by CJ Lyons
Josh looked up at him with a solemn expression, one far too old for a little boy to ever wear. He frowned, bit his lower lip, and nodded. "When you come home with Mommy will you sing happy songs again? Ones that make me laugh like the song about Oscar the purple toad with the wart on his tongue?"
"Better yet, we'll get Mommy to sing, she has a voice like an angel."
Josh's eyes crinkled shut as he strained to remember. "Sometimes I think I can hear her, when it's dark and quiet." He opened his eyes wide once more. "But then I wake up and it was only a dream."
Sam rumpled his son's still-wet hair. "I know what you mean, champ. That happens to me, too. I think it happens to everyone when someone you love and really care about is far away. It keeps you close to them. I'll bet Mommy hears you when she dreams, too."
"But I was just a baby back then. I didn't know any real songs."
"Doesn't matter."
"Do you think she still remembers me? Will she know who I am?" Josh's frown creased his forehead into a deep furrow.
"Of course she will."
"Maybe this will help." Josh slid a wallet-sized school photo from beneath his pillow. Sam took it solemnly, hoping Josh didn't notice the tears he couldn't blink away. Josh had cropped the picture into a heart and glued it onto a red-felt heart with a large pin sewn onto the back. "So you can show her how big I've gotten."
"And how handsome."
"Aw, Dad. Will you give it to her?"
"Of course." Sam pulled him tight once more, using the distraction to swipe his eyes dry on the back of his shirt sleeve, then kissed him again. "That one was from Mommy."
Josh blew his breath out in the saddest sigh a five-year-old ever could produce. "You're going to bring her back, right? You promise?"
Sam locked eyes with his son, holding Josh's keepsake over his chest in the flat of his palm. "Yes sir. When I come back, I'll have Mommy with me. I promise."
If I come back.
Sam turned the lights off and shut the door behind him. He shouldered his guitar case—everything else was already in the truck—and walked down the creaky stairs to the first floor of the old farmhouse. Mrs. Beaucouers, their landlady and surrogate grandmother these past two years, was waiting. A young sixty-seven, she was still tough enough to put the fear of God into anyone who challenged her.
Most importantly, she was devoted to Josh. Would do anything to keep him safe.
Now she stood straight, her forehead creased with worry. "I don't like this, Samuel. There must be another way."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. B, there's not." He stepped towards the door, but she blocked his way. He pulled up short and took her hands in his. "I've left all the important papers, everything you need in case—" He faltered, tried again. "It's all in the lockbox, you have the key."
She squeezed his hands, her work-worn grip almost as strong as his. "But Josh—"
"You'll take good care of him." She nodded. He leaned forward, kissed both of her cheeks. "Thank you, Mrs. B. You are an angel."
She flushed and pulled her hands away, busying them by wringing the corners of her apron. She was the only woman Sam had ever seen outside of the movies actually wear an apron, but it was part of her uniform. Mrs. B simply would not be Mrs. B without her apron, or her Sunday churchgoing black hat with the discrete widow's veil, or her bright yellow Mac and Wellingtons that came out during rainstorms and nor'easters. She was the last of a dying breed of gentlewoman.
If Korsakov ever found her or Josh, he'd kill them both without batting an eye.
"All right then," she said in her crisp, no nonsense way. "Sooner you get going, sooner you'll be back to your son."
Sam swallowed hard and nodded. He opened the door, but couldn't resist one last look over his shoulder, up the stairwell. "You'll—"
"He'll be fine, Samuel. I promise."
Now it was Sam's turn to sigh. He tried a smile but it felt tight against his face muscles. He blinked hard, the scene blurring before him. Finally he relinquished his grip on the doorknob and stepped out into the darkness.
It's the only way. He climbed into the rusted Ford Ranger, laid the guitar case behind his seat, and started the engine. It turned over with its usual throaty growl. The Ranger didn't look like much, but since Sam and Josh's life depended on it, Sam kept it in prime running condition. He laid his arm across the bench seat, turned to watch out the rear window as he backed down the familiar curves of the gravel drive.
