He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and looked to his ruined knuckles. “Nothing some ice won’t fix.”
“Not what I was talking about, Dent.”
Of course, he gave her one of his shrugs.
Maybe this wasn’t the time to press what she really had meant, she thought. So, she asked, “What did he say?”
“Who?”
“Santa Claus! Who do you think ‘who’?”
The wrecked car was coming up. The steam rising from the engine seemed frozen in the Escalade’s headlights.
“Charon hired him. Them.”
Whoa! But she thought … “Charon was the guy who hooked you up with Mister Chisholme in the first place. Charon contracted you to kidnap me from my mother for Mister Chisholme.”
She thought Dent wouldn’t reply, as she didn’t really ask a question, but he actually said, “Yes.”
“I thought that after what happened in California, Charon would be screwed. Didn’t Mister Chisholme try blaming the whole thing on Charon?”
“Apparently, Charon was more resilient than I thought. He must have ingratiated himself with someone else high up in the military.”
They were coming up on the crashed car. She craned her neck to check it out but didn’t see much. Dent didn’t even glance that way.
“How do you know Charon’s got military connections?”
As if on cue, a gunshot rang out in the night. Kasumi let out a small scream and as she ducked down to make herself as small as she could, she felt Dent’s hand push her down even more. She felt Dent swerve the SUV to the side and back before he hit the gas and got them the hell out of there.
Tears soaking into her shirt, she didn’t try to unfold herself from her ball, and Dent didn’t take his hand from shoulder until they were well onto the freeway again. She was glad of that small gesture on his part.
VIII
Sleeping on the couch seemed to only add to the aches from injuries he’d accumulated over the last few weeks, as well as bringing to attention those of more recent origins. Dent rolled his neck, his wrists, then his knuckles as he walked into the lounge of the hotel.
It was just past 7:15 and the rising sun was more of a presence in the high-windowed dining hall than the few other hotel guests partaking of the continental breakfast, coffee and juices. A red-and-black garbed concierge walked by, greeting Dent with a nod and smile. No reason to acknowledge the man, Dent walked on, making his way to a trestle table laden with fruits, croissants, donuts, and muffins.
He balanced a bear claw — which he didn’t find appealing — two croissants — which he did — a few orange slices, and two blueberry muffins on his plate and made his way to the coffee station. He put his plate down and grabbed a mug.
“Mornin’,” a midwest-accented woman said as she stepped up next to him, apparently intent on having a mug of black coffee for breakfast.
“Yes,” he replied, drawing a weird look from the woman.
“Oh, well …,” she began, but he was done with social niceties. He’d filled his cup and scooted aside to grab his plate, and the woman was quick to step in and pick up an empty mug of her own.
He turned, ready to head back to the hotel room, when he remembered Fifth. He needed to get her a coffee as well, else she’d sip his until it was gone. Setting his plate back down, he reached past the same woman, grabbed another mug, and got to the coffee dispenser before she could.
She let out a few guffaws and a couple ‘Well-I-nevers,’ but eventually she backed away to let him finish filling Fifth’s mug. Carefully, he managed to hoist plate and mugs and left the breakfast room. His last thought as he ducked into the lobby was, If that woman wanted coffee so badly, why then was she just standing there staring at me as I made my exit?
Hands full, he had to twist at the hips so the door reader could snag his room card’s RFID through his pocket. A beep, a click, and then an elbow to the handle got him inside. He’d expected to walk into gloom — he’d left the blinds closed when he’d left — but the suite was lit up like a Vegas night.
Every light, and he counted six, was on. Add to that the television, with some nature show about dolphins, the hotel’s complimentary laptop, and a hairdryer echoing out from the bathroom and Dent could safely assume that Fifth was up and about.
Setting his morning’s take on the table, he turned off half the lights, muted the dolphins, and closed the laptop. On cue, the hairdryer stopped.
“Hey, I was watching that!”
Pointless to argue the impossible angles and line-of-sight from television screen to tucked-away bathroom, he kept his mouth shut. Well, not entirely. He began nibbling at the bear claw.
A damp-haired Fifth appeared in the bedroom. “Morning.”
“Yes, it is.”
She smiled.
He nodded to the table. “Breakfast.”
“Of champions,” she replied, going straight for the bear claw in his hand.
Exactly as he had figured. He gave it to her, and now, with bear claw and coffee mug busying her hands, he was free to eat his croissants unmolested. He was beginning to anticipate the way the girl thought.
“Are you smiling?” Fifth asked, bits of bear claw accenting her voice.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I leave the lying up to you.”
“I never lie.”
“Liar.”
She grinned, sipped her coffee, and turned back to sit on the foot of the bed, looking around for the remote. She found where he’d tossed it on the pillow and, after leaning back and nearly spilling her coffee, she came back up with it and turned the volume back on.
“Why was the laptop on?” he asked, joining her on the bed.
“Checking the news sites.”
“For?”
“To see if we were on the news from last night.”
“Why?”
