City of Sand Read online

  City of Sand

  A novel by

  Robert Kroese

  Copyright ©2015 by Robert Kroese.

  Published by Westmarch Publishing.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or other – except for brief quotations in reviews, without the prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, except as noted, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1942458043

  ISBN-10: 1942458045

  For Dad.

  ..……………………………….

  With thanks to:

  My editor at Westmarch Publishing, Richard Ellis Preston, Jr., for his numerous helpful suggestions for improving this book;

  The Kickstarter supporters who made this book possible: Neva Cheatwood, Taki Soma, Dan McCann, Kristi Michels, Tommy Stanley, Sean Simpson, Christopher Turner, Josh Creed, Brian Hekman and Eric Sybesma;

  Kristin Crocker, who assured me after reading an early version of the first half of this book that it was not, in fact, complete shit;

  My volunteer proofreaders, Chantal Ouellette, Mark Fitzgerald, and Wes Kenney;

  And my mom, for fueling this book with curry and lasagna.

  Chapter One

  Benjamin Stone awoke in a haze, unsure of where he was. At fifty-eight, habits had congealed to the extent that waking up in a strange place required a few moments of adjustment. Something was different: the mattress was too firm, the sheets too rough, and sunlight was pouring through ill-fitting curtains to his left. A motel room, he thought. But where?

  Then it hit him: Sunnyview. Jessica. Oh God, Jessica.

  He had driven all day yesterday, starting out from Portland at just after nine in the morning and getting in to Sunnyview just before sundown. As he sat up, he felt the tightness in his left shoulder from holding the wheel, and he sat on the edge of the bed massaging the tendons with his right hand. Yesterday his only thought had been getting here as fast as he could, but now he felt inertia taking hold. He was a stranger in this town now. He had no authority here. What did he hope to accomplish?

  Find Jessica, he thought. But what if she doesn’t want to be found?

  He got out of bed, showered, got dressed and brushed his teeth. Felt marginally better, but his mind was still fuzzy. Gotta get some coffee, he thought. Clear my head.

  He went to the motel office and made sure the staff weren’t expecting him to check out today—he had been so exhausted last night that he wasn’t sure he had thought to pay for more than one night. Evidently he had paid for a full week, though. Was that evidence of optimism or pessimism? Hard to say.

  He walked across the parking lot to a Starbucks, got a large coffee, and made his way to the dusty old Buick he’d driven from Portland. He folded the visor down against the rising sun and rolled his head from left to right, squeezing the shoulder tendons with his right hand again. A crack of vertebrae, and some of the tension drained away, but his head hurt and the glare of the sun wasn’t helping. Even with the visor down, it seemed unnaturally bright. Benjamin’s glasses were the kind that darkened in sunlight, but the geniuses who had invented them apparently had never figured out how to get them to work inside a car. Someone had told him once that the glasses were activated by ultraviolet rays, which couldn’t penetrate glass. It seemed like a pretty big oversight to Benjamin. Somebody needs to invent glasses that will darken in bright light, period. That’s a multimillion dollar idea right there, he thought. Maybe I’ll swing by one of those venture capital places downtown while I’m here and pick up a big fat check. He’d heard of people getting rich in Sunnyview on far worse ideas. But Benjamin would never get rich here. He didn’t speak the language. He didn’t know what a “vertical market” was or how to “monetize” anything. The last time he had been in Sunnyview, “low hanging fruit” was something you’d find on his father’s apricot trees.

  Benjamin started the Buick and drove toward downtown. The scenery had changed completely since he had been here last, but he was able to follow the same route to the police station that he’d have taken fifty years earlier. It was almost eerie, the way modern-day Sunnyview had supplanted the sleepy farming town of his youth, like one image superimposed on another. Office buildings and parking lots had taken the place of vacant lots and mom-and-pop stores, gravel roads had been paved, main arteries had grown from two to four or even six lanes, but the basic structure of the town remained much the same. The shimmering glass and steel structures certainly were impressive, and Benjamin figured that to the extent that the residents thought about it, they thought of modern Sunnyview as an improvement. Benjamin wasn’t so sure, but then he was probably just old-fashioned.

