Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) (9 page)

“Oh, it’ll stay locked.”

I make out her laughter as she
enters her room. Chase the devious.

I go to work right away, pulling my
computer from my shoulder bag, booting it up. I look up the name Elizabeth
Flynn in a Google search, just as I’ve done a thousand times since we parted at
the Varanasi train station. Naturally, I come up with nothing. No Facebook or
Twitter accounts. No LinkedIn. Nothing. There’s maybe a dozen Elizabeth Flynn’s
out there and a dozen more with variations on the given name (Betsy, Liz,
etc.), but not my Elizabeth and certainly not one residing in Nepal. It’s as if
she disappeared off the face of the earth five years ago. Something not all
that difficult to do in a mostly forested and mountainous country where the
majority of residents outside of Kathmandu don’t even enjoy the benefits of
modern electricity much less internet access.

Closing the lid on the laptop, I
stand, pull Elizabeth’s letter from my jacket pocket, set it on the laptop. I
begin to unfold it. But then something holds me back. There’s this pit in my
stomach that tells me I’m not only beginning to believe that Elizabeth is alive,
but that it’s possible we’ll somehow pick up where we left off.

That’s insane.

Even if she is alive, she made it
clear that our relationship was over, no matter how much we loved one another.
My job right now is to find Rajesh. If I can manage to locate Elizabeth first,
she might show me the way to the God Boy. That is, if she isn’t already dead.
But then, if she is alive, she’ll have quite a bit to answer for. Like not ever
picking up the phone for five years to let me know she’s not dead.

Suddenly, all the pain of those
many nights not knowing where she was, if she were alive or dead, or even in
the arms of another man, starts coming back to me. Maybe she entrusted me with
the Kali Key and a letter containing an illustration of her most prized
obsession, but that doesn’t take the place of her being my lover and partner.

Christ, I was willing to settle
down with her. Marry her. Have children with her. That’s not something that
comes easy for me. But she didn’t want it, and now, here I am feeling like a
giddy school kid just back from summer vacation, dying to get a look at the
girl I had a crush on all last year.

I toss the letter down onto my laptop.

“Screw this. Maybe I’ll be able to
locate the kid without having to run into Elizabeth.”

Picking up the phone, I call the front
desk. When the concierge answers, I ask for a bottle of champagne to be sent up
to my room.

“Right away, sir,” he says.

“Oh and be sure to put it on Dr.
Singh’s tab.”

“Of course, sir. Will there be
anything else?”

It dawns on me that I haven’t eaten
in almost twenty-four hours, especially after our in-flight meal was so rudely
interrupted. I tell him to also bring up an early lunch. Traditional Nepalese
would be fine.

“And plenty of naan,” I add.

“Of course. Thank you, sir.”

I hang up, slip my bush jacket off,
roll up the sleeves of my work shirt, lean my shoulder against the fireplace
mantle. I imagine a nattily mustached British Colonel in leather riding boots
and epaulets pinned to his shoulders doing the same thing a century ago, back
when this guest house served as a British headquarters for their colonial
armies. I know I should set my emotions aside and get back to work on locating
Elizabeth. But truth is, I’m also wondering what Anjali is doing next door. If
she’s asleep in her bed. If she’s naked or clothed or merely just wearing a
pair of panties. Nice little black lace ones. One detail I was quick to notice earlier
was the absence of a wedding band. I know she’s Rajesh’s mom, but my guess is
she’s no longer married to my boss, Dr. Singh.

It’s tough to think on an empty
stomach.

Moments later, the doorbell rings.

Opening the door, I’m happy to see
that the wait staff has wasted no time in delivering the food and champagne.
I’m just about to have the boy set the stuff on the bed when something devilish
dawns on me.

“I have a better idea,” I say,
stuffing three hundred Nepalese rupees in the boy’s white-jacketed pocket. I tell
him to take the order next door, compliments of Mr. Chase Baker.

