Kevin nodded.
“Do you want me to tell him who he’s looking for or would you rather talk to him yourself?”
“Has Chris told you what’s going on?”
“He said you want to find two men who used to haul goods on the West River but who sold their boat and disappeared.”
“That’s true as far as it goes, but there’s more to it.”
“I was pretty sure there must be.”
Kevin got up and shut the door. “The men we’re looking for may have played a role in the slaver raid outside Bridgeport that Marcus broke up last year. We have reason to believe one of the men, Mikos, was the man Marcus grabbed. And if he was, he’s probably the man who told Gwendolyn that Marcus took her key.” Kevin paused, but Cryslyn didn’t say anything. “I imagine people will ask Kitridge why he’s looking for them. He’ll need something to tell them, but I’m not sure the truth’s a good idea.”
“If the wrong person heard that, it could get those men killed.”
Kevin nodded. “This could be a case of mistaken identity, and even if they were involved, it’s possible all they did was provide transportation. In that case they’re not guilty of anything as far as our courts are concerned. But if they told Gwendolyn about Marcus and where to find him, I want them out of Camden.”
“If they’re who you think they might be, why would they be here anyway? Wouldn’t they be in Landoryn?”
“If they lost her key, Gwendolyn would have no qualms about bringing them here, telling them to find out who had her key, and then abandoning them once they’d done it.” Kevin thought for a moment. “Actually, I’m surprised she didn’t kill them. That would be more like her, which is one reason I’m not sure they were involved. So, how much do we tell the tracker? Can he be trusted with the truth? Or should we keep him in the dark?”
Cryslyn frowned. “In the dark?”
Kevin shook his head. “Should we keep it a secret from him?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know him well enough to say. But if you give him a story and he believes it, he may say the wrong thing to the men when he finds them. Could mess things up for you.”
Kevin sighed. “Guess I’m going to have to tell him the truth and hope for the best, but I want to be the one to tell him.”
“When do you want to see him? Today?”
“I’m not sure what the rest of my day looks like. Hold on a minute.” Kevin opened his door and looked at Chris. “Do I have anything scheduled today?”
Chris shook his head. “Not at this point.”
“Keep it that way for now.” Kevin stuck his head back in his office. “Today will be fine if he has the time. If not, find out when he can meet.”
Cryslyn nodded as she turned the key and left.
~~~~
Later that afternoon, Kevin and Chris were in Kevin’s office when Ariel opened the door. “Cryslyn would like to see you.”
“Send her in.” Kevin put the contract he and Chris had been going over in his desk drawer.
Ariel stepped back to let Cryslyn and her guest enter.
“Myron, I’d like to introduce Kitridge,” she said as they walked in.
Kevin stood up and as he held his hand out, a slight frown flitted across his face.
“Is there a problem, Sir?” Kitridge asked as he shook Kevin’s hand.
“You’re a bit younger than I expected. Cryslyn said you were one of the top trackers. I expected someone more experienced.”
Kitridge smiled. “I may be young, but I’ve been tracking for fifteen years, first because it was fun, then as an occupation. And I do have an advantage a lot of the other trackers don’t.”
“Which is?” Chris asked.
“Zara, my wife, goes with me, and what I can’t find out, she usually can.”
Kevin nodded and motioned towards the chairs. “Cryslyn said you might be willing to track someone for us.”
Kitridge nodded.
“The men I need to find aren’t going to want to be found. They’ll probably do everything they can to prevent it.”
Kitridge grinned. “Half the people I’m hired to find don’t want to be found.”
“Do you always find them?” Chris asked.
Kitridge paused. “Depends on what you mean. A few times I’ve been too late and the person I was looking for had died, so even though I found them, I didn’t find them in time. And there have been a couple of cases where I found the person but decided they were better off not being found, so I told the person who hired me that I hadn’t been able to locate them. But to be honest, I haven’t looked for anyone that I haven’t been able to track down.”
Cryslyn frowned, so Kevin asked, “What?”
“Just thinking.” Cryslyn turned to Kitridge. “The agreement we have is you get paid when you locate them. What happens when you tell the client you weren’t able to find them?”
Kitridge shrugged. “I don’t get paid.”
Cryslyn nodded.
“Have you ever gone after someone who had committed a crime?” Kevin asked. “Who had hurt someone? Or caused a death?”
Kitridge nodded. “I’ve been hired to track a killer before, and I found him, but once I knew where he was, I handed the information over to the local army officer. I draw the line at confronting someone dangerous. Why? Are these guys dangerous? I only ask that because Zara will be with me, although she’d be quick to say she can take care of herself. She can handle a knife as well as anyone, but even so, she’s my wife.”
“I don’t think they’re dangerous, but if they’re who we think they are, they won’t want to be found. It’s possible they may have been involved in the slaver raids that hit Camden a year and a half ago.”
“The ones on Heron’s Gulf? At Myer’s Creek?”
Kevin nodded. “But we don’t know for sure, and even if they were, we’re pretty sure all they did was provide transportation. At this point we have no reason to believe they participated in any of the actual raids.”
Kitridge’s eyes had hardened. “I knew everyone on Myer’s Creek. Josh was a friend of mine.”
