Orb

by Arp, David E. ;

  “Meshach, or whomever you are, for some reason I felt the need to warn you. So maybe there is one thread of loyalty among us. I’d tell you to run, but I don’t think any sense of self-preservation exists in you. I feel one day soon I’ll read of your demise in the morning paper and not even recognize that it’s you. Good-bye.”

  “Wait! Wait!” Meshach yelled into the phone. The connection remained open but silent. “A name. Give me a name and location.” The lull lasted a minute.

  “Hansen, Wes Hansen. The Days Inn in Mandeville.”

  And so the game would continue, advantage Meshach.

  “Lamech. Now you listen to me. Watch the papers and the news. After I’m finished with the PI, I’m going to do your job pro bono.”

  He hurled the phone against the wall.

  ~*~

  Sunday morning

  The hotel advertised continental breakfast as a selling point. Whatever that meant. One thing was for sure: it had nothing to do with home-cooked or fresh. Honey buns, muffins, donuts, packaged waffles and sugary cereal lined the counter. As soon as Wes’s crew got up, he’d let them sample the fare at the Broken Egg.

  He poured a cup of coffee and took a seat at a table with the Sunday paper and his legal pad. He had a lot of info to give the FBI, none of which would convict Meshach of jaywalking in a court of law.

  Jess walked in, dressed for a jog. “Good morning.” She twisted the top off a bottle of water.

  “Good morning. You’re up early. It’s barely five thirty, and you’re off for a run already. I don’t see how you do it.”

  “It’s easy for me.” She raked her hair back into a ponytail with her fingers and put on a band to hold it. “Starts my day off right. Makes me feel better if I run early. Wakes me up and gets the motor running.”

  “I guess,” he said. “To each his own, or her own.” He rolled his eyes at her and smiled.

  She pulled out a chair and sat. “So, you don’t see the draw?”

  “I do not. The Marine Corps cured any desire I might have once held for running before noon. Though, I don’t ever remember having the desire, so maybe it wasn’t there to start with.” Wes indicated her colorful shoes. “Looks like you wandered off the beaten path into the mud.”

  She looked at her feet. “I went for a walk last night after we got back and stepped into a hole up the street, in that area of road construction. The mud is bright red and sticky. I should have washed it off when it was still wet. I forgot.” She took a sip of water. “Well, we have a meeting this morning. What would you like me to do?”

  “Attend, all of us. It would help if we could contact Liz and get a name beforehand. After the meeting, we’ll have to see. I think we’re winding down. Unless Cole wants me to continue, and frankly, I don’t see the point. This is a job for law enforcement.”

  She nodded and shifted in her chair. “Nevada is Pacific time. I’ll try Liz again at eight her time, ten ours.” She stood. “Well, OK then. I’m going to make this quick so I can be ready when you are. Again, I really enjoyed your friends. I like Rae. She’s a talker, but at least, you know where she stands. I’m glad you and Bubba could talk. I was very happy to hear what he had to say.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Wes watched her a moment. As she turned away, he said, “Jess, one minute.”

  She faced him and locked onto him with her bluebonnet stare. “Yes, sir?”

  He took a deep breath. “If this meeting doesn’t drag out, would you like to have dinner with me tonight? Just you and me?” He found himself wringing his hands and fidgeting like a kid.

  Her gaze remained. He had hope in the light he saw there, but she was taking a long time to answer. “Are you asking me out, Wes? Like on a date?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I am.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have a rule about dating my boss. Too complicated. As they say, I’ve got the T-shirt.”

  “Well,” Wes said. “I’m just the man who can fix that.”

  “You are? How?”

  “You’re fired.”

  She held out her fist for him to tap and smiled. “Perfect. ’Bout seven then?” She turned and exited through the sliding glass doors.

  She was killing him. He wanted to chase her. What a girl.

  He jerked his thoughts back to business and sent Cole a quick e-mail update. The main topic: the leak did not originate with Bubba.

  Tony strolled in from down the hall. “Morning, boss,” he said and pulled out a chair. He grimaced as he eased himself down on the seat.

