False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  “I still don’t think you’re right about people being in danger here,” she said as they continued their stroll.

  He shrugged.

  “And there is one thing I definitely know you were wrong about.”

  He looked around, instincts telling him that if he had been wrong then maybe a threat was near, that maybe Fifth noticed it first.

  She laughed and he looked at her.

  “You said I’d be hungry in an hour after the ice cream. Well, Dent, you were wrong. I’m hungry now.”

  ---

  The little sandwich shop they stopped at for their real dinner was done up in a 50’s diner motif. It had been recommended by a young couple passing them by on the sidewalk when Fifth had been vocal enough about still being hungry to draw attention.

  The décor did nothing for Dent, though Fifth found the small jukebox framed in chrome and blue and pink neon lights on their table interesting. Enough so, that she flipped through the placards of songs quietly for a good five minutes.

  Which gave Dent a good five minutes to determine how he would go about learning what he could about this Lynn Wilkens.

  He was still trying to come up with a suitable plan of attack when the waiter dropped off their order — meatball sub with extra cheese and mayonnaise for Fifth, a BLT for himself. The waiter needlessly complimented them on their orders, saying the chef did his best to make sure they would be delicious.

  Dent stared at the waiter. He didn’t think the term ‘chef’ applied to someone who slapped lunch meant between two pieces of bread, and the comment on their orders was as unwarranted as congratulating someone for drinking water when they were thirsty.

  Fifth smiled the waiter away and dug into her sub.

  Mind still churning regarding the problem at hand, Dent started in on his sandwich.

  “What’s up?” Fifth asked from across the narrow table.

  He finished chewing before answering. “Hmm?”

  “You don’t seem to be enjoying your sandwich.”

  He gave his quarter-eaten BLT a cursory glance. “I’m not not enjoying it.”

  She opened her mouth to say something then apparently thought better of it. She went back to her dinner, but her eyes remained fixed on him. She narrowed them slightly and he had the impression she might have another question bubbling in her head.

  He acted preemptively. “I’m thinking of ways to get to Lynn Wilkens.”

  Fifth’s eyes went back to normal and her expression seemed to slacken. “Me, too.”

  Dent doubted that, but he didn’t voice his opinion. The little diner they were in was too small and Fifth’s voice could get rather … big at times when he contradicted her.

  “Otto?” she asked.

  “No. The chances are if he knew more about Lynn Wilkens he would have already let us know.” Dent also didn’t want to rely on the mysterious man any more than they already were. A contract is one thing, but being in debt to someone in order to fulfill that contract was counterproductive in the long run.

  Fifth shrugged. “She’s a mechanic and has her own shop. I could stop by and talk to her. You know, get a feel for who she is.”

  “Under what premise?”

  She took another bite to bide her time answering. “I could say I have car trouble?”

  “You don’t have a car.”

  “We have a truck.”

  “I have a truck.”

  “You stole a truck. It’s not yours.”

  Dent refused to keep going down this road. He stopped her with, “You don’t have a license.”

  “Yeah, well ….” She chewed her lower lip. “Yet another reason for you to teach me how to drive.”

  “You’re not old enough,” he pointed out for what could have been the twentieth time.

  “I could be driving a moped back in Japan at my age.” Her tone was light, and she spoke as if the statement were an open-ended question.

  Something told him he was being drawn into another one of her illogical loopholes. “Not legally, you couldn’t. Besides, we’re not in Japan. And we don’t have a moped.”

  She smiled wide, like she had expected that answer. “That’s right, isn’t it? Which is why you need to start giving me lessons on how to drive here, in the truck we do have. What’s the worst that can happen? The truck’s beat up as it is. Probably going to die on us any day now.”

  Dent put his sandwich down. “You have a valid point.” His mind churned. “We need to get you behind the wheel.”

  Her jaw dropped. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet swallowed her last bite and Dent was presented with the unappetizing sight. Telling her to close her mouth, Dent waited for her to swallow.

  “I have a point?” She leaned forward in her seat. “Really? You promise? You’ll teach me how to drive?”

  “Lower your voice,” he said, making sure she hadn’t drawn the attention of the waiter or the people at the other two occupied tables. “Finish up. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she recited over and over, a huge smile splitting her face.

  He let her draw her own conclusions. Dent almost felt … bad? Or was it guilty? He didn’t exactly lie to her ….

  XIII

  “This doesn’t count as a driving lesson!” Fifth called out the driver side window to Dent as he strained to push the truck the last hundred feet to Wilkens’s shop.

  Dent grunted, with effort of keeping the truck moving and because he had in fact planned to tell her that this was her first driving lesson. He’d been trying to come up with something clever to say the minute he put her behind the steering wheel and started pushing. It took him the full five minutes of pushing the truck to the shop to finally come up with what he thought would be a funny thing to say. And she’d just ruined his attempt at humor.

  They came up on the shop and he called out “Brakes!” to get Fifth to halt the car’s momentum. She did and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve before coming up to help her out of the truck.

