Armed With Steele (35 page)

The thought helped to quell my frayed nerves. I pulled open my drawer, stuffed the note into my purse, and pulled out my cell phone to send Nate a text message. Semi-quelled or not, I had to retype the message three times, my hands were shaking so badly.

Thanks for the heads-up
, he wrote back immediately.
You’ve got your necklace on, right?

I reached up and clasped the pendant resting in the hollow of my neck.
Yes
.

Good. Hit the panic button if you feel threatened, don’t go anywhere alone, and call me when you’re leaving work.

If I feel threatened? Too late, buddy.
OK
.

BTW, I searched online for Morrisson. Are you sure of spelling?

I was 99.9% sure, but retrieved the printouts from my purse to be sure. Two R’s, two S’s.
Yes. The invoices say Morrisson Consulting Group
.

OK, give me a min.

I looked down at the invoice in my hands. It was definitely nothing fancy. Name, address, amount owed, due date. My eyes flashed up to the address—a PO Box in Angola, Indiana.

My hometown. Where my parents still lived.

I wondered if they’d ever heard of this Morrisson Consulting Group. It looked like I was going to have to bite the bullet and call my mother today. And suffer through a who-knows-how-long interrogation that would start with questions about Grace’s recovery progress and segue into my love life. I could hardly contain my excitement…

My cell vibrated again. Another new text from Nate.
I’m not finding anything with that spelling.

My curiosity climbed another notch.
Can you do a reverse lookup on PO Box 578, Angola, IN 46703?

While he did that, I turned back to my computer. What had Nate said last night? Find who had the most to lose if Morrisson lost their business with Maxwell. Maybe it was family owned, or politically connected. Either way, for a company as large as this to contract with a consulting group so small they didn’t even appear on the web, I had to believe there were ties between the two companies somewhere in the building.

I tried to think of how I would even begin piecing that puzzle together. Michael had said something about the IT group giving me more permissions for the financial software—maybe they’d opened up additional network files as well. It was time to take a closer look and see if I couldn’t find an organization chart or two.

Thanks to the thorough file-naming scheme employed by Maxwell, a handful of clicks later I had on my screen a full employee listing, updated a week prior. Thank goodness for Anal Annies
.

I searched the file for any name starting with
Morr
. The results brought back
Morre, Morris, Morrie, and Morreen
, but no
Morrisson
. My temper boiled beneath the surface. Of course there’s no damned Morrisson—that’d have been too easy. And nothing seemed to come easy to me lately.

Another buzzing from my phone.
I found the Post Office address of that PO Box. Gonna check it out, see if the employees can tell me anything
.

I felt fear, cold and deep, wash over me. He was going to Angola, and leave me here unprotected? I typed my response as fast as my fingers would allow.

But what if I need you?

I’ve got Charlie on alert. Be back before your shift is over
.

Somehow that news did little to comfort me. I sighed and turned my gaze back to the screen. With so many names, I began to think it might be easier to print the list and lay it all out on my desk than keep scrolling. So I clicked the print button.

A gnarling, chunking, thumping noise erupted from my printer. I spun around and pushed my chair away from the sound.

“What the
hell
?”

The printer looked possessed. Hop. Shudder. Crunch. The smell of a burned-up motor soon greeted my nose. I cursed and dove under the desk to unplug it from the wall. Cursed again as I banged my head on said desk as I stood back up.

“Jessica?” Michael called from his office. “Do you smell something…burning?”

“It’s okay, Michael,” I hollered back. “Just my printer acting up.”

“Your office must be jinxed,” he called back with a laugh. “That’s the second one to die in there this month.”

Second one? I looked down at the silent printer and lifted its lid. Jammed into its inkwell arm was the cap of a ballpoint pen. Jinxed my
ass
—this was sabotage.

First the stolen notes, then a threatening letter, now my printer? Fear gave way to anger. The whole situation was really starting to piss me off.

But I still had no idea what’d triggered today’s acts of malice. I closed the printer, took a deep breath, and reached over to my printouts from the day before. Debate raged in my head—risk printing the org chart on the departmental printer down the hall, or scribble the names down on some scrap piece of paper? I looked at the screen. There had to be over a hundred names on that chart! Did I even have enough room? I counted the printouts in my hand. One, two, three, four, five.

Wait, five? Weren’t there six here yesterday? I looked through the stack, one by one. Everything was there except the last page. The one with the last few invoices we’d paid to Morrisson, with my scribbled notes in the margins about transaction times.

I closed my eyes, tried to think of where I could have left it. Not in my purse. Not on my kitchen table.

And then it hit me. I’d set the printouts down in the filing room the day before. Had set Morrisson’s file down on top of them when I’d heard those footsteps. I must have grabbed everything but that last sheet when I’d hurried out moments later.

I smacked the palm of my hand to my forehead. How could I have been so careless? I’d gone and left the most damning piece of evidence behind in plain sight?

Nausea swept through me. Someone knew I had an interest in Morrisson, that I’d been compiling and printing information about past invoices. But did they know about my connection with Grace?

I closed my eyes. Saw the anonymous letter in my mind.
…or you’ll wind up like she did.
I could only hope the answer was still no. For her sake as well as mine.

