The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

by A. C. Fuller

  He remembered staring down at the water that day, steel blue and choppy, and feeling the dissonance take him over. It was as though the world vibrated at a steady, calm frequency—the trees, water, ferry, and sky all slightly distorted.

  He remembered looking down at the place where the boat met the water, staring at the foam their interaction created. He'd considered just tipping forward, falling in, and letting the current pull him under the ferry. His mind had flashed to the papers, wondering if they would say it was a suicide or an accident. Eventually, the embarrassment of his own vanity had snapped him back into himself.

  His Blackberry rang and he picked it up, his eyes still soft. As they began to focus, he saw a number he didn't recognize from an area code he did. It was a call from the same batch of burners that had sent the texts.

  He looked around the room, then stood up and sat back down in one motion. "Hello?"

  "Hello," the deep, distorted voice said. Alex immediately recognized it as the anonymous source from years earlier. "It's been a long time since we spoke. Did you get my texts?"

  Alex felt himself fill with heat to the point that he stood up and shook out his legs. "I'm not in the mood for games today. Tell me who you are or we're done."

  "I cannot tell you that, Mr. Vane. I'm providing valuable information that I could be punished for disclosing."

  "My best friend has been taken and I—"

  "I know. That's why I'm calling."

  "How did you—"

  "Mr. Vane, two years ago, I tried to help you catch Denver Bice, and you failed. I told you he had done far worse things, and you failed to uncover them."

  "We spent months digging around and didn't get anything. If you weren't so cryptic we might—"

  "I don't have much time, I—"

  Alex stomped his foot. "How do you know about James disappearing?"

  "Denver Bice is responsible for taking him."

  "How do you know that?"

  "You have to trust me. I told you that you would be in danger if you came to the conference. And you still are." The line went quiet for a moment.

  "Hello?"

  "It seems as though one of your friends has already found the danger."

  "Who are you?"

  "If you want to find your friend, you will have to go home."

  "I'm not leaving the West Coast without James," Alex said. "Tell me everything you know."

  "I don't mean New York. I mean that if you want to find your friend, you need to go home. Your true home."

  "Bainbridge?"

  For a few moments, Alex heard nothing but distorted breathing.

  "Yes," the voice said at last. "Let me ask you something. How much do you really know about your parents?"

  "I . . . I mean . . . I know that—"

  The line went dead.

  20

  "James is gone," Alex said.

  Camila slid into the booth across from him. "What?"

  "He disappeared sometime last night."

  Alex stared into his coffee cup, black and half empty, then up at the mounted TVs where morning shows recapped the election events of the day before.

  "Wait a second," Camila said. "Start from the beginning."

  A waitress with short black hair came up to the table. "Breakfast?" she asked.

  "Pancakes, bacon, two eggs, and a mocha, please," Camila said.

  Alex finished his coffee. "Nothing for me, thanks. Just more coffee."

  "He'll have a vegetable omelet, extra veggies, no potatoes, no cheese, no toast, no side of fruit."

  "I don't—"

  Camila smiled at the waitress. "He'll eat it."

  When the waitress left, Camila turned back to him. "What do you mean, he's gone?"

  His knee bounced against the table leg, which made the table shake in a quick, uneven rhythm. She studied him for a while, then finally steadied the table with her hand.

  "Alex, what's going on? We just saw him twelve hours ago. He seemed great."

  He focused on her. "He's like the brother I never had. My smarter little brother. It's Bice."

  The waitress came back, set down the mocha, poured more coffee, then left. Alex sipped his coffee too quickly and burned his tongue.

  "You need to calm down, Alex. And start at the beginning."

  He put an ice cube from his water into his coffee, stirred, and sipped more carefully. For the next ten minutes, he told her about the message from James and his meeting with Nors and Bice. Then he told her about the call from the source.

  "When did that happen?" she asked.

  "Half hour or so after leaving Bice's. I called you five minutes later."

