13
“What do you want?” I asked carefully.
“To meet the one that got away.” Harrison’s tone was light, curious.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have survived three attempts on your life in as many days. Considering the nature of those who want you dead, that is a significant achievement.”
“And what, exactly, do you know about those people?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Less than I would like, but more than I can tell you.”
That was a stupid non-answer. But you can learn a lot about someone by what they won’t say. I didn’t like what my gut was telling me about this guy. Time to see what else he wouldn’t tell me.
“I used to do a lot of fishing, you know. My old man would take me out on the lake in this little jon boat. Way too small of a boat for such a big piece of water, if you ask me, but he liked it. We’d go out for hours on the weekend, drowning one worm after another. We caught some fish, but we lost a lot too. At night, he’d go down to the bar and tell stories about the ones that got away. You know what I learned from that?”
He said nothing, but he quirked up the corner of an eyebrow, so I continued.
“I learned that nobody really cares about the one that got away except the guy who lost him.”
At this, the corner of his mouth twitched up a bit. Ah, microexpressions. And... damn, this wasn’t good news.
“So are you here to finish the job? Should be like shooting fish in a barrel.” I figured if I was about to die, I might as well get in one more good pun.
The shadowy figure cracked a smile and chuckled.
“You are quite safe from me. I don’t fish for pleasure,” he said, continuing the metaphor.
Okay, so now I knew I had a contract killer staring at me—most likely the one who had killed Victor Sanz and shot at me behind the office. But if he said I was safe from him, that meant he wasn’t on the job anymore.
“What changed?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Politics, I suppose.”
“What’s to keep me from pushing this button and calling security on you?”
He smirked. “On what grounds? A conversation about fishing?”
He had a point. Besides, if I could keep him talking, I might learn enough to figure out my next move.
“Am I still in danger?”
“Most assuredly. The rules of the game are changing. What once played out in the shadows is moving into the light. You have seen things that shouldn't be seen, things that cannot be unseen. Pieces are moving in unorthodox ways. And you, Mr. Gray are caught in the middle.”
Ugh, more conspiracy theories and cloak-and-dagger crap. I must have rolled my eyes, because Harrison adopted a sour expression.
“I am a small piece on the board,” he said, more seriously. “There are many others. And while I am no longer in play, you are still a threat, I think.”
“To whom?”
He didn’t answer.
“Great. So basically you’re telling me ‘congratulations for being alive, watch your ass.’”
He leaned back in the chair again.
“It’s not your ass that I would be concerned about, given your last encounter.”
I was suddenly very aware of the burning sensation in my neck. My hand instinctively went to the wound. So the freak who attacked me was connected to the McCarthy case. I figured as much, but Harrison’s remark seemed to confirm it. As mysterious as this Fletcher Harrison was, and despite his penchant for speaking in riddles and metaphors, at least I had gathered a few more pieces to the puzzle. Now I just needed to fit them all together.
“So what’s next? You going to tell me to back off with my investigation if I want to stay alive? ‘Cause that’s not going to happen. I’m as stubborn as they come, and now I’ve got a bone to pick.”
“Not at all. You’re free to do whatever you want, though I’m not sure backing off now would keep you alive. If you wish to survive, you need to be prepared for what you’ll find. There is a very dark world through the looking glass, and once you step through, there is no going back. Unlike the Jabberwock, the monsters that reside there do not vanish simply because you stop believing in them.”
Goose flesh prickled up my arm, and a shiver shuddered through my spine. I didn’t like this conversation at all.
“Why tell me any of this? Why are you really here?” Harrison had a dog in this race somewhere, and if I could ferret it out, it might give me the upper hand down the road.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. “I want you to succeed. My motives for that are... complicated.”
“Stop talking in riddles, then, and give me some real answers.”
He flashed a tight smile. “I have certain obligations that I dare not violate. Information is a dangerous weapon, and I am bound by non-disclosure agreements, so I apologize for not being more direct.”
“All right, then. What can you tell me about the people I’m up against?”
There was a moment’s silence while he considered the question.
Then, “Are you familiar with lateral thinking puzzles, Mr. Gray?”
“You mean like five-minute mysteries?” I was pretty good at figuring them out. My old man used to try to stump me with them when I was in high school.
“Yes. What is the key to solving them?”
“Questioning your assumptions. There’s always something in the setup that leads you to a false assumption that’s so basic you don’t realize you’ve made it.”
“Precisely,” he purred. “For example, if I told you that Fred and Betty were lying dead on the floor in a puddle of water with broken glass around them, what false assumptions would you need to dispel before figuring out what happened?” This was one of the first five minute mysteries I’d ever heard. I knew exactly where he was going with this.
“That Fred and Betty are people. The setup doesn’t say it explicitly, but most people assume it’s the case. Once you figure out that Fred and Betty are fish, the answer is obvious.”
“Very good. I would suggest, Mr. Gray, that you approach this case as you would one of those puzzles. Impossibility is often an illusion created by our own beliefs.”
