James hadn’t been paying attention to which department they were in. He looked up and saw that they were in the lingerie area. He gulped, then got back into the game. “These, dear? It looks like there’s only one hair ribbon!” He put his hand to his mouth in mock shock, “Panties, you say? Oh, my, my. No, dear. You’d lose those in the laundry, for sure.”
Leah laughed at his silliness, then went over to the wall of plastic packages, pulled down a multi-pack of cotton briefs, then turned her attention to the tiers of bras. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was embarrassed about where they were, so rounded the corner so he wasn’t watching her.
The next department was where he wanted to be anyway. He looked through the racks of ladies nightshirts and pajamas, found one he liked, and threw it in the cart. He paused a moment, took it out again, and looked at the tag. Nope, XL doesn’t look like my lady. He put it back and found the same item in size M, then did his best to hide it under the pack of panties.
While Leah was at the clearance rack, shuffling through assorted styles and sizes, involved with saving him a few dollars, he pushed the cart around until he found what he was looking for: men’s pajama pants. He pawed through the hangers, and checked all the flies, until he found a pair of sleep shorts in his size with buttons on the flap. He breathed a sigh of relief as he put them in the cart—his part of the shopping was done. He looked up and saw Leah.
“Did you get lost?” She looked at what he had just put in the cart, straightened out the folded over shorts, fingered the two buttons on the fly, and said, “Good choice. Now let’s go get me a hairbrush and a toothbrush. My mouth feels like the bottom of a birdcage.”
It didn’t take long to check out, pay, and get back on the road. “I’ll change clothes at the police station. I want to get there before Billy’s shift is over. We’re cutting it close as it is.” Leah found a parking place. “Sweet, he’s still here,” she said, when she spotted Billy’s classic ’85 blue Corvette convertible.
The two of them walked into the station where Leah was personally greeted by the female officer at the information desk. “Hi, Leah. Billy’s still here. Let me buzz him. He wanted to see you as soon as you got in.”
James wandered around the lobby, looking at the historical pictures on the walls, while Leah made small talk with the lady at the desk. Many of the paintings depicted the Revolutionary War battles that had taken place practically under his feet over 230 years ago. He knew little about the conflict, except where it related to his ancestors. They hadn’t made a big deal out of it in his school studies—it was merely a bump in his country’s effort to make sure the sun always shone on the British Empire. Around here, though, the shadows of the war were still cast on the community. He hadn’t realized that Greensboro was such an important historical region when he considered the mill purchase. Hopefully, nobody held grudges against the British after all these years.
Leah walked up beside James to look at the painting on the wall with him. “We’ll see more of this later at the museum. Come on, Billy’s waiting for us.”
James didn’t know if she had been calling him and he hadn’t heard her, or if she just wanted to be more personal in bringing him in to Billy’s office with her. He definitely had a case of jet lag to go with the shocks of the last twenty-four hours.
“Hi there, I’m Billy Burke, Leah’s neighbor,” Billy said, as he thrust his hand out in greeting. “You probably don’t recognize me with my clothes on,” he teased, referring to meeting him the day before wearing nothing but a towel. “Sorry, bad joke. Here, please sit down.”
James and Leah sat down. Leah was anxious, literally perched on the edge of her seat, her teeth biting her lower lip in anticipation of whatever was coming next.
“Here’s the report on the assault. I’d appreciate it if you’d check it out and make sure I didn’t miss anything. And here,” he placed another thin pile of paper next to the first one, “is the report on the arson. Bottom line, Leah, someone wants your keys. I think we need to get with the hospital and have them change their policy on pharmaceutical cabinets. Then, we can do a public interest story on TV about the recent attacks and fire bombings and how—hopefully this will come to fruition—doctors, nurses, and supervisors will no longer have keys to access controlled medications. I know the technology is out there for thumbprint recognition. It would be pricey to implement, but I don’t believe we ought to set a price on the lives of people, especially those helping others, like doctors and nurses.”
James picked up the arson report, scanned it, and then looked up at Billy. Leah was still reading the report on the assault. He had been there on both occasions and didn’t remember Leah giving out any information to anyone, much less a police officer. That was supposed to come later. “Officer Burke,” he began.
“Please, just call me Billy,” he replied.
“Okay, Billy, how did you know who I was? I don’t remember seeing Leah talk to you, and I know I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.”
Billy picked up the nameplate off his desk and pointed to his title. “Detective is my job. It wasn’t too hard to figure out, though. As a matter of course, I checked out the new, or rather unfamiliar, vehicle in the parking lot. I ran the plates, called the last registered owner, and he told me that he had just sold—or rather, that he had re-sold—the truck to you. I ran your name, found out that you were a decent enough fellow to accompany Leah overnight, and left a message for you to call.”
“Message? I never received a message. Oh, bother.” James opened up the side of his valise and pulled out his smartphone. “I forgot to turn it back on after I landed. Wow, looks like six messages. How many were yours?”
“Just the one, I wasn’t worried. You two seemed fully capable of taking care of each other,” Billy winked, as he whispered the last part.
