No Feign No Gain

by Carrie Ann Knox

  I took a deep breath, knowing she was probably right. We have to stay rational. I met Sloan’s eyes and nodded. I was with her.

  She nodded back and turned to the laptop. She tapped her finger on her lips, thinking. “The only thing that gets me is that the note wasn’t left to be obvious right away. Why not the living room, the kitchen? I guess eventually someone would have to go in his room. But by that time, it might’ve been the cops checking out a missing persons report. It seems risky.” She studied the screen a moment, then glanced up to Jackson, waiting quietly behind us. “Why did you check the laptop, anyway? Did you know the password?”

  He shook his head. “It was just there, glowing away when I came in. Couldn’t miss it.”

  Sloan mused some more, narrowed eyes staring at the screen. “We’ll at least be able to see when it was created and edited, maybe.”

  Giving up on the fingerprints, I tapped the mousepad to minimize the document and satisfy my curiosity. A few standard icons littered the screen. Nothing else open, nothing obviously suspicious. The ransom note was unsaved and untitled.

  Jackson edged closer, peering over our shoulders. “So if it’s a ransom . . . who exactly is supposed to come up with two hundred grand? Surely whoever it is isn’t expecting me to have that kinda cash.”

  Sloan and I glanced at each other. I cleared my throat. “I guess you weren’t privy to your roommate’s secret family either, then.”

  He raised his eyebrows at us.

  “They have boatloads of money,” Sloan said, matter-of-fact.

  “Literally,” I added. “They spend most of their time on a yacht.”

  “Oh.” Jackson’s brow furrowed as he pondered. “That would explain quite a lot, then.”

  I studied his face. “Such as?”

  He shrugged. “Just his general attitude toward money. Always seemed to act like it was a never-ending resource, and I was a fool for not treating it that way. I thought he just made mad dough at his internship.”

  I grimaced. “That’s definitely not the source.”

  Jackson nodded, considering. “That’s why it was so weird when I found out he hadn’t paid the bills. I thought he was literally rolling in it. He certainly always seemed like it.” He cringed. “Crikey, I just referred to him in past tense. Can’t say I really like the guy, but I don’t wish him harm, you know? What do we do?”

  “First, we try to figure out who has him,” Sloan replied. “But we should probably contact his family, too. In case things go south and we have to get the payout instead.”

  Jackson paled. He looked about how I felt. I tried to shake it off and focus on the task at hand. Panicking wouldn’t help anyone.

  “He’d been keeping them quite the secret, lying to everyone.” I mused out loud. “So then the question is, who did know about his family? Maybe that could tell us who’s behind this.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Sloan surveyed the rest of the room, then turned to Jackson. “You have any empty boxes around here? We’re gonna need everything.”

  ***

  “Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.” Sloan shoved aside the last box in disgust. “What a waste of time.”

  I climbed from my spot on the floor, giving my knees a chance to stretch. The small pile of cardboard boxes littering my apartment held the meager contents of Grant’s room. They had turned up nothing interesting. And thus, no clues to who held him captive.

  I tried to think of anything we might’ve missed. “Should we have taken his clothes, too?”

  “Maybe.” Sloan shrugged. “But I don’t know what that could possibly tell us. We checked all the drawers.”

  I gave the carton in front of me a little kick in frustration. “You’d think he’d have something personal in here. Maybe not a diary, per se. But mementos, hints to what he does in his spare time. Something.”

  Sloan hopped to her feet in one swift movement, reminding me of a ninja. “Nope. And no stash of pictures, either. Only those two framed ones.” She reached to retrieve two black frames from the floor. “Him with what looked like his family at Christmas, surrounded by piles of glittering presents. And one of a fluffy little dog. No friends, boyfriends. Not even a holiday card.”

  I took a closer look at the photos she handed me. Five tanned, smiling faces peered back. “The family doesn’t look all that bad. Wonder what happened with them?”

  “You’ve met your coworker.” Sloan smirked. “Probably Grant happened to them.”

  I grabbed an empty notebook from the pile and threw it at her. “Not helping.”

  She jumped out of the way, dodging the flying debris. The notebook slammed into the bookcase behind her, toppling a small basket of office supplies. Pens and notepads spilled onto the floor.

  “Hmmm.” Sloan pretended to study the pile. “I kind of like it like that, maybe you should just leave it.” She grinned. “This mess wouldn’t bother you, would it?”

  I rolled my eyes and headed across the room.

  Sloan stuck her hand out to stop me. “Just kidding. I got it.”

  She grabbed the basket and swept the contents back in in one swoop. Then made a show of putting the basket back, making tiny, mockingly precise adjustments to its position on the shelf. Clearly she found my tidiness hilarious.

  Then she stopped moving the basket and just stared.

  “Okay, I think you’ve made your point,” I said.

  Sloan didn’t respond.

  I got curious when I saw her head tilt, examining the shelf further but not moving from her position. She still said nothing. But her grin was now gone.

  “Sloan?” I leaned in, getting nervous. “What’s up?”

  She paused another moment before turning back, a bright new smile on her face. “Nothing at all.” She straightened and moved to grab her bag from the kitchen counter. “But it’s about time to meet Leo. He’ll be waiting.”

