Every Precious Thing (20 page)

“No,” Harp said, shaking his head. “Over on the coast.”

“The coast?” There was surprise in the man’s voice.

“Cambria. You ever heard of it?”

“No. Never.”

“How about Hearst Castle?”

“That, I’ve heard of.”

“About ten miles south of there.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It’s beautiful,” Harp said.

“I’ll have to check it out.”

“You should.” Harp smiled. “I should get back to my friends.”

“Sure, sure. You have a good day, huh?”

“You, too.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

L
OGAN DREW THE
short straw and ended up being the one who had to stretch out on the floor by the window. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep much at all, but the next thing he knew, sunlight was spilling through the window and he could hear the TV.

He sat up with a start.

Dev was sitting on the end of the bed closest to him, watching one of the morning news shows. Logan stretched, and looked over at the other bed. It was empty.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Without looking, Dev said, “Not here.”

Logan jumped to his feet. “Was she gone when you got up?”

“Yep.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“And you didn’t think to wake me?”

Dev looked over at him. “Wouldn’t have done any good, and I thought you could use a little more sleep.”

“What do you mean, ‘wouldn’t have done any good’? We need to look for her. We need to find her.”

He picked his pants off the floor, pulled them on, then snatched his shirt off the chair and headed for the bathroom.

“She left a note,” Dev said.

Logan stopped. “Where?”

Dev nodded at the empty bed. There was a piece of paper sitting on the cover half hidden by one of the pillows. Logan walked over and grabbed it.

I-40 West. Williams exit. Go north on State Route 64 for 30 miles. Not long after that you’ll see a faded white X painted on the edge of the asphalt. Pull to the side and wait. If I’m not there by 10:30 a.m., I’m not coming.

“Think she left as soon as we fell asleep,” Dev said.

Logan looked at her bed and could see his friend was right. Though he could tell she had lain there, it was otherwise undisturbed. If she had slept, then she was one of those people who never moved.

He suddenly looked toward the door. “My truck.”

Before he could take more than a single step, Dev held up a hand. “It’s still there. First thing I checked.”

Logan looked at the note again.

“I assume we’re going,” Dev said.

“Absolutely.”

__________

T
HEIR FIRST STOP
was at a mini-mart near the freeway, where they picked up a pay-by-the-minute phone similar to the one that had been in Diana’s bag.

“You drive,” Logan said to Dev as they left the store.

As soon as they were on the I-40, he punched in a Washington D.C. number on the cell.

“Forbus International. How may I direct your call?”

“Ruth Bobick, please.”

“One moment.”

He hadn’t thought he would need the help of his old friend. Ruth was a busy woman, even more so these days after her recent promotion at Forbus International, the defense contractor Logan had also worked for at one time. Everything he’d needed up to this point, Callie had been able to handle. But what he wanted now was something only Ruth could do.

When Logan had worked with his late brother-in-law and best friend Carl Stone as trainers for Forbus’s private security forces, Ruth had been their in-office contact. She had always been a friend, and though the company had placed the blame for Carl’s death on Logan, she had never believed it. After that incident, their careers went in decidedly different directions. Ruth climbed the corporate ladder at Forbus, while Logan returned to his hometown to work in his father’s garage. In her position as a vice president of a highly regarded defense contractor, she had access to information sources not available to most people. This had come in handy when Logan was trying to save Elyse Myat a few months earlier, and now could prove to be just as important to his search for Sara.

The line rang twice.

“Ruth Bobick’s office. How may I help you?” Ruth’s assistant asked. He sounded young and efficient, just the kind of person Ruth liked to have around.

“Tommy Shaw calling for Ruth,” Logan said.

Though it wasn’t public knowledge, Forbus was in the habit of recording company calls when they felt it necessary. There was no doubt in Logan’s mind that if they knew he was on the line, his call would fall into the record category. He was not in good standing with the company brass, with the exception of Ruth, and he wouldn’t be doing her any favors if people found out he was asking her for help. So he used a name he knew would catch her attention. Ruth had once admitted to a teenage obsession with the ’70s-era band Styx, and more specifically, the band’s guitar player, Tommy Shaw.

“Mrs. Bobick is on the other line at the moment. I could have her call you back.”

“No. I’ll hold.”

“She may be on for a while, so I think it might be—”

“Tell her I’m on the line,” Logan said, cutting him off.

A hesitation, then, “One moment.”

Hold music replaced the assistant’s voice. The wait was short.

“This is Ruth Bobick. Mr.
Shaw
?”

“Yes,” Logan said, not disguising his voice. “Thank you for taking my call.”

In the pause that followed, Logan knew she’d realized who he was. “Actually, Mr. Shaw, I will have to call you back.”

“I see. Well, as soon as possible would be appreciated. I’m not at my normal number.” He gave her the number of his temporary phone.

“Got it,” she said. “Thank you.”

She didn’t wait for him to reply before hanging up.

Eight minutes later, she called back. By the noise in the background, he knew she’d gone outside.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use my office line,” she said.

“Sorry. I don’t have my phone at the moment, and the main number was the only one I knew from memory.”

She sighed. “I’m going to regret calling you back, aren’t I?”

He smiled. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the help you gave me last time worked out pretty well for you.”

Ruth had been able to use her early knowledge of what Logan had uncovered during his rescue of Elyse to bolster her position at Forbus. The information was responsible for her promotion.

“I swear to God if you hold that over my head, I will never answer the phone again.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I’m not going to fool myself into thinking this is a social call. So why don’t you tell me what you want?”

