Vanishing Day Page 18
Did Lori get these records for insurance for herself, or was she blackmailing this Mr. Yoshimoto or Delaney Investments?
No matter what Huey said, now that the files were unlocked, she was going to dig through that flash drive and see if she could make sense of it. Then she’d know what to do. Either give it to the police, or back to Lori. Huey said it would be there sometime after 2:00 p.m., so she’d just have to wait until then. Nothing she could do about it today.
That decision made, Logan decided to spend the morning exploring some of those forest paths, hoping she could find the one Rita said ran along the bluffs with spectacular views of the ocean. Maybe she’d even see a whale! She’d stop in town and have a little lunch, walk the shops, then go to the local market and be back in plenty of time for the package to get there by the 2:00 p.m. estimated arrival time.
Cool but sunny outside, Logan opted for lightweight Northface pants and a white t-shirt, a dab of sunscreen on the bridge of her nose, tinted lip balm, and Teva sandals. All the pants she brought were loose enough to fit over her knee brace. It had leveled off pain-wise, as long as she didn’t overdo. She clicked on local news while finishing her second cup of coffee.
“Get out and enjoy this high-pressure holiday today, ‘cause a low is sweeping in tonight. Get out your umbrellas, ladies and gents ...”
Next, Logan checked email and messages on her phone. One from Bonnie saying Lori was doing much better, but it would still be a while before she was well enough to go home—maybe in another week. She couldn’t talk yet, but the doctor said no permanent damage. The social worker told Bonnie and Mike they’d reunite mother and daughter as soon as possible. Bonnie said they were all going to miss their little charge. Everyone in the family had fallen in love with Shannon.
Rinsing her coffee cup out, leaving it upside down on a paper towel next to the sink, Logan put on some old Timberland hiking shoes she brought and let herself out the front door. Two doors down, she entered the forest.
Ten feet in, she was surrounded by nodding branches and mossy tree trunks. To make it easier for residents to enjoy the forest, the Little Whale Cove community built several miles of wooden boardwalks that wove in and around the trees, connected to regular asphalt paths in some of the newer areas. Rita said they enjoyed the forest paths even more than the ones along the ocean.
Wanting to take a closer look at some large, pumpkin-colored mushrooms, curled at the edges, growing a few feet off the path, Logan took a step to her right. Before she could grab anything to hold onto, her foot shot out from under her. Luckily, she caught herself, but just barely. She did not want to break any more body parts!
Looking down, she saw the boardwalk was constructed of short lengths of two-by-six planks, about four feet wide, sometimes with side rails when it crossed back and forth over streams and gullies. A strip of sturdy, sandpaper-like material was tacked firmly into place down the center, to prevent slippage. As long as she stayed on that, she was fine. But on either side of the strip six inches of wooden planks were exposed, streaked in green and slicker than snot for anyone not paying attention.
Once she figured that out, she enjoyed the rest of her walk. Taking out her phone, she admired the mushrooms from afar, or stepped widely over the mossy edges directly onto the forest floor. Some looked like shiitake and others like little bouquets of oyster mushrooms, but she wasn’t sure. Just before the path turned into asphalt, she spotted a perfectly smooth, round dome of bright red, like a lollipop, with evenly-spaced, bright-white polka dots all over it. It was so bright, it looked fake. She expected to see a garden gnome propped next to it.
Five minutes after setting off, following the map Rita gave her, she took a right past some houses. The path emerged from the quiet, subdued greens of the forest onto a bright, sunny path that ran parallel along the top of the bluff.
Forty feet below, the ocean roared and crashed against black, jagged rocks, then slid back into the vast expanse. White, puffy clouds punched out of a sky so bright blue it hurt her eyes. On the inside curve of the cove, centuries or millennia of battering waves had created a rock formation of rounded squares, resembling giant, blackened, pull-apart dinner rolls.
Absolutely spectacular.