  “What’s the matter with you this morning?”

  “That little Frankie kid just about killed me. I’m so sore from riding the four-wheeler I can hardly move. I’ve had leg cramps all night.”

  “Fun though, eh?”

  “Loved it. I’m going to buy one. Seen Jess? She out for a run already?”

  “She is.” Wes glanced at his watch. “She’s been gone five minutes. She said she was going to make it fast.” He wondered what fast meant to her. “We’ll go out for breakfast when she gets back.”

  Tony shook his head. “Running for five minutes would seem like an eternity to me. I don’t see how she does it.”

  “Nor I. What’s the news? Anything from Meshach?”

  “Not a peep out of him. Nothing. Eerily quiet. Do you think he’s gone?”

  Wes thought about the question a second. “It’s been my experience that once a plan is in place and a tee time is set, the team goes dark, radio silent.”

  “That’s scary. I hope we can contact Liz this morning and that there’s a name on the back of that pic. What time’s our meeting?”

  “Bubba said before noon, but I’m sure I won’t hear from him for a bit. Most people with any sort of normal lifestyle are in bed asleep this time Sunday morning.”

  “You’re saying we’re not normal? Huh, I think I just answered my own question with the question.” Tony pulled at the hem of his hoodie. “Could I have the car keys? I left my phone charger in the backseat.”

  Wes slid the key fob across the table. “Let’s go over some of this info when you get back.”

  “I’ll only be a minute.” Tony pushed out of the chair and limped toward the door.

  The legal pad held twenty pages of notes. Wes scanned them one by one. Did he really need to rehash everything again? The pad held all he had to offer. The FBI was going to think he was a doozy with this stack of evidence.

  Tony entered, moving like he’d found a new set of legs. “Has Jess come in?”

  “No, why?”

  Tony flipped a business card on the table, then turned toward the corridor, moving like Wes had never seen before. “I found that under the wiper blade on the car. I’ll check her room. Then we have to make a round in the car.”

  The business card lay face up on the tabletop. The orb stared at him.

  27

  Wes sat at a table on one side of the breakfast area in the hotel. Two hours and ten minutes had passed since Jess walked out the door for her jog. He’d beat himself up every second since. Meshach or his handler had found them once. What made Wes think the man couldn’t find them again? Changing cities had not minimized the risk one degree. He’d lost his edge and made a critical mistake. He’d let Jess down.

  He and Tony had searched for her. First in a methodical circular pattern, expanding outward from the hotel, street-by-street, then lineal, across the grid, north to south and east to west. They hoped and prayed, but they both knew the notation on the back of the card, in pencil, in the same block letters as on the cards Cole had received, meant she was in deep trouble. Come get her was an obvious indication of what had transpired on a dark street not far away and a personal invitation Wes had every intention of accepting…if he could find the man.

  Bubba, FBI Special Agent, Trent Carr, and two Mandeville police officers conversed near the hotel’s front desk.

  Like the evening before with Bubba, Wes’s account of his investigation took little time to relate. The agent had jotted no
tes on a pad but never said a word. Wes wondered if the guy’s mother knew her son’s whereabouts so early on a Sunday morning. He looked like he should be home studying his spelling words. His lack of questions, especially with what little evidence Wes had to offer, did little to bolster that lack of confidence. Did the guy grasp the thread linking a single suspect to the string of coincidences, as Bubba called them? Was he convinced to act?

  Someone in the FBI thought he rated a badge, and they’d backed it up by issuing him a gun, so maybe.

  The city police seemed more interested in Jess’s status than Meshach’s, and Wes appreciated the fact. The second Wes finished with the descriptions of Meshach and Jessica, one of the officers relayed the info to their dispatcher. Wes’s gut told him Meshach had ditched the Chrysler 300 they’d seen him driving in New Orleans, but he gave them a description of it anyway.

  There was only one problem with the entire episode: by the time Wes met with them, she’d been gone close to an hour and could have been in Mississippi.

