Author: Steven James
Category: Suspense
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I slid my .357 SIG P229 from its holster and heard Lien-hua’s quick, light footfalls on the stairs. “What is it, Pat?”
“Look.” I aimed the flashlight at the two streaks that disappeared away from us into the catacombs of the filtration facility. “He dragged her through here.”
She removed her weapon as well. “Do you think they might still be here?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
With my arm flexed and my weapon ready, I led Lien-hua into the dark network of walkways before us.
When Victor Drake’s cell phone rang and he saw Warren Leant’s number come up, he cursed.
Warren Leant, that idiot aquarium manager. Just the fact that he was calling could not be good. Definitely not.
Victor answered, “What?”
“Mr. Drake, sir, it’s Cassandra Lillo. She didn’t show up for work this morning, and at first I didn’t think anything of it, but then the police started going through her car and two FBI agents showed up and wanted to look around. You told me to let you know if—”
“I know what I told you,” Victor barked.
FBI agents?
Normally, someone in Warren Leant’s position wouldn’t even have this number, but Victor had flagged two dozen researchers in his various companies and told their supervisors to call him if there were any disciplinary or supervisory problems with those personnel. After all, Victor needed to keep close tabs on everyone involved in Project Rukh.
“So, what do you want me to do?” asked Leant.
“Stall. Whatever you do, don’t let them look around her files.” A long pause. “Um. It’s a little too late for that, sir. I already showed them to her office.”
Victor’s head felt like it was ready to explode. No, no, no, no.
Enough of Leant’s ineptitude.
Victor hung up the phone. Decisively.
Cassandra Lillo. The shark woman, the one researching the mucopolysaccharides. The cute one. Yes. He’d interviewed her himself. But what was it about her? There was something else, something else . . .
Hunter?
Yes.
He’d heard Austin Hunter mention her name once. That he was going diving with her and that he’d be unavailable for any assignments over the next two weeks. Yes, they’d dated each other.
So, they were in this together. Terrific.
Oh, this day was just getting better and better.
Victor thought for a moment about sending Geoff and Suricata to teach Leant a lesson, but then decided the time had come to pay a personal visit to the aquarium and see firsthand what was going on.
35
Lien-hua and I crept through the walkway and entered the filtration facility. The series of pathways that meandered around and between the filtration towers and foam fractionators were lit only by the dim operating lights high above us and a few amber bulbs attached sporadically to the walls. The air hummed with the low murmur of the motors pumping, filtering, cleansing the millions of gallons of water needed for this aquarium.
A few scattered signs pointed to the animal husbandry area, the Seven Deadly Seas purification station, the water management center, and a number of other behind-the-scene locations. But other than that, the paths fingered out all around us into a gloomy maze.
The area really was creepy, just like Maria had said.
As we rounded the third tower, I heard movement behind one of the water storage tanks about eight meters ahead of us.
Maria said no one ever goes down here.
“Stop,” I said. “Put your hands in the air.”
Footsteps.
I raised my gun.
“I said stop right there.”
Then someone rounded the corner; I raised my weapon and eyed down the barrel.
At Tessa.
“Don’t shoot!” she screamed. “What are you doing aiming a gun at my head?”
I swung the gun to my side. My heart slamming, my hand shaking. “Tessa? What are you doing down here?”
“I got turned around.”
I reholstered my gun. “How could you get turned around? This area is off limits.”
Her voice was jittery, I assumed because of the gun. “I was just looking for the little girls’ room.”
As if I believed that.
“This place sure is spooky, huh?” she said.
To my left, Lien-hua pushed an exit door open. Blinding sunlight swept through the chamber. “Pat. C’mere.”
I glared at Tessa and corralled her over toward Lien-hua.
Outside the door, a road ran past a pair of rusty dumpsters on the way to the food service’s main delivery platform another forty meters or so farther down the building. “The delivery road,” Lien-hua said. “If he dragged her down the steps, he could have had a car waiting back here and never would have had to drive past the guard station.”
I saw something small on the floor beside the exit.
A dart.
I bent to inspect it and heard Tessa shuffle up to me. “Step back, Raven.”
“Is she dead? Is Cassandra dead?” I glanced at Tessa and saw that her face was flushed. I heard her snap the rubber band against her wrist.
“See?” I could feel my anger rising. “This is why I don’t want you to come along on these things. And would you stop it already with the rubber band thing?”
Snap. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“We don’t know where she is,” I said sternly. “We don’t know what happened to her. I almost shot you, do you hear me?”
“That would have really sucked.”
“Yes. It would have.” I handed Lien-hua my cell phone. “I’m taking Tessa upstairs; can you take some photos? The dart. The exit. The pathways.” Lien-hua accepted the phone, and I took Tessa’s arm and led her through the palely lit passageway and back up the stairs.
I could feel my gun, uncomfortably weighty in my shoulder holster.
I was furious at Tessa.
Furious, because I loved her.
But mostly I was terrified, because I’d just seen my stepdaughter’s face at the end of a gun barrel while my finger was pressing against the trigger.
