Play Nice (12 page)

Twenty minutes later she pulled into short-term parking at SFO. As much as she hated leaving Lenny exposed, there was no way she could take him into the terminal. Instead, she looped his leash around the front seat, leaving him enough slack to move around the back but not enough to leap out the busted front window as she could tell he desperately wanted to do. She rubbed him on the head.

“Sorry, boy. I’ll be back soon, I promise,” she said, hoping it was actually true.

She quickly jogged across the walkway into the main terminal. SFO was an international hub, housing hundreds of flights per day, to and from every corner of the globe. Anna took a deep breath as she confronted a towering wall of monitors displaying departure information.

If she were fleeing the city, Anna would want to hop on the first flight out. She automatically homed in on the airline with the most flights departing that day. American.

There were seven leaving that afternoon, two within the next hour: Boston and Toronto. The next most populous airline had three: Bakersfield, Beijing, and Chicago.

She immediately weeded out the international flights. More security. If Shelli was looking to get out of town fast, she’d want to avoid that.

That left Boston, Chicago, and Bakersfield.

She bit her lip. If it were her, Bakersfield would be too close for comfort. And too small. She’d want to disappear, not something easy to do in a small town.

Which left Chicago and Boston.

Anna let the two cities roll around in her head as she scanned the list of airport services posted on the next bank of monitors. If she was going to get through security and get to either of those flights, she was going to have to purchase a ticket. And for that, she needed funds.

Located in the international terminal was a cell phone rental company that boasted competitive rates for daily Internet-capable phones. Anna made a beeline for their location, hoping the cash left in her pocket was in the “competitive” range.

While wasting the time in line behind a German guy in a suit made that panic start to dance around in her stomach again, Anna was relieved when the man behind the counter finally handed her a slim BlackBerry to use for the day. She quickly slipped the micro SD card she’d taken from her apartment into the phone, and accessed the codes she’d stored there. They contained information to get into the credit card company’s databases and switch out user and account information associated with her number and someone else’s. Anyone else’s.

Anna hated the idea of stealing from someone, but she was a realist. There had been times in the past when her own accounts were too risky to use, when she’d needed to disappear, and in a world where cash was quickly becoming an extinct currency, an untraceable credit card was a necessity.

So she’d found a way to use real accounts, connected to real people who had nothing to do with her. She never used a number for more than one transaction. And no one had any way of knowing which number she’d use next.

As soon as she had her card set with ample funds to fly as far as the East Coast, Anna ditched the rental phone, then made a gut decision and quickly jumped into line to purchase a ticket on the next flight to Chicago.

*   *   *

“Good afternoon…” Dade looked down at the name badge on the fortyish woman behind the ticket counter “… Glenda.” He shot her a smile with lots of teeth. Friendly, bordering on flirty, but only just bordering.

As he’d hoped, Glenda smiled back, slight wrinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. “Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?”

“Oh, I sure hope so, Glenda.”

She was slim and toned enough that the gym was obviously on her daily schedule. Her blond hair was cut in a short shag and shot through with platinum highlights. Her makeup was tasteful, her diamond earrings fake, but most importantly, her left finger was naked, making her a much better choice for his attentions than the young guy behind the ticket counter next door.

As soon as Dade had seen Anya driving away in
his
car, he’d know she was long gone. Considering she didn’t even officially exist before, his chances of tracking her down now were slim, bordering on downright impossible. He’d briefly contemplated calling his employer, but considering the mess this job had become, he scrapped that idea. At least until he had a better handle on just
what
this job had become. Instead, he’d decided to take the easy route to finding Anya … find the people following her.

Namely, Shelli.

He’d started by calling San Francisco Animal Care & Control to lodge a complaint against a woman named Shelli at their Golden Gate facility. After several minutes of ranting on the nonexistent customer service, he’d been able to pry from the flustered woman on the other end that Shelli’s last name was Cooper, and that an official complaint would be filed against her on his behalf.

Armed with a last name—at least the one she’d been going under for the last few months—he’d quickly switched gears, calling the police precinct for the sunset area, asking to speak with his daughter, Shelli Cooper, whose place of work he’d just learned had been victimized that morning. After being transferred to a series of different desks, he finally ascertained that no witness named Shelli Cooper had been involved in the shooting at all.

It was all the confirmation Dade needed that he was on the right track. Shelli hadn’t stuck around to talk to the police any more than he had. That didn’t speak to her innocence in the matter.

Dade then logged onto the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, database on his phone, typing in Shelli’s name, location, and approximate age. While NCIC was usually reserved for police use, one of the skills Dade had learned in the military was that every computer program—from U.S. law enforcement sites to Afghani schematics databases—had a backdoor. And Dade had become skilled at finding them. Depending on the program, some doors where hidden more cleverly than others, but he’d found that, by and large, Fortune 500 companies could afford state-of-the-art digital security, while government entities could not.

Making NCIC a piece of cake.

Unfortunately, no records came back with Shelli’s name. Which could either mean she was a professional who had the good sense not to be caught or that she’d only been “Shelli Cooper” for a short time. He scanned through several other databases including hospitals, DMV, credit. He finally hit pay dirt with a bank account linked to her name, opened just before Anya said she’d started at the shelter. Most of the charges were expected enough—rent, electrical, groceries. However one recurring charge caught his eye. An auto pay from her checking to the Clipper website. Clipper was a prepaid transportation card, good on any of the City’s Muni busses, trolleys, trains, or the Bay Area Rapid Transit, known locally as BART. After slipping into Clipper’s system backdoor, he ascertained that the bar code of her particular card had been last scanned half an hour ago at the SFO BART station.

