The Cat Sitter's Whiskers (28 page)

I could hear a man's frantic voice come over the line as Daniela crossed to the big duffel bag and then back to me. She said, “It doesn't matter. Paxton will never know I was working for Fiori … because he's dead.”

The voice rose on the phone. “What?”

“Fiori got to the gallery right after the cat sitter left. Mr. Paxton had already opened up the box, and when he showed me there was nothing inside but a jar of cornmeal, I pretended to be just as shocked as he was. But when Fiori found out, he was furious. Mr. Paxton pleaded with him, saying there must have been a misunderstanding, that Mrs. Keller must have accidentally sent the wrong box.”

She knelt down, her face inches from mine.

“But Fiori wasn't buying it. He said, ‘I know a rat when I see one,' and then he pulled a pistol out of his vest. Mr. Paxton tried to get away but it was too late. He shot him. And when Fiori figures out who the real rat is, he'll try to kill me, too.”

There was a pause, and then she whispered, “But by then I'll be home. And soon Pachamama will be back where she belongs … with her true people.”

I heard the sound of something metal, like a high-pitched shimmering, and instinctively my eyes shot open. She was still crouched next to me, and through the holes I could see she was holding a long gleaming knife. She grasped its base with both hands, and then there was a ripping sound, like tearing flesh. It started down near my left foot and flew all the way up past my head.

I gasped, but whatever sound the knife made must have covered it, because then there was the clattering of metal as it slid across the floor away from me, and then nothing but the sound of Daniela's footsteps receding into the other room.

My heart was racing, and I wondered if now was the time to start screaming. If this woman was about to kill me, my only hope was there might be someone nearby … but then I heard the door in the other room slam shut again, and then the sound of a car starting. In a moment, it rolled past and disappeared in the distance.

I waited, counting to ten over and over again and praying I was actually alone. I knew I needed to act fast, but I wasn't sure what my options were. Finally, when I didn't think I could wait any longer, I pressed my legs against the wall in front of me, and to my utter surprise it swung away with ease.

I rolled out in a heap on the hard concrete floor and looked back.

I'd been inside a small refrigerator. It was riddled with what I now recognized were bullet holes. There were three thick stripes running around the exterior, one at the bottom, one at the top, and one in the middle, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim light I realized with a shudder they were bands of gray duct tape. Whoever had put me in that refrigerator … they hadn't planned on ever taking me out again. The tape was wrapped layer upon layer all the way around, except where Daniela had sliced it open along the door's edge.

I felt completely paralyzed, but I knew there was no time to waste. It took practically every ounce of willpower I had to crawl toward the door, but as the blood started flowing through my body I started feeling a little stronger and pushed myself up on wobbly legs.

The other room was empty except for an old metal desk against one wall, with piles of bills and newspapers littering the floor around it, and there was an old water-damaged calendar on the wall with a bikini-clad girl firing a big machine gun and flashing a toothy smile at the camera.

Right underneath her, flung up against the wall next to the desk, was my backpack. I practically lunged for it, and then I looked down to find my cell phone and my car keys sitting in the middle of the desk, right on top of a short stack of wrinkled computer printouts. Right next to that was the picture of Pachamama I'd had in my back pocket.

I picked the whole pile up and went to the door, which was just beyond the desk in the far corner. It was painted shiny black, with three commercial-sized dead bolts down the right side. In quick succession, I flipped all three bolts open, hoping with all my might there weren't other locks on the outside, and also that Daniela or some goon wasn't standing guard somewhere, waiting for me to show myself.

With a deep breath, I whispered a silent prayer. If ever I needed a guardian angel on my side—somebody up there in the clouds watching over me—this was it.

I closed my eyes, grabbed the doorknob with both hands, and pulled.

 

33

The door swung open, and right in front of it, facing me in a blaze of blinding sunlight, was my Bronco.

