Power of Attorney (14 page)

“I don’t have time for this, Adam! Something is going on and I need to ...”

“Abby, what’s the matter?” Jacob interrupted. Adam and I hadn’t seen him approach. He must have crossed the room in like three strides. “Who messaged you?”

“What business is it of yours who messages her?” Adam demanded.

“This has nothing to do with you,” he answered, clearly trying to remain calm.

“And what exactly does it have to do with
you
, Sachs?”

“Adam, stop it!” I demanded. “I told you we’re working on a case together.”

“Has he touched you?” Adam asked me. “You better not have touched my sister.”

“Whether or not he has touched me is none of your business.”

“Is
too
my business!” was his brilliant retort. He must be so impressive in court. And then suddenly, it was like the last twenty-one years just vanished and we were 8 and 10 years old again.

“Look, Adam. I’m touching him,” I said jabbing my finger at Jacob’s bicep. “What are you gonna do about it, huh?”

“Oh you think you’re
so
funny, don’t you? Look at me, Abby Roth, I’m the funniest person in the world.” The latter part included a really lousy imitation of my voice. I totally do not sound like that!

“Shut up!”

“Make me!”

I was just about to grab Adam and give him a noogie, when how incredibly asinine we were both acting sunk in.  I paused and looked at Jacob, who was staring at us like we were insane.

“I’m really glad I’m an only child,” he said.

“This is stupid! Adam, Jacob and I are working on a case together. Anything else we are doing together is none of your business.”

“I think I want to date your sister,” Jacob said and I stopped talking so suddenly that my mouth was still hanging open.

“You do?” I asked in shock.

“Even after seeing this?” Adam asked.  It was a reasonable question.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “I feel like we have a good connection. I don’t know how much time we would get to spend together, though, and I can’t promise any long-term commitment. So, if you’re not interested ...”

“Yes! I’m interested.  Hold that thought. Trog knows who Deon is.  He’s the one who messaged me. He gave me an address and he told me to come alone.”

“Hold on!” Adam broke in. “You want to date my sister, you need to discuss it with me. I’m the designated male of the Roth clan and just for the record, I don’t know how I feel about those terms.”

“I can throw in a goat and a sack of grain,” Jacob added.

“That was sarcasm. You
have
touched my sister! And she rubbed off on you.”

“This is not 1815, Adam!” I growled. “Now, since you’re so eager to protect me, why don’t you come along with us to this address and find out what’s going on.”

“I’m calling Wright and Wong. They’ll make sure that we have protection.”

“Yeah, you better make sure you have protection,” Adam said, and then he paused. “Wait, Wright and Wong?” he asked with a laugh.  Jacob and I ignored him. 

***

F
ifteen minutes later we were at an address in North Philly on block that looked like Europe after WWII. I’ll note that I didn’t see any cops cruising in this area. They were probably too scared to come here. Couldn’t say that I blamed them. There were streetlights here as well, but those that actually worked, didn’t cast all that much light, and the darkness made the made the hulking forms of garbage piles and derelict buildings look all the more menacing.

“Nice neighborhood, wonder how the schools are around here,” Adam said. “The wife and I are thinking about looking for a bigger place.”

“Will you be quiet?” Jacob said. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Because two white dudes in tuxedos and a chick in a ball gown
blend
in North Philly,” Adam tossed back. “I wouldn’t worry too much. This area looks abandoned. Actually, it looks post-apocalyptic.”

“I think that’s the building up there,” I said looking at four story brick building with broken out windows, covered in graffiti. “I think I like the bloody condo better. Maybe we should go back there instead.”  Jacob slid his arm around me protectively.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Adam asked.

“I was thinking about tossing her down on that pile of garbage over there and having my wicked way with her,” Jacob replied. There was a moment of tension between the two men and then I saw my brother slowly smile.

“More sarcasm! Better be careful Sachs, or you just might become an amusing companion and tolerable human being.” He turned and started toward the building.

“Hang on a minute,” Jacob called after him. “Let me check in with the FBI.”

“Did everyone hear that?” Adam called out.  Jacob pulled out his phone and had a quick conversation with either Wright or Wong.

