Mind (the) Game

by Kelly Shade

  She opened carefully but when she saw the friendly face of Erik she lightened up and put the gun back in her pocket.

  “Hey!” Jane smiled at him and hugged him.

  “Are you okay? I heard shouting!” said Erik worryingly.

  “Yeah, she’s fine! Who are you?” Ryan asked with irritation.

  “Erik Marcelo, sir.” Said Erik and reached for a handshake.

  Ryan shook his hand after a second of hesitation then glanced at Jane for an explanation.

  Blake shared most of the story, she told Ryan how she met Erik in Chile and how much the boy helped her. Ryan was impressed and a little confused by the fact Jane didn’t say anything about Erik before.

  “So you are the Ryan Gray?” said Erik smiling.

  “The Ryan Gray?” Ryan turned to Jane with confusion.

  “Ricky!” Blake slapped Erik on the shoulder laughing then said to Ryan firmly “I told him to send the letter to you. Don’t think you are something special!”

  “Mhm, of course I’m not.” Gray couldn’t hide his irritation.

  “Jane, I just came to tell you, that the money have been deposited and everything went well. Oh, and I’ve been promoted, I’ll be the new bar manager starting next Monday!” Erik told Jane and headed back to the door.

  “What money?” Ryan walked in front of Erik blocking his way out.

  “For the orphanage! Chill, dude!” Erik made a sound between cough and laugh.

  “Jane?” Ryan stepped aside.

  Blake ignored him and went to Erik with the words “Thanks, Ricky! Dinner tomorrow night? To celebrate your promotion?”

  “Yeah, I’ll come at eight, okay?” Erik smiled and hugged Blake goodbye.

  Jane nodded and after he walked out she waited him to be far enough before she closed the door. She turned to Ryan with angry gaze.

  “Now I understand! You already found a boyfriend!” Ryan teased.

  “Don’t you dare! That boy is like a little brother to me! If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be talking right now!” said Jane, unsuccessfully trying to keep quiet.

  “Okay, I’m sorry! He saved your life, you saved his, I got it!” said Ryan as if this was nothing. Then he continued “What were the money for? For real!”

  “I’m supporting an orphanage for years but I didn’t have the time to go so I asked Ricky to do it for me.” Said Jane, not because she wanted to share but because she knew Ryan wouldn’t give it up.

  “From when?” Gray asked.

  “I don’t know; several years I guess. Does it matter?” Jane said casually, opened one of the kitchen drawers, took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Then she added while lighting up a smoke “You know, I am trying very hard to quit those, but you just made me wanna start again!”

  “I made you?” Ryan glanced at her, puzzled.

  “Yep.” She said, puffed out the smoke in his face and looked at him with hatred.

  Gray realized Jane was too angry and that he messed up badly. At the moment he walked out and slammed the door without saying a word, Ryan regretted it but it was too late. Blake wasn’t a fan of excuses and apologies. She had shared numerous times with Ryan her thoughts about that – “If you do it once or twice, it is a mistake, but every other time it is a choice and a dash of stupidity! There is no excuse for that!”

  Gray knew he made much more than two mistakes.

  Chapter 10

  A step away from all

  Several days after the fight Jane and Ryan had, Jane didn’t go to the Station. Nobody called her and she assumed, that there wasn’t a murder in those days or they just didn’t need her. Of course, it was fortunate that nobody was killed but Jane was a little bored. She used the time to visit her house, especially the safe room, which helped her relax and remember the good old days as a con artist. Blake knew this life wasn’t for her anymore but it still brought a smile on her face when reminded of it.

  But this day someone was unlucky. Blake got the ‘there’s-been-a-murder’ call from Ian Valdez who apparently was back from his honeymoon in Hawaii. When Ian called, Jane noticed he was full of energy and far too excited to be back at work.

  Blake hurried to the crime scene. She got there last and saw Nick and Victoria talking to the person who found the victim. Jane nodded for hello and went behind the yellow line to see what was going on. Ian and Ryan were standing next to a woman lying on the ground.

