by Robin Mahle
The rumble of his engine was in no way due to the puny 4-cylinder machine, rather it was the need for a new muffler. Something else he couldn’t afford. He slammed on the gas pedal and reversed out of his spot. Shoving the gear shift into Drive, he sped out onto the road ahead.
Danny hated this city more with each passing day. He dropped out of college to care for his disabled sister and wanted nothing more than to leave. Sunny California called out to him. Warm weather, beaches, beautiful women in bikinis on those beaches. Never mind that a beautiful woman would ever give him a second glance. Danny wasn’t unattractive, but some men were smooth around women. He was not. Not ever. He couldn’t speak to them without sounding like a fool. Couldn’t relate to them. Except for his sister.
Melanie King was 26 and had been born with cerebral palsy. She’d been in a home for most of her life, but when their mother got sick with cancer a few years ago, the money ran dry and forced Danny to quit school and bring Melanie back to their childhood home in East Hills, Pittsburgh.
It was just Melanie and Danny now in that home. Their father, who Danny refused to reference by name, took off shortly after Danny was born when Melanie’s symptoms seemed to become more apparent. That was also when the doctors suggested she be moved to assisted living. It was Danny and his mom until a year before she died, then Melanie came back.
Danny pulled onto the single-car driveway of their narrow 2-story home. He spotted Janie walk through the front door as he stepped out. “Hey. Thanks for staying late.”
Janie pulled her purse up over her shoulder and adjusted her scrubs. “You get everything worked out?”
“I wish. I have to go back in the morning.”
“For real?” she asked.
“Yeah, can you believe that shit?”
Janie reached for her car keys. “Danny, I gotta work in the morning or else I’d be happy…”
“No, it’s okay.” He held up his hands. “They tell me I’ll be the first in line, so I don’t think I’ll be gone that long. Mel will be okay for a couple hours. I’ll make sure she has everything before I leave.”
“You sure?” Janie asked.
“Yeah. I got it. Thanks for doing this. It means a lot. Have a good night.” Danny walked up the steps and onto the front porch.
“You too, Danny.”
He pulled open the screen door and walked inside. “Mel, it’s me. I’m home.” The staircase lay directly in front of him and on the right was a small living room. Beyond that was the kitchen and laundry. Danny walked through to the living room where Mel sat on the faded blue sofa and watched television.
He walked up behind her and kissed the top of her head. “You doing all right, sis?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Melanie didn’t suffer from extreme cognitive decline and had tested just above the baseline for severe impairment. Mentally, she functioned at a roughly middle-school level. Physically, she used a walker but could get around on her own. Stairs were a problem, so Danny helped her to her room every night. God forbid should there ever be an emergency that would require him to get her out quickly. They’d probably both suffer.
“What do you want me to make you for dinner?” Danny asked as he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “I think we have some stuff for burritos.” He glanced into the living room. “You want burritos, Mel?”
“Sure.”
“Burritos it is.” He pulled out a can of beans and a block of cheese. He set down his phone on the kitchen counter and spotted a notification arrive. A brief glance and he picked it up, swiping open the screen to view the message.
“Your six-digit access code required for two-step authentication. Do not give this to anyone.”
Danny raised the corner of his mouth. “No. Of course not. Wouldn’t want to do that, now would we?”
3
Grant Tillis was a decorated federal agent who had worked at the Pittsburgh field office for three years. A West Point graduate, he’d spent four years in the Army with the intent on being a career officer. A roadside bomb in Afghanistan had other ideas when it exploded and sent shrapnel flying through the air at record speeds. Some of it eventually lodged itself into Tillis’ neck, chest, and upper right arm, shredding his shoulder to the point that the military sent him packing. He was done and so was his career. Or so he thought. Two years of intense physical therapy while he worked as a civilian at the Bureau and he was given the okay to apply for the Academy. His shoulder essentially rebuilt, Tillis passed the physical demands of Quantico and while he had finished almost dead last in that part of his exams, he still passed. It was his excellent academic scores that carried him over the line.
So here he was, a federal agent who now stared at pages upon pages of phone records of the deceased Rob Delaney. And something might have finally opened.
A solid 6 feet tall, the 31-year-old agent rubbed his eyes to clear them of their fatigue. He needed to be sure what he was looking at was real. “Something’s definitely off here.”
Another agent popped her head into his office. “Are you talking to yourself again, Tillis?”
He eyed her. “Hey, Geisler. Come in. Yeah, I’m talking to myself.” He shuffled the papers. “You mind taking a look at something for me while you’re here?”
“Sure. I was on the way to the breakroom when I heard you. What do you have?” she asked. Her short brunette hair was cut into a straight bob and tucked behind her ears. In her mid-thirties, Geisler had worked some of the worst corruption cases in the city and had a nose for things that seemed ‘off.’
“The car bombing. These are the victim’s phone records. Take a look at this and tell me I’m not crazy,” he replied.
“First of all, you’re not crazy.” She laughed. “Seriously, though, what am I looking for here?”
