by Holly Rayner
But she’d had no idea how badly this would all go. Hell, I’d had no idea either.
And yet now here I was, once again staring at the ironic reminder of my failure. Another day gone, and I’d done nothing but lost some rounds of chess to a computer, reread Critical Mass for the fifth time, and prayed, hoped, longed for a client, for anything.
The sound of knocking on the door surprised me so much that I almost fell off my chair.
And yet, even as I rose, the three sharp knocks were repeated, one after another, perfectly in time. When I opened the door, the man had his pale, skeletal hand crumpled into another knock position, prepared for three more knocks, presumably.
“Are you Alex Combs?” his high-pitched voice asked.
I stared at him. My mind was so busy processing what it was seeing that it couldn’t come up with anything to say yet. White hair, yellow teeth, aquiline nose, hollowed-out face—this man looked more like a movie villain than anything. His hooded, gray, lifeless eyes weren’t helping either. He had no wrinkles to indicate his age however, except for a strangely prominent crease in the middle of his forehead.
“Are you?” His high, cold voice snapped me back to life.
I nodded dumbly.
“Yeah. I…that’s me.”
He eyeballed me dubiously, his liquid gaze rolling over my try-hard black and navy business suit, then my hopelessly blond hair.
“Come in,” I said before he could run away.
I opened the door, and, at the sight of my dismal little office, his doubtful expression became downright disappointed.
“You have worked in the industry…for a while?” he asked.
“Yes.” I flopped into my chair, making the thing almost fall over altogether.
I gestured to the mauve-cushioned wooden chair which he only stared at.
This was my first client in months; I couldn’t mess this up!
I jumped up, and the words flew out of my mouth. “Okay, here’s the deal. Those guys over there—Private Investigations—I can tell you right now, they can give you a better rate and more guys working on your case.”
The man squinted at me as if trying to see if I was joking.
I took another deep breath and plowed on. “But they don’t have what I do: six years of experience in the field, a passion that keeps me working on cases until the wee hours of the morning, and a doggedness that doesn’t stop until it gets results.”
He was still staring at me, his face unmoved.
“I know I don’t look like much,” I said, “but I can promise you this: I will work until your case is solved or you can have your money back. You have my word.”
At this, his eyebrows raised and stayed raised. Then he took a sweeping look around the room that ended on me. Abruptly, he slid into the chair.
“You have my attention,” he said.
I collapsed back onto my own chair, trying not to look as relieved as I felt.
“So, tell me a bit about yourself,” I said. “What is it you’d like looked into?”
“I’m Russell Snow. I’m trying to track down someone dangerous. Very dangerous. Really, an unhinged criminal.”
He searched my face for a reaction that I tried not to give. If he saw just what I was thinking, he might have left entirely. Why was this guy coming to me instead of the police for help with finding a so-called “unhinged criminal”?
“Okay,” I said.
He continued. “His name is Brock Anderson. I want evidence of his criminal activities so I can hand him over to the police.”
Each statement was a smooth sliding-out of syllables, after which his gaze scanned my face for their absorption. Finally, he finished up with, “So that’s your job. Follow him and get evidence.”
I nodded.
“Those ‘private investigators’ across the street were useless. What about you?”
He scanned my face, and I scanned his.
With that white hair and unsettling face, the name Russell Snow fit. It fit too well, I’d say. It was probably fake. There was something off about this request, this guy, all of it, and yet I was in no position to refuse any job.
“Okay,” I found myself saying. “I’ll do it. Just tell me what to look for and I’ll get to work. What evidence should I be on the lookout for?”
A half smile slid onto his lips and then fell.
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
My next scan of his face revealed nothing; it was lowered, focused on his phone as he texted. He was apparently under the impression that he had told me enough, when really he had basically given me nothing to go off.
“So what about you? What is your relation to this case, this Brock Anderson? Can you give me anything else to go off?”
He didn’t look up from his phone, only shook his head and said “no.”
Right, now this guy was getting on my nerves.
“And my fees, $50 an hour, you’re okay with that?” I said, and he nodded and waved a bony hand in an unconcerned figure eight.
“Won’t be a problem. I’ll pay $2,000 at least, more if it takes longer.”
And then he sat there, texting away, forgetting me entirely. As if he hadn’t just made an insanely lavish offer.
I stood up.
“Well, thank you for your time, Mr.…Snow. I will get to work on your case immediately and give you updates on my progress every few days.”
I held out my hand, but he only glanced up, nodded again, and then, after a good minute more of texting, rose and shook it.
“Work business” was his explanation before sweeping away.
At the door, he paused and grabbed my hand again.
“Miss Combs. Can’t stress discretion enough. We’ll be in touch.”
I found myself yanking my hand out of his iron, cold grasp. Then he was gone, leaving an even worse feeling behind him, an insidious uneasiness.
I watched him glide down the hallway and disappear down the stairs.
What had I gotten myself into?
Chapter Two
I raced back into my office with a twist of excited apprehension in my gut. Regardless of how sketchy this guy seemed, I had agreed to do his job, so now I had a job to do. A job. An actual job! I didn’t bother glancing at the clock. It didn’t matter what time it was. All that mattered was that, for the first time in a long time, I had a job.
