Keeping Her Close

by Suzanne Rock

  “We have no idea what she said to set this guy off, though.”

  “It might be best to just take the entire blog down until this whole thing blows over.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t see how doing anything with her blog would change much at this point. The damage has already been done.”

  “You might be surprised. A public apology and an apologetic piece might be enough to diffuse this situation.”

  “Yeah, but we wouldn’t be able to catch the guy that way, would we?”

  Vash shrugged and picked up a bag of potato chips. “You will have to decide which is more important. Catching the criminal or keeping Ms. Abbott safe.”

  He had a point. I rubbed my chin and filed the information away to use later. “Okay, so I’ll talk to Tess about the blog and see what we can do. What about me? It’s tough protecting her on my own. How soon do you think this stuff with my record would get cleared up?”

  Vash sighed and put the potato chip bag back. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near the precinct if I were you. “The rumor is that you are mentally unstable and wish to contact the people who want her dead and strike a deal. You’ll take her off their hands if they wipe out your debt.”

  I let out a deep breath. “And that would be plausible if anyone looked at my bank accounts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Someone went through a lot of trouble to concoct this story.”

  “It is a story, isn’t it?”

  I glanced at my long-time friend. “Vash, I’m hurt.”

  “I know, sorry. I had to ask.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  “I do.” Vash picked up some buffalo-flavored snack chips. I chose some popcorn.

  “That healthy stuff is going to kill you,” he said.

  I chuckled. “So what do we do now?”

  Vash thought a moment before responding. “The Feds are busy with her friend.”

  “Kami?”

  “Yeah. And the father is being a general nuisance. The Feds have pawned him off on me, and he’s been going up my butt sideways, asking questions about his daughter and trying to throw his weight around. I say we figure out a way to let Tess speak with him. Try to see if he knows more about this than he’s letting on.”

  I shook my head. “No can do. It’s too dangerous.”

  Vash raised his brows, the first sign of any emotion during our whole conversation. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “I’m not putting her life in any more danger, Vash. End of discussion.”

  “According to him, she’s all he has left in the world. There has to be something we can do. I’m afraid the poor guy is going to suffer a heart attack soon if he doesn’t get information about his daughter.”

  I frowned at my friend. “Well, we can’t have that.” I popped open the bag of popcorn and tossed one into my mouth.

  “We need to get these two together,” Vash said. “Maybe I could arrange something in person?”

  I shook my head. “Might be better through Skype, at least at first. The walls have ears down at the precinct, and I wouldn’t want someone figuring out where she is just yet.”

  Vash nodded to the duffle bag on the ground. “That reminds me. It will be easier to talk to one another if we use what I brought in the bag.”

  “What is it?”

  “A laptop. It’s my home one, so make sure nothing happens to it.”

  I chuckled. “Don’t want me messing with your pornos?”

  Vash flashed me a disgusted look. “Just get her and her father talking. Something tells me that both of these people know more than they are letting on.”

  “Got it, boss.” I tossed another piece of popcorn into my mouth.

  “I am your boss until this whole mess gets straightened out.”

  I grinned. “Love you, too.”

  Vash snorted. “Yeah, well, just be careful. All of the information is in there on how to set up the skype with her dad and when to do it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Hey.” The young man behind the counter pointed at me. “You need to pay for that.”

  I fished some money out of my pocket. “Got it. Talk to you later.”

  “Later.” Vash put the chips on the shelf and slipped out the door as I walked up to the counter.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You better be. This isn’t a charity, you know.” He stuffed the bills into the register and gave me my change.

  I walked slowly back to the apartment, trying to piece together all of the information we had and trying to make sense of it.

  We didn’t have much. Someone was trying to kill Tess, and that someone was of interest to the FBI. According to her father, Tess and he had a close relationship. According to Tess, they were estranged.

  Nothing was lining up, and I felt as if I was missing some important pieces to this puzzle. Stopping at a small internet café, I decided to grab a couple cups of coffee. Caffeine always helped me think clearly, and by bringing back something sweet, I could butter up Tess. Considering how she attacked that donut this morning, the woman liked her pastries.

  I stepped inside the café and tossed my popcorn bag into the trash. As I headed up to the counter, a flash of color caught my eye. I turned to my right and saw a familiar hooded figure sitting away from the crowd at one of the internet terminals, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “Tess?” Anger welled up inside of me as I closed the distance between us. I thought I had told her to stay in the apartment. What was she doing here? I navigated the tables, intent on giving her a piece of my mind, but as I got closer, I paused. Exactly what was she up to?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tess

  “Anarchy.” I let out a long breath as I stared at the screen name and the comment that followed. “I had forgotten about you.”

