She rubs her light-caramel fingers through the hair on my chest. “Now that’s how to celebrate,” she purrs. She gets no argument from me. I pull her closer to me and run my hand gently down her side. She laughs. “Oh, no, no, Mr. Sexy. I have to get up, text my editor and book my flight. You can go into the kitchen and start getting us something to eat.”
She slips out of bed and into a robe and heads for her second bedroom, which doubles as an office. I get dressed and go into the kitchen. As I open the fridge, my phone rings. I pull it from my pocket. “Hi Sam.” I wonder why my ex is calling so late. It’s eleven in Toronto.
“Hi Cal. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, not at all.” It’s a good job she didn’t call fifteen minutes earlier. “What’s up.”
“I didn’t want to tell Ellie this, I don’t want to worry her, but the reason we are moving back to Vancouver is that my MS has taken a turn for the worse and my parents suggested it would be better if I were closer to them, in case things start going downhill.”
“I am so sorry to hear that Sam. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“If you could just be there for Ellie, that would be great.”
“Of course, no prob. I have to go to Hong Kong on business but I should be back by a week from Friday. I’ll pick you guys up from the airport.”
“That would be nice, but if you’re not back, my parents can pick us up.”
“It will be so nice to see Ellie on a regular basis.”
“Yes it will.”
She is silent for a moment.
“I was wondering…”
A longer silence.
“…if maybe we could think about… well… getting back together.”
It is something I have yearned after for so many years, except now I have Tina.
I stumble over the words, “Oh… I… I guess I’d need to think about it Sam.”
“Of course. I don’t want to rush you. Maybe we can talk when we’re in town. Maybe have dinner together.”
“Yes, sure.”
More silence.
“I’ll let you go now,” she says breezily. “See you at the end of next week.”
“Sure. OK. ’Bye,” I say and hang up.
I stand stunned and silent.
“I got the same flight as—ˮ Tina’s voice goes from excited to concerned. “What’s the matter? Are you OK?”
“Yes, I guess. That was Sam. The reason she and Ellie are coming back to Vancouver is that her MS has got much worse.”
She envelopes me in a big hug. “Oh Cal, I am so sorry to hear that.”
Normally Shakespeare would come to my aid but instead I think of Jonathan Larson.
How do you leave the past behind when it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?
It reaches way down deep and tears you up till you’re torn apart.
I feel a building turmoil.
Zelena
Wednesday
Last night was terrible. The last winner was horrible and he smelled bad. He was very rough with me. He didn’t break the rules but he still hurt me. He was quick but that seemed to make him angrier. It was very difficult to pretend I was enjoying it but I managed it because I had to.
The more I pretend to like it, the happier the customers are. The happier the customers are the better room I get to sleep in. I didn’t have to sleep in the cold room last night.
Maybe tonight it will be better. Maybe I’ll get some gentler winners.
He takes me into the star room and ties my wrist to the restraining strap. Why they bother with that I don’t know. We couldn’t run away even if we tried. The blond girls are here again but the redhead is still missing. She hasn’t been back since she was won by the huge fat man with the scar.
He moves to the front of the stage and says the opening words, whatever they mean. The lights come on over my head and I smile and pose as they taught me. It makes me feel cheap but I have to do it. It’s the only way to keep Aleksander alive.
The men start to shout what I assume are numbers.
The bidding has begun.
9
Nick
Rogan will be getting onto the plane about now. Already the office doesn’t seem the same without him. I’m mainly worried about how we’re going to handle the handover of the money to the blackmailers. I really tried to get Connor to bring the VPD into it but he insisted we didn’t do that. We have to catch the blackmailer this time and that’s gonna be a bit more difficult without Rogan being on the scene. Adry has been in touch with Rogan’s homeless squad but I don’t hold out much hope they can make a difference.
“This guy looks like a good candidate,” Adry says. She drops a file on my desk. In addition to her caseload, she’s trying to find a new investigator for the firm. I flip open the folder and scan the paperwork.
