Death Before Decaf

by Caroline Fardig

  Holy shit! What the hell was she going to do, stab me? I had never even been in a fistfight, let alone been held at knifepoint. Terror chilled my spine as I realized how very close the sharp tip of the knife was to my skin. I struggled to calm myself, because deep down I didn’t truly believe that Jamie had it in her to hurt me. That being said, I still had an overwhelming urge to get the hell out of here. I tried to step around her, but she grabbed my wrist with her other hand and jabbed the point of her knife into my throat.

  “Ow!” I cried, jerking my chin back. Jamie responded by shoving me into the shelving. She pinned me by bracing her forearm on my throat, and I could feel the tip of the knife pressed against my abdomen. She was surprisingly strong for a college girl. She whispered ominously, “I’m pre-med. I know exactly where to cut you to make you bleed out in a matter of seconds. Don’t push your luck.”

  Now I was beginning to believe that she might in fact hurt me. But all she had was a knife. If I could only get out of her reach, I could possibly run away unscathed. Maybe if I could get her talking, it would break her concentration on the knife.

  “So, pre-med, huh? I guess I never asked your major. How are classes going?” It wasn’t so easy to speak with someone’s arm crushing your windpipe.

  “Shut up. I know what you’re doing.” She called to Logan, “Logan, take her. And get him the hell out of here.”

  Logan shoved the protesting kid out the door and came toward us. His expression was hard, but his eyes looked unhappy, almost scared. “Jamie, this has gone too far. I want out.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, tough shit. You better sack up, because you can’t quit now. We have to tie up this one last loose end.” She glared at me, her eyes flashing. “If you had just kept your bitch nose out of my business, I wouldn’t have to do this. Logan, get her a chair.”

  He reluctantly went over and righted a rickety wicker chair. I shuddered as I remembered it had been my little rat friend’s hiding place when Pete and I had come over here last week. Thankfully, Jamie lifted the pressure off of my windpipe and took a step back. Unfortunately, she instead grabbed my hair roughly and, knife still in place, forced me down onto the chair. “Duct tape,” she snapped at Logan, her face only inches from mine. He hurried to the workbench and found a roll of it, then brought it to Jamie, who hadn’t let go of my hair or moved the point of her knife away from my stomach. I didn’t dare move, because if Jamie decided to thrust the knife, I’d be in some serious pain. She griped at Logan, her tone full of disgust, “What are you waiting for? Tape her to the chair!”

  His expression apologetic, Logan began taping my wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of the rickety chair. When I had first met him, he had been very standoffish and uncooperative toward me, but now he seemed like someone I could at least reason with. Jamie had backed off a little while he worked to restrain me, so I was able to think more clearly.

  I pleaded, “Logan, you don’t have to do this. So you stole a few identities and sold them. Big deal. I can help you talk to the police. Trust me, I’ve spent plenty of time with them this week, and they’re not all bad. They’ll help you if you work with them. You don’t have to do what Jamie says, you know.”

  “Shut the hell up!” Jamie screamed, reaching me in one stride. She raised her knife and slashed at my forearm. As the searing pain shot through my arm, I screeched wildly. The knife had sliced a long gash through my skin, and a dark river of blood came oozing out, coursing down my arm and splattering droplets onto the floor. Both of my hands were secured to the arms of the chair, so I couldn’t even put pressure on it to relieve some of the pain. All I could do was sit there and watch myself bleed, breathing hard and trying to not completely lose it.

  Pleased at my obvious panic, Jamie started pacing back and forth in front of me, a crazed expression on her face. “No one is going to the police. I’m in way too far to let you ruin me. I’m not giving up my spot in the medical program next year because of you.” She let out a bark of laughter. “I’m amazed. You’ve been knee-deep in the shit that’s been going on and you still don’t know what’s really happening here, do you? Wow. You’re even stupider than I thought.”

  Jamie trailed the tip of the knife up my arm as she walked around behind me. She was teasing me, trying to freak me out. It was working. A cold sweat broke over my entire body. I knew that Ryder was outside watching, but I didn’t know if he had a way of hearing what was going on in here as well. If Jamie was going to cut me some more, at least I would make it worth something. I’d get her to talk, hoping my phone was still recording.

