by J. A. Howell
“What’s going on?” She turned back to Trey, his eyes still on the empty corner.
“I just think it’s time we should leave.” His voice was an urgent warning to some unknown threat. So much so, that she didn’t question it as Trey led her from the pub. His eyes darted over his shoulder suspiciously before they exited onto the street.
“Let’s take a cab.” He said as he pulled her toward one that was already waiting at the curb. Neither said anything more as the cab pulled into traffic. Dillan, buzzed from the drinks and her medication, was too spooked by Trey’s odd behavior to question him. Who had he seen?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Dillan swore, as her eyes made out the blinking numbers on her alarm clock the next morning.
11:30 AM.
How did I manage to oversleep again?
Yet again, she found herself scrambling to get dressed. Her head ached slightly as she got out of bed. Probably shouldn’t have taken those extra doses when I got home. She knew she was right, but after their quick escape from Finley’s last night, Dillan’s nerves were more than stretched to their limit. Trey’s sudden, bizarre behaviors had managed to throw her emotions on a tilt which only compounded the already lingering suspicions from the other night.
There was no doubt that Dillan needed these questions answered, but now was not the time. She had no time, and if she kept this up, she might not have a job anymore. Tonight. She would sit him down and get her answers tonight. After she made herself look somewhat presentable, she shot back two more pills then headed for the door.
Dillan glanced over towards the couch to find Trey still sleeping soundly. It gave her some relief that she would not have to speak with him on top of running late again. Her only other saving grace was that there were not any more accidents to slow down her commute to the office. She managed to get there before noon. Unfortunately, she ran right into Jason as soon as she stepped off the elevator.
“Dillan… it’s nearly noon.” He looked over the rim of his glasses toward her.
“I know… I know. This won’t happen again. I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow. I swear.” Her voice was pleading as she avoided her boss’s disappointed gaze. She knew his confidence in her lately had been severely waning. This did not help.
“You have to be on point tomorrow, Dillan. If there is anything I can do to ensure you are ready, please let me know.” His forehead creased deeply.
“I’ll be ready.” Dillan nodded. Jason gave her one more wary look before he moved past her into the elevator to leave for lunch. With a heavy sigh, she trudged towards her office. She was within a few more steps of the safety of her office, before Kay rounded the corner. Her eyebrows knitted together with concern as she saw Dillan.
“I can’t talk right now Kay… give me a little time to get some work done first.” Dillan knew Kay was just waiting to lay on a full assault of questions, but she couldn’t deal with her friend right now. With an unsatisfied pout, Kay nodded. Dillan knew she would be back within a few hours and no explanations that she could offer would suffice. She had no excuse for letting her job fall to the wayside, but she also didn’t need Kay reminding her of that very fact.
***
Trey eyes shot open as soon as the door slammed shut. It jarred him from his sleep, and temporarily set him in a panic, his muscles tight as his fingers gripped the couch cushions. He looked around the apartment and called out Dillan’s name, but silence was all that answered back.
She must have already left for the day.
It felt eerie being there alone. Dillan’s absence made everything feel cramped and uninviting, as if he was standing in a crypt. The uneasy feelings from last night had stuck around too, and continued to grow in the silence that surrounded him. The face that he had seen watching him last night couldn’t have been one of Carlos’ men. Could it?
Why would they be here if they think I’m dead?
Still, the dark eyes and the sinister smirk that he had glimpsed were not just his imagination. Someone had been watching them. The thought of it raised a hard lump in his throat.
Trey wasted no time in dialing Luciano. He needed answers. He needed confirmation that Carlos was back behind bars and that he was just being paranoid last night.
“Good morning Alex.” Luciano’s voice carried a serious tone.
“Tell me you found something.”
“I did.” Luciano let out a sigh, “But you aren’t going to like it.’
“Just tell me.” Trey’s voice came out in a low growl. He didn’t have time for Luciano to sugar coat anything.
“Carlos is clean. His alibi checked out. We couldn’t find anything to link him to Andrew’s murder.”
“NO. That can’t be it. How can you sit there and tell me that he didn’t do it? Even you said it had to be him.” Trey shook with anger as he spoke, blinded with rage.
“I know I had my suspicions, but he came up clean. There isn’t much else I can do.” Luciano’s voice wavered.
“Then why did he send someone here? How does he even know I’m here?”
“What are you talking about Alex?” The agent was now the one who sounded dumbfounded.
“Last night. I’m nearly positive that one of Carlos’ men was here in Midtown. He was tailing me.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just someone that looked familiar?” Lucian asked, the doubt in his voice even more obvious.
“I know what I saw.” Trey said through gritted teeth.
“I’m not doubting you Alex. It’s just that there isn’t much I can do at this point. Do you remember his name? I can look into it today.”
Trey sighed. He didn’t remember the guys name because none of them made a habit of giving that information out. Luciano ought to know that as well.
“You can’t be serious. You have dealt with the drug cartels for how long? If I had a name, it probably isn’t the guy’s actual name.” Trey’s patience was fading quickly. “I trusted you to help me, Luciano. Even if you can’t prove that Carlos killed Andrew, you know damn well he was responsible for my mother and a measly ten years in prison is not enough to pay for that.”
