Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery) (21 page)

“Then you will know where I am if I need to
give evidence, and you can protect me at the same time.”

She smiled.
“Clever girl.
You figured it out. The criminals have taken an interest in you. We are doing
you a favor.”

“Sort of like a witness protection program.”

“Sort of.”

“What kind of danger am I in?”

“The criminals know that you helped Cody. That
you know about the rifles. It is nothing to them to delete such a person who
does not meet with their approval.”

“Delete.” I wondered if I would go to the
recycle bin.

“You cannot help the Lodge family anymore. You
cannot be an alibi. We will take care of all that.”

“We?”

“Let’s call it a loose confederation of
agencies.”

“I see. What will happen to Jake, Hudson and
Opal?
 
If I’m not their alibi, the police
could charge them with arson.”

“That’s of small consequence. We’ll work a deal
with local authorities.”

“Small consequence?
How did they get involved in the first place?”

“Through Albert.
Cody
is a bumbler. Albert should never have brought him in. Jake and Opal took
matters into their own hands when they shouldn’t have.”

“You left out Hudson.”

“Hudson is one of ours. We take care of him.”

The shock waves from that pronouncement reverberated
about the room and nearly knocked me flat on the floor.
“One
of yours?
What does that mean?”

She finished her latte and sat back.

“I’ve told you enough. Don’t worry about your
friends any longer.”
 
She opened her
purse and withdrew an envelope and pushed it across the table “
Here.
This should cover it. It’s a ticket for tonight’s
flight to Sydney on Qantas and a travel voucher. Are you in?”

I wasn’t sure. I needed some time to think. She
was giving me a persuasive out and protection. I had been trying to get to
Sydney for days. I did not want to meet the bad guys. It made me nervous to
have their interest in me confirmed. I opened the envelope. There was a one-way
Quantas
ticket in my name and a money order for
$5,000.

“Do you think that will cover it?” she asked.

“I think so. Where am I staying?”

“One of our people will meet your flight and
take you to where you’ll be staying.”

“You are assuming that I trust your people.”

“You have no choice. If you don’t leave we’ll
keep everyone on the hook for arson. No deal with the locals. Jake and Opal
will be in a difficult position.”

“I see.” I was being blackmailed and didn’t
like the feeling. I sat back and gazed around the room.

“What’s your hesitation? It seems pretty clear
to me what you need to do. We’re offering you a fabulous deal. You get to stay
alive. Believe me, this isn’t easy for me to arrange. You should be grateful.”

I looked at her.
“But why me?
 
I’m of small consequence. I believe that is
how you put it. You’re going to an awful lot of trouble and expense to remove
me.” Maybe I didn’t know as much as they thought I did. I didn’t know who her
people were. They could be any government agency. They could be a gang of your
everyday criminals. Why were they so interested in getting me out of the
picture?

She didn’t answer but stood and moved the
curtain aside slightly. “Do you see those men across the parking lot?
The ones sitting in the brown Chevy?”

I looked. I saw shadowy heads in a dark car. That
was all. It gave me a creepy feeling like they were looking straight at me. I
nodded.

“Those are the men I’m telling you about. I am
offering you a means of escape.”

“Where are Jake and Opal? Opal wasn’t in her
room when we went looking for her. Jake is looking for all of them. Have you
kidnapped them?”

“Opal is with us. Jake soon will be. We’ll move
them out today. We’ll make sure they get to Oregon. That is, if you play by our
rules. One of our people will come to escort you. You need to sit tight here
until then. We will personally deliver you to the airport and your flight.”

“I guess I have to decide now. I don’t get to
sleep on it.”

“That’s correct. I need you to sign on the
dotted line right now.”

“Where’s the pen?”

An expense paid vacation to Australia was now
part of the incentive package. But I wasn’t sure about the remodel job and ranchette.

My cell phone rang.
 

Jake said, “Fiona, you okay?”

“Alice just left. She said she’s taking care of
everything.”

“Alice? You’re kidding. What did she want with
you?”

“She offered me an incentive to leave the
country real fast. I’m awash in incentives. I didn’t realize the criminal life
could be so lucrative. I’m definitely in the wrong field.”

“Are you okay?”

“I think so. I hope so. I’m not sure. What
about you?”

“I haven’t found anyone. They all seem to have
disappeared. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. I’m glad you’re still here.”

“Alice says Opal is okay and that you two are
going to Oregon. She said Hudson is, and I quote, ‘one of ours’. Trouble is she
wasn’t forthcoming with a lot of details. Where are you?”

