by Mike Ryan
Recker had just gotten to the Edwards address, a two story brick building a few miles outside of Columbus, Ohio. It was in a nice little community setting in a development with about three hundred other houses of similar stature. Recker estimated the worth of the houses to be in the four to five hundred thousand dollar range. Recker parked just up the street, still getting a good view of the Edwards house, but parking far enough away so as he wouldn’t draw suspicion and be recognized. Edwards had a BMW X5 luxury crossover SUV registered to him but it wasn’t parked in the driveway. There was a white Cadillac sedan still in the driveway, but that belonged to Tonya Edwards.
It was the scenario that Recker was dreading. Having to wait. With Edwards already gone, there was no telling when he might return. Recker was hoping to get to the house early enough that he could follow Edwards when he left in the morning. Now, he might have to wait all day which would delay his return to Philadelphia. It wasn’t what Recker was hoping for. He hoped that he’d get there just before Edwards left and he could tail him, then kill him somewhere away from his home, then return to Philadelphia. But he realized that was the best case scenario, not necessarily the most likely one.
As the time approached noon, Recker still hadn’t observed any activity in or around the Edwards house. He figured Tonya Edwards either left with her husband or was having a quiet day at home with her son. According to their information, she didn’t have a job and was a stay at home mother. Recker tried to stay busy by reading the files he printed out on Edwards. Though it wasn’t complete, Jones had managed to dig up enough information about Edwards’ time in the CIA, including several of his Centurion operations. Most of it seemed to be smaller assignments as the bigger missions usually were off the books or were only acknowledged by a small team of people. There was nothing in his files or reports about Recker’s time in London or about Edwards killing Carrie in Florida. Not that Recker expected it to be there since those types of missions usually weren’t noted anywhere except in the personal files of superiors. The CIA usually didn’t chance that type of information being written anywhere within agency files for fear of leaks or hacks. Those reports were usually only handled in the files of the CIA Director or whoever was in charge of the Centurion project.
Assuming he had some time to kill, Recker started wondering what was going on back in Philly. He had sent Jones a few texts within the past half hour but didn’t get a reply to any of them. Recker thought it was a little strange as Jones usually responded quickly to texts and phone calls. The professor was usually in the office and near his phone so Recker couldn’t think of any reason why he would be ignoring his texts. The only thing he could think of is if something important had come up and Jones was in the field for some odd reason. Seeking to put his mind at ease, Recker tried calling Jones several times, still not getting an answer.
“Not this again,” Recker whispered, not wanting to go through the same thing that he did with Mia the day before.
Recker tried calling a couple more times, each time getting a little more frustrated with each call that went unanswered. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of struggling to get through, Jones finally picked up.
“What took so long?” Recker wondered.
“I’m sorry. I just had other things I was attending to,” Jones responded. “Is everything all right there?”
“Yeah. Edwards wasn’t here when I arrived. Looks like I gotta wait it out for a while.”
“Oh. So why are you calling then?”
“Just making sure everything’s OK there,” Recker answered. He thought he detected the sounds of cars and a horn in the background, making him wonder where Jones was going. “Are you driving somewhere?”
“How could you know that?” Jones asked.
“It’s kind of what I do for a living.”
“Indeed.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just checking on something.”
“You’re a lousy liar, David. What is it that you don’t want to tell me?” Recker asked.
“Well without you here, I have to go out into the field for a little bit.”
Recker wasn’t going to just accept that for an answer. Before leaving, they agreed to not pursue any of their upcoming cases until Recker returned. He looked at each one of the cases and remembered the names of the parties involved.
“I thought you agreed to wait till I got back?” Recker asked.
“Well, something came up that I need to check into. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“What case is it?”
“The uhhh…the Joe Simmons case,” Jones said, wincing as he said it, hoping that Recker wouldn’t pick up on the name.
It was a bad assumption as Recker knew the name wasn’t familiar. Recker took the phone away from his ear and looked at it strangely as if he misheard the name. He knew the name wasn’t among any of the cases they were beginning to look into. Even if it was a name dug up in the background, Recker didn’t figure it’d be important enough for Jones to head out into the field already.
“Joe Simmons?” Recker asked. “Who’s that?”
“You know, one of the cases I started working on.”
“David?”
“Yes?” Jones dejectedly replied, knowing the gig was up.
“There was no Joe Simmons listed in any of the files. I checked them all before I left. So you’re either making the name up to disguise something or it’s something completely unrelated to any of our cases. Which is it?”
“Just let it go for now. I’ll explain everything to you when you return,” Jones answered.
“You really want to go this route?”
“I don’t want your focus to be taken off what you’re currently doing. I’ll handle things here.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my focus. What’s going on?”
“I don’t want any distractions for you,” Jones repeated.
