Bad Road to Nowhere

by Linda Ladd

  Mariah gave him a look, clearly irritated now, too. Not that he cared. She scraped back her chair and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  Novak watched her walk across the restaurant and disappear up some steps into the ladies’ room. It was gonna be a long trip up to the state of Georgia, all right. They had never gotten along, and they weren’t getting along now. He waited until she was inside, the door shut, the lock clicked over, and then he leaned across the table and grabbed the handles of her gigantic black leather bag. It looked expensive, the leather soft and supple, and when he unzipped the top, the lining had pictures of Paris and the Eiffel Tower etched into tan silk. Normally he wouldn’t invade another person’s privacy as he was about to do, but Mariah would do it to him, no doubt about it. She probably already had done it last night when she was alone inside his house. She wouldn’t feel guilty about it, either, so why should he?

  Novak glanced at the ladies’ room, and then he started sorting through the contents of the bag. He stopped when he heard somebody nearby give a distinct cluck of disapproval. A real genuine tsk-tsk, the kind made with one’s tongue. He looked around. An older woman was sitting at the adjacent table with her husband. Both looked to be in their sixties or thereabouts. The man had turned gray and was concentrating on his food. The woman was attractive, maybe a little younger than he was, with dark hair streaked with blond, tanned, well dressed. She was watching him like a hawk on the hunt and shaking her head, apparently disgusted by his dastardly invasion of the sacrosanct inside of a woman’s purse.

  After glaring at Novak for a long moment, the lady told her husband in a loud voice that Novak should be ashamed of himself for snooping inside a lady’s purse without her permission. However, the woman didn’t know Mariah the way Novak knew Mariah. He ignored the attractive but nosy busybody, who continued to stare unflinchingly at him.

  Poking through the purse, he found a black leather Gucci wallet, full of every credit card imaginable, all in her name or in that of the Melbourne Herald Sun. A thousand dollars in cash, mostly in American hundred-dollar bills. Three hundred more dollars in smaller denominations: fives, tens, and twenties. Some Australian currency as well. Not as much, but still plenty. She shouldn’t leave that kind of money unattended, especially in a booth with him. Comb, lipstick, hand sanitizer, and more interesting, a locked leather pouch about the size of a paperback novel. He got out his pocket knife and tried to force the lock but with no luck. It had a tiny padlock that required a tiny key or his lock-pick kit, which was out in the truck. The necessary tools would be in his pocket by dinnertime. The key was not in the purse. So she knew him as well as he knew her.

  Novak zipped up the handbag and put it back where it had been and headed for the john himself, now positive that she was lying to him about some, if not all, of her Poor Little Artistic Emma story. On the other hand, now he was eager to get to Sikeston, Georgia, and find the missing woman, if there even was a missing woman. And he was curious. Especially about what was in that locked pouch. A heavy pouch about the right size for a nine-millimeter weapon. Mariah was up to no good, yet again. He would bet his last dime on it.

  When he came out of the bathroom, Mariah was already standing at the cash register paying for their food with one of those crisp hundred-dollar bills. He walked past her and across the tarmac and got into his truck. Five minutes later, she slid into the passenger seat beside him, clunked the door shut, and snapped her seat belt into place.

  “So what’s in the locked pouch? A gun?” he asked casually, starting the motor and pulling the gearshift into reverse.

  She turned quickly on the seat and stared at him. He stared back, not the least bit sorry, hell no. “You searched my bag? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I did, because guess what? I don’t trust you, Mariah, and I never have. Why would I start now?”

  She hesitated, probably thinking up new lies to tell him. She regained her composure quickly enough. “If you must know, that’s where I keep my passport and other important papers.”

  “What other important papers? Must be written on concrete to be that heavy.”

  “My God, Will, what is this? A police interrogation?”

  Novak just waited, motor idling, watching her squirm. She was as uncomfortable as hell. Point made.

