Cursed by Love (24 page)

Molly looked at him questioningly.

“He’s a cop,” one of the young girls
said.

“Used to be,” he admitted. “Retired,
now. Bum ankle or I’d have taken off after the jerk myself. Now I train service
dogs. Did the bag contain your money, identification, car keys, or cell phone?”

“No.” The situation could have been
worse. “It was just filled with snacks and drinks for the concert. I stuck a
few dollars in one of the pockets for an emergency and put all my personal
stuff in the glove box. I’ve got the keys here.” She held them up for him to
see. “I guess if someone wanted my bag bad enough to commit a crime in broad
daylight, he needs what’s in it worse than I do.” She blinked the rain from her
eyes as it streaked down her face.

“That’s it, then. You got off pretty
easy,” the ex-cop said. “I’m Joe Connelly. Here’s my card if you change your
mind about filing charges and need a witness. It never hurts to make an
official record of a crime. If the
perp
was a repeat
offender, we may be able to connect evidence from other purse-snatchings to
this one.”

“Thanks.” She took the card with shaking
fingers. “Maybe I will report it after I get over the shock.”

“Can you get home on your own?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s get you into your car.” He opened
the door and gave her a boost up. “Turn the heater on.” She followed the
suggestion, but he kept a close on eye on her for a few seconds. “Sure you’re
all right?”

Leaning her head back and closing her
eyes, she nodded, grateful for the heat blasting out of the vent.

“Take care, then.” He set off with the
girls and the dog. “Come on, Demon.”

Feeling numb, Molly switched on the
heated seats. A sneeze seized her. She pulled a packet of tissues from the
glove box, blowing her nose before making a half-hearted attempt to wipe some
of the rain off her face and arms.

She thought about calling her dad about
the purse-snatching. But he’d make a big deal out of it, and she was trying to
diminish the incident in her mind. She thought about calling Gabe, that’s who
she really wanted to call, but he was working and didn’t want her to disturb
him. And he didn’t want her calling him. He’d made that pretty clear.

After the heat had melted away some of
her tension, she pulled into traffic, thinking about stopping somewhere for
some warm soup. She knew of a new little diner down by the river where some
coworkers were renovating a converted warehouse into a café. It hadn’t had its
grand opening yet, but they’d welcome her to the new Soup’s On, even in her
drowned-rat state. It wasn’t too far from the park.

If she could just remember the exact
location.

Molly headed in the right direction, or
so she thought, but she must have taken a wrong turn. Or two. Navigation had
never been her strong suit. And her mom’s GPS was worthless for locating the
location of a new restaurant.

She pulled into a parking lot to get her
bearings. The day had gone from slightly gray to downright depressing starting
with her difficult chat with Dad at breakfast to the uneasy feeling she had
about her parting with Gabe—that bone-melting kiss notwithstanding—to getting
wet, pushed down, robbed, and now, adding insult to injury, lost.

Somehow her departure from Gabe stood
out as the biggest issue. She’d feel a whole lot better about that kiss if it
hadn’t tasted like good-bye. His hot and cold behavior was starting to give her
vertigo.

Totally lost now, Molly instructed the
GPS system to provide the directions for home. Not much backtracking necessary,
according to the disembodied voice.

Peering through the rain that had
slacked off to a drizzle, Molly prepared to pull onto the road, waiting as a
nondescript gray car passed by.

A gray sedan with an Ohio Buckeye bumper
sticker!

The gray sedan she had seen circling
Gabe’s office the other day. The one that had nearly run her down the night of
the break-in.

Was this car following her? Again? Was
it just coincidence that a car that might have been following her previously,
that might belong to someone who had broken into her house, was in the same
vicinity in which her tote bag had just been stolen? Was all that too much of a
coincidence for even Molly to buy?

Touching through each of the charms on
her bracelet, she thought back. She hadn’t seen the sedan at The Broken Egg, or
in the park. But she was driving her mom’s SUV, not her own eye-catching yellow
Beetle. So unless someone had seen her leave Mom’s, no one would know to be
following her.

She loved her car and had never
understood her mom’s fascination with this hulking mass of metal with its
tinted windows, four-wheel drive, and automatic everything. But as Molly
watched the sedan roll past, she felt tall, powerful, and in-command of the
road and her surroundings.

She’d follow the Buckeye bumper sticker.
She’d follow the tail that had been following her. Hah, that had a nice
symbolism to it.

The sedan was halfway down the street
before she pulled out, ready to keep it in sight, but not draw attention to
herself. She reviewed any knowledge she might have gleaned from detective
novels about tailing a suspect and realized she didn’t know much.
Don’t get
caught
ranked right up there at the top of the list.

A quick adrenalin rush made her head
swim. The car turned left into a seedier area, away from the river, toward more
run-down warehouses with less noticeable security.

