“Hey, they won’t bug you. You just rubbed their nose raw, and we have proof. The video is pretty convincing, by the way. Pete was shoving me when you grabbed him and tossed him over the table.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” she said, smiling.
“No worries. We’re good,” I said.
“We are?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“You know I don’t know what that means,” I told her, annoyed.
“What?” she said, putting a hand on her hip and accentuating her curves through her business attire.
“Body language. You’re the one teaching it to me,” I told her.
She laughed. “I’m messing with you,” she said and then winked at me and closed the door.
My fax icon went off and I pulled up my email. It was a signed contract for services with Mayor Taylor’s signature. Now it could be legitimate.
The only things I could be sure of regarding the abductor’s circular drive was that the van started in front of a bar, circled twice, and then the phone was crushed and left at the same bar. Now I have no idea why they did that, but it had to have some significance. The bar was one of several businesses in the area with cameras outside pointed towards the street. I emailed a request for files from the police and FBI to Susan O’Hara and stood, stretching before putting on my suit jacket again. The weight of the jacket had surprised me, and I smiled, remembering the tablet. I pocketed my phone and left in search of Jo.
“Hey,” I said, finding her in the IT room, leaning over the desk and whispering to Tech Support.
“What’s up?” they both said.
“I want to run down this detail.” I showed her the blown-up image of the bar I’d pulled from Street View.
“Did they send in the signed paperwork?” Jo asked.
I pulled my phone out and handed it to her. I was good with it, but Jo loved my phone. I made a mental note to get hers upgraded soon.
“Good. So we’re official,” she said.
“And hourly. Let’s go. Skye, I’ll be in touch. You’ll be Alfred on this case.”
“Aye aye, captain,” she said, giving me a jaunty salute.
“Where’s that from?” I asked Jo, knowing I was missing a cultural reference.
Her salute had been a movement of the elbow with the palm facing out—nothing that I’d ever seen anybody in the military doing. Ever.
“I think it’s SpongeBob,” Jo whispered. Skye broke into a fit of giggles.
I walked out of the room with Jo in tow.
“I really want to talk to you,” she said, stopping me.
“Yes?” I asked.
“It isn’t about Pete. It’s about what you said earlier.”
“About what?” I asked her, noticing that her eyes were dilated a little bit.
“Even when you are on your best behavior… you make women a little uncomfortable,” she said, drawing close.
“I’ve been trying not to. I know I’ve been out in public a lot more lately. Maybe if I learned more about the social cues and body language…” I trailed off, distracted as she got really close.
Personal-space close. I felt my back hit the wall.
“Your blunt honesty is disarming sometimes.” She moved closer, her eyes filling my vision.
When she kissed me, it was the last thing I expected. I was ready for a head butt, a knee to the groin, or any number of other violent and unpleasant things. I’d had sex before, plenty of it… but kissing was one form of intimacy that I always managed to avoid. Sure, when my mom was alive I’d get the kiss on the cheek, but this one was different. It was wet, open-mouthed and I didn’t know what to do in response.
I was strange, even to me. I could be intimate with women, yet having people hug or invade my personal space sometimes triggered the panic when I wasn’t expecting it. My therapist thinks part of it is because of the intense bullying I suffered as a kid, but the anxiety wasn’t always consistent and was triggered by different factors. That’s why it was so hard for me to get used to people. Johanna had been protector and friend almost my whole life, so I went with the kiss and fought off the pangs of anxiety.
She pulled back after a second, laughing out loud, and I heard giggles.
“Woo-hoo!” Tech Support said from the now open doorway. She was giving us both a big round of applause.
* * *
We were sitting in the car outside Tony’s Sports Bar in silence when Jo finally spoke up.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I know you are probably feeling really uncomfortable about it. It was a mistake, and you’ve been a good friend and boss, so I think we should just forget about the whole thing and—”
“That was my first kiss. It makes sense that my friend, who happens to be a woman, shows me what a kiss feels like. It was good. Not something I’d likely repeat because it would be uncomfortable letting a strange woman get that close to me, but with you it was quite pleasant.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“No, I’ve been thinking that you were mad at me. For days. Weeks,” I admitted.
