Nadine

I poured myself a cup of coffee as I waited for John Scurlock to come out....He had a very modern office inside what had been a warehouse...Developers along the waterfront had gutted all of these old warehouses and turned them into condos and offices and tony restaraunts and bars....In fact this entire area..Once a fisherman's reef and full of dive bars and transients had been transformed into a tony playground for the up and coming.

It didn't take me long to recognize the Black receptionist who was sitting at the front desk...She was the same young woman who had had an appointment with Lisa and Gary Hughes the day I did..The same day they had gone missing... She had took one look at me and tried to hold her head down so that I wouldn't get a good look at her face.. I remembered her, but I didn't say a word.

John Scurlock was about 5'11 or 6 feet, a little pudgy....Middle aged and white...He had a fat face and a smile that was part Tony Soprano, part Curly of the three stooges...He came out, greeted me with a big smile and shook my hand...I walked back to his office and sat down..

"Mr. Uh Morris ,you said your name was...I don't believe I know you." he said.

"Uh you don't....I was hired to do some work for Mrs. Lisa Hughes last week...Only thing was..I went to her office and she wasn't there...Her purse, Her cell phone was there, but she wasn't...Her car is still in the lot but I never saw her...I even stopped by her house...She wasn't there... I uh stopped by her house and her husband's car was suddenly there and it wasn't before." I said looking him dead in the eye and not smiling.

"Hmmm..that does seem a bit strange....I-I-I-I, uh haven't heard from either of the Hughes in close to a week." he said.

''You don't think that's odd?" I asked.

"Well, the Hughes have been known to go on vacations at the drop of a hat...They are somewhat, uh,er...jet setters.." He said.

"I don't think Mrs. Hughes would leave her purse and cell phone and credit cards on her desk with her office door wide open if she were going on vacation." I said.

"How do you know her credit and debit cards were in her purse?" he asked.

"I took the liberty to look." I said.

''Oh....you took the uh liberty to look. You always take such liberties Mr. uh Morris?" he asked.

''When it suits my fancy." I said.  I could tell he was getting irritated.

"Just what kind of business or uh work were you supposed to be doing for the Hughes? They never mentioned you to me." he said.

"You might say I was doing some er independent consulting." I said.

"Independent consulting?" he asked.

"Yes." I replied..   "By the way....I was out at dinner with them the night before they went missing when you called and asked them to meet with you that day..." I said.

''When I called?" he asked , seeming surprised.... "I never called them." he said.  

"You called Mr. Hughes....I was there when he told his wife that you wanted to meet at 8:00 in the morning." I said.

"Not me...I never called them...Not Gary, and not Lisa." he said.

"He said that you had some new figures to show them....Mrs. Hughes had wanted to look at your books." I said.

"What is your name again?" he asked.

"Kevin. Kevin Morris." I said.

"Well Mr. Morris..Unfortunately, I don't have anymore time to talk to you...If I were you I wouldn't worry about Mr. and Mrs. Hughes anymore... I haven't heard from them...But I'm certain that they won't be needing your services." he said.

"Where are they?" I asked.

"Uh Mr. Morris..don't ask too many questions like that....You might find out and maybe...just maybe you don't want to find out." he said.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked...

"Good Day Mr. Morris...Nadine...see Mr. Morris out." he said and just like that..He got up and walked away,like I wasn't there.   I was flabbergasted....

The Black receptionist motioned me to the door...And I walked out....She took her finger and poked me in the back...She motioned for me to be silent...

"I think I can help you...Meet me around the corner at the cantina in about two hours when I go to lunch...My name is Nadine." she said.  I nodded and walked out.... She had told me that it was Vernita just a week ago...I wondered what her game was?  I guess I would have to play to find out.

As I walked to my car, I looked up and saw John Scurlock looking out his window...As soon as he realized that I saw him..he closed his curtain.

II-

Two and a half hours later...Nadine, a cute twenty something African-American woman slipped into the small waterfront cantina and sat across from me...She passed me two folders....

"I take it your name is not Vernita." I said, remembering the name she originally gave me when I saw her at the Hughes's office the day they went missing.

