Shadows May Fall

by Corcoran, Mell

  “We need to speak to someone in charge, please.” He ignored her advances and kept to business.

  “Oh, darlin’ I assure you, I can be in charge if you want.” She pulled a pen out from behind the desk that conveniently had cat-of-nine-tails affixed to the end. She began whipping the palm of her hand and winked at him. Lou had to cover her mouth to stop from laughing out loud.

  Dillon snatched the warrants out of Lou’s other hand and gave her a nasty look. “Ma’am, we need your boss. We have a search warrant. No messing around now, alright?”

  The woman slumped and rolled her eyes. “For a beautiful slab of man, you are no fun.” She dropped her flogging pen and picked up the phone, buzzing someone from the back. “I got Detectives here with warrants.” She hung up and went back to being the drab woman she was when they walked in. “Take a load off, Detective Beefcake. You too, doll.” They took a seat as instructed, but Lou kept giggling.

  “Cut it out!” Dillon scolded.

  “I wonder if they have a gift shop where I can get one of those pens!” Lou was dead serious.

  “I’ll grab a few from the back for ya.” The receptionist told her and gave her a wink.

  “Thanks!” Lou resumed giggling as the woman got up to get Lou her new toys.

  A few moments later, the drab woman returned with half a dozen pens for Lou while a human Barbie doll in an Escada suit followed behind her. Lou thought she recognized her from when she and Vinny were there before.

  “Deirdre Love, Chief Operations.” She extended her hand. “How may I be of service, Detectives?”

  Lou shook the woman’s hand. “Lou Donovan, my partner Dillon Cole. We’re her about Gerald Griffen.”

  The woman shook Dillon’s hand. “I heard he had passed. May I ask how he died?”

  They knew there was no way of keeping a wrap on the manner in which Gerald Griffen had died, so Lou figured there was no point in not telling her. “Someone bashed his brains in.” The receptionist burst into laughter upon Lou’s statement, prompting Miss Love to toss her a scolding glance.

  “Well, that’s quite gruesome.” The woman turned her attentions back to them. “What brings you to us? You can’t possibly think someone here had anything to do with this?”

  Lou handed the woman the search warrants. “We’ll need access to your network and everything that Mr. Griffen was involved with.”

  “What do you mean everything he was involved with?” Miss Love examined the paperwork.

  “Any employment records, contracts, correspondence.” Dillon recited a list.

  “We’ve done business with Gerald for years. I can’t just pull out a file from my credenza.” Love pulled a pair of eyeglasses out of her pocket and inspected the documents more carefully. “I think I need to have our attorneys take a look at these before I go any further.”

  “Miss Love, we can have a dozen Deputies and techs come in here in about twenty minutes to do that gathering for you.” Dillon spoke firmly. “We are extending a courtesy by allowing you the opportunity to comply without us having to do that.”

  “Oh, I understand completely!” Love looked up at him over the rim of her glasses. “I have no problem producing what you’re requesting; I am just not sure how we can do so without dozens of man hours digging everything up. Not to mention half our office staff has gone home for the day. Can you please give me a few minutes to call our counsel and get my assistant back?”

  “Certainly.” Lou was fine with that, so Love headed back to her office to make the calls. She didn’t get the feeling Miss Love was interested in obstructing their investigation but genuinely concerned about how they were going to comply with the warrants. Despite the woman’s Vogue magazine facade, she was more a Forbes personality. After a bit of research on the company from their last encounter with Spank Me, Lou learned that it was a very lucrative business despite it’s humble location and minimalist facilities. The company had posted earnings for the previous year in the eight figures. It was evident porn was paying off for them.

  “We can have techs come in the morning to do an audit of their servers.” Dillon whispered while they waited.

  “Yeah.” Lou had thought the same thing. “We’re not going to sit here all night while they dig up every piece of paper with Griffen’s name on it. Ask Miss Whip-it about Hunny Trainer.”

  “Me?” Dillon was clearly not pleased. “Why me?”

  “You know why.” Lou winked and gave him a shove.

  While Dillon made nice with the receptionist, Lou called in to get the techs routed to Spank Me in the morning. A few minutes later Miss Love returned with a stocky young man holding a file box.

