I stopped shifting my weight from one thigh to the other. “With all due respect, Maisie—”
“Maisie Michaelson is probably dead with her little panties shoved in her mouth,” he snarled. “Keep your eyes on Sullivan.”
We both went very still. The pen stopped thumping against the paper and I gripped the maroon fabric of the chair a little tighter.
“Sure, Charlie,” I said. I used the old name hoping it would soften the irritation in my voice. “I’m on it.”
“I don’t like busting your balls, but someone wants answers,” he said.
“What right does Memphis have to—”
“This isn’t about the friend. Just get me what I need, all right?”
“Answers.”
“Yes, some fucking answers,” he agreed and his shoulders relaxed, inching down away from his earlobes.
“Permission to talk freely, sir,” I said.
“I’m not your commanding officer, Jim.”
“Can you think of any uses a tooth fairy might have for a Q-tip?”
Charlie’s brow furrowed. “Is this a joke?”
“Humor me,” he said.
“He wants to make sure there are no teeth hiding in your ears?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I doubt it. What else?”
“I don’t have fucking time for this,” he said, falling back against his chair.
I threw him a bone. “We are brainstorming a case. Work with me.”
Charlie exhaled. “I don’t know. He’s going to buccal swab your ass.”
“Why a buccal swab?” I asked. Buccal swabs, those Q-tips taken to the inside of the cheeks to match DNA to crimes, were a strange association.
“To make sure the DNA matches your teeth. There was a punk in my old school. Hank Hills. He used to beat up the littler kids and put their teeth under his pillow so his parents would give him more money, until they caught on, of course. Little prick.”
“To make sure the teeth were yours,” I said aloud, trying the idea out.
Could a man, pretending to be the tooth fairy, come into the Michaelsons’ house late one night and use a buccal swab on Maisie? If so, why check the girl’s genetic history? It wouldn’t point to the Michaelsons. They were her adoptive parents. They’d adopted her just after her birth, and it was not a secret to anyone. So who the hell would want to know where the child came from?
Charlie gripped the edge of his desk, stood and unbuttoned his suit jacket. “I told you to focus on the Sullivan case. Forget about the kid.”
“Sure, sure,” I said, humoring him. I didn’t want him to think I was obsessing. He would take me off the case and stick my ass in counseling if he thought it best. “I’ll find Sullivan first.”
I thought I was lying at the time.
Chapter 13
38 Weeks
I am at my desk in my apartment in Nashville. I’ve favored apartments most of my adult life. There is no yard to cut and no responsibility for repairs. You can get one as big or as small as you like, and if you insist on the top floor, preferably a corner unit, it stays pretty quiet. It is also easier to move if all you have to do is break a lease on a furnished apartment. Selling a house full of your shit is something else entirely. All my belongings can be packed into the trunk of my Impala. I do have one storage unit in Atlanta, but even that is on the bare side.
This particular apartment, probably my last, is a nice one-bedroom loft. It has a huge window along the western wall, overlooking the city skyline. I leave my desk and go to the window, watching the sunlight bleed out, expecting full dark to overtake the city at any moment.
I feel Caldwell behind me. I know he’s there before I even turn around. It isn’t just my soldier senses as I like to call them, the knack for knowing when someone has come up behind me because of some imperceptible sound they’ve made or simply their body heat alone. I know Caldwell by the buzz in my head.
The pressure between my ears intensifies as if I’ve stood up too quickly. It isn’t my own pulse I hear thrumming in my ears though. It is him, scurrying around in there.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” I say, without taking my eyes of the beautiful lights ahead of me. The lights make me think of the parking lot carnivals I loved as a kid, the smell of cotton candy and kettle corn and rides that will take you up and sling you around for a ticket. “What took you so fucking long?”
He laughs then, a low chuckle so unlike the laugh I’d heard ten years ago, the first time I’d met him in the bar when Peaches, the barkeep, had made a joke. Or had we laughed about something else? My memory isn’t what it used to be.
“I was nervous,” Caldwell says.
I turn away from the window then, hands still in my pockets, and look at him. He is in a pressed suit. The gray looks like something soft and vulnerable, a rabbit maybe. The tie is blood red. At least some part of him can still tell the truth.
“You were nervous?” I ask and try to ignore the uncomfortable pressure between my temples.
He’s counting the bottle caps I have arranged in two rows on the table. “Yes. You’re thinking of the time I met you at Blackberry Hill. You were all sorts of pissy about being called out as a cop—”
“Federal agent,” I correct.
The corner of his lip tugs up. “A federal agent and when you went to leave I laughed, rather nervously, because I wasn’t sure we’d get another chance to talk.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
He looks up then. One slender white finger, no longer the hands of a mechanic or laborer, is pressed to the smooth button top of a bottle cap.
“I know how you remember it,” he says. “And you don’t remember much at all.”
That worries me. What if I get it wrong?—oh I shouldn’t be thinking about this.
“I wouldn’t deny a dead man his memoir,” Caldwell says. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Aren’t you a sweetheart,” I say. “What should I worry about?”
“This,” he says and tosses me a folded piece of paper. It’s deeply creased, the folds nearly flat. He’s had it for a while and opened it many times.
