Chapter 22

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Just a little after midnight, I had everything laid out for the Pork Milanese. Flour, egg, and breadcrumb dredging stations all lined up and ready to go. I had the pan heating on low, ready for the oil to go in and start heating once she came in. Salad in a big bowl ready to be dressed and tossed. Some decent looking asparagus waiting to be steamed.

It would be a pretty impressive meal for a first home date. I was looking forward to it a lot more than I expected. I poured myself a glass of wine and propped my feet up on another chair as I waited for the door to open.

It didn’t.

The sun woke me in the morning as a beam of light made its way onto my face. The bed was still empty beside me.

By 1:00 am, I had put everything that needed to be refrigerated back in the fridge. By 2:00 am, I had everything else cleaned up and put away too. By 3:00 am, I was laying in bed staring at the ceiling. I was worried but with no idea of what I should do.

I didn’t have her phone number because when I met her I only had a phone she couldn’t know about, and when I had the new phone I forgot to ask her for it. I could only imagine bad things. Nothing else made any sense to me. Even if something really weird happened at work I doubted she would still be there by this time the next morning.

I got dressed, in the same clothes yet again, but hopefully only for a little while. With my bag swung onto my shoulder, I headed out to the truck. I knew she worked at Mercy Hospital and headed over there. My phone gave me directions.

I drove around the parking lot until I saw the employee parking area. It wasn’t gated off and I took a slow pass through it. Her car was there, or one that looked just like it. Carl couldn’t remember looking at the license plate so his memory wasn’t any better than mine this time. We couldn’t be positive it was her car, but I thought it was. Her still being here was not what I was expecting. Maybe something really did happen that kept her working a double shift. I supposed it was possible.

Pulling into a nearby regular visitor parking spot, I sat in the truck thinking for a while. I could still see the car. It was coming up on 8 am. I figured the shift change would probably be at either 8 or 9 am so I sat back and watched.

There was a decent amount of traffic entering the employee area and people walking into work until 8 am, then it settled down again until 9 am when a bunch of people walked out of work and took off in their cars. Tori’s car didn’t move. One girl pulled up behind the car and got out and walked around it, before getting on her phone. An older woman in a suit came out of the building a few minutes later and joined her. They looked at the car together for a while with serious looks on their faces before they each left again. The girl in the car had driven off and the woman walked back into the building while talking on her phone.

Shit. Shit. Shit. That had to be her car, and now her co-workers were trying to figure out what happened to her too. This doesn’t look good in so many ways. I’d bet serious money there will be a police presence here shortly. I started the truck and drove off while thinking of what to do next. I needed to talk to someone she worked with yesterday. Theoretically they would be here at 3 pm. I couldn’t wait that long. Someone in there knew a lot more than I did about what was going on.

There are cameras all over that place, and a high likelihood they are going to be reviewed soon. I’ve never been inside that building. They can probably see the tag number on this truck but would they be able to recognise Capp’s face while I’m in the truck? Maybe. Capp can’t go inside, he probably shouldn’t be here. Hell, Capp should probably disappear until I find her, or find out what happened to her.

I drove around the hospital area looking for a convenient and secluded meeting place. A few strip malls were possible options, but I didn’t love it. The hassle of getting someone that far away to talk was daunting to begin with. I’d just have to make something work inside. At the very least I would have to start with that regardless. I pulled over to the side of the road and got Max’s shirt out of my backpack. It was wrinkled as hell and a little too large, but it would do. I wasn’t trying to be a fashion model here. I just didn’t want my new face to be wearing the same clothes as Capp from the earlier camera footage this morning.

As I put that shirt on I changed my head to Brad’s. It belongs with this truck anyway, so it seemed the smartest choice. I better check in with Brad too just to be sure we didn’t show up on camera in two places at once. I pulled out the new phone and called him. He answered sleepily. I apologized and said I’d call him later in the day.

I headed back to the hospital and used the main entrance. I went to where patients gave blood and asked one of the employees for directions to the lab. She was very helpful and I was soon facing a guy behind a counter looking bored while doing paperwork. No sign of anyone else was visible, the lab itself was behind closed doors.

Carl flashed an image of the guy being jacked into and I said, “I order you to tell me what you know about what’s going on with Tori Nichols.”

He said, “She is a lab tech who works in this department. Rumor is that she is missing. Apparently, she worked half a shift last night and never came back from her meal break. Someone spotted her car still in the parking lot this morning and the police were called a few minutes ago. I don’t think they have shown up yet. My boss is pretty freaked about it.”

I said, “Do you know if she has any close friends working this shift?”

He replied, “She’s well-liked, but I don’t know how close she is with anyone in particular. If I had to guess, I’d say Kara James was probably closer to her than most. They probably work closest together anyway, and she’s here today.”

I said, “Ask her to step out here for a minute please.”

He made a phone call and soon a tall black woman came out of the door and walked over.

She said, “Can I help you?”

Carl flashed her image to me and I said, “I order you to make plans to meet with me today, lunch would be best if you don’t already have other plans, but I don’t know your schedule.”

She said, “Lunch will work fine. I usually take it in the cafeteria around noon, but I can meet you someplace nearby if you prefer.”

I said, “Let’s meet at the Applebees on Evans Street. I’ll place an order for you to speed things up if you have an idea of what you would like to eat.”

She replied, “Okay, make it a bacon cheeseburger with some fries and a Diet Coke.”

I said, “Thank you, Kara, I’ll see you there.”

She walked away and I told the guy, “You will forget my entire visit, including my conversation with Kara, as soon as I walk away. Understood?”

He nodded and I left.

