by Anela Deen
I set my mug down. Trying not to startle him, I tapped a knuckle against the tabletop. “Nick?”
He exploded into motion, jamming his hand into the rucksack and turning his body as if to leap from the seat. Hard brown eyes met mine.
I already had my hands up, palms out. “It’s just me.”
He blinked, recognition seeping into his gaze, and the look of relief that washed over his face made me wonder if he’d expected someone else. He extracted his hand from the rucksack and set it aside. Then in a flash he was up and out of the booth, crushing me in a hug.
“Sam,” he said. “It’s really good to see you.”
“You too, buddy.” I gave him a squeeze and clapped him on the shoulder. I studied his face when I pulled back. He looked rough, his face pale, deep shadows under eyes dimmed by sorrow. “How’re you holding up?”
“All right, I guess,” he sat again, as if the sudden burst of physical activity had drained what reserves he had. “Thanks for coming out here. I know it’s a drive.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I sat on the bench opposite him. “I’m so sorry about Paul. I don’t know what to say.”
He stared into his beer. “Me neither.”
I wanted to ask what happened. The question was on the tip of my tongue before I reeled it back in favor of a more important one.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Maybe later.” He took a long guzzle from his mug. “I’d rather talk about what’s new with you. I’m pretty tired of hearing about my own mess.”
It was hard not to ask what he meant by that. A death in the family was devastating, but not typically referred to as a mess. A mess meant trouble, not grief.
Still, I wasn’t going to hound the guy about semantics and an itchy feeling between my shoulders. His brother was gone. If it were me, I’d appreciate a distraction from my sadness. I tried to think of something that would take his mind off what happened.
“My mom’s dating.”
He snorted a laugh. “You’re kidding.”
“If only. He’s a decent guy at least.”
“You’re still living over her garage?”
“Do I rent an apartment that happens to be built over her garage? Why yes, yes I do.”
“I thought you said you have your own business.”
“Right,” I tipped my chin up proudly. “President and CEO of Sam Alvarez Locksmith Company.”
“Creative, that name,” he chuckled.
“Accurate though.”
“Doesn’t it earn enough to find someplace else? Someplace bigger, maybe outside of that speck of a town?”
“It earns enough to keep me comfortable. I’m not really looking to move. My Nana is there and…Bellemer’s my home.”
“Ah Samwise,” he shook his head at me, a smile in his brown eyes. “That place doesn’t deserve someone as good as you.”
I didn’t know why he thought that so I shrugged. “Well, all my stuff is there and packing sucks. Tell me about Japan. What’s it like being stationed overseas?”
“Base patrol is pretty boring but Okinawa is awesome.”
“Even for a guy who’s six-foot-three with your shoulders?”
“Okay, I am like a giant over there, and I can’t tell you how many of their rice paper screen doors I’ve accidentally put a foot through, but the food,” he leaned back with a sigh. “I thought I loved seafood before but over there it’s on a whole different level. There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world.”
The bartender appeared at that moment with my glorious burger dripping with melted cheddar cheese, topped with bacon, tomato and lettuce next to a mountain of still sizzling steak fries.
“Wow,” was all I could manage.
The man nodded approvingly as he set it in front of me. “Tastes even better.”
Nick stared at my burger. “I’m going to need one of those.”
“Sure you don’t want to ask about their seafood?” I needled.
“I haven’t seen a burger like this in almost a year. Actually,” he looked up at the bartender, “I’m going to need two.”
“You got it, son.”
When he left, I noted the ravenous gaze Nick settled back on my plate and took pity on him. “Go on,” I pushed the plate in front of him. “I’ll grab one of yours when it comes out.”
“You don’t have to,” he argued weakly, his hands already inching toward it. I wondered if it might have been a while since he last ate—or wanted to eat, given everything he’d been through.
“You first. That’s an order lieutenant.”
He gave me a sharp salute before digging in. While he devoured, we exchanged stories of the last few months, details that took too long to explain via email. He told me more about Japan and I was relieved to see his enthusiasm for the country, even if he couldn’t tell me much about his duties. I supposed that made us even since I couldn’t tell him anything of my sainthood development. Instead, I relayed news of the town and Mr. Upland’s continued attempts to pair up me and his daughter Heidi.
“Didn’t you two see each other for a while?” he asked around a mouthful of fries.
“It was maybe two dates sophomore year.”
“I seem to remember you making out with her at Jake Anderson’s party—the one where his parents were out of town and someone put a patio chair through their bay window. That was junior year.”
Heat crawled over the curve of my ears as I remembered. “Yeah, that happened.”
“So?” Nick prodded.
“So, nothing. Didn’t work out.”
He stared at me a moment. Then a smile curled one side of his mouth and he sat back. “There’s someone else.”
“Why is everyone obsessed with my dating life today?”
“And you’re secretive about it. Serious then?”
“That’s it,” I drained the last of my beer and set the mug down decisively. “I’m going to the can and when I get back, we’re changing the subject.”
