Bats and Bling by Laina Turner Read Free Book Online

it be smarter to call or send an email or at least wait until tomorrow in the morning?”
    “It’s not like she’s some two hundred pound brute who is going to beat me up for stopping by. Plus I’m not the one who fired her so she’d have no reason to be mad at me. I feel that if I stop by her place she can’t hang up on me or ignore my email. I don’t want to wait for answers. I can’t wait for answers.”
    “Maybe I should come with you? I hate to think of you going there alone.”
    “I’ll be fine and you’ve had a longer day than I have so you need to go home and relax. I appreciate everything you’ve done to help and I want you to rest.”
    “If you’re sure. I don’t like the idea of you going alone. Why don’t you call Willie to go with you?”
    “I’m not going to bother him with this. I will be fine. I’ll text you before I go in and when I come put so you know she didn’t abduct me.”
    “That’s not funny, Pres,” Katy frowned.
    “Lighten up. You worry too much.”
    We made quick work of the remaining closing tasks and headed out. I locked the safe and the doors, double and triple checking them, I was paranoid now still having no idea as to how someone broke in. I figured anything was possible at this point. As we walked to our cars Katy asked again, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? I don’t mind, really. I’m not that tired.”
    “Yes. I’ll be fine. Go home and have a glass of wine. Plus Anna is probably bored and you guys can hang out. I won’t be long.”
    “Ok, well call me if you change your mind.”

Chapter 5 go to Angelas
     
    I sat in my car, plugged Angela’s address into Google maps and waited a few seconds for the directions to populate. It showed her apartment was six minutes away and this time of evening the traffic should not be too bad. At least that’s what I hoped. Sometimes you never could tell. I pulled out of the parking garage and headed down the route. Turning the radio on, volume low, as to not drown out the directions. About thirty minutes later, traffic was much worse than I had anticipated, I pulled into an older apartment complex. It had seen better days and was sorely in need of a paint job and some weed pulling but in Chicago real estate was expensive, even to rent, and you couldn’t be too picky when it came to aesthetics. Clean and safe were the things that were important in this city. Then location and then aesthetics. Unless you were rich you didn’t have many options. It was worth it though. Chicago was an awesome place to live.
    I found her building number and parked. Grabbing my purse I walked up to the front door, which of course was locked. Not surprising that you had to be buzzed in. That was pretty normal. It could however be a potential obstacle for me because if she didn’t want to talk to me she didn’t have to let me in and there wasn’t much I could do about it. And then there was always the possibility she wasn’t even home. I pressed the button for her unit and a few seconds later a soft female voice answered.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi, Angela?”
    “Yes.”
    “You don’t know me and I’m sorry to intrude, but my name is Presley Thurman. I was hoping we could chat a few minutes about the brooch Veronica Knapp took. I don’t know if you’ve heard but it was stolen and I own the store it was stolen from.”
    There was a long pause and I knew there was a good chance, a very good chance that she wouldn’t answer or let me in. I’m not sure I would have in her shoes and I started to think maybe this had been a bad idea. I was just about to press the button again and ask her to please talk to me when I heard the door unlock. I grabbed the handle and swung it open, walking through it and heading up to apartment number #115, which is what it had said on the mailbox. I knocked softly on the door when I arrived and hoped she hadn’t changed her mind about talking but she opened it right away.
    “C’mon in,” she