Hard Line

by Sidney Bell

  “So I mail the USB to the Denver Post and take off? Is that what you’re advocating?”

  “I have a friend who knows a very reliable retired cop who can get things going on the legal side, make sure it stays with the right people. The press is always an option too. As long as he gets fired, you’re in the clear on that side. The wider the truth spreads, the safer you’ll be, but there’s nothing we can do about Mama. At this point it’s just minimizing the fallout. She was always going to kill you, Ghost.”

  The real question wasn’t what to do with the USB; Tobias had it. They didn’t need Ghost to stick around to turn the drive over to someone who could really use it. But the whole thing would be easier—especially for Ghost—if he stuck around. Sullivan considered the irony at the idea that Ghost’s paperwork might come across his desk as a subpoena he’d have to serve.

  “I need to think about this. I’m tired.” Ghost pushed to his feet.

  “Wait. Do you recognize the name Nathalie Trudeau?”

  Ghost shook his head. “No. Who is she?”

  “Margaret’s daughter. Mama might’ve taken her in when she was a girl.” Sullivan went to his file cabinet, flipping through the case folder until he found the picture. His fingers clenched too tightly.

  “Name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “Just look, please.” Back at the table, Sullivan held the picture out and Ghost frowned. He leaned closer, eyes tracing over the lines of Nathalie’s face.

  “And you think Mama raised her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That explains a lot,” Ghost said.

  “Does it?”

  “Yeah. She goes by Kellen now.”

  “Kellen...you mean Mama’s henchman Kellen?”

  “The very same.”

  “Oh. I assumed Kellen was a man.”

  “Most do until they meet her.” Ghost’s lips twisted into a tired, unhappy smile. “There are benefits to being other than what people expect. I’d steer clear, though. The duckling has definitely imprinted on her foster mother. She does most of Mama’s wet work.”

  Sullivan sat back down, his whole body heavy. He’d thought—shit. He didn’t know what he’d thought. Tobias had infected him with the hope that Nathalie was alive, that she could be saved, and that’d kept him motivated even once his client had shown his dirty underpinnings. But he hadn’t expected this. Dead or alive, he’d been working on the presumption of innocence.

  He should’ve known better. Jesus, you’d think he’d stop letting himself get blindsided by shit going badly.

  “Is she K? In your phone? The person asking you for updates?”

  “Yes.”

  All this time, if Sullivan had just pressed the call button, she’d have answered. Nathalie would’ve been right there on the other end of the line. Anticipating someone to kill, perhaps. Jesus.

  Ghost cocked his head toward the stairs. “You got a room I can sleep in?”

  “You can take mine for a while.” He took another few seconds to get his legs under him, before rising to show Ghost where to go. “Don’t ask Tobias for the USB back, by the way. He won’t give it to you.”

  “Well, not now,” Ghost muttered, and Sullivan glanced up to find Tobias lurking in the hallway behind them. “Let’s tip a glass to the deeply moral eavesdropper in question.”

  “You couldn’t have said all of that to me?” Tobias asked quietly. As he spoke, he went past Sullivan into the dining room and grabbed one of the straight-backed chairs. He carried it to Ghost and held it out. “You couldn’t have been honest with me?” He laughed grimly. “I’m stupid to be surprised.”

  Ghost’s jaw tightened. He accepted the chair with slow hands, fingers clamping on the wood until the knuckles turned white. In a low voice, he said, “I missed you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Earlier in the car, Ghost had stared out the window with a stunned hunger, as if he’d never anticipated escaping that closet and seeing something as plain as traffic again. He’d looked so underweight and hollow-eyed and young that Tobias’s anger and doubt over Ghost’s behavior in the laundry room had softened. How could it not? After what Ghost had been through, anyone’s behavior would be questionable. They’d only need to convince him he was safe, and Ghost would be better, he’d let Tobias be kind to him and take care of him, and he’d be grateful.

