by Kimberly Rae
“Who?”
“Cole Fleming!” Meagan wanted to shout at the man. “Who else?”
“Did you call the police?”
“No, he drove away when I saw him, so calling the police wouldn’t do any good. This has to stop or I’m getting a restraining order.”
Steve sounded exasperated. “He’s not a criminal.”
“Yeah?” Meagan was surprised the phone didn’t break in two from her grip. “Well, I’m not a criminal either, but me saying so doesn’t seem to mean much, does it?” She yanked a newspaper up from where Pops had dropped it on the hallway floor and ripped it into shreds as she barked out, “I want to know who he is.”
“Cole?” She could hear typing in the background. He wouldn’t even get off his computer to talk with her? “We did a tour in Iraq together. He saved my life a few times. I saved his hide when it counted most. We both grew up in this area, but when I moved back here to get this job, he was out in California somewhere, recovering.”
She wadded up the paper shreds and stuffed them into the trash. “Recovering from what?”
“Can’t tell you that.” The typing continued. “What else do you want to know? He orders a large meat lover’s pizza every Friday night, and eats the leftovers cold for breakfast the next morning. He’s never been married, or even engaged. He broke his ankle once playing soccer and is no good at card games. He likes old spy movies, which I refuse to watch with him.”
Meagan’s grandfather called to her from the living room. She put a hand over the phone. “Just a second, Pops. I’ll be right there.” Removing her hand, she said to Steve, “Why is he following me?”
“Maybe he has a crush on you.”
She thought of the note. “That’s not even close to funny.”
His sigh was loud enough for her to hear. “Look, I’ll take care of it, okay? You just be sure to be in my office at nine tomorrow.”
“I will be.” She finished with a parting shot. “Don’t touch my camera.” She slammed the phone down on a little side table in the hallway. Steve said he would take care of it, but what did that mean? As soon as she got Pops settled for the night, she would take her laptop up to her room and search everything she could find on Cole Fleming.
14
Friday, January 2
9:00 a.m.
Steve said he had work to do and refused to spend the morning studying tapes he’d already looked at, so Meagan found herself ushered to a cubicle down the hall with a computer on an otherwise empty desk. Sawdust covered the floor and much of the desk, tamped down on the carpet by footprints and smeared across the desk by a hand or an unsuccessful paper towel.
Meagan sneezed. “Classy place.”
“This section of the building is being remodeled,” Steve said. He set down a chair he’d carried in from the hallway. “I’ve uploaded the tapes to this computer, but nothing else, so you can be in here without supervision. Write down anything you find of interest.”
She wanted to ask him how he had dealt with Cole yesterday, but decided to just be relieved the man was not there. Steve went back to his office without leaving paper or even a pen.
“Guess he’s pretty sure I won’t find anything,” she muttered. She pulled out the small notepad she always carried in her purse, set it on the desk, and dug around for a pen. Once ready, she put the videos in order and watched them one by one, pausing at frequent intervals to study the passengers and their behavior. By the third tape, she had three pages of notes, and by the last tape, she had the beginnings of a theory. Going back to the beginning, she watched each tape again with a focus on the passengers three rows behind her seat. Yes, her theory was correct, except for that one change on the last trip.
Would it be enough to convince Steve to turn his investigation elsewhere, and not incarcerate her? She gathered her pad, pen and purse. Her coat and scarf were still back in his office. She began to make her way from the cubicle but stopped when she saw Steve just outside his office talking with Cole Fleming. She backed up and was about to retreat to the cubicle when their conversation caught her attention.
“Did you check out the plate numbers I gave you?” Cole asked. Had they run her plates? All they’d find was one speeding ticket she got when she was seventeen. She didn’t think the officer would have reported the incident with the fire hydrant last week. She touched her forehead. Her bruise was healing, which was good; she was tired of people asking about it.
“I did, but you need to back off, Cole. I don’t need you following people for me, or leaving instructions on my voicemail. Like I wouldn’t know to check her phone record.”
“Just trying to help.”
“Like always.” From Meagan’s viewpoint, Steve did not look appreciative. “The plate runs to a woman named Darla Moore. She’s got a record but it’s out of state. A few drugs charges. One petty theft. I’ve got a man on it.”
“Does Meagan have a record?”
Steve crossed his arms. “Squeaky clean, which makes her perfect for a big operation like this. You know they pick people like her. They’re expendable. If they get caught, there are always more people looking for an easy way to get rich. No one would suspect a thing, not with that innocent face of hers.”
Meagan touched her cheek. She had an innocent face?
“Or maybe she is innocent.”
“Didn’t you see her hold her purse in front of her when I asked her questions? That’s a deliberate wall and a sign of dishonesty.”
“Or of distress. Come on, Steve, what person wouldn’t be under stress getting called in and questioned by the FBI?”
Meagan took two steps back and noticed her boots left imprints in the dust at her feet, just two among scores of shoe-shaped spaces, though hers were smaller and more feminine than most of the others. If Cole thought she might be innocent, why was he following her? She’d heard of girls being targeted by men who defended them just to keep other guys away. Alexia’s pimp had bailed her out of jail twice, but of course the bail had not bought her freedom, only a transfer back into his brand of captivity.
