Shot Girl (31 page)

We were halfway to the Explorer in the parking lot when Vinny’s cell phone rang. He answered it, then handed it to me. "Tom," he mouthed.

I took the phone. "So you don’t return calls anymore?"

"Christ, Annie, it’s been a long day. And last I knew, Dick was on this story."

"I’ve left you like a billion messages."

"I called your cell but got your voice mail. Then I got this latest message saying you wanted me to call this number. What the hell is going on? Why are you calling me about Felicia Kowalski’s body up at Judges Cave? There’s no body up there."

"I know. I made a mistake." I paused. "That girl at West Rock School, any ID yet?"

"Who wants to know?

What the hell? "What do you mean?"

"Are you asking officially for the newspaper or are you asking for another reason?"

"It matters?"

"Yeah. It matters."

I mulled that a couple of seconds. "Okay, no, it’s not for the paper." For me, saying those words was akin to Vinny actually swallowing sushi.

But if I could get an answer off the record from him, I could always try to confirm with someone else and call Marty with it.

You can take the girl off the beat, but you can’t take the beat out of the girl.

I should have a goddamn bumper sticker made up.

"So what’s the reason?" Tom was asking.

"Reason for what?"

"The reason why you’re asking for ID? Anything I should know?"

I watched Vinny’s face as I answered. "It’s Ashley Ellis, isn’t it?"

I heard him catch his breath. It was so slight that if I hadn’t been paying attention, I probably wouldn’t have heard it.

"I also know where Felicia Kowalski is."

Vinny wasn’t happy I said that. His eyes narrowed, getting darker. I shook my head. I had to offer up something, and I still wasn’t sure why Vinny would hide her from the cops.

"Where?" Tom was interested.

"First, I need you to confirm on the record that the body is Ashley Ellis."

"Will you tell me then where the girl is?"

I thought a second. "Why do you want to know so bad?"

"I can’t tell you that."

We were at an impasse. I wasn’t going to tell him anything if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. He knew that, but he also hadn’t played all his cards.

"If you don’t tell me where she is, I can have you arrested for obstruction," he said.

The surprise must have shown on my face because Vinny leaned forward, wearing his curiosity on his sleeve.

"Obstruction?" I asked, and Vinny’s eyebrows shot up. "What the hell do you want her for?"

"How much do you really know about your ex-husband’s activities, Annie?" Tom asked. "Am I going to have to arrest you tomorrow when I get those bullet ballistics tests back? How come you’re hiding his girlfriend? How involved are you?"

"Have you found whoever took those pictures of me?" I demanded, my voice too loud.

"I’m coming over," Tom said.

"Over where?"

"To your apartment—where else?"

"Oh, shit," I muttered.

"What?"

"I’m not there." I said it so quietly I hoped maybe he wouldn’t hear.

"What do you mean, you’re not there?" So much for not hearing. "Riley’s sitting out in front of your building. He said your friend came by, that you guys haven’t left."

"Well, Priscilla is still there. . . ." I let my voice trail off.

"Where the fuck are you?" I had never heard him this angry.

"Hama. Just leaving. I can be there in twenty minutes."

"If you’re not, I’m issuing a fucking warrant."

He ended the call.

Vinny frowned. "What’s up?"

"Tom’s going to arrest me if I’m not back at my apartment in twenty minutes." I filled him in on the rest of the conversation as we got into the Explorer. "He wants Felicia. I don’t know why."

"Maybe because she and Ashley were part of the straw purchases," Vinny suggested.

We were already zipping down Putnam toward Whitney. Vinny was taking Tom’s threat seriously.

"Why are you hiding Felicia?" I asked.

We stopped at a light. Vinny turned to look at me.

"Your mother asked me to."

Chapter 40

"Why does my mother want you to hide Felicia?"

Vinny shrugged. "I don’t know. She pays me. I do what she says."

"Oh, come on. You’re not stupid, and you’re not just a thug. What’s going on?"

"Your mother told me to hold on to her until tomorrow morning, and then I have to take her to your mother’s office." He sighed. "I really don’t know more than that."

