Guarding Him

by Kori David

  Moving closer, Ian sat on the opposite side of the wide bench seat. Nic’s back was up against the wall, her legs folded Indian-style with the laptop resting on her knees. The light made a halo around her strawberry-blonde hair, making it look like golden fire.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Courtney sent over two days of traffic cam footage, as well as ATM surveillance. Also, any business security footage she could find with open circuits going to some kind of cloud server. I’m looking for a black Mercedes and two blond guys with it. I’ve had a bad feeling about them from the moment I saw them down the street from this house.”

  Ian cocked his head to the side. “You never mentioned anything about two men and a black Mercedes.”

  She finally looked up at him and smiled. “My job is to watch for that kind of stuff; your job is to live your life and work.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t notice them. They’re the ones Drake Page is looking for?”

  She looked him over and bit the side of her lip, deciding if she was going to say more or not. He saw the indecision in her eyes. Obviously coming to a decision, she said, “That morning we went jogging, I saw them for the first time—one holding a clipboard and the other standing by in front of the house for sale two streets over. Nothing about them should have raised an alarm, but I noticed them. The hair on my neck stood up. When you rounded the corner, I slowed down and circled back for a moment; the Mercedes was gone. Then I saw the same vehicle again around Jamison Electronics. Two sightings aren’t a coincidence in my book.”

  Ian kicked himself for being so unobservant. Isobel was right about so many things, but he didn’t have to like it. He’d been so caught up in the project and then Nic that he hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing, at the moment. If those two were smart, they’ve already switched cars by now, especially if they’re Drake’s guys.”

  “And they know you saw them.” Ian wasn’t superstitious, but dread snaked its way into his heart. Nic was looking for a pair of vicious killers while he sat back and did nothing. He couldn’t stand that. “Let me grab my laptop, and you can pass some of the files to me. I can help you look.”

  “You have your own work that needs to be done, Ian. This is what I do.”

  “My project is done. All the final touches were put together yesterday and sent to Isobel for printing. She’ll put together the presentation today, and we’ll be ready for the meeting tomorrow.”

  Nic nodded. “Then we can both go blind looking through all this stuff.”

  * * *

  Annie Simpson hadn’t had a decent shower in a couple of weeks, so the smell of the alley didn’t bother her in the least. The wharf was a good place to pick up scraps, and she’d long ago developed a taste for fish that was a couple of days old. She had a rusty old bike loaded down with every possession she owned, which she leaned against the wall. This alley only had good scraps on Thursdays.

  “Hey, Annie-girl,” came the call from the dock.

  “Hey, Morgan. Where you been?” Annie didn’t know Morgan’s story, only that he was in his sixties and harmless enough unless he made enough money panhandling to get drunk. Then he got mean.

  He walked over to the mouth of the alley, hands in his pockets, a backpack full of his own stuff on his back. He shrugged when he got to her, saying, “Here and there. I went south for a bit then decided to come back. It’s Thursday, so I came to see your pretty face.”

  Annie laughed. She liked Morgan. “If we find some good stuff, I’ll make that fish soup you like.”

  “Deal. I ain’t had decent eats since I left.”

  She pointed to the furthest trash can in the alley, “You start with that one, and I’ll take this one.”

  They split up, Morgan whistling as he walked. Annie made her way to the large industrial-sized dumpster with two lids. She stopped about a foot away, the smell emanating from the can not the normal one. Something was dead inside, and it wasn’t fish. Annie had been on the streets for fifteen years now and seen quite a few of her street friends pass, either from drinking themselves to death, slow starvation, or lack of meds for whatever problem they had.

  Someone or something had crawled into this dumpster and died.

  Annie moved closer, hand out toward the lid, and stopped. She didn’t really want to look now, but she also didn’t want one of her friends being dumped in a landfill either, if it was one of her friends. Most times, family stepped forward and took them home for burial, at least the ones that still had family.

  “Morgan?”

  “Yeah,” he called, already looking inside the dumpster on his end. “You find something good?”

  “I think something died in this one. It doesn’t smell right.”

  “I’m coming, Annie-girl.”

  She waited until he was closer to throw open the lid. They’d all heard about the poor girl that had been burned in the alley. It wasn’t on Annie’s usual route, but word traveled fast in their community. The hair on her neck stood up as she thought about that.

  Annie looked inside and couldn’t stop the scream that bubbled up. She stumbled backward, her hand against her mouth to prevent another scream from escaping. “Oh, my God.”

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Morgan said under his breath. “What kind of evil was done here?”

  Hand shaking, Annie reached into her sweater pocket and pulled out her old phone. She didn’t have service, but she kept the battery charged in case she needed to call 9-1-1. All those Obama phones they gave out still could call the emergency number.

  “9-1-1? What is the emergency?”

  “A girl’s been murdered,” Annie whispered.

  “Where are you, ma’am?”

  Annie rattled off the cross streets, and the woman on the phone asked some questions that Annie didn’t know the answers to. The girl was white and looked young but was cut up too bad to tell much else, other than she had long wheat-blonde hair. She said she’d wait for officers so she could flag them down and then gave a description of herself.

