Deep Blue Trouble

by Steph Broadribb

  ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  She sounded truthful, but she’d not been straight with me before, so I asked, ‘So when I asked you yesterday if you’d seen him and you told me no, that was a lie?’

  She held my gaze. ‘I didn’t know if I could trust you.’

  ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘So you’ve said. Did you expect him to wait for you?’

  ‘I always thought that he would. If he loved me…’

  I didn’t tell her that I thought it strange he’d made the detour to come see her before heading to Mexico in the first place. ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday morning. There’s a holiday rental I have a retainer on. It’s a bolt hole, somewhere to retreat when life with Marco gets too much, a kind of home-from-home. Gibson found me there.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Near here.’

  That she didn’t want me to know the exact location of the Pier 61 cabin was real interesting. It told me she didn’t really trust me, and also that she hadn’t completely given up hope of Gibson coming back for her.

  ‘And you’re sure he’s heading for Mexico?’

  Mia nodded.

  ‘So why tell me now?’

  ‘Because I’m afraid what will happen there.’ She took another napkin from the dispenser and started shredding it. ‘Marco has friends in Mexico. Not good people…’

  I nodded. I could imagine what Marco’s friends would do if they got their hands on Gibson. Understood then that she was talking to me as a measure of last resort.

  ‘You think prison is better than death?’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Don’t you?’

  I thought about JT lying weak and unprotected on an infirmary bed. ‘For some men.’

  ‘He’s a good person. He’s not a killer.’ She reached across the counter, took my hands in hers and pressed a slip of paper into my palm. On it was her name and a cell-phone number. ‘I need you to tell the people you work for, the FBI, that he’s not a killer.’

  From the hope-filled expression on her face I could tell she believed it. Still, a person’s belief can be a real long way from the facts. Gently, I removed my hands from her grip. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’

  Her expression hardened. ‘Why not?’

  I looked her straight in the eye. ‘All of us have the potential to kill. We just don’t know if we’ll do it until we find ourselves in that situation.’

  She frowned. ‘Even you?’

  Sliding out from the bench seat, I threw a five-dollar bill onto the table for my iced tea and said, ‘Thank you for telling me about Mexico. I can’t vouch for Gibson because as far as I know he’s guilty. But if you have evidence proving he didn’t murder Patrick Walker and his wife, I can pass the information to the FBI and help you clear his name. That’s the best I can offer.’

  She was still staring at me when I turned and walked away.

  17

  Dakota had left the office to get dinner when I called back at two fifty-five, just before six o’clock her time; she’d not been allowed to wait any longer. Even Sasha’s sing-song voice seemed to have a hard edge of disapproval when she spoke to me. I knew I’d let my baby down. It made me hate the miles between us even more, and doubled my determination to get Gibson Fletcher found fast.

  Back at my hotel, I got busy. Monroe had emailed me the passenger manifests from the days between Gibson Fletcher’s escape and him being spotted in San Diego – hundreds of lists, thousands of names. I propped my smartphone up on the in-room entertainment guide and ate Chinese food from a carton as I scrolled through the documents, looking for Gibson’s name.

  It took a while. And I found nothing.

  I cussed under my breath. Rubbed my eyes. They felt dry, sore from staring at my cell’s screen for hours. Glancing up, I saw Gibson Fletcher’s face on the TV. The news banner beneath his picture read, ‘FBI Manhunt Continues’. I unmuted the audio. Listened to snippets of the commentary as images of Gibson’s initial arrest, the Walkers’ yacht and the hospital he escaped from appeared onscreen.

  ‘…Gibson “The Fish” Fletcher remains at large … FBI directing extra resources to the search … top priority … do not approach … armed and extremely dangerous … call this toll-free number…’

  Damn. The FBI team had numbers on their side – their own and the public. All I had was me, with a helping hand from Red and whatever snippets Monroe threw my way. The odds were against me getting Gibson first, but I had to give it my all. I wasn’t going to let myself get beat.