  The police station was in the same place it had always been, but the tiny concrete-and-stucco building he remembered had been replaced by a massive block of blue glass identified by a sign as the Sunnyview Administrative Center. Benjamin parked the Buick and went inside, following signs to the Sunnyview Police office. Approaching a receptionist behind a glass window, he said, “Benjamin Stone. Here to see Peter Lentz.”

  “What’s this regarding?” asked the woman, a heavyset Hispanic.

  “My daughter,” said Benjamin, the words almost sticking in his throat. “Jessica Stone. Missing persons.”

  The woman nodded and picked up a phone. She spoke for a moment in hushed tones, and then set the phone down. “Detective Lentz will be with you shortly.”

  Benjamin mumbled a thank you and walked away from the reception desk. The walls of the lobby were covered in framed black and white pictures of Sunnyview from fifty years earlier. Benjamin couldn’t help smiling as he studied them. This was the Sunnyview he remembered: a sleepy town surrounded by orchards and dairy farms. He had grown up on one of those farms, not far from here. His father sold the land shortly after Benjamin left home in 1960, and the trees had been torn out to make room for several hundred nondescript stucco houses. His father moved to Tucson, Arizona after the sale, and died of a heart attack three years later. Benjamin hadn’t been back to Sunnyview since the sale; he had never seen what had become of his father’s orchard. He would have liked to have seen it—but the way it was, not what it had become.

  “Mr. Stone,” said a voice behind him. Benjamin turned to see a wiry man wearing gray slacks and a white-button down shirt. His sleeves were rolled up nearly to his elbows and a blood-red tie hung loosely around his neck. In his left hand he held a small spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil. He held out his right hand and Benjamin shook it.

  “I’m Detective Lentz,” he said.

  “Benjamin Stone,” said Benjamin. Lentz had small hands but his grip was firm. His face was youthful, but his thin hair was wiry and gray, and dark circles had begun to appear under his eyes.

  “Come with me, Mr. Stone,” said Lentz. He led Benjamin past the reception desk down a hall past a row of cubicles where khaki-clad civil servants stared at beige monitors and tapped away at beige keyboards. On the walls were “inspirational” posters featuring snowboarders and majestic mountain ranges with captions like PERSEVERANCE and IMAGINATION. Benjamin had been retired from the force for ten years now, but he had a hard time believing that police work had come to this. This place resembled his idea of a greeting card factory more than a police station.

  Lentz opened the door to a conference room and gestured for Benjamin to enter. Benjamin took a seat and Lentz closed the door and sat down across from him.

  “Thank you for coming down,” said Lentz, and Benjamin couldn’t help but smile. It had been Benjamin’s idea to drive down from Portland, but Lentz was establishing his authori
ty over the investigation. Fine, thought Benjamin. It’s what any good detective would do.

  “Have you learned anything more since we talked on Monday?” asked Benjamin.

  “Nothing substantial,” said Lentz. “Did you just get into town?”

  Benjamin nodded. “Last night.”

  “You drove?”

  “Yeah. Left yesterday morning.”

  “Portland, right? Long drive. You must really care about Jessica.”

  Benjamin frowned. Awkward segue, he thought. It was Lentz’s first misstep. “She’s my daughter, Detective Lentz,” said Benjamin. “What would you do?”

  Lentz nodded hurriedly, seeming to realize his mistake. “When did you last talk to Jessica, Mr. Stone?”

  “Nearly eight years ago. As I told you on Monday, I last talked to her the day after Thanksgiving, 1992.”

  “In person?”

  “On the phone,” said Benjamin. “As I told you on Monday.” He answered without inflection, terse but polite. He was willing to cede to Lentz’s authority, but he wasn’t about to play the We don’t know exactly what happened but we haven’t ruled anything out game.

