As Joanie predicted, she wasn't allowed on the team that would sit on the house and wait for the bombers to return to tie up loose ends. She was too close to the victim, they'd said. She wouldn't be able to maintain her professionalism and might put lives at risk, they'd said.
They couldn't stop her from living at the house, though, not if Agnes had given her the keys before she left on her trip. With no one else at the townhouse, she felt a little lonely (Agnes and her kids had grown on her after that trip to Granville Island on Monday, and after the dinner she'd had with them and with Mrs. Mackenzie on Tuesday; they'd become a happy mishmash of a family) so she thought she might as well stay the weekend at Patrick's house, where at least she might have the opportunity to chat with one of the police officers assigned to watch the house, as long as she promised not to confront the criminals herself.
Not that she'd have much chance to sit around the house today. She was on shift with Fatima and wouldn't be back until the evening, and if the perpetrators did come around they'd wait until nightfall anyway.
At the moment, Joanie was wondering what to do about the red dot on her phone screen. The tracking device Sunny had planted on the Challenger was doing a splendid job of pinging the cell towers in its vicinity and letting her know where it was. Her problem was how to reveal to the proper authorities that she knew where it was. It was out of the Township of Langley, so she couldn't go to the location herself and arrest the thieves, if in fact they were still there. For all she knew, it was being rendered down into parts, and the device would soon be discovered during the rendering. That was why it was crucial that she told somebody about this.
She didn't want to have to do it; she felt no sympathy for the man who intended on following her home with his own tracking device, for what purpose she could only guess, and certainly not for his prosthetic phallus of a car. Still, she was police, and the BOLO was still out there, and she felt the duty to at least clear it from the long list of BOLOs with which all active patrols were dealing.
"Maybe we can make an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers," Fatima suggested.
"Oh, yeah," Joanie said without enthusiasm.
"I could do it if you want."
"I don't know if it should be us, though. I know they're supposed to be anonymous but I'm not convinced they wouldn't trace it to our cell phones if they wanted to."
"What if we called from a payphone?"
"Better, but I don't think we should be seen using a payphone while we're in uniform, if we can even find a payphone. Do you know where one is?"
"Not off the top of my head. What if you asked one of your friends from last night to do it?"
Joanie thought about it for a moment. "That's a good idea. Lauren should be home; I don't think she went off to Kelowna with the others."
She dialled Lauren on speakerphone so she could keep the map on her screen.
"Hey, girl!" Lauren answered.
"Hi, Lauren, I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Nah, I'm just at work shuffling paper and envying Rachel for getting to go to that event tonight."
"Oh, if you're at work I shouldn't bother you, then."
"No, no, it's fine. What's up? How did the rest of your night go last night?"
"I went home at the same time you did, but I've been keeping track of the car, and it's been sitting in one particular location for a length of time that concerns me. It might be getting chopped, and I think we need to tell the police, but I don't think I can do it."
"I'll do it if you want."
Joanie blinked in surprise at how quickly Lauren volunteered. "Really, you'd do that?"
"I call Crime Stoppers all the time when I discover information I think the police should have and don't want it coming back to me or the firm. There's a payphone nearby in Chinatown that I use. I could use a walk."
"Okay, great, thanks, Lauren." She read off the nearest intersection where the dot was.
"Got it," she said.
"So, if you're at work, is Joe at home?" Joanie asked.
"Yup. He's giving Logan a driving lesson today. I'll probably be clocking out soon anyway. Oh!" she exclaimed as something occurred to her. "I reviewed the footage I got last night."
"Oh, right! And?"
"There's a new hashtag called #creepsoflangley. Have a look at it when you have the time."
Joanie gasped. "Lauren, what did you do?"
"I'm not admitting to anything."
Joanie smiled in spite of herself. "Now you have me wishing it was the end of my shift."
"It'll be worth the wait."
"Thanks again Lauren. Have a good night."
"You too."
Lauren hung up, and Joanie put her phone away just as dispatch radioed in with a call. Back to work.
When she arrived back at Patrick's (now Agnes') house, it was already dark. She didn't see the patrol car looking after the house; most likely they'd decided against watching it when Agnes wasn't there. She wasn't in the mood for a chat anyway. She was tired after a surprisingly busy spurt after hours of no action. That was why she didn't remember to check #creepsoflangley until she pulled up at the house. She pulled out her phone, made sure her data was on, and entered the hashtag in the search bar of her Internet browser.
