by Dave Daren
She turned on the computer and then slipped back into the front room. I heard her open the employee only door, and soon the sound of running water filled the office. I plopped down into the comfy desk and watched as the computer slowly booted up. I listened to the sound of Belle moving around as she made the tea while the little circle slowly rotated on the screen.
At last, the computer was done, though it wanted a password to let me on. I sighed and sat back in frustration until Belle appeared with a wood tray that held a teapot and two mugs.
“Is it waiting for the magic word?” she asked as she set the tray on the table.
“It is,” I replied.
She poured a fragrant jasmine tea into each mug, then carried them to the desk. She set the mugs on a pair of coasters, then leaned over me to type in her password. I made a point of studying the painting while she worked, but the familiar ping a few seconds later drew my attention back to the screen.
“If you’ll do the online research, I’ll keep working on what we know about the locals,” she said.
I nodded, glad to be back on familiar ground. We worked quietly for several hours though we often stopped to talk about what we had found or an idea we had. Belle found one of those jumbo bags of M&M’s somewhere which we polished off as we drank the tea. It rained again, though I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t glanced out the window and saw the drops bouncing off the window sill.
“I guess we should think about dinner,” Belle finally said as she stood up and stretched. “I love M&M’s, but I don’t think they qualify as a meal.”
“I guess I am getting hungry,” I said as I swiveled my neck.
“Find anything interesting?” she asked.
“Richard Kerry is pretty straightforward,” I said. “And Lila was right about his background. He started a tech company in Boston while he was still at M.I.T., then sold it for a hefty sum a few years later. He was on TED Talks a couple of times, discussing the importance of entrepreneurship, and he built a home on the coast that’s supposed to be some sort of super wired thing that Bill Gates would envy.”
“And now he’s living on a farm?” she asked in disbelief. “Are you sure it’s the same guy?”
I pulled up a picture of Kerry taken not long after he had sold the company. His hair was a good deal shorter, and the soft, loose-fitting clothing had been replaced with expensive jeans and a Jobsian gray shirt, but otherwise, it was Richard Kerry.
“Wonder if he still has all that money?” Belle asked as she stared at the picture.
“He might be using it to keep the farm going,” I noted. “I have a hard time believing that they sell that much perfume, no matter how good it smells.”
“You’re probably right about that,” she agreed.
“Eliot Crenshaw, on the other hand, is an enigma,” I said. “I can find occasional references to him over the years on various websites and pages devoted to environmental activism, but I can’t find a picture of him anywhere.”
“That wouldn’t be so unusual if he’s done something that could get him arrested,” she pointed out. “A lot of the most extreme activists don’t like to have their picture taken.”
“He’s been at this for awhile,” I said. “Someone must have taken a picture of him at some point.”
“What about his background?” she asked. “Did you find anything there?”
“That’s another mystery,” I replied. “His name pops up on these environmental sites, but that’s it. It’s like he didn’t exist before he joined the movement. Or he doesn’t have a life outside of the movement.”
“You have to work pretty hard to remain that anonymous in this day and age,” Belle mused.
As we stared at one of the few references to Crenshaw that I had been able to find, the phone on the desk rang. We both jumped at the sudden intrusion, and then Belle grabbed the receiver.
“Belle Lucent,” she declared in a strong voice.
I figured it was one of Belle’s clients and I started to stand up so she could have the desk. Instead, she passed me the phone and mouthed Lila’s name.
“Lila?” I asked as I held the old landline to my ear.
“Oh, thank God you’re there,” she said breathlessly. “I had to get this number from the phonebook.”
I could hear people talking excitedly in the background and what sounded like a smoke alarm going off.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “And where are you?”
“I’m in the yarn store,” she said. “I had to come here to use the phone because they’ve shut down the cell service for the night.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
“Hunter, you should probably get back here,” she said. “Someone set the hotel on fire.”
Chapter 11
“We’ll be right there,” I replied.
“I’m going over to the park to watch from there,” Lila said.
“What’s happened?” Belle asked when she saw me start to hunt for the keys to the truck.
I remembered placing them on the desk when I set the cork board down, but I couldn’t find them under the stack of papers and assorted mugs.
“Lila said the hotel’s on fire,” I replied. “She was calling from one of the stores, but she said she was heading over to the park to watch.”
“I’ll drive,” Belle insisted as she grabbed the keys to her car from an old ashtray on the desk. “It’ll be faster.”
I gave up on the hunt for the truck keys and followed Belle from the office. She locked up quickly and then we piled inside the Suzuki. Belle spun the car out of its slot and left a long stretch of rubber on the road as she turned the roadster up the hill and back towards the stretch of Victorian homes.
“Did she give you any details?” Belle asked as she blew past a stop sign.
“None,” I replied.
We swept past the park, then started down the road to the main section of town. The other areas had been mostly empty as we drove by, but as we got closer to Jenkins Road, we passed more people on foot and all heading towards the smoke I could now see rising over the town despite the hour. The acrid smell of burning plastic started to fill the car, but opening the windows only made it worse.
