Jack of Hearts

by Diane Capri

  Rossi said, “I shall see you in my office for a full report. Deliver the woman. Then call Dolly to schedule.”

  He hung up the phone feeling mighty pleased, indeed. The final chapter of what he privately thought of as the too many women saga had ended well. Earlier failures were mere inconveniences.

  The beauty of his long memory allowed him to appreciate delayed gratification. He smiled.

  He had paid for sixteen Thai females seven years ago. They were transported across the ocean in perfect condition, as ordered. Then the Duncan woman and Reacher had stolen his property.

  With the females once again within his purview, along with the additional prostitutes, his fortunes were about to improve dramatically. Funds for acquiring expensive orchids would be flush once more.

  With Jade Chen under his control, Rossi felt confident that his plans for Alan Chen would move smoothly forward as well.

  As long as no more bodies were found.

  He frowned slightly, pushing his lips in and out.

  If more dead boxers turned up, Chen might need to be sacrificed to the authorities. But that was a concern for another time. Such thoughts should not spoil his morning with the orchids.

  Beaming with satisfaction, he waddled to the elevator and stepped inside for the short ride to the roof.

  CHAPTER 28

  Wednesday, May 18

  Denver, Colorado

  9:15 a.m.

  Gaspar dispatched Burke to the address of the Denver residence where he had spotted Reacher’s stolen Audi earlier.

  While Burke was on his way, Gaspar continued to trace the black SUV that swallowed Otto. He’d confirmed that the vehicle had traveled directly to the unimaginatively named Denver Tower, with Otto and Eleanor Duncan still inside.

  Which was the only good news so far.

  The van that had collected the bistro employees a few minutes before Otto disappeared did not arrive at Denver Tower. Gaspar would need to go back to the traffic cams around the bistro to trace the van. He put that task aside for now and concentrated on finding Otto.

  He watched the video recording again and checked the time clock.

  The black SUV had parked for less than five minutes at the curb in front of the Denver Tower building and then left again. Plenty of time for Otto and Duncan to emerge from the vehicle. But did they? He didn’t have a clear view of the doors.

  Gaspar spent another ten minutes searching for better video views, but none of them showed Otto and Duncan leaving the SUV’s passenger cabin. All blind spots converged on the passenger doors of the vehicle.

  The SUV arrived. Parked. Departed.

  But where was Otto?

  “How convenient,” Gaspar murmured under his breath as he pressed the redial for Burke’s cell phone.

  “I’m just pulling into a parking space around back of the Denver Tower building now,” Burke said when he picked up.

  “Did you call your boss?” Gaspar asked. “Tell him to get some agents out there to find Otto?”

  “Tried. Got voicemail. Left a message,” Burke replied. “But he wouldn’t send agents after her, even if I asked. Which I’m not doing.”

  Gaspar said nothing, but Burke must have felt his disapproval two thousand miles away.

  Burke kept talking. “Look, there could be a thousand reasons why she’s not communicating with us. Regardless, we’re playing without a net here. You know that. So what’ve you got?”

  “Not as much as I’d hoped. Can’t confirm that Otto and Duncan exited the SUV at the residence. Or that they went inside. But they could have. The vehicle stopped there long enough,” Gaspar replied, still searching the available views, hoping for a more definitive answer.

  “That’s just great,” Burke’s tone was snide.

  “Look, I don’t need your help. Can you find her without me?” Gaspar challenged, already tired of his prima donna attitude.

  He didn’t reply and Gaspar let it go.

  Burke shut off the engine and hopped out of the Navigator. Gaspar heard the chirps when he pressed the door locks on the key fob. “Let’s assume they got out. Where did they go once they entered the building?”

  “Again, not sure,” Gaspar replied. “But I traced Eleanor’s cell phone activity. Located the phone she called from the bistro parking lot.”

  “Find anything helpful?” Burke sounded slightly winded as if he was hoofing it in a hurry. Good.

