by Jim Heskett
She hesitated for a split second, like a computer unsure how to process the previous command. “That is accurate. Negotiations to build here were not difficult at all, actually.”
Victoria opened the door and eyed him as he walked inside. She ushered him down a hall and then into an office. Log cabin themed, just like the rest of the facilities. But she displayed a few things that didn’t fit with the rest of the decor, like a pair of swords and flashy artwork hung on the walls. Large things like paint splashes.
Layne didn’t get art. He rarely even tried.
“Please,” she said as she sat at her desk. “Have a seat. I promise I won’t keep you for too long.”
He sat and held open his palms. “How can I help you?”
“We have to have a bit of an uncomfortable conversation, I’m afraid.” She tented her fingertips and adopted a pained expression.
The hair on the back of Layne’s neck prickled. “Okay.”
“We take the security of our guests very seriously. You could say that, at Squamish Mountain Retreat Center, our top priority is to provide a place where guests feel they have a safe environment to be themselves as they learn and grow. Anything that comes in conflict with that safety will be dealt with in swift order.”
His first thought was that someone had seen him breaking into Rudy’s bungalow last night. Maybe he’d missed a security camera somewhere? But no, that couldn’t be possible. He and Harry had conducted a thorough tech sweep. Also, he’d been certain no one saw him approach, and he’d left no evidence behind, as far as he knew.
“And what does this have to do with me?”
She leaned forward and fixed her gaze on the injuries on his face. The cuts weren’t as noticeable as they had been yesterday morning, but he did have a hint of a black eye on one side.
“Fighting will not be tolerated.”
He smiled and made a split-second decision to push a narrative he didn’t think would work, but was worth a try. “Oh, I see. The black eye. This is a misunderstanding. There hasn’t been any fight. Just an icy patch on the ground and I guess, since I’m on the wrong side of forty, I’m not as quick as I used to be when it comes to getting my hands up in front of my face when I’m falling.”
Victoria didn’t blink, didn’t smile, didn’t move an inch in her chair. She took a breath and said, “fighting will not be tolerated, Leonard. This is the only time we will have this discussion.”
Certainty burned in her eyes. Layne knew there was no point in fighting it. All the tradecraft and smooth talk in the world wasn’t going to sway this woman, so he decided not to waste his energy.
Layne simply said, “understood.”
“I appreciate you taking ownership of your side in this. As for the other party involved, you can be sure we will issue the same message to him, as well.”
Layne studied her, noting how her eyes danced over his face. That last statement had been pure smoke. They didn’t know who’d attacked him, either. If they did, they would have brought them both in here and interviewed them sequentially, like kids waiting outside the principal’s office.
“You’ll get no more trouble from me,” he said.
Victoria sat back, offering a smug smile. In her expression, Layne felt a tinge of deceit. And, for the first time, a new possibility dawned on him. When the two former guests had been indicted for human trafficking, the retreat center had been investigated. There was zero evidence of anyone involved in the SMRC being complicit in the buying and selling of young slaves.
But what if the initial assessment had been wrong?
The look in Victoria’s eyes told Layne she knew something, at least. More than she let on. She knew something she was hiding deep down inside, in the dark recesses of her brain.
11
Serena placed her latte and bagel on the small table at Voxx coffee and brushed the wig’s blonde hair out of her eyes. She’d come here for breakfast, too, which felt like pushing it. But after failing to track down the blue-eyed Asian three days ago, she’d been in a bad way. Failure of this magnitude for such an extended period was a feeling she had little experience with.
The door opened, and Daphne Kurek strutted inside. A woman in her early forties, Daphne glided with her shoulders back and her chin up. Classically elegant in a pea coat and large sunglasses. She boasted a trim figure and only a few strands of gray threaded through her tight brunette curls. Serena hoped in fifteen years, she would look as put-together as her boss did now.
Daphne patted moisture from her hair as she tilted her head toward a table in the back corner, away from all the other patrons. When Serena shifted to that table, Daphne set her purse down on the floor and slid into the opposite chair.
“No coffee for me?” Daphne asked. “Not saying I wanted some, but it would have been nice for you to offer.”
“Good morning, Control.”
“Lighten up a little, please.” Daphne looked at her watch. “Also, it’s afternoon, now. How long have you been coming to this coffee shop?”
“Three days.”
Daphne sucked air through her teeth. “Seems flimsy.”
“He’ll show.”
“If you’re sure. Blonde suits you, by the way.”
“Thank you, but I disagree. How was your flight?”
Daphne sighed. “Long and boring. I was seated with this other woman in an aisle. Just the two of us across three seats. I’d hoped I could stretch out a little, but the woman had some expensive hat from Cambodia or someplace, and she insisted on sheltering it in the empty seat between us. I offered her a hundred bucks to put it under her seat, and she wouldn’t do it. Some people, you know?”
Serena smiled and said nothing. Daphne reached into her purse and lifted a pack of Camel cigarettes, then slid them across the table. Serena accepted the cigarettes and dropped them into her own purse, neither of them acknowledging in any physical way that the transaction had occurred.
