Evil Without a Face sj-1

by Jordan Dane

  The elevator doors opened and mercifully saved her from an explanation, but the grimace on Payton’s face had been priceless.

  Down the hall, Seth Harper’s suite door had a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob. After she knocked, her well-worn employee and friend greeted her.

  The tall and lanky kid looked like he’d been up half the night and just crawled out of bed. His large dark eyes had shadows, the inherent sadness in them intensified from his lack of sleep. Gone were his upscale “hotel” clothes, replaced by his usual Jerry Springer tee and worn jeans. Room service dishes made it apparent he hadn’t left his room in a while. And once again, Harper looked as if he was living temporary, only taking up a small portion of the suite with his meager belongings.

  The kid was a real puzzle. One day she’d wrestle him in her grip and work him like a Rubik’s cube to figure out his story, but not today.

  She pulled Seth aside, out of earshot, while Payton stepped into the main living room. “You look like a DUI booking photo. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m…okay. I know you may find this hard to believe, but not everything is rosy in Harperworld twenty-four/seven. Lately I’m not exactly riding the rails of the happy train, but I’ll figure it out…soon. No worries.”

  She didn’t buy his answer. But before she could quiz him further, he changed the subject and headed for the living room, raising his voice loud enough for Payton to hear.

  “I’ve been trying to decipher the random numbers on this report of yours, but I’ve got nothing so far. When you called this morning, you mentioned you had a visitor last night. Catch me up, okay?”

  The living room had maps strewn over the sofas and chairs, turning a part of the space into a jumbled mess. And in the study, with his laptop cranked up and room service dishes set aside, the desktop looked cluttered too. No wonder Harper didn’t want maid service.

  She gave him the short version of her story, unsure what he would need to know for his analysis of the document, versus what he’d want to know as a player.

  “Okay, so tell me exactly what Alexa said about these numbers again,” Seth pressed.

  “She said that some numbers were jumbled up on purpose, to throw us off. She implied that if anyone unauthorized got their hands on the documents—like us—they’d need a decoder ring to make sense of it. Apparently she had her super powers in high gear, because she figured it out. Or maybe she just knows more about these jerks than we do. But she told me that the numbers were coordinates to where Globe Harvest had some of their operations. Something like that.”

  Jess chewed the inside of her lip as she replayed Alexa’s words in her head, then added more.

  “She said that each location was compartmentalized and that it was important to hit them all at once in order to shut them down permanently, otherwise they’d spread the word, evacuate, then crop up somewhere else. That’s why I thought she should get copies to our pages. If she’s got the resources to do this, it’s our best chance at shutting these bastards down. We could never pull off something on this scale.”

  “But she called them coordinates. I mean, she used that word, right?” Seth persisted.

  “Yeah, she did. I’m sure of it.” She nodded. “And she said that on the pages she got from me, there were fifteen locations. I figured that if we back into that number, we might figure out the arrangement and decode the hodgepodge.”

  “Yeah, I think I know where you’re heading with that. But if she used the word ‘coordinates,’ we might have a better shot at cracking this report format. Give me a minute.”

  Clearly, Seth had other things on his mind. He looked frazzled, like he had one foot in the room with them and the other in some alternative universe where only genius types had membership cards. He disappeared into the study but emerged again, pointing a finger at her.

  “Oh, and if you’re hungry, order room service. We might be here awhile.” He turned to head back the way he’d come, but changed his mind. “And order plenty of coffee. I think we’re gonna need it.”

  “The guy needs food and caffeine to think.” She shrugged. “Who am I to argue?”

  After room service arrived, she and Payton ate while Seth worked in the study. Harper had embraced his alone time and refused to stop, but he did take the food and drink she offered. That left her and Payton killing time in the other room while Seth worked.

  She used the time by contacting Sam to do a background check on the mysterious Alexa Marlowe, but wasn’t surprised when her friend came up empty. Chasing someone like Alexa would be like trying to grab smoke. Sam did pass along to Payton the information that they hadn’t found a body at the destroyed factory yet. For him, her update was a mix of good and bad news. Good that Nikki wasn’t a confirmed casualty, but bad that his niece was still in the far-reaching tentacles of Globe Harvest.

