Concierge

by Stella Barcelona

  Recognizing the futility of every minute where he’d ever hoped for a better existence, with a life like a normal person, Pic’s stomach twisted as he touched her warm wetness and absorbed his new reality. “I’ve never done this before. How the hell am I supposed to make it look good?”

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Andi

  Friday, February 19, 8 p.m.

  Stepping back from her easel, Andi studied the portrait of Gabe. The image was the best of the four attempts she’d made, but nothing came close to capturing the beautiful energy of the real flesh and blood man. Cerulean blue and Pthalo green paint would never convey the laughing gleam in his ever-changing eyes, no matter how good her technique.

  Yet…she narrowed her eyes, studying the intensity.

  Maybe this one’s a keeper.

  A wailing siren captured her attention. Normally, the townhome’s thick masonry walls, sound-proofed windows, shutters, and window coverings kept street noise out of her third floor workspace. Not tonight. Sirens seemed to be the norm for the evening. She held her breath, until the siren quieted.

  Sirens mean nothing in terms of finding Pic. Authorities aren’t looking for him. Black Raven is. And it’s been at least two hours since Gabe’s last update.

  To keep crippling fear at bay, she refocused on the canvas. Only one background color would capture the no-holds-barred vibrancy and warmth she was trying to create. Yellow. She’d use multiple hues, and enhance the color’s positive effect by feathering the brushstrokes, so the texture reflected light.

  Slow-rolling her head from shoulder to shoulder, she shrugged into the movement to ease tension in her upper back. Lifting her arm and bending it over her shoulder, she slipped the wooden end of a long handled paintbrush under her t-shirt and ran it along her scars, scratching the itching that wouldn’t let up.

  As the lacquered wood worked soothing magic along her skin, she heard Gabe's footsteps coming up the stairs. Finally. He gave her a slight smile from the doorway. Eyes serious, wearing a black leather jacket over the dark pants and shirt she’d seen him in earlier, he was in full work mode. Jaw set. Gun holstered. “Teams?”

  He paused.

  “Going silent while I bring Ms. Hutchenson up to speed. Still monitoring you, though. Talk to me if anything comes up.” Touching his watch to adjust his mic, he studied the angle of her arm, elbow in the air, hand behind her back. “I could do that for you.”

  Returning the brush to the table, she shook her head. “You’ve got more important things to do. But thanks for offering.”

  “Want to update you. And given where we are, I have a question.”

  She’d gotten used to the way his business-like updates distilled the horror of Pic being missing into a matter-of-fact, methodical plan for finding him. Yet no matter how reasoned Gabe’s approach sounded, unlike one plus one equaling two, the sum of all bits that he’d delivered hadn’t equaled Pic. And the look in his eyes told her this report wasn’t going to be any different.

  He leaned against the doorjamb, hands in the pockets of his jeans, with his gaze crawling over her. For a moment his gaze shifted to the four canvasses, which now contained, in various states of completion, his face.

  “News,” she repeated. “Have surveillance cameras produced anything?”

  His focus returned. “We’ve got more footage from cams along Esplanade Avenue. Actually, the cam from Pug’s Po-Boys gives us the best view. Enough to confirm what we suspected earlier—Pic crossed Esplanade Avenue and headed downriver.”

  “Why wouldn’t he take the most direct route to Richie’s?”

  “Don’t know. I have ideas, but nothing firm. Yet. Video shows us he kept walking away from the Quarter. He might’ve taken a left, though. In the very next block. Or a right. The turn in the river makes the streets bend. He might’ve thought he was going the shortest route to Richie’s. Or—” Gabe paused. “—he might not have been going there at all.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he have gone out if he wasn’t going to see Monica at Richie's?”

  “Don’t know. We will find answers, though. We just don’t have them yet.”

  Fighting through her concern, she moved a tube of bismuth yellow closer to Naples yellow. She glanced towards Gabe, who’d fallen silent, frowning as his gaze locked on her shaking hands.

