Queens Ransom (Sofie Metropolis) (13 page)

Nineteen

Forty minutes later I sat in my car near the East River, damning myself for not having thought this all the way through; I was freezing! And I couldn’t turn my car on to warm up.

As far as bright ideas went, this one was turning out to lean toward the dim side.

Oh, wait. Here he comes.

My heart valve closed as I watched Jake’s truck drive by. At least I think it was his truck. Sure looked like it. As dark as it was, I couldn’t get a good look at the plates, but . . .

I rubbed my forehead. If it was Jake’s truck, why wasn’t he stopping?

The vehicle disappeared down the road. I slumped down in my chair remembering my phone conversation with him twenty minutes ago, right after I arrived at the park.

‘Hey,’ he’d said upon answering on the first ring.

‘Hey, yourself. Need a favor.’

He’d fallen silent.

OK, so my calling him asking him directly for something? Part of what made this idea so dim.

Wasn’t it me who was usually asking him to go away, butt out, leave me alone?

And now I was calling him?

Headlights flashed in my rear-view mirror. I looked to find the truck approaching again.

Was he checking to make sure I hadn’t been followed?

Couldn’t say I blamed him. I’d had so many people trailing me lately I was considering charging a fee.

Speaking of which, I found it interesting that I hadn’t spotted Chaney behind in a good, long while. I wondered what was up. Had Pino finally scared him off me? Or had that jarhead given him a beating that left him in the hospital after scratching the bumper of his Chevy?

The truck drove by again.

‘Come on, come on, Jake. I’m one degree away from hypothermia.’

Finally, he swung around again, parking directly behind me.

I got out of my car the same time he climbed from his truck.

Was it me, or was he wary?

Then again, I could be projecting.

‘Car problems, huh?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’ I motioned to where Lucille’d been sitting dormant for the past twenty minutes. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She just wouldn’t start when I turned the key.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Uh huh.’

We stood face to face, no more than two feet separating us. The wind was colder here next to the East River and I swore I could feel the frigid dampness coat my skin with ice.

‘And you were here because . . .?’

I had chosen there because it was remote, I couldn’t hop a subway, and it wasn’t within walking distance of my apartment.

‘Meeting a source.’

‘Uh huh.’

It’s the second time he’d said that and I was growing even more irritated than I already was.

Especially since I was the one who was supposed to be doing the interrogating.

That’s right. I’d called Jake here to grill him. Not on what he’d done. I was already sure on that. No, I wanted to understand his motives.

‘You know,’ he said simply.

He knew that I knew.

I wondered if I ever was going to get the jump on anyone or if I was doomed to go through life revealing my cards the instant I picked them up.

Still, it didn’t mean I couldn’t learn how to play them better once they were in my hand.

‘I know,’ I said.

He looked out over the river, his face drawn in hard lines.

‘What I want to know is why?’

It appeared he hadn’t heard me.

‘Why would you go through the trouble of getting Dino deported?’

‘. . . I did it because I love you . . .’

I tossed and turned and tossed again for good measure, wanting out of the dream but not sure where the exit sign was. It took a good Muffy face-licking to finally snap me out of it.

I jackknifed upright, sputtered and coughed and pushed him away.

‘Ewww. That’s some morning breath you’ve got going on, dog. And I don’t even want to know where your tongue has been.’

Tee got up and shook himself on the pillow next to mine, flicked his tail at me, then snuggled up presumably to go back to sleep. I squinted at the clock on my bed-stand. Six twenty-eight. Two minutes until the alarm was due to go off.

Damn. I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink although I’d crashed somewhere around midnight. Probably it had to do with my non-stop dreaming about all that was going on in my life at the moment, one scene morphing into the next and the next so that it had been my mother who had been kidnapped, David Hunter who had been deported and Eugene Waters who had kissed me outside the restaurant last night.

Double ewww.

The words I’d woken up to circled my mind like one of those air banners pulled around by small planes you usually saw while you were at a baseball game.

‘. . . I did it because I love you . . .’

I snatched the blankets back from my legs and Muffy commenced running back and forth over my bare legs, excited that it was time to get up.

Of course, Jake hadn’t said those words. He’d said very little at all. Merely stood there gazing at me as if the key to the universe lay somewhere there if he only knew where to look for it.

All I wanted to do was sock him one.

The alarm buzzed, scaring the holy hell out of me.

I smacked it off, further exciting Muffy and annoying Tee. I told them that if they weren’t happy with it, they were more than welcome to go find another room. And that, in fact, there was another room to be had. The second bedroom that I’d turned into Muffy’s dog cave.

