Arlo glared at her before brightening slightly. He thought he had his leverage back. “You mean the wig, the gun, and the coat with all that blowback on them? Yeah, I found it. I’ve tucked that someplace safe, though, so you better play nice with Mr. G.”
Candice smiled and turned her attention back to Frank. Pulling out a small flash drive from her bra, she handed it to Frank. “That’s a duplicate. I have the original, and the FBI on speed dial. If you want that, and for me to keep my mouth shut and walk away, you’ll give me the evidence Arlo found at Michelle’s place that’ll clear my name.”
Frank took the flash drive and opened up the laptop on his computer. Sticking the drive in, he pulled up the images and there was murder in his eyes.
He stood up with clenched fists and said to Arlo, “Take them to the evidence, and bring me back the original drive or I’ll kill you, and anything else you love.” Turning to us, he said, “If you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, you two will end up like Saline.”
I gulped again, but Candice casually got to her feet and saluted. “Got it, G. Nice doing business with you.”
I then looked at Arlo, who motioned with his gun toward the door. “Move,” he growled.
Once we were outside in the hallway, Arlo put the gun directly into Candice’s back and said, “Go.”
We walked forward like good little soldiers, but with every step I felt a more immediate sense of danger. “Arlo,” I said, knowing he had murder on his mind. “I think you should consider that if you kill us before we give you the original flash drive, Frank’s not going to stop until he hunts you down and kills you too.”
Arlo grabbed my shoulder and squeezed till I squirmed. “Shut it, bitch!”
He then pushed and shoved us to the elevator and we were forced inside. Arlo hit the down button and I opened my mouth, ready to cry out, “PIZZA!” when Candice put a hand on my arm. She knew I was close to panicking, and I could tell she’d wait until the last moment to call for help, which would hopefully be only one second after she had the evidence to clear herself.
We rode the elevator all the way down to a level that felt belowground. The doors opened to a parking garage, and Arlo put the gun to Candice’s back again. “Move!” he repeated.
We walked forward with Arlo so close to us that he felt on top of me. I could feel the steamy heat of his hot breath on the back of my neck. “You hid the evidence down here in the parking garage?” I asked loudly.
“Not exactly,” he said, shoving me forward.
“Where’re you taking us?” I asked next, hoping the Feds were hearing the alarm in my voice.
“Shut up!” he said, giving the back of my head a good whack.
Again I opened my mouth, ready to call for help, but Candice grabbed my hand again and squeezed. I could see the pleading in her eyes, but my radar was sending so many alarm signals that it was hard to decide what to do.
Arlo stopped us in front of a big white van. “Get inside,” he said, reaching over us to pull open the side door. My mind filled with the image of that van, kicking up dust in the desert, and I knew for certain Arlo wasn’t about to hand over any evidence in exchange for the flash drive. He was going to take us to the desert, kill us, then go to Salazar Kato and tell him that Michelle had been working for Frank, and on his orders, she’d killed Robinowitz and Saline. It’s how he planned to save his own skin. I could see it all so clearly, it was like reading his mind.
“We’re not getting in that van,” I said, putting my arm out to stop Candice from even thinking about it.
I felt the cold muzzle of the gun up against the back of my head. “Yes, you are,” he growled.
“What kind of a van is this anyway?” I asked. “A pizza delivery van? It looks like something you’d deliver pizza in!”
Arlo grabbed my neck and shoved me forward. I tripped and fell half in the van. Behind me I heard a scuffle, then the sound of a gunshot, and I scuttled out of the van to spin around. I saw Candice struggling with Arlo—he was trying to point the gun at her, but she was fighting him with both hands wrapped around his wrist. She was losing and the gun was slowly turning toward her head.
I leaped forward and got Arlo around the middle, but he was big. I pushed with all my might and managed to shove him several steps to the side. Another gunshot rang out, and I jerked at the sound, but wouldn’t let go. I pushed and shoved and kicked at him, praying that he hadn’t shot Candice. I tried to get my head up to see, but Arlo’s elbow blocked me. And then the big thug tripped, and all three of us went down. I heard something clatter and realized it was the gun. I scrambled forward, clawing at the pavement while I heard Candice grunt and lots of slapping behind me. I reached out as far as I could stretch, my fingers almost touching the metal when I felt something slam down on my back. My chin hit the pavement and my teeth clinked together so hard I knew I’d chipped a tooth. At the top of my vision I saw Arlo’s big hand wrap itself around the gun and he rolled over to point it back at me.
I froze and at that exact moment a car came zooming up to us and screeched to a stop as doors flung open and an army of men jumped out all shouting at once, “Drop your weapon!”
“Drop it now!”
“Get on the ground, facedown, scumball!”
Arlo raised his arms, dropped the gun, and rolled over facedown. I let go of the breath I’d been holding before turning my head this way and that, searching for Candice. I found her lying on her back with a bloody lip, looking more spent than I’d ever seen her.
I crawled over to her and took her in my arms, never more grateful to hug my best friend. “We did it!” I said.
