Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sam and Jess worked the case until he needed a bottle of aspirin to keep his head-pounding ‘Olive’s’ in check.
Jess pulled out the leather pants, which led to some chasing around the house until he caught her and worked her out of the skin tight outfit and had his way with her. This tamped down the headache for about an hour until duty called and they were back to the case.
They were both sick and tired of one dead end after another as they followed lead after lead in the car, driving around the city and beyond. It was like Olive and Albert were figments of their imaginations.
How could they hide so well? “We’re missing something.”
Jess looked up from the file. Spike sniffed her ear from the back seat. She rubbed his face. “I agree. Ever since the vet called, there is something bothering me, but I can’t get a fix on it. It has something to do with that medication.”
He looked down at his laptop. “We’ve checked. Neither Olive or Albert have heart conditions.”
“I know. But Spike didn’t find the prescription medication by himself. He was with me.” She reached for the last breadstick that came with the pizza order. “If only he could talk.”
The dog’s big head lifted off his foot. Sam reached down to rub the goofy mug. Once they figured out how to coexist without Spike eating his things, he’d softened to the dog. A little. The mutt still slobbered all over his SUV. Cleaning that mess up was a bitch.
However, Jess and Spike were a team. He’d have to take both, or neither. He was still weighing his options.
His eyes took her in and his heart hitched. She was deep in thought and frowning. He cared about her. That was a given. He liked having Jess in his bed and his life. He just wasn’t sure how far he wanted it to go.
Was he ready for a forever? They didn’t know each other that well. He’d come close once to taking a leap into forever before and was kicked in the nuts. Was he ready to take another chance at love?
“Can you please hand me the photo of Irving and Albert.” He shifted through the papers and found the printout. She took it and scanned the page.
“You got something?”
“I’m not sure.” She held up the magnifier they’d swiped from Brash and began a slow sweep over the page. “The solution is right here in our files. I know it is.”
Leaving a reply unsaid, he knew the connections in her brain where working the puzzle. He didn’t want to interrupt. Not when they were very close to solving the case.
If anyone could make the dots come together it was her.
“Huh.” She adjusted the page, took another look, and closed her eyes. “Where have I seen that before?”
Jess was talking to herself. “Where? Where? Where?”
Minutes passed and he was sure she’d lapsed into a Calvin-like trance; without the humming and rocking. Thankfully, she was still breathing. Then, slowly, her eyes opened and surprise lit her lavender eyes. “I can’t believe this. I know where Albert is.”
* * *
Had Jess been an “OMG” kind of person, she’d be going wild. Instead, the light bulb moment was expressed with a shocked look of surprise as she locked on to Sam’s eyes. All this time and Albert had been right under their noses. How had she not seen it?
“The man at the motel in the wheelchair,” she stated flatly and wondered how she could have missed putting the Albert and the senior with the phone together. “He’d been fumbling with his phone when I walked to Olive’s room. Later when the crime techs were there, I don’t remember seeing him outside. A normal person would have come out to gawk at the chaos. It’s human nature.”
Sam stared as she spoke in a rush. When she took a breath, he jumped in. “What man?”
“We thought the clerk alerted Olive to my presence despite the fact that he denied it. When I went to the room, Albert was there on the sidewalk. He nodded when I passed.”
“Are you sure?” Hope filled his expression. “You couldn’t have had much of a look.”
“I’m positive.” She handed him the photo and the magnifier. “Look at Albert’s hand. See how his left thumb is bent. My cousin had the same thing when he was a kid. Surgery corrected it.” She paused. “Albert has an uncorrected trigger thumb. The man in the wheelchair has the same thing. It showed when he was playing with his phone. I just didn’t lock on to the clue at the time.”
“I’ll be damned.” Sam called for a warrant and impatiently waited for it to come through. Since Olive was armed and dangerous, a judge signed off.
With Spike in the back for guard duty, they took Jess’s SUV to the motel. The door to 110 had been fixed with an equally cheap quality replacement. But that wasn’t the room that drew her attention as they headed toward the motel office. There was no sign of Albert sitting outside.
The clerk groaned when Jess busted through the door with Sam on her tail.
“I haven’t seen her in two days,” he said, then realized they knew he’d continued harboring a fugitive and whined, “She has those eyes that suck you in. I can’t say no.”
“Where is she now?” Sam said and leaned over the counter. The clerk took two big steps back.
“I don’t know.”
The detective wasn’t about to put up with any more lies. He slapped the countertop. “Give me the key to room 106.”
Taken aback, the clerk froze. “She’s in 110.”
“And her grandfather is in 106,” Sam growled. “Give me the fucking key or I’m going to charge you with so many crimes that you’re going to be sucking soup through a straw before you get out of prison.”
The threat brought the desired action. Olive with the eyes wasn’t worth incarceration well into the next decade. The man reached under the desk, fumbled around, and came up with a worn key card. He tossed it onto the counter, afraid to get within ass-whooping range of the angry Wheeler.