“David, something’s going on and I want you to tell me the truth right now,” Recker tersely replied.
“Well…”
Recker didn’t even let him finish, thinking he had it figured out. “It’s Mia, isn’t it?”
“Well…”
“Haven’t even been gone one full day,” Recker said to himself. “What’s the problem?”
“Well first problem is you’re initial estimate on how far along she was with her investigation,” Jones told him.
“She didn’t just start a few days ago?”
“Try four weeks.”
Recker closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, afraid to hear what she’d gotten herself into. He rubbed his forehead as he waited for an explanation. “She promised she wouldn’t do anything until I got back.”
“Well, as she told me, she only promised not to initiate anything. Unfortunately, she didn’t promise she wouldn’t respond to something.”
“What happened?”
“She received an anonymous phone call to meet someone at an apartment complex to give her information on Joe Simmons,” Jones explained.
“Who is this Simmons?”
“Apparently Mia found the name stuffed inside a book in Hanley’s apartment when she was helping Susan’s mother clean the place out.”
“So she’s meeting this person?”
“That would be correct.”
“And I take it you’re going with her?” Recker asked.
“Correct again.”
“Well, thank you for that.”
“I just hope we’re not walking into something we’re not equipped for,” Jones said.
“Why do you think that?”
“I traced the number that called Mia and it came back to a prepaid phone.”
“What time’s the meeting?”
“In about ten minutes,” Jones answered.
“I hope you’re packing some iron with you.”
“Though I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that, yes, yes I am.”
Chapter 5
Jones agreed to keep Re
cker updated with whatever information they learned from this anonymous meeting. Recker wasn’t comfortable that they were even going to begin with, but being so far away, there was nothing he could do about it. Knowing that the two closest people he had left in his life were going to what sounded like a dangerous meeting, Recker was extremely anxious to get a call or text from Jones when it was over. Jones was right about Recker being distracted once he learned what was going on. Recker would continue staring at the Edwards house for the next half hour but his mind wasn’t really there. Instead, his thoughts were turning to the situation that was five hundred miles away. He kept his phone clenched tightly in his hand as he waited for his ringer to go off. Until he got that call, his concerns over their safety was what was first on his mind.
Jones had gotten to the Haddix Apartments a few minutes before Mia did. He waited in front of the building for her until she arrived. Mia quickly peeled into the parking lot and rushed to the building where Jones was waiting. The Haddix Apartments had seen better days. It was in dire need of a facelift. Though it wasn’t a slum of a building, most of the residents were in the lower income group, and quite a few were on the other side of the law. The two of them just stood there looking at the building for a minute, neither sure what they were stepping into.
“Not exactly Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill, is it?” Jones asked.
“Not exactly.”
“So what do you want to do?” Jones asked, hoping she’d forget the whole thing and turn around and walk back to her car.
Mia pulled out her phone to check the time. It just turned twelve. “Well, I guess we better get up there. If we’re too late I don’t know if whoever it is will wait too long.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
“You don’t have to come up with me if you don’t want to,” Mia told him.
“I’m going wherever you’re going.”
Even though it was still against his better judgment, Jones put his arm out to indicate he was following her lead. They walked through the front doors and saw a sketchy looking character sitting on the floor and smoking a joint. They immediately noticed the elevator right in front of them and also stairs down the hallway to both sides of them.
“Stairs or elevator?” Mia asked.
“Elevator,” Jones replied. “Who knows what we might see if we take the stairs.”
They stepped inside the elevator and Mia hit the button for the second floor. They each had an uneasy feeling in their stomachs, though neither of them contemplated turning back at that point. Mia figured it was more to do with her nerves, not having to do much of this sort of work before, rather than thinking they were in any kind of danger. Jones on the other hand, was more nervous because he was afraid that they were walking into something that they weren’t prepared for. And although he used to be part of the NSA, and now worked with Recker, he still wasn’t used to being out in the field in these situations. His value was behind the scenes and behind a computer. Field work wasn’t exactly his forte. But, with Recker absent, he really didn’t have a choice.
Once the elevator doors opened, the pair stepped out into the hallway. They stood there for a moment just looking at their surroundings. They didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and began walking, looking at the numbers on the doors as they passed. At the end of the hall was room 217. As they approached they could see that the door was slightly ajar. They could see that a light was on inside and put their ear up to the door though they couldn’t hear any noise. They stood there silently and motionless for a minute, waiting to hear something that would indicate somebody was in there. But there was nothing. Mia just looked at Jones and took a deep breath, ready to continue. She quietly knocked on the door, barely loud enough for even Jones to hear, let alone anyone inside. Jones stepped in front of her and pushed the door open a little farther, big enough for him to get his head through and peak inside.
“Hello? Anyone here?” Jones asked.
