“Big news,” she said, and began to explain the latest developments.
An entomologist—bug doctor, in Deacon’s mind—had given them the rundown on exactly what sort of infestation they were facing, and the odds for the home team didn’t look good. The quarantine was moving forward, and all signs pointed toward it being the sort of aggressive operation that fueled the bad dreams of government conspiracy-theorists: a full-fledged lockdown, with military support. Bailey urged Deacon to finish his investigation soon, because in a short period of time, their movements might be severely restricted.
“I’m on it,” he promised her, and didn’t bother to explain the raid of their HQ weapons cache. She had enough on her plate to worry about.
A few minutes later, Deacon and Jim were back in the SUV and driving away. Deacon called his father to check on him. Pops assured him that so long as he had his gun beside his bed and plenty of ammo, he was going to be fine.
“Don’t worry about me,” Pops said. “Stay out there and do your job, all right?”
“All right, Pops.” Deacon ended the call with a smile.
“You think the rich douchebag is going to let us watch his precious video feed?” Jim asked.
“He told me to bring the ‘haven’ back to South Haven,” Deacon said. “He ordered me to start acting like a cop again. All of this is part of that. We’re conducting an investigation and he’s got useful evidence.”
“Something tells me the dirt bag knows what’s going on,” Jim said. “He knows everything that happens here.”
“I don’t know about that,” Deacon said. “I’m just doing my job.”
They reached the Falcon estate without incident, probably because Falcon lived on the outer perimeter of the community and it was possible to travel to his home without passing through the more densely populated residential areas.
Angie Falcon buzzed them in at the gate. She sounded tickled that Deacon had returned for the second time that day.
Here we go, he thought.
“Well, my Lord, sweet stuff came back to see me,” Angie Falcon said, opening the front door. She wore a sheer red robe that left little to the imagination, and it looked as though she had just applied a fresh coat of matching red lipstick.
Then Angie noted Jim standing beside him, and her smile soured. “Oh, you brought the crusty old grouch with you.”
“Nice to see you too, missy.” Jim smirked. “Wow, you look ready for a photo shoot. Maybe a magazine spread.”
“In your dirty little old man’s fantasies, I’m sure.” Angie tightened the belt of her robe and glanced at Deacon with annoyance. “Why’d you bring the garden gnome along?”
“He happens to be my partner, and we’re working very hard here,” Deacon said.
“Working on what?” Angie displayed only mild interest. She had shifted her attention to her cell phone, swiping the display with a long lacquered fingernail. She was playing some kind of colorful mobile game.
Deacon glanced at Jim, and he could read the same thought in Jim’s gaze: is this woman really that clueless?
He realized the answer was: yes, she is. Angie Falcon and those of her ilk lived in a bubble, and the bubble was constructed of obscene wealth. It allowed her to ignore the concerns and fears of those on the outside, even those who technically lived in the same community. While others were dying in the streets, she was pouring herself another glass of champagne and playing Candy Crush or whatever the hell people were playing then.
“We’re working on something Mr. Falcon asked me to do,” Deacon said. “Is he here? We need to see him.”
“Daddy left a while ago, sweetheart.” She turned away from the door. “Got on that ATV of his and ripped out of here. You can wait around for him if you want, whatever.” She drifted away, attention riveted on her phone.
“He’s riding around South Haven on his dune buggy?” Jim said to Deacon and sneered. “Tell me again he doesn’t know something, chief.”
“We need to check the video feed.” Deacon started to cross the threshold, remembered the box of shoe covers beside the door.
“Fuck it,” he said, and stepped inside without bothering to put them on.
Jim grinned. “A man after my own heart.”
***
Emily ran away from the roaming mob.
She didn’t understand what she’d done to earn their malice, but as she’d seen many times that day, merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time was sufficient to wind up as the target of the violent segment of the infected group. She was exhausted with all of the running, and wondered why she’d left the warm and relative safety of the SUV near Deacon and his partner.
