Eyes of a Stanger

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “This way.” Robert needlessly motioned to an enormous pile of metal and concrete on the edge of the bank. Several cranes were hard at work positioning the pieces. The enormous scope of the cleanup was mind-numbing.

  “There’s more junk on that barge as well,” Robert said. “Helps to take it out of the area.” The barge floated on the river near the bank, more concrete and metal . . . and cars. Cars that had been flattened, cars with dents and scratches, cars that looked untouched. Bret wanted to examine everything.

  “These all the cars you found?”

  “So far. You think one was carrying a bomb?”

  “Well, I’m not a demolitions expert, but I’d say no after watching that recording. More likely it was done under the water—I mean, if it was a terrorist attack.”

  “You see a lot of that in Nevada?” There was a slight mockery in Robert’s voice to match the bright smile.

  Bret laughed. “Not hardly. I did some work for the army early in my career, and I saw a few things overseas. I was glad to get out. They did help pay for my education, though.” He’d been grateful for the experience forced on him by missing out on a college scholarship, but he hadn’t wanted to stay in the military any longer than necessary.

  “I know what you mean. I was in the Marines for a while myself.”

  This side of the river was also cordoned off, and the place was crawling with even more workers, who moved in a strangely graceful dance as they went about their work. “Come on,” Robert said. “I’ll take you to meet some of the guys on the barge. See what they’ve found. You might as well start with the new stuff, since they haven’t found anything interesting in the other junk we’ve pulled up.”

  On the barge two Multnomah County employees were examining new pieces of salvage. “This is Kurt Funn,” Roberts said, pointing to a young man with brown hair and tanned skin, “and this here is David Cho, but we just call him Cho.” Cho was of Asian descent, with a compact body and ageless face. Both men looked at Bret with respect, but he felt an underlying tension and understood that they didn’t like the fact that he’d been called in to look over their shoulders.

  “I guess you know why he’s here,” Robert added.

  “I’m here for public opinion,” Bret said quickly. “I won’t be doing anything that you aren’t already doing. But I love bridges, and yours here in Portland are some of the greatest. I jumped at the chance to see them. There are so many more challenges with overwater bridges, don’t you agree? It’s amazing they stand as long as they do.”

  “Humidity does a lot of damage,” Cho agreed, relaxing slightly. “Come on, we’ll show you what came up today. Nothing new, really, but maybe the reason why so much of the bridge went down.”

  They took him to a large piece of mangled truss. Large patches of rust were eating into the metal. “This didn’t happen over the last few days,” Bret said.

  “Exactly.”

  Robert shook his head. “Regular maintenance would have discovered damage of this kind. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  “Is there any more?”

  “Not yet. We’re still looking.”

  “It’s possible this piece was from the original bridge,” Bret suggested. “Maybe it fell while they were building it, and they never found it.”

  Relief filled the men’s faces. “That could be it,” Cho said.

  Robert nodded. “Better than thinking our guys messed up.”

  “It still wouldn’t be why the bridge fell.” Bret fingered the metal, scraping off a bit of rust with his nail. “At least not that much of it. Like Robert said, large sections of this would have been too big to miss.”

  “The boat must have hit it just right,” Cho said.

  Bret wanted to tell him he was making hasty assumptions, but he didn’t want to destroy the fragile relationship he was building with these men, so he simply nodded. “I guess we should test this to see exactly where it came from. Anything else to see?”

  “Naw. Everything that came in today is in this section or on the bank. Nothing new.” Kurt looked at his watch. “Cho and I are knocking off. Been here too long as it is. Hot as Hades today, anyway, even here by the water. Besides, my wife’s waiting dinner.”

  “You guys go ahead,” Robert said. “We’ll stay for a bit.”

  The men were right. There was nothing else in the piles of rubble that could shed any light on the cause of the collapse. Clyde Hanks had said it was possible no one would ever understand what had really happened, but Bret also knew they would have to put a name on it, anyway. Their best guess, and he wasn’t about to proffer one without more research. He’d have to examine, inch by inch, the remaining section of the bridge, maybe even go under the water to get at the base. Something happened to make this bridge fall.

  Bret stood and stretched his back, looking around the area, wiping the sweat from his brow. He was seeing nothing but tangled bits of metal now, and his eyes refused to focus further. There were fewer men working, but it was obvious an evening shift would continue the salvage effort until dark.

  “That the boat?” he asked Robert. He meant the one that had hit the bridge, but he didn’t need to say that.

  “That’s it.”

  The ruined boat floated some distance down the river, moored to the bank. Though the timing couldn’t be pinpointed to before or after the collapse, the boat had certainly hit the bridge, as shown by the missing top that had been completely sheared off.

  “I’d like to go aboard.”

  “They checked it out already. There’s nothing there.”

  “I’m sure. But call me curious.”

  “You want to go today? Because I’d have to find someone to open it up.”

