Nobody called him Theo, out here. He’d left that behind, when he came west. Teddy didn’t feel reassured. There was way too much going on, and he was in control of none of it.
“These folks stopped to ask me . . . directions.”
“Huh.” The newcomer came closer and the first man stepped away, not giving ground but reassessing the field. “Not much out here to see. You might want to get back into your car and head for the highway. We’re not much for tourists around here.”
There was something going on between the three, and Tonica didn’t know what it was, but he felt like a T-bone caught between three hungry dogs.
“Thanks for your help,” the man said, and just like that, it was over. The two walked back to their car, got in, and drove away.
“Thanks for your help,” Tonica said, not sure if he had just gone from bad to worse. “You are . . . ?”
“A friend. One who happened to catch up with you just in time, it looks like.”
Yeah, and where were you when a crazy woman actually threatened us with a gun? Teddy thought, but only asked, “Do you make a habit of helping out strangers in the street?”
“We’re not quite strangers; we both work for the same person,” the guy said. “That person asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t run into any trouble.”
“Or poke into anything we weren’t supposed to?” Teddy asked, remembering what Gin had said about her clients not wanting advice or extracurricular poking into their business.
“You seem to be a smart man, Theo. I’m sure you can get the job done without further incident.”
“Yeah.” So far this morning he’d been threatened by two different groups, and he hadn’t even had his coffee yet. “You got a name?”
Caught off guard, the man answered, “Sam.”
“All right, Sam, did you have anything to do with the break-in yesterday?”
“The what?”
Sam’s surprise and instant attention were telling. He was either a fantastic actor or honestly surprised. Based on how quickly he’d given his name, Teddy was betting on surprise. This guy wasn’t a goon. That meant he probably was there to keep an eye on Teddy—and Ginny—rather than cause trouble.
Somehow, that didn’t make Teddy feel better.
“You might want to watch those guys, not me,” he suggested, jerking his chin to where the dark sedan had been parked. “They might be more of a threat to your boss than we are.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Sam said.
By the time Teddy got back to the apartment—his run aborted after that encounter, even if the adrenaline hadn’t already started to fade—Ginny had already used the shower, and was dressed in her clothes from the day before and sitting at his table, sipping coffee while the dog slurped up kibble from one of his better dishes.
“When you got that threatening text—y’know, the one that you didn’t think it important to mention right away—”
“Yeah?” She looked up at him, and he could practically see the gears shift in her head. Ginny Mallard could single-handedly kill every “dumb blonde” joke on the West Coast. “What happened? You didn’t take your phone with you—” Her eyes widened, and she scanned down his form, looking for some sign of injury or scuffle. “Did someone jump you?”
“Jump? No, nobody jumped. I just got approached by two persons who found me a person of particular interest—one they were maybe interested in beating the pulp out of—and then had my bacon possibly saved by a watchdog hired by, I’m assuming, none other than Wally himself.”
“What?” Ginny’s voice rose high enough to make Georgie look up, wondering what was going on. “Start at the beginning, Tonica, and leave nothing out.”
He told her what happened, ending with the third man jogging away, like they’d just stopped to talk about the weather.
“And then I turned around and came back, like a good little pony.” He was still shaking, not from exhaustion or adrenaline, but anger. Anger and, he admitted, a little bit of fear. It might not be macho to admit it, but he’d been scared.
“DubJay hired someone to follow us?” Ginny seemed more outraged by that than anything else he’d said.
“And I, for one, am sorta glad he did, whatever his reasons. Gin, focus. If Sam-I-am was telling the truth, and he—and DubJay—had nothing to do with the break-ins, odds are pretty damn good those two did.
“You were right, yesterday. Someone else wants to put hands on Joe, or the papers he took. Someone not DubJay. And someone able to send two not-quite goons out after me. Us.”
“The government, maybe? Did your contact—”
“If they were the government, they’d have flashed badges, right?”
“Mafia?” Her voice actually squeaked.
“How the hell should I know? They weren’t carrying cannoli.” That had been his first guess, too, but . . . “I’m not sure the Mafia would send along a female enforcer.”
“A woman? Really?” Ginny perked up a little. “All right, that’s horrible, but awesome.”
“Focus, Mallard,” he said. “A guy who did all the talking, and a woman with him. They both looked like bulked-up suits, not straight muscle. Same with Sam-I-am. And all three of them looked like they were carrying.”
Ginny was thinking hard; he could practically smell the burning gray cells. “Competition, then. Business, not crime, although I’m not sure where the difference is, some days. Someone looking to get there first and shut down Jacobs . . . is corporate real estate that big a deal? I figured, when he was willing to pay so much for this, that they had a lot of money riding on this particular deal, okay, but overall, are we talking enough money to interest someone enough to use violence? I mean, the company makes a lot of money, yeah, and I could see someone trying to maybe buy them out—or them trying to buy someone else out—but it’s not like they’re billion-dollar companies . . . although they did have a particularly good year, well, past couple of years, even in this economy . . .”
