Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) Page 11

  “He opens the office door and steps inside. Looks around. Sees nobody. But the office’s back door is open. Carlos steps out the back door, looks out into the dark alley, to the right and to the left. The alley is empty. So he shuts the door and goes over to his desk to watch the security video.

  “See, my brother has a hidden security camera in his office. He had it installed after some items were stolen from his desk drawer. None of his employees know about the hidden camera.

  “So Carlos sits down at his desk, turns on the monitor and the DVR, rewinds the security video, hits the PLAY button, and then watches what happened between Viper and Big Red.

  “On the screen he sees the office door swing open and in comes Viper. Right away Viper grabs a baseball bat that my brother keeps in a corner of the office. Then Viper hides under the desk. Several minutes pass. Then the office door swings open again and in comes Big Red and the stripper. In less than thirty seconds she manages to unbuckle his belt and get his pants down around his ankles. Just when he thinks he’s about to get lucky she bolts out of the office. As soon as she’s gone Viper comes out from under the desk and in one swift motion raises the baseball bat over his head and brings it down and cracks Big Red across the skull. Big Red slumps to the floor and rolls over onto his back. Viper bashes him again. He bashes him ten, maybe twenty times. When he’s sure Big Red is dead he returns the bat to the corner where he found it. Then he drags the dead man’s body out the back door of the office.

  “Now my brother hits the STOP button and leans back in his chair to think about what he saw on the security video. He thinks about it for a long time. Then he rattles open his desk drawer and takes out a blank DVD. He records the security video onto the DVD. After that he carries the baseball bat and the DVD out to his car. He gets in and drives home. At home he hides both items in his attic.

  “He realizes he has power, he has some leverage. He has a video of the murder. He has the murder weapon, with Viper’s fingerprints on it, and Big Red’s DNA. He has proof that Viper killed Big Red. Proof that could be used to blackmail Viper into doing something. Or to stop doing something—like extorting money from the club.

  “But my brother is scared of Viper. Too scared to confront him. Too scared to blackmail him. So he decides to do nothing with the evidence. Except keep it. In case he ever needs it.

  “A few days after the murder Viper shows up at the club again. He comes alone. Needles is not with him. Viper walks up to my brother and tells him he wants to have a little chat with him in the club owner’s office. So Carlos steps around the bar and heads into the office with Viper.

  “In the office Viper notices that the baseball bat is missing from the corner. He looks at Carlos with suspicious eyes and he says, ‘Where’d your bat go, Carlos?’ And Carlos goes, ‘What bat?’ Viper stares at him for a moment. Then he steps closer and raises his voice. ‘The one’s always been in that corner over there,’ he shouts. My brother shrugs. Viper starts to tear the office apart, searching for the missing baseball bat. He looks everywhere. He can’t find it. So finally he gives up. He goes, ‘Where’d you hide it, you little weasel?’ My brother shrugs again, and Viper starts to smack him around.

  “This continues until Carlos crashes into the bookcase and tips it over. The hidden security camera rolls out into the middle of the floor. Viper picks it up and then looks at my brother and says, ‘You been videotaping your office?’ And Carlos says, ‘Yeah, Viper, but it’s been a long time since I checked the security video.’

  “Viper hurls the security camera at Carlos’s head. Misses him by inches. Then he grabs the DVR and yanks the cords free and begins to smash the electronic device against a corner of the desk.

  “While Viper is busy doing that Carlos slips out the back door into the alley. He gets in his car and speeds home. He knows Viper will be out to kill him.

  “At home Carlos climbs into his attic to get the baseball bat and the DVD. He brings them out to his car, drives over to my house on Bluebird Street, and pounds on my door.

  “When I let him in he looks scared. He tells me what happened. He gives me the baseball bat and the DVD. He tells me, ‘Anna, hang on to these for me. Viper’s coming after me, he wants to kill me. I’m leaving town. I need some time to figure out how to get out of this mess.’

  “Carlos hands me a slip of paper with a telephone number on it. He tells me it’s a telephone message center where we can leave voice messages for each other. He says it’s safer than calling each other on mobile phones or home phones, because they can be traced to our locations.

  “Carlos tells me he’ll leave a voice message for me before seven o’clock each evening. If I do not receive a voice message from him, it means Viper has found him and killed him. And if that happens, then Carlos wants me to release the evidence—the baseball bat and the DVD—to the police. To the state police only. Because the police in Pottsland are corrupt, according to Carlos.

  “I ask Carlos, ‘Why don’t we just release the evidence to the police right now? Why wait until you’re dead? If we give it to them now, they can arrest Viper and put him in jail. Then he can’t kill you.’ And Carlos says to me, ‘Before they can arrest him they first have to find him. Which could take a while. In the meantime Viper could find me. And if he does, I’ll need some leverage. Otherwise he’ll kill me. My leverage is the evidence. I can tell Viper I made a DVD copy of the security video. I can tell him the DVD shows him beating Big Red to death with the baseball bat. I can tell him one of my associates has the bat and the DVD, and she’ll turn both over to the cops if she doesn’t hear from me by seven o’clock each evening. That threat should keep Viper from killing me—at least until he gets his hands on the evidence. Which he may never do if I play my cards right.’

