It wasn’t adding up. There had to be something somewhere. Some clue to where she was and why she was taken. I grabbed my laptop and searched for information on King and the hate groups. There was so much online I didn’t even know where to start. I wasn’t very tech savvy. It was something I’d avoided despite my friends’ derision. I didn’t do Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. But tonight, after I took a shower, I’d search Sasha’s social media accounts for clues and then Google the hell out of all my suspects.
Swallowing the last of my drink, I set aside my laptop and looked at the sky, watching white clouds floating past in the darkness lit up by a full moon.
In the shower, I let the hot water beat down on me, luxuriating in it. My body was alive, electric, tingling with desire. But not for James. For Bobby.
A dull ache filled in my gut whenever I thought about Bobby stomping out of my place.
With my hair wrapped in a white towel and nothing else on, I headed toward my living room where I’d left my phone. A tiny part of me wondered if there was some tiny drone out in the darkness filming me strutting around nude, but I had bigger things to worry about.
Picking up my phone, I scrolled to my favorites and dialed Bobby. The ringing seemed like a rebuke. Then, too soon, it went to voicemail. Maybe it was better that way since I hadn’t planned what to say. I glanced at the clock. Ten at night. Didn’t he have to work in the morning? Jealousy like I’d never felt in my life surged through me. He was out with a girl. Or, God forbid, in bed with his new girlfriend. The thought made me hang up without leaving a message.
It was all my fault.
I was a jerk.
The buzzer from my doorman chirped and my heart jumped into my throat. Maybe Bobby was here. Downstairs. Right now. Maybe that’s why he didn’t answer his phone. He wanted to surprise me. I raced to the speaker by my door.
“Yes?”
“Miss Santella. You got a package here.”
My heart sunk.
“You want me to send it up? I can give it to Jose. He was going up there anyway to water the plants.”
“Sure.” I knew I sounded dejected. Because I was.
A few minutes later, I’d thrown on a robe and there was a knock at the door.
I handed Jose a twenty in exchange for the small cardboard box. It was the size of a grapefruit. I closed the door and took it to my kitchen counter. There wasn’t any address or marking on the box. Only some clear tape. I used a knife to slice through the tape and opened it.
Inside, a small black velvet jewelry box was nestled in Styrofoam peanuts.
What the hell? Despite myself, my childish romantic notions kicked in. Bobby sent me a piece of jewelry. He did love me.
My finger popped open the lid. I gasped and flung the box across the room, slumping on the floor. For a few seconds, I couldn’t figure out what the god-awful noise in my apartment was. Then I realized it was me screaming. I clamped my mouth shut.
The box held a ring, all right.
A tiny ring attached to a tiny brown toe with a tiny pink-painted toenail.
When I finally could breathe properly again, I retrieved the cardboard box. A little slip of white paper was folded inside. It had been below the velvet box.
I grabbed my big oven mitts so I wouldn’t leave fingerprints and opened it. The words were typed.
“We said no cops. You went to cops. Call them off. Now. Next time, it’s her head.”
Staring at the note, I couldn’t breathe. I had done this. It was my fault. Someone had been following me. I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. I’d blown it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I used my oven mitts to pick up the black velvet box, which had snapped close when I flung it across the room. Thank God. The thought of hunting for Sasha’s pinky toe somewhere in my apartment was unbearable. I put the box on the bookshelf in my living room. My hands were shaking like mad. My blood pounded in my ears and my face felt icy cold.
My first instinct was to call 911. But I couldn’t go to the police. Going to the police was why Sasha’s toe was in my living room.
I glanced at the clock. Eleven. I had nineteen hours to find Sasha before James took the kidnapping to his sergeant, which I was now certain would mean her death. I had to get my act together and do whatever it took to find Sasha.
I needed to get James off the case. Or at least pretend like I had. I reached for my phone. At first I hesitated. What if they had some tap on my phone? But then I shook it off. It was more likely someone had followed me to the precinct and to James’ apartment.
