Fourth Birth: The Oakmont Saga, Book 1

“Mel, wake up,” I heard, and felt Aliyah shaking me. I was having yet another bad dream, as if I had anything else. I was actually thankful she woke me up. It was worse than normal and she saved me, both in the dream and from it.

“What,” I exclaimed, but not with any force.

“Someone’s out there…watching,” she said.

My eyes popped open, but they felt like I had sand in them. They were burning and I could barely get my limbs working.

“Who is it?” I asked, trying to sit up.

“It’s cops, but I don’t want to try and probe too deep to find out why they’re here. I’m afraid of hurting them.”

“Are they doing anything?”

“Nope, just sitting in their cars.”

“How many are there?” She paused for a little while, like she was in thought.

“I think there are three.”

“And they’re just sitting there?”

“Yep.”

“They’re probably just taking a break or something,” I stated, sure that was what it was and wanting to go back to sleep, even though I knew I’d have more nightmares.

“Maybe, but every time one of them leaves, another comes to take his place,” she told me. That was definitely weird, but I was still too groggy to put any real thought into it. I needed a shower to help wake me up, since I was obviously going to get up now.

I grabbed my pack, and stuck my hand down in it. The clothes were packed very neatly and tightly in the bottom. There were three different outfits, and all of them were skirts with leggings. Why didn’t he give me any jeans, or at least some kind of pants?

The one on the top was actually very pretty though. It was a plaid skirt, with a lot of darker blues in it. There was a dark blue sweater to go with it and dark blue leggings. It was a very nice outfit, even if it wasn’t pants.

Grabbing the outfit in its little baggie, which came complete with underwear, I headed to the shower and performed my normal ritual. It took a little while to undo the braids, plastered together with dried blood, as they were, but the water and shampoo helped.

Aliyah didn’t come rescue me this time, so I sat in there for a very long time, cowering on the bottom of the bathtub. The memory from last night played through my mind, along with everything else. I had put Aliyah in danger, thanks to my stupidity and my need for the drugs.

I always hoped some revelation would come from these times, but it never did and I continued to feel dirty and worthless. Now, I was even worse, since I knew I had put her in danger and that I had to leave Aliyah sometime soon. I’d also never get to see Momma and Daddy again, or my brother Ben and I’d possibly killed some guy or at least made him a vegetable. There was also the people last night, who might be dead or vegetables. I might be responsible for murdering as many as five people now.

On top of all that, I now knew without a doubt that I was a druggie. I knew what my problem was, but I also knew I didn’t want to fix it. If anything, I wanted to embrace it with everything I had. It was the best I’d felt in a very long time, if not my entire life. I needed to get back there, somehow.

Pulling myself out of the shower, I got dressed, then left the bathroom to brush my teeth in the vanity area. Finally, I started brushing my hair. Thankfully, Mr. Ciansa actually thought to put a hairbrush in my pack. I imagined he put one in Aliyah’s pack as well, but this was the first time I’d needed to use it and didn’t even know it was there until I dug down for my clothes and found it, along with other hygiene items.

What really shocked me was a baggie with a stack of twenty dollar bills. I had no idea how much money was there, but it was more than I’d ever seen before. I stuffed it back in the pack and finished repacking.

Once done with everything, I admired myself in the mirror. In this outfit, I was actually pretty, just like Mrs. Renault said I was. Maybe I wasn’t so ugly, at least not on the outside. Of course, I was definitely beginning to look a bit skeletal.

Aliyah was done with her shower by the time I was done getting ready. She quickly brushed her hair and teeth. As I turned to look at her, I was amazed at how beautiful she was. She was absolutely stunning. How on earth did she think I was prettier than her?

Her outfit was the same pattern as mine, but with darker purples instead of blues. The colors brought out her eyes in an incredible way. It was really amazing.

Tearing myself from looking at her, I started to push my winter clothes into my pack and stopped. “Why’d you stop?” Aliyah asked, at my sudden change when I started pulling them back out.

“We should leave in our winter gear, just in case they really are watching for us. If they are, we can shed the winter gear someplace and pack it in the packs. We’ll also have to get new packs, if that’s true, but we’ll see about that later, if it’s even needed.”

