“Michael,” Father Joe’s voice was almost a whisper. As if he were afraid to spook a frightened bird. “Did you ever wonder why you hated to travel? It’s been programmed into your soul to have the desire to stay here, close to home, for the betterment of humanity.”
“That’s enough,” Bryant said.
“Look at me, Michael,” Father Joe said. “This isn’t an old western shootout. All the other side needs is the good guy to look the other way.”
Bryant didn’t look up. Instead, the vision of Kate and Megan flashed through his mind. Where would they be if he just would’ve kissed his wife goodbye that Tuesday morning? That split second it took to kiss her would’ve changed their fate forever. Are we all just that vulnerable?
While he was losing his train of thought and slipping down the familiar slope toward inner shame and despair, Bryant heard a chime and saw Meltzer look down at his phone.
“Shit,” Meltzer said, then looked directly at Bryant.
Bryant dropped his head. In a low voice, he said, “Margo is missing.”
“How did you know?” Meltzer asked.
How
did
he know? Bryant considered the question. “I could tell by the way she said goodbye when you took her to the safe house. I knew it was a fleeting comment.”
“She’s looking for you, Michael,” Father Joe said. “She needs to protect you.”
Bryant said nothing. He’d spent so much energy distancing himself emotionally from the world. If you had no one to care about, you had nothing to lose. No stake in their welfare. But now Margo forged her way into his life and once again he had something to lose.
At that very moment he became determined to show them just how wrong they were. Margo was just an innocent kid with a remarkable mind. She needed him all right. She needed him to be there for her.
“You want to help me?” Bryant asked Father Joe. “Then let’s find Margo before Turkle does.”
The priest was nodding, maybe finding common ground where he could manipulate the masses to draw out his theory to its conclusion.
Bryant pushed himself forward and brushed off imaginary dust from his pants, as if cleaning off the old sorry thoughts, ready to begin a new agenda.
“Okay.” He turned to Meltzer. “She doesn’t trust anyone right now. How far away is the safe house?”
“Ten miles.”
Bryant went to the window and peered through the shutters behind Father Joe’s desk. It was early afternoon, and the storm had blocked out so much sun, it seemed as if night was approaching. “We need to find her quickly.”
From behind him, Meltzer said, “Does she have a cell phone?”
“No,” Bryant said, staring out into the slant of rain streaming down from the sky. “Where’s her car?”
“At the station.”
Bryant turned. “How did she get out of the safe house?”
Meltzer half-shrugged. “It hardly matters now. I’m sure she used her abilities to deceive the agents.”
The lights in Father Joe’s office flickered. Everyone froze, almost waiting for something to happen. When the lights ended up staying on, Bryant decided to take charge. He pointed to Sullivan on the couch. “You stay here in case Margo shows up.”
“Of course,” Sullivan said.
Bryant headed toward the door. “Let’s get going,” he said.
“I should put out a BOLO for her,” Meltzer said, pulling out his phone.
“No,” Bryant said. “That’ll just alert Turkle, if he doesn’t know already.”
They were following Bryant out the door, when the phone on Father Joe’s desk rang. They stared at it like a ticking bomb.
Father Joe took a couple of steps back and picked up the receiver. “St. Andrews,” he said. The priest’s eyes sparkled. “Margo?”
Bryant, Meltzer and Sullivan crowded around the desk.
“Where are you?” Father Joe asked, excitedly.
Bryant waited for Father Joe to get Margo’s whereabouts before whispering, “Is she okay?”
Father Joe held up his index finger to Bryant, then said into the receiver, “Are you—” Father Joe nodded. “Yes, of course. I understand.” He face remained unreadable while he listened. “Okay. He’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Father Joe hung up the phone. He looked at Bryant and said, “She’s at Bobby Q’s restaurant in Queen Creek. She only wants you to come get her.”
Bryant said nothing.
“Michael,” Meltzer said, “you can’t go alone. The two of you are in danger. It’s ludicrous to be out there on your own.”
“He’s right,” Sullivan added.
Bryant simply kept his attention on Father Joe. “You never told us if she’s okay.”
