Chapter 12

 

The next day, I went into the office and started hunting down the car that I’d seen Cora in. I’d wanted to look for her last night, but Dorothy had convinced me that I should wait until daybreak.

As soon as the sun peeked over the horizon this morning I’d gone for a quick run along the beach. It had helped clear my mind and allowed me to focus on what I knew about the case so far. I’d stepped into my office with a fresh insight on what I needed to do next. Jake was working on finding Cora still, and of course that was my priority too.

I grabbed my purse and was headed across the room to leave when a noise sounded at the door. Dorothy hadn’t arrived yet. I assumed it wasn’t her because she always just walked right on in. The sound was too loud to be a seagull. Unless Dorothy had fed them a lot of extra breadcrumbs. I walked over to the door and wrapped my hand around the knob. Just as I twisted to open the door it burst open and I tumbled backward onto the floor.

“Maggie, what are you doing on the floor?” Dorothy placed her hands on her hips.

I glared at her. “You knocked me down when you opened the door. What are you doing out there? What was the noise?”

She frowned. “I didn’t make a noise.”

I jumped up from the floor and peeked outside. No one was there and nothing seemed unusual. Was I losing it? I knew I’d heard something.

“Are you sure that wasn’t you?” I asked.

Dorothy shook her head. “You’ve been out in the sun too much already this morning.”

I picked my bag up from the floor.

“Oh, are we leaving already? You weren’t going without me, were you?” Dorothy quirked an eyebrow.

I studied her face for a moment. “No, of course not.”

Dorothy marched toward the door. “So where are we headed? What did you find out?”

“I got info on that license plate. I’m going over to check it out.”

Dorothy walked out the door. “You mean we’re going to check it out.”

I locked the door behind us and headed toward my car. I scanned the area again to see if I noticed anything that would have made that noise. It spooked me somewhat. Still, nothing seemed out of place, so I climbed behind the wheel. Dorothy already had her knitting needles out when I got in. “So where are we headed?” she asked.

I started the car. “It’s over by the South Beach. An apartment there.”

“Oh, I hope this trip is better than the last one to South Beach.”

I pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway. A short time later we pulled up to the address. It was a small building with probably no more than six apartments. It reminded me of my place—tiny apartments with a minimal amount of lawn space, lots of palm trees surrounding the place. There was no parking lot, only parking along the street. I pulled the car up behind another black car and cut the engine. Luckily, I had found a spot. I didn’t want to park so close that we would be noticed, but I wanted to be close in case we needed to get out of there right away.

“So how do you think this will go when we arrive?” Dorothy asked.

“Well, with any luck it will go well,” I said.

“You know what I mean. What’s the plan?” Dorothy asked.

“We’ll just have to wing it and see how that goes,” I said as I made a left turn.

“All right, but I don’t like doing that,” she said around a sigh. “It’ll be fine,” I said.

“Is this the place?” Dorothy asked.

“This is it,” I said.

Dorothy and I stared at the building.

“Now what do we do?” she asked.

I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel. “I suppose we should see if anyone is there.”

There was only one thing we could do now that we had located the apartment. We had to snoop around. I turned off the ignition.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Dorothy asked as she placed her needles back into her bag.

“We’ll go up there and knock on the door.”

“That could be dangerous, Maggie.”

“I’m not sure if this guy knows who I am. I can make up something.”

“Like what?” Dorothy asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“I can pretend that I’m looking for someone else. I’ll make up a fake name,” I said.

“Well, that sounds like a better plan than some that you’ve come up with.” Dorothy opened the car door. “Only slightly better.”

Dorothy never hesitated to say what was on her mind. We got out of the car and headed up to the front door. A man walked down the sidewalk past us, but he never looked up at us. No one paid attention to us and that was a good thing. Of course I was nervous as we approached the apartment. I told myself that I had everything under control. I’d been doing this for a while now, but it always made me a bit nervous.

Dorothy and I stepped up to the door. I paused for a moment, but then knocked. We waited, but no one came to the door.

“I guess no one is home,” I said.

“Now what should we do?”

“I don’t want this to be a wasted trip. I have to look around a little bit.”

“You aren’t thinking of breaking into his apartment, are you?” she asked.