  “They’re coming. You’d better take off now, Morgan.”

  “You’ll be okay?” he asked, looking pretty shaken up himself. “I could stay.”

  “You still got that old warrant out. No need to get arrested.”

  He shrugged. “At least I’d get three hots and a cot for a couple of weeks.” He nodded toward the dumpster. “That’s just messed up, Annie-girl. No human should die that way.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, hugging herself. She pulled her bike out front and leaned against the wall. “You really should go. You know you don’t do well in jail.”

  He nodded and turned to walk away. She’d find him later and make sure he ate something. Annie shivered. This was the second girl to be found in an alley. Looking around, she didn’t see anyone hanging around or acting weird. It was early still, but the docks were coming alive, and the commuters were beginning to stir.

  She hoped the cops hurried. Annie wanted to get as far away from that dumpster as she could.

  * * *

  Courtney Temple had worked for Kei Whyte for five years now. She was one of the best hackers in the world, but no one knew it except for Kei and the FBI. She did side jobs for the Feds off and on, with Kei’s permission, that kept them off her back when she dabbled into things that she shouldn’t. She found things in the Dark Web that she passed on and was proud to have been a part of several child porn ring takedowns. Not that she did anything in person, but she’d been able to track those sick fucks down and identify all parties involved.

  As she walked to the boss’s office, she tried to keep her emotions in check. She knocked and entered, seeing Kei sitting behind her massive desk. Kei Whyte never looked disheveled, but her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy like she hadn’t seen sleep in days. Those eyes pinned Courtney as she stood by the door, ready to make her escape.

  “Tell me,” Kei said.

  “Dispatch just g
ot a call about a body in a dumpster—" her voice broke. She sniffed and cleared her throat. “Description matches,” was all she could get out before her throat closed. The tears she was trying desperately to hide fell.

  Kei nodded once and turned her back on Courtney, who backed out of the office, closing the door behind her. The sound of glass crashing against the wall made her jump, and she ran the rest of the way to her office before the sobs echoed.

  * * *

  Drake was waiting at the scene for her. She’d hoped to avoid him, and it pissed her off that she couldn’t. Kei knew there wasn’t a damn thing she could do for Lindsay, and even though she was a hard-nosed realist, she had some small hope that it was someone else in that dumpster—not fresh-faced Lindsay.

  “You don’t need to see this,” he cautioned.

  She shot him a look that would wither anyone else, but he just shook his head. “I mean it,” he said.

  Kei could feel the muscles in her jaw clench. “I have to know.”

  “I could pull rank.”

  Stabbing a finger into his massive chest, she snarled, “You pull that shit, and I’ll make sure you never have access to my company or resources again. Ever.”

  He stared down at her for several moments before shaking his head and turning toward the crime scene. The forensic unit from his team was assisting the unit from the police department, working well together. “It’s going to take a little while; my team just got here.”

  “I have no place to be,” she mumbled as he left her. She took up a position away from the cops and citizens hanging around, hoping to get a look at something grisly. The media was beginning to show up as well, so she moved into the shadow of the building. Pulling a ragged baseball cap out of her back pocket, she slipped it on and lowered the bill to cover her face.

  She felt him arrive before he spoke. That she should be so aware of the man was a constant irritant. The aroma of fresh, strong coffee made her mouth water as a cup appeared in front of her. While the mental image of knocking it out of his hand, just to see the reaction on his face was strong, her desire for the warm drink overrode her hostility. She took the steaming cup.

  “One sugar and one shot of mocha,” Drake said.

  It didn’t surprise her that he remembered how she took her coffee, even though it had been many years since the beginning of this tension-laden truce. Taking a sip, she murmured, “Hmmm.” She didn’t bother with a thank you. He’d done this on his own and wouldn’t expect it anyway.

  At least an hour passed before they were ready to remove the body from the dumpster. All evidence had been combed through, photographed, and bagged to be examined more thoroughly at the lab. Kei straightened from her leaning position against the wall.

  “Are you sure you need to do this?” Drake asked, not moving from her side as she began to walk forward.

  Kei shot him a look, saying without words that “yes, this was a must” for her. She had to be sure because she was the one who would tell the girl’s folks that their baby was dead. For that, Kei needed a positive ID. She didn’t care that police protocol would be to have a uniformed officer in their small town in Iowa notify the folks. That was not good enough for her. This was her fault, and she’d take the responsibility of telling Mr. and Mrs. Clarke that Lindsay would be coming home in a coffin.

  “I have someone who can make a positive ID,” Drake said, clearing the way.

  The smell of rotting flesh hit Kei, who didn’t blink. She was immune to it and had been for a very long time. The body was covered to shield it from long-range cameras, the kind the media preferred. She was laid in the mouth of the alley, far enough back to make sure no one could see too much.

  “Her face,” Kei said.

  The tech closest to the body shook his head. He was a nondescript looking man with kind eyes and a wary posture. He wasn’t used to someone that wasn’t PD making an ID at the scene. The situation was unusual, but he didn’t want to upset the Feds. “Is there a tattoo or birthmark we can check?”

