No way was I going back inside that restaurant. I left the Mustang in the parking lot and moped down the street toward town, one minute wanting to rush back to Albertino’s and talk to Kyle, the next wanting to find Ricky and jump his bones, and then the next, (admittedly less often) thinking that maybe the best thing for me to do was to sign up for the Army. Either that or become a nun.
Just as I’d hoped, I spotted Tim’s SUV in Pilazzo’s parking lot. He was the one man I knew I could talk to. The one man who would give it to me straight. He was sitting outside on the patio at one of the wrought iron tables nursing a root beer and chomping on pretzels while he worked a crossword puzzle.
“Hey,” I said.
He glanced up from his crossword puzzle, then did a double take. “What’s wrong? What happened? I thought you had a big lunch date.”
“So did I.”
He used his foot to kick the chair across from him away from the seat. “Sit and spill it.”
The wrought iron felt hot against my skin. “It wasn’t a date. At least I don’t think it was. He had Ellingsworth, the president of Barfield with him. They offered me a job. Well, they were in the process of offering me a job but then Ricky showed up.”
Tim’s jaw dropped. “Ricky. Our Ricky?”
“One and the same. He’s in town to celebrate his Mom’s birthday.”
“Did you two get into it? You didn’t hit him or knife him or anything like that did you?”
I didn’t want to tell Tim what happened, didn’t want to let him in on my confusion, but I did anyway. He nearly went through the roof.
“Damn it, Marty, you can’t let him do this to you. Not again. I swear to God, if you go back to him, I’ll never speak to you again. I’m not picking the pieces of your heart up off the floor again, you understand?”
It was exactly what I knew he’d say to me, but I didn’t like the way the words stung. “Nobody said you had to. Give me some credit, Tim. I’m not one of Ricky’s little Nashville-wannabe groupies. I know him. I know how he operates.”
“No you don’t. You just think you do, Marty.” Tim slammed the paper down on the table and stalked off. “Don’t let him get to you. I meant what I said. I won’t watch you go through it again. I can’t,” he said on his way out.
I sat at the table for a long time, stung by Tim’s anger. Bette brought me a bowl of potato soup and a soda. “It’s on me,” she said. “You looked like you needed it.”
I gratefully slurped down the soup, then collected myself. I had to buck up. Charli and I had work to do. I called her, told her that my car wouldn’t start, and asked her to pick me up at Pilazzo’s.
She was in a zippy, upbeat mood. She bubbled over about the upcoming fundraiser, chattered endlessly about something funny one of the kids had said when she’d called them. She quizzed me about my lunch date, wanting to know all of the details. After Tim’s rebuke, I knew better than to mention what had happened with Ricky to my sister. She’d be on the phone to Mom so fast that my head would spin and the two of them would make Tim’s wrath look mild.
I told her only that Kyle had offered me a job. “Not just any job, either. My dream job, the one I’ve been coveting. Morning drive.”
“Marty! That’s great news! See, I told you everything would work out for the best. When do you start?”
“I don’t. I sort of had a little accident and spit tea all over Mr. Ellingsworth’s suit. He fired me before I could say yes. So I guess my DJ days are officially over. Any ideas for a new career path for me?”
Charli laughed, not exactly the reaction I’d expected, but, since I’d pretty much done the same thing, I couldn’t really get mad at her. When she finally stopped cackling about my misfortune, I had her run me by my apartment so I could change into a pair of cutoffs and my vintage Clint Black concert t-shirt for the spying mission to Sam’s antique shop. By two o’clock we were on our way.
Ricky Ray and Kyle kept intruding on my thoughts, but I shoved them aside. Time enough to think about my love life and my car later. Charli told me to get ready when we passed Danny’s Mini-Mart. I slouched down in the back seat, pulling an old sheet over me.
“Be careful,” Charli said as she picked up her purse and climbed out of the car. “I’ll meet you at Danny’s in thirty minutes.”
She’d made me synchronize my watch to hers so that we both had the same time. I wished I had a bottle of water, my throat was so dry from nervousness.
“You too,” I said. But Charli had already slammed the door and disappeared from my view. She’d left the window down, which was good because it was stifling hot out. I heard her clomp up the steps to the shop.
