Chapter Eight

  “Before either of you have anything to say for yourselves,” Nicole said the moment Keeva picked up the phone. Keeva opting to put her on speaker for both her and Dorian to hear. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you didn’t just shoot me in the foot on a business partnership. I’m going to give you a few moments to expin yourselves. Thoroughly!”

  Nicole’s words cracked like a whip and seemed to cut Keeva just as deeply as Dorian could see the way she fttened her lips. Perhaps an instinct from her days in military service so as not to dig her own grave any further. Maybe just as a way to construct her thoughts with a tad more stability before she gave them. Knowing they’d be put under every level of scrutiny someone could use at such a distance.

  In lieu of a response, Keeva started the car and waited for the blue tooth to connect the call to car’s speakers. Buying herself a little more time as Dorian opened the zip file he’d received just moments earlier. Pulling out of the dock yard with Pat staring down the car. Keeva staring right back through the mirrors.

  “Our investigation into the theft right now resulted in a series of dead ends.” Keeva stated with practiced precision. “The workers were either told not to speak to us or they figured that out on their own.”

  “So, you opted to beat the shit out of one of them!?” Nicole snapped, her voice raising just shy of a full shout. “I didn’t send you in there to be a thug squad, I sent you in there to look for those missing trucks and figure out why. Jesus Christ Keeva, I know everything looks like a nail to you, but maybe if you used your head for something other than a hammer, you’d-” She cut herself off and gave a momentary pause. Sighing into the phone as she seemed to compose herself in the manner of a breath. “Dorian, you better have something to show for this.”

  “Starting the fight was my idea.” Dorian began as he pressed the button on the side of his phone to lock the screen. Raising his head to project his voice towards the phone. “Keeva was following my lead because Pat stone walled us on any leads. Any time I mentioned his name as Pat to the employees they all gave us both the same reaction and started distancing himself. Only one worker told me that they all call him Rick. Which means…” Dorian invited Nicole to finish his though.

  “Calling him Pat was an early warning sign for all of his employees.” Nicole mused. “And only those he trusts call him Rick.”

  “I needed to get into Pat’s office for those files Ashley was able to get for me and I needed a reason to get Pat out of his office quickly. Keeva was able to provide a distraction that would keep him busy. Those files prove that the whole dock has been lying to you about these thefts. Check the files now if you don’t believe me.” Dorian said.

  The sound of heavy-handed keystrokes filled the car around them through the speakers. Nicole typing away furiously as she stopped abruptly and began to murmur something under her breath. Whatever it was, Keeva and Dorian didn’t care to find out nor did they have the time to as she hummed thoughtfully to herself. Seeing what Dorian had in the files on his phone.

  “Interesting…” Nicole mused, her voice removing that snapping whip of an edge. “All of the shipments…”

  “Arrived.” Dorian completed and felt Keeva’s eyes snap over towards him as she took her eyes off the road for just a hair of a second. “Not on time though, each one of them was three to seven days te. Pat, or Rick, or whatever his employees call him, the guy you likely talked to about us arriving, he mentioned three trucks were still missing, how much do you want to bet if we find those trucks, they’re the same ones that are out on delivery right now and te by five days?”

  “Pat is just the middle man; I have a rger client working through the shipping company that Pat runs right now.” Nicole began. “Showing him this, we could close out the investigations here and now and let them take care of things.”

  “You’re suggesting we just throw Pat to the wolves and call it a day.” Keeva asked, her brow furrowing at the phone as though Nicole could somehow see her expression.

  “Is there a problem with that?” Nicole droned in return. “The motivation is all there. I sent you two in to close out a deal for a series of truck thefts and Pat has every reason to not want to talk to any of you if he’s the one’s behind it.”

  “You said it yourself when we talked business Nicole.” Dorian interjected. “You don’t work with drugs or guns but you do work with the money that is exchanged between the people that sell them. Its plenty obvious right now that’s what’s on in those trucks which is always on a need-to-know basis. He’d be well within his right not to tell us what’s been stolen off those trucks if he doesn’t think we need to know and it sounds like your client doesn’t care for you to know either.”

  “What are you getting at Dorian?” Nicole asked.

  “If we tell this client that a few shipments are te he’s going to make that entire dock yard vanish overnight. Pat said it himself, most of them are undocumented or they’ve got a record, it wouldn’t be hard to make them disappear and get a new crew working that yard.” Dorian said.

  “Then that’s their choice to make,” Nicole stated, her voice taking on an edge of condescension. “Were not in the market for morals Dorian and I didn’t think you were either.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with her pup.” Keeva said. “You said it yourself, most of them have a criminal record and if they don’t, something tells me they will after they clear that pce out. They made their choice as far as I’m concerned.”