  Tobias stifled a grim laugh as he turned the coffeemaker on. He’d actually thought Ghost would be grateful.

  He was an idiot.

  First, because Ghost didn’t let anyone take care of him; Tobias should know better. Second, because even Ghost’s most convincing vulnerabilities usually turned out to be lies, and third, because it was incredibly narcissistic to save someone’s life because you wanted them to appreciate you. But there it was. Tobias was hurt and angry because he’d thought—stupidly—that saving Ghost would be the thing that finally made Ghost trust him. Respect him. Keep him. That was not only the wrong reason to help someone, it was unfair to Ghost, whose responses to being hurt shouldn’t have a single damn thing to do with Tobias’s expectations.

  He knew all of that. It stung anyway.

  “What was the thing with the chair?” Sullivan asked, coming back downstairs.

  “He can’t sleep in an unlocked room.” It might not be a thorough explanation, but Tobias decided to leave it at that. Back at Woodbury, Ghost had stacked things in front of their door at night—jars of pencils, plastic action figures he’d stolen from younger boys, one of the ancient small radios that staff let them check out as rewards for good behavior—anything that would clatter if the door was opened and the pile tipped over. Tobias couldn’t tell anyone about that, though. It felt too much like telling a secret.

  Sullivan didn’t ask for more anyway. For a professional snoop, Sullivan was very respectful of boundaries. Just one of the million things that made Tobias love him.

  Okay, that sentence had gone to—well, not an unexpected place, but certainly a bold one, because he wasn’t going to take it back. Tobias did love him.

  Sullivan, who’d accepted him just as he was, mess and all, and who had been kind when no one in their right mind could expect him to be. Sullivan, who’d followed Tobias into a dirty cop’s house to rescue someone he’d never met out of loyalty to Tobias and because it was right. Sullivan, who’d asked Tobias to get clean sheets, when he could’ve thrown those three rules around.

  You don’t have to obey, he’d meant. You don’t have to step aside. You don’t have to leave and wait for me to handle this. You don’t have to give me the privacy I’m asking for. But I have my reasons, please trust me.

  Sullivan hadn’t wanted Tobias to be kept in the dark; he’d wanted Ghost to feel free. Sullivan had known Tobias’s absence would unlock something in Ghost—Sullivan had an uncanny grasp on the way Ghost’s mind worked, despite knowing him for all of half an hour, a talent Tobias couldn’t help being jealous of.

  So he’d waited in the hallway and listened. And he’d known he’d not only had the freedom to choose, but that he’d done exactly what Sullivan had expected, had intended, when he’d come around the corner and found Ghost’s face shocked and Sullivan’s completely unsurprised.

  “You all right?”

  Tobias realized he’d been staring at the coffeemaker for long, silent minutes. He’d made coffee without thinking about it. “Considering that I went to enormous trouble and expense to help a friend who could tell a complete stranger more than he could tell me? I’m great.”

  Sullivan leaned against the counter. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. It’s not that he doesn’t care. You get that, don’t you?”

  Tobias let out a low laugh. “I’m not sure how else you could interpret it.” He got out a mug for himself and shook a second one in the air in a silent question.

  Sullivan nodded, then added, “An
d he said those things to me for the same reason you could be honest with me in the beginning. It’s because he doesn’t care what I think. He does care what you think.”

  Tobias slowly poured coffee. That possibility hadn’t occurred to him. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.”

  Tobias passed Sullivan’s mug over. “Thank you. For helping me. For helping my friend. For not leaving us. That was brave. And decent. So thank you.”

  He was quiet a moment, and the air shifted between them, thickened in a way that made Tobias slightly uneasy. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Sullivan seemed on the verge of saying something, then hesitated. Finally, he said, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “I know. I’m sorry it came to that.” If any part of this sat poorly with Tobias it was that Sullivan had been forced into that position, but he didn’t buy that this was the only source of the problem. Tobias studied his profile—the ordinary slope of his nose, the bony ridges of his brow and cheekbones and jaw, his strong chin and thick eyelashes. He looked tired and a little unhappy. “Is that the only thing that’s bothering you?”