James quickly looked over at Leah and saw that she was still involved with the first report. He turned back to Billy, gave a weak smile, and shook his head slightly. Billy gave him the ‘ah ha!’ nod, then grinned broadly, making a covert finger over finger jester of ‘shame, shame on you’ as he silently mouthed those words. James shook his head again. No wonder Leah liked Billy so much. The officer was a likable sort and seemed to have the same great sense of humor that she did.
Leah looked up at the two men communicating without words. “Do you two need a moment in private?” she asked coyly.
“No, no, strictly business,” Billy mocked in a stern voice, then returned to police officer mode and asked, “Do you want to add anything to, or take anything away from, the reports? The rats are still in our custody now. There were warrants out for both of them from Virginia. It seems as if they just moved here to go after fresh meat. They didn’t count on England’s finest being around to take them down.”
Leah glanced over at James, gave a weak, nervous smile, and then turned back to Billy. “Will I have to testify? I want them to be convicted, but I really don’t want to see them again.” Her mouth was producing flat, unemotional tones, but her eyes were begging, ‘Please, don’t make me do it.’
“We’ll see how it goes. We’re going to file charges, then extradite them to Virginia and let the VA boys have their way with the two of them first. If you do have to testify, it won’t be for quite a while. And then there’s always the possibility that they’ll plead guilty, or maybe even no contest, so they can get leniency. Yeah, right—at least on the leniency part,” Billy joked, but with a serious edge in his voice.
James saw that Billy was sensitive to Leah’s situation and had her best interests in mind in dealing with the situation. Now he saw her friend the cop in a different light. Yes, if he really were a gay man, then Billy would be quite attractive to him. But then again, there were plenty of others out there for the good-looking detective. James had never believed that there was someone for everyone, at least not until yesterday and Leah. So today really did feel like the first day of the rest of his life. At least now he had a life full of great pos
sibilities. And someone worthy of sharing them with.
James heard Billy’s chair scoot out from under the desk. He stood up and they shook hands again. “Thanks for taking care of my girl for me. Here’s my card,” Billy said, and handed him the official Greensboro Police Department business card, “and I wrote my personal cell number on the back. Leah, may I speak with James alone for a moment, please?”
Leah looked from Billy to James and back again, and then smiled in a knowing manner. “Sure, I’ll be right outside,” she drawled smoothly, and sauntered out into the lobby.
Billy started in on James as soon as the door was shut. “Look, she thinks you’re gay. You’re not, are you?” James shook his head briskly. “Right, I knew that, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to lie to me. That’s a biggie for me and for her. She thinks I might have a thing for you, and I’ll let her keep thinking that if it helps her ‘heal,’ shall we say. She’s been through a lot in the last year, losing her mother and now this—those creeps and her apartment practically burned to the ground. She needs a friend, not a lover.”
James nodded in agreement and looked Billy hard in the eyes. “Oh, like that is it?” Billy asked. “You’d rather keep her as a friend and have her believe a lie than get a little? I like you more all the time. Keep me posted as to her mental health.
“And I’m not supposed to do this,” Billy held out an envelope to James, “and I told her I wasn’t going to be able to get this for her, but I don’t think there’s a problem with you having it. You aren’t from around here, aren’t likely to stir up any shit, and I’ll bet you have the discretion to keep the information to yourself. Leah’s very fragile, whether she knows it or not. I’d hate for this,” he tapped the envelope now in James’s hand, “to get out to any of the tabloids. They’d have a field day with alien abduction theories with what’s in here.
“In a nutshell, the woman—a Jane Doe who Leah had in her charge at the hospital three days ago—was kidnapped by a strange little man posing as a doctor. He coerced the patient into a stolen car and had her drive the two of them out to a deserted area. We found the car two hours later. There were two sets of footprints leaving it, one of his small Colonial-style boots, the others were of the woman’s slippers. The man’s set of prints walked up to a point near two trees, then turned around and disappeared. The slipper prints, the Jane Doe who was Leah’s patient, led right between the trees, and then they disappeared.
“I think Leah feels guilty about not stopping the man before he kidnapped the woman. She tried, but wound up drugged or knocked out or something. We still can’t figure out how she lost consciousness. I know she didn’t just pass out, but there were no marks on her, nor traces of chemicals. She stood up to him, though, and did what she could to try to prevent the kidnapping. And then yesterday’s double whammy.” Billy walked around to the front of the desk and opened the door. He put his hand on James’s shoulder. “Just be there for her, okay?”
James looked him in the eye and smiled. “Gladly. She’s one helluva woman, and I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise.”
Billy’s hand was still on James’s shoulder. He had left it there just a tad too long for comfort. James shifted his eyes and Billy realized what he was doing. “Looks like she’s getting a helluva man, too,” he said softly, then winked and patted James’s shoulder in dismissal. “Keep in touch.”
Ӂ
Leah looked back from the front desk and saw her two men in the doorway. It looked like Billy had a new friend, she thought. “Keep in touch,” Billy was saying to James while patting him on the shoulder. Leah’s heart sank. It wasn’t jealousy—it was sadness. She felt like she had just lost part of her new friend to her old friend.
