Chapter Two: Tomorrow's Hope
February 12th, 2018
I took the next week to gather my resources. I didn’t plan on being caught unawares this time around. Given the questionable cell phone service surrounding the entire area, I made sure to pack a set of walkie talkies and a CB radio to cover all of my bases. I packed multiple guns, all of which I felt comfortable taking apart in order to assess for electronic devices. Roach also procured a scanner that swept for bugs and other monitoring devices. I digitally uploaded and encrypted my research to my laptop, then swept the papers into the fire to be sure no one could track my thinking.
I started to pack the whiskey before deciding I needed to have all of my wits about me. I set it back on the shelf, contemplating whether Jamie might polish off the bottle before I returned home. After consideration, I hid the bottle in my closet behind the suit I last wore to my brother’s funeral.
I told Jamie immediately before I left. That might make me a coward, and I don’t deny I was dreading the repartee. He argued, but then let the issue peter out. I provided him with a burner phone and a list of numbers to contact if I went more than 72 hours without calling him. I think he was secretly relieved he didn’t have to return to the back asswards town he used to call home.
I had no idea where I was going to stay or who I could trust in that town. But I knew where I was headed first, and that’s all I needed to hit the road.
The drive wasn’t particularly interesting, though it was long enough that I wished I had a working radio in the old junker I had bought to replace my last ride. My mind fixated on the looming task ahead of me. In my head, a sort of chant took root, repeating over and over again: Find Vanessa. Bring her home. Find Vanessa. Bring her home. Where is home, though? Am I seriously adopting two kids and bringing them to the one bedroom apartment in my own rattrap city? Maybe getting her out will be enough. And then what? She’ll just run away into the sunset? I must be out of my goddamned mind.
*Find Vanessa. Bring her home. *
Contemplating my plan of attack passed the time, and I eventually was sliding into a parking spot in front of a small facility surrounded by a discreet eight-foot fence. The sign in front of it read “Tomorrow's Hope Assisted Care Facility.” The silence of the grounds gave me the creeps.
I made my way inside the building marked “Visitor’s Center,” where I stopped at the front desk and signed into the log labeled “Friends and Family.” Since there was no one manning the book, I took the opportunity to peruse the pages. I saw no entries for a Miranda Riggin. Color me surprised.
The place was as quiet inside as it was out--a testament to the calming presence of drugs and the threat of restraints. Everything was white--the walls, the floors, the desks. It creeped me the fuck out. I looked around for a bell or something to get a nurse’s attention, but didn’t see anything. I had to settle for calling out for help, and hearing my voice echoing off the pristine walls of the clinic. A middle-aged man with a white coat and stethoscope around his neck eventually appeared in the window behind the visitor’s desk. He buzzed me through after checking my id.
“Eric Riggin? Miranda has mentioned you once or twice.” The nurse/doctor gave me a once over, then leaned against the desk. “Any particular reason you’ve come to visit?”
Questions already. I don’t want to piss off the staff, but I had no doubt that he was going to report directly up the ladder to whomever was running the freakshow back at home base. I tried for a smile. “It’s been a while. I wanted to see how Miranda is doing. Are you her doctor?”
“We aren’t called doctors here. We prefer the term mental health providers. It levels the playing field a bit, don’t you think?”
I’ve been here for two minutes and I’m already getting my head shrunk. Why anyone would want to play anything with a bunch of crazies is beyond me, much less give away any advantage they might have. Whatever.
Get the facts. Find Vanessa. Bring her home.
“Can you point me in the direction of her room?” Small talk was over. I was here for a purpose, and I’m not going to cut my visiting hours short to play armchair patient with a guy who may not have even been a doctor.
“Of course. I’ll take you there myself.”
Goodie. Roomside service.
As we walked the halls, the not-doctor took a deep breath, then paused. “I’ll warn you that Miranda is not well. Though she seems entirely functional, a single word can send her into a paranoid delusion. I’ll ask that you limit your time with her to fifteen minutes or fewer.”
It wasn’t a request. We both knew it. Maybe he was trying to be nice, but I would have preferred a direct approach. We can’t always get what we want. I damn well intended on getting what I needed, though.
We arrived at her door. It seemed that for one second, he was going to accompany me inside. I squared my shoulders, preparing for a confrontation. Then he simply opened the door, and turned around to head in the direction we just came from. Not before repeating “fifteen minutes.” Asshole.
I let myself inside. It looked as though it were a tiny studio apartment, with a couch rather than a hospital bed and a door on the bathroom for added privacy. The white theme continued in here, though it was blessedly relieved by some calming blues and greens throughout the room. Miranda sat in a chair by the window that looked out over the grounds. She was reading. I quietly rapped on the door frame, and she looked up.
For one hot second, I saw an expression on her face I didn’t expect: relief. Why would she be relieved to see me? She didn’t like me before Donny died, and she sure as shit shouldn’t like me now. I walked up to her, unsure of what to do next. She didn’t rise. She just sat there… looking at me.
I had to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Her room had to be bugged. I didn’t want to reveal my hand too early. Fifteen minutes began to look overly generous. I blurted out the only thing I could think of.
“Miranda, you’re looking good.” She was. Her long blond hair was clean and her face, even without makeup, seemed younger than it ever had before.
“Cut the bullshit, Eric. What are you doing here?”
I started. Miranda had never been known for being direct, much less blunt. I guess the crazy brought it out in her. “I’m here to visit you. See how you’re doing.” And here I was, beating around the bush.
“Did they send you?”
“Who is they?”
“The agents. Did they send you?”
“No. They didn’t send me.”
“Did she send you?” I could only imagine she meant Vanessa.
“No. She’s missing.”