  “Dunno. The phone belongs to a woman named Jade Chen. Turns out Chen was an employee at the bistro until a few years ago. Her residence is on the top floor of the Denver Tower building. Penthouse C,” Gaspar gave him the physical address.

  “So you think Otto and Duncan are up there with this Chen woman?” Burke asked, already hustling toward the entrance.

  “Chen’s phone is still there. She could be home,” Gaspar replied, flipping through the pages of data as they popped onto his screens. “But Duncan’s phone signal fell off my system at the same time Otto’s did.”

  “What do you mean, fell off? Like they were tossed in a signal-blocking bag at the same time or something?”

  Burke came into Gaspar’s view on the security cameras aimed at the building’s entrance. He yanked the door open and rushed inside.

  Gaspar changed cameras to an interior view in time to see Burke flash his badge at the doorman’s desk as he rushed past and then impatiently punched the button to call the elevator about two dozen times.

  The private elevator car to the penthouses slid open and Burke stepped inside. The car whooshed up fifty-two floors in less than one minute.

  Gaspar switched cameras again, this time hacking into the security systems inside the top floor where several penthouse apartments were located. Residents in such places typically went overboard on security cameras. Which was always a good thing for hackers.

  Burke exited the elevator and strode swiftly toward Penthouse C on the building’s east side. He stood out of the line of fire, just in case, and rapped forcefully on the door. He didn’t shout his identity, which was a good way to go in a high-end residence like Denver Tower.

  “Is anybody inside?” Burke asked, still wearing his earpiece and speaking to Gaspar.

  “Dunno. Can’t see. Haven’t located any cameras inside the apartment. Try knocking again,” Gaspar replied.

  Burke rapped on the door a little harder and more insistently the second time.

  In Miami, Gaspar glanced swiftly toward another monitor on his desk. The video recorded earlier this morning of the black SUV’s path continued to roll at an annoyingly slow pace.

  After it pulled away from Chen’s apartment building, the vehicle had merged onto Interstate 70 and headed west.

  “Heads up,” Burke said quietly as Chen’s apartment door swung slowly open.

  His body was blocking Gaspar’s view of the interior. He hoped no one was standing on the other side with a loaded Glock aimed at Burke’s gut.

  His gaze fell downward and stopped at a location about four feet off the floor.

  He cleared his throat. “Is your mother home?”

  Gaspar heard a young girl’s voice reply, “No.”

  He had four daughters. From experience, based on her height and the tone of her voice, he guessed the girl to be about eight years old. Unless she was Thai, like her mother. Then she was probably older.

  “Is there an adult here with you?”

  “No.”

  “May I come in?”

  “No.”

  Gaspar grinned. Smart girl. His daughters would have refused a stranger entry into their home long before they were eight years old. Of course, they wouldn’t have been allowed to open the door to a stranger at that age, either.

  “Burke, can you step aside so I can see the girl and get a headshot. I’ll run her through facial recognition,” Gaspar said quietly into his headset.

  Burke shifted aside slightly as he sighed and ran a flat palm over his head. “Look, I’m trying to find a friend of mine. Her name is Eleanor D
uncan. I thought she was coming here to visit your mother.”

  The girl was young, just as Gaspar had expected. Maybe twelve? She was pretty and slender, but her face was maturing into womanhood. He captured her image on video and snapped a few stills, giving the facial recognition software somewhere to start.

  The girl said, “My mother doesn’t live here. She lives downstairs. But Mrs. Duncan isn’t here yet. Sorry.”

  “Okay. So I’m confused. Your mother is not Jade Chen?”

  “Auntie Jade is my mother’s sister,” the girl replied with a smile.

  “I’m Will Burke. What’s your name?” Burke asked smiling, trying to be casual and friendly, as he should have been from the outset.

  “I’m Mika.” She put her palms together and bowed slightly in greeting.

  “Very nice to meet you, Mika. Can I come inside to wait for Mrs. Duncan?”

