Etched in Glass

by Nyxie Marrs

  He chuckles. “So now you’re forcing her to stay here? Smart.”

  “You know I can’t force a woman like her to do anything. She’s here because she wants to be.” Red opens the car door.

  “I know, Miles. I’m not liking this whole Dante issue too. Something isn’t sitting right with that.” He starts the car.

  “I can’t agree more. Except I don’t like any one of them.” I reply as I look to the house. Vega definitely has a lot of mystery surrounding her. And a lot of trouble.

  “Ingenious plan to keep her close?” Red’s smile couldn’t get bigger. It isn’t exactly a plan.

  “It’s not like that, Red.” I try to hide that smirk. It is pretty much like that. If she’s here with me, then she won’t go out by herself, and I’m starting to like having her around.

  “You sure? She pretty much made a statement for you to not worry about other men. Come on. You’ve got her interest.” I don’t think that’s what her statement was at all. Not after our conversation today.

  “See ya.” I hint for him to drop this subject. He drives off. I can’t think about that. This case has put her in a vulnerable position. Excluding what happened last night. She needs someone to look out for her right now.

  I walk back inside to find Vega back on the couch. “Everything okay?” I ask.

  She nods. “Of course. I'm feeling tons better. If you want me to go back to my place. It’s fine.”

  “Stop trying to get out of here, Vega. You have no idea what it was he slipped you. You didn’t feel better ‘til a little bit ago. You’re staying here so I can keep an eye on you, make sure you’re okay.” My tone is demanding, but it doesn’t look like she’s hating it.

  “You want to see Elara’s file?” I know how much this means to her, and how much it fuels her drive to finish this case. But I can also see the defeat and the sadness this case has put on her.

  “I do, but only when you’re ready for that.” I softly say as I sit next to her. Having to go through that file must have been hard on her. I don’t want to stress her more than she already is, especially after last night’s fail. My failure could have gotten her killed.

  “Like I said, I know every detail that’s in that file, and which details are omitted. The most thorough information you will get is from me.”

  I know she’ll have accurate information, but what if there’s something else? Something she’s overlooking because she thinks she knows the whole thing. The account from the police perspective has to be different than her own, and it’s always good to gain that insight.

  “I hate to bring it up, but since you were there, do you remember when that glass was set down? During your time talking? Before or after she left? Or rather, before or after you left the table? It must have been noticeably out of place to consider it evidence.” What is that look she’s giving me? Is she thinking about it? So much for having the most detail about that case.

  “Oh, f-.” She stops herself and runs her fingers through her hair. That worried look isn’t making me feel good about this. “Miles, get your computer and that video back up.” She quickly sits up and gets as close to me as possible once I sat back down.

  “What is it?” Now I’m worried about what she remembers, but what does Molly’s case have to do with that memory?

  I pull up the video and forward it to the girls coming into the bar. Sitting closer to the screen like she’ll miss this important information if she were any further. Her eyes dart over the whole screen searching for an anomaly we didn’t see earlier. There isn’t one thing she’s overlooking at this point. I try to pull her away from the screen, but she pushes me away staying close, if not closer now.

  We watch the girls at the table, talking and drinking. Then the friends abandon her to talk to some men. I don’t see anything different, but Vega is attune to the finer details here.

  “Stop it.” She quietly mutters. I pause the video and she looks at it for a while. I can see her take in mental notes about this scene where Molly is about to get up from the table.

  “Play it.” So I did. “Can you slow it down?” Her whisper caught my attention. That focus right now is mesmerizing to watch. Of course I slow the footage for her.

  “What-.”

  “Sh.” Waving her hand at me. Okay then, full on concentration. “Miles.” Her voice cracks as her eyes dart around the screen. Moving between Molly as she turned away from the table, then to the man that shortly followed her.

  “Yeah?” We keep our voices quiet like we’re going to interfere with someone’s concentration if we spoke any louder.

  “Look.” She points to the table.

  The man stood at the table just a few seconds longer after she turned away. Her back is to the man, and his gloved hand is on a cup at the table.

  “Fuck.” She says as she looks at it longer.

  “Vega?” Hell, I need to know what she’s thinking. Clearly we missed vital information at a cursory glance.

  “It is him. Look at the glasses on the table. There’s three before he runs into her. After she leaves, there’s four. Miles.” Her voice holds excitement. We shouldn’t have missed that the first time. We were stuck on finding a more obvious clue than this. Rookie mistake letting our excitement cloud over our search.

  “How did we miss that?” I replay the video.

  “Because it’s subtle as hell, Miles. This is the guy. But.” She pauses and looks at me with a lot of worry in her eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “What if the other two men were in on it?”

  “You mean three men?”

  She nods. “What if that’s the reason we can’t find the guy? Because there’s more than one. It can be anyone, just regular men in the bar scouting and planning. Luring the friends away to get these women alone.”

  “Here.” I rewind the video slowly so we can watch the actions of the man that ran into her, and the two men at the bar. “Look for them. See if we can watch their actions throughout the whole thing.

