Hollow World (15 page)

Where Dreams Come True, indeed.

He shoved those glorious thoughts aside and placed his hand on the custom ivory grip of his weapon as he made his way toward the restroom, preparing to do what he did best. He quietly yet casually made his way into the opening of the restroom, not bothering to remove his sunglasses as he stepped fully into the well-lit area near the sinks.

Unexpectedly and seemingly out of nowhere, a rock-solid fist crashed into the center of his face with devastating force, shattering his sunglasses, crushing the cartilage in his nose and lifting him off his feet. The last thing Jeremy saw as he fell, through the shards of broken polarized glass and copious amounts of his own blood, was the face of Detective Charlie Walker staring down at him.

Then his head smacked against the floor with a sickeningly wet
thud
and the world went dark.

18

Charlie’s right fist throbbed with intense pain worse than ever before, threatening to go numb. He’d been in some world-class scuffles, especially being a member of Murder City’s brave men and women in blue, but never before had he landed a haymaker with such destructive power in his entire life. He picked a small shard of glass from the skin between two knuckles as he looked down upon the unconscious body of his bloodied and broken victim.

Leroy—or Jeremy, as Charlie had recently learned the man’s actual name was —laid flat out on the floor, blood from his ruined nose pooling in the bottom of his eye sockets. Inspecting the man’s face more closely, Charlie learned how devastating his punch had actually been. Not only had the man’s sunglasses and nose been shattered, but his left cheekbone was also misshapen—crushed beneath the force of the powerful blow. Charlie could already see the shape of a bruise starting to spread outward from the epicenter of the savage impact to the further regions of his face. He was willing to bet that this was the worst shiner that Jeremy had ever received and almost laughed at the thought. The man would live, but his face would be disfigured forever without some top-notch reconstructive surgery.

After shaking the pins and needles out of his hand and giving it a few flexes to make sure he hadn’t broken a finger, Charlie grabbed the big, unconscious man by his shirt and quickly dragged him into the large handicap-accessible stall. He patted the man down, finding and removing a small-caliber, ivory-handled chrome pistol outfitted with a suppressor and relieved him of it. Jeremy also carried with him a flat-black, razor-sharp, out-the-front switchblade knife called a Microtech Halo. The ridiculously expensive knife was illegal to purchase by all but law enforcement and military personnel, but was commonly found on wealthier criminals and other less-than-savory types. He also located the man’s phone, taking that as well. Charlie searched, but could find no wallet or ID, only a sizable wad of cash, which he left in the man’s pocket.

Leaving the unconscious man on the floor near the toilet, he grabbed some paper towels and quickly began to clean the floor of any blood.

As he scrubbed the tiles, Charlie thought back to the strange and unexpected yet welcome turn that his day had taken.

•••

Just minutes after his text conversation with Holloway had ended and he’d begun his trek to find Eduardo, he was intercepted by a pretty woman who appeared to be the same age as him. She was dressed in dark skinny jeans, a thin gray tank top and a fitted olive drab canvas jacket that had no place in this type of heat. Being no stranger to plainclothes officers carrying weapons, Charlie instantly recognized the telltale bulge beneath the woman’s left arm. Her raven hair was pulled into a tight ponytail leaving loose only some short bangs that were swept across her forehead. Her voice was like velvet when she spoke to him and something about her ice gray eyes struck him as achingly familiar, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what.

“Charlie Walker?” she asked, quietly—so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her.

“Yes,” he replied, apprehensive.

“Do you have a moment to talk?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “I’m kind of in the middle of—”

“This concerns your current situation, friend. I’m here to help, and I’ve got some
seriously
vital info that you should know. Do you have a moment to talk
now
?”

Hearing this, Charlie had instantly nodded his assent and eagerly followed this strange woman into the gloriously air-conditioned yet frantically crowded Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. Somehow, a spot of real estate near the window was mysteriously vacant—even though every other conceivable place in the building was swarming with vacationers. It was to this space that they made their way.

Standing, surrounded by the cacophony of a hundred noisy guests, Charlie was the first to speak. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, bluntly.

Her reply was equally blunt, and exceptionally shocking. “My name is Victoria Holloway, and I’m a Senior Field Agent with the CIA.”

Charlie laughed aloud, drawing a few odd glances from bystanders but the woman withdrew a credential case from her jacket and presented him with her identification. Sure enough, her Central Intelligence Agency ID confirmed that she was indeed Victoria Holloway. Charlie looked from the ID to Victoria and back again, completely dumbfounded. Now he understood what was so familiar about those eyes—they were the icy eyes of both Spencer and James Holloway. Could it be true that Holloway had a daughter?

“What the fuck?” he breathed in a whisper, unable to form a coherent sentence.

“Let me explain—don’t speak, just listen, okay? You’re a really bright guy, Charlie, so I’ll just assume that you have already figured out who I am. I’m not here to hurt you or your family—the opposite, actually—but yes, I
am
Spencer Holloway’s daughter. James Holloway was my twin brother.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, but it wasn’t in a rude or unfriendly way. Her voice was edgy yet smooth, warm and almost sarcastic in a way that was not at all characteristic of how one would assume a CIA Senior Field Agent would sound. Her large, bright eyes radiated warmth as she spoke and Charlie felt a strange trust brewing, even though she was the kin of the two most terrible criminals he’d ever encountered. Her mannerisms, dress, style and speech all bespoke an air of youth and intelligence that Charlie found intriguing. She called him Charlie, which was a refreshing respite from all of the “Detectives” and “Walkers” he had experienced as of late. First impression: he liked this woman.

