Baby Brother Blues (Sammy Dick, PI Series: Book 1) Page 4

  At this point, the happiness in Michael’s face faded as he continued. “I know others find the diamond business exciting and exotic. I’m sorry to say that I’ve been in it for so long, that diamonds no longer hold much allure for me.” Michael seemed to sense that he’d exposed too much of himself. His guard rose like the dark windows of a limousine closing back up. He raised his right arm and flicked it slightly, the way men do to reveal a watch beneath the shirt cuff. Michael looked coolly at it, letting me know our agenda was about to change. Somehow, talking about art had loosened him up temporarily, but now he’d receded back into self-containment.

  I decided to create my own segue. “I just met Karl Zaiid.” I searched Michael’s eyes for a telltale reaction. “Tomas didn’t even tell me that you had this sideline business in the industrial jewels market.” I left the sentence hanging, hoping he’d fill in the details.

  To my surprise, Michael lowered his voice almost to a hushed whisper. “How about having lunch today with Sylvester and me, and we can both fill you in on everything there? That might be a more appropriate place to talk openly. Are you available now? I have a lunch appointment with Sylvester.”

  “Well, I’d love to, as long as I’m not intruding.”

  “On the contrary,” Michael said in his smooth English accent, “Sylvester is the one who suggested it.”

  “By all means then, let’s go. I’ve got my handbag, and I’m always hungry.”

  Chapter 4

  By now, it was three in the afternoon in Newark, Delaware. Kathy Keach had extended her late lunch break long beyond the usual. It didn’t matter much, because, as usual, there was no one else running the American and International Title Company today, so no one would notice. She didn’t need to be back at the office. She had more important things to think about. Her computer would pick up the e-mails, the fax machine would keep churning out faxes, and the answering machine would track all the calls that came in from far away, and all their business was from far away. Her absentee boss had stressed that she turn down any local business, citing some of Delaware’s title rules as a reason. Kathy knew the title regulations backwards and forwards, so his reasoning had never made sense to her. Bosses didn’t need to make sense though, Kathy reasoned, as long as they employed you, paid you good money and were operating legally.

  There was the rub, though, Kathy sighed dejectedly. Suppose some of the dealings of American and International Title were not legal? What then? She sat in the back corner of Lettuce Feed You, her favorite lunchtime haunt, and drove one of the sliced almonds, which she didn’t like, around with her fork. It had become a little bumper car bumping into the other sliced almonds that were left swimming in the brownish oriental dressing she’d left pooled at the bottom of her salad bowl. She’d ordered an Oriental Chicken Salad Deluxe at 1:00 P.M. and was still sitting there. The busboys skirted around her, wiping tables with their little white washcloth rags, permeating the air with the stark odor of bleach. Lettuce Feed You was practically empty with the mid-afternoon hiatus, so she wasn’t losing them any business by sitting there pondering what to do. But, what was there to do? And maybe she was wrong anyway?

  Kathy loved the title business, and she was good at it because she was careful, very organized, and she knew the rules and regulations. She’d only been working for American and International Title for seven months. She’d learned through some of her contacts that her predecessor had left unexpectedly. Kathy was beginning to suspect why. What to do? Kathy sighed again deeply and shoved her salad bowl to the center of the small table. A busboy whisked it up and wiped her little table clean. The bleach made her eyes sting.

  A week ago, Kathy had called to alert her boss in the Madrid office of her suspicions. She’d never met him, but when she described her research and subsequent fears, he’d acted unperturbed, even dismissive. But Kathy knew the title business, and she also knew that her findings pointed strongly to illegal activity. Illegal activity on a grand scale.

