Chapter Twenty-One
“Stealing Government property? What the hell?” Sky tugged on the cuffs that bit into her skin.
Both crimes against her were bullshit. Sky might be guilty of breaking and entering as well as removing evidence without signing it out, but she certainly hadn’t stolen anything. All she’d done was enter a stupid tool shed. Okay, it was with a lifted key card. That was the truth, but the Chief didn’t believe her.
Lapahe’s face remained hard, cold, and unfeeling. What had she ever done to him?
“Tell me exactly what I theoretically stole.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it. You’re a suspect now.”
Suspect? She stood as straight as possible. “That’s not fair. I have a right to know what I’m accused of stealing and you know it.” She shouldn’t have rubbed the law in his face.
“We need to process you.” He flipped her around and waved a hand as if he was swatting a bug.
Kicking the desk would have helped her emotionally but wouldn’t have aided her case. “You can’t do this to me.”
“You want to bet?” He led her to the holding cells and undid her cuffs. Lapahe stuck out his bulbous chest as if he’d succeeded in nabbing someone on the Most Wanted list.
Talk about embarrassing. She’d been in cuffs—in uniform! Luck intervened because the cell area was vacant. What hurt the most was that her own boss didn’t believe her mostly true story. “I want my one call.”
“I can arrange that.” He almost sounded happy he’d tossed her in jail.
She wanted her one call to be to Kane, but Mr. Honest would say he’d been at the Base with her, and that would land him in jail too. Clearly, they wanted to get her off the case, whoever they were. Apparently, she was close to exposing their secret, and they weren’t happy about it. Aliens or alien technology had to be involved or the government wouldn’t have been so paranoid.
Instead of contacting Kane or her father, she called the only defense attorney in town, which seemed like the smartest choice at the moment. She could have looked up a name in neighboring Page, but she doubted they’d let her surf the net for his number.
Three hours later, Harvey showed up with keys in hand. “Your lawyer will see you in the interrogation room.” He didn’t smile or act as if he cared that one of Savory’s finest was in trouble.
“Great. Does my dad know I’m here?” Since her father was on the city council, maybe he’d pull some strings for her, though he’d never had to do that before.
“If you didn’t call him, no.”
Harriet might have. If not her father, Sky bet her friend would have contacted Kane, though she wasn’t sure what he could do. Hell, he was probably still angry with her for putting herself in danger.
He’d better not have decided to go back to the underground base in broad daylight to ask questions. An act like that could get a guy killed, and the thought of Kane being held captive or injured, sent shivers tripping up her spine.
“You okay, Sky? You look, I don’t know, shaky.”
She didn’t believe he really cared. “I’m good.”
She entered the small room containing a table and two chairs that smelled of potato chips and some other foul odor she didn’t dare identify. The department needed Phyllis to come and give the place a good cleaning. Once she was released, she’d make the recommendation.
Her lawyer, Mr. Pritchard, had a pencil thin nose, a chin that barely held his teeth in place, and eyes the size of peas. His suit looked expensive, but she’d never liked him. He represented the scum she arrested, not to mention that she and Pritchard had had run-in’s before. It was ironic that she now had to depend on him to save her.
Mr. Pritchard sat. “I’m sorry I’m late. I was tied up. There’s a lot of case work in town.”
She didn’t buy his story since the criminals would have had to come through the station first, but it wouldn’t serve her cause to accuse her lawyer of lying. Most likely, he was delayed because either Lapahe or the military were grilling Pritchard to see if they’d allow him to take the case, wanting to ensure he’d bend to their will.
As she sat at the rather unsanitary table, Harvey planted himself in the corner. She turned toward her fellow worker. “Come on, Harv. I’m not a flight risk for God’s sake. Let me talk to my lawyer in private.” The man probably never read the law to know she had this right.
“I’ll be outside,” he said to Pritchard. What was stuck up his butt? Maybe he’d asked for the headless man case and the Chief had told him no.
When Harvey’s footsteps receded, she leaned her elbows on the table and clasped her hands. “So how bad is it?” Her teeth nearly cracked from pressing her jaw together so tightly.
“Bad.”
She wanted to have everything out in the open. “I’ll cut to the chase. I did remove the swipe card I’d put in the evidence room. I was in a hurry and just forgot to sign it out. I drove to the factory by myself. I tried the card in a few doors and found it opened a shed door, the width of a two-car garage and maybe twice as long. It was empty. That’s it. I didn’t steal anything.”
He lifted a photo from his front pocket and placed it on the table. It showed a man in a suit standing in front of her house holding the silver pineapple-shaped treasure. “You recognize this?”
“That’s my cone!” Frustration beat anger to the punch.
“So you admit you stole it.”
