“It’s an Easton reprint of The Turn of the Screw. There’s probably fifty of them on eBay.”
That’s all Flynne needed to know. With a car wheezing its way to St. Louis from Rockland, and an uncertain future ahead of her, Flynne had promised herself a day of gaming to relax her before the strain began again. Having Erika on her side made the whole protection detail so much easier.
Just as she raised the next iron gate, another player joined her. ReaperKeeper. “Hey, Reaps-keeps. How’s it going…?”
“Keep getting stuck here. Haven’t seen you in this level before, so I thought I’d step in and see if you know how to get past that cockatrice.”
And there it was—the classic rooster-headed dragon. “You’re getting too close. It can breathe on you.”
“Their breath kills?”
How’d you get, like, this far and not know that? Flynne didn’t ask, though. Instead, she suggested a mirror. “If you don’t have one, we’ll have to go find a rooster first.”
“There was that farm just a bit back before we hit the castle. I’ll run back for one.”
While Reaps dashed off, Flynne searched for something reflective. A silver tray would have worked well, but she couldn’t find anything large enough to ensure the nasty creature would see its own reflection. We’ll just have to hope that rooster crows.
Two hours later, with the cockatrice dead in the keep, and the two of them standing in the oratory, Flynne jumped when she heard Morgan say, “Make sure you have your sword ready.”
“Wha—? Oh! You’re back!” Flynne held up one finger and turned back to the game. “Sorry, Reaps. My boyfriend just got in from a trip out of town. He said to have your sword ready. I’m going to go. ttyl!”
“Later gator. Thanks for the help.”
With the game on pause, Flynne hopped up to greet Morgan and frowned at the expression he wore. “What’s wrong?”
“What’d that car look like? The one that made you decide to help Erika.
She blinked and backed away. “How do you know that?”
“Flynne…”
A vase that looked nice and expensive caught her attention. Flynne snatched it up and might have prayed it was worth thousands if she thought it would do any good. “I said, how do you know that?”
“You guys think you’re so clandestine about it all, but you forget I’m here half the time.”
As Flynne replaced the vase, she sighed. “Mark is so going to kill me. I’m out of a job for suresies.”
“Then move here with me.”
That stopped her in her tracks. “I thought you were moving to Rockland.”
“Only because you’re there.”
It was exactly what she wanted to hear, but it didn’t sound scripted. It sounded real. If the heat in her face meant anything, he’d know she liked it, too. “Oh.”
“What color, Flynne?”
“Why?”
She’d expected him to argue—to resist telling her about it. He didn’t. Instead, he launched into a story about seeing a car several times on his way back. “I saw a few, actually—but mostly minivans. This car, though… it was a sedan—a Mazda. I thought the driver was similar enough to be your guy. Not for sure, but close enough, you know?”
A chill rippled over her. “Did you make sure no one followed you off the interstate?”
“No one followed me here. I got off at the exit, grabbed a drink, got back on and drove all the way to Ferguson, came back to the mall, and then here. Didn’t see the car again after that minimart.”
His words should have reassured her. “Coolio.” They didn’t.
Twenty-Two
Perfect temperatures greeted Keith as he stepped off the bus in St. Louis. The backpack he’d bought at the Rockland station pulled just enough to aggravate his wound, but after being cramped up on the bus, moving around felt wonderful. All the way up 14th Street to Market. By that time, he could have taken a nap.
Still, he trudged along the sidewalks, hardly noticing the changes in buildings as he pushed toward where he thought the Gateway Arch would be. Walking’s good—prevents pneumonia.
It also delayed the moment he’d have to call for information. Had they found where Erika and Flynne were yet? Detective work wasn’t Keith’s strong suit. He was a protector, not an investigator. Tyler’s experience there meant that, with a few years in the field, he’d probably be the best agent they had.
Each block became harder to move than the last. A bus stop bench called to him, and the feeling that he’d started bleeding again prompted him to answer that call. He dropped to the seat, and a man on the opposite side told him when to expect the next bus.
“Just resting. I remember there being a few parks along here. I wanted to just sit for a bit, but I couldn’t make it.”
