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Chapter Five


Officer Flynn had brought Mike in for questioning at the station, not because he was a suspect or anything, the officer reassured him, but because he was now the only witness to the kidnapping of the only witness. Mike was sitting in the questioning room at the police department. Officer Flynn and another guy, Detective Brody, were seated across from him. “I’m gonna show you a series of photos,” Detective Brody told him, “And I just need a straight yes or no if this was the woman who came to your hotel room this morning. Just yes or no, no I’m ninety percent sure or anything like that. Just yes or no. Understand?”

“Yes,” Mike answered.

Detective Brody paused a moment, then put the first photo down.

It was Cameron Diaz.

“No,” Mike answered quickly.

“Good job, that one was just a test.” He smiled. Then he put down the next one.

“No.”

And another.

“No.”

Another.

“No.”

He put the last one down.

Mike stared at it for a long moment. The girl in the picture was blonde, a surprised look on her face. He reached down and covered the hair and eyes with his fingers, staring at just her mouth. He looked back up, “That’s her. She had brown hair this morning, but that’s definitely her.”

Detective Brody looked up at Officer Flynn. “Well. That confirms that, then.”

“Confirms what?” Mike asked, nervous.

Officer Flynn tapped the photo, “That’s from the security footage at the 7-Eleven,” he explained, “That’s our aforementioned Bonnie. So it’s definitely the gunman and his cohort that have kidnapped him.” His voice sounded grim. He stood up and quickly left the room.

Mike looked at Detective Brody, “So what’s this mean? Do we know who this girl is besides the Bonnie?”

Detective Brody shook his head, “We’ve got people working to run it through the police database for a match, but so far no luck. So it sounds like she probably has no priors. Not really surprising. These Clyde types usually pick unusual suspects for their sidekicks, they think it makes them less vulnerable if we don’t immediately see their girls and suspect something’s up.” He paused, “We’re trying to find her on the lobby footage from the hotel, too,” he said, “Maybe we’ll get a picture of Clyde there. We really need to ID that guy. I’m willing to bet he’s got a priors list a mile long.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Do you think Nick’s going to be okay?”

Detective Brody shrugged. “Depends what they’ve kidnapped him for, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if they just wanted him to shut up and not talk, that’s a whole other strategy than, say, if they realize what his net worth is and want a ransom in exchange for his safety.”

Mike’s stomach turned.

“But we’re doing everything we can to get him home safely,” Detective Brody added as an afterthought.





“What do you mean he’s missing?”

Brian looked up from the jigsaw puzzle that was spread across the tour bus table. He held several pieces in his fist. He raised an eyebrow. Kevin was standing up, having taken the phone call from Eddie. He turned back to look at Brian and covered the mouthpiece, “Any of you guys hear from Nick today?” he asked, looking around at them. AJ and Howie were sitting around the table, too. Howie was mid-swallow on a beer.

“No,” AJ answered, still studying the puzzle.

Howie shook his head.

“What’s going on?” Brian asked.

Kevin frowned, “Nick’s apparently missing.”

“Missing?” Brian and Howie said at the same time.

“They call whatsherface in LA and see if he flew home to shag her?” AJ asked. He pressed a piece into it’s spot on the frame of the puzzle.

Kevin turned back to the phone, “Have y’all tried calling Jess?” he paused, “Isn’t that her name? I dunno, that ex he’s been going on about for the last month. The one that he broke up with for reasons unknown that he insists he’s going to get back with when we get back to LA.”

“Bruised ego,” AJ said, “That’s why he broke up with her. He didn’t bring the hoo to a whoo hoo session, if you know what I mean.” He held up a limp finger.

Kevin waved at him to shut up.

“What? That’s what happened,” AJ said defensively, “And also, her name isn’t Jess, it’s Natalie. Jess was that chick with the frizzy --” he waved his hands around his head, “Natalie’s the one with the big breasts. You know what I’m talkin’ about Brian.” AJ winked.