If she managed to survive this latest ordeal, she had to be more mindful.
Her sneakers swished through the wet grass, water spraying up and further saturating her already damp clothing. The playground, as expansive as it was, was only a component of a much larger outdoor recreation complex that spanned several grassy acres. Running away from the playground carried her to a circular jogging path. The jogging path ended at a baseball field, the baselines muddy in the pounding rain. A basketball court lay beyond the baseball field, nets dripping with water.
She ran at a brisk pace, thankful for the many years she’d spent jogging and riding her bicycle. Behind her, the mob had receded in the rain-tinged murk.
Emily passed onto the tennis courts. Someone was out striking balls with a racket, thwacking them into the opposite fence as he robotically practiced a serve. He wore a pair of low-cut white sneakers and a New York Yankees baseball cap but nothing else. Rainwater dripped down his naked torso and streamed from his slender legs.
Emily kept to the perimeter of the court, but he still screamed at her.
“Courts . . . off my . . . bitch . . !”
Shouting, he tossed a ball in the air and swiped it in her direction. She saw it coming and tried to zag out of its path, but he had served it with tremendous velocity. The ball smacked against the back of her head.
It felt as if a bomb exploded at the base of her skull. She cried out and fell hard to the concrete, her ankle twisting painfully as she collided with the wet ground.
The fall had knocked the breath out of her. Dazed, she stared at the dark, overcast sky, cold rain beating against her face.
She wanted to close her eyes and let the rain wash her away into oblivion. She was so tired of fighting. It would be so easy to give up for good . . .
You’re pregnant, Em.
The thought penetrated the fog in her brain like a laser beam. Pregnant. A living creature that relied on her for its entire tenuous existence was forming inside her.
Get up, Em.
She couldn’t give up.
Sucking in deep breaths, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. The tennis player was stomping toward her, with the look of a grizzly bear angered because someone had invaded his cave. He clutched the racket in his lesion-spotted hand, his crust-ringed eyes seething.
“Off courts . . . bitch!”
Deacon had given her a Taser earlier that day, but she wouldn’t have time to draw it and depress the trigger before the tennis player would be upon her. She went for it anyway. Taking action of any kind was preferable to waiting to die.
Only a few feet away from her, the tennis player stopped dead in his tracks.
An arrow had punctured his throat, right through the center of his windpipe. Gasping, the tennis racket flipping out of his fingers, the man clawed at his neck. He sagged like a dead weight to the concrete.
Wildly, Emily looked around.
Someone wearing a helmet and riding on a four-wheel ATV roared toward the tennis courts, divots of grass and mud churning from the big tires. The driver steered the vehicle to the edge of the court, engine rumbling.
The stranger wore a full-face helmet with a darkly-tinted visor, a black leather jacket, jeans, and black boots. Although the stranger was seated, the tremendous size and musculature of the individual made
it clear to Emily that her knight in shining armor was a man. He had a wicked-looking crossbow slung over his shoulder. Arrows bristled from a leather quiver attached to the side of the ATV.
The ATV was painted mostly black, and had a ferocious white falcon imprinted on the side panel. The metalwork was chrome, and glistened in the glow of the nearby street lamps.
She suddenly had the feeling that she had seen this guy before, or should have known his identity. But the answer danced out of her mental grasp.
The stranger hooked his thumb toward the empty rear seat of his vehicle.
Emily rose on wobbly knees. Her twisted ankle ached.
She didn’t know this man, but if he’d intended to harm her, he wouldn’t have rescued her, and with a bum ankle, she couldn’t run anyway. The frenzied mob was still out there.
She climbed onto the seat. The movement made her slightly dizzy, and to stabilize herself, she hooked her fingers around a pair of handles that jutted from alongside the saddle.
