Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (20 page)

“Okay, then jail for the rest of his life,” I said.

“Not done, yet, Stretch. The oldest daughter is sixteen and walks the streets at night to support her daddy, too. How long before all of his girls are working to support his habit?”

“Hang him up by his balls,” I finally admitted.

“I knew if kids were involved, you’d want to fry him.”

Kenny signed out of the chat house and closed his computer.

“There isn’t anything we can do?”

“I’ll see if I can do a work-a-round.”

“A what?”

“I’ll just see what I can do.”

I kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’d appreciate anything you can do to help those kids and their mom.”

“Okay, I’ve got to shower, pick up Shirley, and get her to the airport.”

“Will I see you for dinner?”

“Probably not, I’ve got to set up my new office and I have at least two dozen clients who will want my immediate attention once they know I’m settled in.”

“Okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast?”

“I’m not sure about that, either. I want to beat some of the traffic into the city, so I will probably leave early.”

I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted. “When am I going to see you again?”

Kenny chuckled. “When you move to Gainesville, you’re hardly ever going to see me.”

“That is then and this is now. When am I going to see you again?”

“Thursday night?”

“Okay, I guess I can live without you until then,” I said, although I wasn’t happy.

Kenny shooed me away with his hand. “Go do wedding plans or something. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

I gave a big huff and shuffled out. As I left Kenny’s house, George picked me up and flattened me on the grass. Bill was right behind him shoving Kenny back.

Outside three San Ramon cop cars, two black sedans, probably FBI, and a Walnut Creek PD bomb squad van were all screeching to a halt outside my condo.

Art was screaming, “Bomb!” and for everyone to get back.

Chapter 23

I moved George’s arm and could see Mrs. Crasten at her window with her phone to her ear. Guess she’s calling Tom. It’s weird to have a neighbor calling your fiancé on you.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Art found a suspicious package on your doorstep. They’re going to blow it up,” George said.

I thought about what package might be on my front step. A wedding gift? My wedding invitations?

“Wait!” I screamed, pushing George’s arm away from my face.

“Hold still, Liza. It should be over in a minute.”

“No!” I pushed his arm away and stood up. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Stop!”

All the eyes jerked toward me.

“If you blow up one of my wedding invitations, I’m going to kill all of you!”

Art ran over. “What?”

“I’m expecting my wedding invitations today. Savanah was supposed to drop them off this morning.”

Art looked at the package and then back at me. “Angelo’s specialty is incendiary devices.”

“What?” I asked.

“Bombs, he likes to make things blow up. This could be a bomb.”

“It could
not
be a bomb. Can we at least check the return address before you blow it up?”

Art nodded. When he turned to leave, I followed him.

He put his arm on my shoulder. “No, I’ll check.”

Art walked over to the package, then said, “It’s addressed to Wooding’s Bridal Consultant and the return address is a printing company in New Jersey.”

“Those are my invitations,” I told him.

“Somebody might have tampered with the box and now it’s a bomb,” he insisted.

“Is there any way to know for sure before you blow up my invitations?”

“We could x-ray the box,” Art suggested.

“Let’s do that.” I pleaded with my eyes.

Art went over to the bomb squad van and spoke with a couple of officers, then he shook his head at me, “No x-ray capabilities.”

“I’m willing to take a chance. Let the robot open the package.”

“Who is going to pay for the robot if it gets blown up? It will just be easier to blow the package up,” one of the bomb squad officers shouted at me.

I slowly walked over to the bomb squad van, calming my racing heart. I wasn’t sure if it was exploding through my chest because there might be a bomb at my door or that my invitations might go up in smoke.

When I got there, I said, “Are you married?”

“Yes, just last year.”

“Those are my wedding invitations. I have less than a month before my wedding. If you blow them up, I’ll have to reorder them and they’ll go out even later. Please don’t blow up my wedding invitations,” I pleaded.

My phone rang. I glanced at the display. It was Tom.

I clicked over the call and said, “Tom, how much money do you have?”

“What? Mrs. Crasten called me. There’s a bomb at your house?”

“Tom,” I said sternly.

“What?”

“How much money do you have?”

“In cash or that I could liquidate?”

“Both.”

“Why am I answering this question when you have a bomb at your house?”

“Could you please just tell me?”

“I’ve got close to $250,000 that I can get to immediately and another $750,000 that would take a few days.”

“That’s a million, right?”

“Yes. What’s going on, Liza?”

“If I wanted all that money would you give it to me?” I asked.

“Ah . . ,” he stuttered for a moment and then said, “Of course.”

“Does the robot cost more than a million dollars?” I asked the bomb squad officer.

“No,” he replied.

“I’ll buy a new one if it gets blown up. Get the robot to open the package. Can it do that carefully?”

“Yes.”

“Do it,” I told the officer.

“Liza?” I heard Tom’s voice.

“Wait a minute, Tom. In a minute I will know whether you have to write that check for me or not.”

“What?” Tom’s voice elevated to a pitch I had never heard before.

They deployed the robot. It opened the box as carefully as a person not wanting to break any ribbons on a package. When it was opened, Art went over and looked inside. He smiled and said, “It’s her wedding invitations.”

