On Deadline & Under Fire

by Amanda M. Lee

  “Kendra and Phil were inside talking. They clearly have ties.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No.”

  “What were they talking about?” Eliot was clearly edgy. I wanted him to take it down a notch, but I was equally worried, so it seemed hypocritical to tell him what to do when I couldn’t contain my own emotions.

  “They talked about me.”

  “And?”

  “And ... they’re worried about what I know. Kendra had something to do with that fire. I couldn’t listen for very long. I don’t even really understand what they were talking about.”

  “Okay.” Eliot stroked his hand down the back of my head and kissed my forehead. “I think we should call Jake.”

  “You want me to call Jake and admit that I need his help? Are you trying to kill me?”

  Eliot smirked, his eyes gleaming. It was good to see him smile. Now, if only I could join him. “I’ll call Jake and tell him I need his help,” Eliot offered. “We’re at a point where we have no choice but to work together. You know that as well as I do.”

  “He’s going to give me crap.”

  “You’ve faced tougher challenges.”

  “He’s going to tell me I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  “I’ve been telling you that all week,” Eliot pointed out. “You were supposed to be on vacation.”

  I groaned and glared at him. “Nobody likes a know-it-all.”

  “I happen to love a certain blond reporter know-it-all.”

  Ugh. I hated when he said things like that. I couldn’t even be angry because he was so sweet. “So ... what? You’re just going to invite Jake over, tell him everything we’ve discovered and then hope he doesn’t turn into the world’s biggest Bossy McBossypants? Don’t you think you’re giving him too much credit?”

  “I think you’re underestimating him,” Eliot countered. “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. We need him.”

  Resigned, I slowly nodded. “Okay. I don’t see where we have a choice either. But if he arrests me I’m going to be ticked.”

  “I’ll make sure to arrange for conjugal visits.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “It’s good to know you’re in a good space emotionally right now.” Eliot linked his fingers with mine as he led me into the store. I didn’t realize until after the cart was filled with food for a barbecue that he planned to woo Jake with food before our big showdown. Ever vigilant, Eliot kept me pinned to his side as he selected steaks, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, potatoes, pre-made pies and soda. He ordered me to pick out a few six packs of beer on our way out.

  The grocery store was only two miles from the house, but Eliot kept watch the entire trip, making sure to scan any vehicles that entered the subdivision behind us. He seemed reasonably sure that we weren’t being followed by the time we reached home, which was a relief because I wasn’t keen on being smothered with affection and protection the entire day.

  “I’m going to call Jake,” Eliot supplied as I helped him unload the groceries in the driveway. “I’m going to get him over here as soon as possible. I want you to get all your stuff together so it’s handy when he gets here.”

  I balked. “I’m not giving him all my stuff.”

  Eliot feigned patience as he followed me into the house. “We’ve already talked about this. You said you understood why I had to contact Jake.”

  “I do understand. That doesn’t mean I’m giving him all my stuff.”

  “Oh, you’re giving it to him.” Eliot was firm as he dropped the groceries on the counter and faced off with me. “This has gotten out of hand and you know it. You have no choice but to give it to him.”

  “I have a choice.”

  “We’re dealing with mobsters,” Eliot persisted. “Even worse, we’re dealing with mobsters who enjoy self-identifying as mobsters. Those are the worst kind.”

  I was fairly certain he was making that up. “Is that a real thing?”

  “Hey, I know things, too.”

  “You know how to annoy me,” I grumbled under my breath. “I’m not giving Jake all my stuff. That goes against everything I believe in.”

  “Look at it this way: He probably has stuff to share, too. If you put your stuff together, you might understand the bigger picture.”

  “That sounds dirty. You know, that whole putting our stuff together thing.”

  Eliot’s frown was pronounced. “That’s not the way to get me off your back. The only way to do that is to end this. I’m officially afraid.”

  I recognized that. It wasn’t what I wanted. Still, sharing information with the cops — with Jake specifically — was counter to how I generally operated. “He’s going to yell.”

  “You should be used to that.”

  “People are often mean to me,” I agreed.

  “Or you’re just really good at deranging them to the point they lose their minds.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating.”

  “I know I’m not.” Eliot lightly tapped my forehead. “I’m calling Jake. You’re sharing information. I don’t want this to turn into a big fight, but I’m willing to dig my heels in. We’re out of our depth.”

  “Okay.” I held up my hands in mock surrender. “You win.”

  A smug smile slithered across Eliot’s face. “I wish I could get a T-shirt made up to mark the occasion I finally won.”

  “Yes, well, don’t let it go to your head.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, Eliot managed to get Jake to the house relatively quickly. It was barely a half hour before I heard the door open. I was in my upstairs office, so I took a moment to look over the catwalk into the great room, watching from above as Jake strolled into the kitchen and greeted Eliot.

