by Rose Pressey
Derek said he would meet me there in his creepy van. He would be on surveillance outside the whole time. That definitely made me feel better knowing that someone else would be there to help. I wouldn’t be all alone.
When I pulled up to the location, I scanned the area. Then sure enough I spotted the van parked just down the street. Derek was close enough so that he could get to me quickly, but not quite in front of Mark’s apartment, just in case Mark happened to notice something suspicious. I looked over toward the van and hoped that Derek saw me going in. I sent a text message and let him know I was heading inside.
I stepped up in front of the door and barely a couple of seconds passed before Mark answered. A smile spread across his face as soon as he saw me.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. “Please come in.”
My anxiety spiked as soon as I stepped through the door, knowing that I was really here and this was happening. I just hoped that it didn’t end badly. His place looked exactly how I imagined it with sparse furniture, clothing everywhere, and a lot of video games.
“Please have a seat,” he said, motioning toward the sofa.
“I’m glad to see you cleaned up for me,” I said as I shoved the clothing out of my way and perched on the edge of the sofa.
“Would you like something to drink? A beer?”
“Sure, that would be fine,” I said.
I had to relax and calm down.
“One beer coming up,” he said as he disappeared into the kitchen.
This would give me a chance to look around and see if I spotted any evidence. I had to know where I was looking because I wouldn’t have much time. Once I started to stand, he immediately came back with the beer. Damn it. How had he grabbed it so quickly?
He handed me the can and then sat on the sofa. “I hope the beer is cold enough.”
No matter, because I wasn’t drinking it anyway. At least he hadn’t sat too close to me. I had to figure out a way to get rid of him so I could look around. I wanted to get this over with before he got any ideas and made a move on me.
He took a drink of his beer and stared at me. Actually it was more like leering. I sipped from my beer and thought about how I could get rid of him. I had to look for the phones. I glanced over at the window. That was when I got the idea.
“I just saw someone looking in your window.” I pointed.
“What? What the hell?” He placed the beer down and ran for the back door. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Now I had to work quickly. I knew he would soon realize no one was out there. At least I could look around for a second. I raced around the apartment looking in drawers and underneath piles of clothing. That was when I spotted a duffel bag over in the corner. I dashed over and unzipped it. The thing was full of phones. Bingo. This was exactly what I was looking for. I almost couldn’t hide my excitement. Wait until Derek found out.
I didn’t know what to do with the phones though. I couldn’t exactly carry out the entire duffel bag. He might notice something like that. Actually, I wanted to get out of the apartment before he even came back inside. Now that I had what I needed there was no reason to stick around. Other than the phones, the rest of the contents were just clothing. As far as I could tell after rummaging through the entire bag there was nothing important.
I gathered up the phones, six of them. I went over to my purse and shoved them inside. There was no time to look for anything else in the apartment. I just hoped that the phones weren’t useless. Maybe they were meaningless, but I had a feeling they were connected to the murder. Mark had been videoed shoplifting phones from the store, but did that mean he was involved in the death? I put my purse on my shoulder and headed for the door, hoping I wouldn’t get caught.
When I got out the front door, I ran for the van. There was no time to go to my car right now. I went straight for the surveillance van. I didn’t know what I was thinking—I just wanted to get out of there and be somewhere that I knew was safe. I hadn’t even looked back to see if Mark was coming after me. I held my purse close to my chest, clutching it tight. Derek must have seen me coming his way. The passenger side door of the van slid open. It was nice to know he was really paying attention.
“Cece, what are you doing? Get in.” He motioned.
Derek had the van running already. I hopped in the van and shut the door, locking it. “Mark is coming too.”
“I think our cover is blown.” Derek pulled away from the curb in a hurry.
I looked in the side mirror and saw Mark running down the sidewalk after the van. “I hope he doesn’t realize my car is parked back there. I might never get it back.”
“What did you find?” Derek asked. “You didn’t stay in there long.”
“I got a bunch of phones,” I said. “I figured after I found them there was no need to stick around.”
“Excellent,” Derek said as he made the next left turn.
I leaned my head back on the seat. “I’m just glad I got away before he did something crazy.”
“I hope he doesn’t find us.”
I looked over at Derek with a panicked expression. Did he somehow know where to find us? No, there was no way. My phone dinged, letting me know I had a text message. I had a feeling I knew who that was from.
Sure enough, it was a text from Mark, asking me why I had run off like that.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“Maybe it’s better if you don’t answer him,” Derek said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”
“Are the phones in your purse?” Derek asked.
I put my bag on my lap. “Yeah, there are about six of them. They’re all the same kind of prepaid things. What do you think he’s using them for?”
“Maybe selling them. Maybe drugs. I don’t know.”