She hugged me back limply. “We almost did it,” she said. “He still never gave up the evidence.”
I let out a small laugh. “Uh, yeah, he did, Cassidy.” I then got both of us up and moved her back over to the van. “See that black garbage bag with the blond hair sticking out of it?”
Candice crawled into the van and grabbed greedily at the bag. Out spilled the coat Michelle had stolen from her the night she’d killed Robinowitz, the blond wig, and a gun. “Oh, thank God!” she whispered right before Brice crawled into the van with her and hugged her to him like he was holding on for dear life.
I turned back around to give them some privacy, and when Oppenheimer approached, I spread my arms and legs to block him from the van. “Nothing to see here,” I said. “At least, not for another minute or two.”
Chapter Fourteen
• • •
Candice, Brice, Dutch, and I sat around the fire pit on our deck, enjoying the beautiful weather and relishing the return of normalcy. On the grill, four thick, juicy steaks steamed and hissed. Brice was in charge of ensuring that Dutch had the biggest, juiciest steak on the barbie, and that his beer was always cold.
I’d be in charge of Dutch’s needs later that night. Something I was seriously looking forward to. “But why did Michelle keep the gun, your coat, and the wig?” Dutch asked. “I mean, that was a stupid move if you ask me.”
Candice nodded. “Michelle could be cunning, but in a lot of ways, she was often overly confident. Still, I think she kept the stuff because she knew that eventually I’d be caught and brought to trial. It’d be just like her to plant the coat and the gun at my old office or somewhere near the condo and send an anonymous tip to the police, making sure to suggest she saw either Brice or Abby dumping it.”
“The bitch,” I said. I didn’t usually speak ill of the dead, but in Michelle’s case, I decided I could make an exception.
“So how did Kato take the news about his daughter?” Dutch asked next.
I grimaced. I’d gone with Candice to that meeting too, as had Brice, and he’d worn his badge in plain sight just to make sure Kato knew whom he was messing with. We needn’t have worried. Kato had already learned of Michelle’s betrayal and that of Arlo, and once Candice explained the whole story to him, he’d b
een more than contrite about his contribution to all our woes. He’d even taken some responsibility for Saline, suggesting that if he’d been there as a father for her, maybe she wouldn’t have tried such a scheme against such a dangerous man as Big G.
Candice told all that to Dutch and he said, “Well, at least Saline is making progress. She still has a long road back, but the doctors are optimistic.”
“Her dad is coming in tomorrow,” Candice said.
“I can’t believe you still like the guy,” I said to her. “I mean, he was ready to feed you to the coyotes, honey.”
Candice smiled, like that made him all the more dear to her. “Sal’s all bluster,” she said. “He would’ve let me tell my side. And you know he didn’t send Arlo after you. Arlo went because he was trying to get to me before Michelle could finish me off. He thought I knew where Saline had hidden the file.”
“Still,” I said. “I think when Kato comes to town, I’ll skip having lunch with him. How long is he gonna be here, anyway?”
Candice leaned back in her chair and sighed. The bruises were starting to fade and she was looking much more rested and healthy. “He said he’ll stay as long as it takes to see Saline well enough to take her back to Vegas.”
I reached out to stroke Dutch’s arm. “Back to Vegas isn’t a phrase I think I’ll ever use again.”
“Hear, hear,” Brice said, raising his beer.
I raised mine too, and Dutch followed suit. But Candice seemed to hesitate. “It’s hard,” she said softly. “Because my sister’s buried there.”
All three beer bottles lowered. I leaned over to squeeze her hand. “You know that Sam’s spirit isn’t tied to that grave, right?”
Candice smiled sadly. “Yeah. I do. But it’s still a place with her name on it. A place I can go and sit and talk to her. I need something like that to memorialize her, Abs.”
My heart went out to Candice. She was looking better now that she’d seen a doctor about her head injuries, and it turned out she’d suffered a pretty severe concussion, which the doc had said could make her more emotional than usual. We were all trying to be sensitive to that.
So I didn’t try to argue the point with her. Instead I looked out at our yard, where a newly arrived vitex tree, ready to be the yard’s centerpiece, stood in a pot. It was a beautiful tree, and was already covered in purple blooms. My radar pinged and I said, “Hey, Candice?”
“Yeah?”
“What was Sam’s favorite color?”
She cocked her head at me. “Her favorite color? Why do you ask?”
“Indulge me.”
“Purple. She loved purple.”
I nodded knowingly and motioned with my beer to the vitex tree. “See that tree?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Sam’s tree. The landscapers are coming by tomorrow to plant it, and I’m going to order a nice stone bench to sit underneath it, and I’m gonna have it engraved. I’m gonna call it Sam’s Place. From now on, every time you want to be close to your sister, you come on over and hang out under that tree, so that you can let what happened in Vegas stay in Vegas.”
Candice’s eyes misted and she turned from me to stare for a long while at the tree. At last she squeezed my hand back, raised her beer, and said, “Hear, hear.”
Victoria Laurie, Fatal Fortune
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