Chapter 15

I was a bit disoriented the next morning as I climbed out of bed. What a difference a few months make. Prior to my finding the girls in Wally World I would have thought it exceptional when I woke up with someone. Now it was strange to wake up without someone snuggled up to me. It was still early and I had to make an appearance at the store today to review the security tapes for the last several days with my assistant, Tom. Over the past months I had taken a lot more time off to help the girls feel welcome and yet my team had still managed to keep shrinkage at the store remarkably low. In fact our inventory loss was among the ten lowest of all the super centers in the country. I had learned that my assistant, Tom, was a much more capable individual than I had given him credit for in the past. I had spent the past week with the district supervisor promoting Tom as an excellent candidate as senior security associate for the new store opening in the northern part of the county. I was all but assured he would have first choice of that position.

I had four other associates working for me and had my eye on Leah Ann as Tom's replacement. Leah Ann had only been with my department for 18 months, but she was bright, ambitious without being unfriendly and always went beyond the requirements of any particular assignment. Security people in this type of position couldn't just be rent-a-cops, although I hated that term. People working in loss prevention situations had to be at least as bright and ingenious as the miscreants constantly trying to find new ways to rip off the business.

Our one super-store does about $110 million in sales per year. That means if the average company pilferage of 1.6% is allowed the store would lose over $1.75 million dollars. That comes directly out of profits. Our store loss rate was only 0.04% for the past year or a reduction in excess of $1.3 million over the average company loss in a comparable store. This was also the reason my bonuses last year, which were calculated as a percentage of these savings, made my total compensation slightly higher than the store manager.

I was up a lot earlier than I needed to be, so I went to the kitchen and started pancakes and bacon for everyone. I knew the girls had been up late and figured I would leave these in the microwave with a note so they didn't have to cook breakfast. After finishing my juice and breakfast I still had time and went into my home office and booted up my computer. As soon as I turned it on I found that I had a hit on Lucy's location, although it was from late last night. Surprisingly she had turned the phone on for a short period not too far from the store in a mixed residential area. The neighborhood was fairly compact and I decided that I might find her by searching the area. I would call Debbie from work and find out what sort of car her mom was driving.

Everything at the store was normal. Tom and Leah Ann were completely on top of things. Hiring, training and cultivating good people beat the hell out of working yourself to death. I had a meeting with the store manager and the district director of security for later in the week but nothing else out of the ordinary. I checked in with Ralph, the store manager just to make sure that there weren't any surprises. In the security business you hate surprises. After a short meeting with Tom I realized I was superfluous and headed home.

When I got in the car I decided to drive by Debbie's house to see if Billy was still around. He hadn't been there when Debbie had left and I didn't know him by sight. As soon as I was in the car I called my house and asked to speak with Debbie. I found out from her that Billy drove an old, beat-up, green pick-up truck. She also informed me that her mom drove a late model powder blue Malibu. Then she told me that her mom should be at work anyway. After asking where she worked, I found out that she was a banker with a small community bank in the area. I asked Debbie for her mom's work number but after ringing the number was told that Lucy had taken a sick day and would be in the following day.

I drove over to Debbie's house but the place looked deserted. I decided not to knock and drove back over to the area in which Lucy's cell phone signal had been detected. I slowly cruised the area looking for a late model blue Malibu. I ended up driving around the area for 20 or 25 minutes and was about to give up and head home when I spotted the car in the visitor spaces of some fairly run down apartments. Since there were 15 to 20 apartments in the area around the parking lot and Lucy could be in any of them I was stuck. It wasn't the type of place that would welcome someone canvassing door to door. Knock on the wrong door in this area and you might get shot. I decided to try to call her again, maybe with luck she would have her cell phone on. I wasn't lucky.

This was the part of security work that I was used to, watching and waiting. I didn't have a comfortable room but I wasn't limited by the scope of any particular video camera either. I was more than a little peeved by a mom who would abandon her children without any way for them to contact her. In my opinion, that was just plain reckless and Lucy hadn't seemed that way when we first met. I wasted part of the morning and most of the afternoon sitting in my car and watching the apartment complex. It seemed that she was spending more time here than at her own home. About the time I had decided to hang it up for the day, an old green pick-up pulled into the lot and parked in the space for one of the apartments. A young guy got out of the pick-up and headed over to the apartment directly across the lot from where I was parked. He used a key and entered the apartment.