  Wes signaled Tony who stood at the counter doctoring a cup of coffee. “It’s close to six in Nevada. Call Liz for me. Ask her to check the pic for a name. I’m sure she’ll understand, but apologize for the early hour.”

  Tony nodded and walked away, poking at his cell phone.

  Bubba lumbered to the table. “Can you think of anything else?”

  “No, I can’t. Tony’s calling to inquire about a name on the picture.” Wes’s answer sounded more like a retort, but Bubba took it in stride. Wes nodded at the uniformed cops and the Fed. “What are their thoughts?”

  “Jess isn’t a child, and she hasn’t been missing long, but they’re onboard. It’s obvious she hasn’t disappeared of her own volition. Both agencies have issued alerts.” Bubba thumbed the card Meshach had left on the car from his shirt pocket and gave it back to Wes. “This cat has made this personal. You’ve hit a nerve. Try to think of which one. That might be the key to finding Jessica.”

  Meshach had hit a nerve too, and the man was going to find out just how personal Wes was willing to make it.

  Tony paced the sidewalk just outside the hotel’s entrance. He was animated, but subtle, lacking his usual sharp hand movements. Looked promising. Bubba followed Wes’s gaze then clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll find her. Keep a tactical mind, and don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  Wes stood. “Too late.”

  Bubba shook his head yes and no. “Because that’s the way you are, but I had to say it.”

  Tony shuffled through the door and raised clenched fists. “Got it. Elgin Fairchild.”

  Special Agent Trent didn’t hesitate removing his phone from his pocket and dialed as he stepped away from the counter. One of the policemen moved the other direction before he spoke into his radio.

  An iPhone held Tony’s attention. Wes knew he was doing his own search. “Any meaning in the names?” Wes asked.

  “I’ll check right quick. You know the kid to the right of Meshach in the picture was Lane, Liz’s boy. The guy killed a childhood friend. Liz is still not good, by the way. She had questions about Meshach I couldn’t, wouldn’t answer.”

  Men like Meshach had people they used, not friends. “She needs closure, Tony, and she’ll get it soon.”

  Tony took several more seconds. “His names, together, means high-minded, fair-haired child. Doesn’t seem to fit, does it?”

  “Sounds like the high-minded part is applicable.” Bubba’s quick reply matched Wes’s first thought.

  Trent approached. “Gentlemen, turns out we have some interest in visiting with Elgin Fairchild, your Mr. Meshach, late of Las Vegas. Most of his interests, until he dropped off the grid two years ago, slanted toward environmental concerns to the extreme. He’s marketed himself as a hired gun. He’s a suspect in the kidnapping and brutal beating of an Oregon man who owns a logging company.”

  Wes indicated his eye, and Trent’s head bobbed once. “I can confirm he has only one eye, the right one.”

  “Looks like Las Vegas social services knew his parents well,” Tony added. “Abusive father likely caused the loss of the eye. Both mother and father are deceased. No next of kin I can find. His record is full of offenses from public disobedience to animal cruelty. Ten years ago, he looked like a troubled, misguided teenager except for the animal link. The dude is sick.”

  Tony made a quick slight-of-hand move to conceal his phone as Trent leaned to look at the techie’s source of information. If Tony wasn’t more discreet, he would find himself being interviewed by the FBI…and not for a job.

  “Here’s another interesting tidbit,” Tony said. “Father and son took a weekend trip to the Valley of Fire State Park, outside of Vegas, and only the son returned. They never found dad’s body. Meshach was twelve.”

  Eyebrows rose at that info.

  “Bet I can guess what happened there,” Tony whispered to no one in particular.

  One of the city officers left. The other one had a short, quiet word with Trent and followed his partner.

  Wes had enough. “Bubba, Trent, this is not only about Meshach or Elgin, whatever his name is. Special Agent, I hope I don’t have to explain this. How did he find us, me, my team? Who’s helping him? How did he find out about my investigation and my location in New Orleans, then again here? Someone other than Meshach stinks to high heaven, and you,” Wes indicated the baby-faced agent, “might draw your paychecks from the same bank.”

  Bubba nodded at Trent. “Wes is right.”

