Passionate Investigations (9 page)

“That sounds like a sensible time to check out Tanya’s desk.
I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“After what happened this evening I have no intention of
bringing you back there, sunshine. It’s far too dangerous.”

“So far it’s the only path we haven’t followed through,” she
pointed out logically. “And if we do as you say, arrive in the early hours of
the morning, then the chances of us being in danger are minimal.”

Rob hesitated, his expression showing how clearly torn he
was. Zahra stood on her tiptoes and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips.

“Come on,” she cajoled. “We’ll be in and out of there before
anyone can become the wiser. And we might find something really important.”

Rob sighed as he wrapped an arm around her waist. Drawing
her flush against his naked, slick body, he gave in.

“Okay. You’ve convinced me.”

Beaming, Zahra hugged Rob tightly. He nipped at the tender
lobe of her ear. Laughing, she wriggled out of his grasp, evading his warm
hands and hotter mouth. With a teasing smirk she opened the shower door and
stepped out to grab one of the towels. Wrapping it around her body, she shook
her fingers through her curls to get rid of the worst of the water.

She heard Rob turn off the faucets and hurried to dry
herself, she wanted to beat him to the bed. She dropped the towel to the floor
when she had finished and raced back to the bedroom, sliding between the clean
sheets with enthusiasm.

Arranging herself in a provocative pose on her side, her
knees bent, her breasts thrust forward, she watched with hungry eyes as Rob
followed her into the bedroom.

“You realize we need to call Ben?” Rob said as he climbed up
onto the bed next to her. She cast a quick glance at the clock. 11:04 p.m. it
read.

“We’ve got time,” she answered with a wicked grin. Reaching
out, she pulled him over her and, lifting her head, fused their lips together.
Her hands slowly trailed across his wide shoulders, down over his muscled chest
and slowly moved lower to rest over his slender hips. He murmured encouragingly
and she reached around to cup his ass suggestively as she spread her legs in
invitation.

Already slick again, this time they came together with a patience
that could only have come from their earlier satisfaction. Tongues tasted
uncharted skin, their fingers explored small nooks and sensitive places in
delicious discovery. A slow, easy pace began as they learned some of each other’s
secrets, where she liked to be bitten and where he would moan at her lightest
stroke.

They dawdled with one another, teasing and lazily building
the flickering flames until once again they burned with the roaring fire of
need that couldn’t be denied. Zahra loved this aspect of their lovemaking—they
were leaning the secret language of lovers only they could speech to each
other.

When they strained against each other, each pleading in
their own way, only then did their pace increase. Slow meanderings became
restless caresses. Easy kneading of flesh became harder, more determined
strokes and fondling.

“Please,” she begged Rob, arching into him with a dizzying
need as he sheathed his prick in thin latex. “Fuck me, Rob. I need to feel your
cock buried in my pussy, I want to have you deeply inside me right now.”

He grunted, well beyond speech.

With one strong, forceful thrust, he buried himself with
ease. Their extended foreplay had her dripping with need, slickly embracing him
intimately. He rode her hard and in seconds they were both screaming their
release. Once again their magic rose between them, sparking with dangerous
power as he emptied himself into her body.

Collapsing on the bed once again, they panted heavily.

“Circe, sunshine. You’re going to kill me with this,” Rob
gasped as he tried to regain his breath. Her face flushed darkly, Zahra couldn’t
even get enough air to reply. She grinned, pleased with herself and their
deepening connection. In her heart she knew they were now well past a casual
fling or brief affair.

Turning onto her side, she buried her head in the crook of
Rob’s shoulder, loving the silky curtain of his hair as it fell to partially
cover her face. He twined a finger in one of her curls and they lay there
silently together. Zahra closed her eyes, basking in the tenderness of the
moment.

The feeling of Rob moving away from her snapped her awake.
She sat bolt upright, her eyes flying open as she looked around the small room
in a jerky fashion. Startled from a deep sleep she hadn’t even known she’d
entered, it took a second for Zahra to get her bearings.

