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“Yeah, right. Stay behind,” Meisha muttered to herself. She’d jumped onto her bike as soon as he’d left. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know where he was going.
She took a left at the light and peeled down the city strip. While Thursday night wasn’t as busy as Friday was, cars still flooded the streets which were filled with people on their way to parties or just hanging out. There was plenty to do for young people who loved the nightlife. But Meisha had grown out of that a long time ago. She didn’t care which clubs would be popping. The only thing on her mind was maneuvering her Yamaha R4 through the throngs of traffic so she could make it to Hollander Accounting before Lajos.
She didn’t know Lajos, but if he thought poking around Trudy’s office was worth the effort then he might be on to something. If in fact he found a clue that would link the murderers to his company, she’d breathe a sigh of relief. But if he was wrong and she found the Yaruzi gang sign or any other indication that this was their handiwork, she’d do what was necessary to get her family and Trudy away.
At a stoplight, she put her booted feet down on the pavement, waiting for it to turn green. It was hot, too hot for the black riding outfit and the leather boots she wore, but she would rather have been hot and safe. In an accident, where she was sure to slide across the pavement, without the protective covering she wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving with all of her skin intact. She had grown used to skin on her bones and found that she liked it.
The car next to her blared out a popular rap song. She glanced over at the driver, a young African-American man.
He nodded up at her and smiled, flashing a mouthful of gold teeth. “Hey, shorty. You lookin’ good tonight.”
She shook her head and broke eye contact, focusing on the red light. The driver had no way of knowing how she looked. Her outfit was tight, but that was for safety reasons and her hair was in a long braid down her back. She also wore her black Nitro N-PSI Pump helmet and, just like the name implied, it was pitch black and prevented him from getting a peek at her face. The driver only saw a chick on a bike. When the light turned green she peeled off down the road, leaving the car and the driver in the dust.
As she approached the five-story building where Trudy rented an office, she turned into the empty parking lot. Either Lajos hadn’t made it yet or he was doing as she was, parking somewhere else.
She went through the parking lot and around the brick building to the back, where there were a few parking spaces for deliveries. She led her bike to a row of dumpsters and parked behind them, shielding it from view. She didn’t need any officers coming by and getting nosey, wondering what a motorcycle was doing parked near a building that was closed.
After shutting off the engine and getting off her bike, she took off her helmet and set it on the seat. She started to pull off her riding gloves but thought better of it. Since she was going to snoop around a crime scene, it would be best to leave the gloves on. No point in leaving her fingerprints behind.
She trotted over to the back door. She didn’t know how Lajos planned to get inside. Trudy may have even given him a key, but she doubted he would be willing to let her go through the front door with him. He’d already told her—firmly—to stay home.
If she tried to go through the back door she assumed some type of alarm system would go off. She looked at the closest window to her. Security bars. In fact, there were bars on all the first-floor windows.
She took a few steps back and peered up. The building had plenty of groves between the bricks. Easy for scaling.
The second floor wasn’t that far away. If her hunch was right, the first-floor windows would be the only ones protected by an alarm. There wasn’t really a need to put alarms or bars on the second- through fifth-floor windows.
She put her gloved hand on the building and tested out her grip. Nice brick wall, which was always good when one wanted to do some scaling. Wood walls were a pain to climb and aluminum siding was virtually impossible.
Easy-breezy.
She jumped to the first window. She brought her foot up and placed it on the top and, with a small grunt, used her thigh muscles to help push down on her leg while lifting the rest of her body up. She pressed close to the wall and found the grooves between the bricks. Good thing her leather boots weren’t the bulky kind. She’d stayed away from that design on purpose. The movies always showed bikers in big hulking boots. She thought it was because the media always portrayed bikers as bad-asses that went around stomping faces. If someone wanted to do some head stomping, heavy boots would do the trick. But she had never been the head-stomping type. She was the head-kicking type and, for that, she needed light feet.
She stuffed her toes between the bricks and lifted her hands to find another good spot. Once she found one, she hauled herself up, continuing to scale the wall until she reached the second story. She pushed on the glass, trying to open the window. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Still no movement. She peered at the lock.
Damn. Why the hell would anyone lock a second-story window?
Uh, dummy, so people won’t break in through it.
She’d gone too far to turn back now. She could break it or try another window. She glanced over to her right. That window was closed, but it might’ve been locked too. She looked up. The window above was slightly open. She looked to the ground. While the second story hadn’t seemed high, the third story definitely was. If she fell she would be in some serious pain, but unless she wanted to add vandalism to her rap sheet, the third story it was.
