David Morrell - Assumed Identity

Buchanan opened the second drawer, found the files marked M through Z, and noticed a slight gap where a T file appeared to have been removed. D and T. Those were the only two apparent omissions. Buchanan thought about it as he opened the bottom drawer and discovered a Browning 9-mm semiautomatic pistol. The basic necessities, he thought.

What did Juana do for a living? Her parents had said that she was involved in private security. That kind of work would be a logical progression from what Juana had done in military intelligence. But private security could mean anything from doing risk assessments, to installing intrusion detectors, to providing physical protection. She might be a free-lance or work for a major corporation.

He shut the bottom drawer, reopened the top one, and began to read some of the files. A pattern became obvious. Juana’s principal activity had been to act as a protective escort for businesswomen, female politicians and entertainers, or the wives of their male equivalents, primarily when they traveled to Spanish-speaking countries or to cities in America that had a sizable Hispanic population. The logic was clear. A protector had to blend with the local population. Because Juana was Hispanic, she would lose considerable effectiveness in an environment in which her Latin facial characteristics and skin color attracted attention. There wasn’t any point in her working in Africa, the Orient, the Mideast, or northern Europe, for example. For that matter, even some of the northern United States. But Spain and Latin America were ideal for her. With that kind of travel, it wasn’t any wonder that she stayed away from home for months at a time. Possibly her absence could be easily explained. Possibly she was merely on an assignment.

Then why the postcard? Why did she need my help?

Something to do with a job she was on? She might have wanted to hire me.

The notion that her interest in him would have been professional and not personal made Buchanan feel hollow-but only for a moment. He quickly reminded himself that a request for professional help would not have required so unusual and secretive a means of contacting him.

And snipers wouldn’t be lying in wait to kill her.

No. Juana was in trouble, and even if she’d been away on a lengthy assignment, she wouldn’t have neglected to phone her parents, certainly not for nine months in a row. Not willingly.

Something was stopping her. Either she wasn’t physically capable of doing it or else she didn’t want to risk involving her parents in what had happened to her.

At the back of each file, Buchanan found itemized statements, copies of bills submitted and checks received. He learned that Juana’s business had been quite successful. She’d been earning fees that ranged from $5,000 for consultations, to $10,000 for two-week escort jobs, to $100,000 for a two-month protective assignment in Argentina. A note in the file indicated that there had evidently been some shooting in the latter case. Protection was a demanding, sophisticated occupation for those who knew what it truly entailed. The best operatives were paid accordingly. Even so, Juana had been unusually successful. Buchanan made a rough estimate that she’d been earning close to half a million dollars a year.

And living this simply, paradoxically without security devices? What had she been doing with the money? Had she been saving it, investing it, planning to retire in her mid-thirties? Again, Buchanan had no way to tell. He searched the office but didn’t find a bankbook, a statement from a brokerage firm, or any other sign of where she might have placed her money. Now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any mail outside or on the coffee table. Juana must have told the post office to hold it for her. Or else her parents had been picking it up. Before they’d come out here tonight, Anita had mentioned that she and Pedro sometimes drove out to inspect the place. Buchanan made a mental note to ask them about her mail, about whether she ever received statements from financial institutions.

At once the room appeared to sway, although actually it was his legs that caused the effect. They were wobbly. Exhausted, he sat in the tilt-back chair and rubbed his throbbing temples. The last time he’d slept through the night had been forty-eight hours ago, but that had been in the hospital, and even then his sleep had not been continuous, the nurses waking him intermittently to check his vital signs. Since then, he’d slept for a few hours at the motel in Beaumont, Texas, and had a few naps at freeway rest stops en route to San Antonio. The knife wound in his side ached, its stitches making him itchy. The almost-healed bullet wound in his shoulder ached as well. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep.

The files, he thought. Whoever was concerned enough to want to find Juana and kill her would have searched her home in hopes of discovering a clue about where she was hiding. If they wanted to kill her because she knew too much about them, they would have searched for and removed any evidence that linked her with them.

A name that begins with D. Another that begins with T. Those had been the two files that were obviously missing. Of course, the files might not be missing at all. Juana might have caused the gap in the sequence of the files when she replaced two files, scrunching a group of other files together in order to make room, leaving a space where her fingers had been.

But I’ve got to start somewhere, Buchanan thought. I have to assume that two files are missing and that they’re important. He leaned back in the chair, hearing it creak, thinking that the pages in the files looked like computer printouts, wondering if the files might be in the computer.

And realized that the creak he had heard had not been from the chair but from the hallway.

Slowly, Buchanan turned his head.

A man stood in the doorway: mid-thirties, five foot ten, 150 pounds. His hair was sandy and extremely short. His face, like his build, was thin, but not unhealthily so; something about him suggested he was a jogger. He wore cowboy boots, jeans, a saddle-shaped belt buckle, a faded denim shirt, and a jeans jacket. The latter was slightly too large for him and emphasized his thinness.

“Find what you’re looking for?” The man’s flat mid-Atlantic accent contrasted with his cowboy clothes.

“Not yet.” Buchanan lowered his hands from where he’d been massaging his temples. “I’ve still got a few places to check.”

I locked the door after I came in, he thought. I didn’t hear anybody follow me. How did-?

This son of a bitch hasn’t been watching from outside. He’s been hiding somewhere in the house.

“Such as?” The man’s hands stayed by his side. “What places haven’t you checked?”

“The computer records.”

“Well, don’t let me hold you up.” The man’s cheeks were dark with beard stubble.

“Right.” Buchanan pressed the computer’s ON button.

As the computer’s fan began to whir, the man said, “You look like hell, buddy.”

“I’ve had a couple of hard days. Mostly, I need sleep.”

“I’m not having any picnic, hanging around here, either. Nothing to do but wait. Where I bunked.” The man pointed toward the next room down the hall. “Weird. No wonder the woman had it locked. Probably didn’t want her parents to see what she had in there. At first, I thought it was body parts.”

“Body parts?” Buchanan frowned.

“The stuff in that room. Belongs in a horror movie. Fucking bizarre. You mean you weren’t told?”

What in God’s name is he talking about? Buchanan wondered. “I guess they didn’t figure I needed to know.”