Dead and Gone

by Jack Patterson

  Time to fly.

  He procured his boarding pass and headed toward the terminal. Upon entering the security line, Cal turned around to see if the man was still following him. He chuckled to himself as he noticed the man had purchased a newspaper and was peering above it in Cal’s direction.

  I hope this works.

  Cal followed security protocol and was standing on the other side of the checkpoint in a matter of seconds without incident. Another quick glance. The man was still there.

  Cal checked his watch. Forty minutes until the flight was scheduled to take off. He hustled toward the gate and almost immediately his zone was called to board.

  Once he showed his ticket to the gate attendant, he lumbered down the jetway until it stalled out a few feet from the door.

  “Happens every time,” a passenger in front of him grumbled.

  “Excuse me?” Cal said.

  “Oh, these lines. Nobody ever pays much attention to the announcements on how to help expedite the boarding process. It’s ridiculous.”

  Cal nodded and smiled. “Are you a Panthers’ fan?” he asked, pointing to the man’s hat.

  “You know it. You headin’ home, too?”

  “Can’t stay away from the Queen City for too long,” Cal answered.

  Moments later, the line resumed moving as the passengers plodded toward their seats.

  Cal stole a look at the man’s boarding pass. He was seated in a center seat on a row of three, while Cal had the aisle seat on the emergency row.

  The line stalled again and Cal’s new friend turned over his shoulder and said, “Another genius trying to cram his carry-on in the wrong way. How difficult is it for people to understand what ‘wheels first’ means? Geez.”

  Cal bobbed his head. “First they make us cram our stuff in here, then they shoehorn us in. Crazy. Where have they got you today?”

  “Middle seat,” the man said before groaning.

  “Well, how about I make your day?”

  “Oh?”

  Cal grabbed his shoulder. “I recently injured my arm while golfing and know that I’d be absolutely worthless in the event of a water landing where I’d have to open the door for everyone. I’m in the emergency row. Wanna trade?”

  The man turned all the way around. “You’re serious?”

  “As a heart attack.”

  “Well, if you’re offering, I’m totally down for it. I’ve been dreading this flight all week for that very reason.”

  “I don’t mind—and I’d feel terribly guilty if I couldn’t get the door open for anyone.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Cal offered his boarding pass to the man, who gave him a quizzical look. “Just in case the flight attendants question us.”

  They swapped boarding passes and continued to their new seats.

  Cal’s original seat was farther back than his new one, but he doubted the guy minded since Charlotte was his final destination—and they had a four-hour flight ahead of them.

  For the next fifteen minutes, passengers finished filing on the plane until it was full. One of the flight attendants made the announcement that the doors were about to close.

  It’s now or never.

  Cal pressed his call button and swung into action—short breaths and flailing hands, followed up with a dramatic outburst.

  “I’m gonna die. We’re all gonna die. I need to get off this plane,” he shouted.

  Two flight attendants rushed toward him. “Sir, are you all right?”

  “Do I look all right? I’m going to die if I stay on this plane.”

  “Sir, I can assure you that these planes are safe.”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. Get me off of here right now!”

  “Grab your stuff and follow me,” one of the flight attendants said.

  Cal grabbed his carry-on suitcase and computer bag and followed her. He continued the charade until he was standing outside the gate.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I have a fear of flying. My doctors said I was cured, but I never believed them. Sorry to cause so much trouble.”

  The woman shook her head and touched his arm. “It’s okay, honey. You keep seeing that therapist. You’ll make it back on one day without incident.”

  Cal nodded and mouthed “thank you” again to the woman before heading toward the exit.

  ***

  THE MAN ADJUSTED his red cap and stared at the woman behind the counter. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me,” he said. “I’ve got a friend who was supposed to be on a flight headed for Charlotte. Can you tell me if he got on the plane?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t divulge that kind of information due to privacy laws.”

  He slammed his hands on the counter. “I’ve got a brother who has a severe phobia of flying and I wanted to see if he actually made it on a flight tonight.”

  The agent sighed. “Which one?”

  “Flight 362 to Charlotte.”

  “Just a second.” She typed furiously on the keyboard before her screen revealed something. “What’s the name?”

  “Cal Murphy.”

  “Let me see.” She banged away on the keyboard until she scribbled down a few notes. “It’s a full flight and every seat is taken.”

  “And he’s on there?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. He thought he’d noticed Cal walking past. He did a double take and he was gone.

  “Yep.”

  He started to leave before she blurted out something else.

  “No, wait. Oh, yes. He’s on there. Someone else got off the flight with a panic attack, but it wasn’t him.”

  She hadn’t finished her sentence before he darted down the concourse in the direction he thought he’d seen Cal walking. He wove in and out of passengers in search of Cal. He ran outside toward the shuttle bus bay and scanned the line of passengers.

  Nothing.

  He sprinted toward the front of the line and watched one of the buses begin to roll. Running down the side, he strained to see inside the tinted windows.

  Then he noticed Cal.