There was her guy, who called himself Brandon, and it must have been his real name because it was on his insurance papers. He was in a series of entries from still shots to videos posted on an Instagram and Twitter account, all of which must have been harvested from the footage Lauren took on her dress mounted camera. Not that either account bore Lauren's name or had any link to her at all; she was smarter than that.
The pictures were nice and clear, full-on face shots Lauren must have captured while her guy and his friends were chatting up Lauren, Rachel and Tej. They'd made a good team last night, having her back while she was vulnerable, as was most evident in the video footage of Brandon planting the device in her purse while she'd gone to the bathroom.
It occurred to her that these were the first real girlfriends she ever had. She'd never made them in school and high school; other girls had been intimidated by her height, or cruel to her in ways only girls could be, making her feel like a freak. Lauren had been the closest thing to a girlfriend when they'd attended the Justice Institute together, teaming up with her against the boys' club. Then Joanie had gone to Regina for training in the RCMP, and she'd rarely seen another female, certainly not one she could be friends with. Fatima was a colleague, and maybe after last night she could call her a friend, but Patrick remained a sore point between them, so they might never be close. Lauren, Rachel and Tej had agreed to last night's sting with no questions asked, even though Tej wasn't that close to her, and Rachel had the least incentive to help her because she knew Joanie was still angry at her for Joe. Joanie was grateful to them, because they'd succeeded brilliantly; already the hashtag was getting reposted, with warnings to watch out for Brandon and not accept any drinks from him. Not only that, other posts were getting tagged #creepsoflangley; it appeared other people in Langley were deserving of that moniker.
Joanie smiled and decided to send a text to Lauren. Great job! It's already taking off.
Immediately her phone rang. To her surprise, it was Lauren. She answered, "Hey, how's it going? Are you at home?"
"On my way home; I had to cover for a sick colleague on surveillance, but the target arrived home and turned in for the evening. How about you?"
"Yeah, just got home, I'm at the house in Queensborough."
"Oh! I'm not that far from you, actually, just on the other side of the bridge. Why are you staying there and not the townhouse?"
"It's kind of lonely without Agnes and the kids there."
"Aw, are you getting used to having people around?"
Joanie chose not to answer that. Instead, she said, "I wonder how they're doing in Kelowna."
There was a silence, and at first Joanie thought the line had gone dead. "Lauren?" she asked.
"Huh," Lauren said.
"What?"
"It's funny you should ask, because I just got a text from Rachel."
"Oh, yeah? Having fun drinking wine?"
"Actually, she just told me that the patriarch of the Mercer family is in the same room with them."
"What?!" Joanie squawked.
"This is something we should have made a contingency for," Lauren said, sounding worried. "He's the biggest name in wine in the region. Al's cousin grows grapes for them, he said. There was every possibility the Mercers would get an invite to this event."
"I should call my superiors," Joanie said. "They need to know in case Agnes is there without protection."
"Unless you count Al."
Joanie barked a laugh. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but come on. I'd say Rachel's the better bet. She at least put herself between Logan and a bullet."
"Does that mean you're thawing toward Rachel?"
Joanie cleared her throat. "I wouldn't say that."
"Do you think they'd try something in the middle of an event attended by a whole lot of people?" Lauren asked frantically.
"Honestly, I don't know. It depends on how many people he might have brought with him, and whether he could isolate Agnes from the rest of them."
"I'm sure Al and Rachel will be clinging to her like barnacles, but I better let you go so you can tell your superiors."
"Thanks, Lauren. I'll call you back in a minute."
Lauren hung up. She called Superintendent Baker's cell phone, which he'd given her when the hashtag exploded. "Baker," he answered.
"Sir, it's Sergeant Mara," she said.
"Are you all right?" he asked, and she liked him even better for asking that question first, not what she wanted or why she was calling his personal phone.
"Yes, sir, but I just got a message from a friend that Agnes Marinville is at an event in Kelowna, and the Mercers are at the same event." She didn't need to clarify any of the names, since they'd discussed all of this when she'd asked to be on the team tasked with arresting Patrick's killers. "Could we confirm with the Kelowna detachment that she has protection at the event?"
"Goddammit, I hope so," Baker said. "Let me make some calls. I'll get back to you."
"Thank you, sir."
He hung up without another word. She called Lauren back as she got out of the truck and headed to the house.
Lauren just began speaking. "I texted Rachel back saying you were calling your superiors. Any word?"
"He's calling Kelowna to confirm."
"Thank goodness. I hope they'll be okay."
"Me too," she said as she unlocked the door. Immediately the warning of the alarm system did its countdown beeping.