She started to laugh. “She’s been missing for years. But when I told people, they shipped me off to the crazy house.” She looked at me beneath her lowered lids. “Said I was coo-coo for cocoa puffs. But I knew she wasn’t mine.”
Triggering word my ass. Miranda didn’t need a word to harbor delusions. She lived them full-time. But maybe she had some information that would make this trip worth my while.
“How did you know she had been….replaced?”
“She didn’t act right. She cried more. She didn’t smell like my Vanessa. Didn’t breathe like my Vanessa. But no one believed me.”
I took a measured breath of my own. I didn’t know who I pitied more: Vanessa or Miranda. I tried again. “Has anyone else been replaced?”
“I don’t give a shit about anyone else. My baby is gone! She’s been gone for years, and no one will listen to me! The replacement thing has everyone fooled, and has convinced them all I belong here!” She was panting, her hands clenched in fists, nails digging into the palms.
I tried a different tactic. “Jamie seems well.” I didn’t want to say much more about Jamie. Didn’t want to let anyone who was listening in know where he might be.
She looked at me, blinked. Picked up her book again. I noticed it was a copy of an old-school Nancy Drew mystery. The Twin Dilemma. Are they trying to drive Miranda up a wall? I looked around the room a little bit harder this time. No tv. No clock. A bookcase full of books, mostly classics. Nothing sharp. Nothing with cords. But damaging things all the same. I walked over to a plastic vase full of fake flowers. Lilies. Miranda’s favorite. I couldn’t stomach them. Not since Donny’s funeral.
I leaned closer to Miranda, tried to get her attention. She ignored me, turning the pages. I tried one more time. “Hey, do you know anything about the woods behind that gas station on the edge of town?”
That got her attention. She slammed the book down and shot to her feet. Started screaming. “I knew you were with them! Always here, poking around, asking questions about that fucking gas station and those fucking woods! I have nothing for you. I know you stole my Vanessa!” She raised her hand as if to hit me, then stopped. Looked over my shoulder. “Hello, Lucas.”
The woo-woo doctor was back. He didn’t look happy. I didn’t give a shit.
“Time’s up.”
He escorted me back to the front lobby, where I signed out and headed to my car. I felt my pocket buzz--a sign that my car had been compromised, and knew even without that telltale signal that they had put plants on my ride.
When I first got started in this line of work, I maxed out every line of credit I had to buy the business from an old grizzled sack of bones named Bruce. He was a retired city beat cop, as salty as they come. When I say I “bought the business,” I’m not talking about the five-hundred square foot office and nineteen-eighties printer and fax machine. Those, I had to spring for separately. I mean I paid every last red cent for Bruce’s ongoing cases, list of contacts, and two months of “on the job” training, where he showed me everything he knew.
Bruce was street smart, the kind that comes from years of trial and error. At sixty-eight, he’d made more mistakes than I’d care to think about or experience first-hand. Luckily, my cold hard cash meant I was the recipient of Bruce’s hard-won pearls of wisdom without the requisite kicks to the head. He was the one who taught me that surveillance is a simple science. Spying works mostly the same way today as it did in the first world war. Simply put, if somebody doesn’t know they’re being watched, it’s a piece of cake.
Counter surveillance, on the other hand, is an art form. An investigator’s worst nightmare is a subject who knows the score. He used to say that if you catch somebody watching you, the secret is to treat it like growing mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them shit. I never thought I’d have the chance to act on his advice, but I’m glad I was taking notes.
I pulled out, then set my sights on the town where I was born and raised.
*Get facts. Find Vanessa. Bring her home. *
More time on the road meant more time to contemplate my next move. I had plenty of time for thinking when I returned back to New Orleans, and it was there I faced the fact that I had approached Vanessa’s disappearance like an amateur. I ran back to my hometown like it was a house on fire, never stopping to reflect on a plan of attack or how I was going to find her.
To be fair, that town is crazier than a shit house rat. But that’s beside the point.
This time, I might not know what was coming next, but I damn well would be prepared for as much of it as I could. I had Roach’s help, but in the back of my mind, a thought gnawed at me. Roger. I was going to have to see Roger again, and given the circumstances of our last meeting, I had no doubt he would be less than pleased to see me.
I’m many things. A self-absorbed asshole. A possible alcoholic. A smart alec. But I’m not a stone-cold killer. I don’t mind banging skulls together, but that is the extent of my abilities. I’ve killed in self-defense, but only when I had to. Roger should have known that. Maybe he had known that when he sent me in to take down Spencer. After all, Roger made it a point to know everything about everyone he came into contact with, and even more about the people he demanded favors of.
Which begs the question: why would Roger have sent me after Spencer? Was he hoping Spencer would kill me instead? Was he hoping I would get lucky--or angry enough? Did Roger want me dead?
And who was Roger working for?
I drummed at the steering wheel for a bit, considering the hireability of a pre-fabbed ventriloquist dummy. I purposefully avoided the question of who created him. Whether he was sentient or remote controlled. Don’t know. Don’t care. Some things shouldn’t be but are. Attempting to explain those things only raises more questions than it answers.
Should I try to contact Roger? Should I apologize? Where would I even find him? No. I’m not going to seek him out. It’ll just complicate things. If he wants to offer help--or wants to get rid of me--he’ll have to come to me first.
I had decided that the first place I wanted to go when I got to town was that shitty gas station. There’s something weird about that place, but the cashiers seem to be discreet. I wanted the spooks to know I was back in town, but didn’t want to be in the center of the action. Not yet, at least. Plus, if I’m being frank, I hadn’t been able to make a reservation for a motel, for obvious reasons.
So much for well-laid plans.
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Credits
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