by Emilia Finn
“No. Slings draw attention.”
She snorts. “I can’t fault your logic, but you’re effectively forfeiting the tournament this year if you don’t rest it. You can’t fight like that.”
I make the ‘eh’ sound in the back of my throat. “I don’t care about the tournament. How far away am I?”
“Fifty feet on your left. Satellite images show a broken dish on top, windows with riot bars, and a stained, dogshit brown door. Three locks on the front.”
“Riot bars,” I sigh, “three locks, and dogshit brown. Perfect.”
“You want me to stay on the phone when you knock? I’m kinda invested, so I wanna know how it turns out.”
“Um…” I lock eyes with the brown door, the triple locks, and frown. “Nah. Let me knock, I’m gonna need all my senses before she maims me. But I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“I’ve got you on satellite anyway. If you go in, but don’t come out, I’ll assume she killed you and baked you into a pie.”
“That’s probably not outside the realm of possibility.” I lower my head and chuckle. “She’s got an attitude on her.”
“My favorite kinda chick. Good luck, Lothario. I’ll see you on the other side.”
“Do a little digging for me while I’m gone, okay? I’d lay good money down on the fact she has a dance studio nearby. Find it for me.”
“Is that an order?” she cuts in like a knife. “Or is there a pretty please coming soon?”
“Pretty please, Soph?” I slow my steps just twenty feet from the door. “You’d be doing me a huge favor.”
“Aw shit, and you’re so cute too,” she bullshits. “I’ll take a look while you’re busy with your girl. If she invites you in and it’s all good, send me a text to say you’re all good. Otherwise I won’t be able to tell if you’re fucking, or baking.”
“Yeah. I don’t see myself fucking tonight.” And yet, my cock grows inside my jeans. It’s been a long time, and Cam is so fucking beautiful. She’s the only woman on the planet who has made my heart beat the way it does when she’s around. “I’ll text you. Thanks for your help, Soph.”
“I’ve got you, handsome. Good luck.”
We hang up, I slide my phone into my pocket, and before stepping up the three concrete stairs leading to the door I suspect is Cam’s home, I dig my hands into my pockets and glance along the street. It’s nine at night – late for some, and early for others. Joe cooks his hotdogs just a block down, but he has no customers. There are kids hanging out at the next corner, they’re doing deals that cops would frown upon, but I’m not making it my concern tonight. A few cars drive by, more than we would get in a residential street back home, but not all that many considering the population of this city.
When I deem the street sort of safe, or at least, no one here has a problem with me, I step toward the door and bring my closed fist up. I hesitate before knocking; nerves flutter inside my gut, and almost send me hustling away like a coward. But then I knock – three loud thumps – and step back to wait.
A minute passes without any movement inside.
Two minutes.
I step forward and knock once more, but still, no one comes to the door, no one answers.
I step closer again, and take a peek at the locks. If there was just one, I might be able to get past it. Perhaps if there were two, I could kick my way inside. But three, and one of them is the titanium deadbolt type that the Bishops spent a few days this past week educating me on… I doubt my ass is making it past this door without someone letting me in.
My phone beeps again – unsurprising, I suppose.
I take it out and answer. “Yeah?”
“No one’s home?”
“Nah. Or if they are, they’re not answering. Can you see the locks from up there?”
“Up where? Do you think I’m God?” Soph laughs. “I’m sitting in my kitchen. Where the fuck do you think I am?”
“I mean…” I grunt. “The NASA satellites or whatever the fuck you hacked. Can you see the locks?”
“I do not hack, young maestro. And saying such a thing on a public phone line could be considered, one, a threat, and two, an accusation my lawyers would not take so kindly to. Would you like to rephrase?”
“Fuck you, Sophia.” I drop my gaze and snicker. “I’m taking a picture. Hold on.”
I pull the phone away from my ear, snap a half a dozen pictures with varying degrees of zoom, then I send them all and bring my phone back to my ear.
“Sent you some up close and personals.”
