Blind Dates Can Be Murder (38 page)

After all of the activity of the day, after all the stress and transition and confrontation, Chuck was finally alone, in silence, in the comfort of a real bed. He was overwhelmed with an exhaustion he’d never known before.

Kicking off his shoes and pulling off his jacket, he burrowed deeper into Lettie’s covers, surrounding himself with the feel of her. Sleep. He wanted to sleep. In his fantasy, he could see her walking into the room, gasping at the sight of him there on the bed, waking him with a kiss.

Mickey hadn’t said what time Lettie might return to the hotel, Chuck thought as he drifted off, but he knew one thing: He’d be there waiting for her when she did.

21

L
ettie finished working at 6
PM
and walked out of the building alongside several other employees. She was tired but also satisfied that Tasha Green had been pleased with her performance.

If only the woman knew about the data on the flash drives in her purse!

Lettie’s sole disappointment had come this afternoon when the tech support guy had showed her how to upload profiles to the national database. Combing through the records, Lettie had realized that the nationally accessible information was much more secure than the local stuff. The national records didn’t include social security numbers or credit cards—or even names, for that matter. They simply identified each person with a code.

It was just as well. With Lettie’s luck, if she got too greedy, everything might crumble to the ground around her. And it was all going so well too.

Lettie climbed into her car and started it up, thinking it was time to act. She’d been mapping out her plan all afternoon. She would go to the Palace now and retrieve her things—though not so visibly that Mickey’s friend, the owner, might notice and think she was checking out. She’d leave her suitcase behind and just toss her clothes into a paper bag.

Once she was loaded up and in the car, she would drive to Moore City and pay Mickey a visit. She’d show him the data and tell him if he paid her cash, now, that there would be lots more where that came from. He didn’t need to know that the national info was unavailable to them—or that she was actually on her way out of town. She had done as he wanted and obtained the data on Jo Tulip. What he did from there was his business.

Tomorrow, while Mickey thought she was back at work stealing more data and Dates&Mates was trying to figure out why their newest employee hadn’t made it in on time, she’d be halfway to Toronto on the train. She could almost hear the whistle blowing now.

She could also hear her stomach growling, and Lettie realized she hadn’t eaten all day, except for half an apple she had pulled from the trash and rinsed off in the ladies’ room. She didn’t want to spend much money, but she would need more sustenance than that if she hoped to carry out her plan of escape.

On her way to the Palace, Lettie stopped at a grocery store for an inexpensive dinner. Wandering the aisles, she finally settled on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. That would serve her well now and on the train. On her way to the checkout, she grabbed a free plastic knife from the salad bar, and then she impulsively tossed in a bruised, on-sale banana too. Might as well get some potassium in the mix.

As soon as she was back in the car, Lettie dug into the food. Using the knife, she spread the peanut butter on two slices of bread and sandwiched sliced banana between them. She ate as she drove, finding such satisfaction in filling her stomach that she almost moaned out load.

She was finished by the time she reached the hotel, her hands clean from wiping them on a tissue from her purse. Pulling in next to a yellow Impala, Lettie parked and went to the door of her room. Slipping the metal key into the lock, she turned and swung it open.

Something was wrong.

Something was off.

It took a long moment for Lettie to comprehend the man’s shoes on the floor, the leather jacket over the end of the bed. Her first thought was that she had come into the wrong room. But then she spotted the shape in her bed and in her gut, she just knew.

It was
Chuck
.

Lettie gasped, stepping backward. Her body began to convulse with tremors, but somehow she managed to get to her car and get it open.

Still gasping for air, she started it up and drove away. She drove until she had to pull over, because her eyes were so blurred from tears that she couldn’t see where she was going.

Chuck sat bolt upright in the darkness, heart beating fast.

Where was he?

It took a moment to run the possibilities through his mind. Like spinning a wheel, it finally landed on the right answer: He was at a hotel, in Lettie’s room.

Lettie.

The door was slightly ajar. Outside, Chuck could hear the screech of a car starting and backing up. Quickly, he leaped up and ran to the door, only to see her pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“Lettie!” he screamed.

He grabbed his keys and ran to the Impala. She was a mere dot in the distance, but he could still catch up. He climbed into the car, put the key in the ignition and turned it, only to hear click, click, click.

The battery was dead.

He yelled a curse, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. He couldn’t believe she had come there, spotted him, and run away. His eyes filled with rage, the scar on the side of his head pounding. After all this time, after all he’d been through.

How
dare
she?

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Jo said to the chief as she walked into his office.

Her dinner with Ming had gone well, but they had said farewell at the restaurant and now it was time to get back to reality and take a look at the mug shot of the man who had invaded her home.

“Jo Tulip,” the chief said, standing when he saw her. “Thanks to you, I’ve just broken my own record for overtime.”

“I’m sorry, Chief,” Jo said. “I got here as soon as I could.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I’m just going around and around in circles on this case.”

“Any progress?”

“You tell me,” he said, reaching for a manila folder. Her pulled out a piece of paper, a printout from the computer, and set it down in front of her. “Do you recognize this guy?”

Jo picked up the picture, shuddering at the hideous image in front of her. The man was vicious-looking, with a shaved head, an ear full of piercings, and some sort of tattoo on each side of his neck. He looked like the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley!

“He goes by the name of Tank,” Chief Cooper said. “Does dirty work for Mickey Paglino and Frank Malone. Has a rap sheet a mile long. His fingerprints match those that were found in your home.”

Jo closed her eyes for a moment, feeling even more violated than before. This monster had been in her home? He looked like a complete thug. She could only wonder why her belongings hadn’t been totally trashed during his search.

“I’m sorry, Chief,” she said finally, setting the paper down. “I’ve never seen him before.”

Chief Cooper looked utterly defeated. As he shook his head and put the printout back in the file, Jo realized he was taking the case quite personally. She wished she could do more to help, but there were no loose threads to follow, no hunches or clues to track down. She was as stumped as he was.

“So what will you do next?” she asked. “Do you have a plan?”

The chief leaned back and began tapping a pencil on the edge of the desk.

“Well, today we leaked the news that Malone’s death has now officially been declared a murder. That might stir things up, you never know. Up until now, the man’s killer must have thought he had gotten away with it.”

“How about the dye pack theory?” Jo asked. “Have your people been able to track down any bank robberies where the money was stained but unrecovered?”

He shrugged.

“It’s a tedious process. So far we don’t have anything promising. But remember, it might not have happened in Pennsylvania. This guy could have robbed a bank in Arizona for all we know. I still think your guess is right on the money.”

“Right on the money,” she agreed. “No pun intended.”

Lettie pulled over into the busy parking lot of a big discount store, found a space, and simply leaned forward and closed her eyes, resting her head on the steering wheel.

She didn’t understand what had gone wrong. For three years she had kept her eye on the Pennsylvania prison release database. She had Chuck’s release date memorized. Now suddenly, three weeks early, there he was.

Someone is sleeping in
my
bed, said Baby Bear.

Instinctively, Lettie reached for the box of aluminum foil that was on the seat next to her. She tore off a small piece and went to work. She made Papa Bear, tore off more and made Mama Bear, tore off more and made the Baby Bear. When she had all three she set them on the dashboard, hands shaking.

Someone is sleeping in my bed
.

She began to cry again. She found herself heaving in great, painful sobs. She had come so close to being free. Now there he was, taking over her room, ready to take over her life.

She couldn’t let that happen.

If the last three years had taught her anything, it was that she was capable of more than she’d ever dreamed of. She’d held a job, traveled, lived alone, and somehow managed to get through each and every day without the shadow of a man hanging over her, without the constant abuse she’d suffered all of her life.