Lost Cargo (16 page)

A small light shimmered and went out.

Travis stared down the road in shock, unable to see anything. The distant whoop of an ambulance and police sirens drew near. Someone must have found the woman’s body on Porter Street.

Headlights suddenly pulled up to the curb behind him. Sharp shadows shot across the side of the house. A car door opened and footsteps moved over the sidewalk.

“It’ll be good to see them,” a woman said. “Hon, I’ve got the flowers.”

The car door closed.

“What do we owe you?” a man asked over the engine.

A cab, Travis thought with wild hope.

“What was that scream?” the woman asked.

“Some stupid reality show,” the man said.

“Now or never,” Travis told himself. He broke into a frantic sprint and ran around the house to the sweetest sight in the whole world. Lexie’s canvas bag lay spilled out on the lawn and a yellow cab idled at the front curb. He threw everything back in the bag and hurried toward the cab. A middle-aged couple in long camel coats stood beside it. Going to eat the dinner he’d almost puked over. They settled the fare and hurried up the front walk as if they took him for a mugger.

The cab changed gears, about to back up, when Travis ran up to the driver and dug out a twenty. “Take me to my house on Porter Street,” he said.

The cab driver gave him a reluctant nod. “Get in.”

Travis slipped into the back seat, exhausted, soaked to the skin, but he was alive. “How about locking the doors?” he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

The cab driver gave him a surly glance and didn’t answer. He looked like a shriveled up mummy with leathery skin and a threadbare head. One more glance and he moved his mummy hands over the steering wheel, made a U-turn toward Porter Street, and headed uphill, doing ten miles an hour.

“Stop here,” Travis shouted at the top of the hill.

“What, here? You said Porter.”

“Give me five seconds.” Travis cracked the door. In the headlights the shadow from a stop sign reached across the road like a long arm.

“You out there?” Travis called. “Say something. You hear me?”

Silence. Nothing, no cry, no movement in the grass, but maybe a bloody streak on the pavement, or just a black patch of asphalt. It was too dark to tell.

“You wanna get out, get out,” the driver said. “I got another fare.”

Travis shut the door with a horrible knot in his stomach. The cab moved on. They reached the 34th Street intersection where the lurid lights of three patrol cars and an ambulance flashed over the houses, but the ambulance wasn’t going anywhere. Two cops decked out in plastic raingear stood over the body. More cops waited under the pulsing lights with an ashen group of onlookers. And a hard-faced photographer in jeans was there, furiously clicking away. This one would make the papers.

They left the lights behind. Travis sank back in the cavernous seat, opened Lexie’s bag, and found her keys. Most of her things were missing. The camera, cell phone, and prints of the Newark Street murder were gone, and the purse was full of mud and grass.

L
exie and Burke’s mailbox turned out to be full. She hadn’t come home. Travis grabbed the mail, slammed the door, and turned the deadbolt with shell-shocked relief. Thoughts about the gruesome evening flooded over him. He could still hear the last scream.

He had to find Lexie. “I’m
going
to find you,” he said aloud.

More horrible thoughts muscled into his mind. Had Lexie even been in the Metro? Or did he see somebody who just looked like her? The subway ride might have been a wild goose chase. Maybe he should call all the hospitals. She might be bleeding in some emergency room with no identification.

He reached for his cell phone, remembered he’d lost it, and looked around for a phone, but the mail on the hall table caught his eye instead. A foreign airmail letter. Someone had written Lexie’s name in masculine handwriting across an envelope that bore a colorful stamp postmarked the week before. He turned it over. “Remente: Tom Feldman,” said the handwriting on the back, followed by the address of a Brazilian hotel.

Her boyfriend. He felt a slow burn. It was absurd to care about her mail at a time like this, but he couldn’t stop himself.

The heat and light and civilized order in the house felt overwhelming after the dark streets. He pulled the drapes to keep out the unbearable night and took one step on an ivory oriental rug. Lamplight shone across the room’s antiques, military prints, and orchid photos. Burke’s perfect world.

