Missing You

by Shereen Vedam

  Her mother moved aside while her father switched on the overhead light, and Phoebe got a good look at her boss. Tied up on the floor, Conroy wore a murderous frown.

  “Mom!” She hurried over to Conroy. “What have you done?”

  “He planned to force us onto a plane home,” her father explained. “Your mother changed his mind.”

  Phoebe covered her mouth to keep her laughter in. She could well imagine what Conroy must have been going through. The security lapse must have burned. No wonder he tried to pack them off home. All this was irrelevant. Right now, only Matt mattered.

  “I don't know how long those men will stay in that house. I planted a tracker on their vehicle but I'd prefer to return as soon as possible. Do you mind if I untie Conroy? I need his help to get a medic.”

  “You have me,” her father said. “I’m better than a low-level medic. Though we’ll need to pick up medicine and any equipment I'll need.”

  Phoebe stared at her father. Was he serious? She shook her head. “Dad, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t. You wouldn’t be safe.”

  “Can you spare the time to find another doctor?” her mother asked.

  “She's right, Phoebe,” Morgan said coming over. “Let us help. Sounds like we don’t have time to waste.”

  “We?” Phoebe raised her eyebrow.

  “David can’t go alone,” her mother said.

  “If they’re going, I’m in,” Morgan added. “Besides, you said you needed backup.”

  “Professional backup,” she said. “Trained armed agents.”

  “You’ve got one,” her mother replied and flashed a Glock 9 mm pistol she must have confiscated from Conroy. “Shall we go?”

  “We’ll follow your every order,” Morgan cajoled. “Extra pairs of eyes as lookout can’t hurt.”

  “Matt’s in Kandy,” Phoebe explained. “He’s three hours away, at a house we’d originally been led to, for a clue.”

  “Tell us about it on the way.” Her mother headed out the door. Morgan and her father followed her.

  She couldn’t believe they expected her to take them with her. Her security-conscious Morgan was willing to jeopardize his life for her partner? All three returned to the doorway, as if surprised she hadn’t followed.

  “I can’t,” she said, as gently as she could. She appreciated their offer but they were more likely to get themselves killed than help her rescue Matt.

  Conroy grunted and struggled.

  “I have to let him go,” Phoebe said. “I’m sorry but only he can give me the help I need.”

  Her father walked back into the room and took her hands. “If you untie him, he’ll waste valuable time trying to get us to leave. How long can Matt afford to wait, Phoebe?”

  He held up a hand. “This once, allow your family to help you. We won’t let you down. Despite what your grandfather says, I am a good doctor. I know how to patch up a wound.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Your mom needs to do this. Do you doubt she’s capable?”

  Phoebe glanced past him to where her mother stood beside a determined Morgan. The two of them were probably more than ready to go in search of Matt on their own if she didn’t let them help her. She didn’t doubt her mother’s capabilities or Morgan’s stubbornness.

  Her father was right on another point. Perhaps it was time her mother had the opportunity to find out once and for all if she’d made the right decision in giving up her old life. Time they all faced some truths. The fight to resist fled. She had no more time to waste. Matt was counting on her.

  "Alright, Dad, you win. I could use all of your help." She knelt beside Conroy and checked how securely he was tied. “Sorry, Boss.”

  The bonds that held him were already loose. He’d been busy all night. If she hadn’t returned when she did, by morning, her parents and Morgan would have had one enraged man on their hands. She was about to leave, when Conroy tilted his head to the left, toward the closet, his gaze boring into hers as if to transmit a message. He mumbled around his gag.

  Phoebe hesitated, her instincts on high alert. She was missing something here. She asked the others to go ahead and meet her by the parking lot out back. "My jeep's there. I'll be right behind you. I need to grab something from the safe."

  Once they hurried out of the room, she went over to the closet. Inside, was Conroy's case. She opened that and found a package with a bold red cross identifying it as a medical kit. She returned clutching it, her chest full of gratitude, and knelt beside Conroy. "Thank you for this."

