by Dale Mayer
After giving him a quizzical glance, she nodded and cast a quick look into the back seat and nodded.
Griffin had pulled their stuff from the trunk. With a backpack each and a duffel bag at their sides, the two men walked in with everything they had into the restaurant. They led the way inside, and Kerrick didn’t make any attempt to hide his face from any security cameras either.
He didn’t care at this point, as he needed a few minutes to change vehicles. And that meant they had to exit one vehicle in order to get in the next one. They chose a booth at the far back, and he and Griffin stowed their gear at their feet. Once done, Griffin kept on walking. He called back as he headed for the men’s room, “Order me a coffee.”
Kerrick nodded. Knew Griffin from their previous time in the navy. And the man was a master at finding new vehicles. As the waitress walked over with a big smile on her face, she asked if they wanted menus.
Brandon piped up. “I want a big burger with fries, no pickles,” he announced without any warning.
Kerrick chuckled. “I guess that means two burgers for him for sure. And I’ll need another two as well.” Then he looked at Amanda. “What would you like, honey?”
As if understanding to keep it in the spirit of a family outing, she smiled at him and said, “I’d love a bowl of soup and a salad.” The waitress immediately rattled off the soup of the day, and Amanda nodded. “That would be good.”
Then the waitress asked Kerrick, “Anything else?”
He smiled and said, “Got any sandwiches to-go?”
“We have big sub sandwiches,” she said. “I could make up a few of those for you.”
He thought about it and then said, “Make four, please.”
She nodded and disappeared in the back.
Amanda then glanced at Kerrick. “What about Griffin?”
“We’ll get something to-go for him,” he said.
Brandon looked at them, from one adult to the other, and then shook his head. “He shouldn’t be that long in the bathroom.”
“No,” Kerrick announced. “And we can’t be that long either. Hopefully the service here is very fast.”
Not only was it fast but the food came piping hot, and it was good.
Kerrick bit into his burger and watched as Brandon very carefully laid his tomato off to the side and placed it just so on his napkin. Kerrick hadn’t remembered him doing that the last time, but then the kid had been starving. Once he started to eat though, he didn’t slow down, and he plowed through both burgers and all the fries. He kept looking at Kerrick’s fries too.
Kerrick shook his head. “My fries, buddy.”
At the crestfallen look Brandon gave him, Kerrick lifted his plate and dumped one-third of his fries onto Brandon’s plate. Brandon quickly polished those off too. By the time they were gone, he still looked hungry.
When Kerrick got up and walked over to pay for the bill, he found their sub sandwiches waiting and also saw an apple pie sitting under the glass counter. “How much is the pie?”
“If they’re cooked and ready to go, I sell them by the piece,” she said. “But I do have a cooked spare, if you want one to take with you.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “And do you have any more of those fries? That kid’s empty to his toes.”
She chuckled. “Just a minute.” Then she walked around into the back, pulled out a cardboard carryout container, and completely stuffed it full of fries. After putting a lid on it and putting it in a bag, she handed it to Brandon. “There you go, big guy. Eat up.”
His face lit up the room as he cried out, “Thanks.”
Kerrick asked Amanda, “Do we need anything else, honey?”
“Water,” she said. Amanda took the bag with the sandwiches and the pie, then walked to the cooler and grabbed several water bottles.
“Good idea. I should have thought of that. Plus a couple coffees to-go for me for the road,” he said. “Amanda, do you want one?”
“Yes, please,” she said.
He ordered two more coffees to-go and said, “It’s a long trip.” The woman behind the counter just laughed, filled their order, and totaled their bill. Kerrick paid, and they headed outside with their food and drinks.
Arms now ladened, they walked around the side of the building, as if they’d parked there. Kerrick knew exactly how this worked, but Amanda and Brandon looked at him in confusion. Their vehicle was gone. As Kerrick walked farther down the side of the building, he spotted Griffin on his phone—of course—sitting in the cab of a big jacked-up F-250 pickup. Kerrick opened the passenger side, set down the groceries, putting the coffee on the floorboard so it was safely stowed. Brandon was superexcited about the pickup, but it was so high up he could hardly climb in, needing some help from Kerrick. Even Amanda needed a hand to get into the back. But, once they were all loaded up, Kerrick looked at Griffin and said, “How much food do you need?”
Griffin shrugged. “One of those sandwiches will do. Unless you only ordered enough for the three of you.”
But Brandon popped up from the back and said, “I have a lot of fries for you.”
Kerrick was amused at his generosity. Brandon ripped off the top of the cardboard box, split up the fries, and handed the bigger half forward for Griffin.
Pleased, Griffin smiled at him and said, “Thanks, Brandon. That was thoughtful of you.”
“Only because I’m already full,” Brandon said, munching away on his own fries.
Griffin gave a shout of laughter and pulled the pickup out of the restaurant’s rear parking lot. Then they circled around to hit the highway going in the opposite direction.
Brandon cried out, “I know this area.”
“What do you mean, you know this area?” Kerrick asked, sure the alarm in his tone was evident to all. “Have you ever been to that café before?”
