Karma

by RJ Blain

  “I have faith in you.”

  “Right.”

  “Here’s the wager. If you pull it off, you get to keep the Corvette as your official FBI car. If you fail, you aren’t allowed to quit.”

  I opened my mouth, furrowed my brows, and clacked my teeth together. “So you’re saying that either way, I can’t quit.”

  “You weren’t supposed to notice that.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Plan B involves handcuffs.”

  No matter what I said, I would lose. “I’m pretty sure this is coercion, sir.”

  “I can’t just let the agency lose such a talented resource. In my years of management, I have found honey works better than threats. Today’s variety of honey is a yellow convertible Corvette you get to use as your car. It’d be such a shame if I had to give it to someone else. I’m sure that Andrew fellow in your team would like it a lot.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “He likes the car, doesn’t he?”

  “He wants it with every bone in his body. Actually, there’s only three or four people in the office who don’t want it. If you win, it’s yours. You get his dream car. To sweeten the deal, you get to prove, openly, you have earned your spot on the team and deserve to be in the field like every other agent in CARD.”

  “You’re a tricky son of a bitch,” I hissed.

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.”

  “Just so we’re clear on my opinion of you: I want to douse you in gasoline and light you on fire.”

  He laughed. “Finish your dinner, Agent Johnson. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

  The case file for Jacob Henry was far thinner than I liked. I spread the pages out on my desk, standing while I flipped through the papers, cursing Kelvin Daniels under my breath. While I read, I made an appointment with a twenty-four hour hair salon to install extensions. When I told the woman I wanted to add at least a foot to my current length, more if possible, she made a strangled noise in her throat.

  After several minutes of begging, pleading, and bribing, I convinced her to take the job. In three hours, I’d be a whole new woman.

  Even the FBI tended to forget women could extend the length of their hair without the use of a wig. A wig would have made things easier—and cheaper—but FBI agents were trained to spot wigs, and few criminals got good wigs or knew how to wear them without being obvious about it.

  I smiled and returned my attention to the file. At first glance, Jacob Henry looked like the perfect child. He had good grades, didn’t get in trouble, and enjoyed sports, though the file didn’t note any specifics on his after-school activities. He had two uncles and an aunt living in northern New York. His parents had twenty years of marriage behind them. The Henry family was wealthy enough to make them a target for a kidnapper.

  What caught my attention, however, was the fact that Mr. Henry worked in the same branch of government Annabelle’s father did. A chill ran down my spine. They didn’t work together, and from what I could tell from the file, it was unlikely they ever had worked together.

  Mr. Henry was an accountant, which indicated it was a coincidence. I drummed my nails on my desk, staring at the wall while I thought through the potential connection.

  I grabbed my phone from its cradle and punched Daniels’s extension. He picked up on the second ring. “You’re not wimping out on me already, are you?”

  “Did Annabelle’s father ever work with Mr. Henry?”

  “It didn’t take you long to notice that. Good. No, we can confirm they have not worked directly together.”

  “Any potential connections within their employment?”

  “It is something we are looking into.”

  “No ransom requests?”

  “Unlike the Greenwich case, no ransom demands have been issued.”

  I jotted down notes so I wouldn’t forget. “Thanks.”

  “You have your new phone with you?”

  I glanced at the cell phone Daniels had given me. “I have the phone.”

  “You have earned a tidbit of intel. It’s secure. As I find out relevant information, I will load the data to the phone. Now, listen carefully. This is important. If you get in trouble and need backup, break the phone. Hit it against something as hard as you can. That will trigger an emergency beacon. Make certain you keep the device charged at all times. Never turn it off. If you do so, the emergency beacon will activate.”

  Picking up the phone, I flipped it over in my hands. There was no brand on the device, although it had a similar build to an iPhone. “Okay. So, keep it charged and turned on. Break it or turn it off if I get into trouble. Why didn’t you tell me this when you gave me the phone?”

  “I wanted to see if you’d call me about the connection first. If you didn’t, I figured you wouldn’t need that function. Since you did, well, I foresee you running into trouble.”

  My instincts told me he knew a lot more than he was telling me, and his withholding information would land me in hot water. Something about his tone also made me think he was challenging me, daring me to prove something to him. What that something was, however, eluded me. “You really are an asshole, Mr. Daniels.”

  “I try. I try really, really hard. I’m so grateful you have noticed and appreciate the great lengths I have gone to transform myself into the ultimate asshole.”

  “If you want me to do this, you need to give me the keys to my Corvette, sir.” I slammed the phone into its cradle.

  Gathering up the file, I stuffed it into my briefcase. Unlocking my desk drawer, I retrieved my gun and methodically unassembled it, checked it over, and reassembled it before loading it. I took an extra pair of magazines and added them to my briefcase.

  I was wiggling into my shoulder holster when Kelvin Daniels made his appearance in my doorway, attracting the attention of the few agents still in the office. They kept their distance, their expressions curious. Daniels jangled the keys.

  Before he could change his mind about the car, I snatched them out of his hand. “Where’s it parked?”

  “Bottom level of the garage. I already told the guards you’d be leaving with it. I also told them to make sure your car isn’t bothered while you’re gone.”