It turned left again and made another
quick turn into an alley that ran between two square, metal warehouses, one in
better repair than the other. She continued down the street, circling the block
to get a better lay of the land. The gray sedan parked beside a big overhead
door at the back of the dilapidated building. She had just a glimpse of a man
entering a smaller door on the side.

An assortment of vehicles dotted the
street behind the warehouse. Molly pulled up behind an old Thunderbird down the
block. Good vantage point, but now what? She scrunched down in the seat and
settled down to wait.

She didn’t know what she was waiting
for, but maybe she’d know it when she saw it. One thing she wanted to know was
the identity of the gray sedan’s driver. Maybe that would tell her if they had
really been following her for the past week.

And if so, why?

After Max had put the bug in his ear
about Harold, Gabe rode his Harley up his Uncle Harold’s driveway feeling lower
than the gum on the sole of a shoe.

Okay, back to square one. Max’s offer
notwithstanding, there was no easy money, no free lunch, and no truckload of
collateral coming his way from recently discovered family heirlooms.

Even hard work wasn’t taking him where
he needed to go, because the tangible results of all of his hard work had been
lost, sold, or stolen. Now, who besides Uncle Harold would benefit from such a
thing?

No run-of-the-mill thieves would want to
rip off their equipment, almost any other local business would reap more
lucrative results. Who besides Harold would have set them up for a hit? A man
with his history and habits might have any number of reasons for dropping out
of sight since Friday. But that, too, added to Gabe’s suspicions.

So, his uncle went to the top of the
list, even though Granddad and Gabe felt sick at the idea.

After knocking on the door and ringing
the bell, Gabe used Granddad’s key to enter Harold’s sparse and shabby condo.
All of Harold’s, and a lot of Gabe’s and Granddad’s, money went into the
bottomless pit of his gambling addiction. Obviously, home décor wasn’t a
priority.

Searching the apartment would reveal to
Gabe things he didn’t really want to know about his uncle, but keeping a polite
distance was no longer in the cards.

Feeling distinctly voyeuristic, he
dreaded uncovering whatever secrets the bedroom, bathroom and medicine cabinet
might expose. He’d definitely prefer to check out the kitchen before subjecting
himself to that.

Mail, dirty dishes, and assorted flyers
littered the kitchen counter, along with some crusty chili carry-out
containers. Gabe opened the blinds over the kitchen sink, then flipped through
the mail and flyers. Not much there, beyond the usual past-due bills and
gym-club offers

In the living room, a notepad on the coffee
table had some cryptic notes scratched on it. Well, hell. Could it be that
easy? Why hadn’t he started here first? An amount of
$150,000
had been
written on the sheet with numerous underlines and exclamation points. The word
Sunday
was written beneath it, also underscored and followed by
D&D = Murray
.
An address was scrawled below that.

Gabe knew his detecting skills were
limited, but this clue was so obvious it might as well be labeled with a neon
arrow pointing to it. Would Harold have left this type of incriminating
evidence in plain sight? But, then, why would he think anyone would be checking
out his place? It seemed a little too good to be true, but Gabe couldn’t afford
to look a gift clue in the mouth. He snapped a picture of the page with his phone,
ready to head over to the address provided.

Pulling open the door, he found a wall
of muscle on the doorstep. A thick-fingered hand attached to a torpedo-sized
arm grabbed Gabe by the neck. “You’re not Harold. You got our money?”

“What money?” Gabe asked inanely.

“Doesn’t matter,” the muscle answered.
“You’re coming with me.”

Gabe’s feet barely touched the ground as
Muscle Man hustled him toward the car.

Sitting at a stakeout was about the same
as sitting anywhere else on the planet while watching no one doing
anything—mind-numbingly boring, with a capital B. Adding to the boredom, Molly
was tired, damp, probably catching a cold, and emotionally exhausted. Sitting
outside a dilapidated warehouse waiting for the reappearance of someone she
probably wouldn’t recognize had dropped right off her list of Top 100
activities for the day.

A hot bath, followed by dry clothes, and
then sipping a cup of tea while snuggled in bed sounded more and more
appealing.

All right, time to pack it in. She was
not only wasting her time and stiffening up more by the moment, but the windows
kept fogging up, so she couldn’t see out of them. The option of turning on the
defogger made her fearful of drawing attention to herself in case someone
wandered out of the building. Just then, a car drove up and parked by the door.

Two men climbed out. The driver appeared
to be about the size of a small apartment building. Although he had on a purple
jogging suit with red stripes down the sides, Molly thought the only jogging
he’d done in the past few years had been
to
fast food
hamburger joints and doughnut shops. The other, more reasonably-sized person
was preppy-dressed in a blue oxford shirt and khakis, just like Gabe had worn
to breakfast this morning.

