back to him.
“No, I never met her.”

“What did Danielle
Dillon say when she attacked you?”

I saw it flash in his
eyes before he averted them, glancing down at the desk briefly. When he looked
up again, it was gone, and he was back in control. My question had hit a nerve.

“This is ridiculous.
All of this is in my statement. Read it. I don’t have time for this.” He stood.

“You’d better make
time, Mr. Vandreen,” I said from my seat. “You wouldn’t want to actually
need
that high-priced attorney, now would you?”

He stared down at me
over the desk then slowly walked toward me. Now I felt like prey being stalked
by that predator. I was beginning to get a pretty clear picture of Jeremiah
Vandreen.

He stopped directly in
front of me and glared down. He obviously enjoyed standing over me, and I
desperately wanted to stand up, lessen our height difference. But I chose to
remain where I was and struggled to appear relaxed. Letting on that he was
affecting me would only fuel whatever sick fire burned inside him.

“Don’t threaten me,”
he said in a low, dangerous tone.

I repeated my question
as if he hadn’t spoken.

“What did Danielle say
to you?”

“Like I told you idiot
cops the first time, and the second time, she didn’t say anything.”

“You’re lying.”

“We’re done,” he
rumbled. “Get out of my office.”

“You know perfectly
well why she attacked you. If you’d never met Danielle before, then she told
you why at the time. What was it?”

He suddenly jerked
forward, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. I saw the same fire
burning in his eyes I’d seen a few moments before.

“I told you to get the
fuck out of my office. I won’t ask again, cop or not.”

He held his position
for a long moment, no doubt making sure his message was received. When he stood
again, he straightened his tie, putting the smile back on his face.

“If you have any
further questions, contact my attorney.”

He pulled a card from his
pocket and handed it to me. I took it without looking away from him.

I didn’t like yielding
to him, but I thought I’d pushed enough for one day. Vandreen was obviously an
angry man. I didn’t want to push him too hard. For one thing, this wasn’t the
time or the place. For another, if he bitched to his attorney, who then went
looking to retaliate, it wouldn’t take long for him to get wise to the fact
that I wasn’t a cop. Impersonating a cop and harassment was good stuff; a
halfway decent attorney could get a lot of mileage out of accusations like
that, all the while making my life needlessly complicated.

Slowly, on my own
time, I stood and moved out of the office. Vandreen went to the door and held
it open, smiling at me like a victor gloating over a defeated opponent. I knew
the smart play was to leave and let him think he’d won something. It
was
the smart play, but it was damn hard.

I had barely stepped over
the threshold when he shut the door behind me. Something I’d said had pushed a
button with him. Now I just needed to figure out what it was.

I glanced at the card
before putting it in my pocket then did a double take, raising the card up and
staring at it. Jeremiah Vandreen’s attorney was none other than Eric Dunn,
Chevy Camaro owner and resident at an address once associated with Danielle
Dillon. I tucked the card in my pocket.

It was a huge
coincidence Danielle Dillon was connected to the same address as Eric Dunn,
Eric Dunn was connected to Jeremiah Vandreen, and Jeremiah Vandreen was
connected to Danielle Dillon. Too big. And I don’t believe in coincidences.

I left the bank and returned to the
Scout. As I was driving out of the lot, I noticed a security camera near the
corner of the building. I stopped and got out, peering at the eaves. I spotted
two, and they both had excellent lines of sight on the parking lot. The same
parking lot where Danielle Dillon attacked Vandreen.

I turned and scanned
the parking lot. From the arrest report, I knew Vandreen drove a Porsche. I saw
two, and either could have been his. I wondered if he always parked in the same
spot and where he’d been parked the day of his attack. From what I could tell,
the cameras covered the entire parking lot. The attack would have been
recorded. I needed to see that recording.

I drove to the nearby
gas station and got out to use the phonebook at the payphone. Not only was the
phonebook missing, but the cord on the phone was cut, hanging frayed and
useless. I bypassed it and went inside. The guy behind the counter had to hunt
around, but he was able to dig up a phonebook.

I looked up Vandreen.
He wasn’t listed. I returned the phonebook and asked to borrow the phone. The
man refused, stating it was against store policy. I offered him ten bucks, and
he passed it over. He did a lot of staring, but he didn’t ask me about my face,
which I appreciated. I dialed Amerson.

“I need an address.” I
gave him Vandreen’s name.

“Why do I know that
name?”

“My FTA got arrested
for beating him up.”

The guy gave me a look,
and I took a few steps away from the counter.

“I hope this gets you
to
her
somehow, Grey.”

Amerson always calls
me by my last name. I call him by his last name. Amerson and I both call
Ellmann by his last name. Neither of us thinks this is abnormal. We don’t run
around asking why we do it. Maybe it’s a guy thing.