I counted to ten then snuck out of the car and crouched down next to the passenger side door, positioning myself so that I could see the upstairs window from which she was going to signal me. Charli must have moved fast because I saw her in front of the window in short order. As I eased open the door to the shop, I heard a terrific clattering coming from upstairs. I don’t know what Charli was doing, but it sounded like a herd of buffalo tromping around. I hoped it covered up the tinkle of the bell.
I scurried through the living room and slipped into Sam’s office, going straight for the filing cabinet. I know it was wrong, but I took the file that contained the Redmond article, stowing it in the canvas tote bag I wore slung across my body. There was no time to waste. I checked my watch and quickly searched the file cabinet for other items that looked interesting. Two additional files joined the first one in my bag, and then I headed for the back storage room. I’d finally charged my phone, which was tucked in my pocket, and the plan was for me to take pictures of the contents of several of the imported boxes.
The back room was still jam-packed, still messy, and I almost hung myself on the metal shelf full of drain cleaner and stuff when my tote bag caught on the corner of it. I unhooked my bag and made tracks toward the rear of the storage room. It took me a few minutes to open the first box. Well, crap. The items were packed in peanuts and wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. I carefully unwrapped one.
Inside was a beautiful, brown vase with flowers on it. It certainly looked old to my untrained eyes and exactly like a Roseville pottery vase that my Grandma had. I turned it over and noticed the Roseville hallmark. Right next to it was a paper “made in China’ sticker. I snapped a picture of it and moved on to the next box.
It contained a set of even older looking cast-iron firedogs. Again, the paper tag showing that it was made elsewhere, this time in Singapore. I went through two more boxes, photographing all of the tags, closed everything up, and dropped my phone into the tote bag with the file folders and my penknife.
It was time to split. I was hot and dirty, my knees were knocking, and my heart galloping at full speed. I hadn’t heard hardly a peep from the front of the shop. I was going to have to praise Charli, tell her that she’d done a super job of keeping Sam occupied. The rear exit was on the other side of the storage room. Piece of cake, I thought. But it wasn’t. It was bolted shut with a massive padlock and it had a sophisticated alarm system wired into it.
What was I going to do? I quietly slipped to the front of the storage room and pressed my ear to the door. It was really still out there. I thought about trying to sneak out the front door, but then I heard Sam whistling. He was in the living room area. That probably meant that Charli had left. We were due to meet in two minutes. I pulled out my phone to send her a text, but of course, I couldn’t get a signal. Oh well, surely she’d realize that if I didn’t show up it meant that I was unable to get out safely. I hoped she didn’t wait too long before she returned.
In the meantime, what if Sam decided to come into the storage room? If he caught me, no telling what he might do. After all, chances were pretty high that he’d already killed two people. If so, he probably wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. I had to hide.
I looked around and finally crawled up under a dining room table that was in the darkest corner of the storage room, then crouched down to wait for the cavalry to show up. I sure hoped it was quick.
The storeroom was stifling and all the dust made me feel like I needed to sneeze. I’d been waiting for about ten minutes when the doorbell bing-bonged and I heard muffled voices from out front. Thank God, Charli had finally returned. I imagined her talking to Sam and taking him back up the stairs so she could create a distraction and I could leave. I maneuvered out of my hiding spot, creaked open the storage room door, and listened. Footsteps and laughter drifted from the front of the shop. I waited for Charli and Sam to go upstairs.
But they didn’t, they headed toward the back, toward where I was. What the devil was my sister thinking? I pulled the door closed and dashed back into the storage room just as I heard the two of them go into Sam’s office. I returned to my hiding spot in the corner. Why was she doing this to me? I didn’t want to have to sit there all day, waiting for Sam to leave. But I really didn’t want to get caught, either.
Sam’s office was next to my hiding spot, but all I could make out were muffled voices. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard, trying to send Charli a telepathic message. I don’t really believe in telepathy, but I was getting desperate. After about ten minutes, the storage room door opened and my heart vaulted into my throat. I was, literally, ready to kill Charli. Only it wasn’t Charli. It was Sam. And with him was his partner in crime, Art Danner.
