Everywhere It's You Read online

  EVERYWHERE IT’S YOU

  C.B. Salem

  Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Copyright © 2015

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  CONTENTS

  C.B. Salem 1

  Copyright © 2015 2

  Copyright © 2015 2

  IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK 3

  CONTENTS 4

  CHAPTER ONE 5

  CHAPTER TWO 13

  CHAPTER THREE 20

  CHAPTER FOUR 27

  CHAPTER FIVE 31

  CHAPTER SIX 42

  CHAPTER SEVEN 46

  CHAPTER EIGHT 51

  CHAPTER NINE 58

  CHAPTER TEN 64

  CHAPTER ELEVEN 69

  CHAPTER TWELVE 76

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 82

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN 90

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN 92

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN 96

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR 104

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kristina knew it was bad when she heard the knock at her door.

  She’d gotten into work early, even after a late night working at The Velvet, so that she could sit with a fresh cup of coffee and collect the results of her investigative efforts into a report. With the door closed, people without urgent business wouldn’t come in to bother her, and very few of the attorneys, secretaries, and paralegals at Dunn-Brantley had seen her come in anyway. She kept the lights off, as she often did, preferring either natural light or the hollow light of screens, so a quick glance under her door still wouldn’t show she was in. The small window out to the hall was left opaque. She even kept the aero pharmaceuticals coming from the vent over the window to their low, default level. She’d always preferred the pick-me-up of natural caffeine in coffee anyway.

  In order to know she was in her office, someone would have to check the building security for her ID, and that meant whatever they needed was urgent. Urgent for an investigator meant a huge pain in the ass and long hours because the alternative was shoddy work. She hated urgent.

  “Kristina,” a man’s voice came from behind the door. “I know you’re in there.”

  She knew who that voice belonged to: Richard Brantley. She sighed and unlocked the door from her tablet.

  His bald head shone under the fluorescence of the hallway, casting him in a strange glow against the relative darkness of her office. There wasn’t a wrinkle on his face or his head, causing an effect she found disconcerting but he seemed to like. Today, however, his face was redder than usual. That was bad.

  “Why did you lock your door?” he asked.

  “I’m working.” she said, more coolly than she felt. “Old habit. Is everything okay?”

  Brantley’s nostrils flared. People described the two name partners of Dunn-Brantley as fire and ice. Brantley was the fire. “No, I sound all panicked about finding you because everything is just as it should be. We have a situation we need to get on top of. ASAP.”

  “What is that situation?”

  “Victoria is in my office. Come now.”

  Kristina checked her coffee mug and found it was empty. “Let me just brew myself a cup of coffee and I’ll be right there.”

  “I already have you a cup, and it’s getting cold.”

  Resigned, Kristina followed him down the hall to his corner office, passing paralegals working quietly with what looked like plastic rings hanging from their noses. Kristina thought they looked like septum piercings, though they were called breathers and let someone add an extra pharm to their mood while still being able to take it out whenever necessary. It was a new technology, but a lot of firms covered it as part of a benefits package. Anything for more productivity.

  Kristina hated them.

  When she stepped into Brantley’s office, she found the firm’s other name partner, Victoria Dunn, waiting patiently. Dunn had her trademark clear-framed glasses off and resting on Brantley’s desk. She was rubbing her eyes as Kristina entered, the lines around her eyes showing signs of needing another Ambrosia treatment.

  Kristina took a deep breath. If Dunn was shaken up by this, it was definitely serious.

  She the seat next to Dunn, maneuvering the chair so she could see both Dunn and Brantley at the same time. Brantley took his seat at the desk, opposite from Kristina and Dunn.

  “So,” Kristina said. “What happened?”

  Silence hung in the air. Both partners looked at each other, then back at Kristina. She took a sip of coffee, which really wasn’t that bad, and waited.

  Finally, Dunn cleared her throat. “We received a call from Landon Tatum’s personal assistant today. It appears Mr. Tatum is missing.”

  Kristina’s eyes opened wide and she set the mug down. That was serious. Landon Tatum was Chicago’s youngest billionaire, the brightest star in the Pharma Boom. He was also Dunn-Brantley’s biggest client.

  She’d seen him last night.

  “Missing?” she said, her mind still catching up with her mouth. “That’s impossible!”

  Dunn’s thin brow arched up. “Impossible?” She straightened up in her seat and put her glasses back on. “Why do you say that?”

  Kristina’s cheeks warmed as she remembered the previous night. She’d been undercover at an event at a strip club. He’d been in attendance, shockingly. Things had gotten a little...intimate for work conversation. She looked between the two partners and took a deep breath.

  “Last night I was doing a surveillance op on Fordelli in regards to antitrust with the city,” she said. “It was a birthday party at The Velvet. About an hour in, Tatum showed up.”

  The pair of them exchanged a wide-eyed glance, then turned back to her in synchrony.

