Chapter 23

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Almost 3:00 pm. Tori’s shift mates would be starting soon. I planned to wait until after 4:00 to let the first shift go home, so I had some more time to kill. I had seen a Best Buy electronics store not far from the hospital and headed there.

I needed something to use for the internet besides an iPhone. I’ve never been much of an Apple fanboy but it is a good product line. I hemmed and hawed for a while between a chromebook and an iPad Air and eventually went with the iPad Air plus a bunch of accessories. The accessories cost more than the iPad did.

I sat in the parking lot considering my next moves. Expecting to be in the hospital again soon, and being under all of those cameras, I figured I might want to get a better disguise ready. I changed my face to Daniel’s and gave some thought to keeping the truck out of view too. I looked around the parking lot and realized there were a lot of other options open to me.

A middle aged black man parked his car a few spaces past me and got out. He would be walking past me to go into the store and I had Carl order him to get in the truck instead. Carl flashed me an image of him being jacked just before he opened the door and climbed into the truck.

I said, “I order you to be willing to help me out today. What’s your name?”

“Walter Banks”

“Tell me about your plans for this afternoon Walter.”

“I was headed into Best Buy for a new printer, my old one died last night.”

I asked, “Is there going to be any trouble for you if I take up an extra hour or so of your time? I need you to drive me somewhere and bring me back here when I’m done.”

He said, “No, that should be fine. My wife and I won’t sit down to eat until after 6:00 pm.”

I said, “Well, I still have some time to kill. Why don’t we go get your printer out of the way.”

I walked up to the counter at the lab and a new person was looking bored and filling out paperwork. Carl flashed me an image of her being jacked into and I said, “I order you to tell me how many people are working in the lab tonight.”

She thought for a moment and said, “There are eight of us including myself and our supervisor.”

I opened up my memo pad and took note of how many people I was looking for.

I asked, “Is everyone in one general area or are they spread out? Will it be hard to get everyone’s attention at more or less the same time?”

“It’s one large open area with a bunch of equipment in rows. There are a few offices opening into it, but you shouldn’t have any trouble.”

“Am I likely to be putting anyone at risk by getting everyone’s attention?”

“No, I can’t think of anything like that for you to worry about.”

“Is there a lot of in and out traffic to the lab?”

She said, “No, almost none. There are a couple other doors but they are rarely used. Almost everyone uses that door right there to come and go. People outside the lab deal with whoever is running the desk, like I am right now, except for the cleaning crew and the like.”

“What is your name?”

“Anne Patrick”

“Okay, Anne, I’m going to need you to stay here and do your job while I talk to everyone else. I’ll ask questions of you later. Is there anything you think I need to know before I go in there?”

She shook her head no, and I headed through the door, shutting it behind me.

I walked into the center of the room, passing by a few workers and rows of scientific looking equipment. I got more than a few stares. Carl was busy jacking into each of them as they came within reach and by the time I got to the center we had jacked 6 of the 7 people I was expecting to reach.

A man came out of the office and headed my way. Carl flashed me an image of him being jacked too, taking us to 7 out of 7, and I waited for the inevitable question from him.

He asked, “Can I help you sir? This is supposed to be a restricted area, and you really shouldn’t be back here.”

I spoke loudly to the whole room, “Can I have your attention please? I order you to finish what you are doing or find a good stopping point for a few minutes. I need to speak to all of you.”

I turned to the supervisor and asked, “Is there a conference room nearby, or a good place where I can speak to this group as a whole and then individually?”

He said, “If you just have an announcement, right here should be fine for speaking to the group, for the individual conversations you are welcome to use my office.”

I said, “That will work. This won’t take too long.”

Within a minute everyone was gathered around me.

“Okay, as some of you might have guessed already, I want to talk to you all about Tori Nichols and her disappearance yesterday. There is a good chance one or more of you have information that will help me find out what happened. I want you all to think about things like; Did she have any enemies? Did she ever mention someone in her life that made her nervous? Was there anyone new in her life? What do you know about her plans that day? Did you see anyone odd or suspicious that day? Did anything else odd happen that day? How about the last few days?”

