by Lisa Ladew
He entered the Alpha Security offices the next morning feeling hard and on-edge. Not only was he not getting anywhere on finding Dax, he was doubly frustrated by having to do all his hunting over the phone. Talon was made to be in motion, not closed in an office all damn day.
Once again Janice was waiting for him, papers in hand, a triumphant smile on her face. “I got the credit card statement printout like you wanted, and guess what? There’s a charge on it from yesterday at a rental car agency. He must be okay!”
Talon took the papers, his brow furrowing as he looked over the charges. There was nothing for a full eleven days, then a charge of a few hundred from a rental car agency in Baker City, Oregon. An emergency beacon started flashing in his mind.
“Let me make a call, see what turns up. Don’t tell anyone else about this.” Talon watched Janice’s face fall. Obviously, she’d considered this inarguable proof that Dax was alive and well. Talon tried to smile but he didn’t think he pulled it off. “I’m sure he’s fine, I just don’t want to say anything definite until we hear from him directly.”
Janice nodded her head sadly, and Talon stalked to his office. New energy coursed through his body. Another lead to follow.
As soon as the rental office picked up, Talon put on a voice he hoped sounded like a concerned pencil-pusher.
“Hello, this is Thomas Covina with Alpha Security. We just received notice of a charge made by one of our employees, a Mr. Daxton Rosesson, at your place of business. I wonder, could I talk to the employee who closed out that rental?”
The man on the other end of the phone line sounded young and genuinely eager to help. “I’m sorry, sir, there isn’t one.”
“Oh? He did the quick drop-off thing?” Talon knew there were agencies who expedited rental returns, allowing patrons to drop off their cars and handle the rest electronically. “But there was an attendant, right? Someone who took the keys? I just need to talk to anyone who might have seen or spoken to Mr. Rosesson.”
“No, sir, I mean Mr. Rosesson didn’t drop the car off at all. His rental agreement ran out three days ago. We tried calling the number on file, but nobody answered.”
The customer service representative tossed off his words casually, as if they weren’t making Talon’s blood run cold with trepidation. He kept his voice light in return. “No? That’s funny. Well, how’d you get the car back, then? I see we’ve been charged for it.”
“Yes, sir, all our cars come with locators built in. That’s in the event that one of our customers has an accident and we need to get help to their exact location, or if a car goes missing, as in Mr. Rosesson’s case.” His pride in their technology was evident. Talon played into it, hoping for more useful information.
“No way! That’s ingenious. So, you just checked that puppy out, found where the car was sitting, and went and picked it up?”
He could hear the smile in the man’s tone. “Yes, sir, we sure did. All the way out to the Malheur National Forest, if you can believe it. It was just sitting there. Park services had already ticketed it - we added that charge to your bill, of course - because it wasn’t in the camping area where overnight parking is allowed.
“We had them check to see if Mr. Rosesson was registered at the campgrounds, or if he could be lost on the trails. We didn’t want to leave him in danger or without transportation, you understand. We would have been happy to extend his rental agreement for a small fee, but there was no record of him having been at the campground, and there are no reports of lost hikers. We had to recover the car and close the account.”
He sounded almost apologetic and Talon hurried to reassure him. “Oh, you did the right thing, absolutely. I hope the car was in good condition?”
“Yes, sir, pristine. Not a thing in it, not even a candy wrapper. We’re all squared away.” Talon took note. Not only had Dax not carried any identification, he had made sure there was no trace of him to follow.
“Well, thanks for your time. Could I leave you my number, and would you call me if you have any further contact from Mr. Rosesson?” Talon left his phone number as well as his email address, although he really didn’t hold out much hope for further leads from the rental agency.
He had two days before he had to file a missing person’s report on Dax, and his best lead was eight hours away. He needed to visit the Malheur National Forest and try to figure out what Dax had been doing before he disappeared.
Talon dug for his phone. He was going on a road trip.
