Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (15 page)

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

I
stood in the dank hallway of the apartment complex where Jackson lived. I double-checked the address, and sure enough, this was it. I didn’t know what I was expecting as I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the front door.

Flowery shit, maybe. All the women I’d spent time with had that way about them. Their homes were clean and bright and smelled the way the women themselves did. Sometimes like fruity shampoos, or cookies and shit. Other times they smelled like the department store perfumes they wore. Their couches had throw pillows and the rooms had rugs. Scented candles, potpourri, art on the wall, or even curtains to “tie the room together” as my mother would say. But those women had been civilians and Jackson was a soldier. Everything about her apartment said so.

The living room was white and stark. The walls had nothing on them but scuff marks. No curtains, rugs, or even a couch, and this absence gave the impression that Jackson didn’t intend to stay here long. Books and research materials lined the walls in piles. If each heap was part of an elaborate organizational system, I couldn’t tell.

The apartment was one bedroom, but the bedroom had only an army cot with a sleeping bag rolled over it. No pillow. Beside the bed was a glass of water and a row of pill bottles. I opened a duffle bag that I’d found beneath the bed with clothes, a gun and ammo inside. I threw the pills in too. I also grabbed the paperback off the sleeping bag, stealing a brief glance at the cover.
The Things They Carried
by Tim O’Brien.

It went in the bag too.

When I turned around I found the pictures. All over the wall were drawings. Some of them were very detailed, while others were hurried sketches. I tried to take them down gently, careful not to rip the corners pinned with tape. I rolled them up and taped them closed, but the thick pencil etchings were already beginning to smudge.

I expected to find all the lady cosmetics in the bathroom, but again, I was wrong. A bar of soap was in the shower, no shampoo, but I guess with her short hair she didn’t need it. On the sink was just a toothbrush, toothpaste and some hand soap. I took the toothbrush and toothpaste. Then I zipped up the duffle and threw it over one shoulder. The kitchen had only the standard appliances: a range and fridge. The counters were bare. The sink had a few dishes but no evidence that she’d actually ever cooked here. A knife and fork, a water glass. The fridge had some fruit and bread in it. Half a gallon of milk and four 2-liters of Coke. The cabinets held only peanut butter and coffee.

“What the hell do you eat, Jackson?” I asked and hefted the duffle up higher on my shoulder.

“We have to be careful about what we eat or it interferes with our medication,” a voice said. A slow, melodic voice. I turned and found a man, shades darker than Jackson, standing in her doorway. One hand was empty but the other was suspiciously edging its way behind his back.

I drew my gun first. “Stop.”

When he brought his hand around his back slowly, he wasn’t holding a gun. He was holding a bouquet of daisies.

I didn’t lower my gun. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Is she here?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “Of course not. You wouldn’t be carrying her stuff in a bag if she were here. Is she OK?”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“What’s yours?” he countered. “You see, I come to see my girlfriend and you’re holding a gun and carrying off her possessions. I’m just holding some flowers. Who is more suspicious here?”

“Good point,” I said and lowered the gun. “I’m her partner. I’m just picking up a few things for her.”

He nodded as if he knew this. “Brinkley.”

It sounded like a question. “Yep, that’s me.”

“Well take these too,” he said and extended the daisies toward me. “I brought them for her.” I had to lower the gun or drop the bag. I dropped the bag and came toward him, gun up but not a kill shot. Here I thought I was slick shit but dropping the bag was what he wanted all along, I just didn’t know it.

A clump of daisies smacked my face at the same moment pain shot up my elbow. Before I could react, someone was throwing me. I managed to tuck into a sloppy roll but I still came down too hard on my busted shoulder. When I popped back up, the guy—Jackson’s so-called boyfriend—was yanking at the duffle zipper.

As soon as I realized the gun was in the kitchen floor, I dove for him. We hit hard and because I was the bigger guy, not necessarily the more fit, mind you, he rocked back on his heels and hit the wall. He rolled me again and I realized immediately he was trained. Good training. He knew how to move his body and mine, and when it came to hand-to-hand combat, time was of the essence. I knew better than to swap blows with a trained, fit guy at least ten years younger. I didn’t make it this far by being stupid. Most of the time. I’d get tired before he did. So I brought my knee up hard and connected with his groin. Nothing fancy, but it did the trick.