  There’s only one way to do this, Kathy decided: gather the evidence, quit her job if she had to, and get the evidence to someone who would know what to do next. What a drag. Kathy flipped open her favorite canvas handbag, pulled out her compact and lip gloss. The face in the compact mirror was very young for having such a responsible job. Kathy tossed back her dark auburn hair, and patted her skin in an attempt to disguise the few freckles that dotted her small, straight nose. She took one last look at herself in the tiny mirror, her blue eyes stared back, quite solemn because of her resolve. Then she clicked the compact shut, smoothed down her conservative navy blue A-line skirt, straightened her perfectly ironed white cotton blouse, slipped the wide strap of her big canvas bag over her shoulder, and walked out of her favorite restaurant.

  Kathy turned onto Main Street and headed in the direction of the University. The sidewalk, as is true in many older towns and cities in the East, was not quite even, having buckled and cracked through the years, so Kathy had to pay attention to avoid tripping. She was glad she’d worn her favorite flat soled shoes. After all, Delaware held the distinct honor of being the first state in the Union.

  Kathy smiled for the first time today, wondering if the sidewalk had been installed at that time. She loved Delaware’s rich history and the college campus at the University of Delaware, with its old English style brick buildings, porticos and white columns with trees that shifted colors gracefully with the seasons. Main Street was a mix of quaint older businesses, bookstores, some typical college town bars and a few restaurants designed to attract the young. Oh yes, and a Starbucks. Kathy passed by its doors and almost stopped in to prolong the inevitable course of events she had now chosen to take.

  Kathy wouldn’t allow herself to enter the Starbucks, but she still slowed her pace to a crawl as she gazed longingly at the patrons sipping their lattes within. At this time in the afternoon, Starbucks was still fairly packed; several students were hunched over their laptops, girls were giggling off to the side, and a man in the back was staring intently at Kathy, then averting his eyes.

  An abrupt, icy fear swallowed up Kathy’s skin, as if she’d taken a wrong turn, stepped off the side of a boat and was now falling down, down, down into cold arctic waters, even though it was a warm, beautiful day in Delaware. She’d seen this man before, right in her title company. She hadn’t liked him then, and it was even more disconcerting to see him now, especially after the conclusions she’d reached today in Lettuce Feed You. Further, this man was supposed to be in Europe, not here in Newark. What was he doing staring at her at a Starbucks in Delaware?

  Kathy casually turned her head to look back up Main Street, in the direction she was heading. She was trying to convey that she hadn’t recognized him, while she replayed in her mind the details of his last visit at the American and International Title office. As she now recalled, and this only served to deepen her fear and foreboding, it was his visit that had fired up the first of her suspicions about the potentially illegal dealings within the title company. What was his name? St. Pierre, that was it. St. Pierre. James St. Pierre. He was some kind of international real estate broker, and he had two absentee European clients interested in buying condos, very upscale condos, in Phoenix, Arizona. In itself, there was nothing unusual about that. Kathy conducted similar transactions on a daily basis. The irregularities didn’t show up until Kathy had begun to conduct her usual, very meticulous and comprehensive research.

  Being the careful person that she was, she’d immediately sent her boss an e-mail alerting him to the possible irregularities. That had been three days ago. When her boss in Madrid hadn’t responded to the e-mail, she’d called him. That had been two days ago. Now the man whose dealings had made her suspicious in the first place—and who had told her he was catching a flight back to Europe—was sitting right here in Delaware, drilling a stare right through her like he’d been sitting in Starbucks waiting for one thing: her.

  Even though Kathy’s heart was racing, she forced herself to continue
walking casually toward the office. The title office had deadbolt locks on all its doors, so her plan was to get inside, pull the shades, lock all the doors from the outside world, and pretend she wasn’t there for the rest of the day—or at least until she was able to carry out her plan and get out of there for good.

  Kathy was so intent on rehearsing her plan that she tripped over a big buckle between two of the sidewalk slabs. She reached out to stop her fall by grabbing onto a wrought-iron bench in front of the ice cream shop. As she steadied herself, she glanced into the reflection on the shop’s window. There, on the other side of the street, strode St. Pierre, moving in the same direction as she was. Kathy sucked in a big lungful of air, steadied herself, let the air out and picked up her pace. Her heart raced even faster. The title office was now only four doorways down. This time, she watched her step carefully and in short order reached the title company’s front door.