  He nodded. With that gesture he ostensibly gave her permission to leave with her family and Morgan.

  So, after his night of confinement, Conroy must have decided to allow her mother to go on this mission. Phoebe easily guessed why. He wanted Brenda to remember what it was like to work a case, and he was willing to sacrifice his pride to give her a chance to do so.

  Conroy still had hopes Brenda would return to him one day. Whether she would or not, Phoebe was grateful for his co-operation. By gifting her with this medical kit, he might have just saved Matt's life.

  She scribbled a note about where her partner was being held and tucked it into his pocket. With a contented smile, she kissed Conroy on his cheek before heading for the door. "I promise, if you're still here, I’ll release you on our return."

  If they returned. In either case, she was confident Conroy would free himself by morning. However, in case something went wrong on her end, she was glad she’d left him that note about their directions.

  When she arrived in the parking lot, her family was already settled in her open-air jeep parked out back, with Morgan in the front passenger seat and her parents in the back. She dropped the medical kit on her father's lap before getting into the driver's seat.

  Their destination, the city of Kandy, was located in Sri Lanka’s central hill country.

  Once they were on their way, she asked the question that worried at her like an unreachable itch. “How’s Lenny?”

  Her mother sighed. A bad sign. “He and Randy are missing,” her mother said. “Worse than that, Lenny took Molly with him. Rose is frantic, though her psychic friend Sage insists that Molly's fine, for now. We couldn’t locate Lenny at any of his usual haunts. His parole officer is on the lookout for him, as is Rose's husband, Detective Bryant. I tried to convince the parole officer that Lenny had simply gone on an urgent family errand but I doubt he believed me.”

  Her father looked up from examining the contents of the medical kit. “If Lenny doesn’t show up by this weekend,” he said, “there’ll be a warrant out on him by Monday. I don’t understand that boy. He grew up with the same privileges as my sons, yet, you couldn’t get a more different character.”

  “You taught us by example, Dad,” Phoebe said. She wasn't so sure Lenny's father had set as good an example as her father.

  In all the years she had known Lenny, her cousin rarely spoke about his parents, Phoebe's father's stepsister and husband. Their two families didn't socialize much together. That was, until the day Molly was born. Then, she and Johnny couldn't shut Lenny up about his adorable baby sister. Sometimes Phoebe wondered if it was to stay near Molly that Lenny decided to return to school after dropping out. He seemed to turn his life around after that.

  She was the one who threw a wrench into Lenny's life by leaving him after Johnny died, and then again now, for the second time. She was also the one who sent her partner sniffing after Ashoka, so it was her fault Matt was in his current predicament. She sighed and Morgan took her hand from the steering wheel and squeezed it in sympathy.

  She gave him a quick glance and then shook off her maudlin regrets and changed the subject. Time her family and Morgan were brought up to speed on her and Matt’s assignment. “We came to Sri Lanka in search of the Trincomalee Eye.”

  “What’s that?” her father asked from the back seat.

  “Last Christmas, someone stole a priceless ancient sapphire from the Indian government. Our job was to tap into the conversations of
local terrorist factions to discover which one might be responsible for the jewel’s theft. Whoever it is, they’re now trying to sell it to western backers.”

  “You and Matt picked up on the local dialects?” her mother asked.

  “We were learning,” Phoebe said. “It was slow going, until the Company sent us a translator.”

  She sped through a narrow ravine and a deep valley. Time was not her friend. The only saving grace was that her jeep’s headlights were in good working order and there was a full moon out.

  At one point, she screeched to a halt at a respectable distance from a herd of elephants that were crossing the road, and then she was grateful for its good brakes, too.

  A side glance at Morgan showed he observed the herd with fascination. “It’s rare to find them moving around at this time of night.” She tapped impatiently on the steering wheel.

  A baby raised its trunk and bellowed at her in response.