I quirked an eyebrow. “No, I guess we shouldn’t do that. Let’s take a look around the side of the building.”

Dorothy followed me down the path and around the building. There were garbage cans at the edge of the building. I stopped at a trash can and lifted the lid.

“This is suspicious,” I said.

Dorothy peered into the trash can. “What is it?”

“A package of fireworks. This is August.”

“Maybe they’re left over from the Fourth of July.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m not so sure.”

“Why do you think this is suspicious?” she asked.

“I recently read a story about someone who used fireworks to make a bomb.”

Dorothy’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s what he did?”

“Well, he would be kind of stupid to leave the evidence right out here. Like Jake says, criminals usually aren’t the sharpest knives in the shed.”

“He said that?”

“Well, it was something like that.” I placed the lid back on the trash can.

A sound of a door closing caught my attention. I hurried toward the front of the house. When I reached the edge of the building, I paused. I motioned for Dorothy to stop as well. A man had just walked out from the apartment. And he had pretended that he wasn’t home. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was probably dangerous I would have yelled out at him.

I recognized the man. He was the one who had been driving the car with Cora in it. Was this one of the people Cora said was following her? He had to have kidnapped her since I’d seen her in his car. Where was she now? What had he done with her? I was torn with following him and looking in the apartment for Cora. Since I’d seen him lock the door, I knew I wouldn’t get into the apartment. I would call Jake and tell him that I thought I’d located Cora. I just hoped that it wasn’t too late.

“We’ll go after him,” I said.

Dorothy nodded.

I hurried out from around the building so that we could catch up with him. Dorothy rushed out with me. He was walking down the sidewalk. I just hoped that he didn’t realize that we were following him.

“Where do you think he’s headed?” Dorothy asked. “Maybe he’s just going to a restaurant.”

“Perhaps, but considering he could be a dangerous man, I’m not holding out much hope. Just act casual,” I said.

Dorothy whistled.

“Okay, that’s too casual,” I said. “Walking without doing anything suspicious is good enough.”

Dorothy pulled a peppermint from her pocket and shoved it in her mouth. I supposed that was her way of soothing her nerves. She always had minty-fresh breath too.

The guy was walking fast and it was hard for me to keep up with my short legs. He had a much bigger stride than me. Maybe I should have followed him in the car. Though if he turned down an alleyway, that would be a bad idea. At least he hadn’t looked over his shoulder and noticed us back there.

“How far do you think he’s going?” Dorothy asked.

“I wouldn’t think he’d walk too far,” I said.

When we turned the corner he was gone. Had he stepped into one of the shops? How would I know which one? I supposed we could go into each one. That was unlikely to lead to us finding him though. Dorothy and I stepped into the store that was closest. We walked around the space, but he was nowhere in sight. Dorothy and I went back out onto the sidewalk.

“I can’t believe we lost him,” Dorothy said.

I blew the hair out of my eyes. “I guess we should head back. I don’t want to lose the evidence that was in the trash can. I need Jake to pick up the evidence as soon as possible.”

“Yes, I suppose we should get back over there,” Dorothy said.

I hated that we had lost the guy, but at least I had something new. I scanned the area one more time just in case I spotted him. No such luck. Did he really know we had been following him? He could be hiding somewhere and watching us right now. He might think he was clever, but I would outsmart him in the end. It was only a matter of time until I broke this case wide open.

We were just walking across the parking lot to head down the sidewalk on the other side of the road when Dorothy grabbed my arm. We tumbled to the ground. The wind had been knocked out of me. I peered up at the bright blue sky. The sun beat down on me. Dorothy was beside me. She leaned up and stared at me. “Maggie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I managed. “Are you all right?”

She got to her feet rather quickly. “Don’t you worry about Dorothy. She’s tough as steel.”

That was the truth.

“Why did you yank me to the ground?” I asked.

She pointed at the street. “That car tried to hit you.”

I followed her pointing finger. “The white Rolls-Royce?”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s the one.”

It cruised down the road further away from us.

“Did you see who was driving?” I asked.

“I saw the back of a man’s head,” she said.

“Did it look like the man we just followed?”

She shook her head. “Actually it looked more like Dean the doctor.”

My eyes widened. “The one I was supposed to have a date with?”