  “What do we have?” Jane asked straight away.

  “I missed you too, Blake! And thanks again for the great wedding gift!” Ian said with a smile and continued “Josephine Kowalski, thirty-nine, a journalist for a local newspaper. She was strangled with what looks like a rope.”

  Blake kneeled to the woman. She was with a shoulder length dark hair, professionally made make up, wearing formal skirt and a leather jacket. Josephine’s face was untouched but Jane saw many bruises on her hands and several broken nails.

  “She didn’t go down without a fight.” Blake said and moved her eyes to the victim’s legs. The shoes were missing and her feet were covered in blood. “She ran, maybe for a few blocks. Look at her feet.” Jane pointed and Ryan and Ian kneeled down next to her.

  “Also, I don’t think it was a rope, more like a cable of some kind.” Jane added when she saw the victim’s neck.

  “Yeah, you may be right.” Ryan also glanced at the purple-blue trace on Josephine’s neck. “Barbara Bradley will be here soon, then we will know for sure.”

  Blake reached for the large black purse next to the body but Ian lightly slapped her hand with a pair of gloves. Jane always forgot to put these annoying, in her opinion, stuff. With a grimace she took one glove and after it was on her hand she took the purse and started taking the victim’s belongings out on the ground.

  “Any thoughts, Blake?” Ian asked.

  Jane lifted her finger “Wait!” until she got out everything. She took her time to think for a moment or two then she said thoughtfully.

  “Josephine was an organized woman, strictly business, I guess she was single, no friends. She attended some kind of martial art classes.” Jane started thoughtfully while looking at the three notebooks, pens, batteries, wallet and some cosmetics in Josephine’s purse. Ian glanced at Jane reminding her to continue and she did. “It wasn’t a mugging for sure, the cash and other valuables are here. I believe she was killed because of something else, something very important in her purse.”

  “What about the fight classes?” Nick asked while examining the victim’s belongings.

  “The bruises and his physique are telling me that, and she also had it scheduled in her calendar.” Jane explained and pointed at Josephine’s legs and arms. “These are not random hits; she was using a self-defense technique but the attacker was better.”

  “Yeah, I can see that now.” Lee put his head to the side, in order to see the bruise patterns on the victim.

  The team’s work on the crime scene was done and they left the CSU to work in piece.

  Nick and Ian headed to the victim’s office to talk to her colleagues. Ryan and Jane drove to Josephine’s apartment and Victoria had the office duty, as always.

  Blake wasn’t sure if she wanted to be alone with Ryan. He was behaving good enough but the tense atmosphere was more than obvious.

  They arrived at the small apartment of Josephine. It was apparent that the woman lived alone. Jane and Ryan started to dig in the drawers hoping to find something suspicious. There were a lot of documents, interviews with famous people, politicians and random citizens. The victim was ambitious but it seemed that she also cared a lot about the people’s rights. She had many photos and videos on her computer interviewing homeless people, orphans, people in need.

  When Ryan watched several of Josephine’s interviews, Jane noticed that his facial expression changed, there was a clear sadness written on his face. Even though Blake knew why, she decided to ask him and to try to make him feel better.

  “Talk to me, Gray!” she said.


  “About what?” Ryan couldn’t look away from the tape in which the victim was talking to a very miserable homeless person.

  “Why so sad? Does she remind you of someone?” Jane asked and pulled a chair to sit next to him.

  “My mom, she reminds me of my mom.” Ryan sighted and glanced at Jane as if waiting for her to make a rude comment as ‘man up’ or something similar.

  “It is perfectly normal. They are a lot like.” Jane said softly. In fact, she didn’t think about making a comment, she actually understood why Ryan was feeling sad. Gray wasn’t prepared for a conversation or for Jane being nice.

  “Your mom was a journalist, she tried to help a lot of people. Just like Josephine.” Blake continued “We will find her killer, Ryan.”

