by Mike Ryan
“But how would they get on my trail? That’s the important issue. ‘Cause if they did it once, they can do it again.”
“Two cars, you say?”
“Yeah?”
“Get a close enough look at who was inside?”
“No, not really. Looked like they were both only occupied by the driver. Both looked like males. Couldn’t really make out more than that. And they were coordinated. They kept switching off, trying to make it look good.”
“Cops maybe?”
“I don’t know. I think if they were cops, Bucky would’ve given me a heads-up.”
“Told you you can’t trust that guy no more. He’s not on our side.”
“Eddie, he could’ve brought me in for questioning a dozen times on things if he wanted. I doubt he’d start now.”
“Maybe it’s over his head. Coming down from the bigwigs up top.”
“I think he’d have let me know it was out of his hands.”
“All right, man, all right, if you say so.”
“This is something else.”
“Hey, it could’ve been just dumb luck,” Franks said.
“Dumb luck?”
“Yeah. Maybe these two dudes just happened to see you coming out of the park and latched onto you.”
Jacobs thought about it. “Just latched onto me, huh?”
“Yeah. It is possible, you know.”
“Yeah, but what are the odds?”
“Well, what are the odds of getting struck by lightning? It does happen though. What’re the odds of winning the lottery? People do it every day. What’re the odds of getting bit by a shark? Happens all…”
“All right, all right, I got it.” Jacobs then thought about it a little more. The alarm in his head was ringing loudly. If they saw him at the park, then it also meant they could see who he was with. He immediately thought of Tiffany. “Eddie, you sure you’re good?”
Franks heard the tone in his friend’s voice change. It was now one of worry, as if he were about to panic. “Yeah, man, I’m good. I told you, I don’t see anything. I’m still looking, but we’re all clear here. Why? Don’t freak out about this, man. It’ll be fine.”
“Eddie, what if these guys saw us at the park? What if they saw Tiffany?”
Franks hesitated for a moment, trying not to give his friend any more reason to panic than he was already feeling. “Relax, man, even in the event that they saw her, they’d still have no idea who she was.”
“Unless someone followed her too. What if there was someone following each of us?”
“Well, I already told you, man, I’m sitting free and clear here. And I can spot a tail, let me tell you. There ain’t one here.”
“I should drive over to Tiffany’s place and make sure.”
“Calm down, man, you’re making a big deal over nothing.”
“Her safety is not nothing.”
“I know, I know, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“She never told me her address though. She just told me it was an apartment.”
“If it’s really bugging you, why don’t you just text her and ask if she’s OK?”
“And say what? That there may have been someone following you and scare her out of her mind? What if I really am being paranoid? Besides, if she looks out her window, she’s not gonna be able to tell if someone’s there, anyway. She’s not trained for that,” Jacobs said.
“OK, man, I get that. Texting’s probably not a good idea. Why don’t I just go over there and check it out, make sure she’s OK?”
“You know her address?”
“Uh, well, you know… I, um…”
“I don’t care about that right now. I just wanna make sure she’s safe.”
“OK, relax. I’ll go over, check it out, make sure she’s OK, then I’ll report back to you, OK?”
“How far is she?”
“From me, about fifteen minutes probably. Add another ten for you. I’ll go over and check for you, all right?”
“I’ll start making my way there too.”
“Brett, it’s not necessary. Just stay there. You’re already paranoid enough. I’ll let you know when I’m there, OK?”
“All right. Thank you.”
“You got it, man. Just sit down and have some beer. It’ll calm your nerves,” Franks said.
“I doubt it.”
After hanging up, Franks immediately started his car again. Though he thought Jacobs was being paranoid, he didn’t think it was a bad idea to check on Tiffany anyway. It was better to make sure. Luckily, she wasn’t too far away. It was a short fifteen-minute drive away.
Tiffany was in her apartment. She had just changed after getting out of the shower. She grabbed a book and sat down in her favorite reading spot, a chair in the corner of the room by the window. She barely got through a paragraph before there was a knock on the door. She put her book down and walked over to the door to answer it. Once she did, she saw two men standing there. They didn’t look threatening or strange. Just two, regular-sized, normal looking people.
“Can I help you?”
The man on the left spoke. He had long hair and a beard. He was in charge of the two. “Hi. We’re here to talk to you about Brett Jacobs.”
Tiffany immediately thought it was strange. “What about him?”
“You do know him?”
“Yes. What’s this about?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, but there’s been an accident with him.”
“An accident?”
“Yes. We’d like you to come with us.”
“What? Wait, wait, what’s going on? Are you police?”
The leader of the men looked at the other and nodded. They suddenly rushed in, both grabbing Tiffany by the arm and throwing her to the ground. She tried struggling to get away, but they were too big and strong for her to do much. She kept trying though, eventually scratching one of them across the face. As he let go of his grip on her, she retreated further back into the apartment. They immediately ran after her, seeing that she’d run into a bedroom and closed the door. Within seconds, they broke the door down, finding Tiffany hiding under the bed. She didn’t have her phone on her, and it wasn’t within reach as it was on the kitchen counter. And she was too high up to jump out the window. She really had nowhere to go.
