He exited the car and strode around the parking lot to the front door. He squared his shoulders and pushed the door open.
Leo wasn’t sure what he expected to find when he stepped inside. But he knew for certain that it wasn’t this.
Six metal card tables were spaced a couple feet apart on the gouged and scuffed wooden floor in the center of the room. Two folding chairs were placed across from each table. Two of the tables and their chairs were empty. The other four tables held Scrabble boards. Seven black-leather-clad men and one black-leather-clad woman occupied the chairs. An official Scrabble dictionary rested, open, on the bar.
A handful of spectators lined the bar, frosted mugs in hand, chatting and watching the action. None of players glanced up when the door opened; their eyes were glued to their tiles. But the bartender and two beefy men with long gray ponytails caught his eye and nodded their heads. Part welcome; part ‘I’m keeping my eye on you, stranger.’
He nodded back and flashed what Sasha called his most disarming smile. Skirting the activity at the center of the floor, he stepped up to the bar.
The bartender was waiting for him, a bar towel draped over his shoulder. “What’ll it be?”
“Any chance I could get a cup of coffee and a glass of ice water?”
“Ice water, I can do. Coffee might take a few minutes—I might need to brew a new pot. These guys have been playing for a while; and some of them like to stay caffeinated during their matches.”
The bartender slid a glass of water across the bar and headed to the kitchen to attend to the coffee. Leo sipped the water and turned his attention to the games in progress. The players appeared to be evenly split between beer drinkers and coffee drinkers. Most of the coffee drinkers were leaning over their tile racks and staring at the board like hawks, legs jittering. Some of the beer drinkers, in contrast, were lounging casually in their chairs, as if they were only marginally aware they were in the game. But they weren’t fooling anyone. The air in the room crackled as if electrified by all the intense focus.
The bartender returned with an oversized white mug and a handful of creamer cups. “Here’s your go-juice.”
“Thanks.” Leo ignored the half and half and took a sip. It was hot and tasted more or less like coffee. It wouldn’t meet Sasha’s standards for strength, but it would get the job done.
“So, what’s with the Scrabble tournament?” he cocked his head toward the action.
“Eh, that’s a monthly thing—the organized tournament, I mean. But there’s always something going on here during the day. If it’s not Scrabble, they’re playing chess or one of the role-playing games. They play cards, too. Oh, they got a book club.”
Leo turned his full attention to the bartender. “Really? The same group of guys?”
The barkeep shrugged. “You might’ve noticed, some of these guys look a little rough. The bikes are loud. And this is a small town. Couple years back, Slim and Ronnie over there signed up for a chess tournament at the library. Let’s just say that while their participation was tolerated, they weren’t exactly welcome.”
Leo nodded his understanding.
The man continued, “They’re my regulars. So, I let them do their thing here in the day. I don’t get a crowd until happy hour, anyway. It works out for everybody. They can get together without anybody giving them a hassle. And they buy enough beer and snacks to make it worth my while.”
“Don’t any of them work?”
Another shrug. “Some of them are retired; some work third shift. There’s a couple long-haul truckers who only come around when they’re not driving. And, yeah some of the guys have nine-to-fives. They come in on their days off.”
Leo surveyed the crowd. “No problems?”
“There’s a couple of pricks in every group, you know? But I like most of these guys. I let them store their games and cards in the back.” He tossed his head in the direction of the kitchen.
“Really?”
“This building used to house a catering company with lots of employees. There’s a bunch of lockers in the back I have no use for. So this crew stows their stuff in the lockers so they don’t have to haul it back and forth in their saddlebags.”
“So, how many guys would you consider regulars?”
The bartender narrowed his eyes and took a closer look at Leo. “Who wants to know?”
Leo drank his coffee and considered his options. He’d had success in the past saying he was a private investigator trying to track down a beneficiary to let him know he’d inherited money. He figured he could sell that story to this guy, too. But rather than spin a tale on the fly, he might as well stick to partial truths. They’d be easier to remember and likely just as effective.
“I’m just passing through on my way to Pittsburgh, but I have an old friend from Texas who I think moved out this way. He used to ride. I thought he might hang out here. Essiah Wheaton?”
“You just missed him.”
The bartender was still studying Leo’s face with a careful, calculating expression.
“Oh, that stinks. Any idea where he headed?” He kept his tone casual.
“No.”
The bartender turned his shoulder to Leo and started wiping down the beer taps with practiced, efficient motions.
Leo slid a five across the bar and hefted the mug in his hand. He walked down the three steps leading to the sunken dance floor and stood near a cluster of people watching the nearest match. The man the bartender had called Slim placed the word ‘aureola’ across a double word space, using all seven of the tiles in his rack for a fifty-point bonus.
The spectators whooped, and Slim’s opponent cursed into his beer. Slim reached into the tile bag to replenish his rack and grinned. He came up empty-handed and shook the bag upside-down above the table.
“Game over, C.J.” He leaned across the table and shook his vanquished foe’s hand.
C.J. nodded then called over to the bartender. “Bill, pour Slim a Yuengling and put it on my tab.”
