“Good point,” he said. “But still. Hard to believe.”
“That’s what makes it feel like it could be true. It’s so ridiculously far-fetched.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“If there were a way I could find out if the oncology patients at his hospital had suffered major setbacks over the past year, I could probably trace it to the drug.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that? Do you have some amazing connections outside of me? I can make magic happen, but I’m not a miracle worker.”
“Natalie’s missing. Dr. Weisman’s sneaking experimental drugs into the country. His wife overdosed on drugs. These can’t be isolated incidents.”
“Maybe not. But that’s not much to go on,” he said. “Even for you.”
“I didn’t say I had a slam-dunk case, but it’s my first real lead. And Natalie’s been missing over six hours. I’ve got to start investigating if I hope to find her—”
“Alive?”
“Don’t even say it.”
“What’s your plan?”
I paused. In my line of work, I had learned the best course of action was usually to go with the flow. Cases can take you down unexpected and even dangerous paths, but by this time in a case, there was usually a path to take. Right now, I had nothing. Zero. Nada. This time, I was going to have to make my own path.
“Could you see if Sophie can look into this drug a little more? You know. See if there are any known cases of it outside of Eastern Europe? And Dr. Weisman too. I know he had to have contacts in Europe. Maybe there’s a connection there.”
“A stretch, but I’ll see what I can do. What are you gonna do?”
I shrugged. My entire body felt like a weighted anchor as anxiety washed over me. “Keep looking? Maybe I can find a way to search for her phone. Natalie’s. You know. See if she has that tracking app turned on.”
We ended the call. I stood outside the hospital, leaning against its rough, concrete stone-covered facing. A slight breeze laden with the tangy scent of roast beef enveloped me. Geaux Po-Boys across the street must have been getting ready for the lunch crowd. I thought about all Jon had said and what it could mean.
Dr. Weisman was definitely smuggling drugs into the country. I was certain. And they must have been paying him pretty well to risk both his medical license and freedom. So far, it cost him his wife. But had it cost him his daughter, too?
I strained my brain to remember all that Natalie had said during our brief encounters over the past seventy-two hours. Nothing had been particularly meaningful. That wasn’t shocking. Natalie never was interested in anything serious. The only serious conversation we had had was about the “biggest mistake” of her life, also known as her husband.
I reached in my pocket and removed the crumpled picture of Natalie and her husband. He had pale skin, long, flowing brown hair, and a trim goatee with his arm around her. They both wore sunglasses, smiling at the camera. He wore jeans and a dark, navy-blue sweatshirt with some initials and some foreign words beneath it. The landscape, with its bright colors and rolling hills, was breathtaking.
I wish I had asked more about him. About them. Her response told me something bad had happened. I was never one to pry into someone's personal life. And, considering the mess that was my social life, I wasn’t in a good position to offer any advice, either. Still, there had to be something there. My gut told me so.
My thoughts returned to that picture. I focused on her husband’s sweatshirt. It might have been nothing more than a random sports team, but something about the words beneath it grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Estonian. Or Polish. Or Russian. Or any languages apart from English and basic Spanish. I shut my eyes, thinking.
“Don’t tell me you’re just now getting a hangover.” A deep voice cut through my thoughts like a knife. An annoying, obnoxious knife.
“If I paid you, would you just go away?”
“How much?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“No.”
“How about twenty-five?”
He paused. “No.”
I opened my eyes and glared at him. I made an attempt to grab the keys to Natalie’s car out of his hand. I was quick. He was faster.
He raised his arm high above my head, dangling them the way you would taunt a cat with yarn. I had never been desperate enough to be ridiculed to that degree. I pushed past him, hurrying toward the road. I pulled my phone from my back pocket. I scrambled to find the Uber app again.
“Where ya going?” he called, reveling in my frustration.
I ignored him. I continued walking until I had reached the sidewalk parallel to the street. I stared down at my phone’s illuminated screen, trying to make sense of the app, how to use it. By the time I had figured out how to type in my location, I saw a car pull up beside me. I knew it was Zane.
“So, if you’re gonna use that, does that mean you owe me for the rides earlier? I am an Uber driver, you know.”
I swallowed hard. My throat was dry, my face flushed with anger. Gripping the phone, I snapped, “Doesn’t really count when you’re in a stolen vehicle.”
“Ouch,” he mocked, leaning back in the plush leather seat. He clutched his chest. “That hurt.”
“I don’t have time for this!” My voice rose.
I suddenly had the feeling I was being watched. Whirling around, I saw two girls in their late teens standing in front of the hospital, less than fifty feet away. They stared at me. It didn’t take them long to lose interest. They walked over to a green Ford Fiesta. Once they were gone, I glared at him. He wore an amused expression on his face. It was maddening.
“What do you want? Why are you still here?”
He continued to stare at me, the smile lingering.
“If you’re insistent on not leaving, give me a ride.”
“Sure,” he replied. The sarcastic grin still had not wavered. “Where to?”