“You’re almost there. Just down another block and a half or so.”
A bus rumbled up and a few people jumped off. Keith just stared at a Sprint wireless ad. Prepaid with data. That would work. He’d have access… and no one expected him here anyway. As the bus rolled away, he turned to his bench mate. “How far is Washington?”
“Need a phone?” He must have shown surprise, because the guy grinned. “Saw you starin’. Yeah, you just go over a coupla streets and up a ways and there’s a Sprint store up there.”
Keith dug for his flip phone and wriggled it in the air. “I think it might be time to give this up and get in the twenty-first century.”
“Never had one of them things. Don’t trust ’em. Seems like all the TV shows use ’em to find people what don’t want to be found.”
And that was just his problem. Still, who would be looking for him? He was relatively unknown except by relatives who weren’t supposed to mention him much. Habit and instinct rebelled, though. I have to. I can’t afford the time to find libraries to communicate with Erika’s Twitter.
When a patrol car swept past for the second time, his bench mate pulled himself up and reached for his scruffy backpack. “That’s my signal to mosey on.”
Maybe it was foolish, but Keith couldn’t help but ask, “How are you fixed for money?”
“Got some. Not much, but some. People are good to me. I think it’s ’cause I don’t ask. That’s just pride, a-course. Still, I think folks like that I don’t badger them none.”
Worked on me. Keith dug his fist into his pocket, felt for a couple of bills, and prayed they’d be twenties. As he fished them out and passed them over, he saw a one on one of them and stifled a sigh. It wouldn’t do to dig again. As okay as the man seemed, you never knew. “I don’t usually carry much cash, but I have some today. You take care.”
The man had made it three steps before he turned back and thrust one of the bills back at him. “Can’t take this, man. It’s too much. Don’t think you knew you gave it to me.”
In his fist was a hundred-dollar bill. Keith rose as well, hefted his own backpack, and turned toward the Sprint store. “You keep it. I’m fine.”
Two steps away, he found himself crushed by stronger arms than he’d have predicted. His chest protested the hug, pain shooting daggers through him over and over. “Thanks, man. I’ll pass it along—forward, like they say. You can count on that.”
Any doubts he had disappeared as he walked away. Now, to a phone and a new Twitter account
Tagged in a tweet. It was the first time that had happened since she left HearthLand. @Erikaff2 #gotyourback.
The name wasn’t familiar, but no one could doubt who “@ErikaFanBoy” was. “Hey, Flynne. Check it out.”
Flynne hardly looked up from the screen where she, Morgan, and their new friend “ReaperKeeper” were battling some dragon with more than one head—the Medusa of dragons, Morgan had called it. “What am I looking at?”
“Not looking at is more like it. I think Keith just left me a message. I think he’s here.”
Never had she seen Flynne move faster. The controller and headset lay abandoned on the couch at almost the same moment she flung
herself at the window. “For realsies? He’s good!” After scanning the street, she frowned. “Where?”
Erika coughed. “The monitor?”
“Oh.” She wasn’t certain, but Erika thought she heard Flynne mutter, “I’m so embarrified.”
A silent cry went out to the Lord, begging for puff-filled brownie points for not bopping the girl for it. “Look. Says he has our back. That’s got to mean he’s here, right?”
“You’d know better than me, but coolio. Maybe I’m totes fired and stuffs.”
Most people didn’t sound so gleeful when speaking of losing their jobs. Erika couldn’t blame her, though. Evading and protecting others from would-be nefarious dudes wasn’t exactly in her performance plan.
“That handle is adorbilicious.”
As much as she hated to admit it, she agreed. In her peripheral vision, Erika watched Morgan fumble with his phone. A moment later, he passed it to Flynne with truly the most adorable, sheepish smile she’d ever seen. Flynne almost flung the phone at her and turned to focus all attention on the new love of her life.
May the spit-swapping commence. Erika wrinkled her nose and began to ponder when she’d become her father when she saw the screen. A reply had been added to Keith’s tweet. A reply from @FallingForFlynne. It read simply, #nomorerogue.
