Edge of Midnight (36 page)

Things looked really poignant when a girl was going undercover to hunt down a killer—with no backup, no safety net, nothing in her purse but a cell phone, a deactivated radio transmitter and lip gloss.

A guy walked into the Starbucks, and looked around like he was supposed to meet someone. She gave him a sideways once-over.

Nice looking, in a bland sort of way. His nose was too small and pointy for her tastes. She preferred nice, big, hooked honkers. Same with his brown hair. Too short. He had an OK body, for a nerd.

His face looked nice enough, but then again, so had Ted Bundy’s.

His eyes slid towards her. She redirected her gaze at the magazine. He was coming her way. Oh, shit. It was him. She was on.

She missed Daddy so bad, she could have bawled. Daddy would have stopped her from doing such a stupid, butthead thing. She’d be sulking in her room at home right now, if Daddy hadn’t screwed up and gotten himself incarcerated. She tried to breathe. She felt dizzy.

“Mina?” the guy asked.

She looked up, into guileless hazel eyes. No blaze of festering hatred in them. No skin-creeping vibe. No bloodstains under his fingernails. Just a guy in a buttoned down blue cotton shirt and jeans. He could have been a manager in a stereo store. “Jared?” she asked.

The guy smiled. A nice smile, not a maniacal Green Goblin grin.

He slid into the seat opposite, and peeked at the cover of Sound Spectrum. He chuckled. “Picked up a little light reading, huh? I get that one sometimes, too, just for kicks. It’s good for the bathroom.”

Cindy tried to laugh. Black spots danced in front of her face.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, her voice hollow. “It’s a real hoot.”

Liv leaned over from her cross-legged position on the rug in front of one of Tam’s big windows, stretching sore muscles. Banging her head against a wall, was how Davy had described it. Good metaphor.

She’d never liked puzzles. Her opinion was that communication between human beings was already difficult under the best of circumstances.

Of course, in this case, Kev had had a good reason.

The quiet was oppressive. Tam had gotten bored with “your boyfriend’s tedious little project” long ago and had retreated to her tower workroom, leaving Liv to wring her lonesome, stressed out brain alone and unassisted. Liv could hardly blame her. This was hell.

She wanted to make a significant contribution to this godawful puzzle. To be something other than a dead weight slung around Sean’s neck, or alternately, his sexual plaything. And as far as that went, she still couldn’t get used to herself cast in the role of a sexual plaything.

She wasn’t the type. She was a serious, independent, hardworking woman who favored baggy dresses, cotton leggings and flat shoes. Here she was, legs shaved, made up, dressed up, lotioned and perfumed. Wearing a frilly green bra and underwear set. Getting all hot and bothered imagining what Sean would do if he saw her in it. Whew.

Eyes on the prize, she lectured herself. Concentrate.

She studied the key Sean had scrawled for her. A no-brainer, he’d explained. Kev had used the code they’d cut their teeth on as babbling babes. He’d written out the alphabet, and working back to front starting with Z, had written under it the names of the McCloud family with no letter repetitions. Jeannie, Davy, Connor, Kevin, Sean McCloud. That yielded JEANIDVYCORKSMLU, which left ten unused letters to insert into the key in back to front alphabetical order. Thus, her own name was written KLFIFZ QSTFWKVV. Numbers remained unchanged.

Clear as day. Easy as pie. Go for it. Knock yourself out, babe.

Bwah-hah-hah. Those McClouds could take their damn babbling baby code and stick it where the sun didn’t shine.

Proof on the tapes in EFPV. HC behind count birds B63.

Damn those difficult, convoluted McCloud men. EF had to be Endicott Falls, but PV? She didn’t have a clue. The urgency in the faded, coded scrawl made her uneasy and sad.

Count the birds. The first sketch was a lake, with nine wild geese flying over it. Then two eagles, perched on a branch. Then a waterfall, no birds, but she’d decided that the lack of birds signified zero. A mountain crag, no birds. Seven swans. Nine gulls on a beach. Seven ducks in a pond. Nine two zero zero seven nine seven. OK, she’d counted them. So? Anyone? And what the hell was HC? Or B63?