Rob laid a hand gently on her shoulder, soothing her without
a word.

“It’s just after two a.m.,” he said. “I need to call Ben or
we won’t make it to the offices before the early birds start arriving.”

“Right,” she rubbed her eyes. “I’ll clean up and get
dressed.”

Wincing a little, she climbed from the bed, realizing some
of her infrequently used muscles had been given quite the sensual workout.
Gathering her discarded clothes, she headed to the bathroom for a quick wash in
the sink. Not trusting herself to share a shower again with Rob—they’d never
leave the room otherwise—she hastily made herself presentable once again.

Her reflection in the vanity had her wrinkling her nose.
Wild curls stood out in many different directions, her locks even more unruly
than usual.

“Ben, yeah buddy, sorry for the late hour,” she heard Rob
speaking in the next room. Stepping into her panties and jeans, she listened to
his side of the conversation.

“I was…distracted. I said I’m sorry. Look, can you meet us a
few blocks from the office? I need you to watch our backs as we make a second
attempt at Tanya’s desk.”

There was a silence as Rob listened. Zahra finished dressing
quickly.

“Yes, I know it’s insane to bring her, but she might catch
something we’d miss. Besides, I would be just as unfocused with her hiding
somewhere else. I might work better with her there, where I can know she’s not
in any danger. Exactly.”

Rob chuckled at something Ben said.

“Thirty minutes? Sounds perfect. See you then.”

Zahra pulled on her boots and ran her fingers through her
hair. She returned to the bedroom to find Rob already half-dressed again.
Watching him pull his shirt back on, then his jacket, she thought what a shame
it was he needed clothes at all.

“I heard it go okay with Ben,” she said. Rob made a wry face
as he bent to pull his shoes on.

“The wizard thinks I’ve gone soft in the head, bringing you
along. He said I’m obviously disgustingly in love, wrapped around your finger.”

Zahra stared at him thoughtfully, floored for a moment how
to respond to that. Finally she decided to go with brutal honesty.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with you, so that
sounds only fair to have you reciprocate it back to me.”

Rob brushed his hair back from his face, staring at her
intently. He stood up, one shoe on, one shoe off, and crossed over to her. His
gaze didn’t leave hers. His green stare was penetrating, as if he could read
her mind or force her with his will alone to reveal the truth of her statement.

She held his gaze, not ashamed in the least to bare her
emotions to him.

“You love me?” he repeated. She nodded as she sucked her
bottom lip into her mouth, nervous now at the ferocity of his gaze. Zahra had
the idle thought his eyes were like twin lasers, searching her soul.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he wrapped his
arms around her and held her tight.

“I love you too, sunshine,” he whispered in her ear as he
pressed a hot kiss to the column of her neck. She returned his embrace with
every ounce of strength she had.

They clung to each other for a moment before breaking apart
in a comfortable, knowing silence. She grinned, knowing neither of them needed
to say another word. The moment was perfect exactly as it was.

Rob turned on the lamp which sat on the bedside table then
turned off all the other lights. Checking the deadbolt would automatically lock
when they closed the door behind them, he pocketed the keys and pulled the door
closed behind them.

Zahra climbed up behind him on the bike, shivering with
pleasure as the vibration of the engine ran through her once again. This time,
she hoped they would find the answers they sought in her sister’s office.

For the second time that day Ben stood on the
sidewalk—though this time outside a dark, closed café—waiting for them to
arrive. Zahra recognized the large, dark-skinned man this time and waved her hand
at him in greeting as Rob pulled the bike up. Ben nodded his head, not
bothering to try to speak over the roar of the engine.

Rob switched the bike off and Zahra pulled her helmet off,
practically a pro at bike riding now.

“Hi there,” she greeted Ben with a warm smile. He grinned in
return but shook his head at Rob.