A few feet from the drop-off, a lone bench bravely perched on the edge of a 40-foot cliff, overlooking miles of turquoise and navy ocean. Looking around, Logan could see she had the place to herself. Again, she was amazed. In Southern California, there’d be a wide safety zone with a thick fence, a dozen people lined up taking pictures, and the path behind her would be filled with joggers, baby strollers, skate boarders, and bikers, shoulder to shoulder, all out enjoying the 365-days-a-year sun.
To top it off, a couple of barnacle-backed grey whales cruised south, not twenty feet from shore. When they dove again, one went straight down and hovered for a minute, showing off its tail.
Cool!
An hour later, after more whale watching and exploring, Logan headed home. Her knee was starting to bother her, and she still had to run to the store to pick up food for the next few days. Shouldn’t take her too long, it was only a mile away on the other side of Depoe Bay, which was only half a mile north of Little Whale Cove. She’d be back in plenty of time for Huey’s package delivery.
51
Downtown traffic was a mess. To be expected. Morning rush hour wasn’t over yet—it never was. Seattle was getting to be one perpetual snarl no matter what time of day you tried to get anywhere.
Garrett took the exit ramp for First Avenue off the I-5 South. Half a mile later, he parked his car around the block. He could walk from there.
It was barely drizzling, but he put his raincoat on before getting out. Aiming the key fob at the car, he clicked the locks shut. Keeping his head down and his collar turned up, he hurried toward a plain, two-story, cement building. A blinking neon sign declared it to be Dollar Smart Storage. Skipping the front office, he went directly to the smaller, self-storage section, pulled out his key and opened G18, letting himself into a mostly empty three-by-five space. Filing cabinet, a few cardboard boxes, bike. What he needed was in a metal box in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. Unlocking both, he removed several stacks of cash. $50,000 to be exact. Crisp and new. Wrapped tight in neat little packages. He left the gold.
Just then his phone rang. It was Patricia.
It was already 9:00 a.m. He needed to get on the road. But he didn’t want to raise any red flags. He answered.
“Patricia. What’s up?”
Garrett’s voice was clipped, but not unfriendly. He still had plenty of time.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Delaney. I know you have appointments out of the office today and I wouldn’t call unless it was important, but the police are here,” she said.
“The police?”
“Yes, and they have a search warrant. At least that’s what they said. It looked like a search warrant. I’ve never seen one before,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. They’re searching your office. Everything, including my desk and all the files.”
She whispered into the phone, “They want to know where you are. What do I tell them?”
His assistant sounded like she might lose it. He’d have to keep her calm. He felt anything but.
“Don’t worry, Patricia. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. They must have the wrong address. Just tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m at least an hour out, but I’m on my way. Tell them I’m on my way,” he said, disconnecting the call before she could ask any more questions, or hand her phone to the nearest, nosy cop.
He was only 30 minutes away, at best, but he didn’t want the police to know that. Why were they there? What police? Seattle police? Could someone have gotten wind of Mr. Yoshimoto’s accounts? No way. He’d been very careful.
It must be that Detective from Jasper, Andrews, but what did he have that would be enough to get a search warrant? W
hat did he know? How close was he? He knew Neal was his driver, but Garrett knew nothing put him in Jasper that night. He’d covered everything. He hadn’t been driving his own car. He hadn’t booked any commercial flights.
This couldn’t be happening.
Garrett made a decision. He re-opened the metal box. This time he took the passports and the gold coins. He looked around. There was nothing else in there except a racing bike from his college days, and some boxes of Lauren’s grandmother’s china. He hated it and rarely let her use it. When they moved to the new place, he finally made her box it up. The old-fashioned rose pattern did not fit into the sleek, modern decor. It wound up here because he told Lauren he was taking it to the new house, but he stopped to rent this place on the way, and just dumped it. Made the transaction look more legit. Paid cash, so no one knew about it. When Lauren asked about the dishes, he said they were accidentally buried in the attic behind the keepsake boxes. Too far back to dig out now. He locked the door behind him. He doubted he would ever be back.
