Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,77
of his lip to keep from grinning and then walked over to where they were sitting.
“Talk,” he said, and when they both started to talk at once, he bellowed, “One at a time!”
Paula shuddered. “We want to hire you to find our mama’s missing ring. It’s a four-carat yellow diamond.”
“Did you ask her when she had it last?” Charlie said.
“Mama’s dead,” Portia said, then pointed at Paula. “She had it last.”
“I do not settle family disputes. I do not find missing articles, only missing people. File a police report. If someone stole it, they will check the pawnshops.”
Then all of a sudden, Wyrick was standing beside Charlie.
“Who’s Jehru?” she asked.
Paula frowned. “He’s our spiritual guide. How did you—?”
Charlie glanced at Wyrick. She had that faraway look in her eyes he was beginning to recognize, and Wyrick was still talking.
“His real name is Gregory Foster. Which one of you gave him access to a checking account?”
Portia gasped. “How did—?”
“I think my partner just solved the mystery of the missing ring. It’ll be up to you and the police to get it back...if you file a police report. And I’d advise you to change the PIN on that account as soon as possible,” Charlie said.
The twins were in shock. “Yes, well, this is not what we thought...uh, not how it...” Then they looked at Wyrick anew. “How did you know all that?”
Wyrick ignored them. “I think we’re through here.”
Charlie went in his office and shut the door.
They left the office in silence.
Moments later, Charlie came back out, glanced at the wet spots on the rug and then grinned at her.
“I wish I’d seen that.”
She shrugged. “Easiest way to end a catfight is spray them with water.”
“And you know that how?” Charlie asked.
“Read it in a book once.”
“Did you ever spray down a pair of fighting cats?” he asked.
“Not until today,” Wyrick said.
Charlie laughed all the way back into his office, and it wasn’t until he was sitting at his desk that he realized it was the first time he’d laughed in weeks.
So the healing had begun.
* * *
After what Wyrick considered a wasted day, it finally ended. With a deposition looming and testimony to give, Charlie backed off starting another case until that was done.
He went home first, and Wyrick stayed to lock up. She had her bag on her shoulder as she rode down in the elevator, and when she got in her Mercedes, she paid no attention to the panhandler standing at the end of the street.
She didn’t see him taking a picture of her in the car, or know he was sending it out to the catering van in a driveway five blocks down.
She paid no attention to the catering van as it pulled out of the drive and moved into the flow of traffic behind her, nor did she realize that the roadside service truck she passed on the freeway was on the phone with the woman in the pink Volkswagen bug who picked up Wyrick and her Mercedes at the exit ramp, following it to the quick-stop where Wyrick stopped to fuel up her car.
When Wyrick paid and left the station, she barely noticed the utility truck in the lane beside her, and when she finally turned into her neighborhood, it turned one way while she turned another.
There was a small white Ford Focus behind her now, with an old man behind the wheel, when she turned up the drive and aimed the remote to open the gates to the estate.
The old man drove past as Wyrick drove through, closing the gates behind her, unaware of the choreography Cyrus Parks had set in place.
For the next nine days, the same people, using different vehicles every day, trailed her everywhere she went.
* * *
It was Saturday when Wyrick received a text that Merlin’s ashes were ready to be picked up, so she put aside the designs she’d been working on to renovate the upstairs and made a quick trip to the funeral home, still unaware she was being followed—unaware that Cyrus Parks was receiving daily reports on her activities.
When she got back, she set Merlin’s ashes on her coffee table, then sat down and sent Charlie a text.
Taking the chopper to Galveston tomorrow to scatter Merlin’s ashes. Leaving in the a.m. Back before noon.
Will you let me know when you get back?
Yes.
She’d already talked to Benny about servicing the chopper while she was driving home, so now two people would know where she was going and when she