Necklaces & Nooses Page 21

  “Shouldn’t Willie be here by now?” Anna asked.

  “Any minute now.”

  “Good. I’m getting tired.”

  So was I. Those Red Bulls were wearing off, and it was way past my bedtime. I yawned, which triggered everyone else to yawn. They truly are contagious. “We still have to drive back at some point. Did you think of that?”

  “I am now. Wasn’t there a motel back by the gas station?” Anna said.

  “I think so,” Jared said.

  “I see headlights. Let’s hope it’s Willie,” said Anna.

  I hoped so, too. I didn’t want some stranger coming up behind us and wondering what we were doing here. The car slowed, and I expected it to pull in behind us. Instead it went around us and then sped back up. I watched it pass hoping they thought we were just random folks on the road and considering they just kept on going whoever was in the car must have not given us a second thought. “That’s not Willie’s car.”

  “Then who the hell is it?” Jared said. “It’s almost four in the morning.”

  “I think that’s Sheila’s car or maybe Steven’s. I know it was at their house when I went to meet them.”

  “What would they be doing here?” Jared asked.

  “Isn’t that the whole reason we drove here? To find that out?” I said. The black Jag was trying to navigate the potholes in the dirt driveway to James’s cabin without much luck. The car finally pulled to a stop and the driver got out, it was Steven. What was he doing here? I expected Sheila not him. Another set of headlights came into view, and this time the car pulled in behind us. Finally, Willie. I saw him get out of the car and walk up to us, and I rolled down my window. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  He smiled, but I could tell he was still annoyed with me. Rightfully so, I supposed. “Anything exciting happening?”

  “Actually, yes. Steven just got here about three minutes before you did.”

  “Really? That’s interesting.”

  “That’s what I thought. What do you think he’s doing here?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m about to find out.”

  “You’re not going to hurt him are you?” asked Amy from the backseat.

  Willie looked in the window to see her sitting in the back with Jared. He looked at me. “It’s bad enough you brought your friends, but what the hell is she doing here?”

  I rolled my eyes, “I know, right? She had my place staked out and followed us all the way here from Chicago. She refused to go home. Said she would keep following us, so we thought if we couldn’t get her to go home, it would be better if she came with us.”

  Willie shook his head. I wasn’t sure if in amusement at the logic or frustration at the fact we were all here when I was sure he didn’t want any of us interfering. “I need you guys to all wait here while I go check things out.” My guess was frustration.

  “No way, pal,” I said. “I didn’t drive all this way to sit in the car. I came to talk to James. Besides, don’t you think it better if I try to see what’s going on? He might be more inclined to tell me than you.”

  “Nice try, but no.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No you’re not,” he said firmly.

  “Yes, I am,” I said with my hands on my hips glaring at him. I meant it when I said I hadn’t come all this way to take a backseat. He could do his thing, but I wasn’t going to sit and wait in the car while he did it.

  Our eyes locked on each other’s, and neither one of us wanted to back down.

  “Fine, you can come. But the rest of your friends stay in the car, and you do as I say.”

  I wanted to gloat, but thought better of it. “I promise. You guys stay here and watch Amy.”

  “Don’t let anything happen to James,” Amy said.

  “We won’t, Amy. Relax. We’re just here to talk.”

  We walked away from the car toward the house at the top of the driveway. “I wonder about that girl,” Willie said.

  “No kidding. She is obsessed and not in a good way.”

  We walked quietly up the drive. There were lights on in the cabin, which made sense, since Steven had just gone in. At least if James had been sleeping, Steven was the one to wake him up and not us. As we got closer to the cabin, we could hear voices.

  “Stay here,” Willie whispered.

  “I told you, I’m going with you, and I mean all the way,” I whispered back.

  “Relax. I just want to look in the window. I will be right back.” He walked up to the cabin, a couple feet down from the window.

  “You better,” I muttered to myself.

  Willie flattened himself against the outside wall and inched his way to the window. I could still hear voices, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying, though one sounded female. Could it be Sheila? I saw Willie peer into the window, but couldn’t tell by his body language if he could see anything or anyone. After a few seconds, he slid back down the wall and crept back over to me.

  “Well?”

  “Well, we have a bit of a problem.”

  “Why? Who’s in there?”

  “Shelia, Steven, and James.”

  “Sheila? Where is her car?” I looked around but didn’t see her car, only James’s and Steven’s.

  “I don’t know, but that’s not the issue here. She has Steven and James at gunpoint.”

  “What!”