  She balanced a glob of whipped cream on her spoon and ate it. "And you never found out who the source was after we . . . I mean after I . . ."

  "After you moved away? No. I never found out."

  The waitress set their plates down and Alex pushed his to the middle of the table.

  "I spent months on it, too," he continued. "You know me. I'm an obsessive-type guy, and it became a thing for me. I checked out everyone in Bice's inner circle, former employees who might have a grudge, I even tried to look into his family. He doesn't have one."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Exactly that. No wife, no kids, no siblings, no mother or father I could locate. I found nothing on the source and didn't hear from him again until today. I even spent some time thinking Bice himself might be the source."

  Camila waited for him to go on, but he'd gone quiet. "And?"

  "I decided that was crazy. But I did get the call half an hour after I left his suite today, and the source knew James had been taken. It has to be Bice, or someone close to Bice, or someone who's tracking Bice, and . . . I just . . . I don't know."

  "Focus on what you do know, Alex. When did you say you got the texts?"

  "I got the first one a few days ago." He got out his phone and showed her the two texts.

  When she'd read them, she asked, "And you're sure it's the same source?"

  "Has to be."

  She poured syrup over her entire plate and ate in silence for a minute. Alex moved his plate closer and picked at the corner of his omelet with his fingers.

  She finished chewing. "And the officer who came this morning said—"

  "He said he can file a missing person report tomorrow at seven. Once that's done, he can get the hotel to let him watch the security video and check if James's call came from Bice's room, which I'm sure it did. But even if we can confirm the call came from his room, it won't matter. James was there. Bice already admitted it. Unless the security footage shows some evidence of a crime . . ."

  "Or maybe it will just show that he never left."

  Alex closed his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to imply that he's—"

  "Dead?"

  "Sorry."

  He sighed. "Not your fault, and you're right. If the footage shows he never left, that would be something they could go on, at least."

  He popped a pale green pepper slice into his mouth.

  She wrapped a pancake around two slices of bacon and ate it like a sandwich. Alex watched and couldn't help but smile. "I see you still eat like a twenty-year-old offensive lineman recovering from a hangover the morning after a frat party."

  She smiled at him through a mouth full of food.

  "I don't like asking for help," he said. "But I don't know what to do. James is the guy I would ask for help in this type of situation."

  "Have you talked to Lance?"

  "No, I'll call him later today. He's on his way to Boston. With Greta."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "What could James have to do with me going home, and my parents? What could I find there that would help me find James? The call, I don't know . . ."

  She touched his forearm, which was shaking slightly as he gripped his coffee. "What is it, Alex?"

  "It's like it was somehow personal. And I just have this feeling that—"

>   "That Bice is your source."

  "He can't be. Right?" When she didn't respond, he said, "I think I'm losing it."

  Camila finished her food in silence and stared up at the televisions, now showing Senator Kerry shaking hands after a speech as stock prices crawled along the bottom of the screen.

  "Well, I was going to listen to some talks and work on my book while sipping French 75s at the bar, but—"

  "You'll come with me?"

  She wiped her mouth and folded her napkin on top of her empty plate. "How long is the ferry ride to Bainbridge Island?"

  21

  Port Authority Terminal, New York City

  Greta's eyes were closed, but she could smell Lance's cologne from the bench outside the bus station, so she decided to have some fun with him. She peeked long enough to see him lean through the passenger-side window of the taxi to hand the driver some cash, but closed her eyes again before he turned toward her. She followed his scent as he approached, fighting to track his spicy musk through the scents of urine and garbage that surrounded them.

  "Lance," she said, opening her eyes as he stopped in front of her. She stood up and hugged him.

  "Damn, girl. I thought Camila was the pseudo-psychic."

  She frowned. "You really want to be mentioning her to me? Anyway, I was just pretending. I smelled your cologne. What is it, anyway?"

  "Evening musk."

  "But it's only noon, and you're wearing a lot of it."