“I need you to see if you can get locations on two cell phones.” From memory, he gave her the number to Diana’s Blackberry, and the only number from the recent-calls list on her disposable cell. “If you can tell me where they are in relation to the number I’m calling from, that would be great.”

“And why would I want to do this?” she asked.

“Because someone’s in trouble, and I’m trying to help them.”

“This is getting to be a habit. What happened to fixing cars?”

“Can you help?” he asked, ignoring her question.

She took a moment before responding. “Let me see what I can do.”

Logan was about to say good-bye, but he had another thought. “Can we make that three phones?”

“Sure, why not? What’s one more?” she said sarcastically. “What’s the number?”

“You have it already. It’s my cell.”

“I’m not running a lost and found service.”

“That’s not why I asked. I’d just like to know where the person who has it is.”

“Fine,” she said, then, “Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you making some sort of career change?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Helping someone who asked.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-F
IVE

E
RICA
WOKE STILL
annoyed by the previous evening. She hated when things did not go as planned. She did everything she could to keep surprises out of her life. The work she did, the way she ran her business, even her personal decisions—they were all thought out and planned to avoid problems. Until everything returned to that norm, her frustration would continue to burn inside her.

She showered, dressed, and left, not even glancing in the direction of the room Clausen and Markle had been using. They’d be long gone by now, and hopefully reporting in with some helpful news soon.

Once she was behind the wheel of the gray sedan, she opened the specialized tracking app on her phone and touched the number tied to the GPS device she’d attached to the El Camino.

“So, Mr. Harper, did you make it back?” she said as she waited for the link to be established. “Or are you still wandering around the forest?”

A dot started glowing in the middle of an otherwise blank screen. After a few more seconds, a map appeared beneath it.

The El Camino was still in Flagstaff, but it was not in the same place it had been.

“You made it back,” she said, impressed.

She watched the dot for a moment, making sure it was stationary, then switched to her email and checked to see if she had received the other information she’d requested before she went to sleep.

There was a single message with three attachments.

Dr. Paskota,

The vehicle you provided the license number for is indeed registered to a male by the name of Logan Harper. Attached are the DMV sheet, tax info summary sheet, and military record. Please let me know if you wish further info on Mr. Harper. As of yet, I have no information on Mr. Martin, but will forward to you as soon as I do.

B.L.

Military history? That could explain a lot. She opened that file first.

Harper’s involvement with the military turned out to be more than just having served in the army. Once honorably discharged, he went to college then got a job with Forbus International, one of the giant US defense contractors. His job there was training private security forces—soldiers for hire. After an incident in Afghanistan that took the life of one of his colleagues, he’d been let go. Erica would have liked to know why, but that information was not provided.

She looked at the other two documents and noted that Harper lived on the central coast of California, and worked as a—

“That can’t be right,” she muttered.

But it didn’t appear to be a typo. Harper was an auto mechanic. She’d expected something in law enforcement, even private investigator, not some grease monkey who specialized in changing oil.

So why are you even here, Mr. Harper?

Whatever that reason was, the answer wasn’t in the information in front of her.

She brought the map back up and saw that Harper’s car was on the move. She watched the dot until it merged onto the interstate heading west.

“And where are we going this morning?”

Shifting into reverse, she pulled out of her parking spot and headed for the freeway.

Fifteen minutes after she hit the interstate, Clausen called.

“You’re going to find this interesting.”

“What’s that?” Erica asked.

“The guy who got beat up was just released from the hospital.”

“Were you able to talk to him?”

“Not yet. But that’s not the interesting part.”

Erica frowned. She didn’t like games. “Then what is?”

“One of the two men who picked him up is named Neal Harper.”

Her mind flashed onto Harper’s military history. His next of kin—wasn’t it a Neal Harper? Yes, it was.

“Did you hear me?” Clausen asked.

“Sorry. I did. Older? Younger?”

“Older, definitely. I’d say seventysomething.”

Logan Harper’s dad?

“So how would you like us to proceed?” Clausen asked.

Erica thought for a moment, then smiled, and told him
exactly
what she wanted them to do.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-S
IX

L
OGAN AND DEV
reached the
Williams turnoff just before nine thirty a.m. They followed Diana’s instructions and headed north on State Route 64. Logan had been hoping to hear back from Ruth by now, but she hadn’t called.

Around the twenty-minute mark, Dev started glancing at the odometer. Finally he said, “That’s twenty-eight miles.”

Logan focused on the edge of the road, looking for the white X, but there was only a solid white line, three feet from where the asphalt ended.

“Twenty-nine,” Dev said, slowing some more.

Still nothing.

“Twenty-nine and a half.”

White line.

“Twenty-nine point seven…point eight…point nine…and here comes—”

“There it is,” Logan said, spotting the marker.

“—thirty,” Dev finished. He pulled the El Camino to the side of the road.

Logan had seen similar Xs on roads before, and knew precisely a mile ahead they’d find a second one. The Xs were markers highway patrol helicopters could use to gauge a car’s speed.

Logan looked around. The area was covered with low shrubs for as far as he could see. In the distance, hills and mountains sporadically jutted up from the ground, altering what would have been an otherwise flat horizon.

Logan checked his watch. It was a few minutes shy of ten a.m., more than thirty minutes left on Diana’s deadline. He’d been hoping she was waiting for them, but unlike in Flagstaff where the forest surrounded the road, there was nowhere here for anyone to hide. Logan and Dev were the only ones around.