Tina shook her head. “I don’t see anything. No convictions or charges, and no arrests.”
“Maybe the criminal lawyer wasn’t for her?” Jamison offered.
“Who else could it be for? A boyfriend? Whoever it was would have to be pretty important for her to go into debt for. Does she have a significant other?” Jess said.
“I don’t know. I’m going to need a little more time to figure that out, but here is something else strange about her finances. Remember I said she was forty thousand in debt? Well, the rest of the money went to a private investigator called Robert Kaplan.”
“She hired a private investigator and a criminal attorney?” Jess asked.
“Yep, both within two weeks.”
“Wow. That is not the behavior of an innocent woman. I think we need to pay another visit to Lynette Hastings,” Jamison said.
“Be my guest. But I don’t think you will get on any better than I did. She really does not want to talk to law enforcement. And since this isn’t even an official investigation, we can’t compel her to speak to us.”
“What about the attorney or the PI? Maybe we will have better luck with one of them,” Tina said.
Jess considered for a second. “It would have to be the PI. The attorney isn’t going to violate privilege but the PI might. But we still have the problem of authority. We can’t compel him to speak to us.”
“I’m pretty sure I can compel him to speak to us,” Jamison said.
She had no doubt that he could. Jamison could persuade people to do just about anything. Fear was a powerful motivator. “I’d prefer not to resort to witness intimidation.”
“Always a good girl, even when breaking the law.” Jamison’s lips pulled into a half-smile.
“Bending,” Jeanie corrected. “We’re bending the law until we have enough information to present to the Department of Justice.”
Jess nodded. Like Jeanie, she had to tell herself that ultimately, they had the law on their side. Maybe not right now, but ultimately. They were doing the right thing. She had to tell herself that. “Okay, we call the PI. Do you have his number?”
“Yeah, here it is.” Tina turned her screen to face them. “Who should call him? Not Jamison,” she answered her own question. “No offense. I say that with love but even your voice is intimidating.”
“None taken. Jessie should do it.”
Jess arched her brow in question. She would have picked Jeanie.
“You think the best on your feet,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll call.” She typed the number into her phone.
The phone rang four times before it cut the call. “Are you sure that’s his work number? There should be an answering service.”
Tina checked the number Jess had dialed against the one listed on the website. “Yeah, that’s him. Maybe he was on another line. Try again.”
Jess pushed redial then waited but again there was no answer. “Maybe he changed his number and forgot to update his website. Can you find me a private number for him?”
“Yep, but it’s going to take me a minute. Talk amongst yourselves.” She winked.
Jess looked from Jamison to Jeanie. Neither one looked like they were up for a chat, which was fine by her because small talk had never been her thing, so they all sat in awkward silence while Tina worked.
“Okay, here we go. He just changed his private number recently too. It’s like he doesn’t want business.”
Jess typed the new number into her phone and waited for it to ring. This time, he answered on the first ring.
“Who’s this?” a gruff voice answered.
“Hi, is this Robert Kaplan?”
“How did you get this number?”
He didn’t correct her so she would assume it was him. “Mr. Kaplan, I’d like to hire you to investigate—”
“I’m no longer worker as a private investigator.”
Click. The phone went dead.
Jess sighed. “Are you all getting the impression that no one wants to speak to us?” she asked as she hit redial to call him again. Without ringing, the call went directly to voicemail. “He’s blocked me. Can I have your phone?” she asked Jamison.
Jamison reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He typed in his password before he handed it to her. He didn’t need to because unless he had changed it recently, she still knew it. She dialed the number and waited. This time it rang four times before it went to voicemail, proving that he had indeed blocked her. She hung up and dialed again. “I can play this game all day.” On the fourth call, he got wise and blocked Jamison’s number too.
“Can I borrow your phone, Jeanie?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Stop calling me!” he screamed down the phone when he answered.
He was about to hang up on her. She needed to keep him on the line because he might not pick up again. Think. Suddenly her palms were slick. She gripped the phone harder so she wouldn’t drop it. If she said the wrong thing, he would hang up, and next time he might not answer. A million things flooded her mind all at once. She didn’t know him so she had no way of knowing if she should threaten or cajole him. She really wished she could see him so she could at least try to get a read off him. But she couldn’t, so she was going to have to go in blind. “Founding Fathers,” she said and then held her breath, hoping it had been the right thing to say.
The other end of the line went completely silent. At first, she thought he’d hung up on her again, but then she heard his frantic breaths. “Who is this?”
He hadn’t hung up. Relief washed over her. She sensed his fear and played on it. “Don’t be coy, Robert. You know who this is.”
“I don’t. Please don’t call me again. I did what you told me to do, now leave me alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Robert.” She used his name again to reinforce the familiarity, make him think she knew more than she did.
“Please leave me alone. I did everything you asked.”
She shot Jamison a questioning look. What had the Founding Fathers asked of him? How was he involved with all this? “We need something else.”
