“Thanks, Dad,” I said, trying to push Sasha out the door before my dad could change his mind or ask me questions I didn’t want to answer. “Tell Mother goodbye for me and that I’ll call her tomorrow. We can go...ah, shopping or something.” I cringed as the words left my lips. Did I just say I’d go shopping with my mother? Sheesh, guilt was hell.
“What a lovely idea. I’ll tell her,” Dad said before I could retract my statement.
Sasha walked me to the car, keeping a brisk pace. Thankfully no huge forms lurked in the shadows ready to grab me. Just the same, I checked the backseat of my convertible, under the car and in the trunk. Sasha probably thought I was crazy, but he’s always thought that about Americans, so nothing new here.
I drove home to my apartment with the top down, the precious loaf of bread sitting in the passenger seat, moonlight streaming across my arms, and the radio blaring. I had pretty much calmed down by the time I got home and was ready to have a heart-to-heart chat with Basia about the Beefster via the telephone and then drop dead into bed. It had been that kind of day.
I zoomed into the parking lot and found a space not too far from the complex entrance. It’s not a fancy building, just standard colonial brick with about forty-five apartments with small balconies. I live in the small, rural town of Jessup, Maryland. There are only a handful of apartment complexes in town. Out of the approximately eleven thousand people who live here, half own their own homes. The rest of us work for the NSA. Our talents lie in the area of national security, not gardening, home improvement or lawn mowing. It makes sense since we are largely math, computer science and language majors—great with numbers, linguistics and outsmarting the bad guys, but at a complete loss with a plant.
My mother was horrified when I decided to move to Jessup. In her mind it is serious redneck country and I might as well have moved to West Virginia. Now when friends ask her where I live, she is nonspecific and says near Baltimore.
After checking the parking lot for any suspicious characters, I covered the top of my Miata and locked it. Usually I’m bold enough to leave it unlocked, but unpleasant images of Beefy still played in my head. I secured the bread beneath my arm and keyed in the code to the front door of the apartment complex. When it buzzed open, I trudged up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. No fancy elevator in this place. I unlocked the door and fumbled for the light switch. But when I flicked it on, nothing happened.
Alarm bells went off in my head, but “uh, oh,” was all I had time to say before a man stepped out of my apartment and yanked me inside. He clamped a hand down over my mouth, the other snaking around my neck. Instinctively I clawed at his arm, feeling thick muscles and hair. I caught the faint scent of mint aftershave. My purse and the stolen loaf of bread dropped to the floor with a thud. I kicked my legs ferociously as my attacker slammed the door shut with his foot and dragged me into my living room.
“Sit down,” he said against my ear, but didn’t remove his hand from my mouth. “If you scream, I’ll shoot you. I’ve got a gun with a silencer, so no one will hear a sound and you’ll be dead before you hit the carpet. Do you understand?”
I nodded, my heart thudding in my chest. This was the second time today I’d been confronted with a gun and I didn’t like it much.
Slowly he removed his hand from my mouth and I half fell, half sat on the couch. I got my first clear look at my attacker thanks to the moonlight streaming in through the window and saw dark hair and dark clothing. I didn’t recognize him. But the soft accent I heard when he spoke made me pretty sure he was of Middle Eastern descent. Moonlight also glinted off the steel barrel of the gun he pointed at my chest.
“Where are the papers?”
“Papers?” I squeaked.
He shoved the gun into my chest, painfully squishing one of my breasts. “Don’t play dumb with me.”
Like I had to play at it.
“Answer me,” he demanded. “I know she sent them to you.”
She? As in Basia? Oh, God, I thought, my heart hammering. What in the world had she become involved in?
“Look,” I said as calmly as I could, given the fact that my nipple was in imminent danger of being blown off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps if you could be a little less cryptic it would help.”
“Basia Kowalski,” he growled. “Is that clear enough?”
I considered for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “Actually, that’s quite clear.”
“So, where are the papers? You are trying my patience.”
I exhaled noisily. “I haven’t spoken with Basia for about a week and she didn’t mention any papers. Look, I already told the other guy I don’t have them. I don’t even know what you are—”
“What other guy?” he interrupted.
“I don’t know. Some big white guy with a beefy neck, gold tooth and dark blazer. He accosted me in Georgetown and said he was trying to retrieve the papers for his client.”
My attacker said something under his breath. I didn’t understand the language, but it sounded like he was using lots of swear words. Then he strode to where I had dropped my purse in the entranceway and rifled through it. Apparently he didn’t find what he was looking for because he turned his attention back on me.
“What were you doing in Georgetown?”
“If you must know, attending a miserable dinner party at my parents’.”
“How did he know where you were going?”
I considered for a moment. “Good question. I don’t know. He could have followed me from work, I guess.” The thought gave me the creeps.
“Did you give him the papers?”
“I just told you, I don’t have the papers,” I said in exasperation. “I don’t even know what the papers are. Besides, why would Basia mail them to me anyway? She doesn’t live that far away and she could drive them over if they were that important.”
“I know she mailed them to you,” he said, his voice angry again. “But they weren’t in your mailbox today. Did you get them yesterday?”
