Girl Undercover 4 & 5: Ariel & Financial Devil (10 page)

“Honestly, I don’t know what to believe any longer,” I said to Ian and leaned back into my couch. Maybe I had been so focused on trying to find leads on Nick’s killers that I had failed to properly pay attention to what was really going on around me. Was it possible that Paco had carried a secret torch for Ariel, kept pursuing her, without me noticing? I supposed it was. I supposed it was possible that mild-mannered Paco was in fact a killer. I would have to ask around at the gym, see if anyone else had seen something strange going on between Ariel and Paco. Or, at least, Paco hitting on Ariel repeatedly and/or displaying signs of having a vindictive, violent temper. As soon as I got to the club tomorrow, I’d ask everyone I saw. Not that it would be necessary; surely everyone would be talking about what was going on with Paco confessing to having killed Ariel. As much as they loved to gossip, they’d be happy to fill me in on whatever I wanted.

“That is why I’m trying to enlighten you, Gabi,” Ian said, his voice surprisingly soft. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. You can help me stop this thing. We must stop them.”

“Hey, I really need to go,” I replied. “It’s been a long day and it’s late. See you tomorrow, okay?”

Without waiting for Ian to reply, I hung up. I just couldn’t stand talking to him at the moment, and especially not about his conspiracy theories. My brain was fried and needed rest. When I had slept, I would figure out what was going on. What was really going on.

***

A couple of days later after Paco Rodriguez had been arrested and officially charged with the crime of strangling Ariel Rafaeli to death, I was unfortunately none the wiser. While no one at the club could tell me they had noted anything indicating that Paco had been secretly in love with Ariel, no one was very good friends with Paco either. Good enough to provide an alternative narrative to the claim that had come out of nowhere for everyone else too, I quickly learned. So I had no choice but to believe that this was what had actually happened—sweet Paco simply lost his marbles the night Ariel went on a date with Ian for a second time, deciding there was no other alternative but to kill the woman of his dreams who wanted someone else. In addition to his confession, Paco had no alibi for the night of the murder, being off that night and living alone in a walk-up building in the Bronx where no one paid any attention to their neighbors.

Ian kept telling me that the solution to this mystery made absolute sense—the people involved in the conspiracy weren’t ready for me to find out the truth, which was why they had chosen to get rid of Ariel. As he had already told me, Ariel herself had been ready to reveal all that they were up to, join Ian’s quest to destroy them.

Why, oh, why didn’t I stalk them
that
night instead?

I was still beating myself up about this faux pas as I was heading toward Nikkei to meet up with my text stalker. I had been so busy with Ariel’s sudden death that I had forgotten all about that the person behind the texts wanted to meet me at nine thirty p.m. on April 22nd, which was today; supposedly, the person would tell me “everything,” whatever that meant. I hadn’t received another text since, which had added to my putting it aside in my mind. It was only because I happened to stumble across the threatening messages as I was scrolling through my phone’s other texts in search of an old one from a client that I suddenly remembered.

Checking the time, I picked up my pace. It was a quarter to nine and it would take me five minutes to reach the club. Nikkei closed at nine on Sundays. I needed to not only be sure I got inside the club before they locked the doors, but also hide somewhere so I could meet up with the person on the rooftop. Because I had remembered so late, there had been no time for me to tell Ian about this latest text I had received. Which was actually okay. I wanted to face this person on my own. I was a big girl. If I could take down a drug lord notorious all across the world with little help, I sure as hell could face some pussy sending me nasty texts on my own.

Entering the club, I waved and smiled at the people behind the front desk.

“I forgot my wallet in my locker,” I said to one of the girls, who opened her mouth to say something. “You can tell the guys to lock up. I’ll take the service elevator in the trainers’ lounge to get out. It’s much quicker than coming back downstairs.”

The girl nodded and smiled back. “Sure. Have a good night, Jamie.”