The drawing is similar to Jackson’s, with two exceptions. The first, this drawing is sketched out with a felt pen, not with the pencil that Jackson prefers. So the lines are darker, thicker and more chaotic.
The second exception, I stand with the Python at the ready, but instead of having my gun pressed to the side of Caldwell’s head, I’m pointing it at nothing. My barrel is aimed at the great darkness that lies before me, a menacing idea rather than an actual man.
Here, Caldwell stands behind me with both hands wrapped around my throat, his grip suggesting he is just a heartbeat away from snapping my neck.
“That’s what I wanted to know,” he says. “If they were different.”
“Either he flatters you,” I begin, but I can’t finish, not aloud anyway. Or Jackson didn’t have the heart to show me more.
“Or she didn’t have the heart to see more,” Caldwell suggests. My look must be unfriendly because he holds his hands up in mock surrender, palms out as if asking for forgiveness. “Delaney is a show off, though, yes. You’re quite right about that.”
“You’re quite right about that,” I mock. “Where did you learn to talk?”
“Why?” he asks, amusement curling his words. “Thinking of disappearing yourself? Reinventing your own image? I know a few people who are skilled at that kind of thing.”
“I don’t run away,” I say. Not like you.
If he hears this, and why wouldn’t he, he makes no response. Instead, he picks up the bottle cap he’s been pressing down into the tabletop and tosses it into the air. On the next breath he catches it. “I thought you’d quit drinking so much,” he says.
“I thought you’d quit murdering people,” I say.
“Old habits die hard.” Caldwell smiles then. “Like old men.”
“Not all of us can age as well as you do,” I say, alluding to th
e fact that he will not age as long as he keeps dying. His NRD, his ability to die and wake up with fresh cells and a smooth face has kept him young. And if he keeps dying, it will be his mind that goes before his body.
He laughs and I find myself comparing the man I met ten years ago to the one I see now. He’s gotten his teeth fixed and a bit more cosmetic surgery to hide the scars along his jaw better. He quit dyeing his hair and let it grow in natural. Now it’s the same color as Jesse’s again, and he has her freckles too.
“How is my daughter?” he asks. “You spend more time with her than I do.”
“If she is your daughter, I’m the Holy Ghost.”
“That isn’t a very nice thing to say.” His eyes darken and I reach my hand behind my back and put it on the Glock resting there.
“She quit being your daughter when you tried to kill her,” I say.
I raise my gun to put a bullet in his brain. To hell with waiting for weeks and weeks for the inevitable. We can do this now and we can do it my way.
But Caldwell disappears. One moment he is in front of me, stepping forward. The next moment I feel two cold hands grabbing me. One squeezes the back of my neck, the other locks my arm into place so I can’t shoot.
“Is this dress rehearsal?” Caldwell says, laughing into my ear. He presses himself against me and I consider my options. My cheek burns and I realize he’s hit me when reaching around. Not a direct hit, but it will bruise.
“Relax, old man,” he says. “I didn’t come here to kill you. If I’d wanted to kill you I would have done it a long time ago, don’t you think? I’ve had enough opportunities.”
“Why haven’t you?” I demand an answer. My anger is real, raw and surfacing fast.
“I am what I am because of you,” he says, squeezing me tighter.
The pressure in my brain intensifies and I wonder if I will hemorrhage. Maybe he will weaken some vessel and I’ll have an aneurysm here and now.
“You led me to Henry Chaplain,” he says. “You showed me the path to my true destiny and all the greatness for which I was intended, and Jesse too.”
My blood turns cold at the mention of her name.
“Every day you make her more and more into what she is meant to be. I can feel it. You’ll make her ready for me. I wouldn’t dare disrupt that.”
I break his grip and whirl, wide and angry. I shove the Glock under his chin and it raises to accommodate the barrel. But before I can pull the trigger, all the resistance goes out. I stumble forward, almost hitting the dark glass, the bright city beyond.
Caldwell is gone.
Chapter 14
37 Weeks
“Oh my God,” Jesse wails. “Who does that?”
She stands over the computer I’ve dismantled in her garage. We’ve moved her car out to the driveway and closed the door behind us so that no one can see me. The bright fluorescents make the computer components shine.
“I want you to put it back together,” I say. I offer her the small screwdriver. “Just do what I told you.”
She throws her hands up. “And what if he has a Mac. This won’t work on a Macbook.” She flicks her ponytail over her shoulder and crosses her arms. She has a flair for the dramatic that rivals any drag queen.
“He has a Compaq,” I say and offer her the screwdriver again. I’m referring to Mr. Lovett, an upcoming target. Jesse will have to go into his home and steal his hard drive for me. I could do it, but I want to teach her something while I still can.
“You put it in all these little pieces,” she whines, but she takes the tool from me. “Why is it in so many pieces? And they are so tiny, look at this.” She shakes a chip at me.
“Hurry,” I tell her. “We still need to work on your locks.”
She glances at the corner of the garage by the door leading into the house. A cardboard box brims with locks, old and new. I told her lockpicking and computer knowledge were essential to life as a secret agent, and it is mostly true. Though technology has changed most of this.
