by Sonya Jesus
“How was the job closed? Did you take a picture?”
“I always do, but I didn’t have to send it in. As soon as I dropped it off, about five minutes later, my phone pinged. I had money I could use in the account. I figured the guy had been waiting for the package and must have called to confirm the delivery.”
“Can we see the picture?”
“Sure.” Anthony digs into his back pocket and pulls up the photograph. Bitten Senior, holding the package standing on the cement steps.
“Was there anything unusual when you walked to the pharmacy?” I hand the phone back to him. “Did you notice anyone follow you or was there any car?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. Lehigh is one of those main streets everyone takes to get out of town. Lots of cars and a lot of people walking around. One of them could have been watching me, but that’s not usually how these things work.”
Kace nods. “Thank you.”
“I’m not in trouble?” The kid’s voice thins at the end, alerting Kace.
Kace’s brows jolt up, and he widens his stance. “Have you done something I should be arresting you for?”
“I’m a good kid. I swear I am. It’s been rough trying to help Mom. If we don’t pay, we’ll be out on our butts, and if Mom can’t take care of us, we’ll go into the system. I’m seventeen, but my sisters aren’t. I don’t want them to have to go through all of that—”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him softly. “Do you have a number we can reach you at in case we have any more questions for you? And can you send us the photo you took?”
Kace digs into his shirt pocket and pulls out a business card. “Any information you can think of.”
“No problem,” he says and emails the photo right in front of us. “I should get back to my math homework.”
“Good idea,” Kace growls, pretending to be a hard-ass.
Anthony returns behind the plastic window as Kace escorts me off the premises. The whole time, I think, Something about him seems off, but I don’t know what.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Kace pulls out of the parking lot and heads in the opposite direction of our home. “To the cleaners on Lehigh. It’s a long strip of road, but I know which one he’s talking about. There’s only two: one on the north side and the one on the south side.”
“Which are we going to first?”
“The only one who would return packages. The north side. If the one on the south side found stuff, no doubt they’d keep it. Drugs used to be delivered on the south via dry cleaners. A lot of the ones on Lehigh have shut down, but some still operate legitimately.”
“You think the Bullet Man is wealthy?”
Kace nods. “It’s a hunch.”
The short drive to the cleaners takes about fifteen minutes. Kace double parks on the busy road while I check for CCTVs. No doubt, we had our guy on camera. My hunch is he was there, watching the delivery go down. Either that, or there was a tracker on the package, as often done with drugs, and he confirms the location that way.
Inside, the waiting area had recently been redecorated. A small, top-of-the-line espresso machine sits in the corner next to some expensive-looking couches. The black wallpaper with ornate gold outlines contrasts nicely with the white leather of the seats. Above the door, a golden bell sounds once we step foot on the immaculate white banner of the black entrance rug.
An older woman with a European accent greets us. Kace flashes his badge, and she lifts the small partition. She waddles her way toward us, gesturing for us to sit. “Can I get you both some coffee?”
“That would be great. Thanks.” Kace takes a seat on the longer couch, and I sit down beside him.
The coffee is served in little black espresso mugs personalized with the shop’s logo on them. To give us some privacy, she flips over the ‘open’ sign to say ‘be back in twenty.’ Though, I assume many people work in the back.
“Do you know this man?” Kace shows the woman a picture of Elijah Bitten Sr.
“Yes, sir. He’s been on the news.” She hands Kace back his phone.
“Did he ever come in here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t believe this man has, but I see over one hundred customers a day, on a slow day. It’s hard to memorize every face.”
“But you have regulars?” I ask and point to Bitten. “I assume he’s not one of them?”
“No, he’s not,” she confirms.
“Do you remember who left the suit?” Kace follows up.
She smiles softly. “I’ve checked-in many suits just this morning. I assume you mean the one with the package in it?”
“Do you normally get packages in your suits?” The Botox injections reduce the spontaneity of her facial muscles, so it’s hard to read her micro-expressions. I’m off my game and not being of much help.
“No,” she answers firmly, but glances toward the camera.
Is someone watching? “Ma’am, what kind of security system do you work with?”
“I don’t understand.” The slightest twitch of her brow means absolutely nothing without more. She’s stiff, her posture perfectly poised, and both feet planted on the floor, pointing toward us.
“I mean, do you employ security on the premises, or is the camera recording and storing on a computer.”
She smiles. “We don’t need security here. That’s just a precaution.”
Kace takes the opportunity to slide a picture of Anthony in her direction. “Did he pick it up?”
“His face is familiar, but I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember who left the suit?”
“No, Detective, but I do recall it was navy blue and in some places looked almost red. It’s an expensive suit, but dated and unworn. I noted the significant discoloration on the check-in slip.” She gets up and points toward the lifted-up partition. “If you’ll excuse me, I can find it.”
She leaves us alone while she goes through her slips. Kace leans back, extending his arm over the spine of the sofa.
“They treat this place like a hotel for clothes.” Kace finds it amusing. “Guess that’s what happens when someone’s wardrobe costs more than an average person’s car.”
