Web of Deceit (4 page)

Later that morning
when Mrs. Freedman arrived at the small house, it was empty …

Elliot takes a sip
of coffee as questions form in his mind.
Hmm, why isn’t Vicky’s mom named?
And what about
…
?
Elliot hears a crash, and several pans hit the
floor in the kitchen.

A muffled scream
escapes from the kitchen a second later.

“Kelly!” Elliot
leaps up and bolts toward the kitchen.
Reacting on instinct, he bursts
through the kitchen door.
“Are you O … ?”
Elliot feels a
concussive force strike the back of his head.
His knees buckle, and his
forward momentum hurls him to the red and white checkered tile floor.
He
slides and slams against the stainless deep fryer, not feeling the force of the
impact before the receding light of his mind winks out.

“Elliot?”
Odell
shakes Elliot’s shoulder harder than he should, upset that his regular customer
lies unconscious on his kitchen floor.
What happened? “
Elliot,” Odell
says with a hurried Jamaican accent.

Slits appear
between Elliot’s eyelids.
He raises his hand to hold the plastic baggy
filled with ice that Odell is holding on the welt jutting out of his pounding
head.
“Where’s Kelly?” Elliot asks.

“You tell me, man.
You the only one I see.” Odell helps Elliot to his feet and guides him to a
booth.
“I called Frank.
Been about five minutes.”

“He should be here
soon.” Elliot feels the growing bump.
Man, whoever did this came out of
nowhere.
“Kelly’s in trouble.
Did you see any blood back there?”

Frank and Chip burst
through the door.
“Elliot, you OK, man?
Want us to call an
ambulance?” Frank asks.

“No. I’m good.”
Elliot feigns a smile.
“We’ve gotta find Kelly.” He strains to
stand.

“Hey, you just
hold on.”
Frank puts his hand on Elliot’s shoulder to keep him put.
“We’ve
got Sal outside looking for anything peculiar.”

Chip pipes in.
“Yeah, we’ll take care of everything. You worry about you, bro.”

*   *   *

Ahh, eight
o’clock on the dot.
Beth approaches the small coffee shop and
notices three police cars parked in the back lot.
That’s odd. I don’t recall
their coffee and doughnuts being that good.
Impressed with her witty self
after a late, annoying night, she smirks and enters Odell’s Coffee Bar.
She
notices Elliot sitting in a booth with ice on his head.
S
he walks over
and musses his hair.
“I guess Kelly said no.” Her wry smile widens as
she sits across from him.

Elliot raises his
head and glares directly at Beth.
His eyes well up, almost to tears.
“Someone
took her.”

“I know,” Beth
says with compassion, thinking Elliot’s talking about the case file she gave
him. She grasps Elliot’s free hand.
“I promised Mrs. Freedman we would
find her and we will.”

“No, Beth!
Pay
attention.
It’s Kelly—someone took her.”

“What? What
happened?”

“I don’t know. I
was goin’ over the case, and I heard a scream from the kitchen.
I ran
back and
bam
!
Next thing I remember, Odell’s got ice on my head …
and … Kelly’s gone.”

“Who’s checking it
out?”

“Frank and Chip
are in the back.
Sal’s got this block.
They called it in an hour
ago.”

“I’ll check the
kitchen.” Beth slides out of the booth.

“I’m goin’ with
you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Any sign of a
struggle, guys?” Elliot asks Frank as they walk into the kitchen.

“Not really, just
a few pans out of place and you being knocked out,” Frank answers.
He
reaches for the back of his neck with both hands and takes a deep breath.
“Odell
said it didn’t look like anyone even went near the office.”
Frank moves
one of his hands to scratch his balding crown.
“Chip and Odell are
checking the cash box.”

“What’d you guys
find?” Frank asks, shouting toward the small office door at the back of the
kitchen.

Ten seconds later
Chip pops out of the small office and throws his hands up.
“Nope, no
sign of a robbery here.
The cash box wasn’t missing a penny.
That’s
about the only thing I have found out of place so far.
Back when I was
in school, I worked at a gas station and everyone’s cash box was always off by
at least a few …”

Frank butts in.
“Now’s not the time for a ‘way back when’ story.”

“I’m just saying
…”

“Actually, that’s
a good point, Chip.” Beth stands in the kitchen doorway.
“Doesn’t it
appear odd that nothing is out of order? Did Kelly have an ex?
You know,
‘psychoooo.’ What did Odell say about the girl?”

