Framed: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 2)

by Boyd Craven III

  “No,” I said, coughing loudly.

  “Oh hell,” Susan said. She started to pull his shoes off.

  “Is the sub-basement going to be filled with those fumes?” Johanna asked.

  “Yeah, it’ll dissipate, but I don’t think we can go back down that way for a while,” I told her.

  “Let me see your tablet,” Jo said.

  I pulled it out and handed it to her. She tapped a few buttons, and Skye’s face lit up the screen.

  “Hey Jo, you guys ok?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we’re fine. Can you tell the nurses to have someone meet us in the boiler room? Sorenson got splashed with acid, and we’re all having a hard time breathing. Mephisto booby-trapped the door somehow and—”

  “They’ve got some guy at gunpoint just outside my window. I wasn’t sure if it was him or…oh God, they got him!” Skye interrupted.

  “Kid, we need help. I need ER for at least one, maybe three people,” she said, turning to look at Pete and Susan.

  “Oh snap!” Skye said.

  “What?” Jo asked. She looked at Sorenson, who’d been relieved of his pants and was now semi-conscious.

  So the guy worked out. But his legs were burned by the chemicals that had already soaked through. Still, Skye’s voice sounded like she got an eyeful of something. I had been watching Johanna and trying to figure out how to get 250lbs of unconscious ugly over a brick wall.

  “Um…I…I’ll let them know,” Skye said, breaking the connection.

  “I can stand,” Landon Sorenson said grumpily, coughing.

  He proved how good on his feet he was when he stumbled but caught himself on Susan’s outstretched hand.

  “It’s best if we all get out of here and go to the other side, closing the ceiling tile so we don’t vent the chlorine gas.”

  “Is it flammable?” Pete asked.

  “No, but it’s probably—”

  “Is everyone all right over there?” The administrator’s head popped over the wall, startling all of us.

  “He’s been splashed with ammonia and chlorine,” I told him.

  “Hold on, I’ve got maintenance down here with me now, and I’ve got another ladder.”

  12

  Sorenson’s legs were more ugly than a real health concern, and after monitoring all of our breathing, we were released. Susan filled Johanna and me in on what had happened, and I must admit, it was clever the way Mephisto, AKA Colten Banks, had set up his hacker’s lair. He’d booby-trapped the door with two glass water jugs. One was full of bleach, the other was full of ammonia, just like I thought. When the door opened, it untied some twenty-pound fishing monofilament, letting the jars drop and break, releasing the contents.

  As soon as those broke, Banks had tried to flee out of the utility entrance, where the power company could work on the grid. What was interesting was his setup. He had set himself up with his own sub-basement housing. No one came down there, and he set himself up in an area the power company never ventured—an old storage room full of gear and furniture from the 40s and 50s. Going through the contents of the basement dwelling, it was apparent that he spent every dollar he earned on computer equipment, using the almost unlimited power and internet of the hospital to launch his cyber-attacks.

  I never found out if he was acting alone or in concert with the rest of Anonymous, nor how he got pictures of Skye topless, because first the FBI and then Homeland Security had taken over. Susan and Pete were effectively shut out, and Sorenson wasn’t one to share. They were discouraged, but there were still loose ends to see to…like Rita’s phone cloning and how that tied into Skye’s pictures. That’s why we were pulling into the wireless store’s parking lot.

  “I’ve been here,” Skye said softly.

  “Recently?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, within the past month or so.”

  “So if the person who stole the pictures off your phone…he worked here. I think—”

  “I do too,” Johanna said. “They had to have known.”

  “Sorenson might have cut us off from Banks,” Susan O’Hara said from the front seat, “but we can work this side of things until they take it away.”

  “Where’s Pete at, anyways?” I asked her.

  “He had a date. I told him I could handle it.”

  “He had a date?” I was confused. I thought Pete had the hots for Susan.

  “Yeah, his daughter had a daddy-daughter dance at the school,” Susan told me and opened her door.

  I fell silent with that and followed everyone. I walked beside Johanna, following Skye and Susan into the store.

  “Hi there, how can I help—”

  The man behind the counter started to say, but he cut his words off sharply when he caught a glimpse of Skye.

  “Lexi, can you help these folks? I’m going to take a break,” he said, already moving for the doorway that led to the back room.

  “No, I’d like for you to help us, Chet,” Susan said, reading his nametag and showing him her badge.

  Johanna tensed, and I took a step back. When it came to speed and coordination, I was not the man for the job. He didn’t run though; he let out a breath and then shot a look at Skye again, his face turning red.

  “You were the one who sold me my new phone,” Skye said. “And transferred everything to the new one.”

  “I…uh…” He looked at her and stammered a bit more. “Yeah, you’re Skye Erickson.”

