Damaged Hope

by L. K. Hill

  "How?"

  "He's gotten himself invited to a club two nights from now. Spurious Guise will be there. My contact will get close and have a look. If it's Manny, mystery solved. If not, back to square one. Think you can stay alive for a few more days?"

  Kyra chuckled. "You'll be pleased to know I won't be going back into the Mire for the time being."

  For the first time, Phil sounded relaxed, more like himself. "No kidding? What happened?"

  "Uh," she wished she'd thought this through. "My employer tried to kill me and compromised my identity in the process?"

  Tense silence came through the phone. Goodbye relaxation.

  "I'm fine, Phil."

  "What about your employer? He still in the picture?"

  "Um…not so much."

  Phil grunted.

  "Anyway, I've promised the detective I'm working with that I'll stay put for now. If this Guise guy isn't Manny, I truly will be back to square one. I'll have to go back to the drawing board and it'll take more than two days anyway."

  "Good. I'll call you when I hear from my contact again."

  "Will you really call me this time?"

  Phil grunted again. "Just don't do anything until you hear from me, okay?"

  "Okay. Thank you. Thank your contact for me."

  Third grunt of the morning. The line went dead.

  Kyra sighed, wishing he wouldn't be so cryptic.

  A knock came at the door. Kyra glanced around. She didn’t see anything Gabe had forgotten. Crossing to the door, she rose onto her tip toes to look through the peep hole. She felt a pang of surprise at who stood there. Her heels thumped on the floor and she pulled the heavy door toward her.

  “Tyke. What are you doing here? You missed Gabe.” Kyra needed to crane her neck higher to look at Tyke than she did at Gabe. His blond hair stuck out at odd angles, and she noticed dark circles under his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Fine. Actually, I’m here to talk to you. I sort of missed Gabe on purpose. I’ve waited for him to leave for half an hour. Can we talk?”

  “Sure.” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  He did and she followed him into the room after shutting the door. His eyes went immediately to the rumpled bed. He threw a frown at her and then suddenly found the ceiling fascinating. Kyra’s cheeks heated. She became aware that, although the robe covered her from chin to toes, she wore only the bathrobe.

  “Can I have five minutes to get dressed?”

  “Of course,” he said hastily. “Take your time.” He crossed the room to stand in front of the window and folded his arms across his chest. She supposed it was his way of giving her privacy.

  Kicking some of her clothing from the previous night behind the bed where he wouldn’t see it, she threw open the bureau and yanked out the first clothes her fingers touched, then ducked into the bathroom. After tugging them on—jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, as it turned out—and running a brush through her hair, she returned to the room and dragged the two chairs together so they faced one another. She and Tyke sat down.

  “What’s up, Tyke?”

  Worry played across his features, and the circles under his eyes looked more pronounced than they had in the hallway. “I need a favor, Kyra. I’m sorry to ask, after all you’ve been through. It’s a big one.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  He didn’t answer, and she took it as a no. “Are your wife and girls okay?”

  “Oh,” he waved his hand dismissively. “They’re fine. This isn’t personal. It’s about the job.”

  “Oh. How can I help? Should I ask why you’re avoiding Gabe?”

  He winced. “I’m keeping this from him because he has a lot on his plate. Did he tell you he’s leaving town tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tyke nodded. “I don’t want to burden him with this. He needs to put his brother to rest. There’s a good chance he’ll get to after visiting the ranch. He needs to focus on that, not all this.”

  “Okay,” Kyra said slowly. “What’s ‘all this’?”

  Tyke sighed. “About Blagden. I mean Dunnworthy. I’m so sorry it happened, Kyra. We all are. It shouldn’t have. Not to you. Not to us.”

  “Tyke,” Kyra said gently. “You can’t take responsibility for everything bad in the world. Tell me what’s going on.”

  He gave her a strange look she couldn’t read. Fear? Guilt? That didn't make sense.

  “Officially Dunnworthy showed up to investigate the warehouse in the Carmichael District. They wanted to know how such a thing went on for so long without our knowledge. Obviously,” he smiled wryly and a tinge of bitterness entered his voice, "we aren’t doing our job right if such things can go on under our noses.”

