Deadly Games

by Mary Stone

The moment she’d turned the camera on the two men, their entire personalities had changed.

  Whew. That had been close.

  As it turned out, Tomas and Jose were pretty nice guys when they weren’t being jerks. When she’d asked them to introduce themselves to all her Facebook friends, they’d spoken of their big families. Wives and lots of children whose names they went through so quickly, Kylie couldn’t remember all of them. The two of them insisted on escorting her door to door, and never stopped talking the entire way.

  “De nada,” Tomas said, bowing to her. “Hope you get that business of yours done soon, girl, because this ain’t the place for a girl like you.”

  “I’m stronger than I look,” she told them with a hint of pride. “You know, I single-handedly brought down a serial killer.”

  They both laughed, slapping their thighs.

  “I’m serious!” she said, her hands on her hips. “I’m a private investigator. I’ve solved murders.”

  They snorted again. She could tell they still didn’t believe her.

  “Right, mama.” Jose winked at her. “You need us to wait for you?”

  “Thank you,” she said, shaking their hands. “You’re really the first two nice people I’ve met in this city. I was scared I’d have to go home to Asheville empty-handed.”

  Or that I wouldn’t go home at all. I was afraid you two were going to kill me, honestly, and I’d never get back there.

  “Asheville?” Tomas asked, scratching his head. “Where’s that?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “Ah! You hear that, Jose?” Tomas said, shoving his brother’s beefy shoulder. “She’s a real Southern belle.”

  Jose laughed. “A murder-solving Southern belle. We don’t get girls like you around here.”

  Southern belle. It reminded her of the story her mother told her about her father. She smiled, and then shivered, thinking of what answers might lie right behind the doors of this one-story, crumbling brick building. The place backed up to a bunch of old burned-out buildings, and the yard with the fleet of green garbage trucks was surrounded by barbed-wire fencing.

  It didn’t smell the greatest here either. In fact, this smell scoured her nostrils. New York was definitely a city of interesting smells, and none of them had been particularly pleasing so far. She’d never take the air in North Carolina for granted again.

  “Again, thank you,” she said as she waved to them and climbed the steps. They started to walk back the way they’d come, and Kylie felt positive for the first time since she’d boarded the plane. Maybe she would be able to make a good connection or even find her father after all.

  When she opened the door to the dark office with the low ceiling, she saw a series of desks, scattered with paper. No people. The place stunk of old cigarettes and someone’s burnt microwave popcorn. She called out, “Hello?”

  “Hold your horses,” a voice grouched to her from behind the stacks. An older woman with crazy salt and pepper hair and thick glasses poked her head up. She looked Kylie over, a scowl of disgust on her face. “You a bill collector? We’re closed. Come back tomorrow.”

  Kylie pointed to the door behind her. “Door was open, and I only have a few questions. Is the owner here?”

  The woman snorted. “Owner? Owner’s on his golf course in Jersey. As usual. I’m the one in charge when the cat’s away. What questions?”

  “Well,” Kylie began, reaching into her messenger bag. “I have—”

  “Are you selling cosmetics? Does it look like I wear cosmetics?” she said, her eyes traveling over Kylie like a scouring pad.

  “No.” Does it look like I sell cosmetics? Kylie wondered. “I’m trying to track down a former employee of Cityside Garbage Services, and I was hoping to get some information.”

  The woman wheeled her chair closer, then stood and came to her full height, which Kylie realized was tiny. She was barely four and a half feet. She peeled off those thick glasses and looked up at Kylie with watery green eyes. “I’ve worked here for over thirty years. I know everyone we’ve employed.” She tapped the side of her head. “Photographic memory. Who’re you talking about?”

  Kylie knew there was no such thing as a truly photographic memory, but even so, a woman with a great memory was a good sign. “His name is Adam Hatfield. He might have worked here about twenty-five years ago?”

  The woman’s pinched, pockmarked faced wrinkled some more as she shook her head slowly.

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. Hatfield, you say?” She started cleaning the lenses with the hem of her bright yellow t-shirt from a place called Crazy Eddie’s Electronics.

