Authors: Stan Crowe
Lindsay let her incredulity show.
“What?” he asked. “You’re okay with flaming chicken, but you choke on the idea of red eyes? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen that.”
“Only in photographs,” Lindsay remarked. “It’s glare from the flash. Unless she was an albino.” She gasped at the sudden revelation. “What color was her skin?”
“What kind of a dumb question is that?” he asked with a scowl. “Are you not an equal opportunity person hunter?”
Glare at the idiot. No, wait… professionals don’t glare. “Details matter.”
He shrugged yet again. “Not sure. The place was dark. Her RV was lit mostly with Christmas lights. Who knows? Maybe she was albino.”
That data also went into the computer. “What else?”
Her first client pondered momentarily, then shook his head. “Like I said, it was dark, and I got out of her freak show pretty quick. We talked, she cursed me, and now I’m here.”
The typing ceased. “‘Cursed’ you?”
The client leaned forward to peer at her. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Lindsay didn’t budge, but made a placating motion with her hand. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Mister Christopherson. Clint. Your story is simply… atypical.”
He rubbed at his forehead. “You’re telling me. Anyway, weird lady tells me I can have a wish for a price. I… paid her and then made my wish. I won’t get into the details other than that she muttered something about how ‘any woman that’s of age and wasn’t from the loins of my great, great grandparents’ would…” He trailed off. “Never mind. Point is, it created issues. I need to find her quick and get her to take it back.”
“Take back the wish?”
“Duh.”
Lindsay’s mouth snapped shut, and she turned back to her computer, worried it was becoming a crutch. Her electronic case tracking forms
were
excellent but not all
that
interesting.
The client got up and walked to the window, presumably to take in the view. So why did she feel his eyes on her as she filled out the forms for this case?
“Please step away from the window,” she said without turning around. “I wouldn’t want you to fall out.”
He rapped the glass a few times. “It seems pretty solid to me. Besides, there’s no way to open it.”
“It’s not idiot proof.” She stopped cold. He was getting to her. Breaking her down simply by
being
there.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That was uncalled for and highly unprofessional.” To apologize, she was willing to reveal her stricken eyes. “Will you please pardon the indiscretion?” she asked, as sincerely as possible.
He crouched to get on eye level with her, causing her breathing to fluctuate strangely again. “You’re fine,” he said. “I’ve been called a lot worse. I think we got off on the wrong foot, here. I’ve, uh… had kind of a rough week. Got me grumpy and all that. Normally, I’m a wonderful guy.”
He stood awkwardly and walked to his chair. Sitting on the edge of his seat, he peered at her. “Look, I hate to cut this short, but I really need to be somewhere. Can I just get a price quote real quick? Something to chew on to see whether I need to shop around some more?”
She nodded curtly. “Well… Clint…” Why was it so hard to spit out that name? “I’m certain that, given time, I can find this ‘Aunt Fey’ you’ve mentioned. I’ll give you my e-mail address and cell number,” she suddenly felt surprisingly forward, and quickly added, “which I hardly ever use. But you can send me any other information you think is relevant when it’s convenient for you.
“To your question, though, I’ve run a quick calculation. This is an ‘attempt to locate’ situation targeting a subject of unknown whereabouts. We’ll estimate forty-hours of time at one-hundred-thirty an hour. Add to that two hundred miles of travel at eighty-cents per mile. Tack on tax and miscellaneous expenses, and…” She typed a few numbers into her computer. “The estimate is five thousand seven hundred and sixty-two dollars.” Working for this… man might be a sentence rather than a job, but it was the perfect opportunity to take her overdue payment out of his hide,
and
get some much-needed funds in her coffers.
The client choked, and then stood swiftly, but stiffly. Lindsay felt a flicker of concern to think he may have injured himself.
No, girl
, she told herself,
it’s his turn to hurt. He’ll get over it, too.
“You know,” he said, as he turned to the door, “I guess I forgot my coupon book for P.I.s. I think I’ll run on home and find one that actually has a good price.”