The men reached under the bed and dragged her out by her legs. She tried swatting and kicking her way free, but one of the men punched her in the face, knocking her out of the fight. She was dazed and no longer a threat, so the men picked her up by the arms and started dragging her out of the apartment. Just as they came into the living room, though, they saw a man standing there in the doorway.
Franks was horrified, seeing what they were doing with Tiffany. She looked out of it. “What are you guys doing to her?”
“Looks like we’re taking her.”
“You ain’t doing nothing, man. Put her down and get out of here.”
The men looked at each other and took their hands off Tiffany, letting her fall to the floor. Then, they menacingly started approaching Franks. Both men cracked their knuckles.
The man with the long hair spoke. “Now, we weren’t specifically told to grab you, but we weren’t told not to either.”
“I think that means we can just take him out if we want,” the other man said.
“Get out of our way, Franks, or you’ll be picking your teeth out of the carpet.”
“You ain’t taking her, man. Get out of here.”
The men then rushed Franks, one of them spearing him in the stomach, as the other one started throwing punches at his face. Franks tried to fend them off, throwing a few punches of his own, but he was no match for them. Franks wasn’t a fighter. And these two opponents seemed to be well-versed in that. Within a few minutes, and what seemed like dozens of punches, Franks was neutralized. He was down on the ground, hurt, bruised, with blood coming out of his nose, mouth, and above his eye from a small cut.
“Maybe we should take him out perman
ently,” the second man said, standing over Franks’ body.
The leader thought about it. “No. Mr. Ames didn’t say to. I don’t want to risk it in case he’s got something planned for this guy later.”
“So call him.”
He looked back at Tiffany, who was on the floor, but moving around. “We got enough to worry about right now. Plus, who knows who else is coming? Let’s just get what we came for and get out of here before we have more to worry about.”
The second man agreed, and the two of them went back to Tiffany. The long-haired man picked her up and swung her over his shoulder. The two men then left the apartment.
It took a few minutes for some of the pain to wear off for Franks. Though he still felt weak, and hurt, he crawled along the floor until he got to the couch and pulled himself onto it. He reached into his pocket and removed his phone to dial Jacobs who picked up on the first ring. He’d been anxiously waiting for the call.
“Hey, it’s me.”
Jacobs could tell right away that he sounded different. He sounded… hurt. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Uh, nothing some TLC won’t cure.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Uh, remember when I was telling you not to be paranoid.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, turns out you had good reason to be.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Hate to say this, man, but they took her. They took Tiffany.”
“What do you mean they took her?” The anger in Jacobs’ voice was unmistakable. “Who took her?”
“I heard one of the dudes say Ames’ name.”
“Ames?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
Franks dabbed at his face. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. They worked me over pretty good. I’ll be all right, though. No holes or nothing. Might be drinking through a straw for a week though.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, man. When I got there, they had Tiffany and were dragging her through the apartment. I tried to stop them, but they were too much for me.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Two. But they were plenty tough.”
“Was Tiffany… OK?”
“Looked like they might have worked her over too, but she was moving and all.”
Jacobs started mumbling under his breath to control his anger. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea! I knew I shouldn’t have brought her into my life!”
“Hey, man, now’s not the time for that.” Franks coughed. “She’s missing, but she’s not gone. If they wanted her dead, she would’ve been. That means we can find her and get her back. Now’s not the time for second guessing.”
Jacobs quickly got his emotions in check. “You’re right. You’re right. Now we just gotta focus on finding her. That’s the only thing that matters right now. Finding her. And when I do, I will kill every single person who’s responsible for this.”
“Channel your anger, man. Use it for good.”
“I’ll use it all right. They will now find out how I dealt with Mallette’s crew. They don’t call me The Eliminator for nothing. When I find them, they’re all dead. Every. Single. One.”
14
Jacobs showed up at Tiffany’s apartment, wanting to see if he could unearth any clues, not that he really needed any. Franks already told him who was behind it. Still, Jacobs wanted to see for himself. Upon walking in, he saw Franks sitting on the couch, dabbing at his face. The pain was beginning to subside a little.
“I’m sorry, man.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jacobs said.
“Yes, it is. It’s gotta be.”
Jacobs looked at him strangely, not sure what he was talking about. But he knew now wasn’t the time for more of Franks’ rambling. “It’s fine.”
“No, man, it isn’t. Hear me out. I’ve been thinking about it while you were on the way over. It’s gotta be my fault.”
“How you figure?”
“You said it yourself. It’d be quite a coincidence for them to just run into you at the park, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So think about it. Who else could they have been there for?”
Jacobs shrugged, still not sure what he was talking about. “Who?”
“Me, man, me.”
“You? What would they be there for you for?”
