Blast From The Past 3 Read online

  “I guess we have to tell her,” I said, revising my statement. “For her own safety, we have to let her know what Tommy did to me… If he found out she’s involved, he might come after her for information too—so, she needs to be prepared for that possibility.”

  “You’re right,” J.R. said, stating what was now obvious. “Do you think he’d go after her though?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, getting up off of the couch. I walked over to my desk and grabbed my phone, then found Julie’s number and called her.

  “Can you come over?” I asked, interrupting her as she tried to talk my ear off. She was worried that she hadn’t heard back from me—and, indeed, she had good reason—but she could sense the urgency in my voice, and said she’d be over right away.

  As I hung up my cell phone, I looked at it for a long, hard moment. I realized that, in addition to whatever I might have said while drugged, my phone could have also given a lot away, or could further contribute to my downfall. Tommy could have very well looked at it while I was passed out, and he could have viewed my text messages and missed calls without actually opening them—which would have been enough to reveal Julie’s phone number and the basic nature of her text messages.

  My skin crawled when I thought about what else Tommy could have done to, or on, my phone. Beyond viewing my missed calls and texts, he could have viewed all the ones I’d already received; he could have accessed my contacts list; and, as a tech geek, he could have installed something on my phone that would track, record, or otherwise trail me.

  No matter how I cut it, there was a very high likelihood that my phone had been compromised.

  J.R. saw how I was regarding my Android and asked, “Is everything okay?”

  I looked over at him, then back to my phone. I held it up in the air. “I think I need to get a new one,” I said, shaking the piece around. “There’s a lot a guy like Tommy could have done with this.”

  “I hadn’t even thought about that,” J.R. admitted. “Good thing I’ve been calling you from ‘Unknown,’ blocked numbers… But, bad news for Julie, huh? Good thing we decided to tell her. He could very well have her contact info, and could very well try to contact her.”

  With Julie on her way over, there was no way I could do anything about my phone at that moment… Well, there was one thing I could do, and I decided to do it. I powered down the piece and tossed it back on the desk. “This really is getting ugly,” I said, tears pooling in my eyes again.

  “Come here,” J.R. said, holding out his arms. I went back over to the couch and collapsed into his embrace. He ran his fingers through my hair and drew my head closer to his chest, planting several more sweet kisses on my crown.

  Those kisses soon strayed to my forehead, then to my cheek, and finally to my lips. Soft, gentle, and compassionate at first, they gradually took on more shape and meaning. J.R.’s tongue darted into my mouth, and I lapped mine against it as his hand traveled from my shoulders, down my back, to the top of my ass.

  J.R. slid his hand beneath the waistband of my pants and started squeezing my ass cheek, with his fingers grazing the increasingly moist slit between my legs. I drew closer to him and placed my hand on his upper thigh. His erection had made a tent in his pants, and I was drawing closer to the pitch.

  My problems hadn’t gone away as I’d hoped, but I had a break from them, which was exactly what I needed. The fluttering in my belly felt much better than the earlier nervousness in it, and I ached for J.R. to be inside me.

  We continued to tongue each other’s mouths and grope each other’s bodies until a knock at my door jolted us both.

  “Fuck,” J.R. said, obviously frustrated that our make-out session had to end.

  “Not now,” I said, taking advantage of the double entendre, “but definitely later.”

  ~ Chapter 6 ~

  “Hi,” Julie said when she entered my apartment and saw J.R. casually situated on my couch. I hadn’t mentioned he was there, and she was clearly surprised to see him.

  J.R. made a “hello” gesture with his head. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” he said, standing up and making his way to the bathroom.

  As soon as his back was turned, Julie gave me an inquisitive look, and I raised my hand in a familiar motion, telling her to hold her horses.

  “What the hell?” Julie asked in a whisper as soon as the bathroom door clicked shut. “What’s going on here? Did he spend the night or something?”

