11
Aiden
They had some timeto kill on the next day after picking up the earring, so Aiden led them to a deli he’d spotted on the last floor of the mall. While he continued browsing yet more photos and posts Raj and his friends had shared on social media in hopes of getting a better feel for the man, Darren worked on retrieving Raj’s university timetable. If they could track him down, it was going to save them a lot of trouble trying to guess which of the hundred clubs in Chicago he’d picked for tonight.
“He has a two-hour lab exercise starting in fifteen minutes,” Darren said after an hour of digging.
Aiden quirked an eyebrow at him. “Do you have the location?”
“Yeah. Jenkins Building on the main campus.”
Aiden looked up the place on the map and nodded. The Lecart University campus was a forty-minute drive to the north, with the dorms a further twenty, so it was best they took everything they’d need for the night with them and keep it in the shuttle. Once they spotted Raj, they’d tail him to whichever venue he went to, and there they’d make their move.
“We should probably change before we head there,” Aiden said when they left the deli. “So we don’t stand out while tailing him.” Or waste time changing and risk losing the doctor’s son.
“I agree.”
Twenty minutes later, they were back in the two-bedroom apartment, changing into the clothes Darren had picked last night. Aiden hadn’t bothered to check if they actually fit him. For a moment he worried they might not, but as soon as he slid into the tight, but not uncomfortably so, wine-red pants, his doubts were dispelled.
The pair he donned was in some streetwear punk style that seemed to be popular among the students they’d run across yesterday and today, with zippers along both calves, ripped out sections on the front and straps hanging from the waist and intersecting at the knees. A silver belt buckle in the shape of a skull peeked from where he’d tucked in the black-burgundy shirt that made up the other half of the outfit, and a leather collar and bracelets completed his college student look. To his surprise, he looked like someone who would fit right in with Raj’s crowd, and when Darren walked into the room, so did he.
Darren’s outfit followed a similar theme, though instead of a shirt he wore a red mesh top with straps running over his nipples, a black leather jacket, which stood unbuttoned, and black leather pants that hugged his ass and thighs and left little to the imagination.
“You seem to know your way around alternative fashion, Howe,” Aiden remarked, studying the spiked collar Darren was sporting.
Pushing the thin-framed glasses up his nose, Darren shrugged. “A phase in your teen years will do that to you.”
Aiden shook his head to hide the smile threatening to break out. He and Claudia had only hung out in the type of circles where everyone wore designer label suits and dresses, whichseemed to have made him unable to pick anything for himself other than the boring corporate wear high-society people so passionately preferred. A pang of guilt rushed through him as he remembered how stunning Claudia had looked in her white shirt and suit pants with the golden patterns, and for a moment he wondered how she would have looked dressed like they were now if she had been here with them. But then anger and disappointment sullied the moment. Her lies and her secrets were just as real as her smile, a hidden part of her Aiden hadn’t known about but now did.
Why had she lied to him?He still wondered, every time he thought about her. Did she really support her father? Or was there maybe another reason? Who was she, really? Did the woman he’d been about to marry even exist, or was she a fabrication by someone who maybe never even trusted him?
Aiden took a deep but subtle breath. He felt betrayed, but he couldn’t give into that feeling right now. He needed his head in the game, their mission a priority over his confused mind.
“I’m afraid I can’t relate,” he confessed after he moved on from that thought so he wouldn’t go down the rabbit hole of grief and anger. He needed his focus on their mission, and besides, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was sharing things about himself that didn’t matter.
“I guessed as much. It’s why I insisted on picking clothes for you, too,” Darren shot back, but his tone wasn’t mocking.
With an arched eyebrow, Aiden went over to the bag and lifted up the black thong he’d found there but chosen to leave out. “Including this?”
Wrinkling his nose, Darren shrugged as if Aiden’s question was inconsequential. And perhaps it was. “Part of the getup, Kesley. Wear it or don’t wear it, it’s up to you.” He walked over to the window and gazed out at the darkening sky. “We should get going, though.”
Aiden pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Yeah.”
Slipping into the black boots with safety pins on the sides, he grabbed the backpack with his tablet and other bits they might need and followed Darren. They were both quiet on the drive to the university campus, which gave Aiden plenty of time to run scenarios in his head. It was evident that the best way to acquire the earring was to get Raj inebriated or unconscious and make the switch then. Preferably in private, so there could be no witnesses or someone to question their actions. The lifestyle Raj led did include a lot of alcohol, so going to a hotel room with two strangers after getting wasted would fit right in with the man’s usual M.O.
Darren parked at the shuttle lot near the Jenkins Building, and they claimed a vacant bench that put the labs in their line of sight without making it too obvious they were staking out the place. With tablets held in their hands and Raj Leven’s photo loaded up so they could recognize him, they blended in with the college crowd and waited. The young man’s light green hair made him hard to miss, so as soon as he came out of the building, Aiden spotted him.
Raj was the tallest among his company of three friends and had a loud voice. All of them remained completely oblivious to the fact that they were being tailed as they made their way to what Aiden assumed was their accommodation, chatting and laughing without a care in the world. A small park with a few gazebos and benches occupied the space in front of the modern building the group entered, so Aiden and Darren loitered there until Raj emerged again an hour later.
He had a bigger and louder crowd with him this time around, which made following them as they slipped into the subway station by the old colonial even easier. Still, Aiden wanted to keep some safe distance, so he and Darren boarded the rear end of the couch, positioning themselves close enoughso they had visual on their target, but far back enough so he couldn’t spot them among the rest of the passengers.
Four stops and the lively group of friends got off in downtown Chicago, Aiden and Darren trailing behind. Aboveground, the streets were already brimming with life as young people flooded bars and clubs in search of fun and company for the night, making it hard to keep sight of Raj.
“Over there, next to the liquor shop,” Darren said as Aiden frantically scanned the people for that mop of green hair he’d just lost.
Following Darren’s directions, he found Raj just as he entered the venue next to the shop. It was a goth club called ‘The Bloody Pentagram’ that had a red neon upside down pentagram above its doors.
Aiden grabbed Darren’s arm. “Let’s go.”
