Assignment Austin

by Lucey Phillips

  We said goodbye, left the gym, and started walking toward the car. I didn’t realize I was grinning at Colin until he gave me a confused look.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Well. Just, you’re the perfect partner in crime,” I said. “We do great together.”

  “We do,” he said. “But you always leave me with the easy stuff while you’re off being James Bond or whatever.”

  “Ha. Yeah, I’m not much of a spy,” I said. “I almost got caught and I didn’t really find anything useful.”

  We climbed into the car and he turned on the engine.

  “What happened?” Colin asked.

  I sighed. “I tried to go through the offices. Harris’ was locked. Then there was this other office; the name on the door said T. Minter. I think it might be Harris’ old business partner—a possible suspect, maybe.”

  Colin nodded without looking at me. He was driving now.

  “I went into the office but it looks like they just use it for storage now. I did find this.”

  I pulled the throwaway phone out of the waistband of my pants. Colin glanced toward me, then back at the road quickly.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “An old cell phone. It’s probably just junk. Maybe a lost-and-found thing. But I decided to take it because it’s one of those pay-per-minute phones. It’s the kind of thing people use when they want to be anonymous.”

  “See if it turns on,” Colin said.

  I pressed the power button while I muttered, “You probably have to have a login or something.”

  The phone screen lit up.

  “Wow, it works!” I said.

  Colin’s smile had an air of mischief.

  “Maybe we’re onto something,” I said. I watched a spinning circle on the screen while the phone booted up.

  “I’m surprised the police didn’t find that already,” Colin said.

  “They might have just asked the wife for his phone and computer. Maybe they didn’t search the whole gym,” I said. “Aw… no.”

  I watched the battery signal flash and the phone go dark.

  “What?” Colin asked.

  “Battery’s dead.”

  “So that means someone was using it, but maybe not during the past few days,” Colin said.

  I looked at him with wide eyes, then back at the phone. “It looks like it has a micro-USB port.”

  “I have a cord for that back at the hotel,” he said. “I’ve got a couple flashes that charge that way.”

  “Perfect,” I said. Then, for the first time since we’d gotten in the car, I looked around at my surroundings. I didn’t recognize anything.

  “We didn’t come this way?”

  Colin flicked the turn signal. He slowed, then pulled into a grocery store parking lot.

  “I was thinking about the little kitchen in your cottage,” he said. “Thought we could pick up a few things and I’ll make us lunch.”

  “Okay,” I said softly, smiling and turning my face away from him.

  When we walked into the store, he took a cart and started pushing it toward the produce section.

  I giggled.

  “What?”

  “This feels so—I don’t know—domestic.”

  He laughed. “I guess.” He gently bumped my arm with his elbow.

  “Think you’ll be all right?” he asked. “One home-cooked meal doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and take up knitting.”

  Was I that easy to read? “Okay. If you say so.”

  Colin picked up two Roma tomatoes. “These look good,” he said. He started to put them in a bag, then paused. “Wait. You always pick the tomatoes off of your burgers, don’t you?”

  He started to put them back.

  My cheeks burned a little. When had he noticed that?

  “I like those tomatoes. It’s just the fast food ones that I stay away from. Sometimes they’re kind of slimy.”

  He nodded and set them in the cart.

  “What are we having?” I asked.

  “What do you think of something simple—salad and rosemary chicken?” he asked.

  “Sounds good.” I smiled at him while my stomach started to twist.

  I liked being with Colin. I definitely liked kissing him. But I wondered if we were crossing some sort of threshold. I wondered if I really wanted to go where this was leading.

  | Eight

  By the time Colin pulled our vehicle into the parking lot of the Bluestem Inn, my stomach had gone from knotted to full-on burning. We had three bags of groceries that needed to go into the fridge, and I knew Colin was much too considerate to hand me the bags and say, “See ya.”

