The Legend of Kareem Read Online Free Page B
Author: Jim Heskett
Most of the websites I tried wanted all of my own personal information plus an obscenely high credit card deposit to allow me to see more. I wasn’t in the mood to open myself up to credit card fraud or tons of email spam.
And even if I could acquire her phone number, I still needed to meet her in person to deliver this little toy truck, for whatever reason my father had wanted her to have it.
Well, that wasn’t true. I could have mailed it. But part of me wanted to see this half-sister and look her in the eye. Maybe she knew why our dad was off the grid before he died. Maybe she knew how he and Kareem were connected.
I ordered a beer to wash the barbecue sauce down my gullet, and turned my attention to Omar Haddadi. There were zero instances of anyone with that name in Austin, so I searched for Omar Qureshi, the other surname Kareem had used. I found three. One was spelled Ohmar , so I ruled that guy out. Of the two remaining, one had a phone number listed in the white pages, so I dialed the number.
He picked up on the second ring. He claimed not to know anyone by the name of Kareem, and hastily ended the call. I had to put a checkmark in the strange column, but a little further research into this particular Omar revealed that he was a native of Kentucky, which didn’t seem likely for Kareem and Omar Qureshi. Kareem’s accent definitely said foreigner.
That left me with one Omar Qureshi in the Austin area to locate. I knew it had to be this one because there was no O. Qureshi or ambiguous Mr. Qureshi to be found in online white pages searches.
But this Omar Qureshi I did locate turned out to be something like a ghost. I could prove that he existed because there was a mention of him placing third in his age group at a 5K fun run a decade ago, but no address or phone number. No email.
I ordered a second beer and dug a little deeper. Looked at race photos of that fun run. Combining the name of the race with the name Omar , I found a picture of a smiling Middle Eastern man standing with a man and two women. Omar was wearing a t-shirt bearing the Cisco Systems company logo.
Searching Omar Qureshi and Cisco found one reference to an employee who worked there, terminated four years ago. Found a picture of him in an image search. Same guy. Now I was getting somewhere.
This all eventually led me to an address in south Austin, a former residence. My only lead.
I’d drained the second beer down to the dregs, and as I held it to the light to swirl the foamy bottom contents around the glass, my eyes landed on the hotel gift shop across the lobby. On a pair of dimmed eyes looking directly back at mine. Then, below that, a wrist encased in a soft cast. Glenning, the man whose wrist I’d broken only a couple weeks ago when he’d kidnapped me and taken me to the top of Eldorado Canyon.
He curled his lips into something like a smirk, and then he disappeared back into the gift shop.
I jumped up from my seat and raced across the lobby. By the time I’d reached the gift shop, Glenning was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
I packed up and prepared to leave the hotel as soon as I could. Zero desire to go through this whole scene again with these people. I’d told Grace I’d be home soon, and getting in the middle of their nonsense was not on the agenda.
If Glenning was here, that meant IntelliCraft knew exactly what I was doing. Or they at least knew exactly where I was. I could imagine that leading Glenning to Omar Qureshi would be the worst possible outcome of my time here in Texas.
So going to Austin seemed like a bad idea. Maybe going straight to the airport and returning home was the wisest option.
At the same time, not going to Austin also seemed like a bad idea. For all I knew, they were already onto Omar and were planning to make an imminent move on him. If they got to him first, could I live with myself? Could I walk away from a dead man’s last request and let IntelliCraft have
And even if I could acquire her phone number, I still needed to meet her in person to deliver this little toy truck, for whatever reason my father had wanted her to have it.
Well, that wasn’t true. I could have mailed it. But part of me wanted to see this half-sister and look her in the eye. Maybe she knew why our dad was off the grid before he died. Maybe she knew how he and Kareem were connected.
I ordered a beer to wash the barbecue sauce down my gullet, and turned my attention to Omar Haddadi. There were zero instances of anyone with that name in Austin, so I searched for Omar Qureshi, the other surname Kareem had used. I found three. One was spelled Ohmar , so I ruled that guy out. Of the two remaining, one had a phone number listed in the white pages, so I dialed the number.
He picked up on the second ring. He claimed not to know anyone by the name of Kareem, and hastily ended the call. I had to put a checkmark in the strange column, but a little further research into this particular Omar revealed that he was a native of Kentucky, which didn’t seem likely for Kareem and Omar Qureshi. Kareem’s accent definitely said foreigner.
That left me with one Omar Qureshi in the Austin area to locate. I knew it had to be this one because there was no O. Qureshi or ambiguous Mr. Qureshi to be found in online white pages searches.
But this Omar Qureshi I did locate turned out to be something like a ghost. I could prove that he existed because there was a mention of him placing third in his age group at a 5K fun run a decade ago, but no address or phone number. No email.
I ordered a second beer and dug a little deeper. Looked at race photos of that fun run. Combining the name of the race with the name Omar , I found a picture of a smiling Middle Eastern man standing with a man and two women. Omar was wearing a t-shirt bearing the Cisco Systems company logo.
Searching Omar Qureshi and Cisco found one reference to an employee who worked there, terminated four years ago. Found a picture of him in an image search. Same guy. Now I was getting somewhere.
This all eventually led me to an address in south Austin, a former residence. My only lead.
I’d drained the second beer down to the dregs, and as I held it to the light to swirl the foamy bottom contents around the glass, my eyes landed on the hotel gift shop across the lobby. On a pair of dimmed eyes looking directly back at mine. Then, below that, a wrist encased in a soft cast. Glenning, the man whose wrist I’d broken only a couple weeks ago when he’d kidnapped me and taken me to the top of Eldorado Canyon.
He curled his lips into something like a smirk, and then he disappeared back into the gift shop.
I jumped up from my seat and raced across the lobby. By the time I’d reached the gift shop, Glenning was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
I packed up and prepared to leave the hotel as soon as I could. Zero desire to go through this whole scene again with these people. I’d told Grace I’d be home soon, and getting in the middle of their nonsense was not on the agenda.
If Glenning was here, that meant IntelliCraft knew exactly what I was doing. Or they at least knew exactly where I was. I could imagine that leading Glenning to Omar Qureshi would be the worst possible outcome of my time here in Texas.
So going to Austin seemed like a bad idea. Maybe going straight to the airport and returning home was the wisest option.
At the same time, not going to Austin also seemed like a bad idea. For all I knew, they were already onto Omar and were planning to make an imminent move on him. If they got to him first, could I live with myself? Could I walk away from a dead man’s last request and let IntelliCraft have
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