Bea Cannon - A Small Gray Dot

“Who wants her?”

From the look on his face, he knew he’d said more than he should have, but the idiot defiantly plowed on.

“Somebody at the Semptor, that’s who. They’ll get her, too.”

“Who? Dr. Bennett?” I didn’t think that was likely, but…

“Nah, not him, our boss.”

“What’s your boss’s name?”

He looked at me as if he were trying to decide whether to tell me or not. I was about to give him some words of encouragement, when evidently he decided on “tell”, so he shrugged and said, “Julius Henderson.”

It was probably the same Henderson Morgan mentioned but I’d never heard the name. “Why?” I asked.

He looked at me with a blank face. “Why what?”

“Why does your supervisor want her?” I asked patiently.

“Oh. I don’t know.” He gave a slight shrug. “He said to get friendly with her and bring her to him, so I did.” He looked at her and smirked. “We got real friendly.”

Shit for brains. Or maybe it was because he was young and didn’t know any better. I’d started to hand the guard’s gun to Morgan but was glad I hadn’t. She might’ve shot him.

She stiffened and glared at him, and her pretty face grew ugly with outrage.

“You fucking jerk!” she yelled, pulling away from my hand. All I could see was a blur of purple as she threw one hand on a hip and commenced to shaking the other one at his face, and lit into him with many, many more words.

He leaned away from her wrath, his eyes stretched wide as he gawped up at her.

I think she actually scared him for a minute with the promise that if he smirked one more time she would de-ball him and feed them to her cat. Then his face turned red at one particular phrase that included the words “dickless, fake , motherfucker” (exclamation point) and the rather vehement statement that she’d had a better time with her vibrator (another exclamation point). The girl had a mouth. She even used a couple of terms I’d never heard.

I kept a straight face. I could understand her fury, and he definitely deserved it, but the night was cold and as educational and entertaining as her rant was, I didn’t have time to keep standing there, so after a minute, I caught her waving hand and tugged it, cutting off her tirade.

“Come on, Morgan. We have to go.”

She stopped cussing out Talbert and turned to me breathing hard. Her face was bright red and her lips tightened into a straight line but she jerked out a nod.

Talbert, his face also red, probably at some of the things she’d called him, and the guard who was sitting there with a stunned expression and an open mouth, watched in silence as we turned and headed back up Main.

BY THE TIME WE REACHED CARTER STREET, Morgan had cooled down, though her face was still tight. She had been silent while we walked but she finally spoke.

“Would you really have shot Ken, or that guard?”

I glanced down at her. “Yes.”

She raised an eyebrow and started to say something further but stopped and looked confused as I turned off Main and made for Dr. Bennett’s house. Realizing where we were going, she hung back, though she kept her grip on my fingers. She frowned.

“Why’re we coming back here, Mr. Smith? Dr. Bennett will see us and call his boss!”

“No, he won’t. He was as scared as you were, Morgan. I don’t think he knew about your abduction when his supervisor called him to say he was meeting Talbert at his house. At some point, though something raised his suspicions.” I smiled. “And, my name’s not Alvin Smith.”

“What?” She peered at me, eyes narrowed. “Who are you, then? Did my sister really send you to find me?”

We stepped up on the porch and before I could answer her or ring the bell, the door opened. Dr. Bennett stood there peering out at us. Smart man. He was watching and waiting for us. He looked relieved.

“Good. You’re as observant as I thought you were. Hurry, get in here!” he said as he hustled us in and closed and locked the door. He led us through the foyer and into his livingroom.

He indicated we should sit on the couch. As I checked out the room, I noted the surveillance monitor sitting on a stand in the corner. It had a split screen showing four different outside images. One was from the front of the house, another looked out on Main Street, another pointed toward the back yard, and the fourth showed the space between the doctor’s house and the one next door. The cameras had night vision. Very sophisticated. Only the rich could afford to have such a set up in these deteriorating times. Of course, judging by the size of his house, Dr. Bennett wasn’t poor.

“I wasn’t sure that you recognized me, sir,” I said to the doctor.

“Of course I recognized you. I have an eidetic memory,” he said as he lowered himself into a big armchair opposite us and settled back. “Do you know what that is?”

I nodded.

Morgan piped up, “I know what it is, Doctor. It means you remember things well.”

Dr. Bennett nodded. “You are nearly correct, young lady. However, it is not merely “well”. People with this type of memory remember things completely.” He smiled faintly. “It is useful but can sometimes be annoying as there are things one doesn’t always wish to recall.” He shrugged. “It is something with which I’ve learned to live. Now, Mr. Smith, I must tell you that when we noticed you on the monitor, I at first assumed that you were merely lost and remembered having made deliveries to this house, so when you started for my door, I thought you only wanted directions. Imagine my surprise when you asked about the young woman.”

Morgan sat forward. “Wait, Dr. Bennett. He says his name is not Alvin Smith. I want to know why he said it was and who he really is.” She turned to me, eyebrows raised.

I nodded. “My name is Tennessee Murray, and as Talbert said, I’m a tracker, and yes, your sister hired me to find you. I gave a false name because a number of people know my real one, and I couldn’t be sure the doctor, or whoever else might be here, hadn’t heard it.”

“Okay, I get that. So why did you bring me back here instead of taking me to Maddy?” She indicated the doctor with her head. “What if he’s in on whatever his boss wants me for? I mean, he let Ken in when we got here and all he said was this Henderson guy called and would be here to meet him as soon as he could. Then, when the man called back, the doctor told Ken that Mr. Henderson said to bring me to him. He didn’t act as if he was surprised about it and he never asked Ken what was going on, so I thought he knew and—”

“I repeat, Morgan. I don’t think he’s in on it, otherwise I would never have brought you back here. I came back because I want to talk to him to see if he can think of any reason why this man would want you.” I peered at the doctor.

The doctor cleared his throat and addressed Morgan, first. “My dear, believe me when I say that I did not have a part in your abduction. Indeed, I was not aware that you had been. That’s why when Talbert arrived with you, I left the two of you alone most of the time. I assumed that you were merely his latest conquest and that he brought you with him because he would be taking you home after his meeting with our supervisor. Indeed, I was unaware that Henderson was interested in seeing you. I was under the impression he was only to meet here with Talbert. It’s not usual for my supervisor to meet someone here but not unprecedented as he has done it twice before.

“I was surprised when Henderson called back and indicated that Talbert was to bring you to him and said he would send a guard along as an escort. Even then, I wasn’t aware of the circumstances. It was when Talbert made his threat, which he couldn’t have known I heard as I wasn’t in the room at the time, that I became suspicious, and indeed, alarmed. I realized at that point, that you were his unwilling companion. I was fearful he would do something reckless had he known I’d overheard what he said to you. As you can see, I am not a young man so it would have been foolish of me to confront him, still, had not Mr. Murray come by, I was prepared to contact the authorities as soon as you were gone. And, to his credit, when he arrived, it seems Mr. Murray saw that I was perturbed, just as he saw you didn’t want to be with Talbert.”