I went to Jan’s house and found the luggage where I expected. While I was there, I took advantage of the opportunity to change into clean clothes that fit my normal body. I debated washing the other clothes but decided against it.

I was going to need to find a new place to live for a while. Tori’s place would, no doubt, soon be crawling with Police, but I wasn’t worried about anything being found there. Tori’s friends would be contacted. Jamie and Rhonda would certainly mention her taking me home. There was probably video footage of Capp from the bar that night too. I wasn’t going to try to hide Capp’s involvement, but perhaps the girls knew something from Tori that might point to her whereabouts. Maybe Kara would have a way to contact them. I’d have to remember to ask her.

I had some more time to kill, as it was only around 10 am. Thinking of the police looking for Capp I realized I should give the girls another heads up. I pulled out Paul’s phone and sent a text to both girls. “Hey, I’m at the house, picking up my stuff, but I need to speak to one or both of you. Could one of you give me a call when you have a minute?”

A few minutes later the phone rang.

I said, “Hi Jan.”

“Hi Paul. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you girls somewhere private so we can talk freely?”

She replied, “Not completely, we’re studying in a common area on the campus. Hang on, we’ll move to the car, it will just take us a minute to get there.”

I heard them gathering things and then walking down the hall. Someone was wearing heels. As they walked Jan asked, “Did you find everything okay? I think we got it all packed up.”

I said, “It looks like it’s all here. At least, I haven’t seen anything that looked to be missing.”

“Good, almost there now, hang on a second while we get in.”

I heard the doors shut and Meghan said, “Hi Paul.”

I replied, “Hey Meghan. I hope you guys don’t mind, but I needed to talk to someone about what’s going on in my life suddenly. Both of you need to be aware of this anyway, that’s the primary reason I called. It’s another one of those ‘you’re likely to see it on the news’ situations.”

Meghan said, “What’s going on?”

“I’ll apologize ahead of time in case this is painful for either of you. Two nights ago I was in a bar and I met a woman who took me home with her. She went to work the next day, on a swing shift, at 3 pm and was supposed to be home a little after midnight last night. She never came home. So far it seems she went to eat on a break and never returned to work. Police are investigating and Capp is probably already a person of interest in her disappearance. I don’t know how aggressive they are going to pursue this, so that’s just a guess on my part. I’m trying to find out what happened on my own, but I don’t know how successful I will be. Obviously Capp is in hiding now and you might see his face on TV, and it won’t be flattering.”

Jan said, “Paul, I don’t love that you met someone, but I understand it. Do you have a place to stay now? I don’t like the thought of you being out there with no place to feel safe.”

Meghan said, “I haven’t done anything with my place yet. Why don’t you plan on staying there for a while. Did you work out transportation?”

I said, “Yes, I did and I will gladly take you up on that offer Meghan. Thank you.”

She asked, “How should we handle the key exchange? I have a spare key in the apartment, but I’m not sure how we want to get it to you.”

I said, “I can handle that. I need to have a talk with Roman about some things anyway, he can let me in and forget about doing it afterwards. If that’s okay with you.”

She replied, “Actually, I should give him a heads up. Someone will notice you coming and going so he’s going to be curious anyway. Unless you can turn into me.”

I laughed, “We might want to try that someday, but no I have no real interest in being female. Besides, there is also the body mass issue to consider. My version of you would be sure to raise eyebrows.”

Both girls laughed and Jan said, “I’d like to see that.”

I said, “Hang on, I’ll see what I can do.”

I undressed and Carl went to work. When he was done I got a towel from the bathroom to wrap around myself and switched the phone to Facetime.

When they answered I stood by the fridge and said, “This is ... woah, my voice feels weird. Anyway this is what Meghan would look like if she was 6’4” tall.”

They were cracking up. Meghan said, “I could be a basketball queen!”

Jan tried to get me to drop the towel to show how accurate I had been.

I told them, “Meghan and I never had any alone time so I was going to have to figure some things out on my own.”

Meghan started sputtering and Jan kissed her to calm her down. I changed back to Paul and we worked out that Meghan was going to meet me at her apartment around 1:00 pm as I had a lunch meeting coming up at noon.

We ended the call and I was in a much better mood. I really missed having those two in my life.

Sadly, I left the key on the table. Maybe I could earn it back some day. I had to hope.

As I got dressed again I made sure to refill the money belt with about half of a stack of bills from the deposit. I put Brad’s head back on in preparation for my lunch meeting and packed everything back up. I placed the luggage in the back seat of the truck. Paul’s phone was getting low on power and the truck had a wireless charger built into the arm rest, so I took advantage of it. This really was a great truck.

Kara found me sitting in a booth. I was in the mood for some fish and chips and was just starting to dig in when she arrived. Her plate was waiting for her and after quick greetings we both got started on the food before doing much talking.

After finishing off my first filet I told her, “Your orders are to honestly and completely answer all of my questions. When we finish here you will remember all of this as just a pleasant lunch date without being able to recall anything specific that we talked about. You will think of me as an old friend named Brad. Do you understand?”

She nodded and continued eating a few fries.

I asked, “How would you describe your relationship with Tori?”

“We are co-workers and are friendly, but we don’t really socialize outside of work. I’m married with two kids and Tori is much more interested in the club and bar scene than I am.”

“What can you tell me about her disappearance?”

“I wasn’t working with her last night. I only saw her for about an hour during turn-over, but I hear that she went to lunch, well dinner really, and never came back. I haven’t heard anyone say that they knew her plans. My boss was having the security folks review the footage but I haven’t heard anything about what they saw. The police showed up and took some info down. They asked a few of us some basic questions and left. If you want my opinion, they aren’t looking very hard. I overheard one say that it’s suspicious, but it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet.”