Lakeview Vendetta: A Gripping Vigilante Justice Thriller

by KJ Kalis

  She kicked the blanket off of her. It was one of the few things she had at Kelsey’s that was hers. Luckily, Kelsey understood and said that Marlowe could stay with her as long as she needed. It was nice of her to say that, but sleeping on Kelsey’s old couch wasn’t what Marlowe wanted. She wanted her life and her career back. Marlowe twisted and sat up on the edge of the couch. Standing up, she stretched her back and reached her hands overhead, trying to get the kinks out of her body. She checked the time on her cell phone. It was after midnight. Walking over to the window, she looked down into the parking lot. The cars that belonged to the other people that lived in Kelsey’s apartment building were lined up neatly in their spots, very few of them empty. Parking in Chicago was always at a premium. Finding an apartment or condo with space to offer was a bonus. At least Marlowe could park her car nearby. There was that.

  As she scanned the lot, she saw a black Land Rover that looked a lot like the one that Vince drove. She blinked a couple of times, knowing that it wasn’t his car, but still a little startled. What had happened to their partnership? How had they gotten so far off from where they started? Marlowe had texted and called and emailed him for months. He never really responded with anything concrete, and then after meeting him two months before, all communication had stopped. That last meeting resulted in Marlowe hearing from an attorney that claimed to represent Vince. Marlowe crossed her arms and shivered. How had things gotten so out of control?

  Recent memories started to flood into her mind, the voice of her accountant telling her that no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find the money that was supposed to be in their business account from the bank. Draws had been completed, the money transferred out of the account, but there was no way to tell where it had gone. Long lists of subcontractors who had never been hired started to appear in her financial statements. They were people she didn’t know and had never had contact with. Marlowe chewed her lip, thinking about all the times she asked Vince who the people were working on the Lakeview. Each time she asked, all he did was shrug.

  Marlowe walked back to the couch, picking up the blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders. She sat back down, folding her legs up underneath her. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. The work she was doing was her dream job, or was it?

  She thought back to the time when she had been excited about construction management — a time when the idea of taking a building back to something new and vibrant filled her with possibility. It was the very reason she had gone to Illinois State University. On her first day of classes, her advisor had warned her, “There aren’t many women in construction management yet. You may have an uphill climb.”

  “I don’t mind,” Marlowe remembered saying cheerily, “Someone has to go first. It might as well be me!”

  Sitting on the couch in Kelsey’s apartment made her wonder if she should have heeded her advisor’s warnings. Based on the numbers she had run that morning, unless the money somehow resurfaced, Marlowe knew it was likely she would have to file for bankruptcy. It would ruin her personal and professional reputation. No one would want to work with a commercial real estate developer who couldn’t be trusted. Bankruptcy was the most obvious source of broken trust in business. She might as well wear a scarlet “A” on her chest.

  Marlowe pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, using the edge of it to dab away at the tears that flowed down her face. Waking up Kelsey to talk wouldn’t help. She was in this alone. Leaning back into the couch, the memory of meeting Vince washed over her. After college, she worked for a couple of construction management firms for a few years, starting to do side jobs on her own. By the time she met Vince, she had formed her own company and was working on rehabbing a commercial strip center in Naperville. It wasn’t a huge project — about twenty units with two large anchor tenants, but it was the first project she had done solo. She was the general contractor. She was the one who did the work to get the subcontractors there and made sure the project ran smoothly, navigating the waters between the architects, engineers, city inspectors, and the building owner. Snuffling into the pillow on Kelsey’s couch, she realized that was one of the happiest times in her life.

  Toward the end of the project, Marlowe had made a trip to the building department to submit some final paperwork to get the occupancy permits for all the units. While she was standing in line, a man behind her tapped her on the shoulder, “Are you Marlowe Burgess?” At the time, Marlowe remembered being surprised that someone would know her name.

  “Yes?”

  The person that had tapped her on the shoulder was Vince. He introduced himself and said that he had been watching the progress of the project. “I bid on that project myself,” he said with a wry smile, “I’m glad to see that someone is taking good care of it.”

  Her initial sense of wariness was replaced by curiosity. Vince was a kindred spirit, or at least Marlowe thought he was. They talked for a few minutes in line waiting for the clerk. Just as Marlowe was about to leave, Vince stopped her again, “Listen, things are quiet in my office right now. Want to go get a cup of coffee and talk shop?”

  Marlowe paused for a moment, still holding the file of paperwork in her hands. She glanced down at the time on her cell phone, “I guess I have a few minutes,” she said, shifting the file from one arm to the next. “I think there’s a coffee shop on the corner. Meet you there?” It was her turn with the clerk.

  Vince mumbled behind her, “I won’t be too long. Just need to hand these over. Gotta make sure they are filled out correctly otherwise they’ll never get approved.”

  Marlowe nodded as she handed her pile of papers over to the clerk. Working with the Chicago city inspector’s office was one of the most difficult parts of her job. They were nothing short of incredibly picky. “Take your time.”

