Take a Chance

by D. Jackson Leigh

  The elevator opened and she stepped out to look around. These doors didn’t look like offices. They looked like residences. She checked the address again. Maybe it was a business suite the foundation kept for executives who landed in town periodically for business meetings.

  She knocked on the door, then cursed herself for not seeing the doorbell inlaid in a swirl of scrollwork engraved into the door. She was about to push the bell’s button when the door opened. A young blond man, shirtsleeves rolled up his forearms and tie loose, stared back at her. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong address,” Jamie said.

  “Jamie, it’s so good to see you after all these years. Eric, don’t leave her standing in the hallway.”

  The man stepped back and Jamie froze in disbelief. “Suzanne?”

  Suzanne had grown even more attractive with maturity. Physical maturity. She hadn’t lost that edge Jamie labeled “high school mean girl.” Suzanne wrapped Jamie in a hug, then stepped back. She patted her cheek that had touched Jamie’s sweaty one with a tissue. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure you don’t feel like hugs after being in that god-awful heat outside. Sit and give yourself a chance to cool off.”

  This was too Twilight Zone for Jamie. “I have an appointment with the Strange Foundation. Obviously, I wrote the address down wrong. I’ll go back to the lobby and call the man I spoke to before.”

  Eric opened the door with a smile and bowed when she started to make her exit. Suzanne’s terse snarl stopped her.

  “Not funny, Eric.”

  His smile vanished. He closed the door and returned to the sitting area.

  “You have an appointment with me, Jamie. I’m the southeast director for the Strange Foundation.”

  Jamie leveled a hard gaze at Suzanne. “Then I’m definitely in the wrong place.” She started for the door again.

  “Wait, please.” Suzanne gestured weakly to Eric and a brunette version of Suzanne he sat next to on the sofa. The coffee table in front of them was covered with coffee cups and official-looking papers. “This is Eric and Lisa. The Strange Foundation is serious about the Shelter to Working Dog program. We were just discussing it and want to talk to you about our plans. We can save a lot of dogs, Jamie.”

  Jamie knew how manipulative Suzanne could be, but what did it matter if some deserving dogs got a second chance instead of the euthanasia chamber? “May I use your restroom? I got here early, but spent the entire time looking for somewhere to park.”

  “Of course. Down the hall, first door on the right. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Soda. I’m not picky as long as it isn’t something weird like grape or orange.”

  Suzanne pointed to the granite-topped island that separated the kitchen area from the rest of the living space. “You can leave your things here, if you want.”

  Jamie nodded and left her sunglasses and phone on the counter. The phone needed a code to open the contacts, but she wanted to see if Suzanne would try to snoop through her text messages.

  The phone was still there when she returned, but not lined precisely with the edge like she’d intentionally placed it. And Eric and Lisa were gone.

  “Where are your friends?”

  Suzanne shrugged and smiled as she handed Jamie a glass of soda. “I told them I could pitch the program better alone, since we’re old friends.”

  “We’re not friends, Suzanne. You knew I thought Trip was too blueblood for me and you used that, making up lie after lie about her. Bedding the entire volleyball team? She was tutoring them in math.”

  Suzanne threw her head back and laughed in an overacted display of disbelief. “Is that what she told you?”

  “I checked it out. One of those players works for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation now, so I called her. She was happy to tell me about how she’d never have stayed qualified to play in the national championship if Trip hadn’t helped her understand algorithms. She also offered to give me the phone numbers of some other players she’d kept in contact with.”

  Suzanne shrugged. “Whatever. That’s old trash, Jamie.” She moved into Jamie’s personal space and trailed her fingers down Jamie’s neck and the vee of her shirt front. “Let’s just throw it out and start over. I can offer you the job you’ve always wanted.” She moved closer, her lips inches from Jamie’s. “And special perks you only dreamed of before.”