“She’s late all
the time,” Chip says.
“She hasn’t worked here long.
One of those
country girls comin’ to the city to make it big.”

“Kinda sounds
familiar, doesn’t it?” Frank asks.

“No sir, it does
not,” Chip responds.
“If you’re saying that’s why I came, you’re wrong.
I came to the city to clean it up.
And make it more like back home.
People
like her are just looking for trouble.
They want to get rich by
exploitin’ themselves and …”

“All right, all
right,” Frank interrupted, rolling his eyes.
“You can talk about how
sinful the world is later.”

Beth and Elliot
exchange blank stares, both wondering exactly where this is going.
They
agree without words:
It isn’t helping find Kelly.

“We’ll have to go
to her apartment and see what we can find out about her.
What’s her
address, Elliot?” Beth asks with her pen already in hand.

“I don’t know.
Kelly
told me she walks to work.”

“I’ve got all her
information right here,” Chip says proudly.
“I’ve got it in my PDA.
I
can send …”

“Wait a minute,
Chip.” Frank cuts Chip short.
“I hate to say it, Elliot, but you’re a
suspect.
I know you didn’t do it.
But you’re all we’ve got.
You’ll
have to leave it to us.”

“
You’ve got
to be kidding me,” Elliot says.

Unsatisfied, Beth
says, “But Frank.
You can let Chip send it to me, right?”

“Well.”

“Well what?” Beth
burns a hole through Frank’s forehead with her gaze.

“How about I call
you if we find anything?”

Beth reconsiders
and softens her stare.
Vicky. I’ve got an appointment. Kelly is missing, but
so is an eleven-year-old girl.
“Frank, did you hear anything about a
missing Freedman kid?”

“Freedman kid?”

“Yeah, an
eleven-year-old girl that’s missing.”

“News to me.”

“I can’t believe
it.
You guys should be all over it.
I figured the high-ups
decided a news blackout would protect her.”

“Hold on, Beth.
I’ll check into it.
It may just be one of those domestic-custody
disputes.” Frank braces himself, apparently waiting for another death glare
from Beth, but it doesn’t come.

“I’ll call Mrs.
Freedman and reschedule, Elliot.”

“No.
I’m
good,” Elliot says.
“Anyone got the time?”

“Nine-fifteen,”
Chip responds.

“We’re late, I’ll
have to call her on the way,” Beth says.

*   *   *

Beth and Elliot
hurry out the back door of Odell’s Coffee Bar.
Elliot strides to the
passenger door of his red Corvette parked in back.

“Oh, you’re
finally going to let me drive ‘the car.’ ” Beth smiles and gestures double
quotation marks with her fingers.

“Does ‘a cold day
in hell’ ring a bell?” Elliot asks, motioning Beth to get in the passenger
side.

“I don’t know.
We’ll have to ask sister Sarah about that,” Beth says, disappointed.

Elliot smirks
.
“It
will take a lot more than a nasty bump on my head to get anyone other than me
behind the wheel of ‘the car.’ ”

“Oops,” Beth says,
slamming the passenger door with enough force to rock the car and remove the
smirk from Elliot’s face.

Ignoring Beth, he
settles into the driver side leather seat and presses the ignition button on
the dash of his red 3LT Corvette Coupe. The 436-horsepower engine ignites.
Yeah,
that’s the ticket.
The rush of adrenaline quickens his smile, and the throbbing
pain from the goose egg becomes a memory.

Beth, unimpressed,
flips her phone open to call Mrs. Freedman and notices that she has a new text.

“Hello, my
beautiful, beautiful girls.”
Again the message has a blocked caller ID.
The message arrived at 7:15
am
.
She would’ve been in the shower.
“That’s it; give me your phone.”

Elliot is
preoccupied negotiating the traffic and intent on reaching the freeway that
should be thinning by now on the westbound lanes out of Boston.

“Elliot!” Beth
snaps.

“What?
Oh
,
yeah. Sure.”
He reaches into his jacket pocket to retrieve his
phone, without taking too much of his attention off the surrounding vehicles.
He tosses it to her.

Beth grabs it
midair and opens it.
She goes to “Sent Messages” and finds none of the
messages she’d received are in his phone’s memory, sent or received.

“Elliot?”