  “Were you planning on sharing this information?” Brantley snapped.

  Her shoulders tensed. “Yes,” she shot back. “I was planning to do so today, after I had done some poking around this morning to see if I could figure out why the hell Tatum would be hanging around there. Obviously, this morning has already been different from what I had expected.”

  A silence filled up the space in the room. Heart pounding, Kristina pressed her lips together and did her best to compose herself.

  She’d never actually lost it with Brantley before. Part of the training her brother had given her when she was coming up in his security company as a private investigator. Sometimes you had to deal with people who pissed you off. Cost of doing business. She took another sip of his coffee.

  “Thank you for telling us now,” Dunn said finally. She would be the one to break the silence. Brantley was still fuming, his face red. “Hopefully that information will be useful in your search for him.”

  It was all Kristina could do to not spit the coffee out on the desk. She put the mug down. “My search?”

  Dunn put her glasses back on. “Correct. You will be searching for him on behalf of Dunn-Brantley.”

  “Have the police been notified of this disappearance?”

  Dunn shook her head. “No. The protocol we drafted for Tatum last month in case of his disappearance states they not be contacted for at least forty-eight hours.”

  Kristina sat up straighter. “He had a protocol drafted last month and now he’s missing?” She narrowed her eyes. “Sounds very lucky.”

  “We admit the coincidence,” Brantley said.

  Dunn readjusted her glasses. “That same
protocol states that our firm should conduct any searches internally,” she continued. “In fact, Tatum specifically requested you lead the search.”

  Kristina took a deep breath. This was getting stranger by the second. She’d never even met the man before last night...and that barely counted.

  “Doesn’t he have a security force?” she asked. “A man like that must.”

  Dunn shook her head again. “Not one he feels he can trust, in any case. He was adamant it be an internal firm investigation and that you would lead it.”

  Kristina nodded slowly, at a loss for words. How were they being so cool about this? It was nuts!

  Why would a man like Tatum put an investigation like this in her hands when they hadn’t even met at the time? It sounded like either a scheme or a weird case of paranoia.

  “It goes without saying that Tatum Pharmaceuticals is our biggest client,” Brantley said, leaning forward with his forearms planted on the desk. He looked toward Dunn briefly before turning his attention back to Kristina. “If your search proves unsuccessful, that will be a big problem for the firm.”

  Kristina blinked. If she lost her job at Dunn-Brantley, she would be back to square one with her private investigation business. The world of freelance was a hustle she’d been glad to leave behind.

  “I understand,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Is there anything else?”

  Both of them shook their head.

  “I’d better get to work then. Please have a copy of that protocol sent to my mailbox ASAP.”

  “Of course,” Dunn said, standing up. Kristina and Brantley followed. “Is there anything else you need from us?”

  Kristina shook her head. What the hell was going on?

  ***

  Returning to her office brought its own relief.

  The space was small, sparse, and highly functional: ivory-colored walls, pristine white desk, and a black ergonomic chair was about as simple a color scheme as she could manage. There were no decorations but a picture of her with her two brothers and an antique mechanical clock. A lone guest was stationed chair to her right side when she was seated at her desk. She kept a small gunmetal safe behind her.

  She cleaned it herself regularly, on top of whatever the cleaning people did. It was important to her to have a minimalist space to think. Cluttered spaces made for cluttered minds, and most of what she dealt with was messy enough as it was. The only items she kept on her desk were her tablet, her coffee maker, and a mug for the coffee. She flicked the hall window to transparent with a switch on the sill and brewed another cup.

  Coffee had fallen out of favor for a lot of people ever since companies had started pumping in stimulant aero-pharms to improve workplace productivity, but Kristina still preferred her morning jolt the old-fashioned way. Like she’d done it growing up, before there were aeros everywhere you went.

  It was one of her favorite features of so many of the old, classic movies. People in diners, drinking coffee. Taking coffee outside in the bitter cold and sipping at it as its steam billowed out above. It looked so...quaint. A different time.

  Her lips tight, she took her fresh mug back to her desk and swiped her tablet out of sleep. The device flashed, and she navigated from her report on the previous night to her mailbox.

  The doc she’d requested was already waiting. Tatum Disappearance Protocol, June 22 2045. She raised her brows. That was five weeks ago. This thing was brand new.

  Following her hunch from earlier, she did a quick search through the database to see if it was replacing an older version. The search came up empty. So he’d had this done right before he disappeared. Almost like he knew he was going to go. Either he was planning to do a runner, or his paranoia had been vindicated.

  Strange. She’d pegged him for a bit eccentric, but not totally paranoid. Something seemed off.

  She scanned the doc, swiping down the pages quickly. Most of it was legalese, but on page four she found her name. Such a search will be headed by Kristina Andersen, Director of Investigations at Dunn-Brantley.

  She sighed. This was very, very strange. But the partners had been right, of course. Whatever the reason, he’d wanted her.

