California Schemin' (15 page)

I started through the desk drawers. No
papers, but I pulled out a ring of keys triumphantly. I’d bet my
life they were to the filing cabinets. My hands were shaking when I
got the files open. I rifled through the top drawer, going through
all the files because I didn’t trust the labels. I doubted he’d
file anything under Wife’s Murder or Foiled Divorce, so I had to
look through everything.

It was hard to know what was important, so I
was reading a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. The top drawer was
a bust, and I moved on to the middle. Time was ticking away. The
longer I spent in here, the more likely I’d be caught. And what was
I going to say? I was curious?

I was on my knees, well into the third drawer
when the door opened behind me.

“Shit.” I jumped up, bumping my knee on the
corner of the drawer and bringing tears to my eyes. I pushed the
drawer shut and turned to find Hammie standing inside the door,
arms crossed, watching me.

“Did Senator Wallace give you permission to
search his office?” He had the daddy-caught-you-misbehaving look on
his face.
Bastard. Stop patronizing me
.

“Could you be any more sarcastic? The Senator
told me I had free reign of the house. Said I could go
anywhere.”

“You took that to mean you could search his
office?”

You damn well know I’m not supposed to be
searching his office so don’t ask stupid questions.

“I’m surprised you’re not searching his
office. You’re the one compromising your principles to protect your
father.”
Don’t kid yourself, Bree. He’s not exactly superman.
He’d be riding the edge of the law even if his father was squeaky
clean.

“You don’t know that I haven’t searched this
office. In fact, you don’t know much of anything, it seems to me. A
total waste of my time and the senator’s.” This was a Hammie I’d
never seen before. His face was set, emotions shut down. I’d made
him angry. Well, good.

“Since when do you care about the senator’s
time?” I was getting pretty steamed myself. I figured I had as many
facts as Hammie did.

“Since he’s my boss.”

“Then I suppose you know that your boss most
likely had his wife killed.” I watched his face, but he’d shut down
good. He was making damn sure he wasn’t giving anything away.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
She loved power, she wouldn’t have divorced him.”

“Oh, really, a lot you know about women. Lily
was the money and the power behind the senator.” I knew she had the
money, but I was guessing on the power thing. Anyway it sounded
good, and for some reason I wanted to win this argument.

“She had the money,” I went on, “then she
disappeared. When she reappeared she had a bullet in her head, and
now Wallace has the money.”

“How do you come up with this shit?” He was
leaning against the door now, looking at me with contempt.

“I happened to pull her body out of the
river, which is why Senator Wallace sent you after me. He’s trying
to clear himself by asking me to implicate some innocent criminals.
Told me I’d be doing society a service. He’s a toad.”

“In your opinion.”

“Yes, in my opinion he’s a toad. I was
drugged, kidnapped from my home, flown all the way across the
country against my will. I’m being held indefinitely while my
family and friends worry. He’s not just a toad. He’s a fucking
toad. I want to go home.”

“I just need a little more time.”

“I don’t understand you. Wallace has your dad
over a barrel, but you refuse to believe that he’s capable of
murdering his wife. It’s all part of the same immorality.”

“Blackmail and murder are two different
things.”

“Take off the effing blinders. Jeez. I can’t
deal with you.” I picked up my shoes and pushed past him. I didn’t
have a thing that would link Wallace to Lily’s murder, but only a
fool would keep that kind of evidence around. Hambecker didn’t
follow me from the room. As I came down the stairs the foyer and
entry were beckoning me. I increased my speed down the stairs,
listening for Hammie to come after me. He wasn’t. I reached the
first floor, the foyer tile cold and smooth beneath my feet. I
sprinted toward freedom.

I was out the door, flying down the front
walk in my bare feet. The skirt of the blue dress kept wrapping
around my legs, so I hitched it up with the hand that wasn’t
carrying the impractical shoes. I thought briefly about chucking
the shoes, but you never know when you might need a good pair of
heels, so I held onto them. I was telling myself I needed the shoes
for when I approached a house, but in reality I’d never had shoes
that matched a dress and I didn’t want to dump them.