He pulled out onto the road and paused. There was no other traffic and the only lights were the golden glow of the farmhouse he'd just left. A beacon in the night. Hopefully he'd be returning soon.
Keep them safe, Lord, he prayed. It still felt awkward, this prayer thing. He'd first started after Josh was born—more one-sided conversations with Whoever was Up There than actual prayers. With everything that had happened these past two years, he'd begun to do more than simply plead his case or try to bargain with his Higher Power.
It was a miracle that any of them were still alive. Now, with Korsakov on the loose, it would take more than a miracle to keep them that way. It would take divine intervention.
Something Sam would have scoffed at eight years ago when he was still Stan Diamontes, beach bum/surfer/songwriter and sometime—when the bills needed to be paid—accountant to a Russian indy-film producer/mobster. But a man could change in eight years, could learn to love, to care more for someone else than he did himself, could even find his faith.
Sam put the truck into Drive and gunned the engine. He had to get to Sarah before Korsakov. Please Lord...
CHAPTER 13
Thursday, June 20, 2007: south of Montreal
The blacktop spun out from under the Ford's wheels like dreams colliding beneath the full moon guiding Sam south. In the dark and silence he couldn't help but think of his own dreams, of the years he'd wasted before he learned the meaning of having real dreams.
Real dreams. Not the fantasies that drove him past the time when he was old enough to know better. Catching the big wave, breaking into the music biz, making a big score. He'd wasted all that time on ideas as wispy as cotton candy. Sweet to think and talk about, but nothing to live on.
Nothing like Sarah and Josh. Nothing important, nothing worth living for.
Or dying for.
Sam squinted into the rising sun as the highway jogged to the east. All he could see, though, was Sarah.
Sarah's face the first time they made love, eyes wide, feverish as their bodies collapsed on each other. Sarah looking like an angel on their wedding day, calm, radiant while Sam was certain that he'd lose it, puke his guts out, the way his stomach was churning worse than the surf at Point Arguello. Until she took his hand. After that, everything had been fine.
Sarah, her face scarlet with pain, cheeks puffed out as she strained to push-push-push-push. Him holding her hand, standing there as Doc Hedeger and the nurse yelled at her, push! He had felt like the world's biggest dipshit. She was in pain and he was helpless to do anything about it and it was all his fault...
Then her face relaxed. A gurgling cry filled the room. He looked down to see this pink mass of arms and legs and slime-covered hair with big blue eyes staring right at him. Sarah's face filled with joy as she laughed so hard she cried. Only time he'd ever seen her cry.
Sam cried too, couldn't cut the cord when Doc Hedeger asked him, his hands were shaking so badly.
Sarah pulled their baby to her breast and reached for Sam, guiding his hand to help her cradle their baby. This wonderful, mysterious thing they'd created. Together. As he wrapped his arms around both of them Sam had heard a roaring in his brain, stronger than a wave swamping you, the surf crashing over you, pulling you under and you get pounded, not knowing which way is up and you think...I may never see the sun again, I may never make it to the surface.
I may die.
The roar Sam felt as he held his family was more powerful than that. It filled his brain, made him hunch his shoulders like a Neanderthal. A primitive
protective reflex. He would stand between what was his and the rest of the world. Always. Forever.
He remembered inhaling deeply, smelling Sarah's sweat tinged with pain and fear, smelling blood and innocence. This was his family and he would never, never let anything happen to them.
At least that was what Sam had vowed five years ago. His hands clenched over the steering wheel as the familiar knot in his gut tightened. He was a cowardly, selfish son of a bitch. He knew that now, had known it for the last two years, only wished it hadn't taken losing the best part of himself to discover. Past time to pay the devil he'd sold his soul to eight years ago.
Except Sarah and Josh weren't part of the bargain.
The lights of a nearby town mocked him with their cheerful brightness, their untold stories of happy families, snug and warm safe in their beds, husbands and wives together, birthdays and holidays and celebrations. The stuff of normal lives and normal families. Everything he'd had for a few short years.
