He found the street and began to follow it, searching for the addresses on the occasional buildings he drove past. Which was easy because traffic was as backed up on this street as it had been everywhere else.
From his calculations, he had about ten more blocks to go before the address he was looking for would be found. At the pace he was driving, it would be dark by the time he got there. It wasn’t like anyone was waiting on him, he just wanted to scope out the place. After dropping off Betty, he’d gone to the hotel and called LeRoy. Something had crossed his mind while watching Dryer sluice for gold this morning. Greed. For some men, the more they had, the more they wanted. It made men do many things. That had to be what was driving Elkin, and LeRoy confirmed something else. Elkin had applied for a supervisory position, which he hadn’t gotten, and within a few months, the leaks had started to happen.
He let out a long sigh; all this driving, all this wasted time, was giving him far too much time to think. About all sorts of things. Including Betty. He didn’t want her worrying. Did not. Worry didn’t do anyone any good. It was a waste of time.
So was all the denying he’d been doing. He’d been trying to fool himself into believing that he’d never cared about anyone or anything. It had worked for years. But not any longer. Betty had opened something inside him that had been hidden away, as if he’d had a trunk inside him as solid as the one on the back of his car, as dark and big, too, and unopenable without the key.
Betty had the key.
She’d used it, too.
Damn it.
He’d liked the delusion he’d had for years. It had served him well. His belief that caring about anyone didn’t fit into his lifestyle.
He cared about her. There was no doubt about that. He couldn’t even say how it happened. It just had. Like a shooting star. No one knew where or why, but suddenly it was there, shooting across the sky, leaving a fizzling light in its trail, for a moment so brief, unless you were watching, you wouldn’t see it. Could only be told about it.
That was what had happened. Had been happening for a while, but he hadn’t been listening, or had been pretending he was deaf. It wasn’t just the way she made him feel; it was things she made him remember. The other kids at the orphanage, how he’d stolen food for them, because he’d cared about them.
Whether he now accepted that, knew it all to be true, it didn’t change anything. He still had to walk away, move on to his next assignment because there was nothing else he could do. Because if he didn’t, he’d have to look at other aspects of his life that he’d been fooling himself about for years.
He’d spent too long convincing himself that he didn’t care about anyone or anything, not even about being an experiment. He couldn’t accept that had been false, because if he did, his entire life was false.
Ultimately, that would mean, he was not who he was. A loner. A rolling stone. Someone who didn’t want a home, a family.
The traffic had dissipated substantially as he’d driven the last few blocks. Though there was still a massive amount of railroad tracks, there were no more large loading docks for trucks to pull in and out of. There were mainly long lines of empty railcars and old buildings. Dilapidated and abandoned from the looks of most of them.
It appeared the road he was on also came in from the north, and he was in the midst of telling himself that was what he should have done, come in along the coastline, when a car caught his eye. A Chevrolet. Exactly like the one Lane drove.
The car was driving toward him, but turned quickly, and drove past a long line of old delivery trucks.
Henry’s instincts flashed a signal. A familiar one, like a lighthouse beacon, flashing out of sync in order to warn ships to be cautious of pending weather. He stepped on the gas and turned where the Chevrolet had turned, scanning for where it had gone.
He found it stopped on the far side of the trucks, and hit the gas again when he noticed Lane stepping out of the driver’s door.
His tires skidded on the gravel, spewing dust as he hit his brakes next to Lane’s car.
“I’m glad to see you,” Lane said.
Henry threw open his door. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for my wife, and her sisters,” Lane said, slamming his car door.
Henry stepped out of his car as a thousand curses raced through his mind, as did images. “What are they doing here?” That was a stupid question. He knew the answer, so he changed his request to “Tell me what you know.”
“Patsy’s car is parked next to the old depot I just drove past,” Lane said. “No one’s in it.”
Henry reached in his car and pulled his service pistol out from beneath the seat. Tucking it in the front of his pants, he said, “Let’s go find them.”
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t think we should go down there,” Betty whispered to her sisters while looking down the steep set of stone steps that led to a dark space beneath the depot. The dank, musky smell gave her a sinking feeling in her stomach and made the hair on her arms stand on end.
“This could be it,” Jane said. “Where the mole is hiding the goods. Maybe that’s why Henry called us.”
“I know,” Betty said, with both hands on her stomach. The address she’d been given last night was for this, an old depot building. She hadn’t even wanted to get out of the car, but as Jane had said, Henry had called them. “But I don’t think he’d want us going down there.
