Anyone but Him

by Theresa Linden

  Heat assailed me, washing over my neck and cheeks and bringing the scent of my deodorant to my nose. Sean couldn’t have heard Roland. Roland had whispered.

  “What do you mean?” I said, hoping my embarrassment didn’t show.

  “Have you found your camera yet?” Sean unbuttoned the sleeves of his tan dress shirt and rolled them up. All morning, he had seemed entirely wrapped up in his own business at his desk, fidgeting with electronic gadgets, tapping the computer keyboard, and talking on the phone. “I think whatever happened to you has to do with the pictures you took.”

  “The pictures?” I exhaled, welcoming the new theory.

  After pushing up his sleeves, Sean rested his tan forearms on loose papers on the edge of my desk. “You said your purse was still in your car. Anything else of yours missing?”

  “Besides my cell phone? I don’t think so, but I can’t know for sure.”

  Sean nodded. “I remember, you took your camera with you last Friday at the end of the day. Maybe someone was watching you.”

  “Besides you?” Mitch said from his desk across the room.

  Shooting Mitch a threatening glare, Sean opened his mouth but shut it again and ran a hand over his short blond hair. Then he pushed through the folders on my desk. “Maybe someone caught you taking a picture of them doing something, I don’t know, illegal?” He slid pictures from a file and handed them to me. The top picture showed a teenage girl in a short skirt, walking down a sidewalk on a downtown street. Another picture showed the same girl opening a door. The sign above the door read: Sammy’s Pub. The next three pictures were dark, taken inside the bar. The girl sat beside a man, talking to him in one picture and leaning toward him in the next. The two were kissing in the last picture.

  “Tamara Eber. She’s underage,” Sean said, matter-of-fact, and slid more pictures from another file folder. “You had pictures for several cases on your camera. I bet whoever took your camera wanted the pictures, the evidence. They wouldn’t have known we’d just taken the SD card in to get pictures printed.”

  The second set of pictures showed a man in an office building doing various office related things. I held them up to Sean.

  “Gary Nicolan. Embezzlement and corporate espionage.”

  “Shouldn’t you have a computer forensic engineer for that case?” Roland said.

  Sean grinned and raised his brows. “That’s me. I’m your cyber sleuth. We’ve got computer forensic software. I’ll show you.” He rolled his chair away a few feet then stopped, his gaze locking onto Roland. Judging by the fixed look in his eyes, his mind had taken a trip to an alternate reality, as it had the day before when he’d described the micro camera to me.

  “First, I go on location to make a clone of the hard drive. Then, I work with it here. I can find and recover info from a computer hard drive, databases, servers, digital cameras, even fax machines and answering machines.” He grinned and gave us both a glance, briefly flitting back to reality before he continued. “I can retrieve emails that were never saved, websites visited, deleted documents, uninstalled software. I can get stuff even if it’s been deleted or if it’s just fragments.

  “When people use computers, you know, to commit a crime, they’re awful careful to delete files and cover their tracks, but they don’t realize the computer creates a trail. The toughest one I had was this guy who used an encryption program to create two separate spaces on the hard drive with two separate passwords. When his company went to investigate him, he gave them his password, but only the decoy data was found. He hid all the illicit data on the other space. They had no way of detecting it.”

  Roland tapped the pictures we had been looking at before Sean set off on his tangent.

  Sean rolled back to the desk and looked where directed. “Oh, yeah. Caitlyn went undercover to get some pictures, identifying, you know, the suspect.”

  “Who’s the client for the case with the underage girl?” I said, returning my attention to those particular pictures.

  “The parents. They hired an attorney to go after the abortion guys.”

  “Why the abortion people? Why not the man with her? Isn’t he guilty of statutory rape?”

  “Yeah, but the parents weren’t notified before she had the abortion. The parents say the boyfriend coerced her. And you know they need parental consent before they can do it. It’s the law here. And the abortion guys, you know, they covered stuff up. It wasn’t the first time.” Sean continued searching through folders on my desk and setting a few of them in front of me. “You’ll want to look at these.” He rolled his chair back, toward his desk. “That ought to get y’all started. Let me know if—”

  The phone on my desk rang and the three of us looked at it.

