Secondary Targets

by Sandra Edwards

  She fancied herself knowing his roaming thoughts as he skimmed the first page. Knowing Eric, he’d skip the doctor’s intro in search of pertinent information. He was never one to waste time on petty details. He’d search for the meat of the report, and when he found it, the beginning of the story, his green eyes lit up like fireflies.

  “You want to talk about a hero...” Eric began reading the text aloud, an action that was sure to clue the others into the implications. “I saw a hero once. I was in St. Augustine, Florida, at the Holiday Inn on Carrera.”

  Grace didn’t remember the exact address, but that didn’t encumber her brain from recalling even the minute details of those summer vacations with her parents. Every year, like clockwork, the family vacationed in St. Augustine, and the Holiday Inn was always their destination.

  Eric’s eyes closed into narrow slits and his brow furrowed as if a knot had tangled in his stomach. Understandable, considering. Still, in true Eric fashion—luckily, he hadn’t lost his knack for perseverance. It was the only thing she had going for her, and yet, the one thing she couldn’t escape—Eric continued on, “There wasn’t a better place to be during the last two weeks of June because of the carnival.”

  Grace couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d heard her father say those very words. Michael Hendricks absolutely loved carnivals. He was always thrilled to be in the midst of one, especially the one in St. Augustine. Sunning at poolside by day and cruising the carnival at night had, on more than one occasion, filled Grace and her parents with sheer joy.

  “I was sunning by the motel’s pool.” Eric’s words cut into Grace’s reminiscing, “Right next to this beautiful woman.” He paused and sucked in a breath. Eric always was intuitive. Grace envisioned that knot in his gut tightening. “Early on, I thought I might be able to make some time with her, but alas, it was not meant to be. She was there with her husband and their little girl. That child was a gorgeous little piece of sunshine, she was.”

  Grace’s soul slammed to the floor. In her heart of hearts, she knew her father had fabricated the V.A. file. The similarity was too analogous for it to be nothing more than coincidence.

  “The little girl and her father were playing near the shallow end of the pool.” Eric’s voice sobered, as if tantalized by the man’s story. “There was this little fat kid. He must have been about nine or ten, and he’d been doing belly flops off the diving board. Needless to say, the kid slipped on the slick, wet board and flew up into the air. As he came barreling down—” Eric winced. “His head slammed against the diving board and then he bounced off and tumbled into the water. Everyone stood around staring at the sight of the boy lying face down in the water. Nobody did anything, including me, except for this little girl’s father. That man flew into action, swimming the length of the pool in record time.” Eric’s tone quickened as he read about the unbelievable heroics. “Swiftly, and in a manner that made it look ever so easy, kind of like Superman, this guy grabbed the kid and had him out of the water and at poolside so fast, it made my head spin. Persistently, he performed mouth-to-mouth longer than any hospital would have, I grant you, until the kid began coughing up water.”

  The thing was, the hero described in the file was Grace’s father. Instilled in her memory, she recalled saying to her mother, after his gallantry, “Daddy’s kind of like Superman.” Grace’s memories of that day hadn’t diminished over the years, and just like back then, she was still in awe of her father’s valor.

  Feeling the sadness melt her smile away, she looked at Eric.

  “So, what you’re saying is...this guy in the file was recalling the incident where the General saved the kid?” Eric shook his head and caught his breath.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Grace said.

  But why? He understood the implications, he just didn’t get it. Why would one of Grace’s memories be included in a fabricated file about her father? Wasn’t that defeating the purpose?

  “Gracie...” Marcus’s voice gave away his pending objection, “It’s probably just a coincidence. I hardly think it’s a clue from the General.”

  “What makes you think it’s a clue?” Eric asked Grace. A little voice inside his head told him she was right. Something about the incident made her think so, and Eric’s better judgment told him to trust her instincts. He didn’t have all the answers, but he got that it was more than mere coincidence.

