Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  Alex ensured that the computer was nestled safe like an egg in its carton, bagged keyboard balanced on top, before he handed off the box to one of the uniformed officers, with explicit instructions to deliver it directly into the capable hands of Kris Thompson. Together they would create a mirror image of the hard drive and would run their diagnostic tools on the image. They’d find out just what Jerry Honeywell was doing online without risking the integrity of the original data.

  The overcast day had finally given way to rain. A few tentative drops fell at first, and more followed in a steady, driving rhythm. Alex stepped out onto the front porch, surveying the neighborhood. The street was quiet. The post–World War II construction and spotty upkeep of the surrounding houses spoke of hard times. From this vantage point, Alex could see Jackson and the other officers fan out to canvas the neighborhood. Maybe somebody had seen something that could help. He could hope anyway. Reaching for his cell phone, he called Kris Thompson.

  “Bastard’s not here. Flood the media with his picture, stating that he is a person of interest in Natalie’s disappearance. Put out an APB out on his motorcycle. Keep digging into his background. Look for a secondary residence. Where does his family live? Does he have close relatives or links outside of Seattle in Washington State? Out of state? He’s a mechanic. Where did he get his certification? Let’s see if ‘Knucklehead’ pops up online—chat rooms, email accounts. I want to nail this son of a bitch quickly.”

  “We’re on it.”

  “Good. Has anyone spoken to Natalie’s parents?”

  “No. We were hoping to have some good news to share before we contacted them.”

  Alex sighed, and he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He dreaded breaking the news to the Watsons. He could already picture Abby’s stricken face.

  “I’ll take care of it. Hold off on contacting the media until I give the word. Don’t leak any info out into the wild until I’ve brought them up to speed.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  “I’m sending you a present. Don’t unwrap it until I get there.”

  Alex hit the End button and shoved the phone back into his pocket. With Jackson in charge of the troops on the ground, he rounded the corner to his parked Jeep. Lips pressed into a grim line, he took the keys from his coat pocket and climbed inside.

  This news he had to deliver to the Watsons in person.

  15

  Medford, Oregon, was a dead town on a sleepy Sunday night. The truck’s engine rumbled and huffed to a halt in the crowded parking lot of the Best Western. Warm light spilled from the window of the Brown Bear Café down the street, and he needed a pit stop—long enough to grab a quick bite to eat and some coffee before hitting the road once again.

  Jerry Honeywell drove on to the Brown Bear parking lot and stepped out of the truck. The cold wind blasted the tangled blond hair away from his face, and he blew warm breath into his cupped hands. The night drive over Mount Shasta would be hairy. And while part of him wanted to stop for the night, he knew he had to keep going.

  The door to the café squealed open, and he held it, allowing an elderly couple to shuffle past. Theirs was the last car in the café parking lot. The diner was empty, save for the two waitresses starting the nightly cleanup.

  Jerry took a seat in a corner booth, not far from the counter.

  “Coffee?” the older waitress asked. Jerry nodded. She dropped a menu on the countertop in front of him. It landed on the Formica with a thwack. “You’d better order quick. We’re closing up.”

  “Cheeseburger and fries.”

  She nodded and waddled away, scribbling his order on her notepad. He glanced around the diner. The other waitress glanced up from her work. She was young. Cute. Tendrils of blond hair escaped her ponytail, twisting in gentle waves around her face. Dark eyeliner encircled her bright blue eyes. She smiled at him.

  “Here ya go.”

  The waitress placed a ceramic coffee mug down on the table. Bitter steam rose from the dark brown sludge. It was definitely not fresh. Not surprising. With the clock counting down the minutes until closing time, why bother?

  “Cream?” she asked.

  Honeywell shook his head. The waitress grunted and disappeared into the back. The girl circled behind the counter to where a line of sugar jars waited to be filled. She glanced back at Jerry, and he grinned.

  A pretty thing, she looked about seventeen, maybe a little older. Her ripening curves strained at the confines of her cotton polyester uniform in all the right spots. Head bent over the sugar jars, she filled them one by one.

