Читать книгу Not Even Past - Dave White - Страница 10

TWO—NO—THREE YEARS ago, Donne would have known what to do next. But his investigative skills had faded, and technology had passed him by. He didn’t have much access to anyone who could track IP addresses and wasn’t a skilled hacker himself. If the person who’d sent him the email had put any sort of security on the website at all, Donne wouldn’t be able to track him down. Hell, Donne wouldn’t have been able during his PI days either.

At the same time, his phone company contacts had dried up, either moving elsewhere or retiring. Investigating certainly wasn’t like riding a bike. Instincts sag, and intellectual focus is put elsewhere.

He couldn’t go to the cops. Talking to them meant talking to Bill Martin. He wasn’t ready for that.

Donne stepped out of the tavern into the noon sunlight. It reflected off the glass of the store across the street directly into his eyes. He blinked and wiped at his watery eyes. The temperature had crested somewhere into the high seventies, as businesses let out for lunch and some students who hadn’t gone home after finishing exams loitered.

What he should be doing.

Instead, he opened his text message and tried firing off a quick text to the blocked number. Who are you? It didn’t go through.

Donne took a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the Olde Towne Tavern. He needed to go talk to Kate and tell her what was going on, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. At the very least, he had to try to get a step closer to figuring out what was going on.

His mind flashed on the video again. Jeanne’s eyes wide open. She was screaming through duct tape.

Closing his eyes, Donne thought back to his brother-in-law, another kidnapping victim. So many people were involved then: local police, state police, the FBI. Who took the lead? The FBI—they always took the lead, pushing cops off the trail, using their massive budget to track people down.

That’s who Donne needed now.

FBI headquarters was a thirty-five-minute drive up the Turnpike, with no traffic. Easier than calling. If he called, he’d bring two agents down to his home and just worry Kate.

He walked back to his apartment. His car was parked across the street. Kate’s was parked right behind his. She’d noticed he was gone, and if he didn’t call he’d worry her. She picked up on the second ring.

“Where are you?” No hello, no smile in her voice.

“I’m outside, but I have to take a ride.”

“Where?”

Donne looked up at his apartment window and saw the curtains part. He waved and saw Kate wave back.

“Newark campus’s library.” Not a total lie. Well, maybe a total lie, except for the location.

“Why?”

“An article for Siva’s class. I need it for the exam.”

“You can’t get it on campus? Or on the Internet? Like normal people?”

“It’s in one of those journals you can’t find online. I missed class the week he handed it out.”

Kate sighed. “You need to make some friends.”

“I need someone to cheat off.”

She paused, squinting. Then she grinned.

“Be safe,” Kate said. “Be quick.”

The drive was quick. The roads were mostly clear, and he hit green lights on the way there. He found a parking lot just two blocks from the FBI building. This wasn’t like walking into a police station. People didn’t just call the FBI about a kidnapping. There was procedure. Call the police, and eventually the FBI would be brought in. He knew the drill. He hadn’t been out of the game that long.

Claremont Tower rested along the Passaic River at Newark Dock, on the outskirts of the city. Donne imagined few people actually knew what was inside the tall, unmarked building. It looked like any other office building but without corporate logos. Donne crossed McCarter Highway and walked down a side street to the front of the building. He could smell dead fish and gasoline rising off the river and wondered if that made agents ornery on a daily basis. They did have a reputation to uphold, anyway.

Donne pulled open the glass door and a security guard waiting by a metal detector stared at him. The lobby looked like the TSA line at the airport.

“Can I help you?” the guard asked.

“I need to see an agent.”

The guard picked up his iPad and touched the screen a few times. “Which one?”

Donne exhaled and said, “The one you report a kidnapping to.”

The guard looked up. “Excuse me? Did you call the police?”

“I’m a former private investigator. I know the routine. It’s easier to go right to the source.”

The security guard put down the iPad and unbuttoned his suit jacket. Donne kept his hands at his sides.

“How long has this person been missing?”

“I’m not sure,” Donne said. “For the last six years, I thought she was dead.”

SPECIAl AGENT Fullbright’s office was overdecorated. The guy wanted you to know he was from New Jersey. There were framed autographed pictures of Fullbright with Martin Brodeur, Yogi Berra, and Jon Bon Jovi. Next to those were vinyl copies of Springsteen’s Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, also framed and autographed. Sports pennants for the Devils, Seton Hall, and the New York Giants hung from the ceiling. His desk, though, was clear. No memorabilia. No photos. Just files and a desktop computer.

