Elly's Ghost (20 page)

But Elly
couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jay. Now that she was back in
civilization, she was completely uncomfortable without him. She desperately
wanted to know he was okay. The fact that he hadn’t been among the bodies at
the morgue did little to keep Elly from worrying about him.

Jay had been
through so much, having lost his parents and his friend and going to war. She thought
her maturity was laughable compared to his. She remembered him calling her out on
her Vicodin addiction. He’d also told her he wouldn’t like being famous, and she
wondered if being with a well-known singer was out of the question. Elly
pictured the last time he’d seen her when he left her on the highway, and then she
wondered why he lied to her about his name.

And now he’d
disappeared, like the ghost he’d once called himself.
Why hadn’t he been
found? Didn’t he want to be found?
The thoughts swirled in her head, and
she was forced to admit she loved him even though she hardly knew him. She
didn’t care that he’d lied to her. She remembered kissing him as they held each
other for the last time, when they’d woken up in the tent together.

Elly wanted him
back more than anything. She tried to tell herself he was a Marine and could handle
himself in the woods, but it was useless. She needed to know he was okay, and she
began to fear the worst.

FRIDAY

The Secret
Service agent outside the president and first lady’s bedroom relaxed when he
realized the sound of rapid footsteps belonged to the first daughter. “Good
morning, Celeste. Moving kind of fast this morning, aren’t we?”

“Is my dad in
there?” She pointed at the bedroom door.

“Yes, ma’am.”
The guard knocked. “Mr. President, your daughter is here to see you.”

Celeste ran
through the door.

“She’s alive!” Celeste
shouted. “It was just on the news. She’s still alive!”

Celeste found
her dad at the bathroom sink.

“Good morning,
sunshine,” The president shut off his electric shaver. “I just heard.”

Celeste stood in
front of a television showing live CNN coverage. A reporter was talking, and the
small hospital Elly was in appeared in the background.

“This is great!”

“It sure is.” He
dropped to one knee and put his arm around his daughter. The two listened as
the broadcast continued.

“… made a brief
statement this morning, saying she is in good health, and has been reunited
with her family. Sheriff Neuhaus declined any questions, saying only that this
is an ongoing investigation and the sheriff’s office is cooperating with other
agencies. No word about the circumstances behind how Wittenbel came to be found
in western Montana even though her plane crashed in the Pacific five days ago.”

Celeste
scampered off to get ready for school.

The president
returned to shaving. He was looking forward to a full report during his lunch
with FBI Director Holtz.

* * *

The local high
school was a flat, one-story brick building only one-fifth the size of the
school Elly and Nick had gone to in Baltimore. Nick parked the rental car in
one of the visitor spots across from the entrance. He walked into the building
and ignored the “Visitors must register at the office” sign, surprised there
were no guards or metal detectors. The lobby was decorated in the blue and
yellow school colors and full of students heading to their next class.

“Hey, man,” Nick
said to a teenage boy. “Where’s the library?”

“Down there.” The
student pointed down a hallway.

Nick found the
library and, from the doorway, spotted the kind of low shelves that always
seemed to hold reference books, dictionaries, and yearbooks. He walked
confidently across the floor, hoping everyone was too busy to notice him. He
found the yearbook for what he had learned was Benjamin Chase’s senior year. It
took only seconds to find a photo of him in the class of ninety students. Nick
grabbed the yearbooks for Ben’s sophomore and junior years, checked again that
no one was watching, stuffed them in his bag, and walked out.

The hospital was
only a mile from the school. Nick could see boom antennas from several news
vans as he neared the building. One of the reporters was giving an update on
the “situation” as Nick sneaked back into the hospital.

Nick’s name was
on the VIP list. The sheriff’s deputy watching the wing where Elly was resting
let him pass.

The shades were closed
in Elly’s room, and a second table had been brought in for the bouquets of
flowers pouring into the hospital. It smelled like a floral shop.

