Sweet Dreams (17 page)

"I just got off the phone with my editor, and it looks like I got about a month off. I was thinking--if you don't mind, I could help you try to track down the people responsible for your kidnapping." Geoff could see Kirk start to reject his idea, but he butted in before he could say anything.

"I do know how to keep my mouth shut, and everything will be off the record. I know my way around the Middle East, and Europe is a cinch. I am a great researcher. I could help."

Kirk held up his hand to stop, "Okay, okay, you can help. If you are as much help as you have been so far, you might come in handy. Just know one thing: If I read anything about this in the papers or your crappy magazine, I'll personally hunt you down and kill you!" Kirk seemed to be getting back to his old self.

"No worries. I'll take it!"

For the next hour, Kirk filled Geoff in on everything that happened from the David's Island case, to his hit on the head...leaving out the part no one would believe about the high tech prison he was held in. Geoff made notes on his laptop and asked a few more questions. After Kirk was finished, Geoff shut his laptop and sat back in his seat, thinking...

"So it seems that this WJA group is behind all this, and they are almost daring you to find them with the note and all. Have you cross-referenced that with any other cases?"

"Not yet, but I plan to get Mooch on it as soon as we get back."

"From what I remember from reading about it in the news paper, they said that it was bad meat from a company that sold to the shipping outfit. It was ruled as an accident."

"So the FBI has the case shut down?" Kirk shook his head. "That will mean I'll need to convince my boss to investigate under him, and when we get solid proof, we go to the Feds."

"No worries, I'll get a hold of that CSI lady, what was her name? Oh yeah, Cassy. I'll call her this week and see if she has anything new on that drug."

"Good idea, maybe she found the partner drug and that might just be what we need. I wonder why the Feds still

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thought it was accidental after what she found."

Geoff could feel the airplane start to descend, and the announcement over the speakers confirmed it.

"We're here," Geoff said.

"Great, I need a shower, and then I'm going to sleep all weekend. You can crash at my place if you want. Just don't take anything."

"No worries."

________________________________________

THE WEEKEND WAS JUST what Mark needed. He and Maria went ice-skating down at Central Park, and then went to shops and watched all the kids standing in line to see Santa at Macy's. The day had a crisp cool air to it and every hour or so it would start to snow. They talked and hung out just watching movies and eating popcorn at Mark's apartment. He felt relaxed and ready to take on the world. It was the first time in a year that Mark had truly felt happy again. Not all the way down deep in his soul but as happy, as he thought he would ever be without K.

Monday came with the sun rising up over the beautiful New York skyline. The snow had stopped, but still lingered on the trees and the park benches making everything look clean and white. Mark called in to work, telling Hank that he would be late coming in. He needed to get down to the police station to talk to Detective Owens.

He smiled at the front desk receptionist as she waved him back to Owens' office. As he walked past the offices and break room, he thought about the last time he was here. It was about six months ago, and Mark had heard about the gas line bursting, could not accept it and started his own investigation. Detective Owens finally told him to let it go after Mark kept bugging him to reopen the case.

"Hello, Detective Owens, do you got a minute?" Mark held onto the manila envelope he had in his hand and the tall detective looked at it with half interest.

Clive looked surprised and slightly annoyed to see Mark.

"What can I do you for, Mr. Appleton?" Clive knew what it would be about and after he got the plug pulled on him from his supervisor, he had to close the case. It came all the way up from the FBI and they came out with the bad meat story. Clive didn't like it but didn't have a choice in the matter. Mark Appleton was barking up a dead tree and Clive was more concerned about losing his job then anything else.

"Well remember that note I showed you a few months ago? I got another one, it doesn't sound like much, but ..." He put the envelope down on the detective's desk and took a seat. Owens looked at the envelope and sighed; he took it and pulled out the note. After reading it, he looked up at Mark with a frustrated tone laced through his voice.

"So where's this tape?"

