by D C Grant
eyes fill with tears. I can’t bear the thought of losing him too – he has to live, and I imagine him waking up and looking at me and I know it’s going to be all right. He’ll come home and look after me and, sure, we’ll miss Mum but we’ll have each other and that’s what’s important. Not only that but he’ll tell me what is going on, what he was investigating that almost killed him, that killed my mother, and why there are drugs inside our house.
“Just get well again, Dad,” I say softly. “I need you. Mum’s gone. They buried her, you know, and you weren’t there. There’s some strange stuff happening and I don’t know what it means. I’m trying to figure things out but I’m getting nowhere. You have to get better and help me.”
For a moment I think I feel his fingers twitch but when I look at his face, his eyes are still closed and there’s no further reaction that I can detect and I figure it’s just my imagination. I squeeze his hand, hoping that he can feel it, and leave, finding Aunt Ruth outside, scrolling through something on her electronic tablet.
“Where’s Gran?” I ask.
“She’s gone down to the café. I said I would wait for you – I’m just checking what flights are available for Monday. We wanted a Sunday flight home but they’re all full so it looks like we’ll have to take the first available on Monday. We would stay longer but John’s got to get back to work and Mum says there’s nothing more we can do here.” She waves her hand toward Dad’s room. “They’re doing all they can for him and I was thinking we could come back when … when he’s better.”
She stifles a sob and I know she’s thinking that maybe Dad may never get better but she doesn’t want to say it. I look down at the lit screen of the tablet and the text looks familiar, but I can’t figure out where I have seen it before, then she switches off the tablet and puts it away in her handbag.
“Come on, Jason, let’s go and get something nice to eat,” she says with a smile and I know she’s only trying to cheer me up, perhaps herself too.
Questions
Mike is waiting for me as I walk through the front door of Ben’s house.
“Can I talk to you privately, Jason?” he asks, but looks at Mrs Rosenberg for direction.
“The front living room,” she says, opening the door.
I follow Mike into the room where he closes the door behind me while I head toward an armchair and sit down. He takes a seat opposite me.
“It’s not good, Jason,” he says, and I know he’s not talking about my dad because I’ve just seen him. “We’ve found more crystal meth in your father’s bedroom, in his bedside drawer.” He pauses and I say nothing. “And we found this in your bedroom.” Yet another evidence bag, and this one contains what looks like dried leaves and grass clippings.
“It’s not mine,” I say.
“Come on, Jason, every boy tries pot at some stage. It’s a small quantity and we can overlook it, but it doesn’t look good.”
“I said, it’s not mine. I don’t do drugs – it was put there by the guys who broke into our house. I don’t have anything to do with it.”
“And what about the crystal meth?”
“It was planted too. Come on, Mike, you know my dad, you know he wouldn’t do anything like this. This is nothing but a big stitch up, and you know that.”
“The only thing I know is that your dad was onto something and he didn’t let me in on it and it almost got him killed. I have to find out what he’s hiding, what these guys are after, and I’m relying on you to tell me if you know anything.”
“I don’t know anything. And I’m sick of all this questioning, like I’m the criminal, and not the guys who killed my mother. Why don’t you get out there and find them?”
“I’m trying to, Jason, believe me.”
“I don’t know whether to believe you!” I stand up. “And I don’t have to put up with the crap anymore.” I stride out the door, slamming it behind me.
Ben looks up as I come into his bedroom and throw myself onto the bed.
“I heard the shouting, what’s up?”
“They found dope in my room.”
“Dope? You mean marijuana? Where did you get it from?”
I stare at him. “Ben, you know I wouldn’t do drugs.”
“I didn’t think you would, but …”
“But what, Ben? Those drugs were planted, for sure, and I don’t know why, or who by. I wish I knew what this was all about.”
I glance over at the screen. The spreadsheet Ben opened the day before is displayed, and suddenly it makes sense to me.
“I know what that is!”
“What?” He looks at the screen as if the answer would pop up there.
