Pursuits Unknown Read online

  PURSUITS UNKNOWN

  Copyright © 2019 Ellen Clary

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,

  A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC

  Tempe, Arizona, USA, 85281

  www.gosparkpress.com

  Published 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-943006-86-1 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978-1-943006-87-8 (e-bk)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930388

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For my parents, who taught me to keep trying, to believe in myself, to push back against obstacles, and to slay the dragon of uncertainty.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: The Call Comes In

  CHAPTER 2: Second Scent

  CHAPTER 3: Back at the Office

  CHAPTER 4: Beth Speaks with Amy

  CHAPTER 5: Meeting Lincoln

  CHAPTER 6: Exploring Herman and Lincoln’s Lab

  CHAPTER 7: Herman and Lincoln are Ill

  CHAPTER 8: Demands

  CHAPTER 9: At the Park

  CHAPTER 10: Investigation Plan

  CHAPTER 11: Rock

  CHAPTER 12: Sam the Radiologist

  CHAPTER 13: Discussion of the First Two Cars

  CHAPTER 14: The Third Car, Randall Curtis

  CHAPTER 15: Amy Speaks with Charlene and Then John

  CHAPTER 16: The Fourth Car

  CHAPTER 17: Amy Considers the Fourth Driver

  CHAPTER 18: Fourth Car Surveillance

  CHAPTER 19: Discussing Applied’s Involvement with Herman

  CHAPTER 20: Amy and Beth Speak with Herman and Lincoln

  CHAPTER 21: Yolanda and Harris Practice with Gimli

  CHAPTER 22: Amy Does PR

  CHAPTER 23: Gimli Places the Bugs

  CHAPTER 24: Harris Looks at the Bug Data

  CHAPTER 25: Yolanda Speaks with Mary

  CHAPTER 26: Harris Analyzes the Bug Data

  CHAPTER 27: Beth Interrogates Al

  CHAPTER 28: Shipping Containers

  CHAPTER 29: The Containers Go Missing

  CHAPTER 30: Amy Calls John

  CHAPTER 31: Traveling to the Container Search

  CHAPTER 32: The Container Search

  CHAPTER 33: To Novaton

  CHAPTER 34: After Novaton

  CHAPTER 35: Tomas’s Plan

  CHAPTER 36: Amy, Markus, and the Feds

  CHAPTER 37: Amy Considers

  CHAPTER 38: Amy at Soundside

  CHAPTER 39: Amy Meets with Tyson

  CHAPTER 40: The Canine Language Project

  CHAPTER 41: Amy at the Choran Dog Park

  CHAPTER 42: Amy and Tyson at Choran City College

  CHAPTER 43: Amy Talks with John

  CHAPTER 44: Amy and Lars Back at Choran Dog Park

  CHAPTER 45: Amy Meets with Tyson at Charon Community College

  CHAPTER 46: Tomas Speaks with His Technicians

  CHAPTER 47: Tomas and Adam Talk

  CHAPTER 48: Amy and Adam at the Dog Park

  CHAPTER 49: Tomas Talks to His People

  CHAPTER 50: Tomas Considers

  CHAPTER 51: Amy and Mike Talk at the Dog Park

  CHAPTER 52: Adam Talks to Sarah, Then Tomas

  CHAPTER 53: Adam and Sarah Head Down South

  CHAPTER 54: Amy and Steve Back to Central

  CHAPTER 55: Adam Contemplates

  CHAPTER 56: Adam Writes Amy

  CHAPTER 57: Amy Speaks with Yolanda

  CHAPTER 58: They Arrive at Choran

  CHAPTER 59: Amy and Adam

  CHAPTER 60: They Devise a Search Plan

  CHAPTER 61: Steve and Pearl Search

  CHAPTER 62: Yolanda and Gimli Search

  CHAPTER 63: Amy Calls John

  CHAPTER 64: Amy and Lars Search

  CHAPTER 65: Steve Finds Amy

  CHAPTER 66: Amy Meets with Dr. Jill

  CHAPTER 67: Wrap-up Meeting

  CHAPTER 68: Yolanda Toasts Amy

  CHAPTER 69: Amy and John Go Surfing

  Acknowledgments

  Author Bio

  CHAPTER 1:

  The Call Comes In

  HARRIS SAID, “Incoming missing-person report. We have a disoriented elderly man who has wandered off, and they haven’t been able to find him for more than four hours.”

