Janet squinted at her watch. “Do you know what—”“You said yourself you wanted to see how Cynthia’s doing.”
Janet looked at her watch again, frowned. “Will he be there?”
“Perhaps, I’m not sure.”
“It’s like he looks right through me, does he do that to everyone?”
“I’m going to change this shirt. The keys are in the kitchen, will you get them?”
“Change the pants too,” Janet shouted after him.
Glen continued up the stairs to the master bedroom. He called down to Janet, “What’s wrong with these pants?”
Janet replied, but Glen heard only a mumble as he wrapped one end of a leather cord around his hand. He felt the blood flow to his fingers slow, and as he walked at a leisurely pace down the stairs, his fingers began to tingle. It was time, he told himself. Better now than later, better him doing it than them.
***
Scott held the phone to his ear for the longest time, listening to the dial tone. He wasn’t at the truth, but the layers of lies were getting less and less, and every layer he dug through meant he was one step closer to the truth. But there was only one way he’d ever get to the real truth, and that was to find the box and reveal it for himself, even if that meant confronting John Wellmen, even if that meant confronting Glen Hastings.
Helen’s sobs brought him back from his reverie, and only Helen’s sobs made him consider hanging up the phone. He did so and turned to her. She had heard every word of what he had said, and maybe some of what Glen had said. She was trembling out of control and no amount of hugging her knees was going to end it.
He started to grab her shoulders; he wanted to shake her like a rag doll; instead wrapped his arms around her. He hugged her because she needed to be reassured and because he needed to be hugged back. He hugged her because he had never felt so alone. He hugged her because she was next to him and within reach, and because she could reassure him there might be a tomorrow. He hugged her because he was positive Glen Hastings would be on the next flight to Honolulu. What that meant, he wasn’t entirely sure, but Glen would be away from Cynthia.
The voices of the tourists gathered to gawk brought him back from the edge. Fleetingly, he thought about calling Glen back, but didn’t. Then he tried to comfort Helen, but his touch only made her tremble more. Abruptly he stood and glared at the crowd gathering to watch Helen cry. He shouted, “When you’ve seen enough, get the hell out of here and leave us alone!”
He kneeled and grabbed Helen’s shoulders. “What did Glen say to you?”
Helen said very quietly, “He killed her, even if he said he didn’t.”
“Jessica?”
“John, John killed her. He said he didn’t, but I know he did.”
“Slow down, how do you know Glen? Through Janet, I mean Pattie? You know Glen through Pattie, is that it?”
Helen’s face flushed with distress. Her sobs intensified. Scott watched her try to think. She said, “John, John, that was John.”
“How did you…” Scott’s voice trailed off as the weight of the world hit him and pulled him to the floor. “That was John?”
She didn’t need to answer. He knew it was true, perhaps had known, but before he couldn’t let himself believe it. He put his back to the wall. The world rested on his shoulders. The whole of his body gradually went numb. Aim the gun, squeeze the trigger, kill someone before they killed you that was an inevitability, but the things Glen did to her weren’t things any human being should ever do to another. He broke her down, used her, turned her into something she wasn’t. Or was she?
He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. They rushed out of the arrival terminal past the signs for the Wiki Wiki.
Running, running. Running, running.
The Wiki Wiki driver flipped Scott off as he passed, shouting, “Hey, island time, haulie, better learn how to relax.” Scott started shouting back, not because he was angry at the driver, but because he didn’t know who else to vent his anger at. He didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t know who he could trust, for all he knew, Helen was really working for Wellmen. Why not?
He wiped sweat from his brow with his free hand. The warm tropical air was full of humidity and the dark clouds overhead said it would rain as it been when the plane landed. They crossed the bridge connecting the arrival terminal to the main terminal and were under cover when it began to drizzle.
