by K. T. Tomb
“There we go. Case solved, Mrs. Richards. What do you plan to do now?” Travis asked.
“Oh, I have some things to take care of here, and then I’ll be going to Japan to reclaim our legacy. I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for us, I didn’t think it was remotely possible for anyone to get the mine back to us, let alone find relatives out there; which, of course, brings me to your fees.”
Miya slid over a check, which Savannah classily picked up without checking the amount. Travis’ paranoia about fastidiously checking over finances flared, but he reasoned to himself that this was not like selling a car online, Miya had passed all the prerequisite credit and identity checks on registering with the Prometheus Torch website, so she was clearly good for the money—not to mention the evident wealth she had judging by the property she lived in. Travis and Savannah chose not to outstay their welcome, and showed themselves out.
Back in Savannah’s car, they were a mile away when Travis slapped the dashboard. He had been silently running through the events in his mind when a horrifying bolt of realization hit him.
“Stop the car! My god… it was right in front of us. We were there, Sav! We were right there and I missed it!”
Savannah looked at him like he’d gone mad, but pulled the car over.
“What did Richards say about Tochigi the first time we met her?” he asked, almost out of breath with the rush to get his words out.
“I don’t know, Travis. I’m not so good at remembering details from conversation. Great with history, though.”
“This is history. This is real history. She said that Tochigi was firebombed by the States in World War Two, right? Remember the market district? The temples? Old, ancient even, and all certainly pre-war; they were all wooden. They would have been burned to the ground by incendiary weapons, Tokyo was annihilated by them.”
How could Savannah not see it? He thought. It was so clear.
“So, she made a mistake. It’s not like she was there, it was her grandparents who were. Things get messed up in oral histories; you should know that being an anthropologist, right?”
“Google it! I bet I’m right. There’s more, too. If she was looking for this amethyst mine so much when everyone who is interested in amethyst knows that the bottom has dropped out of the market except for Deep Russian, how did she know it was worth anything at all? It could have just been a hole with quartz in it? It would be worthless. She knew what was there. I don’t know how, but she had to know it was valuable. No one would want something that was nigh on impossible to get and might not exist if it was worthless, especially not considering our fees are so high.”
Savannah searched the internet, and confirmed that Tochigi had indeed survived the fire bombings of the war. She was still unconvinced.
“Okay, try this: Google her address. I bet you good money that she’s not registered as the occupant.”
Travis was sure that this time, he had gotten to the conclusion before Savannah.
“Says here... Oh my god, Travis! Top result, ‘Man discovered asphyxiated, carbon monoxide poisoning, found by his niece, dated a month ago. There’s a picture of her here, but she’s called Annie Long. What is going on?”
Savannah flipped the phone around to show Travis the picture. There she was, looking distraught and entirely different in jeans and sweater, the woman they knew as Miya Richards.
“We’ve been had, is what’s going on. Get out of the car, there’s a police station on the corner.” Travis felt the anger boiling in his belly. No one got one up on him, not ever, if he could possibly help it. The check in Savannah’s purse was undoubtedly worthless.
“What are you going to do, Travis? Don’t do anything like what you’d usually do. I mean, don’t do anything rash and stupid.”
“Look, if she’s got any brains at all she’ll be getting the hell out of town, probably overseas. We totally cleared the way for her in Japan; we took out Kinagawa for her, she’s the only person apart from Ryo and his mother who know the mine even exists, and they’re not rich enough to fight her if Richards, or whoever she really is, crops up with a title deed for the mine. I have to get back there and slow her down until you get there with the cavalry.”
Travis jumped out of the car and ran around to the driver’s side. Savannah reluctantly gave up her seat. Travis disappeared from her view in a blaze of squealed tires and burnt rubber.
Chapter Sixteen
Travis found the front door to Miya’s house locked, but on skirting round the side of the property to the back yard he found he was able to gain access through an open window.
He was clearly getting the hang of this breaking and entering business, having doubled the number of buildings he had entered illegally in his lifetime in just a couple of days. He tried to minimize his breathing, which made the noise of the blood pumping in his ears seem that much louder. He could hear raised female voices echoing through the wood-paneled halls of the house so, as softly footed as he could, Travis made his way towards them. He had a reasonable guess as to whom the voices belonged to. One sounded in a considerable amount of distress; the other calm, but he couldn’t quite make out the words which, as he came to the front entrance of the house, became louder. Travis saw that there was an open door with steps leading down to the basement, there was a dim light coming from below.
Before he investigated further, Travis had a sudden idea.