  After Sam’s update, Jess’s mood grew more somber. She and Payton speculated on their next moves in the search for Nikki, but mostly they split their attention between the discussion at hand and the guy in the next room, slaving over his high-tech laptop.

  “I’ve been thinking about this,” Payton muttered under his breath to her. “We don’t have much. If what Alexa said was right, Nikki was transported out of Chicago and we’ve got no place to look. Even if we hit all these locations at once, like she said, that still doesn’t mean we’ll find her, does it?”

  Payton had indeed been thinking. And he’d come up with the same conclusions she had.

  “But I’m not willing to throw in the towel, Payton. Are you?” When he didn’t reply and only stared at her, she continued, “You see, this is what I was saying about hope.” She leaned closer and grabbed his hand as they sat on the sofa. “Now, Sam said they hadn’t found a body in the rubble, right? So far, that supports what Alexa said about your niece being shipped out. If she’s still alive, then we’ve got a chance at finding her. That’s all I care about. And if that kid in there”—she pointed toward the other room—“can find one shred of a direction, I’m willing to take that next step. What about you?”

  “Yeah, I’m with you…coach.” He crooked his lips into a half smile. “Thanks for the pep talk. I needed that.”

  Jess watched Seth from the living room and caught glimpses of his face in the blue haze of his computer monitor. And she heard the sounds of his quick fingers on the keyboard. The kid was completely engrossed in what he was doing. He had gulped down the java and devoured his scrambled eggs and toast as if he hadn’t tasted them at all. She could have served Fear Factor food—worms al dente, beef brains sashimi, or mystery contents from the dreaded Blender of Fear—and he might not have noticed.

  In a short amount of time, Harper had endeared himself to her and become a part of her inner circle. And without flinching, she believed in his ability to pull a rabbit out of his bag of tricks. Strange as he was, he’d become a friend. She only wished she knew more about him.

  Finally, after nearly two hours, the kid yelled, “I think I’ve got it. The pattern.”

  She heard the smile in Harper’s voice, and his excitement was contagious. Payton followed her into the study.

  “Here—look at this.” He pointed to a column of numbers on his monitor. “Like Alexa said, they jumbled the format, but once you told me she used the word ‘coordinates’ to describe the locations, it got me thinking. Longitude and latitude.”

  He grinned up at her until he realized she needed more to catch the wave of his enthusiasm.

  “Once I figured out the pattern of how to arrange the variables, I started pulling numbers off the list and compiling them into viable longitudes and latitudes. It wasn’t hard from there.”

  “If you say so.” She grimaced and shrugged to Payton, who looked just as lost. “Geography was never my thing. If I had to sum up my questions, I’d say, what the hell are you talking about?”

  Seth grinned and took a breath, searching for a way to explain what he’d found.

  “Any location on Earth is described by
two numbers—its longitude and its latitude. If a pilot or a ship’s captain want to specify a position on a map, they would use these numbers as coordinates.” He stopped and corrected his explanation. “Actually, it’s more accurate to say there are two angles, measured in degrees, ‘minutes of arc’ and ‘seconds of arc.’”

  “That’s not what I meant, genius boy,” she said. “Let’s try a less accurate way to describe it. Can you dumb it down a hair? What’s the bottom line?”

  “If the world were a transparent globe, the lines of constant longitude, or meridians, would extend from the North Pole to the South Pole like segments of a peeled orange. And latitude is the radius of this transparent globe at its center, broken down by its northern and southern halves in degrees from the equator. Bottom line is that every location on the planet can be in the crosshairs of longitude and latitude to give a coordinate for a specific location.”

  “So by finding these coordinates, Alexa thinks she has an idea of where Globe Harvest has some of their operations?” she asked.