  Kylie nodded. “He was tall, slim, had dark hair. I believe he was one of the collectors here.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wait…Hatfield. I’m starting to remember.”

  Kylie’s heart leapt. “You do?”

  “Yeah, Adam Hatfield, first name William, I think.”

  Kylie got excited. She’d seen her birth certificate a couple times, of course, but her mom always kept it in the safe deposit box the rest of the time. Anytime Rhonda ever spoke of her father, Adam was the name she used. But his first name was William, so this had to be him!

  “Most people around here called him Bill or Billy.” The woman scratched her head, little flakes of dandruff drifting down onto her shoulders. “That was definitely at the beginning of my tenure here, though, but I remember him. He was a total dish. I was just a little thing back then, barely out of my teens, but he had all the ladies on leashes. Used to flirt incessantly. I remember his partner was a little miffed that they always got off late on their route because he was too busy charming the women in the office. He was a smooth talker, that man.”

  The woman sounded like Kylie’s mother, the way her eyes glazed over and her voice got high and faraway. Kylie jumped on the lead, her heart speeding up. “Do you happen to remember what he looked like?”

  “Oh, he was a total dish. Just like you said. Thick dark hair, medium build. Could charm the panties off any girl. That’s what I remember about him. Never tried his luck with me, though. He was dating some girl, if I remember correctly. Got married. Moved away. Or something.” She shrugged. “Long time ago. I don’t remember.”

  Kylie tapped the camera screen on her phone and pulled up the photo she’d taken of her little family picture, though she’d cropped herself and her mom from the image. “Could this be him?”

  The woman squinted at the screen. “Yeah.” She tapped the glass. “That’s him, sure as shit.”

  Kylie’s heart picked up speed. “Do you remember anything else about him at all?”

  “I can check my files if you want.”

  “Yes, please. I appreciate it.”

  She disappeared behind the stack of papers as Kylie looked around, drumming her fingers on the counter. The place looked like it hadn’t been renovated in many years, so it was possible her father could’ve leaned against this exact same counter with its cracked plastic overlay.

  Underneath the plastic was a faded calendar and a brochure that said CITYSIDE GARBAGE SERVICES – Waste Management at its finest! Even though the counter was coated in something that looked like caked on dirt, she ran a finger over it, imagining him standing in that very spot over two decades ago.

  The woman came into view again, holding a yellowing index card. She tilted her nose up to peer down through her bifocals. “Yes, here it is. Hatfield, employed with us twenty odd years ago. He quit work suddenly and left no forwarding address. From what I seem to remember, it was pretty abrupt. Like he just didn’t show up one day and we had to scramble around to find a replacement. That’s not unusual, but I remember it because so many of the girls in the office were heartbroken.”

  Great. My father was a massive player with no work ethic.

  “And you don’t know where he might have gone?”

  The woman looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Now that I come to think of it, he was in thick with the former owners. Very thick.” />
  “Former owners? Who were they?”

  “Yeah. Joey Gallo. They owned the place, but like the current ownership, were pretty hands-off. Hung out on the golf course, probably, and managed from afar, so I never saw ‘em. Supposedly Gallo got sent to jail, and so the family decided to sell.” She looked both ways and whispered, “He and his boys were into some illegal things, I think. Owned a lot of this city but acquired it in kind of fishy ways.”

  Kylie’s eyes widened. Did that have anything to do with her father’s weird disappearance? “Do you think this Hatfield was into illegal things too?”

  She hitched a shoulder. “Who knows? Wouldn’t put it past a smooth-talker like him.”

  Kylie nodded, wondering if that was why he’d disappeared without a trace. It felt like she was chipping away at an answer, but instead of a picture of her father becoming clearer, it was only opening up more questions that Kylie was dying to answer.

