by Dale Mayer
She frowned instantly, stared at the food, then looked back at him and said, “No, I haven’t. But what has that got to do with you?”
He didn’t give her a chance to argue, just pushed his way inside, and placed the bags on the table. “I figured you were still working, when I saw the lights on.”
“Again, what does that have to do with you?”
He smiled and said, “You can’t fight all these guys on your own.”
“I can do whatever the hell I need to do,” she snapped.
“Maybe,” he said, “but, at this point in time, it’s not an issue.”
“You can’t do this. It’s bad news.”
“Why?” he asked, turning and looking at her. Already hating the sense of rejection coming.
“You’re a suspect.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Like hell,” he said. “I’ve already proven that I had nothing to do with this. You’re just looking for excuses.”
She shook her head and said, “It’s not allowed.”
And he could sense the desperation in her voice. “You don’t like to fraternize with suspects?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“So, it’s a good thing I’m not a suspect anymore then, isn’t it?” He started taking the food out of the bags. “Come eat,” he said. “There’s lots. And you ruin my sense of peace and quiet as it is.”
“Why?” she asked, as she came to stare down at the food in front of them. “What did you do? You ordered enough for ten people.”
“No, they were shutting down, and this is all the leftovers.”
“Hardly,” she said, “unless they had orders that didn’t get picked up, or they just make it all way ahead. Wait—is this the place at the corner?”
He nodded.
“Then they are leftovers,” she said grudgingly. “They have a buffet open until one o’clock.”
“So there,” he said. “Eat.” She looked at him, her mouth open, until he reached across and gently pushed her jaw closed. “Now,” he said, “eat.” And he walked into the kitchen and searched for plates. He pulled out two and handed her one. He saw she was getting angry, but, at the same time, she wanted the food. He grabbed a large spoon and served up two plates. “There’s so much food here that we can’t even try it all. You’ll have enough for leftovers.”
And they settled down at the table and ate. He sat across from her and started working on his. Now that he was here, and she was beside him, he felt more settled again. He shook his head. “This is a really bad idea.”
“Pretty sure I just said that,” she muttered around her food.
“Maybe,” he said, “but I couldn’t not come.” He looked up to see her staring at him in shock. He shrugged. “Now I feel like I’m constantly waiting for you to contact me.”
“I shouldn’t have been contacting you at all,” she said.
“Maybe so,” he said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here, and now I’m not leaving until I’ve eaten.”
*
“Oh my God, oh my God.” He couldn’t stop the litany going through his head. What if the cop had seen his face? His truck? What if she knew who he was now? He had to disappear. He had to do something. Somehow he had to get out of this. He hadn’t been this close to getting caught since forever—well, since he did get caught.
And no way he could afford to go to jail again. His sister would disown him. She’d already told him once, if he ever got caught again, that was it, and he would be dead to her. That wasn’t fair; it wasn’t fair at all. He could drive home but he didn’t dare. He bolted toward his sister’s house, even though it was across the river and clear on the other side of town.
He drove carefully, making sure he didn’t attract any undue attention. The last thing he needed was to be pulled over right now. His hands were still shaking, but he didn’t know how to determine if the cop had gotten a good look at his truck. If she got his license plate, what was he supposed to do now? Should I call it in as stolen?
Without giving himself a chance to think, he pulled off to the side of the road and quickly called in the fact that his truck was stolen. That he hadn’t seen it since the previous day. With that done and promising to come in and to fill out a statement, he continued on toward his sister’s place. He double-checked the GPS, swearing, as he drove through one massive mansion after another. Surely he was in the wrong area, right?
He kept driving until he got to the address, then stopped and stared. It couldn’t be, his mind screamed at him. He knew his sister was doing okay, but he hadn’t realized she was still living like they used to live. He was barely scraping by in a run-down little flat, but this? This was like a twelve-bedroom mansion. Brick and ivy, a gated driveway, and a grand front entrance.
He pulled his phone toward him, and, with a shaky hand, he dialed his sister. When she answered, he asked, “Are you really living in that goddamned mansion?”
After a pause on the other end, she said in a curious tone, “Well, I haven’t moved, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He tried to regroup his brain cells into some coherence, so he could actually talk to her, but this was just too flabbergasting. “I’m outside,” he said abruptly.
“What?” she said, her tone coming alive, with a fury that he recognized. He winced. “We had an agreement,” she snapped.
“I know. I know. I know,” he said, sounding whiny, even though it’s the opposite of what he wanted. “It’s just been a really bad day,” he said. And, as much as he tried, he couldn’t hide the trembling in his voice.
“What happened?” she snapped.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing really. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Are you though?” she asked. “Then why are you scared? You sound terrified, as a matter of fact.”
He gave a laugh. “But you aren’t worried about me though, are you? You’re just worried in case it comes back on you.”
