Pop Travel (8 page)

At the top of the escalator, Audrey paused a moment to let some travelers go down ahead of her, putting on her courteous smile, and tucked a strand of dirty blonde hair behind her ear. After checking the time on her QV, she lowered her eyes and descended.

Hurrying down the hall, Audrey ignored the co-workers she passed. With each step, she convinced herself this Cooper person could be the answer. She seemed to remember Gordy saying Cooper’s brother was a politician. That could be helpful, too. What a relief it would be to share the information with someone.

As she slipped into the coed, supervisors’ locker room, the lights blinked on, telling her it had been empty. She went straight to her locker and pressed her open hand on the lockpad. The release clicked. As she reached to open it, her head jerked at a noise. She got a chill.

“Hello?” she called. After sitting deathly still and listening for a gut-wrenching minute, she blamed the sound on her nervous imagination. She rustled up some courage. Even if the FBI had undercover eyes at the ATC, she reigned over her turf. After this meeting, she’d find out if one of her staff helped the fiends spy on her and scrounge up a reason to fire the sneak.

Audrey took a deep breath and opened the locker. Leaning in, she shoved her things around. After sifting through her tiny stash, she found the stick drive she needed and straightened up to leave, slipping it into her pants pocket.

She smacked her neck. Something had pricked her. Holding the sore spot on her neck, she spun around. A bug? Not likely, but she didn’t have time to worry about it, she had to go. She reached down for her plate, and when she stood up, she felt woozy, and wavered, flailing her arms to steady herself. She swung at the locker door to shut it, but it didn’t quite catch. Struggling to keep her balance, she headed for the exit.

Gordy and Cooper made themselves comfortable waiting for Audrey in her office. Gordy lounged back in Audrey’s chair and played with an antique Rubik’s cube he’d found on her desk. Cooper paced the office, pausing at the wall hangings and pictures to get a feel for Audrey’s personality.
What would make her hide backup copies of surveillance? Why would the FBI be confiscating them?

Audrey had a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and several framed commendations for community service and volunteer projects. So she was smart and had a good heart. He noticed a picture of a tall, sturdy, blonde woman and a German Shepherd on a bookshelf. He showed it to Gordy.

“Is this Audrey?”

“Yeah and that’s her dog, Shultzie. He’s her baby.”

“Is she married?”

“Not anymore. Her husband died in the Tex-Mex War.”

Cooper nodded. He empathized with her, knowing how it felt to lose a spouse so young. Maybe he should get a dog. He went over and studied a map of the ATC.

Gordy gave up on the cube and put it back on its display stand.

“So where have you planted your roots, Coop?” he asked.

“Walnut Grove,” Cooper answered. He stayed focused on the map and the locker room’s location, on the basement level just before the trains.

“Where is that?” Gordy asked, lacing his hands behind his head.

“It’s a small town east of the city.” Cooper tried not to sound annoyed. He checked his QV. According to the map, ample time had passed for Audrey to go to her locker and meet them in her office.

“Oh. Hicksville, eh? I like living in the city. My wife, Gayla… hey, did you know I got married? It was three years ago. I tried to invite you but no one knew where you were.”

“I went back to Michigan for a while. You know, I think it’s been more than fifteen minutes.”

Gordy looked at his QV.

“Maybe it has. You think she had to use the restroom?”

“I doubt it. This doesn’t feel right.”

“Want me to call her?”

“Yes.”

Gordy tried her on the comlink in his ear.

“She’s not responding,” he said after a few tries.

“Talk to Security. See if they can locate her.”

Gordy stood up as he called the Security room.

“Joel… Yeah, it’s Gordy. Listen, have Trey check the supervisor locker room feed… No, we’re looking for her…” He waited a minute and listened to Joel’s response. His eyes narrowed. “Really? Okay, hold on.”

He turned to Cooper. “They rewound the video. Joel said Audrey went to her locker and got something ten minutes ago. He watched it twice because he said she stumbled around like a drunk when she left.”

“Is that normal?” Cooper had a stinking suspicion his client’s paranoia was about to be justified.

“No.” Gordy shook his head with emphasis and frowned.

“Let’s go.”

Gordy picked up another comlink headset from the charging station on Audrey’s shelf and tossed it to Cooper. They bolted out of the office and raced down the stairs. While they ran, Gordy told Joel to check the video outside the locker room to see if it showed what happened to Audrey. Then he made an announcement to the rest of Security to be on the lookout for her. Cooper hoped they would find her safe and sound, but doubted she’d still have any backup videos.

When they reached the locker room, Gordy put his hand up to Cooper to have him wait. They listened to an update from Joel.

“We looked at footage from the hall,” Joel said and Gordy pointed out the camera. “It looks like Audrey stumbled out of the locker room. A custodian walking by helped her and led her into the maintenance corridor.”

“This door?” Cooper pointed at a nearby door with a
Personnel Only
sign, a card reader, and a simple code lock.

