by Holly Rayner
FOUR
Morgan jumped as her alarm went off. Blinking into the dark of night, she reached out blindly for her side table lamp and turned it on, squinting against the bright glow. The display on her alarm clock read 3AM.
She allowed herself a few moments to wake up as she sat up in bed, dangling her bare feet against the carpet. After a languid stretch, she stood and packed a small bag for the day ahead.
Before heading down to the parking garage beneath the building, Morgan grabbed her pistol and strapped it to her calf; Bledsoe was a long way from Houston, and she knew she would have to be prepared for anything.
Turning on her headlights, she navigated out of Houston, which was quiet so early in the morning, though not completely asleep. As she drove out of the city, the Texan sky loomed overhead, and the further out of the city she got, the more stars popped out for her to enjoy.
There was something peaceful about being able to see a sky full of stars. It was a sight that never failed to remind Morgan of her childhood.
She had always been a daddy’s girl. She’d loved her father more than anything. She’d grown up fishing and hunting, learning how to survive in the outdoors. They went on so many adventures she lost count.
Then he died.
She’d been in her early twenties at the time. She’d already accepted the job in marketing, and was packing up her dorm room to move into her new apartment when she got the call.
“Morgan?” her mother said, her voice shaky.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“You need to come home, now.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Morgan felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“It’s your father. He’s died.”
With those words, Morgan’s world came crashing down, splitting into shards all around her.
It was all a blur after that, really. The funeral, the droves of people approaching her with tears in their eyes as they told her what an amazing man her father was, like she didn’t know that already.
“I’m moving,” her mother had said one day, out of the blue. They’d been sitting on the couch, watching a movie, desperately trying to find normalcy and coming up short.
Morgan had stared at her, not surprised. The house was a constant reminder of him. The pictures still hung on the wall. His clothing still hung in the closet.
“Where will you go?” Morgan had asked, taking a bite of chocolate. Her father had loved junk food. It wasn’t what killed him, in the end; that was a drunk driver. Morgan had tried to take solace in the fact that he had died quickly, but it still rang a little hollow. She hadn’t had a sip of alcohol ever since.
“I’m going to sell this place and retire in Florida. Texas is too full of memories; living here was your father’s decision.”
And I’m so grateful, Morgan had thought. Her father had passed his love of Texas on to her, though he also encouraged her to travel and see the world. Funny that he never did. He’d loved working at his little hunting and fishing store, and had never complained a day in his life about work. It was what he loved to do.
Morgan stopped off at a gas station outside of Waco, getting in a good stretch and filling up her tank. Her memories of home having sparked some nostalgia, she placed a phone call to her aunt, who lived nearby.
“Hello?” Shirley said. Shirley was her dad’s sister. With the distance they didn’t get to see her all that often, and what other chance would Morgan have to see her again?
“Aunt Shirley?” she said, and Shirley whooped into the phone.
“Is that Miss Morgan Springfield I hear on the other end of the line? Hal, its Morgan calling!” she shouted, one hand pressed against the receiver.
Morgan grinned, pulling the gas pump from her car and tapping the buttons to finish the transaction.
“To what do we owe this great honor, honey?” Shirley asked, her voice clear and bright despite the early hour.
“I’m actually just outside of Waco and I wanted to see if I could stop in to say hello.”
Shirley whooped again, so loud that Morgan had to pull the phone away from her ear.
“That would be wonderful, darlin’! You’ll be just in time for breakfast. You remember how to get here?”
Morgan told her she did, and ended the call, slipping back into the driver’s seat and heading over toward Shirley and Hal’s suburban home—a flat-roofed house that looked straight out of the seventies.
When she pulled into the driveway, her stout little aunt came running out the front door, hands already out for a hug.
No sooner had Morgan stepped out from the car, Shirley wrapped her in a tight embrace, rocking from side to side.
“Oh my baby girl! What a pleasant surprise! I’m so glad we were home when you called!”
“Aren’t you always?” Morgan said with a grin.
Shirley swatted her niece playfully on the shoulder. “Now, now. Just because we’re homebodies doesn’t mean we aren’t adventurous. I’ll have you know your Uncle Hal has started a beehive, and we just harvested our first jar of honey. Took forever to do it, but we’re suburban honey pioneers! Now all the neighbors are getting into it, of course. Jess up the street just built herself a chicken coop. Everyone’s into self-sustainment these days…”
Shirley chattered all the way into the house, where they met Uncle Hal and Morgan got another round of hugs. It felt good to be loved, to see her father reflected in her aunt’s eyes.