“Now why…”
“Ready?” I asked her, opening my door.
“You don’t like to talk about this stuff, do you?” Johanna asked.
“Nope,” I told her, waiting for her to close her door. We started walking towards the bar together.
“Did you get the information request from Susan?” Jo asked me quizzically.
“No, she should be meeting us here soon,” I told her.
“You ready for a restaurant?” Jo asked, stopping beside me.
“It’s actually a sports bar. TVs, music, darts…” I recited their Yelp page from memory.
“And a ton of people. If you get uncomfortable, we can leave. Or I can stay behind with Susan and interview the bartender. It’s totally up to you, boss,” Jo said in a rush.
I knew she knew that these types of situations were difficult for me, but the clock was ticking, and the Mayor wasn’t paying me to sit this one out. It was an all-out affair. I had Skye doing everything she could—except taking pictures of wayward spouses—and if she did well, I’d give her a bump this week. She’d already shown me she could handle multiple projects at once and could keep things—
My tablet buzzed in my pocket and I took it out, following Johanna inside the bar with my peripheral vision. It was the details of the case and the pictures that were captured by the street cam. It showed a masked man dragging what had to have been a screaming Ms. Taylor into a white panel van. The shot was brief, and there was no view of the license plate or any discerning rust marks to help identify it, so I kept flipping.
“Here,” Jo said. I sat down, my focus on the tablet.
“Drinks for ya?” a feminine voice asked.
“Scotch on the rocks. Styrofoam cup,” I muttered.
“Styrofoam?” the waitress repeated.
“Yes, the white foam cups that come from a sterilized container, only used once so the chances of something infecting me from it would be about—”
“Stop it, Jarek,” Jo said, kicking my chair.
“Styrofoam,” I said again, closing the matter.
I heard Jo let out a groan or a big sigh and I decided not to figure out the significance of it. Instead I kept looking at photos. There were tire marks on the pavement where the van had taken off with spinning wheels. I was completely focused on the marks when I heard a chair pull up next to me and felt someone slide into it, the curve of her hip bumping me as she sat.
“Jarek,” Susan O’Hara said.
I smiled and put the tablet down. Susan O’Hara was as Irish as any cop comes. Her hair wasn’t fire-engine red, but more of an auburn with layers of waves. Her face was lightly freckled and, though you couldn’t tell by looking, she was about eight years older than me, according to my dad. She had been my father’s contact with the police department ever since she was a rookie, and over the years, I’d realized I had a rather large attraction to the woman. I’d tried to
tell her once and she’d laughed, telling me I was like a little brother to her. But that never made the uncomfortable feelings go away when she was near.
I’d told Jo once, and Jo laughed as well. Heck, I told Jo I thought she was attractive, and she’d laughed at that also. I didn’t understand women, but I hoped to someday.
“This is what I’ve got,” she said, sliding the file to me.
I paged through it, nodding and reading.
“It’s virtually the same as what the FBI gave me,” I said, pushing my tablet over to her for her to thumb through.
“Nice. Is this the new iPad?” she asked excitedly.
One of the other things I remembered about her was how much love she had for everything Apple.
“No, it’s a custom,” I told her. “But it looks like one. It runs off a modded version of Linux and—”
“Jarek…” Jo said.
“Huh?”
“Details?” she asked, pointing to the packet that I’d stopped reading.
I slid them over to her to start reading as Susan handed the tablet back to me. I swallowed my fears and approached the bar, selecting the photo of the van I’d sent to my phone. I’d targeted this place because the angle of the cameras outside would be perfect to have a good shot at us getting a view of the van or license plate. I’d called it in to Susan, and she’d agreed to meet us over here to lend credibility and help us get our hands on the video files.
