On Her Six (Under Covers) (8 page)

Another moment passed, and then, “No promises. I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter Eight

Sharp afternoon rays pierced the windows in Rose’s house, rivaling the cool air circulating from her perfectly working air conditioner.

In the spare bedroom, the women sat in their folding chairs as they’d been the day before.

“Interpol’s got nothing on him,” Maybel said to the group. “Neither does the FBI or CIA. Jackson couldn’t find a lick of information anywhere.”

Jackson was Maybel’s contact. She wouldn’t tell the group his last name or which agency he worked for. All they knew was Jackson could find anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Except now.

“That’s impossible.” Sam’s teeth clenched and her eyes turned to the TV screen. No movement or sound had occurred since last night’s stakeout. “There has to be something. A birth date, place of employment, anything.”

Maybel shook her head. “It’s like he doesn’t exist. Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to cover his tracks. I asked Jackson to look up this Tyke person he keeps talking to. Still nothing. I’m concerned.”

Why would someone need to go to that kind of trouble to hide his identity?

John Black was collecting a lot of strikes.

Each watch member turned and gave the woman next to her a worried glance. Anxiety blanketed the room.

“We’ve still got eyes and ears on him,” Estelle said from behind the binoculars. Sam didn’t think the woman had moved from her post the day before.

“Yes, we do,” Rose said, squaring her shoulders, bringing confident order back to the group, “and if he does anything, we’ll be ready.”

The other women nodded in agreement.

“The important thing right now is to collect as much information as we can.” Maybel spoke in a dark tone, a contradiction to her attire for the day—a simple light pink shift dress and flats. “Intel is the most important weapon one can possess. We have to learn his routine, his habits, his
weaknesses
.” She stared each woman down as if she was a platoon leader readying her troops for battle.

“I agree.” Estelle fanned herself as she peered across the street. Since she had been gulping massive amounts of ice-cold lemonade and Rose’s AC worked just fine, Sam didn’t think it was because of the summer weather. “Let’s keep watchin’ him. He needs to be watched. Closely.”

The women raised their eyebrows and turned to Estelle.

Sensing the silence, Estelle unglued her gaze from the window. “What? I’m just sayin’ if we need to videotape him more, I’d be willing to do it. Hold the camera and what not.”

Maybel smirked. “You know, we have a tripod.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, Estelle,” Rose said through a crooked smile.

“Ladies.” Sam stomped her foot. “Did we get anything on GPS yet?”

Rose sobered and shook her head. “He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“I haven’t gotten anything on audio, either,” Celia added, holding the headphones firmly in place over her ears. “He hasn’t made a sound since last night.”

“He’s in there.” Sam tapped the TV screen. “I saw him go inside after doing yard work. We just have to wait. He’ll make a move, and we’ll get him.”

Thirty silent minutes passed, and no one caught sight or sound of the target.

Having left her post for a brief bathroom and pastry break, Maybel sat behind the video camera and asked, “How’d everything go with the exam, Sam? You never said.”

Kudos to Maybel for asking with a bright face and positive tone, but the cautious looks the women exchanged told Sam they had already figured out the answer. Hell, if Sam had passed the police entrance exam, she would have jumped up and down and screamed for the entire world to hear. Everyone would have known immediately. Not days later.

Sam’s lips tightened into a thin line, and she shifted her eyes in Maybel’s direction. She shook her head once.

“Aww, honey, I’m sorry.”

“The same part givin’ you trouble?” Estelle asked.

Sam’s lips remained thinned and she nodded.

“Don’t give up.” Estelle placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezed. “Until they tell you otherwise, you drag your butt back there and try again. And again, if that’s what it takes.”

“That’s right,” Maybel chimed in. “Make them turn you away.”

Celia nodded, her head bouncing, causing a hair pin to drop out of her bun.

Rose approached with open arms. Hugging, she whispered in Sam’s ear, “I’m sorry, sweets. I know how important it is to you to follow in your dad and pop pop’s footsteps.” She smoothed a hand down Sam’s shoulder-length blond hair. “I hate seeing you hurt.”

“So do the rest of us,” Maybel added, rubbing Sam’s back.

