by Sky Winters
“We’re asking questions here, Wilson,” Peters snarled at him.
“You’re asking questions of a fellow cop, not a suspect. Try treating a fellow officer with a bit more respect,” Cap said, giving him a hard glance from behind his desk.
“Suspect?” Ryan gasped. Now, he was bothered. “What’s going on here? Tell me if something has happened to Lucy,” he demanded, jumping to his feet.
Lark and Peters exchanged a glance and seemed to calm down a little, but said nothing for a moment. Cap quietly motioned for him to sit back down and he did so, but was still leaning forth, now on pins and needles.
“Miss Jameson’s former roommate reported her missing this morning after she failed to show up for a night out on Friday and again for glass this morning. She said she’d been calling her all weekend and getting no answer. When did you last see her?”
Ryan felt like all of the wind had been knocked out of him. He collapsed back in his chair, his mind whirling with his own thoughts. Had she been missing all this time he had been trying to contact her? The thought of what might have happened to her in just this brief amount of time made him sick to his stomach. He should be out looking for her instead of sitting here answering stupid questions.
“Um, Thursday.”
“How did she seem? Do you have any reason to believe she would harm herself?”
“Harm? Has she done something to herself?” he said, his heart now in his feet.
“We’re asking you what you know. We’re not answering questions right now,” Peters said, ignoring what the Captain had said previously.
“Enough,” the Captain said, obviously noting how upset Kevin seemed. “Kevin, we haven’t located her at this time. All we know is that she is missing. She could have just taken off for the weekend and not be thinking about how it might look. People take a break. People skip class. She could walk into her house tomorrow and be shocked that anyone noticed she was gone. In the meantime, we only have a report that she didn’t show up as expected and isn’t answering her phone. You are not a suspect, but we need to know if you have any information that might help us ensure she is safe and sound.”
Kevin felt a little relief. So, this is what it felt like to be on the other side when someone you loved was missing. He’d dealt with parents with missing teens and not fully understood their concern in the past, especially when their wayward kid turned up after some booze filled weekend with friends or secret rendezvous with a boy or girl they’d been sexting for months. Now, he understood how heart wrenching it truly was.
“Listen, I don’t care for your questions or your attitude,” he said to the two detectives, finding his voice despite his distress. “I’m going to tell you what I know and then, if you have any reasonable questions, I will answer them.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you,” Peters growled, “but this is our investigation.”
“Shut up and listen, Peters,” the Captain barked, waving his hand toward Kevin to go ahead.
Kevin spilled his guts to them, including that they had argued and he had left. He also told them why and pointed them in the direction of Kate for copies of the man who had spooked her in the neighborhood. He told them what he knew about her background and anything else he could think of that might help them find her, but he doubted these two yahoos would manage it. Though he had never met them, he knew their names and their less than glorious reputations.
“We’re going to need to know where you’ve been all weekend,’ Peters said when he was done.
“Wait. Jameson? Is her father’s name Derek Jameson?” Lark asked.
Kevin ignored Peters, who seemed to be stuck on trying to pin something on “the boyfriend” - which happened to be him. Instead, he addressed Lark.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think she ever told me her father’s name. They weren’t on very good terms.”
Lark nodded and made a note. Peters attempted to ask another question, but Lark stopped him, holding up his hand to silence him and standing.
“That’s all for now, Officer Wilson. I’m sorry about all of this. We’ll do everything we can to find her.”
“I wasn’t done,” Peters protested.
“Yeah you were,” Lark told him, motioning for him to step out of the office.
Once they were gone, the Captain spoke in quiet tones.
“Kevin, Peters is a shark bucking for a prize. If he can pin anything on you, he will try. It doesn’t matter that you’re a fellow officer. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me without them here? Is there anything I can do to help you? I know you didn’t do this, but I also know that people sometimes can’t say everything that needs to be said for personal or professional reasons.”
Kevin knew what he was getting at and he didn’t like it, but he knew that the Captain was only looking out for his best interests. It was better for him to know now than get blindsided by reading it in the papers if one of his officers had done anything that might be misconstrued.
“Cap, I have never laid a violent hand on a woman, not even in an argument. If I did anything wrong, it was only to overstep some of my bounds in the department to try to protect her from harm from elsewhere.”
“Alright, Wilson. Go on home and try to get some rest. We’ll be in touch if we find anything.”
Wilson nodded and left, feeling like the world was ending. He’d resigned himself to giving her some time over the weekend, perhaps longer, maybe even forever if that was what she wanted, but this was a different story.
“Hey, Wilson. Don’t go far,” Peters taunted him as he passed by where he and Lark were looking at the screen with Kate. She looked up at him with eyes that revealed her dismay. No doubt they’d try to drag her into this somehow. Well, Peters would anyway. Lark seemed to be far more reasonable, but with an idiot partner too quick to point a finger at the easiest target, it would hinder any quality police work that would solve the case.