  I turned to Sean. “Should I get that?”

  He shrugged and slouched back in his chair. “It’s your phone.” Wheels squeaking, he rolled the rest of the way to his desk, reminding me of my younger siblings on the rolling chairs in an office supply store.

  I snatched up the phone. “Hello? Um, this is Caitlyn Summer.” Roland’s headshake made me correct myself. “I mean West.”

  “Caitlyn? This is Melinda Myers. Y’all called me last week or the week before.” The high, gentle voice made her sound young and very Southern.

  “Melinda... Myers.” Why did her name sound familiar?

  Sean rolled his chair to my desk at top speed, bumping into my chair. “Sorry,” he mouthed before pushing through a few files. He set a file in front of me and flipped it open. Melinda Myers, underage girl who obtained an abortion from A-Z Women’s Choice Clinic.

  “Oh, Melinda, I’m so glad you called.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t talk with y’all sooner, but I—I guess I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” I jotted down the date and the words “afraid to talk” on the telephone record in the folder.

  Roland read the note and looked at me.

  “Well, not afraid, really,” the girl said. “I mean, it’s just my boyfriend. He doesn’t want me talking with y’all, but now we’re taking a break from our relationship. And you sounded kind of desperate to talk to me.”

  “Oh, I did? I mean, I am. So, you can talk now?”

  Roland nodded, pushing a pencil and the telephone record to me.

  “Did you want to talk on the phone,” I said, taking the pencil in hand, “or meet somewhere?”

  “I’m at Sandy Lake Park right now. Can y’all come here?”

  “Now?” Dropping the pencil, I spun my chair to see the Indian Fort city map on the wall behind me. “Sandy Lake Park? Is that like a trailer park?” I jumped up and ran my finger along the map, trying to locate anything familiar.

  “A what?” the girl said.

  Sean showed up at my side and shook his head. Then he pushed my searching finger out of the way and tapped the map. Situated near a large golf course, Sandy Lake was a little park with a blue dot representing a lake. Sean continued to tap the map and mouthed, “We’re over here. Fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, I know where you are,” I said into the phone, smiling and giddy. My first appointment—that I remembered—with a real live witness or informant or whatever. I slid a notebook and pen into my purse. “What time shall we meet?”

  CHAPTER 18

  “SINCE YOU DON’T have your memory back, you can’t go alone.” Candice stood over my desk, hands on hips and her expression as strict as a schoolteacher... from the 1920s. “Sean’s the only one free to go with you right now. And Roland will need to stay here.”

  I sagged in my chair, disappointment deflating me. “Oh, but can’t Roland—”

  “He’s not licensed and bonded. Sorry.” And with hardly a breath in between, she belted out instructions. “You’ll need a recording device, an obvious one, and I want you to get permission from the girl to use it. Sean knows the procedure. This girl is young, under the age of consent, so you need to find out how old her boyfriend is and if the abortion clinic knew. And find out about her parents. Did t
hey sign the consent form or did the clinic find a way around that? Remember, we’re trying to prove that A-Z Women’s Choice Clinic has a pattern of not following the parental involvement and mandatory sexual crime reporting laws. So ask the right questions. This girl could make a good witness. We’d have to get parent permission, of course, but we’ll worry about that later. Find out her story first.”

  Candice turned on her heels but then stopped. The authoritative image melted as she faced me again. She spoke in the gentle voice of a friend. “Caitlyn, I don’t think this appointment has much to do with your accident or whatever happened to you. And if you don’t want to go—”

  “I do. I think, getting back into the swing of things, I might recover some of my memory. That’s what I hope, anyway.”

  Candice nodded. “Okay. But I understand if you need to do other things.”

  “Thanks.” As I smiled to show my appreciation, a question came to mind, something I’d meant to ask earlier. “Hey, before I go, I was wondering, did you speak with Jarret when he called me off work Monday?”

