Dark Mysteries (6 page)

Xander
looked up at her, smirking. “A lock pick,” he supplied.

“Right...
a lock pick. And he opened the door and they all went in. They
weren't in there for long. I don't know... maybe they were looking
for her. They left a few minutes later.”

“Have
you ever seen them here before?”

The
woman stopped a minute, thinking. “No. Not up here. But one day
I left to run to get some groceries and... I'm not sure... but I
think I saw him outside the building. Leaning against it. Smoking and
kind-of discreetly watching everyone who walked into the building. If
that is helpful.”

“Very,”
Xander said, still writing. “Can you tell me about Ellie?”
he asked.

The
woman's face shot up to his, curious. “Aren't you her
boyfriend?”

Xander
looked up, chuckling slightly. “No. I'm her private
investigator. I'm just trying to get a clear picture of the events.
And who I am working for.”

She
tilted her head at him for a second, as if weighing whether or not he
was telling the truth. She shrugged, deciding if anyone looked like a
private investigator, it was him. “She moved in a few months
ago.”

“Out
of curiosity... was hers a furnished unit?”

“Yes,”
she said, nodding, “but only because the last tenant died and
no one came to claim all the stuff.”

“Ok.
Go on.”

“It
was weird. She never brought in any boxes. She walked up with the
super on that first day with a big rolling suitcase, and a plastic
container. That was it.” She paused and he waved a hand at her
to keep going. “She was quiet. Never any sound in that
apartment but her moving around. No T.V. No music. Nothing. She never
ordered take out or had any company. Most days she went to work in
the morning and didn't come back until after midnight,” she
paused, smiling a little oddly, “in that awful mustard and
black shirt.”

Xander
snorted, thinking about the shirt hanging in his apartment. “So,
she just... seemed like a normal person trying to scrape by?”

“Well...
that's the thing. The rent here is dirt cheap. And she had to be
making good money in tips working twelve hour days. But she never
bought anything new. She always wore the same clothes. The only new
things she brought into the apartment were groceries.”

Xander
shrugged. Not all servers made good tips. Maybe she was terrible at
her job. “Anything else?”

“I
dunno. She always seemed... jumpy. Any time a door opened or closed,
she turned and watched, her eyes huge and worried, slipping her
fingers into this thing on her key chain... it was like a weapon I
think...”

Xander
bent down and dug through the box, looking for her keys. He hadn't
seen any weapons when he grabbed them before. He pulled them up,
looking at the two adornments next to her four keys.

“That's
the one,” the woman said, pointing to the bright pink shape.

It
was a thin piece of metal in the shape of a cat. Two holes where the
eyes went and two pointed ears. Xander slid his fingers into the eye
holes and closed his fist. Sure enough, it was a weapon. The ears
could be used to stab at an assailant. Smart move.

“I
need to get one of those,” the woman said, watching him. “Oh,
and sometimes she was holding something in her hand. A small bottle.
I don't know what it was. Maybe mace. Cant blame her. This is a rough
neighborhood.”

Xander
grunted. It certainly wasn't a place he would want a woman in his
life to live alone.

“I
dunno. I know this is presumptuous of me,” she started, looking
down at her feet, “but I get the feeling she was maybe abused
by someone once. Maybe a boyfriend or something. She was always just
so... aware of everything around her and nervous. I don't know if any
of this is helpful.”

“More
helpful than you would think,” Xander said, slipping the
notebook into his back pocket. “Thank you for filling me in.”
God, there was nothing in the world more full of information than a
nosy neighbor.

She
smiled tightly at him, moving back toward her door. “I hope it
helps her. She seems like a sweet girl.”

Xander
nodded, reaching in his wallet for a card. “Here. If anyone
comes back here, call me immediately. Okay?”

She
took the card, nodding and closed the door. Xander sighed, grabbing
the box and taking the stairs two at a time. He had a lot of thinking
to do on his stakeout later.

Five

Ellie
locked the door behind him, watching the door for a minute as if she
expected it to burst open. She shook her head, moving to go sit on
the folding chair. She needed to calm down. So, he found her. He had
found her before. She would be fine. She was always fine.

And
now she had Xander Rhodes on her side.

She
leaned forward, elbows on her thighs and buried her head in her
hands. She felt the nausea rising in her throat. Out of guilt, she
realized with blinding clarity. She was literally sick with guilt for
getting him involved. Because if she had told him what she told the
other private investigators, there was no way he would want to take
the case. He would tell her to go to the cops. He would tell her he
couldn't put himself in that kind of danger.

Especially
since she couldn't even pay him.

If
he knew how dangerous this case really was...

Ellie
jumped out out of the chair, feeling restless. She moved around the
office, straightening piles of paperwork. She peeked in and out of
cabinets until she finally found cleaning supplies. She spent the
next hour wiping down all the surfaces in the office with a rag and
multipurpose spray. She filled a bucket with hot, soapy water and,
not finding an actual mop, set off to scrub the floor on her hands
and knees.

She
hadn't always been a neat freak. As a child and adolescent, she had
been quite a slob, throwing her clothes all over her room, books
scattered around everywhere, cobwebs hanging eerily in the corners of
her room like forgotten Halloween decorations.

It
wasn't until... until him. In what it meant to be around him. The
utter powerlessness. She picked up cleaning, a small habit at first.
A need to have the surfaces in the bathroom clean. The dishes done.
It slowly evolved into an obsessive habit. A need to have every
surface spotless, every carpet vacuumed, every hard floor scrubbed.
Until her hands were raw from the hot water and bleach. Until she
wore holes in the knees of her pants.

It
was the only thing she could control.

