He also found it strange that the feds had focused all of their attention on this one man. There seemed to be no concern for a vagabond named Cliff, Dr. Palmer, or Megan’s ghost of a boyfriend, Sonny Williams. He had tried to bring this concern to Captain Metz, but he was shut down. The captain had the sour look of a usually proud man who had been resentfully put in his place by a higher power. “As of now,” he had said with a distasteful grumble, “we’re to cease all investigations surrounding the case. We’re only to assist the feds with apprehending this Messenger fella, and disclose to them any information we might find on him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Harrison had protested.
“No shit,” Metz concurred. “But our hands are tied, detective. I’ve just finished a long, unpleasant phone conversation with the regional director, and I don’t want my phone ringing from his office again. They expect our complete cooperation in this matter, and that’s all I got.”
“So that’s it then?” Harrison nearly pouted. All the long hours of migraine-inducing work on this case, and the FBI had just waltzed in and swiped all his efforts out from under his nose, happy to relieve him of his duty; more than happy to take all the credit.
Captain Metz had shrugged his shoulders, slowly opened the lower right drawer of his office desk, and pulled out a small bottle of expensive looking whiskey. He then produced two clean glasses from the same drawer and poured the potent drink in each, filling them both only a quarter of the way. “Not saying I’m happy about it either, Harrison,” he stated. “But from what I gathered, this has been one of those cases that have been known to drive the most prudent officers to drink. If the feds want to take it off our hands, I say let ‘em have a go at it. We can get right to the drinking without all the bullshit that comes before it.”
Harrison couldn’t let go as easily. He had invested too much into the case to let this sit well with him. He could tell by the look on his face that Metz was no less willing to give it up either, but the captain had many years on him, years of dealing with bureaucratic nonsense like this, and his experience told him when it was time to throw in the towel. Reluctantly, Harrison had taken one of the glasses and downed his whiskey.
“Now,” Metz had resumed, “we’ve got other things on our plate. Our boys are running around like crazy searching for this fella the feds are so hell-bent on finding. But I need your expertise elsewhere.”
“Such as?”
“You’re our Missing Persons guy, Harrison. And we’ve got a missing police chief. One of our own. How about you and Gibbons get your asses on it.”
He saw no other choice at this point. Gibbons had agreed wholeheartedly with Metz when Harrison passed on the orders to him, as he knew he would. “Forget this crazy shit, man,” he had said. “Way I see it, them feds doin’ us a damn favor.”
Taking a huge gulp of coffee to counter the effects of the whiskey, as well as his dog-tired brain, he forced himself to focus on his computer screen, searching for anything that could lead him and his partner to Chief Biddle’s whereabouts. He’d do his best not to let Captain Metz down, but he also swore to himself that he wouldn’t forget the crazy shit. With the mystery behind his car, radios, and cell phone, all malfunctioning at once, and with the unexplainable encounter with the biker the night before, he was determined to get to the bottom of it all. Once they found Biddle, he would go back to setting his sights on the man that somehow tricked him into cuffing himself. He’d hunt down this Michael Messenger every chance he got.
Chapter VII
For a length of the ride toward the east coast, Michael and Megan fell into a game-like conversation in which she would ask him a question about himself. He would answer, and then they would switch roles. They kept it light, asking simple questions such as one wanting to know the other’s favorite book, type of food, music, and so on. It didn’t take long before they were both feeling chipper again, and once they had, the questions grew to more personal elements, but ones that wouldn’t risk allowing a gloomy atmosphere to reenter the confines of the truck. By the time they hit the drive-through of a well-known fast food restaurant chain, they even dared to share laughter. Sustenance that drips of grease and spikes one’s cholesterol, in the form of burgers, fries, and chocolate milkshakes, is sometimes the best remedy.
He asked her what her most embarrassing moment was.
“Walking in on my parents,” she answered after a few seconds of thinking.
“Ew!” he sympathized.
She asked him what his guilty pleasure was.
“Umm… Doo Wop. And Mountain Dew.”
“Doo Wop?” she giggled. “That’s like, from my grandparents’ era!”
He asked her who her childhood celebrity crush was.
“Don’t laugh, okay?” she warned.
“No promises, darlin’.”
“Zac Efron.”
Michael nearly spit milkshake all over the dashboard. She smacked him on the arm while laughing as well.
“Hey! I’m driving here!” he protested in a thick, New York accent.
“Okay,” she said immediately, “your turn.”
He smiled somewhat painfully.
“Come on,” she pressed. “Spill it!”
“Vanna White,” he answered with a cringe, expecting serious criticism.
She stared at him for a second before bursting out with uncontrollable laughter. “Oh my God! She’s so old!”
“She wasn’t so old in the nineties,” he shrugged.
“Oh Vanna,” she mocked in an exaggeratedly deep voice, “can I buy a vowel from you?”
Michael shook his head. “Not living that one down for a while, am I.”
“Okay,” she continued in a muffled voice with a mouth full of hamburger, “ready for this one?”
“Wait, it’s my turn to ask you something.”