  Jamie grabbed Suzanne’s shoulders and shoved her back. “I have everything I want already, more than I ever dreamed possible.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Beaumont. Professor Harrell can’t be reached by phone. He checks his email every three days, but he just responded to some messages yesterday. We don’t expect to hear from him again for another couple of days.”

  Trip silently cursed. “Thank you. I’ll email him about the case we’ve been working together.”

  Even if today’s surgery was successful, Trip would want to keep him as a consultant on the case. An ultrasound of Petunia’s belly revealed another tumor blocking the small intestine. It must have grown very fast because it hadn’t shown up on the MRI several weeks ago. What on earth had that lab been researching? If she removed this tumor, would another grow just as fast?

  Not that there was any choice to make, but she’d feel better if she could talk to Jamie before starting the surgery. Every time she tried, her call went to Jamie’s voice mail. Petunia had been sedated to insert the gastric tube and complete the ultrasound, so there was no reason to delay the surgery. Petunia wouldn’t survive without it.

  * * *

  Jamie fumed as she drove down the interstate. Suzanne was some piece of work. Part of her was disappointed that the offer had been bogus. It was just Suzanne popping into their lives to mess things up again. Not this time.

  Her thumb had already been in motion to touch the “end call” icon when Trip’s voice came through once more. Love you. Those words made her response to Suzanne instant and easy. Trip would no longer hold back. Well, Jamie was done holding back, too.

  She glanced at her speedometer and backed off the accelerator. She smiled to herself. Trip would never let her live down a speeding ticket.

  Jamie was one county away from Pine Cone when the police scanner in her truck lit up with traffic. Body. By the river. Homeless men. She listened, but the traffic was overlapping until a highway patrol sergeant ordered all discussion pertaining to that case moved to a different channel. But she missed the channel number. God, why did men mumble into their mics? She hated that almost as much as the ones who talked super fast, like they were practicing for their auctioneer’s license. She keyed the mic on the police radio lying on the truck seat.

  “This is Pine Cone unit twelve. What’s the ten-twenty on that ten-one hundred?”

  “You can relax, Pine Cone twelve. HP is handling this. We have two suspects already in custody.”

  Jamie growled under her breath at the young trooper’s smug report. “Arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “Pine Cone twelve, you copy?”

  Jamie smiled at the familiar sound of her dispatcher’s voice. “Pine Cone twelve, ten-four.”

  “I had a ten-five for you earlier. You might want to check your messages.”

  “Ten-four. I’ll do that.”

  Jamie pulled off at the next exit and groped for her phone. “Damn it.” She didn’t remember turning it off. Suzanne. You didn’t need a security code to turn a phone off. She waited impatiently for it to boot up. Several missed calls and two messages from Trip. Jamie would listen to those later. Trip was probably anxious to find out how the meeting went. She kept scrolling until she saw a message from an unfamiliar number.

  Miss Jamie, it’s Toby. Pete and I found your soldier. It’s not good. We’re down by the river.

  Jamie scribbled as she listened to him drawl out the directions, then spun tires as she flew down the ramp to merge back onto the interstate.

  * * *

  Trip carefully lifted the tu
mor into the lab dish.

  “As much trouble as that tumor was causing, you’d expect it to be larger,” Dani said.

  “Didn’t need to be because it was situated in a very bad place,” Trip said, examining the edges of the tumor. The tumor looked exactly like the one she’d removed with Dr. Harrell, and she’d bet the farm it was also benign. Still, they’d let the lab confirm it. She turned back to the operating table. “Let’s take a good look at everything else in here to see if we can spot any more of these tumors waiting to blossom.”

  “Good idea. How’s our patient doing?”

  “Vitals are still good,” Cindy said.

  Almost an hour later, Trip straightened to stretch her back while Dani hovered a moment more over the sterile field. “She looks clean as a whistle, but there’s never a guarantee.”