“Yeah.” Gordy used his badge and punched in numbers to open the door. The lights flickered on when they entered the cinderblock passageway. To their left, the hall spanned about eight feet wide. On the right, two men walking side by side would be a tight fit and it was pitch black.

“Are there cameras in here?” he asked.

Gordy nodded.

“Yes, but not very many.”

Joel reported that a few minutes ago, maintenance reported the fuse for the small passageway to the trains had blown, so that’s why the lights were out.

Gordy’s frown deepened.

Cooper’s heart rate sped up, anxious to find Audrey, afraid of what he suspected.

“You head for the trains. I’ll go back into the main aisle. Check in at each Concourse.”

Gordy gave a nod and turned on his QV flashlight.

Cooper hurried back through the door and joined the throng of travelers making their way to and from the gates and the terminal.

Pushing past travelers, he kept an eye out for Audrey’s face. If someone kidnapped her, he might be trying to smuggle her out with the crowd. At Concourse A, he ran over to the glass doors to scan the electric train tracks and saw Gordy open the small maintenance door.

“Clear,” Gordy said in Cooper’s earpiece.

“No sign of her here, either,” Cooper answered.

Cooper took off jogging again, slaloming through travelers, bumping into a large woman who dropped her bag. He couldn’t stop. His gut told him he needed to move faster. As he approached Concourse B, he slowed, still hoping to identify Audrey in the crowd. Maybe she fought her way free, and he could help her. The trains had just pulled in. Passengers entered and exited in a confused congestion. As travelers clogged the escalators going up, Cooper, on tiptoes, desperately searched the masses. Grabbing the shoulder of a tall blonde, he quickly let go when it wasn’t Audrey’s face, and the lady glared at him. He checked in with Joel and Gordy.

“Nothing at Concourse B. How ‘bout the trains?”

“She’s not on any of them,” said Joel. “Where could she be?”

“Not here either. And this train is headed for Concourse A.” Gordy sounded out of breath on his way to the next door.

Cooper jumped back into action and continued his watchful dash to the next stop at Concourse C.

As he closed in on the waiting area, he heard a piercing scream and his heart dropped.

He fought his way through a distraught crowd gathered at the glass doors protecting the public from the high-voltage electric train tracks. As Cooper pushed his way to the front, he saw Gordy on the opposite ledge staring down, his jaw dangling in shock. Cooper sagged as he recognized the mangled body of Audrey Baumer sprawled on the tracks.

ederal investigators and emergency personnel invaded Concourse C. Cooper and Gordy and a few other witnesses were questioned by agents, as ambulance workers carried Audrey’s remains away in a bag, and officers took pictures of the scene. Gordy’s usually ruddy, smiling face looked pale and shaken from the discovery of the distorted form of his boss and friend. It had been a gruesome sight. An agent told Cooper Audrey had been electrocuted before being crushed by the train.
Poor woman.

While Cooper gave his account of what happened, the reason for his visit, where he’d been, etc., he hoped Gordy was smart enough to avoid mentioning anything about the backups. Cooper glanced over at Gordy and shook his head sadly. The agent took Cooper’s account and his number, telling him to be available for possible further questioning.

After being dismissed, Cooper went over to Gordy who was being drilled by two more agents. Cooper patted him on the back and handed him the comlink headset. Gordy gave him a weak smile. Cooper’s guilt made his stomach hurt. He had involved his friend in a horrific disaster and had no doubt his investigation sparked the events leading to Audrey’s murder. Someone had to have followed him. He now had no doubt he was being watched.

Walking back to the terminal, Cooper resolved to find out the reason for all the death and deception. Phisner was right. Something had happened to his fiancée. And someone wanted to stop him from figuring out what by intimidating him.

To remove the nightmarish image from his head, Cooper focused on what he could do. His instincts told him he needed to stick around. He shouldn’t leave the travelport empty-handed. Audrey died for a reason. His feet led him back in the direction of the locker room. Worried that agents might have already searched her locker or would soon, he sped up his pace.

At the end of Concourse A, a group of travelport workers was gossiping about the incident by an elevator. He went over and pushed the
up
button. The employees all had their opinions, and a few proposed motives. Apparently, Audrey was not a popular person, a good manager, but not a good buddy to slackers.

When Cooper had heard enough, he casually brushed by one of them and lifted his badge.

“I’ll just take the escalator,” he stated to no one and walked toward the terminal.

Hiding in a cubby of vending machines, Cooper watched the locker room door as staff squeezed by each other going in and out. It looked like a shift change. While he waited, he clipped on the badge he had taken and hid the picture with his collar. When the majority had cleared out, he stepped in and went over to the restrooms. Hiding in a stall, he waited for everyone to leave.

After the lights went out, Cooper stayed still for an extra minute to be safe. When he left the stall, triggering the lights back on, he walked over to the rows of lockers with benches in between them. There sure were a lot of them. He sneered at them. How was he supposed to figure out which one was hers? He didn’t have time to break into every one; the agents would be there soon. Shaking his head, he started searching the back row, hoping for a clue.