Hidden Deception: A Shelby Nichols Adventure Read online

  “My biology teacher’s being a… pain about it though.” He was thinking how she’d told him before he left that most of the final test was going to be based on her lectures in class, and if he missed her class, his grade would drop. So that meant instead of getting an A minus, he’d get a B minus. It so wasn’t fair.

  “She said… um… I mean… can you make up the missing work with extra credit or something?”

  “I doubt it. She’s a real…” he paused.

  “Stickler?” I finished for him, since he was thinking something lots worse.

  “Uh… yeah.”

  “Hmm. I think I’ll set up a conference with her. She should at least be willing to let you do some extra credit or something.”

  “Yeah… or maybe a report on Paris?” He grinned, hoping I’d add that possibility into my visit since he already had more than enough makeup work to do.

  I smiled back. “We’ll see. Which reminds me. Hypothetically speaking, how would you feel if I came to school during your lunch hour and had lunch with you?”

  “Huh?” His eyes widened. “Why would you want to do that?” He hoped I wasn’t serious. That would just be weird. What would his friends think? They might not want to sit by him if I was there. Of course, they all liked me okay, but he was sure there were a few people who would tease him mercilessly about it. Thinking fast, he came up with an alternative. “I mean… if you really want to eat lunch with me, you can sign me out so we could go to a fast food joint or something. Seriously, you would not want to eat in the cafeteria.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well… first the food’s not that great, and second, it’s just a bunch of loud kids. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Hmm, I guess that makes sense. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just set up an appointment for whenever your biology teacher has some free time. How does that sound?”

  “Yeah, that should work great.” He hoped he didn’t run into me, but it was still nice that I wanted to talk to his teacher, even though he doubted it would do any good.

  Savannah joined us in the kitchen, and I peppered her with some of the same questions. It sounded like things were a little less rigid in the seventh grade, since she didn’t have half the make-up work that Josh did. Still, she had more than she wanted, and I was starting to feel guilty that they’d both missed so much school. What kind of a parent took their kids on vacation during the school year? The bad kind, obviously.

  “I hope you both don’t regret missing so much school,” I blurted. “Uh… with all the homework, I mean.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Savannah said. “That was the best trip of my life. And totally worth it.” She was thinking it had given her a certain amount of notoriety with her classmates. Even the most popular girls went out of their way to talk to her today.

  Of course, that was probably because she’d let it slip that we’d stayed in a swanky hotel because I’d helped the police stop a terrorist attack. She wondered which one of her friends had let that out since she’d sworn all of them to secrecy, but now it was too late to take it back. She just hoped I didn’t find out about it.

  Oh great! Hadn’t I told her to keep quiet about the specifics of our trip? Now the kids would probably think she was a big liar, because I was pretty sure no one would believe her. On the other hand, if they did, would they tell their parents? Maybe not. Kids tended to keep things like that to themselves. Still, maybe a visit to her school might be in order so I’d know for sure. Or, maybe it was best to ignore it, and by next week, no one would remember anyway.

  “So Josh, what did your friends think about your trip to Paris?”

  “That it was cool,” he said, shrugging and wondering why I cared. I picked up that his friends knew he’d gone to Paris, but it wasn’t something he’d said much of anything about, except that it was pretty great. It wasn’t that big a deal, and he wouldn’t dream of telling anyone about my part in it, mostly because they’d think he was nuts. Not one of them would believe it anyway. I was his mom, not some kind of a spy.

  I sighed. Their perception of events was probably the difference between a boy’s mind and a girl’s. Although I did feel kind of bad that Josh thought I wasn’t spy material, but he was also right, so I couldn’t take it too hard. And even though Savannah had told her friends, she’d done it because she was proud of me, right? How could I feel bad about that?

  They were both in their own little worlds, but they were certainly miles apart when it came to how they looked at things. It made me a little nervous about going to Miguel’s school tomorrow. If Miguel was like Josh, he probably wouldn’t like it much. Hopefully he could shrug it off and not be too embarrassed by me, especially if he knew it was all Uncle Joey’s idea.

  “Well, I guess you both better get started on your homework while I get dinner ready.”

  Savannah smiled and quickly agreed, relieved that I hadn’t asked her too many questions about her friends like I sometimes did, and she hoped I never found out about what she’d done, otherwise, she’d be in so much trouble.

  Hmm… that made me realize she was probably more like me than I thought, and I hoped that was more on the good side than the bad.

  Our realtor called to see if I wanted to show the house to Chris tonight, but since he wasn’t home, I told him it probably wasn’t going to happen. “Did you let the other realtor know about the cracks in the foundation?”

  “Yeah. They’re sending someone over to take a look at it tomorrow.”

  “That’s good. Maybe I can get Chris over there tomorrow too.” Dan told me to call him anytime, and we disconnected.

  Chris was late getting home since he’d missed a lot of work, just like Josh and Savannah. In fact, everyone but me had a ton of catching up to do. So I guess I had it pretty easy. All except for hearing a dead child crying at the house. I didn’t know what to make of that. Even worse, just thinking about it sent chills down my spine and gave me the shivers.

