Tracy Hayes, P.I. to the Rescue (P.I. Tracy Hayes 3) Page 4

  “Yeah, right. That junkie Alysha calls her mom probably won’t even know she’s gone.”

  Since that was true, I didn’t say anything. “Deanna’s family misses her.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Are you from East New York?” The girls shrugged, which I took to mean yes. “Have girls gone missing here?”

  That finally got their attention. “You mean Alysha and Dee haven’t just run away?” one of the older girls asked.

  “I just want to make sure.” I turned to leave. “You take care, now,” I said to them over my shoulder, and saw them exchange worried glances.

  I took a closer look at JT as I walked back to Jackson, and we headed outside together. I drew in clean air, clearing my head after the gasoline smell in the garage.

  “What did JT say to you?” I asked when we were back in the car.

  “Who?”

  “The tall boy with lots of black hair and cool leather jacket. Apparently he’s the one who’s been hanging out with Alysha.”

  “He told me he had no idea who the girls were,” Jackson said, miffed. “Are you sure?”

  “I’d trust the word of a jealous rival in this case.”

  He nodded. “Did they tell anything else useful?”

  “Only that the girls have been hanging out in this garage. And I asked if other girls had gone missing, which seemed to worry them.”

  “I’m sure the Brownsville precinct would’ve known if girls went missing in East New York, but there’s no harm in checking.” He took out his phone from the inside pocket of his blazer, but before he could place the call, the large roll-up door to the garage rose and a bike drove out.

  “I think that was JT,” I said, recognizing the leather jacket, even though a helmet covered his face.

  “You’re right.” He dropped the phone in my lap and started the car. “Let’s see where he’s going in such a hurry.”

  JT drove pretty fast, but the streets were straight and fairly empty in this part of town, so Jackson had no trouble following him even though he occasionally disappeared from our sight. He drove south for a mile or two and then turned west on Flatlands Avenue, a long street that stretched from East New York through Canarsie and Flatlands all the way to Marine Park. He didn’t glance back even once.

  We were still in East New York when he pulled over outside an auto parts shop. “He was after spare parts after all,” I noted, disappointed, when he dismounted his bike and took off his helmet.

  “We’re not giving up this easily,” Jackson said, parking the car down the road. “When a guy dashes off the moment after you’ve interviewed him, he’s got something to hide.”

  Jackson was right. JT didn’t go into the car parts shop but headed down the street away from us in unhurried pace. Jackson got out of the car and I followed his lead. With his longer legs—and more impressive physique—he was at the next street corner before I was past the entrance to the auto parts shop even, and disappeared.

  I hurried to catch up. Around the corner to Georgia Avenue were large redbrick warehouses and garages similar to those we’d just left, but no JT. Jackson was standing outside a sturdy metal door to one of the warehouses, waiting for me.

  “He went in here.”

  “Shall we follow?”

  “I think we’d best.”

  “That wouldn’t be breaking and entering?” I was half teasing him, because he liked to stick to legalities—at least on the surface. I didn’t care as much.

  The door didn’t have a handle, only a keyhole, but it hadn’t closed properly after JT. “Only entering. But we can say we had a probable cause.”

  “Trying to find missing girls?”

  “Yep.”

  The door squeaked loudly when Jackson opened it and we paused, in case someone came to see who was causing it, but no one did. Steep concrete steps led below ground.

  “Down?”

  Jackson pulled out his gun. “Down.”

  I closed the door behind us, trying to do it silently and failing. The steps were lit by a solitary bulb that was on its last breath, shifting from dim to dimmer and back, but we got down without mishap. A long corridor led to the right—or north, away from Flatlands Avenue—at the bottom, and it wasn’t much better lit than the steps had been. Jackson at the lead, we walked the length of it as silently as we could—really silently in Jackson’s case, less so in mine. I’d have to practice that special gait he used.

  I almost fell on my face trying.

