by Lisa Olsen
“I was trying to get into Neil’s office to see if I could find anything. You?”
“The same. They didn’t let you in there, did they?”
“No, my mistake was I stopped to ask where his office is. Oh, but now that you’re here we can get in easy,” Lexi brightened at the thought.
Ryan’s hands came up in a halting gesture. “Whoa, now hold on a sec; what makes you think I’m taking you with me?”
That brought her up short. “Because two heads are better than one, and I might notice something you would ordinarily overlook since I know Neil better than you do.” Best not to mention her ability, at least until after she got in the door. If he thought she was a fruitcake, more than likely he’d tell her to pound sand.
Ryan stood there, a skeptical look on his face, until she started to think he was going to tell her to forget it, but instead that elusive grin surfaced, “Come on,” he jerked his head towards the front entrance. “But stay quiet until we get past security.” Lexi hurried after him, flashing a private smile until they reached the doors and she put her best business face on.
Detective Ryan had no trouble getting past the receptionist. In fact, the girl even abandoned her post, escorting them personally to Neil’s office on the second floor. From the way Jill stared at the handsome detective, Lexi could tell she was hoping he might pick her for a little one on one interrogation time. “You can pick up any phone and dial zero if you need anything,” Jill offered, hovering at the door which was thankfully unlocked.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Gabriel smiled back and Lexi felt a stab of irrational jealousy. He’d never smiled at her like that before… Damn him anyway for having such an appealing smile in the first place. Jill ate it up though and it was another few seconds before she wandered off and left them alone.
“You can go on after her if you want. I can look through the office if you want to continue your conversation.” A petulant note crept into Lexi’s voice against her best efforts to sound casual and she turned away to hide the scowl of self recrimination that followed.
“Didn’t your mama ever tell you it’s easier to draw flies with honey than vinegar?” Ryan stepped inside the office and shut the door behind them with a lopsided grin.
“Come to think of it, no, she never broached the catching of flies,” she pretended to consider. “But then again, she didn’t stick around to give me advice on much, so maybe she just didn’t have the time to get around to it.” Moving to the desk, Lexi eyed the chair with equal parts interest and disgust. It was probably her best bet for picking up on his last actions in the office, but after what she’d seen from the belt buckle, she was loathe to touch it. For the moment she left her gloves on to see what they could find the regular way. “Oh, did you bring any gloves to wear?” she gestured at his bare hands. Anything he touched would sully her ability to pick up Neil’s vibrations.
“I think I know how to search without disturbing evidence,” Ryan smirked, pulling a pencil from his pocket and using it to lift a sheaf of papers on the desk. “What’s the deal with you and the gloves anyway?”
Lexi’s gloved fingers twitched as she felt his eyes on them. “I wear them for protection,” not a lie. Without them she’d be on constant sensory overload. In her own room with her own things, Lexi was able to project her own energy onto her possessions, so she could sleep in her own bed and touch her own clothes without gloves; but any time they came in contact with anyone else, she had to start all over again.
“From germs?”
“No, not exactly…” Not quite ready to go there just yet, she changed the subject. “You never did tell me what you were doing here,” she pointed out, turning the pages back on the desk calendar with the tips of her gloves.
Ryan turned on the computer with the end of the pencil, waiting for it to boot up. “I got nowhere on the phone last night, it was like everyone he knew either wasn’t home or wasn’t picking up the phone. I had to come to San Jose to drop something off anyway, so I thought I’d swing by and check things out.”
Impressed, Lexi watched him at the computer. “I thought you were just telling Allie you’d make some calls to make her feel better.”
“I don’t make empty promises,” Gabriel looked up, meeting her gaze.
“I’ll have to remember that.” The corner of her mouth tugged up into a smile before she remembered to tell him what she found out after he left Allie’s place the night before. “Oh, I should tell you, I found out he’s been having an affair with someone who works here, a blonde named Monica, I have no idea what department she’s in.”
His brows rose at that. “She shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Did Allison tell you about her?”
“God no, she has no idea. At least I don’t think she knows. I found it out while looking through Neil’s things in the bedroom.” Not a lie.
“I wonder if this Monica came in to work today?” his smile reappeared.
“I wonder,” her answering smile faltered when her cellphone buzzed in her pocket. “Oh crap, I forgot about Maddie! Excuse me,” Lexi turned away, picking up the call.
“I didn’t know if you were getting roughed up by security and if I should try and break you out of there,” her housemate teased.
Lexi felt about an inch high for completely forgetting about her waiting out there in the parking lot. “Sorry Maddie, I forgot to tell you, I ran into Detective Ryan and he got us into Neil’s office.”
“Oh, the cute one who came out to take the report?”
“That’s the one,” Lexi’s eyes flicked over to where he stood before the computer, his face scrunched up in dismay at the prompt for a password. Too bad he was probably going to write her off as psycho as soon as he found out about her gift; he really was cute.
“So do you need me to stick around then or do you have things well in hand?” Maddie asked, drawing Lexi’s attention back to the phone call.
“Do you have some place you have to go?”
