Eli came back in from the garage, carrying a large roll of paper. Come with me, he said. We walked into his kitchen and he unrolled the paper, and I saw it was maps. He showed me the route he drove, from Denver to Salt Lake City, back in 1995. He pointed out all the stops along the way. His mind was as sharp as a tack, as he described those trips, with enthusiasm.
He said Wally Whittle, drove the Columbus, Ohio to Kansas City route. He picked up Miss Thomason in St Louis, at 3:45 in the morning. She transferred to Carl Posey’s bus around 7:00 in Kansas City and was on his final passenger manifest.
Eli said he took over in Denver at 3:30 that afternoon and drove to Salt Lake City. Miss Thomason was on the bus, when I did my final passenger check. My route was Interstate 70 west to Salina, then north on U.S. 50 to Scipio Utah, where I connected with Interstate 15 north into Salt Lake City. Carl Fisher took over the bus, in Salt Lake City and drove onto Reno and San Francisco.
He pointed out on the map his stops in Silverthorne, Copper Mountain, and Grand Junction, Colorado.
I know Miss Thomason was on the bus at Silverthorne where I have a forty five minute stop for anyone that wants a bite to eat and stretch their legs. I always check my passenger manifest, before leaving a scheduled stop and Miss Thomason, was back on the bus. At Copper Mountain no one got off. I made a quick pick up and we were on our way within ten minutes.
Eli pointed to Grand Junction and was tapping his finger on that location. He was remembering something about that stop.
River Road, he said out loud. What about River Road, I asked. I always exit at Grand Junction on North River Road. There was a bunch of bikers, on both sides of the Colorado River bridge, he said. Some were swimming in the muddy river and others were just blocking the road.
I followed River Road, into an area called Palisade, where the small Greyhound terminal, was located. I told the passengers this was a fifteen minute stop.
There are wineries, breweries and distillers in the area and the bikers were getting a little wild. I remember hurrying through the stop, but failed to do a passenger check, before leaving. The bikers were jammed in and around the bus terminal. I didn’t think anyone got off the bus but me, to use the restroom and pickup one passenger. I don’t know if Miss Thomason was on the bus, when I pulled out of the terminal, or not.
When we got to Salt Lake City, I open the door like I always do, and lifted the luggage compartment on the right side of the bus. I began pulling the bags with the red SLC tags and dropped them on the sidewalk. The Reno, Sacramento, and San Francisco bags stayed on the bus. Carl took the last leg of the trip to San Francisco.
A private detective, stopped by my house back then, and told me Miss Thomason’s bags were found on the dock at the bus terminal in Reno, but she didn’t get off the bus. She also didn’t show up on Carl’s passenger manifest, before the bus left Salt Lake City. I told the detective she may have gotten off in Grand Junction.
It was almost as if he were driving the route once again in his head. He pointed out every stop they made along the route and everything he did. While we were looking over the map, his wife brought Eli and me a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie.
I asked if I could take his map and have a copy made, down the road at a Kinko’s. You don’t have to do that, I’ve got extra copies, he stated. We sat at his kitchen table and Eli, told me about all the different routes, and stops he’s made over the years. He took a pencil and marked every location and what kind of building, they stopped at. It was either a restaurant, where the passengers could eat, or a Greyhound pickup and drop off point.
Eli said, he told a private detective, he remembers the young lady was on the bus in Denver, during the drivers transfer. When they stopped at Silverthorne, Colorado, she got off, with other passengers, to eat and use the rest room. He said, he remembers her getting back on and sitting towards the back of the bus.
I spent another hour, with Eli and his wife. I told them I had to run some additional errands, before the end of the day. I stopped at Kinko’s and had several copies, of the thirty six by forty two inch map copy printed. I headed to a Hampton Inn, near the airport and spent the night, making notes on the map, with a marker pen.
I was back home Saturday, energized by what I had learned in Utah. It was clear that Christine was on the bus when it left Denver. Now all I need to do is figure out where she got off and why.
