2 If It Bleeds, It Leads

by Amanda M. Lee

  Eliot looked up from the customer he was helping when I walked in. He looked at me curiously, but made a motion for me to wait until he was done. I sipped my coffee nervously.

  Ten minutes later, Eliot’s customer left. He waited for me to come to him. It was a power play, I realized. I didn’t have a lot of options, though.

  “I thought you were playing video games.”

  I hurriedly told him about my grandparent’s house being broken into.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Why?”

  “To go with you.” Oh, that would have gone over well with my mother. It was bad enough he was a pawnshop owner. The long hair and tattoos would have sent her over the edge.

  “I didn’t really think about it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “That’s not why I’m here anyway,” I said irritably.

  “So why are you here? Did you miss me?”

  His smile really is sexy as hell. Wait, was he picking now to flirt? I’m not the only one who has bad timing.

  “Um, I forgot I had something.”

  Eliot narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  I pulled out the flash drive and passed it over to him.

  “What’s this?”

  I took a deep breath and looked around the shop. We were alone. I could tell Eliot was annoyed, but he let me go at my own pace.

  I launched into the whole story about how the flash drive had fallen into my possession. I left the Lexie parts out.

  Eliot looked shocked.

  “You stole this?”

  “I borrowed it.”

  Eliot looked like he was silently counting to ten. I didn’t think it was helping. His face was getting red. There was no trace of his endearing smile.

  “I can’t believe you did this.”

  “Do you really think now is the time to lecture me on the rights and wrongs of crime scene etiquette?”

  “We need to take this to Jake.” What? I can’t believe he is saying this. Crap.

  “No. We need to see what’s on it. Then, if it’s important, we’ll take it to Jake.” Maybe.

  “Jake will be mad, but he won’t throw you in jail for stealing property from a crime scene. Even though he probably should.”

  I glared at Eliot. He wasn’t helping. I reached to take the flash drive back, but he pulled it out of my reach.

  “Fine. We’ll look at it.” His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “Why haven’t you already looked at it?”

  “I tried. It’s all screwed up. I think it’s encoded.”

  Eliot sighed wearily. I have that effect on people.

  “I know a guy.”

  “A computer guy?”

  “No, a sandwich guy. Of course a computer guy.”

  “Sarcasm isn’t going to help.” That was pretty rich coming from me, I know.

  Eliot walked around the corner. For a second I thought he was going to try and shake some sense into me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t the first person who had considered this. Instead, he walked to the front door, turned the signed to closed and walked out onto the sidewalk.

  I followed him, even though he didn’t ask me to. He locked the door behind us and started striding down the street. The computer guy must be in downtown Mount Clemens, I figured. I practically had to run to keep up with him.

  For his part, Eliot seemed to be having a conversation in his own mind. He would occasionally shake his head back and forth as we walked.

  “I don’t see why you’re so upset.” My mother always says that I don’t think before I speak. This would be one of those times.

  Eliot turned and grabbed my arm harshly. “You don’t? You don’t see why I’m upset? You stole evidence. You lied to Farrell and me about it. You only tell the truth when you have nowhere else to go. You don’t understand why I’m upset? Seriously?”

  Well, when he put it that way . . . no I still didn’t understand.

  “I forgot I had it.”

  “Yeah, you forgot.”

  Eliot let go of my arm and started back down the street. He was really mad.

  We walked the next two blocks in silence, before ending up in front of a computer store. I had never been inside before. I was an Apple girl and preferred the streamlined store at the mall to this hole in the wall. I didn’t think this was the right time to tell Eliot that, though.

  When we went inside, I noticed there was a nerdy looking guy with pasty white skin, glasses that were far too big for his face and one of those polyester button-down shirts that aren’t flattering on anyone. What a cliché.

  “Hey Eliot.”

  “Hey Will.”

  “Something wrong with your computer?”

  “Not exactly.” Eliot slid a glance at me and then handed the flash drive to Will. “I need to know what’s on this.”

  “Where did it come from?” Will was curious. I didn’t blame him.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Oh, is it a client?”

  “Yes.” Eliot could lie, too, I could see.

  Will seemed tickled to be a part of a covert investigation. He took the flash drive and plugged it into the computer on the counter.

  “It’s encoded,” he announced.

  “Yeah, I figured. Can you break it?”

  Now Will looked nervous. So much for being part of the investigation.

  “I’m not supposed to do that anymore.”

  “I know,” Eliot said sympathetically. “If there’s anything on it, I’ll keep your name out of it. I promise.”

  That seemed to be enough for Will. He started typing furiously. “It might take me a few minutes.”

  I was the one confused for a change. “What isn’t he supposed to do?”

  Eliot looked at me a second. I figured he was trying to decide how much he wanted to tell me. Sucks to be on that end of the decision for a change.

  “Will was a hacker.”

  “Was?”

  “He got in some trouble with the police. As part of his probation, he has certain limitations on what he can do on a computer.”

