John Puller 02 - The Forgotten

by David Baldacci

  “Pretty much every second. She was an unforgettable lady. Sort of like the Old Man but with compassion and a heart.”

  Puller nodded. That would have been his articulated assessment as well. “Some of the best times we ever had,” he noted.

  “Sometimes I think we’re the way we are because of her more than the Old Man,” said Robert.

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” replied Puller. “But the older I get the more I think I’m like the Old Man too much.”

  “Stop thinking that, it’ll drive you crazy.” “Maybe it already has.”

  “You’re the sanest man I know. And that’s saying something.”

  “Maybe, Bobby. But maybe not.”

  “So what do you think? Was she murdered?” “Factor in the journal missing, if that’s what it was, the folks tailing me, the fact that I think the lawyer is lying to me, and what was in Aunt Betsy’s note—yeah, I think she was murdered.”

  “But the police don’t see it that way?”

  “Not now they don’t. That could change.”

  “So who’re in the holding cells?”

  “Just some folks I had a disagreement with. Not connected to what I’m down here for.”

  “You really can’t be sure about that.”

  “You’re right, I can’t be. But it’s just my gut.” “What are your next steps?”

  “Get some sleep. I’m running on empty right now.”

  “Anything else?”

  Puller hesitated, then decided to say it. “There’s a guy down here. Bigger than me. Stronger than me. Probably can kick my ass.” “That qualifies as remarkable. What’s the connection to you?”

  “Don’t know that there is any. Could just be wrong place, wrong time.”

  “You could just shoot him.”

  “He actually helped me out tonight. I don’t think he did it because he was a Good Samaritan. I think he was just pissed that somebody was disturbing his sleep.”

  “Okay. I think I follow that, but not really.” “How are things on your end?”

  “The views haven’t changed.”

  Puller cracked a grin, but then it faded. “Yeah.”

  “So after you get some sleep, what then?” “Run the ten miles Betsy might have done. Work on the lawyer angle. Follow up with US- ACIL. I’m getting my duffel of goodies tomorrow at Eglin AFB. Then I can start acting like a real investigator again.”

  “Sounds like a plan. But watch your back, John. You’re there solo and you don’t really know who to trust. And it sounds like you have reason to distrust quite a few people right now.” “Good advice, Bobby.”

  “So how’s the house?”

  “What?”

  “Aunt Betsy’s house, how is it?”

  “It’s nice. Near the water.”

  “You gonna be moving down there now that it’s yours?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Come on, lots of people move to Florida.” “Honestly, Paradise is turning out to be way too dangerous for my tastes.”

  Puller clicked off and kept driving.

  CHAPTER 34

  Landry’s condo was on the tenth floor of a twenty-story building a few steps from the beach. Actually, the front yard of the place was the beach. He followed her into a covered parking garage and pulled in close to her vehicle. They got out and he followed her to a bank of elevators, his small duffel containing his clothes slung over his shoulder.

  “Looks like a nice place,” he said.

  “I like it. Good mix of folks. Young to old.” “And the beach a few steps away. Not a coincidence?”

  “I’m into water sports.”

  “So what else do you do for fun?”

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Target shooting. Catching bad guys.”

  They stepped inside the elevator car.

  Puller asked, “Are those things mutually exclusive?”

  The doors closed.

  “I hope not,” said Landry.

  They stepped out on the tenth floor and he followed her down an interior hall with marble flooring done in a dizzying array of colors. She stopped at Condo 1017 and put her key in.

  They stepped inside and Puller closed the door behind him.

  “I’ve got a guest bedroom,” said Landry, pointing to the left. “It’s got its own bathroom. Kitchen’s over there. Fridge is stocked. I’m not much into cooking, but help yourself. Patio is over there with spectacular views of the Gulf. I’ve got a laundry room too if you need any stuff done.”

  “I’m good on that,” said Puller. He went to his room, dropped the duffel on the bed, and came back out. He looked around. The furnishings all looked relatively new and in good taste. He wasn’t much into decorating. His apartment back in Quantico was neat and spare, but in all other respects indistinguishable from a college dorm room.

  He slid open the door to the small patio and stepped out. The breeze was strong up here and it carried the full weight of the briny smells from the ocean.

  There was a chaise sling chair, a small charcoal grill, and a round outdoor table stacked with books. Standing up against one wall was a surfboard and an even longer paddleboard with the paddle next to it.

  Slung over the rail and kept there with clothesline clips were several bikinis. Puller gazed at them for a few moments and then switched his observations to the ocean when Landry stepped out and discreetly collected her bathing suits, carrying them back inside before rejoining him.

  Puller leaned against the railing and eyed the boards.

  “So you really are into water sports?”

  “Pretty stupid to live here and not be.”

  “You from Destin?”

  “Miami. Moved here about five years ago.” “How come? I understand Miami is a fun place for young people.”

  “It can be. For some young people. It just wasn’t right for me. Besides, I’d grown up there. I’d seen and done it all. Nothing new. And it got to be too crowded. Too crazy. The Emerald Coast is a better fit. Or the Redneck Riviera, as some call it.”