  Marlowe stopped by her car on the way to the coffee shop and dropped off her file folders. She didn’t want to lose the paperwork for Naperville. By the time she opened the door to the coffee shop, Vince was already there. He stood up when she came in, “I thought you ditched me,” he said, a smile on his face.

  “No, I just wanted to drop off the paperwork at my car, so I didn’t lose it. No good would come of that,” she said sliding into the booth. “By the way, I’m not sure I caught your name?”

  “Vince Olivas, nice to meet you.”

  “You as well.”

  Over two cups of steaming coffee, Marlowe remembered talking to Vince about the Naperville project, how it was her first, and how excited she was to be the general contractor. He asked her questions about where she went to school and where she got her experience. “It’s amazing we haven’t met before,” Marlowe said, wrapping her hands around the coffee mug. “Seems like we know a lot of the same people.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” From inside of his jacket, Vince pulled out a business card. “Here, take this. I’m always looking for partners for my projects.”

  Marlowe took his card and then passed her own across the table. “What kind of projects are you doing right now?”

  “Well, since I didn’t get the Naperville job,” he said with a smile that stretched from ear to ear, showing off his perfectly white teeth, “I’ve moved on. Right now, I’m working on rehabbing a two-hundred-unit apartment complex.”

  Marlowe whistled, “Apartments? Those are intense.” Residential real estate was a completely different beast than commercial. Marlowe had worked on a few smaller residential projects as she was getting started. It wasn’t her cup of tea. The owners and the city were so concerned about everything being perfect and habitable that it was just a bit too much for Marlowe’s personality. Commercial work was more her speed.

  “Yeah, it’s been a pain. You know how residential is.” Vince took a sip of his coffee, “I do have another commercial project coming up. Maybe you’d be interested?”

  After that initial coffee there were a few more coffee meetings, then strings of emails and phone calls. At first, Marlowe couldn’t decide if Vinc
e was attracted to her or just looking for a business partner. As they got to know each other better, it didn’t matter. Vince wasn’t exactly her style on a personal level. He was all suit and slicked-back hair, while she was much more comfortable being out on the site, wearing her work boots and carrying a roll of blueprints. He assured her that’s what made them a good pair, “I need to work with somebody who is passionate about the actual construction. I like putting the deals together,” he commented to her one night over pizza while they were going over an upcoming project. It would be their first.

  After a year of working together, Vince came to her one day with the idea of bidding on the Lakeview office building complex. “It’s a big job,” he said. “Think you’re up for it?”

  Marlowe swallowed. She’d heard about the Lakeview. “Sure,” she tried to say in a strong voice. A thirty-story office building in downtown Chicago, completed well, could make her career. On the flip side, it could break it.

  Marlowe pulled the blanket back over her legs, the tears subsiding for the moment. She buried her head in the pillow, realizing that the Lakeview project would be her undoing. She knew it was Vince’s fault. He had set her up to fail, but she couldn’t prove it. And, based on what her attorney and accountant had said, there was nothing she could do. Vince was getting away with murder — the death of her career and her life. Marlowe pressed her head into the couch and curled up into a small ball, the tears rolling down her face again in the dark.

  5

  Emily had just finished a cup of coffee and curled up on the corner of her couch. A movie was running on the television, but she hadn’t really watched it. Emily had no idea what the plot was or who the actors were. Miner had taken up a position next to her on the couch, curled up, softly snoring. She ran her fingers through his fur. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Picking up her phone from the side table next to her couch, Emily scrolled through to see if there was anything new worth looking at. There were a couple of headlines about shootings locally — Chicago had an ongoing problem with homicide that no one seemed to be able to fix. If she’d been asked, Emily could have solved the entire problem in about fifteen minutes, by redistributing law enforcement to the most susceptible areas — but no one asked her opinion, at least not anymore. There were a couple of articles on her newsfeed about how the local baseball teams, the White Sox and the Cubs, looked for the spring. That was months off, though. They still had to get through the coldest part of the year. Chicago lived up to its reputation as the “Windy City.”

  Opening up her text app, she sent a message to her trainer at the boxing club, Clarence, letting him know that she’d be there in the morning. He responded right away, even though it was nearly midnight. “You can only come if you bring that dog with you,” the text read. Clarence and Miner were friends. Though Clarence said he didn’t like dogs, he now had a jar of treats on his desk for every time that Miner came up to work out with her. Funny how dogs grew on people, Emily thought.

  Just below the text from Clarence was the one from Angelica with the case they had fought over earlier that morning. Emily swallowed. She didn’t like bickering, at least not in her family. Sure, if there was a fight to be had, she was right in the middle of it. But the work she did was about justice -- it wasn’t personal. For a moment, she stared at the name and the phone number Angelica sent. Marlowe Burgess. Emily stood up and started pacing, eliciting a low groan from Miner as Emily got up from the couch. He sighed and closed his eyes again as Emily walked a couple of laps through the house, thinking. A minute later, she ended up at her desk, searching for information on Marlowe. Mike Wilson, her tech support guy, could certainly get her more information, but she didn’t want to disturb him this late at night, though she was sure he was out playing video games with one of his buddies. This wasn’t an emergency, except for the fact that it threatened the relationship she had with her sister.