He didn’t want to know how she knew that about a private firm. “Gin, listen to me. This isn’t some academic exercise. They were not there to call me names. You ever hear the saying, The smaller the stakes, the fiercer the fight? PTA politics are nastier than the UN.”
“You’ve never been to a PTA meeting in your entire life.”
“My mom has,” he retorted. “But my point is, if you have half, or maybe only a third of the pie, and you get a sniff of someone maybe doing something that could lose them their third . . .”
“You want to make sure it happens—and that you’re the one who benefits.” He could practically see the pieces clicking for her. “They don’t want Joe, they want the papers he saw. Or whatever information was in them.”
“And they think we have them, or know where they are. And they’re okay with doing some damage to get that information from us.”
“But they don’t know where Joe is?”
“If they did, they wouldn’t be bothering with us. And it sounds like my shadow just caught up with us, so odds are nobody knows.” He hoped. “If we’re lucky, they’ll believe us, and just keep watching, hoping we’re dumb enough to lead them there.
“Last night, you said Zara said everything was fine—do you believe her?”
Ginny leaned back in her chair, thinking. He waited. She had a mind like a filing cabinet, he knew that from the trivia games, and details were her trade, the way drinks were his.
“Yes. She was upset, but not scared. Like they’d been having an argument over him-being-stupid kind of upset.” She looked up and scowled. “Oh don’t give me that look. I may not be the people-schmoozer you are, but I’m not totally Asperger’s, either.”
“Nice with the offensive stereotype, there.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Mafia with Cannoli?”
“Fine, the PC police can come get us later. She was being straight with you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I have no idea what other crap she’s pulling, or why she just
had to go see him, but there wasn’t anyone else in the room with them, pressuring her, I’m sure of that.”
He waited.
“Pretty sure. No, I’m sure. She’s a tough cookie. If someone was pressuring her, or threatening him, she’d be mad, not sad.”
“Yeah, that matches what I thought, too.”
They stared at each other, the weight of everything pressing on them. The break-ins, now this . . .
“I thought Joe was being melodramatic when he asked if we were there to kill him,” Teddy admitted.
“He was.” But Ginny didn’t sound as certain as he would have liked.
Georgie chose that moment to let out an impressive belch.
“Oh, nice dog you have there, Mallard,” he said in disgust, grateful for the distraction.
“She didn’t pee in your car, Tonica.”
“Point.” He really wanted to run with the banter, pretend there was nothing else they had to deal with, but they didn’t have time.
“I think we need to talk to DubJay and get some answers out of him. About our shadow, and what he’s actually trying to hide.”
“You mean, without getting fired, or giving him any answers in return?”
“Yeah.”
She stared at him, and then nodded. “I’m not going to call him at oh-hell-early on a Sunday morning, though. Let’s go get breakfast, because I know you don’t have anything other than coffee and stale eggs here.”
“Hey,” he said, offended, and then paused. “How do you know if eggs are stale?”
“Buy me breakfast, and I’ll tell you. Then you can help me clean up my place. And then . . . then we’ll deal with DubJay.”
12
They’d eaten in a crowded, noisy diner where the food was only okay, but anyone trying to sneak up on them would have to deal with waitresses who looked like they could take on a squad of terrorists without spilling the coffee. Then they’d driven to her neighborhood, both of them self-consciously checking the rearview mirror for any sign that they were being followed.
Which was stupid, because clearly, the bad guys already knew where she lived.
What was in her mind, though, as they got off on her floor, was that it felt odd, bringing Tonica up to her apartment. Never mind that she’d just spent the night at his place, however platonically, this was her home. It was filled with . . . her.
She unlocked the door, opened it, and winced. “It actually looks worse than I remember.”
“You were in shock, the first time around.” Tonica looked over her shoulder, the five inches he had on her just enough to see in. “Ow.”
Ginny would have sworn that she wasn’t the type to go into shock, but she thought about the daze she’d been in, walking down to Mary’s, and admitted, if only to herself, that he might have a point.
“It’s been a hell of a couple of days,” she said.
“Nicely understated, Mallard.”
Georgie, let off her leash, immediately pushed past the humans standing just inside the doorway, and went first to investigate her food dish. Finding it empty, she took a few halfhearted laps of water, as though reestablishing ownership of that bowl, and then went over to her bed, where she curled up and, with her wrinkled muzzle resting on her paws, watched the humans as though curious to see what they’d do now.
The apartment was covered with papers. She hadn’t thought—doing so much of her work on the computer—that she had that much paper. Apparently, she did. The sofa cushions had been sliced open and some of the padding pulled out, then dumped on the floor as well. All the cabinets were open, and there was a layer of gray dust everywhere the cops had dusted for fingerprints.
“All right.” She sniffed a little, her nose feeling like it was runny even though her sinuses were clear. “I’m going to work on the papers—I can tell what’s what and where they’re supposed to go. If you could . . .” she waved a hand sort of vaguely at the rest of the apartment.
