AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not right now. She’s still locked up, so far as I know.”
“Locked up?”
Lesley relayed the story to her, and by the end, Stina’s eyes were wide.
“What a bitch. How long are they keeping her?”
Lesley shrugged. “No clue. Ant said she’ll be let out soon. They usually only do three- to five-day stints, normally.” Stina opened her mouth, and Lesley cut her off. “Before you ask, I’m not worried. I doubt she’ll come after me directly. She either doesn’t think I’m a threat, or she knows it wouldn’t be good for her.”
Stina worried her upper lip between her teeth and shook her head. “I don’t like it. But you can take care of yourself. So, no shit to hit the fan?”
Lesley scrubbed her hand over her face. “I have never been so happy with a person before, Stina. My brain does not know what the fuck to do with all this.”
“Well, start by cooling off a touch. Don’t fucking sabotage yourself because you think you don’t deserve this. And give it some time. He’ll do something to let you know he’s not perfect. Leave the toilet seat up and you’ll fall in in the middle of the night or something.”
Lesley laughed, and they started walking again. “I’m not gonna sabotage it. I just need to wrap my head around it. And yeah, this is all still pretty new. And yes, it’s just so rough being me.”
Stina pressed her lips together and tilted her head. “It must be difficult waking up so freshly fucked every morning.”
“Stina!” Lesley shook her head. “I swear.”
“Hold on to this one, Les. He’s something special.” Stina pulled open the door to their building. “And yes, tell him about Rankin. I think you’re on to something there.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Antony had spent half the morning at the doctor’s office and had just finished dealing with some e-mails and phone calls on a few of their other cases. He rolled his shoulders forward and backward and checked his watch. It was about time for Lesley to get off work. As he picked up his phone, it buzzed in his hand. Going home to run on the treadmill. Let’s stay at my place tonight. He was surprised she’d not bounced off the walls before now and had been waiting for her to want to go back to her house. He tapped out a reply, asking what he needed to pick up on the way over that evening, and got back to work.
Between the drugging and Smith’s disappearance, the boxes of case material from the local police department showed up. Linser was still fighting with the video, having to pause and go back and forth every few seconds because of the split screens. Madden and Carwell were digging through the boxes, and according to the roster board by the door, Top and the LT were putting out fires elsewhere.
Antony drug his hand through his hair in frustration. Too much shit, too few people. He looked over at the video screen. And too few monitors, he decided, grabbing a set of keys and walking to the hallway closet, where he found the old projector unit. Why they didn’t just mount it on the ceiling was beyond him.
He brought it back into the bay and set it on a small table near Audrey’s desk.
“Let me help you with this,” he said, plugging the electronic into her computer.
“Oh, this is going to be a lot nicer. My eyes are killing me.”
Within minutes, Antony had the projector tuned and all eight of the feed screens were in large view against the white wall of the bay room. He rolled to the other side of the desk, next to Audrey, and settled in, clipboard on his knee.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said.
Audrey scanned back to the time that the bar crew came in to set up for the evening and let it play.
Because he was a regular, Antony knew most of the employees at the bar, some of them well enough to occasionally hang out after hours. He scribbled down the names of everyone he saw, and noted which zone they were working in. About ten minutes before the club opened, the bartender working in the pool table zone showed up. Antony reached over and pressed the pause button on Audrey’s keyboard. He stared hard at the screen and tapped his pen on the clipboard.
The man was tall, and had a thick, elaborately done tribal tattoo wound around his right arm. Blonde hair, shaggy cut and swooped over to the left, like the emo-turned-hipster crowd wore. Saggy jeans and a t-shirt. Converse. Hunter. Antony scribbled the name, remembering. He was pretty new, and Antony’s few interactions with him were a strict beer-and-money exchange. He pushed the play button again.
Lesley walked in and had her ID checked by the bouncer. Antony smiled as she stood, awkwardly fumbling with her phone. She walked over to the bar, sitting off to the side and out of the way, but in plain view of the front door. A moment later, she ordered a beer from Hunter and Antony focused on the bartender’s actions.
“There. That’s it,” Antony said, sitting upright.
Audrey paused the video. On the screen, the bartender was looking down. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“He’s not supposed to open beers on the counter,” Antony said, looking at Audrey. “It’s against the club’s protocol. Beer and other bottled drinks are opened on top of the bar, in full view of the patrons. Regulars know this.”
“But no one’s around except for Lesley.”
“Right. She wouldn’t have known, either. Go forward some more?”
