Checkmate (20 page)

The manager, a disheveled, overweight man who introduced himself to me simply as Fletcher, led me to his office at the National Vending Distribution Services warehouse.

“I need to know who's assigned to make deliveries to the Mint Museum,” I said. “The Randolph branch. He would have visited there last Tuesday.”

“Randolph branch? I imagine that'd be either Ned or Danny. I'd need to look it up.”

I waited while he went to his desk, which was surprisingly organized, considering his unkempt appearance. He flipped through a few time sheets, then pulled one out and showed it to me. “Danny Everhart.”

The name didn't ring a bell. “You have his personnel files?”

“I can't show you those.”

“You let me see them now, you help the FBI out. You make me get a warrant, you slow us down. Which scenario would be better for your company when word leaks out to the press?”

He looked like he might have a rebuff, but then grudgingly pulled out Danny Everhart's personnel file and handed it over.

As I perused the file, Fletcher told me, “He came in about a month ago. Always shows up for work on time. Never complains. He's a good worker. He'd been in a bad car accident, I guess, a couple weeks beforehand. His face was still all bruised up. Needed a chance, a fresh start. I gave it to him.”

“Uh-huh.” I flipped through the papers. “It says here part-time. How many hours per week?”

“A couple days, usually. We moved most of our full-time staff to part-time. You know, Obamacare. All that.”

“Sure. Has he been in today?”

“Made a delivery earlier to the stadium—they're gearing up for Fan Celebration Day tomorrow.”

I looked up from the file. “The stadium uses vending machines rather than concession stands?”

“Most of the time our products are distributed through vending machines. Occasionally, for big events like this, they're hand sold. They're expecting twenty thousand people tomorrow. You need a lot of soda and candy bars for a crowd that size. Is there something I should know about him?”

“No. This address—is it still correct?”

“As far as I know.”

In addition to the twenty-third, Everhart had made a delivery to the museum on the first Monday and then the third Friday of July, after the skull painting had been moved to storage.

He could definitely be the guy who'd written the numbers on the back of the painting.

Could be. There's no guarantee that he is.

“Thank you.”

You need to see if Voss's guys find any video footage of Everhart observing the painting before it was taken down to storage.

I spoke Everhart's address into my phone, asked for directions, and took off to see if I could catch up with him at his apartment to have a little chat.

+ + + +

Tessa and Beck returned to the house and parked on the street out front.

Lien-hua's car was gone so she must have still been at work.

“Um.” Tessa had been debating whether or not to bring this up again ever since they left the restaurant, and now she decided to just go ahead and do it. “You know, it really is kind of stupid for you to be sitting out here. Seriously, you can hang out in the living room. I mean—if you want to. Unless it's against some sort of rule or protocol or something.”

He smiled in a way that she was quickly getting used to. “No, that's not against a rule. I'm not staking out your place. I'm just here in case . . . well, in case anyone shows up who's not supposed to be here.”

“Okay.”

He shut off the engine.

“I suppose it can't hurt anything to sit inside.”

+ + + +

On the way to Everhart's apartment building, I phoned Ralph.

“Anything on Lombardi?” I asked him.

“Still looking for him. He's turning out to be a little hard to track down.”

“I've got something else to check into. I want us to find out everything we can about a guy named Danny Everhart: DMV records, credit-card activity, past residences—everything. A full background. He's the guy who drove the vending machine truck to the museum on the day the artifacts were stolen.”

“You think he might be our guy?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But the timing for his visit fits.
Also, he had a delivery run there a couple weeks ago. He might have accessed the storage area on either occasion. I'm on my way to talk with him right now.”

“I'll contact Gonzalez, get things rolling on the background.”

“Also, send a team to the vending-services warehouse, look over Everhart's delivery van, get the ERT out there, see what we can pick up DNA-wise.” I told him the address.

“Done.”

End call.

Five minutes to Everhart's place.

He lived in an awfully nice part of the city for someone on a part-time delivery man's salary.