"Uh, that's the bad news, after I played it...well, you see...it melted my DVD player and destroyed the disc."

Clive handed back the note, stood up, and looked Mark square in the eyes. "Mr. Appleton,"

"Mark. You can call me Mark."

"Okay. Mark, I'm very sorry that your wife and daughter were killed in this accident..."

But...it wasn't..." Mark cut in.

"Accident!" Detective Owens said a bit too loud for the situation. "Look, Mr....uh...Mark...this case is done closed,

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and no amount of notes or surveillance videos is going to change what happened. Now, if you be wantin' to obsess over this your whole life, you go right ahead. Just leave me out of it!"

Mark started to say something, but Clive jumped in. "No!

Mr. Appleton, you'd be needin' to stop. No more notes or videos that aren't working or melted, just let it lay. That's an order! Now, if you don't mind, I got a lot of work to be doin'."

Mark's face turned red with anger. He could not believe what was happening...and they were going to let these men who killed all these people go free! He wanted to take a swing at the tall Texan but held back. He turned and walked out into the hall when he heard Detective Owens call over his shoulder.

"And if I catch you tryin' to investigate this, I'll arrest you for interfering with a police investigation...ya hear!"

Mark stopped with his back turned to the detective, he looked over his shoulder, and then he walked out the front door without a word.

Mark felt a wave of rage and indignation flood over him as he got into his car. This was not over, this was not going to happen to him. He was supposed to protect his family, he was the guardian, and he let them die. He realized it was not his fault, but it would be the same thing as killing them himself if he let these...these monsters get away with it!

Pulling off Main Street, he turned down Third and headed to his office. Picking up his cell from the charger in the center console, he dialed Maria's number.

"Hey Mark, how'd it go?"

"Not good, he basically said to leave it alone and threatened to arrest me if I did anything about it."

"Oh...I'm so sorry, hon ..."

"I need you to find out whatever you can on this Pat Rotter guy. He's my only hope of finding out who did this,"

"Okay, I'll get right on it. We'll find him, Mark, I promise."

"Thanks, Maria, and be careful, don't get caught; okay?"

"Okay, I'll use a laptop in the Coffee Bean down the street so I can't be traced...on my lunch break; okay?"

"I'll see you in a bit." Mark hung up the phone and pulled into the parking garage where he parked in the space he always used. His body language changed from smooth, fluid movements to sharp, harsh movements. He slammed the car door and got on the elevator going up to his floor. After dropping off his briefcase on his desk, he marched down to where Bert was working.

"Hey, Mark, did you have a good Christmas?"

"Hey, Bert. Got a question, you still go shooting at the range much?"

"Yeah, in fact, now that you mention it I'm going tonight. Uh...you want to go?"

"If you don't mind, I need to blow off some steam."

Sure. It is a great stress reliever, I'll bring an extra gun for you to use."

Mark got driving directions to the indoor range, and then thanked Bert and promised to see him later. He wanted to at least know how to use a gun just in case this Pat guy proved to be dangerous.

The day drug on as Mark tried to keep his mind from thinking about the detective. He just could not believe that they would not look into the new information. He knew that

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the gas line story was just a cover up, but why would they want to cover up this? Were they involved somehow and what did they gain by blowing up a grocery store?

The clock read one o'clock when Mark heard his phone ring at his desk. "Hello? Oh, hi, Maria, you find out anything?"

Maria's voice on the other end was hushed as she told him of her findings. "I hacked into the police database to see if his name popped up anywhere. I didn't get anything, and then I got into the DMV website and I got a hit. He's twenty-two years old and lives in Manhattan,"

"Great work!"

"There's more, I wanted to see if he had any criminal background or what he does for a living, so I did a search of employment agencies against his name. And guess where he worked two years ago,"

"Where?"

"At Manacore Manufacturing! And guess what they make there, they produce C-4 and other plastic explosives for the U.S. Military. He was fired after suspicion of theft!"

