Fifteen #2
I found a parka that was a size too big for me but was clean and in pretty good shape.
It was thirty dollars, which the cashier said was really too much for it.
Apparently, most things in the store went for right around ten.
She gave it to me for fifteen, which was really nice of her.
I wore it out, shoving my bloody one into the plastic bag she gave me, and jogged back to my lovely rented Ford Taurus.
I started at the florist and worked my way from one end of the strip mall to the other. I finally got lucky at the bowling alley. The guy remembered seeing Caleb outside of the mailbox place on the corner sitting in a car. I thanked him profusely and made that my next stop.
At the mailbox rental store, the lady there remembered Caleb because he looked like her first husband.
I asked her if that was good or not, and she said no, definitely not.
It had, however, etched him into her brain.
She was older, late sixties, and whether it was my smile, the fact I was hurt, or because she liked the color of my eyes, I didn’t know.
Nevertheless, she sat there with me and tried to remember everything she could about the other man with Caleb Reid.
Finally, after much searching through many small boxes filled with index cards, she found the card of the guy who had come with Caleb.
His name was Greg Fain, and his address was in Oak Lawn, three streets away.
I asked to keep the card and gave her a fifty-dollar bill for her trouble.
She gave me a pen and a key chain flashlight before I walked out.
I decided to call Dane on my way to the house to give him a heads-up about where I was in my investigation. Someone needed to know my last known location.
“Jory.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever talked this much, even when I worked for you,” I told my brother. “Crazy, right?”
“Simply tell me where you are now,” he demanded.
“You’ll never guess.”
“No, probably not,” he replied drolly.
“I think I found the place where Caleb and I were kept, and I’m on my way there now.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, why would I be kidding?”
“Jory, please don’t go there by yourself. Please, I’m begging you.”
“I have to. What else would I do?”
“Tell me where you are so I can call the police. What if you disturb something, or worse…what if there’s somebody there? What if whoever’s been watching you, trying to kill you, is there waiting? What if it’s a trap, Jory? What if—”
“It’s not. Whoever was there is long gone.
The lady at the mailbox place said she hasn’t seen the guy in almost two weeks.
I think he’s dead, Dane. I think I was right and there were two guys and one guy’s dead and maybe I’ll find him out there and…
Oh, I think… I got it—I found it. Shit yeah.
I should do this for a living. Jory Harcourt, private investigator. Maybe Dylan and I can do both.”
“Jory!”
“Don’t yell, please, my head hurts.”
“You know, I forget sometimes that you’re not even thirty yet. You’re stupid because you’re so damn young. I don’t think your frontal cortex is fully operational yet.”
“I’m twenty-six—of course it is. But really, the police never even got this far.” I stopped the car, parking across the street and looking at the big gray house on the overgrown lot. “Though, I did keep what the carjackers looked like from them, so some of this is on me.”
“All of this is on you,” he said.
I groaned.
“But now you’ve made it all the way to the place where you and Caleb were kept.”
“Yes,” I stated, conflicted over my discovery.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just… Why does it have to look like that?”
“Like what?”
“All fuckin’ scary and shit.” I groaned, looking at the rusted mailbox with a lock on it, the fence with the Keep Out sign on it, the knee-high grass and weeds, and the boarded-up windows. “I hate this.”
“Jory, goddamn it! Tell me where you are and I’ll come myself and—”
“Jory?”
“Regina?” I said, getting out of the car and locking it with a chirp of the car alarm. “What are you doing on—”
“Sweetheart, I took the phone from your brother. Would you listen for just one minute? Please.”
“Sure.”
There was rubbing against the phone, muffled sounds, and bumping, it sounded like she was driving through a tunnel, even though I knew she wasn’t even in a car. Throat clearing and coughing before the voice I knew.
“Baby,” he said, and his voice was rough, full of gravel.
“Sam,” I whispered, frozen on the sidewalk, the relief swamping me, the sting of tears instantly in my eyes. I was so happy to hear him.
“Love.” He coughed softly. “I need you… I need to see your face.”
“I—”
“You should be here right beside me. Why aren’t you?”
“I gotta find the guy that hurt you, Sam. I can’t let him ever hurt you—”
“It’s how I feel about you. Now you get it. Makes you nuts, right?”
“Yes.”
He knew exactly how to talk to me, and I had to smile listening to him being so calm, so matter-of-fact. We were talking like nothing special was going on, just like of course I would be doing precisely what I was.
