by Gary Parker
Rick bolted down the hall and Charbeau sprinted after him, knocking Mrs. Carson to the floor as he rushed past.
Rick pounded toward the stairwell, Charbeau close behind. A woman in a gray uniform blocked him for a second, but Rick darted around her, reached the door to the stairs, and threw it open as Charbeau crashed into the employee, knocking down both of them. Bolting upward, Rick took the steps two at a time while Charbeau scrambled to his feet and rushed to the stairs. Twisting around a corner, Rick reached the roof and jammed open the door, then dropped to a crouch and waited, his breath heaving. To his relief, he heard footsteps heading downward, just as he’d hoped. Okay. The misdirection he’d planned gave him at least a couple of minutes before Charbeau figured things out.
Out of his crouch, Rick hustled to the building’s edge and found a thick rope with a secure knot tied around a chimney about ten feet from the side. The rope’s other end dropped off the mansion to the ground. After hurriedly testing the knot, Rick moved to the ledge, grabbed the rope with both hands, positioned it between his legs, and climbed over the side of the building. Using techniques he’d learned climbing mountains, he rappelled downward, one spring, then another, boots pushing off the building, hands sliding, then catching, down, down, down. The descent required only a few seconds and he dropped the rope and darted toward a side entry to the house the second he landed. He found Tony Gonzalez waiting there, the keys to his pickup truck and a cell phone in hand.
“Your bag with your belongings is on the front seat,” Tony said, pointing him to a white truck parked about a hundred feet away.
“You get the ten thousand from my bag?” Rick panted, taking Tony’s keys and phone even as he handed Luisa’s phone over.
“You’re my friend,” Tony said, leading him to the truck. “Your money is no good with me.”
“I owe you, large,” Rick said.
“You owe me nothing.”
Rick hopped into the truck and fired the ignition. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, his head out the window one last second. “When I do, I’ll make things up to you.”
Tony waved him away and the truck scratched gravel as Rick sped off. As he reached the boundary of the property Rick glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Tony Gonzales, Luisa’s oldest son and the manager of the service staff at Rolling Hills, disappear into the kitchen. A rush of guilt ran through him. He and Tony had grown up together, but once he left for college, Tony had receded into the background. Strange how now, when he needed somebody to trust, he had turned to the one guy who knew him best and wanted the least from him.
12
Her official duties concluded for the day, Shannon Bridge pulled up to her cabin and parked her truck. For a moment, she sat dead still, the truck window down, her emotions jumbled. Birds chirped in the thick trees that surrounded her house, but the sound failed to cheer her as it usually did. Cut off from the police investigation, she’d heard nothing about Rick Carson in the past thirty-six hours except what the media reported, and she knew that for what it was—little more than wild speculation fueled by whoever made up the juiciest gossip. One so-called Hollywood insider said Rick had shown up at Jennifer Aniston’s estate, another claimed rapper Ludacris was hiding him out in Atlanta.
Shannon picked up her cell and started to call Luisa’s phone again but then decided against it. Right now, she had nothing to offer Rick, and until she did, calling made no sense. She wondered if he’d remember the number she gave him. Public information said he possessed a near-photographic memory. Had he bothered to click her number into that extraordinary brain of his? And would he call if he needed help?
Her eyes heavy from lack of sleep the previous night, Shannon pocketed the phone, slid from the truck, and stepped to her house. On the porch she saw the front door ajar. The birds stopped chirping. Instantly on alert, Shannon pulled her Sig Sauer from her holster and glanced quickly left and right, then over her shoulder, but saw no one. Inhaling, she braced the weapon, stepped to the door and kicked it aside. Nothing moved. She rushed into the cabin, rolled to the left, and pressed her back against the wall like she’d been trained to do, her pistol locked and loaded. Again, nothing moved. Her eyes raced across the room, saw destruction from stem to stern, her belongings strewn all over the floor, drawers open, bookshelves trashed, clothes tossed and turned. Nerves raw, she eased to the kitchen and found a similar scene, everything scattered in all directions, food from the refrigerator spilled, cabinet doors ajar, plates, cups, glasses broken.
