by Ray Green
‘So, all the papers from Julia’s filing cabinets and desk are in these boxes. I’ve tried to separate them into logical categories to make things easier for the police. Her laptop’s right there.’
‘Oh yeah … did the I.T. guy manage to get past the password?’
‘Yes,’ she said, offering him a slip of paper. ‘This is the new password.’
He nodded, approvingly. ‘Great job, Gema.’
‘Thanks. Now if that’s everything you need me to do, I’ll get ready to leave.’
‘Say, I gather tomorrow’s your last day with Cynthia.’
‘Yes, why?’
‘I’m real short-handed right now. How’d you like to come and work for me for a couple of weeks?’
‘I … er, well under normal circumstances I’d love to, but I’ve already got another temporary post lined up for the next three weeks.’
‘Well, I can give you three weeks’ work. What are they paying you? I’ll at least match it.’
This was getting tricky now. She paused for a moment as she tried to figure out a plausible response. ‘That’s really kind of you Mr Goldsmith, but—’
‘Joe,’ he reminded her again, wagging his finger back and forth.
‘Yes … sorry. Thing is though, I’ve already made the commitment. You wouldn’t want me to go back on my word and let another employer down, would you?’
He gave a wry smile. ‘You’re one in a million, Gema. It’s very rare for temps to show that kinda commitment.’
‘Well, I just like to do the right thing.’
He nodded, casting a licentious glance at her breasts. ‘Well, how about meeting me for a drink after work one day next week?’
Oh, Christ – how do I get out of this one?
‘I … I don’t know what to say.’
‘Just say “yes”,’ he laughed.
‘I’m really flattered, Mr … I mean Joe, but the thing is my fiancé’s rather a jealous type. I know that your intentions are completely honourable,’ she said, knowing full well that the lecherous bastard’s intentions were anything but, ‘but I’m not sure Rick would quite see it like that. He’s an ex-Marine you know.’
The colour drained from the man’s face; for a second or two he seemed lost for words. He quickly regained his composure though.
‘Well, as you know, I was only wanting to buy you a few drinks to say thank you for a job well done, but I certainly wouldn’t want to create any waves, so I guess a plain “Thank you” right now will have to do.’ He took a business card from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘If you’re looking for any temporary work in the future just give me a call.’
‘Thank you, Mr Goldsmith’ – he didn’t bother to correct her this time – ‘I will.’
‘Now I must get on,’ he muttered, ‘– lots of work to do.’
He shook her hand, rather formally, and headed back towards his desk.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she made her way back to the storage room and retrieved the box file she had left there. She tried to conceal it under her jacket, but it was too bulky. She stole a glance through the door back into the main office; everyone seemed to be busy with their own work, no-one looking in her direction. In the end, she just tucked the box file under her arm and walked as slowly and calmly as possible though the office and out into the corridor. No-one paid her any attention whatsoever; even Goldsmith didn’t seem to notice her leave.
When Juanita stepped out into the cool evening air, her overriding emotion was not one of relief, but an intense feeling of exhilaration. The close brush with danger, combined with her eventual success, against the odds, had left her on a high that no drug could ever match. James would surely be proud of her.
***
‘You did what?’ exclaimed James.
‘I just asked him for the password.’
‘You just asked him?’ repeated James. ‘Are you completely crazy?’
‘Crazy for you,’ she said, laughing.
‘No, seriously … if he had decided to start asking awkward questions …’
‘Well, he didn’t, did he? And now we’ve got all the information we wanted. Aren’t you pleased with me?’ she added, clapping her hands together.
He couldn’t be angry with her. She had achieved everything he could possibly have asked and, as she stood in front of him, beaming with pride, his heart melted.
He stepped forward and encircled her in his arms. ‘Of course I am,’ he said, kissing her and brushing away a stray strand of hair from her cheek. ‘You really are quite something, you know.’
‘One in a million according to Mr Goldsmith,’ she laughed.
‘Was he coming on to you?’ said James, relinquishing the hug and standing back a little, his hands on her shoulders.
