The factory was a ma.s.sive hulk of rusting metal. The remains of two silos stood at one end with a low concrete block building at the other. In between were rows of round concrete structures that stood about seven feet tall interspersed with twisted metal pieces. Remains of the processing plant, Lexy guessed.

Lexy's stomach did a somersault when she saw the SUV on the other side of the concrete structures and she stopped the car. Brax's warning about Nunzio's murder being an execution echoed in her head.

"There they are, over there." She pointed to a s.p.a.ce in between two of the concrete pieces where you could just make out the tail end of the car.

Nans twisted around in her seat. "See those bushes over there?" She pointed to an overgrown area loaded with tall bushes at the far end of the lot.

Lexy nodded.

"Head over there and park behind them. I think that will hide us from view."

Lexy headed over taking a route out of the line of vision of the SUV. She pulled in behind the bushes and Nans jumped out, heading for a small s.p.a.ce in between two shrubs. Helen produced a pair of binoculars from her purse and followed Nans with Ruth, Ida and Lexy close behind.

"Yep, it's them all right." Helen pulled the binoculars away from her face and handed them to Nans.

"Yep." Nans pa.s.sed them to Ruth.

"He's even eating one of the brownies." Ruth pa.s.sed them to Ida.

"Chocolate frosted. He's got some on his lip," Ida said pa.s.sing the binoculars to Lexy.

Lexy could see the two men just fine without binoculars. They were standing beside the SUV as if they were waiting for someone. The tall skinny one held the bag of brownies in his hand. The large one was stuffing the second half of a brownie in his mouth, which was smudged with frosting.

"What are they doing?" Ida asked holding her hand out for the binoculars.

"Looks like they are waiting for someone." Nans pushed her head further through the bushes and squinted.

"I think you're right." Helen pointed toward the road where a black mid-sized car had turned into the entrance to the factory.

"What is it with the black cars?" Ruth asked.

"And the tinted windows," Lexy said. The car had a dark tint on the windows making it impossible to see who was inside.

The five of them watched in silence as the car pulled to a stop beside the two brownie eating thugs.

Lexy held her breath as the driver's side door opened. A long, bare leg appeared outside the doora"a woman's leg ending in an expensive pair of Jimmy Choo stiletto's with a metal heel. The woman belonging to the leg slithered out of the car and Lexy felt her heart jerk in her chest.

"Simone!"

"Shhhh a" Nans waved her hand, but she needn't have worried. They were too far away to be heard.

Lexy watched as Simone approached the two men. She pointed to her mouth and the big thug wiped the brownie smudge off his lips. Lexy couldn't make out what she was saying, but judging from the way her hands were gesturing wildly in the air, she wasn't happy.

Finally, she stormed off in the direction of the concrete building, the two men following on her heels.

"Did you get pictures of that?" Lexy asked Helen.

"I sure did."

Lexy pulled out her cell phone.

"What are you doing?" Nans grabbed her arm.

"We need to call Jack and tell him about this," Lexy said.

"Tell him about what? That we saw three people go into a building?"

Lexy bit her lip. Nans had a point. Jack would probably just yell at her for meddling. And since Simone was one of the three people, that made it even sticker. Lexy didn't want it to appear as if she was trying to get Simone in trouble because she was jealous.

"We need to get some hard evidence before we call in the police," Helen said.

"Right," Nans said, heading back to the car. "Let's go back to my place and run those pictures through the internet and see what comes up."

Ruth didn't let Lexy drive on the way back which was just as well since Lexy's head was reeling with questions about Simone meeting with the thugs. What was she up to? Did Jack know about it?

Back at Nans', they gathered around her dining room table while Nans hooked the camera gla.s.ses to her computer with a USB cable. Lexy watched as she uploaded the pictures to the internet, then used a sophisticated online picture search to try to match the men in the photos to any pictures currently online.

"Bingo!" Nans turned to face them from her seat at the computer table. Her face was flushed with excitement as she pointed to an image on the screen.

Ida walked over to the computer, bending down and squinting at the monitor.

"These guys are definitely with organized crime," She announced.

"Looks like the fat one is called Louie The Finger. I wonder why that is?" Nans asked. "Here's an article on a restaurant hit that he was suspected in."

Lexy s.h.i.+vered despite the warm temperatures in Nans's condo. These guys were killers.

"And the skinny one is Sal Toreo. Skinny Sal," Ida said.

"Let's run their names through the gun registry and see what they have for guns."

Nans worked the keyboard and a list came up on the screen.

"Looks like Louie has a lot of guns. Including a Colt .22 caliber." Nans snapped her fingers. "Yep, this is our guy!"

"Okay, so we can be reasonably sure they killed Nunzio. But why did they search his condo and Ruth's?" Ida asked.

"And where do Barry and Simone fit into all this?" Helen added.

Nans tapped her lips with her index finger. "That's a good question. Barry and Simone have opposite goals when it comes to the will. She would want it to be found and he would want to destroy it."

