17. Ray
SEVENTEEN
RAY
It smelled exactly like I thought a gym would smell—dirty socks, sweat, and bleach. It may have smelled like a gym, but it didn’t look like much of one when I stepped inside. Sure, they had weights and machines all over the place, but there were no people working out.
I knew it was Sunday at lunchtime and maybe not the ideal time to come here, but the only person I could see as I scanned the open-concept gym was the man working the front desk. The same man who was currently glaring at me like he was bothered that I’d even shown up.
“Can I help you?” he asked, not in a rude way, but also not the friendly greeting you usually expected from someone in that position.
“I’m from out of town and was hoping to see about getting a day pass to take Corey’s kickboxing class,” I said, pulling out my wallet and noting that his name tag said manager.
“He ain’t here today,” he replied.
“Oh,” I said, wondering if I’d misheard Tammy. “Sorry. I know him from the Watering Hole and was told he teaches a class on Sunday afternoons.”
“He does, but he called in sick today. Said he’s got some bug he picked up at the bar from working so many extra shifts over there.”
Say what?
“Do you know what other days he teaches?”
He shrugged as if he honestly didn’t care. “Kinda varies by the week.”
“Well, uh, thanks for your help,” I told him and started to make my way back to my car.
Prior to coming here, the wheels had already started turning in my head. Certain comments that Tammy had made, or even Corey had made, started to slowly piece together.
I had no real proof other than a gut feeling, but I’d learned to trust that gut a long time ago, and it usually didn’t steer me wrong. Now I just needed to follow that instinct and ask the right questions to get some answers from Corey himself.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of a nice-looking, three-story apartment building—simple, clean, and modern.
I gave three quick raps on the door and waited to see if Corey was home.
I knew I was taking a chance, but if my suspicions were right, this was exactly where I figured he’d be.
I wasn’t an idiot, so I’d shot a quick text over to Frank to give him my location and a message to reach out to me if he didn’t hear back in an hour.
The sounds of the chain and deadbolt clicking open had me bracing. Corey opened the door with a neutral face as he scanned the area behind me, as though he didn’t think I was alone.
“Ray, can I help you?” he greeted, but I noticed he made no move to invite me in.
I did my best to give off calm and casual vibes, keeping my hands and arms in a neutral position at my sides. “Sorry to just drop by, but I had a couple questions I was hoping I could ask you.”
“Now’s not really a great time. Can I call you in a couple hours?”
“It won’t take up much time—ten, twenty minutes tops. Is that okay?” I pushed.
“Just curious, but how’d you get my address?” he asked instead of responding to my question.
“Wade gave me all the basic contact info for employees just in case I had questions,” I explained, not going into too much detail about the fact that I had way more than just a few basic stats.
The look on his face told me I was losing my opportunity quickly, so I took a chance and played one of my big cards.
“I just came from the gym,” I said, pausing for a moment.
“I was going to take the class Tammy told me you taught, and the reason you had to cut back on your hours at the pub. When I got there, the man at the desk informed me you were out sick today on account of some bug you picked up from working all those extra shifts at the pub.”
I knew the moment he realized I’d caught his lie.
He’d played both Tammy and the gym manager and just hoped that neither would ever talk to each other to figure it out.
He stared at me intensely. His face was neutral, but his eyes showed his internal debate of “do I trust him, or do I not trust him.” I knew he knew me from the bar, but he and I didn’t do small talk, so he didn’t really know me from Adam.
The door opened wider, and he threw his hand out in a sweeping motion. “Come on in.”
I stepped into his place and noted the clean white walls with no frames or artwork anywhere. He lived here, but it wasn’t lived in.
He closed and locked the door behind me and then quickly moved to the living room and scooped up several manila folders and scattered papers.
“Have a seat,” he said as he gathered everything up and moved it to a small table on the other side of the room.
I took a seat on his couch where he had pointed and waited for him to join me.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?” Corey asked.
“I’m trying to figure out if the break-in at the pub is related in any way to your job at the gym.” I hedged my bets and went full bore, shrugging like I was just shootin’ the shit with a friend. “I don’t mean you teaching classes… I mean you working behind the scenes.”
