Everyone was there. Craggs and his punk daughter Rosalie with her pink hair, Chico and Frankie, Vicki, Rafael…
Wait. Why was Raf here?
Before my exhilarated mind even had the chance to come up to the answer to that question, Blaine stalked to me and shook me by my shoulders. He was tall and thin, his strong forearms reminding me of a preying mantis and there was that empty look in his eyes again. His voice was a cold hiss laced with panic.
“I told you to get the fuck down. You wanna get killed? You wanna learn from me you have to listen!”
“Oh fuck off, Blaine.” My reaction had been automatic; so was, apparently, his.
His hand slapped my cheek so hard I saw stars before I fell to the ground.
WHEN I came to, I saw the uneven face of Craggs bend over me, frowning while wiping my forehead with a cool cloth. I didn’t know him well and found him a bit scary up-front, with his big scar slicing down his cheek and those feral, almost yellow eyes just drilling me into the rubber floor, making me stay put by his sheer will alone.
“Here, drink this.” I took the water bottle from his hand and sat up. My head hurt, but nothing was broken.
“What happened?” I croaked.
“World War Three happened. Blaine slapped you, Raf jumped Blaine, and they had it out while you were out.”
“Is he okay?”
“Who?” Craggs grinned.
“Rafael.”
“Yeah. A broken nose… could’ve been worse. He gave Blaine a concussion and now they’re being babied by all those friends of yours.”
I sat up and, testing my balance, I stood up. My head hurt and a cut on the inside of my lip left a metallic tang in my mouth, and now the small wound was hot and swollen. I padded over to a group of guys hovering over Rafael. He sat, holding an ice pack over his face; cotton balls kept blood from flowing out of his nose. I pushed my way through and knelt next to him.
“How does it feel?”
He gave me a baleful eye. “Ligh m’nohze ‘es broke.”
“Can I get you anything?”
He just hissed, miserable, and turned to get a sip of water Craggs had provided earlier.
I turned my attention to Blaine. He looked a bit dazed, sitting up against the wall further down and he wasn’t attended by my friends; no, he enjoyed the attention of the police.
Well, sort of. Jubal Lupine sat next to him, holding his cup of water and talking to him in a low voice.
“It’s his fuckin’ fault,” Vicki said, nodding at Kirby. “Had he not hit you, Rinaldi here wouldn’t have gone ballistic.”
“No, it’s Evelyn’s fault.” Taylor Nolan’s voice was calm and analytical. “Had she not free-climbed like an idiot, Kirby wouldn’t have freaked out at her.”
I looked at Raf and he gave me that pissed-off look again, not saying anything.
“I got some useful data, though.”
The dismissive looks didn’t encourage me to share my findings, but the data I received was both intriguing and disturbing.
Interesting, because Blaine Kirby acted as though he really didn’t want anyone else to die on his watch again.
Disturbing, because maybe he really was innocent – until proven guilty. Yet if it had not been him, then who? I needed more information, and I knew just how to obtain it. My fingers developed that particular, annoying itch and despite the adrenaline high I’d gotten off the free-climb, I had to suppress that delicate quiver of anticipation, which had always preceded a satisfying breaking-and-entering.
This time, I knew it would be easy.
Blaine Kirby had cheap locks on his door.
CHAPTER 19
THE BRIGHT, fluorescent tubes of the hallway lights shed cold light on the locks before me. I worked the middle one first, as I always had; many people used only the lock attached to their door handle and kept the rest of them as an inconvenient deterrent – unless they really needed them, the extra locks were just for show. The thin pick slid into the key slit; my sensitive fingers detected the right lever to press down. I inserted a thin, rigid wire to keep it down and moved to the next internal doohickey, lining it up with the first one. When all three were lined up, I extracted the pick out and inserted a hook-like device, grabbing all three lined-up tumblers. Then I pushed them down.
The lock opened with a click.
I tried the doorknob – it was unlocked alright, but the door was still being held shut.