‘Well, he’s not made of wood, is he? I can’t help being irresistibly attractive to men.’
‘You shameless flirt,’ laughed James.
‘Well it got the job done, didn’t it?’
He had never seen her in quite this mood before: buzzing with excitement and seemingly oblivious to the danger she had placed herself in. ‘Are you drunk?’ he asked.
‘Drunk on love,’ she replied, pulling him to her and kissing him on the lips.
He savoured the kiss, but when their lips parted, he said, ‘I think you need to come down to earth.’
‘Don’t you think I’d make a good spy … captivating men with my tempting charm and then snatching what I need from right under their noses?’
‘OK enough,’ he laughed. ‘We need to start going through all this stuff. If we can figure out what this journalist was working on, then maybe we’ll be able to find out what she might have uncovered.’
‘And if something really evil is being planned, maybe we can stop it.’
‘Not “we”,’ he admonished her. ‘If we uncover something bad, we’ll just give the police an anonymous tip off, pointing them towards whatever evidence we have found. We need to stay off the radar.’
‘I guess,’ she said, ‘but you have to admit it’s kind of—’
The sound of the doorbell cut her off, mid-sentence. The two of them locked eyes, exchanging the same unspoken question.
James raised a forefinger to his lips, stepping over to the closet and reaching into the safe inside, whose door was open while they were there in the room. He withdrew the Glock handgun inside, and screwed the silencer in place. Sliding the safety catch off, he moved silently over to stand alongside the hinged side of the door, motioning for Juanita to come over and open it. She put her eye to the security peephole, but evidently did not recognise whoever was there, for when she turned towards James she just shrugged. He nodded raising the gun by his shoulder, pointing it towards the ceiling, and flattening himself against the wall. Juanita opened the door, blocking his view.
A man’s voice: ‘Hello, Carla. It’s been a long time.’
This could not be good: Carla was a name she had left behind in Miami, together with a life which could never be allowed to catch up with them again. James’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Juanita’s reply was hesitant. ‘I … er … I’m afraid there must be some mistake.’
‘Carla, it’s me … Kyle.’
Chapter 22
It was Friday evening, and Mandy Jackson was enjoying a girls’ night out with her besties, Mary-Jane Bailey and Dolores Faith. The venue was Pentangle – a rather upmarket bar in the heart of Manhattan. The ambience was well-judged: agreeable soft, blue lighting; smooth jazz background music, played at pleasantly low volume; and well-spaced groups of seats, which allowed enough privacy for a quiet conversation, while still affording a sense of inclusion in the rest of the bar. The drinks were pricey, but the place was so much classier than many of other joints in the area. As a special night out, once in a while, all three women considered it to be worth the cost.
The three of them had all attended high school together and, now in their early thirties, they had remained close friends ever s
ince. They would get together like this at least once every couple of weeks, and talk: they could talk for hours on end without ever running short of things to say. The usual topic of conversation was men: all three were still single, and all three were still playing the field. They loved to hear about one another’s latest exploits and, most especially, whether any of them had met someone just a bit special.
Sometimes a group of men would approach them when they were out together; after all they were – as Mary-Jane frequently asserted – three very attractive women. Occasionally, they would flirt with the guys for a while, maybe even give out a telephone number but, for the most part, they would politely give these guys the brush off: this was girls’ time, not to be interrupted by the mating ritual.
Mandy was usually the most talkative: after a busy week in the hairdressing salon, talking mostly to complete strangers, she was always hungry for the opportunity to indulge in a more intimate chat with her two best friends. Tonight though, it was Mary-Jane who was doing most of the talking. Working in a pathology lab didn’t afford many opportunities to meet eligible men in a work setting, but this time she’d met someone who’d clearly made quite an impression.
‘So,’ she said, ‘this cop came into the lab the other day. My god he was so cute. Honest, he had real movie-star looks; blue eyes you could lose yourself in; and this real deep, smooth voice. And you know what? He definitely had the hots for me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ piped up Dolores, giggling. ‘And how exactly do you know that?’
