Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  The two men walked out and down to the car that Sam hadn’t even noticed until that moment, got into it and drove away. He watched them go, then turned around to look at the sleeping girl.

  Indie was kneeling beside her, and had a hand on her forehead. “Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Hey, wake up.” Cassie moaned for a moment, then stretched and finally opened her eyes. She looked at Indie and frowned.

  “Who are you?” she asked, and then she saw Sam. “Are you the man they said was gonna take me home?”

  Indie smiled and beat him to it. “That's him, honey,” she said. “That's him.”

  Sam took out his phone and dialed Sandy Ward's number. “Mrs. Ward? Sam. I think you should come down here; your granddaughter is sitting on my couch, and wants to go home.”

  6

  Since Cassie had been returned unharmed, as promised, and all she knew was that her father had told her he arranged for her to have some fun for a few days, which she did—she'd been to every theme park and fun spot within a hundred miles, always with her two black clad escorts—it was decided to keep her return quiet. Her grandmother took her home, and Sam told Mrs. Ward that he didn't think they'd be seeing Rice for a long time, if ever again. The woman thanked him over and over, insisting that she could make payments to him, but Sam told her it was all just part of the neighborhood swap, and to let it go.

  Indie held his hand and smiled as they walked away. “Neighborhood swap?” she asked.

  He nodded and closed the door, then let go of her hand. “Long story. When I was first hurt, some of the neighbors started coming over and helping out with things, like the lawn and such. They wouldn't let me pay them, but I'm a good mechanic, so when one of 'em needed some work on his car, I was able to help him out. It sort of snowballed from there, but now we all help out whenever we can, and everyone benefits.”

  “I see. So, now, you're gonna be the neighborhood private eye, right?”

  Sam sighed as he sat down in his recliner. “Probably,” he said. “But not ‘til I find Allen Rice. They held up their end, I'm gonna hold up mine.”

  Kenzie had wakened when Cassie and Mrs. Ward were there, but it was nearing midnight and she was dozing again. Indie looked down at her and said, “About bedtime, I think, don't you?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I'm ready to crash. I'll see you in the morning, okay?”

  “Sure. Hey, question: you found her, so is that the end of the job for me?”

  Sam stopped and turned to look at her. “I thought we agreed you were staying on as housekeeper?”

  Indie smiled. “We did,” she said. “I just wanted to be sure. And you’re gonna need me to find Rice, right?”

  “Yep. Now go get the little one to bed, and yourself, too. Scat!”

  Indie giggled as she carried Kenzie up the stairs, and Sam smiled as he watched her go. He had to admit that it was a very pleasant view.

  He went to his room and put the Glock into the drawer of his nightstand, then took out the envelope the men had given him. He looked it over carefully, but could find no sign of wires or trigger mechanisms that might indicate a letter bomb, so he slowly slid a thumb under the flap and opened it. There were papers inside, and a stack of hundred dollar bills. He dumped the contents out onto his bed.

  He glanced at the money—ten thousand dollars—but let it lie there as he picked up a typed sheet of paper. It read:

  Mr. Prichard,

  Despite your history with the police and the obvious conflict that may cause you with our company, we are not quite as evil as you assume us to be. Returning the girl to you in advance of our request for your assistance is, we hope, some evidence of that.

  That being said, we do feel that you have a better chance of finding our missing package than we do, and are grateful for your assistance. The money included herein is intended as a retainer, with more to follow if you are successful. For the record, this money is from my own very legitimate business interests, which I never mingle with the other ventures of which we spoke earlier. You can accept it in good conscience.

  Here is what we do know. Mr. Rice has been asking for some time to be given greater responsibility in the company; in effect, he wanted to become a regional sales manager. We did not feel he was ready for such a position, but after repeated requests, we decided to give him a small task and test him. That task was to take a small package of our merchandise to another location and deliver it, then see to its distribution and report back to us within five days. He was to bring back with him the proceeds of the entire operation. He should have been back here two days ago.

  In the interest of aiding you in accomplishing your mission, we're going to give you the information we have. Allen Rice left here on Sunday morning, planning to drive to St. Louis, Missouri. His instructions were to find a Miss Caroline Baker and deliver the goods to her, then work with her as her new manager while she distributed the goods. The trip should have taken him about fifteen hours, but according to Miss Baker, he never arrived at all.

  The car he was driving was one of ours, a silver 2015 Lincoln MKZ. We have checked, and it has not turned up in any accidents or incidents, so we suspect that Mr. Rice has simply absconded with our goods. We have no idea where he may have gone, so we are handing you quite a problem, but the fact that you were able to learn so much about us in such a short time indicates that you have some significant resources in gathering information. As long as those resources are working for us, rather than against us, we would like to maintain a mutually beneficial working relationship with you, and in accordance with your request, we will not ask you to do anything outside the law.

  For that reason, all we ask you to do in this case is to locate either Mr. Rice or our goods. We will not ask you to take any action, or to physically touch anything. Simply notify us of the location, and we will do the rest.

  We hope this meets with your approval, Mr. Prichard. If it does, we can assure you that we will also make our resources available to you in the future, should you ever need information that we can provide.