Sam attempted a smile but released a choked sound instead. It’s all she wanted. To carry out the Harper family legacy. To serve and protect as an officer with Baltimore City Police. To do her father honor by being loyal to the badge, just as he was, proving to her coworkers that the Harpers were trustworthy.

“That’s how I feel about all of you. I need to keep you safe. Now that Dad’s”—she swallowed hard—“now that he’s gone, it’s my responsibility to protect you. I have to find a way to pass that test.” She took a ragged breath. “If something happened to any of you—”

“Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Rose replied. “We may be old, but we’re not helpless. We can take care of ourselves.”

Estelle crossed her arms over her full chest, causing her cleavage to poke farther out of the top of her low-cut shirt. “Damn right.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Yes, you did,” Rose said through a grin, “but at least your motives were noble. You worry. It’s understandable. There are bad people who do bad things that you can’t control. What you can do is love those around you and spend as much time together before the end. It’s anybody’s guess when that will be. You can’t stop it, but there are things you can do to lessen the pain.”

Sam hugged her grandmother again, squeezing hard. “God, if anything happened—if I lost you too—” Her heart constricted to the point of being painful. First Dad. If she lost Grandma Rose, too… Suddenly the small bedroom seemed even smaller. The air in the room thickened, making it hard to pull a breath.

“I’m not going anywhere, sweets. Not when I have you and this bunch of crackpots to look after.”

“Hey!”

“Who you callin’ crackpot?”

“I take offense to that!”

The tension evaporated, and the room filled with its usual laughter.

Rose peered through her bifocals at the clock on a nearby table. Estelle, Celia, and Maybel followed suit. “Sweets,” Grandma Rose said, “it’s getting late. We have the fund-raiser at church. Father Stephen is counting on us to be there.”

“Go, go,” Sam said, not taking her attention from the TV screen, even though she was going cross-eyed. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Maybel stood and smoothed the wrinkles from the front of her dress.

Estelle remained by the window. She dropped the binoculars from her eyes for a second, then lifted them, then dropped them again. When Grandma cleared her throat, Estelle grunted and rested the binoculars on the table.

“Go home.” Rose put her arm around Sam’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Get some rest. We’ll leave the recorder on.”

“Take the GPS tracker,” Maybel offered.

Grandma approached the doorway and craned her neck back. “Let’s go, Estelle.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said and stood. “I’m comin’.”

Keeping her eyes on the monitor, Sam said, “Thanks for your help, ladies. Have fun.”

…

Sam sat in her grandmother’s spare bedroom until the sun set. She allowed herself a ten-minute break to go to the bathroom and get food. She threw chips and a turkey sandwich on a plate and ran back upstairs, stuffing her mouth as she went.

John Black or whatever his name was hadn’t made one damn peep.

A little after nine in the evening, she gave up and went to her house. Her back ached, and her eyes screamed from the strain. She left the lights off and dropped onto the couch in her front room, closing her eyes.

Her stubborn nature refused to give up. She heightened the focus of her ears, listening through the open window. But her eyes grew heavy. She fought to stay awake. Then a door clicked open and closed, and footsteps tread down her next-door neighbor’s front steps.

Vaulting from the sofa, she peeked out the front window, making sure to stay hidden in the shadows behind the curtain. He looked in her direction and then lowered his head, before jumping behind the wheel of his pickup truck.

With the GPS tracker gripped in her palm, Sam watched the path he took. He drove around the city for a bit, before stopping in a crummy part of town, just shy of 27th Street.

Sam’s heart pounded and giant sparks ignited throughout her body. That was where Viktor Heinrich’s club was located.
This is it!
The break she’d been waiting for.

She had to go. She needed to find out what John Black had to do with Heinrich’s drugs and see if she could gather clues about her father.

Dashing into her bedroom, she rooted through the closet for anything appropriate to wear to a lowlife’s club. Blending in was key in surveillance. She tossed on a simple white tank top and black miniskirt, found a pair of strappy black heels hidden in the corner of her closet, and sailed out the door.

Before getting behind the wheel, she searched her trunk for defense items. She shoved earplugs, a few cans of pepper spray, and two air horns into her purse, and then hopped in the car.