“Car crash off the freeway, driver beaten up. Gunfire.” She looked over. “You know, news.”
He didn’t see how it was relevant, but when she continued looking at him he figured it was one of those times where he was supposed to say something. He went with, “So, was there any news?”
“Yep. And glad I checked.”
“Why?”
“Because when we left the scene last night, we left a small souvenir.”
He stopped eating. “What exactly are you talking about?”
She got up and went to the laptop. “When that car hit us, it knocked off our license plate.” She pulled up her browser history and said, “Says here that from the plate the cops have identified the other car, that’s us by the way, and that they’re going to prosecute the owner for the murders.”
Two things stood out. First, the license plate was a dummy. If the cops went to the supposed legal owner, they’d meet Mr. and Mrs. Wallace of New York. An elderly couple of which neither have had a valid driver’s license for over six years now.
And second. “Murders?” he asked. He didn’t know about the passenger, but he left the driver alive and well. At least, he’d left him breathing.
Fifth scooted aside so he could read the report. And though she knew he was reading, she decided to give him a summary.
“Says they were both shot.”
“Shot dead,” he corrected her.
“Same thing.”
He looked at her and she chewed her lip.
“Oh, right,” she said in one of her tones. “I forgot. You seem to get shot every time you make small talk with someone.”
That was not true. He didn’t correct her though, just ran through the rest of the report. She was right. About the report, at least. One, the passenger, was reportedly shot in the temple, the other, in the chest. The police suspected foul play from the beginning when they found two handguns on the scene, likely belonging to the drivers.
“The gunshot when we drove away ….” Fifth said. “Maybe they shot each other?”
“Not likely.”
“Then?”<
br />
“I don’t know.” But if he had to guess, he’d say Charon had a clean-up crew. Perhaps when the pair in the Charger failed, the bullets were their rewards. But that didn’t entirely make sense. If there had been another crew, they would have been on Dent and Fifth already. If they were close enough to follow the pair in the Charger then they would have been close enough to get to Dent and Fifth, close enough to keep them from slipping away.
He shook his head.
“So?” asked Fifth.
“I have to think. Those two deaths complicate things.”
She went back to the bed, sat down heavily, and Dent pulled out the chair so he could scan for any more information regarding the incident. He visited five different news sites, but they all predominantly said the same thing: Two people shot dead after a hit and run accident. Authorities are on the search for the owner of the vehicle that fled the scene.
His first clue something might have been wrong was the silence in the suite as he read through the various articles. And then there was the sniffling. He turned.
Back straight, shoulders lifting and falling, Fifth had her hands clenched in her lap and tears streaming down her cheeks. She was staring straight ahead, but he highly doubted she was watching the dolphins.
Thoughts of Bobseyn and how the man had told Dent to keep Fifth away from violence and murder flitted through his mind. At the time, Dent disregarded Bobseyn’s words. Fifth had seen and been through plenty in her short life. Why would the death of two more men, two strangers, bother her?
He knew he should say something. He knew something was wrong. He tried starting with, “Are you okay?”
For some reason, his question drew a round of harsh laughter from the girl.
He stood, walked over, and sat next to her. He put his palms on his thighs, waiting.
The crying had started up again as soon as he’d settled next to her.
He opened his mouth. Then closed it. Men chasing him on a dark street, he could handle. His government sending him into hostile territory to take out a designated target protected by a small militia, he could get through. A young girl crying next to him, he was at a total loss.
And for some reason, there was something, something in the pit of his stomach, that was turning the coffee and croissant into something disagreeable.
She tilted over. Her head pressed against his shoulder. “It’s all my fault, Dent.”
“What is?”
“These people dying.”
“That wasn’t you.” That wasn’t a lie, either.
Another harsh laugh. “What about the people at The Ranch?”
Dent assured her, “Those people signed on for working with Chisholme and his little experiment. They got what they deserved, and not because of you.”
“His experiment ….” She wiped her eyes. “You mean Connor.”
He nodded.
“Connor. The kid like me. The kid I killed.”
That wasn’t entirely true. “You didn’t kill him. That was his own doing.”
“But I made him kill himself.”
“You saved all those people from The Ranch.”
“Whatever.” Her tone indicated she didn’t believe it.
She needed to see the positive in what they’d accomplished, so he asked, “What about Cherry?”
“Hmm?”
“You brought her back to Bobseyn.”
It took her a second, but she finally responded, “I guess.”
He lowered his voice and pitched his tone a little higher in a manner he would use when he didn’t want to sound threatening. “Then that’s good, right?”
“I guess. I don’t know.” She sat straight now, taking her head from his shoulder. “Maybe it would have been better if I stayed locked away back in Japan. At least when Mother kept me in the hospital, nobody died because of me.”
Dent thought back to when this all started. When he’d been contracted to kidnap her and bring her here, to the States. To Grant Chisholme. Back then, Charon had been Dent’s go-between, finding contractor work for him. But when Dent realized the terms of the contract had been changed, that he himself had been deemed expendable and that Fifth would be relegated to a childhood of laboratory tests and psychoanalyses, he’d broken his side of the contract.
