by Laura Greene
There’s a knock at the door. One of the officers is standing there with a cellphone in his hand. Of all the officers she has been assigned, Tina remembers this officer because he barely exchanges two words with her. “It’s the boss. He wants to talk to you.”
Tina takes the phone and before she can even make her presence known, a bellowing voice comes in, “Agent James, it’s your partner Barnes.” Chief officer Barnes chuckles and then wheezes. Tina can picture him sitting at his desk and twirling on his chair as he laughs. It gives his belly an optimal laughing range.
“Hello, partner. How are you?” Tina is glad to hear Barnes’ pleasant voice.
“I’m darn well fine James, but I should be asking you how ya doing. My wife said she’s going to make you the best peach cobbler ya ever had for the holidays. That oughta getchya feeling better in no time.”
“Oh, that’s very kind of her. Please tell her thank you for me.”
“Alright, James. I hope you found your home okay. My men said they saw a car watching the house from a distance a few days ago, then the car drove off before they could talk to them.” The officer looks down sheepishly as Barnes says this and Tina realizes Barnes is speaking loud enough for him to hear, even though the phone is not on speaker. He continues belting through the phone microphone, “Now don’t worry, they got the plates and we’re running them now to see if we can land something. I just didn’t want ya worryin’ for nothing. You’re in good hands, James.”
“Thanks, Barnes. I appreciate it. Just let me know when the plates come in.” Tina says, and she hangs up, but she is worried. Just a few days ago, she had a conversation with Dale about the possibility they were followed from Boston. She wonders if she really was followed. How could they find me? I was so careful to leave Boston without letting anyone know.
When her boss, Tim, gave her Newport, it was more than just an assignment; it was also protection. Tim didn’t even reveal it to Amy and her team to protect Tina. If Tim didn’t say anything and the Newport staff didn’t know, then how did they find me?
Tina shuts her front door and the officer returns back to his patrol car. She, however, does not move from the door. Her palms are sweaty and her heart is beating fast. Calm down, Tina, she tries to console herself. Her back is against the door and she is breathing heavily at the thought of being followed to Newport. She is prey for her prowlers until Barnes can confirm who was watching her home. A simple process of elimination in her mind, points in one direction. The only enemies in Newport that would despise her enough to do something, do not seem like they would have enough of a vendetta against her to cause her harm. Which means, all the time she spent running may just be a waste of time. While she doesn’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly, like someone suffering from paranoia, Tina knows that if it’s really them, The Gangs of Boston after her, if they find her, more people may end up in danger.
She left Boston to avoid something like this happening, and now, her old ghosts may have caught up with her. This thought sends chills down her spine.
Without giving it another thought, Tina picks up her phone and types a message to Dale. He is the only person in her life that she can express something like this to. Worse yet, he could very well be a target for the G.B. Before she sends the message, she wonders if she’s being too cautious or too fearful. Then, recalling what took place in Boston, how her life changed so dramatically because of this case, she decides it’s not possible to be too cautious when it comes to the G.B. She hits send and the message she just sent flashes on her screen. Reading it back to herself, Tina experiences a minor deja vu moment. She feels like she is watching a playback of her life, like she has been in this situation before, only it’s not a dream that she wants to remain in, it’s a nightmare that she would much rather end right now.
And if her prediction is correct, then these words that she just sent to Dale, are the best warning she can give him. Only he will understand it. The message reads:
You may have been right. Just watch your back, they may come after you.
Chapter 3
Walking in the hallways of Hartford Boarding School is just the distraction Tina needed. Being in her home was driving her crazy and she needed a change of scenery. Her pain is slowly receding, but with her friend and love interest, Nick missing, Tina is prepared to go against doctors’ orders and find him. For once in her life, she is putting her heart on the line and as scary as this new ground is for her, it’s a breath of fresh air from her old ways. Her fear had kept her reticent in her relationships and now, she is finally breaking out of that shell. She hopes against hope that it will pay off when she finds Nick.
Tina is not the only one who appears to be gloomy though. Even the students who are two days away from winter break, walk the hallways with long faces. The absence of the face of hope is evident at Hartford today. Tina would love to reassure the students and restore their joy. It’s what Nick would have… she stops herself mid-thought and corrects her words, It’s what Nick will want. “I will find you, Nick.” She mutters into the air, hoping the air bubbles will deliver it to him.
The truth is, he is her one friend in the town and to lose him, especially when she has just found herself and figured out what she wants, is not a fate that she wants to leave to chance. She is determined in her heart to find Nick.
Amy’s office is her first stop. After her hurried visit to Martha’s Vineyard to tell Tina what happened to Nick, she is the one most able to assist her, and Tina needs to take the pithy route in finding Nick.
She walks into Amy’s office, “Tina how are you?” Amy is uncharacteristically dotting on Tina; she offers a comfortable chair, a glass of water about three times then hands her a cushion to put on her chair.
“Amy, do you have a bucket?” Tina says. Amy looks confused at the request. “If you keep fussing over me like that, I’m going to need it to throw up in.”
