Internal Threat (16 page)

“Is it my birthday?” Larsen asked in confusion.

“No. Not that you would remember if it was.”

“Then what is all this?”
“It
was
a celebration. Or so I tried to convince myself.”

Larsen moved towards the table, flipping up the lip of the envelope. The word “Congratulations!” stared up at him in gold cursive. “I don’t get it,” he said.

“I know that now,” she replied. It was then that Larsen noticed the pair of bulging suitcases at her feet.

“What are those?” he demanded.

“I’m leaving you, David.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out her car keys. “I’m not coming back. Ever.”

“Just stop, okay? I don’t know what this is but you’re making too big of a deal out of it. Maybe if you would just take some time-”

“Time?” she shouted, startling him. “I’ve waited years! Years for you to crawl out of that bottle and you just can’t do it.” Tears appeared at the corner of her eyes. “Or you won’t do it. I don’t know which and, frankly, I don’t care anymore. I have other things to think about now.”

“Julie, wait. I-” he fumbled for the right words but his head was slow and clunky. “I can change,” he finally offered. “I promise.”

“I’ve heard that before. But I can’t hear it again.” She picked up the suitcase. “I don’t want to see you. Do you understand me? Wherever we go, you are not invited.”

She turned on her heels and exited the back door, slamming it behind her. The car engine started and coughed before pulling out of the driveway. Yet, Larsen did not really hear it. Instead, something else echoed in his ears.

Julie had said, “we.”

He reached for the envelope, ripping it open this time. His heart sank as he read the front again – “Congratulations!” Picking up the carefully wrapped gift, he pulled wildly at the paper to reveal a white coffee mug.

He turned it around and found the writing that shattered his soul into a thousand tiny fragments:

“#1 Dad!”

The inside of Weatherly’s Porsche was suddenly materializing in front of him again. He could feel the blood crusting on his forehead. The pain was receding, however, and Larsen finally began to grasp his surroundings. He groaned, then looked to his left.

Weatherly’s son met his eyes and gave him a wan smile. Larsen recalled his name was Luke. “You’re gonna be okay,” Luke said. “My dad’s good at taking care of people.”

Larsen bit back the retort that was at the end of his tongue. There was something about the kindness in the child’s eyes that instead made him say, “I’ve got a kid around your age.”

“Oh yeah? Where do they go to school?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked away. The instinct that had plagued Larsen the whole night was back again. Something was not right about this entire situation. And he knew that his night was far from over.

“T
his can’t be right,” Matt said, staring through the windshield.

“It’s the address John gave us,” Ashley reminded him.

“Yeah, but still,” An ambulance siren cut through the night air, startling him. As it faded, Matt focused again on the squat green building in front of him. “This isn’t one of mine.”

John’s voice crackled in Matt’s ear. “Correct. But the building behind it is.”

“So why don’t I just go through there?” Matt asked.

“Number one, because I am telling you not to. And number two, this building is unguarded and vacant. There is a window on the seventh floor that leads straight into the fire escape of the room housing the server. It will cut several minutes off of our time by having you bypass the security guards altogether. We are currently behind schedule.”

Smart
, Matt had to admit to himself.

“What’s he saying?” Ashley asked Matt.

“Sorry, I forget you can’t hear him, too.” He relayed what John had told him.

“This place isn’t vacant,” she informed him. At his questioning look, she pointed to the side where two dark shapes lingered, then disappeared behind the wall.

“Maintenance people maybe?”

Ashley shook her head. “Listen,” she whispered.

Matt did as instructed, straining his ears. He heard it now, too - the steady rhythmic thumping of a bassline. “Somebody is playing music in there.”

Ashley gave him a reproachful look. “How old are you? It’s clearly an underground club.”

“Yes, clearly. And you would know this from all the underground clubs you frequent?”

“I worked in Hollywood, Matt. I’ve always been cooler than you.”

The detective’s voice came from the back seat. “She’s right. I’ve heard about them busting a warehouse down the block from here a few weeks ago.” It was the first words he had uttered to them since unwillingly joining the trio in the car.

