Dead Drop

by Emma Rose Watts

  “About?”

  “The arrangement. Working here. Your partner.”

  “Fine,” Skylar said.

  She knew to keep the conversation to a minimum. The less rope she offered, the less chance of Davenport hanging her with it, at least that’s the way she looked at it.

  “No complaints about Baker?”

  “None. Why, has he been complaining about me?

  He stifled a laugh. Obviously he must have been. Skylar frowned. “Sir, is there anything you wish to say?”

  “No. I just wanted to check in on you. See how you were doing. We get so busy around here that we tend to overlook people and some folks can feel as though they are falling through the cracks.” He paused. “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Falling through the cracks.”

  Okay, she had to admit the conversation was a little odd. Not once in the time she’d been working there had he pulled her in for anything other than to yell at Harvey and her over what they weren’t doing, or could have done better, and now here he was acting like he was her pal.

  She gazed down. “No, I think I’m good.”

  “It’s just I was talking with Ben recently.”

  “Ben?” she asked with a look of confusion. She didn’t like where this was heading.

  “Walker.”

  “No, I know who you are referring to, I’m just wondering why you were chatting to him?”

  “Well it’s come to my attention from unnamed parties that we should be doing more for our frontline officers. You see so much and no one really asks you how it’s affecting you. Then of course with the recent news about bullying in the workplace we just wanted to be sure that everyone was being heard.”

  “Things are fine. Thank you for asking. Captain, is Ben working with some of the officers here at the department?”

  “He has for many years. Though of course it’s been on a case by case basis.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that it’s confidential. The service is there if officers choose to use it. I’m just glad you have.”

  “Am I the only one?”

  “No. Of course not. Heck, I even speak to him once a month. Though that’s mostly to deal with the ongoing issues at home.”

  “Ongoing issues?”

  He got this embarrassed look on his face and got up and closed the blinds to keep out prying eyes.

  “My wife thinks I don’t spend enough time with her.”

  “Really? And has Ben been able to help?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, he knows his psych mumbo jumbo like we know the law but it takes a woman to understand a woman, don’t you think?”

  “Possibly.” Skylar got a sense that he was about to pepper her with questions and that the whole reason why she’d been brought in was to do with him and not her.

  “Just out of curiosity. If someone upset you and then after sent you flowers to apologize, would you consider that bad?”

  “Um.” She paused to think about it. Certainly many guys had sent her flowers over the years but she couldn’t think of a time when they’d done it in order to say they were sorry. “I think it would be okay.”

  “Exactly!” he said, stabbing the air and becoming all theatrical. “That’s what I told her but would she take it that way? Nope.”

  “Well there is the other side of the coin,” Skylar remarked.

  “Side of the coin?”

  “Well think about it from her perspective. You get into a fight, say a few words you don’t mean and then a few hours later you bring her flowers. What message do you think that sends to her?”

  “That I’m sorry. I messed up.”

  “Well that’s obvious but now every time she looks at those flowers she’s reminded of what you did wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Yep,” Skylar said.

  Davenport frowned. “No. That’s not right. Every time she would look at them she should be thinking… ah, what a sweet guy.”

  Skylar pursed her lips then replied, “Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. Sure, that might work if you had done nothing wrong and it was her birthday or you just did it as a romantic gesture but when you throw an argument into the loop, women tend to deal with it differently.”

  He sighed and slumped down in his seat. “I swear as long as I live I don’t think I will understand the opposite sex.”

  “Join the club,” Skylar muttered.

  “You’d think by now that we would have cracked the code but all I seem to do is screw it up.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Ah you don’t want to know. The last thing I need is to have two women against me,” he said before laughing. There was a long pause then he continued. “Okay, so I won’t do that again but then what is the solution?”

  Skylar smiled. “To be honest, captain, I think you should be speaking to Harvey. Now there’s a guy who seems to have mastered the art of marriage. Myself? I’m liable to make the situation worse.”

  Davenport snorted and gestured towards the door. “Good talk, Reid.”

  Harvey was chewing away on an apple when she closed the door behind her. He was hunched over someone looking at a computer screen. “Can you zoom in?”

  “That’s as far as it will go, mon! I would need more time to clean it up.”

  Skylar caught the thick Jamaican accent.

  “Well this video is absolutely useless,” Harvey said stepping back to reveal Axl. Axl turned in his seat and smiled. “Ah, Skylar Reid. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s finally nice to put a face to the name.”

  “Likewise,” she said extending a hand and shaking his.

  He was a broad-shouldered guy, muscular, good-looking. He could have easily been a model. She’d always pictured him as some easygoing, beer-swigging layabout that just happened to have talked his way into a good position with the department, but it was clear from his clothing that he took pride in the way he looked. He wore pinstripe pants, a dark blue shirt, and multiple wristbands, and his smell? She caught a whiff of his cologne and it was out of this world. She wanted to ask him what it was but with them only having just met she figured it would have come across as slightly odd.