  I looked left and right as we went, trying to see doors in the near darkness, but there weren’t any. We reached the end of the corridor, where another set of steep steps led up, this time to the left. We took them, since there was nowhere else to go.

  At the top of the steps was a heavy iron door and it was closed. We tried to listen, but it was too sturdy to let any noise through from the other side.

  “Do you think it leads out onto the next street over?” I asked.

  Jackson shook his head. “No, the corridor didn’t go deep enough. We’re either in the same warehouse still, or in one on Alabama Avenue.”

  “Shall we go through?”

  “Might as well.” He drew in breath, took a better hold of his gun, and pushed the door open.

  A row of cops in tactical gear stood behind it, looking menacing as hell as they turned to point their weapons at us.

  Chapter Seven

  We’d entered into a huge, empty garage, but all I could see were the assault weapons trained at us. My heart in my throat, I lifted my hands up as the cops advanced on us in a steady formation, and so did Jackson.

  “Put down your weapon, slowly, and lay down face first,” the lead cop ordered. I think the command was meant for Jackson, but I thought it was best to obey too. I’d learned from Trevor, who was a cop, that you should obey first and explain later.

  I lay on my stomach on the cold concrete floor and someone cuffed my hands behind my back—not the first time I’d worn cuffs, I’m ashamed to admit—and frisked me quickly. My pepper spray was confiscated again. My face was turned towards Jackson, who was treated the same way, and he gave me a reassuring smile.

  “We’re private detectives,” Jackson said when the cops were done.

  “Are you now?” a different male voice said, not impressed.

  “My ID’s in the breast pocket of my jacket.”

  “Mine’s in my right jacket pocket,” I said, just in case anyone was interested. Since a hand went into my pocket, I guess someone was.

  “Jackson Dean. I’ve heard of you,” the same male voice said. “I didn’t know P.I.s investigated drug cases.”

  My stomach fell with disappointment. The girls were involved in drugs after all. Or at least Alysha’s boyfriend probably was.

  “We’re not,” Jackson said calmly, still lying face first on the floor. “We’re looking for two missing fourteen year old girls.”

  “And you thought they’d be here?”

  “We followed the boyfriend of one of the girls into a warehouse on Georgia Avenue and through an underground corridor here. Did he come out through here?”

  “No one but you has come through that door.”

  Jackson and I looked at each other. “Fuck.”

  “Where the hell did he disappear to?”

  “Explain,” the man speaking somewhere above me ordered.

  “Could we please get up?” Jackson asked, slightly irritated.

  The cop must’ve given a sign, because a moment later my cuffs were removed and I could get up. I dusted my jeans and the front of my jacket, both of which had turned almost white, to my annoyance. My ministrations didn’t make much difference to my appearances. If anything, I made them worse when I spread the fine cement dust with palms that had gone damp for the fright the cops had given us.

  Meanwhile, Jackson gave the cops a briefing on why and how we were there. “The corridor was empty and we were right on his heels, so if he didn’t come here, where did he go?”

  “You’re sure there we
ren’t doors in the corridor?” the same man who had spoken earlier asked. I abandoned my futile attempt at cleaning myself and turned to see who had arrested us. I had to blink. I may have drooled—I’m not sure. I definitely ceased having any brain function.

  He was six-foot-three of gorgeous: chocolate skin poured over lean muscles that stretched the long sleeves of the T-shirt he had under his bulletproof vest, wide shoulders, and really fine long legs. Not to mention an angular, masculine face with dreamy eyes, and close-cropped hair.

  “Tracy! Stop ogling the detective and answer his question.”

  “Huh?” I turned to Jackson, who was shaking his head, amused.

  “What is it with you and handsome men?”

  “Not all handsome men,” I said, but the moment I looked into the detective’s eyes I forgot what I had been saying. “A psychic promised me someone tall, dark, and handsome,” I said with a sigh. The detective blinked, baffled.

  “Doesn’t that usually mean someone more like him for a girl like you?” he sked, pointing at Jackson.

