The Fighter's Block (37 page)

“Can you say ‘paranoid’?” he said to himself. He glanced at his watch first and then went to work. He planned on staying for as long as he needed to, which meant that he would still be in the apartment when or if Andy returned. Some risks needed to be taken, and this time was no exception.

There was no computer in the apartment and
Cole
had to assume the guy had a laptop and kept it with him at all times. He was a veterinarian assistant for Christ’s sake, but Andy had a history with technology that suggested he probably led two different lives.

By eight o’clock
Cole
had gathered a few things that interested him, logged them into his recorder and took pictures. The only thing he needed to do
now
was wait for Andy to—

“Show time,” he whispered to himself as the first lock clicked on the door.
Cole
slipped past the kitchen to a
hall closet
and stood behind the door.
Once
Andy was in the apartment
,
he could only see him when he was near the kitchen. He listened to the sounds—keys into a drawer,
jacket
hung over a chair,
a lamp switched on,
and possibly a briefcase
was
set on the floor. There were no messages to listen to on the answering machine since
the guy
had already
disconnected
it
. It was silent after that—no television, no kitchen sounds, no trip to the bathroom, not even a peep—and
Cole
’s patience wore out after
almost
an hour.

There was only the lamp on by the couch when he peeked out of the
closet
, but he couldn’t see Andy right away. Finally an arm moved and
Cole
spotted what had to be him sitting in a chair in the corner. It was the chair that partially faced the window, but at the same time viewed the rest of the living room easily.
Cole
knew that because he
’d
sat there
earlier
—it was part of his process.
He knew that Andy couldn’t see him midway down the hall, peeking out from
the
tiny
storage room.

Cole
spotted a briefcase by the chair, almost like Andy had to keep it close to him. Seeing that made him realize that there was no way he was going to get a hold of it without Andy knowing.

He sighed to himself and stepped into the hallway. The
light from the lamp barely sho
n
e
on Andy’s arm;
Cole
couldn’t be sure where the guy’s eyes were facing. All he knew was that Andy would make a run for it if he heard a single sound he didn’t like.

Cole
flattened himself against the wall, inching along it, watching Andy without blinking.
If
Andy
made a move
he
would be ready too
, but it turned out he didn’t need to, and he made it to the bathroom door undetected.

Creaky door or no creaky door
, he had to determine. It was open only a few inches, but he wasn’t about to risk it. He continued to watch Andy for another ten minutes until thankfully he reached down to
bring
the briefcase
to
his lap.
Cole
took the opportunity to grab the bathroom door and quickly move it open as the latches clicked open on the briefcase. It was loud enough to cover the groan
of
the door
hinges
.

Cole listened from the darkened bathroom as Andy removed things from the briefcase, and when he clicked it shut, the bathroom door was placed back to where it was. He waited for another hour until Andy’s lapto
p was returned to the briefcase
and a trip to the john was finally due. When the door opened and the light switched on,
Cole
waited three seconds from behind the door and then clocked Andy hard enough it knocked him out cold. He hadn’t even seen his intruder, whom then drugged
him to keep him out of his way
and headed straight for the briefcase.

“Of course,” Cole
muttered, looking over the
case that was number locked and also
secured
with a little padlock. He made a phone call as he journeyed back to the bathroom to search Andy’s pockets for the key. “Yeah,
not sure if I’m
gonna
get into the computer tonight
,” he
said
, finding the key in the pocket of
the guy’s
pants
.
“And t
he guy practically handcuffs himself to
his
briefcase
.
I think your suspicions are right on.
”

“Just do what you can.”

He hung up the phone and went to work. It took almost twenty minutes, but he got the stupid
briefcase
open. He checked on
the
unconscious body in the bathroom once more, knowing he’d be out for at least another h
our, and then he returned to his work
.

At first he we
nt straight to the video files and couldn’t find what he was looking for.
Cole
triple-checked to make sure
, but it was nowhere to be found. He
came across some
other
interesting things
, though, but h
e didn’
t have time to deal with those
, so
after copying them onto his portable drive,
he checked one more thing.

“Shit,” he murmured, realizing that Andy had backed up everything on h
is computer—the last time even being that very afternoon
. He clicked through the laptop to figure out what his backup device was, and then searched the apartment again. He hadn’t come across it the first time, which led him to believe it was kept somewhere else.
Even if the guy had dumped evidence
from his laptop
, he could still have it stored somewhere else.