  “Stop worrying about me. I know it’s weird for me to be painting now—”

  His frown softened. “Not weird at all. It’s a coping skill. A damn good one. Given my line of work, I’ve been around people who react all kinds of ways when bad shit happens in their life. From what I can tell, you’re handling this just as well as anyone. Better, as a matter of fact.” His tone lightened. “Not to insult your work, though, but there’s no way my eyes look that good.”

  She glanced at the canvasses. Then she turned back to study him for a second, deciding he really meant what he said. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  Brow furrowing, he frowned.

  “The eyes I’ve painted don’t come close. When I see you, I see a man who shares his warmth with the rest of the world. A man who lives with unbound enthusiasm. Courage. A man who protects the weak. Bolsters the strong. A man whose very smile is a bright, welcoming light. A man whose beautiful eyes can see people who are so lost, they’ve forgotten how to hope.” She sighed. “All that’s in your smile. But mostly in your eyes. They’re absolutely riveting.”

  Still in the doorway, he gave her his thousand megawatt smile. “Only when I look at you.”

  And that’s a problem. Because I’m the one person you shouldn’t look at with all of that feel-good joy in your eyes. I will suck it all from you. Don’t you see that? And I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

  “News,” she said.

  “Just returned from the Eighth District. Talked with Officer Thompson, to see whether the cops could facilitate the process of acquiring footage.”

  “I’m sure he was helpful,” she said, with a frown and heavy sarcasm in her tone.

  “He laughed so hard, he almost swallowed his toothpick when I asked about police procedure for networking residential crime cams in areas outlying the Quarter, where most of the cams aren’t networked.”

  “Didn’t you expect that sort of reaction?”

  “Yeah. But my purpose was to let the authorities know some of what we’re doing, and I accomplished it. I’ve got a feeling. I thought I’d give them what I like to think of as a warning flare of trouble ahead. It’s standard protocol on our jobs.”

  Eyes jerking back to him, she gave up on trying to focus on anything but his words. “What feeling?”

  He eased away from the doorway and came to her. He pushed her hair behind her ear, then let his hand rest on her shoulder. “I can’t read too much into it at this point. But this is how I find solutions. It’s a process. I’m giving you what few details I have, while trying to keep speculation to myself until we’ve got facts.”

  The weight of his warm palm on her shoulder kept her grounded more than any painting ever had. “Keep going.”

  “Thompson confirmed that the official city crime cams that are in place don’t work. When I told him that we were looking for a street kid who was missing, he gave me the blowback I expected. Said good luck with searching for a vagrant at Mardi—”

  “Pic’s not a vagrant.”

  “Not to us.” Gabe pulled her close and draped his arms over her shoulders, around her back. As he held her, she breathed with him, letting his calmness reach into her soul. “But to the rest of the world, he is. And, given the Mardi Gras mayhem out there right now, I can’t say that I blame Thompson for his don’t-bother-me-with-that-crap attitude.”

  “Did you tell him that Monica is missing as well, and what Richie said about Jake?”

  “Didn’t get that far. He’d have dismissed it as speculation and innuendo, anyway. Right now, he has more urgent problems. About an hour ago, there were gunshots fired into a crowd on Bour
bon Street, a block from Canal Street, right near the parade route. They’ve stopped the parades for a while. He’s dealing with serious crowd control issues, plus a crime scene in the middle of it.”

  Andi shuddered. Resting her chin on his chest as their gazes met, she said, “That’s why I’m hearing sirens.”

  “Yeah. Not our problem, though. Local neighborhood watch groups are being more receptive with the cam issue. They’ve gotten emails out to members, with an alert for suspicious activity. Even on normal days, it takes time for us to access non-networked security cams. A lot of them don’t retain footage for more than a few hours. And—” His frown deepened. “—as my agents have heard a million times—it’s the Friday before Mardi Gras.”

  “No one’s paying attention.”

