She felt around the room and found a wall-mounted lamp. The sudden burst of light made her eyes ache, but she could at least see she was in a motel room.
Think, Lauren, think.
Michael — cabin — gun — Bradley — plane. Okay.
Just then, there was a hard knocking at the door.
“Lauren, you in there? Lauren!”
“Coming,” she said, stumbling forward.
She peered through the peephole, then turned the knob.
Bradley’s head was tilted in curiosity. “I tried knocking before, but you didn’t answer. I figured you weren’t back yet, so I waited.”
“I was asleep. I heard a door slam and it woke me.” She found her way to a nearby chair. “I’m still a little out of it. What time is it?”
“Seven.”
“I remember getting back from the mall around five-thirty. I laid down and that was it, I must’ve fallen asleep.” She sat down heavily in the chair.
“I take it Michael didn’t show.”
Lauren rubbed her eyes. “It was one of the more boring days in my life. Sitting in a mall, watching the people come and go, isn’t the most intellectually stimulating activity in the world.” She rose from the chair and walked into the bathroom to splash her face with water. “If there’s one good thing in all of this, it’s been a hell of an effective treatment plan for my agoraphobia. The ultimate in cognitive therapy.”
“I wish I could say my day was better than yours, but so far, my guys haven’t turned anything up. I hit some well-known places, even the Metro Police. Nobody knows anything, let alone seen him.”
She dabbed at her face with a white towel. “So now what? Back to the mall tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we call doctors’ offices and hospitals.”
“I feel so damned helpless. We’re in the same town and he’s one person among millions. Unless we hear from him, how are we going to find him?”
“We’ll check your credit cards again. Maybe we’ll get lucky. If he’s charged something, we can interview the vendor, see if Michael mentioned anything about where he’s staying. It’s a long shot, but the idea is to assume nothing and investigate everything.”
“If he had his credit cards, he’d know his name.”
Bradley nodded. “Okay, scratch that. No, try it anyway. It can’t hurt. I’d also call your home machine, see if he’s left a message. Then check your e-mail. At the moment, our best lead will come from Michael himself. While you’re doing that, I’m going to go get us a couple of Cokes over by the office.”
Bradley left and Lauren went to work. With her heart tapping out a fast rhythm, she picked up the phone and called home. But there were no messages. She pulled out her handheld PC and checked her e-mail. There was a message from Amber at Cablecast, but nothing from Michael.
She sighed disappointment, clicked on Amber’s message, and began to read.
Dear Lauren,
Got your message about a security consultant named Nick Bradley. I never heard Michael mention him, so I checked with human resources. They said no one by that name ever worked for Cablecast…
Paralyzed. Her hands, feet, face, her mind… she couldn’t move or think.
Just then, Bradley walked in carrying two cans of Diet Coke. He put them on the table in front of her and turned to close the door. “It’s getting cold out there, wouldn’t be surprised if we got some snow…. Lauren? You okay?”
She saw him reach out, his hand about to touch her shoulder, when suddenly she pushed back in the chair. “Stay away, Nick! Just stay away from me!”
“Lauren.” He held out a hand like a crossing guard stopping traffic. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
She reached over to the table and pressed the button on the small PC. His eyes, wide and concerned, followed her actions. But he didn’t move.
“Mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Everything’s fine. I just don’t think I need your help anymore.” Her voice was laced with anger. If she had a brick, she would’ve thrown it at him. “You can leave, go back home. Send me a bill for your time if you want.”
“This is insane. I don’t understand.”
“Please, just leave,” she stammered, backing away from him.
“No, I’m not going to leave,” Bradley said, his voice rising to meet the pitch of hers. “Not without an explanation. What’s gotten into you? Are you having one of your… panic attacks?”
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s all in her head. I’ve heard that before. I thought I could trust you. Get out!”
Bradley looked down at the PC, then turned back to Lauren. “Is it a message? Did you get a message?”
She did not answer. Bradley reached over and pressed the POWER button and the LCD display instantly appeared, the e-mail from Amber still on the screen.
“That’s none of your business,” she yelled.
“Jesus,” he said, reading Amber’s letter. “No wonder you’re upset.”
“You lied to me, Nick. If that’s even your real name. It all makes sense. You didn’t have any business cards at the Neighborhood Watch meeting. You’re not really a private investigator and your name’s not Nick Bradley—”
“Lauren, calm down! Just relax for a second. This is ridiculous.” He held both hands out in front of him, palms to the floor. “First of all, I didn’t have any cards because I was out of them. I told you that. Second of all, remember how you got my number when you called me from that bar in Nevada?”
Lauren looked at him. Her heart was still pounding in her ears. “I dialed the operator.”
“That’s right. And you asked for Nick Bradley, and they connected you.”
“You lied to me. You told me you knew Michael, that you worked for him.”
“That’s right, I did know him. And I did work for him. But my name didn’t show up on the payroll because he paid me out of a discretionary fund. He didn’t know who in the company was in on the security breach. By keeping me off the payroll, I could do my thing without anyone knowing. Do you hear what I’m saying? So no one would know,” Bradley said slowly.
She stood there looking at him for a moment, trying to sort it out. It made sense. What he was saying did make sense. But could she trust him? That’s the part that gave her the most difficulty.
“I swear, Lauren, I’m here to help you. I want you to find Michael just as much as you do. You’ve got to believe me.”
“What if you’re an accomplice of Hung Jin or Anthony Scarponi or whatever the hell his name is?”
“Then I would’ve killed you already. You obviously wouldn’t be of any use — you don’t know where Michael is either.”
She sat down heavily in a chair and covered her eyes.
“Lauren,” he said as he carefully approached her.
She held out her hand to ward him off. “Please, I just need some time alone.”
Lauren kept her head down. A few seconds later, Bradley left, the door clicking shut behind him. She grabbed the nearest object — her purse — and flung it across the room.
38
The early-morning sun was fighting through the slits in the narrow-slat venetian blinds of one of Bethesda Naval Hospital’s second-floor windows.
Harper Payne sat in a blue-and-white gown on an examination table, the thin butcher paper wrinkling and crinkling beneath him as he shifted positions.
He had been waiting for thirty-five minutes and was beginning to get restless. Although he had gotten through nearly three-quarters of the Bureau training material he needed to learn, there were still hundreds of pages of reports and trial transcripts to review. The last thing he wanted to be doing was sitting in a doctor’s office wasting time. Still, he had been looking forward to the neurologist’s exam because he wanted a more definitive explanation as to what had happened to him, why he had difficulty remembering things, and when his memory would return to normal. He had had yet another sleepless night, and the vivid images were becoming more frequent and defined.