“A beautiful lady stays in that
room?” he says with a smile.

“Yes. A beautiful lady indeed.”

“Oh,” he says, the soft cheeks on
his tan, young face blushing. “I see.”

“Yes, you see. Now go.”

He gives me a look like we both
share a man-to-man secret and because of it, we’re now blood brothers. He goes
next door, rings the doorbell. Closing my door gently, I then place my ear to
the interior door. I make out some shuffling about, then the exterior door
opening.

“Oh my,” Anjali says, “I don’t
recall ordering lunch…and champagne too.”

“Compliments of Mr. Baker.”

I hear the door close. Suddenly I
feel my heart beating just a little bit faster than it was five minutes ago. I
head into the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror. Running the water, I wash
my face and attempt to straighten out my short hair as best I can for someone
whose hairline is receding faster than the Red Sea for Moses. Then, satisfied
that my appearance isn’t going to get much better any time soon, I make my way
back across the room, set my left hand on the knob of the interior door while
wrapping with my knuckles on the door panel with my right. Twisting the knob, I
open the door just enough to poke my head inside.

“Are we decent?” I say. Spotting
the food and champagne set out on the bed, I open the door wider. “What’s that,
lunch?”

Anjali is kneeling beside the bed,
her hands folded in prayer. She’s wearing nothing but a thick white towel with
the Kathmandu Guest House logo printed on the breast pocket.

“Really, Chase Baker,” she says
after a beat, looking up at me with her deep brown eyes. “What if I were kneeling
here entirely naked?”

“If wishes were fishes,” I say.
“We’d all have a fry.”

“What’s that mean?” She smiles.

“I’m not sure. My mother used to
tell me that every time I wished for a new toy.” Then, “Hey, you’re praying
just like my mother taught me how to pray. Hands pressed together and
everything.”

“Are you surprised to see that I am
a Christian…a Roman Catholic…and a devout one at that, Chase?”

“Not at all. Millions of Catholics
in Pakistan, India, and Nepal.”

She stands, slides onto the bed.
“Now,” she says, smiling slyly while softly patting the empty space beside her
on the mattress, “you mentioned something about a toy. Is that what I am to
you, Chase? A new toy?”

“Right now, it looks like you’re
lunch, and I thought you were a devout Catholic.”

“I’m also a big girl who is free to
do what she chooses with the gifts God gave her.”

“And how does my employer, Dr.
Singh feel about that?”

“We divorced not long after Rajesh
was born. He left the country, moved to New York.”

So it’s true…she is divorced…

“Too bad,” I say, praying that the
smile trying to form on my face isn’t noticeable.

I step into the room, slowly make
my way to the bed, setting myself down beside her, resting my back against the
soft, down pillow. The sumptuous lunch is laid out before us.

“Would you care to join me, Chase?”

“If wishes were fishes, boss lady,”
I say, bringing my arm around her, pulling her to me, my lips meeting hers.

“So much for maintaining the boundaries of the sacred
employer-to-employee relationship,” Anjali says through a sly but attractive
smile while sipping on her second glass of champagne. “But then, I’m not really
your boss, am I?”

We’re both sitting up in bed, the
metal pans of food devoured along with most of the champagne.

“Shall I call down for another
bottle?”

“Or we can get some work done,
lover,” Anjali says, feeling for my hand under the covers, giving it a squeeze.
“Any ideas about finding your ex?”

Shaking my head. “I’m still trying
to wrap my head around the fact that she might still be alive. Took me quite a
while to get over her.”

Anjali snickers. “This proves it,”
she says, referring to our little late morning interlude. But then, her light
moment suddenly takes on an air of substantial heaviness. “Perhaps you feel it
wrong of me to think of making love at a time like this…when my only child is
in danger.”

“I’m no judge of that.”

“This here…you and I enjoying one
another’s bodies for a brief moment…it is also a kind of defense mechanism.
Something to keep us, or myself anyway, from imagining the worst.” She looks
away. “Sometimes I need to stop my mind from working, churning up bad thoughts
of Rajesh.”

