by Mike Ryan
Pressure Point
The Extractor Series Book 3
Mike Ryan
www.mikeryanbooks.com
Copyright © 2020 by Mike Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design By The Cover Collection
Edited By Anna Albo
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
Also by Mike Ryan
1
Bridge was walking down the street towards his favorite hotel when he saw a familiar face standing outside the entrance. She was looking up and down both sides of the street. He knew she was looking for him. He took a deep breath, then turned around to begin walking the other way. He just wasn’t in the mood to deal with her again.
Sharon Fester seemed like a nice girl. And he was sympathetic to her problem. Bridge just didn’t think he could help her. He wasn’t sure anyone could. Bridge put his head down as he walked away, then he heard her voice.
“Luke! Mr. Bridge!”
Bridge stopped and took another deep breath, knowing he’d been seen. He then heard footsteps coming closer. Without looking, he could tell she was running toward him. He could hear her breathing heavily from running. She obviously wasn’t a distance runner. Bridge didn’t move a muscle, just looking past the scores of people passing him by. Then he saw Fester’s young face.
“I’m so glad I caught you.”
Bridge smiled. “That you did.”
“Did you sneak past me coming out of the hotel or something?”
“Uh, no, I was just walking this way.”
“How’d you get past me?”
“Well, I didn’t. I was walking that way, then I turned around to walk back because… well, anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“So I’ve got a new proposition for you.”
Bridge rolled his eyes. “Sharon.”
“I know, I know. But I’ve got it this time.”
“Sharon, it’s not about the money. It never was. Never will be.”
“I’ve scraped together five thousand. But I can get more.”
“Sharon. You’re not listening to me. It’s not about the money.”
“It’s not?”
Bridge shook his head. “No. The money is fine.”
Fester immediately smiled. “So you’ll take it?”
“No! That’s not what I said. I just said it’s not about the money.”
“Well, why wouldn’t it be about the money? Isn’t it always about the money?”
“Not with me,” Bridge said.
“I’ve heard you’re more expensive than what I’ve offered.”
“Usually I am. But not in this case.”
“So why won’t you take it?”
“Sharon, I’ve explained this to you the last three times we’ve talked. I’m sympathetic to your problem. I really am. But in order for me to look for someone, I need a place to start.”
Fester’s eyes started to swell with tears. “I just miss my sister. She’s been gone for six months, and I just want her back.”
Tears. Tears were like a weapon against Bridge. He couldn’t stand them. Especially when they were warranted. Tears had a habit of making him do things he didn’t want to do. He had to fight the urge this time. He gently grabbed Fester by her elbow and led her over to the concrete wall so they weren’t in the middle of foot traffic.
“Look, Sharon, I’d like to help. I really would. All you’ve told me so far in our previous encounters is that your sister met some guy and took off somewhere. Now, as far as we can tell, she’s gone off on her own free will. As far as we know, she’s not in any danger. Not only that, you have no idea where she’s gone. Like, you can’t even give me a continent in which to look on.”
“But I don’t know.”
“Exactly. Now, how am I supposed to find someone when I don’t even have a place to start?”
“But she’s in trouble. I know it,” Sharon said.
“How do you know that? You don’t know the name of the guy she met.”
“Because we’re very close. Always have been. She’d never go somewhere for six months without telling me where she was or who she was with. She wouldn’t do that.”
“Sharon…”
“She wouldn’t. Our parents passed away three years ago in a car accident. We were all that we had left. Each other. We made a promise that we’d always be there for one another no matter what.”
“OK, that’s a very moving story, and my heart breaks for you, but I still need something to go on, and you haven’t given me that. When you have that, then come back and talk to me, OK? But until then, there’s nothing I can do.”
Bridge tried to give her a warm smile before he left, though it came across as more of a sad one than anything. He left her standing there and walked back to the hotel. Just as he got to the entrance, he looked back and saw Fester standing in the same exact spot. She hadn’t moved an inch. She was looking down at the concrete, trying to hold back the tears from flooding the ground beneath her. Before going inside the hotel, Bridge sighed, legitimately feeling bad for her situation. But like he’d told her, there was nothing he could do without something to work with. And she just didn’t have it.
Once Bridge got to his room, he found Nicole staring out the window, looking down at the street. He walked over to her and put his arms around her, giving her a kiss on the neck. She tilted her head back so he could plant another one on her, this time on her lips.
“I’ve been missing that.”
