Simple Misconception (Jordan James, PI Series)

by Rachel Sharpe

  Our last encounter had been, in a word, awkward. After solving a murder on the set of my best friend Heather’s sitcom over the Thanksgiving holiday, things between Jon and I had returned to normal. Then, the morning of my flight home earlier this week, Jon came by to wish me safe travels. He did something unexpected. He kissed me. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except for the fact he had never done it before. And, considering his professed desire to take our relationship to the next level, I knew it was not meant as a friendly peck.

  Since that day, I had distanced myself from him. Now, I needed him. His cousin Sophie had become a vital part of my investigative team. Her connections within the United States and abroad were extensive. Anyone I asked about, within an hour, Sophie had the scoop. I figured she would be my best bet at looking into Dr. Weisman and seeing if there was a connection between him and Natalie’s apparent kidnapping. The problem was my connection to Sophie was Jon.

  “Now what’re you doing?” Zane’s deep voice cut through the silence. He glanced at my phone. “Calling your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” My face heated. I shoved the phone back in my pocket. “And that’s none of your business anyway.”

  “Definitely not.” He rubbed his nose. “But mind if I make a suggestion?”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Might wanna dial the love line later. Me? I’m outta here. This place is twisted. Next thing you know the governor’ll be showing up to score blow.”

  With that, he walked back to the window. He swung his leg over the ledge. I watched as he placed one foot on the trellis. Then, the other. He continued to hold on to the windowsill for several seconds. He gauged the impact his weight was having on home and garden décor. When he felt confident he wouldn’t break it, he began to crawl down. I leaned out the window. I watched as he hurried across the lawn. He climbed inside the Bentley. Before I could blink, the engine came to life.

  I felt a sudden sense of panic. He really wasn’t going to wait around. I had just lowered myself onto the trellis when he put the car in reserve. He began to back it down the driveway. My heart pounding, I shimmied down the trellis as quickly as I could, frightened at the thought of being stranded there when Dr. Weisman returned. In my hurry, I lost my footing. I tried to grab hold of the trellis. I only managed to snag a couple of splinters as I fell.

  Luckily, I was only a few feet from the ground when I landed in the manicured box hedges. I felt my neck jar as I landed, but knew I wasn’t hurt. Rolling out, I raced down the driveway. I reached the passenger door just as he put the car in drive. Hopping inside, I slammed the car door as he sped off. When we reached the stop sign at Toutant Lane, he glanced at me sideways.

  “Glad you could make it.”

  Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I scowled. “Bite me.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “Repeat that.”

  We drove along I-10, heading to nowhere in particular. There were few cars on the road that early Saturday morning. I had grown tired of the heavy silence that filled the luxury sedan like an invisible, suffocating fog. I decided to call Jon. By then, it was four o’clock my time, five his. The difference of fifteen minutes would matter little to Jon, who rarely awoke before nine. I really didn’t want to call him at that hour, but I had no choice.

  He finally answered the phone after four rings. The grumpy tone of his voice reminded me that he was not a morning person. Still, he listened as I relayed the events of the evening. After several moments of silence, during which time I found myself questioning whether Jon had hung up or fallen back to sleep, he finally spoke.

  “Repeat that.”

  I frowned. “Which part?”

  “Ugh.” He let out a low groan that continued for several seconds. I could picture him rolling over in bed, trying to wake up. I myself have always been able to wake up early when I needed and stay up late as well. I’ve never fit neatly into a morning person/night person category. Jon, however, has always been a night person. He cleared his throat. “God, I need coffee.”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “You think?”

  I waited.

  He continued to groan. “Okay, so, you went to the French Quarter with some friend I’ve never heard of and she gets kidnapped. Then you went back to her house and her mom’s dead.”

  “Stepmom.”

  “Whatever. Then her dad and some random dude who’ve been smuggling drugs or something into the country decide to dump momma’s body. Oh, and she got a late-night booty call from the DA. Did I miss anything?”