  Seth nodded. “Yep, but here’s the strange thing. Alexa told you that she’d located fifteen Globe Harvest operations. On our report, I found seventeen coordinates.”

  “Do you think she missed some?” Payton asked.

  Jess was very much aware of Payton looking over her shoulder. Her skin tingled with the heat of his intimacy. And the smell of his skin was intoxicating. She swallowed and took a deep breath, feeling her cheeks flush with warmth when memories of last night filled her mind.

  “No, I don’t.” Seth’s reply reluctantly pulled her back into the present. “Someone with the resources to figure out this report didn’t just miss a couple. I think she ruled some out, but for what reason, I don’t know. To figure that one out, we’re gonna have to locate each of these places on a map and see if something hits us.”

  “What, like a two by four?” When both men stared at her, she shrugged. “Sorry. Sarcasm is one of my skill sets. So what now…we’re gonna stick pins in a map and count to seventeen?”

  “You’ve got it,” Harper said.

  He reached into his desk and pulled out a plastic box of multicolored pushpins, not exactly standard issue with every hotel room. Seth hadn’t been caught flatfooted by this latest news of coordinates; the maps strewn in the living room should have been her first clue.

  “You look like you were expecting this, Harper…unless pushpins are part of the deluxe package here at the Peninsula. ’Cause I’m telling ya, you can’t get nifty office supplies at just any old five-star hotel. You gotta have real clout to score pins of this quality.”

  “Can’t a guy conjure a little magic without you spoiling all the fun with how it’s done?” Harper sat back in his desk chair and swiveled, looking up at her with a big sheepish grin on his face. “You think those pushpins are hot, you should check out my stapler collection.”

  “You need some fresh air, Harper. Being cooped up in this hotel room has seriously warped your perspective on reality.” She shook her head. “Let’s get to work.”

  It didn’t go unnoticed that Seth had never answered her about the pins. He joked it off as usual. Normally she would have pursued him with questions until she got a reasonable explanation on why Harper was Harper, but she’d grown to accept a certain element of mystery surrounding the kid. For now, she’d accept his idiosyncrasies and be grateful for his help.

  Seth coached them through another explanation of how longitude and latitude worked, then pinned his largest world map to a wall in the study, and they stuck pushpins into the coordinates he gave them. By the time they were done, they stood back and looked at their creation, having no greater insight.

  “Okay, so we have colored pins on a map. I’m not seeing much that stands out except that one up there.” She pointed to a blue pin in the middle of the Bering Sea. “You think Globe Harvest went on a three-hour tour with Gilligan and went down with the boat?”

  Seth narrowed his eyes. “I can see why Alexa might dismiss that coordinate. Obviously someone made a mistake when they entered the code. It could happen. So that leaves us with one more to figure out. What about these others…you see any that stand out?”

  Payton walked closer to the map, focusing at first on the blue pin in the Bering Sea. He then shifted his attention to the other locales.

  “Well, if I was looking downfield for somewhere to unload the football, I’d be looking for an open man…someone isolated,” he began, almost muttering to himself. “But I’ve got a feeling that wouldn’t be the case here.”

  With a furrowed brow, Harper gave her a quick look, but kept his mouth shut. Genius boy clearly didn’t speak jock.

  “Go on, Payton,” she said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Globe Harvest hides in plain sight. Maybe they think they’re too smart to get caught. I mean, they did that here in Chicago, operating right under the nose of the cops. These guys are savvy and they know how to fold up shop. But a location too remote might draw unwanted attention if it doesn’t have good cover for their comings and goings. Being isolated might work against them. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, it does.” Seth looked at the map over Payton’s shoulder. “So maybe this location in South America would fall under that category. I don’t see a city of any size nearby, plus it’s all by itself in the middle of nowhere.” Harper pointed to a red pin.

  “So maybe the Bering Sea and the Amazon jungle might be the two locations Alexa discounted, thinking they might be some kind of error.” Jess chimed in. “Not a bad theory, Payton. It definitely makes sense.”

  “But should we assume that?” Payton questioned.

