by Sean Platt
“Okay,” he said, then noticed that she was looking at the open Tylenol bottle on his desk. “Woke up with a killer headache. You wouldn’t happen to have some earplugs?”
She laughed. “No, fresh out, but I bet that Mr. Ridley might have something stronger than Tylenol.”
Paul laughed. “I bet he would. Too bad I’m on duty.”
She laughed, a bit too much. Then there was an uncomfortable silence where she was looking at him like she wanted to say something but had forgotten, or was trying to muster the courage.
“I was wondering if that offer for coffee was still on?”
He paused. “By that offer do you mean when I asked you two years ago if you’d like to go for coffee?”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “That offer still good?”
“Um, sure.”
Paul was going to ask about her fiancé, then realized that she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring.
Hmm, I wonder when that happened?
“Great. Tom and I broke up a couple of months ago.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. He was a jerk. My sister says I was born with a jerk magnet or something.”
He laughed.
Her face went red. “Not that I’m saying you’re a jerk.”
“No, of course not,” Paul smiled. “At least I don’t think so. But then again, would a jerk know he’s a jerk?”
“Fair point. But I’ve been working next to you for a while. I think I’d know if you’re a jerk by now.”
“True.”
Suddenly noise in the hallways outside as Mrs. Everly returned from Library Time with both of their classes.
“Well,” he said, grabbing his bottle of Tylenol, “looks like I better take another.”
“Maybe I should, too.”
They both laughed as the kindergarteners filed noisily back into their seats.
Rosita Sanchez and Billy Evans both ran up to him pointing to one another, accusing each other of pushing in line.
“She cut in front of me. I was in front of her, then she cut in front of me,” Billy exclaimed, eyebrows arched, wildly waving his hands as he talked.
“Did you push her?” Paul asked.
“I was trying to put her back in her place.”
He looked up and saw Tracy suppressing a laugh.
“You can’t push girls,” Paul said.
“Can I push boys then?”
“You can’t push anyone, Billy. Now tell her you’re sorry.”
“Fine,” he said, pouting, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Billy!” Rosita smiled, then hugged and patted him on the back.
Paul smiled as they returned to their desks.
“She’s so adorable,” Tracy said. “Okay, I guess I better head back to my classroom before the little monsters tear it apart. So, for that other thing, how about Wednesday night?”
While he liked the prospect of a date with her, as it had been forever since he’d been with an adult, he didn’t want anything to ruin him for Jessi.
“Sounds great,” Paul said, smiling. “But can we make it next week? I just remembered that I promised a friend of mine that I’d help him with this thing he’s got.”
A vague as hell excuse. Pursed lips and nodding suggested that Tracy thought she was being blown off. Paul added, “He’s going through a divorce and needs a friend to lean on.”
She seemed to relax. Tracy was fragile. Easier to manipulate, but more difficult to get away from — he’d seriously have to consider meeting her after hours. He had a good thing going at the school and was flying under the radar. Sleeping with the teacher next door could screw all of that up.
“Okay, next week,” she said, smiling on her way out the door.
* * * *
CHAPTER 15 - MALLORY BLACK
Mal sat at her kitchen table staring at the empty gift box while eating her chicken sandwich and gulping a Diet Coke.
She had her iPad open on the table, standing at an angle, but had yet to turn it on. She’d usually browse the local news websites on her iPad or Facebook, even though she never posted anything. It was her one way of keeping up with people and far easier than calling them. She’d more or less shut herself off from everyone after Ashley’s death, and even more so after winning the lottery. She found it utterly distasteful, though not at all surprising, how many people hadn’t reached out to her after Ashley’s death, yet thought nothing of calling her more than a year later after hearing about her winnings.
People sucked.
She considered turning the iPad on but didn’t want any distractions while trying to figure out what had been bothering her all morning.
She was missing something regarding the killer, something she should’ve picked up on. And it was driving her nuts.
She ran through last night and the morning as she ate, methodically going over everything, hoping to find what she was missing.
Her phone, sitting beside the iPad, startled her with a ring.
She picked it up, looked at the caller ID, and saw it was Mike. She wondered if Gloria had relayed their conversation. Mike was one of her most trusted detectives, but they weren’t exactly close.
Mal answered, “Miss me?”
“You know it. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that Gloria sent out a detail to watch over your house the next couple of days.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Mal stood, went to the front window, and ripped the curtains open.
She could see two figures sitting behind lightly tinted windows in an unmarked patrol car across the street.
She wasn’t sure who was inside, nor did she care.
She flipped them off, then closed the curtains.
“Tell her to call them off.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. She seems to think you’re in danger. And … I’m inclined to agree.”
“Oh, come on, Mike. I can handle myself.”
“Like last night?”
“Come on. If he wanted me dead, he would’ve killed me, don’t you think?”
“Maybe, but you never know. Maybe he’s waiting to come back. Maybe he’s planning to kidnap you, too.”