He was frustrated when he still couldn’t find it a half hour later. Would Andy have hidden it at work somewhere? He supposed that was his next option, and glancing at his watch, realized the timing couldn’t have been better.

H
e cleaned up his
trail
and locked the briefcase up how he found it. The video
camera
that had been used
had been
hidden
in Andy’s bedroom closet. Cole
dumped everything from it before Andy came home. Now he just had to find the backup, just in case
.

Cole
checked on
Andy
in the bathroom one more time. He put the key back in
his
pocket, and moved the body just slightly to
suggest
a story. When Andy woke up
,
he wouldn’t know the truth.

“The
video
still hasn’t
been mentioned
,”
Jack
told Van that evening.

“Maybe t
he police haven’t
seen
it?”

“
Most likely
.
The original has been
removed from Andy Thompson’s apartment,
and we’re looking for any
backup
copies as we speak. B
ut we need to focus on other things right now. Tomorrow is your bail hearing and…”

“And you don’t think I’ll make bail.”

With a sigh Jack said, “It doesn’t look like it at this point.”

“Dani’s gonna flip.”

“I already told her,” Jack admitted. “I’m sorry, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

Van barely nodded. “Yeah
. How’d she take it?”

“She cried.”

Van nodded again, but it made
him
want to cry. After everything they’d been through and the hits just kept on coming. “Are they ever gonna let me see her? What about tomorrow? What’s tomorrow gonna be like?”

“She’ll be in the room, but she won’t be allowed to come close to you. I’m sorry.”

“Why do I already feel like I’ve been convicted? Jesus Jack, it’s been
two
days and I already feel like I’m in prison.”

“It won’t come to that, Van.
If we go to
trial
we’ll
prove your innocence
. You’ll still have to go through this nightmare, but in the end it will just be a tiny blip on the timeline and you can go on with your life. You and Dani really should consider starting over somewhere. I know you’ve considered it because of your dad, but I think you should make it happen. When this is all over, you two deserve to start fresh.”

“All that’s gonna come out in the trial
too, isn’t it? My dad’s release
and why we were looking to move.
My past, his conviction…
”

“
His case has nothing to do with this case, so I won’t allow it. But t
he prosecution will make it look like you were planning to leave
town for other reasons. W
e have the truth on our side
, so I want you to focus on that
.
”

Van sat in silence, unsure of what else to say. He thought he’d be home with Dani by now, not talking about bail hearings and trials.

“Van, let’s talk about the night you first met Dani.”

Van eyed him carefully but replied, “What about it?”

“You said Dani had been struck in the face by Brian. Did you see it happen?”

“No, she just had a mark on her face, and when I asked her what happened,
she
tried to keep it from me. But then
that
big asshole came from the parking lot, and things progressed from there.”

“Did he threaten you in any way?”

Van barely shrugged. “Uh,
nothing more than just telling me to get away from his girlfriend
. But the way he was talking to her…there was no way I was going to let her go home
with him. He put his hands on me
three times before I finally did something about it
, so yeah I guess he was trying to threaten me
.”

“You broke his hand.”

“I politely asked him which hand he wanted me to break.”

“But you broke it.”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t self defense. You planned to break it, even after you had him restrained on the ground?”

Van shrugged again. “If I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have taken me seriously.”

“
How many guys do you know that c
ould do that? Break someone’s hand.”

“Could, or w
ould?”

It was Jack’s turn to shrug. “Both.”

“If a guy was capable of doing what I did and he saw what Brian was doing to Dani, he would have done the same thing.
He wants to hit a girl with that hand
,
you break it
. Simple message.”

“So how many guys do you know that are capable of breaking someone’s hand like that?”

With a shrug Van said, “
Tons
.”

“All fighters?”

“Mostly. A couple that aren’t, but just bad
asses
I grew up with.
”

Jack nodded. “
So I told you what injuries Brian had sustained before he was shot in the head. Would just anybody be able to do that to a guy without some sort of advantage?”

Van studied him for a few seconds. “You mean without incapacitating him some other way first?”

“Yeah,
other than
drugs.”

Van knew that Brian had not been drugged before he got his ass kicked. Whoever did it was more than capable of handling himself against a big guy like Brian.
“All it takes is to hit ‘em in the head just right. You jostle someone’s brain, you pretty much have the upper hand.”

“You have never answered me straight when I’ve asked you the question, Van.”

“Yes I have. I honestly don’t know who would have done this.”

“Your closest friends are Paul and Cody.”

“They wouldn’t do something like this.”