Morgan sat down on the couch and took the offered orange juice from her uncle.
“Sit, sit!” he implored. “Tell us everything! How are you? How’s life in the force?”
Morgan blushed. “Well, I’m actually not a police officer anymore. I’m a private detective.”
Shirley’s mouth made a round ‘O’. Her bright red hair was curly, with strands of gray along her temples, and she had clearly made no attempt to tame it this morning.
“Well, that sounds interesting. Do you meet a lot of crazy characters on the job?” she asked.
“Crazier than my mother?” Morgan replied.
Shirley frowned. “Now, Morgan. Your mother did the best she could, and she suffered when your father died. You should cut her some slack.”
“Easier said than done,” Morgan mumbled bashfully.
“You look so beautiful, honey,” Shirley said, changing the subject with practiced finesse. “You have your mother’s hair, but those are definitely your father’s eyes,” she said, tipping Morgan’s chin side to side as she looked at her tenderly.
Morgan tried not to blush again, but failed.
“So, tell us about men,” Shirley demanded, not missing a beat.
If it were possible for Morgan to turn any redder, she did, gazing into her lap for a moment.
“There’s nothing to tell. I’m working on building my business first, then maybe I’ll think about dating.”
“Hogwash,” Shirley said with a wave of her hand. “Morgan, you’re a strong, beautiful and kind woman. There is no reason for you to be alone in this world when you can have love.”
“Yes, but you’re forgetting that I have to find a man who is capable of that emotion.”
“What about that one guy, what was his name?”
Morgan began to regret this little pit stop. Hashing out her personal life was not something she liked doing, ever.
“Wasn’t it something kooky, like Danish or Donut or something?” Shirley said.
“It was Dashwood,” Morgan corrected. “And things didn’t work out.”
Dashwood had been alluring at first, but it took about two months of dating him before Morgan realized he was a self-absorbed jerk. She ended it quickly, and he hadn’t taken it well. It was, to date, the longest relationship Morgan had ever had.
Shirley tsked. “Ah, well. You’ll find the right man for you, Morgan. I’ll pray to Saint Jude tonight.”
Morgan paused. “Isn’t Saint Jude the patron saint of lost causes?”
“Nothing gets by you,” S
hirley said with a wink, and Morgan laughed.
They chatted for a short time after that about the beehive and home repairs as Shirley cooked up a good-sized breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes. Morgan finished her meal with a large spoonful of homemade honey before insisting that she had to go.
“But you only just arrived!” Shirley protested while Morgan stood and gave her another hug.
“I know, but I’m on my way to another job, and I don’t have much time. I just really wanted to see you,” she admitted, hugging Uncle Hal again, too.
‘We’re always happy to see you, darlin’. You just stop in any time you’re around—we’ll be here!” Shirley said, waving as Morgan pulled her car out of the driveway and made her way back to the highway.
***
It had been nice to stop and take a break, but talking to her aunt and uncle had left Morgan feeling drained.
Why was it that a woman couldn’t be single without people looking at her like she was a freak?
Morgan had enjoyed being alone most of her life. There was nothing wrong with her. She was a fully capable person, making a living and benefitting society in her own way. Why was it that she had to be in a relationship before anyone considered her to be of any value?
Morgan pondered this as she drove on, her mind wandering as radio station after radio station faded out and she had to scan for a new one each time. One couldn’t live in Texas and not like country music, so Morgan enjoyed the twanging banjo of her favorite artists, rolling the windows down as she drove on and on across the deserted Texas landscape.
She glanced at her file in the passenger seat, sneaking another look at Hassan’s picture. Keeping her gaze on the road, which was bare except for her car, she stashed her phone in its hands-free mount and used voice recognition to find the phone number of the Bledsoe Police Department.
Rolling up the windows to keep the wind from blowing into the receiver, she dialed the number.
“Bledsoe Police Department. How can I direct your call?” A woman’s voice answered.
“Hi there. I’m looking for anyone who might know a man named Hassan Al-Khali,” Morgan said.
The woman scoffed. “Hassan Al-Khali? You really think anyone by that name is going to be out here?”
“That’s why I’m calling, yeah.”
“Goddam time-wasters,” the woman grumbled, and the call ended.
Well then.
It was just about what Morgan expected. The more rural one got in Texas, the more uncommon Hassan’s name would become, and the more he would stand out. Morgan had figured he would choose some kind of nickname that would allow him to fly freely under the radar.