This man was good. The only tell he gave was the flinch in his jaw at my last guess. It didn’t mean I was correct, but it meant I was close.
I knew if I wanted him to share, I needed to give him something in return.
“You know I was in the Army,” I said, and he gave a quick jerk of his head in response. “I worked a long time in counterterrorism, and my specialty was infiltration. So, let’s just say I know good spy material when I see it.”
He stared silently for a few moments before leaning forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. “I don’t know anything about the break-in at the pub—truly.”
With Corey, there was more than meets the eye, but in more of a mysterious way than a bad way.
“This doesn’t leave this room, but I was hired by Archer and Vince to investigate the break-in.”
“So, you and Tammy aren’t really a thing?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Technically, both,” I replied, and his eyebrows now furrowed, showing a clear dislike of my possibly playing games with Tammy.
I held up my hand in rebuke. “It started as something all on its own, but it’s become a little more complicated now that I’m investigating the place she works.
She’s not a suspect, and she knows what I was hired to do.
We are seeing each other, but let’s just say that what you see at the bar is ramped up a bit for show to some of the people who are at the pub. ”
He gave a terse nod, and I could tell he wasn’t exactly thrilled with my answer. “This, too, does not leave this room,” he said, his voice brooking no room for argument.
I tipped my head in understanding since I had just asked the same of him.
“I work undercover—and that’s all you’ll get. I was sent in to investigate the gym because we believe the owner is using it to launder drug money.”
What he was investigating surprised me a little, but not the who.
I’d figured something was up at the gym because the owner never bothered to offer me another class or even to buy a day pass with Corey’s class canceled. He seemed more than thrilled to have me leave.
We discussed a few different options and I even told him who I’d suspected for the break-in.
“If you have any ideas or info on my person of interest, I’ll gladly take it,” I told him. “And I’ve got some contacts I can reach out to about your gym owner if you want me to.”
“I can put out some feelers,” he replied. “And yeah, if you think you can do it quietly, I’ll take anything your resources can give. Been working on this case for two years. I’d love for it to end—in a good way.”
I agreed not to say anything to anyone or blow his cover—yet.
My instincts had been screaming that something was off about Corey, but for the first time since arriving in Georgia, I was convinced those instincts had been pointing at the wrong thing.
More importantly, nothing I’d learned today connected him to the robbery. If anything, he’d helped move the investigation forward.
The good news—we had one person to cross off the list of suspects. The bad news—we still had a suspect on the loose.
“Susan said you’re looking for a real estate agent,” Frank said in my ear.
I had called him to go over my suspicions and also ask about Donald.
I’d learned yesterday in casual conversation that Frank had actually arrested Donald years ago when he was still a bounty hunter.
This new discovery obviously created a whirlwind of questions in my mind.
Now, however, we had deviated to another topic.
“I don’t need an agent for an apartment,” I replied. “I just told her I was trying to find some apartment complexes that were near you guys.”
“So, you’re really gonna move here, yeah?”
Frank hadn’t known this, but I had been toying with the idea of moving for a few years now.
My friends were all in Texas, but I’d debated moving to be closer to my family or maybe even someplace different.
I hadn’t looked anywhere specifically because I hadn’t made up my mind.
But the urge to move was higher than ever now, and I knew Tammy was a large part of that.
“You moving for Tammy or other reasons?” he asked, ever the blunt one.
“Is both an option?”
He didn’t reply right away, and the silence stretching out to the point where I thought I might have dropped the call.
“I swear to God, if you hurt her—” Frank said, but I cut him off.
“I can’t guarantee that, but I’d never hurt Tammy on purpose.
Look, we’re both pretty stubborn, but that’s what I enjoy most. I love that she doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit and gives as good as she gets.
My goal is to give this a go and see if we can make this work, so you don’t need to threaten to kill me. ”
“If you let me finish,” Frank chided. “I was going to say, if you hurt her, she’ll kill you, but I won’t stop her. Hell, I might even be her alibi.”
Frank chuckled into the phone, and I just shook my head.
“I’ll do my best not to put either of you in that position,” I teased back before saying goodbye and hanging up.