by K. J. Emrick
“How do you know that?”
His eyes dart away from mine, embarrassment coloring his cheeks pink. “Um. Well, there’s an app on her phone that lets me track it. I’d look at it sometimes when I was at work. You know. Just to watch out for her.”
Right. Because that’s not creepy at all. “Did you tell her the app was on her phone?”
“No. Oh, dear Lord, no.” His chuckle is thin and reedy. “She would have thought I didn’t trust her. I wouldn’t want her to think that.”
“So then,” I ask him pointedly, “why did you do it?”
That got his dander up a little. Enough for him to look me square in the eyes again, anyway. “Miss Stone, my Katarina just moved here to a country where she doesn’t know anyone. She doesn’t know the streets, she doesn’t know where anything is, and I can’t be with her twenty-four hours a day, even though I might want to be. I figured having that app on her phone would let me protect her in case she ever got lost, or whatever. There’s no harm in it. My ex-wife and I had the same thing on our phones and I was born and raised right here in Detroit.”
Maybe there was a little bit of harm in it, and maybe not, but it might lend some credence to something Carol had told me. “The relationship you’re describing between you and Katarina sounds almost perfect. Are you certain that there weren’t any problems between you? Were the police ever called here for anything? A fight? A noise complaint?”
“You already asked me about this once, Miss Stone, and I told you then that I could never hurt Katarina. Never. No, the police never came here. You can interview our neighbors if you like, and they’ll tell you the same thing. I won’t say we were the perfect couple, but for a guy like me who’s been married and divorced before, what Katarina and I had together was as close to Heaven as I could picture it.”
Okay, I know I shouldn’t, but I still believe him. There’s a sincerity in his voice when he talks about it and yes, I’ve been lied to before, but I’m choosing to believe Barlow.
Which means it was Katarina who was lying about Barlow’s mood swings and his temper, when she said all that to Carol. She was lying to him. She was lying to Barlow about wanting to stay a virgin until marriage. Turns out, she was lying to everyone. She used Barlow to get into this country, she was about to use Carol for his DMV access to get some fake IDs. This was a woman about to run, and leave these guys behind in the dust, and neither of them got it.
So what was she running from?
“Barlow, let me ask you another question.” I shift over on his couch while I choose my words. Leather is nowhere near as comfortable as people think it is. “In all that time when you and Katarina were talking, before you brought her here, did she tell you anything about her life in Croatia? Was she in any kind of trouble over there?”
“Not that she told me, no.” His emotions were scripted all over his face again, and this time it was anxiety that shoved his eyebrows together. “Do you think she was in trouble? You said you had reason to believe she’s alive but is she in trouble? Is that why she took all that money from my accounts?”
I waited for him to run out of breath. “I don’t have those answers, Mister Michaelson. I’m sorry. I might be close to finding Katarina, and then again, I might not be. I was just wondering if she told you anything about her life in Croatia. Something that might explain, um, what happened here.”
Why she ripped you off, I almost said, and basically prostituted herself to someone else. But I didn’t say either of those things out loud. I can be tactful. When I want to be.
“Have you found the woman who was with her at the bank?” he asks me now, his words rushing out of him again. “Is that who put Katarina in danger? Or Carol? Did you find Carol? What did she have to do with any of this?”
This conversation had turned around on me a little too quickly for my liking. “Carol,” I tell him, “didn’t have anything to do with Katarina’s disappearance. I can at least tell you that much.”
“Then it must be the guy who got her pregnant,” he insists, curling one hand into a fist that he pounds against his knee. “I’ll bet my life on it. That’s the guy who has my Katarina.”
He couldn’t be further from the truth, not that I’m going to tell him that. Carol and the guy who got Katarina pregnant are the same person, but if I identify Carol to Barlow, he’s just going to want to go looking for revenge. Guys are dumb like that. Play with their toys, and they get their boxers in a twist. Honestly, I don’t know which one of them would win in a fair fight, Barlow or Carol, because they’re both pretty evenly matched from what I’m seeing. Carol might be able to run faster, I suppose.
I’m not going to be responsible for those two going after each other, though. I’ve got enough problems with this case as it is. Barlow doesn’t need to know anything about Carol. It’s not the information he’s paying me for.
When I take too long to answer him, Barlow huffs out a breath and sinks back against the leather cushions. “I suppose it’s my own fault for believing I could find love again. My ex-wife told me I was stupid for divorcing her. She said that no woman would ever love me again. Not with a face like mine, and a body that could belong to a twelfth-grader, and a boring job and… well. She said a lot of things, I guess. No, no, don’t try to argue the point, Miss Stone. I know what I look like. I know the kind of guy women typically go for, and I’m not that guy. When I was with Katarina, though, she made me feel so special. She made me feel wanted.”
Yeah. I’m sure she did. That’s what people did when they wanted to use you. They got close, and made you like them, and then took what they wanted before moving on to the next scam without so much as a see-you-later. I was getting a clearer idea of who Katarina Borishev really was, and the picture that was forming in my mind was that of a con woman. The United States didn’t have the market cornered on nasty women. They came from every part of the globe.