  “I wish,” I answered back. “It’s a long story… I’ll fill you in on stuff with J.R. later, but, right now, we have some more serious issues to discuss.”

  “What?” Julie asked. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped in anticipation.

  I raised my voice back to a normal volume and started explaining. At first, she seemed disturbed that I hadn’t told her about seeing Tommy the other night—but, soon, her own hurt feelings were replaced by concern for me.

  At some point during my account, J.R. returned from the bathroom, and he remained quiet as I went on. Julie, too, remained quiet—but, her quietness was due to shock. It wasn’t until I got to the point in the story where the doctor left that she said something in response—and all she said was, “Shit.”

  I reemphasized a few of the major points from what I’d just told her, focusing on the deception and drugs, and, after she had a moment to digest it all, she spoke again.

  “There’s obviously more to this than we initially thought,” she said.

  “Maybe,” J.R. said, jumping in. “Or maybe not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Julie asked.

  “I was thinking about it,” J.R. answered, “and I don’t think there’s very much information Tommy could have gotten from Trish. If he was looking for more on rEcore, he was barking up the wrong tree. She only worked there for less than a week, after all—and, of course, in light of what happened, we changed all of our security measures after she left, and he would’ve definitely known that we would.

  “So, there’s no way he could have expected to get any inside information on rEcore from her—which means he probably was just checking up on things and protecting his own ass. He probably just wanted to know what she knew, to see if she had any idea he was involved.”

  “And you have no idea what you told him?” Julie asked, looking at me.

  “No clue,” I replied. “I could have told him everything or nothing for all I know.”

  “Well,” Julie went on, scratching her pink-haired head, “given the way you said he acted toward you this morning, you probably didn’t tell him much, or else he would’ve been much colder.”

  “You’d think so,” I responded immediately, suddenly picking up on J.R.’s line of reasoning and pursuing it in my own right. “But, remember, I was playing a part with him last night—so maybe he was playing one with me this morning.”

  “Damn,” Julie said, relegating to the realization. “So, where do we go from here?” she asked.

  “Nowhere with Tommy,” J.R. stated firmly. “He’s too unpredictable and dangerous. If he’s involved—which I know he is, somehow—we have to discover it some other way…and I say we do that by shifting our attention back to Gretchen.”

  “What about Stephanie, or her brother?” Julie asked. She’d spent a lot of time chasing those leads and obviously didn’t want all her hard work to go to waste.

  “I think that’s pretty much a dead route now,” J.R. said. “I mean, we should definitely keep alert and bear in mind what we know about them—but I don’t think they’re responsible for any of this… Tommy is a smart guy, and, clearly, he’s relentless—but, to do what he did, he’d need inside help, and it seems more likely that that help came from Gretchen, who also seems pretty damn relentless, given the way she fired people to save her personal reputation. The fact that she fired Evan seems coincidental to me, and it doesn’t really provide motive, other than revenge.

  “But this seems to be about more than revenge, and there’s no connecti
on between Tommy and Evan, so I think following up on Gretchen is still our best option.”

  I considered J.R.’s reasoning, and it made sense to me. Granted, I’d underestimated Stephanie before, but I had to agree that Gretchen’s skill set, connection to Tommy, and possible motives fingered her as the more likely culprit.

  “If you want to keep researching them, that’s fine,” I told Julie. “But I’m with J.R. on this one. I think Gretchen’s the ticket here.”

  Julie sighed and tilted her head a bit. “Okay,” she said. “But, just to be safe—let’s all do something that we should have done earlier.”

  “What’s that?” J.R. asked.

  “Let’s make sure we know who’s who,” she said. “If Trish had shown you Tommy’s picture earlier, we all would have known he was Gretchen’s ex a lot sooner…and maybe she wouldn’t have ended up passed out in his bed… So, let’s all get on the same page here. All of these people—Tommy, Gretchen, Stephanie, and Evan—have online social media profiles. We need to check out their photos to make sure there are no other unexpected connections we don’t know about—and to make sure we’re ready in case we encounter any of them in a dark alley.”