“What the devil’s an aureola, anyway? Isn’t that part of a boob?” the man standing next to Leo said under his breath.
“That’s an areola, with no ‘u,’” Leo told him.
The guy shot Leo a look.
“My wife nursed our twins. I learned a lot.”
That earned him a chuckle. “Well, either way Slim sure dumped a lot of vowels with that one. He’s hard to beat.”
Slim turned away from his post-game banter with C.J. and acknowledged their conversation. “An aureola’s a halo or a nimbus.”
“Nice match.”
He looked Leo up and down as Bill the bartender pressed a mug into his hand. “Thanks. Do I know you?”
Bill answered before Leo had the chance. “Says he’s a friend of Essiah’s, just passing through.”
Slim gave him another look, a harder one. “You’re from Texas?”
“No. I’m not from anywhere, really. We moved around a lot.”
The answer, which had the benefit of being true, seemed to satisfy the Scrabble player.
“I hear that.” His gaze drifted over Leo’s shoulder, as if he was remembering his own childhood.
“I’d like to catch up with him, though. Do any of you guys know where he works or have his number?”
The energy in the room shifted from open to closed, edging toward dangerous. There was a long silence.
Finally, C.J. broke the quiet. “How ‘bout you give us your number? We’ll make sure Essiah gets it.”
Slim nodded his approval of this plan, and the tension eased.
Leo let out a grateful breath then rattled off a dummy telephone number maintained by the agency. To his understanding, anyone who called it would have a mildly confusing conversation with a young woman named Molly, who’d inform the caller that she’d just been assigned this new cell phone number and had no idea what had become of its previous owner.
“You got a name?” Slim pressed while CJ scribbled the digits on a cocktail napkin.<
br />
“Chase.” It was the first answer that came to mind.
“Okay, Chase. We’ll see that he gets the message. Have a safe drive.” Bill the bartender inserted himself into the conversation and made it clear that Leo was being invited to leave.
“I appreciate it.” Leo nodded, placed his coffee mug on the long railing separating the bar from the dance floor, and strolled out of the bar without a backward glance.
Once the door closed behind him, he stood in the parking lot and exhaled a long whoosh of air. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been balancing on a knifepoint during the encounter.
11
Sasha stared at the computer screen in defeated frustration. Essiah Wheaton, whoever he was, had zero recent internet footprint. Which, frankly, seemed more than a little bit impossible. But, aside from some ten-year-old posts about a college football game, the man appeared to be a nonentity. The internet offered up no clues as to why the NCTC was so interested in the man.
She huffed out a breath and stood up. There was only one person who could track down a cipher like Wheaton. And luckily, she worked right down the hall.
She rapped on Naya’s door.
“Nobody’s home,” Naya called from within the office.
“I need a favor.”
“Unless you have chocolate, go away.”
“I’ll get Connelly to bake you brownies …”
The door swung open.
Naya wagged a finger at her and ushered her inside. “I’m gonna hold you to that. I’m working under a deadline here.”
“Does that mean you don’t have time to play ghost hunter?”
She tilted her head, already intrigued. Sasha knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.
“What’s up?”
“You know that list of names Sentinel Solution Systems sent?”
“What about it?”
“Elizabelle ran it against the list of customers that Asher posted online. There was a hit. A guy named Essiah Wheaton.”
Naya crossed her arms. “Did you hear one word that Will and I said at lunch?”
“Of course I did,” she bristled. “But, look, you’re the one who asked me to represent these guys. Do you want me to do my job or not?”
“Sure, but—”
“But nothing. The government’s interested in this guy for a reason. I need to know what it is so I can adequately assess DoGiveThrive’s exposure here. Public information searches come up empty for him. So you can work your magic and help me or not. It’s your call.”
Naya stared at her. She stared back, watching as Naya’s expression morphed from one of irritation to one of resignation. It didn’t take long.
She shoved a pad of sticky notes and a pen at Sasha. “Spell Essiah. Then give me half an hour.”
Sasha scrawled the name on the top sheet, peeled it off the pad, and stuck it to Naya’s forehead. “You’re the best.”
“And you’re a jerk.” Naya plucked the note from her face.
Sasha turned to leave. Halfway through the door, she pivoted back. “Do me a favor and don’t mention this to Will just yet.”
They locked eyes. Naya frowned. Sasha understood the feeling—it wasn’t healthy to keep secrets from one’s partner. But, sometimes, sharing could be overrated. They both knew she was going to do what she was going to do, so why waste her time—and Will’s—with a lecture she’d ignore?
“Mac, I hope you know what you’re doing. And you better tell Leo to make those double chocolate brownies with the caramel drizzle.” Naya gave her a gentle push over threshold. Once she was out in the hall, Naya pulled the door closed with a soft click.
12
As Leo piloted the SUV out of town, he organized his thoughts so he could report back on his morning. He zipped onto the highway and headed toward Pittsburgh. Then he initiated a call to Hank through his hands-free set-up.
Hank answered before the second ring. His deep voice filled the interior of the car.
