Outside Forces

by R E Swirsky

  ***

  Nathaniel couldn’t sleep. It couldn’t be over that easily. There were the Crowders to think about, for one. They wanted a call back. He really needed to know where they stood now that they had Michael back. And for Kaito to just walk away after everything that was said between them the past few days? There was a reason for all of this and it had to be more than just a few words.

  What words?

  The sky to the east was beginning to glow as the sun prepared to make another appearance. He slipped out of bed in the dark, careful not to disturb Diane, and slowly opened the drawer of the bedside table to retrieve his disposable phone. A dim flash caught his attention from the back corner. It was his personal phone and it continued to blink away upside down in the dark.

  He hadn’t received many calls since arriving in Paris on his personal phone and hadn’t even carried it with him the past few days. There were two missed calls. Both were from Kaito.

  After tossing on a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals, he crept quietly out into the hall with the phone.

  But it wasn’t just two missed calls. Kaito had left messages. “Damn,” Nathaniel thought. “Why would he leave messages on this phone after I told him not to?”

  It didn’t take long for Nathaniel to understand. The first message from Kaito was brief, short, and not at all what he expected.

  “Nate, it’s Kaito.” His voice was broken and emotional. “I’m sorry, Nate. I…I really wanted to talk to you. This was a bad mistake coming here. I thought seeing him suffer would make it better, but it didn’t.” He sighed heavily. “Oh God, Nate. What have I done? You were right. I shouldn’t have come. Call me, please. Call me.”

  Nathaniel let the message end. The tone of Kaito’s voice was alarming. He looked at the time of the call and then calculated backwards. Kaito would still have been at the graveyard when he placed the call.

  He quickly called Kaito, but there was no answer. He disconnected without leaving a message and immediately played the second message from Kaito.

  “Nate, it’s me again. I’m worried now. I should have talked to you long ago about this. You were my friend and I…I should have come to you. I mean…I need to explain. I have to explain now…

  “It was all because of what happened to Reina. After she died, I pushed you away, both of us did. I was just so…she was only thirteen.” He sobbed. “I found her, Nate, in the pool. It was awful. I tried to save her, but she was already dead.

  “Remember our camping trip in the Okanogan? I thought you knew then. Reina always stayed close to her mother. She never went near you, me, or Taka. We had all the fun, didn’t we? Just us boys boating on the lake every day…fishing and skiing. But not Reina. Lena pretended everything was fine with Reina, but it wasn’t. You see.…”

  He sobbed again.

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bring myself to share what awful thing happened to Reina. You were in Ottawa by then so.… I mean, Lena avoided talking about it. She didn’t want anyone to know. She said it was for Reina’s sake. It seems so long ago now. Two years…no, nearly three. And when we did talk, it always ended in arguments and blame. And so for three years we lived in denial, pretending it was fine and that Reina was getting better, but when I found her in the pool I wanted to die. I cried and cried. The water was pink, Nate. Pink! She had bled completely out by the time I found her. She slashed both of her wrists because of what he did to her. Where does a thirteen-year-old even find old-fashioned razor blades?”

  Kaito stopped speaking for a few moments, and Nathaniel thought for a second that was the end of the message.

  “You know, she was abducted right in front of her own school. Ten years old she was.… She wasn’t the same after those three days with him. He did things to her, Nate.…” He sobbed again. “And when she took her own life, I was gutted. I couldn’t let you come to the funeral. The truth was, I was embarrassed that our daughter took her own life, Nate. Embarrassed. I worried you and Diane might find out, and I couldn’t handle anyone knowing.…”

  He cleared his throat.

  “For nearly three years, Lena and I walked through life in anger and shame over what happened to our daughter. We watched him as he was arrested. We wanted to kill him every single day. All I wanted was for someone to let me put my hands at him. It was horrible, Nate. You were my friend, and I should have called you, but Lena.… And then Harvey Metcalf set him free! Free! The monster was allowed to walk out of jail a free man.”

  Harvey Metcalf? And the monster? Does he mean…?