A hum of excitement radiated inside the cabin of her Honda as she sped through the city toward 27th Street.

Chapter Nine

“Christ,
this
is it?”

Ash stood on the street in front of the rundown warehouse known as Club Hell. He patted for his gun, making sure it was still in his waistband. After assessing the neighborhood, and now the club’s patrons, he should’ve also brought his .38.

Trash littered the sidewalks, and a foul stench hit his nostrils like a jackhammer. The surrounding buildings were dilapidated, with shattered windows and graffiti-covered walls. Not exactly the type of neighborhood one ventured into unless necessary.

Between Tyke and the spying grannies, he’d already been on edge before leaving the house. His current surroundings diminished his mood even further. Had he lost his mind? Maybe he deserved a desk job. Had he really gotten so careless that a group of grannies could watch him and he didn’t know it?

He’d made team leader in a matter of months. An unheard-of achievement. And now look at him. Demoted just as fast. A disgrace. A laughing stock. A geeky IT guy wouldn’t even help him.

His jaw clenched. How could his entire life be in shambles because of one goddamn woman? If he’d never met Lorena, none of this—

He shook his head. No, that wasn’t true. He’d
had
to meet Lorena. It was part of the job. What he didn’t have to do was get involved with her.

Fucking moron.

Lately, whenever he thought about Lorena, he immediately thought of Blondie. Why, he had no idea, because the two women couldn’t be more different. And yet both had unnerved him to the point he didn’t know which way was up. Lorena with her effortless sex appeal and Blondie with her bumbling innocence.

Thinking about one or the other made his blood boil, but now that both were in his brain at the same time, he wanted to rip someone’s head off. Fucking women.

His phone vibrated, reminding him he’d told Tyke they were on communication lockdown. Another joy he didn’t want to explain to the new
team leader
. But it was necessary. If Blondie was spying on him, then he’d make damn sure she wouldn’t get any useful information.

He’d been texting and emailing Tyke and the director like a fool for the last twelve hours. His big fingers punching the wrong keys, cursing and deleting, trying again before taking a break to cool off. It would have been so much easier to pick up the damn phone and just call someone.

At Club Hell yet? Let me know what you find.
Tyke’s message said.
No recent sign of Heinrich here at compound.

He sent a quick reply, then tucked his phone back in his pocket.

Club Hell. The name of the joint fit. Without ventilation or airflow, a putrid smell of sweaty bodies and something damn close to death filled the air. Ash gagged a number of times from the initial shock. It was impossible to imagine none of his deployments in the military had prepared him for anything close to the disgusting hole he found himself in.

Cement floors. Lights dim and scarce. The only illumination came from a few scattered, faintly powered light bulbs hanging on strings from the ceiling. As expected, the music was loud and pumping. He didn’t recognize the song. It didn’t have words, just some squealing synthesizer shit. The bass thumped through his body like an extra heartbeat. No Guns ‘N Roses or Metallica in this place. Shame.

Ash could make out a line of bars framing the length of the exterior walls, with bartenders standing shoulder to shoulder, ready to take patrons’ orders at a moment’s notice. Employees of Club Hell were easy to spot, as all of them resembled Hulk Hogan on steroids. Ash hated being outsized. It wasn’t often accomplished. He wasn’t threatened; it just meant he wouldn’t walk away as easily if a brawl broke out. And he certainly wasn’t planning on starting anything.

Observe and report back to Tyke
.

It was alarming to see so many people working in a club of such low quality. Still early in the evening by club standards, the room wasn’t packed, but he couldn’t imagine the place drawing large enough crowds to warrant the excessive coverage. It made him wonder why the large staff was needed—in quantity and body size.

He surveyed the area, taking in anything and everything. There were only two exits—one he entered through in the front of the building and one behind the bar in the back right corner. Judging from the layout outside, the bar exit led to the side alley, its path dumping onto 26th Street, which fed onto the highway. Convenient for a quick getaway.

Thirty minutes had passed, and the club had filled with people. Dark shadows of bodies crowded the room from entrance to exit and every space in between. Apparently, eleven o’clock was the magic hour for people to come out of their caves and party.