  “I don’t think she’s coming,” Mika replied, her clear-eyed gaze watching Burke’s face briefly before it slid away.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “My mother and Auntie Jade went down to meet Mrs. Duncan and the others a while ago, but they never came back,” Mika said.

  Gaspar frowned again. He still couldn’t see the girl well. But her tone suggested she wasn’t worried in the least. Nor was she particularly cautious about Burke simply showing up at the door and asking about her mother.

  He didn’t know enough about Thai culture to put his finger on the problem, but the vibe was off, for sure.

  Burke nodded. “What others were coming with Mrs. Duncan?”

  “The women who work at the restaurant. They had a fire. They were coming to stay with us. We’ve been expecting them for a while. But I don’t know where they are,” Mika explained, glassy tears pooling in her eyes. “My mother and Auntie Jade have been gone a long time.”

  “Do you have any idea where they might have gone?” Burke asked.

  “Las Vegas?” Mika said, with a lilt. “They were talking about Las Vegas. They’ve always wanted to go there. Maybe they did.”

  Gaspar spoke into Burke’s ear. “Ask her if there’s someone she could call to stay with her until her mother comes back. A friend from school, perhaps?”

  Burke nodded and relayed the question.

  Mika shook her head. “I am home schooled. My mother wants me to learn Thai ways as well as American.”

  Gaspar said, “No neighbors?”

  Burke asked, and Mika shook her head again.

  Gaspar said, “She’s twelve. She seems like she can take care of herself.”

  “Will you be okay here alone until your mother and your auntie get home?” Burke asked.

  “Oh, yes. I have plenty of homework to do,” Mika said.

  “Let me come and look around. I’d feel better. I wouldn’t want to leave you here without making sure you’ll be okay. Mrs. Duncan would be really angry with me if I did that,” Burke said, finally tuning in to the girl’s unspoken signals somehow.

  She opened the door wide, and he stepped through. Gaspar lost visual with him inside the apartment. But voice communication remained open.

  “Jade Chen’s cell phone is still pinging in what is probably her bedroom. See if you can snag it without alarming the girl,” he said in Burke’s ear.

  Buke kept up a steady stream of chatter with the girl as he walked from room to room. “Does Auntie Jade live here alone?”

  “Yes,” Mika replied. “But she entertains a lot.”

  “A couple of my friends might have visited recently,” Burke said.

  “Auntie Jade has a lot of guests. What were their names?”

  Burke said, “The big guy is Jack Reacher. And Petey Burns. Did you meet them?”

  Mika replied, “I don’t think so. I usually go to bed pretty early.”

  Soon, Burke returned to the open entrance door and stepped into the lobby again.

  Mika stood in the doorway, her hand on the knob. “I will tell Mrs. Duncan you came to see her.”

  “I’d appreciate that. But you shouldn’t open the door to strangers, you know. Keep the door locked until your mother comes back, okay?” Burke said.

  Mika nodded and closed the door as if the conversation had ended. Burke stood still, probably waiting to hear the door lock and the deadbolt slip into place.

  “I’ll trace the limo. See if we can find Otto,” Gaspar said.

  “Okay,” Burke replied, standing nonchalantly near the elevator as he pressed the call button. “What can I do in the meantime?”

  “I’ll text you the location of the abandoned Audi. Since Reacher was riding around in it for a few days, we might get usable DNA,” Gaspar said.

  “Good thinking,” Burke replied. “I’ll head over there now.”

  “And Burke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep this to yourself. Meaning, don’t tell Cooper,” Gaspar said.

  As Burke stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor, Gaspar noticed that Jade Chen’s phone pinged in his pocket. He checked the monitor where he’d kept her account data running in real-time.

  The text came from a cell phone in Vegas.

  CHAPTER 29

  Wednesday, May 18

  Unknown location

  11:15 a.m.