“So you’ve been out there on your own, what—six days? Seven? Since I got hurt?”
“I think it’s more like five, but I’ve lost count.”
“All by yourself for a week, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you found the place, huh? Good job—real good. Now call Hefron and Moore and they’ll take it from there.
You have no experience in securing a crime scene or what to touch or what not to touch.
If you wanna catch this guy, you gotta leave the next step to the professionals, all right? Makes sense, right?”
It did.
“I know you wanna see, baby. I know you’re dyin’ to go in there, but don’t. Please don’t. Tell me where you are and I’ll call them. You wait there for them, and they’ll bring you to me.”
“I’ll call, Sam, but I’m not waiting here. I’m gonna see who else this guy knew. Other people have gotta remember him.”
“I need to see you.” He coughed again. “Did Rego James put his hands on you?”
“Yeah, but I let him. I used him because I needed a couple of his boys to show me where the car was. He’s kinda pissed at me right now, I think.”
“What did you let him do to you?”
“I didn’t kiss him.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“He just touched me, Sam, nothing else.”
“Well, then, that makes it all better.”
“Sam—”
“I want you back here now. I want you next to me now. I cannot believe that my family, your brother, all our friends, and an entire police force can’t keep tabs on one twenty-six-year-old graphic designer who thinks he’s fuckin’ Batman.”
He was very funny. “First off, no one’s actually looking for me, they’re looking for whoever hurt you. I’m right, aren’t I?”
No answer, so I knew I was. It only made sense.
Sam’s fellow cops were running down whoever made the bomb that nearly killed him.
That was their angle. Also, they were looking at the bigger picture of who would want to hurt Sam Kage, and since that was a long list, they more than likely had their hands full.
On the other hand, there was me. I wasn’t in protective custody, I wasn’t breaking the law, I was simply running down my own lead that they didn’t have because putting Zach and Billy in jail wasn’t on my bingo card.
They’d saved me; the least I could do was keep their names out of any official report.
“Jory,” Sam croaked out.
“I’ll be there soon,” I promised the man I loved.
“No. Now. Do not step a foot inside that house or I—”
“Please don’t get worked up. Everything is fine.”
He growled at me. “Listen to me—”
“Just rest,” I soothed him. “I’ll be there soon.”
I hung up then, and even though I really wanted to go into the house, I called Detective Hefron instead.
I gave him the address, and he told me that he would be right there.
He was very impressed with me, but playtime was over.
He also ordered me not to move, but because of the whole “playtime” remark, I drove away when I heard the sirens.
An hour later, I was stopped before I could go into Sam’s room by one of two uniformed police officers. I heard Dane call my name, and I peeked around the policemen to see him.
“Officer, this is my brother, Detective Kage’s…partner.”
They moved apart, and I saw the whole room. Dane motioned for me, and as I stepped inside, I saw that it was larger than normal and he wasn’t sharing it with anyone else. Sam’s parents were there, Chloe, his partner, and Detective Moore. Detective Hefron, I was guessing, was still at the house.
“Jesus, Jory,” Dane said, reaching for my face.
I tipped my head away from him and maneuvered around Regina and Thomas as well to get to the side of the bed. I stood there, frozen, staring down at Sam.
His eyelashes fluttered a second before his eyes opened to reveal the smoky blue I knew so well. My heart felt like it was going to burst.
“Hey.” I smiled down at him.
“Oh fuck me,” he groaned, reaching for my face. “Come here.”
I leaned down but stopped before I hugged him. “I don’t wanna hurt—”
“Jory.” His voice, his eyes, both full of pain. “Baby, please come here.”
I let out a deep breath and sank down against him. I gave him all my weight, and he held me easily, stroking my hair and pressing my head to his shoulder. He felt so good, so warm, so strong, his body so hard… I felt the shiver run through me.
“Jesus, you scared the hell outta me.”
“Me?” I trembled. “You, lying in the street bleeding… God, I never wanna live through anything like that ever again.”
“Baby, what’d you do to yourself?” He eased me back to look at my face. “Who hit you?” He was almost whining, and I could tell how frustrated he was—at me, at himself for being stuck in bed, at everyone and everything.
“Some guy was hitting a woman, and I just—”
“Jory, goddamnit!” His voice went out on him because he didn’t have the strength to yell. “Fuck! You never get in the middle of… You call the police! You call the fuckin’ police, baby, that’s what they… He could’ve had a gun or a knife or—”