  A knock came at her door. She looked up in time to see a bubbly mess of blonde curls pop in. She must have forgotten to lock it.

  “How was your night as a stripper?” Anna asked.

  Kristina rolled her eyes. Anna was her closest friend at the firm by a long shot, but her energy in the morning still could be a little much. She used her ditzy demeanor to her advantage in negotiations, though. People under-estimated her, which was a mistake. The woman went to Georgetown and was sharper than most of the people she met across the table.

  “Not a lot of stripping,” Kristina said. “Shut the door.”

  Anna’s brows shot up, but she did as requested and sat down at the lone guest chair against the wall. “Someone’s crabby,” she said, once she was situated.

  Kristina chewed her lip. “Partners got a call this morning. Landon Tatum is missing.”

  Anna’s mouth dropped open. “How long?”

  “Since this morning. Not at home. Comm’s off. According to the protocol I just started reading, that counts as missing.”

  “Jesus. Did they call the police?”

  “Protocol says the firm needs to look for him for a minimum of forty-eight hours before the police are called. More specifically, I need to.”

  Anna shook her head. “What protocol is this, exactly? I haven’t heard anything at all about it.”

  “Something the firm drafted up for him a few weeks ago,” Kristina answered, taking a deep breath. It felt even stranger to say it out loud. “Without my knowledge, in fact. I think Dunn handled it herself.”

  “Sounds fishy.”

  “Right.” Kristina picked up her neglected mug of coffee and took a sip. “And here’s the thing,” she said, once she was done. “I saw him last night at the party.”

  Her friend’s jaw dropped again. “Landon Tatum at a strip club? And The Velvet at that?”

  “Correct.”

  “Doesn’t seem like his kind of place. What was he there for?”

  “I was working a party for Geno Totti. Fordelli was there along with some of the usual types. Just charting some interactions and stuff. Not sure about Tatum’s connection at all.”

  “And now he’s gone,” she said.

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Wow. That’s bad.”

  Anna leaned back. Kristina could practically watch the wheels in her friend’s head turning.

  “So back to the important stuff,” Anna said. “Did he check you out when you were doing your undercover stripper stuff?”

  Kristina shook her head. Something passed across her vision.

  She spun back and looked out the hall window in time to see the tall, charcoal-suited frame of Landon Tatum walking down the hallway.

  Kristina shot out of her seat, threw her door open, and peeked her head out in time to see him disappear around the corner. She scurried out of her office and down the hall. When she got to the corner she saw the men’s room door close.

  Was she seeing things? She couldn’t just stalk the door awkwardly, could she? Footsteps came from behind her and she spun around. It was Anna.

  “What the hell was that?” Anna asked. “Did you see a ghost?”

  Kristina rubbed her eyes again and then did her best to stare her friend down. Must be lack of sleep. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with some more coffee. No way was he here. She was imagining it. Someone would have said something to the partners, right?

  Kristina rubbed her eyes. “I really need to get to work,” she said. “Dunn told me it was either find Tatum or lose my job. Never mind a bunch of other people here getting laid off.”

  Anna studied her for a minute, decided to let the issue drop. “Jesus. What’s your first step?”

  She took a deep breath, trying to get on top of her spinning mind. There were so many things to fo
llow up on. The most important was taking another look at the party from last night. If there was a connection, that was a big step to figuring out what had happened. If not, then she was no worse off.

  “I think I need to call my brother Tom,” she said. “Set up a Recall.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tom worked in the Pharmaceuticals unit of the Chicago Police Department Crime Lab. That meant he had access to all kinds of pharmaceutical aids not available to the public. One of those—the most common—was a pharm called Recall.

  It allowed someone to relive a memory, as if it were a video from their own eyes. By reliving the memory, a subject could more easily recall details, give more accurate descriptions, and otherwise contribute to an investigation. It had cut down tremendously on false-positive identifications, among other things.

  A false-positive wasn’t what she was worried about, though. She’d missed something at the party, she knew it. Tatum must have done something or interacted with someone that could give her a clue about where he’d gone. If she could have Tom arrange a Recall for her, she would have another chance at what that would be.

  He picked up before the second ring.

  “What do you need?” he answered breathlessly.

  Kristina pictured her overweight brother hurrying across the room to answer his comm. He hated any sound that signaled a machine was trying to get his attention.

  “A favor,” she said. “Set up a Recall for last night between the hours of one and three a.m.”

  A pause on the other line. “Another private use of City resources?”

  She rolled her eyes. They both knew he was going to give her what she needed, but some part of his brain always wanted to guilt her first.

  “If you’re not too busy,” she said. “It’s for an investigation. I’ll share whatever I find out with any CPD investigations.”

  “What investigation would that be?”

  She knew Tom probably didn’t particularly care what this was really about, but he also had to cover his own ass. “Put down that I’m investigating some improper financial dealings by Ricardo Fordelli.”