I would very much like to meet this friend of yours. When we talked about him last night, I had the feeling that he’s a bit annoying too. Have you changed your mind on that? She laughed and told him no, and that he didn’t know the half of it. I will try to be on my best behavior with him, and not murder him for being a pain in the ass. Also, I heard from Jason this morning, and he said that someone was clearing the land near the lake. Is that your doing?
Yes, the dragons have to keep busy. If not, they cause mischief, and dragons can cause all kinds of trouble with their play. Chase laughed when she did. I have one more stop to make today, then I think I will be done. After that, I’m going to head home and try to get some work done there too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to work and get things accomplished so easily. She told him about the man in town.
Yes, I’ve seen him. He and his wife came into the restaurant when I was there with my dad this morning. He seems nice enough. His wife is having a wonderful time I’ve heard, too. Shopping and meeting and greeting people. I think I’d like them both if I wasn’t worried about why they’re here. He sighed heavily. I was hoping, just once, that we could have a stress-free time without people trying to kill someone or even to take them. But we’ll be fine, I know it. And once we take care of Bates and whatever he throws at us, we’ll be better for it, perhaps.
She hoped so as well. Detouring to go and see the man, she asked Chase if he’d meet her at the hotel when he could. Chase told her that he was done there and would gladly go with her. Nip it in the bus, as Soto was so fond of getting wrong. Emerald headed there instead of going home.
~~~
Jamie watched his wife nap. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. And now that she was round with their child, all he could do was marvel at how much prettier she’d gotten, even glowing at times. When he noticed the flashing light on his in-room phone, he stood up to answer it just as Kristie woke.
“Trouble?” He said that he didn’t think so, and answered the phone as she worked to get out of the bed. Reaching out his hand to steady her, he listened with half an ear to the man speaking. The voice at the other end, the proprietor of the nice hotel, said they had visitors. “Is it Bates?”
“I don’t know yet.” Jamie repeated the question from Kristie as she made her way to the bathroom. “Who is this person, Mr. Hamilton? Anyone you know?”
“Oh yes, sir. We all know Lord Chase and his wife. They only wish a few minutes of your time.” Jamie said he’d be down in a moment. “Very good, sir. They’re in the dining room, having some tea and scones. If you’d enjoy some as well, I’ll let the chef know. He’s quite famous regarding this treat.”
After hanging up, he told Kristie what was going on. “Do you think they know why you’re here?” Shaking his head, he sat down again to pull on his boots. His chest was hurting again, for the first time since they’d arrived, and he rubbed it.
“I don’t know how anyone would know. I mean, even if Bates wanted to contact them, he doesn’t have a clue that we’re here at all. Or at least I hope not. We turned off our phone locator and took a great many detours to get here. Even renting a car from Indiana and using your mom’s card and name to get it. I think we’ve covered our tracks.” He hoped so, anyway. The more he thought about what his boss was having him do, the more he hated his job. A job until recently, he had loved. But the stress, he knew, was making him sick with worry. Rubbing his chest again, he was embarrassed when Kristie saw him doing it. “I’ll go down to see them, and you wait here.”
“I most certainly will not. I want to meet them too. All I’ve heard since we got here was how the Crosby family was doing this, how they have saved the town over and over. And the unemployment rate and crime rate here is almost zero.” He smiled at her as she went on. “The schools here are the most up to date, and highly sought-after students graduate from here. This is a place that I’d like to bring up our children.”
“If I lose my job over this, we might have to.” She said she was happy with that too. “I know you hate the job, honey, but it’s good money, and we’ll need that with the baby coming along. We might have a better chance at buying a house should we have to stay here, but you know as well as I do that my mom will not make it easy on us.”
“No, she won’t. And I know it’s good money, Jamie, but you’re never home, and when you are, you’re never home with me. Bates is not going to give you any break on anything. And the fact that we had to do all this to take a simple trip, it makes me worry that you’re over worked too.” He told her he was, to the point where just to go into his job was too much. “See? You need a break from them. I don’t know how we’ll live, but we did it before you had that job, and I’m sure we will be just fine if you lose it.”
She was right on that as well. But he’d gotten used to having a nice car from this decade. Going out to eat with his wife when he wanted. There were other perks as well, but lately it had been the other things that were weighing him down too much to enjoy even the simplest of pleasures. Like coming here.
They had turned off their location finder on their phones as soon as the decision was made to come here, even going so far as to take out the sim cards and batteries. They’d bought round trip tickets to Indiana, when they were going closer to Columbus than anywhere. And after getting themselves a car, they had also bought several burner phones to use instead of their own cells. He’d not even brought his computer, for fear that it would be a tracking device for Bates. And there were other things he’d done to hopefully ensure that they had no contact with his boss. Liking leaving things undone at home, such as not turning the answering machine on. The house being watched by neighbors who liked him and Kristie. All in an effort to do his job.