  Kathy unlocked the wrought-iron screen door, then the main front door as quickly as possible. She then stepped in and shut the door behind her. She cranked the deadbolt in place, then spun around for the back door. What she saw stopped her in her tracks.

  Papers everywhere! All the filing cabinets turned over. Desk drawers pulled out, some torn out completely and flung on the floor. The office had been completely ransacked! Her laptop lay face down on the floor with one hinge of the monitor twisted off. Clearly destroyed. Kathy spun slowly in place, surveying the damage, stunned by what she saw. The frightening mess confirmed Kathy’s deepest fears. If she’d felt like she was falling down and down into icy arctic waters earlier, now she sensed she was drowning.

  For a moment, Kathy stood still, immobilized, but she soon realized she needed to overcome her shock and protect herself. She rushed across the floor as fast as her feet would carry her to the back door. She threw her arms out and cranked the deadbolt. Just as she felt the reassuring thunk of metal sliding in place, she watched in horror as the doorknob spun first to the right, and then to the left. This was followed by a resounding thud as someone rammed into the door with their body. Kathy leaned all of her slight weight up against the door praying, “Oh please, God, let it hold! Let it hold!”

  The door held. Then the thudding stopped.

  Kathy continued to lean against the door, trying to will her screaming adrenaline to subside. She pressed her ear against the door. No sound. Kathy sucked in another big breath. Maybe she was going to be all right. She noticed, for the first time, she was trembling. Time to think logically. Perhaps St. Pierre had gone. After all, it was broad daylight and the man was only a short distance from the main street of Newark, even though he was fairly secluded back in the alley.

  Kathy leaned her shaking body against the backdoor as her thoughts raced. Should she rush back out the front door and shout for help down Main Street? How about calling 911 on her cell? That seemed like a better idea. Kathy began to fumble in her shoulder bag for her cell, then clank, she heard the worst sound of all from the other side of the door. It sounded like he was locking the wrought-iron bar screen, trapping her inside. One of her predecessors had installed special external security measures in both the front and back before she’d arrived. Now there was no way out the back.

  Kathy’s heart sank. How did this man have a key?! If she didn’t get to the front door fast, he’d lock that security door too. She’d be trapped inside. She spun around again and raced across the paper-strewn floor to the front door. She frantically flipped the deadbolt and spun the knob to get out. She twisted the wrought-iron screen handle almost off the door. No such luck. He’d already locked it before he went around to the back.

  No way out! Kathy knew her slight weight had no chance of busting through the security bars. Back to the 911 idea. She plunged her hand back into the recesses of her huge shoulder bag, fumbling for the phone.

  Pssssssssst. Kathy heard the telltale whoosh of the gas valve being turned on, a horrible sound on a warm summer’s day. A greater fear than Kathy had ever known scalded her nerves. The accompanying adrenaline rush threw her into absolute overdrive. She shook uncontrollably. Even 911 couldn’t help her now.

  Kathy used all of her young resources to calm her mind as the pssssssst of the leaking gas continued. After St. Pierre had trashed the office and couldn’t find what he was looking for he must have prepared ahead for her demise; Kathy’s sense of impending dread rose ever higher, the arctic waters closing in over her head, engulfing her mouth, her nose. She was paralyzed with fear.

  She forced herself to think. Think. He’d been waiting for her at Starbucks for certain. He must have installed some kind of ignition device. No sense in looking for it. What would she do if she found it? She had no bomb or gas ignition device training. Processing all of these thoughts almost paralyzed Kathy completely. She shook herself. I am too young to die now, at least without doing everything I know to save my life. With those thoughts, Kathy swiftly shifted her focus to the storage loft at the back of the high ceilinged office.

