What’s wrong with me? I close my eyes, afraid to know the truth.
“Joe,” she says, “can you hear me?”
I drag my eyes open again. My hospital room has the standard two-person setup with a privacy curtain. The lack of extensive equipment cabinets tells me it’s a long-term recovery room, not post-operative care or intensive care. A monitor patch peeks from underneath the cheap, fabric hospital gown I’m wearing. A thin, white blanket covers my body, which feels numb. I tell my toes to move, and a lump under the blanket where feet should be makes a reassuring motion. Which allays my worst fear—that the numbness was more than just painkillers or anesthesia after-effects.
I lick my lips before trying to speak. They’re chapped and stiff, like I’ve spent a week in the desert. When I finally look at her again, I see her arm and shoulder are wrapped in a silvery bandage. It’s clearly meant to immobilize her arm.
“You okay?” I manage to get out, even though my throat rasps like sandpaper.
The worried look on her face disappears into a smile. “I’m doing better than you.”
I want to smile, but my face is still sluggish. I fight through it to muscle up a half-smirk and make my words clear. “That was the result I was aiming for.”
Her face loses the humor. “Then it’s a good thing you passed out.” She chastises me with a tiny scowl that’s so cute, the smile comes easier to my face. “Seriously, what were you thinking, Joe? You were shot! If you paid out too much, you could have died.”
I don’t bother explaining how little that matters compared to her dying from a bullet meant for me. But now that it sinks into my brain that she’s alive, and somehow I’m alive too, the questions rush in.
“What happened?” I have to swallow, but my mouth works better the more I use it. “I think I was unconscious for the good part.”
Another person strides into the room as I speak. My eyes still struggle with the light, but I quickly recognize Flitstrom in his jacket and tie.
“I’ll take some of the credit for you being alive.” His smile looks out of place, like an undertaker who’s having a great day. I think I like it better when he’s uptight and serious. “If I hadn’t showed up and called for medical care before you lost too much blood, I doubt you would have made it. It was a close call as it was.”
“You showed up?” I stretch my mind back to when everything unraveled at the safehouse. The memory is hazed by pain and a distance of time that’s unclear to me, like a patch of my life went missing while I was visiting a place where the dead spoke to me. I remember the two men appearing at the door. It couldn't be a coincidence, the thugs showing up at my doorstep when I was expecting Flitstrom.
The questions pile up in my head. “Who were those guys? How did they find me? And how long have I been here, anyway?”
Flitstrom glances at Elena, and she gives him a nod before he answers. “You’ve been out about a week. We almost lost you on the operating table. You apparently,” he raises his eyebrows, “have a large cache of life energy within you, but your wound was draining it too fast. I authorized some medical needs life hits to counter the drain long enough to get you through the operation. You’re just lucky the bullet missed any major internal organs.”
My face is slack with surprise. “Someone gave me life hits? While I was out?” My mind wraps around this, and I wonder briefly if it was someone I know. Probably not.
“You’re part of a major case for the District Attorney,” he says, the serious bean counter returning. “A key witness. We needed you alive.”
I nod—this side of Flitstrom makes my shoulders relax. “But who were they?”
“Kolek’s men, although we didn’t find that out until later. When I got there, one of Kolek’s men was dead at the scene. It appears you drained the other almost completely, but we were able to get him medical attention and resuscitate him. Which is fortunate, because now the DA can pressure him to help in the case against Kolek as well.”
I thought I had killed them both, but the first drain must have been interrupted by a bullet tearing a hole through me. I hold an arm across my middle and ease myself to sit straighter in my hospital bed. The movement feels dangerous, like my insides are going to fall out. I move like I’m Rip Van Winkle, stiff from a hundred year sleep.
“Good thing you showed up when you did,” I say with genuine appreciation. “But how did they find us?”