“Not true,” Megan contested as she swallowed the morsel, “since I only piggybacked on your question.”
“Which still counts.”
“What quality most attracts you to a woman?” she asked, ignoring his dispute. “Physically, I mean.”
He turned his to her briefly with a raised eyebrow. She shifted her legs and hips so she could face him completely, leaning back against the passenger door and sipping on her milkshake through the straw, with a patient expression that suggested she wouldn’t be satisfied until he answered. “You know,” he remarked teasingly, “once you ask a question like that, it’ll lead to more like it.”
She laughed. “You’re stalling again.”
He refocused on the traffic ahead, which had amplified as they had reached the city limits. “The way she laughs,” he said with a distant smile. “I’m attracted to a certain type of laughter, from a woman with a certain type of voice.”
“What kind of voice?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” he said.
“You mean like a phone-sex kind of voice?”
“What?”
“I mean, how else can a woman’s laughter do it for you?”
“Explain what a phone-sex voice is exactly.”
“Well,” she answered plainly, “I’d say when the sound of a woman’s voice turns you on, it’s a phone-sex voice.”
“What, like she has the type of voice that would make her a successful phone-sex operator?”
“Pretty much.”
He squinted his blue eyes in thought. “I’m not sure there can be a definite classification for a phone-sex voice. I mean, different people might find different types of voices attractive. Anyway, I specified laughter.”
She crossed her arms with her milkshake cup in one hand. “Well, it doesn’t matter because I asked you what physical quality you’re attracted to.”
“Laughter’s a physical quality,” he argued. “You can perceive it with one of the five sen…”
“Come on, Messenger. Are you an ass-man or a tits-man?”
He grunted a laugh. “Now you’re being bad.”
“No, I�
�m being forward.” She took another sip of her shake. “I can wait all day.”
“I guess I’m more of an ass-guy,” he said sheepishly.
She turned back to face forward with a smirk on her face. “I figured,” she remarked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she teased.
“No, I wanna know. How do you figure?”
Her smirk grew. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you checking mine out a couple times.”
“What?” he exclaimed with a voice of denial. “No I haven’t!”
“Sure,” she continued with her teasing, “right.”
“Excuse me,” he said with a short laugh, “if I was checking out your backside…”
“Ass,” she corrected mockingly. “You can say it. We’re all adults in here.”
“If I was checking out your ass, maybe it’s because you exposed it right in front of me this morning. What choice did I have?”
“You could have looked away,” she said playfully. “It’s not like I forced you to look. Besides, I didn’t hear any complaints.”
“Well,” he replied with a smile, “you do have a nice ass.”
“Well thank you.” Her smirk grew to a wide grin. “How nice?”
“Very nice.”
“On a scale of one to ten.”
“When am I going to get to ask a question?”
“Last one,” she promised. “I’m just curious.”
He let out an adorable sigh. “Honestly darlin’, you’re an eleven. I mean everything. Your smile, hair, eyes, legs… all of you. Especially your personality. You’re very strong; I’ve rarely seen strength like yours. But you’re also sweet, intelligent, sassy, humorous, and understanding. And you have a kind heart on top of it all.”
Blush cheeks suddenly accompanied her grin. Not only was he stunningly handsome, but a charmer as well. Especially since he hadn’t attempted to be so. His response was matter-of-fact; sincere. His words made her want to fly, and her giddiness quickly gave way to a need to hold back tears.
The liveliness between them seemed to dim in that quick silence that followed after her being so touched by his compliment. “Okay,” she said softly, “I’m going to ask you one more question. And I swear this is really my last one before it’s your turn again.”
He might have cracked a joke about her being stingy with taking so many turns in a row, but the serious tone of her voice prevented him from using mockery. “Yeah,” he replied simply. “Sure.”
She drew in a breath, as if needing to muster up the courage to ask. “If you really think I’m so… I mean… if you think I’m…”
“An eleven out of ten?” he helped her finish.
“Well… yes. If you feel that way, well… why didn’t you…? I mean this morning. You know, in the shower. I think I would have let you… you know… if you wanted to.”
There was another moment’s hesitation. “Wow,” he expressed with a nervous laugh. Megan still couldn’t get over how quickly he seemed to switch from a man of pure confidence to one with awkward uncertainty. But part of her secretly reveled in the idea that she had that effect on him. “Well,” he continued, “I did want to. But I guess I didn’t… out of respect.”
“Respect?”
“Well yeah,” he replied. “Look, you are an eleven. I mean, you’re incredibly beautiful.” The rosy hue returned in her cheeks instantly. “But… well… you’re also a virgin. A woman as attractive as you, I’m pretty sure you’re a virgin by choice. It didn’t feel right to take that from you. Not under the circumstances we’re in. I’m actually surprised, and I mean no offense, that you’d be willing.”
“I see your point,” she said, “but at the same time, the circumstances have brought me to the realization that life is limited, that it can end at any moment, and that we have no control over when it does. After what’s happened, my eyes opened a bit. So if you’re shocked by my asking you if you’re an ass-man or a tits-man, or by my confessing that I was… willing this morning, well I think this whole experience has something to do with that.”
