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Or maybe I’d just seen one too many dick pics.
“What are you thinking?”
The question almost made me jump. I cleared my throat to buy some time and gestured to my phone. “I’m just… wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“I’m wondering why he didn’t start off with the dick pics. From the first DM and the note left on Timothy—”
“Timothy?”
“We’re leaning on Timothy right now,” I said, glancing back at the Roadster gleaming under the warm autumn sun. “What? A lot of people name their cars. Anyway—”
“They name their cars something stupid, like Bubbles or The Brute. They don’t name their carTimothy. Why that name?”
“Anyway,” I pressed on, ignoring him, “from the first note and DM, it was all about threats—you first, then your father, and so on. There are loads of DMs about how he wants to kill me. Knives seem to be his weapon of choice, though nooses and rope play were mentioned a few times as well. He also enjoyed speculating on when would be the best time to strike against me, and those posts were usually accompanied by a candid photo of me living my life. But there was nothing sexual. Not even any mention of rape. It was always over-the-top brutality and violence that would lead to a terrifying death. Then suddenly—” I snapped my fingers, “dick pics. What’s more, there isn’t any mention of violence or horrible, bloody death accompanying these photos. It’s a total change as of…” I scrolled back and found the last death threat, this one a promise of flaying me alive while I watched. “Not quite four weeks ago.”
He took the phone from me and read through the DMs. When he got to the first dick pic, he scrolled back to the last DM, then scrolled forward, clearly checking for threats of violence. I already knew he wouldn’t find any. “What happened not quite four weeks ago?”
“Good question.”
“Have any good answers?”
“School started for most kids in the state of Illinois. Speculation on who was going to make the major-league baseball playoffs had the city buzzing. Halloween costumes and decorations flooded the stores while it was still ninety degrees out. I got new tires for Timothy. Beyond that, I don’t know.” But I had an idea. First, though, I needed to check it out for myself before I shared it with my new shadow. No way was I ready to share too much of my thought processes with him. He'd have me figured out by dinnertime if I let any part of him in.
And then…
Then I’d be doomed.
Chapter Three
Perfect Teeth
Luke
“So, what’s the verdict, Luke? Tell us about Eden Steadfast.”
As the glass conference room door shut behind me, I looked around the table and nodded to the usual suspects—Cap, my best friend Ezekiel Steele, Theo Nix and PSI’s cyber guy, Kythe. Kelsey Crosby and his Louis Vuitton briefcase and frost-tipped hair were long gone, though I thought I still caught a hint of Eden Steadfast’s perfume lingering in the air.
Just like the perfume-wearer herself lingered in my head.
No surprise there. Eden was the most perfect woman I’d ever seen.
“Before I launch into a profile on Eden Steadfast, I’d like to hear about her background, and just what the hell this House of Enlightened Greatness is all about.” Taking a seat at the table, I glanced around the people situated around it. “When Eden called to make the appointment, who got landed with the background check?”
“I did.” Further down the table, Kythe Crichton raised his hand. Unlike many of the people who worked at Private Security International, Kythe didn’t have a military background. His training had been in the real world when he and a friend had decided to hold a contest to see who could hack the most secure sites in the world. His friend lost, Kythe won, and they both landed their asses in jail for eighteen months. When Kythe got out, Cap Fogelmann had a job offer waiting for him. “She’s a bit of a conundrum, Eden Steadfast, so I’m going to go ahead and start with her father first. Born in Gobbler Gulch, Kentucky on a pig farm neighboring a property that once belonged to Tom T. Hall—apparently some sort of long-ago country music star, but I wouldn’t know because no one listens to old people’s music—”
“Try to keep your sneering down to a minimum,” Cap said, rolling his hand in a “get on with it” gesture. “Focus, please.”
Kythe cleared his throat. “Right. Truman Steadfast was actually born Marvin Pankey of Gobbler Gulch, Kentucky. His parents were an overworked pig farmer-slash-day laborer and a local beauty queen who was known for sleeping with every local official she could get her hands on in the hope of trading up. It finally happened when a tent-revival evangelist rolled into their area. When they rolled out a week later, she went with him. Seventeen-year-old Marvin Pankey left the pig farm about six months after that.”
“To join the nomadic tent revival life?” I asked, already looking for patterns.
“Nope. Pankey left home because he got nicked for boosting a car of some bigwig in that area. The locals, no doubt egged on by the bigwig, threw the book at him. He did nine of ten years, then had one or two more brushes with the law for various fraud schemes. None of them landed him back in jail, though.”
Across from me, Steele scowled in a way that made his scarred face look downright terrifying. Long ago and in another lifetime, an IED had gotten him and most of his unit. It had taken years, but thankfully time and a good woman had healed my best friend’s wounds. “What kind of fraud schemes, exactly?”
“Marvin Pankey reminds me of my dear Irish cousins, the Travelers,” Kythe said, wrinkling his nose. “And like the Irish Travelers, Marvin Pankey seemed to be a one-man crimewave, from roofing scams in Ohio that took top dollar for shit work, to a bingo hall in Indiana that never paid out. Nothing could ever be proven that he’d broken the law, mainly because he seems to be smarter than the average bear. But my instincts are telling me this guy is a straight-up conman, incapable of telling you the time of day without lying three times about it.”
