Sweet Dreams (9 page)

He
couldn't
do it. This house, this home they had made together was not a home anymore. It was just another house on a street where other families lived, played, and loved each other. A wave of emotion racked his body, he fell to the floor of their bedroom, and he wept bitterly. What was he going to do without them? He could not live in this house with all the memories and pain of losing them. He wanted to remember them but not live surrounded with the life that he lost. He had to leave.

Mark wiped his eyes and stood to his feet. He had to pull himself together and no matter how much he cried or how much he missed them, nothing he did would bring them back. The phone rang startling Mark, it was Hank. He was close to the family, and as he talked to Mark on the phone, he tried to somehow let Mark know that he was there for him.

"Mark, take some time off. We've got it covered here, and if there is anything I can do for you let me know."

Mark's voice was low and quiet, which was not like him at all. He agreed that he needed some time to himself.

"Thanks, Hank. The funeral is set for Tuesday morning,"

Just the thought of it tortured him, but he knew it was something he had to do. "I think after that, I'm just going to get out of town for a bit..." His voice drifted off as he thought.

"Anyway, I'll keep you updated."

"Okay, buddy. Call me if you need anything. I mean it."

Hank's voice was sincere. He said good-bye, and then Mark hung up the phone. He looked around their bedroom and let out a sigh. He knew that he could not stay here and he couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Maybe I should get something closer to work, the only reason he lived outside the city was for Sam and now that... He shook his head and went over to the nightstand beside their bed.

Mark took a picture frame from off the nightstand and looked at it for a long time; it showed Mark and K standing in front of the house right after Sam was born. K was smiling with that beautiful smile as she held little Sam in her arms. He took the photo out of the frame and held it close. He took a few boxes from the garage and began to pack a few things he could not live without. All the family photo albums and Samantha's teddy bear. Mark held it together through the process but had to walk out on the back porch a few times to do so.

After packing all of his clothes in two suitcases, Mark looked around the house one last time and loaded the boxes and suitcases into a silver BMW convertible. Hank had sent it over and the note on the windshield said:

"Don't worry; you can pay me back later, I'll get it out of
you one way or another!"

Hank

Bill and Holly had agreed to take care of the house until Mark decided what to do with it. He could not think about it now and he thought that it might do him some good to get an apartment for a while. Finding an apartment turned out to be easier then Mark had anticipated. SED owned several in the buildings they had designed. After a few calls, Mark located one that he could move into immediately.

The apartment was on the fifth floor of Central Park West.

DREAMS

71

The place was nice and was fully furnished, along with a parking space in the garage and a twenty-four hour doorman. Two bedrooms and a living room opened up to a huge balcony overlooking Central Park. Marks firm had updated the interior and exterior of the building. The walls were brick and concrete inside, giving it a cool comfortable feel. Mark was thankful that his company was being so gracious; an apartment in this part of the city would normally be out of his reach. Crashing down on the overstuffed sofa, he slung his hand over his eyes. His mind raced, trying to take in the events of the last few days. "
What day is it? Sunday?"
he thought.

"Yeah, it's Sunday." He grabbed the remote and clicked on the news. Then dragging himself up, he felt his ribs cry out.

"Slow," he thought. "Slow it down. Ah!" He spotted a gift basket with candy bars and fruit filling it to the brim.

"Yesterday was a busy day here in New York," The anchorwoman looked grim as she reported the news. "There was a car chase over in the Northeastern industrial park, which resulted in a shootout that left one man dead and a Detroit detective wounded." Mark was half listening to the news as he bit into a ripe peach, "
Was there anything on the bombing
?" he thought.

"The shootout left collateral damage in the hundreds of thousands and at this time we still have no comment from NYPD, other than that the situation is being looked into. "In other news, we still have no confirming reports on the explosion at the Super Mart yesterday. Sources say that an underground gas line that ruptured may have caused it. The blast killed more than two hundred people and destroyed the entire building. We now go live to Andrea Kilpatrick who is at the scene where investigators are still trying to pinpoint exactly what happened.

