Missed Connections Read online

  Gerald Cain was a fucking scumbag. He was registered in the police database as a repeat offender for all sorts of things, including public intoxication, use of illegal drugs, and domestic abuse, but the most frustrating thing of all was he had never faced any of the repercussions for his actions. Every time, he managed to buy his way out of it. The domestic abuse charges scared me the most. Cain was married to a woman half his age. She was pretty and thin, a dark contrast to his overweight, middle-aged man-ness. The couple had an eight-month-old baby, and it turned my stomach to think that it might not have been a consensual conception. The woman, Alyssa, attended every social event on Cain’s arm. She didn’t smile in any of the photographs. She wore modest, long-sleeved gowns, even to the outdoor events in the middle of the summer. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that meant; she was using her attire to hide the evidence of the violence in their relationship. If she dared wear a halter top, I would’ve bet my new detective’s salary that she was covered in bruises. I visited her first, not only to get information on her husband’s whereabouts, but to make sure she was okay as well.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cain,” I said when she welcomed me into hers and Gerald’s apartment. At this point in my investigation, I’d come to expect the lavish interiors of Juno’s finest dwellings. The Cains’ place was no different. The polished tile floors were so clean I could have eaten a pizza off of them.

  “Call me Alyssa, please,” she said. She didn’t offer to shake my hand. Up close, she looked younger than she did in the photographs. She was twenty-five, but her closed expression, slumped shoulders, and crossed arms gave her the air of an insecure teenager. She wore an off-white, long-sleeved cotton shirt and matching pajama bottoms. Her breakfast, a single grapefruit and a cup of coffee, lay abandoned on a table on the balcony. The baby was confined to a play pen in the living room. He scootered around the perimeter like it was a jail cell.

  “He’s cute,” I said. It was a lie. The kid, like most infants, was nowhere near the age when babies were actually considered adorable. To make things worse, he had the face of a bulldog, similar to Cain’s countenance.

  “Yeah, he just figured out how to crawl,” Alyssa replied, closing the door behind me and gesturing for me to come in. “If I don’t keep him in there, he disappears.”

  “Like your husband?”

  Alyssa poured a fresh cup of coffee, ignoring the unfinished beverage on the balcony. “I figured that was why you asked to come over. I don’t know what to tell you, Detective. Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. People are saying you kicked Mr. Cain out of your apartment upon finding out about his, er, extracurricular activities.”

  “Wow, you really like to jump right into things, don’t you?”

  “There’s no point in beating around the bush,” I said. “I have a job to do.”

  She stirred soy milk into her coffee and sat on a kitchen stool. “What does my husband have to do with your job?”

  I leaned against the counter, far enough away to give her enough space but close enough to imply I didn’t intend on leaving without information. “I have reason to believe that Mr. Cain is in danger.”

  “In danger of what?”

  “Of losing his life.”

  “Because someone is murdering the wealthy businessmen of Simone City,” she said. “Logically, that makes sense.”

  “You don’t seem bothered by this or your husband’s disappearance. Doesn’t it frighten you that he might already be dead?”

  “He’s not,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “How do you know?”

  She set down her cup too hard. The glass banged against the countertop, startling the baby, who began to cry. “Listen, Detective. If I kicked my husband out of the apartment every time he was unfaithful to me, he would have disappeared a long time ago. As it is, I don’t have that happy power. More often than not, he likes to rub his infidelity in my face.” She caught sight of my expression. “You’re a smart woman. I assume you think you already know what’s happening here.”

  The baby wailed loudly, railing against my eardrums. “Alyssa, I want to help you—”

  “You want to locate my husband,” she said. “That’s not exactly helping me, is it?”

  “You do realize how suspicious this conversation sounds, right?” I asked her, raising my voice to be heard above the baby. “All this evidence of domestic abuse, and then your husband mysteriously disappears? You know how that looks?”

