“So now things look even more complicated and dangerous than they did yesterday.”
“Seems like.”
“I’m happy I could risk my life to help out,” he said.
“Happy to have had you along.” I grinned.
He tried to keep his expression neutral, but I saw the shadow of a smile. “Be careful. The coyote’s sharp and cunning mind often leads to his own destruction.” He smiled broadly now. “But it makes for more entertaining stories.”
Chapter 18
WE REGROUPED at the cabin.
“So what happened?” asked Bob.
I dumped the captured phones on the table. “We got these to dig through. And a handgun I’ll have a friend at the police department run a check on.”
“You didn’t take anybody we could chat with?”
“He had a chat on site.”
“You squeeze somebody?” asked Bob. “Find out anything?”
“Some. But I have more questions now than before.”
I gave the short version of what the woman had told me.
“And you just let her go?”
“I didn’t see any point in taking her.”
“He’s too soft hearted to kidnap her or beat her up,” said John. “But he has a mean streak.”
“What’d he do?”
“Told her she was lousy in bed,” he said, grinning.
“Well, I guess that showed her,” said Bob.
“Look,” I said, “they know I can get to them. They know I will come after them if they push me. They know I’m dangerous. But they also know I can be reasoned with. Not shooting the woman proved that. So if they’re paying attention, then I think I sent the best message I could.”
I sighed.
“If I have to shoot somebody, I’ll do it. But I’m just not willing to take this woman and stick her foot in the fire until she talks. I have some limits.”
“So how are you going to run down that info?” asked Bob. “You’ve got names and numbers, but do you know anybody who can hack that information for real info? These are probably all aliases.”
“You any good with computers?” I asked.
“Not for that kind of thing,” said Bob. “John?”
He shook his head.
“And I am just a humble foot soldier,” I said. Bob snorted. “And they know most of my friends who might know something or somebody who could help, so asking them would be too risky.”
I was silent for a minute.
“I think we need to call Sarah. If she’s somewhere secure they probably won’t be able to imitate her, and she knows more about this technology than any of us thugs.”
Bob looked at me through his remaining eye for a long minute. “I’ll call her.”
“Thanks.”
“Nothing personal, but if you do it she might agree for the wrong reason.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the horizon. “She might.”
I walked out onto the porch to stare at the stars while he made the call. One thing you forget living in the city is just how many stars there are. How bright and deep and impressive the night sky is, out here, away from the lights. The vast, humbling sweep of the galaxy helps put my own problems in perspective. Given the extent of it all, the fact that I was standing on a pale blue dot capable of sustaining life, teeming with life, and that I’d seen and experienced so much of it was a miracle.
I’d spent a lot of nights like this. Alone, staring at the stars.
Not for a while, though.
All the same, I still wanted to hold Sarah again, and know small, insignificant Earthly pleasures once more.
Bob walked out onto the porch. Stared at the stars with me for a while.
“She’ll take a look at the phones. Tell you what she can figure out.”
I nodded. “Good,” I added when I realized he wasn’t actually looking at me.
“She said to call her and she’ll let you know where you can meet to hand them over.”
I was surprised. “She wants me to go meet her? Not you?”
“That’s what she says.”
“Thanks,” I said. I pulled out my phone.
“I’ll head in,” he said. “Leave you to talk.” He stopped and faced me. Giving me a cold look from his one eye. “I like you. I really do hope things work out between you two. But be careful. Don’t give me a reason to stop liking you.”
He walked back inside before I could reply. Not that there was much to say to that.
I dialed Sarah’s number.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi,” I answered. “It’s me. Bob said you wanted me to call.”
“I did,” she replied. Her voice had a strained, brittle quality to it. “How are you holding up?’
“Surviving.” I took a deep breath. “You?”
“As well as can be expected. Which is awful.”
“I’m sorry.”
There was a pause in which I could see her shrug in my mind’s eye. I did hear a sniffle.
It’s odd how you learn to read somebody’s pauses. I knew that she had started to say “it’s not your fault” then realized that wasn’t really true, then bogged down as she tried to work out what exactly she wanted to say. I waited. No good could come of rushing her or making defenses she’d already heard. Knowing when to be silent is hard.
It’s taken me a few centuries, but I mostly have it down.
Eventually she spoke. “I know you are. I know you’re trying to fix it.”
“I am. But I think I need your help.”
“Bob said something about that.”
“We traced these people to a house. Managed to grab a few phones. I know, theoretically, that there’s plenty of info in the contacts and messages and so on, but no idea how to get at that. Bob isn’t much more tech savvy than I am. I didn’t want to let more people in on this, and I don’t know who else I can trust, so I was hoping you could take a look.”
“I’d be happy to.”
“Just let me know where to bring them.”
“How about–wait, do you have them turned on?”
“Maybe? Why?”
