Finding Christmas Read online

  “Why would anyone fake a ransom demand?”

  “I don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more I realize something isn’t lining up.”

  “Okay,” I said after stifling a yawn. “What isn’t working for you?”

  Shredder began pacing around the room. From the pinched expression on his face, I could see he was deep in thought. Then he said, “If Askar kidnapped Rigby and was holding him for ransom, why would he be hanging out in Tinseltown, where he’s known to visit at this time of the year every year? If he really had a prisoner, it makes more sense that he’d hold him in a location where no one would think to look.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And why would Askar be interested in the Turkish prisoners anyway? Yes, he was born in Turkey, but he didn’t spend that much time there, and as far as I know, while he’s known for handling criminal tasks for other people, he doesn’t seem to have any real political ties. He accepts jobs based on money alone.”

  “About that: If he’s a known criminal, why isn’t he in prison?”

  “He’s too good to leave evidence behind. His reputation is well known, but no one has been able to prove he’s done anything it’s rumored he’s responsible for. Because he works internationally and moves around a lot, it’s been hard for anyone to nail him down.”

  “He comes here every year, so he can’t be impossible to nail down,” I said.

  “Good point. I guess if anyone ever does come up with proof Askar actually did any of the things he’s supposed to have done, we’ll know where to find him. At least in December. At this point, however, I’m just not buying the fact that he has Rigby. If I had to guess, I’d say the actual kidnapper is using Askar to create a diversion. I’m going to call in to my team. I think we may need to widen our assumptions to include a scenario where someone other than Askar might have kidnapped Rigby. I’m not sure the two Turkish prisoners are even the real objective.”

  “What now?” I asked Shredder after he hung up.

  “I’ve been given until the end of the day tomorrow to try to confirm or deny Rigby’s detainment by Askar. Whether I find proof one way or the other, I’m to head out on another assignment by Friday.”

  “The folks you work for aren’t real big on time off for the holiday.”

  Shredder chuckled. “Not at all. It’s fine, though. I like to stay busy.”

  “So do you have a plan to find Askar?”

  Shredder nodded. “I do. From what I found in the house where we suspect Askar is staying, it appears he plans to attend the parade. We should as well.”

  “If we find him, then what? Do you think he’ll talk to us?”

  Shredder shrugged. “He might. If he doesn’t have Rigby, he probably won’t want the hassle of having everyone thinking he does. In that case, I’d think he’d be motivated to get things cleared up. If he does have Rigby, he’ll probably want to know what’s going on with his ransom demand.”

  Chapter 15

  We decided to take Yukon to the parade with us. I wanted to take him for a good long walk anyway, and I knew he’d enjoy the hustle and bustle of all the people crowded along the sidewalks framing the narrow street. Denali would have hated the crowds, but Yukon was definitely a people person. Shredder and I walked up and down the sidewalks for a good twenty minutes before we spotted Askar. He was dressed in a Santa suit and standing next to a sleigh on runners that looked as if it was going to be pulled by two caribou. He was chatting with a woman dressed as an elf. It would seem he was about to play the part of Santa Claus himself, riding through town in the sleigh at the end of the parade. Somehow, a man who’d be interested in doing such a thing didn’t meld in my mind with someone who was known as an international criminal and killer.

  “What now?” I asked when Shredder pointed him out to me.

  “Wait here with Yukon. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I wanted to argue but didn’t. Shredder was the spy; I was just the sidekick. Askar might be more apt to talk with Shredder if I wasn’t around. I watched as Shredder approached him and said something, which was followed by Askar chuckling quite loudly. That got Yukon’s attention, and he began to growl.

  “It’s okay,” I said to him, ruffling him behind the ears.

  I continued to watch the exchange, focusing in to see if I could pick up any images, but nothing came to me. After they’d been talking for maybe fifteen minutes, Shredder returned to my side. There was a confused expression on his face.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was in Tinseltown to attend the event and wasn’t holding Rigby.”