“I’m working on it.
Got anything?”

“Yeah.” He recited it
to me, and I jotted it down.

I thanked him and hung
up.

While I had the phone,
I dialed Ellmann. He didn’t answer, so I left a message assuring him I was
fine. 

The address Amerson
had given me was in a development on the southwest corner of Shields and Trilby.
The houses were big, pricey, and about on par with all the others I’d visited.
I jotted down plates then went to the door.

There was kid
paraphernalia in the front yard and on the porch. I could hear kids playing in
the backyard. A couple minutes later, a woman walked around the house and
called to me. She was five-six and rail thin, the kind of thinness that comes
from illness or nervousness, not fitness. She was wearing capris and a
long-sleeved button-down shirt over a tank top despite the weather, and she
seemed to be favoring one leg or hip. I stepped off the porch and walked
through the yard toward her.

“Mrs. Vandreen?”

“Yes.”

I introduced myself
and handed her a card.

“I was hoping I could
ask you a couple questions about a woman named Danielle Dillon.”

She seemed confused.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

I retrieved the
picture and held it out to her. “What about this woman? Recognize her?”

She studied the
picture then shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Should I?”

I put the picture
away. “Mrs. Vandreen, what do you know about your husband’s attack a few weeks
ago?”

There was a
particularly sharp scream from the backyard, and she turned, walking back to
the open gate.

“Nothing more than
what he told me, I’m afraid,” she said over her shoulder as I followed her. “He
said a woman had been trying to steal the car when he came out of work. He
confronted her, and she attacked him. The police caught her, you know.”

We arrived in the
backyard, and I saw four children, three boys and one girl, all between the
ages of two and eight, running and playing amid a swing set, a sandbox, and a
hundred toys.

“Yes, I’m aware of
that. I’m more interested in the circumstances of the attack.”

“Really? And why would
that be?”

“I’d like to know why
she attacked your husband.”

“I told you, she was
trying to steal the car when he interrupted her.”

“Except that isn’t
what he told the police at the time of the attack or me when I asked him about
it this afternoon.”

She turned and looked
at me. She was surprised by my words.

“You spoke to my
husband?”

“Why would your
husband tell you a different story than he told the police?”

She crossed her arms
over her chest and looked away. She turned in time to see the kid sitting in
the sandbox—the youngest of the bunch—lift a shovel full of sand to his mouth.

“Rusty, honey!” she
called, hurrying over. “Don’t eat sand. Yuck! Spit it out.”

She used a finger to
scrape sand out of the kid’s mouth then lifted him out of the sandbox, wincing
in pain at the burden of his weight. She set him in the yard, directing him to
a nearby toy, one of those kid-sized trucks they can sit on and push around
with their feet. When he was on to a new task, she walked back over to me, her
limp more pronounced now.

“Look, I don’t know
what else to tell you,” she said. “I’ve told you all I know. I think you’d
better leave now.”

I complied, pulling
the gate closed behind me. I could hear the kids screaming and playing until I
got in the truck and drove away. I wasn’t sure what I’d learned, but I couldn’t
help but feel the trip had been worth it. At minimum, it was confirmation Mr.
Vandreen was hiding something about what happened the day Dillon attacked him.
And even more than before, I thought whatever that something was would help
explain a lot of things.

__________

I had more than an hour to kill
before dinner, so I decided to hit the gym. I hadn’t really worked out my next
move, but I knew if I looked into anything else, the chances were good I’d get
caught up in something and be late for dinner. The gym seemed safe; there was
no way in hell I’d lose track of time on the elliptical. 

The kid at the front
desk tried to chat me up while I signed in. He was barely twenty, with terrible
acne, and so pumped up he probably had trouble feeding himself.

“So, uh, you wanna get
together sometime?” he asked as I was walking away from the desk. “You know,
hang out or something?”

As I looked back at him,
he reminded me of a little boy playing dress up, pretending to belong in a
world he didn’t understand yet.

“No, I can’t,” I said.
“I’m married.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he
said easily. “I don’t mind.”

“I do.”

I felt his eyes on me
until I disappeared into the locker room. I could just imagine all the women he
met here, women hungry to feel better about themselves and willing to let him
help. Maybe he understood the world perfectly well after all.

I found my favorite
playlist on my iPod and cruised over to the elliptical. The gym wasn’t very
busy, but three of the ellipticals were occupied. I started toward a free one
beside a man in tiny running shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt. When I was
nearer, I realized the guy was probably seventy and the timer on his machine
was past the hour mark. Just knowing he was there was a blow to my self-esteem;
I certainly didn’t want to know how much longer he’d be at it.