“You haven’t won her over, I take it. Don’t worry Samwise, I’m here to help.”
I shook my head at him, grumbling as I headed for the bathroom down the hall behind the booth.
Chapter 24
When I emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, I almost crashed into someone standing outside the door. Only my decent flexes saved me. An apology was forming on my lips until I got a look at him. He was huge, built like a brick, and scowling. He stood centered in the middle of the narrow hall, arms crossed like a human barricade.
I edged back a step, alarm bells going off. “Is there a problem?”
“From you?” He gave me a calculating look. “I doubt it.”
Was that a dig at my gym routine? “I’m going back to my table now. How’s about letting me pass?”
He continued to stand there with his scowl and his tree-trunk arms interlinked. One bicep had a tattoo of a snake weaving out of the empty eye socket of a skull. Pretty.
I braced my feet apart and straightened to get the most I could out of the six-foot height I’d inherited. Just because I wasn’t actually a fighter didn’t mean I should look as though I’d go out like a bad sneeze.
“Come on, the night’s early,” I coaxed, even as I held his gaze unwavering. “Why don’t we go back to our beers? Or at least get out of this hallway. The guy who used the toilet before me clearly has bowel issues and some ugly fumes are leaking through the door.”
Not a laugh, snort, or hint of a smile came from him. I thought he didn’t intend to move, but after another moment, he shifted to one side. Hallelujah. I had to put my back to the wall to slide past—his way of showing that I was the submissive dog, probably—but whatever. The hallway didn’t have another door aside from the ladies’ room. Not an ideal place to get penned in.
When I rounded the corner, I stopped short. Three men sat in our booth. One had taken the outside seat next to Nick, another had pulled up a chair at the table end, and the third sat across from him on
the opposite bench. That one was talking to Nick. He had brown hair, pale skin, and a face that didn’t call attention to him in any way. Average-looking in a way that seemed intentional. He wore an amiable expression, but all the color had leached out of my friend’s face, his eyes brimming with a mix of fear and hate.
“Keep going.” A meaty hand thumped me between the shoulder blades. I glanced back to find my hall companion had followed me. What was going on here?
“Leave him alone,” Nick growled. He half rose from his seat but the guy next to him pressed him back down, jabbing something into his side that I couldn’t see. Nick glanced down at whatever it was, jaw tightening. He sat again, turning a furious gaze on the guy who’d been talking to him. “He has nothing to do with this, Foster.”
The man smiled, a slight tilt to his lips that made him look less friendly. “Is that why you called him all the way out of his little town to meet you here?”
Nick swallowed. “How can you know that?”
“Our client is well-funded and quite motivated.”
“I told you I don’t have it.”
Foster turned his attention to me. And smiled. “Come join us, won’t you?”
A shove from behind directed me toward Foster’s side of the table.
“He doesn’t know anything. Just let him go.” Nick tried to rise again and the guy beside him poked him in the ribs hard enough to make him grunt. I caught the glint of metal in his hand and my heart stumbled over itself. A gun.
Tattoo guy pushed me into the seat next to Foster and stood there, blocking me in. I glanced around the table, at the desperate apology on Nick’s face and the men surrounding us. It wasn’t their hard faces that turned my stomach to knots, but the deadness in their eyes—the kind of look only people familiar with terrible and casual violence possessed.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Just middlemen, really,” Foster said, clearly in charge of this merry band. “Nick has something that doesn’t belong to him and our client sent us to retrieve it.”
“It’s not here,” Nick said. “I never entered the country with it.”
“Your brother sent it to you. Did you misplace it in Japan?”
“My brother told me to lose it and I did.”
Foster didn’t like that answer. His smile stilled on his face, an ugliness seeping in like an oil spill. He turned to me with his perilous brown eyes.
“We didn’t introduce ourselves, did we? You’ve heard my name.” He tapped his chest. “Foster. What’s yours?”
“Don,” I replied easily.
“That’s it?”
“Don Quixote.”
He chuckled in the same way he smiled. “I’ve read that one. You come in riding a donkey?”
“With my lance and my sword.”
“Really? I thought it was that old truck out in the parking lot.” He leaned an elbow against the table, regarding me like a thing he debated throwing away. “Maybe I should run those plates. Pay a visit to your house. We could talk more about your adventures, Don. Would you like that?”
The guy holding the gun on Nick shifted, his arm under the table pointing unmistakably toward me now. My skin went tight. Sweat trickled down the back of my shirt.
“The key is gone,” Nick insisted, panic edging his voice as he stared between me and the gun. “The box can’t be opened anymore. From what Paul said, it should never be opened, with or without the key.”
“What our client decides to do with it is his business. If that key is truly gone, then it’s up to you to find another.” His expression darkened, twisting his features into one made of threat and pain and inhumanity that chilled me to the bone. “Or do you think what happened to your brother can’t happen to others?”
Nick’s throat bobbed. “Don’t hurt my family,” he whispered.
“That’s up to you.”