If she was using these two, why not someone else? She might have moved on to someone else already, while still stringing these two along. It’s not like she had shown any kind of faithfulness to Barlow or Carol, either. Had Katarina’s next sucker taken offense at being used, and turned the tables on her? It was entirely possible. Barlow and Carol were both too much in love to do anything harmful to her, in my opinion, even though it should have been obvious to both of them by now that they were just being played. So, could there have been a third guy out there already involved in her scheme?
Or not a guy, maybe… but a woman? Had Katarina started to string along a woman who took her to the bank, emptied out Barlow’s bank accounts, and then chained her to a wall? Maybe. But if she was one of Katarina’s cons, why chain her to a wall? If the next person in Katarina’s scheme had figured out she was being played, why keep Katarina alive? Dump her, turn her into the police, kill her… I could understand any of those reactions but keeping her captive and giving her milk and cookies…?
Yeah. That was going to take some thought. I was missing a piece somewhere. Maybe more than one.
“Mister Michaelson… Barlow,” I say, using his first name now because I have to suggest something that I know he isn’t going to like. “I really think, at this point, it will best if we contact the police.”
“No. Miss Stone, no.” He shakes his head adamantly. “I don’t want the police involved. Even if they find Katarina, they’ll arrest her. They’ll deport her. I’ll lose her forever.”
I bite my tongue, because I sorely want to remind him that Katarina didn’t really love him. She never had. She didn’t really love Carol, either. I’m not even sure ‘love’ is a word in this woman’s vocabulary, and I don’t just mean because she’s from Croatia. Right now, Katarina didn’t need to be protected from the law, she needed to be found safe and sound. That was my only concern. The law could deal with all the rest of it afterward, as long as we got to her before something really bad happened.
“Barlow, if Katarina was in some sort of trouble in Croatia then whatever it was might have followe
d her here.” I’m arguing just as fast as I can because he needs to be convinced and I’m the only one here to do it. “Yes, she’s alive now but that could change quickly if we don’t act. Let me call the police and have them help us.”
“No,” he insists, crossing his arms defiantly to show he won’t budge on this one. “I’m the one paying your salary, Miss Stone. You work for me. I understand the concerns you’ve raised but I do not want law enforcement involved in any way.”
“I really don’t think you understand my concerns at all,” I tell him, feeling my calm slipping away. “Katarina was running away from something, and now she’s in trouble. That’s why she was using you and lying to you about not wanting to have sex—”
I clamp my mouth shut so hard my teeth clack together. Too late. I’ve said the wrong thing and said it in spades. The hard glint of anger in Barlow’s eyes tells me that much.
“You don’t know she was lying to me,” he says, even though both of us are adults and we know a lie when it slaps us in the face.
Some guys just don’t want to know the truth about the women in their life. From the things he’s told me, Barlow has had one marriage fall apart on him already, for reasons I could only guess at, but now here was Katarina Borishev promising him a second chance. He wasn’t willing to let that go. Not under any circumstances.
“Barlow,” I try again, “you really need to hear what I’m saying…”
In the middle of that plea he cuts me off by standing up, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt, not looking at me at all. “I think, Miss Stone, that we should end our arrangement now. You’ve done a very good job. I’ll, uh, be sure to leave you a good review on your Facebook page and if you need a reference for your next job, I’ll gladly write you one but, um, I really think you should go. Now.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Even with the words coming at me three seconds before he said them, I wasn’t prepared for that. “Are you firing me?”
Pursing his lips, he gives me a single nod.
“Barlow, just hold on. You paid me enough for a couple of days yet. Let me keep working and see what I can come up with. I just think we need the police to help—”
“No,” he says again, that word like a brick wall between us. “You can keep the money. Just keep it. I don’t want you working on this anymore, okay? Katarina is my girlfriend. I make the decisions. I’ll find someone else to do this. Someone who will respect my decisions.”
“Barlow don’t be foolish. No one else is going to be able to find out more than I have.” I was very confident about that, considering no other private investigator in all of Detroit would have a genie on their side. Even on a bad day, without magic to help me along, I’m one of the best in the game. That’s not bragging. It’s the truth.
It didn’t matter. Barlow wasn’t hearing any of it. “You need to leave now, Miss Stone. I’ll find Katarina some other way. You’re done. We’re done here. Goodbye now.”
After that, there was nothing left to say. I could tell there was nothing I could tell him that would possibly matter. So I didn’t bother trying.
I left Barlow’s apartment with a heavy heart. He’s made up his mind, and when a man like Barlow makes up his mind there isn’t any talking him out of his decision. I’m sure that mindset helps him out immensely when it came to making money as an investment banker, but when it came to the rest of his life it was failing him miserably. Failed marriage, a girlfriend that was yanking his chain, and someone—me—who was offering to help him fix things just to get rushed out the door.
Yeah. There was just no helping some guys.
The elevator dings when I reach the bottom floor and I leave through the spacious lobby with my feet slapping out an angry rhythm on the tiled floor. I’m sure there were people around, and I’m sure they were looking at me and wondering what had ruined my day, but I was ignoring them. Outside the city was lit up by streetlights and neon signs, by headlights and skyscraper windows. The sun had already set. Another night had come, and another day had passed.