I curled myself up in as tight a ball as I could, hoping they didn’t see me. I was way up under the table, and it was a dark corner, so I thought – hoped, prayed - that maybe I was safe. Unless they were coming to take the table away. In that case, I’d be doing some heavy duty explaining.
They made a lot of racket and, my curiosity overwhelmed my fear. By sliding toward the other end of the table I could almost see what they were doing.
“Here, the full boxes are over here,” Sam said. “We’d better get a move on because we’re already behind schedule.”
“Yeah, thanks to that sorry SOB,” Art said.
“Wasn’t his fault,” Sam said. His fake European accent was almost gone. “If you had done what you was supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Me? I ain’t the one went all psycho. You was. You’d a kept your cool when Frank bit the big one things woulda been all right.”
As quietly as I could, I pulled my tote bag over and rummaged around in it to get my phone out. If nothing else, I could try and record them. Since my spying plans had only extended to stealing files and taking pictures of the merchandise, I was actually excited about the chance to do a little more eavesdropping. I was finally starting to relax a little. My hiding spot was such a good one, and now, finally, it looked like I might actually find out whatever it was that Art and Sam were up to and, if I were lucky, maybe find out why they’d killed Frank and Robby.
I found myself even wishing that the light weren’t so dim. If it were brighter I could even get video. But the storage room was quite dark and any video was sure to be just a blur.
I peeked again. Art and Sam tromped around at the front of the storage room, not talking to each other except for an occasional, “take this one,” and “this one’s full, grab it”.
They lugged several small boxes from the front of the storage room to the back, stacking them next to the padlocked exit door. When they had a pile of fifteen or so boxes back there, Sam punched a code into an alarm pad and used a key to open the padlock. Sunlight flooded into the storage room. All their moving around had stirred up the dust something awful and the combination of dust and sunlight was almost more than I could bear. I held back a sneeze until Art and Sam were both outside and then I tried to muffle the sound with my shirt.
God, how I longed to get out of there. I almost made a run for it the next time they each picked up a couple of boxes and went through the exit door into the bright sunshine. But, just as I’d summoned up my courage to go for it, the doorbell went ‘bing-bong’ again, and then a couple of seconds later I heard Charli calling out.
“Yoo hoo, Sam. It’s me, Charli Carsky, are you still here?”
“What the hell?” Sam cursed as he headed for the front of the shop. “That crazy chick is determined to drive me crazy. Wish she’d make up her mind.”
Art leaned against the stack of boxes and wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead with a white handkerchief.
“Don’t stop,” Sam said. “I’ll get rid of her and then I’ll lock up so we won’t be disturbed again.”
He moved toward the front of the shop. “Shahlane, darling, what a divinely delicious surprise.” His fake accent was back. I could picture him flitting around, gawking at Charli’s chest. “Don’t tell me you’ve come back to buy the parlor set?”
I heard Charli, much, much louder than normal, — and louder than necessary — answer him. “Sam, dear, I do love the parlor set, but that isn’t the reason I came back. I was nearly home when I realized that I just had to take another look at that little white wicker dressing table you have upstairs. I really think it’s what I want for Jaelyn’s room. I hope you don’t mind.”
Sam hesitated. “Well, I was just about to run out for a minute, dear. Perhaps another time…”
Charli persisted until he gave in. I noticed, though, that as he became more agitated with Charli his accent changed. It was so much less pronounced that it made me wonder how he’d managed to keep up the pretense for all of these years.
“I suppose that since you’re already here you might as well take a peek at it,” he finally said.
Two sets of footsteps thumped up the steps and, as soon as Art went out the back door with another load of boxes, I scurried out of my hiding spot and took off out of the storage room like a bat out of hades. My plan was to open the front door and pretend like I was just coming in if Art or Sam noticed me.
I’d have made it too, except for the fact that I ran smack dab into the metal rack that was just inside the door, the one I’d hung my bag on earlier. This time I couldn’t get loose and I knocked over several cans of brake fluid.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Art yelled at me.
I yanked at the bag, knocking several more cans of brake fluid off in my panic to get free. Charli was tromping around upstairs again, obviously trying to cause a distraction for me. Unfortunately, it also caused enough noise that she didn’t hear me scream for her to run.
I’d barely got the words, “Run, Charli, run!” out of my mouth when everything went black.