* * * *

“What do you mean you’re not back in town yet?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than usual. He’d said to call when I was on my way, so I had. Come to find out, he hadn’t held up his end of the bargain—to be back in town before my shift was over.

“I had to stick around, scope the place out. Got a few leads on the owner of that box. One of the post office employees told me she’d had a run in with him about a month ago. Came storming up to the counter, said he was expecting a letter and nothing was in his box. Got all bent out of shape when he found out the letter hadn’t arrived.”

I glanced in my mirrors and checked for a break in traffic. Finding one, I changed lanes and sped up to pass a dawdling Silverado. The black sedan behind me did the same. Apparently we were both low on patience today.

“So was she able to give you a description of the guy?”

“It took a little persuasion, but yeah.”

I scowled. “You flirted with her.”

“Well, maybe a little...but, hey, I did it for you.”

At least he was being honest about it. “Uh-huh. And was she cute?”

“And you said you’re not the jealous type.”

I wasn’t. Usually. “I’m not. Just curious. Anyway, back to the mystery PO Box guy…”

I got back into the right lane. The black sedan behind me immediately followed suit. I glanced into my rearview mirror to get a better look at its driver. Figured it was some young kid who had yet to learn that tailgating could really piss the people around you off. Tinted windows blocked me from seeing much.

“Dark brown hair, medium height, broad shoulders, scar on his right cheek. Sound like anyone you’ve seen at work?”

“No. And I’m glad—he sounds totally creepy-looking to me.”

I caught a flash of something metallic in my peripheral vision. A silver Grand Prix had flown up on my tail out of nowhere and shoehorned itself behind me and the black sedan. It’d tried to pass me before we reached the end of a left turn only lane, but ran out of pavement to do it before the light turned red. Crazy drivers were out in force in the Fort today.

“But didn’t you get up there before lunchtime? It’s after five, Nate. So, what, it took you all afternoon to get this information out of your little post office hottie?”

“Wow, I’m gonna have to remember to use this in the future. You
are
the jealous type.”

A school bus full of obnoxious extracurricular kids turned onto Lake Avenue in front of me. I got waved and hollered at by several teenage boys. Oh, lucky me.

“Am not.” The light turned green, and I began closing the gap on the bus. “Just trying to figure out why you aren’t back in town yet.”

“Well, after I got that information, I decided to stake out the place. Watch for Scarface. And you won’t believe my luck.”

If I get flipped off one more time…
I checked my mirrors, signaled and shifted to the left lane to pass the bus and its bratty contents. “Oh?”

The black sedan mirrored my lane change once more. An uneasy feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach, but I tried to brush it off. There were dozens of cars on the road alongside me, their drivers likely headed home from a long day at work, too. The week’s stress had gone to my head, that’s all. What I needed was to get home and take a nice long soak in the tub.

“Yeah. Half an hour later, a guy matching her description walked into the post office. I got out of my car and headed inside, too. Went to the counter and asked for a book of stamps, and cast a casual glance over at the boxes. Sure enough, he opened 578.”

“Uh-huh.” I stepped on the gas, wanting a quick burst of speed to propel me past the bus. The silver Grand Prix cut over in front of the sedan behind me once more. Unfortunately, my little car didn’t have a high performance engine like the rest of my caravan. In an instant, the Prix was so close to my tail that the driver could have recited my dashboard VIN.

Damn, I hated being tailed like that. Where was a cop when I really needed one?

“Jess?”

Oh, that’s right—he was up in Angola. “Yeah? Sorry, what did you say?”

I passed the bus and quickly changed lanes. The Prix stayed in the left lane and flew on by. I shot its driver a nasty look.

“I said the guy got his mail, then headed back outside to a large, maroon cargo van parked on the curb. I jotted down his plates, then followed him to an apartment complex a few blocks away. Been staking out this place ever since, waiting to see where he goes next.”

I was trying to listen, drive safely, and get a handle on my blood pressure, all at the same time. Probably not the best combination. “So, did you run his plates?” I glanced in my mirrors. Noticed the black sedan had dropped back a bit from me. See? All in my head.

“Yep. The van belongs to a Marcus Phillipe. He did time back in the eighties for possession with intent to distribute.”

“You think he’s a courier for Morrisson or something?” The light ahead turned yellow, but that hot bath was calling my name. I passed through the intersection, even though it was nearly as orange as the one Nate had busted me for last month.

“It’s possible. He definitely didn’t look like the CEO of a consulting firm.”

“Who knows, maybe he cleans up ni—” The black sedan flew through the light as well. My heart rate skyrocketed. The light had to have been a solid red by the time he’d entered the intersection. And this was no intersection to be taken lightly. Coliseum Boulevard was one of the busiest streets in the city to cross, especially during rush hour. To blow through a red light there was like playing Russian roulette with two bullets instead of one.

But when the sedan reached the other side of Lake, it slowed down. Settled in right behind my car. As if the driver had been less worried about the light than losing sight of me.

My palms began to sweat. “Uh, Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“I…think I’m being followed.”

Chapter 27

Saying the words out loud made my situation feel that much more real. And dangerous.