  No, he would insist on carrying them inside and helping me put the groceries away. Then we would be in my cottage—alone, with no plans for the rest of the afternoon. Well, no work plans.

  I stared blankly out the window, wondering if I was just nervous because this stuff with Colin was all new to me, or if my uneasiness had more meaning. Was there a part of me that thought this could be a mistake?

  My self-indulgent introspection was interrupted when I saw a car in the inn’s parking lot that hadn’t been there before—and definitely didn’t belong there. It was a navy blue, unmarked Crown Victoria. It was parked diagonally, taking up three spaces.

  Colin saw it too. He uttered a soft “huh?” just as Rocky Kruger stepped out from the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  Kruger scowled in our direction.

  I wrinkled my nose when I looked at his odd, dyed-brown bowl-cut hairdo.

  “Great,” I said. I unbuckled my seat belt.

  “What do you think he wants?” Colin asked.

  “No clue.”

  Rocky didn’t wait for me to climb all the way out of the car before he greeted me with his tense, shrill voice.

  “Miss Lovejoy. You haven’t returned any of my calls,” he said.

  I hadn’t gotten any voice mails from him.

  “What?”

  “I left several messages for you at your business.”

  “Maybe you had the wrong number. ANA is kind of a big place.” I knew I sounded condescending, but I didn’t care—he deserved it.

  Rocky made a disgusted-sounding grunt and pulled a notepad from his jacket. Then he cursed under his breath while he patted his pockets, finally removing a pen from his breast pocket.

  He pointed the pen at me and squinted one eye. “You’re a witness,” he sneered.

  “A witness to finding the body—not to the murder. Anyway, you knew that the first time we spoke,” I said. “Remember? When you kicked me out of the rec center?”

  “I need the names of all of those roller skater girls who were practicing before they found the body.”

  I snorted a laugh and glanced at Colin. He was standing on the other side of the car, glaring at Rocky across the hood.

  “Isn’t that, you know, your job?” I asked.

  “Are you going to cooperate? Or am I going to have to take you in for obstruction?”

  His threat didn’t scare me. ANA’s attorneys would crush him if he tried anything like that.

  “Look, I don’t know the names of all the women on the team,” I said. “Besides, you were there. Your uniforms were there. You can’t possibly need a roster from me. What are you really after?”

  Rocky narrowed his eyes again, but I could tell he was getting flustered. I knew I wasn’t an important witness, but I did have some investigative skills. Maybe Rocky was so hopelessly stuck that he was looking to me for leads. It wouldn’t be the first time law enforcement lagged behind the press in cracking a case open.

  “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t know who killed Harris Myer. I’m a travel reporter anyway,” I said.

  The inn’s front door opened. Kenneth, the proprietor, started walking toward us.

  I gave him a small wave and a smile. Rocky turned around to see who I was waving to.

  By then, Kenneth’s cheeks were bright red and sweat was beaded on hi
s high forehead as he marched toward us, wearing a dress shirt, a gray sweater vest, and gray pants that were probably made of wool.

  “Hello. I’m Kenneth Barkley,” he said to Rocky, reaching out to shake his hand. “I own the Bluestem. Is there something I can do to help you?”

  Kenneth was smart enough to know that a police officer hanging out in the parking lot—even in an unmarked car—would not be good for business.

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Rocky told Kenneth.

  Now Kenneth was wringing his hands. “Well, this is my commercial property and you seem to be attracting some attention. At least one of my guests has been watching you from her room. She called the front desk to find out what’s going on.”

  Rocky responded with an annoyed stare.

  Kenneth continued, “So I am going to have to ask you to take this conversation inside, sir. You may use my conference room.”

  “I’m gonna have to ask you to mind your own business,” Rocky said as he returned his attention to me.

  But Kenneth cleared his throat. “Officer Rosita Lopez is our community watch liaison, and I’ll have you know she will be hearing about this.”

  “Yeah. Good for you,” Rocky said.

