Chapter 14

a/n: Thank you for reading and commenting, I am spurred on by your excitement, so here you go!

When they arrived outside of Brooks’s office, the police cruiser was already waiting for them. He’d called Gladstone the second that the presence of the memory card had been revealed.

The tall blonde detective climbed out of her vehicle and approached them just as they parked, Brooks stepping out and instantly launching into the story. 

Next to Miles, Jill was sitting in what seemed to be a state of shock. Her hand that once held the memory card still lay open in her lap.

“What a day,” she said in a near whisper, still not looking at him.

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“What a day.”

Miles looked over to see her half-smiling, and was glad that she might be coming down from her panic. Still, he felt the need to reassure her and to offer help.

“Hey, if you’re worried someone’s after you, I know a place where you can lay low for a while.”

With a raised brow, she replied, “What are you, some modern-day gangster in addition to an undercover detective?”

“I’m not an—” Miles began, then realized that today he was an undercover detective. Or at least an assistant to one. Miles Perez, P.I. He kind of liked the sound of it.

Just then, Brooks appeared next to the civic, and Miles put down the window.

“Memory card is full. It’s what we need. Gladstone thinks Cruz must have had it on him when they brought his body out. Nice work both of ya,” he said, then gave Jill an extra head nod. “Even though you weren’t workin’ for me, you just cracked this thing wide open; you should be proud.”

“Yippee,” Jill said in that same bored tone from earlier. “What exactly did I crack open?”

“That’s classified, I’m afraid. At least until we bust ‘em.”

After a beat, Jill said, “Well, slap my ass and call me Mugsy, you people really talk like 1940s gangsters, huh?”

It was that comment that brought Eashan to mind, with all of his cartoonish gangster banter the day before. Maybe Miles should call him and see if Jill would be welcome at the farmhouse for a bit. Of course, that would likely involve telling Maxine about the case, but now that it was about to be over, it would probably be fine. They had the evidence they needed, and Miles stilled, remembering the evidence he had recovered from the crime scene.

Jill and Brooks were laughing, exchanging some cutting banter, but it was all background noise as Miles reached into his pocket and withdrew the fountain pen, aka tiny death stick. It was with extreme relief that he saw the dried blood still intact at the end of the tip. In the clear light of day, he also now saw that the body of the “pen” held an engraving.

From the Desk of David Rosenberg

𓂃🖊 

Somehow, during her two-week tenure as an employee at the Diamond Palace catering hall, Maxine had managed to avoid ever doing work in the basement. She’d heard one of her coworkers mention something about jumping spiders down there, but from where she was seated, the space was actually incredibly clean and bright.

Orlando had forced her, quite literally at gunpoint, to descend the stairs and make her way into a tiny office in the back. He’d then zip-tied her hands behind her back and her ankles together for good measure before threatening to shoot her in the leg if she tried to escape.

Cliche villain ass threat, she thought to herself.

He hadn’t gagged her, which was an incredible blessing. At first, she thought him foolish for not doing so; she could just scream her brains out and alert anyone up above who wasn’t in on the scheme to her presence. That idea was quickly quashed, however, when she realized that she’d risk pulling innocents into the mess unnecessarily. No, she’d just have to find a way to get herself out.

She stayed very still, wanting to ensure he was really gone and not hovering somewhere nearby to see if she’d try to escape. After about five minutes, she guessed, she’d had enough. Peering around the small space, she tried desperately to locate something, anything that might help her break her bonds.

Sadly, there didn’t seem to be anything in the office that could be used for such an endeavor, at least not from her vantage point where she sat on the floor. With some difficulty, she pushed herself to standing, pressing her back up against the wall and performing a sort of shimmying-worm maneuver. There was a fair amount of grunting involved, but eventually, she managed it.

Because of the way her ankles were cinched together, she could only stand flat on one foot. Feeling her muscles ache, she vowed that when—not if—she got out of this, she’d get her ass back to hot yoga immediately. Just as this thought crossed her mind, she heard a dull thump on the wall behind her. Stilling to listen, she jumped when the thump was repeated, but this time twice. Racking her brain, she tried to recall what she’d seen of the rest of the basement as she was being led to her tiny office prison with a cold silencer pressed to her back. There had been more wall there, and—was she remembering correctly? A door? Perhaps a closet?

Another thump, this time much louder, made her let out a tiny scream. At the same time, a low groan could be heard through the wall. She wanted to call out to whoever was clearly incapacitated worse than she was on the other side, but the risk of someone up above hearing her was too great. There was nothing for it; she had to get herself free. She had to find out who was on the other side of that wall. Preferably, in that order.

In the end, her single-legged hopping search mission around the office yielded no results. Exhausted, she leaned her back against the door and let her head thud against it. Her bound hands were inches from the doorknob. She knew it to be a ridiculous pipe dream, but with some difficulty, she tried the knob anyway. The laugh she emitted when it turned easily and swung open was one she had to stifle quickly.

