Girl Undercover 1, 2 & 3: Three-Part Bundle

by Julia Derek

  I huffed quietly. Why had I gotten Ian the nut job to convince me to come here, risking revealing my identity?

  The two threatening texts in my phone came back to me then and I knew why I was here—I wouldn’t have been able to stay at home until George called to tell me who had texted me. It would have driven me crazy. At the time, it had seemed better to do something, anything to try to catch this bastard.

  I sighed and thought, Well, I might as well do the best of the situation since I’m already here.

  I turned toward the window where Ian was still standing.

  “What are you doing there?” I asked as I joined him.

  “I think the rapist might have entered this way.”

  I stuck my head out the big window and peered out into the dark night. We weren’t facing the street but the back of another building. I turned my head to see what the ground below looked like. I could barely see all the way down it was so dark out and the distance to the courtyard so huge. I experienced a brief moment of vertigo that made my stomach stir. I glanced sideways and immediately felt better.

  Hmm, I thought. In addition to how far down to the ground it was, the building’s walls were made of glass and metal. They were completely smooth.

  How would someone be able to climb such a building?

  I asked Ian that.

  “Are you claiming the perp is like Spider-Man?” I added.

  “Yes, he might very well be like Spider-Man.”

  I raised a brow. “Really? Um, you do know that Spiderman is a superhero cartoon, right? Or do the Brits believe he actually exists? In that case, let me enlighten you—he doesn’t.”

  Ian kept looking down the building and sideways. “Since none of the doormen have reported any strange men entering the building in the last twenty-four hours and none of the neighbors saw anyone strange, it seems the perp must have entered through the window. Why else would the window be open? Do you actually believe the cops opened it?”

  I shrugged. “Considering how naïve that detective was, I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s possible the perp is someone who lives in the building. Or maybe one of the doormen is in on it.” I considered this. “That’s where I’d put my money. On a doorman.”

  “I wouldn’t. This exact scenario took place in one of the other rape beatings. None of the doormen and neighbors reported anything unusual and the bedroom window had been left open in that case as well. So unless you believe the doormen in several buildings are in on it, it’s unlikely. In any case, it’s only a matter of hours before we find out if the window was open when this latest victim was discovered.”

  I took a closer look at him. “Really? How do you know so many details about the other cases? And this one too, now that I think about it… Don’t tell me you’ve marched into a station and demanded access to all the police reports.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You bribed someone, didn’t you?”

  He smiled at me. “No, but I would if I had to. Luckily, I’m blessed with other resources.”

  Chapter 4

  As I crossed my arms and tilted my head sideways, eager to hear exactly how Ian was “blessed,” my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that George was trying to contact me.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Ian and stepped away from the window. I answered the phone and told George to hold on a few moments. I didn’t want to speak with him when Ian was nearby in case he had anything to do with the texts. Climbing over the crime scene tape, I was back in the hallway. I walked into the living room and put the phone back to my ear.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “I assume you heard my message?”

  “Yeah, I did and I checked out the number you mentioned. It was made from a computer with a Skype account. Those numbers will often give you an automated message, claiming the number is no longer in service.”

  “Okay.” I threw a glance over my shoulder to ensure Ian hadn’t snuck after me. I leaned against the wall so I had a good view of all of the room. “Is that all you found out? Not the name of the owner to the Skype account?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t see that at the moment. All I can tell you is that it’s someone in the Manhattan area. Does that help?”

  “Yes, it does, thanks.” It didn’t really help since I had already assumed the caller was from the New York area given the area code, but George was trying so hard and was so nice that I didn’t want to complain.

  “Is everything okay, Gabi?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” As fine as it would ever get with Nick gone, but again I didn’t want to complain.

  “You sure?” George sounded worried.

  “Definitely.” I made myself smile as I knew that would translate into my voice. “I was just freaking out a little when I got a text from this weird number, but it’s nothing. How are things back home? Any progress on Nick’s investigation?”

  “As far as I can tell, they’re getting nowhere.”

  “Really? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. The answer can only be found here. Hey, I’ve gotta go. Thanks for checking for me.”

  “No problem, Gabi. If there’s anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to call me.”