  “And becoming a cop?”

  “What I wanted. My father was a detective in Miami. I grew up with cops around all the time. Liked what I saw. So I joined the ranks in Miami. I think my father thought my brother would follow in his footsteps too, but the Army was his dream.”

  “Your father sorry you left Miami to come here?”

  “He probably would be if he were alive. Psycho freaked on PCP took care of that.”

  “I’m sorry. But detectives don’t usually go down that way. They come in after the fact.”

  “He wasn’t detecting. He was a citizen sitting in a bar having a drink when the PCP dude went apeshit. My dad tried to stop him. It didn’t work.” “How about your mom?”

  She looked up at Puller. “I think I’ve told you enough about me.”

  “Not prying. Just making conversation.”

  “No need. I get along just fine with silence.” “Me too, actually.”

  “I’m beat. I’m hitting the sheets. You’re on your own for breakfast. I get up early, do some beach stuff before hitting the gym downstairs. You can join me if you want. Then I head to work.”

  “I’ll let you get to it, then.”

  She left him and he heard her bedroom door close a few moments later.

  Puller continued to stare out over the ocean. From his high perch it was like he could see the whole world from up here. All he wanted to see, however, was the truth behind his aunt’s death.

  He heard a shower start running and figured Landry was rinsing off before “hitting the sheets.” She was one who kept things close to the vest. An interesting person. But then again Puller had been here a little over twelve hours and he had met a whole host of “interesting persons.”

  The running water stopped and he heard the shower door open. He counted the seconds in his head, giving her time to towel off and go to bed. A few moments after that he heard her bed squeak slightly.

  He checked his wat
ch. It was really late. Later, actually, for him since he’d lost an hour based on his internal clock.

  He went back inside. The AC was on but it somehow felt hotter in here than it had out there.

  He walked to his room, closed the door, shed his clothes down to his green Army boxers, and climbed into bed. The sheets felt cool against his skin. He put his Mu under his pillow, a ritual of his that he figured he would keep until his death. Serving all those tours in the Middle East just did that to a guy.

  Over there you were never really certain who was your friend and who was your foe. Depending on the day, it could be one or another. And the next day those roles could reverse. When you were talking about matters of life and death, such confusion was not welcome.

  His thoughts turned to the giant. A friend tonight. But what about tomorrow? There was no reason to believe the man had any connection to why Puller was down here. But Puller knew that could change. When he had been in West Virginia recently, many people had turned out to be not who they claimed to be. And connections that seemed absurd before had turned out to be very much real.

  He popped his neck, stretched a kink out of his long legs, closed his eyes, and went to sleep. He figured if he dreamt, it would have absolutely nothing to do with being in Paradise.

  He, like Landry, preferred the view from here.

  CHAPTER 35

  Cheryl Landry stirred at six a.m.

  At six-ten she was outfitted in board shorts and a bikini top over which she wore a short- sleeved T-shirt. With flip-flops on her feet and a large beach towel under her arm she opened the door to her bedroom and saw Puller sitting at the small round kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. He was dressed in workout clothes: black shorts, Army green T-shirt, and sneakers.

  He looked up and saw her staring at him. He held up the cup.

  “You want some java before you hit the water?”

  “No, thanks. I’m trying to cut down.” She walked across to the patio and retrieved her paddleboard.

  “I’m actually thinking of taking up herbal tea instead,” said Puller as she stepped back inside. “Seriously?”

  “Caffeine blows your aim. That’s reason enough for the military to ban it, although they never will. It’s too ingrained in the DoD’s psyche.” He held up the paper. “Hope you don’t mind. It was at the front door.”

  “No problem. The only reason I get the paper is that it’s free. I read online for the most part.” Puller looked down at the first page of the paper. A large photo of the deceased Mr. and Mrs. Storrow dominated it.

  “The Storrow murders are all over it.”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past some folks in neighboring towns to play that up big just to take tourists away from Paradise.”

  “Is it that cutthroat down here?”

  “When it comes to tourist dollars it is.”

  Puller rose, rinsed out his cup, and put it in the dishwasher.

  “You coming to the beach?” she asked.

  “I figure I’ll run while you do whatever it is you do with that,” he said, indicating the long red paddleboard.

  “It’s a paddleboard,” she said, seeming surprised he wasn’t aware of that.

  “Okay.”

  “You stand up and paddle on it.”

  “Right,” said Puller. “Figured something like that.”

  “They’ve been around a while. You don’t get to the beach much I guess.”

  “I guess I don’t.”

  “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

  “It doesn’t look easy to me. I’m not even sure that thing would support my weight.”

  As they set off down the hall she said, “How far do you run?”

  “How long do you paddle?”

  “About forty-five minutes.”

  “That’s how long I’ll run, then,” he replied. “I’m going to work out afterwards in the gym.”

  “Okay.”

  “You too?”

  He said, “Me too. I haven’t done much lately. Need to get back into it.”

  “You look like you’re in great shape.”