Shelli was on her way out of town.

And now, so was Dade.

“I would be happy to help you purchase tickets, sir,” Glenda told him, pulling up a screen on her computer behind the desk. “Where are you traveling today?”

“Boston,” he said, taking a guess.

“Boston it is,” Glenda said, turning to the computer screen. She typed a few keys, pulling up the flight info.

“We have a couple seats left on a flight departing in half an hour.”

“Perfect.”

“How many passengers?” she asked.

“Just one,” he said, flashing her a smile again.

“Wonderful.” He watched her pull up the screen. “Do you prefer aisle or window?”

“Actually,” he said, leaning in. “My fiancée is already booked on the flight. I didn’t think I was going to be able to join her, but my plans changed at the last minute, and I’m hoping to surprise her. I was wondering if you could sit me next to her?”

The woman’s eyes held a flicker of hesitation, but another bright, warm flash of teeth from Dade pushed her over the edge. “That’s very sweet of you,” she said. She pulled up a new screen on her monitor. “Do you know where your fiancée is seated?”

He shook his head. “No. But her name’s Cooper. Shelli Cooper.”

“Shelli Cooper,” the woman repeated, looking through her roster. Dade watched as her eyes scanned down the list. Then a small frown settled between her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, I don’t see a Miss Cooper listed on our flight. Is it possible you have the wrong day?”

Day? No. City? Absolutely.

He let a small frown settle between his brows. “Okay, I feel like an idiot here, but between you and me, Glenda, I might not have been listening too carefully when she told me which city she was heading to.” Dade leaned in, putting his elbows on the counter. “The Giants were playing, they were down by two, and my fiancée picked then to give me her travel itinerary.” He did a sheepish shrug.

Glenda chuckled. “Oh, I know how that goes.”

“Yeah, well, as you can imagine, that conversation ended in an argument about how I never listen. Which, this time, was totally true. But now I really want to make it up to her. Is there any way you could check the other flights you have leaving today to see which one she’s on?”

Glenda hesitated. She looked to her left where a coworker, a large African American woman, was helping customers at the next counter. “We’re really not supposed to give out that information.”

“Please, Glenda.” Dade clasped his hands in front of him in a begging motion. “You’d be saving my hide. Big time.”

She sucked in her cheeks, shot a second look at her coworker. Then she pursed her lips and pulled up a new screen on her computer.

“We’re really not supposed to do this,” she repeated, her voice low.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” Dade shot her a quick wink.

A small smile tugged the corner of her lips upward. It might be that she wasn’t supposed to do this, but he could tell she was enjoying breaking the rules a little.

“Okay. Flight two-thirty-five,” she finally said, looking up from the screen. “It leaves from gate sixty-three in forty minutes for Chicago. That’s where your fiancée is booked.”

Dade grinned. “You are a lifesaver, Glenda. Seriously, without you, there might not have been a wedding at all.”

After paying for his ticket, and praising Glenda’s skills several more times, Dade made his way through security without incident, calmly giving up his ID and ticket as he stepped through the scanners like every other passenger. Once on the other side, the main thoroughfare of the airport spanned before him. Souvenir shops, magazine stands, coffee shops, and bars lined the walkway on one side, while rows of plastic chairs took up residence on the other, creating wide-open waiting areas. Dade slowly walked toward gate sixty-three, scanning the faces of each person he passed for the redhead from the shelter. While her hair would make her stand out like a sore thumb, there was no guarantee she hadn’t taken the time to dye it, cut it, or simply smash it into a hat.

He found his gate, made a slow sweep of the plastic chairs, quickly filling with waiting passengers to Chicago. Once he was satisfied that none were the girl from the shelter, he took up vigil in the bar across the walkway to wait for her.

He ordered a draft beer and fiddled with the glass on the table in front of him as he kept his eyes glued to the waiting area.

An older couple entered, a pair of carry-on suitcases on wheels pulled behind them. A woman with a small dog in a lap bag was next, though she had fifty pounds and twenty years on his girl. Two Asian men in business suits speaking Mandarin took up residence by the windows. No one that could pass for Shelli.

Dade lifted his glass to his lips. As much as he could use the drink right now, he forced himself to sip at it. The last thing he could afford were dulled reflexes.

As he watched passengers filter down the walkway, Dade vaguely wondered how many miles Anna had put between them at this point. The perfume had been a dirty trick. One he had to admire. She was good at using whatever means were at her disposal, he’d give her that.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but his glass was almost empty by the time a voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that flight two-thirty-five to Chicago would now begin preboarding. And he’d seen no sign of Shelli.

Dade stood and crossed the walkway, leaning against a column near the first row of plastic chairs. The second the flight had been announced, most of the seats had suddenly vacated, passengers lining up like cattle at the gate to board. Dade slowly let his eyes scan the waiting line, just in case Shelli had somehow slipped past him.

By the time he’d passed over the last person in line twice, Dade was positive Shelli was not among them.

But just to cover all bases, he approached the flight attendant at a desk to the right of the boarding gate.

“Excuse me, Diana,” he said, reading the woman’s nametag, and making deliberately familiar use of her name.

The woman with a brunette bob looked up and flashed him a smile. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a bit of situation here.”

Her smile faltered for a second, obviously not enamored with the idea of dealing with a customer “situation” today. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. What can I do for you?”