Death Before Decaf (26 page)

No sooner had I gotten into place and my breathing calmed down, than my phone rang noisily, startling me into letting out a yelp. I clapped my hand over my mouth and quickly silenced my phone. It was Ryder. Damn him! What the hell could he want? I figured if I didn't answer, he would keep calling and calling, and I needed my phone free to video whatever was going to happen.

I answered the phone and whispered angrily, “What?”

“Get out of there, Juliet. Now.”

“Get out of…What the hell are you talking about?” There was no possible way he could know where I was right now.

“Get out of that garage. Go back inside Java Jive, and stay put,” he ordered.

I gasped. “How do you know where I am? Are you stalking me? That's weird, even for you.”

“No,” he said, frustration filling his voice. “I'm staking the place out. Something is going to go down in a few minutes, and I need you OUT. NOW!”

“Hey! Whatever's going down is my business, too. One of my employees is using company time and resources to set up these little meetings, and I want to know who and why.”

“I'll tell you everything after I make the arrest. Juliet, for the last time—oh, shit. They're coming. Get down! Find somewhere to hide and
do not come out
. You could be in danger. You hear me?”

“Yes. Calm down. Damn.”

I hung up, not understanding what all the fuss was about. I wasn't afraid of any of my staff, and what did he mean he was going to arrest someone? I thought I was coming to some hookup, not some illegal operation worthy of a police raid. Either way, I was getting my footage, so I started my camera app and switched it to video.

The door opened, and Logan walked in with some college-aged guy that I had seen before at Java Jive. Logan? I had thought it had to be one of the baristas. How in the hell did Logan get access to coffee cups to write messages on them? He was always in the kitchen. I had never seen him behind the front counter—not even once. From the body language of the two boys, this wasn't a hookup, either. What were they going to do in here that the police would be interested in? I pressed record and waited for something to happen.

“Did you bring the money?” asked Logan.

The other kid reached into his backpack. “Uh, I…I got most of it. I couldn't get the last hundred. Will you take four hundred, bro?”

Logan hesitated. “I don't think I can.”

“Come on, dude. Do me a solid. I'll get the rest by the end of the week.”

“I don't know. Let me check.” Logan walked away from the kid and typed something into his phone. He waited for a moment, and then said to the kid, “She'll be here in a minute to talk to you.”

She? Who? And what kind of transaction was going on here? Drugs? Four hundred sounded like a lot of money, not that I had any clue what street drugs sold for. What else would college kids want to spend that kind of money on?

The garage door opened, and Jamie walked in, looking pissed. “I hear you can't pay,” she snapped at the kid.

Jamie? But she was so uptight and judgmental—I couldn't imagine her doing anything illegal.

The kid replied uncertainly, “Right, uh, I'm only missing a hundred, so I thought maybe you guys could be cool about it—”

“You thought that we could be
cool
about it? What do you think we're running here, a charity? Either pay what we agreed to, or get out.”

“Wait, can I get the fake ID and the credit card now, and the rest of the package deal later?”

Jamie and Logan were selling fake IDs and credit cards. Seriously? Was
everyone
in this town in on the same scheme? It suddenly made sense why I found that random credit card in the pastry case—it was one of their fakes to be sold.

“No!” Jamie barked at the kid.

“Hey, Jamie,” said Logan quietly, beckoning her out of the kid's earshot, but luckily not out of mine. “What's wrong with breaking up the cards from the rest of the identity and account information? He said he'd pay later this week.”

“I don't
want
to break up the package, Logan, so we're not breaking up the package. Got it?”

Logan grimaced. “The guy's a friend of a friend. I just thought—”

She hissed, “You're not getting paid to think or be friends.”

The kid called, “Really, guys, I can have the money in just a couple of days…”

Jamie looked over at him and snarled, “Shut the hell up.” Turning back to Logan, she said, “If he can't pay, find someone else who can. And don't screw things up again. Damn. If it weren't for your idiot friends and family, we'd have a smooth operation going here.”

