Brain Storm (A Taylor Morrison Novel Book 1) (7 page)

Things had been quiet since my eventful day on Tuesday. I had headed home from the police station and called Trinity, somehow convincing her to keep an eye without scaring her to death. After I checked the locks, and set the alarm, I’d made myself a cheese omelet and a big pot of coffee and prepared for the long night ahead. Looking out the window I caught sight of the patrol car as he drove slowly by, ensuring that for that night, at least, the bad people knew this street was being watched.
 

Frustrated with the loss of a day to work on the case, I had settled in on the sofa to go over plans for the next day. At some point I must have fallen asleep because I woke up the next morning to the ringing of my cell phone. It was Jonas calling to tell me they had found the car and it had been wiped clean of prints. Another bad sign. I checked in with Trinity, hit the shower and then headed out for the first day of stake out at my coffee shop. Since the coffee incident, I had avoided going there, but with the lack of any other leads, I had hopes that Denzel would return to the scene of the crime and I could get some information. It was a long shot, but for now, it was all I had.
 

It was now Friday and I had shown up the previous two days, coming early, staying late into the morning, and still no Denzel. I had talked to the manager, who was very concerned when I came in. He still felt bad about what happened and gave me a free latte for all my trouble which I gladly accepted, but that was about all I got from him. No, he hadn’t seen the man back in the shop since it happened. No, he didn’t remember him from before. No, he didn’t see where he had gone, or a car or anything else that might have been helpful. Armed with that knowledge, it seemed doubtful that Denzel would show, but I decided to give it a few days since I didn’t have any thing else pending. Plus there was the coffee aspect of it. How often do you get to sit and drink coffee all morning and write it off as a business expense?

My cell rang. It was the private investigator I had hired in Atlanta to check on my missing nonpaying papa. Bingo! My hunch had paid off. I had talked to some of the “guys” dear old Dad used to hang with. Sometimes you got more information from friends than from family. In this case, the ex-wife was angry and everything she told me was colored with it. I couldn’t blame her, but it’s the little things that often break a case and when someone is angry, it effects what they say. So I like to talk to other “witnesses”. I call them that, because there’s not really a name for them. I need information, so they could be informants, but that has a negative sound to it, so I call them witnesses. They didn’t see a crime, but they did see a life and what they saw is what I need to know.
 

My meeting on Tuesday morning was with a drinking buddy of the Dad. Turns out they loved to play darts and drink Guinness. I coupled that with a comment from a previous interview stating that the Dad was a huge Braves fan. I’ve found that white middle/upper class offenders have a tendency to run to someplace familiar, while lower income offenders either stick around the area and lay low or go to ground and vanish into thin air. I put two and two together, hoped they added up to four and risked Trinity’s money on an investigator in Atlanta. I’d e-mailed him a photo to flash around in bars or pubs that had darts and sold Guinness. The guy had had enough time on the lam to find a neighborhood bar, if that’s where he was. My gamble paid off. I told the investigator to stay put and I’d call him later with instructions. I needed to let Trinity know he’d been located and arrange for the paperwork for the police to pick him up. Smiling with satisfaction, I checked my watch and decided enough was enough. I’d hit the bathroom and hit the road.
 

I had just stood up to stretch my weary coffee laden bones when I saw him. Denzel was here, but not in the coffee shop. He was getting into a car parked in the lot, a little east from the front door. He wasn’t parked where I would park. There were plenty of spaces up near the doors of the stores, but he was parked two to three rows out near a handful of other cars, which more than likely belonged to the employees. From my vantage point, I couldn’t get the make on the car but it looked like he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, as he seemed to be settling in. I turned away, not wanting him to look up and find me watching him, and started picking up my mess. Okay, let’s think about this. Denzel is here, but not drinking coffee. He hadn’t come in all morning. He’s not shopping, he didn’t have a bag and he’s not in a store. He’s sitting out there in his car.
 

