10

 

Tuesday afternoon, April 9

 

Wes stepped out of Louis Armstrong International Airport into a sauna. In two hours they’d flown from the threat of snow to a humid, musty-smelling eighty-five degrees. He preferred the former. Donning a coat smothered the chill, but nothing short of an air-conditioner relieved heat.

Jessica dragged her bag up beside him. Wes had noticed the lack of a wedding ring. She’d stated she was single. He’d missed that she didn’t wear any jewelry, period, and no makeup. Not a puff of powder to be seen. With her complexion, she didn’t need it, but the thought crossed his mind she might abstain for religious reasons.

“Woo, I bet Tony sheds his hoodie in this,” she said.

He smiled. As long as he’d known Tony, the man had worn a black hoodie like a ritual robe, winter and summer. Wes had Jessica at a disadvantage but for fun. “How much?”

“Really? A bet? I was kidding.”

He held out his hand to shake. “I wasn’t.”

She looked back as Tony plodded through the automatic doors. “OK, a dollar.”

“A, as in one?” he said. Her eyes really were mesmerizing, but he got their message and made a fist. She tapped his knuckles with hers.

Tony approached with two hard-sided cases in tow. “Our guy is chirping again. Posted one word, patience, followed by a couple of question marks. And whether it’s an answer to Meshach or not, Lamech posted ‘your isle of choice.’ It’s nuts. They’re nuts.” He heaved a big sigh and looked around. “Where’s the taxi stand?”

Wes pointed down the street to their right. “The hotel is two hundred yards that way, across the street. It’s an easy stroll. I’ve been there before.”

Tony looked left through the covered drive. “It’s hot. Too hot. If you’re walking, I’ll meet you there. I’m not dragging these anchors any farther than I have to.” Before he shuffled away, he zipped the jacket and flipped the hood over his head.

Patience. A question accented with two marks. Isle of choice. None of it made any sense. Nuts? Yes. But no more than chirping. Who would have thought? Wes glanced at Tony again, then at Jess, and held out his hand, palm up.

She looked at his open hand then to his face. Azure eyes, or a mix of turquoise and teal, he didn’t know how to describe them. “What?”

“The bet. See the hoodie.” He pointed at Tony.

“You are kidding me. One dollar?”

“A bet is a bet. Every penny. I can take it out of your first check if you’d like.”

“I’ll have to owe you.” She smiled and swiped at a dark strand of hair blowing across her face. “You’re hard.”

“Business is business. Come on. This way.” He winked and then led her down the sidewalk to the traffic light, across Airline Drive, and left toward the hotel.

Tony strolled through the front door in time to meet them at the elevators, the hoodie still in place.

Wes handed his employees their keycards as they waited for the lift. “We’re in a row, three-thirteen, fifteen, and seventeen. I’m in seventeen. Relax tonight. We’ll get started in the morning.”

They entered the elevator—Jessica with one suitcase and a computer bag first, then Tony and his anchors, as he referred to them. Wes held his arm across the door and stepped in last.

“I meant to ask you about something before I fell asleep on the plane,” Tony said. “That epiphany you had about the names; that just occurred to you out of the blue?”

“No…” In a way, Wes and Cole Blackwell were a lot alike when it came to their personal lives. Wes had never mentioned his daughter to Tony. What was there to tell? Oh yeah, she hates me. Doesn’t want to see me again, ever. With his computer skills, Tony would have gathered his own dossier on his occasional employer long ago. He’d know about Teri and Lisa, but to his credit, he’d never uttered a word.

Wes swallowed the urge to keep his mouth shut. “My daughter, Lisa. She’s expecting. When I asked her about names, she told me what they’d come up with. She’d researched the origins and meanings of a dozen or so, for boys and girls. That got me to thinking about our guy and his code.”

The ding of a bell and the slide of elevator doors opening interrupted Tony’s look of contemplation, air-filled cheeks and half-closed eyes.

“So,” Tony continued as they strolled down the corridor, “you’re going to be a papaw, eh, Papaw?”