“I’m at the door, let me in.”

I opened the door cell phone still to my ear. Jake
shut his phone and walked inside.

“Jake, the
bad guys are in the parking lot, and Alice says they are after us. She’s
providing us – you, me, Opal – a safe out so the bad guys don’t get us.”

“Fiona, are you sure you aren’t hallucinating?
You’ve been under a big strain lately. You wouldn’t be making all this up,
would you? You have a very active imagination.”

“Jake, she offered me money and a ticket to
Sydney.”

“What about Hudson and the arson and all that.”

I shrugged. “She says she’ll take care of
everything. Look.” I handed him the envelope she gave me. “Look inside, if you
don’t believe me.”

Gingerly, like I had just handed him a bomb, he
peeled open the envelope and whistled. “You’re telling the truth.” He ran his
hand through the disarray of his dark curls. “I can barely think. You sure Opal
is okay?”

“Alice said she was in their safe keeping.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Jake, I’m going to Sydney. I’ll lay low for a
month, and then I’ll be back in touch.”

He lifted my chin with his finger.
“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You have a nasty habit of eluding me.”

“I’ll reform.”

“Will you come to Oregon?”

“I have a house and job waiting there, don’t
I?”

He smiled. “You bet.”

Someone banged on the door.

“Who is it?” I called through the door.

“Friends.”

“That must be my escort. Here we go,” I said.
“Alice said she was sending someone to escort me to the airport.”

I opened the door a crack only to have it slam into
me, forcing me backward into Jake. Two men in brown suits muscled their way
into the room. One whacked Jake so hard with a hand chop he crashed to the
floor. The other had his hand over my mouth and my arm up behind my back in an
excruciating grip. He smelled of onions. He wasn’t tall but made up for it in
width and grip. The other guy kicked the door closed.

“Listen
good
,” Onions
said. “You will not make a fuss or we kill you. But that would be messy and hard
to explain. Nod your head if you understand.”

I could barely move my head up and down.

“Good.” He eased his nasty smelling hand off my
mouth and relaxed his grip. Of course, I couldn’t speak I was so scared. I
looked at Jake who was crumpled on the floor. I was impressed with how fast they
operated.
Very impressed.

“Did you kill him?” I said, rubbing my
maltreated arm. “You’ll be sorry if you did.” My brave self wanted to whack
them with something, wanted to go out fighting.

Onions laughed. “Wow, I’m scared. Your
boyfriend, he’ll be fine.
Little headache, maybe.”

“What do you want with me?”

“We want to know what you know.
We
seen
you at the Lodge place. We
want all the information you have on Alice and Albert and Cody and their
operation.”

“I’m an interior designer. I found Albert dead
on the library floor and somehow got pulled into this ridiculous mess.”

Onions manhandled me into the room and shoved
me down on the bed, which, unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten to use much. The
other guy watched Jake.

“Girlie, you know a lot more.
 
You been
hanging
with these people since Albert died.”

“Did you kill Albert?”

“We should have. Dumb bugger couldn’t do a job
right if he wanted to.”

“Did he work for you?”

“We thought so, but then Alice muscled in.”

I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was
sharing information with me because my life wasn’t worth much in the grand
scheme of things. That was unnerving, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking more
questions. Curiosity was my one weakness.

“Muscled in? What does that mean?”

“It means she wanted a cut, too.”

“Alice? She was Albert’s co-worker. She’s a
good guy.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

“Nice try, girlie. She was his squeeze and the wife’s.”

“The wife?
You mean
Olivia?”

“I mean whoever was the broad living with
Albert. Alice was doing them both. We got that on her. She was willing to pay money
to keep that quiet. Trouble is she stopped paying us. You’re going to help us
get our money.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “I know
absolutely nothing.”

“I don’t believe you. We want to know where
Cody has the rest of the rifles we paid for, and he hasn’t delivered. He
shorted us.”

Missing
rifles was bad enough but Alice’s convoluted involvement in this whole thing
was making my head hurt. I kept glancing at Jake to see if he was coming to. I
didn’t want to be in this alone, and I was worried they’d done him permanent
damage.

“Don’t worry about him, girlie. He’ll be fine. But
you won’t be if we don’t find them rifles and our silence money.”

