Girl Jacked (7 page)

“Okay. What do we know?” He grabbed the notebook. He wrote the titles “DATE” and “ACTIONS” on one page. He wrote “FACTS” in large letters for a title on the next page then pushed the notebook and pen to Replacement.

“Can we use the computer? Twenty-first century?” She made a face.

“Humor me. I like to be able to carry it around.”

Replacement lifted the laptop and made it float up and down.

“Call me old-fashioned.”

Replacement muttered under her breath, “Yeah, old.”

Jack looked at the laptop. The case looked well worn and he didn’t see any brand name on it. The lid was closed but it looked powered on and it was connected to his computer too.

“Yours?” he pointed.

“She’s my baby.” She patted the case.

“Just use the notebook. Write all the dates from the calendar down and what happened.” He instructed her as he went back to the kitchen to get a drink.

He came back with two glasses of water and set one down in front of her. He noticed that her penmanship was beautiful, and he laughed.

“What?” Replacement looked up.

“Your handwriting is beautiful. I guess Aunt Haddie kept writing as a punishment?”

“It sure sucked.” Replacement said with half a laugh. “I think I would rather have gotten spanked than to have to write.”

Aunt Haddie had some unique punishments that she would use to correct the children in her care. Jack remembered having to transcribe pages and pages of books if he misbehaved. If his handwriting did not meet Aunt Haddie’s strict standards, she would tear it up, and he would have to do it again. His handwriting now was almost perfect.

He looked down at Replacement’s intricate script and laughed out loud. “Boy, you must have been a pretty rotten kid!”

“Thanks. I heard you were an angel, too.” She shot him a frown. “Don’t get me wrong. Aunt Haddie really loves you, but she said if there was ever a kid who liked to do the opposite of what he was told, it was you.”

“She was just trying to make you feel good. I was a choir boy.”

“Michelle backed her up.” Replacement gave him a knowing look.

“Okay. Let’s go over the facts.” Jack continued. “First, Michelle is missing.” Replacement wrote that, but added ‘duh’. Jack let that slide. “Second, the campus police and the roommate said she transferred. Third, the roommate said ‘THEY’ told her Michelle transferred to a different school. Four, Western Tech said she applied and was accepted there according to Neil.”

“Miss Piggy said Michelle took all her stuff,” Replacement growled.

Replacement turned the page, wrote the title ‘EVIDENCE’, and stopped. She did not look up. Her back was still stiff, and Jack knew she was smoldering over the fact that Michelle’s belongings were now missing. He admired the fact that in spite of her feelings she was pressing on.

“She would not leave you and Aunt Haddie,” Jack offered as the first piece of evidence. It wasn’t evidence that would hold up in court, but Jack didn’t care. He knew that fact was as real as a smoking gun. Replacement wrote ‘She would not leave Aunt Haddie.’

“When did she come to visit?” Jack walked over to the window and looked out at the cars below.

“She came by about twice a month.”

Jack stared into the black night.

Why walk away from a full scholarship?

He walked back to the desk and traded places with Replacement in front of the computer.

“Let’s back up a couple of steps.” Behind him, Replacement groaned and huffed as he connected to the police’s computer system. “I’ll run the plate.”

Jack typed with two fingers and had to go back and forth between the photo and the screen three times. Fairfield had entered a BOLO for the car so law enforcement would be on the lookout for it but other than that, nothing.

“She’s never even gotten a parking ticket.” Jack drummed his fingers on the desk. “Let’s see if anything was going on in the area.”

“I’ll drive.” Replacement got right in his face. “You type like an old lady.”

“I know the system. It will be faster if I…”

“No. No.” Replacement shook her head and started to sit in the chair beside him.

“Hey!” Jack moved over and almost fell out of the chair, so he stood up.

“That’s much better! Where do you want to go?”

“Start with recently reported crimes,” Jack said.

With a few clicks, lines of information scrolled up the screen.

“I’ll limit them to the past three months.” Replacement said as she hit a couple of keys and the data scrolled again, but the list was still long.

“You said Michelle stayed around the college. Can you limit it to an area around the campus?”

A couple of clicks and a new list that was much smaller appeared. Jack scanned it. One reported car theft, two break-ins, drugs, and an assault. “Check that.” He pointed to the assault.