  He held the elevator door open for her as she eased the long paddleboard inside the car.

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Puller found a swath of hard-packed sand and began his run. He had watched as Landry shed her T-shirt and walked into the water with her board past the breakers. She lay flat on the board and paddled out farther to where the ocean was calm and flat. She hoisted herself up on the board and began paddling, alternating sides.

  She paddled parallel to the beach in the same direction Puller was running, so he could keep an eye on her. It was early enough that there weren’t many folks out yet. A few older fishermen with their poles mounted in PVC pipe wedged in the sand were talking and sipping coffee from thermoses. An older woman walked along, head down but swinging her arms in elliptical motions as she did so. To Puller it looked like she was performing some sort of physical therapy. Maybe she’d blown out both rotators.

  A couple jogged along with a sleek Irish setter keeping pace. Seagulls soared and dove, looking for breakfast in the green waters.

  He checked his watch, turned, and headed back the way he had come. He looked out and saw Landry make her turn and do the same thing.

  Nearly twenty-five minutes into his run Puller felt nicely warmed up. His lungs were operating fully, his legs felt juiced, his arms kept pumping. He had run literally thousands of miles training to become an Army Ranger. Special Forces was mostly about weapons training and endurance. Yeah, they all pumped weights. Yeah, they were all strong as bears. But it was the stamina that really was the difference between living and dying.

  At the end of forty-five minutes he stood in the sand at the spot where he had begun, moving his arms and legs, keeping his heart rate up, but allowing his body to cool down slowly.

  Landry paddled back in, hit the breakers, stood, and worked her way through them before arriving back on the sand. She snagged her T- shirt and towel from the beach and carried her board over to Puller.

  “I need to do a quick change,” she said. “How was the run?”

  “It was a run,” replied Puller. “They’re all the same.”

  “You don’t look out of breath for having just run all that way.”

  “It wasn’t that far. How was the paddling?” “Enlightening.”

  “Really?” he said, looking at her skeptically.

  “It gives you time to think. Just you and the paddle and the water.” She paused and looked up at him as they walked back to the condo building. “Did you do any thinking while you were running?”

  “Now that you mention it, I suppose I did.” “And?”

  “And I need to do some more of it.”

  She toweled off before going into the building and then they rode the elevator up to her condo.

  She took five minutes to rinse the saltwater off and change, and came back out in black tights that ended above her knees, a tight T-shirt with a sports bra underneath, and sneakers with ankle socks. Her wet hair was tied back with a green scrunchy.

  The condo gym was large and efficiently laid out. There were Universal machines, free weights, squat racks, dumbbells, a cardio section with treadmills, elliptical machines, stair climbers, and an open floor space where exercise classes were apparently conducted.

  Landry hit the Universal circuit while Puller stretched and then did pull-ups and push-ups, calisthenics, and a lot of leg exercises, pushing his lower body hard.

  Finished, they toweled off, grabbed some waters from a small fridge next to the exit door, and headed back to the elevator.

  She said, “You do a lot of leg work. Most guys focus on the biceps.”

  “I’ve never been able to run on my hands.”

  She laughed.

  “You do this every morning?” asked Puller. “Every morning that I can, yeah.”

  “Then you’ll live forever.”

  She smiled a
nd then became serious. “Unless I go down in the line of duty.”

  “There’s always that.”

  “I guess for you too.” She eyed his calf and his forearm where his combat scars were prominent. She pointed to them. “Iraq? Afghanistan?”

  He took a swallow of water and said, “Both.” “My brother’s still over there.”

  “Hope he comes home soon and safe.”

  “Me too.”

  “Will he come here?”

  “Doubtful. He plans to stay in for the full ride.”

  “The Army’s a good employer. He’ll do just fine.”

  “But you’re a little biased, aren’t you?” “Actually, I’m a lot biased.”

  “So what’s on your agenda for today?”

  “I’m going back to my aunt’s house, check some things out.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “Puller, you heard what Chief Bullock said.”

  “That’s all worked out. Remember I told you I saw him last night. It was at the house. My aunt left it to me. Legal docs prove it and the lawyer gave me the key.”

  She removed her hand. “Oh. Hey, that’s great.” She paused and added, “So do you really think her death was more than an accident?” “When I know for sure, you’ll be one of the first people I tell.”

  They got back to the condo, showered, and changed.

  Puller made some fresh coffee, and when Landry came out in her uniform he poured her a cup. They drank it out on the patio, watching the sun continue its rise. The beach below was starting to get more crowded as families jockeyed for the best pieces of sand.

  “You see yourself staying here long-term?” he asked.

  “I haven’t really thought about it. What about you? I guess you’re in for the full ride too with Uncle Sam.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “And after that? You’ll still be a young guy.” “Who knows?”

  “You could become a cop.”

  “Maybe.”

  She smiled again. “You always so loquacious?”

  “Compared to other times, I’m being downright gregarious.”

  His phone buzzed. He looked at the readout.

  It was Kristen Craig from USACIL. Hopefully she had an answer on the men following him. Landry looked at the phone.