Some crucial bit of info had to be missing. It made her crazy.

She got to her feet with an angry sigh, pacing the rug til she found herself in front of the picture window, looking down at the waves as they washed creamy foam over the sand. The clouds were high, the sky a brilliant white. She put the paper flat against the glass, smoothing the torn edge she’d ripped so long ago, so as to shove only half a sheet of thick folded paper into her bra.

The window illuminated a paler border where a strip of the fibrous paper had been torn away. The border of thinner paper extended higher than she’d thought, all the way up to the line of code. She took it off the window, examined it from above. It looked like normal paper again.

She spread it on the glass. Her stomach tightened as she stared at that paler stripe. She rummaged for the folder, and pulled out the waterstained cover of Kev’s sketchbook. Inside those two pieces of battered cardboard was the other half of the sheet of paper Kev had written his fateful note upon. The one she’d ripped in two.

She pried it out, smoothing out the fibers at the extreme edge, longing for a magnifiying glass. But there was no need, she realized, when she put the pieces together. She could see with the naked eye that some loose, fluttery fibers were stained with ink. Her heart thudded.

She’d done paper restoration work in libraries in eastern Europe on her studies abroad. She had a good eye, and a delicate touch.

She placed the two pieces together, smoothing down the feathery curling layer over the bottom sheet, into what she hoped was their original conformation. The smudges of ink corresponded to the last character in the last word. QPRI, which, decoded, had become EFPV.

There was a faint, broken line on the bottom of that I. It was, in fact, not an I at all. It was an L. She had ripped off the bottom of Kev’s L, fifteen years ago. She almost wanted to scream as she groped for Sean’s key. The code L, coincidentally, corresponded to the L in the alphabet. So it was not EFPV. It was EFPL.

That was an acronym she knew. It tickled her brain, maddening her. It was stamped on the insides of her eyelids. She could see it, floating there. She could smell ink, paper. Hear the ka-chunk sound of a date stamp, coming down on a card with a lot of other dates on it.

The kind of card that got stuck in a library book. Kev had flagged her down outside the library. The Endicott Falls Public Library. The EFPL. Oh, God.

She put her hands over her mouth and burst into tears.

Count the birds. She had, with endless speculation as to what that seven digit number could refer to: an address, a telephone number, a safe deposit box? But if EFPL was the library, Kev must be talking about a call number. 920.0797. HC had to be Historic Collection. Which meant it was an old book, from Augustus Endicott’s original library, which had been donated to the town upon his death. Which made perfect sense, since B63 was the book’s old Cutter number. Of course.

Oh, God, how simple, how banal. How wonderful and awful. All these years, all this pain, for a few lost paper fibers. How could she not have recognized the configuration? How could it have escaped her?

She was as embarrassed as she was elated.

She clapped her hands over her mouth, muffling shrieks of triumph into crazy keening squeaks. She grabbed the phone Sean had left her, and dialed Sean’s number. Out of area. She could have howled.

All jacked up, full to bursting, and no one to share this exalted, euphoric moment with. She paced the room, still squeaking, jumping up and down. Clutching the phone, trying to breathe. She wished she had the kind of family she could share a giddy triumph like this with.

Which reminded her. Three days had gone by without any report to her parents. That was a bit harsh. And she felt much more kindly disposed to the world on the wake of her triumphant breakthrough.

She braced herself for a screaming lecture as she dialed.

“Endicott House,” her mother’s voice responded.

“Hello, Mother? It’s me,” she said. “I wanted to let you know—”

“Oh, Livvy. I thought you’d never call.” Her mother’s voice disintegrated into hitching sobs.

“Mother, I’m fine,” Liv assured her. “I told you, the last time, that I’m just lying low while we—”

“It’s your father, Livvy,” her mother said brokenly.

