Unchecked (New York Unraveled #2)

Chapter Four.

EVAN.

It felt like I was forgetting something. What, I didn't know but the nagging feeling didn't go away. It was, however, at the far back of my mind. I had thought that it was a long shot that she would even say yes to going out with me and then tonight...
I had stopped kissing her midway because I thought that she was just weak and vulnerable, and I couldn't take advantage of her in that situation. So I pulled back. But when she cursed me and picked up where I had left off, I knew she was as lucid as ever. She wanted it. She wanted me. And that alone was enough to make me want to sing cheesy Savage Garden songs.
I had a dopey smile playing on my face the whole night. I did everything mechanically but my mind was stuck on that beautiful girl who made my knees weak by just glancing my way.
I checked my email and text messages, confirming what all to fit into my schedule the next day and fell back on the bed. I was tired to the very ends of my bones. The whole day had been very demanding and the night even more so. Physically, I mean. Emotionally, I was high as fuck.
I had interrogated the three injured accused in the hospital. One of them had been put into jail already. He had only had a minor concussion from when I banged his head on the concrete road and a couple of bruises here and there. The other two would take a little more time because of the consequences of having to recover from a bullet embedded in their legs.
They had readily given the names of the other two and described them for us. But when asked for a residential or work address, they refused to open their mouths. All three of them insisted that they didn't have any idea.
I had glared at them, satisfying myself with the prospect of torturing them in the future once they had recovered of these little injuries. I was going to get these motherfuckers a sentence of at least five years. My eye witness account would make a strong case and I was more than sure that Rayne wasn't the sort of person who would hold back any information in court. She wasn't the meek type. They were going in for good.
New York state laws penalize sexual harassment with an indefinite period of time. The judge could give a sentence of anywhere from one year to seven years, the exact term depending on their behavior. Well, let's just say that their behavior was never going to be recorded as good on their daily reports.
I had just started to drift into a contented sleep when my cell began to ring. In a hazy state, I picked it up reluctantly, hoping no one had died in NY at that time of the night. I mean, all I asked for was a little sleep. Is that too much?
"Evan?" came a soft, hesitant voice. 
"Rayne?" I asked, worry and pleasant surprise warring in my head. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," she said hurriedly. "I know it's a bad time but the thing is, you left your recording device with me and I don't know how to switch the damn thing off."
"Darn it. That's what I was forgetting," I muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Don't worry. It must have run out of battery by now. Check if there's any green light blinking at the bottom," I instructed.
"No, there's no light of any sort," she said.
"Then it's off. I'll take it from you tomorrow morning," I said. A second later, I realized how brilliant of a mistake I'd made. Now I had a good excuse to meet her tomorrow.
"I have to go somewhere. Can you come before ten?" she asked.
"That's perfect." I beamed.
"Okay. I'm sorry for waking you up. I just really needed to turn this thing off," she said in a flustered manner.
"It's okay, I wasn't asleep," I lied.
"Evan, you're sweet but really, do you hear yourself?" she said bluntly.
"Alright," I conceded. "But it's okay. I understand."
"Okay," she said softly. "So I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," I replied, restraining myself from jumping.
"Sweet dreams, Evan."
"You too, Rayne."