“What? You’ve already taken my job. I work as a fucking barista now. I have nothing.” His voice broke. Hushed sobs filled the end of the line. His distress was palpable. He was a broken man.
As a human being, Jess couldn’t ignore the ache in the pit of her stomach she felt when she heard his cries, but as an investigator, the state he was in was perfect for her. There was no need to break him. The Founding Fathers had saved her the effort. “We need one more thing, Robert.”
“What? What more could you ask of me?”
“I’m not going to speak about it on the phone.” Her mind raced as she tried to formulate a plan. If she had her way, she would discuss every step with her team beforehand. They would go over every possible scenario and danger. And then they would look to Jeanie to make the final call, but they didn’t have time for all of that. “Meet me this afternoon at Gallery Place. Be there at three o’clock. Come alone and unarmed. And don’t try any funny shit,” she warned. “We know where you live. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I have a shift. I’m barely paying my bills as it is.”
“Be there or your bills will be the least of your problems.” She cut the call before he had a chance to respond. Her hands shook from the surge in adrenaline.
Twenty-Eight
“I still don’t think you should be going on your own.” The muscle on the side of Jamison’s jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth.
“Who else should we send? You?” She slid her gun into her holster, zipped up her hooded sweatshirt to cover it, and then put on her quilted winter jacket.
“Yeah.”
“We’re trying to be inconspicuous. You’re a six-foot-four black man, built like a linebacker. You don’t exactly blend in.”
Jamison didn’t say anything. He just gave her an unimpressed look. He wanted more time to look at all the angles and
minimize any risk. But they didn’t have that kind of time and they both knew it. They had been dealt a shit hand but she was doing her best to play it.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “We’re meeting at a Metro stop. You’ve taken the Metro before, right? There are always thousands of people around. That’s why I picked it. There is a method to my madness.”
“Is your wire working?”
“Yeah, it’s still working, but if we keep checking it, I’m probably going to break it.”
“If you feel scared at any point or think you’re being followed, we call it.”
Jess noted the worried expression on Jamison’s face. Very few things fazed him so it was weird to see him riled. She wouldn’t let herself pretend that it meant anything but it was still nice.
“Remember, don’t take the red line all the way there. Get off and take the green to Fort Totten and then get back on the red to Gallery Place to make sure no one is following you.”
“This is not my first rodeo.” She zipped up her coat and pulled on the hood. “I will be fine.”
She got out of the car and shut the door then walked down the stairs to the Metro. Jamison would be waiting for her outside the Gallery Place stop to pick her up. They had decided to leave Jeanie and Tina at home, telling them it would be safe for them there, but it was really so they would have plausible deniability.
She fully intended on forcing Robert Kaplan to submit to an interview, no matter what that entailed. What she was about to do was tantamount to kidnapping and forced imprisonment. It was straight-up illegal, and if anyone was going to take the heat for this, it was going to be her.
She had her Metro card in her hand ready to go when she got to the turnstile. She turned and looked over her shoulder, searching the sea of faces and memorizing each the best she could. She would know she was being followed if she saw the same person change stops with her.
The stagnant air underground was stifling. She wished she could take off her jacket. Above ground it was freezing but in the carriage, it felt like ninety degrees.
She stood up as they got closer to her change. It would have been faster and easier to just stay on the red line, but the change was necessary to make sure she wasn’t followed.
As the train pulled into the station, there was a group of junior-high students on the platform, being corralled by teachers with clipboards and high-visibility jackets. The city was always teeming with field trips because it was a rite of passage for students to come to the capital.
It was a nice tradition but she was thankful she was getting off so she didn’t have to travel beside them. All the screaming and frenetic energy of adolescence would make it difficult for her to concentrate. She stepped to the side to let an elderly passengers off first, but before he had a chance to get off, the group of students had already pushed past them and were making their way on while their teachers screamed, “Be careful!” and, “Stop pushing!” She stepped further to the side to let the entire class on.
Students and teachers continued to push past her as they rushed to get on. Something sharp brushed up against her as she moved forward to get off the train.
A biting pain ripped through her forearm.
She looked down at her arm as she stepped onto the platform. She blinked as her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The polyester material on her coat sleeve had been sliced open. She took off her jacket. The once-white material of her t-shirt was soaked with crimson dots. Her flesh had been sliced clean open. A seven-inch cut ran from below her elbow to above her wrist. With each beat of her heart, the blood sprayed out.
She’d been cut. Someone had cut her.
She looked back up at the carriage, searching the faces to see who had attacked her. In amongst the teachers and students was a man in a black suit, his back to her.
She stepped forward to try to get back on the train but the doors slid shut and the train sped away.
Twenty-Nine
Jess held her arm tight to her chest, trying to put enough pressure on it to quell the steady torrent of blood.
