He brushed past the flirting flight attendant and walked as quickly as he could up and out of the gangplank. He felt his anger building as he impatiently navigated past other passengers, all moving too slowly. His anger turned to rage when no one was manning the Hertz booth.

Then, as quietly and as quickly as his anger came, it dissolved as a fleeting memory of her face flashed in his mind. The face he wanted and tried so hard to recall. It was there, then gone before he could study it. Though he begged the memory to come back, all that he could see through his efforts was her face the moment before her life was finished.

“Can I help you, sir?” A young man, who had approached the Hertz desk asked. “Can I get you anything?”

Derek saw the clerk through watery eyes. He had grown used to his anger giving way to tears in an instant, but had yet to come up with a reason to give to compassionate others.

“Sorry,” he offered. “Long day. Damn yawning always makes my eyes tear up. I have a reservation under Cole. Derek Cole.”

“Yes, Mr. Cole,” the clerk replied. “Your car is all set for you.” The clerk reached for the keys. As he retrieved them, both the clerk and Derek noticed a note was taped to the set of keys. “This must be for you, Mr. Cole.”

Derek took the keys, separated the note that was taped to the key fob, and read the note to himself.

“Welcome to Albany, Derek Cole,” was all that was written on the note.

“Where did this note come from?” snapped Derek.

“I’m not sure. I just got here at 8:00.”

“Can you find out who wrote this note?”

“I could call the person who was working the counter earlier today but not sure if ...”

“Please call,” Derek said.

“It’s a little late to call now, don’t you think?”

Derek glanced at his watch, realizing the late hour.

“Listen, I’m going to leave my cell number with you. Please leave a note to have whoever knows who wrote this note to call me. Okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Cole.”

“Please make sure that you alert the person who relieves you of my request.”

“Okay. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“It could be a big problem. A very big problem.”

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

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Derek thought about getting a hotel room to catch a few hours of sleep, and then heading out to Piseco Lake and the cabin of Doctor Peter Straus. But once he was in his rental car, he thought that arriving at the lodge well before most people would be up and moving around would be a better plan.

It was close to midnight when he punched in the address of the lodge that his client had provided him. Once entered, the Hertz Never-Lost system estimated his time of arrival to be at 2:17 AM. It had already been a long twenty-four hours for Derek, and as he started his drive to Piseco Lake, he started to realize just how much had been packed into the space of a single day.

“Let’s review,” Derek said to no one. “We have what appears to be a baby born without a heart who is whisked away to be cared for by a doctor who has been referred to as an ‘asshole.’ We have a triple murder that included two doctors who probably cared for the aforementioned heartless baby and another victim who I have no idea about. We have a missing doctor, that being one William Straus, the supposed killer, that being one Alexander O’Connell or Alexander Black, depending on who you ask. Finally, a stranger leaves a note at my car rental place, welcoming me to Albany. And me without a clue as to what I should do next. Sounds like one of my typical cases!”

The directions to the lodge that the Never Lost system provided were spot on. As Derek drove his rented Ford Taurus passed the lodge, he noticed a few lights were on, but he didn’t see any cars parked in or near the driveway. Yellow caution tape was stretched completely around the house.

He kept driving several hundred yards past the lodge until he noticed a small pull-off area on the right hand side of the road. Derek pulled his car as deeply into the parking area as he could, taking advantage of the low hanging tree limbs to serve as additional cover. He grabbed his notebook and a small flashlight from his backpack and decided to bushwhack through the woods to approach the lodge.

From the cover of the dense forest that surrounded the lodge, Derek could clearly make out the details of the two-story lodge. The lodge looked like it had been modified from its original build, with the main part of the lodge being a well-crafted log cabin and the modified section being shaped like a two-story, dormitory that stretched 50 feet from the main cabin. He counted a total of three windows on each floor of the dormitory, assumingly bedrooms or offices.

One particular part of the dormitory structure was noticeably different from the rest of the structure. While the other windows were full-sized, the section that most interested Derek had very small windows, no more than one foot high. And while Derek couldn’t be sure, it looked like the two small windows were barred. He also noticed that there were no windows on the second floor directly above this one area.

As he moved closer to the dormitory, Derek could see bushes were planted around the entire bottom of the structure. A quick flash of his light showed that the entire dormitory was elevated around ten inches off the ground.

He paused to listen to anything that might indicate someone being in the lodge or walking around outside. Hearing nothing, Derek got flat on his stomach, crawled through the bushes and under the dormitory. Once under, he clicked on his flashlight to see if anything looked peculiar. Immediately, he saw that a piece of the aluminum flashing, probably used to keep forest critters out of the dormitory, was partially opened.

He continue his crawl towards the open flashing as his mind began to wonder how many raccoons may be living under the dorm.

When he reached his target, Derek noticed that the aluminum flashing was cut into four by four squares and fastened into the floor joists. But the area of the flashing that was his target, was without screws.

“One of three things happened here,” he thought. “One, a talented and gifted raccoon learned how to use a screwdriver. Two, the builders forgot to secure this one piece of flashing. Or three, someone removed the screws.”