Chapter Two #2
I pull a breakfast sandwich out of the fast food bag and tear it in half, trying to keep the crumbs to a minimum. We don’t have a cleaning lady come in here. “Before she dumped me, she mentioned something about staying at my place, but Stella said she has a trip to LA planned at some point. I don’t know when she leaves, but could be she’s flying out there to give Zane and Stella some time alone. Maybe she’ll meet a movie star.”
God, wouldn’t that just be a kicker. Her meeting a celebrity and falling in love, moving out there and having little golden babies.
I gotta get babies off my brain. I never thought of them before meeting Zarah. No good to be thinking about them now.
“Got another divorcée to look into, if you feel up to it. Doesn’t want to pay alimony if he doesn’t have to.”
“Ah, the good old days.”
“If you ask me, better than looking around old warehouses where women were murdered.”
I feed Baby half my biscuit. “Can’t argue with you there.”
We finish breakfast and head out. I had to look up where Ingrid Flannigan was killed, and it’s a trek across King’s Crossing. There are a couple of industrial parks in the city. I live in one, my apartment complex close to an auto body shop that’s used as a front to hide a counterfeit purse operation, and the other is across the city, north, along the opposite bank of the Renegade, where Stella and Quinn Sawyer were shoved into a shipping container on a cargo ship headed for only God knows where.
“Who owns the warehouse?” Pop asks.
“Fuck if I know,” I say, but I dig my phone out of my pocket and open a browser to try to research it. Even if I find out a company name, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to drill down to who actually owns the place.
“How are you doing?”
Pop glues his eyes to the road. He’s only touching base, and I try not to let it bother me. He’s worried, but he doesn’t have to be.
“You weren’t this concerned when Viv dumped me.”
“You didn’t love Viv as much as you love Zarah.”
I scoff. “Are you kidding? She wrecked me when she dumped me for that other guy. What was his name? Tristian? Christian? Sebastian? Something prissy.” Tate. Blech.
“You got over her quick enough. Too quick for a man who thought she was going to be his forever.”
“I’m over Zarah, too.”
Pop chuckles. “Are you now?”
“Sure, if Zane and Stella can stay out of my face. Both bitched me out for that photo on Truth or Dare . He did, twice, like I didn’t hear him the first time.”
“What were you and Sierra doing anyway? The night Zarah says she needs to—” Pop waves his hand around in the air, trying to find the right words.
“Do other things?” I say tactfully.
“I guess you can put it that way.”
“Fucking around, and I had no reason not to. No one likes to be told they aren’t enough, Pop. Mom told you that, and she jumped into Rourke’s bed before you could blink. At least Zarah and I don’t have a kid.”
Pop glances at me. “We did okay by you. I tried my best.”
“Not saying you didn’t. You’re lucky she let me do what I wanted or I never would have seen you. Zarah...if we would’ve had kids, I don’t think I would have seen them again.”
“She doesn’t seem like the type to do that.”
“Zarah avoids what hurts her. I never thought for a minute she doesn’t love me. I know for a fact she does, but there have been enough people telling her she needs more, and she listened. She’ll avoid me because it hurts to see me. That’s fine. It’ll hurt me to see her, too.” I scroll through the Google results. “Why are we talking about this again?”
“Just checking in.”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
I press on a result. “Who?” I start skimming an article in the business section of the KC Chronicle that’s three years old.
“Sierra.”
“Holy fuck. For the third time, no, I didn’t. She knew what I was doing when I invited her out, and she went with me as a friend and listened to me bitch and moan. We saw a movie, hung out with some of the guys at Old Jake’s, and then I brought her home. I didn’t go in and I didn’t invite her to my place. Zarah’s the only woman who’s ever been in my bed, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”
The words bring up an image of her lying on my bed, her hair splayed across my pillow, laughing at something I said. Her eyes are bright, her lips are swollen, and her legs are tangled up in the sheets.
I’ve never missed anyone so much in my life.
“If we’re going to follow a divorcée around town, we gotta do better than this or I’ll never get through one night of a stakeout. Helluva thing to be talking about with your dad.”
His face smooths out, and he laughs. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I told you I would.”
“You and Zarah aren’t done.”
“She dumped me.”
“Ah-huh.”
Pop turns onto a frontage road covered in snow. A snowplow carved a narrow path right down the middle. If someone tries to leave at the same time we’re on the road, we’re screwed, but no one does and he parks in the empty lot. Yellow police tape blocks the doors, fluttering in the wind, bright against the dull grey of the building.