"That's my middle name...I couldn't use my first name or my last...It was me that called Gary Hughes that night when you were all out eating....He couldn't mention my name in public ,so he told his wife that Scurlock wanted to meet with her...I'm sure he explained to her afterword that it was me." she said.

"What are these?" I asked...

"These are files..This is what I had come by the office to give her .These are the latest figures...Sales figures from Mr. and  Mrs. Hughes business...I had been slipping them to them for months....He's been feeding them a bunch of baloney...He's got phony books..but he keeps the real books in the back in a safe....I can't get to them...but I know he has been laundering money into an offshore account for two years now...The guy that used to own the business before the Hughes did,..a Mitchell Humphrey figured it out...and he wound up missing...They found his body in a steel drum down in Miami, about a year later...I fear that the same thing has happened to the Hughes....Miss Lisa was suspicious of him from day one...That's why she fired the accounting firm that used to be here..She wanted to view the books...but he had been giving her the runaround....That's why she hired you." said Nadine.

"You know who I am?" I asked.

"I did my homework....Yeah..I know that you write for a magazine and that you're a private investigator on the side." said Nadine.

"You're good girl..You could be a private investigator yourself..." I said with a smile. She smiled too!

''How long have you been a mole for the Hughes?" I asked.

"Ms. Lisa hired me and told Scurlock to let me work there...but all along it was to watch and listen and give her information about what was going on....But she realized that what she really needed called for someone more suited for this type of thing...That's why she hired you...Plus we both suspected that he was getting suspicious and so Ms. Lisa wanted to take the heat off of me." said Nadine.

"Look..I can give you the layout of the place....and a pass key to get in....but you have to get in and out fast." she said.

"Okay...Look...I'll look over these files...This is my address....Drop the pass key off tonight...I'll handle the rest." I said.

"Thank you Kevin....I just want to get that bastard back for what he did to Miss Lisa and Mr. Gary" she said.

"Nadine!" I said.

"Yes." she replied.

"You think Gary and Lisa are dead?" I asked.

"You don't?"   It's been a week Mr. Kevin...They haven't been heard from...They aren't going to be heard from." she said.

III-

That night....We waited for John Scurlock to leave his office....(I had already placed a GPS Unit under his car.)  I had  recruited Paris, Blake,Harry Charles and Owen Todd to follow him in rental cars and to communicate with Kool Kat and Clerow by cell phone....Using the pass key, Peeping Tom, Lockpick Johnson, Myself, Chance Howard, Sean Jackson and Nadine entered the office...Peeping Tom and Sean Jackson wired the office for sound and video...Lockpick Johnson cracked the safe...Nadine and I used the Xerox Machine to xerox all of the records kept in the books...We replaced the real books in the safe with our phony books and carried three carts of his actual books out of the office and into our van...

Peeping Tom copied the hard drives of all of the computers in his office also. All in all, our operation took close to 90 minutes... We made sure that the office was wiped clean of fingerprints and looked exactly like it did when we arrived...

Peeping Tom,Sean Jackson  and Lockpick Johnson packed everything into the van...

"Thanks Guys...Chance will know what to look for....Chance..Take those books to Robert." I said.

''I'm on it Kev." he said and he pulled off... The van pulled off too.

That left me, Kool Kat ,Clerow and Nadine.

"Thanks for your help Nadine....Now I want you to call out sick for the next two or three days okay." I said.

"What?" she asked.

"I want you to be safe...You got any cousins or girlfriends you can stay with?" I asked.

''Sure" she said.

"Good, Clerow will take you to your home...Pack a few things and go stay with your friends or relatives...I'll do what I can to take care of Mr. Scurlock." I said.

"Thank you Kevin." she said and kissed me on the cheek.

"No..Thank you Nadine. I could have never have gotten all of this information without your help." I said.  She got in the car with Clerow and drove off....

That left me and Kool Kat...

"Wow we put a full court press on this cat Kev." said Kool Kat.

"Yeah....I suspect there is more to him than we know." I said.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)