The Faithful

by S. M. Freedman

  His heart hammered with anxiety. A quick backtrack and his breakfast was unloaded onto the empty reception desk. On his way back, he unclipped the harness over his Glock 22. His hand found its natural place on the grip, finger loose near the trigger. In deference to his location inside a secured building, the gun remained holstered. But someone had clearly broken into his office, which made him both wary and indignant.

  Josh pushed the door open with his foot. There was a man lounging in the desk chair, hands steepled on his chest, feet crossed on the corner of the desk. As the door swung open, he straightened out, letting his feet fall to the floor.

  “Can I help you?” Josh spat.

  The man seemed nonplussed by the terseness of his tone. The smell of his aftershave was overpowering, a mix of pine and ginger. Josh put him in his late fifties, with a head of glossy silver hair and eyes the color of caramel. He wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses propped on the edge of a nose as sharp as a razor blade, and a gold Patek Philippe watch. His gray suit looked custom-made, and his navy silk tie was looped in a crisp Windsor knot against his throat. All in all, he gave the impression of money, power, and political influence.

  “Senior Special Agent Metcalf?” His voice was smooth, a self-satisfied drone that made Josh think of wasps bathing in honey.

  “That’s what it says on the door. Who are you?”

  “My apologies.” He managed to inflect his tone with mild surprise, as though he was used to being recognized. “Deputy Director Michael Warner, from the Office of Congressional Affairs.”

  “Well, Deputy Director Michael Warner, it might be okay to break into offices in the OCA, but around here it’s considered poor form.”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You must forgive me; I didn’t want to wait in the public reception area.”

  “Uh-huh.” Josh didn’t attempt to hide his anger. “And what’s your excuse for searching my desk and file cabinets?” Everything had been replaced with care, but it was obvious his office had been tossed.

  Deputy Director Warner lifted his hands, smiling bashfully. “All right, I’m caught. Blame it on a restless mind.”

  Josh stood, one hand on the grip of his gun, watching him silently.

  As though to appease him, Warner slithered out from behind the desk. He sat down in the brown visitor’s chair, smoothing his tie and watching Josh with wide, innocent eyes. Josh wasn’t buying it for a second.

  “What do you want?”

  “I hear you’re one of the best CID investigators.”

  Josh remained silent.

  “That your promotion to senior special agent is one of the quickest in the history of the division.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Word is, you might make director one day. If you keep your nose clean.”

  Josh clamped his mouth shut.

  “Of course, there are political issues to be aware of. Toes you don’t want to step on. You get my meaning?”

  “No, I don’t believe I do.”

  “How disappointing. Perhaps you’ll have a seat so I can enlighten you?”

  “I’m fine right here.”

  Deputy Director Warner sighed. “Very well. One of your investigations has delved into some sensitive territory.”

  “Oh, really. And which one of my investigations would that be?”

  “Let’s just say there are certain cabinet members who’d like to avoid an investigation into the Department of Education.”

  “Which cabinet members?”

  “That information can only be shared on a ‘need to know’ basis. I’m simply a friendly messenger.”

  Josh laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, Agent Metcalf. I couldn’t be more serious. Stop your investigation into the ED, and you’ll find your rise through the FBI ranks to be swift and easy. If not . . .” he shrugged, implying all manner of negative ramifications.

  “Look, Deputy Director Warner, I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you have seriously misjudged me. I don’t care if I climb up the ranks, and I don’t take well to being threatened. Also, the last time I checked, I don’t take my orders from the OCA, or from crooked members of the cabinet.”

  “No, but you do take orders from me.”

  Josh turned to find his boss standing in the doorway.

  “Ah, shit, Dean. You can’t be serious!”

  Executive Administrative Director Dean Forster was rumpled and sweaty. He was always rumpled and sweaty, so that wasn’t what caused the nervous flutter of alarm in Josh’s gut. It was his eyes, which were very still, determined, and . . . sad.

  “Dean, what the hell is this about?”

