The hospital gave me a shower cap that I put over my head before getting into the shower. I didn’t soak long for fear I might get water under the cap, but I washed off the grime I felt from the night before.
I grabbed a robe when I got out of the shower and headed down for some coffee.
Lauren’s phone was on the kitchen counter beside mine. I picked it up, carrying it and my coffee to the den. She had a burner phone. It wasn’t a brand new phone, so she must have gotten it used. Not long ago either.
I picked up my iPad that sat on a charging station in the den and sat down on the couch. I searched the 256 area code. It was the area code for north Alabama.
A reverse directory told me that the number Lauren dialed two days ago was registered to a T-Mobile account in Florence, Alabama. I dialed the number and listened to it go straight to a message saying that the mobile user did not have a voice mail set up yet.
I sipped my coffee. If Lauren was off the grid, then the guys that grabbed her were most likely looking for her. If she was running and hiding, then I was pretty sure I knew which hotel she was staying at by the stadium. There was one old hotel that remained two blocks from Auto Zone Park. Defying the growth around the ball field, the little roach motel had changed names every two to three years. The only place in the area to still advertise hourly rates, it was unlikely the management would have talked to the police about anything.
A naked girl came down the stairs overlooking my den. She was one of the two girls that Leo was dancing with at Club 152.
“Oh, hi,” she said, unembarrassed at her nudity.
“Hello,” I said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Oh, that would be fabulous.” She bounced down the stairs.
I stood up and walked into the kitchen to get her a cup.
“I’m Max,” I introduced myself.
“Oh, yeah, you must be Leo’s friend. I’m Sara.”
I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and poured coffee in it. “I have cream in the refrigerator and sugar on the counter.”
“What happened to your head?” she asked.
“I got mugged last night.”
“Oh no. Are you okay?” She stood on her tip toes to examine my wound. “I’m a nursing student.”
“Yeah, I have a concussion, but I’ll probably live.”
“It’s going to be hard to wash your hair,” she said.
“Yes, that’s what they told me.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“You have a really nice house.”
“Thank you. Is Leo still asleep?”
She giggled. “Oh, yeah. We might have worn him out.”
“We?”
She giggled again. “Yeah, me and my friend. Too bad you weren’t here.”
“Well,” I said, changing the subject, “there is all sorts of food. You can help yourself. I have to get dressed and run an errand.”
She flashed a mischievous grin and said, “I don’t know where my clothes are.”
I smiled back at her. “Then, I guess you will still be here when I get home. Tell Leo that I’ll be back.”
“Can you drive with a concussion?” she asked seriously.
“Uh, they didn’t say not to.” At least, I didn’t remember it. Probably in shock from “the abstain from alcohol” bit.
“Pretty sure, that’s a bad idea.”
“Yes, well I can’t wait.”
“Give me five minutes, and I’ll drive you,” she said setting her cup on the counter. She ran back upstairs. I’ll confess I watched her run away with a tinge of appreciation.
I drank the rest of my coffee and set the cup in the sink. I dressed and found a Memphis Grizzlies cap. I loosened it and covered the wound gingerly.
Footsteps on the stairs suggested that Sara had returned. I walked down the hall to find her in the kitchen wearing a red dress with spaghetti straps and very low cleavage. She was sipping her coffee.
“Pretty sure that those two will be asleep awhile.”
I grabbed Lauren’s phone along with mine. “Okay, but you really don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, it’s that or just hang out here till they wake up.”
I grabbed my keys off a hook and gave them to her. I sent Leo a text for when he woke up as I opened the door to the garage.
I had a fairly new truck that I bought last year to replace my last car which was totaled in an unfortunate collision with a tractor. I decided to go bigger for a change and got a used four wheel drive Ford F-250.
Sara climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Oh, I like trucks,” she said.
“Good, it is big though.”
“It’s okay, I grew up on a farm. I can drive anything.”
“Good, we’re going downtown.”
Sara managed the truck with ease, and after thirty minutes, she pulled to a stop in front of the Plaza de Vista Hotel. The Plaza de Vista was a small building behind a large wrought iron fence. Most of the rooms were on the back side of the building, so that one could discreetly park a vehicle.
“What are you doing here?” Sara asked.
“I’m looking for someone. Don’t worry. Just stay in the truck.”
I walked into the front office, which was just a counter with bulletproof plastic shielding the desk clerk. An Indian man came out of the back room when I entered.
“May I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I hope so. I’m looking for a girl that might be staying here.”
I showed him the selfie of Lauren from Blues City Cafe. He looked past the phone at me.
“I don’t know her.”
I pulled a $100 bill from my wallet and stuck it against the bulletproof shielding. He looked at me, and I lifted my eyebrows and waited.
“Yes, I know her. She paid for a week.” I slid the bill under the window.
“What room is she in?”
He didn’t say anything. I pulled another bill from my wallet.
“She’s in room 25,” he said waiting on the bill to go under the window again.