Retracing his steps he made his way back to the study that they had handed over the deed to the mine in less than thirty minutes earlier. The deed lay on the table, neatly folded next to an open briefcase that on inspection contained several passports from various nationalities, all bearing the picture of the woman claiming to be Miya Richards but bearing different names. Travis found a United States passport in the Richards name, and pocketed it along with the deed. He had this imposter effectively trapped in a basement, and Savannah would surely be along with the police soon, but despite having the clear advantage there was always the possibility that the fake Richards would escape him. He would need evidence that he was right were that to be the case. He was about to go and confront the woman, when he thought it might be prudent to arm himself. Travis was far from a violent man, in fact he abhorred it, but from the experiences that still haunted his days and nights, and he knew all too well that other people were not so reticent. He found a heavy iron poker in the study’s fireplace and now suitably armed; he crept back to the entrance to the cellar.
Travis saw as he was halfway down the steps that there would be a time at the bottom of the steps where his legs would come into view of anyone in the room before the rest of his body, which would leave him completely exposed. Savannah did warn him about not doing anything rash, but he didn’t see any other options available, so he decided to leap the last six steps or so, landing with a loud thud and a grunt on the basement floor. Richards was standing in the well-lit room and had been clearly talking to someone in a chair whose features were blocked by the impostor’s body. Richards, or whoever she was, turned calmly to face Travis as he landed.
“Mr. Monahan, so good to see you again.”
Travis was reminded of what he had thought about the woman the first time they had met. Cold fish. That was right. This woman must have ice in her veins.
“I don’t know who you are,” Travis said, “but you’re not Miya Richards and I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do… whatever it is you’re planning to do.”
“Well, I have to say Mr. Monahan, I am impressed with your deductive skills in at least figuring things out this far, but I see things a little differently. I was about to let Miya here go. I don’t need to be her, anymore.”
The woman stood aside to reveal that the person sitting in the chair was in fact tied to it. Miya Richards was covered in grime, and her face was streaked with tears. She looked like she had been kept there for quite some time. She appeared to be unconscious.
“You see, I have just injected her with a little something to help h
er sleep,” she waved an empty hypodermic needle she was carrying in her left hand. “By the time she wakes up, I’ll be long gone, and on my way to sell the most valuable amethyst mine in Japanese history to the highest bidder on the black market, now that you’ve done such a good job in finding it and the deed.”
“Assuming you get past me.”
Travis squared himself up. He was considerably bigger than the fraudulent woman.
“Tell me this though, who are you, really? The game is over; you might as well give it up.”
“Yes, I suppose this game is indeed over.”
Travis noticed that her Boston accent had slowly faded, being steadily replaced by an upper-class British one.
“You can call me Monica. I do this for a living. Sometimes, for myself, like this little jaunt, and sometimes for paying clients who need things done quietly and well. I’m very good at impersonating people, you see. I’m also very good at not getting caught out, until now it would appear.”
“Drop the needle. The police are on their way.” Travis hefted the iron poker high.
Monica merely raised her eyebrows.
“Well, that means that sadly I will have to cut our little chat short.”
She tossed the hypodermic at Travis with terrific accuracy which made him flinch despite the fact that a needle would do him little damage. It was a momentary reflex that gave Monica all the time she needed. Travis looked at her, saw the gun that had appeared in her right hand, and felt a burning sensation in his stomach that accompanied the loud pop of the firing of a suppressed weapon. He fell backwards, dropping the poker with a clattering, ringing noise that echoed round the stone walls of the cellar.
Not again, he thought. He saw Monica’s stocking clad legs step over him, and he tried to feebly grab her ankle. She shook him off with very little effort and he heard her high heels clicking up the steps.
Savannah was going to be mad at him. He had screwed it all up by being rash. Oh well. Never mind that now. It was done. He reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew the deed and the passport. At least when they found him, they’d know what was going on from these documents. He wondered if there really were gods who looked after the dead. Is that what Izanami did? Or did she cause people to die? Maybe this was punishment for swinging on her statue back in Nikko. His shirt was turning red. That could be a problem. Someone else’s problem now, unless Savannah got here pretty quickly. He remembered that Monica was trying to leave the country. He should stop her. Not that he could catch her again now, but he should do something. Using the ink Monica had just given him, he finger painted a short message for Savannah on the floor next to him. He could sleep for a year. Travis closed his eyes, and drifted away to a place where nothing hurt.
Epilogue
The light hurt his eyes through his closed eyelids. Did heaven have to be so damn bright? He wasn’t in pain, so it couldn’t be hell he was in. Travis guessed that on balance he wasn’t a bad guy, so maybe St. Peter would let him in after all. Someone was calling his name. He recognized the voice. Oh God, not her too.
“Sav… sorry I got you killed.”
His voice was a dry crack, and he was incredibly thirsty. Someone gave him some water.
“Travis, I’m not dead. You’re on a lot of morphine, they tell us we can’t stay with you long.”
