Shannon Robinson was a typical silver-spoon fed woman from the right side of town who got herself attached to a man heading into the medical field, knowing it would guarantee her a comfortable life if she could stick it out for the seven years of schooling, residency, and specialty training. In that time, she worked part-time at her father's company as a marketing exec despite not having gone to college for it. She was the kind of woman who was used to her pretty face getting her everything she wanted.
And she was pretty.
The pictures Barrett had found of her online showed a very posh strawberry blonde woman with a svelte body, coiffed hair, flawless makeup, impeccable clothes, expensive jewelry, and fresh manicure at all times. She had a delicate face, all petite and understated with ice blue eyes.
She was different from Riya in almost every way, but still gorgeous.
As soon as Michael went to work full-time as a doctor, she quit working and committed herself to full-time housewifery. Which, seeing as they had no children and she had a team of housekeepers and groundskeepers, meant she really just had fancy luncheons and wrote checks to the help.
Though, by all accounts, she didn't seem like the typical 'rich bitch' type. All her status updates online and texts that Barrett had hacked made her seem sweet, if a bit naive and sheltered. She had just never been raised to pursue her own independence, so she didn't.
The Robinson house was in a nice part of town, full of mini mansions that had shit like gift wrapping rooms and marble everything. The house itself didn't look ostentatious from the outside, a sturdy three story building made of a deep gray stucco with wrought iron mini-balconies and a giant security door out front. The grounds were perfectly kept with shaped shrubbery and a winding stone path to the door.
We all piled out, somewhat certain the cops would be called on us for even being there as we made our way to the front door.
We rang.
We knocked.
We waited.
"They got a security system," Tig said, nodding to the number pad inside the front door.
"Right," I said, reaching in my pocket for my phone.
"Where the hell are you? She's holding it together, but she's worried."
"Get her mind off of it. We still have a while left tonight. We're at the wife's place and no one is answering. Any chance you can find the security code for their system?"
Barrett made some kind of snorting noise like I was an idiot. "It's 'zero-four-nine-six-eight-four-two."
I paused, shaking my head. "The shit you remember is either impressive or scary. Thanks. And find a way to calm my woman down, would you?" With that, I hung up and nodded at Brock who reached for his kit again, choosing a different set of picks for the more advanced door.
As soon as the door opened, the beeping started, loud enough to be almost unsettling as I punched the code in. It took a long second before it stopped and the readout informed us that the system had been deactivated.
"Jesus. I shoulda been a doctor," Brock said, looking at the double staircase leading up, the chandelier giant and shining.
I had to agree it was a nice place. The floors were hardwood, dark, shining. The walls had perfectly chosen artwork. The furniture in the rooms to both sides were upscale and expensive, tasteful, if a bit bland.
"I'm half expecting to find a corpse in here somewhere," Brock said, exhaling.
He wasn't wrong; the place felt eerie.
Granted, a big part of that might have been just how cold and empty the place felt because of the lack of personal touches. It was also almost painfully quiet, silent enough to make your ears ring.
"Fan out?" Tig asked and I nodded, moving to the right. Brock went to the left and Tig went upstairs.
The living room was empty, nothing personal laying around at all save for a fashion magazine left face-open on the coffee table. Not one to leave anything to chance, especially in such a strange case, I pulled it up and checked the date of the issue. It was September of that year. So that wasn't weird. Granted, we were into October, but the new issue might not have arrived yet. I checked the half bath in the hall, the linen and coat closets, the office.
Finally, I moved into the kitchen, huge and all white, so white it made your eyes hurt. I waited there, hearing Brock move around the other side of the house and knowing Tig had the top floor covered.
They both came to meet me ten minutes later, each shaking their heads.
"Anyone else getting a feeling she's not just out to dinner?" Brock asked, voicing the concern we were all having.