  Kim rolled over on the cold, hard ground and squinted toward the sunlight before she turned her face away and closed her eyes again. A breeze gusted across her body, sweeping dirt and debris over her. She moved her swollen tongue inside her mouth, searching for enough saliva to soothe her parched throat.

  Her head felt thick as if she’d been injected with expanding foam. She was sleepy. Maybe another nap would help. Her respirations slowed along with her heart rate. She relaxed into slumber again.

  When she awakened the next time, the sun had moved higher in the sky. How long had she been sleeping here? Where, exactly, was here, anyway? She didn’t recall lying down on the ground to rest. Or traveling to wherever this place was, for that matter.

  Her service weapon still rested in the holster under her arm. Slowly, she patted her pockets. Three phones. One badge wallet. Two dozen antacids loosely arranged. A few bills and a few coins. Same as always.

  She was confused. She had no idea where she was or how she came to be lying stiff and weak on the dirt. Or how long she’d been asleep or unconscious or whatever.

  She pushed herself into a sitting position. Shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare, she squinted into the distance. The sun was rising, not setting. Which meant it was still morning. Had she slept here overnight? More than one night?

  She fished inside her pockets and pulled out the three phones, all with a solid charge. Two were burners. One connected her to Gaspar, and one went straight to The Boss.

  First things first. She chose her personal phone and hit the redial to call Burke.

  Where was he, anyway?

  She lifted the phone to her ear. The call was dropped. Or it had never connected. Either way, Burke didn’t pick up. She shielded the screen from the sun’s glare. Dammit. No bars were showing. Which meant no cell service.

  She pressed the talk button on each of the burners. Nothing.

  No cell towers close enough to establish a connection, so no incoming or outgoing calls were possible. No texts, either. Which might be the reason the phones were still charged since she couldn’t use them to connect to the world.

  “Now what?” she murmured as she dropped the phones into her pockets and pushed herself upright.

  Her legs were stiff and weak, but after a couple of moments of standing, they held her upright. She patted her pockets again. No sunglasses. She must have left them in the Lincoln.

  She shielded the sun’s glare with her hands and looked around.

  “Where the hell are you? And how can you get out of here?” she whispered and discovered her mouth was too dry for audible conversation even if anyone had been around to hear.

  She turned slowly, three hundred and sixty degrees.
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  Nothing. As far as she could see. In every direction.

  Well, not exactly nothing. If she literally saw nothing, it would mean no light perception at all, like a blind person. Which would have been like sitting in an empty black room in the dark.

  Which was definitely not where she was.

  Rather, she saw no buildings, no roads, no signs of human life at all.

  Sunlight and a desert landscape on all sides. Scrubby green and brown grasses. Sand. In the distance, natural sandstone structures too far away to distinguish.

  The brain fog had slowly begun to clear. She identified elements of her surroundings. She was in the desert. It was May. Which meant that daytime temperatures were still comfortably cool enough that, without exertion, heat exhaustion shouldn’t set in any time soon.

  Kim didn’t want to think about what the nighttime would be like.

  It was already too late to implement the first rule of survival in the desert, never to go out there alone. If you screwed up that first one, none of the other survival options were likely to succeed.

  She took a few shaky steps. She had no water or food, but if she could find shade, she might delay death by dehydration and exposure, at least for a few more hours.

  Fifty yards ahead, a large rock formation protruded from the desert floor. She moved toward it, slowly, carefully. By the time she reached her destination, she was exhausted. She leaned against the rock and slid down the shady side onto the ground, away from the relentless sunlight.

  Now, she couldn’t be attacked from behind, at least. If a predator came at her from the front, she’d shoot it. Which gave her a ridiculous feeling of control.

  After a bit, the fogginess had lifted enough to remind her of things she knew about the technology she carried in her pockets. The easy stuff.

  Burke had walked away from her, looking for Reacher, hours ago. By now, he’d be trying to figure out where she was. He’d start with The Boss. Would Cooper want to find her? Would he bother to try?