“There is a good chance you know more than you think you do. Really try to remember everything as best you can. If you think of any better questions I could ask, let me know when you speak to me. I’ll start with your supervisor here. Go ahead and get back to work, but try to be ready when it’s your turn.”

The supervisor led me to his office and offered me the use of his chair. I took a minute to write down the questions I had mentioned and I got everyone’s name from the supervisor.

I asked him, “What do you know about the police investigation into this so far?”

“Just that they started it, I haven’t spoken to anyone from the police yet personally. They just gathered general info from the morning shift when they noticed the car still in the parking lot. I haven’t heard anything specific, but my expectation is that they will be coming to talk to us soon.”

“I think you are probably right. Let’s try to move this along. We’ll go over the questions I mentioned out there first. Does anything jump to your mind to start with?”

He said, “No, she told me that she was going to get something to eat before she left right around 6:30 I think. I don’t believe she mentioned where she was going at the time. Nothing odd or unusual stands out to me for the last few days, and Tori and I weren’t ones to share personal things. I work this shift all the time and only really interact with her for a week every 6 to 8 weeks. I like her and think she’s a great employee, but we weren’t close and I wouldn’t know anything about her life outside work.”

I went through the other employees, including having someone relieve Anne briefly so she could talk to me. Nobody had anything to say worth noting, except one of them thought she mentioned going to get some Chipotle before leaving. Another two employees repeated things about me that they overheard Tori talking to Kara about.

I thanked everyone and sent them back to work, then I left the lab and asked the first security person I came across to point me to the head of security, or whoever would be in charge right now.

They led me to the office of Donald Mason who shook my hand and asked, “What can I do for you sir?”

My guide had already departed so I said, “I order you to assist me. Have the police contacted anyone in your office about reviewing camera footage of Tori Nichols disappearance yet?”

He said, “Several of us have been looking at it for them and we haven’t found anything yet. They haven’t requested copies of the footage, but I expect that is coming. The hospital will require a warrant from them due to insurance liability concerns, I’m sure. I’ve got to tell you though, it’s a mystery to us how it happened.”

“We have footage of her leaving the lab and walking down several halls toward the employee parking area, then she just leaves one camera’s coverage and never shows up anywhere else that we can find so far. There are some store rooms that have all been searched thoroughly where nothing was found. There are no stairwells nearby, no way we can see that she could have avoided a camera. The halls all have a reasonable amount of traffic in that time frame, so we are a bit stumped to be honest.”

I said, “Can you show me?”

He could and did. Nothing jumped out at me either. I thanked him for the help and left the hospital. I found Walter where he was waiting for me in the parking lot and he took me back to my truck. I thanked Walter and handed him a twenty in appreciation for the help.

I headed back to Meghan’s apartment, changing from Daniel into Paul as I drove. When I got inside, I went through the process of setting up the new iPad and testing out its features. I unpacked the luggage and settled into the apartment. I set my dirty clothes into an empty hamper Megan had in her room. There must be a laundromat nearby.

I realized I would need to do a trip to the grocery store, she had cleaned out the fridge of everything perishable. I would need some staples, eggs, OJ, milk, cereal I liked, sandwich meat, bread, etc. She seemed set as far as spices and cookware went.

The trip to the store was uneventful, except for a cashier who could not seem to stop staring at my ass. I didn’t notice, but Carl had great fun showing me the look on the guy’s face. After putting everything away I made a sandwich and watched the evening news. Nothing about Tori. What the hell were the police doing? Were they even looking at all?

I could only sit around doing nothing for so long before I needed to find something to do. Exercise seemed like the best use of my time. I felt the urge to expand my reach, as my abilities were becoming more and more involved in my everyday life.

The girls I had already met at Snooty Foxx seemed to like Paul more than they did Capp. Which made me chuckle a few times during the night as I considered the different reactions. I was able to get a solid night of exercise in and closed the place down at 2:00 am. Going to bed alone wasn’t much fun, but the bed itself was comfortable.

Thursday, January 20th, 2022 Colorado Springs, Colorado

As I made breakfast I considered how I wanted to approach the police situation. I could be a puppet master, staying way in the background, but I wanted to freely interact with them. I couldn’t do that because none of my personas could stand up to more than a cursory review.