Replacement began reading parts of the report. “It happened right before Halloween. A girl was jogging. The suspect grabbed her around the neck and pulled her down, but the woman began screaming and the man ran away. It was an eighteen-year-old woman… She was of African American descent… The man in this and the other incidents was described as a white male.” She turned to look at Jack. “Other incidents?”

“Check the SAR Reports.”

Replacement paused and crinkled her nose as she scanned the monitor. Jack pointed to a section of the screen. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. ‘Suspicious Activity Reports’ appeared at the top of the screen.

“SARs link different events that may or may not be related. See if there is anything that it’s been paired with.”

“Bingo! The reports are connected. Look at this. Serial assaults.” Replacement started to read. “There are two other reports in the group. A man approached one woman while she was getting into her car. She locked the doors and the suspect tried to open them. In the other one, an African American woman was walking home when a white male approached her. The girl ran to a house, and the man fled. The girl was nineteen. What a scumbag!”

She clicked a link and a description appeared. In all three incidents, the description of the suspect was the same; a white male in his late twenties, five foot seven inches and 130 pounds. Two of the reports stated that he had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm. The other just mentioned a tattoo of ‘undetermined’ type on his right arm.

“I just saw that database!” Replacement clicked and tapped and the police tattoo database appeared.

“EAGLE. RIGHT ARM. How can there be no results?” There was more typing and more zero results. She would type different combinations, but the outcome was always the same, nothing.

“This database blows!” She pushed the mouse away.

“Calm down. We’re just trying to look at all the angles now anyway.”

“Well, so far this is our best angle and we got nothing.”

Jack walked back over to the window.

That guy shows an escalating pattern of violence. Three attacks. If Michelle ran into him…

“Did you try entering some other type of bird or another word?”

“I tried everything. That system stinks. If I type in just ‘EAGLE’ it had two matches… two! I know more than two people with an eagle tattoo. Do you know another way to try to look it up?”

Jack stared at his own reflection in the window. “I know… I know a police tattoo expert that can help.” It was a lie wrapped in a truth. “They should be there tomorrow.”

“Who? The people at the lab? On a Saturday?”

He ignored the question. “I can start there. You can stay here tonight.”

He looked down at Replacement. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“But I am going alone.”

The smile vanished.

Jack shut the door of his car and looked across the street. The huge sign on the front of the brick building read; ‘Vitagliano’s’. The little store was nestled between an art gallery and a handmade jewelry store. If it wasn’t for all of the people covered in tattoos, it easily could be mistaken for an upscale coffee shop. Vitagliano’s was a type of island for the misfits of Darrington. There was a long counter with stools and a couple of tables out front. Various people with tattoos and piercings sat at the tall metal tables with the high back stools. They stared at Jack as he strolled through the door. Their heads moved as one as they watched him walk toward the front. They seemed to sense he was a cop and the distrust was palpable.

“Hey, Boss.” A tall guy at the counter called out.

Jack stopped and waited. He looked to the far wall and the thick red velvet curtain that covered the entrance to the back rooms, on each side of the opening stood an Italian statue of a female gladiator.

“Jack?” A woman called his name from behind the curtain and then she yanked it aside. Standing there was a woman in her late-twenties. Leather pants and a black tank top revealed a toned canvas covered in tattoos. Marisa Vitagliano was the owner, artist, and bouncer of Vitagliano’s tattoo parlor. She was tall for a woman at 5’10, and she had broad shoulders. Jack exhaled. She was drop dead gorgeous.

She was dangerous and his being here was more so. She was the type of girl that his mother had given him the heads up about. The kind that he should steer clear of. Jack couldn’t. He was like a little kid with fire. Even though you told him it was dangerous, the blaze was so pretty he had to touch it.

They stood staring at each other. It had been almost five months since he last saw her and he had forced himself to stay away. Marisa had no idea how many times he had driven by her apartment or started to dial the phone and then hung-up. He didn’t want to be here but he had to come. He needed Marisa’s help to look for Michelle.

“Hey, angel.”

She didn’t return his smile, but he noticed that her eyes widened.

“Why are you here?” She didn’t move, and her words were emotionless. He looked again at the statues and realized why she picked them; they could have been her sisters.

“I need a favor.”

“Another one?” She lowered her chin and raised an eyebrow.

She kept score
.

He caught her quick sidelong glance to the audience in the room.

This was her house. I hurt her. Showing up here, unannounced was wrong.