She did a double-take. Gabe!

He dragged his feet entering the
warehouse, then he stumbled into the big guy and shoved him hard, pushing him
backward. As Gabe turned to make a run for it, Harold and a man dressed all in
black came around the corner of the building and stopped him in his tracks.
Harold said something to Gabe, then he and Jogging Suit jerked Gabe inside the
building with them.

Molly considered her best course of
action. The police, probably, but that didn’t feel right until she knew what
was going on. Gabe had mentioned his uncle could be a little shady sometimes,
and she didn’t think he’d want her to drag in the police if it turned out to be
a family dispute he could smooth over.

Tapping her fingers on the steering
wheel and considering her options, she noticed someone slowly approaching the
building. Someone in cargo pants and a turquoise-and-yellow aloha shirt with
white flyaway hair. Molly groaned. While the situation looked bad for Gabe, she
figured he could take care of himself, if need be. She was sure he’d want her
to take care of his grandfather.

She put the car in gear and drove until
she pulled up beside him. His face wore a mix of expressions from shock to fear
and worry.

She eased the car window down. “Get in.
Hurry.”

He pointed toward the building. “I can’t
leave.”

“Just get in. We’ll exchange information
and regroup.”

He hopped in the backseat. Molly had the
car rolling before the door closed. “I wanted you to know you weren’t here
alone, and I want to know what’s happening. Should we call the police?”

“If Gabe’s in trouble, certainly,” the
old man said. “But not yet.”

“You won’t be able to protect Harold and
Gabe both, you know?” She turned the corner where they’d still have a view of
the warehouse, but be far enough away from it to go unnoticed. “If you have to
choose, I need to know if you’ll choose Gabe or Harold.

“Gabe.” He leaned back, suddenly looking
old and weary. “No contest.”

“Okay, then, what’s going on?”

“Someone broke into the business the
other night and took everything.”

“Took everything?” That sure wasn’t what
she’d expected to hear. “Like what? Money? Equipment? Furniture?”

“Yep, all that.”

“My God, why? Who would do such a
thing?”

“Gabe thinks the easy money’s on Harold.
He had the means and opportunity. He’s here with these thugs, and I guess this
is where everything’s being stored while they search for the Lotus or clues to
its whereabouts. A buddy of Harold’s has a connection to this place, but I
don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to me.”

Molly didn’t hide her skepticism. She
only knew Harold from one brief meeting, and from things Gabe had told her, but
she’d go with his instincts anytime.

“I know, I know. He’s irresponsible,
gambles money he doesn’t have, leaves us in the lurch, but he’s never done
anything flat out illegal before. He knows he walks a fine line with Gabe.
Gabe’s saved his butt lots of times, and a stunt like this would cut him off
from family protection.”

“You call this a stunt?”

“Right, it’s more than that, but it’s
way outside his normal boundaries. It’s the kind of scam Gabe’s father would
have tried to pull, but Harold’s never had the balls.”

“And Gabe’s dad did?”

“It’s a hard thing for a father to
admit, but let’s say he was born without a moral compass. He liked to think he
lived on the other side of the law, but he wasn’t good at it. He screwed up and
caused a lot of misery. Gabe looks at Harold and sees Daniel, but there’s no
comparison. Harold’s a nuisance, but he’s not totally bent. Daniel was a
flat-out menace. Always was.”

“What’s this about the office
furnishings? You think it’s about the Sleeping Lotus?”

“Whoever took the furniture and
equipment must’ve thought it would be easier to scoop up everything and go
through it in their own time, instead of trashing everything and worrying about
discovery like they did at your place. Maybe that was Harold’s way of keeping
everything from being destroyed.”

“But why does Gabe think Harold was
behind it?”

“The surveillance tapes at the business
had been blocked, and it would’ve taken an insider to pull that off.”

“But it doesn’t make sense.” Molly
rubbed her temples. The day kept going downhill. “Even if they got Gabe’s half,
they’d still need mine.”

“And haven’t they been trying to get it,
too?”

“Yeah, they have.”

“Any luck yet?”

Molly shivered, thinking about the
filched tote in the park. “Not yet, and they’re getting more obvious about it.
But what good would it do them to steal it? They couldn’t sell it without
admitting it was stolen, right?”

“To a legitimate collector, sure, but
that’s probably not the case. It’s probably some wacko buying into the myth and
desperate to own it. At any cost.”

“So they could be pretty dangerous, and
Harold could be one of them?”

“Well...” The old man’s shoulders
slumped, but then he straightened and visibly rallied. “The big guy with Harold
and Gabe is bad news. He breaks knees for a loan shark Harold owes. I guess
they’re forcing him to help them get the Lotus to pay off the debt.”

Her heart sank. “That can’t be good.”

