The Rise of Rachel Price T-Girl Pt. 16

"It is a rare privilege to see you back from the dead," Hunter said, getting up. His wine glass was full, and by the smell, with a good vintage,

Rachel smiled like a toddler at her first party. "Rumours of my demise are highly overstated," she said, bending over the table to both kiss him and put her hands around him. He returned the hug.

Rachel wondered why she felt more comfortable touching Hunter than Levant. Her barriers were down.

"You're smiling again," Hunter observed after they ordered. "You should keep that up, it suits you."

"Well, I'm smiling for a reason."

"Why is that?"

"I think you should search yourself for that answer," Rachel said.

Hunter wasn't able to make much sense of that. At this point, the waiter returned, and they ordered.

Hunter looked over the menu. "So why the meeting?"

Rachel sucked on the straw of her drink coquettishly. "What if I could get you a year's worth of Levant's emails?"

Hunter raised his eyebrows. "Evidence is only good as the person who backed them up. Would you testify?"

"No" Rachel said, "my flight is soon. Like I said I'm not intending to come back."

Hunter frowned, it wasn't a good look for him. "The problem is I can't introduce these emails as evidence without an audit trail. You see, in this country, we have this thing we call the Law. We can't go spying on people without a Judge's permission, and to get that, we need this stuff we technically called evidence."

"What if I gave it to your reporter friend? She could give it to you from a source." Rachel suggested.

"What reporter friend?" Hunter asked.

"The one behind me, who's been watching us all this time." Rachel said not moving. "Call her over."

Hunter waved and after a few seconds of hand signals between them waved again. The woman in green got up and came and sat next to Hunter on the bench.

"Shit Hunter you never said your deep voice was Levant's girl-friend." She loudly whispered sitting down.

"Rachel this is Kitty Patel. Kitty Rachel"

"Anyway" Rache added with her mouth full "it's ex girl friend. If I every was."

"How did you spot me?" Kitty said putting her hand out to Hunter to stop him talking.

Rachel swallowed "Seriously. Girl like you on her own in a restaurant? With your face and figure who in their right mind like that is going to leave you on your own for a second longer than absolutely necessary. If I was dating you I would be there at least an hour early. Just to be sure the clocks hadn't changed and this would be in June."

She pointed at Hunter. "So are you two like linked up? I mean Kitty look at those hands. Don't you want them to run all over you? That face don't you want all your babies too look like that? Sorry is this too much? I'm sorry I'm just out of a fairly dumb relationship, I'm likely to blather. Any way. Hunter was banned from the hotel but he had someone watching and I remember your face. That plus that cute assed boss of yours."

Hunter leant forward "it's purely, business."

"Shame," said Rachel. "Okay, Kitty. In Hunter's pocket, there is a USB stick. It contains about a year's worth of deleted emails. It's my parting gift. Hunter has issues with what is the Middle English term for them... oh yeah, morals and ethics of all things. Would you mind scanning it, and if you find out, take them to the authorities? Mentioning no names."

"My pocket?" Hunter said, feeling his trousers.

"Don't pull it out," Rachel said. "I mean the USB stick."

Hunter patted his jacket pocket. He could feel something there.

Rachel pulled a face. "Yeah, I was hoping we could eat, play footsie under the table, and I would leave hints like 'look to yourself for that information.' Sometime in the second chapter, just before Hunter washes his smalls, he would find the USB stick. Then I would be found dead in chapter three. I'm strictly a walk-on part for your story."

Kitty looked over to Hunter. "I don't know about you, but I'm starting to like her." She turned back to Rachel, confused. "How did you get his mail?"

"It was on an old laptop hard drive. It had been wiped clean. I ran fsck on it, undeleted it. The data was encrypted, but I broke that with a password generator," Rachel explained casually.

Kitty looked at Hunter and mouthed, "NSA?"

"I'm still here," Rachel said, pointing at herself with both fingers. "Look, I don't know if there is anything of interest or use. If there is, you're welcome to it."

"But you won't testify to its validity," Hunter said.

Rachel finished her salad. "I'm found dead in chapter three of this drama, remember? So no. This is a clue dropped by the enigmatic girl with too many secrets. You and the rest of the Scooby-Doo gang need to do the rest."

Rachel put her fork down and began to stand up. Kitty put her hand out.