“Hey, isn’t mail supposed to be private?” I said, a nanosecond later realizing what a dumb statement it was given the fact that this guy was assaulting me in my own apartment with a gun. Snooping around someone else’s mail was probably small peanuts for someone like him.
“You didn’t receive any packages from her today?”
“No. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to live,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “You can look around if you don’t believe me.”
He exhaled a deep breath. “I already did. And so did someone else.”
While I pondered that, he stood quietly, apparently thinking. The gun still was pointed at me but at least it wasn’t pressing against my boob anymore.
“If you receive the papers, call me immediately,” he finally said. “Don’t call anyone else. If you do, I assure you, you’ll pay with your life and the life of your friend.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.” I could be mega agreeable when a gun was pointed at my chest.
He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and then grabbed my arm. He scrawled a number on the inside of my forearm. “Don’t wash that off,” he warned.
“Who me? Take a bath?” I joked weakly.
He leaned down close to my face. “I know you work for the NSA,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “This has nothing to do with them. I have friends in high places that work there, too. If I hear that you’ve reported my visit here to anyone in your office or to the police, I’ll find you and kill you no matter where you are. You will not be able to hide from me. Do you understand?”
His matter-of-fact tone chilled me to the bone. I totally, absolutely believed him.
“I understand,” I said. “My lips are sealed.”
He tucked the gun away beneath his jacket and I breathed a little easier. “This is no joke. The minute those papers arri
ve, you call me no matter what time of the day or night.”
With that, he walked to the door and let himself out. I hyperventilated for a few minutes sitting there in the dark before I was able to determine what I should do next. Finally, I gathered enough courage to stand and turn on the lamp next to the couch. Light flooded the room and I blinked, realizing that my electricity was fine and that the intruder had either smashed or removed the bulb in the entranceway.
I blinked again and my vision cleared.
I wished I had stayed in the dark.
My apartment had been completely trashed. Books had been dumped from my bookshelf, pictures removed from the walls, magazines and papers scattered across the carpet. A quick cursory glance seemed to indicate that nothing had been stolen—just rifled through.
Dazed, I wandered into the kitchen and bedroom, finding a similar disaster there. Thank God my most precious possession, my sleek new laptop, had not been stolen. It was turned on, however, and someone had apparently tried to peek into my hard drive. He must not have been much of a geek because it looked like my password had stopped him cold.
It’s not that I have any matters of national security to hide on my computer or anything. At the NSA we’re not allowed to bring our work home. I do have all my financial information there, although anyone clever enough to hack in would get a good laugh at my checking account balance. Just the same, I logged on, whizzed about my hard drive and checked my email. Other than the usual spam, there was nothing exciting, including no email from Basia telling me what the hell was going on.
Anger rising, I stalked into the bathroom. Even it had been ransacked. Tampons, make-up and rolls of toilet paper had been scattered about.
“Well, crap,” I said, sitting dejectedly on the toilet lid. This had been one hell of a day. I’d been set up on a date with a politician in the making, accosted twice by men bearing guns, and my apartment had been trashed. It totally bit the big one.
After a minute of wallowing in alternating anger and self-pity, I stood and went to the phone in the kitchen. I dialed Basia’s number, but her answering machine picked up right away.
“It’s Lexi. Call me immediately,” I ordered and then hung up. Then I dialed her cell number, but got her voice mail there, too. I left the same desperate message and hung up.
Returning to my bedroom, I searched for about ten minutes before I found my address book underneath a pile of underwear on my bedroom floor. I thumbed through it until I found Basia’s parents’ number in Chicago. My bedroom phone had been thoughtfully stuffed in one of my black flats. So after I extracted it, I sat on the bed amid a bunch of clothes and dialed the number.
A woman answered the phone. “Hallo?”
I immediately recognized Basia’s mother’s voice. The Kowalskis were from Poland and had emigrated to America about twenty-five years earlier. They were the sweetest, most down-to-earth people I’d ever met. But for some unfathomable reason, even though the Kowalskis had learned English in America, they spoke all fancy, just like the Brits.
“Hello, Mrs. Kowalski?” I said. “It’s Lexi Carmichael. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Lexi, dear, how nice to hear from you. You’re not bothering me. How can I help you?”
“It’s nothing really. I was just wondering if you had heard from Basia lately.”
Mrs. Kowalski must have been doing the dishes because I could hear her shut the water off in the background. “Basia? Well, let’s see, I spoke with her a few days ago. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no,” I hurriedly reassured her. “I just need to reach her right away and she’s not answering her phone or cell. I thought maybe she had mentioned to you that she had planned on going on an extended trip or something.”
“Not to my knowledge. She might just be out with other friends. Unfortunately, Basia never keeps me abreast of her social life. I thought that was your department.”
It was, but apparently I wasn’t doing a bang-up job of keeping on top of it. “Oh, well, I’m just trying to get in touch with her about something, ah, possibly related to work. Did she happen to mention anything new she was working on?”
“Now that you mention it, she did say she had started a new project. Some new translations had apparently come her way. She did say it was in Polish for which she was glad since it could be done relatively quickly.”