Wes had been thinking about Levi’s arrival all day, and not once had he felt the excitement that coursed through him when Tony mentioned Papaw. He smiled and gave Jessica a quick glance. “Yes, I guess I am, but I think I’ll ask him to call me pops.”

They arrived at room three thirteen. Tony fished out his card from the hoodie pocket. “I’m glad you’re talking. Must have been good to see her again after so many years.”

Jessica pushed by without a word, inserted the keycard, opened her door, and disappeared inside her room. The door clicked shut leaving heavy silence.

Tony’s comment and Jessica’s actions shocked Wes. Tony knew a lot more than he’d suspected, and Jessica just acted like a spoiled teenager. Not so much as an excuse me. What in the world had set her off?

Tony’s cheeks filled with air again; then he let it escape out of the corner of his mouth. He shrugged and opened his room door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Wes found himself standing in the corridor alone. Was it something he’d said?

After opening his door, he pushed into the room and shoved the travel bag against the wall. He plopped down on the bed with the computer case on his lap and looked around—television in the center of an oak armoire, matching desk and swivel chair next to it, suitcase caddie against the wall, pint-sized closet with an ironing board and iron next to wooden hangers and plastic laundry bags, two green cushioned chairs, and a small coffee table. Hotels were all the same, and yet again, he occupied one alone. What scared him the most: he was becoming comfortable with the solitude.

He shuffled to the desk and removed his brown leather day planner from his computer case. Tony chided him for not having all the info entered into his smartphone or computer, and maybe he should, but he could lose the phone. Or one day it would spontaneously combust and all the info would go up in smoke. He could misplace the book too, but barring that, his notations would not disappear into cyberspace or wind up on some hacker’s computer.

Over the next hour, he chronicled his team’s activities and drafted an e-mail to Cole, citing what he hoped was a big step in finding their man. He included the supposed code names and their meanings and why they’d moved office to New Orleans. He stopped short of conjecture. He still didn’t know if they were on the right track.

Invoicing the billionaire would be next, but he’d have to think about the sum for a day or two. His rate for finding a runaway teen for a single mom and finding—maybe confronting—someone willing to do what Meshach had done, were two different things.

He drew out a simple flowchart on a white legal pad. Below the box titled Meshach and associates, he branched out to three additional blank boxes, then three more lines to empty boxes below the first three. Twelve boxes total. In the upper three, he entered their names. In the first box below his own name, he wrote law enforcement. In Tony’s he added backgrounds and in Jessica’s, definitions. The rest of the boxes remained empty. He looked at the scribbling a second then tore the sheet off the pad, wadded it up, and missed the trashcan in the corner with his toss.

He went over their next steps in his head, but those thoughts tumbled like clothes in a dryer. Where should they look now that they were in New Orleans? He needed to call Bubba, pick his brain, and catch up. Too many years had passed. He needed to pay a visit to the NOPD and establish a rapport. Let them know why he was in town. They needed another break, another revealing social media post or a mistake, something to point them in the right direction.

His cellphone chirped. “What do you have, Tony?”

“Nothing about the case, but I’ve been thinking about what Jessica did. Something I said about your daughter hit a nerve. You and I have never talked about Lisa or your late wife, but I know what happened. I know you’ve been estranged from Lisa a long time. I know, too, Jessica’s ex-husband is some kind of high-powered lawyer and, as it turns out, a wife beater. She’s said some things in the past, the whole story isn’t clear, and I’ve never searched it out, but she still carries some old feelings around.”

Seconds ticked. So she had an ex. What about children?

“Boss, don’t hold it against her.”

“Thanks, Tony. See you in the morning.” He clicked off, stood, and looked out the window. Below, a surge of traffic sped down Airline Drive when the traffic light turned green. Another jet took flight. The intensity of the power it took to hurtle the aircraft into the air shook the hotel.

He tried to remember Tony’s exact words. Something about seeing Lisa again, or how good it was to see her. Did Jessica think he’d abused his daughter?

He unlocked his phone, tapped Messages, and reread Lisa’s text of instructions for their meeting. He looked at his watch—9:15 in New Orleans and 8:15 in Denver. She and Josh would be…what? Watching sitcoms? Painting the baby’s room?

He ached to know.