  We watch the video in slow motion. There’s a lot of footage, but now we’re watching the other people in the bar. Looking for these three men, watching them enter the bar separately, sitting separately and each of them watching other people in the bar.

  They were in the bar one hour before taking Molly. When the one man left, the other two showed less interest in the two women, but didn’t leave for another hour after that. It’s very possible these men are part of this, but also not at the same time.

  “Vega, if you’re right, this just got a hell of a lot more difficult. Tracking three men we barely have descriptions on?”

  Her eyes are wide and she smiles. “Yeah, but Miles. What if they do it together? Or at least one person takes the woman. What if one disables the outside cameras and the other one has the getaway car? Hell, the possibilities.”

  She looks to be on the verge of a victory dance. I don’t see how this is good, it just complicated things because we still don’t have much information to begin with, and now three suspects.

  “Vega.” I say softly, but it quickly grabs her attention. She may be excited, but all I see are more complications to figure out.

  “I know, Miles, but this is huge information that was missing. What we need to do now is copy this, and give the idiot crew the video to watch. I want to see what they come up with.” That evil grin is wonderful to see. I agree, knowing what is on this disc, I’d love to see the lack of information they come up with.

  “If only I had my research. I could make notes and take another look at things.”

  “Just relax right now, Vega. Our information isn’t going anywhere.” She doesn’t look happy with that statement. “I’ll make some dinner? Anything specific you do or don’t like?”

  “Not really. No strong food aversions.” She avoids having preferences. I wonder if that’s just since her sister.

  “Okay then.”

  “Mind if I take a shower?” That hesitant question came out softly as she stares
at the evidence we have on the table. I know her mind isn’t going to be anywhere else.

  “Go right ahead. Make yourself comfortable with anything here.” And I mean anything.

  Chapter 22

  Talia

  “Elara? Are you okay?” I haven’t heard much from her, she mainly rests and conserves her energy. I’m starting to feel the lack of energy from the small amount of food. Our captor keeps us locked away. I suppose it’s good that nothing has happened so far, we’re kept in cages and slightly fed.

  “Yeah. I’m as fine as one can be here.” She says weakly. I need to find a way out of here. Out of the women in here, I may have the most strength, I’ve only been in here a few days-weeks maybe.

  The door creaks open, his heavy boots stomp, shaking the floor under us. His hand grazes the bars. With only a small ‘tsk’ muttered as he passes each cell.

  The women I can see from the glimmer of light coming through the door all shy away from him, nearly curling into a ball as he walks by. I can only see the silhouette as he walks, the details slowly coming into view the closer he comes. My body trembles, and my vision starts to blur as he stops close.

  “Mm. Soon.” His rough voice echoes through this place as he looks at Elara.

  I tighten my eyes, waiting for the worst to happen. His heavy boots stop in front of me. A small chuckle rumbles through his throat and all I want to do is throw up.

  He continues his walk through the room, his hand still trailing against each cold metal bar that encases us. The smell of alcohol lingers in the air, definitely a man who doesn’t know when to stop.

  Just as he nears the door, I hear his deep voice bellow. Are there more? Or am I hallucinating? Is he talking to someone else? I’ve only seen him, assuming this is a one man operation. If there’s more, we’re screwed.

  Chapter 23

  Vega

  We head to the precinct after another day away from work. Even though I was feeling better, Miles wanted to make sure I was one-hundred percent better. I’m not complaining, much anyways. It was nice to have a break from my team, but I’m itching to look at more cases and my information. I spend my time delving into what evidence we have here.

  I’m excited to show Redmond what we’ve discovered, and that he was wrong.

  “Okay, fine.” I push myself into the seat of the car.

  “Huh?” Clearly I caught him of guard.

  “Take me by my place, I’ll grab my sister’s file. Maybe a few other things.” After catching that new information from the video, I felt a little relieved. Hell, excited. More open to the idea that someone other than myself is interested in solving this.

  “You sure, Vega?”

  I nod. “Mm-hm. Yes. Even though I don’t think it will help, you two want to see it.”

  He smiles and turns towards the direction of my apartment. I don’t know why, but I’m nervous about this. I know no one but me has looked at her file and taken it seriously. Having them interested makes this strange. I’ve been doing this on my own so far, it’s strange to have other people involved.

  I let out a nervous breath as we pull up to my apartment building. He quickly gets out, and just as I’m about to step out of the car, he hurries up and helps me out. His smile increased as he grabbed my hand. I can’t fall into this comfortable thing between us, threatening my focus.

  It feels like it’s been weeks since I’ve been home. I open the door and walk into my work room, moving to the map and my messy desk. I’m taking a new look at this, with more hope than before.

  I search the desk for the file. Miles stands back, leaning against the door watching me. I shuffle a few more things around and pick up the papers that conclude the police investigation of her case. I take a step back and look at the mapped out bars. This time thinking about the new information and how it’s going to change my search.

  “You okay?” He puts on that soft voice of his. I hate it because the more I hear it, the more I’m liking it, and the more I respond to it.

  “I’m fine, Miles. How long do you plan on keeping me captive?”

