Authors: Chelsea Heights
As usual she slowed her pace as they turned the corner onto her street.
As they walked up her driveway hand in hand, Mike and Cecily were on her porch waiting.
Delaney shouted, “Can’t a girl get any privacy around here?
I am a cop you know, I could have you arrested for trespassing.”
With a wide grin on his face, Mike said “We just happened to be in the neighborhood and wanted to see what you were up to.”
Cecily was pulling on his arm to leave, obviously embarrassed over the obnoxious behavior of her fiancé.
“It’s okay, Cecily, this is my friend Jake Thrasher from the FBI.
He’s helping me work on a case.”
Delaney just stood there with a blank look on her face as the three of them looked at each other then her.
Jake was wearing his adorable crooked smile, Mike the smile of a belligerent teenager, and Cecily a look of
I know what you’ve been doing.
They all started laughing and Mike told her she was a horrible liar.
Everyone in town had noticed the red pickup in her driveway and were wondering what was going on.
Delaney felt like crawling under a rock.
Suddenly Mike punched Jake with his right arm and shouted, “Jar Head, you got a good woman there.”
“How did you know?” Jake asked with a slight tilt of his head.
“Your boat.”
They all turned at the same time to look at the boat and on the back written in large black letters was
SEMPER FIsh
.
It took Delaney a second to figure it out but when she did she blurted out “Semper Fi? I didn’t know you’re a Marine.”
She had a sinking feeling of embarrassment; I’m sleeping with this man and I don’t even know the most basic things about him.
As if reading her mind Jake put his arm around her and pulled her in closely, placing a quick kiss on the top of her head.
“Former Marine.
I did my four years, went to Iraq twice and got out.
Now I’m with the FBI.
How about you?”
Mike, standing tall and proud, said, “I was a career Marine.
Or at least I thought I was until I retrieved a live grenade that had been thrown into my tank.
I guess I wasn’t fast enough,” and he held up his prosthetic arm. “Now I’m an ice cream man.
And this is my fiancée Cecily, she’s a teacher at the school and an artist.”
Delaney had always wondered how Mike lost his arm but never had the courage to ask him.
The small group talked for a few minutes and made plans to go sailing that evening after work.
She didn’t know what is was about Cecily but she felt so comfortable around her, like she had already known her a long time.
She missed having a close friend and secretly hoped Cecily felt the same about her.
Chapter Eighteen
Jake used her kitchen table as a temporary desk and booted up his MacBook.
After connecting to the wireless Internet service, he began his search on Dr. Wu’s twin brother, Joseph.
It didn’t take him long before he got several hits for a person matching the name in the area.
He scrolled down the screen and selected the most probable choice.
After opening the link, he was taken to a newspaper article of recent arrests.
He found out that Joseph had been arrested for a string of small-time burglaries and possession of marijuana under one hundred grams.
Apparently Joseph had been supporting his drug habit by breaking into vacant construction sites during the night and cutting out the copper plumbing.
He would then sell it to a local junkyard for cash.
From what Jake could gather, he made the mistake of always using the same junkyard and when the employee became suspicious he contacted the police.
According to the article he had spent two nights in the county prison before being released on bail.
The article did not provide an address.
He exited out of the article and shut down the computer.
Jake went through his briefcase and opened a small container which held a cable, an egg timer, and an encryption reading device.
He plugged the cable into the USB adapter on the side of his laptop then connected it to the device.
The egg timer was placed next to the keyboard.
He powered on his laptop and did a search for the county prison.
Opening the site he clicked on the tab for employees.
When he was prompted for his login name he right double clicked and activated the device.
Within seconds a login name appeared on the screen.
Next he right double clicked on the entry for password.
Within seconds he had hacked into the site.
He set the egg timer for five minutes.
He typed in “Joseph Wu” and clicked on search.
Immediately he had two hits with thumbnail pictures.
Maximizing the pictures it was easy to identify Joseph, the only other choice was a Caucasian man.
He printed out his address, cell phone number, next of kin information, and his parole officer’s name and number.
Then he printed out his mug shot.
Jake stopped the timer and had one minute and twenty-five seconds to spare before the prison IT department would be notified of the security breach.
He promptly logged off, disconnected the encryption device, and packed everything neatly into his briefcase.
“Big red truck or little Cooper?” he asked as the keys dangled from his hand and over her head.
“Why, where are we going?” she asked.
“I found our man Joseph Wu.
He’s living in a halfway house an hour from here. Here’s his most recent picture.
Not bad for a criminal.”
Delaney looked at the picture and cringed.
