Third Eye Watch (A Serena Shaw Mystery) (2 page)

Lonely and I, we just don’t do too well together.

The next big gust of the chilly breeze shook her entire body and made her eyes water. Ok, enough was enough, she thought as she collected the empty plate and bottle and went inside, locking the door behind her.

xxxx
 

Stripping as she walked, she stepped into the shower, letting the hot shower warm her chilled bones. Then, wrapping her long wet hair in a large bath towel, she slipped on her long red sleep shirt and padded into the kitchen for a glass of Riesling.

She took the glass of wine to her bedroom and snuggled inside the covers, turning on the television, and pulling out her Ipad to read. But she was restless tonight, and even the hot and sexy protagonist Will Robie in David Baldacci’s latest crime novel, couldn’t hold her attention.

Chocolate, she believed, was the cure for all ailments. Jumping out of bed, she rummaged in the fridge for the leftover slice of a chocolate cheesecake and brought it to bed, eating it while she watched
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
.
Dropping the empty stainless steel plate on the carpet by her bed, she decided to skip the nightly flossing and brushing routine, swishing water around her mouth from the water bottle on her nightstand, hoping that one missed night wouldn’t result in a cavity.
Her dreams were filled with Will Robie, her co-worker Alyssa announcing a “Who has bigger breasts than me” contest for their holiday party, and dark eyes, staring at her in the darkness.

THE FALL

Serena awoke with a start. Her bedroom was awash in moonlight, so it wasn’t yet morning; but what had woken her? She lay in the dark, listening intently, but all she could hear was the pounding of her heart.

She fluffed her pillow, turned it over, and fell back on it, enjoying its coolness. The image of the two men tried to invade her mind, but she forced them back out and began chanting some prayers that were programmed in her head since childhood, and had been a big part of her upbringing.

“I’m like that, I use God when I need Him,” she thought to herself.

Someone screamed in the distance, and Serena bolted up, the back of her head hitting the headboard.

“Ouch,” she said, rubbing the spot.

Another scream sounded, louder, but it was cut short this time, and Serena sat huddled on her bed with her knees drawn up. “Ok, color me officially petrified,” she whispered to herself in the darkness.

Then she fished her cell phone from under the pillows, flung the covers off, and jumped out of bed, preparing to dial 911.

But her foot landed on the empty stainless steel plate that she had dropped by her bed, and she lost her footing, sliding and landing with a soft thump on the carpet, hitting her head on the corner of the dresser.

Serena lay dazed, as pain reverberated through her.

In the silence, she could hear muffled sounds of things falling and then a thud.

Something weird is going down. Where’s the damn phone?

She looked around for her phone and saw that it had landed under the bed. She groaned in pain; then raised herself so that she could fish it out from under the bed; when she heard the sound of a door opening.

Groaning inaudibly at the pain in her head, she decided to check it out, and padded swiftly to the front door and peered out of the peephole. At first she saw nothing, which perplexed her. Her apartment offered a direct line of sight to the elevators, so she should have been able to see the elevators at least. She pushed her head away from the peephole, wondering if the injury to her head had caused damage to her eyes. Then she looked around the living room, and found that she could see things clearly.

So she peeked again, and this time, she saw two men and a woman standing by the elevators. Their backs were towards her, but she could have sworn the two men were the men she had shared the elevator with earlier that evening and the tall, thin woman standing between them was her unfriendly neighbor, Sofia.

When the elevator arrived, they shuffled in, and when they turned around, Serena gasped softly; Sofia’s face was bloody; as if someone had hit her repeatedly in the face and she looked like she was drugged, her head was flopping side to side.

Serena turned away and dialed 911. It was 3 am.

xxxx

Serena sat on her bed massaging the back of her head; she could feel an egg-sized bump already. She caught a glance of herself in the mirrored doors of her closet and let out a tiny shriek. Her hair was a birds’ nest, and her eyes were red from her interrupted sleep. She was wearing an old, ratty, and quite translucent t-shirt, through which her bra-less-ness was quite obvious.
I might well get arrested for indecent exposure.

She washed her face, splashing cold water repeatedly to lessen the redness of her sleep deprived eyes. Then she snapped a black bra in place, covering it with a black Pistons T-shirt, and pulled a pair of tight blue jeans over her hips. She hurriedly dragged a brush through her hair, wincing at the knots; then tied it up in a loose knot, and clasped it with a clip.

She was buttoning her jeans when she heard a knock on the door. She jumped, even though she had been expecting it.  The knock came again, this time, accompanied by a sharp voice.

“Ms. Shaw, open up. FBI”.

FBI? Who called the FBI?

Serena opened the door cautiously, leaving on the chain.

A woman’s face appeared, and Serena saw that behind her stood two men in uniforms.

Ok. Detroit’s finest have arrived. But who is this woman?