  “No, that pretty much covers it.”

  “Okay.” He paused. “Just one question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell kinda people do you hang out with down there?”

  I shut my eyes. I expected sarcasm from Jon, but after last night, I kind of hoped he would have given me a break. Still, it was a relief that he was acting like himself. I was afraid the first thing he would mention was what happened before I left. I guess it worked out that I woke him up when I called.

  “So what do you want?” He broke through my thoughts.

  “I need your help.”

  “To do what?” He snorted. “Don’t know if you realize this, but I’m about fifteen hundred miles away.”

  “I do realize that,” I snapped back. Zane glanced over at me, raising an eyebrow. I shot him a dirty look. “Jon, I know you can’t come down here and help me. I just need you to talk to Sophie.”

  “Oh.” His voice went flat.

  That’s not good.

  “It’s not that I wouldn’t want your help,” I backtracked. “If it’s even a case. I don’t know! All I know is Natalie’s missing, her stepmom’s dead, and her dad’s doing some seriously suspicious stuff here. I have a feeling it’s all connected. I thought Sophie could look him up, see if there’s anything in his past. Please?”

  He was silent. As the seconds ticked by, I could almost hear his self-righteous thoughts. My complicated relationship with Jon Riché could be described as a mixture of blessing and curse. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have landed my first case. When I was just starting out as a private eye, he got me my first case that put my firm on the map. Unfortunately, the reason he helped me get that particular case was because he had broken my arm.

  Oftentimes, Jon’s clever fortitude has aided in solving cases. Other times, it led to headaches worse than a post-Mardi Gras hangover on Ash Wednesday. But, as with all enduring friendships, you have to take the good with the bad. Right now, I was praying there would be a lot more good. Finally, he sighed.

  “What’s the name?”

  I gave him Dr. Weisman’s name as well as his deceased wife’s and Natalie’s. When he asked me if there was anyone else I wanted to have Sophie check, I thought about Natalie’s ex-husband. I knew his first name was Taavi, but I didn’t think she ever told me his last name. As I strained my brain, Zane interrupted my thoughts.

  “This isn’t the Sunshine Cab Company,” he snapped, tapping his hand on the steering wheel. “Where to?”

  Is there anyone else I’d like to look up? I thought, frowning at him. Definitely. I’d love to know just who this jerk is. Maybe he’s got a warrant somewhere.

  “Jordan!”

  “What?”

  “Anyone else?” Jon repeated. His voice was strained. It could have been from aggravation. Or it could have been because it was five in the morning.

  Glancing at Zane, I shook my head. “No. That’s it for now.”

  “I’ll text her.”

  “Thanks, Jon.”

  “Uh-huh.” He yawned. “Jordan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?” He paused for a moment. “Don’t do anything else stupid. I don’t like th
e idea of you taking on a case down there, you know, alone.”

  I glanced at Zane again. “I promise. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “’Kay, bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I shoved the phone in my pocket. I leaned back against the leather seat. Taking a deep breath, I shut my eyes. At that moment, a wave of exhaustion hit me. It had been a long night. And the day had just begun. I felt Zane’s gaze on me. I glanced at him. He looked away.

  “So what are you?”

  “Huh?”

  I watched as his hands tightened on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched.

  “What are you? You’re not a cop.” He looked me up and down. “You’re definitely not CIA or FBI. So what are you?”

  I felt a smile creep across my lips, but I fought to hide it. “What do you think I am?”

  “Based on this?” He paused for a moment as he changed lanes. “The Queen’s Guard.”

  My smile dropped. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know you’re playing detective.” He sped up to pass an eighteen-wheeler with a larger-than-life hamburger and fries logo painted on its trailer. “I know you think there’s some big mystery to solve. I know you think you know it all but don’t know squat. And I know you’re gonna get my ass thrown in jail or worse if I hang around you any longer. So, I repeat, where to?”