But the letter distracted him. He would give anything to know what Tom Feldman had written to Lexie. He crossed the carpet with his muddy shoes to press the envelope against a lampshade and discovered it held a single sheet of paper. What did the guy say that only took one page? And why didn’t he just text her or send an email?

“You can’t open her mail,” Travis argued with himself again. “Come on, she’s seeing somebody. Get over it.”

He remembered she had her own phone, went up to her bedroom, put the bag on the desk, and stood there, staring at her things. Everything was just as he remembered, her sleigh bed piled with white linen, the oriental rugs and generous armchair. Tom Feldman stared out from every photo in the room.

The windows were all locked, to his relief. She had tossed her jeans and stockings on the floor and left the bathroom door wide open. Fascinated, he stared at the nail polish, body wash, and dozens of other bottles she’d crammed on the shelves, and then picked up a box.

“She colors her hair,” he said in amazement. “I thought she was a real blonde.” So his dream girl wasn’t quite what she seemed.

He didn’t care. Finally he found her phone. His clothes were filthy and he couldn’t sit on her bed with its mountains of plush white pillows, so he settled on the floor. It took a while, but he worked through the city hospitals.

Nobody had ever heard of her.

The grandfather clock sounded downstairs. Time was slipping by. Was she walking home? He shook off a gruesome image of her body lying in the forest floor and decided to ride around looking for her. He could ride around all night.

He called another cab, but he couldn’t get Tom Feldman’s slanted grin out of his mind. When he reached the front hall, he put the letter on top of the rest of the mail and then pulled his hand back, unable to let go of the envelope. The strong handwriting seemed to jeer at him.

It had to be a love letter. She didn’t need to see it.

The post office lost mail all the time. Nobody would ever know.

Hot with jealousy, he ripped the envelope open, his fingers getting in the way in his rush to unfold the letter.

Dear Lexie,

Although this is the hardest letter I will ever have to write, it would be dishonest not to send it. I know we once made a commitment, but there comes a time in life when people have to move on. We’re thousands of miles apart now, and things have changed.

It’s best to get to the point. I’ve met someone else. Her name is Fiona, and we’ve been seeing each other for several months. She’s working with me on the
SBB
Amazon project, so we have a lot in common. We’re traveling now during the project break and sightseeing around Brazil. Our relationship is serious. This Christmas I’m flying to Scotland to meet her family, and we’re talking about moving in together.

I wish things could have worked out for us, but this is all for the best. I will always remember you and the times we had together with great fondness.

Tom

Dumped her, short and sweet. The guy with the slanted grin had somebody else. And that was why he sent a handwritten letter. He was blowing her off and didn’t want a conversation.

“She has to see this,” Travis blurted out. Fantasies of consoling her rose before him. He saw himself putting his arms around her, kissing her, winning her over, but his fantasies crumbled like mountains of sugar dust into nothing as the depth of his stupidity sank in. He’d ripped the stamp and the envelope and torn the letter. He would never be able to piece it together without the rips showing. She would know what he was, an animal who’d pried into the most private part of her life.

He read the letter again.

“Fiona,” he said. “The bastard’s been running around on her with Fiona. She has to see this. There has to be some way to fix it.”

Footsteps hurried up the porch. Somebody put a key in the lock. Alarmed, Travis stuffed the letter in his pocket just as a short, unpleasant looking man opened the door. The man had a bald head with a round, bulging forehead and resembled a Chihuahua.

“Who are you?” Travis said.

The stranger gave him a tight smile that said he was willing to be polite for about sixty seconds before he disemboweled him on the spot. He stepped inside and closed the door, bringing a gust of icy winter air with him. Now that he was in the hall, he looked formidable in a black wool coat and black suit and tie. The faint scent of his office still clung to his clothes.

“I could ask you the same thing,” the man snapped.

“Travis Maguire, Lexie’s friend,” Travis said, conscious of the mud on his clothes.

The man kept staring at him. “Dallas Banks, Burke’s business partner. He’s nowhere to be found, and I’m here to pick up some files. Unlike some people, I have a business to run.”

“That’s right. Lexie said something about that. I stopped by to see if she was here, so I’m leaving.”

