Superheroine - Chapter 16
The sun sat high in the sky as Stanley dropped Beth off at the hotel. She ran inside and made a quick change into her formfitting costume. The blond beauty didn’t don her gloves, necklace, or boots, though, instead opting to place them inside a backpack. She concealed the rest of her outfit under a long coat before returning to Stanley’s car.
Once back in the passenger seat, she removed her running shoes and slipped into her boots. She pulled her gloves into place under the sleeves of her coat. As Stanley drove toward the GPS location of his investigator’s car, the alluring woman loosened her coat enough to fasten the necklace. A tingle of excitement coursed through her body, as if she sensed the power within her. She was ready for whatever they might encounter.
“What’s your investigator’s name?” Beth asked as the road weaved along the Susquehanna River.
“Dirk O’Shea,” Stanley replied. “My best investigator. He’s very resourceful. And conscientious, too. It’s unusual for him not to report in. I emailed you a couple of photos, so you might recognize him.”
Beth detected worry in Stanley’s voice, but it was barely perceptible. She didn’t know how he remained calm. His son was on his deathbed, and his top investigator was missing and might be dead. She was glad she had decided to help. It was time for her to kick the angst-filled schoolgirl to the curb.
She fished her iPhone out of her backpack and checked her email for Stanley’s message, finding two photographs of Dirk O’Shea. Stanley’s missing investigator was a good-looking guy, in a rugged sort of way, with a five o’clock shadow, wide nose, and a strong jaw. He was maybe ten years older than she was. The man had eyes almost as blue as hers, and thick, wavy brown hair. O’Shea had a stern look to him, but almost like it was forced, with a mouth ready to break into a grin at any time. She committed his face to memory in case they found him.
Ten minutes later they reached the river park and pulled down a gravel lane. Evergreen trees loomed above them, with the wide boughs weaving gently in the breeze. The sunlight splintered as it peaked through the canopy, creating scattered patterns of light on the ground, and making it feel later than midafternoon.
Ahead of them, at the edge of a gravel lot, sat a nondescript Ford Taurus overlooking the river 100 feet below. Stanley pulled his SUV to a stop thirty yards from the vehicle.
“That’s his car,” Stanley remarked.
“Wait here,” Beth said, throwing off her coat. She opened her door and jumped out before Stanley could argue.
As she moved toward the front of Stanley's car, it was as if an aura surrounded the slender woman. Her angelic face, with its prominent cheekbones and piercing blue eyes, radiated a palpable beauty. Her shimmering blond hair added to the effect. The sheen of her costume’s vibrant blue fabric, as it hugged the contours of her breasts and flat stomach, drew the sunlight to it. The light emphasized the pure white of her gloves and her short skirt. Even her taut calf and thigh muscles gleamed in the dim sunlight. Her appearance screamed sexuality, strength, and innocence, all at once.
Her aura wasn’t entirely physical. Gone was the shaken, unsure girl, full of guilt about using her new powers. In its place stood a woman who exuded certainty and purpose. Perhaps it was self-confidence. Or perhaps it was her powers, taking tangible form. She was barely Beth now. At least not in her own mind. She was Sapphire Angel.
Sapphire Angel jogged around the front of the car and approached the investigator’s car. Her heart was beating as she crept forward, but not from fear. She was excited. Whatever trepidation she had felt before putting on the costume was gone, replaced by the thrill of taking action.
The stunning super lady swiveled her head as she approached the vehicle, looking for signs of others. She glanced back at Stanley, suddenly worried about leaving him alone. She shouldn’t have brought him with her.
With a resigned shake of the head, she continued forward, putting one shapely leg in front of the other. She came up alongside the car, afraid she might see a dead body inside. But the car was empty.
After pausing again to listen to her surroundings, Sapphire Angel reached a gloved hand to the door handle and tested it. It was locked. Perhaps her newfound strength would be enough to rip the door open, but she had a better idea.
The heroine pulled Stanley’s lock pick device from her boot and held the end up to the lock. While she waited for the device to do its thing, she glanced back again through the trees toward Stanley. He remained in the car, watching her. She gave a slight nod and turned back to the car, just as the door lock clicked open.
After returning the device to her boot, she opened the door. Sapphire Angel peered in and gazed around the interior of the Taurus. There were no signs of a struggle. The interior of the car was immaculate, with no trash, loose change, or similar odds and ends scattered about.