“Damn,” Belle declared as we screeched to a halt at the intersection.
A large crowd was gathered in the park, and just beyond we could see the flames that licked along one side of the Folsom Inn. A smaller group of people was gathered in the hotel’s parking lot, and I noticed several people had fire extinguishers, but the fire had proved too much and now they were forced to stand and watch. I realized the fire was near my room, and I felt a wave of anger sweep over me as I wondered which idiot had decided to avenge Hup’s death with a little arson.
“Let me see how close I can get,” Belle replied just as a fire engine swept past us.
Belle followed it along the edge of the park until it pulled into the lot. She parked on the curb just across the street, and I leapt from the car while she was still setting the gear into park. I ran towards the people in the hotel’s parking lot, and I recognized many of the faces, including the night clerk, three of the salesmen, and the Sheriff, who was out of uniform and looking grim.
“What happened?” I demanded as I saw flames dance around my window.
“Don’t know,” the clerk replied in a befuddled voice. “I smelled smoke and while I was trying to figure out where it was comin’ from, the alarms started to go off. Then Mr. Mackey there came runnin’ from the parkin’ lot and said one of the walls was on fire.”
We watched the flames for a moment as the firemen finally managed to unwind their hose and started to attack the fire. I realized my laptop and all of my clothes were still inside the room, and while the clothes were of little importance, I was angry at the thought of losing all the files on my hard drive. I could have kicked myself for not taking it to Belle’s and I felt another flash of anger at the unknown attacker.
“Was it arson?” I demanded as I turned to fac
e the Sheriff.
He watched the firemen for a moment before he turned to look at me. His hazel eyes had a speculative look as he studied me, and then he gazed at the flames again.
“Seems like,” Harris said.
“Did everyone make it out?” I asked as I again scanned the faces around me.
“As far as I know,” Harris replied, and he seemed remarkably unconcerned about the fate of anyone still in the building.
Frustrated, I walked back towards the park where Lila had said she would be. I walked among the people gathered there as I searched for the environmentalist, and reminded myself that she had made it out of the building. I was growing more frustrated as Lila remained elusive when I spotted a familiar duffel bag on a bench. I blinked, just to be sure I wasn’t imagining things, then walked over and opened the bag. I found a jumble of my personal items inside, including my laptop, along with Lila’s jacket and the salve Belle had bought.
“Hey,” I called out to the nearest people. “Did anyone see the woman who left this bag here? Lila?”
There were shrugs all around, though an older lady pointed helpfully towards Jenkins Road.
“She said she was going to use the phone,” the lady replied. “I promised to keep an eye on the bag until she got back.”
I scanned the crowd again but I still couldn’t spot the familiar mass of brown hair or the green t-shirt. I grabbed up the bag, over the woman’s protests, and headed back towards Belle’s car. Belle was nearby, her face scrunched up in a mix of deep thought and anger as she watched the fire.
“I found my duffel bag, but I can’t find Lila anywhere,” I said.
“Maybe she went to make some other phone calls?” Belle suggested without taking her eyes from the fire. “We know she made it out.”
I studied the crowd again, and then turned towards Jenkins road. It was an interesting view, since everyone else was looking towards me, but it also made it easier to spot the one thing that didn’t belong. I finally saw Lila, but she was being pulled along the street by a man with a cowboy hat pulled low over his face. Lila looked scared but the man had one of her arms in a tight grip while he pressed his other hand into her back. I couldn’t see a gun, but I knew he had one, or else Lila would have screamed and struggled to break free.
Lila and the mystery man stopped by the driver’s door of a new Dodge truck, and I saw the headlights flash as the man unlocked the door. Lila got in first and slid across to the passenger side as the man climbed in beside her.
“Belle, give me the keys,” I said in a panicked voice.
“What?” she murmured as she glanced in my direction.
“That man has Lila and he’s about to drive away,” I explained quickly. “Where are the keys to the Suzuki?”
“Still in the car,” she replied as she suddenly understood my fear.
Belle turned to see what had caught my attention while I scrambled around the roadster and threw myself into the driver’s seat. The duffel bag ended up on the floor on the passenger side as I turned the key, then slammed the car into reverse. I backed all the way up the street towards the intersection with Jenkins Road, just in time to see the truck’s taillights make a right turn.
I sped after the truck, and nearly smashed into the street lamp on the corner as I tried to make the turn at full speed. The Suzuki held to the road though, despite some fishtailing, and was soon zooming along in the truck’s wake. We were near what looked like an old junkyard when I caught up with the truck, which was moving quickly but not so fast that it would draw any attention to itself.
I had to admit, I didn’t really have a plan at that point, beyond following the truck. It’s not like I could knock the larger, heavier vehicle off the road with my sporty Suzuki or that I could use my cell phone to summon help. The problem with my idea was that there wasn’t a lot of traffic around Folsom, especially in the evening, so it didn’t take long for the driver to figure out that I wasn’t a local heading home, but that I was actually following him.
“Damn,” I muttered when the truck started to speed up.