  That meant I had to be fast and smart. Faster than I’d been so far, and think smarter than the FBI team. The passenger manifestos had been a long shot. That Gibson would’ve have used a commercial airline was a gamble, and that he’d have used his own name was a down-to-my-last-dollar bet. Twenty percent chance at most, but I’d had to check. Needed to check. Be thorough and be curious, JT had always told me. Notice everything.

  If I knew how Gibson had got from Florida to here, the way he’d travelled and the level of care – high or low – that he’d taken to disguise his identity, it could help me track him now. How his travel had been booked could also tell me if he’d had help, and who from. And if he’d gone to Mexico I’d need the details to follow his trail.

  Mind you, Gibson may not have flown into San Diego at all. Sure, Clint at Southside Storage had spotted him two days after he’d escaped, but being near the airport didn’t automatically mean he’d just got off a flight. If he’d been strong enough to fight three guards, he could’ve driven to California. It would have made it a whole lot easier to avoid detection: no ID checks, no hidden cameras, a greatly reduced risk of being spotted. I didn’t know how quickly his name had been put on the no-fly list, but it must have been fast. Even if he’d flown under another name, his face would have triggered an alert as he passed through security. Taking a flight just didn’t stack up.

  I also figured that, for either option to work, he would have needed some help. This’d been a nagging doubt in my mind since Monroe had first told me that Gibson had fought his way out of hospital just hours after surgery. Question was, who helped him? Was it Mia? Or was it something to do with the valuable chess pieces Monroe had talked about? And where in Mexico was he heading?

  I needed to look into all the angles. I also knew I should call Monroe and update him. But I just didn’t have the stomach for it – I was still pissed at him for not fighting harder for a protection detail to guard JT – so I sent him a message:

  Update: Gibson not on commercial manifests. Send private plane/other traffic landing lists? Source says Gibson gone to Mexico – unconfirmed at this stage. Awaiting more details. LA.

  Through the thin walls I heard people moving along the corridor, heading out for the night. The man in the room next to me had been watching some kind of action film with the sound turned up high; the gunshots and explosions were as loud in my room as in his. I was glad when the soundtrack stopped and a few minutes later his door slammed shut. I prefer silence in unfamiliar surroundings. It’s easier to hear danger approaching that way.

  I rubbed my eyes again and thought about what Mia had told me, and what Monroe had shared with me about Gibson’s escape. There had to be something I wasn’t seeing.

  Focus on the facts – JT had drilled that into me all those years ago when I’d been starting out. What was it that I knew to be true about Gibson Fletcher? Kicking off my boots, I lay back on the bed as the reported facts and hearsay about Gibson jumbled in my mind. Look at the timeline, JT would have said. Sort the facts from the assumptions. Look for a pattern in the target’s actions.

  I curled onto my side. Pulled a pillow close to me and felt my eyes closing. As sleep claimed me one question echoed around in my mind over and over: What’s my next move?

  *

  JT always planned four steps ahead – oftentimes more. But four moves, that was his minimum. He didn’t like surprises.
Wanted every base covered, every possible option assessed and countered. Always worked real strategic, like a game of chess, he said; each move played out one-on-one until the capture of the fugitive was inevitable. And that was how he’d trained me.

  I got the theory, but I’d not always found the practice easy. So ten years back, when I had been learning about the business, JT coached me on it regular, using each job we got as a chance for me to hone my skills. I remembered sitting out on the porch of his cabin, nestled deep in the forest in Georgia, watching the chipmunks scamper in the yard as we worked through the options, checking every which way that a fugitive might run.

  My natural inclination was to focus on the where. It’d been that way with the case of the nineteen-year-old pizza delivery girl and wannabe blues singer – Katy Vance – who’d stolen nine hundred dollars from her last drop of the day, robbing a family of vacationers from England at gunpoint. The judge had set bail high, and the indication from her legal counsel was that she’d be serving jail time once they found her guilty at the hearing. When she didn’t show for court, we were given the job of finding her. I was a real tadpole rookie back then, maybe five weeks in the job. I was out on the porch the evening we’d been given the job, and handing JT my notebook; written on it was a list of places I figured she might have run.

