The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (3 page)

From the moment Keith signaled to the waiter to come over to the table, Genevieve had this familiar, deja vu, feeling that she knew what was coming. She'd been down this road before.

While there were certain men that were hard to read, the ones that she ended up with, read like an open book.   Keith was no different, he sat down at the table, ordered his scotch and soda, and peering, sadly, across the table at her, he said, “Genevieve...”

Smiling at him, she said, “Yes, Keith...” she tried to sound sweet, but it came out more sarcastic than anything else.

Either Keith was totally dense or he was such a snob, that he didn't notice – she was willing to say that both were true.

Taking her hands in his, she resisted the urge to snicker at how feminine his hands felt against hers – if she hadn't known better, she would have sworn that another woman was holding her hands. Before speaking, he briefly looked at her hands, “This isn't working out...” when she continued to sarcastically smile at him, his dense ass, finally said, “I think we should see other people.”

Withdrawing her hands from his, she quickly stood up, and after taking a quick sweep over the restaurant, she, looking down at him, nonchalantly, said,   “Okay...”

After retrieving her purse, she could scarcely hear him say, as she got ready to leave their table and the restaurant, “I know how this must make...” he stopped, when it finally dawned on him, what she had just said – finally, something was getting through his dense, over bloated, ass. “Okay...?” there was a hint of disbelief.

As she sarcastically smiled over at him, she said, “Yea...okay.”

“
What do you mean, okay?”

“
I mean...” her smile broadened. “Okay...”

“
That wasn't the kind of response, that I was expecting...” he was mumbling mostly to himself.

Sighing, she said, “What about this...?” he looked up at her. “What if you tell your buddies and everyone else, that I cried like a bitch and threw a major hissy fit.” looking down at her watch, she said, “Are you going to drive me home...or should I catch the bus?”

When all he did was continue to sit there, with this disgruntle look on his face, she, shrugging, turned and made a graceful retreat from the restaurant.

XXX

Now, she sat in her apartment, eating pizza, drinking a cold beer, and savoring how defeated Keith had looked.

There was nothing more liberating than being a ball buster to those men who were deserving of it.

As she took another swig of her beer, it was then that her cellphone rang—tempted to let it go to voice-mail, she finally, on the third ring, answered it, “Detective Freemen.”

She had just brought her beer up to her lips, yet, she abruptly stopped when she heard what the person on the other line had to say. “Where...” putting her beer down, she stood up from her couch, and looking around her small apartment, she said, “I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Once she had hung-up, she ran her hand through her long curly brown hair, and sighing defeatedly, she headed toward her bedroom to change; the life of a cop was an all day occurrence.

While she wanted to sit at home and have
'me time'
, her job had decided otherwise.

XXX

The moment Genevieve walked into the morgue, she knew something was up. For one, there was usually someone out front. Often times an off duty cop, that asked her for identification before allowing her to enter. Yet, that person wasn't there.

That in itself was odd.

No odder, though, than what she saw, when she headed into the morgue itself.

Dr. Albert Sheritan, his grad. Assistant, Mark Creaton, and the cop, who she knew only as Kevin, were perplexedly looking around the morgue.

By the way they were confoundedly searching the floor and every other cranny, it seemed, to even an untrained eye, that they had lost something.

“
Lose something?” when all Albert did was turn to look at her, Genevieve knew, by his confused expression, that he might as well have been looking right through her – he was totally lost.

Confoundedly rubbing his face, he turned to his assistant. “Did you check the offices?”

“Why would a stiff be in there?” when all Albert did was frown at him, he said, “I'll check...” heading toward his office, he mumbled, “I can't believe this is happening.”

After Mark had rushed past her, with the same dazed expression on his face as Albert's, Genevieve wondered, if it was possible that she had developed the ability to make herself invisible. After perplexedly watching his retreating back, she finally adverted her gaze down to the clean white tiled floor. When she heard Albert open one of the lockers and pull the slab out, she hastily adverted her gaze from to the floor over to him. The moment she noticed how he was perplexedly staring in the open locker and looking contentedly down at the clean, metal, slab – as if he was hoping for something to appear on it – she started to irritably tap her foot upon the floor.

Finally having enough, Genevieve went over to him. “What are you looking for?”

It was then that Albert looked directly at her – ultimately putting an end to her invisibility. So surprised was he by not just her question, but her presence, that he didn't, at first, say anything.

“Gen...?” the shock in his voice, had a smile creeping to Genevieve's heart-shaped face. 

Yet, it was his continued confounded expression, that had her smile just as quickly forming into a frown. “That's my name, don't wear it out.”

He didn't laugh and frowning at her, he inquired, “What are you doing here?”

Irritably sighing, she sarcastically replied, “Ah...I don't know...Maybe it's because you called me...”

“Ah..I know that....I...” he rubbed his face. “I just didn't think you'd be here so quick...”

If it hadn't been for Genevieve's morbid sense of humor, she probably wouldn't have lasted long as a Homicide detective. Not just that, though, but if she hadn't had a fairly good personality, she most likely would have already been angrily yelling at Albert. Yet, as it was, it wasn't in her genetic makeup to let people see how irritated she was by the very sight of them. Besides, Albert, was one of the few people, that she actually considered a friend.

Smiling at him, she said, calmly, “Albert..., what the hell is going on?”

