Jackpot

by Mairsile Leabhair

  “Thanks,” she said and hurried down to aisle seven. Damn, they had a lot of different kinds.” She looked at each one and then spotted the exact model that was used on her car. She compared the prices with the trackers displayed higher up on the shelf. Thirty-five dollars? I’m surprised that piece of shit even worked. She picked up the most expensive brand and carried it to the counter. Paying with cash, she went back to Tobias’s car and got in. Ripping open the plastic covering, she examined the tracker and then read the instructions. The tracker was more of a square but not any larger than the one that had been on her car. It had a magnet on one side and a flat, round battery, unlike the other one which took a double A battery. She pulled out her cell phone and synced her Bluetooth with the tracker. Immediately, it sent a report telling her where she was. “Perfect.”

  Driving across town, or as she thought of it, sputtering loudly across town, she felt like apologizing to those who were downwind of her. I wonder if Tobias would be offended if I offered to buy him a car. Kenny’s mouth gaped open. What a great idea! I’ll buy them all a new cars as a way to thank them. If she played Oprah and bought each of them a new car, all at the same time, they couldn’t possibly be offended... could they? Maybe she could have Ellen DeGeneres present them. Her assistant had called, asking if Kenny would like to be on the show. She wasn’t interested in flying to LA at the time. She was having too much fun in Vegas. She did have the common courtesy to call the show and explain that her grandmother needed surgery, and she didn’t want to commit to anything until after that was done. It wasn’t an outright lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. At that time, Deirdre’s surgery was a month away. Yeah, that’s just what I’ll do. You get a car! Kenny pointed at the windshield. And you get a car! And you get another car, Grandma!

  She pulled up in the employee parking lot of the recycling plant and parked. Opening the glove compartment, she pulled out the baseball cap that Chelsey had put back in when she was finished with it. The cap looked different somehow, though it was exactly the same. It smelled different, too. In fact, she had never noticed the smell until she got a whiff of Chelsey’s perfume. And you get a car, Chelsey. She put the cap on and jumped out of the car. Now, how to find Ted’s car without him knowing it.

  “Kenny, is that you?” Amanda asked as she walked across the parking lot.

  Damn. I didn’t get very far. “Amanda, how have you been?” Think quickly.

  “I’ve been better. But what about you?” She looked behind Kenny at Tobias’s car. “Did you already spend all that money?”

  “Nah, just didn’t want to draw attention to myself. It looks as bad as Ted’s car, doesn’t it?”

  Amanda turned around and looked at a shiny Chevy in immaculate shape. “Are you kidding? No offense, but his car is an antique and worth a lot more than your… um, car.”

  Kenny grinned. Her ploy had worked perfectly because Amanda was all about the money. She walked over to Ted’s car and looked at it as if she were shopping for another car. “It is a nice-looking classic,” she admitted as she walked around to the other side. She kicked the tires and bent down, quickly placing the tracker inside above the driver’s side front tire. Then she popped up again and walked over to Amanda. “Yep, nice car indeed. Well, have to go. Take care, Amanda.”

  A self-satisfied grin filled her face as she jumped into her borrowed car, turned the key, and sputtered down the road. She looked to see if she were being followed, but it was hard to tell with the exhaust smoke polluting the road behind her.

  Kenny ran into the house and down to the game room. “Hey, are you using this computer?” she asked Chelsey as she gave Tobias his keys back. There were three computers and the laptop set up, but she wanted to keep the laptop mobile and she was running facial recognition on one, while Tobias was running a trace on the perp’s tracker.

  “No, help yourself,” Chelsey offered. “There’s not much I can do with the prints I found until I can access the database.”

  “Damn, you found fingerprints?” Kenny asked incredulously. She had been sure that there wouldn’t be any.

  “Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably the mechanic at the dealership when he serviced the car before you bought it.”

  Nodding, Kenny hid her disappointment and sat down at the computer. She showed Tobias the packaging to the tracker she put on Ted’s car. “Can you tell me how to pull this up on the computer?”

