Forever Found

by Allyson Charles

  Dax singsonged Gabe’s rant as he walked away, his voice a fake growl. “‘Three damn days, and it’s been three months!’”

  “Four now!” Gabe hollered. The punk must have heard him, but all Gabe got in reply was the trudge of footsteps up his stairs. He still hadn’t taken off those damn filthy boots. “Asshole,” he muttered.

  Since he wasn’t going to Marla’s house tonight, Gabe decided to get some work done. He opened up his accounting program and pulled up his payroll. Quarterly taxes were due soon.

  His phone rang, a number he’d dialed earlier popping up on the screen. Gabe pounced on it. “Yes. Hello.”

  “Gabe Moretti?” a nasally voice asked. “This is Rita at Keno’s Autobody, returning your call.”

  “Thanks for getting back to me.” Plucking a pencil from the mug holder in the corner of the desk, he tapped the eraser against his keyboard. “Did you understand my message?”

  “That you hit a parked Toyota Camry and didn’t leave a note?” She sniffed. “Yes, I got that.”

  “There was no visible damage. It wasn’t until later that I thought I might have hurt the interior frame.” Gabe wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to defend himself. It was his own lie after all. But hitting a car and not leaving a note was a dick move. He would have torn someone a new one had they done that to him. “Look, have you worked on any Camrys before, or not? I’d like to get in touch with the owner to see if his was the car I hit.”

  “Of course, we have. The Camry is a very common car,” she said. “And if we have a customer come in complaining that someone hit him and didn’t leave a note, then I’ll be happy to give him your name and number. But there’s no way I’m going to give you a list of—”

  Gabe disconnected. Another pointless call. He didn’t think there were any other garages left.

  “You hit someone with your Chevelle?”

  Gabe jumped and cranked his neck around. Dax was on his hands and knees in the doorway, wiping the floor with a damp paper towel.

  “Jesus! You went stealth on me.”

  “Did you have any damage on Miss Elle?” Dax asked. “As my dad used to say, as long as everyone walks away, it’s not that big a deal.”

  “With an attitude like that, you’re never borrowing my Vellie.”

  Dax blinked. “Was there a chance that I was going to be able to borrow it before?”

  “No.” Gabe blew out a breath. “Besides, I didn’t hit anything.”

  “But you just said….”

  “I’m trying to find the car Marla says she saw at the warehouse with the dogs.” He still didn’t know if she knew her taillights from a hole in the ground. But she’d been awfully convincing. “I’ve been calling local garages for the past three days.”

  “And being your usual charming self, I’m sure you got lots of help from those garages.” Folding the paper towel in half, Dax stood and shook out his legs.

  Gabe narrowed his eyes. “I can be charming.”

  Dax hooted with laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one.” He swiped his knuckle under his eyes. “No, really. Do you want me to make the calls? It would be no problem.”

  “There are no more calls to make.” Gabe scrubbed his face. He was never going to find out who was behind the dog fights. He should face it now. Acknowledge his failure.

  He tossed the pencil on the desk. “Those poor animals. Only ever knowing fear and pain.” He stared at his computer screen, blinking against the burn in his eyes.

  He felt Dax’s presence a second before he laid a hand on Gabe’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “It’s not your responsibility, Gabe. This is the police’s job. Let it go.”

  He wished he could. He also wished Dax would take his hand, and his pity, somewhere else. His attempt at kindness was completely unnecessary. He shrugged him off. “The cops care more about crimes that affect humans. Crimes against animals don’t take priority. Besides, they are my responsibility.”

  “Who are?”

  Gabe remained silent and tried to focus on the payroll numbers filling his computer screen.

  “The dogs?” Dax persisted. “We all love dogs, man, but why are they your responsibility to protect?”

  “Nothing. Nevermind. Go away.”