  Anarchy was an internet troll. He had shown up on various political communities, spilling his vitriol until he was blocked by the content creator. At that point, he’d move to a fresh blog and start the process all over again. His comments would always be demeaning, with threats to close down the website or suffer the consequences. His “consequences” would result in more complaining and snarky comments. Once, he tried to shut a blog down by reporting them to their web-hosting service, but mostly he’s just been annoying.

  Over the past six months, he had been focusing on my blog. Normally, I would have dismissed him, but instead of attacking my political views like he had done on other sites, Anarchy had started attacking my personal character, saying that people like me lived in towers as ivory as my skin, and how I couldn’t possibly know the real troubles of “his people.” The world needed to be culled of ignorant people like me if any true change was going to occur.

  His people. It was the first time he had gone personal, but it wasn’t the last. At the time, I had deleted his comments, dismissing them as nothing more than rantings, but that was before the attempt on my life. Now, as I stared at his most recent comment, a chill ran down my spine.

  “You Europeans walk into our country and push your way of life on us. Then, when you have disrupted our villages and terrorized our people, you run off without another thought, leaving the rest of us to pick up the mess you had made. You are nothing but spoiled children wanting to feel special, and we’re tired of your self-centered superiority tainting our children. Stay with your toys in your ivory towers. We don’t want your kind around here. The next time you set foot in our country, we will make sure you will regret it.”

  I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. This comment meant something. It was more than just a rant, I was sure of it. I just didn’t have the resources to find out Anarchy’s identity or how he was connected to what happened yesterday.

  I didn’t have resources, but Max did. I was going to have to tell him about this. Hopefully he wouldn’t use it as ammunition for me to stay cooped up in that apartment.

  I grabbed a napkin and scribbled down what information I could, in
cluding the comment and the IP address of the commenter. As I wrote, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “What are you doing?”

  My heart leapt in my chest as I stood and turned around. “Max.”

  He raised his brows. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  I let out a long breath, along with all of the adrenaline that had surged through my veins. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “I thought I told you to stay in the apartment.”

  “You did, but I found some information.” I held up the napkin. “I visited the blog and—”

  “Not here.”

  “What?” I glanced down at the bag he was carrying. “What’s that?”

  Instead of answering, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the door.

  “Max—”

  “I said, not here.”

  The walk back to the apartment took forever, and I had to harness all of my willpower not to blurt out my information on the street. When we finally made it back safe and shut the door, he directed me toward the kitchen.

  “I think I found something,” I said as he put his duffle bag on the table.

  “Not yet. First we’re going to talk about how you need to do as you’re told.”

  “But I—”

  “No buts. My job is to keep you safe, and I intend to do just that.”

  His job. I don’t know why those words hurt so much, but they did. From the moment we met I had known that I was just a job to him. Last night was about blowing off steam, nothing more. Still, the words stung, and it was hard not to act like a petulant child.

  “Now, promise me that next time you’ll stay put.”

  Was this guy for real? I glanced up at him, and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to listen to me until he got his way. “Fine,” I said. “Now, will you look at this?”

  “I mean it.”

  “I heard you.” I had no intention of doing as he asked, but I didn’t want to argue. There were more important things to discuss. I motioned to the napkin on the table. “Now will you listen to me?”

  “Very well.” He leaned in closer. “What did you find?”

  “A name,” I said. “He calls himself Anarchy.” I quickly explained how he had become the troll of the political blogging industry and a general nuisance.

  “Anarchy?”

  I nodded. “He started commenting on my blog soon after I started writing pieces about the Middle East. I normally don’t read the comments on my blogs, so his tirades didn’t concern me. Then he started messaging me on social media and sending me private emails.” I let out a long breath as I remembered how vulgar he had gotten. “It got to the point that I could no longer ignore him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “At first, he chastised me about not caring about the people of Tanzania anymore. Then, over time, his messages stopped being about my posts, and started getting personal.”

  Max frowned. “Personal? How so?”

  “He started attacking me, not the article. He’d say things like I was ignorant, or that I needed to get out more. One time on social media, he said that nothing good could come from my trip to Africa. That it would end badly.”

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  I shrugged. “People say stuff on the internet all of the time, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

  He ran his hand over his face. “Okay, let me take a look at these comments.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “I would, but we don’t have a computer.”

  He unzipped the duffle bag and took out a laptop. “Yes, we do.” When I flashed him a questioning glance, he went on to explain. “Vash gave it to me. It seems as if your father’s really worried about you. We can’t risk a person-to-person meeting, but you can talk to each other over Skype.”

  “That’s good.”

  Max put the laptop on the kitchen table. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?”

  “You sound sad.”

  “I am sad . . . and perhaps a little apprehensive.”

  “Why?”

  “My father and I don’t communicate well. We haven’t since my mother’s death.”