Curious as hell, I decided to wait and see what happened. Pretty soon the door of the apartment opened and the young guy and an older guy came out the door, arguing loudly about something. I rolled down my window so I could hear anything they said. I didn't need the window down to hear the younger guy complain, "You gave her too much. I told you one tab. If we're lucky she's only going to be sick as hell."

The older guy stopped to light a cigarette, turned and used his greater weight to pin the young guy back against the side of the truck. Crowding the young guy to keep him in place he angrily said, "Look Billy, one tab didn't work. She still knew what was going on. I didn't want to take any chances screwing this up."

The young guy said, "Chuck isn't going to like it. She wasn't supposed to miss any work. Did you at least get the pictures?"

The older guy looked around quickly and said to Billy, "For crying out loud, keep your voice down. You never know who might be listening. Yeah, I got the pictures. They're on my hard drive on the laptop. You get the pictures of her daughter and her son?"

Billy tried to push the old guy back and said, "Hell no. The daughter took off somewhere. Jimmy doesn't have any idea where she went. Did you check the old lady's cell to find out where she was like I suggested?"

The older guy said, "The phone was off. I turned it on to check the messages last night but there was only one. She said she was going over to a friend's. I thought you said she didn't have any friends."

Right before they got in and started up the truck I heard Billy reply, "She didn't. Her brother said she was a loner. Said she had fucking diarrhea of the mouth about some kids birthday party she got invited to like it was the end of the world or something."

At that point the pick-up door slammed with the older guy in the driver's seat and Billy as the passenger. That slam and the truck starting up put an end to my eavesdropping. I was in a real quandary. What to do now? I could follow the truck or stay here and pay a visit to the apartment. Knowing what Billy had said about Lucy's condition made up my mind for me. I waited for the pick-up to clear the parking lot and got out of the car. I popped the rear hatch and retrieved a small flat pry bar I kept for just such occasions. I knew that if there was no one inside to lock a deadbolt the bar would be enough to give me entry to the apartment.

I walked across the parking lot to the door of the apartment with the blood pounding in my ears. What I was about to do was illegal. I was about to cross the line. Still I knew there was nothing else to do. There was no way I could get Gil out here in time and even if he was out here, it would be as illegal for him to break in as it was for me. Obtaining a warrant would take too long, hell, Lucy could be dying inside. I had seen pictures of people who had overdosed and ended up dead, drowned in their own vomit. Any delay was too long. Having made up my mind I charged ahead. I got to the door and knocked hard. Okay, I didn't think anyone was there but you can't be too careful. There was no answer and so I put my shoulder to the door. Ouch, good way to bruise a shoulder, this door was solid as a slab of granite. The jimmy did the trick and the next thing I knew, I was inside the living room.

The living room looked as if the apartment had just been cleaned. Nothing out of place and the room looked nice. The leather furniture was expensive, not the cheap stuff you would expect to see in this neighborhood. The 80" HDTV was top of the line as well. I quickly called out, "Anybody home," but as I expected there was no answer.

The apartment was single story. I could see the kitchen was also empty. That left one hallway. I started walking cautiously in that direction. There were two bedrooms. The smaller bedroom was to the front. The door was open. There was a laptop and a small digital video camera on the bed along with a shaving kit. I wondered if the laptop held the hard drive he was talking about. The next door was a small bathroom and the door on the end was the master bedroom. It was larger than the other bedroom and had a queen size bed. Stretched out on that bed was Lucy, completely naked. I was sure she had been a very pretty lady even though lying before me she looked like she had been put through the ringer. I went over to her and checked her condition. I remembered my ABCs from my CPR training. Airway - I checked to make sure her she hadn't swallowed her tongue, sweeping my fingers through her mouth to clear her airway. At that moment I noticed what must be dried cum all over her face, even matted into her hair. Her airway was clear.