  Dax planted his ass on the corner of Gabe’s desk and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Oh, son of a…” Gabe pushed away from the desk and stood. He paced the small makeshift office. “Look, I come from a family of assholes. You think I’m a dick? Well, I’ve learned from the worst. And part of this assholery is the fact that we used to run dog fights.” He gave a disgusted laugh. “Hell, part of the money that paid for my education to become a vet was funded by those fights.” The irony of that twisted his guts. Made the chili he’d eaten for lunch turn sour in his stomach. “So now I need to make up for it. Clear enough?”

  He raised his gaze to look directly at Dax, expecting to see the disgust and contempt he deserved. He saw neither.

  “How old were you?” Dax asked. Like that could be an excuse.

  “Ten when it started, nineteen when it ended. Old enough to do something about it.”

  “Gabe, you were just a kid.”

  “We’re adults at eighteen.” Gabe shook his head. “I was a man.” A man who didn’t do more because he was afraid of disappointing his father. Didn’t want to see his family in jail.

  Dax blew out a breath, and a tuft of hair blew out over his forehead. “I didn’t know jack at nineteen. I repeat, you’ve got to let this go. Your father’s crimes are not your own.”

  His dad’s crimes he could have dealt with, if Gabe hadn’t been complicit.

  His cell rang, a welcome distraction. He picked it up and his shoulders unbunched when he saw Marla’s name.

  “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

  “Are you near a computer?” Marla whispered.

  Gabe frowned. “Yes. Why are you whispering?”

  “Go to your website. The administrative access part,” she said in the same hushed voice. “I’m beta testing Debbie’s and Genie’s app and I just took a picture. I want to see if it shows up on your end.”

  Gabe rubbed his temple. “I don’t have access to the admin portion of Forever Friends. That’s Brad’s department.”

  “Yes, you do. The username is SherlockRules and the password is 221BBakerStreet.”

  Of course it was. Brad’s love of detective stories was well-known. He would be the easiest man in the world to hack.

  Nudging Dax out of his way, he plopped down in his chair. He propped his phone between his jaw and shoulder and accessed the Forever Friends site from his computer. “Okay, what am I looking for? And you still haven’t explained why you’re whispering.”

  “It should be under messages to the site. Do you see a notification in the top right-hand corner?”

  “Uh…yeah.” He clicked on it, and a small screen popped up. The square was filled with a long trail of random letters and numbers, and at the very bottom a grainy picture was attached. He squinted. What the hell was that?

  “What am I looking at?” he asked. “The message looks like coding gibberish and there’s a picture attached that looks like it was taken by a blind man as he was falling out of a plane.”

  Marla huffed. “I took that. And there should be location information in the message. GPS coordinates, and hopefully an address.”

  Gabe scrolled through it again. “Okay, it’s here. It’s broken up by strings of coding and hard to read, but it’s here.” He pieced through snippets of conversation he’d had with Marla the past couple of days and remembered her excitement over the app. “So, you’re testing the app by taking a picture of a random building, and its location showed up as a message?”

  “That’s what I said.” She sucked in a breath. “Hold on.” Then silence.

  “Ma
rla?”

  Dax nudged his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  Gabe shook his head. “Marla?!”

  “Shhh.” A dog barked over the line, and Gabe’s shoulders turned to cinderblocks faster than Miss Elle could go from zero to sixty.

  He pulled open a desk drawer and found a container of antacids. “Marla, where the hell are you?” he growled. She was a smart woman. She would not be so stupid as to—

  “I think I might have found a dog fight.” Triumph laced the whispered words. “But I can’t really see inside. I’m going to—”

  Gabe cut her off, reading back the address he’d pulled off the website. “Is that correct? Is that where you are?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Gabe jumped up. He grabbed the antacids and strode out of his office for his front door. He dug his keys out of the bowl on the side table. “I’m on my way. Do. Not. Move.”

  “But, Gabe.” She huffed. “I’m—”

  “Not one inch.” He slammed out of his house and took the porch steps in a running leap. He knew Marla wasn’t actually at a fight location. The chances of her stumbling across one were too astronomical. There was no way she was in danger from the lowlifes he used to run with.

