Chapter 9
“Were you a part of this?” Hailey shook her head no, but didn’t put her hands down. She liked every part of her body without holes in it. And the police were just itching to plug a few holes into someone. “Well, someone was in on it, and I want answers. Who started this and why?”
“I came into this just about the time you did, sir.” He snorted at her, an honest-to-goodness snort, and moved away.
She’d not been kidding. She was coming into the building when about fifty police officers came into the room right behind her, shoving her ahead all the way.
If there had been anyone shooting at them, she would have been first in line to have a bullet in her head.
They were all dressed in dark uniforms with helmets on, as well as gloves.
She wondered briefly if the gloves were bulletproof, but didn’t want to seem like she was too interested in their clothing, for she might end up dead like the man lying beside her.
The police hadn’t shot him, but he was dead for sure.
There was a woman across from her who was winking and tilting her head like she knew something.
Ignoring her as best she could, Hailey looked around the room that once held a nice kitchen.
She didn’t know what had gone on before she’d gotten here, but something big had gone down, and she was in the dark as to what.
She had a feeling that winker knew, but she wasn’t going to ask her.
She just needed to get out of here before anything else happened.
The officer who had told her to kneel down and shut up stood in front of her. His gun was laying across his chest, and he was holding it like he was ready to use it. He asked her name. Clearing her throat twice, she was finally able to squeak it out.
“Hailey Sheppard. I work here.” He nodded once and moved on. Kicking the dead man, she wondered if he was trying to get his name, too. “That’s Jamie Sheppard. No relation. He works…worked here too. We did the dishes together.”
“Why’s he dead?” She thought he was asking her for the cause of death, and she told him someone had shot him in the head. “I know that, dumbass. I was wondering why someone killed the dishwasher. And how did you make it out if he was bent on killing everyone in the place.”
“I just got here. Just as you people were coming in, you shoved me on down the hall and past the time clock so that I couldn’t clock in.” She looked up at the man. “I don’t have a clue what’s going on right now other than the place I work looks like a bloodbath.”
“You just keep your mouth shut, and you might make it to the time clock. Though I doubt anyone will care that you’ve been late today.
” She could see that. Her boss was sitting in his office chair with his head blown off.
The only reason she knew it was him was because he always wore a lot of gold chains, and the headless man had several on that looked like something he wore.
It was making her sort of sick to see all this blood, but she was going to hang on to her breakfast if it was the last thing she did today.
“When they ask for information, you tell them to come and look for Chief of Police McGee.”
“And who would that be?” He pointed to himself, and she could see that he was pissed off that she hadn’t known who he was. “I’ll tell them. Do you suppose they’ll care?”
“They’d better.” She’d make sure they knew who to look for when they started asking her questions, but she didn’t know what good it would do.
She didn’t much care for the Chief, but she’d do as she was told.
When he moved on, she finally sat down on her feet.
Sitting up the way that she’d been was hurting her toes and knees.
And with her hands up and over her head like they were, she was beginning to cramp up in the worst sort of ways.
She sat there stretching as best she could without causing anyone to look in her direction. Winker was still at it, and she finally turned around to see if there was someone behind her that she was trying to get the attention of. Nope. Just her. Or Jamie. But he wasn’t getting it either.
Hailey thought about what Jamie had told her a few months ago.
About the restaurant that they both were working for.
He’d been here for about five years, and she’d been here for about three.
It was coming up on her anniversary in a few weeks.
He said that he thought the place was going to go up in a blaze of glory soon.
She didn’t know what that meant, nor did she care, but it looked to her like someone had tried to do what he’d predicted.
There were two more bodies that she could see. One was the hostess, and the other had been Mary Sue, one of the waitresses. She couldn’t see what had killed them, but they were dead as Jamie because she’d seen all the blood.
Then there was Winker. She didn’t know where she worked, but she did have on one of the uniforms of the people who worked in the kitchen.
Her hair was stringy, and her face looked like she’d taken some kind of scrub brush to it, but other than that, she looked all right.
She looked like she’d not had a proper bath in about a year.
Plus, she was super skinny, like food was way down on her list of things to partake in. The man McGee came back.
“You can let her go.” He pointed his gun at her, and she looked at the man with him. “She doesn’t know anything, and I don’t like the way she keeps looking around. Take her up front and get her particulars so we can contact her when we need something.”
She assumed that her particulars were her home address and phone number.
She’d give that to him, but she wasn’t going to be staying here for long.
Jamie had told her that when the place went up, to find a place to hide until it was over.
While she didn’t have a clue what he’d been talking about, she was going to run for cover as soon as she was out of here.
Things that he’d told her were coming out, and she wanted nothing to do with the place.
When she was allowed to stand, she had to hold onto the table behind her for several minutes. She’d been sitting in that position for about twenty or so minutes, and she hurt from it. Hailey was used to being on her feet all day, but this had been something different.
Hailey was also used to disappearing. When she was a child, it was what she did the best when there was trouble in the house.
Not only could she disappear in the house, but she could not see her parents for weeks before she let them see her.
They didn’t seem to mind, however, and she was fine with that too.
Then, as she got older, she was even better at getting lost, so that when people came around to her family home, they would sometimes be surprised that they even had a child. Hailey liked that most of all.
After giving them her address and phone number, she was allowed to leave.
Going out of the big building, she took out her cell phone, took out the SIM card, and busted the phone.
As she walked past her car, she got two bags out of her trunk and kept walking toward the line of trees that was behind the restaurant.
If anyone had been watching, they’d think she’d been swallowed up by the trees.
Getting about five miles from the restaurant, she stopped long enough to see what she had in her backpack.
There was money in one of them, her checks from the last few months cashed and lying in neat stacks.
She had food enough to get her by this evening, but she’d have to find something that would tide her over until tomorrow night.
Plus, she had several changes of clothing that would do her for a while and a wig.
It had seen better days, but she was going to use it only if necessary.
And today it felt like it might be more necessary than ever before.
She’d been prepared for this for the last six months.
Jamie told her to be ready to go. That as soon as the place was gone—he’d never said how it would be gone, but he did tell her there would be fire—she was to light out like the police were after her and she’d stolen the biggest gem on this side of the United States. She took him at his word.
Now she was on the run and without much in the way of information.
She had an idea what had gone on at the restaurant, but not knowing if she was right or not, she kept her mouth shut.
She’d thought that the restaurant was doing too well to be out in the middle of nowhere and without the customers that seemed to be avoiding the place.
She did the dishes; she knew how many people were eating at the place nightly.
“Fentanyl.” She had figured that was what Jamie was trying his best not to tell her about it.
The entire ground floor of the place had been closed for years.
She figured that there must have been about thirty workers down there, from the cars that were always in the lot, and that they were making and selling the fentanyl right out the front door.
Her boss, Mr. Shadows, certainly not his real last name, seemed to have wads of cash on him all the time.
When the restaurant ran out of something, he’d peel a few hundred off of his pocket and tell Jamie to take the company van and run to the store and get it.
It didn’t matter what it was, either, from steaks to lettuce.
He’d come back with the van loaded up, and she’d have to help him unload it all.