  “Sure, see the link at the bottom of the package there? Type it in a browser then entered the code on the package. That will be your prey.”

  “My prey, huh. The hunted hunting the hunter.”

  “The tracker tracking the uh… tracker,” Chelsey said and then shrugged.

  “Nice try,” Kenny quipped with a chuckle.

  *

  Missing her grandmother, Kenny was glad to have company for dinner. They had gathered around the dining room table sharing a smorgasbord of Chinese delivery for supper. Her friends were smiling, chatting, and laughing, and Kenny felt like she was with family. Her grandmother would love it, having all these people at the dinner table

  “Pass the shrimp spring rolls, please,” Tobias said, reaching his hand out in anticipation. Sophie handed him the white cardboard basket. “Thanks.” He grabbed a roll and handed the box back. “So, Kenny, any hits yet on your perp’s tracker?”

  Kenny shook her head and picked up one of her chopsticks. “No, he went from work to a bar and then home.”

  “How do you know all that?” Sophie asked.

  “I’m using Google maps to track him,” she replied, stabbing a spring roll with a chopstick.

  “It can do that?” Sophie questioned.

  “Sí, Mamá. Google sees everything. Probably looking at us right now from outer space,” Tobias teased.

  “Don’t be a sabelotodo,” Sophie warned.

  “It’s not just my ass that’s smart, Mamá.”

  Chelsey looked across at Kenny and laughed.

  Kenny winked and picked up her diet soda and held it out to Tobias. “Here’s to our asses and to the women who pay an extraordinary amount of time talking about them.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Tobias responded and lifted his glass.

  “You two are just being silly,” Sophie reproached.

  12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Day Three after the Kidnapping

  They sat at the bar in the game room most of the night making up different scenarios about the kidnapping, while they watched the computers run the searches. The only thing that made sense to every scenario outcome was that there had to be more than one kidnapper, which only added to the stress of finding out who they were. Tobias finally left around eleven, and Sophie went to bed shortly after that.

  Chelsey had taken the single fingerprint found on Kenny’s car and added it to a card that she scanned into the computer. She printed it out and taped it to the evidence wall. It had a big red question mark beside it. Then she went back and examined the print in the microscope for the third time. She’d hoped something unique would jump out at her, like a scar or a crooked line in the skin. Nothing did.

  Kenny moved over to the computer that was running the facial recognition program and willed the program to work faster. She glanced over at Tobias’s unit and grimaced at the message. IP address not found. He was running searches for the two text messages she had received from the kidnapper.

  The computer she was using dinged, startling her. “Oh, my God! It found a match,” she exclaimed, clicking on the program and bringing up the match.

  “Well, who is it?” Chelsey asked, rushing over to stand beside Kenny.

  Kenny’s face fell as her frustration grew. “I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand? Is that the kidnapper?” Chelsey asked, leaning closer to the monitor.

  “No, damn it!” Kenny exclaimed, pointing at the face on the monitor. “That’s my Grandma.”

  “Huh? Now I don’t understand.”

  “She
took her own damn picture.” Kenny jumped up, raking her fingers through her hair. “Grandma took a selfie.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe the program got it wrong?”

  “See that picture that the program matched it to? That’s from Grandma’s Facebook page.”

  “But Kenny, the reflection rendering you did. Wouldn’t you have recognized her from that first?”

  “Apparently not,” Kenny said sarcastically. “What kind of granddaughter am I when I can’t even recognize my own grandma? A shitty one, that’s what kind.” Kenny walked over to the throw pillows Sophie had placed along the wall and collapsed against one. “My grandma is going to die and it’s all my fault.”

  Chelsey was taken aback by the self-loathing and pain coming from Kenny’s lips. Kenny was strong, funny, determined, but the woman who sat slumped against the wall was breaking apart in front of her eyes.

  “Now you listen to me, Makenna Whitt,” Chelsey demanded as she marched over and stood in front of her. “I haven’t known you for very long but you’re no quitter, so this defeatist act has got to go.”