“Dust and mop?” He took the direction easily, and she remembered how clean, if spartan, his apartment had been. Whatever else she could say about Tonica, he didn’t shirk from work. Which made sense, she supposed: the bar area was always spotless, too.
He was looking around him now with an appraising but nonjudgmental eye. “No problem. You keep your supplies under the sink?”
“No, the closet, over there,” and she waved her hand again, this time with more specifics. “I think you might—”
“I got this, Mallard,” he said. “Go figure out the paperwork.”
If she let herself think, she’d think about crazy women with guns and goons out to break their legs, or whatever goons did to make people talk. So instead, Ginny tightened her focus to “clean up the mess,” and got to work. The easiest thing to do seemed to be to gather all the papers together and then sort them out, but she quickly discovered that most of the papers were garbage—they had gone through her recycling bin, too.
“I swear, I’m going to start taking the bin out every couple of days, and not wait for collection,” she muttered, adding another handful to the “toss” pile. “What, they thought I was going to toss something that important into the recycling?”
“It’s important to them—that doesn’t mean it was important to you,” Tonica said. He was working on the counters, wiping away the fingerprint dust with careful deliberation. “How many times have you scribbled down something that was vitally important at the time, and then tossed the paper after you didn’t need it anymore?”
“I make notes on my phone.”
He sighed, almost a laugh. “Of course you do.”
“Or on my computer. But it hadn’t even been turned on—there was no reason they’d shut down again, not after leaving the place like this, it’s not as though they were trying to hide anything, and they didn’t take the hard drive, or anything. Why?”
“No time? Easier to toss the place than sit and try to hack through firewalls? Or . . . not everyone’s gone digital. Maybe . . .”
“What?”
He left the cleanser and sponge on the counter and walked over to her office door. Curious, she followed him.
“Traditional. Big desk, filing cabinets, that huge bin for recycling . . .” He was ticking off the details of her office as though to himself, turning around in place. Considering her earlier snooping, she really couldn’t protest. “I bet they took one look at this office and sussed you out as an old-fashioned girl, one who wrote down everything on paper and then transferred it to your computer after.”
“That makes twice the work,” she said, instinctively offended.
“Not everyone thinks as efficiently as you, Ginny.”
She was pretty sure he was mocking her, but she let it go.
“Are you sure they didn’t even turn on the computer?”
“No. I’m not certain . . . I suppose I’d have to check with the cops and see if any fingerprints turned up.” It had only been twenty-four hours—impossible to believe, but true. Even if she’d been high priority, there was no way they’d have anything to release, and she was pretty sure that a break-in where nothing was stolen was about as low a priority as things got. She couldn’t even blame them for that, as much as it burned. “None of my accounts looked hacked, but I called my banks to let them know, anyway. I should change my passwords now.” She hadn’t wanted to do that on her phone, on potentially unsecured networks.
“If you touch that keyboard now, your fingers are going to get filthy.” It was covered in the same dust as everything else; either they’d been serious about trying to find fingerprints, or they’d been training a rookie on her crime scene.
“It will wash off.” Now that she was back in her familiar space, the numbness washed away, the more usual and familiar sense of urgency returning. She had to be doing something, something more proactive than sorting papers that were mostly meaningless, anyway, and waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows at them.
He’d been right, she had been in shock. But no more
.
She sat down in the chair and touched the ON key, relieved when the display hummed to life. She hadn’t even known she was worried—had they done something to her computer?—until it wasn’t an issue anymore.
As though drawn by the ON key, Georgie abandoned her bed and padded into the office, taking her usual place under the desk with a contented whuffle. Teddy waited a minute, then, realizing he was now being ignored, went back into the main room, she presumed, to keep working.
There really wasn’t anything else to do: they knew where Joe was, so the original part of the job was over. What they were going to say to DubJay, and how she was going to avoid actually telling him anything, or letting him know that they knew—or thought they knew—what was really going on . . . that was another question, and one Ginny was avoiding for now.
She glanced at the time display. Eight thirty. She’d have to deal with DubJay sooner rather than later, but not just yet.
Running through the list of alternate passwords, she chose one and changed the relevant accounts, then stared at the screen, thoughtful. If the twosome who had approached Tonica, and whoever it was who had texted her to lay off, worked for a competitor—
“No, that doesn’t make sense. Why would they tell me to stop? They’d want me to find the papers. A third player? Oh God, please no. My head hurts enough already.”
But if the twosome at least had worked for a competitor, which seemed probable, then narrowing it down should be easy enough. Who had the market share to either threaten, or be threatened? A research problem. Ginny pursed her lips and poised her fingers over her keyboard, caught back up in her own comfort zone.
Corporate real estate? Or someone looking to get into corporate real estate? She entered in the search parameters, and hit ENTER.
“No, wait. Didn’t Joe say that Zara worked with a public community group? That had had a run-in with DubJay? What better way to discredit someone than . . . damn. Okay, concrete risks first. Find out what group she worked with, first. Then worry about hypothetical competitors.”
Collared: A Gin & Tonic Mystery Page 19