  “Well,” Grace said, “for one thing, the hero in that file was my father. I remember the incident clearly.” She turned to Marcus. “You can call it a coincidence if you want, but it’s pretty thin if you ask me.”

  The General was the hero in the file? Eric hadn’t seen that coming. Grace was right. This had to be the clue. But what did it mean?

  Grace’s gaze fell upon Eric and pleaded for his conviction. “So much of that narrative was actually real conversation between my parents and me at the time. But more than that...from the moment my parents met, my father always called my mother Sunshine.” Nostalgia was probably responsible for melding her face with the gentle smile. But memories were all she had now, and that drowned Eric in sadness. “That nickname kind of stuck.” Grace laughed softly. “When I came along, he always referred to me as a gorgeous little piece of Sunshine.”

  Eric understood the connotation, even if he didn’t get the connection. Clearly, Grace believed her father was sending her a message, and he doubted anybody could change her mind.

  Not that he wanted to. Eric didn’t doubt her instincts for a second. Still, what was this whole trip down memory lane supposed to accomplish? Possibilities filtered through his mind until one got stuck.

  “Grace is right,” Eric said. “It has to be a clue.” He paused, shook his head and tried to reason it out but kept coming back to the same thing. “Why else would an incident from her childhood be in a fabricated file about her father?” he asked, but didn’t wait for answers. “I’ll tell you why...because the General fabricated the file himself, and he added an actual event, that Grace would recognize, as a clue.”

  Cherilyn’s face was covered in amusing surprise, almost as if she was proud of him for figuring that out. Just as quickly though, she plastered on her ‘poker face’ and Eric no longer knew what was on her mind.

  Marcus, on the other hand, wore his mask of doubt well. Words like far-fetched were probably running rampant inside his head. But hey, the whole damned thing was out-of-this-world ridiculous.

  “Then there’s only one thing left to do,” Cherilyn said and waited for reactions. When she got them—Grace’s hopeful, Marcus’s doubtful, and Eric could only imagine that his face showed his annoyance, but thankfully she wouldn’t know it was meant solely for her and not the situation—satisfied, Cherilyn revealed her plan. “We have to go to St. Augustine.”

  They’d worry about what to look for when they got there.

  CHAPTER 30

  ERIC understood Grace’s motive, she’d always had a tendency to remain quiet unless she was pissed off, but he didn’t get why Marcus waited to question their next step until they were less than twenty miles outside St. Augustine.

  Going to St. Augustine and finding the motel sounded good, in theory, but what if too much time had passed?

  “So, if I’m right, and my father left this—whatever it is—at this motel...” Grace’s voice faded, right along with her confidence. Obviously the same doubts Eric was experiencing were running around in her head too. “What if the motel’s not there anymore?”

  “Well,” Cherilyn spoke up, “if he went to all that trouble to leave something for you there, something that was obviously so important to him, you can bet your ass that motel is still there.”

  Okay. Eric would buy that if the General wasn’t dead. It’s kind of hard to make sure the motel remains, years after he’s passed on. Unless... “He owns it!” Eric realized out loud. “Or at least you do,” he said, looking at Grace.

  “Hell, Eric, you catch on fast.” Cherilyn’s half-hearted laug
hter echoed past them. “Why weren’t you ever recruited?”

  Something about that notion jumbled Eric’s nerves. “Beats the hell out of me.” He couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason it bothered him so, but still, anxiety swept over him as he consciously tried to cast the idea from his mind.

  Hell, he didn’t know anything about this so-called organization, or even if the General’s and Cherilyn’s were supposed to be one and the same. But according to Cherilyn, that was something they may never know. Nevertheless, he found the idea of erasing Eric Wayne’s identity a little unsettling.

  Grace’s hand inched toward Eric and she laced her fingers with his. He gave a gentle squeeze and an appreciative smile, letting her know he approved.