Her head spun. The cut was deep. She was losing too much blood. She looked down at the small bump along her bra: the microphone in her wire. “Jamison,” she whispered. All she had to do was tell him to come find her and he would. She could close her eyes and let the blackness pull her under.
She took a deep breath. She had to be strong. They needed to pick up Robert Kaplan. If Jamison came for her, they would miss a chance to speak to their only lead. Kaplan was scared; he could run at any time. She dropped her coat because she couldn’t hold onto them and deal with the cut at the same time. She held her arm against her and used her other hand to take off her belt. She placed it above the elbow of her injured arm and used her teeth to tighten it. She kept pulling until the blood slowed to a trickle, then she wrapped the loose end around her arm and secured it.
She bent down to pick up her coat but her vision went black at the slight movement. She would have to leave it. She had just enough energy to make it to Gallery Place. She didn’t have the energy to change lines. She would have to get back on the red. Not that it mattered now. She was only changing lines to make sure no one had followed her, and it was obvious they had.
She waited for the next train and found a seat next to an old woman. She tried to position her body so people wouldn’t notice the bloodstains that covered her but there was no hiding it. She looked like a crime scene because she was one. People stared at her open-mouthed but tellingly no one spoke to her or offered any help. A macabre thought came to mind: she wondered what would happen if she bled out on the train. Would anyone step in then or would her dead body be found at the terminus? Some poor shmuck would have to scrub out her blood stains.
That’s what her life had come to, stains on the train.
She closed her eyes to dislodge the thought. She leaned down and spoke into her microphone. “Change of plan. Pick Kaplan up. I repeat, pick Kaplan up.” Guilt stabbed at her for implicating Jamison any further in this mess but she physically could not do this on her own in this condition. She was barely holding onto consciousness.
She closed her eyes again and concentrated on taking slow, steady breaths until she quelled the wave of nausea. She opened her eyes and focused on the vibration of the train.
Finally, she arrived at her stop. She held onto the seat to balance herself, leaving streaks of blood everywhere she touched. Someone would have to clean that up. She wished she didn’t have to make a mess but she couldn’t keep upright without leaning on the seats. She lost her footing when someone pushed past her to get off, but she righted herself before she fell.
A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead. Her skin felt like it was on fire. The station was so hot. Slowly she walked to the escalator, never fully lifting her feet off the ground in case she fell because she wasn’t sure she could pick herself up.
She squeezed the rubber of the handrail until her fingers drained of color. She stood frozen when she got to the top. For a moment, she couldn’t remember the way out. She had been in the station thousands of times but everything seemed different. She blindly followed the crowds past the juice bar and the old man shining shoes.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw daylight. A gust of freezing air hit her face. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that she should be cold but she wasn’t. Her entire body burned.
She spotted Jamison’s car parked at the designated spot at Calvary Baptist Church and took a deep breath to give her the strength to keep walking. Her arm was completely numb but her shoulder throbbed with excruciating heat, like hot pokers were being stabbed into it. She had tied the makeshift tourniquet too tight.
“Jessie.” Jamison opened the door and ran to her. “Oh, shit. What happened?”
At first her mouth felt too dry to speak. “Kaplan. Where’s Kaplan?” None of this was worth it if they hadn’t picked him up.
“He’s in the car. What the hell happened?”
/> “We need to get out of here. I don’t know if I was followed. I’m sorry. I know I should have doubled back on myself so I wouldn’t be followed but I couldn’t.”
“Jesus, Jessie. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No!” she shouted. “I need to speak to Kaplan.”
Jamison opened the passenger door and let her in.
“Shit, what happened to you?” Robert Kaplan asked. In the rear-view mirror, she watched the color fade from his cheeks. His gaze didn’t shift from her blood-soaked shirt.
“Are you going to vomit? Open the door if you’re going to throw up,” she told him. She’d seen other people react this way to blood, and they always either passed out or vomited. She hoped Robert Kaplan was a fainter not a barfer because they didn’t need to add vomit to this shitstorm. “Close your eyes and take deep breaths,” she told him.
Blood and death were second nature to her, so much so that sometimes she forgot that other people weren’t as cavalier. His nostrils flared as he sucked in frantic breaths.
“You’re okay. Just relax and concentrate on your breathing. Good. Just like that,” she said.
Jamison slid into the driver’s seat. “Jessie, we need to get you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re a lot of things but fine is not one of them.”
Jess didn’t have the energy to fight with him. She knew she needed medical attention but it had to wait. “Okay fine, take me to the hospital, but drive slow so I can interview Kaplan.” Jess tried to reach for her seatbelt but she couldn’t.
Jamison reached across her and buckled the belt for her. “You’re so… Shit, I don’t even have the word for it.” Anger and concern creased his brow.
“Who the fuck are you people and what do you want with me?” Kaplan asked.
“I’m asking the questions,” Jess said. “Why did Lynette Hastings hire you?”
Catch Your Death Page 16