“Thank you, Detective,” Matt grumbled, then said to the air, “John?”

“Yes?”

“This place isn’t deserted.”

“I realize that now. However, you have made it past more considerable obstacles tonight. I thought you were capable of handling this.”

Matt’s eyes began scanning the building. “I don’t see a side entrance. There’s a ladder that goes to the roofline but it starts at the third floor.” He sighed in frustration.

“Matt,” Ashley interrupted him, laying a hand on his forearm. He looked to her. “I know how to get us in.”

It had been a long time since Ashley had bothered to use her combination of looks and acting skills to charm her way past a doorman. Too long, in her mind. The idea of even trying was not something she was going to entertain. Instead, she relied on her decade-old experience of figuring out the alternative way into a chic establishment.

Matt had been skeptical at first but what choice did he have, really? Ashley convinced him that, as in the previous locations, it was best to leave Luke in the car. Matt had been more fearful this time, eyeing the detective with worry.

“There’s no way we can bring him in,” Ashley emphasized. If they were caught inside, they might have a chance to explain their presence away as a couple but never with a child. Matt reluctantly agreed, but took Larsen’s handcuffs and bound the detective’s hands as a precaution.

A few minutes later, they found themselves slinking along the back of the building, clinging to shadows.

“How do you know it will be here?” Matt asked.

“You always doubt me, don’t you, Matt?”

“Not always,” he gave a weak rebuttal.

“Matt Weatherly - the smartest person in the room at all times.”

“Is that how it seems?”

“Are we really having this talk right now?” she asked, her eyes darting behind them as a dust-covered rat scuttled across the top of a nearby dumpster.

“I don’t think I’m the smartest, Ashley,” he told her. “I just have to be the best.”

“Why?” she wondered. “The money? The prestige?”

“My son,” he said simply. “Everything I do, I do for Luke.”

Ashley paused to look back at her competitor with newfound respect. Everything she had believed about Matt had been shattered by the events of the night. Before she could ponder anything further, a loud bang ten feet away caused her to press both of them back against the wall. A pool of light appeared as a stocky Hispanic man exited a metal door and dumped a sloshing ice bucket on to the ground.

She gestured towards the door as it swung shut. “That’s what we’re looking for,” she whispered to Matt. “In every club, there has to be a back bar area to toss out the trash and bring the liquor in. Everything you need to actually turn a profit.”

Matt nodded, impressed. “You think it’s unlocked?”

“Has to be. Too many things happening for it not to be.”

“But there’s got to be workers inside there. How do we get past them?”
Without shooting them
, he silently added, fingering Tim the security guard’s gun that still remained wedged in his belt.

“How’s your Spanish?” she asked.

“Decent. How’s yours?”

“Excellent,” she smiled.

L
arsen’s head was finally beginning to clear. The throbbing had subsided and his wits were finding their way back again. He peered through the Porsche’s window, into the shadowy alley that Matt and Ashley had gone down. There was no sign of the duo. The detective did not yet know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing for him.

“Are you feeling OK?” a small voice said from the seat beside him.

The kid.

Larsen had forgotten for a brief moment that Luke was there. He swung his eyes towards him and took a full look at the boy for the first time. In many ways, he resembled his father. Larsen’s trained eye for detail noticed the square line of the boy’s jaw that was beginning to peek through the roundness of the childhood face. The nose, ears and hair were all the same as Matt’s. Luke’s eyes, however, were his own. They were strong and clear, a bright hue of green. More than that, there was a softness that lurked behind them; one that was not present in the grown up Weatherly’s.
Maybe he gets that from his mom
, Larsen mused.
Or maybe he just hasn’t lived enough life yet
.

“I’m feeling better,” Larsen finally answered the boy. “Thanks for asking.”

Luke nodded. He reached down to pull a water bottle from the nearby cup holder and unscrewed its top to wash down a small white pill. A grimace pinched his cheeks before quickly disappearing.

“You sick?” Larsen asked him.

“Yeah. I mean, sorta. I’m supposed to take one of these every hour.”