That was a crazy turn of events.

“That’s the one,” Dorothy said.

Too bad I hadn’t gotten the license plate of the Rolls-Royce. I had no way of knowing if the car had tried to hit me on purpose. I had a feeling that was the case though. At least we were both okay.

As we hurried down the sidewalk back toward my car I placed the call to Jake. I shouldn’t even tell him about the Rolls-Royce almost hitting me.

“Jake, I think I have some evidence that you should check out.”

“Is it a trash can full of fireworks packaging?” he asked.

I scowled. “How did you know that?”

When I turned the corner I spotted his car. Now I knew how he knew. Had he followed me here? I wouldn’t be surprised. That was exactly something Jake would do.

“Yes, as a matter of fact that’s exactly what it is,” I said.

Dorothy and I continued walking toward the apartment.

“Did you follow me?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t follow you, but why didn’t you call me right away and let me know you were doing this?” Jake sounded as if he wasn’t happy with me.

“I had to act on this lead as quickly as possible,” I said with a click of my tongue.

Dorothy and I moved over beside my car to watch the police crime scene. They would be on the lookout for the suspect. Cora wasn’t in the house. That was a bit of a relief, but also a let-down because I wanted to find her. I hoped that she was okay.

A piece of paper floated across the wind and landed by my foot. I reached down and picked it up. It was almost as if fate had stepped in and wanted me to see this.

It was a receipt for Fireworks World. I wasn’t sure if it was for the fireworks container that we’d found in the trash or a different purchase. However, the signature of the person who had bought this was of the most importance to me. The doctor’s name was on the receipt. Why would his name be on a receipt here? I knew why. Because they were in on this together.

“Look what I found.” I showed the receipt to Dorothy.

Her eyes widened. “You’re not still meeting him for a date, are you?”

“If he calls I certainly will. Plus, I will track him down if he doesn’t call. I want him to confess his involvement in this.”

When I glanced up I saw the police bringing a woman out the front door of the apartment.

“Is that Cora?” Dorothy asked.

“It looks like Cora,” I said. “But it’s not her.”

Dorothy’s mouth dropped open. “Is she the one you saw in the car yesterday?”

I stared in shock at the woman. “Yes, she’s the one I saw.”

I couldn’t believe the mistake I’d made. Now I really looked stupid.

“Oh, Maggie,” Dorothy said with a click of her tongue.

“What will Jake think?” I asked.

“He’ll probably think you’re a lousy private investigator,” Dorothy said.

“Dorothy! That’s not what I wanted to hear,” I said.

“Well, we all have off days.” Dorothy forced a smile.

I scanned the area, looking for Jake. That was when I spotted him talking with his partner. Oh, great. Even better that I looked like an idiot in front of Abby. I meant that in the most sarcastic way possible.

They looked over at me. I knew they were discussing my mishap. Everyone made mistakes, I reminded myself. Abby’s look was almost one of pity, as if she was saying, Bless her heart, she’s a terrible investigator. She walked away from Jake and he looked at me again.

“Oh, no, here he comes,” I said.

“It’ll be fine,” Dorothy said.

It would have to be fine. There was no way to get out of it. I’d have to own my mistake.

“Are we all finished here?” I asked with a smile.

“I guess you can see that the woman you saw in the car wasn’t Cora,” Jake said.

“She looked a lot like her. You have to admit that,” I said.

“Yes, I will admit it looked like her. I can see where you would have mistaken that woman for Cora.”

Thank goodness Jake was being nice about this. What had I worried about? He wasn’t a jerk. If he was a jerk I wouldn’t be interested in spending time with him.

“So now we’re back to the beginning in our search for Cora. There’s been no activity on her credit cards.”

I thought of telling Jake I’d placed a tracking device on her car, but it didn’t matter because the car hadn’t moved since she went missing.

“Come on, I’ll walk you both over to your car.” Jake walked with us over to the car.

He opened the door for Dorothy and she slipped in the passenger seat. I moved around to the driver’s side. Jake closed Dorothy’s door and then came over to my side. I let the window down. He leaned down and propped his arms against the door.

“Thanks for keeping us out of jail,” I said.

“Stay out of trouble, okay?” He studied my face.

“Trouble should be her middle name,” Dorothy said.