Thirty-Two and a Half Complications (27 page)

Neely Kate leaned her hand on the counter. “I want a banana split and a hot fudge sundae.” She looked back at me. “What do you want, Rose?”

“Um…a small Sprite.” Ice cream didn’t seem like the best idea right now.

Eric filled our order and I struggled with how to get answers from him. Neely Kate, on the other hand, seemed to be a pro. Maybe this was why she knew so much about everything.

“Eric, you look so familiar. Didn’t you go to Eastern Fenton County High School? You graduated four years ago?”

He shook his head. “I’m from Magnolia. I moved here a couple of years ago.”

“You’re really good at your job. No wonder they pulled you down here to work.”

He laughed. “Oh, no. I came down to work in the garage north of town. Then they laid off a bunch of mechanics and I was stuck.”

“That must be where I saw you!” she squealed. “When I took my car out to Weston’s Garage. My car never ran better than after you worked on it.”

He beamed.

“So what are you doing
here
?”

He smile fell. “There aren’t many mechanic’s jobs around here.”

“Why not move back to Magnolia and work there?” Neely Kate leaned closer. “Only be sure to let me know what garage you end up at so I can be sure to bring my car to ya.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got a girl here. We’re getting married, and she doesn’t want to move away.” He spread out his hands. “So I’ll just keep being the assistant manager of the Burger Shack until I can find something else. But not to worry, I’ve got something promising on the horizon.”

We took Neely Kate’s ice cream and my drink to a table by the window and Neely Kate scooped out a huge bite from her banana split. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He obviously needs the money, but does he really seem like the bank robber type?”

“No, Moose fits the bill more than he does.”

“Agreed.”

We sat in silence for several minutes until I saw a car streak by.

“My word, Neely Kate! Did you see that car? It’s the gold Charger!”

She was out of her seat faster than I’d expected, throwing out what was left of her banana split but keeping her sundae.

Though I’d barely put a dent in my drink, mostly because of my stomach, I threw mine away too and ran out the door behind her. As soon as I had my door shut, she was peeling out of the parking lot and heading in the direction in which the car had disappeared.

“Neely Kate, what are we going to do if we catch up to it?”

“Let’s just find it first and then decide.”

My stomach seized when we saw the brake lights of the car at a stop sign. Neely Kate pulled up behind it and I tried to peer through the back window.

“I can’t see who’s in there.”

“Should I pull up alongside the car so we can look in?”

“No! What if one of the bank robbers is in there and he recognizes me?”

“So what do we do?” she asked as the car started to pull away.

“Get the license plate number. Follow it but not close.”

We had to wait for two cars to go through the stop sign before we could get through the intersection. The road forked a half mile down the road. The right fork went into town but the left fork headed to an abandoned plant. We saw the car disappear down the road to the left.

“It’s the old fertilizer plant,” Neely Kate said. “What are they doing
here
?” She pulled to the side of the road and we watched the Charger pull around the side of the building.

“I don’t know, but we can’t go back there. They’ll see us.”

“But if we—”

“
No
.” I sounded harsher than I’d intended, but it scared me how tempted I was to let her follow them, no matter how great the danger. “Neely Kate, they killed Mr. Sullivan and obviously stole his car. It’s not just us we need to think about. You’re pregnant. You have to consider your baby.”

She gripped the steering wheel and nodded.

“Let’s park across the street at the gas station and wait for them to leave so we can get their license plate number. Then I’ll give it to Mason.”

She groaned. “Since when did you become the voice of reason? That’s my job.”

I rolled my eyes and squeezed her arm. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me…and I’m rubbing off on you.”

Laughing, she made a U-turn and parked in the gas station parking lot, the car’s windshield facing the road. We stood watch for several minutes before Neely Kate released a groan. “I need to find the bathroom.”

I looked down at the melting sundae in the cup holder in the console. “Now?”

“I can’t wait. You sit in the driver’s seat so you can follow them and get their plate number if they leave.”