“Hey buddy, what you drinking?” the bartender asked.
He was mid to late thirties like me, but he had an unkempt appearance. He had stubble on his face, and his clothes were wrinkled to the point that they looked slept in. I could never do that, so I refocused on the tablet and held it up for him.
“A couple of days ago, the mayor’s daughter was kidnapped and dragged into this van. It stopped by here or drove past at least a couple of times. I was hoping to talk to your boss about the parking lot cameras out there and—”
“Not without a warrant,” he told me automatically. He went right back to wiping down the glass he had been polishing to perfection.
“Oh, so you’re the owner? Which law firm do you use? It’d be a simple matter for the police or the FBI to call in for one. Do you have a fax machine?” I asked.
“No clue, I just work here. Boss is on vacation in the Bahamas, and his office is locked. Since I don’t have a key to get to the DVR and don’t have a way to contact him, you’re out of luck.”
“Ok then,” I said, standing up. “Let me go tell my colleges about—”
A woman walked past me just then, her jeans so tight I could see the outline of her underwear. Her curves weren’t the first thing that had caught my attention; it was how she had casually walked past, running her fingernails across my chest and then smiling at me.
She was taller than me by quite a bit. Probably north of six feet, with long, wavy blonde hair that didn’t come from a bottle. She wasn’t thin by any standards, but she wasn’t overweight by any means. Her emerald eyes sparkled, and she hooked a finger, directing me her way. I held up a finger of my own, indicating for her to wait a second, and went to the table where Susan and Jo were waiting and watching.
“Here’s your drink. In a Styrofoam cup,” Jo said, pushing it at me.
I took a drink and almost gagged. Not only did it taste like ass, it tasted like ass that was basted and marinated in ass.
“What is this?” I asked, putting it down.
“What you ordered, apparently,” Susan said, pulling the chair out for me to sit, as if I was still the kid she remembered.
I looked across the bar, and the woman was still locking eyes with me. Now that we were apart, I could tell that I could make it to her chin if I were standing beside her. The thought of climbing that tree was daunting, but she made something stir inside of me, and judging by the look she was giving me, I could be on the menu for her tonight.
“Someone is learning body language,” Jo grumbled. Susan snorted.
“Who is she?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know. She’s quite tall, and her breasts appear to be about…” I held my hands up and out, indicating the large round shape of the woman’s breasts, and Jo smacked my shoulder as Susan split into a fit of laughter.
“As I was saying,” I said, affronted. “They were about—”
“Stop Jarek,” Jo said over the fits of guffaws coming from Susan. “What did the bartender say? Can we get the feed?”
“Oh that,” I said, pulling my tablet back out.
“Yeah that. Get your mind out of the gutter. What’s the deal?” she asked.
“Owner is out of town. Room to the camera feed is locked, and he won’t do anything without a warrant.”
“I can get one in about two or three days. Maybe if the FBI talks with the—”
“Hello, Tech Support?” I said, having dialed my phone as Susan was talking.
“Go boss.” Skye’s voice came through loud and clear.
“I’m on a public Wi-Fi with my tablet. I’m opening the port up to you. Let me know when you see it,” I told her, starting to put commands into a shell prompt on the machine.
I truly loved Android and Linux devices, and this one was no exception. I’d put a few custom scripts in along with some other tidbits, and I had left a doc on my desktop that no doubt my curious hacktivist had already read. It was how to do a hack just like we were about to do.
“Got it. Tony’s Sports… hey, can you get me an order of wings to go? Buffalo with a side of extra blue cheese?” she asked.
“Sure, but I think Jo will be the one bringing it back to you. I have a detail to follow up on,” I said, smiling as the tall woman started to walk towards the table.
“Ok, I’m in. Now what?” she asked.