“No,” he said, “but coming down the left”—and he pointed out a bunch of buildings that looked like old farmhouses—“I’ve been there before.”
“Why and what for?”
“With my father. He’s got some friends down there.”
“Do you know how to get home from here?”
Brandon screwed up his face and then nodded. “I think so, yes.” Then he fired off directions, which made sense somewhat.
Kerrick could see these details came from the total-recall part of Brandon’s brain. On a hunch, Kerrick had Griffin follow the kid’s instructions for the next twenty minutes, trying to see if they would find out where Brandon lived. When they came down a residential street, Brandon said, “This is close but not quite.”
Kerrick turned to look at him. “So we’re in the right area?”
Brandon stared around, mystified. “We are, but I think we’re like a block over.” He looked ahead and saw a popular ice cream place and cried out, “Yes! I’ve been to that one.” He quickly adjusted his directions, and, before long, they drove down a street no longer filled with middle-class homes. In fact, it was in a commercial district with a lot of warehouses but heading toward the lower end of the business class.
“So is this where your home is or where your father works?”
“Both,” he said. “He lives and does his business from home.”
“The selling of the body organs?” Amanda asked, worried. Her gaze kept going around the area.
Brandon nodded. “We live up top.”
“That can’t be very nice,” Kerrick mentioned.
“You get used to seeing dead bodies all the time,” he said with a shrug. “We’re organic organisms, so it’s not like it makes a difference.”
“I guess.”
They drove down the road slower now, giving Brandon time to process his surroundings, when he called out and leaned forward between the two men in the front seat. “Stop.”
Griffin pulled off to the side of the road and asked, “What are we looking at?”
“That building in the front of the warehouse on the next block? That blue one? That’s home.”
&n
bsp; Kerrick looked at him and whispered, “Was it always burned up like that?”
Brandon shook his head slowly, fear on his face as he whispered, “No. That’s new.”
Chapter 12
The pain in Brandon’s voice broke Amanda’s heart. This kid had lost so much so recently and had been so stalwart for so long. She gently massaged his back. “We don’t know if your father was in there,” she said reassuringly. “He could be fine.”
Brandon stared at the building with a haunted look on his face. “No, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That was arson.”
“You dad has some pretty big enemies, correct?”
“Yes,” Brandon said in a small voice. “He’s in a bad business, and he has a lot of bad friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said. She looked at the two men. “Is there any point in going inside and checking it out?”
“I think we need to,” Kerrick said. He glanced back at Brandon. “Should I take a closer look at any particular part of the building?”
Brandon shrugged and said, “The offices, especially the back wall on the right side, but Dad had a safe in his bedroom, above the office. He also had a fire escape out the back, so maybe he got out safely.” He looked into the faces of the three adults with him, some hope creeping into his expression. “Like we did when we left the motel.”
Kerrick studied the extent of the burn. Not a whole lot of the outside shell remained, but the fire looked like it had been stopped midburn. Who was the arsonist? That wasn’t his job right now, but he was curious. Still, to cover his tracks, Mr. Coleman might have set it himself.
Kerrick glanced at Griffin and said, “I’ll get out. You take them around the block a couple times.” And without giving anybody a chance to argue, he exited the pickup and disappeared into the closest building on this block, another warehouse.
Amanda leaned forward and asked Griffin, “What’s the point in getting out here and going into a building right beside us?”
Griffin smiled at her. “It’s not for you to wonder why.”
“Well, you can’t quote poetry to me and expect to shut me up here,” she said in exasperation. “He’s out there alone. This could be dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Griffin said. “Which is why he told me to drive you around the block, so that you two don’t look like you’re a party to any of this.” And, on that note, he pulled back into the street and headed down the block. As they drove past the scorched building, he slowed slightly so they could stare at it. She could still see the second floor was largely intact, but nobody appeared to be around, and no windows were left. And, if it hadn’t been ramshackled beforehand, it would have been well and truly looted by now.
Kerrick made it to the edge of the burned-up building without seeing anybody—or anybody seeing him. He quickly moved down what was left of one side of the building, just to make a quick first-pass inspection, hating the acid-burn smell emanating from it. Had anybody even come to take a look at what was inside this building after the fire had died down? He saw freezers and cold storage units, but none of those would be powered at this point.
What happened to the “perishable goods” that Mr. Coleman kept? Kerrick hated to think that body parts were still in there. Yet it was all too possible. No way would he open one to confirm. He’d leave that to the authorities. Or to Mr. Coleman.
Holding his T-shirt over his nose to keep from inhaling too much of the acidic smell inside, Kerrick stepped into the charred building and walked through carefully. Everything here was black and crispy, like it had been fried at high temperatures. Back toward the smaller rooms, the offices, however, there was much less damage, as if the fire had begun in the front area and had burned backward.
He checked out the biggest office and the charred desk but didn’t see very much. Singed papers were atop the filing cabinet, but he found no computers or electronics. But then, why would there be? Somebody else would have been here before him, either taking the electronics before starting the fire or the locals had cleared out anything worth pawning after the fire.