  “Okay, damn it, I’ll tell you. My driver’s license, health records, U.S. visa, newspaper credentials, as well as my extra cash and jewelry, and all that kind of stuff. I’m an alien in this country, if you’ll recall, working on a story. I’ve got to be ready if I get picked up or injured or thrown in jail.”

  “You expectin’ to get picked up or injured or thrown in jail?”

  “You tell me.”

  “No, you tell me.”

  “Reporters snoop. Sometimes they get in trouble for it. I’m like that, and I have to protect myself.”

  “I don’t want trouble with the law, so rein in your snooping if you want me to hang around.”

  “Damn it, Will.”

  “So why don’t you show me what’s inside? You got a problem with that? Think I might steal your passport? Your weapon? Something along those lines?”

  “Actually, I do have a problem with it.”

  “How’d you smuggle a gun into the country?”

  “I didn’t smuggle a gun into the country. It’s none of your business what I have in my purse.”

  “Then you’re hiding something. And if that is a weapon, you are breaking federal laws.”

  “Yeah, as if you aren’t carrying a gun.”

  “I’m not bailing you out if you get caught with an illegal firearm.”

  Mariah stared straight ahead, and Novak decided he was going to break into that pouch the first chance he got. He had a feeling she would protect it with her life now, which made him even more suspicious. But if there was a weapon inside that pouch, he was going to confiscate it, whether she liked it or not.

  Novak got back on the Interstate and headed north, but his mind was working to figure out what her possible angle might be. Neither of them spoke again, not for the next two hundred miles. During that time, Mariah opened her phone and furiously searched the Internet. Novak concentrated on his driving, but the locked pouch was still bothering him. Who the hell carried a locked pouch in their purse? He wasn’t around all that many women, not anymore. His partner, Claire, didn’t, but she didn’t carry a purse, period. All she carried was a lot of loaded guns and one big knife in a fringed scabbard and one kickass stun gun keychain. If it was a gun, he didn’t think she’d smuggled it in on the plane. Too risky. So where the hell had Mariah gotten a gun? Suddenly he wished that he’d checked his own gun cabinet before he’d left Bonne Terre.

  “Okay, I’ve got more background on Emma,” Mariah said into the silence. “You want to hear it? Or are you still pouting about me not itemizing every single thing in my purse for you to nose through?”

  “I already told you what I wanted. I want you to open that pouch right now and show me what’s inside.”

  “Man, you really are quite the obnoxious bloke, aren’t you?”

  Novak ignored that. She wasn’t going to do it voluntarily. He’d find out in his own time. But he would find out. “Go ahead, let’s hear what you got.”

  “I didn’t know the extent of all this, actually, but Emma’s made quite a name for herself inside serious art circles. Especially in Australia. Worldwide fame, in fact. She’s had plenty of gallery showings before she disappeared, held in all the major Australian cities, and in lots of other countries. It says she is especially renowned in Russia and China and here in America. Nearly every country in Europe has shown her work at one time or another. She’s received plenty of acclaim and big money. Says here that she was ‘discovered’ by Robin Adamson when she was sixteen. After which time, he mentored her, groomed her for success with her paintings, but I already told you all that. He got her up there, too, all the way to the top, let me tell you. Since her supposed drowning, her paintings have brought
in anything from $100,000 to $500,000, Australian. Her value’s skyrocketed in the last year alone.”

  Novak listened to all that, considered it for a minute. “That makes a difference in how we approach this, don’t you think?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She’s become a true money maker, raking in dough hand over foot, it sounds like. That makes her worth something to somebody. Could be a motive for kidnapping. That’s a fairly elementary conclusion. The Chinese and Russian connections are more interesting.”

  “It also says here that the reason her paintings have become sought after recently is not just because of how unusual her technique is, but because of the notoriety of her disappearance. That the value’s increased exponentially, and to a lot greater extent than anyone expected.”

  “How many paintings are there?”

  “It doesn’t say how many. But I’ve seen lots of them. There are online galleries full of them, offering prints of her work for sale, if you want to take a look at them. Kind of abstract with a three-dimensional look to the application. She strokes it on rather thick with different layers and colors, a real kaleidoscope kind of thing that she does beautifully.”

