“Nate…” She fell si­lent.

  “What is it?”

  The dead air con­tin­ued for a mo­ment longer, then, “Do not be late.”

  “I won’t.”

  He hung up and headed to the L.

  TEN MINUTES EARLIER

  BANGKOK, THAI­L­AND

  Jar con­tac­ted the ground­s­keeper at the temple, who con­tac­ted Daeng, who called her back via video.

  “I as­sume this is im­port­ant,” he said.

  “If you as­sume it, why do you need to say it?”

  He smiled. “What’s up?”

  She told him about her con­ver­sa­tion with Or­lando, the new job, and the sub­sequent email con­tain­ing in­form­a­tion about the flight to Italy they had been booked on, leav­ing that af­ter­noon.

  “There’s no way I can get back there in time.”

  “That’s not true. A heli­copter will get you there in plenty of time.”

  “I don’t think the monks have one of those ly­ing around.”

  “Of course they don’t. Un­less that was a joke. Was that a joke?”

  “Yes, Jar. It was a joke.”

  “It was not funny. I have sent a heli­copter to pick you up. It should be at the temple in the next few minutes.”

  “You sent one.”

  Heli­copters were rare in Thai­l­and, and mainly the pur­view of the mil­it­ary. The one fly­ing to­ward Daeng was op­er­ated by the army. Jar had asked her former em­ployer, Christine, to use her con­tacts to ar­range it. Christine was fond of Jar and even more fond of Daeng, so it had not been a prob­lem.

  “You said it your­self,” Jar replied. “It’s the only way you’ll get to Suvarn­ab­humi on time.” Suvarn­ab­humi was Bangkok’s in­ter­na­tional air­port.

  “I haven’t agreed to do the job yet.”

  “Shall I get Quinn and Or­lando on the phone, so you can tell them no right now?”

  A pause, fol­lowed by a chuckle. “I’ll grab my bag.”

  Be­fore Jar could re­spond, her mo­bile phone rang. She looked at the screen and saw an Amer­ican num­ber. “Hold on.”

  She typed the num­ber into her search en­gine, and dis­covered it was a pay phone in Chicago.

  “I think it’s Nate,” she said. “I’ll put him on speaker.”

  “Wait, I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

  “Then don’t say any­thing.” She tapped AC­CEPT and turned on the speaker. “Sawadee, ka.”

  “Sawadee, khrap.” It was Nate. “I know I’ve been ask­ing a lot from you lately, but I need your help again.”

  She typed the names he gave her into a new file. What he was ask­ing for should be fairly simple, but there was an­other prob­lem. “I will see what I can find. You should call me back in no longer than one hour. I will be un­avail­able after that.”

  She braced her­self, ex­pect­ing him to ask why, which would open up the whole can of worms about Quinn and Or­lando, but his only con­cern was how long she would be un­reach­able.

  When he said he would get back to her within the time frame, she felt the urge to come clean about the fact Quinn and Or­lando were look­ing for him.

  “Nate.”

  In the video chat win­dow on her com­puter, Daeng was shak­ing his head vehe­mently and mouth­ing no.

  She balked.

  “What is it?” Nate asked.

  She took a beat. “Do not be late.”

  “I won’t.”

  After she set the phone down, she said, “I should have told him.”

  “If you had, he would have run again. At some point, Quinn and Nate need to con­front each other. Bet­ter it to hap­pen sooner than later, don’t you think?”

  “Be­cause they need him for the job?” Jar said cyn­ic­ally.

  A kind smile graced Daeng’s lips. “The job is merely the ves­sel for the voy­age.”

  “You have spent too much time at the temple.” She thought for a mo­ment. “I still do not feel good about this.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t. It means you’re grow­ing. We will make a real hu­man be­ing out of you yet.”

  “Never say that again.”

  Daeng laughed loudly enough to al­most drown out the sound of a des­cend­ing heli­copter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nate walked the streets between Kristina King’s apart­ment build­ing and where he’d seen her con­front Da­mon. He was look­ing for the in­vis­ible watch­ers. These were people liv­ing near or at the bot­tom of the so­cial lad­der, the per­man­ent flo­p­h­ouse res­id­ents and the home­less. Though most of so­ci­ety didn’t see them, they saw most of so­ci­ety and knew more secrets than any­one real­ized.

