Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (13 page)

The boy’s wrists relaxed in my hands. He spoke before Rakesh finished translating. “I understand you.”

“My friend is going to take you to an orphanage about 300km from New Delhi. I know the man who runs this orphanage. He is drawing up papers now, so I can adopt you. You aren’t going to be there long, but it is a safe place where we can hide you until I have some documentation, OK? I can’t take you out of Afghanistan without papers and I can’t get papers here, so we have to sneak you into India. I will meet you at the orphanage. Just wait for me there. I’m not sure what we will do next, but I’ve got a couple of friends that might be able to help us. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You have many friends,” the boy said.

Rakesh snorted.

“Not enough, kid,” I said to him. “Do you understand what I’m saying about the papers?”

“We cannot leave without papers,” he said, the last bit of tension gone from his voice. I released him.

“Yes, or they will take you away from me and might not even return you to your family, which would be bad.”

“It would be bad,” he repeated.

“So you go with Rakesh and you do what he says, OK? I will see you soon.”

“How long?” the kid asked and I could see Aziz in his face.

“A month,” I told him. “I’ll get there sooner if I can. But until I do, just think about what you want to learn when I send you to school.”

“English,” he said.

I grinned. “You’re doing all right. What else?”

“I want to be the most powerful man in the world.”

Rakesh laughed big and boisterous, one hand on his jiggling belly. “Do not we all.”

“What’ll your new name be?” I asked him. “For the papers?”

He looked down for a moment and then grinned. “Gideon Bale.”

Rakesh and I were both taken aback.

“Gideon?” I asked. “Where did you hear that name?”

“He is a smuggler,” the boy said, with an excitement I hadn’t seen yet. “He is the most powerful man in the world.”

“Never heard of him,” Rakesh said.

“It is in a story,” the boy replied.

I should have known then I was in trouble, but at the time I just smiled. “Gideon Bale it is.”

10 Weeks

C
aldwell left me a note folded into a little tent, and sitting on top of the notebook I’d been using to write down my memories.

I thought you knew about Charlie. When I was finished I put him back the way he was. You really didn’t know?

I grab my coat and I drive to the cemetery. The Impala chugs up the hill past the funeral home and hearse and I yank up the parking brake once I pull her into the shade of the willow tree.

I jump out of the car and go to the grave.

“Is it true?” I ask as if Charlie can sit up and answer me. “Oh my God, is it true?”

I feel sick. I turn and heave into the grass beside the grave.

“God, I’m so sorry, Charlie. I didn’t know. You shouldn’t be down there,” I say, a little self-conscious of the sound of my own voice. The sour taste of vomit burns the back of my nose and throat. “I’ll rebury you.”

Again I see Charlie’s face the moment he betrayed me. The eyes were glazed, unfocused, but not with hatred I realize. It was because someone was wearing him like a glove, the way Chaplain used to do it.

“I’d forgotten what it was like, when he gets in your head and fucks it all up.”

God, how it had fucking hurt to hear Charlie laugh while Caldwell’s men tore me up. Martin, the worst of the bastards got what he’d deserved. There were still traces of his burnt corpse in Kirk’s crematorium, I’d wager.

But Charlie and Smith, the Boston detective I’d also asked for help—I should’ve handled that better.
Especially you Charlie.

“He had you,” I say, feeling the uncomfortable ache in my knees build. “And I didn’t fucking know.”

Jim
, he’d said with a smile.
Am I glad to see you
—

I cringe at the memory: Charlie in his living room, rising from his chair, his face bright with relief until I put a bullet through his forehead.

Of course Caldwell wiped him clean. Why wouldn’t he? How better to hide his tracks than to leave no memory of the crime? When I walked into Charlie’s house and raised my gun, he had no idea why.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Charlie,” I tell him. “God, you must’ve thought—”

We all make mistakes
, he said, sitting in his FBRD office ten years ago, listening to me recount the story of Aziz for the fifth or sixth time.
You couldn’t have known.

“I only make it worse. Everything I touch is shit,” I tell him, rubbing my fingers along the etched granite of my name. It should be me down there.

You always do the best you can
, I hear my friend say.
You’re the one who shows up even when he doesn’t have to
.

