2024
“Anyway, we were jogging that afternoon, on a clear spring day, when this sudden blast of wind came out of nowhere, blowing dust and grit in our faces and nearly knocking us over. Just like those garbage men you talked about on your series.”
Melinda was back in Golden Gate Park, at a site that was starting to feel very familiar to her. It was lunchtime, the sun high in the sky, and that same grassy field and adjacent roadway had attracted a variety of visitors. Two young women were playing Frisbee not far away. A geriatric dogwalker was cleaning up after a corgi on a leash, which had just done its business on the lawn. A college student, wearing a USF sweater, sat with his back against a tree trunk on the edge of the field, perusing a paperback copy of Ethan Frome. A mom or nanny pushed a baby carriage along the side of the road. A Parks Department maintenance truck trundled by. Still feeling paranoid after the break-in at her apartment, Melinda was uncomfortable with so many anonymous eyes and ears nearby. She fought an urge to keep an eye on the assorted parkgoers, maybe catch someone looking at her too attentively, and forced herself to focus instead on today’s interviewees.
Ken and Regan Dows had been in their twenties on May thirteenth in 1986, the day Gillian had vanished. The couple, who now qualified for AARP, still looked trim and athletic, although Regan appeared to have had a little work done. They wore matching his-and-hers track suits as they sat across the picnic table from Melinda, who had needed to set up the mics and recorder herself since Dennis was absent for… reasons.
“Did you see anything that might have caused this freak gust of wind?”
“Like what?” Ken asked.
“A helicopter maybe?”
“Nope. Didn’t see anything like that.” He turned to his wife for confirmation. “Did we, honey?”
“Not at all. We were jogging along, getting our daily miles in, when… whoosh! Felt like a jet taking off or something, and then it just went away.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”
Shades of Valdez and his work buddy, Melinda thought. It was possible, of course, that the Dowses were just parroting what Valdez had supposedly experienced the day before, as reported on Cetacean, but she couldn’t imagine why they’d want to do so. They struck her as too healthy, well-adjusted, and altogether ordinary to collaborate on a hoax just for kicks. And at least they could back up each other’s stories, unlike Valdez, whose coworker was not around to corroborate his tale. So, two identical experiences in the same location, one day apart?
She slotted the Dowses’ experience into her timeline. By her reckoning, this would have been less than an hour after Gillian and company liberated Chekov from Mercy General. And then what? Gillian had hightailed it over to the park to catch a ride on a stealth aircraft or flying saucer? And where did Valdez’s glowing “door from nowhere” fit in? Dennis might argue that Gillian, her partners in crime, and Chekov had all escaped through a hole in the spacetime continuum, but that didn’t explain the indentation in the ground or the flattened trash can. Something had sat down hard in the field.
“By any chance, did you see a blue Chevy pickup in the vicinity?” She gestured at the spot where the abandoned vehicle had been found. “Possibly over there?”
The couple gave each other quizzical looks. “I’m not remembering that,” Regan said. “You?”
Ken shook his head, then turned his head back toward Melinda. “Sorry. That was a long time ago. If there was a blue truck around, it didn’t stick in our memories.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
Did that mean that second freak wind happened before Gillian arrived in her truck, or simply that the distracted joggers hadn’t noticed the empty pickup at the time? Both scenarios fit the facts as Melinda knew them.
She asked them a few more questions, showed them her images of Gillian and the Pizza Date (whom they didn’t remember seeing), and inquired about the deep dent in the field (which they had jogged past without noting), before thanking them for their time and wrapping up the interview. They took off at a jog, heading deeper into the park, while she packed up her gear, stowed it in her backpack, and vacated the picnic bench. Despite herself, she couldn’t resist scoping out the other parkgoers again. The dogwalker and carriage pusher had moved on, but the Frisbee players and the English Lit reader were still on the scene and not paying any attention to her.
That she could tell.
On my way, she texted Dennis, getting a thumbs-up emoticon in response. She set out on foot, leaving the field behind. She kept her gaze fixed on the path ahead, as planned, and her body language as relaxed as possible.
Here goes nothing, she thought. Don’t look up.
As soon as she rounded a curve and was safely out of eyeshot, the Frisbee players halted their game and, with practiced efficiency, altered their appearance. Wigs went into a waiting gym bag. Jackets and sweaters were turned inside out to display very different colors and designs. Sweatpants from the bag were pulled over the shorts they were wearing before. New hats and sunglasses completed the disguise. One of the women took out her phone.
“She’s on the move,” she reported. “Continuing surveillance.”
Only moments later, walking along Lincoln Way, Melinda sent another text to Dennis. Per their plan, it was carefully crafted to fool anyone who might be monitoring their communications.