“Man, you’re a goner,” he teased. Rob shrugged his shoulder,
clearly unconcerned. She watched as he stowed first his helmet and then hers,
locking them away safely. Rob secured the bike and they turned together to head
down the block toward the building.

“So do we have a plan?” Ben asked, seeming more curious than
concerned. Zahra noticed his eyes scanned their surroundings constantly,
checking and rechecking they would not be ambushed again. There was room for
the three of them to walk abreast of each other down the wide street, but Ben
remained constantly a half step behind them, guarding the rear as Rob had
requested.

“Adro Jance has always been the night-shift security guard,”
Rob explained. “He volunteers for it not just for the extra pay, but because he
has a fondness for passing his evenings watching prime porn flicks on his
laptop while he supposedly scans the security monitors. More often than not
after the first hour or so he’s hornier than a goat and spends as much time in
the bathroom as he does in front of the screens.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal. Why hasn’t he been busted?” Ben
replied.

“Luck, I assume,” Rob said. “There are a few early starters.
They often come in any time from five to half past each morning. So as long as
we can be out long before then it should be a cakewalk.”

Nerves began to flutter in Zahra’s belly as they came closer
to the building. She started looking around, half expecting another sedan to
come up, or for flames to explode around them. She could tell from the
stiffening of Ben’s posture next to her that he, too, had grown tense,
expecting another ambush.

They fell into a watchful silence as they came up to the
building. Ben dug a hand into the pocket of his black slacks and withdrew a
small security keycard. He held it out to Rob without glancing at him, Ben’s
gaze still constantly scanning their surroundings. Zahra watched as Rob swiped
the card. The small light on the panel remained red.

“Fuck,” Rob cursed vehemently. Tension knotted in Zahra’s
stomach. Rob rubbed the metallic strip of the card against his shirt, giving it
a tiny static charge. He reswiped it. After a slight pause the light flashed
from red to green. The door clicked.

Rob reached out and pressed the handle down, opening the
door. Zahra released a sigh of relief. The high level of stress and panic told
her more than any amount of lecturing she was not cut out for this kind of work
on a permanent basis. She’d gratefully stick to plants and gardens once this
was all resolved and over.

Rob held the door open for her and she slipped inside. Rob
followed with Ben bringing up the rear. Knowing where they were headed, she led
the way to the bank of elevators. The call button immediately opened one of the
lifts, it being already on the ground floor.

Once again Rob swiped the card and Zahra pressed the button
for the ninth floor. They waited in silence as the lift rose.

“What happens if Jance notices us and sets off the alarm?”
Zahra murmured softly, unsure whether they could be overheard somehow. Rob and
Ben exchanged a telling glance before Rob answered.

“It depends on what we’ve done and how deep the trouble is.”

“Nice,” she replied with genuine amusement. The lift dinged
as it reached their floor and the doors opened. Now Zahra took the lead,
winding them all through a small maze of cubicles until they reached Tanya’s
desk. A few photos and personal effects still resided on the large wooden
surface, but all else was perfectly neat.

To a casual glance everything appeared immaculate. Zahra
kept a pace away, wanting to survey the general area and get a sense for if
anything had been disturbed. Initially she thought the area had to have
remained untouched. But as she scrutinized the details, small things didn’t add
up.

Since their early childhood Tanya had been a neat freak when
it came to her work. Small things that wouldn’t make sense to others but did to
Tanya. Her pens always needed to be to the left of her phone, the blotter
perfectly parallel to the edge of the desk, her mug just above the right hand
corner of her blotter.

Frowning, she nearly shrugged these discrepancies off as
Tanya having changed, but then she recalled the mess of her sister’s apartment.
The problems had started here, at the consultancy. It made sense someone might
have rearranged Tanya’s things.

“There are a few small things that have been moved,” she
said hesitantly. “But it could have been Tanya, or one of the secretaries
straightening things up after her death. It’s impossible to tell really.”

