“Wow, I uh…that’s…” Rita started.
“I know, I’m a bit different. I’m sorry, Jo,” I said, meaning it. “I didn’t know that I was wearing you two out.”
“No!” Both Skye and Jo said at once. “It’s actually inspiring,” Skye finished.
“Oh, I get it,” Rita whispered. “They’re a thing.”
I jerked my head up at that, and Rita smiled, almost laughing. At me? At the situation? Did she think Johanna and Skye were lesbians? I had nothing against that or the thought of that, but I knew it not to be true, which is what surprised me. Earlier she’d thought Johanna and I were a thing, and then she made the assumption that Jo wasn’t into guys, to thinking that they were a couple? That sorta blew my mind. Do I correct that? Wait, what am I even doing? I had to get back on track. Lunch, phone, and figure out where Mephisto got into her phone.
“I don’t know what they are,” I admitted soberly.
Skye snickered, catching the end of the conversation. Good, she’d play along. She pulled out her tablet and set it up. Looked like it was game time.
“Foods heating up,” I said, taking a sip of the smoky liquid. “So…you were just in the area?” I asked Rita, leaning on the counter in front of her.
“Well, sort of…I mean…I wanted to meet you again,” Rita said, smiling at Skye for some reason.
“Huh…I thought I was the only sex-obsessed person, the way Johanna treats me. I mean, I’m not exactly a man whore like she makes me out to be, but I didn’t get the vibe that you were even attracted to me yesterday—”
“Jarek!” Jo and Skye chorused together.
“Do they always do that?” Rita asked me.
“Yes, it’s a constant interruption around these two,” I admitted.
“You’re a laugh a minute,” Jo said. “I was just trying to stop you before you made her feel uncomfortable. You talk about some subjects way too easily.”
“Like sex?” I said.
“Yes, like sex,” Skye answered, not meeting my gaze.
“But that isn’t an embarrassing subject, is it?” I asked the room.
The real mission of getting the phone was failing. I backed up, and the girls started to discuss my lack of modesty in regards to a multitude of subjects. Once again I felt as if I wasn’t even in the room. The microwave dinged, and I got the oven mitts and took out the casserole dish and tented the cover like the instructions said to let it cool. They kept going…
“….like the first day I got interviewed. Jarek wouldn’t break his workout routine, so he interviewed me while he was jogging or doing the elliptical or something….”
“The problem was,” Jo said, “he forgot to get dressed and was in his boxers.”
Rita let out a surprised guffaw. At least she was having fun. Her phone beeped, and she thumbed in the code to unlock it. I noted the sequence and said nothing, just listened and learned a good deal about myself from the perspective of the ladies whom I worked and spent almost my entire life with. It was sobering, shocking, and I was more than a little floored.
It wasn’t a list of annoying things I did. It wasn’t exasperating details or embarrassments I’d caused, but what was different with their lives now and how much of a family we’d all grown to become. I was used to being on the outside of the group, the odd one. I had never felt like I was the center of anything before, and to suddenly find out I was the center point of an extended family for them was…It made me feel weird. There were no other words for it. I felt like somebody was giving my life’s story, a Hollywood version of it.
I recognized the truth in many of the words, but it was the telling and context that threw me off quite a bit. I stood suddenly and sipped my drink, trying to hold a plastic smile in place.
“Hey, can I use your restroom?” Rita asked.
I nodded and had her follow me. I showed her where it was, and as soon as she shut the door, I sprinted back to the kitchen where she had left her cell phone on the counter. I thumbed in the code and slid it over to Skye.
“She thinks I’m gay,” Johanna said, pinching my arm.
“She thinks you and Skye are a couple, actually,” I said to her.
“Well, I guess I could see how she’d think that,” Skye said without looking up, and Jo’s fury snapped into a new target.
“Oh? Why is that?” Jo asked, and I was pretty sure she was mad.
“Because you and I finish each other’s sentences. She’s really interested in Jarek so…Got it. Hold on…” Skye snapped a picture with her own phone of Rita’s, then tapped the touchscreen and put it down where it had been.
“Hey,” Rita said, walking out. “Your family must be…um…wow.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “I forget that this is a little overwhelming for people sometimes. I mean, it’s right in the middle of downtown Detroit, and nobody expects a place like this,” I said.
“Right. Isn’t there a lot of crime around here?” Rita asked.
I knew what she meant. It was a common misconception around the area. It probably helped that we had several cops we hired as nighttime security, and the few retired cops had found out that private detective work payed better than the city. Also, I’d like to think it was because the neighborhood was improving, but not every neighborhood in Detroit was like this, and the horror stories were on the news daily. Home invasions, robberies, shootings, drugs, and the decay of society.
“No, it’s pretty quiet. I’ve got a few cops on payroll,” I admitted. “Plus, they’re taking down all the abandoned buildings in the area. We have our own private security for the apartments, so it stays quiet around here.”
I took the cover off the food and pulled out four plates. I portioned out the chicken and vegetables now that it’d cooled sufficiently. I handed everyone their plates, and we started to eat.
“Do you have any wine?” Rita asked suddenly, a bite almost raised to her lips.