“She said she’s fine,” Father Joe said. “But she didn’t sound too happy.”
Bryant looked at Meltzer. “I’ll go alone, but you stay a mile or two behind me. If I need help, I’ll call.”
Meltzer cocked his head, then said, “All right.” He let out a breath and added, “I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t even know who to trust anymore. Turkle has his claws everywhere.”
“Exactly,” Bryant said as he headed for the parking lot.
Chapter 32
Bryant was driving into the teeth of forty-mile-per-hour gusts while his windshield wipers tried to keep up. It was dark enough for him to drive with the lights on, but not even late enough for dinner. By the time he pulled up to Bobby Q’s, it was mid-afternoon and the parking lot was practically empty. Bryant parked in a spot by the entrance and shut off his engine. He looked around just out of habit and saw nothing bothersome.
Bryant pushed opened his door, then ran through the storm and into the restaurant. Once inside he shook the moisture from his body and looked around the room. There was only one booth occupied by an elderly couple sharing a piece of apple pie. The hostess stand was vacant, but he could hear employees working in the kitchen. He was about to peek through the window in the kitchen door when a teenage girl, wearing a white button-down shirt and blue jeans came out wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. She seemed surprised to see him there.
“I’m so sorry,” the girl said, still chewing on the remains of a meal while tossing the napkin into the trash next to the hostess stand. She grabbed a menu from the top of the stand and said, “Just one of you?”
“No,” Bryant said, “I’m just looking for a friend. She’s waiting for me here.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Is there a girl waiting for someone?”
“Well,” the hostess glanced toward a table near the front of the restaurant, then back at Bryant. “She was here not long ago, but she left.”
Knots of anxiety tightened up in his chest. “Where did she go?”
Now the girl seemed suspicious, her eyes examined Bryant with a touch of uncertainty. “Why are so many people looking for her?”
The blood drained from Bryant’s face. “What people?”
“Well,” the girl now looked past Bryant to the parking lot, “another man just came by asking the same question.”
“What did he look like?”
“He, um,” the girl seemed to hesitate, as if she could get into trouble somehow.
Bryant moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “Listen, this girl is in danger. She’s a sweet innocent kid who needs protection. Could you please help me?”
The girl appeared to make a decision. “Well,” she said, “the other guy was a little shorter than you, but thicker and he looked . . . . um, angrier. He said he was with the FBI. He even showed me his shield.”
Bryant could tell she was suspicious and wanted confirmation. “He’s not what he appears.” Bryant cocked his head. “I think you know that don’t you?”
The girl nodded. “I had a bad feeling about him.”
“You should. Did she leave before he came?”
The girl glanced at the quiet restaurant. “Yeah.”
“Good. Did the man tell you anything?”
“No. He just interrogated me like I was a criminal.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. Just what I told you.”
Bryant ran a hand through his hair and spun around in a circle. He scrutinized the outside of the restaurant, finding nothing noteworthy. When he looked back at the girl, she was chewing on a cuticle.
Bryant softened his tone even further. “Did she leave any kind of a message for me?”
The girl appeared apprehensive, like she was going to speak, but stopped.
“It’s okay,” he said. “There are no wrong answers.”
This seemed to calm her nerves. “You wouldn’t happen to be a doctor, would you?”
“Yes, in fact I am. Dr. Bryant.”
The girl’s eyes brightened. She looked around for eavesdroppers, then said, “She told me to tell you that someone needed her help.”
“Who?”
The girl shrugged. “She didn’t say, but it seemed like she was hearing something far away or smelling something in the air. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I certainly do.”
Bryant turned back toward the rain. Someone needed help. He remembered Margo saying that she couldn’t hear thoughts when it was loud or too far away. Whoever was in trouble, they had to be close by.
He couldn’t imagine where to begin, until he spotted a stray cat wander across the grassy landscape of the restaurant’s exterior. He spun back and lightly gripped her arms. “Did you tell the other guy about this?”
“No. I asked him if he was a doctor and he just sneered at me like I offended him or something.”
“Good job.”
“Is she in trouble? She looked really scared when she left.”
