I looked around, hoping Chava had gotten out to pee in the relative privacy of the darkness.
“Chava!” I called. “Where are you?”
“What are you doing?” Kendra asked. “Start the car up. Get the heater going.”
That was the smartest thing I’d ever heard her say. Struggling into the car, I was relieved to see the keys were still in the ignition. I started up the engine and cranked the heater, my entire body quaking with the cold. I looked up and saw the big dog looking at me from just outside the door, his height making us eye level.
I got out of the car and opened the back door, immediately the mass of wet, dirty dog filled the entire bench seat.
“You can’t let that mutt in here,” Kendra said. The fact the dog was currently more help than she was had apparently escaped her attention. “He stinks!” she continued as I returned to the front seat, waiting for the heat to thaw me out enough to look for Chava.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kendra said, leaving the dog issue behind. “Do you want me to drive?”
“We can’t leave yet. My mother is missing.”
“Your mother?”
“She was in the car, waiting for me. Now she’s gone.”
“Gone where? There’s nowhere to go.”
Had she gone looking for me? Maybe she was out on the other side of Leeds’s building, thinking she could see something. Had she fallen in the dark and turned an ankle? Or fallen into the water herself? I half expected her to come limping up at any moment. My cellphone sat on the dash where I’d left it. I picked it up and found a text.
I have something you want. You have something I want.
I could feel the blood draining from my face. I’d always thought that was just an expression, but I could actually feel my face go cold again, despite the heater turned on high and blowing right at me. Anxiety clenched my gut, like an unexpected fist in a bar fight, deep and visceral. I went to see who the text came from, but realized it had been typed into my phone, not sent from another.
“Shit,” I said, pounding on my steering wheel.
“What? What is it?”
“He’s got my mother. Where would your buddy Leeds go?”
“What do you mean he’s got your mother?”
“I don’t understand this,” I said under my breath. “What have I got that he wants?”
“What he wants?” Kendra said, something in her voice prompting me to turn and look at her.
“He says I’ve got something he wants. That can’t be you. He had you; he’s after something else.”
“What makes you think it’s Leeds?” Kendra said, not quite meeting my eye. “You must meet a lot of unsavory characters in your line of work.”
“Right. And they’re all hanging around out here in the middle of the night,” I said, fear bringing my sarcasm out. “He must have been waiting to see if I showed up. Or followed me. Something. But why not just grab me? Why grab my mother?”
I sat for a moment hearing nothing but the sound of my own breathing, loud in my ear as I fought to catch my breath, followed by a low whine from the backseat.
The phone rang. The incoming number came up as restricted.
“Hello,” I said after the second ring.
“I’m so sorry, Eddie,” I heard Chava say before another voice came on the line.
“That’s enough for now,” a voice said. “Did you get my message?” The voice sounded odd, high pitched. I wondered if he was doing something to make it unrecognizable.
“I got it. What is it you think I have?”
“Not think, know. I know you have it.”
Listening for any clues as to where my mother might be, I strained to hear background noise, but only the man’s heavy breathing came through the phone.
“Well?” the voice said. Apparently I was supposed to ’fess up.
“I’m not really in the mood for guessing games,” I said and hung up the phone.
“What are you doing?” Kendra asked. “Was that him? You hung up! Are you crazy? Do you know what kind of man you’re dealing with?”
So much for it not being Leeds.
“I’m guessing he’s a stone cold psychopath,” I replied. A memory floated in my consciousness. Something I remembered doing when I was a kid. Chava and I had worked out a code system when we wanted to have a conversation in public no one else could understand. We’d gotten very good at understanding each other’s clues. I desperately hoped she would remember. Digging through my glove box, I shoved aside Kendra’s pouch of cash and pulled out my notebook and a pen. I wanted to be ready the next time he called. I rolled up my sleeve to keep from getting the paper wet. I was going to have to do something about my wet clothes or I wouldn’t be of use to anyone.
“But why did you hang up on him?”
“Because if it’s true I’ve got something he wants, he’ll call back. I want him off his game.”