  Feeling his brows raise as his face went tight, Dorian stared forward as he clenched his jaw tight enough to cause his cheeks to bulge. Slowly turning his head over towards Keeva, he regarded her for a long moment. Keeva either occupied her attention with the road, or chose not to acknowledge his staring. Dorian chose to honor this by rolling his shoulders and staring out ahead of them.

  “Human decency aside,” Dorian began, trying and failing to keep the venom from his voice. “There is still one question you’re not asking here. What if were wrong? What happens when we allow your client to clear out a whole dock worth of people and these shipments still go missing after the fact? If your client wanted to clear that pce out by now, he would have the moment something went missing, but he hired you to figure out why. So, remind me, which one of us is the hammer?”

  The car was steeped in a silence as Dorian could see Keeva’s brows rise with realization or perhaps just appalled at Dorian’s remark. While he couldn’t see Nicole’s face, he could feel the energy in her own silence and imagined what her face might look like. Perhaps tightened into a scowl or maybe mirroring Keeva’s own expression.

  “Now that,” Nicole began, the edge to her voice gone as Dorian could hear the smile to her voice. His mind’s eye fshing to the scythes edge that her lips curled into as she began to speak. “Is exactly what I expected out of you Dorian. Color me impressed. Keeva, keep taking Dorian’s lead on this one from here on out and call me when you have further updates. Oh, and one more thing you two?” Nicole asked and let the pause sit before her voice took on an aspect of velvet. “Try and keep each other on a short leash.”

  Before either of them could respond, the call ended with the screen fshing before going bck. Keeva looked to Dorian before pulling the car off to a side road and finding a gas station to pull into. Slipping into one of the side pumps as she set the car into park and turned to face him. Her arm draping over her seat as she nodded to him.

  “Alright pup,” Keevan began. “You back talked the boss and lived to tell about it. What’s your next move?”

  “We need to go over what we know.” Dorian began as he crossed his arms, pinning his chin to his chest as he closed his eyes in contemption. “We know that these shipments aren’t missing they’re just te.”

  “But there is something on those shipments,” Keeva began as she leaned back against the driver’s side door. “that’s not making it to its intended destination.”

  “It’s not uncommon for people to genuinely not know what they’re hauling; a little bit of pusible deniability goes a long way. Especially when someone gets caught.” Dorian retorted. “So maybe the workers genuinely didn’t know what they were hauling or maybe they knew they were hauling something they shouldn’t but didn’t ask questions.”

  “Right but then someone was giving them orders to drop these trucks off at another location before sending them off to their final destination.” Keeva added.

  “These people aren’t exactly in the market for morals either. Like I said, Nicole’s client would have easily burned down this own industry to send a message to whomever is skimming off the top that this won’t be tolerated by anyone.” Dorian began. “But we were hired to ensure that we could find where this leak was happening because this person has enough thought behind his actions to make sure that isn’t their knee jerk reaction.”

  “No need to throw the baby out with the bath water.” Keeva mused with her idiom as she ran a hand over her hair. “It won’t be enough to just find where these missing trucks are unless we find out why they’re going missing or arriving te. You mentioned they’re likely hauling contraband so officially the pce where it goes to has to say that everything is there because if they cim something is missing then that goes to the company, not the shipping yard.”

  “Maybe there is something I’m missing with the shipping manifests.” Dorian groused as he pulled up his phone again. Tapping away at the screen as his eyes scanned over the documents.

  “Let me know what you find, I’m thinking some caffeine might help.” Keeva said as she opened the door.

  “Or some hard liquor.” Dorian mused and smirked at the ugh he got out of Keeva. Peering through the data, Dorian thought back to his days working in an industry like this. Having to drive in a truck himself or sit in the back to ensure that anyone who tried to take it by force wouldn’t get far. His mind fshing to the days when he’d haul something hidden inside of a pallet of frozen food. A few kilos of coke stuffed inside of a box of pizza rolls, maybe even a brick of weed stuffed between a few packs of ground beef. Shipments like these needed to stay cold too which meant longer hauls needed to be dropped off at a middle location.

  Checking the shipment data on his phone, Dorian hoped that perhaps the manifest might shed some light on that. Maybe the contents might be dropped off at a local distribution center before being sent off to their final location. Checking what would be inside the trucks however, Dorian felt his shoulder’s drop. No such luck, most of what was being hauled was electronics, cosmetics, or ft pack furniture. Nothing that would need to be dropped off at a half way point.

  “Son of a bitch…” Dorian groused under his breath as he id his head back on his chair. Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as he sighed and tried to compose himself. Letting himself get frustrated wasn’t going to- “Jesus fuck!”

