Out of the Past: A Reed Ferguson Mystery Part 14

Willie patted Ace's arm. "What he means is that this guy will think you're Reed, and since I'm Reed's girlfriend, he won't want to hurt me."

"Oh, okay." Ace nodded, but I could tell he still wasn't quite sure.

"Anyway," I continued. "This guy should follow you. I'll have you drive south, keeping him occupied for a good long time. And once he goes after you, Cal is going to pick me up and we'll head up to Westminster and bug his house."

"You really think this will work?" Willie asked.

I laughed wryly. "Trust me, these guys are not pros."

Willie tucked her hair behind her ears. "And so the first thing I do is find out what car this guy is driving?"

"Yes. He borrowed the black Toyota to follow me the last few days, and I overheard him saying he's going to get another car. I can describe him pretty well, and he seems to like his Red Sox baseball cap, so if you walk the neighborhood, you should be able to spot him. Are you up for it?"

Willie scrunched up her lips, thinking. "How dangerous is this guy?"

"Well," I held up a hand. "You know my line of work, and what's happened so far, so anything's possible. If he recognizes you, it would only be from the other day." She looked at me with a blank expression, so similar to how Ace and Deuce did, it was scary. "Remember Sat.u.r.day morning? When I talked to you when Stephanie was here?" She started nodding. "And you thought I would choose her over you?"

"I remember, smart-a.s.s," she said, smiling.

"But tomorrow you'll be innocently taking a walk, which you do a lot anyway, so there's nothing unusual in that. And you'll have your cell phone, so you can call me if anything goes wrong, and Cal will be here, too. But if you stay in public places, you should be fine."

She looked at Ace. He shrugged his shoulders. "I think it sounds kinda fun," he said. "And nothing happened when that guy followed me on Sat.u.r.day."

Willie sighed. "I guess helping you beats worrying about you."

"Great." I grinned.

"So if this guy follows me, what're you going to do?" Ace asked.

"This guy's got a cohort, and Cal and I are going to bug his house."

Now it was Ace's turn to give me a blank stare.

"I'm going to listen to his friend's conversations," I said.

"Oh." Ace nodded slowly, but again, he didn't get what I said. Thank goodness Willie was going to be with him tomorrow...she was definitely the brains for that part of my plan.

"You want us to call and update you?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, let me call you once we're out of the house."

"And why do you want to bug Gilbright's house?" Now she was curious.

"Because he lives with the guy in the baseball cap, and by bugging their house, I might figure out what they want and why they're after Stephanie."

"And Cal's helping you bug their house," Willie said.

I nodded. "Yeah, can you believe he researched bugs? He secretly loves helping me." Willie laughed. "Anyway, let me grab a few things and then we'll leave," I said.

Willie and Ace chatted while I went into the bedroom and packed an overnight bag. Then I went into the office, reloaded the Glock, and returned to the living room.

"Here are spare keys to the condo and 4-Runner." I handed Ace a set of keys. "Make yourself comfortable. There are clean sheets on the bed, and fresh towels in the bathroom." I showed him how to operate the TV remote and then Willie and I left.

"You know what the best part of this plan is?" Willie asked as we went down the stairs and across the street to her place.

"What?"

"I finally get to spend some time with you."

"I'll second that," I said.

It was the first night I'd spend at her place, but I didn't notice much as we spent most of the time in her bedroom. And for a few hours I didn't think about Forrest McMahon, or Stephanie, or the case. And Willie was right: it was the best part of my plan.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

At exactly ten o'clock the next morning, Cal and I were sitting in his Honda Civic in a neighborhood off of 104th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Westminster. So far, my plan had gone off without a hitch. Willie had spotted Baseball Cap parked in a gold Lexus near my building, where he could see both the stairs to my unit and the garage around back. Ace had done his job perfectly, fooling Baseball Cap into thinking he was me. He'd taken the 4-Runner, driven it around front, and picked up Willie, and the Lexus had followed them. A minute later, Cal and I had headed up north, he in his Honda, I following him in Willie's Mazda CX-5. When we arrived in Gilbright's neighborhood, I left the Mazda around the corner and joined Cal. I figured we had at least a few hours before Baseball Cap figured out he'd been fooled.

"What do I say if someone answers the door?" Cal asked as we watched Bennett Gilbright's house.

"Say you made a mistake," I said. "Then hightail it back to the car. They're not going to do anything about someone who rang their bell by accident. If no one answers, signal me and I'll join you. Then I'll keep an eye out while you pick the lock."

"And what if they have an alarm?"

"If it goes off, we run like h.e.l.l," I said.

"Great," Cal muttered. He got out and walked down the street, then headed up the walk to Bennett Gilbright's house. He rang the bell and waited, then rang it again. Then he turned around and looked down the street toward me. I got out and hurried after him.

"Thank G.o.d they shoveled," I said as I walked up the sidewalk to the door. A few inches of snow had blanketed the city overnight, and even though the sun was a bright fiery ball in a cloudless blue sky, it was still too cold for the snow to melt.

"Yeah, I didn't wear boots."

I stared at Cal. "I'm not worried about your feet. If they hadn't shoveled, we'd leave footprints, and that might tip them off and they'd know someone broke in."

