CHAPTER 8: Breadcrumbs
1
"Sir, calm down."
"Don't tell me to calm down! Let me speak to your brother."
Lincoln sighed, before giving Michael a weary look. It was the same look he gave their parents when they said he was too young to babysit his little brother, meaning too unreliable.
"It's for you," he handed Michael the phone.
They were back at the small parking lot in the city center. Michael sat inside the car and waited until Lincoln had joined him, with all the car doors closed, before he spoke.
"You shouldn't have called, Governor. We established there was a risk the kidnappers were listening to your calls—"
"I'm calling from a payphone, goddamn it."
"It isn't necessarily safer," Michael said. "Supposing they're tapping your calls, they might also be keeping an eye on you."
"Well, I needed to talk to you and you're still in that godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere!"
Michael licked his lips. Judged on Frank's reaction when he had been talking to Lincoln, he thought it wiser to avoid repeating the same piece of advice. It was true, though. Frank needed to calm down. If the kidnappers saw him, talking agitatedly to someone at a payphone—
Michael needed to be calm enough for them both. He needed to make sure Frank got back into his car and out of sight as fast as possible.
"All right, Governor. Talk to me."
"The kidnappers called."
Michael and Lincoln exchanged a look.
"Already?" Lincoln said. "But they called this morning—"
"They know something's not right," Frank said. "It's the only reason!"
"No, it's not." Michael interrupted. "Governor, please listen to me. You're overwrought. You're going through something extremely stressful, and it's possible you aren't reading this right. You did record the phone call, like you did with the first one?"
There was a while of silence. Michael didn't breathe. A woman's life was on the line, and if her father screwed it all up by losing his nerve—
"Yes," Frank said.
Michael nodded. "Good. You need to send it to me as soon as possible."
"Can't you listen to it when you get back to Chicago?"
"I can't afford to wait that long. You're going to create an email address and use it to send me the audio file. Can you do that, Governor?"
"I—yes. You're coming back soon, though?"
"As soon as I can."
They ended the call.
Michael's eyes locked with his brother's, who was looking very red. Fat drops of perspiration pearled down his temples. It always took Lincoln a lot of effort to keep his temper in check.
"I don't believe this," he said. "He's going through a stressful time?"
His fist crashed against the dashboard.
"Lincoln," Michael said, "I'm going to suggest you take your own advice and calm down."
"If he's been seen going in that payphone, his daughter could die."
"You think I don't know that?"
Michael could see that he did, but the frustration was too much for him to bite back on it. "Fuck," Lincoln said. "Fucking hell."
"Are you done?"
Lincoln punched the dashboard again. "Yeah." He took deep breaths, his nostrils flaring like a dragon's. "We can't leave the governor alone."
"I agree."
"So, it's back to Chicago, is it?"
"For you," Michael said.
Lincoln tilted his head. "You're not coming with me?"
"I'm not done with this town."
"Come on, Mike. You have nothing on this place except for a hunch."
"Not a hunch. Instinct."
Lincoln shrugged, as if to say, tomato, tomato. Which he might have said, if a young woman's life hadn't been hanging in the balance, momentarily ruining his mood for trite expressions.
"We've seen nothing suspicious," Lincoln said. "We haven't even seen the car. It suggests the kidnappers just stopped here to change license plates then moved on."
"I know what it suggests," Michael said. "But I think there's something here, and it'd be dangerous for me to get back to Chicago so soon."
Lincoln thought for a while. Ultimately, there was nothing to do but let Michael have his way. "All right. You can keep the car. I'll ride back to Chicago with the train."
2
Michael was alone in the car when he played the recording of Frank's conversation with his daughter and her kidnapper. Looking closely at his face, you wouldn't have thought he was angry. Lincoln used to tease him about this. "You know what Mom says?" Lincoln asked him one day, when they were both in their teens. "That I should be more like you, keep my emotions under the surface." Lincoln had chuckled goodheartedly. "She calls you an iceberg, man. Ten percent above the water, all the rest underneath. Except that's not really true, is it? You're all underwater, Mikey."
Had that made Michael smile? He could remember the conversation, but not precisely what his reaction had been. Back then, he and Lincoln didn't get along as well as they did now. He could never tell for sure when his older brother was making fun of him.
One thing was certain. Listening to the talk between hostage, father and kidnapper, Michael felt as angry as he ever had.