Not that he ever used it.

I pushed from the bed, wincing at the coldness of the floor before putting on my slippers, and then cut a path for the bathroom, Muffy zigzagging in front of my legs and leaping up to lick my chin.

Damn fool dog.

I got to the bathroom, ducked inside and closed the door enough so he couldn’t get in, before saying, ‘Me first. And, no, you can’t watch,’ before closing it all the way.

Actually, it was more like listen, because he really couldn’t watch, could he?

Still, he wasn’t doing that either. No matter how much he tried to. It was just . . . weird.

I saw to my business, jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, blew my hair dry and applied make-up before emerging again.

Muffy was lying on the floor directly outside, looking at me from his paws before popping back up as if spring loaded and resuming his manic actions.

‘All right, all right, to the window, Batman . . .’

I had hoped to get dressed before giving the icy air access to my skin, but I could tell Muffy was going to make that impossible.

Besides, it probably wasn’t a good idea to make him wait any longer than he had already. I’d stepped, barefoot, into a warm puddle or two and swore just thinking about it made the area between my toes feel damp and yucky.

That was the thing about pets, I was finding: no matter what nonsense was going on in your life, they had a way of reminding you that nothing was more important than bathroom breaks and kibble.

I opened the window and moved back, allowing Muffy the space he needed to leap out. I shook my head before popping it through the window to have a look at the day.

Seven o’clock and all’s . . . well?

OK, maybe I wouldn’t go that far. But at least it had stopped snowing. And by the looks of the purple sky, it was going to be sunny.

I chose to ignore the three inches of fresh snowfall that had accumulated overnight. And the fact that, without cloud cover, it was even colder.

Then there was also the fact that the Crown Vic was back and . . . was that Jake parked up the block?

Jake Porter . . .

Despite the cold, I remained where I was.

When it came to mysteries, was there a bigger one than the hunky Australian?

Truth was, he had been an enigma from the start. And I’d be lying if I said that that hadn’t appealed to me in some fundamental, primal way that made me want to bag him and mount him on my wall.

Or just mount him, period.

I’m sure if I did some digging, I’d find out what he really did for a living, since it was obvious he wasn’t the bounty hunter I once believed him to be. But there remained a part of me that didn’t want to know, that wanted him to remain that mysterious, commitment-phobic bad boy who looked after me, even when I didn’t want him to.

And that part was bigger than the parts that wanted to know more. At least for the time being.

Of course, none of that touched the fact that he had crossed a line by seeing that Dino was deported by coming up with some trumped-up suspicious-activity charge.

Oh, he hadn’t admitted to it. Not in so many words. He never admitted to anything. But we both knew he had done it. The instant the FBI offered the identity of the one responsible, I’d known. Who else in my life had that kind of power?

‘There’s nothing wrong with your car, is there?’ he’d asked me after a long silence while we were standing between the park and the East River last night.

I’d held up the spark plug I’d popped out.

His grin made my toes curl inside my boots.

‘You know,’ I’d said quietly, ‘I had this plan to get you to admit to me why you’d done it, but, well, I won’t get anywhere with that, will I?’

No.

He didn’t have to say it, but we both heard it nonetheless.

‘So I guess I’ll just say this: get him back.’ I’d searched his face and discovered somehow my hand had ended up pressed against the hard stone of his chest. ‘Please.’

I’d kissed him then. A wet, lingering one . . . before I turned and walked back toward my car.

‘Sofie?’

I stopped.

‘Merry Christmas.’

I’d smiled, then continued walking.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. In some strange way, I found his wanting to eliminate the competition . . . well, sweet.

I made a face and ducked back inside, leaving the window open just enough for Muffy before going into the kitchen to make my first frappé of the day and then back into the bedroom where I eyed the contents of my closet for what to wear.

It was going to be a busy one today. Outside the ransom drop later, I had myself a kidnapper to catch (which would hopefully negate the need for a ransom drop), a medal to unearth (Grandpa Kosmos had left three messages on my cell last night) and a reindeer named Rudolph to find (note to self: check out
The Ledger-Times
to see if Wendy ran the piece), not necessarily in that order.

I stood in front of my bedroom mirror, fixing the top of my black turtleneck, and strapping my shoulder holster on, the wedding gifts looming behind me. I really did need to do something about those.

A low hum captured my attention. What was that? The apartment building ran on steam radiators I paid good money to have a heating guy check on regularly. Was that what was making the sound? I inched closer to the bedroom unit, but couldn’t make out anything.