  “Detectives, I’ve been advised by our counsel that because of ongoing litigation, he needs to be present for the document production. Is there any way we can resume this in the morning? As a sign of good faith, I’ve brought our files on Hunny Trainer.” Love waved to the young man, and he placed the box on the waiting room table. “You can take these now if you like, but you understand my predicament?”

  “We do, and we appreciate your situation. We’ve already made arrangements for one of our techs to come in the morning to take care of the server audit.” Lou knew they were doing damage control and didn’t want a scandal. She highly doubted their killer was an employee of Spank Me. That would be way too easy.

  “Your receptionist, Ms. Jenkins informed us that Hunny Trainer is no longer an employee of Spank Me?” Dillon asked.

  “Correct.” Love confirmed.

  “Can you tell us the circumstances surrounding her leaving?” Dillon clearly had gotten a tip from Miss Whip-it.

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you.” Love sighed. “She had a bright future with us. She just signed an exclusive five-year contract after getting out of the one with Gerald. How she managed that I’ll never know, but I do know that Gerald was livid. Then, one week into production on her second feature, Hunny simply stopped showing up. It was very abrupt and not like her. She is always very professional. We called. I called twice, personally. After a few days of nothing, we checked her personnel file, she listed one of the other girls here as her emergency contact. I even sent someone to her house, but her landlord said she was gone. We have no family contacts for her, so I hope you can get to the bottom of it. Everything we have on her is in that file.”

  “We’ll look into it.” Dillon handed her a business card. “We’ll have a team in for the rest of the files in the morning. If you have any questions, concerns or think of anything that might be helpful, please give me a call.”

  “You’re the detective that found Katarina purrs, aren’t you?” Love looked at Lou.

  Lou nodded. “I was one of the detectives on the scene.”

  “She was amazing once.” The woman’s eyes misted a little. “Kat wasn’t always what they say she was.” Deirdre Love gave a slight smile and walked out as efficiently as she had walked in. Lou imagined there was a hell of a story there that no one would ever know.

  Frank sat on a rock next to the lake trying to regain focus. Max had just left and was heading for Juneau. Frank couldn’t recall the last time Max had been out of the same zip code without him or at least one of the guys as back up. It made him uneasy, and he felt out of control. Frank was not good at sitting on the bench, but he had no choice. He could feel his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he cringed. He knew it was Lou, and he had no clue what to say to her if anything. Avoiding her calls was only going to raise flags but he needed to get a plan together on how to handle things.

  “How many times has she called you?” Abby nudged him over so she could sit with him.

  “I think five or six.” Frank shook his head. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “I don’t think we say anything.” Abby pulled out one of Niko’s signature cigarettes and lit it, inhaling deeply.

  “I thought you quit ages ago?” Frank was a little surprised.

>   “I did. This doesn’t count.” She inhaled again. “I’m a little freaked out so don’t give me shit.”

  “I get it.” Frank scrubbed his hands over his face. “Did we do this?”

  “Not we, me.” Abby let a tear slip. “I stepped way out of bounds this morning, and he snapped at Niko and me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Frank looked at her concerned. “What happened?”

  Abby practically sucked down half the cigarette in one draw, as if trying to choke back her feelings. It took her a moment to answer. “I walked in on an intense conversation with him and Niko and tossed in my two cents like a bossy nosy bitch, and he snapped and walked out on us.”

  “Whoa.” He wasn’t sure what to say. He knew Abby got away with a lot with Max, but he knew one day it might be bad timing. “What was the subject of the conversation? Lou?”

  “What else?” Abby was exasperated. “I was listening in before I walked in on them and Niko was calling Max out on his denial of the situation. He was right, we all thought we were beyond the stone heart routine, but apparently he’s not! I don’t know why they both are playing this game!”

