by Jana DeLeon
Jackson leaned over and whispered, “You’re doing great. Now, we just have to maintain this casual appearance through dinner.”
She relaxed a bit with his compliment. The dress, makeup, and upswept hair were things she forced herself to do for charity events. This was the first time she’d taken so much care for dinner with a man. It felt too much as if she was playing a role, and she supposed that’s exactly what she was doing. Except for the part where Jackson was the only man she’d want to be with under any circumstances.
“Have you eaten here before?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Well, it won’t be hard to look happy through the meal. The food is fantastic.”
He grinned. “I am definitely a man who appreciates good food. Add to it that the company isn’t so bad, and the night is looking up. In fact, work has never been this fun. Or offered such a great view. You look beautiful.”
The flush that had remained on her chest and neck earlier crept all the way up her cheeks. “Thank you. You look pretty hot yourself.”
In his black suit, white shirt, and black-and-silver tie, Jackson looked as if he’d stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. He never stopped surprising her. His taste in high-end clothes was excellent. She was certain the suit had been tailored. Off the rack never fit quite right. She’d learned all about high-end clothes from her mother and grandfather. Much to Corrine’s dismay, Shaye had never taken much of an interest. Unless it was time to rotate to a new dress for those awful charity events, Shaye wasn’t much for shopping. Everything she wore daily could be ordered on Amazon and delivered to her doorstep.
Jackson looked pleased and a tiny bit embarrassed with her compliment, and she felt her heart flutter. He was into her, right? She wasn’t misreading him helping her as romantic interest? No one else seemed to think so. Eleonore, Corrine, Cora, and even Hustle had immediately suggested that Jackson had his eye on her for far more than her caseload. But since she’d never let her guard down with another man, she had no experience to draw on. It seemed that he wanted more than friendship, but that tiny doubt niggling at the back of her mind always kept her from crossing the friendship line. Unfortunately, one thing she was fairly certain of was that she would have to make the first move. Jackson had too much respect for her to do it, and she knew he worried about and was very protective of her emotional state. He wouldn’t risk setting her back.
Jackson leaned in again. “Beaumont didn’t give you any clue as to what he wanted to tell you?”
“No. He said he needed to see me in person. He gave me the hotel and room number and said I needed to make it look like a rendezvous because there was a good chance I was being watched.” She frowned. “He specifically said to bring you as my date. He moved away after he retired. How does he even know about us?”
“Beaumont was a great cop who served a lot of years. I have no doubt he’s got eyes and ears in the department.”
“You think someone is feeding him information about us?”
“I’d bet on it and I have a really good guess who it is—the desk sergeant.”
“Why him?”
“He and Beaumont were partners for a lot of years until the sergeant’s physical health wasn’t good enough for street work. If someone in the department is feeding Beaumont information, the sergeant is my pick.”
The server stepped up to their table and Jackson straightened in his chair. As the heavenly smells of the food wafted toward Shaye, she realized how hungry she was.
“Can I provide you with anything else?” the server asked.
“No, thank you,” she said. “This looks perfect.”
Jackson shook his head and the server moved away. “We have an hour to kill before we meet Beaumont. If the dessert tastes anything like this looks, it might be the best hour I’ve had in years.”
Shaye smiled. “Prepare for an hour that you’ll remember forever.”
Corrine removed her hand from her mouse and leaned back in the stool, lifting her arms above her head to stretch. She closed her eyes and sighed as the burning sensation began to dissipate.
“You should take a break,” Eleonore said. “You’ve been at this for ten hours already.”
“So have you,” Corrine said.
“Yeah, but I spend every day sitting on my ass, and staring at either a computer or someone in my chair. You’re used to moving around more.”
“Are you admitting that my ass is smaller than yours?”
“Honey, that was never in question. Seriously, get off that stool and let’s take a lap around your backyard before your muscles start to atrophy.”
Corrine slid off the stool and headed for the patio. The heat and humidity were overwhelming, even though the sun disappeared over the tree line an hour ago. She looked over at Eleonore, who was already fanning herself with her hand, and shook her head.
“This is not refreshing,” Corrine said. “All this is doing is making me sweaty and more irritable.”
“Jesus, how much more irritable can you get? You flew right past unbearable this afternoon. If you take it up another notch, I’m going to tranquilize you.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“You’re really pushing the friendship envelope.”
Corrine rolled her eyes. “Let’s get back inside in the AC before I melt. I’m not good with heat.”
“Please. Talk to me when your ovaries call it quits. Last week, I emptied my entire deep freezer and sat inside. Half of my shrimp thawed out and I spent the rest of the night cooking it all. I’ve given casseroles to half the neighborhood, and I don’t even like casserole. Or my neighbors.”
Corrine crossed the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. She stood there for a while. “Hey, this works,” she said. “I bet the freezer was even better.”
“If this crap doesn’t go away soon, I’m going to look into buying one of those cryo tanks. I could probably fund my retirement renting it out to the neighborhood wives. If you ever come out of there, will you bring me a Diet Coke?”
