Wherever She Goes (ARC) Read online

  There’s a security guard outside the women’s restroom. He’s stationed there, and he’s watching every woman who walks in.

  I dart back to my last hiding spot and duck in. As I do, I hear footfalls. It’s the employee who passed me earlier. He’s returning with a crate of bottles.

  Once he passes, I retrace his steps to the basement door. It’s unlocked. I open it and use my phone flashlight to guide me down the dark steps. At the bottom, I see closed doors. The ones at the end have key locks. At this end are two doors with regular knobs marked with makeshift stick figures of a man and a woman. I push open the door with the skirted figure and find the women’s staff room.

  I quickly open lockers. Most have jeans or sweats. A couple, though, contain dresses. I check tags. There’s a black one in my size. I quickly change and wad up the blue dress into my purse. Then I take out a hundred bucks and slide it into the employee’s bag.

  Out the staff room. Listen for footsteps. Scamper up the stairs. Down the hall and . . .

  I still need to pass that security guard, who’ll notice I’ve come from the wrong direction.

  I’m tucked into a side hall, considering my options, when I hear him talking. I poke my head out to see a dark-haired girl in a blue dress.

  He’s turned away, talking to her. I slip off my heels again and creep into the restroom behind his back. A moment later, as I’m putting my shoes on, the girl comes in. The guard must have dismissed her, realizing her dress isn’t bright blue and she’s barely drinking age.

  I walk right past him. I make my way through the club. I’m trying not to rush—I don’t want to call attention to myself. I’m weaving toward the exit when I catch a glimpse of what looks like a familiar face. A face that stops me short.

  It’s Laila Jackson.

  No, that isn’t possible. I’m seeing another thirty-year-old, short-haired Black woman and making a horribly stereotyped mistake. Except I’m not. At my apartment, she was dressed in skinny jeans, high-heeled boots, and a cropped leather jacket. This woman is wearing skinny jeans, high-heeled boots, and a cropped leather jacket.

  Laila Jackson followed me to the club.

  What is wrong with this woman? What have I done to piss her off so much that she’s trailing me in her off time?

  No, I shouldn’t think of it that way. Not “What have I done to this woman?” but “What have I done to this police officer?” I haven’t personally pissed her off. This is business.

  Something is up here. There’s no way she’s tracked me to a club to warn me, yet again, to back off.

  I feel the weight of my cell phone in my purse. The cell phone with that recording, proving Kim had a child. Whatever Jackson’s beef, I could end it here by triumphantly presenting her with proof that Aubrey Finch is not a crazed attention-seeker.

  But do I trust her?

  No. Her behavior is suspicious, and I must be extra cautious here. A child’s life is at stake.

  I’m turning toward the exit when Jackson’s head swivels my way. She spots me. I pick up speed, weaving through the few people between me and the exit. I hurry outside, past the bouncers, and the one from earlier thankfully doesn’t notice me in the black dress.

  I move at a fast walk to the alley beside the club. Then I dart in, tug off my heels, and break into a run.

  “Aubrey!” Jackson’s voice shouts behind me.

  I keep going. There are trash bins ahead, and I race around them like an obstacle course. A wooden fence blocks the alley. I grab the top and swing my legs up, ignoring the pain stabbing through my shoulder. I crouch on top to get a quick look at where I’ll be jumping down. Onto trash bins. Great.

  “Aubrey Finch!”

  I grip the edge, ready to leap, hoping I can clear the bins—

  “Aubrey Stapleton!”

  I stop.

  Run, just run.

  That’s what I want to do. What my gut screams for me to do. But my head knows better. My head analyzes the scenario and calculates possible outcomes in an eyeblink.

  The chance that I can swing down, escape, and then pretend it was never me . . . and Jackson will buy it? Next to zero.

  The chance that I’ll only make things worse by running? Next to perfect.

  I turn. Jackson walks toward me. She says nothing until she’s right below. Then she looks up at me, crouched on the fence, and she shakes her head.