I must have checked myself in the mirror at least, oh I don't know, roughly a million and one times. There was nothing wrong with my face or hair or what I was wearing but I couldn't stop fidgeting. A big ass butterfly was fluttering nervously in my stomach and it won't shut its trap until it saw approval in Rayne's eyes.
I ran my hands through my hair once more, promising myself this was the last time, and rang her doorbell. There was the sound of hurried footsteps getting louder as they approached the door. Rayne spilled out- yes, literally spilled out- when the door opened.
"Heyyy," I said, stretching that one syllable into many, as I caught her by her waist.
She cursed under her breath and stood up straight. "It's ten minutes past ten. I told you to come before ten. Where were you?"
"I'm sorry. I got sidetracked," I said. Roy had called me about another problem that had come up in the lower east side of Manhattan. We had finally got some leads on a gang of narcotic dealers who we had been running after since more than six months now. My team was already on the scene so I instructed them on what to do and told them to report back in two hours at the headquarters.
She softened at my apology. "It's okay. But now I don't even have half a minute to give to you." She retreated back inside and beckoned for me to follow. With a sigh, I did, cursing my fate for doing this to me.
"Where are you rushing off to?" I asked casually as she handed me the recorder. Her hand felt too warm in comparison to the cold surface of the black device she pressed into my palm.
"I'm trying to be a diligent person and actually work instead of cursing my unemployment. So I'm going to find jobs and the person who can help is a son of a bitch about punctuality," she huffed. "Hence the rush. Don't mind me."
She was bustling about, setting things straight and putting stuff into her purse. She was dressed in a semi-formal shirt and trousers and had her hair up in a ponytail. But her flicks were still falling all over her face and the neon pink highlights in her hair gave her a rebelliously professional look.
I caught her by her arms and effortlessly lifted her up to put down right in front of me. There are advantages of having a petite girl. She squealed a little and held on to my shirt for support.
"Stop. Breathe," I told her. "I'll get you where you want to be quickly."
She looked up at me, biting her lip. "There's not exactly a lot of breathing possible if you stand this close to me."
I chuckled, the butterfly in my stomach now flapping its wings wildly, and pulled her in my arms. She fit so perfectly with me, with her head tucked under my chin, her arms long enough only to clasp around my waist, one of my hands at the back of her neck and the other fitting perfectly at the bottom of her spine, her body molding against mine like we were two pieces of the same puzzle.
"You're looking amazing. Did I tell you that?" I murmured.
"Thank you," she said shyly. Without pulling back from my embrace, she lifted her head a little so I could see her eyes. "I really do have to go, you know."
I took her hand. "I'll drop you."
Saturday was three more days away and if I wasn't getting a proper date with her before that, then I would get to know her in these little time frames.
I opened the door to the car for her and she seemed equal parts surprised as flattered which made me grit my teeth at the thought of what jackasses she must have dated up until now who don't even know how to treat a lady properly. Opening doors is common courtesy and if this was a surprise, flowers and candies would probably be unheard of for her.
It took me fifteen minutes to get her to the coffee house she would have taken a half an hour to get to. Being a cop has its fair share of advantages; you know all the back alleys and dinghy streets to take shortcuts from.
The coffee house was more like a shack standing with the support of poles. It didn't look like it had ever seen humans, let alone a broom. I wasn't sure why a person would ask to be met here.
"Why would you agree to meet somebody here?" I asked her, narrowing my eyes to peer inside the place and get a gist of what it was like.
"He fixes up the place. I'm not exactly in a position to argue, you see," she shrugged.
"Why not? Is he some sort of agent or a counselor or what?" 
She paused. "A little of both."
His description sounded very suspicious. I glanced around the street and noticed there was only one other shop, which was three doors down, open apart from the coffee house. There were a couple of houses built on top of the markets but there was no sound of human habilitation.
"You shouldn't be here, Rayne," I told her. My instincts told me this place wasn't safe and those were one thing that had never been wrong.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached over to smooth down the worry lines that had appeared on my forehead. "I told you, I'm not in a position to argue."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because I don't have a job. I don't have any high sounding credentials that people would take me to work for them and I don't have any potent skills." She hesitated and lowered her hand away from me. "I haven't studied beyond high school."
"This guy you're meeting, what does he do professionally?"
"I have to go," she said apologetically.
I held her hand before she could turn away and brought it to my lips. "At least tell me this isn't the first time you're meeting him."
The corners of her lips pulled up into a beautiful smile. "Stop worrying. It's not your job to look out for me."
On the flip side, darling, it is. But I can't tell you that, can I?
I watched her disappear inside the coffee house. It was constructed in a way that nothing except the first two tables were visible from the outside. I was sure whoever she was meeting wasn't doing God's holy work so this was the perfect place to bring her to.
I drove a little further down to the other shop I'd seen open. It had a huge counter and little toys were kept on a red mat spread over it. A burly man with a sullen face sat expressionlessly behind the counter.
"Excuse me?" I called him.
In a reply, he gave me a sharp nod.
"That coffee house," I pointed to it, "Do people often come here?"
This time, he shook his head once.
"Any regulars you might be aware of?" I asked.
"What do you want?" he grumbled. 
I showed him my ID badge. The name of NYPD was enough to make anybody tighten their belts and sit up straight.
"I need you to do me a favor," I said, waving up a couple of hundred dollar notes in front of his hungry eyes. I told him to sit in the coffee house and listen in on the conversation of a brunette with a man. I didn't need to explain further. It wasn't like there would even be another housefly in there.
