The Crystal Circle: A Paranormal Romance Novel (9 page)

“He’ll be behind the kitchen of the Plaza Hotel.”

“Let’s go!”

In the darkness, between the staff and the food lines, were three men, whispering.

“Robbie!” Gidi whispered to him. “Gimme some green. You got any left?”

Robbie looked suspiciously at Saul. “What’s with the granddad, Gidi? What have you brought us, the arch-inspector?”

“It’s all right, Robbie. This is my new partner.”

“And how much does he want? One? Two?”

“I’ll stick with beer.” Saul waved the bottle of beer in his hand. “Let Gidi have some.”

Within half an hour they were sitting in Gidi’s apartment on a tattered couch that had lost its color over a decade ago. The windows overlooked the neighboring buildings on the outskirts of the city. Gidi breathed in his daily marijuana and leaned back on the couch, his feet up on the table. Saul sat and made some notes.

“How many merchants did you say there are on the promenade?”

“Merchants?” Gidi roared with laughter and almost fell off the couch, “You mean street vendors! A little over a hundred.”

06/19/2013 - Fourth day of disappearance

In the morning, over a cup of black coffee, even two, Gidi and his new partner sat beside a stack of papers prepared by Saul the night before. Saul explained to Gidi that his job would be to keep him secure, to take care of his connections and collect the money. He would accompany him to all of the marketing meetings, but later they’d rent a normal apartment for Saul, and there they would run the King’s Bank. Saul explained that he couldn’t touch the money he’d accumulated in Tel Aviv, which was safe in the Bahamas.

“If I take out the money, within a minute, all the cops’ll be down on me. When we finish making our hit here, doing well for ourselves, you and I are going there together. Beautiful beaches, surfing, sunsets, and girls you can’t even imagine – topless, not like here. You’re into girls, right?” Saul suddenly looked uncomfortable and moved sideways.

“Sure, dude, what’s wrong with you? Didn’t you see how much flirting was going on yesterday at my stall? I take what I want when I want it.”

“A man’s man.” Saul nodded warmly and went on providing Gidi with the details of the plan. Special emphasis was put on the short and long term profits Gidi would see. Saul drew red circles around amounts he wrote on the paper, growing from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands in a very short time. Gidi’s eyes grew round and his breathing stopped. He was afraid to speak. He knew nothing of stock programs and shares, but these amounts...

“When we pass the one million mark,” Saul drew a clear red line below the threshold of one million dollars, “we buy our tickets and fly to the Bahamas. Do you think you’re up for the job?” He looked at Gidi and narrowed his eyes to a small crack. “I need a dedicated person who’s willing to commit indefinitely to me, with a lot of guts.”

“Obviously, Saul!” Gidi boasted. “Ask about me here in Eilat, and you’ll know you got to the right person.”

“Excellent. From here on in, you’re committed to extreme discretion.”

“Dis... what?”

“Secrecy! Don’t tell anyone, not even your parents and certainly not any girl. If you stick with my plan and keep brainless hoodlums away, like the one who harassed your father yesterday, we’ll make it big time. Deal?”

Gidi swallowed. His lifetime opportunity had arrived. “Deal!”

“So come on, Gidi, bring out some wine or something.”

They raised a toast to the ‘Bank of Kings.’ Later, Saul looked over the ridgeline of the Eilat Mountains. He thought,
although it seems I’ve done one or two things in my life, and I’m probably in my fifties, my life is but four days old..
.

Saul may not have remembered who he was or his past, but it bothered him less and less every day. There must be some woman in his past, perhaps children, liabilities, mortgages. Boring. His new life seemed very promising; he had many qualities that came with his new identity as Saul. He began to count them in his mind: He could get women - there were tricks that worked for all of them; he had knowledge and expertise in finance and a talent for investments. He could get money as an investment expert and could fool anyone who wasn’t; he had a partner who’d do anything for him, and he had a plan to make a big profit in a short time - the perfect sting. He was in good shape, looked good for his age... and the Bahamas were closer than ever. The tremendous urge burning his bones to find the right David could wait.

