Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (16 page)

Now I needed to figure
out who Rusty Conrad was to her.

It was after ten when I got home.
Things like that with the police always take forever. Of course, I was grateful
to go home at all.

Ellmann was at the
kitchen table, bent over crime scene photos. He was dressed in sweats and a
t-shirt, and he’d been to the gym. He’d probably gone to burn off steam after
spending the day with his family more than anything else. Guaranteed his gym
visit had gone better than mine.

The entire table was
buried under files, police reports, notes, statements, forensic reports, and
photos. He glanced up at me when he heard me come in, then he looked up again,
setting the photos down and staring.

I could only imagine
what I looked like. My knuckles were split, red, and bruised. I had blood on my
clothes. And I wasn’t making any attempt to hide what I was feeling, which was
mostly negative. Plus, my face still bore the damage of the earlier part of my
day, or so the police had mentioned.

“Holy shit. Every time
I see you today, you look worse. What happened?”

I told him as I went
to the freezer and pulled out two ice packs. As I passed, I noticed a stack of
mail on the counter; Ellmann had obviously brought it in. Toward the bottom, I
saw the distinctive beige envelope with the orange trim.

He bit back a sigh and
pulled a hand through his hair. “I heard a funny story when I went to the gym
today. The one about a yoga instructor getting attacked by a crazy woman. You
hear that one?”

I sat at the table,
one ice pack resting on the back of my right hand, the second pressed to my
face. “Yeah, I heard that one. Guess I’ve had a busy day.”

Ellmann leaned
forward, his eyes on mine. “Did you know about Vandreen before you went over
there tonight?”

I knew where this was
going. “More or less.”

“It was reckless to go
there alone.” He wasn’t lecturing me, because that isn’t his style, and he
knows how well that goes over with me, but he was pointing out a fact. One I’d
overlooked—intentionally, but overlooked all the same.

“I know. But, you
know, guys like that, they’re all the same. They prey on the weak. They’re not
so tough when you fight back.”

“All it would have
taken,” he said evenly, “was one tiny misstep and things could have ended very
differently, no matter how skilled you are or how spineless he is.”

“I know,” I said again
and sighed. “I’m not sure what I was thinking. Maybe I wasn’t. Things happened
really fast. I did not intend for our confrontation to be physical.”

“But when it went that
way, you didn’t back down.”

“Of course not. That’s
no way to deal with a bully.”

“Zoe—”

“He’d beaten up his
wife for talking to me this afternoon,” I said, shooting to my feet. “He
knocked out one of her teeth he hit her so hard, and EMS said she had one
broken rib, maybe two, from earlier in the week. All four of the children had
extensive bruising, and two of them had untreated fractures. He wouldn’t even
let her take the kids to a doctor!”

He winced at this.
“I’m not saying he didn’t get what he deserved,” he said softly. “I just—you
were almost killed not so long ago. You’re not invincible.”

I pointed to my face.
“I know.”

He came over to me,
taking the ice pack from my hand and setting in on the counter. Then he held my
hand in his.

“I don’t want anything
to happen to you. I haven’t had enough time with you yet.”

I squeezed his hand. I
wanted to hug him, but I was covered in blood.

I took a deep breath,
then nodded.

“I know,” I said. “Me
too.”

I needed a shower. I
put the ice packs back in the freezer. As I moved by the counter again, I
stopped and pulled out the beige and orange envelope. My name and address were
handwritten in a familiar script on the front, with an ugly black stamp beside
them.
screened
. I opened the end
drawer and deposited the envelope inside, stacking it on the others.

“Hey, what are you
doing here? I didn’t expect you.”

“The FBI is in my
office. My family is in my house. I had to go somewhere. I have work to do.
Plus, I needed some time alone.” He sighed and ran a hand back through his
hair. “Sometimes I think it was a mistake to move away from my family. We were
never close, and we don’t really know each other. Sometimes I think I should
have stayed and changed that. Then I spend time with them, and I remember the
reason I’m not close with them and why I moved away.”

I sank back down into
a chair. “Why’s that?”

He sat again. “I don’t
like them.”

I glanced at the
closed drawer, thinking of the envelopes. They were from my mother, currently
being held at the detention center while she awaits trial. It had been her who
had sold me out to the drug dealers who’d been trying to kill me two months
ago. She’d been laundering money for them, and she’d been caught. The case was
a slam-dunk, but she wouldn’t take a deal. Which meant the jury was likely to
sentence her to the maximum.

“Family is hard,” I
said.

He leaned back and ran
his hand through his hair again.

“They’re nothing like
me. If they weren’t family, they wouldn’t be the kind of people I’d spend time
with.”

“Look, it’s just for a
few days. Then you won’t have to see them until the wedding.”

“Who says I’m going to
the wedding?”

This was a good
question. I’d just assumed he would. He wasn’t close to the family, but he was
family, and weddings are family affairs.

“Aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Probably. Will
you go with me?”

“Oh, uh, listen,
Ellmann … .” I rose and stood behind the chair. “I’m not sure that’s a good
idea. This situation with your family seems kind of … stressful. I don’t
want to make things worse. Maybe it’s better not to push it.”

I’d thought about it
some since leaving the restaurant, and I’d decided maybe it wasn’t entirely me.
Some of it was. I mean, my first impression left a lot to be desired. Who
wouldn’t be concerned if the girl their son or brother was dating showed up looking
like some kind of delinquent? But I thought some of it might have just been
because I was the one dating Ellmann, and that anyone who filled that role
would have a mountain to climb.