He pulled her past Burger King, past a myriad of shops, down an escalator to the H baggage-claim area. He screamed at her for leaving his garment bag on the plane and went to the lost and found desk to claim it, hoping it would be there and that no one had stolen it. He screamed at the attendant behind the desk, ordered him to find the bag, showed him the air marshal badge that was a lifesaver at airport security checkpoints. He screamed at Helen while he waited. And all because he couldn’t scream at the one person he wanted to scream at.
Chapter 19
Honolulu, Hawaii Sunday,
23 January
It was a few minutes past midnight when Scott stepped into Room 1208, set his bag down and tossed the keys to the black sedan onto an end table. The Outrigger Reef was a nice hotel. The room had two double beds and a scenic view—he had insisted on both.
Outside the window, palm fronds swayed under a darkened sky, couples strolled along the beach, holding hands and letting the warm water nip at their feet while gentle waves lapped at the shore. It was enough to make Scott yearn for something he couldn’t have. Something he might never have, and for a moment his thoughts went to Cynthia.
Annoyed, he grabbed a fistful of drapes, yanked the drapes across the window, then turned to Helen. She was sitting on the edge of one of the beds, hugging her knees and swaying back and forth. He said, “Tell me again everything Glen, I mean John, said to you. Everything.”
She looked up at him, her eyes the eyes of a child. “He said he didn’t kill Jessica, but I know he did. I know he did.”
“What else did he say?”
“Besides the bad things?”
“Forget the bad things, Helen. I made a promise to you. I promised to help you if you helped me. I won’t let him or anyone else hurt you.”
“He told me you worked for him, is that true?”
“That is the truth, Helen, I do work for him. I’m no saint, no white knight. I’ve done things in the name of freedom that make me wake up in cold sweats, my heart pounding, my head throbbing. I’ve done things that I try hard to forget, but my conscience won’t let me.” He kneeled next to her. “Did Jessica send you something?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’m not sure what to believe anymore. So no, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anyone… Think. A package, a letter, a postcard?” She frowned. He continued. “Her diary says that she found something, something that was worth a lot more than anyone knew. She told you it was worth a lot of money. She was planning on selling it to the highest bidder, was that John Ellis Wellmen?”
“What little I know came mostly from her diary, but I believe she went to Miami to sell it.”
“You told me once that you had proof Jessica had it with her and that it was worth a lot of money. That wasn’t in the diary. How do you know she had it with her? What’s your proof?”
“I’m not proud of how I know, but I know.” She paused then said quietly, “Right before Jessica went to Miami, John visited—”Scott was silent for a moment, then he grabbed Helen’s shoulders. “The date, what was the date?”
“The 27th, December 27. I’ll never forget—”“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. He gave me a black eye and I had to call in sick for a few days. I was there Tuesday night when Jessica packed the suitcases. He insisted and—”“Samsonite, slate gray hardcases?”
“Bought them last Christmas for Pattie, Pattie told her she didn’t need them, and after one of her weekend visits, she left them behind. Jessica put those three suitcases into her trunk on Wednesday evening
, put a brown leather attaché case on the seat beside her, and drove off. The gizmo was in the case because it wasn’t in the office and Jessica never let it out of her sight. How did you know about the suitcases? They disappeared with Jessica, that’s what I told Pattie.”
He squinted and looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean by that?”
“I thought they were lost, that’s what I told Pattie.”
“Told Pattie when?”
“She came looking for them about a week after Jessica disappeared.”
Scott jumped to his feet and towered over Helen. “When did you see her and where was I?”
Helen edged away from him. “I didn’t see her. She left a note in Jessica’s apartment. She has her own key, you know.”
“When was that?”
“The day after we came back from Tampa, after the phone call, after I ran away. The first place I went was Jessica’s apartment. I wanted her to be home, I really wanted her to be home, but she wasn’t. That’s when I saw the note and after I read it, I called Pattie. I wanted to tell her what had happened. She and Jessica were very close, at least I thought they were.”
