Johan's Joy: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 21)

by Dale Mayer

  “Now it confirms what we’re afraid of,” Tyson said.

  She glared at his back. “I still don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “Too late,” Kai said, as she reached over to touch Joy’s fingers with her own. “Trust your team.”

  Joy squeezed her friend’s hand. “I do trust them,” she said, “but this is just so far beyond anything I’m used to.”

  Just then they heard a shout. “Clear!”

  Tyson walked forward with one of the women on either side. At the doorway they stopped. Johan stood just a few feet in, his hands on his hips, surveying her apartment.

  She took a step toward the inside, then stopped and cried out in horror. “Oh, my God,” she said. “What did they do?” Every piece of furniture had been upended and trashed. The seat cushions were ripped open, so stuffing was everywhere. On the back of the couch a big gash ran from one side to the other, so there was absolutely no way to fix it beyond reupholstering the whole thing. The carpet had something spread on top of it. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it looked like it could have been eggs.

  She started to walk into the living room, but Johan reached out a hand to stop her. And then she saw the rest of the room, on the opposite side of the couch. High on the wall in some red spray paint was the word bitch, and just below that was snitch, and still below that was liar, then below that was dead.

  She swallowed hard, her hand going to her mouth as she stared in horror at what somebody had done to her life. She could feel the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Tears she was desperate not to shed, but there was absolutely no holding them back. They leaked slowly down her cheeks, until Johan gave a muffled exclamation and pulled her into his arms. She stood here, shaking in his grasp, as she looked around. “Why?” she whispered.

  “You know why,” he said. “This is to scare you. It’s a warning.”

  “The last word means it’s a threat,” Kai said, stepping up behind them. “It may have started off as a rampage or as a warning for her to get the hell out of here, but the last line has a much more ominous tone.”

  Joy agreed that, if they’d left it at just calling her a liar, she wouldn’t have considered her life so much in danger, but, by adding dead, that upped the ante completely. She didn’t even know how to react, what to say, or what to think. She turned to look in the direction of her bedroom. “Do I even want to go in there?”

  Johan shook his head. “You won’t like anything about it,” he said. “It’s like this, only worse.”

  She reached up, grabbed his shirt, and squeezed it as hard as she could while he just held her close. “How could it be any worse?”

  “Listen. It’ll be fine,” he said.

  She reared back and glared at him. “How could any of this be fine?” she said. “This is so far from fine that it’s not funny.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “But it is what it is, and we’ll deal with that. Let’s look at your bedroom and see if there’s anything salvageable.”

  Swallowing hard, she walked down the short hallway to her bedroom with Johan at her side. She stared, mute at the devastation in her room. “What did they do? Save the worst for here?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Well, this makes it more personal, doesn’t it?” he said. “It’s not only your room, it’s your bed. It’s where you sleep, where you’re secure at night. Or should be.”

  She swallowed, half understanding what he said, yet not wanting to delve any deeper into it. “I suppose,” she whispered, “but it still sucks.”

  “Yes, it does,” he said, his arm coming around her shoulders to tuck her up a little closer yet again. “It definitely does.”

  Not only had the bed been slashed but the headboard, the mattress, and everything in the closet. Then it was all piled on the floor and covered in even more spray paint. She just stared, unable to process the enormity of what she saw.

  Kai stepped forward and said, “Let’s see if we can salvage anything out of this,” she said, “and then we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Why?” she asked, her tone flat. “What else can anybody do to me?”

  “You don’t want to hear the answer to that,” Johan said. “And you’re in shock right now, so I suggest you sit down in the kitchen, and I can go through this stuff with Kai.”

  But she took a deep breath, shook her head, and said, “Luckily anything of a sentimental value that I sold when I downsized for this move, I took pictures of. So all my family pictures and the memories are in the cloud. Still, I need to settle down, get my wits back. I need to see the area to remind me what I would want most to save from here. So you won’t know what it is. I don’t yet know what it is. Just give me a minute.”

  “You don’t have a whole lot here, right?”

  “I came with what would fit in my car. Remember?” she said. “Everything else in here belongs to the apartment owner.”

  “So you sublet it?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, “and, man, he won’t be happy.”

  “Maybe not,” Tyson said. “But we can contact him and he should have insurance.”

  “Do we need to call the cops?”

  “They’ve already been called,” Galen said, holding up his phone. “They’ll be here in about ten to fifteen minutes, so, if you want something, you better get it now.”

  She didn’t quite understand why it was important until Johan nudged her gently back around to face the room, saying, “Once the cops are here, and they make the connection to the murder scene at work, and they’ll bring in forensics, and they’ll be here for hours and hours going through stuff, and you may not get anything back because it may all be held as evidence.”

  “On that note,” Kai said, “let me take a bunch of photos of the place.”

  Joy stepped forward carefully, realizing every one of her drawers had been upended. “I don’t even know if there’s anything salvageable. Whoever did this must have left here covered in paint.” She motioned toward a pile of clothing that had been sprayed on the top and on bottom. Obviously whoever did this had kicked over the pile just to coat both sides. She peered into the closet, but they had taken everything out. She stood here, absolutely stunned. She looked up at him. “Find my laptop, will you?”