He’d not told anyone where he was going, or even that he was going anyplace in particular. Only saying to his boss, via email, that they had decided to get away, and that since he wasn’t on call, he wasn’t taking his phone, computer, or car. If Bates emailed back, and he more than likely had, Jamie had made sure that he didn’t open his emails after his was sent out. It was, he thought, the best he could do to enjoy himself, and to hide as well.
When Kristie was ready to go down to the dining room, they made their way to the elevator. He didn’t know what this might be about, but he had a feeling that the police had contacted the man about the questions he’d been asking around town. Jamie had no idea what this man would have to do with the search for the woman, but he hoped that this was going to give him all he needed to go back home and tell his boss that he’d been wrong about the woman. Or something like that.
They had started out just asking a few people, but when that hadn’t been helpful, he’d gone to the local police and asked for help. The police had been nice, even looking the picture over for several seconds before simply asking him why he wanted to look for a woman when he had one all to himself. It had been a good question, one he would have asked himself. But he was no closer to finding out anything than he’d been before.
The police had been more help than the fine citizens. The entire town was protective of each other. They had nothing to say to anyone they deemed a stranger, he thought. All Jamie could think about was that saying that adults taught to children. Stranger danger. But to him it only fueled his interest in the town rather than making him turn away. He would love to, like his wife, to live in a town where everyone had your back.
The dining room was busy, and he waited in line to find the couple. Kristie said she could eat, and he decided to ask for a menu. They’d yet to eat in the place, enjoying the little diners about town that had a flare to them that one didn’t get in bigger cities, but he had heard good things about this place, along with the service.
As they were being shown to the table, he kept glancing around, looking for someone he might know in the form of his job. But as soon as he looked where they were headed, he stopped in his tracks.
“Mr. Nash.” He nodded at the man who had shaken his ha
nd, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman at the table. “Come on, have a seat and we’ll talk. All right?”
“I…it’s her.” The man turned his face so that he could look at him. “You can’t believe how long I’ve been looking for her.”
“Sit down.” He nearly sat on the floor, but the man half guided him, half carried him to the table. As soon as they were seated water was brought to them, but Jamie couldn’t even think, much less drink anything. The man smiled at him and introduced the beautiful woman to him. “This is my wife, Emerald Crosby. Emerald, I think this is James and Kristina Nash, from Washington.”
“Yes, we are. It looks as if my husband has lost his manners, along with his tongue.” He looked at his wife, who was smiling at him. “You’re being very rude, my dear. And here I thought you only had eyes for me.”
He stared at the woman, and his first impression was that the pictures of her hadn’t done her any justice whatsoever. And the more he looked at her, the more he realized that she could well be the woman in the older photo. If not, then she was her exact twin.
“You’re the woman, from the picture.” Emerald asked him what picture. He hadn’t brought the file with him, but he knew the face like his own. “My boss, he’s had me looking for you for nearly two years. I’m with Homeland Security. I never thought that I’d ever find you. I mean, you’re not her, of course. How could you be? You’re young and very beautiful. But you’d be old, very old by now if it was you.”
“You are making no sense, just so you know.” He nodded, then shook his head at her. “Calm down before you have a heart attack, Mr. Nash. You’re not well, and I’m worried about you. You’re very pale, and your heartrate is through the roof. Calm down or I’ll do it for you.”
Jamie started to feel lightheaded. His head was pounding, and sweat was running down his back like a river of stickiness. Just as he reached for his glass of water, he noticed that his hands were shaking too badly for him to pick the glass up. He looked at Kristie and she was out of focus.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I do feel sick.” He did feel like his heart was racing, and he felt all clammy as well. Putting his hand over his heart, he could almost feel it pounding. When dizziness swamped him hard, someone pressed his head between his knees and told him to breathe. “It’s not helping.”
As soon as his head was let go, the sting of someone slapping him had him feeling better. Not great, but he could at least breathe now. He stared at the woman who had hit him, and instead of getting angry, he thanked her.
“You’re not in good health.” He nodded, then asked her how she knew. “Because I’m not as stupid as your boss thinks I am.” He nodded again and looked at Chase when he laughed. “He thinks this is funny because you have it in your head that your boss is off his noodle.”
“He is. He sent me on this.... How did you know that?” Before she could answer, if she even was, salads were set in front of him and Kristie and a bowl of soup in front of Emerald. Chase wasn’t eating. “I’m sorry. My wife, she gets the oddest cravings at times. If you’ve already eaten, we can talk, then have our meal later.”
“Mr. Nash, what are you doing here? I know for a fact that no one from your office knows you’re here. You have cell phones that don’t have anything to do with your job. There is no computer in your room or on your person. There is Wi-Fi here, yet you’ve never hooked into it. And as far as I can tell, you don’t have a thing to do with the other people that showed up a couple of days ago. Why are you here, exactly?”
Jamie started to answer him, then realized just how much information the man had. “You’ve had me followed?” He said that there wasn’t any reason for him to follow him. Everyone in town had been watching for him. “Yes, we’ve run into that as well. You live in a very loyal town, Mr. Crosby. But I do have a few questions that I’m sure you both can answer. Please?”