  Things were starting to look up. For the first time, Grace felt they were actually getting somewhere. She had no doubt that the passage in the V.A. file was the clue they’d been looking for. Her father had written that file. Whether the others believed it or not, she knew it to be so. Still, whatever her father had left behind, to be found at the end of this scavenger hunt, was also meant to be discovered a long time ago.

  Finding it back then, just as her father had planned, probably would’ve been easy enough if she hadn’t run away. Eric would’ve told her about the key, and they would’ve started the search immediately. If it was gone now, she had no one to blame but herself.

  Grace could spend all day playing the what-if game. But at the end of the day they were still here, and now it was eleven years later. She wasn’t exactly confident that the endowment was still in its hiding place after all this time.

  “So, what do you think, Marcus?” She valued his opinion, and wanted to know whether or not he was as convinced as Cherilyn would have them believe.

  “Well...” His face showed the doubt his tone tried so hard to hide. “It is a fairly odd coincidence that your memories ended up in a fallacious V.A. file that’s supposed to ward people off the trail of Michael Hendricks.”

  He had a point. There was something to be said for that. What exactly, she wasn’t sure. “And you, Cherilyn,” Grace asked, focusing on Marcus’s ex, “what do you think?”

  “Well, Marcus makes a lot of sense, but...” Cherilyn glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “If there’s any truth to this theory...your father’s plan was ingenious.”

  They all had, even Grace, for one reason or another, led themselves to believe they’d find the answers at the Holiday Inn, to at least some of the questions they shared, if only in their minds.

  Then they found the site of Grace’s childhood vacation destination. None of them were prepared for what they found. Of course, finding it had happened quite by mistake. St. Augustine had only one Carrera and it was a ‘Street’. There were no Avenues, Drives, or Lanes. Simply Carrera Street and nothing more.

  After driving up and down the street several times, and not seeing any motels or even the hint of one that once was, they had just about decided to go back to square one and start all over.

  Cherilyn chose a donut shop as their point of reorganization. “Let’s grab some donuts,” she said, pulling into the parking lot. “Then we can figure out where we went wrong.”

  “I don’t remember this place being here,” Grace said, surveying the parking lot and the building sitting center-point. If a donut shop had been nearby during their vacation stays, she would’ve been bugging her parents about the tasty treats. “We must be on the wrong end of the street,” she said absently as she climbed out of the car.

  “Maybe we can find some information inside,” Eric said, closing the car door. He followed Grace toward the entrance.

  She hoped he was right as she followed Marcus and Cherilyn inside the Grand Central Donut Station. Taking seats at the counter, Grace and Cherilyn sat next to one another with their guys at their sides.

  Grace scanned the large menu covering most of the wall in front of them. She drew a breath, reveling in the aroma. The shop smelled delicious. Grace inspected the menu. Ooh, chocolate covered éclairs. Now that was something she could sink her teeth into.

  A frumpy waitress appeared around the corner and Cherilyn gave a little snort, but checked herself quickly. Good. Grace didn’t like being embarrassed. Sure, the girl was moderately overweight and undeniably self-conscious about it, but there was no reason to humiliate her over it. It was a safe bet that working in a donut shop had been part of the reason she’d ended up this way. Too much temptation on a daily basis. Grace knew how easily that could happen and preferred to give the girl the benefit of the doubt.

  “What can I get you guys?” she asked with a forced smile and brushed her carefully groomed yet hopelessly outdated hair back out of her face.

  “I was afraid you were going to ask me to make a choice.” Cherilyn laughed, looked at Grace and added, “donuts are my weakness.” Her hunger-stricken face said she wasn’t kidding. Cherilyn turned back to the waitress. “I think I’ll have a couple of glazed donuts and some coffee.”

  Grace and Marcus rattled off their orders, each procrastinating about what to get. Sometimes, Eric had to fight the urge to hurry them along. But he’d learned a long time ago that that did little in the way of actual help.

  He glanced at the waitress’s nametag as she sat a cup of coffee and a chocolate covered donut on the counter in front of him. Boy, Trish, if you keep working here, before you know it your weight’ll be up around three hundred pounds.