Grabbing my phone, I shot James a text: “Sorry. I suck at relationships. Platonic is best. Any luck on the plate?”
It was the most pathetic apology ever, but at least this time I had apologized.
The little bubbles showed he was typing. I braced myself for a flurry of angry words about what a cold-hearted bitch I was, but instead he had taken the higher ground.
“Fire and ice.”
I stared at the words for a minute before I realized he was talking about us and our chemistry. Oh yeah.
I texted a bitmoji of me with flames around me.
He texted back a bitmoji of him shivering.
I sent him a laughing-so-hard-crying bitmoji, which was the opposite of how I was feeling, and then typed, “The plate?”
“Retired woman-Indiana.”
“? So not Mayor?”
I watched the little bubbles showing he was typing.
“Don’t forget. Going to SGT at 6 p.m.”
Panic coursed through me. I made a decision and typed quickly. “Onto something. Should have her soon.”
“?”
I turned my phone on mute and set it down. It had taken all my willpower not to tell him about the pinky toe. I was so freaked out by it. Scared shitless for Sasha. Not telling the police went against all my instincts right then.
I decided that if things went south between now and noon, I would tell James about the toe and the threat. Or else I could lie. If I told him about the toe, the police investigation would take off like gangbusters and Sasha could very well end up dead. If I lied, I could stall.
For a second I considered calling Dante. His fiancé, Matt, had connections. Big time connections in Washington. Maybe it was time to look past our little corner of the world for answers. But would Matt know any dirt about the mayor? Maybe not. Besides, I knew Dante was probably asleep. He went to bed early every night so he could be awake at four in the morning to oversee the breakfast prep at his restaurant.
Giving my laptop a glance, I decided the pinky toe had been a game changer. I needed someone who knew more about online searching than how to google Thai takeout.
I PULLED UP THE COLLAR of my All Saints motorcycle jacket as I stepped off the bus near Market Street into the fog surrounding the Forgotten Island. The area was almost always enveloped in its own island of fog, which I’d heard was how it got its name.
The streets were deserted and most of the lights were broken. Long shadows stretched across the streets. I hurried through the area, eager to get over to the Whoa-Man.
This time I was able to avoid the fire escape because when I walked up, the drone was hovering above me. I looked up and saw Danny’s big red head hanging out the window.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said as if he were expecting me.
“Buzz me in,” I demanded and without waiting for an answer headed under the small awning at the front door. Within thirty seconds the door clicked and I shoved it open. I took the stairs two at a time. The clock was ticking. Eighteen and a half hours left.
When I got to 10D and tried the handle it was locked. I knocked. And waited. I heard shuffling inside. I pressed my ear to the door and heard him swear.
Then the door flew open and I nearly fell inside.
I glanced around. How cute. He had cleaned up after he saw me downstairs. The closet inside the door was partly open and I could see he’d thrown clothes and food
containers in there.
This time, I looked around his apartment as I followed him to the wall of computers. He had little bobble heads of most of the San Francisco Giant’s players and a bookshelf full of Star Wars action figures, some still in the box.
“How old are you, anyway?”
A flush crept up the pale, freckled skin of his neck.
“Seventeen.”
“Aw, you’re just a baby.” I smiled.
He looked down.
“A really, smart baby. Like a genius. A prodigy.” I was making things worse. His cheeks were now bright red.
“Listen. I need your help again. It’s really bad.”
He looked over at me. I’m sure he heard the fear in my voice.
“They cut off my friend’s pinky toe and sent it to me because they know I’m dealing with a cop. He’s kept the lid on it, not telling his supervisors, but he is going to blow it out of the water at six tomorrow night. I need your help with a couple things.”
He nodded, serious.
“I need to find out all the dirt on the mayor I can. He’s somehow connected to all this. And I need to figure out who is following me. I thought maybe your drone could help with that last part and your tech savvy with the first.”