Tate met him by the back doors. He seemed to have been waiting for him there.
“What’s going on, Wilson? Rose told me someone is missing and you were getting questioned about it.”
Rose was the dispatcher. She knew everything about everyone’s business in the department and would reveal every bit of it to anyone she deemed worthy of being in the know. Apparently, Tate met the standard.
“The girl I’ve been seeing is missing. I have to go. I have to go find her.”
“Whoa. That’s a bad idea, Wilson. Let the other boys do their job.”
“Those two? They couldn’t find water in a tsunami. I’m going to go find her myself.”
“Any idea where to look?”
“No, but I know who to start with. I just need to find out who he is. I’m gonna have to call in a favor.”
“Be careful, Wilson. They’ll be watching you if they think you had something to do with this.”
‘I know. Let them watch. Maybe they’ll learn how to do some actual police work.”
He went directly from his station to the smaller one on the other side of town. He had a friend from the academy that had got sent over there and they still kept in touch. Rather than calling him and having a record of it on his phone, he just walked in, flashing his badge at the desk officer. She barely even glanced at him before going back to the magazine she had been reading when he came in.
“Hey, Chuck. You got a minute?” he asked a lanky ginger cop sitting at his desk. Chuck was easy to pick out in a crowd. He looked like a love child between Conan O’Brien and a Drop Dead Fred. He was a great guy, but not exactly a lady killer. The term made him wince as he considered it’s double meaning.
“Well, fuck me if it isn’t Ryan Wilson,” he said with a big grin on his face. “What brings you down here to the slums of policedom?”
“I need a quick favor.”
“Sure, buddy. What can I do for you?”
“I need you to find this guy in your logs and get me a copy of his file. His last arrest was here, so you should be able to get t
o it without pulling it up on the network. Get my drift?”
“Sure. Should I ask why?”
“No.”
“Good enough for me. You need it right now or can you come back?”
“Now would be better.”
“Alright. Go get yourself a coffee and I’ll see what I can get for you.”
Ryan did just that, feeling like he was coming out of his skin as he waited. It was a good half hour before Chuck returned with a large envelope and handed it to him.
“Guy’s a real shit show. I don’t know what’s going down, but you watch your back with him. Get out of her before someone asks what I gave you and call me sometimes to have a drink instead of be your fucking copy boy, ya prick.”
“I’ll do that,” Wilson laughed. “Thanks. I owe you.”
“Fuckin’ A, you do.”
Ryan took the file back to his car, flipping through it. Craig Scroginski, known to his friends simply as “Ski” had a very long arrest sheet, but only one conviction. He’d done a stint over on the east coast for attempted murder. The other arrests were for a variety of violent crimes, but he’d gotten off on an assortment of procedural failures that smelled like corruption more than any actual mistakes by the department.
He was considering again that this might have something more to do with him than Lucy, as there was no reason this man would be after her. His sole line of work seemed to be to enforce whatever he was told to take care of by a network of drug lords in the area. It had to be tied in to some of the crimes he was dealing with on the east side.
But then everything changed and he remembered the question Lark had asked. It was right there in the file, “Derek Jameson.” Ski had been tied to a lot of crimes at the behest of a prominent drug lord named Derek Jameson in the past decade. Was Lucy kin to Derek? Was it her father? Why would she not have told him that?
Either she was ashamed or he was no relation. He picked up his phone and called Tate.
“What is it, Wilson. I’m trying to take an old man nap.”
“Do you know the name Derek Jameson?”
“Jameson? Yeah. He disappeared off the map a few years back, but he used to be a real bastard. He was ruthless on the east side. Dealers didn’t cross him and neither did anyone else. Even the cops steered clear.”
“Why?’
“Because he didn’t give second chances. The last dealer I’m aware of that tried to screw him over ended up in a dumpster looking like he’d been chewed up by a combine. It was ugly. Couldn’t prove it was him though. You know how these types work. Always someone on the inside. The DNA was tainted and had to be tossed out. Never seen anything like what was done to that man though.”
Kevin had. He knew exactly what had been done to that man and the DNA wasn’t tainted. It just wasn’t human. Derek Jameson was either wolf or using wolves to do his dirty work. If it was the former, there was a solid chance that he was Lucy’s father.
“Any idea where I might find him now?”
“No and wouldn’t tell you if I did. Nothing good can come of you going against that one alone. We’ve already lost one good cop this week. Can’t even have a proper service burial for him for fear of blowing the cover of other UCs that were embedded with him.”
“Alright, Tate. Thanks anyway,” Kevin said.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Wilson. I don’t have time to train another partner before I quit this shit.”
“I wouldn’t dream of making you go through something so horrible,” Kevin retorted before ending the call and contemplating his next move. He had to find the link between Ski, Derek Jameson, and Lucy - and he had to do it soon. These were bad people and if they had Lucy, she might not have much time.
