by Tom Fowler
Bobbi Lane arrived promptly at noon. Her small running shorts showcased her toned and shapely legs. She wore a tank top I could see the outline of a sports bra through, and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. I sported my Under Armour shorts, shirt, and running shoes because I’m all about supporting the local companies. I showed Bobbi around the first floor of my house for a minute. Then we headed to the park.
The blocks we spent walking served as a warmup. Bobbi ran as soon as we got there. I already felt loosened up, so I fell in stride beside her. I would occasionally let her get a couple steps ahead so I could admire her running form. She set a good pace, and her breath came easily. Bobbi was a woman used to running. This pace was a little faster than my normal one. but I could adapt.
“I emailed Chris like we discussed,” Bobbi said after we finished our first lap. She talked as if she were strolling along. The run wasn’t taxing her at all.
“Anything yet?”
“No response, but I know he read it. Our internal emails attach read receipts automatically.”
“So the address still works,” I said.
“And he still checks it,” she said.
“I might need you to email him when we’re finished. If he replies, I’ll see if I can trace it.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then you might need to hang out for a while,” I said with a grin.
Bobbi smiled. “I can think of worse ways to pass the time.”
I could think of better ones, but I kept my ideas to myself. Bobbi took off on a sprint. I matched her stride for stride for a quarter-lap. We fell back into a good rhythm. She lagged a couple steps behind before pulling even again. The sly upturn to her lips told me she had checked me out like I did her.
We did a few more circuits, about four miles in all, before breaking off at a walk back to my house. “Good run,” Bobbi said. “We should do this more often.”
“Anytime,” I said. “It’s good having someone to go with.”
We got back to my place and pondered lunch. Our need for showers before going anywhere left it up in the air. “You have more than one shower?” Bobbi said.
“I do,” I said, “but I have an old hot water heater. We’ll have to go in shifts.”
“You go ahead, then,” she said, looking at her phone. “I’ll keep searching for lunch places.”
I went upstairs, put all my sweaty clothes in the hamper, and got into the shower. The hot water felt good. Bobbi put us on a pace faster than my normal one, plus two sprints. I adjusted the shower head. The hot water hitting my muscles loosened them up. Then a wider arc of light washed over the bathroom. The glass had already steamed over, so I couldn’t see out. I wondered if Esposito’s men came back. If they did, I only had hot water and a showerhead to fight them off.
Someone grabbed the door. I gripped the hose and metal head like a weapon. Bobbi Lane stood there, smiling. She, too, doffed her running clothes. The rest of her looked as toned and fit as her legs, with softness in exactly the right places. She stepped into the shower and pulled the door shut. “Hi.”
“Hello,” I said.
The conversation died there as Bobbi kissed me. She wrapped her arms around my neck. Water ran over her body. We kissed again. “Sarah Silverman says showering with a man means you’ll end up with really clean breasts,” she said.
“I’m all about hygiene,” I said.
We lathered up and washed ourselves and mostly each other with our hands. Both of us had definitely been cleaned in all the important places. The hot water cooled to warm. I opened the door, grabbed Bobbi and a couple towels, and we left the bathroom for the bedroom.
Later, when we were both dressed, Bobbi and I walked to Byblos and took the food back to my house. Federal Hill was awash in food options, and we decided on Mediterranean. Bobbi ordered a falafel pita with a side of baba ganoush and more pita. I got chicken shawarma with string beans and rice pilaf. We ate at my coffee table, sitting beside each other on the sofa, while she sent a follow-up email to Chris Sellers. I kept a laptop handy in case he replied.
“What in the world did Chris get himself into?” Bobbi said.
“Someone took an interest in his talents,” I said.
“How? How does a gangster even know about Chris?”
“The gangster’s brother works at Hopkins.”
Bobbi shook her head. “He could get a pipeline of talent from a place like that.”