He closed his eyes and sucked at the air. His thoughts spun away. The pieces weren’t falling together as he had hoped, but they were coming together. Pattie is Janet, Janet is Pattie, he told himself. In his mind’s eye he saw images of Janet and Jessica from the video labeled 12-8. Janet’s presence at the hotel on that night was no coincidence. Her short black hair in the wig was no coincidence. Her presence at Jessica’s apartment was no coincidence. Nothing was a coincidence. But everything pointed to the fact that Glen didn’t have the box and didn’t know where it was, despite his elaborate scheme. The question was, had Jessica known something was wrong? Had she figured out who Pattie really was in time to do something about it?
Helen started to say something. Scott cut her off with a wave of his hand. He paced in circles, tried to think. What if Jessica knew enough to be cautious? What if she had two cases: One Janet believed Jessica was taking to Whuthers and one Jessica tried to skip town with?
He put a hand to his mouth, turned and glared at Helen.
“Jessica had a brown leather case on the seat next to her?”
“The beat-up case my father used to carry.”
He swallowed hard, paced for a moment, then turned back to Helen. “The note, you said something about a note.”
“Pattie left a note. That’s why I called her.”
He grinned. He had found that one piece of the puzzle to which all the pieces of a night sky attached. He asked, “What did the note say, what did it say exactly?”
***
By 8 a.m. Sunday, Scott had already been trapped in Keneke Kawena’s tiny corner office in downtown Honolulu for nearly an hour with Helen pacing in nervous circles behind him. The office, a windowless eight by eight cell, was icy cold, nearly cold enough to see his breath when he exhaled. Ken talked the entire time, even as his fingers rattled the keyboard. “So you want I hitchhike the ether for you, find you your own cuckoo’s egg?”
“My guns, you said you could get them back from airport security. Did you—”“Email, no worries, a friend. But he knows you not a plainclothes air marshal, pretty obvious when you leave guns in a carry-on, trigger locks or no trigger locks.”
“I had all the proper paperwork when I checked through.”
“I’m sure you did, Mr. Miller.” Ken paused, turned to Helen.
“How is Mrs. Miller by the way?”
Scott sat down on the corner of the desk and slid a list of names to Ken. “Can you do it?”
“You’re lucky I needed the overtime this week, otherwise Sunday’s I’m out fishing or surfing with my boys and you wouldn’t catch me here until Monday.”
“Can you do it?” he repeated.
Ken grinned. “Strap on your seat belt and we’ll surf our way in. Ever surfed across the highway before?”
Scott tried to be cheerful. “Sounds interesting.” He didn’t say that if Ken just moved away from the keyboard, he might have gotten the information he was looking for by himself already.
Ken’s fingers tapped away at the keys. He glanced at Helen as she stooped down to eye a photograph pinned to a pegboard. “Good-looking woman,” he said to Scott.
Scott looked at Helen. She was bent over further than necessary and that, together with the open neck of the loose-fitting dress, left little to the imagination. She winked at Scott when she saw his eyes on her.
Ken continued, “Not exactly on the up and up but I figure what the hell, I need the practice. That’s how I catch them, you know, have to beat them at their own game. The latest craze, get this.” Ken tossed a floppy disk at Scott. “Fuzzy mutants I call it. Got an advanced logic protocol from the realm of AI, but it’s still your basic computer halting virus, only it’s more of a plague than a virus…”
Scott didn’t say anything; his eyes watched Ken’s fingers tap away at the keyboard.
***
It was late in the afternoon when the Hawaiian Airlines flight from LAX docked at the arrival terminal. Scott watched from the shadows. He hoped all Ken’s information was accurate, but didn’t know why it wouldn’t be. Ken had been too excited, too eager to help, and too thorough to have made a mistake. The only distraction was Helen, who had been flittering about the room, enjoying it when Ken’s eyes were on her.