  “You might want to get your partner here a cold drink. I think he’s about to blow a blood vessel,” Axl said.

  Skylar laughed. “He’s always like that.”

  “I am not!” Harvey said clenching the muscles in his jaw.

  “Anyway, did the video reveal anything?” she asked.

  Harvey tossed his apple core into the trash can. “Did it like hell. I swear the camera they were using in that bar must have been something bought from a dollar store. It’s terribly grainy, in black and white and it kept cutting out. Plus they had positioned it behind the bar so all you could see was a few people at the bar and the rest can’t be seen.”

  “I told him that’s how they function over there. It’s a shady place. Nothing good comes out of Ruby’s Bar — except the wings. I have to admit, they sell decent wings. Strange really,” Axl said leaning back in his chair. “I figured with their low prices they would drop the ball on the meat but it’s the beer. That beer is like sucking dirty rainwater out of my eavestrough.” Both of them gave him a confused look and he continued. “Not that I’ve ever tried that.”

  “So what does it tell us?”

  “He was there. That’s for sure and he certainly loved to grope. He got a nice right hand from one gal at the bar before he disappeared into the shadows,” Axl said. “But that’s it.”

  “What about our guy with the tattoo on his neck?”

  “Nothing but I told Harvey here that I think it’s a member of the Outlaws.”

  “The motorcycle gang?”

  “Yeah. Look, I’ve been in Ruby’s a number of times. For the wings, that is. Anyway on a few occasions I’ve seen some of these rough guys show up. They are all brawn. The owner has tossed them several times. They’re always causing fights and whatnot. But I do recall one of the
m having a tattoo on the neck.”

  Skylar looked at Harvey. It was worth looking into. It wouldn’t have been the first time that gangs had wandered into their neck of the woods. The Latin Syndicate was more common but bikers roared through Carrabelle on occasion, usually when they were making their way down to Miami.

  “Anyway, we do have some good news,” Harvey said. “The owner told me that Nick was a lawyer.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I’m guessing you forgot to ask that.”

  “He said he didn’t speak with him beyond a few times,” Skylar said in her defense.

  Harvey smiled as he headed over to the coffee vending machine and slotted a few coins inside. “Like I said, Reid, you really are dropping the ball. What is up with you lately? I swear you’ve got your head in the sand.”

  Axl looked at her and she shrugged. The fact was he was telling the truth. It wasn’t just the whole thing with Ben’s son getting bullied that was bothering her, it was the fact that her father had left a voice message. She hadn’t seen him in several years and then out of the blue he thought he could just wiggle back into her life by asking her if it would be okay to visit. He was the last person she wanted in Carrabelle. She didn’t want to think of all the damage he could do by simply opening his mouth.

  Chapter 4

  Harvey wanted to hear back from the ME before they approached the next of kin and declared it a murder. It was obvious another vehicle had been involved based on the findings of tire marks on the road and damage to the sedan, but Jenna would be able to shed some light on what had caused his death. In the meantime, Skylar was planning on running a few errands and then meeting up with him at the ME’s office just after noon. She’d just pulled out of the parking lot when her phone jangled. She swerved off to the side of the road and took the call.

  “Ms. Reid?” a woman asked.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Principal Myers, I’m going to need you to come to the school.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course.” She ran a hand over her forehead. “What’s up?”

  “Probably best I tell you in person.”

  “I can be there in five minutes.”

  After hanging up she sat there for a second or two before taking off. This was really going to throw a wrench into the works. How did anyone manage their life with a kid? She’d been so excited about the prospect of having a child with Alex that she hadn’t given much thought to the responsibility side of things. She felt like a fish out of water and it wasn’t even her own. As her truck blew through the streets of Carrabelle she thought back to the first time her father had shown up at her school. As a busy police officer in New York he didn’t take too kindly to being pulled away but with her mother not capable or incapacitated due to having drunk too much — a common daily occurrence — he didn’t have much choice. The principal was insistent.

  She recalled him showing up and getting into an argument with the principal and gripping her hand tightly as he led her out of the school. Once they were out of earshot of the principal he ripped into her. Telling her that she couldn’t do this again. It was an inconvenience. What he meant by that was she was an inconvenience. Of course had her mother been in the right state of mind she would have shown up and that would have been that. Instead, she was constantly knocking heads with him and feeling like a thorn in his side as she wrestled with growing up without her mother’s support.

  So much had changed between them since those days. Her father no longer drank. At least that’s what he told her. Nine years of sobriety he’d said the last time they spoke. She didn’t know whether to believe him or not and by the time she reached an age to make a clean break she didn’t care one way or the other.

  When Skylar arrived at the school, she killed the engine and headed inside, she made a beeline for the administration office that was close to the main doors. Inside, an older lady with specs was glancing at paperwork when she approached the front desk.

  “I’m here to see the principal. Skylar Reid.”

  “Oh yes, if you want to take a seat over there, she’ll be right out.”