“Of course,” I said, reaching under the counter of the wet bar where I had a small stash I kept just for the ladies who visited. “A Riesling perhaps?”
Rita nodded.
“Ladies?” I asked, pulling the bottle out and opening a drawer to search for a cork screw.
“A little bit,” Jo said, pinching her fingers together.
“About triple what she said,” Skye said with a grin, showing me about an inch of spacing between her fingers.
I got out three glasses and poured each of them half full and handed them out. They all sipped, and I swear all of their eyes went unfocused. I knew it was good stuff, but I loved my scotch and bourbon. Wine was something to keep around for the ladies. Or so I thought.
“Oh God, that’s good,” Rita said. “That isn’t drug store wine.”
“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “I’m not a big wine fan, but I had a tutor who taught me what kind of wine went with what kind of food once. She picked out a lot of what you see here.”
Jo shot me a look. Warning? Questioning?
“Well, it was a good choice.”
After a while, I got involved with the conversation and found myself opening up, despite dying to know about what Skye found on Rita’s phone. I looked at what I had left for food and thumbed a quick message to myself so my tablet would go off. Then I hit the send button and pocketed my phone. Thirty seconds later, it began to alert. It gave me a reason to excuse myself and head to my coat and retrieve the tablet.
“Something’s come up,” I lied. “I’ve gotta go to the IT lab and check it out,” I said dryly.
“Oh no,” Skye said, popping up.
“Jo, can you…” I pointed to the plates and Rita.
She nodded.
“Rita, I’m sorry. Can I call you later on? Maybe we could have dinner later?” I blurted out.
I think Jo barely stopped herself from dropping the glass of wine, and she shot me a look. I think she was surprised. Because I was blowing off Rita, or inviting her back later? Or was it that I just did what she always accused me of d
oing, which was having her clean up my messes and dealing with the women in my life? Truth was, I was uncomfortable and I knew the clock was ticking for me and Skye. I had no intention of doing anything that would help Anonymous, but so far it was only one member who seemed to be acting alone.
“I’d love to,” she said, rising to leave.
“You two have time to finish,” I told them.
“Oh, ok. Talk to you soon,” she told me.
“That was weird,” Skye said as she followed me out the door. “Did you ring yourself on the tablet?” she asked me when we stepped into the elevator.
“Yeah, how’d you know?” I asked her.
“You looked uncomfortable,” she told me. She mashed the down button.
“We need to track Mephisto down in a hurry,” I told her simply.
“We know where he works,” Skye said with a triumphant grin and handed me her phone.
It was the time/date stamp of an OS update. It coincided with when her phone was worked on based on what she told me at the hospital.
“Oh nice!” I said, feeling good.
Great even. I wanted to get Jo so we could drive right over and confront the prick.
“Do we even need to use the IT room?” Skye asked.
“It’s a national chain. Let’s see who’s on the employment rolls there,” I told her.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just call and ask?” Skye said.
“What if Mephisto is the one who answers the store’s phone? Or maybe he hired one of the guys there to make a clone for him.”
“Never thought about that. Do you mind if I go see my brother later on, after work?” Skye asked as we stepped off the elevator and started to walk towards IT.
“I really meant what I said…I never realized I ran you two so hard.”
“No, I mean, what we’re doing is sorta…I mean…it’s my fault,” she said, hanging her head. “I never meant to drag you into my mess of a life.”
We pushed open the doors, and I walked over to the fridge and got a green Monster out for her. Her eyes never left my hands until I handed her the big can. She popped the top and started chugging.
“That wine was ok, but this is soooooooooooo much better,” she said, grinning after a moment.
Caffeinated, she sat down at her terminal and logged in. I took my spot to her right and we both got to work. The wireless store was part of a national chain, but not one of the big carriers. Each store operated as its own separate business, but employment files were shared with the franchise, so if somebody was fired for theft from one location, they wouldn’t get hired at another. It took us twenty minutes to work our way in.
“Got it. Printing it out now,” I told her.
We poured over the names of the employees on file. Nothing stuck out to me, and I handed her the sheet.
“Anybody you know?” I asked her.
“No. Let’s run background checks on these guys,” she suggested.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said.
I got so engrossed in details that I almost missed my phone’s ringer. I realized that it was about to go to voicemail when I answered it and put it on speaker.
“Jarek?” Susan O’Hara asked.
“I think that’s my name. I’ll have to check the tag on my underwear though to be sure.”
Skye snickered.
“You’re still trying to crack jokes?” she asked.
“Sort of. Most of the time they fall flat or my timing is off,” I admitted.
“Or they come out inappropriate,” Skye piped up.
“Oh, I’m on speaker. Um...Skye, we’re still working on your brother’s case, but I’m needing to talk to Jarek about something.”
“Oh,” I said, fumbling with the phone and taking her off speaker. “Go ahead, I took it off speaker.”
Skye shot me a look, but turned back to her terminal and hit the keys so hard that I could imagine them flying off.
“It’s about that resume you dropped off. The name was a fake. You knew that, right?”
“Yeah, I assumed it was,” I told her.