  Sullivan scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “No. I don’t know.”

  Tobias licked his lips. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not remotely.” Sullivan accepted a mug and took a paper towel from the roll, wiping at spilled sugar, no doubt using the excuse of the chore to avoid eye contact. It was so unlike him—what Tobias knew of him, anyway—that a shiver of unease crept down his spine.

  “All right.” He wanted to push, but it wasn’t like Sullivan had been unclear, and the least Tobias could do was respect his wishes. “You think we got away with it?”

  “I think if they knew who we are, we’d be dead already.”

  “That’s a small comfort, at least.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tobias went to the sink and washed the stirring spoon. “You did good with him. He’s difficult. I never know what to do with him when he’s like that, but you didn’t have any trouble.”

  “He doesn’t speak your language,” Sullivan said, not unkindly. He jerked a shoulder. “The two of you have fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. It doesn’t translate, that’s all.”

  Sullivan had been right; Tobias didn’t like it. Part of him wanted to argue, but it would be bull, so he took a breath instead and changed the subject.

  “What do you think is on that USB drive?”

  Sullivan chucked the paper towel into the plastic grocery sack Tobias had set out for trash. “Let’s find out.”

  It turned out that Sullivan’s laptop—outfitted with what he called the PI’s computer toolbox, a collection of programs likely to come in handy over the course of a career of using different surveillance equipment—already had a media viewer that allowed them to open the files on the USB.

  There was more than one—most were short, simple things, and they were all taken from the same vantage point. Tobias tried to picture the living room, and realized the camera must’ve been on the top shelf of the bookshelves inset in the wall. He couldn’t precisely recall what else had stood on the shelf. Photographs, maybe. Or fancy pottery.

  “How did Ghost hide a video camera there?” he asked.

  “Some of the newer ones are the size of your pinky fingernail,” Sullivan explained. “The camera would transmit the footage to Ghost’s laptop, where he would be able to cut out any extraneous material and copy whatever he wanted to any other disks. I can’t imagine Mama sparing any expense. All Ghost would need is a shadowed area out of a frequent sight line.”

  “But why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff? He could’ve emailed it to someone anytime.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he shook his head. “Yeah, like Ghost would trust anyone enough to send them this. Still. He could’ve emailed it to himself. Or Mama. Then he wouldn’t need the USB.”

  “Maybe he was interrupted,” Sullivan mused. “Or maybe he was afraid to use his email. I wouldn’t be surprised if Spratt forced him to give up his email password. But I don’t think Mama has these files yet, or Ghost wouldn’t have been so determined to get the USB. Plus, something must’ve happened to get him moved from a nice, comfortable bedroom to being handcuffed in a closet.”

  The image quality was surprisingly good, but there was no sound, so the first five vids were just a collection of people standing around silently flapping their mouths—Spratt talking to the balding man, Spratt talking to Tidwell, Spratt talking to a handful of other people, some in patrol uniforms, some not.

  “How in the world would this be useful?” Tobias asked.

  “How many times have you gone to your boss’s house for legitimate work conversations? I can’t imagine cops do it all that often. If nothing else, it puts a variety of cops in potential collusion. A DA could subpoena all of these people. Some of them would turn State’s Evidence if they knew about criminal activities and wanted to save their own asses.”

  “You’re thinking like a good cop,” Tobias pointed out. “What would Mama get out of it?”

  “Yeah, I’m the good guy.” Sullivan huffed a sour laugh.

  Tobias sat up straight. “Sullivan. Hey.”

  “Forget it. It’s fine,” he said wearily, and started a new video, this one of Spratt and four other men having yet another conversation. “And Mama gets the same thing. Knowing who can be targeted, either because of blackmail or profit...”

  “I really think we should talk,” Tobias started, but Sullivan wasn’t paying attention. He was leaning forward to peer at his laptop so intently that Tobias followed his gaze.