He nodded eagerly. I gave him my number and told him to call me and recite what he heard. Yes, this was called stalking but I rationalized to myself that it was because there was possibly something illegal going on here and it looked like Rayne knew about it. Plus, I'd told Nathan I would check up on her. This was what it entailed.
I drove to 1 Police Plaza, the NYPD headquarters in Civic Centre, Manhattan. It was a rectangular building that looked formal and elegant in its formation, standing tall and proud in its beige outlook. I went into the office my team and I operated through. It was simple enough with a table at the center with chairs all around it, facing one wall. That wall had a huge white board with all colors of markers and a duster stuck on its surface because of the magnet in their caps. A projector hung above the table and four cabinets on the other end of the room completed the ensemble. It wasn't very big but it was comfortable enough for all four of us to fit right in and still have our personal spaces.
I plugged the recorder in a charger to induce enough battery so that I could listen to it. It started the same way all other do; with the present detective explaining the date, day, place of the interview and the details of the interview. I pulled out a file and started to paraphrase all that she'd told me. I got progressively angrier and more determined as I listened to it until the conversation took a 180 degrees turn. I asked her out.
"Oh my god, Evan, you did not," I groaned, hiding my face in my hands. I sounded so incredibly cheesy that it was actually embarrassing. "Ew, ew, ew," I muttered out loud.
I fast forwarded it to the end, unable to listen to myself any longer. There was a little static and then complete silence. This must have been the part after I'd left the recorder with Rayne. I was about to switch it off when I heard something highly interesting. "Blame it on the night. Don't blame it on me," Rayne was saying pseudo-defensively, quoting the popular Calvin Harris song.
I raised an eyebrow, my finger hovering over the Stop button.
"Shut up, Karen," she said after a second. I couldn't hear another voice speaking back so it must have been a telephonic conversation. "I'm on fucking birth control pills. The only puking I'll be doing is because I drank too much."
Thank the lord she was on pills. A condom was as far from my thoughts a that moment as quantum mechanics.
"Bitch, please. If you didn't have an almost husband, you would do him in a second." She paused for a minute, making small sounds of confirmation before speaking, "Oh my god, girl, so sexy. So, so, so sexy. There was this thing he did with his fingers and-"
As interesting and curious that conversation was, I had to hurriedly close it down like nothing was happening when I heard the doorknob turn. My team had come back from their assignment. "You guys are sweating like pigs," I told them.
"Because we haven't been making out in air conditioned rooms all day," said Dan sarcastically.
I rolled my eyes, albeit with a small smile. "Do I sense jealousy?"
"Do you even know for how long we chased those motherfuckers practically all around the city? Don't talk to me about jealousy," he growled as all of them took out their bullet proof vests and put them in places.
I leaned back in my chair comfortably, hiding my laugh from them. "Tell me you have useful information."
"Not much. We still don't have an identity but while we were snooping around, we did get to know that they will be targeting Smoke this weekend," said Roy.
Smoke was one of the best clubs in the city with throngs of youthful population always streaming in and out of it. That would be perfect to find more potential druggies.
"We gotta have a raid there then," I said.
We reported that we would need backup at a moment's notice on both Saturday and Sunday that week. Plans were formulated and finalized. Two more people apart from Dan, Jessica and Roy would go undercover and catch the dealers red-handed. When we reached our office, we fell down with a tired sigh.
"Does that have Rayne's attestation?" asked Jessica, pointing to the recording device that was still on charging.
"Yeah. I made a transcript of most of it. It's the third file from the top," I told all three of them and went out to get some coffee. I started chatting up a colleague as I was coming back when I remembered what all the recording entailed and they were no doubt going to listen to it. It wasn't just questioning. It was basically an audio sex tape and damn me if I was going to let anyone hear that. I literally ran to my office. Right when I opened the door, I heard myself saying, "You'll laugh."
Jesus, here comes the embarrassing part.
"I will if it's funny," said Rayne and her voice sounded even more seductive and softer on tape.
"Switch it off!" I barked and ran to turn the thing off before they could hear anything dangerous. But the last line that slipped out was when I had told her that I wanted to ask her out.
I quickly stuffed it in my pocket. "I said I already made the transcript. You don't have to double check everything," I said defensively even though to be fair, it was their job.
"Are you guys going out?" asked Dan.
"Oh my God, you are, aren't you?" gasped Jessica.
"Shut up. I just slept with her once," I said, feeling the heat rising off me as I flushed red. Why that line sounded better in my head, I had no idea.
They all gasped dramatically and loaded me with a million more questions. I ignored them harder than I'd ever ignored anybody in my life.
The rest of the day wasn't different than most others. I didn't have any demanding homicide or kidnapping cases so we were basically focusing on a couple of extortion cases we had received. It was only a matter of collecting enough proofs to testify against them and conducting investigations to crack the gangs that were involved in all of this. My other concern was the two men who had assaulted Rayne and had run away but right then, there wasn't much I could do about it.
About midday, I received a call from an unknown number. I was about to ignore it when I remembered it must be the man I'd left to spy on Rayne and her companion. Sure enough, it was him.
"No brunette was there. I've been sitting here for hours and nobody came," he said in his gruff voice like he was eternally mad at something.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then where did she go?" I muttered.

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