Needing Noel | Chapter Eight
It was hot for October; ninety seven degrees. But after three months above a hundred and five he, like pretty much everyone else in the valley, had had the discomfort cooked right out of him. Hell, ninety seven felt almost pleasant.
Phoenix felt like too open a city, too flat. There was too much room, too much visibility. The roads were wide in the heart of downtown, an area that, in most cities, would be filled with a million suited businesspeople, packed together as tightly as the premium real estate would bear and spinning the wheel of industry together. And because of the unrestricted terrain of the open Arizona desert allowed Phoenix to the luxury to grow as far to the horizon as the free enterprise system would take it, Reid felt exposed and conspicuous.
He almost lost Noel’s car three times, only to find her for the last time parked in front of the Dial building on Central Avenue.
The building was a two hundred foot copper tower with a curved roofline. Reid watched Noel from a distance as she sidled out of the car and walked into the building’s lobby. She wore a wig and oversized sunglasses. No, not sunglasses; the lenses were clear. Which was odd, he though -- Noel had perfect vision.
The building had many tenants. Reid would never know which one Noel intended to visit unless he got closer.
He entered then immediately crossed the lobby, stopping at a directory in front of the elevator banks, trying to find any company name that made sense when he saw her, right in the lobby standing with her back to him through the tall glass doors of Pacific National Bank.
She was in calm conversation with the teller and seemed to be signing something. On the Formica countertop in front of her she had set a small stack of papers. Or envelopes -- he couldn’t tell.
Reid leaned against the table and tried to look as casual as possible. He strained his neck around to see Noel, paper and what looked like a small jewelry box in her hands.
Personal items?
Momentos?
The one conversation Reid and Noel never seem to have is the one where she tells him about her past, about growing up, about her family. The most of a life story he’d ever received was ‘I grew up in South America until my father brought us to the States’ and the more recent short story about leaving her mistake of a husband. Then she’d always turn the conversation away from the past.
The teller led Noel across the bank through a thigh-high gate and into the vault. Safety deposit box?
He briefly thought about going into the bank again and trying to see the box number. Then maybe he could con the bank into giving him access; say he was a relative, a lawyer. Draft up some phony legal document. But he couldn’t risk her knowing he’d followed her, not until he knew what was going on. What would she need to keep such a secret? What was going on in her life that she had to keep secrets? Was it her past?
He looked up to see the guard staring his way. He smiled back and walked out of the building. There was one possible reason he could think of why she would be hiding some part of life from him. Was she in contact with Christian Jones? Was she running some kind of game on him?
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