“I need your help… please?” He gave the slightest bow. He learned that in an interrogation class. Humble yourself and don’t puff yourself up. Begging went against his instincts, but it did work. After a moment, she stepped to the side and gestured for him to come behind the curtain.

The backrooms consisted of a red-carpeted hallway that ran straight down to a door with four other rooms along the side. There were no doors on the side rooms, and as Jack walked back, he saw two people getting tattoos.

One was a man in his twenties getting the last visible spot of his skin left covered with a large skull with torches for eyes. In the other, a young teenage girl was getting a tattoo on her back, just above her bum. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but her face was set and she squeezed her boyfriend’s hand as the word ‘TOMMY’S” neared completion.

How long is it going to be before she’s crying at a doctor’s office asking how to have the tattoo removed?

He looked back at Marisa and she was holding the door open at the end of the hallway. Tight leather pants, two inch tall high heels and an even tighter black tank top that seemed vacuum sealed to her busty frame yet Jack was making observations of everything but her.

The look on her face begged the question that seemed to haunt her, ‘why?’ Their eyes met, and she shook her head with a knowing smile.

Jack stopped and stared at her.
What could I say? Sorry?
Marisa was not a vain girl, but she was hyper-observant.
Maybe it was the artist in her.
That was the thing that brought them together. Jack grinned whenever he thought of meeting her.

Just after he had arrived in Darrington, he was at a bar and was on a bit of a bender. She was sitting three seats down, and a steady stream of guys were hitting on her. She had ignored all of them with a cold indifference. But Jack never looked at her because he couldn’t take his eyes off what she was drawing. He had watched mesmerized as she sketched the most detailed picture of a smiling girl running in a field.

He could barely remember stumbling over to her side. He pointed to the picture as he proclaimed to the entire bar, ‘This is art!’, then he staggered for the front door.

She chased after him and caught up to him on the sidewalk. “Why did you say that?” She grabbed him by both shoulders and gave him a quick shake to sober him up. “About my picture, why did you say that?”

“What?” That is when he looked down and noticed her truly for the first time. She was beautiful. Her eyes were a deep brown that matched her long auburn hair. Her dress accentuated her hourglass figure. Jack swallowed and his mouth open slightly then he looked back up at her eyes.

One of her eyebrows raised, but the cutest smile was on her lips as she stated, “You noticed my art before my body.

“Your artwork… You are a true artist! The way you hold that pencil.” He pinched his fingers together miming out her sketching. “It was …” Jack struggled to find the words, but he didn’t have to.

Marisa grabbed him and kissed him deeply. It was the kind of kiss a guy didn’t forget, ever. Just thinking about it still turned him on.

He realized later that by noticing her art instead of her body, he had done something no other man had done for her. The reward he had received that night still brought a smile to his face.

He blinked trying to drive those memories from his head as Marisa waited for him at the end of the hallway. He inhaled before he squared his shoulders and marched through the door into her office.

“What’s the favor now?” Her words were cold, but the question was colder.

She’ll help, but she wants nothing to do with me.
There was no “how have you been?” or “what have you been doing?” question.
She was all business, and it was all my fault.

“I need help with a tattoo.” He pulled the computer-generated sketch from an envelope.

She took it without looking at him.

She had helped him while they were together a couple of times by identifying tattoos: once for a mugging and once for the John Doe.

He remembered the last time he saw Marisa. She had comforted him with a long weekend locked away in a little bed and breakfast. It was just the two of them, and they never came out of the room. He remembered what she said when they were getting ready to go back to town.

“You have to decide what you want.” She was staring out the window.

“Decide? About what?” It was different from what other girls would have said. He was used to the ‘am I the only one?’ or ‘what are your plans for the future?’ but this didn’t feel like it was heading there and Marisa wasn’t a typical girl.

“Me. I can’t be an accessory. I know ME. Tu sei la mia bella.”

He didn’t speak Italian, but he knew the phrase.
You are my beautiful one.
She loved him.

Jack stared at her. He knew he couldn’t give her what she needed. He reached deep down, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t.

She stood at the window with a sheet wrapped around herself. He tried to convince himself to lie. He didn’t want to give her up, but he could not bring himself to betray her honesty. She was special to him. He looked away.

“I will get a ride back to town.” She continued as she held her head up and stared out the window. “We can’t do this anymore.” There was no malice in her voice; it was still rich and kind.