"Oh," Cal said sheepishly.

I shook my head. Brains, but no common sense. I stood in front of him as he pulled his lock picking tools from his coat pocket.

"Anyone around?" he asked.

I checked. "No. Hurry up."

"Don't rush me."

It was funny. He's telling me to not rush him, but by the time he'd said that, the locks were picked.

"We're in," he whispered. "Here goes."

He turned the k.n.o.b and opened the door. We both waited for some kind of shrill alarm, but nothing happened. I nodded and we slipped inside.

We stood in a small foyer, looked around and listened. To the left was a living room, to the right, an office, and directly in front were stairs leading to the second floor. And all was quiet.

"Let's make sure there's not a silent alarm," I whispered.

He nodded and we walked down a short hall to a kitchen. Cal scoped it out and I turned right, to a laundry room and garage exit. A small rectangular box was near the door. It was an alarm system, but it was turned off.

I strode back to the kitchen. "We're okay," I said. "The alarm's not set."

"Good." Cal glanced around. "I don't see a land-line phone. Too bad. It'd be easiest to put a bug near a phone. Okay, let's put a bug here and in the office." He pulled a small bag from his pocket and pulled out a tiny device. He studied the room, then decided to place the bug on the underside of a round table in a small nook off the kitchen. "This will catch conversation here, but the bug is pretty powerful so it should pick up conversation from the kitchen as well."

"I'll take your word," I said. "What about in there?" I pointed to a den across from the kitchen.

"I'm getting there."

We stepped down a single step into a comfortable room with a large stone fireplace, a sectional couch, loveseat, coffee table and a gargantuan flat-screen TV with games and a DVD player hooked up to it. Cal took out another bug and stuck it underneath the coffee table. "That should be good. Let's go to the office."

We went back down the hallway to the office where Cal put another bug on the underside of the desk. An oak desk sat facing the room, and a bookcase in the corner had a few pictures on it, but nothing else. On the desk was a laptop and a desk lamp. Cal sat down in a leather office chair and opened the laptop.

"Nice," he murmured as he typed on the keyboard. "Pa.s.sword-protected. Want me to crack it?"

"Quit fooling around," I said. "We don't have time for that. Should we put some bugs upstairs?"

He grinned. "I was just kidding."

"Come on."

He closed the laptop, then pushed himself out of the chair. "All right, don't rush me."

We sneaked up the stairs. There was a decent-sized landing that looked down onto the foyer, and open doors led to three bedrooms. One had an exercise bike and weight set in it. Another had an oak bedroom set, a queen-sized bed with blue comforter, and a small desk with another laptop. The master was spa.r.s.ely filled, with a king-sized bed, a large flat-screen TV on a dresser, and nothing else.

I raised an eyebrow. "Put a bug in each bedroom?"

Cal nodded. I waited while he popped into the smaller room. I stood to the side of the door and when he emerged, I tapped his shoulder.

He let out a high-pitched squeak, then punched me in the arm. "Don't do that!" he said through gritted teeth. His face flushed red.

"Sorry. I was trying to relieve the tension."

He fought not to grin at me. "If only your clients could see your professionalism. Okay, now the master bedroom."

"Great " I paused. "What was that?"

Cal stood still and listened.

"The garage door!" he hissed. His face color changed from red to white in a flash. "What do we do?"

I held up a hand and he clamped his jaw shut. I pushed him to the wall and tiptoed to the rail, listening. The door from the garage opened, voices sounded, and the door slammed shut.

"How could you get fooled like that?" I recognized the voice as Bennett Gilbright, and he was fuming.

"Hey, you weren't there." That from Baseball Cap. "The guy who walked down from Reed's condo looked like Reed."

"But it obviously wasn't him, was it now, Aiden," Bennett said. They had moved into the kitchen.

"I know that now," Aiden said, sarcasm dripping off every word. "The guy picked up the girl who lives across the street and they drove south to the Tech Center. It wasn't until I saw them stop for gas that I realized it wasn't Reed. That's when I called you."

"Where the h.e.l.l did he go?" Bennett asked.

"How should I know?"

As Aiden and Bennett continued arguing, I glanced over at Cal. He was breathing in short gasps and I wondered if he was having a heart attack.

Aiden spoke again. "So now what?"

They moved into the den and the television came on. A few moments later, the sounds of simulated gunfire drifted up to us. They were playing a video game.

"Let's go," I mouthed at Cal.

He shook his head vigorously.

I leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "You want to stay here?"

He shook his head again.

"Then let's go."

I had to tug his arm to get him to move.

"We'll get caught," he whispered.

"We don't have a choice. Follow me."

I crept to the top of the stairs and listened. An "Oh!" came, and then "I got you!" They were getting into the game.

I waved at Cal as I eased down the stairs. He followed slowly. We stole to the bottom of the stairs and stopped in the foyer. I heard Bennett's voice, sounding louder.

"What do you want?" he asked.

I froze. Nearby I could feel Cal's fear, like electricity buzzing.

"Gimme a c.o.ke," Aiden said.

Noises of the refrigerator door opening and closing sounded over the video game, then footsteps and soda cans opening.