CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Friday, January 14

9:45 a.m.

Upstate New York

Otto’s exhaustion finally overcame her inability to sleep in moving vehicles, and she’d managed an hour’s nap while Gaspar drove south. She awakened when the rental slowed to exit the freeway.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Gaspar said with a grin.

She glanced at the snow-covered hills and a few low buildings in the distance. “Where are we?”

“Breakfast. Where else?” He pointed ahead. “And not a burger joint, as you requested.”

“Great.” She checked her watch first, and then the Boss’s phone. He hadn’t called. Which was curious because he had to know they didn’t board the plane to Palm Beach. She dropped the phone into her pocket.

They’d traveled more than one hundred miles before Gaspar found the chain restaurant. A country themed place with a store full of local crafts and tchotchkes on one side and a big porch with rocking chairs out front.

The parking lot was busy, which Otto figured was a good sign. Gaspar drove through the lot and around the building before he spied a car with its backup lights on.

“Anything showing on that app yet?” He asked as he waited for the car to pull out.

Otto checked his phone. “No. But it’s still early. I doubt Scavo has slept off that sedative yet.”

They went inside, used the restrooms, and joined the line at the hostess station. When they were finally seated inside, and the waiter had taken their orders, Otto asked, “Did you find anything else interesting while you were checking Scavo’s place on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass?”

“No need to exaggerate. I didn’t have a magnifying glass. Didn’t need one with these peepers.” He touched the corner of his eye with a forefinger, and she grinned in spite of herself.

The waiter brought coffee and left an insulated jug on the table when he rushed off.

“Found a few anomalies.” Gaspar leaned forward, forearms on the table, to talk without being overheard. “The guy had no phone in the house.”

Otto shrugged. “No land line phone is pretty common these days.”

“I mean no phone of any kind. No land line. No cell phone. No walkie-talkie, even. Nothing.” He paused a moment and lifted his coffee cup as if she wasn’t firing on all cylinders and needed caffeine to wake up her brain. “Which I’d call pretty damned odd for a guy in his condition. He might need to call emergency services at any hour of the day or night. How’s he going to do that?”

“Or maybe he had a cell phone with him. I keep mine with me all the time. So do you.”

Gaspar narrowed his gaze. “You went into the bedroom. Did you see a phone of any kind in there?”

She closed her eyelids to visualize Scavo lying almost comatose on his bed. “No.”

Gaspar nodded, but to his credit, didn’t smirk. “Also, no computer, no tablet, nothing that would allow him to use the internet and reach the outside world.”

Otto cocked her head. “That is odd these days, I guess.”

“Damned odd.” Gaspar raised one eyebrow. “Especially since he had a strong and fast Wi-Fi signal inside the duplex. I checked. Why have Wi-Fi available if you have nothing to access it with? What’s the point of that?”

“Okay.” He’d snagged her full attention. “What else?”

“The television and cable box were unplugged and disconnected from the wall. But the prongs on the connectors had marked up both outlets, like they’d been plugged in a few times by a guy with the shakes who couldn’t find the insertion points. If plugging and unplugging was such a struggle, why were they unplugged today?”

“Maybe he’s just paranoid about being watched or something,” Otto said thoughtfully. “All of those devices are well-known monitoring opportunities. There’s thousands of examples in the new TrueLeaks documents, for one thing, and that’s been all over the news lately.”

“Only way he’d be unaware is if he’d landed here from another planet this morning. Which we know he did not.” Gaspar slumped back into his chair, looking at her as if he expected answers, which he must have realized she couldn’t give. “Where is our food? Did they have to wait for the hens to lay the eggs or what?”

“The place is busy. You won’t starve.” She refilled her coffee and his. “Were you able to get one of your listening devices into the bedroom?”

“Close enough. We should be okay.” He frowned. “Seemed like he doesn’t get many visitors. Could take a while.”

The waiter, a round tray hefted onto his shoulder, stopped at another table to drop off something and then brought their breakfast and a fresh pot of coffee. She’d ordered one egg and toast. Gaspar had ordered everything on the menu. Or at least, that’s how the table looked after the waiter unloaded the tray.

“Anything else I can get you?” he asked.

Otto smiled. “You mean you’ve still got food in the kitchen?”

He frowned as if she’d spoken in tongues. “I’m sorry?”

She didn’t explain. “Is there a shopping mall close by?”

His frown cleared immediately and he nodded. “Just about five miles further south right off the interstate. It’s an outlet mall. Fifty stores. Opens at ten on Fridays.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a four-by-six-inch postcard and placed it on the table. He pointed to the small map at the bottom. “You can’t miss it. Watch for the signs. Keep that with you. We’ve got plenty.”

Otto nodded. “Thank you.”

Gaspar had cleared one of the small plates before the guy scurried off. “We’re going shopping?”

She nodded again. “And then we’re going to find a hotel so I can get a shower. I’m sick of these clothes. I feel like I’ve wrestled a pig in a mud bath.”

“Well, that’s a little harsh. I wouldn’t have put it quite that way. But now that you mention it…” He wrinkled his nose and sniffed loudly.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t smell all that great yourself, Cheech.”

Gaspar laughed. “Let’s say we spend a couple of hours and do all of that. Then what?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” she replied.