An icy cold slice of fear cut her in half. She sank down onto the couch, her knees rubbery. “What about Daddy?”

“He had a massive heart attack, the day after you disappeared.” Her mother stopped, to drag in a long, jerky sobbing breath. “The shock…it was just too much for him. You know all those episodes he’s been having. That was the straw, Livvy. The last straw.”

“How is Daddy now?” she demanded. “Is he conscious?”

“I’ve been with him, night and day,” her mother said faintly. “I haven’t eaten, haven’t slept. I came home to see if you’d called.”

“Mom?” she said more sharply. “Daddy. Tell me. How is he now?”

“Blair’s with him now,” she said, her voice taking on more strength. “Blair’s been a rock for me. An absolute rock.”

“What’s Daddy’s condition now?” she repeated desperately.

“Come home. Please, Livvy.” Her mother’s voice choked. “I’m begging you. He drifts in and out, but he keeps asking for you.”

Liv leaned forward, doubling over. “OK,” she whispered. “I will. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it today, but—”

“Then you’ll be too late. I understand that…person is more important to you than your own family, but Daddy is dying, Livvy.”

Liv’s mind raced in circles. “I’ll get there,” she promised rashly. “As soon as possible. Where is he?”

“He’s in the critical care unit of the Chamberlain Clinic. North wing, second floor. When can you be there, Livvy? So I can tell Daddy.”

“Not less than maybe four hours. Mother, listen carefully. There are people after me, people who are trying to kill me. Sean’s been helping me figure out who and why, and we’re making progress, but—”

“Livvy. Listen to yourself. I cannot believe that at a time like this, all you can think about is yourself. It’s just me, me, me, and meanwhile, Daddy is hooked up to life support, gasping his last.”

“Please, Mother,” she said, with forced patience. “Stay with me, here. I will get myself to the clinic, but I need for you to arrange for a police escort to meet me there. Please, take this seriously. Please.”

Her mother harrumphed. “Shouldn’t be hard to convince them to come,” she said acidly. “They’re extremely interested in talking to you.”

“Got to go, Mother. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Livvy! Wait! At least tell me where you—”

She hung up, and sat rocking back and forth. A plan, a plan.

Tam was absorbed in her work, and might not notice if she slipped away. Assuming Liv could disarm the security system and open the garage, that Sean had left the keys in the ignition, that he’d left a full tank of gas, or even a half tank. That she could scrounge up some cash. That was a whole lot of hopeful assumptions.

Her license, IDs, credit cards, bank card, gas card, checkbook, were all lost. Comical, that she was wearing over a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes on her body, and she didn’t have a cent to her name.

Amazing, how helpless a person was without her wallet.

She stumbled up to the tower, tear-blinded. Good old gruff, benevolent, closed-minded, pig-headed, tender-hearted Daddy. He’d been using his clutch-the-chest trick for a decade. For a while, it had worked, but she’d gotten wise, hardened herself against his wiles.

She’d hardened too much. She felt like crap for dismissing all his “episodes.” If he died before she could say goodbye—

No. She wasn’t going to deal with that ’til she absolutely had to.

She rummaged around. Found thirty dollars in Sean’s muddy cargo pants. If the gas tank was full, she just might make it. She wound her hair up, tugged on the blond wig, perched sunglasses on her nose.

Now for Sean. She poked out a text message on the cell phone.

Historic Collection Room

Look behind book with call# 920.0797 B63

knock yrself out love liv

Telling Sean about her father was pointless. He’d be frantic at the idea of her going alone. She felt like she was betraying him by running away from the haven he’d found for her, but that was too bad.

Saying goodbye to Daddy was worth the risk.

It shouldn’t even be that much of a risk. She was in a car no one knew she had. On a road no one knew she was using. Arriving at a public building in broad daylight, met by a police escort, surrounded by her family. She was in sexy designer clothes. Blond, for God’s sake.

Her own mother wouldn’t know her.

