Search for the Phoenix: Phoenix Series Book 2 (3 page)

After a moment’s consideration, Derick nodded. “All right, Seventy-five.”

Ronnie smiled and slid back into her chair. “Give me the details.”

Derick pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase and slid them across the table. Ronnie picked them up and studied them for a moment. Her smile quickly disappeared. “Oh hell,” she said. She looked at Derick, and then at Nolan. She dropped the papers on the table and leaned back as she looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath.

“Is there a problem?” Nolan asked.

Her eyes were welling up when she looked at him. “You’re Nolan Peters, aren’t you?”

Derick quickly laid his hand on Nolan’s arm, warning him not to respond. “My client’s identity isn’t important.”

With her watery-eyed gaze still fixed on Nolan, she said, “I wasn’t talking to you, silk suit.” She reached across the table and squeezed Nolan’s hand. “I’m Ronnie Carr. I’m Rebecca’s little sister.”

Her eyes, he realized, were just like Becca’s. He got up and walked around the table. Ronnie stood as well. They wrapped their arms around each other and held tightly. “I’m so sorry. We did everything we could for her,” Nolan said.

“I’m sure you did. I know how close you all were. I just wish I could understand what happened,” she said as she began to cry.

Nolan held her tighter. “I’ll tell you as much of it as I know. You deserve the truth.”

After a long moment, their embrace ended, and Nolan moved back to his seat. He waited as Ronnie sat and wiped her eyes with a cocktail napkin. Nolan said, “Carl got a salvage contract from SACOM. It was supposed to be routine. When Becca’s team got to the reactor of the ship, the core was badly damaged. Her entire team was exposed to lethal radiation. We raced back to Caldon as fast as we could. Carl ordered me to make a hyperspace jump within the system to get them all back here as fast as possible. It didn’t matter… they were all dead by the time we reached orbit. SACOM said the reactor had been secure, and they accused us of trying to steal the shielding material from the reactor. That’s how they charged Carl with four counts of negligent homicide. None of it was true. SACOM blamed Carl to cover up the disaster. They screwed up and didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“So they killed four people and ruined another’s life to hide their own negligence. Where is Carl?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He disappeared shortly after his trial. Even SACOM hasn’t been able to find him. I’m trying to find out who was responsible for your sister’s death. Finding Carl will be the first step in that process. If anyone knows, he does.”

Ronnie dried her eyes again. Struggling to keep her emotions in check, she said, “I can get you a clean registration and the captain’s papers for fifty. I’d do it for free, but I have people I have to pay in another system to handle the paperwork on that end.” Then she added, “Mom and Dad got the settlement credits, not me.”

Nolan nodded. “Fifty thousand is fine.” He turned to Derick. “Pay her.”

“I can give you twenty-five now,” he began.

“All of it,” Nolan said. Seeing the reluctant look on Derick’s face, he glared and said sharply, “Fifty thousand, now.”

As they left the bar and walked to Derick’s car, the lawyer said, “It was a mistake paying her up front.”

Nolan turned on him and waved a finger under his nose. “Look, you may know law, but you don’t know a damn thing about that woman. I would have died to save her sister! She’ll get me the paperwork as promised. I can guarantee you that when I tell Megan what happened, she’ll say we should have given her seventy-five!”

* * * *

“I can’t believe you gave her fifty!” Megan yelled as she glared at Derick. “What were you thinking?” Derick glanced at Nolan and smiled. “You should have given her seventy-five!” Megan said.

His smile vanished in a flash even before Nolan gave him his
I told you so
look. Derick turned away and stared out the window.

“She wants to help,” Nolan said. “She wants to know who’s responsible as much as we do. It will help her to heal if we get answers.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Megan conceded. She walked over to Derick and put her arms around him. “Thank you for all that you’re doing.”

He patted her back. “We both lost John. I want answers as much as you do, but I also have to look out for your best interests.”

Megan hugged him tighter. “I know. Thank you. We’ll get through this somehow.”

“So, we’ve got two new sets of identification documents coming for me, and a new registration for the Independence. Mick said he’s got a guy lined up to get me to orbit once we have everything else in place. I’ll need to disappear from Dawson for two weeks without SACOM becoming suspicious. I have an uncle who owns a farm in Zebulon. That’s a long way from any SACOM facility. If I go there, they aren’t likely to come checking up on me as long as they can track my data unit,” he said.

