Thirty-Two and a Half Complications
Page 72

I parked the car and we got out and walked slowly to the door. Neely Kate reached it first, but I pushed her back. “Neely Kate, let me go first.” No need for her to walk headlong into possible danger.
She started to protest, but I pushed past her and tried the doorknob. I wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. The room was dark and empty, and the floor was littered with beer cans and bottles and cigarette butts. When I turned and faced the window, a chill shot down my spine.
“This is it. This is the room from my vision.” I was standing in the exact same spot where I’d been in the vision.
“So…?” she asked, spinning around to take in the room. “They meet here?”
“I guess so. It makes sense. This whole area’s deserted, so they’d go unnoticed.”
“What do you think they do when they get together? Discuss the next place they’re gonna rob?”
“I don’t know.” I walked around the perimeter of the room. We had found where they met, but what good did it do us? I could tell Mason, but wouldn’t the police wonder how he knew? At least he could call in an anonymous tip. “I have four days to get my money back,” I sighed. “And we have more questions than answers.”
“At least it’s something.”
“But it’s not enough.”
Neely Kate’s cell phone rang and I jumped, feeling nervous even though nothing ominous was happening at the moment.
She glanced at her phone and groaned. “Hey, Granny,” she said when she answered. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “No, Granny. I don’t remember agreeing to go to Bingo tonight. I already have other plans.” More silence, and then she shook her head, her mouth puckered into a frown. “Fine. Be ready at six.” Another pause. “Love you too. Bye.”
“Bingo night again?”
“She loves it, what can I say? I only wish she could get one of my cousins to take her.” She gave the room one last look. “Okay, let’s go. I need to at least try to make Ronnie dinner before I pick her up. I have yet to make it through cooking an entire meal without barfing.”
“Yeah, I’m eager to get home to Mason.”
“Still no call, huh?”
“No.”
We started to leave the room when I noticed a folded piece of paper on the floor, partially hidden by a crushed beer can. Neely Kate made it outside before she realized I wasn’t behind her. She whirled around, standing in the doorway. “Rose?” Noticing the paper in my hand, she walked back toward me. “What is that?”
I unfolded the stained and dirty sheet, surprised to see that it was some sort of chart. A table of about fifty rectangles filled the page, each filled with what appeared to be random handwritten numbers. While the paper seemed to be a copy, some of the boxes were circled with blue ink. Unable to make heads or tails of it, I handed it to my friend. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
“It kind of looks like a giant Sudoku puzzle, only the circled numbers are twenty-nine, two hundred and eighty nine, twenty-four, and one.”
“I’ll give it to Mason to see if he can figure it out.”
We drove home in silence, as all the excitement and worry of the day had me exhausted. I was in desperate need of a nap and given Neely Kate’s hormones, I suspected she was too. When we pulled down my driveway, the absence of Mason’s car in front of the house was like a kick in the gut.
“Don’t worry,” Neely Kate said, patting my hand, then handing me my Big Bill’s container. “He probably had to go to his office at the courthouse.”
The thought of the food inside the Styrofoam made my stomach revolt. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Are you okay out here alone?”
I turned to her in surprise. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Do you want me to actually list the reasons?”
I laughed. “I’m fine. Have fun at Bingo.”
She leaned across the seat as I got out. “Say, you don’t want to go with us, do you? Your visions might come in handy.”
I groaned. “After what I saw earlier, I never want to force a vision again.”
She watched me climb the porch steps and when I had the front door unlocked, I waved and pushed it open. Muffy ran through the threshold, jumping up on my legs with her tail wagging as Neely Kate drove away.
“Where’s Mason, Muff? Did he go to work?”
Rather than answering, she scampered down the steps and starting racing in figure eights in the front yard. I didn’t blame her. She’d been cooped up inside all day. The air was cooling off, so I put the wings in the refrigerator and grabbed a blanket to take to the porch. Muffy needed to run around and let off some energy so I knew I’d be outside for a bit. I sat in a chair and covered my front with the blanket, watching my little dog run around. I felt bad about leaving her all day, especially since Mason had left her too. Where was he? But I was too exhausted to think about it, so I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the chair.
I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, the sky had darkened and Muffy was whining at my feet. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. When I saw a figure lurking on my front porch, I sat up and screamed.
Chapter Eighteen
“Rose?” Mason called out, alarmed.
“Mason?” I bolted out of my chair and threw my arms around his neck.
He tightened his arms around me. “You’re freezing. How long have you been out here? You looked like you were sleeping. What happened?”