  Incidentally, we do understand that you have friends in certain circles who are expecting you to give them some of your information. We can afford to lose some of our lower-level staff, in order to allow you to keep your relationship there in good standing. No offense will be taken if you need to give some of them up, now and then.

  E.I.

  Sam read it through several times. If he were reading it correctly, then as long as he kept his end of the bargain, Indie and Kenzie would be in no danger. He could do that, he knew, simply by not giving Dan and the DEA all of the information he had. There was still plenty he could give them, in the “lower-level staff” the letter spoke of, but by leaving out names like Ingersoll's, he could eliminate any risk to Indie and her daughter, thereby also eliminating the need to pretend she was his girlfriend.

  Sam wasn't sure he liked that.

  When morning came, he woke to find Indie and Kenzie up and in the kitchen again. There were pancakes and sausage cooking, and he found his coffee freshly poured and waiting on the table.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said cheerfully.

  “Mornin', Sam!” said Kenzie, and Sam smiled as he tickled her chin. Indie laughed and said, “Morning! Hope you like pancakes!”

  “I like food!” he said. “I'll eat anything that don't eat me first, and a few things that would!”

  She slid a plate of two big pancakes and a couple of sausage links in front of him, and a single pancake and link in front of Kenzie. Sam reached for the butter and offered some to Kenzie, who nodded excitedly, so he slathered some onto her pancake before doing the same to his own, then waited for Indie to join them and supervise the syrup. Kenzie said grace, and they all said, “Amen!”

  “I was thinking,” Sam said, “that since you’re going to be staying a while, we need to get some furniture for Kenzie and set her up a room, upstairs, don't you think?”

  Indie froze, and just looked at him. “Um—that'd be great, Sam,
but it'd probably cost a lot, too, wouldn't it? I don't want you to go to any extra expense.”

  He shrugged. “It won't cost that much, and since we need to keep people thinking we're an item, it would be in character. I've got some cash saved up, and you can take it and go to the Furniture Discount Warehouse, or whatever it's called. Get her a bed of her own, and dressers, that sort of stuff.”

  Indie looked at him for a moment, then turned to Kenzie. “You hear that, baby? You want your own bedroom?”

  Kenzie lit up like a light bulb, and Sam grinned from ear to ear. They talked all through breakfast about the kind of canopy bed Kenzie would like to have, and what Disney characters were her favorites for decorating her new room. Sam wondered if this was anything like what it would have felt like if he'd had a family of his own, and finally decided that he didn’t care. He was just going to enjoy it while he could.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Indie and Kenzie would move along, someday. One of the things he knew very well was that nothing lasts forever, not in this world, and he would make sure he was prepared for the heartaches that would come when that day arrived. For now, though, he would enjoy the game, the pretense that they were his family, that Indie was his girl.

  When they were done eating, Indie got Kenzie settled into the living room with some educational programs for children, and she and Sam went to the dining room to get back on the computer.

  “Okay, so this morning I thought about how to track Rice, and put Herman to going through all of his emails and other communications to find where he's hiding. The IP address he logs into his email from is out of a little place called Harrison, Arkansas, and so I started checking hotels there, going into some of the back doors of the bigger chain hotels. There's a Super 8 motel in Harrison that uses wifi through that IP address, and there's an Allen Rice registered there since last Sunday night.”

  Sam shook his head. “This idiot actually used his own name to get a hotel? I'm surprised the company couldn't find him on their own.”

  “Well, they probably could have if he'd used a credit card, but as far as I can tell, he doesn't even have one. He paid cash for the room for one night, and has been paying each day to stay over.”

  Sam sucked on his bottom lip for a moment. “Something isn't making sense to me, here. He apparently headed for St. Louis, just like he was supposed to, but then took a detour into Arkansas. There, he got a hotel room and has been just staying there, day after day, without calling in once to try to get himself out of trouble. Is he really that stupid?”

  “Either that, or there's something going on that isn't obvious to us or them. I mean, why would he blow the deal he's been trying to get? He finally got his shot, it doesn't make sense he'd just throw it all away without a reason.”

  Sam sat there and thought about it, but couldn't come up with a better explanation than stupidity, so he gave up. “Okay. Well, I'd probably better go there and make sure this is really him, before I give them the address. If I head out this morning, I can be there by tonight, make sure it's him, and then keep him in sight while they come and do whatever they're gonna do.”

  Indie looked at him. “And what if what they do is kill him?”

  “I've considered that,” Sam said, “and the truth is, if he was stupid enough to scam these kind of people, then he's brought that down on himself. If I hand him over, then it may be faster, but sooner or later they're gonna find him, and it's gonna happen. I can either stand up to them and try to be a hero and get us all killed, or I can do what I'm hired to do and let him deal with the consequences of his actions. If it comes down to a choice between him getting hurt or you and Kenzie getting hurt, them it's gonna be him. End of story.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I just don't want you to get to feeling later like our being here forced you to do something you didn't want to do.”

  Sam laughed. “I'll tell you a little secret about me. No one, no matter how they complain that someone made them do something, or that they got trapped into doing something, no one ever does anything they don’t want to do. The difference between me and most people is that I know I don’t do anything I don’t want to do! This guy bought his own ticket to hell, Indie, I didn’t buy it for him. It's his ride, and his fault he's got to take it.”