  “You really need to work on your suburban-mommy librarian routine, you know that?”

  “It’s not a routine. I am a librarian. I am a mother. I live in the suburbs.”

  Another shake of her head. “Get down. Put your shoes on. We need to talk.”

  “If you’re arresting me—”

  “This isn’t how I arrest people, Aubrey. We’re going for coffee. Now come on.”

  We’re in the coffee shop. Jackson pulls out her chair and sits. “So, Aubrey Stapleton . . .”

  I say nothing. This hammer has been poised over my head for ten years now. The laws of probability say it will fall at some point.

  The statute of limitations has passed on my crimes. That no longer matters. The problem is that I have a daughter, and if I am discovered, I will lose her. That is a fate worse than jail.

  It’s also a fate I’ve earned.

  I can argue the whole “robbed from the rich and gave to the poor” thing, but I’m not Robin Hood. I can say I was only a kid. But I knew what I was doing.

  Now my past has caught me. If I’m calm about it, that isn’t indifference. I’m dying inside, numb and exhausted. Officer Jackson sits there, smiling like the proverbial cat that caught the canary, and I feel no urge to wipe that smirk off her face. This isn’t about her.

  “Aubrey Stapleton,” she repeats. “Mother died in an accident when you were two. Dad when you were eighteen. PTSD.”

  She doesn’t say suicide, and I’ll grant her a point for that. PTSD is what killed my father. A life spent in service without the resources to help him deal with that. Without the resources to let him know it was okay to need to deal with that.

  “You dropped out of college when he died. Dropped out of MIT, where you were in the top ten percent of your computer engineering class.”

  She’s done her homework, and she’s proud of it. Fine. Let her show off and get this over with.

  She continues, “You rattled around for a bit after that with part-time jobs. Then you disappeared. Took off and dropped out. Stopped using your name.”

  “I used Minor. That’s my mother’s maiden name, and it’s my second middle name. As long as I paid my taxes, I wasn’t breaking any laws.”

  “By paying your taxes under a false name? I think the IRS would have something to say about that.”

  Yes, what I did isn’t exactly legal, but I suspect the IRS’s biggest concern is that they got their money, and I was meticulous about that.

  “You married under a false—” she begins.

  “No, I didn’t. On the marriage license, I’m Aubrey Rose Minor. On my birth certificate, I’m Aubrey Rose Minor Stapleton.”

  She gives me a hard look, and my gut flip-flops. I’ve always told myself that what I did wouldn’t negate my marriage. But did I ever investigate that to be one hundred percent sure? No, I didn’t.

  “I’m not asking for alimony or even an equal distribution of marital assets,” I say. “I didn’t deceive my husband.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  I realize then that she’s skipped something. Something vital. The part that I expected to be at the heart of her accusation.

  My criminal past.

  She’s saving it for last. The sucker punch. Go on, Officer Jackson. Just get it over with.

  “I saw you on that fence,” she says. “You’re no suburban-mommy librarian.”

  I tense but force a calm response. “Yes, I am. That’s who I’ve chosen to be, like you’ve chosen to be a police officer. I may have been faking a few things, but not my job, not my daughter. And there’d be a lot of suburbanites
and mothers and librarians who wouldn’t appreciate you suggesting that they can’t climb a fence.”

  “Vault onto a fence. In a dress and heels.”

  “In heels? That’d be crazy. I took those off.”

  She leans over the table. “You can leap that fence because your dad was a career soldier. You planned to join the army. You stay in shape as if you’re still planning to.”

  “I stay in shape because I need to keep up with a three-year-old.”

  I get a small smile for that, and she eases back in her seat.

  “The point is that you’re in excellent shape, with skills that the average suburb—person doesn’t have. Then there’s the tech. You have a gift. One most people would take full advantage of. And you don’t.”

  “That’s my choice.”

  “Is it? I don’t know what happened after your dad died. I can understand you deciding not to go into the army after that. As for the tech stuff, maybe you quit out of misplaced guilt, because you were in college when he died. I’m not going to play amateur shrink here. You have physical and technological skills that you choose not to use, having reinvented yourself for whatever reason, which is none of my business. My business is how you’re using those skills now.”