College-age kids poured in, reeling in eagerness of what the night had in store. They moved to the middle of the room, transforming the space into a dance floor. They grabbed each other, grinding and sucking face as if they’d never seen the opposite sex before that moment. Hormones raced and libidos soared. The air was thick with it. They hadn’t ingested Vamp yet. Their skin hadn’t taken on the dry, chalky texture others acquired after long-term Vamp use. Their eyes hadn’t changed color, either. But they exhibited the horny side effect quickly.
Residuals
, the agency called them
.
The drug was highly potent and easily transferrable from one person to another through bodily fluids.

Small groups of experienced vamps were easy to spot. Their sinister eyes appearing even darker in the dimly lit room, their bodies beginning to shake in slight convulsions. To the innocent onlooker—the college kids, for example—the addicts appeared to be moving in disorganized dance steps, shaking and jiving as an uncoordinated cohesive unit, but Ash knew better. Right now the vamps were high as a kite, reveling in the ecstasy the initial hit of the drug offered. They shook in pleasure, not pain. He glanced again at his watch. Give it two hours when the high wore off, and those slight convulsions would turn into epileptic seizures. They’d be ready to kill everyone in this room for another hit. He needed to be far away from Club Hell by then.

He perched on a stool in the back corner of the room. It was more than packed, making it almost impossible not to bump into someone. And the more crowded the room became, the harder it was for him to tell the regular patrons from the vamps. The club crawled with trembling bodies.

“Can I get you
some-sing
?” an accented voice said behind him. “A
bee-ah
?” Ash turned to the bar. One of the goliath-size bartenders smiled as he pushed a glass of amber liquid toward him. The guy looked like a thug from Ash’s favorite movie
Die Hard
. White-blond hair and German accent included. “It’s on za house.”

“No thanks, man.” He offered a casual smile. “How about just a bottle of water?”

The corners of the man’s mouth wavered. “But alcohol is on za house.”

“Nah, I’m good. Water would be great though.”

A vein pulsed in Die Hard’s neck, the beat growing more rapid by the second. “It’s on za house,” he said without a smile.

What the fuck. “Just a bottle of water.”

The bartender’s jaw ticked and he paused for a second before finally reaching under the bar to, Ash assumed, retrieve his water. Then the guy made a motion like he was going to twist the top, but Ash stopped him.

“Hey, man,” Ash said, pushing the sleeve of his shirt up to flex his biceps. “I can open my own water. Thanks for the offer though.”

Die Hard grinded his molars for a few more seconds, then slid the bottle across the bar and turned to the other patrons.

Ash returned the favor and pushed back, spinning on the stool. He wasn’t here to provoke anyone for Christ’s sake. He just wanted to gather information and get the hell out of this shithole.

Making his way across the room, he spotted another bartender, identical in looks to the first, holding a glass of clear liquid below the bar. The guy looked around, then focused on the lowered glass.

Keeping his head in one direction and his peripheral vision in another, he watched the man drop a shard of something white into the glass. A tiny square, barely visible to the naked eye dissolved into the liquid within seconds.

The bartender then handed the glass to a young woman on the other side of the bar, who laughed with her girlfriends, unaware her drink had been tampered with.

“Not on my watch,” Ash growled, kicking the bar stool out from under him. With a forced smile intact, he was at their side within seconds. “Ladies, how are we this evening?” His eyes lowered to the glass of clear liquid, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

The brunette and her two friends smiled back.

“Hey there,” the brunette spoke for the group. “What’s your name?” Batting her eyelashes, she slid a finger across his chest. Her girlfriends’ eyes sparkled as they looked him up and down like he was this season’s latest handbag.

All three were dressed similarly in heels and short dresses with low-cut necklines. The brunette was in black; her friends in blue and purple.

“John,” Ash lied. “The name’s John.”

“Hi, John,” the ladies spoke in unison like a choir of muses.

“You’re a cutie, you know that?” the brunette in black said, running her tongue along her upper lip. “And
big
.” She squeezed his biceps. “I’m River. This is Sonya and Kendra.”

He nodded and smiled to each woman. The bright whites of their eyes shined back, and he released the breath he’d been holding.