  “You need to do what he’s saying. Shut down your investigation of the ED. Right away.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on, Josh. You know better than that.”

  “Dean, you don’t seriously expect me to stop an investigation just because some OCA guy breaks into my office and tells me to?”

  “No. I expect you to do it because I’ve ordered you to. I’ve been your boss for six years now, Josh. I pushed for your promotion. I supported your use of man-hours on an investigation others thought was a waste of time and money. I’ve been your mentor, your friend, and your boss. You need to trust me on this. For your own good, let it go.”

  “Dean . . .”

  “Josh, I’m serious. Please.”

  He could feel them watching him from the mural behind his desk. Seven hundred and seventy-nine sets of eyes, pleading not to be abandoned. “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  Without another word, Josh left his office. He grabbed his briefcase and breakfast off the reception desk and headed for the stairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Back in Josh’s office, there was a minute of silence as they listened to his clipped retreat down the hallway. Dean Forster’s stomach was in knots.

  “He won’t give it up, will he?” Warner asked.

  There was no point in lying. “No.”

  He knew Josh well, knew how important the case was to him. It was an obsession. Dean liked Josh. He liked him a lot. Which is why he had begged Michael Warner for this one chance to deter the agent from his current path.

  “You know what needs to be done, Dean.”

  Dean couldn’t look at him. “Do what you have to do. Just leave me out of it, please.”

  “Of course.” Dean flinched as Deputy Director Warner clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s hard to lose a good agent.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Is this Senior Special Agent Metcalf?” Josh muted the TV and checked his watch. It was just after nine o’clock in the evening.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Agent Rosa Ortiz calling from the field office in Albuquerque. Agent Dennis Chang asked me to call you.”

  “All right. What’s up?” Josh remembered Dennis Chang well. He had worked with Josh on a kidnapping in Santa Fe five years before.

  “Well, sir, we have a kidnapping case Agent Chang says you might be interested in?”

  Josh grabbed a pen and paper off his coffee table. “What can you tell me?”

  “A six-year-old girl, Leora Wylie, was kidnapped from a park near Las Cruces this afternoon. Agent Chang wanted me to tell you there was blood found at the scene. They are still typing it, but they don’t think it’s from the victim.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes sir, he told me to say ‘Other factors might be similar as well.’ I don’t know what he means.”

  “That’s okay, I do. Anything else, Agent Ortiz?”

  “Yes, sir. This is why Agent Chang wanted me to get ahold of you so urgently. He says you’ll probably want to get here as soon as possible.”

  “Why?” Josh leapt up and took the stairs two at a time.
He flicked on the bedroom light, moving toward his closet.

  “There was a witness. She tried to stop the kidnapping and got pretty banged up. She’s in Mesilla Valley Hospital. Agent Chang thought you’d want to talk to her.”

  He was already throwing clothes into his duffel bag.

  “I sure do. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “A flower cannot bloom without the kiss of the sun, and a child cannot flourish without the nourishment of food. You must eat, my dear.”

  Through the curtain of her red hair, she watched him place the bowl of soup on the bedside table. Turning her back, she curled in on herself and pulled the quilt over her face. Blessed darkness. It was a soothing balm against her puffy eyelids. Inside the quilt cocoon, she cupped her hands over her ears, blocking out the man’s voice. Just before she was taken, she had been reading a library book about wormholes. The idea of a tunnel through time captured her imagination.

  Now she pictured her mind as a wormhole, and she used it to swim away from the man who was trying to make her forget. She swam and swam, letting his voice recede behind her as she moved back toward home, toward her mother and a sweet-smelling Sunday in the spring.

  None of the girls at Penny Marsh’s birthday party wanted to play with her, and she was sitting on the front steps, watching as they bounced on the trampoline that was set up in the yard. She had just decided to leave—her house was only five blocks away and no one would miss her—when Penny’s grandma sat down beside her.

  “Don’t you feel like going on the trampoline, dear?”

  “I guess not.”

  “It’s just not right for a young girl to be sitting all by herself on such a beautiful spring day. Why don’t you go join your friends for a bounce?”

