PsyCop 6: GhosTV (8 page)

“Not much. The western edge of my territory is the Nebraska border, remember? But Lisa was a Chicago girl…if only for a couple of weeks.”

“Look up your FPMP buddies in the company’s California directory.

I’m sure they’ll be happy to score some points by filling you in.”

“They’ve got their hands full with the universities out there trying to ban telepaths from qualifying for scholarships. What do they care about a single precog who isn’t even a California resident?” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Especially if none of her paperwork happens to mention the fact that she’s practically omniscient?” On one hand, I suspected he was just trying to scare me by acknowledging how powerful Lisa’s little
si-no
actually was. On the other, it was working. “So why’re you here?”

He set the empty water bottle on the seat between us, then propped his elbows on his knees, mirroring me, and laced his fingers together.

His nails looked just as chewed as they had in February. “When someone goes missing, the chance of finding them grows exponentially more improbable each and every day that passes. Lisa’s three days gone. Her roommate’s been AWOL for a week.”

The thing with missing adults is that unless there’s some obvious clue, like a bloody candlestick in the conservatory, law enforcement needs to go with the theory that they’ve up and left on their own accord. Cold feet before the wedding, a secret rendezvous with an online fling, the sudden urge to see the Grand Canyon. People do all kinds of crazy shit. Some adults are considered lower risk for ditching their lives than others. People with children. People with steady jobs.

People in loving relationships.

I had no idea what the roommate’s deal was, but Lisa was single and childless, and her job status was vague.

Even worse, she’d been struggling hard with the meaning of life. That might sound existential, but for a Psych, it ranks in importance with all the other big pieces of the identity puzzle: job, friends, home, kids, and whatever else keeps people from jumping off bridges.

Here’s where most people whose loved ones are gone say, “But I know them. They wouldn’t have left without telling anyone. It’s just not like them.”

We cops hear it all the time. And after the first few missing people are found on the wrong end of a drinking binge, you can’t help but feel skeptical about how well anyone really knows anyone else.

The thing was, I did know Lisa. And I knew that she was probably the most grounded person I’d ever met, and she was a cop. A good one. She had enough backbone to tell people to leave her alone if she needed space to think, something I’d experienced personally, so there was no reason for her to slip off in the middle of the night.

Unless she got sucked into something trying to bail her roommate out of trouble.

And what about her email account?

It might not be a bloody candlestick, but it was reason enough for me to be worried.

“I was hoping you might work with me on this,” Dreyfuss said, “but you’ve always had a chip on your shoulder when it comes to the FPMP that I’ve never been able to figure.”

“Chip on my shoulder? Try a chip in my cell phone. I never signed up for a party line.”

“We’re tapping everyone’s phone. That’s like being pissed-off ’cos we’re breathing your air. Don’t take it so personally.” Color me paranoid, but I took my phone tap very personally. And besides, how was it that I happened to end up in the strip-search room to begin with? I didn’t have anything on me other than the gun, which I’d been cleared to carry. Normally I would have figured a bribe passed hands. But how do you bribe a dog? Unless….

“Animal communicator.” I said it without unclenching my teeth, but it was perfectly understandable.

“Bravo. You think it’s all about the level-five talent, but you really don’t give yourself enough credit for your deductive reasoning. Which is why you should throw your lot in with me and really exploit your full potential. The Army’s not the only government agency where you can ‘be all that you can be.’ I’m great with Psychs.” The very last thing I wanted to be was exploited. “Screw you.”

“Firm stance. I admire your negotiating skills, really, I do. But right now, do you honestly think you have enough time to go back and forth with me on this?”

The clock was ticking, and we both knew it. “You can only keep me here so long.”

“Now you’re making me out to be the bad guy. Look, as soon as we’re done with our chitchat, you’re free to go.” He pushed up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and glanced at his watch. “Your problem isn’t me—it’s the appalling lack of airline service at the Santa Barbara airport.

At this point, you’ll be wandering around all night at some terminal waiting for your connecting flight. I thought you might be interested in a route that was a little more direct.”

I said, “You can’t fly direct from Chicago to Santa Barbara.”

“Not commercially. No.”

“You’re saying you can make that happen.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Did I want to tell him to go shove his chartered flight up his ass? Sure.

