replied, taking a bite. “Want me to take you back to the station?”
“Yeah, that’d be best. I wouldn’t want to count on the sick to get me to work in the morning,” Rich said.
They ate in silence, and Martin drove back to the station.
“I’ve got a question,” he said. He pulled the car off of the road around the block from the station. “Is there a way to track mobile signals using a computer without having to get the service carrier involved?”
“Yeah, but the person with the mobile you want to track has to keep it on at all times,” Rich responded. “I don’t think that’ll help you with our mark though. She’s probably got her mobile modified with something to prevent that kind of tracking.”
“Maybe,” Martin said. “But I want to cover everything.” He reached into the back seat, and grabbed the folder with her missing persons report.
“You want me to walk you through it?” Rich said. “Hell, do you even have a computer?”
“Not for a long time. Can I borrow one?”
Rich laughed through a sigh, and opened the car door. “Sure,” he said, still chuckling. “I’ll go check one out. Wait for me here.”
“Yeah,” Martin said. He ran his finger down the sheet to the contact list for Alyson Reid’s missing person case.
He took his mobile from his pocket, seeing six missed calls, and pressed the ignore key a few times, and dialed the number.
“Hello?” a plain male’s voice responded.
“Hi, am I speaking to Patrick Reid?” Martin asked, dressing his words in professionalism he hadn’t summoned in weeks.
“Yes it is.”
“This is Detective Martin Clarke of the Houston Police Department, how are you doing this evening, sir?”
“I’m fine. How can I help you, Detective?” Patrick replied, the glimmer of hope edging his voice.
“Well, that all depends, Mr. Reid. Have you heard from your daughter recently?”
Patrick paused. “No, detective, I’m afraid I haven’t.” The energy that had sparked his voice was gone. “Is she in trouble?”
“Well, I’m not ready to call it trouble. However, I need to speak with her in regards to a case that we are investigating.”
“Have you seen her?” he asked.
“No sir, I’m afraid not,” Martin replied. “If we are able to find her, should we contact you? You could even come to see her if you’d like.”
“In jail?”
Martin chuckled. “No. Not in jail. Well, I don’t think she’d be going to jail. Do you know a phone number that I might be able to call her at? I know that sounds ridiculous, but anything at all would be a lot of help.”
“Sure, it’s 555-1033,” Patrick said. “It’s an older number, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“Thank you,” Martin said as he scribbled it on the sheet of paper.
Silence devoured their conversation. Martin could see Rich carrying a bag towards the car. “My number is 555-2113, Mr. Reid. I’ll look forward to your call,” he said.
“Thank you for your call officer,” Patrick said. Martin thought he sounded defeated, pained, as if the sign that his daughter was alive had given him the will to survive, and the possibility of her being dead drained him once again.
Rich sat down in the passenger seat, and opened the bag in his lap. “Who were you talking to? You don’t have any friends.”
“I called in a pizza order. Are you going to get me setup to trace her mobile?”
“Sure,” Rich said, “even though it’s pointless.”
“Just do it so I can get rid of you,” Martin moaned.
Rich typed on the light board, stabbing the enter key two or three times. “You’re going to have to be patient with this one. The projector doesn’t respond so well with the about a third of the keys.”
“Great,” Martin said.
“Okay, what’s the number?”
Martin recited the information he got from Alyson’s father.
“Okay, when a call is connected from that number, it’ll pick up if the call is longer than thirty seconds. This thing grabs signals from the network providers. You can’t listen in, and it sure as shit won’t tell you who they called, but it does let you know if the number is in use,” Rich said.
“Seems like a lot of trouble just to know if someone wants to make dinner reservations, or talk to mom,” Martin said.
“Yeah, well it’s a privacy thing. I’m sure you can appreciate that. We can get a legitimate tap if you want to try for a warrant. Until then, you’ve got this.”
“It’s all I need,” Martin said.
Rich put the computer in the seat, and turned it to face Martin. “You need anything else?”
“I think I’ve got it from here, Rich,” Martin said. “I haven’t thanked you for helping me out, have I?”