Not bad, he thought. They cleaned up nice. Sean’s Ferragamo suit was too wide in the shoulders for Connor, but only a gay man would notice. Davy in his own Brooks Brothers suit had a stodgy, don’t-fuck-with-me-or-I’ll-club-you-over-the-head-with-my-stock-portfolio style happening, and Miles looked hot and hungry in Sean’s gray Armani. With his hair gelled back and the mirror sunglasses, the kid looked like a cross between a prosperous young gangster and a human sports car.

With all the crap eating at his nerves, still it did his heart good to see those slobs spiffed up. The only false note in this pageant of male sartorial splendor was the scabby bruises on his own battered mug.

The phone in his jacket pocket let out a soft chirp. He pulled it out to check. Message from Liv. He pulled up the text. Read it. Stared.

“Holy fucking shit,” he said, in a loud, carrying voice.

“Shhh,” Davy hissed, as the receptionist gave him a snooty look.

“What is it?” Con snapped, under his breath.

“Liv’s cracked the code. She’s found Kev’s tapes.” His low voice felt strangled in his throat. “She says they’re at the public library.”

Everybody’s jaws flopped, in the direction of the mauve rug.

In the stupefied silence, the receptionist spoke. “Mr. Urness? Mr. Parrish will see you and your party now. Marta will show you the way.”

A stunning trophy secretary, blond, of course, greeted them with a brilliant smile, and gestured for them to follow her through the plush office complex. Wow. Deep carpets, picture windows, aromatherapy. Mosaic this, feng shui that. A fake waterfall bubbled away in a wall alcove.

The muted tones of mauve and cream made him feel sedated.

The blonde was twitching her taut, perky ass in the pencil slim skirt for their benefit. He fastened his eyes onto its jerky, back and forth sway, thinking about the peachlike contours of Liv’s ass. How he loved to grip her hips, sink his aching prong into that slick heaven between her thighs. And she was a freaking genius, as well as a sizzling sex bomb. She’d solved the puzzle. Hot damn. What an amazing woman.

He jerked himself back to reality as the blonde gestured them into a big corner office, like a game show hostess displaying their prize.

Charles Parrish was a distinguished guy, with silver hair. He shook Davy’s hand, then Con’s, then Miles’s. Sean hung back, avoiding the guy’s gaze until the very last moment. Then he gripped Parrish’s hand and stared into his face. “Hello, Mr. Parrish. Remember me?”

He saw it, in an instant. The smile went rigid, the flutter in the eyelids, the change in lip color. The involuntary tug as the guy sought to free his hand. Sean let him go. He’d learned what he needed to know.

“What are you…” Parrish looked around at the rest of them, confused. “Who are you? I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you from anywhere, Mr…? Please, refresh my memory.”

Sean sighed. Another lying rat bastard with something to hide.

“My name is McCloud. So’s theirs.” He jerked his chin at his brothers. “I believe you met my twin, Kevin, when you were a company rep for Flaxon. I see from your face that he made a big impression on you. I want to know the exact circumstances of that meeting.”

Parrish backed up, sidling to get on the other side of his desk.

Davy caught his wrist. “You’re not going to call security,” he said. “This is a friendly conversation, Mr. Parrish. We don’t want to mess with your corporate empire. We just want to know about our brother.”

Parrish’s jaw tightened. He stared wildly around, from face to face. “Well. I did have a rather odd incident, back then, if that’s what you’re referring to, but it’s so long ago, I really don’t know if—”

“Just tell us.” Sean’s voice was getting sharper.

“All right. A mentally disturbed man got past the security in the Renton office of Flaxon, and attacked me. It was a terrible experience.”

“What did he tell you?” Con asked quietly.

“He was raving,” Parrish said defensively. “He was convinced that a mad scientist was conducting illicit experiments. Murdering people in one of our buildings. All kinds of absurd stories.”

Sean’s skin crawled. “I see,” he said slowly. “What did you do?”

