Reading to Amber was one of Gavin’s most treasured memories, and apparently it was one of Amber’s too. Because she’d held on to at least one of the books. For all these years.
Gavin held it in his hands.
He stepped back to the sectional, clutching the tiny book. The cover was slightly sticky, a child’s possession, read at night with a flashlight while eating surreptitious candy that sullied the fingers, sullied the cover.
He stared at it now, sitting between his knees, held between both his hands.
It had hit him like a punch seeing both of their handwritings within the front cover, his and that of a childhood version of Amber. And he didn’t know if he could take another blow.
But he also clearly remembered how much Amber used to write in her books. Little notes. Underlinings. Highlights. Gavin had never been a fan of marking up a book, something he viewed as destructive and potentially changing the author’s original intent. But he had never discouraged Amber, a young, plucky, would-be gumshoe. So he knew that if he turned the pages, he would see more evidence of young Amber in the form of her notes.
He wanted to.
But he didn’t know if he had the strength.
He opened it anyway.
And there they were, just as he remembered. Amber’s little musings.
What does this mean?
What is a buoy?
I like this!! So funny
He continued turning, saw his own name.
Uncle Gavin says I should look this up
He turned the page.
Kara is so COOL!!!
He flipped another page.
And stopped.
Something peculiar.
There was another one of her excited notes…
Oh no!! Kara is in trouble!
…and beneath it was a line of adult handwriting.
But this time the adult handwriting wasn’t his own.
He recognized it from the sticky note Jonah and his associate, Brett, had shown him earlier in the day.
It was Amber’s adult handwriting…
And the message was alarming.
I think I might be in trouble.
Chapter Fourteen
A perky, chipper little coffee shop/Internet café wasn’t the sort of destination that Jonah would have expected from Brett, this tall, unsmiling, violent, mysterious man who Jonah was beginning to think was some sort of spy or assassin rather than a private detective.
The place was a bit bigger than Jonah’s own coffee shop, seating maybe thirty people, which made sense given its dual purpose as an Internet café. He admired what they’d done with the place, a contrast to Roast and Relax, to which Jonah and his business partner had given a retro vibe. The aesthetic of this place fell somewhere between a Starbucks and the romanticized, deceivingly perfect coffee shops in primetime sitcoms. Quirky paintings, shelves with knickknacks, and a random guitar adorned the walls, one of which was olive green, the others light tan. Copper ceiling. Wooden, two-seat tables. Everything had a glowing, golden, earthy feel, except for one contrasting table, bright blue with white chairs. Along the far wall were several computer stations, Brett and Jonah’s purpose for entering.
They soon found themselves at one of the seven matching Macintosh computers. Jonah took a sip of his latte and watched as Brett hunched over the computer, squinting at the monitor. Beside him on the wooden counter was a steaming mug of regular coffee, black. Jonah would have thought that Brett would look out of place here, but his chic clothes and, surprisingly enough, his demeanor fit right in.
It’s funny how places seem to adapt to people.
Jonah pulled his stool closer to Brett’s, looked at the screen.
Brett had a program open, Netscape browser, a portal to the World Wide Web. The website that he’d accessed was Yahoo! search engine.
Brett dragged the mouse, bringing the cursor into the search field, clicked, then started typing. He used both hands, all fingers, in proper typing form, not pecking with two fingers as Jonah had noticed so many people over thirty doing. In the search field appeared:
“ray beasley” orlando
Again Jonah was impressed. Brett had Internet search savvy; he knew that placing search terms within quotation marks joined the contained words into one term, a better way of getting relevant, precise results.
A list appeared on the screen—hyperlinks with descriptions—and among them was an old police article from the archives of the Orlando Defender.
Police Apprehend Four in Late Night Raid
Brett clicked the link, which brought up the Defender’s website. The article was from 1986. Jonah leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the screen, but before he could, Brett was already dragging the scroll bar on the side of the screen, the text flying by, getting a rapid-fire assessment of the article.
A moment later, Brett brought the cursor to the top of the screen, highlighted the URL. But instead of typing a new URL, he began entering a long streak of numbers. His fingers moved rapidly, no hesitation, which meant he had this long number committed to memory. Jonah stopped counting after twenty digits.
“What’s that you’re entering? It’s not a URL.”
Brett didn’t respond.
“Do you have this number memorized?”
Brett didn’t respond.
Jonah’s mind flashed to his thoughts moments earlier, those of Brett being something quite more than a private detective. He thought of the card Brett had handed him at their introduction. It had said he belonged to an “organization.” No further clarification. Just an “organization.”
Who was this guy?
And what the hell had Jonah gotten himself involved in? This secretive organization that—if it even existed—claimed to have a mission of helping people in need.
People like Jonah.
Which brought about another thought, one Jonah had been trying to deny.
The cause for his need.
Amber was dead.
He’d already processed the grief. A little less than two months ago. Not long after she disappeared. He’d known she was gone; he’d felt it in his bones.
And yet…
He refocused on the screen.
When Brett finished entering the long number and pressed return, a strange website appeared. In fact, it looked more like a piece of software than a website. Like the back end of a bank’s computer network.
Or a governmental system of some sort…
Just a