  “My opinion of you hasn’t changed.”

  “Will it change if I tell you I’m giving you a head start? I won’t send the cavalry after you until noon tomorrow. I won’t tell them what kind of car you’re driving, either.”

  “No, it won’t change my opinion.”

  “You can’t douse me in gasoline and light me on fire. There would be witnesses.”

  The watching agents snickered.

  “Why do I get the feeling they wouldn’t care?” I hissed, pushing by him and heading to the elevator.

  “Why can’t you just admit you have fallen shamelessly in love with me?” he called after me.

  “Not in this lifetime, Mr. Daniels. Not in any lifetime. If I’m not mistaken, you’re also wearing a wedding ring, although I can’t imagine why anyone would want you around.”

  “I’m hurt.”

  I halted at the elevator and stabbed the down button. “Are you ever going to leave me alone?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  To my disappointment, pressing the button over and over didn’t summon the elevator faster.

  I returned to my apartment long enough to grab a nap before heading to the salon. Four hours and almost a thousand dollars later, the stylist had managed to give me thick red hair that fell halfway down my back. I had no idea how she managed to pull it off, but it involved a lot of layers and made my head weigh a ton.

  My first act was to contain it in a messy bun piled on top of my head.

  Armed with coffee, I hit the road.

  With the CARD team prowling around Johnstown, Pennsylvania, it was the last place I wanted to go but the first place I needed to look. The devil was in the details, and if I wanted to get to the heart of Jacob Henry’s disappearance, I needed to retrace
the boy’s movements.

  The lack of evidence at the Henry house screamed runaway, but there were other options—options no one liked considering. Both of the boy’s parents were accounted for, as were his close relatives. However, the possibility existed someone close to him had lured him out of his bed and out of the house, leaving him easy prey for a kidnapper.

  “Where could you be, Jacob?”

  Most runaways were found within a couple of days, returned to their families a little worse for wear but safe. Older teens tended to be gone longer. The fact Jacob, age ten, hadn’t been found yet worried me.

  Going by the book, CARD had no substantial reason to believe foul play was involved. Kids ran away from home all the time. CARD was only involved in a small fraction of runaway cases, which were typically handled by the local police departments.

  If what I knew was accurate, CARD was involved because of the possibility Jacob crossed state lines to reach a relative’s house. Which relative would Jacob go to?

  More importantly, why?

  After pulling over, I turned on my hazards, got out my new phone, and sent Daniels a text requesting phone records for the relatives living in New York.

  My phone rang within a minute.

  “Johnson,” I answered.

  “Why do you want the call records?”

  “If you want me to like you, Mr. Daniels, you’ll get me the records,” I replied, forcing my voice to sound as sweet as possible. “Would it help if I said please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”

  “But I’m curious.”

  “You’re one of those mother hen supervisors, aren’t you? I thought I didn’t have to play by the book for this.”

  “I do need a legal reason to pull those records, Agent Johnson.”

  I sighed. “Fine, fine. Since you have to play by the rules, I’ll tell you. Since there was no sign of forced entry, Jacob likely left his home on his own. So, I wanted to find out if any of his relatives had made a call to the Johnstown, Pennsylvania area in the days leading up to his disappearance.”

  “You’re suggesting an arranged familial kidnapping?”

  “I’m suggesting someone may have convinced Jacob to leave his home on his own, after which he may have either ran away with someone of his own free will or been kidnapped,” I corrected.

  “You have my undivided attention.”

  “Can I play devil’s advocate? Wait, let me figure out how to make the phone work through the car speakers. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

  “Okay.” Daniels hung up.

  It took me several minutes to figure out how to link the phone to the car, but I hit the road once I plugged the phone into the car’s built-in USB charging port and called Daniels.

  “Start talking,” he ordered.

  I gunned the engine and sped west. “I’m about to make a lot of crazy assumptions here, so bear with me.”

  “I can work with crazy if you explain the crazy to me. If it’s just incoherent rambling, I’m not sure I can work with that.”

  “I’ll talk slow and use small words so you can understand me, sir.”

  “Good. Continue.”

  “Assumption one: the Greenwich and Henry cases are linked. Assumption two: the group behind the Greenwich case has insider access to information.”

  “I follow.”

  “Crazy scenario one: The perps figure out Jacob has a close relationship with his uncles or aunt. They hold one of them hostage, force them to make contact with Jacob to lure him out of the house, and kidnap him.”

  “Please never become a criminal.”

  “Sir?”

  “Just please promise me you’ll never choose to become a criminal.”

  I ignored his request and said, “Crazy scenario two: The family isn’t involved in the case at all. Instead, he does as kids do and made arrangements with other children his age. Maybe they’re playing a game. Despite the belief children never play outdoors, there’s still a forbidden fruit quality to playing a game of hide and seek at night.”

  “That doesn’t explain why Jacob would still be missing.”

  “Have you checked to see if there are any other children missing in the area?”

  “I assumed the police would have notified us if…” Daniels coughed. “I’ll find out and let you know when I know.”