Parrish threw up his hands. “What could I do? I did what anyone would do! I called for help, I got security in, I had him confined!”

“And then?”

Parrish frowned, perplexed. “What do you mean, ‘and then?’”

“What happened to him?” Davy growled.

Parrish shrugged. “I let Flaxon’s corporate security do their job.”

“You mean, you delivered him back into the hands of the people he was running from.” Sean’s voice was flat. “He risked everything to come to you and expose what they were doing. And you sold him out.”

“What for, Parrish?” Connor asked. “For a corner office?”

“I had no reason to think that his stories were true! And I resent…” Parrish’s voice trailed off. “My God, you’re as crazy as he was.”

Sean gave him a big, wide smile. “Oh, yes. At the very least.”

Parrish started backing away.

“Helix is worth about two point five billion,” Miles commented.

“Yeah,” Sean said. “Interesting. Looks like the people who fucked Kev over are doing real well these days. Makes a grieving brother wonder. I guess karma hasn’t caught up with them yet, but you know what? I think payback time is coming around. What do you say, guys?”

“I think you’re right. I smell payback,” Con agreed, his voice soft.

Davy just gave Parrish his thinnest, most menacing smile, all the scarier for the stodgy business suit. The man shrank against the wall.

“What in God’s name do you want from me?” he demanded.

“We have one name,” Sean said. “Osterman. Who is this guy?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re—”

Thunk, he was pinned to the wall. Sean held him there, one hand twisted into the lapel of the man’s costly suit jacket. He dug his finger into a sensitive bundle of nerves beneath his ear. Parrish shrieked.

“Watch it, Sean,” Davy said, in the low, even warning tone he’d used during Sean’s freak-outs since he was a little kid.

Sean ignored him. “Listen to me, you greedy buttfaced asshole,” he hissed. “You fucked up my brother. I am not kindly disposed towards you. I am going to get to the bottom of this. I am going to find every last one of the shit-eating worms who did this to him, and I am going to rip their guts out. Decide right now if you want to be on that short list.”

His finger dug imperceptibly deeper into that nerve bundle.

Parrish flailed and struggled, mewling. “Please,” he whispered.

Sean eased up. “You got something helpful to say?”

Parrish managed to nod. Sean lifted his hand. “Let’s hear it.”

The man rubbed the spot, surprised it was not a bleeding hole. He gasped with each indrawn breath. “I had no idea—no idea—”

“Of course you didn’t,” Connor said. “No idea about what?”

“Osterman,” the man gasped out somewhat more slowly. “He’s…he’s a researcher. I would never have dreamed…he’s an extremely distinguished scientist. Brilliant. I can’t believe that…the Haven is a legitimate research facility, in spite of being so secret, and—”

“The Haven?” Miles broke in, his eyes big. “You’re kidding!”

Sean swiveled his head. “What? What’s the Haven?”

“The guy who’s been recruiting me,” Miles said. “Mindmeld666. The Haven is his outfit. Which means that Osterman must be—”

“The Geek Eater,” Con finished softly.

Parrish’s breathing sawed heavily in the appalled silence.

“Where is the Haven?” Sean asked him.

“I don’t know,” Parrish replied. He shrank back as Sean raised his hand. “No! Please, no. I swear. The facility moves around, and the only people who know where it is are the people in the brain potential program. They specialize in product design, and those designs are realized by our development team. My own daughter participated in the program some years back. It produces spectacular results—”

“I don’t want a promotional brochure. I want to know where that murdering psychopath is,” Sean snarled. “And I don’t believe that you don’t know. Just like I don’t believe that you never checked Kev’s story. You were in on this from the very start, weren’t you, Parrish?”

“No! You have to understand how crazy it sounded!” Parrish was getting desperate. “It was wild paranoid jabbering! He claimed to have been strapped down and tortured for days, but he was strong enough after his ordeal to pick up a security guard and throw him through a plate glass window! The man needed thirty stitches!”