  Indie smiled. “Okay. You just stay in close touch with me, okay? I'm gonna be worried about you.”

  Sam grinned. “I'm tougher than I look, I promise you,” he said. “You don't have to worry about me.”

  She winked at him. “Worrying is a girlfriend's prerogative, Sam, and don't you forget it!”

  Sam went to his room and began packing a few things to take along. He didn't anticipate being gone more than a couple of days, so he packed enough clothes for an overnight trip, then clipped the Glock onto his belt and slipped the three extra clips into his bag. When he was ready, he picked up the stack of hundreds and broke the band, peeling off ten of them and putting the rest into his pocket. He went out to where Indie was still sitting at the dining table.

  “Here,” he said, and handed her the ten hundred dollar bills. “That's a thousand, and it ought to be enough to get the bedroom setup you want. You can use what's left over to get blankets and sheets and stuff, and if you need more, we'll do that when I get back, okay?”

  Indie smiled up at him. “Okay. You know, you don't have to do this, right? Me and Kenzie can sleep in the same room, it's no big deal.”

  He looked over to where Kenzie was enthralled by Dora the Explorer, and nodded toward her. “You've done pretty good by her under the circumstances you've had to deal with, Indie, but a child needs some kind of stability and individuality in her life. Since you've agreed to stay here and work for me for a while, we might as well let her get started on that, don't you think? Giving her a bedroom isn't hurting me any, and it's not like I've got a woman waiting for me to propose or anything; the extra rooms up there'll be empty for a long time if you don’t use one of 'em for Kenzie, so why not? It'll give you time to find a real job, the kind you want, and to get on your feet again.”

  She stood up and looked him in the eye for moment, staring up at his six foot one from her “five foot nothing,” as he'd put it, then reached up and grabbed the sides of his face and pulled him down for a kiss. It wasn't a passionate kiss, it was just a kiss, but there was a hint in it that there could be more, if he played his cards right.

  “Thank you,” she said, and let him go.

  Sam had admitted to himself months earlier that the Vette was finished, but he hadn’t taken it out for a drive yet. As he walked out the front door—after a tearful goodbye from Kenzie, who was afraid he might not come back—he suddenly decided the van just wasn't the way he wanted to go, so he hit the button on his key fob and opened the garage door. Indie had followed him out and was watching as it rolled up, and her eyes bugged out when she saw what was hidden inside.

  “Holy cow,” she said, “that is beautiful! What is it?”

  “Nineteen sixty-nine Corvette Stingray,” Sam said. “I bought it a few years ago when it was seized in a drug deal, and been rebuilding it ever since. It's been done for a few months, but I haven’t had a reason to take her out, ‘til now.” He went to the car and opened the door, tossing his bag inside before climbing in. He sat there for a moment, then put the key into the ignition and fired up the aluminum 427 cubic inch engine known as the ZL1.

  The rumble that came from the twin factory side exhaust pipes was enough to make the windows rattle in the house, and when he eased the clutch out, the car slid forward like a shark moving toward a swimmer. Indie was still staring, and when Sam stopped it right in front of her and powered down the passenger window, she leaned in and said, “Remind me that when you get back, you're taking me for a ride in this thing!”

  He laughed. “Sounds like a date!”

  Indie looked around the interior of the car and then back into his eyes. “It might be,” she said, and then turned an
d let him watch her wiggle her way back into the house. She got inside and looked at her daughter, who was still watching TV, and said, “Sweetie—it might be just barely possible that we've found the nicest guy there is! How would you feel about having Sam for a Daddy?”

  Kenzie, who Indie had thought wasn't listening, spun around and said, “Yeah! Sam's gonna be my Daddy! Yay!”

  Uh-oh, Indie thought. I hope she forgets that before he gets home!

  Sam got onto I-70 at the Steel Street ramp and let the Vette have its head. He was cruising at eighty before he even realized it, and just enjoyed the feel of the powerful car beneath him. The road slid by like water over a dam, and he let himself think through all that had happened in the past few days.

  Sam had thought his working days were over, and he'd certainly never thought he'd be doing any kind of investigative work again. When Mrs. Ward had come to him about Cassie, his instinct was to consider it beyond his ability to find the girl, but in essence, he had done just that. She was home safe because he'd done what had to be done.

  Of course, a lot of that was attributable to Indie. It was her skills with computers that made it possible for him to learn the things he was able to use as leverage, and so he owed a lot to her, too. A part of him thought that they made a great team, and he had already decided to offer her more pay to help with any further cases he might get. That might get her to stay longer, anyway, and he was ready to admit to himself that he really liked having her and Kenzie around. They'd been with him less than two whole days, and it already felt like they just belonged there with him.

  On the other hand, Sam wasn't the type to jump in too fast. He'd want to go slow, even though he got the feeling that Indie was interested in letting the relationship grow, too. The kiss she'd given him—that had come out of nowhere, but he'd certainly enjoyed it! Heck, he'd love to go right back there and kiss her again!