  Skylar took a seat on a small chair and twisted one of the rings on her hand around. It was like being back in high school all over again. The nerves. The tension. The worry she felt and the lack of people to talk to. Fortunately enough, one of the staff in her school paid close attention and within a matter of days after the embarrassing confrontation her father had with the principal, Skylar found someone to confide in. She often wondered what happened to that teacher after she graduated. Did she ever really know the impact she’d had on her life?

  Several minutes passed before a door off to the right of the cramped office opened and a young girl came out and shuffled out of the office with a grim look on her face. Skylar raised an eyebrow.

  “Ms. Reid.”

  She turned to find an average-looking woman. She was neither tall, nor thin or overweight. Her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail, and she wore thin-rimmed glasses. Like any true principal in command of a school, she conveyed an air of confidence as she made a gesture towards her office.

  Skylar headed in and took a seat.

  In front of her was a large mahogany table with a large desktop computer screen, a mouse and mouse pad, and a yellow cup full of pens. There was a gold nameplate on the front of her desk with the name Julia Myers.

  She heard the door close behind her and then the principal took a seat.

  “What relation are you to Sam?”

  “Oh, I’m just doing a favor for Ben. We’re friends.”

  “And where is Mr. Walker?”

  Skylar frowned. “Away on training, he returns tomorrow evening.”

  She sighed. “Look, I’m not sure if I should be telling you this but Sam is absent.”

  “Absent? But I dropped him off at school today. I saw him walk in with my own two eyes.”

  “Well he never attended any of his classes.”

  “You have surveillance here, do you not?”

  “We do and it’s already been looked at. Not long after he walked in the main doors he went into the bathroom and then five minutes later he exited the school.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Skylar asked.

  “That’s what I was about to ask you,” Julia said.

  Skylar felt her stomach drop. This situation couldn’t get much worse. Not only had she been placed in charge of Ben’s son and he’d already got a black eye but now he was missing?

  “Well, I have no clue.”

  “Right.” Julia turned towards her computer and moved the mouse ever so slightly. “Today isn’t the first time he’s gone missing. He was absent on Monday, Wednesday and of course today.”

  “Why didn’t you phone?”

  “I did. I left a message on the voicemail. I gather no one has heard that?”

  Skylar nodded. “Right, well look, leave it with me. I will track him down. He couldn’t have gone far. I have a good feeling I know where he is.”

  “Good. Okay. And would you have a contact number for Mr. Walker?”

  “I do but if you don’t mind I would like to deal with this matter.”

  “Because he’s placed you in charge?”

  “Exactly.”

  Julia rose from her seat and walked over to the window and looked out. She clasped her hands behind her back looking as if she was about to give some grand lecture. “Please be aware that this is a very serious matter.”

  “I understand.”

  She turned. “Then I hope to hear from you shortly. Regardless, I will be speaking with Mr. Walker when he returns.”

  Skylar got up and was about to leave when she turned and faced her. “Tell me, Ms. Myers. Has Sam ever been to see you about being bullied?”

  She squinted and shook her head. “No. Never.”

  “And none of the teachers have noticed?”

  “Ms. Reid. Our teachers do the best job they can under the circumstances. Not everything that goes on in this
school can be caught but if you’re suggesting what I think you are, we will definitely look into it.”

  Skylar gave a nod and then exited. There was very little she could say. Often victims of bullies didn’t say anything out of fear of being victimized again. Logically going to a teacher would have been the best thing to do but it often resulted in further trouble. She knew all too well how that happened.

  Outside, the air was thick and humid as she made her way over to her vehicle. As soon as she got inside she turned it on and cranked the air conditioning high. She sat there for a few minutes tapping her fingers against the steering wheel before setting off for Ben’s home a few streets away. Instead of pulling into the long driveway that wound up to his house, she parked a short distance away and crossed through the thick pine trees and shrubs making her way up to the house. The last thing she wanted was for him to hear her approach. As she traipsed through the dense forest surrounding his home she swatted at a couple of mosquitoes that were feasting on the back of her neck. She still hadn’t got used to them. When she came out on the other side she crept around the back of the house making sure to stay quiet. She reached the sunroom door and pried it open. From the moment she cracked it open she heard music playing. It wasn’t the regular type but the kind heard by someone playing a computer game. Skylar slipped off her shoes and padded through the sunroom into the kitchen and made her way to the staircase. She’d made it up three steps when it creaked loudly. Within seconds the music turned off and she heard shuffling. She smiled and shook her head. Not bothering to remain in stealth mode she made her way up and pushed open the door on Sam’s room. The controller for his PlayStation was on the floor, as was his school bag. She walked over to his closet and pulled it open and there looking up at her was Sam.

  Skylar dropped down and crossed her legs.

  Sam didn’t say anything at first.

  “I…”

  “How long have they been bullying you?” Skylar asked.

  He frowned as if expecting her to tear into him and give him a lecture.

  “Several months.”

  “And you haven’t told your father?”