  Well, that makes sense. If you can’t do stuff on a computer, open a computer shop – one located conveniently across the road from the circuit court building. What an idiot.

  Eliot must have read my mind. “People stick with what they’re good at. You’re good at lying and annoying people, so you became a reporter. Will is good with computers.”

  I decided to ignore the comment about me being annoying. I figured I deserved that. The comment about me lying was another story.

  “I told you I forgot I had it.”

  “And that’s the only thing you haven’t told me?”

  Whoops.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “Eliot,” I started.

  “No,” he interrupted. “You don’t trust me. I get it.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that, there are some things I can’t talk about.”

  “Like your cousin Lexie.”

  Like Lexie.

  “Is the only stuff you’re keeping from me have to do with Lexie?”

  No.

  “Yes.” He was already mad. I wasn’t sure what was going on with Sunshine and Tina anyway. I didn’t have anything concrete to tell him anyway. Plus, I figured Little Tony and Cameron weren’t exactly big players in the organization. Despite myself, I liked them, and didn’t want any trouble to fall on them.

  Eliot seemed to soften a little. “You can tell me about the Lexie stuff. I won’t tell Jake.”

  I was torn. Eliot could see that.

  “How deep in is she?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Not enough to get herself in serious trouble but not enough to totally avoid trouble either.”

  “Has she told you everything?”

  “No. She never does. She just tells me enough to get me to do what she wants me to do.” That, sadly, is the truth. She still has
my bracelet, too. I don’t have a clue why that just popped into my head.

  “And why are you still loyal to her?”

  That was a good question. I asked myself that question a lot.

  “She’s my cousin,” I answered lamely.

  Eliot raised his eyebrows, waiting for me.

  “She’s the closest thing I have to a sister.”

  “Don’t you have like 50 cousins?”

  “No, 16.” Where was he going with this?

  “Some of them are girls?”

  “Most of them are girls.”

  “Pick another sister.”

  Well, that was cold.

  “I can’t pick another sister. We grew up together. I don’t like her decisions, but I’m not just going to turn on her.”

  Eliot sighed, resignedly. “You’re loyal to her. Jake said you were.”

  “When did Jake say that?”

  “We talked on the phone today.”

  “What, now you’re phone buddies?”

  “We were just touching base. He wanted to make sure you were all right after last night.”

  “He just wanted to make sure we didn’t have sex.” Did I say that out loud?

  “That, too.”

  “What did you tell him?” Now I was suspicious.

  “I told him I slept on the couch and cleaned your house.”

  “So you told him the truth.”

  “I know that’s a foreign concept to you, but yes, I told him the truth.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Do you care?”

  No. Well, maybe a little. “I was just curious.”

  “Right,” Eliot said knowingly. He didn’t appear to want to press me on it. I figured that conversation was still coming.

  “I got it!” Will was excited.

  Eliot moved around to the other side of the counter. I followed, naturally curious.

  What Will had decoded didn’t look much better than the encoded version. It was still a bunch of letters and numbers I didn’t recognize.

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Will admitted.

  “Can you find out?”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  “Let us know when you do,” Eliot said.

  “Absolutely.”

  I followed Eliot outside of the store. “Wait, we’re just leaving the flash drive with him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “With this? Yes.”

  “What, exactly, don’t you trust him with?”

  “Let’s just say, I trust him more than you right now and leave it at that.”

  Well that was rude and unfair. Well, maybe it was fair, but it was still rude.

  Seventeen

  I left Eliot soon after we left the computer shop. He wanted to know if I wanted him to sleep on my couch again. He put air quotes around the word couch. I figured that was too much temptation, even if he was mad at me. I begged off and said I was fine. Obviously the thieves hadn’t found what they were looking for. I doubted they would be back – or maybe I was just hoping. Either way, I worked better when I didn’t have babysitters.

  I tossed and turned most of the night. I told myself it was because I was nervous sleeping in the house after it had been broken into, but the truth was I had a lot of other things on my mind.

  I still didn’t know where Lexie was. She had just fallen off the face of the Earth. I told myself that if I didn’t hear from her today I would call Derrick. I didn’t know what else to do on that front.

  Then there was my attachment to both Eliot and Jake. Whenever I was with one of them they were all I could think about. The problem was, the minute I was away from them I kept imagining the best sandwich ever. I didn’t think either of them would go for that, though.

  When I woke up, I was even more tired then when I went to bed. I showered, put on a pair of cargo pants and a Gap Red shirt that said “Hamme(red).” I figured it was appropriate for work. My boss kept telling me to stop wearing ‘Star Wars’ shirts to the office and I felt like starting the week off on good footing – for a change.

  When I got into the office, I went up to Fish to see what was going on. He didn’t appear to be in a good mood.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m just sick of the people here being a pain in my ass.”

  “Yeah, they suck.” What? I was being sympathetic.