  “Yeah, we will but she won’t come back. Just like my mother.” Gray turned to her and said sadly then stared at the screen again.

  “I know, but unfortunately that’s how it goes.” Jane gently stroke his back “And finding the person responsible for this is like giving our respect to the victims, giving some kind of closure to their families. This is what we can do and we do it good. Focus on that, you will feel better!” Jane stood up and added “Get everything in the car, we will watch it with the team.”

  Blake headed to the door but in the middle of the room she froze staring at a candle holder on the wall next to the bedroom door.

  “What’s up?” Ryan took her advice and because of her being nice he cheered up a little.

  “Don’t you find it odd?” Blake said slowly and got closer to the silver candlestick.

  “What?” Ryan went next to her.

  “Isn’t it too high?” Blake pointed at the candle holder on the wall.

  “For you, maybe, I think it is where it is supposed to be.” Ryan laughed, he was always joking around about Jane’s height.

  Blake glanced at him with narrowed eyes as if he irritated her but she couldn’t hide her smile. Then she fixed her eyes on the candle holder again and said with serious expression on her face. “Josephine was shorter than me, Gray, and alone.”

  “She is renting the place, Jane, maybe this holder was here before.” Gray said his thoughts and made few steps to the exit.

  “It is far too expensive to be left like this.” Jane stood on her place and reached to it. Carefully she put the holder down on the ground and saw that behind it was a small square trace on the wall. Blake used her car keys to remove that little square off the wall and put it next to the holder.

  “Would you check if there is something hidden in there?” asked Blake and Ryan, with a smile, looked in the small hole in the wall.

  “Nope, nothing.” He said.

  Blake was a little disappointed, she reached to put back the plasterboard square but when she tried to settle it correctly she felt something in it moved. Blake took it back in her hands and with a pocket knife she cut it in the middle.

  “Voilà, I told you!” Jane was holding a little yellow flash drive in her hand.

  “Awesome!” Ryan said impressed of Jane’s commitment to find it.

  They went back at the Station with boxes full of the victim’s work. Josephine had numerous notebooks, legal pads and documents that would take the team all night if they had to check everything. And since Nick and Ian had no luck in finding anything useful at Josephine’s office, Victoria spoke to the woman’s family and they also had no idea who would want to harm her, the team had to do more digging.

  And, of course, they stayed until three in the morning going through the victim’s personal life and work but unfortunately they didn’t have success.

  Ryan was on his laptop all night; he was supposed to decrypt the flash drive. Whatever it was in there, was heavily encrypted.

  “Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll finish with these.” Blake said to Ryan took a sip of the coffee Evan’s made her before she and Nick went home. Ian was also off, after all his wife was pregnant and he needed to be home more often.

  “I can’t sleep. I have to crack that; it’s driving me crazy!” Gray answered.

  “Okay.” Jane agreed but when she saw his red, puffy eyes, she offered “Do you want to have a little walk?”

  “Um, just a little bit more.” Ryan couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  “Come on, you need to clear your head!” Blake said, stood up and gave him his jacket.

  Ryan had no choice but to go. They walked out of the Station and into the park. It was around four in the morning, the air was fresh and a little chilly, it was the perfect set up to wake them up.

  “Thanks for making me go. I didn’t know I needed it!” Ryan said.

  “I know.” Blake answered with a smile.

  They were walking in silence for a while. Jane wanted to close this case and to tell the woman’s parents why their daughter was killed. Blake was rethinking all the information they had on the victim but everything sounded right. Josephine Kowalski seemed to be an ordinary journalist with no ‘big news’ behind her, no important people who would want to harm her. That woman was a hardworking professional but she couldn’t get to the big league in her career.

  Ryan couldn’t bare walking around much longer and insisted to go back to his laptop and decrypt the information. Jane agreed, she also knew that whatever the reason was for that woman’s murder it was on that flash drive.

  After swearing, hitting the screen and almost breaking his keyboard, Ryan finally could get to the data at seven in the morning. Jane was almost asleep when he shouted “Yeah!” which made her jump in her chair and hit her knee badly on the desk.

