by Eryn Scott
She debated calling out to the customer to tell them she had closed but figured one more sale couldn’t hurt. Sliding from the stool, she turned to face the customer, but was instead met by the sight of her twin.
“Hey,” she said, relieved. “Hold on. Let me lock this before we get anyone else walking in.” She walked past him and clicked the lock into place.
“Luke not here yet?” Paul asked.
“Luke?” Hadley shook her head.
“He asked me to meet him here. Said it was urgent.”
Hadley blinked, looking around the shop as if he might’ve slipped in without her noticing. “No, I haven’t seen him all day.” He had sent her a few cute thinking of you texts throughout the day but that didn’t shed any light on why he would ask Paul to meet him here.
Luckily, Luke chose that moment to walk through the back door of the jam kitchen. Hadley felt better at the sight of him—that was, until she looked more closely at his expression. Something was up.
“Everything okay?” she asked, stepping forward.
“Yeah.” His eyes, narrowed in concern before they flicked to her and softened. “Sorry, I’m still trying to figure out what I just saw.” He rubbed his fingers over his face.
“Where?” Paul asked.
“At the gym.”
“You went back?” Hadley rubbed her sore arms. She’d barely been able to get out of bed this morning, let alone go work out again.
Luke nodded. “I remember him telling us about his trainer coming on Thursdays, and I figured it was the last possible way for us to get any confirmation on his alibi.”
“We already talked with the trainer,” Paul said, frowning.
Pulling up a stool, Luke sat deliberately as if his whole body ached. After three days of workouts with Hunk, it probably did.
“I’m not so sure you did.” Luke sighed as Hadley and Paul pulled out stools and sat as well. “So I wasted time after my workout. I cooled down on the treadmill, took a long shower, even shaved, so I could overlap with the time the trainer showed up. I really thought I would miss him, but he showed up right before I was going to give in and head home.”
Hadley leaned her elbows on the counter, interested in the story, but also tired from her day.
“I made small talk with him in the locker room, asked if he was there for a personal training session with Hunk too. I’d just gotten through mine, blah, blah. So the guy says he’s there for a session, but he’s the trainer. I acted surprised and asked if they had a competition coming up. He said the big one is in less than a month, so they needed to get back at it.” Luke slowed down, pairing the last three words with widened eyes.
“Back at it?” Paul tipped his head to one side.
“Like after the break they took Tuesday and Wednesday?” Hadley guessed.
Luke said, “No such luck. I asked what he meant, and he said he’d just gotten back from a week on the East Coast.”
Hadley exhaled. Paul’s jaw clenched tight.
“Hunk gave us a fake trainer name?” he asked.
Luke held up a hand. “Hold on, it gets even better. So I grab my stuff and head out to the reception desk. I’m in the middle of asking Jenny if Hunk has more than one trainer, when I spot something in Hunk’s office behind her. He has one of those wire trashcans and inside sat a USB drive that had been crunched. Who destroys a USB like that? You could just erase the files. There’s no need to crush it.”
“Wait, what did Jenny say about the trainer?” Hadley’s mind worked overtime.
“Oh, right. She said he only has one trainer and was adamant that he would never mess up his program by adding in someone else’s philosophy, etcetera.” Luke circled his hand in front of him.
“If his trainer was out of town, who was he working out with last Friday?” Hadley murmured, almost to herself.
“Exactly.” Luke touched the tip of his nose. “And is the destroyed USB the one he received from Laney when she started blackmailing him, or could it be the one he found her leaving for Simone that day?”
“Or is it just a random USB?” Paul added.
Hadley and Luke looked over at him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Sorry to burst your bubble, kids, but it’s much more plausible that it’s nothing.” Paul stood. “I will investigate the fact that he lied about his alibi. Thank you for getting that information. I’ve gotta get back, but we’ll talk soon.”
“Did you find a match to that corner in any of the blackmail photographs?” Hadley asked before he reached the door.