“If you’d rather not be involved, we can find someone else, but as far as we know these men had nothing to do with anyone’s death.” Kevin paused. “But they may be able to point us towards some of the men who were responsible.”
“I thought you got them all.”
Kevin shook his head. “We got a lot of them, and I think we did get everyone involved in the raid at Myer’s Creek, but there was a crew that raided along the Kivee River that we haven’t been able to locate. And there are a lot of people who were captured who haven’t been found yet. I hope to get some information on where they ended up.”
Kitridge nodded. “If you want to talk to them, and they’ll need to be alive for you to do that, I’ll need to come up with another reason for why I’m looking for them. There are a lot of people who’re still pretty angry about those raids, and they’d be quick to go after anyone connected with them in any way.”
“A cover story,” Chris said. “Does that bother you?”
Kitridge shook his head. “Not the first time I’ve done it. When I was looking for that killer, I said his wife had just had twins and needed him back at home. Worked pretty well, at least it got us headed in the right direction.” Then he grinned. “Of course it was Zara’s idea.”
“I don’t think a story involving a wife will work this time,” Kevin said. “They aren’t married. That’s the only thing they’ve said. They’ve been secretive about everything else.”
“Then no one will be able to contradict the story we come up with. I’ll talk to Zara and see what she says.”
Chris nodded. “When will you be able to start on this?”
“There are a few things I need to take care of at home. I’d like to wait until next week.”
“I doubt it’ll make much difference at this point,” Kevin said. “Next week will be fine, but before you begin, there are some people I want you to talk
to, starting with Thom and Marissa in Bridgeport. Almost everything we know came from them.”
“Bridgeport,” Kitridge repeated. “Was that their last known location?”
“No, they never lived in Bridgeport, just docked there overnight. Myerston was their last residence.”
Kitridge nodded. “I’ll need to talk to some people there too, but I’m not sure where that is.”
“It’s a small town in Grainger, on the West River.” Kevin walked over to the big map on the wall. He pointed to the general vicinity of the town.
“Good ways away. It’ll take us a while to get there.”
Kevin shook his head. “We’ll take you by key.”
“Do you know where they were headed when they left?”
“All we heard was they were tired of snow and were going someplace warm. I assume that means south, unless they said that to throw off anyone looking for them.”
“They left six weeks ago?” Kitridge asked.
“At least,” Chris said.
“Then they probably did head south. Lots of places they could go, lots of places to hide. Do you know how they were traveling?”
“On horseback,” Chris answered. “According to what we heard, Mikos was tired of living on a boat.”
“Provided they were telling the truth,” Kevin added.
Kitridge nodded. “You said you’d take us up there by key. Can you take us back to our house when we’re done?”
“We can, but aren’t you going to try to pick up their trail from there?”
Kitridge shook his head. “If they headed south, we’ll have better luck starting from home. We’d lose too much time if we went up to Myerston and then headed south.”
Kevin nodded. “One more thing. I want you to keep me up to date while you’re looking for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to know where you are at least every couple of weeks.”
“How?”
“Send a note through the sisterhood. We’ve used them before. Address it to Sister Agnes, Milhaven.”
“So I write to her?”
“You can, or you can put a note in it for her to bring up here. That’s what people usually do.”
“I’ll have Zara handle that,” Kitridge said. “Anything else?”
Kevin hesitated. “I know you said next week, but can you go to Bridgeport Sunday? The man I want you to talk to can get away easier on Sundays. Any other day, he’d have to shut his shop and people would notice and start asking questions.”
“Sunday’s fine, and we can go on to Myerston after we’re done in Bridgeport as long as we can go back home afterwards.”
“Good. We’ll see you around nine Sunday morning.”
~~~~
Chris went with Cryslyn to pick up Kitridge and Zara Sunday morning and bring them back to the castle. After they recovered from their trip through the energy field and were seated at the conference table with something to drink, Kevin introduced Marcus.
“Marcus is the one who broke up the raid near Bridgeport. He’ll take you up there and introduce you to Thom, the man I want you to talk to. He and Thom can tell you what happened that night and why we think Mikos may have been involved. Then he’ll take you to Myerston.”
“We’ll need a couple of days in Myerston.” Kitridge looked at Marcus. “Are you planning to stay until we’re ready to leave?”
“I hadn’t planned to,” Marcus said, glancing at Kevin.
“That’s fine,” Kitridge said, “as long as we know where and when to meet you.”
“Why don’t you meet at the tavern? It’s easy to find,” Chris said.
Kitridge nodded. “When?”
“When will you be ready to go?” Marcus asked.
“Tomorrow around five?”
“I’ll be there.” Marcus finished his coffee and set his cup to the side. “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go to Thom’s house in Bridgeport. He and his wife, Marissa, are expecting us.”
“When you’re done in Myerston, would you mind stopping by here on your way back home?” Kevin asked. “I’d like to know what you found out.”
Kitridge nodded as he stood up. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of,” Kevin said. “Good luck.”