  “What’re you saying?” she asked.

  “If Alexa has fifteen locations covered, then that leaves us with two. Now I’m not proposing we hire a guide into the Amazon jungle, but what if this location on the Bering Sea was just a little off?” He pointed to a spot on the map, a place near Russia.

  “The closest landmass to that coordinate is St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. And look how close St. Lawrence is to Russia. No more than forty or fifty miles, tops,” he said, his enthusiasm mounting. “And don’t you think it’s too much coincidence that the son of a bitch we’re chasing is Russian?”

  “He’s got a point, Jessie. A damned good one,” Seth agreed. “I mean, what have we got to lose?”

  For a moment, Payton stopped and stared at Seth, then quickly shifted his gaze to the map on the wall. She was sure Harper’s question was the reason. In fact Payton had a lot to lose. If his energies were focused on some wild goose chase, his niece’s trail would grow ice cold and they might never find her.

  Was pursuing his theory worth the risk of losing Nikki for good?

  “Well, I’ve never been good at sitting on the sidelines,” Payton muttered under his breath, as if he were alone and trying to convince himself. “I’ve gotta be doing something or I’ll go crazy.”

  Silence filled the room. Seth avoided her eyes, but she could tell he felt the awkwardness.

  “Well, I’m sure you’re not suggesting we row a boat to the middle of the Bering Sea and have a look around,” she said, picking up the slack in the conversation, “but I bet your friend Joe Tanu can help, him being a retired Alaskan state trooper and all. We could check out the island real quick.”

  “We?” Payton questioned, looking over his shoulder at her. “Oh, no. This could be a rough trip, with no frills. I was planning on leaving right away, be there by nightfall, island time. Hell, Jess, there’s not much to St. Lawrence except for the small Native villages of Gambell and Savoonga. A sparse population. Once I hit the island, I’d be roughing it and camping out, keeping a low profile until I rule out the location. But if I get a hit, those Globe Harvest bastards won’t get another chance to vacate like they did here. Even if Nikki isn’t on the island, I’m gonna see to it that someone from Globe Harvest pays for what happened to her.”

  Thinking about what he said, she swallowed hard.

  �
��I hear ya.” She raised her chin in challenge and crossed her arms. “But are you saying you don’t think I can rough it, Archer?”

  “Oh, hell, Jessie…” Payton cocked his head in exasperation. “Please don’t make me answer that.”

  He looked to Harper for support, but found none.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m out of this.” Seth held up his hands and ditched male bonding in favor of more coffee.

  For nearly an hour Jess gave it her best shot, trying to convince Payton to bring her along on his trip into the wilds of Alaska. She presented her case in a clear and logical manner, while he countered with his version of reality—male rationale run amok. Eventually the gloves were off and cool heads warped into mouths on autopilot.

  “Look, more than likely St. Lawrence Island will be nothing more than a Hail Mary pass in the final seconds of the game,” he said as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, leaning against a door frame in the study.

  “Why do men always resort to sports analogies?” When she caught his glare, she said, “Did I say that aloud?”

  “Jessie, come on. The world is a big place—”

  “Wait, let me write that down,” she interrupted.

  “—and Nikki could be anywhere,” he continued. “This is gonna be a long shot. We’ve got less than nothing to go on.”

  “Then why are you shutting me out? Hell I’m good at…nothing,” she countered. “You said it yourself—it’s unlikely Globe Harvest would pick such an isolated place. If you think this is gonna be a walk in the damned park, you should have no objections to me coming along. I can handle myself.”

  Payton dropped his head and took a deep breath. She had him on the ropes.

  “You know if we don’t go together, I’ll just find a way to follow you there. And that’s not an idle threat,” she said. “I doubt the state of Alaska would be ready for Jess Beckett gone wild.”

  “I’m not either.” Payton rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’m just…worried for you, Jessie.” He’d softened his voice, and another wave of memories from last night took hold of her heart. “You’ve been through so much already. You almost died in that explosion. I’d never forgive myself if…”