  JT smiled as he reminded me I was skipping a move. ‘It’s not about where, kiddo, not straight off, otherwise all you’re doing is guesswork. Being professional, that’s about the why and the how. When you know a person’s motivations and the help they’ve got, knowing where to find them comes easy.’

  Easy? I’d thought. How could it be easy? There were so many places, so much distance a person could cover. I stared off the porch at the tall trees surrounding the cabin. They grew close together like soldiers in formation, the dense canopy shutting out the sunlight as effectively as any blackout blind. I shook my head. Finding a person wasn’t easy; it was like looking for a bobby pin in the forest. I told him as much.

  JT disagreed. ‘Work out their anchors, Lori. What is it that keeps them here? Who’s important to them?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  He shook his head. ‘Family, friends, freedom – that’s the order a fugitive thinks on things when they’re on the run. I’ve done thousands of jobs. It’s the same every time. Everyone thinks they’re unique, but they’re not. The pattern is the same.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Anticipate their next move, Lori; where will they go first?’

  I thought a moment. ‘The vacationers said she seemed desperate, that she was near on pleading with them to give her more dollars, even though she’d already got nine hundred. My guess is she needs more cash. She’ll get that first.’

  He nodded. ‘How?’

  ‘Can’t use her cards, because we’ll trace them and she’s smart enough to know it. So she’ll have to steal or borrow.’ I thought a moment. ‘We know she’s not on speaking terms with her family, so she’ll go to a friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  I picked the file off the porch floor and flicked through it. Alongside the mugshot was a picture of Katy Vance in happier times, her arms around a twenty-something guy with long black hair and an eyebrow piercing. ‘Could be she goes to her boyfriend first.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It depends on why she ran.’

  ‘Exactly.’ JT gestured to the file. ‘Tell me more about the boyfriend.’

  ‘They live together, been seeing each other over two years. In a band together. No obvious signs they’re not happy.’

  ‘He put up her bail?’

  I checked the docket. Nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So he’s pissed that she skipped out?’

  ‘Real pissed.’ I thought back. I’d spoken to the boyfriend after his girl hadn’t showed in court. He was pissed, but also worried. ‘He said she’d been feeling sick recently – stomach cramps, sickness and getting more tired. He was worried she had something wrong that she’d not told him about. Kept pressing on her to see a doctor.’

  JT raised an eyebrow. ‘Sick?’

  Shit. The most likely reality of Katy Vance’s situation hit me. ‘She’ll go to her best friend from the neighbourhood first, then her favourite female co-worker. Boyfriend only if the others can’t help.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because with sickness, stomach cramps and tiredness, I’m guessing she’s pregnant, and as her boyfriend doesn’t know I’m thinking she wants to keep it a secret.’

  JT looked real thoughtful. ‘Abortions aren’t cheap.’

  ‘So she stole the money as a last resort…’ I shook my head. ‘Damn.’

  We’d found Katy Vance hiding out at an old school friend’s condo later that evening; she was the only person Katy still had contact with from her early life. She hadn’t wanted her boyfriend or any of her new friends to know she was pregnant; they all had dreams of their blues band making it big. She said she’d felt she had no choice but steal the money. Felt she didn’t have time to be pregnant, couldn’t care for a child, that she was only just done with being a child herself. But as we drove to the police precinct she told me she’d changed her mind; that she’d decided she was going to have the baby. That maybe her and her boyfriend were strong enough to make it work.

  Without figuring out her motive for running, I’d never have worked out who she’d have gone to for help, and where to find her. JT was right. Just learning the search and tracking techniques wasn’t enough. You had to study the person, understand them and their anchors, and then play your moves according to how they behave – that was how you found a fugitive.

  Family. Friends. Freedom. They were the key.

  Every time.

