Charles Roebuck Swanson
Hero and Friend
April 10, 1952-October 15, 2012
My throat is tight but I manage some gratitude. “Thanks for ordering this and giving me the plot.”
“Not to be grim, but your grave is available again.” It sounds like a question.
“Not for long,” I say. He nods as if he knows this. Maybe Jackson told him already. “Have you gotten any closer to taking him out?”
“I’ve tried putting a bullet in his brain 23 times in the last six months alone,” I admit. How many rooftops and hotel rooms had I scouted? I couldn’t tell you. “Long range sniping mostly. The problem however is his AMP. I haven’t figured out how to kill a man who knows I’m coming.”
“By that logic, you would think you could save yourself,” he says, placing a hand in each of his suit pockets.
“Maybe,” I tell him because he is right. “Maybe I will.”
Chapter 33
Monday, March 31, 2003
“We got him,” Charlie said. He slipped into the chair opposite my desk and grinned.
“Sullivan?” I asked.
Charlie snorted. “I fucking wish. No, we got Brian Taft. The guy who killed the girl outside the bar last week. Tuesday, remember?”
A sickening image of a skull peeled open like a blood orange came back to me. “Yeah the hate crime in Lafayette. Kaitlyn Green.”
“Exactly. He confessed and everything. Saves me an assload of precious time. Speaking of Sullivan, how goes it?”
“I’m following a new lead,” I admitted and then I thought of a way to say what needed to be said.
Charlie waved his hand. “And?”
“What if the reclamation detainment camps weren’t closed?” I asked. I watched his face, measured his response. When he didn’t look surprised, I added: “Have you heard of any camps that are still open?”
“No,” he said. “The last closed last year.”
“But that is five years after they said they were closed,” I replied. Charlie looked up with dark eyes.
“What is going on?” I asked him. “What the hell kind of case is this? Why are you riding my ass so hard about it?”
I thought he would dismiss me, maybe tell me to mind my own business and do as I was told. It sure as hell wouldn’t have been the first time I’d received such a command. But instead, his eyes went all soft around the edges and the air in his chest came out in a sudden whoosh.
“I don’t know everything because I’m not cleared to, but I’ve heard things. Everyone hears things. They kept the camps open—a few of them anyway. They saw the opportunity for scientific discovery, warfare development, all that. They kept people, dissected them, tried to understand the biology behind the condition and see if it could be replicated. Some of it failed—which is how we have freaks like Jackson walking around.”
I stiffened at his derogatory remark about Jackson, but I didn’t interrupt.
“Eric Sullivan could have been one of the ones who were kept behind. He could have been the most promising subject available to them. One scientist called him highly compatible with their research, another an invaluable asset.”
“So where is he?”
“He escaped,” Swanson said. He exhaled the word escaped as if he’d held it inside himself for too long. “I was told that he broke out of the facility where he was held and that he began attacking the other facilities. Bombing them, destroying them and killing the people inside. Some pretty ruthless shit.”
I frowned. “How does one man have the means to do all that?”
“Apparently, he was in possession of many state secrets. The way they tell it, Sullivan was there of his own accord. They were paying him well, treating him like a king in exchange for his help.”
“If that was true,” I said, but I had doubts that a man locked up in a detainment camp would suddenly decide to help his captors. “Then what changed?”
“Who fucking knows? All I know is that they want him found and returned to their custody immediately. Dead or alive. Or some fucking state in-between.”
“If this is so important, why am I on the case?” I asked.
“You’re not the only one. They’ve got their own people looking too, I’m sure,” Charlie said. “But you’re the only one I trust.”
I let the compliment settle in before I asked. “Who are they?”
Charlie slipped out of the chair with a snort. “When your clearance is that high, you don’t have a name anymore.”
I wanted to press my luck and push for more information, but Charlie turned and frowned at me then. “Where’s your Beretta?”
I looked down at the shoulder holster nestled against my ribs to see the backup SIG Sauer resting there instead. “I misplaced it.”
“A Beretta is a hell of a thing to misplace,” he said.
I made a dismissive gesture but his comment nagged at me. In fact, since I woke up that morning and reached for the Beretta, expecting to find it on the nightstand. When I found nothing a strange feeling flicked through my mind. The fog that clouded my thoughts made me wonder if I should stop drinking so damn much. Or at least I should cut back.
Chapter 34
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
I’d just opened a beer when a furious pounding rattled my apartment door. I pulled the SIG without a second thought and called out from the kitchen. I was sure to position myself just inside the room first. If some lunatic blew a hole through my front door, at least I’d have cover.
“It’s Jackson,” she said. “I’m not here to kill you.”
I snorted at that. It was her delivery mostly. She wasn’t being funny, and that made it funny. She said it as if attempted murder was a serious consideration for people like us, and I guess it was.
