As he finished his coffee his phone buzzed with a message from the lab informing him a hijacked wireless network in SoHo was used to upload the latest video. He called Gupta and confirmed five employees from the list were in the area when the message was sent. Eldridge flipped through the pages and found all five, two of which he had already eliminated in his too fat/too old pile. Real progress! But maybe not. He looked at the photos, certain he hadn't seen the three remaining men before. One was a maybe, but he couldn’t honestly say he was ringing a bell. He called Gupta back. “Were any of these five on duty three nights ago?” He heard Gupta hitting keys.
“One. Chris Messina.”
Eldridge’s heart thumped in his chest, his gut feeling returning. “Where is he now?”
A few more key taps echoed through the phone. “GPS has him here. Probably for a meeting.”
“Keep him there.”
“Are you serious? Greedo? There’s no way he has anything to do with this.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Eldridge snapped his phone shut, downed the rest of his coffee and rushed from the Starbucks, tossing his cup in the trash. A voice straight from the sixties yelled at him, “Hey, man, reduce, reuse, recycle, man!” Eldridge did a double-take at the Starbucks’ resident-granola as the man reached into the trash to retrieve the cup he had tossed moments ago. With no time to get into an environmental debate, he continued on to the NerdTech offices and found Gupta waiting for him with his suspect.
“Detective Eldridge, this is Chris Messina,” said Gupta. “Perhaps we should talk in my office?”
Eldridge nodded and followed several steps behind a clearly nervous Messina, his royal blue dress shirt stained with large, expanding sweat stains, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead and back of his neck, his pasty white face glistening and sickly pale. Someone opened the door to a photocopier room as they walked by and Messina jumped to the other side of the hall, grabbing his chest. This has got to be him. Eldridge reached under his sport coat and adjusted his holster. But he doesn’t look at all like the guy from the stairwell!
“What's this all about?” asked Messina when the door closed. “Did I do something wrong?”
Eldridge looked at the man standing before him. He stood about five foot eleven, 190 pounds with salt and pepper hair, probably in his late-thirties. There was no way this man could be mistaken for the one from the hospital, that man standing at least a head shorter than Eldridge, and ten to fifteen years younger than Messina. Then why is he so damned nervous? He decided to play it out. “That depends, Mr. Messina. Were you at St. Luke's hospital this week?”
“St. Luke's? I've never been there in my life!”
“Where were you Tuesday night?”
“Tuesday?” Messina stammered. “Oh, thank God!” He breathed out a sigh of relief, a hint of color returning to his face. “I was with my wife and kid at a piano recital!”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
Messina bobbed his head, clearly relieved. “Of course, a couple hundred people!” Messina smiled and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead and neck.
“And between what times were you at this recital?”
“Between seven and ten.”
Well, he couldn’t have been at the hospital.
“But I have you taking a call around eleven,” said Gupta, looking at his computer. “The notes say they couldn’t reach you for almost three hours.”
“Yeah, I was on call.”
Eldridge detected a note of panic in his voice, the little color that had returned, quickly gone. Why? He's already cleared himself.
Messina wiped his forehead again, alternating his attention between Gupta and Eldridge, as if unsure of who he would get in more trouble with. He apparently decided on Gupta. “I'm sorry, sir, I hardly ever get called on Tuesday night and I needed the money, so I took the shift and went to the recital. I turned off my phone in the recital and then forgot to turn it back on when I got out. I'm sorry, Mr. Gupta, it won't happen again.”
“See that it doesn't,” warned Gupta. He turned to Eldridge. “Are we done here?”
“For now,” replied Eldridge. Another dead end. He looked at Messina for a moment, then reached out to shake his hand. Messina took it, his hand shaking almost uncontrollably. This guy is definitely hiding something. Eldridge decided to sit on him for a while.