  Finally, the road was clear and she could continue on. After they entered Kandy, Morgan checked out the tall Mara trees lining both sides of the street. They passed the city’s famous octagonal Buddhist temple, the Dalada Maligawa, a star attraction for visitors. The temple was surrounded by old world shops, markets and hotels.

  One day, she promised him silently, I’ll take you to the most exquisite site in Sri Lanka. There, she’d seen colorful exotic birds call out in strident voices through lush greenery, and monkeys swing along branches as if they were competing for awards in a public gymnasium.

  They were now close to the home where Matt was being held, so Phoebe continued with what she’d learned since returning to Sri Lanka. “Our translator, Ashoka, had said a family who lives in this city may be linked to the stolen jewel we sought. Matt and I checked their home out and found nothing suspicious except for a piece of paper hidden in a loft. It was written in Tamil, which was the language of the terrorist faction we were trailing. When Aunt Helen called me back to HB, our last solid lead had dried up. We were at a standstill. So, I took the note with me, hoping to translate it while I was away.”

  “Why didn’t you hand it over to Matt?” her mother asked.

  “If I’d done that, Matt, whose specialty was the Sinhalese language spoken predominantly in this country, might have given it to Conroy, who might have been tempted to leak it to the Indian government before it was translated. The Indians have been hounding Conroy on our progress for months. I worried that action might imperil the Tamil family. I wanted to make sure of what was in the note first. Then, once I'd finished the translation and decided to leave the Company, I told Matt about my find. It was just a love letter, Mom. I thought it odd that we’d been sent to that house for nothing, so I urged Matt to check up on Ashoka’s background. To find out if he might have had an ulterior motive for sending us to that particular house.”

  “Ashoka lied,” her mother guessed.

  Phoebe nodded. “Ashoka had stolen the Eye and was using the jewel to implicate this family. Why he did that, I still don’t know. He’s holding Matt and the family prisoner in their home.”

  “If the family had nothing to do with the stolen jewel, why did Matt even go back there?” her mother asked. “Or don’t we know that either?”

  “I found an encrypted journal in his tablet that he'd left in a safe deposit box in his hotel room,” Phoebe said. “That’s how I knew where he was headed. According to his notes, Matt confronted Ashoka about the suspicion I’d raised. The man panicked and ran. Matt informed Conroy and came to Kandy to speak to this family. He wanted to find out what connection they had with our translator. I suspect Ashoka beat him here.”

  “Why hasn’t this Ashoka killed Matt yet?” her father.

  Phoebe glanced at him in surprise.

  He shrugged. “I watch television. I know how criminals think. Matt’s a witness.”

  She nodded. “Yes, he is. The whole family is now. Ashoka must want something from them to still keep them all alive. That’s the only advantage we have. We need to rescue Matt before Ashoka gets whatever he’s after.”

  “Only Matt?” Morgan asked. “What about this family? They’re obviously in trouble, too.”

  Phoebe met her mother’s knowing gaze in the rear-view mirror. She understood the difficult choice Phoebe had made about who she would rescue. This was why she hadn’t wanted her daughter to become a spy. These were the decisions her mother warned would scorch Phoebe’s soul if she stayed in the business.

  “What’s your plan?” her mother asked.

  Chapter 15

  “Our priority is Matt.” Phoebe flicked her glance toward Morgan, who looked concerned. “As for the Tamil family, if they are connected to Ashoka and we try to rescue them, we could end up with a handful of scorpions. I’ve cased this house and know the layout. Matt’s in a back bedroom watched by one man. The two other men spend most of the time in the kitchen grilling members of the family. The husband’s been badly beaten.”

  “It sounds like both the father and Matt need medical attention,” her father said.

  “Our focus has to be Matt, Dad. Once we get him out of the house, you’ll have to tend to him until we can get him to Colombo. I have a contact in a hospital there who won't ask too many questions.”

  “What’s likely to happen to the rest of the Tamil family?” Morgan asked.