“Did she happen to say who the work came from?”
“No, dear, she didn’t. I was more surprised that she’d recently started karate lessons.”
My mouth fell open. “Karate?” I repeated, completely dumbfounded. Basia doing karate was about as feasible as the pope turning Protestant. She hated exercise and would drive her car to the 7-Eleven to avoid having to walk across the street. If the escalator was out of service at the mall, she refused to shop there. Something weird was definitely going on here.
“Karate. Well, that’s news to me, too,” I said in the understatement of the year. Had I dropped off the face of the earth? Why hadn’t she informed me, her best friend, of all these shocking new developments?
“Did she say where she was taking these karate lessons?” I asked.
“No, she didn’t. Should I be worried?”
“No, not at all,” I said hastily. “But if she happens to give you a call, will you tell her I’m trying to reach her?”
“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Kowalski said, and I could hear a hint of worry creep into her voice. I hoped I hadn’t spooked her, but mothers had that second sense thing going, and I had a feeling I’d been nabbed.
“Well, thanks, Mrs. K. I gotta go,” I said as cheerfully as I could fake and hung up.
I stood and returned to my front door. I opened it and examined the jamb, but I couldn’t see any marks where Mr. Middle Eastern Guy must have broken in. Not even a scratch. He must be one heck of a burglar.
I checked all the windows, but they were closed and latched from the inside. The balcony sliding glass door still had the piece of wood wedged into it that served as an extra lock. Honestly I didn’t think he had come in either via the windows or the balcony. But that meant he had easily picked both my lock and deadbolt. Sheesh. Wasn’t anyone safe these days?
I really, really wanted to call the police. I’d been accosted by armed thugs twice in one day, which ranked high on my list of reasons to call the authorities. But if Mr. Middle Eastern Guy and Beefy were still watching me, they’d see the police car arrive. I remembered their threats and changed my mind. I needed to talk to Basia first. Besides, nothing had been stolen, and as far as I could tell, nothing major had been broken. The place was just an unholy mess.
Sighing, I fastened the safety chain on the front door, wedging a chair beneath the doorknob for extra security. As soon as I got off work tomorrow, I was going to buy some mace and have an alarm system installed. No more surprise visitors. No more guns pointed at me. No more playing the victim.
I retrieved the loaf of Sasha’s bread from the entranceway floor, brushed it off and carried it into the kitchen. I nuked a couple pieces in the microwave and slathered them with butter and jam. I’m really into comfort food and this seemed the appropriate time to indulge.
After I’d finished stuffing my face, I felt better. I found a pen and piece of paper and jotted down the phone number Mr. Middle Eastern Guy had scrawled on my arm. Then I pulled down all the shades on the windows when there was a loud knock on my door.
My heart jumped to my throat and stayed there. I grabbed a heavy, ugly vase that my mother had given me for Christmas and cautiously approached the door. Without speaking, I peered out the peephole and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was my neighbor Jan Walton.
Jan was a cute, single mom with a seven-year-old, high-functioning autistic son named Jamie. The boy was the most handsome kid I’d ever seen, with thick, dark hair, sky-blue eyes and a dazzling white smile. He was super smart, but oft
en had odd fixations. He’d once named every single part of my vacuum cleaner. In return, I’d listed the entire mathematical equation for the Mandelbrot Set. We’d been buddies ever since.
I quickly removed the chair from beneath the doorknob, unfastened the chain and unlocked the door.
“Hey, Jan,” I exclaimed, sticking my head out. I didn’t open the door all the way in case she saw the mess inside and asked questions to which I didn’t yet have answers.
Jan looked puzzled that I hadn’t invited her in. I always invited her in.
“Why is it so dark in your entranceway?” she asked.
“Oh, that,” I said. “The light burned out, I guess. I’ll have to replace the bulb.”
A look of surprise crossed her face. “Hey, you don’t have a guy in there, do you?”
Sometimes it astonished me how invested everyone, except me, was in my love life. Maybe turning twenty-five was some kind of blazing social milestone that meant if you didn’t have a significant other, you’d better find one. In my case, dating meant change and I hated change. Change was different. Change was scary.
“No. Unfortunately, there is no guy in here, hot or otherwise,” I said.
“Well, I came by earlier, but you weren’t home.”
“I was at my parents’ for dinner.”
“On a Tuesday? Special occasion?”
“Just my mom trying to set me up. Again.”
Jan laughed. “How awful. You poor thing.”
I laughed, too, but it was forced and I still didn’t invite her in. Apparently sensing I wasn’t in the mood for company, she held up a large FedEx mailer.
“Anyway, this came for you tonight. Since you weren’t home, Jack dropped it off at my place. I forged your signature, and Jack said it was okay as long as we don’t tell anyone. He didn’t see the harm in it, seeing how we’re good friends and all.”
Jack was our FedEx guy. Jan was on a first-name basis with him because she insisted her ex-husband send his alimony check that way. Jack had become quite friendly and Jan often invited him in for coffee.
No Stone Unturned: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Eleven Page 37