All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas (17 page)

Jules had this way of listening with every cell in his body, and he was doing that now.

So Robin went on. “So then he waited an entire week before he called again. At that point, I told him that
wasn't
what I meant, that a week between phone calls is
not
now and then, and no offense, but I was going to stop answering his calls. Which is what I did.”

“You should have told me,” Jules said, but then looked as aghast as if he'd farted loudly during a particularly somber moment at a funeral, no doubt due to his accusatory words.
You should have…
He corrected himself to make his statement be more about himself. It was beyond clear that he was trying hard here, too. “I mean, I just…really wish you'd told me.”

“Yeah, I wish I had, too, babe. I really do. But it seemed to work,” Robin went on with his story. “At least for a while. But then Adam called me again—this was about two weeks ago. I've set my phone so that it doesn't ring when he calls, so he left a voicemail—something along the lines of what Dolphina said. Was I getting weird letters from some crazy fan. I checked the service and they had nothing stranger than usual. It was obviously an attempt to get me to call him back…And I didn't want to, so…Since then, I've just been deleting his messages.”

Now Jules was pissed for another reason. “Messages about a potential threat? You should have told me about
that.
”

Robin shook his head. “And teach Adam that all he has to do to get us to come running is whisper the words
crazy fan?
No thanks. You know what this is about. He's mad that we didn't send him an invitation to the wedding.”

“As opposed to, he's checking in to see if you're having any doubts?”

Robin laughed, but Jules wasn't even smiling, so he said, “If that's the case, he's going to be disappointed. I'm a million percent doubt-free—you know that, right?”

Jules nodded. “Yeah.” But then he shook his head. “Most of the time,” he amended himself. “Sometimes…I get crazy.”

“Talk to me when that happens,” Robin said. “My God, I lean on you for so much.”

Jules nodded again. “It's hard to…But I'll try.” He managed to force a smile and roll his eyes. “Fuckin' Adam,” he said.

“I'm really sorry about this,” Robin said again.

“I am, too. I'm…very sorry.”

“Why didn't
you
tell
me
that he called you?” Robin asked again, more quietly this time.

Jules came over and flopped down on the sofa beside him, his legs stretched out and his head back. “I guess I figured I was handling it, too. I didn't listen to the message he left—I just assumed, yeah, that he was bitching about not getting invited. God.”

“I'll tell you if he ever calls again,” Robin promised.

Jules turned his head and looked at him, some amusement finally back in his eyes. “If?”

“When,” Robin agreed. Because with Adam, it was definitely a
when.
He grabbed Jules by the tie and manhandled him in for a kiss. Mmmm. He wrapped his arms around Jules, pulling him back so they were lying together on the sofa. “Let's just cancel all our meetings today and stay home. Damn, I was already exhausted from that crap with my father.”

“I wish I could,” Jules said with a sigh, his head against Robin's shoulder, his fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. “But I can't. Ah, God, I'm already late.” And yet he didn't leap to his feet.

“I've got to get going, too,” Robin said, also very much not moving, because yes, this was extremely nice—just relaxing here like this. Problem was, he had a meeting with Art that began in forty minutes. It was kind of important, considering they were starting filming tomorrow and they still hadn't found an actor to play his fictional father. Wasn't
that
ironic? “I'm just…doing some heavy-duty wishful thinking.”

“We're not done with Adam,” Jules reminded him, his hand warm against Robin's stomach. “Do you want me to take care of it—check out these e-mails he's received? Keep you out of it?”

Robin didn't like that idea very much—Jules spending time with Adam? “I get jealous, too, you know. You used to be in love with him.”

Jules turned his head to look at him. “That was before I knew what love really was.” He smiled. “When I met you, Robin, God…I had to redefine everything. You know, there was this country song my mother really liked. It used to annoy me, I was in my technopop phase, but lately I just…I find myself thinking about the lyrics all the time.
That was a river, this is the ocean…
I thought I loved Adam, and I did, but…It wasn't even close to this incredible ocean that I feel for you.”