“That was indeed the question,” he says. “We were able to track their phones back to Kolek’s estate. The order came from there, but there was no way for us to determine how they found the safehouse. When we reviewed your recording, we had the evidence we needed to get a search warrant for Candy’s office. It was there that we found the records to make the connection. Your psych officer had a tap on my phone. She must have overheard the coordinates when you called. Phone records show she contacted Kolek, who then sent his men.” Flitstrom’s face draws down a little. “I’m sorry, Lirium. I should have realized she would try to eliminate you before you could expose her operation. I’m afraid I inadvertently put you in danger.” He looks as contrite as a bean counter can, but it makes me cringe.
“It’s not your fault, Flitstrom. I didn’t exactly tell you everything.”
Flitstrom’s eyes narrow.
I sigh and lean back into the cranked-up hospital mattress. “Remember the ‘illegal records’ I showed you? I shook Candy down to get them. She had plenty of reason to want me dead, even if she didn’t know I was on to her about the kids. I should have told you that.”
He frowns, but only says, “Well, she’s in custody now. And after the search of her records, we were able to connect her to another psych officer named Kennedy. He was the one altering records to create the ghost files. As far as we can tell, there were no other Department personnel involved.”
“That’s because the hit was ordered from outside the Department.” I glance at Elena. “You looked at my recording, right? The part after I stopped Moloch from killing the girl, I mean?”
Elena nods. “They wanted to lift it from your palm screen while you were out, but I told them not to. That I’d made a copy, and they could use that instead.”
I give her a smile and remind myself to kiss her as soon as it’s reasonable. Possibly even when it’s unreasonable.
“What about Moloch?” I ask Flitstrom. “Did you find the body?” I’ve been out a week. They must have put all of that together by now.
“Body?” Flitstrom asks, throwing a look to Elena, who is also puzzled.
“Moloch’s body? The one dressed as an intern? Dumped in the alley outside the hospital?” I wasn’t the one to kill him—he did a fine job of that himself—but I did drag his body to a dank alleyway and leave it there. My attempts to conceal it were weak at best. After all, I expected it to be found eventually.
“We didn’t find a body,” Flitstrom says.
Elena adds, “Your recording ends with his attempt to get you to join this group, Gehenna. We just…” She glances at Flitstrom. “… assumed that you let him go? You didn’t mention anything about it at the safehouse.”
I suck in a breath, really not wanting to lay this all out. But the confused look on their faces leaves me no choice. Moloch’s body is probably lying in a morgue somewhere as a John Doe, and he’s prime evidence in the case. They need to find it.
“Look, it got a little… messy after I stopped the recording. He didn’t just walk away from that whole encounter.” I avoid Elena’s wide brown eyes and focus on Flitstrom’s steely blue ones instead. “He was pretty drained already. I had to do it… to keep him from killing the girl and to get him to fess up about the whole operation.” My voice is getting more defensive as I go. “Anyway, I realized I couldn’t just let him go, and I didn’t want to kill him. I was going to try to knock him out, or bring him in, or something, but then he…”
The memory of him biting down on his own hand makes me queasy. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m still recovering from bei
ng shot. Elena stares at me. I hurry to explain how it really went down, to short-circuit whatever she’s imagining.
“He figured out I was going to bring him in. At least, I think he did, because he did this crazy thing where he bit down on his hand and took some kind of poison. Foamed at the mouth and everything. Killed himself right in front of me.”
They blink at me.
“I know,” I say. “I didn’t believe it at first, but I couldn’t just leave the body there. So I switched clothes, wheeled him out, and dumped the body in the alley. Someone must have found him. He had the fake ID on him that I used to get into the hospital. He’s probably in a morgue somewhere.”
Flitstrom is already on his phone, searching.
I look to Elena, hoping she doesn’t think horrible things about me again. “I wouldn’t have killed him,” I say to her. And it’s true, at least I think it is. I certainly didn’t hesitate to kill Kolek’s thugs at the safehouse. But they tried to kill me first. And nearly succeeded. And they shot Elena—and if I’m honest, that alone would have earned them a life-draining death from me.