She looked very skeptical, but followed my lead. Pretty quickly, we were back in our winter gear, which was much too warm. The door close behind us as we left. We walked as normally as possible around the back side of the building, and headed for an alley on the other side.

Sure enough, two of the cars started moving, one in each direction. Although I still couldn’t be certain they were after us, there sudden movement was very suspicious.

We made it to the alley and slipped in, before they got near us. There were a lot of houses, all of them really close together. Hoping to lose the cops, we turned between two houses and squatted down behind some kind of storage box.

“Can you sense them?”

“Yeah, but not very good. I’m still kinda new at this,” she told me. I only nodded in response since it was better than I could do.

“The one coming down this road has moved past,” she said, and we made our break, although we didn’t run. That would be a little too obvious, not that our white, heavy winter gear wasn’t.

After a little while, we saw a mall not far away, so we headed there, hoping we could lose the cops inside. There were plenty of bushes and cars, so we moved between all of them, hoping to hide a little better, even though our stark white coats and snow pants made us stick out pretty bad.

“Are they close?”

“I’m not sure. There’re too many people.” Although her skill was very useful, it had too many shortcomings. At least right then it did. Maybe it’d get better as she got more used to it, but that wouldn’t help us at the moment we needed it.

We made our way into the mall, looking a bit out of place in heavy winter coats and snow pants, when it was probably no colder than the mid-40s outside, if that cool. Several people looked at us, but they kept moving along.

As soon as we were in the mall, we steered toward one of those ‘Employee Only’ doors that I thought was like a service corridor. My belief was confirmed as we entered the very stark hallway. There was exposed wall board and grey metal doors, the length of the hall. It echoed slightly in there and felt cool and dry.

We walked down the corridor until we came to a stairwell and headed to the bottom. Getting under the stairs, into a kind of small hidden cubby underneath, we both removed our winter gear and shoved it, with a good deal of effort, into our packs. I didn’t want to get rid of it, since we might need it again.

Once done, we put the packs back on and headed into the mall. There were a lot of closed up stores in the mall, but wandering around, we found an outdoor type sporting goods store and went in. The place was like a super-sized grocery store, but there was only hunting, fishing, camping and gear for those type of outdoor activities.

We made a direct path to the camping/hiking section, which was where I thought the packs would be. We weren’t there more than a minute before a woman came to us smiling, looking for our parents.

“How can I help you girls?”

“We’d like to replace these packs with something that can carry a little more and look a little prettier,” I told her.

“I don’t know that you two could carry much, regardless of what the pack is capable of. You should limit the amount of weight, based on your size,” she said after eyeing both of us for a moment.

However, she pulled a couple of packs off the shelf, handing a blue one to me and a purple one to Aliyah. “These match your outfits quite nicely, even though I doubt you’ll be wearing those very pretty outfits when you go hiking,” she said, with a friendly smile.

“Will they hold more stuff? Our stuff isn’t heavy, but it takes up a lot of space,” I told her.

“Looking at the packs you have, I would say you’ll get a tiny amount more storage, but not much, not for a pack that’s going to fit you girls,” she replied.

“Do you like them?” I asked Aliyah.

“Yes. They’re pretty,” she said, admiring the purple pack with undisguised admiration.

“Where do we pay for them?” I asked.

“I can take them to your Mom or Dad, if you want,” she said.

“No thank you. We’ll be okay,” I promised.

“Alright. The checkout is by the entrance,” she said, and I remembered seeing it, now that I thought about it. Although she let us walk away with the packs, she watched us as we went to the checkout area.

Putting the packs on the desk, the guy behind the counter scanned both of them and mouthed, “That comes to $225.67.” I didn’t realize how expensive backpacks were, but if this worked, it was worth it, especially since it wasn’t our money anyway.

Digging into my pack, I grabbed the bag of money and pulled it to the top. I quickly opened it and got 12 twenty dollar bills, handing them to the man. Once I was done putting the change in the baggie, I sealed everything back up and looked up at him.

“Thank you very much,” I said, with as happy a smile as I could manage on my face.

“You’re welcome. Thank you for shopping with us. Have a great day and a merry Christmas.” I forgot it was getting into Christmas season, which meant it was also Chanukah season, unless I missed it already.