“What did you order?” He directed the question at River.

She’d had the glass almost to her mouth, suspended in midair when she responded, “Vodka and Sprite with lime juice.” She smiled at him, baring all her teeth, and pushed her breasts higher into his view. Running her index finger along the swell of one breast, she dipped it between her cleavage.

He grimaced, which made her pause. “That’s too bad.”

She frowned and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I overheard the bartender say the lime juice turned.” It’s the best he could come up with. “Some guy ran to the bathroom after having some of it. I was just in there. Wasn’t pretty.” In case the women didn’t catch his drift, he covered his mouth with his hand and puffed out his cheeks to imitate pre-puking.

The women turned green. “Um, like, yuck.”

“Here,” he said, taking the glass from her hand, “let me get you something else.” He smiled and glanced deep into River’s brown eyes for effect. Her hand willingly opened. “In fact, let me buy all of you a round.”

They grinned and giggled.

Ash held up his finger. “Be right back. I promise.”

He dropped the glass into the first trashcan he came across and nestled his way between two people at the bar. “Three vodka Sprites,” he said when the first available bartender glanced his way. He didn’t take his eyes off the bartender’s hands. Never once did Die Hard III lower the glasses or drop anything into them.

Ash had cash ready when the bartender came back.

“It’s on za house,” he said.

Arm suspended in the air with cash in-hand, Ash asked, “You sure?”

The man nodded. “It’s on the za house.”

Odd, but he didn’t question it. Instead, he carried the three glasses to River, Sonya, and Kendra as promised, a surge of chivalry surging through him for having saved the women from what could have been a terrible evening—and beyond.

Movement caught his attention. After years as a sniper, Ash could spot a fly in the middle of a dark room.

But this was no fly. This was an annoying, blond cockroach who didn’t know when to mind her own goddamn business. The woman was going to kill him. If he didn’t kill her first.

Grinding his teeth, he handed the drinks to River and her friends. He kept his gaze on Blondie, who made her way toward the back of the club with a purpose.

“What a gentleman!” Kendra purred as she ran her free hand up his arm to his shoulder.

“Our hero!” River followed, repeating the motion on his other arm.

The touches reluctantly turned his attention to the muses. “My pleasure, ladies.”

When the three women took a sip from their respective glasses, he turned back to Blondie. She had stopped in front of a door in the back left corner of the room, her back to him.

His eyes narrowed, and his blood pressure rose to dangerous levels.
What the fuck is she doing?

Pissed his surveillance would have to be cut short in lieu of dragging his neighbor back to her house and throwing her over his knee, Ash spun on his heels to fetch her.

He didn’t make it two steps before all hell broke loose.

…

There was no one at the door to pat Sam down or search her bag. Not a good sign. Especially given the broken-down look of the place. Didn’t these kinds of places have metal detectors or those magic wand things looking for weapons?

People crowded in front of the door, pushing and shoving one another to get in. Their bodies were strung tight, their muscles taut with excitement.

She took her place in the back of the group, wondering what all the hype was about. This Vamp stuff her neighbor referred to must be why these people were at the club. The joint didn’t look very special. If anything, it looked the exact opposite of special.

Shuffling along with the crowd, she didn’t bother looking down at whatever her heels sloshed through on the pavement. Based on the foul stench around her, she didn’t want to know.

Most of the club’s eager patrons looked pretty normal. Guys wore blue jeans and button-down shirts; girls wore short skirts and belly-baring tops.

Within minutes, she was inside the most disgusting place she’d ever seen. “No wonder there’s no bouncer,” she mumbled as she made her way into the dim room. “They probably let all sorts of people into this junk hole.”

The walls were plain aside from the grime and mold climbing to the ceiling. The air was stale and hot, making her the tiniest bit thankful for her situation at home. She might not have working AC, but at least the air was clean. She’d have to breathe through her mouth for the remainder of the night. The floor grabbed the soles of her heels like bubblegum as she brushed past groups of people, who didn’t seem to notice or care about the filth surrounding them. The place reminded her of Chuck E. Cheese during summer break—lots of soiled kids and germs lurking everywhere.