by Katie Ashley
“Lucky guess,” Catcher said as we walked into the kitchen.
Just as my hand reached for the knob, the sound of the refrigerator door creaking open stopped me. I whirled around to see Catcher’s head stuck inside. “Please tell me you aren’t raiding Randy’s fridge like some scavenger?”
Catcher peeked his head around the refrigerator door. “I’m starving.”
“It’s stealing,” I countered.
With a scowl, Catcher replied, “Since he’s dead, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be needing it.”
“That’s so unprofessional.” I swept my hands to my hips and cocked my head at him. “Can’t you get in trouble for that?”
A feeling of paranoia caused the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. I quickly glanced up at the ceiling to see if I could see any mounted cameras. Randy had been such a security freak I wouldn’t have been too surprised if every room in his house was wired up. I exhaled a relieved breath when I didn’t see anything.
“Jesus, it’s not like I’m looting his house for electronics. I’m just making myself a quick sandwich. It’s all going to have to be thrown out anyway.”
“You’re impossible.”
Catcher’s head disappeared back into the fridge. He returned with a container of luncheon meat and Coke. “For a skinny dude, Randy sure did eat a lot. He also must’ve spent some of his concoction money on food because he’s got some highbrow shit in there.”
“He does?” Although my stomach rumbled at the sight and smell of the turkey, I couldn’t bring myself to eat Randy’s food. I would just have to wait until I got home.
After tossing back a few slices of smoked turkey, Catcher replied, “Hell yeah. Imported cheeses and even some caviar.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I hate caviar.”
Catcher paused in rolling more turkey up and gave me a curious look. “Hmm, I would have never pegged you to be a connoisseur of caviar.”
“When I was in college, I worked a side job waiting tables at the Athens Country Club. This guy I was crushing on dared me to eat some off one of the plates, so I did.” I shuddered. “To this day, I could still throw up when I think of the way they popped and crackled in my mouth. Not to mention the crush never really gave me the time of day.”
Catcher grinned at me as he finished off the turkey. “I, myself, have never had any, and after your glowing review, I think I’ll pass on swiping one of the jars.” He cleaned his hands with a napkin and then threw the turkey container away. After popping the top on the Coke can, he said, “And the guy you were crushing on was an absolute dick. One for being such an immature prick that he dared you to do something like that, and two, for not staking a claim on you the moment he met you.”
I fought the urge to call for the smelling salts since I felt all swoony from Catcher’s statement. Instead, a dippy smile formed on my lips. “Do you always flatter the women you’re with?”
“Only if they’re deserving.”
Warmth rushed to my cheeks, and I quickly mumbled, “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome.” After chugging down the Coke, Catcher let out the most unattractive belch before walking over to the basement door. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I replied.
Once he flipped on the light switch, Catcher pounded down the stairs with me close on his heels. “Nice digs,” he remarked.
The basement was one large room with only one door, which led outside and not to Randy’s concoction lair. It was the epitome of a man cave with a giant-screen TV, a pool table, and even a bar. Of course, the two things that piqued my interest was one wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the 1950’s era juke box.
As Catcher stood in the middle of the room, he scratched his chin. “There has to be a secret passage of some sort.”
"The bookcase?" I asked, as I patted around some of the shelves.
"That would seem too obvious." He jerked a thumb at the massive oil painting on the wall. "Just like I'm sure that doesn't swing back to reveal a tunnel."
Since I wasn't entirely convinced, I kept shifting things on the bookshelf. Catcher went over to the light switch. When he plunged the room into darkness, I whirled around. "What the hell are you doing?"
Catcher took a flashlight out of his kit. “If there are cracks in the walls, they’ll be easier to see with the lights off.”
“If you say so,” I replied uneasily.
It wasn’t completely pitch black considering some light was creeping in through the one set of windows as well as the glass on the door. Catcher started focusing the beam of the flashlight on the walls. He covered the front wall closest to the stairs before walking over to the bar. “Did you know there are three parts to a bar?”
“Um, no. I didn’t.”
Catcher nodded. “The front, back, and under bar. The front is where your customers congregate and drinks are served. The back is where most of the bottles are stored along with a mirror. And then the under is below the front bar and where drinks are mixed.”
“When did you become so knowledgeable about the interworking of a bar?”
“I did some bartending during my last year of college.”
Catcher stepped behind the front bar. He started patting down the wall where the wood met the back bar. He gripped one of the ornate carvings and pulled, sending the back bar swinging out. Instead of a gaping hole in the wall, there was a door.
“Holy shit!” I cried, as I scurried over to join him.
“Eight years as an agent, and this is my first secret passage.” He turned to me and grinned. “I feel like I’m ten and stuck reading some of the Hardy Boys mysteries at my grandparents’ house.”
I laughed. “I had some Nancy Drew forced on me as a kid, too. But it was more reading about the secret passage at Dawn’s house in the Babysitter’s Club books.”
“Oh yeah, my little sister used to read those.”
It was at that moment I realized Catcher and I were purposely avoiding entering the passageway. We just stood there in the doorway, staring down the length of the tunnel. “Guess we better check it out, huh?” I prompted.