We left the outdoor store and returned to the hiding spot under the stairs. Once there, we made short work of exchanging our stuff from one pack to the other, trying to repack it all exactly how it came out.

Leaving the almost military looking white packs, we headed back into the mall. Although I was sure we looked funny with loaded backpacks and wearing preppy looking clothes, at least it wasn’t as bad as the white packs and the snow gear.

In the mall, we found a public bus map and information stand. Both of us looked at the map intently. We were a little south of Seattle, in a town called Kent. This little stand was a wealth of information, as it had all of the local public transportation, as well as the ferry system. The ferry system was how I could get to Alaska. Even if I could never go to my actual home again, I could still return to the area I called home. I didn’t know where else to go.

Now with a plan beginning to form in my mind, we headed to the bus loading area outside. “There’s a cop nearby,” Aliyah said, as she grabbed my arm, stopping me.

“Maybe he won’t notice us. We’re not wearing the snow gear and our packs aren’t white anymore. Maybe we could try and merge with some people as they get on the bus,” I suggested to her, which she nodded agreement to. With her agreement, I realized we’d need money for the bus.

Taking my pack off, I reached in and pulled out the change from the camping store. We tried to get close to a couple that looked like they were together, and seemed to be headed to the bus stop. Coincidentally, both of them were wearing those fanny packs, which made them look like tourists. That was perfect for us to blend in with.

As we climbed on the bus, I watched closely as each person put a coin into a machine at the top of the entry stairs. The couple ahead of us handed the driver money and he gave them a token in return, which they put in the machine. After they were through, I handed the driver a five and he gave me a little over a dollar back and two tokens, which I inserted into the slot.

The route I chose took us to Alaska Junction, and seeing Alaska in the name, I jumped at it. The trip was a bit long, but not too bad, and this bus was going there. We were let off at the intersection of Alaska St. and California Ave. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind and we were deep in the heart of Seattle. I was completely lost, and getting scared and confused, my mind not giving me anything anymore. Aliyah was being silent, but I knew she was questioning why we were in this place and probably my poor judgement for coming here.

We walked to a mall near the bus stop. It was early, so there weren’t any kids wandering around, which made us stick out again, but no one said anything. Becoming rather paranoid, I watched as a cop passed by on the other side of the road.

Once he passed, we walked to the mall, and I went straight to a bench, dropping onto it. I was tired, I felt horrible, I was shaking, sweating, and I couldn’t focus my thoughts. On top of that, I was leading Aliyah who knew where, because I sure didn’t. I wasn’t even sure where I was trying to get to. I thought I was headed to Alaska, which was absolutely the last place I should have been going.

Why on Earth was I heading to where they’d surely look for me? This was insane, which meant I was insane, but that was a given.

Bringing my hands to my face, I started sobbing into them, unable to stop myself. “Mel, what’s wrong?” Aliyah asked, her hand gently touching my back.

“I don’t know where we are, I don’t know where we’re going and I’m a complete loser,” I mumbled.

“What are you talking about? You’re not a loser. You got us away from the school and from the cops. We can figure out where we’re going and how to get there, now that we have a little time to sit and think, all thanks to you,” she assured me.

“You’re not worried?”

“Of course I’m worried. I’d be stupid not to be, but I know you’re doing your best and it’s better than I can do, so I trust you.” That single piece at the end was what warmed me, but it also stabbed into my heart the worst, because I was going to betray her eventually. Yet, she trusted me. I’d never had anyone rely on me like that before, but I was going to let her down and I knew it. God, why did my life suck so bad?

I needed to talk to Daddy. He could give me advice, maybe make me feel a little better. With that thought, I wiped my face and stood up.

I remembered seeing a sign for a cell phone store, so I started walking to the mall directory. Finding the store on the map, I headed straight for it.

A salesman came to us as we walked in, but like the woman at the sporting goods store, seemed to be looking for our parents. “Are you girls wanting to get a new cell phone?” he asked, probably hoping we’d bring Momma or Daddy in to make the sale.

“Yes, sir, but I want one of those that I buy and start using and pay for minutes with cards,” I told him.

