Installment 9

            Where was I?

            Honestly, it feels like ages since I last wrote anything. Maybe that’s because it has been ages since I last wrote anything.

I know I owe you an explanation. But I can’t give it to you. I told you why a few posts back -- because until I can be absolutely certain that the benefits of letting you know outweigh the risks of letting the enemy know, I can’t tell you anything about what’s going on right now.

Let me go read what I wrote before. To get my bearings.

            Okay, that’s it. All right. Here we go.

            Travis shook his head, exasperated. “Listen,” he said in a slow voice as if talking to an individual who was not quite capable of understanding English. “The kid’s a name, a symbol. That’s all I ever needed him for. He’s a means of attaching an image to a name so that the real image doesn’t get found out. I don’t really care if he escapes or not. As long as he’s the ‘disturbed and dangerous fugitive’ that everyone talks about and the police chase after but never catch, he’s not a problem. Nobody will believe him, anyway. He has no real evidence about any of this, he can’t bring it to the authorities. Come on, you are the authorities -- at least as far as anyone knows.” Travis cocked his head. “The kid is just fine right where he is.”

            “If he hadn’t beaten you at your own game, you wouldn’t be so quick to let him escape,” Larson muttered under his breath.

            Travis tensed, and for a moment, I thought he might make a move toward Larson. But he relaxed after a second, closing his eyes.

            “Whatever you like,” he said, his voice more jovial than ever. “But the kid stays missing.”

            Larson shook his head. “No. They won’t stand for it. They don’t get it, Thatcher. You might be right, you might be wrong, but they can’t take chances. Especially when the Stone girl went missing recently.”

            This took a moment to process. “Stone…” Travis glanced up. “Stone? As in…Frederick Stone?”

            “One and the same.”

            “He’s dead.”

            “He had a daughter.”

            Travis waved his hand. “Yes, yes, I know. But she went missing? How come I didn’t hear about this?”

            Larson looked Travis straight in the eye. “Because no one trusts you. You know that.”

            “Why, I’m hurt!” Travis said in mock shock. “No one trusts me? After all I’ve done for them?” After a second, he dropped his pretense. “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. Like what Clara Stone has to do with Nathan T. Dalton.”

            “They say she came out here. I think she might have helped him escape.”

            Travis was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. I could tell that Larson shared my same desire to know what he was thinking.

            “The Stones were a problem,” Travis finally said, slowly and thoughtfully. “A big problem.”

            “That’s not really the problem right now,” Larson said impatiently. “The problem is if she helped him escape.”

            Travis shook his head. “No. She could cause problems.”

            “She’s a girl!”

            “Kids are powerful,” Travis insisted, examining his fingertips. “More powerful than we think. Too much of the time, we underestimate them. Clara Stone is a problem by herself. But joined with Nathan T. Dalton…we might have problems that are too big for us to handle.”

            “Still thinking about leaving Nathan as a fugitive?”

            It was a long moment before Travis spoke again. “Maybe…” he murmured. “I’ve got an idea or two.”

            “What ideas?”

            Travis half smiled again. “Mind games, if you like. Creating uneven ground, if you don’t.”

            From the expression on Larson’s face, he didn’t understand it any better than I did.

            “The point,” he said stubbornly, “is that I am going to be in trouble if you mess this up.”

            “The point,” Travis returned coolly, “is that I won’t. Trust me. I’ll handle it.”

            Larson glared at Travis, then turned on his heel and left the hallway.

            Now alone, Travis Thatcher straightened and stared where Larson had left. There was a strange expression on his face. It was only a light discomfort, but it was there, all the same.

            “Dalton,” he whispered to himself. “Dalton.” He spoke my name as if he had said it a thousand times before, but he had only just realized what it meant. Then he shook his head. “Dalton…I don’t like it, anyway.”

            I couldn’t tell whether he was referring to the situation or the name or both. Whatever it was, Travis shook it off and headed after Larson.

            After a few minutes of hardly daring to breathe, I stepped out of the closet. I made my way back to our little back room, glancing fearfully over my shoulder every few seconds.

            And as I went back to find Clara, I promised myself that I would watch out for Travis Thatcher.

            We were talking earlier about things I owed you, among them probably being a longer post -- but I don’t have the time right now. I’ll get back soon.

            No, really.

-Nathan T. Dalton