“What might happen, Vince?” Tracy looked at him. “You tell me. We’ve come here at Mike’s request, now he and Frank don’t show up. They fed us this bullshit that this spooky devil cult is on to us, and they can’t even so much as show up and—”
“Suppose they got them?
“And who is they?”
Vince looked at Tracy as if she’d gone crazy. He didn’t know what to say; his mind was a jumble of emotions, all fighting to the surface. “You bug the shit out of me last night to get you involved and… and…”
“Listen,” Tracy rested her hand on his forearm, her features softened. “I’m sorry. I know I was a pest last night, and I really was angry at being left out. I really did want to be included. But… what else can we do? We were given explicit instructions. Now things haven’t gone according to plan. They may have gotten to Frank and Mike, and if that’s happened we have to know about it. And the only way to know is to go back and—”
“No!” Vince was adamant. He wasn’t going back to his home.
Tracy’s grip on his wrist tightened. “Hear me out for a minute, okay?” She glanced around quickly and Vince looked around, too. Nobody was paying attention and he felt the tension slacken.
Tracy leaned forward, her voice lowered to a whisper. “If they’ve gotten to Mike and Frank, we don’t know about it, right? So we go to our places and get our stuff, okay? We tell Brian we’re taking time off from work and we go into hiding. We go somewhere we know they won’t even think of looking for us. Montana or something. Hell, we’ll go to Alaska. Surely you’ve got to have enough money in savings to tide you over for a few years, right?”
Vince nodded. Along with stock options, he was worth a couple of million dollars if he cashed out on everything.
“Then we shack up together, live under a different name, whatever it takes to be far away from this place,” Tracy continued. “Maybe we’ll learn the truth and find out that Mike and Frank really just decided to drop out of the investigation.”
“And not tell us?”
“Why not?” Tracy took her sunglasses off. Her green eyes were reflective. “Maybe they tried contacting us. It doesn’t matter. Maybe they just decided the best way was to… just run away.”
“Frank… run away?” Vince shook his head. Tracy Harris didn’t know Frank Black.
Tracy ignored him. “And if they did, maybe that’s for the best. You know?” Her touch became soft now; her hand caressed his arm. “Maybe it’s best to leave things alone. What happened in the past is the past.”
Vince wanted to argue the point, but for every argument he had, Tracy had a counterpoint. They continued the discussion on their walk to the Best Western. Once behind locked doors, Tracy slipped out of her clothes. “I’m done discussing this. Try calling them again and see if you get an answer. I’m taking a nap.”
Vince watched her for a moment, sitting on a chair near the bed. Then he pulled the cell phone out and tried both numbers again. Neither man picked up.
Vince closed his cell phone, but kept it turned on. Tracy slipped into bed. She fluffed a pillow and lay down on her left side, her back to him. Case closed.
Vince sat in the chair for a while, watching her. Maybe Tracy was right. Maybe it was time to stop this mad chase. Where had it gotten him? Nowhere. He was no closer to finding out what had happened to his mother than he’d been last month.
Besides, he thought, we were supposed to turn everything over to Mike’s friend, Billy something. This afternoon. So why haven’t Mike and Frank been in touch?
Vince tried calling Mike and Frank again. Once again, neither man picked up. The calls didn’t even go through to voice mail, which Vince found odd. He sat in the chair and looked out the window, worry gnawing his gut as Tracy dozed in the king-size bed behind him.
VINCE PULLED THE Volvo up to the curb in front of Tracy’s sprawling condominium complex the following morning at nine-thirty, feeling a weight settle in his chest.
Tracy turned to him, looking radiant. “Well, this is it, I guess.”
“Yeah, this is it.” He felt funny about doing this, but it had been decided this morning. They really were going to do it.
Vince had dozed in the chair yesterday afternoon while Tracy napped. When they woke up, they got dressed and ventured out onto the boardwalk again. Vince tried calling Frank and Mike again. Tracy looked concerned and asked Vince what they would have wanted Vince to do should anything happen to them. Vince had shrugged. “They’d probably want me to go to that lawyer friend of Mike’s,” Vince had said.
“Do you know his name?” Tracy had asked.
“Billy something. Greck or Greek or something like that.”
They’d spent the evening walking the boardwalk talking, debating what to do. It was obvious something was going on. Vince was positive that one of the first things Mike would have done was to take what they had to Billy. “What then?” Tracy had asked. Vince put forth the idea that maybe they would have all gone into hiding. Tracy countered that maybe Mike and Frank had already gone into hiding; maybe they’d taken their cumulative evidence to Billy, who had immediately put them into a safe house or something. “And nobody would have tried getting in touch with us?” Vince asked. He’d checked his cell phone, something he’d done all day and into the evening. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“Well, Mike did tell us that if we didn’t hear from them that we were to go into hiding,” Tracy had reminded him. “If you ask me, I think we should.”
Vince had agreed, and after snagging dinner at a fast food restaurant, they’d headed back to the Best Western and remained inside for the remainder of the night.
This morning they’d gotten dressed and packed, then checked out of their room. They had a quick breakfast at a Denny’s restaurant, and then drove home. Vince had tried calling Mike and Frank again and still got no response. Tracy suggested they head back to Vince’s home again, just on the off chance they might have stopped by. Vince agreed, and they’d made his house the first stop. There’d been no messages at home, and it was while they were sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast nook that last night’s discussion came up. “We’ve been here for thirty minutes and nobody’s tried to kill us yet,” Tracy had said, her voice bearing the faintest inflection of humor. “What does that say about your paranoia?”
“That they’re waiting for you at your place?” Vince couldn’t help but grin.
“You coming with me to scope it out?”
“Of course!”
They agreed on the plan of action on the five-minute drive to the condo. Walk her to her condo, check the place out, and once she was safe, he would go home and start making preparations to leave. In the meantime, she would pack as well. They agreed to meet up that afternoon at two, at her place. “In the meantime, do whatever you have to do,” she’d said. “Convert cash to traveler’s checks, take whatever you need. Pack lightly, but pack essential stuff. Anything you may have to further your research, take it. If you have to call somebody to look over your house, get that taken care of as well.”
That had sounded fine to Vince. Now as he followed her along the manicured path to her condominium, he felt his heart racing. The summer day was warm; a perfect, Southern California day. He could hear people splashing in the pool. They walked up the steps to her condo and Vince surveyed the complex as Tracy unlocked the door. She stepped in cautiously, and then glanced back over her shoulder. “Looks like the coast is clear.”
Vince stepped inside ahead of her and took a quick inspection of the place. He quickly checked the kitchen and both bedrooms, opened the closets, and looked in the bathroom. “Looks like everything’s cool,” he said.