  “Good point,” I said. I walked over and retrieved my laptop, while J.R. pulled out his phone and Julie started scrolling through hers.

  As I was booting up my machine, Julie was mumbling to herself—and then she mumbled to us. “What the hell is a ‘Farm Parm’?”

  Those words sounded strangely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place them, and, from the way J.R. was shaking his head, it was apparent that neither could he.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Why?”

  “Gretchen’s profile,” Julie responded. “Someone posted on her timeline about having a ‘Farm Parm’ tomorrow.”

  Just then, something clicked in my head, and I clicked my way to Gretchen’s profile. Though I didn’t tell my friends, I was starting to vaguely remember what a “Farm Parm” was, and I was entirely aware of when and where I’d seen the term before.

  Sure enough, at the top of Gretchen’s timeline, there was a comment from a woman named Liz. Can’t wait till I’m done with work tomorrow, the post read. I’m having a Farm Parm.

  I wracked my brain a bit more… Farm Parm. Farm Parm—marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and a sunny-side-up egg atop ten ounces of Kobe beef, if my memory of Burger Bistro’s kitschy menu served me correctly.

  “Hmm,” I hummed. “I have no idea what that is, but it’s probably not important.”

  “Probably not,” Julie chimed back. I watched as she continued to scroll through her phone, and I was satisfied that she hadn’t detected my lie.

  My computer was huffing and puffing, making its wake-up noises. I stared at it aimlessly as the wheels in my head kept spinning. I was coming up with a plan, but I had to keep it to myself if it was going to work.

  ~ Chapter 7 ~

  Julie, J.R., and I spent another twenty minutes or so viewing things on our separate devices, and then we went on to discuss things more, speculate, and share our opinions. We couldn’t quite figure out where to go from there—or, at least, they couldn’t, as I already knew where I was gonna go—so, we decided to end our group brainstorming at that impasse, recollect ourselves, and reconvene at a later time.

  But when it came time for us all to go our separate ways, no one seemed to be going anywhere. Obviously, since we were in my apartment, I wasn’t going anywhere—and, from the looks of things, neither were J.R. or Julie. They both just sat there, each waiting for the other to leave.

  The situation was a little awkward for me—kinda like a Sophie’s Choice kind of thing, even if the choice I had to make wasn’t as drastic. Who should go, and who should stay with me? I had good reasons to answer that question either way.

  Part of me wanted to dismiss J.R. so that Julie and I could have some time for girl talk. I wanted to tell her about things with J.R. and get her opinion on what it all meant. But another part of me wanted to dismiss Julie, so that I could fall into his arms again, take him back to my bed, and finish what we’d started before Julie got there.

  I couldn’t tell if either J.R. or Julie could sense the position they’d put me in, and I felt as if they were challenging and battling each other, seeing who’d cave first, inadvertently surrendering and admitting the other’s connection to me was stronger. This stalemate was just as bad, if not worse, than the one we’d just reached in our investigation—so I decided to make my choice, and I chose the option that poor Sophie had never been given. I chose to sacrifice my own interests for both of their sakes.

  “I’m still not feeling very well and am really tired,” I told the both of them. “Being drugged really messed with my system, I guess… I just want to lie down and take a nap.”

  J.R. and Julie both looked at me as if they were disappointed, and I’m sure they both were—but they each were understanding, which made me hate how much I was lying to them both, both as far as this particular lie, and others, were concerned.

  J.R. and Julie stood up at approximately the same time. I stood up, too, and walked with them to the door, where I hugged them each, in turn, and told them I’d talk to them later.

  “What about your phone?” J.R. asked. “Do you think it’s still safe to call it?”