“I can’t leave—”

She bolted out of the car before I could finish my sentence. I got out and walked around to the driver’s side, then pulled out my phone and checked it for a message from Mason. Instead I found a text from Joe.

I WILL arrest you for obstruction of justice if I find you investigating this case.

Watching for a car to get its license plate wasn’t investigating, was it? I was just being a good citizen. Once I got the number, I was definitely going to give it to Mason.

Neely Kate took longer than usual. She walked toward the car, her face pale, a hand on her stomach. She slid into the passenger seat and groaned. “Next time I decide to mix hot wings and ice cream, smack me upside the head.”

I chuckled. “Deal.”

Moments later, we saw movement by the empty plant. Dust filled the air and the Charger zoomed past us.

“I’m going to follow it for just long enough to get the plate number,” I said, starting the engine.

“Okay.” Neely Kate started to dig a pen out of her purse.

The Charger stopped at the end of the road, then turned toward town. I was about to follow it when two more vehicles emerged from the plant. A black pickup turned in the opposite direction from the Charger, and I recognized the long scratch down its side.

“Neely Kate! I’ve seen that truck before! It turned down the road toward the farm where I found the body. I saw it the day after the robbery.”

“Are you serious?”

“Which one do I follow?”

“I don’t know. Uh…the Charger. Best that we don’t follow the murderers. We’ll just stick to car thieves.”

And bank robbers, but that one seemed a given at this point. “Okay.” I turned right and went after it, but it sped up to beat an oncoming train, crossing the tracks only seconds before the bars went down.

I pulled the car to a stop. “Please tell me you got the license number.”

“No. Sorry.”

“Why was it speeding? Do you think they knew we were following them?” I hated to think of what they might do if they did.

“I don’t know.” She sounded worried. “Maybe they’re just thrill seekers.”

“Maybe.” But now we had nothing to show for our stakeout. Or did we? “I’m going back to that plant.”

She sat up straighter. “What?”

“Maybe we can see what they were up to. It should be safe. We saw them leave.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

I released a nervous laugh. “Weren’t you supposed to be the voice of reason?”

“I barfed on a guy in a bar. I think we’re long past that.”

I made a U-turn and steered Neely Kate’s car down the cracked asphalt road to the dilapidated fertilizer plant. It was comprised of several buildings connected with large metal pipes that stretched a good fifteen feet over the road between the structures. Several smaller buildings were scattered around the larger ones, and the entire property was surrounded by a chain-link fence that was busted in multiple places. But the road to the plant was wide open.

“My uncle used to work here,” Neely Kate said as we approached the abandoned site. “It used to be
the
place to work in Fenton County.”

“A stinky fertilizer plant?”

“They paid well.”

It may have been the place to work years ago, but now it was a real eyesore and the town had talked about tearing it down. Teens liked to come out there to party late at night, climbing around the big pipes and getting into trouble. I was worried about what we’d find. But when we followed the path where the car had turned, there were no signs that anyone besides us was currently present.

As I drove slowly down the road between two buildings, a now-familiar smell hit me. “This is it, Neely Kate. The smell I noticed on Mick and in my vision.”

“A rusty, earthy smell? You’re right.”

“Now what?” I asked, slowing down. “Do we get out and walk around?”

“I don’t know. Let’s drive around first.”

“Okay.”

We circled the entire complex once with no sign of anything untoward.

“Let’s drive around one more time,” Neely Kate said. “And if we don’t see anything worth investigatin’, you can tell Mason and let him sort it out.”

“Good idea.”

I started our second sweep, driving slower, and Neely Kate gasped when I was about halfway through.

“Rose, your vision—you saw a paned window with Y-shaped crack, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Like that?” She pointed to the structure on her side. A small office with paned windows on one wall jutted out from the side of the larger building. There was a Y-shaped crack in the bottom pane.

“Oh, my word,” I gasped. “That’s it.”

“Nobody’s here. Let’s check it out.”

I parked the car and we got out and walked slowly to the door. Neely Kate reached it first, but I pushed her back. “Neely Kate, let me go first.” No need for
her
to walk headlong into possible danger.