God, I’m so sorry. I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have acted out of anger. I should’ve—

“What if he does that to me?” I ask. “What if he makes me hurt Jesse or Rachel? Jackson?”

What’s stopping him?

9 Weeks

I
wipe the sweat off my brow and slide my palm against my damp jeans. “Gideon Bale is a comic book hero,” I tell Charlie’s body, throwing the last spade of dirt into the new grave. “I had to look it up.”

The crickets saw at their own legs, filling the night around me. I see the hearse coming up the road, headlights bouncing off the trees and grave markers around us.

“So you see, not only did I lie to you about why I left the army and why I came home,” I tell him. “I killed one brother and ruined the other.”

Kirk parks the hearse behind the Impala and gets out. In his hand is a large gray urn. Once he is close enough, he offers it to me. “Detective Smith.”

“Thanks,” I tell him and switch the shovel to my other hand so I can accept the container of ashes. “I’ll send this to his wife in Baltimore. Anonymously, of course.”

Kirk looks down at the grave. The smooth marker with a dove on each side of Charlie’s name, freshly chiseled. “It looks good.”

Charles Roebuck Swanson

Hero and Friend

April 10, 1952-October 15, 2012

My throat is tight but I manage some gratitude. “Thanks for ordering this and giving me the plot.”

“Not to be grim, but your grave is available again.” It sounds like a question.

“Not for long,” I say. He nods as if he knows this. Maybe Jackson told him already. “Have you gotten any closer to taking him out?”

“I’ve tried putting a bullet in his brain 23 times in the last six months alone,” I admit. How many rooftops and hotel rooms had I scouted? I couldn’t tell you. “Long range sniping mostly. The problem however is his AMP. I haven’t figured out how to kill a man who knows I’m coming.”

“By that logic, you would think you could save yourself,” he says, placing a hand in each of his suit pockets.

“Maybe,” I tell him because he is right. “Maybe I will.”

Monday, March 31, 2003

“
W
e got him,” Charlie said. He slipped into the chair opposite my desk and grinned.

“Sullivan?” I asked.

Charlie snorted. “I fucking wish. No, we got Brian Taft. The guy who killed the girl outside the bar last week. Tuesday, remember?”

A sickening image of a skull peeled open like a blood orange came back to me. “Yeah the hate crime in Lafayette. Kaitlyn Green.”

“Exactly. He confessed and everything. Saves me an assload of precious time. Speaking of Sullivan, how goes it?”

“I’m following a new lead,” I admitted and then I thought of a way to say what needed to be said.

Charlie waved his hand. “And?”

“What if the reclamation detainment camps weren’t closed?” I asked. I watched his face, measured his response. When he didn’t look surprised, I added: “Have you heard of any camps that are still open?”

“No,” he said. “The last closed last year.”

“But that is five years after they said they were closed,” I replied. Charlie looked up with dark eyes.

“What is going on?” I asked him. “What the hell kind of case is this? Why are you riding my ass so hard about it?”

I thought he would dismiss me, maybe tell me to mind my own business and do as I was told. It sure as hell wouldn’t have been the first time I’d received such a command. But instead, his eyes went all soft around the edges and the air in his chest came out in a sudden whoosh.

“I don’t know everything because I’m not cleared to, but I’ve heard things. Everyone hears things. They kept the camps open—a few of them anyway. They saw the opportunity for scientific discovery, warfare development, all that. They kept people, dissected them, tried to understand the biology behind the condition and see if it could be replicated. Some of it failed—which is how we have freaks like Jackson walking around.”

I stiffened at his derogatory remark about Jackson, but I didn’t interrupt.

“Eric Sullivan
could
have been one of the ones who were kept behind. He
could
have been the most promising subject available to them. One scientist called him
highly compatible
with their research, another
an invaluable asset
.”

“So where is he?”

“He escaped,” Swanson said. He exhaled the word escaped as if he’d held it inside himself for too long. “I was told that he broke out of the facility where he was held and that he began attacking the other facilities. Bombing them, destroying them and killing the people inside. Some pretty ruthless shit.”

I frowned. “How does one man have the means to do all that?”

