Happily and Madly

by Alexis Bass

  Ryan closes the laptop and rests it on the center console. “We won’t let anything happen to your dad,” Ryan says.

  I’m dying to get out of this stuffy car; I want to run home, try to erase what I’ve seen from my thoughts, try to think over what it means and what I should do next. But I can tell that this is something I can’t walk away from so easily.

  “Does anyone know you overheard the meeting?” Ryan asks.

  I shake my head. The agents already suspect I am allied with Edison; there is no need for them to know he’s been the source of most of my information, when I can point to the Duvals as a whole.

  “Does anyone know you met with us?” Ryan’s voice is low, serious, not calm at all.

  “I told you, no one knows,” I say.

  “It’s very important,” Hall says, “that you understand why you can’t tell anyone about this, not our meeting, not who we are. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I manage. My throat is still tight, but I am out of water.

  “Tell us why,” Ryan says. Hall nods, encouraging.

  “Because—” I close my eyes again, try to focus. It seems clear now. “The Duvals don’t know about you, that you’re undercover. They think they’ve paid off the guys working with Archaletta to make the blackmail go away.”

  Someone pats my knee. I open my eyes and see that it’s Hall. “Very good.”

  I see the image again—the girl convulsing and then dying, the scared look on her face as she held her throat. I could run and run and run and never get her out of my mind. I’m hit with another wave of nausea, wondering if George knew what he was giving to Stevens and how it would be used.

  The Duvals seemed to think George was clueless enough that they didn’t need to worry about him as a liability. But I don’t like that Hall and Ryan knew about George on the recording, even though when they approached me, they spoke only of Edison and Archaletta. Is the coincidence that I was on the island with Edison when he was meeting Archaletta or that I am George’s daughter? What are they really after?

  Ryan gets out and walks around the front of the SUV, coming to open the door for me, and Hall gets out to reenter through the back doors, to assume his position in front of the monitors. The black tarp draped over the monitors falls loose as Hall slams the door. A view of a nice restaurant. A blank table. No telling who they are really monitoring or why, but it explains their outfits the first night I noticed them. They were planting a camera. Maybe a bug, too.

  My pullover is off and dangling over my legs. The laptop is resting on the center console. Black plastic on dark leather, it nearly blends in. For the moment, I am the only one in the car. I carefully slide my long-sleeved shirt over the laptop, moving it closer to me. Casually, I press it against my chest, burying it in the shirt.

  Ryan opens the door and I climb out.

  “Do you know who the girl was?” I ask not wanting to appear in a hurry to get away, but also craving more information about her.

  Ryan is silent, but Hall comes clean. “Archaletta’s sister.”

  They give me one final wave, and I leave quickly, running immediately down the hill. I am clutching my pullover tight against me. I listen to the noise of their engine coming to life. And when they don’t turn around after heading up the hill, I know I’ve gotten away with it.

  Chapter 47

  The second I get home, I rush up to my room, ignoring Chelsea’s commentary of, “You missed a great fireworks show.” I turn on the shower so she won’t disturb me and sit on the tile floor, quickly unwrapping the agent’s laptop from my pullover.

  When I open the screen, I’m relieved to see it hasn’t powered itself off; the sleep function must not be turned on, or it hasn’t kicked in yet. This is the best stroke of luck, since I’m sure this computer has a login password that’s impossible to crack. I run my finger over the touch pad. I look at the file names. They are all coded with letters and numbers. I click on a random folder, but it’s password protected. I try to open five more and get the same result. Password required.

  All I can access is the document that was already open—what Ryan was typing on as I told them what I saw at the Hanover party.

  It’s a simple text file. Ellis Exports is at the top, in bold. And then: Notes: Hanover Estate Private Party—June. And: Confirmed shipment. Below that is a list.