It felt like forever since he’d ridden such a distance. He missed long rides; the wind smacking his face, his Dyna rumbling beneath him, time to just think. If only he didn’t have to leave Crystal, and if only Dax’s life wasn’t hanging in the balance, it would’ve been just the thing he needed.
Chapter 11
Kate was sitting at the table in the kitchen, laptop up and running, when her father walked in. She smiled in greeting and lifted her cheek to accept his kiss. “Good morning, Da. Did you sleep well?”
“Like a rock as always, Katydid. And you?”
“Snug as a bug in a rug.” It was true; the portion of the night she had spent sleeping had been warm and secure in Dan’s arms. That she regularly found herself making love during hours when she should be getting some shut-eye was beside the point, and certainly not something she planned to tell her father. Not till she was at least forty-five or fifty.
“What’re ya working on there? When I came down the stairs your forehead was knotted up like a whole barrel of eels.”
“Just running a search for any new missing persons who might fit Dan’s description. I’ve been looking since I found him, but no luck. The ones who are the right age and ethnicity, and there have only been two, I look them up and it’s clearly not him.
“I can’t believe someone would just ditch him, though. I mean, he seems like he would have a family, people who care about him…” Kate’s voice trailed off and she began to feel sheepish about her assumptions. “I just mean that he doesn’t seem like the loner type, you know? Surely someone notices that he’s not around.”
“How far are you searching, dolly? Maybe he’s not from around here.” Angus fixed his coffee with cream and sugar and replaced the pot, turning to the table where Kate sat. He eased his bulk into the chair next to her with a creak that she fancied came from his knees rather than the furniture.
“Washington, here, California, Idaho, Nevada; all the border states. Beyond that, it’s just too much. He could be from anywhere, I suppose, with a non-accent like his.”
Kate smiled at a memory. One night, in a flurry of silliness, Dan had tried speaking in accents from around the country to see if any of them sounded natural. His Wisconsin was tragic but he made a stunning Southern belle.
“Somebody get me some curtains, I do declare! I need me a new dress for the ball!” He’d had Kate rolling on the bed, stark naked, not even caring at the way her body jiggled with laughter. Just remembering it warmed her in a way that nothing else did.
Her father’s pointed grumble pulled her back to the present. “Well, where else have you looked? If you think he’d be missed, but there’s no missing person’s report, then where else do you go?”
Kate grumped right back at him. “I don’t know, Da. It’s not like I’ve done this before. What, you think I should just run a search for ‘missing white man, brown hair, late twenties, handsome and kind’?”
Angus looked at her, a bland expression on his face. “Aye, I suppose that’d be as good a place to start as any. Never know what you’ll find these days if you pick the right words. Or the wrong ones.”
Kate cringed at the thought of what her father might have stumbled upon with the wrong words and the World Wide Web. He was right, though, there was no reason not to start taking shots in the dark and see where they landed.
She brought up a browser window and typed in a string of search terms. It took ten minutes to follow the rabbit trails generated by that search and eliminate them all. Kate ref
ined her terms over and over from what she saw featured in articles about other missing people. After a while, her father refilled his coffee and wandered off to find the newspaper.
Her enthusiasm for the task waning, Kate typed in “missing man brown hair eyes twenties thirties money clip CA OR NV” and hit enter. Many articles that appeared were ones she’d already seen, but halfway down the page was a new result from a San Francisco society rag: “Where In the World Is the Prince of SanFran?”
Kate clicked on the link. It rerouted her to a tiny blurb in what was obviously the gossip portion of the magazine. There was no photo, only a couple of paragraphs:
Speaking of incognito, has anyone laid eyes (or anything else) on the yummy Daxton Rosesson? This reporter hasn’t seen him in at least two weeks, and none of the local florists have seen any of his money in just as long! I’m so used to catching a glimpse of those big brown eyes alongside a lovely lady or a burly brother, this extended absence seems downright suspicious.
And don’t forget, biggest brother Knox Rosesson is set to have his wings clipped by the fiercely talented Mica Nichols in just a handful of weeks. So let’s hope Dax makes it home soon. We wouldn’t want to have to take two billionaires off the market!