  “Shhh,” Willie said in a stern whisper. “C’mon.” He led me back down the driveway, and we jogged to the tree line out of direct sight of the cabin. He pulled out his cell phone as he walked, punching in a number. “Damn!”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Don’t have a signal.”

  “I had one a few minutes ago when I was talking to you.” I pulled out my phone. It had one bar. I handed it to Willie. “Here, try mine.”

  He dialed and nodded his head and gave me thumbs up. I assumed that meant it was ringing. Yay for AT&T.

  “This is Detective Landon from Chicago. I need to get a hold of whoever is on duty. I spoke to Sheriff Thompson yesterday. Sure, I understand. Have him call me when he can.” He hung up and turned to me. “We are on our own for now. The entire department is on the other side of Crivitz at a four-car accident, but they’re sending a car over.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I want you to go back to the car. I will not have you involved in this with Sheila holding a gun.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. This takes it to a whole new level. Go back to the car.”

  “I understand your concern, but you need my help.”

  He looked at me, and I could tell he knew he was fighting a losing battle. “You better promise to do exactly as I say.”

  “I promise.” And I even meant it.

  He sighed.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “I think we are going to have to walk right in there and talk her into surrendering. I don’t think there is any other way without backup.”

  “Well, then what are we waiting for?” I said with false bravado. It wouldn’t do for Willie to think I was scared. We walked back up the drive to the front door and could hear voices arguing. “Should we knock?”

  “Yes. I don’t think it would be safe to just barge in. No telling what Sheila will do.” He lifted his hand up and knocked.

  “Who the hell…?” we heard Sheila exclaim.

  Chapter 25

  Wow, it’s like Grand Central Station around here,” James said wryly. Willie and I added to Sheila, James, and Steven, making five people and one gun, two, if you counted the one I was sure Willie had somewhere on his person—all in a small cabin at four in the morning. Not exactly where I thought I would find myself. I should be in bed sleeping, and was more than a little annoyed that Jared had got me into this mess, though I was glad I was here for Willie’s sake, even though he might not agree.

  “What are you two doing here? Can’t you just leave my family alone?” said Shelia, seeming irritated that we s
howed up, though seemingly not surprised.

  “Shelia, I would love nothing more than to leave your family alone, but first you have to give me the gun.”

  “Ha!” She snorted. “Speaking of guns, I’m sure you have one on you somewhere. How about you put it on the floor and slide it over here to me.”

  Willie reached inside his jacket to his shoulder holster and pulled out his gun, set it on the floor, and nudged it over to Shelia.

  “Is that the only one you have on you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Yes, Sheila, this is the only one.”

  “Shelia, for God’s sake, why are you doing this?” James said.

  Sheila turned her attention from us back to James, which was fine with me, as I didn’t like having a gun pointed at me.

  “Because, James, she had everything that should have been mine. She had you, she had money, and she wasn’t even a real part of the family.”

  Until right that minute we had thought it was Peter who had killed Solange. And, while we knew Sheila had paid Peter to try and get Solange in trouble for smuggling illegal goods, we thought he was trying to double cross her and pin the blame for Solange’s death on her. Instead it now seemed we were way off base.

  “But Sheila, she loved you,” James said. “She was your sister.”

  “Adopted sister. She just loved doing better than me in everything. My life would have been perfect if she hadn’t been around.”

  “You are so crazy. She never did anything intentionally to hurt you,” James said.

  “Don’t call me crazy!” Shelia screamed. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “That bitch had the audacity to try and have a relationship with my daughter. The one thing I could do she couldn’t, so she had to take over.”

  “Solange didn’t try to have a relationship with Amber just because she couldn’t have children and wanted to take the pleasure of being a mother away from you,” James said. “She pleaded with you several times to meet with Amber and get to know her. You could have had that, too, Shelia. You’re the one who kept turning Amber away.”

  “Because Solange already beat me to her. I was tired of always being second to that bitch. Everyone liked her better.”

  Our childhood fears and thoughts always seemed to follow us. I almost felt bad for Sheila that she was still bitter over things that had happened twenty or more years ago.

  “You are just a selfish, bitter women,” James said

  “She had no place in our family. She had no right taking things that should have been mine.”

  Sheila was more of a loose cannon than I thought.

  “Actually, Sheila, she did,” came a voice from the doorway.

  We all turned. It was Lorraine.

  “Mother, I told you to stay in the car,” said Steven.

  I was glad Lorraine was here—it was about time Shelia knew the truth.

  “What are you talking about, Mother?” Sheila said.