Amy leans back and sits on her desk, relieved to hear Tina’s sense of humor. “I am sorry for the way I left so abruptly. I shouldn’t have. I was just scared that I had placed your life in grave danger.” She says this and lowers her eyes. Genuine grief over her actions is plastered on her face.
Tina can only watch her pain for so long before she says, “Don’t worry, Amy. I needed the extra couple of days of rest anyway.” She says this with a consoling smile that lets Amy know she is forgiven. “I do need your help Amy. You came to tell me about Nick and I’m wondering if you could walk me through how you found out he was missing?”
“Sure! After the messages I received of students complaining that the chaplain was involved in the deaths, I decided to go and see him before morning chapel. When I knocked on his door, I didn’t get an answer, then I used my master key to enter and saw that he was gone! It’s like one minute he was there and the next he was gone. It was strange.”
“Hmm...” Tina says, then she pauses to think for a moment. “I wonder, is Charlie here? I’d like for him to open up the CCTV room for me. Maybe there’s something on the cameras that could give us a hint as to how he left.”
“Oh, I have a key. I can let you in. Besides, I want to see for myself if you really are up to returning to work like you say you are.”
Tina is not sure how she feels about being mothered and she especially did not expect to receive it from Amy. Nonetheless, she appreciates that she is so caring and wants to know she is well.
Seeing this softer side of Amy is good for Tina. Many times she has suspected her involvement in the recent crimes at Hartford, but she is beginning to think that she may have misunderstood Amy’s concern for her students for malice or coldness of heart. As far as she is concerned, Amy may turn out to be a friend after all.
They arrive in the CCTV room and Amy gets right to work, turning on monitors and selecting camera angles to view. “Wait,” Tina says, surprise showing on her face, you know about all this tech stuff?”
“Sure! When I’m not too busy in the office, I love to come up here. I
t’s kind of my playground.” Amy sets up two more monitors then says, “There. It’s ready for you.” Tina is both impressed and fascinated by Amy’s analytical brain. She sits down next to her and they begin their search for Nick.
“I see him leaving his apartment, there. Can you zoom in?” Tina points at the camera and adjusts in her seat for a better view. Something is not right about him. Usually, Nick is calm and collected, but on the camera his body language is jerky and unsettled. “I can’t see his face, but something is not right. You can play it. Let’s see where he’s going.”
Amy plays the recording and they follow his every footstep from his apartment on the west wing to the front door on the east wing. The video pauses – Amy has paused it.
“Do you have cameras outside?” Tina asks, wondering why Amy stopped at the most pertinent part of the recording.
“No,” Amy responds, “we only had funds to set up our in-house systems. We’re hoping to fundraise enough this year to finish the project with quality outdoor cameras.”
Tina gets up and walks around the room, she has begun brainstorming. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Amy following her closely, almost guarding her and wonders if Amy may be taking her protectiveness too far. She is almost looking over her and it bothers Tina. While Tina may have just been discharged, she does not need a babysitter. She swings her foot around and faces Amy, almost causing her to stumble. Amy backs up realizing she was too close for comfort.
It worked. One lesson being a detective has taught Tina is that, when addressing a problem with someone, do so quickly and move on. Her director, Tim, used to make fun of her ability to say everything she needs to with just one look, but she knew it was really because he admired her for it. Tina, having made her first point clear, nonverbally, now moves on to her second point. “The way Nick is acting is strange. You said he left here without his car?”
“Yes.”
“Then the police found his wallet and phone on the side of the road?” Tina says rhetorically. Before Amy can answer her, she begins her next point. The ideas are flooding in and Tina is trying to keep up with them. “Either Nick was kidnapped by someone he knew, or...”
“Wait, how do you know it’s someone he knew?”
“Because he left without coercion. Maybe he thought he was going to meet a friend and instead found a foe waiting for him.”
“That makes sense.” Amy nods her head in agreement. She now understands Tina’s point.
“The other possibility is that he did leave with a friend, or should I say a partner in crime, then he threw away his phone and wallet to make it look like he was kidnapped when he was really escaping.” The second idea is unsavory for Tina to imagine, but as a good detective, she must turn every stone and explore all the possibilities. Until she can rule out that Nick didn’t escape, he is technically a suspect in the case.
Another idea pops into Tina’s head, not about Nick this time, but about the students. Since she’s already in the CCTV room, she decides to look into it and devises a plan with Amy.
Shortly after, Amy is inching along the hallway walls with a phone to her ear and talking with Tina. “Like this?” she says into the phone. Her voice is curt.
“Yes, stay close to the wall. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“Well, can you make it fast over there? These students are looking at me like I’ve lost my marbles.” Through the CCTV camera, Amy looks like she is lowering her neck and upper body to the ground, to almost make herself disappear. She looks rather silly and now the students are seeing it all and whispering among themselves.
Tina laughs, “We’re almost done, just one more turn up ahead.”
“Good. Because I was going to ask you if you’d rather come down here yourself.”