Other buildings that are falling apart hug this one, tall snowbanks separating the parking lots. This whole section looks abandoned. West down the riverbank, a factory of some kind pumps black smoke into the air. The wind catches it, and it stinks like one of Baby’s farts.
“Did you find out who owns this place?” Pop asks, checking out the building.
“Some LLC. I’ll have to dig deeper, peel the layers back. It might not matter.”
“Might not.”
It’s cold out here, the breeze blowing off the Renegade. We won’t see warmer temperatures for months. I hate this time of year, but at least the sun’s out. It perks up my spirits. Slightly.
Baby hops out of the back and starts nosing around. She growls, picking up a scent she doesn’t like. She doesn’t growl often, and I wonder who’s been out here.
Pop grabs a flashlight, and I carry our camera, just in case.
Baby jets off, and we follow at a slower pace, scrutinizing the entry points.
Police tape cordons off the front doors and the side doors are locked without a millimeter of give, but with a place like this, there’s always a way in. Somehow. We don’t rush, Pop pointing out a broken window here, a security camera there. It’s a longshot the cameras will be working, and even if they are, most cameras don’t store footage of every second they record.
There’s a wide dock in the back, but there aren’t any boats tied to it. I wonder, since they had access to the river, why they left Ingrid’s body where someone could find it. They could have weighted her down and thrown her into the water.
“What do you think?”
“They wanted to send a message?” Pop muses, always on the same page as me.
“Okay, but to who?”
“The Maddoxes? She was Zarah’s nurse. You?”
I scoff. “What good would that do?”
“Don’t shake it off so easily. You’ve been dating her for a few months, and we’ve been snooping into Quiet Meadows. Could be this was their way of telling you to mind your own business.”
“Then they need to take it up with me.”
“Maybe they have, and you didn’t listen.”
I tip my head.
“Anything else happen besides your truck?”
“No.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
“You should tell Sierra to be careful. She doesn’t have the protection Zarah and Stella do, and everyone knows about her now because of that gossip rag.”
I don’t like the sound of that. Sierra’s got nothing to do with this bullshit, but that won’t stop someone from hurting her to hurt me.“Yeah. I’ll call her later and tell her to watch her back.”
Baby barks, and we follow the sharp sound that echoes across the river. She’s scratching at a door that doesn’t have a handle on the outside. Possibly an emergency exit of some kind. “Baby.”
She only needs me to say her name to step back. Should all females be so trained.
“I guess there’s something interesting in there.”
Pop grunts in agreement.
The building’s huge, and it takes us longer to walk the outside than I would have figured. Loading bays line the east side, but this doesn’t seem like the type of warehouse that would have a lot of traffic. Maybe warehouse isn’t even the right word for what this building is. Storage facility. Distribution center. Hard to know without seeing what’s inside.
There’s a second floor, and windows glint in the sun. Offices, possibly, though I can’t picture anyone working a nine to five here.
A rusted ladder is bolted to the side of the building, just begging to be climbed, but I don’t want to leave Baby behind. Pop says, “I’ll stay,” and that leaves me free to see what’s at the top, but more importantly, if there’s a way inside. I hand him the camera and he hangs the strap around his neck.
The rungs are narrow, and the thick, snow-covered soles of my boots barely find purchase. I’m not scared of heights, but as I climb higher, I don’t voluntarily look down, either.
The second floor isn’t as wide as the first, and I have plenty of space to move around the roof and look for a way in. There isn’t police tape up here, and I’m hopeful there’s a door that hasn’t been blocked off. The wind is sharp and cold, and I tug my hat over my ears and zip my jacket all the way up to my chin. The trees on the lot are sparse, but the building isn’t high enough to give me a good view of the river.
Cupping my hands around my eyes to block out the glare, I look in the windows and see empty desks and filing cabinets that may or may not be full of paperwork. Nothing looks disturbed. Maybe the police didn’t go through the offices if their only concern was Ingrid’s body. Zane didn’t give me any information, but maybe he didn’t have any to give. Ingrid might not even have been killed here. If this was only a dumping area, there wouldn’t have been much to find.
I walk across the entire rooftop, but there isn’t a way inside. Not up here.
“Find anything?” Pop calls. The wind snatches away his words, but I can guess at what he said.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He gestures for me to come down, but I back away from the edge. I’m not going down the ladder I used to climb up—I’d fall and break my neck. Instead, I find a fire escape, and I wonder if I didn’t miss an entrance to the building after all, but there’s no time to worry about it now. I drop into the snow and it comes up to my knees. Most of the snow is fresh and untouched, and we’re messing it up. I can only hope the police searched out here and we’re not disturbing evidence.
