The Stranger Beside You (22 page)

Tom turned to Daphne.  “I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Z was only here for the day.  I think he made a pretty good drive.  For what he was up to, I think he did not want to conduct business too close to home.  Whoever he called, I think he dialed long distance.”

She nodded.  “I agree.”

He touched the woman’s shoulder.  “Let’s narrow it down to long distance calls.”

“The bastard told me it was a local number.”

Tom grinned.  “I’ll give you an extra five to cover it.”

She smiled.  “Hey, I’m beginning to like you.”

“So let’s narrow this down.”  He grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil from her desk.  She came up with four numbers.  She gave him the numbers, the time of day the calls were made, and the city the calls were placed to.  Tom quickly scribbled it all down.

“That’s all I’ve got,” she said at last.

They thanked her and left.

“We have four numbers basically picked at random by a middle age salon owner at a tiny strip mall in Virginia,” Daphne said when they were outside in the heat.  “Where do you place our odds?” 

“It’s bleak.”

“What now?”

Tom gazed across the parking lot toward McDonald’s.  “I say we grab a chocolate shake and call these numbers and pray for a little luck.”

39

“Brynn, if you’re watching this video, the first thing I want you to know is how much I love you and I never meant to hurt you.  The second thing you need to know is I’m alive.  You have a thousand questions, but explanations will have to wait.  I only have a few seconds.  You’ve come this far following my little clues because we’ve always been such a great team.  I knew you could put the pieces together, and I’m proud of you.  But please, you cannot tell anyone about this message or that I’m alive.  That is vitally important.  Please trust me.  There is a reason this is all happening, and there is a reason why I needed to convince you that I was dead.  Things are not as they appear.  I’m depending on you.  Take the key from Sponge Bob’s aquarium to Union Station in Toronto.  Go to the storage locker with that number on it.  When you find it you will understand what to do next.  I will see you soon.”  

The video ended.  I sat stunned, my hands trembling.  There were tears on my face.  I watched the video a second time and I was still in disbelief.

Someone knocked on the door.  “Everything alright in there?”  It was the voice of a flight attendant.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I managed.  In truth, I was a wreck.  It seemed impossible to even conceive that the video was real, or that Tom could really be alive.  The craziness seemed to continually escalate.  I felt dizzy, but where there was confusion and disbelief, there was also immense joy and relief.

Tom is alive!

I ejected the flash drive and closed the laptop.  I held the computer flat against my chest, my heart pounding.  My whole world had once again been turned upside down.

40

The plane landed and I popped up out of my seat like I was on fire.  The aisle quickly clogged with passengers inching toward the door.  I was going crazy.  I craned my neck, hoping for a glimpse of Alana Armstrong but I couldn’t see her.

The instant I was off the plane I hoofed it up the jetway, dodging people with their bags and children and wheelchairs.  Ten seconds later I was at the gate, adrenaline pumping, bouncing on my toes to see over the river of heads in the bustling terminal.  There was no sign of her.  She had disappeared like a flash.

It was still hard wrapping my head around the fact that Special Agent Armstrong had been the driver of the Plymouth.  All that time I’d been scared out of my mind that the nut at the wheel of that car intended to run me off the road and put a bullet through my skull.  Well, I was happy to be wrong for once in my life. 

I couldn’t imagine where she had run off to in such a hurry.  She was taking this no contact thing very seriously.  I turned and waited for the last of the passengers from my flight to trickle out, but Armstrong was not among them.  I approached a flight attendant.

“Is there anyone still onboard?” I asked.

She shook her head and gestured toward a small knot of stragglers.  “This is the last of them,” she said.

I studied a map of the airport layout to get my bearings.  I needed to find a taxi.  Tom’s orders were to find Union Station.  I looked at the key he had planted for me.  The number 127 imprinted on it finally made sense. 

It was ten degrees cooler in Toronto than New York.  I hurried to the curb.  I grabbed the first taxi in line.  It was a blue Chevy Impala with an orange hood.  I saw the driver’s eyes in the mirror.  “Where to?” he asked.