  Goddamn it. That meant her face was butchered along with the rest of her. Kei sighed, prepared for this question. “Look for a dolphin on her back, upper left shoulder blade.” Lindsay had been so enamored of the ocean, coming from Iowa, that she’d gotten the silly tattoo with her first paycheck from Kei.

  Two techs rolled the body to her right side, squinting as they both scanned her shoulder. The second one pointed and then used both hands to pull the skin together. They looked at each other and then up at her. The one with the kind eyes nodded. “It’s here,” he said unnecessarily.

  “Show me her face,” Kei said.

  Both men blanched and looked up and behind her to Drake’s face. Kei didn’t need to turn. Drake would do as she asked, not because he wanted to, but because he had a debt to repay to her that would make refusing her impossible.

  “Do it.” His voice was gruff as he gave the command—a small show of weakness in the big man. Kei filed that away as she nodded at the men kneeling before her. The second tech moved away, standing a respectful distance away, or perhaps worried about an emotional scene that might happen. The first guy pulled the sheet back.

  Kei felt her eyes burn as she looked down at Lindsay. Rage boiled up from inside, where it had been carefully dampened. Giving a single nod, Kei turned on her heel and walked away. Drake moved out of her way and didn’t follow. He was a smart man.

  At her car, Kei dialed Courtney. “Is the plane ready?”

  “Shit, I was hoping—" she trailed off. Then cleared her throat. “It’s gassed up and waiting.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. Make the calls.”

  “Alright.”

  “It’s a risk of the job. We all know that.” Kei’s voice was sharper than she’d intended but didn’t apologize.

  “I know,” Courtney said. “Safe flight. I’ll take care of notifying everyone.”

  Kei disconnected the call. She pulled the hat off and headed to the airport and the private jet that she had access to anytime she needed it. Thanks to a job in Dubai several years back and a very grateful sheik, Kei had access to jets and yachts all over the world that didn’t cost her a dime. She rarely used the expensive toys, but she wanted to get to Iowa fast and back home just as quickly.

  Her grip on the steering wheel tightened until her knuckles turned white. The pain made her focus. Drake had better catch those two quickly because if she got to them first, they were dead men. Kei didn’t give a fuck about due process, and she didn’t want those animals behind bars to study. She wanted them dead and tossed unceremoniously into the harbor for the sharks.

  With that in mind, she tossed her phone onto the front seat of the car. At the next light, she opened the glove compartment and pulled out a burner phone. Dialing the number from memory, she let it ring five times. Then, she hung up. Calling again, she let it ring three times before hanging up again and tossing the phone back into the glove compartment. She would destroy it at the airport and toss it in the trash.

  It was time to use one of her assets. She didn’t use him lightly and wouldn’t ever be able to do so again. That was the deal. But if she had any hope of beating the Feds to those killers, then this was the call. Courtney would know what to do when the time came, even if she’d never seen this protocol in action because Kei had prepped her.

  Chapter 19

  Nic pressed the end button on her phone and stared out the window at nothing. The call was from Courtney, confirming that Lindsay had been found. Kei had been to the scene and done the ID, so the small hope that Lindsay wasn’t gone completely evaporated. As much as Nic had tried to prepare for this moment, the crashing despair overwhelmed her. This was her fault. Lindsay—that beautiful girl with the heart of a lion was dead because Nic had let her be a part of what was supposed to be a simple protection case.

  Closing the laptop, she set it to the side and walked to the staircase. She needed an outlet, something to help the crushing weight that settled into her
heart. In Ian’s weight room, she found what she needed. With no thought to gloves or the damage it would do to her hands, Nic approached the heavy bag that hung from the ceiling. Giving it a roundhouse kick, she gritted her teeth as it swung away from her body. Dropping into a fighting stance, she began hitting the bag with all her strength as it swung back at her.

  Nic turned her brain off as she hit the bag, letting the impact of her fists against the material vibrate through her body. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she focused her rage and despair on her chosen outlet. Her eyes stung as sweat mingled with the tears that began to fall. She grunted as she pounded the bag, over and over, her knuckles beginning to bleed as the skin abraded.

  Then he was there.

  Ian, with his beautiful eyes and concerned face. “Stop,” he said. He attempted to grab her hands as she ignored him, continuing to hit the bag in a quick one-two punch.

  Nic stood straight, dropping her hands to her sides, still in fists. Her breath came in pants and huffs as she struggled to control her breathing and hold back the sobs stuck deep inside her chest. He moved closer, putting his body between hers and the bag.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  A cascade of tears fell. She couldn’t say it out loud. And she didn’t have to; the look on her face must have been enough. Ian pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly against his chest. “They found your friend.”

  She nodded. The words stuck in her throat.

  His lips brushed her forehead. “Jesus, Nic. I’m so sorry.”

  Her arms came up around his waist, slowly. Nic refused to think and didn’t want to feel like this. It had taken her months to come back from the mild depression she’d slipped into at the end of the last case, the rehab from the bullet wound finally working some magic and giving her much needed endorphins. She desperately needed that again right now. And, there was something she could do at this moment to give her the same feeling, to stave off the pain and sadness. It wasn’t a conscious decision; maybe it was her body’s way of shielding itself from known distress.