“Can we do the locks first and then the computer?”
I grunt. “Nice try.” I know she likes the lock picking. TV has made it just cool enough for her to be interested. But if I let her start there, she’ll never do the computer.
“And why do I even have to dismantle the computer?” she complains. “Can’t I just take a USB and steal all his files or something?”
“What if you can’t turn it on?” I ask.
“I’m not technologically challenged.”
“I’m not saying you are, but can you imagine another reason why the computer might not come on for you?” I press.
That shuts her up and she gives me a wary look, like she is expecting me to call her out on something. I could. This would be the perfect time to do so. I could say, I know you have problems with electricity. You bust wires and blow fuses. Just like Caldwell, who can step from one place to another far, far away. You have this gift and you’ll have to learn how to work with it, or around it.
But Jesse hasn’t officially told me what is going on with her, and I’ve heard her lie about the number of lightbulbs she’s replaced and blame static electricity far too often. She doesn’t want to talk about it with me, and I respect that.
“Agents don’t whine. Do your computer,” I say and lean against the garage wall, waiting.
“I’m not a whiner. I am, like, the toughest person you know.”
“I’ll tell Jackson you said that,” I begin. “If you don’t shut up and get to work. I’m not going to stand here all damn day.”
“OK, the second toughest,” she corrects.
I shove an overturned milk crate toward her so she can sit in front of the dismantled computer. She plops down onto the seat and starts working.
I watch her face furrow in concentration and a weight settles against my chest. I’m trying to teach her something, sure, but I know this is as much for me as it is for her.
I can’t get over Caldwell’s words. You’re making her ready for me.
I hope not. But if I am, how? By teaching her? What was the alternative? Let her die unprepared?
She snaps each of the components onto the board, one at a time. She’s figuring it out for herself, without my help. Good. It’s better this way.
Chapter 15
Monday, March 24, 2003
I ran dummy Rachel’s fingerprints through the system and it came back for a Heidi Tripe, arrested two years ago for a drunk and disorderly, and six months after that for possession for less than an eighth of marijuana. The second case was dropped.
As she sat in the plastic chair opposite mine, I explained the identity theft charges I was laying against her. I had to talk a great deal about fines and jail time before she opened her mouth.
“Henry Chaplain,” she finally told me and pressed her shaking hands to her eyes. When her palms came away dark with smeared makeup, she rubbed them together. “His name isn’t Jason, it’s Henry Chaplain. He has a place over near Beckett Park, on Page Street.”
“Write the address down,” I told her. She hesitated, rolling the pen between her fingers.
“He’s going to know it was me.”
“How would he know?”
“He knows shit. He knows everything.”
“You’re saying this guy is telepathic?”
Her eyes doubled in size. “Maybe. He has a way of getting into your head, you know?”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Now write down the address or I won’t be able to say you were fully cooperative.”
She began to cry again but at least she picked up the pen and did what I said, which is good, because Charlie walked by the room and saw me with her. I was going to have to get the hell out of this office if I wanted to get any work done. I couldn’t do shit with Charlie hovering.
“So let me just be clear. You were applying to jobs as Rachel because Chaplain told you to throw us off her trail. He said he didn’t want anyone looking for her. Did I get that right?”
>
She sniffed and nodded.
“Good. Let’s get you over to County,” I said.
Mild reluctance became complete resistance. The girl screamed and refused. When I tried to pull her up from her seat, she scooted back, wrenched her arm away and threw the chair. The commotion drew others. Hunter Connolly and Tom Trainer helped me get her out of the room, cuffed, and into the back of the car.
“You’ve killed me,” she said. She screamed so hard her face was red with the effort. “You’ve killed me.”
Charlie appeared beside us outside on the curb. Before I could thank and dismiss Hunter and Tom, Charlie barked his own orders.
“Trainer, get her down to County,” Charlie said.
Heidi’s face was redder than a tomato as she screamed and kicked the seat in front of her. Trainer gave me a reluctant look but I nodded and handed him the keys. “I’ll call ahead and tell them you’re coming.”
Hunter went back inside and Tom got behind the wheel of my car. As he put the Impala in reverse, Charlie turned to me and said, “Don’t you have something else to do?”
I did. As soon as Trainer got back, I packed up my shit and went to the bar. The atmosphere and the company would be better if nothing else.
When I walked into Blackberry Hill, Peaches, a heavy-set old guy who owns the place waved heartily, his great arm flopping like a beached fish. Peaches made me think of a biker Santa. His white hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck and matched his great white beard. On his left bicep was a picture of his dog, Roxanne, a Pit-Rottweiler mix.
“B. You here to practice for the tourney?” he called out.
“Not today,” I said. “It’s a work date.”
Peaches frowned. “Where’s the darn fun in that?”
I shrugged. “The house pint will have to be fun enough.”
Peaches pulled a frosted mug out of the fridge and poured a Blackberry Hill draft with one tug of the silver tap. He used a ruler to slide the foam off before refilling it.
A boy band came on the jukebox and I snorted foam out my nose. Peaches was an AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and Bon Jovi man all the way.
Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) Page 5
