Stone Cold (6 page)

He wished he’
d taken one more second and picked up the paper himself when he realized he’d been standing on it.

Conall’s eyes went
between Liz and Jack several times.

He could
see her looking directly at Jack as she mouthed the words, “I need that paper sir.”

Conall saw Jack
hesitate for one second. He’d read her lips too. Instead of honoring her request, with those empty, cold, piercing, dark eyes still on her, he tucked the pink paper inside his coat pocket, turned, and disappeared into the crowd.

Liz lost consciousness at that moment and Conall saw the paramedics load her into the
ambulance before he too made his way through the crowd.

He’d already missed his dentist appointment and there was no need for him to return to school that afternoon
. This gave him every reason to follow Jack to see what he was going to do with the pink paper.

That was three days ago.
From that point on the purpose of his mission had become clear. Protect Hannah but from what he wasn’t entirely sure.

Conall collapsed on his bed, the paper still in his hands. His
eyes closed for the first time in days knowing he had to find her and soon.

Cha
pter 5

Monday afternoon, finally! Conall spent t
he entire school day watching the clock. He noticed every painful click of the second hand going round and round as the hours slowly passed. When the dismissal bell finally rang he sprang from his seat so fast that it tipped over and hit the floor with a loud unexpected bang.

Everyone in the room except Conall recoiled from the noise
and froze in their tracks, clasping their ears with their hands. Completely unfazed, he darted through his classmates who were more than happy to let him pass. Bobby and Shawn were waiting for him to continue their quest to find Jack Barnes.

When they arrived at
the Yellow Cab Company garage, his friends waited near the exit ramp while Conall approached the dispatcher sitting behind the tinted glass window.

“What
can I help you with young man?” The dispatcher’s scratchy voice barely emanated from the vented box at the base of the window.

“I, I, I’m looking for the drive
r of cab 315. I was a passenger in his cab the other day and I want to know if he remembered if I had a Red Sox jacket when I got in the cab,” Conall lied as he tried to appear calm.

“He’s about done his shift, due back any minute. You can have a seat right over there and wait if ya like.”
The dispatcher pointed to a seating area as he picked up his phone and mumbled something to whom Conall guessed was the cab driver in question.

Several minutes later
a man with a foreign accent entered through the garage and greeted Conall.

“Hello, I was told you needed to ask
me something about a Red Sox jacket.”

“Yes, well uh I uh really want to ask you about the accident the other day. I really need to find the man, to talk to the man who was your passenger at the time of the accident.”

Conall averted his eyes for a second but then forced himself to look directly back at the driver.

By this time
Bobby and Shawn had joined Conall.

“You’r
e in luck! I can show you where I picked him up but I have no other information on him. I remember him well, first of all because of the accident and because he was speaking on the phone in what sounded like a Middle Eastern language. He spoke English to me though. I can take you there now on my way home but you have to find another ride back.”

The three boys followed the driver to his cab.
Once inside, he turned on the radio and headed through the streets of Manhattan. Conall was silent as he made plans in his head of how they could steal Jack’s phone.

In less than ten minutes the driver pulled the cab over in front of
an upscale penthouse apartment building.

“This is where I picked him up. Not sure if he lives here but he definitely came out of this building.”

Conall and the other boys thanked the cab driver as they opened the doors and quickly slid across the seat to make their exit. With their feet barely on the curb, they watched as the cab driver sped away and disappeared into the rush hour traffic. 

The boys surveyed their surroundings. The high rise building was old bu
t definitely had class. The front of the building was made from thick tinted glass that stretched from floor to ceiling. Two doormen attended the revolving doors that led to the concierge desk in the lobby. A row of elevators were in constant use to the right of the desk, as they shuttled residents to and from their apartments. Some of the residents stopped at the desk to get their mail and chatted with the three clerks on duty. It would be nearly impossible to enter the building without being seen.

Conall finally broke his silence.
“I think the best way to get his phone is to wait until he leaves the building – after dark. We can follow him and as soon as he gets on his phone we create a distraction that will make him drop it. One of us can pick it up and run. We have to make it look like a random mugging.”

The details started to come
together. Since Jack would most likely recognize him it was decided Conall would have to be the one to pick up the phone and run. Bobby and Shawn would pretend to get into a fist fight as they danced around Jack, while accidentally knocking his phone out of his hand in the process. They would continue to argue with each other as part of the diversion while Conall swept in like a Ninja, retrieved the phone from the ground and disappeared into the darkness sight unseen. Bobby and Shawn would run in the opposite direction until the coast was clear. The three of them would rendezvous at Conall’s house after.

With the plan made, the only thing left to do was to st
ake out the building. They had to know if he did in fact live there and when he would most likely be leaving the building.

