Third Eye Watch (A Serena Shaw Mystery) (7 page)

“Driver’s license please.”

Serena dropped it in the little opening he pointed towards.

“Your phone too. We will hold both for you until you come back”.

She dropped her phone in the opening, feeling like she’d lost an appendage.

“Serena?”

She whirled so fast; her neck cracked in three places.

McHot stood behind her, dressed as before, in blue jeans, white shirt, and no shoulder holster. His hair was slicked back with gel, and once again tied in a ponytail.

She had desperately hoped to see him but hadn’t expected him to be the one to escort her in. She drank in the sight of his lean, sexy body. It had been just over a week since she had first laid eyes on him and she had daydreamed about him every single day and had fantasized about him every single night. Now he was here.

“Is everything ok?” He asked, taking Serena’s arm, his eyes searching her face.

His sexy voice and light touch sent a tingle down her spine. “Yes,” she replied, her eyes gazing back at him hungrily.

He cleared his throat. “Audrey told me you had called and wanted to see her. She is in court, and will be here in a few minutes; it’s only a few miles away from here. You can wait for her in our shared office.”

Serena nodded.

I still can’t read him.

“Follow me,” he said, leading her down a narrow hallway and towards an elevator bay. Serena kept her eyes downcast; she had forgotten her eyeglasses at home today, unwilling to deal with people’s random thoughts while her emotions were reeling in McHot’s presence.

When the elevator arrived, they got in, joining the three women and a man who were already inside. Serena accidently made eye contact with one of the women, and quickly averted her eyes, but not before she heard,
“Dayyym girl, he’s hot. Is he yours?”

Serena grinned involuntarily, giving Sam a sidelong glance to see if he had noticed the other woman’s glance. But he was staring at her, and her heart went into a tailspin as she met his eyes. Then she looked away, staring at the floor numbers as the elevator climbed at a snail’s pace.

The delicious scents of Burger King French fries and Chinese food surrounded them, and Serena’s stomach rumbled audibly. Several people chuckled.

“Hey, I missed lunch, what can I say,” she said, laughingly.

“I promise to order lunch first.” Sam teased, as he too joined in the laughter.

“Thank you,” she mouthed silently, giving him a shy grin.

The elevator stopped on the second floor, and one person got off. Serena moved to the back corner of the elevator, as Sam turned to make room for the three more individuals who got in. Now his back was facing her, and Serena felt an insane urge to rest her head on his broad, broad back.
She closed her eyes, and silently started counting to a hundred; stopping her mind from wandering into dangerous territory.

xxxx

The elevator emptied on the fourth floor, and they were finally alone. Sam leaned lazily against the elevator wall and watched her standing with her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted.

Warmth curled his belly as he watched her heaving chest, the movement feeling strangely erotic to him in the confined space. He let his gaze roam her slender frame struck again by how petite she was. Today, she wore a short sleeveless dress, with matching green high-heeled sandals through which silver-nail-polished toes peeked out. The emerald green color of her dress complimented her honey-brown skin and accentuated every curve. His hands itched to run over them, inch by inch by inch.

She opened her eyes as the elevator stopped.

“Come. Our office is just right around the corner.”

They entered a long hallway with gray carpeting and bare beige walls; décor that he always thought underscored the way of life of FBI agents; understated.

He stopped in front of a glass door, scanned his badge, and then motioned for Serena to enter before him. The open workspace was a beehive of activity; every desk was occupied by men and women working the phones, hunched over computers, or engaged in animated discussions. Sam often thought that the noise level in this area rivaled that heard at Detroit’s Eastern Market on a weekend, home to hundreds of vendors who sold everything from flowers to spices, fresh produce and more.

“This space is shared by our Computer Forensics Division (CFD) agents who are responsible for investigating crimes involving computers and mobile devices and our Crime Scene Investigations Division (CSID) agents who are responsible for identifying, collecting, documenting and preserving all evidence found at a crime scene. The CFD agents spend their day monitoring social networking sites, Internet service providers, and servers whereas the CSID cover everything, from homicides, rapes, and stabbings, to drive-by shootings, home invasions, and vehicle accidents.”

“Audrey and I belong to the VCET group which is a newly formed group supporting both the CFD and the CSID.”

He kept up a running commentary until they reached his office at the far end of the hallway, which he unlocked and motioned for her to enter ahead of him.

“Chinese ok?” he asked her.

She nodded and he left the door open to walk across the room, stopping in front of two women who were talking quietly.

Georgina was French Cajun; she had moved to Detroit to be close to her only daughter, after losing her husband, and all her belongings to Hurricane Katrina. She had recently celebrated her sixtieth birthday, but she looked and had the energy of a forty-year old woman.

