Go-Between (23 page)

 

All it needs is a tinfoil hat, she thought.

The airport post office
was about a mile from the airport; a bus ran every half hour from the BART station, she was told, or she could walk from the BART in 15 minutes. Normally, she would have liked to walk, to get some air and stretch her legs, but she was afraid of being seen, afraid of being followed. Maybe it would be safer to try and hide in a crowd than on a frontage road where hardly anyone was likely to be walking.

She hadn't noticed anyone following her. The Embraer turboprop from Arcata only held about twenty-five passengers, and she'd scanned them as carefully as she could during the flight. If any of them had tailed her through the airport, followed her into the United lounge, she hadn't spotted them.

That didn't mean no one was watching.

Maybe she should wait and mail it in Houston.

Standing by the entrance to BART, watching the people drag their suitcases up and down the long escalators, she thought, this is pointless.

All of it. Switching identities, putting phones in signal-blocking bags, trying to calculate risks, not knowing if anyone was watching
. . .
it was impossible. Hopeless.

There was no way she could fight back and win against these people.

Might as well mail it here, she thought. Maybe the flash drive would make it to Alan. Maybe they wouldn't find out. And if they killed her, maybe he'd do what she said, release the information to the entire world and cause these homicidal assholes some embarrassment, at least.

It wasn't much consolation.

By the time she'd
finished at the post office and got back to the airport, she had an hour and a half before her flight on American to Houston. Time to check in. Time to become Michelle again.

In a restroom stall before security, she sat on the toilet, opened up the ruck, fished around until she found the jacket pocket where she'd stashed her Michelle driver's license and credit cards. Switched those out with Emily's. Took her Emily phone in its signal-blocking bag and stuffed it in the bottom of the ruck. Got out her Michelle phone and put it in her tote, taking it out of its signal-blocking bag to go through Security, because she thought that might look strange, going through the x-ray machine—a normal person wouldn't have their smartphone in a bag in her purse. The phone was turned off, and it wouldn't be out of the bag for long. She hoped it was enough.

The one in the ruck she could say was a spare, was a friend's, was
. . .
something.

Hopeless.

One more time through Security. A long line this time. More time to get nervous. Just don't think about it, she told herself. You're Michelle. You're going back to Houston to your apartment and your job. You haven't done anything wrong.

One more time standing in a glass booth with her arms above her head.

She stepped out.

“Ma'am?”

She closed her eyes. Took in a deep breath and let it out. Turned toward the TSA officer standing by the x-ray conveyor belt.

He pointed at the ruck.

“You got a laptop in that bag?”

“No. It's an iPad.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“We're booked at Lotus.
It's just off Union Square.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Caitlin said. She sounded distracted.

Tuesday morning. Michelle glanced up from her laptop. Caitlin stared at her phone, thumbs flying on its virtual keyboard.

Texting someone, it looked like.

“You're scheduled for the CIAC convention in Anaheim,” Michelle continued. “That gives you an extra day to relax in San Francisco.”

“Wonderful.”

The chime of an incoming text. Caitlin smiled. She seemed to study it for a moment, then set the phone down on the coffee table.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to set up a few things for San Francisco.”

“Oh? Anything I can help you with?”

“I don't think so. Besides
. . .
” Now she focused on Michelle. “You seem to have enough on your plate right now. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Michelle flushed. “No, it's
. . .
fine, really.” The last thing she needed was Caitlin asking questions about her problems.
She wasn't ready to make up some bullshit story right now. She could barely keep track of the lies she'd already told.

“If you want to talk about it, hon
. . .
” Caitlin looked at her with what seemed to be real warmth. “I know it's been all about me and my problems since you started working here, but it doesn't have to be.”

Michelle shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. The kindness made it worse. “Thanks,” she finally managed. “It's just
. . .
it'll work itself out.”

From the office, she could hear a muffled ringtone. “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Derek, on her Emily phone.

She started to rise. “Do you mind if I—?”

“Go,” Caitlin said, with her off-hand wave. A new text had come in, and she stared at her phone again, smiling.

“Emily, it's Derek. Listen,
has anyone been in touch with you from the DEA?”

Great, she thought. Just what she needed. “No, not yet.”

“Well, expect that they will be. They called me, trying to find you. I guess they went by your house and the restaurant yesterday.”

“I've been in transit,” she said.

“Good. I don't want you talking to them without me.”

“Is there a warrant?”

“We're not even close to that yet. Jeff's been very protective of you, and as long as your finances are as separate as he says they are, odds are you're going to be okay.”

“So there's no warrant.”

“No. As I said—”

“Okay. Great.”

“Emily, listen, I'm convinced this is more about putting pressure on Jeff than it is about rolling you up in the indictment, but we shouldn't delay this too long—we don't want to give the appearance that we have something to hide.”

She exhaled a chuckle. She couldn't help it.

“No. We wouldn't want that.”

Helen called from Evergreen
not long after.

“Hi. So. These two men came by? Earlier today?”

“I know,” Michelle said.

“Oh. They left cards. Should I
. . .
? Should I give them your number, or
. . .
?”