  “Any day is fine.” Bret made a note to do it at first opportunity—without Robert. He was a nice guy, but Bret didn’t need him looking over his shoulder.

  “You done for today, then?” Robert asked, arching a thick reddish brow.

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  Bret didn’t reply. He had spied the girl standing by the bank, staring out into the darkening water. Something about her demeanor drew his attention. Unlike the workers, she was unmoving, standing with her arms folded over her chest. Even in the heat, she wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt, though her feet were bare. “Who’s that?”

  Robert shrugged. “A woman who was on the bridge at the time of the accident. She comes here every day looking for her father. They tried at first to keep her out, but she kept finding a way through. Finally, they just let her in.”

  “Then her father’s still one of the missing.” One of the remaining seven who were in a watery grave.

  Bret started walking in her direction. It would be good to get a victim’s perspective of the collapse. And if she really had been hanging around since Friday, she might have seen something out of the ordinary, something that might be important. Bret’s mouth twitched at the thought. What was he thinking? Portland wasn’t exactly a primary target for terrorism, and if anyone seriously suspected such a thing, the Feds would have taken over. Still, his sense of duty required him to thoroughly examine all the options.

  “Where’re you going?” Robert took a step after him.

  Bret stopped and held up a finger. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

  Robert looked between him and the girl. “She’ll be all right. Some guy always comes for her.” When he saw Bret’s interest, he continued. “Tall black guy, with hair like snakes. Gives me the creeps, that hair.” He faked a shiver. “Must be her boyfriend. And according to Cho, there’s another guy that comes and keeps an eye on her. A fireman. One of the first emergency workers on the scene when the bridge fell. He doesn’t talk to her; he just checks up on her from a distance. It’s kind of weird, if you ask me.”

  The fireman might be someone of interest as well. Bret would have to ask her about him. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Robert shrugged, his wide, freckled face hiding any impati
ence he might feel. “I’ll wait for you in the truck. You want me to take your box?”

  Bret had completely forgotten about his tools and equipment, some of it very expensive—and heavy. “Yeah, thanks.”

  He turned back to the girl. She was facing the river, which gave him a side view. She was slightly shorter than average and thin, too thin for his taste, and her brown hair was dyed red on top, cropped short in back but longer around the crown and on the sides by her cheeks. As he approached, he saw that her hair was ratty and lank, as though she hadn’t combed it for days.

  Since Friday.

  Her eyes fixed on the water, and her tanned face seemed carved from stone. Did she really expect her father to suddenly emerge? There was something inordinately sad about that.

  He tried to approach silently, but she heard him coming. With a deliberate motion, she turned her whole body toward him, her eyes meeting his. There was surprise there; she had obviously expected someone else.

  Her surprise was nothing compared to his own. He knew her! Her hair was different and she was thinner than before, but he would know those eyes anywhere. One blue and one hazel.

  Her presence floored him. How could she be here on the bank of the river? He had known she was in the city, of course, but she hadn’t been on the list of victims. He’d triple-checked just to be sure, yet she’d been caught in the disaster after all.

  He quickened his pace. “I had no idea you were on the bridge when it collapsed! Why didn’t you call me? I know we didn’t part on the best of terms, but you should have known I would help.” He felt angry, though he knew he had no right to expect anything of her.

  She blinked once, twice, her neck tilted back so she could look into his face. Her upturned nose looked almost sharp in the still-bright light of the summer evening. But her eyes were exactly the same as he remembered. He loved those eyes. Large and oval, set slightly too far apart for perfect beauty. She opened her mouth, and when she spoke, her voice was rough from disuse. “Do I know you?”

  Chapter 4

  Tawnia surveyed her office at Partridge Advertising with satisfaction. Large and spacious, with her own window, it was everything she’d been hoping for. Not an executive suite, not yet, but much better than the small shared office in Nevada, and the space signaled a promising future. She was on her way.

  The day had been grueling. She’d been introduced to many of the firm’s employees, including the team she would be managing—a copywriter, an art director, and a graphic designer. She’d also met a score of production artists and programmers who would be working on every team’s finished designs. At present, there were a half dozen important accounts assigned to her team, three currently in production and three in the design stage. She had to familiarize herself with each aspect of every account or risk depending too much on her art director. In her new position as creative director, she would be doing less actual artwork on her own, but she would be directly responsible for brainstorming ideas and designing all the accounts with input from her team.

  There had been a meeting to get through with the executives and the creative directors who managed the other two teams, complete with all the political garbage and jockeying for position. Normally, she was great at new situations and could hold her own against any competition, but today she’d felt distracted. There was a tragic undercurrent flooding the office, intensified because some of the employees had been directly affected by the collapse of the Hawthorne Bridge. One woman had a sister who’d lost a husband, and another said her next door neighbor was still in the hospital with serious injuries sustained from the collapse. Everyone had stories to share, even if it was only about a brother’s friend’s sister’s cousin.