I mulled that over for a moment.
Harrison got to his feet and, with the barest whisper of movement, came to stand beside the hospital bed. “Are you a reader, Mr. Gray? I am, and I find so much can be learned that way. So many... connections can be made. Do your homework. A storm is coming, but every dark cloud has a silver lining. Good luck.” With that, he turned and walked out the door, leaving me with a hundred more questions.
***
I couldn’t go back to sleep after the assassin left. In the darkness, I played the words of our conversation again and again in my head. Of all the interviews I’ve ever done, this one was the most puzzling. Though he had spoken only in vague terms and had not once given me any specifics, I felt like he had verified several of my suspicions and firmed up a lead. But there was something else to what he said, something I was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it yet, but I got the feeling he had told me more than I realized.
I let the words tumble through my brain again. Shadows moving into light. Things that shouldn’t be seen. Monsters through the looking glass. False assumptions. Dark clouds with silver linings. Do your homework.
I knew what the last one meant: I needed to do more research. I was now fairly certain that this group of human traffickers was behind Ellie’s disappearance and that all the attempts on my life were meant to keep things under wraps. It didn’t bode well that the police weren’t on top of this either. That meant that the group had connections to the authorities, either in the PD or higher up. My priority was to find Ellie, but to do that, I needed to know more about this group. What was their market? Would she be overseas by now, or did they keep things local?
Harrison had also told me that my life would never be the same after this
case. I’d seen a lot of ugliness in the city, but this sounded like corruption so evil it would change the way I viewed the world forever. If that was true, I needed to know what I was getting into before I took the plunge. Not that knowing would stop me, but you can only improvise your way out of bad situations for so long before they catch up with you. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything stuck in a hospital bed. I had half a mind to pull out the IVs and make good my escape, but just the thought of standing up hurt. If I was going to be of any use, I needed to heal.
14
The raised voices through the door were nothing new. Brenda had heard many arguments since she began working here six months ago. How her world had changed in just six short months. This job had seemed like a gift from God: fifteen dollars an hour as receptionist and office assistant in a boutique real estate company. She could pay her rent on time every month and even afford the childcare provider the company recommended. The pay didn’t go much beyond that, but it was way better than she was used to.
The honeymoon period lasted less than two months. In that time, she had learned that the company she worked for dealt very little in residential real estate, as their storefront suggested. Their primary business was warehousing, storage, and miscellaneous real-estate holdings. She quickly figured out that the business was involved in a number of shady dealings. She would’ve quit, gone to the police, and reported the activity, but before she’d worked up the nerve, the boss had called her into his office. It was the first time she’d spoken with him directly. All her prior dealings had been with the office manager, a middle-aged woman with a worn-down, defeated air about her.
The boss scared her. Something about him unnerved her completely, set her teeth on edge. He was tall and thick-necked, with a deep voice but a callous tone. His beady eyes glared out from beneath bushy black eyebrows. She got the impression that he had spent time in prison.
When he called her into his office, she started sweating immediately—a very unladylike response, but she couldn’t help it. The nameplate next to his door read Mr. Brown. She timidly sat down in the folding metal chair in front of his desk, and he proceeded to inform her that the real estate business was more complicated than it appeared on the surface. He didn’t expect her to understand all the nuances, but he did expect her to be mindful of her place in the company. She might hear and see things that she didn’t understand, but it was totally normal, nothing untoward. He then commented on how small and fragile her son was, only two years old, and what a tragedy it would be for him if she made any rash decisions and lost her job, her income, her... security.
The threat was thinly veiled, but she knew immediately that there was more to it than just losing her job. Several days later, she started receiving anonymous emails containing pictures of her son at the daycare. They were obviously taken from outside the building, looking in. There were no notes or words attached—just the photos—but the message was clear. We’re watching.
Brenda soon noticed that the same man followed her to and from work: not too close to draw attention, but close enough that he was always in her line of sight. And so her dream job became a nightmare, a curse from the Devil himself. She was trapped, fearing for her son’s life, and so she did what she had to do. She showed up on time, kept her mouth shut, answered the phone politely, and tried to ignore anything she heard.
This evening, however, the yelling was especially difficult to ignore. The boss’s resonant baritone echoed down the hall from the office, where he was speaking with some young British guy she’d seen a handful of times but had never been introduced to.
“You’ve got to get rid of her! She’s a liability! We shouldn’t take that risk!”
Brenda had no idea who they were talking about, but it had her attention.
There was a second’s pause, then a loud thud. The office walls shook; something clattered to the floor inside.
“Never...” started the British fellow, but then his volume slid too low to hear. “You forget... Mine!... Don’t care...” The words were an audible punctuation, but without the rest, Brenda couldn’t make heads or tails of the conversation.
After a moment, the boss’s door flung open and slammed into the wall. He walked out, red-faced, boiling with rage.
