Rising Danger

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Early that next morning Chyna and Justin were knee deep in research, trying to figure out the best way to go about the case. They had already asked the desk clerk and hotel manager if they had seen Mister Ted and luck was not on their side.

“I’m getting nothing here Chyna.” Justin commented, tossing the papers he was looking at over to the side and let out a puff of air.

Without sparing a glance his way, she made some inaudible comment and kept her eyes glued to the laptop. So far she discovered that his last family member that was in Missoula was his Grandmother who passed just two weeks ago, and if her hunch was correct; which it was more times than not, that was the reason Choyce decided not to pay his bail. With the funeral costs and the memorial service dues, there was no way he would be able to afford his bond at the same time, especially seeing as he had no kind of income. Chyna shivered remembering the set back her uncle’s funeral had put them in and at the exact time of her senior year, where things were the most expensive. She tried not to dwell too much on the childhood memories she had to sacrifice.

“Chyna are you ignoring me?” Justin asked.

Barely hearing Justin she continued to let her eyes absorb the information. The guy already had two warrants out for him and his last jail visit for busting up his girl was a repeated offense. Oddly enough, his girlfriend is the one that bailed him out.

Huh. The world never ceases to amaze me. Chyna thought to herself smugly. Too bad they couldn’t get in contact with her because right about now, any information was better than nothing and one thing Chyna hated was having no information. It sucked the life out of the case and made her want to pull her hair out.

“Chyna!”

Chyna’s head jerked up, her eyes tiny slits of annoyance, “What?!”

Justin’s lip lifted at the corners, “Someone’s engulfed in their research.”

Her eyebrow raised, “You’re not?”

His shoulder rolled, “The guy is a class A asshole, what more do we need to know?”

Her mouth dropped slightly. His indifference always irritated her. She always wanted to know as much as she could about her case and the people it involved. It made it that much more real, and if anything were to happen where negotiating was needed, the more connection one held, the greater the odds decreased.

“Not every asshole is the same. You do know this right?” She asked.

“Not the ones that beat up women.”

“Oh really now? And how do you know this?”

“I’ve witnessed plenty of domestic cases and in every case, the guy was abused as a child and grows up hating women because they’ve never been showed the loving side of women, not the proper kind anyhow. The dominance they show to their woman shows that they have control over their lives now and the people in it.”

“Did you Google that?” she asks, her mouth tilted up in the corner.

He glared at her and took a swig of his water, “My point is that there’s no need to do more than scratch the surface of this case. Ted Choyce is a slum bag. Let’s catch him, put him away for a while and move on to the next one.”

Finally noticing the heavy weight dragging at her eyes from looking through hours of research, Chyna saved what she collected and closed the laptop.

“I’m taking a momentary break to call Roy and update him.” Chyna said, reaching for her cell. Speed dialing Roy, she walked over to the small fridge and got a yogurt.