  Her voice sounded perfectly calm and normal. But something was off. I was certain.

  In a move so brief I wasn’t sure it had happened, she pressed her finger to her lips as she hurried out the door.

  Quiet.

  EIGHT

  After driving separately, at Sloan’s insistence, I was more than ready for some answers by the time we pulled up to Joe’s. What had made her act so bizarrely?

  She continued to ignore my look of inquisition and headed straight to the back of the diner, where a familiar male head waited. His dark hair swished across his chiseled asian face when he turned his head toward the sound of Sloan’s heels approaching.

  “Evenin’ ladies.” Sloan’s hacker friend Leo looked up with a sly grin. “Could I buy you two a cup of coffee? They’ll put it on my tab.”

  “Very funny.” Sloan smirked. “We both know you don’t have a tab.” She slid into the booth to face him. “ And you should really stop charging things to mine.”

  “If you say so.” Leo gave me a little wink as I took the seat next to Sloan, then returned his attention to her. “But you know you owe me a lot more than my shameful secret pie addiction will ever cost you.”

  Sloan gave a flick of her eyebrows in agreement. “Touché.”

  He looked satisfied with that response. “So, good news or bad news?”

  With Sloan’s added mystery-behavior back there, I was desperate to know something positive, however small. “Good news, definitely.”

  “So the good news is that I’ve found buttloads of information,” Leo announced. “Plenty of dirt on this guy.”

  “Of course you’ve found stuff,” Sloan objected. “You’re you. That doesn’t exactly count.”

  Boy, they work fast. One of the security guys had just dropped the laptop off to him hours earlier. “You’ve gone through his whole computer already? You’re really good.”

  “I am that good.” Leo winced. “But no.”

 
Three coffees were dropped to the table in front of us. We gave a simultaneous thanks to our laconic but friendly, ever-present Southern waitress Dottie and reached for our cups.

  Sloan slid the creamer over to me. “He’s been doing a deep dive on Grant since I found that recording on his phone. Background, family. Second or third secret lives.”

  I stirred the fixings into my coffee, mind buzzing. There was no way I could focus on all the background info just yet, I was too distracted. I needed answers. “Sorry, Leo. But the bad news is going to have to wait.” I turned to face Sloan beside me. “I need to know what happened back there.”

  “Mmm . . . a little drama?” Leo leaned in and plopped his chin on his fist, looking intently between us. “I’m listening.”

  I concealed my own eye roll with a little head shake. “No, but she has some explaining to do. Why did you zone out like that?”

  Sloan stared at her coffee a moment. “I hate to tell you this.” She carefully put down her cup and met my eyes. “But you were being watched.”

  Watched. I gulped and lowered my own cup to the table. “What do you mean?”

  “There was a camera in your bookcase. Hidden under the lip of the shelf.”

  That can’t be. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I shook my head, in major denial. “How can you be? You didn’t get all that close.”

  “Trust me, I know hidden cameras. And this one was very familiar. And expensive.”

  I flashed back to our previous adventure. We had seen the comings and goings of a businessman’s hotel room the night he died. Courtesy of a camera she had planted in the hallway, completely undetected. I had to believe her. “Why didn’t you show me?”

  “I needed to play it off.” She shrugged. “We don’t want whoever is watching to know that we know, right?”

  Whoever is watching. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She had been right in keeping it secret. I wouldn’t have been able to react appropriately. That was my home. “So then who is watching?”

  Leo cleared his throat dramatically. “I think I can answer that.” He pulled a fancy laptop from the bag next to him. “The camera fits with what I’ve found so far.”

  “Right, the other bad news,” I mumbled.

  “So let me guess,” Sloan began. “I’d like to think none of the reporters outside were that desperate for a story. So more likely, it would be the local mob itself. Someone in Sal’s crew. We did help put away a nice chunk of their organization.”

  “Not on purpose,” I objected. Not that I regret stopping criminals. Right?

  “Be that as it may, we played a role. And they might want to exploit our participation somehow.” Sloan turned to Leo. “So what do you think, someone looking for dirt? They could try to discredit us or something.”

  “That’s sort of what I’m thinking,” Leo replied absently as he clicked on the keyboard.

  “But you were doing research on Grant,” I objected. “Why would that lead you to the mobsters being behind the camera?”

  “Because it’s one and the same.” He spun the computer around to face us. “Hate to tell you, but I think you were right about your finger-delivery theory. There’s evidence to suggest Grant here was your culprit.”

  I gulped, not wanting to accept his words. I had a traitor in my midst.

  “Think about it,” he continued. “He certainly had easy access, right? And was acting pretty funny. Asking you a lot of questions, suddenly being all friendly?”

  I nodded absently, the truth of his words hitting hard and fast. “And then the pictures on his phone. Of my living room,” I croaked, my throat suddenly dry. “That must’ve been when he planted it.”

  “I’d say definitely,” Sloan replied.

  “But why would he do this?” I put my coffee down to stare Leo down directly. It just wasn’t adding up for me. “We weren’t the best of friends, but how would the mobsters convince him to be so devious?”