“I told you, something got screwed up. It was out of my hands at that point.” Luciano’s voice sounded strained. All Trey heard were more excuses.
“It’s bullshit, Luciano, and you know it! Carlos may have been the one that killed my mother, but it was you and your department that killed Andrew.”
“You don’t know that he did it…” The agent’s voice was becoming less convincing by the minute.
“Then you explain to me how that maniac getting released a year ago and my brother getting two bullets in the chest around the same time are just a fucking coincidence. Is that going to help you sleep better tonight, knowing that now two people I love are dead because you failed to do your job? Well I hope you can sleep with more blood on your conscience, because there’s going to be more.” Trey’s voice boiled with rage as he spoke.
“Alex…Please don’t do anything rash. Stay put and give me till tomorrow to find out what I can. Please.” Luciano begged him.
“Fine… but if you come up empty-handed, I can’t be held responsible for what comes next.” Trey’s words were sharp. Even he didn’t know exactly what that meant.
“I understand.” Lucianos’ voice was quiet as he ended the call. A small part of him felt bad for laying into Luciano they way he did, but there was no way that it was all just a mere coincidence. Trey refused to accept that conclusion.
There had to be more to it, and Trey could no longer just sit and wait to hear from Luciano. Despite his limited resources, he needed to do some digging of his own. It dawned on him then that Dillan might have some information hidden away about the night of the murder. Whatever she had, he had to find it. Maybe she had a copy of the police report. Maybe there was something that the cops had overlooked.
He had several hours before she would return. More than enough time to find som
ething. Her office would probably be the best place to start. He wasn't too keen on rummaging through her bedroom right away anyways. Crossing the living room, Trey turned the handle to her office. It was a small room with one window on the far wall, and two white bookshelves on either side of it. Two matching writing tables sat across from each other on the adjacent walls. One had a laptop sitting on it. The other, which was closest to him, was scattered with various papers, and folders. An even coat of dust had collected on them and they looked like they hadn't been disturbed in ages. Or at least in the last year…
His eyes scanned the dusty stack of papers as he closed the door behind him. He recognized his brother's handwriting on a few of the loose sheets. Trying not to completely disturb them, Trey lifted the corners of them. A few appeared to be business letters, with a dark bold company header reading " Level-Up Concepts" at the top. There were a couple of programming books hidden underneath them. It didn't come as a surprise to Trey that he had gone into that type of work. His brother had been into computers ever since they were younger. A bit of a nerd even.
There had been more than a few times that Trey had gotten in fights over someone picking on Jamie for his fondness of all things science and technology. During middle school especially, his brother seemed to be an easy target for bullies. And despite being the exact same size, Trey wasn't. But he had also made his presence known to bullies within the first week of sixth grade.
A few meat-headed eighth graders had decided to beat up his brother behind the bleachers after they saw him reading Popular Science during P.E. one day. Trey still remembered the day Jamie sat down on the bus next to him with a black eye, and dirt scraped over his cheeks. After interrogating him for the entire bus ride home, he had managed to get the names of his brother’s assailants, then set to work on revenge.
That night while their mom was watching TV, he sneaked outside with garden gloves, trimming shears, and a plastic shopping bag. A sinister grin grew on his face as he clipped off the leaves of poison oak that were growing in the woods behind their house. The next day, he made his brother point out his assailants in the locker room before gym class.
By that afternoon all three boys were in the nurse's office in complete agony after somehow getting poison oak on their nether regions. When Trey saw one of them waddling onto the bus he could have sworn he saw tears in the kid’s eyes. Jamie's face went white with panic as he saw Trey’s mouth curl into a smirk and yell out, “That’s what happens when you don’t wash your undies!”
“Alex, he is twice your size!” Jamie hit his brother on the arm and braced himself as he watched the other kid turn around. The boy's face turned six shades of red in a matter of seconds as he glared at Trey, lunging at him down the aisle. Jamie had been right; he was twice his size. Like a large bull storming down the aisle past several gawking students. But Trey was faster. He stepped out of the way right as the other kid reached for him, letting him fall onto his face.
“Fuck with my brother again and I'll do worse than put poison oak in your underwear, asshole!” Trey yelled, before his shoe connected with the kid’s nose in a loud crunch. He had gotten suspended for two weeks. But those three left the twins alone for the rest of the school year. Toward the end of high school, Trey was too busy getting into trouble to even know what his brother was going through at the time. Trey remembered how ironic it felt, that until the day they were separated, he hadn't realized just how much of a stranger he had become in Jamie’s life.
Trey's hand moved to the small drawers on either side of the desk. Nothing notable was inside the left drawer. Some pens, pencils, and loose change. In the other, there was an old concert ticket that was yellowing around the edges. Midtown Festival. He picked it up, examining it. On the back Dillan's name was scribbled over a phone number. The infamous mosh pit incident, Trey smiled to himself. He spotted his dad's watch towards the back of the drawer as well. His fingers ran over the cracked glass thoughtfully, before returning the concert ticket and shutting the drawer.
