"Pass the Story" Chapter 9

Jenny’s gun was aimed at Gerry, the owner of ‘Gerry’s Printing’. “I need the plates and that sack of printed paper and the other sack you’ve tucked into your safe.”

Gerry gave her a bewildered look. “What are you talking about? I’m not hiding any other sack.”

Jenny scoffed,” This isn’t our first dance Gerry, so open the safe and we'll see if you’ve changed.”

Gerry stared at the gun and mumbled, “A man’s got to eat you know. Don’t know why you got to be so strict.”

“Why? Because the people I work with count every sheet of that very expensive paper and will know what’s missing, and blame me, and I’m not falling off a cliff for you pal.”

Gerry pulled the sack from his safe and picked up the one under his counter. He slid the envelope with the plates to her and lifted the two sacks. “I’ll take ‘em to your car.”

“That’s better, and you’ll get your usual cut within the hour.”

“Yeah, thanks, nice bathing suit…by the way” he grumbled.

“I was going to take Jenny to the community pool when I got a call I couldn’t ignore. Said I had to come here and get the paper…so don’t get on my last nerve. Ok?”

“Sure,” he snickered and tossed the two sacks into the trunk of her car, “Have a safe trip home,” his smile a cold slash as he slammed the trunk closed.

“Always a pleasure Gerry,” she slipped into the driver’s seat and revved the engine until he backed away, although she wouldn’t have minded knocking him on his smart ass.

Ten minutes later Jenny was heading back to Mornington Heights and Oliver’s house. She and Oliver weren’t related and Padget wasn’t their sir names, but they were partners. Their storyline established by the international group of thieves they worked for, an organization of top criminals run by Jack Seville. He gave them this assignment a year ago, set them up in this town as relatives. Amos was already living in Mornington Heights and Amos was usually the third man in most of their art heists. Only this time it wasn’t a heist it was counterfeiting. Jenny hadn’t wanted to be part of it but you weren’t given choices with Seville, only commands. And unknown to Oliver, Jenny had been given a second command, to keep her eyes on Amos. The organization had heard he wanted out …and that only happened one way.

Jenny knew the ‘quitting isn’t an option’ rule was true because she’d once considered getting out and had confided her plan to only one person, the man she thought was in love with her, Pavel. He was running point on the operation they were pulling in Paris and he’d whispered words of encouragement punctuated by kisses supporting her decision. The next day, after that night of romance, they’d gone for a hike. Jenny didn’t remember blacking out but Pavel told her she had and before he could catch her she’d slipped down a steep, rocky incline.

What Jenny did remember, was waking up at the bottom of that steep cliff screaming in pain with her face bruised, her nose broken and her cheekbones shattered and a medical helicopter hovering over her, to take her to the nearest hospital. After her first surgery, Seville sent flowers to her hospital room. He’d even paid for her surgery and all the additional surgeries since but he’d snickered as he wished her continued good health. Once she was out of the hospital he called to restate his wish she remained healthy and suggested she would, so long as she did as she was told. She got the message.

That warning never left her fear center and having her daughter and nephew Oliver living with her in Mornington Heights kept triggering that fear and a need to run. Her nephew Oliver was living with her because her brother's wife had died two years ago. She was helping care for her nephew while her brother, Curtis, who she’d called Tis since childhood, took on a new police assignment in another state. Ironically, he’d been assigned to the Mornington Heights precinct. Oliver would have gone to live with him last year after the school year ended but unexpectedly, her brother had to flee the country because of that crooked, greedy Sheriff Milton. Tis had suspected something was very wrong in Mornington and had been gathering intel on the sheriff, but someone tipped off Milton. The sheriff attempted to have Tis deported but Tis left on his own and went back to his father’s country to set things straight. In his last letter to Jenny, he said the US Embassy had taken up his case. Since Tis was born in California, the Embassy had requested supporting documentation from the state. Tis hoped to be back soon. Jenny wrote to him she’d relocated to Mornington with the kids. He wasn’t happy. He wrote back telling her to be careful. Tis didn’t know of her extracurricular, illegal activities, his warning was for her be cautious of the shifty, town’s sheriff.

Tis and Jenny had different fathers. Tis is five years older than her and a wonderful big brother but he wasn’t always around. When their mother remarried for the fourth time Jenny didn’t get along with husband number four and needed to escape that's when she joined a group whose activities could supplement an income for her. She was a quick study in the art of making objects vanish in the blink of an eye. and her savings account grew. Her dream of having her own apartment was in reach when she got pregnant. The father of her child had taught her all she knew about stealing but he refused to acknowledge the child. After they scored a big art heist at a local museum she'd caught the interest of an international organization of thieves, the one she currently worked for. Their slight of hands were working in many countries and they rubbed elbows with some nasty groups, but the money they dangled in front of her made her bite the carrot. And after only six months she’d bought a home in Palo Alto, but lived to regret her decision to join them.

