I finally made a call to Agent Rodriguez at the bureau and he vouched for us, which got us off the hook and on our way a mere hour and a half later.
Once we were back in the car, Candice looked smartly at me and said, “What trouble can we get into next?”
“Well, the day is still fairly young, so I’m thinking plenty.”
“You wanna head over to the hospital?”
I checked the ether on Jed Banes. His energy looked very bad, and I thought back to my first encounter with him—that he wouldn’t live through November. Maybe he wouldn’t even make it through the end of October. “I’m thinking we should let the doctors do their thing, Candice. We can check on his condition later, but I’m not sensing that he’ll come back out of the hospital now that he’s gone in.”
“What do you think happened?” she asked me.
My radar binged. “Stroke,” I said. “I think he had a stroke.”
Candice’s mouth turned down distastefully. “All that chain-smoking finally caught up with him.”
“Yep,” I said. If smokers could sense what I could when I sent my radar out to assess their health, they’d never pick up another cigarette.
“Okay, so the hospital is out for now. Where do you want to go instead?” she asked me.
I sighed heavily. “At some point we do have to face the music and go meet with my sister.”
Candice’s shoulders tensed.
“Or we could head back to Jamba Juice and see if Debbie is back from her meeting.”
“Jamba Juice it is!” Candice sang, steering the car into the left turn lane and relaxing her shoulders.
We arrived back at the smoothie store and were both relieved to find the parking lot mostly empty. Heading inside, we found a different clerk behind the counter. Her name tag read HALEY. “What can we get started for you today?” she asked us brightly.
“Actually, we’re here to speak to Debbie,” I said. “Is she around?”
Haley’s perky little mouth turned down in a frown. “No, sorry. I think she’s at a meeting.”
Candice tapped her finger on the counter. “Do you know if she’ll be back today?”
“No, sorry,” Haley said.
Candice and I exchanged a frustrated look. We were really striking out today, and the only person left on my list of must-sees was my sister. Turning back to Haley, I said, “Can I have one of those Pumpkin Smashes?”
Candice rolled her eyes, but she was also smiling. “I’ll take a Berry Bitten smoothie,” she said when I nudged her.
Haley rang us up and then moved over to make our drinks. While she filled the prep cups with fruit, flavoring, and tons of empty calories, I chatted her up a bit. I asked her how long she’d worked there. Did she like it? Was she in school?
I discovered that Haley was working her way through the nursing program at ACC, and at that point Candice picked her head up from her phone and asked, “Did you know Mimi Greene?”
Haley’s mouth turned down into that sad frown again. “Yeah,” she said. “Mimi was so sweet. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
Candice and I exchanged another look. This one said, “Jackpot!”
“So…you two were friends,” I said, less question than statement.
Haley nodded and handed me my pumpkin-flavored frozen-smoothie concoction that looked and smelled like heaven. “We were friends. I really liked her.”
“Did you guys hang out much?” Candice asked.
Haley cocked her head at Candice, suddenly suspicious. “Why are you asking about her?”
“We’re investigating her death,” I said, keeping it simple because it wasn’t far from the truth and I didn’t want to scare Haley off with a lot of talk about bombs and killers and such. I also flashed her my FBI ID to show her that my questions were legit.
“She died in a fire,” Haley told me, her eyes widening a little at the plastic badge in my hand.
“Do you know how the fire started?”
Haley shrugged. “I heard it was an accident. Her stove got left on or something.”
“Did Mimi talk to you about her personal life?” I asked next.
Haley handed Candice her drink and said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, we heard she had a boyfriend who dumped her. Do you know anything about that?”
Haley’s brow rose. “You mean Buzz?”
I nodded eagerly, hoping she’d elaborate.
“Buzz didn’t dump her,” Haley said.
“Really?” Candice said. “I thought he did.”
Haley shook her head. “No. Mimi dumped him.”
“Do you know why?” I asked.
Haley shrugged again. “I think she got scared. Her sister, Taylor, kept telling her that Buzz was a loser, and that she could do better, but I’m not sure that Mimi really believed it. But then he got so serious so fast, and I think that freaked her out. So she broke it off with him, and then she really regretted it.”
My radar hummed with urgency. Haley was finally giving us the information we’d been searching for. “How serious was he?” I asked, working to keep my voice casual.
“Well, he proposed,” Haley said. “And Mimi told me that he wanted to get married right away. Mimi accepted the proposal, and they started going crazy planning the wedding. I think they had the whole thing set up in, like, a week. It was crazy fast.”
“So what happened?”
Haley bit her lip. “Her sister happened. Mimi wanted Taylor to be her bridesmaid and went up north to pick out a dress with her, but while she was visiting her sister, Taylor started playing with her head. Mimi came back home with a lot of new doubts about Buzz.
“And then she was even more on the fence because our manager Debbie offered her a promotion. Debbie really liked Mimi, and she wanted to train her as an assistant manager here so she could make enough money to pay for her tuition and stay in school. But Mimi told me that Buzz wanted her to quit her job and the nursing program. He was older than her and he said that he wanted her to get pregnant right away. Can you believe it? Like there are guys that actually want their wives to be all barefoot and pregnant in this day and age.”
