GHOST_4_Kindle_V2 (27 page)

And who was this Scratch cat anyway? See what I did there? I called him a “cat.” That’s hipster talk…I think. Anyway, I had no clue what to make of him. Apparently, he knew me quite well. He even knew about the memory wash that I had apparently used to wipe him from my memory. If he had helped me before, why did I erase him?

What really cooked my noodle was the Edge. Number one: no one could open that case except for me. Forneus could have batted it around like a piñata with his black blade and not left a scratch. And yet, Mr. Scratch had gotten it open. Number two: how on earth had Mr. Scratch gotten past Forneus to get to the case in the first place? My mind went wild with possible scenarios: was Scratch in league with Forneus? Was this all a ploy? Was Scratch a kind of spy for the Enemy?

And how, out of all the coffee joints in Panama City Beach, did Scratch happen to walk into mine? I realized absently how close I had just come to quoting Rick Blaine in Casablanca. This is how disheveled I get without my silver case.

Then my cell phone rang, belting out
I am sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose…

Rez.

I answered quickly. “I wondered if I’d hear from you. I—”

“What in blazes is the matter with you?” Rez growled.

“With me?” I pondered aloud.

“Don’t play dumb, Spector,” she said. “I was expecting a little help here.”

“O…kay,” I said slowly, keeping my voice even. Anything to avoid ratcheting up the tension. “Maybe you could refresh my memory. Last I heard from you, you were reading me the FBI’s official get-lost speech.”

“That was all Deputy Director Barnes, and you know it. He’s always by the book, always firm, but I’ve never seen him like this. He’s putting clamps on every loose end—including you—suddenly and with extreme zeal. The veins on his neck and forehead are sticking out. He’s gone maniacal on this, and I don’t dare cross him.”

“I still don’t understand how I could help you with that.”

I heard a muted snarl from the phone and, when Rez spoke again, her words were clipped with seething frustration. “You told me that you work for powers-that-be, powers well beyond the FBI. Higher than the Executive Branch, for cryin’ out loud. Why didn’t you put in a call to your superiors? Why didn’t you pull rank and tell the Deputy Director to back off?”

I was speechless for several seconds. I didn’t have a good answer, not one that she’d be willing to accept anyway. “It doesn’t work like that,” I said lamely.

“Oh, c’mon,” she said. “Don’t give me that line. You’ve got to have some kind of code word, right? You just mention the word, and the Deputy Director goes all bug-eyed and sucks in a deep breath. Then he apologizes and rolls out a red carpet for you…or at least gets out of your way.”

“No,” I replied bluntly. “It doesn’t work like that. Look, Agent Rezvani, my protocols include avoiding all notice by the usual law enforcement agencies. As it is, I’ve already stepped too far onto the FBI’s radar. Pulling rank, as you put it, would just throw a great big spotlight onto me and my activities. I cannot afford to let that happen. As much as I appreciate the assistance you’ve provided so far, I’ll understand if your hands are now tied. I’m used to working alone.”

When Agent Rezvani spoke again, there was a subtle shift in her tone…just for a few words, but enough for me to discern it. She was hurt. “This case is important to me,” Rez said, and then her voice hardened once more. “And whoever you work for, you’re a heck’uva good investigator. Honestly, I thought you were our best chance of finding Smiling Jack. Now…now, I’m not so sure.”
 

The line went silent for several moments. I listened, absently realizing that I’d left Panama City Beach proper, and taken the exit for the White Sands Inn. Then, Rez said, “But, Mr. Spector…just so that we understand each other: you are Federally blocked from interfering on the Smiling Jack case. Any interference from you, any evidence that you are pursuing the case, any theories you withhold from the FBI—all of the above and more—will constitute a felony violation of the law. You will be arrested, jailed, and tried.”
   

“I understand,” I replied. “But, Agent Rezvani, there’s something that you need to understand as well: while we both want to keep Smiling Jack from killing again…our intended methods of accomplishing that are very different. I have a mission, and I intend to see it through.”

Agent Rezvani of the FBI ended the call. I drove on in silence. Ordinarily, I felt pretty confident in my decisions, especially when they led me to working alone. But this time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a mistake.

