Pieces of the Puzzle by Robert Stanek

and was about to open
     it when he noticed the bathroom light was on. He listened at the door. There was no water running, and it didn’t sound like
     anyone was on the toilet.
    He called out, “Helen, are you in there?”
    “Yep… I’m here.”
    He said through the closed door, “Who’s Pete? Jessica’s boyfriend?”
    Helen laughed. “The bar where I got drunk on Sunday night.
    Why?”
    “The note in your purse. Was it from Jessica?”
    “You went through my purse?”
    “I was looking for the pictures of Jessica. Look, does she have a boyfriend?”
    “Jessica, a boyfriend?” Helen laughed again. “She doesn’t date men.”
    “Would she have met someone here on Friday night?”
    Silence greeted him.
    “Helen?”
    He opened the door slowly. She was curled up in a corner next to the tub, crying and trembling. He coaxed her out of the corner
     and into a chair. He opened the curtains so the warm sunshine bathed her face. Later he ordered room service for two—steak,
     eggs, pancakes, hash browns, a pitcher of orange juice—and of course charged it to the room.
    When the food came, Helen picked at it. Scott ended up eating more than he should have, and there were still lots of leftovers.
     The only thing he finished was the pitcher of O.J.,
    which he couldn’t seem to get enough of.
    He waited until Helen looked relaxed, then asked about Jessica’s girlfriends. Jessica had only one, and no, Pattie didn’t
     live in Miami. She didn’t live in Florida, either. She flew in sometimes on weekends and that was about all Helen knew about
     Pattie.
    Scott excused himself to make a phone call. He told her not to go anywhere. She promised she wouldn’t.
    The pay phone in the lobby wasn’t his first stop. He bought a newspaper first, scanned the headlines, the obits. No murders,
     no suicides, no Jane Doe’s. He wasn’t surprised to find that it had happened again. In his mind’s eye, he saw the billions the several-minute-long outage had wiped out. He saw the controlling
     hands tighten their grip and he was more terrified than when he’d been crawling on his belly with car bombs exploding all
     around him.
    Surviving Munich had been skill and luck, but things were different now. Now the lines were blurred and he wasn’t sure who
     was playing who. The only thing he knew for sure was that Glen had brought him back in for a reason and that Glen had given
     him this assignment for a reason. If he wanted to stay alive—if he wanted those he cared about to stay alive—he’d play the
     game but knew he was playing for all the wrong reasons.
    He was about to use the phone when he saw a man heading toward the elevators. He recognized the face from somewhere. He took
     a second look. The man had the skin tone and hair color of a Pacific Islander, was built like a Samoan, but didn’t carry himself
     like a Samoan. He walked with purpose, not like a man on island time.
    Scott decided to follow. The guy saw him, continued past the elevators and stopped in front of the door to the stairs. Scott
     came up alongside him. “You deliver pizzas to Miami Beach too?”
    The guy looked at Scott like he was strange. “You thinking of someone else.”
    The guy started to walk off. Scott grabbed him by the shirt, picked him up off the floor and tossed him at the door to the
     stairs. The door opened. Scott’s momentum carried him through it to the wall of the stairwell. “Who are you and why are you
     following me?”
    “Keneke Kawena.”
    “Just what is that?”
    “My name, Keneke Kawena.”
    Scott’s nostrils flared.
    “I work for HPD.”
    “HPD?”
    “Honolulu Police Department.” Keneke took out his badge and showed it to Scott.
    Scott felt relief. He let go of the guy’s shirt and took a step back. “Why are you following me, detective? Aren’t you a little
     out of your jurisdiction?”
    “You call me Ken, and I’m not a detective, yet. I’m a computer technician assigned to the fraud