He clamped his mouth together. He didn’t seem convinced so I reached into my pocket where I had a wad of cash.
He held up his palm. Like his head, it was huge. He could palm my face.
“Wait.”
I waited.
“I like to work on the barter system.”
My body instantly tensed.
He spoke fast. “My petition for emancipation is on Wednesday. But I’m having trouble providing proof of income,” he gestured at his bank of computers. “It’s all under the table. I can’t report it. Can’t show proof.”
I tilted my head, listening.
“And,” he said, “You throw around cash like money isn’t a thing for you.”
“It’s not.” I said.
“Can you come with me and say I work for you?”
“To court?”
He gulped and nodded.
“Sure.” I didn’t hesitate.
“You’ll lie to a judge?” He seemed surprised.
“Yeah. Seems like a good cause.”
His big shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you. I can’t go back to my parent’s house.”
“Understood.”
His face reddened a bit and he turned back to his keyboard. “What’s Mayor McCheese’s social security number?”
“No clue.” Uh oh. This wasn’t going to be easy.
He kept typing and I sighed with relief. When he wasn’t looking, I put two hundred bucks on his table. I’d still show up Wednesday, but dude was doing me a service. I may be willing to lie to a judge for a good cause but I wasn’t a freeloader. I paid for my goods.
Danny pushed back from the computer. “Here’s the pre-primary report—money he’s got so far.”
I leaned over. It looked like a photo copy of a document that had been scanned. It said, “Campaign finance report of receipts and expenditures.”
The first page showed that Mayor Evans had already received more than $500,000 nine months before the primary. Danny scrolled down to the actual spreadsheet listing donor names and amounts. Everything was sideways, so we tilted our heads. “You should look for the big donors first, right?”
“Yup,” I said.
About half of the donations were $1,000, the maximum an individual could donate.
“Can you print this out?”
While the sheets came out, I dug around in my bag. I extracted a hot pink highlighter and marked the thousand dollar donations looking for some common thread.
There were a few that stood out. AKKI Industries. DKKI Corp. FKKI Construction. HKKI Specialist. LKKI Properties. PKKI Real Estate. RKKI Holdings. MKKI Imports. KKKI Trust. ZKKI LLC.
The letter before the KKI made sure they weren’t lumped alphabetically together. Between them all, they added up to ten thousand dollars. Not a lot. But still.
Then I noticed another similar group. These ten donors followed the same pattern. But instead of KKI, the common factor was KJR. And there were more. In all, if they were all related, they added up to about $100,000. That was nothing to sneeze at.
By the time I looked up, it was three in the morning. Fifteen hours left.
Danny handed me a cup of coffee. At first I turned up my nose at it, but I was desperate for caffeine so I took a sip. “Not bad.”
I flipped to the back of the papers, to the expenditures. Boring stuff. But I paused on rent. Why did the mayor pay rent on five different places in the Tenderloin?
“How do we get the addresses for these rentals?” I asked. Danny was slumped on his couch playing Minecraft on his TV.
He stood and stretched. “I’m on it.” He ambled over to the computers and typed on one of the keyboards.
“Why do you have so many computers anyway?”
He looked at me for a second and then said, “I told you. My business.”
“Okay.”
I sucked down my coffee and used the bathroom. When I walked back into the main room, Danny held out a sheet with seven addresses. Six had the mayor’s name by them. One, in Berkeley, said Kraig King. I shot a glance at Danny. Had I even mentioned King to him? I wasn’t sure I had. I scanned the addresses again. They meant nothing to me. They were all in San Francisco on streets I recognized. Maybe I would need to go visit all of them.
“Can I use one of these computers?”
“Sure.”
I sat down. Then noticed one of the six with the mayor’s name on it had a star. “What’s this?”
“His house in the avenues. His primary residence. Where he lives, you know, with his wife and kids.”