"Don't go," Kitty said, grabbing her hands.

Rachel looked at Kitty. She was young and so totally beautiful that you just wanted to die.

Rachel felt on her game. "Sorry, I'm not that into desserts."

Kitty looked up. "Just one more question. He was at some secret event in Vegas. He had a whole vat of quite hard-right political lobbyists and thinkers. There were half of the Sons of Seven and the No-Turning-Back Group, not to mention some of the Freedom First Foundation. We heard rumors of some representatives of a royal prince from the Middle East. That was quite a toxic group. Do you know anything about it?"

Rachel smiled. "There was me thinking you liked me. I think you might have lucked out on that one. I don't know much, but I do know they were given a presentation by some nerd called Volk? Or Volt? I wasn't paying attention. It was about social media analytics."

Kitty looked up. "Why would people like that be doing trend social media stuff? Could it be a cover for weapons sales or something?"

Rachel shrugged and looked into Kitty's eyes, "I'm not sure. It could be completely legitimate."

Hunter rubbed his chin. "Was this guy Jordan Volk?" he said.

"Wow, you have a memory," Rachel said, breaking her from Kitty's beaming stare, which was hard not to return to.

Hunter shrugged. "No, I looked him up on my phone," he said, holding it up. "I googled 'Volk social media.' He's the chief technical officer for Oxford Analytics... Apparently, he was a promising academic but was dropped when his work was done without ethical oversight... just looks like data mining... I'll look into it later."

Rachel shrugged. "Whatever happened to sitting in a dark office late at night, lit only by the green glow of a computer screen, with a small mountain of Chinese takeaway boxes piled up in the background? You are going to ruin the whole detective industry going on like that. Anyway, I'm going to go. No more encores this time. This is my final bow. I'm leaving this stage, for good."

Rachel stood up.

"You're doing the right thing. Look after yourself," Hunter said. "Thanks for what you did."

Rachel smiled. "Remember what could have been, Hunter. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Rachel bent over and kissed Hunter who was standing.

"I don't like losing you, but run far and fast, Miss Price," Hunter whispered.

"You knew Samantha didn't you?" Rachel said to Kitty. It had taken a while to work it out.

Kitty's eyes expanded at the mention.

"Say goodbye to her from me. I'll always love her dresses." Rachel said.

Rachel then tried to kiss Kitty on the cheek like she had seen Charlie do.

"Sorry," Rachel said to the slightly shocked Kitty.

"It's okay, we're not..." Kitty said, using a finger to push a dangling lock of her brown hair near her ear and half-smiling back. "Bye."

"Okay, I'm gone, and remember, neither of you talk about my ass after I leave," Rachel said, winking, and then walked out of Hunter's life.

Within hours, Rachel had returned to the airport and resumed being Denver. He checked the case carefully for anything of real value. He wanted to do it quickly before any flashbacks started to change his mind. The jewelry had all been left behind, but he found a $5000 poker chip in Rachel's old bra. With that, he put the bag into the locker to be found when they cleared them out at midnight. He had pulled the telltale hip and breast pads out and dumped them in a garbage can. If Hunter found the case, he would assume Rachel had left to fly home, never to come back.

Shutting the door, Denver talked to himself. He was tempted to draw a gravestone on the locker but didn't. This burial needed some words over this gray grave. Something to achieve closure.

"There are a million ways to be cruel, but so few ways to be kind," he said, looking at the locker and then at the people arriving. "This is San Francisco, everyone was someone else before San Francisco. You were mine. Goodbye Rachel. I'll never forget you," he said and walked off.

****************

Denver tried to forget about Rachel. He had immersed himself in the practicalities of going to university. The flight had been booked. He had gotten a driver's mate job delivering for an artisan bakery. Charlie could search the restaurants in Seattle and not find him. Denver had bumped into Josh in the street. Josh had been walking by again, and he had a nice swagger. Denver could tell why the girls preferred him now. Josh hadn't seen him, so he tried putting his hand into the garbage disposal of fate.

"Hi Josh," Denver said. Josh stopped and taxed his mind. "High school. Denver," Denver had said to help.

Josh looked at Denver and blanked, "Whatever," Josh said and went on.

Kayla had gone quiet about Rachel Price. Apparently, if you stopped feeding the fire, it went out, Denver decided.

