Aslan

R uiz showed up within the hour and found me planted in his desk chair, fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube I’d found in an overstuffed drawer.

I wouldn’t ordinarily touch other people’s belongings, but the nostalgia of the children’s toy was too much to resist. The instant I’d seen it a smile broke out across my face as memories flooded my brain.

“You’re touching my shit. What did I say?”

I spun to face Quaid’s scowling BFF, clad in rugged jeans and a snuggly-fit black T-shirt, as I twisted and turned the cube to try to align the colors.

“Did you know a couple of years ago at a team building day, Quaid and I were paired up and forced to work together to solve this ridiculous case our staff sergeants cooked up for fun. It was the first time I’d ever spent time with him.

The first time we ever had a proper conversation.

Up until then, I knew him only as the surly, anal-retentive, stick-up-the-ass detective from MPU who everyone called the corpse. ”

“Are you suggesting Playboy Aslan was much better? ”

“I didn’t say that. In fact, this playboy wanted nothing more than to bend Quaid over a desk and fuck him six ways to Sunday because he was hot as shit.

The last thing I wanted to do was get to know him, let alone work beside him during a time-wasting event the bigwigs thought might calm the hostility between our departments. ”

“Is there a reason we’re walking down memory lane? I thought you needed my help.”

I tossed Ruiz the Rubik’s Cube. “One of our puzzles that day was a Rubik’s Cube. We needed to solve it to get our next clue. Up until that point, we’d spent the day snapping at each other between annoying phone calls from his cheating ex-boyfriend. Remember Jack?”

“Mr. Wannabe Porn Star who had his face smashed in.”

“That’s him. Anyhow, we found a tutorial on YouTube that showed us how to solve that stupid thing. There’s a trick, but I can’t remember how to do it to save my life.”

Ruiz puzzled the cube and shrugged. “I’m not following. Are you saying that solving a Rubik’s Cube with Quaid changed the course of your life?”

I considered. “In a roundabout way, yes. Maybe it did. I think that was when we both realized we didn’t hate each other as much as we pretended. I kissed him for the first time that night in the parking lot outside the restaurant, and he kissed me back, no matter what he claims to the contrary.”

Ruiz made a face. He loathed romantic details of any kind.

At first, I thought he still clung to a touch of queerphobia until I realized he was like that with anyone—queer or straight—who shared too many details of their bedroom adventures.

Giving him credit, Ruiz was not a man who boasted or bragged about his sex life.

He kept his private life behind closed doors .

He tossed the childish game back, scowling. “You kissed in the parking lot. Yada, yada, the rest is history. Beautiful story, now get the fuck out of my chair. You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“If I wanted to make you uncomfortable, I’d tell you how Jordyn caught us fucking in the supply room a couple of hours ago.”

“Enough. Move your ass, Doyle, or I’m going home.”

I let Ruiz have his spot, enjoying the sucked-lemon look on his face and grabbed the spare seat he kept pushed in the corner.

It was Quaid’s special chair for when he visited, but I didn’t call him out on it because I needed Ruiz’s help, and he was sensitive at times, especially when it came to his bromance with my husband. I’d pissed him off enough for one day.

He booted up the computer and clicked around before waving a hand. “What do we got?”

“Missing eight-year-old. The parents are Nixon and Imogen Davis. They received a threatening note after their son was napped on Tuesday.” I pulled up the picture I’d taken before dropping it off in the lab to be fingerprinted since I was too lazy to do it myself.

Ruiz took a minute to read it, using two fingers to enlarge the image. His eyes widened. “Well fuck me. That’s bad.”

“Indeed. The father only showed up tonight to report it.”

“It’s Friday.”

“Yep. Quaid and Jordyn did a preliminary interview with him before taking off to the house to chat with the wife.”

“And?”

“I’ve got two names he wants me to look into, but not a lot of detail. That’s where you come in. As I said on the phone, Quaid won’t walk away from this, so I’m giving him all the support I can. We’re supposed to be on parental leave as of today. ”

Ruiz handed my phone back and nodded, spinning to his computer. “Then let’s do it. What have we got so far?”

I knew Ruiz would back me up. He couldn’t help it where Quaid was concerned. He worried about my husband’s mental health as much as I did.

“Jude Marigold. Male. Early to mid-thirties. Works for a company called NexGen. He supposedly has a gambling problem, ergo, possibly financial issues. The other red flag is Clementine Prescott. She was the Davises’ nanny until recently. Apparently, the wife fired her for reasons unknown.”