As one of three administrative assistants in their department, Georgina’s job was to provide administrative support to a group of ten detectives. The woman she was talking to was her daughter Tiffany, a rookie detective who worked in the FBI’s Cyber Watch division; her primary job function was to find and shut down porn sites. Tiffany had not said two words to him since the day she’d been introduced to him. She didn’t today either, simply nodding at him, before leaving quietly.

“And hello to you too,” he mumbled under his breath wondering if he scared her, or if she was just naturally shy.

Then he turned towards Georgina, who he hoped hadn’t heard him.

“Order us lunch, please? For three. From Chopsticks. Vegetarian”. The last was unnecessary, as everyone around the office knew he was a vegetarian. He handed her some bills and smiled as she lightly patted him on his cheek.

“I got your covered sugar!” she said, already hitting the speed dial on her cell phone.

He re-entered his office and closed the door.

“Lunch will be here soon,” he told her.

Serena nodded at him, then continued gazing at the left wall of his office. It was covered with a large cluster of frames filled with photographs of friends, family, and his peers at the FBI. The photographs were candid shots taken over the past few years; he loved to capture and display memories in pictorial form. People stopped by his office all the time, to see if new photos had been added to his collection.

Serena looked at each intently, moving slowly from frame to frame.

Just then, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID. It was his sister.

“Excuse me, I have to take this,” he told Serena, who had turned to look at him.

“Hello?”

“We will be stopping by on Sunday evening for a bit, try to be home, your niece and nephew want to see their Uncle Sam. Oh, and can you check if I forgot my black dress in mom’s closet, text me if you find it; Gotta go, chat later.”

He stared at the dead phone in his hand. His sister had already hung up, and he hadn’t even gotten a word in edgewise. He thought he’d have to think of something to aggravate her to return the favor when he saw her on Sunday.

A text message chimed.

“That was Audrey; she’s 10 minutes out.”

As Serena took a chair across from him, her stomach rumbled again.

“And so is the food,” he laughed.

“I’m sorry, my stomach is so rude.” She too laughed.

Their laughter faded, and Sam felt as if the room sizzled with the electric attraction that was between them. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he saw her lips part in reaction. He felt a raw, aching hunger to taste her sweet luscious lips.

A knock sounded, startling them both. He jumped to his feet and angled away to hide his body’s response to Serena.

“Whew. It’s pouring cats and dogs and this umbrella is practically useless.” Audrey said as she entered with a closed, dripping umbrella in her hands. Sam watched her as she shook herself, much like a dog, her tangled mess of hair flinging raindrops around the room.

Sam went and sat down behind his desk, forcing himself to breathe deeply as he tried to stop his body from trembling with the sexual tension that gripped him. He threw a quick glance at Serena, and inwardly grinned with manly pride when he saw that Serena appeared shaken too; there was color in her cheeks, and she sat stiffly, watching Audrey as she wiped her arms with tissues from a box sitting on her desk.

Another knock followed, and all three of them swiveled their heads towards the door. Georgina entered with their lunch, chattering about the weather and tsk-tsking over Audrey’s damp clothes; giving them both a few precious moments to recover their composures, and hopefully deflecting Audrey’s attention from the palpable tension in the room.

But he felt his hopes die when he threw a glance at his partner and saw her amused look; her razor sharp senses had to have picked up the sexual attraction that hummed between him and Serena.

Georgina departed, closing the door behind her; Sam stifled a sigh and began eating, resigning himself to the generous dose of ribbing that was headed his way. Not that it would be anything new, he thought, he should be used to it by now. Audrey hadn’t stopped teasing and taunting him since he had first laid eyes on Serena.

xxxx

Serena had never before felt such intense attraction towards any man, no, not just attraction; lust too, she thought wryly. She recalled his smoldering gaze, and shivered slightly, hoping no one in the room noticed it.

What if Audrey hadn’t arrived just then?

The next few minutes passed in silence, as they concentrated on eating.  Finally, Audrey said, “That hit a spot. Thanks for ordering, partner. Serena, did you get enough to eat?” Serena nodded as she too was finished, and was stuffing her empty container into the bag Sam held out, keeping her gaze lowered.

“Ok, so. What’s up?” Audrey leaned back in her chair and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

Serena took a few sips from a bottle of water - the admin had deposited three bottles of Aquafina on their desk - taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

This morning she had noticed a car following her; it had stayed on her bumper the entire drive from her apartment to her gallery; which was an impossible feat to accomplish in rush hour traffic on the expressway, unless, someone was deliberately following her.

The car had driven past her when she had pulled into the gallery’s parking lot, and she had breathed a sigh of relief, letting go of the paranoia that had become second nature, since Sofia’s disappearance.

