Jaden Baker (78 page)

Libby thought she knew the contents of the box and file, but kept her mouth closed on the matter. Gates set the file on the table but didn’t open it. Then he put the box on the floor. He looked like he was going to continue asking her questions she didn’t want to answer. So she stalled.

“How long have you been investigating Madrid and Archcroft?” she asked.

His hands were on the folder, as if he thought touching it would absorb the contents. “We opened the investigation twelve years ago.”

Twelve years ago. Libby did the math. Jaden was thirteen. Archcroft had him. Either the FBI was incompetent, or Archcroft was that clandestine. Possibly a combination of both.

“It took a while for me to convince anyone to open a case,” Gates said. “Joseph Madrid was a model citizen, and everyone liked him. But I knew something was wrong.”

He went back to his notes so he could continue questioning her.

“Have you met him? Madrid, I mean?” Libby asked, trying to sound curious.

Gates looked into her again. “Our paths crossed,” he said.

“When?” she asked.

“I’m doing the interview, Miss James,” he said, picking up the ballpoint pen. “Do you know why Madrid had Jaden?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He stared at her and didn’t answer the question. She wondered how long he’d been in the FBI, what sort of training he had. Would he detect her lie? When had he met Madrid?

“What about that file?” she asked, her eyes on it.

“I’ll get to it. Answer my question, please.”

She studied his hands. Both were scarred, just like Jaden’s, only these were older. He noticed her looking, but didn’t move them.

“Psychokinesis,” she answered. “He’s PK.”

Gates didn’t break the stare as he removed his reading glasses and set them on the table. “He moves things with his mind?” Gates asked, his voice steady.

Libby nodded. When would he open the file, she wondered.

“Like a Jedi knight,” she said, thinking the comparison would amuse him, but he didn’t smile. She wondered if he ever did. With his left hand, which had no wedding ring, he picked up his glasses, put them back on his face, and opened the manila folder, but stared at her.

“How old is he?”

He knows. How many PK people were out there? Not many. She’d met three, at least that’s what she thought. Special Agent Gates had to be one as well, if both Christine and Jaden had the ability.

She tried to see the first page inside the folder, but it was text, and she couldn’t read it upside down. In the movies, folders like that always opened up to a headshot of the person it was about, but no such luck here.

“He’s twenty-five,” she said.

“Mmm,” Gates mumbled as he studied the document in the folder, scanned it, then flipped the page. Here was a Xeroxed copy of a birth certificate. Not all the boxes were filled in. The next page was another legal document, then another. Finally he flipped and found what she had looked for on page one: a photo of a boy, younger than ten, autumn trees in the fake background. It was probably shot at Wal-Mart in the hopes of making him look appealing to anyone who wanted a child.

The boy Jaden had a sad face, too, like his older self. The smile was small, probably asked for, a condition of him leaving the photo studio. You can’t go until you smile. He was eight or nine. So little.

Without meaning to, Libby reached for the photo, and Special Agent Gates gave it to her, his face was blank, emotionless. He continued reading the contents of the file, flipping pages periodically, until he got the information he needed.

Gates shut the file, put it in the box, and went back to his notes. He didn’t ask any more questions. What else was there left to clarify? He tossed his glasses to the table, and rubbed his face and put his chin on his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Libby said, and she slid the photo across the table. “Big day for you, huh?” she said, a shaky smirk on her lips.

“How much do you know about his stay with Madrid?”

Libby noted the omission of Jaden’s name. She thought it was cold, but then what did she know about this sort of thing. It was beyond her comprehension and always would be.

Based on the little she knew about Gates, Libby thought no matter what she said, he would not be surprised. Now that Gates knew who Jaden was, the severity of the truth might be too much to handle. Or not.

“Jaden was with Dalton, my father,” she said, “I don’t know how long. Then he was with Madrid. It was a total of six years.”

“It was two years,” Gates said. “The file said Madrid had him for two years. That’s a long time. Any time with him is long.”

“Yes,” she said, watching his face, looking for signs of sorrow. There were none. His whole face was sad, like his voice. Now she knew why. “He’s a cruel man. I’m glad he’s rotting in Hell.”

Gates got up, went to the mirror and knocked his knuckle on it. “Privacy please,” he said, and waited. “Everyone out,” he said again, and then he came and sat down.

“Madrid is still alive,” he muttered.

Libby’s eyes popped. “I shot him five times. Four to the abdomen. Who survives something like that?”

“He’s at the same hospital,” Gates answered.

“How did he survive?” she whined.

“Five times?” he asked.

“Yes! My God. I bet it was that 9mm. This would’ve never happened with my .45,” she said, and she thought she saw amusement from Gates, but it was so subtle she might have imagined it. “Well, you’re going to prosecute him, right? Kidnapping, child endangerment, abuse, and a myriad of other crimes I can’t remember the names of.”

Finally an emotion broke out of him, a leering smile spread on his face. “We’ll see.”

“Is he in critical condition? Maybe he won’t survive?” she asked.

His grin broadened. “It’s too early to say.” Now that he was grinning, it looked hard to stop, and his sharing of feeling with her appeared to liberate him. “So the four of you went to his house with the intention of killing him?” The question was not entrapment, it was congratulatory.

“Yeah,” Libby said. “Me, Alan, Jaden and Christine, that stupid bitch who left us.”

“Who’s Christine?”

“Jaden’s half-sist—” she stopped herself but it was too late, “er. Sister. Shit,” she said, regretting her words as the smile melted off Gates’ face.

Two things could happen now: she could pretend she hadn’t made the slip, push past it and continue with the story, or resort to wit and humor.