  “It’s not an act,” Kenny informed her, keeping her eyes focused on the pillows.

  “The hell it isn’t. You’ve had a setback, that’s all. Your grandmother is still out there and she needs you to find her.”

  “Where out there? I’ve got nothing! No clues, no evidence, no trail to follow. We’re coming up on the second day and I haven’t got a damn, motherfucking thing.”

  “You’re completely wrong,” Chelsey replied, sitting down beside her. “You’ve got Sophie and Tobias and me, and together we make a damn good team. Plus, you’ve got the fingerprints I found on your car. Tobias hasn’t given up on finding out who sent the texts, and Sophie… well, Sophie would be the first to tell you to knock that shit off.”

  Kenny chuckled and finally looked at Chelsey. “Yes, she would.”

  “And I’ve seen your charm, I know you’ll have the commissioner eating out of your hand at the party, so just hang on a bit longer, okay?”

  Kenny fixated on a freckle on Chelsey’s arm and ran a finger over it as she asked, “Will you go to the party as my date?”

  “Oh, well, I planned to help Sophie with it.”

  “No, I mean on my arm, beside me as I greet people and play hostess. Sophie won’t have that much to do anyway. I hired an event coordinator for that other stuff.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, it’s supposed to be about you, and I would only get in the way of that.”

  “You would make me look one-hundred percent better and smarter, I guarantee it.”

  “See, that’s the charm I’m talking about. Irresistible.”

  Smiling, Kenny nudged her shoulder. “So, you’ll be my date?”

  “I want to, I really do.” Chelsey sighed. “But I don’t have the kind of clothes for a party like that.”

  “Today. You don’t have a dress today, but tomorrow my event coordinator will be here to discuss the party. I’ll ask her to bring some dresses for you to try on. Oh, unless you want to wear pants. That’s perfectly all right, too.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “I picked up a tailor-made Armani suit when I was in Vegas. Black slacks and jacket with a dark purple silk shirt and—”

  “Oh, is purple your favorite color, too?”

  Simple things like Chelsey knowing her favorite color began to lift Kenny’s heart. “Yes, it is. See, fate is telling you that you are meant to be my date.”

  “I would be proud to be your date, Kenny, regardless of what color your shirt is. And I’ll make sure that we complement each other. Oh…” She looked up at Kenny’s hair. “But I’m not dying my hair green to match yours.”

  “Not to worry, fair maiden. I’m going back to my natural color. But after the party, look out. I might try purple hair next.”

  They kept working and after a while Chelsey yawned and stretched her shoulders. “What time is it?”

  Kenny dug the phone from her jeans pocket. “It’s a little after midnight— Oh, God. I just got another text.”

  Another day, another five million dollars. Twenty-five big ones, cha-ching.

  Chapter Nine

  “Here, I’m going to print this out and study it,” Kenny said, jumping up, nearly knocking Chelsey to the floor. She turned and held a hand out. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, just do what you need to do.”

  Kenny nodded and walked over to the computer. She tapped send on the text and sent it to the printer. As soon as it printed out, she picked it up, tore off a piece of tape, and walked over to the evidence wall, taping the photo next to the others. Picking up the marker, she wrote Day Three above the photo.

  “This one is a wide angle shot with no distinguishing marks on the wall. No windows or pictures, either.” Kenny began detailing the photograph, examining it with a discerning eye.

  Chelsey bounced up and rushed to the laptop at the bar. She woke up the laptop and began transcribing as Kenny talked.

  “Her face tells me that she’s still pissed, but in control.” Kenny stepped closer to the wall. “I don’t see a reflection in her glasses this time, but I’m going to render it anyway, just in case. Her hands… wait...” She pulled the picture down and turned to Chelsey. “When you hold a piece of paper you usually hold it like this.” Demonstrating, she held the corners of the photo with her fingers. “Grandma’s hands are turned in a weird way. Her right hand has two fingers over the paper and her left hand is forming the sign for okay.”