I tried to hold myself back from assuming too much, but it was data to add to the mix.

Data leads to discoveries.

Discoveries lead to the truth.

Finding out how long Everhart had lived here and what he did before starting work at NVDS would help. Hopefully, the background Ralph was running would tell us what we needed to know.

+ + + +

Corrine saw colors.

Yes.

For the first time since she had awakened in the tunnel, Corrine Davis began to see shapes and objects swirling around her.

It took her a moment to realize, however, that they were appearing while her eyes were closed rather than open.

The colors took shape, took form.

You're five and your mommy and daddy are in bed and you're jumping up and down on it, up and down, telling them to
get up
because it's
Saturday
! And they promised you
pancakes
!

Giggling.

It's echoing.

Images as clear as day.

You're nine and you're playing with your brother. You're chasing him through the basement, around the couch, and he's laughing.

The laughter courses all throughout the basement and then you're having a pillow fight. He's a normal boy.

You're fourteen and you're behind the bleachers at the football stadium at your high school and the guy you have a crush on is drawing you toward him. Then he's kissing you and it's awkward and it's your first time and it's terrifying and electric and—

You're twenty-four and you hear the news that your brother was arrested.

Arrested?

Laughter.

He's a good boy. A good brother.

You're thirty-eight, at home, and you're turning around.

Someone is there in your bedroom.

Laughter.

That echoes throughout the basement.

But you're not in the basement.

You're here.

Where?

The tunnel.

The colors are real.

Open your eyes.

She did. Reoriented herself. And then Corrine realized
it was her. She was the one laughing and she was not in the basement.

You're losing it, Corrine.

You're losing it!

She was in a tunnel somewhere deep, deep in the earth.

The water. You can do it. You can swim out of here.

Now. Jump in. Swim to safety.

Take off your clothes.

And this time, she listened to the voice.

Corrine Davis bent down to untie her shoes.

+ + + +

As a precaution, the bard never left certain items in his apartment when he wasn't there: the sedative, the insulin, and his laptop. Also, just in case, he set the trip wire on his front door to protect what was in his bedroom. If anyone tried to enter, the whole apartment would blow.

Taking the phone and the sensor to check the Semtex detonator, he stowed his duffel bag with the harnesses and rappelling equipment in his van beside the handcuffs he'd used on the woman, then he climbed in and started the engine.

I showed my ID to the attendant working the parking garage that lay beneath the apartment building where Danny Everhart lived. Then I found a parking space near the exterior wall, which was not completely closed in, allowing my cell phone to have two bars—but at least it still worked. Before leaving the car, I used it to pull up the background Ralph had run on Everhart.

I didn't recognize his DMV photo and I couldn't tell if he was the guy who'd been at the NCAVC earlier this week. Single. Brown hair. Brown eyes. The healing wounds from his car accident were visible in the photo on his driver's license.

So the photo's recent, taken since the accident.

Find out more about that accident.

Timing.

Location.

Through the Federal Digital Database, I sent out a national law enforcement inquiry into moving-vehicle accidents that involved anyone named Everhart.

I was hanging up when I saw a text from Lien-hua that Corrine's friend Isabelle Brittain had been on the phone with her Monday evening from 10:26 to 10:32 p.m. Traffic-camera footage down the block caught a white van entering the neighborhood about forty minutes earlier. It left the area Tuesday morning.

Checking Everhart's records, I saw that a white 2004
Chevrolet van was registered in his name. A recent purchase.

Oh, this was good.

Exiting my car, I started toward the elevators. Slightly distracted, I noticed how poorly lit the parking garage was and I was thinking about how lighting is such an easy step in crime prevention, when movement caught my attention.

A van, pulling around the bend.

White.

Yes.

An older-model Chevy.

The plate number matched.

The van turned before I could see who the driver was, but it was Everhart's vehicle, alright.

So—follow it or continue up to the apartment?