He’d only done that twice, broken his contract. First time was back when he was with the Department of Unfair and Unwilling Practices, and that had gotten him promptly booted from the military. The second breach of contract was sitting next to him, crying.
“We’ll get through this,” he said, as close as he could come to lying and sounding truthful.
“If I could be normal, none of this would be happening. Nobody would get hurt because of me. And you, you wouldn’t have to keep doing what you do.”
“I protect you.”
“Exactly.”
He didn’t understand her meaning and she failed to elaborate. She no doubt had enough on her mind. And with someone with her talent, that could be disastrous for bystanders. But she was stuck with the way she was, just as he was stuck with the way he was. Unless ….
He got up and went to the laptop, pulling up all the sites regarding last night’s incident. He started typing.
Sniffle. “What are you doing?”
“I need your help.”
She came to his side. “With what?”
“Get on your EB. Go on every site you can find that mentions the report from last night.”
She pulled her EB out, saying, “Um. Okay ….”
“Post on as many comments sections as you can,” he told her.
“What are you doing?” she asked again, this time with less of a waver to her voice.
“I’m doing what I do, so you don’t have to do what you do.”
She grabbed his shoulder so he had to turn to look at her. “Dent?”
He tried not to look into her red, wet eyes. For some reason he didn’t want her to know that he didn’t want to do what he was going to do.
“I,” he said after a breath or two, “am going to get myself a contract.”
IX
“It worked!” Fifth called out right after her EB chimed. It had been nearly six hours since Dent and Fifth bombarded the comments sections of almost every news site.
Dent dried his hands, dabbing at the few scabs on his knuckles, and left the bathroom. Fifth was on her knees, bouncing on the bed, EB in hand.
He held his hand out and when she settled down she handed it over.
CLEVER, he read Otto’s message.
We had no way to contact you, he typed his response.
POSTING “OTTO” ON 17 DIFFERENT SITES GOT MY ATTENTION
I figured.
AND I FIGURED THE INCIDENT IN THE NEWS HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH YOU
I didn’t kill those men.
NO?
No.
It took a minute for Otto to respond.
WHY DID YOU NEED TO CONTACT ME? YOU SEEMED SO DETERMINED TO BE DONE WITH ME
Things have changed.
HOW SO?
You said you can help Kasumi. With reversing the eBlocker.
I CAN POINT YOU IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, YES
Tell me.
DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY
What do you want?
WHAT ARE YOU OFFERING?
Dent looked to Fifth. She was reading along with him. She gave him a slight nod.
Contract negotiations.
A silent minute. Then:
TERMS?
You help Kasumi, I’ll do what you need done.
AND IF THAT REQUIRES UNSAVORY ACTIONS?
Not a problem.
I’LL GET BACK TO YOU
When?
But Otto had gone.
Fifth fell back onto the bed, hands behind her head, and stared up at the ceiling. “Are you sure about this?” He may have been mistaken, but it sounded like her voice cracked slightly.
“No, but we can’t do this on our own. There are too many factors worki
ng against us now.”
“And you think we can trust Otto?”
“No.”
She propped herself up on her elbows. “What if he asks you to kill someone for him?” Her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. He noticed it didn’t crack this time.
He shrugged.
She then asked, “What if I asked you not to kill someone?”
He shrugged.
Her lower lip began to tremble but after a moment it stiffened. “I don’t want anybody else getting hurt because of me, Dent.” This time her voice was firm. Much louder than a whisper.
“The only people who will get hurt will be those who try to hurt you.”
“Yeah, but in your eyes that could be anyone who looks at me funny.”
He shrugged.
And got a pillow in the face for it.
“What?” he asked, pulling the pillow down.
She blew out through her lips and looked ready to throw the other pillow. But instead, she dropped back down to stare up at the ceiling once more.
Now that that was understood, he stood and went to the closet adjacent to the bathroom. He unhooked one of the metal hangers and closed the closet. He straightened the thing out as he walked back into the room.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
“We need a new car. The plates on the Escalade won’t come back to me, but there’s still the front plate on our car. With the damage to the rear end, we’ll only be inviting the local authorities to run a cursory check on it. It’ll pop up as the car from the incident and we’ll be ….”
“Screwed.”
He looked over at her. “For lack of a better word, yes.”
She sighed. “I liked the Escalade. Can you get steal us something like it?”
If Dent were anyone else, he might be concerned of the easy way the girl of fourteen casually mentioned stealing someone’s vehicle. But, Dent, being Dent, nodded her way. He felt that trickle of emotion, that small something that he’d come to realize was pride, at the practical way the girl was coming to process things.
“Careful, Dent,” she said. “You’re doing it again.” Her tone was the one he noted she used when she thought she was being funny.
“What?” he said, finished straightening out the hanger.
False Positive Page 5