  “How do you know who I am?” she asked him, getting close.

  He looked uncomfortable before, but now he really looked like he wanted to run. Susan stood between him and the exit, Johanna next to me, and Skye in the front. He could try going over the sales counter or running though Susan, but he seemed to deflate when Susan pulled her cuffs out in one hand and her gun in the other.

  “We’re heading downtown to talk, and no, this is not an invitation. On your knees, cross one leg over another, and put your hands up,” Susan demanded.

  We watched as she cuffed him, stood him up, and patted him down. She removed several cell phones from his pocket and a small box with USB connections. I recognized it. It was similar to the boxes the cellular stores used to transfer information from one phone to another. He had his own, or one of the store’s.

  “That’s my stuff,” he complained.

  “Jo will bring it,” Susan told him curtly.

  * * *

  Chet belonged to the underground community known as Anonymous and had swiped Skye’s pictures off her phone when she came in. He’d been able to undelete all the pictures off her phone and save them for his own personal use. He was smitten with her, which would have been amusing if he hadn’t also had a side business of cloning people’s phones and selling them for some serious side money. He hadn’t even known who Skye was, nor had he been an Anonymous hacker, until he met with his real-life friend and contact, Colten.

  He’d told Colten about the pictures he’d found this past month and then went on to gush about this short, dark-haired woman who had deleted a ton of photos, and how he was so in love with Skye Erickson. He was going to engineer a way to meet her, but she wasn’t home. He sounded like a stalker for sure, but Colten had seized upon the opportunity, gotten the cloned phone, all the pictures, and made Chet delete everything on his end. All he was left with was her name and the knowledge that she was off limits. I knew there had been too much luck lately, and Murphy had bestowed it upon Colten instead of us.

  The story came out in a flash, but Chet knew almost next to nothing, and when pressed he didn’t change his story. Since the rest of this was going to come out anyways in the Banks trial, I knew they’d call in Sorenson soon.

  “I can’t believe it was that simple.”

  “It’s kind of sweet. He fell in love at the sight of you, before he saw you naked,” Johanna crooned.

  We were sitting on the other side of the glass, watching the interrogation.

  “You’re not funny,” Skye grumped.

  “You’re t
urning red in the face,” Johanna said, poking her in the side, making her jump and let out a surprised yelp.

  Susan’s back was to us, but she looked up and to the side. I could make out part of her expression, and I could tell she was smiling.

  “She’s just embarrassed because so many people saw her boobs,” I told Johanna, coming to Skye’s defense.

  “Not a lot of people!” Skye said, turning on me.

  “Well, there was me, Jo, Chet there, Colten, probably Landon by now, and the FBI crime techs—”

  “You’re not helping!” Skye said, a note of something in her voice. Frustration?

  “Skye, don’t worry,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “Because as soon as Landon pushes the issue with us, the NSA will come in and classify a bunch of stuff. And now that Homeland Security is involved, I’m sure things will get locked down and buried.”

  “You never told me what you used to do, or did,” Johanna said.

  “Yeah, me either,” Skye told me.

  “Well, I can’t. But Skye, remember when I first hired you, and you asked me what happens if you get caught, and I told you the worst that could happen…?”

  “That they’d offer me a job?” she finished the thought.

  I nodded.

  “That’s what happened to you. Oh hell, are you working for them undercover or something?”

  “I’m not undercover, and I don’t work for them,” I told her.

  “But…”

  “I don’t think he’s going to budge on this one,” Jo said, rescuing me. “Let’s go. I hear you have a date with Rita later on?”

  “I cancelled.”

  “What?” both women chorused.

  “I think she’s looking for more than what I’m capable of supplying. I’m not ready or able to handle a relationship like that, and I only agreed on the date because we were just working the job and trying to get the details from the phone. Right?”

  The ladies looked at each other and then down at their shoes. I looked down too. What did that mean?

  “Uh… she really likes you,” Skye said after a moment.

  “She doesn’t even know me.”

  “Maybe she just loves his money,” Johanna said.

  “Or the fact that he’s so open and honest,” Skye told her.

  “Can’t lie, and has a killer set of ethics…”

  “Ok, can we go now?” I asked the duo. “I’m supposed to be in therapy in three hours.”

  “We have to be there in two, actually,” Johanna said.

  “Why two?” I asked her.

  “I’m going first. I want to talk to her myself,” Johanna said, staring me in the eye.

  I didn’t miss the fact that Skye shot her a look, but I didn’t know what it meant. Jo’s eyes moved to follow, but she kept her face turned towards me.

  “Ok, so we’ll be there in two hours,” I agreed.

  “And then you can have your date!” Skye said excitedly.

