Shades of Gray

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  I avoided answering directly. “I’ve come to see if I could read anything.”

  “I think it’d be okay for you to enter. The room was pretty neat when we got here, and they did the fingerprinting already. Pretty much the only thing we found of interest was a shirt someone ripped up and used as a bandage. They took it to see if the blood on it matches our missing man. There’s nothing really left to see, but we’re going over the room once more to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

  The significance of Tawnia having described a similar motel room with a bandage on a table was not lost on me. “I’ll be careful,” I said, feeling a bit guilty for using what little influence I had to get inside. I looked at Russo. “Maybe you guys should wait out here.”

  I thought Russo would rip my head off at the suggestion, but he swallowed hard and nodded.

  “That’d be best,” Peirce said. “I can’t authorize anyone to enter until Detective Martin arrives. Except Autumn.”

  “Shannon’s coming?”

  “Yeah, he’s finishing up something else.” Peirce’s brow furrowed, and I knew he’d heard about Sawyer.

  “We’ll find him,” I said.

  Peirce didn’t show surprise that I already knew about the boy. I wondered what he would say if he knew Russo had every intention of doing something similar to Sophie, Dennis, and the rest of their family.

  I glanced at Russo and saw that some of the anger had left his face. Hidden, most likely. He hadn’t expected the police to still be here—or to keep him out. I for one was relieved. Now that I understood his connection with the case, I didn’t want to wager on my chances of survival if I actually led Russo to Dennis.

  Thoughts of Sophie filled my mind as I entered the motel room. How different this place was from their home next to Tawnia’s and probably even more different from where Dennis had grown up. An odd smell lingered in the air—the smell of age, of use, of dirt so embedded it could never be removed. My nose twitched, but I resisted the urge to breathe through my mouth. I’d rather smell the air I breathed. The room was plain, with only the basic amenities. No refrigerator, no microwave, and only a single faded print on the wall.

  “You can do the bathroom first,” said the dark-skinned officer. “We’re completely finished in there.” Two other officers, a man with brown hair and a woman with a short black ponytail, were on their knees, looking under the bed.

  The bathroom was little more than a closet with a shower and a toilet. The soap hadn’t been used, or the miniature bottle of shampoo. One towel was missing, and I assumed the police had taken it. Two wrapped cups on the sink hadn’t been touched, so Dennis either hadn’t been thirsty, or he hadn’t been here long enough to get himself a drink. Since the bed was still made, I was voting on the latter.

  There was quite a bit of fingerprinting dust on the sink and on the toilet, and I tried to push back my reluctance as I touched the sink knobs, gliding my fingertips over the area gingerly. Nothing. Next I touched the toilet lid and flush handle, followed by the towel rack, and then back to the sink where I touched the mirror. Imprints. Faint ones from four months earlier. A flash of a woman crying. A woman dressed in a maid uniform. Not related to this investigation.

  “Any luck?” Peirce asked.

  I shook my head. “No one cared about this room enough to leave any imprints.”

  “I thought you had something with the mirror.”

  “Nothing that will help us.”

  Out in the room, the officers had moved to the table. I didn’t see how they could have missed anything because there simply wasn’t much to search. I ran my fingers over all the available surfaces, especially those that had the remains of fingerprint dust. Russo and Charlie stared at me from the doorway, filling up the space as though blocking my escape. Trying to ignore them, I trailed my hands along the knobs to the battered entertainment center and the small television. Nothing. I wished I could have touched the bandage, though if the cloth had contained an imprint, it might be too faded to help anyway. More likely, it wouldn’t hold anything.

  An exclamation from the female officer drew my attention. With a gloved hand, she pulled a small prescription bottle out from under the heating unit. “Sleeping pills,” she said, “belonging to Dennis Briggs.”

  I hurried over. “His wife said he had a prescription for them. Can I see them?”

  “Not a good idea. I have to take it in and check for prints.”

  “You’ll probably only find his.”

  “They might have dropped during a struggle.” She frowned at me. “Who are you anyway?”

  “She’s with me.” Shannon was shoving past Russo and his sidekick. “We can wait until you take the prints.”

  “Here?”

  “Here.”

  The officer didn’t question further but went quickly to work.

  “I see you’ve been slumming,” Shannon said to me in an undertone. Annoyance and anger came through his words.

  I knew he was talking about Russo. “No more than usual.” Giving him a fake smile, I added in a whisper. “You know, you’re almost cute when you’re mad.”

  Several seconds of silence passed before he said, “So you think I’m cute.”

  “I said ‘almost.’” I turned away, trying to hide the quirk of my lips that hinted at a real smile. “Why didn’t you tell me Russo is related to the man Dennis saw murdered?”

  Shannon arched a brow. “Just found out myself a few hours ago. If I’d told you, you’d have probably run right out and confronted Russo again. Oh, wait, you did that anyway.”

  “No, this time he came for me. And what you might not know is that Dennis is really Damiano Franco.”

  “Brother of the man he saw murdered?”

  “Exactly.” Was that an admiring glance? Well, it made no difference to me.

  “All the more reason not to trust Russo,” Shannon said.

