Runner's Moon: Yarrolam (5 page)

            The implication made her wince. “
Your
apartment? Why there? What were they looking for?”

            “That’s what the police want to know.”

            “Is Detective Washoo the person you need to contact?”

            Liam nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “As soon as we get back to New Orleans, I’m to stop at the first police station and identify myself. I’ll let them know Washoo is waiting to hear from me.”

            Cherron played with a piece of toast, swirling it around on her nearly empty plate. “I guess the police are going to want to talk to me, too.” She looked up at him. “I promise I won’t tell them what you told me in confidence.”

            He smiled at her. It was slight, and revealed his weariness over the whole incident. “Thank you, Cherron. As soon as you’re finished, we’ll be going.”

            “Good. The sooner we let them know what we know, the sooner this will be cleared up. And hopefully they’ll find Aaron.” An ugly thought reared its head. “Liam? What if Aaron’s…dead?”

            “Don’t think about it,” he whispered. Reaching out a hand, he patted her on the wrist. The connection tingled, as if he’d charged her with a thin stream of electricity. “Let’s stay positive. Aaron’s out there. And when we find him, he’d better have a damn good reason for getting us involved in this mess.”

            The last sounded like a near threat, making her snort in amusement. “You and me both. What do you say we get some coffee to go before we hit the road? I’m anxious to get this whole sordid affair behind us as soon as possible.”

            Liam agreed and signaled the waitress for their check.

Chapter 7

Questioning

           
“Yarrolam? This is Thom DeGrassi. I’m married to Tiron Tarakon.”

           
The words, spoken in the Ruinos language, shook him to the core. It took great effort to hide his surprise from Cherron, but she was aware of it anyway. She would. He could sense her beginning to meld with him. His emotions. Almost his thoughts. She fully trusted him now, even though he’d given her no reason to. They’d known each other less than twenty-four hours, and she’d already placed her life and well-being totally in his hands.

            “Answer something, would you?”

            Yarrolam pulled himself from his thoughts. They were less than an hour from the city, and would soon cross Lake Pontchartrain.

            “I’m listening.”

            “What made you decide to destroy our phones? Been watching way too many spy movies?”

           
It comes from years of learning how to hide from detection.

           
“I’m a bit tech savvy, and one of the things I’ve learned is there are a hundred ways to track a person. To disappear off the face of the earth is possible, but very difficult.”

            “Ah! That’s why you don’t use credit cards.”

            “I have a debit card, but using it could have placed us in jeopardy.”

            “Because they would be able to track your withdrawals?”

            He smiled. “Yes.”

            “So why destroy the phones?”

            “At some point, even if I stopped using the card, if I’d kept my phone, it would be traceable.”

            She stared out the side passenger window. “What happens now? I mean, after we go to the police, what next?”

            “I have no idea, Cherron. We’ll have to wait and see.”

            They drove the rest of the way in silence. Once they entered the city limits, he asked her to keep an eye open for a police cruiser.

            “I don’t know where the nearest police station is. We’ll need to flag down a police officer for directions.”

            He took a tentative sniff. Knowing she hadn’t put any perfume on that morning allowed her lilac scent to be more noticeable. He could also smell her worry, like acrid smoke. Oddly, though, her fear was nearly nonexistent.

            For the first time, he could feel his body beginning to respond to her nearness. In any other circumstance, he would welcome it. But not now. Not when all this trouble was far from being resolved.

            And not when she was already spoken for.

           
“I mean, I care very much for him. To be honest, Liam, I don’t believe the soul-burning type of love you read about in romance novels, or see on the movie screen, really exists.”

            She didn’t believe in love because she’d never been in love. It was as easy as that. Furthermore, he could tell she had never experienced an orgasm. She’d had sex in the past. She’d had sex with Aaron. There was a minute amount of residue of his possession of her still clinging in the pores of her body. But the scent was clogging her skin like a fine layer of dirt she’d never be able to wash away until she had her first true release.

            His groin tightened. She looked upon him as a friend. A defender. A personal bodyguard. She trusted him, but she didn’t think of him as someone she could become attracted to. Not yet, anyway. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. He had to find a way to approach her on a more personal level. But, damn it, how?

            “There! Cop car!” Cherron called out.

            Yarrolam switched lanes and followed the police cruiser until it pulled into a parking lot. Opening his car door, he stuck one foot out on the cement and waved at the two officers sitting inside. The men finally got out of their vehicle and approached him. Their hands hovered above their holstered service weapons.

            “Can we help you, sir?”

            “My name is Liam Vost. Detective Washoo is needing to speak to me.”

            The officer, whose name tag said
Mullins,
glanced over at his partner standing near the passenger side. The second policeman nodded.

            “We were told to keep an eye out for you,” Mullins admitted.

            “I need to follow you to the nearest precinct,” Yarrolam advised.

            “It’s not far,” Mullins told him, and two policemen got back into their cruiser.

            They pulled into a rear parking area, and Yarrolam slid into a visitor’s slot. The officers waited for them to exit the car, then helped escort them inside the district station where people were waiting for them. A detective by the name of Leonard led Yarrolam into an interrogation room. He realized Cherron was being led away to a separate room, where she would be questioned separately.

            “Can I get you some coffee?” Leonard inquired.

            “Yes. Thank you.”

            Yarrolam was left alone. A single metal table and two chairs were the only objects in the room. The opposite wall would look like a regular mirror to a human, but he could clearly see through it. Leonard was speaking to two other men, one of whom left. Presently, the man returned with a Styrofoam cup, handing it to Leonard, who then reentered the room and placed it on the table, along with a couple packets of sugar and one creamer. Yarrolam thanked him again and took a sip of his drink black.

