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I grabbed Lee’s arm. “Lee!”
Lee was watching Gary and The Moron. He didn’t look at me when he said, “He breaks it, I’ll buy you a new one.”
I pressed up against him. “When I say ‘thousands of dollars,’ I mean, like,sevenof them!”
Lee’s eyes moved to me. “Indy, honey, what did I say?”
Yikes.
Okay, Lee was concentrating, and obviously it was best to leave Lee alone when he was concentrating.
“Ha ha!” Antonio crowed watching Tex slam around. “You know nothing about espresso. I am barista. My father was barista. My grandfather—”
“Shut the fuck up and make coffee if you make coffee, turkey,” Tex boomed.
Wilcox took two steps toward us. Lee moved in front of me, and Duke closed ranks.
“That’s close enough, Coxy,” Lee warned.
Wilcox was looking at me, but he stopped at Lee’s warning.
“You keep sending back my presents,” Wilcox said to me.
I got a chill up my spine. His eyes were weird, intense and frightening. “Thank you. You’re being very nice, but it would be rude for me to accept them.”
“You accepted the one I gave you yesterday,” he remarked.
Lee’s body tensed and it seemed as if electricity sparkled in the air.
Then it came to me in a flash.
I was on the phone to Lee yesterday, telling him about Pepper Rick’s body, and Lee had said, “A present.”
I hadn’t thought of it again, but that’s what he meant. Wilcox had killed my kidnapper and brought him to me as a present.
Oh…my…God.
How totally gross was that?
I was standing mostly behind Lee and grabbed bunches of his T-shirt in my hands, but I didn’t take my eyes off Wilcox.
“You didn’t,” I whispered.
“Ican keep you safe, India. My present yesterday proved it,” Wilcox said.
I felt bile climb up the back of my throat.
Then something else hit me. The store was bugged. Days ago, Lee had bugged the store. If I could get him talking, maybe it could get taped or someone at Lee’s Command Headquarters was listening. Then Wilcox could be picked up for murder and I’d never have to worry about him again, or, at least, until they let him out.
“Lee keeps me protected,” I told Wilcox. I didn’t know what to say to draw him out.
He smiled his oily smile. “To do it properly, you have to eliminate the threat.”
“Is that what you did? Eliminated the threat and put him at my front door?” I pushed.
His smile didn’t waver and he didn’t answer.
“I didn’t know he was from you. How was I to know the dead guy was from you? You should have left, like, a note or something,” I said.