“Thank you,” Serena said.
“My pleasure. But, I have a bit of bad news.”
“Okay.”
“We can only keep you out here for a couple more days. Three or four, max. Funding is tight.”
Serena gripped the coffee hard enough to cause the plastic lid to pop off on one side.
Daphne’s eyes flicked down to the coffee. “I understand you’re upset. Sending our boys up north is eating up a lot of funding. Don’t take it personally.”
“I need more time and resources.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have the time or the resources to give, Serena. Do what you can with what you have. This is how it works out sometimes.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can only follow one target at a time if I don’t have any backup. Forget about ordering satellite surveillance. I don’t have tracking equipment I can use freely because I can’t risk it getting lost or destroyed. Everything is on loan from other agencies, and they could demand we return it at any time.”
Daphne frowned and pushed out her lower lip, adopting a look of empathy. Serena couldn’t tell if it was real or a sham. “It won’t always be this way. I’m working on getting better funding in the future, but these things require finesse. It’s going to take time to re-establish our standing.”
“I understand. It’s frustrating, but I understand.”
“You’re doing excellent work,” Daphne said. “When I recruited you, I just knew. So far, I’ve been right.”
“Thank you. How are Layne and Harry?”
Daphne smirked with one corner of her mouth. “I see that twinkle in your eye. You worried about Boy Scout?”
Serena huffed a sigh. She had no interest in playing this game with Daphne. Serena knew Daphne wasn’t jealous, but she liked to pretend, probably because it amused her. “I don’t think it’s out of bounds for me to check in on the other members of my team. What they’re doing up there affects me.”
“Okay, okay. Fair point. It’s slow going. There’s been some inclement weather since the
y’ve arrived. Problems with cell reception. We made the drone drop for them but had to leave it a couple miles from the retreat center campus. The drone crashed on the way out, though. Windy and wet. Hard to pilot through all the muck.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
Daphne flicked her wrist. “The drone? No. It can’t be tied back to us. But the lack of communication could be a problem, yes. Harry, in particular, is spinning his wheels with access problems. Hopefully, this weather will clear up in a day or two.”
The door opened, and there he was. One of the room guards from the card game. But, it wasn’t either of the two men who had accosted her in the back room. That fact improved her chances of approaching him unnoticed.
The tip about his favorite coffee shop had paid off. Serena leaned forward and gave a quick glance toward the door. “I need to hurry.”
“I’ll go powder my nose,” Daphne said as she rose from the table and walked toward the back of the coffee shop.
The line to get a coffee was only one person deep, and she didn’t want to execute her plan while he was giving his order. That would not only trim her window of opportunity, it would also put the attention of the barista on her, too. The fewer eyes, the better.
Serena stood and lowered her head as she made for the front of the building. She slid on her glasses and let some of the fake blonde hair fall over the edges of her cheeks. On her way, she flexed her hand just before she bumped into him.
“Oops,” she said, making sure she pointed her face away from his field of view.
“Watch where you’re going,” the guy said. Using her peripheral, she checked where he was looking. His eyes were down, not on her face. Good.
“Yes. Sorry about that.”
Serena, with her shoulders and head pointed away from him, continued out and into the street. As soon as she was there, she turned right, past the building, toward the alley behind the coffee shop. Once clear of view from the glass front door, she broke into a run. Wouldn’t take the guy long to realize she’d stolen his wallet.
12
Layne and Harry exited the afternoon session. Each of them picked up a vegan muffin on the way out, and they paused in front of a bay window overlooking the mountains to eat them. Layne bit off a mouthful and then resisted the urge to spit it all over the window.
Harry squinted off into the distance, brow creased.
“What is it?” Layne asked, looking around for a trash can to pitch his muffin.
Harry shook his head. “Nothing. Thought I saw something over there, like a blinking thing off in the distance. The afternoon light’s a little weird right now. It’s probably just me.”
Layne tried to follow Harry’s line of sight, to a spot on a mountain peak a mile or two away. He saw nothing in the general area. Just a craggy peak covered with snow.
Harry shrugged. “I’m going to go back to the room and play video games. I’ve got a blank spot in my schedule for the next two hours.”
Layne knew what Harry meant. He wasn’t playing games, he was digging up info on Rudy Costello and Victoria Overton. Using NSA, CIA, and FBI databases to put together profiles on them and other prominent guests and employees of the SMRC. Not that Harry technically had legit access to those databases, but one benefit of working for a government organization without a name and with no oversight was no one could tell them not to hack into those databases.
“I think I’ll go with you,” Layne said. “Take a quick nap.” Ideally, he’d want to do another sweep of Rudy Costello’s bungalow, or maybe hunt around outside it. They hadn’t seen Rudy at all this morning. Despite the strange meeting with Victoria earlier that sparked their suspicion of her, Layne wasn’t convinced Rudy had nothing to do with what was going on here.
They had to find a break in this investigation soon.
