Something about his question felt weird, but I’d try to analyze that later.
“Why are you even asking me this, it isn’t like you are going to believe me anyway.”
“Humor me.”
“I was meeting Ian Christakos. He texted me a little after five o’clock and told me to meet him there. While I was waiting, I saw Aiden crash.”
“Any relation to Sergeant Christakos?” Detective Brown wrote notes into one of the folders.
“Yes. His brother.”
“Where was Ian?”
I looked up for the first time, the incandescent lights in the room burning my eyes. “I don’t know. He was late.”
A knock at the door silenced me, and I looked over my shoulder to see another officer. “Detective Brown, Ian Christakos is here, he’s in your office.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.” The detective stood. “Miss Scarvoni, just stay seated and let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of this.”
My heart soared at the thought of Ian being here, finally. Some answers. Where was he, why was he late?
17
Ian
I had no clue what the fuck was going on. I grabbed a pencil from the detective’s desk and twisted it between my fingers. The rhythmic motion soothed me as I waited for someone to come explain why in the fuck the head of our security department at work interrupted me in a classified meeting and escorted me out of the building before telling me I had to go straight to the precinct.
The door opened, and a man in his late forties entered the room. I fought back my urge to laugh. He fit the stereotypical description of a detective from the old seventies sitcoms: handlebar mustache, wrinkled shirt, and reeked of coffee and stale cigarette smoke.
“I’m Detective Brown.” He held out a hand. “I’m in charge of investigating the tampering of police vehicles. Since this has to do with your brother Kayson’s safety and other motorcycle deputies I’m sure that you want to get to the bottom of it as well.”
I nodded. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Why was I called out of a classified meeting?”
“Can anyone vouch for you being in that meeting?” Detective Brown scribbled a few notes.
“You want me to verify that I was in a meeting you guys pulled me out of?”
“That is correct.”
“Fine. Yes, about fifty people. I also had to sign in and sign out.”
“And during this meeting, what sort of communication do you have?”
“Excuse me? It’s classified. You do understand that, correct?” I had no patience for this man. He and this whole department were pinning this whole thing on Leo, who I knew was innocent. To make it worse, he was trying to drag me into the middle of it. Oh hell no.
“Let me rephrase. During this meeting, are you working on computers, talking on telephones, what?”
“Okay, I get that you don’t understand how real security works. But no, there are no computers. There are no phones. I can’t even wear a digital watch into classified meetings. Nothing that is able to transmit a signal, a message, Morse fucking code is allowed through the door.”
“Ian, I understand that you are upset with me. Believe me, your brother, and Carter have been riding my case nonstop. But just stay with me. Miss Scarvoni claims that you texted her today and asked her to meet you.”
“She’s mistaken. She’s under so much stress. I didn’t. Here look for yourself.” I pulled my phone out of my front breast pocket and slid it across the desk to him.
“So...when you go into these meetings what do you do with your phone?”
“I leave it.”
“Leave it where?” The detective stared at me, his mouth partially open as if he was waiting for me to say a particular word.
“On my desk.”
“And who has access to your desk while you are in the meeting?”
“Truthfully? Anyone not in the meeting.” Finally, I could see where he was going with this.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to cause trouble for you or Leo?”
The flowers, the reservation, if I had one inch of doubt before, I didn’t now. All of it was leading to one person...Taylor. I just couldn’t figure out why. To get to me? What the fuck? Had she gone insane? “I have a sinking suspicion I know who.”
He was looking at me, but his expression remained neutral. “Who?”
“My secretary.”
Detective Brown’s mouth curled into an amused grin. “Interesting. Was she at work all day?”
“As far as I know. As I mentioned, I was in a meeting. I have no access to the outside world unless a securities officer interrupts us.”
“Hmm.” The detective tapped his pen on the desk. “If she was at work, then that means she isn’t working alone. Someone would have had to help her. Who else would have known to sabotage a bike, and then alert your secretary so she could contact Leo.”
“Whoa.” I hadn’t even put all of that together. My mind had locked on to Taylor and had gone nowhere else. Fuck. He was right. I clenched my hands into fists.
“For sometime, I’ve doubted Miss Scarvoni’s guilt. All the deputies trust her and swear by her innocence. Not a single one believes that she is guilty. In this line of work, we trust our instincts almost as much as we trust our proof. So, to me, it told me that something didn’t add up.”
Detective Brown lowered his voice, like he was confiding a secret and was afraid that someone was listening to us. “If you didn’t send that text message, and I believe you when you say that you didn’t, then we need proof of who is messing with your phone.
“I’d like permission to have an app put on your phone that is motion activated. When the home button is pushed, it will turn on the camera and a track pad that will relay all messages to our station as well as snap of photo of the user. We will, of course, give you an access code to turn it off, but you will need to do it each and every time you send a message. Also, please remember that the app is live so your privacy is nonexistent, in other words don’t use it while in the bathroom.”
“What’s the point of the app?” I scratched my head not sure that I was grasping this whole thing.
“Are you positive that it is your secretary who sent the text to Leo, positive enough that you’d make a statement and go to court to testify?”