Paul shook his head. “Nope. It’s not the same color scheme. I’d say whatever pictures they had were just random pictures. Plus, we got confirmation that Guy was where he said he was that afternoon.”
“Which was?” Luke asked, not having heard yet.
“All the way up in Cascade Ridge at his office. They have him on camera.” Paul shrugged. “Sorry, guys. I think the mayor and Simone seem pretty innocent at this point.” With that, Paul left.
“He’s in a great mood.” Luke let out a low whistle once the back door closed behind Paul.
Hadley exhaled. “He’s frustrated, and I don’t think he’s been sleeping.”
“I know he doesn’t believe it’s anything, but I have a weird feeling about that USB, Had.” Luke’s blue eyes locked on hers.
Knowing something about gut feelings, Hadley nodded. “What’s your feeling telling you?”
“Well, one reason we thought Hunk was off the hook was that we learned he was making more from his gym than his sponsorships. Because the blackmail wouldn’t have hurt him financially, at least not as much as we first assumed, it took away most his motive.”
“Right.”
“But that destroyed USB shows me that Hunk has a lot of rage associated with the blackmail. What if his motive to get rid of Laney wasn’t about money as much as it was about power?”
Hadley considered it for a moment.
“Hunk’s all about his image. He’s also all about being the toughest and biggest in the room at all times,” Luke added.
“That’s true.”
Hunk had spent their whole session yesterday showing them how much stronger he was and boasting that he had the most successful business downtown.
“And if he’s got an anger problem, he’s likely to fly off the handle and do something rash, especially if it threatened his image.”
“Still”—Hadley tapped the toe of her sneaker on the jam kitchen floor—“if he were the killer, why didn’t he erase his files? It’s the same problem I have with thinking Owen did this. They scrub everything but the files incriminating them?”
“What if the killer wasn’t the one who erased the files? What if Laney was just paranoid and got rid of anything that linked her with CPU Knight?”
“It’s possible.”
“Right.” Luke nodded and smiled.
Hadley narrowed her eyes. It was his mischievous I’ve got a plan smile. “What’s going on here?” She motioned to his lips.
He wet them, stalling for time. “I may have overheard Hunk ranting to his trainer about someone who’d ‘made a big mistake crossing him’ and how he was going to ‘make that punk pay tonight.’”
Hadley bit the inside of her cheek as she listened. “And what are you going to do about it?”
“I want to follow him.” Luke’s eyes gleamed. “Paul told us to dig around for more information, right?”
“Yeah, he said dig, not get yourself killed.” Hadley rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead. “Say you follow him and he is a strangling murderer. You’re strong, Luke, but you can’t single-handedly take down a world-class body builder with a steroidal rage problem.”
“I don’t know. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” He cleared his throat. “I won’t have to unless something terrible goes down. And if it does, you saw the man try to run yesterday. I can get away from that hulking mass.” Seeing Hadley was not convinced, Luke added, “Look, I just want to tail the gu
y, see what he’s up to. It’s probably nothing, but if it is, I might save a life tonight.”
Hadley chuckled. “Well, when you put it that way, Captain America …” She grinned over at him. “Okay, but two conditions. One, you keep Paul on speed dial, just in case anything happens.”
“Done.” Luke dipped his head.
“And two ... I’m coming with you.”
19
They drove Hadley’s small hatchback because it was less conspicuous than Luke’s big truck. Hunk lived a few blocks behind the gym, on Maple, and by waiting at the end of Main Street, Hadley and Luke could see if Hunk or his truck left either location.
Hadley yawned. It was almost eleven, and they still hadn’t seen any movement.
“Maybe he was showing off in front of his trainer,” she suggested.
Luke sighed but continued to watch the street.
“We’ve already been here for an hour, and the only thing that’s changed is my patience.” She began picking at the nail polish on her left hand.
Luke’s hand closed over hers, stopping the nervous habit. “You know. There are a few things we could do in a dark car to pass the time.” He leaned over and kissed her.
