“Maybe not. But I do know you’ll have a better chance of keeping your job if we get back to work.” He rolled over and got up, then extended his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s get dressed so we can visit your father’s feed store.”
“Now?”
“Why not? It’s dark and I happen to know that none of the local police are on duty. Perfect time for a break-in.”
As she let him pull her to her feet, she said, “We don’t have to break in.”
“We don’t?”
“No.” After closing the curtains and turning on the lights, she retrieved her purse. Then she fished out the key she’d dropped in her coin pouch earlier and held it up. “I’ve got this.”
“That’s for the feed store?”
“According to the neat little label that was above it, yes. Fortunately, my stepfather’s very particular about his things. His spare keys are neatly organized and readily available, provided you have access to his house, of course.” She smiled broadly. “It was right there, hanging inside a cupboard in my mother’s kitchen, exactly where it used to be when I was living at home. I grabbed it while she was heating up my dinner, and she never had a clue.”
Rod gave her bottom a pat. “Way to go, champ. See? This isn’t over yet.”
26
Leonard’s hand shook with eagerness and anxiety as he sat in his truck and dialed Gary O’Conner’s cell phone. He knew Gary couldn’t be happy with him. In his determination to ruin Sophia, he’d gotten impatient and possibly a little overzealous and flung some mud at Gary in the process, but this was the perfect way to repair their relationship.
The phone rang several times before transferring to voice mail. Was Gary already asleep? He had to get up at five every morning to open the store at six. The ranchers depended on those early hours; that was when they rented most of the farm equipment, which meant Gary went to bed early….
Hanging up without leaving a message, Leonard checked the clock on the dashboard. It was ten-thirty. Did he dare call Gary’s house? He had to tell him that Sophia was on her way to the feed store.
A car came down the street and turned into the tiny brown house on the corner, but Leonard wasn’t worried about being seen. The moment he’d realized that Sophia and Rod would be leaving, he’d driven several blocks away, winding deeper into her neighborhood rather than risking a chance encounter on her street or the main roads. He didn’t need to keep Sophia and Rod in view to know where they were going. He’d heard them make their plans.
He tried Gary’s cell phone a second time, got his voice mail again and decided to try his house. Hoping Anne wouldn’t answer—he knew how touchy Gary was about anything that might arouse her curiosity—he waited through three rings. He was about to give up when he finally heard a man’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Gary?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s me, Leonard.”
“Uh, hello, Mac. Hang on a sec, will ya?”
Mac was Gary’s brother who lived somewhere in Texas. Leonard had never met him, but he’d heard Gary talk about him on occasion.
There was some rustling and talking in the background. When Gary spoke again, his voice was low but filled with annoyance. “What do you want? Why are you calling me here?”
Leonard turned off the listening device that’d enabled him to hear Rod and Sophia’s conversation—and the grunting and groaning that had gone on before. Who would’ve guessed Bordertown’s straitlaced chief of police could be so hot, he thought with a pang of jealousy. “I tried your cell. You didn’t pick up.”
“Because it’s nearly eleven o’clock. We were in bed. Did you ever think of that?”
“Sorry, this can’t wait.”
“Sure it can wait, because we’re not speaking to each other anymore,” he said. “What the hell do you think you were doing, flashing that naked picture of Sophia around and telling everyone it was mine? She’s been all over me like flies on shit ever since. And if my wife gets wind of the rumors, so help me—”
“I had to do it,” he interrupted. “I had to get Sophia riled up, make her look bad.”
“Make her look bad? Idiot! You’re making me look bad, too!”
“No, I’m making you look like the luckiest man in the world. There isn’t a guy in town who doesn’t want a piece of that.”
“What about my wife?”
“Calm down. You’re making too big a deal out of it. Anne won’t believe those rumors, anyway. She loves you. Trusts you. Besides, it worked. Neil called tonight. Sophia was just given thirty days’ notice.”
There was a brief pause. “She’s being fired?”
“Sure as the sunrise. And if you give me the support I need to get her job, I promise your life will get a lot easier.”
Gary was too tempted by the money he could make with Sophia out of the equation to hold a grudge over the picture, and Leonard knew it. “That’s something,” he mumbled.
“Exactly what we’ve been hoping for, buddy.”
“So that’s it? That’s why you called? To let me know?”
“No, that could’ve waited until morning.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“Sophia’s on her way to the feed store. Somehow Rod visited the safe house and saw your phone number. They’re trying to figure out why it was there.”
“Oh, God. That’s what she was looking for.”
“When?”
“Earlier, here at the house. I caught her in my office.”
“I heard her say something about that, too. She found your gun. So if it’s any danger to you, you might want to make it disappear while you still can.”
“I already knew she found my gun, but where did you get the information? How did you ‘hear’ it?”
“That’s none of your business. I’m doing what you pay me to do. That’s all you need to know.”
“And now you’re telling me she’s on her way to the feed store.”
“That’s right. She’s trying to uncover your link to the safe house, like I said. Bruce’s bastard is with her.”
“Son of a bitch! What now?”
“What do you mean, ‘what now’? Isn’t it clear? You have to stop her.”
“How? If she already knows I’m connected to the safe house, keeping her from searching the store won’t solve the problem.”