  Case File 78651. Victims—“Dr. Alic”:

  2015—Missing—Proof of Death [Video A3479]—Distribution: Ellis Exports—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: George Brown—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  2000—Missing Person [Evidence file 674Y]—Distribution: Unconfirmed—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: Unknown—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  1995—Missing Person [Evidence file 4949F]—Distribution: Unconfirmed—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: Ken Coleman [Deceased]—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  1992—Missing Person—Proof of Death [Medical Records, Evidence file 89786P]—Distribution: Unconfirmed—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: Landry Myers [Deceased]—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  1989—Missing Person [Evidence file Q9147]—Distribution: Unconfirmed—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: Unknown—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  1984—Missing Person—Proof of Death [Photographs, Evidence file G1987]—Distribution: Unconfirmed—Goodman Pharmaceuticals Rep: Lyle Harris [Deceased]—Order from “Dr. Alic”

  2015. That year makes sense based on George’s appearance in the recording and for the summer he took me across the country with him to that ratty motel. This case has been active for decades it seems. And these dates are spread out. I bet that makes leads hard to follow, victims hard to track. And if evidence comes in late, the way the 2015 recording from Archaletta only surfaced recently, then who knows how many other victims there are that they haven’t discovered yet? This almost seems like a lost cause. No wonder the agents were so anxious about any new information I might’ve had to offer.

  But this case file isn’t on the Duvals or Stevens—the label was “victims” and “Dr. Alic.” What does any of this have to do with the Duvals and Edison? According to this list, George should be an important part of the evidence, since all the other Goodman Pharmaceuticals reps involved are either unknown or dead—so why haven’t they reached out to him? What does Ellis Exports have to do with this case?

  I go to bed with more questions than answers.

  The next day I keep the laptop with me, hidden in my beach bag as Chelsea and I spend another day basking in the sun. I don’t know if the agents will show up at any time demanding I return it to them. They could even bring me in for lying to the police, have Edison taken in for questioning; or George. But as the day wears on, I think of the case notes and the recording, and I think I understand what’s happened, what the agents are truly after. This may have nothing to do with the Duvals or Senator Stevens at all. But a decades-old murder case that accidentally uncovered extortion.

  Chapter 48

  They find me on the road that night. I’m in running attire but walking since I’ve got their laptop with me, wrapped in my pullover.

  “Get in.” Ryan’s face is tense. His voice matches.

  I climb in the car. Hall is already in the back seat. I hand him the laptop.

  “You understand this was a major violation?” Hall says.

  “Major!” roars Ryan. “A violation of our trust, that’s for sure. Not to mention it’s completely illegal to steal the property of the federal government, so we’ll add that to the list of completely illegal things you’ve done that you’re lucky—so damn lucky—we’re not charging you for. Yet. As long as you continue to cooperate.”

  When I’m sure he’s finally done, I say, “I’m sorry.”

  Ryan lets out a long exasperated sigh. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

  “What did you hope to gain from taking this?” Hall asks.

  “I only wanted to know what kind of trouble George—I mean, my dad—was in. After … after what I saw on the recording.”

  “Oh
, really? You were concerned about George, were you?” he says, showing me it’s not lost on him that my relationship with George is so strained it’s not natural for me to refer to him as my dad. But he’s wrong; I do want to know about George, how he’s connected, and what he knew about the vial he delivered.

  Ryan is still seething. “If you showed anything on that laptop to anyone—”

  “Everything on your computer is password protected,” I say, jumping in before he can get too riled up.

  Hall says, “But were you able to see anything on the laptop at all?”

  “Out with it, Maris,” Ryan says. “What did you see?”

  They’re going to know what I saw the moment they power on the laptop and see the open notes.

  “Who is Dr. Alic?”

  Ryan slams his hand down on the steering wheel. He goes off again, scolding me about breaking trust, telling me I don’t get to ask questions.

  “If we knew who Dr. Alic was, we wouldn’t be here,” Hall says.