A mistake that, like an undersea quake, would send ripples into the future, unseen until they form a catastrophe.

The mission already felt like a catastrophe. In the past 48 hours, I’d managed to cut myself off from Doc Shepherd and Agent Rezvani, I’d attracted the murderous attention of an ancient Knightshade, and I’d lost my silver case. Oh, and I’d promised to deliver an undoubtedly treacherous message to one of my superiors, a superior so far up the chain of command that my actions might be construed as high treason. All in all, I’d had better weeks.
 

I pulled into the White Sands Inn parking lot. I had my hand on the door handle, and that’s when I remembered: all my money was in the silver case.

The silver case lay now in the custody of a ridiculously powerful Knightshade.
 

I restarted the car and parked it in a space facing east so that I’d wake with the sunrise. Then, I cut the engine, eased the seat back, and closed my eyes. I’d slept in worse places.

Chapter 24

It was Jack’s turn at the downstairs computer. He noted with a pang of guilt that his partner had logged sessions on their Manifesto four times since Jack last had. This wasn’t about second guessing. Jack was as clear on their mission now as he was nearly twenty years prior when he and Dr. Gary met, learned each other’s secret passions, and recognized that they had a role to play in changing the world for women.
 

No, the lack of effort on the computer was not about doubt. The hesitance came rather from the finality represented by the Manifesto. To complete and release this document, Jack knew, would spell the end of their efforts in this great battle. But not just that; it would mean the end of a very fulfilling relationship with Dr. Gary.
 

And, it would mean the end of their lives.
 

The thin line of the cursor blinked contemptuously at Jack.
Such is life,
Jack thought.
Thin, mercurial, gone in an instant, and ultimately meaningless.
 

Meaningless for the individual,
Jack corrected. But to leave something important for those who would come behind, well…that was something.

Jack nodded and stared back at the blinking cursor. Since he had special insights that Dr. Gary could not rightfully claim, the rationale section was left for Jack to complete. But thus far, that had proven difficult. Digging that deep into the past meant tearing the ragged scabs off old wounds.
 

Jack heard whimpering from down the hall.
Pathetic whimpering.
Jack snapped closed the silver laptop, a bit harder than he’d meant to, but the simpering cries grated on his nerves. He went through the door and a few steps down the narrow hall and aimed his voice at the kennel. “Why are you crying?” he yelled. “You’ve been fed!”

“We miss you!” a voice cried out. Jack thought sure it was Pamela. Only Pamela had the nerve to speak up like that. There were muted sobs and other voices: Midge and Carrie.

“I am so very sorry,” Jack called back, softening his tone. “Dr. Gary and I have important business to look after.”

“But we’re important, aren’t we?” Pamela asked, her voice tinged with more confidence than Jack had heard. “You haven’t played with us for three days!”

Jack was tempted to get the prod, but the process of discipline took a lot of time. More time than Jack could spare today. Of course, they didn’t understand the change in schedule.
They don’t know I had to close the daycare. They don’t know the number of procedures that are piling up for Dr. Gary. They don’t know anything, really.
“We will come play with you again soon,” Jack said. “I promise.”

“But you promised us before,” came mewling whine, punctuated with sobs. Midge.

“You shut your mouth!” Jack screamed venomously. “Don’t you dare stand in judgment over me!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry…sorry,” Midge cried back.
 

“I miss Lucinda,” came a third voice, huskier, but frightened. Carrie. “I used to brush her pretty hair. And Erica, I used to braid her hair. I want them back.”

Jack swallowed back the heated bile that had risen in his throat. He mastered his tone to placate…to coddle…to reassure. “Please don’t be sad, my pets. Don’t you know how very special you all are? Each and every one of you, so very precious to me and to Dr. Gary. Destined for big things like your sisters before you. And you will join them soon enough.”

“We will?” Pamela chirped. But then, she said, “You’ve been saying that forever.”

You soonest of all,
Jack thought. “Yes,” he said. “You will join your sisters very soon.”

“I can’t wait,” Carrie said.
 

Midge just cried, but it sounded less like misery and more like relief.

