Trix

by Kate Morris

  “Yeah, I knew that one. Fun times, I’m sure.”

  He nodded, “Yep, I’ll show you the scars sometime if you want. I’d have to get naked, though.”

  Her cheeks actually flushed, “No, thanks. I think I’ll pass.”

  Jack longed to tuck a thick clump of her dark hair behind her ear but held himself in check. He cleared his voice and sat back from her a few inches.

  “Anyway, Hailee and I talked a little. She was younger then, probably around twelve or so. She just needed someone to talk to, and I tried to help her out. It was tough.”

  “All divorces are. I don’t know why people even have kids if they’re just gonna put them through that. You got lucky. You didn’t have any.”

  “No, not for lack of wanting. Liz never wanted kids,” he confessed softly, then wasn’t sure why he did so. “I kept thinking she’d change her mind, but she didn’t.”

  “Oh,” Lorena breathed out. Then she shook her head, “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m glad we didn’t. It was probably doomed from the start. I was the only fool who thought it would work.”

  “Warrant’s in,” one of the agents announced loudly as he entered the room.

  Craig immediately walked over to them and offered, “If you guys want to go home for the night, I understand. It’s been a long day.”

  “No,” Lorena said. “We’re fine. I want to go. Jack?”

  “I’m in if you’re in, partner,” he returned lightly.

  Craig led the way to their vehicles and said, “Guess Titan hasn’t been living alone. He’s got a girlfriend, at least that’s what the lease says on the house she’s renting. We talked to the landlord. He didn’t seem too thrilled about his tenants.”

  “Why’d he hide that?” Jack asked as he pulled on his jacket as they walked.

  “Girlfriend’s got two, small kids. That violates the terms of his parole. Not supposed to be around kids.”

  “Oh, boy,” Jack said predicting another stint in prison for Mr. Titus. “She know we’re coming?”

  “Couldn’t get ahold of her.”

  They followed in their own vehicle behind Craig and about twenty other agents and forensics geeks to the rental home of the girlfriend. It was definitely in the dodgy end of town, and Jack was glad he had his service weapon. He’d answered many a call to the Hazelwood district of Portland and questioned even more suspects who hailed from this area. He locked the doors when they got out.

  “Got your piece?” he asked Lorena, who nodded.

  She immediately knew what he meant, her eyes scanning the overall rundown feel of the neighborhood.

  “Stay close,” Jack said to her, getting another nod.

  Craig and his team went ahead of them, of course, and knocked on the door. The house was pitch dark, not a single light on. It was nearly eleven o’clock, so maybe the girlfriend was already in bed, even though her boyfriend was taken into custody earlier.

  The agent at the front of the group knocked again. He turned to see what Craig wanted to do about it. He nodded, and someone handed a battering ram forward. Two agents operated it, and with one hard strike, the door flew inward. Other agents rushed inside and called out to the woman and received no answer. Jack and Lorena breached the doorway and waited while other agents searched the house. He could hear Craig issuing orders and listening on his radio as his men searched. It was a big home, probably four or five bedrooms, and in a state of disrepair.

  Jack took in the small kitchen where they stood, the beer bottles and hard liquor bottles in the kitchen sink and lying on their sides on the table of the built-in booth. At one time, this home might’ve been nice. He highly doubted if it had seen any repairs since it was built many years ago.

  A long, narrow hallway stretched out from the kitchen, likely leading to the main living area. He knew from being in quite a few homes in this section of town that they laid out similarly. There were usually small, compact rooms on the first floor, similar bedrooms on the second, and an attic with a steeply pitched roof that were typically converted to more bedrooms.

  Lorena tugged the sleeve of his jacket and indicated to the scarred hardwood floor as they traversed the long, dark hallway, only illuminated by the dim kitchen lights behind them. There was a broken crack pipe on the floor. He nodded with a frown.