  As Gabe’s gaze conveyed a full dose of how right she was, a flare of anxiety stole her breath. No. Don’t go there.

  “We’re paying attention. Your downstairs dining room and kitchen now serve as home base for eight additional Black Raven agents assisting in legwork, plus we have a full cyber team at headquarters.”

  “Ragno?”

  He nodded. “She’s on it. With her cyber team. And then there’s Marvin and his son, Billy, who have eyes on Richie. Who, by the way, has done exactly what he said he’d do. He’s inside, presumably sleeping. We’re watching him for a blink of anything off kilter. Hoping he’ll lead us to a clue.”

  “If he’s really a bad guy—”

  “My gut says there’s no ‘if’ about it.”

  “Then why would he have told Pic, or anyone, about Jake being missing?”

  “Well, this is speculation, with a few facts. My hunch says there was a fuck-up. By acting like he was concerned about Jake’s disappearance, Richie kept a great undercover story going. He’s working for someone who snatching these kids—my theory—and has been funneling information about these homeless kids to someone for a while. But the fuck-up happened when Jake was snatched. Someone else saw it, and he’s talking. This isn’t a hunch—it’s a fact. Guy goes by Shroom. As in Mushroom.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I can’t make this shit up. Now that we’re on the streets, talking to some of these people, we’ve learned that Shroom is a low-level dealer. He’s telling everyone that Jake was snatched. We’re trying to find Shroom, now. My theory is that it would have looked damned suspicious if Richie didn’t also appear concerned, when Shroom and Richie were together when it happened. So Richie started talking, and at least pretended to be looking for Jake. He didn’t seriously think anyone with any authority would listen.

  “Another possibility could be that the guy Pic clocked the other night is part of the bigger operation that Richie works for. That guy wanted Pic, bad. Richie delivered him and at some point, Richie’s going to lead us straight to the guy. These are theories, Andi. I could be wrong. I’m working hard to figure things out. Brandon and Sebastian authorized the full court press, which I’d have insisted upon, anyway. Given that our screw-up caused this situation, we’re on it even more full-bore than usual. Extra manpower is doing door-to-door canvassing for camera footage, and spreading the word at places where Pic might have gone, in case I’m dead wrong about all of this and Pic simply decided to break free from being here.”

  “We could only hope.”

  He gave her a small smile. “Hold onto that hope. Don’t lose it, just because I’m running with all these other hunches. By the way, I had to talk to the powers that be about us. I was trying to skirt around it, figuring it’s our own business, but I’m also on a job. And that’s the reality. Details are important. So now, Brandon, Sebastian, Zeus and Ragno have an idea. About you. Me.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “This.” He pulled her in tighter, squeezing his arms around her back. “Us. I simply gave an idea. Hoisted a warning flag. Didn’t tell them too much.”

  Good. Because I don’t know what this is.

  Before she could say anything, he shifted to business mode, separating his face from hers, while keeping his arms draped around her. “Unfortunately, for the crime cam angle of attack, with each minute that passes, the likelihood of automatic erasure of relevant footage increases. So he might’ve slipped through the cam grid. While satellite footage is sometimes an option, the cloud cover, coupled with the early morning hour, makes feasibility non-existent.

  “Which gets me to the second area I’ve implemented—real time monitoring of the periphery. We’re papering the city’s homeless shelters with fliers. Putting out reward money for information regarding Pic’s whereabouts. We’re monitoring everything being called into NOPD and Neighborhood Watch groups. Cyber division is also analyzing output from programs that we’ve got running through cameras that are networked in databases we’ve infiltrated. We have advanced facial recognition software, and to develop the composite, we’ve put in your sketches of Pic, plus the video I took of him for Richie last night.

  “Where possible, we’re doing retroactive time-based, and real-time, searches. We’ll know if Pic so much as shows up—or showed up—anywhere in front of any camera that we can access. Bars. Strip clubs. Bus station. Train station. I’d also like to do this with all the sketches you might have of Jake and Monica.”

