Crime Seen (11 page)

Dutch scratched his head. ‘‘So I should be looking at who the playmates were from thirty years ago?’’

‘‘Yeah. Sorry,’’ I said. ‘‘But there’s this connection— I just know it. And there’s a good chance that the parents still may be close. I mean, obviously Goodyear and this playmate of his son’s are close, so the odds are pretty good that the adults might still hang out together.’’

Dutch nodded. ‘‘Okay, Abs. I’ll work on that in the morning. You getting up at the dawn of time again?’’

‘‘No. I told Candice that I’d need to check in with Lori first and make sure I didn’t pull anything before I headed back to the gym.’’

Dutch gave me a sideways glance. Clearly he doubted my intentions to get back to breaking a sweat. I decided to change the subject by giving him a big fat smooch.

The next day I took a load of clothes and other belongings over to my place. I wasn’t quite ready to leave Dutch’s, but I figured I’d at least start the process. Next I headed to the office and found Candice already there, tapping away on her laptop. ‘‘Morning!’’ she said as I came through the door.

‘‘Hey there,’’ I replied, coming into her office and taking a seat.

‘‘Missed you at the gym this morning,’’ she said as she took a sip of coffee.

‘‘I have an appointment with my physical therapist this afternoon. I want to make sure she clears it before I hand my physical well-being over to you again,’’ I said.

Candice set her mug down and hung her head a little. ‘‘I’m really sorry about that, Abs. I totally forgot about your wound.’’

‘‘It’s fine,’’ I said with a wave of my hand. ‘‘It’s just the scar tissue’s really tight. I’ll have Lori give me the lowdown on what areas to work that won’t affect it so much and then we can build a program from there.’’

‘‘Good,’’ she said. ‘‘And how’d it go with Dutch?’’

‘‘Fine,’’ I laughed. ‘‘Can you believe he was jealous?’’

‘‘I can,’’ she said with a wink. ‘‘But after you left, things got even more interesting.’’

‘‘Dish,’’ I said.

‘‘Turns out Wolfe’s company is looking for more loan officers.’’

‘‘Really?’’

‘‘Uh-huh. And I might have mentioned to Darren that you have a background in the mortgage biz.’’

‘‘Excuse me?’’ I said, squinting at her. ‘‘You told him what?’’

‘‘Weren’t you a loan officer at that bank that went under a few years ago?’’

‘‘Yes, but—’’

‘‘He’s really into the fact that you’re psychic and that you know your way around a mortgage. I think you’re a shoo-in.’’

I shook my head a little. I was aware that Candice was speaking, but I wasn’t really getting the words that she was stringing together. ‘‘A shoo-in for what?’’

‘‘For the job, of course,’’ Candice said. ‘‘Here, this is an application. Fill it out and I’ll fax it to Darren. He said he could cut through a lot of the red tape.’’

I resorted to blinking rapidly as I stared at the paper in front of me. ‘‘You’re kidding me with this, right?’’

‘‘Abby,’’ Candice said, leaning forward and lacing her fingers together. ‘‘If you want to find out about Wolfe, we’re going to have to do a little undercover here. I can’t go in. My PI license is still current, and Wolfe’s going to sniff that out right away. We need a mole, and since there’s just the two of us, that mole’s gotta be you.’’

I sputtered for a few seconds, then said, ‘‘But why can’t we just dig around outside his organization? I mean, what the heck are we going to learn by going in this way?’’

Candice sat back in her chair and regarded me for a long minute. Finally she turned to her computer and typed a few keystrokes, then said quietly, ‘‘Were you aware that before he died, Walter McDaniel was the owner of six rental properties throughout the metro Detroit area?’’

I blinked again. ‘‘So?’’

‘‘And were you aware that he had a mortgage pending on a seventh house?’’

‘‘Again, I’m having a hard time following you here, Candice,’’ I said to her.

‘‘And were you aware, Abby, that prior to McDaniel owning these properties, at least two that I can trace were owned by known drug dealers?’’

My mouth opened as my radar hummed loudly in my mind. ‘‘What mortgage company did the paper?’’ I asked.

Candice smiled. ‘‘Wolfe’s,’’ she said.

‘‘Son of a bitch,’’ I said. ‘‘He was dirty?’’

‘‘McDaniel?’’ Candice said. ‘‘Not sure yet, but it sure looks suspicious, doesn’t it?’’