  So it’s true, what I suspected. Ryan and Hall don’t care about Archaletta or his disappearance. They don’t care about the Duvals trading in secrets to get what they want from Senator Stevens or that the Duvals tried to protect him from blackmail. They don’t care about the extortion or bribery. And they definitely don’t care about Edison or that I lied to the police. They only wanted me to think they cared about these things in case they needed something to leverage against me since I know the truth about them. All they really care about is finding Dr. Alic.

  “But you have his name,” I say, turning to Hall.

  “We have a name pulled off the blurry photo of the label of a pill bottle from the scene at one of the deaths we believe him to be responsible for.”

  “You think George knows who he is?” I say.

  They exchange a look and they’re quiet; my heart beats fast as my mind races through the possibilities of what this could mean. What if George does know and he’s been helping him all along? “Is George in trouble?” Not with the Duvals or Stevens, but because of Dr. Alic.

  To my surprise, Ryan answers. “George has been questioned. Everyone has. And now we’re taking a different approach.” Ryan shifts in his seat; he chews on his lip. “But, just in case.” Ryan reaches into the black canvas bag at his feet and pulls out a small dark object. It’s a rectangle, about two inches long and one inch wide. It’s thin, not even a centimeter in thickness.

  He hands the device to me; it’s very light. “If you think your father is in danger, or that you are, you’ll need to flick the on-switch, on the side. Feel it?”

  I run my finger along the edge of the object and I nod.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a tracker,” Hall says. “There’s a GPS inside. We’ll be able to find you, wherever you are.”

  The tracker is practically weightless in my hand, the corners sharp against the skin on my palm as I close my fist around it. It’s not lost on me, what it means that they think I might need it.

  “Why did George do this?” My throat tightens. I’m so mad at George for being involved in this, but so sad at the same time. There was a night when he didn’t come back until late, past midnight, when we were staying in that motel with the green pool. Maybe he was with Trisha. Maybe this is what he was doing. “For money? Is that it?”

  George did get a promotion that summer after I turned twelve. George started traveling more, spending more time on the East Coast, more time with the girls who would become the New Browns.

  Ryan and Hall are quiet. It’s clear I’m not going to get an answer on this. And they don’t owe me one.

  I can’t help but say, “You have enough on that recording to arrest Senator Stevens.”

  “Believe it or not, we don’t,” Hall says.

  “What about George?”

  “Not yet.”

  According to the victims list on the laptop, Ellis Exports was in charge of delivery—connecting Dr. Alic to some of the Goodman Pharmaceuticals associates. Ellis Exports was mentioned in the private meeting, and the agents asked me to elaborate on this.

  “Are the Duvals involved?”

  “Don’t try to piece this together yourself,” Ryan says. “There is a lot you don’t know.”

  They round the corner, where they’ll be dropping me off.

  Even if they don’t care about Archaletta’s disappearance because it has nothing to do with their investigation into Dr. Alic, they still have something real they could threaten me with. And they could threaten Edison, too.

  “Hey,” Hall says as I’m about to open the door and get out. “I don’t know what’s really going on between you and Edison; but I wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting him.”

  Chapter 49

  It’s been a week, but the Duvals are still away, and Phoebe’s cough is completely gone, so the New Browns and I go to North Point Beach. We eat lunch on the patio of Redfin Grill and stuff our faces with the seafood platter, enjoying a view of the boats docking and the trail of families biking to the lighthouse. We’re close enough to hear both the sounds of the ocean and the laughter and chatter of the people on the beach.

  It’s been a while since Trisha and George have had a day to enjoy Cross Cove, so we leave them on the patio sipping sparkling wine and take Phoebe with us down Main Street. They’re sitting next to each other facing the beach, with their legs outstretched under the table as we’re walking out of the restaurant. George looks so peaceful I hardly recognize him.

  “We have to keep Phoebe awake,” Chelsea says, “so she’ll sleep when we’re back at the house.”