Once outside the little office, it did not take long for her to see her opportunity. The metal storage shelves were clean and neat, but simply by way of design, each had a metal end jutting out. One up high, one down low, and one perfectly aligned with where her hands were tied behind her back. Carefully, she hopped over to the nearest shelving unit, turned herself around, and hooked the zip-tie onto the metal edge.

Maxine was sweating profusely by the time she managed to free herself, and the skin of her wrists had taken a decent amount of damage, but the important thing was, she was free. At least, her hands were. Steadying herself on the shelf, she looked around for an easier way to release the ties on her ankles, and as if she was a character in a video game, the box cutter sitting on top of a shipment of paper towels seemed to have a halo of light around it as her eyes fell upon it.

There was another moan from what she now saw was definitely a closet next to the tiny office. Her feet now freed, she tried the door, but this one was unfortunately locked. Maxine knew how to pick locks. She’d learned at a young age, along with several other breaking and entering skills she cringed to think about, as they had led to her stint in jail as a teenager. She didn’t like to use them if she didn’t have to, but as Brooks said, it was smart to always look for the simplest way in before going to the trouble of locksmithing.

With this in mind, she walked—not hopped, thank goodness— back to the tiny office and sure enough, there was a key on a hook with the label “storage closet” above it. She grabbed it and ran back to the closet, making quick work of opening the door. Once she had, her eyes widened in horror at the sight before her. A man, bound and gagged, and covered in blood and bruises. His cracked glasses were askew, and his bald head was more distinctly shiny than she’d ever seen it, as his struggles along with the stuffy temperature of the closet had him covered in sweat.

“David?!”

𓂃🖊 

Hey, it’s Eash! Leave a message at the beep!

Miles sighed heavily, then went through his phone to find Derek’s number.

You have reached the voicemail box of 7-3-2-3-9-1—Miles hung up. He didn’t have Arden’s number, so there was only one other person to call.

Hey, it’s Max, I got a question for ya. Why in the Year of Our Lord 2025 are you calling me when a text would work perfectly? Just something to think about. Please don’t leave me a voicemail, I’m begging you, bye!

In any other situation, Miles would have been laughing, but the fact that they all weren’t answering their phones gave him a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Gladstone had just left with both new pieces of evidence in hand, and it was going to take her a while to process them without raising the suspicions of her crooked sergeant.

“Maybe they all decided to go ride roller coasters and turn their phones off.”

Miles looked up to see Brooks throwing him a sarcastic grin. When Miles stayed stoic, Brooks’s brow furrowed in concern. “What are ya thinkin’?”

Shaking his head, Miles said, “I just got a bad feeling.”

“Well,” said Jill, who had at first seemed grateful for a potential place to hide out, now looked agitated. “If you guys aren’t done playing detective—”

“Hey, we’re not playing, this is a serious—”

“Yes, yes,” she said to Brooks, “I know you’re actually a detective doing some classified important shit, you don’t have to mansplain it to me.”

For a moment, Brooks seemed like he was going to argue, but then he simply waved her off, and she continued.

“But seeing as your little safe house isn’t coming through, I think I’ll just go to my sister’s place until I hear from you that the bad guys are caught. I have a lot to post on social from today.”

“Hey, nothin about this case, or—”

With a scoff and an eye roll, Jill said, “Not about this, believe it or not, something incredible happened to me before I got into your fake Uber, old man.”

Miles’s face shot into an amused “O” as he waited to see what Brooks would do. Brooks, however, seemed stunned into silence that the girl would be so rude.

Jill wasn’t paying attention, however, as she’d begun to scroll on her phone.

“I met my all-time favorite YouTuber just after quitting that lame ass catering hall job,” she said, then turned her phone and made Miles’s eyes nearly fall out of his head. On instinct, he grabbed the phone from Jill’s hand, causing her to cry out and try to take it back from him.

“You alright, darlin?” a voice from a few doors down said.

Miles turned to see a girl in scrubs approaching them. She looked to be around his age, and upon closer inspection, her noticed that her scrubs had a cartoon puppy pattern on them. He looked up and confirmed she’d come out of the vet clinic.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Jill, and snatched her phone out of Miles’s hand. “Mr. Grabby over here can’t keep his hands to himself.”

Miles recoiled at this, looking back and forth between the two women who were both eyeing him with disdain. 

Finally, he put both hands up and said, “I’m sorry for grabbing your phone, but you just pulled up a picture of someone I know.”

Jill did her now-famous eye roll and scoff. “Of course you know Secret Arden, who doesn’t?!”

“Oh, is she the one with that long pink ponytail? I love her!”

“No!” Miles said, ignoring the redhead’s commentary. “I mean, she’s a friend, her boyfriend’s house is the safe house I was talking about. And you’re telling me this photo was taken today at the Diamond Palace?!”