  Trip held out her hand. Michelle laid the first suture in Trip’s palm, then began preparing the next. “When I was trying to decide at one point what direction to take my life, my grandfather told me there are no guarantees, except death and taxes. He said, ‘Trip, if a guarantee is what you’re holding out for, death and taxes might be all you have when you reach the end of the road.’ So, if she grows another tumor, we’ll take that out, too, and keep looking for new solutions until Petunia has no options left. I’ll never give up just because there’s no guarantee.”

  * * *

  The road down to the river was little more than a wide path and so completely blocked by multiple law enforcement vehicles that Jamie had to skirt a tree to keep going. The scene was lit by the headlight of the first two cars.

  A long, thick branch of a huge oak stretched out over the water. Someone wearing a dark vest with bright yellow letters proclaiming Forensics was perched on the limb and sawing at a rope. Two men in fishermen’s waders stood below, waiting to catch the body that hung from the rope.

  “Miss Jamie, she knows us. Miss Jamie, over here.”

  Jamie turned and saw Pete poking his head around a huge state trooper who had Pete and Toby spread against his cruiser and was in the process of searching them. The trooper stopped and turned to her.

  “And who are you?” His chubby, peach-fuzz-covered cheeks made his scowl look more like a pout.

  “That’s Deputy Grant, sir. She knows us.” Toby spoke, but remained in the search stance since the trooper hadn’t released them.

  “Shut up,” the young trooper said. “You aren’t allowed to talk unless you’re ready to tell us what happened.”

  “We been trying to tell you,” Pete whined.

  “I’m thinking that y’all are running drugs and crossed somebody you shouldn’t have,” the trooper said. “That what happened to your buddy?”

  “Who’s in charge here?” Jamie asked.

  “Who wants to know?” The trooper sneered at the Pine Cone Sheriff’s Office badge she held out to him.

  “Deputy Grant, what brings you down here?” A trim man with a graying crew cut strode toward them. His handshake was warm when Jamie walked forward to greet him.

  “Good to see you again, Captain.” Jamie was relieved to see the higher-ranked trooper she’d met while working the big drug bust. He’d done time in the desert too.

  A small splash drew everybody’s attention, and they watched the body be carried to the black zippered bag laid out on a stretcher.

  “Are there drugs tied up in this?” He looked around Jamie’s feet. “Where’s your partner?”

  “She’s off-duty. I was just coming back from a meeting in Savannah when I got a message from one of the suspects your trooper is searching over there.”

  “Suspects?”

  Jamie pointed to where the trooper had resumed his search of Toby.

  “Aw, hell.” He waved his trooper over to join them. “Smith, you dumbass. I told you to ask them to stick around so I could talk to them. They’re not suspects.”

  “Just look at them, sir. I’m betting they have a dozen warrants out on each of them.”

  He shook his head and turned to Jamie. “Can you vouch for these men, Grant?”

  “Yes, sir. They’ve been helping me look for a young veteran that hasn’t been doing well. They called to say that they’d found him.” A forensic tech was blocking her view of the body, but she recognized Adder’s duffel on the shore. “I’m pretty sure all three of us can identify the deceased, or at least give you enough information to track down his identity. But I want to talk to my friends first. It might not be good for Pete to see the body. He’s already pretty wound up.”

  Pete was as agitated as she’d ever seen him, bouncing from foot to foot. Toby had finally turned and propped against the trooper’s car. He was quiet and did not look up when she went to them. She gave him a one-armed hug. “Tell me.”

  “We don’t usually come down this far, but we heard from someone else that Adder had been seen around here. This is how we found him.” He finally met Jamie’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Miss Jamie. I know you wanted to help him.”

  “You’re sure it’s Adder?”

  “I seen him,” Pete said. “I shimmied up that tree to get close. I was going to cut him down and let the river take him, but Toby said no. We should call you.”

  “Toby was right, Pete.”

  She asked a few more questions, then clasped Toby’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for calling me. You guys wait here while I straighten this out.”