I dove for my gun, and this time when I rolled back the safety with a flick of my thumb, I didn’t hesitate. I put two bullets in the wall behind him before he darted out the front door and was gone. The duffel bag was busted open on the floor, shit everywhere. He’d even stepped on the toothpaste on his way out, and a thick creamy line of blue gunk was smeared all over the side of the bag.

I checked the hallway and the apartment to make sure I was actually alone again. Then I cleaned up the mess and repacked the bag. It wasn’t until I had everything reorganized that I realized what he had taken. The pills were missing. Fucking junkie, I thought.

Shoulder throbbing, gun still at the ready, I lifted the bag and got the hell out of there.

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

“
Y
ou never told me you had a boyfriend,” I said. I tossed the duffle at her feet and watched it bounce once on the hard hospital mattress.

The color drained from her cheeks. “What did he want?”

“Your pills apparently,” I said and unzipped the bag. I held it open so she could see inside. “Anything else missing?”

She sifted through the bag with her right hand, the other being wrapped close to her chest. When she mumbled off the name of some narcotic I didn’t know, I asked, “Is that bad?”

She ran a hand over her head. “No.”

“Were those pills important?” I asked.

“I can refill them. He must be out.”

I cradled my throbbing shoulder. “Hasn’t he ever heard of a fucking pharmacy?”

“We have to get ours from the VA,” she said. “They are very specific drugs.”

“So your boyfriend’s like you?” I asked.

“He is not my boyfriend,” she snapped. “And he isn’t like me.”

“Right, sorry. He just stole your pills.” I wasn’t so clueless that I’d push a woman who was clearly telling me something was none of my business. So I sat down in the little seat beside the bed instead.

“Why did he give you those?” I asked. I pointed at the daisies beside the duffle bag. She blushed when she saw them.

“What?” I asked.

“I thought—never mind.”

“I’m not the flowers type,” I said, trying to be gentle about it. I wasn’t trying to humiliate her. I thought he was bad news. “Just for the record, I’d give you a gun. And you’d probably be the first woman to appreciate it.”

Her brow furrowed. “You’re favoring your shoulder.”

“Yeah, your friend twisted it a bit.”

“He’s not—”

“Yeah yeah.”

“He’s my brother.”

“Well that explains his moves. Did you beat him up as a kid?”

“He’s a year younger than I am. Ever since we were little he’s had to follow me around, do everything that I do. When I joined the Air Force, he did too. He’s one of the few things I remember—from before.”

“What are you saying?”

“When they put the magnetite in my brain, it wiped everything clean. I survived, but I don’t remember who I was before. I’ve only a handful of memories. Micah—my brother—is one of them.”

“Why would you let your brother do that to himself?” I hadn’t meant to be such a bastard about it, but the words left my mouth before I could stop myself.

“They recruited him. They thought something about my genetic makeup is what helped me survive the procedure, so they called Micah in. I told him if he did it I’d never speak to him again. He accused me of trying to keep the glory for myself. ” She snorted. “Because this life is so goddamn glorious.”

“Was he trained to be an AMP like you?”

“Yes, but he was discharged from the program. He got into a fight with his commanding officer,” she said. She licked her dry lips. “Micah’s got a temper. He doesn’t know when to shut his mouth or take a swing. He blames me.”

I snorted. “For his temper?”

“No, for his discharge. When he was court martialed, I was supposed to testify in his defense. I refused. I knew if I did, they’d let him stay and it would only be a matter of time before something worse happened to him. I wanted him out of the service.”

“When was this?”

“A few years ago. He’s been working odd jobs since. He quit speaking to me of course. But then our aunt died of colon cancer four months ago and he turned up at the funeral. He apologized. Said he wanted to make up. He hoped I would help him get a job as an AMP through the agency. I tried but because of his past they won’t take him. I guess they are picky right now, what with trying to produce reliable statistics and all that. When I told him they said no, he tried to steal a bunch of my things and took off. That’s pretty much how it’s been. He gets angry, takes off, but comes back asking for pills. He needs them like I do, but he’s too embarrassed to go to the VA hospital. He’s got limited benefits because of his discharge.”

“Does he always bring flowers?”

“No,” she said. “That was a first.”

