Page 57 of Ryder's War

Ace frowned. “That’s kind of vague, brother. And useless information, since thousands of people have the surgery every year.”

“Well, these scars look old,” Ryder told him. “So far we’ve got a few clues. He’s a fit male in his thirties with gastric problems who is an actual Nazi or Nazi sympathizer.”

“I’m gonna go with actual Nazi, ‘cause I sympathize with a lot of causes, but I don’t want their images inked on my skin. I reserve that shit for ideals that run deep.”

Closing the tarp, Ryder began going through the man’s personal effects and pulled out a small coin made of a gold alloy. Holding it up, Ryder read the inscription.

“Do we add video game arcade player or Alf pog collector to our list of clues?” Ace asked with a touch of amusement in his voice.

Shooting Ace a lopsided smile, Ryder tossed him the token. “You’re showing your age on that last one. This one’s an AA sobriety coin. Looks like our dead Nazi enjoyed three years of sobriety before he broke into my place and got himself shot.”

Holding the token up in the air, Ace eyed it under the florescent lighting of the garage. “Yep, it has the sobriety prayer on the back and everything.”

Digging through the rest of the dead man’s possessions, Ryder mumbled, “We’re gathering up a shitload of barely interesting clues leading down the path to nowhere.” Each piece felt like a puzzle fragment without edges—the sobriety coin, the surgery scars, the Nazi ink. Isolated facts that should add up to something but refused to form a clear picture.

“Information is power. Never forget that, brother.”

“Goddamn, you are fuckin’ full of meaningless catch phrases today, aren’t you?”

Ace pinned him with a disgusted stare. “What is your problem?”

“I think the phrase you’re looking for is knowledge is power, you dimwit,” Ryder jabbed back.

Ace was clearly growing agitated. “You get knowledge from information, so it’s the same fuckin’ thing.”

“Clearly it’s not the same thing at all.” Waving one arm arrogantly in the air, Ryder continued. “The world’s full of fucking information. In any given situation, only relevant information is power.”

“All I meant was—”

Darkness’ annoyed voice interrupted from the doorway. “If you two ladies are finished stroking your own egos, maybe you could meet us in my office. Your old man landed and is gathering intel already.”

Grabbing the few items he dug out of the dead man’s pocket, Ryder came smoothly to his feet. “Fuck me, that was fast.”

Clutching the dead man's meager possessions, Ryder followed Darkness toward his office. The clues in his hand felt like anchors, each one potentially tying this stranger to Tiffany's ex, to her disappearance, to whatever storm was brewing on their horizon. And in his world, storms always brought blood.

~ Tiffany ~

The rest area parking lot stretched empty before her as Tiffany tore open the back of her SUV. The makeup bag beneath her spare tire held more than cosmetics; it held her father's last gift—a carefully crafted escape route born from love and desperation.

After no small amount of groping, she pulled out a makeup bag. Slipping back into her SUV, she locked the doors and opened one of her few remaining emergency kits and began rifling through the contents as her mind drifted back to her father’s grim look when he sat her down after her second failed attempt to leave Stuart.

She’d been bruised and battered from being roughed up by him. He’d found her withintwenty-four hours at some second-rate motel where she’d taken a job cleaning rooms. Her father had picked her up the moment Stuart left the house and taken her straight to her godparents’ cabin.

Tiffany woke up the next morning to find a total of six little makeup bags lying in a neat line down the kitchen table. Beside each empty ten-by-twelve-inch rectangular pouch was a grand in small, unmarked bills, two prepaid credit cards loaded with a grand each, a fake state-issued photo ID card, a gym membership card, and two prepaid cell phones. He’d also bought her a cheap little tablet for each pouch and a couple of flash drives. It had been so bizarre that she did a double take between him and the table.

Reaching for a cup of coffee, he’d walked her through his train of thought on the subject. “Leaving Stuart is the right thing to do, but the way you’re going about it is dangerous. You keep leaving, trying to stay close to your mother and me and getting jobs he can easily predict.”

“I figure if I’m persistent enough, he’ll eventually get tired of chasing me.”

“The thing you’re missing about this situation is how much Stuart enjoys hunting you down. He gets a kick out of it, and that means he ain’t ever gonna stop, sweetheart.” Gesturing to the table, hesighed. “You have to be smart, savvy, and unpredictable. You gotta run farther and not contact us in any way he can trace. You need to stay gone until he finds other prey. I’m talking years, not weeks or months.”

“I don’t want to do that,” she’d told him, her eyes swimming with tears.

Leaning in to look her in the eye, her father stated definitively, “You’ve got to. You’re my child, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you get away and stay clear of him. Think of these six packets as emergency escape hatches. If you suspect Stuart has found you, don’t wait for a run-in with the ignorant bastard. Hit the road and start over. Starting over means you use a new alias and new cell phone. Do not carry over names or electronic equipment from one area to another because these are the easiest ways for him to track you.”

Tiffany still remembered every word he’d had to say. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself. Dress down, avoid flashy accessories, and change up your hair color when you jump. Pay with cash when at all possible, avoid setting up bank accounts, and use the prepaid cards everywhere that won’t take cash.

Two cell phones were in each pouch. One was to contact him and her mother so they wouldknow she was safe and had to move again. She was to use it before leaving an area or while on the interstate far away from her current living situation. Conversations were to be kept short, and she was to take the battery out immediately after disconnecting the call. If the phone still had power, it could be tracked. The other phone was her day-to-day phone, until such time as Stuart found her, and then she was to jump locations again and start all over with a different alias.

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