  I met his gaze. “I never trust anyone I don’t know.” Not anymore.

  The female officer frowned, apparently irritated at not finding what she wanted. Or maybe her ponytail was too tight. She handed the bottle to Shannon, who extended it to me.

  I took a breath. Russo was peering inside the room, his eyes almost as intense as Shannon’s. I opened my hand, and Shannon placed the bottle on my palm.

  An imprint came to life in my mind, one from the night before. Dennis/I sat on the bed, staring at the bottle in his/my hand. Memories of a younger Russo and another similar face with Dennis’s laughing smile. The memories weren’t violent or even desperate. They were a thirst that couldn’t be quenched, a loss that couldn’t be filled. An ache without a name. Over all was Dennis’s desire for escape.

  I knew the other young man was Dennis’s older brother, Bartolomeo, and that Dennis still mourned his death. Mourned all alone because he had rejected that life and the comfort his family could have offered, and he couldn’t share that past with Sophie. He had sat in this room yesterday holding this bottle and thinking about the brother he’d lost and the cousin he’d left behind. A tear rolled down my cheek. My cheek, but Dennis’s emotion.

  A noise at the door, Dennis/me turning, terror growing in his/my gut, but also that tiny bit of ambivalence, a strange longing that reminded me of the tiny rush of warmth in the pen imprint.

  Wait. These men he/I didn’t recognize. Then again, a lot would have changed in five years. An Asian man grabbing me. He was built like a wrestler, his strong fingers like metal hooks.

  “Hey, take it easy. I’ll go peacefully.”

  “What do I care?” the Asian sneered, the scar across his left cheek sagging gruesomely. “The only reason I don’t kill you is ’cuz our boss has a few questions.” A fist coming up to meet my face. Exploding pain. Blackness.

  Struggling for breath, I dropped the bottle onto the bed. Shannon reache
d out to steady me but stopped short when I began speaking. “He was taken,” I said, more to Russo than anyone else. “An Asian man and two others. He thought they’d been sent from his family, but he didn’t recognize them. They didn’t seem to care when he told them he’d go peacefully. They hit him. That’s all I saw. The medication must have fallen from his hand and rolled under the heater.”

  “Did you say an Asian man?” Russo took few steps into the room, and no one objected. “Is he a big man and did he have a scar on his face?”

  “What’s the significance of that?” Shannon asked.

  “The Saito family is Japanese, and they have an employee who meets that description.”

  “The Saitos operate strictly in the east. What would they want with Dennis?” Shannon looked between Russo and me.

  Russo gave Shannon a glare. “They would kill him as they did his brother five years ago.”

  “Yeah, I get the family relationship. What I want to know is why they would kill either of them. What did you guys to do them?”

  Russo’s only answer was a withering glare. I guess whatever secrets the family held, he wasn’t going to share them with me and a police detective.

  “The man did have a vertical scar on his cheek,” I said. “His left cheek.”

  “Then there’s no time.” Russo’s large fists clenched and unclenched at his side. “If the Saitos have Dennis, he’s as good as dead. And the boy, too. If we have any chance of saving them, we have to act now.”

  “We don’t know where they’ve gone.” Shannon glanced at his phone as it buzzed, but didn’t answer.

  Russo’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated Shannon. “I might,” he said finally. “The Saitos have used one of their many companies to rent a warehouse down by the docks. But if you go in with all your force, they will kill Dennis and Sawyer without hesitation. You’ll have to go in stealthily, with only a few people. My man Charlie can show you. He’s been there.”

  Now it was Shannon’s turn to stare at Russo. “How do I know this isn’t just more misdirection?”

  “I have nothing more to hide.” Russo raised his hands.

  “Ha!” I scoffed. “Except what you did to make the Saitos so angry. And the fact that you’ve come to force Dennis to return to your family.”

  “His family needs him.”

  “No, they don’t. Not in that way. You could run the business without him. He doesn’t want any of it.” That wasn’t quite true because I knew he wanted some of it, to see his family, to mourn with them over his brother, to remember his mother. That he’d chosen to run instead of staying with them said volumes about what he felt about their business.

  Russo was becoming angry again—I could see it in the slight color of his face, the way his expression went blank. “Damian is like a brother to me. He’ll see reason.”

  Like a brother? That made me wonder about the “aunt” Dennis had taken Sophie to meet. Who was the woman? Had at least one of his family members been aware of his survival these past five years? Perhaps even helping him?

  “Is your mother still alive?” I asked Russo.

  He blinked at the change in conversation. “She was when I left New Jersey. She suffers with a bone disease that keeps her confined to her bed.” As when he’d talked about growing up with Dennis, I felt a flash of a real person behind his tough exterior, of sympathy and affection. Whatever else he was, Russo’s tender feelings for his mother were genuine.

  “I accept your help,” Shannon said into the silence that followed. “Your man can ride back with me and tell me what he knows. It’ll take me an hour to gather everyone. Do you think we have that long?”

  Russo shrugged. “Depends on how long Dennis can last without telling them what they want to know. It may already be too late.”