  “No,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  I quickly explained to Julie how I thought my phone could have been compromised and made arrangements to call her later, from a new phone. I had her give J.R. her number, and had him agree to call her the next day to get my new number. Just to keep up appearances, I also instructed Julie to keep texting my existing line—that way, if Tommy had tapped it, there’d be no cause for suspicion (think about how strange it’d look if Julie was frequently texting me, then stopped completely!). Julie agreed with me, though she did bitch a bit about the added burden of texting two phones.

  Once we were done with all that rigmarole, the two of them finally left, and I did go and lie down, like I’d said I was going to do, even though I wasn’t actually tired or feeling ill. Perhaps I was trying to bring a grain of truth to my lie, or perhaps I was just trying to settle my nerves a bit. Whatever the case, I lay there and thought more about the plan I’d come up with. It wasn’t going to be easy to orchestrate and execute, but I knew I had to do it anyway, and I knew I had to do it without J.R. or Julie.

  I was the one trying to clear my name, and even though that inevitably involved J.R., he, like Julie, didn’t need to get as deeply involved in the process as I did. J.R. had the resources to investigate what was going on as far as destruction to his business, but he didn’t use them for my sake, so that we could crack the cover up and save me, not just his company.

  Despite my racing mind, I somehow managed to drift off to sleep. I’m sure the drugs really had messed with my system, and my system very easily shut down. I slept a dead sleep for about three hours, and only awoke when I heard a firetruck traveling the street on the other side of my bedroom window.

  No, my house was not on fire, and it wasn’t my kitten who was trapped in a tree. The firetruck was headed somewhere else, to a destination unbeknownst to me, and its sounds along the way woke me.

  My first impulse upon waking was a typical one. I wanted to run and check my phone for messages… And, with that, I was reminded of my concerns over my phone and my decision to get another one.

  I looked at the clock, and it was nearly 7 p.m., which gave me an ample amount of time to freshen up and hit one of the few no-contract cell phone providers that speckled E Carson Street in the South Side.

  I went and got my phone (which I’ll call phone-1) from my desk, booted it, and took it into the bathroom with me. As I was doing my business and brushing my hair, phone-1 came to life and alerted me that I had received four messages. Two were from Julie, and both were timestamped after our earlier meeting, though neither of them said anything too revealing or incriminating. Good job, Julie! I thought to myself.
/>   The other two messages were from Tommy.

  Just want to say hi and make sure everything was OK, the first read. Hope you’re feeling better.

  Text me as soon as you can, the second read. I’m worried about you, after how you left this morning.

  I stopped paying attention to myself, and paid attention to my phone instead. Sorry about leaving so suddenly this morning, I swiped. I just woke up and am feeling much better. Probably gonna go back to bed soon again though. Will text you tomorrow. Maybe we can meet for dinner or something.

  With that message, I’d laid the first brick in the foundation of my plan, and I just needed to wait for the other pieces to fall into place.

  ~ Chapter 8 ~

  “Look,” I said, raising my voice while trying to maintain a modicum of decorum, “I really don’t care about getting the best data plan… All I need this phone for is phone calls, text messages, and occasional internet usage. I don’t plan on streaming videos, playing games, or checking my email. So just give me the $40/month plan. You’ve done your job and tried to convince me to spend more.”

  I’d just made a similar argument regarding the low-priced cell phone I’d selected, and the clerk looked at me as if I were the cheapest person on this planet. But, really, I meant what I said. This cell phone (which I’ll call phone-2) was meant merely to be a “safe” line to communicate with Julie and J.R., not meant to replace my old one or put to what the clerk would consider a “regular” use. Perhaps it would have worked better to tell him I was purchasing the phone and plan for a child; maybe then he’d have been more understanding—either that, or he’d have tried to sell me on some added parental controls type of package.

  In any event, I had phone-2 up and ready to go within half an hour after leaving the store, and, once I was back at my place, my first call was to Julie. I wanted her to have my new number as soon as possible, and for her to have it ready for J.R. when he called her. Again, I wished that I had had more alone time with each of them earlier, but there weren’t enough hours in the day—at least not in this one—to accommodate all of my interests.