“Union Station.”

•  •  •

Scotty Sheldon had reached the point of no return.  His desperation had peaked.  By now they would have killed more of his family.  He was in his car in a parking garage somewhere in Miami.  He hadn’t slept.  The bags under his eyes were huge and dark.  He was at the end of his rope.  The bag of money from the bank robbery was in the seat beside him.  The red dye pack had ruined the cash.  Every bill was permanently stained.  It was now just a useless bag of paper.

Scotty still had the gun, and he still had all the bullets.  There was a tremor in his arm.  He was on the very edge of sanity.  He couldn’t get his wife or his kids out of his mind, and he had no way of knowing which of them was buried in the fresh grave out in the swamp.  The vision of those graves and the disturbed earth was burned into his brain. 

He had considered running, turning his back on his family and saving himself, or even just putting the gun in his mouth and ending it all right here and now, but that wasn’t an option.  He had failed on so many levels and made many piss-poor decisions, all in the name of money, but it wasn’t in him to walk away and let them die. 

He set the gun in his lap. 

He was going home tonight, to his beautiful home on the beach.  He was going to stand up to those monsters, and he was going take them on like a man.

•  •  •

None of the four long-distance phone numbers had produced tangible results.  One was no longer in service, two others were private residences with answering machines, and the third number simply rang forever with no answer whatsoever. 

Tom had dialed the numbers using Daphne’s pay-as-you-go cell.  When he had no luck, he set the phone on the table between them and let out a sigh of frustration.  He drained the last of his milkshake and pushed the cup aside. 

“How do we know that the hair salon was even the right place?” he said.

“Marcus gave you the address.  That was it.”

“So what do we have to show for this whole elaborate charade?  What have we accomplished?”

“Welcome to the tedious world of investigation, Mr. Nelson.”  Daphne picked up the cell phone and dialed each of the phone numbers again.  Same results.  She returned the cell to the table.  “Interesting.”

“Four dead-end phone numbers.  What could be so interesting about that?” Tom asked without looking at her.

“Maybe the disconnected line is the one we should focus on.  There might have been a very significant reason for service to have been cut off.”

“Like not paying the bill.”

“No, more like because the call could be traced.  Perhaps whoever Mr. Z phoned at that number was not too pleased to be linked to the office space at the strip mall.”

“What about the private residences?” he asked.

“We got two recordings, generic ‘leave your number, we’ll get back to you’ messages.  My machine at home says the same thing.  Those are dead-ends.  The fourth number had no machine or voicemail.”

 “That’s the one I’m curious about.”

She cocked her head.  “Seriously?  Why?”

“In this day and age everyone has a way to leave a message.  If you took a random sampling of a hundred homes, how many would you say wouldn’t be equipped with some form of answering system?  My guess is it’s a tiny fraction.  So if the vast majority of households use a machine or a voice mail service, what might be the reason for not using either?  I would think in the majority of cases it’s simply an issue of cost of the machine or the monthly subscription fee for the service, but let’s say there are other reasons.  Suppose the customer simply screens the calls using caller ID.  It’s a private number known to only a select few.  The phone rings, and he doesn’t recognize the number, so he doesn’t answer.  But he doesn’t want ten highly sensitive messages stored on a tape or a server somewhere that someone could stumble upon and listen to.  Look at it as a simple security measure.”

“So in theory, he could be screening our calls right now.”

“In theory if I’m even in the ballpark, we at least know he answered the phone on that day in November.”

“He was expecting the call.”

“Yes, but he was expecting Mr. Z’s cell, and his cell was dead, but he had to answer because Mr. Z’s call was important. He didn’t recognize the number that popped up on caller ID, but he was forced to go out on a limb and take the call.”

“Because he had needed the update on Marcus.”

Tom nodded.

Daphne said, “I can have both numbers traced.”

“Too dangerous.  That might send up a red flag and tip-off Mr. Z’s inside man at the bureau.”