“No. You don’t have to either,” Rich said.
“Good,” Martin said turning his attention to the steering wheel. “I damned well shouldn’t have to.”
Rich grinned. “Get the fuck out of here, ya bastard.” He slammed the door, and walked back towards the station.
Martin turned the ignition, and pulled away, driving towards downtown.
Marina drove through heavy rains, the windshield wipers on her rental car doing little to clear her view of the road. Lights flooded the interior of the car, and slow traffic brought her progress to a trickle. She could see the city above the roofs of cars ahead. She picked up her mobile from the cup holder, and posed to dial the police. Hesitation settled in, and she wondered what they knew now that she’d not watched the news for twelve hours.
The mobile sang a monotone song. Marina picked it up, and answered without checking the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Marina. Don’t hang up,” Marcus said.
“What do you want?”
“So, you’re about a two miles outside of the city limits, right?” he said, his voice as flat and emotionless as before.
Marina paused.
“We want to send someone out to pick you up, Marina. Let us take care of everything.”
Still, she could say nothing.
“I can have someone meet you, wherever you want. We’re going to clean this mess up. No one will ever know what you did.”
“Fuck you,” she said, dropping the phone back into the cup holder.
It took another twenty minutes to make into Houston proper. Marina entered a state of unconscious control of the car, all thoughts focused on the murder, the peculiar phone calls from Four Nations. She didn’t know why Marcus would bother calling her, why he wanted her to come into the office. He’d never called her, and rarely spoke to her at all in time that Tomas had worked for Four Nations. Regardless of the situation, it stuck out for her, and rang of distrust.
She wondered, if only for the moment, why there was so much money in her account. The whole having-millions-in-her-account phenomena had slipped from her mind. There were more pressing issues at hand, and she’d passed it off of as a blessing, there to soothe her many wounds. She’d ignored it for the sake of getting home, and now that she was there, it grated on her mind.
The phone rang again. She jerked her mobile up to her ear, swiping the screen again. “Look, asshole, I’m not going to your office, I’m not meeting you anywhere. I’m going to the police. Get fucked,” she shouted.
“Okay, Marina. If that’s how you want to play it.”
The voice didn’t belong to Marcus; it was too deep. It was the voice of someone whom she was sure she’d never met before.
The line died. Marina returned the mobile to its resting place, and stared down the trenches lined with skyscrapers and the pillars upholding the Oct. She slowed, and pulled off the road, stopping in front of a coffee house. She ran inside, checking over her shoulders.
Marina sat down at the counter, and ordered an espresso, still watching behind her where she could. A server delivered the drink, but she didn’t look to them, only looking out the window in
her peripheral.
Two men dressed in black walked to her car. One kept a mobile pressed to his ear. He looked irritated, to say the least.
Marina’s heart fell from her chest. She sipped the drink, blistering her tongue, and sucked the tiny white cup dry. She stood, and walked down a corridor leading to the kitchen and bathrooms. She stepped through the door marked employees only and pushed through them, ignoring cries of “what are you doing back here” and “what’s wrong” while grabbing a chef knife, and slipping it up the sleeve of her blouse. It poked through the fabric, and threatened tear down the sleeve.
She heard them dial the police as she breached the back door, finding herself in the dark. She dashed down the alley, away from the shop, away from the car she’d abandoned, devoid of direction or natural compass. The streets were a labyrinth, alien and oblique along unnatural bearings, where the tight gaps between brick and steel monoliths were impossible to escape from.
Marina stood in the dark, and positioned the glimmering blade in her hand, rising from her grip like a sword, immediately unthreatening and ineffective. Alone, she waited for them to follow.
VII
Alyson allowed the dark to drape over her like a cloak, thanking the heavens that the rain had stopped. She kept her hands stuffed in her pockets, and questioned her own sanity as she thumbed the rubber band marked emergency on and off of the S6 mobile.
She walked along the streets, astray of streetlights and passing cars, and sought silence.
Alyson walked for two hours, finding her way to Hermann Park. The traffic echo eventually disappeared as she crossed the grass, considering what seemed inevitable. All that remained in her ears was