  “Nu-huh. I bet you’re exactly what she had in mind,” I said, appreciative, checking him out again. Slowly. Rhonda would definitely have appreciated him too.

  Everyone started laughing. “Tom’s made another conquest,” someone quipped. I tried to feel embarrassed, but couldn’t. Maybe it would come later.

  The detective smiled too, and offered me his hand. “Detective Tom Lawrence, narcotics, 75th Precinct.”

  I had to strain my brain to remember my name. “Tracy Hayes, apprentice P.I., Jackson Dean Investigations.”

  “Apprentice?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said breathlessly.

  “Tracy’s just started,” Jackson said. Then he touched my arm. “You can let go of the detective’s hand now.”

  “Right.” I dropped it as if it were on fire.

  “So no doors in the corridor?” Detective Lawrence asked—again, apparently—switching topics too fast for my addled brain.

  “No,” Jackson answered—presumably for me.

  I don’t know why some men messed up my mind so badly. Scott—my scumbag of an ex—hadn’t, and I’d been madly in love with him. Although I did quit college to follow him around the country on a shoestring budget, so maybe some addling had taken place. But Jackson didn’t, and I found him very handsome. Though not at first. He had grown on me, so maybe that had something to do with it. But a while back I’d come across a DA who’d rendered me a drooling fool the instant I laid eyes on him. And now this detective.

  “Trapdoor,” I managed to say. “There has to be a trapdoor.”

  Jackson and Detective Lawrence exchanged glances. Then they shrugged. “We’d best go take a look, then,” Lawrence said.

  “You might want some men on Georgia Avenue first,” Jackson told him. “Just in case they can get there without us noticing.”

  Detective Lawrence nodded and pointed at a few of the people with him, dividing them into two groups.

  “Who is it you were after?” he then asked.

  “His name is JT. He’s about seventeen, tall and gangly with a shock of black hair and slightly Asian features. Oh, and a really great leather jacket,” I said, making him smile.

  “You really have an eye for men.”

  I shrugged. “I used to be a waitress.” Rating customers had been one of our favorite pastimes. And waiting for certain regulars to show up for their lattes had sometimes been the only thing that got me through the day. Fortunately for me, only a few of them had addled my brain like the detective, or I couldn’t have handled my job.

  Though come to think of it, I was fired from one restaurant when I dropped a plate on a customer’s lap when he smiled at me.

  Totally not my fault.

  We waited until Lawrence got confirmation from his men that they were at the other door. Then we entered the corridor again. This time the cops were in the lead, and Jackson and I had to keep the rear. Jackson had had to holster his weapon, however, and I wasn’t allowed to hold my pepper spray. They probably feared I’d accidentally release it.

  Not an entirely unfounded assumption, in my current state.

  The cops had heavy duty flashlights, and aided by them we walked through the entire corridor, looking for doors and hatches. There were seven of us and we found nothing. The walls were bare, unpainted concrete, impossible to hide anything in them. We turned back and studied the corridor again, slower this time. We even ran our hands along the walls, but the outcome remained the same.

  We reached the garage—still empty—and headed back one more time. I stomped the floor with every step, in case it would reveal a hollow space below, but there was nothing.

  “This isn’t possible,” Lawrence said, frustrated, when we reached the steps at the other end. “Are you sure the guy came here?”

  “Positive,” Jackson answered. “Moreover, there has to be more to this place than the empty garage. Why else would you be here?”

  Lawrence didn’t look happy. “We’ve waited for a chance to raid this place for months. We’re positive a shipment came into the garage yesterday in a truck, and we’ve kept an eye on the place the whole time.”

  I glanced at the white front of my clothes. “This is cement dust, right? And not, say, cocaine?”

  The detective grinned. “Either way, I wouldn’t put it in my mouth.”

  Great.

  I began to climb the steps back to the street. “I don’t think we can be of more use here,” I said to Jackson, who turned to Lawrence.

  “If you find JT, ask him about the girls.”

