Thorns of the Past

by Gun Brooke

  “Sabrina.” Never one to care for stilted etiquette, Sabrina waved her hand impatiently.

  “I’ll be happy to help you, Sabrina. Truly. My boss would probably want me to watch them with you, but you have the right to view them alone, naturally.”

  Sabrina pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment. “Why not? I might have questions after all. It would save time.”

  “All right. I’m off at three p.m. If you have time, you can join me in one of the first-floor conference rooms. We won’t be disturbed.” Darcy turned as the elevator pinged, announcing its arrival.

  “Which one?” Sabrina placed a hand on the sensor that kept the door open.

  “Not sure which one’s free, but I’ll put a note on the door.”

  “All right. Thank you, Darcy.” After she removed her hand, the doors closed, and the last things Sabrina saw were Darcy’s gentle smile and the sparkle in her multicolored eyes.

  Chapter Three

  Darcy hurried into the office behind the front desk area. She quickly glanced at Lacey, who manned the desk, relieved to watch her carrying out her responsibilities with ease. Lacey was only nineteen, fresh out of high school. She would be working for the security company part-time while attending community college. Tall, gangly, and wearing wire-frame glasses, she looked like a geeky type of girl, but Darcy had watched her throw Derek, SecLife’s owner, to the ground with an accomplished judo move. “All okay, Lacey?” Darcy asked through the open door just to be sure.

  “Nothing much going on, Boss.” Lacey did a thumbs-up without turning around.

  “Cool.” Darcy began to pull out discs to copy the video from the security cameras in the building. She didn’t take any chances but made sure all the video was transferred to the discs and that extra copies were made for Sabrina. What did Sabrina suspect had been going on in her office? Did she know the perpetrators? Or at least know of them? Did it all have to do with her skittishness the other night? Too many coincidences for her taste. From her years as a police officer, she knew that coincidences were less common than you think.

  As she kept changing discs back and forth, Darcy’s thoughts persistently drifted back to Officer Steve Ivers. Only a rookie when Darcy had left the police force, he had apparently developed into the type of cop Darcy despised: full of himself and ready to pass judgement without knowing all the details—if any. Steve had been very unsure of himself at the academy, but also very cocky in other ways. Five years ago, he had tried to ask her out, and her kind rejection hadn’t sat well with him. He had been foolish enough to ask her in front of his peers, and losing face for being turned down was never fun.

  The surveillance equipment spat out the last discs and broke Darcy out of her reverie, for which she was grateful. She hated dwelling on Steve Ivers or any of her former colleagues.

  After placing the discs in two large manila envelopes, she tagged them carefully. She then leaned back in her chair and thought of how Sabrina had looked when she caught up with Darcy by the elevator. Today she’d been dressed in yet another jet-black skirt suit, but with a cobalt-blue wrap-around blouse. Sabrina didn’t usually show so much of her décolleté, but the way the blouse was cut, it displayed a great deal of her flawless fair skin. Then there was that gloriously rich, blond hair. She kept it in an austere French twist, which reminded Darcy of a young Tippi Hedren. Hitchcock movies were one of Darcy’s weaknesses, and having watched all of them a gazillion times, she knew every single one of the suspense master’s favorite leading ladies. Tippi Hedren and Ingrid Bergman were two she liked best. If Sabrina had put on the old type of skirt suits that women wore in the fifties and sixties, she could have been mistaken for either of the blond goddesses.

  “The police are here, Darcy,” Lacey said after poking her head in. “They’re asking about some discs.”

  “Here. Give them this.” Darcy handed over the envelope marked Detective Lomax. She wasn’t too keen on going toe-to-toe with the self-righteous Steve Ivers.

  “Sure thing, Boss.” Lacey grinned and took the envelope. “This about the burglary?”

  Darcy nodded and put new discs into the machine before her. As a safety measure, the technology also transferred copies of every clip to the company’s servers, which were located at their headquarters. There, they were kept for a month before being automatically erased. Even if Darcy had given the police a copy and made one for Sabrina, she also followed company policy when law enforcement was involved and flagged the video clips in question as Do Not Erase.

