by Jaime Lewis
Ace was thanking the Lord for the anger management skills he’d learned because he was ready to punch something. He was boiling. From the sound of it, Mia’s boss had preyed on her from the start of her career. Now that he thought about it, he had a conversation with Mia right after she had accepted the job, and she had mentioned how her salary was way above the normal pay grade of someone just out of school. Did he pad her pay so she couldn’t say no? He fucking manipulated his baby sister.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ace looked at Alex for an answer.
“Because she told me not to tell anyone,” Alex snapped back at him.
Ace looked at Larkin. “Look, as you go about your undercover assignment, can you at least give Detective McDonnell a call if you run across anything you may hear?”
“Absolutely. And I really meant it. I never intended to hurt Mia.”
Ace smirked. “You didn’t hurt her; you gave her that final push in the direction we were all hoping for.”
Alex snorted a laugh and Ace smiled down at her, and winked.
Ace glanced around the apartment. It was clean and neat, just like Mia. She was always the organized one of the family. His eyes stopped on a vase of yellow roses on the breakfast bar. They looked fresh.
“Who sent her flowers?” He asked, and he didn’t miss the annoyed looked that passed on Larkin’s face.
“Dr. Walters.”
Ace glanced at Alex. “I think I’d like to meet this Dr. Walters before we head home.” He looked at Detective McDonnell. “Would you have a problem if Alex and I stopped in to meet Dr. Walters? After all, I am the concerned brother of his missing sister.”
The detective shook his head and grinned. “No, I think it would be fine. Just don’t go beating on the guy.”
Ace took another look at Alex and winked. “It never crossed my mind.”
◆◆◆
Ace sat across the desk from Dr. Walters, trying to figure out if this guy was sincere, or just a good actor. His concern for Mia was more along the lines of a significant other, than an actual colleague, and that pissed him off now that he had a good idea of what the doctor’s intentions really were.
“As I told the detective the other day, if there is anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Mia is a great asset to the clinic, and we are all very concerned.”
“I appreciate your concern. My family and I are all shaken by her disappearance.” Ace stood and motioned to Alex that it was time to go. She had seemed preoccupied since they had sat down, which wasn’t like her. She usually was all into the details. “Well, we won’t keep you any longer. We just wanted to stop in and be sure that you were aware of the situation.”
“I appreciate that. And, again, anything I can do, please let me know. Mia is special.”
Ace had to bite the inside of his cheek to not lash out at the guy. He and Mia needed to have a conversation about this guy. There was no way in hell she would still work for this character after all of this was over. He hoped that now she and Stitch were dating, she would decide to stay in Virginia Beach.
Dr. Walters walked them out to the reception area. As they parted ways, Alex almost ran into a gentleman coming in thru the door.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” she said to the man, and he just smiled.
“No harm,” he replied and held the door for both her and Ace as they exited. When Ace looked back over his shoulder, the guy was checking out Alex’s backside. Typically actions like that brought out the caveman in him and pissed him off, but lately, he’d been trying not to let a guy admiring his fiancé bother him. Instead, he took it as a compliment. That is unless he was acting like an ass about it and blatantly gawking, then he’d make it known that she was his.
Ace snuck a peek over at Alex noticing she had remained quiet as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the airport. She was staring out the window. Ace recognized the look on her face. Something was on her mind, and she was thinking through her thoughts. About mid-way through their visit with Dr. Walters, she had sort of just shut down and sat there with a blank look on her face. It was odd because, in a situation as such, Alex liked to interrogate just as much as he did.
He was about to ask her what was wrong when she turned to face him.
“We need to call Detective McDonnell.”
Ace raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
“Just pull the car over. Right there, pull into that parking lot on the left.” She demanded in a serious tone that concerned Ace. He did as she said and pulled into a bank parking lot. He put the car in park then shifted in his seat to hear what she had to say.
“Remember when Mia was telling us about the night she was abducted?” Ace nodded his head; how could he forget. “Well, she mentioned when she went running, she was wearing a black zip-up hoodie, but when she was abducted, someone had removed it.”
“Yeah?” He wondered where she was going with this.
“Ace, Mia’s hoodie was in Dr. Walters’ office.”
He studied her for a few seconds. He saw the seriousness in her expression and knew she wasn’t joking.
“I know it was hers because I bought it for her. It has the red “M” embroidered on the left sleeve.” She took his hand, and her emerald green eyes bore into his. “Ace, Dr. Walter’s had a hand in Mia’s abduction.”
◆◆◆
Elijah was caught off guard when Vargas, his main informant in the NYPD, entered the clinic's front door. He was alarmed because Vargas never showed his face at the clinic during office hours.
Curious about the detective’s spontaneous visit, he quickly finished up his conversation with the owner of one of his patients. Giving the Shepard a scratch on the back of his neck, he waved to Mr. Hines as he exited.
He made eye contact with Vargas and nodded for him to follow him.
Once they were in his office with the door closed, he turned on the detective.