  Candice’s curious look made me feel the need to explain.

  “I want to find out everything I can about last Friday.” I twisted my wedding rings as I spoke. “So I just wonder what Jarret said about it.”

  “Sure. I spoke with him. He said you wouldn’t be coming to work that day and probably not for a couple of days. Naturally, I asked if you were okay.” She laid her hand on my forearm, a motherly touch. “It seemed hard for him to get the words out. And I had to piece it together, but he told me you had amnesia. I was shocked. It’s not your normal call-off. I couldn’t help asking questions. Were you in an accident? Had you been sick? But he didn’t seem able to say more, so I gathered he had no idea what had happened to you. After a stretch of silence, I thought our conversation had ended, but then he had a question for me, wanted to know if you were working on anything Friday that would’ve kept you out late. I checked your appointment schedule, found nothing, and that was it.”

  She smoothed her plaid 1920s skirt and folded her arms. “Of course, here at the office, we didn’t leave it at that. We’ve all been thinking about it and trying to see if any of your cases held any clues. Could it be revenge? Could your bit of investigative work have been the key factor in someone’s conviction? Could it have been someone you were following or someone following you? But who knows? It might have nothing to do with work. I checked police reports for that night for suspicious activity and other crimes. Victor checked police reports for the past several weeks, searching for possible patterns.” Candice shook her head. “It may have been a first-time offender or simply an accident. I agree that you need to piece that day together better and see what you come up with.”

  “I think you’re right.” I should re-examine everything I did at work that day and talk to Jarret again about his lunchtime visit. He’d said he returned my camera. Had anyone been watching us? Did they know it was my camera? Could someone have wanted Jarret’s camera?

  As questions tumbled through my mind, I watched Candice cross the room. My gaze stumbled onto Victor. He sat at his desk in the back corner of the room, staring directly at me. When our eyes met, he gave me a slow nod and returned to his work.

  In preparation for my appointment, Candice showed me the supply cabinet of recording devices, surveillance equipment, tracking devices, and special video and camera equipment. It was a private investigator’s dream. I left Roland there, with Mitch, two boys in a toy store.

  Before stepping through the doorway, I glanced back to tell Roland goodbye. He tore his attention from a contact surface microphone, which resembled a stethoscope, and gave me a brief look of concern. I responded with an eye-roll and a wave of my hand. Roland couldn’t stop worrying about what Jarret would want. We both knew Jarret would not like this situation at all. He wouldn’t want me out on my own.

  I turned down Sean’s offer to drive and drove him in my car. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a sunny park where moms and preschoolers sat at picnic tables and on blankets beside a little lake.

  Melinda Myers had said she would meet us at the picnic tables nearest the volleyball court. The park road wound past the lake, into and out of the shade. Opposite the lake, we found the volleyball court tucked in between a tennis court and a cluster of trees and picnic tables. The only people on this side of the park were an old man walking his dog and four teenage girls at one of the picnic tables. As soon as I parked, three of the girls took off. The remaining girl sat atop the picnic table and watched us get out of the car.

  Sean grabbed the fast-food bag from the back seat.

  “Great idea—about bringing lunch.” I climbed out of the car and waited for Sean.

  He handed me the bag of sub sandwiches, balancing the drink tray in his other hand. “Food relaxes people.”

  “It’ll relax my stomach, that’s for sure.” My stomach rumbled as we hiked across the stretch of grass between the parking lot and the picnic table.

  Melinda wore white shorts and a long, sheer purple vest over a tight black top that emphasized her shapely size-fourteen body. Her straight brown hair fell halfway down her back, and a blue crystal hung from a gold chain around her neck. Her heavy make-up didn’t hide her youth. She couldn’t have been over sixteen. Something about her looked familiar. Was she really involved with an older man? Had she really had an abortion at her age? A pang of sadness struck me.

  I maintained eye contact with the girl as we neared, but I leaned to whisper to Sean, “Have I met her before?”

  “Don’t think so.” He smiled at the girl and gave her a nod and a “hey.”