  “I wouldn’t be so frank with you if I were the one responsible for my husband’s vanishing act.” She got up and went to the baby. With one soothing touch to his cheek, the infant fell silent. “But the truth is that Simone City’s assassin is the best thing that’s happened to me in a while. When Phillip Beatnik turned up dead, Gerald nearly pissed his pants. I’ve never seen him like that before. My God, it was cathartic. He left that night, and I haven’t seen him since. Can’t say I’m eager to have him back.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?” I asked her. “Why put up with this?”

  She bounced the baby on her hip. “Because you don’t leave a man like Gerald Cain.”

  “I can protect you,” I told her. The conversation was reminiscent of the one with Wallace Bauer the day before. How many people were wrapped up in misery and torment over the Bauer family’s incident? The web of lies extended much further than I anticipated. “If you can tell me where Cain is, I promise to get you out of here. I’ll get you somewhere safe with your baby.”

  Alyssa paced back and forth to soothe the baby. He hiccupped, his cheek smushed against his mother’s shoulder. “If Gerald is alive, he’ll never stop fighting for me.”

  “If Gerald is guilty of the crime that I’m thinking of, you’ll never see him again anyway,” I said. “He’ll go to prison for the rest of his life. But I can’t let the assassin kill him. That’s not how the justice system works. Please, Alyssa. If you know where he is, I need you to tell me. We can make this better together.”

  She pulled the baby away from her chest to look down at his bulldog face. “You swear you’ll get us away from here? I want out of Simone City. I never want to hear Gerald’s name or see his face ever again.”

  I decided not to remind her of the resemblance her child bore to her husband. “I can make it happen. Tell me where to find him.”

  “He has an apartment in Venus,” she said. “Where he goes for his extracurricular activities, as you referred to them. He thinks I don’t know about it. No one else does. My best guess is that he’s there.”

  An hour later, I showed up at Gerald Cain’s other address. The apartment was near the main strip of clubs and venues. Penthouse, which I assumed Cain used to frequent with Beatnik, was within walking distance. It was one of the nicer buildings in the area, reserved for “artists” who never worked for their money and decided that freedom and bohemia was their preferred lifestyle. From a few minutes of observation outside, I figured out the majority of people who lived in the building were trust fund kids in their early twenties who fancied themselves artists when, in reality, they were consumers. Most of them sported tattoos, piercings, dreadlocks, or a combination of the three, smelled of patchouli, and smoked curious substances out of old-fashioned wooden pipes. Each one was a carbon copy of the last. There was no originality in their self-expression. The fact that Cain was hiding out here almost made me laugh out loud. A man in his late fifties with a designer suit, leather loafers, and solid gold cufflinks would be massively out of place here. It was a miracle that Cain had flown under the radar for so long.

  When I reached the door to his apartment, he didn’t answer after the first knock. Or the second. Or the third insistent one. “Gerald Cain,” I called. “This is Detective Sheila Arden with the SCPD. I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

  The door flew open, someone yanked me inside, and the door slammed shut again. The action was so rapid and charged that I drew my gun from its holster and aimed it at the man who’d pulled me in.
r />   “Whoa, whoa!” He held both hands up. “What the fuck, Detective? You asked to come in!”

  I steadied my racing breath. “Mr. Cain?”

  “Obviously,” he said. “Thanks for shouting my name in the hallway by the way. Now the whole block will know I’m here.”

  The man standing across from me did not look like the Gerald Cain I’d seen in photographs. His thin gray hair was tousled, revealing a shiny, sweaty forehead. An unkempt beard hid his usually clean-shaven face. There were bags under both of his eyes. He wore a bathrobe, the tan color of which made it look like it had never been laundered. The smell of cheap booze lingered in the air. A half-empty bottle of bourbon sat on the kitchen table. Gerald Cain was letting the fear of his impending murder tear him apart.

  I put my gun away but swept my jacket away from my belt in case I needed quick access to the weapon again. Cain made me uneasy, and it was no secret he liked taking advantage of younger women. “Don’t ever grab a member of the police like that,” I said. “You might not get so lucky next time.”