  “So is that it? Did he say anything else?”

  Shredder frowned and looked me in the eye. “He suggested Rigby might not have been abducted.”

  “What do you mean? Your team received the video. Right?”

  Shredder nodded. “When Askar first suggested the entire kidnapping scheme was a ruse, I thought he was just trying to provide a distraction, but the more I think about it, the more I think he might very well be right.”

  I pulled Yukon closer to my side as a group of teenage boys ran past us. “You might need to walk me through this.”

  “Askar suggested that Rigby might be the one who set up the kidnapping story as a decoy.”

  “But why?”

  “When Rigby was sent to the inn to meet Reggie in the place of Deidrick Eckhart, he was given a lot of money, all in cash.”

  “Why not do a bank transfer?”

  “Remember, the point of the exchange was to launder cash by investing it in legitimate business ventures. In this case, the money would most likely have been used to fund the projects under development by Drake Weston’s company. Up to this point, I’ve suspected that Rigby was made by Gershwin, but what if he wasn’t? What if Rigby killed Reggie and faked his own kidnapping to make off with the money? Everyone has been looking for Askar, but no one has been looking for the money.”

  “If Rigby stole the money, why did he want everyone to think he’d been kidnapped by Askar? Why did he make the ransom demand?”

  “As you so eloquently suggested, he was stalling. Maybe he needed time to get himself and all that cash out of the country. I need to make another call.” Shredder grabbed my hand and pulled Yukon and me onto a much quieter side street. From the first few words out of his mouth, I realized he’d called his superiors to run this crazy new theory past them. Shredder went over the series of events regarding Rigby’s kidnapping in great detail while I listened in. On Monday late afternoon, they’d received a video recorded by Rigby. In it, he said he’d been detained by Askar, who was demanding the release of two Turkish prisoners in exchange for his life. There was no one else in the video, nor was Rigby physically bound, although he was sporting a fairly significant black eye. The video had been routed through a series of international servers, so there was no way to verify from where it originated. Could Rigby have recorded the video himself? Shredder’s superiors seemed to believe he could have.

  The only other communications supposedly received from Askar had been in the form of emails, sent to the same email address from which the video had originated. Because the source of the email was unknown, Shredder’s superiors again admitted it was possible they might not have been negotiating with Askar. The part that really didn’t make sense was Rigby naming Askar in the first place. It seemed that by doing so, if he had indeed been behind the whole thing himself, he was taking a risk that Askar would be found and his story would be refuted. Normally, Askar was as slippery as an eel and almost impossible to pin down, so perhaps Rigby hadn’t known he was in Alaska. Or perhaps he had known, and Askar was in on Rigby’s plot.

  When Shredder mentioned the money, the people he worked for, or with were suddenly very interested in what had become of it.

  “What did they say?” I asked after Shredder hung up.

  “From what I presented, the people I work for agreed Askar most likely isn’t involved in Rigby’s disappearance. T
hey’re giving real consideration to the possibility that Rigby may have faked his own kidnapping. They have eyes and ear on airports, seaports, and borders. They’ll find him. Eventually.”

  “So where does that leave us?” I asked.

  “I take you back to Rescue and head out for my next assignment.”

  Well, how frustrating was that! To be assigned to a mission and then relieved of it before it came to its conclusion seemed downright unbearable to me.

  “Are we leaving today?” I was torn as to whether leaving now was the smartest thing to do.

  “We can go in the morning if you’d prefer. I don’t have to report for my next assignment until Friday. Or I can take you home right now. It’s up to you.”

  I looked out toward the lights that had seemed so festive less than an hour before. Somehow, when I looked at them now, I found them depressing. “Let’s head back. You can stay in my guest room tonight. I’m sure Denali would love to spend some time with you. We can pick him up from Jake’s on the way home.”