  “Anybody seen her anywhere recently? Or her husband?”

  “Nobody has seen them. They are presumed drowned.”

  “Well, I think this whole thing stinks.”

  “That’s why I’m here, to figure all this out,” she said, voice growing sharp with irritation. Then she seemed to realize that she was reverting to her old and hateful habits, and added quickly, “The message in the matchbook is the best clue we have. You just have a knack for making me go all crazy. You always have.”

  Novak glanced over at her, pretty sure that was true. Mariah turned back to her search. After a few minutes of poking the touchpad and frowning and muttering under her breath, she said, “You think they’ve got him, too? Kidnapped the entire family, maybe?”

  Novak shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Adamson has motive, all right, if she was planning to leave him and go out on her own, like you told me. That would cut off some serious income he’s always been in complete control of. Can you find out who is buying and selling her work now? Recent sales listed anywhere online? The names?”

  “I haven’t found that out yet.”

  “Well, find it out.”

  “It could be true, you know. Maybe he’s alive somewhere, for some reason. Gone off somewhere in deep seclusion, in deep mourning. For God’s sake, if he lost his whole family in one fell swoop, that’s enough to send anyone off the deep end.”

  Novak stiffened. His fingers tightened convulsively around the steering wheel. He set his jaw hard, kept his eyes straight ahead on the car in front of him. It didn’t take Mariah long to realize her gaffe.

  “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. Will, please . . . I wasn’t thinking. I really wasn’t. I cannot believe I just said that to you. How stupid can I be? I know what you’ve gone through since Sarah and the kids died. I think you’ve handled it very well, you know, once you had some time to get through the shock and horror of it all. You really have. Please forgive me for saying something so cruel.”

  Novak had totally gone to pieces in the aftermath of the Twin Towers going down—quit his detective job at NYPD, and almost drunk himself to death for months on end, all alone in the dark bayous, closeted up at Bonne Terre in that big empty house, self-absorbed and brought low by overwhelming grief, wanting to die himself. The perfect place for total self-destruction. That period of his life? Truth was, he hardly remembered much of it. Everything was fuzzy and full of alcohol-drenched dreams. It had taken him three years to pull himself together and realize that what he really wanted was revenge: bloody, violent, brutal revenge.

  Novak had come out of it wanting to vent his anger and kill and murder and annihilate the people who had taken his family away from him and for the three thousand other human beings murdered when the World Trade Center came down. He wanted to end anybody involved, anybody who planned it or even knew about it, anybody he could get his hands on. So he had joined the military to fight the enemy and he’d ended up a Navy SEAL with the ability to avenge Sarah and Kelly and Katie with an awful kind of brutality burning like an eternal flame inside his soul. Then killing had become his life, his specialty. But he didn’t want to think about that day, not now, or ever. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  Staring straight ahead, he didn’t react to Mariah’s apology. It was bad enough that his dead wife’s body double now sat in his passenger seat next to him. He did not want to talk about any of it. “Just keep looking, Mariah. We need to know everything we can about both of them before we go asking nosy questions about this Triangle Club, or bar, or whatever the hell it is.”

  After that, they drove in utter silence for about a hundred miles, something Novak was used to. Mariah was going along with it at the moment, but he knew that was out of character for her. She used to like to talk and act and move, all quickly and impulsively, and it appeared she still did. Novak spent the driving time turning over all the known facts in his mind. Thinking it through, a million times if he had to. Putting the pieces together over and over, in different arrangements and scenarios. Considering what he knew now, who would profit the most from taking Emma and her son from their home and disappearing? Was her husband really dead as the authorities had decided? Or was he in hiding with her son somewhere, still making money off her artwork after having killed her? If not him, then who would go so far as to fake their deaths? Who would gain from something like that? What would they gain? Because Novak was pretty damn sure Robin Adamson was involved in her disappearance.