“I thought I told you to keep your distance from the clinic. I don’t need anyone getting ideas because they saw you here. It’d be different if you had an animal, but seeing you don’t, it really doesn’t make any sense for you to be here.”
Vargas took a seat on the sofa and immediately reached for the lady's black hoodie recovered from the warehouse and brought it up to his nose. Elijah thought that seemed a little weird. When he made eye contact, Elijah raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t think I will ever get that sweet scent out of my nose.”
Elijah couldn’t disagree. It was sweet, just like Mia, who wore the same aroma. She was both sweet and beautiful. He was worried about her. Hell, he knew the city wasn’t a safe place to live, much less for a beautiful woman like Mia. He had been both shocked and startled by her brother's visit. His authoritative demeanor was on display while he and his fiancé met with him. Now, Alex, she was knockout herself. With those green eyes and tight little body, Demitri could fetch a fortune for her.
“Now that you’ve had your fix, do you want to tell me why in the hell you risked being seen by coming here?”
Vargas held up the hoodie.
“I thought you might be interested in knowing its owner.”
Well, now that was a revelation he wasn’t expecting.
“You’ve piqued my curiosity. Do tell.”
“I don’t have a name; however, I do have a picture.”
“What? How?”
Vargas held up his phone, and as soon as the picture came into view on the screen, Elijah felt the blood drain from his face.
“Christ Elijah, you look like you just saw a ghost.”
“That’s Mia!”
Vargas gave him an odd look, and then he too looked taken back. “The doctor chick that works for you that Marlon talks about all the time?”
Vargas had never seen Mia, so he didn’t know what she had looked like.
“Oh fuck…this isn’t good.”
The squeezing sensation inside his chest was almo
st too much handle. He closed his eyes. This could destroy him.
“Where did you get this? Who knows about this? Her?”
“From Jules’ phone. The stupid fuck snapped a picture while she was unconscious. He left it in the warehouse, and I found it while I was wiping it down. He doesn’t know I have it.”
“How? How did this fucking happen?”
“They said that was the chick you had instructed them to get rid of.”
“Not her!” Elijah shouted. “Willow. Willow was the one.”
“I swear, Elijah, I didn’t know who she was. They already had her at the warehouse when I arrived to facilitate the equipment and crates' movement. When I walked in, and they were touching her, I told them to leave her alone. I assumed she was one that you had told them to take care of.”
“Then what the fuck happened to her?” Elijah asked, pointing to Mia’s injuries.
Vargas grinned. “She broke Oscar’s nose.”
“Mia was responsible for that?”
“That’s what set him off,” he pointed to the picture of Mia battered and bruised. “That was the outcome. He just lost it. He threw both her and the chair. The problem was he didn’t realize that when the chair broke, it left her arms and legs free. We, myself included, thought she was out cold. Unbeknown to us, she wasn’t. She climbed out the fucking window while I had them help me move the crates. I drove all around the docks looking for her but she was no where to be found.”
“Well, where the fuck could she be? Her own family doesn’t even know where she is.”
“What?”
“That big hulking guy and gorgeous brunette you passed coming in was her brother and his fiancé.”
“No shit. What are they saying?”
“Nothing, because they haven’t heard from her since that night. That’s why they were in town. They were meeting with that Detective McDonnell, the one that questioned me the other day. If she escaped and isn’t around town and hasn’t contacted her family, where could she be?”
“Hard to say. She may have gotten scared and fled. Or, she could’ve run into some trouble around the area. You know the trash that hangs out around the docks. Especially at that time of the night. A woman as beautiful as Mia wouldn’t want to be caught dead around those streets.”
Elijah couldn’t peel his eyes from the picture displayed across the phone screen. She was out there somewhere, and what scared Elijah was how much she knew and if it was enough to bring him and his operation down. As much as he would love to have her as his own, his priority was his business. If that meant sending Mia to the same fate as Willow or worse, then it was what would be done.
“I need to find her, Vargas.”
Vargas grinned. “Marlon mentioned you had your eye on her.”
“I want her, but if she connects the dots and it leads back to me, I could be ruined. I need to find her first.”
“You said that McDonnell was working the case?”
Elijah nodded.
“I know him, and I can do a little digging around the office and see what he has.”
“As long as it doesn’t look suspicious.”
“Never.”
“Then do what you need to do, but let’s keep this between us.”
“Done.” He then held up Jules’ phone. “What do you want me to do about Jules?”
Elijah thought hard. That was a tough call, because right now, he needed that asshole for the next few weeks to facilitate scheduled shipments.
“Nothing just yet. I need a little more time to tie up some loose ends.”
Elijah turned and faced the window. A winter storm was due to hit the area tomorrow morning. The clouds were moving in, giving the sky a dreary look, like his current mood.
“I will find her, Vargas. I know she is out there.”
“Well, I will leave you to your business. As soon as I connect with McDonnell, I will be in touch.”
“Thank you, Vargas. And, remember, this stays between you and me.”
Vargas got up and made his way out of the office. Elijah continued to stare out the window.
“Where are you, Mia?” He mumbled as he took Mia’s hoodie and took another sniff of the garment.