We had driven a good distance when Derek finally pulled over to the side of the road so that we could really examine the phones. I handed him a couple, while I tried to power on the others. Half of them didn’t even power up, which was extremely disappointing. Finally, I got one of them to turn on and saw that Mark had sent text messages from the number. I just needed to know who he was sending them to.
All of a sudden someone banged on the side window next to me and I screamed. One of the phones flew out of my hand and landed on the floor. Mark was standing there staring at me with an extremely angry look on his face.
“How the hell did he find us?” Derek asked.
“I don’t know. Should we call the police?”
Mark banged on the window again.
“I’ll take care of this,” Derek said.
I had a bad feeling about this.
Chapter 29
“Let’s get out of here,” I yelled.
Derek pushed the gas and we took off away from the sidewalk. When I looked in the mirror, Mark was running after the van.
“That was a close one,” I said. “He just popped up out of nowhere.”
“Yes, our cover is blown with the van now, huh?”
“At least with that guy it is,” I said. “What do we do now?”
“Well, we need to check out those phones.”
“Yeah, now that we’re away from him. Good idea.”
“I’ll pull over somewhere so we can look.” Derek turned into the nearest parking lot.
I grabbed my bag for phones so that we could check each one. I still couldn’t get some of them to turn on. I handed Derek one that would. I took the other one and immediately went to the text messages to see if anything had been sent.
“Mine’s empty. You got anything?” Derek asked.
This was like checking scratch-off tickets to see if you had the winning lottery. Fortunately mine was not empty.
“I got some text messages here,” I said.
“What does it say?” Derek asked.
“Bingo. We got something here. He was texting Paul. Whoever lured Paul to the house. The person was using this phone.”
�
�So it stands to reason that Mark was using the phone.”
“We don’t know that because it’s got a woman’s name on here,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Derek asked. “The phone has a name?”
“Paul was addressing the woman by her name in the text messages. Mina.”
“So now we have to find out who she is.”
“Why does Mark have the phone?”
“Maybe she asked him to get rid of it. Maybe he stole it from her,” Derek said.
“Maybe they’re working together,” I said.
“I think the odds are pretty likely that they are,” Derek said.
“I can’t believe that we actually got more evidence. This is fantastic,” I said.
“This is great news,” Derek said. But there’s just one more thing.”
There was always just one more thing.
“What?” I asked.
“We have to figure out what to do with the phones.”
I looked down at my bag full of phones. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We need to turn him in for stealing this stuff. The store owner will be happy at the very least.”
“Or someone will solve the murder and take a murderer off the streets. Either way, it’s a win-win,” Derek said. “I think we make a pretty good team, Cece.”
Part of me still didn’t want to let go and admit that. But I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I guess we make an okay team.”
Derek stared at me for a long moment. I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me, but then finally, he said, “Let’s get over to the police station.”
“All right, let’s go,” I said.
He pulled out and we headed in the direction of police station to drop off the phones. Of course I had to explain how I had gotten a hold of them. It wouldn’t be nearly as easy as it had been to actually get them in the first place.
We pulled into the police station and Derek parked in front of the entrance. I gathered up the bag and opened the car door, even though I was a bit nervous going in there with the phones.
“Don’t worry, Cece, I’ve got your back,” Derek said as we walked in the entrance.
Actually, I knew he meant that.
I walked up to the desk and explained to the officer what we’d found. It seemed like a strange story. After speaking with a detective and almost having him arrest us, I finally managed to get out of the police station. I’d never been so happy to be free in my life. It had been touch-and-go there for a little while. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do so many risky things like that in the future. I’d advised the officer that it was my job. He hadn’t agreed with that though. He should just have been happy that I’d given them the information. At least that was the way I saw it.
We got back into the creepy old van and headed away from the police station. I was glad to be moving away from the place. I leaned back against the seat, smelling the cherry air freshener Derek had hanging from the rearview mirror.
“That thing is disgusting,” I said, waving my hand in front of my nose.
“It’s better than what the van used to smell like.”
“I don’t even want to know,” I said. “So we have to find out why Mark would have the phones.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We can ask Regina or Brianna because I’m pretty sure he won’t give us that information.”
“With any luck, he’ll be in jail soon. You think they’re really going over there to find him and arrest him?” I asked.
“I hope so. If not we need to speak with the store owner and tell him what we found out.”
“I’m glad I saved the information from the phone, just in case we never hear anything about it again.”
“I have an idea what we can do,” Derek said as he steered the van around a curve.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We have to talk to Regina right away.”
“Yes?”
“She was going to that night club. I think…”
I held my hand up. “I know where you’re going with this and I don’t want to.”
“Cece, we have no choice.”