I hadn’t considered it, and the thought gave me a chill. How many other people did Danny Esposito pass onto his brother, and what were they doing now? Was Danny how Esposito knew where Chris and I were meeting? “He could,” I said, trying to pretend the thought didn’t disturb me.
“Have you talked to the brother?”
“Yes,” I said. “He didn’t sound eager to help his darker sibling again, but it could have been a ruse. I think I need to pay him another visit.”
Bobbi took a delicate bite of her falafel. At her current rate, it would take her a hundred bites to eat something I would devour in twenty. “Does it ever make you nervous?” she said.
“What?”
“The job. Talking to gangster’s brothers. Running into the gangsters themselves. It sounds dangerous.”
“It can be,” I said. “I’m not too proud to admit to some nerves here and there.”
“Why do you do it? You said my company would love to hire you.”
“They would.”
“So why not do something safer?” she said. “Write code. Your biggest danger there is a faulty keyboard.”
“I would say it’s shitty documentation,” I said, making Bobbi chuckle. She knew. “I’m good at this. I get to do things like write code for more interesting purposes.”
“And the gangsters?”
“Part of the job. I thought I could do so much of this online at first, which hasn’t turned out to be the case.”
“You still do it,” Bobbi said.
“It’s growing on me.” She didn’t need to know about my arrangement with my parents. Maybe some of their persistent brand of philanthropy rubbed off on me after all.
“Try not to get hurt,” she said with a grin. “I’d hate to have to find another running partner so soon.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’re already fine.”
“Then I’ll do my best to stay that way,” I said.
After Bobbi left, I checked in on my scripts. Still nothing. Expanding my search area was a possibility, but I needed to be scientific about it. Simply adding counties at random would provide a lot more potential noise. I’d be looking for the same needle in a much bigger and more slapdash haystack. I required more information first.
I checked into Chris Sellers as much as I could for now. Anna Blair remained. I could only presume they went into hiding together. I started a thorough search into her life. Anna rented an apartment in White Marsh. Esposito would have gone there, and even if he were dumb enough to overlook it, my traffic camera script would have picked her up. I ruled it out.
With nothing significant from Anna herself, I moved onto her parents. They owned a house in Glen Burnie. Esposito would have gone there, too. If Anna went to either place, he would have found her and probably grabbed her based on what King told me about him. If Anna had been grabbed, Chris would come out of hiding. I hoped. If I couldn’t find anything better, I’d need to follow up on the parents, but for now, I kept looking.
Anna still possessed one living grandparent on each side of the family. Her maternal grandfather had retired to Florida. The fact was worth noting. I wouldn’t put a trip to Florida past Esposito, but he’d exhaust all the local options first. I came back to Chris emerging from hiding if Esposito’s goons managed the snatch-and-grab with Anna. Her paternal grandmother lived in an assisted-living facility in Timonium, another place my traffic camera script should have found her.
I sifted through more family members and ruled them out for various reasons. Anna and
Chris must be hiding outside the radius of my traffic camera script. I could have expanded it to all counties in Maryland and at least eliminate anywhere in the state. It would also provide a ton of input to churn through. In the meantime, I pulled her credit report and checked all her cards for recent activity. She withdrew $300 from a few different ATMs five days ago. Nothing since then. I kept watching her cards while I amended my scripts.
A hit came up.
Anna Blair used a credit card in Ocean City.
It was always possible someone stole her identity—or at least her credit card—and used it. This represented the first real lead I uncovered since I got Chris Sellers to answer me on the code forum. I quickly changed my script to look for Worcester County traffic camera activity, grabbed my phone, and got in the Caprice.
A drive to Ocean City loomed ahead of me.
After crossing the Bay Bridge, I pulled over and used my phone to open a secure tunnel into my desktop. Anna Blair’s car triggered a number of traffic cameras. I could trace her path from the ATM and narrowed her location to about a one square block area. Once I got there, I could reduce the scope the rest of the way. I drove to the block, which had a smallish hotel on each corner.
