“Yes. He and I are making a lovely profit. And speak of the devil, here he is now!”
Angie stepped aside, and my blood ran cold.
“Hello, Alicia,” Simon said, smiling wickedly.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Everett
I woke up with the non-alcoholic equivalent of a hangover, not having slept much at all during the night. All sorts of crazy dreams and nightmares had kept ripping me from sleep and then I had found it difficult to doze back off each time. For the first time in ages, I skipped my morning workout even though I felt guilty about doing so. I was just too mentally and physically exhausted.
The first thing I did was call Jimmy, as I needed to find out if he would be willing to help us in our planned sting operation against Mr. Mask. After talking to Scott the night before, he was willing to help us out since they already had an investigation open regarding the spike of Rocket sales.
“Everett, hey buddy, how's it going?” he said as he answered.
“It's uh, okay. Look, let me cut straight to the chase. I know you've done me a few favors recently, and I hate to say it, but I gotta ask for just one more. I'll pay you back tenfold for everything you've done for me.”
“Sure thing, man. Always happy to help out.”
“So, that drug thing I'm involved in... we're pretty damn close to busting the kingpin. He's a hardened felon who shoots anyone who messes with him, including kids, so I need a backup gun. Scott’s in, but because it’s such short notice, he said he’ll only be able to bring one other officer with him. Ben isn’t really seasoned in this sort of thing and I’d prefer to ha
ve you watching my back. You interested?”
“You had me at 'he shoots kids.' I'll gladly come out of retirement to help you take down the scumbag. Let me know where and when and I'll be there, brother.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. That means a lot to me. I'll keep you updated.”
“You do that. Speak to you soon.”
“Chat soon, Jimmy, and thanks again.”
After that, I got Jane out of bed. I did my best to put on a brave face for her. She was still too sick to be taken to daycare, but thankfully I had found a babysitter who could come over for the day. I had thought of asking Jane's mother but figured she would just find some sort of excuse not to see her.
The babysitter, a pleasant female college student who was studying at Bible college and came highly recommended by Ben’s sister, arrived right on time. I gave her a quick rundown on everything she needed to know before I left. I said goodbye to Jane, who wanted to know where Vivienne was. I didn't really know what to tell her, so I just said that she was very busy at work, and may not be able to come over for a few days. She seemed sad about it, and that broke my heart even more. I had to sort this thing out soon.
While I was driving, I put my phone on speaker and tried to call Vivienne, but it seemed that her phone was off or she was just ignoring my calls. I drove past her daycare and saw that her car wasn't there, and there was only one person out front greeting the parents and letting the kids in. That was strange. I was starting to get a little worried. Still, there wasn't too much I could do at the moment.
I got to the school and made my way to my office and started to get things in order for the day. Obviously, one of the first orders of business was getting Panetti on board to help us out with catching Mr. Mask. I had my papers and all things relating to him and the Rocket crisis pinned up on a board on my wall. I needed to keep things visual and organized to be able to deal with them effectively. Now that I was also concerned about Vivienne's whereabouts, I made a little section on the board for her as well so that I would be able to narrow down the places she might be.
After I had everything squared away and ready for Panetti’s arrival, I searched Facebook for women in our town named Angie. It took a fair bit of scrolling through profiles, but eventually, I saw a profile picture that was definitely the woman I'd seen in the car with Vivienne the night before. I wrote down a few things and printed out her picture – at the sight of which my heart felt like it was being ripped into pieces – and then printed the picture of Simon I’d found. I hoped that he wasn't involved in her disappearance, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it, and I had to keep it in the realm of possibility.
I called Ben into my office and he sat down.
“So, Ev, did you find out if your buddy is willing to help us out?”
“He's in,” I replied.
Ben smiled. “Excellent. Now we have a really good chance of actually being able to take this sucker down.”
“That we do, Ben, that we do. We just need to get the guy in a position so that we can ambush him.”
“And that's where Panetti is gonna come in.”
“That’s the plan. I sure hope this kid is gonna cooperate. He's pretty crucial to this whole strategy.”
“He sure is,” remarked Ben. “But we've got a lot of dirt on him, and he knows that. That's why he agreed to be our informant in the first place. I don’t think he’ll chicken out now; he can't afford to.”
“I guess not. But still, we're asking him to do something pretty big, and quite frankly, pretty dangerous. And I wouldn't want to put any of our students in danger, even a bad egg like Panetti. We're going to have to plan this thing carefully.”