Tig made a grunting agreement, moving over toward the fridge and reaching in for the milk. He turned the carton then looked at us with a brow raise. "This expired a week ago," he told me, putting it back and pulling open the vegetable drawer. "Fuck, yeah, this shit is all decomposing."
"Don't know much about this woman, but I don't figure she's the type to let veggies rot in her million-dollar home," Brock added and I agreed.
"So, what?" I asked myself, out loud. "Shit went south with Riya so he snatched his wife instead?"
"He is out of his mind," Brock said with a shrug.
"Alright," I said. "Go find mail or financial records or anything that might point to a property."
It was around five A.M that my phone started vibrating in my pocket, pulling me out from under the pile of paperwork I had been buried in for hours.
"Yeah?"
"So after your girl vomitted for about fifteen minutes," he started and I felt my stomach tighten, feeling guilty for not being there for her, "she walked out to get some plain toast while I was out walking Slim. Had my laptop open..."
"Oh, fuck," I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "What did she see?"
"I was working on the van picture. I got two letters and the very corner of a logo, by the way."
"And you're telling me this because..."
There was a pause and, when he spoke, I could hear the smile there. "Because two letters and a corner of a logo meant nothing to me, but when I walked back in, she was sitting in the chair and turned to me and asked me why I had a picture of Sully's van."
"Sully?" I asked, stiffening, drawing both Tig and Brock's attention.
"That's what I said. Apparently Sully is the cleaning guy at the IVF clinic."
"Let me guess," I said, stomach turning sour, "tall and skinny with stringy hair," I added, remembering the man from the clinic. He had made it a point to tell me Michael and his wife had been trying to work it out... in Pennsylvania.
He was in on it.
"That'd be him. He has a small cleaning business. Just him. He does the IVF clinic, a vet, and two office buildings in town. Makes dirt," Barrett added.
"Okay. Find out where I can find him this time of day. And once you get that, I need to know if there is anywhere Shannon Robinson might be for a week."
"Got it," he said, hanging up.
"What's up?" Tig asked, looking tired. He, unlike Brock and I, hadn't had sleep deprivation used against him in anti-interrogation training, so it could never be used against us to extract information in a torture scenario. While it wasn't quite as traumatizing as water boarding had been, it was certainly more useful. We could go for days without sleeping if we needed to and never lose focus.
"Riya identified the van. Belongs to the cleaning guy at the clinic. Sully. Barrett is going to get on a location for us. We got to clean this shit up," I said, gesturing at the piles of paperwork that had produced no intel but the fact that the bills were on auto-pay and Michael's college debt was somehow paid off. Most doctors didn't pay that shit off until their late forties or fifties.
Twenty minutes later, paperwork back into place, hard surfaces wiped down, we re-set the alarm and left, heading in the direction of Sully's apartment which just so fucking happened to be in the same building as Michael's fleabag place.
Coincidence?
I think not.
I knocked and I saw a shadow darken the peephole before I heard some frantic shuff
ling inside.
"Knock it down," I told Tig as I moved out of the way. Tig moved in and plowed a giant booted foot into the middle of the door, sending the shitty thing flying inward.
Sully's apartment was, while as dated and shabby as Michael's, at least clean. There was no mold or piles of shit or broken anything. His bed was made. His windows were even shining, facing the parking lot out back where the van from the video was parked, white shit off the logo and plates no longer covered.
"Don't!" he shrieked, arms flying up, covering his face. "Don't hit me."
"Won't need to hit you if you tell us what we need to know," I said, teeth gritted, tired and pissed, wanting to get this shit handled so I could go home to my woman who needed me.
But I couldn't go home to her again with out some goddamn answers.
"I'll talk! I swear, I'll talk," he said, dropping his hands, but looking ready to bolt. Sensing that too, Tig moved into the doorway to block it as Brock slid a wooden chair from the tiny kitchen table across the room and put it in the center, gesturing toward it.
Sully sat down, eyes darting between us like a scared rabbit surrounded by predators, not sure which might pounce first.