The driver roared away from the tennis courts, leaving her would-be killer bleeding out on the pavement. The budding medical doctor in Emily despised the kill-or-be-killed world into which they had plummeted, would have preferred to strap that man to a gurney and work tirelessly to find a treatment to restore his health. That was the path she would have chosen. But her ideals wouldn’t save her when someone was determined to tear out her throat.
The ATV thumped across the grass and splashed through puddles. Gritting her teeth, Emily held on tight.
“Please, take me to the clubhouse,” she said. “There are people there that I’ve been helping. I need to get back.”
Her rescuer didn’t respond. In case he didn’t hear her over the thundering engine, she repeated her request in a louder voice. He leaned forward and powered ahead. They tore onto a residential street, buzzed past parked cars and darkened homes. Water sprayed from the rolling tires, a mist wetting her face.
They had left the frenzied mob in the dust, but she worried the group would continue to roam the community, growing in size, like some sort of mutant amoeba.
They passed through an intersection, and she read the street signs. She thought they were heading in the general direction of the clubhouse, but she didn’t want to ask him again. A man who would so casually let an arrow fly to kill another human being wasn’t a man to be pushed too far.
But she needed to get back to Dr. Bailey and the CDC team. There was purpose for her there. Although the situation had long since spiraled out of their control, the group was working to find answers, and Emily wanted to be a part of that effort.
They careened around a corner. Emily noticed that a large leather satchel was hooked to the side of the vehicle, the top edge flapping in the wind. She peeled away the leather a couple of inches, to get a better look at the contents—and did a double take.
Suddenly, she couldn’t wait for him to drop her off.
A short time later, he veered into the parking lot of the South Haven clubhouse. The ATV grumbled to a stop.
Emily carefully climbed off the seat.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “For everything.”
Face still concealed by the helmet, he nodded curtly. He wheeled around and thundered away into the night.
The man hadn’t spoken a single word to her, yet she was as positive of his identity as she was of her own name.
But why was Ronald Falcon, the multimillionaire developer of South Haven, transporting a bag full of dynamite?
***
The door to Falcon’s office opened when Deacon twisted the knob.
Tension eased out of Deacon. Falcon could be so meticulous regarding security that Deacon had worried he’d need to break inside the room.
He went inside, Jim following close behind. Overhead track lights flickered into life, awakened by a motion-detection system.
“I’ve never been in here,” Jim said, voice tinged with awe. “This room is bigger than the whole apartment that Linda and I lived in when we first got married.”
Deacon headed to the bank of security monitors embedded in the far wall. All of the displays were dark, but the network server and computer terminal hummed, various indicator lights glowing.
Deacon settled into the desk chair and tapped the keyboard to access the terminal. Falcon’s own surveillance system controlled a greater number of cameras than security HQ, but Deacon was hoping beyond hope that both systems utilized the same basic setup and shared user credentials. When the system asked him for an administrator username and password, he typed his own login information.
Access denied. Enter a valid username and password.
“Dammit,” Deacon said.
“It’s not letting you in?” Jim peered over his shoulder. “Try my info then.”
“Give it to me.”
Jim gave him his credentials and Deacon entered them carefully.
Access denied. Enter a valid username and password.
“He’s got a totally different system here,” Deacon said, shaking his head. “He’s the only one who can unlock it.”
“I can unlock it,” a soft voice said from the doorway.
Both Deacon and Jim turned. Caleb, Falcon’s teenage son, lingered at the threshold. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, he lowered his gaze to the floor and sucked in his bottom lip.
“It’s all yours, kid.” Deacon rose from the chair. He gestured toward the computer.
Caleb glanced at him. “Well, I was sort of hoping you guys could help me with something first.”
“He wants quid pro quo,” Jim said. “Christ, kid, do you understand what’s going on here?”
“Let’s hear him out, Jim,” Deacon said, placing a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “What do you want us to help you with, son?”
“Can you come up to my room?” Caleb asked. “Please? It might be easier if I show you.”
Deacon glanced at Jim. Jim grumbled, but nodded.
“Let’s go,” Deacon said.
