“Interesting,” she said. “Maybe we should knock him out a little bit more. When they wake up, knock them out again if they won’t talk.”
“Hard to get answers from an unconscious guy,” Shane said.
“Sure, but it’s much easier on our tempers.”
He snorted. “You can’t just go in and wring their necks if they don’t want to talk.”
“Why not?” she said. “I never did understand that.”
“It’s about fair treatment.”
“But if you put a gun in their hands, how fair would their treatment of us be?”
“Not at all fair,” Shane said, as he looked at Diesel, busy pounding on the keyboard.
When he looked up, Diesel said, “I’ve asked for information on any SEAL groups taken out in the last year.”
“Revenge is best served cold,” she said. “So, if you’re referring back to what I was saying, go back at least three or four years.”
He looked at her, surprised, then shrugged and typed into the keyboard again.
As soon as she finished eating, she got up and walked to the bathroom.
Shane cleared off a spot for his laptop, then opened the Mavericks chat window. In the chat, he asked for access to all cameras in the city, particularly those around the telecom building. As soon as that link came up, he started going through the cameras in the building itself. But they were all shut down at the time. When Shelly rejoined them, he asked her, “Did you have any argument with anybody in the telecom building?”
“Nope,” she said from the bed. I wasn’t there long enough to get to know anybody, much less make enemies.”
“No, but you have a tendency to piss people off,” he said. “They generally love you or hate you, and it doesn’t take them long to decide.”
“Lately it’s been more about hate,” she said.
He looked to find her arms under her head, as she stared up at the ceiling. “Tell me about it,” he said.
“Nothing much to tell,” she said, “but apparently somebody else in the building wanted my job. Don’t know his name. Management didn’t bother to tell him, so, when he found out I got it, he wasn’t very happy.”
“Did you see him at some point in time afterward?”
“Every day,” she said. “I had to go up the same elevator with him every day.”
“Was he difficult to live with?”
“Yes,” she said. “He used to make derogatory remarks all the time. It was obviously sour grapes, but still it gets to be irritating. I tried to avoid him, even changing the time I would show up at work, in order to avoid seeing him, and things like that.”
“Do you think he could be behind any of this?”
“But then you’re making this about me,” she said, rolling to look at him, “when it’s really all about you.”
Diesel snorted at that. “She’s got a good way to put things back in perspective.”
“She does,” Shane grumped.
“That’s nothing new,” she said, yawning. She curled up, her hands under her head, as she studied the two men working.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said. “I just need you to stay low and out of trouble while it happens.”
“Says you,” she said. “At least I don’t have a job to show up to tomorrow.”
“But do you even know that? Maybe they would just relegate you to another department.”
“There is no other department,” she said. “Well, at least not one with a job I’m qualified for.”
“Do they have another building anywhere in the city?”
“Yes, but again not in my field.”
“Maybe we should take a look at the personnel records of everybody you worked with.”
“You’re putting it back on me again,” she said. “This isn’t about me. Remember?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe that was a diversionary tactic.”
“No,” she said, “they were talking about you. I heard them say it.”
“What exactly did you hear?” he asked, and both he and Diesel turned to look at her.
She opened her sleepy eyes, stared at them, and said, “There were talking among themselves, and I heard them say your name.”
“What name?”
“They said Shane. He actually made it sound pretty disgusting. Then he said I was your girlfriend, well, your ‘doxy,’ he said.” She snorted at that. “As if I’m anybody’s doxy. Do you believe that?”
“Back to the conversation,” he said, leaning forward. “Think back now, and tell me exactly what they said.”
She closed her eyes and thought about it for a moment. “Two guys were off to the side, saying that I was the important one and that you would only come for your doxy,” she said with emphasis. “He said, ‘Shane’ll only come for his doxy. They’ve been best friends since forever.’”
“So he already knew something about us then?” Shane said, frowning.
“Yeah, but then the other man said, ‘There’s no way,’ and the first man said, ‘Yes. You don’t understand the relationship. I do.’”
At that, Shane let out a slow deep breath. “So who do we know that knows about us?” he asked, staring at her quietly. “Because, although we’ve been friends for a long time,” he said, “we haven’t shared mutual friends together for that whole time.”
Her eyes widened, and she slowly sat up again. “That is very true. How many people do we know in common? And how many people have you actually told about us? I don’t tell anybody,” she said. “It’s just between the two of us. We used to have mutual friends, but it was way back when though, like in grade school.”
“Right, so how many names can you come up with of people who know about us?”
She thought about it and said, “Sam and Jimmy,” she said. “We used to go out with them sometimes.”
“Right, and both of them are in England right now.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are they?” She shrugged. “I didn’t know that.”
“Who else?”
“Well, there’s Deborah,” she said. “But I know she’s fat and sassy with her fourth pregnancy right now.”
“Fourth?” he repeated, his tone rising.
She winced and said, “Yeah, four. She just keeps popping them out.”
“As long as she’s happy, I guess,” he said doubtfully.
She laughed. “Hey, just because neither of us have been into the whole multiple-kid thing doesn’t mean other people don’t want it.”
“I just can’t imagine,” he said. “Okay, so anybody else you can think of?”
“What about people we may have come across through work?” she replied.
“Did you tell anybody about me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know,” she said. “I have known you a lot of years.”
“True,” he said. “Did the gunmen say anything else?”
“Only something along the lines of they needed to just be patient, and you would come.”