Maybe I deserve it, really, fate reminding me that by the grace of God, etcetera, etcetera.
I could get used to life in Florida, maybe. I like the palm trees, the blue skies, the smell of the ocean in the breeze, although I’m not a fan of the heat emanating from the pavement, the congestion of the city, the incessant honking.
We don’t honk in Minnesota.
I finally hit the highway and open her up, all the way to the airport, get off and wind myself through back streets until I find myself on a street edged by a half-block of chain link fence.
The gate is open, so I drive in. In the parking lot, all manner of boat sits trailered, from fishing vessels to de-masted sailboats.
I drive into the stretch of street bordering a canal. Boats are docked at a long concrete pier. I pull up and get out, the sun high and bouncing off the white hulls.
There’s an office-slash-repair shop located near the entrance, so I head there. Inside, I’m met by a long desk and a young man in a short sleeve collared shirt with a dolphin logo on his chest.
This time I flash my badge. “I’m looking for a guy named Leo—or Lenny—Fitzgerald. His boat is docked here.”
The kid—I put him early twenties, tanned, clean-cut, draws in a breath.
“I don’t—”
“He’s wanted in suspicion of thirty-eight murders.”
This rattles the kid, and he swallows, then nods and heads to the computer. A couple keystrokes, then, “He’s in slip 68. At the end of the first pier.”
“Thanks.” I head back outside, remembering my words to Eve. “I’m just going to see if he’s there. If he is, I’ll call for backup.”
Promise.
But first I need to know, right?
I head down the pier, just a guy with a yacht out for a stroll past high-end speed boats, a few trawlers and an occasional sailboat.
I do the math and spot number 68 before I reach it. Docked at the pier is a real beauty—a double-decker cruiser, with a living compartment, a crow’s nest, and a railing around the outside. It’s in good condition, with lawn chairs and a cooler in the back.
Not unlike the motor homes of the north.
A door, in the back, is closed, something I notice as I walk by.
No movement on the boat, and the urge to go inside is crawling through me.
I blow out a breath and keep walking.
What if he’s inside, sleeping?
I continue to the end, and stand there, looking down at the brackish water, my heart thumping.
I promised.
But I can’t drag anyone out here if I don’t know if he’s here, either. I’ll just poke around, then go back to the car, grab my cell and call for help.
I turn.
It takes a second for my brain to register, to realize that the materialization of twenty-four years of searching is standing right in front of me, tall, bronzed, wide-shouldered.
And pissed.
I barely see the board he swings at me, certainly not enough to put up my arm, to ward off the blow.
It hits me square on the side of my head.
Then I’m falling, the world spinning, and the last thing I know is the cold grip of water as it pulls me under.
15
I’ve been in worse places, I’m sure of it.
I told you I went undercover for the better part of ten years in my original timeline (and the only timeline I really remember) in the Brotherhood, Hassan Abdilhali’s organization. It brought me to Duluth, then Madison, and finally Chicago, following the drug trafficking and money laundering into dark places.
Despite what the movies might suggest, I never tested the drugs, I never broke the law, and I didn’t sympathize with the guy I was trying to nail.
But I did get adept at lying, at switching my persona off and on.
And, not panicking when I walked into traps.
But never, in all those years, did I wake up with my wrists tied behind my back, my ankles also bound, dropped like cargo in the back of a boat.
By the feel of it, we’ve left shore long behind. My skull pounds as if my brains are trying to break free—I’m probably deep in the throes of a concussion—and I’m shivering, a chill born from my soggy clothing, despite the heat of the air.
Or, I could be in even worse shape than that. Impossible to check at the moment.
I lick away the salty mist of the spray the motor is digging up and try and make out my surroundings.
Leo is up on the fly bridge, driving, the sun to the west and dropping, causing his shadow to drape across the stern of the craft. For its part, the sun isn’t going down easily, its fight leaving a scrape of bloody orange across the sky.
I force myself to sit up, wince and look over the edge.
Land is in the far distance, a tiny ripple of dark in the west.
I stifle a word and lay back. Perfect.
I can only guess that I’ve been out for hours. But I’m not dead, my body alligator fodder, so that bodes well.
Or not. Because in my gut, I know what’s happening, don’t you?
Leo is going to give me a watery send off, out in the deep ocean where I’ll never be found.
Sorry, Eve.
And no, Val, I guess I haven’t figured out how to walk away.
But this isn’t over. I’m tied with rope, and he probably knows his knots, so my best bet is to cut them, but in this dim light, I see nothing but soft edges. A cooler, a couple fishing rods.
A lifejacket.
I pick it up and manage to drop it overboard, an orange neon breadcrumb. Just in case anyone misses me.
Then, I start to wiggle my wrists, moving them back and forth, my palms up and down. The rope has give. I just need to work that give to my advantage.
The motor cuts, and the boat slows, my heartbeat suddenly deafening. I continue to work my hands.
Leo comes down the ladder and lands on the back deck. He’s dressed in a pair of shorts and a loose linen shirt and flip flops, like he’s on vacation and we’re out for a sundowner.