“I doubt anyone knew Tanya as well as you did,” Rob said
tenderly. “If you think some of her items have been moved around I’m willing to
go on faith that’s what has happened.”

Zahra knelt down to check the bottom drawer of the desk.
Unlike Tanya’s home one though this set almost came flush with the carpet,
there not even being a half-inch of space between the bottom drawer and the
floor. Regardless, Zahra removed the bottom shelf and felt at its base and
checked the tiny recess.

Nothing.

Rob quickly searched through the small bookcase on the wall
while Ben circled around to the front of the desk and kept a watch out.
Starting at the top drawer, Zahra searched Tanya’s desk as fast as she could
and still be thorough. Rob removed Tanya’s appointment calendar and flicked
through the last few weeks. Zahra only paid scant attention as he jotted a few
names and numbers down, skipping past most of them.

“I know almost everyone here,” he said with frustration. “Even
after being out for six months I can make an educated guess what most of these
appointments are for. The rest we can follow up later if we need to clutch at
straws.”

Zahra felt somewhat guilty rifling through her sister’s
belongings, but assuaged herself with the knowledge should the positions have
been reversed she’d want Tanya going through her things to catch her murderer.
She ignored the pens and sticky labels, a pile of empty notebooks and a packet
of hard candy and another of breath mints. Growing frustrated as she came to
the bottom drawer, Zahra realized someone almost certainly had stolen her
sister’s journal.

A hard kernel of fierce anger burned in her stomach.

The bottom drawer was mostly a bunch of archived files and
details of various contacts Tanya had made over the years.

“Anything?” Rob asked. She shook her head without glancing
up at him.

“No, I think someone has to have taken her journal.”

“We’ve been here five minutes, people,” Ben reminded them
gently. Zahra continued to flick through the files, checking them each
individually. While she tried to focus on the files, her brain stewed over the
lost journal.

Tanya had always written all her deepest feelings in her
various notebooks. The group of books had contained her dreams, her
aspirations, her guilt and all of her thoughts. Zahra couldn’t believe such a
precious article had been stolen.

Leaving aside the fact it could very likely have contained
information on what Tanya had discovered, the true reason behind her death,
Zahra knew she would have cherished the last insight into her sister’s frame of
mind. Had she been happy? Frustrated? In love?

So mired in her own annoyance, Zahra almost missed the small
box. Not quite the length of her hand, the brightly colored box showed the
picture of a handheld Dictaphone. Zahra stared at it, her brain needing a
moment to let go of the loss of Tanya’s journal and to grasp the meaning of
what she had found near the back of the drawer.

“Honestly, Zahra, how can you keep your to-do list straight
with all those scraps of paper in your coveralls? Why don’t you get a notepad?
Or maybe drag yourself into this century and get a Dictaphone like everyone
else,” Tanya had chided her with more indulgent love than older-sister
bossiness.

Tanya had used the simple, battery-powered device to record
her thoughts when she had been on the go. When walking between meetings,
driving in the early-morning or late-evening peak-hour traffic and writing
notes to herself in her journal had not been an option, Zahra recalled Tanya
had usually kept her Dictaphone on hand to cover the breach.

In truth Zahra didn’t expect to find much of use on the tiny
cassette. Perhaps there’d be only Tanya reminding herself to pick up her
laundry, or a grocery list. Regardless, Zahra pulled the box out, opened it and
withdrew the small instrument. If nothing else it would hold her sister’s
voice, and that made it precious to her. Zahra didn’t care what the tape
contained. She wanted it as a small piece of Tanya she could hold on to.

“Is that Tanya’s?” Rob asked. Recalling she was not alone
Zahra lifted her gaze to see both Ben and Rob stared at the small, black
machine intently.

“Yes, she used it when driving or racing between meetings,
when there wasn’t time for her to write in her journal and she worried she’d
forget something important,” Zahra explained. “I don’t think it will be much
help, but it will have her voice and I thought…well, I want to keep it.”

