“Worse.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“How’s retirement?”
“I don’t even want to go there.”
“Fair enough. So what’s up?”
“Can you track the location of a phone for me?”
“You’re still hot for Rachel McAdams?”
“It’s somebody else’s phone.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I gave her Kelly’s phone number.
“I’ll phone you back when I get a location.”
“Thanks, Donna.”
“Mm-hmm.”
CHAPTER 24
I WAS ABOUT to head out when I heard knuckles rapping on my entry door.
“Sheriff Cooper. Good morning.”
“Morning, Mr. Lane.”
“I was just getting ready to pay you a visit.”
“Guess I saved you the trouble.”
“The missing-persons search. You ready to get started on that?”
“Hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”
Hard-ass.
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m here about a different matter.”
“Which is what?”
“A complaint.”
“A complaint?”
“From one of our citizens.”
“About what?”
“A motorcycle raced through town yesterday evening.”
“No kidding.”
“Was that you?”
“What kind of motorcycle?”
“A Honda Fury.”
“Might have been me.”
“It was you all right.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The complainant wrote down the license-plate number.”
“Who complained?”
I knew who—Al from Al’s Maintenance Service. I had sped past his pickup truck.
“Never mind who. You were speeding.”
“Yes. I was.”
“And you crossed the double lines. Almost caused an accident.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“We’ve got laws here.”
“I know.”
“Seems like you don’t.”
I thought about mentioning the Escalade and then thought better of it. Sheriff Cooper wouldn’t care that the Russians had followed me. But it would irritate him to hear that I had subsequently followed them. He would give me a hard time about that. So I didn’t mention it. No point in inviting more trouble.
“When do you plan to start looking for Kelly?”
He looked at his watch.
“Two and a half hours from now. That’s exactly twenty-four hours after you reported her missing.”
“Well you certainly wouldn’t want to start looking before then. In a bustling metropolis like Rising Falls you must have all kinds of big cases to solve. I bet you’re a busy busy man.”
He hitched up his belt and frowned. He looked away for a long moment. Then he turned back.
“Respect our laws here, Mr. Lane. You do that and we’ll get along just fine. Have a good day.”
CHAPTER 25
I MOUNTED MY motorcycle and started the engine and pulled out of the Lakeside RV Park.
When I got to the highway I headed north toward Watertown.
It would normally take half an hour to drive from Rising Falls to Watertown. But traffic choked the highway. Black Friday traffic.
Black Friday. The busiest shopping day of the year. Millions of shoppers prowling stores. Hunting for sales. Buying cartloads of stuff. More stuff than they can jam into their minivans. Stuff to fill their houses. Their yards. Their lives.
Stuff. Stuff. Can’t get enough stuff.
Owning stuff makes me uneasy. I feel as if stuff owns me. I have to maintain it. Repair it. Dust it.
I am a minimalist. I own little. I travel light.
On the other hand my parents own a lot of stuff. Their house is filled with items bought from yard sales. They love going to yard sales. Cheap prices. Great items. That is why they own so much stuff.
Having stuff makes them happy. But sometimes the clutter in their house makes them frustrated. So now and then they get rid of some of their stuff by dropping it off at Goodwill.
I think eventually they will streamline the process by dropping their stuff off at Goodwill immediately after they buy it from yard sales.
Anyway the drive to Watertown took me an hour.
My phone rang as soon as I found a parking space in the hospital garage. I pulled into the space and shut off the engine.
“Rip Lane.”
“Rip? It’s Donna.”
“Tell me you’ve got good news.”
“Wish I could.”
“Damn.”
“Unfortunately I couldn’t track the current location of Kelly’s phone.”
“It’s shut off?”
“Yep. But I found its last location before it got shut off.”
“What’s the address?”
She told me.
“That address sounds familiar. What’s there?”
“A restaurant.”
“Basic Kneads Pizza?”
“That’s it.”
I drew a deep breath.
“You okay, Rip?”
“When was the phone shut off?”
“Yesterday evening.”
“At dinnertime?”
“Yep. Right after a call was placed to your phone number.”
The Escalade had been parked at Basic Kneads Pizza at that time. Had Kelly been there? Or had somebody else used her phone?
“Thanks, Donna. You’ve been a big help.”
“No problem. I’ll keep on it. Soon as the phone comes on again I’ll let you know.”
CHAPTER 26
THE ELEVATOR DINGED.
Elevator doors opened. People got out. People got in. Including a man with a whooping cough.
Suddenly the stairs seemed like a better option. A healthier option. No chance of being trapped in a small box with an army of contagious diseases.
I went downstairs to the hospital cafeteria.
My phone rang again.