  I thanked him again and then we disconnected. Before I stuck my phone back into my pocket, I checked to see if there were any more nasty texts from the Skype account. There wasn’t.

  Too bad.

  If another one had come while I was here with Ian, I could be almost certain he had nothing to do with them—unless he knew of a way to send them while he wasn’t at his computer. Which I doubted he did. Only someone as skilled with computers as George would be able to come up with a trick like that.

  I still need to be careful around him.

  I walked back to the room where he had remained at the window.

  He glanced at me as I came up to him.

  “Your lover?” he asked, amusement playing in his chameleon eyes.

  I was about to tell him that it was none of his business, but before I could I changed my mind. It was actually good if he thought that—maybe he would stop flirting with me now.

  I gave him a tiny but pleased smile. “How did you know?”

  “Instinct,” he said curtly and I could have sworn a shadow fell over his face.

  I opened my mouth to ask him about the supposed resources he’d been blessed with that enabled him to find out details about the other cases, but he beat me to the punch by saying, “Hey, there’s something you should see.”

  He leaned out the window and held up his smartphone, shining its flashlight down the building wall.

  I leaned out as well to see what he was referring to.

  “Do you see that?” he asked and pointed toward a series of greasy marks on the wall right below the bedroom window. The marks—which looked very much like human handprints I quickly discovered—reached as far as my eyes could see in the light of Ian’s surprisingly potent smartphone flashlight.

  “Are you talking about those handprints?” I asked just to confirm.

  “Yes. How do you think they got there unless someone climbed up the building?”

  I chuckled and shook my head like I thought he was really grasping for straws here. “Um, maybe the building has been worked on or had its walls cleaned. One or more of the workers must have left them on the building.”

  Ian gazed at me incredulously. “Why would they do that?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not familiar with how building cleaners and construction workers operate, but it seems a lot more plausible they touched the wall for some reason than some kind of human hybrid climbing the wall like Spider-Man. Maybe the workers got stuck somehow and needed to use their hands to move up or down the building while on their lift.”

  Ian turned off his flashlight and pulled in his hand. “So then you believe someone hired at a cleaning or construction company might be behind all the rapes?”

  I thought about his words that had been delivered rather sarcastically. “Sure, why not?
It’s not a bad theory. Much better than yours.”

  He gave me a long look, then shook his head and chuckled. “Fine. Except I’m pretty sure this is the first glass skyscraper in which a victim has been found, but I’ll double-check.”

  “Right. I was wondering about that. Please do explain how you know all these not-yet-released details about the other cases.”

  “I’d be happy to. I hacked the NYPD’s computer system and read the police reports.”

  I stared at him, not sure why his words had surprised me that much. At this point, nothing that came out of Ian’s mouth should have this effect on me. It must have been the nonchalant way he’d said it that had me thrown, as if hacking into the NYPD’s computer system was a piece of cake.

  Besides, I wasn’t sure I believed him. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, contemplating him with a raised chin.

  “You did, huh? And why didn’t you tell me earlier you were so good with computers?”

  He shrugged lightly. “You never asked and it never came up. Anyway, computer science was my specialty when I was with the Bureau.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Ian again, my bullshit radar going off. What he said didn’t make sense. If he could break the security shield to one of the world’s best police departments—maybe the best—why would he need me to go through Nikkei’s computers in order to find out what politicians were members there? I asked him this.

  “Because The Adler Group’s shield is incredibly hacker-proof, I’m sad to say.” He inhaled deeply, as if very frustrated with this. Then he gave me a lopsided little smile, suddenly over it. “So you see, that’s why I need you to find them for me.”

  “Wow, that’s some shield,” I muttered, still not entirely convinced what he was telling me was the truth. But since I didn’t have anything to say to contradict his claim, I decided to move on. Literally. I had spent enough time sniffing through this place. Until I’d seen the police reports—all of which I was going to insist Ian showed me in person—there wasn’t much more we could do. I wanted to see the old reports about the first three cases and the initial one regarding this case the patrol officer must have filed. “Hey, it’s getting late. We should leave. We can continue discussing this case when we’ve seen the latest police reports. Maybe the NYPD have a suspect finally after today’s rape.”