  CHAPTER 38

  OWEN BURNS FINISHED HIS DINNER and returned to the hotel, with little conversation. It wasn’t unusual for him to go quiet on the night before a race. He always had plenty on his plate and his crew gave him all the space he needed to process and ponder what needed to take place in order to achieve the best finish on the track. But Burns’ mind was anywhere but on the track tonight.

  He washed up in his room before he decided to meander downstairs for a drink.

  Burns sat down at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Slumped over his glass, he stared at the liquid and wondered how he’d ended up here, in this place, in this moment, in this stage of his life. He’d made friendships that would endure long after he left the sport. And one of those friends was gone, likely at the hands of someone else he believed to be his friend. It made him sick to think about.

  “You look like you could use some company,” a woman said as she slipped onto the seat next to him.

  Burns didn’t look up. “I could use another drink.”

  “Rough night?”

  Burns recognized the fishing expedition the woman was on. He refused to bite.

  “Rough week.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  Burns grunted and signaled for the bar tender to get him another drink.

  “If it’s all the same to you, lady, I prefer to be left alone. Got a lot on my mind.”

  She put her hands in surrender and slipped down the bar next to another unaccompanied man staring at his drink.

  “Desperation is so unattractive,” a woman whispered into his ear.

  He turned around and saw Alexa Jennings.

  “Who peed in your cornflakes?”

  He took another sip and set his glass down. “Todd Cashman. The jerk won’t let me check out the video footage from his truck.”

  “And you thought he’d just hand it over?”

 
“I held out hope that there was a sliver of humanity left in the man.”

  She scooted out the bar stool next to him and sat down. “You put far too much stock in your fellow humans. Don’t you know everyone is prone to let you down—especially Cashman.”

  Burns shook his head. “My plea to help us quickly turned into how the revelation of such news would ruin his image and detract from his victory. He declined—and not so gracefully either.”

  “So, what are you gonna do now? Do you still need my help?”

  “We’re gonna get that tape—and you’re gonna help me do it right now.”

  She stood up. “I’ll get my coat.”

  Burns waved her off. “You won’t need your coat.”

  CHAPTER 39

  CAL FISHED HIS CAP out of his bag and pulled it down low on his face. He donned his jacket and pulled the collar up. The less recognizable, the better. By his best calculations, he only needed to disguise his face for another ten minutes before he could get his own transportation again.

  He slumped into his seat on the open-air shuttle and scanned his fellow passengers’ faces. With the images of his attackers seared into his memory, he’d know it if he saw them.

  Seated in the middle of the shuttle, he glanced left. A pair of couples relived their exciting week in Phoenix and discussed how much money they won at the blackjack tables—and they wanted to share these memories with everyone else on the bus.

  Cal glanced right. A loner in tattered jeans hugged his guitar case. Two men dressed in suits typed furiously on their smart phones.

  Cal relaxed and began to wonder how sophisticated the people tailing him were. Did they bug his phone? Did they put a GPS tracker on him? He couldn’t be sure, but he doubted it. If they were more high tech than he surmised, he hoped incompetence or laziness would supersede their capacity to find him.

  His phone buzzed. It was Kelly.

  He wanted to answer it and tell her that he was okay—for now. But he didn’t want to reveal to anyone that he was on the lam, even if he felt like he’d correctly profiled the shuttle’s passengers.

  Cal touched the screen and sent the call straight to voicemail.

  She’ll forgive me later.

  The bus made a hard right and lurched upward toward the drop-off point outside the car rental terminal. Once the bus stopped, Cal waited as passengers boxed him in while reaching for their luggage. He exited the bus and headed for one of the terminals downstairs.

  Cal’s palms began to sweat as he walked downstairs. If Cal had a rap sheet, it would’ve looked harmless enough. Breaking and entering in college for a prank on a classmate, dash and dine on a dare, failure to pay a parking ticket. And though none of them earned him any jail time or even a note on his record since he’d never been caught, he considered what he was about to do—and what would happen if he did indeed get caught this time.

  His cadence down the steps felt ominous to him. Something bad was about to happen—he just hoped it wasn’t going to happen to him. But at this point, he felt as if there was no other choice.

  In the bowels of the car rental garage, Cal identified one of the understaffed, discounted outfits. He recognized it as a startup company hoping to wedge its way into an already saturated market. By the looks of it, he figured they wouldn’t be around much longer. The cars were already five deep and there was only one person processing harried customers, who were itching to get to the airport for their departure flights.

  Perfect.

  Cal snuck closer and laid his luggage around a corner, out of sight. He pulled out his cell phone and began tapping on it as he approached the woman at the end of the line. She huffed and stamped her foot as she looked around for someone to help her.

  “Turning your car in, ma’am?” Cal asked coolly.

  She sighed. “Finally. Yes, I’m ready to go.”

  “Are the keys in the ignition?”

  She cut her eyes toward him. “This isn’t the first time I’ve rented a car, bucko.”

  “Why don’t I just email you your receipt and you can be on your way?”

  “Fine. Can you help me with my bags?”

