Emma didn’t answer because she didn’t know where home was anymore.
“Emma?”
She remained silent.
“Sweetheart, do you want us to fly there and get you?”
A long silence passed, Emma felt warm tears flow.
“No. I’ll come back.”
The next morning, Emma’s jet lifted off from LAX to Denver with a connection to Cheyenne. As she gazed down at the eternal urban sprawl she felt so small.
So lost.
And so alone.
She reached into her bag and touched Tyler’s stuffed bear. As the plane climbed into the sky she was suddenly lying on the road again in Wyoming, reaching for her husband’s hand.
I don’t know if I can do this alone, Joe. Help me find him.
48
Rabat, Morocco
I’ve been sent a package from a dead man.
The thought raced through Jack Gannon’s mind as he locked his hotel-room door, then tore open the yellow padded envelope from Adam Corley.
What he found inside was a small camel.
It was a beautiful object a bit larger than Gannon’s palm. According to the tag affixed with a gold tassel to its neck, it had been carved from walnut wood by an artist in Essaouira, a town along the Atlantic coast.
Gannon also found a handwritten note in the envelope. “Jack: a gift to help you remember Morocco -Adam C.”
Nothing else.
Gannon sat at the desk, puzzled.
Why did Corley send him this and when? He turned it over, running his fingers along its smooth surface. It was almost blood red with nice, overlapping grain. Its meaning was a mystery that Gannon was pondering when his phone rang. He placed the carving in his computer bag then answered.
“Mr. Gannon, this is the concierge. As you requested, we’ve looked into flights. You can depart Rabat early tomorrow morning on an Air France flight to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle, where you will connect to New York for arrival at JFK late in the evening.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Would you like us to confirm it on your credit card, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Very well, we’ll slide the ticket under your door later and arrange for a taxi for 6:45 a.m.”
After hanging up, Gannon turned on his laptop. Among his e-mails were several from Oliver Pritchett in London and Melody Lyon in New York. Her most recent one asked, Haven’t heard from you-what’s happening?
It gave him pause.
How could he begin to answer her?
Well, other than being abducted, stripped and tortured, not bad.
Gannon decided it best to call Melody but when he reached for his phone, he started shaking. He ran his hand over his face.
Somehow the world felt different.
He felt different.
Now he understood why some assault victims refused to talk. The humiliation of the violation was overwhelming and it brought back images of Rio de Janeiro and the drug gang drilling a gun into his mouth, pulling the trigger on an empty chamber.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen to guys like me. I’m a blue-collar nobody who grew up in Buffalo. I don’t need this crap. Maybe I should find a job at some safe suburban weekly.
Maybe I don’t have what it takes.
Shut up! Suck it up. You asked for this, Gannon. You yearned to work for the WPA. Well, you got your wish, pal. Don’t forget, Gabriela Rosa and Marcelo Verde paid with their lives for this story. So did Maria Santo, and now Adam Corley. Remember what Melody said-Find the truth, no matter where it leads. This is how we will honor the dead.
Gannon collected himself and started an e-mail to Melody Lyon.
A source was murdered before we met. I was questioned by police. I’m now on my way back to NYC with more crucial information. I’m okay. I’ll discuss it with you in New York.
After he sent the e-mail his body shook again.
Maybe if he just talked to somebody, somebody he trusted. He pulled out his wallet for a Buffalo number. It took a few seconds for the overseas connection to go through.
“Clark Investigations. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
In that moment, Gannon pictured his friend Adell Clark, a divorced former FBI agent who ran a one-woman private detective agency out of her modest Parkview home in Lackawanna where she lived with her daughter. A few years back, Clark had been shot in an armored-car heist at a strip mall in Lewiston Heights. He’d profiled her, and they’d become friends and had many heart-to-hearts. Adell knew him better than he knew himself.
Could he bear to tell her what happened?
The message cue beeped.
No. Not now.
He hung up and dragged his hands across his face, then started packing. He was nearly done when his phone rang again.
“Jack, Pritchett in London. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“You know what happened to Adam?”
“Yes.”
“It’s bloody horrible, the British Embassy called his father and he called us. Did you see him before he was killed?”
“No, but I was at his house after it happened. The police questioned me.”
“Do they know who’s behind it? Did they arrest anybody?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Christ, this has to be linked to the intelligence he was gathering. You have to be careful, Jack. This is terrible.”
Gannon glanced toward his computer bag.
“Oliver, something odd happened. I got a package from Corley at my hotel.”
“What?”
“Obviously he sent it before our meeting. It’s a small hand-carved camel.”
“Did he send a note with it?”
“A small one, it said, ‘Jack: a gift to help you remember Morocco -Adam C.’ What do you think it means, given we hadn’t even met?”
“Knowing Adam, it’s more than a gift. I can’t tell you what, exactly. Hang on to it. Were there any documents with it, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Adam was supposed to send me a full report on what he’d learned from his sources and from his trip to Libya, but I haven’t received anything.”
“Maybe he dropped it in the snail mail to you?”
“I don’t know. This whole thing is very bad. Jack, get out of there. It’s too dangerous for you. Equal Globe