I don’t know who sighed more – me, the FBI agents, the cops or Tom.

“The bomb is not a bomb, it is our wedding invitations. Thanks for offering to by the bomb squad a new robot if theirs got blown up.”

Tom choked but then said, “You’re welcome, Liza.”

“I love you and now I’ve got invitations to address. Talk to you tonight.”

“I love you too, Liza.” Tom’s voice was finally back to normal.

Art brought the large box inside and put it on the table. The robot didn’t ruin even one of the invitations. They were beautiful and the pinkish-red color was very nice, not very pink at all. I guessed I knew what I was doing today. I took the box into the office, cleaned off the top of the desk and got to work. I spent the entire morning going over my Christmas list and getting Tom’s list from my email. Art wanted sushi for lunch and I told him if it looked like a California roll, I’d eat it. So he ordered and I ate.

When I finished lunch, I kept writing until my hand hurt. Could you get carpal tunnel just from one session of invitation addressing? When I was finally finished, one hundred seventy-five invitations sat addressed and ready to be sent out. Wow, I didn’t know that Tom and I had that many relatives and friends.

“I need to mail these,” I told Art, around three in the afternoon.

“Give them to me. I’ll call one of the guys over from Kenny’s house and they’ll take them to the post office for you.”

“That’s not part of their job,” I insisted.

“It’s easier than having you go and then all of us having to go.”

I shrugged. He was right, but I was already feeling housebound. Normally, I could stay home for days without caring. It was the thought that I couldn’t go out that made me want to run for the door. I spent the next hour watching Zoie and Shelby play in the back yard. I used the tennis ball shooter that Kenny got at the airport and shot it from one yard to another. Zoie enjoyed retrieving the ball and Shelby was happy just chasing Zoie.

For dinner we ordered take-out Italian food and I went to bed early. Tom called around nine-thirty, waking me up.

“Why are you asleep already, Liza? You’ve never gone to bed so early.”

“I’m bored. Kenny is at work and I’m stuck inside the house.”

“I’ve never heard you complain before about being in your house before,” Tom said.

“There is nothing to do here,” I whined.

“What did you do today besides try to spend every last dime I have?” he asked.

I laughed and said, “I ate breakfast with Kenny, then watched the bomb squad robot open the wedding invitations box. I went through my Christmas list, printed your guest list, and addressed a hundred and seventy-five invitations. Had sushi for lunch, Italian for dinner, and played with the dogs.”

“That must have taken most of the day.”

“It did.”

“How many hours between playing with the dogs and going to bed?”

“Maybe two.”

Tom chuckled. “Just two hours of boredom in one day? Not bad for a protected witness.”

“More like a prisoner.”

“What are you going to be doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Did you go on the Internet and get Jordan’s jewelry?”

“No.” I had actually forgotten about that.

“And Kenny’s gift, did you figure out what you’re going to get him?”

“No,”

“Okay, then you have at least two jobs for tomorrow,” Tom suggested.

“That’s true, but what am I going to do when I finish those two things?”

“It might take most of the day, Liza. There must be over a thousand internet jewelry sites. And you don’t even have a clue as to what you are going to buy Kenny.”

“Maybe.”

“And don’t you need to go to your old school and clean out your room? That will take several days.”

“And I can have the FBI guys help me,” I added, my mood lifting.

“There you go. That should keep you busy until I get back there on Friday. And I’m not the man I think I am if I can’t keep you busy for two days.”

“I like the way you keep me busy,” I said, laying my head against the pillow of my bed.

Tom chuckled.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Liza,”

“Okay, talk to you tomorrow night.”

“Love you, Liza.”

“I love you, too.”

I closed my eyes to sleep and the only thing I could think of was all the stuff I needed to get out of my classroom. An hour later, I got up and started making a list of what I wanted to take. Thinking about school made me think of next year, so I sent an email to John to ask him the times for kindergarten. In my school, there were early and late sessions for the class and all of the kindergarteners stayed for lunch. In other schools, they had separate morning and afternoon classes. Those thoughts led me to curriculum and I looked up the report card for the Gainesville elementary school. It was similar to my own district’s card, so that was good.

It was almost two before I crawled into bed. I feel asleep before my head hit the pillow. I didn’t wake up until I heard tapping at my bedroom door.

“Hey Liza, it’s Art. Justin is here to see you.”

“Thanks,” I said, threw on a bathrobe and opened my door.

“What are you still doing in bed, Teach? It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“I spent last night thinking about what I needed to get from my school and next year’s curriculum.”

“You usually don’t have sleepless nights over school until August.”

“I know. What are you doing here?”

He leaned forward and said, “I’ve got some more information on the people in the office.”

What was he talking about? My mind was still foggy from sleep.

“The dead ones,” he whispered.

“Oh,
them,” I whispered back, then continued, “Let me throw on some sweats and I’ll come into the office.”

“Great.” Justin turned his wheelchair around, went to the office, opened the door and went inside.

I quickly changed into the Tinker Bell sweat outfit I got at Disneyland a few years ago. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and ran a brush through my hair.

When I got into the office, Justin had the board turned around and was scowling.