A rustling noise on the shelf in front of me distracted me from their conversation. Suddenly, a little brown fuzzy rat face poked out of the hole where I had my phone recording the scene. I jumped back, clamping my hand over my mouth so that I wouldn't cry out. Unfortunately, there was so much crap on the floor, I stepped back onto a metal pipe, and it clanked and rolled across the floor. Shit! Now I was the one who was busted. I'd have to talk my way out of this one.

The three of them turned in my direction. Logan and Jamie started to come my way. I shoved my still-recording phone into my pocket and tried to shrink back against the shelves, but there wasn't anywhere to go. Jamie rounded the corner first and found me.

“Juliet. Why am I not surprised?” she said, scowling.

“Jamie, I think you have some explaining to do,” I said in my most businesslike tone.

She switched open a knife and had the point positioned under my chin before I could react. “I don't think so. Out here, I call the shots.”

Holy shit! What the hell was she going to do, stab me? I had never even been in a fistfight, let alone been held at knifepoint. Terror chilled my spine as I realized how very close the sharp tip of the knife was to my skin. I struggled to calm myself, because deep down I didn't truly believe that Jamie had it in her to hurt me. That being said, I still had an overwhelming urge to get the hell out of here. I tried to step around her, but she grabbed my wrist with her other hand and jabbed the point of her knife into my throat.

“Ow!” I cried, jerking my chin back. Jamie responded by shoving me into the shelving. She pinned me by bracing her forearm on my throat, and I could feel the tip of the knife pressed against my abdomen. She was surprisingly strong for a college girl. She whispered ominously, “I'm pre-med. I know exactly where to cut you to make you bleed out in a matter of seconds. Don't push your luck.”

Now I was beginning to believe that she might in fact hurt me. But all she had was a knife. If I could only get out of her reach, I could possibly run away unscathed. Maybe if I could get her talking, it would break her concentration on the knife.

“So, pre-med, huh? I guess I never asked your major. How are classes going?” It wasn't so easy to speak with someone's arm crushing your windpipe.

“Shut up. I know what you're doing.” She called to Logan, “Logan, take her. And get him the hell out of here.”

Logan shoved the protesting kid out the door and came toward us. His expression was hard, but his eyes looked unhappy, almost scared. “Jamie, this has gone too far. I want out.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, tough shit. You better sack up, because you can't quit now. We have to tie up this one last loose end.” She glared at me, her eyes flashing. “If you had just kept your bitch nose out of my business, I wouldn't have to do this. Logan, get her a chair.”

He reluctantly went over and righted a rickety wicker chair. I shuddered as I remembered it had been my little rat friend's hiding place when Pete and I had come over here last week. Thankfully, Jamie lifted the pressure off of my windpipe and took a step back. Unfortunately, she instead grabbed my hair roughly and, knife still in place, forced me down onto the chair. “Duct tape,” she snapped at Logan, her face only inches from mine. He hurried to the workbench and found a roll of it, then brought it to Jamie, who hadn't let go of my hair or moved the point of her knife away from my stomach. I didn't dare move, because if Jamie decided to thrust the knife, I'd be in some serious pain. She griped at Logan, her tone full of disgust, “What are you waiting for? Tape her to the chair!”

His expression apologetic, Logan began taping my wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of the rickety chair. When I had first met him, he had been very standoffish and uncooperative toward me, but now he seemed like someone I could at least reason with. Jamie had backed off a little while he worked to restrain me, so I was able to think more clearly.

I pleaded, “Logan, you don't have to do this. So you stole a few identities and sold them. Big deal. I can help you talk to the police. Trust me, I've spent plenty of time with them this week, and they're not all bad. They'll help you if you work with them. You don't have to do what Jamie says, you know.”

