Racing Through Darkness

by G. K. Parks

  “I don’t want anyone at the company to know what’s going on. If there is a leak, gossip will spread like wildfire and the culprit could cover their tracks or point the finger at someone else. Do you think with access to the files, the leaked information, and the internal computer systems you could locate the individual responsible quickly and quietly?”

  “There is no guarantee, but honestly, I won’t know until I have a chance to look into it. I thought you were under the impression the management consulting firm was responsible for the leaks.”

  She tilted her chin up and stared down at me. “Ah, it seems Jamie has let on more than I thought he would.”

  “Mr. Martin prefers to clue his employees in on the whole picture. Bits and pieces result in incorrect conclusions or miscommunications.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Sorry, it’s just the way you characterize him. He’s not the same man I once knew. In B-school he studied hard and played hard, but to get a straight answer out of him about anything was like pulling teeth.” She stared off into the distance, remembering some long-forgotten detail. “C’est la vie, right? Back then, he was so conflicted. I always imagined he’d be that guy, the statistic, the one that graduates top of his class and everyone thinks he’ll become something, but ten years later, he’s living out of a cardboard box. If only I had been psychic.”

  I remained silent. The reason I was in her hotel suite wasn’t to listen to her go on about how she wished she was still with Martin. “Shall I look into the management team first? Or would you prefer I start with an internal review of your personnel, system, and files?”

  “Alexis,” she paused, “you don’t mind if I call you Alexis, do you?”

  “It’s my name.” Bitch.

  “Alexis,” she smiled, “I’ll give you whatever you need, but you can start anywhere you like. If Jamie trusts that you know what you’re doing, then so will I.”

  “Very good, ma’am. If you could have the information on the management consultants forwarded to me, I would like to begin there. They seem the most likely cause of the breach. In the event that is a dead end, then I will require access to more sensitive internal information.” I gave her my card. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not at the moment.” She showed me to the door. “The files will be sent to you tonight. I will be in town for the next week and a half. Hopefully, this will all be fixed before I fly home.” Don’t forget your broom.

  * * *

  On my way home, I detoured to the OIO. Being persona non grata with the PD and FBI likely meant I would also be shunned by my former brethren, but to my surprise, I was greeted amicably by the Interpol liaison, Patrick Farrell.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d see if you found anything on those names I gave you.” He scooted a few photocopies across the desk. “Also, I have one last favor.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Someone at Interpol pulled my file a couple of days ago. Any way of finding out who it was?”

  “I can do some digging, but our offices are worldwide. Maybe I can call some of the IT security personnel and have them check, but if it was the physical dossier, there’s no way of knowing.” He scrutinized my expression. “Are you afraid there’s been a breach?”

  “No. Nothing like that.” I shook my head and told him everything I knew about Mercer. “If I can figure out who he contacted, maybe I can get some more information on the jackass.”

  “I’ll do what I can but don’t hold your breath.”

  Checking the time, I needed to get back to work. Heathcliff was alone in my apartment, possibly raiding my panty drawer. I just parked my car when my phone rang.

  “Parker, the blood report came back.” Thompson was practically giddy. “It was leukoreduced.”

  “Thompson, speak English.”

  “It was donor blood.” I leaned my head back and took a deep breath. “Catherine might still be alive.” When his proclamation was met with silence, he asked, “Parker, are you still there?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t think to put a sentence together. She might be alive, and if she was, then we had to find her. “O’Connell?” Luckily my one word question was understood.

  “He knows. He’s staying at his sister’s in case the kidnappers call back with a new demand.”

  “It doesn’t mean,” I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest of the sentence. “Um…now what?”

  “Now we work that much harder to find these assholes.”

  Twenty-one

  Inside my apartment, Heathcliff and I restarted the investigation. With the possibility that Catherine was alive, anything or anyone could lead to her location. Although, my subconscious was being a pessimist. Just because the blood wasn’t Catherine’s, it didn’t mean she wasn’t dead. Why would the Four Seasons leave a note basically solidifying that fact if they were still planning on cashing in on their third hostage? Maybe it was just to dramatize her death. Perhaps they couldn’t risk us finding the body when they still had the Estes family on the hook for four million, possibly in unrefined gold ore.

  I felt Heathcliff’s hand on my shoulder, and I looked up. My eyes were closed, and my face was in my hands as I tried to force myself to be positive. Clearly, I was failing miserably. “I thought you were going to clear your head. Is this self-pity, or are you actually thinking about something useful?”

  “Why did they leave the note? The blood was scary enough. Was it supposed to conceal the actual location of the body?” My stomach flip-flopped, and I was suddenly nauseous.

  “Don’t make me kick you out of your own apartment again,” he warned. “Let’s not focus on the why. We have two more important and pressing questions to answer. Who and where.”

  “You and the damn owls,” I bitched. “All this ‘who’ crap. Sheesh. But our who is some douchebag who refers to himself as Winter and the rest of his team, affectionately dubbed the Four Seasons. Maybe he thinks the name is apropos since he tends to send a chill through my veins.”

  “Funny. Okay, so we have a pseudonym for the who. Any clue as to where?”