"So, he's what I know," I started, moving forward to tower over him, hands clasped behind my back. "I know that Riya worked with you and Dr. Robinson at the clinic. I know Riya and him dated and that she dumped him when she realized he was married. I know he told her he and his wife were breaking up so she took him back. I also know that was bullshit and that his wife threw an embarrassing fit at his work and that he quit. I also know that you lied to me and said they moved to Pennsylvania while she went on living at her house and he shacked up here."
"I didn't mean to..."
"Then I know that Riya was put in a medically-induced coma with Pentobarbital and shot up with hormones and vitamins. I know that sick fuck opened her up without her consent and undid her tube tying procedure. I know that she lost a year of her life and came to me when no one believed her. Today, I found out that he had been stalking her for a while, his apartment some stalker's wet dream. I know that he is nowhere to be found. And, lastly, I know that your van was used to drop her unconscious body behind a dumpster at Famiglia like some piece of trash. Now you are going to fill in the fucking blanks or you'll become intimately acquainted in black ops intelligence extraction."
I hated the shit Brock and I had needed to do in the name of so-called patriotism, but right in that moment, I wanted to do everything I had ever done to a person to the man sitting in a chair in front of me. Then find her ex and do the same to him... twice.
"I'll tell you everything," Sully said, shaking his head. "You have to understand... he... I didn't agree with any of it, but I mean he..."
"He paid you a shitload of money," Brock supplied, arms crossed, face tight, his entire body humming with the same adrenaline that was coursing through my system.
"Well, yeah. I barely make enough to cover rent and bills. I was struggling and... and all he wanted was for me to swipe some supplies and drop them off to him."
"What supplies?"
"All kinds from antiseptic and gauze to those hormone injections they use on the women in the clinic."
"What about the Pentobarbital?" I pressed.
"I, ah, I clean up at a vet too. They use that to put down the sick and old animals..."
Everything was falling into place.
"Why did he dump Riya?"
"He didn't. I, ah. I don't know, man. He was getting crazier by the day and he, well, he said he was going out to get candals and silk sheets and," he closed his eyes for a second, like a wince. When they opened again, they seemed pained. "And I think he was going to rape her, all unconscious and the like. I just... I got cold feet I guess. I didn't know Riya real good, but I knew her. She was a nice girl. I couldn't just stand by and let her get raped."
"Oh, but letting her be in a coma for a year while he performed illegal and immoral surgeries on her, that was cool?" Brock asked, his tone getting a little too sharp. He needed to rein it in.
I gave him a hard look that had him exhaling a slow breath, his shoulders relaxing, before I looked back at Sully, brow raised, as if asking him to answer Brock's question.
"A hundred thousand in cash," he said, voice desperate. "In cash. And he wasn't hurting her or nothing. I made sure she was healthy when I dropped off supplies."
"Where did you drop off supplies?" I asked.
"No. I can't..." he said, shaking his head. "I got Riya out. She's good. You have her. I saw her at her old apartment with you. She's okay. I can't tell you where he is."
"See, the thing is, your boss is fucked in the head. He lost Riya, true. But because he can't have her, guess who he showed up and took instead?" I watched the realization register across his features. "Yeah, the old ball and chain. And, see, he was nuts to do this to begin with, but my money is on him being a different kind of crazy now. And what's the chances that he will take a year this time? What's going to stop him from using his silk sheets with his wife?"
Sully went pale at that, swallowing hard like his dinner was trying to come back up. "Two-seven-six-three Highway thirty-four. It's an old abandoned plastic surgeon. Still has the surgery room and everything."
I nodded tightly. "Brock," I said, nodding at Sully.
"No, I'm coming," he growled.
"No, you're taking Sully here to the police station to give his statement. In about forty minutes," I clarified. "After I have gotten a chance to talk to Dr. Robinson myself."
"Tig can..."