“Shut the hell up!” Jamie screamed, reaching me in one stride. She raised her knife and slashed at my forearm. As the searing pain shot through my arm, I screeched wildly. The knife had sliced a long gash through my skin, and a dark river of blood came oozing out, coursing down my arm and splattering droplets onto the floor. Both of my hands were secured to the arms of the chair, so I couldn't even put pressure on it to relieve some of the pain. All I could do was sit there and watch myself bleed, breathing hard and trying to not completely lose it.

Pleased at my obvious panic, Jamie started pacing back and forth in front of me, a crazed expression on her face. “No one is going to the police. I'm in way too far to let you ruin me. I'm not giving up my spot in the medical program next year because of you.” She let out a bark of laughter. “I'm amazed. You've been knee-deep in the shit that's been going on and you still don't know what's really happening here, do you? Wow. You're even stupider than I thought.”

Jamie trailed the tip of the knife up my arm as she walked around behind me. She was teasing me, trying to freak me out. It was working. A cold sweat broke over my entire body. I knew that Ryder was outside watching, but I didn't know if he had a way of hearing what was going on in here as well. If Jamie was going to cut me some more, at least I would make it worth something. I'd get her to talk, hoping my phone was still recording.

I bristled, drawing in a shaky breath. “I know you're stealing innocent people's identities and selling them, and that you're doing it on company time. That's why you're taking cash from customers and pocketing it. You're selling identities like they're lattes!”

“Technically, I'm selling identities like they're pastries. Those little paper bags we use are the perfect size for a credit card or an ID. And I was doing it right under your nose, you dumb bitch.”

Damn it. They really
were
doing it right under my nose. “Then why the notes on the coffee cups for the secret meetings out here if you were selling everything inside?”

Jamie rolled her eyes. “Duh. I can easily take a hundred bucks and pass off a fake ID at the counter. If the customer is buying an entire identity, they get a bigger packet and they owe me a big ass wad of cash. Even
you
would probably notice that if I tried to do it at the counter.”

“Ingenious. You're fired, by the way.” I was starting to feel a little dizzy from the pain and the stress of the situation, but I tried not to let her know that.

Her pretty face contorted in a sneer, she laughed menacingly. “Ooh, I'm fired. Harsh words from someone who's leaving here in a body bag.”

I shook my head, disturbed by the change in her. Sure, she was always bitchy, but I didn't know she had a screw loose. “You're not a killer, Jamie, you're just a student. You made some bad choices. I'm sure that if you turn yourself in to the police, they'll be lenient. But they won't be if you kill me. They'll figure it all out, and they'll nail your ass to the wall.”

“You think I'm worried about the police cracking this case? They have their heads up their asses. Freaking morons.” She tossed her silky, black hair and added, “Besides, no one will even care if you disappear.”

Pete would care. The thought of never getting to see him again made me angry. I yelled, “So you're seriously going to kill me over a little identity theft scam? You're insane!”

“A
little
identity theft scam? I've already made enough for next year's tuition!” Jamie threw her head back and laughed. “I don't get how you're still clueless. You stumbled onto a dead body, for crying out loud. Granted, you tracked down a lot of the players, but you weren't quite bright enough put it all together, were you? I guess I shouldn't have expected too much brainpower out of someone who has devoted her life to food service.”

Beginning to shake from the pain and still processing everything she was saying, all I could come up with for a comeback was, “Hey, I have a music degree from Belmont, bitch!”

“Music majors are stupid, too.”

I choked out, “We can't all be pre-med.”

“Stupid or not, you've got big lady balls, I'll give you that. Even that dipshit thug Johnny trying to kill you didn't make you back off.” She turned to Logan, who during our confrontation had slunk over near the door. “By the way, you need to tell your idiot brother to stay out of our business from now on. We were doing just fine until you shot your mouth off and told him what we were doing.”

Logan looked worriedly at my bleeding arm. “Jamie, that's enough. Come on, this needs to end. I'm…I'm going to call the cops.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You're going to call the cops, huh? Why don't I do it for you?” She got out her phone. “I'll tell them the whole story about what you've done. I'll tell them how you steal certain types of mail from Vandy students who are too lazy to lock their mailboxes. And then—”