Color Me a Crime (10 page)

I still have a couple of hours before the midnight dump, which gives me plenty of time to make it out to Heifer’s and Ho’s Dude Ranch and do a little snooping by myself. Even though I wish I had my car, where most of my undercover clothes are from the last time, I have my cell phone, and I can use the backlight for a flashlight and take pictures if necessary. Plus, my mace to keep me safe. That is all I need.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I pat the dash of the Fiat and flip on the radio. It sure is nice not to have to pound the vinyl to get the music to come on, unlike my car. I turn the volume up when Madonna’s song, Die Another Day, from the James Bond movie blares through the speakers. “Oh, yeah!” 

Getting into the mood, I make sure to keep an eye out, just in case someone is watching me or really is trying to frame me. I have to wonder if the killer is doing a happy-dance, because it just so happens that I had a fight with Felicia and they can lay low until the police arrest me, or if they used the opportunity to create a hit-and-run.

Either way, I am sure Park City Police Department isn’t going to find a single piece of DNA of Felicia’s on my car. I didn’t even drive myself home that night.

I pull the Fiat into the vacant steel mill factory lot that butts up to the ranch.

Time has taken a toll on the old building. All the old piping sticking out of the buildings looks rusty. The main building that was once a vibrant white is now dull and yellow with streaks of grime.

I’m taking it easy driving up the old gravel road. One, so I won’t scratch the Fiat and two, because I don’t want to bring attention to myself. No one ever comes up to the mill that I know of, and if someone does see me, they won’t hesitate to call Carl. And he is the last person who needs to know I am up here snooping around.

I turn the lights off and curl up around the steering wheel so I can better see what is in front of me. I try to get to the closest spot between the mill and the ranch. The woods between the two are thick.

“You can do this,” I whisper to myself as I put the car in park and grab the mace. I pat my jean pocket to make sure my cell is there. I need all the confidence I can muster up, because right now I feel like I could throw up. Who in their right mind goes traipsing through the woods alone? Then again, I have never claimed to be in my right mind.

Getting out of the car, I quietly shut the door and manually lock it with the keys. The less noise the better. It is either a windy night or my mind is playing tricks on me. The sound of breaking branches echoes from the woods…the woods that I have to walk through.

With my mace pointing directly ahead, slowly I tiptoe through the heavy brush, keeping my eye on the far away lights of the dude ranch.

If, from what I can recall hearing when I was half-passed-out, Aunt Jill had told Joel that Buddy rented one of the cabins that sit on the edge of the property. According to Jill, many families rent those during vacation to get the full experience of being on a ranch. They are supposed to have all the rustic accommodations one would expect from a dude ranch.

Using my cell phone backlight to lead the way, I continue to go toward the lights in the distance. The closer they get, the more my stomach settles.

One, two, three, four.
Standing at the edges of the dude ranch, I count the number of cabins, wondering which one is Buddy’s. The first two I automatically cross off my list when I see a young couple sitting around a fire pit to the side of cabin number one and people walking around the porch of cabin number two.

I creep around the back and make my way down to the furthest cabin, which feels like a reasonable place to start.

I have very little time to find anything that will help me place Buddy at the scene instead of me. After all, he was on the date with Felicia and they were not getting along. On the flipside, I probably I shouldn’t have hit her.

Hindsight
.
Isn’t that what everyone says?

The two steps leading up to the cabin creak when I put any pressure on them. I stop to make sure no one is around to hear me. I take the next step and stop when the front porch light flips on.

Quickly, I jump into the bush to take cover when I hear the doorknob of the cabin begin to turn.

Thankfully, the couple doesn’t catch me. They stroll hand in hand talking about the barn dance the ranch is hosting tonight.

Dance?

I love dancing. If I hadn’t gotten myself into this mess, I bet Joel and I would be dancing here tonight, but we aren’t. Instead, I have to claw my way back into the good graces of Park City Police.