It was now clear why Cody wanted our help. Why
he had to talk to us. He hadn’t delivered on his part of the bargain. That’s
why they wanted him. I wondered why he hadn’t delivered but now wasn’t the time
to go through a bunch of scenarios, not with the ugly looking guy in front of
me making menacing faces.

“You have a funny accent,” I said. “Where are
you from?”

“What?” he said. “Don’t make fun of me,
girlie.”

“My name is Fiona, it is not
girlie
.”

“I don’t care what your name is. It won’t
really matter if you don’t level with me.”

“You know, I wish I knew where the rifles were.
I would tell you. But I didn’t know about them until the day before the fire.”

“Are you the one who set the fire? You were trying
to get rid of the evidence,
so’s
we can’t find the
guns.”

“I thought you set the fire. Cody said you set
the fire to get rid of the evidence.”

Onions rubbed his square chin. “You’re testing
my patience.
 
You’re making me crazy
here, girlie. I may have to use a little persuasion if you don’t stop being
cute.”

The other guy pulled something out of his suit
pocket. With a click it snapped out into a blade.
Shades of
West Side Story.
I didn’t like my part in the drama.

“If you don’t start talking,” said Onions, “we relieve
your boyfriend of some of his body parts.”

I nearly fainted. Here I was in a luxury hotel,
in an upscale neighborhood, with three nice incentive packages in the offing
and these two have to show up. I should never have answered the door.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“What?” he said. “Ivan, take off that guy’s
little finger.”

“No, wait.
Stop.”
Now I
was getting mad because that weasel Alice had double-crossed me. She sent these
guys to torture us. It was all a hoax to get us to talk.

“Talk.”

“I’ll talk if you let Jake go.” This was
sounding very noble.

“You ain’t exactly in a position to make any
deals, girlie.”

“I’m not kidding you. Jake doesn’t know
anything. I was the one did all the deals with Cody. You let him go then I’ll talk.
Where is Cody by the way?”

“We knew where Cody was we wouldn’t be here
with you. We’d be frying his ass instead.”

I didn’t like the imagery of an ass frying.

There was another knock on the door. Maybe help
was on the way.

“Who is it?” I called before Onions could
answer.

“Your escort.”

Why couldn’t they have come first?

Onions pulled a knife and held it to my throat.
“You tell them to come back later. Got it?”

I nodded cautiously against the tip of the
blade. We did a twosome shuffle to the door.

“I don’t need any,” I said through the door.

“This is your airport transport. You’re
expecting us.”

Alice wasn’t kidding. Bless her heart. Maybe
she was still on the good guys’ side although the good-bad line was very
blurred.

“Just a minute,” I called through the door.

I turned to Onions. “I better talk to these
people. Alice sent them. If I just send them away, she’ll know something is
wrong.”

“Pull the big guy away from the door,” said Onions.

Ivan tugged Jake to the end of the bed and
dumped him on the floor.

“Now, girlie, first you put the chain on, open
the
door
a little crack, and tell that guy you need
more time, come back in an hour.”

I did as directed, thankful we had only an hour
left of torture time, and looked to see who was there. Hudson was standing
behind another man who I had never seen before. My eyes went wide. I wanted to
throw open the door and hug and kiss Hudson into oblivion. But I, of course,
couldn’t. I kept staring at him until I felt a little prick against my arm.

“I’m not ready,” I said. “I need about an hour
yet. Could you come back?”

“Alice said we take you now,” said the first
guy who had one of those 1960s buzz cuts. “Sorry but those are the orders. We
can wait out here if you want but we aren’t leaving without you.”

Hudson gave me a reassuring smile. I motioned
with my eyes toward the room. That’s all I could think to do.

Onions pulled me inside and pushed the door shut.
“Did you recognize that man?”

Good, he didn’t catch on that there was more
than one of them. “No, I don’t know who he is, but he isn’t leaving without
me.”

I forgave Alice and silently thanked her for
sending Hudson. He wasn’t wearing the butler attire, rather a black
windbreaker. He looked very clandestine.

Onions shoved me to where Ivan stood over Jake.

“We got a problem. Alice sent a guy to take
this broad to the airport. He won’t leave without her. We’re trapped in here
with the two of them.”

Ivan said, “Shit. Let’s kill them now and
battle our way out of the room.”

Onions seemed to consider that. “Messy. Ratko don’t
like messes.”

Who was Ratko?

The house telephone rang. Onions said, “Don’t
answer.”

It rang and rang and rang.

“Someone knows we’re in here,” I said. “They
may come looking for us.”