  “I do.” Frank was there from the beginning and had unique insight. He had seen Max go off the reservation over a stranger and then his total disorientation when he found out who Lou was. Frank was the one who saw it instantly and called Abby over it. “It’s not a game, Abby, it’s fear and panic.” He stood up and began to pace. “You know both of their histories. Max’s plan for having a family being murdered, quite literally. He buried his heart and devoted himself to our people, throwing any personal agenda out the window. Then Lou, well shit she was crushed before she could even feel for someone. That piece of crap Sawyer killed any romantic incentive in her. You’d swallow your heart too if you faced what they’ve faced. It’s going to take time for them to come to terms with their emotions, let alone bare their hearts to one another! It’s easier to believe that there’s no way the other could care about them so they can avoid it all together. We can’t push it anymore. We’ve set the table; they have to sit at it.”

  “I understand but that’s not what it was about this morning, it was about Max playing dumb to Niko, to us.” Abby clarified.

  “Then you don’t understand!” Frank shouted. “He isn’t ready yet! He is not a machine, Abby, he has feelings and fears just like us. Forcing him to talk even to us is accepting that he is vulnerable, and that is something he cannot do right now, especially with the messes we’re dealing with at the moment. We all need to back off!” It was Frank that stormed off into the park now.

  Abby should have known better. She should have seen the whole picture, not just the hearts and flowers she was trying to toss out at every opportunity. Max and Lou were as tough as they were fragile, but there was no doubt they cared for each other. It was in the Fates hands now.

  It was about forty-five minutes before the puck dropped when Dillon and Lou pulled up the driveway of the house Niko, Yuri, Finn and Conner were staying. All the cars were there, but no one was answering the bell. Lou tried calling Niko again, but it went to voicemail for the tenth time. There was something very wrong.

  “What do you want to do?” Dillon asked, unsure of any suggestions.

  Lou walked around the front, peering inside the windows. She could see the bottle of Fireman’s Brew abandoned on the coffee table in the family room. Niko was not a slob. He would never leave empty bottles laying around, ever. Not unless he got called out on an emergency. “I have no idea. Let’s just head to my place and get some work done.” As they headed back to the car, Finn and Yuri were walking up the driveway. “What’s going on?” She asked them.

  “What do you mean?” Finn gave her a curious look, but Yuri just passed them by and went into the house. It wasn’t like him to be rude.

  “I mean, I have been calling you guys for hours, and no one is picking up!” Lou watched his facial expressions carefully. Finn was always a poker face looking down at her, even when being ridiculously silly.

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you called.” He patted her on the head with that deadpan expression then headed inside.

  “Where is Niko?” She yelled after him.

  “Your place.” Finn replied before closing the door behind him. “Was that just super odd or is it just me?” Lou knew something was up, but she wondered if she was just paranoid.

  “Really odd.”Dillon confirmed her feeling.

  They got in the car and drove to Lou’s just in time to see Frank pass them in his car. He didn’t even slow down when Dillon honked his horn at him. Lou and Dillon just looked at each other, baffled. While Dillon got the file box out of the back, Lou raced across the grounds to the guest house looking for Niko. She was sure he would be with Max but when she knocked, it was Connor who answered, and he was alone.

  “Hey.” He gave her a half smile. “What’s up?”

  “Exactly!” Lou pushed him out of the way so she could search the place. “What is up?”

  “Well hello to you too, Detective.” Connor and Niko had discussed what they would and would not say to Lou. There was no reason to tell her Max was anywhere but away on business.

  “Where is everyone?” She demanded.

  “Uh, Finn and Yuri are at the rental. Abby and Frank I think were meeting the inspector at Max’s place and Niko is up in your place.”

  “Where’s Max?” The cop in Lou felt his response was too rehearsed and he conveniently omitted Max’s whereabouts.

  “He had business out of town.” Connor stuck to the script.

  Lou looked at him sideways. “Without Frank or Niko? Really?”

  “Sure, why not?” Connor didn’t like lying to her. Even if he was technically not lying, it still felt wrong.

  “Why not?” Lou stepped up, and it made Connor grin. She was more than a foot shorter than he was, but she was fierce, and he admired her courage. “Maybe because there is a deranged psychopath out there that wants to make his life a living hell? Or maybe because there are a lot of people out there that know he’s on to their little illegal import-export scheme and eliminating him would solve all their problems? What the hell is going on?”