I nod. “It’s not all that different
for me. If I were to allow my imagination to take over and truly get used to
the idea of Elizabeth being alive…the possibilities…it could be heartbreaking
in the end.”

“Yes, because what if she is alive,
and she rejects you once more?”

“Like I said. I’d rather not think
about it.”

She gently fingers the bronze key
hanging from my neck. “What’s this? Or am I not supposed to ask?”

I explain its presence and the
letter that arrived along with it only last month.

“Proof at last that Elizabeth
lives,” she adds.

“Possibly. But if Elizabeth happens
to be alive and we do find her, it will be strictly business. After all, what
kind of woman doesn’t contact you for years, even if she did send me a key that
quite possibly unlocks the secrets to one of the most sought out statues in the
world? What kind of person does something like that?”

Squeezing my hand again. “Perhaps a
selfish woman who doesn’t love you any longer. But also a woman who, at the
same time, still trusts you. Obviously, she doesn’t want the key getting into
Kashmiri’s hands and there’s only one person in the world who can make sure of
that.”

Her words make my stomach hurt. Or
perhaps it’s all the Nepalese delights. But then, she’s right. If Elizabeth truly
loved me, she would not have allowed me to go on believing she was dead for as
long as she did. That’s cruel. It’s one thing to put one’s career over one’s
love life, but it’s another thing altogether to compound the pain of separation
by feigning death. But then, did she really feign death? Or did I just want to
believe she was dead?

“If she’s out there, Chase,” Anjali
goes on, “we need to find her. She’s our direct link to the Kali Statue, the
location of the diamond deposit, Kashmiri and, most importantly, Rajesh.”

“It’s likely we’ll find all of the
above at the same time. But, you’re right. For now, the most logical person to
seek out is Elizabeth. If I were Kashmiri, I’d keep the boy hidden inside a
cell or a box or somewhere no one can get to him. He is precious cargo. More
precious than the diamonds. Elizabeth, on the other hand, she will be found out
in the open, digging, searching, proving her usefulness to Kashmiri until she
can prove it no longer. But where to start looking? That’s the ten million
dollar question.”

Coming from outside, loud
rapid-fire explosions. My senses perk up.

“What’s that?” Anjali poses, panic
in her voice. “It sounds like gunfire.”

“Calm down.” Slipping out of bed, I
head for the window in my birthday suit. “That’s not gunfire. That’s a sound
I’ve been listening to all my life. It’s a ninety-pound jackhammer.” Pulling
back the curtain on the picture window. Outside in the Kathmandu Guest House courtyard,
a crew of construction workers are chewing up the existing concrete sidewalk
with a jackhammer and a JVC excavator. That’s when it hits me over head.

“Excavators,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

Turning.

“Excavators. It’s possible we might
find Elizabeth’s location from an excavator….a digger. They’re an essential
part of any archeological dig. I should know. I used to be one of them. Only we
didn’t call ourselves excavators. We called ourselves sandhogs.”

“Sandhogs,” she repeats like I’ve
just said something entirely foreign. “But there must be a thousand diggers and
excavators and
sandhogs
, as you call them, in Nepal. What are the
chances of us finding the one man who knows where Elizabeth Flynn is presently
unearthing the Golden Kali Statue?”

Returning to the bed, I sit down on
the mattress, start putting on my clothes.

“I think I know a man who can
help.”

“You don’t sound very encouraged—or
enthused—by the thought.”

“That’s because I’m not very
enthused by the idea of contacting him. But he’s our best bet if we want to
find Elizabeth.”

Biting down on my bottom lip,
sighing.

“Why so glum?” Anjali asks.

“The man I’m speaking of used to
work for my dad’s excavating business. When my dad died, he wanted to keep the
business going since it was his livelihood. But I shut it down to devote to my
writing career full time …my adventures. He never forgave me.”