  It wasn’t until we were in bed that I had a chance to tell Chris about my tour of the house and how amazing it was.

  “Gee honey,” he said. “It sounds like you’re sold on the place.”

  “I really love it,” I admitted. “Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think it’s haunted.” At his raised brows, I explained the crying-child part and told him about the crumbling foundation. “I’m afraid the body is somewhere close to the foundation, because I didn’t hear the crying until Dan pulled the trellis off.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t just a neighbor’s kid you heard?”

  “Chris!”

  “Sorry, but it sounds pretty out-there, and I just wondered if you’d…” he trailed off. “Okay, I can see that I’ve said the wrong thing. But… it’s not what normally happens, is it? I mean, you hear thoughts… but are you sure it was… someone who’s dead?”

  I let out my breath, and my shoulders sagged. “I asked the realtor if he could hear the crying, and he listened real hard but couldn’t hear a thing. So… yes. I’m pretty sure the child is dead.”

  “Damn. That’s… not good. So what do you want to do?”

  “I think I need to find out what happened there. Whether we can live in the house or not is another matter, but I have to see it through.”

  “Yeah, I understand your point. Maybe when they dig up the foundation they’ll find the body. Then you can go from there and get some help from Harris.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I’m sure the police would let me help with the case. Still, this is terrible. I really liked everything about that house, but now I don’t think I could live in a place where a child may have been killed… no matter how much I loved it.”

  “I know.” He pulled me close. “Maybe staying here isn’t so bad?”

  “No. It’s not. This is a great house. There’s lots of things that I love about it, but you should have seen that bathtub. It was… unbelievable.”

  “So you�
��d move just for the bathtub?”

  The way he said that made it sound kind of petty. “Hey… it’s in a turret for Pete’s sake. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve seen it.”

  He chuckled. “Okay. I promise to take a look, but maybe not until after you figure out what happened there. How’s that sound?”

  “I’ll take it.”

  I snuggled next to him and told him about my visit to Miguel’s school the next day, which reminded me about Savannah and Josh’s make-up work because we’d pulled them out of school and taken them to Paris. After discussing that, I finished up with Dimples and his ring at the shop Hodges used to own. “That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “It’d be funny if it didn’t involve Manetto.”

  “True, true, but I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole.” I mentioned Dimples’ upcoming engagement, now that he had the ring, and hearing his thoughts about the sexy times. “I sort of teased him about that.”

  Chris got a good laugh out of that. “Sexy times, huh?” He pulled me into his arms and kissed me thoroughly. “Like this?”

  “Hmm… I think you might be on to something.”

  “Oh baby, oh baby.”

  ***

  The next morning, I got up bright and early, eager to head to the police department and find out how Dimples’ sexy times went. But it was mostly to see if he was officially engaged. After getting my kids off to school, I ate some breakfast and took a moment to check my phone for emails, like I always did. But this time something new popped up, and my heart-rate spiked.

  The sender was someone I hadn’t thought about for several months: Javier Moreno, Ramos’ younger brother. The last time I’d seen him was in Florida, when I was there with Ramos. For more than ten years, Ramos had thought Javier was dead, but our visit to Orlando changed all that.

  Since Javier thought Ramos was dead as well, Ramos decided to keep it that way. In his business, family could be a liability, and he certainly had plenty of enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt those he loved.

  Still, knowing Javier was alive gave Ramos a family he thought he’d lost. So he’d asked me to be the liaison between them, with Javier only knowing that he had an anonymous benefactor who’d bequeathed fifty thousand dollars to help with his education. I’d given Javier my card and asked him to email me if he ever wanted his ‘benefactor’ to know how things were going in his life.

  This was the first time he’d sent me anything. With excitement, I opened the email to read that he was graduating in a few weeks and receiving his Master of Professional Accountancy degree. His next step was to take the CPA exam.

  He asked me to please let his benefactor know of his progress and he expressed his sincere gratitude. He also asked me to see what I could do to influence his benefactor to meet with him, so he could thank him in person. Then he included a photo of him and his wife, holding Alejandro, their son, named after Ramos.

  The picture of them looking so happy, with the sweet little boy between them, brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. I couldn’t wait to show it to Ramos. I knew he’d be proud, although I doubted that he’d meet with Javier.

  At least not until it was safe… like… if he ever got out of the business, which I didn’t think was going to happen for a long time. Still, I was sure he’d like to know Javier was graduating, and I could tell him all about it when I went into the office this afternoon.

  With a happy heart, I rushed to get ready for the day.

  I arrived at the police station at precisely nine a.m. and hurried inside the precinct, only to sit beside Dimples’ empty desk. Did that mean things had gone bad for him and Billie? A few minutes later, he walked in with a bounce to his step and a smile on his face.

  I’d never seen him look so excited and happy. Even his dimples seemed to have a life of their own. It didn’t take a mind-reader to know he was bursting with good news. In fact, everyone stopped what they were doing and glanced his way.

  “What are you so happy about?” Bates asked.

  “Me?” Dimples shrugged. “What makes you say that?”

