Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (23 page)

Back at my apartment, the
super left the new keys in my mailbox as promised.  I hauled all the bags up
the stairs.  I didn’t even hesitate at the door.  I was operating on fifteen
cups of high octane coffee and zero sleep.  If there was a destructive maniac
waiting for me, I’d whack him over the head with my Walmart bags, then tase the
crap out of him with my new stun gun for good measure.

It took less than twenty
minutes to unpack my worldly goods.  Wasn’t too hard since I didn’t even have a
dresser to unpack things into.  As I looked around my barren apartment and the
empty futon frame, my anger grew.  It was a craptastic futon, but it was mine. 
My futon, my clothes, my milk.  Someone invaded my privacy and not only
destroyed my stuff, but my peace of mind.  Not someone. Sullivan.  He followed
me, kidnapped me, threatened my friends and family.   

I whipped out my cell and
the notebook paper Sheila gave and punched in the number I’d dialed just two
days ago.

He didn’t answer, went
straight to voice mail.  Which pissed me off even more.

“Hey asshole,” I yelled into
the phone.  I paced from my bathroom door to my kitchenette and back again, my
phone hand shaking with agitation.  “I just want to know one thing.  Did you
get your rocks off when you slashed my panties, you perv?” I jabbed the end
button and paced back to the living room.  I was fired up and needed to get out
of there.

I jumped in my car and drove
to Roxy’s.  She answered the door wearing a traditional, but super short pink
and white kimono.  “I’m going to talk to Sheila.  You in?”

“Yep.”  She slipped her feet
into wooden sandals.

“Don’t you want to change?

“No, why?”

When we got to Sheila’s
house, I parked on the street.  Roxy whistled as we walked up to the front
door.  “Nice digs, huh?  And you grew up in a place like this?”

“Not exactly, but close
enough.”

“Do you miss it?”

I thought back to the house
where I’d been raised with my mother’s coldness and my dad’s apathy.  I’d never
felt at home there.  “No.”

“Well, I’d miss it.”

Sheila answered the door and
she didn’t look good.  Instead of the pulled together, suburban mom outfit she
usually sported, she wore dirty jeans and a faded green t-shirt.  Her hair
looked limp and there were dark circles under her eyes. 

“Hi, Sheila.  This is my
friend Roxy.  We need to talk.”

Sheila’s gaze flicked from
Roxy’s bright blue hair, down to her kimono, her bare legs, to the sandals on
her feet.  She paused a beat before her ingrained manners kicked in.  “Hello,
Roxy. Nice to meet you.  Come in.”

Roxy openly looked around
the foyer, taking in the marble tile and the crystal chandelier.  “This is
really nice,” she said, her voice a little hushed.

“Thanks.  Would you like
some tea or coffee?”

“Coffee would be great,” I
said.

“This way.”  She turned and
walked toward the kitchen.

I spotted a pile of mail on
a small table in the foyer.  On top was a letter from Huntingford Bank and Trust.

“Roxy.”  I pulled her next
to me.  “Keep her busy for a second.”

Roxy nodded and followed
Sheila.

I quickly rifled through the
mail.  There were several bills from different credit card companies.  I held
the letter from the bank up to the light, but couldn’t see a thing.

I desperately wanted to know
what was inside.  If Packard had a gambling problem, a bank statement would
reflect that.  If he owed one hundred ninety-six thousand dollars to
someone—cough, Sullivan, cough—he must be in real financial trouble. 

“Rose,” Sheila called from
the kitchen.

I jammed the letter in my
purse, my heart beating so fast I thought I might have a heart attack there on
the spot.

“Sorry,” I said, hustling
into the kitchen, “I have to keep retying these stupid shoelaces.”

“I keep telling you to get
new laces.  Ones that aren’t so long,” Roxy said.  She pointed to me and shook
her head.  “Every day we go through this.”

Sheila poured two cups of
coffee and set them on the counter in front of us.  She grabbed a bowl of sugar
and a carton of creamer from the fridge and placed them with a couple of spoons
next to the coffee.  “Any news on Axton?” 

“We’re making progress,” I
said.  “Are you okay, Sheila?  You look tired.”

She ran a shaky hand through
her hair and tried to smile.  She failed.  “I don’t know what’s going on with
Pack.”

“I came to tell you we
followed him last night.”

“He said he had a city
council meeting.”

“Yeah, well he lied,” Roxy
said.

I dug my elbow into her side
and frowned.

“What’d I say?” she asked. 

“He lied to me?”  Sheila
placed a hand over her heart.  “If he didn’t go to the meeting, where did he
go?” 

“There’s an old school out
in the country,” I said.  “They have illegal gambling there.”

“I know Pack likes to gamble
a little.  Why would he lie to me about it?”

“I think he likes to gamble
more than a little, Sheila.  I think Packard has a problem.”  I felt like crap
springing this on her, but I knew that somehow it was all tied up with Axton’s
kidnapping.

“You don’t know what you’re
talking about.  You don’t know my husband.”  She grabbed a hand towel from the
counter and refolded it.  “He likes to play a little poker.  He likes to go to
Vegas a couple of times a year.  That’s not a problem.”

“Then why did he lie about
it?” I asked.

She threw her hands in the
air.  “I don’t know.  Maybe he just wanted to have a few hours to himself.  He
deserves it, you know.  He works really hard.”

“Why wouldn’t he just go to
a casino then?” Roxy asked.

Sheila put her hands on her
hips.  “How do I know you’re not lying?  You could be making all this up.  And
Axton’s probably not even missing, he’s probably out somewhere living it up
while Packard’s getting questioned by the police.”

“Why would we lie about
this, Sheila?”  I asked.  “What would we have to gain from it?”

“I don’t know.  But
following my husband is…intrusive.”