Tina sighs into the phone as Amy finishes tracing the wall, then says, “Nothing.”
“What? You mean, I did all that for nothing?”
“No, the nothing is something.”
“Now you’ve lost me James. What are you talking about?” Amy peels herself from the wall and she walks briskly to the CCTV room avoiding eye contact with the students. To one student who is giggling, she says, “Get to class, Mr. Miller.” then continues her plight.
“Ella said she heard voices. I was hoping we could trace and see if there are any blindspots in the cameras from which someone who has studied them can avoid being noticed.”
“Uh-huh,” Amy responds and an echo bounces through the phone. Her voice sounds hollow and deep; Tina recognizes the sound from the dungeon stairwell which echoes when she is walking up and down the stairs. Amy is almost back to the room.
“Well, this mini experiment we just did,” Tina says and turns to look at Amy who now walks in the door. “It shows us that these cameras are well-placed and there is no way anyone can escape being seen in these hallways.” They hang up the phone.
“Okay, so how is that something?”
“It explains why someone cannot travel through the hallways unnoticed. It’s impossible actually. Which means, we can rule it out.”
“So we’re using a process of elimination?”
“Exactly. Only, the question then becomes, how did they manage to reach the students?”
“I have no idea, unless they are actually ghosts.”
“Ghosts…” Tina says, as she taps her jaw thinking. “Can you take me to Anna’s room?”
Chapter 4
By now, Tina has searched Anna’s room multiple times and she knows it like the back of her hand. She is, however, hoping that she can find something, anything that can let her know how Anna is hearing those voices. When they walk in the room, a musty smell pervades their nostrils.
Apart from the odd visits to investigate, her room has not seen a sign of life since Anna died. It collects dust as if to preserve the only memory of its once lively owner. The gray faint lighting suggests the room is still in mourning. Loss is neither quick nor easy to overcome. The bookshelves prop up the last of the prestigious honor Anna was working towards. Those books will never hear from her again unfortunately. If the room could speak, it would say that it is the looking glass into the hearts of those who yet mourn Anna.
Sensing the pain of loss preserved in the room, Tina promises in her heart to respect Anna’s memory and leave the room in its original state – for as long as the investigation continues anyway. Carefully, she searches the room while Amy stands at the door, but she returns each item precisely into its place. She ponders how those voices could have been heard, I know you were not crazy Anna, Tina thinks as she remembers how Anna’s friends and family vouched for her. She looks up, sighs and rubs her neck, Then how did you hear those voices? She sees something up high. “That’s it.”
“What? What did you see?” Amy steps into the room and leans closer to hear what Tina saw.
Tina again, does not reveal it. Something about this piece of evidence alerts her that this may be an inside job after all. She stands and ponders internally, So, someone was here. The voices really were real. But who? Tina has a few guesses in her mind, but none are definitive.
Her phone beeps. It’s a message from an unknown phone number. Tina carefully views it without revealing it to Amy. From here on, she needs to keep evidence to herself until she can clear the names of anyone in the school – and this includes Amy.
She reads the message and it tells her to visit an address. In Wyoming? There is urgency in the message and Tina uses this to excuse herself from Amy. “I have an errand I need to run. I’d totally forgotten about it.”
Amy does not seem convinced, but she sees Tina off and locks Anna’s room. Whatever secret was revealed to Tina in that room is and will apparently remain with Tina., if it was a clue to how Anna heard the voices, then only Tina knows the answer now.
*
Tina drives the hour and a half trip from Yampa Valley Regional Airport to Baggs, Wyoming. Until today, she had never heard of this place, and now, she is sitting in her rental car, driving
on its terrain. To her left, are what look like patches of grass, but up close are desert bushes clumped close together; to her right; are more bushes with snowy mountains in the distance. I wonder if those are the infamous Rocky Mountains? She’s not sure, but her clue thus far is that just below Baggs is Colorado state. She has always wanted to visit these mountains and wonders if she’ll have time to do so once she visits her latest lead. Knowing her career though, she imagines she’ll probably visit the lead, talk and be on the next flight out. She hasn’t even made hotel reservations yet, anticipating her short stay. And Nick still needs me, she reminds herself, peeling her eyes away from the majestic mountains.
The air is fresher on the drive to Baggs. As a city girl, Tina has not nearly had enough time in nature. Her usual idea of fresh air is the air conditioner turned on full blast in the house. She feels her lungs are not as heavy in the less dense air, which gives her bruised ribs a break from the pain that’s easing with each day, just as the doctor advised. The empty roads alone are a major tell-tale that she is no longer in the big city and she loves it. She picks up the speed a little to make up time and visit her lead before it gets dark. Who am I visiting again? She thinks back to the file of a Janet Branning that Tim sent to her phone before she boarded the plane. She’s never heard of her. It is a brief file because the name Janet Branning did not exist until a few years ago. Tina knows it’s an alias. All around her is nature, no house is in sight yet. From the appearance of the deserted surroundings, it looks like she may have been sent on a wild goose chase.