Harp looked defeated, like he’d let down Tooney, and there was nothing he could do to make it right.
Logan sat down beside him. “You wanted me to find her and bring her back. Dad, that’s still what I’m going to do.”
“Do you think you really can?”
The answer that came immediately to mind was, “I don’t know,” but instead he said, “I’m not going to stop until I do.”
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
Finally, Logan said, “Wherever she’s gone, Dad, I’m going to have to follow her.”
“Well, that’s not a problem,” his father replied, grabbing onto the thread of hope Logan had given him. “I told you we’d cover all costs.”
“I’ll need cash. A few grand at least, and that’s not counting the plane ticket.”
“The boys and I will go to the bank tomorrow.”
“You should probably do it first thing,” Logan said. “I’ll need to leave as soon as I can.”
“For Tokyo?” his dad asked.
“That, I don’t know yet.”
Harp gave his son a smile, then said, “Thanks, Logan. I’m glad you’re here, and I know you’ll do the best you can.”
I hope so.
23
The address Debbie Midwin had given Logan was to the same building in which he’d questioned Mr. Williams and Mr. Dean. But that wasn’t a surprise.
He parked in the lot directly across from it this time, and knocked on the door.
A few moments later, a smiling woman of about forty-five opened it. She was short, maybe five-three at best, and dressed in jeans and a green sweater. By her demeanor, it could have just as easily been 1:00 p.m. as 1:00 a.m.
“Mr. Cole?” she asked.
Logan nodded, smiling. “You must be Ms. Midwin.”
“Just call me Debbie. Come in, come in.”
As soon as he was inside, she shut the door.
“I want to thank you for meeting with me this late,” he said. “I know it’s a huge inconvenience.”
She shook her head dismissively. “Not at all. You’d be surprised at how many late nights we put in here.”
As she led him from the reception area into the back room, he heard something moving around. “Is someone else here?”
She smiled. “Just Roger. Roger, come here.” A few seconds later, a golden retriever ran up and nuzzled Debbie’s hand.
When he saw Logan, he ambled over. “Hey, Roger. How you doing?”
The dog sniffed his fingers, then gave them an experimental lick. After that, they were fast friends.
Debbie pointed at the door to the airfield. “The plane’s in a hanger nearby. We just need to—”
“I was thinking we could discuss business first,” Logan said. “If you don’t mind.”
She turned back. “Of course. Whatever you’d like.”
She motioned to a desk in the middle of the room. After they were both seated, Logan let her give him what he assumed was her normal sales pitch.
Finishing up, she said, “As you can imagine, we deal with a lot of people looking for discretion. For that reason, we never discuss our client list with anyone. In our case, less publicity means better business.”
“I certainly can appreciate that. Tell me, do you fly just domestically? Or…?”
She looked momentarily confused. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go to New York?”
“Yes. On this trip. I was thinking more long term.”
“Oh, sure.” She smiled. “We’ll fly anywhere our clients need to go, except war zones and that kind of thing, of course.” She let out a little laugh. “We’re all about customer service, but we’re not fighter pilots.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be.” He paused for a second. “My client might need to fly to Japan later in the month. Is that doable for you?”
“As a matter of fact we have a aircraft making that very trip as we speak.”
“Oh, that’s good to know,” he said, surprised, then chuckled. “So you have a client going to Japan, huh?”
“Well, through Japan, anyway.”
He let the subject drop, and asked if she could run up an estimate of what the New York trip would cost his client.
“No problem,” she said, then pulled a keyboard out from under her computer terminal.
When people typed passwords into their computers, they generally checked to make sure whoever was with them wasn’t looking. But when they did the actually typing, they would focus either on the keyboard or the screen. Logan was petting the dog’s head when Debbie did her check, but as soon as she looked away, he moved his gaze just enough so he could see which keys she tapped to unlock her computer: roger1207. He figured the numbers must be the