The phone rang. “I wouldn’t do that again,” the voice said, and I could hear anger this time, not just the cold reserve from the first call. I hung up.
“Why are you pissing him off?” Kendra asked.
“I want him reacting, not just planning. He might make a mistake.”
It might not be the smartest plan, but it was all I had.
The phone rang a third time. I put it on speaker and spoke first. “Put my mother back on or I keep hanging up on you. I need to know she’s all right.”
After a pause, I heard the phone being shuffled around and Chava’s voice came on.
“Edwina?” I heard her say. She had to be rattled to revert back to Edwina.
“How you be, Chava?” I asked. It was our signal the game had started.
I heard a slight catch in her breath that made me think she understood.
“I be good, how’s you?”
I gave her a silent cheer.
“Are you all right?”
I could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind as she tried to figure out how to give me the most information she could in our code.
“It’s arid here and I’m cold, but other than that I’m okay, I’ll probably be up all night.”
I wrote down her words, wanting to get as much as I could. I’d sort out the meaning later.
“Are you hurt?”
“I had a nice ride in the front seat; it felt like an hour. Not as good as public transportation, but it didn’t cost me a quarter.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” the man’s shrill voice broke through as I heard him snatch the phone back from Chava.
“How can I give you what I want if I don’t know what it is?” I asked.
“Be at your house in half an hour.”
He knew where I lived?
“If I see the police,” the shrill voice continued, “your mom is dead. If you don’t show, she’s dead. If I hear you’re doing anything I don’t like, she’s dead.”
With that he hung up the phone.
I looked down at the sentences I’d written out.
“What are you doing?” Kendra asked. “How does that nonsense tell you anything?”
I explained to her the game Chava and I used to play.
“So what does your code tell you this means?”
“I’m not sure yet. It’s mostly about opposites. For example, she says it’s arid and she’s cold. That means she’s somewhere wet and hot.”
“Wet and hot? In Bellingham? In the winter? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s not literal. It could mean she’s near water or on Bay Street.”
“So basically it could mean anything. That’s not a very good code.”
Ignoring Kendra’s critique, I continued, “Nice ride in the front seat. I’m going to guess that means she was stuffed in the trunk just like you were. Felt like an hour, but it didn’t cost a quarter. Okay, it wasn’t an hour—it didn’t take me that long to get to you—so that much is clear. It didn’t cost a quarter—”
“Twenty-five cents?” Kendra said. “Does that mean twenty-five minutes?”
“A quarter of an hour is fifteen minutes. She was in the car for fifteen minutes.”
“What about ‘not as good as public transportation’?” Kendra leaned over my shoulder.
“It could just be my mother reminding me she hates to take the bus, but I think what it really means is she’s alone, or rather he’s alone. So there’s no one else there.”
“How does any of this help you find her?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said as I pulled out the files I’d stolen from Leeds’s apartment. I started thumbing through the properties again, hoping something would raise a red flag. Fifteen minutes later I was out of time and ideas.
“What now?” Kendra asked.
“Now we meet your buddy Leeds and see what shakes out.”
Though I’d warmed up with the heater, I still wore soaking wet clothes and no shoes. I looked in the back of my car in hopes of finding my gym bag or at least an extra jacket or a towel. I came up with a pair of shorts, a stained t-shirt I used to wipe oil off my dipstick when checking the level, a pair of shower shoes, and a beach towel. I used the towel to get as dry as I could and put on the clothes. At least the shorts had an actual waistband, and I could tuck my gun in without it slipping out. I looked ridiculous and it wasn’t going to help much against the cold, but at least I would be dry.
Opening the back door, I looked down at the wet dog. He was huge and I wasn’t sure how excited he was going to be to get toweled off by a stranger. He’d saved my life, however, so I figured I owed him something.
“Nice doggy,” I said as I gently reached in to dry him off. He whined once but lay still under my ministrations. I ended by putting the towel over his back like a blanket and got back into the car for the drive home. One way or another, I had to face the man who’d abducted Kendra, snatched my mother, and possibly killed Deirdre Fox.
At least for now we were all alive. I just had to hope I could keep us that way.