Then I remembered Mrs Nebitz and her leak.

Water?

Since when did water hum?

I gave myself an eye roll then went to make my bed up enough so my furry room-mates couldn’t make too much of a mess out of my sheets. I noticed the sound got louder.

I leaned over my bed, then pulled back, my eyes widening.

It was Tee.

And he was purring so loudly I could hear it across the room.

Hunh.

I smiled and gave him an affectionate scratch behind the ears before shooing him from my pillow so I could cover it with the comforter.

I’d set up the litter box I’d bought in October for him again in Muffy’s room. I reminded myself to check it out before leaving, and also to put extra food out for the two of them.

Sipping my frappé and walking back into the living room, I became acutely aware of an absence: my Glock wasn’t on the kitchen table where I’d expected to find it when it wasn’t in my holster.

Then I remembered: the FBI hadn’t returned it to me.

Great.

I idly wondered if there was something Jake could do about that.

Twenty

‘Oh, you so gotta see this,’ Rosie said, launching from her chair the instant I entered the office.

She blocked my passage to my uncle’s office and held up the paper. Splashed across the front page was a picture of the lost Rudolph and his forlorn owner Mrs Claus.

I mean, Mrs Nicholas.

The headline read:
Will Rudolph Be Able to Find His Way Home in Time for Christmas?

‘Isn’t it the coolest?’ Rosie was, well, looking back to her rosy self.

I had to admit, it was pretty cool.

I put the items in my hand down on my desk and took the paper, leafing through it for the other story. I didn’t find it on the first go through and had to start again from the beginning.

‘He’ll be found for sure now,’ Rosie said, returning to her desk. ‘Mentioned us in the piece, too. Mrs Nicholas talking about how nice we were and everything.’

I paused to stare at her. ‘You tried to kick her to the curb.’

She shrugged as she popped her gum and returned to whatever she was doing on her laptop. ‘Must have been nice when I did it ’cause she likes me.’

I gave an eye roll as I went through the paper again.

‘There’s a box for you on your uncle’s desk. Waters dropped it off.’

‘Thanks.’

There. Tucked away in a tiny corner on page thirty-three was a small piece on Dino’s deportation. One whole paragraph.

Damn.

‘What? What happened?’ Rosie asked.

I showed her the piddly piece.

‘Bring it here. I can’t see it.’

I moved closer.

‘That’s that baker guy, right? The one you were dating?’

‘Yeah.’ I closed the paper so abruptly I startled her, earning a tsk for my efforts. ‘She was supposed to do something bigger.’

‘She who?’

‘The reporter. In exchange for the Rudolph story, she was supposed to run something to get under the skin of the CIS.’

‘You made a deal on Rudolph?’

‘Yeah. Got a problem with that?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t. But Santa Claus might.’

I slapped the paper on her desk. ‘Anyway, that piece isn’t even big enough for a bird to poop on.’

‘Whatever.’

Morning festivities over, I gathered my things from my desk and moved into my uncle’s office, where I didn’t plan to stay long. I hung up my coat, took in the board and then looked over my desk.

‘Rosie? You get that info I asked for yesterday?’

‘Printing it up now.’

I used a letter opener from my uncle’s drawer to open the box Eugene had dropped off. Just as I asked, there were two cell phones inside, charged and ready to go.

‘You know, you ain’t supposed to have me doing personal stuff for you.’

‘Who said it was personal?’

‘Come on. I remember that medal thingy you were working on last summer for your grandfather. This is related to that.’

‘Yeah, well . . .’ I wasn’t up for an argument. I was just glad she’d gotten me the info I needed. ‘Anyway, it was a small part of what I asked you to do.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked, looking inside the box.

I handed one of the phones to her. ‘Personal communications device.’

‘What?’

‘That’s the only way you’ll be able to contact me.’

I opened the other, entered the number for hers and pressed call.

‘That would be me.’

She stood staring at it. ‘This has to do with that case you’re working on, doesn’t it?’

‘What case?’

‘What do you mean “what case”? The one you got nearly everybody working on and won’t tell me about.’

I ignored her as I toyed with the cell.

‘That Abramopoulos kidnapping case.’

I nearly dropped the phone.

‘Don’t look at me that way. You know I got my sources. I knew two minutes after you came into the office that day what case you were working on.’

‘What case? For all intents and purposes, there isn’t a case.’ Not an official one, anyway.