            “Detective Washoo is on his way,” Leonard informed him. “Until he gets here, mind if I ask you a few questions?”

            “Go ahead.”

            “For the record, what is your name?”

            “Yarrolam Porthus Vost. I go by Liam.”

            “Where are you from, Mr. Vost?”

            Yarrolam gave him a small grin. “You mean originally?”

            “That obviously isn’t a local accent.”

            “It’s a small country in Russia, called Barandat. It was overrun eight years ago, so I highly doubt it’s called that anymore.”

            “Are you here on a work visa?” the detective asked.

            Yarrolam nodded. Thanks to Viharrud, he and many other Ruinos managed to get their green cards, claiming political asylum. They knew their claims were tenuous, but it was the best they could do at the time.

            “How did you and Aaron Shulcrist meet?”

            Yarrolam gave him the specifics. As soon as he finished, the one door to the room opened, and an older man with a prominent belly entered. He walked over, hand extended, and introduced himself.

            “Detective Herb Washoo.”

            “Liam Vost.”

            The man perched his bottom on the corner of the table. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Vost. I’m hoping you can help us clear up the mystery.”

            “So do I, Detective.”

            “When was the last time you saw Mr. Shulcrist?”

            “Yesterday. We put in a normal day’s work. Right before quitting time, he called me into his office and asked for me to do him a favor. He asked if I would go to the airport and pick up his fiancée, Miss Greene.”

            “You’d think he’d want to go himself. Did he say why he wanted you to go instead?”

            “He said he had a last minute meeting with a client scheduled for six o’clock. Cherron’s plane was due in at six-twenty.”

            “Did he say who the client was? Or where they were meeting?”

            Yarrolam shook his head. “No.”

            “Mr. Vost, where have you and Miss Greene been since you picked her up at the airport?”

            “We went to
Feux de Deux
for supper. When we were done, I was supposed to take her to the Hotel Meridian where Aaron made reservations for her to stay while she was visiting.”

            “Very gallant of the young man. If she was my fiancée, she’d be staying at my apartment,” the detective remarked. He got up from the table and walked over to the chair to sit across from Yarrolam. Pulling a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket, he tossed them onto the table, flipped over a few pages, and jotted some notes. “You went to eat, and you took her to the hotel.”

            “No,” Yarrolam quickly corrected him. “As we were leaving the restaurant, we were accosted by three men.”

            Washoo lifted an eyebrow. “Three men?”

            “They were armed. One of them told me to give Aaron a message. He said he needed the first payment of thirty-five thousand delivered before noon today.”

            “Did he say where the payment was to be delivered?”

            “No. He said Aaron would know where.”

            Washoo drummed his fingers on the table as he thought. “Then what happened?”

            “The other two grabbed Cherron. The first man said they knew she was his fiancée, and they were going to take her with them to make sure Aaron made the payment.”

            The detective glanced at the door, then back at Yarrolam. “Go on.”

            Yarrolam gave a slight shrug. “I couldn’t let them take her, so I fought back.”

            “Stupid move, Mr. Vost.”

            “I felt I had no choice. We managed to escape. I took the guy’s pistol. It’s in the glove box in my car.”

            “Where did these men accost you?”

            “In the restaurant’s parking lot.”

            The detective mulled some more. “Where did you go after you left the restaurant?”

            “I panicked. We left New Orleans and went north. I finally stopped in a little town on the other side of the Mississippi line. We spent the night in a motel there. Detective? We were afraid for our lives. I couldn’t reach Aaron on his cell or at the office. I was afraid whoever sent those men would track me and Cherron using our own phones, so we ditched them. I called a friend of mine to let him know what had happened, and he called Thom DeGrassi, who called me this morning to give me your name.”

            “I spoke at length with a Sheriff Klotsky up in Russup County. Little town called Tumbril Harbor.” The man shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “I’ll be honest, Mr. Vost. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around some of what he told me.”

            There was a knock on the door, and the man who had initially fetched the coffee entered to hand Washoo a file folder. The man gave him a curious look before departing. Yarrolam waited as the detective quickly scanned the documents inside.

            “You have no idea who those men were?”

            “No.”

            “Or why they came after you?”

            “They couldn’t find Aaron. It’s the only thing that makes sense why they would come after me. Aaron owes someone a crap load of money. He knew the first payment was coming due, and decided to vanish. I think he sent me to pick up Cherron to keep her and me out of harm’s way, but his plan backfired.”

            “All right. Let me tell you what we do know.” Washoo closed the folder and leaned back in the chair. “You employ a company to clean your office every evening after you close. The cleaning lady phoned us after she got there and discovered the mess. We found the same situation at your apartment and at Mr. Shulcrist’s. I’ll be honest, we didn’t know what to think. We put out feelers for your phones. Of course, we got nothing from yours or from Mr. Shulcrist’s.”

            This information surprised him. “You couldn’t reach him, either?”

            “That’s when we put out the APBs on both you and your boss. We’ve requested information from your banks regarding credit card usage and withdrawals, but we haven’t gotten it yet. Also, while we were at your and Mr. Shulcrist’s apartments, we confiscated several items of interest, hoping they might yield a clue as to your whereabouts.”

            “What items?”

            “In your case, your laptop. There wasn’t much otherwise.”

            Yarrolam couldn’t see where this was going. He knew there was stuff on his private computer that could lead to a hundred questions. Maybe even cause problems he’d never seen coming. Yet, he got the impression Washoo was heading in a different direction.

            “What about Aaron’s place? Did you find anything?”

            “That’s what puzzled us,” the detective confessed. “The place was clean.”