"Andrea?"

"Yes, Susan. I am standing in front of where Super Mart once was, and as you can see, there is not much left here. We have spoken to the local police, and they are not ruling anything out, but so far they have not received anything to lead them to believe that this was anything more than a tragic accident."

"Andrea, is this something that might have been caused by faulty wiring or a line that needed to be repaired? Could the store have prevented this?"

"At this time, we just don't know. They are not releasing a statement as of yet, but we will be following this developing story and let you know as soon as we hear something from the local authorities."

"Thank you, Andrea.

There has been a relief fund set up for the families involved to help them out. You can go to www..."

Mark shut off the TV and walked over to the kitchen counter, grabbed his cell phone and dialed the police station. He needed some answers, and, in his gut, he knew that this was not an accident. The image of that disturbed man running from the building right before it exploded burned in his mind.

"Yes. Hello. I'm Mark Appleton, and I was there at the Super Mart when it exploded. I was wondering, who is in charge of that investigation?" The dispatcher on the other end connected him to a Detective Clive Owens. The line rang twice, and then he heard a deep low voice. "What can I do you for?" Mark heard Clive Owens' slow Southern drawl. Clive

DREAMS

73

had just moved up to New York a few months earlier from an area a little west of Austin, Texas. His accent was hard to hide, so he had just given up and decided to live with it.

"Hello, Clive. I am Mark Appleton. My wife and daughter were killed at the Super Mart yesterday." Just saying it out loud made Mark want to weep but he choked it back and went on. "I was supposed to call you to give you a statement, and I was wondering when you were available? I was told that you are overseeing the investigation." Mark sounded as firm as he could, but his voice cracked anyway.

"Yes sir. I've been looking into it. And I've been meanin to call you but I didn't want to push to hard with what you've been through and all..."

Mark cut in, "Well, is there some time Monday I can get with you? I just got out of the hospital today," He just wanted to get it over with and maybe find out if they had anything new besides the crap the news was reporting.

"Well, now, I think I got some time tomorrow. You come down here at ten o'clock, and I'll get you in. Just ask for Clive at the front and they'll show you the way back to my desk."

His deep Texan voice showed concern, and Mark hoped he was the real deal and he wasn't just putting him on. Mark thanked him and hung up the phone. "
Clive sounded
like a good enough guy
," he thought. He just hoped that he was not just another detective who didn't give a crap about anything other than when the donut shop opened up. ________________________________________

AS THE LAPTOP DOWNLOADED the patch that Mooch

was sending over, Kirk thought about how little he knew about the internet and all of its wonders. "It always seems to cause more problems than help," he thought as he waited impatiently. The laptop hummed quietly.

"Mooch, what are you doing?" His voice strained in frustration.

"Well, excuse me. I am only trying to hack into a government site and still keep us out of jail. If they see us, we're screwed!" Mooch warned as he typed. He muttered under his breath and said, "This is hard enough over the phone and getting you a link and... Well, you should be happy that I'm the best."

"Fine, Mooch. Just get me to last Friday and here is the address of Simco Foods, Five Sixty Four West Fuller Ave. Do you have cameras around that area?"

Mooch's voice cracked, "Yeah. I can see almost anywhere in the world. I am hacking into the street cameras and into the
Crimson Satellite
that isn't running...so they say,"

"Not running?" Kirk leaned on the small wooden table that had coffee beans under the glass top, and took a sip of his coffee.

"No, it isn't running. It's been broken for years, and is just too expensive to fix. It was used to--well, never mind, I can still use it for looking around. Me and my buddy Chucko--do you know Chucko? Anyway we got it to take snapshots, just not live action."

"You get off on this stuff, don't you?" Kirk asked shaking his head; Kirk saw something come up on his screen. It was an aerial view of the Simco warehouse. "What day was this taken?" Kirk asked.