Brian turned red.

“He tell you that?” Howie asked.

“About her breasts? No,” AJ grinned, “Noticed that all by myself.”

“No, not about her breasts, man! About the --” Howie held up his finger limply, too, the way AJ had.

“Oh. The hoo-less whoo hoo? Nawh, she told Ro,” AJ said. “Ro told me at our mani-pedi before tour.” He snapped another piece into it’s spot.

Brian shook his head in disapproval.

Still on the phone and ignoring the whole Jess-versus-Natalie-versus-hooless-whoo-hoo conversation, Kevin said, “Well… well keep us updated.” His voice sounded worried. He hung up and came back to the table. “Guys, Nick’s seriously missing.”

“Missing?” Brian looked worried, “They don’t have any clue where he went?”

Kevin shook his head. “Well… and it’s kind of a convoluted story from what I gathered, apparently him missing has something to do with that 7-Eleven shooting that’s been on the news.”

“I saw that on the Facebook trending topics,” Howie said eager to contribute some information, “Some couple they’re calling Bonnie and Clyde is like going all over Ohio knocking off convenience stores and they actually shot and killed a clerk yesterday in Cincinnati. Too bad, too, they have a picture of the girl from the security footage. She looks like a sweet girl, you know?” He clucked his tongue.

Brian’s concern deepened, “How does Nick missing have something to do with that?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin answered. “Eddie was just calling to see if any of us had heard anything from him today, said he’d call tomorrow to tell us what exactly is going on, but that we have to call him immediately if we hear from Nick at all, even if it’s just through Twitter or email.”

Howie put his beer bottle down, “Well that sounds… ominous.”

“Tell me about it,” Kevin muttered.





Witness Protection Program Nick’s life sounded really shitty. He sat in the window of the hotel in Watertown, clutching one of the four packs of cigarettes and zippo lighter from the glovebox of the car, watching the wind rustle the trees below. He breathed the smoke deep into his lungs, appreciating the way the nicotine seemed to instantly smooth his crinkled nerves, and tried not to think about all those pictures of this is your lungs on cigarette type pictures he’d seen.

Behind him, Avery was painting her toe nails a shade of mauve on the bed.

“How far is it to this shit hole you’re dragging me to?” Nick asked for the thirtieth time since they’d checked into the hotel.

“About four hours, give or take,” Avery replied. “Depends if the ferryboat is on the New York side or the Vermont side when we get to Lake Champlain.”

Nick sighed a ton of smoke right against the window pane.

“There’s indoor plumbing, though, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Don’t say of course, the way you’ve verbally painted this place it sounds like the 1700s,” he said. “You’re sure about the plumbing?”

“Yes,” she snapped, “I’m sure about the fucking plumbing! And even if there wasn’t, there’s plenty of trees there for you to whiz on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“Nothing. Just that you peed on every tree from Cincinnati to here, so it’s not like you’re gun shy about using your winkie in the woods, that’s all,” Avery said. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and screwed the cap onto her nail polish. Marty would be calling soon. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone.

Nick stared at the phone with a look of envy on his face. He’d been jonesing all day for his phone, like a crack addict without a hit. He wasn’t used to not checking it periodically. And by periodically meaning at least once every ten minutes, sometimes more frequently than that even. He licked his lips, watching as she swept her thumb over the screen.

“Are you… texting?” he asked.

His voice sounded curious in the way that a fat guy on a diet might sound asking a skinny guy who was eating a donut if it was delicious.

Avery looked up. “Just making sure I haven’t missed any calls.”

“Oh yeah,” Nick nodded vicariously. His hand was naturally curved like he was holding his own phone in his hand, like he was imagining what it would feel like to be checking to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls.

She raised her eyebrows.

“You should send a text message,” he suggested, biting his lip.

This was pathetic.

The phone vibrated in her hand, Marty’s number popping up.

