Shane thought about the two people in the apartment as he drove home. Elena spoke almost as if she’d been born here. Her brother, not so much. But he’d been older when his parents emigrated. That could have made the difference, or maybe he hadn’t put as much effort into assimilation.
Elena stood facing her brother. He looked upset. Because of Shane, or was it something else?
“I don’t like coming over and finding a guy in your apartment,” he said, switching back to Spanish.
There were a lot of things she wanted to say. Like—that’s none of your business. Or—are you checking up on me? Or—how dare you decide who I can see. But she pressed her lips together. She’d been taught respect, and she wasn’t going to throw that away because her brother was acting like a jerk.
Instead she said, “You haven’t visited in a while.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she hoped they didn’t sound like an accusation.
“Sorry. I’ve been busy,” he said in an apologetic voice.
“Did you eat dinner yet?”
He turned one hand palm up. “I’m fine.”
Maybe if he was referring to food. But from the tone of his voice, she thought that wasn’t entirely true. Something was wrong.
To give herself a little breathing room, she asked, “Do you mind if I eat something? It’s been a long day.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
She was glad for the chance to turn away from him as she opened the refrigerator and got out the dinner portion of rice, beans, and chicken she’d barely touched yesterday.
She covered the bowl with wax paper and put it into the microwave.
When she looked up and saw Alesandro watching her, she asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“You got any hard stuff?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Wine?”
“I don’t really drink.”
“Yeah, right. Okay, you got soft drinks?”
“Ginger ale.”
He wrinkled his nose but let her put ice in a glass and pour some of the fizzing liquid over the ice.
He fiddled with the glass, then sat down at the table. When the rice dish was heated, she put a mug with water and a tea bag into the microwave.
She sat across from her brother and ate a few bites of her dinner, then glanced up as he shifted in his chair.
She could let this go on for a few minutes, or she could find out what was going on.
“Why did you come over?” she asked.
“I’m in trouble, and I hope you can help me,” he answered, surprising her with his bluntness.
Elena put down her spoon. “What’s wrong, and how can I help?”
He gave her a look that said he wasn’t happy about providing an explanation, but he knew she wasn’t going to cooperate unless he did.
“I’ve gotten into some stuff I can’t handle,” he clipped out.
“Like what, exactly?” she asked, feeling as though she were prying a piece of hardened gum off the bottom of her shoe.
“I was making a delivery.”
“At the rental car agency? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Not the car agency.” He stopped and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
She waited for more information.
“Someone’s got the goods on me. They can have me arrested big time if they want. But they told me there’s a way out. If you can get me some information from S&D.”
“What are you trying to say?” she asked in a voice that hardly sounded like her own.
He leaned across the table toward her. “There was a guy who died. Arnold Blake.”
There was the name again. She hadn’t thought about Arnold Blake in months, and now both Shane and her brother had brought him up.
“What about him?” she managed to ask.
“He took some information from S&D. He was supposed to turn it over to a guy, but he didn’t do it. That’s how he ended up dead.”
“I don’t understand. What do you want me to do—exactly?”
“Find out where he hid the material, and bring it to me.”
Chapter 8
Elena moistened her dry lips. “What information? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what it is. I only know it’s my ticket to freedom.”
She tried to take in the reality of what he was saying. “You’re asking me to steal something that belongs to S&D?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “No.”
“Then what?”
She heard the exasperation in his voice. “Just find where Blake put it, and give it to me.”
“Alesandro, you know I can’t do that.”
“You want me to get beat up real bad? Maybe killed?”
“No. Of course not. But I thought this was about not getting arrested.”
“It is. It was.” He made a low sound. “The bastards set me up. They can turn me in to the cops, or they can make me wish I was in protective custody.”
She gasped, trying to understand but not really getting it.
“Think about helping me. But don’t think about it too long because I don’t have much time.”
“What if I get caught?” she blurted out.
“Blake took the information months ago. They won’t link you to him.”
“What you’re asking could get me fired.”
“They won’t know you did anything.”
She couldn’t believe he’d said that so casually. He was asking her to do something immoral, and he wasn’t worried about it at all.
“I’d better go,” he said, standing up abruptly.
She jumped out of her chair. “Wait, you can’t just drop something like that on me and leave.”
“I have to go. They could be tracking me. I have to keep moving.”
He strode out of the dining area, down the hall, and out of her apartment, where he carefully closed the door behind himself.
She stood, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to try and ward off the sudden chill that had gripped her body.
When she looked at the food still on the table, she knew she couldn’t choke down another bite. Mechanically, she picked up the dish, carried it to the sink and scraped the rest of the meal into the sink, then ran the disposal and washed the mess away. Looking back at the table, she saw the glass of ginger ale she’d set in front of Alesandro and poured that down the sink, too, then stood with her fists clenched.
Damn him.
It was easy to get rid of the evidence that he’d been in her apartment, but not so easy to figure out what to do.
For a split second she thought about calling Shane Gallagher. He’d know how to handle this. But then she’d have to explain about her brother’s gambling and about what he’d asked her to do.
Not stealing, he said.
She didn’t know if she agreed with that interpretation, but whatever you wanted to call it, it was wrong. And she didn’t even know if her brother was lying. He said he wanted the information from S&D to settle a gambling debt. But that might not even be true. It might just be a story he’d told her.
She pounded her fist against the counter, hating Alesandro for putting her in this position.
Shane knew if he went home and tried to relax, he was only going to let the scene with Elena and her brother keep spinning around in his mind. Instead he stopped for a small pepperoni pizza and took it back to the S&D office to eat at his desk.
While he ate, he checked his email. There was a message from Max reporting that Jed Lansing and Roy Newman were both on record as complaining about not getting adequately compensated for new products they had developed for S&D. Did that mean one or both of them would be willing to get back at Kinkead by stealing from the company? He didn’t know, but it left him with a feeling of relief. Maybe it was one of them—and not Elena.