“We don’t sell those type of phones here. You want to go to Wal-Mart and buy a Tracfone,” he told me, making it clear he didn’t want to deal with us kids. Aliyah nudged me a little and I looked over to see her point at a rack with prepaid cell phones, exactly what I wanted.

I turned away from the man, walked over to the spinny rack and picked up four of them, dropping them on the counter in front of a woman. “Would you please let me know how much I owe you for these, and can I just start using them as soon as I leave?” I asked her.

“There’s a registration process, but I’ll take care of that before you leave,” she said, and started working on her computer, entering numbers from the packages. She finally finished scanning all of the barcodes, looked up at me and said, “The total for these is $127.38.”

I reached into my pack and pulled out seven twenties, handing the money to her. “What’s your father’s name?”

Thinking quickly for a change, I said, “Oscar Hinklevitch.”

She looked up for a moment, and asked, “Would you spell the last name, please?”

I actually had to think about that a moment, before I began. “H-I-N-K-L-E-V-I-T-C-H,” I recited, hoping I was right.

“I’m just curious, why do you need four phones?” she asked, after typing the name into the computer.

“Our parents want all of us to be able to keep in contact if we get separated while wandering around, and we wanted to come in here anyway, so we told them we’d get the phones. Of course, we also talked them into letting us get some ice cream,” I said, with my best little girl smile.

“That’s very good of you, and also very devious. Good job,” she said, with a mischievous, wide grin.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I replied.

“Here’s your change, and the phones should be ready to go. The numbers are written on each box. You should probably write a list for each person to carry with all of the other phone numbers. Enjoy your stay in Seattle.”

“Thank you very much,” I replied, putting the phones in my backpack and heading out.

Once we were back in the mall, we did go get some ice cream, then sat at a table to rest. I pulled out one of the phones, removing it from the incredibly excessive packaging and dialed Daddy’s number, with Aliyah watching me the entire time.

“Hello,” I heard from the phone. Like last time, my emotions began to overwhelm me and I almost lost it, but I just managed to hold myself together.

“Hey, Daddy,” I replied, almost crying, after a long pause.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I knew he wasn’t referring to the ‘big picture’. He knew me well enough.

“I’m lost and scared. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do, Daddy,” I told him.

“Tell me where you are, first.”

“I can’t,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“Because they could be listening and I don’t want them to find me...,” I replied with a little pause at the end, as I almost gave more away, but just managed to stop myself.

“But there’s more,” he said, again knowing me too well.

“I don’t want you to find me,” I said very quietly, tears forcing their way out.

“Angel, you need me to find you. I can protect you. That’s my job,” he told me.

“But I can’t. If I come home, they’ll find me there and you can’t protect me from them,” I insisted.

“I might be able to protect you better than you think,” he argued.

“They’re the government, Daddy. You can’t stop them,” I said, and knew this was not going the way I needed it to. “Daddy, this is getting us nowhere and I need help. How can I get out of here without them finding me? I’m really scared.” I had to clamp down on my emotions...again.

“I disagree with it getting us nowhere, but I’ll concede for now, as you do need help. For me to guide you out of your current location, you need to give me some idea as to where you are, even if not the specific location,” he said. I didn’t answer for a minute, thinking over what he said and knowing he was right. He couldn’t help guide me if he had no idea where I was.

“I’m somewhere in Seattle,” I replied, which I thought they already knew.

“And which direction do you want to go, if you were to follow the rules we learned about this kind of situation?” he asked, giving me the indicator for using opposites, as we practiced if I was ever kidnapped.

“I think I want to go south, but I think it’s the wrong way,” I told him, and there was a long pause before he spoke again, as if he was thinking or looking something up.

“Should be warm down there right now and California’s really beautiful. Alright, you need to get to the Greyhound bus station on Royal Brougham Way. You can get out from there, although your pursuers will likely see you, but that won’t matter, if your bus leaves soon. Look for a large red haired man behind the counter. His name is Sean. Tell him you need three tickets for wherever it is you intend to go and bill it to the Shaughnessy account. That’s spelled S-H-A-U-G-H-N-E-S-S-Y. You must be specific on that. He’ll take care of everything for you. Do you have that?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Good. Angel, keep praying and know that your Momma and I love you very much and want very much to have you home again soon,” he said, which made me start crying again. “Sweetheart, I wish I could be there and hold you tight, but you must be strong. This will get better, I promise,” he said.