  “We’ve been through this a hundred times. A warehouse, the wharf, an airstrip, some storage units. Who the hell knows?”

  “We’re still going about this wrong.” He went to the wall and rearranged some of the notes we pinned up. He was muttering to himself as he reworked half our notations. “Three children are missing from a school field trip.” He was facing the wall but speaking out loud. I wasn’t sure if it was to me or himself. “Normally, we’d try to find the connection. Why these three? Why then? But we can see the connection. They were all from the same school and all together on a field trip. The kidnapping could have been convenience or opportunity. Maybe it would have been a different group of kids or one or two, instead of three. Who knows? Who the fuck cares?”

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one losing it. He continued to ramble as I skimmed through the paperwork Farrell provided on Bastian, Hans, and Donovan. Nothing important was listed. They may or may not have been on the same SAS team as Mercer. It was merely more redactions and a brief physical description of each man. The Brits really knew how to protect the identities of their assets.

  “Someone at the school is responsible,” his determination drew my attention. “No one was staking out the museum, waiting for an opportunity. We don’t even see the girls on the security cam footage. They weren’t taken because they were at the museum. They were taken because someone knew where they would be.”

  “Holy shit.” I put the disk containing the museum footage into my computer and let it play through. “They weren’t taken from the museum.”

  “No?” His eyes brightened as understanding dawned on him. “They were taken from the school, but how did we miss this?”

  “Mercer said it. The Estes family told him the girls were taken from the museum. I ran through the school footage and didn’t see anything. We watched the museum footage and sti
ll nothing. But the school makes more sense since the chaperones didn’t realize the headcount was off.”

  “It wasn’t off since they were never there. We need to talk to the teacher,” he surmised.

  As Heathcliff made a few phone calls, I let the wheels turn inside my brain. The girls were supposed to be going on a field trip. It required them to arrive at school, turn in permission slips, and then board the bus which would take them to the museum. Whoever grabbed them had to time it just right, so the school officials wouldn’t notice when they went missing and not be suspicious when they didn’t go on the field trip.

  “I have a meeting with the principal and their primary teacher set for 3:30. Do you want to come?” Heathcliff asked, jolting me from my thought process. I had already been to the school once and didn’t need to risk getting myself or Heathcliff into any more trouble.

  “No,” I met his eyes, “but I think I know how they were taken without anyone noticing. Someone must have discarded the permission slips and then abducted the girls after they arrived at school but before getting on the bus.”

  “Do you realize what that might mean?” I nodded. “Great, so a parent or teacher is responsible for this whole mess.”

  “I’d say the Seasons are pros, but an insider would be a useful accomplice. Maybe someone took a bribe to look the other way. I don’t know, but teacher salaries are probably as shitty as cop salaries.” I shrugged. “We need financials on everyone, and I can’t get them. Hell, you can’t either since Moretti is prohibiting you and Thompson from working this.”

  “It’s for O’Connell. I’ll pass it on to Thompson, and he’ll tell the detective in charge of the investigation to run with it.”

  “What are we doing in the meantime?” I hated being on the outside looking in. I hadn’t worked any cases in months because I wanted distance from this life and this job, and at this particular moment, I would have given anything to be an official police consultant or even have my badge and job at the OIO back.

  “Look,” he stood up and put his jacket on, “I’m going to the precinct to see what I can find out. Then I’ll head to the school for my appointment.” He attempted a sly grin, but neither of us was in a pleasant enough mood for it to be convincing. “And whatever I discover I’ll pass along to Thompson, and he’ll run it by when his shift ends. I’m supposed to be back at work by six tonight, so I’ll see you when I see you. Maybe you should call up some of your buddies and see if anyone is monitoring Mercer. Officer Taylor said they lost track of him, but wasn’t there a federal agent tailing him?”

  “I’ll check.” This was what we needed, a plan of attack. “If anything urgent surfaces,” there was still the very likely possibility Catherine’s body would be discovered, “call. If not, I’ll try to find Mercer. I wish the Cales didn’t cut our access. Hell, even the Estes family could be helpful if they were willing to cooperate.”

  “Maybe Thompson can smooth the waters and with a bit of coaxing get us back in the Cales’ good graces. Meanwhile, you and I are both on Nick’s shit list, so we’ll give him plenty of space until he cools down. Got it?” His suggestion sounded a little like a threat.

  “You don’t have to lump yourself in with me. You could easily go see O’Connell, complain about what a conniving, self-righteous bitch I am, and I’m sure you’d be his best friend.”

  “Well, then maybe I don’t want to deal with him right now.” I saw the anger in his eyes, and I knew it was because of what Nick said about Derek’s old partner. Some wounds never heal; they just stop bleeding until someone rips into them again.

  After Derek left, I studied the wall for another couple of minutes. I knew we were right. The girls were abducted before they went on their field trip, and the person responsible was either a parent or school official. Neither of these possibilities restored any faith I lost in the human race. Calling this the civilized world was a joke.

  Dialing the OIO, I waited as the call was shuffled around from person to person until I got a final negative response. Mercer eluded his tail. We were blind. Sighing, I picked up my car keys, locked my apartment, and drove to Mercer’s rental. I had no qualms about breaking in to determine if he changed locations. Luckily, I didn’t have to go through all that trouble for an answer. As I pulled up, I spotted the rental car that Bastian and Donovan drove.