  I called Serena to let her know my training had gotten over early and I’d be home that evening. She was welcome to leave whenever she wanted. I assured her I’d take care of the animal-related evening chores; she didn’t need to worry about a thing. It would be good to be home in my own cabin with the animals, but I couldn’t help but feel a little sad and a lot frustrated.

  I hadn’t brought a lot with me, so it didn’t take me long to pack. Less than thirty minutes after making the decision to leave, Shredder and I were on the road.

  “If Rigby did take off with the money, where do you think he’d go? It would be hard to board a commercial flight with that much cash, so he’d need to either charter a private jet or maybe drive. But if he chose to drive, there’s the border crossing to deal with. Seems risky.” I paused as I pondered the question. “How did Reggie do it? If he took possession of the dirty money, how did he plan to get it back to Seattle?”

  “He hired a private jet when he traveled for business. I suppose it makes sense that Rigby would have hired one as well.”

  “I wonder if we can figure out who he hired. If he wanted a quick getaway, it seems like he would have hired someone local.”

  “There are a lot of private air charters in Alaska. You could ask your friend Dani to ask around. She probably knows all the local players.”

  I took out my phone. “That’s a good idea. I’ll call her right now.”

  Dani agreed to make some calls and would let me know what she’d found out by the end of the night. She’d never actually met or even seen Rigby, so I provided a description in the event someone had been hired by a single male passenger in the past two days. I knew Dani must be curious about what was going on, but to her credit, she didn’t pry. At least she didn’t pry over the phone. The next time I saw her in person might be another story.

  “Do you really think Rigby killed Reggie?” I asked after I hung up the phone.

  “If he’s done what we now suspect, then yes. He would need to get Reggie out of the way.”

  “Do you think he killed Piney Portman too?” I added.

  Shredder adjusted his hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t think so. From what you folks dug up, I think Reggie killed Piney.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It does seem so,” I sat in silence for several minutes. “If we find out Rigby’s innocent, and he really was abducted, who do you think might have taken him?”

  Shredder drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The demand for the release of the Turkish prisoners doesn’t seem to fit anyone’s agenda. Not even Askar’s. Which is partially why I believe Askar isn’t behind whatever’s going on.”

  “Have you known Rigby long?”

  Shredder shook his head. “Long enough to be surprised that he’d do what it appears he may have done. On the other hand…”

  “On the other hand?” I asked.

  “Looking back, it does seem Rigby spent a lot of time complaining about what he considered to be a crappy salary given the danger we put ourselves in on a daily basis.”

  I turned so I could see the silhouette of Shredder’s face. “Do you agree? Is what you’re paid insufficient given the nature of the job?”

  “Perhaps. What we do is dangerous and difficult. I’m not sure it would be possible to place a dollar amount on the worth of the missions we undertake. And even if it was possible to monetize the risk, and it was determined we were underpaid, it wouldn’t matter to me and most of the men and women I work with. We do it for the glory.”

  “What glory?” I laughed. “No one even knows what you do.”

  Shredder smiled. “True. But if not for the glory, for the sense of satisfaction it provides. It’s hard to describe how it feels to be assigned to go out to save the world and then do it.”

  I raised a brow. “Save the world?”

  Shredder turned to glance at me. “At times.”

  Saying you saved the world was somewhat grandiose, but in Shredder’s case, I actually believed him.

  The conversation dropped off and we rode in silence. It was nice to have a minute to gather my thoughts. Was it really less than a week until Christmas? I still had quite a lot to do. It was a good thing I was coming home early. I wanted to get a tree, now that I had lights and decorations, and I still needed to buy a few gifts. Houston and Harley had agreed to come to the Christmas Eve dinner at Jake’s, so I wanted to be sure to have small gifts for them. I was sad Shredder couldn’t stay for that, but I understood why he couldn’t. I was so focused on my plans for the next few days, I didn’t notice the beep that let me know I had a text.