Maria greeted us at the top of the stairs with an anxious, perplexed expression. “Where did she come from?”
“I got turned around,” said Tessa innocently.
“Maria,” I said, “can you please lead this young lady to the front counter?”
Tessa stared at me with fierce independence, but I also saw a shade of fear. “Stop yelling at me. OK? I didn’t know where I was.”
“I told you not to wander off.” Tessa shouldn’t have been down there, but I still hated myself for yelling, for making her afraid. That was the last thing I wanted to do. Images of the slaughterhouse flashed past me. That tangle of anger and fury. Rising, rolling, coursing through me.
I noticed Lien-hua ascending the stairs but addressed Tessa, “I’ll deal with you in a minute.” She just shook her head and walked off with Maria.
Resting a gentle hand on my shoulder, Lien-hua spoke softly, just loud enough for me to hear. “Are you OK, Pat?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” I took a slow breath. “I’m OK.”
She let it be at that. “So, good news. While I was downstairs taking the pictures, I got a call from the water control center. All the water tests are clear, no human blood. Nothing on video either. Cassandra wasn’t fed to any of the sharks.”
“The drag marks support that conclusion too,” I said.
“I’ll let the police know about the drag marks, have them search the filtration area. Make absolutely certain no one is down there. Maybe they’ll be able to get some prints off the exit door.”
“I need to check on a couple things in Cassandra’s office, then I’ll meet you by the entrance.”
Without another word, she left, and I picked up my computer bag and returned to Cassandra’s office. I’d had an idea earlier, while searching through her files.
This morning
I’d suggested that Aina look for a return address on Hunter’s envelopes. Well, maybe we didn’t have a return address on an envelope, but we might have one on an email.
36
I quickly scrolled through Cassandra’s most recent email, but none of the messages shed any light on who might have abducted her or what she was doing at the aquarium earlier in the day.
However, I did find a Gmail address for “SEALHunter1,” which I assumed was Hunter’s account.
Follow up on that later. Finish up here and go talk to Tessa.
Before I left, I connected my computer to Cassandra’s to copy the encrypted files I’d come across earlier. Maybe I could have someone from the FBI cybercrime division, or Terry take a look at them, pull something useful. As I hit “enter,” my cell phone rang. Ralph.
Before I could say a word, he shouted, “Did you call Dunn’s supervisor in the homicide division? Some guy named Lieutenant Graysmith?”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“Well, guess who’s golfing buddies with FBI Director P. T. Rodale?”
“You’re kidding me.”
“An hour ago Graysmith called Rodale to complain about an FBI agent who was refusing to follow protocol and was interfering with an ongoing investigation in San Diego. Twenty minutes ago, Rodale called Margaret. And five minutes ago, guess who called me?”
“Sorry, Ralph.”
“What’s going on here, Pat?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” My computer told me it would be done copying the files in one minute. “Just call Lieutenant Aina Mendez with MAST, have her straighten things out with Lieutenant Graysmith. She requested our help for this arson investigation, and everything we’ve been following up on so far is related to the fires. I don’t know why Homicide is involved in any of this, since, as far as we know, nobody has been killed.” I finished with the files and closed up my computer.
“Well, listen. I’m supposed to call Director Rodale back before three o’clock so I need you to bring me up to speed on this thing. I’m at the FBI field office on Aero Drive. Room 311. Come by and—”
“Ralph, I need to take care of something with Tessa first. It’s important.”
Ralph’s a dad. He understood. “All right. But remember, I gotta call him by three.”
“By the way, did they ever find your bags?”
A storm of anger clouded his one-word answer. “No.”
“I’d offer you some of my shirts, but I think they might be a little too big in the bicep area for you.”
“Oh. You’re very funny. I’m tempted to tell you how I feel about the airlines, but you know what my mom always says.”
“What’s that?”
“If you can’t think of anything nice to say, shoot something and then get back to work.”
I blinked. I’d met Ralph’s mom. I couldn’t be sure if he was joking. “No, she didn’t.”
“Well, she should have. Get your butt over here as soon as you can.”
We ended the call, then I took one more look around Cassandra’s office and returned to the main lobby to talk with my stepdaughter, the advice of Ralph’s mother disturbingly reminiscent of what had just happened in the filtration chamber.
I found Tessa waiting for me beside the barracuda tank. She drew back when she saw me approaching.
“Hey, listen.” I spoke as gently as I could. “I’m sorry I got so mad. You know that, right?”
Silence.
“It’s just that I care about you so much. You’re the most important person in the world to me. I love you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” I thought she might argue with me, might make a snide comment, like, “Oh. Do you typically shoot the people you love?” but she didn’t.
“I was gonna do what you said.” I detected no trace of anger in her voice, just a thread of loneliness. “About not wandering off by myself, or whatever. But then these two sharks totally ate this fish, like, right in front of me, and I kind of freaked out. I went looking for you.”
She came looking for me.
She came looking.