Something slammed in her bedroom and she rushed to the sound, her weapon held in jittery hands. She popped through the door just as a slender man threw himself out of the window. She caught a glimpse of the back of his head as he disappeared, and she ran after him, jumped through the open window, and landed feet first on the ground, her pistol ready. The man ducked past a thick pine and she pounced after him. Wide ears bracketed his head, and she recognized him as one of the men from yesterday when she discovered the motorcycle tracks. A shot fired and she rolled to the ground but came up quickly behind a small boulder, her body shielded from the gunfire. Her eyes searched the woods, searching for the man, but she didn’t see him. She rose cautiously, ran to a larger group of rocks, and peered past the edge but still spotted no sign of the intruder.
She moved faster now, in and out among the trees and rocks as she looked for the interloper, careful to stay hidden but bolder by the minute as she practiced what she’d been taught, the tricks of a trade she’d hoped to put behind her but now realized she hadn’t, perhaps never would. An engine started in the distance and she darted toward the sound. Seconds later she reached a small trail leading into the forest and rushed down it, her boots pounding the rutted ground. Twenty yards later she rounded a curve and spotted a jeep speeding away. She lifted her weapon and fired one shot, but the bullet pinged off the back of the vehicle without stopping it. She lowered the gun and focused on the license tag, but the jeep disappeared around a bend and she lost it.
Breathing heavily, she watched a few more seconds, then pivoted and sprinted back to her bedroom, which she found as disheveled as the rest of the cabin. Moving slower now, Shannon inspected the whole house one more time—the closet, the laundry room, the backyard. To her frustration, she found nothing to indicate the identity of the intruder, but the search did give her assurance that she’d run off whoever had invaded her home.
A little calmer, Shannon holstered her weapon, stepped to the front porch, leaned on the rail, and studied the woods around the cabin. What did the guy want? Where had he gone? Would he come back? Did he know about the DVD she’d taken from Steve Carson’s desk? Or the video of the motorcycle track she had recorded? Or the knife she’d removed from the wound? She thought of the two men who had chased her away from the tracks. Who were they? She’d seen nothing more of them since that one encounter. Was her intruder one of them?
Her cell phone rang and Shannon quickly checked the number. Gerald.
“Hey,” she offered as she answered, her eyes still focused on the area around the cabin.
Gerald moved straight to the point. “Checked on that track from your video,” he said. “Got a quick hit on it.”
Shannon fought to keep her voice even. “You’re a pal, Gerald, I owe you dinner next time I’m over your way.”
“I’d prefer that you move me out of the friend zone,” he said.
Shannon faked a laugh. “We’re not meant to be a couple, Gerald, we both agreed to that.”
“I agreed to nothing of the sort. You said we weren’t meant to be a couple, and I’m such a nice guy that I didn’t fight you over it.”
“And I greatly appreciate that. Now tell me about that tire.”
Gerald sighed in an exaggerated manner, but then proceeded. “It’s a 120/70/2R17. 5.2 front, 6.5 rear.”
“That means what?”
“It’s a tire used primarily on the most expensive motorcycle in the world—an Ecosse Titanium, over 200 horsepower. Set you bac
k about $275,000 large. Whoever owns that baby knows his bikes, I can tell you that. And has more money than Trump.”
“How many of them sold in America last year?”
“Not sure of that but I can look it up if you want. Might take a while though.”
“Would you do that for me?”
Gerald paused and Shannon knew she couldn’t push him too far.
“What are you doing, Shannon?” he asked. “Not like you to go outside of channels like this.”
“It might not be good for you to know,” she said, worrying about the break-in she’d just experienced.
“The Carson situation might get dicey,” he said. “Everybody’s buzzed with that one, I’d advise you to keep your distance.”