  I bristled, drawing in a shaky breath. “I know you’re stealing innocent people’s identities and selling them, and that you’re doing it on company time. That’s why you’re taking cash from customers and pocketing it. You’re selling identities like they’re lattes!”

  “Technically, I’m selling identities like they’re pastries. Those little paper bags we use are the perfect size for a credit card or an ID. And I was doing it right under your nose, you dumb bitch.”

  Damn it. They really were doing it right under my nose. “Then why the notes on the coffee cups for the secret meetings out here if you were selling everything inside?”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “Duh. I can easily take a hundred bucks and pass off a fake ID at the counter. If the customer is buying an entire identity, they get a bigger packet and they owe me a big ass wad of cash. Even you would probably notice that if I tried to do it at the counter.”

  “Ingenious. You’re fired, by the way.” I was starting to feel a little dizzy from the pain and the stress of the situation, but I tried not to let her know that.

  Her pretty face contorted in a sneer, she laughed menacingly. “Ooh, I’m fired. Harsh words from someone who’s leaving here in a body bag.”

  I shook my head, disturbed by the change in her. Sure, she was always bitchy, but I didn’t know she had a screw loose. “You’re not a killer, Jamie, you’re just a student. You made some bad choices. I’m sure that if you turn yourself in to the police, they’ll be lenient. But they won’t be if you kill me. They’ll figure it all out, and they’ll nail your ass to the wall.”

  “You think I’m worried about the police cracking this case? They have their heads up their asses. Freaking morons.” She tossed her silky, black hair and added, “Besides, no one will even care if you disappear.”

  Pete would care. The thought of never getting to see him again made me angry. I yelled, “So you’re seriously going to kill me over a little identity theft scam? You’re insane!”

  “A little identity theft scam? I’ve already made enough for next year’s tuition!” Jamie threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t get how you’re still clueless. You stumbled onto a dead body, for crying out loud. Granted, you tracked down a lot of the players, but you weren’t quite bright enough put it all together, were you? I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much brainpower out of someone who has devoted her life to food service.”

  Beginning to shake from the pain and still processing everything she was saying, all I could come up with for a comeback was, “Hey, I have a music degree from Belmont, bitch!”

  “Music majors are stupid, too.”

  I choked out, “We can’t all be pre-med.”

  “Stupid or not, you’ve got big lady balls, I’ll give you that. Even that dipshit thug Johnny trying to kill you didn’t make you back off.” She turned to Logan, who during our confrontation had slunk over near the door. “By the way, you need to tell your idiot brother to stay out of our business from now on. We were doing just fine until you shot your mouth off and told him what we were doing.”

  Logan looked worriedly at my bleeding arm. “Jamie, that’s enough. Come on, this needs to end. I’m…I’m going to call the cops.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re going to call the cops, huh? Why don’t I do it for you?” She got out her phone. “I’ll tell them the whole story about what you’ve done. I’ll tell them how you
steal certain types of mail from Vandy students who are too lazy to lock their mailboxes. And then—”

  Starting to shake, he interrupted, “You’re the one who steals the mail and gives it to me! They won’t believe your lies.”

  Jamie shrugged. “Everyone has believed my lies so far.” She turned to me and grinned evilly. “Haven’t they, Juliet?”

  I frowned at her, but didn’t make a snappy comeback, because I wanted her to keep talking. If my phone was recording all of this, Jamie and Logan were going down.

  Jamie continued speaking to Logan. “I’ll tell them about how you work your identity theft computer geek magic and how you bring the cards and packages to work to sell. Then I’ll tell them that Dave figured out what you were doing, and for some dumb reason immediately assumed that you were in on it with your jailbird brother. I bet Rob’s parole officer would be interested to know that he freaked out and paid that psycho Johnny a couple of hundred to shut Dave up. You delinquents will all go down, and I’ll walk away clean.”

  My “stupid” brain started working overtime, pulling everything together. “Wait. You’re the criminal masterminds here? Not Rob and Dave and Johnny?”