He turned his attention to the other desk, and the laptop that sat open on top of it. Sitting down in front of it, he pressed the power button on the computer, watching the screen flicker on. The main screen loaded, and there was a picture of Dillan and Jamie kissing on the background. A second later, her email program popped up automatically, updating the inbox. The computer dinged several times as a few new messages appeared in the inbox.
He didn’t want to pry, but as her inbox populated it was all too tempting to bypass. His eyes scanned the subjects. The first one read "Re: Missing therapy appointment", and was from a Dr. Rosenthal. He hesitated, but clicked the message, opening it in another window.
Dillan,
While I am sympathetic to your situation, and your job, I cannot grant you any more refills of your prescription without another session. Please contact my office ASAP to schedule a session so that we can reassess your treatment plan and get back on track. You've canceled the last four sessions and I still granted you refills, but I cannot keep doing so.
Sincerely,
Dr. Grace Rosenthal
He closed out the email and marked it as "unread", then in the search field, typed in Jamie's name. Thousands of search results came up. Trey started with the most recent. Several were from friends trying to reach out to Dillan, and it appeared that most those emails had gone unanswered. The older ones were emails back and forth between her and Jamie.
He couldn’t bring himself to read them. They probably wouldn’t hold any answers and he didn’t want to violate her privacy even more than he already had. After turning off the laptop, he checked the drawers of her desk, finding nothing of interest except a small brass key. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand and examining it. Looking around the room he didn't notice anything with a lock though. Maybe it didn’t really go to anything.
Trey's eyes fell on the closet door with curiosity as he stood up, gripping the key in his palm. He turned the handle and opened it, switching the light on as he grabbed the pull-string. In the far left corner, nearly hidden by winter coats and an umbrella, was a large black trunk with a brass lock on the front of it. The key had to go to it. Looking behind him, as if he expected Dillan to burst in right then, Trey suddenly felt wary. What would he find in there? Maybe it was just her winter wardrobe...but he had a feeling there was something more in there if it was hidden away in the dark crevices of her office closet.
He grabbed one of the handles on the side of the trunk and pulled it out of the closet, dragging it to the middle of the floor. Trey's fingers fumbled nervously with the key for a second before he heard it click into place inside the lock.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Alright Dillan... what’s going on?” Kay cornered her in the break room as Dillan was attempting to make herself a cup of coffee.
“It’s a long story... walk with me.” Dillan groaned, rubbing her temple as she headed back toward her office.
“So, you are definitely nursing at least a small hangover today...But what else is going on?” Her friend raised an eyebrow as they walked down the beige hall, their shoes clicking against the black slate tile. Dillan's estimate had been perfect. It had been nearly three hours to the second since she had initially seen Kay outside of her office. She smirked to herself, absently swirling the stirrer around her coffee cup before she settled down behind her desk. Kay leaned against the wall, her arms folded over her chest. Her eyes were glued to Dillan, waiting for her explanation.
“I did drink last night... not too much. I have been working with my doctor to better figure out my dose for PTSD so that’s more likely as to why I am a little foggy today. Anyways, the last few days I have been spending time with Trey,” Dillan started, taking a sip of her coffee before continuing, “Last night we were at Finley’s and things were okay, we had a couple drinks and we were talking about Jamie....”
“Dillan, I’m sorry but I’m going to stop you right there. Why is Trey still at your apartment? You don�
�t know this guy and I’m sure that Jamie had a reason for not telling you about him.” Kay's lips scrunched into a disapproving frown. Dillan sighed; she expected this type of reaction. She had just hoped for something different.
“But he is still Jamie’s brother. I couldn’t just kick him out after dropping that kind of news on him, Kay.” Dillan said.
“Fine, I get that…but it’s been a few days now, and past those few things, you don’t know much else about him. Or the reason that he was estranged in the first place.” Kay tried to reason with her. “And it can’t be healthy having your dead fiancé’s twin hanging around, Dillan.”
“Kay… I know you mean well, but I’ve got this under control.” Dillan sighed. At her words, Kay’s eyes narrowed into small slits.
“Do you not remember standing me up the other night? And isn’t this your second time being late this week!?” Kay questioned her.
“I’m sorry I did that to you, but I was having a bad night. Maybe that still doesn’t make up for it, but I am sorry. It may not seem like I am trying…but I am handling things the best that I can.”
“You’re hung-over Dillan....I'm sorry, but how exactly does that count as handling anything? I know this isn't the first time you have come in like this...and if you think Jason hasn't noticed it before, you're wrong.” Her friend’s voice dug into her as Kay leaned against the desk, staring at her sharply. Dillan's eyes shot to her boss's office across the hall, then glared at Kay. Her face grew hot as anger and embarrassment rose up within her. Does she really have to bring this up here? Kay knows nothing about what I am going through. She is just an outside observer, making quick judgments that she feels are the right ones. Dillan’s fist balled up against her desk.
“Screw this. I'll finish my work from home today... I'm not going to sit here and be lectured by you on how to deal with losing Jamie, or how to deal with his brother showing up.”
