Lastly, Brody shared the name of the lady who Noah had conned while he was conning me. Her name was Winnie Conrad, she was seventy-two and had a spine operation go bad when she was sixty-six and it took away the use of her legs. After a years-long battle, she got a payoff for the botched operation which enabled her to buy a decent, handicapped accessible house in a decent neighborhood as well as augmenting her meager retirement money which allowed her to live, and pay taxes and utilities, in a nicer neighborhood. Noah got his hands on what was left of the payoff, which set her back to scraping by but somehow she had managed to keep her place.

Jules had done some research from Command Central and discovered Mrs. Conrad’s address in Aurora.

Shirleen informed me that the Rock Chicks worked hard on my behalf, pumping their men for information. This didn’t work but apparently they had fun trying. Also, they’d all had fun sharing their escapades over coffee while I was at breakfast. I didn’t find any of that hard to believe but I was pretty pissed I had missed out on the gossip.

Tex made me a skinny vanilla latte to replace the one he threw out and we hit the road. Jet, Roxie, Smithie, Duke, Tod and Stevie took off to Noah’s old neighborhood to knock on some doors. Tex, Daisy, Shirleen, Sissy and me took off to pay a visit to Winnie.

We pulled up to Winnie’s and we saw she was sitting in a wheelchair on her porch enjoying the sunny, warm day. She was a round, black lady, hair recently set, dressed in her Sunday best. She had likely just got home from church. She was drinking an iced tea.

We trundled up and she stared, but then again anyone would stare. Sissy and I had black eyes (Sissy’s was fading but mine still looked angry). Shirleen’s Afro seemed to have grown two inches in the last week. Daisy’s hair rivaled Shirleen’s in size and volume, she had five-inch, shiny white, platform go-aheads on her feet and her body was encased in skintight denim with enough rhinestones to supply Celine Dion’s wardrobe technician for emergency mending on a concert tour. And finally there was Tex who looked like a recently reformed serial killer (and that was being nice).

We were undoubtedly not the popular choice for Sunday visitors.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Conrad. We may look crazy but we ain’t gonna hurt you,” Shirleen assured her as we hit the porch.

Winnie didn’t look like she believed Shirleen. “How do you know my name?” she asked.

“We’re lookin’ for Walter Ellis, AKA Noah Dexter but I think you knew him as Jeremiah Levine,” Shirleen said.

Winnie sucked in breath, her kindly face got hard then she muttered, “Jeremiah?”

“Yeah. You know who we’re talkin’ about?” Tex asked.

Winnie looked at Tex then her eyes scanned all of us. “What now with Jeremiah? I had some boys come talk to me earlier this week about him. I don’t know anything and I don’t want to know anything. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. I haven’t seen him in months and I like it that way.”

I couldn’t blame her.

Shirleen grabbed me and pulled me forward. “See this girl here?”

Winnie nodded, her eyes wide as she looked at me.

“Well, while Jeremiah was rippin’ you off, he was also rippin’ off my girl Ava. Stole her money and her dead auntie’s jewelry. A little while ago she got herself a man who found out this little piece of ugly history. He’s the kinda man who doesn’t like that shit much and went lookin’ for payback. Jeremiah felt the heat, got angry and, a coupla days ago, took it out on Ava. You get what I’m sayin’ to you?” Shirleen asked.

The wary hardness went out of Winnie’s face and it went soft as she gazed at me. “Oh honey,” she whispered.

“I’m fine,” I told her, smiling just to prove my point.

“You don’t look fine to me,” Winnie said and I could see the concern in her eyes.

“No, really,” I promised quietly, got closer and knelt down by her chair.

She looked down at me. “Was it your man who came by earlier this week?”

“Probably,” I said.

“Which one was he, the Native American or the one with the mustache?” she asked.

“The mustache,” I answered.

She smiled and reached out a hand to me. I took it and she squeezed.

“He’s cute. Drives a Porsche, looks good in it too,” she told me then went on. “He’s got a great mustache. Most men would look all kinds a fool with that mustache but he works it real fine. Real fine. Seems a good sort. A whole lot better than Jeremiah.”

She had that right, all of it.

“Right now, he’s also kind of angry,” I fibbed. It wasn’t exactly a lie, more a significant understatement. “After Noah… or, sorry, Jeremiah beat me up a couple of days ago, Luke’s payback turned to retribution. I’m trying to find Jeremiah before Luke does and turn him in to the police so Luke won’t do anything gonzo and get himself into trouble,” I said.

She shook her head and squeezed my hand again. “Seems to me Jeremiah could use someone metin’ out gonzo retribution but I’d hate to see your man get himself into trouble. I’d like to help but, like I said, I haven’t seen Jeremiah in months.”

“You have an address? Phone number? Did you meet any of his friends? Did he say anything to you that might help us find him?” Daisy asked.

Winnie let go of my hand and looked at Daisy. I stood up and stepped away.

“Like I told those boys that came lookin’ for him, I don’t know anything. My family tried to find him after he –” Winnie stopped talking and looked away and I could tell she was embarrassed.

I kind of understood how she felt but I was a white woman with a somewhat hefty inheritance that Noah luckily couldn’t figure out how to steal. She was an elderly, disabled black lady, living in Aurora, Colorado, not a penthouse on Central Park in NYC. You could tell she wasn’t exactly rolling in it. What Noah got from her probably cut deep into whatever end-of-life living-in-a-wheelchair safety net she had.

This pissed me off so much for a moment I considered calling off the Noah chase and letting Luke do whatever Luke was going to do. Then I realized it could mean I wouldn’t get to process all my life’s complications in a warm bed with Luke lying next to me so instead I vowed octuple revenge against Noah, rat-bastard.

“This is beginning to tick me off,” I announced, crossing my arms on my chest. “We’re not getting anywhere. We keep running into dead ends but they’re dead ends that the Hot Bunch moved through days ago. We’re never going to catch up. Luke’s gonna find Noah and I’m not altogether certain Eddie and Hank are going to keep this whole thing off the radar when Noah turns up with a cap busted in his ass.”