Devil’s in the Details (5 page)

The screen lit up the room and I smiled as I heard the smooth, giddy voice of Katherine Hepburn fill the room. Her face in black and white quickly following as she traipsed around the screen chasing Cary Grant in
Bringing up Baby
. I let out a deep breath, pulled the blanket up closer and eventually drifted off to the sounds of her unique laughter.

Two hours later, I woke up to the sound of my phone wiggling around the nightstand. Groaning, I rolled over and grabbed it without looking at the display. There was only one person who ever called me. "Dani." I half yawned around saying her name.

"Professor. Did I wake you?" I rolled my eyes as I sat up in the bed, Dani clearly did not care if she had woken me up. She rarely cared about much in our love hate relationship.

I pushed my hair back, squinting at the TV to see Maureen O'Hara in the Quiet Man, "Why ask if you don't really care?" I sighed, "Let me guess, I need to get the laptop."

"First, yes, you need to get online. I have your next job and I need to go over it with you, per the request of the old man." I could hear the others she worked with in the basement murmuring in the background, "Second, I care. Sometimes. Well, not all the time, but you are my favorite plumber so far."

I stood up from the bed, stretching as I walked to head back downstairs, "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"You should, because you are the one who has lived the longest out of the others." Dani's voice changed to sincere and serious for a split second before she returned to obnoxious, "Anyway, Professor, are you at your laptop? I would like to get home before rush hour."

"Give me a minute." I jogged down the final few steps and rushed into the den. I had learned over the last few years that Dani could be impatient and the more impatient she became, the more driven she became to irritate me. She was already doing a stellar job by calling me Professor.

Sliding into the old leather chair, I fired up the laptop. Punching in my password and ensuring that the ISP rerouted and the encryption was operating at a high level, I clicked on the small envelope icon. "Okay I’m online."

"Copy. Let me go secure the phone line." I heard a series of three clicks, "Okay, all set. Open up your email and let's get started."

Once I clicked on the icon, the dossier spilled out over the screen. Filling it with photographs ranging from close ups on a driver license to wide shot surveillance images.

"Thomas H. Emerson. Thirty two years old, single white male. He lives up in King George, and works for the Congressman out of Delaware, district nine. He fell onto our radar per the request of the tea drinkers overseas. It appears he has been doing a little bit of inside trading in regards to drug smuggling. Since his kind older boss is rallying for DEA reform, Tommy here has been using those classified memos sent back and forth between the Congressman and the DEA to help the Colombian cartel spread their business out to the England and Ireland markets. Primarily trafficking heroin over there in mass quantities and leaving overdosed bodies everywhere."

Dani paused as she pulled up the DMV photograph of Thomas. He was a typical blonde hair, brown eyed, political science major.  He had a car salesman smile and a cockiness that dripped from his eyes and made me frown. I hated cockiness. I also hated the graphic photos from the police crime scenes, primarily the ones of young kids dead in pools of their own vomit from the uncut heroin the cartel flooded their neighborhood with. All because Thomas was a son of a bitch working under the guise of serving his community and country proudly. He was a cocky lying shit, and I despised liars.

I clicked on his records, primarily his banking records. Instantly picking up on the spontaneous large withdrawals after multiple medium sized deposits. "What is his vice? Drugs, hookers, gambling, booze?" I scrolled through the records, he was a typical idiot drug smuggler informant. The cartel would take great care in depositing money in reasonable amounts that would not send off alarms, but Thomas would pull out of his money in large chunks.

Dani chuckled, "You are good at this game, Professor. Tommy has expensive tastes in prescription pills and middle class escorts. We have surveillance of him in his condo outside of D.C. getting high on Suboxone, Xanax, OxyContin and running through a handful of internet ladies of the night. He just indulged in a weekend binge that looks like he barely survived it."

I leaned on my palm, scrolling through more records. "Send me the address and tell the old man it will be done Saturday night." I clicked the files closed, already having memorized everything I needed, "I want the usual payment an hour after I send out the completion notice." I leaned back in the chair, yawning slightly, rubbing my growling stomach. "Goodbye Dani."

"Whoa now, Professor. I have that little extra you asked for last night. Check your email, the message marked creeper." Dani chuckled, "Goodnight Professor, I will be eagerly awaiting your phone call."

She hung up before I could grumble out a retort.

I hesitated opening the email. Chewing on my bottom lip as I debated why I wanted to get further involved with the brunette. It had been a spontaneous request that I had forgotten about after grading endless essays. I sat staring at the screen, trying to find any justification to open the email and learn everything about the stranger I saved last night.

I sighed, standing up from my desk, I walked to the kitchen. Digging in the refrigerator for sandwich making components, I continued to internally debate what to do.

Yes, she was beautiful and intriguing. Her strength and sassiness in the face of four men was admirable. Then there was the way she looked at me, the way her dark blue eyes gave me shivers in the strangest way. But then there was the fact I had killed those four men and that my life was not one easily inhabited by me, let alone another. My past failed relationships were proof of that. I was always hiding something and letting my significant other think I was a cheating whore. Leaving at odd hours of the night or for days at a time, always coming back to shower immediately and saying I had to work late. My life had become very solitary and I liked it. It made it easier to pretend when I only had to pretend for one.

