The Upwelling, page 9
“I like the shorter hair.” She’d look nice cue-ball bald as far as Chan was concerned. “What can you tell me?”
She thought a moment. “Well, we have a pretty good idea of what didn’t happen, but we still know only a small part of what did happen. The experts they’ve brought in still have no clue as to what caused the devastation.”
“The massive devastation. We were there, Danni. Why don’t we remember any of it?”
She shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
Their glasses were both empty so he led her back inside where he refilled hers and made himself a second Manhattan. While he was measuring the ingredients, she wandered to the Fu Manchu painting.
She said, “I still say nobody has eyes that green.”
“He’s allowed. He’s fiction.”
“Did you ever notice that his eyes seem to follow you?”
He said, “Definitely,” just to humor her. He’d lived with that painting for over a year now and had noticed no such thing.
“Obviously we must have evacuated ourselves ahead of the flooding,” she said. He seated her at the round, glass-topped coffee table, then sat down opposite her.
“Back to that night: When we returned here, we both had the same hole in our memories. Has anything come back?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Let’s go over it. Tell me what you remember.”
She leaned back. “I remember checking in at the Hard Rock on Friday for the weekend, then meeting you guys for lunch at the café. Mac and Aldo had come in together from Philly—”
“And I’d skipped over from the Xìngyùn.”
“Yeah. I remember Aldo had this bug about seeing the Pine Barrens, so we hopped in Mac’s Rover and rode out the expressway. You directed Mac to take some cross road and we got off on that.”
“Right. Route 50.”
“If you say so. It was early on a sunny afternoon and I remember turning off that road and heading into the trees and… the next thing I remember it’s near midnight and it’s just the two of us, both soaked to the skin, and you’re driving Mac’s car like a madman along some road out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah. The Black Horse Pike, with no idea of why or how I got there.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know it was called the Black Horse Pike back then but I remember everything that happened after. I remember you turning around and trying to get us back to AC but all the roads were flooded.”
“And we were shocked. We had no idea there’d even been a storm.”
Danni said, “I now know the water had already started receding by then, but not enough to allow us anywhere near AC. And I remember we had to take the long way round to get here.”
“You spent the night here, the two of us glued to the TV trying to find out what happened.” He pointed to the balcony. “And then at first light we went out there and saw for ourselves,”
They both sat silent with the memory of the horror of that moment…
Chan shook it off. “So you still have no inkling what happened to Mac and Aldo?”
She looked as distressed as he felt. “Not a clue. Did we leave them behind? We never heard from them again, and they were never found. They’ve just been added to the missing twenty-five thousand.”
“I don’t remember going back to AC that afternoon, but we must have returned because I found a check from the casino in my pocket for fifteen thousand bucks. I must have won big but I don’t remember a bit of it, or even what game I was playing. And your luggage was in the back of Mac’s Rover—but nobody else’s.”
“My luggage with two five-grand banded stacks of hundreds in it,” she said. “Which means I must have won big too. So we had to have gone back. But why the hell can’t I remember? And what about Mac’s and Aldo’s luggage? Why didn’t we have theirs?”
“It’s not as if we can check with the Hard Rock. It’s as flat as everything else.”
“I miss those guys, Chan,” she said, slumping back and getting teary.
“Even Aldo?”
A fleeting smile. “Even Aldo. You know, he’d call me every so often, reminding me he was in a personal-injury firm and to remember him if I came across anyone who thought they had something to sue about. Even sent me a stack of his cards.”
“Aldo the ambulance chaser. Who’d-a thunk, right?”
“And Mac would always be calling with a hot stock tip I should take advantage of. Like I had discretionary cash at the end of the month, right?”
They sat in silence then. Chan would get those calls too. Mac was never looking for a commission—he was always like, Call your broker and get in on this. His family’s asset-management firm employed analysts and he was simply trying to share a good thing with his friends.
Finally Danni said, “I told you how, when the Bureau found out I’d been in the city that day, they did a major debriefing down in Quantico. And during all of that, they decided I had some kind of PTSD. So they ran me through their shrinks and the consensus diagnosis is a real mouthful: ‘event-specific dissociative amnesia.’ It happens after a traumatic event. I assume you’re in the same boat. They tell me it’s temporary and I’ll eventually get it back, but they can’t say when.”
“I figured it was temporary too, but it’s been over two months now. I’m thinking I should try some therapy myself… before my health insurance runs out. Maybe try hypnosis.”
“Been there, done that,” she said. “The Bureau docs wanted to start me on meds but I’m not cool with drugging myself. They suggested hypnosis and I figured, what could it hurt? But nothing. They say it’s buried too deep.”
Chan found that hard to buy. “Really? Think about it: What event could be so traumatizing that we’d both forget?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Something nasty happened to Mac and Aldo in AC—so nasty that our brains decided to hide it from us until we could handle it. And the only thing I can think of nasty enough for that is that some sea predators came in with the tide and got hold of Mac and Aldo and tore them apart and ate them alive right before our eyes.”
Chan shuddered as he imagined that. “That’s pretty nasty, Danni. Thanks for the image.”