“Let me try the top one,” I exhaled, straightening up and stretching my shoulders.
“No, let me do it.” Vicki was right next to me, Honore’s picks in her hand. I turned to her; her gorgeous, red hair spilled down her shoulders, held back by a white and purple sweatband. A white, long-sleeve shirt molded to her toned body, covered by a sleeveless, white and purple top with a prominent V-neck. Her size-L sports bra gave her the support she needed with ease; the bicolor, pleated cheerleader skirt reached only a hand-span under her butt. Knee socks didn’t quite cover the strong, sculpted calves. This wasn’t the time to ogle my best friend, certainly, but I couldn’t help but notice that her legs were, for the first time in my memory, entirely hairless.
“Did you shave?”
Her face reddened. “No. Honore took me in for a body wax.”
Ouch.
The rest of us, even the guys, had depilated all exposed parts in a manner commensurate with our bravery and pain tolerance, aiming to lend our cheerleader outfits an air of verisimilitude. Chico was unbearably smug about being the “most beautiful cheerleader”, even though he was a guy; Taylor was resigned to his fate, having covered up his shoulder tattoo with copious amounts of makeup. As for myself, I was way past the point of embarrassment. After all, it had been me who had explained to everyone that people don’t remember faces as much as they remember uniforms…and it would have been unconvincing to meet a team of four plumbers entering the apartment. As the leader of this expedition, I felt responsible for my team members’ safety and, biting the bullet, I had been the first one to put on a long, black wig that disguised my blonde hair, along with a bra overstuffed with socks and a ridiculously short cheerleader’s miniskirt.
“I WANNA pick this lock, Eve.”
I gave Vicki a stern glare. “You have two minutes. Our disguises won’t hold forever.”
“They would, had you not been so damn cheap. We should have gotten those soccer uniforms,” Taylor Nolan hissed at me from his lookout down the hallway, a mesh bag full of white and purple pompoms bouncing against his bare thighs, well-muscled legs emerging from under his short skirt.
Vicki pushed two tumblers down, but as she was going for the third, her wire slipped and she had to start all over again.
“Vicki, let me do it.” Nervous sweat was escaping my cheap wig, pouring down my face. This was no time to experiment.
“Just one more try…” Her plucked eyebrows drew together in concentration and I heard her draw a deep breath. Seconds ticked by. It felt like half an hour before the tumblers aligned and we all heard the rough click of the lock turning. I saw Vicki’s grin, giddy and victorious.
While I picked the last lock, my mind pondered the incongruous reality of the four of us in these ridiculous uniforms. The used sporting supply store did have soccer uniforms, many of them, but we weren’t willing to pay their full price. Soccer gear was in high demand and the store had no reason to put it on sale. The gaudy, awful purple uniforms we finally purchased used to belong to the cheerleading squad of a defunct college rugby team and, since it was too atrocious for anyone to wear ever again, we got it for a song. The stretch fabric, together with its sleeveless design, accommodated even the guys’ broad shoulders.
The door swung in and we poured into Blaine Kirby’s empty apartment. I closed it and clicked the main lock shut, then looked at my eager helpers.
“Normally, when you break into a place, you look in all the rooms to make sure there are no unexpected guests. This place is really small though, and Kirby is pulling a double shi
ft tonight so we should be alright on that account.” We spread out, peeking into the bathroom and behind the shower curtain, inside the closet and under the sofa. The place was so small there wasn’t anywhere to hide.
“Next, we do our tasks. Taylor, you have the desk with all those papers. Chico, you and I will go over his climbing stuff. Vicki, you go through the whole place systematically, and if you find anything interesting or unusual, anything at all, let us know.”
Vicki’s face lit up. “You want me to toss the place.”
“No. Not ‘toss’. You need to be organized about it…here, start by the door and go clockwise, from top to bottom. You may find secret hiding places, documents, whatever. Anything that catches your eye. And Taylor can take pictures of it all.”