The Upper Lehigh Area reminds me of the Upper East Side, but less expensive to live in and a little more withdrawn from the population. The long street lasts for over seventy blocks, separated by the Lehigh Station. Danger increases the further south one travels, and wealth increases the further north. Crossover between opposite sides is rare, except in mid-Lehigh—the central area, or the ten blocks on either side of the station.
“He sent a few more.” Kace shows me the images.
“I thought he only had one?” I swipe my finger over the screen and find two additional shots that appear to be taken consecutively: one using the front camera and one using the back. The one using the front caught some of the road. “Can Frank run these plates?”
“Cap texted me and said they were going to go through the CCTV footage, but it would make sense to start with the six or seven on here.” He takes the phone and sends off the message for them to get a head start. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything here.”
“Me neither.” I glance over my shoulder toward the partition. The small woman is going through each slip one by one. “He wouldn’t have dropped the suit off himself, risking someone who could ID him directly and getting caught on surveillance.”
“Maybe he slipped up.”
“No. Why use couriers if you’re going to show your face?”
“It could have been another job on BlackBoard.”
I agree, “It could have been a lot of jobs on BlackBoard or on another application. If I were him, I’d split them up.”
Kace smirks. “Thinking like a criminal?”
“Sometimes it’s easier to think like them than to think my own thoughts.”
Kace reaches for my knee and squeezes softly. “I’m glad this is helping. I haven’t forgotten how much I missed talking about t
hings with you.”
Luckily, we’re interrupted. “Here it is!” she squeals and excitedly rushes toward us. “This is the one.”
“Have they picked it up?” Kace memorizes the date on the upper right-hand corner. The pick-up date is today. I highly doubt someone is coming for the suit.
“No, sir.”
“Do you recognize this person?”
“No, this was a first-time client, I think. I didn’t recognize her face.” She points to the time and date on the slip, then up at the ceiling above the partition. “I can get a video for you.”
I thought it was just decoration. Mentioning it would reduce cooperation, so I keep the tidbit to myself.
Kace nods. “That would be much appreciated.” Once the woman disappears again, Kace leans forward and whispers, “She said her.”
“Yes, I heard that too.” Among other things. “More than likely, it’s another courier, but you have the time and date. Maybe we can trace backward and create a timeline or establish a pattern.”
“If he’s using more than one for every delivery, this is going to be hard to pin, unless at some point they see his face.”
“Hopefully, the videos will help us narrow something down."
6
Session Two
Eleanor Devero
Monday afternoon, Kace dropped me off at Nolan’s office before he went back to the precinct to do reports on everything and debrief with Frank. Nolan’s receptionist escorted me in to wait for the doctor. After thanking her, I headed over to the large window to look out at the world below. We were pretty high up, and the people looked like small figurines placed randomly on a Monopoly board.
All of them roll the dice on life, taking chances and trying to survive, like the kid at the hotel. The police caught him yesterday, delivering a paper bag full of drugs to a homeless man on the street. Kace had ordered surveillance on both Anthony and the cleaner’s while they figured out courier number three. A false name had been given for the check-in slip, but the number remains active. No doubt an amateur. They’re chasing it down and comparing it to the footage.
As for the cleaner’s lie, I wonder if it has something to do with the drug ring. Had they escalated to the North side to be less suspicious? Does it have to do with the pregnancy clinic and the hollowed-out fake bellies?
The mind of a cop has been intrigued, spinning on its wheels and winding through time to draw connections and replay events. But not for the right reasons. Revenge is still the prominent force driving my ticker.
Anthony’s situation irks me. Not only did I know something was off with him and the paper bag, and the size of his bag, but he also kept checking it out. I can’t stop thinking of his family.
I’m sympathizing with criminals, which further adds to my horrible cop repertoire. If he told me the truth the other day, then his siblings are going into foster care. I admit, adoption crossed my mind, but it would be unethical in this case. Not that I’m very ethical in anything lately. To ignore my conscience, insisting on burrowing a hole through my frontal lobe, I rub the space between my brows in circular motions.
“Everything all right, Eleanor?”
I glance back to find the therapist standing near the door. He is dressed in trousers and a light gray twill jacket with a black button-up underneath. Reading glasses hide his tired eyes today. The coat fits snuggly around his upper arms. He isn’t muscular, but he’s built—sturdy—and nerdy.
Sturdy-nerdy, I joke to myself and crack a smile. “All right probably wouldn’t land me in your office, Dr. Mills.”
“Nolan, please.” He unbuttons the two center buttons and removes his jacket, before draping it over the back of his desk chair. “Shall we get started?”
“Are you all right? You look tired.”
He squints narrowly and bobs his head before taking a seat. “I’ve had a long weekend, but thank you for noticing.”
The way he says noticing causes the fine hairs on the back of my neck to protest, but I ignore them and take a seat.
I’m always on edge here. It still makes my body shiver to know he’s spending an hour analyzing me. I take my usual seat on the cool leather couch, perfectly parallel to his armchair and the coffee table … and the rug beneath that table.