  Amy hopped up from her desk inside the Locate and Investigate office that they all just called LAI. “Me, me, me. Pick me.”

  Looking over from his own desk across the common area between all four agent desks, Harris said, “Okay, I just sent you the details about Herman McConnell and the home address.”

  Amy looked at her handheld and confirmed the address. It was in Evergreen, but at the edge of town. Evergreen was medium sized, beside the Grebe River about five miles from the ocean. Its gentle rolling hills were green with just enough rain, though it had the occasional summer brown. Despite its name, Evergreen was actually a mix of evergreen and deciduous, and many of its residents called it Semigreen; Amy’s coworker Steve called it Evergrebe.

  She and Larson hustled over to one of the Locate and Investigate (LAI) vehicles. Amy slid her five-foot-seven self into the driver’s seat, adjusted the mirror while moving her wavy caramel-blonde ponytail out of the way as she settled in, and plugged her handheld into the docking port to download the address to the vehicle. The car purred to life and when she buckled in, it headed off. She extracted her handheld from the dock so she could go over what little they knew.

  They had a few minutes before they reached their destination. Amy said to Lars, “You ready to do some searching?”

  /Search! Search!/ he said mentally back to her.

  “Good thing.”

  Reading the initial call report told her that Herman, who was suffering from the devasting disease of disorientation, had gone missing about five hours ago. They normally would choose to wait a little longer before doing a serious search, but in the case of a child or a sick or injured person, they tended to move much more quickly. Disorientation was a brain disorder where the brain no longer functioned as it used to. Memories got scrambled, or forgotten, and reasoning ability was severely compromised. These days, Amy would search for the elderly as often as she searched for children.

  Amy looked at the surrounding area. Yolanda, another coworker, had been campaigning for them to learn to identify plants and trees, as it was more useful to say “I’m in a stand of birch trees” than “I’m in a bunch of white-barked trees.” Oak trees flourished here along with pines, birches, and the occasional maidenhair. It was early spring, so most of the trees agreed that green was the operative color, except for the occasional white or pink blossoms. Trees in Evergreen were spaced well enough apart that hide-and-seek was a real game, and not a battle over detangling one’s feet from the branches of a manzanita or rhododendron. It also made Amy’s job of chasing down lost people easier, though not a cinch by any measure.

  After they arrived, with Lars armed with a sample of Herman’s scent, they headed off into the sparsely wooded, hilly area that bordered the property.

  Lars raced ahead.

  Amy ducked under a sagging oak limb, its scent ripe with musty, matted leaves underneath. She said, “Slow down. You’ll miss something and we’ll have t
o do this all over again.”

  Lars urged: /Here. Here. Here./

  “Lars, will you let me catch up? It looks bad when you’re just careening around like you’re chasing a rabbit.”

  /Rab—?/

  Amy remembered they had been working on that word in the Canine Language Project, but he probably didn’t know it yet.

  Lars was a kelpie/shepherd cross, with the svelte kelpie body and face and the distinctive golden eyes, but he had the sturdier, wider look of a shepherd, though he was only forty-five pounds. Amy called him a stealth kelpie, because his fur, though not as long as a typical shepherd’s, was longer than a kelpie’s and he was tan on his lower body with a heavy dusting of black along the top.

  “Never mind, just go search.”

  /Search!/

  He charged ahead and Amy raced behind him. She noticed that he would sniff the ground every so often, but he was also smelling the bushes and air scenting.

