A Grave Prediction

  “You know what I find curious?” Candice asked. When Edwards didn’t answer, she continued anyway. “I think it’s a little weird that you haven’t asked us which banks were robbed and why we think there might be a connection back to you. I mean, if someone sat me down and said what we said to you here, my first question would be to ask if it was my bank that was robbed.”

  Edwards’s mouth formed a thin line and he glared at her, unspeaking.

  Candice pulled her phone out of her pocket and began tapping at it. “Maybe you’d like to see the banks that were robbed?” she said, then turned the phone toward Edwards. I caught a flash of the screen. It was an image of Edwards disheveled and smirking as he stood in the doorway of the motel right as Flower was lifting away the money from his hand.

  I hadn’t even known she’d taken the picture.

  Judging by Edwards’s expression as he took in the image, neither had he. The blood drained from his face and his eyes watered. “What is this?” he whispered, never lifting his gaze from the screen. “A shakedown?”

  Candice tucked the phone back into her pocket. “Of sorts,” she said. “What do you know about the robberies in Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge?”

  He pulled at his collar and his eyes darted back and forth while he stared at the tabletop. He was looking for a way out. I was hoping we hadn’t given him one. “Listen,” he said. “I have a wife and kids—”

  “We know,” Candice said, cutting him off. “And I’d hate to see that photo end up on anybody’s Facebook page. Your wife is really into social media. She posts all the time.”

  Edwards looked up at her. “You can’t,” he said. “She’ll kill me.” Candice and I both frowned at him. “I’m serious,” he insisted. “Like, she’ll actually kill me.”

  “Hmm,” I said, because I’d detected no lie or exaggeration in his statement. “Better not risk it. Now, tell us what you know.”

  He shook his head and pressed his lips together. “I can’t,” he said.

  “Okay,” Candice said with a shrug. “Come on, Abby, let’s head back and send Mrs. Edwards a friend request.”

  “Wait!” Edwards said. “You don’t understand.”

  “We’re open to explanations,” I told him.

  Edwards pushed his half-eaten meal aside. It seemed he’d lost his appetite. “I signed an NDA,” he said. “I can’t talk about it or I could get sued into the ground.”

  I stared at him. So did Candice. Of all the possible responses, his admission of signing a nondisclosure agreement wasn’t something I’d been expecting. “Nondisclosures don’t apply if there’s been a crime, Mr. Edwards,” Candice said.

  “If it’s all the same to you, lady, I’d like for my lawyer to tell me that. And if you force me to talk to you about it under duress, then they can sue you too.”

  We were on tricky ground here and Candice and I knew it. Meanwhile, Edwards got up and took his lunch over to the trash can, where he threw out the uneaten portion, then placed his tray on the top and walked out of the restaurant.

  Candice and I shared shocked expressions at his sudden departure. “What just happened?” I asked her.

  “I think he left,” she said, getting up.

  I went with her to the door and peered out. Sure enough, Edwards had gotten in his car and was just pulling out of the slot. We dashed outside and hustled over to our car. I pulled on the handle while looking over my shoulder as Edwards exited onto the street. When I lifted up on the handle, it stayed locked, and after three tugs I glanced back toward Candice to see why she hadn’t unlocked it yet. “Hey,” I said, when I saw her looking down at something on the ground. “What gives?”

  Without lifting her gaze, she motioned for me to come around to her side. I did and that’s when I saw it; there was a huge gash in the left front tire, leaving it totally flat.

  “He slashed our tire?!” I gasped.

  “He did,” Candice said, lifting her chin to look down the street toward Edwards’s car as it slipped out of sight amid the other traffic.

  “That son of a bitch!” I growled, shaking my fist in the direction he’d fled.

  “Yep,” Candice said. She then headed around to the trunk and popped the lid. Pulling out the spare and the jack, she came back to me and placed the lug wrench in my hands. “You work on those while I hoist the car.”

  I glanced down at myself. I was wearing camel slacks and a light blue silk top. No way was I staying clean through this. “Great,” I muttered. “Just great.”

  Ten minutes later we were back on the road. I’d had to wash my hands several times to get the grease from the lug nuts off, and there was a slight smear of black grime on the knee of my pants, and my shirt was now very wrinkled, but overall it wasn’t too bad.

  Candice, as usual, looked perfect with nary a hair out of place. “Do you ever look rumpled? Disheveled? Or unkempt?” I asked.

  “Have you ever seen me look rumpled, disheveled, or unkempt?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Then there’s your answer.”

  “Sometimes I hate that about you.”

  “I’m okay with that,” she said.

  “So, where’re we going?”

  “The airport.”

  I pulled my chin back in alarm. “The airport? Why? We’re leaving?”

  “No, Sundance, we’re not leaving. We’re going to trade this car for another one with four good wheels and something Edwards won’t recognize tailing him.”

  “I still can’t believe he just got up and ditched us,” I said.

  “Yeah, that was pretty unexpected. He’s got more balls than I would’ve guessed.”

  “And what’d he use to slash our tire, anyway?” I asked.