“Hope it was worth the wait,” Bridge said.
“It was. I noticed Sharon Fester down there.”
“Yeah. She was pleading for help again.”
“Wish there was something we could do,” Nicole said.
“Well, like I told her, we need something to start with.”
Bridge then walked away from his girlfriend and went into the kitchen to get a drink. As he came back in and saw her still at the window, something occurred to him. He walked over to the window and looked over her head at the street below. Bridge took a few steps back and looked at his girlfriend again.
“Tough to see the entrance from here.”
“So?” Nicole replied.
“So how did you notice Sharon Fester was down there?”
“Oh. I, uh, saw her walking up to it a few minutes ago. Figured she was here to see you again.”
“You just happened to pick her out in a crowd of a few hundred people walking?”
“Uh, yeah, guess so.” Bridge looked at her with a skeptical eye as she turned around and faced him. “What?”
“Something tells me you knew about this.”
“About what?”
“Did you talk to her before this?”
“What do you mean?”
“You did!”
“Did what?” Nicole asked, playing the innocent card.
“You set me up.”
Nicole sighed and threw her arms up. She wasn’t even going to try to pretend anymore. “OK, fine. She came to me yesterday, well, called me, and asked again if we could take the case.”
“And you said what?”
“I told her to talk to you again. I promise that’s all I said.”
“Really?”
“I promise. She called me again a few hours ago and asked if she could come over and talk. I told her you weren’t in and said when I expected you back. That’s it. That was the extent of everything.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“You didn’t agree to take the case or anything?”
“I did not. I wouldn’t agree to take anything without you signing off on it first.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Bridge said.
“Well, I didn’t.”
Satisfied with her answers, Bridge took a sip of his soda. “I feel bad for her. She seems really broken up about it.”
“So why don’t we just help?”
Bridge’s shoulders slumped, not really wanting to get into it again. “It’s like I told her: she’s got nothing. She says her sister went off with a guy. She doesn’t have a name. Says she left the country, doesn’t know where. Asked if she has a date or a time she went missing, she doesn’t know. I mean, how are we supposed to work off of that?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me? Nothing’s the matter with me.”
“Then what’s bugging you about this? We’ve started working on cases with less information than this. We can check her bank accounts, passports, things like that. There’s things we can do without having much information. So why won’t you hear this girl out?”
Bridge sighed, then sat down to talk about it. “OK, one of my first cases doing this stuff was a missing person’s case. This was before you quit the CIA, too, so you weren’t around yet. But anyway, one of my first cases was something similar to this. It was actually a mother, though, not a sister.”
Nicole could guess where this was going. “And she told you her daughter was missing?”
“Yes. Same sob story. She would never go anywhere without letting her know; they were so tight, blah, blah, blah. It was just the two of them. The father wasn’t around. They would never split apart was the story.”
“Let me guess, the daughter ran away with some guy?”
“Exactly. She met some guy online, didn’t want to tell her mother, then one day, they just decided to elope, and they flew off to California.”
“How long did it take you to find them?”
“About two weeks,” Bridge answered. “The mom was beside herself, couldn’t believe her daughter would do such a thing, was sorry for wasting my time, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“Did the mom and daughter talk again?”
“Oh yeah. A day after I found them, the daughter called her, apologized for everything. Said she just thought her mom was going to be mad and was afraid to tell her the truth about everything.”
“Was the daughter in danger?”
“Not that I could tell. The guy she married had a good, steady job, no criminal record. Everything I found out about him suggested he was a decent guy. There were no problems at all.”
“So now you think every case that’s similar is going to end up the same way?”
“No, not necessarily,” Bridge replied. “It’s just, now, I would like some proof that there’s actually something fishy going on before I put my time into it. I mean, what if we spent a few weeks on this thing, only to find out the sister ran off with some guy and is living in Canada or something? While we’re chasing the wild goose, somebody with a real problem needs our help, and we can’t do anything because we’re not available.”
“The least we could do is take a look. No promises or anything.”
“No. Taking a look implies we’re on the job, and there’s no going back once you start something like this. Once we take one look, she’ll want us to keep taking more. Trust me, just walk away, and we’ll be much better off. Or she can give us something more concrete to work off of.”
“So that’s it? You won’t even consider it?”
“That’s it. That’s my final answer. And I won’t budge.”