“Listen,” I said. “There’s a lot going on with this case right now—”
“That’s all good. I understand. I know you’re probably mad and everything, but I was hoping to have some time by myself today. Just to chill. If it’s OK.”
She wanders around the back rooms of the aquarium and now she wants me to give her more freedom? Not going to happen.
“I don’t think so, Tessa.”
She threw a question at me out of nowhere. “Did you see the jawfish?”
“The what?”
“The jawfish.” She pointed to a nearby exhibit just past the barracuda tank. “Male jawfish carry the developing eggs of their young in their mouths. Did you know that?”
“No, but I’m glad I’m not a jawfish.” She’d cut me off, switched subjects. I wondered if she’d been listening to me at all. I started to get even more annoyed.
“Other fish do it too,” she said. “Like arwana. Even after their fish hatch, the male continues to carry the young fish in his mouth, to protect them while they grow.”
Oh.
So this wasn’t a conversation about fish.
“How does he know when to let the young fish go?” I asked.
She stared at the barracudas, then at the jawfish. “When they’re big enough to make it on their own, then he lets them swim away. I think sometimes they probably go where they’re not supposed to, but he trusts them, even though they’re not perfect.”
I felt my throat squeeze. “Do the young fish come back?”
“Maybe,” she said. “If the dad makes them feel safe.”
I sighed. “You’re good, you know that? You’re really good.” Earlier in the day she’d convinced me to bring her with me, now she’d nearly convinced me to let her go off by herself.
She gave me a soft smile.
“So,” I said, “you want to leave my mouth and go swimming around on your own for a while.”
“I’ll come back.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe hang out downtown a little. I mean, I need to stop by the hotel first—but, is that OK?”
“Hold on. Let me think about this.” I tried to sort out my frustrations from my feelings, my trust from my hesitation, my— “Well?”
“Quiet, I’m thinking.”
She waited maybe four seconds. “So?”
“I’m still thinking.”
“You think slow.”
“Insulting me will not help your case.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. How about this: you think a lot faster than most men your age.”
“That counts as an insult.”
Make her feel safe. That’s your job. So she’ll always feel safe swimming back. “OK, Tessa. Take the afternoon. We’ll both get some space. But if I call to check up on you, don’t give me a hard time about it.”
“As long as you don’t do it, like, every five minutes.”
“I want you to know, you’re more important to me than my work. You know that, right?”
She was quiet for a moment and then, without any sarcasm or scorn, she said, “Yeah. I know that.”
“I’d do anything for you.”
“OK, I know you love me, but let’s not overdo the caring-dad bit here, all right?”
Well, back to normal.
“And we’ll have supper together,” I said. “We’ll figure out a time and a place later.”
She nodded. “That’ll work.”
We headed for the door. “So, you have to tell me. Did you have that jawfish speech prepared, or did you just make it up on the spot?”
“I’m pretty good thinking on my feet,” she said. “So, can I ride back to the hotel with Agent Jiang?”
“Agent Jiang?”
“Yeah. You told me to before. Remember? That I should ride with her to see how she drives.”
“OK. And then tonight I’ll see
you for supper.” We passed the front ticket counter with its tropical fish. “By the way, have you heard of the ampullae of Lorenzini before?”
“No. What are those?”
“They’re these electrosensory organs on a shark’s head. A researcher named Lorenzini discovered them.”
“Huh,” she said. “How about that.”
As we were exiting, a man wearing a suit that cost more than I make in a week brushed past us, almost knocking into me. “Watch where you’re going,” he grunted.
Then Lien-hua met Tessa and me outside by the steps, and as they were walking away, I saw a patrol car grind to a stop in the middle of the No Parking zone.
Detective Dunn clomped out and tossed a cigarette to the pavement. It’s never a good sign to see a homicide detective show up during a missing person investigation. I hoped that didn’t mean Cassandra’s body had been found.
I decided that before going to see Ralph, I needed to talk with Detective Dunn.
37
On their way back to the hotel, Lien-hua tried to ease up on the gas. After all, teaching Tessa bad habits would not be the best way to cultivate Pat’s friendship.
Tessa sat quietly, staring out the window. Lien-hua decided it would be polite to start a conversation, but she didn’t want Patrick’s stepdaughter to feel like she was being profiled, psychoanalyzed.
Start with something safe.
“So, Tessa, what did you think of the aquarium? Not the spooky backroom stuff, I mean the fish. The sharks.”
Tessa shrugged. “Yeah, I liked it, but I saw a couple sharks eat this fish. That was way disgusting. I don’t like watching things die.”
Oh. Great conversation starter that was.
“Well, we have that in common then. I don’t like watching things die, either.” Change the subject, change the subject. “I heard Pat call you Raven. Is that your nickname?”
“Just for him. No one else.”
“You don’t like it?”
“No. I do. But don’t tell him. I never had a nickname before. I like Raven.” Tessa paused. Stared out the window, at the clouds. “Sometimes I wish I could fly like they do. Today, I pretended I was flying with the sharks.”