DREAMS

75

"It's the day you wanted, Friday, hold on. Here is the video from the loading dock cameras."

"Run it from about eight a.m. in fast forward."

The video showed semi trucks pulling up, loading, and then driving off. He looked for Gus but didn't see him. He watched the clock at the bottom of the screen spin by and then...

"Wait! Back up a sec. I think that's it, stop it there."

Kirk cursed as he looked at what was plain to see, Gus was loading his truck with boxes.

Mooch asked, "What are we trying to find here?"

"I'm not sure, Can you follow that truck? Can you go in real time?" Putting his coffee down, Kirk scooted his chair closer to the table.

"There you go. We had better make this quick, we'll be spotted if we stay on too long. I'm running a Radian Jammer, but that will only work for about five minutes."

"Just do it, we won't get caught." And if they did then Kirk had no problem throwing Mooch to the wolves. The truck left the warehouse and headed out toward the interstate. "Where did he go?" Kirk franticly hit his laptop and almost spilled his coffee all over it.

"Man, you're jumpy, hold on. He went out of range of the camera; I'll have to switch back to
Crimson
. Now you will see it. But it will be in stills, so don't blow a gasket!"

The screen showed snapshots of the loaded-down truck.
Weird.
Gus was heading the wrong way. This road didn't lead to the David's Island, and he knew he had delivered out there that morning.

He watched as the truck pulled onto a dirt road and pulled behind an old abandoned sawmill. Kirk could see that the parking lot was over grown with weeds and one side of the building looked like it had collapsed. "Can we get a shot behind that mill? I can't see him," He tried to sound nicer, even though his body heat was rising. He never liked computers, and now he was at the mercy of one.

"Just a second, I can get a partial, but the mill is blocking line of site." Kirk could hear Mooch typing, and munching on what sounded like potato chips. This only added to Kirk's stress level. The truck had driven behind the building and out of site in exception to the rear bumper. The truck stayed in the same spot with each time stamped photo and then Kirk saw a shadow that looked like Gus and he was outside of the vehicle.

"There. Go back one, yes, that one. Can you zoom in on the shadow that the truck is making?"

The picture zoomed in closer; it was clear now. There were
two trucks!
One was parked behind the mill just out of site from the satellite, and you could see its shadow outlined on the ground. Somehow, Kirk didn't think this was an accident.

"What is this?" It looked like a second person, and it was!

"Mooch..."

"On it. I see her!"

"Her!" Kirk strained his eyes. The picture zoomed in on the second shadow. You could see her hair blowing in the wind.
Her!
"Okay, Mooch. Show me a few more shots, let's see if we can get a look at this chick." Sitting back in his chair, Kirk took another sip of his coffee; he looked at the screen in satisfaction. He knew his hunch was right. Gus was up to something and now he had proof.

DREAMS

77

Picture after picture showed nothing!

The woman stayed in the shadows as if she knew where to stand to stay out of site. As the stills went by one by one, he saw what looked like Gus unloading the boxes from his truck and loading new ones from the mystery woman's truck.

"Mooch, where is this spot? Give me an address." He needed to check out this drop-off site firsthand.

"Crud! Pull the plug, man! They got us!" Mooch screamed like a girl in Kirks ear and made Kirk drop his coffee. A red warning sign flashed on his screen. He grabbed the laptop and flipped it over, pulling the battery out of it. Kirk didn't know if it would do any good but it was the only thing he could think of at the time.

"Okay, Mooch. I'm out. Did they see us?"

"Holy cow, that was close. Good thing I have a breaker switch here at my desk, just for such an occasion." Mooch's voice sounded like he had just won a Super Bowl game, and his breathing came in short bursts and Kirk wondered if the poor kid ever got out in the real world for some good old exercise.

"I need you to make a copy of that photo of the mystery woman and of those trucks. E-mail it to me as soon as you can, and find out anything you can on where that other truck went. Oh, by the way, if you do this for me, I won't tell the FBI that it was you they almost caught a minute ago!"