“Yes, and, when I knocked on her neighbor’s apartment, they basically shrugged and said that they hadn’t seen her in weeks anyway.”
“Meaning that she was staying all the time with her boyfriend?”
“I think so, yes. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t know if she sees me and avoids me or if it’s just the fact that our paths don’t cross, and that’s the way she likes it.”
“Interesting. Did you pay her fully?”
“I paid her up to the last day as per our agreement,” she said with a nod. “But I deposited the money into her account.”
“Do you have her account info?”
She looked at him in surprise and then sat up slowly and said, “Well, I’m sure I can find it. But I don’t have my phone.”
“And there was no laptop in your room, was there?”
She shrugged. “No, I forgot it at home. I could use one of your laptops to log on to my account though.”
“We found no purse either. Do the kidnappers have it?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. I don’t carry a purse usually. Not at home and not when traveling for sure.”
“So, did you always transfer funds for your previous assistant’s wages?”
“Sometimes I transferred, and sometimes I walked over and deposited a check.”
Keane stepped aside and said, “Here. You can use my laptop if you like.”
She walked over and sat down, then brought up a new page, logged into her bank account, and searched back by date. “Here it is,” she said. “I always put it in my notes when I do a transfer like this.”
He quickly read off the account number to Nico.
And, with that, she logged off and stepped away from the laptop. She walked to the window and stared out into the odd light outside. “It feels so surreal,” she murmured.
“Yeah, when you get into a scenario like this, it certainly leads you away from the mom-and-pop type of living that you were doing.”
“And I already lived a little bit on the left-wing,” she murmured. “I was trying to get out of all this. But …”
“When was the last time you attended a rally like that?”
“Two years ago in England,” she said. “That was just a little too violent for me too.”
“Did something happen there?” Nico asked, his voice sharp.
She turned to look at him and gave him a soft smile, then shook her head. “No, I was just thinking that all the rallies did were incite the people to get hotter about the issues. Change wasn’t really happening, and, if my job was to get the word out, then I had a better chance of doing that through my books.”
“Maybe,” he said in a noncommittal tone. “It does make you a little less visible on a personal level than speaking at rallies.”
“That was another consideration,” she said. She leaned against the window ledge and just looked at the city lights twinkling all around them. It was gorgeous, but, at the same time, she now knew that an underbelly of evil and nastiness she couldn’t even begin to contemplate was out there too. “Do you think the prisoner will be okay?”
“Not likely,” Keane said, not holding any punches. “If he’s visible and available, the mastermind behind this kidnapping will probably take him out. Otherwise he’ll be locked up for his crimes.”
“And the kidnapping? That’s only if I press charges, isn’t it?”
“And are you telling me that you wouldn’t?” Nico stared at her in astonishment.
She frowned at him. “I don’t really want to be part of a trial on another spectacle like that.”
“Another spectacle?”
“You know what I mean,” she said irritably. “They’d make a case like mine blow up, and it would be a zoo. Honestly, I’m pretty well done with being a physical public figure.”
Just then another buzz went off. She glanced at them. “You guys make more noise …”
“No,” he said, “not anymore.”
She watched as they quickly packed up. And then she realized they were leaving. “Now?”
He nodded. “Now.”
With his bag collected, he reached out a hand, and instinctively she placed hers in it.
“This is becoming a habit,” she joked.
“Which part’s a habit? Holding hands or moving from place to place under the cover of darkness?”
“Both,” she said. “I don’t mind the first, but the second one sucks.”
At that, Keane gave a peal of shallow laughter. “He’s single and available, so you can keep doing the hand-holding thing.”
She rolled her eyes at him. They were already outside and in the hallway. But, once they got to the stairs, they climbed and climbed and climbed. She took several deep breaths at one of the landings and asked, “How much farther?”
“Just a few more,” Nico said patiently as he stood two steps above, waiting for her.
“Are we going to the roof or something?”
“Or something,” he said with a nod.
She stared at him in surprise, then gave a head shake and quickly gathered up her energy and followed. When they came to the door at the very top and entered onto the roof, she laughed. “You weren’t kidding.” But then she saw the helicopter, sitting there, waiting for them. It was off, and the rotors were still. “Is there a pilot for that thing?”
“Yeah,” Nico said. “Me.” They walked over, and he quickly helped her up into the side, then looked over at Keane. “Might need you up front.”
“Yeah,” Keane said.
Nico hopped into the front, put on his headset, and started up the engine. “What I don’t have is any navigational markers for where we’re going,” Nico said.
She leaned forward from the back seat. “Are you saying that you don’t know where we’re flying to?”
“Oh, I know where we’re flying to,” he said. “The trouble is, our destination’s on the move too.”
And, with that, he laughed and slowly navigated the helicopter into the night.
Nico was never happier than when he was flying, unless maybe when on a big ship. He was definitely an air and sea boy, and it didn’t matter to him which. He’d picked up his helicopter license when he was quite young, and