She nods and puts a hand on mine, the one without bandages. “I know. I’m sure whatever you did was necessary. And right.” Her fingers are warm on the back of my hand. I flip it over to hold hers, relishing the softness, her touch, the fact that she has faith in me. I drink that in like it’s the sweetest life hit I’ve ever had. Even if I have to borrow that faith from her, see it in her to believe it, just doing so makes the thought stronger in my mind. No, I wouldn’t have killed Moloch. Not if there was a way around it. But I would have done everything to keep him from perpetuating his crazy brand of evil on the world. Because I have a choice about the kind of man I want to be. And I want to be the kind that makes Elena look at me the way she is right now with her big, brown eyes.
Like I’m something decent. Something worth keeping.
I tug on her hand, urging her closer, because I’m afraid to lean over the edge of the bed to reach her. She leans in, and the corner of her mouth lifts as she realizes I’m bringing her in for a kiss.
We stall out when Flitstrom shakes his head and mutters, “That’s the last one.”
I give Elena a small smile that promises we’ll get back to the kiss. She stays closer to the bed, her hand lightly tracing a dance on my arm.
I force myself to ignore what that does to me and turn to Flitstrom. “What’s the last one?”
“What?” Flitstrom looks up from his palm screen.
I sigh. He wasn’t even talking to us.
“Oh,” he says, taking in the near cuddle that Elena and I are now engaged in. His face goes all business again. “I’ve searched all the morgues in the east side. There are no outstanding John Doe’s without DNA procedures complete. And we have Moloch’s DNA on file with the Agency. There’s no match.”
I frown. “Maybe his friends in Gehenna found the body and took it away?”
“Possibly.” Flitstrom nods.
“Could Moloch have faked his DNA with the Agency?” Elena asks. “Maybe he’s one of the bodies in the morgue, they just have the wrong DNA on file?”
I peer up at her. I’d make some kind of teasing comment about her being the only one who tampers with her own records, but Flitstrom’s in the room. And besides, that could be the kind of thing that an organization like Gehenna could pull off.
“Or maybe he’s not really dead,” Flitstrom says. “I’ve done a facial recognition scan with the recent morgue entries as well. Unless he had plastic surgery since you killed him, he’s not in the morgue.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I say pointedly. “He killed himself.”
“Are you sure?” Flitstrom asks.
My shoulders tense up. I didn’t actually check his pulse. How could I have forgotten to do that? “He seemed pretty dead to me at the time,” I say, but it’s weak. “Foamed at the mouth, seized up. Didn’t seem to be breathing when I hauled his cramped body into the wheelchair. In fact, I could hardly get him in there. He was dead weight and stiff.”
“Stiff?” Flitstrom asks.
“Like a board,” I say.
“Rigor mortis doesn’t set in for hours,” he says.
“Like I said, he took some kind of poison.”
“It could have been something that mimicked death for a short while,” Elena says. “Maybe he was buying time until this Gehenna group could come get him.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but she could be right. “He did seem to be relatively unconcerned about my threats to kill him. And he rambled, but I thought he was just stalling, afraid that I might—”
“From the recording, it sounded more like he was trying to recruit you,” Flitstrom says.
“And he knew he had this fake-poison option all along,” Elena says. “He wouldn’t be worried about you killing him if he was planning on faking his own death until his friends could come rescue him.”
I nod. “So, maybe he had an incentive to stretch it out.” I sigh. “Great. Moloch could still be out there, and if this Gehenna thing is real…”
“…they’re going to come looking for you again,” Flitstrom finished for me.
I was going to say they would keep killing kids. Or maybe try to stop the DA. But Flitstrom has a point, and Elena’s got that cute frown on her face again.
“Which is why,” Flitstrom says, “we’re keeping your identity here at the hospital a secret. Officially, you died at the safehouse. As far as any records are concerned, Joseph Miller is a deceased debt collector. And I’ve made arrangements for you to enter Witness Protection.”