“I thought I might head up to Valley Fair Mall since I’m up here. I could swing back and pick you up later?” It was a well known fact that once Maddie got to the mall it was unlikely she’d be done shopping anytime soon and Lexi gave Ryan a speculative look.
“Hold on a sec, Maddie,” Lexi turned back to the detective. “Hey, would you be able to give me a ride back to town?” she gave him her best smile.
“Ah… yeah sure, no problem,” he answered distractedly, eyes still on the computer screen as if the password might magically appear.
“You’re off the hook Maddie; I’ll catch a ride with him.”
“Okay, call me later though, tell me what you find.”
“You got it, thanks again for the ride up here.”
“That’s okay; I like it when you owe me one for a change. Later gator.”
“Bye,” Lexi pocketed her phone, returning her attention to the task at hand. Somehow she had to get him out of the office so she could take a closer look at things. “Hey, why don’t you see if you can find his friend Larry while I finish looking around in here?”
“Larry Shaw, right?” Ryan replied, without consulting his notebook.
“Yeah, that’s him. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but he’s a big guy, kinda chunky, short blonde crew cut and a mustache. His face always looks really red like he’s been out in the sun for too long, you can’t miss him.”
“I’m sure I can always ask the lovely Jill for help in finding him if I get lost,” he replied mildly.
“Yeah, you could do that,” Lexi agreed a little less enthusiastically until she caught him watching her. Was he trying to get a rise out of her on purpose? “Only come and get me before you see Monica, I want to be there when you talk to her, okay?”
“Got me on kind of a short leash, don’t you?” Gabriel chuckled to himself, moving towards the door. “I’m trusting you not to tamper with anything in the office while I’m not here,” he added sternly.
“Yes Sir,” Lexi gave him
a mock salute, “I’ll be careful, scout’s honor.”
“You were a girl scout?”
“Campfire Girl, but same difference,” Lexi smiled back, gratified when his expression relaxed as well. “I’ll be good, I promise.” With a nod he slipped out of the office and Lexi breathed an audible sigh of relief. Sitting gingerly on the edge of the office chair, she tugged off her right glove. For some reason she always got the best reception from her right hand. Bracing herself for all manner of unpleasant images, she touched the armrest of the chair, prepared to yank it free at the first sign of any hanky panky between Neil and Monica or any other girl he was cheating with.
Lexi let out a held breath as the rush of images washed over her, finding the image of Neil thankfully alone in the office, getting ready to leave. There wasn’t much to the impression, and Lexi played it back over and over in her mind, looking for some small detail that would tell her where he was going. The calendar on the desk held the same date he’d gone missing, letting her know it was at least a recent image she was seeing, and he wasn’t talking to anyone or thinking about anything other than getting out of there before the evening commute got too hairy. The time on the computer showed 4:15pm before he powered it off for the night.
Letting go of the chair, Lexi’s brows drew together into a single dark line as she considered the entirely normal scene. No crazy phone calls calling him away to handle an emergency, no clandestine plans to meet with anyone, the surface thoughts she picked up indicated he intended to go straight home. So what the hell had happened to him?
One thing she did have now was the password to his computer, and she typed it in, gratified to see the desktop appear after a couple of minutes. Only… what should she be looking for? Maddie would know, she was a whiz with computers and a natural born snoop to boot. “Email…” she thought suddenly, opening up the little icon, toes tapping nervously at the thought of reading his private emails. There wasn’t too much in the inbox from the day he disappeared, and it all looked business related, nothing of interest. On a hunch she checked the deleted file, letting out a low whistle at the multiple times the name Monica Haynes popped up.
The emails themselves were just short of pornographic, leaving no doubt as to his relationship with the woman. Heavily laced with innuendo and double entendres, it appeared that Monica enjoyed sending Neil racy emails at all hours of the day, some from work and some from a private email account. “Yikes…” Some with pictures.
With a quick look to the closed door, Lexi forwarded a bunch of them to her own personal email address, just in case Allison needed them for proof in court that Neil was carrying on with her for a while. Unfortunately the system routinely dumped out old deleted emails because the oldest one she could find was a month old. She was about to check his sent emails folder to see if it went back any further when the door opened and Gabriel poked his head in. “Larry was a bust, did you find anything good? Hey, you got into his computer, how did you manage that?”
Lexi nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden interruption, “Jesus Christ…” Face flushing red; she set her hands in her lap out of habit. “I ah, guessed his password.” Okay so that one was a lie.
“Really? What was it?”
“Niners99,” she replied, “he’s a big football fan.” Not a lie. “I found some interesting emails between him and Monica,” she changed the subject. “He’s definitely been doing the nasty with her for a while.” Lexi moved out of the way so the detective to take a look for himself.
“This is excellent…” he breathed, skimming quickly through the text.
“You have a thing for dirty emails?” A single brow was raised. “Whatever floats your boat…”
“No, I mean this is good documentation to have. If this Monica tries to deny having an affair with Neil, we can brace her with this evidence and see if she changes her tune. That and it’ll prove useful to Allie if she decides to leave him.”
Pleased that his thoughts ran towards protecting Allison just like hers had, Lexi gave him a relieved smile. “Should we go interrogate her now?” her expression turned eager.