After looking back to Stanley once more she slipped into the driver’s seat. She opened the center console and the glove box, and found only the owner’s manual and a box of tissues. Stanley’s investigator was nothing if not neat. Either that, or someone had ransacked the car, picked it clean, and then neatly rearranged it.
She bent down and reached around on the floor. Under the driver’s seat, through the satin of her glove, she felt a small object on the floor. Taking it in her fingers, she held it up and saw it was a lens cap to a camera. She bent over and checked under the passenger seat, finding nothing.
Sapphire Angel used her small figure to slip between the front seats and climb in the back. She found nothing there, either, and opened the driver’s passenger door from the inside.
The sound of a twig breaking came from her left. Sapphire Angel leapt out of the car, spinning and ready for a fight. Stanley stood a few feet away and held up his hands.
“Woah, just me,” he said.
“Don’t do that!” she said. “I could have hurt you.”
“Sorry. I’ll keep that in mind the next time.”
There wasn’t going to be a next time. Stanley’s place wasn’t in the field. He would just slow her down and be a distraction and worry to her. She didn’t mention it to him, though. They would have time to discuss it later.
“Is O’Shea a neat freak, or something?” she asked.
“Actually, he is.” Stanley said.
“This was all I found,” she said, extending the lens cap to Stanley.
He looked at it only momentarily before letting out a short breath.
“This is the cap to his zoom lens for a night scope,” Stanley explained. “That means he was probably doing surveillance. Did you find a case? The case would contain the scope and a few lenses, and a kit holding a shotgun surveillance microphone and a dish.”
She shook her head.
“Not good,” Stanley muttered as he walked around to the back of the trunk. Sapphire Angel followed and stood by him, hands on her hips, as he used a key to pop the trunk. She frowned and shook her head. Of course he had a key.
She moved up next to Stanley as he looked inside the trunk. The trunk looked to be empty, but Stanley pulled aside a section of the fabric on the floor, and lifted open a small compartment.
“What’s that?” Sapphire Angel asked as he pulled a metal box out of the compartment.
“These are his tools of the trade,” Stanley explained. “He would have used this to get into Gruden’s house, and to gather evidence once inside.”
“Why keep it back here?”
“The surveillance kit fits under his seat. This doesn’t. He’s not one to leave something sitting loose in the car.”
Stanley spun a combination lock on the front of the box and lifted the lid. The inside was filled with tools, vials, a small camera, tape, string, a USB thumb drive, and some smaller boxes and containers.
Stanley picked up the camera and examined it. As he turned on the power and thumbed through on-screen menu options, a frown crossed his face. He opened two of the smaller containers and shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“The camera should have photos from inside the house on it. And this container here,” he said as he held up one of the small ones, “is a fingerprint kit. It’s unused. I suspect this USB drive is empty, too.”
Sapphire Angel put two and two together. “You think he never made it into Gruden’s house?”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe he just aborted the assignment, Stanley,” she said, putting a reassuring hand on Stanley’s arm.
Stanley shook his head. “So, he came here for no reason and parked his car in the middle of nowhere? At a spot know for suicide jumpers? No. He’s in trouble. Somebody left his car here to cast doubt on his disappearance. They wanted to get the authorities to spend time dredging the river for his body.”
“I assume he wasn’t suicidal?”
“Not in the least. Something happened to him, and it happened before he even set foot in the house. He would have taken his gear before going in the house. I doubt someone would have located this container to put it back just right. Somebody got to him before he even popped his trunk.”
“You can’t be sure of that, Stanley,” Sapphire Angel said. She didn’t believe it herself, but she had to reassure Stanley.
“No, I can’t. But I have a sense for this sort of thing. Somebody approached him when he was surveilling the house from his car. I’m guessing they just knocked on his window. He probably thought it was a concerned neighbor and put the window down. They overpowered him or gassed him, or something. During the scuffle, the lens cap ended up on the floor. They cleaned up by taking the rest of the stuff, but missed the cap, and never found the gear in the trunk.”
Beth didn’t suggest another possibility this time. Stanley had seen too much during his life, and her words would just come across as patronizing.
“To Gruden’s house, then?” she asked. Now they had two purposes for going there — to learn what Gruden knew about the Fizzure plans, and to discover what had happened to Dirk O’Shea.
Stanley nodded. “To Gruden’s house.”