“They’re in position. We’re not supposed to go inside the building. We just approach and message Collins when we are in front.”

“Who?” Adam asked, looking confused.

“Trog,” I explained.

“Why don’t we just message him now?”

“Because they said to message him when we’re in front of the building,” Jacob replied. “Right now, we’re on the sidewalk.”

“The building is like, fifty feet away. What’s the freaking difference?”

“The difference is that the FBI said to message him when we got in front of the building and we’re not in front of the building yet. I can repeat it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.”

“Oh my God!” I broke in. “Will you two just shut up and keep walking.” I picked up the hem of my skirt and stalked off toward he building.

“Actually, I’ve reconsidered,” I heard Adam say behind me. “I think that you and my sister make a great couple. Just please don’t reproduce.”

A couple of minutes later we stood in front of the building and Jacob texted Trog.  We waited but there was no answer. Okay, this was getting really weird. There was some light here, but not as much, and I was starting to get genuinely freaked out. Then out of a pile of rubble up ahead I heard a shrill sound and I almost jumped three feet in the air.  Someone had dropped a phone. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Should I answer that?” I asked.

“Well, I know that it’s not for me,” Adam answered. I walked over the rubble and dug until I found it.

“Hello?” I asked making sure to hit speakerphone.

“Hello there, Ms. Roth,” an electronically altered voice replied.

“Who is this?”

“Oh, you’ll find out shortly; don’t worry.”

“So, it wasn’t really Trog who texted?”

“Yes, it was, the first part anyway. I was the one who sent the second message, which you obviously didn’t comprehend. Which word threw you, ‘come’ or ‘alone’?”

“You expect me to come to North Philly by myself at night? You must be nuts.”

“Technically, it’s just a personality disorder. Come around to the back and pick up the phone there when it rings.” The call ended.

“Wright and Wong won’t be able to see us back there. Let me tell them.”

Jacob quickly called the agents and then the three of us walked around to the back of the building.  It was even darker there, and I had to let my eyes adjust. We stood there for about ten seconds and then a phone started ringing. I searched the darkness for the source of the sound. It was coming from the top of what looked like a pile of loose rock on the other side of a crater.  Yes, there was actually a crater in North Philly. Jacob started off for it around the rear side of the pit.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Adam called after him.

“I’ll answer this one. That pile it’s sitting on looks unstable.”

“Maybe it’s just a personality disorder,” I quipped, but my humor was wasted on Tweedle Tough Guy and Tweedle Testosterone.

“If anyone is going to save my sister from unstable piles, it’s me,” Adam announced like some crazed proctologist. He stalked off toward the phone via the front side of the crater.

“I said I would get it,” Jacob replied, walking faster.

“No need! I’ve got it!” Adam shot back, walking faster still.

“You’re a real piece of work, Roth!” He started to jog.

They both arrived at the phone at the same time and a brief struggle ensued before one of them must have managed to push the answer button, probably by accident. There was a high-pitched electronic sound and then a rumbling began.  I had seen enough action movies to know that a rumbling was usually not good.

Both guys froze and a moment later they disappeared, replaced by a cloud of dirt.  I looked on in horror thinking that I might have just watched my beloved little brother and the best kisser I had ever met die before my eyes.  But then I heard Adam’s voice from somewhere down in the pit.

“I should have let you get it.”

I ran up to the edge and looked down. They were both standing up and trying to clear the air of rock dust. From what I could see, neither one seemed badly hurt; thank God. It wasn’t going to be easy climbing out of there though.  I was just about to tell them that I would try to alert Wright and Wong when I saw their faces register warning.

I spun around and standing about ten feet away and holding a gun was  ... a rather nerdy looking guy who I didn’t recognize. But Trog was standing next to him, sporting a gag and a lovely pair of handcuffs.

“I believe that you know Trog.  He’s here tonight because Deon asked him to come. You would think that he would stop showing up for these little rendezvous after the last time. When he did show up, I let him discover my true identity and text you before I pulled a gun on him.”

“Okay, and who are you exactly?”

“You don’t know?” he asked looking miffed and then walked over to the edge of the pit and looked down.

