Authors: Jack Shadows
Tags: #Fiction, #Legal, #Mystery, #Retail, #Thrillers
His phone rang
and Kelly came through.
“Bad news,” she said. “I stopped over at September’s office and had a chat with her. She wasn’t receptive to my ideas. Sorry.”
Drift’s chest tightened.
It wasn’t until that second that he realized how much he’d been hoping to get that little problem behind him. The specter of getting fired gnawed at his foundation once again.
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”
“I might have a Plan B,” she said. “Why don’t we meet for lunch and I’ll outline it for you.”
Fine.
Wong’s.
Noon.
63
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Yardley called Marabella
to report Cave’s demand for the name at the top no later than six. She also allowed herself a moment to evaluate whether she should make an anonymous tip to the police that Cave killed Deven. That, even on brief reflection, was a bad idea. Cave needed to silently disappear and then his apartment and office needed to be sanitized.
The detective, Drift, could be a problem.
Yardley had all the right answers to the man’s questions but could feel the needle on his bullshit detector twitching. The most telling giveaway was that he didn’t flirt with her, not an iota, even when she invited him.
Six o’clock.
Not a click more.
That’s how long she had before Cave put on his freak suit.
She checked her watch.
Six o’clock came in five hours and thirteen minutes.
What to do?
Her phone rang,
not the store’s landline, the cell. The incoming number was long distance, one her phone didn’t recognize.
She answered.
A timid woman’s voice said, “Hello, my name is Kimberly Lee. I’m calling about an important matter and hope I can have a few minutes of your time.”
“Sure.”
“I had a brother named Rydell Rain. Is his name familiar to you?”
“Vaguely. I’m having trouble placing it though to tell you the truth.”
“He disappeared a couple of months ago,” she said. “The police haven’t gotten very far with figuring it out.”
“So why are you calling me?”
“The reason I’m calling you is that I was going through his old cell phone records in the past just to see if I spotted anything unusual, your number was one of the ones that came up.”
“How long ago?”
“Let me see … more than a year ago; the Fall of last year, October to be precise.”
“October … I remember him now,” she said. “He was looking to buy a book. It was going to be a gift for someone.”
“A book?”
“I sell rare books,” Yardley said. “I have a store in Denver.”
“So he called you about a book?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m trying to think of which one it was … I don’t know, it’s evading me. Anyway, I remembered we had some negotiations and finally reached an agreement. He sent me money and I sent him the book. I probably have records if it’s important to you.”
Silence.
“You know, if you don’t mind—”
Two minutes later she was back on the phone. “I have the receipt,” she said. “He purchased a signed, first edition printing of Ayn Rand’s
Atlas Shrugged.
Do you have a fax number?”
Yes.
She did.
“It’s on its way,” she said.
The talk continued until the fax arrived.
Then it ended.
After Yardley hung up she called Marabella and said, “We might have a problem.”
64
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Pantage called Drift
mid-afternoon and said, “Before you said you’d give me the dates and locations of the women who were killed the same way as Jackie Lake, so I could compare them to my calendar as proof that I wasn’t involved.”
He wasn’t amused.
“You’re not the killer. Let it go.”
“I want you to do what you said.”
“Pantage—”
“Please.”
A beat then, “Check your emails in half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She almost hung up. “Are you still there?”
Yes.
He was.
“Is my lipstick still on your mirror?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The email
arrived twenty minutes later.
Her breath tightened.
All the murders took place before she was Pantage Phair.
They were back in time when she was London Winger.
She had no memory of doing them or not doing them.
Everything was blank.
Renn-Jaa glanced in
as she walked down the hallway, then swung in and closed the door.
“Are you okay?”
She forced her mouth to say, “Yes.”
“Are we still up for the gladiator tonight?”
The gladiator.
According to the kinky little blond from the Concrete Flower Factory, the gladiator liked to bind women with rope, inextricably and beyond escape, with multiple wraps and fancy knots, taking up to an hour or longer just to get her fully tied. He brought his own rope, red, precut into assorted lengths. Once he got the woman fully bound he’d tease her, bringing her close to orgasm, then back off and start all over again.
It wasn’t exactly the same as what happened to Jackie Lake.
It wasn’t exactly dissimilar either.
There were overlaps.
“Hey, are you there?”
Yes.
She was.
“So are we still up for the gladiator tonight or not?”
“Yes.”
65
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Kelly had a corner booth
at Wong’s with two plates of almond chicken when Drift got there. She kissed him on the mouth, told him again about the disaster at September’s this morning and said, “Here’s Plan B. She has dirt on you so what we need to do is level the playing field and get some on her. Then we make a swap, silence for silence.”
“What makes you think she has dirt?”