  Kenneth’s face was becoming a darker shade of red.

  “I’m sorry, Kenneth. The detective here was a, um, unexpected visitor,” I said. “We’re wrapping things up now.”

  Then I turned back to Rocky. “Like I said. I don’t know anything you don’t know.”

  Colin stepped toward us. “So, we’re done here?”

  “We’re done when I say we’re done,” Rocky said.

  He stepped so close to Colin that his nose almost met the top of Colin’s forehead. Colin didn’t back down.

  Instead, he raised a palm and held it in front of Rocky’s chest. From my angle, I couldn’t see if Colin was pressing his hand against Rocky’s chest or just holding it there, blocking him from coming any closer.

  Rocky glared down at Colin’s hand, his nostrils flaring as he breathed.

  “Easy, son,” he said, his voice greasy and sneering again. “Do you know what happens to people who assault police officers in Texas?”

  “Do you know what happens to police officers who abuse their power in front of a hotel full of witnesses watching out their windows?” Colin asked.

  Rocky stepped back. He pointed his notebook at me. His tiny dark eyes had a fiery quality.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said.

  I didn’t answer him. Instead, I focused on keeping my expression blank—on making sure he didn’t see that his intensity was finally starting to get me rattled.

  Rocky walked to his car, climbed in, and drove out of the parking lot. The big engine revved loudly as he pulled away.

  I apologized to Kenneth again and explained that I’d been writing about the Capital City Wreckers when Rocky and I crossed paths.

  “I don’t know how I ended up getting on his bad side so fast,” I said.

  “Probably because that’s the only side he has,” Colin said flatly.

  “He certainly has a chip on his shoulder,” Kenneth said. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and patted his forehead. “I am going to talk to Rosita about this. There was no reason for that officer to be so discourteous.”

  “I’ll do what I can to make sure he doesn’t come back here,” I said.

  Felix High had seemed like a reasonable person so far. I could give him a call. Maybe I would even offer to meet Rocky and Felix at the station.

  Kenneth walked back inside while Colin and I started carrying the grocery bags toward my cottage.

  “Do you think Rocky’s on the right track, focusing on the Wreckers?” Colin asked me.

  “I think he’s hopelessly lost.”

  “Probably. But if they really are looking at Neil, it makes sense that they’d come to you for some information,” he said. “The team could close ranks—but you’re more of an outsider.”

  “I am. But he has to know that I’m not going to give up information about my sources—good reporters never do that.”

  My nervousness about Colin visiting my room was resurfacing. Now I was wondering if I’d remembered to pick up after myself. Had I left dirty laundry lying around? I really didn’t need Colin seeing underwear or bras on the bathroom floor.

  I unlocked the door and stepped inside, quickly looking around for anything embarrassing before I moved out of the way to give Colin room to walk through the door.

  I exhaled, relieved, when I realized housekeeping had visited the cottage. The bed had been made. The floor, table, and countertops were all shiny and clean.

  Colin began unpacking the bags. He held up a box of crackers.

  “Do you want me to put these in the cupboard or just leave them out?”

  “Uh, just out, I guess.”

  I was starving and ready to tear into the box. Instead, I attempted to help Colin. But when I opened the fridge door it nearly swung into his back.

  “Here.” He placed an arm around my shoulders and gently guided me toward the couch. “Come over here. This kitchen is too small for two people. You relax and I’ll make lunch.”

  Grateful, I sat down and opened my laptop.

  I glanced up at Colin. He smiled while he rummaged through a drawer of utensils.

  “What’s so amusing?”

  He chuckled. “You were right—this is really, uh, domestic.”

  I nodded, then looked down at my computer screen, biting my lip to hide a smile.

  Without taking my gaze away from the screen, I asked Colin, “How do you feel about stuff that’s domestic?”

  “I like it.” He sounded like he was smiling.