“De nada.” Her smile flickered then disappeared. “I’m with you, though. Something like that is nasty enough to give us permanent nightmares and PTSD. But is it nasty enough to wipe ten hours from our memories?”
“But what did happen during those ten hours, Danni? Where did they go? And where did Mac and Aldo go?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know, Chan.”
“Never?”
She gave her head a slow shake. “Never.” After a pause, she said, “Have you ever heard of someone or something called the Squatter?”
“‘The Squatter’? No. Why?”
“I interviewed some poor man who sneaked into the ruins and went completely bonkers. He kept talking about the Squatter being to blame.”
“Come to think of it, it does have a familiar ring.” He searched for recognition but couldn’t find a link to anything. “Nope. Sorry.”
Chan stared down at his second Manhattan and realized it was half gone. If he didn’t get some food into him soon…
“Want to order out?” he said.
Danni smiled, obviously glad to put the painful memories aside. “Sure. A pepperoni pizza like we always got would be cool. Pizza, pepperoni, and prosecco: the three Ps…and food of the gods.”
“Pepperoni!” He shook his head and laughed. “Still not a proper lesbian.”
She gave him a look. “Oh, really? Why don’t I get into my hiking books while you play some MUNA for me?”
“Now, now—”
“Or let’s go classic and put on some Indigo Girls.”
He shook his head and laughed. “Okay! Point taken!”
“Seriously, gonna take my dyke badge because I’m not a vegan?”
He shook his head again, this time more with dismay. “That word…”
“What? ‘Vegan’? Yeah. Makes me shudder too.”
“No. You know what I mean.”
“‘Dyke’? Hey, we took it back. We own it now.” She grinned and jabbed a finger at him. “So only we can say it.”
“You’re welcome to it.”
“I’ve told you this before and I’ll tell you again: A dyke may be what I am, but it’s not who I am.”
“You’ve said that before but I don’t get it.”
“All right,” she said. “What I am consists of all the things I had no choice in: I’m a blue-eyed, brunette female who prefers women over men in bed. I had no choice in any of those things. Who I am is what I’ve chosen to be: a Special Agent in the FBI with a BA in poly-sci from the University of Pennsylvania.”
“Okay. Now I’ve got it.”
As he ordered a large pepperoni, he watched her wander over to his clipping wall. After browsing his selection she gave him a questioning look.
“What?” he said as he hung up, though he knew exactly what.
She gestured to the wall. “You’re a clipping service now?”
He poured her some more prosecco. “Sit down. We’re now coming to why I had to see you.”
11
Using the clippings to bolster his story, Chan told Danni about the disappearing fireproof bodies and how the incidents had to be related. He started with Kurt Maez’s bogus signs, how he fled from Chan for no reason, how he died, and the aftermath of that death.
The pepperoni pizza conveniently arrived at the end of the Maez story, but Chan stopped only long enough to pay the delivery guy and refill their glasses. He was rolling and didn’t want to lose momentum.
So he showed Danni the printout of this morning’s article, the one with the story about how Philip Sirman’s body was stolen from the funeral home after a cremation failure.
“Okay,” she said, grabbing another slice. “You’ve got yourself a mystery there.”
“Mystery?” he said, surprised by her blasé response. “This is bizarre out the wazoo.”
“Last week I would have agreed with you, but after the last couple of days…?” She shook her head. “I can out-bizarre you tenfold.”
“Well, I’m listening.”
“Sorry. An iron-clad NDA zips my lips.”
Damn. He was dying to hear. But then, he hadn’t let her in on the big picture yet. So he started enumerating all the connections he’d made that linked Maez and Sirman to the Upwelling. As he rattled on, he realized how flimsy they sounded when he spoke them out loud.
“Is this another one of your feelings?” she said.
“I know you like to have your fun with that, but don’t be too quick to disparage my perceptions. I am, after all, a tairongo.”
“A what? What’s that?”
“Not sure, but someone called me that earlier today. And that’s where the story gets even weirder. I mean, we’re about to take a hard left turn into The Twilight Zone.”
Her smile was dubious. “Been there, done that. But I’m all ears. Make it good.”
She lost that smile long before he finished his tale about his trip to Alberta, New York.
“Are you sure you didn’t fall into some sort of fugue state?”
“Danni, I managed to walk into that plot of woods, crawl out of the cave I found myself in, walk down the hill, and enter these folks’ compound in less than half an hour. At no point did I lose consciousness.”
“But…” She waved a hand. “But…”
“Yeah, I know. Impossible.”
She pulled out her phone. “Just give me a second here…” Tap-tap-tap. “Okay. I just checked my map. Alberta, New York, is around one hundred eighty miles as the crow flies.” She stared at him. “You’re telling me you traveled—”
“Was translated.”
“Whatever. You went one hundred eighty miles in an instant?”
“Yeah, and I don’t recommend it. Took me the whole damn afternoon to drive back from the Catskills in a rental.”
She continued staring at him. “You were never a bullshitter…”
“And I’m not one now. And because I’m not, I won’t even try to explain what happened to me today, because I have no idea. For the time being I’m simply going to accept that it happened and put it on the back burner. I’m more interested in those two fireproof bodies right now and how they connect to AC.”