  Discussing wild ideas was a part of the investigative process, but the idea I was about to toss out was crazier than my normal arsenal of conspiracy theories. I didn’t like conspiracy theories. I liked facts.

  I only started concocting theories when I didn’t have enough facts to work with.

  “Crazy scenario three: Mr. Henry is part of the group responsible for the Greenwich case, is the reason they knew to target someone like the Greenwich family, and had arranged for his own son to disappear to draw resources from the Greenwich case. That case is still open, isn’t it?”

  Daniels was silent for a long time. “It is still open. If Mr. Henry is involved in the case, why hasn’t a ransom request been sent yet?”

  “Avoiding pattern development. The group that kidnapped me and Annabelle were highly organized. They were a professional outfit. Patterns are how we often identify and catch criminals. The professional groups know this and work to avoid developing patterns. Ransoms are high risk. If they develop a pattern, then they run a higher risk of being caught.”

  “I follow.”

  “How big of a town is Johnstown?”

  “It’s small.”

  “If he works for the government, why is Henry living out there?”

  “It used to be his summer home. According to the interviews we’ve had with the Henrys, they didn’t want to uproot Jacob again, so they decided to enroll him in the public school system in Johnstown this year. It’s speculated Henry’s planning on retiring soon.”

  “Crazy scenario three sounds promising. As an accountant, wouldn’t he have an idea of a project’s importance from the flow of money in the varying departments? If he was overseeing the financials for that specific project, he would have been aware of heightened activity due to increased expenditure. So, what exactly was Mr. Greenwich working on?”

  “Security software for military weapon systems.”

  “Does the CARD team know this, sir?”

  “No one else has come up with a legitimate reason to link the Greenwich case to the Henry case. At this point, the circumstances of the Greenwich case were not relevant to the Henry case. I will look into the specifics of Mr. Henry’s work and determine if the circumstances you’ve suggested are viable. If so, I’ll kick the information to counterterrorism and Homeland Security. If that is the case, I’m not sure I can leave you flying solo even with the precautions I put into place. You ruined their plans by rescuing Greenwich’s infant. It’s entirely possible they’ll target you.”

  “I’m aware, sir. That’s why I was working as an anchor.”

  “A moving target is harder to hit, I suppose. And you’re driving a very fast car.”

  “If this kidnapping has been done by the same group, you should check into the sales of all black-colored SUVs matching the make and model of the ones used in the Greenwich case. They had at least seven or eight vehicles on the route they took me. If we assume they used the same trick at the other splits, that’s a lot of cars they had to get rid of.”

  “The investigators working on the Greenwich case have been looking for the vehicles used in the kidnapping.”

  “It might be worth asking if there have been a lot of the same type of car in the Johnstown area.”

  “You’re not going to Johnstown?”

  “That, sir, would be telling. If I told you, I wouldn’t be doing a very good job as a rogue agent doing exactly what I want. Make sure you get me the information as soon as you can.”

  “I’ll call you,” he promised before hanging up.

  I pulled over, checked my files, and set the GPS to guide me to the house of Jacob’s favorite uncle to pursue the first of my cra
zy conspiracy theories.

  Chapter Fourteen

  On my way to the first uncle’s house, I stopped at a Walmart and purchased new clothes, including a fake leather jacket suitable for concealing my gun. I went with a casual appearance, matching the shortest denim shorts I could find with a halter top.

  Anyone who knew me from the FBI offices wouldn’t expect me to wear something showing so much skin, especially when it revealed several of the bullet scars I had picked up over the years.

  Not even Jake had seen me wearing anything so scandalous outside of a swimsuit or the sports bra and spandex shorts I wore when kickboxing.

  A little after eight in the morning, I pulled into the driveway of a quaint two story house with an overgrown yard and a picket fence in dire need of repair. I parked the Corvette and slid out of the vehicle, keeping my sunglasses on to mask the color of my eyes. Pulling out a notepad and pen from my briefcase, I shoved them into the back pocket of my shorts.

  Closing my briefcase, I locked it before engaging the Corvette’s car alarm. I took my time going up the walkway and scoping out the property before stepping onto the small porch. I discovered the doorbell didn’t work, sighed, and pounded on the door.

  “Hold yer hosses,” a man bellowed from deep within the house. I heard a few thumps, a couple of curses, and had a lot of doubts about the nature of Winston Henry.

  The door opened to reveal a naked man in his middle years, his body toned, covered in tattoos, and with a wide grin revealing several missing teeth. “Well hello there, darlin’.”

  “Are you Winston Henry?”

  “Sure am, darlin’. What can I do ya for?”

  I took my badge out of my pocket and discreetly flashed it. “FBI. I have some questions to ask you. May I come in?”

  Winston straightened, his expression turning serious. “Is this about Jacob, ma’am?”

  “It is.”

  “Of course. Please, come in.”

  Interesting. It was a rare man who could switch between a southern drawl and a more formal northern accent so flawlessly.

  Like the exterior of the home, the interior was in dire need of repair, although the place was mostly clean. I glanced around, taking in the collection of family photographs hanging on the walls. There was a landline sitting on a small table near the front door. An unpainted section of new plaster captured my attention.