Pop meets me in front of the building.
“This is shit,” I mutter.
“We can try picking the lock,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the glass door.
“I didn’t bring mine. You?” I don’t have my lockpick kit on me.
“Yeah.”
Police tape seals off the main entrance, and curiously, Pop tears it away and pulls on the door’s handle. The door opens, hinges squealing, and we step into a small lobby containing a meagre seating area and an empty water cooler.
He hoots. “Who woulda left the door wide open?”
“Someone who wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. Who called this in?” I ask, looking around.
“This is your job. You’re the one who talked to Zane.”
He has a point. “I didn’t have much time to research. I guess we’ll have to dig up the nine-one-one report.”
“If that’s how the cops found out. Could’ve been an anonymous tip.”
That’s true, too. My mind must be frozen if I can’t come up with this stuff myself. That, or all that’s in my brain right now is Zarah. How she’s doing. What she and Stella will have done at the spa. I hope she doesn’t cut her hair. I like tangling my fingers in it.
And . . . that’s none of my business anymore.
I sigh.
Pop flicks me a look. “It will jab at you every now and then.”
I don’t have to ask what he’s talking about. “Yeah.”
Baby presses against my leg, quivering with excitement.
“Go,” I shoo her, and she doesn’t waste any time scrambling away, her nails scratching against the concrete.
“Got a light switch somewhere?” Pop asks, searching the walls for a way to turn the overhead bulbs on.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Fuck. I’m not gonna like being in here in the dark.” He turns the flashlight on, and we follow after Baby, weaving around the aisles of black metal shelving. They’re all empty and covered in a thick layer of dust. This place hasn’t been used in any capacity for quite some time.
There aren’t any windows, no natural sunlight to see by. Pop sweeps the area in wide arcs and the bluish light disturbs a couple of sleeping birds hiding from the cold. Feathers fluttering, they fly to a different area of the warehouse.
I point toward the ceiling, asking him to aim the beam along the walls, and I note the lack of cameras. Either they were taken down previously, or they weren’t installed in the first place.
“Cold.”
“A body won’t decay in these temps.”
“How long was she in here?” Pop asks, brushing a glove over a shelf coated in grime.
“I don’t know. Three or four days? More? Depends on when they snatched her. Zarah cut her loose after New Year’s Day and she said Ingrid didn’t hang around to say goodbye. That still leads me to think she was pissed about getting fired, thought she’d try to sell some information and it went sideways.”
“Could be. Either she didn’t have what they were hoping for, or she got greedy.” His breath puffs out white in the cold. It’s several degrees below freezing in here. Was that deliberate, or a happy coincidence?
Baby starts barking, and we trot to another section of the warehouse. This area is just as big, full of empty wooden crates, pallets, and more metal shelving.
Yellow police ribbon cuts off access to a corner of the room, and a large red stain, so dark it’s almost black, covers the grey cement.
Baby noses around the spot, whimpering. The coppery scent of blood still hangs in the air, along with the heavy weight of death. The space is full of pain and it stabs at my skin until my head aches. Ingrid didn’t die peacefully.
There’s blood spatter on the walls, and dried blood coats long thick chains hanging from the rafters. Images of Ingrid strung up where they tortured her until she died will live in my brain forever.
Not that I know that’s what happened, but the amount of blood, the isolation...my idea she was dumped here is nothing but a pipe dream.
Pop turns green, and he clears his throat.
I grab the flashlight and he snaps a few pictures. Zane’s contact at the police department might be willing to give him more information or I can ask Ross, but it’s easier to have our own pictures on hand.
There’s a breakroom of sorts in the back, a coffeemaker full of frozen sludge, and an old, yellowed copy of the KC Chronicle lays scattered on a long table. A white fridge sits next to a stainless steel sink, but I don’t care about what’s inside. From the looks of things, employees haven’t reported to work in a few years. But it hums—there’s still electricity running to the place.
“I guess that’s it, huh?” Pop asks.
“Let’s go upstairs. There were offices up there. I peeked into the windows when I was on the roof. Maybe we can at least figure out what this place was used for.”
We find a metal staircase tucked into a corner, almost out of sight, and we follow it up, Baby climbing the stairs, growling low in the back of her throat. She hasn’t liked it here since we parked in the lot, but I can understand why now.
The office area is warmer by a few degrees, and light shines through the frosted windows.