Looking quizzically at her, he finally, shrugging defeatedly, said, “We lost a body...”

It took her a few minutes to digest what he had just said. “You lost a body?”

Licking his lips, he, this time, put his hand through his graying, dark, hair, “Yes... and, it get's worse...”

“How so?”

“
It's a body that just so happens to pertain to one of your cases...Today's case..., involving the murdered victim from Sherries apartment complex.” it was at that moment, that Genevieve was ultimately stunned silent; she really didn't know how to respond to this. 

Puzzlingly, looking around the morgue, she finally said, “Hmm...” after bafflingly shaking her head, she headed in the direction of Albert's office. Yet, just as quickly as she had decided to go in that direction, she, suddenly, turned around to look at him.

“Did you by any chance look at the security footage...or the log?”

It didn't take a genius to know that, just from the surprised expression on both Albert's and Kevin's faces, that the answer was no.

Irritably shaking her head, she sarcastically smiled at the two, before she headed, this time out the way she had come in, and right toward the reception area. Sitting down in Kevin's chair, she started by rewinding the footage. It didn't take long for her to find what she was looking for or, better yet, what wasn't there; a section of the footage was totally blank.

“
Hhhh...” she looked at both Kevin and Albert, who were standing a few inches away from her. “What do you have to say for yourselves about this?” she looked at both men.

Albert, coming over to her, leaned down to look. As his gray gaze, first went to the blank footage and then over to Kevin, he growled, “Officer Shelton...?!”

Irritably throwing his hands up in the air, Kevin said, “Look..., I didn't come on duty until way after all this shit went down.”

Sighing, Genevieve said, “Well, who comes on before Officer Shelton...” 

“Ummmm....”

Frowning, Genevieve scoffed. “Look doc, it's not that complicated.”

“I'll have to check...” when he saw the incredulous look on Genevieve's face, he growled. “Look, I don't pay attention to who's out here half the time!”

“
I'll say...” they both looked at Kevin, who, smirking irritably at them, said, “for a long time, you thought I was a woman.”

While the situation was far from funny, Genevieve couldn't help but laugh at what Kevin had just said. Yet, when she noticed the infuriated look on Albert's face, she quickly regretted it.

“Lets just look in the log...” pulling the log out of the desk, she flipped through the pages. “Hhhh...”

“
What?”

It was when she flipped to the ending of the page, that had six o'clock to the next page, where six thirty should have led up to seven and so forth, that she noticed that, the page after six, was starting at eleven.

From the moment Genevieve had found out about the missing corpse, she had just been looking at this situation as something easily explained away. Like the family could have forgotten to sign in. And because of all the jumble emotions, the corpse could have been transferred somewhere else – without anyone filling out the appropriate paperwork. There had been more than one occasion, when a stupid mistake had been made, and someone had shown up and taken the body, without alerting the appropriate persons of their intentions.

Yet, it was upon seeing that blank security footage and, finding these pages missing, that her detective instincts straight away took the lead in her thinking.

“
Where are these pages?” she quizzically looked at Albert, who first frantically looked from the log, to Kevin, and then back at her. 

Chapter Three

Her boss was going to fire her. That is, if he didn't blow her eardrums out with yelling at her first.

She really hated working at the crummy diner, but she need the minimum wage job for her college tuition.

It seemed like a never ending cycle. No sooner did she get her paycheck, was she handing it over to the register's office.

The whole situation was similar to paying off a blackmailer. Once she got the person or persons paid off, she had a short reprieve of not worrying about them bothering her anymore.

She was always strapped for cash, and wondering why she was even wasting the time and money to attend this college. There were hardly any pluses about being a student at the U of A – at least for her. Possibly for others, there was something of a great opportunity.  Yet, she hadn't seen her opportunity yet; then again, there was that chance that she just wasn't looking hard enough for it.

The way Jewel Freemen rationalized this though, was it being largely the college's fault. The U of A had hardly made itself appealing to her. At Pima, she had been told that either all or some of her course work would transfer over. Yet, once she got to the U of A, she found that most of her credits from Pima weren't accepted. So, she had had to settle on taking a lot of similar classes over again at the U of A. What had the college even less appealing, was that she was being hit up every month for tuition.

When she had gone to the register's office to complain about this, she had been told that she could take out more loans. Yet, it had been her sister, Genevieve, who had discouraged her from doing this. If she thought the register's office was a headache, she had another thing coming—the loan companies would be far worse than them. 

As she rushed from her dormitory to the campus garage, her thoughts weren't on what was in front of her; rather they were on how horribly late she was for work.

It was as she was glancing down at her watch, for the fifth time, that she ran into him.

The moment she hit him, she hadn't a clue on who or what she had slammed into. Only that it sent her landing on to her ass. 

When she felt these strong masculine arms around her, she was surprised and, slightly, unnerved by who it was that held her captive. Quickly looking up, she was astonished by these sterling green eyes that were staring down at her.  She was even more dumbstruck by who these beautiful eyes belonged to.

The gorgeous specimen in front of her, definitely didn't look like any typical college frat boy that was popular around this campus.

He was....

There wasn't any words to describe him. Except to emphasize that he had beautiful green eyes, a hard physique, a well chiseled face, and shoulder length, sun-streaked, blond hair.