Vigilant

Ari looked through the binoculars and said, “Holy crud. I know that guy.” She looked at the other men closely and then gave the binoculars back to Oliver. “Look. Tell me who you see.”

He only looked for a second, passing over each person. He dropped the binoculars in his lap and stared at Ari. “Those are the guys from the GYC. From the fights! What are they doing here?” Boyd sat on top of the play set, which meant this was an approved outing.

“I don’t know. Oscar’s funeral was today. Seems a little inappropriate, right?”

“Maybe they just wanted to blow off some steam. They like to do all that marital arts stuff. Maybe they’re waiting for the playground to clear out. They’re keeping their distance.”

Ari grabbed the binoculars again and studied the men. Boyd sat on the playground. The other men weren’t really men, but boys. She slowly searched the area. If Boyd was there, then Davis could have been, too.

“Look,” Ari said. One of the GYC boys approached a group of guys and the few girls loitering around the edge of the covered court. “What do you think they’re saying?”

“I don’t know, but those guys are leaving.” All the men shuffled out the park entrance and down the street. “Those girls look pissed,” Oliver said. “I think they just lost their dates.”

“What the heck?” Ari said. The GYC kid waved the girls over, and with one glance in the direction of the idling car, it backed up and drove out of the park. When Ari looked again, the girls were gone and so were all the GYC guys. Except Boyd, who’d stood from his crouched position on the play set. “That was totally mob like. He looks at them and they just leave?”

“What’s he doing now?” Oliver asked, but Boyd answered the question himself when he leaped from his perch fifteen feet away to a high stone wall surrounding the basketball courts. “Um…wow.”

“I know,” Ari said, taking one last look for Davis. He wasn’t there, though. But someone told that kid to approach those girls. And someone gave that group the power to monitor and remove a whole group of kids and a possible drug dealer with one look.

Increasingly, Ari suspected she knew whom.

* * *

“Okay, so that last part? Not so risky,” Oliver said. “But this? This seems dumb. I mean you suspect this guy is kidnapping teenage girls. So you what? Go straight to his house?”

“I don’t think he’s kidnapping girls. Something’s weird and he’s first on my list of subjects. And technically this isn’t a house.”

“Nice. This place is huge! He could have a whole brothel in that place and no one would know,” sarcasm evident in his voice.

“Which is why I have to check it out.”

“Ari,” Oliver said in a serious tone. “I love you. And I know you like to push the limits. But this is idiotic. I can’t let you go in there.”

Ari looked at her roommate and best friend and gave him a hug across the center console of the car. “Oliver, I love you, too.” She unlatched her seatbelt and opened the door. “Call the police if I’m not home by morning.”

Oliver hopped out of the passenger seat and chased her down. Ari had just reached the GYC’s door when it swung open. Davis stood in the middle of the opening with a confused expression on his face. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” Ari said. “Oliver is convinced you may slaughter me or something. Will you promise not to do that?”

They both looked at Oliver with his set jaw and puffed out his chest. Impressive, but there was no way he could take Davis in a fight. Davis gave Oliver one of those dude nods. “I’ll get her home safely.”

“See?” Ari said.

Oliver sighed. “Fine. But don’t come crying to me when you’re working on Stewart Street, okay?” He turned in defeat and got in his car. Ari wasn’t sure if he’d really just go home. She suspected he’d probably run straight to Detective Morgan.

“I’ll text you in an hour, okay?” she yelled but he’d slammed the door and started the car. Ari followed Davis into the building and he locked the door behind her, reminding her that Oliver might be right. There could be a brothel under the building. She just needed to find it.

Ari followed Davis past the lobby. He turned unexpectedly away from his office and pushed open a door leading to a different stairwell than she’d used before. She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. “Does this lead to your secret brothel by chance?” Ari asked.

“What?” he asked.

“Never mind.”

“This leads to my apartment, where, for the record, I do not take prostitutes.”

Like he has to pay for sex, Ari thought. She relented and following him up the stairs. She focused on his tight green shirt and the way she could see the taut muscles down his back. Ari shook her head. That was not what she was there for. She had questions and needed answers.

Even though Ari thought the building only had two levels, they walked up a third. At the top, Davis stopped and entered a series of numbers into a touch pad next to a heavy wood door. He glanced back. “I have the best hopes for those kids,