As Scott watched for passengers to begin deplaning, Ken’s buzzwords circled his thoughts. When the doors to the gate opened, he put his back to the wall and buried his nose in the Star Bulletin. He watched a flood of tourists, ready for the sun, race eagerly into the terminal.
He chuckled to himself because he didn’t share their enthusiasm and because he thought if he concentrated on them, he wouldn’t see that it wasn’t only tourists, there were wives and husbands and lovers and family, all being reunited with one another.
As the tide of disembarking passengers ebbed, Scott still didn’t see Glen, but wasn’t worried because he knew Glen well enough to know he’d probably take his time exiting the plane. Glen liked to make an entrance, especially if he thought there was an audience.
Momentarily Scott wondered how Helen fared in the new room at the Sheraton Moana. They had checked in early that morning as Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Greenburg of Kansas City, Missouri. Glen would get a laugh out of the suite’s single king-sized bed, that is if he ever traced Scott and Helen to the room, which he wouldn’t because Scott was still registered at the Outrigger Reef with their baggage and all their clothes still in the room, and the rented black sedan parked in the hotel’s parking garage.
Scott saw stewardesses and other flight personnel passing through the gate. The muscle above his right eye started twitching and unconsciously he wadded up the Sunday edition of the StarBulletin.
He waited, growing more agitated by the second. When an attendant closed the doors to the gate, he gulped at the air, tossed the mangled newspaper in the trash and raced for the parking garage. Suddenly all he could think about was that Helen was alone in the hotel room and that there was a gaping hole in his oh-so-clever plan.
***
Scott leaned down, checked the Beretta in his boot, then wrapped his hand around the doorknob. He twisted the knob and slowly opened the door. The double beds were made up and unoccupied. The curtain was drawn. The bathroom door was open. The room, empty.
Instinct drew him to the closet. He removed the gun from the shoulder holster, took the safety off, slipped his finger across the trigger. An instant later, he took the Beretta out of his boot and did the same, then slowly slid open the closet door.
His heart skipped a beat as he saw a dark silhouette. He slapped the muzzle of the gun in his right hand against it and it slid away freely.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He spun around, leveled the gun; a woman screamed. His heart beat wildly as he stared at the familiar face. The face wasn’t Helen’s, but it was familiar all the same. Still, he didn’t lower
the gun or remove his finger from the trigger.
He shouted, “Did Glen send you?”
Janet looked nervously at the guns, stepped farther into the room.
Scott closed the door behind her. “How did you find me?”
Janet offered a tense smile. “Followed you from the airport, you were driving like a madman.”
“Why are you here?”
“Glen was going to kill me, Scott. I didn’t know where to run, but I knew if I could find you, everything would be all right.”
He directed her to a chair. He kept one gun aimed at her, the other toward the door. “Tell me about Jessica?”
“Jessica, I don’t understand.”
He spun the chair around to face the window, ripped back the drapes to let the sun pour into the room. He stood behind her, gripping the chair firmly. “I think you do. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t you, Janet? Or should I say Pattie?”
“Pattie?”
He spun the chair around so that she faced him. “Did you kill her?”
“Kill who?”
He stuck the Browning to Janet’s temple. “Jessica, Jessica.”
“God no, not Jessica. I fell in love with her, Scott, and him. I loved them both and still don’t know why. Glen, Glen was different, dangerous, ambitious. He brought me into the Agency, and taught me everything I know. But being with Jessica, it was magic, like living in Oz. It wasn’t supposed to happen like it did, but it happened.”
He lifted his leg up, jammed his foot onto the edge of the chair as he stuffed the Beretta back into his boot. He kept the Browning pointed at Janet as he sat down on the edge of the bed across from her and stared out at the waves breaking on the beach. “Go on.”
“You and I both know that if you want to stay alive in the game, you have to hold out. You see, I learned a few tricks from the old dog.” Janet stood and led Scott to the window. The ocean was in front of them. Diamond Head was off to the left, the whole of Waikiki Beach below and to the right.
Pieces of the Puzzle Page 18