“This guy was just some mid-level finance guy. Worked downtown. Young and single,” Tillis began. “Take a look at these phone records from the past month. Tell me you don’t see some weird phone calls on there.”
Geisler studied the pages, flipping one after the other. Her brow furrowed at times and raised inquisitively at others.
“You see it?” he pressed on.
“Give me a second. I’m still looking.” She didn’t take her eyes off the pages for another few minutes until finally, she looked at him. “You want to know what I think?”
“Please. Yes. I know what I think, but I wouldn’t mind some backup on this.” Tillis leaned back in his desk chair and laced his fingers behind his head. Slight armpit wetness revealed his diligence.
“Looks to me like this phone was cloned.”
He pulled upright again and slapped his hand on his desk. “Thank you! I knew it. I frickin knew it.”
“Yeah…” she looked down at the pages, flipping through them again. “You have some crazy international calls on here. Then you have charges. I mean, did this guy even look at his bill?”
“He probably hadn’t gotten the bill yet. This was pushed to us by the carrier through a subpoena. The previous month’s bill wasn’t like this. It had some unusual calls on it, but…”
“So it must’ve been cloned around the end of the previous billing cycle. The victim didn’t notice and then…”
“Kaboom,” Tillis replied. “Exactly.”
“What are you going to do with this? You’re working with ATF and Pittsburgh Bureau?” Geisler asked.
“Yep. It’s one big party right now.”
“It can’t stay that way,” she replied.
“Nope. I’ll let the boss give PBP the bad news that it’s going to have to be us and the ATF.”
Geisler stood from the chair. “Good luck with that, Tillis. They really hate it when we squeeze them out like that.” She turned on her heel.
“Don’t I know it. Thanks, Geisler.”
“Anytime.” She waved her hand as she left.
Tillis let his gaze wander around his office. “A cloned phone. Pretty tough to do unless someone has physical access to it. A frie
nd, maybe?” He shook his head. “With friends like that…”
Kate opened the door to the condo and noticed the soft glow of candles burning. Her lips drew up into a smile as she set down her carrier bag and placed her car keys on the hook beside the door. “What is going on here?”
Nick emerged from their small kitchen holding a bouquet of roses. “I thought we could celebrate your promotion privately.” He stood in front of her and gazed into her eyes. “I’m so proud of you, Kate.”
She took the flowers and inhaled a deep breath, her nose buried inside the petals. “I can’t believe you did all this. When did you have time?”
He unveiled an impish grin. “Despite what you might think, Mrs. Scarborough, I can be quite the romantic. I also took the liberty of making dinner and I opened a bottle of wine.”
“Well, I’m starved. How about I put these in water before we eat?”
“Let me. Sit. Have a glass of wine.” Nick returned to the kitchen. “You’re all moved into Quinn’s old office, huh? How did that go?” He filled a vase with water.
“It went.” Kate slipped off her low-heeled shoes and pulled out a chair. The bottle of wine rested inside an ice bucket and she poured a glass. “No, it was good. Weird, but good. Oh, and you know what? Surrey came to me today asking for advice on where he should live.”
Nick turned to her with the flowers inside the vase. “Live?”
“Yeah. He says he’s in an apartment and that he’s not an apartment kind of guy, so he asked for ideas on where he could find a house.”
“That’s funny. You’re not an apartment person either.” He returned with plated food.
Kate eyed the dish. “Did you cook this?”
“Hell no. If I had, you might end up with food poisoning. I have to confess that I did cheat and ordered this in. Put it in a nice plate, and there you go. Dinner served.”
“It looks amazing, Nick. Thank you.”
“Good. I’m glad you think so.” Nick sat down. “I just wanted to do something nice for you. I know these past few months haven’t been easy. You haven’t been sleeping well…”
Kate held the glass of wine to her lips while her eyes raised slightly over the rim to meet his.
Her intent didn’t appear to be lost on him. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this, but I hate to see you suffer, that’s all. When we first met…”
“It all feels very déjà vu, doesn’t it?” she cut in. “But know that I am handling it, Nick. I promise you.”
He reached for her hand. “You’ve seen me through so much. I want to be there for you as much as you’ve been there for me. I know you’ll overcome this. And the promotion? This is your golden ticket. You will be able to go anywhere inside the Bureau. Move up as high as you want with this job in your back pocket. You might one day be the next Unit Chief Cole.”
Kate chuckled. “I doubt that. And I don’t know if that’s what I want but thank you for having that kind of faith in me.” She took in a breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “I won’t lie. What happened with the Lehmanns; it did a number on me. But I won’t let it define me.”
“I know you won’t. And I promise you, no one will ever get to you like that again. I know you won’t let it and I sure as hell won’t either.”
Kate peeled off a piece of the grilled salmon on her plate. “What about the message?”
“I’m still working on that,” Nick said. “You don’t need to do anything. I have it under control. Your only job is to find a way through what happened and be the best lead profiler you can be. And I have no doubt you’ll do just that.”
Her eyes glistened as she blinked away the welling tears. “I love you so much, Nick. Don’t you ever forget that.”
He raised the corner of his mouth in a cock-eyed grin. “I won’t if you won’t.”