“Let him try.”
“I’m serious, Mal. You need to be careful. He got in your house once. You need to take some precautions.”
“Like what? Get a proper security system? Maybe head to a hotel and hide out for a while? Fuck that, Mike. I’m not leaving my house because of this bastard. If he wants me, let him fucking well come and get me.”
“I’m serious, Mal.”
“Tell her to call them off.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She hung up, knowing that Mike wouldn’t say shit. He was too worried about her welfare. Any other time, she might appreciate the sentiment, but right now she was annoyed by the deputies sitting in front of her house, and watching her every move.
Then it hit her.
Watching my every move.
She remembered reading a story in the news a few years back about a weakness in webcam systems. She hadn’t thought about it until now, but it made perfect sense.
She went to her iPad, clicked on the browser, and searched for her particular model of security camera and “hackable.”
Several hacker forums popped up.
She skimmed a few, looking to confirm her fears. On the fourth article, she found it. There were two ways someone could hack into her security camera feed: capture her wifi signal as most of the cameras didn’t encrypt the streaming video, or brute force her password on the camera’s website.
He’d likely done one or the other. Hell, maybe both.
Pure rage flared again.
She felt vulnerable and watched, under some sick bastard’s microscope. Fire in her veins burned even hotter.
She glanced up at the camera, the one that had captured the bastard breaking into her house not even twelve hours ago.
Is he watching me
now?
Recording my every move?
She glared at the camera, wanting to threaten him, to let him know that she knew exactly what he was doing. She wanted to rip the camera from its mount and scream into it, “Come and get me, you pussy!”
But then she quickly moved her gaze to the table, pretending to read her iPad, while trying to calm herself and conjure the best possible solution.
It was never smart to let the criminal know how much you knew. Playing ignorant was far more likely to grant her an advantage.
Mal pretended that she wasn’t being watched, remembering how steadily he’d moved through her house, through the front door, into the dining room, and straight up the stairs without pause.
He hadn’t been treading carefully, peeking inside bedroom and bathroom doors. He’d moved deliberately, like someone familiar with her house — like someone who had been inside many times before.
Mal felt practically frozen.
She was shaking, biting her cheeks to keep from screaming.
She closed her eyes, slowly counting backward from ten, a method she learned in a brief flirtation with meditation back before surrendering all illusion of control.
Surprisingly, it worked, clearing enough of the anger for Mal to take her next steps. She could talk to Aanya, assuming she could suggest the best means to handle this situation. If he’d hacked into the camera, then maybe he was setting up something nearby to capture the stream, something he’d need to pick up. If he was logging into her camera’s website, then maybe they kept IP logs, and she could track the killer that way.
This was all assuming a lot, that the murderer was indeed watching her through her cameras, and that there would be a way to trace that use back to him. But for the first time since waking up, Mal felt a ray of hope piercing the clouds.
She took one last drink of her Diet Coke and smiled.
I’m finally going to find you.
* * * *
CHAPTER 16 - JASPER PARISH
Jasper sprinted toward the park bench, his gray tee soaked through as he struggled to catch his breath.
Jordyn sat on the bench, reading something on her phone, probably one of her young adult vampire books or something.
“You really should join me sometime,” he said.
“Yeah, running isn’t my thing.”
“Youth is definitely wasted on the young.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are we ready to go home yet?”
“No, just taking a short break. Got another two laps.”
“Two more? Sheesh. You preparing for a marathon?”
“Gotta make up for missing my morning run. You in a rush or something?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said, slapping her on the back before returning to the path that wound through the wooded seaside park.
Jasper wasn’t sure why she even came with him to the park given her aversion to exercise. He supposed part of it was making up for lack of father-daughter time growing up. For most of her life, Jasper was always working and rarely had time for his family, something he never thought much about until it was too late. Until cancer took Carissa when Jordyn was eleven, leaving him to raise their girl on his own.
He looked back at his daughter one last time before disappearing into the woods. Her eyes were fixed on the phone. Maybe she’d finally made a friend.
He wondered if she was happy.
She’d been a happy, bubbly little girl, a social butterfly with tons of friends whom she played with all the time. Then her mom died, and everything changed.
Jordyn became withdrawn, spending most of her time alone, reading books in her bedroom.
At first, Jasper let it go, figuring it was a natural reaction to her mother’s passing and a phase she’d grow out of. But things only got worse in high school. He still didn’t think much of it, figuring she’d changed as kids tended to do. But one night in tenth grade, while all her old friends were at the homecoming dance, Jordyn broke down crying and confessed that “nobody liked her.” No boys would even look at her, much less ask her to the dance.
Jasper hugged her, tears running down his cheeks, wished he could take that pain away, wished he could make other kids like her, make boys see her as the wonderful young woman she was growing into.