***
“I have a date,” Caleb said, a blush settling deep into his pale cheeks.
The teenager had brought them to his bedroom on the second floor of the mansion. In Deacon’s mind, it was less of a bedroom and more like a penthouse suite at a luxury hotel. It had a spacious sitting area with furniture and a gigantic flat-screen TV, a kitchenette, a Jacuzzi (which Caleb confessed he never used) an office area, and then the chamber with his bed. Computers and electronic gadgets were spread everywhere. A big poster of Albert Einstein hung on the wall near the computer desk.
“You have a date?” Deacon asked, certain he had heard incorrectly.
“Yes.” Caleb glanced at his wrist watch, one of those expensive Apple Watch models. “It starts in about twenty minutes actually. It’s a video chat with a girl from my school, sort of a getting to know you conversation. But I don’t know what to talk about. I was sort of hoping you guys could give me some advice.”
“Unbelievable,” Jim said, shaking his head. “Son, you really need to get out of this goddamn house for a while. Get some sun, mingle with people out there in the real world. What you’re talking about here is nuts, and your timing couldn’t be worse. Do you know what’s going on out there in South Haven?”
Caleb’s blush deepened. He spun around in his swivel chair to face his computer display. He typed on the keyboard, fingers hammering the keys.
It was as if they had ceased to exist to him. Deacon happened to agree with everything Jim had said, though the delivery of the message was overly harsh. But the kid displayed the same blasé indifference to the outside world that his older sister did. The CDC was on site and a military-backed quarantine was coming down, and he was worried about a date?
Still, they needed the kid’s help to crack the password. As Caleb withdrew into his comforting world of computers, Deacon felt their opportunity slipping out of their grasp. He nudged Jim aside, pulled up an ottoman, and sat next to Caleb.
“Listen, Jim’s old and ornery, out of touc
h with how younger folks operate,” Deacon said in a soft tone. “I know what you’re talking about, and this date . . . well, I’ve never personally had a date like that but I get it. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
“A girlfriend?” Caleb glanced at him and actually giggled, sounding like a much younger child. “God, no.”
“How old are you? Fifteen, sixteen?”
“I’ll be seventeen in August. And yes, I have my driver’s license. And my own car, too—I got a Tesla for my birthday. It’s so insane.” He grinned.
I was born to the wrong set of parents, Deacon thought.
“All right, you’re sixteen going on seventeen,” he said. “It’s an exciting time, I remember it well. You’re developing a good sense of your own identity. You know some things you like, things you don’t like. Sounds as though you like nice cars, and from the looks of your room, I’d say that you’re into computers, too.”
“Yeah.” Caleb bobbed his head in agreement. “I wrote my first program when I was six. It’s embarrassing to think now about how primitive it was, but I thought it was pretty cool at the time.”
“What’s the name of the young lady that you’re having this date with tonight?” Deacon asked.
“Ava,” Caleb said. “Ava Upshaw. We’re in the same AP physics class.”
“So she’s an intelligent girl, obviously. What do you think she’s interested in, for fun?”
“I have no idea!” Caleb says. “She barely uses her social media accounts. It’s unbelievable.”
“Jesus, kid,” Jim started to say, and Deacon raised his hand. Thankfully, Jim lapsed into silence.
“That’s okay,” Deacon said. “It just means you’ve got more to share with each other when you chat. You ask her what she likes to do for fun. If she’s slow to share that with you, then you start off by telling her what you like to do for fun. The conversation will flow from there.”
“You think so?” Caleb asked. He laughed. “That sounds way too easy.”
“You’ve just gotta be yourself, man,” Deacon said. “That’s my most important piece of advice to you. Be true to who you are, and don’t worry about what others think. You’ve gotta be able to live with yourself and the decisions you make, and that’s tough if you compromise your values and what’s important to you. Be yourself, always, and things will take care of themselves.”
Frenzied - A Suspense Thriller Page 18