Slapping bread on the roasted chicken and Havarti sandwich, I threw it on a plate and grabbed a beer from the fridge and searched out my briefcase, before returning to the den. Continuing to ignore the still on laptop, I pulled out the last of the papers I had to grade and turned on the TV across from the desk.

I smiled as another of my favorite classics was on, surrounding me in the classic sounds of movies that were of a simpler time. Just silly love stories or stories of the heart, no violence, car chases, graphic love scenes. Just gentleman and ladies swooning respectfully over each other in black and white. I busied myself with eating the sandwich and grading papers in between quick glances at the TV. When finally, as I was on my last paper, a woman sauntered onto the screen to mingle with Ava Gardner. A woman who had the same angles and same dark eyes as the brunette.

I found myself staring at the screen and not paying attention to the dialogue, just watching the woman as she spoke her three lines and disappeared from the screen. Leaving Ava and I both curious about a mysterious brunette who just whisked in to our lives for a handful of minutes.

Blowing out a breath, I tossed the last half of my sandwich down on the plate and reached for the laptop. I didn't blink as I clicked the tiny little white envelope. Filling my screen with driving record, current mailing address that placed her in the not so good parts of D.C., her college transcripts, banking files and ending with her direct deposit account that had her working at Capital City Hospital. Which was a short walk from the metro station where we happened across each other. At the end of the files telling me everything I needed to know about the brunette, her driver's license ended the small flood of information I had sifted through.

It was a driver's license issued by New York State and was about a year old. The brunette was grinning, her bright blue eyes smiled with her. I felt my stomach wiggle when I looked over the undamaged face. She was even more beautiful without the bruises and blood I first saw her in. My eyes drifted to her name, Alexandra A. Ivers.

Squinting at the screen, I whispered, "Nice to meet you Alexandra."

I winced as I sat down on the rickety metal chair in front of my equally as rickety metal desk I had pilfered from the city dump back in New York City. I was still very sore and getting worse as the mild painkillers Dr. Owens prescribed me, began to fade away.

Reaching for my laptop, I unwound the USB cord to hook up my all in one printer, dropping the image of the blonde Roger had gotten me on the glass top. I was going to try an old trick the one NYPD cop I dated for minute, had taught me. Scan a person's picture into your computer and then do a Google image search. Nine times out of ten, you would find a match since the entire world was addicted to over sharing.

I shifted in the cold chair, waiting for my laptop to warm up and the scanner to finish. Looking around my small apartment that had an industrial feel, I felt very alone. The cold exposed steel beams in the ceiling and the exposed brick work had felt cozy and hip when I first viewed the place, but now it felt too sterile and lonely. I knew it was a side effect of being attacked and coming down off all the painkillers they had forced into me to keep me awake and calm to tell my story. But that knowledge did very little to cure the feeling of wanting someone to come home to and talk to. Whether it was a roommate or a lover, I really could use someone right now.

I wiped away the few tears that escaped, leaning forward to focus on the laptop and not my pity party. I clicked the dialog box telling me the scan was successful. The security image was fuzzier on my computer but the image was still clear enough I could dump it into Google and have it accepted. After clicking and dragging the image to the search bar, I leaned back as it searched through the endless information super highway. While the search engine did the work, I removed my cellphone from the clear plastic patient's belongings bag I was sent home with.

There were only four missed calls from my mother. I groaned, Stacy had told me she called my mother since she was the emergency contact on my paperwork. I couldn't get upset with her about calling my mom and then having her call me incessantly.

No one at work knew my past or that I was a loner by choice. My family lived down near the Tennessee border in Virginia and I had always had limited contact with them since I graduated from college and struck out on my own. My true family was just mother and I, and she lived up in Sperryville, still a lengthy drive away. When I was five, my real father pulled the typical, “I’m running out for cigarettes” routine and never came home. Leaving my mother and I to do the best we could.

Tapping the call back button, I closed my eyes and stood up, hobbling over to sit on the edge of my bed where it would be softer on my sore body. Three rings and my mother's voice bellowed in my ears, "Alexandra Ava Ivers! Why haven't you returned any of my calls? I have been worried sick and almost drove up there to see if you were okay." I could hear the worry, heavy and thick, in her voice and for a split second, it made me feel terribly guilty.

"Sorry, mom. I just got home from the hospital and turned my phone back on." I winced again sitting on the bed and scooting back to lie against the pillows. I sucked in a breath to steady my voice, "I’m fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises." I reached up to run my fingers over the still swollen cheek under my left eye, grazing my fat lip with butterfly bandages keeping it together.

"Please don't lie to me, your friend Stacy sounded scared when she called me. What happened?" I could hear my mother pacing around the island in her kitchen.

"I was mugged. The stupid mini died on me and I opted to take the metro. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." I frowned realizing that the stupid mini was still at the hospital, lifeless. A reminder that I now couldn't take the metro and would have to waste money on cabs. "It's okay, a Good Samaritan took me to the hospital and I’m fine, mom. I promise." I glanced at the laptop, the hourglass icon still spinning as Google continued to search.

My mother sighed, "Maybe it's time you leave the big city. The hospital down here is hiring. They always need good nurses."

"Mom, you know I would wither away in a small town." I picked at the edge of the afghan laying on the corner of the bed, "I’ll be fine. I just need a new car." I paused. I hated having these kind of conversations because it always felt like I was disappointing my mother by not settling down in the small town she lived in. Marrying a handsome doctor, popping out three grandchildren and living the dream she wanted for me.