“You too,” I replied and hurried by her in the direction of the elevators that would take me up to both the trainers’ lounge on the fourth floor as well as to the sixth floor where the rooftop with the sundeck was located. Not that I had any plans to stop on the fourth floor and pretend I was going to my locker. I was alone in the elevator, so no one would know if I did or not. Instead I would go directly to the sixth floor and go inside one of the two huge group exercise studios there and see if I could hide in the big cupboard where jump ropes and other random exercise equipment used in classes were kept. It should be big enough to fit a person and I highly doubted that the security guards doing a walk-through on all the clubs floors to ensure no members were still lingering would open it.

With any luck, I wouldn’t bump into one of the guards as I left the elevator and crossed the short path from it to the nearest studio.

I didn’t stumble upon anyone to worry about. The only person I met was an old woman who was heading toward the stairs. Other than that, the entire sixth floor was completely empty and quiet the way it usually was around closing. Someone could still come out of the restrooms up there, though—a security guard who’d needed to take a leak—so I jogged over to the studio and quickly disappeared inside. While the built-in lights in the studio ceiling weren’t on, it was still light enough for me to spot the cupboard at the other end of the big space. I dashed over to it and, throwing a quick glance over my shoulder to be sure no one was watching me, I opened it. As I had imagined, it was big enough to easily fit me despite all the exercise equipment stuffed there. I slipped inside and pulled the door shut.

It took only a couple of minutes of me sitting in the complete darkness of the cupboard when I heard the door leading into the studio open and someone entering. Against my will, I could feel my heart pick up speed. There was no need to worry, I reminded myself. It was only one of the security guards making a last round on the sixth floor. A routine call. Still, my heart beat faster and faster as I heard him approach the side of the wall where the cupboard was. Holding my breath, I waited for him to turn around and go back outside. But he didn’t; instead, his steps got louder, telling me he was coming closer.

Oh, God, don’t tell me this was the one guard who took his job so seriously he literally checked every nook and cranny in all of the club…

I waited and waited for his steps to fade because he was making his way back to the glass door to leave finally. My heart pounded with such fervor it felt like it had transformed into a machine gun in my chest. After a few seconds, there was no question the steps were getting louder. He was definitely approaching the cupboard.
Fuck.
What would I do if he opened the door? Punch him unconscious, hoping that he never got a chance to see what had hit him? No, I couldn’t do that; I couldn’t count on him not getting a glimpse of me before passing out. But I needed to do
something
. It would be very hard for me to explain what I was doing inside the cupboard. Surely it would result in me being fired from Nikkei. Even so, attacking the guard would be wrong; the man was just doing his job. Frenetically, I grabbed whatever I could feel on the inside of the cupboard’s door. Maybe if I could hold it tightly enough, he would think it was locked and let it be.

The steps stopped right in front of the cupboard. I had managed to find a small edge on the lock that I was grasping from the inside with all my might. If he didn’t pull very hard, he might buy that it was locked.
Oh, God, please let him think it’s locked…

But instead of trying the door’s handle, I heard him suddenly walk away from where I was and then exit the studio.

Closing my eyes, I let out the breath I had been holding, feeling how my entire body relaxed. He must have changed his mind at the last minute.

I remained in the locker for another few minutes before I dared pushing it open a little to see what was going on outside. The club was dark and empty according to my current vantage point, just as it should be at nine fifteen on a Sunday night, the time my phone showed. I pushed open the door a little more and confirmed that the coast was clear as I could easily see most of the sixth floor through the studio’s wide glass walls. I slipped out of the cupboard and, stretching my limbs to get the blood moving in my body again, I walked toward the studio’s exit.

At this point, I was pretty convinced that the person behind the texts must be someone who worked at the club like me, as it would be easiest for someone like that to hide the way I had done in order to meet after hours. I supposed it could be a member as well, but my money was on an employee, all of us being much more aware of the closing procedures. I couldn’t imagine how someone else would get into the building unless they had keys to the club.