“No. I told you that. I think that I know it’s her but no, I’m not positive.”
“Exactly. We need positive. We need to know who is involved and maybe they can lead us to the main suspect because right night we’re out of clues until the city gets off their asses and sends us the correct camera feeds. Right now we’re just setting up a record of propensity.”
“So if it turns out to be Taylor, then what?”
“Then we bring her in and hold her for conspiracy to commit. You’d be shocked at how fast people will turn on their own mothers if it might save their own skin.”
“Wouldn’t it just make more sense to haul her in for questioning or put surveillance on her?”
“Sure it would, but thanks to lawyers and this little thing called Rights, we can’t just do that because you ‘think’ it might be her. We have to know that it’s her before we can move.”
Could I do this? Hell yes, I could. If it meant putting a guilty party behind bars and protecting my family then yes, I’d do whatever it took.
“Yes. Do whatever.”
“Ian, may I call you Ian?”
“Of course.”
“The injuries are escalating. We’ve requested the camera feed from the city cameras around town, but they average about thirty days getting it to us. Government offices at work.”
I smiled at his forced levity.
“You may be able to help us end this before anyone is seriously injured, including Kayson or Carter. But remember that Leo Scarvoni is still the prime suspect, so this information is not to be shared with her.”
His words hit me like a ton of bricks right in the solar plexus. Encourage Taylor and kee
p Leo away?
“Understood.” It felt wrong to agree to do this, a betrayal, but I agreed anyway.
“I’m not saying you have to actively try and trap her. But if she happens to use it, then all the better. By the way, what fuels her?”
“I’m not following you?”
“Why Leo? What’s Leo done to her?” The detective’s dark eyes bore into mine and I was so self conscious about how to explain this.
“Not to sound conceited or anything but me. Taylor is pissed that Leo and I are together. It seems that the closer Leo and I have grown the more erratic Taylor has become.”
“I need you to get Taylor to let her guard down. She needs to open up to you. I’ll leave that to you on how you decide to do that.”
I nodded, understanding his meaning. I signed all of the necessary documents and there were lots of them before leaving Detective Brown’s office. I saw Leo. She was sitting on a bench, her head down, shoulders slumped. In a few quick strides I was next to her but then halted. Giving myself a mental shake, I put on my game face.
“You ready?”
“Yeah. Are you okay?” Her voice sounded as if she was as the edge of her breaking point.
“I’m fine. Everything will be fine. Where’s your motorcycle?”
“In the parking lot where you told me to meet you.”
“I didn’t text you that. I was in a meeting all day.”
“But you did, Ian. You did.”
“Leo,” I held up my hand to calm her hysteria that was growing, “you received a text from my phone. I didn’t send it. Never mind. Let me just take you to your bike.”
Dropping Leo off was hard—fuck, it was crushing. I wanted to call this whole thing off, but I owed it to everyone involved to find out the truth. I had more than Leo to think about, I had my nieces—Gianna, Harlow, and Avril relied on their dad being safe. And if Leo and I separating would help solve this mystery, then that was what I would do. Not to mention Ariel and Mana. God, why was I the one who had to be pulled into the middle of this.
“I’ll call you later, okay?” I leaned forward and kissed the top of her head.
“Aren’t you coming?”
I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts, whatever I said next was going to break her heart. I had to make sure that when this was all over that she’d forgive me.
“No. I have some serious thinking to do. I think that we need to slow it down. Your world is just so crazy right now…I’m having a hard time handling it.”
She glanced up for the first time, her green eyes seemed to be lifeless, but they had the strongest effect ever...they were like a dagger right through me.
She got on her bike and sped off, I stayed about seven car lengths behind her, making sure she got home safely.
When all of this was over and she was cleared, I hoped that she would forgive me. The fastest way to get Taylor to act up was to lead her on, and I had to be convincing.
18
Leo
I didn’t look back, I saw him in my rearview mirror, but he made it perfectly clear when he dropped me off at my bike that he didn’t believe me. He hadn’t said a single fucking word. All of his claims of wanting to help me figure this out, about believing me, about being by my side, were nothing but smoke.
I knew people had a breaking point, and I guessed that being hauled into the station right along with me was his.
Once I was back in my apartment, I collapsed onto my couch and flipped on the television. I ended up watching Wheel of Fortune like some old woman who had nothing better to do. Okay, I wasn’t old, but I definitely didn’t have anything better to do. The contestants this time were a young kid, a middle-aged man, and a guy with a patch over one eye. Just as they were getting into the puzzle and were starting to buy vowels, someone decided to pound on my door.
Ian or the police. Those were my guesses, and I didn’t particularly want to see either.
I couldn’t take anything else.
The offensive knocking thundered again, and still I hesitated. Maybe whoever it was would just go away.
“Leo! I know you’re home!”
For Stella, I would open the door.
“Took you long enough. It’s time for operation Takedown Tits McGee,” Stella announced as she swept past me carrying a black duffel. Katy followed her in and was carrying a steaming pizza box.
“Shh.” I waved at her. “Give me a second. I gotta see this.”
