Brian Freeman - In the Dark aka The Watcher

“Take Maggie with you,” Stride suggested. “I’d like to have someone official on the trip.”

“You mean five hours each way arguing with Maggie about the radio station? We’ll kill each other.”

Stride laughed. “So take a private plane. Stanhope can afford it.”

“True.”

“We better get some sleep,” he said.

“To hell with sleep.”

Serena got up lazily from the love seat. She brushed her black hair back away from her face. Holding onto Stride’s shoulders, she straddled him on the sofa, with her knees on either side of his legs and her breasts near his lips. His hands slid behind her and cupped her buttocks through her panties. She put her hands on his face, bent her neck forward, and kissed him.

“I dreamed that you caught me sleeping with Tish and you beat her to death. You murdering bastard.”

“Tell me more,” he said.

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“You’re a tease.”

“Do you find Tish attractive?” she asked him.

“Pretty, but not my type,” he said.

“Are you thinking about her or me right now?” she asked, pressing down with her hips.

“You.”

“Good answer.”

The phone rang.

“God hates me,” Serena said, rolling to her left and studying the caller ID screen on the receiver. “Private call.”

“Wrong number.”

“Ignore it?”

“No, better get it.”

She groaned and picked up the phone. “What?”

The male voice on the line was honey-smooth and deep as a foghorn. The caller asked for Stride. Serena punched the speakerphone button and held the phone to Jonny’s mouth as she climbed back on top of him and worked awkwardly on his clothes.

“Stride,” he said impatiently. “Who is this?”

“I’m a friend of a friend.”

“My friends don’t call at three in the morning,” Stride snapped.

“I’m sorry for the time.”

“What do you want?”

“Do you know a man named Hubert Jones?”

Stride looked at Serena, who stopped what she was doing long enough to shake her head. “No,” he said.

“He knows you.”

“Oh?”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Have him call me at the office in the morning. My secretary can schedule an appointment.”

“You’ll need to be on the road by then.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hubert Jones is flying into O’Hare Airport in Chicago at noon. From there, he has an afternoon flight to South Africa via London. He’ll be away in Johannesburg on an academic fellowship for nine months. If you want to talk to him, it has to be tomorrow. In Chicago.”

“Why would I drop everything to meet a man I don’t know?” Stride asked.

“Like I said, he knows you. Look him up, Mr. Stride. See what kind of a man he is. Then come to Chicago. And come alone, no other police, okay?”

“I’m hanging up,” Stride said. “If Mr. Jones wants to talk to me, he can call me at the office.”

“He said to give you a message,” the man interjected quickly.

“What is it?”

“He said to remind you that the girl had secrets.”

Stride didn’t reply. Serena felt his muscles tense and his arousal vanish. The silence stretched out.

“Are you still there, Mr. Stride?”

“Yes.”

“Does that message mean something to you?”

“You know it does.”

“Will you come to Chicago?”

Serena looked at Jonny, puzzled.

“I’ll be there,” Stride said. “Tell me when and where.”

The caller rattled off a meeting place at O’Hare, then hung up. Serena dropped the phone on the sofa and folded her arms over her chest.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Who the hell is Hubert Jones?”

“I don’t know, but I need to get to the office early to find out,” Stride said. “Then I’m heading to Minneapolis to grab a flight to Chicago.”

“To chase a stranger?”

“To chase Dada,” he said.

I don’t like small planes,” Maggie announced, strapping herself into the white leather seat of Peter Stanhope’s Learjet 25. She tightened the seat belt until it nearly cut off the blood flow across her tiny waist. “Does this thing have oxygen masks? I bet you have to use little nose plugs.”

“Relax,” Serena said. “Pretend you’re rich.”

“I am rich,” Maggie reminded her.

“So why don’t you own one of these things?”

“Because I don’t like small planes!”

Serena laughed. “Don’t be such a baby. This is better than driving.”

“The only reason we’re not driving is because you don’t want to argue with me about the radio station.”

“We still have to rent a car in Fargo,” Serena said. “Dibs on country.”

“I have my iPod with me. We can listen to my Bon Jovi collection.”

“I have my iPod, too. Martina.”

“Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

“Alan Jackson.”

“White Zombie.”

“Shania.”

“Oh, please,” Maggie scoffed. “I don’t listen to any singer with bigger tits than me.”

“Doesn’t that pretty much rule them all out?” Serena asked.

Maggie stuck out her tongue.

Serena leaned her arm on the glossy wooden shelf beside her seat and stared out the window as the jet lined up on the Duluth runway. Beside her, Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingernails into the armrest. The plane accelerated with a roar and lifted at a sharp angle into the breezy air. The climb was bumpy, with the jet’s wings waggling like a shimmy dancer. Serena had flown in and out of Las Vegas so many times, riding the rocky thermals of the desert mountains, that turbulence no longer bothered her.

The plane headed straight west. Below them, she saw miles of forest dotted with jagged lakes, like the black footprints of retreating glaciers. Towns were thinly spread across the northern half of Minnesota. So were the roads and highways. Time passed quickly as the jet streaked over the land, crossing just south of the giant fingers of Leech Lake. Without clouds, Serena could see straight down. As they neared the western section of the state, the forested wilderness gave way to lush squares of farmland, ranging in color from muddy taupe to deep green, jutting up against one another like stripes in a flag.

They never climbed high enough to escape the unsettled pockets of air.

“This sucks,” Maggie told her.

“We’ll be there soon.” Serena changed the subject. “What’s the word on adopting a kid?”

Maggie exhaled loudly through her nose. “No one is very encouraging. Single Chinese chick cops need not apply.”

“You won’t know until you try.”

Maggie peeled her fingers off the armrest long enough to push her black bangs out of her eyes. “It’s not just that. I’m not sure I’m up to the job of raising a kid by myself. I don’t know if it would be fair to a kid. Plus, this thing with Mary Biggs really shook me up. Her parents threw everything into that girl. I don’t know if I’m ready to love anyone that much. I’m not ready to risk what it would do to me if something happened.”

“You can ‘what if’ yourself out of anything,” Serena said.

“Yeah, I know. Do you and Stride ever talk about it?”

“I can’t have kids.”

“I mean adoption.”

“I think the window has closed,” Serena said. “I grew up knowing my insides were messed up, so I never really developed the kid gene. Jonny says he’s too old. I don’t see it happening.”

“Do you think you’re missing something?”

“Sometimes.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Maggie said.

“Then you should do it.”

The plane lurched as they descended into Fargo. On the ground, they rented a car and headed south out of the airport, past the university and through the straight, tree-lined neighborhood streets toward downtown. They parked near the main library, which was located within a block of the curvy ribbon of the Red River, which served as the border between North Dakota and Minnesota and separated Fargo from its Minnesota twin, the city of Moorhead.