When they stepped outside, something caught Layne’s eye. A man passing between two of the classroom buildings on the west side of campus, a few hundred feet away. “Go on ahead,” Layne said. “I’m going to check out a thing.”
Harry shuffled off, and Layne walked in the direction he’d seen the skulking person. He was reasonably certain this wasn’t the same guy who had previously sneaked into the woods to make out with a housekeeper. No, this figure Layne had seen today was the exact size and shape of the man who he had scuffled with in the woods two nights ago. The person he hadn’t seen on campus since that incident.
Layne balled his gloved fists and headed in that direction. He wasn’t positive what he’d do when he caught up to the guy. Push him up against the nearest vertical surface, demand to know who he knew in the trafficking game? Maybe that wasn’t the smartest idea.
Tailing him to see if he was going to a clandestine meet-up would be a better plan. Either way, Layne hustled to cover the distance from where he had last seen the guy.
Layne snaked along the walkways, slick with a few fresh inches of wet snow sitting atop the deep base of packed snow underneath. The maintenance staff seemed to have given up trying to keep the campus clear. They were more in damage-control mode now, only shoveling the highest traffic areas and salting the staircases to buildings.
Layne skirted between the two classroom buildings where he had seen the man disappear. Beyond that, there was a gazebo area and a pair of fenced-in tennis courts.
And as Layne emerged from the two buildings, a figure appeared to his left, on a collision course.
Victoria Overton. Layne smacked right into her, at considerable speed, and she didn’t flinch. She should have been knocked to the ground, but she didn’t seem to be affected at all by crashing into his hulking mass. For such a small person, she had considerable strength.
“Excuse me, Mr. Priest,” she said, looking up at him, hands in her pockets. “I didn’t see you there.”
Layne peered over her shoulder, surveying the area at this edge of the campus. As far as he could see, it was deserted.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
His visual search turned up nothing except for an open area, devoid of any humans sneaking around. “No, I suppose not. I was looking for the instructor of the Wake Up and Stretch! class. Thought I noticed her over here.”
“Oh, I see,” Victoria said, suspicion coloring her eyes. “I would be happy to pass along a message. We have a staff meeting later today.”
“No. No message. It can wait until tomorrow’s session.”
“Very well. Good day, Mr. Priest.”
She pivoted and strode past him, her boots crunching through the snow. Layne hesitated a moment, squinting along the open space, trying to find any hint of motion. The unknown man had vanished.
Maybe he’d never been out here, skulking around. The constant never-ending snowfall was possibly playing tricks on Layne’s vision, like Harry seeing a strange, mythical winking light off in the distance.
With a sigh, Layne ventured back toward the main campus, using the same path Victoria had taken. But, when he emerged from the buildings into the main part of campus, she'd already headed back toward the admin building. He pivoted in the other direction to return to his bungalow.
Without warning, a scream erupted from his left. Layne swiveled toward it, ready to sprint. But there was no action outside. Just a few people paused mid-activity, now hunting around for the source of the distress.
The front door to Rudy’s bungalow swung open, and out ran a housekeeper, wearing her uniform with no coat over it. The same woman Layne had seen making out with the random retreat employee a couple days before.
Fog streamed from her mouth as she panted. Her eyes bugged out, her fingers froze into claws.
“Someone help, please,” she moaned. “Mr. Costello is dead!”
Part II
Hot Cocoa With Marshmallows
13
Serena raced to the edge of the building with the card game guard’s wallet clutched in her hand. She knew she had a minute, maybe thirty seconds, until the guard realized his wallet had been stolen.
Around the alley, she whipped out her phone and opened the camera app. With her other hand, she plucked various items from the wallet. Credit card receipts, loose bills, license, business cards. She snapped pictures of everything she could, working as fast as her hands would move. But, she also had to be careful not to drop anything in the muck of the damp alley below.
In her head, she had a vision of Daphne standing over her shoulder, ordering her to work faster. To work harder. To work smarter. That no matter what budgetary or time constraints Serena had to deal with, she would be judged harshly at the end of this operation.
Serena knew the cost. The lives of children were at stake.
Seconds ticked by. Once she had taken pictures of everything important, she shoved each item back into the wallet. With a deep breath, she examined it one more time to make sure everything was in the right spot.
She spun on her heels, slammed her phone into her pocket, and raced back toward the front of the building. When she rounded the corner of the alley, there he was, standing in front of the Voxx Coffee front door. Eyes searching the ground.
She screeched to a stop before he could spot her and then leaped back, so the edge of the alleyway shielded her body from view. Serena needed a new plan. For a brief second, she considered walking up to him and handing over the wallet, pretending as if she'd found it. But, even with the blonde wig, he would most certainly scrutinize her and recognize her from the game. Also, if she came at him from this direction, he’d be too suspicious. She needed to approach him from inside the coffee shop.
Instead, she would need to get creative. Do the best you can with what you have, the imaginary Daphne on her shoulder said.
Serena jogged back into the alley and around the side of the building. There had to be a way to make it look natural. To drop the wallet into his hand without him thinking anything was amiss about it.