I paced around the kitchen. Something might have gone wrong for Philip to call so last minute, and I worried it was a green-eyed cop in a tweed brown suit.
I hadn’t interfered with Colin’s business before, not since that night in my apartment when he’d made his stand clear. It required a certain amount of trust that he knew what he was doing. I wasn’t his keeper, and he didn’t need one. Then again, maybe I’d fucked up. I had thought I was doing him a favor by leading the cop in the wrong direction, but I hadn’t been brave enough to tell Colin they were trying to bust him. If he knew, he could be more cautious. If he’d known, he might have stayed with me or canceled the drop or so many other things. What if the cops had found the correct information, or hell, staked out this house and followed Colin when he’d left tonight?
That cop, he was dirty. The fact that he’d tried to blackmail me and hurt me was proof enough of that. He might not even arrest Colin. He could shoot first and ask questions later. If Colin ended up dead tonight…
Resolved, I called Colin’s cell. It rang and rang. Voice mail.
I hung up and glared at the phone.
I called again. Still voice mail. This time I left a message, babbling about calling me back right away, that I needed to talk to him, it was important, but that wasn’t good enough. He may not check his messages until after. He might be in trouble right now.
I did know where the drop was happening, the real one.
That was a bad idea, very bad. But as bad ideas tend to do, this one sprouted up like a weed, strangling all the others.
Picking up the phone again, I dialed Shelly.
“Hello?” She sounded anxious, which matched my mood.
“Shelly. I love you, sweetie, but can you please, please come watch Bailey?”
“I can’t, not now,” she said, sounding distracted. “Some bad shit is going down.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. There’s this drop, and Colin just left, and—”
“Wait a minute. Colin’s going tonight? He wasn’t supposed to.” The sharp edge to her voice startled me. Almost panicky.
“What’s going on? What do you know?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” she said, but I knew her too well.
“Shelly,” I warned. “Tell me what you know.”
“The cops,” she said. “They’re going to be there tonight.”
“No, they’re not,” I said. “I gave the guy a fake address.”
Silence on the line.
“Shelly?”
“I gave it to them,” she finally said.
“What? Why? No, never mind. Shit! I can’t even—I have to get to Colin. I’m going to call him again, but if he doesn’t answer, I need to go there.”
“I can’t come over,” she was saying over me. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. Philip’s missing. I thought he’d just gone out. I mean, he never goes to the drops personally. I didn’t think—”
“Shelly,” I interrupted her. “Call Philip. Get them both out of there.”
I hung up on her babbling and called Colin, only to cuss out his voice mail.
Deliberating only a second, I ran across the yard to Linda’s house and banged on the door. She opened the door wearing a robe and a face mask of white. It startled me momentarily, not that it was scary, despite its skull shape, but how ordinary it was to run through a nighttime beauty regimen. A contrast to the shit storm that was tonight.
“Hi, Linda. I’m so sorry to impose on you, so sorry, but would it be at all possible for you to come watch Bailey for an hour? She’s already asleep, so really you’d just have to sit there and—”
“Of course!” she said. “Don’t even worry about it.”
“Thank you so much. An emergency came up, a family emergency, so that’s—”
“Stop, dear. You don’t have to explain it all now. I can see you’re in a way. Now, you get back to her, and I’ll be right there.”
Thank God someone could think, because I probably would have babbled half the night away, just like Shelly had done. And, damn! I couldn’t believe Shelly had told the cops anything. It didn’t make sense. I should have known they’d be pushing for information from all angles, but why would Shelly talk to the cops? Maybe they’d threatened her. Well, of course they had. They’d threatened me, and Shelly was a prostitute, for God’s sake. Like taking candy from a baby, that’s how easy it would be for them to threaten her with arrest or worse.
I practically dug tracks into the hardwood as I waited for Linda to come over. I remembered the business card that the other detective had given me. What could I say if I called him? I know my hooker friend gave you intel, but could you please do me a favor and not arrest my boyfriend? Really I was the epitome of class and grace.
But maybe I could find out something. I darted upstairs and into the closet, where I searched through the folded shirts, looking for the envelope of money Andrew had given me, where I’d stored the business card. They weren’t related in any way except that they were things I’d hidden from Colin.