“Thanks heavens for digital cameras,” Taylor Nolan grumbled, extricating his precious Nikon camera from its nest of cheerleading pompoms. “I’m here as a journalist. Just in case anybody asks.”
CHICO WAS our climbing expert. We all recognized that, and were happy to let him pore over the neatly coiled ropes and harnesses suspended off the hooks on the wall. Some moments passed.
“This is all surprisingly simple,” he commented, handling the simple friction plate. Not a single self-belay device polluted the purist ideals of the climber known as “The Demon of Santa Teresa”. He owned two pairs of climbing shoes and two pairs of Vibram Five Finger Shoes, and a pair of sneakers. There was one old, worn harness, two elastic climbing lines and one non-elastic rappel line. All of Blaine’s equipment was made of a green, gray and brown speckled weave cordage. Natural camo color blends, such as hunters would have used. None of his ropes bore the color-coding so common to major brands. And, his ropes seemed almost new. He hadn’t used them much.
“Blaine is mostly a free-climber,” I reminded our expert. “I guess he doesn’t use ropes as much as the rest of us.” My tone must have sounded somewhat wistful, for Chico gave me a curious look, his finely sculpted eyebrows arched.
“That’s not something to aspire to, Evelyn. Lots of climbers have died doing that sort of a thing.”
I shrugged. “Gotta admire his guts, though.”
Taylor Nolan treated every single document in every single file box to at least a cursory glance.
“It looks like he was really interested in the exposè of his former employer, the Provoid Brothers,” he said, rifling through yet another stack of papers. “He has some of the depositions, even. He took the trouble to obtain a copy of those from the Court using a FOIA request.”
“FOIA?” I asked.
“’Freedom of Information Act’. I get a lot of background information that way, but it can be a real pain…And look – here! This looks like Celia’s sworn statement.”
We all perked up and crowded around the desk, helping Taylor organize the complex paper trail.
“There had been a whistle-blower. There’s also that guy, Kevin Toussey, who directly opposes just about every statement Celia had made. Or her boss, Mila Rose. “
“Who’s Kevin Toussey?” Chico asked.
“He was one of their vice-presidents. He ran ‘operations’ – Blaine Kirby ran the collection department and reported to Kevin Toussey directly. Toussey showed up earlier on in the investigation process, but somehow he managed to escape serving his sentence on medical grounds… operations was his job description, but that doesn’t say what he really did for the company.” Taylor Nolan’s voice was dour. He didn’t like incomplete answers and proceeded to dig for more.
I’D TAKEN it upon myself to search Blaine’s personal items. It appeared that the sofa in the middle of his room folded out, and that’s where he slept. The lamp table right next to it was rife with drawers and shelves, and I opened every single one of them. Removing the small, assorted objects and replacing them with delicate precision was difficult – I didn’t want to make it obvious that the place had been searched. Many of these objects were of practical use, such as a box of tissues along with condoms and lube. There was a manicure kit and a drawer full of winter gloves. The function of the spare change drawer was rather obvious. There was a stack of magazines, some loose buttons and paper clips, postage stamps, and several pieces of personal correspondence.
An envelope mailed from Alaska caught my eye. There was no return address, but the handwriting was cursive and elegant, harkening to bygone days. It was addressed to Blaine Kirby at a different address – a home in a much better part of town than his current digs. The date on the stamp was well over one year old. I pulled the piece of hotel stationary out of its envelope.
Dearest Blaine,
How I wish you could be here with me! Alaska simply defies description and I feel humbled by her majesty and strength. I opted to skip Denali and attempted an ascent of the capricious Mt. Saint Elias instead. To refresh your memory, it’s the second-highest peak here, separating Alaska and Yukon. I figured it would be more accessible, being close to the water, but nothing could be further from the truth. The weather coming off the gulf has been simply horrid. The locals thought me daft for even attempting the climb, and especially for going solo. A local game guide ended up accompanying me – a Tlingit woman named Lucy, who speaks English as well as Tlingit and some Aleut. She is small and round, but possesses amazing strength and resilience, and knows the land and the weather better than anyone I’ve met to date. We decided to follow in the footsteps of the original explorer, Prince Luigi Amadeo di Savoia. If he was able to summit in 1897, with his old technology, we should have been able to do just as well – or so I had thought.