“But I don’t like it there. Don’t make me go.” My voice was almost panicked.
“It’s not that bad,” he said.
“It was terrible. It was loud and it was dark. It was scary, Derek.”
“You’re just being silly,” he said, laughing.
“I don’t want to go back to the club.”
Derek stared for a second.
I sighed. I knew he was right.
“All right, I’ll go, but just this once more.” I stared out the window thinking of the terrible fate that awaited me.
“Okay, I can handle that. Just one more time,” he said.
Derek dropped me off at home and I had just a couple of hours to get ready before we were going back to that club… that dreaded place I didn’t want to go. I had to pick out something to wear. I found a black dress that I had worn once a long time ago. I decided that would have to do. I paired it with my black heels and put on some red lipstick. I was ready to go.
Just then the doorbell rang and I assumed it was Derek. I went over to the door and answered. He eyed me up and down. I instantly felt a tad bit self-conscious of course, but then a big smile slid across his face.
“You look gorgeous,” he said.
When he looked at me that way my uneasiness completely went away.
“Are you ready to go, Cece? Your chariot awaits.”
I stepped out into the foyer and locked the door behind us. “I suppose I have to be ready.”
“I promise to have you home before midnight, and you won’t turn into a pumpkin.”
“Well, I probably won’t get out of there by midnight. I can guarantee you that. The place doesn’t start getting crowded until I should already be in bed.”
“Live a little, Cece.”
“I live a lot as long as it’s from seven in the morning until seven at night—after that I’m not living. Any further living will have to wait for the next morning.”
We drove over to the nightclub, found a parking spot, and walked the short distance to the entrance. I felt like running in the opposite direction. There wasn’t much of a line this time, so we managed to get in fairly quickly. The inside wasn’t quite as crowded, but still just as uncomfortable as before. I hoped we could find her soon and then get out of there.
“Do you see her?” Derek asked.
“No, I don’t. Let’s go to the bar,” I said.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Derek said.
We sat at the bar for a little bit. I had water and Derek had a beer. We watched the crowd increase, but still no sign of her.
“We have to mingle and we can’t just sit here all night staring at people. They’ll think we’re creepy,” Derek said.
“Really? I don’t care,” I said.
“Cece, play nice. Come on, let’s go dance.” Derek grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bar.
I groaned, but went along with it. Okay, secretly I liked the idea of dancing with Derek. Derek and I swayed to the sexy music. Visions of our bodies tangled between the sheets popped into my head again. Shake it off, Cece, shake it off.
“Wow, I didn’t know you were such a good dancer,” Derek said over the music.
“Why would you say that?” I asked.
“You know, being so uptight.” He smiled.
“I’ll show you uptight,” I said, poking him in the chest.
The song had just come to an end when I happened to glance over at the bar and spotted her.
“There she is,” I said, excitedly grabbing a hold of Derek’s shirt and pulling him.
He stumbled across the dance floor, following me. I had to reach the bar before she disappeared.
“You should let me go talk to her first,” Derek said, moving in front of me as he approached the bar.
“What makes you think you should go first?” I asked.
“Becaus
e I think you’re upset right now.”
“Oh, like you’re calm.” I rolled my eyes.
Derek walked up to Regina and began to talking to her. The next thing I knew, there was this huge guy standing in between them. He was yelling at Derek.
I ran over to the big guy and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you yell at him. What is your problem?”
The guy tossed his arm back and I fell to the floor. That made Derek angry, so he swung at the guy. The guy ducked and then Derek’s fist almost met with the Regina’s face. This was escalating rather quickly, and not in a good way.
The big guy with her was the one who started all of this. The next thing I knew security had Derek, the big guy, Regina, and me. We were all being escorted out of the building. Which was kind of cool because I’d never been kicked out of a nightclub before. I could add that to my list of things that Derek had gotten me into. He’d said I needed to live a little. This wasn’t my idea of living.
As soon as we reached the sidewalk security let us go. They told us not to come back. I supposed they didn’t care if we continued to fight outside. As long as we weren’t doing it inside the club, they were happy.
I immediately stepped between Derek and the big guy. “Listen, this is all a misunderstanding. I wanted to talk to your friend. Derek was only talking to her to get her to come talk to me. Nothing else.”
“Is this your man?” the guy asked.
“Well, I suppose if I have to take ownership of him I will do that this evening.”
He scowled as if he had no clue what I was talking about.
Chapter 30
“Do you mind if I talk to you?” I asked.
Regina looked me up and down, then over at Derek. The guy she was with looked as if he wanted to rip our heads off.
He looked at Derek and said, “I’ll keep my eye on this one just in case.”
Regina and I stepped over by the building to talk.