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Lucinda’s
heart skipped a beat.
I
need you to make me a man.
She
looked across the table at the frail woman sitting in front of her. Valyne McKinnon looked exactly like the
young, inexperienced Lucinda Scott – the Lucinda she had once been. Desperate for work, Lucinda had also once
been paid to deceive Rollie, not aware of the consequences that would
ensue. And now, like Lucinda had been,
Valyne was ashamed of what she had done.
Suddenly,
the hatred and anger that Lucinda had previously felt against Valyne
vanished. She couldn’t be angry at what
the woman had done when she, too, had done it at one time.
Angie
looked up at Lucinda. Angie too could
see the sympathy in Lucinda’s eyes.
Lucinda
shifted uncomfortably. She
remembers, too.
“I regret it now,” Valyne blurted. Her eyes were rapidly becoming wet with
tears. “I had no idea – no idea what
they were going to do.”
Lucinda
placed her hand on Valyne’s. “I
understand,” she said.
“What did they want you to do?” Angie said.
“They
got me to call Rollie up. I asked him
if I could visit the loft. He agreed,
and I came over the next night. We had
dinner. I guess there was some
kind of a spark between us, even without my forcing. And I do have feelings for him – no matter how angry he may be at
me.”
“So
you know what has happened?”
Valyne
nodded. “After our date last night, he
dropped me off here. That was the last
I saw of him. Then the rest I heard on
the news this morning. How is he doing
now?”
Angie
pursed her lips, and said nothing.
Nothing she or Lucinda could say would make the situation any better.
The
coffeemaker had finished. Valyne stood
up quickly, and removed the coffeepot.
She poured the coffee into three mugs, and opened the fridge and pulled
out a small box of cream. She carried
the mugs to the table. “I really didn’t
know that the men wanted to do that to him,” she said, quietly.
“So
what did you think they wanted to do, then?” Angie asked, coldly,
squeezing the handle of her mug tightly.
“I
don’t know, I guess … I just didn’t think about it.” She brushed one eye with the back of her hand, wiping away the
tears. “I guess I knew all along it was
dirty. But they told me I had to do
what they wanted. They threatened me.…”
“Who
were ‘they’?” Angie pressed. “Did they
work for anyone?”
“I
don’t know who they were,” Valyne said.
“I’d never seen them before.”
“What did they look like?” Lucinda
said.
“They
were all tall guys. Big. I was afraid of them.” Valyne thought for a moment. “And one of them … one of them had a scar
over his eye. But that’s all I
remember.”
Lucinda
glanced at Angie, then back at Valyne.
“We need you to talk to the police.
For Rollie’s sake.”
Valyne
skidded backward on her chair, panicking.
“I can’t – they’ll come for me.
They’ll hurt me. Or worse.”
“We
have friends in the department,” Lucinda said, holding out her hand. “We can get you protection.”
Valyne
looked up nervously. “Really?”
“Rollie’s
friend, Leo, is a cop,” Lucinda explained.
“He’s one of the detectives on the case. He’ll help you – you just have to help us.”
Valyne
stared at Lucinda’s outstretched hand.
After a long moment, she put her hand in Lucinda’s. “All right,” she said, finally. “I’ll go to the police.”
Lucinda
rose, smiling. Angie inwardly breathed
a shared sigh of relief. “Then let’s
get out of here.”
Angie,
Lucinda, and Valyne stepped outside, and Valyne paused to lock the door behind
them. Angie had parked the car across
the street, and Lucinda darted ahead of Angie to reach the driver’s door before
her. She remembered what it had been like
when Angie had been driving before.
Just
as they had reached the car, which had been parked on the side of the road,
Lucinda heard the loud rumble of an engine down the street. She jumped, startled, and turned to see what
was going on. She relaxed a little when
she saw it was only a furniture van pulling up in front of the apartment
building. A man and a woman appeared
from it, both wearing overalls with the logo Fine Furniture.
Calm
down, Luce, she told herself.