  Fish caught sight of my shirt and gave his patented headshake. “You’re no better.”

  “What did I do? I just got here.” And only 10 minutes late. It was a record.

  “You think that shirt is appropriate for work?”

  “It raises money for AIDS relief in Africa.” Well, it does.

  Fish decided to ignore me. “How is the Darby stuff going?”

  “At a standstill right now,” I admitted.

  “Good. I have something else I need you to work on today.”

  “What?”

  “The new anti-drug campaign being put on by the county.”

  That sounded boring. I was sensing a catch.

  “Who is leading it?”

  “Ludington.”

  Well, shit. I knew it. Tad Ludington was my former college boyfriend. I liked to think of him as the biggest mistake of my life. You just couldn’t consider him the biggest anything. That was the problem. He’d dumped me because he said I wasn’t political wife material. Given the fact that his poor wife had popped out like five kids in five years, I had to agree with him.

  “Can’t you send someone else?”

  “No, everyone else is busy, and I don’t want you getting into anything that takes more than a few hours. I want you focusing on the Darby story.”

  Crap.

  “Fine. But I’m not going to be nice to him.”

  “You never are.”

  Fish gave me a dismissive wave.

  I went to my desk and found the press release for the event sitting on my chair. It started in 45 minutes. That gave me time for coffee. I was going to need it.

  I stopped at the coffee shop next to Eliot’s pawnshop. I considered stopping in to see if Eliot had found out anything about the flash drive, but I decided against it. He would come find me when he found out something. I was almost sure of it.

  The county building, where the press conference was being held, was only a few blocks down from the coffee shop. I decided to walk.

  When I got to the county building I had to go through security. The standard metal detector and purse search, you know the drill. I would be outraged if I wasn’t used to it. You can’t go into any government building anymore without jumping through hoops.

  This time, though, the guard pushed a garbage can towards me.

  “What’s that for?”

  “You can’t take unknown liquids inside the building.”

  “I know what’s in it.”

  “You’ll have to throw it out.” These guys have no sense of humor.

  “I spent $5 on this. I’m not going to throw it out.”

  “Then you’ll have to stand here until you finish it.”

  “The press conference starts in 10 minutes and it’s up on the sixth floor.”

  “Guess you have a decision to make.”

  I had decided. I’d decided that rent-a-cops like these were even worse than regular cops. I know, boggles the mind doesn’t it?

  I gave the guard a defiant look and proceeded to slam my coffee. Good grief it was hot. I didn’t let that show, though. The fact that a little of the coffee sloshed onto my shirt wasn’t exactly something I could hide, though. I decided to pretend I didn’t notice.

  The guard handed me a napkin.

  I took it stoically, tossed the empty cup into the garbage can and made my way towards the elevator. Just to save face, I refused to try and clean the mess off my shirt until the doors had shut behind me. Sadly, I was left with a noticeable brown stain on my shirt. Oh well, I’d worn worse. Heck, I’d worn worse this week.
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  When I made it to the sixth floor, I saw the usual assortment of television and print reporters gossiping and eating week-old donuts supplied by the county. At least they went all out.

  I noticed Derrick’s little friend was there, too. She must have been assigned to Macomb County. That thought was sobering – and irritating.

  She greeted me with a friendly wave and motioned for me to join her. I would rather deafen myself with Q-Tips and blind myself with red-hot pokers. I made my way to the print pool instead. I didn’t particularly like any of them either but they’re not narcissistic tools like the TV reporters tend to be.

  I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with them – thankfully. Tad Ludington, the county asshole, was taking to the podium. I noticed his hairline had receded even more than the last time I saw him a few weeks ago. Couldn’t happen to a better guy. Of course, Tad’s hairline had started receding in college. The fact that he still moussed it like a ‘Godfather’ reject wasn’t helping matters. I’d have to tell him that after the press conference. What are friends for? Okay, mortal enemies.

  Tad waited for everyone to stop talking. It didn’t look like it was happening fast enough for his liking, though. He cleared his throat. No one stopped talking, though. For once I was enjoying how self-absorbed the television reporters were. Anything that irritates Tad gives me a happy.

  Tad looked imperiously around the room. Then his gaze met mine and I smiled brightly. He didn’t seem to share in my euphoria.

  He tapped on the microphone to get everyone’s attention. Still nothing. Finally, he practically yelled into the microphone. “We’re going to start the press conference now.”

  Everyone finally turned his or her attention to him. The cameramen scrambled to get in place and the print reporters got their recorders and notepads out. I continued to stare him down evilly.

  He pretended I wasn’t in the room – kind of like when we were dating.

  Tad started off with some long-winded speech about how drugs were taking a foothold in a wonderful community and how we had to do something about it.

  “We expect this stuff in Detroit, but not in our own backyard.”

  What is that supposed to mean? I had a feeling it had something to do with race.

  “We want our children to be drug free. This is not Detroit,” he continued, gesturing for emphasis.