Altercation

by Heiner, Tamara Hart

  “Do you feel better?”

  The question brought up a surge of emotion. Jaci shook her head. “No,” she whispered, staring at the wood floor. “Maybe I never will again.”

  He sat down next to her. “Do you remember when we were stranded on the other side of that river?”

  How could she forget? They had spent many nights in the Adirondack Park before being rescued. One night there had been a huge thunderstorm that separated her and Ricky from the others. That was when she first realized that she might have feelings for him. She rested her cheek on her forearm. “Of course.”

  He leaned back on the palms of his hands and squinted at the wall in front of them. “One time you talked about life and about how much it sucks.”

  She smiled. “I don’t think that’s how I put it.”

  “Yeah, probably not. But you said you didn’t know how to be happy anymore because you’d seen too much bad stuff. Right?”

  She nodded, remembering. “Right.”

  He reached over and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “What did I say?”

  “You said bad stuff happens to everyone. But life goes on.”

  “Yeah.” He studied her. “This is life going on, Jaci. Let go of the past. It’s behind us now.”

  She swallowed, entranced by his gaze. “I don’t know how.”

  “There you are!” Amanda walked into the fitness room, smiling cheerfully. She sat next to Jaci. “So, how did the jog go?”

  “Not so good.” She wondered at Amanda’s timing. Had she intentionally walked in on them to keep them from being alone? “I’m going to shower.”

  Amanda snapped her fingers. “Oh yeah, Agent Banks came by. He wants to meet with all of us at ten o’clock. Before bed.”

  “Fine.” Jaci nodded. “I’ll make sure I’m there.” She walked out of the room without a second glance.

  At ten o’clock the five teens gathered in the game room downstairs. Jaci rubbed her arms, cold in spite of the thick gray sweats she wore. Sara sat on the arm of the couch, her chin in her hand.

  The agents hadn’t arrived yet. Ricky glanced around the group, clasped his hands, and said, “Welcome to group orientation. From here on out, you’ll refer to me as ‘your royal highness.’ At mealtime, everyone will wait to start eating until I’ve tasted all of the food. To make sure no one tries to poison us, of course.”

  Amanda laughed.

  “You’re insanely funny,” Neal said, laying down on the couch and draping his legs over the arm.

  “Collins!” Ricky yelped. “Get your stinking feet off the couch!”

  “Glad to see you didn’t wait for us,” Agent Banks said, stepping down the stairs into the game room. He appeared more relaxed than he had earlier that day. Magrew joined him, folding her arms across her chest.

  Neal sat up, and Banks continued. “Tomorrow begins your first official day in the safe house. There are a few rules you should know about. Don’t open any windows or doors. Don’t go outside. Don’t use the phones and don’t try to contact anyone. If you feel like you need to, tell us and we’ll do it for you, if necessary. There are alarms on everything, but we don’t want to police you. Any questions?”

  “No, sir,” Neal said.

  “Tomorrow we do have to ask a few questions. We have the testimonies you gave Agent Reynolds, but we need a little more information. Also, another agent will arrive to speak with you. She’s kind of a—a guidance counselor.”

  “Guidance counselor,” Ricky snorted. “I’ve seen my fair share of those.”

  “She’s here to help,” Magrew reprimanded, arching an eyebrow. “You’ll treat her with respect.” She looked around at each of them, and Jaci knew how they must appear to her: starved, emotionally damaged kids.

  “We’ll also be doing some self-defense training with you,” Banks said.

  “Why?” Amanda asked. “Aren’t we safe?”

  Banks met her eyes. “We’re not taking any chances. Breakfast is at seven,” he continued. “But anything you find in the kitchen, you can eat.”

  “How late can we stay up?” Amanda asked again.

  “As late as you wish.” He waited another moment and then turned around. “Good night.”

  October 28, Idaho Falls, Idaho

  Carl Hamilton spread the contents of the folder out on his desk. Several printed pages, a few handwritten notebook pages, and photographs. He scrutinized his own information, plus what he had gathered through interviews and questionings.

  It wasn’t a lot. Gregorio Rivera remained a mystery.

  He tried to put the lies in order. The FBI background check had come back a confused mess. Apparently, Gregorio Rivera wasn’t even his real name. That name had been fabricated when the man moved to the United States twenty years earlier. Finding out his true identity was proving difficult.

  A knock warned Carl seconds before Sergeant Jamie Fields stepped into his office. Fields was Carl’s direct superior in the chain of command.

  “Lunch?” He offered Carl a ham and cheese sandwich.

  Carl cleared a space on his desk and accepted the sandwich. “How much do I owe you?”

  Fields gave a shrug. “We’ll call it even. You bought me lunch last week.” He gestured at the paperwork in front of Carl. “How goes it?”

  Fields and Carl had been partners on a double homicide case two years ago. Though they hadn’t worked so closely since, the friendship persisted. If anyone could persuade Chief to let Carl stay on Rivera’s case, it was Fields. Carl leaned forward, hoping he didn’t appear too eager. “I’ve got a lot of puzzle pieces. I’m just trying to put them together now.”