"What about you? Are you sure you don't want to stay over at our place? Rachel and Al aren't here so you can use the basement suite."
"Ah, it's okay, I'm already here, and there's cameras ev--Erk!" Something hard and metal had pressed into the back of her neck, which made her cut off what she was saying with a startled grunt as two sets of hands simultaneously grabbed her and pushed her through the open door of the house.
"Joanie?" The cell phone was still pressed to her ear, Lauren's concerned voice travelling over the airwaves. She couldn't make any other noise, she was paralyzed with fear. All she could hear was her own shaky breathing, and two other sets of lungs pumping like a bellows. They must have run up to her while she was on the phone, that was why she didn't notice them until they were right behind her. Maybe they'd been waiting in a car for someone to come to the door. Maybe they'd been tracking Agnes' car, seen it parked there and hoped she'd be there. Wasn't that what she'd wanted them to do, try their luck with her? Well, here they were.
The beeping continued.
"Disable it," a man's voice said.
"Joanie?!" Lauren's voice, louder now. "Joanie, are you okay?!"
Her phone was plucked out of her hand, her call ended. Robotically, Joanie entered the code into the alarm system; Agnes had given it to her with the key. It amazed her that she could remember it right now in her heightened sense of panic. In fact, following their instructions to the letter was all she could think to do. Her police training mattered not at all when there was a gun barrel against the back of her neck. Everything now was about surviving from one second to the next, and if that meant appeasing the intruders, she would do it, at least until that gun was pointed away from her.
She heard the front door lock behind her.
"You're the one he was seeing," the other man's voice said.
She didn't respond. She didn't think they wanted a response.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
Again she kept silent, but this time she heard the gun cocking and felt it pressing harder into her neck. "Answer," the first one said.
"I'm staying here this weekend," she said flatly, while her heart beat in her throat. She felt curiously out of body; maybe it was shock, but she found it interesting that she wasn't screaming or crying right now. If she died tonight, she could at least be proud of that.
"This isn't your house," the second one said. He was the talker of the two. She wished she could turn around and look at them, but she had a feeling they'd shoot her if she tried.
"If you've been following Patrick," she said, "you'll know I've stayed over at this house before."
"Patrick isn't here to let you in anymore."
"Agnes gave me the key."
"Where is Agnes?"
She didn't answer.
"We've done some reading up on you," the second one said. "We know you've been shot before. We can shoot you in the shoulder and in the hip, but this time the ones opposite to your previous injuries."
She closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip to keep it from quivering. She took a deep breath in anticipation of the tremendous pain she'd felt with the last wounds.
Suddenly a phone pinged with a text. It wasn't hers.
"What the fuck?" the second one asked.
"Who is it?" the first one asked.
"The boss," the second one said. "He said Agnes is there. With him."
Joanie let her breath out slowly. There was no reason to torture her now, not when they had the information they wanted. But this meant they would probably kill her to tie up loose ends.
Then, to her astonishment, the doorbell rang.
"Who the fuck is that?" the first one asked in a whisper shout.
"Are you expecting someone?" the second said low into her ear. She fought the urge to cringe away from the man's warm, fetid breath.
She shook her head.
The doorbell rang again.
She heard footsteps behind her. She thought one of them, the one not holding the gun, was checking the peep hole. He crept back over to them and said, "It's some dude holding flowers."
"Can I see?" she asked. "I think I might know who it is."
"Be very, very careful," the first one said. "Turn around very slowly and look through the peephole."
She swivelled, inch by inch, and the two assailants stayed behind her the whole time. They really didn't want her to see them. In a way, they were sparing her life by keeping their faces hidden. She wouldn't be able to identify them if they got away right now.
She looked through the peephole. Sure enough, it was Brandon, and he appeared to be talking to someone, though she didn't know who. The man had determination if nothing else. She wondered how he got here, unless he already got his car back.
"Do you know him?" the second one asked.
She nodded. "A guy I met last night."
"Get rid of him," the first said. "We'll be behind the door, and this will be on you." He waggled the gun against her neck. "So don't try anything."
Joanie gulped and unlocked the door, wondering how in the world this could have happened, and how long she would have to live.
Thanks for reading this far! Things have gone from bad to worse for the LSDC. How in the world is Joanie going to get out of this? You'll need to read on to find out. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about vehicle tracking, hashtags or doorbell cameras, leave a comment and let me know; I strive for authenticity.
To see who Brandon's talking to in the doorbell camera, click on "Continue reading."