Fullbright, sleeves pushed up, tie loosened, stood behind his desk. Donne sat across from him, feeling completely underdressed in his jeans and Pearl Jam T-shirt.

“Do you have the email?” Fullbright asked when Donne was finished telling him the story.

“I do.” He pulled out his phone and handed it to Fullbright, with the text message open. “And the text message.”

Fullbright looked at the text. “Can’t do anything with this. Where’s the email?”

“I need to access it on your computer.”

“Like hell. Just pop it up on here.” Fullbright shook the phone.

“It’s Outlook. Doesn’t really work well on the phone.”

Fullbright shrugged. “Apple sucks anyway. Listen, Mr. Donne, you don’t have much to go on here.”

Donne’s nostrils flared. He knew where this was going.

“Let me show you the email.”

Fullbright nodded. “Our tech guys will take a look if your forward it to me. Just don’t send me a virus.”

“This isn’t funny.”

Fullbright put his hands in his pockets. “Jeanne Baker, by your account, has been dead for six years. There is a record of that. The medical examiner signed the death certificate. We have it on record here.”

“I saw the video. I saw Jeanne.”

The special agent nodded. “Someone is messing around with you, Mr. Donne. Someone with a sick sense of humor.”

“If—”

“Forward me the email, Mr. Donne. I promise you I will look into it.” Fullbright went into his desk, came out with a business card. Slid it across toward Donne. “Has my email on it too.”

Donne took it and stood up. He left without thanking Fullbright. Why thank a guy you’ll never hear from again?

FORTY-TWO MINUTES later, Donne was parked in front of his apartment again. He looked up at his building. Kate wasn’t looking out.

There was one contact Donne hadn’t lost track of. He got out of the car and walked south on George Street. Traffic eased the closer he got to the theaters. It was the midpoint of New Brunswick. Here, the fancy restaurants and college pubs faded. Houses with faded siding and broken windows started to appear. Only residents and campus buses traveled this part of town. The city was expanding, and expanding in this direction, but the gentrification was slowed by the economic collapse. The university and Johnson & Johnson had been unable—or unwilling—to jump-start it again.

Eyes were on him because he didn’t fit in. Even if they couldn’t see his face, they could see his skin color. He was either buying or busting.

It took only five minutes before Donne heard his name being called. He whirled to his left to see Jesus Sanchez limping up Dumont Street.

“What the hell are you doing here, man?” Jesus asked as he crossed the street to Donne.

Jesus had ascended the ladder. After some cops had knocked off his boss, Jesus took over and now wasn’t a street dealer anymore. That was three years ago. Sanchez apparently had an eye for business, or the cops had an affinity for him. He probably gave his boss up to the cops.

Jesus shook Donne’s hand. He didn’t say anything, just waited for Donne to explain.

The story of the email and Jeanne came easily out of Jackson, like a waterfall. He spat the words out, and when he was done he was out of breath.

“Holy shit,” Jesus said. He wiped at his nose. “Why are you here?”

“Where else would I go?”

Jesus shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned away from Donne. He headed up Dumont toward Douglass College. He stopped after a few steps.

“Go home, Jackson. I don’t know shit.”

For an instant, Donne believed him. He ground the heel of his shoe into the sidewalk and started to turn. But something tickled at the back of his neck. Maybe just a spark of his old instincts trying to fire up again. He froze.

“You’re lying,” Donne said.

Jesus tilted his head. “What you say?”

“You heard me.”

Now Jesus’s head started to shake. Back and forth slowly.

“Don’t do this, Jackson.”

“Do what?”

Jesus turned back toward Donne, but he was looking further down the road. He waved. Donne turned his head. As he did, his gut tightened. A black car rolled toward them. Tinted windows, shiny rims.

“I like you this way, Jackson,” Jesus said. “The new you. You’re happy, and this new girl, she seems good for you.”

“How—”

Again Jesus shook his head. “The old you rushed into things. Didn’t think. Fuck. You should be dead.”

Donne didn’t say a word. The car rolled up and stopped at the curve.

“I didn’t like the old me either. Scared. Talkative. Not no more. I buried him.” Jesus pulled the passenger door of the car open. “You should do the same. Old you comes back, it ain’t gonna be for long.”

“It’s Jeanne,” Donne said. “They have her. And they said I have to help her.”

“You don’t even know who they are. And you’re better off that way. Go home. Study.”

“She might die.”

Jesus got into the car and shut the door. He rolled the window down.

“And how is that different from what you thought yesterday?”

He rolled the window up as the car pulled away from the curb.