The thought had her stomach churning. She decided to go back and hide in the cubicle until Cole left, but he saw her and immediately headed her direction, not stopping when Steve called him back.
“I need to talk to you,” Cole said. His voice and gaze were equally intense. He loomed over her and she decided she didn’t like men to be so tall after all. Or so bulky. If he chose to grab her with those muscled arms she’d never be able to get away, not even with her self-defense moves. She backed up but he moved forward. “I didn’t mean to scare you yesterday. I was following a car.”
“Yeah. Mine.”
The shake of his head stopped her thoughts of flight. “No, a grey car. An Oldsmobile. It’s been tracking you for several days. Do you know whose it is?”
She studied his face. “I haven’t noticed anyone following me but you.”
“Then you don’t know the driver of the grey car?”
“I don’t know anything about a grey car.” She stepped to the side so she could see Steve, still down the hallway in front of his office. “You told me you’d stop him from accosting me.”
“Accosting you?” Cole said the words as if they were poison he needed to spit out. “I’ve never accosted a woman in my life.”
She thought of the newspaper article she had found late the night before with his name on it, about him being nearly blown to bits in Baghdad, with questions about why he was in a building alone with a local woman, known to be a spy, away from the other men in his battalion. “Hero Goes AWOL, Woman Dies in Terrorist Attempt” the headlines read. There had been no follow-up article attesting to his integrity. The reporter said the truth had died with the woman in the blast.
Meagan resisted the pull to apologize for the grief in his eyes that she seemed to have caused. He could be, after all, a dangerous man. A killer even. “Would you please go away and stop following me? I know it’s not for the FBI. I’ll get a restraining
order if I have to.”
He seemed to be on the verge of speech several times, but each time clamped his mouth shut again. She waited until words came. “I’m not trying to make things worse for you, Meagan,” he said. “I want to help. If you’re in trouble, I’ll help you find a good place where you can get clean and stay clean, and get away from the people who want to use you.”
“I told you I’m not part of any of this!” She marched around him to Steve and pushed her notebook up into his face, fed up with the entire situation. “I found things that you should have found if you hadn’t wanted to pin the blame on me from the beginning.”
People in the hallway looked their way and Meagan saw heads pop up from cubicles around the large open area. Steve’s face reddened. “Get inside,” he hissed, pulling her by the elbow into his office.
Cole joined them. “I don’t want him here,” Meagan said.
Steve yanked his chair back and it crashed to the ground. He picked it up and sat in it. “Show me what you think you found,” he ordered.
Meagan tried to ignore Cole’s large presence beside her as they sat in the two chairs opposite Steve’s desk, set against the glass near the door. She set the notepad down as evidence, though neither man would be able to read her own personal version of shorthand. “I watched every tape twice. On two trips, the old lady is sitting three rows back in the aisle seat. She has the briefcase I remember from the mugging.”
“Are you sure it’s the exact same briefcase?” Cole asked.
She glared at him. “How many old ladies have you seen carrying a leather briefcase with gold trim and what looks like a combination lock?”
“Keep talking,” Steve said.
“Two other trips, that seat is taken by an older gentleman wearing a plaid suit jacket. He has the briefcase, too.”
“You think it might be different people taking the drugs out?”
“It makes sense. It’s harder to trace, and easier to frame someone else that way.”
Cole looked at Steve. “She has a good point.”
He frowned at them both. “What about the last two trips?”
She picked up the notebook and looked it over. This was the one hole in her theory. “These last two trips were different. The one before this one, that seat had a younger guy with longer hair, dressed kind of hippie-casual. He had a bag instead of a briefcase, but he kept it in his lap or between his feet at all times, just like the others did with the briefcase.”
“And this last trip?” Steve had his arms crossed.
Meagan shook her head. “This trip the hippie guy sat there on the way to India, but on the trip back, it was someone else. A guy in his twenties or thirties, with thin short hair, wearing dress pants and a collared shirt. No tie.”
“So it’s not consistent.”
“Not the people, I admit.” She leaned forward. “But this last trip, both the hippie and the new guy had the same briefcase. There’s got to be a connection here.”
Cole shifted to face her. “So these people—aside from the last guy—they always wore the same clothes on the flights over and back?”
“Yes, and normally people wouldn’t do that.”
“A disguise perhaps?”
She couldn’t keep excitement from bubbling up inside. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“So are these all different people using the same briefcase, or the same person in different disguises?” Cole looked at Steve. “That would be easy enough to find out, wouldn’t it? We could do a trace of the names on the tickets for that seat. See if any of them are phony, or have criminal records.”
Steve opened a drawer in the file cabinet next to his desk. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Cole.” He pulled a file out and slammed the drawer shut. “Get out of here, both of you.”
Meagan shouldered her purse and stood. “You don’t suspect me anymore?”
“Oh, I still suspect you,” he said, not once looking at her or Cole. “Don’t leave town until I’ve gotten this sorted out.”