Nick noticed his
sister’s frown, even as she tried to smile. She was clearly exhausted, as if an
invisible lead blanket were pressing down on her.

“Good morning,
Elly.”

“Hi, Nick.” Elly
spoke softly.

“It’s not that
good, is it?” Nick asked

Elly shook her
head. “No.”

“Mom and dad
should be here soon.”

Elly nodded.

“The sheriff
told me he’d call if he heard anything,” Nick said.

Elly stared at
the ceiling, looking like she was trying not to cry.

Nick put a bag
of Tropical Skittles on the table next to her bed.

“Oh, thanks,”
she said.

“I know they’re
your favorite kind.”

“Are they still
yours, too?”

“Of course.
We’re twins, aren’t we?” Nick smiled. He pointed at the door, “If you want, I
can come back later.”

“No, stay. I
need some company.”

Nick pulled up a
chair and chose his tone carefully. “Elly, I’ve been awful to you the last few years.”

Elly’s eyes met
his.

“Every
opportunity I’ve had to be a brother to you, I failed. And then at dad’s
birthday party, I … I’m so sorry I said those terrible things to you. Can you
ever forgive me?”

Elly swung her
feet over the edge of the bed, holding her arms out. Nick stood and hugged her.

“Yesterday,”
Elly said, “when you walked into that room in the police station, I realized
you’d been looking for me. There was no way you could’ve gotten here so fast if
you hadn’t. I knew you really cared. That meant so much to me. Of course I
forgive you.”

“I had to find
you.” Nick slowly let her go, and she climbed back into bed.

“I have a few
things to show you,” Nick said. “Agent Beckholm gave me this last night.” Nick
pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Do you
recognize him?”

Elly stared at
the photo of a clean-cut blond man who appeared to be in his late teens. He was
proudly holding up a large fish. “No.”

“That’s Benjamin
Chase,” Nick said.

Elly let the
photo fall into her lap. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I have to find him—”

“Elly,” Nick
said, cutting her off. “First there is something you might want to consider.
Are you sure you want him to be found?”

“Of course I
do.”

“The reason I
ask is because I get the impression the police may want to charge him with
homicide.”

Elly’s eyes
widened.

“They have all those
dead bodies and—”

“Nick, he saved
my life! There is no way they’re charging him with anything. We have to find
him.”

“Why?”

Elly pulled her
legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees. “When those men tried to
kidnap me, he stopped them. Just like Kevin, he didn’t even hesitate. He risked
his life to save mine when he could have just stayed hidden. For the past five
days, he’s put my safety first. Everything he did was to make sure we came out
of those woods alive.”

“Elly, he gave
you a fake name.”

“And I know he
had his reasons. Look, everywhere I go I have to question whether or not I can
trust people. He’s the first person I’ve met in over three years who didn’t
want anything from me. I trusted him in a way that I’ve never trusted anyone
outside my family or the band. I need to know he’s okay.”

“Then let’s find
him.” Nick handed her the yearbooks. “First, we need to figure out his name.”

“Where did you
get these?”

“In town,” he
said with a smile.

Elly pored over them
as Nick sat next to her on the hospital bed. The determination showed on her
face, and Nick knew the man who helped Elly must have made quite an impression
on her. She suddenly stopped scanning the pages. “That’s him.” The picture was
a younger, smiling version of Jay. “His name is … Jason. Jason Tessier.”

“They’re going
to find him, Elly.” Nick met Elly’s eyes. “Look how easy it was for us to find
his name. And when they know who he is, they’ll probably issue a warrant for
his arrest.”

“No way,” Elly
said. “I won’t let that happen. Give me your phone.”

“What are you
going to do?” Nick handed her his phone.

“If there’s a
shark in the water that’s going after my Marine, I need a bigger shark to scare
it away.”

* * *

“What do we
know?” District Attorney Jack Coleman demanded as he strode into the sheriff’s
office. Neuhaus introduced Beckholm.