Angie
pulled out her cell phone, and dialed Leo’s phone number. She listened, and sighed. “His phone’s not active,” she said. “Where could he be?”
“I
don’t know,” Lucinda said. She opened
the driver’s door and began to climb in, when the keys slipped out of her hand
and onto the pavement just in front of the door. She muttered something under her breath and bent down to pick
them up.
Valyne
was nearly at the opposite sidewalk now.
Lucinda crouched down to pick up the keys, and then raised her head to
speak to Valyne. “We’ll take you to …” She broke off in mid-sentence.
Valyne
frowned, but Lucinda wasn’t looking at her.
She
was looking at the man from the furniture van.
“Valyne!” she yelled.
Valyne
followed Lucinda’s gaze to the van.
Suddenly she cried out, and began to run.
And the man with the large dark scar over his left eye
reached into the pocket of his overalls.
11:58
a.m.
“No!”
Lucinda screamed as the man reached into his back pocket.
Angie
turned to see what was going on. A
chill ran down her spine as she saw a small Beretta appear from the man’s back
pocket.
Valyne
had begun to run desperately, but there was nowhere for her to go in time.
The
bullets ripped into her chest, throwing her back and downward onto the
ground. Valyne cried out once more, and
then went silent.
Shit.
The
man swung the gun around toward them and fired, the bullets ricocheting off the
metal of the car, blasting holes in the reinforced side paneling.
Angie
had lept over the hood and landed on Lucinda’s side of the car, where Lucinda
cowered behind the door.
Angie
looked around for somewhere to run.
Lucinda was panicking, but Angie knew that they had to stay calm. Or they wouldn’t survive.
She
spotted the abandoned building behind them.
It looked like it had, at one time, held apartments. The entrance was ten, maybe twelve feet
away. Angie drew a breath in
anticipation. We might just make it.
She
glanced up over the hood of the car.
The man and the woman, who also now held a Beretta, were advancing
across the empty street toward them.
They would be there in seconds.
Angie
grabbed Lucinda’s shoulder, hauling her off her knees to a crouch. “Run!” she yelled. Lucinda stumbled, but ran with her in the direction of the
doorway.
Leo
could feel the desperation welling up inside of him. The evidence against Rollie was piling up quickly, and his
investigation appeared to be intertwining more and more with Colin Fischer’s
case, which scared Leo. He glanced
around at the others. Francis, too, was
pale. He was probably trying, like Leo,
to make some sense of what was going on.
Shawna was unreadable.
It was
Colin that had Leo worried. The
evidence, to him, was very conclusive.
And Leo could understand why.
Had it been someone else in the place of Rollie, Leo would have
definitely placed the person under arrest.
It all appeared obvious.
But
that was exactly what bothered Leo.
Somehow it was almost too obvious.
And it still didn’t explain what the drugs were that were in Rollie’s
system in the first place. Sure, to
anyone who didn’t know Rollie, it looked like Rollie had had a drug overdose. But Leo knew that was impossible.
No,
something was not right. Leo just hoped
he would get the chance to prove it.
He’d
asked Colin if they could take a look at Matthew Domlin’s bedroom, where his
body had been discovered. Colin agreed,
and soon the four detectives were in the room, looking around; for what, Leo
wasn’t sure. Yet. The room had already been looked over once
by Colin and his officers. But Leo
still clung to the hope that there was something that they had missed.
It had
begun to rain outside again. The rain
landed against the roof, making a soft rushing sound. The room was depressing in the dim grey light that filtered in
through the water on the windowpane.
The
room was large. The bed was located in
the center. Along one wall was a large
window, with blinds that were nearly closed.
The contrasts in the room intrigued Leo. Along one wall was a tall, old-fashioned wooden dresser, along
with an old fashioned alarm clock.
Along another wall was a bank of computer and television equipment that
Leo suspected was top of the line.
Leo
frowned, looking at the stacks of videotapes scattered around the VCR. “Did you get your men to look at these?” he
asked Colin.