2
It’d been three days since Bridge had last heard from Sharon Fester, but if he was good at reading people, and he was, he was sure it wouldn’t be the last time. There was a girl who didn’t give up easily. She looked to be about twenty-one or twenty-two years old, but she was one who didn’t take the word no literally. It was just a not now. She would be back. He was sure of that. Especially if her sister didn’t show up.
Bridge was sitting on the couch, reading a few financial newspapers. Nicole was sitting at the desk on her computer. It was just busy work, though, nothing really important. She kept looking at her watch, waiting for the time of their arrival to get there. She periodically looked over at her boyfriend, feeling a little bad about what they were about to spring on him. But she really thought it was time for them to help. And with a little healthy persuasion, she was sure that Bridge would come around too.
“I think I should diversify my portfolio more.” Bridge didn’t look at his girlfriend while talking, just assuming that she was listening. “What do you think?”
“Always a good idea.”
“Ninety percent of my money’s in stocks. Maybe I should add some mutual funds.”
“Smart thinking.”
“Maybe an IRA too. One of those Roth IRAs, you know the ones?”
“Yeah, I’ve read about them.” Nicole checked the time again.
“Or maybe just a plain 401k or something. Just to diversify a little.”
“Good to prepare for the future.”
“I’m not sure I wanna do commodities. Seems like it might be too risky. What do you think?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely too risky.” Nicole really had no idea whether it was or not, but was just letting him go on. “Stick with the safer plays.”
“Yeah, I think so too. I’ll definitely open up an IRA account.”
“Good to have retirement in mind.”
“Yeah, I mean, we can’t do this forever, right?”
“Right.”
“Even though we make good money, we should still have something to fall back on for later, right?”
“Absolutely.” Nicole checked her watch again. Fester wasn’t late, but it sure did feel like it was taking forever to get to noon.
“You should open your own stock account too.”
“I’m definitely thinking about it.”
“IRA accounts are good for tax purposes,” Bridge said.
“So I’ve heard.”
A few more minutes went by, with Bridge babbling on about the stock markets. Nicole wasn’t paying much attention to him, just nodding every now and then, throwing out a yeah, or some other thing that indicated she agreed and was listening. She looked at her watch one more time, it finally reading twelve o’clock. She hoped Fester wouldn’t be late. Not even a minute later there was a knock on the door.
Bridge put his paper down, wondering who it was. “Did you order room service?”
“Uh, no, no, I didn’t.”
“We expecting someone?”
“Mmm, not that I know of.”
Nicole quickly got off her seat and scurried to the door. Bridge found her mannerisms peculiar. She usually didn’t offer to get the door, and so eagerly at that, unless Bridge asked her to. She usually had to be persuaded to answer for him. Of course, now that she was living there too, it was as much her place as it was his, so it equally could have been for her now. Still, she never was as anxious about answering the door as she was this time.
Bridge kept his eyes on the door, though he couldn’t initially see who it was from his spot. Nicole strategically opened the door, keeping it in a spot that she knew gave her partner a tough view. Bridge leaned over, and though he sti
ll couldn’t see who it was, could hear bits of conversation.
“Am I interrupting?” Fester asked.
“No, he’s nice and relaxed,” Nicole replied. “Should be fine.”
“He’s not gonna like me coming here like this.”
“Just relax. This new piece of information you have should be enough to get him going. We’ll work on him together.”
“What are you talking about?!” Bridge shouted.
Nicole looked back at him and smiled. “Oh, nothing.”
She then started walking over to him, Bridge noticing that she hadn’t closed the door. His mind radar was on high alert at the moment, feeling like a bomb was about to be dropped any second. Bridge leaned over again, trying to look around her.
“Noticed that you didn’t close the door there.”
Nicole looked back, faking a surprised expression. “Oh, hadn’t realized I left it open.”
“What are you doing?”
Nicole sat across his lap and put her arms around him. She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.”
“Nicole.”
“Luke.”
“Nicole.”
“Luke.”
“What’s going on here? And don’t play games and tell me nothing because I know otherwise.”
“I just want you to have an open mind, OK?”
“About what?”
“Just promise me you’ll listen.”
Bridge sighed, knowing he was getting sandbagged. “What did you do?”
Nicole looked back at the door, knowing she wasn’t going to get a better answer. “It’s OK, you can come in.”
Sharon Fester stepped a few feet inside the door, then stopped. Bridge rolled his head back, let out a loud grunt, then dumped his pretty girlfriend off his lap on the couch. Bridge stood up, then started walking around the room, putting his arms up.