  I had another strong desire to punch him. That urge was overpowered by the desire to not cause a fiery wreck on the interstate. I tried to think of the best course of action. I wanted to just call Natalie, to see if she was all right. Unfortunately, if she wasn’t, that might make her situation worse. I also wanted to know if Dr. Weisman was to blame for all of this. My gut may have told me everything was connected, but it didn’t bother to tell me how.

  I knew it was going to be at least an hour before Sophie got Jon the 411 on the Weisman clan. I had a feeling my grumpy chauffeur wasn’t going to wait around that long. The fact that he was helping me at all seemed quite miraculous. And suspicious. I needed a plan. I needed to go somewhere to begin working on a case I knew nothing about.

  “Am I taking you home?” he pressed, glancing over at me. “Where do you live? Uptown?”

  “Like I’m telling you.”

  “I’ll throw you out right here if you don’t eighty-six the attitude.”

  “And take my friend’s car?”

  “Who’s going to stop me?” he challenged, his bright eyes narrowed.

  I was so angry I was about to go off on him. But at that very moment, an ambulance sped by us. Its red, blue, and white lights pierced the darkness as its siren screamed out. I watched it until its lights and siren were both a distant memory. I had an idea.

  “Take me to Orleans Parish General Hospital.”

  17

  Orleans Parish General Hospital is in the central business district of New Orleans. Located along the Mississippi River's east bank just off Tchoupitoulas Street, the five-story structure was originally built as a military hospital in the 1930s. As the city grew, bigger and newer hospitals emerged, but OPGH survived. Unfortunately, during a highly-charged election year, it was mislabeled a “second-rate dive for charity cases.” It hadn’t been anyone’s hospital of choice since. Still, whenever something happens in the Quarter, it’s usually the first place a patient is brought due to its proximity.

  I knew this because during my senior year of high school, my friends and I had decided to hang out on Bourbon Street Mardi Gras day. Any local could tell you there are plenty of other places to enjoy the holiday. Places that are not flooded with drunk, rowdy revelers. Places where you can walk around without being compressed by gross, sweaty masses of humanity. But I digress. We wanted to celebrate our last high school Mardi Gras with an all-day party. What better place to go?

  As it turned out, anywhere would have been better if one of your friends happened to be Derek Dunham. Derek was our class vice president, captain of the soccer team, and best friends with my then-boyfriend, Greg Bell. I should have known anyone who would bestow such a lofty title on a jerk like Greg probably wasn’t going to be the brightest of the bunch. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Derek was athletic, hot, and smart. He was also arrogant with an ego the size of the Superdome.

  After downing one too many beers, he decided that he was going to get friendly with a gorgeous blonde who looked like she had just stepped off the runway in Milan. Unfortunately, her NFL linebacker-sized boyfriend didn’t think that was a good idea. He punched Derek so hard it knocked him unconscious. It also broke his nose in three places. Derek was transported by ambulance to OPGH, but as soon as Greg called Mr. Dunham, who happened to be one of the best trial attorneys in the city and good friends with then-mayor Buddy McCauley, the ambulance left OPGH before they even put it in park.

  Derek’s stunt ended our fun. Also almost got me grounded. Luckily, my parents overlooked that transgression, assuming we got lost after the parades. Hey, it could happen. Still, it taught me a valuable lesson: never get hurt in the Quarter unless you know people. I realized Natalie’s friend Cash probably didn’t have the same connections as Derek Dunham. I assumed when he had been carted away from Bourbon Street, Pelican Paramedics would have transported him to OPGH. I only hoped that he was okay. And that I could find him. Fast.

  “There a reason you wanna go to the hospital?” Zane asked as he exited the interstate. I caught him glancing over at me suspiciously as we crossed the train tracks then passed beneath a row of streetlights.

  “There a reason you care?”

  He sniffed. “No.”