Rules of the Crystal Circle

1.        
   A natural reservoir: a lake, a pond, tears; anything created directly by nature that can reflect a human being, will be an entrance gate to the Circle.
   
2.        
   The living members of the group will appear as they currently look in reality. Members who have passed on will appear in their optimally remembered state. Members of the group who have not yet materialized in reality will appear as their potential future adult.
   

06/25/2013 - Tenth day of disappearance

Yossi washed Eden in the large bathtub. She still loved rubber ducks and a lot of foam. She giggled as she drowned her rubber ducky, but Yossi found it very hard to laugh with her. While his parents had volunteered to stay with the girls in the afternoons when he was at work, in these hours of the evening, during which Michal would have thoroughly organized everything making sure every girl knew her place, were the hours that he loved most. He was excited all over again to experience the family warmth which he had often missed due to his frequent absences from home. But those priceless hours had become a concern, creating a huge void inside him. It was hard to keep smiling, calm Eden, and explain that her mother had gone abroad for work and would be home soon.

Gaya was upset and perceived her mother’s absence as a punishment Michal had personally imposed on her. Yossi tried to get Eden out of the bath as quickly as possible, concerned about Gaya’s lack of experience in cutting vegetables. She may have volunteered to make the salad, but... and then came the sound he feared, echoing throughout the apartment. “Dad! Help, I cut myself!”

Yossi pulled Eden out of the bath, wrapped a towel around her and immediately flew to the kitchen. Gaya was there with a knife in one hand and a very small, but bloody, cut on the other. He expertly wrapped a couple of Band-Aids around her finger and explained to Gaya that her injury did not exempt her from going to school. He sighed. The sight of blood on his daughter’s finger startled him. He couldn’t help thinking about Michal’s fate. Had she died in agony, or was she lying injured somewhere? Was someone looking out for her?

He’d done all he could to locate her. In the first few days, the police had asked the families not to make the absence a public matter in the hope that it would motivate the kidnappers, if there were any, to make contact. They still believed that there was a direct link between Michal and Raul, and that their simultaneous disappearance was no coincidence. Five days later, the police released their photographs to the media, and now the whole country knew what Michal looked like.

Yossi also used Michal’s and his friends’ Facebook accounts to send emotional messages, asking everyone’s ‘friends’ to share her photo. The messages were signed by her parents and family. He tried to avoid unnecessary exposure whenever possible. He did not have a Facebook account or any other social networking subscription. In fact, the people who knew him, apart from his work colleagues, could comfortably fit in one small room. Naturally, there were people with malicious intent, extortionists, and just plain wicked men who sent him off down dead ends or asked for money. On Facebook, some had even sent heinous accusations and filthy descriptions of Michal. He felt caught in a mad storm. In the space of a day, he’d unwittingly found himself at the center of media attention. Gaya also suffered harassment and remarks at school. Of course, she’d prefer to stay at home, but, for her own good, she had to continue with her life. Luckily, Eden didn’t understand much, though she certainly missed her mother, a void Yossi could never fill.

“Michal, where are you? If only I had a clue...”

The private investigator Yossi had hired a week earlier had been looking for a lead. Many days had passed since he’d found anything promising, but nothing had provided any information. The last lead was the Florentine, the bar in Tel Aviv. Yossi had been there several times and posted pictures of Michal on the trees and the tables around the neighborhood, hoping someone would see and remember her, leading to another clue, but nothing had turned up. Up until that moment.

His phone vibrated for the tenth time that hour. It was an email notification from the private investigator. Yossi sat in the dining room, put the first aid kit on the table, and wiped his brow.

“Hello Yossi, I regret to inform you that I still don’t have any clear results pointing to the location of your wife or the reason for her absence at the moment. Our firm is prepared to give proper service to any request, and as a large firm, we are committed...”

Yossi sighed and skipped the opening spiel praising the investigator and justifying the outrageous quote he required for each working day.

