Read Online The Evasion by Adrienne Giordano - Free Book Online Page B

for more. They told me I’d get more on Friday.”
    Friday. And today was Wednesday. Which meant Martinson was getting a shipment sometime this week.
    Jo slid Martinson’s picture from her purse. “Is this the man?”
    “Yes. That’s him.”
    The bells on the shop door jangled. Jo and Gabe turned to see the sheriff looming in the doorway, his lips puckered, his nostrils as wide as his big chest that rose and fell. A bull on the attack.
    Oops.
    “Sheriff,” Ellie squealed. “I swear I didn’t know.”
    The sheriff patted the air. “Now, now, now. You just settle down.” He swung a vicious glare at Gabe and Jo. “Did I not make myself clear?”
    “Crystal,” Gabe said. “Except, Ms. Pomeroy received a gift at the hotel last night. And it wasn’t what I’d call a nice one. You’d know that if you answered our call.”
    “What gift?”
    “We’ll bring it down to your office, let you see it. Your crime scene people can check for prints.”
    “Boy, what are you talking about?”
    Oh, jeez. Calling Gabe boy would likely send Mr. August into overload. He’d need another hundred push-ups after this. He stepped forward, his long body a head taller than the sheriff’s.
    Make it two hundred push-ups .
    “Sheriff, I’m playing nice here. I really am. You are harboring a fugitive. A man wanted for not only trafficking counterfeit goods, but more importantly, conspiracy to commit murder. Now, you will either help us or I get on the phone with the mayor of New York and tell him we’ve found our guy but the local sheriff isn’t cooperating. I’ll tell him we need the FBI and maybe the Department of Justice. They’re not particularly fond of counterfeiters.”
    And, wow, Jo loved this man. He might have driven her crazy with Ellie, but the way he handled this sheriff? Poetry.
    At the mention of the Justice Department, the sheriff straightened. “Don’t go gettin’ above your raising. We don’t need any feds. I can take care of this. I don’t have crime scene techs here. We use the regional lab.”
    “Fine.” Gabe said. “You tell me where it is, and I’ll deliver the items to them. Because, no offense, Sheriff, I don’t trust anything about this town.”
    —:—
    Driving to the Gilfroy Laboratory hadn’t been on the daily to-do list, but Jo couldn’t blame Gabe for wanting to hand-deliver their evidence. With the sheriff’s permission of course. Even if it did take a wee bit of strong-arming.
    One thing about her man, when he wanted something, he found a way to make it happen.
    After dropping off their bag of evidence, Jo stepped out of the lab’s front door into the afternoon sunshine and glanced at Gabe holding the door for her. “I have a plan.”
    “Can’t wait.”
    “Hardy, har, sergeant.”
    He smiled at her in that way that made the crappiest of crappy days instantly transform to something light, fun and worthwhile. Crazy in love with this man . “First, I’m starving. The prints will take a while, so let’s eat lunch.”
    “That idea I can get behind.”
    As they walked, she held up two fingers. “Second, if Martinson told Ellie she’d have new stock by the end of the week, he must have a shipment coming in either today or tomorrow.”
    “A safe assumption.”
    “If he has a shipment coming in, how’s that shipment getting here? We know from his activities in New York that he brought items into the States via container ship. Stands to reason that he’s down here, conveniently twenty-ish miles from the Charleston Port Authority—one of the largest ports in the country—to expand his criminal empire.”
    They reached the rental car and Gabe leaned on it. “If I know you, you want to talk to someone at the Port Authority.”
    Jo batted her eyes. “Am I so predictable?”
    Laughing at her, he drew his phone from his pocket and scrolled his contacts. “This is one for Bev. She’ll throw the mayor’s name around and get us someone to talk to. Then we eat.”
    Lunch on the run