I paused, thinking. Time was slipping away faster than I could imagine. It had been hours since I saw Natalie. I was still no closer to figuring out who took her, why, or where the hell she was than I was the moment I hurried outside the Funky 504 in time to hear Cash get shot.
I was running out of options. If I wanted to find her, I needed to get to know her a little better. Only one thought continued to nag at my mind. It wasn’t one I was happy about, but it was the only thought I had.
“Take me back to Acadian Heights.”
24
I had expected Zane to protest. The last time we were there we stumbled upon the still-warm body of Natalie’s stepmother. We had also barely escaped without being detected by her father. He was the type of man willing to dump the body of a loved one in New Orleans East to avoid the consequences of a financially-fueled drug trafficking ring. We drove in silence.
I sat there, staring at my phone’s screen. I checked my call log. Nothing. I checked my texts. Ditto. That was good because it meant my mother wasn’t panicking about my continued absence. It was bad because it also meant Natalie still hadn’t reached out. I was certain she would have made an attempt to get in touch with me after we got separated in the Quarter. If for no other reason than I had her car keys.
My thumb lingered over the call button for her contact. I almost pressed it. I stopped. It hadn’t worked the last time. Plus, I remembered she could be in a dangerous situation. If she managed to hide her phone this long, my calling, again, could make things one thousand times worse. I leaned back in the seat. I stared across the dashboard at the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
It was amazing how many people appeared out of nowhere during the holiday season. It was like that in New Orleans and Boston. I assumed it was the same elsewhere, too. The thought of crowds led my mind back to the moments I first heard the gunshot. There was
Cash, lying on the street. A dark-red stain had begun to saturate his blue shirt, just below his chest on the right side.
I thought back to his bizarre, drug-induced phone call.
“One of them was wearing some weird, like, sweatshirt with letters and made up words on it,” he had recounted.
“What do you mean by made up words?” I paused, trying to figure out what he might have been suggesting. “Like a foreign language? Not English?”
“You know, now that I think about it . . . kinda looked Russian.”
Russian. Belgium, Polish . . . Estonian? My heart began to race. My throat tightened. The photograph of Natalie and her husband filled my mind’s eye. I grabbed it and stared. Was it possible?
Natalie hadn’t told me anything about her husband. All she said was she had a husband. I assumed she met him on some wild, crazy adventure, in true Natalie style. But maybe it was more simple than that. Maybe he was somehow connected to her dad. My thoughts raced as I tried to piece the scant details I had together.
Sometime within the past six years, Natalie had moved to Estonia. I figured it was to get away from her father’s latest wife. I thought back, straining to recall our brief conversation at the coffee shop. It was less than a week ago, but it felt like years.
“It’s so good to see you! How have you been?” I had asked. “Where have you been? Last I heard you were in . . . Denmark?”
“Estonia.”
“Estonia. Man, that must have been amazing . . .”
“Eh, it was all right. Pretty cold most of the time. Not really something I dug, you know? I like to be outside. I like the sun. Really wasn’t much sun there. Plus, after I left Taavi . . . ”
Taavi. That was his name. Did she tell me his last name? I continued to search my memory. We continued to creep along the interstate. Zane had opened the windows. The sounds of traffic filled the car. After a few more frustrating moments, I gave up. Maybe she had told me the name. I couldn’t remember. With nothing else to go on, I texted Jon.
‘Hey. Could you ask Sophie to look up Taavi? See if there’s a connection to Dr. Weisman?’
His reply was instant. ‘What the hell is Taavi?’
Before I could text a reply, he added: ‘More drugs?’
I groaned to myself. ‘No,’ I texted back. ‘Taavi was Natalie’s husband in Estonia.’
A few moments of silence passed. My phone beeped. ‘Why?’
I leaned against the seat. ‘Just check.’
‘FINE!’
He ended the text with an emoticon rolling its eyes at me.
Sighing, I dropped the phone in my lap. I stared out the window.
“What exactly is your plan here, Sherlock?” a male voice cut through my thoughts as quickly as he cut off a maroon Nissan Rogue.
I thought for a moment. I didn’t really have a plan. Usually, I just trusted my instincts. When it came to my line of work, they were usually reliable. It could have been due to my keen investigative skills. Or it could have been due to a whole lot of dumb luck. I liked to think it was the former. In reality, and based on my luck with this case, it may have been the latter.
“Why exactly are we going back to Barbie’s dream house?” He cut off a blue Toyota Camry. The Camry blared its horn. He flipped it off. “If this is just a hunch . . .”
I remained silent. I didn’t like having this jerk behind the wheel of the car or my case. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what I was about to encounter. Having back up, regardless of who, couldn’t hurt. I hoped. “I’m trying to find my friend.”