You need me?
He replied promptly: No rush. Take the scenic route.
“Omigosh,” she whispered under her breath. His response caused her heart to skip a beat, almost throwing her off her stride. She knew what that coded answer really meant.
It was happening. She was being followed.
Ever since the break-in, three days ago, they had both occasionally felt as though they were being watched or followed when they were out and about. It was nothing they could put their finger on, and it could be that they were just on edge after having their home invaded, but it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility either, given that spies and cover-ups were now part of their investigation. Best, perhaps, to trust their instincts, just to be safe?
They’d reported the break-in to the police, naturally, but refrained from sharing their more dire suspicions to avoid sounding crazy. The cops had done their due diligence, checking out the crime scene, but hadn’t seemed all that optimistic or motivated about catching the perp. Whoever had picked the lock on the door had done a slick job of it, leaving no prints or other evidence behind. Meanwhile, the fact that nothing appeared to have been stolen had left the police scratching their heads. “Anybody have a personal grudge against you two?”
“Nobody we know of,” she’d answered, which was true, more or less.
It was only later, after the cops had departed, that Dennis had confirmed that their computers had been searched and their files downloaded, including the encrypted ones. What’s more, he’d found indications that the hardware had been tapped as well, allowing a third party to monitor them remotely—and maybe even use them as listening devices. Which possibly explained why the intruder(s) hadn’t taken the computers with them to make the break-in look more like a burglary. They didn’t want to halt the investigation; they just wanted to stay on top of it.
Because they were looking for Gillian too?
For better or for worse, Dennis’s paranoid attitude didn’t seem so overboard anymore. So, in light of her promise to be more wary from then on, they’d hatched a plan to find out whether they were actually being followed or not, using a compromised laptop to set up the meeting with the Dowses—while Dennis watched from above via a high-flying drone equipped with telescopic lenses and a camera.
Don’t look up, she thought. Act natural.
The drone had cost a pretty penny, covertly purchased by a friend they’d reimbursed in cash, but apparently it had been worth the price. Keeping her eyes aimed straight ahead as she ever-so-casually strolled past the Botanical Garden, she managed to avoid looking back over her shoulder to try to spot who was tailing her. Tracking her shadow or shadows was Dennis’s job now. She simply had to lead them on long enough for him to get a good look at them and hopefully figure out who they were.
You want to spy on us? Okay, two can play at that game.
The scenic route was designed to keep any possible shadow interested. Leaving the park, she caught a bus to Pacific Heights to check out the former address of the pizza place Gillian and her dinner companion had visited that one time, which was now occupied by a newer restaurant offering Laos-Colombian fusion cuisine. Melinda didn’t really anticipate picking up any valuable leads or insights at this location; she just hoped the Gillian connection would not be lost on her shadow, intriguing them enough to keep them tailing her.
As she treated herself to some stir-fry with peanut sauce, she couldn’t help trying to visualize the site’s former life as a pizza joint. Even with more immediate things to worry about, up to and including the fact that she was indeed under surveillance, she still got goose bumps thinking about how Gillian had dined here the night before she vanished. What had she been thinking that night? What had she and her date talked about? What urgent business had called them away so abruptly? Something involving Chekov’s infiltration of the U.S.S. Enterprise? And most importantly, had she known that less than twenty-four hours later she would disappear forever?
Melinda glanced around the repurposed eatery, wondering where exactly Gillian had been sitting that night in 1986. If only I had a time machine, so I could walk right over to her table and ask her everything I’m dying to know. Maybe even warn her of… what?
But time travel wasn’t real, at least as far as she knew. The way this investigation was going, she was starting to think anything was possible.
Finishing off her snack, she made her way to Mercy General, taking care to stay aboveground, where the drone could see both her and her shadow; no subterranean Metro lines or stations for her today. Taking her time, she leisurely circled the hospital, studying every entrance and exit. Which route, if any, had Gillian and friends used to spirit Chekov away, right beneath the noses of the FBI and navy security guards? Had a certain hypothetical stealth aircraft been involved? Somewhere between the times Valdez and the Dowses had their respective experiences in the park?
Casing the hospital, however, brought her no closer to solving Jane Temple’s locked-elevator mystery, not that Melinda had truly expected any “eureka” moments. The actual point of the excursion was to keep her shadow engaged while Dennis watched them from above.
Hope you’re enjoying this historical walking tour, dude or dudes.
Tired and ready to go home, she texted Dennis: How’s it going?
Getting it done, he answered. Come home so I can tell all.
“Okay then,” she murmured. Seems he didn’t need her to lead her shadow on anymore, which meant he’d already gotten something useful from the exercise. Excitement washed away her fatigue. She couldn’t wait to find out what he’d discovered via the drone.
brt, she texted back. Be right there.