Jenny pulled into Oliver’s driveway and headed to the front door. Before she used her key she heard voices inside, distinct voices, Oliver’s and Deputy Marandina’s. She walked to the back door and used her key to slip inside unnoticed. Hearing the deputy interrogating Oliver and hearing Oliver sing like a canary, she had no choice but to draw her gun and train it on the deputy as she stepped into the living room. She told Oliver to secure him to a chair and tossed him a few zip ties. Once the deputy was restrained she approached him. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, you’re a decent cop but I have to buy us time to get away,” she took his police gun, scanner and phone, “ I’ll put these in the kitchen on the counter when we leave. You can shuffle your way over to them but until then, sit tight. I have to gather our stuff and get my kids,” she eyed Oliver with annoyance, “Now that my partner has given you reason to arrest us.”

 “I didn’t Jen, I only told him what Amos did, I swear.”

Marandina eyed the unlawful duo, “I already knew what he told me. I just need to understand why you two beat up Amos.”

“Amos was beat up?” she didn’t ask the deputy she asked Oliver.

Oliver nodded. “Yeah, I was gonna call you but the deputy showed up. Amos was dumped out of an SUV earlier in pretty bad shape, looked like he fell off a cliff. He’s in the hospital, still breathing.”

 Jenny was shaken by the reference to a falling off a cliff, been there and didn’t want to do that again. “So he’s alive?”

“So far,” Marandina smirked. “Are you considering changing that?”

Jenny put her gun down and shook her head, “I’m not a kidnapper or a murderer. I have two kids I love…I’d never do that…I”

“But you’d make counterfeit bills with your husband?” Marandina smirked.

She shook her head, “I didn’t want to do that either…you don’t understand.”

Oliver took up her defense. “Jenny’s not guilty of anything that happened to Amos. Look, I don’t know who is but before that SUV dumped him by the police station, I was out on the hiking trail looking for…something…anyway, I saw Amos out there with one of your own. A policeman was walking with him up to the rock cliffs three hours before he was thrown out of that car.”

“You saw him?” both Jenny and Marandina spoke in unison.

“Yeah, I didn’t think much of it then. I knew the sheriff was friends with Amos and something stunk between them. I wasn’t surprised to see Amos with a policeman.”

Jenny had a flashback of her fall off a cliff and Jack Seville’s warning. She thought of Pavel, who did Jack’s bidding by pushing her off that cliff, his handsome face hard to forget. It was another thing she remembered seeing seconds before everything went dark. Was it possible he was here? She hadn’t paid attention to the boys in blue at the precinct. Maybe she should have. Had he infiltrated the blue line? Did Jack have him working form the inside? It was a sobering thought and made her all the more anxious to get far away from here with her kids, find a place they could be safe, out of Seville’s vengeful sight.

“You think a policeman did that to Amos?” Marandina asked appalled at the idea, unless it was the sheriff he’d seen with Amos. “Was this policeman short and fat and his hat didn’t stay on his head?”

“It wasn’t the sheriff. This guy was tall and fit,” Oliver reported, “filled out the uniform properly and his hat stayed on his head.”

Just then the deputy’s police phone rang. Jenny looked at the screen. It was the fat head calling. She held the phone up to show Marandina. “Find out what he wants but don’t say you’re here.” She raised her gun again and put the phone to his ear as she hit the accept button.

“Yes sheriff? Uh, no, I hadn’t heard that. Okay, yeah that changes the investigation. Uhh, where am I? I…went to get donuts. Yeah, sure, the double chocolate ones, get three for you,” he gave a sharp look at Jenny and added, “I should be back to the precinct in about twenty minutes.”

Jenny disconnected the call and smirked, “Unless you’re Houdini, you’re not gonna keep that promise.”

“I think I will when you hear what the sheriff told me.”

“I doubt it but go on.”

“Amos is dead. Someone stabbed him in the neck with a needle full of something toxic. Forensics is working on him now. We’ll soon know the cocktail used and I’ll bet, sweet Jenny, you’ll have all the ingredients in your house.

Jenny dropped the phone. She couldn’t draw in a breath. Amos was dead?  They didn’t give him a warning, they killed him. She needed to get out of here now.

*

Sheriff Milton hung up the phone thinking about those double chocolate donuts but another problem bugged him. Amos had checked out without so much as a whimper of what he was up to and where he’d stashed the safe’s valuable contents. He was dead but those historical maps and documents were somewhere.  Someone had them, most likely the same someone who’d killed Amos. Now he’d have to solve Amos’s murder to get his hands on that loot. He craved a double chocolate donut right now.

Polanski, the too handsome cop, with a face you wouldn’t forget stepped into the Sheriff’s office. “You look baffled chief, what’s up?”