She stared at me.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘What? And ruin your fun?’ She popped her gum. ‘Anyway, everybody knows his ex-wife done it.’

I leaned against my desk. ‘Define everybody.’

‘Everybody I know. You know, my sources. My friends.’ She shrugged. ‘Everybody.’

‘And the reasoning behind this belief is . . .’

‘On account of what that pig did to her. I mean, all that money and she got nothing . . .
and
lost custody of her kid?’ She crossed her arms under her breasts. ‘I don’t blame her, really.’

‘So if that’s the case then she doesn’t plan on giving the kid back.’

‘Would you?’

‘Two million isn’t enough to hide from the likes of an Abramopoulos.’

‘Two million? I heard it was twenty.’

Could it be true? Could the amount be ten times what I’d been led to believe?

And if it was, why hadn’t I been told the correct amount? And why was I the one being asked to deliver the ransom?

‘He can’t have any more kids, you know that right?’ Rosie asked as she turned to leave.

No, I hadn’t known that.

She tsked again, louder. ‘Don’t you even read the stuff I give you? It’s in there.’ She gestured toward the nearly untouched documents on the corner of my desk.

I stared at the pile. ‘Is there anything else I should know?’

Rosie grinned as she pulled up one of the visitor chairs. ‘Thought you’d never ask . . .’

An hour later I was ready to put my hastily sketched out plan in motion. Only now, I had some excess baggage for which I hadn’t planned. More specifically, Rosie’s take on the situation sat on my shoulders as solidly as if she, herself, had climbed up there.

I tried to be careful with second-hand information; which was a big reason why I hadn’t included her directly in the investigation in the first place. While I respected her sources for facts no end, the rest . . . well, whatever additional commentary tended to be little more than gossip fit only for grocery store rags.

Thing was? Sometimes even they got it right.

Anyway, I left Lucille parked at the agency, my cell phone locked inside, and walked up the block where I caught the subway, getting off at the next stop and then hailing a taxi to my parents’ house where I arranged to pick up my sister Efi’s car.

The way I figured it, if I was being tracked via my cell or my car, ditching both would guarantee my freedom until I decided what to do.

One of many drawbacks was I felt naked without my Glock. I hadn’t realized the FBI had kept it after our little chat until after they’d dropped me off.

How, exactly, did one go about retrieving one’s firearm from the FBI?

I wasn’t sure, but I needed to find out.

I’d gone inside my parents’ house to get the car keys only to run head on into Yiayia, who looked none too happy with me.

My grandmother, my father’s widowed mother, was, at the risk of sounding disrespectful, weird. I understood she was uncomfortable speaking English, but what about Greek? For as long as she’d lived with my parents, which was a good ten years, I’d barely heard her utter a word. Mostly she communicated with stares, the occasional mumble and wooden spoon swats to the wrist or backside, usually when I was trying to get a taste of, or steal altogether, something from the stove.

She’d indicated she’d made dinner and I was to take a plate. I told her I’d get it when I swung back that way. Which hopefully wouldn’t be until tomorrow judging by the unappetizing smells coming from the covered pot on the burner.

I’d grabbed Efi’s keys and took off in her little ten-year-old, putt-putt, subcompact car, rolling my eyes when I found the gas gauge on ‘E’. I’d filled it up and then pointed the car in the direction of Brooklyn.

One thing I’d learned is that when you reached a mental roadblock, thinking about something totally unrelated often helps. So I was going to do a little legwork on my grandfather’s missing medal case in the hopes of oiling the mind gears.

It took me a half hour to reach my destination in the busy, pre-holiday traffic. Last night’s snow had been pretty much been cleared off the main streets, but despite sunny skies, more snow was forecast for today and tonight.

Tonight. As I parked my sister’s car in the spot closest to the brownstone I was visiting, I wondered what the ransom drop would have in store for me. If, that is, I couldn’t get out of going.

At any rate, I ousted the thought that served more as rust than lubricant as I climbed the stairs and rang the bell for the first-floor apartment. I was immediately buzzed in, as if Mrs Liotta had been waiting there ready to press the button. I entered and the apartment door opened, revealing a woman I knew was about my grandfather’s age, but looked more like my mother’s.

I knew her husband of fifty years had died five months ago and that they had moved to Boston shortly after they married. And that she had relocated back here, her hometown of Brooklyn, a few months ago, making my job of finding her that much easier.

‘Miss Metropolis?’ she said, blue eyes bright and warm. ‘Why don’t you come in. I’m so happy you called.’