  “A very sharp knife,” she said. “Given that he heads to Flower’s neck of the woods on a regular basis, it’s not really surprising to me that he’s armed with a knife.”

  “Do you think he went back to work?” I asked.

  “Maybe. But it’s more likely he headed off to either warn an accomplice or to ditch some evidence.”

  “Ditch some evidence? You now think he was involved?”

  “Don’t you?”

  I played her question against my radar, and I had to admit that there did seem to be some sort of actual involvement on Edwards’s behalf, which was odd, because before we’d confronted him, I could’ve sworn he was innocent of participating in the robberies. “I do now,” I told Candice. “He seemed super nervous when we started talking about the robberies, right?”

  “He did, and he broke out in a sweat like that in front of two PIs. We aren’t the Feds or the cops and he was shaking in his boots. He’s feeling super guilty or nervous about something.”

  “I really have to wonder what his role in all this is, though,” I said. “I mean, what was that crap about signing an NDA?”

  Candice shook her head. “I’ve been mulling that comment over too. It’s a really odd thing to say. Like, what the hell does a criminal worry about breaching an NDA for, and what possible nondisclosure could spell out the terms of a bank robbery? You can’t form a valid contract over a crime. No one could sue him for talking about it.”

  “Do you think he knows that?”

  “How could he not? I mean, Abby, how dumb or naive would you have to be?”

  “He strikes me as neither dumb nor naive, but maybe just a little too disconnected from the world.”

  She nodded. “That’s him exactly. He wears that faraway gaze all the time and you think he’s not so smart, but there’s something in his eyes when you get his attention.”

  “Riiiiiight?” I agreed. I knew exactly what she meant. Edwards had been a surprise. I’d clearly underestimated him based on his appearance and demeanor. It was something I vowed not to do again.

  We traded out cars and had to file some paper
work about the slashed tire, which took a little while. By the time we got back on the road, I was good and hangry. “There’s a place,” I said, pointing to anything along the road that even looked like it served something to eat.

  “Would you stop?” Candice snapped.

  “Would you?” I snapped back.

  Hmmm, maybe we were both hangry. Candice gripped the wheel a little tighter and drove for just a bit before pulling into a Jamba Juice.

  The second she parked, I turned to her and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  She rolled her eyes, clearly tired of my whiny self, and exited the car, leaving me sitting there in my famished misery. I pouted in my seat, considering my options. Looking left, I spotted a pizza joint within walking distance. Trouble was, if I went for it, Candice could simply ditch me and let me find my own way back to the hotel.

  Of course, it might be worth it to get a piece of the carbs I’d been craving.

  But then I glanced down at my waist and had to admit that the bloat I’d been carrying for several months was greatly reduced. Candice really might be on to something with that whole gluten- and lactose-intolerance stuff. With a groan I got out and followed after her inside.

  To my surprise Candice had already ordered for both of us, and she was just slipping the cashier some bills when I sidled up next to her. She handed me something light chocolate colored and said, “Drink.”

  I took a tentative sip. It was amazeballs. “Holy mother of all that is good and delicious!” I moaned. “What is this?”

  “My private recipe,” Candice said, pocketing the change and taking the other drink.

  I followed her back out of the shop like a dutiful puppy, sipping and slurping and moaning with happiness.

  I could taste bananas, and peanuts, and almonds, and cocoa, and maybe even a hint of vanilla. We sat in her car in silence for a little while, sucking down our smoothies and I suppose waiting for our glucose levels to rise and bring us back to being congenial. “Sorry I got snippy with you,” Candice said.

  “Me too. Wanna go back to the hotel and braid each other’s hair?”

  She laughed with relish, and I delighted in the richness of the sound of it. Candice had a great laugh. It was a shame we so seldom heard it. “How about we check to see if Edwards went back to work, and if he did, we’ll stake him out until he heads home, and then we’ll call it a night.”

  “That sounds like all sorts of fun,” I said drily.

  “I know, but he’s the only lead we have, so I think we should stick close for a while.”

  “Okay,” I said, wishing there was more in the ether for me to dig up about that connection between Edwards and the robberies. “Candice,” I said when my intuition hit on something new. “Maybe you should look into Edwards’s work history.”

  “His work history?”

  “Yeah. I feel like there’s a hint to the past that’s related to his work that might help us.”

  She nodded. “I can do that once we get back to the hotel.”

  Our plans were foiled when we drove to the parking structure where Edwards typically parked and we couldn’t find any sign of his car. Candice even drove all around the surrounding neighborhood, checking to make sure he wasn’t trying to give us the slip by parking someplace on the street, but his car was not to be found.

  That worried both of us, because it suggested not only that Edwards was probably hiding from us, but that he might be hiding evidence from us too.

  Around four thirty we turned away from the bland office building and drove to a spot just down from Edwards’s house, but his car wasn’t in sight, which didn’t really mean anything because he usually parked it in the garage. But then, right around five fifteen we got lucky when a minivan belonging to the missus pulled into the drive and the garage door swung up.

  Edwards’s silver sedan wasn’t inside, so wherever he’d gone when he ditched us, it didn’t appear to be home.