It took her all of four minutes to make it up to the third-floor window. She undid the screen and let it drop to the ground. On Monday, it would appear as if a big gust of wind had blown out the already rickety screen. With that out of the way, she hauled herself over the windowsill and landed on a carpeted floor. She stayed where she was, quietly scanning the dark room. Turning on the light wasn’t an option. She didn’t need to catch anyone’s attention on the street.
Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she was able to make out the desk and the rest of the office furniture. She got up, crossed the office and opened the door slowly, not making a sound. When it was wide enough, she peeked out to the hall—empty, which she expected. Good. She stepped outside and softly closed the door behind her. After noting the suite number, so she could get out the same way she’d come in, Meisha trotted to the end of the hall and the stairs. She ran down them and went through the door with the number two on it. She peeked down that hall again. Nothing.
She carefully made her way to Trudy’s business, which had yellow ‘Caution’ tape blocking the entrance. Normally she wouldn’t have dared to cross a police line, but it wasn’t every day that her best friend was being targeted. She pushed through and maneuvered under the tape and into the office.
The first thing to hit her was the smell. Old bologna. Rancid. Stale meat. Whatever clung in the air seemed to make its way to the back of her throat and stick there, tickling. She coughed. With nothing but the street light coming in through the three windows that lined one side of the wall, the office, a space large enough for ten desks, appeared eerie. All seemed in fine, as if the accountants could show up in the morning and start the day, except for one side of the room. Gruesome.
On the normally white-washed walls, dark blotches were splattered in no apparent order. Blood. It appeared as if someone had dumped a bucket of it across one of the desks and the liquid had overflowed and spilled to make puddles on the cheap carpet underneath. She was glad that she couldn’t make out the entire murder scene. Just looking at it made her skin crawl.
The thought of her best friend trapped in her back office, listening to someone getting killed a few feet away, made Meisha shudder. Trudy was so sweet. She’d never even been in a fight before. But while Trudy was innocent in the ways of torture and death, Meisha was the complete opposite.
Her dad had told her stories about how the Yaruzi tortured their victims. Most people would find it odd that a dad would tell his young daughter stories of torture and death, but her father had a reason behind it. He wanted Meisha to understand what would happen to her and her family if the Yaruzi ever got their hands on them again. He’d also taught Meisha how to take care of herself in the event that they ever came after her. She didn’t have any qualms about what she would have to do if she was found.
She would kill them.
Someone grasped her shoulder. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her breath caught in her throat. Meisha brought her elbow across her chest then back, as hard as she could, and slammed it against something solid.
“Holy fuck!” Lajos thundered. The elbow in his chest hurt like hell. He reached for Meisha but she’d already side-stepped out of the way.
She whipped around and jumped into a defensive pose, standing with one foot behind her and holding her tiny fist up, blocking her face.
He should’ve been mad—really mad. Meisha had attacked him in her apartment and, if that hadn’t been enough, tied him up after she’d knocked him out. He wasn’t going to tell anyone about that or about how she’d planned to roll him out into her courtyard for a public humiliation session. Andras would’ve been able to pull those thoughts from him if he’d wanted, but as far as Lajos was concerned he wouldn’t think about that ever again.
Plus, why would he focus on that when all he could think about was how good she looked? ‘Good’, maybe, wasn’t the right word. ‘Fine’. That was the right word.
She had smooth, light-brown skin and black-as-night hair that fell to her breasts. She wore an all-black leather outfit that hugged her petite frame. She was shorter than he usually preferred his women, but she still had curves—the body of a woman. At first glance she appeared to be a light-skinned African-American woman, but by looking at her eyes he could tell that she was mixed with something else, probably Chinese or Japanese and they were trained on him with a deadly glint.
When she saw it was him she relaxed, putting her hands down.
“You attacked me—again,” he said.
She shrugged as if what he’d said hadn’t been that important. “Sorry, you shouldn’t be sneaking up on me.”
“I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you, especially since you weren’t supposed to be here.” His rib cage hurt like hell, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of rubbing the sore area in front of her.
She squinted, glancing up and down. “Hey, your face and fingers. They healed.”
He ran a hand over his face. The broken nose and fingers were minor injuries to his kind and didn’t take any time at all to heal. He hadn’t expected to see her again. If he’d known she was going to come, he would’ve never stopped at that gas station and wiped the blood from his face. He would’ve left it in place for visual effect. “It wasn’t as bad as you thought.”
“Humph. I know my skills.” She eyed him suspiciously. “You had broken bones.”
“Well, obviously you were wrong.” He moved past her so she couldn’t focus on his old injuries anymore. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought I told you to stay home,” he said, changing the subject.
She followed him. “You did.”
“And?” he asked over his shoulder.
“And since you don’t own me, I decided to do whatever I want.”