by Dale Mayer
“That’s one way to look at it,” he said. He watched as the couple left. “Did you recognize him?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never met him.”
“So do you actually know if that was her fiancé?”
“Who else would it be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, still staring at him.
She asked, “Is there a problem?”
“I hope not,” he said, but he didn’t stop following them with his gaze.
She turned to look at Killian, and his gaze was hard too. “Okay, I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
Killian turned to look at Jerricho. “We’ll need to confirm that.”
“I know.” And his voice was hard. He turned to face her. “What was Jessie’s last name?”
“Hadrehan, I think,” she said. “Why?”
“Because that man who just picked her up and walked away with her as if she were his fiancée and as if they were fully in love,” he said, “I’m pretty damn sure was a dead ringer for somebody on the Interpol watch list.”
She stared at him. “What? No, no, no, no,” she said. “You don’t understand. That’s her fiancé. That’s the father of her child.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
“I can go one better,” Killian said. “Do you even know if she was pregnant?”
She stared at them and felt the color bleaching from her face. “What are you implying?”
“How long have you worked with her?”
“A few weeks,” she said.
The men studied her. “And who did you work with before that?”
“Somebody else,” she said, raising her hands in the air, frustrated. “Now you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“We have to confirm that man’s identity,” Jerricho said. “Come on. Let’s grab the rental vehicle and get to the hotel.”
Killian led the way, as Jerricho sent short terse text messages.
“How could that possibly be who you are thinking about? It must be a case of mistaken identity,” Brenna said.
“We didn’t come on a commercial flight. This was a special flight, and it feels like we were just used,” he snapped, looking at Killian.
Killian nodded, his face grim.
“What do you mean?” And now Brenna was completely lost and not liking anything about where the ugliness of their thoughts were.
“We’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes,” he said.
And, with that, she hopped up into the center seat of the truck, and Killian and Jerricho slammed the doors shut, as Killian drove to the hotel. She looked at Killian, who hadn’t said two words since getting into the driver’s seat. “If that were true, then what?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” he said.
She let out a slow deep breath. “No way that she was a part of this.”
“Part of what?” he said.
“The kidnapping,” she cried out.
“No, I don’t think she was,” he said. “I did see her the whole time we were transporting all of you, and Jessie was really scared.”
“Yeah,” she said, “that was a pretty rough experience.”
“But, since she was rescued, I’m not so sure what’s going on.”
Brenna had to admit that absolutely nothing made any sense here. She just knew that Jessie was in no way culpable for anything that had gone on. Brenna sighed, sat back, and said, “I need my phone.”
“Yeah, you need to get a new one,” Jerricho said. “We’ll pick you up one.”
“Where from?” she asked. “At the hotel?” She shook her head. “Somehow I thought I’d be visiting with Jessie for a little bit, before she took off. I don’t know why though.”
Jerricho looked at her in surprise. “I don’t know why either,” he said. “When you think about it, she obviously wanted to be with her partner.”
“I know that,” she said, feeling foolish. “I just can’t …” And, with that, she shrugged and subsided into silence.
“When you were singled out, inside the journalist circle,” Jerricho asked, “what was she doing?”
“She was handling her cameras,” she said. “That’s what she does.”
“Any other cameramen with her? Did she have all the same equipment?”
“Yes,” she said, bewildered.
He just nodded.
“Why?”
“That was always an interesting topic as to why you were singled out,” Jerricho said. “Because, in theory, you were a journalist, and you should have safe passage. Not that the system is perfect by any means.”
“Yes, I still don’t understand.”
“We don’t either,” he said. “It’s not like I have any answers for you yet.”
“Okay.” She frowned as she looked at him. “I don’t understand why being singled out would be something to worry you either.”
“Well, it depends. What was she doing over there?”
“She was over there as my photographer, as I’ve told you.” And, this time, she enunciated very clearly, quite pissed off.
Jerricho grinned at her. “Stay angry,” he said. “It’ll keep your brain engaged.” Suddenly they pulled in front of the hotel. He hustled her out and into the lobby.
“Why are we moving as fast as we are right now?” she asked in a tight voice.
He laced his fingers with hers. “Because we could have a problem here.”
“Will you ever explain?”
“Maybe, as soon as we can get to a room,” he said. They quickly checked in and headed up to their room. There he sent off more texts.
She looked at him. “I need an explanation.” She stood, almost vibrating in pain in the center of the room. “What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid,” he said, “Jessie might have had a reason for going over into that part of the world that you don’t know about.”
“And what does that mean?” she asked quietly.
“It means,” Jerricho said, “that there’s every reason to consider that maybe she was involved in something illegal.”
She stared at him in shock. “I can’t believe that would be true.”
“Maybe not. I get that, but I don’t know yet what was going on.”