She slapped the table with her palm. “First off. You’re my attorney. A real one would never ask me that. Furthermore, did I say I stole it?” He dropped his gaze. “Didn’t think so.” She leaned forward. “I was in the caves on the edge of town searching for a missing Senator. It was on the radio for God’s sake. Call Senator Overton, or Kane Cornell, for confirmation. Kane, who’s from Phoenix, will confirm the Senator was missing for a few days, and that I was helping to find him. In the process, I unearthed this treasure. I have a picture of me holding this object taken days ago. It’s on my phone, which is at my desk.”
“You could have stolen the object then taken the shot.”
Her stomach turned raw, and she had to work at getting her mouth to form the words. “Go look at the picture. It’s time stamped. For the record, the cone wasn’t even at my house, so how the hell did this dude find it there?”
“I have no idea.”
“Look, I took this object to Earl Chee to see if he recognized it.”
“That old coot? Why would he know anything about it?” She stared at Pritchard. Surely, he could put two and two together. Pritchard’s mouth opened. “Oh, crap. You think it broke off an alien spaceship?”
“Maybe.”
“You have proof you gave it to Earl?”
“No, but his place was ransacked this morning. They took the cone and something else of his—the fuel cell off a spacecraft engine.”
He shook his head, clearly not believing her story. “Earl will corroborate this?”
“Drive to his house, and you can see for yourself. They beat him up and wrecked his house. I called Phyllis Tucker this morning to help clean up.” She lifted a finger. “Afterward, I asked Harvey to photograph the scene and write up the report.” She forgot to ask him if he’d done what she’d asked. The lazy slug probably hadn’t.
“I’ll check it out.” Pritchard took notes then flipped through some pages. “It says here you had an accomplice when you broke into the factory.”
Not that again. No good could come from giving up Kane. “I went alone.” That wasn’t a lie since she and Kane had driven separately. “I didn’t break into the factory. I entered the shed at the side of the property with the key card.”
“Did you procure a warrant?”
“No. There wouldn’t have been enough for probable cause.”
“I see.” He pulled out the other photo Chief Lapahe had shown her. Kane stood off to her right, but all one could see was a silhouette of a tall man and her face brightly lit by a flashlight. Pritchard tapped the photo. “Who’s that?”
She crossed her arms. “He was there when I arrived.” That also was not a lie.
“If you don’t come clean with me, I’m finished.” Pritchard stood.
“What do you mean you’re finished? We need to find out who’s framing me.”
“It’s your word against theirs about the artifact. As for the B&E, you’ll plead guilty.”
This wasn’t what she expected to hear. Her heart palpitated. “I can’t go to jail.” She pushed back her chair. “Come on, Ted. You’ve known me forever. I’m as upstanding as they come. I was doing my job, investigating a murder, and the clues led me to the factory—a factory that I believe is really a secret underground military base.”
He jerked as if she’d punched him. “You have proof?”
“No, which is why I was there. Only I didn’t see anything.” Kane did, but she wouldn’t break that confidence. “Who’s claiming I stole their property?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“That’s bull. You’re my lawyer. You have to tell me.”
The air seemed to escape his lungs. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth.”
“Do I have to wait until I’m in court to learn who’s out to get me?”
“Perhaps.” He closed his briefcase. His cheeks sagged, and his tilted head told her he seemed to feel sorry for her. “Let me check out the photo of you holding the silver object, and we’ll take it from there.”
“Remember to check the time stamp. Did my accusers say when I stole this object?” She was gaining speed, creating her own case.
“The papers weren’t specific.”
“Well, ask them to be specific. I can prove I had that object in my possession over two weeks ago. Do they have any pictures of the object in their insurance papers to prove they owned it?”
His smile came out weak. “You have a point. Don’t worry. We’ll work this out.”
If not, she’d spend the better part of her life in jail.
Two hours later, Lapahe finally took her back into his office where the light through the Chief’s office window was brighter than the light eking through the bars in the holding cell. The air smelled a hell of a lot fresher too, helping to release the tension squeezing her temples.
He waved the grainy download. “This photo is time stamped, so for now, you’re off the hook for the theft. I wish I’d known you had this sooner.”
She was about to say she wished he’d told her what she’d been accused of stealing a lot sooner too, but she bit back the sarcastic retort. “That’s okay. I didn’t think of it until my lawyer showed me the picture.” She inhaled the clean air and dragged her palms down her pants. “Who was trying to frame me?” She tried to sound casual, but her voice turned raspy.
“The U.S. Government.”
Her chest caved. This was her worst fear. Stopping some crazed maniac was one thing, but taking on the government was an entirely different matter. “Did they say why they targeted me?”
“Sky, please sit.”
Dear God. Her stomach tumbled again. Doing anything wrong tore her apart. “What is it?” His clenched hands implied she wasn’t going to like what he said.
“I’ve suspected for a while there was something funny going on at that perfume factory.”