Corrine grabbed two Diet Cokes and closed the refrigerator. She plopped back onto her stool and slid one of the cans across the bar to Eleonore. “What are we doing?” she asked.
Eleonore rubbed the can across her forehead. “What do you mean? We’re trying to figure out who this girl is that Clancy sold.”
“But does it really matter?”
Eleonore frowned and lowered the bottle. “That seems a really strange question, especially coming from you.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Corrine blew out a breath, frustration getting the better of her. “Of course the girl matters, but knowing who she is won’t tell us where she is now. Even if someone saw Clancy take her, it doesn’t help us. We already know that Clancy had her.”
“Her parents need to know.”
“Even though they’re the likely reason she was on the street in the first place?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Well, the answer sucks.”
Eleonore nodded. “What if someone saw the girl after Clancy sold her? It’s a long shot, but maybe someone saw her in a car, thinking she was asleep. Or maybe the guy checked into a hotel, or ran a stop sign. Yeah, it’s so thin, it’s practically invisible, but if we can identify her, and the police release her information, then someone might report seeing her.”
“If her face is plastered all over the news, he’ll just kill her sooner.”
“Maybe that would be better than the alternative,” Eleonore said quietly.
Corrine didn’t want to think about the alternative. It was far too close to home. “Shaye came to see you today, right?”
“Yes.”
“I assume she told you about finding the house and remembering?”
“She did.”
Corrine looked across the bar at her friend. “I’m scared. Scared to death for her. What if she remembers everything and can’t handle it?
What if she figures out where she was held captive, but he’s no longer there? What if he gets away? How will she live with that? Everything rushing back in and knowing he’s still out there?”
“I don’t suppose it’s going to help you any for me to say I’m worried too.”
“Actually, it does. I’ve been feeling kinda crazy.”
“You’re not crazy and you’re not being overprotective. You have valid reasons for your concerns—all of them. Stop beating yourself up over this. There’s nothing you can do except what you’re already doing. We all wish we could do more, but the reality is, our hands are tied. Either the police catch a break or Shaye remembers. Those are the only two ways I see this resolving.”
“Either way, Shaye will end up reliving it. Even if the police beat her to it, the fact that she’s remembering her time with her mother means it’s all likely to come back.”
“That woman was not her mother,” Eleonore said. “You are, and you’re a damned fine one.”
Corrine forced a smile. “Will you marry me, Eleonore?”
“Where’s the ring? Never mind, I don’t need a ring. You’re the best offer I’ve had in a while. But I’m keeping my last name and I won’t pick out china with you. You have horrible taste in dinnerware.”
Now Corrine smiled for real. “We’re going to get through this, right?”
“Count on it.”
16
Shaye watched as Jackson activated the elevator with his room card. The meal had been great but with every bite, her anxiety had increased a tiny bit more. Whatever Detective Beaumont had to tell her was serious enough that he’d insisted on this level of secrecy. That worried her on so many levels. Beaumont was a highly experienced and decorated cop. He was hardly the type to be an alarmist.
The floors seemed to creep by, but finally the elevator stopped on Beaumont’s floor. They got out and headed for his room. As they walked, Jackson kept glancing over at her. She knew he was worried about why Beaumont had wanted to meet with them and under strange circumstances, but he’d tried really hard to keep things casual during their meal, practically carrying the conversation at some points.
They located the room and Jackson looked at her, as if to ask “are you ready?” She nodded and he rapped on the door. A second later, the door swung open and Detective Beaumont motioned them inside.
He had more silver than before. In fact, he was almost entirely silver now, but he hadn’t let himself go in retirement. His forearms still rippled with muscle and the pot belly that so many men his age developed was nowhere in sight. He stared at Shaye for several seconds, then shook his head.
“You’re even more lovely in person than on television,” he said. “And tough to boot. Private investigator. You’re going to need all that tough and those smarts.”
“It’s good to see you again, Detective Beaumont,” Shaye said and gave him a quick hug.
He looked both pleased and slightly uncomfortable with the hug. “Call me Harold. I’m out of the detective business, at least when it comes to payroll. Can’t take the cop out of the man, though.”
Harold looked over at Jackson and extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of good things about your work. You’re making a name for yourself down at the department.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jackson said. “That’s a huge compliment coming from someone with your record.”
“Well, now that the mutual lovefest is over,” Harold said, “let’s get down to business. I had an extra chair brought up here.”
He stepped out of the entry and into the sleeping area. Three chairs were on the far side of the room next to a window that had the drapes drawn. A bottle of whiskey sat on a small table nearby. “Anyone want a drink?” Harold asked.
Shaye and Jackson both shook their heads.
“If you don’t mind,” Harold said, “I’m going to pour one for myself. The last several days have been strange and more than a little hectic.”
“I imagine they must have been, given all the precautions for this meeting,” Shaye said.