  Squinting at the screen, Emily realized Marlowe was involved in Chicago’s construction industry. Tough job, she muttered. Her eyes scanned a picture of Marlowe, her hair tucked up underneath a yellow construction helmet, holding a roll of blueprints in her hand, leaning on a truck. Angelica hadn’t said exactly how they met, except that they knew each other in college. How they would’ve met, Emily wasn’t sure. Construction management and premed were quite different majors. For a second, Emily thought about texting Angelica and asking her, but she didn’t want to get Angelica’s hopes up. Besides the fact that if it was midnight in Chicago, it was only five in the morning in the UK. Emily knew how her sister was. Whether she decided to take the case or not, Angelica would be furious for a day or two, or even a week, and then would quickly forget about what had happened.

  Emily paced a little bit more. She wasn’t that way. Where Angelica was blessed with the ability to explode and then forget, Emily was much more under control, but with the memory of a steel trap. In a way, it was a good trait to have. Emily could remember details from cases from years before, things that other investigators wouldn’t have given a second look at. The bad part was that if someone got under her skin, she wouldn’t forget that either. “Who are you, Marlowe Burgess?” she said out loud. “What is it about you that made Angelica take a run at me?”

  In the years Emily had been working on her own, Angelica had never interfered, until now. There had to be something about Marlowe and the trouble she was in that pulled at Angelica’s heart. Underneath all the brashness and the loud voice and the red hair, Angelica was sweet and loyal. Those were the things that she loved about her sister. But not her temper, that was for sure.

  Emily got up from the chair and started pacing again. Miner came into her office a moment later, the jingle of his collar announcing his arrival, curling up on the bed in the corner as if telling her he wished she would decide what room she was going to be in so he could sleep. She smiled at him and kept pacing.

  The question remained. What was she going to do with the information Angelica had given her? Did she just ignore it? Or was it worth following up on? Emily stuffed her hands in the front pocket of the hoodie she was wearing, staring at the floor as she walked back and forth, the wood planks creaking slightly under her feet. She was tired. The string of cases she had just finished had worn her out, body, mind, and spirit. She had taken some enormous risks, but had solved some terrible cases, cases that haunted the people left behind in a way that she had never really seen in her career before. She chewed her lip. Was what she did really a career? She pushed the thought out of her mind, knowing that was a fruitless discussion with herself. No good could come of that. Whether she called it a career, a calling, or a mission, it didn’t matter. The reality was that there were people who needed her help. There were families who’d lost loved ones and didn’t have the answers they needed in order to move on. Her mind slipped back to Vicki Schmidt, the mom of a high school girl that had been taken in Ohio. Emily had gotten an email from Vicki two weeks before. She had put her house and the acres it sat on in the rural area of Stockton, Ohio, up for sale. She was planning on moving to Florida to be near her sister. “I never would have been able to make this move without you,” part of the email read. Emily knew that was true, remembering how every time she saw Vicki, she was frozen at her kitchen table, drinking pot after pot of coffee, waiting for Sarah to walk back through the door which she never did…

  In the information Emily had from Angelica, there was no sense that Marlowe had lost someone like Vicki Schmidt. But for some reason, Angelica thought it was worth having a big fight with Emily to get the ball rolling. The one thing Angelica was right about, Emily realized, shrugging the tension out of her shoulders, was that this was the kind of work that Emily was made to do — to get resolution and justice for people who had run out of every other legal option.

  Emily went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. From inside, she pulled a burner phone, one that had been encrypted with some special software that Mike had developed. Truth be told, Emily had no idea what the e
ncryption software was for or why it was important. Mike kept a handle on all the tech developments for her projects. She plugged the phone into the wall, leaning over on the counter, watching it start up. As soon the screen glowed, she entered the number that Angelica had given her, sending a quick text “Angelica said you need help. I can meet you at the Miles Road Park at ten in the morning.”

  Emily walked away from the phones and reached into the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water. She gave it a couple of minutes and then headed to bed. If she didn’t hear from Marlowe overnight at some point, then Emily wouldn’t bother with her case. She knew if Marlowe didn’t respond, then the case wasn’t nearly as important as Angelica had insisted. The cap of the water bottle clicked as Emily twisted it, the cool water filling her mouth. She was almost sure that by the time she got up in the morning there would be no text. Angelica was prone to drama, after all.

  Emily looked down. Miner had followed her into the kitchen, standing in the doorway with a look that read, “Can we go to bed now?”

  Emily nodded at him as if he had actually asked, “Yes, we can. Let’s go to bed.”