Kevin pulled up the browser on his phone and searched for Derek Jameson. He wasn’t hard to find. He popped up in photo after photo, the head of a business in the next town. Kevin put the car in drive and headed toward the address listed on the website.
He was surprised to find himself at a large glass and chrome high rise rather than some simple little operation. Wolves were usually low key with their activities, especially if criminal. Jameson seemed to be intent on flashing his criminal enterprise. It didn’t get more cliché for dealing drugs than owning an import/export business.
“I need to see Derek Jameson,” Kevin told the receptionist.
She eyed him coolly, taking in his street clothes and dismissing him as anyone important.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Then you will need to make one. What is the nature of your business?” she asked, her finger poised to push buttons on the phone.
“I don’t have time for an appointment and the business is personal.”
“I’m afraid that you’ll have to give me more information for Mr. Jameson’s assistant if you want her to make you an appointment,” she said.
“I don’t have time to make an appointment. I need to see him now.”
“I’m afraid that is just not possible.”
“Tell his assistant that I’m here about Mr. Jameson’s daughter and it can’t wait,” he barked at her.
“That’s still pretty vague,” she snarled at him.
“Grace, I’ll take care of this,” a man said from nearby.
Kevin turned to see a man walking toward him, flanked by two burly looking men in suits. He could smell them before they reached him, so he knew they smelled him too. He knew from the photo on the website that he was looking at Derek Jameson. He didn’t waste any words with him.
“Are you Lucy Jameson’s father?”
“I am. Has something happened to my daughter?”
“Yes. She’s missing.”
He saw genuine alarm in Jameson’s demeanor, but it was quickly pushed aside. He turned toward the two men behind him and motioned for them to go away.
“Follow me to my office and tell me what is happening, officer.”
Kevin should probably be surprised that he knew he was a cop, even in his plain clothes, but he wasn’t. What it did tell him was that Jameson kept tabs on his daughter and anyone associated with her. He might be of more use than expected.
“Grace, get Ski in here and send him to my office immediately,” he told the receptionist as they passed.
Already, some pieces were falling into place.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lucy
Lucy woke up in heavy shackles designed to prevent her from shifting without considerable pain. Even if she managed to shift without breaking multiple bones in the process, the noise created by the chains would send a warning that she was doing so. She’s going to need another plan if she intends.
Once again, there is water beside her bed to combat the dry throat. She turned it up greedily before stretching out, as best she could with the chains. Staring up at the ceiling, she realized there were tiles up there. The room was all concrete, but overhead, there were tiles. If she could get up there, maybe she might find her way out through the ceiling somehow.
She was still contemplating this when the sound of the door opening caught her attention. One of the men had come to bring her food. She tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t speak. He merely sat her food down and left again.
She ate a little, but had lost her appetite. Her joints ached from the drugs and the chains. She closed her eyes and thought about Kevin. How long had she been here? Was he looking for her yet? Would he look for her? She had told him she needed space, but hopefully he would have tried to talk to her by now and found she was gone without explanation.
Then, there was Sasha. She’d note that she didn’t show up for girls night after calling to say she was on her way and then didn’t make it to class when the time come. She’d honestly lost all sense of time due to the drug induced blackouts. She had no idea if she’d been here a couple of days or much longer. She wasn’t sure who took her, unless it was the man who’d been watching her.
She tried to focus on the moments before everything
went black. She’d not heard him until he was on her, so he was quiet. More importantly, she’d not smelled him, which meant he was human and that took her back to the man in the car. Kevin had a photo of him. Hopefully, it was a clue and not a dead end. She was forced to admit that he had been right to be concerned.
The door began to rattle again as someone unlocked it and opened it, carefully looking in to determine her state before proceeding. He picked up her leftovers and sat down another bottle of water.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
‘Are you going to try anything if I take you?” he asked.
“No.”
“See to it that you don’t. Come on then.”
Lucy walked toward him, the chains limiting her movement.
“Can we at least take these off my feet?”
He laughed. “No.”
She didn’t ask again, but she began talking to him in hopes she could win him over, maybe find out why she was here and garner enough sympathy that he would help her get free. They were all still wearing masks, which was good. If they started showing their faces, she would know she was a goner. No witness policy.
Unlike the other man that took her, he kept the door open and seemed to be sneaking peaks at her from the side, though she was careful to make sure he couldn’t see anything. It was difficult to go all chained up, but she managed everything but her zipper, which he had pulled down for her and would have to pull back up.
“I’m done. Can you zip me?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“You look like you work out a lot,” she purred.
“I do.”
“But you aren’t a wolf. You’re human.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your smell.”
“I see. Come on, let’s get you back to the room.”
“Have you ever dated an Omega?”
“A what?”
“A female wolf,” she told him, realizing he hadn’t been around this crew enough to know anything about their inner workings or hierarchy.
“No. I bet that would be a trip.”
He was warming up to her. That was a good thing and he didn’t seem particularly bright, which was a better thing.