Free Scarlet Nights by Jude Deveraux Page B

victim and after they’d subpoenaed some of Mitzi’s many bank accounts, they were shocked at the sheer magnitude of what they saw. Mitzi Vandlo had taken millions of dollars from many women.
    Whenever there’s lots of money involved in a crime, the federal bureaus step in, and everything changes. It was soon found out that Mitzi was just a small part of what looked to be one of the largest organized crime rings in the world—and no one knew anything about it.
    As the investigation went forward, fortunately, it was backed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said the gullibility of a person didn’t eliminate the fact that a crime had been committed. People who did what Mitzi had done were as guilty as bank robbers.
    State criminal law and federal law work in opposite ways. Criminals arrested by state law enforcement are incarcerated, then evidence is found. But the Feds will spend years gathering information before arrests are made. Unfortunately, the first time around, when they were ready to indict Mitzi and twenty-eight of her family members, she’d been told what was coming. She and her son had disappeared where no one could find them.
    As Mike straightened the papers, he agreed with the captain that the only reason Stefan and his mother would come to a two-bit town like Edilean, Virginia, would be for something really big. And it looked like during the time Mitzi was missing, she’d found another way to extort money, and this time, it involved Miss Sara Shaw.
    Mike put the papers in his bedside table drawer, making a mental note to take them out in the morning. He couldn’t risk Sara finding them when she snooped through his room.
    As he closed the drawer, he couldn’t help but think of the irony of the evening. This afternoon, while he’d spent a couple of hours at Williamsburg’s outlet mall buying new clothes, he’d envisioned a nice, domestic evening with Sara. They’d have good food and the wine that was never opened. He imagined that after dinner he’d get his new clothes out of his car, and he and Sara would go through them. Since she was in the business, he’d ask her advice about what he should wear. And every scenario that he came up with ended with Sara telling him what it was that the Vandlos wanted. But, somehow, everything had fallen through.
    As he turned off the light, Mike thought, Strippers. From now on, he was going to deal only with strippers. No more good girls who made no sense whatsoever.

5
    T HE NEXT MORNING , Sara awoke with what she knew was a hangover. Two margaritas wouldn’t be enough to make most people drunk, but Sara’d never been able to tolerate much alcohol.
    As she splashed cold water on her face, she began to remember what she’d said to Mike the night before. Her excuse was that he’d asked too many questions about Greg, made too many insinuations, and added to all the other things going on now, it had been more than she could take.
    She would, of course, have to apologize to him. Last night, it had seemed clear that … well, it was almost as though people were plotting against her—but that couldn’t be true. However, the idea stayed with her and began to grow.
    As the day wore on and she worked constantly on the pile of sewing, she told herself that it couldn’t be possible that Tess had worked with the whole town to bring in Mike to get Sara away from Greg.
    But there was an old murder mystery on TV, and as she sewed and listened, she seemed to see conspiracy in every second of the last few days. Greg abruptly called away; Luke taking over her apartment; Sara having to move into Tess’s place where the trapdoor was. Then Tess’s mysterious brother just “happens” to show up—and now he was living in the small apartment with her.
    At one, Sara went to the kitchen to get lunch and saw that the refrigerator was full of the food Mike had cooked. What had he been planning last night with that delicious meal? She vaguely remembered accusing him of