*13 Guilford Courthouse Museum
James set his bag down on the chair in the waiting room and discreetly slipped the envelope Billy had given him inside it. He would have to check it out when he was alone. Evidently Leah hadn’t told Billy about her suspicion that the kidnapped woman who disappeared was her mother in a younger body. Of course not—who would believe that story, even her best friend?
Former best friend, he thought proudly. He gulped in embarrassment. Pride—that cursed Melbourne pride—he didn’t want to succumb to it. No, he would let Billy remain her best friend: her best gay friend. He would, however, lay claim that he had now become a ‘great’ friend to her.
“Don’t forget to check your emails,” Leah said, breaking his reverie. She grabbed him by the arm. “Come on, but let’s go somewhere a bit more private. How about the parking lot of the museum? I’d like to get in and out of there before it gets too hot. It’s mostly just walking the grounds, but I hear they also have some great displays of the tools and stuff that people used back in the old days.”
“And that your mother is using today,” said James. “Ironic, but if she was here three days ago and went back, then she’s using items like they have in the museum today, right?”
Leah gulped. “Hell if I know,” she said flatly.
The silence that followed was uncomfortable for both of them. “Sorry,” James said, “I was just thinking out loud. I’ll try to keep my thoughts to myself.”
Leah didn’t say anything, but raised her eyebrows and nodded, indicating a ‘Well, okay’ reply. The silence remained, but wasn’t uncomfortable.
A few minutes later, they pulled into the museum parking lot. Leah found a place near the entrance, under a tree. “Shaded parking is always at a premium in the summer,” she remarked absently. “I’ll go see when they open and how much it costs while you check your messages.”
Leah got out of the car without waiting for his reply. James watched her as she left. He couldn’t see her face, but by the way she had her hand up to her eyes and nose, she was crying. “She’s fragile,” Billy had said. No, she’s tough, he thought to himself, very tough, but still a woman. They’re allowed to grieve in their own way, and that usually involves tears.
James did the taps and slides on his smartphone screen to open his voice mail. “You son of a bitch….” It was Clotilde. He didn’t want to know what that was about, so deleted it without even listening to it.
“Hi, this is Billy, Leah’s friend. Can you come down to the station in the morning? I want to give you something. I also want both of you to look over the reports on yesterday’s ‘incidents.’ Thanks and welcome to America. It isn’t always this crazy.”
James saved the phone number in his address book, then deleted the message. He wanted to make sure his possession of the report was kept as discreet as Billy had wanted it to be. James changed menus to view the missed calls. Three more were from Clotilde’s phone, but he didn’t recognize the other one, other than that it was from the UK. He opened it.
“Hi, Lord James, this is Ric Smith. You gave me the car, remember? Well, that crazy woman is trying to say that I stole it. I have the title, and the police here are okay, but is there some way you can get her off my back? And she tried to get your mail again, but I took care of that. You had an important looking parcel that came in just after you left. I took it over to your club rather than forward it through the system. I thought it would be safer that way. Also, since it’s there now, if you have someone there who you trust, he can open it for you. The package was marked urgent. Just thought you’d want to know, and thanks again for the car. The missus says she owes you a chocolate cake and a big kiss. Oh, and if you need me, the number is….”
James saved that phone number to the address book, too. He slid the cursor to ‘W,’ opened the file for the name ‘White, Mrs. Coco,’ and hit call.
“Mrs. White’s Chocolate House; how may I help you, sir?” The man on the other end of the phone always answered the same way. If it was a wrong number, the name of the ‘company’ would throw the callers off, and they would recheck the number they had dialed. If a valid call, the person would be male. All members of The Club—originally called Mrs. White’s Chocolate House, but now referred to as ‘White’s
’ by outsiders and The Club by members—were male.
“James? James Bradford?” asked James Melbourne.
“Yes, sir. Is this who I think it is?” asked the man on the other end of the call in England.
“Well, if you think that this is the other James, then yes, it is. There should have been a package delivered there for me. It would have arrived yesterday, possibly today. Do you know of it?”
“Yes, sir, I put it in the back with all of your other correspondence.” There was a pause as neither person spoke. “Sir, would you like me to open it for you? It was marked urgent, and it would be no problem.”
“Yes, please do. I’ll hold if you don’t mind.” James picked up his bag and took out the envelope Billy had given him earlier. It contained a typewritten report and a hand drawn map. He glanced over the map while the other James in England was opening the parcel. He heard the sound of paper being ripped, and then a voice.
“It looks like a map, sir. It’s on parchment and has a note attached, on a smaller piece of parchment. The note says, ‘I am returning the map to you. Please keep it safe. I hope to see you two weeks after your 28th birthday. I’ll meet you at the double X. Have Leah send plenty of IV tubing and various sizes of trocars. Also any other medical supplies that she deems appropriate for the conditions. Love.’”
“Love who?” asked James, stunned at what he had just heard.
“It doesn’t say a name, just ‘love,’ a comma, and then a…a…a happy face. It doesn’t make much sense to me, sir.”
Aye, I am a Fairy (The Fairies Saga Book 2) Page 14