She clenched her jaw and hid the fear he put in her head.
“I’m going to offer some free advice.” He stared her in the eye. “Go home. This man stole a year of your life. Don’t give him the power to take the rest of it. Let me do my job.”
“What have you done other than lecture me?”
Armstrong sat farther back. “His ink isn’t coming up in our database.”
“What does that mean?”
“Any number of things. He’s never been arrested. Due to the brutality of your attack, I have a hard time believing that. So he isn’t from around here. Probably not even in the city.”
She smelled smoke. “You just want me out of town.”
Armstrong nodded. “Absolutely right. I want you back in your cozy life in LA, where I can look for this guy and not look after you.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “I can clearly look out for myself.” She swung her legs out from under the table and dropped some bills on the surface. “Thanks for the pep talk. I’ll let you know if I find any leads.”
“Damn it, Grant.”
She ignored him and walked out.
Armstrong glared at her uneaten food. He couldn’t do anything but wait and watch for the pieces to fall around her. Protecting her from herself wasn’t on his job list, and he was way out of his jurisdiction.
What he needed was backup.
Where was her posse of friends that had been so attentive a year ago?
He retrieved his phone from his pocket and started scrolling through phone numbers. He found the one he was looking for and put the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Is this Reed?”
“Who is this?”
“Detective Armstrong. We met last year.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, ‘oh, shit.’ Where the hell are you guys?”
Liam met Reed at a coffee shop a few blocks from the condominium complex.
When the text came through that Reed had information about Avery to share, Liam dropped his work in Carlos’s lap and left the job.
“Is she okay?” Liam asked the question the second he noticed the drawn expression on Reed’s face.
“Yes. Before I start, know I already have boots on the ground in New York. My critical player will be there in a couple of hours.”
Liam kept his fear in check, his jaw clenched.
Reed took a deep breath and began. “Avery’s memory of what happened to her last year came back.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Normally, yeah. Except the details she remembered about the guy who attacked her didn’t line up with the dead man pinned as her attacker.”
Liam turned an ear toward Reed. “Come again?”
“They had the wrong guy. The one who attacked her is still out there.”
His fist clenched. “Oh, no.”
“Avery is running around Manhattan with a picture and asking questions. According to the detective that was on her case last year, she’s searching the nightclubs, from sleazy to snazzy. At the same time, she’s making quite the name for herself. While no one has seen the guy she’s looking for, everyone has seen her. She’s making enemies daily,” Reed said.
“You mean she’s kicking ass.” Liam recalled the first time he saw her at Pug’s. It didn’t take an expansive imagination to see her doing that all over New York City. He itched to leave the table and drive straight to the airport.
“Yeah. Armstrong said it isn’t without a toll on her.”
“Armstrong is the detective?”
“Yes. He said Avery looked a little rattled, a lot bruised, and thin.”
“I need to go.” He pushed back from the table.
“Glad to hear you say that. You won’t be able to force her back, but you can keep her from making a lethal mistake. My guess is she thinks this is her fight and her fight alone. If it were you or I, I’d agree. But I have a strong aversion to men beating on women. Even if the woman can take him.”
“No one is going to touch her. I’ll make sure of that.”
Reed smiled. “Perfect. You take care of Avery, we’ll find her attacker.”
“If the police can’t . . .”
The expression on Reed’s face shut Liam up.
“It’s what we do. If he’s there, we will find him.”
“I thought you were in private security.”
“I am. Sometimes security means being a PI and neutralizing threats before they attack.”
“That sounds illegal.” And while that would have made him question Reed in the past, Liam was willing to look past it now.
“Nah . . . my goal is to find him and offer Avery the closure she needs. We make sure he can’t hurt her, and she doesn’t hurt him and end up on the wrong side of the law. I want this cleaned up before the women find out what’s going on.”
“The women?”
“Lori, Trina—”
“And Shannon,” Liam finished.
“Yeah. Keeping them out of the mix will be impossible.” Reed looked at his watch. “I’m giving this seventy-two hours before everyone is on their way home and sleeping in their own beds.”
Liam liked his confidence, found it contagious. “Are you calling the SEALs?” Liam joked.
“Not quite.” Reed reached into his jacket and removed an envelope. “Your plane leaves in three hours—”
“I bought a ticket to New York that leaves on Sunday.”
“Cancel it. Use this one.” Yeah, Liam liked that idea better.
“I’m sending you a link. Click it and we will have you tracked at all times. I haven’t forgotten what this guy did to her, so if there is any safety threat at all, the rules change.”
“How can you know there isn’t already a threat?”
“Because Avery is still vertical and she’s been there over two weeks.” Reed stood. “Three hours, Holt. Click on the link. I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Either Armstrong stripped her confidence and single-handedly made her paranoid or Avery was being watched.
She supposed it was entirely possible that the detective put someone on her, but she couldn’t imagine the limited resources the police department had would warrant that.
Still, the tingle up her spine and the need to turn around and find the eyes fixed on her was a constant cloud as she walked around Manhattan. It was midday and the streets were packed.