Candice and I exchanged a look. Mimi had gotten herself involved with a control freak.
“Anyway,” Haley continued, “it was all a little too much for Mimi, I think, and she just couldn’t go through with it. She told me that on the day of the wedding she just didn’t show up.”
I blinked. “She left him at the altar?”
Haley nodded sadly. “Sort of. Mimi told me that she’d asked her sister to go to the church and tell Buzz, but then she found out that her sister never left College Station. Taylor just let Buzz wait there for, like, two hours or something until it was pretty obvious nobody from Mimi’s side of the family was going to show up.”
I felt a jolt of electricity go through me, and Candice and I exchanged meaningful looks. Buzz had waited two hours for his bride to show up. The clock on the bombs was set to two hours, and old Jed Banes always got a call two hours before the bombs went off.
“Did she and Buzz talk much after the wedding was called off?” I asked Haley, wondering if maybe Buzz had had a hand in Mimi’s suicide after all.
Haley shook her head. “Only once, and that wasn’t even face-to-face,” she said. “Mimi heard what her sister had done and she sent Buzz a really long e-mail trying to explain, but she felt so bad that she couldn’t bring herself to call him or take any of his calls when he tried to phone her.”
Something in the back of my mind was trying to surface, but I was too focused on Haley to pay it much attention. Still, it nagged at me, like a fly buzzing against the TV screen. “When was this?” I asked.
“Last year. Right around this time, actually. And then Mimi died in that fire a month later.”
A chill ran up my spine. “Haley, did you ever meet Buzz?”
“Oh, sure!” she said. “He used to come in here all the time.”
“But he hasn’t been in l
ately?” Candice pressed.
“No. Not since Mimi broke up with him.” Haley opened her mouth to say something else, but she hesitated.
“What?” I asked her.
“Well, you might think this is weird, but there were a few times when I swore that I saw Buzz sitting in his car in the parking lot.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Not long after Mimi died. It was only a few times, but it sort of gave me the creeps.”
“But Buzz knew you, and he knew you were friends with Mimi?”
“Yeah,” she said. “She and I used to study together. We had a lot of the same classes.”
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and I glanced at Candice, who was also looking at Haley in alarm. I knew what she was thinking. People close to Mimi were being abducted and forced to wear bombs for the last two hours of their shortened lives.
“What?” Haley said, and I could tell we were starting to make her nervous.
“Nothing,” I assured her. “We’re just surprised because we didn’t think that Mimi had any friends.”
Haley hung her head a little. “Yeah. I was pretty much her only friend. Mimi was really shy.”
“Do you happen to remember Buzz’s last name?” I asked next.
Haley shook her head. “No. Mimi just called him Buzz, which wasn’t even his real name.”
I cocked my head. “Come again?”
“Buzz is his nickname. I know she probably told me his real name once, but I don’t remember what it was. Anyway, she just always called him Buzz.”
Candice walked subtly out of the shop and I could see her dial her phone and lift it to her ear. I knew she’d be calling Brice.
To put Haley at ease, I sat down at the table nearest the counter and changed the subject, asking her what her favorite smoothie flavor was.
We made chitchat until Candice returned. She sat down and gave me one curt headshake, and I knew she hadn’t been able to get ahold of Brice. Some customers came in at that point and Haley went to wait on them, which gave Candice and me a minute to talk.
“We should be worried about her, shouldn’t we?” Candice asked me as she eyed Haley at the cash register.
My radar was sending all sorts of alarm bells about the girl’s safety. My skin tingled with urgency about the danger I knew she was in. “We definitely should be worried,” I told Candice. “My gut says Buzz is our unsub, and it also says that Haley is quite possibly his next target.”
“He’ll set off another bomb?” Candice said, studying my face as if she was looking for answers there.
I nodded reluctantly. “He’s not done, Candice. Of that I’m positive. And, if he wanted to grab another victim to wear the next bomb, Mimi’s only friend would be his likely choice.”
“Okay,” Candice said. “We’ll stay put and keep an eye on her until we can get ahold of Brice.”
We then sat in the shop the rest of the afternoon, Candice eyeing her phone almost constantly and Haley waiting on the slow trickle of customers coming in for their smoothie fixes.
Finally at four thirty Brice called, and Candice headed outside to fill him in on the important stuff. When she came back in, she said, “He’s on the way. I told him what you said, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. He’ll bring Haley in for her own protection.”
I relaxed a fraction. “Good. I’m glad.”
Candice looked over at Haley, who was busy wiping down the counter and occasionally casting suspicious glances our way. “Poor kid,” she said. “She doesn’t even know what she’s about to get into.”
“Well, I’d feel bad if I didn’t think we were probably saving her life,” I said.
“True that,” Candice agreed.
My phone rang then and I groaned. It was Dutch. “Hey, doll,” he said, his voice happy and relaxed. “Just wanted to let you know that we’re all gathering at your favorite restaurant—Second Bar and Kitchen.”
I bit my lip. Here went nothing. “Yeah, about that…”
“What’s up?”