  And this becomes our mission. First, we take her to the Ella Jack’s Toy Shop, where we build tracks out of a wooden train set and take turns seeing how far we can get the train to go before Phoebe inevitably reaches in and breaks it apart. The farthest my train makes it is to the drawbridge. Chelsea’s train makes it all the way under the cave.

  She doesn’t talk about Edison, but I know she’s thinking about him whenever I catch her with a faraway look in her eyes or smiling to herself. Every time she checks her phone. And when we pass a 3-D puzzle of Big Ben, she lets her finger run over the lettering on the box.

  “It doesn’t bother you,” I say, “that he’s so far away?”

  She shrugs. “It’s where he goes to school. And besides, next year I’m going to visit him.” She’s beaming as she goes on about all the castles she wants to visit.

  I can’t imagine Edison would take it so far as to let her visit him. But then he’s never told me his plans for letting her go—only the obligatory reasons he started dating her in the first place.

  Phoebe does fall asleep on us. But it’s for the best because Chelsea is craving ice cream and Phoebe isn’t old enough yet to have any.

  We cross to the side of the street nestled in shade and walk back toward the beach until we reach the Big Scoop Ice Cream Parlor. I glance past that familiar alley as Chelsea opens the door and a chime rings, welcoming us inside. Chelsea samples all the flavors before she finally chooses the lavender, rose, and vanilla combo, and I decide on the maple-bacon flavor.

  Phoebe starts to wake up now that her stroller isn’t moving and we’re inside where the air-conditioning is turned all the way up. Chelsea takes her outside while I pay.

  “The maple bacon is my favorite,” the boy behind the counter tells me.

  He’s got a youthful face, and he’s skinny, with floppy blond hair and a dark golden tan that tells me he’s been spending a good amount of time in the sun. He looks younger than I am by a couple of years. He watched me closely when we were picking out our ice cream, but now that I’m standing in front of him, he can hardly meet my eyes.

  I look around and notice that from where he’s standing at the register, he can see directly out the window behind the counter next to the door that leads to the alleyway. A clear view of anyone who might’ve been walking past the Dumpster.

  It’s a chance, but what’ve I got to lose?


  “Hey, have I seen you before?” I say.

  “Probably,” he says, still not looking up as he taps his fingers on the counter, waiting for me to pass him the cash in my hand. “Like, probably, I’ve seen you around, and you’ve seen me around.”

  “Probably.” I give him the twenty. “Were you working the day of the clambake?”

  “Yeah,” he says, counting out the change. “That was a wild day.”

  “Did the police ask you about that missing guy?” I worry this is too forward, in case he was the eyewitness that pointed me out, but he starts nodding, so I press on. “Me, too. He actually talked to me. He was so wasted.”

  “Tell me about it,” he says. “He barfed all over the side of the building. Regurgitated seafood is not a good smell. It was so rank.”

  “He threw up?” I know it might be a jump to link whatever happened to Archaletta to the girl on the recording when I saw how drunk he was—drunk enough that throwing up doesn’t seem far-fetched at all.

  “It was an insane amount of throw-up.” He leans toward me as he gives me my change. He’s not shy anymore now that we’re on a topic he seems to like. “I saw it.” He motions to the window. “I hauled ass out there to hose it down before the heat made it smell even worse. I even tried to bring the dude a cup of water. But he wasn’t there when I went outside.”

  “Like he really just vanished.” I act overtly fascinated, and this makes the boy’s smile get bigger, the way I’d intended.

  “That’s what I thought at first,” he says. “But his buddies probably scooped him up, took him home.”

  “His buddies?”

  He shrugs his right shoulder. “That’s what my crew would’ve done if I was crashing around a back alley blitzed out of my mind.”

  “Did you see anyone pick him up?”

  “No, but the car could’ve picked him up on another street; no one would’ve noticed.”

  “But there were so many people here for the clambake. Someone would’ve seen that, don’t you think?”