“How come?”
“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I think after tonight I would believe just about anything.”

Luke looked away and Larsen could practically see the wheels turning in the boy’s head.

“You’re a policeman,” Luke said suddenly, locking his eyes back on to Larsen’s.

“That’s right,” the detective said.

“My dad always said that if anything was ever wrong, I could always find a policeman and tell him. It was OK to trust them.”

“Your dad is right, Luke.” This poor kid, Larsen thought to himself. He tried to imagine the absolute hell the young boy must have been put through on this day. No child should have to endure the horror of murder and he wondered if Luke had been exposed to several deaths already. He leaned forward towards the boy, lowering his voice. “Is there something you want to tell me about your dad?” he tentatively asked.

“My dad?” Luke shook his head in confusion. “He’s trying to help me.”

“It may seem that way but-”

“No,” Luke insisted.

“Luke, there are a lot of people that have gotten hurt today. Your dad might have been the one doing it.”

“You’re wrong,” Luke’s voice raised, cutting Larsen off. “My dad is trying to help me. Help everyone.”

Now it was Larsen’s turn to look confused and Luke took note of it.

“You have to promise you won’t tell him that I know,” Luke brought his voice back down to its normal level.

“I promise, kid.”

“I can hurt people,” Luke whispered.

“You? I don’t think you could hurt anyone, Luke.”

Luke shook his head, shutting his eyes in frustration. “I can hurt a lot of people. Make them die.”

Larsen could see the boy was serious. “What do you mean?” he pressed.

“The guy – the bad one. He put something in me. Something that can make me…hurt people. My dad has been trying to stop it.”

Larsen was lost. “Trying to stop it?” he repeated.

Luke nodded. “He said he would give my dad the cure if he did.”

“Who? This ‘bad guy’?”

Luke nodded again. Larsen sat back, his thoughts churning. He was beginning to understand what the kid was talking about. It wasn’t Weatherly doing these things on his own. He was a puppet; and there was someone pulling the strings.

“My dad doesn’t know that I know. I heard him talking about it with Ashley when they thought I wasn’t listening.”

Larsen sat back up. “Luke, listen to me. We can fix this, alright?
I
can fix this. I promise you.”

“It’s too late,” Luke said, his voice falling back down to a whisper. A tear gathered at the corner of his eye and was quickly pushed away with the back of his hand. He looked again to Larsen with clear eyes. “I’ve gotta go.”
“What? No,” Larsen told him forcefully.

“I have to. It’s the only way I won’t hurt people. I’m going to go as far away as I can.”

“Luke, you stay in this car. You hear me? You stay right here in this car with me. Your dad and I will figure this out together. You’ve got the police here now. Everything is going to be OK.”

But Luke was already unlocking his door. He looked back to Larsen. “You’ll tell my dad I love him.” It was more of a command than a question and Larsen was rocked back by how strong the voice that said it was. The door swung open and Luke ran off into the night.

Larsen shouted after him but his voice only echoed back off the walls of the alley. After a minute, he stopped trying. He struggled against the handcuffs but succeeded only in making his wrists sore. Cursing in frustration, he kicked the seat in front of him. The interior light of the car fluttered before shutting off, casting him back in shadows.

There was nothing Larsen could do now.

Except think.

A
shley steeled herself in front of the metal door, working through the dialogue in her mind. She had not improvised a scene in nearly a decade and, other than the cost of a retake, the stakes then were not very high if she flubbed a line. Now, however, perfection was crucial.

She cast a quick look to Matt who nodded his permission.

Here we go
, she thought.

Pulling with both hands, she yanked the door open. Immediately, she began barking in Spanish.

“What the hell is going on here? Someone was supposed to meet me for the delivery and I’m standing out there in the cold.”

Four heads that had previously been bent over their scrubbing and cooking snapped in her direction.

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Ashley huffed.

Matt entered behind her, doing his best to glower while he cradled a cardboard box in his hand. Ashley impatiently waved him forward. The workers looked to each other in confusion. One of them finally stepped forward.