Chapter 28
28
“L et’s see that CCTV footage,” David said, taking a USB drive from his pocket and connecting it to his laptop.
We were both at my sister’s place, a.k.a. my parents’ pool house. She was going to be held up between classes and an internship at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But she’d offered her place when I called her and told her I needed to lie low with David for a while. I was quick to accept.
“Did the Eastern Columbia’s security people give you a copy of the CCTV from the night of the murder?” I asked him, impressed.
“Miguel did, yes,” David answered.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Of course, you’re on a first name basis with them.”
“Just with Miguel, the other one is relatively new,” he said.
“And they still haven’t warmed up to your charms, have they?” I teased him.
“My many charms are what got us this CCTV material,” he said.
“Have you already watched it?” I asked as he opened the video file.
“Not really. I was going to do it at the security office, but then you called me and I went upstairs. I took the drive with me.”
There was silence then as we both knew why I had called him urgently.
We started watching the video. It contained a wide shot of the entrance ramp to the parking at the Eastern Columbia. There was a date stamp watermarked on the video that read 02/19/2024 —the night of Henry’s death. David fast-forwarded until around nine that night, and we simply watched. I recognized my car making its way into the building. Around ten minutes later, we saw the Mercedes-Benz we’d broken into that afternoon—Henry’s car. Close behind it followed a silver Toyota Prius.
“Stop the frame!” I said to David. “Let’s CSI the shit out of this.”
“And how would we go about this? The only software I have on this computer is for grammar correction,” he said.
“Seriously? This is the pop culture joke you actually get?” He smirked at me. “Can your grammar software enhance that image?”
“No, but I also have an image editing tool here somewhere,” he conceded. “Since now I need to write but also most times they expect me to provide the pictures illustrating my articles.”
David screenshotted the video image and zoomed in to the Prius. The driver was indistinguishable and the car’s license number too pixelated, but there was a bumper sticker—it was green with a red star-shaped motive. I had perhaps seen something similar, but I couldn’t recall where.
“See, it pays to be a multifaceted journalist,” I told David after the sticker discovery.
“The only thing this proves is that that is not my Prius,” David said. His own vehicle of the same model was white and had a Freedom of the Press sticker in black and white and a UCLA Alumni license plate frame. “But we still have no clue who the mystery Prius driver is.”
David’s phone rang then and my dad’s name appeared on the screen. David picked up right away.
“Mateo,” David said, his voice polite and strained. “I see, can you give me a few more hours?”
Whatever my dad told him didn’t seem to make David too happy.
“Okay, let’s do that. Thanks, chao,” he said and hung up. “Your dad says the cops went searching for me and weren’t happy when they didn’t find me home. They have a warrant, so they may be making a complete mess of my apartment. And I just had it deep cleaned!”
“You’re worried about the mess? What if the killer planted something else at your place?” I panicked. “You said you took care of the watch, right?”
“I did, and I’m also quite certain there’s nothing else.”
“Can I ask you how you handled it?” Curiosity was killing me.
“Does your Olivia Pope character always tell all her tricks?”
Aw, he remembered. “It’s not my Olivia Pope, it’s Shonda Rhimes’s. And no, she doesn’t.”
“Let’s keep the mystery here as well,” he said. “I’m not sure what I did is completely legal, and I prefer to keep you out of it.”
“But you trust me?” I needed to know.
“There’s no one I trust more. You’re also the last person I’d like to see dragged into this ugly legal business any further.” I felt a thrilling pang in my stomach. “Your dad told me the cops tried locating me by finding my phone. I left it at home, so they didn’t get very far. I’m using a burner,” he said when I looked confused.
“Oh my god, you’re like a professional law-avoiding citizen!” I quipped.
“Being an investigative reporter helped me know how to remain hidden and, of course,” he leaned over, whispering in my ear, “having you as a lover also helps.”
“You should thank my mother,” I joked, but I savored his use of the word lover . I liked it so much better than girlfriend, girl, significant other, and the other qualifiers we’ve used in the past for one another that sounded so childish and ordinary now somehow.
“It looks like I’ll have to thank both your parents,” David said. “The cops reached out to your dad when they couldn’t find me. He told them I was in the middle of an article assignment and momentarily incommunicado.”
“Which is technically true,” I said.
“He does have a way of describing almost-facts in a creative way,” David admitted. “I should surrender in the next twenty-four hours or things will get ugly, though.”
“Ugly?”
“Legally, I’ll be a wanted man.”
I was going to go the irreverent way and say that non-legally speaking he very much was a wanted man already, but then I realized the gravity of the situation and forced my hyperactive libido to sober up a little.
“I see. We have twenty-four hours,” I said.
“By the way, where did you put the charm?”
“What charm? My charm is fully on,” I said, as my libido could hardly be tamed even if I tried.
“I meant Henry’s charm,” David said, smiling. He was enjoying my confusion.
“He lacked any of it,” I snapped.
“I meant the cat thingy we found in his car,” David explained.
“Ah! That! You took it.”
“No, you took it.”
“No, I distinctly remember you taking it.” He was so stubborn sometimes.
He stared at me in disbelief, and I returned the incredulous gaze. We let our eyes do the talking for a few minutes the way we’d learned to communicate without words those past few months.
We were saying things like, There was never time for that quickie . What I really want to do right now is not be looking for something that you misplaced . Damn it, we’re not even home! and I still haven’t made you scream like you asked me, but I’ve been thinking about it non-stop.
All the non-verbal sexy banter and unresolved heat was keying me up. I tried shrugging it off and put my hands in my pockets. And inside one of the back pockets of my jeans, I found a plasticky object that I didn’t recognize to the touch.
“What the hell?” I took the unknown object from my pocket and, obviously, it was Henry’s fucking cat charm. Apparently, I didn’t so distinctly remember telling David I’d keep the charm after he offered to because I thought he’d probably lose it.
I know he was tired, preoccupied about his police troubles, fearful for the next accusatory article that would get published against him, hungry, and at least as horny as I was. But, for the first time that day, he looked perfectly satisfied.
He didn’t say, See, I told you . His eyes were doing all the talking.
“Quit with the smug face. It doesn’t suit you,” I told him.
“Liar. You’ve told me my jaw gets sharper when I look smug, and I know for a fact that you find that very sexy,” he said, his fucking jawline irresistibly accentuated.
Bastard. He knew me too fucking well.
“Okay, I had the cat. So what?”
“I don’t think it’s just a charm,” he said, holding out his hand. “I realized this when I was at the security office with Miguel and wanted a copy of the CCTV footage. He opened a drawer full of USB drives. Some of them were colorful and in the shape of cartoon characters.”
“You mean...” I gave the cat to David. I was a universally known clumsy person with butterfingers and the ability to break anything .
“I mean...” he said, pulling the cat into two pieces easily.
One of them showed a USB-C connection.