  Jamie laughed maniacally and said to Logan, “Ooh, dumbass here figured something out.” She turned back to me. “Rob and Johnny couldn’t mastermind a lemonade stand. It was just the two of us until that asshole Dave ruined everything, trying to be a hero.”

  I sighed. I had wronged Dave again.

  With obvious effort, Logan walked slowly over to stand in front of me. His shoulder slumped, he admitted, “Dave was only trying to keep me out of trouble. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt…”

  “A lot of people got hurt because of this, you guys,” I said angrily. “Logan, when your brother paid Johnny to keep your little secret quiet, he unleashed a demon. Johnny beat up Dave, then he killed him. He nearly kidnapped me, and he shot two other people. And then Johnny got shot himself. Two people are dead because of you.”

  Not at all remorseful, Jamie laughed. “Johnny sure was a screwup. But as for messing with you and that fat bookie, Johnny’s such a sociopath, nobody asked him to do that. He did it for fun. But he didn’t kill Dave.”

  I suddenly had a disturbing revelation. Taking a ragged breath, I said, “You guys killed Dave.”

  His face crumpling, Logan stabbed a finger at Jamie and blurted out, “It was her! She killed Dave and told me if I didn’t help her cover it up, she’d tell everyone I did it. With my juvie record and family history, who do you think they’re going to believe?”

  “I believe you, Logan. Turn yourself in. I’ll help you every step of the way, I promise. You don’t have to do what Jamie says. Think about what’s right and make your own decisions. Don’t listen to her,” I said.

  Angered now, Jamie came at me, yelling, “Will you stop saying that?” She jabbed her knife straight down into my thigh and left it there. My eyes bulged at the sight of the knife, and I shrieked from the overwhelming pain. My cries were cut short by a deafening bang and a blindingly bright burst of light. I couldn’t hear or see anything, but I felt someone scoop me off the ground, chair and all, and carry me somewhere. I gasped for air, breathing in an odd combination of acrid smoke and something that smelled like Ryder’s aftershave.

  My ears were still ringing, and I was in a daze, but I could finally see again as I got set down on the grass. Ryder’s worried face appeared in front of me. He was saying something to me as he worked to untape my arms and legs, looking down with horror at my bloody arm and the knife still sticking out of my leg at a sickening angle. He waved someone over, and then turned his attention back to me. With my free hand, I pointed to my ear and shook my head, choking out, “I can’t hear anything.” He nodded understandingly, brushing my hair back from my face and kissing me gently on the forehead.

  Two EMTs showed up next to me with a stretcher, and they carefully picked me up and lifted me onto it. As they were wheeling me away, I started to get a little hearing back, and I could faintly hear my name being called in the distance. Lifting my head, I looked around, spying Pete running toward me. A uniformed cop held him back, not letting him past the crime scene tape.

  Ryder had been following along with me, so I pointed at Pete and said to him, “Pete. I need Pete. Can you let him through?” His face fell slightly, but he nodded his head and went over to where Pete had been stopped.

  Pete raced over to me, his face anguished. “Jules, what happened?”

  I smiled, feeling about ready to pass out. “It’s a long story. I don’t feel so good. Will you ride in the ambulance with me?”

  He grabbed my hand. “Anything.”

  “I love you, Pete.”

  Epilogue

  Between the sight of my bloody arm, the thought of what they were going to have to do to my leg (starting with removing the knife), and the kickass sedative they gave me, I drifted in and out of consciousness several times. Even though they both hurt like a bitch, my knife wounds turned out to be minor. It took a shitload of stitches to close up the cut on my arm, but it wasn’t deep enough to do any real damage. Jamie’s knife thankfully hadn’t hit any arteries in my leg, so I didn’t need surgery. The ER doctor merely stitched me up and sent me on my way.

  The most difficult part was getting home. I had insisted that Pete ride in the ambulance with me, but that left us stranded at Vanderbilt hospital without a vehicle. After Ryder had finished booking and questioning Jamie and Logan, he came to the hospital to see how I was and offered us a ride to Pete’s house. Awkward.