  Kylie stood on her tiptoes and leaned over the counter to try to see if there was anything else on the card, but the woman hugged it close to her chest. “Wait. What you want with him?” The old lady’s eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

  Kylie gritted her teeth and picked one of the excuses she’d thought of on the plane. “Just trying to track him down. I’m from Publishers Clearing House, and he may be our next big winner.” Kylie told the lie with a straight face.

  Before Kylie’s eyes, the lady grew excited, her pinched face brightening in a way Kylie wouldn’t have believed was possible. “Really? I enter those all the time. My friends say they don’t think people win, but I always believe. Do you have one of those big checks for him?”

  She nodded as the woman dropped the card on the table between them. Kylie inspected it for more information. Other than his sparse work history and old address above the Able Body Hardware Store where her mother said they lived when they were first married, there wasn’t much else.

  “Yeah. In my car,” she said absently, pulling out her notebook and scribbling down the name, Bill Hatfield. “Do you happen to remember any rumors about where he liked to go, things like that?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, girlie. I’m a dead end.”

  Right. “Well, thank you.” Kylie forced a smile before turning to leave and decided to head down to Able Body Hardware. Climbing down the steps of the old building, she entered the name of the store into the GPS on her phone and found it wasn’t more than a block away.

  She walked to the end of the block, where the barbed-wire fencing became a bunch of burned-out row homes. Then she passed a sinister-looking bar called The Happy Owl—the people outside looked anything but happy and glared at her like she was an unwanted guest.

  Across the street, she saw it. The Able Body Hardware Store. The glass windows were soaped up, and a sign had been propped up in the door: AVAILABLE. It looked as though the place had been closed for a long time.

  Kylie’s eyes trailed upward to the second floor, where her parents had once happily lived. Her mother had called the place a dump even back then—and Kylie had to admit, it hadn’t improved. The two tiny visible windows had been boarded up, and the staircase leading to the door on the second-floor landing was nothing but a pile of splintered wood. Weeds grew like a jungle in the vacant lot next door, tangling through oil drums and discarded tires.

  Kylie knew she would find no answers there. Maybe if she called the number on the sign, but that would likely just get her to a realty company. She doubted they’d have any details about who’d rented the place before, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t give them to a stranger over the phone.

  She tapped on her chin, wondering where else she could turn, when she noticed the curtains in the apartment across the street open and close. Great. The last thing she needed was to get shot for loitering.

  She meandered down the street when it occurred to her that she had no idea where she was. She looked around, realizing that the neighborhood had gone from ghetto to something that looked more like a war zone. Hugging her purse tight to her side, she looked up and tried to reorient herself so that she could get back to the Piedmark.

  Her neck prickled. Without Tomas and Jose, she was lost.

  By the time she walked another few blocks, her feet had started to ache. She really was stupid to come all this way without solid leads to go on. Greg would’ve told her this was a waste of time and money, since he never allowed for travel expenses unless there was a solid lead. And what had she had? A name. A city. A company. From twenty-five years ago. It wasn’t a lead. Wasn’t even half a lead. It was…nothing.

  No. Not exactly nothing. Her father, she was sure, had worked here. Had left here. But where had he gone?

  As she was about to sit down on a curb and pull up Google Maps, she looked up, and all the air in her lungs went out in a whoosh.

  Across the street, there was a building lot surrounded in chain-link fence. A sign attached to the fence said D & H Construction—Builders of Manhattan’s Most Distinctive Properties! Revitalizing Downtown Brooklyn!

  She almost turned away before reading the rest, but then the words hit her. Owners: Dennis DeRoss and William Hatfield.

  She stared, mouth open, then stood up straight and started to walk toward it as a truck rumbled by, blaring its horn at her.

  Holy shit, she thought. D & H Construction. DeRoss and Hatfield.

  Excited now, Kylie wrote down the phone number and address underneath the logo and went to hail a cab. After a few false starts, she finally managed to get one to pull over. She climbed inside and gave the driver the address.

  “Sure thing, girl,” the dreadlocked man said in a thick Jamaican accent that immediately made her smile. “Anything to save you from dat hellhole. Why you off in a neighborhood like dat?”