  She raced over a small rise and nearly collided with him. His nose was buried in the ground.

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  Lars walked in a couple of circles, the second one wider; then he decided and headed off again. Breathlessly chasing after Lars, she got her comm out, trying not to drop it. “Hello, Central?”

  Harris came back, “Yes, Amy?”

  “This guy is moving right along for an older guy.”

  “We heard back that he’s actually in his fifties and this is a case of early onset disorientation.”

  “Oh great, we could be at this for a while. Talk to you later.”

  “Good hunting.”

  They crashed around for what seemed like hours over hill and dale. Enough for Amy to realize she had no idea what a dale was, but she was sure she had been over at least three of them. She broke through some low holly and found herself looking right at Lars. He was sniffing the ground right beside a paved road. He said, /Here./

  Ah ha, she thought.

  She got on the comm. “This is Amy. We’ve come to a roadside. I think our vic was picked up by a car.”

  Harris said, “I’m requesting a police car over to that location right now.”

  Amy looked up to find Lars wandering down the road.

  “Lars, you can’t track a car. Stop. You did great.”

  He kept going.

  “Lars. Hello?”

  Lars was mentally making that dog-thinking sound which a human would call “hmmmmm.”

  “What is it?” Amy asked.

  /Hmmmm./

  Lars had his nose jammed up on the ground.

  “May I see?” He looked up, making a deliberate sniffing-in sound. Amy asked, “Do you know what you found?”

  /Mmm,/ he said, making a sound that meant he didn’t know the word he wanted to use.

  She got the handheld out and held it over the spot so it could take a sample. It said: Preliminary Analysis: Blood

  Amy said, “Central, Lars has found a blood spot.”

  “Roger.” That had to be Harris again.

  Looking around, Amy saw broken branches and bent grass that suggested a body hitting the ground, but there also appeared to be signs of someone getting up.

  Lars followed the track back into the woods, climbing up a small hill.

  “Central, I need this area cordoned off so I can search it further for other scents. The vic has continued on and we’re following that.”

  “Okay. Roger, Amy.”

  Lars kept on going.

  Chasing after him, she said, “Oh great, now you really are looking for a rabbit. I need to report specifically on what we’re doing, and if what you’re looking for has two long ears, we are both are going to have some explaining to do.”

  Lars ran up a short rise and disappeared around a leaf-covered boulder about twice his size.

  /Here,/ he said.

  She couldn’t see him, but it was such an unlikely place. “You’re kidding.”

  /Here—/

  When Amy got up there, she saw Lars pulling at a leafy branch on the hillside. There seemed to be a hole underneath it.

  She got her headlamp out. She could see there was quite a large hole.

  “Central, Lars has found a sizable hole in the side of a hill that he says the trail leads to. I think it’s a cave entrance. I’m going to check it out.”

  Harris asked, “Do you need backup?”

  “No sign of trouble. I’m sending a photo.”

  Amy, with Lars assisting, pulled the branch back. With effort, she struggled in, finding herself in a cavern. Her breath caught when she shone the light around. She saw dozens of reflections, the beam catching unexpected, beautiful glimpses of what she realized were hundreds of gray, white, and cream–colored crystals dancing in the light. Stalactites dripped in frozen animation all over the ceiling, some extending down more than a foot. The air had a long-undisturbed quality, but she could see that some dust had been stirred up.

  She noticed that Lars had his nose on the ground. Footprints.

  “Central, we have footprints in this incredible crystal cavern.”

  There was no response. She realized she needed to poke her head out of the cave to transmit; she did so and repeated her transmission.

  Amy thought, How could Herman have found this? He must have come here as a kid.

  Back inside, Amy called out, “Hello! Hello, Herman, are you here?”

  “Yes, I’m right here,” said a soft voice.