“Where did you get it?” she asked me, her voice icy.
“A small-town library. Why?” I asked her.
“The name is flagged, and I’ve got Agent Sorensen from the FBI coming down to talk to you.”
I winced. I’d dealt with him. He was a federal agent who looked like he should have played professional football. Large, broad shoulders, and way too clean-cut. He already suspected me of taking shortcuts, and he’d been in a meeting where I’d admitted as much. I didn’t want him involved. I didn’t like the fact that I even involved Susan in this, but I couldn’t run fingerprints on my own.
“Ok. I’ll give him the information.”
“Is this for that thing with Skye you were talking to me about?” she asked.
“Yeah, the picture thing,” I said, shooting Skye a sideways look.
She looked up at her name being mentioned aloud, her expression unreadable.
“Whatever it is, it’s time to bring us into the fold,” Susan said.
“I can’t. Not yet,” I told her simply.
“I think it may have a lot more to do with the situation than you’re letting on.”
“It probably does, but it isn’t just my thing. You know what I mean?”
Susan let out an audible sigh that crackled through my phone’s speaker.
“If it matters, Sorenson will be in Monday.”
“Oh, so we don’t have to come down there and talk to you today?” I asked her, relieved.
“Monday works for me. It’s the weekend, after all.”
“Works for me too. I have a date anyways,” I said, trying to sound casual and not excited for a brief reprieve.
“A date date, or just a date?” Susan asked me.
“I think it’s just a date. Somebody Skye knows. Listen, who did those fingerprints belong to?” I asked. “You know, in case it is somebody who Skye knows or sees every day?”
Skye stopped typing. I sat there on the computer and typed in his name, already pulling a background on him.
“Uh-huh. Ok, thanks,” I told her, hitting the end button.
“Who is it?” Skye asked, unable to contain her excitement.
“Look,” I said, putting it up on the big plasma. “Colten Banks. Age twenty-five, lives in Dearborn Heights. Parents moved to the USA about thirty years ago and became citizens. I can’t pronounce his parents’ name before, but it appears that they were refugees.”
“Colton,” Skye said, picking up where I left off and already running her own search strings. “Oh…has two misdemeanors for theft. A third set of charges were dropped from a department store where he was caught shoplifting because the evidence disappeared. Says he went to University of Michigan for computer science and graduated with honors. Huh, I wonder if they knew about his criminal record?”
“Could be,” I told her. “Looks like he’s pretty clean other than that. I see nothing here that shows why his fingerprints are flagged. Here’s his driver’s license.”
“Oh shit,” Skye muttered when she saw the picture. “That’s my brother’s dealer.”
“What?” I asked her, standing up.
“The guy who was hanging around my apartment with Dustin and Daniella. That’s the asshole I ran off. He’s been inside my house. The asshole’s been inside my house!” Skye’s voice rose towards the end, and the memory of her attack was still fresh in my mind, so I slid my chair backwards.
She typed furiously, trying to verify his last known address. I thumbed in a quick message to Jo that I needed her and then sent a text to Susan as well. She needed to know, because there was no way this was NOT connected to her brother, the missing Daniella, and the drugs found under the bed. Sure, her brother was probably guilty of a lot of things, but I had a feeling that Dustin was being framed in order to blackmail Skye and me into helping him.
Taken together, I had to admire the manipulation. It was dev
ious and hard to disprove when taken at face value. He had to have been banking on the fact that Skye and I would not involve the authorities. His own brushes with them must have made him wary, and he had to have assumed both of us were as well, being that we’re hackers ourselves. Skye seemed to have calmed somewhat, and she probably confirmed something that I’d already checked. Colten Banks didn’t work at the wireless store, which meant he had a confederate there. Somebody who did the clone job for him. Another Anonymous member perhaps?
“Jo should be on her way down, and I let Susan know that Colten was your brother’s dealer. Things are going to move fast now,” I told her.
“They should. We’re so close to nailing him,” Skye said, a grin on her face that was lit by the soft glow of the monitors.
“We need Susan in on this,” I reminded her.
“I know. I’ll let you manage how much you tell her. She’s your contact, but this mother is mine…”
Her fingers were flying even faster now.
“You have something big?” Jo asked, bursting inside of IT, a wide-eyed Rita standing behind her.
“Yeah. We have to go. Rita, I’m sorry about the interruption. I shall be in touch later on. I’m not sure how long this will take, but if I haven’t totally put you off by my behaviors and lack of common courtesy of—”
“I’d love that, Jarek. Maybe next time we can just sit down and talk. The two of us,” she said, looking under Jo’s shoulder.
“I think I would too. Just the two of us,” I agreed. I could swear I saw a brief flash of a smile on Jo’s lips.
Rita turned and left, and Jo strode in and flopped into an open seat next to me. The door swung shut, clicking closed.
“So, who are we looking at, who’s the face of the Devil?” Jo asked.
Skye put the copy of his driver’s license up on the big screen again and Jo sucked in her breath. “That’s one of the nurses outside of Dustin’s room!”
Skye and I both whipped our heads around to gape at her.
* * *
Framed: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 2) Page 12