Lucy insisted that we carry all this extra gear. We hiked up to the position of their 5th camp (out of 11!) and it wasn’t even climbing yet when the weather hit. We got snowed it good and proper, huddling in our little pop-up tent on the side of the mountain, wearing every shred of fabric available. Once we got snowed in, the tent got a lot warmer. We had to wait two days for the storm to abate before we could strap on the snowshoes Lucy insisted we bring (in May!) and navigate our way down. We did good, considering my total lack of preparation. Climbing under these climatic conditions…
Celia rambled on and on about various observations, both related to climbing and to Alaska, where you had more grizzly bears per square mile than people, where everyone carried a gun in case they ran into a grizzly, and where the airplane-delivered mail was often the only means of communication between far-flung villages.
“That explains why she didn’t use email,” I said to Chico, who ended up reading the letter with great interest. Celia’s other letters were similar: they came from afar, she had missed Blaine’s company terribly, and the poetry he kept sending her truly warmed her heart.
“Truly, my lovely Blaine, someday you shall forget who you are and the century you live in, and you’ll start speaking in iambic pentameter to your obtuse coworkers…”
and
“I sure hope Toussey dropped all that ridiculous talk of suing me. Nothing I have said up till this date has failed to be substantiated by his own corporate record. I don’t know how these things go in Collections, which is your domain, but Toussey not only keeps a double set of books, he even makes no secret of it.”
Now that was interesting. “Taylor… come look at this!”
Nolan scuttled over, looking busy and harassed. “I’m busy. What is it?”
“Chico and I found these old letters from Celia, and this one refers to Toussey again.” Taylor glanced at the letter, then he put it on the desk and photographed every page. “I’ve been taking photos of the files, mostly. There is too much to absorb this fast. What else have you got?”
I fished inside the almost empty drawer. One more envelope; a letter addressed to Celia, yet unsealed. And, in the back of the corner, I felt a little box with my fingertips. I teased it out from the dark recesses of Blaine’s night table, wiping bits of dust off the box covered in red velvet.
“Open it,” Vicki whispered over my head.
The tension was unbearable.
> Slowly, I eased the spring-loaded lid ajar. A white gold and platinum ring sat in the middle of black satin; a large solitaire diamond sparkled in a simple, elegant setting.
“Wow. He spared no expense,” I said, barely breathing. The stone itself could have been bartered for a small, suburban house. Nothing I’d ever stolen came even close to its quality.
“How do you know it’s not glass?” Vicki asked, skeptical.
“I know diamonds. The size is good, the clarity is great, it has virtually no color, no gray overtones… it’s beautiful. And look at the even, brilliant cut.” I closed the box and placed it in the back corner of the drawer.
“What’s in the envelope?” I looked up at Taylor Nolan, who studied the single sheet of paper with a light blush in his face.
“It’s a marriage proposal. The verse is surprisingly good. It’s… it’s rather passionate.” He passed it around and we all read the private, expertly crafted words Blaine had intended for Rafael’s deceased sister.
The silence was deafening.
TAYLOR photographed it only “for the record”.
“It still doesn’t let him off the hook,” he said. “He still could have done it.”
“His motive is greatly diminished, if he intended to marry her,” I said. “You don’t just buy a ring like that without having big plans.”
“Is it possible he could have killed her, even though he had loved her?” Vicki speculated while examining various objects on the shelf.
“That’s exactly what he had admitted to doing when I was here last,” I reminded her. “Anyway, have you found anything, Vicki?”
She stood up and stretched, making use of her height and ignoring the fact that her careless action caused her adorable cheerleader outfit to show a great deal of her sculpted midsection.
I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances Page 36
