by Mike Nappa
“Hey, it happens. Might also want to call 911 and anonymously report a break-in at your office. Maybe they’ll catch Dr. Smith and Ugly Goon still there, and we won’t have to worry about them for the time being.”
“Fine.” She took the phone. The 911 call was easy and over quickly. The one to Eulalie Jefferson was not so much. The assistant was clearly disappointed but also distressingly sympathetic.
“I understand, Ms. Coffey,” Eulalie said on the other end of the call. “I appreciate that you gave me a chance with your agency.”
“No, really, you’ve been great, Eulalie,” Trudi said, “and when I get back, I’ll be sure to give you a glowing letter of recommendation. It’s just a little family emergency, and I have to shut down the office for a while. It’s nothing personal, I promise.”
“Thank you,” she said. Then, “Are you okay? Is there anything you need? Do you want me to pick up your mail for you or anything?”
Stupid, thoughtful people, Trudi thought. They can never make my life easy, can they?
“Oh, hey,” Trudi said, “that’s really nice of you. But no. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay,” Eulalie said. “Well, I’ll be praying for you. And if you need anything, or you know, if you’re ever looking for a new assistant . . .” She laughed nervously.
“Yes, you’ll be the first person I call. Thanks, Eula.” She hung up and felt awful.
“Wow,” Samuel said, “you really stink at firing people.”
“Shut up.”
Trudi leaned over and turned on the radio, pushing the search button until it landed on music, any music, and then turning up the volume. It was the eighties duo Hall and Oates singing the lullaby-ballad “Sara Smile.” Trudi cursed softly and reached to change the station.
“No, leave it,” Samuel said. “It’s okay. It’s just a song. And it’s a good song.”
She nodded, and let her head fall back against the headrest.
Trudi felt suddenly tired, emotionally worn out. She closed her eyes. When Samuel had first discovered that her middle name was Sara, he’d picked this song as “their song.” Whenever he wanted to cheer her up, he'd launch into a slightly off-key rendition of “Sara Smile,” and no matter how bad, or how mad Trudi was, it always made her smile. Now it just made her sad.
“You’re an idiot, Samuel Hill,” she said through closed eyes. You had everything, she thought. We had everything. And you threw it all away.
“Yeah, I still love you too,” he said. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “But I know where we are now, and I know why. My own fault, I get it. But it doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. Not ever.”
“Sheesh,” she said, “you must really want that stuff Truck left in the book.”
He laughed. “Well, I am curious about it,” he said. “What was it, anyway?”
“Oh no,” she said, glad that she’d managed to change the subject. “That stuff is mine. You gave it to me for Christmas, remember? You’re going to have to at least buy me dinner before you get anything.”
“Saving your life from kidnappers wasn’t enough?”
“For the record, I had everything under control, and technically, I saved your life. You didn’t even see those guys until one of them stuck a gun to your head.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“And besides, if I hadn’t given you the book, I wouldn’t have been in trouble at all. I could have just given them the Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and been done with it.”
“Not while you kept whatever Truck hid in the secret compartment. They’d have come back for that within twenty-four hours.”
“That raises another question, Mr. Hill. What took you so long to come back?”
“Ah, so you wanted me to come back? That’s nice.”
“No, I—oh, just answer the question.”
“I had to take a meeting. And then I was distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
Samuel Hill’s face slid into a stare, eyes flat and looking inward. Trudi felt the playfulness drain out of his body. “I don’t know if I should tell you,” he said. “I think it might be better, might be safer for you, if you don’t know.”
“Look,” Trudi said, “I’ve already been kidnapped once because of you. And now I’m on the run from who-knows-who, hiding out with no one to count on but my ex-husband. I can’t even go home, not yet, not until I know Dr. Smith and his cronies have been taken care of. So I think I’m already in this mess, whatever it is.”
Samuel nodded but said nothing. Trudi waited.
“Well,” he said finally, “okay. I guess you’re right. What do you want to know?”
Trudi let her mind loose to think like a detective again. It felt good.
“Let’s start with the meeting.”
“Okay,” Samuel said. “When I got back to the States, I got your message, but it wasn’t the only one. I also got a message from Truck, sent coded in a newspaper. It was a trigger word telling me something Truck was guarding was, well, unsafe.”
“Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“You’re the safe/unsafe couple in the Journal-Constitution? You and Truck?” The romantic in Trudi felt a sense of loss at this realization. She liked it better when she didn’t know who was behind the ad.
“How do you know about the Journal-Constitution?”
“Technically, everybody who reads the Atlanta Journal-Constitution could know about the safe/unsafe ad in the personals section.”
“Yeah, but how do you know what it means? And why would you read the personals section—are you dating someone?”
“I didn’t know.” Trudi answered the first question and ignored the second. “Until now. How was that supposed to work, anyway?”
“Truck made arrangements for someone to send out the message to me every day. As long as it said ‘safe,’ everything was good. But if the message ever was changed to ‘unsafe,’ that meant Truck needed me. I was to get the Poe book and, well, take a meeting.”
“So you got Truck’s message that said ‘unsafe.’ What was he guarding?”
“I don’t think I should tell you that.”