Michael took his hand from the steering wheel again to hold hers. “I understand, Megan. I would never judge you for having such an epiphany. I just wouldn’t want you to forsake your principles because of what you’ve been through. I wouldn’t want what they did to you break you in any way. I think you’d be happier if you felt that your first time was completely your decision. Not a decision influenced by trauma, but one you make when you’re at peace with yourself.
She looked away. “I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “You know, I’ve had several relationships in high school and beyond; plenty of opportunities to give myself to someone. But I was raised strong in my faith. For the longest time, I was certain that I would save myself for marriage. Or at least for someone I was sure was the right one.”
“Did you ever think… Sonny… was the right one?”
“I did,” she answered. “At least on a superficial level. But even though I felt that way, we obviously never had sex. First of all, he would never go that far with me. And now that I know why, it sickens me. But at the time, it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I thought he was one of the few people who shared the same principles as me. And I also felt that by being with him, it would take the pressure off of me to give in to the temptation. Most of my boyfriends, after dating me for a little while, kept trying to convince me. And it would either end up with me breaking up with them, or the other way around. With Sonny, I believed that wouldn’t be an issue. Though I did almost give in to temptation with him once. But he didn’t. Because I was just… an assignment to him.”
She grew quiet for a moment, reflecting back on how she had once thought that monster was the perfect man. “There were times though,” she went on in a softer tone, “when I thought that maybe he wasn’t the right one for me. I don’t think I ever consciously thought that, but I think deep inside, a small part of me knew it.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked in a non-threatening way. “I know that agents like him are highly skilled at deception. It would’ve been impossible to know he was anything other than what he allowed you to see.”
“Well,” she said with an embarrassed look in her eyes, “there were times when we… you know… fooled around. We would only go so far, but it was far enough. And each time, I felt… guilty. Remorseful. Dirty even. It’s hard to explain, but I think that was the small part of me deep inside that knew. And I think if I were with the right one, I wouldn’t feel like that afterwards, whether I waited for marriage or not.”
“Makes perfect sense,” Michael thought aloud.
Megan’s gaze remained fixed out the passenger window. “I had convinced myself that he was perfect though. Now, after it all, I’ve never felt so gullible. So humiliated. I’ll probably second-guess every relationship I have from now on after this. I’m not saying my very next boyfriend has to be Mr. Right, but it would be nice if I could at least get a sense of whether he’s a good person or not.”
He squeezed her hand. “The chances of you getting involved with someone like that again are slimmer than getting struck by lightning. But I’ll tell you what, when we get to my friend’s in Toms River, we’ll be there for some time, getting you set up with a new life. In the meantime, I can teach you some basic mediation exercises.”
“You mean you’re going to teach me what you know?”
“Well,” he explained, “nothing complicated. That takes far too long. But just enough that you can work on centering yourself. It will help that inner voice, that small part of you, grow a little stronger. Intuition is one of the first qualities you develop from proper meditating.”
“That sounds nice,” she remarked.
They drove in silence, hand in hand, for a few minutes. Part of her wanted nothing to do with the secret part of the world he was involved with, but another part of her would not have minded staying with him for years to learn everything
she could. That life seemed more than adventurous, despite the dangers that came with it, and until two weeks ago, her life knew little of adventure.
“Waiting for the right one is noble, Megan,” Michael said, breaking the silence again. “I think you’ll be happier with yourself if you do. And I think your inner voice is louder than you might believe. Especially after your recent experience. You might be on your guard a little more, but that’s a good thing. In the end, when the right one comes along, you’ll know.”
Megan’s thoughts again quickly reverted back to the shower with Michael earlier that morning. Already it had become such a lovely memory for her. And that’s when it hit her. Although they’d behaved, for the most part, it was still a moment of passion. They had still crossed a line beyond what would be considered appropriate. Only with him, there was no guilt afterwards. No remorse. No prayers asking her mother’s ghost to help her stay strong or make better decisions. No relating to Victor Frankenstein this time.
She smiled at him, and without thinking, she found herself leaning over and planting a soft kiss on his cheek. “I think you’re right,” she answered. “And for the record, everything about you is an eleven too.”
He didn’t turn to her, but she was satisfied to see a warm smile grow on his lips.
But just as quickly, the smile faded. “How can you think that,” he asked in a somber tone, “after what you saw? Truthfully, I’m amazed you’re not scared to death of me.”
Her smile disappeared as well as she studied his face. “I’m not scared of you.”
He hesitated for a second. “Can I ask you a question now? A serious one?” She didn’t say anything, but waited for him. And as if he took her silence as an affirmative, he continued. “Why did you forgive me so quickly? Really. Why?”
“Are we really doing this again?” she sighed.
“Megan,” he almost interrupted, “I know we talked about this last night, but I’ve gone over it several times in my head now, and I still can’t understand how you could forgive me so quickly. Not without taking time to get over it. Jesus, I once had a girlfriend who I forgot to pick up from work when her car was in the shop, and she was pissy with me for almost a week. I used you as bait, which in turn got your friends killed.”
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