  “My guess,” he replied, “is it didn’t actually take much to convince him. Turns out Grant is definitely loaded . . . but now it’s with debt. Beaucoup bucks on the credit cards.”

  He pulled a stack of printouts from his bag and laid it in front of us. “And it seems his family recently cut him off.”

  I glanced at the top sheet, an email from Grant to his parents. It was all caps and full of expletives, bursting with outrage that he would be deprived of funds. “That could explain him suddenly not paying the rent, then. Or his lunch tab. Our measly stipend from the internship would never cover the overhead on that house. Or his taste in designer duds.”

  “I see.” Sloan nodded sagely. “So Grant gets himself in a financial bind, making him ripe for exploitation by the mobsters. They make him some kind of deal to spy on you, get on the inside. Most likely in exchange for some much-needed funds. Far as we know he only had a few more weeks here, with no permanent job lined up and no ties to the area. It was probably a no-brainer for him.”

  “Yeah, well,” I muttered bitterly, “trusting that guy was clearly my no-brainer. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking you were a nice person, and you expect others to be the same.” Sloan’s sympathetic smile turned amused. “Don’t worry, investigating will drive that impulse right out of you. Just give it time.”

  Great. I sighed, trying to refocus on the task at hand, not my bleary future outlook. “So it looks like he was helping the mobsters, trying to keep tabs on us. Maybe delivering the mystery finger on their behalf, as an unsuccessful warning. How does that fit in with his current situation? A kidnapping?”

  “Maybe it’s all the botching that got him there,” Leo answered. “Think about it. If we’re right, it looks like he messed up in delivering the finger without the note, rendering it useless. The police report would of course have had no mention, so the mobsters who hired him would figure it out pretty quick. Far as they know, you still have no knowledge of the connection, or the point.” He shrugged. “And then you caught him snapping photos in your apartment. He might be willing to be devious, but he doesn’t seem to be very good at it. So maybe he quit. Or more likely, they cut him loose.”

  “And I’d be willing to bet the mob guys don’t just let things drop that easily,” Sloan added. “Not if they can find a way to get something else out of you.”

  “Like a ransom,” I said.

  Leo shrugged. “If they figured out Grant’s background, it would seem like an obvious choice for some quick cash. They’re probably pretty desperate at the moment, with most of them in prison.”

  Pretty desperate. “You don’t think they’d actually hurt him, right?” My voice quavered involuntarily as I pictured Grant in real danger for the first time.

  “Don’t worry,” Sloan replied, unconcerned. “They just want money. And his family has plenty.” She pulled me into a side-hug. “We can try to find another way first. But a payout is always our backup plan. Quick, easy and painless.”

  “Assuming they will pay out,” Leo added.

  I sighed, more confused than ever. “So where does that leave us now?”

  “That depends on you, my dear,” Sloan said. “It looks like Grant was working with our enemies, spying and plotting behind your back. Are you sure you even want to continue helping him?”

  I let it all sink in a minute. They were right. It was a mess. But it seemed a mess mostly of Grant’s own doing.

  “No one would blame you for wanting nothing to do with any of it,” Leo offered.

  I should have felt no responsibility in the debacle. I was the one who was betrayed in all of it. But I couldn’t help the nagging feeling in my gut.

  “I agree, completely,” I said. “And yet, I don’t think I can just walk away. Not yet.”

  Sloan raised an eyebrow, seeming genuinely surprised.

  �
��He may have been using me for his own gain,” I continued. “But he would've never been in that position in the first place if it weren't for us. We're the reason those monsters went to him for his intel. And now for his money. I can't just leave him hanging.”

  Sloan and Leo shared a look. Their faces said it wasn’t the answer they were hoping for—but it was the one they expected.

  “Ok,” Sloan said with a sigh. She turned to yell down the aisle. “Better get some pie for our friend here. Extra helping.”

  “Right up,” Dottie called back.

  Leo’s face lit up with anticipation as he straightened in his seat.

  “You want to pursue, we’ll pursue,” Sloan said with a shrug. “Really, what else do we have to do these days?”

  NINE

  “I still don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of telling them,” Sloan argued into my ear as I drove to the office at the crack of dawn. I was honestly surprised she was up that early. She seemed a bit of a night owl. “There’s no upside here. It’s up to us. What are they gonna do?”

  I was not buying her arguments this time. My mind was made up. I was telling my boss everything. “I really don’t know. But maybe they can help get us some cooperation. A backup plan, at the very least.” If Grant’s family wouldn’t believe us, maybe they would believe my employer. Once I convinced my boss to help, of course.

  Our phone conversation with his parents the night before hadn’t exactly gone as planned. Not only did they not offer to cover the ransom if necessary, but they refused to have anything to do with the ‘supposed’ kidnapping, as they called it. Didn’t believe a word we said.

  “We can try to convince the ‘rents again once we know more,” Sloan rebutted. “But if we do our jobs, it’ll never even come to that. Let’s just figure out who’s behind it first. You can relieve your guilt when it’s all over, if you must.”

  “I just feel in over my head, Sloan. I don’t know what I’m doing.”