  “You call this getting lucky? How did you find me?”

  “I’m a detective,” I said. “I detect.”

  “And how can I help you, Detective?”

  I planted my hands on my hips and fixed him with a blank stare. “Let’s not lie to each other, Gerald. We both know you’re an ass. We also both know you’re not bunking out here because your wife kicked you out. The Simone City killer is after you, and you’re scared shitless.”

  He grabbed the bottle of bourbon and went to take the cap off without realizing it was already open. Bourbon sloshed down the front of his robe. He shook off the droplets and took a swig from the bottle. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” I said. “If you want to stay alive, you’ll listen to me. Hiding out here won’t stop the killer from finding you. They found Phillip Beatnik, remember? In fact, I have reason to believe that the killer is honing in on you.”

  “Reason? What reason?”

  “It’s classified,” I retorted. “I need your cooperation, Gerald. My main goal is to catch whoever’s responsible for the past four murders. Your main goal is to not become the fifth. How lucky for us both that our goals are so intertwined.”

  Cain chugged from the bottle, swallowed, and wiped his mouth. “What the hell am I supposed to do? What do you want from me?”

  I smirked. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching Cain completely wig out. The guy deserved the stress. “Well, Gerald. I want to use you as bait.”

  Chapter Nineteen - Vee

  For a man who desperately wanted not to be found, Gerald Cain was easy to track down. First of all, he hadn’t bothered to ditch his regular phone and get a burner one. That alone gave me all I needed to find him. I found the address of his apartment in Venus by breaking into his personal records and taking a look around. The apartment was in his name, a bold move for someone who used the place as a personal brothel. He relied too much on his own discretion, or his money, to keep the apartment a secret. The funniest part was that he thought the Simone City killer wouldn’t be able to track him down out there. I guessed it followed a logical train of thought. So far, I’d killed all four men out in the open. Cain was the first one to attempt going into hiding. The location did shift my plan of attack though. In Juno, the buildings were too high to consider any entrance above the ground floor. In Venus, the rooftops were lower and closer together, which meant I could come at Cain from above. He would never expect it.

  Li Hui caught me climbing out the window of my apartment, fully dressed in what I’d come to think of as my combat gear, each hidden sheath stocked with a blade. She clicked her tongue, and I pulled the mask down to speak to her.

  “That’s a lot of bok choy,” I said.

  She brandished the vegetables. “Making stir fry. Where are you going?”

  “Venus.”

  “Who?”

  “Gerald Cain.”

  Li Hui set the bok choy down and coaxed me in from the window. “Cricket, I don’t think you should do this anymore.”

  “Li Hui, you told me—”

  “I know what I told you,” she said. “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. This is not going to end well for you. You’re going to get caught, and you are going to bear these deaths on your soul for the rest of your life.”

  “So be it.” I headed for the window again.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Li Hui warned.

  “You know, I don’t think I will.”

  A few blocks away from Cain’s address, I scurried up a fire exit and clambered onto the roof to take a look at the scene from above. It was late. The club-goers were out in full swing. The night was similar to the one where I’d taken down Phillip Beatnik. Wealthy men snuck into Penthouse. Scantily clad women waited on the street corners for propositions. Music blasted from the windows of the surroundings clubs. The air was thick. It was a foggy night, and the club-goers contributed to the poor visibility by puffing away on cigarettes and vape pens. The neon lights made it look like colorful clouds hovered above the pavement, but the vibrant hues faded beyond the main strip of clubs. Cain lived a block away from Penthouse. I kept low as I scurried across the rooftops, lest someone happen to look skyward and see the figure of the Simone City killer silhouetted against the moonlight.

  I’d religiously studied the street maps of the area to plan out my route. I watched Cain’s apartment from an adjacent roof. Most of the building was dark—the other residents were out partying for the evening—but there was a single lit window on the fourth floor. Before long, Cain crossed through the beam of light. I recognized his outline from my research, but an earlier memory surfaced too. His build triggered a deeper reaction. I shifted in my crouch, uncomfortable. What was it about about Cain, beside the obvious, that made me so uneasy?

