The Ferryman Institute (16 page)

C
harlie returned to the office somewhat more at peace with himself, a feeling he'd been missing for the entirety of his self-imposed exile in the desert. In fact, talking to Cartwright had given him a bit of his swagger back. However, his plan to build on that feel-good mood with a quiet night was rudely interrupted almost as soon as he'd set foot back.

“Come in!” he yelled at the sharp knock to his door. The words had barely left his mouth when a very astonished Melissa entered.

“My God, you're back,” she said, her tone of voice caught somewhere between
I just won the lottery
and
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead
.

“So I am,” Charlie said as he took off his desert-stained T-shirt. He flicked his head toward the office bathroom, indicating for her to follow. “Your timing is freakishly good. I literally just walked in the door.” He threw the T-shirt into his hamper and began to take off his shorts and underwear just as Melissa turned the corner into the room. She averted her eyes a second too late.

“Come on, Charlie! A little heads-up wouldn't kill you,” she muttered.

“Obviously not, because nothing can kill me. Ba-dum-chi.
Anyway, it's what you get for stalking me,” Charlie said as he climbed in the shower. He randomly twisted the knobs until the water pressure was coming out hard and fast. He then spoke loudly over the water: “I bet you were camped outside my door for a week, waiting to pounce the moment I walked in. Mission accomplished. In recognition, I'm awarding you the coveted ‘Most Stalkerish Manager I've Ever Had' award. It is an honor most can only dream of. Congratulations. Ceremony is next week.”

“But that's the thing, Charlie—I wasn't stalking you. I got a call from someone. More specifically, a representative of the president. He told me you'd be here.”

There was a dull
thud
as Charlie dropped the bar of soap he was holding. That wasn't quite what he expected to hear. “Sorry, run that by me again?” he said.

The blurred visage of his manager appeared in the frosted glass of the shower stall. “About five minutes ago, I got a call from someone claiming to be a representative of the president of the Ferryman Institute itself.”

Now this was unexpected. Were they finally going to grant him his Ferryman transfer request?

“Verified?” Charlie asked before picking up the soap.

“Not initially, but he gave me an Institute ID number to run. It checked out, though all his information was redacted. All I know is his first name—Gabriel. Anyway, after I run this guy's ID, he tells me that I'm going to receive a special package from the Office of the President and that the passcode for it would be
your
Ferryman ID number.”

“Okay . . . ,” Charlie said as he ran the bar of soap under his armpits. He was attempting to keep his intense level of interest from showing, but he wasn't sure how much success he was having on that front.

“While I'm still on the phone with him, I get a delivery. Metal case with a five-digit dial on the front. I'm then told that the assignment begins in fifteen minutes and the details were in the case. I tell him to slow down because no one has even seen you in a week—and thanks again for that, by the way—and that I can't get in touch with you. The guy laughs and says,
He'll be in his office. And one final thing: this is all strictly classified, confidential, top secret. As far as anyone is concerned, this assignment doesn't exist. We'll contact you after the assignment is complete. Good luck.
Click—conversation over. Naturally, I think this guy is full of it, but . . .” Her words trailed off as the implied part of the message—
here you are
—sank in.

It certainly didn't take a whole lot of imagination to be stunned when, though you've been gone for an entire week, somebody knew the instant you were going to walk through the door. Charlie quickly turned off the shower.

“Towel?” he asked politely. After a moment, a white one flew over the shower door. “Thanks.”

There were rumors that the president occasionally contacted teams for special assignments, but Charlie had always considered them complete BS. He was supposedly the top Ferryman, after all—if the president was going to get in touch with anyone, it would be him, right? At least, that's how his train of thought went.

“What kind of assignment are we talking here? Did he say?”

The fuzzy version of Melissa shook her head through the glass. “I would imagine it's something out of the ordinary, but who knows. All I was told was that the instructions are in the case.”

“Can I see it?” Charlie asked as he stepped out of the shower with the towel around his waist. “And where's Dirkley?”

Melissa handed him the metal case. The carrying handle
clinked
as it rapped against the top cover. “On his way. He was in the library reading up when I got the call.”

Charlie swiftly inspected the case. True to his manager's description, it was an ordinary metal box, its only remarkable feature a set of five individual zero-through-nine number dials set where the top and bottom part of the case met. Charlie got down on his haunches and placed the case on the floor, too fascinated to even bother putting on clothes. With a steady rhythm, he spun the dials. As he entered the final number, there was a barely audible
click
and the case lid unlatched.

“Open sesame,” he mumbled. He exchanged a brief look with Melissa, who neither moved nor spoke. With a nimble flip, he popped open the case.

Inside was a nondescript sheet of paper and a letter held closed by a gold wax seal. He gingerly lifted the letter and examined it. There, impressed in the wax, was a Ferryman Key. It was the same emblem that adorned every presidential memo Charlie had ever seen at the Institute. He tried to open the envelope with a quick, forceful tug, but it wouldn't budge. Charlie gave it a few more pulls before he noticed a little note, typed out in black ink, just above the seal.