“What?” The 3LT
engine comes to life as Elliot presses the accelerator harder toward the floor
board.
The engine sound retains its civil nature with the benefit of the
highly tuned exhaust system.
The Vette effortlessly passes eighty miles
an hour at the end of the on-ramp.
They enter the flow of traffic
heading west on the Massachusetts Turnpike to Brighton.

“Where’s the text
you sent me last night … and this morning?”

“I didn’t text you.”
Elliot’s heart pounds from the thrill of the speed.

“Sam used my phone
to text Kyle, but she sent it to you by mistake.”

“How did she do
that?” Elliot’s frown deepens.
This is looking like it’s  goin’ to be talk
time and not drive time.

“She hit number
one by accident.”

“Oh, I’m number
one?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Are you sure she
hit number one?”

“Sam said … Good
point.
I’ll check my
Sent Messages
. ” Beth suddenly feels sick.
I considered Sam setting me up. I assumed she may have made a white lie about
her battery dying. But, I heard the warning beep. She actually sent the message
to Kyle. She didn’t hit number one at all. I’m an idiot. How do I shut the door
I just blundered through with Elliot? Being a guy, he probably doesn’t have a
clue.
“Yes, it could be Kyle’s number.” Beth fiddles with her own phone.
“You think I should tell Sam about the weird messages from Kyle?”

“I don’t know,”
Elliot replies, a bit puzzled.

“Thanks for the
insight.”

“Shouldn’t you
call Mrs. Freedman?” Elliot pulls into the office complex parking lot.

“Actually, I think
that’s her car.” Beth points in the direction of a gray Cadillac.

“OK.
Let’s
go say hello.” Elliot gets out of the car.
He pauses and then with a
boyish grin says, “Uh, Beth, you’re first on my speed dial too.
Maybe we
should talk about our phone similarities some time.”

*   *   *

“Good morning,
Symphony.” Beth says, entering the office lobby.

“Yeah, Mrs.
Freedman was early, so she’s been here awhile.
I think I scared her.
So
I sent her to your office and pointed her in the direction of the doughnuts and
coffee,” Symphony says with the excitement of watching moss grow.

“Great thanks,”
Beth says.

“No problem.”

Beth and Elliot
walk back to her office.
“Don’t you think she’s a bit dark for a
receptionist?” Elliot whispers.

“You have a
problem with her Goth gear?”

“Yeah, she scares
me.
What happened to Cherry?”

“She was too much
to handle before a pot of coffee.
So I introduced her to a friend in
retail downtown.
Making clients suffer with ‘Cheery Cherry’ just didn’t
seem right. Symphony, on the other hand, makes them feel good about themselves.
She doesn’t fish for information or empathize with their crises.”

“I don’t think she
cares at all.”

“Exactly!
She’s
perfect for the job.” Beth agrees.

“Let me guess;
Sarah Perkins introduced you.”

“Yep.”

“She has a
record?” Elliot asks.

“Yep.”

“Beth, do you
really think …” Elliot says.

“Quit being so
judgmental!” Beth opens her office door.
“Good morning, Mrs. Freedman.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
We are normally punctual, and I
assure you the emergency was unavoidable.”

“Yes, good
morning, Mrs. Doyle.
You should get one of these cell phones they make
nowadays.
It’s quite a handy little object,” Mrs. Freedman says with a
sugar-sweet voice, accenting her obvious sarcasm.

“It’s Miz … but
please feel free to call me Beth.
And this is my partner, Elliot
Synclair.”

“Oh,
he’s
not your husband?
I thought you might be married.”

“No, what gave you
that impression?”

“I heard your
receptionist tell someone your home numbers were the same.
So I assumed
you were married.
But, silly me, it is apparent with the bickering, you
must be brother and sister.”

“No—we’re not.”
Beth says, while studying Mrs. Freedman.

Without grasping
the situation, Elliot says, “We just live together.”

“Oh … well, I
wasn’t aware.”

“It’s not like
that.” Beth says.
“We’re roommates, but I wouldn’t think that pertains
professionally.”

“Yes, you
wouldn’t,” Mrs. Freedman says.

“Excuse me?” Beth
asks.

“I’m not the judge
… today.
I’m just the client.”

Beth regards her with
uncertainty.

“Why, isn’t that
what you call us?
Clients?”
Mrs. Freedman asks.