“It means I’ll figure it out.”
Ramsey pushed away from the refrigerator and finished emptying the totes. She placed bread, cereal, oats, pancake mix, syrup, olive oil, and peanut butter on the counter before she began putting it all away.
“Cap’n Crunch?” asked Jay, lifting an eyebrow. “You used to eat yogurt and granola.”
“Tastes change. At least mine did.”
“Hmm. C’mon. Finish that. You need to make that call.”
“You need me to make that call, you mean.”
“Whatever.”
Ramsey decided she had pushed his patience as much as she dared. It was all she could do not to keep glancing toward the front of the house in expectation of the police arriving. She had no concept of how long it would take until someone showed up, and she knew very well that the station would have its men busy with the bust at the Ridge. She was hardly a priority.
Jay gestured to the chair beside him when Ramsey finished. “Sit here so I can see what you’re doing.”
She pulled out her phone and sat. “I need to tell you that I don’t like this. You’re making me a party to covering up your crime.”
“You’re giving me a loan for a real estate venture. That’s what you know. That’sallyou know.”
“Do you want to know what I think, Jay?”
“Enlighten me.”
“I think you’re planning to get out of Dodge. That account number you gave me? I’d be very surprised if it belonged to a bank in this country.” She wished she knew it for a fact, but neither the chief nor Sullivan had been able to give her that information yet. Again, she acknowledged that they were busy and she was not a priority, although knowing that did not appreciably relieve her anxiety. “I think you asked for an amount of money that would not alarm my advisor when I went to him to withdraw it. You don’t know Mr. Finch, but half that amount would have made him suspicious. He’ll do it, of course. He really doesn’t have any choice. When you come back for more—and I know you will—we should probably agree on a schedule and a significantly lower withdrawal.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Liz.”
“So you say.”
“Call Finch. Do it now.”
Ramsey held up the phone. “Do you want to do it?”
He shook his head. “Put him on speaker.”
Ramsey tried Finch’s office first in the event he was in on a Saturday. She got voice mail and left a message to give her a call back in case she didn’t reach him on his cell. She tapped his mobile number next.
Chief Bailey called out to the Ridge for Lieutenant Goodfellow and got straight to the point. “Can you spare Officer Day?”
“I guess. Why? What’s up?”
“I already sent a car around to Ramsey Masters’ place, but I figure Day’s presence at the scene could be helpful. Tell him her security alarm went off and she gave the security dispatcher a bogus passcode. Something’s not right.”
“Ramsey Masters? The same Ramsey that works here at the Ridge?”
“That’s the one.”
“Huh. Give me a moment to locate and tell him, then I have something to tell you.”
Bailey judged it was just under a minute before Goodfellow’s voice was back in his ear. “What do you have for me?” he asked after the detective verified he was still on the call.
“Her name came up when we were asking employees near the exits about Shippensmith’s vanishing act. One of the cashiers mentioned that Shippensmith went by when she was checking Ramsey out. Ramsey called to him and he didn’t stop. Didn’t think much about it. After Ramsey left, the cashier was checking out another customer and rang up something that the customer claimed wasn’t one of her items. Took a little time to straighten it out and the cashier realized the item was something that Ramsey left behind. Cashier called her supervisor and the supervisor took over the register while the cashier ran the item out to the lot to see if she could catch Ramsey. She didn’t, but she claims she saw Ramsey’s SUV over in the employee lot and she was helping Shippensmith into it. Could be she’s in on something.”
Bailey didn’t believe that for a moment. “Or it could be why she gave the alarm company a fake passcode. Do you know where Shippensmith is?”
“No one at home. He has a double car garage. No vehicles in either bay.”