  “Shelia, Solange was your sister,” Lorraine said. “Your half sister.” All of them turned their heads and looked at Lorraine like she was crazy.

  “Are you sure you want to say that?” Sheila said, pointing the gun at her own mother. She was losing it.

  “Sheila, you don’t want to do this,” Willie said. “We can resolve this without violence. You keep waving that gun around, and someone is going to get hurt.”

  “No can do, Detective. This is my assurance.”

  “Sheila, what the hell are you doing?” Steven yelled.

  “I am tired of being treated like a second-class citizen to that bitch.”

  “Oh, Sheila, grow up,” said Lorraine.

  I agreed with the sentiment, but thought maybe she was a little crazy springing this on a woman with a gun, even if it was her daughter. Lorraine just seemed very disappointed, not even really surprised or scared that Sheila had just pulled a gun on us.

  “Put the gun down,” Lorraine continued. “I don’t know what you think you are doing.”

  “Why all of a sudden an interest in what I’m doing? Your precious Solange is dead, and now you have time to pay attention to me?”

  “That’s ridiculous, Sheila. You have got to let this bitterness go. You had just as much opportunity as Solange did. She did nothing to hold you back.”

  “She stole James from me when I was pregnant with his child.”

  “She didn’t steal me, Sheila, I went willingly,” James said. “Get that through your head. It’s been twenty years; get over it.”

  “You’re such a bastard,” Sheila choked out.

  Lorraine inched toward Shelia, who was so upset by James she didn’t notice. What the hell was she trying to do? I looked over at Willie and saw him looking at Lorraine, too. Was Lorraine nuts? Sheila had already pointed a gun at Lorraine and at Steven, so I didn’t think the family card would help. It looked like she was going for it anyway. Just when Sheila seemed to notice her out of the corner of her eye, Lorraine made her move to grab the gun. At the same time, Willie jumped forward into Sheila knocking her down. The gun flew out of her hand. I ran over to get the gun just as the Crivitz police broke down the door.

  “Nobody move,” the officer in charge, yelled. We all froze. I was so happy to see them, though they could have come about five minutes sooner and the situation would have been a lot less stressful.

  Chapter 26

  So let me get this straight, Peter Green was smuggling in ivory necklaces disguised as costume jewelry because Sheila not only paid him, but told him if he got caught he could pin it on Solange, since it would make perfect sense that she would have costume jewelry shipped in?”

  “Yes,” I said excitedly. “He knew her ex-husband, which is how he knew about her and the boutique. He rented a space right next door after looking at the buildings and seeing that he could easily crawl through the heating ducts from one building to another. The guys on his end would somehow intercept her shipments and stick in fake jewelry that contained the ivory. He then would crawl over at night and take the fake ones, go back to his hideaway, break them open and take out the ivory.”

  “And he killed her because in this last shipment there weren’t any ivory necklaces. He thought she had discovered them and took them and sold them for herself,” Willie said.

  “Yep. Little did he know that Solange would have never stooped to that level or been caught dead”—I winced a little at my poor choice of words—“with anything ivory.”

  Willie shook his head. “Peter’s contacts on the other end double-crossed him and didn’t put any ivory in this shipment, thinking, and they were right unfortunately, that he would blame Solange.”

  I never stopped being amazed at the lengths people will go to be dishonest. “But he didn’t kill her, and Sheila realized this was her opportunity to get rid of Solange once and for all.”

  “Sad that twenty years of bitterness did this to her, that she would kill her own sister,” he said.

  “But I thought you said it couldn’t be a woman. That only a man would have the strength to do that.”

  “We were wrong. Clearly, Shelia was fueled by enough anger she was able to do it.”

  I couldn’t help but to feel sad for Mrs. Barker. This had to be such a hard thing to have to deal with.

  Chapter 27

  Are you angry with me?”

  I was more in shock than anything else, and I wanted to be mad, but I couldn’t be. I could completely understand; after all, I still had feelings for Cooper. “I’m not really angry,” I said. “I guess I’m confused. You broke up with her, and you told me it was for sure over. But I guess somewhere deep down I knew after the night we saw her at the street fair.”

  He had the graciousness to look embarrassed. “I swear, I didn’t lie. I thought it was over. There were things we just never could see eye to eye on, and I felt when I broke up with her, it was the right thing to do. But when I saw her at the street fair, I realized I still had feelings, strong feelings, for her. I like you, Presley. A lot. But I have
a long history with Molly, and I think I owe it to myself to see if we can make it work long-term. I really am sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”