“Yes, you do have questions, I can see it. But for now, we’ll have a nice lunch and talk about things that have nothing to do with your work, or the reason my wife looks like a photo you have that is several decades old. To be honest, I fear for your health right now.”
Jamie started to rub his hand over his pounding chest again, but didn’t want to worry his wife. Jamie blinked several times too, hoping that his vision would clear. Taking a deep breath was painful. Hell, even a small one was hurting him.
Questions were racing through his mind at a rapid rate. And with them, his heartrate was going up until he wanted to lie down, to close his eyes against the pounding pain. It was beating so hard that he could feel it thumping out of his chest. Before he could begin to tell them that he needed to lie down, he was lifted up from his seat and carried away. That was all he remembered, besides Kristie calling his name over and over before he passed out.
Chapter 5
“What the hell do you mean, he’s just gone? I thought you had a detail on him.” Harold hated incompetent men, and he hated men who didn’t bow before him when they entered the room. Not that it was necessary, but it would have been nice if they treated him with as much respect as he deserved. “Where is he and that fat wife of his?”
“I believe that she’s with child, sir.” If he’d had a gun, Harold was pretty sure that he’d lose his job today. Simply killing the man wouldn’t make him feel better, but the blood splatter might. “But as to where they might be, I’m not sure. His computer is still at his home. Their cell phones aren’t traceable. I think he might have removed the batteries. We were able to trace them as far as Indiana. Upon further search, the place where they were staying, under false names, says that while they did check in, they’ve not seen them once since Saturday afternoon.”
“And now it’s Monday morning and still no word. You do know that he was supposed to report to work this morning, don’t you? Just like the rest of you? Where is he, damn it? Out with some woman? Doubtful, but did you at least look for him?”
Just as he was ready to send out the troops to Indiana, his phone rang at his desk. He knew that whoever it was, they were looking to get their head blasted off by him, and he snarled out his name as soon as he picked it up.
“Mr. Bates? Harold Bates?” The woman’s voice startled him, and it took him a moment to realize that he’d not answered her. “There’s no one there. I swear, no one wants to talk to me.”
“I’m here. Just here.” He felt stupid in that moment, and hated the woman for making him feel that way. “What do you want? This is a business line, not some fluttery woman’s call.”
“I know well and good what line I’ve called, mister. My husband is in the hospital. Jamie...he had a heart attack and they’ve put him in the hospital. And then last night, they transferred him to a bigger hospital in Columbus, Ohio.” He had no idea who Jamie was, nor why he should care when the woman continued. “My name is Kristie Nash. My husband, James Nash, works for you.”
“I know that.” He had to let out a breath slowly. Twice now she’d tried to make him look bad. “What was he doing when he had this supposed heart att—?”
“It’s not a supposed heart attack, you moronic fuck. He nearly died. What is wrong with you? My husband had a heart attack at thirty-three years old, and would have missed his child being born had not someone known what to do immediately. He’s stressed, the doctor said, and he needs to slow down.” She was so mad that he could almost feel it through the phone. And for some reason, Harold loved it. “He’s not going to be coming in for a while. Jamie is very ill, and he needs to rest up and change his way of life. You’re far ruder than I thought you’d be, just so you know. But when he has a change in things here, I may or may not call you. I would imagine that you’re the cause of most of his stress level.”
The phone was still singing its disconnect tune when he put it back on the cradle. She had certainly put him in his place, he thought with a little laugh. No one, not since he could remember, had had the balls to do that. Looking at the flunky in front of him, he wondered what he’d do if
she’d snapped at him like she had Harold. Probably cry like a baby and run off with his tail between his legs.
“Nash is in the hospital.” He asked what had happened. “Apparently he’s had a heart attack, and has been transferred to a larger hospital in Columbus, Ohio. The shit weed might be out for a while. Not that he was making much in the way of progress on his job, but there you have it. That was his wife. Why women think they can just make a call like that is beyond me. I should have been notified by a doctor. Or Nash. Women can be so fidgety that they make me want to smack them.”
“Should we send someone there to make sure that he’s getting the best of care?” Harold started to ask him why they’d care, he wasn’t working right now. “His poor wife. She must be under a lot of strain right now, what with her having a baby. I’ll see about getting her something nice to make her smile.”
“You do realize that women have been shitting out babies for centuries, and no one cared a fiddle what they were stressed about, don’t you?” The man just stared at him, in awe, he’d bet. “No, I do not want you going there to make sure that he’s getting the best of care. The fucker left here without telling anyone where he was going. He can damn well suffer. But you are going to go there and find out what information he might have for me on the case he’s working on. The one that he’s been working on for nearly two years without any progress.”
Nash had told him he was going away for the weekend, but not where. He’d also told him that he wasn’t taking his phone or his computer. That had pissed Harold off enough that he’d wanted to hunt him down and shove the devices up his ass. Nash was on call when he told him he was. All the time, damn it. Until he brought that woman in, he was on call all the damned time. And now, his little wife was calling him off sick. This shit wasn’t the way to get on his best side, if he even had one, Harold thought. Looking up, Harold realized that the man had left him.
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