“Okay, so if she was, what is it that you think could possibly be wrong?”
“I just worry,” he said, “that we don’t know the full picture.”
“Of course not,” she said, “and what you’re telling me right now is incredibly bad news.”
“Possibly, yes,” he said. “Until I get some information, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, her voice tight. She sagged into the single chair in the room. “So what am I supposed to do now?”
“Relax,” he said. “As soon as I get some information, I’ll let you know.”
She sat, staring out the window, wondering what had just happened. She tried to think back over everything that she knew about Jessie and how long she had known her and the things that they had done. This was their first international trip together, and Jessie had seemed completely relaxed and settled into it, but was she? Brenna herself had done quite a few trips up and down the world, but this was her first to Malta, Libya, or Africa.
As she thought about it, she realized that Jessie had asked specifically for this trip. At the time everybody thought that she would fit in probably quite well because she had a similar skin tone and looked more native than she would have, even in western clothes.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Brenna didn’t know, but it definitely hadn’t mattered to her. She liked Jessie well enough, and she hadn’t considered that they would have been in danger, so it hadn’t occurred to Brenna that there would be a problem. They hadn’t had any troubles coming in because they’d been traveling under their journalist passports, along with the other journalists.
And then Brenna stopped, wondering, because she remembered Jessie talking
to somebody. And it hadn’t been very long afterward that suddenly they were slowly moved away from the journalist group. Was it actually the men who had cut them out, or was it Jessie? Hating the suspicion that now crawled up and down her spine, she looked at Jerricho. “It’s possible that Jessie separated us from the other journalists.”
He looked up at her, his gaze sharp. “Explain.”
“It’s hard for me to be certain,” she said, “but she was talking to somebody, who she might have known a little too well, not like a stranger, and then, all of a sudden, we were moved around, supposedly to go to another area. Instead we were separated and put into a vehicle.”
“Did she sound horrified and terrified about the whole thing?”
Brenna thought about it and said, “She was actually really calm.”
“Did she appear to know the people in the vehicle?”
Brenna thought about it for a long moment. “I have no idea. I was too traumatized to notice my surroundings. Although I was nervous and worried, I was calmer because she was calm.”
“As if maybe you were intended to go somewhere else?”
She looked at him, shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just such a blur.”
“When did Jessie start to get really freaked out about it?”
“She got really quiet after we were transferred off to another group of people,” she said.
“As if that wasn’t part of the plan?”
“If there was a plan,” she said, “no, I wouldn’t think that that was part of it.”
“Right,” Jerricho said. “I’m just wondering if she had some other plan, maybe to meet her partner and to potentially spend a life with him, and somehow something else went wrong.”
“It’s possible,” Brenna said, bewildered. “I just don’t know why she wouldn’t have told me.”
“Did she go for a holiday any time before?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t really know where.” She thought about it and then nodded. “And she had been with her partner for a bit before the job too. I don’t know where they were though.” She frowned. “I don’t know that I asked specifically, but I know that she was with him. For some reason, I thought they were in the US.”
“The US is a very difficult place to go,” he said, “particularly if you’re on Interpol’s watch list.”
She took a long slow deep breath. “So you’re assuming that she had a relationship with him, started the job with me, so she had an opportunity to come back over, and now would just take off with him?” she said, staring at him, puzzled. “Why not just take the job and come over and fly away? It’s not as if the country or the borders are closed.”
He nodded. “What if she was carrying something?”
Brenna felt something inside her just freak out from top to bottom. She sagged back and stared at him. “Now I really don’t like what you’re saying.”
“I’m not sure what I’m saying yet,” Jerricho warned. “It’s just something we might have to consider.”
“I don’t want to consider it,” she said faintly. “Besides, what could she possibly be bringing over?”
“Drugs always come to mind,” he said. “Would she have had access to anything at your company?”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know.”
“Any high-profile cases that she might have had information on? Did she know anybody who might have had something to do with this?”
Brenna was still shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he said, “just relax about it right now.”
She snorted. “How am I supposed to do that now?”
“It’s also possible,” Killian said, seated off to the side, “that she came back with something and was supposed to take it to him.” He looked at Jerricho.
“Or,” Jerricho continued, “maybe the boyfriend came to bring in something, and then she was supposed to pick up something and bring it back out again.”
“That’s possible too,” Killian said, “but it’s most likely to be intel then.”
“Wouldn’t they do that digitally?” Brenna asked.
“I don’t know,” Jerricho said. “Depending on how high-profile it is, nobody wants to take a chance. Digital is traceable. Most likely it will be on a USB key or in an even smaller storage device,” he said.
She sucked in her cheeks at that.
Jerricho saw her reaction and asked, “Notice anything like that?”
“She carries a sleek silver thumb drive around her neck, looks like jewelry even,” she said. “I always asked her about it, and she just laughed and said it was pictures. Some she didn’t want to lose.”