Ruiz sat with his fingers poised over the keyboard as though waiting for something more. When I didn’t go on, he dropped his hands to his lap and spun to face me. “That’s it?”

“For now. Come on. You’ve worked with less. Quaid said he’d get more info and send it along as soon as possible. Start with Jude. He and Nixon are business partners. There’s friction there. Apparently, Nixon recently accused him of embezzling funds and threatened a lawsuit.”

“I’ll be skating some dicey legal lines.”

“It’s why we love you.”

Ruiz worked his magic. In a flash, the website for NexGen filled the screen, along with pictures and biographies of its founders.

Nixon looked younger, so I imagined Jude’s photograph was also dated.

Ruiz selected Jude Marigold’s profile and skimmed it, taking notes on a yellow legal pad as he went.

Watching Ruiz work fascinated me. He easily followed the intricate threads of someone’s online life, picking out keywords, expanding his searches, and discovering more information than a standard background check would ever produce.

In under thirty minutes, we had a rounded picture of thirty-four-year-old Jude Alexi Marigold, from his complete educational background to his dating history going back to high school, along with academic awards and scholarships.

We knew where he lived, where his wife worked, where his kids went to daycare, and what he drove.

Because of an article in The Globe and Mail , we knew he won a significant poker tournament several years ago.

What he took home from that win was not revealed, but it backed up Nixon’s claim that Jude was a gambler.

Jude’s criminal background check didn’t show so much as a parking ticket or a dodged jury summons. Unfortunately, Ruiz couldn’t legally dig into anything financial without a warrant, but we had a more rounded picture of Jude Marigold.

Ruiz flipped to a new page on his legal pad and started a fresh search on twenty-year-old Clementine Prescott.

Considering the population of Toronto and not having any concrete information about where the girl lived, only that she attended York University, I figured she might be trickier to locate, but I was wrong.

Her unusual name combined with the educational institute helped, and in no time, Ruiz pulled up a social media profile picture of a drop-dead gorgeous redheaded woman in a recognizable location on the York campus. She perfectly matched our parameters.

We sat back simultaneously, jaws unhinged, Ruiz seemingly as shell-shocked as me.

“Wow,” he said, voice croaking. “She’s… really fucking beautiful.”

“I was just going to say that. Please confirm she’s legal, or I’m going straight to hell.”

“Twenty. Legal.”

“Like a model.”

“Centerfold… Hey, Doyle?”

“Yeah. ”

“Do not , under any circumstances, tell my wife I wow ed and almost lost my eyeballs.”

I chuckled. “You and me both. Ogling would see me castrated. Have you met my husband? It’s probably in my marriage contract. In fact, I know it is. My god, turn it off, for fuck’s sake.”

Ruiz snorted and clicked to close the window. “We take this to the grave. We cannot be held responsible for innate reactions to the superiorly made human species.”

“Agreed.”

“Noticing attractiveness is not a crime.”

“Nope, and I’m well versed in the criminal code.”

Ruiz offered a fist to bump, and I reciprocated.

We sobered, remembering too late that we were middle-aged married men. Maybe Ruiz felt the same shame as me, but he didn’t admit it.

“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “So, the Davises’ nanny is a looker. That’s a simple fact. What are the chances she was fired because Nixon’s eye kept straying?”

“High. Especially if his wife’s on bed rest, pregnant, and feeling inadequate. The doctor has probably ordered them to avoid… you know. Nixon’s likely been temporarily cut off.”

“Worth mentioning to Quaid.”

Ruiz agreed and performed as much of a background check as he could on Clementine Prescott.

The university student was riding on several scholarships and still lived at home with her parents, which didn’t necessarily disqualify her as a suspect but made it far less plausible.

Where would she keep an eight-year-old boy?

Next, Ruiz completed as thorough a profile as he could on Nixon and Imogen Davis.

A familial abduction with such a specific ransom note meant digging as deep as we could into the parents as well.

We knew one or both of them had secrets in their backgrounds.

The key was figuring out what they were hiding.

***

At long past eleven, Quaid texted, asking if I was still at work.

With Ruiz in his office , I texted back. Are you still at the Davises’?

I didn’t get a response. Typical. Quaid was likely busy. Double-checking the time, I groaned. “No wonder I feel run over. It’s almost midnight.”

“Get used to it. Once that baby is born, you can say goodbye to a solid night’s sleep.”