  “Your phone is beeping,” Shredder said.

  I picked it up and looked at it. “Dani found the pilot Rigby hired. According to Dani, a pilot she knows, Darian Green, flew Rigby to Los Angeles.”

  “Damn,” Shredder said. “A part of me was really hoping we were wrong and he was innocent. Oh well; at least I know where to pick up his trail.”

  Chapter 16

  Thursday, December 20

  Once he had verification of where Rigby was last seen, Shredder was off in the wind. He took me home, gave me a long hug goodbye, then drove away into the night. I knew he was the sort to come and go almost without notice, but I was going to miss him. Of course, as depressed as I was about his quick disappearance from our lives, Denali was even more bummed. I had no idea how he could know he was gone for good, but somehow he seemed to know. I decided we could both use some fun, so I called Houston to ask if he was up for the tree-cutting expedition we’d talked about. He was having a slow day and agreed to meet me at my cabin. I told him to bring Kojak because I planned to bring my entire canine crew.

  “And Shredder works for some secret black ops division of the military or the government or something, but you aren’t exactly sure which?” Houston asked after I took Jake’s advice and filled him in on at least part of what I knew.

  “Correct. He has connections everywhere and knows a lot of people. I think he must be pretty high up on the hierarchy, although I’m not sure which hierarchy we’re talking about. What I do know is that he’s a great guy with a good heart who Denali adores, so he must be pure of heart. I don’t know him well at all, except that on two occasions he’s popped into my life for a few days, taken me on an adventure, and left.”

  Houston picked up a stick and tossed it for the dogs. “He sounds like an interesting guy. I hope he comes back so I can meet him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling that tug of sadness. “Me too. He’s doing what he wants to do, but I feel bad for him. He doesn’t seem to live anywhere or have anyone in his life. At least not anyone who isn’t a colleague. It seems lonely.”

  “It does, but for some men the mission is the most important thing. They’re willing to give up quite a lot to do the job they believe they were called to do.”

  I reached down and stroked Honey’s head. “Yeah, I get that. I do wish that after all we tried to do to put all the pieces together,
we had more closure. I assume Shredder will eventually track down Rigby, but it would have been a lot more satisfying to be in on the capture. And then there are the unanswered questions about Reggie and Piney’s murders, and whether they’re connected to Rigby. Shredder thinks Reggie killed Piney, but without proof…”

  “Actually, we do have proof,” Houston said. “While you and Shredder were off looking for Rigby, I continued to do my job. I had the jacket Reggie was wearing on the day of the ski trip tested, and the guys at the lab were able to identify a stain found on the front as being blood. Piney’s blood. Combined with everything else we know, I think we can say Reggie killed Piney. I’m still trying to work out who killed Reggie, but from everything you just told me, this Rigby sounds like a good suspect.”

  “I thought so as well until Dani informed me that Darian picked Rigby up at the airport at one o’clock on Monday. It was more like two thirty when Reggie died.”

  Houston groaned. “Damn. I thought we had that one wrapped up.”

  “Afraid not,” I said. I stopped walking and looked around. “I was thinking after we tromped all the way out here, we should get two trees. One for my place and one for yours.”

  Houston raised a brow. “Mine? Is this outing really an attempt to sneak some Christmas cheer into my life?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Is it working?”

  Houston laughed. “Yes, I guess it is. A small tree might be nice. I guess I should do something to celebrate the holiday because I don’t plan to travel home.”

  “If you aren’t going home, you should come to Neverland for Christmas Eve. Jake closes at noon and Sarge cooks a big dinner for the entire search-and-rescue team. Dogs are welcome, as are guests of the team. Harley is coming, and so is Chloe, and I’m pretty sure Wyatt is bringing the girl he’s been dating, who I’m very excited to meet. So how about it? Are you in?”

  Houston hesitated.

  “It beats a TV dinner. And Kojak will have fun with the other dogs. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for him.”