  Shannon gave the officers a few directives before we followed Russo from the room. We walked in silence to the stairs.

  “‘Ha’?” Shannon said to me. “You said ‘ha’ to an organized crime boss?”

  “Whatever works.” I breezed past him down the stairs, thinking of asking Peirce to give me a ride home on his way back to the precinct because I wasn’t about to go with Russo. I wondered if Russo would drive himself since Charlie was going with Shannon, but outside Russo and Charlie were already talking to another pair of men wearing dress shirts and slacks, their heads close together as they conferred. Too bad my talent wasn’t telepathy.

  My phone was vibrating like crazy, and I fished it out of my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number and there was no name. “Hello?” I said, putting a hand to my ear so I could hear past the sound of the traffic zooming by. Didn’t anyone in this area know what a muffler was?

  “Is this Autumn Rain?” A woman’s voice, panicked beyond recognition—if I knew her at all.

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Kolonda Lewis. I’m sorry to call you like this, but I’m worried about Jake.”

  “He seemed fine when I left the shop a few hours ago. He might be there now.”

  “He’s not. Someone there gave me your number. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “What happened?” Why wouldn’t she get to the point?

  “Jake called me, all excited about something he’d found out about my properties. Said he was coming over to tell me about it, but he never got here. The phone rang once, and the caller ID said it was him, but no one was on the line when I answered. I’ve tried his phone since, but it goes to voice mail. I wouldn’t worry, but one of my neighbors says they saw some guys pushing someone matching Jake’s description into a gray van in front of my house. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What did the men look like? What were they wearing? Did she get a license plate?” The questions tumbled from me, sounding oddly calm and thorough, despite the fact that inside I was screaming. It was as if another part of me had taken over—the same part that was able to read a negative imprint and not go crazy. The part that practiced martial art moves until my healing ribs ached.

  “Just a minute. I’ll ask.” She was gone for long seconds. I could hear talking but not individual words. “Okay, I’m back. She didn’t notice what they were wearing, so I guess they fit in. She did say there were two men who jumped out of the van. One was Asian, the other white.”

  My heart had frozen at the word Asian. “Was the Asian big? Did he have a scar on his face?”

  More seconds passed as Kolonda asked. “She said he was kind of big for an Asian, but she didn’t notice a scar.”

  Shannon had caught up to me. He was on his phone, too, barking orders, but he stopped talking as he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Jake,” I choked out. “He’s in trouble.”

  Chapter 11

  This can’t be happening, I thought. Jake, my Jake, taken by men in a gray van? Kolonda had to be mistaken. But the panic in her voice was real. What frightened me more than anything was the connection with the Asian. Did he work for the Saitos? The only thing that made sense was that Russo might have been wrong about them coming here for Dennis. If they were also in town for business, it might involve real estate, and the last thing Jake had told me was that he was going to look into Kolonda’s building problem. Could he have uncovered something the Saitos wanted to remain hidden?

  It wasn’t the only answer. Whoever was behind the attack on me that morning could be using Jake for revenge.

  Unfortunately, I still didn’t know who had sent the thug. Russo was slipping downward on the list of my suspects, seeing as how he preferred the direct approach in contacting me, but it was hard to believe the Saitos would have heard of me and considered me a danger. So we were back to Kolonda and her buildings again. Where was the connection? If there was one, I wasn’t seeing it. Maybe Jake was involved in other issues I knew nothing about.

  “Get Jon and Tracy ready
to move,” Shannon was saying into his phone. “And get the backup perimeter in place. Call me when it’s done.” He stepped closer to me. “What happened?”

  “I’ll call you right back,” I said to Kolonda, hanging up. I took Shannon’s phone and punched in her number from the caller ID on my phone and handed it back to him. “Name’s Kolonda. She says Jake was taken by some men in a van. One of them was a big Asian.” I forced myself to leave him and walked over to where Russo and his men were still talking. Silence fell as I approached. I noticed that the private investigator, Ace, had arrived.

  “I need the address of the warehouse,” I said to Russo. “Please, tell me where it is.”

  Russo shook his head. “Charlie will take the police there.”

  “The detective is setting up a perimeter. The Saitos will know. It’ll be too late for Dennis.” And for Jake.

  “You think you’re going in?” Charlie asked, a grin or a sneer beginning on his face. I couldn’t tell which.

  “My boyfriend was just taken by a big Asian man.”

  Russo arched a brow. “Can’t be related. What would the Saitos want with him?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  “Autumn.” Shannon came up behind me. “I sent someone over. Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”

  The feeling in my gut didn’t believe him. I might not be able to trust all my instincts anymore, but I knew something was wrong with Jake. I could feel it.

  “If you send a lot of men into the area, they’ll know you’re there,” Russo said to Shannon. “You should go with Charlie and one or two others.”

  “We’re only setting up a perimeter. It’ll be far enough away that we’ll go in unseen.”

  Russo barked a laugh. “I’ve never known the police to go in unseen.”

  “I have. Your man Charlie will come as far as the perimeter, but he won’t be coming with us into the warehouse. I need men who don’t have another agenda. I think you’ll understand why.”