Moving on to the next cabin, I know I’ve struck gold. Buddy’s cowboy boots that he wore on the day of our blind date are sitting by the rocking chair on the cabin porch. I don’t know if the door is unlocked or not, because the waist-high window is wide open, which makes me feel better because it isn’t breaking and entering if I don’t break and enter. I can just go in through the open window.

Using my cell, I hold it in front of my feet so I can make sure I’m not stepping on something I shouldn’t be. . . like a dead body of some other girl. But there is nothing on the floor. Buddy’s cabin is eerily immaculate.

“Damn.” I hit the button on my cell after the light goes out and realize its dead. “Here goes nothing.”

I make my way over to the bedside table and turn on the lamp. Surely, everyone is at the dance and it couldn’t be impossible that Buddy would leave a light on. Heck, I don’t know many people who do turn off the lights when they leave their hotel room. They aren’t paying the electric bill. And with the cost of a hotel room, much less the price of a cabin, we need to get our money’s worth.

The cabin is small, with a TV, love seat, bed, kitchenette and a desk. Everything you can possibly need in a home away from home, though not too rustic.

The open DVD case on the desk catches my eye. What catches my eye even more is that the disc is not in the case.

There she is, staring back at me, Felicia Evans on the cover in all her glory, right there in the flesh as Linda Minx. Frantically, I search the drawers for the DVD, if not another clue. I am more than willing to see exactly how 4Play does business…the pornography-type.

The drawer is filled with brochures of strip joints in the adjoining town and a few public appearances Felicia is scheduled for.

“Buddy, you home already?” the male voice trails into the cabin. His head pops through the open window with a look of surprise. “Who are you?”

Startled, I jump around and hold my breath, hoping he isn’t talking to me. He is just as scared as I am. His aura immediately turns to infrared, the color of immediate stress. Grabbing what I can out of the drawer, I head toward the back of the cabin. On the floor, a shiny round object catches my eye and I look down.

The DVD.

Quickly, I pick it up and run out the back door of the cabin

“Wait!” The man’s running footsteps get louder and louder as he gets closer and closer to me. “I’m calling the police! Stop right there!”

Yeah, right!

Without looking, I bolt around the cabins and through the woods. I can hear him screaming all the way, yelling for people to call the police.

Without hesitation, I jump in the Fiat, whipping the car down the gravel road and back onto the road that heads for home.

Even if the guy could give a few features of me, like, skinny with long blonde hair but didn’t say a word, that doesn’t identify
me
.

Plus my phone is dead so there is no way Joel can track that I am anywhere near the ranch even if he does try to put me at the scene.

Still clutching the papers I stole from the desk drawer, I hold tight to the stirring wheel, never once taking my eyes off the road.

The streetlights glow down on the papers in my hand, and a hand-written phone number catches my eye.

With one hand on the wheel, I put the papers in the seat next to my 4Play packet, but hold up the phone number for a better look. The area code isn’t local, but I am bound and determined to figure out who the number belongs to.

Looking in the rear-view mirror, I’m relieved to make it home with no sign of any cops.

If only I would have thought to use my mace, the guy wouldn’t have gotten a look at me and couldn’t identify me.

Hindsight!

Chapter Fourteen

“Come on, Herbie.” I hold the back door open for my sweet little Schnauzer to go out and quickly check my watch. “Hurry up. We have to do a dump.”

There are only a few minutes before midnight to get my file pulled up on my computer and get the number of my special midnight Splitsville.com victim.

With my earpiece in place, doors locked and Herbie by my side, I sit down at my desk and begin the entire process.

“Hello?” The groggy female voice answers the number I just dialed.

Traci Tolle is the midnight victim that Steven is dumping. Her brown curly hair and innocent smile is definitely a cover-up for her bitchitude.

“Good morning!” I sing into the phone as if nothing else in my life is in shambles. “Is Traci Tolle there?” I ask, knowing good and well from the application sheet Steven had filled out online that Traci lives alone and it is she that answered.

“Good morning?” She didn’t sound all too happy to be hearing from me. “I don’t know who you are, but you’d better have a damn good excuse for calling me in the middle of the freaking night.”

Game on.

There is going to be no mercy now, since she answered the phone so snotty.