But being a parent was an exercise in helplessness and futility. Jasper knew there was only so much he could do for his kid, and he was ill-equipped to help her through this rough patch. He’d barely made it through his own awkward adolescence. As an introvert, he’d had few friends, and never needed them. One or two was fine. He spent most of his time reading, studying, or working to improve himself. Who had time for distractions?
But Jordyn wasn’t wired like Jasper.
She needed friends, and for some reason he didn’t understand, she couldn’t connect with anyone anymore.
Things got way worse before they got better.
Three and a half years ago, after getting wounded in the line of duty, Jasper retired and moved out of South Florida, heading north to Pine Harbour for a fresh start.
Jordyn, now free from a past that weighed heavily on her shoulders, was back to being the bubbly, happy girl he once knew. But she had yet to make friends, get a job, or do any of the things a child required to find their independence.
A figure stepped out onto the path in front of Jasper, jarring his trip down memory lane. He was startled, fists clenched, until he recognized the old black man wearing a gray pea coat, jeans, and a matching hat.
“Jesus, Barnes, you scared the hell outta me!”
Lenny Barnes used to coach a youth basketball team in South Florida, where he more or less raised Jasper after his father died of a heart attack when Jasper was just eight. He taught kids how to play basketball, and gave them the self-discipline that kept many — though never enough — out of jail.
He was also the one who convinced Jasper to become a cop. And the reason Jasper moved to Pine Harbour, insisting that it was a good place to raise his daughter.
“How’s it going?” Barnes asked, adjusting his charcoal fedora.
“Okay, I guess. What’s up?” he asked, trying not to let his nerves show.
Something was up if Barnes had tracked him down in the park.
“How’d it go last night?”
“Good.”
“You sure? You don’t look so good.”
“It went fine. His place was a mess, though. Like Hoarders disgusting. Why, did you hear something? Is it in the news yet?”
“Not yet, no.”
“So, what brings you to the park? You wanna join me for a run?”
Barnes laughed. “Boy, if I were twenty years younger, I’d show you a thing or two.”
“Twenty years and maybe forty pounds ago, old man,” Jasper joked.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Barnes said with a wave. “No, nothing’s up. I just wanted to check in and see if everything’s okay.”
“Yeah. It’s okay.” Jasper couldn’t shake the sense that the old man was fishing. “What is it, Lenny?”
“Just wanted to check in after you called me last night.”
“Called you? I didn’t call you last night.”
“Yeah, you did. Like three in the morning. And you sounded out of it.”
Jasper looked at Lenny in confusion. His old friend loved to bust balls, but he wasn’t the type to joke like this. “What did I say?”
“You said something about Jordyn almost puking last night. Please tell me you didn’t bring her on one of your jobs.”
Crap.
He hadn’t told Barnes that Jordyn had been joining him for the past few months.
“What else did I say?”
“Hell if I know. You mumbled some shit then hung up.” He paused. “So, why did you bring her?”
“I don’t know. She wanted to come.”
“Man, this isn’t ‘take your child to work’ day. It’s bad enough she knows what you’re doing, but now you involve her? Why would you risk her
future like this?”
Jasper looked at the ground, unsure of what to say. He wasn’t about to tell Barnes that this wasn’t the first time he’d brought Jordyn on a job. “You believe in what I’m doing, right? I mean, it was pretty much your idea.”
“You know I do.”
“Well, so does Jordyn. And did you forget that she was already involved? She’s the one with the visions. She’s like dispatch, telling me where to find the bad guys.”
Barnes rolled his eyes. “Visions are one thing. But now you’re bringing her to a crime scene? Dispatch doesn’t go to crime scenes, do they? You’re making her an accessory to murder.”
Footsteps came up fast behind them.
Jasper flinched, his heart rate spiking. As long as he was doing the things he kept doing, part of him was always ready for the cops to roll up on him from nowhere.
But it was just two women in their early thirties out for an afternoon jog.
Jasper nodded, exhaling with a deeply relieved sigh.
Barnes doffed his hat and gave the women his most charming smile.
The women said “hello,” then passed them.
Barnes’s eyes bored into Jasper's as he whispered, “I don’t like this. Next thing you know you’ll be putting a knife in her hand.”
Jasper said nothing, ashamed of himself.
Barnes’s eyes widened. “You didn’t do that, did you?”
“No, of course not!”
“So, why’d you bring her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s a good reason to throw her life in the garbage!”
“She put two and two together. Figured out why I was asking her about the people she was having visions of, then saw that they were showing up dead or missing. She’s not stupid. Jordyn asked, and I told her the truth. Then she asked if she could help. What could I say?”
“You could’ve said no, fool!”
“It’s not easy to refuse her. And besides, how can I say no if our mission is just? To say no is to imply that what we’re doing is wrong.”
“Bullshit. Every mission has its soldiers and support roles. She’s support, not a soldier.”
“She’ll be fine.”
