Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) (13 page)

T
he light in the alley slanted toward the house across the street where the kids lived with their mother. They needed it more than she did, Georgia figured. But enough light seeped through her bedroom shade, producing a filmy glow that highlighted Jimmy’s face as he slept. One of his arms was stretched over his head. The other lay by his side. A peaceful expression, even the hint of a smile, was on his lips.

She gazed at him, a jumble of emotions roiling her brain. Who was this man who’d made such sweet love to her? Who explored her body but allowed her to explore his, too? Who let her think she was the aggressor but then took control exactly when she wanted? He’d brought her to a place she thought was long dead. Where had he learned to do that? Should she trust it?

He was a cop, but there was something different about him. Police work breeds a darkness in a cop’s soul, a darkness so vast that even the most perfect day is marred by its shadow. Some cops come to terms with it; others bury it in a bottle or drugs. Still others, like Matt, her former lover, never did settle their account. Managing requires a delicate balance. Becoming a PI was no guarantee of basking in the light, either. The only difference was that now she could choose how much to take on.

But Jimmy didn’t seem to have those demons. Granted, she didn’t know him well, but she had the sense that he had made peace with the dark side. Either he’d never faced evil, which, despite the fact that Lake Geneva was a lazy resort town where DUIs and drug busts were more the norm than murder, she doubted; or he had not allowed it to consume him. Which would make him a special cop. And an even finer man.

As if sensing she was awake, he turned onto his side and smiled, sleep dusting his eyes. She smiled back and lightly traced a patch of light that fell across his chest. Then he gathered her in his arms, and she stopped thinking.

M
orning sun poured through the shade, waking her. Jimmy’s hand was cupping her breast. It felt right, she thought drowsily. The way it was supposed to be. As she came fully awake, though, she scooted away and rolled over. He grumbled in his sleep and reached for her, as if trying to recapture their intimacy. When she didn’t respond, he slowly opened his eyes. His disheveled hair and welcoming expression made him look sexy, and she thought about making love again, but something stopped her. She threw the covers off her side of the bed and went into the bathroom.

When she came out he was on his back, hands behind his head, watching her. She saw approval in his eyes. Still, she felt exposed and dove back under the covers. She propped her head on her hand.

“Good morning,” he said.

“I’d say so,” she replied.

He smiled at that and started to stretch. “Do we have to get up?”

“I’ll take you out for waffles.”

“Is that a bribe?”

“Payback.”

“Payback?” He paused, then narrowed his eyes. “You’re a hard woman, Georgia.”

She shrugged, which was difficult while she was naked and in bed, but she tried.

“I get it, you know,” he said.

“Get what?”

“It’s morning and you’re not sure what happened last night. So it’s safer to describe it as a mutual give-and-take. I take you to dinner and change your tire. You let me sleep with you and buy me breakfast. We’re even. All paid up.”

She let out a breath. Damn him.

“It’s okay.” He paused. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

* * *

It was almost noon by the time they finally did get up, which had to be the latest she’d risen in years. They took showers together, which made them even later, and it wasn’t until early afternoon that they were seated in a booth at the pancake house in Wilmette. The only reason to go to Walker Brothers was for the apple pancake, a delicious creation of apples, cinnamon, sugar, and dough that was known all over Chicago, if not the country. Georgia rarely allowed herself the luxury of all the calories, but Jimmy admitted never having had one. After it arrived with steaming mugs of coffee, Georgia cut a slice for Jimmy and one for herself. She watched as he chewed. His eyes went wide.

“I’ve never tasted anything like this.” He shoveled another huge forkful into his mouth. “This has got to be the eighth wonder of the world.”

“We think so.” She stopped. When had she become so proprietary about Chicago food? She sounded like a preening idiot. She cleared her throat. “Don’t you have to get back to Lake Geneva?”

“I told you you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He cut himself another slice of pancake and grinned. “Especially after a kickback like this. I knew there were perks to being chief of police.”

His response confused her, and her expression must have shown it, because his grin suddenly faded. “I called in on my cell. Everything’s quiet.” He picked up his coffee mug and took a sip. Then, “I’ve been thinking about last night.”

“Me too,” Georgia said softly.

“Actually, I was thinking about the assholes who shot out your tire.”

Georgia felt a spurt of disappointment. “Oh.” She switched into PI mode.

“You made a good point. They had a chance to kill you, but they didn’t. The question is why.”

“I still think it’s a warning or—”

“Or what? Why, given the chance to eliminate a target, do you not take it out?”

She thought about it. “Retaliation, maybe? Force the target to reveal themselves? Send a message?”