  His small-talk ended as abruptly as it began. I used the time to figure out how I should approach locating a gunshot victim whose name I didn’t know without appearing guilty of the crime or at least an accessory to it. I hoped there wouldn’t be many gunshot victims transported from Bourbon Street that night. Considering it was a holiday week, though, all bets were off. Before I knew it, the car pulled up in front of a building, hitting nearly every pothole on the way. Thank God that car had good shocks. I might have suffered a severe whiplash in my old car. A sign on the wall announced we had reached Orleans Parish General Hospital.

  Since it had been built so long ago, the area surrounding it was filled with other old buildings, most of them abandoned. As I glanced around, I had the strange feeling we were on the set of a horror movie. The only well-lit building that appeared to be maintained was the hospital itself, whose bright fluorescent lights shone through the darkness like a beacon. Moonlight reflected on the broken windows of a brick building beside it that, at one time, was probably a warehouse of some kind. Directly across the street was a parking lot, but it was full.

  Zane stared out the window at the hospital. His frown deepened. Seeing the hospital gave me a sense of urgency as my thoughts returned to Natalie. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I threw open the car door. I had just put one foot on the uneven ground when Zane grabbed my left arm. I tried to shake him off. He held firm until I met his gaze.

  “Don’t be stupid.” I stared at him. He shook his head. “Just saying, you don’t exactly strike me as the think it through type.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He paused, a surprised look on his face. Finally, he shrugged. The surprise was replaced with indifference. “Don’t know.”

  “Duly noted,” I snapped. I climbed out of the car. I took one step then stopped. “That’s still my friend’s car.”

  “And I’m still driving it,” he replied as he sped off into the night.

  I watched the red taillights until he turned a corner. I doubted I would see him or that car ever again. While the former was a comforting thought, the latter was not. Frowning, I focused my attention on finding Cash. I needed to know what, if anything, he remembered about Natalie’s abduction. Hopefully, he was here. Hopefully, he would be able to illumina
te this bizarre situation. Hopefully, he wasn’t dead. Praying for a Christmas miracle, I took a deep breath before walking through the automatic glass doors.

  If the gloomy ambiance outside the hospital seemed frightful, the interior was twice as bad. The astringent smell of illness infiltrated my nostrils. I swallowed back my desire to gag, which was overwhelming. Having grown used to the darkness, the blinding bright hospital lights reflecting off the sterile white walls did nothing to alleviate my headache. Or calm my nerves. I hated hospitals. Passionately. Being at a hospital caused me near panic attacks.

  That fear stemmed from the fact that my grandfather had died during open heart surgery. It was simple, they said. It was routine, they insisted. But it wasn’t. He had a complication during the procedure and died. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, they promised. It was simply his time. Looking back, I can understand the logic in this. But it did nothing to ease a twelve-year-old’s heartache when her parents told her that her favorite grandfather wasn’t coming home.

  Since becoming a private eye, I’ve spent a few nights in hospitals. On each occasion, I’ve remembered my grandfather. I’ve wondered if this time would be my time. Now, I know my fear is irrational, but it’s there. You can reason all you want, but it won’t go away. Like an itch you can’t scratch, it remains. Taking slow, even breaths I walked down the short corridor. It felt much longer than it was. My eyes focused on the black and white sign overhead announcing the emergency room was straight ahead.

  I was halfway to the admissions desk when I heard a screaming siren. Startled, I whirled around. I observed a wobbly gurney, flanked by two remarkably-composed paramedics, entering through an open door. Their male patient’s braced cervical spine and strapped torso remained immobile as they approached me at—forgive the pun—breakneck speed. I jumped back just in time to avoid becoming their hit-and-run victim.

  “Single car MVA,” the paramedic pushing the gurney barked at the admission’s nurse. Biting his lower lip as he halted, he added, “Probably drunk. Wrapped a damn smart car around a telephone pole. Why don’t these people just call for an Uber?”