  Kyra gave him a sad smile, wondering if this was why Tyke looked so stressed. “How could you possibly know about it?" she said. "It happened so deep in the Mire, the higher-ups won’t approve you to patrol the area. It’s too dangerous. How can they expect you to know what’s going on there?”

  “Hey,” Tyke raised his hands, “I’m with you. Glad somebody gets it. But IA, and the public, want answers. They want a scape goat.”

  Kyra shook her head to clear it. “Why does any of it matter? Chris lied, right? All an act?”

  Tyke slowly shook his head. “No. He obviously lied about his credentials, but the IA did order the investigation.”

  Kyra frowned, trying to make the pieces connect in her mind. “Are you saying the IA sent Chris, not knowing he was an imposter?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Tyke heaved another great sigh. “The woman ordered to send someone sent Chris. The higher-ups didn’t know who'd be sent. Only that someone would and a report would follow.”

  Kyra frowned. “The woman who sent him must have known. She must have been the one who helped him infiltrate the place, set up the fake identity, all of it.”

  Tyke nodded as she spoke. “Exactly.”

  Kyra waited. “And?”

  “And she disappeared the same hour Chris did.”

  Kyra’s shoulders slumped and she sat back in her chair. “Oh.”

  “Look,” Tyke said, sitting forward. “When this all started, when Dunnworthy first showed up, Shaun took Gabe off all cases except his brother’s and the killer in the Mire.”

  Kyra nodded.

  “Normally I would have gotten at least some of his other cases. I didn't, because Shaun put me on this instead. People need to see us doing something about it. Trying to figure it out so it doesn't happen again.”

  “What have you found out?” Kyra asked, leaning forward in her chair as he spoke.

  “Do you remember, in the warehouse, when we stormed the place, a lot of the people got away through an underground tunnel?”

  Kyra nodded slowly. Her recollections of that night felt so abstract, now. Like the memory of someone else’s dream. “I remember hearing talk about it. I never saw the tunnel, though.”

  He nodded. “We tried to head them off on the other side where it let out into the Mire. Like Shaun said before, by the time we found the right place, most of them had already disappeared beyond the seventh layer. We managed to arrest a few. From them, we’ve gotten some valuable information in exchange for plea bargains.”

  Kyra’s stomach dropped. “You’re making plea bargains with people who tortured others for fun?”

  Tyke looked pained. “I don’t like it either. We didn't have much choice. With a group that size, it's nearly impossible to prove who did what. Watching makes you a sick asshole, and an accessory, but not a murderer. Catching two or three people on what will probably end up being misdemeanors isn’t nearly as important as finding the source of this depravity and putting a stop to it.”

  A deep foreboding entered Kyra's belly. "How do you plan to do that?"

  “They have a base of operations somewhere. We mean to find it.”

  Everything cli
cked for Kyra. "Deep Abstreuse. You're going beyond the seventh layer.”

  He nodded, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him. “The place you saw just before the killer dragged you to The Purple Valentine? We think that may be it.”

  Kyra sat back. “You’re going in the Dictim," she breathed.

  “Yes.”

  She met Tyke's eyes. “And you want me to come with you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Tyke's face turned foreboding. He nodded.

  “To do what?” Kyra asked.

  “Nothing,” he said firmly. “Look, taking you in there at all is dangerous. I’ll keep you as protected as possible. I just need you to observe. Things will stand out more to you, and you’ll make more correct connections than any of us can. Because you’ve lived in the Mire, at street level.”

  “When is this happening?” she asked softly.

  “The night after tomorrow.”

  Kyra frowned. Something seemed off about this. "Shaun said he'd never approve sending people into Old Abstreuse after dark.

  Tyke's eyes took on a hunted look. “Like I said, it’s politics. They need answers. We’ll be as safe as possible." He studied his hands in his lap.

  Kyra studied Tyke. No, something else was going on here. She just didn't understand what.