Robin laughed as his heart did a slow flip. “You are too fucking romantic,” he said, loving the way Jules was looking at him, like he had an agenda. And oh yeah. He definitely did. “You say shit like that to me and I am…putty in your hands.”

Jules smiled at that. “Hardly,” he said.

Oh, yeah. Oh…

Yeah.

 

N
EWTON
, M
ASSACHUSETTS

When Will got home, Maggie wasn't back from school yet, which was good because it meant he could get on the computer and access the Internet.

Still, the reason she raced for the computer every day, after dropping her backpack of books just inside the apartment's front door, was one Will could relate to.

So the first thing he did when he signed on was to check their e-mail account. And sure enough, today's e-mail from Arlene was ready and waiting. It was brief—thanks for the package, the weather was getting cold, don't forget to e-mail and report what happened this week on
LOST—
a TV show she and Maggie had always watched together.

Will printed it out so that Maggie could see it that much sooner, and then got down to work.

First things first—Googling the telephone number he'd copied from Dolphina's incoming calls list on her cell phone.

And yeah, that was definitely guilt he was feeling, as he typed the numbers in, starting with the Los Angeles area code. Dolphina hadn't said
Don't snoop through either my cell phone or my computer files
before she'd vanished upstairs to help facilitate the delivery of Robin and Jules's brand-new toilet. But she'd probably assumed it was understood.

Apparently, she didn't know many reporters and…

Whoa.

Wasn't
this
interesting? The number he'd copied down belonged to one A. Wyndham. For some unknown reason, Adam had called Dolphina a number of times over the past few days.

This was certainly provident. It kept Will from having to search for Adam's phone number so he could interview him. He stored it in his own cell phone address book.

Next up was the info he'd swiped from a computer file called
Guest List.
Just as he'd suspected—due to Dolphina's reticence to discuss the matter—one of the wedding guests
had
been red-flagged by the Secret Service. And it wasn't just a “check more thoroughly” notice. It was a full-scale, red-alert, screaming-meanie “must not attend.”

The guest in question was one W. Davis Jones, who, according to Dolphina's records, lived with his wife, Molly, and their two-year-old daughter, Hope, in…Flatulence, Iowa?

He squinted at the words he'd scribbled on his notepad. That couldn't be right.

He had their street address and zip code—as well as their social security numbers, so…

Okay. Flat Ridge. That was better. It was a 'burb of Des Moines, which seemed kind of redundant—Des Moines being smaller than some of the suburbs surrounding Boston.

The information he was finding was…weird, to say the least. Jones was an insurance adjuster with Northstar Company—which didn't seem too dangerous a profession. Although he
had
been an NCO—a sergeant in the Army—with a relatively recent discharge.

Honorable
discharge, so that didn't quite fit either.

He'd served in…Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Germany and Kuwait.

Jones's wife, Molly, was almost ten years older than he was. Nee Anderson, she'd worked overseas for years, for several different Peace Corps–type organizations. Kenya, South America, and—this was interesting—also Indonesia.

Will checked the dates. The record he could access for Sgt. Jones's service was sparse—no details of when he'd served where. But Little Miss Molly had been in Indonesia roughly the same time that Will himself had been there—back around the time of the Bali terrorist bombing. She'd lived on remote Parwati Island, as a member of a relief organization.

It seemed likely, since Indonesia was the common denominator, that Davis and Molly had met there.

Will accessed a search site that wasn't quite legal and…Mr. and Mrs. Davis and Molly Jones had paid their taxes on time last year. Good for them.

But damn, an insurance adjuster in Des Moines made even less than a reporter in Boston. Of course, Jones wasn't paying Boston rents.

Molly worked in daycare—either part-time or at slave wages.

Yow. Lookee how much huge-large the Joneses had stashed in their money market savings account. And they owned their own home, outright.

