AllFreeNovel
Share Us
About five feet behind us, Sven just cleared his throat and tried to look anywhere but at us. I shook my head at him and grinned at Atticus. "Let's go."
My thoughtful husband slowed his normal pace down for me and shortened his stride slightly so I could keep up. When we reached the construction site, he found the foreman. "Hey, just a random question. We had a security issue a couple of weeks back. Any chance you have security guards who are supposed to be watching the place at night?"
The foreman frowned. "What's this about?"
Atticus opened his mouth, but I thought maybe we would try the honey approach first. I slid a hand on his chest gently and patted it. "What my husband is trying to say is, we noticed from the security camera from the other building that there was somebody stationed kind of in the door frame, and we were just wondering if they saw anyone coming or going. Anyone running away from the building on either side that night?"
The foreman frowned as he looked at me, then back at Atticus, then back at me again. I gave him a dazzling smile that hopefully said, 'Please help us, so that my husband doesn't make you regret your life choices.'
The guy nodded and went over to his laptop, typing something in. "Um, you're looking for Adam Bailey. Luckily for you, he is on shift right now. Just down that way. Watch your head.” He pointed to another man standing off to the side. “Troy over there, he'll take you down to the security room."
I gave Atticus a wide grin, and he looked like, well, like perhaps he wanted to spank me. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, I'd gotten us what we needed.
As we marched through the security office with our hardhats on, Sven hilariously made it look like his could easily scrape the ceiling. Atticus just shook his head at me. "I'm just worried about you, that's all."
"I'm fine. And he's willing to talk to us. See? You don't have to break down everything."
"It's more efficient though, isn't it?"
I rolled my eyes. "When did I become the warm and fuzzy one?"
He laughed at that. "Is that what you're calling this? Warm and fuzzy?"
"I'm calling it being good with people,” I smirked.
When we reached the security office, we found Adam Bailey, and Sven parked himself outside the room.
"Excuse us?" Atticus said tentatively.
Bailey turned around and nodded, eyeing me, then Atticus. "Yeah? What can I help you with?"
Atticus stepped forward. "On the night of August eighth, were you on duty?"
He frowned again. "I don't know. If the boss says I was on duty, maybe I was."
I sighed, trying to take over again, but Atticus stopped me. "You see, my wife, she's pretty patient. But somebody tried to shoot her that night, so I'm far less patient, right? You were on duty. Your foreman already confirmed for us. Which means you had to have seen someone coming and going, and if you didn't, I bet there was something on these cameras."
He swallowed hard, shifting his gaze. "Look, I didn't do anything. Sometimes I turn a blind eye when a couple of kids come in and smoke or something."
"You let people smoke in this building? Aren't there highly flammable materials around?"
"I don't know. Look, that night, some kid comes up to me and offers me fifty bucks to turn off our back cameras. Of course, I didn't see him again. But when I checked, nothing was taken."
Atticus groaned. "You know what this kid looks like?"
"No. I didn’t pay that much attention."
"You don't have a name or anything?"
"No, but I see him around from time to time."
Atticus looked like he wanted to pummel him as he took another menacing step toward Adam Bailey. I stepped between them. "Sorry about him. He really is particular about my safety. So the kid paid you fifty bucks for you to pay a little less attention to what might be going on inside the building. Nothing was reported missing, and you probably forgot about him. I get that. But if you saw the kid again, could you point him out to us?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Okay then." I turned my attention back to Atticus. "We could probably get footage from across the street and see if we can get the kid on camera. Maybe he’s local and works around here or something."
Atticus pressed his lips firmly together. "Yeah, maybe."