  Eric pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He’d need to put aside the sarcasm in favor of something much more agreeable—like charisma—if he wanted to know what the waitress knew.

  “So, Trish,” Eric called her name, and, while he waited for her response, he tested his coffee. Hot. He willed the burning sensation away as she approached, and prepared to turn on the charm.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked with a smile.

  “Back in my younger days,” he said, “I swear I recall a motel on this street somewhere. A Holiday Inn.”

  “You’d be right.” The waitress propped her hands on her hips and glanced back and forth between Eric and Grace. “A Holiday Inn used to be right here on this very lot.”

  “Really?” Grace’s eyes lit up.

  But Trish ignored her, instead focusing solely on Eric. He was torn between fishing her for information and schmoozing closer to Grace to give the impression that they were “together”.

  “It was bought up by some big corporation about twenty years or so ago.” She baited Eric with the promise of valuable information, and he jumped off the fence onto her side. A victorious smile spread across her face. She truly believed she’d drawn his attention away from Grace.

  Eric didn’t fight it, didn’t deny it. There was much more information that needed unearthing. He wasn’t sure why, but they needed to know more about the corporation that bought this land.

  He winked at Trish and then cut his eyes toward Grace, who showed absolutely no signs of jealousy. But really, why should she? This girl was hopelessly plain, almost to a comical point.

  Grace wasn’t anybody’s fool. She had to know Eric’s intent. She probably even felt sorry for the girl. Unless, of course, she couldn’t care less who Eric got together with. There was that.

  Eric couldn’t dwell on such possibilities. He had to stay focused. For Grace’s sake. In the end, he was there to protect her, nothing more.

  “So, they decided to do away with the motel and build a donut shop instead?” Eric hadn’t meant it as sarcastic but it was a ridiculous notion.

  “Well, not at first.” Trish continued to let the information pour in his direction. “First, it was Grand Central Laundry Station.”

  Grand Central? Wasn’t that the name of the place now? Grand Central Donut Station, or something? “Grand Central is an odd name for a Florida corporation,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound boorish.

  “You’re telling me.” She laughed. “The people who own the land are very specific though.” She proudly told him what she knew, and for tha
t he was thankful. “No matter what goes up here, it has to have some form of Grand Central Station as its name.”

  “Trish...” Cherilyn put on her friendliest tone, as if she knew the waitress was only receptive to Eric. “Do you recall the name of this corporation?”

  Trish peered at her like she was contemplating whether or not she wanted to oblige Cherilyn. Eric didn’t think Trish cared much for Cherilyn. To that, they had something in common. Something about Cherilyn also rubbed Eric the wrong way.

  But luckily, a smile from Eric and Trish was more than happy to pop around the corner and check the business license hanging on the wall.

  She came back out and announced proudly, to Eric, “It’s owned by the Grace of Sunshine Corp.”

  Well... Eric managed to contain his reaction to just a thought. What do you know about that?

  CHAPTER 31

  CHERILYN glanced into the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of Eric and Grace, mostly Eric. “Do you really think it’s so simple that it could be locker thirty-six at Grand Central Station in New York?” she asked out loud. Nah. It couldn’t be. Did she dare hope?

  “Simple maybe,” Marcus chimed in. “It’s brilliant, I tell you. Hide it in plain sight.”

  “He couldn’t have picked a better locale,” Eric agreed. “There’s no fear of anything ever happening to that place. At least not in our lifetime.” He paused as bewilderment furrowed a frown on his forehead. “But who’s been paying for the locker all this time?”

  Eric’s stature had stiffened considerably. She doubted he’d last much longer.

  She’d have to give him incentive. “Do you think your General would have thought that far ahead?” Cherilyn asked. For the sake of the position they were currently in, she hoped so.

  “The General wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to end up letting something go that he’d regarded with such importance.” Marcus shook his head. “He wouldn’t let it be confiscated for non-payment.”