  "It's never too early to smell like a star." He waved at her shoes, which were bright red three-inch heels, studded with faux diamonds. "And you're wearing Manolos while waiting for a bus?

  "Alex never notices my shoes."

  "Why the hell are we taking the bus anyway?"

  "It's environmentally friendly."

  Greta pulled an envelope out of her pocket as a silver and blue bus drove up. She handed Lance a ticket.

  "I can't believe you talked me into this," he said as the doors swung open.

  She led him on to the bus, and, as they took a pair of seats in the back, his phone vibrated. He grabbed it out of his jacket pocket, along with a light brown cigar.

  "You can't smoke on the bus," she said.

  "You can't smoke anywhere," he replied, looking down at the caller ID. "It's someone from The Times."

  "The New York Times?"

  "No, The Punxsutawney Times."

  She slapped his arm. "Sorry. Well, are you gonna get it?"

  He tucked the cigar behind his ear and eventually located the "Talk" button. "Who's this? . . . Well, hello there, Cooper. To what do I owe this annoyance? . . . No, I'm not going to tell you what we're working on . . . Boston? Yeah, we're going to Boston. Just heading up to catch the game tonight. It's my day off . . . Wait, how did you know we were going to Boston? . . . Oh, yeah . . . Then why are you calling me, just to check in on my travel plans?"

  Greta stopped listening and began studying the passengers getting on the bus. A pair of twenty-somethings in Yankees gear climbed on in bleary-eyed silence. Hungover, she guessed. An older lady with a large purse and bulky jacket, her face like leather. Hunched over. Needs work on her upper spine, Greta thought.

  She tuned back in to Lance when she heard Alex's name.

  "Of course, Alex is going to beat you," he was saying. "He always beats you."

  Lance was quiet for a minute, then he said, "Yeah, yeah . . . Quote me on this. I did run that piece before you on purpose. I did screw you over just to screw you over. And I will do it again, as soon as I damn well can." Lance stabbed at random buttons on his phone, then put it in his pocket and retrieved the cigar from behind his ear.

  Greta was jolted. "Bad day at the office?"

  Lance frowned.

  "How'd he know we were going to Boston?" she asked.

  "He says Alex mentioned it. Those assholes at The Times will do anything to stay on top. He said he was calling to follow up about the piece they're running on News Scoop, then he tried to find out what I'm working on. Asshole."

  The door of the bus closed and a male driver announced, "Direct line to Boston. Estimated arrival time: four hours, fifteen minutes."

  When the bus turned onto the West Side Highway, Greta looked over at Lance, who was angrily passing his cigar back and forth between his hands.

  "Did you get anything for Sadie and Veronika?" she asked.

  He grunted something inaudible, then said, "Can't believe you talked me into going to a wedding in the middle of a Yankees-Red Sox series."

  "It's gonna be great."

  He grunted again. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for them. Just not a wedding guy. Probably why I never got married."

  "Or maybe it's 'cause you're a grumpy old curmudgeon. Tell me about Alex, though. Do you think we'll ever get married?"

  Lance's frown disappeared. He smiled broadly, ran the cigar across his upper lip, and inhaled deeply.

  Greta chuckled. "You love Alex so much, he brings a smile to your face."

  "I love cigars," he said. "Alex, I tolerate."

  "Oh, you love him. So do I. Tell me what he was like when you first met him, when you first started working together. You've known him longer than I have."

  He laughed. "I'd say that, at this point, you know him better, if you know what I mean."

  "Seriously, I want to know what he was like."

  "Basically, same as now, except more of an asshole."

  "What do you mean?"

  The bus accelerated and lurched forward as it shifted gears.

  "We really couldn't have flown?" he asked.

  "It's an experience. C'mon, how was he different?"

  "I'll tell you, but first you go. I know it's not PC to ask, but where are you from? I mean, what's your background, or your parents' background?"

  "Don't worry about it. I know I look different. My dad is Japanese and my mom's German. I get asked a lot."