Brenda strained to keep her eyes glued to the monitor in front of her. The time on the screen showed 5:45. Outside, dusk would be gathering. Only fifteen minutes before she could leave. She tried to melt into her chair, hoping not to be noticed.
It didn’t work. He stopped right beside her, across the divider. She could feel his glare boring into her, daring her to acknowledge his presence. It took every ounce of her control not to react, not to shrink from him, to pretend that she’d heard nothing.
Then she was saved when the other man slid through the office door and glided down the hallway. He was a good-looking guy. A solid black, slim Armani suit hugged his trim figure, contrasting with his shock of blonde hair.
The boss looked up, huffed, and stormed out the front door.
“Sorry about that, Duck,” came a rich English accent. “Had a bit of a scuff in there. Nothing to worry yourself about.” The man flashed a toothy smile at her. Relief washed over Brenda. She smiled hesitantly back at him. Perhaps things weren’t as bleak as they seemed. This man must be upper management, or something, to have such authority over Mr. Brown. Perhaps she could share her concerns with him.
The Brit pushed lightly off the counter and started for the exit. Without looking back, he said, “Give that boy of yours a squeeze for me.”
Terror seized her, immediately erasing her moment of comfort; her stomach twisted into knots.
15
Breakfast at the hospital was awful, and the coffee was worse. I’d hoped to be discharged today, but I hadn’t seen a doctor yet.
My bladder had been pestering me about needing to be emptied. I was debating whether to get out of bed to use the john or call the nurse for a bedpan when Mac stopped by with a giant coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. I told my bladder to put a cork in it; coffee had the floor for the moment.
“Bless you,” I said as he handed me the piping hot Styrofoam cup.
He nodded, but said nothing. He looked a little shell-shocked, to be honest. I breathed in the heady aroma of my beverage and gently took a few sips, careful not to scald my tongue. I didn’t need that on top of the other injuries. Finally, I broke the silence.
“So, what’s up?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry. Just thinking,” he muttered.
“Regale me. I have nothing better to do.”
He started to say something, then stopped. He screwed up his face, searched for the right words, had another false start.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” he finally said. “I know you told me not to wait around, but if I had, you wouldn’t have had to walk through that alley. You wouldn’t have been jumped. You wouldn’t be here.”
“Whoa, kid. This has nothing to do with you. I have a pretty good feeling I was going to be jumped no matter what. I think the guy was following me. If you had been there, you’d either be in here with me now... or worse.”
“What, were you being stalked or something?”
“Something like that.”
He fell silent again.
We sat there for a while, not talking. I’m not one of those people who feels the need to fill every moment with idle chatter—I’m comfortable with silence. So I enjoyed my coffee as Mac stared out the window, lost in thought.
After about ten minutes, I opened my mouth to say something. Mac did too; we spoke over each other. I cut my question short, then asked Mac to repeat himself.
“Where’s your phone?” he asked.
“In my pants, I think.”
Mac fished the phone out of my jeans, flipped it over, snapped the back off, and took out the battery. He examined the battery carefully, then replaced it.
“Okay, Gray. If that guy was following you, how did he know
where to find you? Hell, even I didn’t know where you were going until we got there.”
I’d been wondering the same thing myself.
“Also, if this attack is connected to the one from the day before, and if they knew how and where to find you, why wait a day? Why didn’t they take you out while you were asleep?”
Damn, it was like we were sharing the same brain.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Mac smiled.
“I think I do.” He held up my phone.
Mac explained that all cell phones are equipped with GPS-tracking software. Even though you could keep your installed apps from using it, you couldn’t disable it altogether: it was a fail-safe design for emergency responders and law enforcement. Any programmer worth his salt could track the location of any phone as long as it was powered on. It made sense as soon as he said it. My phone had been dead the whole night before the attack—there was no way anyone would have known where I was holed up—but I had put a small charge on it the next morning before heading out.
Mac handed the phone over to me, and I glared at it suspiciously.
“Guess I need a new one of these,” I said.
“Yeah, but you also need a new number,” Mac warned. “If you transfer your old number to a new phone, it won’t matter: they can still find you. I can pick you up a cheap prepaid phone pretty much anywhere and program it with a different number.”
“Okay.”
Mac got up to leave. “Hang on a minute. Frank said you had some information for me. Were you able to trace that virus or whatever?”
“Oh, right.” Mac sat back down. “I found the email the spyware piggy-backed on and traced it back to a local IP address.”
“That sounds simple enough.”
“Not exactly. It took some doing. Whoever sent it is pretty good—they routed through several servers trying to cover their tracks—but I’m better.”
“That's why we pay you the big bucks.”
“Right.”
“So you’ve got an address for me?”
“Not exactly. IP addresses are only loosely tied to a geographic address. They aren’t static. If I knew exactly what time the email was sent and had access to the ISP records, then I could tell you more. But I don’t, so I can’t.”
Missing: A Mason Gray Case Page 8
