Secret Triplets(3)

 

A half smile slid onto his lips and then fell.

 

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

 

My next scan of his face revealed nothing; it was lowered, focused on his phone as he texted. He was apparently under the impression that he had told me enough, when really he had basically given me nothing to go off.

 

“So what about you? What is your relation to this case, this Brock Anderson? Can you give me anything else to go off?”

 

He didn’t look up from his phone, only shook his head and said “no.”

 

Right, now this guy was getting on my nerves.

 

“And my fees, $50 an hour, you’re okay with that?” I said, and he nodded and waved a bony hand in an unconcerned figure eight.

 

“Won’t be a problem. I’ll pay $2,000 at least, more if it takes longer.”

 

And then he sat there, texting away, forgetting me entirely. As if he hadn’t just made an insanely lavish offer.

 

I stood up.

 

“Well, thank you for your time, Mr.…Snow. I will get to work on your case immediately and give you updates on my progress every few days.”

 

I held out my hand, but he only glanced up, nodded again, and then, after a good minute more of texting, rose and shook it.

 

“Work business” was his explanation before sweeping away.

 

At the door, he paused and grabbed my hand again.

 

“Miss Combs. Can’t stress discretion enough. We’ll be in touch.”

 

I found myself yanking my hand out of his iron, cold grasp. Then he was gone, leaving an even worse feeling behind him, an insidious uneasiness.

 

I watched him glide down the hallway and disappear down the stairs.

 

What had I gotten myself into?

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

 

 

 

I raced back into my office with a twist of excited apprehension in my gut. Regardless of how sketchy this guy seemed, I had agreed to do his job, so now I had a job to do. A job. An actual job! I didn’t bother glancing at the clock. It didn’t matter what time it was. All that mattered was that, for the first time in a long time, I had a job.

 

My tracking didn’t start out well. The first internet search of “Brock Anderson” brought up over 18 million entries. The next, with quotation marks around “Brock Anderson,” generated a more manageable but still numerous 27,900. Nonetheless, I methodically scanned through the results, from a soda company’s Corporate Ergonomics Manager to the gangster-looking baseball player to the stud football jock to the porky child on Twitter who liked baseball too. But of all the pictures I scoured, none of them matched the description, and the subjects didn’t live anywhere near Boulder.

 

Searching “Brock Anderson Boulder” proved more promising; it brought up a site, which provided 99 entries of people apparently named Brock Anderson near Boulder. Luckily, only half or so mentioned no age or an age in the 30s range. So, I printed out the list, picked up my blue ink pen, put on my best telemarketer voice, and began calling.

 

My premise was simple and involved a bit of white lying and a lot of being hung up on, but at this point, what did I have to lose?

 

“Hello there. I’m calling from ScarTronic, a new scar skin care cream, and we wanted to offer you a free trial. Could I get some information about you first?”

 

And so my scar-cream selling, tracking-down-Brock-Anderson campaign began.

 

For some of the Brock Andersons I called, it only took a few words for me to determine that I was talking to the wrong Brock: their voices had 50 years of smoking in them or the drawl of a bored teen. These I escaped with a quick “sorry, wrong number!” before I even made my scar pitch. For others, however, ruling them out took a bit more sleuthing, like asking questions about current and former professions and scar location.

 

And so I slogged through the list, through Brock Anderson after Brock Anderson, old and young, in their 30s and 80s, who had “no scars” or “one birthmark on my butt,” who was “born and raised a farmer and will die one” or who was on welfare but just for the “past coupla years, is all.”

 

When one Brock Anderson admitted to being a former marine with a scar on his eyebrow, and I was all but ready to go over and meet him before he admitted that he was actually an old woman with a young man’s voice who had an uncanny psychic ability and had taken advantage of my miscall. She had lied because she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to. I agreed to meet Ms. Mabel, which was her real name, for coffee next week before hanging up with dismay.

 

My list was now a series of crossed-out entries. I had gone through every last Brock Anderson. There were none left. Meanwhile, the clock had sped ahead without my even noticing. It was now 10 p.m. It smiled at my shock while my belly groaned.