Shannon hesitated; Gerald deserved the truth, but telling him what she knew served no apparent purpose, so she held back. “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable or jeopardizes your job. But I need to find the owner of that bike, that’s all I can say right now.”
“Talk here says Steve Carson did himself in with drugs. You know anything about that?”
“Not really, but maybe we shouldn’t judge things too fast.”
“Will you tell me about it later?”
“Later is good, I’ll fill you in soon as I can. Trust me on that.”
“I do trust you,” Gerald said. “Always have.”
“One more thing,” Shannon dared before he hung up. “Any video cameras in Helena? You know . . . at traffic lights, ATM machines, the airport maybe.”
“At least a few,” Gerald said. “Not one on every corner like the big cities but still, it’s worth a try. You think somebody drove that monster bike through our fair town of Helena?”
“It’s a possibility, don’t you think?”
“You think like a cop.”
“I watch a lot of CSI.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
“You’re a doll,” Shannon said.
“I’m a fool,” Gerald said.
“Call me if you find anything.”
“You’ll be the first.”
Shannon closed the phone and scanned the area again. A hawk sailed overhead and she wondered about Rick. Where was he? Was he safe? Would he call her? Keeping her hand on her holstered pistol, she stepped off the porch and hustled to a weathered wooden birdhouse just past where she’d parked the truck. There she stepped onto a foot-high rock, stood on tiptoe, and reached to the bottom of the birdhouse. Two items fell into her hands as she pulled them from the perch where she’d tacked them, both wrapped in a triple layer of thick plastic bags. One bag held the knife taken from Steve Carson’s body; the other the miniDVD from his desk. Although her orders said to leave both items alone until instructed otherwise, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to view the DVD’s contents.
Dropping off the rock, she rushed back to her bedroom and slipped the knife into a small secret pocket on the bottom of a black shoulder bag she took from her closet. Then she moved to the computer that sat on a small desk in the corner. With trembling hands, she inserted the DVD into the drive and leaned forward. Unless she missed her guess, the contents of the DVD would tell her a lot, perhaps more than she ever wanted to know.
The computer whirred and the DVD flashed on, but the screen showed a prompt for a password and Shannon had no clue what to enter. She sat back, a hand over her mouth, confusion written on her face. Although she knew exactly what her superiors wanted her to do, she felt totally inadequate to accomplish it.
13
The hotel on the outskirts of southeast Atlanta rented rooms for $49.00 per night, and Rick paid cash when he checked in. After slinking to the cramped, dingy space, he threw his bag by the bed, took a quick shower, slipped into a pair of sweat pants and T-shirt, and lay down with his Luger on the night table and tried to rest. When no sleep came, he flipped on the television and watched the news for an hour. A patchwork of calamities flashed before his disbelieving eyes—a suicide bomber, a sniper at an abortion clinic, a lawsuit in Boston advocating polygamy—all of it crazier by the minute. His story still led the broadcasts, but the other disasters added fuel to the news fire and the blaze seemed way out of control. Thankfully, though, nobody mentioned his appearance at Rolling Hills and that calmed him a little. His mom didn’t need any more disturbances.
He paid close attention to the news about him. The cops had searched his three houses and two apartments but found nothing incriminating. So far, said the media, the authorities had not reached a conclusion about Steve Carson’s death and no funeral arrangements for Mr. Carson were yet in place.
Rick thought of the man at Rolling Hills—obviously a professional. But who employed him? How had he gotten access to such a high security facility? How had he known of Rick’s presence? Who told him? If the police had his mother under surveillance, why hadn’t they shown up? Was the man in league with the police or not? If so, that signaled a whole level of deeper issues, more knotted problems.
Stretching out on the sagging bed, Rick tried again to rest but still found it difficult. Although he knew better than to trust his mother’s babblings, she had latched onto the word “conspiracy,” as if it actually meant something. But what? Yes, conspiracy started with CONS, but why did his dad capitalize the letters if that’s all it meant? Capital letters fit on proper names. So why had his mom zeroed in on that word? Just her crazy ramblings? Or something else, something real?