Pop pokes his head into one and starts opening filing cabinets. I walk down the hallway, the floor covered in ugly brown industrial carpeting, and choose another. The filing cabinets in this office are empty, and I sit in the desk chair, the fake leather crackling under my ass. Dust covers the old blotter and the drawers are empty except for some stray paperclips.
“Got anything?” Pop yells, stepping out of one office and going into another. There are three and a restroom, but I don’t see the door that would lead to the fire escape I used.
“No, but I don’t think the cops cleared out these offices. Everything is covered in dirt. Whoever used this warehouse took their shit and ran.”
“That’s what I’m getting, too.”
Baby starts barking and Pop and I follow the sound to the tiny bathroom. The toilet lid is up, and the inside of the bowl is stained a rusty orange. The sink faucet drips, and I turn it on, the water streaming out in a brown sputtering gush.
“There’s nothing in here, girl.”
My words don’t quiet her. She starts pawing at a cabinet built into the wall, and I open the door, expecting to find extra rolls of toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, or even toilet bowl cleaner.
I do find all those things, and something else.
Pop jiggles a pen out of his jacket pocket and holds a watch up to the beam of the flashlight.
Crusted blood speckles the face of a gold Patek Philippe.
“What do you suppose this is doing up here?” he asks, tilting his head and studying it.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.”
“Fancy watch to leave laying around.”
“Must have been in a hurry to get rid of it.”
“Or he forgot about it.”
“He?” I ask.
“Men’s watch.”
“Women wear men’s watches.”
“True enough.”
In fact, when Viv and I were dating, she frequently stole my watches, saying the bold look was in. Zarah couldn’t wear one of my watches. It would slip down her slender wrist and right off her tiny hand.
Christ, how can a man miss a woman so much?
“Now what?” Pop asks, wrapping it in his handkerchief and pushing it into one of his jacket’s deep pockets.
“Give it to the police?”
“I guess we should. The way Ingrid died, we’re in over our heads.”
“No joke.”
We don’t do shit like this. Torture. Homicide. I’d rather run down a druggie in the street who just robbed a little old lady than get messed up in something like this. I can tell Zane what we found and wash our hands of it. Dirty or not, this is what the cops are for.
Baby finally calms down some, but she paces in circles.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, and Pop is quick to agree.
Outside, we poke around and look for boot prints or anything else that could maybe give us a clue as to who was out here, but we’ve had so much snow, chances of finding anything are slim to none. I walk to the end of the dock, the wooden boards creaking under my feet. The water is a gunmetal grey in the cold. I still wonder why they (whoever “they” are) didn’t weight down Ingrid’s body and let her sink. Why let the police find her? Is Pop right and they wanted to send a message? To whom? Zane, maybe. But what were they trying to say?
None of it makes sense.
I write a mental note to talk to the ME, and I never did get around to asking him about Stacy Birmingham.
Back at the office, I email Zane and CC Stella. There’s no one else to report to. I doubt they’ll be checking their email anytime soon, and pressing Send, I’m bitter all over again. I could have been there, could have watched them get married, gone out to dinner. I didn’t realize how much I liked Zane and Stella until Zarah breaking it off meant I didn’t have a reason to talk to them anymore.
I don’t have a big family, and I didn’t take advantage of having a brother when I had the chance. I’d always been in competition with Max, even if the contest had been made up in my head, and that ruined our relationship. I’ll always be jealous Max had Zarah’s time first, and I’ll always resent her realizing I wasn’t her type after all.
Pop leaves early, saying he needs a hot shower and a beer, and an hour later, I lock up. Tiredly, I climb into my truck, and my phone rings, the music cutting into the silence. Baby’s ears perk up, but I’ve stopped thinking it’s Zarah. She won’t call me after the things I said, and it’s just as well. I’m not going to let her straddle the fence. Either she’s in it or she’s not, and the last I heard, she wasn’t.
Sierra asks me out to shoot darts and grab a burger, and I accept because the only alternative I have on my busy agenda is going through Max’s diary and reading about how much in love he’d been with my ex-girlfriend. I really don’t need that right now. It’s bad enough she probably invited Tate to Zane and Stella’s ceremony and to dinner afterward, and I’m too drained to care. I learned my lesson the first time Sierra and I went out, and I tell her I want to go to a bar in a shitty little town a half hour away. The paparazzi won’t be on my tail in a crap town and if Sierra wants to hang all over me, fuck, maybe I’ll let her take me home.
If Zarah can play around, so can I.
Except, my hands shake just thinking about it, and it doesn’t matter how many lies I tell myself, I know I’ll bring her home and go to bed alone.