  “That wasn’t in your file.”

  My smile was bitter. “Not everything about me is an open book, Max.”

  My words seemed to surprise Max. He stood there, looking at me for a long moment, then resumed taking things out of the duffle bag. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “How did your mother die?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Like me, she had albinism. Unlike me, she was born in a small village in Tanzania.”

  Max stopped unpacking and waited for me to continue.

  “My grandparents knew that her life was in danger, so they gave her up to a small shelter in the closest city to the village. From what I understand, she grew up under the protection of strangers. It was in this shelter where she met my father.”

  Max furrowed his brow. “Your father?”

  “My real father,” I said. “He was the son of one of the volunteers who worked at the shelter. They grew up together and then, as teenagers, fell in love. At sixteen, my mother became pregnant with me.”

  “Sounds like a real love story.”

  “Not exactly.” I pressed my lips together as anger welled up inside of me. “Their lives weren’t easy. In Tanzania, it is believed that the limbs and organs of people with albinism can cure terminal diseases. It is also believed that having sex with a woman who has albinism can rid a person of AIDS. As a result, people like me are worth quite a bit of money. It doesn’t matter if we are alive or dead.”

  Max started to say something, but I hurried to talk over him. I felt a deep need to tell him what happened, to make him understand why I was so passionate about my work.

  “My mother was told to stay in the shelter for her own protection, but she grew board and frequently would sneak out with my father. It was on one of these outings where they ran into some hunters. They went after my mother. My father tried to help her, but the men were relentless. In the end, he died saving her life.”

  “Wow, I had no idea.”

  “No one does.” I looked down at my shaking hands as I tried to remember my mother’s face all of those years ago. “My mother knew she could no longer stay in Tanzania, but even so, it took several months for her to barter a way out of the country. When she landed in England, she was destitute. That was when she met my adoptive father.”

  “Who took care of her and later you.”

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t explain the strained relationship you have with him.”

  “Things started going downhill after my mother died of skin cancer several years ago. My father felt guilty that he couldn’t do more to protect her. After she died, all of that protectiveness turned toward me. He tries to keep me hidden away at his London apartment, saying that he can protect me best if I am kept hidden from the outside world. If it were up to him, I’d still be there, cut off from the rest of society.”

  “He just doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “It’s one thing to protect me. It’s another to not let me live my life.” I glanced down at the laptop as tears filled my eyes. “Just because my mother died of skin cancer, doesn’t mean I will. Just because she was attacked by hunters, doesn’t mean the same would happen to me. I take precautions when I travel in Tanzania. I’m not an idiot.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “You have no idea what it was like, living in my mother’s shadow.” I wiped the stray tear with the back of my hand. “It was as if my father was constantly comparing me to my mother and finding fault with what I was doing. I was never good enough for him.”

  “You’re wrong. I know exactly what it was like.”

  “You do?” I risked a glance at him. He had left the laptop on the table and was closing the distance between us.

  I backed up, meeting him step for step. When my backside hit the counter, he leaned forward, putting his hands on the l
aminate top on either side of me. “My father was diagnosed with cancer while I was still in high school.”

  “Oh my God.” I placed my fingers over my lips. “I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m not telling this for your pity, I’m telling you this to make a point.”

  “But it still must have been very traumatic for you.”

  My words seemed to affect him. His features softened, and he studied my face a moment before responding. “I remember visiting him in the hospital. He was dying. He told me that his only wish would be for me and my brothers to carry on the family legacy and to become cops like he did.”

  “So after he died, you went to the police academy.”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t his only wish.”

  “What else did he ask of you?”

  He pushed off the counter and walked a few steps away, as if eager to put distance between us. “He wanted us to make something of ourselves and do some good in the world. He didn’t want us to become distracted like he did.”

  “Distracted?”

  He ran his hand over his face and turned to me. “He fell in love with a woman while on the job. It almost got them both killed.” He fisted his hands at his sides. “When the job was over, they got married, but realized pretty quick that they were too different to make a marriage work. By then it was too late. She was pregnant with my older brother.”

  “What happened?”

  “They tried to make things work for a while, but his job kept coming between them. Eventually they separated. Not long after that, he met my mother.”

  “Did he meet her on the job as well?” I asked.

  “No, they met through a blind date. My father cared for my mother, but he didn’t love her, not like the first woman he was with. Their marriage was an arranged marriage of sorts, one of convenience. It seemed to work out a lot better.”

  “But . . .” I said when he didn’t continue.

  “But . . . that eventually ended as well. Once more she wanted more from my father than he was able to give.” He slowly started closing the distance between us. “After she left, his sister, my aunt, raised us while he was on assignment. When he was home, dad made sure all three of his boys learned from his mistakes.”