Lindsay leapt to her feet. “Look, Mister Clint. I understand that people have varying needs. I’m willing to consider any unfortunate circumstances you may be in. Four thousand.”
He didn’t stop. “Thanks for your time, Self.” And he was out the door.
No, Lindsay. No! Don’t lose this!
“
Three thousand!
” The words rushed out and hit the back of her office door as it clicked shut. Her heart sank as the closest thing to actual business she’d ever had disappeared into the hallway. She slumped back into her chair, and let out a long, sad breath.
And then the door cracked opened again.
“Three thousand?” the client asked, peeking in.
She hopped up like a bunny on steroids and nodded with inhuman vigor. The client returned. He began sniffing the air, and Lindsay found herself doing the same without conscious thought. When she realized what she was doing, she blushed again, and stopped.
“Maybe it’s just me,” he said slowly, “but is that the scent of… desperate I detect?”
That was nearly enough to get her to kick him back through the door, but she knew he was right, whether she liked it or not.
He was silent for a moment, and then fished something out of his pocket before tossing it to her. Lindsay managed to not quite drop it in her surprise, and then looked at the offending item. A car key on a small, leather fob.
“She Blue Books for about twenty-five hundred. I got her out of the shop right before coming here. Runs great. She’s parked downstairs on the curb. I’ll bring the title by in a few days and we’ll take care of any other paperwork.” He wheeled around to leave again, but paused at the door. “Oh, and feed the meter.”
And with the click of the closing door, Lindsay was officially Clint Christopherson’s personal slave.
EIGHT
Lindsay was unstoppable.
Her first case was moving forward at lightning’s pace. Flawless. Not only would she finally have something that would shut up Mom and Dad, but she’d also have that louse, er, client out of her hair before he could lay eggs in her scalp.
And he’d better not have lied about the value of his car. She’d know the moment she bothered to go downstairs and look for it.
As soon as the client had left her office, she had run searches on every possible instance of “Fey” she could find. Not surprisingly, the hit count was in the millions. Generous application of appropriate filters brought the options into the thousands—still too many to readily handle, but far better. A quick study of gypsy groups turned up potential clues, and she made a “to-call” list. The best lead turned out to be a fluke. It must have been; it came from… him.
His e-mail flopped rudely into her inbox about two hours after his departure. The missive was simple (she tried not to use the word “stupid”), and added details that were far too helpful to have been intentional. The client had encountered Fey in the north parking lot of the AT&T Park roughly four months earlier.
Within minutes, Lindsay had Uncle Tom on the line, and he had promised to look into whether he could find any security camera footage of that parking lot. Barely a half an hour later, he rang her line; he had access, and would she like to come down and look through the footage, even though she’d have to do it herself?
So it was that she spent four hours in a small, dark room, letting a computer monitor burn hundreds of vehicle images into her retinas. Undeterred, she carried on until at last, she had found an RV that was hideously painted, and plastered with the words “Aunt Fey’s Roadside Wishouse” along the side.
Thankfully, the driver of the monstrosity had paused at the tollgate long enough for her to get a surprisingly clear look at the license plates. The state name was unfortunately blurry (the text simply too small on the screen), but she was certain about five of the seven digits on the plate, and mostly sure about the sixth. Not perfect, but enough for a savvy sleuth like herself.
With a little persuading, Uncle Tom ran several possible permutations of the possible plate numbers, and came up with over seven hundred possibilities across the nation. That left the expected slog through names.
Lindsay was more powerful than a silly little list. By the time midnight rolled around, she was certain she’d found the right person: Alfeyra Belkin of Tennessee. It wasn’t a slam-dunk, of course, but it more or less fit all the parameters. Besides, she could
feel
that it was right.
A few hours of sleep and it was back to Uncle Tom’s office. He pulled a few more strings, and with another day spent searching, they discovered that a vehicle with plates matching Ms. Belkin’s had received parking violations not only there in San Francisco (around the date the client had provided), but also in San Jose, Chicago, a podunk town in Oklahoma, and—most recently— Seattle, Washington.
