Phillip Margolin - Lost Lake

“I can’t.”

What if her cell phone call had been intercepted and the men at the apartment weren’t really cops? She wanted to tell Sam to run, to leave town, but another man took the phone and started asking her questions. Vanessa cut the connection.

It seemed as if hours had passed since her meal with Sam and her flight to the motel, but it was only a little before eleven. She slumped down on the edge of the bed, exhausted. She had gotten a kit with a toothbrush and toothpaste from the front desk when she checked in. She brushed her teeth, washed up, stripped off her jeans, and crawled under the covers. When she closed her eyes she thought of Sam.

Vanessa had taken few lovers since getting out of the institution. Most men ran after learning that she’d been in an asylum. Those that thought screwing an ex-lunatic was kinky ran when they learned the depth of her obsession. Until she met Sam Cutler at a bar near her apartment three months ago, Vanessa had not been with a man for a little over a year. Sam was a freelance photographer who had worked all over the world. She had been reluctant to let him get close to her at first, but he had persisted and she had dropped her guard.

Sam could tell great stories, in bed he was creative and had endurance; but the best thing about him was that he was not judgmental. It had not fazed him when he learned that Vanessa was an ex-mental patient. When Vanessa told him about the Unit, he had calmly accepted its existence as a possibility. Vanessa had talked Patrick Gorman into giving Sam a job, and she had started to believe that she might find happiness at last. What if something happened to him now? What if he died because of her?

Vanessa felt empty inside and tired of her life. The people who were after her had so many resources and she had so few. She couldn’t run forever. If they were hunting her, they would catch her eventually. She started to cry in the dark. After a while she drifted off to sleep.

Vanessa opened her eyes and jerked up, startled by the strange surroundings. Then she remembered where she was and why she was hiding in a motel instead of waking up in her apartment and getting ready for work. She felt sick. Had she panicked for no reason? Had she made a fool of herself? She recalled the events of the previous evening. While waiting for Sam she had noticed two men talking in a doorway across from her office, but were they talking about her? Did they even know that she existed? The men had walked slightly behind her in the same direction as the restaurant, but were they following her? And what about the bum who had knocked on her car window? Did she have any evidence that he wasn’t just a homeless man looking for a handout? In the light of day her actions seemed absurd.

Vanessa felt so stupid. What would she do now? She couldn’t go to work. She would have to face Sam. Would this be the last straw? Would he leave her? He had always tried to understand, but how much could he take? And what about the police? Would they arrest her for making a false report? No, the police would have no further interest in her. Sam would have seen to that. She flushed with shame as she imagined him explaining that his girlfriend was a former mental patient who imagined that people were plotting against her. The cops would have been angry at first, but their anger would have turned to sympathy for the poor bastard who was living with this loony. They would have shaken their heads as they left. The incident probably provided a few good laughs back at the station house.

Vanessa couldn’t go home and she couldn’t go to work. She was ashamed to face Sam. Checkout time was noon. She decided to stay in the room until she was forced to leave. Maybe she would think of something by then.

Vanessa ordered room service. While she waited for her food, she turned on Fox cable news in the middle of a report on a retired general, Morris Wingate. The General had left the military in the late 1980s and stayed out of the public eye for many years. In the early 1990s, he had invested heavily in Computex, a fledgling software company headed by a genius named Simeon Brown. Wingate’s contacts in the military helped the company obtain lucrative contracts. A few years ago, Brown had died when his private jet crashed during a vacation trip to Greece, and Wingate had taken over the company. Last year, he had become a national hero by rescuing six of his employees who had been kidnapped while working on a reconstruction project in Afghanistan. The General had brought his men out alive after leading a private army into the rugged mountains on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now he was running neck and neck with the incumbent president, Charles Jennings, for their party’s nomination.

“Terrorists must learn to live in terror of the might of this great country,” General Wingate was telling a large audience in the ballroom of a hotel in Los Angeles. The diners were elegantly dressed. The announcer said that each seat had cost a thousand dollars. “Terrorists must learn that their families, their friends, and any country that harbors them will pay dearly for their cowardly acts. We must use force against force, and we must be merciless.”

The sight of Wingate smiling down like a tin god at his wildly applauding audience made Vanessa furious. She switched to CNN, where the “Little League parent syndrome” was the topic of discussion. A bright-eyed blond listened with rapt attention while an eminent psychologist expounded on the dangers of parents’ becoming too emotionally involved in their children’s activities.

“That was fascinating, Dr. Clarke,” the blond said. “And I think our viewers will find this equally fascinating. CNN has just obtained exclusive footage of the frightening melee at the Oregon Little League game from Ralph and Ginnie Shertz, the parents of a child on one of the teams.”

The home movie had been videotaped with an expensive camera, and the picture was very clear; but Ralph Shertz was no Spielberg-the pictures jerked from one spot to another. The action started with a large bearded man shouting at a slender man with glasses. A third man with a ponytail was standing with his back to the camera. The large man threw a punch. Moments later he was clutching his throat and writhing on the ground.

When the camera refocused on the man with the ponytail, he was throwing a policeman over his shoulder. A second policeman shot him. The man with the ponytail turned toward the officer. Vanessa’s heart stopped. She ran toward the set and squinted at the screen. The man with the ponytail fell, and the policeman’s back blocked out his face. The camera moved closer to the action and tipped down. The man with the ponytail was unconscious. Ralph Shertz had gotten a close-up of his face before the policeman who’d fired the shots slapped a hand across his lens.

The tape ended and Dr. Clarke began expounding again, but Vanessa did not hear a word he said. What she’d just seen energized her. Finally, she had a chance to prove that she wasn’t crazy. First, though, she had to make certain that Sam was safe.

Vanessa took her wallet out of her purse. In one of the compartments was a yellowed business card with a number for the FBI. Many years ago, the man who had given it to her was an agent. Now she asked to be connected to the office of Victor Hobson, the executive assistant director for law enforcement services.

“Who may I say is calling?” Hobson’s secretary asked.

“Tell him it’s Vanessa Kohler.”

“Does Mr. Hobson know what this is about?”

“Just give him my name and tell him I know where to find Carl Rice. He’ll take the call.”

There was dead air for a moment. Then Hobson was on the line.

“Vanessa, it’s been years.”

“I don’t have time for chitchat, Mr. Hobson. Carl Rice is alive and I know where to find him.”