  She was happy this driver seemed more pleasant than the other one. “I got lost.”

  “Ya tellin’ me. Ya get your butt to Manhattan, girl, where ya belong.”

  “I’m actually from North Carolina.”

  He laughed, the sound strangely lyrical. “Aw, Dorothy, ya ain’t in Kansas no more. You gotta watch where ya step!”

  She thanked him, and as he took off, she punched in the phone number for the company, not sure what she was going to say. Was her father really William Hatfield? Was this really her father’s company?

  A receptionist answered. “D & H Construction, how may I direct your call?”

  “Yes. Hello,” Kylie said, thinking quickly. “I had an appointment today with Mr. Hatfield regarding a project I’m working on, but I had my purse stolen with my datebook and can’t seem to find the time. Can you help me?”

  “Of course. Let me pull up his schedule. Are you Willis at one? Or Brown at three?”

  Kylie checked her phone. It was just after twelve. She wanted to get in with him as soon as possible. She thought about lying and saying she was Willis, but if she showed up at the same time as the real Willis, things could get awkward.

  “Oh, dear,” Kylie said. “I’m neither. I was certain that it was today. I’m already traveling in from out of state.”

  “That’s all right,” the receptionist said professionally. “I can book you in for two. What is your name?”

  “Ky—” she blurted before remembering that she should be using an alias. “Kyleen…Ravenclaw.” Where the hell had that come from? Harry Potter? She hadn’t read that since sixth grade.

  “And what is this in reference to?”

  Yes, that was the question. She knew whether or not he’s my dad probably wouldn’t fly, nor would anything regarding wizarding. “I have a large project that I need his help on. My brownstone is—”

  “You understand that D & H Construction only handles commercial construction?” the woman said, still kindly, but Kylie could tell she was losing patience. “Most of our projects are billion-dollar undertakings.”

  No, she hadn’t known that at all because she’d come up with this idea on the fly instead of doing her research first, like an
experienced private investigator would do. She could see Greg wagging his thick finger at her now.

  “Yes. As I was saying, I was planning to knock down my old brownstone and put up a…shopping mall.” Kylie immediately felt dumb. Not because of the half-assed excuse, but because her voice had suddenly taken on a snooty English accent. The cab driver looked at her through the rearview mirror and shook his head, confirming she probably sounded dumb.

  “All right. I’ll put you in for two,” the woman on the other end said.

  “See that you do,” Kylie said primly, rolling her eyes at her own ridiculousness. “I shall look forward to it.”

  She cringed. She needed to hang up before Kyleen Ravenclaw punctuated this whole act with a Cheerio! Ending the call, she looked outside. They’d cruised into downtown Manhattan’s Financial District, where many people were dressed in suits and ties. She looked down at herself. She was wearing her comfy jeans and blouse.

  Oh, this simply will not do, Lady Ravenclaw.

  She leaned forward and addressed the driver. “Can we stop at a store?”

  He shot her a curious look. “What kind of store, baby?”

  “For like, clothes?”

  He laughed. “Baby, ya be goin’ to Midtown Manhattan. Ya be havin’ your choice of clothing stores. Ya see a place, shout it out, and I’ll get ya there.”

  She wanted to beg him to just take her by the hand and lead the way. She had no idea what she was doing. Her favorite clothing store was Target, and she’d never spent more than fifty dollars on any one piece of clothes in her life.

  Then she saw it. Nirvana.

  “There…” She pointed excitedly. “Take me there.”

  Chuckling, he let her out in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, then pointed down the street to the sign for D & H Construction.

  “Good luck, Kyleen Ravenclaw from North Carolina,” he said to her with a wiggle of his eyebrows as she handed over her cash. “Something tells me ya gonna need it.”

  She looked up, up, up at the imposing tower. The building was massive and foreboding with its all-black windows and shiny steel. Whoever William Hatfield was, he was clearly successful and powerful. And handling only billion-dollar projects? If she was going to meet with him, she’d need to dress the part. If only she knew how to dress as hoity-toity as that accent she’d faked would imply.