  Chelsey looked up, studying the picture. “Wait. That’s not it. She’s signing H and O. Does your grandmother know sign language?”

  “Yes! You’re right, that’s it. She took a class in sign language after a deaf patient came into the administration office angry and upset because no one could understand her. It took a while for the social worker to send an interpreter and that frustrated the patient even more. After that, Grandma decided she would be prepared for the next time. She was always trying to teach it to me, but if you don’t use it, you lose it. Most of it anyway. I remember some of the alphabet.” Kenny hung the photo back on the wall. “So, how do you know sign language?”

  “My little brother was born deaf.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kenny said.

  “Don’t be. He’s the smartest one of us all. He’s going to be the first deaf president of the United States.”

  “I’d vote for him,” Kenny stated.

  Grinning, Chelsey said, “I’ll hold you to that.” Nodding back at the photograph on the wall, she asked, “So, what do you think she’s trying to spell out? The kidnapper’s name, maybe?”

  “Or where she’s at,” Kenny added. “The obvious being the hospital, but we checked there already.”

  “You’re right,” Chelsey agreed. “What about Hot Springs. It’s the closest town that has those letters in it. It’s an hour from here. Would they have had enough time?”

  Kenny’s grandfather loved to bet the ponies in Hot Springs, better known as Spa City because of its thermal springs. He would tell her stories about the shootout at the old Hot Springs corral, taking some liberty with the Wyatt Earp story. There was no corral but the Hot Springs shootout in 1899 was real, and it was between peace officers, not good versus bad guys.

  “Yeah, it’s a possibility but then so is Holly Grove. No, my gut is telling me that she’s still here in Little Rock. We just have to figure out where.”

  “Something keeps nagging at me,” Chelsey admitted. “Why is your grandmother still angry in this photo? Is she normally so indignant?”

  “Good question. And no, she’s not. She’s fun, loving, and very personable. She’s the type who would hug a stranger simply because they looked like they needed one.”

  “Do you think it’s another clue then, like the sign language?” Chelsey asked as she walked over and stood beside Kenny.

  “Possibly. The last time Grandma had that look on her face was when I came in after
curfew on a school night. She gave me the ‘be responsible’ speech that she’s still giving me today. She was always afraid that I’d turn to drugs like my mother had.”

  “And did you? Take drugs, I mean.”

  “No, I never did,” Kenny replied. “When Grandpa was killed in the war, I took his death pretty hard. You know that Purple Heart I showed you in the picture?” Chelsey nodded. “I was only ten years old but Grandma gave that medal to me after his funeral because of the grief I was going through. She made sure that I grew up knowing what an honor that was and that honor was a choice, not a privilege. I choose to honor my grandfather by never taking drugs.”

  Chelsey was silent. Her brow was furrowed, her face pensive.

  “Sounds weird, I know,” Kenny said hesitantly.

  Chelsey gazed at Kenny for a moment as her eyes glistened with tears. She leaned in close and kissed her lightly on the lips, rubbing her thumb across Kenny’s cheek.

  Kenny felt her start to pull away but she wanted more. She slipped her hand under Chelsey’s hair, cupping the nape of her neck, pulling her closer. Chelsey groaned as Kenny savored her lips, emboldened as they grew hot under her touch. When Chelsey parted her lips invitingly, Kenny delved in and probed her mouth, pleased when she heard Chelsey sigh again. She took the kiss deeper as she drew her closer. Her taste was intoxicating and Kenny was quickly becoming drunk with desire. Oh, God. I want you so bad. No one had ever affected her so fast or so hard. Common sense told her this was not the time, but her hormones had other ideas and they were quickly dominating her desires. Her heart began to beat faster as her brain slipped into a realm of want, need, and lust. “Chelsey.”

  “Kenny,” Chelsey moaned into her mouth.

  A dull headache began to form in the back of Kenny’s head, but this was no ordinary headache. In this situation, it was her sign that the pressure was building between her legs and soon she’d lose control completely. She pulled away sharply.

  Chelsey, stepped back, breathless and confused.