  “So after Carlos tells me all this he leaves, and I hide the baseball bat and the DVD under my bed. Then I try to get some sleep but it’s impossible. All I can think about is the danger my brother is in.

  “The following day I go about my usual routine, working at Munch Box during the day, taking my business class at night. At seven o’clock that evening I phone the telephone message center. I listen to Carlos’s voice message, and I know he’s safe. Though I have no idea where he is.

  “I continue this same routine each day for almost a week before something happens. I’m taking a break at work, looking out the big window that overlooks the parking lot. I see this car pull up. A green Lincoln Town Car. The vanity plate says VIPER. Two men get out of the car. I recognize them because I saw them at the club once.

  “I’m looking out the window and I’m wondering how Viper and Needles found me—my brother never told them he had a sister. I’m wondering what they plan to do to me. Hold me hostage to bring my brother out of hiding? Torture me? Kill me?

  “I run out the back door of the restaurant, start my car, and peel out of the parking lot. On my way home I phone the telephone message center. There’s no voice message from Carlos. It’s not seven o’clock yet, so I’ve no reason to be worried. But I am.

  “I leave a voice message for Carlos, telling him what happened, asking him what I should do. It takes a lot of effort to keep the fear out of my voice.

  “As soon as I get home I change out of my work clothes. Then I hear a car pull up outside. I look out the window to see the green Lincoln Town Car parked on the street in front of my house.

  “Right away I reach under my bed and drag out the baseball bat and the DVD. I stuff them into a garbage bag, sling the bag over my shoulder, and run out the back door.

  “My car is parked out front, near the Lincoln Town Car, so I can’t use it to escape. I have to escape on foot.

  “As I run through the neighborhood I dig out my phone and press the speed dial for my friend Sara. She’s my best friend, the only one I can trust—other than my brother. I figure maybe Sara can loan me a car so I can get out of town.

  “The phone rings four times and then goes to her voice mail. I hang up without leaving a messa
ge.

  “My next thought is to hitchhike out of town. But I need a better bag. Nobody picks up hitchhikers who carry garbage bags.

  “So I run over to Sporticus to buy a duffel bag. It takes me over an hour to get there. I buy the bag, open it up, and drop in the baseball bat and the DVD. Then I walk down to the highway and start to hitchhike.

  “After a while I see you pull up in your motor home. I open the passenger door and see your smiling hazel eyes and I know I can trust you. I know I’m safe. So I climb in.”

  CHAPTER 48

  “TELL ME WHAT happened at the bus station,” I said.

  “Okay,” Anna said. “After I bought the bus ticket to Topeka I sat down on the bench and talked to you. Then I spotted Viper and Needles sitting near the station entrance. They were staring at both of us. I guess they were trying to figure out what you were doing with me, and whether you were going to be a problem for them or not. Otherwise I think they would have confronted me right away.”

  I nodded.

  “I was pretty sure they knew what I had in my duffel bag,” Anna said. “And I was afraid they might try to grab it from me. So I got up from the bench and went over to the lockers. I jammed the duffel bag into a locker and put the key in my pocket. Then I removed a different key from another locker and brought it over to give to you. I made sure that Viper and Needles were watching when I handed you the key.”

  I grunted.

  “I know,” Anna said. “It was a terrible thing to do to you. And I’m sorry. Maybe I can make it up to you. Maybe I . . .”

  “Tell me the rest of the story,” I said.

  “So after I gave you the key I excused myself and went off to the ladies’ room. There was a window in there. I climbed out the window and walked home. The green Lincoln Town Car was no longer parked on the street in front of my house, so I got in my car and drove away. After a while my phone rang. It was Sara. I told her what was going on, and she told me to come over. I turned the car around and drove to her house. When I . . .”

  “This is Sara Garcia you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, how did you know her last name?”

  “Tell me what happened when you got to her house.”

  “She gave me a key to this condo, and told me I could stay here as long as I wanted.”

  “So this is Sara’s condo.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happened after she gave you the key?”

  “She asked if I needed anything else, and I said no, and she hugged me and told me to be careful, and I left.”

  “And that’s when you returned to the bus station.”

  “How did you know . . . ?”

  “You went there to get the duffel bag from the locker.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I drove here.”

  “And you’ve been hiding out here ever since?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come you park out on the street? Why not park in the condo garage?”

  “Because I thought Viper might come looking for me here, and I didn’t want him to see my car parked in the condo garage, because that would let him know I’m here.”

  “How would he even know to look for you here?”

  “I don’t know. I thought he might find out I know Sara, and that she owns this place, and he might suspect I’m hiding out here.”

  “Viper’s not going to find you here.”

  “You did.”

  “That’s different. I’m a trained manhunter.”

  “How did you find me, Rip?”

  “Where’s your brother now?”

  “I’ve no idea. He never tells me.”

  “He leave a voice message last night?”

  “Yes, he’s still alive. He . . . he . . .”

