Little Girl Gone

23



The address Debbie Midwin had given Logan was to the same building in which he’d questioned Mr. Williams and Mr. Dean. But that wasn’t a surprise.

He parked in the lot directly across from it this time, and knocked on the door.

A few moments later, a smiling woman of about forty-five opened it. She was short, maybe five-three at best, and dressed in jeans and a green sweater. By her demeanor, it could have just as easily been 1:00 p.m. as 1:00 a.m.

“Mr. Cole?” she asked.

Logan nodded, smiling. “You must be Ms. Midwin.”

“Just call me Debbie. Come in, come in.”

As soon as he was inside, she shut the door.

“I want to thank you for meeting with me this late,” he said. “I know it’s a huge inconvenience.”

She shook her head dismissively. “Not at all. You’d be surprised at how many late nights we put in here.”

As she led him from the reception area into the back room, he heard something moving around. “Is someone else here?”

She smiled. “Just Roger. Roger, come here.” A few seconds later, a golden retriever ran up and nuzzled Debbie’s hand.

When he saw Logan, he ambled over. “Hey, Roger. How you doing?”

The dog sniffed his fingers, then gave them an experimental lick. After that, they were fast friends.

Debbie pointed at the door to the airfield. “The plane’s in a hanger nearby. We just need to—”

“I was thinking we could discuss business first,” Logan said. “If you don’t mind.”

She turned back. “Of course. Whatever you’d like.”

She motioned to a desk in the middle of the room. After they were both seated, Logan let her give him what he assumed was her normal sales pitch.

Finishing up, she said, “As you can imagine, we deal with a lot of people looking for discretion. For that reason, we never discuss our client list with anyone. In our case, less publicity means better business.”

“I certainly can appreciate that. Tell me, do you fly just domestically? Or…?”

She looked momentarily confused. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go to New York?”

“Yes. On this trip. I was thinking more long term.”

“Oh, sure.” She smiled. “We’ll fly anywhere our clients need to go, except war zones and that kind of thing, of course.” She let out a little laugh. “We’re all about customer service, but we’re not fighter pilots.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be.” He paused for a second. “My client might need to fly to Japan later in the month. Is that doable for you?”

“As a matter of fact we have a aircraft making that very trip as we speak.”

“Oh, that’s good to know,” he said, surprised, then chuckled. “So you have a client going to Japan, huh?”

“Well, through Japan, anyway.”

He let the subject drop, and asked if she could run up an estimate of what the New York trip would cost his client.

“No problem,” she said, then pulled a keyboard out from under her computer terminal.

When people typed passwords into their computers, they generally checked to make sure whoever was with them wasn’t looking. But when they did the actually typing, they would focus either on the keyboard or the screen. Logan was petting the dog’s head when Debbie did her check, but as soon as she looked away, he moved his gaze just enough so he could see which keys she tapped to unlock her computer: roger1207. He figured the numbers must be the dog’s birthday.

Once the estimate was printed out and in Logan’s possession, she said, “Shall we see the plane now?”

“Absolutely.”

The dog led the way, running ahead, stopping until they caught up, then running ahead again. They were almost to the hanger, when Logan shot his hand into his pants pocket, and pulled out his phone.

“Sorry,” he said to Debbie. “This should only take a second.” He pretended to hit a button, then moved the phone to his ear. As he spoke, Roger loped over, and nuzzled his hand. “Hello?...Yeah, I’m here now…What? But I thought…Are you sure that’s what Tom wants?...Okay. Okay. No problem.” He hung up his fake call, grimacing.

Debbie took a step toward him. “Everything okay?”

Logan ran his hand over Roger’s head, then said, “Well, no, actually. I’m so embarrassed. My client’s changed his mind, and decided not to go. I feel horrible for having made you come out at this time of night, but it looks like we won’t need a plane in the morning after all.” He closed his eyes for a second. “It’s not the first time he’s done this, so I guess I should have expected it. I’m really sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It happens more often than you’d guess. At least you know about us now. I could still show you the plane, if you’d like.”

“I’ve taken up too much of your time already. But I guarantee you when the Japan trip comes up you’ll be at the top of my call list. I owe you that much.”

“We’d definitely appreciate the business.”

He let her show him out, gave the dog a final pat, then apologized again as she locked the front door behind them. Not surprisingly, she and Roger were parked in the same lot Logan was.

Logan got into his El Camino, started it up, then pulled out his phone, and pretended to be talking again. He didn’t know if he was getting good at it or not, but he did seem to be doing a lot of talking to dead air that night. As Debbie and Roger drove by, he gave them a waved, then slipped the phone back in his pocket once they was out of sight.

Three minutes later, he was sitting at Debbie’s desk, typing in roger1207. In no time, he found the file for the charter flight Elyse was on. Interestingly enough, the client—Mr. Robert Andrews—had stated that he and his associates were escorting the sick daughter of a businessman home. Only home wasn’t Tokyo. That was merely a fuel stop.

Home was Bangkok, Thailand.

The country right next door to Burma.