Everything he'd lost. It was all his fault—stupid, selfish bastard.
He'd like to think that he'd changed from the fool he'd been eight years ago, but as he pressed down on the accelerator, speeding into the dawn toward an appointment with almost certain death, he knew he was no hero.
No hero. Just a fool in love.
Sarah woke feeling groggy, punch-drunk. She sat up, head reeling, eyes gritty as she blinked them. Dehydrated. Idiot, she knew better, should have drunk more during her climb up here yesterday.
She wiped her face, forced herself to down a liter of water followed by another energy bar. As she combed her fingers through her hair and tied it back, she felt more human.
The only human. The granite ledge jutting out over Snakebelly seemed suspended in both time and space. Across the gorge the rolling ridges of the mountains to the south spread out like ripples on an ocean of grey-blue fog. Overhead, several hawks swirled, disappearing into the sun that had crested the eastern slope of Snakehead. The only sounds were the rustling of the wind through the branches and the distant rumble of water from the gorge.
Crisp air sliced through her lungs, rejuvenating her. Yesterday felt like a blur, but today had dawned clear and brilliant.
She tidied her simple camp and pulled her binoculars from her pack. After taking a moment to enjoy the antics of the hawks, she stepped to the edge of the ledge and shimmied belly down on it. She focused into the shadows that clung to the granite boulders fifty yards below. Sunlight gleamed off eddies of the river's current that twisted around the rocks. The river had carved out a niche over the millennia, a hidden trap for the unwary. Not that anything or anyone could survive the falls half a mile upstream.
Sarah scanned the treacherous inlet. Tangled tree limbs sprouted here and there like a skeleton forest. Something bright and white and gleaming caught her eye.
Correction. A forest of skeletons.
Well, at least part of one. She zoomed in, trying to tell if the bone was attached to anything human. Hal was right, there had been some recent rock falls. The ground was littered with newly fallen bits of the mountain.
Maybe it was a deer. Animal carcasses could just as easily find their way to the surface here at Snakebelly.
She felt her throat go dry, bit her lip. Could she have found Sam? After all this time?
Her fingers slipped on the focus wheel, her palms damp with sweat as they gripped the binoculars. The bones, there were two of them she saw now, were long and slender. They disappeared beneath a tangle of tree branches caught in the river's current.
Probably was a deer after all. She released her breath, unaware that she'd been holding it.
A gleam of silver sparked in the sunlight.
Deer didn't wear wristwatches.
CHAPTER 14
Thursday, June 20, 2007: Interstate 95, northbound
Now that she was past DC and the snarled wasteland of freeway surrounding it, Caitlyn had room to maneuver the Subaru. Cruising along the left hand lane, she not so subtlety encouraged anyone dawdling at less than eighty miles an hour to get the hell out of her way.
One of her favorite perks of carrying a badge. Since she technically wasn't on official business, she had to use her own vehicle, but that was all right. So far the cops she'd passed seemed more interested in keeping traffic flowing smoothly than in spending time writing tickets.
She'd just passed East Brunswick when her cell phone sang out. She hit the hands free button. "Tierney here."
"Caitlyn," came a voice mellow with California sunshine, "how ya doing, girl?"
"Hey, Royal, thanks for getting back to me." Royal Hassam, an assistant US attorney based in LA, was an old friend and the one person she trusted to help her get the inside scoop on Stan Diamontes' involvement with the Korsakov case.
"When you going to come out here, spend a week on the beach with me? We could drive up to Big Sur, fresh air, sunshine, ocean, and no office politics."
"You make it sound tempting, but I need to finish this case first. Were you able to find anything on Korsakov or Diamontes?"
"Yes ma'am. Funny thing that. Korsakov is due in court today. Has my boss about stroking out."
"Why's that?" Caitlyn spied a rest area approaching and swerved into the exit lane. She cruised to a stop, all attention fixed on the phone.
"His conviction is getting overturned on a technicality. We can't re-try him without Diamontes' testimony. And of course, we don't have that, seeing as Diamontes is dead."
"So Diamontes really is Sam Durandt."