  Jerry watched her, cupping the ceramic coffee mug in his cold hands. At least the shit was hot. He took another swallow, wincing at the bitter aftertaste.

  Speaking of shit, the truck he was driving was a card-carrying, certified piece of shit. He’d picked it up off a buddy for eight hundred, cash. Though mechanically sound enough, the rusting body flaked off bits of metal like a shedding tattoo. The goddamned heater wasn’t working, and it smelled like something had either shit or died behind the driver’s seat. He was a little nervous about taking it over the mountain passes. The tires were mostly bald, and he didn’t want to spend the night stranded in a ditch. Or worse.

  He should cruise the hotel parking lot and steal a new set of plates before he crossed the border.

  “Sugar?”

  Jerry looked up. The girl placed a full sugar jar beside his coffee cup. Her nametag read “Kayla.”

  “I take it black,” Jerry said.

  Kayla shrugged. A small smile played at the corner of her lips.

  “You need anything else?” she asked.

  Before he could answer, the older waitress set a platter heaped with fries and a burger down in front of Jerry. She gave Kayla a stern look.

  “The bathrooms need to be wiped down.”

  Kayla flipped her a mock salute the moment her back was turned, and Jerry chuckled under his breath. He watched the exaggerated sway of Kayla’s slender hips as she disappeared into the back. She knew she had an audience. She liked it. He could tell by the way she moved.

  Jerry ate in silence. He waited for another glimpse of Kayla, but she didn’t reappear. Apparently the conditions inside the commode required more than a cursory wipe down to pass morning inspection. He hit the head before he dropped enough cash on the counter to cover his bill and then sauntered out of the diner into the cold night.

  The diner closed five minutes late, and the fat waitress left first. Like its owner, her Chevy F-10 looked as though its best years were in its rearview mirror. It dipped under the old gal’s hefty weight as she climbed behind the wheel. He watched her leave the parking lot, red taillights winking in the dark.

  He waited.

  Minutes later, Kayla swung out the door. Her blond ponytail swayed in the wind. He checked the parking lot for prying eyes. Not finding any, Jerry put his truck into drive. Kayla glanced up sharply, startled by the sound of the motor heaving close beside her.

  “You need a ride?” Jerry asked through the open window.

  “My car’s right over there,” she said, nodding toward a beat-up piece-of-shit blue Plymouth Sundance.

  “Well, maybe you could show me around town. I’m new around here.”

  He smiled his most charming smile. It must have worked, because Kayla hesitated, thinking over his offer. Her parents probably told her not to talk to strangers, but she wasn’t a good girl. He could tell by the way she looked at him, the mischief sparkling in her bright blue eyes.

  “Come on. I don’t bite,” he said. It wasn’t exactly true.

  Kayla’s white teeth closed around her plump pink bottom lip.

  “Okay, but I have to be home by ten. I work the morning shift tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  16

  The Seattle office was eerily quiet this early in the morning. Jill pushed back in her chair and stretched her arms toward the ceiling in a lazy cat stretch. It had been a long night of reviewin
g code and looking for answers. Picking up her coffee mug, she spit the cold brew back into the cup. She hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since college, but these were desperate times.

  Rising from her chair, she glanced out the window. Framed in the elegant curves of the Aurora Bridge, the first rays of dawn streaked the morning sky. She checked her cell phone. No messages. Disappointment mixed with resolve, and she couldn’t help but take a mental inventory of her current state of affairs.

  The argument with Alex was indicative of the widening gulf between them. The confrontation with Jamie on Friday left little doubt that their affair was at an end, and her career was in jeopardy.

  Maybe the best thing to do was to swallow her pride and bury the hatchet with Jamie. If he had moved on, fine. The affair was a mistake. No need to compound things further by escalating the conflict between them.

  She sent him a meeting request for later that morning, leaving the subject line vague.

