Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (ebook reader computer .txt) 📕

I GLANCED UP as the door happily chimed that another customer had entered. There had been a steady stream of coffee drinkers all morning, but so far, Denzel hadn’t shown up. Frustrated, I went back to the newspaper, I’d been reading. This was my third day on stake out, and I was on about my fifth cup of coffee of the morning. I was going to have to make a break for the bathroom soon and hope that Denzel didn’t show up while I was occupied.

Things had been quiet since my eventful day on Tuesday. I had headed home from the police station and called Trinity, somehow convincing her to keep an eye out without scaring her to death. After I checked the locks and set the alarm, I’d made myself a cheese omelet and a big pot of coffee and prepared for the long night ahead. Looking out the window, I caught sight of the patrol car as he drove slowly by, ensuring that for that night, at least, the bad people knew this street was being watched.

Frustrated with the loss of a day to work on the case, I had settled in on the sofa to go over plans for the next day. At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up the next morning to the ringing of my cell phone. It was Jonas calling to tell me they had found the car, and it had been wiped clean of prints. Another bad sign. I checked in with Trinity, hit the shower and then headed out for the first day of stake out at my coffee shop. Since the coffee incident, I had avoided going there, but with the lack of any other leads, I had hopes that Denzel would return to the scene of the crime, and I could get some information. It was a long shot, but for now, it was all I had.

It was now Friday, and I had shown up the previous two days, coming early, staying late into the morning, and still no Denzel. I had talked to the manager, who was very concerned when I came in. He still felt bad about what happened and gave me a free latte for all my trouble that I gladly accepted, but that was about all I got from him. No, he hadn’t seen the man back in the shop since it happened. No, he didn’t remember him from before. No, he didn’t see where he had gone, or a car or anything else that might have been helpful. Armed with that knowledge, it seemed doubtful that Denzel would show, but I decided to give it a few days since I didn’t have anything else pending. Plus there was the coffee aspect of it. How often do you get to sit and drink coffee all morning and write it off as a business expense?

My cell rang. It was the private investigator I had hired in Atlanta to check on my missing nonpaying papa. Bingo! My hunch had paid off. I had talked to some of the “guys” dear old Dad used to hang with. Sometimes you got more information from friends than from family. In this case, the ex-wife was angry, and everything she told me was colored with it. I couldn’t blame her, but it’s the little things that often break a case, and when someone is angry, it affects what they say. So I like to talk to other “witnesses”. I call them that because there’s not really a name for them. I need information, so they could be informants, but that has a negative sound to it, so I call them witnesses. They didn’t see a crime, but they did see a life and what they saw is what I needed to know.

My meeting on Tuesday morning was with a drinking buddy of the Dad. Turns out they loved to play darts and drink Guinness. I coupled that with a comment from a previous interview stating that the Dad was a huge Braves fan. I’ve found that white middle/upper-class offenders have a tendency to run to someplace familiar while lower income offenders either stick around the area and lay low or go to ground and vanish into thin air. I put two and two together, hoped they added up to four and risked Trinity’s money on an investigator in Atlanta. I’d e-mailed him a photo to flash around in bars or pubs that had darts and sold Guinness. The guy had had enough time on the lam to find a neighborhood bar if that’s where he was. My gamble paid off. I told the investigator to stay put, and I’d call him later with instructions. I needed to let Trinity know he’d been located and arrange for the paperwork for the police to pick him up. Smiling with satisfaction, I checked my watch and decided enough was enough. I’d hit the bathroom and hit the road.

I had just stood up to stretch my weary coffee laden bones when I saw him. Denzel was here, but not in the coffee shop. He was getting into a car parked in the lot, a little east of the front door. He wasn’t parked where I would park. There were plenty of spaces up near the doors of the stores, but he was parked two to three rows out near a handful of other cars, which more than likely belonged to the employees. From my vantage point, I couldn’t get the make of the car, but it looked like he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, as he seemed to be settling in. I turned away, not wanting him to look up and find me watching him, and started picking up my mess. Okay, let’s think about this. Denzel is here, but not drinking coffee. He hadn’t come in all morning. He’s not shopping, he didn’t have a bag, and he’s not in a store. He’s sitting out there in his car.

I could just go out there and ask him what he was doing, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer. Instead, I headed into the bathroom and placed a call to Jonas. Then I remembered the five coffees and why I was heading into the bathroom in the first place and decided to take care of business while the opportunity was there. Once Jonas got here, who knew when I would get another chance.

As I was washing up, I couldn’t help but wonder if the whole time I had been waiting for Denzel, he’d been watching me? Maybe Denzel, the coffee, and the BMW that was tailing me were connected. But how? I checked my watch again. Five minutes had gone by since I had called Jonas. My guess was, in about another 5-10 minutes we’d have a good chance of getting some answers.

I headed out of the bathroom, stopped at the counter and ordered another coffee. Settling back into my seat, I arranged my newspaper, took a big sip of latte and waited for the show to begin.

I didn’t have to wait for long. I glanced up to see Jonas turn into the parking lot and glide slowly into a space a few cars down from the shop. I could easily see him through the front window as he did a quick check in the rearview mirror and then gave me a nod from his seat behind the wheel. He’d seen him.

Watching him unbuckle his seatbelt, I suddenly had chills run down my spine. Something was going on. I quickly looked around the shop to see if anyone was moving in a threatening manner, someone who might be hooked up with Denzel. Nothing was out of place, no one stood out. As I watched Jonas reach for his door, though, my heart started to pound, and I felt the adrenaline begin to surge through me. Something was wrong. Something was WAY wrong. I leaped to my feet, ran toward the door and watched in horror as Denzel’s car door opened and I saw the gun.

“Get down!” I shouted the warning, not knowing if Jonas could hear me through the glass, but it didn’t matter. He could see me and my panic, and he was ducking down even as he turned to see where the danger lay. I flung the door open and saw the gun level at Jonas. He was moving fast to shelter, but I knew it would be too late. Denzel had a clear shot.

“No!” I screamed, as I surged toward the car and the gun, my hands outstretched, not thinking of anything but stopping Denzel from killing Jonas. I’d barely taken two steps out of the shop when suddenly, the car door flew inward, knocking the gun upward just as the shot rang out, crushing Denzel between the seat and door frame. I barely had registered the sound of glass shattering behind me when Jonas hit me, taking me down in a flying tackle that knocked the breath right out of me. We hit hard, my head bouncing off the walkway and I laid there stunned, unable to breathe, trapped under his weight. I heard the squeal of tires through my gasps for air and had to assume it was Denzel making a break for it, as I couldn’t see through Jonas’ chest.

At that point, I really didn’t care, as long as he was gone. I was too busy trying to get some air moving through my lungs. Jonas was apparently in better shape than I was because suddenly he was up and running. With his weight suddenly gone, air blissfully surged into me, and I rolled over to see him racing past the parked cars, gun drawn, in pursuit. He never stood a chance. Human versus car, the human loses every time, no matter the contest. The truth of that statement didn’t make it any easier to accept, and I watched in frustration as Denzel careened onto the street and within seconds disappeared from sight.

Jonas gave me a hard stare as he ran back to his car and reached through the window for the radio. I really couldn’t blame him. At best, this had been a complete mess. One that could have easily ended in disaster. I slowly got to my feet, brushing the parking lot dirt off my hands and clothes. Looking around me, I realized how lucky we’d been. The store window behind me had a bullet hole near the top. The glass was cracked and shattered, but thankfully, was still in place.

I was scraped and dirty. My head hurt and was bleeding from the