“There now,” Jack said. “You see? All will be well again soon. Now, please be silent. I have terribly difficult work ahead, and I will…not…be…disturbed…again.”

All sound from the kennel vanished. Jack returned to the kitchen, his soft chair in the corner, and the waiting laptop.

He opened it up, scowled at the blinking cursor, and went to work.
 

When free will is corrupted,
he wrote,
life is compromised. In fact, without the human imperative of choice, there can be no humanity…no life whatsoever. It is incumbent upon a just government to protect this, the greatest of all human freedoms. And no agency, public or private, may be permitted to interfere. For any dark act by such agency that hinders the will, will in fact call for drastic, secretive action. Dark things begin to occur.

Jack deleted the last sentence. It sounded too primitive, almost sensational. But it was true.
 

How he railed at me,
Jack thought, images of his father coming unbidden and unwelcome.
Nothing I could do was satisfactory because I was unsatisfactory to him. I was never strong enough to do the farm work. I was never ‘man’ enough to do anything right. He almost killed me…but instead, I was reborn.
   

Jack remembered that incredible, liberating day so long ago…how sore he’d been from his father’s beatings over the weekend. And that particular day, school had held a book fair. Jack had used the money his mother had given him and bought the usual tripe. But he’d used his own hard-saved money for one particular book that he never showed his parents:
Lizzy Borden, Fact & Fiction
by R. Stewart Grady.
 

By the time Jack was twelve, he’d already imagined killing his father. But until finding the book, he’d never thought he could be smart enough to pull it off without getting caught. Lizzy Borden had done it, and she hadn’t been very smart. Her alibi’s were weak. She hadn’t put enough time or cleverness into planning. And the follow-through had been utterly sloppy. But she had gotten away with murder, and that had been enough to inspire Jack’s plan.

The pieces had been in place all along. He’d grown up on a boggy, half-wooded farm in rural Massachusetts. Jack’s father was a drinker. He’d cheated on Jack’s mother dozens of times and had a history of disappearing for weeks unannounced. While waiting for the spring thaw, Jack had spent months planning. He’d seen to every detail, predicted every investigative angle, and invented brilliant solutions. He chose not to force it, but rather plotted out potential opportunities. The weather was key. He needed an inbound deluge, a heavy, drenching rain. In Massachusetts, in late April, there were many such storms.
 

When the spring thaw began, Jack found the perfect sinkhole forming several hundred yards into the patchy pines that splotched the property. Five perfect storm fronts came and went before Jack was finally able to coax his father into position. But finally, it all came together. Jack’s mother had gone to visit her sister. She’d be gone for days. Jack’s father had spent the afternoon with a bottle of gin. He was moderately plowed when Jack approached with the story:

 
Jack claimed to have discovered evidence that Bill Ash, their hated neighbor, had come hunting again on their land. Jack’s father had just about burst a vein in his thick neck when he’d heard the news. He’d grabbed his shotgun and demanded that Jack show him the evidence. Jack was only too happy to oblige. With a mantle of dark storm clouds looming in the east, Jack and his father took the utility vehicle and traversed the property, arriving at last at the sinkhole. And there was the four-point buck, shot through with one of Ash’s compound bow arrows.
 

Jack’s father had worked himself up to a seething rage at the edge of that sinkhole. But Jack wasn’t going to let his father vent that anger. Never again. Jack kept himself behind his father and at an angle. His father never saw Jack remove the ten pound sledgehammer from behind the nearest pine. Jack had thought about using an axe—as an ode to Lizzy Borden—but refused to repeat her mistakes. With his father close enough to the sinkhole’s edge to be pushed in, Jack wheeled the sledge with all his might and slammed it between his father’s shoulder blades. Jack had heard a satisfying snapping crunch of bone. His father’s muffled cry was smothered by the pines. Jack’s father toppled into the sinkhole. He’d spun sideways in the fall and crashed down upon his own leg. Jack had heard the snap.

But his father hadn’t felt the leg. The damage done to his spine had paralyzed him. He stared up from the sinkhole, eyes roaming…frantically searching for help that would not come. His mouth gaped open and closed like a fish. Jack stood at the edge of the hole. Not too close, but near enough for his father to see him standing there.