CHAPTER-6 I stopped at the tiki bar on my way home from the airport, to let Lorain know, I was back. There was a large group of people gather around drinking and Lorain was staying busy. I said a quick hello and told her, I would see her at home, later tonight.
When I got home I carried the rolled up maps into the house and placed them in the closet in my study. I scanned several pages of notes, I had made while in the hotel last night, into my computer. I fixed me a ham and cheese sandwich and sat at the bar and ate.
A week later I received a call from an Air Force Major, requesting help with a project the military was working on. Terrorist were using innocent civilians as shields, which made it hard, to do any aerial bombings. The military needed a better way to achieve saturated bombing, without killing or injuring civilians. One of my earlier designs was exactly what they were looking for, but it needed to be a larger design and carry a larger payload.
I spent the next three weeks, making design changes and several dozen conference calls, to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio and The Brighton Aeronautics Company on North Island in San Diego, California.
Four days after my fifty third birthday, I flew to Ohio, to meet with Air Force commanders, at the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. After two days in Ohio, I flew to San Diego and spent a week working with the engineers, at Brighton Aeronautics. My new drone design was larger and stealthier, than the others. It could be controlled from hundreds of miles away and do a pinpoint attack on a terrorist position.
Brighton Aeronautics, was committed to having a prototype, by the end of the year and go into full production, by March of next year.
I flew back home on the fifteenth of August and landed in Sarasota at 11:45 that night. It was almost 1:00 in the morning, by the time I put my plane away and drove home.
Lorain was up, waiting for me. When I came up the interior stairs, from under the house, she had on a night gown with a cold beer in her hand. She said Kala stayed with her all week and had gone home earlier that day.
Lorain and I were becoming even closer, each day we were together. It was almost as if the thirty nine years, we were apart, never happened.
We had a perfect romantic relationship. We both continued to do the things we liked, without interfering in each other’s, personal lives. She loved working at the tiki bar, because she had control of her daily schedule. She ran the little bar like her own business. She purchased all the liquor, stocked the shelves, open, and closed the bar on the days she worked and took in tons of tips, from her customers.
I was able to dabble in engineering for new military devices, to help keep myself busy. I never charged the Air Force or Brighton Aeronautics, for the things I did for them. I felt I was performing, my patriotic duty for my country.
On September 11th, two days after Lorain’s birthday, I flew her and me, to Santa Monica Airport in Santa Monica, California. It was easier to fly in and out of this airport, than it would have been, LAX in Los Angeles and it was closer to her high school.
After Lorain and her parents moved from Edwards Air Force Base, in 1970 they ended up in Marina Del Rey and Lorain’s father, went to work for Lockheed Corporation, Air Force Space, and Missile Systems.
The flight was uneventful and took about five hours. Because of the time zone difference we landed at the Santa Monica Airport at 2:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time. I parked my Gulfstream G200 at a private hanger, where I could have it serviced and refueled, while we were in California. After acquiring a rental car, we drove to the Ritz Carlton, Marina Del Rey Hotel and checked in.
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bsp; Lorain’s class reunion, was being held, in one of the convention rooms at this hotel, on Saturday night. Once we were checked in and had placed our luggage in our room, we headed out for a quick bite. We ran into Tony P’s Dockside Grill, for a late lunch. Lunch was good and we took our time eating. Lorain told me stories about her childhood, living in the area.
After lunch we headed over to Venice High School. We drove around the building and Lorain pointed out some of the buildings, she had classes in. She also said they had built on to the school, since she was here.
We drove over to an area, called Culver West, a community heavy with single family homes. We turned on Neosho Avenue and Lorain showed me, the house where she and her parents lived.
She seemed disappointed, because she had remembered it being more spacious. The two story house had been repainted grey and sat on a narrow lot. She said her father, had a pool put in when she turned thirteen. She said her and her friends would party, almost every weekend, around the pool.