My tracking didn’t start out well. The first internet search of “Brock Anderson” brought up over 18 million entries. The next, with quotation marks around “Brock Anderson,” generated a more manageable but still numerous 27,900. Nonetheless, I methodically scanned through the results, from a soda company’s Corporate Ergonomics Manager to the gangster-looking baseball player to the stud football jock to the porky child on Twitter who liked baseball too. But of all the pictures I scoured, none of them matched the description, and the subjects didn’t live anywhere near Boulder.
Searching “Brock Anderson Boulder” proved more promising; it brought up a site, which provided 99 entries of people apparently named Brock Anderson near Boulder. Luckily, only half or so mentioned no age or an age in the 30s range. So, I printed out the list, picked up my blue ink pen, put on my best telemarketer voice, and began calling.
My premise was simple and involved a bit of white lying and a lot of being hung up on, but at this point, what did I have to lose?
“Hello there. I’m calling from ScarTronic, a new scar skin care cream, and we wanted to offer you a free trial. Could I get some information about you first?”
And so my scar-cream selling, tracking-down-Brock-Anderson campaign began.
For some of the Brock Andersons I called, it only took a few words for me to determine that I was talking to the wrong Brock: their voices had 50 years of smoking in them or the drawl of a bored teen. These I escaped with a quick “sorry, wrong number!” before I even made my scar pitch. For others, however, ruling them out took a bit more sleuthing, like asking questions about current and former profession
s and scar location.
And so I slogged through the list, through Brock Anderson after Brock Anderson, old and young, in their 30s and 80s, who had “no scars” or “one birthmark on my butt,” who was “born and raised a farmer and will die one” or who was on welfare but just for the “past coupla years, is all.”
When one Brock Anderson admitted to being a former marine with a scar on his eyebrow, and I was all but ready to go over and meet him before he admitted that he was actually an old woman with a young man’s voice who had an uncanny psychic ability and had taken advantage of my miscall. She had lied because she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to. I agreed to meet Ms. Mabel, which was her real name, for coffee next week before hanging up with dismay.
My list was now a series of crossed-out entries. I had gone through every last Brock Anderson. There were none left. Meanwhile, the clock had sped ahead without my even noticing. It was now 10 p.m. It smiled at my shock while my belly groaned.
I got out my phone and immediately found myself ordering pizza. I told the pizza boy, who sounded like it was his first day, that I wanted a medium pepperoni, hung up, and then got to work.
Now that I had scoped out all I could about this so-called Brock Anderson online, I moved on to the only other lead I had on him: Russell Snow. My creepy client probably hadn’t counted on me searching him out too, but if his name was as fake as I thought, I probably wouldn’t find anything anyway. Searching “Russell Snow” turned up 36,000 hits, notably a lot of business professionals and even more pictures of snow plows in every color of the rainbow. By the time my phone rang, I had just typed in “Russell Snow Boulder.”
Although I told the pizza boy on the other end that I’d be right down, I couldn’t help but click the search button before I dashed off. The boy at the door was as expected: a stammering, pimple-faced, mustache-attempting teen who held my delicious Pizza Nova medium extra-cheese pepperoni pie in shaky, disproportionately large hands.
I accepted the box, handed him the cash with a kind smile, and ran up the steps two-at-a-time, though it wasn’t just my stomach that was eager to return to the office. It was my mind too, which internally sighed at the computer screen that awaited me: no results found.
As my mouth devoured pizza slice after pizza slice, my gaze stayed on the disappointing screen. Meanwhile, my mind hardly noticed the cheesy goodness entering my mouth.
The realization was literally staring me in the face. Russell Snow was not as he seemed, and this job was looking to be my most difficult yet.
It looked like I had gotten what I’d wished for: a job, though what a job it was.
Chapter Three
I woke up to red. Red, oozing liquid that smeared as I jerked away in horror, my low moan becoming a sad laugh.
Pizza sauce. I had actually fallen asleep on top of my pizza.
I put my fingers to my cheek, and they came away with red and white goo. Clearly, I had gotten a nice sleep mask of pizza.
I staggered out the door and down the hallway to the bathroom, where I cleaned off my dismal-looking face, and then stumbled back to my office and into my computer chair.
My cell phone screen displayed some worried messages from my friend Tiffany (hey! how are things??) and my mom (Haven’t heard from you. How are you?). The latest text I stared at for a good minute, trying to collect my thoughts. How was I, really?
My gaze flicked back to my now-blank-screened computer. It was a good summary of what all my harried searching last night had produced: nothing. From the scant information that ‘Russell’ guy had given me, I’d gotten nothing, and now I had nothing more to go on.
I switched back to Tiffany’s message and suddenly knew exactly what to do.
Kyle picked up on the first ring. After all, he was a good friend. He had to be, since he was married to my best friend.
“Alex, it’s early. How are you?”
The smirking clock read 7 a.m. Whoops.
