Chapter 20

It never rained but it poured.

At one time, she hadn't really understood that expression. Today she did, she could have explained it to whole classes of people.

She stood at the counter of the rental company, the one and only company in Lapeer that rented cars. She had been there for an hour and a half and she still wasn't any closer to getting a car.

First there had been trouble with the computers. The salesman was an overweight, sweaty man who unsuccessfully tried to cover his balding head with a thin comb over. It might have worked better if he ever washed his hair. Or took a shower, or wore antiperspirant. Anything would have made this experience more pleasurable.

He explained about the computer problems to her breasts, making her want to cross her arms. She refused to give into that impulse, instead, pulling out her identification, and making sure her badge thumped loudly on his desk.

It didn't seem to faze him. Instead, he started complaining about cops in general, and the way they always seem to pull him over when he was being a good citizen and only driving five miles above the speed limit. And all of this was still be spoken to her breasts.

Finally, after what had seemed hours, the computer had booted correctly. Things should have gone smoothly after that. Should have and do are two different things. She explained her needs, a car for the next week. She needed something she could drive for work until her car was out of the shop.

Well, of course, at the mention of work, Mr. Comb Over started lauding on and on about the necessity of good insurance. Especially since she could be getting bullet holes in their equipment. Finally she had agreed upon the insurance, even though her own covered rental vehicles.

Mr. Comb Over had gotten on the phone then, speaking to their headquarters about what was covered on the insurance. If she were shot at and the car destroyed, would it be covered?

Michelle had been ready to pull her pistol and steal the car by that time. After being passed on to three different people, explaining the situation three different times and asking the same lame question, he finally reached someone who must have understood their job.

He had hung up and held out the papers for her to sign. He had taken her credit card, ran it through. She signed that. Then he had gotten up, took a set of keys from a hook on the back wall of the company and gone out the back door.

The car he had pulled up in had Michelle ready to scream. Instead of the compact car she had asked for, he pulled up in a huge SUV.

"This isn't what I want," she said in exasperation as she walked outside to the parking lot.

The goon had the nerve to smile at her, the patronizing smile of a man about to tell the ditzy little woman that she doesn't know what she wants.

"Yes, Officer. But I figured, with your job you would want something that had a little more power. And this is top of the line." He held open the door, waiting for her to get in the car. "I lowered the price for you."

"Lowered the price?" she seethed. "Is that a bribe to a county deputy?" she stressed the last word. "How much did you charge me for this monstrosity?"

He quoted a figure that was much higher that the figure for the compact car she had asked for.

She was shaking her head long before he was finished going on and on about the features. "No. I want a compact car. I want to pay the figure that it is advertised and I want you to take this back right now."

The little toad of a man was holding out his hands, trying to soothe over the situation. Every word he said, she just shook her head and said no until he got back into the SUV and drove it back around to the back lot.

He came back into the office and explained that he would have to return the money and then fill out the other papers.

"Hurry up and do it," she ground out between gritted teeth. She pulled her notebook out of her purse and made a big production of writing down his name and the phone number that would get her in touch with his supervisor.

Now she was waiting for him to bring the car around. He had been back there for five minutes and she was sure he was spitting on her seat or draining the water out of the radiator, or something else that would cause her problems.

She glanced at her watch. It was a half an hour after she was off shift, she still had paperwork to do and she hadn't heard a word from Nick.

She heard a car engine and turned around, watching as the salesman climbed out of a small, bright yellow car.

So much for tailing suspects. She'd stick out like a sore thumb. She walked around the car with the salesman, agreeing that the paint job was fine, checked the speedometer, noted the miles and the amount of gas in the tank. When he finally handed her the keys, she couldn't wait to get away from him.

She was pulling out of the parking lot into the last of the rush hour traffic when her beeper went off. She fumbled it out of her pocket, expecting it to be Nick. Instead it was a number she had never seen. It was a local number. She found her cell phone in the jumble that was her purse and punched in the number, driving with one hand and trying to keep an eye on traffic. It was ringing as she got into the left hand turn behind a semi truck.

A strange man's voice answered the phone.

"Ah, this is Deputy Michelle Parsons. I just got a page from this number?"

She heard a strange high pitched giggle that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

"You are prompt, Deputy. I like that."

The voice had to be disguised, it was too strange sounding to be real.

"Well, I'm glad that I could make your day. Who is this?" The left hand turn signal turned green and she drove, but most of her concentration was on her call phone.

"Let's just say that I am an admirer." That same strange giggle. "I thought you might be interested in a, what's the word... ah, yes, a tip."

She scanned the traffic and pulled into the right hand lane, going over the tracks before pulling into the Wendy's parking lot and parking the blaring yellow car.

"A tip on what?" she asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She dug out her notebook and a pen with a chewed up lid.

"I think someone left you a little present," giggle and heavy breathing. "Another body, another dead girl." He almost sang the words. "Can you write down an address?"

"Yes," she balanced the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "Go ahead."

He gave her the address and then giggled again enforcing her serious case of the creeps.

"One more thing," she said into the phone. "How did you get my pager number?" She was speaking into dead air, he had hung up.

She pulled out of the Wendy's parking lot and took all back roads until she got out of town. Then she sped north of town, pushing the little car to it's top speed of sixty-five. The engine whined and wheezed and she slowed a little thinking that it might just collapse in the middle of the busy road.

And she debated all the way there about calling Nick. If this was just a crank, then she was calling him away from an important meeting with Roger for no reason. And she really didn't want to see him tonight if she didn't have to.

But if this wasn't a crank, if this was a legitimate call about their killer? Then she could call him after she investigated, she stubbornly told herself. She read the green fire numbers on the mailbox posts until she found the right one and pulled into the driveway.

She sat in her car for a moment, realizing that the shadows were getting deeper, the sun beginning to set. Her flashlight was in her car, her car in a garage a good forty miles from here. She pulled her weapon, feeling better with it's comforting weight in her hands and dug a small penlight from her purse. After a second's consideration, she grabbed one of her two extra clips and put that in her pocket. Just in case.

So armed, she went towards the hulking structure of the building.

Spooky, really damn spooky. She tightened her grip on her 9mm. The front door was standing open, the window next to it, broken. Across the front door in bright yellow was a condemned building sign. She stood to the side of the door and tried to see in the gloomy interior.

What little she could see didn't make her feel much better. There were shapes in the shadows, either boxes or furniture, she couldn't make out the details. The floor was tipped and tilted, part of the second floor sitting on top of the first floor.

She took a deep breath and slipped into the door, fanning with her weapon where she looked. The little penlight didn't do much good, barely illuminating a foot in front of her.

Okay, first room, secured and nothing frightening. She tried to take a couple of deep breaths to settle her nerves a little but it didn't work. Adrenaline spiked through her body, her pulse pounded. She turned into the first doorway she found, a small bathroom, the plumbing ancient and cracked. Nothing.