We drove around until the sun was about to go down, before heading back to the hotel. We spent a little time in the Rob’s Lobby Lounge, at the Ritz Carlton, before turning in for the evening.
Thursday we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway 1, to Malibu. I thought the houses on Casey Key were close together, but the homes along Broad Beach Road were inches apart.
We drove further up the coastal highway, as far as Ventura, before turning around and heading back south. We stopped at Paradise Cove Café, for lunch and to stretch our legs. The weather was perfect, with a cool breeze and clear blue skies.
We took our time driving back to Marina Del Rey. We took a few side roads, up into the Malibu Hills. Lorain wanted to check out some of the multi-million dollar homes, built on the side of the mountain.
We drove through Pepperdine University’s campus, nestled between the steep Santa Monica Mountains and the sandy Malibu Beach. The university was spread out throughout the hillside.
We were back at the Ritz Carlton, by 6:30 that evening, where we showered, dressed, and headed over to Tony P’s Dockside Grill, for a seafood dinner and drinks.
Friday was spent driving around in the Hollywood and Beverly Hills area. We parked and I took Lorain shopping on Rodeo Drive, where I purchased her a gold and diamond necklace, with matching pierced earrings. She kept punching me gently in the arm, saying I was spoiling her. I told her I had a lot years of spoiling her, to make up for.
We were waiting to cross the street and I was holding her hand. I looked at her and she smiled. I kissed her long and hard, right there on the street corner at Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. I told her I love her, with all my heart. She said she loved me and was happier than she had been in a long time.
I wanted to tell her about my search for Christine, but knew this trip was not the time or place to do that. We were both happy and content and I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
Saturday evening we attended Lorain’s thirty fifth Venice High School Class Reunion, in the Surf Room, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. As we entered the Surf Room, a lady found Lorain’s name tag with her senior picture, and pinned it on her dress. She hand wrote, Theodore James Steele, on a blank name tag and pinned it on my suit jacket.
After thirty five years, very few people recognized their classmates. Once Lorain started talking to people, she remembered them, especially her old girlfriends, from high school. There was a lot of whispering going on, when people were near me. I felt like the creature from the black lagoon, as I made my way over to the cash bar.
When I got to the bar, I handed the bartender my American Express Black card, and told him to put everyone’s drinks on my card, throughout the night. I would come back and sign the receipt, before the evening was over. I let him know I was staying here at the Ritz, if he had any questions.
I walked over to Lorain and handed her a cocktail and then backed away from her and her friends, who were huddled up around a table. I could tell by all the comradery around Lorain, she was popular in high school.
As the evening went on, a nice looking lady, who had a hand printed tag on her dress, came over to me. Her name was Sue Hubbard and she too had been abandon, by her Venice High School alumni husband.
She asked if I were the famous inventor, who once was CEO of Steele Global. I never considered myself, an inventor. I always thought of myself, as an engineer. I said I was TJ Steele and, I walked away, from Steele Global in 2000.
She told me her sister worked for Steele Cyber Technologies and when Microsoft bought them out, she moved to Seattle, to their main campus. I asked how her sister was doing and she said she loves, working at Microsoft. I told her after my departure, the board of directors fought among themselves, until the corporation was doomed.
Lorain, came over to where Sue and I was standing, and told me she wanted me to meet some of her classmates. Lorain then looked at Sue and asked her to join us.
Throughout the evening, I was asked the same thing over and over. People wanted to know if I was the famous billionaire industrialist, Theodore James Steele. I would reply that I was TJ Steele, but didn’t consider myself infamous.
Sue stayed with Lorain and I, until her husband caught up to her, late in the evening. He walked over, held a bottle of beer up in the air and said, free booze. He was about shit faced and should have stopped drinker, a long time ago. His wife wanted to tell him, it was me who was paying for the liquor, but I stopped her. His neglect of his wife, throughout the evening, didn’t set well with me. It also had upset Lorain.
By midnight, the reunion was over and people were leaving. Sue managed to get her husband out of the hotel and into their car. All I could think about, was what a jerk he was. He had a very attractive wife that he should have been showing off, rather than palling around with a drunken bunch, of old buddies.