“What kind of name is Zeke Stone?” I say.
“What kind of name is Nick Stammo?” she throws back at me.
Point taken. I look at the information in the file more carefully. A former member of the Victoria Police Department, he made detective Sergeant and then got injured in the line of duty and retired early on a disability pension. Sounds like me—except for the detective Sergeant bit. There is a picture Adry got off his Facebook page. He looks too young to have been a Sergeant but then again everyone puts their best picture as their profile photo. “Looks good,” I say. “Before you bring him in for an interview, let me check him out with a guy I know in the VicPD.”
I hear Lucy’s voice. She’s greeting someone. Maybe a new client; we get quite a few walk-ins—go figure. But it’s not. It’s Connor McCoy. Lucy brings him into the main area. I can see his worry from across the room. He comes over, puts a briefcase on my desk and sits down.
“I got the call. They asked if I had the money. I said yes and they said be ready to hand it over this afternoon at four-thirty. They said they would phone at four and tell me where and how, and they said not to put a tracking device in this time. They said if we did, they’d come back for more money.”
“I take it the money’s in the briefcase,” I say.
He nods. “I just got it from my bank. They’re the Royal Bank right next door so I thought I’d bring it straight here for safekeeping.”
“Listen, it’s not too late to call in the VPD,” I say. “I really don’t think they’re going to care about what you did all those years ago. They could make sure we caught this guy and put him behind bars.”
He thinks it over for a bit. “Not this time. I can’t take the risk that it would all come out and affect my business. But listen, if they come back for more money, we can get the police involved, OK?”
I shrug. “It’s your money.”
He stands. “Anyway, I have to get back to the office. I’ll be back here before four and wait for the call.”
When he’s left, Adry looks over at me. “There’s a hundred grand in that briefcase?”
I nod.
She gives a half smile. “I don’t even know what a hundred grand looks like.”
“You’ll have to use your imagination,” I say. “That’s client property. We can’t go fiddling about with it. It stays right there until he gets back.”
She looks disappointed.
I go through my contacts and find my guy in the VicPD. Let’s see if this Zeke Stone guy is as good as he looks on paper.
Fear. I can hear it in her voice. “Dad, you’ve gotta come here.”
Adry hears it too and moves fast towards the reception area. I wheel there just in time to see him coming through the glass doors, assault rifle at port.
“Get down! On the floor! Now!” He demands.
Adry is down first followed by Lucy.
But I’m just as angry as hell.
“What the fuck!” I yell at him. “I can’t get on the floor, I’m in a fuckin’ wheelchair. I’m a former VPD—ˮ
“Hands on your head!” He points the rifle straight at me and I do as he says.
<
br /> “What’s going o—ˮ
“QUIET!”
Three other officers have followed him in. One pushes past me. The second comes at me and quickly frisks me and checks my chair for weapons, and the third, a woman, pats down Lucy and Adry. “Clear,” they say simultaneously. “Clear,” comes from the first guy behind me.
Everything slows back down.
Two plain-clothes officers walk in. One looks vaguely familiar. The more senior one looks at me. “Name?”
“Nick Stammo. What’s going on here? I’m a former VPD member.”
He ignores me and walks past me into the office while his partner comes over and cuffs my hands behind the back of my chair. I hear the snap of cuffs as the female officer cuffs Lucy and Adry. Now I’m really angry, no one does that to my girls.
I look over my shoulder at the senior officer. “I said, what’s going on here,” I growl.
He and the one with the assault rifle are standing by my desk. “Is this your briefcase?” he asks.
“No, it belongs to a client.”
He puts on a pair of nitrile gloves and opens the briefcase. He reaches in and takes something out. But it’s not money. It’s a large ziplock bag. It’s full of smaller bags of what look like a white powder. Oh Jeez. He opens the big bag, removes a smaller bag and opens it. He sniffs the contents.