I can’t take my gaze off his tattoo, the one on his arm with two hands folded together, bound with barbed wire.
He looks at me, takes a breath and there’s something in his eyes I don’t understand.
Almost, confusion. He walks over and opens his cooler and pulls out a beer, pops the top and tosses it into a nearby trash bin. Sits on his armchair and takes a drink.
He looks out toward the sunset a long time before he speaks.
Meanwhile, I’ve created a tiny gap in my bonds.
“I like to come out here, when I’m not on the road,” he says softly. “It’s so quiet. Peaceful. All the shouting in my brain gets turned off.”
It’s like we’re buddies, sharing a moment.
“What shouting?”
He takes another drink, then looks at me. “I didn’t recognize you at first. I mean, I barely saw you last night, but when you walked right by me on the dock, heading to my boat, I knew.” He points his bottle at me. “The bar, in Montrose. You accused me of killing my girlfriend, Lauren. We got into a scrape.”
I nod.
He’s looking at me. “Who are you?”
I want to say something deep and ominous like, your destiny, but I go for the truth. “A cop.”
“And you’ve been dogging me for over twenty years for a crime I didn’t commit?” He takes another drink, gets up and turns his back on me.
He’s that trusting that he can take me. That I’m not going to jump him.
Well, probably not, at this rate.
“You killed Lauren Delaney because she broke up with you, didn’t you? You waited until she got off work, then chased her down, tackled her, held her down and strangled her. Left her a tip.”
He doesn’t move.
“And then sweet Gretchen Anderson. I met her, you know, after our fight. She was an ER nurse. Pretty, I can see why you went for her. What happened, Leo? Did she break up with you too?”
With his back
to me, I’ve been able to move my shoulders, create more gap. I have enough play in the rope to run my palms together, up and down. Gotta keep him talking.
“I loved Gretchen,” he says quietly, still looking out into the night. “She broke up with me because of you.”
I didn’t expect that, and the emotion in his words hits me. I’m not sure what to be afraid of—the cool, detached serial killer, or the man driven by emotion.
Probably both.
“I met her the first time my mother fell. Brought her into the ER, and Gretchen was there.” He takes a breath. “She was pretty.”
“And yet you stalked her after work, and again, chased her down, and strangled her, and—”
“I didn’t kill her!” He turns now, and even in the fading sunlight, I can see the spark in his eyes.
I keep my voice even. “We found your DNA on her.”
“Of course you did. Because we…” His mouth tightens. “After you jumped me, I went to see her. It was late, and she’d already seen what I did to you, and it scared her.”
Aw, c’mon, I wasn’t that roughed up, but his gaze is hard in mine.
“It took me a month to get her to go out with me again. We went out and…and afterwards, I brought her home. I didn’t find out she was dead until a few days later.”
My hand is stuck about half-way out of the ropes.
“I didn’t do nothing to either of those girls,” he says and drops his empty beer into the trash. Looks at me. “You gotta stop following me.” Then he takes a step toward me.
I kick at him, scooting back, my hands still stuck. “Who’s shouting?”
He recoils, puts his hand to his head, shakes it.
“Leo. Who is shouting at you?”
“Johnny!”
His eyes are wild, and he takes a breath. “Johnny.”
“Who’s Johnny?” Nearly free. Just a little more tug.
He presses his hands to his head now. “Stop.”
“Leo—”
“Stop!”
“Is Johnny telling you what to do right now? Is Johnny here?” And I’m suddenly remembering Helen’s words. He didn’t come back the same.
Maybe Leo has a split personality, something brought on by war.
“No, he’s not here!” He snaps, but he’s still holding his head.
“Okay, okay.” I soften my voice. “Is that why you moved to Florida? To get away from Johnny?”
He stares at me, and for a moment, the fury clears. “This is all his fault.”
The blood has started circulating in my right hand, pinpricking my fingers. “Why?”
“It was his idea to—” He clamps his mouth shut. Shakes his head. “It got out of control.”
“What got out of control?”
He stands up and reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out some smokes. His hand is trembling as he pulls out a cigarette, puts the pack back, then grabs a lighter from his shorts and lights it.
For the first time, I see that he wears a thick ring on his right hand.
A thin trail of smoke trickles into the air. “It was just a theory, okay? Just a game we played when we were drinking.”
He takes another drag. “What if we kidnapped the principal, how would we do it? What if we robbed a bank, how would we do it? What if we stole a car…” He looks at me, lowers his voice. “What if we bombed a building?”
I still. Wait—what?
He takes a long pull on his cigarette, as if waiting for me to catch up. I have. “Leo, what job did you have in the military?”
“I was on a combat team—breaching and demolition.” He holds my gaze.
“So you know bombs.”
“Had an entire notebook on different kinds of bomb chemistries. And my own designs. I loved it.” He nods, takes another drag. “Or I used to. I threw them away after…well—”
“After the coffee shop bombings,” I finish for him. “Leo, you made those bombs, didn’t you?”
His cigarette is a bright orange bullseye as the night deepens. “Like I said, I thought it was a game.”