  She offered her hand to him in a lofty gesture, like a queen would hold her jewel-encrusted hand to a manservant, and he went along with it. She hopped out of her carriage with an incline of her head and a regal “Thank you, kind sir.”

  The shop tied in with most of the other buildings on the block, with river-rock accents surrounding the wide-open garage and the attached apartment-style building to the left. Above the garage, an old sign declared this establishment to be “Wilkens Works” — with smaller and fairly-recently added stenciling below that read “And Son.”

  “Hey, hey,” a baritone female voice called from somewhere in the open garage. Dent noted the shop had four bays, of which only one was occupied by a newer model Toyota. “Seems you made it to right place.”

  Dent turned to the voice. Though she wore bulky steel-toed boots, frayed and stained jeans, and a long-sleeved grey shirt that had gone darker grey around the shoulders, there was no mistaking Lynn Wilkens as a woman. Even without the curves that could not be hidden by the drab clothing, the mass of chestnut brown hair wound up and tied back would have been a dead giveaway.

  The brunette came over, shook Dent’s hand, waved at Fifth, and asked, “What seems to be the problem?”

  “It won’t start,” Dent replied.

  “I can see,” Wilkens said with a smile that accentuated the fine lines around her eyes.

  He knew it had been a basic answer, but it had been an honest answer. In fact, he’d fried the starter and solenoid down the street with a wrench he’d found in the small toolbox tucked behind the driver’s seat to ensure the truck wouldn’t start up. And, because he had no idea how long he needed to be in Herristown, he had crimped the metal fuel line that ran beneath the engine to add in more time for the woman mechanic to troubleshoot the problem.

  “Let’s get it in the shop,” Wilkens said after a moment. “I’ll give it a quick one-two, and we’ll see what we’ve got.”

  Dent nodded.

  Wilk
ens climbed in, looked to the ignition cylinder, where the key should have been, and climbed back out. “You, umm, have the keys?”

  “Actually, no,” he said. “It didn’t have the keys when I picked it up.” Again, honest answer.

  She turned, checked the wires beneath the column, and looked back at him. “Enough ingenuity to hotwire the beast, but not enough to keep it running, huh?”

  He shrugged.

  She got back in, tested the steering wheel to make sure it wasn’t locked, and said, “Alright, give it a push. That bay over there.”

  Dent pushed, Fifth helped, Wilkens steered, and the three of them got the truck in the desired spot. Wilkens popped the hood as she got out but didn’t walk around to open it. Instead, she guided Dent and Fifth into a small waiting room in the adjoining building that looked more at home in, well, a home. A couch with pillows, small flat screen television, table with snacks and bottled water. Not what Dent would expect to find in a mechanic’s shop.

  And throw in the dark-haired boy coming out of a small hallway to the right of the sitting room and Dent surmised Wilkens and son must spend as much time here as they did their own house.

  “That,” Wilkens said, walking past Dent and Fifth, “is my son, Jason. He helps out around here.” She ruffled the boy’s hair and he reacted like her hand was on fire. “One day he’ll take over this place.” She winked at Dent. “I hope.”

  Jason lifted a hand in what could be mistaken as a wave or greeting.

  Dent lifted his own hand in return and, thinking it would be appropriate, used it to ruffle Fifth’s hair like Wilkens had done with her child.

  Fifth reacted almost as Jason had, pulling her head low and ducking away. She gave him a look that he decided to file into his running list of “Fifth’s Facial Expressions.” This one was new, close to surprise, nearer to anger.

  Wilkens laughed for some reason. “Let’s get your paperwork started, Mr. …?” She tilted her head to the side.

  Dent almost titled his head as well before Fifth came back to stand next to him, saying, “Dent. His name’s Marion Dent. And I’m Kasumi.”

  Dent looked down at Fifth. Of all that they had discussed this morning before leaving for the shop, the need to use fake names had not come up. Dent hadn’t thought it would be necessary, that Fifth would know to keep their real names, at least Dent’s last name, to themselves. At this point, he didn’t know if he should be bothered with her for not anticipating the need for secrecy or with himself for assuming the girl would know to keep their identities to herself.

  The woman cleared her throat and Dent looked up. “Lynn,” she said, eyes crinkling slightly. “And well, you’ve met Jason.”

  Fifth walked over, grabbed a bottle of water from the table, and plopped onto the couch. “Anything good on?” she asked Jason, who took that as an invitation to join her.

  Dent let Lynn, who was trailing a soft scent from a cucumber lotion, lead him back through the hallway Jason had come from and into a small wood-furnished office. She sat behind a computer and he took the chair before the desk.

  As she began typing, she asked, “You guys here on vacation? Traveling through?”

  “It’s a business stop.”

  “Oh,” she looked up. “What type of business do you do?”

  “Contracting.”

  “Lucrative?”

  “It has its rewards.”

  “And Kasumi?”

  He tilted his head to show confusion, drawing a laugh from the woman.

  “Kasumi,” she said again, pointedly. “What leads you to take her along with you?”

  “She is the daughter of someone I met through work. I’m taking care of her while her mother is in Japan. They’ve had … problems in the past.”