She
got up a half an hour later, having backed herself into the hallway.
It was better, she thought, feeling the ever-present weight on her
chest slip slightly away. Moving into the bathroom, she repeated the
process. Spray, wipe, scrub. Spray, wipe, scrub. Until the skin under
her short fingernails was bleeding slightly.

She
sighed, dumping the contents of the bucket and throwing away the
newly threadbare rag. She washed her hands, looking down at the tiny
hole she had worn in Xander's pajama pants. When she felt safe enough
to leave the office again, she was going to buy him a new pair. Even
if she had to ship them while on the run. It was literally the least
she could do.

Moving
to the kitchen, she cleaned up the mess she had made from breakfast,
looking at the coffee pot distastefully. There was a time when she
loved coffee. Drank it with just a splash of skim milk. Ten cups a
day. On the weekends enjoying going to specialty coffee shops and
critiquing the different flavors and roasts. With him. She did all of
that with him.

It
was all about the tea since then, providing a similar kick of
energy... without all the unpleasant memories.

The
papers were still sitting on the dining table and she tried to sit
and read them, but finding all the news depressing, she stacked them
neatly and went to make Xander's bed. Despite not having actually
laid underneath the blankets, he had still managed to muss them into
a pretty mess. God, when was the last time she had actually gotten up
out of bed and got ready for her day without having given a second
thought to the sheets not being straightened? Years, she decided
grimly. It had been years.

She
moved to sit on the red couch, staring off into hall, trying to
convince herself that being a little bit obsessive-compulsive wasn't
always a bad thing. It came in handy since she was on the run. She
kept very few things on her when she moved from place to place so
there wasn't a need for a long, drawn-out event to be made out of
leaving one place for another. There was no mementos to be left
behind and missed dearly. No random pieces of paper betraying her
next move.

It
kept her safer.

Standing
up, she walked over to the closet Xander had reached in for hangers.
The one he had been hiding from her. Or at least he seemed to be. She
never considered herself a nosy person, but curiosity was getting the
better of her. She pulled the door open and her breath escaped her
lips in a whoosh.

Because
there attached to the inside of the door was the widest assortment of
weapons she had ever seen. And considering where she had come from,
that was saying something. There were things she recognized: brass
knuckles, cans of pepper spray, knives, three different kinds of
tasers. She pulled out a small metal rod shaped object, looking at it
curiously, before swinging out with it and watching it extend. A
baton. Then there was something plastic that wrapped around your
knuckles with a few metal plates in the front. She decided it must
have been some kind of stun-gun you wore on your fist. Which was a
really cool idea. Then at the bottom was an assortment of chains and
handcuffs. No guns. She wondered if the one in his drawer was the
only one he had. Judging by his assortment of other self-defense
weapons, that probably wasn't the case.

Were
those kinds of weapons even legal?

She
closed the door, moving away from it, feeling a strange wave of
relief. If he was the kind of man who was willing to own that many
illegal weapons, then he was just the right kind of dangerous she
needed on her side.

There
was a loud rapping on the front door, making her jump and back up
several feet, her heart flying into her throat. She looked at the
solid glass windows in dismay, then at the closet of pain and death
with a sort of resignation. She could use one of those weapons. If
she really needed to, she could do it. She felt herself moving toward
it when a voice yelled through the door, loud and impatient.

“Open
up, sweetheart. I'm not gonna murder you,” Xander called.

Ellie's
hand fell from the doorknob, moving through to the office with a fist
of fear still settled deeply in her stomach. She unlocked the door,
stepping back from it quickly.

Xander
walked in, looking at Ellie, her eyes wide and fearful. She was
standing slightly on her toes, looking like she was one wrong move
away from running out the door. Her hands were balled into fists at
her side. He felt himself smile, shaking his head.

“I
went to your apartment,” he said, holding out the plastic
container as evidence. “I brought back some stuff for you. As
pretty as you may look all swallowed up in my clothes,” he
said, smiling a little charmingly. “I figured you might want
your own stuff.”

Pretty?
He thought she looked pretty? Ellie shook her head at herself. He was
just being nice. Besides, it didn't even remotely matter if he did
think she was pretty.

Xander
walked over to the desk, putting the plastic container on top and
reaching inside. He pulled out all her clothes, putting them in a
pile next to his paperwork. She immediately went to them, pulling
them toward her and starting to fold them neatly. “Clothes,”
he said, pulling items out of the box. “Your wallet. Money.
Bath products. Sneakers. Your keys with that nifty little
self-defense key chain,” he said, dangling it in front of her,
“and these books...” he said, barely getting them out of
the box before she reached out and snatched the out of his hands.

He
tilted his head, watching her as she sat down and pulled to her
chest. She was actually hugging the books. He laughed quickly,
covering his mouth and pretending to cough. Who the hell hugged their
books?

She
looked up at him self-consciously, giving him a small smile. “These
have sentimental value,” she explained. They were the only
things she owned anymore that did.

“Obviously,”
he said, suddenly looking around the room, sniffing the air. He
looked back at her, his eyes squinting. “Did you clean?”

“Oh,”
she said, her mouth falling slightly open, making her look almost
pouty. “Um... yeah. I... I clean when I'm... stressed. I'm
sorry,” she said, standing and putting the books on the desk.
“I promise I didn't mess anything up. I picked things up and
cleaned underneath and put everything right back where...”

“Relax
sweetheart,” he said, smiling a bit at her. She looked so
frazzled. So worried. Like he was going to throw her out for dusting.
“It's fine. Thank you, actually,” he said, looking
around. Had he ever actually cleaned the place, he wondered? If the
floors were actually supposed to be somewhat shiny... then, yeah, he
hadn't ever cleaned them.