  Squinting into the gloom, she could see there was a light from a small flashlight. She could see a figure sitting on what looked to be a very old bench that someone had fashioned many years ago. It should have fallen apart long ago, but the cavern’s atmosphere must have been a protection. Amy carefully approached him. Shining the light on his face, she could see blood on his temple. “Herman, how are you doing?”

  “Mary Ann, I’m so glad you could make it.”

  “Er.” Time to wing it, she thought. She reached down to her handheld and switched on the recorder and the night vision.

  “And look, is that Freddy? He’s gotten to be such a big dog.”

  /Freddy?/ Lars asked.

  Talking mentally just to Lars, Amy said, /Just go along with it. Wag your tail and look happy./

  Lars wagged his tail.

  “Mary Ann, come sit beside me.”

  “Okay, Herman. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, just tripped over something.”

  “That looks like someone hit you.”

  “Oh no, just me.”

  “You didn’t see anyone just recently?”

  “No.”

  “You were running here, do you remember that?”

  “I wanted to get here for our meeting.”

  “Herman, what is the meeting about?”

  “You know, it’s our usual club meeting that we always have. I remember how there was this big debate among the boys to figure out if we were going to let you in.”

  Amy brought the handheld closer. Thinking again, she realized this would be easier outside.

  “Herman, do you want to go outside, so we can look at your wound?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “I’d love to see it better.”

  “You like it?”

  “It’s quite the shiner.”

  “Okay.”

  Herman rose and walked carefully back to the entrance. Amy took a moment to make some video of the cavern.

  Once they got outside, Amy asked, “Herman, could you sit down on this log here?”

  Amy knelt down in front of him. Herman had a light build, dark tan skin, and a soft, almost baby face with just a hint of a five-o’clock shadow. His light brown eyes had that faraway look of someone who is seeing something else entirely. She noticed the gash on the left side of his face and the start of a black eye. Blood pasted his brown hair down and the wound was starting to dry in an ugly way.

  She took a photo of it and ran the scanner over it. The scanner indicated that it found something embedded
. She took some pre-medicated gauze out of the med kit. “Okay, Herman, you have quite the gouge here. I’m just going to hold this cloth on it, which will help it staunch the bleeding and make it hurt less.”

  Herman said, “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I am worried about you, Herman. Just let me help you.”

  He seemed to acquiesce.

  Amy placed the gauze on his face. He stiffened at first and then relaxed.

  “Who hit you, Herman?”

  “Who? No one, I just tripped, I think. I’m trying to remember what we were going to be talking about. Did we decide what to do about the Walton boys down the street?”

  Looking right at Amy, but still not really seeing her, he said, “They were pestering you something terrible after school.”

  “I think I’ll be okay, Herman.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I have this big dog now.”

  Lars wagged his tail and came wriggling in. Herman joyously petted him.

  Lars said to Amy, /Smells strange./

  She replied, /Well, he’s been through a lot./

  /Smells strange./

  Amy asked Lars, /What do you mean? Are you sure you’re not smelling the stuff I put on him?/

  After a pause, Lars said, /Different./

  Pleasantly surprised at his language improvement, she said, /Hey, you remembered ‘different.’ Good boy./

  Amy made a note to include the funny smell in her report.

  “Central, Herman was hit with something. I think just a fist, but I took a sample to see if we can find any foreign material.”

  Amy heard approaching voices. A woman that she hadn’t yet met exclaimed, “Herman! Where have you been?!”

  He said, “I’m right here. We were just having a club meeting.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I just fell.”

  “Oh, I think not,” she said.

  “No, really.”

  She looked at Amy.

  Amy extended her hand. “My name is Amy Callahan with Locate and Investigate. Someone did hit him, and we’re going try to figure out who it was. Is he missing anything?”

  Herman said, “But how could that be?” He didn’t appear to think that anything unusual had occurred.

  “It happens, Herman,” Amy said, feeling just a little out of her depth, but trying to cope.