“That's okay. I'm already making arrangements.”

A pause. “Um
. . .
I don't really know how to say this
. . .
but
. . .
is the restaurant
. . .
?”

Would they close Evergreen? Would Helen and Joseph and Guillermo and everyone else still have jobs?

“It should be fine.” Of course, she had no idea if it really would be. And if Emily disappeared
. . .
what then?

“Tell you what,” Michelle said. “When you're doing the payroll this week
. . .
pay everyone an extra week's salary. Um, a week and a half if the receipts look good. Pay yourself two. Call it a bonus. In case something happens
. . .
well, in case something happens. Not that I think it will,” she added quickly. “It's just a misunderstanding. Things should be back to normal soon.”

She doubted Helen believed that. Helen had lived in Humboldt long enough to know the kinds of things that happened when the DEA got involved.

“Okay, will do. I hope
. . .
I hope everything goes okay.”

“Thanks. It'll be fine.”

After she disconnected, she wondered if this was the last time she'd ever talk to Helen. Wondered if she never went back to Arcata how long the restaurant would go on running without her, like a ship on autopilot before it ran out of fuel, or ran onto the rocks.

“Do you still want
to take a look at the San Francisco donors?” Caitlin asked after lunch.

“Oh, right. Yes. That would be great.”

With everything that had happened, she'd completely forgotten about her plan to access the donor database, and as Caitlin logged them in on the desktop computer in the home office, explaining how it worked—“Click on this tab to get location. Here's how to search by donation level. This field is type of donor, meaning person or company or organization”—Michelle quickly realized that it wasn't as revealing as she'd hoped it would be.

Sure, there were some names she recognized, some names that she could make a pretty good guess at what they did, what their interests were. A few famous billionaires. Companies, ones that ran detention centers like Prostasis, others with the word “Corrections” in their title, companies that provided “security technology,” others that manufactured guns.

Law enforcement organizations. Prison guard and police unions. Rehab clinics and drugtesting companies.

If she took the time to go through the entire database, maybe she'd find out something useful, some shell company of the Boys, of Mexican cartels. But what good would that really do her? She already knew the Boys were involved because Gary had gotten her into this. And with the Boys came drugs. She didn't need any more proof of that. She'd lived it.

And all these names? They also just confirmed what she already knew. Most of the people supporting Safer America were invested in the policies it promoted.

Follow the money.

There's no warrant.

She told herself that as she waited in line at Harris County jail.

She had to risk it. Had to see Danny one more time before there
was
a warrant—and regardless of what Derek said, her best guess was that there would be one. She didn't know if Gary was pulling those strings or not, but it would be just like him, to reduce her options down to the one path he wanted her to follow.

Soon there would be no going back to Emily.

She'd taken the logbook and passports with her. There was no place she felt secure leaving them. Not in a safe- deposit box under a name Gary knew. Not in her apartment, with its cheap alarm system and personal safe she'd installed in the closet that would be far too easy to crack or steal.

Instead, they sat in a locker here in the lobby of Harris County Jail.

It won't be for long, she told herself. Just long enough to get through the lines. The line for the deputy. The line for the metal detector. The line for the visitation room.

Just long enough to find out what Danny wanted her to do with the logbook.

This would be her last chance before leaving town tomorrow with Caitlin. Maybe her last chance to visit Danny in Harris County period, if Emily had to disappear. Suddenly turning up here as Michelle—too big a risk.

Her turn at the first Plexiglas window and the deputy behind it. She put the slip of paper with Danny's information and her Emily driver's license in the aluminum trough, and waited.

There's no warrant.

The deputy looked at her license first. He was heavyset, with a shaved head and thick neck. He glanced at the license, gave her a long look up and down.

“Oh, you cut your hair,” he said, with a smile she didn't like. “Makes you look real different.”

She nodded and forced a smile back. Maybe he was just trying to be friendly, and anyway, she needed this to go smoothly.

He faced his computer. Entered in her license number. Waited for the results. She stood there, willing herself to stay calm.

He put her license aside. She tried to keep her face arranged in the same neutral expression. To not show her relief.

The deputy picked up the piece of paper with Danny's information and typed in the SPN number.

“Not available,” he said after a moment.

“What?”

“Not available,” he repeated, impatience edging his voice.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “but I don't understand.” Stay calm, she told herself. Swallow the panic that rose in her throat. “Not available
. . .
can you tell me why?”

He shrugged. “No information. Takes the system a day or two to update sometimes. Check back then.”

“But
. . .
”

He pushed her license plate into the trough. She'd been dismissed.

Smile, she told herself. You need his help. “It's just that this is all pretty new to me. Can you tell me what that generally means?”

“Could be sick and in the clinic. Most likely pulling chain.”

“Pulling chain?”

“Transferred.” The look he gave her now, the curled-lip smirk, there was no mistaking the contempt. “Like I said, check back in thirty-six to forty-eight hours.”

She nodded and picked up her license, her hand trembling. “Thank you,” she said, gripping the license, feeling its plastic edges cutting into her fingers, into the meat of her thumb. She turned to go.

“You look better with the hair long,” he said.