  “Look, I gotta get back to the rental. You need to take this up with Niko because I don’t know what to tell you.” Connor was fleeing, no two ways about it. One more minute of Lou’s interrogation and his conscience was going to make him blurt out everything. He waved and jogged out the door.

  “What the shit is going on!” She yelled at the ceiling and shook her fists at the sky. After a moment or two, when she realized no one was there, she decided she was going to do a search of the place for clues. It wasn’t an invasion of Max’s privacy if there was something wrong. He would do the same if the roles were reversed, right?

  She went through the papers on the coffee table, which served as Max’s desk for the time being. There were reports on people, but she had no clue who they were, and there were stacks and stacks of cargo manifests from San Francisco to Shanghai. One laptop was gone, and the others were biometrically secured just like they had made hers. The kitchen was spotless save for one tea cup and saucer sitting upside down on a towel next to the sink. Even the trash had been emptied recently. When she made her way to the bedroom, she felt her heart skip a beat at the smell. It was his smell. A soft, barely perceptible spice and citrus wrapped in the unmistakable warmth of his skin. She couldn’t help herself. She reached for the pillow that was tucked away under the carefully made bed linens. She only meant to sniff a little, but she couldn’t stop. She buried her face in the soft, silken fabric and inhaled deeply, clutching it close as a child would a beloved teddy bear. He rested his head and dreamed every night on it. What would it feel like to touch his cheek? His lips? She closed her eyes so tightly as her heart ached, longing to know what the warmth of his skin would feel like under her fingertips.

  “What the shit am I doing?!” Her
eyes snapped open, and she scrambled to tuck the pillow back in its place and get the hell out of there before she got caught. She couldn’t get to the main house fast enough.

  “You okay?” Dillon asked, and she must have jumped a foot in the air.

  “What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that?” She barked at him.

  “Sneaking up on you?” Dillon took a good look at himself, sitting at the kitchen island going through the box they had brought with them. “Lou, you walked in on me.”

  “Right. Yeah well, your sitting there all sneaky.” She felt like she had the word ‘pervert’ written across her face. “I’m gonna put sweats on.” She raced out of the kitchen and ran upstairs.

  “What the hell was that?” Dillon asked Niko as he came in after Lou.

  “She was sniffing his pillow.” Niko grinned.

  “She was what?” Dillon raised an eyebrow.

  “She didn’t know I was there.” He went to the refrigerator and surveyed the contents. “She was searching the place for clues, I suspect. But her heart got the better of her. Don’t let on I told you. If she finds out I saw her, she will just suck herself up in a ball and vanish.”

  “Why is it so hard for those two to see that they are nuts about each other?” Dillon was just baffled, as most of them were.

  “Frank has it down.” Niko extracted himself from the fridge holding several plastic containers. “Battle scars, self-preservation, an indomitable commitment to duty bolstered by a gut-wrenching fear of loss.”

  “Oh, that’s all.” Dillon rolled his eyes and went back to the files.

  “It’s okay.” Niko sighed as he popped open the containers and started spooning out the contents. “We got time. No one is going anywhere.”

  The Gulfstream was just flying over Oregon when Max finally decided to look at his phone. Lou had called six times, and there were several text messages. He didn’t read them. Instead, he sifted through his contacts for Peter Radisson and sent him a text to meet him in Juneau in the morning. As soon as Radisson replied, stating he would be there by eight, Max turned his phone completely off. He had about three hours of solitude, and he intended to use every second of it not to think. After pouring himself three fingers of scotch, he hit a few buttons on the control panel next to the window. The soft sound of piano keys filled the cabin as Debussy’s Clair de Lune began to play. He drank deeply and closed his eyes, but all he could see behind his closed lids was her face. The memory of her being mauled by the puppies, her laughter tinkling in his mind beautiful like the music that set light to his reminiscence. For the next two-thousand miles, he would allow himself his dreams, his musings of her. But once the wheels of that plane set to land again, he needed to be the man he was ascended to be. The leader of his people, the commander, entrusted to govern over North America. Once his feet touched terra firma again, Tallulah Louelle Donovan was one of his Principates and his wild notions of her ever loving him would be cast aside for the reality at hand.