“Ha, yeah, but I’m glad you’re up,” I said. “I’m okay. Finally got a client, but this one’s a real head-scratcher. Could you run a search for me?”
“Yeah, sure. But, Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you thought about what Tiffany said?”
“Yeah, I…” My voice trailed off as my gaze did too, settling on the art print Tiffany had gotten me a few weeks ago.
It was on my wall. Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. It was as big as the original, bigger than my windows, but not too big. It was just big enough to suck me into the subject’s soulless stare, her somber-painted dissatisfaction.
“Come on, Combs, you love art, you love me—this is perfect!” Tiffany had declared when she’d given it to me, along with the job offer to work at her gallery.
And she had been right, almost. I did love art, and she was my best friend in the world, and yet her job offer wasn’t perfect. Any job where I wasn’t a private investigator, sleuthing out clues, unearthing secrets, couldn’t be perfect. It just couldn’t be. It was a week ago that I had said no, which had probably been another mistake.
“…She really just wants the best for you,” Kyle was saying. I could almost see his big, white teeth glinting as he said it, his eyes half-lidded, already lost in his calm, talking somnolence. If I’d let him go on, he would have talked for hours. Tiffany too; they both were talkers through and through.
“Kyle,” I said, interrupting, “please, I just really need this search done.”
A pause, and then: “All right, okay. What name am I putting in?”
“Brock,” I said. “His name is Brock Anderson. He has a scar on his left eyebrow.”
“All right. Let me enter the name into the system now.”
After another pause, I asked him, “Do you ever miss it, Kyle?”
“Miss what?”
“The cadets. That last year—Officer Brigley. The excitement.”
He exhaled; I could almost hear his wistful smile on the other end. I didn’t blame him. It had been over 10 years since we had been in the cadets together, and yet sometimes it felt like yesterday: the week-long camping that felt like months, singing campfire songs and tree climbing, the wild rush as our canoe plunged through the rapids.
“Yeah actually, a bit. There’s lots happening at the station most times, but even then, now that you mention it, yeah. Yeah, I do. Why?”
“Because I never do, Kyle. Even though I loved the cadets, I always felt like something was missing. That something was this—sleuthing out, the thrill of the hunt. I can’t stop being a private eye, Kyle. No. I’ll do this job until it drives me to bankruptcy or worse.”
“All right, all right, Alex. I’ll tell Tiffany you’ve made up your mind, though we both know that won’t do much good and—huh.”
“What?”
“We have a file on your guy, Brock Anderson, the guy with the scar. Looks like he’s been suspected in a bunch of things, but he’s never been proven guilty or caught. Actually, we’ve got a reported location on him now: Nederland.”
“Nederland. That’s…”
“Just a 30-minute, 40 tops, drive away.”
“Yeah. You’re right. So why haven’t you guys picked him up yourself?”
“Got bigger fish to fry. We have this crazy multiple murder case that has everyone in the office up in arms.”
“Ah, okay. Could you send me an email with the picture of him so I know just who to look for? And thanks, Kyle.”
“Sure. Any time. And, Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t seen…him, have you?”
“Who?” I said, though really, I knew already. I finally said the cursed name in a hush. “Charlie?”
“Yeah. He’s…well, he’s back in town. I just thought you might—”
“No, Kyle. No way. We are over, long over. He hasn’t contacted me, and even if he did, I wouldn’t want to see him. Not ever.”
Kyle didn’t say anything, though I could tell he wasn’t convinced. I didn’t bla
me him. Charlie and I had been on and off so many times that I’d lost count.
Finally, he said, “Just be careful, eh?”
“Yeah, yeah. You know me.”
I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. Kyle had always been like an older brother to me, constantly worrying and looking out for me. But for the first time, I couldn’t quite laugh off his fears.
I clicked on the computer screen, where my former search for “Russell Snow Boulder” was showing no results. I should’ve asked Kyle about Russell Snow too, though I was secretly glad I had forgotten.
I went to my email, clicked on the attachment, and printed out the disappointingly low-quality photo.
Taking the still-warm paper into my hands, I stared into the eyes of the mysterious man I was hunting, who, in every line of his face, clearly had something to hide.
Yes, something told me this was no ordinary case.
Chapter Four
The drive to Nederland was a race against time. Agitated apprehension impelled me on, urging my foot to press harder on the gas. The car zipped ahead, and I pressed it on and on, all my thoughts focused on going faster, getting closer to my goal.
It was only once the trip was a third done that I noticed the almost unbroken line of trees lining the road on either side. Already I was nearing Wheelman, and it felt like I had just gotten into the car. Maybe it was because I was entranced by the printout I had beside me: Mr. Brock Anderson in his full, blurry glory. Every time I glanced over, his pixelated eyes seemed to be mocking me.
“I will find you,” I told him. “Wherever you are, I will.”
And to myself, I silently added, I have to.
Turning on the radio produced the final chords of some song I didn’t know. The next song, from the first twangs of the guitar and melody of the harmonica, however, was unmistakable. It was the song Charlie had serenaded me with in the middle of the night, guitar in hand, right outside my apartment window, yell-singing over my neighbors’ curses and a dog’s howls.