  “I’m pretty sure…”

  His sentence was cut off by the explosion of a shotgun being fired on the second floor. Another one sounded from somewhere on the first floor ahead of them. He wasn’t entirely certain where. Suddenly, they were in the middle of an FBI shootout with people. Somewhere behind them, likely the back porch or kitchen, another round went off. They were boxed in by gunfire.

  Lorena shot forward and crouched low with her pistol already drawn. She indicated that she wanted to open the door next to them. Jack nodded. She pulled it open, and he swung into it. The stairs led to the basement. Jack tried the switch and got nothing, so he whipped out his flashlight and positioned it under his two-handed grip on his pistol.

  It was either go down and clear the basement or rush into the fray in front of them. Retreating back into the kitchen was also not an option as constant gunfire was being spent. He realized that she had the same line of thought as him. What if Hailee was being held in the basement? She was the number one priority. If she was in this house, they had to get her out.

  The wooden steps creaked under his weight, but no one shot at him. They made it to the bottom unscathed, and Jack tried another switch. Still nothing. The basement was dank, filled with mildew and dust that hung in the air like a fog. Jack swung his pistol to their right, going down another hallway. There was a small meth operation in place on folding tables that looked like a high school chemistry lab experiment gone bad.

  Gunfire upstairs continued, masking the sounds of their footsteps as he and Lorena moved forward. They cleared the next room, a laundry area, and kept going. The basement was unfinished, plumbing, wiring and floor joists of the floor above them exposed. The dividing walls were covered in ancient plaster that was probably as hard as concrete. When they turned the corner, someone shot at them.

  “Damn it,” he said, shoving her back behind him.

  “Are you hit?” she fretted.

  “No, you?”

  “No,” Lorena answered. “What do you wanna’ do?”

  “Go back to Cleveland?” he asked as another round thudded into the wall in front of them. “Cover me. I’m going for that hallway.”

  He meant the hallway opposite them around the wall, which would expose him for a moment but also give him the advantage of seeing whoever it was shooting at them.

  “Got it,” she answered.

  “Ready?” he asked and got a firm nod in answer. He whispered, “Go!”

  Jack opened fire, sending three rounds ahead of him as he sprinted around the wall and landing with his back against the opposite one in a dark, short hallway that he deemed empty. Lorena laid down some heavy firepower, barking off six rounds toward their shooter. Jack spotted him easily. He was backlit by a small window well flooded with moonlight. He fired two rounds, hitting the person in the chest. Then he stooped and made sure not to move in case the suspect had a friend. No other shots came. Jack moved cautiously forward, Lorena right behind him. He swung left and right, watching dark corners as they approached the downed suspect. Jack went right past him, kicked away the shotgun, and kept going. He wasn’t about to offer the man CPR. There was more basement to secure, and the guy wasn’t moving. At the awkward angle in which he was sprawled, Jack was pretty sure he was dead.

  Another minute and they had the basement checked.

  “Basement’s clear,” Jack said into the radio Craig lent them.

  “We’re clear up here, too,” Craig said. “I’m coming down.”

  Jack and Lorena found a locked room, one that was locked from the outside. It sent a chill up his spine. Was Hailee on the other side of the wooden door? Would they find her still alive?


  Agents flooded the room as sirens sounded in the distance outside. The local police would’ve been called at the sounds of their OK Corral-style shootout. Someone finally found a light-switch that worked because overheads came on, illuminating the dungeon.

  Craig came up to them, “The girlfriend isn’t here. One of the ones upstairs told us she took the kids and left tonight after we brought in Titus.”

  Jack nodded.

  “We didn’t know there were other people living with them,” he explained. “We picked him up straight from a job site doing cement downtown.”

  An agent with bolt cutters opened the lock to the door. Everyone stood back while two agents searched it. A moment later, one came out holding a marijuana plant.

  “Just pot plants and what looks to be the start of an amateur meth lab,” she said and turned to go back in.

  “Damn it,” Craig swore. “I’m going up to question the two survivors if you want to come.”

  “Sure, I’ll need to fill out an incident report on that one I shot,” Jack said.