  Her eyes seemed to glitter momentarily. “That’s awfully sweet of you to step in like that. How long will you be keeping an eye on her?”

  “At least until the issues with her mother have been resolved.”

  “Hmm. Well, she seems nice enough.”

  Dent shrugged. And then noted the opening Lynn had given him. “People around here seem nice enough, as well.”

  The look she gave him clued him in that maybe he had been too blunt.

  He tried smoothing it over by saying, “Last night, after telling people we were visitors, we were offered free ice cream and after that our dinner at a sandwich shop was marked down to half price.”

  “Oh, that.” She smiled. “You’ll find people around here are like that. Just doing what they can to help out.”

  “Has it always been like that?”

  “How do you mean?”

  He thought, trying to come up with the words. “Were people always quick to help out others or is it something more recent, something unexplained?”

  She laughed. At him, or at his words, he didn’t know. She stopped her typing as said, “People helping others out is something unexplainable to you? Honey, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re single at the moment. Am I right?”

  Why that mattered, he didn’t know. “Yes,” he replied flatly.

  She raised her hands and her lips parted. “I didn’t mean any offense by that, Marion. I’m in the same boat as you, my friend.”

  When he didn’t reply, she elaborated, “I’m single as well.”

  Dent knew this fact already. Not only from research online, but from the office they were in. No pictures of a husband, or of Lynn and any other man besides the ones of her and her son. And then there were her hands. No rings. She may have taken any off as she worked, but usually there would be a slight narrowing in the finger or a lighter band of skin where a ring would normally sit. Lynn had no such narrowing and her skin tone was uniform.

  She cleared her throat and he looked into her eyes — of which he observed nearly matched the color of her hair — wondering if he was supposed to say something. This would be one of the times when he would benefit from having Fifth at his side.

  Lynn saved him from coming up with something suitable as her voice became more level, to the point, as she began asking for his information and questions about the truck. The first questions he gave an address back in Jersey and his current cell number, and the questions regarding the truck were answered with many “I don’t knows” or “I’m not sures.” She tsked at many of his answers, but they got through the process in minutes.

  She stood, shaking his hand once more. “I’ll start giving the Ford a run through tomorrow morning, Marion.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’re staying at …,” she checked her screen quickly, “The Wine & Vine. Nice place?”

  “Not terrible. It has voice activated lights and temperature control.”

  A chuckle. “I see. That’s nice, I suppose.”

  “Kasumi likes it.”

  “Then that’s what matters, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. She laughed again.

  She asked, “How’s the food at The Wine & Vine?”

  “Haven’t tried it yet. We just arrived in town yesterday afternoon.”

  “Hmm. Well ….” She picked up a business card from her desk, flipped it around, and wrote on the backside. “Here’s my cell. My personal, and not my business cell.”

  She handed it across the desk.

  He tucked it into his wallet.

  “If you get tired of the local fare and fast food, let me know. I may be able to help you out. Introduce you to something better.”

  The way she said the last, like perhaps it had been a question, prompted Dent to say, “Okay.”

  For the briefest of moments Dent thought he saw her shoulders sag, but they came back up and Lynn said, “Let’s get you going then. Do you guys need a ride back to The Wine & Vine?”

  That was obvious, he thought. “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let me close up shop and grab Jason and we’ll give you a ride.”

  She walked around the desk and Dent had no choice but to follow, thinking he’d been wrangled into somethin
g. When she had asked if they needed a ride, considering the fact that his truck was parked in the shop less than a hundred feet away, Dent had answered honestly. He had no clue she was going to offer to take him and Fifth home personally.

  Yes, Dent concluded. There was a very high probability that eTech was being used in Herristown. Women did not react so … openly towards a person like himself.

  No other explanation. It had to be eTech.

  ---

  Kasumi threw her hands up in the air as soon as the door to their room shut. “You are so dense, Dent!”

  The look he gave her just further proved her point.

  “Miss Wilkens was hitting on you. And from what you said, she was being pretty obvious about it, too.”

  “Wasn’t obvious to—”

  “Yeah,” she cut him off. “It was obvious to anyone but you.”

  He sat down on his bed and she went to the closet to take off her sweater. Miss Wilkens had been kind enough to give them a ride back, even though it was almost a twenty-minute drive, and Kasumi finally had a chance to ask Dent how it went in the office the minute they exited the car.

  “We have a way in, now,” she said, hanging up her sweater. She turned just in time to catch his jacket with her face. She growled at him.

  Once his jacket was hung, she hopped on her bed.

  He asked, still completely clueless, “What do you mean we have a way in?”

  “We were sent here for her. What better way to gather intel than to get her to spend time with you? It’s way better than you using the lame excuse of needing the truck fixed to find out information about her.”

  “Why can’t we just keep researching online or asking questions about what might be happening here?”

  Did Dent sound apprehensive? She must have imagined it.

  She raised two fingers before her and said, “Number one: We can’t find anything interesting about this city online past fifteen years for some reason, and number two: What questions can we ask that won’t make people suspicious? Last time we did that, we got someone killed. And I’m not going to let that happen again, Dent. I’m not.”