Nick’s gaze lowered to the table, his expression bleaker than death.
Foster’s features switched back to friendly in an eye-blink and he took a swig from a bottle I hadn’t noticed on the table next to him. “Give us what we want and we’ll never bother you again.”
My thoughts tumbled over the strangeness of this conversation. A box? A key? What was this all about?
My glance landed on the bottle as Foster set it down again. I read the label, and blinked. He was drinking light beer. I had nothing against the stuff or the people who drank it—other than the fact that it tasted like feet and, dear God, why would anyone drink that?—but my fear of him couldn’t help but go down a few pegs knowing he worried about his caloric intake. Naturally, this led me to saying something stupid.
“I can open it.”
Every pair of eyes swiveled to me. Foster pinned me with his stare. “Has Nick here been less than truthful about what you know?”
“He hasn’t mentioned any of this, but I’m a locksmith. Whatever it is, I can open it.”
“Don’t,” Nick told me sharply. “You don’t know these people.”
I ignored him. “You mentioned a box?”
“I did, though it’s not an ordinary box. This one is special.” Foster took a folded-up piece of paper from his breast pocket and held it out. When I reached for it, his fingers twitched it away from my grasp. “If you look at this, Don, you’re involved. Understand?”
I glanced at Nick who shook his head at me with eyes as round as coins. Doubt clawed at my insides. To get involved would put Nana and my mom at risk. What if I couldn’t open this box? Or shouldn’t, as Nick said. Getting in the crosshairs of something I didn’t understand wasn’t smart.
Yet, it didn’t feel like a choice at this point, not after Foster’s casual mention of my truck. Not if he had the means to run my plates and find my address anyway. If I didn’t become a player in this, I’d become a pawn, more leverage to use against Nick. And Nick had already lost so much. I refused to let him be alone in this.
I plucked the paper out of Foster’s hand. “I understand.”
Chapter 25
“So, do you want to call the police, or should I?”
Foster and his men had gone. We had two days to find this key he demanded. Or else. No need to fill in the blank there.
“Sam,” Nick gripped his head between his hands and groaned. “What have you done?”
“You’d rather I call? No problem.” I tugged my phone out of my pocket. Nick swiped it from my hand before I could dial.
“Listen,” he paused, glanced at the device, and stared. “You have a flip phone?”
“What, it works.”
“Do you send messages by carrier pigeon too?”
“Can we get back to the calling the police part of this conversation?”
“We can’t call the police.”
“Sure, we can. 9-1-1. Easy.”
“Sam, don’t you think I would’ve done that by now if I could? Even before I knew about all this, there were people following me in Japan. On base.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’d thought it was just extra eyes because of this one homophobic commander, but…If they can find a way onto an international military installation, they can get ahold of me—my family—without any trouble from the police. And now yours too.” He groaned again, his chin dipping toward his chest. “I didn’t want to get you wrapped up in this. I just wanted to see a friend. Have a second to feel normal.”
“It’s not your fault, Nick.”
“It definitely is. I shouldn’t have risked meeting with you, even if I hadn’t known how closely they were watching me. It’s like I’m in a Bond movie, only there’s no Bond to get me out of trouble.”
“Well, you’ve got me. I’m no super spy with fancy gadgets, but I’m on your side.”
“No offense, but what can the two of us do against them? We’re just a pair of small towners from Iowa.”
Good point, not that I’d say so aloud. “Why don’t you start by telling who these guys are?” I unfolded the paper Foster had given me. “And what this thing is? Did your b
rother explain it at all?”
A color copy of a photograph, the box had a flat-topped lid and appeared to be made of polished, aquamarine stone. Silver inlaid letters scrawled along the front like a trail of melted gunmetal. The etchings disappeared around the side, not that I could’ve deciphered what they meant even if I could see the rest of them. It looked like a relic, something a whip-toting adventurer would dig out of booby-trapped caves in far-off lands. Nothing of note had been photographed in the background.
Nick passed a hand over his face. “Paul said it shouldn’t exist.”
“Clearly it does.” I leaned closer, smoothing the creases. “I don’t see any place for a key.”
“What he sent me wasn’t like a typical key. It was the size of quarter, but shiny and light-blue, like a gemstone. It took a while before I realized it was magnetic too. I think it attaches to the top in order to lift off the lid.”
“Why do they—or their client—want it so badly? Sure, the box is probably some priceless artifact from yore, but this seems like a lot of hassle to complete a piece for someone’s collection.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Nick sat back and pursed his lips. “What do you know about Genghis Khan?”
Interesting segue. “Uh, that he conquered a bunch of stuff?”
“Most of Eurasia, yeah. When he died, it was said they buried him in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia.”
“So?”
“So, about a year ago, local farmers by the Onon River came across bones after a heavy rain had crumbled part of the shoreline. The archeology community hustled over and found telltale artifacts and a few other identifying things that led them to believe it was the grave of Genghis Khan. Paul went on and on about the discovery at the time.”