"You got to be kidding; this is the break we needed! Do you think he still lives in Manhattan?"

"Not sure, but here is his last known address," Maria gave him the address of an apartment building in lower Manhattan. Mark wrote the address down and thanked Maria for her help. He planned to visit this Pat guy after he went to the range tonight. He could not go being this upset; it might mean a slip in judgment, which would end up putting him behind bars.

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Chapter Eleven

KIRK SLEPT MOST OF THE WEEKEND, ONLY

getting up to go to the bathroom and eat a donut or two in a dazed stupor. Geoff crashed on the living room couch where he had to clean off old, rotten food wrappers and one pizza box that in the past year looked like it had grown into a small animal. He just about lost his lunch when he opened the fridge and found mold covering everything making the items in the fridge look like a miniature city skyline of white and green fuzz.

The place had been sitting for over a year, and it was not in much worse shape than it was when Kirk lived there. Kirk was a true bachelor down to never once cleaning his bathroom or ever washing a dish. If he wanted to eat off a plate, he just wiped the plate with his shirt and called it good. Geoff, on the other hand, could live in a tent on the backside of a mountain or in the desert with not a care in the world. However, this filth disgusted him and as Kirk slept, he began to pick up around the place and clean until he could see what color the carpet was again. The worst was the tub, the brownblack color made it look as if it had sat in a field for a hundred years and Geoff even wrote his name in the side of it before he cleaned it with pure bleach.

In the winter, Detroit was cold and windy making it miserable. Not that it was a delight in the summer but this was like hell but with ice and freezing wind instead of hellfire and brimstone. Kirk's answering machine had about one hundred messages from his boss and one from his ex-wife; outside of that, it looked like someone had broken in to the apartment in order to locate him, but found nothing and figured he was missing of his own accord.

Kirk had done this sort of thing before when he would get out of sorts with his boss or something happened that he didn't like; he would disappear for a while to cool off and return and act like nothing ever happened. After two days and three packs of rubber gloves, Geoff, had the place looking neat, and most important of all, clean.

Kirk stirred from his hibernation on Monday morning to the smell of coffee and bacon drifting through his bedroom. He got out of bed with a grunt and shuffled into the living room in his boxers and a wild tangle of hair and beard wrapping his face like a caveman in the spring.

"Good morning, Mr. Weston," Geoff was always chipper, and if it was going to be like this every morning it could pose a problem. Kirk was not completely awake and he dragged his

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feet making a scuffing sound on the hardwood kitchen floor.

"Morning, Mom, I'm not sure if it is good or not yet, but it's morning," Kirk sat down on a wooden stool that faced the bar and into the kitchen and rubbed his eyes. Geoff placed a cup of black coffee in front of him followed by a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.

"So you feeling better?" Geoff asked as he sipped on his own cup of coffee from a mug that said
"don't drink and drive
you might hit a bump and spill your beer."

"Much, better, I...uh...hey, what happened to my place?"

Kirk jumped up, looking around as if he had been robbed. He liked to live comfortable and now the apartment look as if it was a set for a television sitcom. Now he could smell the faint pungent glow of bleach and pine, lemon and something else he could not place.

Geoff laughed, "I cleaned, and I must say it wasn't a pretty job, you should get a maid."

"Cleaned!? It was fine the way it was, now how am I supposed to find anything?" Kirk sat back down and looked around with a confused and annoyed look on his face.

"I put your clothes away in the closet, and you will find your shirts hung up and your pants folded in the dresser."

"Man, you are some kind of fruit. I thought my ex was bad," Kirk settled in and started on another plate of eggs, he was temporally distracted when he spotted more bacon and grabbed three more slices. "But if you keep up this cooking, I'll hire
you
to be my maid." Geoff laughed as he polished off his plate of food and started to wash it in the sink.

"I don't think you have the money to hire me, did you see the stack of bills I left you on the coffee table?"