I shook my head in
disbelief.  “You came to me.”

“Well, that was a mistake. 
He wasn’t doing anything wrong.  He’s just stressed from work.”

“Sheila—”

She crossed her arms over
her chest and jutted her chin toward the door.  “You need to leave.”

I shot Roxy a look.  We
hopped off the barstools and headed for the door.  As we walked to the car, I
glanced back.  “That woman is in deep denial.”  

“Yep.  She’s also in deep
shit,” Roxy said.

I nodded in agreement.  “By
the way, I stole her bank statement.”

“You, Rose Strickland, are
turning into a criminal.  And I’d like to take a little credit for that.”

I laughed and started the
car.  “I need to stop by the police station.”

Roxy snorted.  “Gonna turn
yourself in?”

“I have to get a copy of the
police report from last night.  My landlord needs it.”

Ten minutes later, I parked
across from the police station and pulled Sheila Graystone’s bank statement
from my purse.  I held it in my hands and stared at it.  I felt weird about
taking it, but I had to know what kind of trouble Pack was in. 

Roxy tapped her finger on
the plastic bag window.  “You hoping the information will jump into your head
or are you going to open the damn thing?”

“I suppose I should, since I
went to the trouble of stealing it.”  I squared my shoulders and ripped the
flap, pulling out the piece of paper inside.  “Wow.”

She leaned over and peeked
at it.  “What?  What’s it say?”

“They’re overdrafted to the
tune of fourteen thousand dollars.  That’s a lot of money.”

“No shit,” Roxy said.

“And the rest of their
mail?  All credit card bills.”

“He makes a butt-load of cash
though, right?  I mean he’s a doctor, and all.”

“A doctor who is in debt up
to his eyeballs.”  I shoved the statement back in the envelope, and stuck the
whole thing in my glove box.  Although I felt guilty for stealing Sheila’s
mail, getting Axton back was more important than mail theft.  Well, maybe not
to the postal service.

Roxy and I walked into the
police station and up to the reception desk.  I was beginning to know my way
around here and that probably wasn’t a good thing. 

Officer Delany, whom I spoke
to on my first visit, was on duty.  Her gaze swept over me, then moved to
Roxy.  Her bored expression didn’t change.  “Can I help you?”

“I’m here for a police
report.  Someone broke into my apartment last night.”

“What was the name of the
officer who responded to your call?”

“I don’t remember.  I wasn’t
paying attention.”  I think I was in shock the night before.  Watching the
police, my neighbors, seeing my things broken and scattered, had left me numb. 
It wasn’t until Roxy arrived with her cleaning supplies that I woke up from
what seemed like a really bad dream.

Officer Delany sighed. 
“Wait over there and someone will be with you shortly.”  She gestured to a
small room across the hall.  It had a vending machine and four black padded
chairs.

Roxy sat and texted while I wandered
around.  Cops may not care about Axton or all of my worldly possessions being
trashed, but apparently they loved softball.  Years’ worth of team photos
covered the walls.  My gaze drifted over last year’s picture.  Police Chief,
Martin Mathers, held a trophy in one hand.  His other arm was thrown around the
shoulder of a grinning Officer Andre Thomas.  The two looked very chummy.  Roxy
was right.  Officer Thomas might not be on the hard drive list, but he could be
doing dirty work for his softball buddy.

  Speak of the hardass, five
minutes later he walked into the room.  My life just kept getting better and
better.

He hooked his thumbs in his
belt.  “Well, Miss Strickland.  Seems you can’t stay out of trouble.”  He gazed
briefly at Roxy before staring me down, like if he looked at me hard enough,
I’d confess all my sins.

Roxy lowered her phone and snorted. 
“Yeah, like it was her fault.”

“Have any ideas on who would
do that, Miss Strickland?”

Yeah, I could come up with a
few names, and his just leaped to the top of the queue.  “No.  I don’t.”

He raised one brow and
continued to stare.

“You know what?” I said.  “I
don’t have the energy to argue with you today, so can I just get the report?”

“Come with me.”

Roxy rolled her eyes and
went back to texting, while I followed him to his corner cubicle.

He typed something into the
computer and grabbed a piece of paper from his copier.  “Read this over, make
sure all the information is correct.”

I read through everything I
had told the police the night before.  “It is.”  I hitched my bag up on my
shoulder and turned to leave.

“Miss Strickland.”

I faced him.

“It seems like large pieces
are missing from your story.  Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

I peered at the ceiling, my
brow furrowed as I pretended to think.  Then I looked back at him with a blank
expression.  “Nope.”  My eyes lowered and snagged on a gold pen sitting on his
desk blotter.  I’d been seeing a lot of those lately.

I marched forward and
grabbed it.  “Where did you get this?”

He frowned.  “Why?”

I rolled the pen in my
fingers.  Dane and Manny.  They both had pens just like this one. 

“Miss Strickland?”

He stared at me like I’d
lost my shit.  Maybe I had, because I was starting to think everything was a
conspiracy.  I dropped the pen on the desk and left his cubicle.  I couldn’t
even think straight.  I was a paranoid, frazzled mess. 

I made it to the front of
the building without getting lost this time.  Roxy saw me and hopped up,
following me outside.

Before I could cross the
street to my car, someone called my name.  I turned around and saw Dane in
front of the City Hall.  With a briefcase in one hand and a phone in the other,
he jogged toward us.

“My God, Rose, I just got a
call from Andre.  He says someone broke into your apartment.”

I hadn’t seen Dane since the
other morning in the diner.  And my conversation with Roxy had me second
guessing his motives about helping me.  Was he one of Sullivan’s lackeys sent
to spy on me?    

“Yeah,” Roxy said, “
someone
trashed everything she owns.”

“Are you all right?”  Dane
frowned, little lines creased his forehead.