She stepped away from the curb and lifted her arm for a passing cab. Avery opened the back door and jumped in. “Times—” Someone holding her door open stopped her. “Sasha?”
“Scoot over, sweet cheeks.”
Avery released a frustrated breath and slid across the seat. “How long have you been following me?”
Sasha wore black. Her sleek, dark hair was tied back in a ponytail and nearly reached her waist, dark sunglasses hid her eyes, and olive skin and near perfect features made you think she was famous. “Ten minutes,” she said.
“Not possible. Someone has been on me all morning.”
Sasha’s curt accent, one born in Germany and honed by spending much of her childhood in eastern Europe, demanded attention. “I’ve been on you for ten minutes. I have no idea about the others.”
Avery looked out the back window of the cab. “Damn it.”
“Hey, ladies. Where yous goin’?”
Sasha managed to pierce Avery with her eyes, through her sunglasses. Yeah, her presence was that huge. “Well?”
Avery leaned forward. “Times Square.”
The cab took off to a blare of horns behind.
Sasha’s presence meant only one thing. “They all know he’s alive.”
“Not everyone. But that is only a matter of time.”
“Trina? Please tell me she hasn’t—”
“No. If you want to keep her away from this, we must find your Spider Man before she’s told.”
“We?”
“We.”
Avery didn’t try to argue. Sin
ce Sasha worked with Reed, it stood to reason there were other security guards hidden in the crowd.
For a couple of blocks, Avery stared out the window and worked through the quick change in events. “You’re not going to tell me to go home. Tell me my search is in vain?”
“I know a thing or two about revenge.”
“I guess you would.” Considering the woman’s father had killed her mother and nearly killed her. Sasha was a poster child for a life bent on revenge.
“I applaud your tenacity, but your execution is pathetic.”
“Hey, I don’t do this as a lifestyle.”
“Based on the bruise on your face, that’s obvious.”
“Battle scars.”
Was that a smile on Sasha’s face?
No, couldn’t be.
The cabbie dropped them off once he reached the tourist mecca of the city.
“What have you learned? Two weeks here, there must be something.” Sasha walked with long strides, forcing Avery to keep up.
“The best tattoo artist in the city is in the Meatpacking District. Very expensive and months out on appointments. But the parlors I’ve been to point the finger to him being the guy who did the art on Spider.”
“You call him Spider?”
Avery followed Sasha as she crossed the street without heeding the light.
“Spider-Man is a superhero.”
“You’re sure of this artist?”
Much as she would have loved to say yes, she couldn’t. “No. But it’s the only solid anything I’ve found.”
Sasha opened the door to a diner and stepped in.
“What are we doing here?”
For the first time, Sasha removed her sunglasses and looked Avery in the eye. “You look like shit. What have you lost, two, three kilograms?”
“Yeah, maybe a couple of pounds.”
Sasha glared and took a seat in a booth as far away from people as she could. “We’ll talk while you eat.”
Since Armstrong had stolen her appetite at breakfast, and it was getting close to dinnertime, Avery’s stomach growled.
Avery tried to order a soup and salad, but Sasha interrupted and ordered two hamburgers, loaded, soup instead of fries.
“I feel like I’m having lunch with my mother’s evil twin.”
Sasha did have a smile. Brief, but it was there.
“Tell me everything about Spider. Every tiny detail you remember.”
Avery started from the beginning, adding little things that had come to her over the past two weeks. The meal came and Avery continued to talk while she ate.
By the time she finished her meal, nothing but the pickle was left on her plate, and she was out of information to share.
“Do you know anything of the man my father sent to kill you? The man who the police said attacked you?”
“Not really. I called him Scarface. He went by Krueger when he was alive.”
Sasha nodded. “He was an amateur. Liked dealing drugs more than killing people. My father’s resources were not unlimited, and hiring a professional would have meant you’d be dead, and your killer would never be found.”
Avery swallowed the chill. “I’m happy Daddy was hard up for money.”
“Why did you decide to search nightclubs?”
“Because the guy seemed young to me. A punk. The tattoo was expensive and his shoes were new. He’s like the guy you see at a bar where you move down four stools and squeeze between two strangers because you don’t want him hitting on you.”
Sasha tapped a perfectly plain manicured finger on her water glass. “What did he smell like?”
Avery sat back. “Smell. I don’t know. I didn’t . . .”
“You said he wore pants that were too big, frayed. A sweatshirt, but the sleeves hung down and easily displayed his tattoo when he grabbed you.”
“Yes.”
The waitress stopped at the table. “Anything else?”
“A bag, please.” Sasha pulled money from a pocket.
Avery noticed her uneaten burger. “You weren’t hungry?”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
They exited the diner and immediately left the tourist block and moved down an alley.
“Tell me what you smell,” Sasha demanded.
That was easy. “Garbage.”
They stepped around puddles of unidentifiable liquid, past an abandoned cardboard box that looked like it had been someone’s home.