  “Where did you keep it?”

  Joy looked over at Kai. “Do you remember where I had it before we left?”

  “You didn’t have it out with us,” Tyson said, “and we took all our gear back to the vehicle when we left.”

  She looked at him, frowning. “Were you expecting this?”

  “We’ve come to learn the hard way that, even when we don’t expect this,” he said with a wave of his hand, “we expect something.”

  “Well, I had a laptop. I usually kept it in the night table in the bottom drawer,” she said.

  Johan made his way over to the night table, which had been dumped upside down. He lifted it up, and there was her laptop. She cried out in joy as he grabbed it and handed it to her. “Wait. Let me get these cables.”

  She nodded and pointed to the charger. “Yes, please, both chargers. One’s for my cell phone, and the other is for my laptop.”

  As he gave them to her, he noticed a copy of a popular graphic novel had come out of the nightstand, so he picked that up too. Then she slowly retreated, trying to figure out if she even wanted anything else here.

  Kai reached out for a bra but stopped midway as it was covered in paint. A stack of panties was off to the side, but they had been painted too all over. “Several paint cans were used here,” Kai said. “I don’t think you’ll want anything here.”

  Joy shook her head. “Not really. I’ve got my laptop and phone, and I guess everything else is replaceable.” But her voice dropped as she realized the enormity of the cost to replace everything.

  “Do you have renter’s insurance?” Tyson asked behind her.

  She stared at him, realizing what he meant. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t. If I’m liable f

or all this, I’m really screwed.”

  “You won’t be liable for it,” Kai said, “but it would help if you could get a few hundred dollars to replace some of this.” And she waved her hand at the clothing.

  “That’ll take more than a few hundred dollars,” Joy said sadly. “I don’t spend much on clothes, but, to replace it all at once, well, it’ll be a few thousand for sure.”

  “You brought some winter clothes with you too, I see,” Tyson said, motioning to the closet where coats had been dumped on the floor and spray-painted on top.

  “I did a huge cleanup before I left Boston,” she whispered. “This is what I decided to keep because it seemed better suited for here. I was going to buy more clothes later, figuring Texas malls would have better options for the temperate weather here.”

  “Did you buy more once you got here?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance yet,” she said. “I was just making do with my old clothes, trying to get a few more paychecks behind me.”

  “Well, guess what?” Johan said. “I don’t think you can wait any longer.”

  *

  Johan hadn’t wanted to be brutal in his tone, but she could do only so much standing here. She groaned and turned away, walking into the kitchen. She checked in a few of the cupboards, found a bit of food, then opened the fridge. There she cried out because the milk had been poured out on the inside, and the eggs had been smashed. She’d just picked up extra groceries with Kai, and the steaks were long gone, as they’d been torn out of their containers, soaked in milk, and tossed on the lower shelves of the fridge.

  She slowly closed the fridge and turned to look at Johan. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  The bewilderment in her voice got to him the most. “Well, first off,” he said, “we have a hotel suite, so you can come stay with us. Kai and Tyson can grab a hotel room there as well,” he said. “The police will be here soon, and it depends on what they say, but no way you can stay here obviously.”

  “Why are you both in a hotel, when I thought the compound was nearby, just on the outskirts of Houston?” Joy asked.

  With a nod to Kai, Johan explained. “Kai and Ice both wanted us closer to you, considering the ketamine angle. Which has proved to be a good instinct, what with the threats to you and the murder of Barlow, plus finding out Chelsea may have been murdered as well.”

  She looked down at her watch. “It’s Saturday, and I suppose it’s too late to shop, isn’t it?”

  “No, depending on how long the cops keep us here,” Kai said. “The malls will be open until nine o’clock. You and I can hopefully go out and at least get you a couple outfits. If nothing else, some underclothes and a few pairs of leggings and shirts that you can wear to work.”

  “Okay,” she said, staring down at her only a pair of jeans. “Of course I’m wearing jeans, the one thing I can’t wear to work.”

  “Maybe,” Kai said. “But they sure look good on you, and they’re new, so better that they destroyed some older stuff, and you’ve got the new pair.”

  She nodded slowly and took several steps back.

  When a hard knock sounded on the door, she cried out. Johan immediately reached out to calm her down. “It’s all right,” he said.

  She shook her head. “You keep saying that.” She watched as Galen opened the door to see the manager there with several cops.

  They stepped inside, and the manager cried out, “Good Lord,” he snapped. “Who did this?”

  “Well, if you had any security cameras in the building,” Tyson said in a mild tone, “we might be able to find out.”

  The cops turned to look at the manager, who shrugged. “No, there are no security cameras here.”

  The cops took one look around, one of them shoving his hat back off his forehead to scratch at the hair underneath. “Somebody took their time here.”

  “But they didn’t have a whole lot of time,” Joy said. “We were only gone a couple hours for dinner.”