Another car horn filled my ears, followed by the sound of a loud crash. And then, another. And then, another. That same second, Zane, with his strong jaw clenched, slammed on the brakes. My head and neck shot forward. They came within inches of hitting the dashboard. When I looked up, I realized we were mere inches from hitting the bumper of a black Ford F250. I swallowed the lump in my throat. In its wake, I was left with a heavy feeling in my stomach. And a sense of gratitude for the inventor of seatbelts.
I don’t exactly know how I expected Zane to respond. His non-response was unnerving. The people in the three car pile-up, tried exiting their vehicles on I-10 to survey the damage. That was an almost impossible task on a good day, let alone during the holidays. Zane swiftly and silently pulled into the next lane. He sped off. I glanced at the clock. It was almost noon.
I couldn’t believe so much time had passed. I also couldn’t believe how little I had accomplished in that time. It was frustrating. It was frightening. Common sense told me I could still be overreacting. Maybe Natalie was fine. Cash had been shot, yes. Natalie was arguing with two men, sure. That didn’t mean that she had been kidnapped. Or that these were the same two men who shot Cash. Crimes happened in the Quarter every day. Assaults. Thefts. Even murders. It didn’t mean the two incidents were connected. Still . . .
“Ever thought of tracking?”
I blinked.
He glanced at me. He laughed at my confused expression. “You’ve never tracked anyone?”
My face flushed. “I’ve tracked people. It’s just not my go to strategy.”
“Too easy?”
“Those apps only work sometimes.” My face grew warmer. “Plus, there are other ways to find people.”
“Sure, Grandma,” he scoffed. “But for those of us living in the twenty-first century, there’s a little something called technology.”
He took the exit toward the service road leading to Metairie. I knew about the standard apps but none of those worked unless they were turned on. I searched my brain to figure out what app he could mean. He must have sensed my confusion. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“What’s her number?”
“I’m not giving you her number.”
“What am I going to do with it? Figure out where she lives? Break into her house? Steal her car?”
I rattled off the requested information.
He typed the number in his phone, his eyes never leaving the road.
“If you had this technology all this time, why didn’t you suggest it last night?”
He paused then shrugged. “Didn’t think about it.”
He sped down the exit ramp. Cutting the wheel, he turned onto the service road headed to Veterans Boulevard. Slamming on his brakes at a red light, he glanced down at the phone’s screen. He frowned.
“Your perfect app doesn’t work?”
“That can’t be right,” he muttered, his dark brow furrowing.
I failed to hide my smugness. “Never read a map?”
The light turned green. A dark-colored SUV behind us blared its horn. Zane pulled onto the side of the road. Without making eye contact with the driver, he flipped the man off. The driver blew past us. With his left hand still firmly on the horn, he offered a similar gesture with his right.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” I frowned as the SUV disappeared amid a sea of tail lights.
“Could you shut up?” he barked. “She’s between Napoleon and Terminal.”
My heart raced. “Are you sure?”
“I’m never wrong,” he replied without a pause. He glanced down at the phone again. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why? I know where Napoleon is, but where’s Terminal? By the river?” He didn’t reply. “Come on! Let’s go.”
25
Zane didn’t say a word as he sped off in that direction. He continued to type on his phone, glancing down at the screen every few seconds. It made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t want an argument to cause a wreck. He made a U-turn on Veterans with more close calls than a cabbie in Queens. I gritted my teeth. When his distracted driving on I-10 almost resulted in a head-on collision, I cried out.
“What the hell! Seriously! If you’re gonna mess with t
he phone, I’ll drive. I may not know where we’re going, but I can at least get us there in one piece.”
“You really can’t shut up.” He continued his manic maneuvering. His sudden urgency in finding Natalie was odd. He switched lanes without signaling, leaving me grateful for the observant driver we cut off. And for the car’s superior handling.
Lunchtime traffic crowded the lanes. That didn’t bother him. The blaring of horns and screeching brakes filled the vehicle with each reckless move he made. I wanted to grab his phone. I wanted to see what had him so bewildered. I wanted to stop him from continuous distractions. I wanted to live to see the new year. But past experience with stubborn men reminded me it would be better to lose the battle and live to win the war.
After another fifteen minutes of silence, we were finally back where it all started, the French Quarter. But instead of heading toward Royal and Bourbon, Zane continued along Canal until he found Tchoupitoulas. The further from downtown we got, the less crowded the roadways became. On the right side of the street was an endless array of shotgun houses, most whose paint was faded and chipped. On the left side, peeking between rows of warehouses and abandoned brick structures, I spotted multi-colored, stacked, cargo containers. I suddenly remembered the last time I had been in this area was during my first summer home from Brown.
“What do you want to do?” I had repeated to Heather for the five thousandth time.
We had both been home for less than a week. Neither of us could think of anything to do. I lay across the white duvet comforter on her twin bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the white fan blades turn. She sat at her desk typing. I glanced over. The sunlight streamed through her blinds. It covered her and the entire, espresso-colored desk with a bright glow.
“You do know we’re on summer break.”
“Yeah.” She continued to click the keyboard.
Simple Misconception (Jordan James, PI Series) Page 21