“It’s not all bad. Harold would never
let anyone hurt Gabe.”

“Right.” Molly nibbled her thumbnail. “I
think I should go up and see what’s going on.”

“Why you? If Harold knew I was out here,
he’d let Gabe go.”

“Since we don’t know who’s running the
show in there, I’d prefer you to be the backup. If I don’t return in five
minutes, call my cell phone. If I don’t answer, call the police.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go in there, act all sweet
and innocent, bat my eyes and pretend Gabe told me to meet him here.”

The old man wanted to object to the
plan, but he heaved a heavy sigh instead. “What’s the number?”

Molly told him and he programmed it into
his cell. She stepped out of the car and turned back. “I’ll leave the keys in
the ignition, just in case.”

His caterpillar eyebrows slammed
together at the top of his nose. “In case of what?”

“Who knows?” She tried not to imagine
all the things that could happen. “Wait five minutes, then call for help.”

“Got it,” he muttered. “Good luck.”

Right. She’d need it. Stiffening her
spine, she touched each of the charms on her bracelet for luck.

She approached the warehouse the same
way she approached her dentist’s office, as if she didn’t have a care in the
world. Actually, she was scared witless. It wasn’t really the dentist she
feared as much as the sharp pointy objects he had at his disposal.

Gabe had been onto Uncle Howard for
years. He was irresponsible, maybe even crooked, but not deadly. And the guy
who’d dragged Gabe here was big and brawny, but not too bright.

If not for the guy in the corner
cleaning his fingernails with a six-inch-long stiletto, sharp and
lethal-looking, Gabe wouldn’t have been too worried.

He recognized the guy dressed in black
as a spectator at
Your Grandma’s Attic
. Maybe it was the six-inch
stiletto, but he now appeared more menacing than he had that day. Due to the
flinty look of his eyes and some seriously pointy ears, he looked like a jazz
musician-slash-assassin.

His disinterested expression told one
story, but Gabe had the feeling there was a lot going on below the surface. And
that nothing escaped his notice.

At a glance, Gabe saw all of the office
equipment and furnishings from Contract Communications spread out across the
concrete floor of the warehouse. Clearly each piece had been examined,
disassembled, and searched. Packing crates were lined up in fort-like
structures around the edges of the space, boxing Gabe, Harold, and the other
two in the center.

Near the table where Blackie had
escorted Gabe, a lime-green tote lay torn apart. Canned sodas, bottled water,
snacks, and sunscreen were dumped out beside it. No matter where he looked, his
gaze kept returning to the tote. It could represent nothing more than a picnic
gone awry, but everything about it suggested Molly and her trip to the park.

She wasn’t the only person in the world
who carried canvas totes, but he worried that somehow she fit this scenario.
Was she somewhere in the building? Hidden away, tied up, mistreated? He really
sucked at detective work. He regretted not calling the police, despite
Granddad’s objections. Even he wouldn’t sit still for Harold’s underhanded
activities if they endangered Molly. Gabe’s stomach clenched with worry.

“I’m asking you one last time,” Blackie
growled. “Where’s the Sleeping Lotus?”

Stay calm, stay cool. Take a deep breath
.

The damned Lotus. He wished he’d never
of the cursed thing. And less than comforted that the motivation for the
robbery of his own furnishings and the ransacking of Molly’s house was one and
the same. He would have sworn Uncle Harold had stripped the company because he
was desperate for some quick cash. With maybe a twinge of revenge against Gabe
for past slights. What his connection was with the Lotus, Gabe couldn’t fathom.
And that increased his worries another notch. “You said I had until tomorrow to
decide.”

“My customer’s too anxious to wait.”

“And you took all my equipment trying to
locate it?”

“I didn’t take anything.” Blackie
glanced over at Harold.

“Right. Someone made you a deal on some secondhand
office furniture.”

Blackie shrugged. “We heard something of
value might be discovered. We weren’t too happy to go to all this trouble for
nothing.”

“Your timing was off,” Gabe said. “I had
the Sleeping Lotus stashed at the office, but I moved it on Friday.”

“Tell us where it is,” Harold said.
“We’ll get it for you and keep it safe.”

“At this point, you can have the
freaking thing. The sale of the Lotus is a pie in the sky that might never
happen, but you guys are infringing on my real business,” Gabe told them. “I’d
give you the jade if I could, but it’s at the bank in a safe-deposit box. I
can’t get it until tomorrow.”

“Damn banks,” Blackie growled. “You have
until tomorrow to get the girl to agree to sell her half too.”

“I was working on that, but that
relationship went bust. She’s pretty pissed at me about now.” Gabe just hoped
this group of Bad News Bears didn’t have her stashed somewhere, working on her
while Gabe sat here, sweating and pretending not to care.