~~~~
Kitridge spotted Marcus sitting with another man as soon as he and Zara walked into the tavern late Monday afternoon. He hesitated, but when Marcus nodded at him, he and Zara headed in their direction. After they were seated, Marcus introduced Rigel.
Kitridge asked, “Have you eaten?”
Marcus shook his head. “Have you?”
“Not yet.” Kitridge looked around for the server. “And we’re hungry. We missed lunch.”
Marcus drank the last of his scog. “Then let’s get out of here and go get some dinner.”
“Why not eat here?” Kitridge asked, looking longingly at the bowls of soup and plates of bread coming out of the kitchen.
“Because someone’s waiting for you,” Rigel answered. “Don’t worry. You can eat there.”
With a deep sigh, Kitridge stood up. “Hope you’re right.”
Once they were outside, Marcus looked around. “Let’s head towards the stable.”
After they passed the stable, Marcus led them into the edge of the woods. Once they were hidden from the road, he held out his arms. As soon as everyone had a hand on him, he turned the key.
Kevin had asked Ariel to set up dinner for six on the conference table. By the time Marcus made it back with everyone, there were two chicken pies, several bowls of vegetables, a platter of fruit and cheese, a loaf of warm bread, and half a cake waiting for them.
After they finished eating, Kevin asked, “Any luck?”
Kitridge nodded. “We were quite lucky in one respect.” He got several sheets of paper out of his pack and handed them to Kevin.
“Who are they?” Kevin thumbed through the sketches.
Kitridge pointed to the people in the picture. “This is Carson, this is Mikos, and that’s Devron.”
Kevin nodded. “I was hoping you’d get good descriptions, but this is a lot better.” He flipped through the six sketches. Three of them involved both Mikos and Devron, one was of Mikos, one of Devron, and one had both men with Carson. “Who drew those?” he asked as he handed them to Chris.
“Ida, Carson’s wife,” Zara said. “She didn’t want to give them to us, but after a bit of cajoling she agreed to make copies for us. She drew those today.”
“Nice of her,” Chris said.
Kitridge laughed. “Nice for a price. She was well-paid for those sketches.”
“We’ll need to reimburse you,” Kevin said.
Kitridge shook his head. “Cryslyn gave me some money for things like this, and when we’re done, she’ll get a complete list of our expenses.” He smiled at his wife. “Zara’s good about that.”
“Someone needs to be,” she muttered.
Kitridge shrugged. “I’m not. I don’t think about it at the time, so she keeps track of everything we spend.”
Chris looked at Kevin. “Do you want copies of these?”
Kevin nodded. “But I don’t know if Steve or Laryn would have time to get them done while they’re here.”
“When are you leaving home?” Chris asked Kitridge.
“Probably Thursday, but if we’re a day later I doubt it’ll make much difference.”
“I’ll see if they can do it,” Chris said, standing up. “Back in a minute.”
After Chris left, Kevin asked, “Did you find out anything about their plans?”
“They told everyone they wanted to switch to overland hauling and they wanted to do it somewhere warmer. If you take them at their word, that would imply south and between the mountains and the sea, but they were almost too free with that information. I’m not sure we can believe it. On the other hand, that’s all we’ve got to go on, so I’m planning to start with that.”
Kevin nodded.
“I
’m not sure which one of them makes the decisions. Everyone agrees that Mikos acts like he’s in charge, and people who didn’t have much contact with them think he is, but both Thom and Carson seem to think Devron’s the one who figures out what they need to do next. Not that it matters as far as trying to find them, but if we do locate them, it could make a difference in how we handle it. And speaking of that, how do we handle it?”
“You don’t,” Kevin answered. “All I want you to do is locate them. Don’t approach them, don’t say anything to them at all unless not speaking would cause problems. Let me know where they are and I’ll take it from there.”
“You don’t want the local army unit to hold them for you?” Kitridge asked.
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t want them to know anyone’s looking for them until I’m standing there.”
“All right, but if we ask questions about them and they’re anywhere around, they’ll hear about it.”
Kevin paused. “Maybe we should say when you’re close, when you have a good idea where they are, contact me.”
Kitridge nodded.
“Anything else” Kevin asked.
“One more thing,” Zara said. “If you have time, I’d like to meet Sister Agnes. If I’m going to be writing to her a couple of times a month, I’d like to at least meet her.”
“I can take her down,” Rigel offered.
“Thanks.” Kevin looked at Kitridge. “Would you like to go?”
“Not particularly, but I would like to talk to whoever’s making copies of those sketches. I’d like a couple without anything in the background. Could he do that? Or does he just trace the sketches we have?”
“He can do that,” Kevin said. “I’ll take you out there while Zara visits with Sister Agnes. Anything else?”
When Kitridge shook his head, Kevin stood up and thanked Marcus and the pages. “Rigel, we’ll be at Steve’s when you get back.”
By the time Rigel and Zara made it back to Laryn’s house, Steve and Laryn had made several sketches of Mikos, Devron, and the two of them together. Kevin kept one set and gave Kitridge the rest along with the originals.
Once they were ready to go, Kitridge said, “We’ll get on the road before the end of the week, but it’ll be three weeks or so before you hear from us.”
The Rambling Spy Page 46