by Matt Lincoln
Since Rachel and I were in one of the last boarding groups, we were closer to the front of the plane, and Rachel was aggressive as she budged out into the aisle and took her spot in line. I rose and stood by her seat in an awkward crouch as I waited for the line to start moving so I could step out behind her.
The line started to move, people shuffling ever so slowly toward the door, pulling their bags from the overhead compartments in the most inefficient way possible. I shifted my weight back and forth, eager to step out into the aisle as my back began to ache from the position I was in. When it was finally our turn to move, Rachel paused, holding back the tide behind her so that I could climb out unimpeded.
Progress was slow until we finally walked through the plane’s door, and then we were able to pick up the pace, hurrying down the long, sloping hall of the gate until we stepped out a set of glass doors and into the busy chaos of the Nashville airport.
Country music blared from the speakers, though most of it was lost in the hubbub of the crowd. Rachel and I followed the stream of people from our plane and the signs for the baggage claim across the gleaming white tile underfoot and down a couple of escalators.
The baggage claim was on the ground floor, and Rachel checked the informational screen for our plane’s number before we set off again, headed for the one labeled ‘FOUR.’ There was already a crowd milling around, waiting for the moving belt to begin disgorging the bags.
“What’s the plan?” I asked as we found a place as close to the belt as we could get.
“I found us a hotel not far from the airport,” Rachel answered, eyes locked on the space between two people’s shoulders where we could just make out a section of the baggage claim. She checked the time. “Is it too late to go find Dowell now?”
It was almost eight, I saw when I pulled out my phone. My stomach growled. “I don’t know about you, but I could really use some food. Dowell has no way to know we’re coming. I think we should wait until tomorrow when we’re fresh.”
Rachel nodded in agreement, though I could tell it hurt her. We were so close to Dowell, finally, that it was painful to wait any longer. If I felt that pain, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her.
The baggage claim finally began to move, and Rachel shouldered her way to the front to watch for our bags. She got some dirty looks from the surrounding people, but her returning glare was sharp enough that they all blanched and quickly backed up, leaving us with plenty of room.
I had a bright tag on my suitcase, and it was easy enough to spot in the parade of black and white bags. When it was close enough, I swooped forward and snatched it up, dragging it from the slow-moving belt before it could get too far away. Rachel’s was one of the last bags to come out, but as soon as she had it, we headed for the door, stepping out into the last rays of the Nashville sun.
It was hot here, but not nearly as humid as it was down in New Orleans, for which I was eternally grateful. The setting sun splashed long fingers of red and orange across the sky, making the strips of clouds glow from within as the shadows on the ground grew longer and longer.
Rachel hailed us a taxi, doing battle with a younger yuppie couple to make sure they didn’t try to swoop in at the last second and steal it from us. The taxi driver kept trying to make conversation with us despite the obvious cold shoulder Rachel was giving him and my awkward attempts at answering, but thankfully, it was only a ten-minute ride to the hotel, and we were soon able to escape the prison of forced pleasantries.
At the hotel, we had one room but two beds, and after we dropped off our bags, Rachel and I made our way down to the hotel restaurant for what would no doubt be an adequate bite to eat. The restaurant was country-themed but in an incredibly kitschy and obnoxious way. Framed records and photographs of famous performers hung off the walls, and there were cowboy hats on hooks and cowboy boots in glass boxes, and there was even a mannequin in full cowboy regalia on display in the corner. All the servers and bartenders were forced to wear Western-style shirts and jeans—though thankfully, it didn’t look like cowboy boots were required as well—and none of them looked terribly happy about it. Only a few other diners were seated at the round, wooden tables, but they all had that same, vaguely blank look of someone who had just finished a long day of travel.
A bland, bored host seated Rachel and me and handed us menus, rattling off a long list of specials so quickly that I didn’t register a single word he said. Then he disappeared back to his stand by the front door, no doubt to reevaluate all his life choices.
“What’s our plan for tomorrow?” I asked Rachel as I opened up the large menu and began to go through it. All the dishes were named after country-western singers, and they also all seemed like they were trying way too hard.
Our server appeared before Rachel could answer, and she ordered a couple of beers for us. I usually avoided drinking while on the job, but I figured I deserved a beer or two after being on a plane.
“It’s pretty simple,” Rachel answered, the menu crinkling in her hands as she attempted to open it to its full length and quickly discovered that it would take up the entire table if she did. “We go to the address, we find Dowell, and we make him talk.”
“Rachel, please don’t get mad at me for asking this, but you’re not still thinking about going through with the frame job, are you?” I voiced the question carefully, keeping an eye on her face for any shift in expression or emotion.
I caught a flicker in her eyes that wasn’t anger or annoyance but made me think that she was about to lie to me.
“It’s like you said,” she began with just a little too much casualness in her tone, “it would take too long to get Malia back, and Ward would just keep coming back for more.”
I nodded twice, though I didn’t totally believe her. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page on that.”
