A.K.A.

by TL Alexander

  I press Accept and my dad, Jack Steel’s—yes, that Jack Steel, the international bestselling mystery writer and cad—voice rings out.

  “Baby.”

  “Dad.”

  “Your message was unexpected. Is something wrong?”

  I frown into the phone. “You’re lying. I know you’ve spoken to him. He told me he was going to call you after we talked yesterday.”

  There’s a long pause, and then he says, “Okay, so we spoke. It’s not going to happen. So forget about it.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Yes, but I’m not living. I want a life. A home. A purpose.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “I’ve been dead for almost two years. He said there’s been zero inquires or red flags for over a year. Everyone believes I was shark bait and my bones are on the bottom of the Pacific.”

  There’s another long pause before he says, “What about them?” By them, he means the Caldwells.

  “Like I said, no inquiries. There’s no way he’ll be digging up his son’s past now.”

  “You mean now that he’s…”

  On the short list for vice president. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “It’s too soon. Give it another year. Six months at least.”

  “Dad…” I pause and think about my sales pitch. Jack Steel is a stubborn, cocky Englishman, who I rarely win over. “If you could no longer write, if it became off-limits, how would that make you feel?”

  “Is that the best you’ve got? If it were a matter of me spending the rest of my life behind bars bending over and taking it up the arse from some fat fuck named Bubba, or on death row watching my life tick away, hell yeah, I’d give it up.”

  “Dad, I’ve given up everything.”

  “It was your choice. If you would have let me in, maybe none of this…” He pauses, his breathing weighted down by unsaid words.

  I know he’ll never forgive me. Not only did I change my life forever, I changed his. But it’s done, and I can’t undo it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. That’s how selfish I was and still am.

  “I get that I’ll be living a lie for the rest of my life, but that’s just it—I have no life,” I say, my voice harsher than I intended. “Dad,” I say, my voice back to normal. “I’d like to sleep in a bed I can call my own. I want to work and to think about something other than my next alias, or what color of hair dye I should buy.”

  “It’s a big risk.”

  “I’ve been careful. No one will ever know who I am.”

  He blows out a frustrated breath. “Okay. I’ll help you any way I can. I’m going overseas to do… research for my next book.”

  Fucking Jack Steel. Calling him a cad is a lame and weak adjective one would use to describe him. Jack is an international womanizer, a bastard, a friggin’ manwhore. The six two, fifty-eight-year-old, looks not a day over thirty-five, tops. His mother was an astute beauty from Cuba, his father a blond, blue-eyed, trust-fund-wearing Englishman turned California surfer. He’s gorgeous and knows it. And unfortunately, so does over half the population.

  “What’s the name of your ‘research’?”

  He chuckles, but it’s flat. I know if I were able to look into his eyes, his laughter would never reach them.

  “Her name rhymes with ‘card.’ And she makes me rather—”

  “Okay, that’s way more than any daughter wants to know.”

  He laughs again. This time I think it reaches his eyes.

  It’s good to hear him laugh. I can’t remember the last time I heard him do so. Things between us were good before all of this. After years of yo-yoing childhood caused by his absenteeism, and he let go of the guilt he’d carried around like a badge of honor.

  Our conversations—once weekly—are seldom now. When we do speak, there are too many unsaid words, heavy sighs, and impersonal facts. I know he loves me but hates me all the same. I pray he knows I never meant to hurt him. Never meant to kill the only child he had.

  His laughter dies off, and I force myself to tell him something I should have months ago. “Dad, I know I’ve asked for more than any daughter has a right to. But I want you to know that I—”

  “Morgan,” he says.

  It’s been years since I’ve heard my name. The use of our real names, even on the phone is one of Peter’s “don’t ever” rules. Even so, hearing it makes my heart swell and my breath catch.

  “Sorry, baby, I didn’t—”

  “Please don’t apologize. It’s been… so long,” I say, choking on my words.

  He clears his throat. “Tell me about this town.”

  I swallow a threatening tear. “Don’t you remember it? On our trip…”

  “Of course I remember. I guess what I’m asking is why there? It seems… well, riskier than others because you’ve been there before.”

  “You’re probably right. But it felt like home then, and it still does.”

  “How long?”

  “Six months, a year at most. Then I’ll disappear and start over again.”

  After several beats he says, “You know how to contact me if you need to.”

  I know that’s not what he wanted to say. He wanted to say, “Don’t do it. You’ve hurt me so much already.” So I do the same, not tell him what I really want to, keeping it impersonal and to the point. “Yes. I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

  tension, our relationship had finally mellowed out. I forgave him for my lonely

  “I will always worry about you,” he says and pauses again. I know he’s holding back his emotions, his fears. Every time we talk, the pain in his voice seems to increase, not decrease with time, as I had hoped. “Be smart and watch your back. Do everything he tells you to do.”

  “I will.”

  “It’s too risky for us to talk for awhile. If you need me, make contact with him, and I’ll get the message.”

  “I will,” I repeat.

  “I’m… I’m sorry about… I’ll never get over… I’ll never get use to this…”

  A lone tear runs down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away because the tear is for him, not me. I don’t deserve tears, not even my own.