  “I need print photos of all three of them,” he said suddenly, breaking into the silence. Robin, Emma, and Ryan. In color and up-to-date.”

  “Already done that. Along with their dates of birth, personal statistics, education. I have all that in a file in my suitcase. Hell, I even found out how many parking tickets each of the adults had gotten.”

  “Any criminal charges?”

  “Not that I could find. But I’m still looking.”

  They drove on, the highways good, not much traffic until they reached Montgomery, Alabama. Then the road again, for hours, and then they fought their way through the giant traffic jam and crazy drivers that made up the outer fringe of Atlanta. By five o’clock that evening, they arrived at the outskirts of the small town of Sikeston, Georgia. A big sign welcomed them and proclaimed that it was the Gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. An interesting fact, new to Novak. As was everything else in the area. He had been to Atlanta and Chattanooga and Asheville before, but nowhere on the roads in between. It was rural and mountainous and forested and ruggedly beautiful.

  Also, the sign indicated the population was fifteen thousand plus change. Not exactly a cosmopolitan area. He and Mariah would be noticed immediately. Especially if they started asking pointed questions. Especially inquiries asked in Mariah’s Aussie accent. They had to take care about what they said and did early on and who they approached for information. He could do that. He’d been trained to do it; had done it a thousand times. He wasn’t so sure about Mariah. If nothing else, people would notice her striking beauty. He sure as hell didn’t have that problem. They remembered him because of his size.

  Chapter Six

  Cruising down the off ramp, they drove into Sikeston proper and found it was a nice little community. Pretty much like any typical mountain town. Nowhere near city standards. Not by population, not by any stretch of the imagination. Signs here and there assured them that the town was friendly and welcomed all passersby and visitors like members of their own families. They wanted them to come on in and have some fun. Well, time would tell on that one. Sikeston was suitably picturesque in nineteenth-century Americana mode. Lots of quaint old buildings lined the older downtown section. Most of them two stories, with lots of curlicues on the bannisters—lots of bannisters, period. On the horizon, Novak could see some blue shadowed mountains, most likely the Blue R
idge Mountains. Novak’s first impression was that he liked it. So far.

  The side streets were narrow and bricked with lots of storefronts with big glass windows. Most of the windows were divided into panes and had flowerboxes affixed underneath them, overflowing with chrysanthemums of every color and hue. Folksy as hell. A trip back in time. Novak took a lot of those kinds of trips in his dreams. He headed for the business district, following elaborately framed signs. The closer they got, the more it appeared that every single citizen in town was congregated en masse along the main street, which was suitably called Main Street. Looked like a big celebration was in order for the friendly hometown folks. A super special day that included tons of hoopla and good cheer and laughter and booths offering kettle corn and corndogs and cotton candy, and kids with painted faces and artwork and craft projects by the womenfolk of the town. A happy, happy, and one more happy fall festival was going on, all right, and that was for damn sure.

  Novak wasn’t so happy, especially about the festival. The traffic was congested and there would be tourists in town galore. Running around everywhere. So maybe, just maybe, he and Mariah wouldn’t stick out like two sore thumbs. The immediate surrounding streets were pretty much blocked off and monitored by the local police, who were dressed in identical blue uniforms, directing traffic with hand signals like in New York circa 1920. They had whistles and were blowing the hell out of them. He was waiting for them to break-dance.

  Novak began to wonder if it was a typical American small town, after all. It looked more like a tourist trap. The annual autumn parade continued in full swing, replete with a couple of high school marching bands dressed in maroon and white with white-plumed helmets. A bevy of horses followed, carrying men and women attired in western apparel, down to the boots and ten-gallon hats. Old-fashioned farm wagons rattled by, full of excited children bundled up in colorful jackets and throwing handfuls of Tootsie Rolls and Double Bubble chewing gum to people sitting along the curbs. Revving motorcycles, each with the Stars and Stripes proudly flying, brought up the rear with enough roaring motors to sound like fifty jets taking off on fifty runways.