Brad’s persona was probably the best option, but sooner or later we’d be found to be in two places at once. I wanted to try and keep Paul low key and local only. He was a poor choice for poking at the authorities. Roman was still best saved for travel, and the others were all just fabrications with no depth at all.

I had Susan working on finding a coma patient I might be able to swap with and have a real past, but that wasn’t as pressing as getting some idea of what the police knew. Well, the best plan was probably to start from the top. How do I get Brad some time with the Chief of Police? Mornings are best because he will probably be sleeping until noon.

I finished eating and cleaned up all the breakfast dishes. Loaded my iPad and a couple different t-shirts into the backpack, in case I needed to make some fast changes. With the bag on my shoulder I got in the truck and headed downtown to the Police Department Headquarters.

When I got there and pulled into the parking lot, there was a lot of commotion in an empty lot right across the street. Six or seven patrol cars with lights flashing and a cordoned off area could be seen between the cars. There were a lot of uniformed people milling around.

On a hunch that I might find something I could use to work my way into the Chief’s office, I wandered over to see what was happening. I was stopped by an officer and told to stay back.

I told him, “I order you to tell me what is going on.”

He said, “They found a woman’s body here this morning. Looks like it was dumped overnight. Detectives are all over it. All I’ve heard is she was found naked and tied up with duct tape. As far as I know, no ID has been found.”

I saw a cluster of high ranking police officers and figured the Chief was probably one of them, but now was probably not a good time to poke that hornet’s nest. I asked the officer, “Can you point out one of the detectives for me?”

He pointed to a man in a suit writing notes while talking to another officer and said, “That’s Detective Spalding.”

I saw the detective was finishing up and putting away his notebook, so I told the officer to call him over. He did and Spalding made his way to us.

Carl flashed an image of Spalding being jacked into as he got about halfway to us. I held out a hand and said, “Detective Spalding, my name is Paul Johnson. I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time. I know you are terribly busy, but I think it might be worth it to you.”

He said, “Go ahead.”

I turned to the officer and said, “Excuse us,” as I stepped away and the detective walked with me for a few steps before we stopped to talk. I said, “I came to headquarters this morning because I was hoping to get an update on the case of a woman that went missing from work a few nights ago. I saw the commotion and came over. Since I hear that you’ve found a body, I of course have to wonder if it’s her.”

He asked, “What was the name of your missing person?”

“Her name is Tori Nichols. She is a lab tech at Mercy Hospital and a good friend of a girl I’ve been dating. She is an attractive woman, approximately 30 years old with long black hair. She’s 5’6” or 5’7” tall, and has a nice body that she doesn’t mind showing off at the clubs. Her skin is a light caramel color and I once heard her say that her mom was from Puerto Rico.”

He said, “Okay, and why are you so interested in the case?”

I replied, “Well, I’ve met and like Tori so that should be good enough of a reason to my mind. However, Rhonda made me promise to see what I can do about progress on her case. As far as we know, you guys haven’t started looking into it yet.”

He asked, “Alright, but who’s Rhonda and what does she think you can do about it?”

“She’s the girl I’ve been dating that I mentioned earlier. Tori’s a close friend of hers. She thinks that the fact that I have money means people will just go out of their way to help me. Honestly, it only works that way when someone wants something from me, in my experience, but I promised to try.”

I sent, [Carl, order him to completely believe us, and to make reviewing Tori’s case high on his priorities.]

Spalding said, “I’ll level with you, there is a chance this could be your girl. I would like you to ID her, but we have to preserve evidence before you can be allowed anywhere near her, so we’re going to have to schedule that another time. I’ll look at her case file and see if things match up. Let me have your contact info and I’ll get back to you.”

I gave him Brad’s phone number and address. I’m sure he was going to be so happy to be involved. I just hope it doesn’t piss him off, I’d hate to have to force him to help. And I needed to hook him up with Rhonda and work on their backstory. I doubt she would mind potentially dating a millionaire.

The detective walked back to the crime scene and I headed back to the truck. I needed to do some scrambling now. I drove away and pulled into a gas station just to get off the road, but the truck was at a half tank so I thought I might as well top it off anyway. As I was pumping gas I called Kara.