  His window was open. Stupid. He figured just because he was on a higher level, no one would be able to break in, but there was a rain gutter that ran along the side of the building two feet from his window. I sprinted toward the gap between this building and the next and leapt. It was the biggest jump I’d done so far. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought I might not reach the other side. Instead of rolling safely to the rooftop, I slammed into the edge of it. It knocked the wind out of me, and I nearly slid off. I caught the lip of the roof with one hand, dangling off the building like a monkey. I swung myself forward and let go. The momentum gave me the push I needed to grab hold of the rain gutter. I shimmied down it, approached Cain’s window, and peered inside. Cain had his back to me. He appeared to be speaking to himself as he waved around a bottle of bourbon. I swung myself inside and landed like a cat on Cain’s carpet, the karambit at the ready.

  We weren’t alone. A shot went off with a loud bang, and a bullet knocked the karambit out of my hand without so much as nicking my skin. I drew another knife and spun around to face my attacker. It was Detective Sheila Arden, wearing a protective vest over her crisp, blue button-up shirt. Gerald Cain cowered behind her, shielding his face with the bourbon.

  “It’s over,” Arden said. “Put down your weapon and raise your hands in the air. We have this building surrounded. If you try to escape, I’ll radio down and let my unit know to apprehend you. You won’t make it out.”

  She held the gun with both hands, steady and sure. The radio in question was clipped to her belt. I stood completely still. I already had plenty of proof that she was a good shot, but that wasn’t the only thing keeping me in place. At this distance, I couldn’t deny the weird familiarity of Sheila Arden’s face. I knew her somehow. From years before. As if we’d gone to elementary school together but forgotten about it.

  “Drop the knife,” she ordered. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

  “Why not?” Cain hissed from behind her.

  “Shut up,” Arden said to him. Her eyes flickered away from me for a tenth of a second. It was all the time I needed.
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  I dove across the floor and rolled. Arden fired twice and missed before I slammed into her. She was small but sturdy. It was like running into a brick wall, but I had more weight to throw around than she did. I wrapped my arms around her waist and tackled her to the ground. Cain dodged out from behind us, putting as much space between our scuffle and himself as possible. I slashed at Arden’s hand, the one holding the gun, without dedication. The knife grazed her skin and she smacked it away. We rolled over. Once. Twice. Knocking into Cain’s table and chairs. All the while, Cain screamed and swore like a madman. Arden pinned me to the floor. The carpet smelled like mold and liquor. Her dark hair fell out of its ponytail and into her face. As she swept it out of her eyes, I yanked the radio from her belt and tossed it as hard as I could across the room.

  Arden flipped her hair out of her face like she was in the middle of a shampoo commercial and, in the same move, landed a sharp blow to my mouth. My lip split open, and I tasted blood. Arden raised her gun, this time aiming right between my eyes. I got my hands free and pushed the barrel up and away from my face, then lifted my hips to dislodge Arden from where she straddled my waist. She bucked upward, splaying her hands out to catch herself as I forced her over my head. She dropped the gun. I ducked under her, swiveled around, and knocked the butt of my knife against her skull. She dropped, unconscious.

  The room was quiet. Cain was gone. I looked at Arden, face down on the carpet, hair a mess. I swallowed hard. Never had I meant to do something like this to another woman. I knelt down and gently pushed Arden over so that she rested comfortably on her side. Hopefully, the new bruise on her temple wouldn’t have any lasting repercussions.

  I recovered the karambit and looked around the apartment. It was a simple one bedroom. Either Cain had gone out the window, or he’d found a place to hole up in. My bet was on the latter since he didn’t come off as the type of man ballsy enough to jump out of a fourth-floor window. I crept toward the bedroom, knife in hand. I eased the door open. It was dark inside.