Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2), Jack Lively [ebook voice reader txt] 📗

him. We’re close, it isn’t normal that he breaks contact for a month. I became concerned. So, I tried the police, the university, everybody I could think of, but nobody’s interested, nobody knows anything.”

“What do you expect me to do about that?”

“We need protection while we figure out what’s happened.”

I said, “You need to go to the police.”

She said, “I’ve already done that. I’ve gone through the hoops. I have filed a missing persons report but they won’t act on it. They said that George is an adult and has every right to go missing.”

I said, “And you think there’s something else going on.”

“I do.” She was nodding vigorously. “I came up here, and from day one we are being bullied. So yes. Now I most definitely think that something else is going on.”

“Why would your son be in trouble? What was he researching?”

She shook her head. “The only thing I get from George is ‘Mom, you would never understand.’”

I said, “Not even a ballpark guess.”

“From what I gather, physics isn’t a ballpark game. There is no wide general research, it’s all extremely specialized. Last I heard from George he was working on acoustic modeling of seismic fissures, whatever that means. But that was when he was doing his masters, and the research was in Kazakhstan.”

I said nothing.

Abrams placed her palm on the countertop. She said, “It was a stroke of luck that Amber ran into you last night.”

I said, “Last night. The girl took my picture. You ran some kind of search on it?”

Abrams said, “Put a picture into the right computer, with a guy like Jason tapping the keyboard, out comes all kinds of interesting stuff.”

She looked up at me, “Jason is the one whose nose you violated, by the way.”

“He should have stayed away from me.”

She shrugged. “Character building. Jason is a computer genius. He likes to go to the gym, so he looks the part, but he is not an experienced man. Not like you. We are desperate for someone like you.”

I said, “Someone like me.”

“Yes, Mister Keeler, someone exactly like you.”

“And what am I like?”

Abrams examined me critically. “You seem to be someone who doesn’t walk away.”

I said, “If I were you, I’d go back to the police. Tell them about the intimidation, be insistent. Don’t take no for an answer. If you don’t want to go to the cops again, you should hire some real help. If you’ve got the money, they will come. Your computer genius can use his computer.”

She looked out at the view. The cruise ship and the great ocean behind it. She said, “I don’t have time for that, Keeler. And I can’t quit. If you change your mind I’m at the Beaver Falls Lodge. I have the whole place.”

I said nothing.

She said, “Do you know it?”

“Heard of it.”

Abrams got up to go. “I appreciate that you are reticent to sell your services for money. It is even noble, or something. Unfortunately that does not help my son. If you insist, you can help us for free. And if you do decide to stay, I’ll refund the ticket and pay your expenses, of course.”

The black Suburban was idling on the other side of the airport building. Jane Abrams walked over to it, climbed into the back and looked at me. She had the aviator sunglasses on again. The driver was the blond bearded guy I’d seen following me from the diner. His bandaged hand was resting on the steering wheel. I pictured the giant giving that hand a twist, maybe breaking a finger or two, Deckart laughing in the background.

Seven

I watched the shiny black Suburban wind its way down the hill. I counted five minutes. New passengers had been collecting at the airport, not quite eighteen of them just yet. It was almost time to get on the plane. But there was an issue with that.

I was interested.

I needed to make a phone call, and I happen to be the last guy on the planet who refuses to carry a phone. A phone in your pocket is like a nagging parent. I loved my mother, but she’s dead and I’m not looking for a replacement. So, I dropped a couple of quarters into a phone in the airport building. Pay phones are hard to find and getting harder. Like animals facing extinction. But you can usually find one around travel hubs. Like airports and bus terminals. If that doesn’t work, phones can be borrowed from strangers. After all, everyone’s got one.

The girl in Seattle answered after three rings. I told her I was going to miss the plane. She said, “Did you meet another girl?”

I said, “Something like that, but not what you’re thinking.”

She laughed. “You want me to wait or you want me to go?” Her voice sounded good down the line. Happy, unburdened by regret.

“I guess you should go. I don’t know how long I’ll be, or what’s going to happen exactly.”

She said, “Alright. You take care of yourself, Keeler.”

I hung up the phone. A taxi pulled in and two guys climbed out. They had backpacks in the trunk. When they’d hauled their gear out, I stabbed a chin at the driver. He nodded and I got in. I paid him off ten minutes later, down at the Eagle Cove cannery. The boats were tied up on the other side of the factory. On my way to the waterside I had to dodge a forklift moving hot cans of pink salmon. Which brought me right up against a cluster of Japanese inspectors leaning over a cooler. I figured that was the last batch of sea urchins, or some other delicacy.

There were two kinds of purse seiners in the fleet, the new kind and the old kind. The new ones were million-dollar fibreglass and steel jobs that looked like they’d been designed on a computer, which they had. The old ones were wood and paint and looked like they were held together by glue and screw, which they