“It’s as close as we’ve come to anything helpful,” Rob
stated. “I’m pretty much done here.”

Zahra placed the Dictaphone back in its box and searched the
last few files. Satisfied there wasn’t anything else present, she closed the
drawer, picked up the device and nodded at the two wizards.

“Shall we go?” she asked.

“There’s an all-night café two blocks down,” Ben suggested. “We
can get a hit of caffeine and listen to the tape.”

Both Rob and Ben waited to hear her thoughts. Zahra
shrugged.

“It’s probably a grocery list, or an old reminder for
appointments, but I’m happy to play it for us. I’d kill for something to eat,
too.”

“That’s settled then, let’s get moving,” Rob agreed. They
headed back out, toward the lifts.

* * * * *

The three of them exchanged banal pleasantries while they
waited for the bored-looking waitress to bring their orders over. Looking
hardly older than her early twenties, the woman sat at a small table around the
back. If she leaned out the door she could watch the otherwise empty café, but
retained privacy for her study.

When they had entered a bell sounded and the waitress’s dyed
red hair had popped out into the corridor. She held a highlighter in one hand
and had carried an enormously thick textbook with her. She’d taken their orders
and shouted them through to a solitary boy in his late teens who manned the
kitchen.

Music blared from out the back, seeming to emanate from the
kitchen and not the office which had turned into a study hall. The waitress had
sat behind the counter, murmuring artery names and nerve clusters to herself
she studied for her anatomy test.

“Two cheeseburgers and a grilled chicken burger,” she
repeated as she placed the cheeseburgers in front of Rob and Ben, the grilled
chicken in front of Zahra. The waitress placed the slip of paper under the
ketchup with a pile of napkins and hurried back. Picking up her textbook and
highlighter, she returned to the back office, clearly focused on finishing her
work.

As if by silent agreement they all ate and sipped their
drinks—coffee for Zahra and Ben, iced tea for Rob. Only after the edge had been
taken from her hunger did she double-check no one else was in view. Zahra felt
confident the music from the kitchen would drown out Tanya’s words.

“You ready?” she asked as she popped a fry into her mouth.
Both wizards nodded and Zahra pulled the Dictaphone up from her lap. She had
rewound the tape back to the start earlier, now she checked the volume was on a
low setting and clicked the Play button.

“It’s Tuesday, driving home. Don’t forget to check the
weather forecast for the weekend, it might be an idea to get away for a few
days to digest all this,” there was a slight pause where Tanya evidently
clicked the Dictaphone off before it started again with her new thought. “Might
be an idea to call Robert Padden later, see if he can dig further. I can’t help
but have the feeling someone’s watching me. Paranoia is usual when it comes to
situations like this, but another set of eyes can be helpful.”

Rob, Ben and Zahra shifted closer in their seats to lean
over the tiny machine as it played on the table between them. Hearing her
sister’s voice struck Zahra like a hot knife. Blinking hard, she tried to
contain the tears that rose to her eyes. Struggling, she forced herself to
listen to Tanya’s voice as she recorded notes to herself.

As expected, they all appeared to be fairly unimportant.
Just as she thought they’d run out of options, Zahra’s attention snapped back
to her sister’s voice.

“I’m not sure how I can feel so tired and so jazzed
simultaneously.” Zahra’s heart picked up speed. She could hear the exhaustion
in her sister’s tone. “I’m certain this is big, way bigger than I could have
ever imagined a week ago. I don’t even feel safe writing too much in my journal
and all these thoughts cramming my head are screaming to be released. I think I’ve
made the right choice, calling Rob. It will be good to have someone to talk to
about this.”

There was a click in the tape where Tanya had paused,
probably to gather her thoughts. Rob, Ben and Zahra exchanged looks. Zahra
would have bet each of them were silently willing Tanya to say more.