Chapter 15

A/N: The story will be complete by the end of this month, so watch for more updates. Your comments keep me going! I expect a mix of short and long chapters as we reach the end. Thank you for being here!!!

Oh and just as a reminder: we left off with Maxine in the cellar of the catering hall, having just freed herself, and face to face with a knife-wielding David.

The knife glinted in even in the low light of the catering hall cellar as David brandished it her way. He had a gleam in his eyes that made her shiver.

“Okay, let’s just calm down,” she said, but instantly regretted it, as her words caused David to let out a frustrated snarl, sending bloodied spittle in her general direction.

“Calm?! How can I be calm when my wife is about to be murdered and it’s all my fault?!”

“Your—your wife?!”

“Yes, my wife!” he shouted, his voice cracking in a way that normally would have made her laugh if the situation weren’t so unfunny. “They took her! Because I caught on to their disgusting scheme and tried to expose them! Little did I know the cops were in on it.”

“The cops?” Maxine said, eyes going very wide. “Do you mean Detective Gladstone?”

“I can’t remember his name, only that he took my evidence and gave it right back to Orlando and his goons.”

Maxine breathed a sigh of relief that the cop was a he, and clearly not Adrienne Gladstone. Her relief was temporary, however, as David went on.

“And then you! You showed up and I knew the second you left that you’d taken evidence. After I checked your paperwork and saw you’d given a bunch of false information. But I was on thin ice with them, so I had to act like I didn’t know where the evidence went. Then, I sent Rico after you so they wouldn’t get wind of me searching for anyone.”

David’s hand tightened around the knife, and Maxine could sense that storytime was coming to a close. Not wishing to allow him the space to formulate his next move, as he was clearly in a deranged state, she jumped in.

“But he couldn’t find me, because I didn’t give my real name or number, or anything that could trace back to me. That must have been frustrating.”

“It was!” David cried, and she felt her body relax ever so slightly. “I-I-I hardly know what to do. Celia is being held somewhere by these people, these h-h-horrible people! Do you know what they do? Did you look at the memory card?”

When Maxine shook her head, David groaned and covered his face, nearly nicking himself with the knife in the process, but apparently not noticing this.

“The things they’re capable of, I just can’t imagine what they’ll put my wife through, what they’re already put her through, it’s just… it’s unthinkable!”

Maxine knew how to finesse many men in many different situations, but this was one she had yet to encounter. Still, there were many ways to seduce someone, and they weren’t all sexual. 

“David,” she began in a level tone, “We’re on the same side here. I want these scummy people finished just as much as you do.”

“Finished?!” he said, then laughed rather hysterically. “Do you have any idea how deep this goes? No of course you don’t, or you wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place. Why did you get involved, anyway? Who are you?”

An outright refusal to answer his question might garner more defense, and possibly, use of the knife still clutched in the man’s hand. She tried a different tack instead.

“I’m no one important in the world, and actually, the card I took had nothing on it,” she said, and David let out a devastated scoff. “But!” she said, regaining his attention, “That doesn’t change the fact that they think I have evidence, so maybe I’m a valuable bargaining chip after all.”

Both of David’s arms slumped at his sides as he stared, waiting for her to continue. She chanced a step towards him as she spoke and was heartened when he didn’t flinch at her movement.

“Maybe we can help each other, David,” she said, employing her most silky and soothing voice.

“H-h-how?” he breathed.

𓂃🖊 

Miles sat next to Jill in the chairs opposite Brooks’s desk as he fielded a phone call from Detective Gladstone. He could only hear one side of the conversation, but from what he gleaned so far, the detective was having to jump through hoops to identify an uncorrupted superior to get the evidence to.

“Alright, well call me when you sort it out,” Brooks was saying, but Miles was only dimly paying attention. His mind was fixated on Maxine.

Where was she? He could drive to Colts Neck to see if she was still at Derek’s parent’s place, but something told him that would be a dead end. She and her roommates were all not answering their phones, and despite the fact that he’d just talked to Eashan about Six Flags the night prior, he had to imagine they hadn’t simply gone for a day at the theme park after all that had transpired. Particularly because, according to Charlene, the receptionist at the veterinary clinic, Maxine had been staking him out that very morning! Had she followed him to the catering hall? Had she followed him from the catering hall?

