The words were meaningless to Erica. She gave him the look again.
“See what I mean?” he said. “Only a chemist would understand it.”
“So let’s take it to a chemist.”
“Who? I can’t go back to South Texas. You already found that out. And no professor’s going to believe some student who walks in off the street with this wacko story. Even if he looked at the notebook, he’d have to study it to get an idea of whether it would work or not.”
“Will it?” Erica said.
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“Then what chemist do we call?”
“We can’t do that,” Kevin said. “The first thing a chemist would do is call someone else, probably someone at South Texas. Then we’re as good as caught. We need help from the police or the FBI or somebody like that. In case you don’t remember, people have been trying to kill us since Saturday morning.”
“What about making a copy of the notebook?” Erica said, pointing at the Kinko’s in front of them. “It could be our insurance.”
“We’d have to give it to someone else. Look where that got Stein. I don’t think I want that hanging over my head. Besides, it’s possible they don’t have Adamas yet. Remember, Ward said that they want it.”
“If they didn’t have it yet, then why would they try to kill us? Wouldn’t they kidnap us to tell them where it is?”
“You have a point.”
Erica shook her head, not knowing what to do next. “Nothing else was in the safe deposit box?”
“Shit!” Kevin said, reaching into his pocket. “I forgot about this.” He handed an 8mm videotape to her.
“This must be important if he put it in the box,” Erica said.
“I know. I guess I got so excited about the notebook, it slipped my mind.”
“Do you know what’s on it?” she said, flipping it in her hands.
“I have no idea. The notebook doesn’t say anything about it.”
She put the tape in her purse and started the Honda. “Then let’s find out.”
David Lobec closed the door behind him as he followed Tarnwell into the extravagant penthouse office. He knew Tarnwell meant to impress everyone who entered with its marble floors, teak woodwork, and bear and elk hunting trophies lining the walls, but Lobec found it overbearing, heavy-handed, and tasteless. It was a total contrast to the undecorated office Lobec maintained on the floor below.
“So how could these two kids be anywhere?” Tarnwell said, sitting at his desk. He clipped the end off a Cuban cigar and lit it. Instead of taking one of the chairs across from Tarnwell, Lobec sat on the sofa, away from the pungent smoke. “Last time I heard, you said they were buying gas in Florida.”
Lobec suppressed a substantial urge to roll his eyes. He had little patience for Tarnwell’s inadequacies. “As I was explaining, Mr. Tarnwell, they were only charging the cost of the gas to a Visa card. It seems that they had worked out exactly how long it would take to drive from one city to another and then billed the credit card accordingly. They could have led us on for a good while longer, but they happened to choose an Exxon station in Tennessee that was undergoing repairs and had no working gas pumps.”
Tarnwell rolled the cigar in his forefingers. “We have got to find these kids, David. You heard what Lefler said.”
“As I said, the news is discouraging. We continue to survey all likely places they would turn up: the university, the medical school, known friends. We’ve also paid key people in each of those places to notify us if anything indicating the location of Mr. Hamilton and Ms. Jensen arises. But for all we know, they could still be in Houston.”
Tarnwell pounded with the cigar in hand, spraying ashes across the desk. “For Christ’s sake, David, don’t you have any good news for me?”
“One rather strange item we are looking into concerns Mr. Hamilton’s family. His South Texas University records show that his parents died while he was at Texas A&M and that he has no siblings. But during a routine cross check, Mitch could find no death certificate for Murray Hamilton, his father. In fact, his Texas construction license was renewed six months ago.”
“He’s alive?”
“That would be the obvious conclusion.”
“Do you think Kevin would try to contact him?”
“It seems unlikely since his own son listed him deceased on official school records. However, I cannot rule out the possibility. The license lists an address in Dallas.”
“Go to Dallas and find his father. Use the detective spiel. Find out if he knows where the kid is. But remember, now we need Hamilton alive. His girlfriend must have found the notebook in that library. We’ve got to get it before they do something that will ruin me. Like give it to the police. I swear to you, if they bankrupt me because of this, you won’t have to do the dirty work this time. I’ll kill them myself.”
CHAPTER 18
Kevin and Erica walked through the back-to-school signs beckoning from all corners of the Sears. They had no trouble navigating the aisles; the store had just opened and was virtually empty. A ‘lite’ station played Kenny G softly in the background, grating on Kevin’s ears. Then he saw it ahead, the home electronics department.
The first thing that had occurred to Erica when she saw the tape was to find out what was on it. Kevin could kick himself for not thinking of the most obvious place to watch it. He had been trying to come up with ways of getting the camcorder from the lab when Erica had suggested a department store. The one at the other end of Sharpstown mall hadn’t had a compatible camcorder to play their tape, so they were trying the Sears next.
They quickly found the row of camcorders lined up for display, all tethered to the shelf by thin metal cables. They looked for a compatible camcorder from which they could both watch the video at the same time. This time they found one, an expensive Sony 8mm that had both a small LCD screen and speakers. Kevin unslung the brand new backpack he’d bought to carry the notebook and videotape and fished out the tape. Kevin loaded it and pressed PLAY.
Nothing happened.
He tried pressing it a couple more times. Still nothing. Kevin checked the battery. It was inserted correctly and the battery LED seemed strongly lit. This camcorder was much different than the old one they used in the lab, so he began to inspect the Sony more carefully, holding it up to the light to better read all of the labels. There must be thirty buttons on this damned thing, he thought. I’ll never figure this out…
“May I help you,” a deep voice said behind them.
They turned to see a towering black man dressed in a dark gray suit. He wore a Sears name tag that said ‘Phil’.
When Kevin hesitated, Erica spoke. “Yes, we were trying to figure out how this one works. We brought our own tape so that we could compare the performance of this camcorder to others we’re considering.”
Phil took the Sony from Kevin. “Videotaping with this camcorder is very simple. You just press this button…”
Kevin put his hand on Phil’s arm when he realized he was about to tape over what was on there. “No, wait!”
Phil gave him a slightly startled look.
“What I mean is,” Kevin went on, “the picture quality of the LCD panel is very important to us, so we brought a tape we previously made.”
“I see,” Phil said. “In that case, you have to move this switch here to Playback and then press PLAY. See?” He gave the camcorder back to Kevin.