  The trick was get­ting them to talk. Nate was in luck. Da­mon proved to be a pop­u­lar topic. There were those whose eyes widened with fear at the mere men­tion of his name, but oth­ers were will­ing to spill a little.

  Nate would start con­ver­sa­tions on a totally dif­fer­ent topic, like “where are the best places to find food” or “do you know a safe place to sleep,” then ease into some­thing along the lines of “I saw these two guys a few streets over and didn’t like the look of them.” This would lead to him giv­ing a de­scrip­tion of Da­mon and his bud­dies, which would then bring about the a-ha mo­ments from his un­know­ing in­form­ants as they real­ized who he was ask­ing about.

  And from that would drop the nug­gets.

  “You don’t want to mess with them. They’ll kill you, man.”

  “If you need to get high, thems your guys.”

  “See this scar? Da­mon did that. I ain’t done noth­ing to him. That son of a bitch is crazy.”

  And, “You talk­ing about Da­mon Cruise and Joey Kettles.”

  “Those don’t sound like real names,” Nate said.

  He was sit­ting in front of a boarded-up build­ing with a guy who went by the name Max. Nate’s con­ver­sa­tion starter this time had been half a Sub­way sand­wich and a can of Bud­weiser.

  “They’re not,” Max said. “They both grew up in the neigh­bor­hood. Back then they was just Danny Hawthorne and Joey Bren­ner.”

  “They grew up around here?”

  “Sure did. Them the same age as my sis­ter. Go to school to­gether. Mean bas­tards then, mean bas­tards now.”

  The burner phone Nate car­ried with him in case of emer­gen­cies buzzed with the alarm he’d set. It was time to con­tact Jar.

  “Thanks, Max. I ap­pre­ci­ate it.” As Nate rose, he pulled out two twen­ties fol­ded in­side a one dol­lar bill and handed them to the man.

  He headed to a pay phone a block over and made the call.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  “You were right about Kristina King,” Jar said. “She is a dental hy­gien­ist. Based on the num­ber of paychecks she de­pos­its, she splits her time between at least four dif­fer­ent of­fices. Three of them keep their work sched­ules on their serv­ers, and even without know­ing the fourth, I can tell you she is work­ing seven days a week.”

  That would help ex­plain why Kristina was hav­ing prob­lems with her son. She likely left early and came home late. “Do you know how long they’ve lived in their apart­ment?”

  “Moved in a month after her mother died. Be­fore that, they had been liv­ing in the mother’s house. It was sold to help pay the med­ical bills but it was not enough. Medi­cine is very ex­pens­ive in your coun­try.”

  “No kid­ding. Any­thing on the son?”

  “Up un­til last year he was an above-av­er­age stu­dent. He had to switch schools when they moved. Ac­cord­ing to the re­cords at the new school, he has not been do­ing nearly as well. He also has made sev­eral vis­its to the head­mas­ter’s of­fice—”

  “We call it the prin­cipal’s of­fice here.”

  “Okay, prin­cipal’s of­fice. There is no re­cord of this hap­pen­ing at his pre­vi­ous school.”

  “Any trouble with the po­lice?”

  “I have found noth­ing.”

  Which, of course, didn’t mean there hadn’t been any.

  Nate heard what soun­ded like a dis­tant PA an­nounce­ment over the phone. “Where are you?”

  A pause. “Suvarn­ab­humi.”

  “Meet­ing someone or go­ing some­where?”

  “Both, ac­tu­ally.”

  That ex­plained why she’d given him a dead­line to call back.

  “How long un­til your flight?” he asked.

  “Sev­enty-one minutes, if we leave on time.” The ex­act­ness of her an­swer was Jar in a nut­shell.

  “Then you have time to do an­other search for me.”

  “I have no idea if I do or do not. It will de­pend on the search.”

  He told her what he knew about Danny Hawthorne, alias Da­mon Cruise. “In his case I’m sure there are po­lice re­cords. At the very least, if you can get me an ad­dress, that would be great.”

  “I can­not prom­ise any­thing.”

  “I know that. When shall I call you back?”