  “Where’s this garage he likes to hang out in? We’ll set up shop outside that place too, in case they distribute the drugs from there.”

  Jackson gave him the address and followed me out.

  I took one look at him in proper light and exclaimed in horror. “Look at your clothes!” The front of his once burgundy shirt had turned white, as had his black blazer, the dust so fine it would probably never come off.

  He glanced down. “They’re no worse than yours.”

  “But your beautiful shirt is ruined.” Though I’d be really upset, too, if I wouldn’t be able to clean up my new jacket.

  “It’s just a shirt,” he huffed, heading to the car with long strides, forcing me to hasten to keep up.

  “No it’s not. It was … sexy.”

  He paused and gave me a baffled look. “How can a shirt be sexy?”

  “It just is. And now you’ll return to T-shirts, won’t you?”

  “You haven’t complained about them before.”

  “That was before I knew this shirt existed.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll buy another damn shirt.”

  “Today?”

  “Does it have to be today?”

  “Well, you do have a date tonight.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Shit.” He hurried to his car so fast I had trouble keeping up.

  We were miles away before I realized something I’d noticed but had been too busy arguing with Jackson to register. JT’s bike hadn’t been outside the auto parts shop anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  Traffic was light—relatively speaking—and we reached my parents’ house in Kensington, where I’d asked Jackson to take me, in only forty-five minutes. It was a century-old foursquare, white with a nice front porch and a tiny front yard, and just enough room for a family of six. It was one of the many similar houses on the long street, and like most of them it was already decorated for Halloween. Mom loved Halloween.

  Okay, I loved it too, and always came home for it to see the neighborhood children trick or treating. Only three days to go.

  “Do you have time to come in? In case Mom knows how to get that dust off your blazer. Dad’s bound to have dinner ready. You can stuff up so you won’t be hungry at your dinner date,” I added with a smile.

  “I think I have another one of these at home,” he said, but he got out of the car and followed me into the house, p
ast the pumpkin decorations and lanterns Mom had put on the front steps.

  Mom had just come home from work and was standing in the hallway, hanging up her coat. She was a nurse at a maternity clinic close by, a regular nine to five job. She was still in her uniform—a powder pink one so the babies wouldn’t be scared—her strawberry blond hair in a soft bun. We looked very much alike, apart from the hair and our eyes, as I’d inherited my blues from Dad, and I was an inch or so taller.

  She smiled happily when she saw us, and then gasped. “Tracy, your hair!”

  I’d actually forgotten about it, and I now touched it self-consciously. “I thought I’d try something different?”

  “You succeeded. And what happened to your clothes?”

  “It’s either cement dust or cocaine. Can you help clean Jackson’s jacket? He has a hot date tonight.”

  “He needs to clean more than the jacket,” Mom said dryly, not fazed by my mentioning cocaine. She was a cop’s wife and a cop’s mother—one that still lived at home—so she was used to it. “I could try vacuuming it, but I won’t promise it’ll work.”

  “I’m sure the drycleaners will be able to clean it,” Jackson said, but mother wouldn’t hear of it, so he took it off and gave it to her.

  “Go upstairs to wash up. Tracy will give you one of Trevor’s shirts and then you can have dinner with us. I’ll have this cleaned in no time. And give me yours too,” she said to me, and I peeled my once nice jacket off. She disappeared with them into the basement, where she had the utility room.

  I led Jackson upstairs, oddly self-conscious. It wasn’t like he was the first guy I’d brought upstairs, but the family rules having been pretty strict about it, it hadn’t exactly been a common occurrence either. I didn’t even live here anymore, but the feeling of doing something naughty returned in a rush.

  We washed our hands side by side in the upstairs bathroom, and since the water turned the dust to a gray sludge, I was pretty sure it was cement after all.

  Also, had it been cocaine, the exposure through our hands would’ve got us high by now. Or dead. Probably dead.

  Though come to think of it, Jackson would’ve made us wash our hands already at the garage if it was possible to absorb cocaine through skin.