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“Hey, listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Clearly you’ve got a lot on your plate.” Andrew motioned at the disaster that was my desk. “Just wanted to tell you that the police are going to be coming in on Friday to take a statement from everyone. I talked with the sheriff and she said that the Miami Beach PD was going to throw a lot of resources into finding out who wants us out of the neighborhood.”
Ah great. A chat with the police. Exactly how I wanted to end my week.
“Good,” I said, biting back my frustration. “Do you believe her?”
Andrew shrugged. “I guess we’ll see. I don’t like being outright pessimistic, and she did seem genuine when we spoke.”
“The statements are a good sign, but I’ll still keep my eyes wide open in the meantime. We’re a building full of talented detectives; we should be able to figure this out.”
“Yeah, you’d think that. The other day it took four of us, including Shiro’s new boo, to figure out how the new coffee machine works, so…”
I laughed, imagining the four of them pressing all kinds of buttons.
“I just want this done, you know?” Andrew looked out the window over my shoulder. “It’s just giving me flashbacks. Bad ones.” He dropped his head. A shiver passed through him. “Real bad ones.”
“The Unicorn?”
Andrew took in a sharp breath. Even saying that name out loud drew a chill through the air. I had heard about the tragedy that had haunted the Stonewall detectives back in New York. They had been hunted by a serial killer, not knowing how close the killer actually was to all of them.
“I know it’s not the same. This was just graffiti on the door, and it’s probably going to be some dumb kids by the end of the day, but… still. I don’t know.” He shook his shoulders, as if trying to get the bad energy off him.
He was right, though. Of course it was upsetting to find the words “You aren’t welcome here” with an angel painted underneath it on our front door, but it was leagues away from the terrible things Andrew and the others had experienced with the Unicorn.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, wanting to reassure Andrew. He was too smiley of a guy to be frowning. “It was probably a onetime thing and that’s it. Once they see that none of us are leaving, then they’ll leave us alone.”
“You’re right.” He straightened his shoulders, the smile returning. “I hope so at least.” He clapped his hands. “All right, I need to start closing up shop. Deck’s got a date planned for us tonight. Something about a helicopter ride and a candlelit dinner.”
My brows rose. “Oh, that sounds like he’s either about to propose to you or about to apologize for something.”
Andrew shrugged, the smile not disappearing. “Guess we’ll find out tonight!” We both laughed, the dark fog from mention of the Unicorn quickly pushed away. “Knowing him, though, the helicopter ride is probably a virtual reality thing. He just bought that new headset. He also hates heights. Loves horses, hates heights. Two Deck facts in case you needed them tonight.”
I laughed again, a common occurrence when Andrew was in the room.
“Have fun tonight,” I said, wondering for a second if Andrew really did have a proposal in his near future. I had chatted with Declan and Andrew together a few times now, and every time was like hanging out with old friends, the kind that are so comfortable with each other that they make you instantly comfortable with them.
He said goodbye and walked out of the room, his steps having an excited bounce to them.
I went back to work, honing in on Greg and spending the rest of the evening trying to dig up anything on him.
* * *
Sleep wasdifficult to find that night. My mind tossed about with all kinds of different theories and imaginary scenarios, all in search of who were under those masks the night Oliver and Derrick were attacked. It felt like finding two needles in a truckload of haystacks, but I was determined. I already managed to track down a current address for Greg. He had his social media accounts on lockdown, so I couldn’t dig too deep until he accepted the friend request from “Lisa Henry,” the Facebook account I used to sneak past some people’s privacy settings.
Curiously, when I went digging through Greg’s social accounts, I noticed that most of his posts seem to have been deleted. He had a pattern of posting a ton, and a lot of dumb stuff, too. But for some reason, if I went back to two years ago, the posts turned into one every few months or so. And they weren’t the best posts either. There was anger in the status updates that were left.
My LIFE is shit. I can’t fix things and I can’t be honest.
I’m logging off for a few days, i can’t stay on here. Too much going on in my head. I’ll be ok though.
That American Idols result was BS!
I clicked into his friend list and dug around some more. He didn’t have a long list, so it didn’t take long for me to land on someone suspicious.
Mario Reyes. He set off warning bells just by glancing at his profile picture. Oliver hadn’t mentioned him, but I clicked the profile photo and magnified it on my screen. The one and only photo on the account looked at least six years old, but it was enough to write his name down as a suspect. It wasn’t necessarily anything homophobic or misogynistic that did it; it was the colors he was wearing and the hand sign he was making at the side of his hip. His shirt was black, his pants black, but off his hip hung a bright yellow bandana. His fingers were twisted at his side, discreet enough to seem like he was just caught moving in the photo, but only if you didn’t know how to read the gang signs.
Mario was a member of the Avispas, the Spanish word for wasps. That’s exactly what those tossers were. They went around, stinging left and right and fucking up everyone’s day.
If this man was a member of the Avispas, then he would have no qualms about stabbing an innocent boy just for fighting back. Could Greg have gotten together with Mario and planned this attack? They were connected online for a reason; they had to have known each other in some capacity. Greg lived next to Oliver; he could have devoted time to studying Oliver’s schedule, to figuring out when and where he would be the most vulnerable. The police may have thought the assailants didn’t know Oliver and Derrick, but I believed Oliver when he said the opposite.
