Chapter 11 Caleb
CALEB
“You sure you’re okay?” I ask Basia as I walk her to her desk.
With the stalker escalating further, I managed to negotiate checking out her workspace before leaving her for the day.
Compromise, Basia called it.
Not enough, I said.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she asks with a smile. “I have a stalker sending me someone’s body parts. Everything is peachy.”
I grunt. “You’re right. I’m an asshole.”
What sane woman would feel alright in this situation? I’m just being paranoid… I thought that maybe she remembers something she shouldn’t from last night. But if she did, I doubt she’d smile at me like this. She’d probably have Teddy cuff me as soon as we got into the lobby.
Instead, she greeted him with a smile that made me want to pop his head like a pimple. She even has Matty charmed, the woman waiting until we left to end her shift, just so she can say good morning to my client.
“You’re not an asshole,” Basia murmurs now, setting her bag down on her desk and shrugging off her coat. “Just a guy.”
I tilt my head. “Thanks… I guess?”
“Basia!” one of her coworkers says, coming to stand by my side and peering at me curiously. I know him from my research into her work life—his name is Greg, and he looks like a douchebag. “You brought a friend to work today?”
Yep—definitely douchebag vibes. Basia’s eyes are wide, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Uh, yeah. This is Caleb. He’s my—”
“Boyfriend,” I interject smoothly, before extending my hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
Greg blinks at me, then my hand, and finally gingerly grabs it. Handshake like a dead fish—figures. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, Barton.”
The look in Basia’s eyes says that she didn’t know she had one either, but she just laughs nervously. “Surprise.”
Why did I say I’m her boyfriend and not, for example, an older cousin from the boonies visiting the big city? It’s not the first time I’ve pretended to be a client’s significant other. But it’s the first time I wished it were true.
“Well, Caleb has to go now,” Basia says with a stiff smile.
With a giant grin, I haul her in and kiss the top of her head. I’m going to milk this situation as much as I can—it’s the closest I’ll ever come to being with Basia in the waking world.
“Later, darling,” I purr, winking at her when she gasps in surprise.
Even though Greg chatters at her, I can feel Basia’s eyes on my back as I walk to the elevator.
∞∞∞
Outside Aegis Ironclad, I stride to Coleman’s side, getting back to business.
“You have the identity yet?” I ask him.
He lifts an eyebrow at me. “It just came in.”
“Good.”
Teddy scoffs. “That’s all you’re going to say? Good? Like you’re not psychic or something?”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “So who is she?”
“Just some poor girl. Not sure how she ties in. No criminal record, no big family name. There’s only one odd thing, I guess.”
I stare him down, waiting for him to continue.
Coleman changes the pitch of his voice. “What weird thing, Teddy? Oh, well, thanks for asking, Caleb.”
Running a hand down my face, I give him what he wants.
“What weird thing, Teddy?”
Like we’re not talking about a likely deceased woman killed by the stalker that’s terrorizing my temporary girlfriend.
“Well, she didn’t have a birth certificate until she was twelve,” he finally says.
I stiffen, on high alert. Coleman instantly notices, growing serious.
“That means something to you,” he guesses.
“Yeah. It means something.”
He gives me a long-suffering sigh. “You gonna share with the rest of the class?”
I debate keeping what Ethan and I found to myself. But in the end, I decide that the more eyes on this, the better.
“The cult mentioned in the notes? It was real. Or still is. Wherever it was mentioned, kids popped up with no birth certificates.”
Teddy gives a low whistle. “Like they were born in this cult? That means…”
“They kept women, possibly men, as slaves, creating new subjects for whatever sick rituals they practiced,” I finish when he trails off.
Coleman’s quiet for a moment, the honks of taxis a background noise to his visible thought process.
“I don’t get it,” he finally says. “How do the governor and his daughter tie in? She would’ve been just a kid herself then.”
I’m already taking my phone out, ready to send a text to Ethan.
“She’s collateral,” I murmur. “A way to punish the governor, back then senator, for letting the investigation drop. Much like it’s being dropped now.”
Me:
Ear and finger belong to a cult survivor.
I think Ethan found a way to type with just his thoughts—the reply comes that fast.
Kane:
Which one?
“Name?” I ask a stunned Coleman.
“Ah. Um…” He consults his phone for a second. “Ana Danbury. Apparently, if she had a name, she didn’t know it, and the surname is where she was found.”
My heart clenches as I relay the info to Ethan.
Though Basia is my only priority, I’m not heartless and unempathetic to her plight.
She had a rough life and probably an end that was just as rough.
And for what? To bring attention to the people who hurt her first?
This motherfucker is sick and needs to be put down.
“So she was found nearby,” I muse out loud. “Lived in the city?”
“Yes,” Teddy says quietly, all traces of humor now gone. “She worked at a dry cleaner’s in Queens.” He reads from his phone. “Manfredi’s. She also moonlighted as a cleaning lady.”
So probably barely scraping by. Fucking shame.
Kane:
I’ll set search parameters for facial pattern recognition in the areas she frequented, then run the results against the known cult kids.
Me:
Keep me updated.
“Are you texting Kane?” Coleman asks, finding his voice again. I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “Come on, who else would you have on this. Ethan’s the best.”
He is the best. And he’s going to help me find Basia’s stalker before he hurts another innocent woman.
My phone goes off in my hand, signaling another text.
Kane:
You know it. But I think it’s time we bring the guys in.
My jaw clenches at the words. By guys he means Killian Cross and Damien Hale, brothers in arms I’d lay my life down for. And while a part of me bristles at the insinuation that I can’t get this asshole on my own, the rational part knows Basia deserves the best. And these guys? They’re it.