Bryant wanted to ask the girl if she’d watched the news or read a newspaper, but by her wandering expression, he already knew the answer to that. “She’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure? I hope I didn’t do anything—”
“You did great,” Bryant assured her.
“Yeah?”
Bryant squeezed her hand and the feeling in his heart came back to life. That sense of caring and concern for a young person grew inside of him without ever being forced. “It took a lot of courage to do what you just did. Thank you.”
The girl smiled.
“Now,” Bryant glanced outside, then back to the girl. “Did you happen to see which direction she headed?”
She thought for a moment, then pointed to her left. “No, but I saw her looking toward the kitchen. At first I thought she’d heard someone hurt themselves on the line, but then she walked out the door and turned left.”
Bryant thanked the girl again, then went out into the downpour. As he scanned the perimeter, he pulled out his cell and called Meltzer.
“She’s gone,” Bryant said when the detective answered.
“How?” Meltzer asked.
“I don’t know. I think she might’ve sensed Turkle.”
“Was he there?”
“Yes, but he’s gone as well. Probably searching for her.”
Meltzer let out a long breath and said, “I’ll be right there.”
“No,” Bryant said. “I’ll find her. She’s on foot, so she can’t be far. She asked for me to come alone, remember?”
“I don’t like this,” Meltzer said. “We need to use our resources. If you don’t like the FBI, then let’s get the Gilbert PD involved.”
“No. Give me some time,” Bryant said walking in the direction the hostess had told him Margo went. “I’ll phone as soon as I need you.”
“Great,” Meltzer said sardonically. “I’ll have a hearse sent by to pick you up.”
Chapter 33
Bryant turned left down the first side street he came to. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A few cars parked on the street and a few on the driveway but nothing notable. He walked quickly, wiping the moisture from his face as the low-lying clouds continued to drop rain over the Valley of the Sun.
Bryant had made it down two blocks without any sign of Margo, but he also hadn’t seen Turkle either. As the minutes passed he found himself moving faster and faster.
He decided to turn right and moved down another street perpendicular to the one he traveled, like going across the back lane of a grocery store to look down the different aisles. He was trying to be inconspicuous, but Queen Creek, Arizona, wasn’t designed to be walked. It was a sprawling suburb of Phoenix where people drove their cars, especially in the rain.
Bryant passed another side street and saw nothing worth his attention. He kept wiping back his hair to keep the rain from dripping in his eyes. Behind him came the sound of a car engine. He didn’t know how to react. Should he turn and see? The car was going slow and that caused him to walk faster and get ready to flee. He resisted the temptation to turn, hoping the driver wasn’t Turkle, but knowing he would be better off out in the open. He glanced around trying to find a house with a car in the driveway—maybe someone would be home. Someone who might help him.
The car was close now and Bryant’s nerves were frayed. He forced himself to take a deep breath. As the car rolled by, he spied an old pickup truck with a middle-aged couple in the cab. The bed of the truck was full of medical supplies. There were cases of sodium chloride and IV catheters along with tubing to administer the IV bags. At first Bryant wondered whether there was a walk-in clinic nearby, but then he spotted a case of canned beans and realized these supplies weren’t for patients. These were actually doomsday preppers getting ready for the alien invasion. If the world was going to end, these folks were going to survive as long as possible.
Bryant sighed from relief. He didn’t need to log on to a social media site to know how this was playing over the globe. Chandler was ground zero for the alien invasion, and Margo was their point person.
Bryant was convinced the public was overreacting, but now, sneaking along the sidewalk of this quiet neighborhood, he couldn’t help but feel vulnerable and exposed.
As he passed another empty street he stopped. There wasn’t anyone visible, yet something caused him to pause. He didn’t know what he was waiting for until he saw the golden retriever strolling across the desert landscape of a neighbor’s yard. On the opposite side of the street, he noticed a gray cat moseying in the same direction. It wasn’t much, but it got him to follow his instincts. His body was saturated to the point where he no longer stepped around puddles. Even his socks were waterlogged.
Bryant wanted to shout out Margo’s name, but knew it was futile and possibly even dangerous. He examined the front doors, the driveways, the garage doors, anything which would give him a sign that someone was in trouble.