I had put the cell phone in the center console, and I grabbed it, punching in my own phone number. The answering machine picked up, and I waited until my short message was played. "Priscilla, it’s me." I said.

But no one picked up.

"Why are you calling her?" Vinny asked.

I waited a few more seconds, then ended the call. I rubbed my forehead. I was getting a killer headache. "Why didn’t she answer?" I asked myself, staring out the windshield.

I punched in Priscilla’s cell number, and it just rang and rang until the voice mail picked up. "Something’s wrong," I said.

The Explorer was now at the corner of Putnam and Whitney, and Vinny turned right to head downtown. "What’s going on?" he asked softly.

"I was going to tell her to head Tom off," I said. "I want to go to my mother’s and talk to her about this. But if Priscilla isn’t answering, something’s wrong."

"She might be asleep."

"She sleeps really light," I said. "Especially when she’s not in her own bed."

I felt the Explorer take on a little more speed, and we were turning down side streets until we hit State, then careened up over the Grand Avenue Bridge next to the satellite train station.

When we pulled up in front of my building on Chapel Street, we saw Riley and Tom waiting for us. Riley wore his hat. Tom wore a frown.

I sped up the steps.

"Annie!" Tom’s voice was menacing, but I ignored him as I heard Vinny talking to him.

My apartment door was wide open, and I ran inside, looking in every room, but it was empty. When I came out of my bedroom, Tom, Riley, and Vinny were waiting for me.

"Where’s Priscilla?" I asked Riley.

A sheepish look crossed his face. "She left."

"Alone?"

He shook his head. All eyes were on him, and he shifted uncomfortably.

"Who did she leave with?" I demanded.

"Some guy in a Jeep. A red Jeep."

Ned Winters. What the fuck? Why had he come over here?

Tom picked something up off the kitchen island. "A note," he said simply, reading it and then handing it to me.

 
I took a deep breath of relief, but I was curious why she left a note rather than just calling me on Vinny’s phone like she had earlier. Or maybe she had, while I was talking to Tom. I’m not very good with the whole call-waiting thing—or anything else technical. I tried to remember if I’d heard the telltale beep, but I’d been so upset with Tom I hadn’t noticed. And if she was on the train, that could explain why she didn’t pick up her cell. Sometimes it was just too loud on the train to hear it if it was in a purse.

Tom was still glaring at me. Shit. I was in trouble.

"Where’s Felicia Kowalski?" he asked.

I tried not to look at Vinny, but I glanced at him for a split second, and Tom noticed, turning to him. "You both know. Where is she?"

Vinny’s expression didn’t change. "I can’t tell you, but I can tell you that you can call my employer and see if you can get it out of her."

Tom knew Vinny was talking about my mother. He looked at me. "Your mother’s involved in this?"

"Maybe you should just tell us why you want Felicia so bad. Isn’t she more important to the feds than the locals right now?" I asked. "She knows, doesn’t she? She knows everything, right?"

Tom leaned in toward Riley and whispered something to him. Riley looked at me a long second. He was probably pissed that I’d sneaked away on his watch; I’d made him look like an idiot in front of the chief of detectives. After he’d fixed my air conditioner and everything. I just shrugged at him; what could I say? He shifted his eyes away from me and nodded at Tom, stepping outside, closing the door behind him.

Tom ran a hand through his hair; his eyes were underlined by dark circles. He had gotten about as much sleep as I’d had the last couple of days.

"Okay, listen, but this is all off the record."

Maybe. "Okay," I said.

"She was seen with Ashley Ellis last night." He stopped, letting the words sink in.

"Before Ashley was murdered?" I asked.

He continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. "They left Bar together. A man had approached them; he had his arm around both girls."

I butted in. "Let me guess, it was Jack Hammer. I mean, uh, John Decker."

Tom allowed himself a slight smile. "The description fits."

I thought quickly. When I talked to Ashley last night, she hadn’t mentioned she was with anyone. She said she hadn’t seen Felicia. Vinny followed Jack Hammer from Ralph’s apartment to the City Point condo, and then we saw him driving back in when we were leaving. Vinny found Felicia at Jack Hammer’s place.

