Alison Kent's Blah Blog

The trail went cold in New Orleans the same time as the weather, a double header for which he wasn’t prepared. Since hired by Cindy Eckhardt to look into the kidnapping of her husband Dayton—chief executive for the fire hot Eckton Computing—private investigator Jack Montgomery had reveled in all kinds of heat.

First the temperature that had the Gulf Coast in an unseasonably sweaty grip. Next the leads that had him hoofin’ it across the state line, from Texas into Louisiana. Finally the burning in his gut that made him believe this case was going to go down like cream.

But then the tables had turned, flipping him a big fat bird. And now he found himself standing in the middle of Jackson Square, two weeks into the new year, freezing his ass off and wondering whether he’d be doing better to turn left or turn right.

Aimless, he started walking, lost in thought and as the sign for Café Eros came into view, hungry enough to eat a six foot submarine sandwich. Café Eros, eh? Well, he’d never been one to turn his back on love—even if right now the only affair he was interested in involved his stomach and a whole lot of food.

Burrowing into his hooded sweatshirt, he headed for the building’s courtyard. Hands shoved into his pockets, head bowed, chin tucked to his chest, he jogged up the stairs to the small eatery’s second floor. He wasn’t in the mood for a crowd.

Too much noise interfered with his ability to process information, to analyze, to reason, to think—which was why he and covert ops had made such a good fit for so many years. The missions he had run required secrecy, and communication was often accomplished with hand signals and nothing more.

When hitting a dead end like this one, however, he doubted even total silence would help. What he needed was a sign. But first he needed a sandwich.

At the counter behind which was painted a mural of a swaggering swashbuckler, Jack ordered a bowl of gumbo and half a muffuletta. When in Rome, and all that. He took a seat at a table decorated with one of the purple, green and gold Mardi Gras table cloths and picked up a copy of the Times-Picayune.

He scanned the front page, listening to the smoky jazz playing from the café’s corner speakers—god, he loved jazz—sipping at a hot chicory coffee blend, the warmth of the mug thawing his fingers and doing a good job of heating up the iceberg in his gut. He was not cut out for the cold.

He’d lived most of his life in Texas for that very reason. His years in the military were the only ones he’d spent away from the Lone Star State. Bring on the heat and humidity; that was his motto. Even the mosquitoes and the ragweed couldn’t drive him away.

With what he’d suffered during his years in covert ops—the lack of food, of sleep, of shelter, often of contact with another soul whose native tongue was the same as his—a heat index of a hundred and ten, air too heavy with moisture to breath, sweat that ran into his eyes and stuck his clothes to his skin was nothing.

He turned to page two, his trip down weather lane and the café’s cozy atmosphere making this particular journey in from the cold a welcome one. The coffee was hot and biting, the gumbo that had just arrived steaming with spicy sausage and the tang of tomatoes, okra, and bay. At this rate he might dig in and stay for awhile.

Sounded a lot more appealing than admitting he’d screwed up somewhere, and that the job he’d taken at the request of the Eckhardt family was quickly heading down the tubes. He’d been surprised when Becca, the University of Texas coed who ran his Austin-based business between classes from her Blackberry, had told him of Cindy Eckhardt’s call.

He had a reputation for finding people who didn’t want to be found. He owed much of the notoriety to Becca. She was in the fifth year of her four year degree plan, having spent thirty-six months working her way around the world before starting school at twenty-one. Since taking the job five years ago when he first set up shop, she’d made it her mission to get his name out there in an effort to ensure job security. Hers.

She’d had no problem with the fact that he ran his business out of his SUV, and had taken over converting him to a rolling electronic wonder. She’d set up the meeting with the Eckhardt family and flooded his PDA with scanned clippings and emailed him online stories. Enough of the crime’s details had been in the news that he wasn’t surprised things had begun going south.

The kidnappers had only to flip on a local broadcast and hear everything the media proclaimed the public had a right to know. Screw that. Dayton Eckhardt wasn’t the public’s husband or father. No one but the Eckhardt family, the Austin PD, and the FBI had a right to anything. And, the way he saw it, in that order—the very reason he checked in with Cindy every few hours, new news or not.

Unfortunately, so many of the particulars had been leaked that the kidnappers were no longer even a blip on the radar. If anything, they were burrowed deep underground. Three days and counting, the police were down to zero leads and still waiting for a ransom demand. Jack had lucked out with the New Orleans connection—especially since the feds had turned up nothing in Louisiana beyond rumors that a psychic was involved.

Dayton Eckhardt had started Eckton Computing in the Big Easy before market conditions—property taxes, salaries, the value of a square foot of warehouse space—sent the start-up to Austin a year ago, leaving behind more than a few disgruntled employees—not to mention, rumor had it, Dayton’s disgruntled mistress.

One of the ex-employees Jack had interviewed thought she’d seen Dayton at a Christmas party in the Quarter. That made no sense, but it was the only scrap Jack had, and he held on tight. There had been no activity on Dayton’s cell phone since the kidnapping, none on his personal or corporate e-mail accounts.

At least nothing outgoing. There had been plenty of incoming and most of it spam. Even that had been analyzed by the Eckton tech working with the Austin PD. So far nothing but fun to be had with erectile dysfunction meds and lonely housewives plugged into web cams.

Jack was more into having fun with the real thing. Or he would be one of these days. When he found the time. When he found the woman. When he found a reason to look for either instead of spending his time looking for strangers who’d vanished without a trace instead of looking to find himself.

His life had been in flux for awhile, the transition from covert ops to civilian PI not the vacation the brochures promised. Six years ago at his fifteenth reunion, after catching up with his high school friends who’d made up “the deck”—he’d been the jack, Quentin the queen, Heidi the joker, Ben the ace, Randy the king—fitting back into real life had seemed a doable prospect.

Before that he’d been drifting, living on the road and out of his duffle bag, fronting for Diamond Jack, the band he’d put together once his discharge had come through. Music had been a huge part of his life for as long as he could remember.

His days playing bass in “the deck’s” high school ensemble had been one of the best times of his life. He’d learned about belonging. About true friendships and human nature, about faults and flaws and royally freaking things up—which was exactly what he’d done after graduation, earning himself several years bending over as Uncle Sam’s bitch.

And here he’d gone and done the same thing now. No, dude. You didn’t. You’re just stuck with the big stinkin’ pile of crap left by everyone who worked this case before you. Telling himself that was a whole lot easier than buying it as the truth.

Truth held position number one at the top of Jack’s culpability barometer. And not the ask-me-no-questions-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies sort of honesty he’d witnessed too often, but balls-to-the-wall-or-die.

If knowledge was power, then truth was omnipotence . . . and was why Jack nearly sputtered gumbo across the newspaper when he turned to page fifteen and the headline halfway down leaped out.

Psychic Della Brazille to Consult on Eckhardt Kidnapping

What the hell?

Oh no. This wasn’t happening. He wasn’t having his case all mucked up by a scammer out to fleece a family already on the edge. After the hurt he’d seen, the anger, the pain—hell, after being the cause of so much and having to learn to live with it all—there was no way he’d let anyone latch on like a leech to his case.

Especially not a con artist more interested in fifteen minutes of fame than anything resembling reality—or truth.