“If I so much as think you’ve reached for your phone to warn them, I’m coming back and beating the shit out of you,” Sam said. The clerk nodded with a gulp and scampered off into the back room, slamming the door behind him.
Jess was impressed. They’d gotten the key without bloodshed. She’d save that for when they got ahold of Olive.
“You have to promise not to shoot, Taser, or Mace Olive unless under direct threat,” Sam said as they pushed out the door and hung a left. “The city has rules.”
“You’re no fun.” At his glare, she nodded. “Fine. But if she twitches, I’m giving her a chemical facial.”
* * *
Knowing Jess as he did, keeping her reined-in would be impossible. She was ready to pound Olive. However, if pepper spraying the sniper rather than full-on murder would keep Jess from serving twenty to life, he’d be okay with that.
“Deal.”
They both had their hands on their guns as they stood on either side of 106. Jess knocked. “Room service.”
No explosion. No shots.
Sam slipped the key card into the lock. It took a couple of tries to get the worn magnetic code to read and unlock the door.
The room was empty. However, there were clear signs that Albert was coming back.
There was junk everywhere.
“At least they haven’t moved out,” Jess said and stepped over the threshold. She looked around. “And I found where Olive keeps her girly stuff.” She lifted a dress off the bed. It was a bright floral. “It’s not very stylish, but at least she wears something other than camo and hoodies.”
Loud music thumped, rattling the walls, and sending Sam and Jess to the open door to investigate the source. A familiar black car with gray smoke spewing from the tailpipe rolled past. The male passenger was old, wearing sunglasses, and his graying head bobbed along to the beat.
Gangsta’ Grandpa.
A gnarled middle finger went up as the car lurched past.
“Are you kidding me?” Jess ran to the SUV where Spike was slobbering and barking like a rabid wolf. Sam jumped in as the car hit the street and took off.
Sam flicked on the blue overhead lights and followed.
The SUV was on the piece of shit car before it could make a right, away from the highway. That didn’t stop Olive, despite having a SUV driven by a pissed off detective up her ass.
“Where in the hell is she going?” Jess called out over the sound of barking as Olive whipped left and right from one street to another like she thought she could lose them. Olive sideswiped a parked truck, righted the car, and kept going. “There isn’t much out here.”
They’d left civilization after the first half mile. An occasional subdivision dotting the landscape and a farm with a big white barn stood close to the road. Otherwise, nothing.
After about ten minutes of Sam bearing down on the car, hoping to spook her, Olive took a hard left into a county park. She blew past the ranger in the booth. The guy came out and shook a fist. He jumped back inside the small brown building as Sam raced past him, lights flashing.
“She’s trying to lose us,” Sam said. Olive came to a fork in the road and went right.
“She can’t honestly think that’ll work?”
Olive took a curve in a squeal of tires and vanished. Sam hit the gas. They rounded the curve. The black car was stopped in the middle of the road, Jess shouted, “Watch out!”
Sam swore and braced for impact.
* * *
The SUV clipped the back bumper when Sam jerked the steering wheel to a hard left. It spun Olive’s car around and into a small tree. Sam’s SUV lurched into a ditch and he and Jess got a face full of airbags.
When the dust settled, Jess yelled, “Are you okay?”
He nodded while trying to get the bag out of his line of vision. His nose felt a little out of joint, but it wouldn’t be the first time. It had been straightened out twice.
“Your face is screwed up,” she said.
“I’m fine. Go!”
She had to get her seatbelt off around the deflated bag and then she was gone. Sam heard shouting as he worked to extricate himself from the SUV with a trio of sharp kicks. The door popped open at last.
There were two paths heading into the woods. Somehow, Albert had made it out of the car and was hoofing it in one direction with the aid of a walker and Olive was running down the other path with a determined Jess trying to catch up with her.
Shit! The overwhelming desire to back-up Jess warred with the need to get hold of Albert.
The sound of a car spun him around. A mini-van screeched to a halt sideways on the road and Calvin jumped out before a short middle-aged woman in curlers and a quilted bathrobe got the car into park and followed him.
Behind them, a foursome of ladies Sam sort-of recognized as the neighborhood Calvin watch brigade scrambled from the van. Most of them were older, though one was the hot mom from two doors down.
How in the hell did they find him and Jess?
Calvin ran over, his loin cloth flapping against his muscled thighs. “Let us help.”
For the first time since meeting Calvin, he was happy to see him, loin cloth and all.
The gaggle of female crime fighters filled in behind him. Sam pointed toward Albert, who was making decent time through the woods for a man of his advanced years.
“Catch him!”
There was no hesitation. Calvin took off, the women right on his sandal-covered heels. Sam spun and ran for the other trail, almost getting knocked down by a large furry body. In the commotion, he’d forgotten the dog was in the SUV.
Calling him back was a waste of time, as the dog was intent on going after the women. He could only hope that they were not going off road. With a head start, and thick underbrush, finding them could be tricky.
The dog vanished ahead. Sam did his best to keep up. Having an injured nose didn’t help. Running required breathing. He only had half of that going on.
He made it about four hundred yards when a scream permeated the dense woods.