by Rhea Wilde
“Damn…”
I sighed again as I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. I’d been up so long, I fell asleep on the bench without even realizing it.
I’d never been to New Gardens before. For the most part, it seemed like your average metropolitan city. The streets were crowded as everybody went about their busy days. Even though there was nothing unusual about it, it still seemed so foreign to me. If nothing else, New Gardens was big, and it would be easy to get lost in it. It didn’t help that it was hotter than I expected.
But there was something else happening in this city. People were going missing. I had to get to the bottom of it.
Problem was, it wasn’t exactly a big secret. It was in the papers. It was just on the news that someone else had gone missing.
I couldn’t just start the search by myself. In a town like this, in a city where I didn’t know anybody… My only chance was to find somebody working on the case…
I kept an eye on the people walking in and out of the records office. If somebody were trying to find information on the missing people, this is the first place they would go.
The sun was beating down on me but I remained calm. I nonchalantly stared at the records office until I noticed someone in the parking lot.
It was a blond woman in a pair of blue jeans and a white top.
“Something about her…”
I narrowed my eyes as I stared at her. I couldn’t figure out what it was.
As I watched her head into the records office, I noticed something strange. A man in a pair of slacks and a tight black t-shirt walked up to the records office. He didn’t walk in though. He kept looking around as if somebody were watching him.
I kept staring at him until he finally walked inside.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I got up from my seat and slowly paced my way into the records office. Three people heading into a place like this so quickly would have been suspicious, so I did my best to not draw any attention to myself.
As soon as I got inside, the woman at the counter didn’t pay any attention to me. I couldn’t ask her where the two people who just came in went.
“Excuse me,” I said to her. “I was looking for the archives—”
She raised her hand up and pointed to the side with her index finger, not looking at me.
“Oh… Right.”
I sighed a deep breath and made my way into the next room.
The archives were as big as a library. Every piece of information on everybody in New Gardens was in here. The size of it didn’t help me.
The blond.
I had to get to her as quickly as I could.
I paced my way down the halls of the archives. I listened for the sound of footsteps but there were none. I roamed to the end of the hall and finally heard something.
Papers shuffling. Drawers opening. And the sound of a woman’s voice.
“John Marks. Black male. Date of birth, June 18th, 1975. Last known place of residence…”
I slowly made my way to the aisle where the voice was coming from. I spotted the blond.
She had her head down as she searched a manila folder.
I walked up to her and spoke.
“Hey.”
She nearly threw the folder up in the air and jerked her head toward me.
Her hair was blond, almost white. She glared at me with green eyes. Despite the hardened look, there was a certain delicateness to her face. She had high cheekbones that looked rosy from me startling her.
“Jesus… What the hell are you doing?” she said. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“You’re being followed,” I said, keeping my voice calm.
“Yeah, I can see that. You’re right next to me.”
“Not by me. Someone else.”
She looked over to the other side of the aisle but there was nobody there. I moved closer to her, trying to listen for the other man I knew was in the archives with us. She was shorter than me, so her head was right at my chest.
“Okay,” she said as she put a hand on my chest, trying to push me away. “Can you just back up for a second? Give me some space, please.”
“You need to get out of here.”
“Oh, blow me, all right? I don’t know who you are or where you came from but I need to copy all of the information in this file.”
“Just take it with you.”
“This is a public record and it’s the only copy. I can’t take it with me—”
“Watch out!”
I shoved her, sending her and the paper file flying to the ground.
The man I saw enter the building earlier attacked me. He was wearing a ski mask this time but I knew it was him. And I couldn’t take any chances when dealing with him.
He tried to wrap his arms around my head and squeeze my neck.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been in a fight. I’d had enough training to deal with guys like him. Now it was time to see if he had any training.
“What the hell…”
The blond worked her way back to her feet, confusion on her face. I didn’t pay any attention to her though.
I struggled with the man until I managed to get around him. As soon as I took his back, I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed as hard as I could. The faint sounds of him gasping for breath weakened. His body started to relax. A few seconds later, he was unconscious on the ground.
The blond woman blinked her eyes at me, her mouth half-open. I breathed a deep breath to regain my composure.
“You need to get out of here,” I said.
She ignored me. Her attention was on the masked man on the ground. She was paralyzed, standing there like a statue as she looked at him.
Nothing happened.
“Hey,” I said, my hands on her arms. “You have to get out of here.”
She finally looked back up at me. It was a bit disarming to see the confusion and fear in her green eyes.
“What did you do?” she said. “Did you just kill this guy?”
“He’s not dead. He’ll wake up soon.”
