“Tell you what,” Sheila said. “How about we plan a girl’s night out? After all this is done? Or even a weekend away? We can go down to Denver, hit up some clubs, dinner, a show. What do you say?”
I grinned from ear to ear. That was the best suggestion I’d heard in months. “Yeah,” I said, “that sounds really nice. Let’s do it.”
The gas station appeared up ahead on the left and Sheila began to slow. “Need anything while I’m inside paying?” she asked. “On me, of course.” It was one of those little gas stations that hardly ever saw any upgrades, so there was no credit card reader at the pump. Part of the reason it was open twenty-four hours was that you still had to go inside to pay for gas.
I shook my head. “I really just want to get the dogs and head home.”
“Head home?” Sheila asked, sounding concerned as she pulled the car into the lot and parked next to the far pump. “Sure you want to be alone tonight?”
“Trying to get me to stay the night, aren’t you?” I asked as she put the little sedan in park and looked over at me.
“It’s already late, girl,” Sheila said. “I’ve got the guest room, you know that.”
I laughed, shook my head. Then, a thought occurred to me. One which I was a little surprised hadn’t come to me earlier. “Do you think we should . . .” I sighed, trailing off.
“Should what?”
“Go to the sheriff in the morning?”
“What?” Sheila. “Why? Those guys showed up on Richard’s property, didn’t they? I mean, sure, what happened was wrong, and all.”
Chewing my lip, I glanced away from her. Maybe she was right?
“Hey,” Sheila said, snapping her fingers. “Look at me.”
I sighed and turned back to her, still worrying away at my lower lip.
“Do you want Peak to think we’re fucking crazy? We watched a pack of werewolves attack a gang of bikers, Jess. He barely believed you were getting threatening calls from your stalker. Think he’d believe us on this?”
I had to admit it. She was right. I just nodded. “You have a point,” I conceded. “I just don’t like the idea that a crime might have been committed, that maybe we’re involved.”
“You’re too much of a goody-two-shoes,” she said with a smile, leaving the keys in the ignition and climbing out of the car. She leaned back in. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Jess. We were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
She shut the door and walked around the front, headed inside to prepay for the gas. As she left, I thought back to the video Lacy had shown me in the bedroom. Maybe it was just one of the biker’s girlfriends or something? What did they call them on that TV show? Their old ladies? But, there was something about the woman in the video, something I recognized. I just knew it. Her designer jeans maybe? Her boots?
Staring out the window, I watched as Sheila stopped at the service station door, pat her butt like she was searching for something. She turned on her heel and started heading back. She came up to my side and opened the door. “Forgot my wallet. Grab it out of the console for me?”
“Yeah,” I said, shifting in my seat so I could dig around in the center console for her. I quickly found her wallet and pulled it out. What was sitting below it, though, made me catch my breath.
A burner phone. One of those cheap, twenty-five bucks crappy ones you can buy at Wal-Mart. The prepaid kind. The kind drug dealers used. The kind my stalker had been calling me from.
“It’s in there, right?” Sheila asked from behind me, shaking me from my stupor.
“Oh,” I said, turning around and handing her the wallet I tightly clutched, “yeah. It’s right here. Sorry.”
“Thanks, doll,” she said, grinning. Then, just like that, she was headed back into the service station.
I watched her go, my heart in my throat, my brain a fog of a million thoughts flying at once.
Sheila had pushed me to sell to Wyatt Axelrod as soon as she heard about the offer.
She was the one who told me the business was failing, but I’d just taken her at her word.
She told me she went to the Skull and Bones bikers, but what if what she’d been the reason they came after Richard? What if they had known about following Lacy because of Sheila, after I’d dropped Eli and Wallach off with her? And now, right now, why had she been so adamant about me staying the night? Just because of shock from the events? Or because she’d run out of other options on trying to get to me? I couldn’t forget, either, that she thought getting Frost Security involved was a bad idea. And now she didn’t even want to go Sheriff Peak!