As in “three days ago” recently.
This meant a road trip. And road trips meant preparation. She was in the silver Audi Dad had bought her for graduation and halfway home before ten minutes had passed. She grimly noted the nearly-empty tank; she’d handle it tomorrow. Her first case, a success already! She’d leave for Seattle in the morning, and have the case wrapped up in time for dinner. The Client would stand agape at her intellectual prowess (to say nothing of her good looks), and cry himself to sleep at the realization that he’d let something so wonderful slip through his fingers. He’d crawl back to her on Friday, begging for a date and sobbing his apologies, and she’d politely ask him to leave. There was no reason to show how much she hated him in the face of a clear victory. She was better than that.
Again, it was flawless.
She chose not to worry about that nagging sense of unease at how ridiculously simple it had been to track down this mystery woman.
NINE
Clint had no intention of abducting anyone when he awoke on the morning of his job interview. His day began early, progressing like a checklist.
3:00—wake up
way
too early to a swarm of butterflies in his gut. Try getting more sleep, since the interview isn’t until 10:00. Grab some time in the hotel pool and hot tub upon realizing a lost cause. Shower, drop into bed, and fret about whether the portfolio would be good enough.
6:30—raid the breakfast buffet as soon as it opens. Hope that inhaling pastries, fruit, and yogurt dissuades the morning clerk who had been eying him up since the time he checked in with Molly.
6:42—lounge in front of the TV to kill time and avoid thinking about the interview.
8:17—shower; change clothes; grab necessities. Conveniently forget to let Molly know he was leaving. Also conveniently forget any of the safety instructions she’d drilled him on the night before; after all, a shot at breaking free from cleaning feces from toilet bowls for a living was more important than a friend’s paranoia.
8:30—hop a bus to downtown.
9:03—hobble to the office building that housed the schizophrenic redhead he’d traded his car to for her help in finding a cure for his curse.
9:09—knock three separate times without an answer; assume her office is not a place she feels any need to frequent. Phone the cell; get no answer from that, either.
9:12—back outside, thankfully without causing his new P.I. to faint a second time.
The morning checklist complete, he sauntered to the nearest bus stop, forcing himself to relax. He’d have just enough time to catch a couple of connecting routes to Graphitti, and still arrive just a little early. He smoothed his tie, shifted the carrying strap of his leather art portfolio from one shoulder to the other, and listened to the whir of morning traffic humming around him, complete with the distant screeching of tires and muted blare of horns. No reason for people to drive safe during the late end of rush hour, right?
Around the corner from his bus shelter, a noise akin to cats yowling in English assaulted his ears. Something in the tenor of one of the voices caught his attention. He paused, and listened more carefully. Yes. There it was again—he thought he knew that voice. He rounded the corner to find a plump, sharply-dressed woman in her late fifties arguing with a reasonably attractive young redhead in equally snazzy duds who was leaning against a silver Audi TT that Clint could only wish for.
It was Sullivan and Self in the flesh.
Note to self
: he thought.
She’s cuter when agitated.
Clint ambled toward the women, listening as the older one
insisted
that Sullivan attend some kind of appointment. From the sound of it, Sullivan was being harangued into either a job interview or an audition for a traveling circus; Clint couldn’t quite tell. Apparently whatever place was hiring, hopefuls either had to be blood relatives or enormously wealthy to even have a prayer of getting into the firm. Sullivan was firing back about having “been over this before,” and having “paying clients to attend to.”
Clint grinned as he wondered whether he should simply continue to spectate, or whether throwing his hat in the ring might be more fun. It only took a moment to make the decision.
“Excuse me,” he said, cutting the senior executive clone off mid-sentence, “but I was wondering if I could trouble a lovely woman for a little help.”
Self looked at him with surprise that morphed into a half-scowl, half-smile with a hint of smugness. The older woman gasped at Clint’s interruption, but evaluated him carefully for a moment before deciding that he was, apparently, not entirely worthy of disdain. Sullivan lifted a hand to gesture at Clint, but the older woman opened her mouth first.