  Snapping out of his introspection at the feel of a cold can pressing to his neck, Dorian turned his attention over to Keeva with a wide grin across her face. Her hand offering out a tall can of an energy drink leaving Dorian to snatch it form her hand. Cracking the can open, he takes a sip and tries to hide the grimace on his face.

  “Not one for energy drinks?” Keeva asks as she takes a sip of her own.

  “Not particurly.” Dorian admitted as he took another deep swig. Not one to turn his nose up at an offer. Though as he’s taking a swig, he nearly lets the drink dribble out of his mouth as something catches his attention.

  A semi-truck pulls past the car as it circles around the gas station before finding a pce to park. Though the part that catches Dorian’s attention isn’t so much the truck as it is the warning on the back of the trailer. The message reading “This vehicle’s speed is monitored using GPS tracking data.”

  “Dorian!” Keeva calls out as she reaches inside the center console, producing a wad of napkins as she hands them over to him. “You need a bib or something?”

  Locked into what he saw, Dorian hadn’t realized that he spilled his drink across his chest. Thankful he wasn’t wearing his suit; Dorian took the napkins and began to dab at the fabric before nodding to what he saw.

  “What does that say right there?” Dorian asked as he pointed off to the truck.

  “Just some shipping company for the gas station” Keeva stated pinly. “I doubt they’re associated with the dock yard at all.”

  “Not that, look what’s on the back of the trailer.” Dorian pointed and watched Keeva’s face suddenly dawn with realization once more. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking!” Keeva said as she slipped the keys into the car’s ignition and started the car once more. Ripping out of the parking lot with enough force to nearly upend the rest of Dorian’s drink into his p. Dorian barely able to keep himself from getting drenched by way of finishing off the st of his drink and tossing the empty behind him.

  ~Later~

  The energy drink proved to be more help than Dorian initially anticipated as the day transitioned to night. The light pollution from the cities nearby blocking out any stars as the only other light besides that being the sparce mp lights stretching between. Either to mark an intersection or the entrance to the dock yard. With ships fshing their own lights to signal their arrival, these massive behemoths sailing on water, there was little in the way of light to expose the car. The all-bck Honda Accord sitting near by the dock. Just far enough from the front entrance where the trucks came and went that it was easy enough to pick one to tail.

  “This one.” Dorian said as he nodded to the truck that pulled out from the dock yard. The trailer swaying and trundling along as the rig pulled it through the streets.

  Keeva started up the car and kept her headlights off. Pulling out from where they’d hidden themselves in the shadows of night and drove close enough to keep an eye on the truck ahead of them but far away that the truck couldn’t reasonably see behind. The same marker on the frame of the truck where the storage container sat reading the same as the one Dorian saw earlier. The mention of the speed of the vehicle being tracked by GPS.

  Keeping an eye on the truck, Dorian tried to trace the most likely rout on the map in his phone while Keeva drove. They had no real idea of where this truck was headed nor any real need to find out. Rather Dorian knew they’d need to catch them before they started on the highway which looked like the most apt route the driver was going to take.

  “Pull around in front, just like we discussed.” Dorian stated as he slipped his phone into his back pocket before reaching around to his back. Producing his pistol, he pulled the slide back to load the chamber and double checked the safety. Confirming both, he slipped the pistol down the front of his pants.

  “How often you pull a move like this?” Keeva asked as the engine revved and the car lurched forward as she circled around the truck. Coming up alongside it till she was far enough ahead that the driver could easily see them over the front of their rig.

  “Enough times to know this will work.” Dorian said as he braced his hand against the dash before feeling his whole-body sm forward, stopped only by the sudden locking of the seat belt around his chest. The tires screeching on the pavement as they came to a dead halt.

  The rig following suit as it id on its horn. A loud bring and angry noise that no doubt matched the temperament of the driver.

  “Wait for my signal.” Dorian said as he ejected himself from the passenger seat in one fluid motion and started towards the rig at a brisk saunter. The driver of the truck ying on the horn again while Dorian climbed the passenger side window, produced his pistol, and wrapped on the gss with the barrel. “Habs ingles?”

  The driver nodded his head as Dorian saw a clear sheen of sweat appear across the man’s face. His eyes sinking into his skull as he looked more at the gun in Dorian’s hand than he did Dorian. Poor kid, Dorian thought to himself, figuring the man to be in his early twenties if not fresh out of trade school.

  “Then you’ll understand me when I tell you that you can either unlock this door or I can break the gss and unlock it myself.” Dorian said as he waited for a split second and heard the door locks disengage. Opening the door and setting himself in the passenger seat as he set the gun on the dash board. “Fsh your brights twice.”