“Well,” she said, “me and my big mouth. But it’s not my fault you were a horny young man. So instead of one child, you’ve got two. I’d say congratulations, but considering they’re both twenty-five and have no idea who you are, there’s no point,” she said in one breath.

She was surprised when he smiled at her, a genuine one this time. “He got shot protecting you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” she said, somewhat hurt by the question, though based on his next statement it wasn’t meant to offend her.

“He likes you. Trying to connect with someone after that kind of life is challenging.”

It wasn’t coincidence, then. Madrid had Gates when he was younger. Libby wanted to ask more about it, but she knew it would be prying. If he was anything like Jaden, and the similarities were strong, then he would decide if and when he told her anything.

“You want to ask, don’t you?” he said. “I saw you looking at my hands. It’s okay to be curious. We have some things in common. You did me a favor by shooting him. I was just at his house,” he pulled the box back on the table but didn’t open it. “Madrid set something up, some kind of emitter, that suppressed the mental processes of PK. It was disabled when we found it at the crime scene. He kept it on his roof, it made him hard to get to. I think he’s had it for years.”

Libby remembered both Christine and Jaden being unable to use PK, a fact that unsettled Christine so much that she ran off.

“It’s flattering,” Gates said. “You see, I got away from him many, many years ago. I suspect that once I read through this box, I’ll find that Jaden,” he said, and cleared his throat, “was probably more cautious than I was. It took a lot of careful planning for me to escape. At that time it was just Madrid, there was no Archcroft.”

Libby interrupted him. “He started it after you.”

Gates nodded. “Because of me, maybe as a way to find me, or more people like me. He keeps notes, I’ll figure it out soon.”

Libby released a breath she hadn’t realized she held. “You’re Severus Snape!” she said.

The pronouncement was met with confusion. “Who?” Gates asked.

Un
believable. Libby shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Does no one read?” she asked. Then, waving her hand dismissively: “It’s not important.” It was. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

“Anyway,” he said, in a manner that reminded her so much of Jaden she smiled. “I was reckless. It started out as fear, then anger. Madrid had done things so unthinkable I couldn’t escape them. I kept having nightmares, so I stopped sleeping. I was afraid to go back to my parents because of the lies he’d told me, so I was alone. I was seventeen when I escaped, but I think I looked older. It doesn’t make me proud, but I stole a lot of things to survive. When I was too tired to stay awake, I lost control, and my PK manifested itself in enormous ways. At first I was sickened by the idea of what I had to do, it was the same thing Madrid had done to me to keep me under control when he wasn’t there, but I had to do something.”

Was he waiting for her to guess? She was afraid to say anything, what if he stopped explaining. But it was only a momentary pause, he was thinking about how much to tell her.

“Drugs made me feel better,” Gates said. “It was easier to talk with people. It was easier to do a lot of things. I can’t remember how many girls I was with, I just knew how good it felt to physically connect, and I desperately wanted to belong. It was easy. I knew then what I was, what sort of person I looked like. I walked into so many parties, high school and college, they’re all a blur now. I’m not proud of it. I didn’t stop to consider anything other than filling my own needs. It’s difficult to say this,” he said, glancing at her before continuing on. “It took me ten years, and it doesn’t get easier with the retelling. But you have to understand, you have to know, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.

“It didn’t even occur to me until ten minutes ago that my actions could’ve resulted in all of this. My countless indiscretions lead to other lives. Lives Madrid took.”

But that couldn’t be the end of the story. She got the impression that Special Agent Gates, despite what he said about it being difficult with every retelling, wanted her to know how it all began. It was similar to how Jaden told his stories. Each man trusted her with the truth and felt a need to fill her in on the details. Why they both felt it, she didn’t know.

“And the FBI?” she asked.

Gates gave a little nod. “My addictions needed to be filled. On drugs I couldn’t perform PK, which is how I stole things so easily. I got caught. I was put in prison, and when I couldn’t get more drugs, and I went through withdrawals, eventually the PK came back. It came back in a big way.

“Fortunately there was someone. He came in this room and gave me the box a minute ago,” he said, motioning with his hand to the door. “He convinced me to tell him what really happened. After a long time, I did. He believed me. I detoxed, got my life together, got my GED. Shep took me under his wing, and for that I’ll always owe him my life. He was with the FBI, and he got me a job as a clerk. Over the years I moved up.

“The emitter Madrid erected. He was afraid I’d find him. When I was well enough I got the nerve to go back to where I escaped from. I was going to kill him. But he was gone. I looked for him but couldn’t find him. I didn’t want people to know what I was up to, so my resources were limited. When Archcroft formed, and I learned he was behind it, I redoubled my efforts, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find him.”

It explained so much, the reason Madrid kept Jaden under such shackling control and fear. He was afraid it would happen again.

“I think you saved him, Miss James,” he said. “A few more years of being alone would have done him in. He would’ve cracked eventually.”

She wouldn’t tell him about Seth. That was Jaden’s business.

“How did the emitter break?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It was hidden on the roof. Someone destroyed it.”

Libby smirked. “Christine. Not such a bitch after all.”

While he was waiting for the phone to ring with news on Jaden’s status, Special Agent Gates perused the box of information Madrid had kept. Not to either of their surprise, he’d been actively pursuing Jaden for ten years, investigating any possibility of PK activity. Gates was right, Jaden had been cautious and smart.

The reason for the active pursuit was not for the advancement of science, or so Madrid could exercise more power over Jaden: Gates found a bank statement.

“He wired you money,” Gates said.

Libby had forgotten. “Yeah, he did. I hope he dies of lead poisoning,” she commented as she looked through newspaper articles Madrid had cut, thinking it was Jaden behind the incidents. She didn’t want to read anything about his childhood, or when Madrid had him. It was a violation of his privacy.