Travis opened his eyes a fraction, and had to squint to avoid being blinded by the fluorescent strip lighting over his head. He didn’t appear to be dead after all, unless heaven looked a lot like a room at Emory University Hospital which would be a joke of bizarre complexity on the part of the Creator of the Universe. He guessed he must be somehow still be alive. Savannah sat around his bed, Adam and Thyri.
“Aren’t you guys in Europe?”
He felt amazingly at peace with everything. Morphine was something he could get used to.
“We got here this morning,” Adam said. “How are you doing?”
“Yeah, I’m great. Apart from another hole in me, that sucks. It seems like the drugs are good in here though.” He cracked a smile to show he was joking.
“What happened?” “ Where’s Miya?—I mean the real Miya. Did they get Monica?”
“Steady, Travis, take it easy,” Thyri said. “Miya is fine, she was in for a night, and was a bit dehydrated from being kept prisoner for a month. She’s helping the FBI now. As to this Monica, it turns out you had an encounter with one of the most notorious identity thieves in the world; Monica Chen, formerly of Hong Kong, London, Rio and New York. The feds have been trying to catch her for five years. You got closer than they ever did in the last five days.”
Thyri didn’t try and hide the pride she felt in him.
“I messed up and it got me shot, again. Sorry.”
Despite the morphine, Travis felt close to tears all of a sudden. Savannah dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief and squeezed his hand.
“It’s alright Travis. You didn’t know she’d turn out to be so dangerous. The police read your message- which was particularly gruesome, by the way, and closed the airports. If she’s on her way out of the country, she’ll have to get across state lines and her picture is being circulated through every airport in the country. They’ll catch her.”
Thyri’s phone rang. She answered it, sighed heavily then said ‘No comment!’ and she hung up the phone.
“The press have been a nightmare. Obviously your shooting made local news, but when the events came to light about the kidnapping and who shot you, they got whipped up into a real frenzy. Looks like you’re going to be the poster boy for Adventurers Inc. again, Mr. Monahan.”
“Great, my favorite thing, talking to those vultures. I don’t want to speak to them.”
Travis shifted uncomfortably in his bed. The IV drip in his arm was itching as the morphine faded from his system, replaced by considerable pain in his abdomen. Savannah pressed a button and a flood of warm well-being entered his veins.
“On the upside, we are in line for a substantial reward when Chen is captured, and Mrs. Richards says she’ll honor the fee agreed to by Chen for the return of the deed to the mine,” Thyri said.
“Speaking of which,” Adam said, “it definitely helped her come to terms with her kidnapping when Savannah told her she was about to become a multi-millionaire. She’s going to look after your friend Ryo and his family too; I think she was more excited about the new relatives than she was about the wealth. She’s a nice lady.”
“At least it worked out. I think I’m going to go to sleep now, guys. Thanks for visiting me.”
Travis could feel the morphine knocking him out. Thyri and Adam said their goodbyes, but Savannah stayed, gently holding his hand as the drugs kicked in fully and Travis slid into unconsciousness.
He was glad she stayed. His last thought before the blackness took him was that when he was fully healed he would make it up to Savannah for charging into things without thinking, and for being a drunk for so long. With her help, he was sure he could stay clean.
The End
The Alpha Adventures returns in:
“B” is for Bullion
An Alpha Adventure #2
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SASQUATCH
Sasquatch Series Book
#1
by
K.T. TOMB
Sasquatch
Published by K.T. Tomb
Copyright © 2014 by K.T. Tomb
All rights reserved.
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
The author wishes to dedicate this book to the late
Sidney Sheldon.
Sasquatch
Chapter One
Draw, flash sight, discharge weapon. Replace in holster. Repeat seven times until magazine emp
ty. Check target. Reload. Check magazine, cock weapon. Holster weapon. Draw, flash sight, discharge weapon. Replace in holster. Repeat seven times until magazine empty. Holster weapon. Check target.
Her aim was off by only a fraction on perhaps two bullets out of eight. She should have given herself the time to fully sight the target. She had been relying on the speed of her cognitive functions to align her gun with the distant target and fire on it in one fluid movement. If she could correct that, her aim would have been good enough to make an Olympic team.
The thought came unbidden.
That was part of a past that she didn’t particularly cherish, so she put the safety on her Ballester-Molina pistol and stepped back from the target range. The weapon was a relic by anyone’s standards, reconditioned twice. The legend goes that this was one of the pistols made in Buenos Aires from the steel reclaimed from the Nazi battleship Graf Spee after it was scuttled in the River Plate during the war. It was just a fairy story, but one she had been happy to cling to. Not that she was a sentimental person, but Lux always found herself with better things to spend her money on than a new gun. Not that she had seen any fresh influx of cash in a while.