“Of your dick?” she asks with a mock hopefulness in her tone. “I can’t wait to show Jay. He’ll love having them printed onto bus stop seats.”
“Yes, of my dick. Open them up and look close. Fuck, why are you always so painful?”
“That’s what all the virgins ask me,” she counters on a laugh. “Okay, I see.” Then she bursts out laughing. “The irony is rich. She went Griffin tech.”
“Yeah, I thought I caught the lion logo. That means you can get it open, right?”
“Fuck no. Griffin makes his shit tight. Why else would he charge so much?”
“You’re pissing me off, Sophia. Can we get in, or not?”
“Not tonight, handsome. I’ll run it by Gunner tomorrow, but I doubt you’re getting past that lock. The door might be your best entry. As in, remove the door. Not the lock.”
“So I’m just gonna burst through like the Kool-Aid man?”
“Depends on how subtle you wanna be.” She snorts. “If you do the Kool-Aid thing, make sure you bring some actual Kool-Aid, otherwise folks are gonna get mad.”
“I’m hanging up,” I grumble. “You’re not helping, you’re just pissing me off.”
“And to think, this whole time we’ve been talking, I’ve been searching for dance studios, and texting Gunner, and filming a new YouTube video for dancers just like Cam to learn from. Rookie, don’t come at me with your bullshit.”
“You’re dancing?” I demand. “Right now?”
“And texting, and talking to you. Now tell me I’m amazing.”
“You’re annoyingly amazing. Did you find a studio?”
“I got eleven pops, but they’re all at least seven miles away.”
“Miles?” I step away from the unopened door and start walking along the street, because standing still and talking on the phone for too long could land my ass in trouble. “There’s literally nowhere closer?”
“Nothing that I can see. The closest one – Miss Fiona’s – is on an intersection with a bus stop right outside. It looks kinda rough, but it’s legitimate. The website is old, not updated, and riddled with hackers she has no clue she has,” she laughs.
“You being one of them?”
“Of course. But she has a few more in there. The insult is that, though they’re in, there’s nothing for them to do with it. She doesn’t collect data, no online purchases, there’s no credit card information to steal. Dudes rock up to steal some numbers, but they walk away with nothing. It’s kind of insulting for a hacker to have invested their time in such a fruitless endeavor.”
“Well,” I drawl, “I had no clue we owed it to hackers to at least drop them a bone to pay for their time. How dare we?”
“Exactly,” she shoots right back. “Anyway, if your girl is dancing with Fiona, she pays with cash, and the photo galleries are so old that they’re pre-dating Cam. I suspect Fiona wants to pretend she’s still sixteen and perfect, so those are the only pictures she has.”
“Sucks for her. Could you pretty please check out the other ten hits, take a peek at their websites, look for Cam, and then send me a list of the most likelies? I’ll make some rounds tomorrow and go search for her.”
“Mm. I’ll do it tonight and send you the email. What are you doing right now?”
I shrug, and hiss when the movement burns my shoulder. “Walking around,” I grit out. “Just getting a feel for the area. I’ll come back tomorrow and see if I can find her.”
“You’re not gonna sit on her doorstep and wait?”
I could, I think to myself. Possibly should. “Nah, I think I’ll head to the hotel and get some rest. I’ll come back tomorrow and see what I find.”
“What’s your end goal in all this, Kincaid?”
“Hm?”
“Your end goal,” she repeats. “She left you. She knows how to find you, so if she wanted you, she’d be here. That’s a pretty clear sign she wants out.”
“I don’t…” I exhale a noisy breath and bring my arm higher to rest against my chest to compensate for the pain. “I don’t know. I just… I need closure, Soph. It doesn’t feel done, and she said on the phone that she’s hurting too. That means she feels something. Even after all this time, she still feels something. So until we know what that thing is, I can’t walk away.” I shake my head. “I fuckin’ would if I could.”
I stop two blocks away from Cam’s home, stare up at a run-down, brick building, and see it. I see what Soph couldn’t.