He wouldn’t be hiding Sasha there. I started on the other ones. While, I didn’t know much about searching online I was an expert with Google maps. To my surprise, the rest were all here in the Tenderloin.
“Wow. The mayor is investing in the Tenderloin? Or at least renting spaces here for campaign activity?”
That explained his speedy arrival at Café Katrina’s the night of the protest. Or maybe it didn’t. “Want to go on a field trip?”
“Not really.” He yawned.
“Do you think your drone could follow me as I check out these buildings?”
He shrugged.
For some reason, I didn’t want to do it alone, even though I had my gun in my holster.
The Whoa-Man was the Tenderloin area furthest from my place. I could hit all the addresses on my way back to Russian Hill. I marked them in order so I wouldn’t backtrack on my walk home.
I’d hit one address in the Gimlet, one in Delicious Fields, one in the Panhandle, one in the Rambles, and the last one in the Forgotten Island.
Danny was already fiddling with his drone. It took center stage on his huge dining room table in the middle of the room.
“The battery’s almost dead.”
“Crap.”
“If you walk fast, it might hold out.”
“Okay. I can do that.” I grabbed my bag, shoved the papers in it and headed to the door. “Thanks a lot. I’ll be there Wednesday morning.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
When I stepped outside, I looked up and saw Danny leaning out the window. The drone was in the air nearby. I blew him a kiss. I could practically see him blush from ten stories down.
The streets were silent so I could hear the slight buzz of the drone above me although I couldn’t see it.
The first address, about two blocks away, led me to a small building in the Gimlet. The shades were drawn but a large “Evans for Mayor” sign took up most of the window. It looked official. And like a campaign office.
The second address in Delicious Fields was a little more confusing. It was a small four-story building. I was ninety-nine percent sure the apartments inside were SRO’s. Cheap little single residency occupancy apartments. Could you wri
te off the rental of an apartment for your campaign staff? I didn’t have a clue. It seemed a little odd. I glanced down at my sheet. Yeah, the mayor had paid only $800 for the first three months of this year. Suspicious.
The next address in the Panhandle was another apartment building that looked like another SRO. Did the mayor have a string of kept women in the Tenderloin?
The Panhandle was my old neighborhood, soon to be my home again. Passing Café Katrina, I wanted nothing more than to swing in and give Katrina a hug and down a bourbon, but every minute counted. James was going to his sergeant in mere hours.
I stopped to peruse the construction on my new home. I couldn’t wait to move back. From the outside, the place looked finished, but when I’d gone by the other day, they were still working on the interior. For every tenant who had lived in the building before it burned down, I’d doubled the size of their original apartment. For my penthouse apartment, I was having the contractor put in some special touches.
Like my old place, there would be a staircase to the roof within my apartment. But the door would be hidden. I would train Django how to use his nose to trigger the door if he needed to do his business on the roof when I wasn’t home.
In any case, the roof was going to be my safe haven. It would contain fruit trees and a garden much like the rooftop being designed at Swanson Place. But my roof would also have had a few special turrets I could fire from in case all hell broke loose in the city. You never knew.
In my penthouse, I had smart windows installed on all three sides. The windows not only had tint but also were made of bulletproof glass. The open layout of my floor was mainly so I had a big room to do my karate. As soon as I moved in I was going to start training again hard. That would also mean giving up booze and smoking for a while. Living in my Russian Hill apartment had led to me falling back on bad habits.
My new place also had reinforced steel doors and a safe room tucked away in case someone did manage to get through that door. Unlikely. My safe room was grand central for the building’s security system that would allow me to put the entire building on lock down with the flick of a button. More than a dozen surveillance cameras were strategically hidden around the exterior and roof. Standing on the sidewalk, even though I had planned where each security camera was mounted, I smiled when I confirmed I couldn’t spot them.
Gia and the Forgotten Island (Gia Santella Crime Thriller Book 2) Page 10