Mary-Jane tossed her head, flicking luxuriant tresses of wavy, blonde hair away from her face. ‘Oh, come on … I know when a guy wants to get into my panties: it’s clear as day. Anyway, by the time he left, they were getting pretty wet, I can tell you.’
Dolores shrieked in delight, then quietened down when she saw several customers turn towards the unexpected noise. ‘Oh, Mary-Jane, you’re such a tart!’
‘Nothing wrong with getting a bit turned on by a handsome guy,’ she retorted.
The three of them descended into a fit of giggling. When it finally subsided, Dolores took a sip of her improbably blue cocktail before enquiring, ‘So you gonna follow it up? I mean you got his number or anything?’
‘I can contact him at the NYPD, but I don’t want to seem too obvious. But he’s got my number, and I’ll bet you a dollar to a dime that he’ll find an excuse to call me.’
‘You wish,’ concluded Dolores, draining her glass. ‘You guys want another?’
‘Is the pope a Catholic?’ replied Mary-Jane.
More giggles as Dolores swivelled in her chair in a vain attempt to catch the eye of one of the servers.
While all this banter about the hunky cop and his alleged desire to bed Mary-Jane was going on, Mandy had a slightly different question in her mind. ‘So, what exactly was a cop doing at the lab anyway?’ she asked. ‘I mean, he didn’t just drop in hoping to find a devastatingly attractive woman on reception, did he?’
‘No,’ agreed Mary-Jane, ‘that was just his good luck … and mine too, as it happens. Didn’t I already explain about why he came?’
‘No, you didn’t … I think you must have had one too many of those hideous-looking blue concoctions.’
At just that moment, Dolores finally succeeded in summoning a server. ‘Two more of these please,’ she said, holding up her empty glass, ‘and another glass of Chardonnay for my boring friend here.’ She gestured towards Mandy, who shot back a sour look.
‘So,’ said Mandy, as the girl moved away from their table, ‘what exactly was this sexy cop doing at the lab?’
‘Well,’ began Mary-Jane, ‘it’s kind of exciting: we had this real weird incident at the lab.’
‘Ooh, do tell,’ said Dolores, she and Mandy leaning forward in unison across the table.
‘OK … well, it started when we had a new stiff wheeled in recently. This one was a murder victim: half her head blown off when the perp stuck a gun in her ear before pulling the trigger.’
‘Oh, yuk!’ squealed Dolores, shuddering in disgust.
Mandy pulled her head back sharply, making a moue.
‘Yeah, pretty gross, I agree. Anyway, a few days later this woman turns up at the lab, claiming to be the dead girl’s long-lost sister.’
‘You said claiming,’ interjected Mandy. ‘Why do you—?’
She was interrupted as the server returned with their drinks. She set them down on the table, gesturing towards the vividly coloured cocktails. ‘Those’re real good – my favourite, actually. Unfortunately, they won’t let me drink while I’m working, but I always have one when I finish my shift, before I go home. Kind of a perk of the job like.’
‘Yeah, well thanks,’ said Mandy, a little irritated that the cloak-and-dagger tale, about to unfold, had been interrupted. ‘I’ll let you know if we need anything else.’
The look she shot the girl clearly had the desired effect. ‘Sure,’ she said, setting the revised check down on the table and beating a hasty retreat.
‘So,’ continued Mandy, ‘why didn’t you believe this woman who turned up?’
‘Well, she had what looked like genuine I.D. and she had the right look: Latina, just like the victim. What’s more, she knew all about the dead girl and her folks but, somehow, it just didn’t feel right. And there was nothing in the notes about any sister.’
‘So what did she want?’ asked Dolores.
‘She wanted me to give her a copy of the autopsy report. Now, the dead girl’s mother and father had already had a copy, so it all seemed a bit suspicious that a supposed sister would turn up out of the blue asking for another copy. Anyway, I took her passport and went to see Rich – he’s my boss. I wasn’t about to give out confidential info like that without his say-so.’