  “We can hope, but I doubt it. They don’t know what they’re dealing with here.”

  Yeah, and you do, I thought but didn’t say.

  “Okay,” Ian continued, “let’s leave and touch base tomorrow.”

  We left the apartment in silence. An hour later I was back at my place, at last allowed to get some rest for my exhausted body.

  ***

  When I woke up the following morning, I turned on the TV as I got ready for work. I wanted to hear the latest news. There was nothing else reported about Felix Bose, and certainly nothing about how Ian and I had pretended to be from the FBI and hijacked an ongoing police investigation.

  The latter wasn’t surprising.

  I didn’t think that piece of highly embarrassing information would ever be made public as it would reflect badly on the NYPD, making them look like amateurs. Surely though, by now, the detective in question had realized he’d been duped and was taking the heat for that one way or another.

  There was a short piece about the latest rape on the morning news. Again, the anchor emphasized how there were no suspects and reminded everyone that the NYPD had issued a reward for any information leading to an arrest.

  So Ian was right. It pained me more than I wanted to admit to myself. I could only hope there would be a suspect when I found out who the management company was for Belinda Jones’s building. As soon as I got a chance, I’d call them to see if any cleaning or construction company had been working on the building recently. It was only a matter of time before the NYPD did the same when detectives discovered those handprints on the building wall. Well, if they discovered them. I really hoped they stuck their heads out the window and looked around. If they did, surely they would arrive at the same conclusion as me.

  I was relieved not to hear from Ian during the first part of the day. I could use a break from him. There was plenty of time for us to talk about the rape cases when I saw him for our next session, which unfortunately was as soon as tomorrow. In addition to speaking to the management company, I needed to think about what else I could do to figure out who was behind Nick’s death; so far, I had gotten nowhere and that had to change.

  When I had a break in the afternoon, I Googled the building and found the name of the management company. Going into one of the phone booths Nikkei offered its members beside the cafeteria, I called them up. I was soon connected to the person who handled Ms. Jones’s particular building.

  “This is Patty Schmidt,” a pleasant female voice said. “How can I help you?”

  “Hello, my name is Mary Adams and I’m one of the tenants in 120 West End Avenue,” I said with authority. “I’m calling to complain about all the noise those guys working outside the building are making. I can’t hear my own thoughts it’s so loud.”

  I doubted this woman knew every tenant by name given that about 500 people lived in the huge skyscraper, so I wasn’t worried that she’d instantly realize I was full of it.

  “I’m sorry about that,” the woman said. “You must be referring to the cleaning company that was there a few days ago. We’ve already severed ties with the company as we have received several complaints about their noisiness. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, but please be assured it will never happen again.”

  I knew it. I felt a big grin spread across my lips. “I appreciate that. Thank you so much for taking care of that for us. They were really a nuisance.”

  “Of course. Again I apologize for any inconvenience.”

  “No problem.”

  We said goodbye and hung up.

  I left the phone booth, still grinning big. Now I couldn’t wait until I saw Ian next so I could tell him about my conversation with the building’s management company. Obviously we weren’t dealing with some violent human hybrid that climbed skyscrapers! Those handprints were the remnants of sloppy building workers, just like I had thought. Surely it would turn out one of those workers could be tied to the other buildings where women had been found dead in their beds.

  I decided to get a workout in before my next client and at the same time see if I could find anything to help my own investigation along.

  I climbed the stairs back up to the fourth floor where the trainers’ locker rooms were to change out of my trainer’s uniform and into workout clothes

  As I went into the locker room, I discovered Emma there, rooting around in her locker. She didn’t seem to notice that I was entering.

  “Hey, Emma,” I said and opened my own locker.

  She stopped what she was doing and turned to face me. She was paler than normal and her skin looked clammy, like she was sick.

  “Oh, hi, Jamie,” she replied, her voice high and shallow. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, just about to go work out.” I took a closer look at her. She really didn’t look well. “But how are you doing? Are you feeling okay?”

  She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yes, I’m just feeling a little queasy. I think I ate something that didn’t sit well with me for lunch.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. What did you eat?’