Free Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2 by Sara M. Barton Page B

information I had developed on
the case. We talked over a couple of possible scenarios and kicked
around a few ideas on how to proceed. We came to a consensus half
an hour later, after I outlined a scheme I thought might yield
dividends. Rufus agreed.
    “Do it, Gabby. Put his feet in the fire,
don’t take any crap, and don’t worry about me. I can handle the
FBI.”
    “Think it will work?” I wondered.
    “It’s worth a shot. At the moment, we don’t
really have much, do we?”
    I had to agree about that. Between the
duplicate gingerbread house, the likelihood that I was being tailed
by the feds, and the fact that Joe Fortuna was a possible
undercover FBI agent who set up my cousin, there was too much
confusion clouding our view. We couldn’t afford to sit around
waiting for the dust to settle. Better to stir it up and see what
surfaced.
    I left him as he sat at his desk, making
phone calls and cashing in old favors for current information. I
stopped at the winery for a quick conversation with Gerhard. And
then I called Mike Alves and got his voicemail.
    “Joe,” I said breathlessly, in my sexiest
voice. “This is Harriet. I have those bids on the concrete you
wanted. Can you meet me?”
    Twenty minutes later, my cell phone buzzed
and an unfamiliar number with a New Jersey area code popped up on
the screen. I counted to ten before answering.
    “Talk to me, Mike, or I’ll nail your ass to
the wall a hundred different ways for messing with my cousin.”
That’s the thing about me. When I get my dander up, it’s tough to
smooth those feathers into submission. Nobody messes with my
cousin, just to make a case.
    “Don’t you know better than to threaten a
federal agent, Deputy Grimm?” There was some serious venom in the
hiss of that snake. I wasn’t about to let the reptile bite me.
    “Don’t you know the Office of Professional
Responsibility will hang you out to dry for compromising an
investigation by sexually taking advantage of a vulnerable woman to
get information on a criminal enterprise when the woman has no
direct connection to the criminal activities? You think I can’t
find a good lawyer to represent Annette and expose your shady
dealings? Film at eleven, pal.”
    “Look,” the voice on the other end suddenly
dropped the hostile tone and became conciliatory, “it’s not like
that.”
    “Oh?” I gave him a good dose of Ice Queen,
letting the frosty word put a chill on his attempt to sweet talk
me.
    “Gabby..., er, Deputy Grimm,” he replied. “I
really like Annette. She’s a good, decent woman. Why do you think I
stole that gingerbread house?”
    “Because you’re the Grinch and you wanted to
spoil Christmas for a woman who’s still grieving for her late
husband?”
    “No. She’s too smart for her own good. Why do
you think I disappeared? I needed her to get out of town. I knew
that she’d go running to you the second there was any trouble.
That’s what she did when that jerk, Pete, used her.”
    “You’re telling me that you wanted her to
come to me for help?”
    “Off the record?”
    “Sure,” I replied nicely. Good cop, bad cop
works for me. I don’t mind being nice, but if you screw around with
me, I’ll turn bad cop in the blink of an eye and take you down,
even if you’re a federal agent.
    “My bosses wanted me to turn her into an
informant. She would be the star witness in the federal trial.
I...I wasn’t willing to do that.”
    “Meaning you have feelings for her?” I
demanded.
    “I...um, it’s complicated.”
    “Give me the uncomplicated version.”
    “We went into the investigation assuming that
Annette was apprised of her boss’s criminal background and his mob
connections. Once I got to know her, I realized that she was too
distracted by Paul’s cancer to have absorbed any real information
until after she returned to work. But my bosses didn’t care. They
figured we had spent all that time and money trying to get inside
Frist and Company, she was still