“Okay, fine. So you got the message and then went to meet Truck, is that it?”
“Not exactly. I met one of Truck’s people.”
“And?”
Samuel didn’t answer at first. His eyebrows narrowed and his jaw tensed. Then, finally, he said, “Truck’s dead, Trudi. And best I can figure, this Dr. Jonathan Smith had something to do with it. So before I could get back to your place, I had to spend some time calling in a few favors, trying to find out what I could about Dr. Smith.”
Trudi let the news of Leonard Truckson’s death sink in a moment. This situation had suddenly gotten much more serious. And, if possible, more dangerous.
“What did you find out?”
“Not much yet. But I’ve got a few people working on it.”
“And you think whatever this thing Truck was guarding has something to do with Dr. Smith, and maybe that’s why he was killed?”
“Maybe.”
“So, if they got to Truck, how do you know they didn’t get what he was guarding?”
“Because Dr. Smith was at your place. Because he was still looking for what was hidden in that Poe book. Because what’s hidden in that Poe book is a clue to where Truck hid the whatever-it-is we’re now looking for. And if he still wants that clue, it means he doesn’t have what he’s looking for. So we need to find it before Dr. Smith does.”
“We?”
Samuel shrugged. “You got anything better to do this week?”
Trudi didn’t answer at first.
If Dr. Smith had killed somebody already, and if that somebody was Leonard Truckson, then he was no one to be taken lightly. She was glad now she’d run a few volts of electricity through him. But she also knew that her close call with Dr. Smith and the way that she and Samuel had escaped him meant that, from this point on, she was more than
just an incidental obstacle on Smith’s way to the hidden thing. She had now, like it or not, earned the role of an enemy. The enemy of a man who had spent more than a decade tracking down Truck in order to kill him. Until she was out of the picture, Dr. Smith would keep looking. For her. For Samuel. And for whatever it was that Truck had hidden so well for so many years.
“So,” she said at last, “how long until we hit Birmingham?”
15
Trudi
Trudi and Samuel ate dinner at the Denny’s restaurant on Daniel Payne Drive in Birmingham. This was against Trudi’s wishes, as she’d seen an Olive Garden near the freeway that looked like a much better choice. But Samuel was insistent, and when she saw that the young blonde hostess—her name tag read “Shailene”—greeted him like an old friend, she figured she knew why.
“Welcome back,” perky Shailene said. “Always nice to have a repeat customer.”
“Two please,” Trudi interrupted. She didn’t have time for this little girl’s flirty game.
Shailene led them, cheerfully, to a booth in the corner and promised, perkily, that Angela would be over shortly to take their order. When Angela turned out to be a busty brunette working her way through college at Samford University, Trudi decided that she hated all men. And all women under the age of thirty. And Samford University, just for good measure.
They gave Angela their orders, and to his credit, Samuel didn’t let his eyes follow the waitress’s curves as she walked away from the table. Trudi decided to forgive her ex-husband, for now at least, for inheriting a Y chromosome. It was time to get down to business instead.
It hadn’t taken long to make the trip from Atlanta to Birmingham—less than two hours, actually. They’d gotten a room under assumed names at the DoubleTree Hotel on 20th Street. The clerk had been a little surprised when “Mr. and Mrs. Alec Smart” requested two double beds instead of a single king-sized bed, but professionalism prevented her from saying anything about it. Next they stopped in the hotel room long enough for Samuel to drop off his clothing bag and for them to each empty a travel-weary bladder. Then “the Smarts” stepped out to do a little shopping.
By the time Samuel had outfitted Trudi with a few pairs of jeans, some shirts and cotton sweaters, a requisite amount of undergarments, satin pajamas, a new purse, a pair of slip-on shoes, one light coat, and a sassy pair of red suede boots Trudi couldn’t walk away from, she was ready to be done. But on the way back to the hotel, Samuel made one last stop, pulling into the parking lot of Macy’s department store.
“Wait here,” he’d said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
He was gone closer to twenty minutes, but when he returned, he carried a stylish red suitcase, just about the size of an airline carry-on bag. He tossed it heavily in the trunk with Trudi’s new clothes and they went back to the hotel. She showered first, careful to keep Truck’s key and half sheet of paper with her. Samuel hadn’t asked again about those things, but she knew the time was coming. First things first, she supposed.
When he took his turn in the bathroom, Trudi found a stunning red evening dress in the closet. It was size 6, a sleeveless bodycon style with ribbed fabric and crisscrossing straps in the back. There was a red slip and ruby shoes in the closet as well. She was tempted by the gesture, but in the end decided to stick with jeans, a cotton sweater, and comfortable shoes for the night.
When Samuel had emerged from the shower, he was dressed in tan pants, a collarless shirt, and a sport coat. Although he tried to be discreet about it, Trudi noticed the Glock 36 pistol peeking out of the shoulder harness inside his coat. She wished she’d been able to bring along her own Beretta, but Dr. Smith’s untimely visit had prevented that from happening.
Samuel didn’t let on whether he was disappointed or not by her choice of evening wear. He simply grinned and said, “Ready for dinner?”