  “I don’t know his last name,” Jamie said. The captain nodded and a technician zipped up the body bag. She’d watched army medics close zippers over the boyish faces of young recruits and hardened soldiers alike. “He told me his first name was Francis. He’s a vet. Couple of tours in the desert. They called him Adder over there. That’s what he liked to go by. I’m betting you’ll find his DD-two-fourteen and dog tags in that duffel over there. It looks like the one he always carried. If not in the duffel, Toby said Adder kept a locked metal box stashed somewhere in the old train depot. He never showed them where, but told Toby it was there in case something happened to him.”

  The captain nodded. “We’ll look for it. If we can’t find it, we’ll call you and see if your partner can track it down.”

  “Only if he put drugs or explosives in it. Otherwise, you’ll need a bloodhound.”

  He nodded. “You think this is self-inflicted?”

  “Yeah. I was looking for him because the last time I saw him, he seemed to be losing his struggle with PTSD, but wasn’t ready to accept help.”

  The captain shook his head. “We ought to be doing more for these soldiers coming back wounded worse inside than out.” He searched her face. “You still have dreams?”

  “Yeah.” Never lie to a fellow vet.

  “Me, too,” he said softly.

  “My dog seems to sense when I go back there in my head. She helps,” Jamie said.

  They stared out over the river until Pete added arm swinging to his nervous foot shuffling.

  “These guys are not homeless, just restless,” Jamie said. “I think Pete is a bit autistic, but Toby looks out for him. Right now, all these people milling around after them finding Adder is straining Pete’s limit. All right for them to go?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call you if we need more information from them.”

  She returned to Toby and Pete. “You’ve answered all the questions the captain has right now. He’ll call me if he has any more for you later. Need a ride back to Pine Cone?”

  “Toby’s truck is down the road. I can find it. I can find anything no matter how dark.”

  “You’re a good man, Pete,” Jamie said. “Thank you for finding Adder. I guess his burden was too heavy for him to carry, but he’s in a better place now.”

  Pete nodded and swung his arms. “Better place. He’s in a better place.”

  “He’s got somebody, somewhere who must be wondering where he’s gone,” Toby said. “You find them and send his things to them.”

  “I will, Toby. I promise.”

  * * *

  Th
e phone rang and rang.

  “This is Jamie Grant. I’m not currently available. Please leave a message.”

  Trip ended the call. She’d already left a dozen messages. Her gut churned with a sense of foreboding, but she shook it off. She was being silly. Maybe Jamie dropped her phone and it broke. Hell, Trip dropped hers in a toilet once and no amount of time in a bag of rice could dry it out. Jamie might’ve simply run the battery down and didn’t have a charger with her. She glanced at her watch. It was ten o’clock. Where are you, Jamie?

  Accident scenarios rolled through her head. Assault possibilities formed in her mind—Jamie beaten unconscious and doctors working frantically over her while Trip stood helplessly in the corner. Geez. She’d been watching too much television.

  Didn’t Jamie say these people called her from New York? She’d heard those New York City types lived their work. They probably trapped her into a working dinner, which meant cocktails, several courses, and dessert. Jamie probably was itching to get back on the road while they chatted on and on.

  Trip checked again on Petunia. She was snoring softly. A little swelling, but only what should be expected. She decided to pass the time by browsing the web for playground equipment. She and Jamie wanted to work up a proposal to turn the trash lot across from the Boys and Girls Club into a clean, safe playground.

  She checked a few wholesale sites. Wow. This stuff was expensive, but it looked like it wouldn’t be hard to build for a fraction of the cost. She bookmarked a few sites, then searched for grants that could help.

  Then, on a whim, Trip typed STRANGE FOUNDATION into the search engine. A fancy website flowed onto the page and Trip began to read. The board of directors and the causes they supported were impressive. So was the amount of money they handed out. No wonder Jamie was sticking out the evening with them.

  Ah. A list of full-time staff. Trip scrolled down the list until she reached the southeast region. She stared at the name. No. It couldn’t be.

  Every insecurity buried in Trip’s subconscious came bubbling to the surface.