“Find anything?”
“He’s tight with a group of motorcyclists.”
“A biker gang?”
He considered the question. Could one fairly characterize a group of game enthusiasts as a gang?
“More like a biker book club.”
“Excuse me?”
“They have a social club that meets at a dive bar, but apparently they play board games and cards and read fiction.”
Silence.
“Could it be a front?”
Leo lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It could, I guess. But it if is, they’re pretty committed to the charade. I mean, I walked into a Scrabble tournament and watched a guy place aureola on the board.”
“Nice way to unload a bunch of vowels. Not to mention the fifty-point bonus.”
“And he got a double a word score, too. So, while we both know even killers have hobbies, I’m leaning toward this being a group of guys with shared, legal interests.”
“Including Wheaton?”
“My questions about Wheaton weren’t met with a lot of love. They closed ranks pretty quickly, but they could just be protecting their buddy’s privacy.”
“Could be …”
“Or he could be a radicalized terrorist; I know, Hank.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Hank protested.
“No, but you were thinking it—loudly.”
They shared a short laugh. They’d worked together long enough that many things, usually the important things, didn’t need to be said.
Some people said they were like an old married couple. Based on his experience, though, they were the opposite of a married couple. At least, when he and Sasha left meaningful things unsaid, disaster usually ensued.
“Leo?” Hank prompted, knocking him out of his reverie.
“Sorry. Obviously, I need to find out more about this guy. Is there any chance we can backdoor our way into the database and see what got him on our radar in the first place?”
Hank huffed, making a noise that was half-sigh, half-snort. “Our marching orders were just to do the leg work. We’re supposed to rely on the data analysts’ assessment of the information.”
“I know.”
Hank rolled on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “But, if this assignment is going to turn into a kill order, I’d say we have the right—no, the obligation—to do our own due diligence.”
Leo exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I agree.”
“But we’ve got to be careful. Don’t log in to any of the databases from your laptop. We can’t leave any digital fingerprints.”
“Then how are we going to access the files?”
Hank was silent.
He palmed the steering wheel and waited another beat until it became clear his boss didn’t intend to answer.
Then he cleared his throat, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Hank?”
“Don’t worry. I’m always careful. I’m not going to log in either. When Cole gets home from classes, I’ll have him stay with the little ones while I go cash in a favor. Aside from his gaming friends, did you learn anything about Wheaton that would be helpful?”
Leo replayed his morning as if it were a movie. He saw himself skulking around Wheaton’s property. Noted the Texas license plate on the truck. Watched as the woman in the station wagon drove up long the driveway and began to unload her plants and gardening supplies. Walked back to the car and spotted Wheaton on the motorcycle.
“A couple things. He’s from Texas. He’s got a truck and a bike with Texas plates. Grab a pen and I’ll give you the plate number for the truck. He’s also involved with a woman. Pretty sure she’s a Texan, too.”
“She couldn’t be someone local?”
He hadn’t focused on it when he’d seen the woman, but he now knew there was no way she was a native of Western Pennsylvania.
“Not a chance. She’s getting ready to plant her garden.”
“In April?”
“Right. She must not
know that there’s guaranteed to be at least one more hard frost before Mother’s Day.”
Hank clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Well, she’s about to find out.”
13
Sasha was deep in thought, reviewing a deposition transcript, when her office door swung open and Naya appeared in the doorway.
She shut down the transcript program and rubbed her hands together. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What did you find out about our friend Essiah Wheaton?”
Naya pinned her with a dark look but didn’t answer.
“What? Is it that bad?”
Naya raked her fingers through her hair then let out a frustrated sound—almost a mew. It reminded Sasha of the noise Java made when he spotted a bird through the kitchen window.
“You didn’t find anything?” She said the words slowly, not quite believing them. Naya had never come up empty on an Internet search—not once in the fifteen years she’d known her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Is this the face of someone who’s kidding, Mac? I hit brick wall after brick wall. I’ve tried every database I can access—not to mention a couple I shouldn’t have. This Wheaton guy fell off the face of the earth last year.”
“Wait—you did find something, then? Where was he last year?”
When Naya answered, her voice was tight. “He was in a small town in Texas, not too far from the Gulf Coast. But that’s all I know. I don’t know where he worked, his address, if he has a family, nothing. For all I know, he was just passing through and ended up in the background of this picture that ran in some local newspaper two years ago. Other than that, I came up empty. And before you even ask, yes, I tried calling the Bendville Gazette; the number’s been disconnected.”
She thrust a printout into Sasha’s hands. It was a photograph from the East Texas Fall Festival, according to the caption. Behind a row of giant pumpkins lined up for weighing, a handful of festival-goers had been captured as they walked among the displays. Just to the right of a couple holding hands and sharing a bag of kettle corn, there was a young white man, who had his face turned away from the camera and toward a group of men playing horseshoes under a banner spelling out something too small to read. The photograph’s caption identified the kettle corn couple as Mandy and Don Sharpe of Bendville and the man to their right as Essiah Wheaton.
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