  Lacey returned and plopped down on the other desk chair next to Darcy. “Well, that was pleasant. Not.”

  “What do you mean?” Darcy frowned and turned to her trainee.

  “The cop. The young, blond guy. Why do some men have to be such freaking dicks?” Lacey pulled a leg up and fiddled with her shoelace.

  Darcy groaned. “Ivers? What did he do now?”

  “You know him? I hope he’s not a close friend of yours because he’s seriously creepy.” Lacey tied her shoelace tightly with angry movements. “Ow. Too tight.” She undid the bow on her black shoe and tied it somewhat looser. “That guy, Ivers, tried to crowd me by leaning very far in across the counter. If his superior officer hadn’t been there, I think he would have asked me out. And he kept staring at my boobs during our three-sentence conversation. It’s the second time it’s happened today. There was an even bigger creep before who looked like he had x-ray eyes, the way he practically drooled on the counter. And he was an older guy, which makes it even creepier. Yuck. So, you know this younger dude? The cop?”

  “He’s an asshole. Honestly. And yes, I know him, but there’s no love lost, trust me.” Darcy grimaced. “He’s not my type.”

  “Mine either. He probably thinks he’s irresistible to all women. I mean, he’s good-looking if you go for the blond, preppy type.”

  “And you don’t, you mean?” Darcy had to smile. She liked Lacey more and more as the young woman turned out to have a mind of her own and the ability to use her head—and judgment.

  “Nah. I’m more into the brooding, kinda-geeky type. I have my eyes set on my older brother’s roommate at Yale.”

  “Your brother goes to Yale? That’s impressive.”

  “Yup. Impressive and with some pressure added. My grades are better than his were in high school. My family wants me to go for one of the Ivy League schools. I’m not so sure, hence the light courses at URI.”

  “University of Rhode Island isn’t considered light by any stretch of the imagination,” Darcy said. “It’s a renowned school.”

  “Yeah, but still…it’s not Yale or Harvard. To my family—it’s light. Not to mention my gig here, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. They think I’m ‘playing cop’ or something.” Lacey huffed.

  “Know the feeling,” Darcy muttered. “All right, we should—”

  Someone rang the bell at the desk and Lacey bounced out of her chair. “I’ll get it.” She went out but came back right away. “It’s for you. Sabrina Hawk?”

  “Oh, right. She’s early. Man the desk again, okay? My colleague will arrive at three p.m. and then I’m off the clock.” She checked her watch. That was less than twenty minutes. “Just buzz me on the radio if you run into something you don’t know how to handle. Creepy guys of all ages included. I’ll be in conference room 1B.” Darcy gripped the envelope that had Sabrina’s name on it and tucked her personal laptop under her arm. “And, of course, if the cops or the brass want to talk to me.”

  “Gotcha, Boss.” Lacey sat down on the tall stool by the front desk, looking very professional as she greeted a new visitor.

  Darcy turned to Sabrina and winced when she noticed how exhausted the other woman looked. Her makeup and hairdo were meticulous, but no concealer in the world could cover the dark shades beneath her light-gray eyes. It was as if her colorless eyes emphasized the dark semicircles, or perhaps vice versa—the dark shade beneath Sabrina’s eyes made what color her irises retained seep out.

  �
�I apologize for being early,” Sabrina said quietly. “I just couldn’t deal with the mess upstairs. Guess that’s not very impressive.” She shook her head, smiling sadly.

  “Who needs to be impressive when they’ve been burglarized and had their space violated? Let’s have a look at the discs. Have the cops asked you to come watch them with you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe we can find out fairly quickly who’s behind this.” Darcy tried to sound encouraging, but she feared she might only sound nerve-grating at this point.

  Still Sabrina returned the smile faintly. “Perhaps.”

  Darcy guided Sabrina to the conference room, which was located down the hallway on the first floor, past the elevators. “It’s one of the smaller rooms, but I figured it’s just you and me in there, so…” She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.

