“You are an angel from heaven,” he breathed.
Chapter Seven
B and E Darlin’
Ally and I went to my house and unloaded the groceries then back to Fortnum’s where we sent Jane home and worked the last couple of hours before shutting down at six.
Ally took her car and I walked the two blocks home, Matt following me at a crawl.
On the walk home, I formed a plan. Rosie couldn’t go up in a puff of smoke and he wasn’t smart enough to hide so well, if Lee hadn’t found him, then something was up. If he got the diamonds and went to San Salvador, then where was Duke?
Unless something had happened to Rosie and Duke (which I hoped it had not), or Rosie had gone off looking for Duke (which would be stupid therefore not unheard of), Rosie had to be hanging out, waiting for Duke. If he was camping out near Duke’s house, waiting, then there would have been a forest fire by now (I didn’t imagine Rosie paid a lot of attention to fire safety).
Rosie was a bit of a loner, came to parties and went to concerts only when asked and without an entourage. I was certain Tim and The Kevster were his only friends.
Except me.
I boiled all these things down as best I could considering I was not a spy, a detective or a criminal mastermind.
What I came up with was that Rosie had to be somewhere close. He had to be taking advantage of a friend’s kindness. And, to my mind, since he wasn’t with The Kevster, and Tim had also disappeared, then Rosie and Tim were holed up somewhere. Maybe at Tim’s house, in the basement, with copious amounts of cheese puffs, coming out only when the coast was clear (or to bake a frozen pizza).
Or even if they’d stayed there for awhile and then cleared out, there may be evidence or a clue to where they went.
I needed to establish a pattern of Rosie’s movements. His car wasn’t at his house and he’d been to Duke’s yesterday morning. These were the only things I knew.
I decided I needed to search Tim’s house for clues. We were coming up with a big fat zero everywhere we went and I might as well.
Since it was illegal, first, I didn’t want Ally involved, and second, I didn’t want to do it in broad daylight.
I sent Matt a jaunty wave then I blew him a kiss for good measure before I went in the front of my house and closed the door behind me.
I stood there in happy oblivion at being home for the first time in two days.
I loved my duplex. Gram had died six years ago and it had taken me that long to make the place, which had been stuffed full of all her and Gramps’ crap (and there was a lot of it), my own.
The living room and dining room were one huge room though it looked like at one time it was two. The kitchen was in the back, obviously added on sometime after the house was originally built.
I’d painted everything a soft peach, I had chartreuse arm chairs and an electric blue sofa with clean lines and a kickass dining room table that could fold out to seat twelve people (though in a little bit of a crush). All of this gave off a feel of light, airy, modern and uncluttered. The floors were new hardwood and gleaming and I wanted to throw myself on them and kiss them.
Instead I ran to the phone and grabbed it. Lee would be at my place soon and I didn’t have a lot of time. I was sacrificing Barolo Grill for this, not to mention what was to be my first-ever “date” with Lee. If I didn’t hurry, I’d lose control and give in, give up and go with Lee.
Then something occurred to me and I put the phone down and stared at it.
If Lee and his boys could disable the alarm, get into my store, wire it, install cameras and re-enable the alarm, then they could bug my phones too.
Crap.
I looked out the window and saw Matt sitting in his SUV. He wasn’t leaving.
Crap again.
Maybe I was being paranoid but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
I ran upstairs. Two bedrooms separated by a bath, my bedroom in back had a door to a balcony that was half the roof of my kitchen, half overhanging my brick-paved backyard. The front room was the TV room and where I kept my desk.
I wrote a note for Lee and ran downstairs and put it on the ottoman that sat between my sofa and chairs and served as a coffee table.
The note said, “Something came up. Rain check?”