Olivia could see that the unconscious Sara was hooked up to medical monitors, but the box remained attached. She was being cleaned up by the nurses and now looked less filth-encrusted. A clean gown and warm blankets seemed a far cry from the concrete hole the little girl had been in.
"That's kind of you to say. There were a lot of other people who contributed to your daughter's rescue. I just organized it and saw it through to the end. I will pass on your message of thanks to them, though.” She paused for a second, awkwardly trying to change the topic to something more financial. “I appreciate that this may be a sensitive time. Would you mind concluding our contract? I need to close this up so that I can get started helping out someone else.”
Olivia knew it was a lie. Another contract might not come along for a few weeks at least, but she had bills to pay and was exhausted. The idea of spending time dealing with the Ornells’ emotional moment made her stomach churn.
Mrs. Ornell was stroking the little girl's hair. The look of love was apparent in the mother's eyes. Olivia felt a flicker of envy rise to the surface. She wondered for a moment how long it had been since her parents had been lost. Ten years? Eleven?
"Sorry, Miss Thorne, we were caught up in the moment." The man pulled out a phone, and after a few taps and a delay, Olivia could feel a vibration in her back pocket indicating the transaction had been completed.
"Thank you, Mr. Ornell. I would like to introduce you to Detective Turner. He contributed some of the information that was key in getting your little girl back to you."
The tall man shook Gabriel's hands vigorously. "Thanks so much."
Olivia knew that Gabriel had only tossed her this case because they had no leads and no one to invest in the search. To the police, these kidnappings were a dead end. Ransom paid or not. the victims always ended up dead or missing.
The detective looked at her knowingly before speaking. "Miss Thorne told me that Sara has a device attached to her? Do the doctors know what it is?"
"The doctor called in a specialist," Mr. Ornell said. "They should be here shortly. Hopefully we can get it off of her and wake her up. The doctors aren’t sure, but they say she looks like she is just sleeping."
The detective nodded, stroking his small beard. "Do you have any business dealings with the Yakuza, Mr. Ornell? Or Japanese business accounts?"
"I own a concrete company. I don't do business other than locally. We make our money repairing and maintaining the wall. Why do you ask?"
"There was a Japanese mob member present when Olivia ... Miss Thorne and her team recovered your daughter. We are just trying to piece together who did this. I thought that there might be some business link, a recrimination for not paying some mob insurance maybe."
"I've never been threatened with that sort of thing. Do you think this was a personal attack?"
"I doubt it. I believe that the ransom request was likely the gangs looking for money. I doubt you would have gotten her back if you had paid. Here's my card. If you think of anything, please call. We want to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else."
"Thank you, Detective." The man shook his hand and turned back to his daughter and wife. Olivia stepped out of the room and adjusted the bag slung from one hand to the other.
Gabriel followed close behind, stopping just outside the door. "It's nice to see happy endings."
Olivia smiled. "I'm out of here. I've got to get some sleep. Lunch tomorrow?"
"Sounds like a date," Gabriel said, smiling.
She laughed at him. "You're a little old for me."
"Don't flatter yourself. I'm going to stick around and see what the specialist and docs have to say. Don't you want to know?"
Olivia shook her head. "I'm curious, but that's it. I've gotten paid. My job's done. See you later." The duffle bag was hefted, and she waved goodbye. Long steps took her toward the doors.
Considering the matter closed, she stepped out the automatic security doors. It had only taken her until reaching the street before she started thinking of a shower and sleep.
She raised her hand, spotting her prey. "Taxi!"
Chapter 2
The rare smell of coffee wafted to Olivia’s nostrils buried deep under her jacket. The material covered her head, keeping the light from her office window off of her face. Flopping onto her side, she pulled back the dark shroud.
The full force of the late morning sun slapped her in the face and blinded her. Resisting the temptation to curl her head back under the protection of the jacket, she blinked, forcing her eyes open. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted, and Olivia craned her neck around the arm of the couch to look past her desk. She suspected that her redheaded secretary was in early ... or was it late?
Outside in the reception area, Olivia could hear Dana’s heels clicking on the rough wood of the ancient hardwood. A clink of a spoon against ceramic combined with the smell instigated a promise of warm brown caffeine.
“Is that coffee?” Olivia croaked. Her eyes blinked hard.
The heels clicked toward her, and long, thin legs attached to a black-and-white dress strode into the room. Delicate fingers tipped with French-manicured nails dangled a simple white china cup in front of Olivia.
“This...” Dana purred, “...is the spoils of the victor.”
Olivia sat up, plucking the coffee from Dana’s hands. “Where did you find it?”
“You have your ways; I have mine.”
Olivia sipped the warm liquid gold letting the rare nectar flow over her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste. It took her a full minute before she opened her eyes. Dana was sitting in the client’s chair perched in front of Olivia’s desk, legs crossed and leaning back. “I take it from the deposit into the business account last night that things went well?”
“Very well.” Another sip.
Dana smiled politely, flattening her dress with one hand while holding her cup level. “That’s good. Don’t celebrate too hard, though. The funds for the contractor have been dispersed, rent, and power have been paid. My pay has been deposited, and that leaves you with a tiny profit. Just don’t spend it all before we find another contract. There’s not a lot there.”