  No sooner had she hit the send button than a new email landed in her inbox with a decided thud. The announcement hit her like a ton of bricks. She had to read it twice to absorb the content. Jamie had been promoted to vice president—title and all.

  The stakes had just risen. Jamie’s new position gave him even more political clout.

  Jill sat back in her chair and stared out the window at Lake Union. Stray golden leaves clung stubbornly to tree branches in the gusting wind. She pressed her fingers to her lips as she considered the situation.

  Now more than ever, making peace with Jamie seemed like the smart thing to do. The next email in her box resulted in a sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach. Her meeting request had been automatically declined. Looks like Jamie was out of the office for the week.

  Jill stared at the message for a long moment. She blinked. Where the hell was he? One thing was for sure: she didn’t want to let a week go by without addressing the issues between them. While she didn’t know where Jamie had gone, she knew one person who would.

  She dialed Rachel’s extension.

  “Jill. What’s up?” Rachel asked in a friendly voice.

  “I’m looking for Jamie. Do you know where he is?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Rachel didn’t try to disguise her surprise at Jill’s question. “It’s his planning week. He holes up at his cabin in Tahoe and puts together his annual goals for the organization. Didn’t he mention it to you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s Jamie for you,” Rachel said. “We joked last year that it was a little like Moses going to the mountain and coming back with the stone tablets. In a few weeks he’ll arrange a meeting with his reports to discuss the goals before they get rolled out to everyone else.”

  “Do we have any say in his roadmap for the organization?”

  “What do you think?” Jill could picture Rachel’s ironic shrug. “You know Jamie. He’s always in control and likes it that way. He’s good about promoting others, but when it comes right down to it, he’s a one-man show.”

  “Any talk about what he’s planning to do to backfill his position?” Jill asked, trying her best to sound casual. Rachel hesitated.

  “Not much. I expect he’ll talk about that at the next staff meeting.”

  Jill felt her jaw tighten as she looked straight ahead. She had the distinct impression that Rachel knew more than she was letting on.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, Jill, I’m surprised he hasn’t talked to you about any of this. You must have done something to really piss him off.”

  Jill stared down at her keyboard. If Rachel only knew.

  After bringing the conversation to a quick close, Jill rested her chin on her fist. She had two choices. She could sit idly by and let Jamie write her out of his plans, or she could go to Tahoe and plead her case in person. Their conversation was certainly one better held in private.

  Maybe a trip to Tahoe would help smooth everything over. She made the travel arrangements before she had a chance to change her mind.

  17

  Just past the turnoff from Interstate 80 onto California 89, heading south to Lake Tahoe, the snow began to fall steadily, heavy flakes driving into the windshield. Jill tried to stay focused on burying the hatchet with Jamie, but as the miles fell away, her apprehension grew.

  Oblivious to the scenic beauty of Emerald Bay Road, she tried not to dwell on the danger of the worsening road conditions. Heavy snows this early in the season were rare, but the weather report out of Reno convinced her to avoid the passes and take a longer route to her destination. Her throat was tight as the mountains seemed to close in on the vehicle, their sheer cliffs looming high above her, while the other side of the road fell away in a steep decline toward the lake.

  The intensity of the storm made it seem much later than it was. Through the gloom, she took the turn off to Fallen Leaf Lake Road. She was driving a little too fast, and her tires slid on the compacted snow. Easing her foot off the accelerator, she slowed down even more. It hurt to breathe. The smell of snow filled her nostrils, and she tried to shake the sense of foreboding that had settled in as she skirted the edge of the lake. The force of memory was too strong, stubbornly pulling her back to the day her life had changed.

  Like it was yesterday, she could hear the car radio blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River” as she sat in the backseat of the Volvo station wagon. Her stepfather, Master Sergeant Sam Morris, was taking the family on a ski vacation at a resort deep in the Cascade Mountains. Her brother, Derek, was four years her junior. And at eight years of age, he was so excited about his first ski trip that he had barely stopped talking since they climbed into the car. It was hard to ignore Derek, and she had to admit that his enthusiasm was infectious.