Kate frowned as she read the snippet. That didn’t sound like Dan at all. Did it? High society, buttering women up left and right with flowers, a billionaire, for heaven’s sake?
She shook her head. No. Not even worth pursuing. Kate closed the browser window and shut her laptop down. There was no point in going any further down that road. None.
But even as she ran the reasons through her mind, Kate knew she was spooked. The only reason not to look up photographs of Daxton Rosem-, Rossm-, whatever it was, was if she was truly worried that it could actually be Dan. Right?
Shit. She stared straight at the floor for a long moment. She was going to have to look him up eventually, even if only to prove to herself that it wasn’t her Dan. But she didn’t want to.
Her Dan? Kate shook her head and chastised herself as she refilled her coffee cup. She couldn’t go around thinking of him as hers, no matter how much she wanted to. He wasn’t even really his own yet.
Kate grabbed another mug and filled it with coffee and a healthy splash of milk, no sugar, and carried it downstairs to Dan’s room. She knocked on the door and heard a bleary voice tell her to come in.
“Hey, beautiful. You brought me coffee?” One look and Kate’s heart turned over in her chest. Dan’s hair was a riot, sticking out in every direction, and one eye was barely open. The fully functional one, however, was fixed on Kate and making her quiver in very specific places.
“Don’t ever say I didn’t do nothin’ for you.” She handed the mug to Dan and reminded her hormones that her father was right upstairs, reading his morning paper. The traitorous bastards didn’t even pretend to listen.
“About time you came up with something new. That whole ‘saving my life’ bit was running cold.” Dan winked as he sipped.
Kate snickered and stuck out her tongue. “Oh, I’ve got something even better than coffee. My buddy Booster texted, said he found a little something on your phone’s memory card if we want to come over and see it.”
“Are you kidding? Hell, yeah. Let me jump in the shower and we’ll go.” Dan launched himself out of bed, grabbing clean clothes and his coffee mug as he hustled out the door.
Kate ogled his backside as he walked past her and up the stairs. She wanted to drag him back to bed and not get up for hours. But if she was being honest, it wasn’t just lust driving her. If she had the option to push the pause button on finding out who Dan was and keep him in her life just a little longer, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d have the fortitude to restrain herself.
By the time they arrived at Booster’s duplex - he’d checked out the phone as a personal favor, not part of an official investigation - Kate could see Dan was fit to burst with apprehension. His left leg had kept up a steady bounce during the whole car ride, his opposite fingers drumming on the door handle.
A diminutive young man in black skinny jeans, black t-shirt, and red Converse high-tops opened the door. His caramel skin declared his Latin heritage, while his light hazel eyes dazzled most women, and men, with their complexity. Kate smiled. “Hey, Booster, what’s up? Thanks for working so fast.”
“Bitch, please, you know I don’t sleep. Get your skinny ass in here. This the dude pulled his brain drain?” He turned to Dan, making eye contact even as he spoke about him in the third person.
“Dan, meet Booster. Booster, be nice. Dan’s a good guy. I like him.” She shot a smile at Dan, knowing the fastest way to get Booster to chill was to show her soft side. It worked. He nodded at Dan and stepped aside to let them both enter the one-story duplex. Kate stepped in and continued talking. “Booster used to get busted stealing computer parts, hijacking people’s Wi-Fi connections. That’s how he got his nickname. Luckily, the captain realized he was doing it because he was a fucking genius. Found a program he could get into to learn computers, then, as soon as he graduated, got him hired for the state’s white-hat hacker team.”
“Blah blah blah, bad boy turns good. I just didn’t want my ass to end up in jail. And you’re wrong about my name.” Booster turned to Dan with a deadpan expression. “It’s ’cause I’m short as shit and everybody said I needed a booster seat until I was eighteen.”
Dan chuckled and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you. You can call me Dan, because it’s the best I could do.” He hooked a finger at Kate. “And because she didn’t like Death.”