I opened the door. She was clutching a newspaper and looked as if she’d slept as well as I had. Lucky for her, the dark circles under her eyes weren’t as visible as my own.
“What’s up, Jackson?”
“You drink too much.”
“And you can only walk upright if you take about fifteen pills,” I said. “What’s your point?”
She considered that for a moment then let it go. To her credit, she never mentioned my drinking again.
She thrust the paper at me which I accepted with my free hand. It was folded back on itself to frame an article: Dead Child Stolen was the headline, with a handful of paragraphs outlining the crime. Someone broke into the city morgue and stole a child’s corpse. The incident occurred two days ago and the parents of the dead child could not be reached.
“That’s some sick shit,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s for molestation,” Jackson said as if reading my mind. “I think it is a cover up.”
I saw where she was going. “Why would someone cut the head off a corpse and dump the body in a house fire?”
“To make us stop looking for the child,” she said. She spoke as if I was an idiot and trying to get through to me was a pain in her ass.
“Maisie,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Say her name,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I just realized that you never refer to her by name.”
“Why do I need to say her name?”
“Why are you so against saying her name?” I pressed. I had feeling I knew why, but I wanted to see if she’d admit it.
She stared at me stubbornly then said. “I found Rachel.”
Ah a name, I thought, but not the one I wanted her to say. She showed me the address and I recognized it immediately.
“No,” I said. “She’s not there.”
Jackson frowned at the address she’d written on the top of the article then looked back at me. “Yes, she is. That’s correct.”
Something in my mind churned. Memories came back but blurry and for no particular reason I shouted. “She’s not there.”
Jackson took a step back. “Why are you angry?”
I didn�
��t answer. The heat in my face added to the confusion. “I know that place and she isn’t there. She isn’t in any of the houses on Park Street. In fact, you can scratch off all the houses near Beckett Park.”
“You’re being irrational,” she said. “I know she is in this house. What do you know about the place?”
“I’m irrational. Says the person who can’t even say a child’s name because naming her makes it harder. It’s harder to find a dead child with a name.”
Her face went smooth, but if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she looked triumphant. “Have you ever been there?”
“No,” I said, but as I said it a strange feeling washed over me. Confusion again. I thought I was telling the truth but it didn’t feel right.
Her brow pinched. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Goddamnit.”
She didn’t believe me. I could tell just by looking at her.
“Fine,” she said. “Just get in the car.”
Chapter 35
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
We parked the Impala on the curb outside a small house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house looked nice and in good condition: two stories, black shutters against the white, ridges of wood. The numbers 567 to the right of the red door were curly and fantastical. I would have thought the house was dark and abandoned if not for the smoke rising from the brick chimney.
The only problem with the smoke was the for sale sign in the front yard. The padlocked front door, protected by a key code, didn’t look like anyone had been to see it in a while, officially anyway. And it was no surprise that the house hadn’t sold.
It was in one of those lower-middle class neighborhoods of St. Louis where there were more for sale signs cropping up every day and fewer moving trucks rolling in. Considering the grass was a bit too long, clearly neglected the preceding summer, I’d have guessed the house was on the market for at least a year.
I turned to the passenger seat where Jackson sat watching me. “You think someone has Maisie in there?”
“Yes,” she said, reaffirming what she told me on the way over.
“Then why did you come at me with all that Rachel shit?” I asked. “Why didn’t we come straight here?”
“You’re not ready,” she said, measuring me with her eyes again.
I felt my face grow hot, which was always the first sign that I was about to bite into someone and shake them like a dog toy. Jackson didn’t give me the chance. She pushed open the Impala’s heavy door and stepped out onto the adjacent curb. She was already around the front of the car before I got out.
I was curious how she planned to get in with the front door padlocked. She went to a window on the ground floor and pressed up against the glass. The pane slid open silently. Brilliant, of course, because if someone was in there toasting marshmallows by the fire or whatever the hell, we didn’t want to make a sound. But also, I wondered how she knew to check this window. She came right to it. She could have checked any of the windows or all of them and found them locked. But she knew.
She had the window open and was already pulling herself up into the ledge before I could offer her a boost. She was in good shape. I had to admire that. She was hard as a rock through her arms and up through her back and chest. She could move her body with slow, deliberate movements, sliding through the window without the smallest sound of fabric brushing the ledge. I admit I had an impure thought when I considered placing one or both hands on her ass just before she pulled her legs through.
Back on her feet, she crept into the dark room toward the door without offering me a boost up. Thanks a lot, I thought, but let the animosity go when I realized her hands were full. She had her gun out, pointing forward as she crept from the room. She checked left and right outside the doorway. Then swinging left into the hall, she disappeared. I had both hands on the ledge when Jackson called out.
“Brinkley, the front.”
I let go of the window ledge and dropped back down. Then I ran toward the front of the house. As I cut the corner, the street and other houses coming into sharp view, I saw Jackson hanging out the front window, the one closest to the chimney. “He went that way.”
