Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 01 - Last Call (25 page)

I knew there was something seriously wrong when my stomach growled at the sight of Devon chomping into a mini pizza. How long had it been since I’d eaten?

Devon, mini pizza still clamped between his teeth, swiveled around in his desk chair and stared at me. He finished biting through the pizza and spoke with his mouth full.

“Dude, did you want one?”

“That’s all right,” I said, and my stomach made a noise like a whimper.

“Sounds like your gut’s gonna revolt.”

I glanced at the plate next to his keyboard with three mini pizzas fresh from the toaster oven and hand delivered by Devon’s mom. Steam wafted off of them, and I could smell the pepperoni. My mouth watered.

“Fine,” I said, and reached for a pizza. I burned the roof of my mouth on the first bite, but that didn’t stop me from taking an immediate second bite. My stomach gurgled, its own version of applause.

Devon swiveled back to his computer.

“I know you didn’t come here to play the new Star Wars RPG, so talk to me.”

I pulled the flash drive out of my pocket and set it on Devon’s desk, next to the plate of pizzas. “I want to take a second look at what’s on here.”

“I already cracked it. You don’t need me for that.”

“I also want you to make a few back-ups and keep one here if you can.”

Devon plugged the flash drive into his PC. “In case something happens to you?”

“I doubt it will come to that,” I said. “But I don’t want to be the only one with this info if what I’m thinking turns out right.”

Devon rattled on his keyboard for a bit, then turned to me.

“And what are you thinking?”

I tried to swallow, but the muscles in my throat didn’t want to work. I ran through my story quickly, like a confession to a priest whose god resided in cyber-space instead of heaven. When I reached the part about learning I had a teenage daughter, my eyes watered and I looked away from the glow of Devon’s monitor, hoping the perpetual darkness of his room kept the tears hidden. I stopped at the point where Autumn and I arrived at the Rabson only to find Lincoln had left.

The whole time I talked, Devon twirled his devil’s lock around on his finger and gaped at me.

“That’s messed up,” he said when I finished. “But what’s it got to do with the files on here?”

I took a deep breath before I finally put my theory to words.

“There might be a connection between my missing daughter and Doug’s murder.”

“No way.”

“Open up those files again. Go to the one titled BMB.”

Devon clicked through the appropriate folders. The document popped up on screen a second later, and I could see from where I sat the boldfaced date of the first entry from six and a half years ago.

I suffered a moment of doubt. What would a story Doug wrote so long ago have to do with anything now? I was reaching, desperate for an answer. But I had to try.

“Can I get in there?”

Devon rolled his chair out of the way, and I skated mine to the desk. I used the mouse and started scrolling slowly, reading the notes more carefully. As I clicked the down arrow on the scrollbar, I realized I had never scrolled all the way to the bottom of this particular document.

I abandoned the mouse and taped CTRL-END on the keyboard. The blinking cursor instantly transported itself to the end of the document. I scrolled up to find the latest entry date, holding my breath until it came into view.

Six years ago.

I slapped my hand down on the desk.

“Damnit.”

“No good?”

“This is all old.” I made fists and pressed them against my forehead. “Autumn dropped that bomb on me, and now I can’t even think straight. I’m just reaching.”

“Chill a sec. What made you think this all ties together?”

I took a deep breath, but chilling was out of the question.

“Doug had notes about a black market adoption ring,” I said and pointed at the computer. “Then Autumn tells me about Lincoln covering up her pregnancy and putting up our daughter for adoption in secrecy. It seemed a weird coincidence.”

“You think Lincoln might have… Whoa. Are you serious?”

“I’m not sure, Dev.”

“Dude, that’s sick.” Devon put a hand over his stomach and grimaced. “No offense, but I so hope you’re wrong.”

“Judging from the dates of these notes, it looks like I am.”

He twirled his Devil’s lock in thought. “Maybe the dates are wrong.”

“How could they be wrong? Besides, this stuff is about Port Huron. That’s nowhere near here.”

“Let me take another look. Won’t hurt, right?”

I scooted out of the way.

Devon tapped a few keys, and a search box popped onto the screen. “Let’s check for some keywords. How about ‘Autumn?’“

He typed it in—no results.

“What else?”

“Try ‘Lincoln’ or ‘Rice.’“

Another big zero.

He swiveled in his chair and looked at me expectantly.

I shook my head, out of ideas.

“It was worth a shot,” Devon said. “You want me to print it out so you can read the whole thing?”

I started to tell him to forget it when I remembered another loose end. When you had two loose ends, it was always a good idea to try and tie them together.

“Type in ‘Detroit.’“

He swung back and typed the city’s name into the search box. When he punched the enter key, the document scrolled to another page and highlighted the word “Detroit.”

“It’s a hit,” Devon said.

I leaned in and read the surrounding paragraph:

I interviewed several girls, a number of them young prostitutes, no more than sixteen or seventeen. While most were understandably weary to talk with me, one common thread tied them together: The Metro Detroit Free Clinic. Most all of them had been to the clinic at least once, and many while pregnant. I think I may have stumbled upon another ring, perhaps one much larger and more insidious than in Port Huron.

“Son of a bitch,” I said and rolled back from the computer. I felt like I needed air, the dark room closing in on me.

Devon looked at me over his shoulder. He’d been scanning the document beside me the whole time.

“I was there,” I said, pointing at the monitor. “Across the street anyway. But why …”

I peered at the screen again, noticing the date above the section about the free clinic. It, too, was from over six years ago. I reached for the mouse and scrolled around randomly, checking all the dates. They were all old, but when I stopped to read the entries, some of them referenced the Port Huron stuff and some of them went into more detail about what Doug found around Hawthorne and in Detroit.