  Onscreen, Spratt waved a hand and three of the men converged on the fourth. The fourth man talked furiously, yanking on his arms, his manner a mixture of anger and pleading. Spratt didn’t seem to care; as the three other men held the fourth steady, Spratt walked up to him and punched him in the throat, hard. The man went rigid and was allowed to fall. He clawed at his throat, kicking uselessly, and Spratt left the field of view. The three men watched the fourth struggle to breathe, his panic growing by leaps and bounds, until Spratt returned with two large black heavy-duty trash bags. The men worked together to get their victim onto the plastic, leaning on his thrashing limbs to keep him in place and—and Tobias couldn’t watch this.

  He focused on a knot in the floorboard beneath his feet. He didn’t—he couldn’t—his peripheral vision caught another blur of movement, and he clenched his eyes shut.

  “Holy shit,” Sullivan said hoarsely.

  Tobias was breathing too fast. He couldn’t see the screen but he thought he could feel the light emanating from it anyway, sinking into his flesh, invisible and insidious, like radiation seeping through the air. He felt filthy. “That can’t be real, can it?”

  Sullivan sounded choked. “I think it must be.”

  Tobias stumbled to his feet and rushed upstairs, pounding on the bedroom door until Ghost yanked the chair out of the way and let him in, startled and hazy with sleep. Tobias flew past him to the bathroom, barely making it in time. He heaved into the toilet with enough force that tears squeezed from his eyes. The room was far too hot. He went to his knees on the tile, legs weak.

  The images were imprinted on the backs of his eyelids—the fourth man’s mouth gaping open as he strained for air that couldn’t reach his lungs through his broken larynx, his eyes bulging, his struggles panicked and wild, the way the others—his fellow cops, men who had sworn to protect people, had held him down, blank faced, and the way Spratt had looked so regretful, as if he were sorry to have to take such an extreme measure, but nonetheless found it necessary, and the calm way he’d thought to get plastic to avoid making a mess. The whole thing reeked of the banal, and it wasn’t—Tobias couldn’t bear it.

  At some point he became aware of a cold cloth against the back of his neck, and low voices in the doorway. He couldn�
��t make out what they were saying over the roar of his own pulse in his ears, but he didn’t think it mattered, really. There was only one possible response.

  “We can’t let Mama have this.” Tobias’s voice broke, and he felt young and ridiculous, but it had to be said. “We can’t let her use this to manipulate him. Who knows what she’ll be able to make him do? It won’t stop, Sullivan. This can’t be what it’s like. We can’t let this be what it’s like.”

  “I know. We won’t.” Sullivan rubbed a hand over his back. He couldn’t be too mad at Tobias if he was trying to comfort him, which was reassuring, but everything was still so hot. Tobias had sweat pouring down his temples and he was trying so hard not to think.

  Dimly he heard Ghost say, “Here,” and then Sullivan pressed a cup of cold water into Tobias’s hand. Tobias took it with weak fingers and sipped, desperate to get the foul taste out of his mouth.

  “You shouldn’t have let him watch it,” Ghost said. “You couldn’t guess what it was?”

  “He’s not a fucking child.” Sullivan sounded tired rather than angry. Tobias put the cup on the tile near his feet and took Sullivan’s hand, squeezing gratefully. He didn’t want this in his head, he wished he’d never seen it, but he wasn’t sorry he’d watched it, if that made sense. This was part of being the one in control of his life—the ugliness and the darkness belonged to him too. Sullivan could help him recover from it, but he couldn’t make the choice for him. He wouldn’t even try.

  “I’m sorry,” Tobias managed.

  “Don’t be.” Sullivan squeezed his hand in return. “Don’t apologize for being compassionate, for Christ’s sake.”

  “So soft,” Ghost murmured, and his tone was a mixture of scorn and affection. That was the tone Tobias had always liked most from Ghost—when it was clear that Ghost didn’t understand him but liked him anyway.