I ran out into the street and looked both
ways. I couldn’t see far in either direction because of the turns
and little hills that were engineered into the road. I cursed the
idiot who designed it. I imagined the road crew that had to pave
this shaking their heads at the stupidity. Sacramento County was
flat, open land. Roadways were flat and straight too, but not this
one. My natural tendency was to go to the right, so I gritted my
teeth and ran to the left.

The car I’d seen parked by the side of the
road from the second story window sat around the first bend. I
slowed to a walk and stepped up onto a lawn. There were no
sidewalks. The developer didn’t expect the residents would want to
walk anywhere, or perhaps he thought they would just walk in the
road. After all, there wasn’t really any traffic here.

I kept my eyes trained on the car as I
approached. No one parked on the street in this community. No one.
The driver was motionless. Sitting in the car, a pink sweatshirt
hood covering the head propped on the steering wheel.
Just what
I need, another dead body
.
I’m not stopping, I don’t care,
someone else can find her
. I started to trot again. I moved
past the car, and my shadow fell on the driver’s side window. The
head jerked up off the steering wheel, startled blue eyes staring
at me. She screamed. I screamed and jumped back so fast I tripped
and landed on my ass in the grass. My heart stopped pumping, and I
thought,
I’m going to die right here on someone’s front
lawn.

The terror on the driver’s face morphed into
surprise, and she reached back and popped the back door open and
started the car.

“Come on!” She hissed and she flicked the
hood off her head, revealing lavender hair pulled into a ponytail.
“You think they are going to wait all day before they come looking
for you?”

She didn’t have to ask twice. I dived into
the back seat and slammed the door. I expected her to turn the car
and drive away from the Senator’s house, but she headed back toward
it.

“No! No! Go the other way.”

“Can’t. There’s only one way out of this
place, and it’s right past Senator Wallace. It’s the only reason I
could stay parked on the street back there. Wallace has the last
inhabited house. No one drives past here.”

We rounded the corner, and I flattened myself
to the back seat, praying we’d get past. When the car didn’t come
to a screeching halt, I sat back up. I looked at the side of the
driver’s face, and it dawned on me that I’d seen her before.

“You’re the crazy shape-shifting alien
woman,” I said.

“Yep, that’s me.”

“You followed me from Vermont? That’s a
little strange.”

“Strange? I’m a shape-shifting alien, and you
think it’s strange that I followed you?”

“I don’t actually think you shape shift, you
know.”

“But it’s possible I’m an alien.”

“Doubtful.” I pulled on the seat belt.

She handed me a knit cap and an army jacket.
“Put those on. We should be able to get out of the gate easily
enough, but if someone approaches us, you are my teenage son.”

Great. I get to be a teenaged boy now.
I pulled the cap over my head and tucked up my hair in the back.
The jacket smelled of body odor and cigarette smoke, but I
unbuckled and pulled it on anyway. I could shower later. If anyone
took a good look in the car I was screwed, the blue dress hung out
from underneath the jacket. I’d make a very strange boy.

I held my breath as she punched the code into
the pad, and the gate rolled back. We had rolled through the gate
and out onto the road when her cell phone began to ring.

“I’m busy, Hambecker, what do you want? Yeah,
I have her. No, you can’t have her back.” The phone flipped
closed.

I closed my mouth

“I’m confused,” I said. “That was
Hammie?”

“You call
Hambecker
Hammie?” Her smile
widened. “To his face?”

“So?”

“Really? To his face?” She laughed out loud.
“Oh, my God, I am
so
doing that.”

She drove onto the freeway and headed north,
back toward Sacramento proper.

“If you don’t mind my asking, who are you?” I
tugged off the foul-smelling coat and hat.

“Agent Madison Truefellow, abducted female
rescuer. I’m far better at it than Hambecker, although to give him
credit his objectives are different than mine.”

“As far as I can tell he’s a female abductor,
not a rescuer at all. What are your objectives?” I wasn’t sure I
wanted to know. I was driving along with a gleeful, self-proclaimed
alien shape-shifting, what? FBI agent? She hadn’t shown me a badge
or anything, and although I was glad to be away from the grasping
senator, I was pretty sure I was the only one who had my best
interests at heart.