“Yeah. I guess so.” After digging out two pairs of rubber gloves from his kit, he passed one to me. Once we’d put them on, Catcher then reached over and flipped on the light switch, but nothing happened. “Dammit. The bulb’s burned out.”
But then we both still stood there, staring into the darkened abyss. When Catcher placed his hand on my shoulder, I jumped. “Ladies first,” he suggested.
“Oh that’s okay. You can go first.”
“That would be ungentlemanly of me.”
“Are you telling me that a strong, strapping GBI agent like yourself is scared of the basement?”
“I’m not scared of the basement. I’m just not a fan of creepy tunnels.”
I snorted. “That makes you sound like a real pussy, Agent Mains.”
Catcher scowled at me. “The truth is I get a little claustrophobic in confined places. It’s not something I like to spread around since agents aren’t supposed to have a weakness.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll go first,” I said. After I drew in a deep breath to fortify my strength, I took a tentative step into the tunnel with Catcher close on my heels.
We’d crept a few feet when Catcher said, “This kind of reminds me of that scene in Silence of the Lambs when Jodi Foster is in the basement and Buffalo Bill turns the lights out on her.”
A shiver ran through me. “You seriously had to bring that up now?”
Instead of answering, Catcher leaned forward and went “pffffffffft” in my ear like Lecter after his Chianti and fava beans line. I elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re an asshole.”
Catcher chuckled. “Sorry. I had to do something to get my mind off things.”
“I could think of a thousand other ways to do that.”
“Hmm, maybe a few hundred of those could be sexual?”
I rolled my eyes. “Spare me.”
At t
he end of the tunnel was another door. Although I imagined it having some kind keypad and code to get in, I was shocked to find it unlocked. Considering both the tunnel and room were hidden, I guess Randy didn’t think he needed to lock it.
When I swung it open, the fluorescent lights overhead flashed on, illuminating the four walls of the small, windowless room. In the center was a large table filled with different kinds of pharmaceutical tools like mortar and pestles and pill tiles. On one wall was a floor to ceiling shelf filled with different prescription bottles. Some were filled with pills while others contained liquid.
Catcher took a few in his hand, and we both peered at them. Instead of a having a person’s name, they just had numbers written on the labels for identification. “I guess that’s one way to keep things ultra-secretive,” Catcher said.
“I wonder if he has the numbers written down with the corresponding drugs, or if he just committed all that to memory.”
After looking at the shelf again, Catcher said, “Since there only looks like five to ten types of drugs, he most likely committed the preparation of them all to memory. Most likely this whole operation was based on memory. Without a paper or computer trail of ingredients or descriptions, he made it impossible for someone to steal his business. Not to mention if he was caught, it would make it hard on the authorities to prove what he was cooking up down here without extensive testing.”
“Pretty ingenious,” I remarked.
“It sure as hell was.” Catcher reached into his kit and pulled out a few plastic baggies. “I’m going to take a few of these, so our lab can analyze them.”
As Catcher bagged the bottles, I searched the room for anything else vital to the case like a record book. But I came up with nothing. Randy really ran a very tight and secretive ship.
“Okay. I think that’s everything. Let’s get out of here,” Catcher said.
I nodded and followed him out of the room and down the tunnel. When we got back to the basement, Catcher took out his phone to call in what he had found to the GBI field office.
As he talked to one of his supervisors, I went over to the juke box. I ran my fingers enviously over the buttons. If I ever allowed myself to make an impulse buy, it would be for a juke box of my own filled with the oldies, especially Motown. It seemed Randy and I had similar tastes.
I had been so enthralled by reading the musical selections that I hadn’t heard Catcher come up behind me. His voice caused me to jump. “I gotta go run these into the lab tonight since we have a technician working late.”
My fingers hit the buttons before I turned around, and before I knew it, Runaround Sue by Dion began playing. “Here’s my story. It’s sad but true…”
Catcher groaned. “Of all the songs.”
“You’re not a fan of the oldies?” I asked while my heart shriveled a little.
“It’s not that. It’s just the song itself.” He exhaled a deep sigh. “The girl who tore out my heart and stomped the poor bastard flat was named Sue.”
Instantly, my interest piqued at the mention of the Ex Files. So far Catcher hadn’t had too many specifics to say about his love life. I had begun to question if he had a love life or just a sex life.
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Ah, just a baby.”
“Pretty much.”
Leaning back against the jukebox, I asked, “So what happened?”
He ran his hand over his face. “You seriously want to go there.”
“I told you about my embarrassing past with Eric dying on me.”
“Fine, fine. I found her in bed with some guy the night before I’d planned a romantic wedding proposal.”
My mouth gaped open in shock. “You were that serious?”
Catcher gave me a rueful smile. “I thought we were.”
“Damn. That sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. Or it did. It’s been ten years, and I’ve definitely moved on.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I mean, that you’ve moved on, not that you had your heart broken.”
“What about you?”