“There you go,” he said. “That just moves her up the rank of suspicion.”
“But that’s not fair,” she protested. “She has never done anything in any way to make us suspect her.”
“Not true.”
A knock came at the door. Immediately Killian went to the doorway, and, when he opened it, a package awaited him on the hallway carpet. He picked it up, brought it inside, and said, “Our phones.” He handed one to her and said, “Switch it on, and call Jessie’s number, would you?”
“She won’t still have her phone though.”
They turned and looked at her and said, “But she did have her phone.”
She stared at them. “What are you talking about?”
Killian said, “I saw her at the hotel on hers.”
She stared and said, “What?”
“She had a phone at the hotel.”
Brenna picked up the phone, looked at it, and then quickly dialed the number for Jessie. When she answered at the other end, Brenna asked, “How come you have your phone?”
“What?”
“Jessie, it’s Brenna,” she snapped. “How is it you have your phone?”
“They didn’t take it from me,” she said in a softer voice.
“And you didn’t call for help that whole time?”
“Of course I did,” she snapped. “Why are you talking this way?”
“Because it just seemed to me that maybe you weren’t who you said you were.” At that, she looked at Killian, who was shaking his head at her. And she realized that she probably shouldn’t be saying anything, but she was too angry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessie said, “I just left you a few hours ago.”
“And that’s when I realized you had your phone. And somehow I missed that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in that tired voice. “And, if you don’t mind, I’ve done enough traveling right now. I don’t want to be listening to any half-baked ideas that you’ve cooked up.”
“That I’ve cooked up?”
“Yes, that you’ve cooked up,” she said. “You’re always trying to get into trouble.”
“I’m not trying to get into trouble at all.”
“No, maybe I shouldn’t say trying to get into trouble, but you’re always trying to make up for whatever it is you think you’ve done wrong,” she said. “You’ve lived a blameless life. Get over it. Go home. Live your pretty little life and move on.”
“Jesus,” she said, “you don’t even sound like yourself.”
“Life changes you,” she snapped.
“If you say so,” she said quietly. “It just occurred to me though that maybe you had something to do with all of it.”
“What?” Jessie cried out. “Now you’re getting seriously delusional. You have no business even saying that to me.”
“Maybe not,” she said, “but it’s a little hard not to when I realize now that you had a phone, and you didn’t let any of us know.”
“Of course I let you know,” she said, “but you were stuck in your own world. Once we realized that Jerricho was coming to get you.”
At that, she froze.
Jerricho grabbed the phone from her hand and said, “Interesting pronoun use of we. Obviously you were
tracking us, so are you responsible for the pirates who came and attacked the ship too?”
An audible gasp came on the other end, and then a man spoke. “I suggest you leave well enough alone, Jerricho,” he said. “You’re alive. That’s a gift. Take it and run.”
“I don’t run so well,” Jerricho snapped. “I don’t know what it is that you got Jessie to deliver into this country or why you had to kidnap all those women.”
“We didn’t have anything to do with the women,” he said, “but our plan went sideways. Jessie was kidnapped. Now leave us alone.”
“No,” he said, “because, for whatever reason, you used her, and I can’t let that go.”
“She didn’t get used at all,” he snapped. “Jessie is already my wife. I was just bringing her home.”
“No,” he said. “You had no reason for her to be in the US, unless she was picking up something. You used her as a mule. I just don’t know what for.”
“You won’t find out, so leave it.”
“Depends on if it puts my country in danger,” Jerricho said coolly. “There has to be a reason why she took that job there for a few weeks and then managed to get herself assigned to an overseas stay.”
“You don’t know anything,” he said. “Intel is bought and sold one million times a day. It’s already taking place, so don’t worry about it.”
She stared at Jerricho. “Oh, my God, she really did steal from the company then.”
“I did not,” Jessie cried out. “But that’s all I’m telling you. And that job was my way of getting out of the country before I got caught. So thank you for that.”
“And then we got kidnapped, but you weren’t supposed to, were you?”
“Yes, but, of course, I knew he would get me out of there. But somehow you managed to get a hold of Jerricho,” she snapped. “We could have just left the women there and escaped.”
“No,” Brenna said, with a sudden understanding. “Once you realized how many women were kidnapped, you just saw that as another way for you to get out,” she said, her heart breaking at the betrayal. “You would have left, and you were quite happy to leave me behind with all those women, weren’t you?”
There was silence at the other end. “There will always be predators and victims in this world,” Jessie said, her voice more distant. “You just need to understand which side you’re on,” she said, “and I’m afraid people like you will always be the victims. I have no intention of ever being a victim. I’m a predator, and we won this one, so now take a hike. This phone will be tossed in seconds.” And there was a hard click.