“Or scare you.”

“I don’t scare easily.”

“Maybe you should.”

She sat back. He was going cop on her, recycling the conversation they’d already had. She knew why. If they kept going over the same ground, maybe she’d remember something new. Some key fragment or scrap of information that would make sense of last night’s attack. Jimmy the cop was different from Jimmy the lover. A lover whose warmth and passion she’d wanted to bask in just a while longer.

But he obviously didn’t. Was he taking a cue from her—what had he said? That this was payback. They were even. Is that what he thought? She was simply trying to be careful. Keep her feelings in check. She wanted to restart the conversation, but she didn’t know how. Reluctantly she focused on what he was saying.

“Lets assume for a minute it’s not related to Savannah.”

“Why?”

“Just run with me for a second. Brainstorming, they call it.”

“Okay.”

You’ve been a PI how long now?”

“About five years.”

“You’ve obviously worked a lot of cases. More if you include the years you were a cop.”

“I was just a beat cop. I dealt with simple stuff. Especially on the North Shore. House burglaries, stolen cars, that kind of thing.”

“No angry offenders?”

“Most are dead or in jail.”

“What if they did their time, got out, and decided to get revenge for something you did to them?”

She shrugged. “Comes with the territory. But you know as well as me they usually don’t go after us. They go for the stoolies. Anyway, there’s no way I can track them all.”

“That’s my point. No matter who’s targeting you, we’re back where we started. Somebody doesn’t want to you to do what you’ve been doing. But you keep trying to find out who. Georgia, today is a new day. Let the police handle it.”

Seizing an opportunity to reconnect, she reached out and covered his hand with hers. “I love that you’re concerned about me. I’ll be careful. But I can’t back off. Not yet.”

He didn’t reply, and a moment later he withdrew his hand. He left soon after.

She paid the check, then trudged to her car. She’d done it again. Made sure to keep a man she liked at a distance. What did they call them—self-fulfilling prophecies? Well, she’d likely made one happen. So why did she feel more alone now than before?

G
eorgia had a choice. She could drive to Riverwoods to stake out Chad Coe or head back to Benny’s to pump Bruce Kreisman again. She might pick up new information, perhaps even a name that would lead to the assholes who had messed with her car.

It was no contest. It would be much more pleasant to sip a bowl of matzoh-ball soup in a clean, bright place like Benny’s than to slump over the wheel in an overheated car waiting for someone who might not appear for hours, if at all. What would she say to the lawyer anyway? Did he know the warehouse he owned was being used as sex-trafficking den? Did he know a pregnant blond girl named Savannah?

She headed downtown under a leaden sky. Thirty minutes later she pulled up to the restaurant and parked half a block away. A light snow fell, no more than flurries, but her boots squeaked on the layer of snow already packing the sidewalk. She stamped her feet as she pushed through the door.

Benny’s steamy warmth cascaded over her. She headed to the take-out counter and ordered soup. She wasn’t hungry but figured she would save it for dinner. It was after three and the lunch rush was over. The servers behind the counter chatted with each other and the few customers still in line. When her soup was ready, she picked up the white bag along with her receipt.

“By the way, is Bruce Kreisman around?” she asked the African American woman behind the counter.

The woman who’d handed her the soup frowned. “What are you, a comedian?”

Georgia was taken aback. “Sorry. Is he out on a run?”

The woman took in a breath, then let it out through her nose. “Where you been, child?”

“I’m clearly missing something. Was he fired?”

The woman planted her hands on her hips. “No, he ain’t been fired.”

A second woman came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, then crossed them over her chest. She’d obviously been eavesdropping. Both women stared at Georgia as if she was an intruder.

“What’s going on? What happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” the second woman said. “They found him in his car two nights ago. With a bullet hole in his head.”

N
ausea climbed up her throat, and Georgia barely made it back to her Toyota. The soup, which had seemed so welcoming moments earlier, was now a bleak reminder of what she’d just heard. She got out of the car, ran to a trash bin, and pitched it. Back in the car she sucked in deep breaths of air.

Georgia didn’t believe in coincidence. Last Monday a man tailed her down Sherman Avenue in Evanston. A dark SUV barreled around the corner and someone inside shot him. The next day she got the note from Savannah, which, according to DNA testing, was legit. After tracking the wrapper to Benny’s a few days later, she interviewed Bruce Kreisman, who led her to what looked like a sex-trafficking den. Little more than twenty-four hours after that, someone in a dark SUV shot out her tire. Now Bruce Kreisman had turned up dead.