  Craig nodded. They followed him back up, and Jack noticed how quiet Lorena had become. She was rattled. He’d been in these types of situations many times, and not just since he’d become a cop. He was a soldier first. That hadn’t been the most pleasant of experiences knocking in doors, going house to house, tracking terrorists. He wasn’t so sure how much experience she had with this, though.

  It was after two a.m. by the time they made it back to his house with little to no progress made on the case. Jack was frustrated. He was angry, pissed off, and worried.

  He was angry because he wanted to solve this case and bring Hailee home safe and sound. The men they’d questioned from Titus’s house knew nothing about Hailee or her whereabouts, and he believed them. They didn’t even know what planet they were on, let alone the fact that a young woman was missing. Neither did they care. He wanted to beat them to a pulp.

  He was pissed off because he wanted to also beat Victor to a pulp for what he suspected was going on behind the closed doors of his mansion.

  He was worried because of Lorena. She was being stalked by this freak Trix, and all he wanted was to keep her safe and get her back home to Grace in one piece. Tonight, they’d almost been shot. Multiple times. That was hardly helping him keep his promise to Gracie. He was nothing if not a man of his word.

  She flung her jacket onto the back of the living room sofa in his house and collapsed onto it.

  Then she groaned loudly with frustration. “What a waste of time! I can’t believe we spent all night with the FBI wasting time that we could’ve been working this case.”

  “Want a drink?” he asked.

  “Got anything with caffeine?”

  “Got liquor. Want a real drink? It’ll take the edge off,” he offered, concerned that she was freaked out by the shooting.

  “I don’t really drink,” she said. “You should know that by now. I think the last time I drank something was at the wake of one of me and Bob’s friends on the force who was shot in the line.”

  “You drank the night we went to that freak show sex party in Cleveland,” he reminded her.

  “You suck, Foster,” she retorted. “Why do you always have to rub that in my face? I got doped. It wasn’t my fault. Rooky mistake.”

  He wasn’t rubbing it in. He hated remembering that night. She could’ve been very badly hurt by those assholes who’d drugged her with the intention of raping her and who knew what else. He was glad that they were doing time for it.

  Jack poured them both a bourbon on the rocks and handed her the small glass.

  “It’ll help you relax,” he said, noticing that through her tough façade, her hands were shaking a little.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip and then wincing at the strong liquid. “Weird.”

  “What is?”

  “That wake. That was the night before you started on the force. Your first day on the job, Bob and I were slightly hung over.”

  He nodded in agreement with her assessment.

  “And here I am, judgment lapsing, drinking again. It doesn’t sit well with me, you know.”

  “Probably destroying about a million of your genius brain cells.”

  She laughed, “I’m not a genius.”

  “I know your I.Q., Evans,” he said. “Literally. You can call yourself a dunce all you want. We weren’t called here to help because I’m some super whiz at solving homicides.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve been working with you for a while. You’re a good partner. You think of the angles I don’t.”

  “Probably not,” he joked with a smile and sat opposite of her on the footstool. “You’re probably just letting me think I’m helping.”

  She grinned lopsidedly. Then she sat there staring at him for a long time. Her blinks grew heavier and longer. He wasn’t sure because Lorena was so strange, but he wondered if she was feeling desire or if she was thinking about something else.

  “Something on your mind, chief?”

  She snapped out of it and shook her head, “It’s not Titus.”

  “No,” he agreed with a grin.

  “Craig tracked the Italian art dealer. He’s in Italy or Spain right now doing some big deal. His record wasn’t clean, though.”

  Jack nodded, not sure when she had a chance to talk with Craig without him. Probably when he was filling out his shooting report.

  “Anything that pertains to our case?” he asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “The other one’s in Portland,” she said. “He’s having him watched until we can question him tomorrow.”

  “Good,” he said. “Why don’t we turn in? It’s going to be a long day, and unlike you, I can’t operate on zero sleep.”