Maybe Jack had picked the girls up at their condo and brought them to Bar. Somehow Ashley got back to the City Point condo and Felicia ended up at Jack’s. If the two girls were together, Ashley had lied to me about seeing Felicia.

"The dead girl was Ashley, wasn’t it? And you need Felicia because she can fill in what happened between the time they left together at Bar and the time of Ashley’s death, right?"

"She might have more information about her friend’s death," Tom conceded, confirming that the body at West Rock School definitely was Ashley Ellis.

"Who told you this?" I asked Tom. "I mean, who’s the witness who told you about Jack leaving with Felicia and Ashley last night? Some stupid kid who might have gotten it wrong?"

"No."

I could see he was reluctant to say anything, but I pressed him. "Come on, Tom, off the record, remember?" I crossed my fingers behind my back.

"It was Reggie Shaw. Shaw saw them last night."

Chapter 41

My first thought was, What the hell was Shaw doing at Bar?

And then I knew I had to tell Tom I’d spoken to Ashley. I told him what she’d said to me.

"So between the time you talked to her and the time Shaw saw her, she found Felicia and they met up with John Decker," Tom said simply.

"Or she was with them when I talked to her and lied about not having seen Felicia," I said. "Why was Shaw there?" It was nagging at me.

Vinny was quiet through this entire exchange, but I could see him thinking the same thing.

Tom shook his head. "He said some kid had called him, needed to talk to him about something. He was reluctant to give us the kid’s name, but he finally did. I can’t find him, but that’s no surprise. He lives over at Brookside."

"Was the kid’s name Jamond?" I asked.

Tom looked startled. "Yeah," he said before he thought about it. "How do you know?"

"I met him at the community garden on Friday for a story. It’s Shaw’s project. And let’s just say that I had sort of an altercation with Jamond just a little while ago."

"What kind of altercation?"

I had to come clean. I told him about how Jamond had called me, how I’d sneaked out of the apartment, taken the bus, and ended up at Southern, where I found out Jamond had lied to me for some reason and he broke my phone and held me at gunpoint.

"Did he try to take your purse?" Tom asked.

"I don’t think it was a mugging. He set me up for something, but I don’t know what." I took a look at Vinny and sighed. I’d left out the part about seeing Jack Hammer near my mother’s. So I told them about that, too.

Tom and Vinny both wore worried expressions.

"Do you think it’s Jack?" I asked. "Do you think he’s the one responsible for everything?"

"He seems to turn up at the right times," Tom admitted.

"So does Shaw," I said. "I saw him at Atticus this morning. He told me to be careful, watch my back."

"He warned you?"

I nodded. "How would he know about me being stalked?"

Tom sat on one of the chairs at the island and put his head in his hands. Vinny didn’t move. We stayed like that for a good couple of minutes, all of us thinking about what was going on and no one having a clue.

Finally, Tom got up and looked at Vinny. "Okay, listen. You have to take me to Felicia. I need to question her." He looked at me. "Riley’s going to stay outside. You have to stay put this time. No going out the back way. We have to go on the honor system here. You’re being stalked; people are warning you; a kid is threatening you. Is that enough to keep you here?"

I felt like a prisoner and totally helpless. "Can’t I come with you to see Felicia?" I asked.

Tom snorted. "Jesus, Annie, no." He turned to Vinny. "We can call Alex on the way, so she knows you’re being coerced into it. She might want to meet us there, and that would be okay, too." He started toward the door, then stopped as he realized Vinny wasn’t following him.

"Can you hold on a minute?" Vinny asked.

Tom looked from him to me and nodded, going out and pulling the door behind him but not shutting it completely. Vinny’s arm snaked around my waist as he pulled me to him. I laid my head on his shoulder, could feel his heartbeat on my breast. My breathing slowed, and I drank in his scent as I felt his five-o’clock shadow brush my cheek.

"Please do as Tom says and don’t go anywhere," he whispered. "I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you."