“He’s scrambled his new notes into these old ones.”

“Why do that?”

I nodded, things coming together now. The woman at the rest stop shouting in Doug’s face, knocking him down. Had she threatened him when he asked the wrong questions?

“Life insurance,” I said.

“Doesn’t look like it worked.”

“Can you back this up for me?”

He jerked the flash drive free and handed it to me. “Already done.”

I asked Devon to print the document after all. I needed to go through it and pick out everything that seemed relevant. Once I had the printout, I grabbed another mini pizza and rushed for the door.

“You’re welcome,” Devon shouted after me.

I stopped. “After this is all over, I’ll make it up to you.”

Devon stroked his wispy attempt at a Fu Manchu, then waved me off. “We can talk about my singing lessons later.” He turned back to his computer and mouse-clicked his way into some digital dungeon.

“Thanks, Dev.”

He gave a back-handed wave. “Go kick some ass.”

Chapter 22

At home, I set up a command center in the dining room. I yanked the sheet off the twenty foot dining table, cleared away some dust with my sleeve, and plugged in my laptop. I spread Doug’s printed notes out and went at them with a highlighter and pen, highlighting the hidden, recent notes, and numbering each highlighted passage in estimated chronological order. In this way I pieced together a story that ended with Doug’s death.

According to the notes, his suspicions about another black market adoption ring started from a rumor going around Hawthorne High. As a teacher, Doug heard lots of rumors about one student or another, usually all cruel jokes or exaggerations blown up to keep kids entertained during study hall or in the lunch line. But one particular rumor caught Doug’s attention.

The previous school year, a girl named Cassie Monroe, editor of the school yearbook—Doug knew her well, as he supervised the yearbook committee—one day stopped coming to school. The official reason for her extended absence was simply that it was medical. No specific condition was given, though some teachers suspected mono, which was pretty common. The rumor mill said otherwise.

Again and again Doug heard that Cassie had gotten pregnant by her college-aged boyfriend, and that her parents found out and pulled her from school. The rumor only grew when Cassie returned the following year, no worse for wear, but unwilling to talk about her “medical condition.” Plus, she was driving a brand new Mustang convertible. That’s when Doug first heard whispers of Cassie’s parents selling her baby so no one would know, then consoling (or bribing) her with the new car.

Already responsible for exposing one illegal adoption ring out of Port Huron, Doug couldn’t resist his journalist nature, and began looking into the rumor himself.

His investigation eventually led him to the Detroit area. His previous experience with such things helped guide him where to look, which led to his interviews with the girls who directed him toward the free clinic.

Doug wrote in his notes his attempts to bait employees at the clinic by posing as a man with a young, pregnant mistress, who might want a discreet—and profitable—way to get rid of the baby. The chronology as I arranged it had the notes ending with Doug receiving a phone call from a woman who refused to give her name, but told Doug she could “help him with what he needed.” This woman arranged a meeting at a rest stop off of I-94, East of Hawthorne.

A meeting I had taken pictures of.

I smiled sadly when I finished going over the notes. Doug seemed like he had been a pretty clever guy. We had a lot more in common than I would have suspected—both of us had retired from jobs we loved, both of us had been drawn back to those jobs for a specific reason, and both of us ended up regretting it. Though he probably regretted it more, considering I was the one still alive.

One thing that bothered me about the notes was a lack of reference to Autumn or her father. Originally, I had assumed Doug learned about the new adoption ring through Autumn or Lincoln, not some rumor at the high school. But maybe the black market adoption ring and my daughter weren’t connected after all, despite the eerie similarity between Cassie Monroe’s story and Autumn’s. Or maybe Lincoln had, in fact, used the services of this disgusting operation, and Doug’s discovery of the illegal ring was entirely independent of that. Of course, that only replaced one apparent coincidence with another.

Bottom line—I had some uneasy suspicions about Lincoln Rice, but I had a solid lead with the woman from the photos. How Sam or his girlfriend factored into this, I couldn’t figure.

The only way to clear this up was to go with the concrete. It was after nine o’ clock at night; the free clinic was most likely closed. In the morning, I would visit the clinic, and take the mystery out of the mystery woman.

The next morning, before heading to Detroit, I swung by Lincoln’s estate. This time Charles let me right in, though he did inform me that Lincoln was not at home. I knew he was probably at the Rabson with Autumn. I hadn’t come to see him.

Mrs. Granthum met me at the door as she had during my last visit. She invited me to join her in some sitting room or another, but I declined. I didn’t plan on staying long.

“Then what can I do for you, Mr. Brone?”

“I forgot to check with you last time I was here, but Lincoln told me you could vouch that he was at home on Friday night last week.”

“Yes. In fact, at seven o’ clock I had finished going over his to do list with him for the following day. I remember because that’s rather late for Lincoln, even on a Saturday. He wakes very early, so he’s usually in bed by eight. Which means, so am I.”

“You live here in the house?”

“It isn’t what you think. I’m all the way in the East wing. It’s like living in a whole different building.”

The answer came out as rehearsed. Either she had to make the explanation often, or she was lying. But I had no interest in her relationship with Lincoln.

“If you’re all the way on the other side of the house,” I said, “how can you vouch for his being home that night?”

“I said it’s like I’m living in another building. But he was here when I went to bed. He was going to bed himself.”

“He could have left the house after you went to bed.”

She folded her arms. “I suppose he could have. If you’re trying to trick me into admitting I was in bed with him the whole night, you won’t succeed. I was in my own bed.”

“Actually, Ms. Granthum, I hadn’t expected anything like that at all. But just so we’re clear, you’re saying you have no way of knowing whether Lincoln went to bed or left the house, because you were sleeping on the other side of an eight-thousand square-foot home.”