“It won’t come back on me,” she said. “And what the hell are you doing outside my house?”
He looked to see if she was looking out a window, but even that was too much effort for her, so of course she wasn’t. “I needed to reach out,” he said.
“Well, reaching out is making a phone call, not sitting outside my house. That is stalking.”
“You’re my sister,” he said, with outrage.
“Go home then,” she said, her tone filled with a banked rage.
He’d used his rage and had let it boil over, while she kept hers contained. He knew that meant she was just a time bomb waiting to blow because she had done nothing to dispel the fury inside her.
“I will,” he said, in an effort to calm her down, yet, at the same time, he stared at the house, taking in the lifestyle she was living versus what he had. “How come you’ve left me in that tiny little hovel, while you’re living in this great big mansion?” he asked. “You know what I’ve been through.”
“I also know that you got caught,” she said. “Getting caught a second time will be the end of even that little hovel, so remember that,” she said and hung up on him.
He’d been visibly shaking when he managed to escape the house in Richmond, but now he was deeply shaken inside. Because he had no doubt that she meant what she said. If he got caught again, he would be dead to her. She was the only person in this life that he’d ever been able to count on. But she’d always made it clear, after he got caught the first time, that, if he ever did it again, that was it.
And now today, he’d actually pushed the line to the point that may have set things into motion that could result in him getting caught. He shook his head, started the engine, took a photo of her house, and, with that done, he drove toward his own home.
Having already called in the theft of his vehicle, he decided to park it a few blocks away, then took a rag and quickly wiped it down. Nothing incriminating was inside; he’d always made sure of that. But he left it unlocked, just parked off to the side, so somebo
dy could find it and hopefully return it to him. Then he got out and walked back home again. Inside, he was quaking. He had a sense of something crumbling, his world breaking apart around him.
Once inside, he locked the door, warmed up a slice of cold pizza, and sat down in front of the TV. Even his China Doll would have been a welcome comfort right now, but he didn’t have even that. He turned on the news and watched, hoping nothing would be reported.
And then, just when he felt like he was safe, a breaking news story came on, saying a missing five-year-old girl had been found.
With that, his throat closed. And tears came to his eyes. He’d been so close. She’d been right there, where he could have just grabbed her. He shouldn’t have run. He should have waited until that cop had left. He could have just taken that little girl, and she would be here with him right now. He closed in on himself and started to bawl, the sense of hopeless loneliness overtaking him once again.
Chapter 22
Tuesday, Wee Hours of the Morning
Kate didn’t know what had gotten into Simon’s head to think that this was a good idea. The fact that he’d brought her Chinese food, when she was desperately hungry, just added to it. The fact that he was so comfortable here, even though her place was such a dump compared to his incredible penthouse, only added to her sense of unease. “You’re crazy.”
“So are you,” he said.
And they both continued to eat in silence. When she finally had the first level of her massive hunger appeased, she settled back and said, “I just would have had some toast.”
“And white bread presumably, which has no nutrition, no protein, no good fats,” he said. “You can’t function on that.”
“I’ve been functioning on that for a lot of years,” she said.
“But, if you ate better,” he said, “you’d function better.”
“Maybe,” she said, “or maybe I just won’t get used to this kind of food because I can’t afford it.”
He stopped, looked up at her, and asked, “Do they pay you that badly?”
She just smiled.
“Of course you won’t tell me anyway, will you?”
“No, I won’t,” she said. “Why the hell would I?”
He shrugged and said, “Well, it’s a good thing I brought this tonight then, isn’t it? There should be enough leftovers for you for a few days. So can you tell me what you found?”
“No,” she said briskly. She got up, marched over to the sink, and filled a glass of water. “That I cannot do.”
“You already told me that you found a little girl,” he said.
She turned to lean back against the counter, looked at him, and smiled. “Yes, but she’s not the only one who has been on our radar today.”
“Ouch,” he said, staring at her in shock. “Does that mean this is going on all around us?”
Her grim face turned to him with a nod. “Unfortunately, yes. But if you came here to get information from me,” she said, “I can’t tell you anything.”
“Fine,” he said. Then he picked up one of the other dishes in front of him and served more food. “Still hungry?”
“I am stuffed,” she said, “and so are you.”
He motioned at her plate and said, “You want to try some of this?”
She stared, then realized she did, in fact, have room for some more. “I’ll never sleep after this.”
“I doubt you were planning on sleeping anyway,” he said. “Let’s get real. You’re all about this case.”
She sat back down and glared at him. “You don’t know me,” she said. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you are incredibly driven. You look after the children first. You can’t stand injustice, and you hate criminals,” he said. “What more is there to understand?”