  *

  In the moments between sleeping and wakefulness I stretched out my arms and felt surprised JT wasn’t there. I woke feeling his loss more acutely than I had in years. Forcing myself out of bed before I could dwell on it, I took a shower, using the powerful jets of water to try and clear my head, washing the memories of JT away: how it felt to be with him, to have his hands on my skin, to feel him inside me. Reminded myself that there’s no sense pining over a man. I was my own woman, and I had a job to do. I sure as hell was going to get it done.

  If Gibson Fletcher had gone to Mexico how would I find him?

  If Gibson had gone to Mexico.

  Mia had left a note saying, ‘Where are you?’ in the post box at the cabin on Pier 61. So she hadn’t known where Gibson was. The more I thought on it, the more I suspected her saying he’d headed for Mexico was a guess, an assumption. She knew his end goal was all, and as he’d gone AWOL she had assumed he’d left already. Me, I had my doubts. Family. Friends. Freedom. So far Mia seemed to be Gibson’s strongest anchor, and she was right there in San Diego.

  But I needed to work both sides of the thing, to cover all the options; to think four moves ahead. So far, the main factors in play were these: Mia – Gibson had been drawn back to her, and I doubted he’d run without her; the package from Southside Supplies – whatever had been inside was important to him, and I needed to know what it was; and Mexico – for Mia to assume he was heading that way most likely meant seeking sanctuary there was their end game.

  Three factors influencing Gibson’s behaviour based on two of the factors JT said fugitives thought about when they ran. Mia was kind of family, the package and Mexico were about freedom. I wondered if there was something else, something to do with his friends – something I’d not uncovered yet. Either way, I had three factors and three moves; I needed to figure out a plan to mitigate them.

  I’d never been to Mexico. It wasn’t a place that looked kindly on folks in my line of work, so crossing the border raised the stakes on this job in a big way. I had no contacts there. I didn’t speak the language. And I had no clue as to where Gibson would hole up. It was a vast country so Gibson could disappear forever once he’d crossed the border. One thing was real clear; if I couldn’t get a better sense of why Gibson had run and
who he was getting help from, this job was dead in the water.

  18

  Turned out Monroe had a plan for how I’d track Gibson. He called me at morning checkin and got straight down to business. ‘Lori, you need to get Fletcher out of Mexico.’

  ‘I figured that for myself,’ I said, irritated at his tone.

  ‘You worked out how yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you need a plan?’

  For a moment Monroe reminded me of JT – always have a plan, he’d said. Thing was, this situation wasn’t as straightforward as Monroe was thinking.

  ‘I’m not real convinced Fletcher is in Mexico,’ I said. ‘My source hasn’t been honest before. It could be a bluff.’

  ‘Yeah, it could, but it needs investigating, and we don’t have time to wait around. The expanded team is in place – you need to get to Fletcher first.’ The casual edge to Monroe’s Kentucky drawl had slipped.

  ‘So you’ve said, and I’m working on it. I’m just not sure we should focus all my efforts on Mexico.’

  ‘Noted. But my decision stands.’

  ‘I thought you brought me in on this because you believed I could find Fletcher. If that’s so, seems strange you’re not listening to my view.’

  Monroe didn’t speak. I heard passing traffic at his end. It seemed he was outside and on the move – hiding his association with me by calling me away from his desk. Again I wondered what it was that had made Monroe want to use me for this job. Maybe it was happenstance that JT’s arrest fitted real neat with the job Monroe needed doing. Maybe he needed a patsy. Like a bobcat sizing up a fresh deer carcass in a place outside their territory, I needed to say alert, cautious. Monroe was not my friend. I needed to remember that.

  ‘Fine,’ I said at last. I kept my tone all business.

  ‘I have a guy – Dez McGregor. He’s a local bounty hunter, specialises in extractions from Mexico. It’s a high-risk operation, but I’m sure you know that. He’s the best there is.’

  ‘So you’re handing him the job to find Fletcher?’ My heart rate quickened. If Monroe was giving the job to someone else then our deal was off. Where did that leave JT?