  Sam was on a mission to teach his only son how to ski, and Jill felt grateful to be included. The initial plan was to have a father-and-son getaway, but at the last minute Jill’s mother convinced him that they all should go. How she wished her mother had failed. How different everything would have been.

  Her stepfather seemed in an unusually good mood that day, despite the heavy snow and slick driving conditions. Jill looked on as his big paw left the steering wheel to cover her mother’s hand in a rare gesture of affection. He turned to say something to her, his head angling toward hers with a smile. Jill could remember the sound of the windshield wipers swishing back and forth on the wet glass as the song ended. The pause between songs was filled with the soft chuckle of her mother’s laugh.

  The shrill, terrifying blast from a horn came next. Jill started, and dropped her Nancy Drew book. She saw the tractor trailer jackknife on the snow-encrusted road. Time slowed into single frozen frames in her memory as her stepfather stomped hard on the brakes. Both hands closed around the steering wheel in a death grip that turned his knuckles white. The car spiraled into a deadly spin. Snow everywhere. Utter darkness.

  Jill blinked hard, clearing the memory. She forced herself to focus on the narrowing road ahead of her. She muttered a soft but emphatic curse as the road reduced to single-lane traffic. This was why Jamie kept an old four-by-four at the cabin, she thought as she passed a sign notifying drivers that the road was not plowed in the winter. She swore again. There were fewer cabins on this end of the road. Large boulders jutted out of the snow as she passed.

  The swish of the windshield wipers across the glass filled her head, and as if by reflex, her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Almost there, she assured herself. There was no turning back. Seeing Jamie was the only way she could think of to regain control and neutralize the threat he posed to her career and her marriage.

  Jill pulled the rented SUV up to Jamie’s A-frame cabin. The glow from her headlights barely penetrated the curtain of falling snow. Switching off the engine, she leaned back in the leather seat, drinking in the silence. Jill tried to think of the best way to begin what would no doubt be a difficult conversation. Jamie didn’t like surprises, but as the seconds ticked by, nothing came to mind. His r
ecent promotion made it too risky to try to outmaneuver him. Her only chance was to extend the olive branch and make peace, at all costs.

  Her boots crunched on the snow as she walked toward the cabin, which was nestled among a thick stand of evergreen trees pressed up against a hillside. The nearest neighbor was easily a quarter of a mile down the road. It was the perfect place for a getaway if you wanted to get away from everything. She shuddered to think what it must have cost. But then for Jamie, there wasn’t much that was out of reach.

  Smoke rose from the chimney, twisting like a gray gnarled finger reaching into the overcast sky. She climbed the wooden stairs and stopped in front of the cabin’s door. Her throat felt tight, and she swallowed hard as she looked skyward with a sense of apprehension. The last thing she wanted was to get stranded out here in the storm. Without giving herself a chance to turn around, she knocked.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Jamie answered the door. The shock registering on his face turned quickly to disdain. His gaze was even colder than the frigid wind blasting through her flimsy jacket.

  “Christ, Jill. What in the bloody hell are you doing here?”

  The snowflakes stung her hot cheeks as she looked up at him, her mouth suddenly dry. “We have to talk.”

  “Talk? What could we possibly have to talk about? Didn’t we say everything necessary last week?”

  Jill did her best to ignore the indignant expression on his face. She brushed past him into the warm interior of the cabin. Vaulted ceilings gave the impression that the room was much larger than it was. The kitchen was off to one side. The back of the house was a wall of glass, opening up onto a large deck surrounded by trees. In the center of the room, an open laptop sat on the coffee table across from a rustic leather couch. He had been working.

  “I need to talk to you.” Stripping off her gloves, she placed them on the kitchen table.

  “I have two words for you: business hours. It’s completely inappropriate for you to interrupt me here.” He crossed his arms and glared at her. She unflinchingly met his gaze, holding his icy stare.