A few minutes after opening up, Serena had stood by the window, drinking coffee, and enjoying the hustle-bustle on the street outside, when she had noticed a man standing across the street, facing the gallery. She had stepped back and moved to a corner to watch him covertly. She thought it was nothing and went about her work, but an hour later when she peeked out again, she realized that he hadn’t moved so much as an inch.

But just as she was debating what to do about him, he had straightened and begun walking away, and she had laughed at her overactive imagination. She was turning away when she noticed that he had entered the Starbucks across from her gallery, and in an impetuous move, she had decided to stalk the stalker; closing her gallery and skipping across the busy Main Street to enter Starbucks.

Returning to her gallery after her Starbucks field trip, Serena had decided to let Audrey know about her encounter with the mystery man. When Audrey’s phone had gone unanswered, Serena had decided to tell her in person. She also had another reason for doing so. She had hoped to see McHot again.

And so here she was.

Serena flashed a glance towards Sam, who was now leaning against a wall, watching her steadily. She looked away, and shifted slightly to face Audrey, then careful to avoid looking directly at her; she began by telling them about the man who had followed her.

“When I entered the Starbucks, he was waiting in line. But when he saw me, he got out of line and hurried outside, pushing past a group of people. I tried to follow him, but he……”. Before she could finish, Sam’s angry voice interrupted her.

“You did what? You approached a man following you? Did you not think of the danger? Serena, what were thinking? Do you have a death wish, woman?”

Serena shrank back in her chair.  Sam had pushed away from the wall and now stood towering over her and glaring at her, his fists clenched at his sides as if he was trying to control himself from pulling her out of her chair and shaking her.

“Sam, you’re scaring her,” Serena heard Audrey say, noticing from her peripheral view that Audrey was also pulling her partner’s arm, to make him step away.

But Serena wasn’t scared; she had just been taken aback by the suddenness of McHot’s explosion and she looked at him now wonderingly. What had set him off? Was that fear she had seen on his face? Fear for her?

She smiled without thought; thinking his handsomeness quotient had risen significantly in his current agitated state.

“Serena, are you alright?” She heard Audrey ask and turned to look at her, seeing her surprise at the smile on Serena’s lips.

“I’m fine and I’m not scared of this big bully,” she said defiantly, pointing her chin towards Sam; watching in satisfaction as Sam’s eyes widened.

Then, her gaze still on Sam, she continued, “I know I shouldn’t have followed him, I just didn’t know what to do. I was afraid he’d come into my gallery, and I knew if I saw him, I could ……..” her voice trailed off abruptly as she tried suddenly realized that she was about to say, “hear his thoughts.”
 

But, she admitted to herself; it had been foolish of her to follow the man.
 

Sam didn’t give an inch, and said to her in a frosty tone, “I’m glad you realize what a stupid move that was, Ms. Shaw”, and Serena’s hackles rose at his biting tone. And why the hell was he calling her Ms. Shaw now?

Well, that is my name, isn’t it?

“Have you seen that man before, Serena?” she heard Audrey ask, interrupting their silent feuding; then Serena saw her turn to her partner and say in a loud whisper, “Sit down and shut up Sam, or get out and take a walk to cool yourself.”

Serena grinned at Audrey thinking she wanted to be just like her when she grew up. She watched as Sam took the first option presented by his partner, but his gaze never left her face.

“No, I’ve never laid eyes on him before today. And it’s ok. Mc…err”, she was going to say McHot but corrected herself in time. “Special Agent Raina is right; it was a stupid thing to do. I just thought it might be connected to Sofia, or to those people who were following you the other day.”

“And you thought following him would do what again?” Sam asked, his words polite, but his tone still hard.

Get me in touch with you?

Serena fought a wicked grin as she returned his gaze, wondering why she was enjoying his anger so much.

Maybe cause I like the effect I have on him? Although; I don’t know about me having any effect on him. I think the big lug is just too used to women falling all over him. And he thinks he can bully me too, just cause I’m infatuated by his drop-dead gorgeousness.

“That’s ok; you did the right thing by coming here. Now, can you describe him for me?” Audrey asked, and Serena turned off her mental dialog as she thought about the man.

“I didn’t really get a good look; I barely saw him for a minute or two up close. He was young, my guess is that he was probably my age; in his late twenties, with blond hair and pale skin, as if he spent a great deal of time indoors; and he was dressed in a hideous loose Hawaiian shirt; it was bright yellow, with red butterflies on it”, she shuddered in distaste, as she pointed at her chest, to show them the location of the butterflies.

She saw Audrey’s grin and noticed Sam’s lips twitched too.