“Oh, I have a good excuse. And his name is Steven.” There is a pause, which tells me that I have her attention. I glance over at my bulletin board where my stages of “The Process” are hanging. I keep it there so when I am on a dump, I can see how long it’s going to take me to get to the end of the call.

Some calls take longer than others do, because the victim is not willing to tell me that they understand they have been broken up with. I have to have the ‘yes I understand I’m being dumped’ on my tape-recorded phone call before I can hang up with them.

And some people just can’t take it. I love the ones that think it’s all a joke and then I throw out a specific detail that the victim and client would only know. This is how they start to take me for what I really am, an online breakup service.

“What do you have to do with Steven?” Suddenly our dear hag Traci is wide-awake. “Are you some bimbo?”

“I am a bimbo, but not Steven’s.” I smile, knowing I’m already getting her goat. “I’m Jenn from Splitsville.com and Steven has hired me to break up with you.”

“What?” I pull the earpiece out of my ear and reach for the volume button on the receiving end. Steven didn’t tell me she is a screamer or I would have been fully prepared and not ready to lose my hearing. “This is a joke!”

I put the piece back in my ear and run my finger along the stages in “The Process,” and quickly run through them.

The Process

1. Panic (This is the first emotion when they hear the words breakup).

2. Disbelief (They think I’m playing a joke on them).

3. Defensive (After they realize I’m not joking, they want to explain their side).

4. Explanation (They want me to explain the situation all over).

5. Denial (This is where they take it out on me and deny my existence).

6. Anger (Awww…where my eardrum becomes busted).

7. Acceptance (Finally! They acknowledge the breakup and I can end the call).

Traci is in full-on panic mode.
You should have thought of that before you treated him so awful
, I want to say, but I don’t. I let the conversation play out. It’s sort of like a cat-and-mouse game, only I’m the cat and she’s the mouse.

“Well, we will just see about that. He gets off work soon and will be coming over here,” she informs me of something that is written on the sheet.

“Yes, he usually does, but not tonight.” I go straight in for the kill. “He has hired my online breakup service, Splitsville.com, to break up with you precisely at midnight, because he is actually going to be attending a party in your honor.”

“This is a joke.” She is in stage two of the process…disbelief.

“I’m sorry, Traci. This is not a joke. This is real.” I tap number three on “The Process” list and realize that she isn’t going to go away quietly. “His family and friends have gathered at a super-secret location to indulge in fatty foods, including many with Gluten.”

“That is a lie!” She screams. “He doesn’t eat Gluten.”

“Oh, but he does.
You
don’t eat Gluten; at least that is what he put on the application.” I pull up the information Steven had sent me and read a couple of things. “He told me that you wanted him to lose his little belly so you put him on a Gluten free diet, when in reality he has been eating all sorts of Oreos at work, as well as chicken nuggets.”

“That fat bastard,” she mumbles through the phone. “I’m sick and tired of his fat rolling on me during sex!”

“Ah, yes.” I make sure that I read it directly from his application. “In fact he did mention something about sex.”

“Really? I’m dying to hear this.” Her laughter echoes through the line. “He loves sex with me.”

“That is where you are wrong. In fact, he is sick and tired of you not being able to keep any type of secrets, including the ones in the bedroom.” I continue, “He is Steven, not Christian from that Fifty Shades book. He said that he is tired of you telling everyone that you tie him up and rub ice cream up and down his body so you can lick it. You can’t keep any secrets.”

“You don’t know me! Those are lies!”

“I don’t want to know you. All I’m doing is my job.” I wait for a smart reply from her and watch as a car pulls in the driveway. It’s well after midnight and Michael did say he would bring Erin home.

“And that job is to call people up in the middle of the night and harass them?”

“Um…no,” I yell back and ignore Erin coming in the front door. “Steven paid me money to break up with you. Can you believe it, Traci? You are being dumped because you are a few cups of crazy and a sex fiend.”

“Any guy would want me to do that. Chocolate ice cream is Gluten free. And that is the only way I can stomach sex with him.”