  My mouth opens. Then it shuts, as I realize what she’s said. That she doesn’t know why I cut ties with my old life. She suspects it’s my father’s suicide, and that’s good enough for her.

  She has no idea what I did after his death.

  And she doesn’t seem to care.

  She continues, “Just because you have some special skills, Aubrey, does not make you a detective.”

  “You’re right, and I have no desire to become one.” I meet her gaze. “I’m stuck doing this because the police are not. And you aren’t a detective either.”

  She flinches at that. I didn’t mean it as an insult, but she clearly takes it as one.

  “I just joined the force three years ago, and I have every intention of becoming a detective.”

  “That wasn’t a challenge,” I say.

  “Then don’t make it sound like one.”

  “Then stop talking to me like I’m the scatterbrained suburbanite you thought I was last week.”

  I wait for the rejoinder. Instead, she pulls back. Considers. Then she nods. “Fair enough. My mistake. My stereotyping. So I apologize. But you are doing a job you are not qualified to do. A job you are not allowed to do.”

  “Yes, actually, I am allowed to do it. As long as I don’t break any laws or misrepresent myself—”

  “The owners of that pizza parlor seem to think you were a police officer.”

  “I said nothing of the sort. If they inferred that?” I shrug. “Clearly a misunderstanding because I never said it.”

  She allows a small smile. Before she can speak, I say, “So you’ve been to that pizza parlor. Did they tell you about Kim?”

  “Kim Mason. Also known as Kim Lyons. That’s our dead woman.”

  I must look surprised, because she says, “I have been listening to you, Aubrey. I’ve been getting those messages, and I’ve been passing them on to the detectives-in-charge, and we’ve been investigating. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Thank you for the information, but stop. Please stop. Let us do our jobs.”

  “I haven’t seen anything in the paper saying she’s been identified.”

  “Because she hasn’t been. We’re still tracking down her real identity.”

  “Kim Mikhailov,” I say. “Born in Cedar Rapids. Ran away at the age of fifteen. Dancing in a strip club by the time she was sixteen. A strip club owned by a guy she ended up dating. Denis Zima. Who also owns—”

  “Zodiac Five. The club you just left.” She shakes her head. “I wondered what you were doing there. Okay, so you suspect Kim Mason is this Kim Mikhailov.”

  “Not suspect. Know. Kim was calling a woman named Ellie Milano weekly. Ellie’s Facebook page mentions a younger sister, Kim. It includes photos of Kim as a teen. She is undeniably your dead woman.”

  “How the hell did you figure out all that?”

  “I’m good with computers.”

  Jackson shakes her head. “Okay, you would make a good detective. But you’re not one. I want to be one, and I’m using your tips, Aubrey, because they’ll help me get my shield. So thank you. However, I truly need you to stop. For your own safety.”

  “Yes.”

  She eyes me. “I mean that. Don’t blow me off—”

  “You’re not the one who’s been blown off. I never wanted to play detective. Trying to get you to listen cost me a weekend with my daughter. All I want—all I ever wanted—was for you to take me seriously.”

  “Well, I am. I appreciate the ID on our dead woman and the link to Denis Zima. With him involved, though, you definitely don’t want to be chasing this lead.”

  “Because his dad is a Russian mobster.”

  She makes a face. “That sounds very Hollywood. Let’s just say his family has been under investigation for years, which is public record. I have no idea how Denis fits in, but I’ll dig for more.”

  “He doesn’t have the boy.”

  She looks up sharply.

  “Brandon,” I say. “That’s Kim’s son. The boy I saw taken.”

  She sighs. Deeply.

  “You still don’t believe I saw a child taken?” I say. “You just said you misjudged me.”