She leaned closer, liking this plan a lot more than his last one.
But then his lips were gone.
“Hey,” he said, moving his head to the left. “There he is.”
Luke pointed to headlights shining out from Hunk’s driveway. By the time Hadley looked, the truck drove away. Turning on her car, Luke kept the headlights off as he began to follow Hunk.
“I feel like you’re going to need headlights at some point,” Hadley said, watching Luke peer out at the dark streets. “This is a little crazy.”
Hunk turned right up ahead and Luke nodded, clicking on the hatchback’s headlights. He took the same right turn onto River Road.
They glanced around.
He was gone.
“Where’d the truck go?” Hadley whispered. “Also, why am I whispering?”
Luke chuckled. “I don’t know the answer to either of your questions. Didn’t he just turn?”
Glimpsing headlights to their left, she pointed. “There he is. He’s on the road up to the old warehouse.”
As Luke followed, Hadley leaned forward in anticipation. Luke stayed far enough back that Hunk wouldn’t see their headlights. There were no streetlights on the road, and it was too dangerous to drive with no guide. Luckily, there was only one place to go on this road, so they wouldn’t lose him.
“Hey, take this road coming up to your right,” Hadley said, pointing to an even smaller dirt road, hidden by overgrown underbrush.
“That’s a road?”
She nodded. “Trust me. It leads around to the back.”
Luke turned the car onto the road. Hadley held the door as the little hatchback bumped its way along the uneven path, pushing foliage out of its way as it went.
The warehouse came into view.
“We should still park out here in the trees, to be safe,” she said.
Luke nodded and turned off the headlights, putting the car in park. As they got out, the earlier warmth of the day was nowhere to be found. Hadley shivered, but she wasn’t sure if it was more from the cold wind winding its way through the dark trees or the eerie sensation that they were being watched.
“Do you think he can see us from here?” Luke asked, obviously having the same feeling as Hadley.
“I don’t know. I guess we’d better hurry,” she whispered as they scurried up to the back of the warehouse.
All the doors and windows had been removed long ago, so it was a concrete shell of a building at that point. Hunk had left his truck headlights on and kicked rocks out front when they peeked through an opening. Slipping inside, they crouched behind a wall.
Hunk kicked at more rocks, the sound of them hitting the concrete echoed off the walls, making Hadley flinch each time. Her thighs also began to burn from crouching after a few minutes. She shot a worried look at Luke, who grimaced and repositioned his feet. It seemed as if his muscles felt just as sore.
About to suggest they give it five more minutes, the sound of tires crunching on gravel met her ears. A second set of headlights flooded the interior of the building.
“Wasn’t sure you would show.” Hunk’s voice rang through the place, making it sound as if he were standing right next to Hadley, a feeling that made her shiver again.
There was a nervous chuckle. “I wasn’t sure I would either. But you made it clear in your message you’d find me if I didn’t. So here I am.”
She recognized that guy’s voice. From where she wasn’t sure. Hadley hugged closer to the wall, making sure she wasn’t visible.
“I know what you were doing at my gym the other day,” Hunk said. And even with the way he dragged out certain words for emphasis, Hadley still found his statement wordy and difficult to follow.
“Yeah, I was doing what you hired me to do,” said the other guy.
Hadley leaned forward, trying to see around her side of the wall, but she could only see their shoes: Hunks boots and a pair of sneakers on the other guy.
“If that’s all you were doing, why was Vinnie from Ridge Fitness doing the same workout today that I did when you were there?” Hunk asked.
“Uh … because he owns a gym, and all your guys’ workouts are the same?” offered the other guy in a sarcastic tone Hadley felt was brave, considering the large angry man he addressed.
That was it, Hadley needed to determine who this was. She rose to a standing position behind the wall, then peeked out, hoping to see more than shoes.
“You getting smart with me, kid?” Hunk asked as the two men came into view for Hadley.
