“Richmond, you lying piece of shit. I’m at the gym and you’re not. Now you’re a dead man for sure because if your fat doesn’t kill you, I’m going to. You better call me.”
I disconnect the call and put my key in the door of the hearse to unlock it when my phone rings. Thinking it’s Richmond, I answer without bothering to look at the caller ID. “You better have a damned good excuse for not being here. That fat of yours isn’t going to disappear on its own, you know.”
“What about my fat?”
Shit. “I’m sorry, Izzy. I thought you were Bob Richmond.” I grimace, knowing that I’ve probably just made it that much easier for him to fire me.
“Actually, Richmond is here with me. I’ve got some new evidence regarding Callie Dunkirk’s murder,” he says. “Can you come to the office?”
“Sure. I’ll be there in five minutes. Does this mean you haven’t fired me yet?”
I hear footsteps approaching behind me and I turn to see who it is. But before I can, I hear a strange crackling noise—like firecrackers going off in my left ear—and then the left side of my neck burns like someone just lit it on fire. My body is wracked with a sudden, searing pain and I hear myself scream as my brain explodes in a flash of blinding light.
Chapter 34
The next few minutes are a kaleidoscope of fractured sounds and images: my body colliding with the hard pavement; my left ankle screaming with pain; someone grabbing me beneath my arms; my body being slowly dragged across the parking lot; someone grunting; a man’s voice yelling—Hurley?—and then another collision with the pavement; feet running off; and then, miraculously, Hurley’s voice close to my ear.
“Can you stand?” he asks me, sounding breathless. He grabs my hands and tries to pull me up but my left ankle refuses to support much weight. Hurley drapes my right arm over his shoulders, grabs me around my waist, and hoists me across the small parking lot. “Come on, we need to get out of here,” he says, and the urgency in his voice helps me to get past the pain.
Hurley drags me to his car, which is parked at the far end of the front lot, dumps me into the passenger side, slams my door closed, and runs around to hop behind the wheel. “Can you fasten your seat belt?” he asks as he starts the engine. He doesn’t wait for an answer, whipping the steering wheel hard and hitting the gas. As the car lurches forward, I fumble with my belt, trying to clasp it in place. I manage to do it but it’s a struggle, both because I’m being tossed around by Hurley’s driving and because my fingers don’t seem to want to work. My head feels as if it’s been overstuffed with cotton—dull, thick, and like my skull wants to explode.
“What the hell just happened?” I manage to say once I get my belt secured.
“You were Tasered. I’m guessing that whoever is framing me just tried to kidnap you.”
“Kidnap me?” I can’t wrap my mind around the concept at all. “Why?”
“Most likely they were going to use you to try to flush me out, or kill you to frame me for yet another death.”
Kill me? Someone just tried to kill me? A million questions fill my head and I start firing them at Hurley. “How did they find me? Who is doing this? And how did you know they’d be coming after me?”
“I didn’t for sure,” he says, answering only the last question. “But I figured my disappearance wasn’t a part of their plans, and that they would escalate their efforts somehow to flush me out. You were the logical choice. That guy back there at the gym has been following you since yesterday and I’ve been following him, waiting for him to make a move.”
“That’s why you were outside my bedroom window last night.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” Hurley says with a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never gotten a good look at him because he’s always wearing a hoodie. About all I can tell you is that he was short and of average build. I think it may be the same guy Minniver’s neighbor lady saw.”
“Did you get the plate number on the car?”
“I did. I have it written down somewhere but I didn’t want to go to or call the station to run it. I’m willing to bet it’s the same number you got from the neighbor.”
I shake my head, hoping to knock some of the cotton loose. “I still don’t get it,” I say, confused. “Why come after me? Why am I the logical choice? What did I do?”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “You met me.”
“Huh?”
“They’ve been going after people who play a significant role in my life, people who mean something to me.”
“I mean something to you?” I say, grabbing at the only part of his explanation that my mind can fully comprehend at the moment.
He looks over at me and smiles, but says nothing.
“Where are we going?”
“Over near Tomah. There’s a cabin there we can stay in.”
“You own a cabin?”
“No, it belongs to a friend I know who lets me use it. When my dad was alive, we used to go there to fish a lot.”
“Your dad is dead?”
“Two years ago. Cancer.”
“Is your mom still alive?”
He shakes his head. “She died in a car accident when I was two. I really don’t remember her at all.”
“Did your dad ever remarry?”
“Nope, it was just the two of us.”
I digest this information, saddened by the fact that Hurley has no family. That explains why whoever is trying to frame him is going after friends and neighbors, and why they came after me. I suppose at this point, I’m the closest thing to family Hurley has.
My head is clearer now and thoughts of family make me think of Thanksgiving, which makes me think of my mother, Dom, and Izzy. Then I remember Izzy’s phone call to me, right before I was attacked. I lean forward and look around inside the car. “Where’s my purse, and my cell? I need to call Izzy and tell him what happened. He’s expecting me.”
“Your purse got left in the parking lot,” Hurley says. “Your cell phone is there, too. It bounced under your car when you dropped it and broke into at least two pieces. I wanted to get you out of there in case your attacker had some kind of backup waiting in the wings, so I didn’t take the time to grab anything.”
“That’s okay. I appreciate what you did. Can I use your phone?”
He shakes his head. “Cell phones can be traced, and until I can figure out who’s behind all of this, I don’t want my whereabouts—or yours—to be known.”
Something about this bothers me but it takes me a minute to figure out what it is. “Wait,” I say. “That throwaway phone you gave me is in my purse and it has your cell number in it. Won’t they be able to trace it from that?”
“Did you save my number under a different name like I told you?”
“I did. I assigned it to Ethan.”
“Then they won’t know it’s mine.”
I wince. “They might,” I tell him. “David overheard my last conversation with you. He was in my cottage and I didn’t see him right away.”
Hurley frowns. He reaches into his jacket pocket, takes out a cell phone, and hands it to me. “Turn it off. As long as it isn’t on, no one can locate it. If they do get the number somehow and trace the calls made to or from the phone to see what towers it pinged on, they’ll think I’m still in the Sorenson area.”