  Melinda responded with a little wave and jumped off the picnic table. She certainly looked familiar. Maybe she was in one of the pictures I had taken.

  Clutching the bag of sandwiches with one hand, I reached into my purse with the other to grab a notebook and pen. I jotted down “check pictures” as I walked.

  “You didn’t sign that out,” Sean said.

  “What?” I glanced at my pen and notepad.

  “The pen. You better get that back to the office.”

  “Oh.” I looked at the black pen in my hand. Realizing I’d grabbed the spy pen by mistake, I shoved it deep into my purse.

  Wanting to look friendly, I smiled as we neared the picnic table. Melinda stood with her arms folded across her chest, her body language saying she didn’t want to shake hands. So I simply said, “Hi, I’m Caitlyn,” and sat down.

  Melinda nodded and slid onto the bench seat across from me.

  Sean sat beside me and handed out sodas. “Hey. You probably figured Caitlyn would come alone,” he said to Melinda. “I work with Caitlyn. I’m Sean.” He stretched his arm across the table, offering his hand. Melinda shook it, ever so briefly. “I could go, you know, eat lunch in the car or take a walk or something.”

  I gave him a no you can’t look, but Melinda said she didn’t mind him being there, and she didn’t mind being recorded.

  After handing out subs, recording our introductions and the permission to record, I began. “We’re trying to help a girl and her family. The girl had an abortion at the same place you, um, well, and without her parents knowing.”

  Melinda’s expression remained blank. She sipped the soda. The gold chain around her neck reflected the afternoon sun, but the blue crystal that hung from it seemed oddly dull and roughed up.

  “Do you know that’s illegal?” I said. “Parents need to be notified in order for underage girls to have an abortion.”

  “I guess. But all you need is a letter.”

  “Right. Well, they got around that, and the parents were never notified. And the girl later wished she hadn’t done it.”

  Melinda could have been a statue. She didn’t even blink.

  “So...” I bit my bottom lip. What could I say to get the girl to talk? “I guess the girl did it because her boyfriend talked her into it, but she wishes she had thought about it first. She and her parents are pr
etty upset because, well, if the abortion clinic had followed the laws, they feel she wouldn’t have done it. So I, er, we—we’re trying to show that the abortion company isn’t following the rules. They’re, um...”

  “We thought maybe you could share your experience at the clinic with us,” Sean said, taking a break from wolfing down his sub. He leaned forward and gave Melinda a little smile. “I’m sure it’d be hard but it could really help this girl.”

  Melinda nodded and smiled back. Sean had put her instantly at ease. Was it his smile, his relaxed attitude? “I’ll help,” the girl said. Within a minute she was sharing everything, answering every one of his questions, without even batting an eye.

  “I’m fifteen... Yes, I’m seeing an older man... No, I won’t tell you his age, but he’s several years older... Yes, I was pregnant and would’ve had the baby. I wanted to go off with my boyfriend, but he has a career and can’t just pick up and move. He didn’t want me being pregnant... We’re going to marry soon as I turn eighteen. Things will be different then... Yes, he came with me to get the abortion... No, he told them he was my cousin... Of course, he paid for it. I sure don’t have that kind of money... No, we didn’t want my momma and daddy to know. The clinic only needed a letter. Tony wrote it.”

  “Who’s Tony?” Sean asked.

  “My boyfriend.”

  “Did they know Tony wrote it?”

  She shrugged. “I think it was their idea.”

  Whenever I asked a more personal question, Sean showed disapproval.

  “Are you sure he’s not using you?”

  Sean tapped my leg with his foot and gave me a narrow-eyed glare and a slight shake of his head.

  “Has he taken you to meet his parents?”

  Sean jabbed my arm with his elbow.

  “Does he talk about past girlfriends and their ages?”

  A kick to the shin.

  “Have you thought about how old he’ll be when you’re older?”

  He stomped on my foot.

  “People are so quick to judge.” Melinda tilted her head and gazed into the distance with the look of a star-crossed lover. “Who can help who you fall in love with?”