Aynslee looked in the mirror and smiled. Definitely worth it. Two torturous hours in the stylist's chair with a bruised skull had resulted in a new look that wouldn't launch a thousand ships, but just might launch her career those final few steps. When she had first sat down she said she wanted something bold, dramatic, different. Serge suggested leaving her hair long, straightening it, and going with an extreme change—from boring brunette to blonde bombshell. Aynslee hadn’t been sure. Serge’s “trust me, darling” were words she had heard numerous times before, and he had never disappointed. It was probably the throbbing headache rather than her innate trust in her stylist, that made her agree, but in the end, she loved the look. Her light brown complexion contrasted beautifully with the new color and heads were definitely turning in the studio. I wonder if Hayden will like it?
The attack by Tammera's father had shaken her up. When it happened, she had no idea who he was; he was nothing more than a man who screamed at her and shoved her to the ground. She remembered hitting her head and blacking out for a moment, coming to as he was about to deliver the finishing blow.
But Hayden had saved her.
She shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up when he did, the ironic coincidence of him being there to view the video of a murder, resulting in the saving of a life. Her life. Since Hayden‘s rescue, her mind had created an extensive fantasy around the incident, a dream world she found herself escaping to whenever she had a moment to herself, something she hadn’t done since her teenage crush days. She sighed and returned to reality as the director cued them for the supper hour newscast. Tonight, she was co-anchor. One more step out of the way!
Abby stepped from her Dojo and into the crisp evening air, chatting with a new student, Bruce, who had joined earlier that evening. There had been a time when she would never have considered talking to a strange man, especially on the street at night, but Karate had changed that. She signed up a year ago and was, in her opinion, doing quite well, considering she was testing for her green belt next week, was in the best shape of her life, and loved the feeling of confidence and security it gave her. Not to mention feeling sexy again after her bitter divorce. She looked at the young man and touched his arm. You’re incorrigible! He’s barely half your age!
“Oh, I'm sure you're going to love it,” she said. “Shihan Jamie is excellent and very patient.”
“I hope so,” the young man said. “I've always wanted to get into it but I kept putting it off. I guess I just thought that you had to start as a kid.”
Abby laughed. “I just started a year ago and I'm only thirty-five.” A little white lie never hurt anyone. “I’m already testing for my green belt next week.”
“Really? What made you start?”
She opened the trunk of her car with her key fob and tossed her gym bag inside. Pausing, she debated on whether or not she should tell him, but the eager expression on his innocent face made her trust him. “There was an incident a year ago on a subway where a girl was killed,” she began.
“Really?” Bruce was wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“You never heard about it?” Who hasn't heard of this?
Bruce cast his eyes down, a hint of shame on his face. “To be perfectly honest, I get most of my news from the entertainment section of Digg.”
Abby nodded. What the hell is “dig”? “Well, a year ago two guys beat a girl to death on the subway. I was there when it happened and I was too scared to do anything about it.”
“It must have been terrifying.”
“It was. I swore after that night I
would learn how to defend myself and others. The next day I came to the Dojo and I've been going four times a week since.”
Bruce nodded his head. “Yeah, it was a brutal thing that happened that day,” he said, the tone of his voice dramatically different from moments ago.
Abby paused, suddenly apprehensive. “I thought you didn't know what I was talking about?”
Bruce looked directly at her, all expression drained from his face. His hand snapped out from his side and he clutched her wrist with an iron grip, pulling her toward the still open trunk. Abby, consumed with panic, couldn’t understand what was happening, or what to do. She became light headed, exactly like a year ago, as her emotions took over.
“She was my—.”
The reality of the situation rushed back with a roar. “No!” she yelled, anger and fear mixed in her voice. She broke his wrist lock with a move she had practiced for months, never dreaming she would have to use it in the real world, then followed it up with a front snap kick to his groin. Her attacker buckled forward in agony, trying to grab her again, as she yelled for help and ran toward the Dojo. Nearing the door, something hit her back then an agonizing pain shot through her entire body, every muscle contracting, her clenched fists and arms shaking uncontrollably. She collapsed to the ground, mere feet from the door, unable to reach out, every muscle and sinew taut and no longer under her control, her teeth, clenched together as if wired shut, not letting a sound escape. The pain stopped as suddenly as it had started, her muscles released, completely exhausted of energy, and she slumped to the ground.
