Chapter Twenty-Eight
Luke
I drive in circles though neighborhoods and on major highways until I know we’re clear of trouble.
That turns out to be ten miles later when I cut the car into a busy McDonald’s parking lot at almost eight in the morning. “Tell me what happened back there,” I say.
“Aside from being fairly certain everyone in that building today was dirty, including my boss?” Ana says. “I found this.” She snakes something from her pocket and holds up what appears to be a fishhook.
“What the hell is that?”
“That insurance I told you he keeps,” she says. “Darius is telling me where to find it. I know he’s telling me because I’m about the only person who would understand what this means.”
“He had a hook up his ass, dragging him to hell?”
“He liked to fish, though he was horrible at it. He’d go on detox trips, the detox being from his job.”
“Where?”
“He had three spots, so I can’t be sure which one he’s indicating. The idea of insurance is not to make it easy to find for anyone but him. Just that it’s possible for me if I’m using my brain. There’s his hunting lodge, which is basically a broken-down deserted cabin he stumbled on during some manhunt years back. It’s up in the mountains near the Wyoming border. Then there is Cherry Creek Reservoir and Clear Creek Canyon, which aren’t that far apart but nowhere near the cabin. We can’t split up, either. I’m the only one who will know what to look for when I see it.”
“What’s the most likely spot?”
“The cabin. It’s the only place he went that didn’t have a real lodge. It was just his lonesome spot, but it’s also a couple of hours away. The other two are closer. We should go to them first, just to get them out of the way.”
“It’s a plan. The rest of our team needs to watch your boss and his disciples.” I call Blake, let him know the plan, arrange a vehicle change to an SUV for the mountain drive, and then set my Google Maps for a Best Buy. “I need a damn computer,” I explain, showing Ana our destination. “Blake and our guys can hack the hell out of a problem, but I’ll feel better if I’m doing something to help. We need to find a place to grab supplies before we head up the mountain, too.”
“And I need a coat,” she says. “But I’ll drive so you can hack.”
“I’ll drive for now,” I say and that’s what I do. I drive right on up to the McDonald’s drive-thru.
Once we’re in line, our order placed, Ana glances over at me. “Mike always acted like he resented the attention and respect my stepfather got from the agency. If he’s a part of this, whatever it is, Kurt wasn’t. Not willingly.” She twirls the fishhook almost absent-mindedly. “I’m a common denominator in all of this,” she surmises. “I connect the dots between every person involved.”
“So does Kurt, Ana.”
“Okay true,” she agrees, “but the Mike/Kurt dynamic isn’t just jealousy. There’s something more there.” She frowns. “What if it was about jealousy? What if Mike wanted to get rid of him, so he set him up in some way?”
“That feels like a stretch, baby. This is bigger than one man’s personal feelings.”
“While I get that, and I do, what if Mike is involved in something, and he simply thought—I hate Kurt—why not use him to solve a problem?”
She’s really reaching, but it’s not impossible. “We still need to find out what Mike is into.”
“I have an idea,” she says. “Why not kidnap him, take him to the cabin, and just leave him there until he talks? And of course, I’m not serious. We wouldn’t come back from that, but a girl can dream, right?”
This time, her idea isn’t all that bad. She can’t do it, but if it means saving lives, I’ll damn sure do it. But I don’t tell her that.
She sighs heavily, frustration and weariness etched in the sound. “Clearly, I’m missing something obvious. As you said, what do I know that I don’t know I know? What do we know that we don’t know we know, Luke?”
Those are the questions that hang in the air while we eat and as we hit the first two fishing spots with no results. This is exactly why I spend most of those drives on the new MacBook I purchased, looking for answers.
But it’s not until I’ve taken over the driving again, and we’re traveling up a winding, narrow road, that I’m reminded of the day we scattered Kurt’s ashes over the mountainside. If nothing is as it seems, what if those were not Kurt’s ashes at all? It’s a crazy thought, one I don’t dare share with Ana for fear I’ll get her hopes up. I’d thought something similar about Trevor, only to be proven wrong, and for that reason, I mentally try to reel myself back in. And yet, I can’t let it go. We’re almost to the cabin when snowflakes begin to fall.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Ana murmurs. “Isn’t it like once in years that it snows in September? I mean, what are the chances of this happening?”
Yes, I think. What are the chances?
It’s almost as if the universe is telling me long shots can be real and over and over during the drive, I find myself thinking, what if…