Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

Times New Roman to Wingdings to Wingdings 2. I selected the block and clicked on Calibri. The symbols transformed into a short paragraph:

It is clear from the data that this proposal provides a unique investment opportunity predicated on the belief that over time exponential growth will have such an impact on the surrounding area that everything will change to keep pace with similar projects underway nearby. Together, these will foster a broad economic development that will, quite simply, change the map. (40)

Ten minutes later, in another document, I found another paragraph:

A chief advantage of the location under review is its proximity to other rapidly developing areas and a revitalized economic corridor. Beyond the national significance of such growth, it is also worth noting that no variances would be required to repurpose existing structures into configurations compatible with maximum marketability. (17)

Rereading the paragraphs, I surmised that they were part of a larger document that had been divided into at least forty sections, probably more. I opened both files’ properties and saw that authorship and revision dates had been removed. There was no digital signature or company name. Wherever the paragraphs had come from, my clients’ daughter had taken great pains to hide their source. Reconstructing such a document without a key—and doing so piece by piece from hundreds of files from both Humanitas and the church—would be a long undertaking.

I called LJ, explained what I had found, and asked when he was finished with his semester exams.

“Thursday,” he said. “But the toughest two are on Monday. After that, I can squeeze in a couple of hours a day if you’ve got some more work for me.”

“I do, but this could take a lot of time.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on whether I see a pattern. I can start Monday night, Tuesday morning at the latest. The usual hourly rate?”

When I said yes, I couldn’t help picturing his smile.

16

By half past noon, I had compiled and emailed all of Keisha’s documents to LJ in the hope that he could make a meaningful reconstruction. Also, I sent copies of everything to a cloud folder labeled KS. Then I shut down the Dell and took a quick shower so I could keep my one-thirty appointment with Ileana and the office workers she had enlisted to watch shelters.

I reached the Towne Restaurant at the corner of Allen and Elmwood before Ileana. I saw Cassidy and Yvonne seated at a round table in the center of the main dining room. They waved me over and stood to shake my hand when I reached them. Blonde hair in a ponytail, Cassidy wore an unzipped blue ski jacket and jeans. Bald head covered by a beret, Yvonne, several inches taller, wore a stylish mauve sweater and matching lipstick. I gestured them back into their seats and draped my jacket over the back of a chair facing the door.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, sitting. “I don’t know what Ileana told you—”

“That you need our help finding Keisha.” Yvonne’s voice was soft, slightly nasal. “She didn’t say how but said we can’t tell anybody and you would reimburse us for gas.”

Cassidy nodded, pulling her arms out of her sleeves. “So what do you want us to do?”

“Let’s wait for Ileana,” I said. “Meantime, if you want coffee or lunch, it’s on me.”

A twentysomething server whose nameplate read MIA took our order—diet Pepsi and fruit for Cassidy, Greek salad and lemon water for Yvonne, spanakopita and iced tea for me. As we waited, I asked what each did for Humanitas. Cassidy was a receptionist-slash-typist who had come to the agency from a suburban training program. Yvonne was an IT specialist who shared duties with Fareed. They had attended Buff State together a few years earlier.

“I have a friend graduating from that program this spring,” I said. “What LJ can do with a computer never ceases to amaze me.”

“LJ?” Yvonne said. “As in LJ Doran?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

She shook her head. “He came in after I finished but he’s a legend. I keep reading about him in the newsletter. They make him sound like some kind of genius.”

“He’d be embarrassed to hear that,” I said. “But his parents would agree.”

“I wouldn’t mind meeting him. Picking his brain.” She smiled. “He’s cute too.”

I thought about that for a moment. Most of the women LJ tried to date were students his age or younger. Some were intimidated by his computer talents. Others were uninterested because he could still pass for a high school junior, despite having reached drinking age last summer. I had zero interest in playing matchmaker, but LJ was a friend whose loneliness sometimes seemed to swallow him. Maybe meeting an attractive, slightly older woman in the same field was just what he needed. Our drinks came just then, and before I could offer to introduce Yvonne to LJ, Ileana walked through the door and started toward us.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, drawing near. Peeling off her charcoal coat and folding it over the back of a chair, she offered an explanation of her delay. I didn’t hear it because I recognized the man who entered just a few paces behind her.

Dark brown-skinned and on the upper end of medium height, he wore a long leather coat, matching black gloves, and a leather Greek fisherman’s cap. In October, when he had taken me at gunpoint to meet Lorenzo Quick, whose dry-cleaning chain fronted a complex criminal organization, he never told me his name. Since then, over drinks with homicide detectives Terry Chalmers and Rafael Piñero, I had learned Quick’s second-in-command was Lester Tolliver, AKA Spider. Never arrested, he’d served with Quick in the first Gulf War and was a suspect in gang-related murders stretching back almost two decades. Now he took a seat by the front window and looked at us as Ileana sat.

Spider.

I wondered why he was there. I wasn’t afraid, but I was cautious. A man who had never been connected to any of the murders he was