  “So? What is it?” she went to him limping a bit and rubbing her right knee.

  “Pictures, a lot of them.” Ryan showed her a folder with a thousand or more photos of the same person – Wiley Bowen, a politician running for the Senate.

  Blake carefully examined several photos but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Ryan scrolled down.

  “Look!” Jane glanced a different formatted file, a recording.

  “Good eye!” Ryan smiled widely and clicked on the file named ‘truth’.

  Gray’s good mood disappeared soon when he saw that the recording was password protected.

  The rest of the team showed one by one at around eight. All of them sleepy and with no enthusiasm for conversations. Victoria was the only one who was kind of awake and eager to know what Jane and Ryan had found.

  Nick and Ian joined Evans, Blake and Gray on Ryan’s desk and started guessing the password. They spend an hour typing all kinds of possible passwords when Ian had an idea. He went to get Josephine’s purse and came back with the words “We may find something in here.”

  Jane and Ian started taking out the victim’s belongings again, the other kept guessing the pass.

  “Look at this.” Ian lifted an old battery “It is too light for a battery.” He said and measured the weight with hand.

  Blake took it, it was indeed not the right weight and there was a trace on the side which suggested it was opened before. She reached in her bag, took out her pocket knife and tried to cut it. When she almost cut herself, because she hadn’t slept at all that night it was hard to concentrate, Ian took it off her hands and did it instead. The battery was full with cotton and in that cotton was hidden a small key and a note saying ‘4uall9734ifimdead’.

  “We got the password!” Ian lifted the note as if he just won the lottery.

  They all gathered around Ryan who typed the pass and played the recording.

  “Hello! If you listen to this message, then I’m probably dead. I hope it is the police, if not whoever it is, please, give it to the LAPD. My name is Josephine Kowalski and I have evidence that Wiley Bowen is stealing from our city and covers it using the homeless shelters. He laundries the money using his wife’s supermarket chains. The evidence you can find on my recorder, the one in my purse or the one I hid. You have the key and the address. I hope you’ll catch Wiley Bowen and lock him up. He is my killer; he is also responsibl
e for the hunger in several shelters!”

  The team were stunned. The looked at each other puzzled.

  “Let’s go get him!” said Victoria breaking the tense silence.

  “On what grounds?” Valdez said irritably “We need the evidence!”

  “Okay, she said we have the key and the address.” Started Jane thoughtfully.

  “I see only a key here.” Lee joined the conversation lifting the tiny key.

  “The password!” Ryan almost yelled.

  “What about it?” asked Nick, Ian and Victoria together.

  “Good thinking, Gray!” Blake congratulated him.

  “We have 4 which is obviously for, u as you, all, so it is for you all,” started Ryan “then the numbers, maybe a street or a house number, post box?” he finished puzzled.

  “Then we have if I’m dead, which is more than obvious.” Said Nick.

  “This doesn’t make any sense!” Evans complained.

  “For you maybe, Evans!” Jane said firmly without looking at Victoria, then pointed at the numbers “This means help. See it?” she said and lifted the note upside down so the others could see.

  “Yeah!” they sighted.

  “And?” Evans teased.

  “And, Evans,” Jane looked up at her with hatred then down to the note “Do you know where is the ‘Help yourself! Self-defense for all ages!’ center?”

  All of the team wrinkled their eyebrows, thinking, only Ryan come up with the idea to check.

  “It is a sports center, half an hour away! Let’s go!” Gray said, stood up and they all went to visit the place.

  The sports center was spreading on the first floor of a nice building in a rich neighborhood. The signs outside showed that they teach many types of martial arts and have classes for kids and adults. It looked like the center was doing great. When the team went in, all the rooms were full with groups learning self-defense. Ian Valdez went to the receptionist explaining why they were here and after mentioning that the police can close the center for a week if she doesn’t cooperate, she agreed to show them the personal locker of Josephine Kowalski.