“What about the finder’s fee?” Olivia inquired.
Dana flicked a finger at the brown envelope on the desk, her face souring. “There.”
“Those small payoffs keep us in the game Dana.”
“That’s your dirty business, not mine.” Dana’s green eyes cast a disgusted glare over Olivia’s disheveled clothes. “You really need to sleep at home ... or at least in something other than your work clothes.”
“I got in early this morning. The office was closer than my apartment—”
Dana’s face flashed repulsion. “Is that blood on your pants?” She rose from the chair, flipping her hand as though to buzz away a nuisance fly.
“Not all of my little escapades are ‘whodunnits’ or divorce cases. Sometimes Little Red Riding Hood needs to be protected from the wolf.”
“That’s no excuse for looking like a dirty homeless fugee.”
Olivia considered retorting and explaining that the Quarantine Zone refugees were people too, but she knew Dana had a point. She needed to start taking better care of herself. Reaching between the cushions of the couch, she withdrew the loaded pistol and placed it on the desk. It smelled of the light coating of gun oil she had applied last night after cleaning the submachine gun that hung in the weapons locker behind her desk.
Sitting on the worn couch, she continued to sip the coffee. Outside the office window, she could see the tops of the nearby buildings. Their red and brown brick walls were checkered with windows and air-conditioning units. For a brief moment, she felt as though everything was in its place. All of the cogs and gears of her life were finally starting to work in unison. It had taken her years scraping up enough money to buy the office space and twice as long making connections to keep clients coming in on a semiregular basis.
“You stink, by the
way!” Dana’s voice called from the foyer.
Olivia shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.”
“I’m only pointing out the truth. The better you clean up, the classier jobs we can get. And by ‘we’ I mean the royal ‘we.’”
Soon the dark elixir swirled away, and as Olivia tipped the last of the wonderful bitter liquid onto her tongue.
“All gone,” she whispered sadly. She wondered how long it would be before she tasted coffee again.
The cup was placed next to the pistol, and she stood, stretching her back. Joints popped and crackled as she reached for the roof, inflating her lungs and squeezing her shoulders. Her hands came down with an abrupt slap on her thighs. “Alright, I’m going to head home to clean up.”
Lifting the shoulder harness from the back of her chair, she shrugged it on and drove the loaded handgun into the holster. Olivia bent down, plucked her jacket off the couch, and stood in the doorway.
“Don’t forget you’re meeting Gabriel for lunch,” Dana said.
“Huh?”
“Gabriel texted you. It showed up on your phone while you were sleeping,”
Olivia raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Looking at my phone? Are you jealous?”
Dana lifted the back of her left hand and scowled. “Happily married to the ‘man’ of my dreams.” She wiggled a conservative gold band adorned with a subtle sparkle. Olivia doubted that most of those were real diamonds. She had met Dana’s husband and hadn’t been impressed.
Olivia shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Give me time. You’ll see that I’m much more charming.”
She crossed the small foyer and put her hand on the handle of the frosted glass door.
“I’ve been here for almost a year, and I can tell you without a doubt that charming is not a word—”
The phone on Dana’s desk rang, and Olivia let go of the door.
“Thorne Incorporated, Private Investigations and Recovery services, Dana speaking?” chimed her voice. Olivia watched her listen for a moment and then reply. “Not a problem sir. We have an opening in a few hours. How does one o’clock sound?... Excellent. We will see you then.”
“What was that?”
“A Mr. Grey wants to speak with you about a case. I booked him at one. That gives you enough time to zip home, become presentable, eat, and come back. Don’t be late. I hate it when you make clients wait.”
“Couldn’t have booked him for tomorrow?”
“You need the money, or you won't be able to pay me by the end of the month.”
Olivia shook her head. “No rest for the wicked, I guess.” She pulled open the door and stepped into the musty hallway. By the time the frosted glass door behind her swung closed, she had her phone out to text.
Sorry Gabe, looks like I got a hotter date for lunch. One that buys a girl groceries. I’ll reschedule.
The doors of the elevator creaked open as she clicked the “send” button. Olivia stepped forward, stuffing the phone into her back pocket. With the doors closed, she leaned against the grime of the elevator walls then thought better of it. Luckily, the moldy urine smell of the carpet only had to be tolerated for two floors. She wondered when someone had last cleaned it when the doors opened.
The gray windows of the dark lobby were broken up only by the bars on the glass. It always struck her as odd that there were bars on the windows but no lock on the front door. Olivia’s sneakers carried her across the small front room and out into the daylight of the street.
The sink of sewer grates mixed with the luscious smell of street vendors. Olivia thought for a moment about buying a hot dog and calling it breakfast. The rattle of light rail in the distance and an absence of physical cash pulled her away from the gastronomic fantasy.
She could see the streetcar coming, and she stepped quickly to the stop where others waited. Olivia scanned the crowd. Tattoos and bad piercings in this neighborhood were the norms, but well-dressed people occasionally peppered the crowd.
