Chapter 3
499 Words
3
I get up from the table, push in my chair.
“Look, Dr. Singh, I know precisely where this is going. Like
I told you, I’m good with finding missing people, and I’ve even been known to
dig up an archeological relic now and again. But I do not, will not, battle a
satanic cult that will string me up and dissect me alive as easily and
thoughtlessly as cooking up some chicken tandoori on the grill. Only thing that
distinguishes the Thuggee from ISIS is they’ve been around far longer and have
perfected their killing techniques. If my history serves me right, they were
responsible for the slaughter of more than two million innocent souls before
the British put an end to them in the mid-nineteenth century.” I start walking
on Via Guelfa towards my home. “Thanks for saving my ass at the bar and thanks
for the coffee, but I’m not your man. You need the f*****g Expendables…excuse
my French times two.”
“Mr. Baker!” he shouts, so loud his
voice echoes off the old stone and stucco-faced five-story buildings.
I turn to find him standing by the
table. “There is something I’m not telling you that might change your mind.”
“What exactly is that?”
He stares not at me, but into me.
His eyes not blinking, drawing me into their powerful gaze like he managed to
do with psycho-Calum only minutes before.
“Elizabeth,” he says. “Elizabeth
Flynn.”
The name hits me like a
sledgehammer to the head. A name that goes with a face I’ve tried my damnedest
to forget about over the last five years.
“How do you know that name?” Gravel
in my voice, profound heaviness in my heart.
“Let’s go someplace and talk more.
This is not the place.”
A car passes. Then a motorbike.
Following that a truck. Foreign exchange and Junior Year Abroad Students fill
the sidewalks with their school bags slung over their shoulders. The bells
inside Giotto’s Tower in nearby Piazza del’ Duomo are tolling the five o’clock
hour. They toll for me. Ominous rings to say the least.
“Elizabeth,” I say, the name
slipping off my tongue like warm water. It’s a name I have not uttered out loud
since the day I left her on a train platform in the Varanasi station, but a
name I have no doubt spoken countless times in my mind and in my sleep. It’s
also a name I heard again, just last month, in a disturbing letter that I
received at my Florence address. But now, this…
“I can lead you to her probable
whereabouts.”
“But that’s impossible, Singh. She’s
dead.”
“No one dies, Mr. Baker. Not
really. Perhaps we should talk more.”
The cobbles beneath my feet feel
like they’re turning to liquid. This conversation is creepier and creepier with
each vowel uttered.
Don’t do it, Chase. Don’t take
the bait…Don’t…You…Do…It!
“Follow me,” I say, my mouth
suddenly gone dry. So much for resolve. Chase the weak and the whipped.
As Dr. Singh approaches me, I turn
away so that he doesn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.
- Writer