He nods to his colleague and returns the bag to the briefcase.
“Where’s your partner, Cal Rogan?”
“Out of town on business.”
“Where out of town?”
“None of your goddamn business. Listen to me. We’ve been scammed here. That briefcase belongs to a client. A guy called Connor McCoy. He’s a big wheel in some high-tech company.ˮ
“You can explain it all later.” He walks over to me. “For now, Nicholas Theodore Stammo, I am arresting you on suspicion of dealing in a controlled substance. You have the right…”
As he says the words, which I’ve probably said more often than him, I grind my teeth and wonder why would the CEO of a software company want to frame me and Rogan.
Then a horrible thought hits.
10
Cal
Thursday
It feels weird. We got on the plane at midday on Wednesday and here we are fourteen hours later and it’s Thursday evening in Hong Kong. It was nice travelling with Tina. Fourteen hours with nothing to do but chat, eat and drink. It’s economy on Air Canada, not the Cathay Pacific first class, which Harvey Lim probably took, but I guarantee he didn’t have a better time than we did. Tina’s been here before and knows a lot about the city. With a bit of luck we’ll get some time to enjoy it together. Starting this evening.
I pull out my phone. “I’d better check in with the office.” I go to take it off airplane mode when she reaches across and stops me.
“It’s three in the morning back home. Let’s just enjoy the evening, have dinner and get back into the real world tomorrow.”
How can I resist. I put the phone away and lean back in the seat of the cab and enjoy my first sights of Hong Kong.
11
Adry
The alarm snaps me awake. It’s still dark. What the— Then it all comes flooding in: the arrest, the paddy wagon ride to the police station, the body search by the callous female cop, the interrogation by the police, letting Lucy and me go but saying that Nick was being held in custody. I feel myself flush at the embarrassment of it all.
I grab my phone. Five AM, Cal should be there now. But there’s no text message from him. I’ll go old-school and phone him. I get the 'phone not connected’ message. Maybe his plane was delayed. It’s early but I’d better check with Nick, maybe, just maybe, his lawyer Jim Garry got him released from custody last night. I press the number but it goes to voicemail.
My third call gets through. “Luce,” I say. “Sorry to call so early, have you heard anything?”
“No prob, I was awake. I phoned the Cambie station lots of times during the night but they wouldn’t say anything about Dad. They wouldn’t even tell me if he was there or not. I’m going to wait until seven o’clock and call his lawyer.”
“That’s great. Why don’t you go in and open up the office at the normal time. I’m going to go see Connor McCoy at his office and find out what the hell he thinks he’s doing planting a suitcase full of drugs on us.”
We agree and hang up.
I try Cal again but he’s still not online.
I’m going to have to do this alone.
The young guy at the reception desk at Dark Energy Systems Inc. is tall and thin and wears Harry Potter glasses. He gives me a snotty look. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. McCoy?” he asks. I haven’t had a lot of experience dealing with corporations. My last job was office manager at that sleazy film company. I guess I’ll have to wing it.
“No I don’t but it’s very urgent that I see him.”
“As you might imagine,” he says, “Mr. McCoy is extremely busy. Now if you would like to phone in and make an appointment, I’m sure he could fit you in at some point.”
He is patronizing in the extreme. I need to take another approach.
“Have you heard of the Me Too movement?” I say and from his eyes I can tell he has and I’m betting that now he wants to hear what I have to say. “You can tell Mr. McCoy my firm has been asked to look into certain, shall we say, inappropriate behaviour at this company and if he wants to get ahead of it, he had better speak to me right now.”
He leans forward. “What sort of inappropriate behaviour?”
I also lean forward and drop my voice. “I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it a secret.” He nods expectantly. “But I have to speak to Mr. McCoy first.”