There wasn't enough evidence to allow us to bring him in for questioning, but there was certainly enough for me to follow his van and have a little talk with him, and if that was him driving, then going to his apartment wasn't going to do me any good.

I needed to make a decision fast because the driver was approaching the exit and I might lose him if I hesitated.

Go.

Quickly, I returned to my car and saw the van angle left out of the exit. Recalling the 3-D hologram and Guido's tour, I reviewed the street layout in my mind. There were a lot of one-way streets in Charlotte and that would affect the route the driver would need to take.

I hopped in, left the garage, made the turn, and caught sight of the van up ahead of me at the end of the block.

As I merged with traffic, the thrill of the hunt caught hold of me.

And it felt good.

Whether or not this turned out to be a dead end, I was making my way deeper into the labyrinth. And right now that's exactly where I needed to be.

+ + + +

Out of instinctive modesty, Corrine kept on her bra and panties, but set her shoes, shirt, and jeans beside the water, shoved against the wall.

Besides, when you swim to safety, you don't want to be naked, do you? When you finally get out of here? How would that look?

Strange thoughts. Odd thoughts.

But they were real.

Everything was real.

She stood at the water's edge and thought about what she was getting ready to do.

If you go in, if you do this, there's no turning back. It's going to be hard to dry off again, almost impossible to get warm.

Is that what you want?

Are you ready for that?

She sat down and started to lower her feet in, but gasped and pulled them out again as chills shocked her. It felt like jolts of cold electricity shooting up her body.

You can make it.

She had no idea how deep the water was: if it was four feet deep or forty or four hundred. It might lead to another tunnel, or it might just be a shaft that sank down into the earth.

No, something's not right. Go back to the other end of this tunnel. Wait for help, Corrine. Wait—

But she felt compelled.

Swim,
a persistent voice inside of her said.
You can swim out of here.

She dipped her feet in again, then slid forward and drew in a deep, hurried breath as the chilled water enveloped her body.

Electricity.

Cold and alive.

Shivers that coursed up and down her spine.

Hand over hand she moved to the right, feeling around with her feet.

Nothing.

Complete darkness—

You have to get out!

No.

It
'
s a shaft that
'
s filled with water. But it leads to another tunnel. It has to.

But wouldn
'
t that be filled with water too?

On the one hand, it all seemed logical. On the other, she knew she was not being guided by logic at all.

She felt her way along the edge until she came to the wall on her right, then along that wall to the one she'd thrown stones at earlier—all those hours ago or days ago, she had no idea.

Her feet never touched bottom.

You can do this.

Only one thing mattered: getting out of this mine as quickly as she could.

She made her way all the way back where she'd started, by her pile of clothes.

Okay.

So.

You need to go under. You need to see if this shaft leads anywhere.

This is crazy, Corrine. There's no way you can swim to safety.

Shivers.

A dream.

You're in a pool. You can swim to the other end.

“I can make it.” She heard the words, realized she had spoken them aloud.

You're talking to yourself again.

Yes, but that was okay, it was all okay.

She tentatively dipped her head under, feeling around with her feet, tracing her hands down the shaft, then rose back to the surface.

Deeper. You have to go deeper.

She filled her lungs, readied herself, then brought her legs together, drove her arms upward in the water and forced herself under, dropping feet first as far down as she could.

She wasn't sure how far she went, but as her ears popped, her feet eventually did hit the bottom. Desperately, she felt in every direction to see if there was another tunnel, but she couldn't feel anything.

Corrine kicked off the bottom and shot back to the surface.

Gulped in some air.

There has to be a way out! It must lead out to another tunnel. It has to.

She went under again, and this time found that there was an opening on her right.

Go.

No! What if you can't make it back out?

You will. Of course you will. You're going back home, Corrine.

She returned to the surface one last time for more air, then went back under. Feeling along the wall, she found
the opening and pulled herself forward into the tunnel that led to safety, that she knew,
she knew
, just had to lead to freedom.