Brett Battles - No Return

After a detective named Stevens asked Wes and Anna several questions and then ascertained that nothing was missing, he allowed them to take Anna’s things to her new room. They dropped most of the stuff off, then grabbed what Anna needed for the next morning and left.

“If I remember correctly, you said something earlier about room service,” she said.

“No night on the town?”

She shook her head.

“How about a movie instead? We can check pay-per-view.”

“Perfect.”

He opened the door to his room and let her pass inside.

“You pick the movie, and I’ll order the food,” he said.

“Chinese?”

“Will do.”

Once they were both inside, he started to close the door, but stopped and looked out toward the parking lot.

“What’s wrong?” Anna asked.

Wes scanned the lot, then shook his head. It must have just been his nerves.

“Nothing,” he said, then shut the door.

The man sitting in the blue sedan across the parking lot lowered his binoculars and picked up the phone lying beside him on the empty passenger seat.

Once the call was connected, he said, “Looks like she’s moved to the room next to his.… Just dropped her suitcases off there, but they’ve gone to his place.… If I had a guess, I’d say they’re in for the night.… I can’t, police are still here.” There was a long pause as he listened. “Okay, so not tonight. What do you want me to do, then? … Got it.”

He disconnected the call, put the phone on the seat, then settled back to wait and make sure the couple didn’t leave unexpectedly.

Wes’seyes popped open at just after 6 A.M. on Saturday morning. With no shoot that day, he tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. So he rolled onto his side and stared at Anna for several minutes, hoping she might sense his gaze and wake up. That, apparently, wasn’t happening, either.

With a groan, he flipped over, crawled out of bed, and shuffled to his computer. He knew what he’d seen out at the Pinnacles, and it wasn’t the guy the Navy was trying to force-feed everyone. If he could only find a little more proof, then maybe he could convince Lars of that.

The first thing he did was fire off an email to Casey back in L.A., then he opened Google Images in his browser and typed in the search parameters: “China Lake pilots.” Over one million hits came back. He started flipping through the thumbnail pages quickly, scanning for the face he remembered from the crash.

A few minutes later, the icon for his email program began bouncing on his toolbar. It was a response from Casey.

The best site is called Drew’s Military Action Site. You’ll need a user ID and password to get in. Try BAN4KOOL, password onit47.

Why are you looking for military photos?

Wes typed in a quick reply.

Just some background stuff. Thanks for the help

.

Drew’s Military Action Site was basically a database of military history. Wes went immediately to the Photos section. Depending on what search parameters he put in, Wes could access photos tagged “pilots,” “Navy pilots,” pilots assigned to China Lake, or pilots assigned to any other post by branches, divisions, groups, and the like.

He did China Lake first, but found nothing useful, so he widened his search to all Navy pilots. He moved rapidly through page after page of shots-some solo, some group. Then he stopped suddenly, his index finger a mere fraction of an inch above the forward arrow key, and stared at the screen.

It was a group shot. Twenty people, mostly men. And in the middle row, third from the left, was the man from the crash.

He was sure of it.

He looked for any information associated with the picture, but there was none.

Scrolling back, he checked other group shots. Most had information and names listed below them. What the hell?

He tried to move the picture to his desktop, but the image was locked and could not be dragged off. A problem, but not nearly as annoying as not finding any information with the picture. He took a computer snapshot of his screen, then opened the new image in Photoshop and cropped out everything but the group picture itself.

Once he’d saved that, he blew the picture up until the resolution deteriorated and the man’s face became unrecognizable. He was only able to magnify the picture a couple of times before this happened. He backed it down until the man’s face was clear again and saved it as a separate file, then stared at the image.

He wasn’t crazy.

He hadn’t been seeing things.

The man he knew he had tried to pull from the crash had been real.

He didn’t have the guy’s name, but he had his picture.

This he could show to Lars. The picture in conjunction with the video loop should be more than enough to prove he was right. At the very least, it would be enough to convince Lars he should look into it a little deeper. And once he did, he’d find out that Wes wasn’t the one who was making things up.

There was one other thing he could do, too. A backup, just in case.

He opened a new email and attached the photo to it. In the message body, he wrote:

Casey,

Trying to identify third man from the left in the middle row. Any chance you can help? Best if you keep this on the sly, and not just from the company. Will explain later.

Wes

After he hit Send, the knot of frustration that had been gnawing at the back of his mind began to unravel. The situation had worked him up more than he’d expected.

But now he knew the truth. Now he’d be listened to.

The day had turned out to be the hottest one yet. Wes guessed it had to be just below one hundred degrees as he and Anna got out of the SUV at the self-storage facility. It was almost enough reason to climb back in and return to the hotel.

Almost.

They got directions from the woman in the office, then walked between the one-story buildings until they found the unit they were looking for.

There had been no shoot to put it off today, nothing that would make Wes too busy to carry out his mother’s request. She had initially asked him to do it years ago, and when he’d told her he was coming up for the shoot, she reminded him again.

“Your father still had a lot of the old photos,” she had told him over the phone before he’d left L.A. “I’d really like to get those. Everything else, well, whatever you don’t want we’ll donate to Goodwill.”

He still wasn’t sure he felt up to it, but he was here. And it was time.

“Wes?” Anna said.

He blinked and glanced over.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

He gave her a halfhearted smile, then slipped the key into the lock. It was stiff from the dry, dusty climate, but it didn’t put up much of a fight and was soon off. Now the only thing separating him from what remained of his father’s possessions was a metal roll-up door. He grabbed the handle and raised it out of the way.

The unit was about the size of a small, one-car garage, but much of it was hidden by a wall of cardboard boxes that filled the entrance. Someone had written short descriptors on the outside of each: Kitchen, Clothes, Office, Books, Misc .

Wes and Anna began moving them out of the unit and setting them on the asphalt to either side of the door, working slowly in deference to the temperature.

“How long has all this been here?” Anna asked after several minutes.

“About fifteen years, I guess.”

“And you’ve never come to look through it before?”

He shook his head as he grabbed a box and carried it outside. “This is the first time I’ve been back.”