  "Okay, Tyke," she leaned forward and took his hands. "I want to help. I do. But you need to tell me everything. Gabe and Cora say you've been preoccupied these last few weeks. Now you're acting…weird. There are things you aren't saying. I can tell. Tell me what they are. Then I'll decide whether or not to go with you."

  He looked worried. The next moment, his face relaxed and his shoulders slumped, as though all the air had gone out of his sails. "All right," he sighed. "The truth is, this op isn't exactly official. Shaun knows about it, but he doesn't have to officially approve it because it's not actually on the books."

  "Why not?"

  Tyke sighed. "The information we've gotten from the people we captured in the Carmichael District is that the leadership of the Prowlers are having a meeting in the Dictim tonight. We want to capture those leaders—about a dozen—and bring them in. The meeting is tonight, so we have to go in while it's dark. The higher-ups will never approve something like this. It's too dangerous."

  His words surprised Kyra. "The Prowlers have leadership?"

  Tyke nodded. "Remember what Shaun said before? He said something changed and the Prowlers have been more aggressive over the past six months? Based on the number of bodies buried in The Purple Valentine, this killer has been here in Abstreuse for about that long. We just didn't know it until you arrived." He took a deep breath. "We think there's a good chance the killer is leading the Prowlers, spurring them on to more violent behavior."

  Kyra felt her own eyes widen as understanding set in. Raw, brutal understanding. "You're going down there to find the killer."

  Tyke nodded. "You saw him go into the Dictim, Kyra. And he treated the Prowler who jumped into your path as a subordinate. We think there's a good chance he'll be in the Dictim at this meeting."

  "So this isn't about arresting Prowlers at all," Kyra said.

  "No, it is. It's both. The official unofficial mission here is to arrest the leadership of the Prowlers. We may be able to charge them with crimes in the Carmichael District. More broadly, we're hoping that disbanding their leadership will lead to less violence from the Prowlers as a whole. At least for the time being." He sat back in his chair, heaving a sigh. "The unofficial unofficial mission that only I and now you know about, is searching for the killer. Kyra, you're the only one who's seen his face."

  "I couldn't see him, Tyke," Kyra said, raising her palms in objection. "My vision was blurry. I don't think I could identify him."

  "I understand," Tyke said gently. "You do know his voice. You said you'd recognize it anywhere. And no one else has even seen his shadow darken a doorway, Kyra. You're the only one who has any chance at all of identifying him."

  "I…" Kyra wasn't sure she felt right about any of this. She'd just promised Gabe to stay put until he returned. Even if this whole plan went perfectly, even if they actually caught the killer, Gabe would still be furious. "I don't know, Tyke. What if we're wrong? What if people get killed and we don't find the killer? Could you live with that?"

  Tyke looked more serious than she'd ever seen him. He'd always had a ready smile. Now he looked serious, exhausted, ten years older. "I've been wrestling with what I can live with for a long time, Kyra. And right now, I don't want to live with this killer on the loose anymore."

  Kyra sighed. She understood that sentiment more than she cared to admit. She couldn't live with herself unless she put herself in bodily danger to try and find her brother. Tyke wanted to do the same thing to find a killer and help Gabe, who he regarded as a brother. Who was she to judge him for it? "Gabe's gonna kill us both when he finds out."

  "I'm doing this for Gabe."

  Kyra raised her eyes to Tyke's. They looked sincere. Pleading.

  "When he comes back from the ranch, he'll probably be an emotional wreck, Kyra. He's my best friend. And my partner. This sick bastard is tormenting him. You know what you're doing out there. Better than most people. You've survived Norse, Josie, Prowlers, other things. You and I are the only ones with the skill, the resources, and the desire to go find this psycho and bring him in. Gabe will be angry. You're right. But how much of a relief will it be to be able to tell him we have this killer in custody? Help me, Kyra. We can do this. For Gabe."

  Kyra felt her objections evaporating. She loved Gabe. No use denying it. More than once now he'd offered to put his life and his career on hold to help her find Manny. Tyke was offering her the chance to do the same for Gabe: to bring this killer in and finally get justice for his brother. And Tyke was right: she'd survived countless dangers in the Mire through sheer determination and grit. Why would this be any different?