“It can’t get better Daddy. I’m never coming home again,” I said and hung up, tears streaming down my face.

“Do you want to call your parents?” I asked Aliyah, as I wiped my face.

“I really want to, but I don’t think I should,” she replied, tears in her eyes as well. I nodded at her wisdom in that hard decision, but she was right.

Looking at the map we got from the stand in the other mall, I saw that there was a bus that ran from this mall to a transportation center, which had a short walk to what looked like a subway. The subway would then take us to the Greyhound station.

With a plan in mind now, I looked at Aliyah, “Ready?”

She looked back at me and stood up, giving me her hand to help me up, which I gladly took. “I’m glad to see you back,” she said, with a slight smile. I wasn’t completely back, and probably never would be again, but I was functioning, for now.

In no time, we were on the city bus heading toward our next destination. I hoped ‘they’ didn’t hear too much of that, but I couldn’t count on my luck. My luck was usually the bad kind.

The transfer from the bus to the city’s train was much easier than I feared. Everything went very smooth, thanks to the help of an older woman that asked where us two girls were off to, since she could see we weren’t familiar with the bus system and had no adults with us. We told her we were headed to see our grandparents in California, and our Dad got called away on an emergency.

She then took us under her wing and helped us all the way to the train, since she was taking a train as well. She went the other direction, but waited with us until we were on the right one, telling us exactly where our stop was, and making sure we remembered it. She also spoke to us about speaking to strangers again, smiling as she did so, since she was a stranger.

Getting off at our stop, we saw the Greyhound bus station, as soon as we left the train. We didn’t even have to walk across any busy roads or anything. This was getting too easy, and that scared me.

Walking in, I looked at the ticket purchasing area and didn’t see a large red haired man, like Daddy told me. It was as if I’d been punched in the stomach. I made my way to a bench and plopped down, my mind scrambling to recover from this latest setback.

“Mel, what’s wrong?” Aliyah asked. She knew me too well, and we hadn’t known each other that long. Not really.

“We were supposed to go to a red haired man named Sean to get our tickets. Daddy was very specific about that. I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Maybe he’s just on a lunch break or something,” she suggested.

That would make sense, I supposed. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. So we sat back for the wait. Of course, my mind being what it was, and in my current state, I started wondering if maybe he was off today. Where would we stay overnight if that was the case? What if the people from the school saw us on one of the many cameras around here, or heard my conversation with Daddy?

All of this and much more started going through my mind. I was almost in a panic when Aliyah nudged me and indicated with a turn of her head to look where she was looking. As I did, I saw a very large, red haired man walking toward the counter. My heart jumped in my throat. Something was going right for us for a change.

Once the man was settled, we walked right up to his counter, since no one had realized he was about to open. He finished getting his stuff together and slid the ‘Next Window’ placard away.

“How may I help you, young ladies?” he asked, and although his voice sounded pleasant, his face was lacking any emotion.

“My Daddy told me to buy three tickets to Bellingham and charge it to the account, S-H-A-U…um” I said, looking up at the ceiling and acting like the little girl I was. I tried to act like I was thinking and trying to remember. I hoped this little act would remove any suspicion about me and Aliyah. “G-H-N-E-S-S-Y, please,” I finished.

As I finished spelling it out, his eyes narrowed as he looked at me, but he didn’t say anything. He started punching stuff into his computer and then handed me three small pieces of very thick paper. “Here you go, young lady. Have a pleasant trip and thank you for travelling on Greyhound,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, offering my best smile.

I looked at the tickets and then at the clock. Our bus was leaving in 45 minutes. Looking back at the clock and seeing that it was about lunchtime, I decided that it was time to eat. Of course, all we’d had to eat so far was ice cream and although I wasn’t hungry, I knew I needed to eat, and so did Aliyah. So I headed to the fast food place across the waiting area and to the counter inside. There weren’t that many people waiting, which was nice.

As we were finishing our hamburgers, I saw several people in police type clothing come into the bus station, very obviously looking for someone. I motioned to Aliyah and we both turned our heads to make it a tiny bit harder for them to see us.