My mouth hangs open as Flitstrom speaks. I finally shut it and say, “What?”
“You’re safe from Candy and her partner, Kennedy, given that they’re in custody,” Flitstrom says. “Kolek may believe the official story about your demise—he did send people to kill you, after all, and you did almost die. Even if he doesn’t, he may hesitate to come after you, given that you’re not central to the case against him, not with his own thug turning states’ evidence. But this Gehenna organization has already shown an interest in you, and you are clearly aware of them. They may want to know just how much you do know. Or try to recruit you again. Or…”
“Or try to eliminate me as a threat,” I say. It’s not hard to imagine Moloch showing up one night and trying to turn the tables on me.
“Either way,” Flitstrom says, “you’ll be safer if we move you. Witness Protection will give you a new identity. You won’t be able to collect anymore, because the pool of known collectors is too small. It would be too easy to identify you. You’ll have to get some training, find a profession you want to work in, but the Marshalls will help you get established in your new life.”
A new life? I stare at Flitstrom as he speaks, but my mind has a hard time grasping it.
“So I wouldn’t be collecting?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “As soon as you’re well enough to relocate, the Marshalls will move you.” He gestures to the closed hospital room door, and I finally notice that I’m alone in my two-bed hospital room. “We’ve had a twenty-four hour guard on you ever since you came out of surgery. But we can’t maintain that forever.”
“But… where would I go?”
“New Mexico. Possibly Texas. You’ll have to ask the Marshalls once they take you into the program.”
Elena’s hand in mine loosens slightly. I look up at her, but she keeps her face blank, like she doesn’t want me to know what she’s thinking. I tighten my grip on her hand, and she gives me the barest smile. It falls off her face almost as soon as it starts. She’s blinking more than she has to.
I look back to Flitstrom. He’s waiting, letting me think about it.
A new life.
I wouldn’t have to traffic in death anymore. I’d have to give up my addiction to life energy hits, too, but that’s a price I’d be willing to pay for not having to be the Grim Reaper. But there is a lot more I’d have to give up. My mom, who I’ve just finally gotten
back. The mastery of the mercy hits that I’ve finally obtained. The chance to do more good with Madam A’s kids, at least until she doesn’t have any more kids to care for. The DA’s investigation should shut down the need to smuggle children out of the hospital, and kids like Tilly should be able to live out whatever they have left of their lives.
I would lose Elena.
I could have a new life, but it would be empty of all the things I’ve finally found worth living for.
In a strange way, I already feel like I have a new life. From the moment I paid out to Tilly… from the first time Elena kissed me… when she was in my arms, and I couldn’t imagine anything better… I’m just starting to figure out what life I can have.
I’m just starting to know what I can truly do in the world.
Which makes me think about those last moments on the floor of the safehouse, pouring my life energy into a cage, trying to give Elena a chance at life. I tighten my grip on her hand, but I look at Flitstrom. “I have a few things here I’m not done with yet.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something else I learned in the safehouse,” I say, carefully. “Something I need to sort out before I can think about leaving LA.” I’m not sure how much of my new-found ability I should share with Flitstrom. He saved my life, but he’s part of the Department. And this isn’t something that I want the government involved in. Not yet, at least.
Flitstrom looks to Elena to see if she has any idea what I’m babbling about, but she’s just as confused. That’s okay, I’ll tell her soon enough.
“We’re taking care of the investigation, Lirium,” Flitstrom says. “You’ve done enough for that already. You’ve given us the evidence we need. And it’s really no longer safe for you here. You should leave as soon as you’re able, so you can keep intact the cover story we’ve created that you’re dead. If you don’t…”
He looks at Elena’s hand wrapped in mine. A dawning appears on his face, but then he looks grave. “If you don’t, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
The Debt Collector (Season 1) Page 36