“It says,
Will open at 20:29:30. Assignment instructions inside.
What the hell does that mean? And what time did your mysterious Deep Throat say the assignment started?” he asked Melissa.

Melissa glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Well, that was around five minutes ago, which was eight fifteen. So, eight thirty?”

“So this should open about thirty seconds before the special assignment starts. That's not exactly a lot of time to read the instructions, but fair enough.” Charlie replaced the letter in the case and picked up the sheet of paper. It was a standard eight-by-eleven page that clearly had been composed on a typewriter. There wasn't much on it, so it didn't take Charlie long to read the whole thing.

Subject: Alice Spiegel

Age: 25

Mother recently deceased. Living with father. Struggling writer. Going to commit suicide. ETD at 20:30:00.

Charlie read the line again. “Oh, shit . . . ,” he whispered. His mind raced. He had ten minutes to get prepped for a case he knew almost nothing about. In an instant, he was on his feet, dropping the towel around his waist as he did.

“Dammit, Charlie! I know we're a team, but do you really need to keep showing me your man bits? If you're trying to impress me, it's not working,” Melissa called after him.

Charlie ignored the slight against his manhood. “It's not just a special assignment, Mel—it's an
actual
assignment. We've got ten 'til the ETD!” he called back.

Melissa yelped something in reply, but Charlie was already too busy looking for his favorite silver tie.

T
he piece of paper was slightly translucent held so close to the lamp, but it was how Alice preferred to proofread. She found it darkly amusing that she was putting so much effort into proofreading a suicide note, but she was unapologetically OCD about grammar. It was easier for her to come to terms with rotting in the pits of hell for all eternity than having some forensic examiner say to his partner,
Hmm, she used “your” here instead of “you're.” I'm telling you, it's all this new technology . . .
Two discarded copies of her letter had already been ripped to shreds, and she was trying not to add a third. She justified it as the literary equivalent of wanting to have clean underwear on for her autopsy.

Alice lifted the waistband of her sweatpants.
Yeah, I should change those, too.

She set the letter in the center of her desk and maneuvered her flexible lamp so it shone directly on the paper. She fussed around the room, straightening things out and tidying up a bit. Alice was no stranger to a mess—if Einstein didn't need socks, then what difference did it make if she left her wardrobe scattered across her floor?—a characteristic that had driven her late mother to near homicidal rage on occasion.
What a wonderful daughter I
am
, she thought.
“Hey, Mom, great to see you in the afterlife. Yeah, I know I just offed myself, but at least my room is finally clean. Aren't you proud?”
She snorted to herself.
God, I am pathetic.

Sufficiently satisfied with the state of her room, she quietly changed her outfit, underwear included, opting for a plain T-shirt and jeans, then sat down at her desk and lightly did her makeup. Her vanity mirror had served her well for many years—she was sure either Kaitlin or Carolyn would take it when she was gone. Or maybe they wouldn't. It might be too painful for them to use. A pang of guilt trickled up her spine, but she quickly shook it away.

Done being vain for the moment, Alice found herself wandering over to the closet, the one area she'd been deliberately avoiding. The overhead light inside made a familiar
click
as she pulled the string. She rummaged around in the back, behind her collection of shoes—small though it was, she certainly couldn't knock her dad's place for lack of closet space, as her shoe collection could attest—bundling over a few old boxes of school papers in the process, until she found what she was looking for.

There was a large, squat gray safe sitting in the corner of her small walk-in. Alice had thought long and hard about how she would go about ensuring a quick and effective good-bye. Ironically, it was her ex, Marc, who'd provided both the answer and the means. Despite being a relatively laid-back guy, Marc was, through no fault of his own, still a guy. That little Y chromosome often meant a variety of things: farting, cursing, sports, testosterone. However, more importantly for her current circumstances, it had meant Marc loved shooting things.

Alice opened the safe with a couple of well-remembered twists of her wrist. The gun box within was a light silver color and about as basic and simple as they came. She carefully opened the top. Lying inside, still in the pristine condition she'd left it, was
her all-black 9mm Beretta 92FS. Marc had given it to her as a pseudo gag gift for their anniversary after she had displayed a natural aptitude for putting holes in things—
In case I ever do anything stupid
was what he'd written on the inside of that particular card. Alice wondered if, since their breakup, he had ever worried about her making good on that. She did find it somewhat amusing that she would end up being more grateful for this gift than any other he'd given her.

This, Alice had decided, would make things absolutely final. There would be no one finding her in the nick of time to have her stomach pumped, no bandaging the wound enough so she didn't bleed out. Nope, this was it. Messy? Sure. Loud? You betcha. Lethal? In the right spot, undisputedly. She realized with a little sadness that it would probably undo the effort she'd put into her makeup (she was relatively certain that, despite how lovely the mascara made her eyes look, the gaping bullet wound would probably be more noticeable), but she chalked it up as one of the many recent missteps in her life.