With a headset over his ears, Danny King sat in the corner of his kitchen at a folding table that was pressed against the wall. Two monitors were lined up, side by side, and he kept a keyboard in his lap. “Like I said, ma’am, you’ll need to restart your laptop and then we can figure out where the problem is. So, just turn it off.” He closed his eyes. “Yes, ma’am. That’s it. Now, press the power button again and give it a minute to boot up.” He grabbed his mic that was attached to the headphones. “Boot up, not boom up. It has to have time to load the programs first.” What the hell? Danny mouthed as he rolled his eyes.
Next to him on the table was a plastic in-box with several cell phones inside. One of them illuminated with an incoming notification. Danny snatched it and peered at the notice while a smile arose on his lips. “Now it’s on.” He was pulled back into the moment. “No, ma’am. I’m sorry. I was talking to someone else. Just wait another minute and I’ll walk you through it.”
It took almost half an hour to get Mrs. Filmore’s laptop up and running again. “No problem at all, ma’am. You have a nice day. Be on the lookout for a survey asking how your experience was.” Danny pressed the end call button and ripped off his headset. “Holy shit. What a fucking idiot. What’s wrong with these people?”
“Danny? Are you okay?”
He turned at the sound of her voice. “Fine, Mel. Sorry. It’s just work. Go back to your show.” As much as he loved his sister, this life was hard and getting harder by the moment.
Danny stood from the table and headed through the living room. “I’ll be upstairs in my room for a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Melanie kept her eyes fixed on the TV.
He made his way upstairs and down the narrow hall to his bedroom. The worn carpet beneath his feet was dark green. His double bed was shoved into the corner to give the small room a sense of space and had a plaid green quilt covering it haphazardly. Danny rarely bothered to make his bed.
He pulled out the chair tucked beneath a small desk he’d had since grade school. The desk’s top displayed various carvings he’d done over the years in addition to ring marks and other stains. His family had always struggled financially, and it seemed Danny had continued the cycle. Never mind he got a 1400 on his SATs and could’ve stayed in college. Apparently, that wasn’t the life he was meant to have.
As he turned on his monitor, Danny placed the headset over his ears and opened the website. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the screen, transformed to another place. It was a dark place where the people he watched burned. Horror masked their faces while they cried out in agony. Death and destruction were everywhere. Fire, smoke, ash. This was Danny’s inspiration.
As a child, he’d always been obsessed with fire. His mother often caught him with matches in his room where he would flick them away while they burned. The holes in the carpet were still there. But it wasn’t so much the look or feel of fire that enchanted him. It was the destruction it caused. A house could be in ashes on the ground in minutes. A forest could be nothing but charred twigs in days.
He thought he’d grown out of it when he was in college. His interests diverged into better, but still destructive behaviors, like breaking into the school’s computer and changing his buddy’s grades. He had straight A’s, so there wasn’t much point in altering his own.
In the end, it all seemed childish when he was forced to come home and care for his ailing mother and disabled sister. But as the years passed and pressure mounted, a light went off in him. He began to see society as a problem, the “system” as a problem. Not him. Danny wasn’t the problem.
When he tired of watching the videos, he picked up one of several cell phones. “Let’s see what you’re up to today, Heather. Heading to the gym? How about some yoga? Maybe drinks with the girls?”
The type of skills Danny had would’ve lent themselves well at some Silicon Valley tech company, but those options were no longer available to him. Instead, he was forced into the life of an old man. Working day in and day out to support his family. Taking care of children who weren’t his. There was only one way to fix a broken system.
He logged into Heather’s Instagram
account and noticed the authentication code arrive on the phone. Danny keyed it in and waited. “Here we are. Ms. Heather Hillcrest. Seriously, did you make that name up?” As he read Heather’s posts, the sound of another phone captured his attention. “Oh, great. Tom’s back. And where are you at today?” The text message had been sent by a woman. “Having dinner with Denise tonight? I wonder what happened to Laura?” He pulled out a pad of paper and jotted down the address. “Great. See you soon, Denise.”
Danny jogged downstairs and swiped the keys from the table. “Janie’s coming over soon. She has a key and can let herself in. You sure you’ll be all right for a while?”
“I can take care of myself, Danny,” Mel replied. “Janie doesn’t have to come over.”
“I just feel better knowing someone’s here in case you need anything. I’ll just be a few hours anyway. Besides, Janie loves movies just like you do. You should find one to watch together. Make some popcorn. It’ll be fun.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in time to get you upstairs for bed.”
“Bye, Danny. Have fun.”
“Bye.” He closed the door and walked to his car. The ground was wet, and the car was still spotted with droplets of water, though the rain subsided for now.
He stepped inside and turned the engine before double checking the address. “30 minutes, tops. Piece of cake.”
The weight of the world fell from his shoulders the farther away he got from his neighborhood. Mel was capable of looking after herself for a while and Janie probably hadn’t needed to come over, but it put his mind at ease knowing Mel wasn’t alone. If anything happened to her, he’d blame himself for the rest of his life. Danny couldn’t protect his mom, but he could still protect his sister.