I peeked in every direction before I snuck out of the studio to be sure the entire sixth floor was indeed empty. It was, so I hurried toward the sundeck that was on the opposite side of the two group exercise studios. It was barely twenty past nine, but I wanted to be the first one on the deck so I could scope out my surroundings, plan what to do in case me and the person I was about to meet got into a scuffle. Chances were we would. I put a hand on my gun that as usual was in my hip holster under a baggy shirt just to reassure myself it was still there. It might come in handy.

The rooftop was as empty and quiet as the rest of the club when I got out there. Since I didn’t see any reason to hide any longer, I stretched out on one of the many sun chairs available, one that enabled me to get a good view of the only entrance to the rooftop’s sundeck. My text stalker would have to enter there.

The minutes ticked by, but no one came. I kept looking around, wondering if there was another way to get out on the sundeck that I wasn’t aware of. I finally got to my feet and walked up to the railing that edged a big part of the sundeck to check if maybe the person had opted to climb up from the street like the rapist I’d shot had done, using ropes or something similar. It was only six floors above ground after all. But I could see no one. I looked up the one side of the rooftop that consisted of a wall and was part of the neighboring high rise to check if he was lowering himself from a window on that building to meet me. Again, I could see no one anywhere.

When it was a quarter to ten, I decided to leave, having concluded that this person was just pulling my leg. Annoyed that I had fallen for such an easy trick, I walked out through the one door that would take me back into the club.

Taking the stairs down to the fourth floor, I no longer cared or worried whether I would bump into one of the security guards or even someone from the nightly cleaning crew. If someone asked me what I was doing in the building, I would just claim that I’d fallen asleep in one of the beds in the room behind the trainers’ lounge and then gone up to the sixth floor to look for my phone that I’d left in one of the group ex studios after taking a late class. The beds behind the lounge were used for trainers that worked long hours and needed to take a nap in between clients. It wouldn’t be the first time a trainer had slept past closing and had to take the service elevator out of the building.

When I reached the fourth floor, I spotted one of the cleaning crew and a security guard supporting a limping man between them. As I got closer, I realized that the tall man they were helping along was someone I knew—it was Ron Slaight, the investment banker who had been buddies with Felipe Cardoza. From what I could tell, he had some bandage wrapped around his head.

What the hell was
he
doing here and what had happened to him?

I needed to know immediately, so I marched up to them as they were making their way to the elevators on the fourth floor. The security guard—a black man named Dwayne whom I was friendly with—spotted me first.

“Hey, Jamie,” he said and gave a small smile. “What are you doing here so late?”

I shrugged as if embarrassed. “I passed out behind the trainers’ lounge. Just woke up.” I yawned lightly at the same time as I held up my phone. “I left my phone after a class in one of the studios. Took me forever to find it.” I smirked and rolled my eyes at myself.

Dwayne chuckled good-naturedly. “It must be something in the air tonight. One of the other trainers did the same. Jonah. You must’ve missed him. He just left.”

“What?” I asked. “Lost his phone?”

“No, he fell asleep in one of the beds behind the lounge.”

“Oh, he did?” I replied. “Huh. He must’ve gotten up right after I went up to the sixth floor.”

My gaze moved to Ron. He looked totally groggy, like he had just woken up from a deep sleep. He met my eyes, taking me in with a surly expression. There was a blood stain on the white bandage wrapped around his head.

“Are you okay?” I asked him before I’d thought better of it. Given the cantankerous face and the bloody bandage, he was obviously not okay.

He grimaced and said in a tense voice, “Before I slipped and hit my head on the sink in the restroom, I was fine.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. It was only then that it dawned on me. Was
Ron
the text stalker? Had he been the one who had planned on meeting me here tonight? His grumpy expression as he took me in now sure suggested that he was. Him slipping and passing out in the bathroom before he’d been able to make his way up to the sundeck would explain why he’d never shown up. I wasn’t surprised that none of the cleaning crew or security guards hadn’t found him in the restroom until now. If Ron had visited the restroom shortly before going into hiding somewhere in the club like I had done, it could easily take an hour or two for the cleaners to get to the bathroom on the fourth floor.