"So they probably aren't working together," Lexy said.

"Right, but Simone is working with Louie and Sal." Nans tapped Sal's face on the computer for emphasis.

"Yeah, and I wonder what they are up to." Lexy narrowed her eyes at the computer.

"Well, they obviously have something inside that abandoned factory," Nans said to Lexy. "I think you, me and Ruth need to head on over there tomorrow and take a look while Helen and Ida do more research."

"I don't know. That sounds pretty dangerous." Lexy's stomach clenched at the thought of poking around inside the old factory.

"There's got to be a clue inside that we can give to the police. We'll wait until they leave and then just take a peek. We won't be but a few minutes. It will all be totally safe, I a.s.sure you. Can you pick us up at eight?"

Lexy could see Nans was aiming her most honest, trustworthy look in her direction, but it did nothing to stop the b.u.t.terflies from flapping around in her stomach. Everyone was looking at her expectantly, though, and she didn't want to seem wimpier than a bunch of old ladies. Plus she knew Nans and Ruth would just go without her anyway, and she wanted to be there in case they got into trouble.

Lexy let out a sigh. "Okay, eight o'clock it is, then."

Chapter Seventeen.

Lexy squinted through the binoculars she had trained on the entrance to the applesauce factory. The squinting combined with the glare of the sun was giving her a headache, and she was beginning to wonder if Louie and Sal were ever going to leave. She felt a flurry of relief, chased by a pang of nervousness, when she saw their black SUV finally coming up the entrance driveway.

"They're leaving!"

"Let's wait until they've gone down the road a ways. We don't want them to see us going into the factory in the rear view mirror," Nans advised from the pa.s.senger seat.

Lexy started the engine and let it idle, handing the binoculars to Ruth in the back seat who trained them on the road.

"Okay, hit it!" Ruth said after a few seconds and Lexy pulled out onto the road heading toward the factory, her heartbeat picking up speed the closer she got.

She drove straight to the place where they'd seen the two thugs and Simone go into the building and parked the car.

"I guess this must be the door." Ruth pointed to a rusted metal door set into the concrete block building.

Lexy tried the k.n.o.b. It turned. She opened the door and peered inside.

"It's kind of dark in here. Do either of you have a flashlight?"

Lexy turned to see Nans rummaging in her purse. "You're bringing your purse in? Wouldn't it be easier to just leave it in the car?"

"Oh no dear, I bring this everywhere. You never know when you might need something. Like this flashlight," she said producing a small, round cylinder from the depths of her bag.

Lexy turned it on and aimed the light into the building. The inside was covered in years of dust and dirt. Several thin windows let streaks of light in at the end of the building which was one large room with several offices sectioned off to the side.

Lexy stepped in. It was hot inside and smelled like mildew and old dirt.

"Let's start in the offices over here." Nans's voice beside her made her jump.

"Okay. Be careful of those boards." Lexy trained the flashlight on the various loose boards and piles of sheet rock that littered the floor as Nans navigated the area with a vigor that belied her age.

The three of them went into the first office which had a rusty metal desk, some filing cabinets and chairs.

"This office has been used recently," Ruth said as she squatted down level with the desk. "There's no dust on the surfaces."

Nans opened the filing cabinet and Ruth started poking in the desk drawers while Lexy held the flashlight up to illuminate the room for them.

"What are we looking for, anyway?" Lexy asked as a dust mote flew up her nose causing her to sneeze violently.

"I'm not sure exactly. Anything that has to do with the case. I think we'll know when we see it. Once we find something, we can get out of here and hand it over to Jack and let the police handle the arrest."

Lexy alternated between pointing the flashlight at Ruth and Nans. She was busy directing the beam into a drawer that Ruth was inspecting when she heard the sound of a rusty door hinge from Nans's direction.

"Bingo!"

Lexy turned her attention in the direction of Nans's voice. Her grandmother was standing in front of a metal locker, the open doors revealing a cache of guns inside. But instead of the look of accomplishment she expected to see, Nans's face looked surprised, her eyes wide.

"Uh-oh," Nan's said looking at something behind Lexy.

Lexy's heart jerked.

She whirled around to see what was behind her but her vision was obstructed by a large, beefy hand with dark hairy knuckles coming toward her face.

Before she could react, her nose and mouth were covered by something soft and sweet smelling.

Struggling to breathe she kicked out at her a.s.sailant.

Then everything went dark.

Chapter Eighteen.

Lexy's hips and shoulders pressed against the hard floor. Her head pounded and she felt nauseous. She squinted one eye open in the dimly lit room. Where was she?

"She's coming round." Lexy heard a voice. Was that Nans?

Someone helped her sit up and she held her head in her hands willing the spinning to stop. After a few minutes, she felt better and lifted her head.

"Are you okay, dear?" Nans peered at her nervously.

"I think so." Lexy did a mental scan of her body. Other than the headache, she felt fine. The nausea was almost pa.s.sed and the pounding in her head was dissipating.

"What happened?"