  He chuckles. “I want at minimum a few days, maximum, however long you want. Why?” I chuckle at his response. Having company around is new, and nice to have.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t chuckle flirtatiously, and I don’t let anyone think they can take care of me, or that I need it. Maybe it is nice to have someone else around too. It’s been me and Elara for the longest time. I’ve never been okay with someone helping me out. Her abduction has messed up my mind. Maybe an accomplice to my madness won’t be bad?

  “I’ll grab a few more things? If that’s okay with you.” I take a step back and take a few pictures of my map.

  “I am more than okay with that, Vega. As long as you want. If you wouldn’t mind, we can take all this to my place. You know, have a larger room to work in.”

  I walk by him, giving him an evil side-eye as I walk into my room to pick up a few things.

  “I’m not moving in with you, Miles. This is just a few days.” I needed to hear it out loud to make sure I believed it too. I’m letting someone I just met invade my work. Allowing him to persuade me to stay with him. I admit, even I was worried about the drug I was given. Nothing’s knocked me down like that, but his concern is too good to be true. Although, there is a lot more room at his place. Maybe I’ll ride out this crazy situation and see where it goes?

  “I know, Vega. But, we could get it all in order and have a larger workspace.”

  I peek my head out of the room to see him still in the other doorway, but facing me.

  “You sure that’s all you want? A bigger workspace?” My skepticism is loud and clear. With the way he’s been around me, I’m sure there’s a lot more on his mind than just work.

  He looks into my work room. “Yeah. I mean there’s nothing wrong with what you have going on. It really wouldn’t take much time to move it.” So sure of himself that I’d just let that happen. He looks at the mess of research I have and back to me with a smirk.

  I roll my eyes. “Fine. Start packing it I suppose. If I’m going to stay with you for another day or two I can use my research there.”

  I finish grabbing a few more clothes and other things I need when I hear him moving things around. I step out to find that he has all of it in two piles and he’s in the process of grabbing the map.

  “You’re fast. I’m sure I didn’t take that long.” I put my bag down and help him take the map off the wall.

  “It isn’t a lot, come on.” I grab my bag and he grabs everything else, putting it all in the back of his car.

  “Off to let Red in on our discovery?” He mutters as we continue to the precinct.

  “Yup.” I grumble as my phone rings. I already know who it is. “What do you want?” He glances at me, I’m sure he knows what to expect of my attitude by now.

  “What I want is my damn coffee. Where are you?” Rocky grumbles into his phone. Miles scoffs.

  “I’m on my way in. I’m off of coffee. Get one of the others to do it.” I hang up before he had the chance to find an excuse for me to hurry in. It’s not like they’re going to move on this case. They’ve been sitting around and pushing it aside. The only urgency they have is the fact they get even more agitated when they haven’t had a fill of caffeine. Sucks to be them today because I’m not doing that anymore.

  “You are not. You had two cups this morning.” He laughs.

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “Vega, it’s nice to see you stand up to them. Red talked you up, just so you know. Bragged about how much of an asset you are to our investigation.”

  “He didn’t.” That’s just great. I want to hit the dash, but I need rein in my aggression. I may need it later.

  “Why is that bad?” He better be hesitant.

  “Well. Do not let them see you walk in with me. Or hell, drive up with me. I’m sure Redmond would understand if you ask him. Those bastards.” I let out a long breath and look at
him. Why the hell do these men think they can sway the idiot crew from their shitty thoughts? Nothing will get through to those men.

  “I’ll find you two in your office after I check in with them. Do you want me to give them the video? Or do you want to smugly hand it over and get a chance to piss them off?” I’m trying to keep my mind off of this possible issue as we near the station. Confronting them after that isn’t going to work out so well.

  It’s nice that Redmond talked me up, but they start to make accusations and assume other things when that happens. Their opinion of me isn’t the greatest, they just assume because I’m a bit busty with pouty lips that I’m more of a street-walker when it comes to obtaining information. They don’t believe I’m good enough at my job, that I must render some type of service to accomplish tasks. Those four men think women are inferior.

  “Oh, I definitely want to do the hand off, Vega. You should find out what they’ve been doing. There’s four of them, and we’re the only ones to pull up information. That’s not right.”

  “I agree with you. Don’t tell Redmond until I’m there. I won’t be too long with them. I’ll bring them over to your office and I’m sure they’ll leave quickly after that.” I let out a tight breath and push myself against the seat. I’m not ready for this. It’s not going to be good.

  We get close to the station and my anxiety increases to the point where I can’t breathe. I have Miles drop me off a block away. I need the fresh air and time to calm down. I can’t have them create more ways to diminish my gender, or my hard work.

  As soon as I step into the building Rocky jumps in my way. Along with the other three. Not even ten feet into the building and it’s already started. I give them my stare-down of hell and my battle instincts are popping up in my head. Oh, the defensiveness kicking in is starting to feel like a good idea.

  “Nice day off?” His harsh tone makes my fists curl and my anger boil. I swear if he wasn’t lead on this I’d kick his ass. Hell, I might just do it anyways. Screw my job, right?