“Turn them off,” she said. “There’s a ‘find my phone’ app that can track them. It’s for if you leave your phone somewhere. If they can log on to a computer, they can get a GPS position on the missing phone. The app usually won’t work if the phone is powered down.”
Shit. It really is just bad form not to keep up on the new tech. Especially when that tech can track you down.
“So if they’re off, they can’t be traced?”
“It’s less likely,” she replied. “It’s not impossible. Most people will just have the simple app, in case they leave the phone in a restaurant or on the bus. There are better ones that can track the phone even when it’s off, but those are for more hard core techies.”
I thought about that. It was the kind of things that Caruthers and company would find useful. But the phones were too valuable a potential source of information when I had next to nothing.
“OK, I’ll make sure they’re off. We’ll abandon this place and move out in case they already traced them. You still want to help?”
“I do. I won’t be safe until this is finished anyway. The sooner we get this behind us the better. Then we can get on with our lives.”
I winced. I wished she’d said “life.”
Enough of that. I shook myself. “Where do you want to meet?”
“You remember our first lunch date?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“Let’s meet there tomorrow night. At about eight.”
Smart. If I was an impostor, chances are I wouldn’t know where she was talking about.
“Looking forward to it,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” she replied. “See you soon,” she added after a long pause.
I cut the connection. Stared at the phone for a while. Then I walked back into the cabin.
“Hey guys,” I said. “You may want to get
ready to move out.”
“Why?” asked Bob.
“You ever hear of a ‘find my phone’ app?”
“A what?”
“It’s a program to track your phone if you lose it. If our friends have that enabled, they could have a GPS fix on us right here. So it may be a good time to be someplace else.”
“Or turn this place into a trap,” said John. “See if they do show up and grab ‘em.”
“Well, I have to go meet Sarah,” I said. “I’ll call you afterwards, see where you are and if we need to meet up. If I do, ask me something only I would know.”
“Like what a coyote should carry?” asked John.
“Sure,” I replied. “Just don’t shoot me if I come back, but be ready to shoot me until you know I’m really me.”
“At least this thing isn’t complicated,” said Bob. “Say hi to Sarah for me. And don’t forget what I said.”
“No chance,” I said. Not that I was afraid of Bob, per se. It’s just that he was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than I was, and there was no good outcome if I did have to fight him.
Chapter 19
I TOOK MY TIME driving south. I had plenty. I kept an eye on my rear view mirror, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t followed. Of course, if they could track the phones, they wouldn’t need to follow me. That wasn’t a comforting thought.
About halfway home, I stopped for a coffee. I called a friend of mine on the police department, to see if he could track down the ownership of the Walther.
“Hello.”
“Carlos? Hi, it’s Sean.”
“What’s up?”
“I need a favor,” I said. “A friend of mine just got offered a deal on a handgun. I want to make sure he’s not buying something hot. If I give you the serial number, can you run it?”
“I can try,” he said. “If it’s been reported stolen, I can find out. If it’s registered in a state that requires it, I can maybe get a name, find out if the guy who’s selling it is the real owner. He buying it in Massachusetts?”
“He’s from New Hampshire,” I said, trying to keep a fictitious friend off the radar, “but the seller is from Mass.”
“If the seller is in Mass, it’s probably registered. As far as New Hampshire, that’s the Wild West. No registration. Live Free or Die Tryin’ or some shit.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said. “I just don’t want to see anybody wind up with a murder weapon.”
“Sure,” he replied. “What’s the make and number?”
“Give me a second.”
I walked into the bathroom, into a stall before pulling the weapon out. Even in New Hampshire, people tend to get jumpy if you draw a gun at a lunch counter. I read off the serial number. “It’s a Walther.”
“Like James Bond had?” he laughed. “If Goldfinger’s death is still an open case, I wouldn’t buy it. I’ll see if I can turn up anything. No promises. There’s a lot more laws against checking on guns than there are against guns.”
“Thanks. Anything is better than nothing.”
“Take care,” he said.
“You too.” I hung up.
It might be a dry hole, but if there was a name connected to the gun, and if it matched one connected to the phone or to the property in Rowley or the hunting camp up north, then it was thread to pick at. The more I had, the better my chance of unraveling this knot.
I took my time in town, swung by my apartment, which didn’t seem to have been ransacked, checked in on the cat, who was staying downstairs with Mrs Rodriguez.
Carlos called me back. “That gun is registered to an Amelia Bennet of Rowley,” he said. “That check out?”
“It does,” I said. “Not stolen or used in a crime?”
“Not so far as we know. It wasn’t reported stolen anyway.”
“Thanks, man. I owe you.”
“It all comes out in the end,” he said. “You just step it up when I call for an ambulance.”
“Will do.”
I hung up.
Well, now I had a name. Maybe not a real name, but something that appeared on legal documents that could be cross checked.
Amelia Bennet.
That was WASP-y enough for Rowley. Old Yankee money. It felt right.