Desperate to get on track for solving the problem of protection and off the burgeoning make out session, Erika asked, “Can we post a place to meet? Say something like ‘hungry for St. Louis Bread Company’ and hope he finds where we’re going or something?”
Morgan protested. “Too public. You’d be better off just sending a direct message. Keep it minimal. Something like, ‘Sorry, can’t make it to your party. Forgot I had to be at the courthouse at five.’”
Both girls stared at him for a moment before Erika gave a low whistle and said, “You’re not bad at this.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Of all the responses he could have offered, an argument wouldn’t have occurred to her. “It’s pretty obvious. Anyone with hacker skills will find this stuff. Flynne could inside half an hour if she had her equipment.”
Flynne’s wince hinted he wasn’t wrong.
“But you’re still thinking right. Your idea at least requires more work than a public hashtag.”
An argument regarding where they should hint at a meet commenced. Flynne voted for the mall, certain Knupp wouldn’t expect them to go back. Erika refused. “We can’t be sure of that.”
While they bickered, Morgan took the phone and, as far as Erika could tell, made the choice for them. It’s kind of a relief, but who does he think he is?
“Looks like he might be near the arch.”
“Why do you say that?”
She and Flynne nearly conked heads as he held the phone up for them to see. “Because he took a picture of it—from awfully close?”
“So, what’s near there?”
Morgan considered for a moment and typed something into the phone. He passed it back to Flynne, who nodded and shared with Erika. Sorry we can’t make it to the picnic at Malcolm Martin Park tonight. Really wanted to see that fountain, but we have a minor emergency that needs medical attention. Maybe next time.
She grinned and hit send, but that grin faded a moment later. “Um, guys?”
Flynne tore her adoring eyes from Morgan. “Yeah?”
“Maybe we should scope out that fountain early.”
“Why?”
Her heart raced as Erika tried to gather her wits. “Just saw Brent Knupp drive by.”
“Come on, come on, come on…” Tyler would have thrown the monitor if somehow it would have made the relay go faster. Despite every effort to ignore it, the Twitter handle drew his gaze. @FallingForFlynne.
“It’s just Erika reassuring me that things are okay. Pretty smart.”
His gut told him otherwise. With every second that passed, his hand pushed the mouse closer to the name. Just a few clicks would verify it—when the account was created, old names… Conversational reversal would tell all in seconds if an old name had kept old tweets.
And he was too chicken to do it.
For testing purposes only, of course, Tyler worked on hacking into Keith’s account. At least he’d used password protocol. That made things so much easier. Seeing a direct message from EriKaff2 didn’t.
“Come on!”
The first blip of a ring sounded the moment Tyler clicked on @FallingForFlynne. As he answered, his gut twisted at the picture that appeared. Flynne’s gaming group all surrounding one guy. “Morgan.”
“Haven’t changed to that name yet, why?”
“It’s a he.”
Mark’s voice sounded as confused as Tyler felt. “I bought a list of recently purchased cars. One was from a guy from St. Louis. Morgan Garnett.”
“Morgan—a guy? I thought it was a girl.”
“That makes two of us. He’s got a new handle on Twitter.” Tyler swallowed a gulp of water before spitting out, “FallingForFlynne.”
“Feel sorry for him.”
That was unexpected. “Why’s that?”
“She’d have to do what she had to do to protect Erika, and if it means making up to a friend, she’d do it. This is Flynne. You know she would.”
And he’ll be a casualty. Poor guy.
“So, what do you have for me?”
Business first, heart resuscitation later. “Well, this is what I know. Morgan, the gaming house guy, came to Rockland and bought a Toyota Echo. I suspect he’s back in St. Louis by now. He also changed his name from Morgan underscore Garnett underscore 1990 to FallingForFlynne—all one word, of course—likely since then.”
“And?”
Tyler continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Keith has arrived in St. Louis. When I saw him post on Twitter, I went and checked his credit history. He opened an account with Sprint today—at the store closest to Gateway Arch, according to Google. Since then, he’s opened a Twitter account as ErikaFanBoy and posted a hashtag of ‘got your back.’”