  “Take care,” he says and disconnects.

  “I love you, Dad,” I whisper to myself. He used to always end our calls with, “I love you, baby.” He can’t bring himself to say it anymore.

  I never told him of my plans. He thought it was because I didn’t trust him or his ability to help. But that’s not why. I didn’t want him as an accomplice to murder. I never intended his involvement at all, but I needed his help to disappear. He’ll never forgive me, and he’ll never understand the why of it all; why justice is so important to me. To be truthful, I don’t fully understand it myself. It’s like a thorn in the middle of my back; I can feel it, but I can’t see it or reach it.

  I stand and walk toward my rental. Before I reach it, I drop the phone onto the pavement, smash it with the heel of my boot, pick up the pieces, and scatter them between three different receptacles. Then I walk to my car, unlock it, sit behind the wheel, and think about my next move.

  When I need to speak with my dad, I contact Peter first. I do so through websites that change monthly. When contact is made and further communication is needed, we use burner or prepaid phones, used once then destroyed. It sounds as if we’re paranoid fictional characters in one of my dad’s novels. But we aren’t. We are real. It was real. I might complain about Peter’s rules on occasion, but I know if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in a Florida penitentiary, bending over while a Bertha screws me with a fist or a spoon. Or I’d be on death row wishing time would stop.

  I retrieve a new burner phone from my handbag and turn it on.

  While I wait for Peter to call, I reflect on our unplanned relationship and when and why it began.

  EVERY PAWN HAS A HELPER PAWN

  The seduction and subsequent murder of Terrance Thomas Caldwell III wasn’t a random
act of revenge or spontaneous reaction performed in the middle of processing the stages of mourning. It was a well-planned and calculated event—murder in the first degree.

  As an ADA, I had the skills and the resources to examine my plan from a murderer’s point of reference, the police’s, and the prosecutor’s. Every T was crossed, every I dotted. So when a PI from Atlanta made a visit to my office, a year after Mrs. Caldwell received her son’s FedExed cock in a box, it had been unexpected and unnerving, to say the least.

  The private investigator, Peter Costa, was an intelligent, street-smart, smooth-talking former NYPD detective. He was a large man with a commanding baritone who possessed the grace of a man half his size.

  He gave me his card and introduced himself. He then proceeded to tell me straight out he’d been hired to find a woman. He took out a photo from the breast pocket of his Men’s Wearhouse jacket and handed it to me.

  I took it and looked it over. It was me, no doubt about it. I was entering or exiting the hotel where I’d killed Terrance Thomas. I had no clue how or where he had acquired it. I handed it back to him. “Am I supposed to know who this is?”

  “Come on, Ms. Steel. I know it’s you. What I don’t know is why or how you’re involved with the murder of Terrance Thomas Caldwell III.”

  I shook my head and played it cool. “Sorry. Wrong girl.”

  He pointed to a chair that sat next to my desk. “Do you mind?”

  I did mind, but I nodded the okay, and he sat. I followed his lead and sat behind my deck. Then I picked up a pen and twirled it around as if I was bored and disinterested, something I was not.

  “Ms. Steel, I’m going to skip the introduction of the players in this game, because I know, despite your… indifference and claims, you know them well.”

  My only reply was a pause of my pen midtwirl and a slight raise of my right brow.

  “Senator Caldwell hired me to find a woman. This woman,” he said and waved the photo. “He told me that she might be a key witness or have information about his son’s unsolved murder.”

  He paused, looking somewhat putout. Then he said, “Then a couple of months ago, the senator’s man, Hodges, made an unannounced visit to my office. He handed me an envelope containing $500K and informed me that my services were no longer needed. I hadn’t finished the job and asked him why. He said the FBI had found the woman in the photo and had her in custody. I asked if the FBI was certain. He said, ‘Yes, there’s no doubt about it.’ I knew he was lying.”

  “Sorry, I’m not following,” I replied as I tossed the pen on my desk.

  “I think I should start at the beginning.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I have a meeting with the DA in thirty minutes.”

  He nodded and continued. “The senator called me out of the blue.”

  I glanced at my watch again, adding an annoying tap. “My time is valuable, Mr. Costa, and yours is limited. You can’t afford to be redundant,” I said with a bite. I knew I was coming across as the bitch I wanted to hide from him, but I needed him out of my office so I could think about that photo. I needed to go over every detail again and figure out what I had missed.

  He frowned my way before continuing. “When the senator called to ask if I’d take the case, I asked him, ‘Why me?’ He told me he’d heard good things about me, which I knew was a lie. I was new to the Atlanta area, having just moved there a year prior. And since hanging out my shingle, I had taken on only a few cases, all of them low-key, nothing that would warrant any notice.”

  I nodded for him to continue while upping the annoying act with further tapping.

  “My conversation with the senator didn’t sit right with me, but I agreed to take a look at the information he had. When Hodges dropped off the file that afternoon, I asked him the same question. ‘Why me?’ He said, ‘I think you know why.’ I told him that I was sorry, but I didn’t. He said, ‘The senator was told that you’re a man with good instincts and one who knows when to walk away and keep his mouth shut.’”