It wasn’t by chance that she had picked this area to start her own business. The strip of bail bondsman shops down one street was mirrored by the offices of private security firms down the next. From the intersection, she could see the uptown business district of newly wealthy companies getting rich on new tech factories and cheap labor. Enough labor that the pubs here were jammed full from lunch hour right through until 2:00 a.m. when they closed. The cheap rent, due to the number of violent murders in the area, didn’t hurt either.
The chain of automated streetcars came to a stop, and she shuffled on with the throng of bodies, scanning her metro pass as she entered. Some kids at the back were laughing too loud. A fat man in a sweater sat in the handicap seat, and an old lady with her grocery bags took up two seats.
Olivia turned away from all of them and stood, staring out the sliding door. The city slid by. The relatively safe streets faded to rougher neighborhoods as the streetcar’s rails became elevated. The grid of the streets below slipped by, crumbling ruins once abandoned a decade ago, now revitalized by cheap housing, and an influx of immigrants from the civil war in the southern United States.
Some of the areas were safe, while others were filled with gangs. She remembered growing up on those streets. Raising her eyes from thoughts of the past, she trained them on the wall of the Quarantine Zone.
In the distance, the ubiquitous gray wall was probably thirty kilometers away, but it was so tall that it towered over any of the buildings of the city at twice their height. Olivia wondered if her parents were still behind it but then thought better of the whimsical idea. It was more likely that her parents were buried in the hundreds of miles of alien rubble inside its circular walls. Olivia hated whatever had brought the black dome. She hated that when it left, what remained was a blemish on the planet large enough that you could see it from space.
“It is amazing, is it not?” said a voice to her right.
She looked at the speaker, a bald head man wearing a black robe. His long beard was purposely braided into three separate braids, each woven together. Ritualistic tattoos covered his head.
“Amazing?” She gritted her teeth. She knew what was coming next.
“Yes, the Onyx God has shown us much.”
He held out a leather-bound book to her and bowed his head slightly but maintained eye contact.
Olivia could smell incense.
He smiled at her kindly. “Would you like to know more about the secrets behind the wall?“
Olivia stared at him, wondering how long it would take before he got the point.
Persistent, the man continued, “The Onyx God brought us hope. Where it touched the earth, knowledge springs forth eternal.”
She continued to stare at him, wondering when he would shut up and when she could leave the car. She began vaguely considering if anyone in this confined space would be able to stop her if she made him eat the book.
A chain of railcars on the opposite track clattered by, darkening the light as the car they occupied began to slow. Overhead, a happy chime indicated to the occupants that the next stop was Dundas Street East.
She turned away from him. “Does your book say anything about where all of the people went? How that thing cored the heart out this city? Unleashed a plague and killed another million after it left? Does it say anything about that?” She could feel her teeth grinding as the muscles in her jaw clenched.
The crowd around her was silently watching. One of the loud kids, now silent, pulled out a cellphone and began very obviously recording the altercation.
The bearded monk bent down and picked up his book. “The Onyx acts as it needs to, in order to direct humanity toward greatness.”
As the door to the car opened, she stepped away into the fresh air. The warm, moist breeze brought the smell of humid city air and sewage.
The man’s voice followed, carrying in the late morning air. “We are all children of Earth, blessed by the onyx! Blessed by the Divine hand the steers us toward greatness!”
&
nbsp; She stopped at the door, contemplating going back in. The baiting into a discussion was working. Maybe if she just roughed him up a little.
“Those that gave their lives fuelled the change. We should give thanks to them!”
Olivia spun on her heels, only to see the doors of the railcar close. The monk was safe behind the glass and metal. Her jaw clenched as she willed the man to look at her. She wanted him to see the hate in her eyes.
The car eased away down the track, with the man preaching at full volume to those trapped in the enclosure with him. Taking a deep breath, Olivia unballed her fists.
Shower.
Food.
Job.
She repeated it to herself like a mantra as she walked down the platform stairs and toward her nearby apartment. It wasn’t far from the stop. Again, that was why she chose it. You had to be an idiot to drive anywhere inside the downtown core of the city, so getting to and from work easily and efficiently was paramount.
Luckily, the railcars stopped a block from her apartment complex.
It didn’t take her long to maneuver around the abandoned trash bags and burned-out cars. It wasn’t an up-and-coming neighborhood by any means, but everyone kept to themselves, and the rent was cheap. Dirt cheap.
The red-brick building was covered in graffiti, and she turned down the alleyway between a burned-out building and her own. The riots five years ago had almost destroyed this district, and the owner was looking for someone who wouldn’t leave needles around and wouldn’t shoot the neighbors.
Olivia couldn’t guarantee the latter, but the former she figured she could handle. Pulling a keycard from her pocket, she waved it over the lockless door, and a solenoid buzzed. The heavy steel bolts retracted, and Olivia swung it open. Stepping inside, she closed the door quickly behind her, letting it lock shut and the bolts slide back into place before she pulled off her jacket and hung it next to the door. On the hook next to it, she hung her holster and pistol.
Dark Crypto (Thorne Inc. Book 1) Page 3