  *

  Nate con­sidered ap­proach­ing a few more people about Cruise, but in the end de­cided to stay near the phone. When the twenty-minute dead­line she’d given him was up, he called again.

  “Hawthorne is not a good man,” Jar said. “He has been ar­res­ted sev­en­teen times, and con­victed five times for mis­ter…um…mis­ter—”

  “Mis­de­mean­ors.”

  “Yes, that is the word. Petty theft and minor as­sault. He had been charged with mis­ter meaner eight other times, and felony five times, but it says on each that the ‘charges have been dropped.’ I take that to mean they…dis­ap­peared?”

  “That’s ex­actly what it means. If he’s been ar­res­ted, then they must have an ad­dress for him.”

  “Sev­eral, ac­tu­ally.”

  Nate snatched a flyer off the ground, pulled out a pen. “Give them to me.”

  “They are on the po­lice re­cords which I have loaded onto the server.”

  “I ap­pre­ci­ate that. The prob­lem is, I’m not go­ing to be able to get to them for a bit, so how about we do this the old-fash­ioned way?”

  She read off the five ad­dresses. When she fin­ished, she said, “He does not seem like someone you should in­volve your­self with.”

  “I’m not go­ing to ask him on a date, Jar.”

  “This is not what I mean. I think you should not—”

  “I know what you mean. And I ap­pre­ci­ate it. Is that everything?”

  “I only had twenty minutes.”

  “I know. And you did great. Thank you.”

  “Be care­ful, Nate.”

  “I will. Have a safe trip.”

  “Thank you.”

  *

  “Nate again?”

  Jar jumped at Daeng’s voice. She had not heard him walk up. “Yes,” she said, and slipped her phone into her pocket.

  “I’ve been think­ing. You should prob­ably tell Quinn you know where Nate is.”

  Jar stared at him in dis­be­lief. “If I’m not sup­posed to tell Nate about Quinn’s in­terest in him, then I shouldn’t tell Quinn about Nate’s where­abouts, either. You said it be­fore, we shouldn’t get in the middle of this.”

  “That’s not ex­actly what I said.”

  Over the speaker came the an­nounce­ment for the im­min­ent board­ing of their flight to Rome.

  “I guess it’s too late, any­way,” he said.

  Jar frowned. “That is not true. If I were go­ing to call Quinn, there is still sev­eral minutes be­fore we would have to—”

  “Jar. I was try­ing to give you a con­veni­ent ex­cuse.”

  *

  Da­mon Cruise didn’t ap­pear to live at any of the five ad­dresses.

  His­panic fam­il­ies lived at two of the loc­a­tions. A third one led Nate to an empty lot. Ac­cord­ing to mail­boxes in the lobby at the fourth ad­dress, the spe­cified apart­ment was oc­cu­pied by someone with the last name Krieger. When Nate walked by the door, no light shined from the pee­p­h­ole, nor did he see any lights through the win­dows when he went back out­side to check.

  Num­ber five was two blocks away. It had no name on the mail­box, but when Nate ap­proached the door, he heard a TV on in­side so he knocked.

  Feet shuffled to the door. The pin­prick of light through the pee­p­h­ole dis­ap­peared as the oc­cu­pant looked through the viewer.

  “Yes?” an older-sound­ing wo­man said.

  “I’m look­ing for Daniel Hawthorne. Is he home?”

  “Sorry. No Daniel here.”

  “Really? This is apart­ment three thirty-one, isn’t it?” Nate leaned back as if check­ing the num­ber again.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. No Daniel.”

  “Must have given me the wrong ad­dress. Sorry to have dis­turbed you.”

  Maybe Da­mon had lived there once, but it sure soun­ded like the wo­man didn’t know who he was.

  Nate de­cided it was time to in­tro­duce him­self to the kid’s mother and try to pull a little in­form­a­tion out of her about her son. He thought his best tact would be to play the part of a private in­vest­ig­ator, look­ing for a kid from Brian’s school who’d run away. Even if she didn’t in­vite him in, he could ask a few ques­tions at the door that might flow into a dis­cus­sion about Brian.

  As he ap­proached her door, how­ever, he heard two voices com­ing from the other side—Kristina’s, angry and curt, and a young male voice, feisty and de­fi­ant.