  “W-what?” The kid asked as he sunk further into his seat. Dorian tracing his line of sight as it flicked over to where he set the gun before returning back to him.

  “Your br- never mind. Move.” Dorian said as he reached over to the steering wheel and fshed the headlights twice. Watching as Keeva engaged her hazards and stepped out of the car. Dorian thinking to do the same as she approached to the passenger side. Dorian opening up the door for her as she squeezed past him and slipped into the sleeper cabin just behind the driver’s area. “You cooperate and we won’t have to hurt you. I put my gun on the dash board cause I don’t want to have to use it, okay?”

  “Okay…” The kid trailed off. His eyes flicking to the gun again before turning his gaze over to Keeva rifling through the back of the sleeper cabin.

  “What are you looking at her for, I’m the one talking to you.” Dorian called as he snapped his fingers in the kid’s face. “Like I said, we just want to-” Dorian saw the way the kid’s eyes darted towards the pistol again and felt his shoulder’s drop. “Please don’t…”

  Having just enough time to roll his eyes as the kid shot forward trying to grab the pistol, Dorian closed his fist and practically just held it up as the kid ran straight into it. The additional force Dorian put behind the blow sending the kid flying back into his seat as he clutched his face. His hands muffling the scream of pain.

  “Alright, move your…” Dorian stood and leaned over the driver. “Move your fucking hands!” Dorian barked as he yanked the kid’s hands away. Inspecting his injury as he saw the splotches of purple began to form around his face and cheeks before he sat back down.

  “You break his nose or something?” Keeva asked as she kept rifling around the back of the sleeper cabin. The only object of note she found being a Pyboy magazine that she tossed into Dorian’s p. “Sleeper cabin is clear by the way, you remember those growing up?”

  “How old do you think I am?” Dorian asked as he looked at the magazine. The cover dispying a woman wearing nothing besides a colr as she used a pair of dice held to her chest to cover her nipples.

  “Oh yeah you definitely broke that real good.” Keea said as she leaned back on the dash, arms crossed over her chest as she examined the boy sitting in the driver’s side. “Should be able to set it back into pce in a minute.”

  “That all depends on if he’s willing to py along.” Dorian said as he tossed the magazine back into the bed inside the sleeper cabin. “Look were not interested in what your hauling, the only thing we want is the GPS tracking data on this rig, think you can give us that?”

  “Yeah…” The kid croaked as he nodded his head, wincing as his fingers grazed the bruises that were forming where Dorian broke his nose. “Yes, it’s right there.”

  The driver pointed towards the center of the dashboard that Keeva was leaning on. As soon as she rose, the two of them saw a screen simir to that of the one in the Accord though this one was touch screen enabled. Even better was the USB port located on the left-hand side of the screen.

  “You know how to transfer the data off to another device?” Dorian asked and watched the kid nod his head. Producing his phone, he handed it off to the boy and nodded for him to do it. As an afterthought, Dorian grabbed his pistol from the dash and pointed the barrel at the floor. “Don’t try and be funny either kid, I’m not in the mood.”

  “I was just…” The driver spoke so fast his words came out as one before nodding his head and attaching a cord to the screen before attaching it to the screen and typing away. Everything he was doing being scrutinized as Keeva peered over his shoulder while Dorian could see what he was doing on the console’s screen. The files transferring one by one from the truck to the phone as the kid disconnected and handed the phone back to Dorian.

  “You did good kid.” Dorian said and then nodded to Keeva. “You think you could…” Dorian began and gestured to his nose.

  “Yeah alright,” Keevan began as she pced her hands at the kid’s face. “Not gonna lie to you, this is going to hurt way worse than you think it will. Ready? Three, two-”

  Closing his eyes tight and wincing at the crunching noise, Dorian almost preferred that to the nearly blood curdling scream of agony that came out of the driver.

  “Good as… well good as its gonna get.” Keeva said as she gave a reassuring pat to the driver’s shoulder though seemed to use this as an excuse to wipe the blood off her fingers. “Put some ice on that and take some aspirin you’ll be fine.”

  “One more thing before we part ways.” Dorian began. “If Rick asks…”

  “I smacked my face on the steering wheel.” The driver finished.

  “Good job kid,” Dorian said as he smiled before stepped out of the passenger side of the truck with Keeva in tow. “Stay out of trouble.” He called out as he stepped towards the car, holstering the pistol behind his back.

  “We get what we needed?” Keeva asked as Dorian set himself in the passenger side. His eyes locked onto the phone screen as he tapped between the data he’d received from the GPS and the manifests.

  “I’m starving,” Dorian said as he clipped his seatbelt. “Let’s go get some food.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go find those shipments first pup?” Keeva asked.

  “Trust me.” Dorian said. “They’re not going anywhere.”