“Stan will be at my house at nine. I think I’ll head over to Game On and see if Gretchen shows up. I want to ask her about Margaret Smith.”
If I was going to even pretend to exercise, I needed nourishment first. I opened the cabinet and scanned the boxes on the second shelf. What was the deal with guys and cold cereal? Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Toast Crunch—Froot Loops? Ah, Raisin Bran. Fiber and fruit worked for me. I reached for the purple box and filled two bowls halfway.
“I’ll be back here by eight to shower and get dressed,” I said, adding milk to my bowl. “What about you?”
“While you’re working out, I’ll go for a run and then clean up. I’ll line up the Bull Valley calls. I’d like to locate Margaret today if I can.”
Love him.
I cruised along Ventura Boulevard with the sunrise reflecting in my rearview mirror. The heavy winds during the night left a clear, crisp sky above and a shamble of leaves and broken branches on the ground. The only signs of life were the lights inside coffee shops prepping to open, and pigeons pecking through debris for breakfast. No delivery trucks blocking lanes, no people waiting at bus stops for rides to work. Even the early joggers and dog walkers slept in.
Turning into the Coldwater Curve lot at six-thirty, I spotted just two cars parked nose in at the Game On entrance. Lights gleamed inside and the TV in the deserted cardio room flickered news headlines through the window. I opened the door and heard a loud grunt echo from the corner of the weight room.
Earl stood beside a woman on the thigh machine. “You’re up at the crack of dawn,” he said to me across the empty gym.
“Nervous energy,” I said, looking around. “Is anyone else here?”
“Nah. Mitzi and I open the gym every Saturday. Kyle should come rolling in pretty soon though. Need something?”
Mitzi and Earl. Two cars.
“I, uh, realized I forgot to switch my membership to my new address.”
“You can do that easy. There are blank forms on the desk.”
“Perfect, thanks.” I went to the desk and picked up a form off the stack of blanks. As soon as Earl and his client turned their backs, I gathered up the pens scattered on the desktop and quietly dropped them into the wastebasket. “Earl? There aren’t any pens up here.”
“There’s not?” He swung around, frowning. “Kyle has a box in his office.”
“Don’t leave your client,” I said as he started coming toward me. “I can get them. Where’s the key?”
He pointed at the desk. “In the top drawer.”
I waved thanks, found the keys, and headed to the office along the wall and out of Earl’s line of vision. With my pulse racing, I unlocked the door and sat behind Kyle’s desk, leaving the door open to see and hear movement outside. The bottom drawer was locked. I slid open the top drawer and found the small round key I saw Kyle drop inside the day I interrupted his meeting.
Fingers trembling as I slid in the key, I opened the deep, file-sized bottom drawer. Brown grocery bags lined the bottom. I opened one and saw six brown pill bottles with a green label marked Anadrol. The white boxes in the second bag were labeled Sustanon. In the next bag, blue-and-white boxes labeled Testostorona.
“Anadrol” as in anabolic, and “Testostorona” as in testosterone. Steroids.
A rumbling outside drew my attention past the open door to the window facing the parking lot. The tail end of a car rolled past the gym. I returned the bags and locked the drawer in a rush, then tossed the key back where I found it.
Don’t forget the pens. Where were the pens? I scanned the desktop in panic. No pens. No pens in the top drawer. Searching the floor behind me, I spotted a box of BIC pens on a stack of supplies in the corner. I grabbed two pens and dashed out.
As I secured the door behind me, Kyle pulled into the lot and parked his Jeep directly in front of the window. I raced down the aisle past the weight machines toward the desk, and dropped the office keys in the drawer.
Gretchen walked through the door and stopped, gaping at me. “What are you—?”
“I know. I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep.” I held up the Change of Address form, breathless. “Then I realized I hadn’t changed my address here since I moved. No time like now.”
Kyle stormed in behind her, dropped his satchel, and came at me. “What the hell were you doing in my office?” A six-foot-plus muscular mass of strength flushed with anger, he grabbed my arm with enough power to throw me across the room.
“Let me go.” I pulled away, resisting him. “You’re hurting me. I was in there less than a minute, looking for a pen.”
He relaxed his grip but not his attitude. “Who let you in?” His demand echoed over the equipment.
“It was no big deal,” I said, my heart pounding in my ears. “I needed a pen.”
Earl jammed out of the free weight room, calling to Kyle as he crossed the room. “Hey man, take it easy.”
“Did you let her in the office?” Kyle said, rounding on Earl.