  Wes had to pack, and he wanted to get Jess’s things to take with him. They’d already had the hotel give them access to her room. She lived out of her bag instead of a hotel chest-of-drawers, so she was all but packed. They found the bathroom mat draped over the rim of the tub and a used towel hung from the shower curtain bar. She’d made the bed. He found himself wondering about things he knew shouldn’t be on his mind. Things a proper mate wouldn’t know about a person until after they were married. Would she approve of his thoughts, knowing he’d been given access to her personal items and space?

  The only thing that disappointed Wes: her iPhone was plugged into a charger next to the television. It could have been tracked. Though now, Wes didn’t believe Meshach would have overlooked a cell phone on her person.

  The phone was password protected, so he couldn’t check her contacts for like-named relatives. Tony had offered to work his magic, but Wes declined. He prayed no one would need to be contacted. He had to keep that mindset.

  He regretted now that they hadn’t talked more. He’d wanted to from the moment he met her, but as her employer…Just asking her out to dinner took all the courage he could muster.

  “You’ve got something in mind,” Bubba said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “I do. This guy is on the other side of the lake, south of here, ‘in joan’ he’d said. That’s where we’re going. I’m not sitting here another minute. You both have my and Tony’s cell numbers. Call when you have something.”

  Bubba caught his elbow as he walked by. “Are you armed?” he whispered.

  “Of course.”

  “Keep it handy, brother.”

  ~*~

  Sunday, noon

  Meshach rubbed his watery eye. He had enough problems with inaccurate depth perception and dealing with dust and other pollutants without the broad trying to gouge it out. Who would have thought? She didn’t weigh one-twenty, but she fought like a tiger. She went for his eye immediately, as if she knew he only had one.

  Did she? No way.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror and wiped his eye again. Driving into a bright morning sun didn’t help.

  Twice in only a few days, he’d misjudged a female. He was going to drag Shanteel and this blue-eyed beast offshore and leave them there.

  He screamed and shook the steering wheel, “ Don’t fall asleep back there.” He grinned at the thought of her distress.” We’ll be home soon, sweetie. You’re going to love your new di
gs.”

  Louisiana had plenty of sheriff deputies. He’d passed two-dozen marked cars since leaving New Orleans. They’d all missed their chance to be the hero and save the damsel. Oh, the secrets a man could possess.

  Poor girl.

  His car died. Quit at sixty-five miles an hour. The steering went dead and stiff, all the warning lights lit. The gas gauge hovered just above half. He herded the car to the right, onto the shoulder, then onto the grass, well off the roadway, near a lot where an old trailer house stood on concrete blocks. Once stopped, he slammed the transmission into park and punched the start/stop button. The dash lights went out. He stepped on the brake and hit the button again to restart it. Nothing. Then again—button, brake, button. The starter whirled but the engine refused to respond.

  Now what? A short in the electrical system, something mechanical, or dirty fuel? He could take the time and look, and he might find the problem, but not at eight o’clock in the morning, with a woman in the trunk. Granted, he’d trussed up the wildcat with a roll of three-inch-wide duct tape, but without background noise, she could stir around enough to rouse suspicion if someone took an interest in helping with his car.

  He was a good two miles from his turnoff.

  The car moved. She stirred.

  He got out, locked the doors, then reached and gave the trunk lid a hard thump with his hand. “I’ll be back for you, darling. It’s going to be awhile though. Get a nap if you can. Save your energy. You’ll need it to survive the heat today. Sure is sunny. When you and I get done, I’m going to make your boss wish he’d stayed out of my business. His family, all of them will know me.” He laughed. “But not for long.”

  The trailer was neglected. Weeds and deep grass grew in the yard.

  He jogged up the levee and looked offshore. Perfect. Tonight, he could get his boat within a quarter mile of where he stood. He’d have to carry her. He knew she wouldn’t go willingly. The one time he’d left his backpack and he needed his GPS. He marked the spot using a two-story, red brick house tucked back against the opposite levee across the highway for a landmark. That one he would be able to identify at night.