"Sweetheart, of course he is. You ought to know—your old boss, Jack Logan is the one who worked that end of the case, got Diamontes into WITSEC eight years ago."
Caitlyn pursed her lips in a silent whistle. She'd tried contacting Logan but he was either unavailable or ducking her calls. She suspected the latter. "Guess he forgot to mention that when we worked the Durandt case."
"And I thought our office politics were bad. At least we only mess with the state and local prosecutors, we don't go around screwing ourselves."
"Keep it clean, Royal." Never knew who might be listening in. She didn't need Royal to get his ass in a sling because of her—or news of their conversation making its way back to Quantico or the brass. She hadn't officially opened a case file. Because as of yet she had no proof that any crime had been committed. Just a whole lot of ugly suspicions.
"S'all right. I'm on my cell. Jogging on the beach, in fact. Here, listen to the ocean." Static as he presumably held the phone out. Caitlyn smoothed her palms against her linen slacks, arched her back and stretched in her seat. Royal's voice soon returned. "Remember the time difference? It's not even six here, way too early for any bosses to be awake."
"Still, this is touchy. You might want to keep a low profile, not let anyone know you've been asking questions about Diamontes." Bad enough she was risking her career looking into this, no sense ruining Royal's as well.
"No worries. All anyone is talking about 'round here is Korsakov. You wouldn't believe some of the things that guy has done. I worked Organized Crime out of Jersey before I came here and it still makes my stomach turn. This is one seriously whacked out dude."
"His only convictions are for money laundering. They couldn't make the RICO charges stick." That much Caitlyn had gleaned from her Nexis/Lexis search last night.
"Only because the grand jury wouldn't convict solely on Diamontes' uncorroborated testimony."
"Let me guess. Any other witnesses were dead."
"Or missing. Those who were found, well let's just say they didn't go peacefully into the night. The autopsy reports read like a slasher movie script on steroids."
"Forensics?"
"Nope. Our Russian, Korsakov, is smarter than your average bear." The sound of his chuckling at his pun carried through the airwaves.
"Besides the trial transcripts, can you give me any info on Stan Diamontes?"
"I'll email you the only photo I could find. It's almost ten years old. He's thirty-five now
, youngest of four kids, father a banker at Chase, mother a homemaker. A few run-ins with local PD's."
"He has a record?"
"Scarface this guy is not. He likes to surf—doesn't care who owns the beach. Half a dozen arrests for trespassing, no convictions. Went to Stanford, mediocre grades, BS in accounting. Oh yeah, he minored in musical composition of all things. I can try to run down former friends, relatives, see if anyone's heard from him if you'd like, but I have to tell you, if I had a freak like Korsakov gunning for me, I don't care how long of a sentence he got, I'd dig a hole to China and stay good and buried."
Caitlyn drummed her fingers along the steering wheel. Her headache was a low throb today, thanks to the double doses of drugs she'd taken. Ounce of prevention seemed a good idea after last night. She broke out in a sweat just thinking of the pain that had overwhelmed her.
"No. Email me the list and if need be, I'll follow up with them. I don't want you sticking your neck out more than necessary. And could you keep me posted on Korsakov's hearing?"
"Sure, whatever you want. Promise you'll tell me what this is all about once you're free and clear?"
"I will. Thanks, Royal."
"No prob. And hey, if you ever need a lawyer—"
"You'll be the last one I call. Take it easy."
"Don't I always?"
She hung up and reached for her Rand-McNally. A detour to Hartford would only take a few hours. And she'd gotten an early start. She shifted into gear. She'd call on Jack Logan in person, try to jar him into revealing something, and still make it to Hopewell by afternoon. As the pavement hummed beneath her tires, her right foot kept pushing down on the accelerator. Her instincts telling her that she was running out of time.
CHAPTER 14
Sarah sucked her breath in, rolled onto her back, the sky opening up above her in a dizzying vista of cerulean. She focused on her breathing. It shouldn't be that hard, she'd done it all her life, but suddenly she couldn't force any air past the knot in her throat.
