Chapter

31

I started to ask Brodie about the decal, what it meant, but stopped myself in time. Somehow he was connected with the murder, whether he pulled the trigger or not. The sticker proved it. I had to find out what it stood for, and then I’d have the killer or killers. Adrenaline shot through my body. So much so that my hands shook.

“Charms?” Brodie said, concern apparent in every muscle in his handsome face. “You okay?”

Thinking fast, I said, “I could use a glass of water.”

“Of course.” Moving around the Jeep, he reached into the cooler, pulling out an icy bottle. Beads of sweat dripped from it. Damn. I needed him away from the Jeep so I could get a better look at the sticker without tipping him off. Channeling my inner brat, I frowned at his outstretched hand. “Ice?” I asked with an internal wince.

His eyes narrowed, and for a moment it looked like he would protest, but he just nodded. “Your wish is my command.” He tossed me the water bottle, which I caught with only a mild cry, and then headed for my house.

He’d agreed much too rapidly for my peace of mind.

Maybe I’d always expect an argument from him. A snide comment here, an unkind word there.

Too much residual high school insecurity.

I was a big girl now. I shouldn’t let Brodie push my buttons again.

Once he entered the house, I ran as fast as my sore muscles would carry me to the front of his Jeep. I ran my eyes over the decal, the scowl on my face growing. Where I’d expected to see a name embossed in the plastic, I saw nothing but white. My finger brushed the sticker, feeling around. The label wasn’t flat, but instead raised at certain points, as if it held a secret larger than the name of Roger’s killer.

Was it one of those thingies that protected expensive clothing? Not that I shopped in stores like that. What was it doing on Brodie’s Jeep and the killer’s car? I used my fingernail to dig around the adhesive, but the decal wouldn’t come loose.

Damn.

Brodie appeared in the doorframe of the house. I jumped away from his Jeep as if scalded. He walked over to me, his face fixed in a cold stare. He pushed the glass of ice in his hand at me. “Still don’t trust me, huh?”

“What?” I stammered. “I … ah …”

“Forget it, Charms,” he said with a frown. “I’m not a fool. I can see you were checking the Jeep’s damage.”

“I …”

He snorted. “Can’t think of a plausible lie?” He glanced at the Jeep, and then at me. “I don’t know why I even bother. I get it. I’m a Gett. Untrustworthy.” The starkness in his face almost had me blurting out the truth, but I stopped myself in time. “Have it your way,” he said. “Once I’m done here, you go your way, and I’ll do my thing. Never should the two cross.” With those parting words, he headed back to the rackhouse.

I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

Not that I wanted to.

Yet, guilt weighed on me, mainly when I noticed his Jeep, in the same place it had been parked this morning, as I prepared for bed. I turned the lights out, my last thoughts of Brodie and that damning decal on his windshield.

The next morning, the decal hadn’t left my mind. Though I was thankful the memory of the betrayal on Brodie’s face had. I knew, deep in my heart, the sticker was the clue I needed to find the killer. Lucky for me, Gett wasn’t big on the future of electronics. Smart phones aside.

Which meant the one and only electronic shop in the county, about an hour north, would know what a decal like the one on Brodie’s Jeep was for, and likely who it was purchased by. If I could track down the reason for the decal, I would eventually find the killer. Sure, it would be easier to straight out ask Brodie, but would I be able to trust his answer?

I doubted it. Particularly if it involved Rue Gett.

Dressing swiftly, or as fast as one could when bruises covered 50 percent of your body, I tossed on a pair of jeans and a plain white
t-shirt. I opted for my boots rather than sandals, even in the ninety-degree heat. In a town built on swampland, the odds of encountering slithering wildlife were fifty/fifty on a good day. For a minute, I longed for the non-snake-riddled sidewalks of L.A. Then I remembered L.A. had its very own variety of snake. I’d fought off my share of casting couch producers during my brief acting career. It was one of the things I didn’t miss.

Today’s adventure would take me fifty miles north to Immokalee, a town of about three hundred thousand, with its own Starbucks. My taste buds flickered to life at the thought of a venti vanilla latte. It had been far too long since I’d drank the caffeinated goodness.

But my dream cup of coffee would have to wait.

I parked Jack’s pickup truck—a beat-up 1970s Ford Jack vowed to drive until either it or he took the long, lone highway—in the lot behind a strip of shops. My odds were on the truck going first. The poor thing, gas pedal to the floor, barely hit sixty on the interstate. Cars had whipped around us at incredible speeds. My heart leapt in my throat every time I caught sight of another car on the pickup’s bumper.

By the time I’d arrived at the electronics store, my hands ached from my hard, tight grip on the wheel.

My accident had affected me more than I’d first thought.

I took a deep breath, rubbing the imprint of the steering wheel cover from my palms. Once I’d collected myself enough not to sound like a blabbering idiot, I stepped from the pickup, smiling as the bright Florida sun warmed my chilled skin.

I’d always liked Immokalee. It was ten times larger than Gett, but held on to the small-town appeal. Small row houses with perfectly manicured lawns, even under the damaging rays of the sun, stood proudly like soldiers ready for battle. The storefronts were clean and neat too. People walked around in shorts and t-shirts, smiles and welcoming hellos on their faces. Very different than L.A., where the only welcoming smiles were from mid-western tourists. Smiles they often lost, along with wallets and watches, before their trips were over.

I strolled into Collier Electronics with a mission in mind. The store looked like a smaller version of Best Buy. Fancy electronics lined the rows, as did teens with backpacks. One couldn’t even pass the video game aisle without a contact high from the amount of acne medicine and cheap weed.