“Sachs. It figures that you would be here with the hot girl.”

“Randall?” Jacob asked, looking surprised.

“Yes, Randall Greene. Didn’t think that I was cool enough to be a criminal mastermind, did you?”

“Well...” Jacob shrugged.

“Ha! Looks like I outsmarted you, Pretty Boy.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” Adam yelled up at Greene. “Who
are
you?” While they talked, I tried to unobtrusively look around for Wright and Wong, but I couldn’t see very far in the dark. I just hoped that they had managed to move in closer.

“This is Randall Greene, a federal prosecutor who supposedly went missing a while ago,” Jacob explained. “Apparently, he’s been trying to hack into our own system and make it look like Abby’s client over there did it for some reason.”

“You still haven’t figured out why?  What is
wrong
with you people? Well, I suppose that I can explain it to you, since you won’t be alive to tell anyone.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, panicking.

“You people are nuisances and you already know too much. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to eliminate you and bury you in this pile of rubble. Nothing personal.”

“You said you would explain to us why you did all this,” I reminded him.” I knew that I had to buy enough time for the agents to get here. Where
was
their position anyway, Cleveland?

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?  Well, okay.  I have a ‘thing’ for our boss, Lynn Davis.”

“A thing?” I asked.

“She’s hot,” he explained. “But she never flirts with me the way she flirts with the pretty boys like Sachs down there.”

“She flirts with you?”  I asked. Why did that bother me?

“We can talk later,” he replied with a smile.

“You’ll probably have some time in the pit before I shoot you,” Randall confirmed helpfully.  “Anyway, you know those rumors that she got her job by questionable means?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Well, they’re true.  Most people think she slept with someone important but that’s not it.  She’s been helping the Moretti crime family for years.”

“Moretti?” Jacob asked sounding stunned.

“Why do you think she assigned the youngest prosecutor in the office to try the case? Hint, it wasn’t because she thought you would win.  When you did, she almost had a nervous breakdown.  But, Randall was there to rescue his damsel in distress.”

“How was that?” Jacob urged him on.

“If I could hack our databases I could tamper with evidence and make it look like the prosecution had fixed the trial. Then I could tip off Moretti’s lawyers. But it couldn’t look like an inside job. So I needed some help.”

“MMMMPPPHH,” Trog said irately.

“Mr. Collins here fit the bill perfectly. I got him to hack into the company that does our data backup and hacked him and used remote access to gain entry into our databases. By now, the appeal in the Moretti case has probably already been filed.”

“Why did you bother with disappearing?”

“I had to be completely unavailable when the entry occurred, just in case. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cast suspicion on Mr. Collins for that too.”

“What were you going to say later when you reappeared?”

“I would just claim that I had been kidnapped but I escaped.”

“And you did all this so that what, Lynn Davis would owe you?” I asked.

“So she would sleep with me. I mean look at me. I’m a total geek.  How else am I supposed to get hot girls? Besides, I was bored.”

“Dude, I think this might be more than a personality disorder,” Adam noted.

“And now, if you’ll forgive me, it’s getting rather late and this is a dangerous neighborhood, so I’m going to have to kill you and get home.”

Wright and Wong were still nowhere in sight. The guys were trapped in a pit and Trog was ... Trog, but he was also handcuffed.  It was up to me. I knew what I had to do. For the first time ever, I was thankful that Barry was my yoga instructor.  When Greene turned to grab Trog to throw him into the pit, I took advantage of his momentary distraction.

Like lightning, I threw my body into Down Dog pose directly behind Greene, causing him to back into me and lose his balance slightly. As he tried to catch himself, I flipped around and assumed Balancing Stick pose, jostling his gun arm with my outstretched leg. As Greene’s grip on the gun loosened, I switched quickly to Extended Triangle and knocked it free with an arm thrust.  Greene tried to scramble for it, but I stopped him with a knee to the groin thanks to Tree pose.  He doubled over in pain just as Wright and Wong came running up accompanied by several Philly police officers with guns drawn. As Wright ungagged him, I heard Trog get in the final word to “Deon.”