“Network takeover. Search for the camera IP address and feed. They’re wireless, by the looks of it. Record anything from when Caroline Taylor’s phone was dumped or when the van was traveling down the street. When you get the accompanying feed, then record and send it to both me and Susan.”
“On it, boss,” Skye said before hanging up.
“You really trust her to do this?” Susan asked.
“Yeah, she’s a good kid,” I told her.
“You haven’t slept with her yet, have you?” Susan asked.
Jo turned about ten shades of purple and sputtered.
“No, of course not,” I replied.
“She’s an employee; that would be improper,” Jo said.
“It wasn’t improper for you to come to my bed last month?” I asked her, puzzled.
“You slept with Jarek?” Susan sputtered.
“I… Jarek!” Jo pointed a finger at me threateningly.
For sure I knew she was pissed now.
“I was drunk, and I’m not sure anything even happened!” she said, her face red.
“Oh, it happened. It was fun. You should try it again sometime. Or get a guy friend to help you out. It relaxes you, you know,” I told her.
She stared at me, and Susan roared in laughter.
“Don’t be mad at me, Jo. I offered Susan the same deal a while back.”
Now Susan was red in the face and looking at Jo sheepishly.
“Did you?” Jo asked.
“No, he’s like my little brother. But what you have to know about Jarek—”
“I grew up with Jarek,” Jo argued.
“He sees sex as a release. Something fun to do. He doesn’t place emotional value on it,” Susan said.
“Again, I know about it,” Jo said through gritted teeth, and then to me, “I was drunk. Why did you bring it up?” she asked.
“Clearing the air,” I told them both. “Since my sex life seems to come up. Susan, it was once, and Jo seemed horrified by it afterwards. It’s not something to be repeated, and that’s why I put in the no-sex clause with Skye. Clearly you two care more about sex than I do, since it comes up so often. I tell you, there is nothing wrong with a healthy—”
“Hel
lo,” the tall woman said, her voice husky and higher than I expected from a woman of her height.
“Hello. Would you like to sit?” I motioned to the seat next to Johanna.
“Thank you,” she said, settling down.
“I’m Jarek. This is Detective O’Hara, and this is my personal assistant, Johanna,” I said, making introductions. It was something I had practiced in therapy. The way the woman was looking at me made me think the practice had been worth it.
“I’m Sasha, nice to meet you,” she said to the table.
She was staring at something, and I realized it was my cup. I took a quick sip and tried not to grimace.
“When the kid gets the info cracked, we’ll all get an alert,” I told the ladies.
“Are we done here?” Jo asked suddenly, standing.
“Yes,” I said, checking to make sure the tablet wasn’t needed anymore. I put it away and stood, checking my jacket.
“You want a drink?” Sasha asked me.
“Actually, I’d like to invite you back to my place. There, we can drink and have sex. Does that sound like fun?”
The woman turned red in the face, but she nodded. Jo let out an exasperated sigh, and I didn’t think it was sarcasm that time. I thought she was just downright sick and tired of me. I didn’t know; she was always mad at me.
“See Jo,” Susan said, giggling into her tonic water. “Sex doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“I’ll get the car, Jarek,” Jo said, casting dirty looks at Sasha and me.
“I can give him a ride,” she said, mock whispering, but loud enough for the table to hear.
If it was possible, Susan was now laughing louder, with tears running down her cheeks as she looked between Jo and me.
“No, you want to ride him,” Jo muttered.
Yup, she was pissed.
“If you don’t mind, Jo, I’ll catch up with you in the morning?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to be your bodyguard if you are just going to leave without me, with random strangers?” she asked.
“You could follow us back to the building and listen in at the door to make sure I’m not being strangled,” I told her, being serious.
Susan fell out of her chair, and the bar went instantly quiet as people stared openly. She got up, telling everyone she was ok, holding up her badge. She hadn’t been drinking. Maybe she’d stayed up too many hours on this case. She seemed to be slaphappy for some reason.
Kidnapped: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 1) Page 4