I continued on to an
opening between a middle-aged woman and a forty-something guy in a knee brace.
Through the openings of the knee brace, I could see a fresh surgical scar.
Yeah, these two were much more my speed.

Recently, I’d been
experimenting with some of the programs on the machines, just to help alleviate
some of the boredom. Today, I chose the one with the picture that looked like a
mountain. I was delighted when the timer told me the program was thirty-five
minutes long.

I was sweating after
five. I wanted to quit after ten. I thought I might cry after fifteen. About
the time I got to the top of the mountain and was trying to decide if I wanted
to puke, I saw a woman stroll by. She was dressed in black spandex pants and a
pink spandex top, and after watching her walk by, I felt as if I knew her
intimately. For that reason, I wasn’t surprised to find every male eye trailing
her perfectly toned behind across the gym to the weight machines.

The woman was
familiar, and it had nothing to do with the spandex. I’d seen her somewhere
before, but I couldn’t place her. She adjusted the settings on a Bowflex machine
and climbed on, demonstrating exceptional upper body strength.

Maybe I’ve seen her
here,
I thought.
But that didn’t feel right. I’d seen her recently. No, seen her picture.

Shit.

I knew where I’d seen
her.

I climbed off the
elliptical and returned to the front desk, sweating and favoring my right leg.
The same kid was there, bent over his cell phone.

“Excuse me. Could I
borrow the phone?”

He straightened up and
walked over, glancing down at the phone sitting on the counter between us.
“That’s really against gym policy.”

I was getting that a
lot today.

“Listen, how ’bout
this? Let me use the phone, and we can talk about hanging out sometime.”

He eyed me openly, his
gaze lingering on my breasts. “Thought you were married.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I
don’t mind as much as I thought.”

He smirked. “Sweet.”

He set the phone on
the counter, then lingered while I dialed Amerson.

“Tell me you’ve got
good news, Grey.”

“I do, if you use that
term in the broadest sense.”

“What the hell does
that mean?”

“Who did you give that
yoga instructor to? The one with the DUI, resisting arrest, propositioning an
officer …”

“Rena Cole,” he said.
“No one. Why? Did you find her?”

“More or less. Can you
send someone to come get her?”

“Not at the moment.
Just grab her. Her bond’s only a few hundred bucks, but that’s money in the
bank. Her authorization to capture is in her file at the office.”

“No, I can’t,” I said,
glancing at the clock. “I’m supposed to be at dinner in thirty minutes. I’m
meeting Ellmann’s family.”

“I thought they lived
out of state.”

“They flew in.”

“Oh. Shit. That’s
rough. Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, thanks. What
about you? Can’t you come get this lady?”

“No can do. I’m in
Denver with Burton and Raleigh. Got a solid lead on Bruce Zornes.”

Burton and Raleigh
were Sideline’s two top recovery agents. They were badass ex-military, ex-cop
guys that hunted the worst of the worst. Currently, Bruce Zornes held that
title. He’d skipped six days ago and was worth five hundred thousand dollars to
whoever dragged him back in.

“Fuck.” I wiped sweat
off my forehead with the back of my hand. “I’m gonna have to let her go.”

“Your call, Grey, but
I’m telling you right now, you let her go, I’m assigning her to you.”

I bit back a groan.
“What’s the forfeit date?”

“How should I know?
It’s in the file. She’s been on my desk a while, though.”

Translation: the date
was sooner rather than later.

“Fine. Good luck with
Zornes.”

“Good luck with the
Ellmanns.”

This time I did groan.
And I redialed before the kid could swipe the phone from me. Blue answered on
the third ring.

“Hey, kiddo, how’s
business?”

“Uh, better than I
wish it was at the moment. You around?”

“No. I’m in Estes with
my grandson. He just turned three, and I promised him his first fishing trip.
He caught a ten-inch trout this afternoon. Can you believe it? Kid’s a
natural.”

“Wow. That’s great!
Sounds like fun.”

“Oh, we’re having a
blast. What’s going on? You need help with something?”

“No. I’m good. You
boys have fun.”

Blue chuckled. “We
will. Take care of yourself, whatever you’re up to. And say hi to Ellmann for
me.”

“Will do.”

I hung up, and this
time the kid did swipe the phone.

“So, what about that
talk?” he said.

I turned around,
surveying the gym. Cole was still working the Bowflex.

“Let me get cleaned
up,” I said over my shoulder as I started away from the desk, my mind largely
focused elsewhere. “Then we’ll talk.”

“Maybe I’ll wander
over and tell Rena you were calling around about her. She might be interested
to know that.”

I stopped and turned.
The kid shrugged.

“She’s the only yoga
instructor in here right now. And she’s a party animal, if you know what I’m
saying.”