  “You did in the Army. You told me so.”

  “Yeah, well, I was also twenty.”

  “Right, I forgot again how old and decrepit you are,” she said with an impish grin.

  He puffed through his nose, then shook his head.

  “Don’t forget to take your Metamucil before you go to bed.”

  “Thanks,” he said with sarcasm. “You going to bed?”

  “In a little bit. I want to see what I can do with this profile the FBI has worked up on Trix. They’re missing something somewhere.”

  He stood there staring at her. She looked tired but pretty and fresh somehow. The makeup from earlier having been washed away during her shower. She looked better like this. Not all women needed pounds of makeup; she was one of them.

  “Sleep in the bed,” she ordered and stood, as well. “I need to work out here. I don’t mind the couch when I’m done.”

  “No…”

  “Seriously,” Lorena said, putting a hand on his chest and pushing gently. “Got to bed. I like sofas. We’re old friends.”

  He looked down at her small hand, the thin fingers, the delicate bone structure and felt a panic about her safety again. Jack nodded and went to bed. He ended up having a night filled with anxiety-induced images. He woke at five a.m. and crept to the living room to check on her just to be sure. She was asleep in the recliner. He lifted her gently and carried her to the bedroom where she didn’t stir when he placed her on the bed. Jack pulled a soft, worn blanket up around her shoulders and left her. He went back to the living room where he took the couch as they’d originally agreed upon. However, he walked quietly back to the bedroom and cracked the door a few inches. He’d sleep better knowing he could hear her if she needed him. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the idea that she was in imminent danger. This case was causing him to question whether or not he could keep his partner safe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lorena

  Her phone chimed loudly, causing Lorena to roll over to pluck it from the living room stand. Only her hand slapped against a mattress. She sat straight up, confused.

  “Was that your phone?” Jack said, walking into the bedroom.

  Lorena was thoroughly disoriented. “What…
what…”

  “I moved you in here last night. You were asleep in the recliner. Didn’t look too comfortable.”

  “Oh,” she breathed a sigh of relief. She glanced quickly at the bedside stand. It was a little after seven.

  “Was that your phone?” he repeated and walked closer.

  He was wearing gray sweatpants and was shirtless.

  “Huh? Yeah, where is it?”

  Lorena swung her legs over and dragged herself from the comfortable warmth of the bed. She plucked her phone off the nightstand on the other side of the bed and turned it on. There was a new text message.

  “Just a text,” she said. “Probably just Grace.”

  “This early?”

  She looked up at him. Then she looked back down at the glowing screen. He was right. It wasn’t Grace at all.

  “Jack,” she whispered and sat on the end of the bed beside him, tipping the screen so he could see it, too.

  He sat beside her. “What is it? Is she okay?”

  “It’s from him.”

  Lorena felt her stomach drop out, a nervous tingling traced up her spine, and her hands felt like ice cubes.

  I’m flattered you gave me your phone number so that we could communicate. I’ll use disposable phones, of course, but it should in no way dilute our conversations.

  Jack said, “He’s so full of himself.”

  “They always are,” she agreed and rubbed her tired eyes. “It’s usually how we catch them.”

  “God complexes solve a lot of cases.”

  “Right,” she nodded and kept reading.

  Sometimes I get headaches, nasty ones that are nearly disabling. It makes doing what I do for a living very difficult since I work with the public and perform a service that most people can’t do for themselves.

  My migraines started soon after my father killed my mother and I helped him bury the evidence. By evidence, I mean her body. Perhaps, since I have such a high I.Q., the migraines have something to do with that instead and not my mother’s murder. My brain fires on much faster synapses than most. I have never slept much because there is always too much going on in my mind.

  I did some creative digging about you, Detective. Your father also killed your mother. You didn’t help him cover it up, but I wonder if you, like me, did not care when she was gone. I don’t care about most humans. There are only a few for which I would even mind if they were dead. Your father also serves time in prison for his evil deed, although mine is long since dead.