♦ ♦ ♦
A slight, Asian man exited the elevator into the hallway, directly across from Delaney Investments. Stopping just outside the doors, he leaned against a wall, pretending to check his phone.
Normally quiet, Delaney Investments was a very busy place today.
A female, uniformed police officer was taping up and labeling cardboard storage boxes. Two men in suits could be seen through the open door to Delaney’s personal office, one going through his desk, the other his book shelf. A woman he recognized as the receptionist came out of the Women’s Restroom down the hall, slipping her cell phone into her pocket. He turned away so she could not see him, but he needn’t have worried. She wasn’t even looking his way. She was focused on what was happening inside. Looking back into the office, the man saw why. One of the suited men had stepped behind her desk and was taking files out of drawers. Delaney was nowhere to be seen.
The man turned silently back to the elevator and pushed L for Lobby.
Mr. Yoshimoto was not going to like this.
Not at all.
52
Huey’s package didn’t arrive until after 5:00 p.m. Must have had a lot of deliveries. When the driver handed her the small, stiff rectangle, he looked tired.
“Sorry I’m a little late,” he said, sounding like he genuinely was. “These addresses are impossible to find in here.”
Not stopping to chat, he turned on his heel and jogged back to his truck left running at the curb.
“That’s OK ...” she said to his back.
He didn’t hear the rest of her sentence.
They work those guys too hard.
She heard they had impossible delivery schedules and if they couldn’t keep up, the company didn’t care. There was a line out the door of people waiting to take their jobs.
What they need is a good union, she thought. Maybe they had one. Not her problem.
Logan shut the door and returned to the living room. Plopping down on the couch, she ripped open the Fed Ex envelope, removed the flash drive and plugged it into her laptop. She hoped it had something on it that would tell her why Lori was hiding out in Jasper—as it appeared she was—and why she was attacked. If she had put files on here as some kind of insurance, it would be ironic if the very files she collected in order to protect herself and her daughter, were the ones that almost got her killed.
When the icon materialized on her desktop, Logan double-clicked it. There were three blue folders labeled 2014, 2015 and 2016. Excited, she started with 2014. But after several hours of searching through the files, Logan was just as much in the dark as when she started. Not one file had Lori’s name or Wright, or even anything close to that, on it. Just like Huey said, the only name that showed up with any regularity was Yoshimoto, along with several banks and investment companies. The one that showed up the most often was Delaney Investments.
Nothing.
Frustrated, she closed the files and ejected the flash drive, then physically removed it from the USB port. Unsure where to put it, she put it on the coffee table, next to her phone. She wanted to try again later. Maybe she missed something.
It was way past the dinner hour, unless you were European. Logan’s French foreign exchange student mom regularly served dinner between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m. She remembered how strange it was for the meal to go on for hours, everyone just talking and enjoying their meal, but that was then. For years, she’d been back on American time.
When Amy was little, Jack was either watching sports or playing them, so they often just ate in front of the TV. Since Jack died, and before she got together with Ben, who cooked sit-down-worthy meals, Logan could inhale a microwave meal over the kitchen sink in under five minutes, and regularly did.
During the time she’d been sitting at her computer, the temperature dropped into the fifties. Late summer nights rarely dipped below 60 back home. Logan felt the chill. A woman on a mission, she made her way down the hall into the back room where she’d put her carry-on.
Most of the rooms in the house were small, but in addition to a generous sleeping area, double-sink bathroom and walk-in closet on the left as you entered, the master bedroom felt spacious. On the right, there was a typical queen-size bed, two nightstands and a dresser, but in the left, back corner, was a small, reading alcove furnished with two wingback chairs, a good lamp, and a round, leather ottoman. A three-panel, bay window offered an unobstructed view of the naturally landscaped front yard. Several colors of rhododendron and hydrangea still bloomed, and river rock edged the bark-chip paths meandering through the cedars and western hemlocks, some hung with a variety of bird feeders.
