Evening Bags and Executions(66)

“I’ve got to get to work,” I said, and backed away.

“Mike sent me,” he told me.

Mike Ivan had sent this guy? He’d never done that before. Mike had always showed up in person.

Oh my God, what did that mean?

I searched my brain trying to remember if I’d done something to make Mike mad, something he might have misinterpreted or misunderstood.

I couldn’t come up with anything.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more frightened.

“I got something for you,” the guy said, nodding to a black Lexus SUV parked nearby. “From Mike.”

Of course. The Beatles gift bags for Sheridan’s party. Whew!

Jeez, why had I gotten so upset? Mike had always been great to me. He insisted he wasn’t in the Russian mob or involved in any sort of criminal activity, so why had I thought that him sending this guy meant trouble?

“Great,” I said.

“I’ll put them in your car,” he said, and headed for the SUV.

Mike had told me it would take a couple of days to manufacture the bags, but he’d gotten them finished ahead of schedule. I made a mental note to call and thank him.

I popped my trunk and rearranged the stuff that was back there. The guy brought over four brown cardboard boxes and fitted two inside, then put the others in my backseat.

“Thanks,” I said, hitting the remote to lock my doors.

The guy just stood there for a while staring at me. I wondered if I was supposed to give him a tip or something. Then he pulled a small white envelope from his jacket pocket and held it up.

“From Mike?” I asked, thinking it was the invoice for the bags.

He pulled it back. “Not from Mike. From nobody.” My heart jumped.

“You got that?” the guy asked, leaning forward slightly. “From nobody.”

I tried to answer, but all I managed was a quick nod.

I guess that was enough. The guy slapped the envelope down on the trunk of my car, got in his SUV, and left.

I scanned the parking garage to make sure no one had seen what had gone down, then picked up the envelope and opened it.

Inside was a slip of paper with an address on it.

Okay, that was weird.

Why the heck would Mike give me a street address, of all things, and have it delivered by that scary guy who insisted it wasn’t from Mike?

I looked at the address again and tried to figure out why a place in Bellflower would—oh my God.

Bellflower.

The address was in Bellflower, the city I suspected Detective Shuman had been searching for Adolfo Renaldi, the guy the LAPD was sure had murdered Amanda. Mike had known Adolfo and his brother, too. He’d mentioned them—no, he’d specifically asked about them—when I’d last seen him.

I shoved the slip of paper into the envelope, dropped it in my handbag, and headed for the elevator.

This address had to be the location where Adolfo Renaldi was hiding. Somehow Mike had found him.

Mike had seemed sympathetic toward Detective Shuman when we’d talked about Amanda’s murder in the fabric store. He seemed to understand what Shuman was going through—which made me realize how little I actually knew about Mike. Maybe he’d also lost someone he loved to violence.

I’d gotten the feeling that, in a way, Mike admired Shuman for hunting down Amanda’s killer, especially since he wasn’t supposed to. In my heart I knew that Mike would have handled it the same way.

Of course, Mike hadn’t hesitated to tell me exactly what he thought of the Renaldi brothers and their whole family. It was possible Mike had an ulterior motive for giving me the address. Obviously, there was no love lost between them. I didn’t know the extent of their involvement with each other—which suited me fine. I figured I was better off not knowing.

I took the elevator up to the third floor, ignored Mindy’s greeting—no way was I ready to party at the moment—and went to my office. I sat at my desk, thinking.

Mike had found Adolfo Renaldi’s location.

And now he’d passed it on to me.

For a few minutes I considered calling Detective Madison and telling him where he could find Renaldi. I envisioned the entire LAPD mobilizing, S.W.A.T. rolling out, helicopters launching, dozens of officers converging on the Bellflower address.

But I wasn’t sure Madison would believe me. He’d probably want me to come to headquarters so he could question me. He might think I was somehow involved with Amanda’s murder. At the very least, he’d expect me to give up Mike Ivan as the source of the info—which I would never do, of course.

If we got past all of that and the LAPD took Renaldi alive, would a smart defense attorney get him released on bail, as Detective Shuman had suggested? How many years would pass before he even went to trial? Plus, there was no guarantee that Renaldi would be convicted. Witnesses could disappear. Evidence might go missing. It had happened before.