  Anna bit her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned away to look out the window. After several moments her chestnut eyes returned to me.

  “I don’t want to lose my brother. He is all I have in the world. He’s everything, Rip, everything. I can’t lose him the way I lost my parents. I just can’t.”

  “Your parents?”

  “They were killed by a drunk driver. I was only sixteen at the time, and Carlos was only twelve.”

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  “They were both killed instantly when their van was struck by an eighteen-year-old driver who was driving under the influence. His SUV struck their van from behind, causing both vehicles to spin out of control. The van went off the side of the road, hit a deep ditch and a thick tree, and then flipped over. My father was thrown from the van into the ditch. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, though he probably would have died anyway. My mother did.”

  “I can’t imagine losing both parents like that.”

  “It was a difficult time. Our entire childhood was difficult. We grew up poor. My parents earned little money. The rent often went unpaid, and food was often scarce. You would not believe how many times I went to school hungry. Not only hungry but embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had no lunch. Embarrassed that I felt jealous of kids with lunches. Embarrassed that my parents could not provide for us. But I never told anybody about it, never admitted it to anybody. Not even to teachers who used to ask me why I didn’t have a lunch. I used to lie to them. Because I didn’t want my parents to get in any trouble. I wanted to protect them.”

  I nodded sympathetically.

  “When I was eight,” Anna said, “I got a job to help pay for my family’s bills. I delivered newspapers for three years. Then I started to work in the food industry. Food was more interesting to me than newspapers. Not too many restaurants wanted to hire a child, but I managed to find a few that would. They paid me cash to wash dishes and work in the kitchen.”

  Anna paused to shake her head.

  “One time my father verbally abused me for not bringing home enough money from work. He used to treat me like that. Me and my mother. I think he hated women. Maybe he was angry that he had no means to support his family. I don’t know why he was the way he was. He used to use all of the horrible words. The B word. The C word. But I still loved him. He was my father.”

  Anna frowned.

  “There were a few occasions when he beat my mother. One time he came close to killing her. She was lying limp on the floor when I walked into their bedroom. My father had his hands around her neck. She looked dead to me. I really thought my father had killed her.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. So I kept quiet.

  “After my parents died in the accident I began to take care of my little brother. I worked two jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table. One job was waitressing in a bar. The other was working as a maid. That’s how I met Sara. I used to clean her house.”

  I remembered how enormous Sara Garcia’s house was. She would need staff around the clock just to clean it.

  “Working two jobs while staying in school kept me busy, but I did whatever I could to support Carlos. When he graduated from high school I sent him to college and paid for his tuition. Four years later he graduated with a business degree. A year after that he started the adult entertainment club. That’s when I started to take night classes in business. I plan to start my own restaurant when I graduate.”

  Anna’s story touched me. It changed my opinion of her. But I wasn’t about to let her know that. I was still not too happy with the way she had played me at the bus station, though I now understood what had motivated her.

  In the back of my mind I wondered how much truth there was in Anna’s story. Was she playing me again? Was she setting me up as a fall guy again? Or was she being honest with me?

  Either way I had a job to do. Four men in Pottsland had tried to kill me. They needed to be taught a lesson. They needed to pay for their actions. And I needed to collect.

  CHAPTER 49

  “WHAT’S THE PLAN now, Anna?”

  “The plan? What do you mean, Rip?”

  “I mean your brother’s had some
time now to come up with a plan. How’s he going to stop Viper? You two can’t hide out forever.”

  “Carlos has applied for a passport. Now we’re just waiting for him to receive it.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he’ll leave the country.”

  “For good?”

  “No. Just until the police capture Viper.”

  “That’s Carlos’s plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s pretty inconvenient.”

  “It’s better than dying.”

  “So when Carlos leaves the country you go to the cops and give them the baseball bat and the DVD. That the plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then Carlos returns home once the cops capture Viper.”

  “Yes.”

  “Carlos will still be in danger.”

  “How?”

  “Viper could put a hit out on him from jail.”

  “You think he would?”

  “What’s to stop him?”

  Anna blinked.

  “Look,” I said, “there might be a better way to handle this.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know right now. I have to give it some thought.”

  “You mean you might help us?”

  “Let me see what I can come up with.”

  Anna smiled for the first time that morning.

  “Let me ask you something, Anna.”

  “Anything.”

  “Those two cops with the Pottsland Police Department—Officer Brown and Officer Miller—what’s their connection to Viper?”

  “According to Carlos they get kickbacks for helping out the Bruno crime family.”

  “You know them, the two cops?”

  “Artie and Owen? Sure, we all went to school together.”

  “What were they like in school?”

  “Bullies. Both of them were bullies. All the way from kindergarten through twelfth grade. They used to grab kids and dunk their heads in flushing toilets. They always picked on the unpopular kids and the scrawny kids. Calling them names, throwing things at them, laughing at them. Most of the kids were deathly afraid of Artie and Owen. Kids used to go out of their way to avoid running into them. Artie and Owen were the worst kind of bullies. They liked to use fear and intimidation as a weapon.”