“He was toned and fit, his shoulders broad, like Special Agent Raina’s”, she flicked a quick glance at McHot, and saw the surprise grin that flashed on his face; "and he was from Albania…….or Russia”, she hastily amended, cursing her tongue for that slip; that bit of detail had come from the man’s thoughts during the few seconds that she had made eye contact with him.

“I can’t wait to leave to take Lena back to Albania….”

“How do you know he was from Albania or Russian?” Sam asked, immediately picking up on the slip, watching her so intently that Serena felt as if
he
was reading
her
mind.

Serena saw that Audrey looked suspicious too.

“I heard him apologizing to the people he had pushed past,” she lied, then to make it more believable, she added, “he sounded like those Russians, you know, the ones that we see in those action movies with Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis.”

Hopefully, they believed her. Then again, she thought, why wouldn’t they? Never in a million years could they guess that the woman sitting in front of them, held the ability to read people’s thoughts; well, everyone’s thoughts except McHot’s. Why was that, she wondered, looking at him thoughtfully?

xxxx

Sam and his partner had a routine; she led conversations with people, while he tried to hear what they weren’t saying. So today too, he leaned against the wall and observed Serena’s body language while Audrey began asking Serena the reason for her visit.

He realized a moment or two later that something was amiss. With his gaze narrowing, he looked at Serena; then followed the trajectory of her gaze.

Hmmm. Why isn’t Serena making eye contact with Audrey?

When he heard Serena say that she had followed the man, fear for her safety had seized his chest and made him react. He towered over her, wanting to pull her out of her chair and shake her; wanting her to promise him that she’d never do something that foolish again.

Then she smiled at him, and he wondered in amazement why she wasn’t scared by his outburst. He knew his tall looming frame was enough to cause a moment of panic in most people; combine the looming with the yelling, and he was sure he could cause a mini heart attack.
When she defiantly raised her chin and called him a bully, he almost burst out laughing out loud. 
Then Serena spoke to him directly, explaining why she had followed the man. He controlled the urge to reach out and tell her he would make sure nothing ever happened to her.

He sat down when his partner admonished him for his loss of control, and watched Serena intently. His internal antenna had been pinging throughout her narration.

Then it pinged louder; Serena was saying, “He was from Albania...”

He leaned back as his mind raced.  Could she be? No, there’s no way. He discarded the thought before it was fully formed.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything more you can tell us?” Sam heard his partner ask.

“I…..no, that’s all. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I overreacted.” Serena said, as she stood up and prepared to leave. Sam remained seated.
She is hiding something, and I’m going to find out what.

SECRET DISCOVERED

“I’ll drive her back.”

Serena and Audrey turned to look at him in surprise.

Serena had stood up, preparing to leave with Audrey, who would escort her downstairs. Sam was just as surprised, to hear the words spill out of his mouth.

“No, wait. Why?” Serena asked Audrey.

“Well,” his partner looked at him for a long moment, then turned back to Serena and said, “Sam’s not doing anything right now, and maybe he can ask around about the man; hopefully find some clues.”

Sam stood up then, and put on his shoulder holster, making sure his gun was snug inside it; then covered it with his denim jacket, walked to the door and opened it.

When she stepped outside, he said, “I’ll get a uniform to drive your car to your gallery; your keys, please?” he held out his hand. She gave him the keys.

“Just a sec,” he told her, and went back inside the office, placing the keys on the desk in front of Audrey, asking her to get a uniform to drive Serena’s car to her shop.

“Sam, I hope you know what you are doing.” she whispered.

“You and I both know she’s hiding something. I just want a chance to look around, go to the Starbucks, see if I can pick up some clues.”

“And then what?” she persisted.

He glanced outside; Serena had her back towards them.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t go, but is it wise for you to be alone with her?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I can see the intense attraction between you two. When I walked into the room today, you don’t think I felt the sexual energy? It hung thicker than the fog that is outside right now.”

“And that outburst a few minutes ago? What the hell was that? We’ll discuss that when you get back.” He nodded, expecting nothing less from his partner.

“Look, Sam, Serena is a lovely woman, and I can see why you are attracted to her, but she’s unlike the other women you date; she’s young and sweet, and does not appear to be too worldly when it comes to dealing with men like….”. Audrey broke off, as her glance slid to the windows.

He followed her gaze; Serena was watching them, her arms clasped around her waist, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Men like me,” he finished for her, still looking at Serena. “You think I’ll hurt her” he looked back at his partner and asked, feeling unusually hurt at his partner's words.

She squeezed his arm gently and said, “Not intentionally, no. But she’s not the only one I’m worried about.” She gave him a pointed look.

xxxx

They walked back the way they had arrived, Serena’s gaze darting around the busy open office area where the noise levels had significantly increased since they had last passed by just over an hour ago.