‘But you still haven’t said why the cops were interested,’ pressed Mandy.
‘I’m getting to that,’ said Mary-Jane leaning in a little closer to the other two, apparently enjoying spinning out this story as long as possible. ‘Rich said he wanted to talk to this woman himself, but just as we went back to reception to see her, we saw her running out the door holding some papers.’
‘Papers?’ enquired Dolores.
‘Yeah … turns out that while I was away for a few minutes she’d managed to get into the filing room – which is strictly out-of-bounds to visitors – and find the autopsy report she wanted. It was there, open on the photocopier, so I guess she had copied some or all of it.’
‘Wow!’ gasped Dolores, ‘what on earth do you think she was up to?’
Mary-Jane spread her hands. ‘Beats me. Anyway, she left without getting her passport back. Obviously, we reported the whole thing to the cops; turns out the passport was a fake. They seemed real interested in what this woman was up to: they came to see me twice. The first guy was old, fat, and certainly no looker, but the second guy – Mark – he was a real hunk.’
‘Oh, so you’re on first name terms with Mr. Hunky, huh?’
‘Told you, he really fell for me the moment he saw me … I could tell.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Dolores, rolling her eyes. ‘So what you gonna do about it?’
Mandy’s attention had drifted away from Mary-Jane’s supposed fledgling romance with the hot cop. The first tendrils of suspicion began to snake through her mind. Before her friend could respond to Dolores’s question, Mandy posed another. ‘What did this girl look like?’
‘Well, like I said, she was a Latina, probably mid-thirties … kind of pretty … well not “pretty pretty”, exactly … but really quite striking looks. Why d’you ask?’
Mandy didn’t answer the question, responding instead with another of her own. ‘You still got her passport?’
‘No … the cops have taken it away, but why—?’
‘What was her hair like?’
‘Long, black, glossy; she had real nice hair. What’s with the questions?’
Mandy took a sip of her wine. ‘Hmm … it’s probably nothing, but I had a woman who f
its that description come into the salon the other day. She had beautiful long, black hair, but wanted it cut short and coloured differently. I mean she still looked good with her new cut – after all, doesn’t anyone after one of my cuts?’ she added, modestly. The other two rolled their eyes in unison. ‘But why would she mess with such lovely hair? It seemed to me like she wanted to completely change her appearance.’
Dolores gasped. ‘You don’t think it was the same woman do you?’
‘Well,’ replied Mandy, ‘if I had committed some sort of crime and I knew the cops were after me, and that they had my passport, complete with a photo, I’d want to change my appearance as much as possible.’
‘Ooh,’ whispered Mary-Jane, ‘you could be right – maybe it was her.’
‘Thing is,’ continued Mandy, ‘this woman seemed kind of nervy. I just had the feeling she was scared or something. And she was carrying a big pile of cash in her purse.’
The three women looked at each other in silence for several seconds. It seemed they were all thinking the same thing.
‘Do you think I should report it to the cops?’ asked Mandy, eventually.
Dolores turned to Mary-Jane. ‘You said the police have got this mystery woman’s photo, right?’
‘Uh, huh.’
She swivelled around to face Mandy. ‘Would you recognise her from the photo … I mean if it’s the same woman?’
‘I … I’m not sure … I think so.’
‘That’s settled then,’ declared Mary-Jane. ‘We can see Mark – the hot cop – together. He’ll have been trying to find an excuse to call me … but now he won’t have to. It’s perfect.’
‘Gonna dress to kill, then?’ enquired Dolores.
‘Best push-up bra, low cut dress,’ replied Mary-Jane, smiling conspiratorially, ‘he could barely keep his eyes off my tits, even when I was in my work clothes.’
‘Shall I call the police then?’ said Mandy, still sounding a little doubtful.’
‘I’ll do it,’ insisted Mary-Jane. ‘I’ve got Mark’s direct number, and now I’ve got the perfect excuse to call him.’
‘Oh, you shameless floozy,’ laughed Dolores.