“I’m sorry—” Charlie began, but he was interrupted.

“Don’t you
dare
apologize, Charlie,” she warned in that playful, mock-angry way that old friends did when ribbing one another. Then her tone became a fraction more serious. “We were given up for adoption as infants. I never knew James. We grew up in separate homes. I only learned of his whereabouts after his first publicized killing in Detroit. When you killed him, it was a relief. I’d have done it myself if I’d gotten the chance. So if you want to be sorry about anything, be sorry that you robbed me of the chance to pull the trigger.”

“I—”

“Don’t speak, Charlie—just listen. Remember?” She winked. “Neither one of us has much time. Now, for years I have been tracking my father using the agency’s resources and for years I hadn’t been able to locate him in time to prevent any of his ridiculous murders—hadn’t been able to locate him at all
,
if we’re splitting hairs. I’ve only been able to learn where he’s
been
, never where he
is
. He has killed
many
people with his clever traps and games
or trials
or whatever the hell else he calls his sick perversions. And I always seem to be one or two huge steps behind the old bastard.

“Anyway, to make a long story short, I found that a few federal files had been accessed remotely—files concerning the events in Detroit surrounding my dear brother’s killing spree. Files were also accessed concerning
you
. The intruders accessed everything they could find about you—even from as far back as your early days in the academy. Whoever broke into our system was good, but not good enough—and someone from Dad’s organization should never have fucked with our
system. Still, it was ballsy and they got their data. Anyway, they tried to rewrite the software to disguise its intrusion, but it was detected during the attempt and traced by our cybercrimes unit. Can you guess where the trace led?”

“Um, I—” Charlie started.

“It doesn’t even matter. It was a dead end like most of these things turn out to be,” she shot back with a little laugh. “What matters is that it was an
exact
match for an old rerouting path that my old man had used on several previous digital invasions. It was
that
easy to learn that he was researching you, and I already knew why. So then, naturally, I researched you. Found out who you really were and learned what it was that my father must have learned.”

“And what was that?” Charlie asked, finally able to speak a full sentence, but bracing himself for the inevitable interruption during all four words.

“That you’re a goddamned genius, man!” Victoria exclaimed, loud enough to draw a few glances from the guests in line for ice cream. This woman spoke so fast and fluidly, and with such enthusiasm, that Charlie was enraptured by her, powerless to do anything but listen to every word she said. “I saw exactly why he chose you, and because you were still
alive
I knew that I had found you in time to prevent whatever the old man had planned. Finally! Finally I had found one of his victims
before
he made his move. Finally
I’d gotten the chance to intervene and prevent disaster.” Suddenly, her enthusiasm drained from her body and her wide bright eyes became very sad. “But then I messed up.”

“How?” he asked.

“I was stupid—
so
fucking stupid, Charlie. I learned of your vacation and I assumed that dear old Dad would wait to hit you until
after
you got back. Boy, was I wrong. It’s just like him to go after you in broad daylight in one of the most heavily-crowded vacation spots in the country. I should have known!” Her fist pounded lightly against the window and it was clear she was genuinely frustrated. Deep worry lines appeared around her eyes and mouth, and she turned away from Charlie for a few moments.

“You couldn’t have known,” Charlie said. “Nobody could have figured out that he would do something like this.”

“I’ll bet
you
could have,” she stated. Charlie searched her face and tone for signs of spite or sarcasm, but she was entirely serious. She’d researched his work; she was an admirer.

Charlie became mildly self-conscious. He reached out and put his hand gently on Victoria’s arm.

“Victoria,” he said gently. “We both know that’s not true. If I could have figured it out, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You’re being unreasonably hard on yourself,” she said with none of her usual feistiness. “Let’s just agree that neither of us could have prevented this. But we’re both here now, and we have a chance to do something about it. We
will
get your family back, I promise—but something has changed,” she admitted, not able to meet his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Charlie, my Dad isn’t planning to give you a chance to win your family back anymore. He’s going to kill you.”

This news was disheartening, but Victoria proceeded to fill him in on everything she knew—then the glimmer of hope slowly began to reignite itself deep within him. She was able to learn that her father was in Walt Disney World; security cameras had captured one of his men’s images and facial recognition software had sent up a red flag. So, with this knowledge in hand, she convinced her superiors to authorize the use of a company bird to fly them down to Orlando International Airport as soon as possible. She and her team had only arrived a few hours ago, but they’d already made staggering progress in piecing together the scenario.

Charlie was impressed by everything that she’d achieved in such a short amount of time. She had amassed a great deal of useful intel on her father and his confederates, and had already learned key details about their plans.

“As far as my team was able to learn, my old man’s here with a skeleton crew. He has approximately ten hired hands with him, including his right-hand man, Jeremy O’Neill, and any Cast Members he may have been able to bribe or blackmail. This Jeremy asshole is a special case. He’s a ruthless bastard, convicted rapist and remorseless killer—at least seven deaths in the last three years are thanks to him, and one of them was someone close to a member of my team. Jeremy’s a muscular guy, walks with a bit of a limp, scar on his face. You’ll know him when you see him. He is not to be underestimated,” she informed him. “But…if he somehow doesn’t happen to come out of this alive, nobody in Langley will shed any tears.”

“I think he and I have met,” Charlie said, his suspicions confirmed about ‘Leroy.’ “I found him speaking to my wife yesterday at EPCOT Center dressed as a Cast Member, but I didn’t really buy it. Does he have tattoos on his knuckles?”

“That’s the guy. I’d have nailed him long ago for all those murders but he’s as much of a ghost as my Dad. They’ve always been together, and always been invisible—until now.”