Trudi sat on the bed and took him in. He had a natural charisma about him, that was true, and just enough gentlemanly charm to keep a girl guessing.
“That’s a pretty dress hanging in the closet,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Seems a bit small for you, though,” she said.
He laughed in spite of himself. “I thought you might want at least one nice outfit,” he said. “You never know, we may need to go to a cocktail party or two before this affair is over.”
She winced inwardly at the word affair but tried not to let it show. He’d done something thoughtful for her, and she didn’t want to be ungrateful.
“Well, thank you,” she said.
“There’s a pair of earrings in the top drawer of the dresser too. If you want them.”
She rose and opened the drawer. Diamonds. Dangly diamonds just like she favored. Was he flirting with her? She resisted the urge to put the new earrings on right then.
“Twenty minutes in Macy’s and you come up with all this? I’d love to see what you could do with a full hour.”
He gave a mock bow.
“The earrings are beautiful,” she said. “And the dress. Thank you.”
He put out his elbow for her. “Dinner, Mrs. Smart?”
“It’d be a pleasure, Mr. Smart,” she said.
Of course, then he’d brought her to Denny’s, where apparently the entire Samford University cheer squad was working the night shift, so that had dampened the mood just a bit. But it was fine. The food was hot, and there was plenty of table space to talk things over. When his plate was empty and hers was nearly so, Angela refilled their coffee cups, and Trudi could tell Samuel was starting to fidget.
“So, who wants to go first?” she said.
“I’m hoping you will,” he said. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“Not everything,” she reminded. He nodded in deference.
“I’ve already told you almost everything.”
“All right,” she said. “I suppose you’ve waited long enough, though I don’t know that what I have is going to be of great value to you.”
“Try me. What did Truck hide in the Poe book? And how did you know it was there?”
She decided to answer his second question first.
“Well, I came across it by accident, right after the divorce. I was sorting through all the things to keep and all the things to throw out, and I came across the book. I know you. You appreciate Poe, but you’re not what anyone would call a real fan. And I started wondering how you’d even thought to get me the book, and how you’d been able to come up with such an expensive collector’s edition. It didn’t take long for the clues to point to Truck.”
“Fine, he gave it to me and said I should give it to you. You’re a brilliant detective. Happy?”
“Well, once I knew it had come from Truck, I got suspicious. From there, it was only a matter of time before I figured out where the secret compartment was. And when I found it, I knew that someday you’d come looking for it. So I took out the contents and left you a note, and that’s where we are today.”
“I see. Nice touch with the little pink note, by the way. Was quite a surprise when we found it.”
Trudi wondered who “we” was in her ex-husband’s words, but he didn’t seem aware that he’d let that slip. So he’d opened the book with someone else, which meant that he probably had been unaware of the secret compartment until the other person showed it to him. She started to worry a little. What if Samuel was just a bit player in one of Truck’s large schemes? What if he didn’t really know what he was up against or what he was doing?
Before they left Birmingham, she decided, she definitely needed to get a gun.
“Anyway, whatever it was you found in that compartment is going to lead us to whatever it is that Truck has hidden all these years. So maybe we should get moving on that?”
Trudi nodded and reached into her new purse. She pulled out the silver key and the half sheet of paper.
“I don’t know what the key goes to,” she said, “but I’d guess some kind of dead bolt lock, which could be anywh
ere in the world. As for the paper, all that’s on it is some kind of math problem.”
She unfolded the half sheet and let Samuel take a look. It read:
AL
9:6-11
31.
111
975,
-86.
809
845
Below the numbers were three geometric shapes. Two rectangles of roughly the same size, situated at a 90 degree angle from each other. Inside the rectangle on the right was a large square, drawn right in the middle.
“Does that make any sense to you?” Trudi asked.
“Some,” Samuel said. “I think. I’m not sure about the math problem, but given Truck’s initial instructions and where we are now, ‘AL’ is most likely a reference to Alabama. Also, the shapes on the bottom are a map.”
“Seriously?” she said. “Two rectangles and a square? That’s a map?”
“If you know what to look for, yes, it is.”
“So what should I be looking for?”
“A hiding place.”
Trudi fell silent.
“But this other stuff doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah,” Trudi said, “Truck must’ve been strung out on LSD when he wrote this. Why don’t you just tell me what you know?”
“Right, okay,” he said. “Let me see what I can explain for you.”
He turned the half sheet so it faced her.
“The rectangles,” he said, “are a property map. Like a diagram. Apparently there are three buildings on this property, here, here, and here.” He pointed in turn to the two rectangles and the square. “Now, what’s tricky about this is the square building.”
“Right,” she said. “If this really is a map, then it looks like the square building is smack-dab inside the rectangular one.”
“If it were a smaller square, I’d agree with you. Then it could be a secret vault, or a hidden safe, or something like that inside the big building. But this square structure is too big for that.”
Secret vault. Hidden safe. Trudi was starting to get a picture of what they were searching for. Samuel continued.
“Meanwhile, I can’t tell you exactly what the numbers mean because, well, I don’t know. I don’t even know if the numbers run in order or if you’re supposed to loop through at intervals or plot them geometrically on a graph or something, if you know what I mean.”