  I couldn’t hear what they said. Their heads were bent together, and they looked serious. At one point Jake viciously swore when Eliot said something to him. Eliot remained calm and didn’t shrink in the face of Jake’s ire. After a few minutes, Jake slowly turned from Eliot and tracked his eyes to the second floor, where he found me watching.

  “Come down here,” Jake ordered.

  I reacted instinctively. “I’m good here.”

  “Come down here,” Jake repeated, annoyance evident. “We need to have a very long talk.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to talk. Have you ever considered that?”

  “Avery, don’t make me come up there,” Eliot warned as he tilted his head up to stare at me. “It’s time to lay all your cards on the table.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Fine. But I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it. You simply have to do it.”

  I took my time going downstairs, clutching all the documents and information I’d managed to acquire against my chest as I dragged my feet. Jake was seated at the kitchen table when I shuffled into the kitchen, a fresh beer in hand. His expression was hard to read when he snagged my gaze.

  “You’re in big trouble,” Jake said, finally breaking the silence.

  “And you suck donkey balls,” I shot back, my temper coming out to play.

  “Knock that off,” Eliot ordered from behind the kitchen island. He was busy shucking corn and marinating steaks, but it was clear he was ready to serve as referee should things go off the rails and veer into trainwreck territory. “You guys are making this worse than it has to be.”

  “I don’t know how that’s possible,” Jake countered.

  “I agree,” I offered primly as I lowered my stack of research onto the table. “Jake has totally fouled this up.”

  Jake extended a warning finger. “Don’t push me. I’m already in a bad mood because I had to cancel on Lauren. We were supposed to spend the afternoon together.”

  “You could have brought her,” Eliot argued. “I have no problem with her being a part of this.”

  “Well, I do,” Jake said. “It’s still new between us. I would like to make sure we’re a compatible twosome before you guys make us a constant fo
ursome.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Jake licked his lips as he regarded me. “Talk, Avery. I can’t help until I know exactly what you’ve done.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I’m used to that.”

  “Okay, you asked for it.”

  I told him everything. Okay, I didn’t tell him every single detail. For example, I left out Andre’s part in the tale because it didn’t seem important. I had no intention of getting my new friend in trouble if it wasn’t necessary. Almost everything else was fair game. I truncated some of the information because it made the telling more seamless, but when I was done Jake was irritated all the same.

  “You’ve been messing with Phil Keane for days?” He looked about ready to blow his stack.

  “I don’t think ‘messing with’ is the appropriate term,” I said carefully. “I’ve been interacting with him, getting to know him. I’ve been surveying the battlefield and coming up with a plan of attack.”

  “You been acting like a moron,” Jake corrected, ignoring the flash of annoyance in my eyes. “I really can’t believe you did this.”

  “And I can’t believe that you thought she would do anything other than what she did when you let it slip that Jay Truman was murdered in that apartment building,” Eliot fired back, taking me by surprise. “You knew when you said that she wouldn’t be able to let it go.”

  “She was on vacation,” Jake argued. “She wasn’t working. There was no reason for her to be involved.”

  “I had every reason,” I snapped.

  “You had no reason to be involved,” Eliot argued. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved, but Jake should’ve realized you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself when he told you about the murder. You’re both at fault.”

  “Excuse me?” Jake’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “How are we to blame and you’re totally innocent?”

  “I’m the long-suffering boyfriend who is basically an angel,” Eliot replied without hesitation. “I can’t possibly be to blame with you two in the room.”

  “Oh, well, good to know.” Jake rolled his eyes and grabbed a sheet of paper from the top of my stack. “I just can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it,” I said. “I think I know a lot of what’s going on, but I don’t know everything. I don’t know why Phil Keane wanted Jay Truman dead, but he’s obviously behind all of this in one form or another.”

  “That would be my guess, too, but I don’t know that we have enough information to prove that,” Jake argued. “We’ve been watching Keane for weeks. We have people under cover in his organization.”

  “Yeah. I saw Derrick at The Domino Club last night. You must have a better plan than whatever you’ve already set in motion.”

  My skin singed from the burning look Jake shot me. “We have a lot more going on than you realize.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “You could tell me. You simply don’t want to tell me.”

  “Yes, that must be it,” Jake shook his head. “Seriously, Avery, I can’t tell you. Suffice it to say, we have several things in motion. We were investigating Keane before the apartment fire. In fact, we didn’t even think to look at him for the apartment fire until we realized you were visiting The Domino Club.”

  I stilled, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been watching the building,” Jake explained. “We have deputies in two of the houses along the river. We’re building multiple cases against Keane. I was informed the second you visited The Domino Club. I was told you had a very long conversation with Keane that first day and that you seemed to get along.”

  “And why didn’t you call me when you found out?” Eliot challenged, his shoulders rigid. “If you’d told me what she was up to I could’ve yanked her out sooner.”

  “I thought you knew,” Jake protested. “She always tells you when she’s going to do something stupid, and instead of ordering her not to do it, you help her. I assumed you guys were working together.”