Lorain and I stayed in the Surf Room until most everyone was gone. While Lorain talked with several friends, I went over to the bartender, to make sure we were settled up. I handed him two one hundred dollar bills, and thanked him for this evening’s service.
We flew back home on Sunday, arriving at Florida Coastal Aviation hanger at 10:30 that evening. Samuel Black, owner of the hanger, had his people, put my plane away, after Lorain I and left the airport.
The rest of the year saw me flying back and forth to Ohio and Wright Patterson Ari Force Base as well as The Brighton Aeronautics Company, on North Island in San Diego’s California.
A couple weeks before Christmas, Brighton Aeronautics was ready to test the new Steele Drone prototype. I flew into Edwards Airforce Base, where I met with the Brighton Aeronautics team, and the Air Force logistics’ personnel. The next day we set up the remote control center, on the runway set aside for the space shuttle to land on, if it couldn’t land in Florida.
Brighton Aeronautics had brought six drones to the base and the Air Forced armed them for their first test. The drones took off from Edwards, headed for a two hundred mile trip, across the mountains, to Yucca Flat, Nevada. The military had six small decommissioned jeeps, with two dummies in each, sitting in slightly concealed areas.
Once the drones zeroed in on their targets, the controllers guided the drones, straight into the jeeps, with direct hits on all six. The armed controlled explosion, took out each jeep, with little shrapnel dispersion. The test was such a success. The military placed an order for a thousand units.
I flew back home two days before Christmas and into the arms of Lorain. Kala, Lorain and I, spent all day Christmas together, dressed in new silk pajamas. We watched the classic movie. It’s a Wonderful Life, with cold beers and bowls of popcorn, while sitting on the sofa.
New Year’s Eve we attended the annual, Oscar Hobbs party at Kasey Key Fish House, where we drank ourselves silly. This gave us a good excuse to stay in bed most of New Year’s Day. Like previous year’s, Kala stayed the night, and spent the day with Lorain and I.
It was the end of January, and I was sitting at my computer organizing files and f
olders to send to my accountant for annual taxes. Lorain was at work and the house was quiet. I came across the folder, where I had stored all the research on Christine. I hadn’t been in this folder since, August of last year. I almost by-past the folder, but something inside of me, made me move forward and open the documents.
I also pulled the rolled up map from the closet, and spread it out across my desk. I looked at everything west of Denver including the hand written notes, Eli Florence had made on the map. I now strongly felt that Grand Junction, was the answer to what happened to Christine. No matter what I tried to look at on the map, my eyes were drawn back to Grand Junction.
If I wanted to find out what happened to Christine, I knew I needed to go back there to Grand Junction. First, I would need to get unauthorized computer network access into the city of Grand Junction and Mesa County, Colorado law enforcement servers.
My hope, is that I would find older information regarding missing people, in or around Mesa County. I also wanted to see if they had discovered the name of the female, they once thought was Christine, back in 2011.
It took me several hours to gain the unauthorized computer access, into the Mesa County Sheriff’s department. I was surprised to see they had gone back, almost fifty years, and transferred old paper documents into electronic files on their servers. I try to make it look as if I were another law enforcing agency, accessing the files and not someone, from outside the county. I made sure my network hacking, didn’t change or delete any government folders or files.
Mesa County has a population, of nearly one hundred fifty thousand, and crimes committed for the area, was about the same as other county’s their size. I scrolled through missing people and kidnappings, but nothing stood out. There were notes from the late sixties and seventies, regarding an abundance of teenage hitch hikers that were detained and returned to the parents.
Further research showed a national increase, during this period in history, when both young boys and girls, were running away in search of something more, than what life was offering them at home. It was a time of racial strife, civil rights, and the hippie movement. Sex drugs and rock and roll. Music had a huge influence on the youth of the time.
Alien Among Us (TJ Steele Book 1) Page 15