“You have keys to their house?”

“Lexie’s keys, and I’ve just called a cab.”

“You said you stopped by to see if she was home.”

“Well, I came over to meet her,” Travis said, “and since she’s not here, I’m going to pick her up.”

Dallas stared at him. “You have mud all over your coat, and you’re wandering around their house, and they’re not here. What did you say your name is?”

Headlights flashed across the windows.

“It’s been a real pleasure. Cab’s here, gotta go.” Travis brushed past Dallas Banks on his way out the door. He could feel the man’s sharp eyes on his back.

Forty minutes later, he almost missed her along a dark stretch of Wisconsin Avenue behind the National Cathedral, a long, cold city mile from her house. His impatience had long turned to desperation when the cab’s headlights caught the back of her hair. She looked small and worn out with her head tucked against the wind and her breath coming out in icy clouds.

Her face lit up with joy and exhausted relief when she saw him. After she hurried to the curb and slid into the cab, they studied each other in intimate silence, the air brimming with unspoken words. The cab turned off Wisconsin Avenue and rattled over the narrow roads to her house. Lights glimmered in the darkness.

He put her keys in her hand. “I got your bag back.”

“How did you do that?” she said in amazement.

“I followed her until she dropped it.”

“I can’t believe you did that for me,” she murmured.

“Everything’s gone, the camera, the phone.”

The cab pulled up to her door. Dallas Banks had taken off. Once they stood inside the foyer, she locked the door and turned around.

“You followed her,” she said, searching his face. “You were worried about me.”

He nodded. Unable to stand it any longer, he put his arms around her and pulled her close. His pulse raced when he felt the heat generated between their bodies. Forever. He could stand there forever with her, breathing in the scent of her skin, looking at her eyelashes and soft mouth. It would be so easy to kiss her now.

She leaned back in his arms. “Travis, you’re such a wonderful friend. I feel so safe with you, exactly like we’re brother and sister.”

Dumbfounded, he stared at her.

“Your clothes are all wet,” she went on, fussing over his shirt.

His heart kept crashing. “I got caught in the storm.”

She took his hand and led him to the stairs. “Go take a shower. You can wear some of Burke’s clothes and I’ll put yours in the washer. When you come down I have a lot to tell you.”

“I have a lot to tell you, too. She attacked a woman on Porter Street.”

She stared at him. “She tried to attack me, too.”

He closed the door to the guest bathroom. It was a sophisticated room with black marble counters, dark green towels, exotic soaps, and photos of a rowing crew slicing through the Potomac River. Her brother must have taken the photos. He didn’t see anything that looked like it belonged to Lexie. He hated to be away from her now, even to take a shower.

Her footsteps trailed down the hall until her bedroom door closed. After he peeled off his wet shirt and jeans, he cracked the bathroom door and left the clothes on the hall floor where she said she’d pick them up. For a moment he followed the shadow of her feet under the door and then stepped in the shower. Clouds of steam filled the bathroom. Luxuriating in the heat, lulled by the water, he wished they were lovers showering together.

Eventually he grabbed a towel and pulled on her brother’s sweats. Miraculously, everything fit. The letter! He’d left the letter in his jeans. Mortified, he flung the door back. His wet clothes were gone and she was moving around downstairs.

“Lexie!” he shouted, tearing down the stairs.

“In here,” she called in a muffled voice off the kitchen. “In the laundry room.”

When he rushed in, she had his clothes in her hands.

“I’m putting these in the washer as soon as I check the pockets,” she said, standing there in a honey-gold sweater, black jeans, and bare feet. The sight of her took his breath away. He wondered if she was wearing lipstick because he was there.

“I’ll put my clothes in,” he told her.

“I can do it for you.”

“No, no, no, you don’t have to do that.” He moved to take his jeans and for an alarming moment they stood face to face, gripping the legs.

“You know,” he said, “I could use something to drink. What do you have?”

She smiled, let go of the jeans, and left the laundry room. The moment she disappeared, he tore through the pockets and jammed the mangled letter in the pocket of Burke’s sweat pants, swearing at himself under his breath.