“Marisa …”

“Jack, if we keep going then you will hurt me and… I will kill you.” Her voice was so smooth that he smiled at first, but he knew how true those words were.

Jack shook his head and tried to remember the here and now.

I need her help.

He noticed Marisa wasn’t looking at the picture. Her back had tensed, so he did something that was exceedingly hard for him but came so easily when he was with her. He told the complete truth, laying bare his soul.

“I’m looking for a girl named Michelle. She is my foster sister. She’s missing. I have little to go on.”

He hated this. Marisa was like a siren that pulled sailors to their death. All he could think of right now was how much he wanted to hold her. Jack was opening up, but he was the type of man that couldn’t open up a little. His pride was like a dam, one little crack, and he broke.

“She got what looks like a great deal, full scholarship to WRE. Everything was going great…. But she’s gone…”

He was close to breaking and that meant he was close to screaming and storming out. He didn’t want her to see him like this. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this.

He paused and looked into her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I need you–”

She moved so fast he wasn’t able to finish his sentence. She grabbed him and pulled his body against hers, the picture fell to the table. One of her hands held the back of his head and the other pulled him closer to her. They crashed together like two dancers, a fierce impact filled with delicate grace.

She embraced and kissed him. Her hands moved behind his head.

He hesitated and then gave in. Grabbing her waist, he hoisted her onto the desk.

A deep, lush, moan that would be better explained as a purr escaped her lips. Jack’s hands traveled over her taut muscles. He grabbed the back of her head and kissed the base of her neck.

The girl getting a tattoo down the hall winced as the tattoo artist pressed too hard. He, she, and the boyfriend all looked down the hallway at the sound of objects crashing to the floor as a desktop was swept clean of everything on it.

The lanky tattoo artist hesitantly approached the door but stopped when he heard the distinctive sounds of passion. He knew Marisa, but he didn’t know the guy. Not that it mattered. He knew Marisa and there was no way he was going to knock on that door.

Jack kept his eyes closed. He could smell Marisa’s hair. He could feel her breath on his neck. He lay on top of her on the desk, one hand behind her head and the other on her waist. Jack breathed in her scent and it stoked a growing fire within him. The rhythm of their movements quickly synchronized. Their mutual need was palpable and their entwined bodies began to undulate as one.

“Jack,” she whispered his name and softly kissed his ear.

He opened one eye, and when he looked at her, she was staring at him with her big brown eyes. They were open, inviting, and enflamed with desire. Her eyes softened and he read something else in her expression, vulnerability. She reached out to pull him close.

He leaned in to kiss her, but guilt enveloped him.

I can’t do this. I can’t hurt her again.

He slowly pulled back and slid off the table.

Her eyes traveled the length of his body again, and Jack swallowed hard.

“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.” Jack’s jaw clenched.

The heat in Marisa’s eyes cooled along with her voice. “You don’t want to hurt me… or Gina?”

Jack’s chin lowered to his chest and he sighed.

He shook his head, “No, Gina walked out.” He looked up into her eyes. “She’s not in your league. You’re…
Tu sei la mia bella
.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth danced between a smile and frown. “Then why?”

“Marisa, any guy would kill to be with you but... right now... you don’t need me in your life.”

She slid off the desk and leaned against it.
Her look turned cold. She stood up and walked over to a computer in the corner of the room. “He has an eagle on his right forearm? He got it here about a year ago.”

She pressed a few keys and a page started to print out.

Jack stared at her confused.

“I knew the tat right away.” She straightened her back putting on her best face. “I just wanted to make you beg.”

She flipped the page over, scribbled a quick note, then folded the paper up and placed it in an envelope. Without looking at him, she pushed the envelope to the edge of the desk and looked back to the computer.

“Marisa.” He touched her shoulder, and she let her head rest against his hand. She had a new tattoo on her back, a heart with a golden lock wrapped around it.

“Go.” She didn’t open her eyes, but in the reflection in the computer monitor, he saw the slightest tremble in her lip.

What was I thinking coming here?

Jack grabbed the envelope and walked out the door. He didn’t look back. He wanted to, but it was wrong. It was wrong what he did to her. It was wrong what she did to him. He knew it was wrong because for some reason, it could never be right. They both knew it. He stormed down the now deserted hallway.