If there'd been a choir of angels singing I wouldn't have been a bit surprised—I don't think I've ever been more excited by the sight of a car in my life. I didn't even stop to see where I was or if anybody else was there. I just stumbled out into the hot light, guiding myself with one arm along the hood as I made my way around to the driver's side, and then once I was in, I started it up and backed away from the door.

Only then did I realize I was in the middle of some kind of storage compound. There were long cinder-block buildings on either side, stretching almost as far as the eye could see in both directions, with low-slung roofs painted bright brick-red and black metal doors spaced every twenty feet or so. Each of the doors was painted with a big number in bright yellow. I glanced at the door of the cell I'd been locked in, and as I threw the car in gear, I whispered to myself, “Remember that number.”

Then I drove like a bat out of hell.

It didn't take me long to find the exit. It was around the corner at the end of one of the buildings, blocked with a tall chain-link gate, and just as I was thinking I might have to crash right through it, there was a high-pitched whine as the gate automatically rolled open.

Beyond that was a busy four-lane thoroughfare. I pulled to a stop and slowly shook my head back and forth. I think I'd just assumed my kidnappers would have taken me to some creepy remote hideout in the middle of nowhere, but as soon as I saw the hodgepodge collection of fruit stands and thrift stores on the other side of the street, I immediately knew where I was.

It was Tamiami Trail, the main road through the middle of Sarasota, and I was standing at the entrance to Happy Time Self Storage, not five minutes past Grand Pelican Commons.

As soon as I merged into traffic, I had to consciously will myself not to slam the gas pedal through the floor. I wanted to get as far away as possible before anybody saw me, but I didn't want to kill myself or somebody else in the process. At that point I realized I'd been operating on pure adrenaline, because the moment it dawned on me that I was going to be okay, every cell in my body exploded. My muscles must have been in a state of atrophy after being crammed in that refrigerator for God knows how long, and the blood pushing its way back into all the nooks and crannies felt like a thousand stinging needles.

I ignored it, concentrating instead on the road in front of me. My instinct had been to head home, but I knew I couldn't do that, so I headed south out of town. Once I felt it was safe, I pulled into a parking lot off the road and cut the engine. My backpack and the computer printouts I'd taken were sitting on the passenger seat next to my cell phone. I reached over and flipped it open.

It was off, of course. They'd shut it down so it couldn't be tracked, so while I waited for it to power up, I tried to organize the jumble of thoughts and images that were swimming around in my head.

The first thing I saw, looming over me with those intense aquamarine eyes, was Barney Feldman … and then I saw the long red scratches on Daniela's arms and legs. Mr. Fiori and his goon may not have known it yet, but she was clearly double-crossing them. Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't fully capable of murder, but for whatever reason, she had decided to cut me loose from that refrigerator. I couldn't say for sure if she'd felt so generous after she'd knocked me unconscious in the Kellers' laundry room, or what her plans had been for me as I lay there on the floor after, but I knew who it was that had stopped her.

It was Barney Feldman.

He had attacked her. He must have sensed I was in danger and put those sharp claws to good use—It was entirely possible that Barney Feldman had saved my life that morning.

I also had a very strong feeling that Daniela was the woman McKenzie had talked to, the woman who'd gone home with Levi the night he died. She'd tricked him into taking her home, and then she'd probably gotten him drunk so she could get her hands on that delivery list. And since she couldn't very well tell the truth about where she'd gotten those scratches, she'd lied and said Levi had tried to rape her—knowing full well he wasn't around to defend himself.

I reached over and picked up one of the computer printouts and read the heading across the top of it. “
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
—Siesta Key.” It was Levi's delivery list, with the names and addresses of his entire route. There were about fifteen names that had been marked with a yellow highlighter, and at the end of each one was a notation: “Stop Delivery.”

That list was what Daniela had been after.

There'd be plenty of time to figure out the details later, but for now, it was slowly dawning on me that Levi must have been selling his delivery lists to criminals, who were then targeting any house whose paper had been stopped temporarily because they were on vacation … which meant their houses would be vacant and ripe for picking. That would explain the string of burglaries in the area that Paco and Tom had mentioned.