They didn’t get a reply and Jones pushed the door open all the way, taking a quick look around the room. He looked back at Mia and nodded for her to follow him inside. As they moved throughout the room, noticing their surroundings, there wasn’t much to the apartment. There was a small, beat up looking couch with a few holes in it that appeared to be at least ten or twelve years old. Right in front of that was a small card table that looked more like something for a child. Jones checked the bedroom and found a futon folded out into a bed alongside a night table with a lamp sitting on it. Mia went to the kitchen and checked the cabinets and refrigerator. If someone was living there, they didn’t have a big appetite. There was only a couple of items in the refrigerator and the only thing in the cabinets were some paper plates and plastic cups. After looking in their respective rooms, Mia and Jones met back up in the living room.
“Do you think someone’s even living here?” Mia asked.
“I checked the address before we left and there is a Joe Simmons that is renting the place,” Jones answered.
“So was it him that called me and asked to come here? Or was it someone else who knew that he lived here?”
“I guess that’s the question that needs answering. But I think we should be leaving.”
“Leaving? Already? We just got here,” Mia objected.
“Yes, but if the person that called you was not Joe Simmons and he walks through that door and sees two people standing here in his apartment, I don’t think I have to tell you what might happen after that,” Jones told her.
“But what if it was him?”
“Then he’ll call you again,” Jones said, grabbing her arm.
Mia shook her arm free of Jones’ grasp, wanting to stay a little longer. “No, I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“Mia, we don’t know exactly what we’ve walked into here. I think it best if we leave now.”
“Well, why was the door already open?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Perhaps he forgot to close it or maybe he just stepped outside for a minute thinking he’d be back shortly. In any case, I don’t think it wise for us to remain here and surprise whoever it is that returns,” Jones pleaded.
“But what if this person knows what happened to Susie?
“What if this person is what happened to Susan?”
Mia was starting to come around to Jones’ way of thinking and figured if this person did have information for her, then he would’ve been there. Jones offered to do some more research on Simmons if Mia agreed to leave right then and there. The hair on the back of Jones’ neck was standing up as he wasn’t getting a good feeling upon being there. Something seemed wrong to him. Though Jones did a precursory check on the address of the apartment, due to time constraints, that was about as far as he got into the man’s background. Since Mia’s meeting was so soon, he didn’t have time to further explore Simmons’s history or if he had a criminal past.
“So you’ll let me see where you and Mike work your magic?” Mia asked.
“No. But I promise I’ll get on it right away.”
“You’re not gonna cut me out, are you?”
“We’ll discuss it in detail once we get out of here,” Jones hurriedly replied, trying to rush Mia along so they could get out of there before someone else showed up.
Jones started walking to the door, with Mia right behind him, and removed his phone from his pocket to give Recker a call and let him know what was going on. Just as they got to the frame of the door, a man jumped out from the side and struck Jones in the head with a gun. Jones instantly fell to the ground as his phone flew out of his hand across the hall. He lost consciousness and began bleeding from the top of his head.
“David!” Mia yelled, kneeling down to check on Jones’ condition.
She looked up at the professor’s attacker, who was simply standing there and staring down at them. He was a younger guy, mid-twenties, blonde hair, athletic build. He had a slight smile on his face, seemingly impressed by his work in striking down one of hi
s visitors. Mia tried tending to Jones’ head the best she could, though his attacker started to move her along.
“Get in,” he told her, waving his gun in the direction of the apartment.
Mia slowly got up, fearful of what the man was then going to do. She retreated back into the apartment, never taking her eyes off the gun-toting stranger. With Jones still knocked out, the man grabbed the back of the professor’s shirt and dragged him back inside, closing the door behind them with his leg.
“Take out your phone and throw it down on the ground,” the man said.
Mia complied with the request and tossed it on the floor near the man’s feet. He reached down and took the handle of his gun to smash the screen to pieces.
“You got a gun on you?” the man asked.
“No.”
“Turn around.”
Mia turned around and faced toward the window as the man came up behind her and started patting her down to make sure she didn’t have a weapon on her. He took a couple extra liberties in squeezing and grabbing her private parts.
“All right, turn around,” the man told her.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Mia nervously asked.
“Don’t you know? I’m Joe Simmons.”
“You’re the one who called me this morning.”
Simmons just smiled and nodded. “Yeah. That was me.”
“Why? What do you want? Why are you doing this?”
“You’re getting too close.”
Mia had a feeling she knew what he meant. “You killed Susie. Didn’t you?”
“A rather unfortunate event,” Simmons answered.
“Why?” Mia asked. She felt like asking a million other questions but that was the only one that she could get through her lips.
“We had a date. Things started to get heated and then for some reason she started resisting. It got a little out of hand after that.”