  Phoebe hesitated. She wanted to save them all but couldn’t jeopardize Matt’s rescue. If they took the time to save the kids and parents, they might all get caught, as Matt had on her last rescue attempt. Besides, she wasn’t ruling out the possibility this time that the wife or husband was involved with those criminals.

  It hurt her to say it but she did. “Our priority is to get Matt out. I’m one agent, not a commando unit. What I deal with is securing information, not raiding criminal hideouts.”

  Her mother gave her a hard glance. Phoebe looked away first. Leaving those children at the mercy of enemy combatants was not something Phoebe could allow herself to think about.

  By hiding the love letter, she thought she could keep the family safe. Instead, she’d risked their safety by telling Matt about the love letter and sending him sniffing after Ashoka. It was best to stick to what she was trained to do and not allow her heart to interfere this time. The kids weren't in immediate danger. Matt was.

  Phoebe parked as close as she dared from the house where her partner was being held prisoner. The moon hid behind clouds and darkness cloaked their quick movements as they crept down the street toward their target.

  She led the way with Morgan’s hand clasped tightly in hers. Her parents followed close behind.

  There was one good thing about tonight. Morgan said he came to Sri Lanka to tell her he loved her. Every time she thought of that, she feared her heart would burst from sheer joy. His actions more than mirrored his words. He’d put his life on the line to find her and now he did the same to save Matt. Her love for this man had grown overwhelming. She curled their fingers together and he gave her a heart-stopping smile.

  She called a halt at the bottom of a rise. Situated at the top was a tiled roof house surrounded by coconut trees and flowering bushes. Even with most of the blooms closed, the night breezes filled the air with their sweet scents.

  “Ashoka has two accomplices,” Phoebe said.

  The yard was silent. No barking. A large white mongrel had chased after Matt once. Dino, the little girl had called her pet. These intruders had probably dealt more stringently with the dog than she and Matt had.

  “Mom and I will go in alone,” Phoebe said. “Morgan, keep an eye on the kitchen and if you see either of the men leave there, warn us. Can you do a bird call?”

  He nodded.

  “Dad,” she said, “watch the entrance and roadway. If anyone else comes, give Morgan a warning call. Ready?”

  Everyone nodded. The moon took that inopportune moment to come out from behind clouds. Her father sprinting off to the left to hide behind bushes by the entrance was as clear as in daylight. She ho
ped no one had looked out the windows, for they surely would have spotted him. When no sound came from the house, she deemed it safe to signal Morgan to move toward a tree near the kitchen window. From there he should also be able to see her father easily.

  Phoebe then sent her mother toward the back bedroom where Matt was held, while she hugged the shadows until she reached the adjacent room. One minute from now, she would distract the guard so her mother could sneak in and rescue Matt.

  She entered the room and checked her watch. Thirty seconds. She ran her flashlight low to the floor to ensure she didn’t trip on anything. This was another bedroom. Framed photographs of the children were positioned on a dresser. The walls were painted in muted colors and there was a large canopied bed, suggesting this was the parents’ room. The door was ajar. With luck she could slide through without opening it further.

  She settled her light on her watch. Twenty seconds. No one in the corridor. Voices argued in the kitchen. The little girl was crying. Phoebe flicked off her flashlight, forcefully shoving aside those heart-wrenching whimpers. Ten seconds and her back settled against the cool corridor wall between the two rooms. That door was open, too. From inside, the guard’s breaths sounded as if he stood right beside her. A breeze from a ceiling fan brushed by, cooling her hot forehead.

  Five seconds. A call. A blue jay? Were there any in Sri Lanka? She’d never seen one. She whipped out her gun and pointed it at the guard’s forehead. “One sound and you’ll miss the next temple meeting,” she whispered in broken Tamil.

  The guard raised his hands and remained silent. Brenda was inside the room before Phoebe finished speaking.

  Phoebe plucked the weapon out of her prisoner’s hand and motioned him to face the inside wall. From the corner of her eye, she noted her mother leading a limping Matt to the window. Brenda’s backward glance said she, too, had heard the warning bird call. They were out of time.