The truck made a series of quick turns, no doubt in an effort to shake me. The roadster, however, was built for such driving, and I handled the changes in direction much better than the truck. I chuckled when the truck tried to loop through the parking lot at a 7-Eleven and nearly ended up in the ice machine out front, but then I reminded myself that Lila was in the truck, and there were plenty of people inside the store as well who could have been injured if the truck had crashed through the windows.
I eased back a bit, in the hopes that the other driver would as well, but as we passed a couple of trailer homes on the edge of town, the truck started to move even faster as it hit a straight stretch of road that led up into the hills. It was a steep climb but the driver refused to downshift as he pushed the truck harder. I could hear the engine in the other vehicle start to screech as it strained to make the climb and still keep up the speed, but the driver wouldn’t relent.
The truck finally made it to the top, and it seemed to waver for a moment as it dropped onto the suddenly flat surface, and then it was speeding onward, along a winding section between walls of stone and tumbled rock. The Suzuki hit the top of the hill and bounced onto the flat road like a jack rabbit before I could shift into a higher gear and barrel after the truck.
We were both driving in both lanes, though the Suzuki definitely handled the turns better. It moved easily between the curves, even as I tried to keep it on the inside track to shorten the distance between us. The truck, on the other hand, fishtailed more than once and the driver was finally forced to keep to the middle of the road.
At last, the truck started to slow, and I thought the driver was about to make another turn. I slowed down as well as I waited to see what he would do, and then one whole wall of rock disappeared and we were running along the edge of a ravine with a steep drop over one side.
“I hate these roads,” I muttered as I tried to stay away from the edge.
And then, the truck started to spin out of control as the driver tried to swerve around a curve too quickly. It traveled sidewise for a few feet, but the driver overcorrected as he slammed on the brakes. The truck started to spin, and for a moment, I thought it would roll. It stayed upright, somehow, but it was dangerously close to the edge of the ravine. The truck finally stopped skidding, but it was stuck in the middle of the road and facing the wrong way. The driver started to turn the truck around, but even though I’d skidded to a halt several feet away, he stomped on the gas as he spun the wheel and tried to pull away as quickly as he could.
The truck lurched awkwardly in a half-circle, then plowed forward. The driver tried to correct the truck’s path, but it was too late. It plowed engine-first into the hard stone of the hillside with a wicked bam and a shower of glass fragments that sparkled in the moonlight. The sound of metal bending as it lost the battle with the granite filled the night air, and then there was nothing but the tick-tick of the engine as various liquids dropped onto the hot metal surface.
The world froze for a moment, and then the light in the cab came on as the driver’s door cracked open. That flash of light woke me from my trance, and I slipped the car into park while I struggled to get out of the roadster. I ran towards the passenger side of the truck even as the driver stumbled onto the road. He’d lost his hat in the crash, and I could see his face finally. It was Watkins, the Sheriff’s deputy.
“You scumbag,” I hissed as I stopped near the back of the truck.
Watkins was having trouble staying upright under his own power, and he gripped the edge of the truck bed as he tried to hobble away.
“Fuck you,” he muttered. “You were chasing me. I was just trying to help a lady in distress. It was clear she was scared of you.”
I growled but I needed to check on Lila before I dealt with the deputy. I started forward again, then heard the click of a hammer.
“Shit,” I said as I realized that I’d made a dumb mistake and f
orgotten to check for the gun.
“You’re a real fucking idiot,” Watkins snorted.
I started to duck but Watkins was fast with his gun. There was a second explosion as he pulled the trigger and I felt something burn along my arm. I grunted as I hit the concrete, something which apparently disappointed the deputy. My arm felt like it had been sliced open with a very large, very dirty knife, but otherwise, I was still okay.
“Are you still alive?” Watkins asked in an aggrieved voice.
“Guess you’re not as good a shot as you think you are,” I replied as I inched closer to the back of the truck.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Watkins replied. “I got enough bullets to finish the job.”
The gun fired again and something pinged off the top of the truck just above my head. I flinched but kept moving forward until I could peer around the tailgate. I watched until I saw the edge of Watkins’ boot appear, then ducked back and pressed myself against the side of the truck.
“You city boys don’t know shit,” Walkins muttered as he shambled around the edge of the truck and closed in on my side.
I waited until I saw the arm with the gun appear, and then launched myself upwards into his chest. The top of my head found his chin as our chests collided. But I was expecting the blow and I managed to absorb the shock even as I threw a quick one-two at his head. Watkins stumbled backwards as the gun clattered against the road, and then turned in an awkward circle. His eyes were unfocused, and I wasn’t sure he could even tell me his name at that point, but I didn’t care.
I spotted the gun and kicked it under the truck, out of reach, and then ran to the passenger side door. It squealed in protest as I tried to yank it open, but after two more hard tugs with every ounce of strength I could muster, the door gave way just wide enough for me to squeeze inside.
The airbags had inflated, which was probably the only reason Lila and Watkins were alive. I couldn’t be sure about Watkins, but Lila wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. She was nearly submerged face first in the cloth, but I could see a blood smear on the airbag and matted in her hair.