Even an idiot could connect the dots. Who did Bruce Kreisman talk to after he took her to the warehouse? What was that person’s connection to her sister? And what was so important that he was killed for it? She supposed his deadbeat pals back in Florida might have tracked him to Chicago, but unless he’d done more than was on his rap sheet, his crimes down there didn’t warrant an execution-style murder. Then again, if the Russian mob was involved, they didn’t need a reason to kill. It was part of their MO.

Someone didn’t want her poking around and was going to lengths to let her know. They could have killed her along with Kreisman. But they didn’t. Why? Why shoot out her tire instead? And where did Chad Coe fit in? Was he the head honcho? Or just a soldier in the chain of command?

She started the engine and punched in the address of the warehouse on her GPS. After a number of twists and turns, she pulled up to the curb. The building was dark, all the doors closed. It looked deserted, with no sign of the homeless squatter. She wondered if the Dumpsters were still full of the detritus from the women, but even if they were, it wouldn’t tell her anything. Except that they’d canceled their garbage service. But she ought to check. She went around to the back and lifted the Dumpster’s lid. The trash was still there: pink bathrobe, food wrappers, empty pregnancy test kit.

The flurries intensified as she drove home, snowflakes whizzing and zooming every which way. Her wipers groaned and scraped across the windshield. She should spring for new blades. It would make things clearer. Not like this case, if you could call it that. Like the snowflakes, all she had were maddening bits and pieces.

She was at a distinct disadvantage. She knew nothing about the other side except that they might have Savannah and they might have killed Bruce Kreisman. They, on the other hand, knew her, where she lived, and who she was talking to.

T
hat evening Georgia cleaned her apartment. When she was younger and living with her father, she’d been in charge of housekeeping. It was a two-story bungalow with curtains that needed washing, rugs that needed vacuuming, and dust bunnies that needed to be swept up.

She’d taken to the job enthusiastically—she wanted the house to be ready when her mother came home. For months the young Georgia assumed her mother would return; she was just taking a break. On vacation. Not gone for good. So every time she vacuumed or dusted or threw in a load of laundry, she tallied her chores on a mental scorecard, thinking that when she got to the magic number, whatever it was, the front door would open, and her mother would be there. She would drop her suitcase and open her arms to Georgia.

It never happened.

Now she had her own place. But her furnishings were Spartan, and there wasn’t much to clean. Was her minimalist lifestyle in some way connected to her unresolved feelings about her mother? Perhaps, in some subconscious way, even though her mother had abandoned her, and even though Georgia understood why, she still expected her to come back. Which was why she kept everything neat and orderly. Just in case.

She finished and stowed the vacuum in the broom closet. Something was nagging at her while she worked and had been since she drove back from downtown. It wasn’t about her mother, and it wasn’t about Kreisman—although she’d decided to take Jimmy’s advice and call O’Malley in the morning to let him know what was going on. Hopefully, he’d snag the police report for her.

Whatever was bothering her was at the outer edges of her awareness, but she couldn’t force it. It would surface when it was ready. So she fixed dinner, wishing now she hadn’t thrown the soup away. She opened a can of tomato soup and made a grilled cheese sandwich. She took the sandwich out of the toaster oven . Jimmy was probably right. She was investing too much in the situation. Better to stop before it got out of control. She wolfed down the sandwich and swallowed her soup.

Maybe it was time for a movie. She took her tablet into the bedroom. She was in the mood for something light and funny. She hadn’t made the bed that morning, and the rumpled sheets still smelled of sex and Jimmy. As she scrolled through the offerings on Netflix, she debated whether to call him. For the second night in a row she didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that someone was probably holding her sister hostage. And that Bruce Kreisman was dead.

Death. The opposite of birth. Kreisman had been alive but now he wasn’t. Babies weren’t alive and then they were. A sudden memory of the display in the museum washed over her. Tiny three-dimensional fetuses at twelve weeks, then twenty, then thirty-five. The real things moved their limbs and kicked. Some even sucked their thumbs in the womb.

She sat up. Savannah was involved in a sex-trafficking operation. But she was pregnant. It didn’t make sense. The first thing traffickers would do, after hooking girls on the narcotic of the month, was put them on the pill. They wouldn’t want the girls to get pregnant.

But Savannah was.

Georgia recalled the empty pregnancy test kit at the warehouse. If Savannah was pregnant, another girl might be too. Which meant that the ringleaders had been sloppy about giving the girls their pills. It didn’t add up. Pregnancies just wouldn’t be on the agenda of a sex-trafficking ring.

Unless they were.