Джанет Иванович - Fortune and Glory

I was back in the Buick. If Shine’s henchmen came after me, I’d deal with it. If necessary, I could mow them down. If Gabriela could do it in a Mercedes sports car, I could for sure do it with the Buick.

I had a few butterflies in my stomach when I pulled into my parking lot. That’s okay, I thought. It’s a reminder to be cautious. And it’s good to be cautious. It’s not good to be fearful. Fear isn’t a productive emotion.

I found a parking place close to the back door and three minutes later I was in my apartment with the door locked. Cautious but not afraid, I told myself. My new mantra.

I grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water, took them to the dining room table, and opened my MacBook. I downloaded the search programs from Connie plus three names. I researched the three names and eliminated them. No real estate in Atlantic City. Four more names came in from Connie. I ran them through the system. Nothing.

It was nine o’clock at night when I received the last batch of names from Connie. It was as if she’d downloaded the entire Trenton phone book and sent it to me. Out of all those names, I found two with Atlantic City residences. In both cases they were second residences. One was a condo in a low-rise building. The other was a modest house in Pleasantville. I’d take a road trip in the morning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I opened the door to my apartment and Potts tumbled in.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was sitting with my back to your door, and I guess I fell asleep.”

“It’s eight thirty in the morning. How long have you been out here?”

“Not that long,” he said. “An hour maybe.” He got to his feet. “Where are you going? Are you going to the office?”

“Briefly. I need to see if Connie has anything new for me, and then I’m going to check out a couple of addresses.”

I locked my door and took the stairs to the lobby with Potts tagging along. I had my gun tucked into my messenger bag, but it wasn’t loaded. I didn’t have any ammo. Probably I could get some from Connie. Just in case.

Connie was at her desk and Lula was texting when I walked in with Potts.

“I got two possible addresses from your list,” I said to Connie. “I’m going to check them out this morning.”

“Me, too,” Potts said.

“Me, too,” Lula said. “Where are we going?”

“Atlantic City,” I said.

“I’m all about Atlantic City,” Lula said. “Maybe we should bring Grandma with us. She’s like my lucky charm. You got Grandma behind you at a craps table and you can’t lose.”

“We aren’t going to a casino,” I said. “I’m checking out two residences.”

“Yeah, but after that we might need something to eat and we could at least do some slots. I mean, we’re going all that way,” Lula said. “I’ll call Grandma and see if she’s up for it.”

I handed my gun over to Connie. “Do you have any bullets that fit this?” I asked. “I thought I should start carrying it. Just in case.”

“Just in case is a good possibility,” Connie said.

She went to the storeroom and returned with a box of rounds. She loaded my .38, spun the cylinder, and handed it back to me.

“Grandma’s not answering her phone,” Lula said.

I called my mother. No answer there, either. There were hundreds of reasons why they weren’t answering their phone, but the worst stuck in my mind.

“We can stop at the house on our way out of town,” I said.

I parked in my parents’ driveway and noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. I hit the ground running and entered the house with my gun in hand. I stopped in the foyer and listened. Silence. I cautiously walked through the living room and dining room, and into the kitchen. One of the chairs by the kitchen table was overturned, and the cast-iron fry pan was on the floor. I ran upstairs and looked in the bedrooms and the bathroom. They had all been searched. Drawers were open. Clothes were dumped on the floor. The keys were missing from Grandma’s underwear drawer. The ring was still there, in its box. They didn’t know to take the ring.

Lula was behind me. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I think they have Grandma.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Lula said.

I pocketed the ring, and we went downstairs. Grandma was standing in the foyer, holding a grocery bag.

“This is a nice surprise,” Grandma said. “We already had breakfast but there’s some Entenmann’s crumb cake left.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

“It’s such a beautiful morning, I thought I’d walk to the deli and pick up some fresh rolls and potato salad for lunch.”

“Where’s Mom?” I asked.

“Isn’t she in the house? Maybe she stepped next door.”

I called her cell phone, and I could hear it ringing in the kitchen. We went to the kitchen and Grandma set the bag on the counter.

“Did you knock the chair over?” she asked.

“No. It was like that when we got here.” I picked the fry pan up and set it on the stove. “I just went upstairs, and the rooms have been searched and the keys are missing.”

“We figured the bad guys snatched you,” Lula said, “but now I’m thinking they took Mrs. P.”

“Why would they do that?” Grandma asked.

“You weren’t home,” I said. “Maybe they didn’t want to leave empty-handed.”

“Maybe they aren’t smart, and they took the wrong woman,” Potts said. “Maybe they thought they were taking Grandma.”

“That could be it,” Grandma said. “I’m real young looking for my age. It’s an easy mistake to make.”

There was a slim possibility that my mom was at church or somewhere in the neighborhood. And there was a slim possibility that she’d forgotten to take her phone. And if I went with this scenario, the house got searched while she was away. I couldn’t explain the overturned chair and the fry pan. I also couldn’t get rid of the hollow feeling in my stomach.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked Grandma.

“He’s fishing with Johnny Lucca. They went to Belmar early this morning. I’m worried about this,” Grandma said. “I don’t like thinking your mother got kidnapped.”

I was breathless. This was my mother. The woman who endured twenty-two hours of hideous labor to bring me into the world. She welcomed me home when my marriage failed. She welcomed Grandma into her home when Grandpa passed. When my sister Valerie and I turned out not to be perfect, my mother made it clear that her love wasn’t dependent on perfection. She was the voice of reason. She accepted the role of Practical Pig because someone had to be Practical Pig. I know that someday there will be life without my mother, but right now I couldn’t imagine such a thing.

I called Morelli and explained the situation.

“I’ll put out an alert,” Morelli said. “Have you contacted Ranger?”

“He’s next on my list.”

“Tell him to keep me in the loop.”

I hung up and called Ranger. “I’m following a couple of leads,” I said. “I’ll be back in touch.”

Grandma put the potato salad in the fridge. “There’s no Entenmann’s in here,” she said. “And it’s not on the counter or on the table. I think it got taken along with the keys.”

“That’s sick,” Lula said. “What kind of person steals a crumb cake?”

“We have two leads,” I said. “To save time I think we should split up. I’ll take Potts with me. We’ll go to the shore house in Pleasantville. Lula and Grandma, you can go to the condo in Atlantic City. Don’t put yourself in jeopardy. If it looks like Shine has been using the condo, call me and I’ll bring Ranger in.”

I dropped Lula and Grandma at Lula’s car at the office, and I drove off with Potts riding shotgun.