“Well, there’s no connection there to find, trust me. In nine weeks of looking, the team has come across no fireproof bodies.”
“But that means nothing because you haven’t come across any bodies at all, have you?”
“Well, no.”
“So, then, I think we should look into these two.”
“‘We’? Just exactly how are ‘we’ going to do that?”
“We’re going to take a run up to Lincroft, NJ, and talk to Mrs. Sirman. I found her address online.”
She made a face. “That article said her husband was just run over by a truck or something. Kind of soon, isn’t it?”
“For a nosy computer nerd, most definitely. But for FBI agents investigating a similar body snatch—”
She had both hands waving in the air now. “Ohhhhh, no! No-no-no-no! No way!”
“Please, Danni, I’ve got to get some personal info on this Sirman guy. He’s gotta be connected to Maez and Maez is somehow connected to our memory blank spot which is definitely connected to what happened to AC. Consider it part of your investigation.”
“No fucking way, Chan!”
It took a while to convince her—he probably would have failed if he hadn’t had the false courage of the Manhattans to bolster him and if she hadn’t finished the bottle of prosecco. Allowing him to pose as a fellow agent was absolutely out of the question, but she finally agreed to a compromise.
“Here’s what I can do,” she said. “I can accompany you to the widow’s home and flash my badge and give her a story about looking into a link between the two stolen corpses. That’s going plenty far out on a limb for me but nothing I can’t massage into a legitimate inquiry should any questions be raised. You can be a ‘consultant’ to the Bureau. Everybody and his mother is outsourcing these days so that should slide right on by.”
“Great!” Chan knew he could make this work. “When can we go? Tomorrow, maybe?” He wanted to get on this ASAP.
“Yeah, why not? Get it over with. But first I’ve got to see if I can get the morning off. Can I use your laptop?”
He stepped to the desk and opened it for her.
He stood back but watched her keystrokes as she logged in. He was a little drunk but that didn’t impair his ability to pick out and memorize the keys she tapped. Same screenname as before but new password. Good thing he’d watched.
“Oops,” she said. “They want a second verification because it’s a new computer.”
Her phone hummed with a text and she tapped in the verification code.
“Let’s see…” she said when she was in. “They’re finally giving me some personal days, but only one of the team is allowed off at a time. I won’t be able to get free if someone’s already out. Nope. Clear. Let me take myself off the schedule for tomorrow morning… there. Done.” She logged out and leaned back. “Lincroft here we come. Where is that, by the way?”
“Monmouth County. Now, I have one more favor. Can you follow me to the airport so I can return my—?”
“Drive? As in Get Behind a Wheel? Are you out of your mind? You’ve had three of those Jack Daniels thingies and I’ve had way too much prosecco. I’m not used to drinking anymore. No way, Jose. You’re staying right here for the rest of the night, and so am I.”
“Fine with me,” he said. Wouldn’t be the first time. “I’ll take the couch, as usual.”
“Yes, you will. I’m beat, by the way.”
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You hit the hay. I’ll clean up.”
“You’re a love.”
She pecked him on the cheek and headed for the bedroom.
Good. He wanted her out of the way. To kill the time until she fell asleep, he checked messages and found an email with “It’s Nicolette” for its subject line. The body of the message was one line: “When are you coming back? I’m waiting.”
Was that a personal message or was she taking direction from Samuel? He didn’t reply, mainly because he didn’t have an answer yet.
12
Chan cracked the bedroom door and heard Danni’s gentle snoring. Excellent. He hurried to his laptop and punched in her screen name and password. As he’d hoped, the site recognized the computer from her earlier log-in and didn’t ask for further verification.
He’d had her old log-in info since her last overnight here but hadn’t had the nerve to use it. His fear was that if he tried to get in while she was already on, or vice versa, he’d be in deep shit with the feds. But with her sound asleep—not a problem.
Okay, he was in. He had no desire to hack the FBI’s system—he wasn’t crazy—but he wanted to search its files. He knew Danni was too much of a straight-arrow to use the Bureau’s system to look into everyday people who weren’t suspected of any crime, but Chan felt he needed a leg up on Mrs. Sirman and her late husband if he was going to get anything useful out of tomorrow’s visit.
Okay…first thing to do: search Philip Sirman…not a common name so maybe—
Holy crap. They had a file on him—combined with his wife. Chan opened it and was stopped cold by the header about an investigation into the abduction of an infant girl.
Holy shit! Their child had been stolen!
He scanned down. Their day-old daughter disappeared from the hospital nursery seven years ago. The Bureau turned the hospital upside down, watched all the CCTV footage for miles around, interviewed all the staff, all the visitors, all acquaintances of the Sirmans, but the child was never seen again. No ransom call, but apparently that wasn’t unusual. The investigators figured the baby was taken either to be sold to a childless couple or raised by the abductor herself.
That poor woman. Her child stolen, then her husband killed and his body stolen. Talk about the shitty end of the stick. He’d have to walk on eggshells with her tomorrow.