  “I kind of need to decompress,” I told them.

  “What about pushing boundaries?” Jo teased.

  “We’ll see. Not tonight.”

  We started towards the front of the police station. I followed Johanna with Skye behind or beside me depending on the width of the walkways.

  “What about a movie night then? I could go for some more Freddy!” Johanna said.

  “Oooh, or what about—”

  “No, no,” I said, putting my hands up as if to ward off an attack.

  “Come on, ya big baby,” Jo teased.

  I saw somebody leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette. Her stringy red hair and unkempt appearance were familiar. With a start I realized who it was. I’d seen her once before, and it had been more than a little unpleasant. I must have stopped in my tracks, because Jo turned and walked to my side and followed my gaze.

  “Skye?” Jo said quietly.

  “The fuck you looking at?” Daniella snarled.

  “That’s…” Skye said, letting the words trail off.

  Skye walked towards her sister-in-law. I heard more than saw Johanna pull out her cell phone and dial a number. Her conversation was short. I worried about Skye, but she stood there, talking with the profane Daniella until Susan O’Hara left the precinct building and approached us.

  “What is it?” she asked. “You weren’t specific, Johanna?”

  I pulled my phone out and took a picture of Skye talking to her sister-in-law, Susan framing the background.

  “What are you doing?” Susan asked me.

  “Taking a picture of a dead woman,” I told her. “Before she disappears.”

  Susan turned slowly, and a dawning realization broke over her face. Before either Jo or I could say more, she marched off, and a conversation between the three of them ensued.

  “I wonder what happened to her?” Johanna asked me.

  “No doubt, nothing good. I honestly did not know if her brother had the capacity for murder. I have enough of a problem understanding people in general, but when you throw in an unknown element such as drug abuse, it makes it even more confusing. I really hope—”

  Johanna bumped me with her shoulder, and I looked over to her. She was pointing to the trio that was slowly walking towards the precinct building. I watched as the three of them entered.

  “Should we join them?” I asked her.

  My phone buzzed and Jo’s beeped. I looked at mine, and it was a message from Skye, telling us that Susan would drop her off later, that Daniella was talking. Her brother was framed, and she had to stay to sort things out with Susan and Landon.

  “No, I think they’ve got this handled,” Jo said, smiling and holding up her phone, showing me that she’d gotten an identical message.

  “Ok, let’s go home,” I said, and we walked towards the Suburban, getting in moments later.

  Ground level parking for the win.

  “Don’t forget therapy,” Jo said. “Or are you going off routine?”

  “No, but I could use a change of clothing and a clean-up before heading in to see Deborah,” I admitted.

  “Did you really cancel the date with Rita?” Johanna asked me.

  Something in her voice was off. It sounded softer, gentler than her normal biting, edgy tone.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the real reason? It’s not because ‘you can’t handle relationships’. I think that’s a lie you tell to yourself and others to keep people away,” Jo said in the same tone.

  I considered it and swallowed.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way—”

  “Here we go again,” Jo said, her voice back to normal.

  “It’s very clear the both of us are never going to have a relationship together…I…listen, bringing women home seemed to hurt you, or make you angry. I’d rather not date at all, and keep our friendship intact,” I admitted.

  “So you’re willing to give up your own happiness for me?” Jo asked.

  “Being with them is pleasurable,” I admitted. “But the only thing close to approaching happiness is knowing I have a friend in you.”

  She made a choking sound and started the engine. She never looked back, but I said something that angered her. I knew I shouldn’t talk about our bond so much, but she asked for the truth. I knew I sucked at misdirection, and I never wanted to outright lie to them, but Jo had waited until we were alone. Now the truth seemed to make matters worse.

  “So, why do you want to go to therapy with me? I thought you hated it and that’s why you always sat in the car?” I asked her.

  “Shut up, Jarek,” Jo said softly. “Or I’ll end you.”

  She moved the rearview mirror, and I couldn’t see her face or expression clearly, but I saw the upward curve of a smile on the edge of her mouth.

  “You always say that,” I noted.

  “I always mean it.”

  No, I doubted she did. But like me, she had her own quirks, and together I think we made a great team. We’d talk th
is out, watch Netflix, and maybe get a pizza. Life would be back to normal in a day or two.

  --The End--

  About the Author

  About The Author –

  Boyd Craven III was born and raised in Michigan. He’s an avid outdoorsman who’s always loved to read and write from a young age. When he isn’t working outside on the farm, or chasing a household of kids, he’s sitting in his Lazy Boy, typing away.

  You can find the rest of Boyd’s books on Amazon here.

  @boydc3

  boydcraven3

  boydcraven.com

  boyd3@live.com