The woman's bravery under the threat of her own death. The act she put on—yes, he could tell she was acting. Her tone was different from how she had sounded, just this morning.
During the first conversation with her father, Sara had been professional. Saying what was expected of her, holding herself together. Had she been scared? Of course. Michael thought any sane person would be. But there had been a turn in her voice, during the second phone call. There, she sounded confident. Comforting. She had taken control over her father—Michael cursed. If he could hear it, then her kidnapper might. It was clear as rainwater to Michael that Sara had realized her survival was in her own hands, and not her father's.
"She's clever," he said, alone in the driver's seat. He hadn't moved in the last hour, as he played the recording over and over. Michael was used to talking to himself. Before he and Lincoln warmed up to each other in adulthood, the most profound conversations Michael ever had had been with himself. "But maybe her kidnapper is clever, too."
That was a strong possibility. He didn't sound like an idiot, though he did sound, as Lincoln might have put it, obnoxious as fuck.
Michael could understand Frank's anger. It was his only defense against the idea that this man could subject his daughter to nameless torments, and that he would do it, if he learned about Frank's true intentions.
That he would take such great risks with his daughter's life escaped Michael's moral code, but not his understanding. All his life, Michael had watched people behave with a baffling lack of compassion. It unsettled him when he was little, and it still did. This was why he had become, in Lincoln's terms, all underwater. Michael didn't have the option of letting his emotions surface. He was always upset.
The voice the kidnapper, chilling in its casualness, upset him especially. Maybe it explained why it took him such a long time to grasp the meaning of Sara's words, as she said, It doesn't change much from usual.
Michael put the recording on pause. Now he had picked up on it, he could hear how hesitant her breath was before she said the words. Simple words. Why would she debate over saying them? If she was just making conversation, trying to make her father feel better—
"The food doesn't change much from usual." Michael said the words to himself, until he was convinced this was no random remark. She had sprinkled breadcrumbs for him to find. "Clever," he said, almost laughing. "Clever, really clever."
He took his cell phone and called Lincoln, who picked up right away, "Hello?"
"Hi, Linc. Are you home yet?"
"Almost. Is there something you need?"
"Drive back to Sara's apartment."
He didn't mention Lincoln should use the same precautions as they had last time. Not using his police car, wearing unnoticeable clothes, and making sure he wasn't being followed. Lincoln might not know when to hold his tongue, he knew when to keep his head down.
"Why?" Lincoln's voice spiked up. "What did you find?"
"I think she tried to give us a clue. Just go. Call me when you're there."
3
Most policemen Lincoln knew liked to brag about their moral compass, but Lincoln never took part in such talks. Maybe that was because he had been flirting with crime before he became a cop. In any case, he didn't whine when the job put him in what his colleagues called a grey area. He didn't shy away from tough decisions, and yeah, occasionally, he had to hold back from handing out free punches to particularly twisted scumbags.
Yet he wasn't a big fan of what his little brother asked him to do that evening.
"Do what?"
"Go through the trash," Michael's voice was calm as ever over the phone.
"Eh—you want to explain why I need to do that?"
"Don't tell me you're grossed out."
"Not by trash, no."
It was rather the idea of invading the woman's privacy that Lincoln found repulsive. Nothing allows you a glimpse into a person's life like trash. That's where everything you don't want people to know about ends up. Used condoms, empty medicine boxes, beer cans. But there were no such things in Sara's trash.
The woman doesn't live much at home, Lincoln reckoned. Must be married to her job.
"You want to tell me what I'm looking for?" Lincoln said, when he was on his knees, fishing through detritus with the one hand, holding his phone with the other.
"Takeout boxes," Michael answered. "Can you find any?"
"Uh—yeah."
If he had been able to see Michael's face, his eyes would have flared to life like he'd been delivered an electric shock. "What company?"
Lincoln turned the box around until he could read the name. "Freshly," he said.
"Are there many boxes?"
Lincoln fished around some more. "Yeah. Like, three or four." He heard his brother's sigh over the phone. "Now, do I get to know what this means?"
"It means I'm looking for a job as a delivery boy," Michael answered.
…
End Notes: I know it took me a while to update. I haven't forgotten about these stories, and I'm also working on the next chapter for Twist of Fate. But I do have a lot of personal projects going on, so I don't have as much time for the fandom as I would like. Please share your thoughts in the comments section. Take care!