  He poured a mouthful of fruity antacids into his mouth.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger from him when he found her.

  * * * *

  The stench of oil and old takeout turned Marla’s stomach and she tried breathing through her mouth. That only made it worse. The foul odor became tangible, and she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Marla regretted leaving Mad and Hoov at home. Not that the dogs would have been much help in her current predicament, but their unwavering moral support would have been welcome.

  The metal lip of the dumpster dug into her lower belly, and she pushed up with her hands, trying to take some weight off of her stomach. Her feet dangled a foot off the ground. She raised her right knee, wobbled off balance, and dropped it back down. Crap.

  It should have been so easy. A large window sat high in the second story of the motorcycle repair shop. A large industrial trash bin was situated perfectly center under the high window. She was wearing stretchy yoga pants and her Superstar camo sneakers, perfect for a stealthy climb on top of the trash bin.

  But she couldn’t get on top of the damn thing. When she tried climbing onto the side that had the lid down, she slid off the plastic, unable to get a grip to pull herself up. And when she jumped on the open side of the dumpster, she got hung up like she was now. Her hands, bracketing her hips, had a death grip on the dumpster’s rim. She could bend over, swinging her face precipitously close to the torn plastic bags of garbage below. Or she could drop back to the ground to try again. But those were the limits of her movements. If she tried to bring her leg up to rest on the dumpster, things got dicey.

  She sucked in a deep breath and screwed her face up when the smell hit her anew. She could do this. She was tall, damn it. She needed to use that length to her advantage. She bent her arms until her weight rested on her stomach again. Stretching a hand out, she placed her palm on the plastic lid next to her. Slowly, she lifted her leg, bending it until her knee rested on the metal lip. Now, if she could just—

  An arm wrapped around her waist. Without thought, she swung her elbow backwards, making contact with an ear. The man behind her grunted and stepped back. Her hand slipped on the dumpster. And, with a muffled shriek, she toppled into the garbage bin.

  Low swearing sounded over the pounding of her heartbeat. “Gabe?” She popped her head up over the edge, using her hand to push off a garbage bag. It came away slimy. She jerked back, and a half-open bag spilled over her shoulder. “Gabe!” she wailed. She put her foot down to stand, and a bag slid beneath her sneaker, sending her toppling back down.

  Gabe reached in, grabbing her under the arms and hauling her upright. With one arm around her shoulders and the other gripping her rear, he lifted her over and out, standing her on the ground before him.

  “Eeew!” She flapped her hand. “Dirty, sticky, nasty—”

  “Calm down, Buttercup.” Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief and shook it out. “Here. Use this. And while you clean up, you can tell me just what in the hell you think you were doing.”

  The removal of the white handkerchief made her pause. She hadn’t known that was something he carried. It seemed somehow out of character. Her father and deda kept handkerchiefs tucked in their pockets, always ready to hand help over if she sneezed or spilled something. But it wasn’t something a grumpy bachelor should have as an accessory.

  Then the sticky feeling returned, and she snatched the square from his hand and scrubbed at the mess. “I don’t think it’s coming off,” she wailed. It was never going to come off. This was how she was going to go. Death by toxic dumpster misadventure.

  Gabe took her elbow and led her a step away. “Then let’s get you to a shower.” His gaze darted around the yard. A dog inside the building barked once, and he whipped his head toward the sound.

  Marla pulled her elbow out of his grip. “The shower can wait.” A shudder coursed through her at the thought of all that could be covering her body. She straightened her spine. But if there were dogs that needed help, a little slime could wait. “I want to get a look inside. Give me a boost.”

  She trotted back to the dumpster, putting her hands on the closed lid side of the bin, and looked back at Gabe expectantly.

  He threw his hands in the air. “Are you nuts?” he hissed. “I mean, I knew you were quirky with your pet causes and your love of elves and trolls, but this is full-on, batshit crazy. If you’re right, there is no way you should be here. And if you’re wrong, we’re trespassing on private property.”