The wooden stairs going up to the second floor were badly damaged, but the metal fire escape outside looked like a viable option. He quickly scooted up the ladder and made his way inside, then stopped. Most of the flooring was gone, leaving only the rafters. The bedroom perimeter was still intact, but its contents were quite badly charred. The bed itself had caught fire. He should have asked Brandon where the safe was. He pulled out his phone and called Griffin to ask Brandon.
Inset into the wall near the fire escape but on the outside exterior wall.
From where he stood, he looked, then took two careful steps, to where the safe supposedly was. Enough of the wall had burned away that he caught a glimpse of black metal. If the safe was still intact, still locked, then anybody who knew it was here hadn’t come back to empty it yet. Probably waiting to make sure the fire was completely out. Or to hire a safecracker. The other option was that the safe was empty to begin with.
He took one step closer, carefully balancing on the rafters, and bent down, peeling off the wallboard. The safe itself was small and would be easy to remove from the studs around it now since they were badly charred. It took a few moments longer to completely uncover the safe. The combination lock was still secured. He couldn’t open it safely here as he didn’t trust the rafter he stood on, but the safe was small enough that he could carry it.
With it securely under his arm, he made his way back down the fire escape and headed around the back corner to meet up with the rest of them. As soon as the pickup pulled alongside him, he hopped inside, and they drove away.
Brandon leaned over and asked, in a hushed tone, “You took the whole safe?”
“The wall was damaged enough that it was easier to remove the whole thing than to take the time to open it there.”
“Can you open it?” Amanda asked.
“I hope so,” he said, studying the front of the safe. “It’s not really that complicated. Without Brandon’s personal knowledge of its location, finding it would have been more complicated. Without that tip, if it hadn’t been for the fire, it wouldn’t have been easy to find the safe at all.” He quickly said something about cracking the combination code. It took him four minutes and thirty seconds to open the safe.
Griffin laughed at him. “You should have had that done in under four minutes,” he teased Kerrick.
Kerrick shot him a look. “If we weren’t driving around corners like madmen, I would have.” He slowly dug inside to find it full of bookkeeping ledgers and cash.
Brandon whistled long and hard. “That’s a lot of moolah.”
Kerrick nodded slowly. “It is. So why didn’t your father come back for it?” He twisted to look at Brandon.
And Brandon looked at him and sniffled once.
Kerrick nodded. “Because you know and I know that, if there was any way he could have, your father would have come back to get this, wouldn’t he?”
Brandon slowly nodded.
Kerrick glanced at Griffin and said, “You and I need to analyze what’s in these ledgers. We’ll probably need your help, Brandon. I’m sorry, but it’s not looking good for your father.”
“Which also would explain why nobody had put out the word that Brandon was missing,” Amanda said. “Because your father would have done that too, if he could, right?” she asked Brandon.
Brandon sniffled again, nodding his head.
“True enough,” Griffin added.
While Kerrick pulled out the money, he roughly counted it, noting at least ten but possibly upward of twenty thousand US dollars in bundles here, but there were also bundles of different currencies. With the ledgers open, he checked to see if anything else suspicious could be found at first glance.
Inside one were passports for Brandon and for Mr. Coleman, as well as other legal documents, like Brandon’s birth certificate. Those were all good to have when leaving the country. And it appeared that Brandon’s father intended to take Brando
n with him. Kerrick showed Brandon his passport to help ease the boy’s current pain.
Brandon grabbed it like a lifeline, tracing the small book in his hands, while Amanda wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer.
With the ledgers on his lap, Kerrick quickly flipped through them, not understanding the codes for everything listed herein, codes using shorthand or acronyms to hide the real transactions. Maybe after Brandon had some time to deal with this, Kerrick might approach him for help with his dad’s shorthand. A lot of money was involved. The other ledger held bank account info, security information, and listings of companies that Mr. Coleman had business dealings with. That was interesting.
At the top of the list was the company that Amanda worked for, that she held a major shareholder interest in—Scion Labs. He lifted it up for her to see. Had she not been involved in the kidnapping event herself, she would have been one major person of interest. Even now, investigators who didn’t know her might still consider her involved in her own kidnapping.
When she sucked in her breath, he nodded and said, “And here is another link between Mr. Coleman and Scion Labs.”
She sighed. “Besides Hinkleman kidnapping Mr. Coleman’s own son and jailing him.” She shook her head.
Brandon read off the name and turned to look at her. “Is that the company you work for?”
She sank into the back seat and nodded slowly. “It is, indeed,” she said faintly. “But I don’t think we’ve ever bought body parts before.”
“If you were doing business with my dad,” Brandon said, “then you were. Or you could have been using the cadavers for further research. He was selling everything from cellular tissue to brain matter.”
“It’s possible that somebody doing research at Scion needed some cadaver tissue,” she said. “We work on all different levels of the body’s systems at different times.”
“Yes, but dead bodies? How does that help you?” Kerrick asked.
“Scion is first and foremost a research facility, and examining a dead body that died from cancer or whatever does leave clues,” she said, making excuses. “So I can’t really say that it isn’t possible that we dealt with Brandon’s father or purchased body parts from him. It is quite likely possible that somebody was using your father’s services. However, I don’t imagine too many places would purchase these items.”