“It’s a list of flights. I saw one today – on my aunt’s tablet. She was trying to find a return flight to Hawaii – on Delta Airlines. The code for Delta is DL, then there’s a flight number, the date and time. Look, 2501 is the date: 25th January, DL7631 is Delta Airlines flight number 7631 arriving or departing at 19.39 or 7.39 in the evening. Can you check it out, Ben?”
Ben types DL7631 into the search box on Google and hits return and instantly a graphic comes up:
Delta Air Lines Flight 7631
Landed: 19.39
Departed Las Vegas
Arrived Seattle
Terminal N Gate 9
“See,” I say, excited now. “The last bit is the terminal and gate number!”
“But anyone can pull this off from the internet,” Ben says. “Why would your dad put a password on it?”
I stare at the numbers, trying to make sense of the pattern – but there is none.
“What if it’s someone coming on the flights, or leaving?” I say. “Someone he was investigating. Can you get into the passenger lists?”
“Now that’s serious hacking,” Ben says with a grin. “We could go to jail if we get caught.”
“Hey, it seems I’m in deep in trouble already – I don’t think I can get any deeper. You can blame it on me and I’ll do the jail time.”
“We’re under age, they won’t send us to jail – but I don’t think I can do that on my own. I’ll ask a couple of my buddies, they might be able to get me in but it will take some time and I’ll have to call in a lot of favors.”
“Do it,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m looking for but maybe I’ll see something that looks familiar, or strange, all I know is that these flights meant something to Dad and I want to try and find out what.”
Ben starts tapping on his keyboard and I lie down on the bed, picking up the book I’m still not able to read. I open the page with the Post-it note on it and remember that I was going to tell Mike about it, but I certainly don’t feel like telling Mike anything now.
“Hey, Ben, you feel like going into the city tomorrow?”
“Don’t you have church, or mass or something?”
“I’ll skip it,” I say. “Let’s go to the Sheraton.” I hold up the book so he can see the note.
“I thought you were going to show that to Mike?”
“Not after today,” I say. “Not when they’re accusing me and Dad of doing drugs – no way! Let’s go have some fun instead of sitting around here.”
Ben grins at me.
“You’re smiling, Jase, first time I’ve seen you smile all week. You know, if a trip into the city is going to make you happy, then I’m up for it.”
“We’ll tell your mum we’re going to see my dad, and we’ll catch the bus in. That way no one will know where we’re going. How about it?”
“Sounds great, let’s have a look at the bus timetable.” We quickly find a bus that will take us in early enough to get to the hotel in time. He prints off the schedule and I take it off the printer, feeling that, at last, I’m doing something that will explain what’s going on and not being pushed along by events that are out of my control. I feel that I’m doing this for my dad. I don’t know how much good it’s going to do, but it’s better than doing nothing. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, and it’s time to stop.
> Hotel
We pass my house on the way to the bus stop. The cops have all gone and it looks abandoned again. The attempt to clean up has been aborted, I guess. The dumpster is still in the driveway, half-filled; it’ll be picked up the following day, then my aunt can get my mum’s car back in the garage before they leave.
The city is busy for a Sunday. Getting off downtown, we walk up the main street, looking in store windows and for a while I’m able to forget the past few days and absorb the vibrancy of life around me.
We arrive at the hotel at the same time as a coachload of tourists.
“This makes good cover,” Ben says as we walk in with them. “But you don’t look Japanese,” he adds with a grin.
“Neither do you,” I say.
It’s good having him with me. It stops me from thinking of Mum and Dad all the time. The foyer area is big with fancy tables and chairs arranged in groups as if inviting conversation. I’ve never been in here before; it’s the sort of place that Dad would shun as being too “fancy” and I wonder why he had made the note in the book.
“What do we do now?” Ben asks.
“I have no idea. It was a silly idea in the first place.”
“At least it got you out of the house,” Ben says with a smile.
While the tourist group overwhelms the check-in, I notice the concierge glance toward us and I make an instant decision – we have to look like we belong. “Come on, over here,” I say as I stride with confidence toward a café just off the lobby area. As we enter, I risk a look over my shoulder and see that the concierge has relaxed, reassured that we have a reason to be here.
As we line up at the counter to