“Can I help you?” asked a friendly woman wearing a red vest, her hair streaked in typical Florida style. Lots of blond, black roots.

“I hope so,” I said “Can you tell me a little about those electronic stickers? You know, the ones they use on clothes to stop thefts or have on cars …?”

“Oh, RFID stickers. Let me call Brent. He’s our RFID expert,” she said as she used the intercom.

Brent arrived a few minutes later, a red tie and vest covering his chest. He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses as his eyes slid over my body in a less-than-professional way. Considering the bruises on my face, his appraisal was only mildly annoying.

“Hello there,” he said with a confident grin. A very confident smile for a guy with thick glasses and a pocket protector. Then again, nerds were in. I thought of all my Hollywood friends, with once perfect eyesight, who’d suddenly developed astigmatisms after a popular magazine coined the term Geek Chic. “How can I help you, Mrs. …?” he prompted.

This was where I was to say, “Oh, I’m not married,” which would provoke an invitation to dinner at the very least. Given Brent’s confident manner, perhaps his invite would hold a little something extra, like a chance to see the backroom where “the magic” happened. Why not forgo the inevitable? “Jones,” I responded. “Mrs. Jones.”

His brow wrinkled, sending his glasses farther down his nose. He pushed them back in place with a single finger. “Do I know you?” he asked, tilting his head like an owl. “You look very familiar. Are you from around here?”

Crap. I knew what was coming, but still his next words made me flinch. “Oh, that’s it!” he said. “I saw you on TV. A commercial.” His grin turned into a leer, the kind normally associated with my STD fame. His eyes fell on my breasts. “You do good work.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Brent, listen, I need your help with a little problem.”

“Anything for a star,” he said, and sadly meant it. I imagined much of his life was spent in front of the TV, fantasizing about scantily clad women and dreaming of being a hero. The angel on my shoulder told me to leave it alone, but the devil won out in the end.

I blinked my eyes up at him. “Thank you. You’re my hero.”

And just like that Brent turned into one.

He walked me through what RFID was, explained how it worked and the different types. Basically it boiled down to this: the decal on the vehicles held a tiny electronic chip that used radio frequencies to do various things, like indicate when someone walked out of a store without paying for an item.

“What would it be used for on a car windshield?” I asked, though I had a fairly good idea. Transponders. The kind used on HOV lanes of the highway in the richer counties like Miami-Dade. A plain ridiculous notion in Gett. So why did Brodie and the killer’s vehicle have them?

“They could have plenty of uses.” He pulled out a small RFID tag from a stack on the shelf next to us. “For example, a business could use them to track an employee coming and going.” He picked up another sticker, larger than the first. “Or even use the chip to unlock a gate or open a garage door.”

I frowned, remembering my brief trip to Gett Whiskey a week ago. A week that seemed much like a lifetime ago. At the time I’d wondered about the lack of a guard at the gate, and yet, an armed one roaming the grounds. But what if Gett used an RFID system to unlock the gate?

Hope faded as my list of suspects went from a few to anyone who worked at Gett or had worked there in the recent past. The pool of suspects was now as wide as the mouth of Lake Immokalee.

Disappointment stiffened my tone. “Is there any way to know what or who a sticker belongs to?”

“By sight?” He shook his head. “No. Unless it’s labeled of course.”

“Of course.”

His fingers rubbed his chin, much like an evil genius. “Thatv is, unless you have an RFID reader.”

“Show me,” I said, following him to a rack of what looked much like all the other computer equipment. Plastic boxes in different colors filled with circuits and wires. Not one piece of equipment looked familiar. I felt oddly out of my element. Thankfully Brent knew everything about each piece.

“Voila,” he said, pointing. “You said it’s on a car, right?” he asked. “Must have a high frequency.”

I shrugged.

He smiled, knowingly. “What you need is an ultra-high frequency RFID reader.”

If he said so. “How much do they run?”

“Six hundred,” he said. “But you’re in luck. I have a refurbished Juno handheld for three forty-six.”

I grimaced, remembering my near-empty bank account and a distillery barely producing small batch whiskies. “Can I rent it? I only need it for a couple of days.”

“I wish I could …”

“Please,” I added a husky plea to my tone. The very one that won me the STD commercial in the first place. “I really do need it.”

“How about you buy it and then bring it back for a full refund in a few days?” he whispered. “Maybe then, we can grab a drink?” When I didn’t respond, he said, “A coffee?” His voice hopeful.

I hated to break his nerdy heart, and he had helped me. “Sure,” I said. Then I noticed he was staring at my breasts again. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Coffee only.”

“You got it, babe.” He handed me a device that looked like a fat TV remote with a red laser on the front. “Looking forward to our date,” he said louder than needed.

“Right,” I said. “Can you show me how to use this?”

“My pleasure.” He took a step forward, too close for comfort. His breath smelled of coffee and that chemical fragrance of spray mint breath freshener. Not the most pleasant of scents. Ever so slowly, he offered instructions for the reader. All of which amounted to: point the red laser at the decal and press the green button. Supposedly the owner or other info would show on the small screen.

Not rocket science but from the look in his eyes, much too much for a woman with my small brain to handle. I wanted to stomp on his foot, but refrained. After all, he was much less likely to let me borrow the reader if I did so. Then again, he might like it. That thought kept me far from his foot, let alone his thin body.

What felt like an eternity later, I left the store with the reader tucked firmly in my purse.

Soon I would have the answers I needed. A shiver ran through me despite the warmth of the Florida sunshine.