Page 12 of Invincible
CHAPTER4
Memphis rolledover the next morning, reaching for Thayer before he remembered he wasn’t at home.Nope, he was stuck in a hotel room in the most humid city in the world, listening to a bear with a deviated septum in the bed next to his.
With a sigh, he pried his eyes open, hunting for his phone.He had talked to Thayer for a few minutes last night between bouts of studying aerial photos of the shipping channel.
After confirming that Mia was still in transit, he had collapsed in his bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
Sitting up on the side of the bed, he slid his glasses on and picked up his phone.There were no messages from Thayer, but Tyler had texted him early this morning.Confirming that he would meet her for lunch at a diner near the docks, he walked into the bathroom for a quick shower.
“So the bear awakes,” he said fifteen minutes later, sitting in the desk chair tying his shoes.Knox looked at him through the mess of hair he usually kept in a ponytail.“I’m meeting Tyler for lunch at one this afternoon.”
“Mmm,” Knox responded, pushing into a sitting position with his back against the headboard.“Maybe you can get her to agree to help us.I’m picking Dex up from the airport at two.I can drop you off, then join you after I pick him up.He said last night that he finally got permission to come poke around down here.His boss is giving him three days to produce some proof worth pursuing.”
“I guess we’d better step up our game, then.Maybe, if Tyler won’t help us, she can at least give me an idea of where to start.I’m going to go enjoy a stale donut in the lobby while you get dressed.I need to check on Thayer.”
“Is there something wrong with Thayer that I should be concerned about?”
Memphis had learned to accept that the bonds between Knox and Thayer were confusing but deeply felt by both of them.It had helped his peace of mind when Knox had become her brother-in-law instead of just her overbearing confidant.
“No, she just hasn’t felt well lately.Probably just a summer cold thing,” he answered.Knox grunted at him so Memphis took that as permission to leave.Not wanting to wait too long for Knox to change his mind, Memphis slipped out the door.
Across town, Tyler had her head down, focusing on the job in front of her.It was an easy job she was called in for occasionally.One of the containers heading to Asia had a small rusty tear in one side.She had been hired to weld a sheet of metal on it as a patch so the contents wouldn’t be ruined by sea water.
Flashing her work permit, she visited for a second with the guard at the gate before parking her welding truck outside of the shipping office.
Following a supervisor’s cart fifteen minutes later, she was shown to the container in question.
“So how many containers have you got in here?”she asked as if she was just passing the time.Usually the men had no problem passing the time with her as long as she wanted, making it necessary to brush most of them off in the interest of time.But this seemed like a good opportunity to gather some harmless information to give Memphis at lunch this afternoon.
“If you count all eight facilities, we handle close to one and a half million containers a year, but most of them are liquid containers.Like sixty percent or so.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of containers.How do you keep up with where they are?”she asked.
“We use satellite technology to track the containers by number.Each one has a number on it.”
“So you can just punch in a number and it tells you where it is.Can you pull it up by cargo?”
“You can use the bill of lading to see what’s in the container.It’ll also show who owns the container.It’s used in international shipping to guarantee payment to the owner.”
“Who is the person who has to deal with all of that?It makes me glad I’m a welder.”Tyler was good at playing the part of the flirt when it served her purpose.This guy seemed to be eating out of her hand.
“Anyone who can access the system can track a container or pull up a bill of lading.”
“That’s really interesting,” Tyler answered, figuring that was all the information he had for her.She had no interest in pimping herself out for more.If Knox wanted to follow that line of inquiry, he could offer himself up.“I’ll let you know when I have this done.Thanks.”
Returning to her truck, she geared up before pulling her lines over to the container.They had opened the back, allowing her access to the inside.She knew they would return as soon as she was done to lock it back up.
When Tyler was done patching the hole with new metal, she stopped back by the office to sign off on the job.She would send her bill to them later that week when she sent out the rest of her invoices.
After swinging back by her apartment to change into something a little less pungent, she headed for the diner.
It had been a late night impulse when she texted the cell number Memphis had left on his business card.Her mother couldn’t tell her any more than she already knew about her biological donor.She hadn’t even acted all that surprised that there could be more of his children roaming the earth, since she had always said he was a charmer.
“Hey,” Memphis said, standing when she walked into the restaurant.“Thanks for agreeing to meet me.I’m sure you have some questions, I know I did.”
Taking the seat across from him in the booth, she picked up her menu, considering her choices.She ate in here several times a week so she didn’t really need the menu, but it gave her a few more minutes to organize her thoughts.Setting down the menu, she turned her bright-green gaze on him, startled when she found the same eyes looking back.
“So you’re an animal vet at someplace in Minnesota?”she asked.
