I finally realized why Dobson had dragged the health inspector along with him. After Madeline had sent her maid in here to attack me, and she hadn’t come back out again, the acid elemental would have known that I’d killed her maid and that her body was around here somewhere. So she’d sent Dobson in to find it.
If the health inspector opened that freezer, then Dobson would get to do exactly what he’d come here for in the first place. Arrest me for murder, cart me off to jail, and kill me on the way there—just like Madeline wanted.
But there was no way I could stop him from opening the freezer. Any sort of protest on my part would only make him that much more eager to see what was inside it. I was well and truly stuck in Madeline’s black widow’s web, and there was nothing I could do but start figuring out how many of the cops I could keep busy while I yelled at Silvio and Sophia to run to safety.
Still, I shrugged, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, hoping against hope that I could bluff my way out of this. “Nothing special. Just some ice, frozen food, things like that.”
“Well, let’s open them up,” Dobson crowed. “I want to see it for myself. It’s probably all rotten, like everything else in here.”
I kept my face blank as he went over to the first freezer. Dobson gave me a knowing smirk, lifted the lid, peered inside, and found . . . several bags of ice, just like I’d said.
The giant didn’t make any derogatory comments this time, but he gave me an angry glare. He let the heavy lid drop and slam shut with an audible whomp and moved on to the next freezer, almost as if he was looking for something specific.
Like, say, a body.
The one that he knew was here somewhere.
Dobson headed over to the second freezer, and I leaned over and put my lips close to Silvio’s ear. “Are you really a lawyer?” I whispered.
“Of course I am,” he whispered back. “Who do you think bailed out all of Beau’s drug dealers when they got swept up by the cops? It was easier and more efficient for me to get my license and take care of things like that myself rather than wait for some lawyer to show up. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m going to need one,” I muttered.
Sophia heard the last part of our conversation. She gave me a thoughtful look. She knew what was in that last freezer as well as I did.
Dobson snorted in disgust and let the second freezer lid fall and whomp back into place, since it was full of innocent things like frozen packets of corn, bags of cranberries, and tubs of summer strawberries that Jo-Jo had added sugar to and frozen to eat during the winter months. His gaze locked onto the final freezer, and an excited grin split his face. He knew he was about to hit the jackpot, and he hurried in that direction—
At the last second, just before Dobson could grab the freezer handle, Sophia sidled forward, stuck out her boot, and tripped him. The giant stumbled forward, his skull cracking against the side of the freezer, before his legs slid out from under him, and he did a header onto the floor.
Dobson let out a low groan, and I had to press my lips together to hold back my snickers. Sophia winked at me, her black eyes sparkling with merriment and revenge.
A couple of officers rushed over, trying to help their boss, but Dobson shoved them away and got to his feet. A large purple bruise had already started to form around the jagged cut over his right eye, but the growing goose egg on his face didn’t keep him from glaring at Sophia.
“You did that on purpose,” Dobson muttered.
Sophia grinned, although the look was more feral than pleasant. “Whoops,” she rasped.
That angry red flush exploded in Dobson’s cheeks again. It matched the blood dribbling down the side of his face.
“Arrest her!” he screamed. “For assaulting an officer of the law!”
One of the uniformed cops stepped forward. “I’m sure it was just an accident, sir,” he said in a timid tone. “It is a little cramped, what with all of us standing around back here—”
“Cuff that bitch!” Dobson roared. “Now!”
The officers didn’t like it, but they didn’t have a choice. They cautiously approached Sophia, who held her hands out in front of her, as meek as a kitten, and let the cops cuff her, even though she could have snapped their necks like breadsticks if she wanted to. But Sophia wasn’t above raising her cuffed hands to her lips and blowing the captain an exaggerated kiss.
“Get her out of here!” Dobson roared again.
Silvio looked at me, and I jerked my head, telling him to go with Sophia. The officers led her into the front of the restaurant, with Silvio trailing along behind them.
Dobson stopped the phony inspection long enough to grab some napkins off a metal rack and use them to wipe the blood off his face.
“Now,” he growled, crushing the dirty napkins in his hand and tossing them aside. “Let’s see what’s in that freezer—”
But Ms. Wright had already beaten him to it, lifting the freezer lid and taking a quick peek inside. “Nothing interesting. Just some frozen peas.” She let the lid slam shut and made a note on her clipboard.
“Are you sure?” Dobson asked, giving me a suspicious look.
“I can actually see to do my job, Captain,” Ms. Wright snarked, the first bit of bite that she’d dished out the entire time she’d been here.
He looked at the freezer again, as if he wanted to shove past her, grab the lid, and open it up himself, but in the end he gave her a curt nod. After all, she was the one supposedly conducting the inspection.
I stared at Wright. She didn’t so much as glance at me, but her hand trembled as she scribbled another note on her clipboard. I didn’t know if she really hadn’t seen the maid’s body underneath all the frozen food and bags of ice or if she just wanted to piss off Dobson by not letting him look inside. Either way, I wasn’t about to question my small bit of good luck.
With the so-called inspection complete, Dobson whipped around and shoved back through the double doors, with the uniformed officers following him. Wright headed in that direction as well, although she stopped a few feet away from me and dropped her head, as though studying the ketchup bottles that Dobson had strewn all over the floor.
“Tell Bria thanks again for helping me out with my ex-husband,” she said in a whisper-soft voice. “He’s never getting out, and he’ll never hit me again, because of her.”
So it wasn’t luck that had saved me—it was Bria’s kindness to this woman. I wondered what kind of nightmare my sister had saved her from. It must have been bad, for Wright to return the favor here and now and risk Dobson’s wrath.