“I think you two should let it be known that you’re going to visit Nolan’s uncle together. Plan to take your aircar, Megan. When it’s time for Nolan to go to orbit, you can go to the spaceport together. You’ll take Nolan’s data unit and go to visit his uncle while he slips away and boards the ship that will take him to the Independence. You’ll make sure Nolan’s data unit travels around Zebulon with you and his uncle. When Nolan comes back, he’ll wait for you at the spaceport and you’ll come back to town together,” Derick said.

“Won’t people talk? I mean, us going away together—it could give people the wrong idea,” Nolan said.

Derick smiled. “That’s what you want. People will believe you two are spending time together in Zebulon because that’s exactly the sort of thing people will want to believe. If they believe it, it’s as good as true.”

“I’m fine with it, Nolan, if you are,” Megan said. “Let people talk.”

“I guess that’s settled, then. When I get the Independence out of orbit, I’ll take several long hyperspace jumps until I am far from any SACOM relay. Then I’ll change the registration data in the core. I’ll land somewhere remote and repaint the name and numbers on the hull. Then I’ll take it to a busy spaceport, hide it in plain sight, and catch the next starliner back here.”

“Do you know where you are going?” Derick asked.

“Carl and I visited a lot of ports over the years. I know just the place. I think I’ll keep the details to myself, though. The less you know, the better.”

“Agreed,” Derick said. “While you two are away, I’ll continue digging to see if I can turn up any clues to Carl’s whereabouts. Stealing the ship is phase one. We still need to find him. He’s going to be our best source of information.”

“Don’t give up on Lansing. He probably knows more than Carl,” Nolan said.

“Yes, but we know next to nothing about him. All we have is a last name. We don’t have a first name. We don’t know what he looks like. That’s not much to go on,” Derick said.

Nolan said, “I know it’s a long shot, but if we can’t find Carl…” He suddenly felt reluctant to follow that line of thought any farther.

“We’ll find Carl,” Megan said.

Nolan cleared his throat. “Well, I have a lot to do to get ready for my trip. I had better go and get started.” He stood and walked to the door. Megan followed.

At the door, Megan hugged him. “Be careful. I’ll see you soon.”

Nolan stood in the basement of his apartment building, staring down through the trapdoor into the dark, cramped utility conduit. This was another thing he had learned from Carl. His heart was pounding, reverberating in his ears, and he was breaking out in a cold sweat. They were down there, he knew, but he had to do this. He took a deep breath and then climbed down into the conduit before he had a chance to change his mind, pulling the hatch closed as he descended. The work lights, operated by motion sensors, came on. Several small, dark shapes scurried around the corner at the junction to his left. His heart skipped a beat. “I have to do this,” he said softly as he set off in that direction. “Two more blocks,” he whispered when he reached the junction.

Lights came on in the next section as he continued. More dark shapes flitted in and out of the shadows. Glancing back, he saw a large rat trotting along the conduit, following him. An unmanly shriek erupted from Nolan, and he broke into a run. As he turned to watch where he was going, his head slammed into a large water pipe. Momentum carried his body forward as his head came to an abrupt and painful stop. As he landed hard on his back, the concrete floor knocked the wind from his lungs. Searing pain spread across his forehead as he fought to remain conscious. The overhead work light appeared to be two lights chasing each other around, moving and pulsing. Gently touching his forehead, he felt something slick and wet.

The intrepid rat that had followed him trotted past, paying him no attention. When it brushed against his elbow, he yelped and rolled away, frantically scrabbling to get to his feet. He flattened himself against the tunnel wall, blood now running into his right eye. He was hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. He closed his eyes and struggled to calm himself.

He had no idea how long he had stood there when he finally managed to open his eyes again. It was pitch black, and he wondered if he had gone blind. Reluctantly, he moved away from the wall and the lights turned on. Wiping the blood from his right eye with a sleeve, he took a deep breath and continued slowly along the conduit. He couldn’t remember how far he had gone. It seemed as though he had been down here forever.

At the junctions, each tunnel was labeled with the name of the street it was under and the address block. As he reached the next junction, he read the signs. “Two blocks. I’ve only gone two blocks,” he said in dismay. He continued straight, and the lights in the next section came on.
Rats. Dozens of rats
, he thought. He counted.
Three. Three rats. Come on, Nolan. Pull yourself together. They’re just… they’re just small kittens. That’s what they are. Cute, furry, little kittens… except for the fact that they’re rats. Rats that want to bite, scratch, and climb all over you… and eat your eyes out.