“Holy shit, you were gonna send me to hide out with Secret Arden, are you absolutely shitting me right now? Fuck my sister’s place, call them back!!!”

“Wait,” said the newcomer, “Isn’t that… so… does that mean you’re…”

She hadn’t finished a sentence yet, but was now eyeing him with curiosity rather than anger.

“Are you Miles?” she said, which brought him up short.

“Yeah?”

The girl’s face spread into a wide grin. “You’re even cuter than Maxine said you were.”

“You know Maxine?!”

“Not as well as you do, apparently. You really made an impression there, tiger,” she said, then winked at him. “I’m Charlene, by the way.”

Still confused and trying to puzzle out how this woman knew so much so soon, he shook her hand.

“So how did you—”

“Um, excuse me? Dear?” a woman with an aristocratic British accent interrupted from the front of the vet clinic. “I’m happy to wait, of course, but Mr. Winslow is growing rather restless.”

With a little squeak of surprise, Charlene jumped, then said, “So sorry, I’m coming!”

She turned back to Miles. “Sorry, I gotta jet, but to answer the question I think you were gonna ask, Maxine was here this morning. I helped her with a little stakeout. She just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Maxine was here? This morning?”

“Yeah! I guess she saw a text sayin’ what time you were supposed to be here and wanted to follow you just to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble, and it seems like you’re alright, so she’s done her job!”

“Erm, Miss?!”

“Gotta run,” Charlene whispered before turning tail and running at top speed back to the clinic.

“Who the fuck is Maxine?”

Miles had almost forgotten Jill was there.

“She’s the one I mentioned who went undercover at the hall.”

Jill screwed up her face in confusion. “I don’t remember a Maxine.”

“I think she went by Trina?”

“Hot Trina?! Holy shit, I knew it! I knew something was off about her!” Jill nearly screamed.

“Yes, alright, can we reel this in, folks?” Brooks said, flicking his cigarette. He’d stepped away from the group to light up after Jill made her mansplaining comment. “What’s this about Maxine?”

Miles turned to face the man who, he knew, was the closest thing to a father Maxine had in her life, and said, “I think she might be in trouble.”

𓂃🖊 

Maxine pulled the gag out of David’s mouth, trying not to be too rude in the way she cringed at the spit and blood that clung to the bar rag in long strings as she placed it on the floor.

“Trina,” he said through panting breaths. His voice was understandably weak, but it was still startling to hear him like this. He looked like he’d been run over with a truck, and then backed over again for good measure. He was still wearing his tux, which she knew he only wore on big event days, and from the smell of it, he’d grown desperate when they hadn’t let him out to use the bathroom.

“How—how how did they find you?”

The sympathy that had been building for her former “boss” was extinguished in that moment, as she realized that David had been the one to send Enrico looking for her.

Narrowing her eyes, she said, “I’ll be asking the questions, actually.”

David made an audible gulping sound. “What—what do you want to know?”

“Oh, so many things. For example, what the fuck is going on here? And why did you send Enrico after me? And who killed him? Because I’m sure that shit was not an accident.”

David had been looking pained as she spoke, but when she said that last thing, he stilled, his expression growing suddenly stoic.

“Now, how would you know that?” he said, turning slowly to look at her.

She had no idea why, but she felt chills run up her spine.

“I don’t know for sure, but it seems likely,” she said, then wondered if she should have kept that fact closer to her chest.

David stirred, groaning as he made to stand, and she suddenly found herself regretting undoing his bonds. Having just been trapped in them herself, she’d found it impossible to witness another person in the same predicament without her empathy taking over. She hadn’t even stopped to think that this was the man who wanted her caught. But why was he caught? And whose side was he on?

“Who are you, really, Trina? And who do you work for?” David said. He took a step toward her, and she found herself taking a step back.

The worst thing to do when being pursued by a predator was to put your back to them and run, but that was exactly what her entire body was screaming out for her to do.

“Why do you care? Seems like you’ve fallen out of favor with the guys in charge.”

Maxine didn’t dare look down to make sure, but she knew the box cutter she’d used to undo her binds was still on the floor where she left it. David wasn’t exactly a formidable person, but he was still bigger than her, and apparently fueled by some sort of feral desperation, judging by the almost hungry look in his eyes. She needed a weapon, and the upper hand. Stat.

Relying on her smaller size and the element of surprise, she darted past him and dove for the spot where she’d left the knife. When her hand smacked into cold concrete, however, she realized she had been wrong. And David, hadn’t done more than turn around to watch her.

“Looking for this?” he said as he extracted the box cutter from the pocket of his tuxedo.

a/n: thank you again SO MUCH for being here! We are getting close to the end. At least, the end of book 1 in the series 😄

I invite you to share your favorite line from this chapter and of course any predictions, I love them. I love YOU!