After a little while, in which they didn’t really do anything but walk around the building, including in the fast food place, they left. I wasn’t sure if they were looking for us or not, but I was now worried that we’d been spotted. The local police might not recognize us, but anyone from the school would and it only took a printout from a computer for the local police to recognize us.

“Bus 457, with direct service to Vancouver now loading at gate 10. Bus 3764, with service to Bellingham and Vancouver, loading at gate 12. Bus 1635, with service to Portland, and Sacramento, loading at gate 11. Bus 391, with service to Spokane, loading at gate 13,” I heard over the intercom. What luck! Three buses, going in different directions, loading at the same time and all together. And there was a fourth going the same direction as ours, just not stopping anywhere.

We got to gate 11, and I headed through that door, hoping I could change over, once through the door. Aliyah tried to grab my hand, but I continued through. My gamble paid off when we saw what amounted to a regular parking lot for the buses, all open to each other.

I took Aliyah’s hand and headed over to the correct stall and onto the bus we actually bought tickets for. A man with a Greyhound uniform watched us with an unhappy expression, but didn’t say anything.

We found a couple of seats toward the back of the bus and got comfortable, putting our packs on the floor in front of us. Luckily, we were both still small enough that we had plenty of space, even with the packs there.

A man, who I assumed was the bus driver, because of his uniform, walked to the back of the bus and then started walking toward the front, looking in each seat as he did. “Do you ladies want to put those packs underneath the bus, in the storage compartment?” he asked, once he’d checked our tickets.

“No thank you,” we both replied at the same time.

The man smiled and continued on. When he got to the front of the bus, he closed the door and a couple minutes later the bus started pulling out. Several policemen showed up just as we were pulling onto the main road. There were also a couple of black SUVs, with a lot of black clothed men getting out. From one of the SUVs I saw the security guy from Oakmont and Mrs. Wilde step out.

The cops were stopping the bus headed to Sacramento. The attempt to fool them seemed to have worked. I was really shocked at our success.

“That was Mrs. Wilde,” I heard Aliyah say.

I nudged her and whispered, “shh.”

“Where are they,” the officer who seemed to be in charge asked a couple of other policemen, with anger in his voice.

“We have no idea, sir. They were seen on surveillance cameras heading out the door for the Sacramento bus when it began loading,” one of the officers replied.

The lieutenant then started berating the officer that had reported, the man having to stand and take it. In the short time they’d been working with the local police, Stone had watched this man berate the officers for piddly little things, many times. Having enough of the rank and file being badgered for something they had no fault in, Stone walked up to the lieutenant.

“Lieutenant, your men are not at fault. The smaller, blonde girl is very good at eluding people searching for her. Her father taught her how to do it very effectively. My guess is that she’s possibly heading for Spokane, or more than likely, Bellingham. There’s also the possibility that she didn’t get on any of the buses,” he said.

“Why are you interfering with me discussing this with my men?” the lieutenant began.

“Because you are abusing your men for no purpose. As one who leads men, you should work for their respect out of earning it, rather than out of fearing repercussions,” Stone said, with a little more force than his normal wont.

“You can take your group and get out of my site,” the short, fat man said, his face getting pink.

“Your chief put you under my command for the duration of this operation. You answer to me,” Stone told him, his tone and outward demeanor taking on an iron hardness. The man started to spit and stammer, but Stone held up one finger. “The next words from your mouth had better be well thought out,” Stone added, before the man could say anything.

“You officers, please see what you can find out about the purchase of the tickets. If the person that sold them is still here, I need to speak to them,” he said, and the three officers replied as one, “Yes, sir,” and walked back inside the station.

“Do you think she stayed in this area?” Rebecca asked, once the officers were out of earshot.

“No, but it’s a possibility,” he replied.

“Where do you think they’ve gone, then?” she asked.

“I think they went north,” he replied.

“Why north? She knows we would look that direction first, and she also told her father she would go south,” she said.