  “It’s fine.” Sabrina stepped inside and merely stood there while Darcy plugged in the power cord to her laptop and booted it up. She looked at the envelope bearing her name with trepidation. “How many discs are there?”

  “Three. These are Blu-rays, and they hold much more video than a regular DVD, which you, of course, know. Sorry for lecturing.” Darcy pressed the button to open the Blu-ray player in her laptop, feeling a bit silly. Something about Sabrina being in this small room with her made her nervous, and her fingers trembled as she opened the video player. “Ready?”

  Sabrina sat down next to Darcy, her shoulder brushing against Darcy’s, making her forget to breathe for a moment. Sabrina’s scent immediately grew in strength and suggested the notes of fruits, florals, and a soft sort of musk. Darcy had always had the ability to break down scents, and she found the fragrance emanating from Sabrina very seductive.

  “Darcy?” Sabrina turned to her, frowning lightly.

  “Sorry. Here we go.” Pressing Play, Darcy sat quietly next to Sabrina, her eyes glued to the four video feeds of the corridors leading to Hawk’s Accounting. Accustomed to letting her gaze travel back and forth between the screens, Darcy could tell by Sabrina’s frustrated sigh that she wasn’t used to such activity.

  “Tons of people are milling about. Should we try to forward to after the offices closed in the building?”

  “If you want, but then you might miss something, perhaps someone scouting out the area ahead of time. I’m not saying that’s the case, but it’s not such a far stretch either.” Darcy smiled, trying to sound encouraging. “But you can take these copies, as I made them for you, and watch the rest of them at home. Just a suggestion.”

  Sabrina nodded reluctantly. “When you said that someone could have been around ‘scouting the area,’ you sounded like a cop. Or perhaps security guards speak the same language?” Sabrina’s voice was full of obvious contempt.

  “I suppose so.” Darcy wasn’t going to open the can of worms that was her old career. Nothing good would come of going into why she’d left the force. “I don’t think anything took place before dark, so we’ll fast-forward until eight p.m.”

  Sabrina nodded and gripped the seat of her chair with both hands. “Very well.”

  Darcy clicked on the symbol that fast-forwarded the video. When they were at eight p.m., she changed it to move ten times faster. They kept watching it for half an hour, which was five hours’ worth of the recording. A cleaner worked his or her way through the corridor, and Darcy reminded herself to check out this person’s personnel file later. At one p.m., the entire screen went black. “What the hell?” Darcy paused and rewound the video to the moment of the blackout. Exactly at one a.m., all the security cameras went black at once.

  “What happened?” Sabrina leaned closer, staring at the dark screen. “How can this—”

  “I have no clue. Let’s see when they came on again, because they worked fine when I arrived at work this morning.” Fast-forwarding, Darcy found the cameras came back on one hour later, at precisely two a.m. Everything looked all right from the different camera views. “One hour. Somehow, they managed to stop the cameras from working or found a way to erase everything that exact time. Sounds like professionals to me.”

  “What do you mean?” Sabrina shot Darcy a quick glance, looking paler.

  “Don’t you think they might have known just what they were after? It was only your company that was targeted, as far as we know. And what’s more—it was your office within your company they ransacked.” Darcy shook her head. “I bet when the cops examine the footage, they’ll reach the same conclusion. And when they let a forensic IT specialist go over the computer in charge of the cameras, they might find out how it was compromised.”

  “That sounds like it was planned well ahead of time. It must’ve required money as well as expertise.” Standing up, Sabrina paced the small room back and forth. She kept her gaze on the floor, as if she could find the answers in the graphic pattern of the wall-to-wall carpet.

  “You must have something they really, really want. Can you have stumbled upon something? Or any of your employees? Do any of your clients commonly try to move money to, like, the Cayman Islands or Panama?”

  “You clearly have followed this in the papers. But, no, none of my clients come to mind.” Sabrina smiled wryly. “People make mistakes with their bookkeeping—I mean, it happens. But nothing criminal and certainly nothing of the magnitude that would make any of them risk breaking and entering like this.” Sabrina placed her hands on her hips. “Honestly, I’m starting to think they may have raided the wrong company. We cater to a fairly small group of people, at least if you compare us to firms in New York and Boston. Mainly old money belonging to families here in East Quay and the surrounding towns.”