“Good… don’t suppose he hinted how he’s doing?”
“Nope. But he got a message from Erika’s account that says they can’t meet at some park… hang on, forgot to check…” The park came up and Tyler nodded to no one in particular. “Okay, it’s directly across from the Gateway Arch on the Illinois side. Anyway, some medical emergency.”
“Think it’s a meet time?”
After reading it a time or two more, Tyler set the Newton’s cradle in motion and gave his verdict. “Yeah.”
“What time?”
Before he answered, Tyler put the phone on speaker to protect his ears. “No time mentioned—just ‘tonight.’”
The move proved unnecessary. As irritated as Mark sounded, he didn’t yell. “If that was Keith, I’d dock his pay. Instead, I’m impressed Flynne thought of it.”
“Bet it was Erika.” Just saying the words felt disloyal, but Tyler trudged on. “She’s done this before, you know? Even from the other side of the job, it’s more than Flynne has.”
“Get ahold of Keith. Tell him to have a van waiting—cargo. He’ll extract them. Then tell him to get them to Cape Girardeau. Have a helo there waiting. They can go to the Oregon house.”
“What about Liv Todd? Should we get her there, too?”
The silence hinted at a no, but Mark started making murmuring sounds. “Yeah… yeah. Good thought. Send Karen and Brian with Liv to Cape Girardeau. They can all do Oregon. And get Flynne back in the office. I think the Todds might need a new life.”
Tyler winced but had to ask. “Can we afford it? Way more money going out than in right now.”
“This one’s my fault. I have to. While you’re at it all, make sure the Shins have nothing to report. That’ll give us a good idea if Flynne’s covered our tracks well enough.” After another few seconds, Mark added, “And check Flynne’s Cayman account.”
“To see if it’s been accessed?”
“Yes.”
He
sat almost mesmerized by the bouncing metal balls, but his instincts asked the next obvious question. “Anything else?”
“Get me an update on Schmatloch. Go through Rickwood. Traffic light protocol should be sufficient.”
With that, the phone went dead, and Tyler went to work.
Twenty-Three
In a family room the size of Erika’s parents’ house, or so it seemed, she stood there and watched as Flynne made a dozen decisions and rescinded each one almost as soon as she’d made it. “What if we head toward that park, and at the last minute, don’t get on the bridge? We leave a message about meeting at the water tower in Chicago in like an hour or so?”
Morgan argued that she’d overcomplicated things, something Erika agreed with. Flynne countered with a scheme so elaborate it would be impossible for her to remember what sequence to do what in. Only the soft, muffled wail of, “I just want Mark to see that I did my best to save her,” kept Erika from losing what little patience she had left.
“I know what Keith would do.”
That got their attention.
“Morgan will bring your new car to the side entrance. I’ll get in the back and sneak out the other side when Morgan opens the door to throw in luggage. Then, I’ll sneak around back, and we’ll drive off in his car. He’ll go toward the mall. We’ll go to the park.”
As much as Flynne seemed to want to do it, she also seemed skeptical. Erika sent a glare Morgan’s way, and he caught the point. “I think that sounds smart. I’ll just come back this way in an hour or so, and you guys can go back to Rockland.”
Discomfort followed. Morgan shuffled. Flynne made a strangled sound which could have been anything from a repressed cough to a stifled sob. Once again, it was up to Erika to make the decision. “Do you want to prove yourself to Mark or not?”
Once more, Flynne perked up. “Yeah. Okay, so we’ll just drive off in Morgan’s car?”
“If we’re meeting Keith, you’ll have to tie me up—gag me. But yeah.” Even as she spoke, Erika blasted herself. What kind of idiot asks to be bound and gagged. It’s insanity!
“But why?”
While she explained the reasons Keith had given, Erika began picking up the mess they’d made in Mr. Werner’s house. “It’s not even for an hour. You don’t have to even really gag me. Just put a sock ball in my mouth, so if I scream accidentally, it’s muffled. That’ll be enough.”
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