“Don’t you see? That whole discussion I had with Ames the other day. That was just a ploy. They picked me up and released me, just to see where I’d go and who I’d meet. They were probably following me that whole time, just hoping I’d run into you. Probably hoping I’d go to your place or something so they knew where you lived.”
Jacobs looked down at the mess on the floor and nodded. It made sense. “Yeah.”
“And that means that I’m the reason Tiffany’s missing. They probably saw me come here, then found out she was here, then when they saw us at the park, they figured you and her were tight or something.”
Jacobs sighed as he looked at a few broken items on the ground. “Yeah.”
“It’s my fault, man, not yours. Don’t be thinking that it’s your fault for bringing her into this. I’m the one who did it.”
Jacobs went over to his friend and put his hand on his shoulder. Jacobs didn’t blame him. He understood what Franks was trying to do. “It’s all right.”
“Maybe if I would’ve done what you asked and just kept my big nose out of things…”
“Hey, it’s like you told me before, now’s not the time for that. Your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault. All that matters now is finding her and bringing her back safe and sound, right?”
“Yeah, man, you got that right.”
“You OK to move?”
Franks slowly got up and was still a little sore but in good enough shape to function. “Ain’t nothing slowing me down, man. Let’s find these sons of bitches and get that girl back.”
“Think you can call Hack and see if he can meet us at my place?”
“I can do that.”
“However long it takes, I’m not resting until I find her.”
“I hear that,” Franks said.
With Franks still a little banged up, Jacobs gave him a lift back to his place. Though he was probably well enough to drive, just in case Ames still had men on the building watching, Jacobs felt better if he did the driving. Luckily, Jacobs saw no signs of a tail on his way back home. He would’ve lost them again if he did, but now he didn’t have to waste precious time trying to get rid of them. The entire way back, the two friends discussed Tiffany.
“What do they want that girl for, man? What purpose could she serve them?”
“You don’t really need an answer to that, do you?” Jacobs asked.
“No, I know, I know, but still… she ain’t involved in this. She’s a kindergarten teacher for crying out loud. I mean, can’t they just focus on the people at hand that they wanna hate and destroy?”
“They can’t. It’s the same thing that happened with Mallette. They’re so consumed with a particular task, and when they can’t get it, or find it, or destroy it, meaning me, then they start looking for other ways to hurt me. And that means the people I care about. So they’ll either kill them, hoping it drives me off the deep end, or they’ll take them in hopes of luring me somewhere so they can kill me. It’s a never-ending cycle. It’s one that I hoped ended with Mallette. Now we got another one doing the same.”
“Ames’ll end up the same way.”
“No. He’ll end up dead. Whatever happens, I’m going to make sure of it. It’s what should’ve happened with Mallette.”
“Well, that was a little different, man. Things happened before you were ready.”
“I won’t make that mistake again. I won’t leave Ames in a position where he could still call shots from behind a cell. I don’t care what the circumstances, what the position, whether he’s armed or not, when I have him in my sights, he’s getting eliminated.”<
br />
Franks nodded. “I hear that.”
By the time they got back to Jacobs’ house, they saw Hack sitting on the steps. Jacobs was surprised he got there so quickly.
“Got here fast,” Jacobs said, walking up the steps to the door.
Hack stood up, laptop in hand. “Well, Eddie said it was life and death, so I dropped everything to come on over.”
“I really appreciate it, bud. Hope I didn’t pull you away from something.”
“No sweat. Was just playing video games, actually. And I was losing, so it gave me an excuse to quit. What are we up against here?”
“Let’s go inside and I’ll explain.”
They went inside, Hack immediately going into the kitchen to set up on the table. As he powered his computer on, Jacobs gave him the rundown.
“Man, that’s rough,” Hack said. “Does she have her phone on her still? Do you know?”
Jacobs shook his head. “No, it was left behind.”
Hack stared at his computer, thinking of what he could do. “Well, I can try to find whatever surveillance footage in the area I can get my hands on, see if we can pick up a trail.”
Jacobs looked solemn, knowing they were asking him to find bread crumbs. “Whatever you can do.”
“Umm, absent that, I can try to find names, addresses, phone numbers, social media pages of Ames and his cronies to see if I can pick up a location on one of them. And maybe that’ll lead us to her.”
Jacobs nodded. He knew that was going to take a lot of time, though. And while he took some comfort in knowing that they took Tiffany for a reason, and probably hadn’t killed her yet, she was still in a dangerous situation that wasn’t of her own making.
Jacobs tapped Hack on the back of the shoulder. “Yeah. Sounds good. Just do what you can.”
“It might take some time.”
“I know. Whatever you can do.”
Jacobs started pacing around the room, thinking of other options. He didn’t have any. Franks did, though.
“What about your buddy in the department?”
“Buchanan?”
“Yeah. If you give him a call, maybe he can get things rolling faster.”
“Since when were you on board with me doing that?” Jacobs asked.