And I couldn't prove it yet, but I now knew it was either Fiori or his goon or Daniela who had stabbed Levi, maybe even with the knife Daniela had used to cut me free. They had murdered him for the same reason they'd murdered poor Mr. Paxton: so he wouldn't talk.

I remembered Mona telling me she knew Levi had been hanging out with some rather shady characters, one of them a “Mexican,” and that he drove a motorcycle. I had a feeling I knew exactly who that particular shady character was. He answered on the first ring.

“Dixie?”

I said, “Paco, I know you said this number was only for emergencies, but I'm pretty sure this qualifies.”

“What's going on?”

“It's a long story but we need to hurry. When I was leaving Tom Hale's place today, somebody jumped me. They hit me over the head and took me to a self-storage unit south of town, and then they locked me up in a refrigerator.”

He said slowly, “A self-storage unit…”

As soon as I heard the tone of his voice, I knew my instincts were right. If there happened to be a local ring of thieves selling stolen artifacts on the black market, it was a pretty sure bet that Paco and the Special Investigations unit would be on the case.

I said, “Yeah. There were three of them. Two men and a woman. The woman let me go. I'm driving down Tamiami…” I paused, trying to figure out the best way to phrase what I needed to tell him. Being a secret agent, Paco has to deal with crap most people never even dream of, like, for example, the fact that at any given moment somebody might be listening in on his phone conversations.

I said, “Paco, the thing is, Ella needs you.”

“Ella?”

“Yeah. She's got company on the way right now … and they're dangerous.”

I could almost hear his mind working over the phone. He said, “Uh-huh. How do they know where she lives?”

“She's on their list.”

“Their list?”

I said, “Yeah … their delivery list.”

There was a long pause, and then he spoke quickly. “Okay, listen. Call the cops right now and tell them everything. Are you someplace safe?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

“Okay. Don't go anywhere until you hear from me.”

I said, “Paco, be careful.”

“Don't worry.”

I hung up and dialed Detective McKenzie's number without even thinking. She answered with a short, “McKenzie here.”

I took a deep breath. “Detective, it's Dixie. There's no time to explain everything now, but I know who killed Levi. It's a man named Fiori. He was trying to track down an ancient statue called Pachamama that Mrs. Keller bought. I think it was stolen from a museum or a church in the Andes and sold on the black market, and I think it's probably worth way more than she paid for it … like millions.”

I paused to take a breath and McKenzie said, “How do you know all this?”

“They kidnapped me, and I heard them talking.”

She took a quick breath. “All right, where are you?”

I said, “I escaped. I'm in my car, but they think I'm still locked in a storage unit. And detective, there's a body there. It's Wilfred Paxton. He's the owner of the Paxton gallery downtown. They thought he was double-crossing them, but really it was his assistant, Daniela. She's on her way to the airport with that figurine right now. She's trying to take it back home where it belongs.”

“What storage unit?”

“It's called Happy Time. It's on Tamiami Trail just south of Sarasota. It's unit number nine. There's a big duffel bag, and his body's inside it.”

She said, “Dixie, are you sure?”

“Unfortunately, yeah, I'm positive.”

“Okay, I'm sending a unit there now and I'll alert airport security. Where are you?”

I shook my head. “There's one more thing. Fiori and his henchman … they're headed to my house, in fact they may already be there. And I think if you check with the SIB, you'll find they've already sent a team there.”

There was a long pause. “Dixie, why are they going to your house?”

“They think I took Pachamama. I was supposed to deliver it to them, but Daniela got to it first and replaced it with a jar of cornmeal.”

“A what…?”

“Yeah. It was Daniela that attacked me at the Kellers' house. And those candles I saw? She was performing a ritual to Pachamama. There's even some cornmeal sprinkled in Mrs. Keller's garden outside—that's why those doors were open—but Barney Feldman interrupted her.”