“We have to call the cops.”
“There’s no time for that.”
“We can’t just leave him here! There are other people in this building.”
“They’re not in danger. He was only here for you.”
“But…”
She looked back down at the ground. It was like she was trying to make sense of everything.
“Take the file,” I said. “Take the file.”
“I can’t—”
“When you’re finished with it, you can always bring it back.”
“But—”
“He’s not the only one being sent for you?”
“Sent for me? What the hell—”
“There’s no time to explain. You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you? You snuck up on me from behind then choked out a guy right in front of me. Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“And he was?”
“Yes.”
I pointed at the unconscious man on the ground.
“What?” she said with a shrug. “What am I looking at—”
And then she saw it. He was holding something in his hand. It was a small rag.
“He was trying to drug you so he could abduct you,” I said.
“Maybe you should take it from him.”
“Never leave any more evidence at the scene of a crime than you have to.”
I stared at her intensely, trying to get through to her. There was something about the way she looked at me. She couldn’t completely trust me. Not yet. I had to will her somehow to trust me.
“I guess I should believe you,” she said. “I shouldn’t but I will. For now.”
I held back a sigh of relief.
“Good,” I said. “Is there anything else you need? If you stay any longer, someone else is going to come. And when they come, the police are going to follow.”
“Well, seeing as how there’s an unconscious man on the floor, he’s probably gonna wake up and be pretty pissed. That’s reason enough to get out of here. No… No, I don’t need anything else.”
“All right. We should go.”
I took her hand in mine and started walking down the aisle but she quickly tugged it away.
“Hold on, buddy,” she said. “What’s this we? I’m not in any trouble. You’re the one who choked this guy out. I didn’t do anything.”
“You are in trouble. You’re the one he was after. We need to get out of here.”
She gritted her teeth and shook her head. She had to know I was right.
“Fine,” she said. “I don’t need you to hold my hand. I know where to go. There’s only one way out.”
I gave her a nod. She reached down to pick up the paperwork and stuffed it back into the manila folder it had fallen out of. As she organized the papers, she kept glancing up at me like she was examining my outfit.
“What are you?” she asked. “A construction worker? No, that doesn’t make much sense…”
“I’ll explain all of that later.”
I crossed my arms, waiting for her to finish.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yeah…” she said as she continued to look me up and down, trying to figure me out.
“Try not to look too suspicious—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll try not to make it look like I didn’t just see my attacker choked out right in front of me by a complete stranger. I’m used to it. Happens all the time.”
I didn’t respond to her smartass comment. She rolled her eyes at me just before I turned around to walk down the aisle.
When we got outside, I turned around and noticed she’d stopped walking with me.
“Come on,” I said. “We’re not out of the woods yet. We have to get to your car and get out of here.”
“Hold on,” she said as she rushed up to me. “How do you know where I’m parked?”
I looked at her plainly but didn’t stop walking.
“I told you,” I explained. “You’re being followed.”
“I know. And you’re the one following me. I get that.”
“I’m not the one following you. We have to get out of here before that guy who was tailing you wakes up and alerts someone.”
“Who is that guy? Who is someone he’s gonna alert?”
“There’s no time to explain. Once we’re out of the way, I’ll explain everything to you. Just trust me, okay?”
I walked right up to her car, not even hiding the fact that I knew where she was parked. I stood next to the passenger door, waiting for her to open it. But she hesitated.
Come on… Please…
There was no reason to trust me. I saved her but she didn’t owe me anything. The case was complicated and I was making it worse for her.
“This is stupid…” she muttered to herself.
She clicked the lock on her keys and the passenger door unlocked.
“Head to your place,” I said as she drove down the road.
She glanced at me but kept staring straight ahead. Underneath the sun, I got a better look at her. Pale skin and blond hair that flowed from the breeze blowing in through the window. She didn’t wear much makeup but she was still striking. Maybe it was just her focused demeanor that made her seem so different from other women I’ve met.
“Listen,” she sighed. “I’m gonna go along with this. Even though I think there’s a good chance you’re gonna strangle me once we get to my apartment.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t know that. Can you at least clue me in a little bit? Do you have a name?”
“Sabin. John Sabin.”
“Okay, John Sabin. You got any ID?”
I grabbed the chain around my neck. I made sure to show her the dog tag with my name on it.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s nice. I know a guy around the corner who makes these for a dollar. Do you have any real ID? Like, normal identification?”
I didn’t mind the interrogation. She kept an eyebrow raised at me as I pulled out my ID.
She examined it closely.
“Watch the road…” I said.
“All right,” she said, tossing my ID back to me. “Do you wanna tell me what this is all about?”