She scurried away from the hospital, making a beeline for home without being too obvious about it. In theory, she was still being watched. She had to keep cool.
Don’t look up. Don’t look back.
Pausing only to drop off her gear in their apartment, she found Dennis on the roof of the building, operating the drone from the comfort of one of the folding chairs they’d lugged up there earlier. She didn’t waste time saying hello.
“Okay, spill. What have you got for me?”
She was breathing hard, having taken the steps two at a time on top of having traipsed all over the city today. A half-empty water bottle was sitting on the floor of the roof next to Dennis; she finished it off without asking.
“It was the Frisbee girls,” he reported, his gaze fixed on the screen of a brand-new, uncompromised laptop, which was still displaying an aerial view of the city streets courtesy of their expensive new drone; this sting was taking its toll on their bank accounts. “Plus, a third operative waiting to pick up your tail once you headed away from the field. It was a pretty well-coordinated operation, actually; they took turns tailing you, trading the point position back and forth among them so there was less chance of you noticing any one of them sticking to you the whole time. It was very professional. They knew what they were doing.”
His face fell as the implications of that sank in. “Oh, crap.”
“I didn’t spot them,” she admitted, “although, in my defense, I was trying hard not to look for them.” She peered over his shoulder at the screen. “What about the other way around? Any chance they spotted our drone?”
“I doubt it. It was way up high, camouflaged to blend in with the sky, and just to play it safe, I tried to keep it between the sun and the shadows so that they would have needed to stare into the sun to see it.”
“Good job,” she encouraged him. On the screen, what looked like a Vespa motor scooter was heading down a street. “What are we looking at now?”
“One of the Frisbee girls is staying put across the street, keeping watch over our front door. But I’m hoping the pair on the scooter are heading somewhere interesting, maybe back to their HQ.” He shrugged apologetically. “I couldn’t follow all of them at once now that they’ve split up, so I chose to stick with the scooter.”
“Makes sense to me.” She assumed they’d used the scooter to keep up with her whenever she’d resorted to mass transit. “Hey, any chance you can zoom in on the license plate?”
“Way ahead of you. Got some clear screen grabs earlier. Haven’t had a chance to run the number yet. Been too busy operating the drone and tracking your shadows.” He used the laptop’s keyboard to control the drone’s flight. “I’m not that good at multitasking.”
“Understood.” She was eager to find out who the scooter belonged to, but curbed her impatience. She pulled the other folding chair over and settled in as they watched the scooter weave in and out of traffic on its way to somewhere. The aerial view made it tricky to orient herself since she was used to traversing the city at street level, but she got the impression that the scooter was heading toward downtown. She assumed that Dennis would be able to work out the exact route and coordinates from the drone’s feed if he hadn’t already done so. “We know where this is?”
“Northeast on Bryant.”
She smirked. “Knew you’d know that.”
Minutes passed. Now that her part in the sting was done, the wait gave her time to reflect on what exactly they’d discovered and what it meant. While part of her was positively smug that they’d pulled this operation off without a hitch, they had confirmed that the break-in was just the beginning; unknown parties were going to great lengths to keep them under observation.
So… yay?
“You know, I keep thinking that it seems like this all started—the surveillance, I mean—when I called that number on the business card and left a message for ‘Wilmer Offutt.’ Find it hard to believe that’s just a coincidence.” She fished another water bottle from a cooler. “Then again, we’d already gotten Halley’s attention by then. So maybe he’s behind this, or his past or present superiors?”
“Could be, I suppose,” Dennis said, preoccupied with tracking the scooter. “Hang on. I think they’ve reached their destination.”
The scooter veered into a back alley where an automated garage door rolled up to admit them. The vehicle and its riders darted into the murky opening, disappearing from view. The garage door descended behind them.
Their home base?
“Where’d it go?” she asked urgently. “What is that place?”
“Give me a minute.” Dennis’s eyes gleamed; for the moment, the thrill of the hunt seemed to have trumped his nerves and anxiety. Under his control, the drone swooped around to check out the front of building, descending to get a better look at the establishment. Letters stenciled on a tinted first-floor window advertised:
DISCREET DETECTIONS, INC.
Confidentiality Guaranteed
“A private detective agency?” Melinda said. “For real?”
“I said they were professional.” Dennis paled a little, the implications of that sinking in again. “Shit’s getting real.”
“You’re not kidding.” She peered at the screen, already thinking ahead. Their crazy scheme had worked and then some. This wasn’t just proof they were being watched; it was an honest-to-goodness lead, crying out for further investigation. “Which begs the question: Who hired these ace detectives… and why?”