  Fields pulled up a chair, tomato seeds from his BLT catching on the red stubble on his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand. “Run your pieces by me. Maybe they’ll fall into place.”

  “Maybe.” Carl put his sandwich down, feeling a surge of anticipation. “Okay, quick summary. Background check revealed nothing on the guy except that Gregorio Rivera isn’t his real name. But that’s just the beginning.” He spread his papers out. “Turns out, he never got an accounting degree at the University of Pedrita in Zacatecas.”

  “How do you know?” Fields tossed his sandwich wrapper in the trashcan. “If his name is fake, he might have gotten one under a different name.”

  “Sure.” Carl nodded. “But not in Zacatecas. There’s no such university.”

  “Ah.”

  “Right.” Carl twisted his lip. “Next lie: his employment. International Accounting Alliances isn’t a real business. On the surface, it looks that way; they bought a website, rented a warehouse, put up a sign. But it’s all a cover. The warehouse is empty; the phone goes to voicemail. There have never been any tax returns or W-4s filed.”

  “So the business trips were fake.”

  “Yes. Question is: what was he doing on his international travels?”

  “You’ve told me what’s not real about the guy. What is real?”

  “Okay.” Carl opened up another file folder. “Rivera’s first job in the US was at Gatorland. He worked as a conductor on an alligator boat in Orlando. May be where he learned English. While in Orlando, he met Marcela Rodriguez and married her. Her background check came back clean. She and her mother moved to Orlando when Marcela was thirteen, and they both worked cleaning houses, living in a one-bedroom motel. She was twenty when they married.”

  “Do you think she knew about his false identity?”

  Carl shook his head. “Absolutely not. She’s as devastated as her children. The man she thought she married doesn’t even exist.”

  “How could she not know?”

  Carl met Fields’ eyes. “He’s very convincing. I did not suspect him until his story didn’t quite match up.” Yet another reason to leave him on the case.
He had actually met Rivera. “Chief show you the email Rivera sent me?”

  “No, but he mentioned it. What did it say?”

  “Nothing. Only a subject line. All caps. ‘Stop trying to find me.’”

  “Somebody knows you’re on his tail.”

  Carl allowed himself a tight smile. “Which means I’m on the right trail. If I just keep digging, I’ll find something.”

  “Did the FBI trace the email?”

  “Yes, but I should’ve known Rivera was too clever for that. They traced it to an internet café in Illinois. Rivera called the kid on shift and offered to buy him a pizza if he sent an email for him. The kid did it. He didn’t get a phone number, and the phone company only logs outgoing calls. Dead end.”

  “But you have a contact now. It’s a real email address, right?”

  “Created seven years ago. It’s only been accessed once in seven weeks. But I keep shooting off emails. We’ll know when he checks. And if he wants me to stop trying to find him, he’s going to have to give me a reason.”

  “How are you going to find him?”

  “This code is my key.” Carl slid a photograph onto the center of his desk. “I took this picture when I was inside the International Account Alliances warehouse. It was hidden inside a medicine cabinet.”

  Fields peered at the paper, a frown creasing his brow. “I don’t understand what it means.”

  “Me neither.” Carl’s eyes ran over the handwritten messages.

  February 17. The Hand and Cisnero. Guadalajara, Mexico. Orange and Purple.

  February 26. Bombeiro. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Teal and Orange.

  Several more dates followed, at least one for each month.

  “There’s a pattern. Each month has one date, some have two. After the date are a name and a location, then two colors.” He pointed to the last four dates. “All of the dates have been crossed off except these ones, probably because they hadn’t happened when I took the picture.”

  “Makes sense. What else?”

  “I’m pretty sure that the colors stand for ‘employees,’ like Rivera. The only name I recognize is The Hand, but since Rivera has been living undercover, I’m guessing all of these names are pseudonyms.”

  “For who?”

  Carl shrugged. “I’m not sure. Criminals? Drug lords? Hustlers?”

  “So Rivera’s one of these colors.”

  “I think so.”

  “Which one?”

  Carl pointed to the line that read, October 7. Maverick and Avenger. Sydney, Australia. Yellow and Purple. “October seventh was the last business trip Rivera took before he vanished.”

  “So he’s yellow or purple.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think he’s connected to The Hand?”

  Carl hesitated. “I think ‘connected’ is too strong a word. I think there’s some sort of history between them, yes.”

  Fields glanced over the paper. “Since color purple was sent to visit The Hand in Mexico, I’m guessing he’s purple.”

  “I think so too. Not only that, but Purple seems to be pretty busy. Always out on a trip. So was Rivera.”

  “He’s an important man.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Carl read over the next three lines. October 23. Ganger. Konya, Turkey. Green and Purple. November 5. Grinch. Fairbanks, Alaska. Purple and Blue. December 24. Sid and Gaviston. Nantes, France. Orange and Green. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. “If Rivera is Purple, and this schedule is correct, then he should be in Fairbanks, Alaska, on November fifth.”

  “Good call.”

  Carl swiveled in his chair and studied the wall calendar. “Maybe I can fit a trip in to Alaska after I fly to Ohio.”

  “You’re flying out to meet the girls?”