Harold poured himself a drink, sat, and took a big sip of the whiskey. “I’ll give you a little background, then I’ll get to the reason I’m here. First off, I’ve been following the Clancy case and I probably don’t have to tell either of you that I have some friends in the department who fill me in on some of the things that the news doesn’t carry.”
He looked at Shaye. “I know about them finding your biological mother, and I know she sold you to Clancy.” He shook his head, clearly disgusted. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about that. I knew nothing good was buried in your past, but I never imagined something this evil. I don’t use that word lightly, but this Clancy situation trumps anything I’ve seen in decades of police work. It made me sick to find out that you were a part of it.”
“Thank you,” Shaye said quietly.
“I know about the girl Clancy sold to that monster last month, too,” Harold said. “So the many layers of urgency in this case are really clear to me.” He looked at Jackson. “I understand you’re working on that with Grayson?”
“As much as we can work on it with nothing to go on,” Jackson said.
“Well, I don’t know how much help I can be,” Harold said, “but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to give you anything I can.”
“I appreciate any help you can offer,” Jackson said.
Harold nodded. “First, I need to explain why I’m here. To do that I need to take you back a bit, so you understand what happened this week.”
He took another drink and sat silent for several seconds, then started speaking again. “That night we found Shaye was one of the worst of my career. And you can bet, I did everything I could to figure out where you’d been held and by whom, but we had practically nothing to go on.”
“I’ve read the files many times,” Jackson said. “You pursued every line of investigation that was available and many that weren’t. If there was something you could have done and didn’t, I haven’t put my finger on it.”
Harold nodded. “We did everything we could, but eventually, time passed and with no leads, the case went cold and after a couple months, it was shoved into a box and sent to the warehouse for storage with all the others. About a year later, when they started scanning the old documents, I pulled the file up again. I figured a bit of time had passed and maybe something would jump out at me that hadn’t back then.”
“Makes sense,” Jackson said.
Harold leaned toward them. “And that’s when I discovered parts of the file were missing.”
Jackson’s eyes widened as Shaye sat upright. “What?” she asked.
Harold nodded. “I went down to the warehouse and asked about it. They said some of the paperwork stored had been damaged by a sprinkler malfunction before it could be scanned. That explanation would have worked if the entire file was destroyed, but explain to me how a sprinkler could ruin some of the paperwork in a box and not the rest of it?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Jackson said.
“So I asked to see the original files,” Harold said. “I thought maybe they did a poor job scanning and missed some items. They looked for a while and couldn’t find the box. Finally, they decided that it might have been misplaced or accidentally destroyed along with old administrative paperwork that they no longer needed to keep.”
“That’s a pretty big screwup,” Jackson said.
Harold nodded. “Monumental.”
“What was missing from the scanned files?” Jackson asked.
“Some pictures taken at the hospital for one,” Harold said. “Specifically, a picture of the pentagram on Shaye’s back. And the statement I gave the night we found Shaye, plus some personal notes I made while we were investigating. My official reports were still there, but you know how you sometimes add your thoughts or feelings on things.”
“You just don’t put those thoughts in the official report,” Jackson said.
&n
bsp; “Exactly,” Harold said. “Hunches were always considered a positive thing in police work by other cops, but administration frowned on having those type of things in official records. They didn’t want people to think we were running willy-nilly or something. Stupid, if you ask me, because a hunch has been the catalyst for cops breaking some of their biggest cases, but you know how it is with people who never did the job.”
“Did you report the missing information?” Shaye asked.
“Told Bernard about it as soon as I discovered it. He poked around a bit and came back to me with the same stories I’d heard from the others. Since there didn’t seem to be any good reason for it other than the story he was told, he dismissed it.”
“And you’re sure it couldn’t have been just like they said—a sprinkler leak and an accidental destruction?” Jackson asked. “It would be highly coincidental but it wouldn’t be the first time something that strange has happened without an undercurrent pushing it through.”
“I suppose I thought it was possible at the time,” Harold said, “or I dismissed it since there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But it never sat right with me, and when things don’t sit right with me, there’s always been a reason. Still, I had no proof of wrongdoing and no way of getting any, so I let it go. Then I heard about Clancy and the journals. I had a feeling the dam was about to burst. That’s when it started.”
“What started?” Shaye asked.
“Someone has been watching me,” Harold said. “I never saw him, mind you, but I could feel him there, somewhere in the woods near my house. Felt it twice, once during the day and once at night. After the second time, I knew something was wrong. I found his footprints where he’d stood in the bushes across the road from my place. Only one reason to stand there and that’s to watch my house.”
“And you think it’s because of me?” Shaye asked.
“I’m sorry to say it,” Harold said, “but that’s the first thought that hit me, and the longer I chewed on it the more it bothered me.” Harold leaned forward in his chair. “Think about it. The guy who took you has gotten away clean for nine years. Then Clancy goes down and the journals are big news. But the news is also clearly stating that they’re in code.”