“Please don’t let them
get to you,” he said. “My father …” He shook his head. “He’s not a very
nice guy. And my sister lives in a world of her own a lot of the time.”

“I don’t want to come
between you and your family. Whatever flaws they have, they’re still your
family.”

He scoffed. “Believe
me, it’s not you between my family and me.”

“Maybe not today, but
I don’t want the resentment or animosity or whatever to build, because
eventually it will get between you all. They don’t like me. That’s fine. But I
don’t want to push it.”

I realized part of
this was my fear. I often wondered what the hell Ellmann was doing with me. If
his family kept pointing out all my shortcomings, Ellmann might get wise to the
fact that he could do better. Or, he could certainly do more normal. But I
really didn’t want to agitate whatever tenuous relationship existed between him
and his family, either.

“Look,” he said,
standing. “The damage between my family and me was done a long time ago. That’s
a fact, and nothing can change it.” He reached for my hand, peeling it off the
back of the chair. “You and me, that’s not going to change either. I know
exactly what I’m doing.”

I took a breath to
respond, and he held up a hand.

“You don’t have to
believe me,” he said. “I’ll prove it. Give me time. While I’m doing that, will
you at least think about going to the wedding?”

“That seems fair.”

His lips turned up in
a small smile. “It’s in two weeks. In Malibu. You know, we’ve talked about
taking a vacation. Maybe we could stay on the beach for a few days.”

“Well, if we’re going
to take a vacation, we need to do it this summer. And I’ve never been to
Malibu.”

“Why this summer?”

“School starts in
August.”

“School?”

I told him about
signing up for classes.

“When did you decide
to go back to school?” he asked.

I thought I detected
the barest hint of a smile on his mouth.

“I’ve always wanted to
go back and finish. I regretted quitting almost as soon as I moved.”

“Uh-huh. You’ve wanted
to go back but suddenly signed up today?”

“Well, you know, I had
some time today. Amy’s class is going really well, and she’ll continue in the
fall. I thought it was time.”

He was definitely
smiling now.

“It’s funny all this
is coming up
today
.”

“Really? And why’s
that?”

“Because it was only
yesterday
we ran into an old high school enemy who was bragging about being a big hotshot
lawyer with a fancy education.”

I planted my hands on
my hips. “It was elementary school
through
high school, okay? And she
isn’t just
an
enemy; she’s
the
enemy. She’s the anti-me, okay,
the anti-Zoe. I hate her. And she doesn’t have anything to do with me going
back to school.”

“No, of course not,”
he said. “It’s obvious she doesn’t affect your thinking in any way.”

“Shut up, Ellmann,” I
said, spinning on my heel and walking out.

I heard chuckling
behind me.

“You suck!” I called
as I climbed the stairs for the shower.
 

__________

After I showered and disinfected the
bathroom, I lay down and tried to get some sleep. I tossed and turned for
almost an hour then got up. My shoulder was aching from my activities a few
hours earlier, and my mind was busy. This thing with Danielle Dillon was really
bothering me. The deadline on locating her was closing in, but more important
than that, I wanted to know what was going on. I don’t like questions with no
answers.

I went into the office
and sat at my computer. The light in the kitchen was still on, and I assumed
Ellmann was still working at the table. I had questions to ask him, but I
wanted to give him the time alone he’d been looking for when he came over. I
was sure he’d let me know when he’d had his fill. Until then, I would see what
I could come up with.

I grabbed my notepad
and began making notes. At random places on one page, I wrote names or events
or questions, then drew lines between them, illustrating connections. On a
separate page, I made a list of things I still needed to figure out. First, I
needed to figure out where Danielle Dillon was. I was pretty sure I would do
that by figuring out what was going on. How was Rusty Conrad connected to her?
What name was she currently using? Why was she using an alias at all? What had
she been hiding from? What was she hiding from now? It would have been helpful
to know something about her. What did she do for a living? Who were her friends?
What was important to her?

Since I didn’t know
those things yet, I had to stick with what I did know. At some point, Danielle
Dillon’s name had been associated with the Conrads’ address. She also had some
connection to their son. Her other known addresses were the Burbanks’ Country
Club place, the McKinnons’ pricey house, and Eric Dunn’s house. So far, I’d
found no connection between the Burbanks, the McKinnons, and anything else
associated with the case. The same could not be said of Eric Dunn, however. He
had a connection to Danielle Dillon and Jeremiah Vandreen, who was also
connected to Danielle Dillon. Two of her addresses turned out to be connected.
It stood to reason the other two were worth looking into.

I pulled out my notes
and looked at the names and addresses Mrs. Burbank’s accountant had given me
for the housekeeper and gardener. I was relatively sure Mrs. Burbank had been
telling me the truth when she’d said she didn’t know Dillon’s name or recognize
her photo, but I needed to talk to Mr. Burbank and the house staff to be sure.
Rich people have a tendency to lie, and sometimes I can’t pick up on it. I
think because they don’t feel bad about it. It’s like they think their money
entitles them to play outside the rules of the game.

I also needed to talk
to Linda McKinnon’s husband. Just to be thorough, I’d ask Amy about the
McKinnons and see what light she could shed. We’d learned a long time ago that
you could tell a lot about a person by their house. Imagine, then, what you
could learn when you were cleaning their house.

I turned to the
computer and logged on to the Sideline database. I typed in the names Virginia
Burbank, Henry Burbank, Linda McKinnon, and David McKinnon. Nothing popped. “Thorough”
being my middle name, I also punched in the names Andrea Hammond and Todd
Lindgren, the Burbanks’ housekeeper and gardener. Nothing popped for Andrea,
but the same was not so for Lindgren.