Will flipped back a year to try to find out when they'd won the lottery, and then another and…That was odd. Apparently Davis and Molly were newlyweds, married for not quite three years. Prior to 2005, he found tax returns for Molly Anderson—who lived and worked in Kenya, again at slave wages, and before that, yes, Parwati, Indonesia.

He found nothing at all for Davis Jones.

Will searched for William Davis Jones, of which there were only a handful, but none that matched the date of birth. He tried William D. Jones and got pages of hits, but again, no birthdate match.

Didn't sergeants in the Army have to pay taxes?

Unless they didn't exist prior to 2005. Unless their Army records were a fabrication, handed to them along with a shiny new identity.

Hmmm.

Indonesia was more than a pretty ocean nation with jewel-green jungles and turquoise blue seas. It was predominantly Muslim, and populated primarily by people of true faith who were outraged by terrorist violence. But Indonesia also had more than its share of poverty, despair and fear—three of the main ingredients that fundamental extremists needed to succeed.

And terrorists were just one of the many dangerous factions who used Indonesia as their stomping ground. Drug lords had island kingdoms, complete with private armies that often warred with one other. Kidnapping tourists was a lucrative business venture for the average middle-class citizen—and apparently Americans and Japanese got the biggest rate of return. Pirates roamed the open seas—but they dressed more like the kids who hung out at the Copley Crossing mall than Johnny Depp.

Will knew the country well—both its history and its current events.

And just a few short years ago—2005, as a matter of fact, back when Davis Jones had mysteriously first appeared—a major Indonesian presidential political contender named Heru Nusantara had been executed—gangland style—after an ugly story connecting him to greed, murder and intrigue had come to light. In this tale, he was tied to a notoriously violent drug lord named Chai.

Chai had been dead for years, but his reputation lived on. People were still afraid to talk about him—he'd ruled his corner of the world with an iron fist, using imprisonment, torture, death—and his army of mercenaries—to keep the locals in line. His army of mercenaries—which had once included an American ex-pat and former Special Forces NCO named Grady Morant.

Hmmm.

Morant had cut ties with Chai years ago, and pretty much dropped off the face of the earth.

Or did he?

It was funny how the dates lined up. In 2005, after Nusantara's crimes were exposed, Davis Jones had mysteriously appeared.

Coincidence? Maybe.

Maybe not.

Will popped open a can of soda and cracked his knuckles, getting into bear-went-over-the-mountain mode. He typed the names Chai, Heru Nusantara, Grady Morant and Molly Anderson into his search engine, just to see what he could see.

 

T
UCSON
, A
RIZONA

Adam got another e-mail from the freak.

It made him get up from his computer, close the curtains in his hotel room and put the chain lock on the door.

It was stupid. He knew that. Whoever was writing to him had clearly gone off his freaking meds and was probably unable to leave the protective confines of his mother's basement.

And yet…

Is Adam enjoying Tucson?

The motherfucker always referred to him in the third person—no doubt because he thought it would be Adam's evil robot twin who answered his e-mail.

Adam laughed as he poured himself a drink. So what if it was only 9:30 in the morning? He'd worked nearly all night, and wasn't needed on set again until sunset.

Besides, if he got drunk, he could always send his evil twin in his place.

His cell phone rang and he leaped to answer it, because that was Robin's ring. Robin Chadwick was
finally
calling him back.

“Hey,” he said, breathless despite his attempt to sound cool. “About time, Einstein. I thought you were never going to ring me. Getting a little intense there in Jules-ville as the wedding approaches, huh? It's not too late to run away…”

“It's not Robin, it's me.” Oh, hell, it was Jules on the other end, sounding as if he'd accessorized his dark suit today with some extra-crunchy grim.

“Sneaky,” Adam said past the disappointment that tightened his chest. “Using Robin's phone to call. Checking up on him, are we, J.?”

“Nope, just fucking with you,” Jules said. “Kind of the way you've been trying to fuck with me and Robin ever since you heard we're getting married.”