Brooks-Lotello Collection
Page 97
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MORE … BROOKS AND LOTELLO, AND LEAH KLEIN
Want to meet Leah Klein, lawyer colleague of Cyrus Brooks and wife of Frank Lotello? Read the following sample scenes of JK’S CODE, Leah’s first feature novel in the Brooks/Lotello series, due out in Spring 2021. Is “JK” just the nickname of Jake Klein, Leah’s missing kid brother, or also part of the “code” Jake sends Leah in his desperate plea for her help? You’ll have to read JK’S CODE to find out.
CHAPTER 1
Present Time
TO ANYONE ELSE, IT read “Dear Sis!,” a perfectly benign beginning. But to Leah Klein Lotello, it read “Dire SOS!”
Leah hadn’t heard from her “baby” brother Jake in three weeks. Distracted by her law firm workload, she hadn’t noticed and belatedly felt a little guilty.
And now this email. Shit!
“Dear Sis!”
“Hope you’re well. We need to catch up.
“Hugs,
“Jake”
Everyone who knew Jake spelled it “JK,” short for his first and last name, Jake Klein. It was convenient for the nickname that their parents hadn’t given him a middle name or even a middle initial. Jake was fourteen years younger than Leah. He wasn’t planned. Maybe that’s why he didn’t have a middle name. Or even a middle initial. They didn’t have time to think one up.
Mom and dad had tried for a second child for a number of years. No luck. They gave up. And then, along came Jake. Mom died of complications conceiving and delivering him. Dad never really managed to process the loss of mom. Or being left with two kids to raise as a single parent. His heart finally gave up. He checked out when Jake was barely eight and still in need of a parent, if not two. So “Sis” became “mom” as well as sis. To Leah, Jake got the short end of that stick.
Like her shiksa law partner, Taylor Smith, who converted to Judaism when she married her soul mate, who just happened to be Jewish, and often tried too hard to become a good Jew, Leah tried too hard to become a good parent. Which often smothered JK and drove him bonkers, including the fact that she insisted on calling him Jake rather than JK. “Why the hell not,” she explained to no one in particular. “Jake’s one syllable; JK’s two. Besides, Jake’s his name for cripe’s sake. What’s wrong with calling him by his name?”
When Leah married her husband, Washington, D.C. Homicide Inspector Frank Lotello, she adopted his two young children, Charlie and Maddie, who had survived the hit and run death of their mom, Frank’s first wife. It was a package deal. Leah couldn’t have been more pleased. Jake thought so too, figuring Leah would be distracted, and he wouldn’t be quite so crowded by “mom.” He was wrong.
And now Jake was in trouble. Enough so, no less, that he was crying out to Sis for help. That was scary. For Jake and for Leah.
CHAPTER 2
Three Hours Later
IT SEEMED A LOT longer, but it was only ninety minutes since Leah had first read the email, Jake’s “SOS” email, the email that had put Leah on high alert, set her wheels in motion. More like spinning in slosh, going nowhere! Leah’s emotions vacillated back and forth between fear for Jake and anger with Frank. “Where the hell have you been?!” she said to her husband.
“Well, hello to you too,” Frank said. “My day was okay, thanks for asking. Yours not so much, I’m guessing. Anything in particular?”
“I’m pissed,” she answered.
“Could’ve fooled me. At who? Something I said? Did I do something wrong?” Frank feigned.
“At whom. Something you didn’t say. And, yes, you did do something wrong. You didn’t tell me where you’ve been. What if something happened to Charlie or Madison? What if we needed you?”
“It’s not even dinner time.” He stole a peek at his watch for moral support. “Where do you think I’ve been? At work, hey. Since you said ‘What if,’ I trust nothing’s up with Charlie or Maddie?”
“No, they’re fine. But I’m always supposed to be able to reach you. I tried your cell, but you didn’t answer. I called your office. All they knew was you were ‘out in the field.’”
Frank looked sheepish. “Sorry, I was out longer than I expected. My phone’s battery died.”
Leah took a couple of breaths. Point made. Time to move on. “It’s Jake. He’s in trouble,” she finally said.
The divide between them closed. Frank moved toward Leah and put his arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What kind of trouble?” he said gently.
“I don’t know. I got an email from him,” she said. “I tried to call him. It rolled over to voicemail. He hasn’t called back. No one’s taking my calls! I sent him an email too. He hasn’t responded.
“Do you have Jake’s email? Can I see it?”
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her smart phone. She brought up Jake’s email and handed the phone to Frank.
He read the email and stared at Leah. “What trouble? I don’t see anything talking about trouble. Can you enlighten me, please?”