“And now? What do you smell?”
“Urine. Why?”
“Humor me.” Sasha led her down a few more blocks. While there were still people everywhere, they weren’t shoulder to shoulder.
For what felt like no reason, Sasha stopped walking and stepped off of the sidewalk and against a building. “That man. What do you see?” She pointed to a sad staple that plagued every major city in the country.
“A homeless man begging for change.”
Sasha sighed. “I see hunger, despair. Someone who has given up on life.”
She pushed away from the building, and they crossed the street to the man she was talking about. When she reached him, she leaned down. “Are you hungry?” she asked him.
His eyes tracked her with caution, his gaze shifted to Avery.
“Yeah.”
Sasha handed him the bag holding her uneaten hamburger. She then said something in Russian before standing up and leading Avery away.
“This woman,” Sasha said as they walked by yet another homeless person. “What do you see?”
Avery suddenly felt like she was being walked through a living documentary of the human existence. “Mental illness to the extreme.”
Sasha again stopped and looked behind them. “The woman is ill, but also on something. What did you smell when you walked by?”
“Body odor.”
They kept walking.
When Sasha slowed her pace, Avery searched out the next demographic. Two guys sat on a fence, smoking a cigarette. They were both thin, drawn.
“On drugs,” Avery said before Sasha could ask her.
“Homeless?”
“Probably.”
“How much do you know about drugs?”
Avery smirked. “I know not to take them.”
Sasha looked out of the corner of her eye at her, disapproving.
“My rebellion included a little pot and a lot of teenage drinking,” Avery clarified.
“But you had access to other things.”
“Yeah, of course. What kid doesn’t?”
They started across the street toward the boys.
“Do you know anyone who had a more experimental rebellion?”
“No one I was close to. There were always those that got hooked on something stupid in high school, early college. Snorted their tuition money up their nose. I blew my tuition on Cancun.”
Sasha chuckled and marched right up to the kids. “Gentlemen?” She managed to get their full attention with one word and a smile. “I was wondering if you could help me out.”
One of the kids sitting on the iron fence slid off, pulled himself up straight with a jerk, and nodded. “I can help you with whatever you need.”
He was definitely high, but he was hetero and liked what he saw, Avery observed.
“I need to know if you’ve seen someone.”
Avery stood back and watched the kids.
Neither of them could hold their hands still. One realized he was twitchy and slammed his hands into his back pockets, attempting to keep his eyes on Sasha.
“Yeah, hey . . . we see people walk by every day.”
Sasha pulled a picture out of her back pocket, but before she showed it to the kids, she said, “Twenty bucks each, to the both of you, if you tell me the truth. You lie, you get nothing.”
“Yeah, lady. Okay. I could use twenty bucks.”
The image of Avery’s sketched suspect sat in Sasha’s hands.
The guys looked at it.
Sasha watched the kid
s.
Avery saw everyone.
“That could be anyone,” the kid on her right said. “I wanna say I have, but I don’t know.”
“And you?” She moved the picture closer to the second kid.
He shook his head.
“What about this?” Spider’s tattoo was in the next picture.
Both of them shook their heads.
Sasha stashed the pictures and handed them the money.
“They’re just going to buy more drugs,” Avery said as they walked away.
Sasha shrugged. “Until they hit bottom or die.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Twenty bucks won’t change their course.”
“That’s cold,” Avery said.
“Truth often is. Come on.”
When they had circled back to Times Square, Avery finally stopped Sasha’s pace by grabbing her arm and turning her around. “Much as I liked the garbage-filled path through the decay of the homeless population, was there a point to what just happened?”
People walked around the two of them like they were rocks in a stream while they talked.
“Spider is young, agile. New shoes, old clothes. If he’s homeless, he wasn’t for long before you. His clothing, while worn, did not smell like Homeless Man Number One. Spider completed a task and spoke coherently, so not like Homeless Woman Number Two. Homeless Examples Three and Four, once hooked on something much stronger than what they can afford now, is who we are searching for. Two for twenty couldn’t stop moving. They wash their hands because of nerves and because their veins itch with need. They only stop at the peak of their high or when they are too sick to move during their low. They spend the majority of their day searching for means to maintain their level of stupid. Junkies don’t spend money on tattoos, so our guy was new to the game.”
Avery felt a rush from Sasha’s words.
“We know for a fact Krueger’s day job was selling drugs, and his night job was taking out kneecaps or putting people in the morgue. My father paid Krueger to kill you. In turn, Krueger paid your Spider to do the job. Why? Because Krueger sees an opportunity to get paid for a job without the risk of going to jail for it. Spider’s rapid descent makes him say yes. He knocks you down, hesitates, then uses his feet. Why? Because his hands would be too personal. Even though he’s higher than a rocket to the space station, he knows somewhere that what he is doing is wrong. ‘Don’t look at me.’ His words. Not because he doesn’t want you to see him, but so he won’t see your eyes.”
Chasing Shadows (First Wives Book 3) Page 22