Something about all of this didn’t sit right with me. Then again, I’d never been one to trust junkies. They could be unpredictable and self-serving and generally just made me uneasy. I never denied that I was a paranoid old bastard.

“Do I need to stay here with you?” I asked. “Is he going to try and show up and punch air bubbles in your IVs or something? Suffocate you when the nurses aren’t looking?”

“I should be OK.” She didn’t convince me of shit.

I leaned forward and grabbed the paperback off the pile of crap she’d pulled from her bag. Then I kicked off my boots and put my socked feet up on the edge of her bed. The page fell open to a spot marked with a Chinese food business card, but I flipped back to the beginning.

“Ah,” I said and put the card on the table by the bed. “We might need that later.”

She smiled, finally relaxing into her pillows.

I began reading
The Things They Carried
, starting with the passage marked. “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending.”

I looked up at Jackson.

“Jesus,” I said. “This is going to be sad, isn’t it?”

She smiled and that was enough for me to go on.

6 Weeks

I
watch over Jesse through the night. It’s become a habit. I am worried he will just appear in her bedroom and carry her away like he does in that god awful picture I’ve got in my pocket.

But I don’t see Caldwell or anyone else, and I wonder again why? Why? If he wants her, he can just take her. He did it to Maisie, so why not take what he wants now?

Because it isn’t what he wants
. This realization only brings another round of
why
?

Conflict avoidance? I doubt it. Is he afraid of her? Maybe. It is one of the few things that makes sense. Or it could be that he wants something more.

If I kill you now, it will change the future—and I like the future just fine.

When another sun rises and Jesse is deemed safe, I get into the car and drive.

I make my way to Atlanta, taking I-24 southeast past the shopping malls of Murfreesboro and then up through the mountains by Sewanee. The Impala slides along the river past that familiar Georgia peach sign. When the skyline erupts into view and the interstate morphs into a six-lane beast, I merge onto 285, heading for Grant Park.

I am looking for a particular 1920s bungalow on Kendrick Ave. When I spot the gray-blue house, elevated from the street by a steep incline, I park. Then I climb the steps toward the white door.

I glance at the porch swing to the left before lifting my fist to knock on the peeling white paint. That is when I notice the door is open a crack.

I draw my gun. Without a word, I ease the door open and step inside. A red carpet runs the length of the room before terminating at a wall, diverting left and right toward rooms unseen. Just as my eyes fall on a large statue of some eastern God, the metal of a barrel presses to the temporal bone behind my ear.

“What kind of gun do I have in my hand?” A smooth voice asks, jovial with a hint of amusement. The accent is crisp, British. I checked the room when I came in but hadn’t even seen him.

“A 9MM,” I say, measuring the small muzzle against my head.

“Nope,” he says, amused. I mistake the humor in his voice for relaxation and make my move. But when I whirl, I’m jabbed in the chest by something.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says with a smile. “It’s 5000 volts here.”

I look down and see a cattle prod is pressed against my torso, and the gun being eased away from my head was actually a Glock with a slender suppressor on its end.

“You’ve gutted the prod,” I say and holster my gun. I’m not afraid Gideon will zap me or shoot me. He is giving me a show.

He grins. “If you have the prod against their back it is more likely they will not take your gun. You can zap as soon as they try to turn on you. I am a fan of two-handed weapons, as you know. And I modified this.”

He pushes a button on the base of his prod and a 5-inch dual blade protrudes from the end, just above the prod’s tip.

“In case shit gets serious,” he smiles. He twirls the prod around and demonstrates its dexterity. “All assuming hand-to-hand is not the order of the day.”

“Very clever,” I tell him and he smiles at my praise.

Darting to the wall, he puts down the prod and gun, then picks up a gadget. “I am a big fan of remote detonations and information acquisition these days. This here controls a bug half the size of your fingernail. It can be navigated with a remote to any location. It also has a magnetic USB that will connect to any port on command. You only need to get it close enough and
zhoop
.”

I nod because Gideon does this every time I visit. He shows me his latest toy with relish.

“I am expecting a drone on Monday. I can’t wait to try it out on the Maradux Outfitters. Are you still going to second me on that?”

I look down. When I manage to meet his eyes again, I take Gideon in. He is taller than I am by at least four inches. His broad shoulders taper down to a slim waist. He might look like a man now with that dark shadow at his jaw and those ridiculous curls, but his face is still the face of the 11-year-old boy I met ten years ago.