  Cal forced a smile and hoisted the woman’s overweight luggage onto the ground. He pulled up the handle for her. She jammed a rolled-up dollar bill into his hand.

  “Thank you,” he said. He pretended to check the odometer and tap on his cell phone until she disappeared into the elevator.

  A whole dollar?

  Cal jumped into the car and started to drive. He didn’t get more than ten feet before the customer who had been in front of the woman banged on his window. “What about me? I was here first,” the man said as he threw his hands up.

  Cal swerved around him and turned the corner. He put the car in park and darted out to get his belongings. Then he was back in the car, heading toward the exit.

  It was the perfect crime since no one would know the car had been stolen—at least, not until a certain woman called about a missing receipt. But by then, it’d be safely back in the rental car company’s possession with a head-scratcher of a riddle to solve.

  Cal gunned it through a large swath of empty spaces. He whipped around a corner and was forced to hit the brakes.

  The man who’d been following him to the airport stood in front of his car with his gun trained on Cal.

  CHAPTER 40

  INSIDE THE SAFE ROOM, Kelly pressed her feet against the door and leaned hard into the wall behind her. She called Cal again for the tenth time—or maybe the twelfth. By this point, she’d lost count.

  Come on, come on. Pick up the phone!

  Straight to voicemail—again.

  This is getting old, Cal.

  She ended the call and rubbed her face with both hands. With a deep breath, she tried to regain her composure. It wasn’t an easy task given that someone was staked out just down the street watching her—and that he was now missing from his car. The fact that Cal had lost his job over some ridiculous accusations didn’t help either. She wanted to punch somebody.

  Kelly looked at the monitors again. No signs of any motion around the house.

  While she waited for Cal to call her back, she decided to break the news to Folsom that someone had duped him.

  “Folsom.”

  “This is Kelly Murphy.”

  “Oh, hey, Kelly. How are you?”

  “I’d be doing much better if you weren’t firing my husband for things he didn’t do.”

  “Now, wait a minute. I told Cal we’d look into it but I didn’t have a choice as I got an ultimatum from upstairs.”

  “You are still ignoring the facts.”

  “I just passed along all the facts I had, which was Cal was in a strip club on a company trip running up a huge tab on the company credit card.”

  Kelly banged her fist on the wall. “You didn’t even give Cal the common courtesy to ask him if he did it before you fired him.”

  “I promised him I’d look into it after he got back.”

  “You need to reinstate him now and issue an apology—or I’m coming after you with a wrongful termination lawsuit.”

  “Come on. Don’t be absurd. I still don’t have any proof contrary to what was sent to me.”

  “I do. Cal sent me those pictures and I analyzed them. Any idiot who’s worked in a photo department and used Photoshop more than five minutes could recognize that these were faked.”

  “That’s not what one of our photo journalists said.”

  “Was it an intern?”

  “If you can prove it to me, Kelly, come on down here. We’ll be putting the paper to bed shortly and you can show me what you’re talking about.”

  “I can’t exactly do that right now.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Someone is watching me right now and making sure I don’t leave the house.”

  “How convenient.”

  “I’m not lying, Folsom. It’s somebody connected to the story Cal’s chasing right now.”

  �
�Yes, the story I warned him not to pursue. And now you’re in danger. He should’ve listened to me.”

  “Maybe if you tried to support him instead of falling for some stupid picture someone sent you in an email, maybe he wouldn’t be in danger—or me either.”

  “Spare me, Kelly. I think Cal’s a helluva reporter, but I’m not gonna stick my neck out for him when he’s acting like a crazy person. I told him this could happen, but he didn’t want to hear it.”

  Kelly then dropped the phone and pressed her face close to the floor.

  “Kelly? Kelly? What’s going on?”

  She collected the phone and inched it toward her face. “Someone just fired a shot into the house—and I don’t know where it came from.”

  “I’ll call the police.”

  “No! That’ll only make it worse. I’ll take care of this and call you back once it’s sorted out.”

  She hung up and lay prone, motionless.

  Cal had paid good money to train her for a moment like this. She hoped she could recall everything quickly. Her life depended on it.

  CHAPTER 41

  JESSICA TANNER ITCHED her arm where the port injected fluids into her body. She was now awake, maybe more so than at any other point in her life. Powerful forces swirled at work around her. Some she recognized, others she didn’t. But it was all the same to her: Somebody wanted to suppress the truth about Carson’s death.

  She tried calling Cal again in hopes that he might reconsider and help her. It seemed so unlike him to not help after making a special effort earlier. Something seemed off.

  No answer.

  What is going on?

  Lying in bed, she stared at the ceiling and wondered how her life had taken such a drastic turn in less than a week. Last weekend she was cozied up with Carson in a hotel room watching a movie and talking about the future. This weekend, she was a widow, alone in a hospital room, wondering if she had much of a future.

  Her phone buzzed, alerting her to a call from one of her friends.

  “Hey, Jessica. How are you?”

  “Hi, Cassidy. I’m somewhere between lousy and worse. I’d be better off if I weren’t in a hospital bed right now.”