Just as this thought crossed his mind, he remembered how they had been tailed after leaving.

“Oh shit!” he said aloud just as Brooks ended his call. 

Next to him, Jill jumped and Brooks gaped at him.

“What?”

“What is it?”

“That van that was tailing us on the Parkway. That was Maxine, I’m sure of it.

“You’re sure? How?”

“I don’t know, I just have a feeling. But also, it makes sense if you think about it. She probably followed us to the Diamond Palace and then saw us leaving.”

There were a few beats of silence as Brooks and Jill took this in, and seemed to agree with his logic, simply by their lack of rebuttal.

Before either of them could say anything, however, confirmation of his theory came in the form of a phone call from Derek. Or at least, that was the name that lit up on his phone screen. When he answered, a voice he did not recognize greeted him.

“Yes, hello, is this Miles?” a woman asked.

“Speaking.”

“Oh, hello, dear. I believe you are an acquaintance of my son and you spent the night at our estate, correct?”

“Yes, hi,” Miles said, sitting up straighter in his chair and hitting speakerphone so that Jill and Brooks could hear. “I’m a friend of Derek’s, I was trying to get a hold of him.”

“He’s alright! Just a bit banged up. Thankfully, our vans have excellent passenger protection.”

“Wh-what-”

“He asked me to call you and find out if Maxine is with you. Is she?”

“Max- n-no she’s- wait, she’s not with him? And Arden and Eashan?”

“Oh, they’re alright, too! They only lost their phones in the hubbub. It looked like a bad accident from the outside, but they merely hit shrubbery and got a bit tossed around. Maxine was well enough to walk away, but she disappeared and they assumed she called you to pick her up? Apparently you’re a driver?”

“I-she-they got in an accident?!”

“Mom let me talk to him,” came Derek’s voice from the background.

With an exhausted scoff, she said, “You need your rest, dear, I told you I could handle it.”

A cacophony of yelling in the background, including what sounded like Eashan’s voice, caused the woman to say, “Oh alright! But you, not you!”

A moment later, Eashan’s voice greeted him.

“What the hell happened, man?”

“We were tailing you. You drive really well, by the way, holy shit. I mean we were in a van but still. And anyway, I didn’t see exactly what happened but before I knew it I was waking up on an ambulance stretcher and haven’t seen Eenie since the crash.”

“What do you mean? How did you lose her?”

“I was passed out, man! So were Derek and Arden, they woke up in the hospital,” he said, then hastened to add, “They’re both okay, we all are. Eenie was driving, so her seat had the best airbags. The ambulance people saw her go sit on the side of the road and then she got picked up by someone, we just assumed it was you.”

“Well it wasn’t!”

“Shit. Who was it then?!”

In the background, a voice that Miles thought was probably Derek’s mother spoke, and he heard Eashan move the phone away from his ear to ask her to repeat herself.

“No, Miles does not have a Cyber Truck, damn who do you think he is?”

“A Cyber Truck?!” Miles said, and next to him, Jill gasped.

“That’s Orlando’s car.”

“Holy shit,” said Brooks.

“What was that, Mai Mai?” Eashan said.

Skipping the admonishment for the renewed use of his terrible nickname, Miles said, “You guys hang tight, we’ll find her.”

Then, before Eashan could respond, Miles ended the call and stood.

“We’re going back to Diamond Palace whether Gladstone gets approved for the raid or not.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Brooks, standing as well.

Jill looked back and forth between them. After a beat, she stood as well.

“Well, I’m obviously going with you to find Hot Trina. But also to bust that Cyber Truck mofo before he murders me and my whole family or whatever.”

Miles wanted to laugh, but couldn’t bring himself to. The thought of Maxine being held by Orlando, possibly, or probably being hurt in the process and pressed for information had him singularly focused.

Suddenly remembering they were there, Miles reached into his back pocket and withdrew the working papers Ernie had given him earlier. The ones that Orlando said must be turned in that day, or else he’d lose his job before he had it.“I need a pen,” Miles said. “Preferably one that isn’t also a murder weapon.”