  Except Tawnia. She listened with horrified fascination to each story as though it were her own, putting them all with the footage from security video the major networks had been playing repeatedly since it was released by officials. Tawnia had an active imagination, but her brain kicked into overdrive as she considered the possibilities. What would it have been like to have been on the bridge? To have plunged into the cool water? Had there been time to register what was happening? Some part of her felt connected to the event, as though she, too, should have a story to share.

  Shaking off these disconcerting thoughts, Tawnia fumbled through the thickest files on her desk, planning to take a few home to cram in overnight. She hadn’t slept well the past few days anyway, and these might actually help.

  A knock came at her office door. “Come in,” she called, standing in case it was anyone from upper management. Standing made her feel in control.

  Dustin Bronson, one of the other creative directors, poked in his head. “Hey, how’s it going?” Dustin had been assigned to show her around that morning, and he’d been more than helpful. He had ultrashort hair, spiked slightly on top in a way that was far too young for him. She thought he did this to hide the fact that his dark blond hair was thinning. Still, by any standard he was a handsome man.

  She smiled, glad to see him. “I’m about ready to head home. It’s been an interesting day.” She picked up another file.

  “Terrible, more likely.” His lean body followed his head inside the room. “I still remember my first day as creative director. I’d already worked here for five years as a copywriter, but I was terrified someone would find out I wasn’t qualified to be in charge.” They laughed.

  “You showed them.”

  Dustin eyed the files in her arms with a quirk of his eyebrow. “That’ll wait until tomorrow, you know. Unless you’re trying to beat everyone out on getting the account with our newest client.”

  “And which client is that?” Tawnia hoped she hadn’t been distracted during that part of the management meeting but asking now was better than waiting until she really looked stupid. Besides, Dustin didn’t seem the type to be overstressed with perfection.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” If she knew him better, she’d tell him to stop gloating long enough to spit it out. Maybe in a day or two their relationship would be at that level. He was interesting enough that she wouldn’t mind getting to know him better.

  “Multnomah County.”

  “That means nothing to me. I’m new here, remember?”

  “They’re in charge of the Hawthorne Bridge—and quite a few other bridges in the area.”

  “Ah. The bridge collapse.”

  “Yep. They want us to help them create a sense of security. People are in a panic and want someone to tell them that all the other bridges in the city aren’t going to fall down. Others are looking for someone to blame, and they perceive Multnomah County as having deep pockets. Four lawsuits have already been filed.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “About the lawsuits? Or the client?”

  “The client. The lawsuits are inevitable.”

  “Well, they’ve got insurance, and I assume most will settle. But in my opinion nothing can really be done to satisfy public opinion until they determine the cause, which by all reports, they seem to be having trouble doing. According to the memo, they’ve called in outside experts to help.”

  “Good idea. Makes them seem serious about finding the truth.” She bent over and with her free hand opened the bottom desk drawer, where she had stored her narrow black purse, which matched the red and black suit she had chosen to wear this first day. Red always made her feel powerful and attractive.

  “Exactly the angle they want us to play up at this point.” He placed both hands on her desk and leaned over. “So, are you going to try to get the account? They’ll be assigning it to a team tomorrow morning.”

  She straightened and met his eyes. “Me? I just got here, remember? For the time being, I’ll take what they give me.”

  “Where’s your initiative?”

  Tawnia didn’t know her team members or their projects well enough to know if they could handle another account. Then again, something that high profile would be good for her career, a
nd she was confident she could do most of the work herself if the others were overloaded. She hadn’t been in advertising ten years for nothing, and it wasn’t as if she had an active social life to get in the way.

  “It’d have to be done quickly,” she said. “They need to start reassuring people right away. Radio, TV, interviews with experts, logos. A catchy blurb. A fresh design for their image, with a little bit of community togetherness thrown in to discourage lawsuits.”

  Dustin grinned. “I like the sound of that. The more you sell them on, the more money for our company. And the better for them, too, of course. In the long run a good ad campaign will save them money in lawsuits alone.”

  Tawnia’s mind was going fast. She’d like to talk to the engineers herself, get a feel for what the county actually did to maintain their bridges, but that wasn’t likely to happen. She’d meet with their director and be permitted to use only what information he’d give her, information that was likely one-sided. But she’d grown accustomed to that. Advertising was all about touting your strengths, not owning up to weaknesses.

  Too bad she couldn’t give Bret a call and ask for his point of view about the whole thing. Likely he’d give her some specific information she could use in the ad campaign. And why couldn’t she call him? She had his number in her cell. He wouldn’t mind. He loved bridges, especially bridges that spanned the water. She’d learned that much on their little road trip to Portland.

  “You’ve never been to Portland?” Bret asked.

  It was five months after Christian’s funeral, and they were watching TV at her place—a travel show that visited Oregon.

  “Not yet. Looks beautiful.”

  “I’ve been three times. I love the place. They have the most incredible overwater bridges. I also know a nice little seafood restaurant that makes the best crab cakes I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Sounds heavenly.”