It was nearly dark and none of the boys had eat
en dinner yet. They were all hungry and Conall was about to tell the others to go home and he would wait alone. He was the only one who knew what Jack looked like so there was no point in all of them being there. After all, the current mission was strictly to determine if he lived in the building.

“Let’s wait for five more men to leave or enter the building and if h
e isn’t one of them you both can go home. If I don’t see him in the next hour, we can come back tomorrow night and try again.”

Conall paced the street opposite the penthouse but never took his eyes away from the revolving door.

After two men left the building, the odds of finding him tonight seemed slim to none. Just as a third man was about to enter, someone in the lobby caught Conall’s eye. It was a dark figure moving from the elevator to the door. As the third man disappeared through the revolving door, the dark figure emerged onto the street. He paused for a brief minute and lit a cigarette.

Without averting his eyes, Conall whispered
with a slight nod, “Everyone, take a good look. That’s our man.”

The boys watched
as Jack Barnes turned and walked to his left, cigarette in hand. After about ten steps he pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Let
’s follow him for a bit just to see where he’s headed.”

Conall was so tempted to execute their plan right then and there. It was all he could do
to bury the feelings that surged with the adrenaline rush that consumed him.

Sever
al blocks later, Jack paused and flicked his cigarette butt into the street. He scanned his surroundings one more time then disappeared behind the door of a nearby restaurant.

Satisfied with their progress, the boys decided
it was time to go home. They would return the next night for one more observation. So far it seemed like a foolproof plan. People were mugged in the city all the time and the perpetrators were rarely found. This shouldn’t be any different. They justified their intent as they walked and after several minutes of animated debate decided this was not an act of malice – it was to protect someone from possible harm.

*****

Conall could barely sleep that night. He kept seeing
images of Hannah’s face from that day on the ferry.

He was hooked from the start.
It was impossible not to notice her big, beautiful, greenish blue eyes before anything else. Their hypnotic gaze could put the most resilient guy under her spell. The cool air had caused them to tear up slightly and they reflected the light like pools of water in the moonlight.

Suddenly,
Conall was startled from his trancelike state, eyes wide open as he remembered how hard it had been for him to break eye contact with her from that first glance. She’s the one who looked away first, her eyes shyly averted toward the deck.

He
slowly closed his eyes again and the images quickly returned. This time he could see her baby fine blonde hair pulled loosely into a ponytail with several tendrils around her face floating gently in the breeze. There was a ribbon tied around the ponytail with something written on it that he couldn’t quite make out. Her face, with a trace of makeup, held a childlike expression across her pale and clear complexion. She was smiling and he barely noticed she was wearing braces. Instead, his attention was drawn to her full, soft pink lips and he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to kiss them.

Almost as noticeab
le was her tall slender build. Her black hoodie hung loosely over her perfectly fitted jeans. Her style was nothing over the top, simple yet classic, nothing trendy, and no visible labels. He guessed maybe American Eagle. She had her backpack slung over one shoulder and it kept slipping as she walked. Conall was amused at her unwavering determination to keep it on her shoulder, repeatedly shoving it back in place with her free hand as she walked across the deck.

When they’d touched hands, something happened to him that had never occurred before. He experienced a rapid surge of images in his mind of the two of them – their first date, their first kiss, their first dance, their engagement, their wedding, their first child, their next child. Every image was interspersed with explosions during war scenes, their families, and other life events.
He was confused by what it all meant. When his teacher interrupted them, it was just as hard to let her hand go as it was to break eye contact.

In Conall’s mind, t
here was no doubt about it. Hannah was a pretty girl in the making. It was hard not to stare at her. She was his exact idea of the girl next door. 

It’s not like he hadn’t seen hundreds of attractive, even beautiful girls
before. Girls who were flawless; perfect skin, hair, and clothes, all meant to accentuate their developing bodies and attract the opposite sex. The draw was so great the average heterosexual male didn’t stand a chance. No wonder high schools have dress codes.

T
here was just one problem. In Conall’s experience, most of those girls came with an attitude, an air of entitlement and egos the size of Manhattan. Their charm and allure only ran skin deep and it never took long to realize this was not someone he wanted to spend any length of time with. If they were like this at fifteen, he could only imagine what they would become in their twenties and beyond.

Hannah seemed different.
She was clearly not about hair, makeup, and the latest trends. Unlike many of her peers, most of the curves were still missing from her body. She was younger than Conall, not by much but it was enough of a difference that she still had an innocent air about her. She seemed more engaged in the world around her than the girls he knew. He sensed there was more depth, more to get to know beyond the outward appearance. Not to ignore her obvious intelligence, but Conall could see that beneath her understated presence, Hannah would one day be a physical knockout, with men clamoring over each other to date her. He planned to be the first one in line. With that last thought, he drifted into the most peaceful sleep he’d had since he’d met her.