  “You saw a kid get pulled into a car. I do not doubt that. You didn’t intentionally misreport—”

  “I didn’t misreport anything. Kim had a son named Brandon. She was hiding him from Zima, who know realizes he has a son, thanks to me. I have the proof right here.” I pull out my phone. As I flip to the recorder, I say, “I taped one of his men talking about it.”

  I hit Play. The man’s voice is muffled. Too muffled to make out.

  “No, no, no.” I jack up the volume, but it only increases the sound of my breathing. “Damn it, no. I was in a closet. You can enhance the quality, though.”

  “You taped one of Zima’s men from a closet? You were hiding in a closet?”

  “I was checking the office computer when he came upstairs.”

  She gives another of those deep sighs. “Aubrey . . .”

  “Forget the tape for now.” I put my phone down. “You can enhance the recording, and you’ll hear the guy say that Denis is looking for his son. For Kim’s boy. He thinks Brandon is someplace safe—that Kim got him to safety. He’s not safe now, though, because Denis is after him.”

  “This guy randomly started talking about all this while you were in the closet?”

  “Well, no. He was telling the head of security that Denis thought he spotted me at the club.”

  “What?”

  “Denis saw me on TV the other day. That’s how he knew he had a son.”

  Jackson closes her eyes and shakes her head.

  “Yes,” I say. “This is my fault. I accept that. If it wasn’t for me, Denis wouldn’t know about Brandon. He’d be safe with whoever Kim trusted to care for him.”

  “That’s not why I’m shaking my head, Aubrey. First, having Denis Zima looking for you is like painting a target on your back. Do you even realize that?”

  “He thinks he saw me in the club. Even his people believe he was imagining it. The security cameras aren’t functional, and I changed my dress to sneak out. The only reason he’d be concerned about me is if he has proof I came snooping around. Otherwise, I’m just the crazy lady on the television.”

  “Fair enough. But I was also shaking my head because this doesn’t prove there’s a child. Denis believes there’s a child because you said so. That’s all he’s going on.”

  “I found the house where she’d been staying. There was a drink box and a children’s book there. A book with the name Brandon in it.”

  “You broke in—”

  “I went in through an open window. Kim was in a hurry to leave and forgot to close it. That’s still trespassing, but I was desperate. She
’d cleared away every sign of a child being there. I found the drink box and book, though.”

  “That’s . . . No. Just no, Aubrey. That isn’t proof, and you know it, which is why you didn’t report it.”

  “You still don’t believe me?” I straighten. “Fine. It doesn’t matter anymore. Talk to Kim’s sister. She’ll know there was a child. Just ask her.”

  “I will.”

  I don’t know how much I trust Laila Jackson. I’m too eager for an ally, and she was clearly not one a few days ago. Yet I do believe, once she knows Brandon exists, she’ll want to find him. She’s also aiming for detective, and if she can use my information to get there, that’s fine by me. Because she’s right about one thing: I’m not a detective. I don’t want to be. I just want justice for Kim and safety for Brandon. We seem to be on that track now.

  I go home and get some sleep. Laila has promised to call as soon as she’s made contact with Ellie. Yes, I think of her as “Laila” now. “Officer Jackson” seems oddly formal. Thinking of her as more than a cop also, ironically, keeps me from jumping to claim her as an ally. She’s not an unbiased representative of the law. She’s a fully rounded person, with her own agenda and her own ambitions.

  I’m up at eight thirty, expecting Charlotte at nine. At 8:55, a knock sounds at my door. I throw it open to see Paul standing there . . . alone.

  “Charlie’s not with me,” he says.

  “Is everything okay?” My heart pounds. My first thought is that he’s keeping her from me, that he’s here to challenge me on custody. My second is that something’s happened to her, that she fell off the horse or—

  “She’s fine,” he says. “Gayle has her while I speak to you.”

  I step back to let him in. “It’s . . . awfully early for her to be at Gayle’s, Paul. It’s none of my business if you’re spending the night, but if Charlie’s going to be there, too, I think we need to discuss that.”

  “What?” He seems confused. “No. Of course not. I dropped her off. I just . . . I want to talk, and I’d rather not do that with her here.”