“I’m supposed to keep you safe until the
whole Lily Carver Wallace thing has been solved. I have to say I
thought it would be a hell of a lot easier than it is. I nearly
shit my pants when you disappeared. I figured you were pretty safe
as long as you were holed up at home.”

“Are you telling me that Hammie is a
Fed?”

“Richard Hambecker has divided loyalties, and
I don’t trust him. His number one priority is known only to himself
and maybe to his boss, although I have to say having him in the
senator’s camp has been incredibly useful.”

“Wait, I thought Hammie was an ex-Navy Seal.
Are you telling me he’s a special agent?”

“Oh, he was a Navy Seal all right. Came right
out of the service and got attached to Wallace. Not sure
who
he’s working for or if the whole thing with his dad is real or not.
What I do know is that Hambecker Sr. is as straight as they get,
but the whole blackmail thing gives Hambecker Jr. a reason to be
less than squeaky clean.”

“Which is good for his standing with the
senator, which gives Hammie more access to what’s going on.”

“You got it.”

“So how come you didn’t know he was going to
come get me? Shouldn’t you two be communicating?”

“I’m not positive we are on the same side.
I’d say we’re probably on the same side but with different
objectives. He hasn’t really had much to say since he’s been in the
senator’s camp.” Madison looked over at me. “How long has it been
since you’ve eaten?”

“I’m not sure. I think I ate something
yesterday.”

We took the next exit, and she pulled into
the drive through at a fast food place. Three bites into a
breakfast sandwich, grease dripped out the bottom of the wrapper
and landed on my chest. I looked down at the blue dress. It was a
little worse for wear. It was wrinkled, and the greasy smear was
sitting next to what looked like a toothpaste stain.

“Do you think we could stop somewhere and get
me some clothes? I’ve been wearing this dress for ages. It stinks.
Literally.”

“I shouldn’t take the time,” Madison looked
at the dress, “but I wouldn’t want to be stuck in that dress. It’ll
be a while before we get this chance again.”

Thank God I was with Madison. I can’t imagine
Hammie understanding my need for clean clothes and comfortable
shoes. I pulled the blue shoes onto my feet as we pulled into the
mall across from the burger joint.

An hour later we came out through the big
mall entry. I was wearing jeans, a white, girl-cut long-sleeve tee,
clean undies, socks and bra, and sneakers courtesy of the FBI. At
least I think it was the FBI. I wasn’t sure Madison had ever really
cleared that up. I was carrying a new jacket, still in the bag, in
case it got cold. The blue dress and shoes were in a bag under my
other arm. We’d picked up some stain stick and treated the fresh
stain, hoping that it would come out when we finally got the dress
cleaned.

Madison was striding along ahead of me,
leading me back to the car, when I noticed her hair looked like it
was changing color again. The ends were starting to look a little
pink. I was trying to convince myself I was seeing things, which is
why I walked right into her when she stopped.

“Oh, shit,” Madison said and stared at her
car. I followed her gaze.

Richard Hambecker was leaning against the
driver side door, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, hell no.” For the first time since I’d
met her on the plane, Madison had her cop face on.

“Come on, Maddy, I need Bree.”

“She’s been at Wallace’s long enough,
Richard. It’s time to get her out of there.”

“If she escapes, Wallace may decide he no
longer needs me.”

“You’ve been too valuable to him. He may be
mad, but he won’t cut you loose. You were too hard to get in the
first place.”

“I’m taking her.” Hammie pushed himself up
off the side of the car.

“No, you’re not.” Madison pushed me behind
her.

“Um, don’t you guys have a superior officer
who could settle this?” I was throwing my lot in with the anonymous
boss, who might at least be following the rules. Hopefully, the
rules said something about the kidnapped witness getting her life
back.

“No.” They spoke together, united against me
now. It came to me in a flash that they might not be on the same
team, but I wasn’t even in the same league. Whatever their prime
objectives were, it wasn’t about getting me home.