"Tig can, but you are," I said, voice like steel. He was too worked up. And I was too worked up. If I brought Brock, things would get too out of control. I needed Tig with me to hold me back if I lost it. And we needed the cops to show up so I didn't get my license stripped from me for fucking around where I knew I shouldn't."
"Alright, man," he said, clearly unhappy, but long since programmed to follow orders.
"I'd thank you for your cooperation," I said to Sully, "but I think you're a real shithead for this. Let's go," I jerked my chin at Tig, who turned and went out of the open doorway.
"Passenger," Tig said, moving to block me from the driver's side.
"Tig, I swear..."
"I get that you're pissed and you should be. That girl didn't do a goddamn thing in her life to deserve what happened to her. And I don't know Shannon Robinson, but I doubt she has either. Only mistake they made was loving this dick. But I am not putting my life in your hands when you can't even unclench your fists," he said, nodding his head to my hands that were curled into fists at my sides.
"Alright, but if you granny-foot it, I am going to kill you," I said, going around the car and getting into the passenger as he peeled away from the curb.
The drive did nothing to calm my mood. If anything, I got more and more pissed as each minute passed. Luckily, the building was only ten minutes away.
Tig cut the lights before he turned in and we didn't slam our doors, not wanting to alert him if he was in there with a scalpel and an unconscious woman.
Inlet Plastic Surgery was a hideous salmon-colored building with white trimming and an odd geometrical architecture. We ducked low to peek in the windows, looking for lights so we knew where not to enter. Eventually, we decided to just head in the front door. Which, to our utter fucking disbelief, was actually left completely unlocked.
"How off his meds he gotta be to not lock the door?" Tig asked before we headed inside.
The inside, while abandoned and dark, was clean. I figured that was likely due to Sully's going above and beyond to earn his hundred-K. We heard the low hum of music from the back left and we both paused, pressing our backs to the walls in the hall, and reaching for the guns we both carried legally but very rarely had a need to draw, let alone use. Mine, from my boot. His, from his waistband. We moved as silently as our boots would allow to a door with a small plaque declaring it was the surgery room, behind which the music was originating fr
om.
I looked at Tig and he nodded, pulled his leg back, and slammed it forward.
That was a true perk of having a giant working for you- doors were nothing but a kick away from being sawdust.
I thought I had prepared myself. Really, very little was actually left up to the imagination.
But that being said, knowing about sick and twisted was different from seeing it.
Because what we walked in on was a surgical room, all stark white and surgical steel, blinding with the harsh overhead light. The center of the floor had a long steel exam table. And on that table was Shannon Robinson.
Her pretty strawberry blonde hair was slightly damp, a little darker than in her pictures, brushed straight and tucked behind her ears that came almost to a point at the tops like a fairy which was likely why she always had them covered in pictures. It was almost humanizing to find she had flaws. Her makeup was done, but poorly, obviously not by her own hand. And she was dressed, somewhat, in a matching lingerie set consisting of a purple silk skirt that slit almost to the hip and a matching bra.
That was it.
That was all she had on, way too much of her milky white skin on display.
I feel it went without saying that she was completely unconscious while mostly naked on that cold table. Her chest was rising and falling and there was a banana bag sticking out of one arm, and some other bag connected to the other arm which, I suspected, contained the Pentobarbital.
And standing beside the table, hand still on his wife's cheek, was a stunned Dr. Michael Robinson.
He looked like shit.
That wasn't just my jealousy over the fact that he got to have Riya before me. He genuinely looked like a man who had lost it all and therefore had nothing to lose.
Because, to be fair, the man was good looking in his pictures. He was tall and a lean kind of strong with dark hair, eyes, and a skin tone that hinted at some kind of Italian or Spanish ancestry.
But now, his hair was unkempt and slightly greasy. His clothes were rumpled. His eyes were slightly bugging and heavy-lidded at the same time, making him genuinely look completely psychotic.
367 Days Page 19