“Our people in Eilat picked up the trail of your wife, Michal, on June 21st and 22nd. She walked alone around the stalls near the Eilat beach...”

Eilat! Yossi’s pupils widened and he enlarged the text in his device to make sure he was reading correctly.

“On June 23rd she was even photographed. On the 24th, yesterday morning, a senior investigator went there to make sure that the description and photos given by the investigators matched your wife. In the footage, she’s wearing glasses and her hair color is very dark, but there’s little doubt that it is her.

“However, since then, she has not been seen for thirty-six hours. The two local investigators are patrolling night and day through the border crossings, the airport, and the bus station, but it’s not likely that she left Eilat unless she changed her physical appearance again. I feel obliged to inform you of this development, even if, currently, it has not yielded results. The merchants in the stalls and other people we know could not give us any new information. I was hoping that perhaps you, Mr. Rafael, could shed more light on the location to which she has arrived. Also, you can decide whether to ask us to report these findings to the police, but not before confirming that the photographs we have verify her identity...”

Yossi hastily opened the files attached to the email. Indeed, although the picture was fuzzy and taken in haste, he definitely saw Michal, in clothes that weren’t hers, wearing funny glasses and with black, disheveled hair. She seemed upset, but she was still his wife.

His heart thudded and a drop of sweat fell on the phone’s screen, staining Michal’s face until it became a fuzzy blur. She was down south, alive and alone. Her trackers had lost her. In his heart, he wanted to rush to Eilat to turn over every hotel until he found her, but an insight hit him, cooling his enthusiasm.
She’s running. She’s switching identities. She’s hiding.
Even if he found her, she wouldn’t want to come back; otherwise she’d have called long ago.
She’s not being held captive or threatened. She’s free. She’s not coming back of her own choice.
Even in a direct confrontation, if he found her, he wouldn’t change her mind.

That night, he tossed and turned in bed, desperately attempting to find reasons for her departure. He was, again, immediately suspicious of the branch manager, Raul. Rumors of his licentiousness flew around as soon as he joined the branch.

06/26/2013 - Eleventh day of disappearance, Police Headquarters, Migdal Haemek

In the small and stifling conference room of the Migdal Haemek Police Station sat several senior police inspectors along with the families of the two missing persons. There was no seating space left in the room, so the young female cop, who handed out glasses of water, remained standing, holding a folder.

Yossi stretched his long legs under the defaced, peeling, Formica table. Occasionally he would nervously bite his fingernails. His parents and his wife’s parents were waiting at home for the results of the meeting. Raul’s wife arrived with her sister, holding her hand. She was pale and thinner than he remembered. Deep hollows of sleepless nights were visible around her eyes.

Sitting in front of them was the local police inspector, Zahavi, his eyes lit up with excitement in view of the special guest invited for the questioning, a senior inspector called Tomas from national headquarters nicknamed ‘Sherlock’ on account of his superior mystery-cracking abilities.

Inspector Tomas sat across the table. Unlike Zahavi, he was muscular and solid. His eyes were cold and sullen. For the most part, he was not arrogant or angry, but that morning, when he’d parked in a disabled space outside the café just for a moment, to pick up his morning coffee, a citizen had taken a photo of his car and distributed the images on social networks. Nevertheless, all those in the room interpreted the atmosphere of tension on his face as seriousness and professionalism. Tomas was also trying to control his anger over his old friend calling him to come all the way to Migdal Haemek to help him with a disappearance case that had run into difficulties, as they often did in Tel Aviv. Next to them sat the dispatcher who had greeted Yossi the day he filed the complaint.

“Hello, gentlemen… ladies,” began Zahavi in a somewhat squeaky voice, due to the magnitude of the occasion. “It’s now two weeks since the disappearance of Michal and Raul, and we have several investigative directions. As you can see, we’ve involved a team of senior inspectors from Tel Aviv in our investigation. This is Inspector Tomas, who will now present his current findings.”