I looked at the screen.
Ian.
“Tell me you’ve got good news.”
“Sorry, Rip. Nothing yet. The Escalade must be stationary. Otherwise the license-plate readers would have tracked it. I’ll continue checking the database though. Don’t worry. The vehicle won’t stay in one place forever. They never do.”
In the cafeteria I bought some scrambled eggs for myself and a wrapped sandwich for Blake. I figured the cafeteria food had to be better than the food served to patients.
I sat down at a table and ate my eggs.
Then I went up the stairs to the oncology wing.
Cancer. A rotten way to die.
Better to die instantly. Painlessly. Personally I hope to exit this world via a heart attack. Unfortunately I get no vote in the matter.
When I got to Blake’s door I knocked gently.
No response.
I entered the room.
He lay sleeping in bed. A tube in his mouth. Tubes in his nose.
News played on the TV. The curtains were drawn. The room smelled like a hospital.
I looked at the bedside table.
Boxes of facial tissues. Bent plastic straws in little cartons of juice. Get-well cards. Flowers. Reading glasses. Magazines.
I set the wrapped sandwich on the bedside table.
“Ham and cheese,” I whispered. “Your favorite.”
On the way out I shut the door.
CHAPTER 27
FROM THE HOSPITAL I went to the strip club where Kelly had worked. A neon sign blinked STARBUTTS.
The door creaked when I opened it. I entered and looked around.
A few customers. All men. Big surprise.
“Apple juice,” I told the bartender. “And a grilled-chicken sandwich.”
“This ain’t Chick-fil-A. We got beer. We got ginger ale. We got hot dogs. What�
�ll it be?”
“Ginger ale and a hot dog.”
“Coming right up.”
A hawk-nosed man on the barstool beside me had a profile like the face on a coin. He threw back a shot of vodka without making a face. Impressive.
“This place opens early,” I said to him.
“Early?”
“Yeah. It’s not even noon yet.”
He looked at his watch.
“Almost noon already?”
“Time flies.”
“I been here since midnight.”
He looked it too.
I bit into my hot dog.
“Since midnight? This place never closes?”
He nodded.
“That’s right. Open twenty-four hours a day.”
“Well this is my first ti . . .”
“Shhh. Trixie’s on stage now.”
Music throbbed.
The hawk-nosed man twisted around on his barstool and rested his elbows on the bar and sat watching Trixie on stage.
So did I.
Trixie was worth watching. She was well qualified for employment in a strip club. Maybe overqualified.
When I raised my ginger ale to my mouth the straw poked my nostril. Nobody seemed to notice. All eyes focused on Trixie.
Her leg wrapped around the metal pole. It moved snakelike. Wriggling up and down the pole. I half expected the leg to hiss.
Men whooped.
Trixie had them in a trance. Her body gyrating. Her lips pouting.
The show lasted ten minutes.
A thunder of applause.
“Good show,” I said to the hawk-nosed man.
He threw back another shot of vodka. Still no expression on his face. The man had skills.
“Trixie’s good,” he said. “But not as good as Kelly.”
“Kelly? Who’s that?”
“Girl who used to work here.”
“What happened to her?”
“Wish I knew. Trixie would know. They’re friends.”
“Think you can introduce me?”
“To Trixie?”
“Yeah.”
“Dream on.”
“Nice talking to you.”
I slid off my barstool and left a generous tip for the bartender. He nodded. I nodded back.
Backstage I found Trixie in a dressing room with several other dancers. One had her big toe stuck in her fishnet stockings. Another sat dabbing at her face with a powder puff.
I was about to enter the dressing room when . . .
A bouncer appeared.
The man looked like a Stan Lee creation. A chest like Thor. Hands like the Incredible Hulk. A complexion like the Thing.
“You work for Marvel Comics?” I said to him.
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“You can’t be back here.”
“I need to talk to Trixie.”
“Scram.”
“I just want to ask her some questions about Kelly.”
“Kelly who?”
“She used to work here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rip.”
“Rip what?”
“Lane.”
He clicked his pen and wrote on his hand.
“You giving me a detention?”
“Scram, Rippy.”
Rippy?
Outside in the parking lot I waited for Trixie’s shift to end.
Two hours later she exited the strip club.
Her little car coughed twice before it pulled out of the parking lot.
I followed.
After a while she rolled to a stop in front of a nail salon. She got out of the car and entered the place.
I followed.
“Trixie?” I said.
“Who are you?”
“A friend of Kelly’s.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rip Lane.”
“She never mentioned you.”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“About what?”
“Kelly’s missing.”
“What?”
I told her the story.
When I had finished a Vietnamese woman touched Trixie’s arm.