Of course, if we didn’t find Dowell tomorrow, it would be an entirely different story, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“How do you think he got out?” I wondered. It was one of the things that had been nagging at me. Dowell had literally just disappeared, and no one knew how. That took some serious skill or some serious connections.
Rachel shrugged. “My money is still on a deal with Amherst.”
And why the hell had Amherst dropped off the face of the earth? It was a question I doubted we’d get an answer to anytime soon, but I was still curious.
When our server reappeared, I still hadn’t decided what I wanted to order, but Rachel went first, and then I picked something at random—some burger with bacon and avocado and a fried egg on top. It sounded like cholesterol on a plate and, thus, hopefully delicious.
The server took our huge menus away, finally leaving us with room atop the table, and Rachel and I drank our beers in silence for a while. It was a bit too hoppy for my taste, but my options were this or water masquerading as beer, so I’d stick with the one I had.
When our food arrived some time later, I could feel my arteries clogging up just looking at it. Both plates were piled high with massive, towering burgers and heaping sides of fries that glistened with salt and grease. The smells wafting off the food as the server set the plates down made my mouth water, and as Rachel ordered another round of beers, I dug in, barely able to get my mouth around the burger.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was since we were dining at a kitschy hotel restaurant, but I supposed that proved you shouldn’t judge something by its looks. The fries were liberally coated in a layer of salt and a dusting of paprika, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, just as good fries should be. I had to remind myself to breathe as I inhaled the food, suddenly starving. Rachel only picked at her meal, nibbling at the end of a fry before setting it down again and picking up another.
“You should try to eat,” I said after I swallowed a too-large bite of burger. “Who knows what we’ll encounter tomorrow?”
“I know. I just haven’t had much of an appetite lately,” Rachel admitte
d. She made an effort to eat an entire fry before giving up again.
I tended toward the opposite, stress-eating rather than losing my appetite.
“I understand,” I replied. “But think of it this way—if you don’t eat, you might not have the strength to help Malia when the time comes. You don’t want that, do you?”
Rachel nodded, looking utterly exhausted as if all the energy she’d gained from Richard Mann’s information had fled her all at once, leaving nothing within to sustain her. She made it halfway through her burger, which, considering the burger’s gargantuan size, was pretty good, and she let me eat the fries she couldn’t finish, which I was more than happy to do.
We paid, made our way up to the hotel room, and turned in early since neither of us particularly wanted to pretend to watch whatever bad movie was on TV at that time. I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling through the darkness. The air conditioner by the window whirred too loudly, and its power button and the numbers on the clock bled light into the room, making it hard for me to shift into sleep mode. I listened to Rachel’s breathing and could tell that she was still awake, too, though I didn’t say anything. Better to pretend we were both sleeping. Maybe that way we actually would.
21
I thought I managed to snag a few hours of sleep by the time Rachel’s alarm went off in the morning, but it was hard to tell for sure since I’d simply dozed rather than actually falling into a proper sleep. I’d dreamt about something, but I couldn’t remember about what other than a vague feeling of dread and the sensation of falling.
Rachel’s eyes opened the moment her alarm went off, but she lay under the covers for several minutes, the pillows arrayed all around her as if to take up space on the bed. I sat up slowly and rubbed at my eyes, disoriented by the bright sun coming in through the window and the unfamiliar surroundings. I had a text from Cal with what little information they’d managed to dig up on an Emmett Till in Nashville. There wasn’t much. No social media presence, no listed employment, no passport or driver’s license or anything that might have had a photo on it, just a social security number and a birth certificate, both forged, no doubt. Cal said it was a high-quality job.
I swung my legs off the bed and shambled into the bathroom for a shower, hoping that would help wake me the rest of the way. The water was lukewarm and the pressure dismal, and I shivered as I stepped out and grabbed a towel, the air conditioner cranked up far too high.
Rachel took my place in the bathroom as I stepped out, and I got dressed while she showered, listening to the quiet music she was playing from her phone. It had been surprisingly hard to pick out clothes for this trip. Did I want to appear as a federal agent and the power that came with that, or did I want to take a softer approach so Dowell would be less likely to spook? It was hard to say, and there wasn’t really a way to bridge the gap.
I decided on a more casual look since we weren’t there in any official capacity—a white button-up with no tie, dark Chinos, and a lightweight jacket rather than a blazer and suit coat. When Rachel came out of the bathroom dressed in jeans, a loose yellow blouse, and a gray raincoat, I knew that I’d made the right choice. I made sure my gun’s holster was attached to my belt and hidden by my coat, and then we left the hotel, leaving our bags behind, although we would probably miss check out and have to pay for another night, even if we didn’t end up staying.
Rachel called for a taxi, and when it arrived, she gave the driver an address a few blocks down from our actual destination. She wanted to scout the area before we announced ourselves. This driver was much quieter than the last, offering us only the base “hi, how are you, what are you in town for?” questions before falling silent.