  Knocking loudly on the door, I waited, but no one answered. I felt the hood of the SUV, but it was cold. Wherever they were, they hadn’t been here in a while. “What the hell,” I muttered, pulling out my lock picks. There was no reason why I couldn’t make myself at home in the meantime.

  I shut the door, turned on the lights, and physically checked for surveillance equipment and booby-traps. Mercer seemed to be just delusional enough to believe that someone would break in to his apartment to spy on him. I wondered if it was paranoia or pragmatism since I broke in for that particular reason but decided not to worry about it. All’s fair in love and war, and while this probably wasn’t either, this was a life or death situation. I just hoped the correct answer was life and not death. Catherine was so young. I shook the thoughts from my brain and perused the surveillance footage and documentation Mercer compiled.

  The hours flew by, but I wasn’t any closer to actual answers. The photos were all of similar looking locations. The maps marked hangar bays, warehouses, shipping yards, and the docks. It meant nothing. As I was getting ready to give up, I came across a file folder concerning the Estes family and Adalina.

  “Did you want to test my conviction for putting a bullet through you?” Mercer asked. His Sig was out and pointed at me.

  “Where have you been?” I didn’t react to the firearm as I continued to read as much of the file as I could, knowing Mercer would confiscate it as soon as possible.

  “Get out.”

  “Aww, let her stay.” I heard Bastian yell from the next room. “She makes you so much more fun to be around.”

  “I went to the drop. Before I even had a chance to leave the money,” I put the folder down and stared at him, searching for an ounce of compassion, “the pier was painted red in blood. The police don’t believe it’s hers, but there’s been no communication since. She’s dead, isn’t she?” I felt my chin tremble, and I locked my jaw in place to hide any signs of weakness. He was not a person to show weakness to.

  “Perhaps.” Everything about him remained unyielding.

  “What do I do?”

  “Leave.”

  I stood up, not sure if my aggression would remain contained long enough to walk past him without laying a hand on him. “Did you get the Estes girl back?” My voice remained low, cold, and detached.

  “Not yet. Negotiations are still being made.” He jerked his gun toward the door. “Out.”

  “Funny,” I sounded cynical, “for someone so set on being a huge pain in my ass, you’re doing an awful lot of talking.”

  “He’s a pain in everyone’s arse,” Bastian offered as I went into the next room. “Here’s the thing, love. We have proof of life but nothing else. After your blunder, the Estes family changed the play.”

  “Bastian,” Mercer snarled, “silence.”

  “Pish,” Bastian was either ballsy or stupid, “you don’t know where they are or what they want either. Why not work with the Yanks to figure this out, especially the leggy ones.”

  Mercer opened the front door. His gun was still unholstered and pointed in my general direction. “You need to learn to listen. Next time, I won’t be so nice.”

  “You still have my number. Just remember, we’re on the same side. If you hear anything about Catherine, please,” my voice betrayed my begging, and Mercer slammed the door in my face. Asshole.

  Twenty-two

  By the time I got back to my apartment, Thompson was already there. I wasn’t used to coming home to company, and he watched as I attempted to conceal my drawn weapon. Giving up, I put it on the counter.

  “I went to see Mercer. He needs to work on sharing, but from what
I gather, Adalina is still alive.”

  “Does he have any idea where the girls might be,” Thompson asked. He said girls, which meant at least one of us was still holding out hope for a positive outcome. The only problem with being positive was the disappointment in being wrong.

  “I don’t think so. Although, he’s not forthcoming. Did anything turn up for you or Heathcliff?”

  “Moretti got wind of what we were doing.” He rolled his eyes. “Needless to say, the Chief of Detectives had a nice chat with our department.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Yep,” he gritted his teeth and jerked his head to the side as if he wanted to throw off an invisible shackle, “Jacobs is in charge of the investigation. Under no circumstances are we to investigate, snoop, or otherwise insinuate ourselves into the missing person’s case.”

  “Missing person?” My mouth dropped. “Catherine Cale was kidnapped.”

  “No shit. But the PR is a nightmare, so until further notice, she’s a missing person. The Cales want us out of their business. Nick’s on sick leave. So we’re painting a lovely, flowery, version of events.” Before I could say anything else, Thompson pulled a pile of folded papers from his breast pocket and put them on my counter. “I’m going to see Jen. If anyone can talk some sense into my partner, it’d be her.”

  “Did Heathcliff tell you about this morning?”

  He nodded as he continued toward my door. “Thanks for keeping your cool.” He turned in the doorway. “Parker, you didn’t deserve it.” I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed. “I’ll stay as close to O’Connell as I can get. Maybe he’ll divulge something or pave the way for me to talk to his sister. You and Derek fly under the radar and figure out who’s on the inside.”

  After he left, I leaned against my front door and stared at the ceiling. No matter how much progress we were making, it wasn’t enough. The clock was ticking or maybe time already ran out. Catherine had been gone for ten days. How much longer could she remain missing?