  Bates shook his head in disgust, then he glanced my way. “I’ll bet Shelby knows. Right?”

  “Of course I do,” I answered with a smile, then stood and faced the room. “Everyone, I’m happy to announce that Detective Harris is officially engaged to Billie Jo Payne!”

  Dimples sent me an appreciative grin, since he’d been hoping I’d pick up on the fact that he wanted me to tell everyone. He wasn’t a boastful kind of guy, and announcing his own engagement was way out of his comfort zone.

  As everyone slapped him on the back, I caught a few thoughts that Dimples sure had his hands full with that one. Billie came across as pushy and headstrong, which couldn’t be easy to live with… but love knew no bounds, and they all sincerely wished him well.

  It was several minutes before things settled down and we could look at the homicide case. “Uh… thanks for coming to my rescue, Shelby. I’m glad you got my message.”

  “No problem, glad to help. I take it she was pleased?” I wanted to tease him, but I didn’t want to rain on his parade and ruin his happy moment.

  “Yes. I gave her flowers and everything, just like you said. She loved it.”

  “Awesome!”

  “Yeah.” He let out a relieved sigh. “Now she can finally move to the planning stage. Although she did book the reception place a few weeks ago, so that’s good.” He told me some of their plans while opening the file to the homicide case. “Now I guess we’d better get to work.”

  “Yeah, I’ll give Billie a call later. So what’s the case about?”

  “The victim was Lincoln Montgomery, a lawyer.” He pushed a picture of him toward me. “In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it since he used to work at your husband’s law firm.”

  “What? No… I haven’t heard a thing. He doesn’t look familiar, but you have to remember I’ve been out of the country.”

  “Yeah… that’s right… anyway, his body was found in a small office he’d rented, and we ascertained that the killer knew him since there wasn’t evidence of forced entry or anything stolen that we could find. When we told his wife, she insisted that he still worked for your husband’s law firm. We contacted the firm and found out that he’d been let go six months earlier and had been working on his own without telling his wife.”

  “I wonder why he’d do that, unless he was trying to hide what he did?” Yikes! What if he was working for Uncle Joey and doing something illegal? This could be bad.

  “We think that’s right, so we tried to find out what he was doing. According to his phone records, he’d been calling a lot of people. When we put a list together, we found that all these people had one thing in common. They were thousands of dollars in debt. It looked like Lincoln was trying to collect, and somebody didn’t like it, so they killed him.”

  “So he was like a bounty hunter, only for debt? Was he working for an insurance company or a bank?”

  “No. He was on his own. The sign on the door said L. Montgomery, Attorney-At-Law.”

  “Then where did he get the names?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe if we can figure out how he got the names of these people, it could lead us to who killed him.”

  “But what about the people he’d already called? Couldn’t one of them be the killer?”

  “That’s the first thing we checked, but most all of them had already paid, or were in the process of working something out. They seemed glad to do it too, since he offered them the chance to pay at a discount, some only paying half of what they owed.”

  “That’s nuts… there must be something to his methods that we don’t know about.”

  “Yes. I’ll check into that, and maybe you can ask your husband if he knows anything about collecting debts like this. Maybe it’s something he’s heard of.”

  “Sure. I can do that,” I agreed.

  “We do have somethi
ng else. It looks like he’d hired some people to work for him.” He pulled out a couple of pictures of the office, which showed four desks in a larger room with phones on each one, but nothing else.

  “That’s it? No paperwork?”

  “No. It was all gone. It looks like he was shutting the operation down.” He came to the crime scene photo and hesitated to show me the dead body. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it either.

  “How was he killed?” I asked, knowing that if I was going to help, I needed to know the details.

  “Fire extinguisher. Someone hit him over the head pretty hard.” He pushed the picture in front of me, and I was grateful that the body was lying face down. Seeing all that blood was bad enough without his dead face looking at me.

  “So whoever killed him had to be pretty strong, right?”

  “Most likely, but if someone were to swing it around and then smash it into his head, they wouldn’t have to be real strong to get the same results.”

  I pushed the picture toward him and swallowed. “Is there any way you can find out who might have worked for him?”

  “Yes. That’s what we’re doing now. I’ve put in a request to check the database for the W2 forms of anyone employed by Lincoln Montgomery. Once I have the names, I was hoping maybe you could come back and help me interview them?”

  “Sure. That’s something I can actually do, so yeah, just let me know the details and I’ll come back then.”

  “Great. Thanks Shelby. Hopefully, that will give us more to go on. And don’t forget to ask your husband about the debt collecting. I’d like to know what that’s all about.”

  “No problem.” I stood with a smile, grateful to be done and hopeful that the killer would be one of the employees and I’d know right off the bat. Dimples thought the same thing. “Just let me know when you get it set up.”

  We said our goodbyes, and I congratulated him once again on his engagement, then hurried out to my car. I checked my watch to find that I had forty-five minutes before I needed to be at Miguel’s school, which was a good thing since it was across town.

  I’d never been to this school before since it was for rich people’s kids, so I didn’t have a clue how things worked, but it couldn’t be too different from a regular school, right? Still, I wasn’t too excited about this meeting.