She started to protest, but I pushed past her and tried the doorknob. I wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. The room was dark and empty, and the floor was littered with beer cans and bottles and cigarette butts. When I turned and faced the window, a chill shot down my spine.

“This is it. This is the room from my vision.” I was standing in the exact same spot where I’d been in the vision.

“So…?” she asked, spinning around to take in the room. “They meet here?”

“I guess so. It makes sense. This whole area’s deserted, so they’d go unnoticed.”

“What do you think they do when they get together? Discuss the next place they’re gonna rob?”

“I don’t know.” I walked around the perimeter of the room. We had found where they met, but what good did it do us? I could tell Mason, but wouldn’t the police wonder how he knew? At least he could call in an anonymous tip. “I have four days to get my money back,” I sighed. “And we have more questions than answers.”

“At least it’s something.”

“But it’s not enough.”

Neely Kate’s cell phone rang and I jumped, feeling nervous even though nothing ominous was happening at the moment.

She glanced at her phone and groaned. “Hey, Granny,” she said when she answered. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “No, Granny. I don’t remember agreeing to go to Bingo tonight. I already have other plans.” More silence, and then she shook her head, her mouth puckered into a frown. “Fine. Be ready at six.” Another pause. “Love you too. Bye.”

“Bingo night
again
?”

“She loves it, what can I say? I only wish she could get one of my cousins to take her.” She gave the room one last look. “Okay, let’s go. I need to at least
try
to make Ronnie dinner before I pick her up. I have yet to make it through cooking an entire meal without barfing.”

“Yeah, I’m eager to get home to Mason.”

“Still no call, huh?”

“No.”

We started to leave the room when I noticed a folded piece of paper on the floor, partially hidden by a crushed beer can. Neely Kate made it outside before she realized I wasn’t behind her. She whirled around, standing in the doorway. “Rose?” Noticing the paper in my hand, she walked back toward me. “What is that?”

I unfolded the stained and dirty sheet, surprised to see that it was some sort of chart. A table of about fifty rectangles filled the page, each filled with what appeared to be random handwritten numbers. While the paper seemed to be a copy, some of the boxes were circled with blue ink. Unable to make heads or tails of it, I handed it to my friend. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“It kind of looks like a giant Sudoku puzzle, only the circled numbers are twenty-nine, two hundred and eighty nine, twenty-four, and one.”

“I’ll give it to Mason to see if he can figure it out.”

We drove home in silence, as all the excitement and worry of the day had me exhausted. I was in desperate need of a nap and given Neely Kate’s hormones, I suspected she was too. When we pulled down my driveway, the absence of Mason’s car in front of the house was like a kick in the gut.

“Don’t worry,” Neely Kate said, patting my hand, then handing me my Big Bill’s container. “He probably had to go to his office at the courthouse.”

The thought of the food inside the Styrofoam made my stomach revolt. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Are you okay out here alone?”

I turned to her in surprise. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Do you want me to actually
list
the reasons?”

I laughed. “I’m fine. Have fun at Bingo.”

She leaned across the seat as I got out. “Say, you don’t want to go with us, do you? Your visions might come in handy.”

I groaned. “After what I saw earlier, I never want to force a vision again.”

She watched me climb the porch steps and when I had the front door unlocked, I waved and pushed it open. Muffy ran through the threshold, jumping up on my legs with her tail wagging as Neely Kate drove away.

“Where’s Mason, Muff? Did he go to work?”

Rather than answering, she scampered down the steps and starting racing in figure eights in the front yard. I didn’t blame her. She’d been cooped up inside all day. The air was cooling off, so I put the wings in the refrigerator and grabbed a blanket to take to the porch. Muffy needed to run around and let off some energy so I knew I’d be outside for a bit. I sat in a chair and covered my front with the blanket, watching my little dog run around. I felt bad about leaving her all day, especially since Mason had left her too. Where was he? But I was too exhausted to think about it, so I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the chair.