  "It's a unique combination. Don't take this as flirtation, but there aren't many people who look like you. Even in New York."

  "I know, you should hear some of the guesses people make. Spanish, Thai. Eskimo—which I know is an offensive term, I'm just saying it 'cause it's what people say to me."

  "I get it."

  "One guy who was hitting on me at a party in college asked if I was from Ja-China? I think he saw the Asian in me and just combined the only two countries he'd heard of over there."

  The bus took the entrance to Interstate 95 and sped up.

  "You travel there much?" he asked.

  "No fair! You said you'd tell me about Alex. Tell me the first thing you remember about him."

  Lance let out a deep sigh, then smiled slightly. "For all his BS, the first thing I remember is actually kinda nice. I'd been running sports at The Standard for twenty years when he started there. Every year, we went through a few interns. Young people. Talented, full of themselves, and full of opinions about the world and journalism. Alex came in as an intern. Summer after he graduated from grad school."

  "Getting coffee and stuff?"

  "Nah, he was a reporting intern, which means he got the BS assignments no one else wanted. Had to run down quotes, make calls we all knew wouldn't lead to anything. The equivalent of getting coffee in a journalistic context. One time, he was out in Queens, knocking on doors for our Queens guy."

  "What do you mean, 'knocking on doors'?"

  "When there was a crime or something, a fire, some story, and we were making a stab at investigative work, we'd send out a kid like Alex to knock on every door in the neighborhood to see if we could dig up some info. Kind of like the police do on Law and Order. It was grunt work. Usually led to nothing. Anyway, he was out in Queens, knocking on doors, and there was a fire. You remember it? The shoe store fire?"

  "I didn't live here then. But it sounds tragic."

  "Anyway, Alex, the dumbass, looking to please like he always did, called me from a payphone." Lance switched to a high-pitched, eager little-kid voice. "'Mr. Brickman, Mr. Brickman. Th
ere's a fire a couple blocks from me. I can smell the smoke. Should I keep knocking on doors or go check it out?'"

  "He doesn't talk like that."

  "He did then."

  "Did he really call you Mr. Brickman?"

  "Hell yeah. Took a year for him to start calling me Lance. As arrogant as he was, he had respect for the work I'd done, and he knew his history. So, he called in and I told him to get over to the fire. He had a chance to be first on the scene. So, I waited, went back to what I was doing. Two hours later, he called me and told me, 'I have it.' And I was like, 'Have what?' He told me he had the story and wanted to know who he should give it to." Lance paused and laughed to himself. "I remember it clear as vodka. I had Derek Jeter on the other line, and then I had Alex, practically wetting himself, telling me he has the story. Long story short, I told Derek I'd call him back, and Alex proceeded to dictate a story, with five sources, including four witnesses and an officer, off the top of his head."

  "So?"

  "In two hours, he got five sources, including an officer—who shouldn't have been talking to him—and wrote the story in his head, while standing at a pay phone across from a smoldering shoe store."

  "So, what are you saying?"

  "Don't ever let this get back to Alex, but his arrogance is deserved. But that's not even the thing about it."

  "What is?"

  "He gave the story away. I told him to get back to the paper, go over it with our Queens guy, and get his first real byline. It would have been shared with the Queens guy, who had to fill in the background, but Alex's name woulda been on it. But Alex said to just give it to him, he was gonna get back to knocking on doors." Lance paused for a minute and breathed in the scent of his cigar. "I ended up making sure his name got on the story anyway. But I always remembered that."

  They sat in silence for a moment as they passed out of Queens and into Westchester County. Finally, Greta said, "What else do you remember about him?"

  "Damn, girl. Why all the questions? You're not really thinking of marrying him, are you?"

  She said nothing.

  "Are you?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  Lance frowned and pulled a small portable radio out of his worn leather bag. "I gotta listen to the pregame." He put earphones in and turned to look out the window.