Tomas cast a dark and ominous look at both partners of the missing persons. Yossi expected the worst. His mind leaped uncontrollably between the options - rape and murder, kidnapping for the purpose of bargaining, being caught in a barrage of gunfire between criminal organizations...

Tomas began. “First, we’d like to talk to you both about our findings so far. Obviously, the absentees themselves have not yet been found, but there are some surprising advances, I’d say. After my presentation of what we have to say to both of you, we’ll split up. Inspector Zahavi will talk to you, Mr. Rafael, and I’ll continue my conversation with Mrs. Dominguez here.”

He paused and gave another grim look to Yossi and Orna, then continued. “We know that Raul and Michal did not disappear together. Michal didn’t return to the hotel and was gone long before the morning came. The last time she was seen was in the Florentine pub at around two in the morning. No one noticed when she left. Employees of the bank were all too drunk to notice, and the bartenders were busy. But we know that one of her friends...” he checked his notes, “looked for her in the pub to ask for a feminine product, but she was already gone. She looked for her in the bathroom, but found nothing. She remembered it clearly.

“Her phone, as you know, disappeared and was probably stolen. The same with her purse, her wallet, and personal documents. Raul, in contrast, was seen going back to sleep at the hotel. The electronic room key was used and coded at one in the morning. It was used again to exit the room. He came down earlier than the others, around seven thirty in the morning. This was confirmed by some guests of the hotel and also by a receptionist who said he saw Raul leave wearing sneakers and a T-shirt, and so assumed he was going out for a morning run. He didn’t return to the room and his belongings, as you know, were left there, even his wallet, cellphone, and basically all he had in Tel Aviv. There was nothing amongst his possessions, no notes or reminders, nothing, suggesting where he was headed. I understand from his wife that Raul is a very neat and organized individual,” he looked up at Orna and she nodded without saying a word, “and had scheduled meetings at the bank starting from two in the afternoon that day, for which he did not turn up.

“It’s very strange that two people from the same firm would disappear and not make contact with you for two weeks. My apologies to the families, but clearly this is not a coincidence, and there is a connection between them, despite your denial.”

He looked up at Orna and Yossi, then looked back at his papers. “We had to consider the possibility of a romantic or other sort of relationship between them...”

Yossi lowered his eyes to the floor and tapped his foot nervously. There was a dramatic pause, but then Tomas went on, “We found no such connection, but we can’t rule it out.”

Yossi snapped. He pounded the table, injuring his right fist again. “Romantic relationship, my ass! Forgive me, Inspector! I know my wife. She wouldn’t go along with such a move. Focus on the kidnapping, can’t you? Nationalistic reasons, economic reasons, policy... terrorism…
something!”

Tomas looked at him as he had looked at many family members who’d lost their temper over the years, calmly and patiently. “There’s no need to shout, Mr. Rafael. We’re working systematically, and there’s certainly some progress. The Israeli Police will solve the mystery and inform you where your wife is. If she’s alive, she’ll be returned home.”

Yossi lowered his head and bit his lip until it bled. He folded his arms tightly.

“We distributed the pictures you’ve given us to all station houses in the country, as well as their credit card information. They’re probably not using their cards, only cash. There’s no way to trace it. We’re here, among other things, to remind you again that if they make contact with you, any of your children, parents, or relatives near or far, you’re to let us know immediately via Inspector Zahavi.” Tomas’ gaze rested for a moment on Zahavi’s smug face. It was hard to decipher Tomas’s dull and expressionless look, but it hinted that there wasn’t much fruitful cooperation between them.

Yossi thought about how he hadn’t yet called his or his wife’s distant relatives. He had to do it that same day and overcome the embarrassment of having to say, “My wife is missing,” although he could probably assume that they’d heard about it by now. Until that day, he’d walked like a caged lion, functioned as a full-time father and mother, and repeatedly postponed his work abroad, looking for creative solutions for his direct supervisor to allow him to stay at home for a few more days.