Anna Blair drove a silver Subaru sedan. I saw just such a car at the third hotel, and it matched her tag number. I parked the Caprice in an available space, called up a picture of Anna from social media, and headed into the lobby of the Ocean Getaway Inn. The fellow behind the desk looked young enough to be bumming his way around after high school. His polo was untucked, and his nametag, which read “Vince,” sat crooked below the collar. “Need a room?” he said.
“I need to find someone.” I showed him my ID. He looked at it like I offered a look at my pet lizard.
“I don’t know if I should be talking to you.”
“Got something to hide?”
“What?”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Your guests pay for discretion.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. I hoped he convinced himself. “That’s it.”
“Not at the rates you charge, they don’t. Now you can help me, or I can talk to your boss.”
Vince resigned himself to his fate. “OK, OK. Who are you looking for?”
“A woman named Anna Blair.”
After a little typing and head-shaking, Vince said, “No one here under that name.”
“How about Chris Sellers?” I said.
He checked and got the same result.
“How about this woman here?” I showed Vince the picture of Anna Blair on my phone. “She should have come back a couple hours ago.”
“Yeah, I remember her. Miss Curie.”
“Curie?”
“Yeah,” Vince said, “Marie Curie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you know who Madam Curie was?”
“Was? What do you mean? She’s in 312.”
“Google her,” I said as I headed for the stairs. I took them two at a time, got off at the third floor, and found room 312 quickly. While I knocked on the door, I pondered what I would say. Nothing like having a plan.
“Who is it?” a nervous voice said from the other side of the door.
I held my ID up to the peephole. “Take a look at my ID,” I said. “I’m trying to help you and Chris.”
“He’s not here.”
“Then I guess I’ll focus on helping you for now,” I said.
I waited. Anna didn’t say anything else. She was on the third floor so there was no other way out of the room not involving a thirty-foot drop. Maybe she scrutinized my ID. Maybe she wondered how such handsomeness could be conveyed in such a small photo. Or she could be holding a gun. I moved to the side as much as I could while still holding my credentials to the peephole.
The chain unlatched. The deadbolt turned. The door opened. Anna Blair looked exactly like the picture I found on Facebook. She was pretty, though I would have put Gloria and Bobbi Lane above her. I chided myself for the thought. Anna’s brown hair looked newly-washed. She wore a plain black T-shirt, pink gym shorts, and no shoes. “Who says I need help?” she said.
“You opened the door,” I said.
“Why do you think I need help?”
“Brian came to me. He’s worried about his brother and by extension, you.”
A small smile played on Anna’s lips. “He’s a good kid.”
“Yes, he is,” I said. I looked around to make sure no one took an interest in our conversation. “I’d rather not talk right here. Is Chris somewhere nearby?”
“Somewhere, yes. We’re not staying together. He called it a single point of failure, I think.”
I liked the term, even though Chris was the one Esposito and his men were after. From what I heard about Esposito, I felt he could get Anna to give up Chris’ location. “Probably a good idea,” I said, working on my diplomacy.
“Look, I’ll talk to you,” Anna said. “But I’m not telling you where Chris is.” I watched her face for a tell, even a glance in one direction. Nothing.
“All right,” I said. “I have just the place in mind.”
Ten minutes later, we sat in a booth at Tequila Mockingbird. I’ve always loved the name and liked the food, and this combo is enough to get me to go back every time I visit Ocean City. Those visits became less frequent after I left my teen years behind. Ocean City is great until you travel to some spectacular beaches throughout the world. It still held local appeal to me, though, in part because of places like Tequila Mockingbird. It was decorated like a thousand other Tex-Mex restaurants, and chips and salsa appeared on the table as soon as we took seats.
Anna Blair sipped a margarita. I nursed a very non-Tex-Mex IPA while we waited for our food. “Tell me what happened,” I said.