She jabbed a finger right and I ran across the front of the house and hooked a corner. Just before the corner cut itself, I saw the man. He wore faded jeans and a jean jacket, work boots, and his hair, almost shoulder length, was a light brown. I also saw Maisie, swaddled in a pink princess blanket. Her eyes were wide in concern, but otherwise she looked unharmed. Her blond curls were pulled up into a single ponytail on the top of her head.
When her kidnapper cut the corner again, the child dropped something and immediately the wailing began. “Frederick. Frederick.”
As I whipped around the corner there was no one. Thinking he’d simply sped up, I ran faster, only to collide with Jackson. She hit me hard in the shoulder.
“Where did he go?” I demanded.
“He didn’t come this way,” she said, out of breath herself.
“I saw him cut that corner,” I said.
“He wasn’t on that side. I swear.”
I looked around her and saw only the next house. I didn’t believe the man could have dived into one of those windows holding a child, not in the half a second between Jackson and myself. For the same reason I didn’t believe he could have slipped through the ground level windows into the basement. First of all, they looked too small for a grown man. If he’d shoved Maisie in alone he’d run the risk of seriously injuring her on the fall to the floor.
I turned and looked at the great wide field behind us. Nothing. If he’d run out into the field, we would have definitely seen him. So where the hell was he?
“People don’t just disappear,” I said.
“Or fly,” she added.
We searched the area. Basement to attic, house and field. Nothing. The living room was full of little girlie things and too much pink, but there were no clues. No trail. There was no electricity in the house, which explained why the fire was needed. The big house would’ve been too drafty for the little girl otherwise. Finally, I retraced my steps and found what the girl had dropped. A black and white teddy bear that looked more like a dairy cow than a bear, with its large black eyes, clutching a red heart that said, “I love you.”
“I heard her call out the name Frederick,” Jackson said. “Maybe that is the guy’s name.”
I shook the bear at her. “Or this is Freddy, the teddy. She didn’t start screaming until she dropped it.”
She thumbed the safety on her gun. “She is alive and she was here.”
“Good job,” I said. It was automatic and maybe a bit condescending. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
She ran a palm over her head, flattening the inch of hair there. “How big is this?”
I stared out at land stretching before us. “Pretty big. But you’re not talking about the field, are you?”
She ignored me. “Why give us a missing child, then fake a child’s death, and take us off the case? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of it makes sense. Why has a kidnapper been sitting in a house with a little girl? He has to eat, shit, sleep. He has to leave the fucking house to steal bodies from morgues. What happens to Maisie then? Is he working alone? Or with someone? There are too many questions.”
Jackson shoved her gun into her holster and started walking back toward the car.
“He won’t come back here. He’s not stupid.”
“You’re probably right,” I said and followed her, still holding Freddy. “He didn’t get this far by being stupid.”
She waited for me to reach inside and unlock her door. Then she climbed through. “Just take me back to my car. We won’t find anything else today and I have to go back to the drawing board. I’ll have to find her all over again. With the Wright case—”
My windshield shattered. It took me a second to realize what happened. I still hadn’t processed why my windshield exploded when Jackson grabbed my arm and yell
ed. “Drive.”
A bright burst of blood was blooming on her left shoulder.
“Shit.” I started the Impala as more bullets came through the windshield, shattering the back window next. “Motherfuckers. Stop shooting my car.”
I threw the Impala in reverse and punched the gas without lifting my head. Jackson too had slumped down and covered herself with her good arm. The bullet must have ripped through the tendons, if her arm had gone dead on her, lying limp at her side as it was. I’d been there once and it was hell to recoup.
I berated myself for going soft, getting slow. If we’d been in a combat zone, I’d be dead right now. Stupid.
I was well down the street before I raised my head again. I saw a man who looked vaguely familiar standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, gun raised. He shot several bullets, probably emptying the clip but none of them hit us.
I made it out of the neighborhood and onto the main road without picking up a tail.
“That was too easy,” I said to Jackson, giving her the clear to get up from her seat, but she didn’t.
“It’s clear,” I said again, but still no answer. I leaned over, taking my eyes off the road just long enough to get a good look at her. She was unconscious, slumped in the seat, the blood seeping steadily from the wound. “Shit.”
The last thing I saw was her eyes rolling up in her head as she started to seize.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I shoved the pedal to the floor. “Hang on, Jackson. Stay with me.”
Chapter 36
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
I got Jackson to the hospital and made sure they could get the bullet out, start the transfusion, and give me an update on her condition before I called Charlie. The nurse had just told me that the transfusion was a success and the bullet was removed OK—all good signs. I thanked her.
Then standing in the waiting room, watching the nurse walk away, I dialed Charlie’s office number. He answered on the second ring.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked.
Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) Page 13