I sat back myself and lifted the application off her desk to look at it again. ‘‘What made you look into McDaniel?’’

‘‘A hunch,’’ she said. ‘‘And I’m still digging, but in the meantime we need to get to the bottom of the link between these two. The more we poke around the outskirts of it, the more we call attention to ourselves. But if we get you inside the organization and have you root around, we might be able to come up with some solid evidence to not only link Wolfe to McDaniel’s murder but put him away for good with some other illegal shit that I think’s going on down there. Since you’ve got a background in mortgages, you’re the best person to go digging for something incriminating.’’

‘‘How dangerous is this?’’ I asked her, knowing the answer.

‘‘Very,’’ she said. ‘‘So if you want to stop, we need to do it right now.’’

So there it was. I could step out onto the curb and know that a bus might come along and flatten me, or I could stay in the safety of the little padded room I’d created for myself. I was shaking inside. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to make you want to take the safe route for the rest of your life, but the part of my personality that had always pushed me to do things that I wasn’t comfortable with was yelling at me to get in there and start digging. ‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘We move forward. I’ll fill this out and get it back to you in a few minutes.’’

I marched into my office, filled out the application, and made up a quick résumé to attach to it, stating ‘‘counselor’’ as my current occupation. I was done in an hour, and gave both to Candice. She looked them over and said, ‘‘Good job, Abs. I’ll get this to Darren this afternoon.’’

I busied myself the rest of the day with errands and readying my office for the three clients I’d scheduled that evening. They would arrive at six, which left me plenty of time to meet with Lori and take a shower before coming back to the office.

I walked into the physical therapy building promptly at five to three and found Lori just finishing up with her previous patient. I smiled and took a seat as I waited, watching her with an elderly woman who was trying to bend a knee that looked like it had just seen some surgery.

Lori stood about an inch taller than me, with chestnut-colored hair that reached her shoulder, brilliant green eyes, and a light, creamy complexion. She was patient, kind, and devoted to everyone who came to her for therapy. When she was done with the elderlywoman, she wheeled her out to the lobby, then turned to me.

‘‘How ya feeling?’’ she asked as she picked up a clipboard and began scribbling on it.

‘‘Good,’’ I said.

‘‘That’s great. How’s the range of motion coming along?’’

I showed her by extending my right arm straight out and moving it sideways, squinting a little when it was fully extended, perpendicular to my side. Lori nodded. ‘‘Range looks great, but you’ve still got some pain at the farthest points, huh?’’

‘‘Yeah. Yesterday I tried doing butterfly curls with weights and thought I’d ripped my chest wide open.’’

This got another nod from Lori. ‘‘Best to go really slowly with the weights,’’ she said. ‘‘At least until you’ve stretched that tissue out.’’

‘‘So I shouldn’t be lifting for a while, then?’’

Lori smiled. ‘‘On the contrary. It’s the best thing for you. You just need to use very light weights and go nice and slow when you’re making the motions. Here, lie back and I’ll show you.’’

For the next hour Lori and I went through examples of exercises that I could do with Candice at the gym. All of them seemed to sting, but at least I knew the proper way to work out until I was fully healed.

‘‘So when would you like to see me again?’’ I asked as Lori made a few more notes on her clipboard.

‘‘Actually, Abby, I think you’re good to go,’’ she said, looking up at me with a wide smile.

‘‘Really? I’m done with therapy?’’

‘‘Yep,’’ she said, getting up to walk me to the front. ‘‘You have full range of motion, and the stiffness will eventually go away. I’ve monitored all your cardiovascular levels since your surgery, and they’re all stable and at normal levels. You seem to have healed really well. So the rest you can do on your own.’’

A mix of emotions washed over me as we hit the lobby. Part of me was relieved I didn’t have to drive across town once a week to be put through some pretty difficult paces, but there was also a part of me that felt like a bird hovering on the edge of the nest, while its mother nudged it to take off. ‘‘Thanks for all your help, Lori,’’ I said, and gave her a hug.

‘‘My pleasure, Abby. And tell your sister I said thank you for the bath salts. I got those in the mail yesterday.’’

‘‘You do realize she’s been bribing you, don’t you?’’

Lori laughed. ‘‘Of course,’’ she said. ‘‘But it’s taken her focus off of all the other people involved in your recovery. Talking to me lets your sister feel like someone’s looking out for you and filling her in on your progress. And that way she leaves Dutch, your doctors, and your other friends alone. Am I right?’’