Kelly smiled.
“She’s a human being, right?”
Drift chewed what was in his mouth and swallowed it down.
“Let me rephrase it,” he said. “What makes you think we can find it?”
“There’s no we involved,” she said. “What I’ll do is hire a private investigator. I’m going to do it anonymously and not even tell him who I am. I’ll tell him I’m an attorney and have him agree to be bound by confidentiality. Whatever he finds out will be deemed attorney work product, meaning it will be privileged. I’ll have the retainer delivered in cash upfront. We’ll let him figure out what the dirt is and where it’s hidden.”
Drift cocked his head.
“What happened to the shy, straight-minded woman I first met?”
“She grew up.” She dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “So do you want me to move forward or not?” Drift hesitated long enough that Kelly added, “If you end up fired it won’t just be a blow to you. It will be just as big a blow to the city.”
“I doubt that.”
“You’ve put away a dozen guys that a normal detective wouldn’t have even looked at,” she said.
He shrugged.
Maybe.
“I sent Sydney
to New York this morning,” he said.
“Good.”
“She’s still mad at me but not as much.”
“Do you think she’ll find anything?”
He nodded.
“She’s a long ways down the road from where she was when I first met her.” A beat then, “Just like someone else I know.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Tell me I can move forward on Plan B.”
He considered it.
“If we do it, the investigator needs to stay clean,” he said. “He can’t be doing anything illegal. He can’t be breaking in or tapping her phone or anything like that.”
“He’ll be an independent contractor,” she said. “He’ll be responsible for the means he uses. The important thing from our standpoint is that I don’t expressly or impliedly suggest that he break the law.”
Drift speared a piece of chicken.
“Do you have someone in mind?”
She nodded.
“There’s a guy named Sanders Cave down on Market Street,” she said. “Back in Northway’s firm, some of the lawyers used him. I don’t know him personally but the talk is that he gets the job done and knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
Drift took a sip of tea.
“I’ll totally keep your name out of it,” Kelly added.
“What about payment?”
“I’ll cover the retainer,” she said. “You can pay me back in sex.”
Drift raked his hair back.
His phone rang
and a man’s voice came through.
“My name is Rex. I’m the owner of the Rikki. You got a minute?”
He did.
What followed was good.
Very good.
He hung up
and looked at his watch.
“Got to run,” he said.
“What about Plan B?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a good concept,” he said. “I’m half tempted to go through with it just so you can front the retainer and I can pay you back in sex. The more I think about it though, I don’t want any dirt on September. She came forward to help me in good faith. I’m the one who screwed up, not her. She needs to be left in peace.”
66
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Mid-afternoon
Drift walked into Yardley’s bookstore and said, “Do you have a computer with a DVD drive? There’s something I want to show you.”
Yardley wasn’t in the mood.
Drift was trouble.
“What is it?”
“Well, the owner of the Rikki is a guy named Rex,” he said. “Last night when I was processing the scene, he wasn’t there. I talked to the manager on duty and several of the bartenders and everyone said the same thing, namely that there were no surveillance cameras anywhere on the premises. Well, today I got a call from Rex. It seems that one of the cash registers has been coming up short so, unknown to anyone, he personally installed a security camera above it last week, hidden up in the ceiling. The camera is mostly trained on the register but it picks up some of the peripheral area. Guess whose face showed up in that area for over a hour?”
Yardley swallowed.
“Mine,” she said.
Drift nodded.
“Now, earlier today when I talked to you, you said you were home last night.”
She stepped over to the window and looked out.
Her head was light.
“How much trouble am I in?”
Drift shrugged.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “Assuming the timer was set correctly, you were in the club until after Deven got killed. So you didn’t kill her.”
“That’s right, I didn’t.”
The man pulled a book off a shelf and thumbed through it.
“I’m not much of a reader,” he said.
“Too bad.”
“I’d like to, I just don’t have the time.”
“You need to make the time.”
“Maybe someday.” His face hardened. “I’m going to give you one free lie. You’ve used it up. I won’t take kindly to a second one. That said, why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”
Her mind raced.
There was no place she could begin that wouldn’t eventually lead to lies.
“I can’t,” she said.
The man closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf.
“This is why I can never read,” he said. “People are always making me do things the hard way.” A beat then, “You’re a pretty woman. Were you and Deven lovers?”
Yardley walked to the door and opened it.
“It’s time for you to leave,” she said.
67
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Pantage pushed through
the revolving doors at the base of the building and stepped out into the sizzling downtown heat. She headed over to 16
th
Street and settled into a brisk walk, letting the temperature bake her brain. When she stopped at a street vendor for a hotdog, someone behind her came to a parallel halt.