“Okay, simple.  We use the Internet and do a reverse trace.  We use a website that charges a fee for the address attached to the private number.  We grab a pay-as-you-go credit card from any gas station in town, make the purchase, and the website generates the address.  Quick, clean and painless.”

Tom considered it.  “Is the service confidential?”

“As far as I know.”

“Sounds way too easy.”

“We can have an address in our hands in half an hour.”

“If this blows up in our face…”

“It won’t,” she assured him.  “Remember, I’m the professional snoop.”

“I hope you’re good at your job.”

“I’m the best.”

41

Somewhere down in the darkness, the second plastic strap snapped and fell through the bed frame and dropped to the floor.  Rosemary Gladwell was nearly too exhausted to care.  Her hands had cramped up and seized into claw-like fists and the flesh was rubbed raw. 

She rocked to one side and tumbled to the floor.  The cement was cool and smooth.  The darkness of the basement was disorienting.  She propelled herself across the floor, inch by excruciating inch.  Eventually she reached a wall and navigated by touch.  She moved hand over hand along the base of the wall until she at last reached the door.

“Please help me,” she called, voice raspy and weak, but her strength was already sapped.  “Please…somebody…”

Rosemary clawed her way up the wall and reached for the doorknob.  The door was locked.  It wouldn’t budge.  She realized her struggle had only just begun.  

•  •  •

I told the cab driver, “Don’t go anywhere.  I’ll be right back.”

I ran up the steps to Toronto’s Union Station and hurried inside.  It was huge.  I took the key off my key ring and held it tight in my fist.  I stopped at an information desk and someone pointed me in the right direction.

I took an escalator to a lower lever and found several rows of storage lockers.  My pulse quickened.  I squeezed down on the key so hard it made an imprint on my palm.  I began the breathless hunt for number 127.  When I spotted it I stopped dead in my tracks.  The key in my hand had made a long round-trip, from Toronto to Long Island and back again. 

I inserted the key and opened the locker.

At first it appeared totally empty.  I thought there must be a mistake.  It was the wrong locker or Tom had given me the wrong key.  Someone had screwed up, and now there was a kink in Tom’s plan.  Then I noticed a small shape pressed flat to the bottom of the locker.  It was an envelope.  I reached in and retrieved it.  It was light enough that it felt empty.  Someone had written 202 on the outside.  My hands trembled as I opened it.  It contained a plastic card with a magnetic strip, like a cardkey to a room.  The name of a hotel was printed on the front side.  It was the same hotel where Tom had stayed on his last business trip to Toronto.

•  •  •

 Teek was a mousy looking thug covered in tats and piercings.  He wore a suede jacket over a white tank and was as ugly as sin.  It was Teek’s job to watch Marcus and keep him honest.  For weeks Teek had chain-smoked and watched the house.      

He got out of the car and strolled up the driveway.  There was a window on the side of the garage.  He cupped his hands over his eyes and looked inside.  Both the Escalade and the Hummer were there.  He took a drag off the smoke and eased up the sidewalk to the front door.  The house seemed still.  Teek rang the doorbell.  No one came to the door.  Something wasn’t right.

Teek circled around and went through the gate to the backyard.  He glanced around casually.  There was a glare on the windows at the back of the house.  If there was someone inside he could see no movement.  Then he noticed the fence and studied the cut in the chain-link.

He dialed Mr. Z on his cell.  “We’ve got trouble,” he said the instant Mr. Z answered.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The bird has flown,” Teek said.  “They are long gone.”

“What’d you find?”

“The cars are in the garage but there’s no signs of life inside the house.”

Mr. Z took a moment to process the new input.  “Looks like Marcus got brave and stupid.  No worries.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go through the house, make a quick sweep, then let me know what you find.

“And if I don’t find anything?” 

“When we are confident they’ve decided to make a run for it, it’ll be time to send them a message.”

“What kind of message?”

 “Burn the house,” Mr. Z said.  “Burn it to the ground.”

•  •  •

There was a man seated at a desk at the door to the file room but Special Agent Price strutted right past him like he owned the place.  The old man glared at him over half-moon reading glasses.