“Give me a key.”
He stared at the bill flat against the glass. He turned and got a key card and put it in a card programmer. After a few keystrokes, he pulled it out and placed it in the tray under the glass. I took the key and left the $100 bill.
“Has anyone besides the cops been here asking about her?”
He shook his head as he straighten the two bills out.
“What did you tell the police?”
“Nothing, I don’t want the police here. Said I never saw her.”
I walked out of the office. Sara sat behind the wheel of the truck playing on her phone. When she looked up, I gave her a wave before walking around the building.
Room 25 was on the ground floor and at the very back of the building. The parking lot was empty, but it was ten in the morning. Probably not the busiest time for a sleazy hotel. A Do Not Disturb sign hung on the door. I swiped the key card and opened the door.
The inside of the room was dingy. Smoke had permeated the walls over the years leaving a brown tinge to everything. The bed was unmade, and a large backpack sat in a chair near the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom. There was nothing there. A used towel hung over the towel rack.
I lifted the bag from the seat. It was more cumbersome than it appeared. Setting it on the bed, I unzipped the pack. Clothes were on top, but as I pushed them aside I saw stacks of bills. Lots of bills.
I dumped the bag on the bed. The bag was filled with close to 200 packs of bills. Each pack was labeled $10,000. Lauren was walking around with two million dollars. She said that she had her own money, but I wasn’t expecting cash.
I put everything back in the backpack. Lauren became more intriguing. I combed the room again to make sure nothing was hidden. When I was satisfied that Lauren had not hidden anything else in the room, I picked up the backpack and left.
I know,
I should probably take the bag to Anders. Probably her phone too. Lauren and I didn’t really know each other. I only knew her the last hour of her life. Yet, she was killed because I couldn’t stop the guys from taking her.
Sara was still playing on her phone when I knocked on the passenger window. She unlocked the truck, and I tossed the backpack in the back seat.
“Did you find her?” she asked.
“Who said it was a ‘her?’”
“You have that look in your eye.”
“No, I don’t. Let’s get out of here.”
She pulled out of the lot. “Where to?”
“Back to the house,” I said. “But let me buy you breakfast or something.”
“Sure, I’m getting hungry. But it’s almost lunch.”
“I’m easy. Whatever you want.”
Sara decided she wanted a burger, and we stopped at a local chain that served up the best burgers in town.
“So, what do you do?” Sara asked me as we ate our burgers.
“Nothing really.”
“Then what was the seedy motel about? Are you some kind of drug dealer?”
I looked at her.
“I mean, you go into a motel room and come out with a big bag. I’m just curious. You have a nice house, nice truck.”
I smiled. “No, not a drug dealer. I got a big inheritance when I was younger, and I make money off the investments. No big deal.”
She bobbed her head as she listened. Then she asked, “The hotel?’
“I really was looking for a friend. That was all. The bag is just her luggage.”
She shrugged and took another bite. “You are interesting, Max Sawyer.”
After we finished eating, I paid the tab and let Sara take me home.
The neighborhood where I live is covered with large trees. During the 90’s, the upper middle class Memphians moved just past the eastern city limits to avoid taxes, crime, whatever people want to avoid. The city, not to be outdone, annexed the area bringing the sheep back into the fold. The houses are big and filled mostly with families.
Sara pulled onto my street. A maroon Dodge Charger was sitting in front of my house. I saw the license plate. Alabama tags.
“Stop, Sara!” I exclaimed.
She hit the brakes, harder than I intended causing the tires to squeal. A man in a leather jacket was walking to my door when the squeal caused him to look our way.
“Sara, turn around, and go now.”
She was disoriented, and I repeated, “Turn around, and go now!”
She reversed the truck in a quick three point turn. I turned and saw the man run back to the Charger and get into the passenger seat.
“Go, and go fast.”
“What’s going on?” she asked with desperation.
“We are in trouble. Those guys behind us, probably want to kill us.”
She pressed the accelerator to the floor and turned left. “Where do I go?”
“Doesn’t matter, just don’t let them catch us.”
She muttered a curse. I pulled my phone out and called Leo. He didn’t answer.
When his voice mail picked up, I said, “Leo, there are two men in a maroon Charger that you probably shouldn’t let in the house. They want to kill me. Get your friend and get out of there. They are chasing us now.”
The Charger was behind us, but at least half a mile. The truck bounced as Sara jumped a corner curb and straightened up on the busier street.
“Take a left at the light,” I told her.
The Charger missed the curb, but it made the turn. Sara went through a red light, and I winced as a Lexus barely missed us.
“You are doing great, Sara. Now give it all the gas she’s got.”
The F-250 had a decent engine, but it was built for power not speed. Still, it could crest 100 miles per hour without any complaints. The Charger, though, could at least match it.
“Okay, on the left is the ramp to the interstate. Don’t slow, just take it. Go around anyone in the way.”