“Huong ready for you now. You go back. Yes?”
Trixie nodded. Then looked at me.
“Why don’t you come back with me. We can talk back there.”
“Works for me.”
Huong motioned Trixie to a chair.
Trixie sat down in a chair that looked like a La-Z-Boy with bonus features. She hit some buttons. The chair started vibrating.
“Nice chair,” I said. “I could use one of those in my RV.”
Huong giggled behind her hand.
“You too, mister.”
“Me too what?”
“You sit too.”
She motioned me to a chair beside Trixie.
“Not me.”
“You sit.”
“Nope.”
“Sit.”
“No pedicure for me. I’ve got an image to uphold.”
“Chair massage only. No charge. Sit.”
I sat down. Huong hit some buttons. The chair started vibrating.
“You like?”
I nodded.
“I like.”
Trixie plunged her feet into the water.
“Hot. The way I like it.”
Huong sat down on a stool in front of Trixie. She put on rubber gloves and started working on Trixie’s feet. Not that they needed any work. They looked like fine specimens to me.
Trixie and I talked while Huong worked.
“Kelly’s pregnant,” I said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes. She told me.”
“She kept it a secret from her father. Any idea why?”
A pause.
“She was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Getting pregnant out of wedlock.”
“No shame in that. Not anymore. Those days are long gone. Society’s changed.”
“But her father hasn’t changed with it.”
“So that’s why she didn’t tell him?”
“She felt like she’d already let him down in so many other ways.”
“Like?”
“Like not going to college. Like being a stripper. Things like that. She didn’t want to add another disappointment to the list. Especially because he’s on his deathbed.”
The way she said that hit me like a punch in the gut.
“Who got Kelly pregnant?”
“She’s not sure. That’s something else she’s ashamed of.”
I nodded. Not knowing what to say.
Huong sat scrubbing Trixie’s feet.
Two Vietnamese women walked past. They smiled.
I smiled back.
They giggled behind their hands.
“Did Kelly seem depressed to you?”
“A little,” Trixie said. “But wouldn’t you be if your father were dying in the hospital?”
“Did she seem depressed enough to commit suicide?”
“Kelly would never do that.”
“No?”
“No. Kelly’s a fighter. Not a quitter. She started turning her life around when she found out she was pregnant. She applied to the University of Rochester School of Nursing and got accepted. Then she quit her job at Starbutts. She wanted to get a college education so she could support her child by herself. And she wanted to make her father proud.”
“Blake told me Kelly had a boyfriend but they broke up.”
“Kelly had lots of boyfriends.”
“So nobody in particular jumps to mind?”
“Sorry.”
I nodded.
Huong rinsed Trixie’s feet.
Good feet. I liked them.
Trixie caught me staring.
She bit her lower lip.
“So what do you think happened to Kelly?” she said.
I thought about telling her about the Russians and then thought better of i
t.
“I think somebody took her.”
“Who?”
“I plan to find out.”
CHAPTER 28
“YOU’RE AWAKE.”
Blake looked up at me from his hospital bed.
“So it was you,” he said.
“What was me?”
“You left me a ham-and-cheese sandwich.”
“Must have been the sandwich fairy. Wasn’t me.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“How was your Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Better than most of the hospital food. They gave me the traditional Thanksgiving feast. No complaints.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“New lungs would be nice.”
“I’ll put in the order.”
“In the meantime give me some good news.”
“Wish I could.”
“The missing-persons search starts today?”
“Started a few hours ago.”
“I’ve got more faith in your tracking abilities than in the sheriff’s.”
“The more eyes looking the better our chances of finding her.”
“Any new developments?”
“Plenty.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“Kelly’s phone isn’t on. So Donna wasn’t able to track its current location. But she did find its last location before it got shut off.”
“Where was that?”
“Basic Kneads Pizza. Located a few miles outside of Rising Falls. Yesterday evening I saw the Russians parked there.”
“No shit?”
“Some coincidence, huh?”
“Some coincidence.”
His fingers curled into a fist.
“They’ve got her,” he said.
“That’s what I think.”
“Got an address for them?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on that.”
“What about the Escalade?”
“A company owns it. Oryol Financial Group. Located in New York City.”
“Oryol Financial Group? Never heard of it.”
“Ever heard of Oryol?”
“Never.”
“It’s a city in Russia.”
“Who are these people?”
“Remember Ian Sanders?”
“Sure.”
“He ran the Escalade’s plate through the National Insurance Crime Bureau database.”
“Any hits?”
“Not yet. But he’s going to continue checking.”
“You told me the sheriff took down Dmitry’s information.”
“He did.”
“So why don’t you just ask him for it?”
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