  “Not meet them,” Carl corrected, turning around. “Question them.” Though he was excited to meet them. He’d studied their lives and worked hard to find them, and he felt an attachment to them, a relief that they were still alive. “I’m flying to Canada afterward. May as well continue north.”

  Fields studied him. “Department paying for all these flights?”

  “Chief’s requested federal aid. But I’ve agreed to split the costs if we don’t get it.”

  Fields snorted. “On your salary? You’re getting too involved.”

  It was what Fields always told him. But Carl couldn’t help it. He didn’t do his cases halfway. If they didn’t get the grant, he was prepared to become a private investigator and let his wife Kristin support them until money started coming in. But he didn’t say any of that. “Whatever it takes.”

  Chapter Six

  Megan!”

  Megan flinched at her teammates’ chorus and dragged her head back into the volleyball game a split second too late. The ball bounced off her shoulder and hit the gym floor, dead.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, staring at it.

  Coach Estes blew the whistle. “All right! Class is over. We’ll finish up our tournament tomorrow. Whoever won today moves on. Whoever lost, bleachers!”

  Megan didn’t really mind the bleachers. She had extra homework to do anyway. And sports were so not her thing.

  It was her teammates she had a hard time facing.

  “Way to go, Megan,” Karen sneered, jostling her as she jogged to the locker room. “We can always count on you to let us down.”

  Even Tamika, popping her pink gum loudly, gave her a disappointed look. “Girl, I thought you could play some ball.”

  Megan flushed with embarrassment. She waved her hand. “Oh, no. It’s, um, a common misconception. Because I’m tall.” She fumbled, knowing how stupid her words sounded.

  Tamika ran a hand over her short, kinky hair and shrugged. “Oh well.”

  “Don’t let them get to you,” Candice said.

  Megan shot a relieved look at her best friend.

  Candice used her towel to wipe the sweat from her ivory skin. A few strands of jet black hair escaped her ponytail. “Your mind wandering again, huh?”

  Megan nodded. “Yeah.” She hadn’t been able to focus on anything, really, since they had found the three kidnapped girls a week ago in New York. She couldn’t stop thinking about them. And she couldn’t even tell anyone. Candice thought she was still upset about her grandmother’s death.

  And Megan was, so it wasn’t too hard to play along. But she couldn’t stop imagining the horror those girls must have felt—taken away from their homes, watching a friend die, fearing for their lives. It creeped her out.

  Candice snapped her fingers. “You need to come back to us, Megan. She’s gone, sweetheart. She wouldn’t want you to live in a daze.”

  Megan took a deep breath. “No, I know. This won’t last forever.” She couldn’t help comparing herself to the kidnapped girls. Megan’s eighteenth birthday was in two days, and the girls were kidnapped while celebrating Callie’s fifteenth birthday.

  They stepped into the locker room and Candice turned on the shower. It was only sixth hour, but Candice took a zero hour class, which meant school was done for her.

  Not for Megan. She still had physics, her least favorite class, after math. She stopped in front of the mirror and examined her reflection.

  “So I know you just got back yesterday,” Candice called, her voice rising over the thunder of the shower, “but you never asked me how homecoming went.”

  Megan winced. To be honest, she had forgotten. She opened her purse, removing a brush and undoing her ponytail. Long, reddish-brown hair fell to her shoulder blades, with a slight kink from the ponytail holder. She smashed the kink between her palms and tried to straighten it. “Oh, right! Tell me about it. How was Kevin?” She pulled out her mascara wand and began reapplying.

  There was a pause
while Candice turned the water off. Wrapped in a towel, she stepped out of the shower. “I didn’t go with Kevin, Megan.”

  Megan froze, hand poised over her lashes. “No?”

  “Hello, Megan? Kevin and I broke up two weeks ago. I went with Dan.”

  Oh, duh. In a flash Megan remembered the conversation; the same day she found out her grandmother had died. A pink blush crept over her cheeks. “Candice, I’m sorry. I didn’t forget.”

  Candice rolled her eyes at Megan.

  “Okay, I did. I forgot. I’ve had so many things on my mind.”

  “Forget it,” Candice sighed. “Homecoming was great.” She finished buttoning her shirt and whipped out her blow dryer. “I hope you had a nice trip.”

  The blow dryer’s noise drowned out any possible reply Megan might make, saving her from having to make one.

  It was fantastic. I watched them bury my grandmother. Then I met three kidnapped girls who had been abused and terrorized. Great thrills all around.

  The warning bell rang and she jumped. Stuffing her mascara back into her purse, she said, “I gotta get to class. See ya, Candice.”

  “Bye,” Candice said without looking at her.

  Megan felt like the worst best friend ever.

  Megan slowly spun the dial to her locker, hoping it wouldn’t jam. She finished the combination and lifted the handle. Nothing. She rattled it several times. Finally, when she shoved her shoulder into it, the door opened.

  She heard a giggle at the next locker over. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Sasha Nuñez slipped into her boyfriend’s football jersey. The girl snuggled into his embrace, and then flounced down the hall, her cheerleader miniskirt barely concealing her bloomers. A group of girls at the end of the hallway greeted her. They erupted into squeals and laughter.