Detective
Fischer nodded. “Of course. They’re old movies, just like the labels
say.”
Leo
nodded, moving on. Off to the side of
the room was a short hallway to a private bathroom. Leo searched it as well.
Nothing.
“Did
he have a study?” Shawna asked, looking up.
“We
searched that, too,” Colin said, sighing.
“In fact, we’ve searched everything.
Thoroughly. You’re not going to
find anything.”
Leo
narrowed his eyes. “Show me the study.”
Colin
shrugged. “If you insist.”
Buzz,
as he was referred to, swore when he realized that he hadn’t hit either of the
women as they’d ran for their lives. He
glanced at his partner, Janet, who glared at him coldly. “Damn it,” she muttered, expressing no
remorse for the one person they’d just killed, only frustration that their job
hadn’t been as simply as they’d hoped.
The two
jogged across the street, keeping their weapons low so as to keep them
unnoticed by anyone who happened to be passing by. They slowed as they approached the entrance to the derelict
building. Buzz listened.
Nothing.
Buzz
pressed himself against the door, and reloaded his gun. Janet did the same. “Let’s get them this time,” she said. Then she turned and slowly stepped into the
hallway.
“They’re
unarmed,” Buzz reminded her. “We don’t
have to worry.” He laughed, then raised
his voice, hoping the two women would hear.
“We know you’re here somewhere!”
“Shut
up!” Janet exclaimed, jabbing him with her elbow. She nodded toward the end of the hallway. “See if you can find another way out of this
place. They’d be headed that
direction. I’ll stay around here.” She tugged his arm roughly. “We have to get them.”
Buzz
winced. She didn’t have to say anything
more. He knew what the consequences
would be if they didn’t execute their targets.
Their boss wouldn’t be happy – not in the least.
Buzz
advanced forward into the darkness. He
reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small flashlight, and its tiny
beam of light illuminated the hall in front of him. He held the flashlight in his left hand, and the gun in his
right.
The
hallway curved to the right, and he followed up a small set of stairs. On either side of him there appeared two
open doorways. Apartments, he
guessed. The back exit would probably
be at the end of the hallway.
He
sniffed, and the stale damp smell made him grimace. As he moved between the doorways a sinuous string, a spider web,
caught him across his face. He shifted
the flashlight into his gun hand so that he could rub his eyes …
… and
he didn’t see the foot that appeared from one of the doorways. The boot connected with his right hand,
sending the gun and flashlight skittering off into a corner. Before he could shout, a hand clamped over
his mouth, and a knee connected with his crotch. He howled through the fingers of the hand. Another foot connected with his back, and he
was slammed to the ground.
The
darkness around him seemed to get even darker, and that was all he could
remember.
“Rah!”
Lucinda exclaimed, pulling her hand away from the man’s mouth.
“Ssh!”
Angie hissed. “He’s unconscious. We have to get him out of the way. There’s still one more, remember?”
Janet
jumped when she heard a noise from down the hallway. “Buzz?” she yelled, becoming more afraid. She change to a two-handed grip on her gun
to keep her aim steady, then started down the hallway. She cursed the fact that she didn’t have a
flashlight, and had to rely on the dim light that permeated the building
through the broken windows.
Where
the corridor curved, she pressed herself against the wall, peering around. She squinted, but couldn’t see far
ahead. “Buzz?” she called again.
There
was a sound down the hallway. Something
skittered across the floor. A rat? Or something else? Janet fired two rounds in the direction of the sound, then darted
around the corner and began advancing toward it.
Her
foot connected with something on the ground, and she nearly tripped. It took her a moment to realize what it was.
“Buzz?”
she said, kneeling.
She didn’t her the swish behind her as Angie and
Lucinda stepped out of the darkness.
Angie’s voice wavered. “Baby,”
she growled, training the Beretta on the woman. “I am pissed. So move a
muscle – if you dare.”
12:35
p.m.
“We
interrupt this program to give you a special news report from downtown. Manhattan Five’s own Garrett Langham is on
the scene.”