Ben would love this place. He was always going on about the importance of native plants, and that’s all the community allowed to be planted in here, according to Rita. Logan realized she hadn’t called him yet. They usually talked every night. Ben was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, anyway, and she knew he was leaving super early for a job tomorrow morning and was going over to watch his nephews in the school play later. They were doing “Little Mermaid.” Cooper was an octopus and Calvin got to be Sebastian. Logan made Ben promise to take lots of video.
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket, scrolled down to recent contacts, plopped back flat on the bed, and tapped his name on the screen. Ben answered on the first ring.
“Hey there, Beautiful,” he said.
Just the sound of Ben’s voice anchored her day. They talked about everything and nothing until the light outside the window began to fade and hunger pangs reminded her she hadn’t eaten. Ben promised again to take lots of pictures.
Neither of them mentioned babies, and she knew they’d have to have that talk when she returned, but for now, she just allowed herself to love and be loved.
53
After disconnecting the call, Logan stood and stretched. An unfamiliar, deep pang took her by surprise. She really, really missed Ben, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She could have flown home after her work days at the New School, but she needed the time to think. And she hadn’t taken any vacation time for herself in ... well, she couldn’t think of the last time, or any time, she’d taken a solo trip just for fun.
Parking those feelings for now, Logan walked around to the small roller-bag she left open on the other side of the bed. As long as she was here, she might as well enjoy the full Pacific Northwest experience. Rummaging around, she found a 3/4 zip, navy blue hoodie and some blue and green plaid, flannel pajama bottoms. Very North-Westy. Peeling off her jeans, she threw them onto the back of one of the chairs for tomorrow.
Next, she stuffed her less-than-fresh t-shirt, along with the socks and underwear she wore that day, into an old pillowcase she brought just for that purpose. Her bra was the last item of clothing to be removed. “Ahhhh ...!” She freed the girls and rubbed the skin around her rib cage where the band was always a l
ittle too tight, then pulled on the hoodie, which was warm and soft. She had a hard time getting bras that fit.
Logan glanced down at the bulging pillowcase. It held all her dirty clothes from her stay at the New School, too. Rita had a washing machine. Maybe she’d do a load of laundry before she left on Thursday. Or not. She tossed it onto the floor, next to the chair, then closed and zipped her suitcase, placing it next to the pillowcase. She planned on using both sides of the bed. When Ben wasn’t around, she slept diagonally, enjoying the luxury of space.
As long as she was back here, Logan got things ready for bed. She put her Kindle and a pair of neon green earplugs on the nightstand. At home, Purgatory usually got them when Ben stayed over, but here, they were safe from canine consumption. She probably wouldn’t need them, it was so quiet, but habits were hard to break. Finally, she pulled on her PJs and made sure one of the windows was cracked open. She couldn’t sleep without fresh air.
Much better.
Satisfied with her preparations, Logan grabbed her phone and padded barefoot back to the kitchen. She was about to go back and get some socks, when she spotted some Ugg sheepskin slippers on a bench near the front door. Hopefully, Rita wore a size seven or eight.
They were a little big, and barely stayed on her feet, but worked well enough for around the house. She just needed to keep her tootsies warm. She wasn’t going to be running marathons in them. Feet safely ensconced in the Uggs, she put her phone back by her computer and shuffled into the garage to raid the wine cellar.
Uncertain whether white or red went best with hot dogs and beans, Logan decided to stick with the red she already had open in the kitchen. When faced with menu decisions at the market this afternoon, she had opted for anything that didn’t require cooking. Zapping a few things in the microwave was about as far as she was prepared to go.
It was a small market, but catered to vacationing Portlanders, so had a pretty good deli selection, including blue cheese stuffed olives and tabouli. Logan took a little of each, including some coleslaw she was going to enjoy with the hot dogs and beans.