I could just go out there and ask him what he was doing, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer. Instead, I headed into the bathroom and placed a call to Jonas. Then I remembered the five coffees and why I was heading into the bathroom in the first place and decided to care of business while the opportunity was there. Once Jonas got here, who knew when I would get another chance.
 

 
As I was washing up, I couldn’t help but wonder if the whole time I had been waiting for Denzel, he’d been watching me? Maybe Denzel, the coffee, and the BMW that was tailing me were connected. But how? I checked my watch again. Five minutes had gone by since I had called Jonas. My guess was, in about another 5-10 minutes we’d have a good chance of getting some answers.
 

I headed out of the bathroom, stopped at the counter and ordered another coffee. Settling back into my seat, I arranged my news paper, took a big sip of latte and waited for the show to begin.

I didn’t have to wait for long. I glanced up to see Jonas turn into the parking lot and glide slowly into a space a few cars down from the shop. I could easily see him through the front window as he did a quick check in the rear view mirror and then gave me a nod from his seat behind the wheel. He’d seen him.
 

Watching him unbuckle his seatbelt, I suddenly had chills run down my spine. Something was going on. I quickly looked around the shop to see if anyone was moving in a threatening manner, someone who might be hooked up with Denzel. Nothing was out of place, no one stood out. As I watched Jonas reach for his door though, my heart started to pound and I felt the adrenaline begin to surge through me. Something was wrong. Something was WAY wrong. I leapt to my feet, ran toward the door and watched in horror as Denzel’s car door opened and I saw the gun.

“Get down!” I shouted the warning, not knowing if Jonas could hear me through the glass, but it didn’t matter. He could see me and my panic, and he was ducking down even as he turned to see where the danger lay. I flung the door open and saw the gun level at Jonas. He was moving fast to shelter, but I knew it would be too late. Denzel had a clear shot.

“No!” I screamed, as I surged toward the car and the gun, my hands outstretched, not thinking of anything but stopping Denzel from killing Jonas. I’d barely taken two steps out of the shop when suddenly, the car door flew inward, knocking the gun upward just as the shot rang out, crushing Denzel between the seat and door frame. I barely had registered the sound of glass shattering behind me when Jonas hit me, taking me down in flying tackle that knocked the breath right out of me. We hit hard, my head bouncing off the walkway and I laid there stunned, unable to breathe, trapped under his weight. I heard the squeal of tires through my gasps for air and had to assume it was Denzel making a break for it, as I couldn’t see through Jonas’ chest.
 

At that point, I really didn’t care, as long as he was gone. I was too busy trying to get some air moving through my lungs. Jonas was apparently in better shape than I was, because suddenly he was up and running. With his weight suddenly gone, air blissfully surged into me, and I rolled over to see him racing past the parked cars, gun drawn, in pursuit. He never stood a chance. Human versus car, the human loses every time, no matter the contest. The truth of that statement, didn’t make it any easier to accept and I watched in frustration as Denzel careened onto the street and within seconds disappeared from sight.
 

Jonas gave me a hard stare as he ran back to his car and reached through the window for the radio. I really couldn’t blame him. At best, this had been a complete mess. One that could have easily ended in disaster. I slowly got to my feet, brushing the parking lot dirt off my hands and clothes. Looking around me, I realized how lucky we’d been. The store window behind me had a bullet hole near the top. The glass was cracked and shattered, but thankfully, was still in place.
 

I was scraped and dirty. My head hurt and was bleeding from the contact with the concrete and my clothes were a bit torn up, but that was to be expected when you got thrown around by a guy the size of Jonas, I guess. All in all, not too bad, all things considered. I could already hear the sirens, as cars were dispatched in pursuit of Denzel, others screaming toward us in response to the distress call. My eyes finally came to rest on Jonas, who was standing at his car, hands resting on the hood, watching me, clearly unhappy.
 

Surprised, I found myself shaking a little. The thought that I had nearly gotten Jonas killed had my throat closing up and I felt a little dizzy. I took a deep breath and decided I needed to sit back down.