“Have I ever had my heart broken?” When Catcher nodded, I said, “Sure, I have but not from cheating.” I gave a mirthless laugh. “It seems everything in my life is tied to death including my heartbreak. I don’t know if I was in love with Eric, but it broke my heart when he died. Especially the manner in which he passed away.”
Catcher grimaced. “That had to be horrible.”
“Yeah. It was.”
After tossing the samples on the pool table, Catcher held out his hand to me. “What?”
“Can I have this dance?”
I laughed. “You really want to dance with me?”
“Yes.”
“In the basement of a crime scene.”
“That would be a big hell yeah.” He pointed at the jukebox. “No need to waste the opportunity.”
Although we weren’t in the best setting possible, the romantic possibilities of this moment weren’t lost on me. So, I silenced my inner voices of doubt and slid my hand into Catcher’s.
He tugged me to him before wrapping his other arm around my waist. We then began to bop around like we were at a sock hop or something. Seriously, that’s the only way I can even begin to describe it. Catcher would sling me out and bring me back. As the song came to an end, he dipped me. I was out of breath from both our exertions and laughing.
When he pulled me back up, he ducked his head to bring his lips to mine. The record changed over to Smokey Robinson and The Miracles You Really Got a Hold on Me, and hot damn, if we both didn’t get a real hold of each other. I slid my hands down Catcher’s back to cup his ass while pressing my pussy against the ridge of his growing erection. He groaned into my mouth before bringing a hand to squeeze my breast. Our grip followed suit when the song deemed, “tighter, tighter.”
We staggered back to the pool table before collapsing on it in a tangle of arms and legs. Our mouths stayed fused together as our tongues slid in a tantalizing dance against each other. Catcher’s hips pumped his erection against my core, and I could feel myself growing wet. Although it was morally and ethically wrong on so many levels and I should have been ashamed of myself, I wanted nothing more than for Catcher to fuck me on dead guy’s pool table in the middle of a crime scene.
“Olivia?” someone called from the top of the stairs.
As I recognized Ralph’s voice, I jerked my lips from Catcher’s and tried desperately to catch my breath. “Yes?” I shouted back.
“I was just heading home when I got the call that you and Agent Mains were in the house. I thought I would stop by and see what you guys found out with Randy’s emergency contact.”
“Sure. One second and I’ll come up.” I pushed Catcher off me before scrambling to my feet. In that moment, I silently thanked the fact that Ralph was lazy or else he would’ve come down the stairs and caught Catcher and me in make-out city.
“I think he planned that,” Catcher grumbled as he straightened his tie and shirt.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror over the bar. “Oh, be serious.”
“I am. I think he was on the way home when suddenly his cock-blocking senses went into overdrive. Interrupting us has nothing to do with the case, and everything to do with making sure no one is getting any.”
I laughed. “It was a good thing he interrupted us.”
“Blue balls and a shriveled erection are not good things, babe.”
“It would have been bad for both of us to have gotten caught getting it on at a crime scene.”
Catcher scowled. “I guess so.”
“You know so. Now come on.”
Reluctantly, he followed me over to the stairs. Ralph stood at the top, peering curiously at us. “What were you two doing down there?”
“Investigating Randy’s hidden lair,” Catcher replied.
Ralph’s eyes widened as he stepped aside to let us pass. “What the hell does Randy have a lair for?”
/> “I’ll fill you in on the way home.”
“You will?” both Ralph and Catcher said.
I nodded. “Ralph can take me home since you need to run those samples to the lab.”
Catcher’s expression soured. I guess he had thought we could have a quickie after he took me home. “Peachy,” he muttered.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Give me one sec, Ralph. I need to get my purse from Catcher’s car.”
“Sure thing, Liv. I’ll lock up.”
As we walked out onto the front porch, Catcher gritted his teeth. “Epic cock-blocker.”
“Would you take a rain check on what we started tonight?” I asked on the way to his car.
Catcher’s brows shot up questioningly. “Really?”
“Of course.”
A pleased smiled stretched on Catcher’s lips. “Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“But don’t you need my number?”
He winked at me. “I’ll get it. I don’t have access to cell phone records for nothing.”
“That is totally stalker creepy.”
Catcher laughed. “Talk to you later, Olivia.”
“Goodbye, Agent Mains.”
After I closed the door, Catcher took off, and I stood with a goofy smile on my face as I watched his tail lights disappear in the distance.
Although only twenty-four hours had passed since Randy’s death, it felt more like a week. Last night after I left Randy’s house and Catcher, I had come home, taken a long, scalding-hot shower, and then fell into bed at seven without even bothering to fix dinner.
It had been my phone dinging, not my alarm, that had woken me up this morning around seven. After I rolled over and picked my phone off the nightstand, I almost fell off the bed when I saw it was Catcher, rather than a body pickup.
Mornin’ Beautiful.
As I stared at the screen, my heart did a funny flip-flop that made me both giddy as well as contemplating making an appointment with a cardiologist. Morning.
Did u have sweet dreams of me last nite or nitemares of Randy’s dicks?
I snorted. No nightmares¸ thank God.
No sex dreams either?
Sorry but no.
Such a pity.