  Detective Cromwell was there, waiting for us. He kindly took my statement about what Logan had admitted regarding Dave’s murder. He also took my phone, unfortunately, but promised to return it to me once they had extracted the video from it.

  Ryder—or “Detective Hamilton,” as Cromwell had called him—questioned me on what I knew about the identity theft scam. Then he finally told me everything. He had been working undercover on this case for a month. He knew that Vanderbilt students’ identities were being stolen, and that the scheme was somehow being run through Java Jive, but he had no hard evidence to convict anyone. As he was explaining that he had taken on Seth Davis’s identity to hide in plain sight at the center of the action, I became increasingly aware (again) of how he had used me to get information. All of the times that “Seth Davis” had taken me out or talked with me, I remember feeling like he was always giving me the third degree, especially about Java Jive and my staff. Now I knew why.

  “I’m glad you caught the bad guys, Detective,” I said quietly.

  Ryder smiled sweetly at me. “I couldn’t have done it without you. You know that was a crazy thing you did. I had the place wired, so I could hear everything you said in the garage, by the way. I was impressed with how you got them to spill their guts.”

  “You heard everything we said in the garage as it was happening?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you got a full confession out of them, and we got it on tape.”

  Even through the calming haze of my painkillers, I started to get mad. “So you were aware that I was duct-taped to a chair.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, but we were monitoring the situation, and—”

  “And it didn’t seem like a problem to you when Jamie cut my arm all to hell and threatened to kill me?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pete step over to his bar and pour himself a drink. Pete had been allowed to stay in the room while I was being questioned if he agreed to stay quiet. I knew that hearing about what had happened to me would upset him, but he insisted he wasn’t leaving me.

  Ryder took a moment before answering, and when he did, he sounded apologetic. “We didn’t know Jamie was dangerous. I didn’t…I didn’t believe she’d hurt you, so that’s why I let it go on. From the view we had, I didn’t see her slice your arm. I didn’t know it had happened. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged, not really knowing what to say. I stared down at the bandage on my arm, tryi
ng not to feel sorry for myself. This was just another instance of Ryder using me. What was one more?

  He added, “If it makes you feel any safer, everyone involved is now in custody. The state troopers caught up with Rob Carmichael in Colorado, and he confessed to paying Johnny to beat up Dave. He’s headed back to jail, because that little stunt violated his parole.”

  “That’s good news,” I said flatly. I was tired of talking to Ryder, but my curiosity won out. “What’s going to happen to Logan?”

  “Logan did the right thing and rolled on Jamie. He told us everything, in detail. He’ll still do some time, but nothing like what she’s facing.”

  I laid my head back against the couch and sighed. “Good. I hope they throw the book at her. I still can’t believe she killed Dave. I worked right beside her for a week, and nothing seemed off. How did she go about her business after having done something like that?”

  “Jamie is a determined young woman. It was very obvious in talking to her that she would do anything to become a doctor. She was putting herself through school, and was behind on her tuition, so she needed a way to make a quick buck. She knew Logan had the technical skills and the experience, and she had the perfect front for her operation in Java Jive.”

  I shook my head. “It’s insane what people will do for money. I can’t believe Logan risked everything again after getting caught the first time.”

  His eyes thoughtful, Ryder replied, “Maybe getting kicked out of school wasn’t punishment enough. A stint in county ought to work, though. Personally, I think the kid was bored and wanted to use his skills again, but got in over his head.”

  “Yeah, Logan didn’t seem like he was happy. He took some serious offense at me butting heads with Dave. He really seemed to look up to him. I guess that’s why covering up Dave’s death was gnawing at him so bad.”

  Ryder shut the notebook he had been using to jot down the information I gave him, and set it on the coffee table. “Poor kid’s really beating himself up over it. He had a hard time getting through telling me how Dave had tried to help him get away from Jamie. Evidently Dave had had all of this figured out for a while, for the most part. A couple of weeks ago, he realized that something was going on with Logan when he saw Jamie passing him some envelopes, but Logan wouldn’t talk to him about it.”