  I bit my lip again, and focused on my computer screen. I had a lot of emails to catch up on. The room went quiet except for the sound of Colin chopping a red pepper.

  After a few minutes, my computer chimed and a picture of Quinn popped up in a new window. She wanted to video chat. I glanced at Colin, and then back to my computer. I desperately wanted to talk to my friend, but tact wasn’t her strong suit. It was almost guaranteed that she would say something embarrassing in front of Colin.

  I would have to give her a warning.

  I opened the window, then instantly muted her audio.

  “Hey, Quinn. Colin’s here,” I said, giving her a glare that I hoped would warn her to be on her best behavior. I turned her audio back on.

  “Oh!” She cleared her throat and giggled. “Hi, Jae. Hi, Colin.”

  She said the second phrase loudly, in a sing-song tone. She widened her eyes at me, making a dramatic, scandalized expression.

  “Hi, Quinn,” Colin said, smirking to himself.

  I glanced sideways toward Colin, then back at my computer screen, where Quinn was covering her mouth with her hand.

  “So, did you find anything?” I asked her.

  “I got some tax records, utility bills, looked for police records but really didn’t find anything.” Quinn sounded defeated. “I wanted to check bank records. Sometimes ATM withdrawals tell a good story, but his bank is like Fort Knox. I couldn’t get in.”

  “Hmm.” I leaned back against the couch and folded my arms across my chest. “No patterns? Nothing looked funny?”

  “Not really,” she said. “From what I can tell, his life was pretty boring. I did get into one of the wife’s credit card records. She had a lot of online subscriptions that I’m still sorting out. So far it’s just lame stuff like diet club memberships. Did you find anything good?”

  “Not really—just that his business partner’s name was T. Minter,” I said. “Oh, and this was in a drawer at the gym.”

  I held up the throwaway phone.

  Quinn squinted into the camera. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the office that used to belong to Minter—at SoCo Athletics.”

  “Look at you! You’re like a secret agent—I love it!”

  “She does that stuff all the time,” C
olin chimed in.

  Did he sound proud?

  Now Quinn was grinning.

  “Show me the back of the phone,” Quinn said. “What model is it?”

  I held it closer to the camera.

  “Oh! Those phones have a memory card,” she said. “Can you overnight it to me? They’re really easy to get into. I’ll be able to see a texting history, browsing history, and maybe even some location data.”

  I told her I would get it in the mail by the end of the day. Then we said goodbye.

  “Have fun,” Quinn said, mischief twinkling in her eyes before the window went dark.

  “She’s funny,” Colin said while he sliced an avocado. “I can see how you two are friends—you’re both really smart, but she’s the talker and you’re the quiet one.”

  “I’m quiet?”

  “Yeah. I mean, not painfully shy or anything. But you’re contemplative, reserved.”

  “Maybe. But compared to you I’m a loudmouth,” I said.

  He laughed and nodded. “I’ve been described as a man of few words. I think it’s a photographer thing—we prefer images over words.”

  Somehow his laughter had broken all the tension I was feeling. I closed my laptop and watched him work. He had arranged salads on plates. There were mixed greens and vegetables, nuts, and chopped roasted chicken from the grocery store’s deli. Colin set the avocado slices on top and drizzled both salads with oil and vinegar.

  I wondered what I’d been so nervous about. This wasn’t a candlelight and wine affair. It was just a salad lunch.

  Colin handed me my plate and plopped down on the couch beside me, unceremoniously. He turned on the TV and switched to the local news.

  “Is this okay?” he asked. “Would you rather sit at the table?”

  “Nope,” I said. “This is good.”

  | Nine

  I looked at the navigation app on my phone while Colin drove. We were on our way to a FedEx place to mail Quinn the phone I’d found. Then we were meeting the derby team at a community college gymnasium on the other side of town.

  The Wreckers were playing the Violent Crown tonight. Colin had wanted to get there early to photograph the teams and their friends setting up the track.