“Fuck yeah,” Nick groaned at the sound of it vibing.

“Okay, I’m gonna take this in the hallway so you don’t like fucking orgasm over the thought of answering a phone call over there,” she said, rolling off the bed and scurrying into the hallway, leaving him huddled up with his cigarettes and dirty thoughts. She just hoped she didn’t catch him like masturbating to the thought of a text message when she got back. After that display, she could almost picture him with a magazine article on emoji in the bathroom bangin’ it out. She shuddered at the thought of it.

“You make it to Watertown yet?” Marty asked when she answered.

“Yeah, made it about three hours ago,” she replied.

“Nick Carter still with us?” he laughed.

“Other than a slightly disturbing sexual arousal over the vicarious use of my cell phone, he’s just peachy,” she replied.

Marty’s voice twisted with confusion, “Say what?”

“Nevermind,” Avery replied. She lowered her voice, just in case Nick had his ear pressed to the door to hear the conversation. “So… did you send out the ransom notice yet?”

“Not yet, no,” Marty answered.

“What? Why?” Avery demanded.

“They haven’t gone public yet,” he said. “Until they go public, I’m hesitant to send a note because they might be less inclined to send a huge sum if nobody knows about it.”

Avery sighed, “They might fucking thank us for taking him off their hands,” she conceded.

“By the sounds of it,” Marty snickered.

“My hell is not funny,” Avery said.

“It is a little funny,” Marty replied. “One day, you’ll laugh with me.”

“I better.”

“You will. When we’re sitting on the porch of our chateau after a long day at the Louvre, you’ll laugh at these memories,” he assured her.

Avery sighed.

“So anyway,” Marty said, “Now you’re sure nobody on this island of yours is going to recognize him?”

Avery said, “Well maybe but I’m going to tell him we’re changing his name and we’ll just be like ‘he gets that a lot’ if someone brings up the Backstreet Boys. But I highly doubt anyone on that island will recognize him even if he was wearing a sign that said hi I’m a Backstreet Boy. I cannot stress to you enough how small this place is. There’s a permanent residency of like thirty people, and eighty percent of them are over the age of 60. Two are Catholic priests and four more are nuns.”

“Good. The less people who see him the better.”

“The house is about as far from civilization as you can get,” Avery reassured him.

“Best news I’ve heard all day.”

Avery leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, listening to Marty breathing. His breath rasped a little leaving his lungs, probably from all the chain smoking he did. She missed the whistle of breath exiting his nose. “I miss you,” she told him.

“Yeah, you too,” Marty answered.

“I can’t wait to see you again. Please hurry with the note and everything. I just wanna end all this mess and get back to our old lives already,” Avery said.

“Don’t we both, Princess,” Marty said. Then, “Oh did you get money out of the ATM already with him? Did you happen to get a statement balance or anything? Any clue what kinda figures we should be asking for on this ransom?”

“We got money out but I didn’t see a balance anywhere. Had him take out the max the ATM would let him, though,” she said, “It let him take almost a thousand dollars and he didn’t even bat an eye.”

“Must be nice,” Marty commented.

“Yeah,” Avery said.

“We’ll know soon,” he promised. “Okay. Gotta go.”

“I love you,” Avery told him.

“Yeah, you too,” he answered, and he hung up the phone.

Avery sighed and put it back in her pocket. She slid the keycard and stepped into the hotel room. Nick was laying on the second bed, on top of the sheets and everything, his headphones on, staring at his iPod. He looked up as she walked in and moved one of the ears of his headphones. “Any news?”

“Nope,” she answered. She grabbed one of the complementary lavender-scented lotions from the bathroom counter and crawled into her own bed before cracking open the lotion bottle and rubbing it into her arms, especially her elbows. She made a mental note to swipe the rest of the little bottles, it smelled so good. And also the soaps and shampoos.

Nick sighed, and pulled the other side of his headset back over his ear.

Avery was just glad he wasn’t talking incessantly.