“A hell of a lot more,” she said. “That describes most of the cops in the city.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t describe a lot of them.” He shook his head. “And you’ve clawed your way up to where you are now, and something about you says you have to prove yourself.”
“I’ve only been there for three months,” she admitted.
“Ah,” he said. “So you still feel like you have to prove you belong.”
“I do feel that way,” she said. She looked down at her phone and said, “Crap. I was supposed to go to the hospital, and I forgot.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“It could wait,” he said.
“No,” she said, “I need to know.”
“Then call them,” he said. “Just use the phone.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re making too much of this.”
“Not true,” she said, but she continued to stare at her phone, as she munched her way through one of the vegetable dishes that he’d dumped on her plate. “It’s a sad world out there,” she said. Shaking her head, she tried to take her gaze off her phone.
He pushed it toward her. “Being obsessive is one thing, but not allowing yourself to make a simple decision is another.”
“You shouldn’t be hearing my conversations,” she said.
He snorted at that. “In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m hearing way more than I would like to about you, whether you’re right in front of me or not,” he said.
“Oh.” With that, she snatched her phone off the table and called the hospital. When she got one of the nurses, she asked about the status of the little girl. The nurse quickly came back on the line.
“Detective Morgan? The child is still in a drugged state, but, healthwise, she appears to be okay. We are monitoring her, as we try to sort out the drugs. I don’t think the doctors have analyzed what she’s been given yet.”
“Are you in her room right now, or can you go there?” she asked. “I need a picture of the inside of her wrist.”
“Her wrist?”
Kate heard the footsteps as the nurse headed down the hallway. “Have you heard any news on locating family for her?”
“No,” the nurse said. “And that’s breaking all our hearts.”
“Yeah, ours too, but hopefully somebody will pop up soon,” she said.
“Maybe. But how long has this little girl been in the system?” the nurse asked with bitterness.
“I don’t know. It could be quite a while to sort it all out. We’ll run her DNA, of course, but that, in itself, takes time.”
“Seems like everything takes longer than it should. I know,” the nurse said. “Okay, I’m in her room right now. She’s not showing any signs of change.”
“That won’t necessarily hurt her right now.”
“You think she’s been living like this for a long time?”
“It’s quite possible. It stops her from being difficult, right?”
“Bastards,” the nurse said. “Okay, I’m here, looking at her wrist. What is it you need?”
“Her left wrist,” Kate said. “Can you take a photo of the inside of it and text it to me, please, at this number?”
“Will do,” she said. “A couple scratches are here, but I don’t see anything else.”
“I need to see those scratches,” she said.
“It’s coming your way then. Give it a minute.”
“Thank you.” Kate hung up the phone and laid it on the table beside her. She took another bite of food but kept her gaze on the phone.
“What’s all this about scratches on the wrist?”
She held up her hand like a stop sign. “Remember that part about you not being allowed to hear my phone conversations?”
He fell silent, and, when her phone buzzed, she snatched it up, swiped to open the screen, and accessed the photo. She sank back and nodded, exhaling.
“As much as I didn’t want it to be,” she said, “it confirms what I was really hoping to confirm. Or rather hoping I couldn’t confirm.”
“I still don’t understand. What’s on her wrist?”
“So, old ones?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. Old ones.”
“And what is it? What do they mean?” he asked.
“It’s like a club stamp,” she said sadly. She looked up at him. “And this little girl has been part of the club for a long time.”
He winced. “Are you talking about a pedophile ring? Is that what you mean? Are these pedophiles buying and selling children?”
She nodded slowly. “A lot of pedophiles won’t share, but there are others, in groups sometimes, who actually pass around their victims. And it looks like this little girl has been with this one guy for a while.”
“I hope you find him,” he said, “and put a bullet between his eyes.”
She snorted. “Yeah, not likely,” she said. “I have to work within the law.”
“I can do it, if need be,” he said, his tone harsh.
She glared at him. “No vigilante justice,” she snapped. But, inside, she understood his anger and his rage. “I get it,” she said. “We all do. But we still have to make sure we take them all down, not just this one.”
“If I can do something to help,” he said, “you just have to tell me.”
She looked up at him intensely. “Why? Why do you care?”
He said, “Show me that photo first.”
She knew she shouldn’t. But she couldn’t not do it either, so she brought it up and showed it to him.
“I need to be in on this,” he said, his gaze rising to stare at her.
“Hell no,” she said. “You don’t need to be in on anything.”
He turned his left wrist up and reached across the table, so she could take a look.
Gasping, she stared down at very faded lines on his wrist. So faint they were mostly scar tissue. Still shocked, she looked from the photo to his wrist and then back up to him.
“You were one of them?” She narrowed her gaze. “But were you a pedophile or a victim?”
He glared at her. “I was a victim,” he said. “But I already know who put these marks on my wrist,” he snapped.