“She really is good at eluding us. She changed their appearance and even though it was not a major change, it threw us off for a while. If it hadn’t been for that beautiful facial shot of Aliyah, we never would have tracked them here. I just wish the picture had been in color. We might have captured them, if it had. As for her going north, it’s what she knows. She’s using a very basic method of deception to try and throw us off. It worked once, but it won’t again. No, I feel it in my gut that she’s headed north. The question is, how far is she going to go and what method of transportation will she use from wherever she’s headed?”

“Sir, we have the agent that sold the tickets to the girls. He’s resisting answering, but we have the video of it,” one of the officers said as he stuck his head out the door.

Stone, Rebecca and John headed inside and were led to a small room, where a large man with red hair was seated behind a table. It looked like a stereotypical interrogation room. As Stone looked more closely, he was fairly certain it actually was an interrogation room, complete with the privacy glass. He was also fairly certain there was recording equipment as well.

“His name is Sean Kelly, sir,” the officer said quietly as they entered. Stone groaned inside. This man was Irish, and looked it too. He only hoped he didn’t have the Irish temper to go with it.

“Mr. Kelly, sorry to bother you like this, but we’re tracking two girls that have run away. They were being held in a detention facility for safety reasons, and were assaulted by police officers. As you can guess, they’re very suspicious of cops, so they’re doing everything they can to avoid the authorities, even the real ones that are trying to help them,” Stone began.

“And I suppose you’re one of those authorities that’s trying to help them?” the man asked, but with the slightest hint of sarcasm. Although Stone could have been wrong, he suspected that this was not going to go well.

“I am,” Stone responded. Mr. Kelly only nodded, very slightly, his eyes staying ratcheted on Stone.

“And who do you work for?” Mr. Kelly asked after a moment, looking intently at Stone for a while.

“I work for the Department of Defense,” Stone said, and produced a DOD badge and credentials.

“Alright. What do you want to know?” the man asked, visibly relaxing a bit. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as Stone had thought.

“You sold two tickets to these girls. What destination?” Stone asked.

“They mentioned Vete a la mierde,” Mr. Kelly replied. Stone had never heard of that.

“And where is that?” Stone asked. The man actually started laughing, although Stone had no idea why.

One of Stone’s men entered quickly and whispered in his ear the meaning of the words. Stone got a tiny bit more tense, but gave no other outward sign, although Mr. Kelly smiled a little wider as he watched the exchange.

“We can go back in the records and find out what we need to know, but it would be faster if you would help us,” Stone said.

“You won’t find anything, unless you know what you’re looking for,” he stated, a smug look on his face. There was something going on here, which was making Stone uncomfortable. This man should not have been this aggressive for no reason.

Walking with John to a back corner, he whispered, “Find out everything you can about Mr. Kelly, will you? Also, have our analysts look through the ticket sales for Mr. Kelly going back to about an hour ago. See if anything turns up. You should be able to match the video time with the girls and any ticket sales.”

Stone stood with a curious frown for a while. “There’s something odd here,” he mumbled.

John crinkled his eyes a little then nodded. “Yes, sir,” he replied, and left.

Stone was still standing in the same location when John returned almost 20 minutes later. “Sir, there are no instances of two tickets being sold during that period. There are several instances of three and a lot of single ticket sales, but no pairs,” John told him. He was about to give John further instructions, but John continued. “There were three tickets sold using a PO, at the time our girls were seen on video. The account has been linked back to an NSA affiliated group. That’s the best lead we have,” John informed him.

That had to be it, but why three tickets? The surveillance footage showed the girls together, and no one else with them.

“Where were those tickets bound?” Stone asked.

“North, sir. The final destination was Vancouver, with several local stops, including Bellingham,” he replied.

Could that girl have bought three tickets to throw them off? Very possibly, knowing her. That had to be it.

“Get an advance team to the stop in Bellingham, ASAP. We should also look at any stop along the way and after, but I would bet on Bellingham. We need to get headed that way, ourselves,” he told John.

“It’s time to leave. Let’s go,” Stone announced to his team and ignoring Sean Kelly, who looked a little surprised.

“Lieutenant, thank you very much for all of your assistance and that of the local law enforcement. You’ve been a tremendous help,” Stone said to the pudgy, red faced man, as he approached him.

Before the man could say anything else, Stone and his team all piled into the SUV and took off. They were returning to the airport, where the jet was already starting its engines, to head for a small airport near Bellingham.