But my gut was telling me I needed to find Lisa before her trail got any colder, and my need for speed trumped my loathing and distrust of Dreyfuss. “How do I know my flight doesn’t get diverted to Area 51, where all the good Psychs go home to die?”

“You’re mixing your life up with the X-Files. Don’t worry. I want you back so you can help me clean up my office, remember?”

“And that’s all I’d owe you in return. An exorcism.”

“Yes. Fine. If you need to be so formal about it—that’s our agreement.

I fly you to Santa Barbara right now, and in return you owe me an exorcism. Does that sound kosher to you?”

I hated it when Constantine Dreyfuss made sense. I glared at him. It seemed to me as if I should have been able to stack up my options and choose the best one, but my brain was looping around in “holy hell, I’m locked in a room” mode and nothing was particularly obvious to me except the desire to get out.

“I can tell you’re right on the fence,” he said, “so I’ll sweeten the pot.

I can’t tell you what the bonus would be, but I guarantee you, it’ll be worth your while.”

So now he was resorting to breakfast cereal tactics with a “secret prize” at the bottom of the box. I don’t know if he’d actually needed to go that far, since there’s only so long I can deal with a locked room, but it was good to know my hard-won suspicion was finally paying off. “I guess,” I said as grudgingly as possible.

He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

Great. Now I had to touch him. At least I wasn’t naked. I shook his hand, and said, “Deal.” His palm wasn’t moist or anything, but I still felt like wiping my hand on my pant leg afterward.

When we emerged from the dreaded back room, the terminal security had a new group of travelers in it chasing after their baskets of watches, wallets and spare change, and then struggling into their shoes. The woman who returned my gun and my phone wouldn’t meet my eye, and the guards around the VIP door all stood ramrod straight, and their faces were professionally blank. A dozen yards away, Jacob was on his cell phone, pacing like he was just about ready to snap. A bunch of emotions played over his face when he saw me come through the door behind Dreyfuss: relief, surprise...worry.

The guards exchanged glances as he stormed past them and up to Dreyfuss and me. Maybe they were wondering if they were supposed to stop him. Probably they all hoped it was out of their jurisdiction.

“Detective Marks,” Dreyfuss called out cheerfully. “Con Dreyfuss.

Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

He held out his hand for a shake. Jacob planted his hands on his hips and ignored it. And his jacket rode open and flashed the front edge of his holster. “You wouldn’t happen to know why a drug dog just went apeshit over my partner, would you?”

“What’re you suggesting? That I had an invisible agent run over and plant something on Detective Bayne? Ha ha! That’d be a good trick, wouldn’t it?” He winked at me. How sleazy. “I’ve known a motley group of Psychs in my day, unfortunately I’ve never met anyone who could turn themselves invisible—and the amount of energy it would take a telekinetic to pull that trick from across the room would probably send his brains leaking out his ears.”

I thought one of the airport security guards heard us. And I thought he was doing his best to pretend he was anywhere else but there.

Dreyfuss checked his watch and said, “Detective Bayne just agreed to fly the FPMP skies to Santa Barbara, since that’ll put him in California by sundown. Care to ride along?”

Jacob cut his gaze to me. I wasn’t quite sure how to convey,
I know
we hate him, but based on the circumstances, it was the most logical
thing to do,
with a nonverbal signal. I widened my eyes a little.

Jacob blinked, just a smidgeon more pointedly than he normally would have. I took that to be shorthand for a drawn out, long-suffering sigh. And maybe an eye roll. “Let’s go.”

Constantine Dreyfuss had his everyman persona down pat. His brown hair was long and curly, and I imagine that when he first started growing it out, it probably went through an afro state until it got heavy enough to weigh itself down. Currently, a black and gray striped scrunchie was holding it in a frizzy ponytail. He was a big federal so-and-so, but I’d never seen him in a suit. Probably because he was a big federal so-and-so. He wore T-shirts and sweats, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t even carry a gun. If you ran into him at the grocery store, you’d probably figure him for something low-rent and benign, like a minimart attendant or a library assistant. Unless you got a look at his running shoes and happened to know they would cost a month’s salary to either of those professions.