“Put your head between your knees and breathe deep.” It was Jonas whispering in my ear, squatting down next to me. I felt his huge hand on the back of my neck pushing my head forward.

“I’m sorry, Jonas, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled as I tried to take in air.

“Stay here. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll be back,” he said tersely. The weight of his hand disappeared from my neck, but it was the gentle squeeze of his hand on my shoulder as he moved away was almost my undoing.
 

The cavalry arrived and I could hear Jonas issuing orders and securing the area. The deep breathing helped and I raised my head up to see what was going on. The police were moving people into groups and working around me, taping off the area in front of the shop. The people from inside the shop were clustered by the door and I saw the manager motioning to me. When he realized I wasn’t getting up, he slowly opened the door and skittered through, keeping an eye on the police and the shattered window that was still somehow managing to stay in place. Bending down, he, handed me a coffee.

“Here,” he said. “I thought you might need this.” He shoved it into my hand and hurried back inside before he was told to by the police officer, who was headed in our direction. I took a sip of the coffee and realized he had rescued my latte from the table where I had left it. Caffeine was probably the last thing I needed, but I did feel better with the familiar feel of the cup in my hand. I slowly stood up and finding myself much steadier, moved over to my car, which was now inside the taped off crime scene area. Leaning against the car door, I watched as Jonas took control of the situation, directing the responding officers and doing his job so efficiently and calmly, that was difficult to remember that just a short time ago, someone had been trying to kill him. I shivered at the memory of how close it had been and took another sip of coffee, trying to shake it off. He’d been kept occupied as the police arrived, but I knew eventually, Jonas would work his way around to me. He would have questions and I needed to have some answers regarding Denzel. Ones he’d believe. I needed to be calm, cool and convincing when my time came. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have to wait long.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, we were back inside the coffee shop, sitting at my old table and I was feeling a little better. He was sitting across from me and asking for the umpteenth time what I knew about Denzel. I had filled him in on everything except my suspicions about having telekinetic abilities, which were seeming more far fetched by the minute. In the light of current events, it was obvious that Denzel and I had some sort of connection, although I had no idea what that might be. The fact that he was following me and had been waving a gun around didn’t bode well. I had to admit that the most likely scenario was that Denzel had actually thrown the coffee at me, although at the time, it sure hadn’t seemed like it. Why, was anyone’s guess and what I needed to find out. The upside, if that was the case, was this telekinesis thing could be laid to rest.

I had called Trinity to come and pick me up, as my car was going be here until they cleared the scene, and she was due any minute. As relieved as I was that Jonas was all right, I was, quite frankly, tired of the inquisition and wished she would hurry up and get there, so I could leave.
 

“Hey!” Jonas snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. “Pay attention. Answer the question.”

I focused back on Jonas and blinked hard, feeling another headache coming on. Snorting, Jonas stood up motioning for someone behind me to come over. To my surprise it was an EMT.
 

“Check her out. She took a pretty good hit to the head when we dove for cover.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my head,” I retorted, not wanting to delay my departure longer than necessary.

“Then there’s something wrong with your eyes, because they’re rolling around in your head,” Jonas shot back.
 

Frowning, I followed the EMT’s instruction and attempted to follow his penlight around. Unfortunately, Trinity choose that minute to make an entrance and before I knew it, she was hovering over me, demanding to know what had happened. Seeing I was unable to field her questions and comply with the EMT’s instructions at the same time, Jonas stepped in and took hold of her arm, in an attempt to remove her from the area.

Jonas, didn’t know it yet, but he had just made a huge mistake. Trinity had never talked about it much, but you didn’t need to be a genius to know her father hadn’t just used his fists on her mother. I suspected Trinity had taken her share of beatings, and I knew for a fact that she blamed her father for her mother’s death. She’d never seen her father again after that night and she didn’t want me to look for him. In Trinity’s mind, she had put it all behind her and it was a closed book. But she hadn’t. Not really. It bled over into her life, everyday.