She closed the door and reopened it, this time without the chain. An elevator dinged, and Serena watched as more cops spilled out. A door across the hallway opened, and a young man stepped outside asking, “Serena, what’s going on?”

Isaiah was a twenty-something-year-old first-year medical student at Wayne State. She knew he told everyone that he was a good friend of hers, but they weren’t friends; they just had a few common friends between them.

“Nothing, just….”, Serena was saying when she was rudely interrupted. “Get back inside sir,” a cop told him, and he nodded and shut the door. Serena stared at Isaiah’s closed door.
Good friends, my ass!

“Ms. Shaw?”

Serena brought her attention back to the woman in front of her. “I’m Special Agent Glennon with the FBI, may I come in?”

Serena stepped back to allow her in. The uniforms followed her.

Special Agent Glennon was a striking woman in her early thirties. She had pale blue eyes with long eyelashes and wore light makeup without lipstick. Her auburn hair was framed around her face in a short bob.

“At 3:30 am, she looks like she stepped out of a magazine cover, and I look like, well, like I slipped across a carpet,” Serena thought wryly.

Serena watched as Special Agent Glennon took off her gray winter coat. Beneath it, she wore black dress slacks and a long sleeved shirt over which she wore a black leather shoulder holster. Serena saw the butt of a gun protruding from under her left arm.

“I have so got to lose the extra pounds.” Serena told herself, admiring her fit and toned body.

Special Agent Glennon took a seat on the sofa and patted the space next to her. Serena sat down next to her, while the uniforms remained standing. She pulled out her iPad, which made Serena think of old episodes of Law & Order where detectives used notepads to record information.

“What’s your full name?” Special Agent Glennon’s voice brought Serena back to the present.

“Serena Shaw.”

“You called 911 at approximately 3 am?”

“Yes. But I was expecting the local cops. Why is the FBI here?”

“Tell me what you heard or saw,” she said, ignoring Serena’s question.

“I heard a scream.” Then she recounted everything that had led up to the 911 call.

When she told them about her not-so-graceful slide from the bedroom, Special Agent Glennon’s lips twitched and one of the uniforms turned away, as if suddenly overcome by a coughing fit; but Serena could tell he was trying to hide his laughter. The other uniform didn’t even try; he just looked at Serena and guffawed indelicately. 

Serena glared at them for a second, but couldn’t stay annoyed. She imagined how it would have looked and then wished her apartment had been armed with a 24x7 video cam. She would have achieved overnight YouTube stardom.

She grinned and saw the surprise in Special Agent Glennon’s face.
What, you don’t think I can laugh at myself
?

One of the uniforms walked around as if to verify her story; as if anyone could have dreamed up such a harebrained tale, she thought. Then again, she realized that this was the age of “show & tell” and people were in a competition to act the weirdest, baddest, nudest, etc. so yeah, it made sense for them to check it out.

“Special Agent Glennon, a minute?”

Their heads turned in unison. A tall, bald man stood in the doorway. Like Special Agent Glennon, he wasn’t wearing a uniform either. No one bothered to perform introductions.

“Be right back,” so saying Special Agent Glennon followed the man out. The uniforms stayed with Serena.

xxxx

Almost thirty minutes had passed before Special Agent Glennon made it back.

“Do you need something? For that bump?” She pointed to Serena’s head.

“So can you tell me happened?” Serena asked, ignoring the question.

“Her apartment is all torn up. There appeared to have been a scuffle. Her bedroom is destroyed; all her clothes are on the floor, some of them have been ripped apart. The mirror in the bathroom has a large crack on it.” She looked at Serena and waited, watching her with blank eyes.

All this happened next door while I slept?

“Can you stay with someone for a few days?”

“Why?”

Special Agent Glennon started to answer, but her phone rang. She held up a finger as she answered. “Ok, send him up,” she said into the phone and hung up.

“The sketch artist is here. I know you must be tired, but we need you to describe the two men you saw earlier today, and again tonight”.

“I'm not sure if I should.” Serena felt another bout of fear as she recalled the two men in the elevator. They had seen her and they knew she lived in this building, somewhere. What if she helped the police and they came hunting for her?

“You don’t have to worry. They won’t know you had anything to do with this. Besides, if necessary, we’ll provide you with a security detail.”

“A fat lot that’ll do me,” Serena thought sarcastically. She had seen enough shows and movies to know what happened to people who identified criminals.

The door opened and in walked a teenager. Serena turned a surprised look at Special Agent Glennon, who said, “I know. Andy’s only nineteen. But trust me, he is good”.

“Awww, I didn’t know you felt that way about me.” Andy sounded like an adolescent boy too. His voice had yet to deepen into a man’s voice.

Serena remembered when her brother’s voice had changed almost overnight, and how for a few weeks, whenever her brother had spoken, Serena had looked around the room trying to figure out who was talking.

“And his mother should’ve washed his mouth with soap more often,” Special Agent Glennon said, seeking to look stern but failing, a smile on her lovely face.