There’s a rap on the door.
“Come in,” calls Lieutenant Smyth.
The door opens. In walks David, the custodian.
“What’s he doing here?” Mike snarls, remembering the difficulty he had obtaining information on Bo.
“Mike, I’d like you to meet our undercover officer. You know him as David,” Lieutenant Smyth says.
David sits his massive frame in the chair beside Mike.
Mike flinches, sure that the chair cannot hold this big man. When nothing happens, he shrugs and waits for more information.
“We have had some women professionals disappear on the street where you live in the past several years. The investigations had gone cold. Then we got a lead from a friend of one of the dead women that she’d been dating Joe. We dug a little deeper and turns out the others had been involved with him at some point as well. He is the only common thread with all of these women,” shares Lieutenant Smyth. “That’s when we decided to put David in the same building as Joe undercover.”
“Do you think Paige is now a target?” Mike asks, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling.
“We aren’t sure,” responds David in his deep, gruff voice. “I believe Joe had been dating a friend of Paige’s, but we aren’t clear on why he hired the smash and grab on Paige. Has Paige said anything to you?”
“Just that she had a run in with Joe a while ago during a project they were on together. She said he had a temper, she coached him but didn’t tell his boss. Would he harm her for that?”
“Honest, we just don’t know. The trash piled in her office she is convinced was put there by me was actually put there by Joe. Our cameras prove that,” David advises.
Mike realizes this is the reason she hadn’t been in the office those couple of days before she was robbed. Shaking his head from side to side he says, “I had no idea that’s what happened.”
“She’s got some backbone though. She came at me more than once,” smiles David.
“Hmm,” nods Mike. “Not sure that is a trait to have when dealing with someone like Joe.”
No one says anything to the last comment.
“Mike, we want to leverage your apartment for viewing the parking garage and the building. We are keeping David on the inside and there will be a bug planted on Paige. We aren’t sure if Joe is going to go after her or the other woman he’d been dating in the office.”
“Whatever you need, you have it but I do work nights at the hospital. I’ve got to be able to sleep before my shifts since people’s lives depend on me.”
“That shouldn’t be an issue for our people. We ask that you do not share David’s identity with Paige.”
“I won’t. Paige is sharing with her security team that Joe is the one that paid to have her stuff grabbed. She is certain he will lose his job. That may make it difficult to keep tabs on the guy.”
“We’re working with the security team there. They are aware of what we’re looking at and have ensured us that Joe will not be terminated until we’re done.”