He nods and picks up his phone. “Hi Pat, it’s Mark at reception. Would you tell Connor there’s a lady here who I think he should talk to.” He pauses while McCoy’s secretary speaks. “I think it would be better if Connor speaks to her directly about that.” Another pause, then he looks at my card. “It’s a Ms. Adriana Locke. She’s a private investigator.” After a third pause he hangs up. “Sooooo,” he says, “what’s this all about? Have Connor and Pat been…?” He leaves the question hanging.
“I think I’d better talk to him first,” I say turning away.
In less than sixty seconds a man walks into reception but, to my annoyance, it’s not Connor McCoy. He’s dressed in jeans, a tee shirt and expensive shoes, but dress doesn’t say anything about his status in a software company. He shakes my hand. “How can I help you Ms. Locke?” he says. He seems like a really nice guy and cute too.
Trying to push down my irritation at being fobbed off like this, I say, “It’s a bit of a delicate issue. I would really rather speak to Mr. McCoy personally.”
“I’m Connor McCoy,” he says.
But he’s not the Connor McCoy who came into our office three days ago.
Oh crap! We have really been conned.
Lucy looks agitated to put it mildly. “Hi Luce,” I say in my calmest voice. “Have they released your dad yet?”
“No. I spoke to Mr. Garry, his lawyer, and he’s trying to get him released on bail this morning. He says the chances are good, with Dad being in a wheelchair and all. But we have a bigger problem now.” We’ve been conned by an expert, one partner’s in jail and the other’s ten thousand kilometres away. What could be a bigger problem than that? “Look at this.” She hands me a paper copy of the Vancouver Sun. The page one headline reads, High Profile PIs Busted for Drugs. There is even a picture of Nick being pushed out of our office with his hands cuffed behind his wheelchair.
“Ho-ly crap.” She’s right, we do have a bigger problem.
“It gets worse,” she says. “Look.”
She swivels her computer screen towards me. It’s the CBC website. In addition to the article about the arrest, there’s video, taken from outside our building, of us all being lead, handcuffed, into the waiting paddy wagon. My parents are news junkies and they love the CBC. I have to call
them before they see this. Jason too. I don’t want him to think his girlfriend’s a jailbird.
I am not going to take this lying down. “Whoever it was calling himself Connor McCoy, I’m going to hunt him down and make him very, very sorry he messed with us.”
“But how?” she asks.
Good question.
Cal will know.
Except when I try to get him, his phone’s still off.
It’s gone from worse to more worse. I’ve spent a good part of the day trying to placate clients who have phoned in, worried about their cases. Despite assuring them that we are the victims of a con job, four have cancelled their contracts with us and two have asked for repayment of their retainers. Nick is going to freak when he finds out. And on top of that—
My phone rings.
Thank God. “Cal, why didn’t you call before?”
“Sorry. When we got into Hong Kong it was in the middle of the night in Vancouver. It’s six AM here now. I just remembered to turn off airplane mode and saw your texts. What’s up?”
I give him the details of how we were conned and the client cancellations.
“Nick’s in jail?” he says. “This is bad. I’ll get the next flight back.”
“Are you sure, Cal? By the time you get back, I’m sure he’ll be—”
“Dad’s back!” Lucy shouts.
“Hang on Cal. Nick’s back.” I put him on speaker phone and go to the reception area. Lucy’s holding the door open so Stewart, Nick’s guy, can push his wheelchair through the doorway.
Lucy gives Nick a big hug. “Are you OK?” she asks.
“Of course I’m OK. Twenty-four hours in jail isn’t gonna faze a Stammo. Jim Garry got me out on bail and Stewart came and picked me up.”
“That was the hardest part,” Stewart says. “trying to drive Nick’s truck to the courthouse. I don’t know how he manages to use those hand controls.” He pats Nick on the shoulder. “Anyway, I’ve got to get off to the hospital. See you later.” He squeezes Nick’s shoulder. I sense he would like to give him a kiss but knowing Nick, I doubt he’s ready for such a public show of affection just yet. He’s only been out for a short time.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 55