We had to cut through the center of the city to reach our destination, and I watched the hustle and bustle scroll by out the window. Neon billboards and signs lit up the streets, proclaiming the night’s musical events, promising good music, good food, and good beer, and half the stores seemed to cater to the city’s musical tourism. There were buskers on many street corners, though they played country rather than jazz, like their counterparts down in New Orleans. There was a great energy to the city, one that I’d have loved to experience under better circumstances.
As we passed out of the city center, the streets grew more residential, and it wasn’t long before we entered Nashville’s suburbia, the lawns sprawling and green, the houses wide and tall with large, overhanging porches.
Our taxi driver stopped at the edge of a gated community, the manicured lawns inside alive with colorful flowers and shrubs. Rachel and I climbed from the car and consulted the map on my phone, standing in the shade of a massive oak tree.
“That way,” Rachel said, pointed down the street away from the gated community.
We crossed the road and set off down the wide sidewalk, and I whistled as I looked at the huge houses all around us.
“Dowell certainly did well for himself,” I thought out loud.
“You’d think he’d want to be a bit more inconspicuous,” Rachel muttered.
I shrugged. It sounded like he’d gone through a lot to get his dirty money. I sort of understood why he wanted to enjoy it.
The houses grew a little smaller as we worked our way toward Dowell’s address, but we were clearly still in an affluent neighborhood. The surrounding grass was a bright green, almost too vibrant like the lawns were slightly fake, and every home was two stories and professionally landscaped, most of them with a screened-in porch off either the front or the back. They put my little cottage to shame, but I didn’t really understand why anyone needed that much space, especially if you were just one person. I didn’t want to rattle around a huge house all by myself or have to clean all of it, though I supposed these people probably hired a maid service for that.
Rachel held out her hand and stopped me after we crossed our third street, and we paused on the corner, the sun beating down on our heads, warming my hair. “That’s it. Number thirty-four.” She pointed to a house about halfway down the next street. It was painted a pale green with white trim, its two stories a little more compact than the other houses around it. The lawn was neat, and bushes lined the front of the house, two flowering trees dotting the front yard. There was a wreath hanging off the door, but it was more floral than holiday-themed and added a nice pop of color to the house. The curtains were drawn back, but I couldn’t tell if there was any movement from inside from this angle.
“Are you ready?” I asked Rachel because there was suddenly a look of powerful fear on her face, radiating from her wide eyes.
She shook herself and gathered her wits about her as she squared her shoulders and set her face into a mask of determination. She looked over at me and nodded, though I could still see past her confident facade to the anxiety beneath. This was the make-it-or-break-it moment, after all.
“Do you want me to take the lead?” I offered.
Rachel thought about it seriously for a moment, but then shook her head. “I can do it. I should do it. Malia is my daughter, after all.”
“Okay,” I agreed, though I was slightly worried about what she might do in there if things went sideways. I’d just have to keep an eye on the situation.
Rachel took a deep breath and smoothed the front of her shirt, though there were no wrinkles there that I could see. Then she set off down the sidewalk, moving at a brisk pace, her low heels thumping against the pavement. I followed her just a few steps behind, my eyes taking in as much of the neighborhood as they could as we walked. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for. Some sense that there was something off? Someone else watching the house? Possibly avenues of escape for Dowell? But there was nothing. It was a perfectly cookie-cutter neighborhood, complete with a few white picket fences.
Rachel hesitated at the front walk leading up to Dowell’s house, staring at the pale green building as if it were some kind of hungry monster or as if there might be great patches of rot beneath the paint. But the place was about as innocuous as a hummi
ngbird upon a flower. It certainly didn’t look like the abode of a former human trafficker and criminal.
I gave Rachel all the time she needed to pluck up the nerve to head up to the front door, though I knew that the longer we stood there, unmoving, the odder we would look to passersby. Already, a woman was pushing a stroller, staring at us out of the corner of her eye.
Rachel forced out a sharp sigh and then took off, moving so quickly that it took me a few seconds to catch back up with her. She marched right up the front steps and rang the doorbell twice, each buzz sharp and short.
I leaned over the railing boxing in the front steps to see if I could peer through the windows. The curtains were pulled back, and I spotted a rich leather couch and a couple of bookshelves pressed against the wall.
There was no answer after a minute, so Rachel rang the bell again, jamming her finger into the little round button with more force than was absolutely necessary. I kept an eye on the window, searching for movement, but I didn’t spot any.
Thirty seconds later, the door swung open, and a Hispanic woman in high-waisted shorts and a loose tank top stared out at us, a curious expression on her face. She wore her thick hair pulled back, though strands of it had escaped its bonds to float about her face, her lips slightly glossy.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Rachel wavered. She clearly hadn’t been expecting someone other than Dowell to answer the door. I nudged her gently in the back, out of sight of the woman in the doorway. Rachel cleared her throat and then smiled at the woman. “We’re looking for Emmett. Is he here?” Rachel spoke with an easy familiarity, like we were old friends of Dowell’s, and I hoped the use of his fake name would pay off.
“He’s out back,” the woman said, and relief lanced through me so suddenly that my knees went weak for a second. She stepped back and waved us in. “Come on in. I’ll take you to him.”