Parrish’s yammering receded as Sean’s mind seized one detail, and focused on it. “Shut up,” he said, cutting through the babble.

Parrish’s voice cut off abruptly. “Huh? What?”

“Clarify something for me,” he said. “You said Kev claimed to have been tortured for days. Kev wasn’t missing for days. I saw him the morning of the seventeenth. Right before I got locked up.”

Davy and Con exchanged startled looks.

“Where are you going with this, Sean?” Davy asked softly.

“What day did he come to see you?” Sean persisted.

Parrish blinked rapidly. “I don’t remember.”

Thunk, back Parrish went, flush to the wall, Sean’s finger putting painful pressure on the now bruised nerve center under his ear.

“Think harder,” he suggested, his voice deceptively gentle.

Parrish sucked air. “Ah…let me s-s-see. The day he came, I had a b-bicycle in the office. For my daughter’s eleventh birthday party.”

“What’s your daughter’s birthday?” Davy asked.

“The t-twenty-third of August. Tomorrow, actually.”

Sean let go of the man so abruptly, Parrish stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Miles took the guy’s elbow, helped him to his feet. Ever the sweet nice guy. Somebody was going to have to slap some mean into that kid, because the McClouds couldn’t seem to manage the job.

That and other random thoughts ricocheted senselessly through his head while paralyzing shock rolled over him. August twenty-three?

They had buried their brother on the hill, near the little waterfall that he loved, on the twentieth of August. Twenty-three? What the fuck?

He put his hands on his knees, tried to get some blood back into his head. Swooning dead away in front of Parrish would not do wonders for his hard-core, meaner-than-shit intimidation machine.

Fortunately, Con and Davy’s meaner-than-shit machines were in fine working order. He just hung on, concentrated on staying conscious.

An ungentle hand stabbed him hard between the shoulder blades some time later, to get him marching down the corridor. Past the red-hot blonde with the take-me eyes. No security personnel stopped them, no police were waiting. Parrish was going to play both sides until he could tell which way to jump. Prick.

When they got to the parking lot, Davy seized him by the scruff of the neck and slammed him against the SUV so hard he almost howled.

“I told you we weren’t going to get physical,” he snarled into Sean’s face. “And you lost it. Both times. We do not need this kind of trouble, punk. If you cannot hang on to your shit, I will tie you and gag you and stuff you into the trunk, I swear to God.”

Sean glanced to Connor for support, and got just a twitch of his mouth and a shrug. “I’ll hold you down while he ties you,” Con said.

He looked at Miles, who gave him his what-the-fuck-do-you-want-from-me look. He grunted, shrugged. Whatever. He was too boggled to get his feelings hurt. He rubbed the lump on his head as he got into the vehicle. “The twenty-third of August,” he murmured.

Davy pulled out of the lot. “I knew that would set you off,” he said grimly. “It was fifteen years ago. The guy could be lying. Or just wrong.”

“And if he’s not?” Sean said. “We put a body in the ground on August twentieth. If this guy saw Kev on the twenty-third, then…”

“Who’s lying up there on the hill?” Connor finished.

There was a stony silence in the car while they pondered this.

“Didn’t you…aren’t there…dental records?” Miles faltered.

Con shook his head. “None of us ever went to a dentist until we were adults. Dad was dead sure they’d implant transmitters in our teeth.”

“Oh. Uh, never mind,” Miles mumbled. “Maybe DNA?”

“Forget it,” Davy said harshly. “It doesn’t matter. Kev is dead, Sean. There’s no other reason he would not have contacted us. They got him. Face it, deal with it. We can’t spend our whole lives like this.”

Sean shook his head.

“Fuck,” Davy’s voice was bleak. “This means another freak-out?”

Sean met his brother’s furious eyes in the mirror, and stared into them calmly. He said nothing. Nothing needed to be said.

Con looked miserable and worried. He massaged his bum leg.

“Great,” Davy muttered. “So now what?”

Sean shrugged. “That’s obvious,” he said. “We go to the library.”