“It’s all over the email!” Leah shouted.
“I hear ya, Babe, but you gotta help me out. What’s all over the email?”
“For starters, the email begins ‘Dear Sis!’ That’s a dead giveaway.”
“Because?”
“Because that’s quote JK’s code for ‘Dire SOS!’ He’s in trouble. Serious trouble.”
“What code? Tell me about the code.”
“You know how much Jake is a techie. When he was a kid he made up a code, for fun, kind of like Pig Latin, but different. In his code, which he named ‘JK’s Code,’ ‘Dear Sis!’ translates to ‘Dire SOS.’”
“Slow down. Walk me through the translation, JK’s code. Take it one step at time.”
“Okay. First, you need to concentrate on the vowels, A E I O U. When you have two words, like ‘Dear Sis!’ you take the first vowel, E, in ‘Dear,’ and you increase that vowel by one, from E to I. When there are two vowels in succession in a word, in this case EA, followed by a consonant, in this case R, you move the second vowel, A, from before the consonant, R, to after the consonant and then also increase that vowel by one, from A to E. So, under JK’s code, ‘Dear’ becomes “Dire.’”
“I got it. And ‘Sis!’?” Frank asked.
“That’s easy,” Leah answered. After the first word, now ‘Dire,’ you move onto the second word in the sentence and increase the first vowel in that word by one, in this case from I to O. So, ‘Sis!’ becomes ‘Sos!’ or, contextually, ‘SOS!’ As a result, ‘Dear Sis!’ becomes ‘Dire SOS!’”
“That’s quite an imagination, or stretch.” Frank said.
“In a vacuum, perhaps, but there’s more here. A lot more,” Leah urged.
“Show me.”
“One. Jake’s emails are always … dry. His salutations never begin with ‘Dear.’ I’m lucky if I get a ‘Hey,’ let alone a ‘Hi,’ and never a ‘Dear.’ Never. And never any exclamations, such as an ‘!’.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes. Look at the body of his email, ‘Hope you’re well. We need to catch up.’ You know Jake. He’s quiet, introspective. He never makes small talk. He never shows any sign of caring. He has to look tough, macho. He never says anything like ‘Hope you’re well’ or ‘We need to catch up.’ He’d never signs off with something like ‘Love,’ or ‘Hugs.’ And he wouldn’t say ‘Jake.’ All I ever get at the end of an email, if I get any kind of ending at all, is ‘JK.’ It’s his brand, his trademark. He wouldn’t sign off with ‘Jake.’”
Frank was beginning to think this might actually be more than Leah’s imagination. “So what you’re telling me is Jake sent you a disguised email, telling you he’s in trouble, ‘dire’ trouble, and asking
his big Sis for help, something he wouldn’t ordinarily do. Even more, he must have thought someone other than you, someone he didn’t like, or was afraid of, would see his email because he crafted it to conceal his true persona as much as possible, even to the point of calling himself ‘Jake’ rather than his nom de plume ‘JK.’”
“Exactly!” Leah said. “I have to—”
“Stop. “Frank interrupted. “Save it.”
“Huh?”
“Where are Charlie and Maddie?”
“They’re doing their homework at the library. There’s a basketball game tonight at school. They’re going with a bunch of friends. What?”
“I’m hungry. Time to get a bite to eat,” Frank said, suddenly seeming to change the subject.
“How could you think about eating at a time like this?” Leah questioned.
Frank removed his ever present old fashioned pocket-sized notepad from his jacket. He scribbled a quick note and showed it to Leah. ‘Need to take this outside. Now. Don’t bring your phone. They may be listening. Or even watching.’”
Leah froze. She got it. “Sorry, I’m just not hungry. You choose.”
CHAPTER 3
Six Weeks Earlier
JAKE STEPPED OUT OF the shower, looked in the mirror, and wiped away the shaving cream. With his beard removed from the youthful face where it struggled to belong in the first place, and his long sandy colored hair cut close to his scalp in buzz-cut fashion, he didn’t recognize the person that stared back at him.
He finished toweling off, covered his six foot wiry frame in his favorite blue jeans, tee-shirt, knit hoodie sweater, and cross-training shoes and double checked the contents of his duffle bag and backpack. He wouldn’t need more where he was going. If he did, he had a wad of cash hidden in the secret pocket of his backpack. He would be gone less than a month, six weeks tops. He re-read the note to his roommate and left it on the desk, along with the keys to the college apartment and his Honda Civic.
He threw the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed the duffle bag. He took one last look around the apartment and opened and closed the door behind him.