We walked in a chevron formation, Dreyfuss on point, Jacob to his left. Since Jacob was right-handed, it would be easier for him to flatten Dreyfuss from that angle if the situation suddenly went south. I was right-handed too, but I was fine keeping Dreyfuss on my left. I trusted that if things got physical, it would be better to have Jacob in position than me. Given that I really wasn’t very athletic.

For just a second, I was glad we’d checked our roller bags, because dealing with the carry-ons was bad enough. Then I realized my pills were in my checked luggage. And everything else I’d thought I would need for the trip. What would happen to our stuff? I had enough to worry about trying to keep up with Dreyfuss and Jacob without worrying about my bag.

Dreyfuss moved fast and he didn’t get winded. I seemed to remember he was a runner. Jacob’s got incredible stamina, so he kept up without a problem. My long legs helped, some, but I needed to make a conscious effort to conceal the fact that I was out of breath after the first fifteen minutes of power-walking. By the time Dreyfuss finally let up the pace, I was just about ready to plant my hands on my knees and suck air. I breathed through my nose carefully and hoped my cheeks weren’t flushed.

Dreyfuss got in line for a pretzel.

“What are you doing?” Jacob said. He wasn’t winded either.

“Don’t worry. The plane won’t take off without us.”

“You think this is some kind of joke?”

“On the contrary, Detective. I think it’s dead serious.” A really big guy peeled away from the register with a pretzel the size of his head, a huge knot of dough covered in frosting, coconut flakes and chocolate chips. I like junk food as much as the next guy…but, yuck. The line moved up, and a suburban-looking mom with a couple of kids ordered three regular with salt, and the boy, maybe Clayton’s age, said he wanted what that other guy had. And his mom said there was no way she was paying ten dollars for a pretzel. I resisted the urge to press against my eyes with my thumbs. After all, the detour gave me a chance to catch my breath, didn’t it?

The family argued for a few more volleys, the kid got a plain pretzel with the implication that it was that or nothing at all, and then Con Dreyfuss ponied up to the counter. He ordered a cinnamon sugar pretzel with frosting on the side and paid for it with a fifty.

Once that was settled, the power-walking started again. I figured we were on our way to Terminal 3, but Dreyfuss passed by that security stop and kept on going. A map on the wall showed Terminal 5 as being the next point of interest—an International Terminal so far away from the main hub of the airport that it could only be reached by a shuttle bus. Then he turned down the hall that led to the bathrooms.

I imagined bacteria settling all over his pretzel and I quelled a smile, just in case Jacob looked back at me. Because I didn’t want it to look like I thought it was some kind of joke, either. I knew in my gut that what we were doing—whatever it might be—was, indeed, dead serious.

Family bathroom—what the heck? Ladies’ room. Drinking fountain filled with old gum. Men’s room. “Staff Only” door. Unmarked door.

Dreyfuss stopped at that one—why was I not surprised?—and handed his pretzel to Jacob. “Hold this.”

Jacob frowned at the pretzel while Dreyfuss dug a keycard out of one of his pockets and slid it through an unobtrusive reader in the wall.

He propped the door open with his hip and took his pretzel back.

“Don’t tell me you never wondered about Terminal 4.” I glanced at Jacob, who scowled harder—which meant he probably had. Jacob notices things. I ignore things. I guess we complement each other.

The unmarked door opened to a set of industrial metal stairs that led down to a huge, high-ceilinged space so vast I could hardly call it a building. There were airplanes, helicopters, buses, vans, even Humvees. And even though nothing was currently running, the metal-lic hollowness of the hangar was so stark that the very silence inside it reverberated enough to make my eardrums throb.

“The official story,” Con said, “is that Terminal 4 was lost to renova-tion. I personally thought it would’ve been less conspicuous to keep 1, 2 and 3 the way they were and just rename Terminal 5 ‘International,’

but that all happened before my time. Sometimes I wonder if the powers that be did it just to see if anyone would give a rat’s ass—or if 99% of the public is happy to look the other way and never question what happened to the fourth terminal. Like the way they accept that the floors in skyscrapers go right from twelve to fourteen.” Everything in Terminal 4 was metal and concrete, and when Dreyfuss spoke, it sounded like his voice was coming from everywhere. I was surprised everyone else at O’Hare didn’t hear the hangar humming like a giant tuning fork. I was fairly certain I could hear my own heart beating.