That would make her job more difficult, though. If Hassan was using an alias, she would have to be even more studious in pursuing his movements. His description matched any number of men that could live out here…except for the fact that he was stunning. A man like that wouldn’t go unnoticed, and Morgan took comfort in that fact as she continued to drive on toward her destination. She wondered just what kind of man Hassan was, that he would give up a lifetime of financial security to live in the middle of the Texan desert.
After all, what kind of man would do such a thing?
FIVE
Morgan yawned.
She’d been driving for nine hours, all the way across Texas. The highway had been one long stretch of black pavement cast against barren landscape and an enormous, blue sky.
Between meeting Ahmed and Almera at eleven at night and waking up at three in the morning, Morgan was beyond exhausted. Still, she was used to functioning on very little sleep, and pressed on through waves of drowsiness.
It paid off. By the time she pulled into the gas station to fill up one more time outside of Lubbock, it was nearly noon. Stepping out of the car, Morgan reached her arms high into the air in a satisfying stretch.
Somewhere between Houston and Lubbock, all of the moisture had been sucked out of the air. Her hair whipped around her head in the swirling wind, and the air seemed somewhat cooler here. How strange, she thought, that one state could have such vastly different climates. She inserted the gas pump into her car and headed into the old gas station building.
An ancient-looking man sat behind the counter, surrounded by cigarettes and candy bars. Morgan reached for a Snickers and placed it in front of the man, who sat up with a creak to enter her order into the register.
“Good morning,” Morgan said with a smile.
The man said nothing. Instead, he pointed at the register where the price of the candy bar was displayed and waited to Morgan to hand over her money, which she did—one of the twenty dollar bills her benefactors had so graciously provided.
The man cashed out her bill and handed her the change, still not making eye contact.
“I wonder if you could help me with something,” she said, undeterred by his attitude. She’d dealt with reluctant talkers before; this was nothing Morgan Springfield couldn’t handle.
The man sat back in his chair. This time he did look at her face, though not directly into her eyes.
Morgan pulled out the picture of Hassan and pointed to him, showing it to the man.
“Have you seen this gentleman around here in the past few weeks?”
The man’s cloudy gray eyes darted to the picture, then back up to Morgan. She could tell he didn’t even take a look at it.
He glared at her, slowly, and shook his head. Then he sat back in his seat and turned to face a television that was showing some kind of gameshow.
Morgan grabbed her candy bar and left, replacing the gas pump and sliding into the driver’s seat of her car. She reached her arms up into the air and twisted from side to side, stretching one last time before the next stop.
Already, this wasn’t looking good. While the man had said nothing, his eyes had given something away. His glare at seeing the picture had made it plain that there was something there he didn’t like.
Turning the key in the ignition, Morgan continued westward toward the New Mexico border. Ahmed had said that Hassan had called them from a phone booth outside of Bledsoe, which was a short hour away from her current location.
The road continued on, straight and flat, and Morgan watched as a tumbleweed floated across the road. She was literally in the middle of nowhere.
Why would a sheikh with a fortune to inherit choose to come here?
When the town sign for Bledsoe came up on the left, Morgan glanced around at a series of old, withering buildings. The wind seemed to be blowing everything slowly into dust.
She noticed a small convenience store on the right, and pulled over on the side of the road. Parking clearly wouldn’t be an issue here—there were maybe one or two cars parked on the entire main road. It felt like a ghost town.
Small bells jingled on the door as Morgan entered the store. Inside were shelves filled with dusty nonperishables, canned ravioli and the like. Behind the register was an old white man reading a newspaper, his large gray mustache twitching slightly.
Morgan approached, clearing her throat, and slowly, the man lowered his paper and raised a bushy eyebrow.
“I’m looking for someone,” Morgan said, getting straight to the point. No one seemed particularly amenable to small talk out here, and it was clear that strangers weren’t well-received, either.
The man’s eyebrow didn’t lower. “And?”
“And I’m hoping you might be able to help me find him,” she said, pulling out Hassan’s picture once more and showing it to the man.
This time the gentleman took his time looking at the image. He stared at it for a few minutes before looking up at Morgan.
“Looks like some terrorists to me,” he said.
Morgan bit back a sigh. Clearly, a woman looking for a Middle-Eastern man was not something that happened in this part of the world very often.
Replacing the picture back into her purse, Morgan flashed a forced smile.
“You have a good day, sir,” she said before turning her
back on him and heading out the door.
When she got back to her car, she kicked the tire, stubbing her toe in the process.
“Dammit,” she cursed, casting weary eyes around the desolate town. No one was walking on the cracked sidewalks. No one was doing anything. Where were all the people? How had the trail gone cold this fast?