Somehow, he reached the next junction without being eaten by rats, and turned right.
Four blocks, and then turn left,
he thought. Lights came on up ahead, and he saw more rats scurrying into the shadows. He stopped to wipe blood from his eye again, and as he looked up, a rat was sitting atop an electrical panel watching him. The furry little face twitched as it sniffed him, or so Nolan assumed. He ducked under a pipe and hurried on. His head was throbbing, and he was finding it hard to concentrate. At the fourth junction, he turned left and counted until he reached the third minor side tunnel. Turning in, he went straight to the ladder, desperate to get out of this rat-infested hell.

Some of the trapdoors, like this one, had a combination lock. Nolan quickly punched in a code and the lock clicked. Throwing open the hatch, he rushed upward, collapsed on the floor, and then rolled over and quickly closed it. He rolled to his back and broke out in manic laughter as he took in the fresh air, knowing he had left the rats behind. “I made it, Carl,” he said to the dimly lit space. His heart was racing, and he took several deep breaths as he rested. In the relative safety of this place, his thoughts no longer dominated by the rats, he realized how much his head hurt. Rolling to his stomach, he pushed himself to his knees and then forced himself to stand. The throbbing in his head grew worse.

The gentle glow of the overhead safety lights allowed him to walk to the stairs without running into anything, and up he went. Reaching the first floor, he turned and went straight to the pressure suit lab. Opening his locker, he pulled out his pressure suit. He looked at the Space Salvage Corporation patch on the shoulder for a moment, and then turned and grabbed a hard-shell carrying case from a nearby shelf. He’d packed suits more times than he could remember, and could do it with his eyes closed, but he proceeded to pack this suit with great care. This was his backup suit. His main suit was still aboard the Independence in orbit. If this one were to get damaged, he’d have no way to make the transfer from whatever ship carried him to orbit to the Independence. Satisfied that the suit was properly packed, he placed a protective panel on top of it before retrieving his boots and gloves from his locker. Once they were inside, he closed and latched the case.

Grabbing a helmet case from the shelf, he pulled his helmet from the locker and slid it in before closing and latching it. As he looked around the lab, he wondered if there was anything else he should take. He remembered Carl initiating the atmosphere reclamation cycle just before they left the ship to condense and compress much of the ship’s air back into the holding tanks. He had also shut down the environmental system. It would take the better part of a day to pressurize the ship and heat everything to a livable temperature. He was going to have to stay in his pressure suit a long time. That meant…

Walking to a shelf, he grabbed two pressure suit diapers. He’d never used one before, but he remembered the salvage team members complaining about them on occasions when they had been necessary. Grimacing, he opened the pressure suit case, slipped them in, and closed it again.

The cut on his head was beginning to itch, so he went across the hall to the restroom and waited for the door to close fully before turning on the light. He didn’t want any light shining out through a window to alert anyone he was here. After his eyes adjusted to the light, he moved to the sink and looked in the mirror. There was a five-centimeter gash above his right eye that was caked with dried blood and grime.
I should have grabbed a first aid kit,
he thought as he considered what to do about the cut. Crossing to the door, he turned off the light and stepped out into the hallway. In the pressure suit lab, he felt his way along the wall, his eyes still recovering from the light of the restroom. Reaching the first aid kit, he unlatched it from its bracket and then returned to the restroom.

Nolan rummaged through the kit, retrieving butterfly bandages, antiseptic cream, and several alcohol wipes. He washed the dried blood and dirt away with soap and water. That hurt, but not nearly as much as the alcohol wipes that he used next. Gripping the edge of the sink tightly with both hands, afraid that he might collapse, he rode out the pain as the alcohol evaporated. Then he carefully closed the gash as, one by one, he placed butterfly bandages across the wound. Squeezing a blob of antiseptic cream onto his finger, he finished by covering the area with the cream. He crossed the room and sat on a toilet as he allowed himself a few moments to recover from the ordeal. The cream included a topical painkiller, and he relaxed as it took effect. He just needed to deal with the headache now.

A few minutes later, he was back rummaging through the first aid kit, looking for something to ease his headache. Most of the common painkillers intended for headaches were also blood thinners. He definitely could not take any of those with a head wound, especially if he was going to space. With his suit pressurized to half an atmosphere, he could experience serious bleeding, and he would have no way to stop it with his helmet on. For this very reason, the kit was stocked with a mild pain reliever that was not a blood thinner. He tossed two capsules into his mouth. Turning on the faucet, he collected some water in his cupped hands and drank down the medicine.