  “The police will ask you for a list of your clients.”

  “I cannot betray my clients’ confidence in me. I’ll be out of business in a heartbeat.” Sabrina frowned. “I mean, nobody was physically hurt. It was my office that was ransacked. I can simply withdraw the charges, right?” Now Sabrina looked a few moments from panicking.

  “Hey. That’s a terrible idea. Don’t withdraw any charges.”

  “But I have Al Karimi as my security consult—”

  “Karimi is great. I’ve met him when his firm and SecLife have collaborated, but listen to me. They might try again, and what if you’re in the office when they do?” Darcy knew she sounded close to begging. “It’s not safe.”

  Sabrina shook her head and raised her chin. “If they’re as savvy as they appear to be, considering they needed to hack the building’s system and everything, I don’t think they’ll risk anyone being present.”

  “Just the mere fact that these people act so professional, getting inside a heavily monitored building and managing to bypass the surveillance makes this truly a police matter. And besides, since the break-in also involved the business conglomerate who owns this building, I don’t think you can singlehandedly withdraw any charges. As soon as they got into the security system and stole from one of the tenants, i.e. you, it was a matter for law enforcement.” Slowing down her flow of words, Darcy continued in a softer tone as Sabrina looked almost shell-shocked. “I understand you must really feel vulnerable and targeted. “

  “I can live with that, but having to deal with the police on a regular basis isn’t my forte.” Sabrina stood. “Well, since we’re not going to see any so-called smoking guns, I’ll work from home.”

  “I’m sure the police will be done with your office pretty fast so you can use it again. Once the security system has been rebooted and controlled, that is. It’ll take them at least twenty-four hours. After you’re back in the building, I can talk to SecLife and have them place a security guard in your office as long as anyone is still working.”

  “If this person doesn’t hover, I don’t see why not. If SecLife won’t allow it, I’ll take it up with Karimi.”

  “Good idea.” Darcy nodded. “If you work from home, I’ll let you know when they finish cleaning up your office.”

  “All right,” Sabrina said and turned as if to leave. But she sto
pped in mid-motion and turned to Darcy, extending her hand. “Either way, you’ve been most accommodating. I’m very grateful. Thank you.”

  Darcy took Sabrina’s slender hand in hers, squeezing it gently. “Any time. Here. Let me give you my card.” She pulled her business card from her wallet. “You can call me whenever you need…help.” Darcy almost said “need me” but changed her words before she made a fool of herself.

  Sabrina took the card and glanced at it. “Private investigator? Really?”

  “Yes. That’s my day job, you could say. I work at my cousin’s firm. I’m only here about ten nights a month.” Darcy felt as if she was babbling, but having been subjected to Sabrina’s presence and enticing scent in the small conference room was getting to her. She had no idea what it was about the posh-looking, elegant woman that made it impossible for her to simply remain professional.

  Sabrina tapped the corner of the business card against her lower lip. “Who knows, Darcy. I may have use for your talents in more ways than one.”

  Darcy blinked. “Oh. Okay. As I said, any time.”

  Perhaps Sabrina only now realized how she’d phrased what she said because a pink flush erupted on her high cheekbones. “Well. I’ll be on my way. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome. By the way,” Darcy said, remembering what she was holding. “These are your copies. You can keep them if you want to watch again for some reason.” She put the discs back into the manila envelope and handed it to Sabrina.

  Clearly having had enough of Darcy and the entire matter for now, Sabrina nodded briefly as she accepted the discs and then left the room.

  Darcy ran a hand over her face, sighing deeply. Why did this stuck-up woman have to be so gorgeous? And she wasn’t only stuck up. She had something vulnerable about her that wasn’t immediate, but it was there. Perhaps the whole incident exposed it more than normal. If it hadn’t been completely unprofessional, Darcy would have liked to know more about why Sabrina had acted so strange that night when she worked late. What if her behavior was related to the break-in?