“Yes, go ahead and text him. You’re my last client of the day, so I’ll wait with you and lock up.” Margo had just spoken those words when she received a text from her daughter saying she needed a ride home from the nearby skating rink. It was closing early due to the worsening snowstorm. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, sweetheart.”
“If you need to go, I can make sure your door is locked when I leave,” Charley offered.
“If you don’t mind, that works for me. Thank you, Charley.”
Charley and Margo put on their coats and walked into the front office. As Charley pulled out her phone to text Sully, through the snowy window she glimpsed his stormtrooper Jeep. A perfect ride for this stormy night.
“Oh! He’s already here,” Charley said and shoved her phone back into her purse.
“Great timing!” Margo opened the door to the blustery snow and wind. “I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the sale, Charley.”
“Yes, please,” Charley said as they walked out of the office into the snow and icicles. “Thank you, Margo,” she added as the realtor locked the door.
“You’re welcome,” Margo replied and gave her a hug. “Take care,” she called as they parted, going their separate ways.
Shielding her eyes the best she could against the blowing snow, Charley carefully made her way across the slippery sidewalk toward the street and Jeep. Margo gave her a farewell honk from her car, and Charley waved goodbye. Margo vanished into the darkening street as Charley placed her hand on the door to the Jeep. When it didn’t open, she looked inside. The older man driving the black and white Jeep was a total stranger and looked as surprised to see her as she was him. Charley removed her hand from his vehicle and gave him a small, apologetic wave. The traffic light changed, and the stranger in the Jeep was gone.
Finding herself alone in the blizzard, Charley started walking in the direction of her shop. Doing her best not to slip and fall, she reached into her purse for her cell phone. She couldn’t find it, and her heart thumped as she feared she’d left it inside Margo’s office. Pressing forward through the snow, she yanked off her glove and breathed a sigh of relief as her fingers curled around her phone. Charley was nearly to the door to her shop by the time she punched Sully’s name on her cell. He answered immediately.
“Sully, Margo and I are done,” she said as the wind blew. “She’s gone because she had to pick up her daughter and I told her by mistake that I saw your Jeep. I’m almost to my shop where I can wait for you out of the snowstorm.”
“Okay. I left my dad at Memorial Hospital getting his sprained, not broken, ankle treated,” Sully said. “I’m heading up Colorado Avenue now. I’m five minutes from you.”
“Wonderful on both counts,” Charley said happily. “I’ve just reached my shop but I’m having a little trouble getting my key to work. I think the lock is frozen.”
“Stand under the lamppost and stay on the phone with me,” Sully said. “I’m only a few stoplights away.”
“I will,” Charley said. Then, seeing the man walking toward her, she gasped, “Leon!”
“Charley!” came Sully’s alarmed voice over the phone. “Charley!”
“Sul—”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Dammit!” Sully barked as Charley’s cell phone went dead.
Stomping his foot on the gas pedal, he slid sideways on the snow and ice before the tires regained traction. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, Sully dodged around one slow-moving car and then sped in between two others. His eyes were peeled for Charley, but the relentless storm was blinding. His windshield wipers were on high, but visibility remained frustratingly low. Glancing both ways, he raced through an intersection as the light was turning red. Nearing the next stoplight, it was already red, but he ran it. Running the third stoplight almost got him T-boned as the driver of a pickup truck blared his horn long and loud.
“Where are you, Charley?” Sully whispered.
He focused on the left side of the street, where her now-empty shop was, as he closed in on the location. With Christmas shopping over and the blizzard raging, no one was on the sidewalk, and only a few drivers were braving the icy roads. Turning left, the Jeep’s tires fishtailed some, but he managed to come to a stop on the corner of Charley’s former shop. She wasnowhere in sight. Hopping out of the Jeep, he hurried onto the sidewalk.
Under the glow of the lamppost, he recognized Charley’s red glove lying on the ground at the entrance to her shop. He picked it up and shoved it in his coat pocket. Cursing under his breath, he glanced in all four directions. Besides his own, there were two other sets of footprints in the snow. There appeared to have been a scuffle near her doorway. From there, the footprints disappeared across the sidewalk and into the street. To a car? Had Lerfeld forced her into his car? Sully saw nothing and no one. He jiggled the door to the shop. It was still locked. He wished he had Spike, the Brevards’ German shepherd, with him. But with the snow, he figured the dog wouldn’t be able to pick up Charley’s scent anyway. Standing in the snow near the spot where he’d found her red glove, Sully called Burt Groves who answered on the first ring.
“Detective Groves, this is Sullivan Custis, and I need your help,” Sully said. He briefly explained Charley’s disappearance, where he was, and asked, “Do you know anything about a man in his mid-forties named Leon Lerfeld? Like where he lives?”
“No, I don’t know him, Sully. But I can find out. I’ll call you right back.”
On his way to the Jeep, Sully texted his dad the circumstances and then jammed his cell phone into his jacket pocket. Reaching the Jeep, he got in, and even with four-wheel-drive reaching Charley’s duplex at the top of the hill was no easy task. The Jeep’s tires spun, and the vehicle fishtailed back and forth, but he made it up the hill. The headlights didn’t show any tire tracks or footprints. Nevertheless, he jumped out and jogged across the parking pads to her front door. The apartments were dark, and both doors were locked. He glanced around feeling helpless and returned to the Jeep. He knew his dad was also making some calls as his phone rang.
“Detective Groves,” Sully said. “What did you find out?”
“A Lerfeld couple lives on a dead-end side street about three blocks north of where you are now.” There was a pause, and then Groves said, “But Leon Lerfeld is a man in his mid-eighties. Are you sure that’s the correct name?”
“That’s the only name I have for him.”
“Copy that. Lerfeld lives on Bleak Road. I’m headed there now.”