“We just got
word from Los Angeles,” Beckholm said. “Keith Darwitz, the man they arrested in
connection with this case, admitted the now-deceased Michael Belgrade called
him Sunday from a motel room not far from here. Search warrant for the room is
on its way from the judge right now, and we are assembling a team to check it
out. They’ll be ready in about thirty minutes.”

Beckholm
continued with additional details about Darwitz. He revealed what he knew about
each of the four dead men found at the camp and the four found at the highway.

“Who killed them
all?” Coleman still hadn’t pulled out a pen.

“We don’t know.
According to Elly—”

“Yeah, I know,
some dead kid named Ben,” he said sarcastically. “Tell me you have something
better than that.”

Beckholm paused.
He wanted to understand if there was a good reason for the DA’s hostile tone or
if he’d just met the biggest prick in the county. “We are still investigating—”

“Look,” Coleman
said, “we’ve got ten dead bodies, including two teenagers. I want suspects, I
want more warrants, and I want to find the guy—now!”

“I’ve got
ballistics looking at the bullets found in the teenagers to see if they match
any of the weapons found on the dead men,” Sheriff Neuhaus said. “Given Elly’s
statement, they had no contact with any teenagers. When we find the guy, you
may not want to press charges.”

Coleman’s face
contorted with anger. “Are you suggesting all of these deaths were some sort of
self-defense? One had his throat slit while he was taking a piss.” Coleman
stood up. “Another was sleeping when his neck was broken. Are you asking me to
ignore this? No way!”

“Calm down, Jack,”
Sheriff Neuhaus said.

Coleman threw
his notebook into his briefcase. “You two do your job, and you let me do mine.
Find the son of a bitch so I can charge his ass.” He slammed the briefcase shut
and stormed out.

Beckholm watched
the door close. “Well, that went well.”

“Don’t worry. Not
even his secretary likes him. Hard to believe he’s been divorced twice, isn’t
it?” Neuhaus smiled.

* * *

Agent West was
on his office phone when Agent Schwartz appeared in the doorway.

After a hasty
“I’ll call you back,” to the person on the line, West asked, “What do you
have?”

“Victor Fines,
former head of finance for Revolution Records. Seven months ago he was fired
for skimming money from the company. He’s the one running this operation.”

“What makes you
think that?”

“Victor’s now-deceased
wife’s maiden name was Darwitz. Keith is Victor’s nephew. Michael Belgrade’s
phone records show he made forty-seven phone calls to Victor in the past six
months.”

“I’m going to
have this guy up to his ears in warrants and felony charges.” West picked up
the phone and began punching numbers.

“Do you want to
know why I’m sure he’s behind it?” Schwartz asked.

“Why?”

“He left for Italy last night. He bought the plane ticket a few hours before he left.”

SATURDAY

“You are an
American?” the Italian customs agent asked calmly in perfect English.

“That’s
correct.” Victor Fines smiled.

“And what is the
purpose of your visit?”

“Business.”

“And what kind
of business are you in?”

“Finance, for a
record company.” Fines pulled out a Revolution Records business card and
offered it to the agent.

The agent inspected
the card. “And how long is your stay?”

“A week.”

The silent alarm
had been triggered the instant the young officer first scanned Fines’s
passport. Keeping Fines distracted had given the guards time to surround the
area.

“Sir,” a voice
boomed.

Fines turned and
saw a uniformed guard aiming an automatic weapon at him.

“Place your
hands on your head. You are under arrest.”

* * *

West watched as Beckholm
opened his office door. “Good morning,” he said, brightly.

“Is it morning?”
Beckholm slumped into one of West’s office chairs. “I can’t keep track anymore.
I’m trying to remember what sleep feels like.”

“When did you
get in?”

“About an hour
and a half ago.”

“Why didn’t you
sleep last night?”

“I checked into
my hotel, showered, and had just climbed into bed when my phone rang. I got the
news they found the helicopter abandoned in Canada.” Beckholm pulled an
envelope out of his briefcase. “Here’s everything you’d ever want to know about
it.”