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

  “The senator had information on me. Information he shouldn’t have been able to acquire.”

  “Go on.”

  “After I looked over the file, I knew something about the case wasn’t right.”

  “How so?”

  “The crime scene photos had been altered. It wasn’t obvious; it was a professional job. But he had to know I’d see it.”

  “He was testing you?”

  “I thought so at first, but now I think he was…”

  “Hiding something?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you still took on the case. Why?”

  “I was curious, and…”

  “And?”

  “It was personal. He had misjudged me. I’m not someone who walks away and keeps his mouth shut. I took a knee one time because my family had been threatened. I told myself I’d never do it again.”

  “If the senator fired you, why are you here?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “I know you’re the woman it the photo.” He paused and looked me over. I knew he was looking for some kind of reaction. I gave him nothing.

  “What evidence do you have other than a photo of a woman who looks nothing like me?”

  “None.”

  I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t push it. “So this is, what?” I asked and waved a hand between us.

  “I’m not sure, Ms. Steel. Like I said, I’m curious. But it’s more than that. There’s something about this case”—he shook his head—“I can’t let it go. Nothing adds up and…”

  “And?”

  “I’m sure you’ve had cases that kept you up at night.”

  “Too many to count.”

  “For me, this is one of those cases. I need to solve this mystery, and I believe you’re the only one who can help me do that.”

  I remained silent and took him in from behind my desk. I was trying to figure out his game. I was good at reading people, knew all the signs of someone who was lying or attempting to cover tracks. I knew he was telling the truth. But I wasn’t sold on his reason for being there, out of curiosity, looking for the truth. But then again, he’d spent months on his own dime to find me. In the end, I decided to trust my instincts, my gut, and make my first move in a game I had no idea at the time I’d end up playing for years.

  In retrospect, I think I trusted him because he reminded me of my dad. Not in looks or manner, but in the way he looked at me, directly and without falter into my eyes. They were my mother’s eyes, unusual in color and shape. Many had described them as haunting or unsettling and couldn’t look into them without pause.

  After a minute of ogling each other, I stood, walked to the front of my desk, and sat my ass on its right corner edge. I used this move to disarm, putting myself in a more vulnerable position without appearing weak. Most of the time, it preceded pleads or confessions, especially with men. I knew it wouldn’t work on Costa, but I did it anyway. I had hoped it would help him to see beyond the bitch in Gucci.

  When he didn’t speak, I said, “Mr. Costa, I’m good at reading people, and there’s something about you…”

  “About me?”

  “Either you’re playing some kind of sick game, on a vigilante fishing expedition, or…”

  “Or what?”

  I paused and looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get to my meeting and”—I stood, sat behind my desk, opened my laptop, and looked at my calendar—“I’m in court for the rest of the week.” Damn. I had thought. I needed to rearrange my schedule. I needed time to look into Mr. Costa and that photo. And I needed to think about the altered photos of Terrance Thomas. What did the senator not want Costa to see and why? I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I knew I needed to find out.

  “I’m not leaving LA until I get some answers.”

  I looked up at him. The look on his face was one of stubborn determination—a look I’d seen reflected back at me
on more than a few occasions. I knew he wouldn’t go away, leave it or me be. I sighed heavily, and said, “Okay, Mr. Costa, you win. Let’s say noon on Saturday, my house.” I had no idea of what I was going to do, or how much I would reveal. At that moment, I just wanted him out of my office.

  He chuckled. “Ms. Steel, I’ll admit you’re attractive—stunning, to tell the truth. But I have a daughter about your age. So if you plan on seducing me—”

  I smiled. “Hardly, Mr. Costa. I plan on enlightening you.”

  He’d raised his bushy brows to this. “Really?”

  “I don’t think I need to tell you where I live.”

  He nodded and stood. “I’m looking forward to being enlightened, Ms. Steel,” he said and walked to the door.

  When he reached it, he turned and looked back at me. “You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.”

  I’d smiled again, despite not knowing if this was a good or bad thing. To be honest, I didn’t really care. “Life is full of surprises, Mr. Costa.”

  His only reply was a nod; then he turned and walked out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

  Saturday, at 11:50 a.m., Cal, the weekend guard posted at the Bay Waters Estates security gate, called to verify Mr. Costa’s appointment.

  At 12:00 p.m. sharp, my bell rang. Not one for inviting many to my home, Hank went all doggy apeshit when I opened the door.

  Hank, a large, one-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound breed of unknown origin, greeted him with deaf-rending barks, uncontrollable happy tail, and Kibbles and Bits scented doggy drool.

  Mr. Costa reached down, letting Hank smell the back of his hand. Hank licked it as if it were a liver-coated doggy sucker.

  He laughed. “A real tough guy.”

  I pulled Hank off him, or I should say his tongue off him. “He wasn’t always like this. When I adopted him from the shelter, he’d been abused so badly, he could barely stand. Two leg pins, a hip replacement, and four years of Morgan Steel therapy, and now look at him; he’s a slobbering idiot,” I teased.

  Mr. Costa’s smile faded and his mouth opened and then quickly shut. It was as if he’d wanted to say something but changed his mind.