“Who wants to talk to you?” said Onions.

“I’m supposed to talk to the police about the
fire. I’m wanted for questioning.”

Onions frowned. That obviously had no part in
his plans. “You mean the police might be phoning you?”

The phone kept ringing. The three of us studied
it. I wasn’t sure who else might want something from us. Maybe it was Jake’s
buddies. The police were a possibility. Alice said she was going to make it
right with the local authorities, but I wasn’t sure how that would play.

A voice with tones from the bottom of a well
said, “Hello? Somebody answer the phone.” Jake was coming to.

I sidestepped Ivan and Onions and knelt to try
to help him.

“Jake, Jake, can you hear me?” I said,
smoothing his rumpled clothes.

“Someone should answer the phone. Why don’t you
answer the phone, Fiona?”

At least he knew who I was. “Lie still. You had
a terrible blow. Just lie still. Can you open your eyes?”

One eye popped open. “My neck is killing me.”

The phone stopped ringing.

Ivan and Onions stood over Jake.

“These guys did it,” I said. “They want
information.”

Jake’s other eye popped open. “Who are you?” he
said to the two heads leaning over him.

“Don’t matter who we are. It’s what we want. We
want the rest of them rifles that Cody stiffed us on. You know anything about
them rifles?”

Jake eased up on one arm and winced. “One of
you guys hit me?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“That’s very unfriendly.”

“Listen, buddy, we don’t have time for pleasant
conversation. We want
them
rifles. Where’s your
friend, Cody? He knows where the rifles are.”

Jake coughed and sat up and moved his head
gingerly. “I don’t know where Cody is. He disappeared when some guy showed up
looking for him.”

“That was me,” Ivan said. “He slipped
outta
that garage, and we can’t find him.”

Jake shrugged. “Easy come, easy go.”

“Don’t be a wiseass or I slug you again. Your
girlfriend here and you need to come clean with us or we get creative how we
extract information from you.”

My cell phone started ringing in my purse.

“Someone is trying to get a hold of me,” I said,
stating the obvious.

The phone kept ringing.

“Will someone please answer the phone?” said
Jake. “My head hurts.”

“Nobody answer anything.”

“I think I should. They are going to know
something isn’t right if I don’t answer. Don’t forget the two men at the door.”
Oops, I let that one slip.

“Two men?” said Onions. “You said only one.”

“I miscounted.
There’s
two men at the door waiting to take me to the airport.”

The phone kept ringing.

“Check the ID. Tell us who is trying to call
you.”

I fished in my purse and looked at the ID.
“Don’t know,” I said. “I don’t recognize the number.”

Before Onions could tell me what to do, I answered
it.

“Miss Marlowe?” said Hudson.

Onions moved closer and put the tip of the
blade under my ear and pressed. Jake was watching and yelled, “Hey, get that
knife away from Fiona.”

Onions slapped the phone from my hand onto the
floor and stomped on it. I only hoped Hudson had heard the exchange.

“Now look what you’ve done. You’ve ruined my
phone,” I said. “I liked that phone, and it cost a lot of money.”

“Shut up,” Onions said. “I should bang your
head in right now. Who was on the phone?”

I shrugged.
“A heavy
breather.
No one spoke. I think I’m being stalked.”

“Fat chance,” said Onions.

I think he was getting a little frustrated. I
didn’t want to push him too far. With my newfound respect and total astonishment
that Hudson was ‘one of ours’, I knew he must be working the case. That didn’t
help wounded Jake and me. I didn’t know how much longer we could hold them off.
That knife was sharp as sharks’ teeth.

Onions motioned to Ivan, and the two of them
retreated for a conference to the corner of the room out of view of the window.
Jake and I exchanged glances.

“Can you get up?” I asked him, taking his arm.

“Hold on, let me try myself. Maybe I can make
it to a sitting position on the bed.”

“Don’t try anything funny,” Onions barked at
us.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I said. “Jake is merely
trying to sit up.”

Jake pushed and I tugged until he was able to
sit on the bed. He rotated his neck. I checked for cuts but found none. He’d
have a nice bruise on his neck though from the hand chop. I sat beside him and
put my arm around his shoulders, then leaned in for what I hoped looked like a
kiss. I whispered in his ear, “Hudson’s waiting at the door. He’s the one who
called.”

Onions yelled, “Shut your mouth.”

“I was only giving Jake a little kiss to make
things better.”

The two came back to stand before us.