  “She turned stale inside. It’s what happens. She would smile and pretend, but I could see it. The decay, slow and continuous, ate away at her from the inside. And I couldn’t help her. No one could.

  “I thought it normal that I wanted both Shaw and Metcalf dead. But it was really only Metcalf who caused Reina’s decay by freeing that monster. So when the opportunity was presented to me, I was more than eager to accept the offer.

  “I’m not blaming you, Nate. I would have probably ended up killing both of these men at some point if you hadn’t introduced me to this group of ours. It is what I wanted. I thought about it often enough. Arranging for Shaw’s demise was one thing, but the bonus of taking Metcalf’s daughter as revenge for Shaw taking mine was a twist I hadn’t thought of before.

  “The opportunity to get close to him…to look into those eyes…I couldn’t pass it up, Nate. To see his pain, his suffering…and today I finally got to see into his eyes. But what was there was far worse than what I had imagined. I saw my own guilt and shame. Shame. I shouldn’t have felt shame, but I did. And when he looked back at me, I saw it. I tried to taunt him into reacting—to strike out at me, to shoot me…something, anything—but he wouldn’t bite. You see? It’s because his pain was like mine. He felt it, too. No one wins.…”

  He paused again briefly.

  “The offer seemed right at the time, but now.…” He cried again. “Oh gawd. How could I have done this to another man’s child? I should have said no, Nate.”

  “I am sorry, but I just had to speak to you. Please understand, I meant no harm to you and I’ve caused so much suffering to that family and their friends. You were a good friend, and I hope you still are. Please forgive me for the way I’ve treated you. And Taka is.…”

  The message ended. The voicemail memory was full.

  Kaito’s messages were more than disturbing. Shock and disbelief overtook his mood as many of the missing pieces suddenly slammed into place, starting with Garrod Shaw. Kaito’s little girl was the unnamed ten-year-old Shaw had abducted. Nathaniel finally understood Kaito’s pursuit of Metcalf. But murdering his daughter as revenge was such an odd thing for his friend to do. He really wished Kaito had told him what happened to Reina back then. They shared everything in their private lives at one time.

  Nathaniel called Kaito again.

  The call went straight to voicemail.

  “Hi, it’s Nate. I just got your messages…I am terribly sorry I missed your calls. I’m still in Paris and, well…call me the moment you can. We really need to talk, Kaito. Call me.”

  Jack had said Kaito was heading home. Maybe he was on the plane already.

  He called Jack. This call went to voicemail, too.

  “Jack, it’s Nate. Call me when you have a chance, please.”

  He looked at the time. It was just after 9:00 p.m. in Victoria. It was odd for Jack not to pick up.

  Lucas was next on the list. Nathaniel released a nervous chuckle as Lucas’s phone also went directly into voicemail. Something was amiss. “Hi, Lucas. I’m guessing you’re with Jack. Call me when you can, please.”

  Why weren’t Jack and Lucas answering? There was a chaise lounge at the end of hall. Nathaniel sat down and pondered what to do next. He still didn’t have the full picture of what happened up at the graveyard with Kaito. And he still didn’t know what happened to Johnny. Was Johnny still under Randal’s watch? Jack had said they were in cleanup mode in Victoria, so Randal must hav
e been given some direction of what to do with Johnny.

  He called Randal next.

  An automated message played. “The subscriber you are dialling cannot be located at this time.”

  He called again. Same message.

  If Randal’s phone was cut, battery removed as per protocol, then Randal was long gone. There was no chance of catching up with him. So where was Johnny? Back home, presumably.

  And if Randal was gone, then so were Antonio and Myles. Nathaniel never had their numbers.

  He had no other option than to wait it out for now. It was getting late back in Canada. If Jack or Lucas didn’t call him back in the next hour or so, he probably wouldn’t receive any call until they got up after a good night’s sleep. And that would be about mid-afternoon Paris time.

  Nathaniel slipped back into his room and into bed next to Diane. His thoughts continued to race, and the more he thought, the less he liked what he was thinking.