She inhaled quickly. She had recognized the voice.
The young man standing across from Hunk was Michael, the twentysomething McKay had brought on to help recover the files on Laney’s computer.
He raised his hands and took a step back, fear showing in his shifty eyes. “Look, man, you hired me to fix a computer. That’s what I did.”
“Why should I believe you?” Hunk cracked his knuckles.
Leaning back behind the wall, Hadley glanced over at Luke who was standing now too and turning back from his side, obviously having peeked at the same time she had. He tipped his chin up in a silent question: You recognize him? Hadley nodded, then turned back to listen.
“I work on computers,” Michael said with a chuckle. “Do I look like I go to the gym? I’ve never even set foot in Ridge Fitness. I didn’t tell anyone about your workout. I swear, man.”
After a few tense moments, Hunk sighed. “Okay. You’d better be telling me the truth. If I find out you were lying, I know how to find you.”
Hadley thought she heard Michael gulp. “Got it. I promise.”
Just then, there was a low howl in the distance. Goose bumps rose on Hadley’s arms. It must’ve had the same effect on the men because Hunk said, “Remember, I’m watching you,” and a car door slammed shut. His truck rumbled to life.
Another car door closed, and that engine started too. After a few moments, the headlights disappeared down the road. The darkness felt positively inky without the light from the cars, and Hadley felt extra aware of every scrape and crack sounding around them.
Luke grabbed her hand, and her shoulders relaxed.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, even though Hadley was sure they were alone now.
She pulled out her phone and lit their way with her flashlight, feeling better once she could see their immediate surroundings.
Back inside the car, Luke locked the doors, and they both let out sighs.
“So Hunk was simply worried about someone stealing his workouts?” Luke said the words as if he still couldn’t believe that’s what they’d witnessed.
Hadley nodded. “Intense lengths just to keep a silly workout secret.”
“And he didn’t hurt the kid.” Luke’s shoulders relaxed before his eyes flashed up to meet he
rs, seeming to remember that she’d recognized him. “Who was he?”
“He lives up in Cascade Ridge. Some tech genius McKay uses to help him on cases.”
At the words “tech genius” Luke cocked his eyebrow in disbelief.
Hadley ignored him and said, “He seems like a good guy. Must go around helping a lot of people with computer problems.”
“Which means Hunk’s super paranoid.” Luke rubbed his hands over his face, suddenly looking tired.
“I guess.” Hadley shrugged, glad no one had been hurt but disappointed they hadn’t gotten more concrete proof on Hunk tonight.
Luke started the car, turned on the headlights, and pulled the car forward until he emerged from the woods and could turn around.
“The fact that he’s super paranoid and prone to fits of rage mean he’s still a suspect, right?” Hadley asked as they bumped down the dirt road.
“Right,” Luke said.
“So Simone and Guy are out, unless Guy hired someone to off Laney … before he even knew they would be blackmailed,” Hadley said, summarizing aloud. “And Owen had both means and opportunity, but his motive’s weak, in my opinion.”
Luke nodded in agreement.
“He did try to destroy her computer, though, so maybe I’m being too easy on him. Hunk had means, opportunity, and a short fuse that might cause him to overreact, like tonight. Poor Michael shook in his sneakers, all because Hunk had a hunch.”
Chuckling, Luke repeated, “Hunk had a hunch.”
But Hadley didn’t feel like laughing. “But both Hunk and Owen have too big of hands, don’t you think? Or it could be someone completely different, that we don’t even know about.” The whole case felt overwhelming and unsolvable.
Luke pulled the car into Hadley’s driveway. He turned it off, and they sat there in silence for a second. “Sorry, Had. This is frustrating. We’ll get to the bottom of it, but not tonight. I’m beat, and you’ve been overworking yourself as well. Let’s sleep on it and reconvene in the morning.”
Hadley peeled herself out of the car. Luke walked her to her front door. The thought of her bed and the three cats cuddled up with her made her feel better.