I grinned. Lori was smarter than I thought. ‘‘For the most part,’’ I said.

I left the physical therapy office and went back to Dutch’s to take a shower, then returned to my office. As I was unlocking my door I could hear the phone ringing inside the suite. I left the keys in the door as I rushed to answer it before it went to voice mail.

‘‘Abby Cooper,’’ I said.

‘‘Hello, Ms. Cooper,’’ chirped a woman’s voice. ‘‘This is Andrea LaChance from Universal Mortgage Corporation. I’ve got your application for employment in front of me, and I was hoping we could get you in for an interview in the next few days or so.’’

I set my purse down, swung around to the chair behind my desk, and pulled my desk calendar close. ‘‘I’m pretty open next week,’’ I said.

‘‘I have a two thirty available Monday afternoon. Would that work for you?’’

‘‘Works fine, Andrea,’’ I said and made the notation. ‘‘You guys are over on Old Woodward Avenue, in Birmingham, right?’’

‘‘Yes, six seventy-five Old Woodward.’’

‘‘Great. Shall I ask for you?’’

‘‘No, you’ll be meeting directly with our owner, Mr. Wolfe.’’ I sucked in a surprised breath. I hadn’t expected to do the meet and greet with the big nasty guy right off the bat. ‘‘Is something wrong?’’ Andrea asked me.

‘‘No,’’ I said quickly. ‘‘I just gave myself a paper cut. I’ll see Mr. Wolfe at two thirty Monday, then.’’

I clicked off with Andrea and immediately called Candice. ‘‘Hey, Abs,’’ she said happily into the phone when she answered. I could hear what sounded like restaurant noise in the background. ‘‘I’m having drinks with the ladies before they come see you. They’re all excited.’’

‘‘That’s swell. Listen, I just got a call from Universal Mortgage. They want me to come in for an interview Monday afternoon.’’

‘‘Perfect,’’ Candice said.

‘‘No,’’ I snapped. ‘‘It’s not perfect, Candice! They want me to meet with Wolfe. He’s my interviewer.’’

Candice chuckled into the phone. ‘‘Well, who did you think you were going to interview with?’’ she asked me.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ I said as a little wave of panic swirled uncomfortably in my tummy. ‘‘Some lackey from HR?’’

‘‘Abby, relax,’’ she said. ‘‘He’s just a guy. You’re on an interview. Just go in there, tell him about your experience at the bank, and you’ll get the gig.’’

‘‘Easy for you to say,’’ I groused.

‘‘May I remind you that this is
your
case?’’

‘‘Okay, okay,’’ I said, giving in. ‘‘I hear ya. I just get nervous around murderers.’’

She chuckled again. ‘‘I will make sure nothing happens to you. Okay?’’

I grumbled my good-byes and hung up with Candice. After taking some deep breaths, I headed into my reading room and sat down in my new leather chair. My adrenaline was still pumping, but just being in this room seemed to be helping. I glanced at my watch and realized that Candice would be leading the first of her girlfriends back here in a few minutes. I’d need to prepare. I closed my eyes and got into my zone. By the time I heard the light knock on my door, I was much calmer and ready to go.

The three readings were fantastic. It was like I’d taken a shot of intuitive speed or something. The information I received about the women was strong, detailed, and right on the money. When the last one had left the office, Candice turned to me and beamed. ‘‘They were totally blown away by you,’’ she said.

I blushed and gave her a wave of my hand. ‘‘It’s what I do.’’

‘‘And you were afraid to jump back in,’’ she continued. ‘‘Abby, you’re as good as ever. And those were the right women to blow away. They know everyone,’’ she said. ‘‘Totally hooked in to the community in Kay-zoo.’’

‘‘You think many people will make the trip?’’

‘‘For you? Definitely,’’ she said.

I headed back to Dutch’s feeling really good about myself. I’d stepped up to the plate tonight and hit three right out of the park. The old radar wasn’t broken, or even rusty. It had come right back, just as strong as it ever was. As I started up the walk, the front door opened and six feet, two inches of gorgeousness stared out at me. ‘‘Hey there, beautiful,’’ he said.

‘‘I could say the same to you,’’ I said as I eased into his arms, giving him a tight squeeze.

‘‘How’d your readings go?’’

‘‘Really well,’’ I admitted. ‘‘Which was a surprise.’’

Dutch pulled back to look down at me. ‘‘A surprise?’’