“No time like the present,” he nodded, “after you.”
***
Only Monica wasn’t having any. The blonde took one look at Lexi and refused to admit that she had any idea where Neil was or that she had anything other than a business relationship with him. Even when the incriminating emails were mentioned, she hardly turned a hair, professing not to know what they were talking about. Lexi started to think she should have sat that one out and let Gabriel take over, but the damage had already been done. Monica sat with her arms crossed over her chest defensively.
“Can I go now? I have to get back to work.”
“Ms. Haynes, we’re not trying to pass any moral judgment on you, or your friendship with Mr. Travers,” Ryan tried again. “We’re just trying to ascertain if you’ve heard from him in the past forty-eight hours.”
“I told you, I haven’t heard from him, that’s all I have to say,” she snapped, eyes hooded with distrust.
Lexi decided to try another tack. “Monica, you know he’s missing right? He never came home two nights ago, none of his clothes are gone and he hasn’t turned up in the local hospitals. All we want to do is find out if he’s okay. If you know where he is, just have him give us a call to let us know he’s alright and that’ll be the end of it. We’re not trying to get anyone in trouble.”
A flicker of doubt crossed her features. “He’s really missing?”
Wasn’t that what they’d been saying for the past fifteen minutes? “Yeah, his little girl Chloe is worried sick,” she left Allison out of it for the moment. “You haven’t heard anything at all from him have you?”
“No,” Monica replied, a pucker of worry appearing on her brow. “We were supposed to have lunch yesterday… a business lunch,” she added quickly and Lexi suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “But I thought he called in sick; I never dreamed anything was really wrong. He’s really missing?” she repeated.
“I’m afraid so, Ma’am,” Ryan nodded gravely, switching gears to follow Lexi’s lead. “Is there anything you can tell us at all that might help us find him? Has he been feeling sick lately or is there any place that he likes to go to be alone?”
“Well… no, he’s been healthy as a… I mean he seems healthy enough when I see him here at the office. Neil’s a pretty social guy, I’ve never known him to want to hole himself up somewhere and be alone,” her red lips turned down into a frown.
“So there were no plans that you knew of for Neil to go out for drinks or dinner or anything after work that night?”
“No, he didn’t mention anything to me, and I would have heard of it if there was a group of us going out for drinks. Do you think he’s alright?” There was no disguising the naked concern in her voice and Lexi actually felt a little sorry for her despite her best intentions to hate this woman.
“I hope he is,” Lexi replied, a little surprised to find that it was true. Neil might be a bastard, but she didn’t really hope he would turn up dead or hurt somewhere.
Detective Ryan pulled out a business card, sliding it across the desk. “If you hear anything, anything at all, please give me a call. As we said, we just want to make sure that Mr. Travers is safe, there’s no law that compels him to go home if he doesn’t want to.”
Monica took the card, staring down at it thoughtfully. “I will,” she promised, all of the fight gone out of her.
Lexi remained silent while they left the office building, mulling over what she’d learned. It was looking more and more like Neil hadn’t run off on his own, but it also looked like there was damned little they could do about it. Besides, who was to say he didn’t have another girlfriend somewhere offering a shoulder to cry on and a bed to sleep in?
“You were pretty good back there, have you ever considered a job in interrogation?” Gabriel asked as they stepped into the parking lot.
A subdued smile touched her lips
. “It wouldn’t be my first choice, no. Can you seriously see someone being intimidated by me?”
“It’s not all about intimidation. You’re the one who got results with the soft touch,” he pointed out.
Still, a career in law enforcement wasn’t her style, but she kept that opinion to herself, not wanting to hurt his feelings. On him it seemed to fit. “Did you believe her? Do you think she really has no clue where he is?”
“I do,” he nodded, pulling out the keys to the Towncar. “You really got through to her at the end there. I think she’s worried about him.”
“So what happens now?”
Gabriel went to the passenger’s side, pulling the door open for her. “Now… we go home, wait for something to break.”
Lexi paused on the inside of the car door. “That’s it?”
“Like I said, it’s not a crime to stay away from home. Just because he didn’t run off with his girlfriend doesn’t mean he didn’t take off on his own. It happens all the time. A guy disappears, you scour the hospitals and morgues and he turns up six months later living in another state, shacked up with a whole new family.”
“You don’t really believe that,” Lexi balked.
“You said it yourself, Neil’s an asshat,” he grinned. “Maybe he just snapped? Decided he’d had too much responsibility, the girlfriend’s starting to pressure him to leave his wife, so he said fuck it and just kept driving?”
Only that wasn’t the state of mind she saw him in on that last day in the office. But how could she tell him that?
“Why don’t you let me take you home? We’ve done enough detective work today; I think we’ve earned a break.” Gabriel stood patiently on the outside of the car door and she realized he was waiting for her to get in.
“Right,” Lexi gave him a tight smile as she climbed into the car. He was probably right. Her first instinct told her Neil was off somewhere on a bender. It sucked, but at the end of the day it was Allie’s problem, not hers. All she could do was be there with support and some incriminating emails, should the occasion call for it.