“I found it.”
“Found what?”
“Track my location. Right where I am now, then tell me what’s in that building.” The line goes silent. Not even breathing. “Soph?”
“Yes, James?”
“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “Pretty please?”
“Oh sure! You’re standing in front of Matt’s Meat. A butchery that started in…” She pauses for a moment. “Uh, nineteen-eighty-three. Matt was the original owner’s name, but it appears as though maybe that Matt named his son Matt, because the award for best beef newspaper article shows a Matt that isn’t old enough to be the original Matt.”
“You just said Matt a lot. Also, can you find Matt? Either one of them?”
“Hm… lemme check.”
She does… something. Whatever it is that she does. A keyboard clicks, she hums at the back of her throat, then she makes a ‘ha’ noise.
“Matt the first died two years ago. Cancer in the throat.”
“And the second Matt, the one in the article?”
“Looks like he lives in a city far, far away from Matt’s Meat. I guess he closed up shop.”
“He sure did.” I study the glass storefront windows. The mirrors inside. The handwritten sign taped to the door. “Matt’s Meat is now a dance studio. Maybe it’s not legit, and maybe they don’t file taxes. But I can tell you for a damn fact there’s an Ellie Solomon Dance Studio gym bag sitting on the floor by the mirrors.” I step forward and press my nose to the glass. “It’s an Ellie bag, Soph.”
“Chances of someone else having that bag and living on that street?”
“No fuckin’ chance,” I declare on a grunt. “Don’t worry about the email.” I step back from the glass, since the inside of the studio is locked up tight and the lights are out, and start making my way along the street. “I found her. Says in the window they’re open seven days a week between nine and three. And they take appointments via phone.”
“Phone number in the window?”
“Yeah, here.”
I rattle off the numbers, vow to log them into my phone as soon as we hang up, then I step away from the studio before I spook anyone.
“You got it?” I ask.
“I got it. This phone is registered to Victoria Quinnton. Her address isn’t the address you just visited, but it’s another run-down place, another apartment in another shitty neighborhood.”
“It’s been four years, maybe she moved more than once?”
“Hmm, maybe. Or maybe Victoria isn’t Cameron. I can’t find a driver’s license. Or a birth certificate.” She makes unhappy sounds in the back of her throat. “Victoria is a brand-new fake name.”
“It’s Cam.”
“It’s totally her,” she snickers. “You found her. It’s nice she created her own studio… That was a dream of hers, right?”
“Mm. She’s squatting in someone else’s building, using a fake name, and scared of being outed on national TV, for fear of her or her brother’s death. But yeah, at least she got this small slice of her dream. I’m gonna come back tomorrow and see what I find.”
“Which is code for you’re gonna come back tomorrow and peek through the windows while she dances for you?”
“Yup,” I chuckle. “Something like that.”
“Alright, I’m finding more stuff on her. I’ll collate it all now and send you an email. Then you owe me ten thousand dollars for my time. I just spent a solid half hour on the phone with you. I don’t even talk to my husband this much.”
“Yeah, I’ll send you a check.” Not. “Thanks for this, Soph. You just got us closer than we’ve ever been before.”
“Closer than the cops are, too.”
I stop walking with an almost skid, turn back to the studio, and frown. “You’re not gonna tip the cops off, are you? That wasn’t part of our deal, Soph.”
“I’m not tipping anyone off,” she dismisses the notion with a verbal eyeroll. “Tipping is synonymous with snitching, and I’m not about that life. Mayyyyybe if this was a file still sitting on Oz’s desk, if it was still a problem for our favorite boys in blue, I’d feel a lick of guilt, but it’s not. I feel no loyalty to help another PD find and lock up a man whose guilt I question.”
“Cam said he’s innocent.”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna conduct my own investigation,” she declares quietly. “I’ll decide if he’s guilty. Until I prove one way or the other, I’ll keep tabs on his whereabouts, but I’m not gonna snitch on the guy. She said to call your dogs off before you get her killed. Which means she has more than prison time to worry about. That means I’m intrigued enough to look around on my own.”