It was late when Denver got back from work. You could see Denver's apartment from the outside. The normally inviting apartment lights were off. Jessey K waved as Denver entered.

"Denver man," Jessey said. He would normally smile, he didn't, and this worried Denver.

"What's up?" Denver said.

"Your grandpa - there was this ambulance that turned up. I saw the sirens and split, but something is up, man."

"Oh shit," Denver said, running up the stairs to the apartment. He unlocked the door and rushed in. Butcher rushed into the hall as soon as he heard the door rattle.
Denver rushed into the empty apartment. Grandpa and his tank were gone.

"Grandpa?" said Denver. "No, no, this can't be happening."

Butcher approached. "Hey, do you know where Grandpa is, boy?"

"Mom?" Denver cried louder.

Denver went to his room. He had picked up Rachel's phone over his own. He got his phone out of the charger. There were a dozen messages. The last one ended with "St Vincent's Hospital A&E."

Denver left immediately.

******

Denver rushed into the waiting room. It was comfortable, but somehow the lighting made it look as sterile as a surgical mask. The seats were clean but had supported too many distraught people to ever be comfortable. Mom looked up, her face a bloated, wrinkled impression of itself.

"Denver," Mom said, almost breaking into tears.

"Sorry," Denver said, holding his mother closer. "What happened?"

Mom paused, and in that pause, she said more than she could ever tell. Denver felt like he was drowning.

"The doctors said it was his heart..." She stopped and took a deep breath.

"They could operate, but it would cost... well, more than fifty. The insurance on someone his age, they said... Go and talk to him. He was worried he wouldn't see you again."

Before Mom could say any more, she broke into tears. Aunt Jean came over; she didn't look much better. She held Mom. "Room 501," she said.

Denver got the message and rushed down the corridor. He ran into the room and saw Grandpa lying half-upright in a bed. He was surrounded by drips, pipes, wires, and machines. There was a small mechanical crocodile biting his index finger. Surrounded like this, Grandpa looked like an Egyptian king being prepared for the afterlife by being installed in a sarcophagus of white linen and high technology. His eyes opened slightly and softly as Denver entered. His face was half-covered in a breathing mask.

"Denver. You made it." He said weakly.

Denver smiled "You don't look that bad grand pa, sure there's something wrong?" Denver said sitting on a chair next to the bed, it was warm. He held his grandfather's frail hand it felt too cold.

Gran-pa smiled "You heard what they said."

Denver produced the poker chip. "A man gave this to me. I only have to find nine more like it." Denver said.

Grand-pa put his hand to Denver's face.

"Your right here, right now thats all good... Look after your mother and her sisters," Grand-pa said. "Make sure they are OK. There's nothing stronger, nothing more powerful, nothing which makes you more you than family. No listen. I'm not regretting a thing but I am regretting I won't see your family your woman, your kids. I want you to be happy. Promise me you will find someone."

"I can fix this," Denver said feeling his eyes swell up, "Grand-pa I can fix this."

"I know you can," Grandpa said very weakly. His eyes drooped forward. Denver scanned the machines, hoping to find something that told him if his grandpa was okay. They seemed normal.

"Hang in there, I'll be back," Denver said.

Denver walked out of the room and went to see the doctors. He got the same response as his mother but in more detail. The condition was sudden, reparable at a huge cost and with a deal of danger. If the operation took place soon, he might live ten or more years. There were other options, but the only one which seemed both possible and affordable was to 'let nature take its course'. They gave Grandpa a week or so, more with expensive drugs. They wouldn't accept the chip as a deposit for the operation. There were details and forms. The nurses seemed sensitive but firm about the information. They were repeating the same words, and you could see from their eyes they had seen what had happened next many times before.

Denver took his mother home in an Uber.

"I can fix this," he told her. "I can do this, but I have to get a job that will take me away for a while."

Mom was tired; her tear ducts were visible from the tears.

"Don't go. He wouldn't want you to go. You should take the scholarship."

"I can do both," Denver said. "Do this job, then university. Fix grandpa, then it's all fine."

Mom stared at the floor. "Get some sleep, son. See how you feel in the morning. I'm going to pray, then I'll call the church group. They will want to pray for him too. It's in God's hands."

Denver looked at the back of his hand and noticed a slight blotch of nail varnish on a finger.

"Yeah, I'll pray too... in my own way," Denver finished.