She frowned. “You know Chris is really good at writing code.” I nodded. “Like, really good.” I nodded some more. She seemed to want the acknowledgment. “Anyway, this guy wanted him to write some bad program for him.”
“Alberto Esposito,” I said, keeping my voice down. “And he wanted ransomware.”
“That sounds right. Anyway, Chris agreed to help him at first. Then . . . I guess it dawned on him who he was working for; I don’t know. He stopped and told the guy he was done.”
“And he wouldn’t return the money he’d been paid.”
“He worked for the money.”
“Esposito sees it differently,” I said.
“Whose side are you on?” Anna said, frowning.
“Yours,” I said, “but once Chris knew who he made a deal with, keeping the money wasn’t smart.”
“Whatever.” She shook her head. “Anyway, he told me we needed to get out of town, so here we are.”
“Here you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“I found you without a lot of effort,” I said. “I’ve been looking for a day or so.”
“Sure, but you’re a detective.”
Fajitas sizzled from about twenty feet away. The sound grew closer. Our waitress dropped off our food. Unlike Anna’s fajitas, my fish tacos did not sizzle, but steam rose off them, and they smelled terrific. “My point,” I said, “is it didn’t take a lot for me to find you, and I’m probably not the most motivated guy looking.”
Anna assembled a fajita. She ordered chicken, and it came with the usual array of colorful vegetables, sour cream, guacamole, and tortillas. She skipped the guac entirely, committing a serious fajita faux pas. I let it pass. “How did you find me, anyway?” she said after a couple bites.
“You used a credit card.”
“Shit.” She shook her head. “I just got that card. Thought it was safe to use.”
I tried my tacos. The fish had a tasty seasoning to it, and the slaw, pico, and guac complemented it nicely. “The place you used it is far enough from here so no one would find you right away,” I said. “I used something else, too. But you need to be careful. Chris does, too.”
“We will.”
We ate our dinners in silence for a few
minutes. I broke it with a question. “How long do you guys plan to stay on the run?”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I mean, you can’t just chill here for a couple weeks and go back like nothing happened.”
“Huh.” Anna pursed her lips. “I guess I never thought about it like that.”
“You’re on the run for a while. You need to be ready.”
“I am,” she said, adding a quick and forceful nod. Too quick and forceful. I wasn’t convinced.
“Here’s my card,” I said, sliding one across the table to her. “I’ll stick around here for a day or two and see if we have any unexpected company. In the meantime, you and Chris need to come up with a plan. Living on the lam doesn’t suit you.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Any chance you’ll take me to see him?”
Anna shook her head. “No.”
“All right. At least tell him we talked. I reached out to him earlier and was going to meet him until Esposito rolled in.”
“He mentioned that to me,” she said.
“I still don’t know how Esposito knew.”
Anna fell silent. She wasn’t going to be any more help. When the waitress returned, I paid the check—in cash, so as not to contribute to the credit card trail—and took Anna back to her hotel. From there, I checked into the Sea Spray Inn across the street. I felt Anna didn’t know what she got herself into, and the feeling made me more worried for her and for Chris than before.
Chapter 11
The next morning, I pulled a T-shirt and gym shorts out of my overnight bag and went for a run along Coastal Highway. It wasn’t Federal Hill Park, but it gave me about a half-hour of exercise. Later in the year, with more coeds walking to the beach, the scenery would be improved. I got back to my room, showered, dressed, and declared myself ready to stop all forms of malfeasance.
First, though, I wanted breakfast. Stopping malfeasance is harder when you’re hungry. I went to the General’s Kitchen, glad for the light offseason crowd, and ordered an omelet with wheat toast and home fries. The coffee was good enough to merit a second cup. On the drive back to my hotel, I took a lap through the Ocean Getaway Inn’s parking lot. Anna Blair’s Subaru was gone. I didn’t think much of it. She said she and Chris weren’t staying together.