“Candice and I are working a lead.”
“What lead?”
“I’d rather not tell you.”
There was a pause, then, “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to get sucked back into this.”
“Like you’ve just been sucked back in?”
“Yes.”
Dutch seemed to take that in. “Okay,” he said at last. “How solid is this lead?”
“Crazy solid.”
“You close to solving it?”
“We are.”
“Are you thinking you’ll wrap it up by tonight?”
I traced small circles with my finger on the tabletop. “No. I think it might take me the rest of the week.”
“Aw, come on, Edgar…,” Dutch grumbled, clearly annoyed.
“I promise, sweetie, the minute Brice and his team grab this unsub, I’ll be home.”
“Hold on,” Dutch said, his voice going hard. “Now you’re not coming home?”
Crap on a cracker. I hadn’t meant to say it like that. “I thought I’d stay at Candice’s until this thing is over. That way Candice can keep an eye on me and protect me like she promised you she would.” (I threw that one in there in the hopes that Dutch might soften a bit.)
It didn’t work. My fiancé didn’t say a word, and I could sense the anger and hurt coming through the phone.
“Plus,” I added, trying again to make light of it, “it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
Dutch was silent for so long that I thought he’d hung up, but just as I was about to ask if he was still there, I heard, “Do what you gotta do, Edgar.” And then he really did hang up.
T-Minus 00:19:23
It was hard for M.J. to tell who threw the first punch. It all happened so fast and the events of that afternoon had been so tense that her brain was slow to process everything happening around her.
She remembered that Brice and the officer built like a bulldog had approached each other angrily, and the second that Brice had seen Dutch lying unconscious on the ground with his hands bound in cuffs, Brice’s face had turned from angry to furious. He’d barreled into the cop with his chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, and in the next second the two were exchanging blows. The rest turned into an all-out brawl between the police and men in dark suits—it was like a Friday night hockey game without the Zamboni.
Caught in the middle of it was Gilley, who was trapped on the sidewalk next to the fighting men, and as both teams descended on each other, Gilley got lost in the shuffle. M.J. could hear him, however—his howler monkey shriek told her that he was in serious trouble.
Getting to her feet, M.J. ran toward him, weaving and dodging between the fighting men. “Gilley!” she cried, trying to reach him before he got trampled. “Gilley!”
His shriek continued until it was abruptly silenced, and that nearly brought M.J. up short, but she had to keep moving herself lest she be flattened by the shoving and fighting men all around her.
She wove around a group of four who all had hold of one another so tightly that no one could raise a fist to punch, and as she rounded them, she suddenly found herself in the clear. And she also came face-to-face with Director Gaston.
He had hold of Gilley and was helping him into the street, away from the fight. His eyes locked with M.J. and he nodded at her to come with him. They got to one of the parked sedans and the director let go of Gil and reached through the open window to retrieve a bullhorn. Holding it above his head, he hit a button and the air was filled with a piercing horn.
It mostly did the trick; several of the brawlers broke apart, although they continued to yell at one another. The director hit the button again, and this time he held it there until everyone but Brice and the bulldog broke apart. Gaston nodded to one of his men who happened to be standing near Brice, and he went in and pushed the two apart, albeit not before getting a sock to the shoulder from the cop.
>
Candice and Brody appeared at M.J.’s side, and Candice said, “Director Gaston! Thank God! We believe Abby’s been taken by the bomber. That woman over there,” she added, nodding toward Margo, “knows his name, sir. We were about to get it from her when these sons of bitches showed up, and they Tased Dutch!”
Gaston’s face was expressionless, but there was perhaps a flicker of anger in his eyes. “Is he conscious?” he asked just as Brice limped over. M.J. saw that his right eye was swollen and his lip was bloody.
“He’s coming to now,” Candice said. “Sir, we have to get to Abby! I think we’ve got less than twenty minutes before the bomb detonates!”
Gaston was in motion in a second and even though he wasn’t a tall man, he walked with such authority that every person present seemed to stand up a little straighter. M.J., Gilley, Candice, Brice, and Brody all tucked in next to him and hovered protectively around him as he bent to check on Dutch. “Get them out of these damn cuffs!” Brice barked to one of the officers, and after a hard glare from Gaston, the officer quickly moved to Candice’s back and began to unlock her cuffs. M.J. turned toward the officer when he moved to undo hers, and just then they heard a siren. Looking over her shoulder, M.J. saw that yet another squad car had arrived on the scene. It screeched to a stop and out stepped a man in uniform with enough stars on his lapels to be its own constellation.
“Director!” he shouted, running over to them.
The director barely acknowledged him. “Chief,” he growled, as he helped Dutch, who was struggling to sit up.
M.J. realized that the chief of police had just arrived and she could see every cop in the vicinity turn suddenly fidgety and nervous. “What the hell is going on here?” the chief demanded.
Immediately hands were raised and fingers were being pointed, along with accusations and barely veiled threats from both the cops and the Feds.
Gaston silenced much of that by standing up and glaring hard at every man present. He then took the chief by the arm and moved with him a little away to speak with him.