answer the door. She didn’t take the snub personally. To show no hard feelings, she let herself in by way of a lock pick and made herself at home. But once she got inside, her worst fear became a reality. Seth Harper was nowhere to be found, and there was no trace of him, not a speck of proof that he’d even been there.
No trash. No scraps of paper. Nothing. She even hit the redial button on the suite phone and got 411 information. The place was as pristine as if no one lived there at all. Harper was a damned ghost. She thought about staking out the place to see if he came back, but she knew he’d cleared out for good.
“Damn it, Seth. Who the hell are you?”
Jess tried his phone again, but only got voice mail. This time she left a message, though she didn’t give her SOS much chance of getting to him. Being in the dumper had become a full-time job for her, and she’d never felt so low.
After getting into her car, she drove to her favorite breakfast joint to grab some coffee and read the newspaper for more on Baker’s murder.
Nothing like a little murder over easy with a side order of bacon and home fries at Red’s Grill, a little hole in the wall joint off I-55 on South Kedzie Avenue. She’d discovered the place during a stakeout three years ago. Decent food priced cheap, and patronized by corrections officers, local cops, and the folks they should have been monitoring. A real microcosm of the universe.
Sitting in a booth, she was nearly done with the paper, saving the funnies for last, when her cell rang. She recognized the number.
“Please tell me you’re gonna make my day.”
“First things first. Did you find Harper?” Sam asked.
“No. Not even a precious hair off his thick skull. And I’ve left messages for him on his cell. Nothing. I think he pulled a rabbit on me.”
“Well, then maybe what I’ve got will lift your spirits. I don’t know what this means, but it doesn’t exactly suck.” Sam had an edge of excitement to her voice.
“Go on. Try me, babe. I could use some good news.”
“Chief Keller announced this himself at our shift briefing. You better sit down.”
“Enough with the buildup already.” Jess rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“We got a missing person bulletin today. Get this. There’s a missing girl from Anchorage and they think she’s in Chicago. She flew in yesterday. That’s too much coincidence for us to ignore, Jessie.”
She grinned. She couldn’t help it. “I knew it.”
“Yeah well, don’t get all worked up. I mean, on the surface it gives me a pretty good idea you were right about Baker’s e-mail on that delivery from Alaska, but we need more than a hunch to point a finger at a dead guy. Allegedly speaking, you didn’t happen to keep a copy of that pilfered e-mail, did you?”
“No. Harper’s got it, allegedly.” She heard the sigh on the other end of the line. “So what do we do now?”
“It would be nice to get our hands on that laptop and find a direct link to Baker, but that’s not likely to happen. For all we know, someone in the crowd stole the computer before the cops got to the murder scene. If that happened, we may never find it.”
She knew Sam was right. The laptop was a long shot, especially with Harper going missing. But when Jess hit the lowest point of her morning, feeling like she’d been dumped back at square one, Sam came up with something new.
“Look, I got an idea, but I think I should pursue it on my own. If you get involved and Garza hears about it, you’re toast.”
“Spill it, Coop. What’s your idea?”
“Chief Keller mentioned the missing girl, Nikki Archer, has relatives who flew into town this morning from Alaska. They’re staying at a hotel in Oak Brook. Get this—she’s the niece of a former pro football quarterback, Payton Archer. They said he used to play here in Chicago, but I’ve never heard of him, have you?”
It took Jess a while to place it, but the name eventually rang a bell—and not in a good way.
“Yeah, I remember him. Media blitzed the guy, but as I recall, he deserved the abuse. He had an ego the size of Alaska coupled with a drinking problem. That’s a nasty combo when you fuel the fire with the kind of money those jocks get paid.”
She added one more thing to her recollection. “And from what I remembered, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“Boy, that sounds familiar.”
“Hey, watch it.”
“Well, I’m playing a hunch of my own, Jess. I volunteered to be Archer’s contact here at CPD. I’m working the case with him while he’s here, see if it goes anywhere. It might be worth a shot.”
“You what? Why would you want to saddle yourself with an egotistical media junkie like Payton Archer? He’s nothing but a prima donna in a jock strap with a penchant for grandstanding. The guy practically turned trash talk into an art form.”
“It’s my time to waste, and the damage has been done. I’ve already been assigned to the Archer missing person case. End of discussion. I’m heading to meet him now. He’s staying at the Marriott in Oak Brook.”
“Well, you just keep Jockboy away from me. Someone like Archer could be a real distraction that I don’t need right now. Don’t get me wrong. Chasing down one poor kid is a good thing, Sam, but Baker had a much bigger gig going on. And that, I’d like to sink my teeth into.”
“Guess you’ll have your hands full with chasing Harper.” Sam’s voice turned somber. “But Jess, if anyone at CPD gets wind of you nosing around Baker’s business again, it’ll get back to Garza. And he doesn’t need much of an excuse to haul you in. Don’t make it easy for him.”
“I swear.” Jess put cash on the table for her tab with the phone crooked against her shoulder. “I’ll behave myself.”
“Oh God, this is gonna get worse before it gets better. I just know it.”
“O ye of little faith.” Jess chuckled as she slid out of the booth and headed for her car. “Like things have been going good till now? How much worse could it get?” She scrunched her face. “Wait, don’t answer that, but I could use a favor.”
She asked if she could use Sam’s home computer and phone to search for Seth Harper. She had a spare key and needed a place to work since Baker had trashed her own computer. But mostly, she didn’t want to make it easy for Detective Garza to find her.
After Sam agreed, Jess ended the call with her mind tumbling around ideas on how to track down Harper. Hell, she was a Fugitive Recovery Agent. If she couldn’t find one scrawny but cute intern, she might as well land a real job. Nine-to-five.
“Yeah, right,” she said to herself. “That’ll happen.”
CHAPTER 13
Seth Harper was an enigma. Jess realized she hadn’t been far off the mark when she imagined him to be nothing more than a ghost. After conducting searches on his background from Sam’s home computer—queries she hadn’t felt the need to do when she hired him—she came up with a series of dead ends. The kid lived off the grid, a move that appeared deliberate.
He had no history of utilities registered in his name. His cell phone had been prepaid. He had no current or prior address. No credit cards. And amazingly, she struck out with DMV and insurance queries too. Even the schools he listed on his employment application had no information under the name Seth Harper. To dig deeper, she needed time and out-of-the-box thinking.
“Who the hell are you, Harper?”
She wasn’t any closer to finding her man, the guy who could serve as her alibi and help put her back on the track of Baker’s missing laptop. But as a plan B began to form in her mind, her cell phone rang. When she looked at the display, no name came up and she didn’t recognize the phone number. Taking a chance, she answered it anyway.
“I sure hope you’re not a waste of my time.”