  She began to nod, slowly at first and then more quickly. "Okay. Yes. I'm in."

  Tyke looked like the weight of world had been lifted from his shoulders. "Good," he breathed. "Thank you."

  "You said this is happening two nights from now. Won't Gabe be back by then?"

  Tyke shook his head. “He may come back the same night, but I checked. The airport near the town he’s going to is small. Flights only go out at certain times. He shouldn't be back until two or three in the morning. We’ll be done by then. With any luck, we’ll have good news for him about the killer. Hopefully he'll find Dillon's body and finally lay his brother to rest. Put all this damn drama behind us for good.”

  The heaviness in Tyke’s voice infected Kyra. The opposite outcomes were also possible. Gabe might not find anything at the ranch. Or, knowing this killer and all the bizarre twists the case had taken, he might find something to upend his world in a totally different way.

  People might be hurt, or killed in this sting operation. What if it yielded no results, or landed them in hotter water with IA? What if Tyke's hunch proved wrong and the killer simply wasn't there.

  No matter the outcome, their worlds could change momentously in the next three days. Kyra nodded to herself. Just as well. It had been true of her life since she arrived in Abstreuse.

  Tyke suddenly rose. "I'll let you get some sleep. And I'll be in touch. At some point, I'll send someone over to get you all decked out.”

  “Decked out?”

  "I want you to wear a wig, so you aren’t recognized. You’re the genius with the makeup, so you can do what you want, or nothing. Normally I’d put you in a uniform or police vest, so it looks like you’re one of us, but none of us will be bearing police insignia in there. It’ll make us targets. So it’ll be what you’re used to: dark clothes to help blend into the shadows. This time you’ll have Kevlar underneath.”

  Kyra nodded. “Okay.”

  He moved toward the door, then hesitated. “Kyra, you can’t talk to anyone about this.”

  She frowned. “I get why you don’t want Gabe to know.
Why no one else? Who else is involved?”

  Tyke hesitated again, looking indecisive. “Shaun knows. Obviously. But this is strictly need-to-know. Kyra, we’re pretty sure we have a mole in the precinct somewhere.”

  Kyra went still. “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Even with the help of someone from IA, Dunnworthy needed certain clearances someone in our precinct had to have given him. And it’s not only him. The warehouse, other cases. A certain amount of criminal activity always seems to slide through. More than normal. We think someone is working for the other side.”

  “When you say the other side, do you mean the gang? The mob?”

  “All we know is something's not right." Tyke wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

  A random memory, from what now seemed long ago, entered Kyra's mind. "It happened with the Carlotta case, too, didn't it?"

  Tyke gave her a worried look. "What do you mean?"

  "They had a little girl, remember? No one realized it. A detail that big shouldn't have slipped past everyone. Shaun said it got lost in the shuffle because the crime scene was so insane. Do you think it could be a result of this mole?"

  Tyke studied his hands. She wondered if he'd replayed the case in his head, too. "Yeah, I do," he said quietly. "Anyway, don’t talk about this operation over the phone. Only in person with me or Shaun. We don’t want it to fall on the wrong ears until we can smoke out the rat.”

  Kyra nodded. “I understand.”

  “If I need to text or call you, I’ll refer to it as the Restaurant, so it sounds like we’re talking about dinner, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He stood, and she did the same. “I gotta get back.”

  Kyra hesitated. "Gabe is going to come see me later on today, before he gets on the plane."

  Tyke froze on his way to the door, turning back to look at her. "Kyra, you can't tell him."

  "I won't. But I hate the idea of lying to him." She sighed. "I'll figure it out. I promise." She smirked. "Maybe I can call Cora and get her to nag him for me until he leaves."

  Tyke's eyes widened in alarm. "What?"

  Kyra's smirk slipped. "Isn't that what you did earlier? Cora kept calling Gabe because he hadn't left. You told her to call him to get him out of the room so you could talk to me, right?"