Free Lost Cargo by Hollister Ann Grant, Gene Thomson Page A

together.
    Travis caught himself in the mirror, his hulking frame crammed on her elegant couch beside a mountain of her underwear and her jeans. Just an ordinary guy who wanted to teach English Lit someday. Nothing for Tom Feldman to worry about.
    “Downloaded,” she said. “Here they go.”
    He forgot about himself when a human foot appeared on the screen. More terrible images followed. Blood-soaked concrete. Glittering glass. The smashed-in utility box and long ruts in the grass where the car ripped up the ground. Damp asphalt shimmered under the streetlight and trees and shrubs floated in the fog. And there was the giant’s monstrous cape swirling in the darkness. The flash caught her menacing shoulders and long arms.
    “What do you think?” Lexie asked him. “Take them to the police?”
    He leaned forward. “They won’t do anything with them.”
    She looked surprised. “Why not?”
    “Because you can’t tell who it is. You didn’t get her face.”
    Lexie sighed and turned off the computer.
    He waited downstairs while she changed clothes for the second time that night. Finally she appeared in black jeans, hiking boots, another white sweater and a quilted jacket, her hair brushed over her shoulders and the camera around her neck. She looked stunning.
    Maybe there was a chance they’d find Burke in the daylight. Travis called a cab and watched the sunrise as the streets rolled by from behind the safety of the cab’s windows. They’d been up all night, but he was so wired it didn’t matter. He left Lexie at Bustelo, a cafe on Connecticut Avenue, and took the cab to get the gun, planning to meet up with her within the hour.
    The
Washington Times
was still on his mother’s porch, a good sign. Nobody seemed to be up when he unlocked the door, another good sign.
    He crept through the dark hall to the den and opened the curio cabinet. Where was the gun? Shadowy keepsakes crammed the shelves. Old tickets to Europe, cork coasters from a German beer hall, photos of his grandfather on a troop ship, dog tags, military patches and pins, and pink-cheeked Hummel figurines with umbrellas, books, and ducklings. He moved down the shelves. Ancient rosary beads, a yellowed baseball from some long ago game, and more photos of people he didn’t recognize wearing old-fashioned clothes. There was the Colt 45, all the way in the back.
    He held his breath and slipped it out, trying not to bang the barrel against the glass doors. The gun smelled of oily metal and dust. World War I. He could feel the weight of history in his hand.
    Triple-great Harry stared down from a painting over the fireplace, stiff and formal behind a drooping gray mustache. The last person to handle the Colt 45, once a vibrant young man fighting on the faraway fields of Europe.
    Travis saluted the portrait with two fingers, whispered “For luck,” put the gun in his coat, and remembered the bullets. He sifted through the cluttered shelves again. Then he saw the clip, had second thoughts about arming the gun, put the clip and the gun in separate pockets, and banged the glass doors.
    “Travis, is that you?” came his mother’s clear voice from the kitchen.
    “Damn it,” he swore under his breath. There was no point in trying to sneak out now, so he went in the kitchen and grabbed a cinnamon roll. His mother was standing at the counter with flour all over her hands, and he could feel the bad vibes before she even turned around.
    “So you couldn’t make it to Lisa and Ian’s welcome home dinner,” she said.
    “No, I had an emergency,” he said.
    “Who’s this girl that you took to the hospital?”
    “You don’t know her.”
    “Where did you take her?”
    “Hey, I’m not here for the third degree. I just came by to borrow a book.” Think fast. Mr. Electricity. “That Ben Franklin biography you were reading it a few months ago. What’re you making?”
    He could see her fuming.
    “Walnut bread,” she said at last. “We have a budget meeting