She grabbed her camera and put it with her notepad into her purse. “Thank you,” she said, though she was not sure what she was thanking him for. Not putting her in jail, for one.
Cole stood to follow her out. “You should get back to your own job, Cole,” Steve said, still engrossed in his file. “Stay out of this from here on out.”
Meagan couldn’t help but notice Cole seemed disturbed by Steve’s words.
The office door opened and a man’s head, covered in a mop of hair too blonde to not come from a bottle, popped in. “Hey, Steve, nice office,” he said with a grin. “Bet you’re going to be bummed when the construction workers are finished with your cubicle.”
“Shut up, Jensen,” Steve groused. “I’ve got work to do. Get out, all of you.”
The light-haired man left, laughing, and Meagan followed Cole out the door. “What is your real job?” she asked once they were in the hallway.
Cole’s lips turned downward and he looked back at the room they had just exited. “I wondered how he’d gotten such a nice office so quickly,” he said almost to himself. “He’s still the new guy on the team. Doesn’t even have anyone under him yet.” Shaking his head, he turned to Meagan. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Well, once Steve finds out who did this, he can investigate the criminal instead of me, and you’ll have no reason to follow me anymore, right?”
“I wasn’t following you for—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
This whole mess would be over soon and life would get back to normal. As he held the entrance door to the Federal Building open for her, she found herself smiling at him. “Now you can get back to your own job, whatever it is, and forget all about me.”
He stared at her and she wished she could read his thoughts. At last he said, “Goodbye, Meagan Winston. Be safe.”
“You, too.” She walked down the steps, but then turned back to say, “And enjoy your meat lover’s pizza tonight.” She laughed at the stunned expression on his face, feeling lighter than she had in days.
15
Friday, January 2
8:00 p.m.
Cole turned the hot water knob on in the sink, removed his shirt, and stared at the scars reflected in the bathroom mirror. The pizza had not set well with him tonight. How had Meagan known about the pizza anyway? Steve must have told her. Cole wished he hadn’t. He didn’t like when people talked about him, thought they knew things about him.
He would go see Sadie in the morning, remember why he did what he did, and get the strength to go back to it for another week. When she was free, he would be too. Not until then.
Reaching up, his fingers traced the collection of bubbled scars that spread across the skin of his left shoulder and pectoral muscle in the pattern of a small fireworks explosion. The marks were like a moonlit night after a battle, calm and quiet, a mockery of the rage and blood that filled the daylight hours.
She removed her head covering and smiled, looking him straight in the eye before she swept by. “Let’s go someplace quiet, where we can talk.”
“Go for it.” Steve nudged him from behind. “She’s the first woman we’ve seen not wearing a big black tent in weeks. Every guy in the place is salivating over those curves, and the woman just invited you to follow her into a dark private corner. Why are you still here?”
“She’s after something.” Cole had seen her before, had noted how she worked a room of soldiers. “Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.”
“You were looking at her eyes?” Steve downed a shot glass and ordered another. “If you don’t go, I’ll take your place. Who cares what she’s after?”
He had sat with her that night, and the next. She had asked about his family, about his dreams, about his battalion...
Cole remembered the blood draining out across his uniform, his fellow soldiers dragging him to a vehicle, shouting at him to stay awake. Later, he feigned unconsciousness when the journalists and gen
erals questioned his actions and his honor. The journalists had written whatever they pleased, whatever would cause the most sensation. The generals had found him again, asked again, and got the truth, as much as he knew it.
The honorable discharge he’d received carried weight with him, but not many others, who put more stock into words in a newspaper than an official document. Cole had never defended himself to them, never told his side of the story despite opportunities by Time magazine and Newsweek. He’d given enough pieces of himself for his country; he would not cut out another pound of flesh for an image. They said it would repair his reputation. Cole had no use for that. Why should it matter if he was hero or villain to people who cared nothing for him?
Cole leaned over the sink and cupped handfuls of hot water to wash his face and neck. He held a frayed washcloth under the spigot until it was soaked, then pressed it against the skin over his heart. Warmth seeped into his body and water dripped down his torso to land in puddles on and around his feet, soaking the towel he’d placed on the floor. The wound there had almost killed him, and the surviving scar tissue made his shoulder stiff, his mind extremely wary of anything that resembled a grenade, and his heart, well, his heart condition wasn’t something he wanted to analyze. No one else prioritized it, so why should he? Sadie needed him, said she loved him, but it hadn’t been enough to keep her from going back. Steve was supposed to be his best friend, but he’d turned cynical lately. He had it all—a nice wife, nice house, great job—but life didn’t seem to be working out like he’d hoped. Or it could be that since Cole had given his life to Jesus, he’d changed, while Steve still insisted that he didn’t need anybody to be in charge of making his life count.
Cole folded the washcloth and wrung it out over the sink, then soaked it in hot water again and placed it back against his chest. That was the one good thing that had come of his life being blown apart; he’d finally submitted to his need for a Savior. Giving his life back to Jesus had brought peace he hadn’t been able to find even during those days he’d been hailed as a hero, before the condemnation. And having God as his Father had healed the deepest wounds inflicted by the person he should have been able to trust most.