“Why the fuck are you watching Wheel of Fortune?” Stella held a hand up to my forehead and checked my temperature.
“It’s his turn, shut up.” I pushed her hand away.
The man missing an eye skipped spinning the wheel and instead decided to buy a vowel, “Pat, I’d like to buy an I.”
“Boom. I just had to hear him ask to buy an eye.”
“I’m so proud of you, you are still warped.” Stella squeezed me. “Now turn that shit off. On to real business, ever since you told me about your dinner date and the fucked-up reservations, I’d thought that Taylor had a hand in that. After I heard about today, I just know that the bitch is more conniving than we gave her credit for.” Stella set the bag down and then moved into my kitchen where she grabbed three plates.
“Care to fill me in?” I opened my fridge and pulled out the rest of the bottle of wine from the other night with Ian and grabbed a few bottles of water.
Throttle jumped up onto the back of the chair and swatted at Stella as she moved by.
“Watch it, cat!” Stella warned. “I’m starving, and although I’ve never eaten pussy, there’s a first for everything.”
I giggled and rolled my eyes at her. It felt good to giggle, especially after what I had been through.
“Really? That wasn’t what the bathroom wall said. I think it said you were a bisexual.” Katy lifted her brows and then jabbed Stella with her elbow.
“At least we know that I’ll be able to reach into anyone’s pants and be satisfied with whatever I find.”
God, I’d missed my friends. I missed evenings like this when we did nothing but razz each other.
“We don’t have time for catty little remarks.” Stella laughed at her own comeback.
Katy and I groaned as Stella laughed and lifted the bottle from my hand, saying, “Red wine? Wow, Leo, you’re so fancy.”
“Ian bought it.”
“Yeah, obviously, but red wine is usually not chilled.”
“I don’t care if it’s warm or cold, does it have alcohol? After the day I’ve had, that is all I care about.”
“Fair enough.” Stella gave in gracefully. “Anyway, I think Taylor is more involved than we realize.” Stella set her plate on my coffee table and took a seat on the floor opposite me.
“Umm, care to explain that?” I was all for hating on Taylor but sabotaging motorcycles, I just didn’t see it in her.
“I don’t know, I just don’t trust her. When she’s around it’s like someone left the gate open at the cunt farm. I just wouldn’t be shocked if we discovered that she had a hand in all of this. She is evil I tell you, eeevvvvillll.” Stella lifted her pinkie and picked at her teeth in an imitation of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.
“Yeah, she’s the evil one. Um, Stella…” Katy buried her face in a pillow, fighting back her laughter.
“What? What am I missing?” I raised one eyebrow, waiting for one of them to confess.
“Stella thinks that Taylor is so involved that she wanted to give her a little present on our way over here.” Katy’s face was beet red.
“Oh God.” I let out a groan. “What did you do?” My focus was one hundred percent on Stella.
“Nothing too bad.” Stella flicked her wrist as if dismissing me and my overreacting mind. “With all the crap going on, I didn’t want to stir up the shit pot. So I sort of ding-dong ditched her.” Stella gave me a wicked smile, and Katy burst out laughing.
“Imagine romantic moonlight and a cute little quiet neighborhood. You following me?” Katy was pain
ting the picture through bursts of hysterical laughter, but I was following.
“Then, POW, there’s Stella to fuck it up. She pulls a bag from behind her seat and brings forth the largest dildo I’d ever seen. I have no clue what she’s going to do with it, but will she tell me? Noooo. Not even when she gets out of the car.” Katy leans forward and bangs her head on my table. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I follow her?”
I was laughing, and I had no clue why I was laughing, at least not yet, but the thought of Stella carrying a giant plastic dick sounded funny, and I hated that I missed it.
“This is like a wreck, right? You know it’s going to be bad, but you still have to watch?” I asked, the creepy suspicion already washing over me.
Katy nodded. “The bitch walks up to this little four-square house and then marches up the few steps.” Katy paused, making me wait for the punch line. “Then, like a fucking glow stick, she whacks the cock, and it starts humming.”
“Holy shit.” I practically spewed my drink that I had just taken a sip of.
“No, Leo, wait. Not just humming. It was freaking flashing too. The thing picks up speed and ends up sounding like a fucking drum line. I was positive that it was going to start playing ‘The Saints Come Marching Home’ because believe me, they could’ve all came and we wouldn’t have heard them above the rum, tum, tum of this fucking thing.”
“Ha, ha, what did you do?”
“Nothing. I think I was in shock.”
“Amateur,” Stella said, finally joining back into the story. “I had to grab her hand and pull her back to the car.”
“Do I even want to know what you did with the dildo?”
“I put it at her door, it made a nice subtle knocking sound. It was literally ding-DONG ditching.”
“You mean schlong,” Katy slurred the words as she fought back her laughter.
I sat for a minute, trying to picture all of this, and then I fell back and couldn’t control the gasping laughter peeling from my lips. It was so hard that I actually snorted. I was snorting, which only made Stella and Katy laugh harder.
Often (Iron Orchids Book 4) Page 14