Resting on the toilet again, he ran through a mental checklist of items he might want. He had gone through this procedure many times over the years, but this time was different. He was setting out alone. Whatever needed to be done, he would have to do it. He couldn’t rely on anyone else to handle a situation. He needed to be prepared. As he thought of things that might be useful, he remembered that they had been returning from a salvage job. Just like his tools and pressure suit were still aboard the Independence, so were the rest of the crews’ gear. Satisfied that everything he needed was still aboard the ship, he went back to the lab and grabbed the cases containing his suit.

When he reached the basement, he set the cases next to the trapdoor, entered the combination, and grabbed the handle. He hesitated, dreading opening the hatch, knowing what was down there, but it had to be done. Pulling open the hatch, he climbed down a few rungs. He grabbed his suit case and carried it down. Coming back up, he grabbed the helmet case and pulled it down as well. Climbing the ladder for the last time, he pulled the hatch closed and descended again. As he picked up his cases, he said, “Okay, rats, here I come.”

* * * *

The trapdoor to the utility conduit flew open. Melvin Preston leaned on his broom and watched as a case rose from below and came to rest next to the opening. A moment later, a smaller case floated up through the hole and slid to a stop nearby. A man climbed quickly into the basement and closed the trapdoor with apparent urgency. “Hello, Mr. Peters,” Melvin said.

Nolan jumped over the hatch with a gasp and spun around. He leaned forward, hands braced on his knees. “You scared the hell out of me, Mel!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Peters. I didn’t mean to. I’m just doing some cleaning up down here. That’s a nasty cut you have there.”

“I had a little accident,” Nolan replied.

“You been doing some shopping?” Melvin asked.

Nolan looked puzzled momentarily as he looked at his cases. “Yes… some shopping. Only… it looked like rain, so I decided to… you know, run the conduits… like I did when I was a kid.”

Melvin shook his head. “No rain today, Mr. Peters.”

“Well… it looked a bit like rain, so I didn’t want to take any chances. These are expensive cases, and I didn’t want them to get wet,” Nolan said.

Melvin looked at the scratched, dented, and blood-smudged cases. He nodded. “Yes, I can see where you wouldn’t want rain to touch those,” he said with a broad smile.

Nolan looked at the cases as though he were seeing them for the first time. “Yes, well… I need to be going. It’s been nice chatting with you, Mel.” Nolan glanced past the custodian to the elevator—it was on the seventh floor. Unwilling to wait, he grabbed the cases and hurried toward the stairs. “Thank you for the wonderful job you do to keep the building clean,” he said as he reached the first step.

“Just doing my job,” Mel said with a chuckle. He went back to sweeping as Nolan plodded unsteadily up the steps.

Nolan emerged from the stairwell at the first floor and staggered to the elevator. Pressing the call button, he stared at the display, wondering why it was still at the seventh floor. Jennifer, the building manager, came out of her office. “The elevator is broken, Mr. Peters. I’m sorry; you’ll have to take the stairs.” As Nolan turned in her direction, she exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Peters! What happened?” Everyone in the lobby turned to look at him.

Without answering, he lugged the cases across the lobby and stepped back into the stairwell.

It was fifteen minutes later when Jennifer came sprinting up the steps and stopped at the fifth-floor landing. Nolan was sitting down, leaning against the wall, covered in sweat and gasping. “Would you like me to help you?” she asked.

Nolan pushed himself to his feet and picked up the cases. “No, thank you. I can manage.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said as she took the cases from him and then sprang lightly up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Nolan tried to keep up… for about three steps. “I’ll leave them by your door,” he heard her call from the next landing.

“Fine. You… do that,” he said between gasps. He could hear her light footfalls winding up through the building, showing no sign of slowing down.

He stepped out of the stairwell on the eighth floor feeling as though he might pass out. His head was throbbing unmercifully, and he could feel a thin trickle of blood running down to his eyebrow. He looked at his bloody sleeve, and then wiped his forehead, being careful not to pull off any of the butterfly bandages. His perspiration had caused the bandages to lose their grip and, in spite of his care, they slid around as he wiped. The wound opened, and the bleeding increased.

The cases were waiting outside his apartment door when he arrived. He dragged them inside. After shoving them into the foyer closet, he headed for the bathroom. The gash was wide open again, the bandages dislodged and slack. Grabbing a clean washcloth, he applied pressure to the wound before moving to the living room and sitting next to the comm unit. Not wanting to explain what had happened to just anyone, he placed a call to Megan.

“Hey, Nolan, what’s up?” came Megan’s voice when she answered.

“Are you alone?” Nolan asked.

“Yes, why?”

“I need some help. Are you any good at stitching?” he asked.

“What, you need a button sewn on or something?” she said with a laugh.