  “And the last time you saw her in person—”

  “Spring of 1988, as I also told you. I assume it’s all there in your notes.”

  “Mr. Stone,” said Lentz. “I realize that you’re a retired police detective yourself, and that a lot of these questions are going to seem—”

  “Insulting?” asked Benjamin, without any change in inflection. “Repetitive? Pointless? All of the above, Detective Lentz. I wasn’t a great father. Jessica and I fought a lot. We haven’t talked for eight years, and that last conversation didn’t end well. It’s quite possible that she hates me. But she’s still my daughter, and I still love her. I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance, and I want nothing more than to find her and make sure she’s okay. Can we move on to doing something that might actually bring that scenario about?”

  “Where are you staying while you’re in Sunnyview, Mr. Stone?”

  “Some dump called the Sandman Inn,” said Benjamin.

  “I know the place,” replied Lentz. “You could do worse. How long are you planning on staying?”

  “Until we find Jessica,” said Benjamin.

  Lentz nodded. If he had a problem with Benjamin’s use of the word we, he was smart enough not to mention it. “What’s your room number? I’ll call you if we find anything.”

  “Where does the investigation stand at this point?” Benjamin asked.

  “Well, Jessica has been missing for a week. I don’t have to tell you that in a case like this—”

  “You’ve talked to her roommate? Friends? Boyfriend?” Benjamin didn’t know if she even had a boyfriend, but boyfriends were always likely culprits in missing persons cases.

  “We’ve talked to everybody we could find who knew Jessica well.”

  “We meaning you personally, or you sent a couple of uniforms down to ask a few questions?”

  “Mr. Stone, I can’t—”

  “Look, Detective Lentz,” said Benjamin, allowing a hint of anger to creep into his voice. “I get that you have limited resources, and that you have a policy against discussing the details of open cases. But I intend to find my daughter, with or without your help. If something happens to my daughter and I find out that you’ve been sitting on information that could help me find her, I’m going to devote whatever time I have left on this planet to making your life very uncomfortable.”

  Lentz stared hard at Benjamin. “Is that a threat, Mr. Stone?”

  Benjamin stared back. “Not at all, Mr. Lentz. But I like this town. I think I might move here. Maybe buy the house next to yours. I’ve always wanted to learn to play the electric guitar. They say you can master anything with ten thousand hours of practice.”

  Lentz smiled. “Your concern for you daughter is touching.” His smile faded. “Honestly, Mr. Stone, we don’t have much to go on.”

  “Who was the last person to see her?”

  “As far as we know, her roommate.”

  “Valerie Rocha,” said Benjamin.

  “Yeah,” said Lentz, raising his eyebrow. “You seem to know quite a bit, for someone who hasn’t had contact with Jessica for eight years.”

  “Not really,” replied Benjamin. “I had a friend with the Portland PD cross-reference DMV records.”

  Lentz nodded. “According to Valerie, Jessica left for work around seven-thirty on the morning of the eighth. She never got there.”

  “What do you know about this Valerie Rocha?”

  “Average nobody. College friend of Jessica’s.”

  “Did Jessica have a boyfriend?”

  Lentz paused, seeming uncertain how much information to give Benjamin. “There was a guy she dated up until a couple of weeks ago. She broke up with him.”

  “Sounds like a good prospect.”

  “Yeah, I talked to him. He seemed genuinely upset about Jessica’s disappearance. And he’s a bit of a sad sack, you know? I could see him sulking and listening to a lot of Joy Division after a breakup, but I don’t think he’s got it in him to kill someone.”

  “This boyfriend got a name?”

  “Yep,” replied Lentz, meeting Benjamin’s gaze.

  Benjamin took the hint. “Friends? Coworkers?”

  “I talked to a few of her friends, but that was a dead end. Also talked to her boss, Cameron Payne. You’ve heard of him?”

  Benjamin shook his head.

  “He’s been in the news lately,” said Lentz. “He’s the guy behind XKredits.com.”

  “Behind what?”