He would wait until Vargas called later with any information, but in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to start his own investigation. He picked up his phone.
“Claus, I need you to look into Mia’s family. I want to know everything, where they live, what they do for a living, and anything else you may find along the way. I need it ASAP.”
Chapter Eighteen
Detective McDonnell stood at the water’s edge of the Hudson River while divers brought a woman’s body ashore. Police had been alerted after a business nearby heard a woman screaming and called 911. After searching the surrounding area, personal effects were recovered along the road leading to one of the piers, triggering a water search. New Jersey police believed the personal items recovered belonged to the victim. Since the driver's license showed the possible victim had a Queens address, he had been called to the scene. Ironically, when he received the call, he was already in his vehicle heading that way to have a look around the area where Agent Larkin had found Mia.
“Do we know who owns the surrounding warehouses?” He asked one of the officers. The officer looked at his notepad.
“One belongs to a Seafood distribution company. Another belongs to a custom t-shirt and screen printing shop. The one behind you is registered to a veterinarian EJW in Manhattan. To your right, with the grey brick is a cleaning supply distributor, and the building one over with the mural of the mermaid painted on the front belongs to a clothing distributor in Europe.”
The officer looked to have another four or five businesses listed, but only one piqued his interest. “Do you have a name for the veterinarian?”
The officer shook his head. “Not here, but I can get it for you.”
“That would be great.”
McDonnell couldn’t shake the odd feeling he had right now. It made his gut twist. He would bet money that the EW in the name belonged to Elijah Walters. Why would a veterinarian in Manhattan have a warehouse across the river?
Just then, his phone rang, and he excused himself. “McDonnell.”
“Detective, this is Ace, Mia’s brother. Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but Alex just informed me of something that I think you’ll want to hear.”
“Go ahead.”
“We just left Dr. Walters’ office. Alex didn’t want to bring attention to it at the time, but while we were there, Alex spotted Mia’s hoodie lying on Dr. Walters’ sofa in his office.”
Since Mia worked at the clinic, the detective really didn’t see what the big hoopla would be about that. He understood Ace’s sense of urgency in wanting to catch the person responsible for what happened to his sister, but he needed to sit back and think through the details before throwing out accusations, although now with the Dr.’s warehouse in the close vicinity of a murdered woman, maybe it wasn’t an accusation.
“She does work there, Ace. Could be she left it there.”
“It’s the same hoodie she was wearing the night she was abducted.”
McDonnell felt his body vibrate with excitement. This could be the smoking gun they were looking for. He walked away from the crowd of people for a little more privacy.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Mia said it was taken from her. Alex recognized it because she was the one who bought the hoodie for Mia last year.”
The detective took a deep breath and released it. With this new information, along with the murder situation unfolding in front of him, he was pretty sure he could get a search warrant executed.
Detective McDonnell caught some of the other detectives discussing something then start walking towards him.
“This is huge news, Ace. I’m currently working an investigation right now. Let me give you a call back when I get back to the office as I may have some additional information to share with you.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
McDonnell disconnected the call and ran a hand down his face. He knew something was up with the doctor. Especially with the crew he had working for him. He approached the group of officers.
“What do ya got?”
“One of the witnesses just returned and gave us a description of a tan sedan they saw leaving the area around the time they heard the screams. They even got a plate number. We called it in, and it came back to a shell corporation backed by Demitri Barros.” The hairs on the back of Detective McDonnell’s neck stood up. He knew the name very well. Every law enforcement agency had tried unsuccessfully to have him thrown in jail on various organized crime charges, but with a team of good lawyers with inside connections, the charges never stuck. Demitri and Elijah were close associates. Were those two working together?
McDonnell stared at the choppy, dirty water of the Hudson River. Something fishy was going on, and all the signs were pointing to Dr. Elijah Walters. Then an idea popped into his head. He pulled his phone out and called into the precinct.
“Yeah, Astor, McDonnell here. I need background on a couple of perps.” He heard the man typing on a keyboard. Astor was somewhat of an odd man, but he was a genius when accessing information. He could get his hands on about any record needed.
“Sure. Give me the names.”
“Dr. Elijah Walters, Claus Jenkins, and Marlon Zurek.”
“How soon do you need it?”
“As soon as possible. It pertains to an extremely important case.” His gut was telling him he was close to nailing the bastard.
“You got it. Let me finish up a report, and then I’ll work on it. Tomorrow by noon good?”
Detective McDonnell grinned. “Perfect. Thanks, man.”
Chapter Nineteen
Stitch helped Mia off the ATV and led her along a trail through a small compost of trees. It was a trail that he created himself when he stumbled on the spot he was taking Mia to shortly after he had purchased the cabin and land.
It was the second-highest point of his property, and nobody but him came up here. His teammates knew about the sacred spot, and they all understood the importance to him and respected his wishes. Sure, the cabin was nice, but his spot was like heaven, though he never experienced heaven, but he imagined it had to be a close comparison. It was secluded and surrounded by nothing but nature and peacefulness. It was his spot to think and let his mind run free.