I killed some more time, trying to solve this puzzle with most of the pieces missing and eventually gave up and made my way to the small brew pub where Sarah and I had first had lunch and started getting to know one another. I looked around carefully before I got out of my car, scanning for threats.
Which was probably a waste of time, given that my enemies could just look like the waiter or my date or just some unrecognizable bar patron and shank me as soon as my back was turned.
You’d think I’d have learned how to pick my battles after all this time.
I walked into the building, stepping quickly to the right when I got through the door so as not to be silhouetted in the doorway. Old habit. I scanned the room as my eyes adjusted to the dimmer inside light.
The place was fairly crowded, a mix of couples on dates and single people sweeping the crowd with eyes like a lion on the savannah.
I didn’t see Sarah at first. I did see the back of a man, leaning forward over a table. Eventually he shrugged and walked away, drawing himself to his full height and pushing out his chest in the classic display of a rebuffed male unwilling to show weakness in defeat.
When he walked away, I saw her at the table. My heart did a quick stutter step. God, she looked good. I wanted to go over and run my hands through her golden hair and kiss that white neck so bad it hurt. She caught sight of me and gave a smile. It was a tight, tense smile, not her broad happy one or her twisted bantering one, but it was a smile.
I gave the man a once over as he walked away. Just to be sure he wasn’t a shape shifting assassin, of course, then I came over to her table.
“Hey, you,” I said, pulling out a chair.
“Hey yourself,” she said, her smile widening.
“You’re looking good,” I said. “Have you been here long?”
“Not too long. But it’s like feeding time at the zoo. I’ve been fighting off predatory bachelors since I sat down.”
“You’re gorgeous and alone,” I said. “Can’t really blame them.”
“You can’t?” Her smile twisted and she arched an eyebrow, looking over her glasses. It was a look you could bottle and sell. Probably in little blue pill form. “You look like you wanted to hit that guy.”
“Because I do,” I replied, shrugging. “I can’t help it. Testosterone poisoning. Remember, I’m older than most of the men you meet. I’ve had fewer generations to evolve.”
That got a laugh. “I miss this,” she said with a tinge of regret.
“Me too.”
She sighed. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Bad idea or not, it’s worth it to see you again.” Reasoning I’m not proud of, but that the drunks and junkies I treated would understand. The letdown would be bad, but the fix was so worth it.
A waitress came by and I took that moment to order a beer and a sandwich. Sarah ordered another drink.
“I’ll get this,” she said.
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested. “Let me treat.”
“Aren’t you about to lose your job because you’re a violent psychopath?”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Monique called me after it happened,” she said. “Wanted me to keep an eye on you. Did you really threaten this other medic?”
“A bit,” I admitted. “But I stopped short of actual violence.”
“You think you’ll get fired?”
“Well, maybe, but that’s days away. And look on the bright side, I could get shot long before that matters.”
I’m sure that was the wrong thing to say, but I’d honestly stopped caring. My job was at stake, my relationship was crumbling, my life was in danger, I was damned if I was going to be denied the refuge of gallows humor.
<
br /> “So let’s see the phones,” she said, all business.
I took them out and put them on the table.
“I have a name for you to look at as well,” I said. “Amelia Bennet. Probably has an address in Rowley. One of these phones is hers. Or an alias of hers.”
“That might help,” she said, looking at the phones. She turned each one on, checked them over. “I know somebody who teaches computers at the college. He could hack the password and I could get a look at what’s on these. I’ll go through the contacts list and see what I can run down.”
“Be careful letting anybody else in on this,” I said. “Make sure whoever he is is really him.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “You better do the same. I...I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Me too,” I replied. Forced a smile. “Thanks. For everything.”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” she said.
I watched Sarah walk out of the pub, hoping she’d look back. She didn’t, which was probably smart, but made me feel like a drowning man who had just been thrown a cannon ball.
I let out a long breath and sank the rest of my pint.
I sat for a moment, starting at my empty glass. I wanted another drink. I wanted to numb the empty aching void, to smooth off the rough edges when I thought about her, about how good we were together. Getting hammered out here was probably stupid, but if I went home, I’d be sitting alone in an apartment full of memories. From the wine glasses we’d bought together to her shampoo and body wash in the bathroom to the quarter of my closet she’d annexed. Even the fridge would have the horrible fat-free yogurt she insisted she liked. I didn’t want to be in a place where any direction I looked in would remind me what I was drinking to forget. The things that up until a few days ago had given me a warm reassurance that she was part of my life even when she wasn’t there would just highlight the gaping hole that I feared was coming.
Actually, what were the chances anybody would find me here? No worse than if I went to my place. I caught the waitress’ attention as she passed.
“Another beer?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Maker’s Mark,” I said. “Neat.”
A flicker of concern passed over her features. Her glance took in the empty seat across from me. “Is everything OK?”
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