Sara obeyed, passing a Prius in the breakdown lane. The Charger was slowed as the lights changed and a stream of cars came off the interstate.
“Okay, we need to be fast. In about a mile is a really rough path that goes off the road. A bunch of mudders use it along the creek.”
“Can we get away from them?” she asked.
“Yes, they won’t be able to follow, but we have to see if the farm living has grown out of you.”
She glanced at me.
The Charger was on the interstate now, but it was farther behind us.
“Okay, coming up. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Good, take it now.”
She barely slowed as she went off the edge of the interstate. The path itself is at the bottom of the embankment, and I was pretty sure we were airborne before the truck lurched on the path.
“Throw it in four wheel drive,” I told her.
She did, and the engine whined as all four tires began spinning. The path follows Nonconnah Creek, and Sara stayed on the bumpy trail. The interstate and the Charger were not visible. I didn’t know if they followed us down the trail.
“Where does this go?” she asked
“It will eventually come out on the other side of Winchester Road. So you have a few miles of this.”
My phone rang, and I answered.
“Max,” Leo said. “I just got your message. What is going on?”
I looked over at Sara who was shaken at this point. “Too complicated to tell you now. Sara is with me, but you need to get your other friend and get her out of the house.”
“Who are these guys?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s a long story.”
“Alright, what do you need from here?”
“Nothing, just lock the house up, and get her home. Don’t be followed.”
I hung up with him.
“So, what is going on?” she asked me.
“I met a girl last night, and those two guys killed her for some reason. They kidnapped her and bashed my head in.”
“When we get off this trail, I think I want to get out of the truck.”
I guess, I couldn’t blame her.
4
I dropped Sara off at a gas station. I texted Leo who was coming to pick her up.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to her.
“Not your fault, I guess,” she said. “This isn’t my kind of excitement.”
“Trust me,” I said, “I prefer quiet dinners.”
“How did those guys know where you lived?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m wondering the same thing.”
The question was bothering me from the moment I saw them in my yard. They connected me through the hospital or the police. Either way, I figured they might be coming back for me. I have a feeling the thing they want is in a backpack in my back seat.
“Sara, listen, these guys are coming after me because I spent an hour with someone I had just met. I would suggest that you keep this whole thing quiet. I don’t want them coming after you because of me.”
Her head twisted back and forth. “No, I don’t want to think about this. I’m going home and forgetting I ever met you.”
“I don’t usually have that affect. I am sorry.”
She smiled. “It’s not you. I actually like you a lot. Just… That scared me.”
“Alright, Leo will get you in a minute,” I said getting back into the truck.
Home wasn’t much of an option right now. I was guessing that Lauren came from north Alabama. Maybe Florence, since the number she called was registered there. I pulled up the map on my phone. Florence was right at a three hour drive. I made a stop at a store to pick up a phone charger for both my phone and Lauren’s. If anyone called Lauren’s phone, I wanted to answer it.
The three hour drive was easy, but boring. Fields of soybeans lined the highway, and the only oasis was the town of Corinth, Mississippi. I knew nothing about Florence, but as I passed thr
ough Muscle Shoals, Alabama, I realized there were two cities next to each other. The Tennessee River separated the two cities. I drove across the bridge as the afternoon sun began to create a golden shimmer.
I needed to find a hotel, and then maybe get a change of clothes. I found a Marriott online that looked to be the nicest hotel in town. After I crossed the river, the drive was only about five minutes until I found the hotel, which overlooked one of the dams on the Tennessee River. A spire structure towered over the building with a blue domed roof. Another building was across the parking lot. A sign said it was the Conference Center.
I followed the signs to the front desk which was up the hill from the Conference Center with a smaller parking lot. I was able to park anywhere and be fairly close to the front door. I grabbed Lauren’s backpack. Leaving two million dollars in the car seemed like a bad idea.
The Marriott Shoals Hotel and Spa was emblazoned on the automatic doors. Two bellmen wearing short sleeved polo shirts were talking as I passed the bellstand.
“Good afternoon, sir,” the younger one said. “Can we help you?”
“No, thank you. Just heading to the front desk.”
“It’s right over there, sir.” He pointed to the front desk that was 15 feet from us in case I missed the only desk in the lobby. The lobby wasn’t grand, and it had a simple look. A fountain in the center had an odd sculpture that after a few moments I recognized as the dam behind the hotel.
A dark haired young lady sat at the front desk. “How may I help you, sir?”
“Yes, ma’am. I need a room please.”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“No, I don’t. Will that be a problem?”
“No, sir. We have plenty of space for you. Will it be just you?”
“Yes. What’s the nicest room you have available right now?”
“The nicest? We have the Presidential Suite available?”
“Okay.”
“How long will you be staying?” she asked.
“Not sure. How about book me for four days?”
“I can do that, sir.” She keyed in some numbers. After she asked my name, she told me the amount. I laid down a credit card.
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