“What’s your name?” I said, not answering her question.
“What?”
“I told you my name. I think it’s only fair that I know your name, too.”
“Eva,” she said. “Eva Lynch.”
“Nice to meet you, Eva.”
“Yeah, great to meet you, too, John,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
She chuckled to herself softly, probably to deal with the sudden seriousness of her situation. I didn’t pay much attention to her. All I could think about was how I was going to explain all of this to her.
“It’s gonna be a long day,” she sighed.
Chapter 4
JOHN
She had a lot of questions. So did I. This was a complicated case. I had to get to the bottom of it.
Her.
Eva.
She had to be the one to help me do this. I didn’t know what it was but something told me that I wasn’t going to be able to do this without her. Now all I had to do was convince her to help me…
*
I followed Eva into her office. While she moved over to the window to look outside, I examined my surroundings.
Her desk was messy with papers, including the manila folder she just threw on it. There wasn’t much for decorations on the wall. There were some clothes scattered on a nearby couch. It needed a cleaning, which told me that she was probably occupied with everything else going on in her life.
“This is your office?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s my office. It’s messy. I know. I don’t care.”
“This is your apartment.”
“It’s my apartment and my office,” she said. “I sleep in the room next door. I’m not gonna rent an office building when I work by myself.”
“Makes sense.”
She grabbed one of the beers I just noticed sitting on her desk and cracked it open. I kept looking around, examining my surroundings.
“You wanna have a seat?” she asked. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”
I nodded and took a seat in front of her desk. It was still the middle of the afternoon, so some of the light was peeking in through her blinds. I got a better look at her and noticed that despite her demeanor, there was a certain kindness about her that I couldn’t explain.
“You want a drink?” she asked.
“Now is not the time for that.”
“Fine. But can you at least relax a little bit? I think some guy just tried to abduct me and I’m a little tense. My blood pressure isn’t doing very well at the moment. So would you… Please?”
“Right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I smiled at her to try and calm her down.
“You can do better than that,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s how you smile? It’s one of those smiles kids are forced to make during family photos. But… I guess there are more important things to worry about.”
I smiled even wider at the comment. It was enough to get the tiniest little smirk out of her.
“All right,” she said as she took a swig of beer. “Your name is John Sabin. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Such as?”
“Such as, what the hell are you doing?”
“Right,” I said. “I’m first battalion, alpha squad, Captain John Sabin.”
“First battalion? Alpha squad? What is that? Marines? Navy?”
“Special Forces. Green Beret.”
She gulped on her beer like she was choking on it. I raised an eyebrow, wondering what I’d said to get that kind of reaction from her.
“You’re a Green Beret?” she said.
&nb
sp; “That’s correct.”
“And what exactly is a damn Green Beret doing in New Gardens?”
“You’re familiar with the recent string of abductions in this city?”
“I don’t know if they’re abductions,” she said as she shook her head. “People go missing. That doesn’t mean someone took them.”
“They’re abductions and someone is behind them.”
“Do you? And I suppose you have evidence to prove this?”
“I do. It’s classified information.”
“Of course.”
She put the bottle of beer down on my desk and put her hands in the air. I had to remain calm despite her growing frustration.
“You know what’s happening,” she said. “You know who’s behind it all. But you can’t tell me because it’s classified information.”
“I didn’t say that I wouldn’t tell you. I said it was classified.”
“So, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Look at your file.”
“What?”
“The file you took from the records office. Do you want to read it?”
She looked down at the manila folder on her desk then back at me. I motioned with my eyes, telling her to open it.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“It says the same thing I read before I was so rudely interrupted. John Marks. Black male. Date of birth, June 18th, 1975. Address, 372 Broadway, Apartment 4C. Father, Michael Marks. Mother, Danielle Marks. Siblings, Jeffrey Marks… There doesn’t seem to be anything else remarkable. But that’s more than enough information to get started.”
“It’s not information that will help you.”
She put the folder down and leaned back in her chair.
“It sounds like plenty,” she said as she gave me a smug smile and put her hands behind her head. “I’ve got his relatives names. I’ve got his last known address. Somebody had to have known him.”
“If you look, you’ll find that both of his parents are dead. They died a long time ago. His brother died several years back. The police said it was a drug deal gone bad.”
“And you know this because…”
“Because I already checked.”
“What about his last known address?”
“That address was from years ago. It’s not a secret that John Marks was homeless, living on the streets, moving from shelter to shelter. If you try to go to that building, you’ll see that it’s abandoned like so many other places in this city. There won’t be any tenants to question except for the rats.”