  She propped a hand on her hip. “It’s not like I want to peep in a bedroom window. This is a business. If there’s nothing going on, the owner won’t care.” But there was something going on. Marla could feel it. Her stomach rolled. She’d heard an occasional cheer coming from inside. Dogs barking. The garage was out of the way, the only business at the end of a dead-end street. A field of dead weeds lay between it and the tire shop next door. It was a perfect location for a fight. What else could be happening inside?

  “What are you even doing here?” Gabe stepped in close, the smell of his soap washing away the odor of garbage. Marla leaned into him. “Why would you think this is the location of a fight?”

  She glanced up at the glow from the window and over at the street. Someone could exit the front door and walk down that sidewalk at any moment, seeing them lurking in the shadows, and Gabe wanted to have a chitchat? She tested the stability of the plastic lid and whispered over her shoulder, “I was talking to my deda and he said he used to know a guy who mentioned he’d once been to a fight. The guy who owns this shop.” She hopped, stretched for the end of the dumpster, and slid back to the ground. She shook out her arms and bounced on her feet. She was tall, damn it. Why couldn’t she do this?

  “Yeah, that sounds like solid proof,” Gabe said sarcastically. Brushing her aside, he hopped up onto the dumpster with the grace of a gazelle. Leaning down, he grabbed her hand and hauled her up beside him. “What’s a deda?”

  “Not a what, a who.” She released her grip on him, started to tilt off balance, and grabbed his shirt. “Deda is a Russian nickname for grandfather.”

  “Oh my God. Your family is in the mob.”

  She elbowed him aside and crept to the wall.

  “What?” he whispered. “You just said your deda was hanging around dogfighters. It wasn’t a bad conclusion to draw.”

  “Could you be more of a stereotyping bigot?” she hissed. “If I had said my grandpop knew a guy, you wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. But because he’s my deda, all of a sudden his acquaintances are crooks? Not all Russians are in the mob.” She glanced over her shoulder
and looked him up and down. The moonlight did wonderful things to his features, but she kept her voice haughty. “Not unless all Italians are in the mafia, too. Moretti.”

  He grunted what she assumed was an acknowledgement of her superior argument. Avoiding the sagging midsection of the bin lid, Gabe took one large step up to the metal rim to stand beside her. “Can we just look through the damn window and get out of here already? The temperature is dropping and I’m cold.”

  She rolled onto her toes. Pressing her nose to the window, she peered through. “You should have worn a coat.” The window was filthy, and with the hem of her own coat, she swiped at the dirt.

  “I ran out of the house too fast to think of it.” He scratched at a particularly wide stretch of crusted dirt with his nail, and large chunks flaked off.

  Marla sank back to her heels and turned to face Gabe. Her heart squeezed. “You did?” He’d gone barreling out of his house? For her? As though he cared and was panicked at the thought she might be hurt? “That’s so sweet.”

  He shot her a disgusted look. “It’s sweet that I’m freezing my balls off?” He shook his head. “Look, I can’t see down onto the floor from this angle. Maybe if you get higher and look down from the top of the window, you’ll have a better view.”

  The window rose three feet high, and she and Gabe were just barely able to look over the sill. “And how do you expect me to get to the top of the window? Levitate?”

  Bending over, Gabe wrapped his arms under her butt and stood. The dumpster shifted and squeaked, and Marla grabbed for whatever was handy.

  Unfortunately for Gabe, that was his face and her pinky caught in his mouth like a fish hook.

  “Gaaah!” he gurgled.

  Marla ripped her hands back. She placed them on his shoulders. “Don’t grab people without a little warning.” She sniffed. “Now, step a little closer. To your right. No, your other right.” Finally finding a clean enough spot, Marla cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the window.

  Motorcycles, equipment, an old Ford truck that could be a beauty if it was properly restored. Normal garage stuff. She heard more barking and she zeroed in on the location. There! There was a large black lab growling and barking at a man in a greasy white tee…and flopping to its back for an enthusiastic belly rub.