The photos on the wall are pristinely straight. Guess he has a thing with straight lines.
“Feel free to make yourself comfortable, Eleanor.”
“You can call me Elle or Ellie. No one really calls me by my given name.” I tuck my hands underneath my thighs and glance around. The office looks exactly the same, but he moved the coat rack from behind the door over to the window. Was he checking to see if I’d open it and step out on a ledge?
“Elle, how have you been since Thursday?”
That’s a loaded question, thus there’s no direct response to it. “Friday, we spent most of the time working out details of the case, and I stickied-up the house. I mean, all that was left was sticking one on his di—manhood.” My hand floats up to my disheveled hair, twirling a loose strand between my fingers.
“Did things escalate between the two of you?”
“No, they can’t.” I grimace, waiting for him to dig deeper. Why am I talking about this?
“And the case you are working on, is that motivating you to get back to your former self?”
Is it? I ask myself. When I interview and go over files, I’m not thinking about my selfish reasons. Sure, they linger in the back of my mind, but they’re not at the forefront, propelling my motivation. Then again, in Kace’s presence, my libido is the only thing propelling anything. “It’s nice to work again and work together.”
“Have you finished the one hundred challenge?”
“No, I’m only halfway.”
“And the smile log?” He reaches into the side pocket of his armchair and retrieves a yellow ledger pad, tucked inside a thick leather folder, and rests it on his lap.
“Didn’t smile much on Saturday or Sunday.” Just a heart smile; those aren’t physical manifestations, so they don’t count.
He removes one of four identical pens from the inside pocket and uncaps it. “Why not?”
“It was busy. A lot of moving around.” The whole note-taking thing makes me nervous, so I stare at the abstract photographs on his walls. The more I look at them, the more they resemble each other.
Are they the same photograph? This must be some head shrink thing.
“Where did you go first?”
My eyes land on him, and my brain replays his question back to me. “For coffee, then I followed Kace around.”
His eyebrows perk up. “Followed?”
“He knew I was following him,” I clarify, not very well though. “I mean, I was in the car with him.” I liberate my hands from beneath my thighs and demonstrate my position in relation to Kace in the car. “Like next to him, not hiding in the back like some psycho.”
Nolan smirks and jots something down.
“Sorry, I’m a bit nervous.”
“It’s okay. We’re just starting to get to know each other. It takes time for patients to build trust.”
I barely know him, but I trust him, weird parallel lines and all.
“What was the favorite part of your weekend?”
My head drums up the part when Kace touched my knee at the cleaner’s office, and the way our thighs rested against each other while we worked through the app’s database to find possible courier jobs and send them off to Frank, who was leading a small undercover investigation. The Feds who came are still here, still annoying the captain and interfering, but since they have not yet connected their cases to ours, they have no jurisdiction.
Cap grows tired of the trafficking ring angle the Feds have been using as precedence to interfere in the Bullet Man investigation. He sure as hell isn’t going to let them take credit for catching this guy.
At least, that’s what Kace said while staring at my lips and forcing himself to focus on the job at hand, and not the hand j
ob I heard him give himself in the bedroom on Friday night. His grunts had traveled through the thin walls and landed on my ears. My favorite part of the weekend was when he gasped my name.
I almost went to him.
Almost gave in to the lust pooling in my center. Almost went blind visualizing Kace’s strong hands, fervently gliding up and down and stopping when he saw me at the door.
I shake my head free of the fantasy I dreamt about all night long, making today feel like torture.
“Did you not find anything pleasant?” Nolan pops me out of my internalization.
“I got out of the house.”
“What else? How was it to work with Kace again, in a non-romantic setting.”
There’s nothing non-romantic about Kace. “Talking to Kace always feels good.” I pause and lower myself further into the couch. “I think part of my problem is I don’t want it to feel good.”
“Why not?”
Two words motivate my tongue to spill, and before I know it, I’m lying down and talking about my whole love life as if Nolan gives a shit.
Three hours later, after telling Nolan Mills about my relationship and getting more homework, Kace and I stand in front of a hospital—the same hospital I was supposed to have my baby in—the same hospital where I woke up, not a mother.
A lot of emotions flow through me, so it’s hard to isolate just one. They’re overwhelming and relentless, dredging up memories too hard to process in public. To hold myself up, I lightly place my palm on the cold stone of the building. Soon, Kace will use his presence to block my ability to think and insist I stay behind and let him take this one with his partner.
I have to suck it up. I need to talk to the Bullet Man before anyone else.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kace says, as he rubs my arms from behind. His body presses tightly against mine, reminiscent of the time in the kitchen. Allowed one time, and he’s taken the liberty of crossing my post-Tyler boundaries at will. His or mine… I have no damn clue.
“Yes, I do, if I ever want to get my life back on track.” I flip around to find Kace’s heated gaze, his pupils slightly dilated. The rich brown of his irises once turned me to liquid, and today, they almost soften me again.