“Bowl me over with a steamroller.” She wanted to ask why he’d withheld that piece of important information, but maybe he thought it was on a need to know basis.
“I saw no reason to mention my concern until this mess with your B&E came up.” He avoided eye contact this time, but if she’d been in his position, she probably wouldn’t have told her either. He drained the coffee from his mug. “An hour ago, I spoke with someone who works there and learned there were deep ruts in the ground leading behind the factory. These ruts could only have been made by a lot of heavy machinery going back and forth on a day-to-day basis.”
She picked up the paperweight at the edge of his desk and twirled the object in her hands. The cool glass felt good in her palm. “Did these people you spoke to ever see the military come or go or witness any odd happenings at night?” Maybe she could pick up a good piece of intel.
“I checked. The Fleur de Paris is locked tight at six p.m. and no one is allowed back after that time. The factory has a high level of security. Even the people who take care of the flowers have a strict schedule.”
“That aligns with what Mr. LeFloch, the owner, told me. He’s afraid someone will learn his secret formula.”
“Given the plant is in the middle of nowhere, I think that’s a cover.”
“I agree.” The military was a sneaky bunch. “Now what do we do?”
His eyes widened. “You aren’t going to do anything.” She was pretty darn tired of hearing that phrase. “There is still the issue of the B&E and taking evidence from the property room without permission.”
“Come on, Chief. Those are trumped up charges, and we both know it. I forgot to sign it out. I didn’t do it with any intention of breaking the law.” Okay, so she had planned to look inside the factory. “What do they really want from me?”
He tucked his cheek into his mouth. “You won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
“They want to know who you were with the night you were caught sneaking around.” If only they didn’t have that damned photo. “The government doesn’t consider you a threat, but they believe your accomplice is dangerous. They want him.”
Mr. Military-I’m-a-security-guard Kane was dangerous? She was positive her heart was beating so fast, her shirt was moving. “I went there alone.”
“That’s not what I was told. They’re serious, Sky. Deadly serious, if you get my drift.”
Her insides turned soft. If she’d been standing, she wasn’t sure she’d be upright at this point. “I’m sorry to have brought you into this mess.”
He folded his arms over his chest again. Man, did she hate that stance. “If you tell me his name, I’ll drop all charges against you.”
He was resorting to blackmail now? She held up her hands, palms up. “Why won’t you believe me? I drove there with me, myself, and I.”
“So you swear the man who called you doll was a stranger?”
“Absolutely.” She said it with conviction because in reality Kane practically was a stranger. She didn’t know his favorite food, which side of the bed he slept on, or how he liked to make love. He was as much of an enigma to her as she was to him.
“Go home. You’re suspended until I figure out what to do.” His blustery attitude had dampened somewhat. The military clearly had gotten to him. That was a shame, but she wouldn’t throw Kane under the bus. She’d let him decide how to proceed.
“Thanks.” I think.
On her way out, she told Harriet everything—okay, not everything. Not that Kane had been with her. Even though she trusted Harriet more than anyone in world, she didn’t want to put her friend in a position to lie. She contemplated telling her dad the whole truth, but he’d grill her more than the Chief had, and she wasn’t ready for that confrontation until she’d had time to figure out a few things.
Sky kept her voice low and her back to the Chief’s office as she spoke to Harriet. “Did you get a hold of Kane?”
“I called, but he didn’t answer. His cell went straight to voicemail.”
Meaning he’d turned off his phone. “If he stops by or calls, tell him I’m home.”
Sky wasn’t sure if she wanted to lock herself in her house, especially since some military or FBI suit had possibly gone inside, but until she regrouped, she had no place else to go. She thought about seeing how Earl was doing, but if someone followed her there, no telling what they’d do to them. She firmly believed the military had ordered one or two of their snipers to scare her and Earl off after they killed Randall Tyler. Add in trashing Earl’s house and she had to stay away from him before they seriously hurt the old man.
So home it was. The idea of a hot bath and a glass of wine in the middle of the day appealed to her decadent side.
As soon as she arrived, she headed straight to the bathroom, not even wanting to know if the intruders had messed with anything else in her house. She filled the bath with steaming water and then dumped in a ton of lavender salts. The tangy aroma eased her senses, and while she didn’t normally drink at two in the afternoon, she figured a nice glass of Merlot would help calm her frayed nerves.
In the kitchen, she removed the bottle of wine from the rack and was about to get a glass from the cabinet, when the front door clicked open. Her hand stilled, her pulse raced, and her muscles froze. She could have sworn she’d locked the door. The image of two men in black garb trying to either plant something that would incriminate her for real this time, or kidnap her once more, nearly paralyzed her.
Gun. Where was it? Crap. The Chief had confiscated her badge and weapon. Damn, damn, double damn. Her spare was in the glove compartment of her car.