She pushed herself on her back, her weakened muscles screaming from the effort, and saw Bruce stumble toward her, his outstretched hand aiming a Tazer at her. He squeezed the trigger and the electricity shot through her nerve endings from head to toe again, spasms wracked her body as she jerked around on the sidewalk, helpless. Releasing the trigger, he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and dumped her unceremoniously into the trunk. He ripped the keys from her still clenched hand then slammed the lid closed, sealing her inside. As her strength slowly returned, she kicked at the trunk roof and yelled for help. The car screeched to a halt, sending her rolling. She heard the car door and a moment later the trunk lid was thrown open. Bruce leaned in, holding the Tazer in his left hand and a white cloth in the other. He pointed the Tazer at her head and pressed the damp cloth tight over her mouth, a pungent odor overwhelming her nostrils. Almost immediately the world swam around her, the chemical on the cloth causing her to breathe deeply, her sinuses tingling as if from the initial blast of a breath mint, then she went numb. She struggled but it was no use. Within seconds she was unconscious.
Aynslee sat in the makeup chair prepping to tape a segment for the evening newscast when her BlackBerry pulsed in her lap. She pressed the button on her Bluetooth headset. “Aynslee Kai.”
“Is this Aynslee Kai, the reporter?”
“Yes.” She motioned to the stylist working on her hair to get her a pen and paper. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Rafi Jamar, Ibrahim Jamar's cousin, the man who was killed in the hospital explosion.”
Aynslee looked at the stylist with frustration as the woman searched for something to write with. Leaning forward, Aynslee snatched an eyeliner pencil and wrote on her hand. Ibrahim Jamar.
“I have information you may be interested in,” the man continued, his thick accent and name making her think he was sub-Saharan African, not long in the country.
“Yes, what is it?”
“First, I want to know how much money you will pay me for this information.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Jamar, but we are a legitimate news organization, we don't pay for stories.”
The man's voice became curt. “Fine, someone will pay for what I know.”
You’re going to lose him! “What is it you know, maybe we can work something out, perhaps get you on TV.” Aynslee couldn’t think of anything else to offer the man.
“TV doesn't put food on the table. Cash does.”
She decided to try the oldest trick in the book. “Well, I'm sorry, sir, maybe if I knew what you were offering I could talk to my news director to see what we could do, but I'd need to know what it is you think is so valuable.”
The man laughed. “Nice try, Miss Kai, I'm not going to tell you what I know without seeing some cash first.”
Well, it was worth a shot. “I need some inkling, Mr. Jamar, just a hint. Work with me and I'll see what I can do.” There was a pause for a moment. Got you!
“Fine, ask your news director if he knows about the DVD player that was found at the scene of the explosion. I'll call back in one hour then I go to another news organization.”
Aynslee jumped from the chair, not to talk to Jeff, but to track down the lead just handed to her. She now knew the victim’s identity and probably as much about the DVD player as this Rafi Jamar knew—the fact it existed. Rushing into her office, she came to a halt when she saw her chair. A CD sat on it, a handwritten label, “Love Songs for Aynslee” attached, along with a single, red rose. She shivered as she thought of Reggie in her office. This is getting weird.
Abby came to, tied to a chair in the living room of her house, a house hard won in the divorce settlement, a house she now lived in alone, a house where there was no one to save her. The tape across her mouth muffled the desperate screams that erupted when she saw Bruce sitting in another chair facing her, his impassive stare scarier than anything she could have imagined. He pointed a remote control at her DVD player and pressed play, the video from that night flashed on the screen, eventually pausing on an image of her terrified face as she fled the subway car. What had he said? “She was my”? She was my what? What was she to him? She screamed against the tape to no avail, the only response from the formerly talkative man to pull out a cell phone and video tape her. At that moment everything came together. The killings on TV! This time panic took complete hold. There were no self-defense moves she could use to get herself out of this situation, too tightly bound to the chair to move, her taped mouth unable to reason with her assailant, she knew she was going to die. Her eyes filled with tears as he pulled a gun from his belt. Struggling against the bindings, she watched him raise the weapon, his finger squeezing the trigger so slowly she wondered if it were her imagination, or the fact so few seconds remained in her life her brain was making each one of them count.