His hair looked greasy and he had a goatee.
She took a minute to think about Jake in the Cooper, then replied, “I can’t imagine you scrunched up in the Cooper for an hour.
You’ll never be able to stand upright again.
The big red truck it is.”
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and slipped on comfortable shoes.
Jake drove and Delaney navigated.
They headed west on the Atlantic City Expressway towards Philadelphia.
Bumping along in the old truck with the windows down and Bruce Springsteen blaring from the radio, Delaney slid her hand across the bench seat and placed it on Jake’s thigh.
She felt his thigh muscle tighten, and watched as the swelling in his pants grew.
“Babe, don’t start something you can’t finish,” he said with a dirty smile.
“Oh I’ll finish it. You just have to wait till tonight,” she said as she leaned over and placed a kiss on his cheek.
He had EZ Pass and they were able to cruise through the toll booths.
Rush hour was already over and they made good time.
Forty minutes after leaving her house they were getting off at exit number forty-four and entering Sicklerville, home of the halfway house Joseph Wu was living in.
Three blocks later Jake slowly passed the residence and carefully observed who was hanging out front and smoking.
Nobody resembled their suspect. The neighborhood was made of seedy-looking row homes scattered with shady businesses.
An adult bookstore was across the street and next to it a prostitution house disguised as a massage parlor.
On the corner stood a tavern which had graffiti sprayed all over the cinder block walls.
Broken bottles and trash littered the parking lot.
A vacant store had boarded up windows with a “FOR RENT” sign nailed into the wood.
They saw a drug deal go down and a man solicit a hooker.
Jake drove the big truck around the corner and parked it.
He got out and took a brick from the bed of the truck and placed it under the back tire to prevent it from rolling backwards down the hill.
Delaney was at his side in seconds and gave him and the brick a strange look.
Walking to the halfway house they could feel stares from all around.
It was obvious they were not from this neighborhood in their too nice clothes and her Coach bag slung over her shoulder.
As they approached the house he held up the mug shot of Joseph and asked the men and women if they had seen him.
Nobody said yes, but nobody said no either.
Jake knocked and an older heavy set woman answered the door.
She had graying hair wrapped around pink curlers and long hairs growing from her chin.
Her pale blue eyes looked hazy and her crusty right eye had yellow drainage weeping from it.
“What do you want?” she managed to choke out during a coughing spasm.
When she finished hacking up her lungs she lit a cigarette and purposefully blew the thick smoke into Delaney’s face.
She instantly felt nauseated by the smell and wondered what kind of germs were just blown her way she but didn’t turn away.
“Joseph Wu, we know he’s staying here.
We need to ask him a few questions about his brother,” Delaney said.
The woman’s eyes tracked from her to Jake then back to her.
She took another drag from her cigarette but this time turned to exhale.
“What’s in it for me?” she croaked out.
“I’ll tell you what, tell us what you know and we won’t raid the place for suspected drug trafficking,” Delaney said.
The woman hesitated and thought it over.
“Haven’t seen him for two days.
Probably getting high in an alley somewhere.”
She reached to shut the door but Jake wedged his foot into the doorway.
“When he turns up give him this card and tell him the FBI is looking for him.
I’ll be getting in contact with his parole officer too.”
Then Jake handed her the card and watched her examine it.
Without a word she slammed the door and her hacking was audible through the walls.
Jake and Delaney had no idea Joseph Wu was on the other side of those walls, listening to everything they said while loading his gun.
From birth there is a big twin and a small twin.
A strong one and a weak one.
Joseph was the latter.
While his brother John excelled at everything, Joseph was an epic failure.
He walked late, he talked late, he was labeled globally delayed.
John attended classes for the gifted and talented while he went to the tart cart.
His physical and learning disabilities made his single mother’s life harder, and he felt her embarrassment for having a defective son.
She had immigrated to the United States with her family when she was sixteen years old, speaking only Chinese.
Her English tutor was an older married man in his forties.
He liked her eagerness to please and took advantage of the naïve girl.
Five months later when she started to show, her humiliated parents threw her out on the street with one hundred dollars to start her life.
He felt he had been cursed from conception while his twin brother John won the genetic lottery.
He learned early on he would never be good enough and lived in the shadow of his brother.
John succeeded at everything, he played classical piano and was in the chess club.
He was class president and voted most likely to succeed.
Upon the suggestion of a teacher, their mother had John’s IQ tested by the school psychologist.
He was a genius.
They didn’t bother to test him, they didn’t need a test to tell them he was years behind academically.