  “Startup company. The latest next big thing. Some kind of Internet-based money, I guess? There are so many of these little companies starting up that I can’t keep them all straight. My brother-in-law won’t shut up about XKredits, though. I guess they’ve got an IPO coming up. Initial Public Offering. That’s when they let the public buy stock in the company.”

  “Yeah,” said Benjamin. He wasn’t up on all the latest Silicon Valley jargon, but he knew what an IPO was. “Last I heard,” Benjamin said, “Jessica was working for Glazier Semiconductor,” said Benjamin. Glazier Semiconductor was one of the largest employers in the Silicon Valley. Benjamin was old enough to remember when it was just a couple of guys working out of an abandoned auto body shop east of town.

  Lentz nodded, paging through his notes. “Up until December, yeah. She just started working for Cameron Payne a few weeks ago.”

  “You suspect this Payne guy?” asked Benjamin.

  Lentz shook his head. “We have no suspects.”

  “No suspects and no leads, is that about right?”

  “Afraid so,” said Lentz. “If you give me your room number, I’ll call you if anything changes.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” said Benjamin. “But let me give you my cell phone number. Hang on, I’ve got it on me somewhere.” He fumbled through his pockets for the card on which the Cingular Wireless salesman had written the number. He’d just bought the thing yesterday. He’d never had a cell phone before, but figured he might need one if he was going to be in Sunnyview for a while. He’d splurged for a tiny Nokia that the Cingular guy had told him was top-of-the-line.

  Finally Benjamin located the card and slid it across the table to Lentz. Lentz jotted it down in his notebook and slapped it shut. “Alright, Mr. Stone. I think we’re finished here. If we have any breakthroughs, I’ll give you a call.”

  They shook hands and Detective Lentz escorted him from the building.

  Chapter Two

  Benjamin had Jessica’s address and phone number, thanks to his friend in the Portland Police Department. He tried calling in the hopes that her roommate, Valerie Rocha, would pick up, but there was no answer. He left a message on their machine and then stood for a moment outside the Sunnyview Administrative Center, assessing his options. At last he decided the best use of his time would be to look into Jessica’s boss, Cameron Payne. He walked a
cross the parking lot to the public library, which he had noticed on his drive in.

  He spent the next two hours browsing newspapers, magazines, and websites looking for information on Cameron Payne and XKredits.com. There was plenty of coverage, particularly in the San Jose Mercury News and various techie magazines. A long bio in Wired detailed Payne’s upbringing in southern California and his founding of XKredits.com while he was a senior at Stanford.

  For all the hoopla, it didn’t sound like XKredits.com was a very big outfit. They operated out of a rented office in downtown Sunnyview, and Benjamin got the feeling from his research that the company probably only employed a few dozen people. On a whim, he dialed the number listed on the “contact” page of the website, and a cheery female voice answered.

  “XKredits.com, the future of currency,” said the woman. “How may I direct your call?”

  “I’d like to speak with Cameron Payne,” said Benjamin.

  “Certainly,” said the woman. “Can I tell Cameron what this is regarding?”

  “It’s about my daughter,” said Benjamin. “Jessica Stone.”

  A pause. Then, “Can I get your name, sir?”

  “Benjamin Stone.”

  “Thank you. Please hold.”

  A librarian glared at Benjamin, who hadn’t noticed the “PLEASE GO OUTSIDE TO USE CELL PHONES” sign taped to the front of her desk. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the library, but that evidently made his breach of decorum no less severe. Benjamin gesticulated in what he hoped was an appropriately supplicatory manner and made his way to the foyer.

  When the woman came back on the line, Benjamin wasn’t surprised to hear her say, “Sir, I’m afraid Cameron’s in a meeting right now,” but then she added, “Can I have him call you back after lunch, say one p.m.?”

  “Sure,” said Benjamin. “That would be fine.” The mention of lunch made his stomach growl. It was after eleven, and he hadn’t had anything yet but coffee and ibuprofen. “Do you need my number?”