  She crossed the studio to her table, and started sifting through the sketches.

  Gabe, at her side, continued, “Here’s where I get to my question for you. It involves my third line of attack. When I’m working the parameters of a job, I imagine the possible scenario of the worst thing that can happen, then I cover that base.”

  With his voice quieting, becoming downright somber as he spoke, an internal chill raced through her. It had been so long since Andi had trusted her own gut feelings that she was loathe to start now. But everything in her shouted that Pic was in trouble, with the beat of a loud, insistent ticking of a metronome in her head. Illogically, but unequivocally, she knew without doubt that something terrible was happening. “Pic’s in deep shit, Gabe. I just know it.”

  “And if he is, I’ll make it work out, Andi. That’s my job. We call it embracing the suck, but what it really means is accepting reality and working through it for the correct result. No matter what shit gets served on a platter. In ninety-five percent of my jobs, the worst thing never happens. But in the five percent that do, I’m ready.”

  She found a sketch of Jake that showed the tattoo on his neck and added it to the pile of sketches for Gabe. “So give me the worst-case scenario.”

  “Wanna sit down for a minute? You’ve been standing for hours.”

  She couldn’t hide her shiver. “It’s that bad?”

  A slight nod, and hardening in his eyes, gave her the answer. “It isn’t pretty. And it brings up what Lamonte’s uncovering in Mapleton. So I need to tell you that, too.”

  Inner demons caught her breath in their death grip. Eyes shut, she focused on Gabe’s warmth, the heaviness of his strong arms around her, and found light in the darkness. Drawing a deep breath, she nodded. If this man, who was trusting that she could handle the nitty-gritty facts, thought she could handle the news better by sitting, she knew she should damn well sit.

  Settling on the couch, he assessed her, then, satisfied when she squared her shoulders, nodded. “It’s about what you and I were talking about with Ragno. It looks like someone is snatching homeless runaways off the streets. Blue-eyed, blond, vulnerable teenagers. Any teenagers. Young runaways are one of the most vulnerable segments in our society. They readily fall victim to the predators who make the domestic and international sex trades their business. I’ve got a team using facial recognition software to look for Pic, and I’ll add Monica and Jake, as well, in the usual online portals, because predators are tech savvy now. We’re searching the dark web and encrypted sights, in addition to places like Craigslist, Eros, and Tinder—”

  “Holy shit, Gabe. I used to use Tinder.”

  “Um. I know. It’s in your file. I knew you were an active member of the hook-up generation even before I attended you
r art opening and met some of your conquests.”

  Her stomach twisted. “Never really thought about unsavory characters using it as well.”

  He touched the tip of her nose with his index finger. “Because you were having too much fun.”

  “My fun was way different than what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah.” Voice turning even more serious, he added, “Those sites are fluff compared to some of the more hardcore sites we’ll check out. Ragno, with Zeus giving the secret handshake to Government muckity-mucks, is now integrating Black Raven intel with expertise from some of the Government’s best. The most sophisticated slavers, the ones who shoot for big bucks on the international market, are so heavily encrypted, it can take lots of trial and error to gain access. It’s a process, with undercover agents and virtually untraceable bank accounts. In case we need to go that route, we’re starting the liaison process with official task forces. Unfortunately, we’ve had to do this before. We know the ins and outs. Ready for your question?”

  Eyes locked on his, she nodded.

  “We can make up an alias for Pic before we start circulating his face among investigators outside of Black Raven, but even with an alias, it will only be a matter of time before his face pings with the Mapleton arrest warrant. Earlier I promised you I’d only use his information with your approval. Now I’m asking you for it before Ragno proceeds.”

  “Yes. For anything.” Thoughts swirling, Andi fought against the pull from tentacles of her deep-within, downward spiral. Squaring her shoulders, pulling her legs onto the couch, she turned to face him. Keeping her voice strong, she asked, “What has Lamonte found?”