  Eliot shot me a considering look. “Not this time. She did all this on her own. She didn’t want me to know she was chasing a story when she was supposed to be on vacation.”

  “Sounds just like her.” Jake scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Before your first visit to The Domino Club, I didn’t even think to connect Keane to Truman’s death. We were looking at Bridges, the building owner, because he disappeared. But he turned up alive, and we were looking for another angle when Avery tied Keane and Truman together.

  “They have a sordid history — something about Truman having an affair with Keane’s estranged wife and then the wife goes missing — so it actually makes sense that Keane wanted revenge,” he continued.

  I was intrigued. “So, wait ... you’re saying that Jay Truman slept with Phil Keane’s wife and then made her disappear?”

  “That’s the rumor on the street,” Jake confirmed.

  “I didn’t read anything about that in the stories I found.”

  “That’s because it’s all conjecture,” Jake explained. “Everyone assumes that Truman did something to Keane’s wife, but no one can prove it. No body was ever found.”

  “Why wouldn’t Keane go after him sooner?” Eliot asked. “If he believed that Truman did something to a family member, I would think he’d make him pay long before this.”

  “I can’t answer that specifically,” Jake said. “Keep in mind, this was like twenty-five years ago. Sandusky Sanitation went through five different owners in thirty years. Four of them were crooked. Only the most recent owner hasn’t had ties to organized crime.”

  I was having trouble wrapping my mind around the story. “What does Kendra have to do with this?”

  “I don’t know.” Jake’s face was blank. “We never ran a background check on her because she seemed like a random victim in the fire. There was no one in that building who stood out as a possible killer. I’m sure eventually we would’ve gotten to Kendra, but she wasn’t high on the list.”

  I could see that. “And the hero?”

  “What hero?”

  I exchanged a quick look with Eliot, earning a prodding head nod. “Tell him.”

  Jake was instantly on alert. “Tell me what?”

  “We found the hero,” I said finally, fighting the urge to squirm on my seat. “The guy who saved the little girl from the fire. We found him.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking for him.”

  “I thought it was weird,” I admitted. “What hero doesn’t want to be patted on the back for being heroic? That’s generally part of the deal.”

  “Not everyone needs to be rewarded for doing the right thing, Avery,” Jake countered.

  “But it almost always seems to work out that way,” I said. “This guy just disappeared, and I thought it was weird.”

  “Okay, you thought it was weird and tracked him down. I’m guessing this is germane to the story.”

  “His name is Russell Warren. He supplied the stack of information about Phil Keane. He’s the guy who lured me to The Domino Club last night.”

  “After following us around the zoo all afternoon yesterday without me noticing,” Eliot grumbled.

  Jake eyes widened. “Wait ... what? Who is this guy?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Eliot was going to run him but never did.”

  “That’s not true,” Eliot countered. “I ran him. I just didn’t come up with anything.”

  “Nothing?” Jake tapped his fingers on top of the table. “Define nothing.”

  “He exists on paper only,” Eliot explained. “He has a driver’s license and home address in Eastpointe, but there’s nothing else. As far as I can tell, he didn’t even exist until eight years ago.”

  That was news to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I ran him while you were out with Carly and Lexie last night,” Eliot replied. “I wasn’t in the mood to share when you got back.
”

  “But ... .”

  Jake waved a hand to cut me off before I could make the conversation entirely about me. “So, we have a guy who isn’t really who he says he is. That’s probably why he didn’t hang around for the accolades Avery is convinced every person wants. He didn’t want to do it in case we started asking questions.”

  “That’s my guess,” Eliot confirmed.

  “I need to think about this for a second,” Jake said. “There’s something here. I simply need to put it together.”

  “You need to work faster because I’m running out of patience,” I offered.

  Eliot glared at me. “Avery, run out to the garage and grab the case of Diet Coke I bought last week. We still haven’t brought it inside.”

  Now it was my turn to frown. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re the only one who drinks it.”

  “It can wait.”

  “I also want to give Jake some time to think without you breathing down his neck,” Eliot added. “You’re a hindrance to clear thinking sometimes.”

  I wanted to argue the rather insulting point, but he wasn’t wrong. “Fine.” I blew out a sigh as I got to my feet. “You guys had better have some answers when I get back.”

  “We live to serve you.” Eliot winked as I strode past him, grinning at my dour expression. “I left the corn-on-the-cob things in my truck, too — those metal things you stick into the ends so you can hold the ears without burning your hands. If you could bring them inside, I’d be forever grateful.”

  “Keep it up,” I warned. “You won’t like it when I start poking you with those things.”

  “Duly noted.”

  The garage was dark when I entered, the only light coming from the window at the far side of the house. Eliot was a stickler about keeping the garage clean, so I wasn’t worried about tripping over anything. I headed toward the spot at the back where I knew Eliot left the soda, my mind busy with possibilities Jake entering the investigative fray offered. I was so lost in thought I didn’t notice the shadowy figure detaching from the wall until it was on top of me.

  “What the ...?”