  “Got it,” he said, and he proceeded to take information from all of them.

  Johan stayed close to Joy the whole time. He could see her starting to flag. Her energy level was going down, and her will to respond civilly was failing as well. But it was what it was, and he would just be sure he was here for her as much as he could be. In the back of his mind though, he knew that the time frame had just been accelerated. Even now they would be under watch. Somebody was out there enjoying the show. Johan just wanted to make sure they didn’t get to see too much more.

  Chapter 13

  Joy woke up the next morning in a hotel room all alone, feeling incredibly tired, worn out, and sad. The things that people did to each other were just so depressing. She didn’t deserve what these assholes had done to her. She didn’t have much money. Only her fourth paycheck was coming in now, and that wasn’t enough to recoup the cost of her move to a new apartment, her new clothes, and one month’s notice at her current apartment building, all especially if she lost her job too. She’d hit her savings pretty hard for the months that she didn’t have any money coming in. And now she was out the rent as well.

  That was beyond disturbing because she still had to come up with the money to stay somewhere else. At the moment she was in the same hotel as the others. Kai and Tyson had taken a room beside them, and Joy was in a room between the two groups. At least she was alone, though that was both good and bad.

  Part of her was sad, and another part of her was overjoyed. Nothing like a quiet space to sort herself out. She was also terribly lonely. Somebody out there had targeted her, and she didn’t know who, but she felt that sense of being victimized. She knew it was a sad state of affairs for her to feel like that, but it also went along with everything else that was happening. Would she have still gone through with this if she’d realized how personally involved she would end up being? She knew the answer should be yes, but she was still too confused to sort herself out.

  When a knock came at the door, she froze and then forced herself to relax. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Johan,” he called through the door.

  She hopped up, wrapped the hotel room robe around her, and opened the door. He carried a tray of coffee. She smiled and let him in. “Because you’ve got the coffee,” she announced, “I’m happy to have you come in.”

  He smiled and set it down, then looked at her in concern. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Maybe, the jury is out as to whether it was a good sleep though,” she said. “It was a pretty late night before we finally got in here.”

  “It was,” he said. “Well after midnight, as I recall.”

  “Well, it put a stop to you going out and getting into trouble, so maybe that was a good thing.”

  He smiled. “I’m just heading out now with Galen.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s only seven o’clock,” he said.

  “Then how did you know I was awake?” she protested.

  “I figured, if you were sound asleep, you wouldn’t have answered the door,” he said.

  She frowned up at him, not sure she wanted to believe his logic. But she crawled back into bed, pulled the covers to her waist, and he handed her a cup of coffee. “You sure you want to go now?” she asked. “There is no darkness to hide your movements.”

  “It’s not darkness we need,” he said. “I’m a big believer and feel like, when the time was right, things would happen on their own.”

  She laughed at that. “If you say so. Doesn’t say much for my current situation, does it?” She waved him off. “Thanks for the coffee delivery.”

  He pointed to the carafe and said, “There’s more, if you want it.”

  She nodded. “Please stay in touch. I don’t want to be sitting here, wondering what I’m supposed to do at checkout time.”

  “We’re here for at least tonight,” he said.

  She frowned up at him. “That’s expensive.”

  “That’s not your problem right now,” he said. “We have bigger issues.”

  She snorted at that, but he was soon gone. She tried not to worry about the cost of the hotel, but she had few options right now. Almost immediately another knock came at her door.

  After looking through the peephole, she opened the door and said, “Come on in.”

  Kai poked her head in, saw the coffee, and grinned. “Here I was going to offer you coffee,” she said, “but Johan beat me to it. I should have known.”

  There was just something so teasing about her voice that Joy could feel the heat washing up her cheeks. “Well, I slept alone,” she said, “so obviously there isn’t anything going on between us.”

  “Oh, he would have stayed with you, if you’ve given him a chance,” she said. “But he was more concerned about you getting a good night’s sleep after last night than anything else.”

  “Well, I did get some,” she said, relaxing against the headboard, taking a sip of her coffee. “It’s just so unbelievable, and I have so much now to deal with that I don’t even know how to start.”

  “Right,” she said, “and that’s something we can sort out right now.” She pulled up a chair, sat down beside Joy, putting her feet up on the bed.

  “Don’t you want coffee?” Joy pointed at the carafe. “More is in that, and an extra cup is nearby.”

  Kai nodded, hopped to her feet, went to the tray, and poured herself a cup. She came back with the pot and topped off Joy’s cup while she was at it. “Let’s make a list,” she said, “and see what we need to do first.”

  “Well, seeing how we didn’t go to the mall last night,” Joy joked, “I need to shower, get dressed in the same dirty clothes, then find new clothes.”

  “Malls don’t open until at least nine o’clock here,” she said, “so we’ll have breakfast first.”

  The two women put their heads together, focused on the list, and jotted down things she needed to get. “What about your IDs?”

  “In my purse,” she said. “I don’t really have much else.”

  “Passport?”

  “I just applied for one,” she said. “I don’t have it yet.”

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