  We waited some more until close to six thirty and Candice finally called it a day. “Let’s pick his trail back up in the morning,” she said.

  “Can we go to dinner now?” I asked.

  “You’re hungry again already?”

  “No. I need a cocktail and going to dinner is the best pretense for indulging in something to take the edge off this crappy day.”

  “Agreed. But there’s one stop I want to make beforehand.”

  “Where?”

  “Best Buy,” she said. “There’s one on the way back.”

  I discovered why Candice wanted to stop at the big electronics superstore shortly afterward when she purchased a vehicle-tracking device. “I should’ve tacked this sucker to Edwards’s car from the get-go,” she said. “We would’ve been able to see his trail even with the slashed tire.”

  “Hindsight,” I said. “Next time we’ll be smarter.”

  We got back to the hotel, ditched our work clothes, and changed into jeans and sweaters. We both agreed that sticking close to the hotel was the way to go; we’d already spent way too much time in the car.

  As I was sprucing up my hair one final time before going to dinner, there was a knock on the door.

  I poked my head out of the bathroom to find Candice staring questioningly first at the door, then at me. I shrugged. I had no idea who it could be.

  “Who is it?” Candice called.

  “Special Agent Hart,” came the reply.

  “Oh!” I said, and hurried to the door. “Hey!” I said when I saw her. “What’s up?”

  “I could ask you the same thing, Abby,” she said. “Rivera found out today you were still here, and asking questions of the former security guard at the La Cañada bank. He’s on the warpath.”

  I made a face. “Shit.”

  “Hi,” Candice said from behind me while sticking her arm past mine to extend it toward Agent Hart. “Candice Fusco. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Hello, Ms. Fusco. I’ve heard a great deal about you too.” The two shook hands cordially, but there was a wariness to both of their stances. I found it amusing as hell.

  “We were just going to dinner, Kelsey. How about you come along?” Behind me, Candice coughed into her hand. I ignored that and added, “Really, we’d love to have you.”

  Hart looked from me to Candice and back to me again. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” she said.

  “It’s no imposition,” I told her, then backed up to grab my purse, pat Candice on the arm, and add, “It’ll be fun!”

  Candice turned her face away from Hart to show me that she thought it’d be anything but fun.

  I just grinned bigger and led the way out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  • • •

  We made polite conversation until the martinis arrived. Two sips in, Hart dropped the pretenses and got down to business. “So, why’re you two still here?” she asked.

  “We love L.A.,” Candice said tartly. “The people, the weather, the surf. Can’t get enough.”

  “Right,” Hart said. “That’s believable.”

  “This is bigger than just the bank robberies,” I said, dispensing with the snark and going for honest. I trusted Hart, and I thought telling her couldn’t do us any harm. We weren’t really getting too far on our own after all. “I think there’s going to be a series of murders from a sicko who will then bury them at the top of that hill in La Cañada Flintridge.”

  Hart considered me curiously. “The graves you said you saw?”

  “Yes. When I was first drawn to the spot, it wasn’t because of some ancient buried remains. It was because there’s something in the ether pointing to a series of murders, and I intend to stop them before they happen.”

  Hart shuddered slightly. “That’s like something out of that movie, Minority Report.”

  “I agree it sounds freaky,” I told her. “But I’m conv
inced that if we don’t solve the bank robberies, then those murders are going to happen.”

  “Why?” she asked next. “What’s the connection?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I knew. So far we’re very much in the dark and I’m operating on gut instinct alone.”

  “Doesn’t your ability allow you to see more information?”

  “Not this time,” I admitted. “The ether can be a murky place. It’s like navigating through an early-morning fog—sometimes you hit a patch that’s impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, and other times you can see several streets over. This is one of the thicker patches.”

  “Then how can you be so sure that these future murders will take place?”

  I sighed. “It’s really hard to put into words what I feel intuitively. Mostly because no words exist to aptly describe what it is that I know to be true. But I do know that at least three, possibly four girls will be murdered. And they’ll be buried up on that hill. Who does it and why, I can’t tell you, but the only way to stop this guy is to identify him, and I believe that he’s connected to the robberies.”

  “It’s not that I doubt you,” Kelsey said. “It’s just unlikely that a bank robber would make the jump to serial killer. The pathology is quite different.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “Really, I do. I’ve been consulting with the bureau long enough to recognize that the mind of a sociopath differs widely from the mind of a thief, but there is a connection. I just don’t know how. Yet.”

  “What do you guys have so far?” she asked.

  I glanced at Candice, who shrugged one shoulder and said, “Not a lot. Abby thinks there’s a man who could be at the center of all this and we’ve been tailing him for a couple of days.”

  “Who?”

  I answered. “A guy named Will Edwards. He lives in the subdivision that borders the lot where we found the remains.”

  “Have you checked him out other than tailing him?” she asked.

  Now, I knew that we really shouldn’t be doing any background checks on anyone here in California, as we weren’t licensed in the state, and admitting to a federal officer that we had in fact done that could land us in hot water, but I figured we were already in for a penny, so I told her the truth. “We have. There’s nothing. On paper he’s clean.”