Throwing her weight to the left, she and the chair toppled to the floor, the crash rattling the china in a nearby hutch. Desperate, she rubbed her face against the carpeting, trying to remove the tape, it catching slightly on the pile, the sensation of the sticky backing pulling from her skin as he stepped toward her and knelt down so she could see his face. He continued to hold the cell phone out, recording everything, when the tape at last ripped away.
“No, please, wait!” she cried, gasping to catch her breath as the gun entered her field of vision. “I told you, I felt terrible about it, I felt so bad that I took Karate so that if it ever happened again I would be able to help!” The gun, now aimed directly at her forehead, its long, narrow barrel all she could see, the world around her an unfocused blur, the camera lens of her life now focused on only one thing, the final antagonist who would remove her from the second act of a life about to become nothing more than a supporting actor with no legacy, no children, an ex-husband who hated her, and a dead-end career where in a year no one would remember her name. “No, please don't, please!” She sobbed at the futility and closed her eyes, desperately searching for what she might say to make him stop. “Who was she to you?” she blurted out in one last attempt to appeal to his human side.
And it worked. He did stop. His finger relaxed on the trigger and confusion entered his eyes followed by what she thought might be the onset of tears. She decided to keep pressing. “You started to tell me, please, I would like to know who she was, why she was important to you.” She fought to steady her voice, to try and reduce the adrenaline of the situation.
A single tear escaped his right eye, the sensation it made as it rolled down his face seemed to surprise him, ripping him back into the reality of the moment, his resolve taking hold again. “She was my—.” He squeezed the trigger, forever silencing the answer.
SEVEN
Messina sat at one of the shared desks the techs were assigned when not out on calls, staring at his keyboard, a bundle of nerves that hadn’t settled down since the meeting with the cop earlier in the day. He looked at the iced cappuccino he had switched to after a dropped stapler caused him to jump, spilling hot coffee all over his hand. It remained full, beads of condensation inched their way down the Styrofoam, mimicking the sweat trickling down his spine. His eyes glazed over, the single droplet he had focused on as it zigzagged its way toward the desk surface, lost in a blur as his head slowly dropped to his chest. His watch beeped, snapping the bead of condensation back into focus as it merged into the small puddle of water now encircling the cup. He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. He raced to the elevators, his heart thudding in his chest as adrenaline rushed through his veins, once again bringing the events of today to the forefront. What the hell has that bastard got me into? From the safety of his van he placed a call to the person he had trusted to cover for him that night, and who had almost cost him his job, and possibly his freedom.
Eldridge sat in his car watching the parking garage exit at the NerdTech building. His ass ached, his bladder demanded attention, and doubt crept into his mind. Had he gambled wrong on whether Messina was driving a NerdTech vehicle or walking to the subway? He shifted in his seat, trying to provide at least one ass cheek with relief, when he saw a van with the NerdTech mascot on the roof pull up to the gate, this only the latest of dozens that had exited since he began his vigil. He leaned forward in anticipation, hoping this might at last be the one. The driver waved a pass in front of a sensor and pulled out onto the street. Eldridge had a clear view as the driver turned to do a shoulder check before merging into traffic. Messina! He smiled, the discomforts plaguing him moments before forgotten, the thrill of the chase taking over. Pulling in behind him, he watched Messina yelling at someone on the phone through the van's side view mirror. You don't talk to a client that way. That's either his wife or whoever he's covering for. Eldridge noticed the van's window had been rolled down and decided to take a chance. As the van pulled up to a light, he rolled down his passenger side window and pulled alongside.
Depraved Difference (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #1) Page 16