But if a conspiracy existed, then what kind? Related to what? Corporate espionage? Although his dad had never excelled in business boardrooms, he did manage a couple of start-up technology companies, small ventures that Pops had handed him from his vast portfolio of subsidiaries. Had his dad uncovered a conspiracy related to one of the businesses? Had he threatened to reveal it? But what kind of corporate espionage led to murder?
Rick tried to remember the focus of the companies. Nanotechnology? That sounded right; something about making everything in the chip industry smaller, faster, and cheaper. Had one of the company’s discovered a breakthrough of some kind? Or stolen a secret from someone else?
His mind reeling, Rick weighed his options. He could turn himself in to the police. But what would that accomplish? He’d make bail, but the cops would force him to stay in Atlanta, prevent him from investigating further. He could tell the authorities what his mom had said, but they’d almost certainly reject the ravings of a disturbed woman. And, if they really did see him as a suspect, a trial would follow; huge publicity but not the favorable kind. And who knew how a trial might end? With the stock market falling apart and people losing homes and jobs by the millions, regular people liked to make examples of the über-rich these days, take a pound of wealthy flesh as revenge for what they’d recently suffered.
Rick rolled over and threw his feet to the floor. Big things were at work here and he didn’t have a clue how to handle them. He grabbed Tony’s cell phone and punched in his grandfather’s number but again reached an answering machine and left no message. Where was Pops? Avoiding the media, he concluded. Pops disdained the fawning of the cable channels as much as Rick enjoyed them. But still, somebody on Pops’ staff should have answered the phone.
Rick started to close the cell but then realized something— he’d called Pops on Luisa’s phone, then on Tony’s. Both were unfamiliar numbers and he’d left no messages, so Pops had no reason to return the calls. He considered calling Pops again to leave a voice mail, but then rejected the idea. Since he’d missed his chance to break the bad news to his grandfather, it made more sense to leave him alone for now. Pops would just insist that he turn himself in, something he wasn’t ready to do yet.
Rick tossed the phone onto the bed and ran his hands through his hair. A dead father, a delusional mother, a beloved but sometimes distant grandfather—a family tangle fit for a whole season of Dr. Phil episodes.
Rick’s spirits suddenly fell. How fast things changed. Alive one minute, dead the next. A celebrity one day, a f
ugitive the next. Everybody’s friend one day, nobody to trust the next. People all around one day, alone in a cheap hotel the next. He felt like a man who owned everything he wanted but possessed nothing worth having.
Fighting off the mood, Rick stood, trudged to the window, and stared out at the parking lot. Rain had started to fall. For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, he suddenly knew who he wanted to call. But that made no sense. What good would it do to call a park ranger in Montana, a woman he’d barely met, and not under the best of circumstances at that?
But where else could he turn? Something about Shannon Bridge beckoned to him, the confidence she exuded, the self-assurance with which she’d given him her number. She knew I’d remember it, thought Rick, expected me to do exactly that. But why? Thinking on it now, it seemed totally out of place. She’d given him her number like a pilot dropped food to a lost survivor on a deserted island; like she knew he’d rush for it when he became desperate enough.
Rick recalled the number, then moved back to the cell, picked it up, and punched it in. A second later, Shannon Bridge answered.
“Shannon Bridge?” he asked.
“Rick Carson,” she said, almost like she had expected him to call. “Whose phone is this?”
“Don’t worry about that. You ready for that gelato?”
“It took you long enough.”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“You okay?”
“Still breathing but not sure for how long.”
“I know how that feels,” she said.
“How so?”
Bridge’s voice caught, but then she answered. “Not your problem.”
Rick hesitated, suddenly feeling foolish. “I’m not exactly sure why I called,” he stammered.
“My charming personality and excellent figure, I’m sure.”
“Those too, but there’s something else. I . . . we need to talk.”
“I’d like that. I found a DVD in your dad’s desk.”