  Had Brian come home?

  The prob­lem is lar­ger than that, Liz said. And you know it.

  She was right. If the son was in­volved with this Da­mon creep, then his life could con­tinue to spiral down the drain un­til the kid either ended up in jail or the morgue.

  The dis­cus­sion on the other side of the door never quite reached the yelling point, but it got close. “Bad in­flu­ence,” and “throw­ing your life away,” and “I taught you bet­ter than this” were re­buffed by “is not,” and “it’s my life and I can do what I want with it,” and “you’re never around to teach me any­thing.”

  Then a door slammed and si­lence des­cen­ded.

  Now was not the time for a visit. Nate headed to the el­ev­ator, ready to call it a night. As he pushed the call but­ton, a door opened be­hind him and the same male voice he’d heard in the Kings’ apart­ment yelled, “Hold the el­ev­ator!”

  Nate glanced over his shoulder and spot­ted Brian King jog­ging to­ward him, his face tense. The boy was big for his age, nearly six-foot, and lean like a tooth­pick.

  When the el­ev­ator ar­rived, Nate entered and pressed the hold but­ton un­til Brian hur­ried in.

  “Thanks,” the kid said.

  Nate smiled and pressed the but­ton for the lobby.

  Brian stared at the doors the en­tire trip down, anxious to get off. This al­lowed Nate to take a good look at him. Though the boy was tall, he was still a kid—the baby face, the hunched shoulders, the in­vis­ible robe of teen­age angst.

  The mo­ment the doors opened, the boy shot out and across the lobby, stop­ping only long enough to pull the front door open. Nate fol­lowed him out­side and down the side­walk.

  Brian’s shoulders shook as he walked, his breaths com­ing in aud­ible stac­cato bursts. The fury from his ar­gu­ment with his mom had turned to tears.

  The teen­age years were the worst, Nate thought, and doubly so for a boy whose life had been up­rooted and whose only par­ent was sel­dom around. It was little won­der Brian had star­ted down the path of self-de­struc­tion.

  Nate trailed the boy through the neigh­bor­hood. Though he em­ployed all his tricks for re­main­ing un­detec­ted, none proved ne­ces­sary as the boy was lost in his own world and never real­ized Nate was there.

  Seven blocks from his apart­ment build­ing, Brian swung around an­other corner. Nate in­creased his speed, but by the time he got to the in­ter­sec­tion, Brian was gone.

  Nate cursed un­der his breath and scanned the road.

  If Brian had sprin­ted, he might have made it to the end of the block, but only just. And there had been no reason for the kid to sprint. Nate, who made a liv­ing at things like this, was con­vinced the kid hadn’t known he was be­ing fol­lowed.

  The build­ings on either side of the street were a mix of stan­dalone struc­tures that ap­peared to be used by small in­dus­trial busi­nesses. A few of the build­ings had park­ing lots be­side them.

  Nate headed down the block, look­ing between the build­ings and into the lots. There ap­peared to be an open area be­hind the prop­er­ties, sep­ar­at­ing them from those on the next road over. The area was about half the size of a foot­ball field and filled with weeds.

  No sign of Brian.

  By the time Nate reached the end of the block, he ad­mit­ted to him­self he had lost the kid. He opened the map on his phone and placed a marker in the middle of the block. On a hunch, he checked his cur­rent loc­a­tion against the list of Da­mon’s ad­dresses. The closest was num­ber three, and that was the empty lot, four blocks away.

  There was one more thing he could do be­fore he called it a night. After tak­ing the L into the city again, he found a late-night cof­fee­house with com­puters for rent, down­loaded the files Jar had found, and trans­ferred them to his phone.

  Back at the hotel, he moved the files to his laptop, and then lay in bed study­ing Danny Hawthorne/Da­mon Cruise’s po­lice re­cord. Fif­teen minutes in, he smiled, and si­lently thanked De­tect­ive Kelvin Mar­tinez of the Chicago Po­lice De­part­ment for be­ing so thor­ough in his re­cord keep­ing.

  Nate had found Da­mon’s weak spot.

  The next morn­ing, he woke early and headed out on what would ap­pear to be a nor­mal morn­ing jog.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LON­DON, UNITED KING­DOM

 

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