Booster screamed out a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth! If I woke up with amnesia, you can bet I’d be naming myself something better than that. Tell that bitch it’s ‘Your Majesty’ or I’m out!” He motioned them further inside. “Anyway, you want to see this video, right?” Booster strode across the room to a U-shaped conglomeration of desks and sat in the chair, spinning around to face the monitors. To one side lay Dan’s destroyed phone. Kate picked it up and handed it to him as her friend spoke.
“It’s all I could get from your phone, and I do mean all. Your on-board storage was heavily encrypted; I couldn’t even get to it. And almost everything on the data card was damaged by sitting out there in the rain. Even this is just twenty seconds of I-don’t-know-what, but I thought you should at least see it.”
The picture on the monitor came up, a dark scene on pause. Kate squinted at the screen and stuck her head forward. Booster pointed at a square of light in one corner. “So, you’re outside a building, peeking in windows. Lucky for you nobody’s naked or I’d have turned your ass over to the authorities already.”
Booster threw a sideways glance at Dan, and Kate understood better what his earlier guardedness had been about. He wasn’t sure if Dan was safe for her. In his own way, Booster was trying to take care of her. Kate squeezed his shoulder in thanks.
“Anyway, here we go.” Booster hit a button and quiet breathing filled the speakers along with the sound of rustling leaves. The square of light got bigger and sharper, becoming a window into a well-lit cabin. As the three of them watched, the inside of the building came into focus.
At least a half-dozen men moved inside. Most of them were stacking long wooden crates and placing five-gallon plastic containers next to them, like the kind used to store gasoline. Two more men in coveralls stood at a workbench in the background, pouring something into another of the plastic containers.
Nobody on camera spoke, but they could hear a voice in the background. “- sure it gets where it needs to be in plenty of time. I’m not missing my shot again, goddammit.”
Kate turned to Booster as the video abruptly halted. “Can you zoom in or anything, find out what’s in those crates or the jugs?”
“It’s just shit phone video, princess, it doesn’t get any sharper than this. My guess is explosives, maybe guns in the crates.” Booster leaned back as Dan reached in between them to grab the mouse and play the clip again. Kate looked at h
is face and saw a scowl etched deep into his forehead. She had the sudden, ludicrous urge to slap him on the back and see if it stuck.
Kate stayed silent after that, watching Dan as he watched the video three more times. When he was about to click ‘play’ again, Booster held up his hand. “I made you a copy. I know it’s not much, but here.”
He held out a thumb drive to Dan, sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sorry there wasn’t more. Take the phone with you. If you ever get your marbles back and remember your passcode for the encryption, bring it back; maybe I could do something with it.”
“Thanks, Booster. I appreciate it, man.” Dan took the drive and turned for the door, a dejected look in his eyes. Kate gave Booster a hug and followed Dan out to the car.
The first thing he said when the doors were closed surprised her. “One of those guys had a Hammerskins tattoo.”
Chapter 12
Kate’s wide eyes focused on him as she turned the key in the ignition. “For real? I didn’t even see that. What do you think it means?”
Dan ground his teeth. “I think it means I got too close to some skinheads and they caught me. At the very least, I’m convinced it’s my phone.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Dan could hear a tone of resignation in Kate’s voice, as if she thought he was going to leave now that he had a lead. How could he tell her how badly he wanted to ignore what he’d just seen, block it out along with the rest of his life, and just start fresh with her? He shook his head. Not practical. Especially if he was in danger.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat, buckling in as Kate backed out of Booster’s driveway and started home. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to find out who I am when following the only lead I have could get me killed?”
“What if you hired a private investigator? Someone to dig around for you, keep your face out of it?” Dan considered that option, wondering why he hadn’t before. The psychiatrist was convinced his memory would come back, but the longer he waited, the harder it was going to be to follow the trail. He was going to have to admit, at some point, that he’d been sitting on his ass because he liked being around Kate.