My meeting with Barlow had not gone the way I expected it to. Not even a little. If I could see three hours into my own future instead of three seconds, or something, then I would have foreseen Barlow’s reaction and I could have changed the way I approached the subject of including the police. Three seconds at a time isn’t enough for me to change the course of events in any major way.
As I get into Roxy’s front seat and close the door on the world around me, my mind is still spinning. I mean, I’ve been fired before. It’s an occupational hazard when you work with people who want to hire someone outside of the law to fix their problems. I’ve even quit a few jobs when it became clear that the people who hired me were looking for a result that was completely illegal. I’ll break the law when I need to, but only when the ends justify the means. Not just because.
So getting fired by Barlow, although it’s annoying, isn’t what’s bothering me. What bothered me was knowing that Katarina was out there, still alive for the moment, and Barlow didn’t want my advice on how to bring her safely home.
Well. That didn’t matter anymore, did it? Barlow fired me.
Of course, that meant he couldn’t tell me what to do…
My eyes, looking back at me from the rearview mirror, shine with a little bit of mischief. “He’s not the boss of me.”
If he’s not paying me, then he doesn’t get to tell me what to do. Or not do.
Like, for instance, whether I should call the police or not.
As of now that was my call to make, and I was making it.
On my phone, Christian’s number rolls up in my contacts list. My finger hesitates for only a moment before pushing the ‘call’ button. He answers on the fourth ring, just before it would have gone to voicemail.
“Sidney,” I hear him say, in a drowsy voice. “It’s late. I was asleep.”
He’s cute when he’s annoyed. “You’re a cop, Christian. I thought cops were on duty twenty-four-seven?”
“No. You’re thinking of hookers.”
I laugh softly. I didn’t realize how badly I needed that laugh until it was falling across my lips. Christian could always make me feel better, just by talking to me. “I happen to know a few hookers, actually, and I know for a fact they take time off. Usually in the mornings. Also, they prefer to be called female escorts.”
“Mmph. Listen, I just got off a scheduled twelve-hour shift that turned into a sixteen hour nightmare, and I was hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before I went in tomorrow and did it all again. So I’m really hoping you didn’t call me just to discuss the English language.”
“Uh, no.” Looking up at my reflection again, I remind myself that this was Katarina’s best hope at getting found. “I need your help, Chris. Or rather, there’s a woman who’s been kidnapped who needs your help.”
“And suddenly I’m not sleepy anymore,” he says. I can hear rustling from his end of the conversation as he sits up in bed. Must be sleeping alone these days. “Tell me more.”
That was the great thing about Christian. He could have told me to call 911, or the direct line to the Detroit Police Department. He could have just told me he was off duty and get someone else to help. He didn’t. Part of that was the fact that he and I knew each other, and we trusted each other, and if one of us said something was serious we knew that it was. Another part of it was simply that Christian Caine wasn’t the kind of guy to sit on the sidelines when people needed help.
That’s one of the other reasons we get along so well. We’re cut from the same cloth.
I start by telling him the bare facts as I know them, leaving out that I saw Katarina in a house somewhere because, you know, the whole genie thing is going to be impossible to explain without lots of alcohol involved. As he asks questions, I fill in the blanks with more details. Carol and the pregnancy. The woman from the bank video. Barlow, being concerned about Katarina’s immigrant status.
“That why he isn’t the one making
this call?” Christian asks. At some point he’d started writing things down, and I was sure that question had made it onto his list.
“That’s exactly why. He made it very clear that I wasn’t to involve the police. Then he fired me.”
“Oh yeah? Well. Now you’re under no obligation to do anything he says.”
“That’s exactly what I said, you smart man.”
“If I was so smart,” he jokes, “I would have your number blocked. So, is Barlow a suspect, do you think?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve gone round and round on that but my instincts are telling me no.”
“You sure? When people don’t want the police to get involved it’s usually because they have something to hide.”
“Not always,” I remind him. “Sometimes people just don’t like you boys in blue.”
“You’re going to insult me when you’re asking for my help?”
“Hey, sometimes people don’t like private investigators either. You heard me say I just got fired, right?” I shifted in my seat with a sigh. 1968 Mustangs were built for speed, not comfort. “Seriously, I think Barlow is just worried about losing Katarina. He’s been divorced once already and now he finds out his new girlfriend is cheating on him and stealing from him and… and…”
I broke off, losing my train of thought entirely as I look back up at the fourth floor of Barlow’s building.
Damn it.
Christian was right.
“Hey, Chris?” I say, certain that he’ll notice the change in my voice. “I know it’s late but can we meet somewhere? I think I just figured out who kidnapped Katarina Borishev.
Chapter Eleven
In the late-night hours of a city like Detroit, a police precinct is just as busy as it is during the daylight hours. There’s uniformed officers and plain-clothes detectives shuffling back and forth, maybe a little slower now that it’s close to midnight, but still with a purpose. Phones on desks ring with incoming calls from citizens who needed help, or advice, or who just had a crazy question they couldn’t answer with a Google search.