“Apparently, he was in possession of many state secrets. The way they tell it, Sullivan was there of his own accord. They were paying him well, treating him like a king in exchange for his help.”

“If that was true,” I said, but I had doubts that a man locked up in a detainment camp would suddenly decide to help his captors. “Then what changed?”

“Who fucking knows? All I know is that they want him found and returned to their custody immediately. Dead or alive. Or some fucking state in-between.”

“If this is so important, why am I on the case?” I asked.

“You’re not the only one. They’ve got their own people looking too, I’m sure,” Charlie said. “But you’re the only one I trust.”

I let the compliment settle in before I asked. “Who are they?”

Charlie slipped out of the chair with a snort. “When your clearance is that high, you don’t have a name anymore.”

I wanted to press my luck and push for more information, but Charlie turned and frowned at me then. “Where’s your Beretta?”

I looked down at the shoulder holster nestled against my ribs to see the backup SIG Sauer resting there instead. “I misplaced it.”

“A Beretta is a hell of a thing to misplace,” he said.

I made a dismissive gesture but his comment nagged at me. In fact, since I woke up that morning and reached for the Beretta, expecting to find it on the nightstand. When I found nothing a strange feeling flicked through my mind. The fog that clouded my thoughts made me wonder if I should stop drinking so damn much. Or at least I should cut back.

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

I
’d just opened a beer when a furious pounding rattled my apartment door. I pulled the SIG without a second thought and called out from the kitchen. I was sure to position myself just inside the room first. If some lunatic blew a hole through my front door, at least I’d have cover.

“It’s Jackson,” she said. “I’m not here to kill you.”

I snorted at that. It was her delivery mostly. She wasn’t being funny, and that made it funny. She said it as if attempted murder was a serious consideration for people like us, and I guess it was.

I opened the door. She was clutching a newspaper and looked as if she’d slept as well as I had. Lucky for her, the dark circles under her eyes weren’t as visible as my own.

“What’s up, Jackson?”

“You drink too much.”

“And you can only walk upright if you take about fifteen pills,” I said. “What’s your point?”

She considered that for a moment then let it go. To her credit, she never mentioned my drinking again.

She thrust the paper at me which I accepted with my free hand. It was folded back on itself to frame an article:
Dead Child Stolen
was the headline, with a handful of paragraphs outlining the crime. Someone broke into the city morgue and stole a child’s corpse. The incident occurred two days ago and the parents of the dead child could not be reached.

“That’s some sick shit,” I said.

“I don’t think it’s for molestation,” Jackson said as if reading my mind. “I think it is a cover up.”

I saw where she was going. “Why would someone cut the head off a corpse and dump the body in a house fire?”

“To make us stop looking for the child,” she said. She spoke as if I was an idiot and trying to get through to me was a pain in her ass.

“Maisie,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Say her name,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I just realized that you never refer to her by name.”

“Why do I need to say her name?”

“Why are you so against saying her name?” I pressed. I had feeling I knew why, but I wanted to see if she’d admit it.

She stared at me stubbornly then said. “I found Rachel.”

Ah a name, I thought, but not the one I wanted her to say. She showed me the address and I recognized it immediately.

“No,” I said. “She’s not there.”

Jackson frowned at the address she’d written on the top of the article then looked back at me. “Yes, she is. That’s correct.”

Something in my mind churned. Memories came back but blurry and for no particular reason I shouted. “She’s not there.”

Jackson took a step back. “Why are you angry?”

I didn’t answer. The heat in my face added to the confusion. “I know that place and she isn’t there. She isn’t in any of the houses on Park Street. In fact, you can scratch off all the houses near Beckett Park.”

“You’re being irrational,” she said. “I know she is in this house. What do you know about the place?”

“I’m irrational. Says the person who can’t even say a child’s name because naming her makes it harder. It’s harder to find a dead child with a name.”

Her face went smooth, but if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she looked triumphant. “Have you ever been there?”

“No,” I said, but as I said it a strange feeling washed over me. Confusion again. I thought I was telling the truth but it didn’t feel right.

Her brow pinched. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Goddamnit.”

She didn’t believe me. I could tell just by looking at her.

“Fine,” she said. “Just get in the car.”