“I owe you one, Soph. Truly.”
“She’s a good dancer. She’s got talent, and I really like the way she gelled with Bean and the baby ballerinas. If you get her back to town without chloroform, I’ll open up a position at Ellie’s. Open-ended offer.”
“Seriously?” I stop on the corner of Joe’s Hotdogs and fourth, and wave down a cab when one ambles my way. “Just like that, you’d offer her a job?”
“She’s already had her job interview, handsome. One session with Bean and the babies. I know talent and grit when I see it. So sure, if she wants it, she can have it. But I’m not into non-consensual, so if she wants to stay there, then she stays there. I’m not hiring her if she ain’t here on her own terms.”
It takes only twenty minutes after I slide into a yellow cab to move from the rough end of town to something a little more upmarket. My hotel isn’t located in the rich side of town, but it’s also not a place requiring three locks – one of which being a Griffin.
I pay for my fare, slide out of the cab, step into the lobby, and move toward the bank of elevators. I’ve already checked in. Already dropped my bags in my room. I already ate and showered.
I left with the hopes that I would see Cam again tonight. I come back without seeing her, but at least I found her. I know with almost absolute certainty where she lives. And I know for a damn fact where she dances.
At some point tonight, we’ll both be sleeping, and it’ll only be twenty minutes away from each other, rather than two flights and an hour-long cab ride.
I don’t know where she is right now, I don’t know what time she’ll be home, and I have no clue what the hell she looks like nowadays.
But I know that tomorrow, I’ll see her, and I’ll either swing toward rage at the fact she left, or I’ll be back to promising to bow down for her.
Either way it goes, it’s bound to be noisy and mean.
Game on.
Jamie
Dance Class
“Zeus’?”
I recline on my bed the next morning – Wednesday morning – and read the email Sophia sent through at a little past one a.m. I scan the long email and try to focus on the bullet points. There’s too much to read, too much to absorb.
“What the fuck is Zeus’?” I ask no one.
I’m all alone in my room, my breakfast tra
y sits on the end of the bed beside my feet, empty but for the foil wrapper that once held a cube of butter.
The plates are smeared with egg yolk and toast crumbs. The drinking glass empty but for the juice pulp that dries against the side. My coffee cup sits on my bedside table, also empty, but beside it is a steaming hot jug of coffee with at least four more cups’ worth of caffeine left in it.
I sit up in fresh jeans and a mustard yellow shirt, baby my shoulder as I turn my torso, and with my eyes still on the email, I pour more coffee and inhale the scent that permeates the air.
Zeus’ is a dance club, according to the information Soph sent. And not the disco kind of dance, but the tits-out kind that makes me grind my teeth. It once belonged to a man named Sylvester Tracey – better known as Sly. Sly’s club was sold to a man named Evan McGrady – though Soph made a note that McGrady’s name is nowhere near the deed documents on the club. Instead, an umbrella company, a hidden trust account, a little more red tape, and eventually, if you skip-hop from one trust to another, you end up with his name.
The purchase was made a little less than four years ago, not so long after Cam and Will arrived in my town for that year’s Stacked Deck tournament. McGrady pumped money into the club, upgraded the poles, renamed the place Zeus’, and not so long after that, Sylvester Tracey was found belly-up in the river with a missing eye and a finger in his ass.
His own finger.
Detached from his left hand.
Who the fuck thinks to do things like that?
Soph was intuitive enough to include the police file on Sly’s death; homicide, death by gunshot wound to the back of the head, he’d been floating for no more than two days before his body washed up on the riverbank, and a couple of kids riding their bikes discovered him and bought themselves a lifetime of therapy.
There have been no arrests made in relation to his murder. The file has been deemed cold and put aside in favor of newer, juicier cases, because nobody cares about the death of a gangbanger with a shitty club.
McGrady was questioned once… He was promptly thanked for his time, his ass was kissed, and he was let go without a single follow-up question.