“I’m
standing at the scene of an apparent drive-by shooting here on Hefner
Street. Police were just called to the
scene, where Valyne McKinnon, who lived in this apartment building behind me,
was shot down as she crossed her lawn.
As you can see, around me there is quite a lot of confusion happening
here. Rumours fly that the shooter was
apprehended by two women who were visiting Ms. McKinnon at the time. Manhattan Five News still does not know the
names of these two women who risked their own lives to capture the shooters and
perhaps save the lives of others in this neighbourhood. Back to you.”
Like
the bedroom, the study was a fascinating contrast of old and new
technologies. Leo walked up to the old desk
and flipped through a few of the papers that were scattered across the keyboard
of a state of the art Compaq laptop computer.
“They looked at these, I assume?” he asked.
Colin
nodded.
Leo
heard Francis’s voice from behind him.
“Did you look in the safe?”
“What
safe?” Leo said, spinning around.
Francis
removed a wall painting. Hidden behind
it was the large metal door of a safe.
Colin
shifted a little uneasily. “We only just received the combination from the
security company. We haven’t looked in
there yet.”
Leo
chose to ignore the fact that, had Francis not noticed the safe, it seemed that
Colin would not have said anything of its existence. “Then I think we should open it, now.”
The
safe was not electronic, and Colin dialed the combination in manually. There was a soft click and the door opened,
revealing a small stack of papers.
Leo
came up next to Colin’s shoulder as Colin flipped through the pages. “Financial records for Domlin
Entertainment,” Colin declared. “And
then Domlin’s own, personal financial records.
Nothing too important.” He set
the papers down on the desk.
Leo
picked them up again, scowling. Colin’s
nonchalance about the evidence bothered him.
Leo felt he had to take a second look.
There
were about fifty or so pages, Leo counted.
They were all financial statements, detailing major shifts of money
within the company finances and Domlin’s own bank accounts within the past …
six months, Leo counted. Each
transaction was dated, with the amount of money withdrawn or deposited and the
total account balance being listed in neatly typed columns. Leo began with Domlin’s personal accounts,
and immediately something struck Leo as odd.
Leo
squinted as his mind tried to work around the numbers. “This isn’t right,” he finally pronounced.
Francis
and Shawna looked at him. “What do you
mean?”
Leo
made some space on Domlin’s desk and spread the papers out. “I’m no accountant, but up until January it
looks like Domlin was having some serious money problems. Look at the account balance – he was nearly
cleaned out.” He traced down the page,
then jabbed at another entry with his finger.
“Suddenly, on January twentieth, he gets a big deposit. Millions.
And according to this, it was wired directly from another account.”
“Maybe
it was from another of Domlin’s personal accounts,” Shawna suggested.
“It’s
possible,” Leo said. “But look at
this. In the company records you see
Domlin’s total investment in the company decreases as well. In fact, that money goes into his personal
account, but even that isn’t enough to keep the personal account balance from
decreasing.”
“This
may be worth checking out,” Shawna said.
She made eye contact with Colin Fischer, who sighed.
“All
right. I’ll see if I can get someone to
dig up more information on Domlin’s account transactions.”
Leo
was startled when his cell phone began to ring. He set the papers down on the table and picked up the phone. “McCarthy.”
“Leo,
it’s Lucinda.”
“Luce,
hey. Any luck with that Valyne chick?”
Lucinda’s
voice was tight. “Lots. She’s dead, Leo.”
Leo’s
eyes widened, and he turned to look at Francis. “What?!”
“We
talked to her. Convinced her to meet
you. She came outside with us when
suddenly a furniture truck pulls up and bam, they shot her down.” Lucinda’s tone of voice faltered a
little. “They tried to get us too.”
“Are
you okay?”
Her
voice strengthened. “Yes. Angie and I caught the people who did it.”
“The
shooters?” His eyes went wide. “Where are you now? Do you need help?”
“We’re
okay. We’re at the precinct, with
Vanduren and the others.”
“I’ll meet you there.”