  The loft was accessed by means of a sliding metal ladder, attached to the open edge of the little loft, where the title company archived the files. Kathy willed her body to act and made one last race across the office, the office where she’d loved her job so much. She jumped up onto the mid-rungs of the ladder, flinging one arm after the other up the rungs like a crazed monkey with the psssssst sound growing louder and louder and more frightening with each precious second.

  She reached the loft floor, with its four-foot high ceiling, and crawled toward the edge of the building where a window let in some light. Unlike the sealed windows on the main floor, this window had a latch. Kathy flipped it up, and shoved open the window. The window was only about three feet high and a foot-and-a-half wide. Kathy blessed God that she was tiny, tiny enough to fit, then squeezed through until she was balancing on the bottom edge of the window, rocking on the balls of her feet, scrunched practically into a ball. The shops in Delaware are often built side-by-side in very close proximity. The roof of the next shop was about six feet down and four feet away. From Kathy’s perch, the combined distances looked impossible to get across safely. If she missed, the fall was much longer, ending in rocks, broken glass and some discarded cans at ground level. But Kathy had no choice.

  The psssssssst of the gas increased to a huge whoosh! She could smell it strongly now, the chemical smell of her own death. No time to do anything but jump. Kathy sprung with every ounce of willpower she had in her, propelling herself as far as she could out across the empty space. She tumbled, down and down and down; her heart felt like it had sprung up into her throat, almost choking her. Kathy watched in fascination and then in horror as the black roof below came at her with startling speed, like a fast-forward collision with a gigantic black bus. Kathy sent the sky a silent prayer while flapping her arms desperately to remain upright. Then her best and worst fear came true. She hit the roof! Her toes touched first, but in a split second the weight of her fall immediately slapped her body with immense force onto the black tar in a shattering heap. Her knees, hip and finally her cheek smashed against the rough rooftop. Kathy felt like every bone in her young body had been broken. She lay their quietly, sucking in air, trying to get her bearings.

  Tentatively, she stretched her legs out behind her to see if her ankles or hip had broken in the fall. Just then an ear splitting explosion rocketed into the sky behind her. Kathy jerked reflexively into a fetal position; she covered her ears and protected her face with her arms, unable to see the odd mix of papers and chunks of concrete blasting skyward into the Newark air. Kathy tried to make herself as small as humanly possible as fragments of concrete, wood, glass, paper and other paraphernalia showered all over her trembling body. A hurled brick slugged into her side and she groaned in pain. Afraid to move, Kathy remained curled tightly into a ball, waiting for the exploding debris to stop pelting her fragile body.

  Chapter 5

  The only trouble with the “Let’s do lunch” idea, I reflected, is that apparently th
e restaurant was nearby and we had to walk. By now my fake Gucci high heels were really killing me. However, it was imperative, in my mind at least, that I didn’t limp along beside this gorgeous specimen of a man as we traversed the Phoenix downtown sidewalks, going to wherever the hell Michael and I were supposed to meet Sylvester Swane. Further, it was imperative that I walk beside him as an easy equal, with the same degree of sexy, suave-cool he oozed.

  This was becoming increasingly difficult. We’d exited out the grandiose doors of Central One and turned left along 1st Avenue. Besides the fact that my shoes were killing me, it was July in Phoenix. Have you ever opened a brick oven to peak at the progress of your pizza, only to have your eyebrows nearly singed off? Probably not, and me neither, but, just as a point of reference, that’s what July’s like in Phoenix. The second you swing open a door to step outside, you’re scorched by a blast of the Dreaded Pizza Oven and you pray your eyebrows stay on.

  Now men, for some reason, barely notice this. And Michael, after all, was a man. He seemed to be striding along with no difficulties whatsoever. Today he had chosen to clothe his svelte form in a beige, short-sleeve silk shirt, with, I swear, pants that must have cost easily five hundred bucks or more in a dreamy, make-you-want-to-massage-his-derriere camel color. I was only guessing at the price. Who knew? I didn’t really travel in those circles, except in my dreams. Maybe the pants were a thousand bucks. Anyway, no sweat showed anywhere on the man.