“C’mon, Leo, you’re smarter than that, aren’t you? When Vega hired you, you knew he was going to use them.”
“Vega didn’t hire me.”
Silence, and paper crackles. Then, “It was Johnny’s idea. He delivered the bombs. Even stuck around to make sure they went off.”
Sure he did. Except I saw Leo at CityPerk. At least in my, um, dream.
With my hand numb, I can force it through the bonds, crushing my thumb into my palm. I’m not sure it’s dislocated, but I grit my teeth against a sudden thrush of pain.
But my hands are free.
The blood rushes in, and I nearly cry aloud with it.
Leo is quietly finishing off his smoke.
“So, this is Johnny’s fault,” I say. “He probably killed the girls, too.”
He looks up at me, and his eyes widen. “Yeah. Johnny killed them.”
If Leo was in demolition, it’s a sure bet he saw guys he cared about get killed. Which might lead to a psychotic break.
Even a split personality.
“Why did Johnny make you cry,” I say quietly.
His gaze tears away from me, and he shakes his head.
“Who is Johnny, Leo?”
“Johnny is my friend,” he says and throws the cigarette away, into the night. He gets up. “You need to leave us alone.”
He takes two strides toward me.
“Why did he make you cry, Leo?”
He doesn’t stop. Oh, here we go. I rear back and kick him. He practically slaps my kick away, reaches down and hauls me up.
But he doesn’t know my hands are free. I swing them between his grip and break his hands apart, then slam my palm into his chin.
His head bounces back, and he curses.
Cuffs me with a right-handed cross.
I’m falling, my feet still tied, my balance off.
He grabs me from behind, but I slam an elbow into him. He grunts, I turn and land a right hook.
He’s bleeding from the mouth and spits blood.
“Why did you cry, Leo?” I need my feet free. I stagger back, against the stern bench and scrabble to untie my feet.
He’s leaning over, breathing hard. A line of blood drips from his mouth. Then he looks up at me, and the look in his eyes turns my blood cold. “Because Johnny killed Julia.”
I’m stymied, my mind racing through the known cases on the board, searching for that name. But I’ve been jumping through so many worlds, I don’t know.
Leo rushes me. I still don’t have my feet untied, but I put up hands for protection.
Like I said, Leo is big. He gets his arms all the way around my legs, lifting me like he might be about to body slam me.
And then, just like that, he dumps me over the side of the boat.
But not quite. Because I have a hold of his shoulders, and even as I fall, I grip onto him.
We splash like bricks into the ocean. I manage a breath before I go under, push him away, and have to kick like a porpoise to get my head above the water.
I gasp and pull in a breath as I spot Leo under water. He surfaces next to me, and turns, aiming for the boat.
Oh, no you don’t. I grab his leg, nearly get kicked, and pull him down.
One of us is going to die, and it’s not going to be me.
The problem with water is that it slows everything. My punches are futile, hitting Leo as if I’m wearing my gloves, and I’m like a rock, sinking fast. He hits me, too—his jabs are more effective, and my nose smarts.
The need for air razors my lungs, and I push him away, and struggle for the surface.
I break free and lap up air, searching. The boat has floated away, a good fifteen feet in the current.
Leo has vanished.
I don’t even have time to swear. Hands grab me from behind and push me down. His arm vices my neck, and I’m struggling, clawing, punching his face.
He knows his rear naked choke
holds, and in a moment, my vision, despite the blackness, is lighting with the flare of panic.
No air.
We’re sinking, fast, his body dead weight.
I get my hand up, between his grip and my neck, but now a burst of white blinds me.
I hear the curse, deep in my brain, because I’m going to die. Right here in the dark freakin’ ocean.
I’m really thrashing now, using up the rest of my air, fighting, and it’s enough to wiggle free.
Maybe he’s running out of air, too.
I manage to turn around and my fist hits something hard. But it doesn’t matter.
I’m out of air and I’ve got nothing left.
And strangely, Gene Latsky is in my head. You think you’ll catch him?
Yeah, I did. I really did.
16
I’d always known I would die this way, falling into the depths of some body of water, the breath siphoned out of me, my body a leaden weight.
I dreamed it, after all.
In my dream—or maybe this is real—I’m reaching for something, an indistinct light, a voice that echoes faintly in the water, the sense that I’ve left something behind.
But the voice and light are fading, and all I’m left with is a thump of my heartbeat, like a fist pounding against my rib cage.
It’s that thump, this time a punch, that causes me to gasp, that yanks my body from the briny depths and propels me to life.
I open my eyes and gulp in a desperate breath.
“He’s back,” says a voice.
I’m coughing, my throat fills and I roll over, expelling the ocean hard from my lungs. My body is wracking, and I flop back like a dead fish.
Everything hurts.
Least of which is the fact that Leo got away.
It’s dark, but in the dim glow of floodlights I make out men in wetsuits standing over me, another man in uniform.
He peels a pair of defibrillator pads from my chest and a second later another man presses his stethoscope to my chest.
“Rembrandt!” My name issues from a deep baritone, a voice I know but don’t expect and as my vision clears, I’m looking for him.
Set in Stone Page 13