“Then the rumors must be true,” he says as if I’d just punched him.

“I wondered if you’d heard,” I say.

“Of course,” he says, with a bitter smile. “I hear everything.”

It is not a pompous exaggeration. Gideon has an amazing memory. He retains everything he’s ever heard, seen, or read since the time he was three. Couple that with the fact he is a fast talker, highly adaptive, and a survivor, Gideon has quite the skill-set. His love of Iranian comic books romanticizing the smuggler’s life should have been my first warning sign that he would take to this life too easily.

“So what are you here for?” he asks, not even trying to hide his disappointment or pain. “Is there still a chance for a final Brinkley and Bale adventure?”

I rub the overgrowth on my chin. “You may have to do this one without me. Consider it a last request and we will be even for the boat incident in Morocco.”

“And the brothel in Singapore?”

“Sure,” I say and glance around, eyes falling on what looks like an imperial crown. Then I do a double-take on what I think is a ruby the size of an egg.

Gideon is intrigued by my offer. “And you’ll forgive me for the drug lord’s daughter in Mexico City, or the shrine theft in Kyoto, or—”

“For all of it,” I say, because I can’t really be mad at this kid for anything. “It is a big favor.”

His joviality falters at the edges. “You aren’t just going to die, are you?”

“It looks like it.”

“You have the girl.” His cheeks burn red. “Use her.”

“It’s not really me he wants,” I tell him, and he knows I’m talking about Caldwell. “If she tries to save me, she’s just going to make herself more vulnerable. I can’t let that happen.” I think again of the picture in my pocket. Jesse dead in Caldwell’s arms. That could be her, trying to save me.

“Then use the other one,” Gideon says, the anger spreading to his ears and neck. “You cannot just die.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

His hands hang limp at his sides. He opens and closes them as if they are numb. “I can’t believe it.”

“Soldiers die. You know that better than most people.”

“You can’t just give up.” Gideon shouts. “What about my training? What about—”

“You don’t need me,” I say and it is true. Whether or not he realizes it, Gideon outgrew me a long time ago. “You’re smarter and more capable than I ever was. And wars aren’t being fought the way they used to be.”

After a moment he says, “I do not want you to die.”

“That’s a sweet thing to say,” I tell him. “But I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Did you only come here to say goodbye?” he asks, slapping the side of his leg softly.

“No,” I admit. “Like I said, I need your help.”

“Do you really?” he asks. “Or is it some petty request to make me feel useful?”

He knows me too well.

“It’s a real request,” I tell him. “This is important, Gid. I need to know that you cannot be bought. The man who wants to kill Jesse has access to a lot of money.”

His face stiffens again. “You know I don’t care about the money.”

“If you won’t take his money, he may try to give you information,” I go on. “He will try to buy you somehow. He’ll offer you whatever you want most and if that doesn’t work, he will try to kill you.”

“I like him already.”

I rub my head.

“Is that all?” he asks. “You come to tell me not to work for a bad man?”

“No,” I say.

“Of course not.”

When I give him a look, much like the look I would give him in the courtyard at St. Anthony’s when I learned he broke this or that petty rule, he softens.

“What else do you need?”

“I want to know how to take him down,” I say. “What is his weakness?”

“Shoot him.”

I laugh. “I’ve tried. He has an AMP who is always five steps ahead of me.”

Gideon shrugs. “Shoot the AMP and then shoot him.”

“I’ve tried that too,” I tell him. “It hasn’t worked.”

I remember the first time I put a gun in Gideon’s hand. He was fourteen and had begged me for two years before I finally caved and taught him to shoot.

“Are you sure you will forgive me for the brothel?” he asks, with the smallest of smiles. He’s trying. That’s all I can ask. “You were
very
angry with me.”

“Yes. I forgive you. Just find out what you can.” Even as I ask him, the guilt washes over me. I see him standing there, this young man who should be in school. His memory retention, his talent for espionage, and his desire for power and wealth—I should have never encouraged him, no matter how much he begged. Loneliness is a dangerous flaw.

“So will you help me?” I ask.

Gideon pulls a gold coin from his pocket and fingers its rough edge. Finally, he meets my eyes. “As you wish.”