  “They’re not my friends.”

  “Nonsense. You were invited to the party, weren’t you?”

  “Penny’s mom probably made her invite me. Every girl in the class is here.”

  “Hmm. Like that, is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  The woman leaned back against the steps. “I’d place a bet everyone feels like you’re feeling right now, on occasion. Like you just don’t fit in with the rest of the world around you. Like you wish you had just one good friend. Does that about sum it up?”

  She nodded. “How did you know?”

  The woman chuckled, but her eyes looked kind of sad. “Might be I’ve felt that way myself a time or two.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, sure. It happens more as you get older, you know. Young folk start to think they know better than you, that all your understanding of the world is outdated.

  “Comes a time you start to believe they might be right. And then even your own kin don’t acknowledge you anymore. You’re sitting right there in the armchair, but the conversation just keeps passing back and forth right over the top of your head. You might as well be a houseplant, sitting neglected in the corner of the room.”

  “That’s really sad.”

  Penny’s grandma patted her chest, chuckling. “Oh, look at me going on like an old fool. A young girl doesn’t need to be listening to this kind of drivel. The point I was trying to make is you’re young. I know you sometimes feel afraid, or like you don’t quite belong. But never mind that; it’s just the ‘scaredies’ trying to get you down. You’ve got to pick yourself up and get back into the thick of it. You get my meaning?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, then. What are you waiting for?”

  She hesitated for another moment and Penny’s grandma shooed her forward. “Go on with you, already!”

  Nervously, she approached the trampoline. When no one yelled at her to leave, she clumsily pulled herself up and over the blue lip and rolled onto the wildly bouncing surface.

  The next forty minutes turned out to be some of the best of her young life. She bounced and laughed and spun and danced. Just like any normal girl.

  Every once in a while, she looked out toward the stairs. The older lady would smile and wave in response, and once she even gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Who are you waving at?” Deborah Matheson asked. She was bouncing in front of her, blond pigtails flying. Penny Marsh was bouncing and spinning in circles beside Deborah, giggling madly.

  “Penny’s grandma,” she answered absently, focused on a jump where she did the splits in midair. The goal was to grab her ankles at the top, and then come back down on her feet without falling over.

  She came down from a split-jump, proud of the perfect execution of her move, and noticed the two girls staring at her.

  “That’s not funny,” Deborah said. Penny’s eyes were wet, her lower lip trembling.

  “You should apologize to Penny.”

  “For what?” she asked, perplexed.

  “For what you just said, you freak.” Teresa Hernandez sidled up on Penny’s other side and held her elbow in support.

  “What did I say?” The trampoline was suddenly still. Silent. All eyes were focused on her, and she could feel the heat beginning to creep up her neck.

  “That you were waving at my grandma.” Penny’s voice was soft.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Penny’s grandma died last month, freak show,” Jennifer Morrow said, her eyes angry and cold.

  “What . . . ?”

  “I think you should apologize,” Deborah said again.

  “I . . . Penny, I didn’t know.” She looked over at the stairs, but they were empty.

  “You should go,” Penny said.

  “I’m sorry! Penny, I’m sorry!”

  Penny turned on her, screaming. “Just get the hell out of here, you . . . freak!”

  In her haste, she fell getting off the trampoline. A few girls snickered. She grabbed her shoes and ran home, sobbing.

  Her mom was on the phone, but she quickly hung up when she saw the state of her daughter.

  “What happened, Boo?” her mother asked, coming toward her.

  She inhaled the soothing smell of her mother’s lotion, which always reminded her of violets baking in the sun. Between sobs and hiccups, she managed to get the story out. Her mom listened with that same sad look on her face she got every time her daughter came home this way. When she was done, her mom mopped up her face, kissed her raw cheeks, and pulled her up off the couch.

  “Who needs them and their stupid trampoline, anyway? Not when we’ve got the coolest trampoline in town, right here.” Her mom pulled her toward the back of the house, to the master bedroom.

  “Come on!” She pressed the power button on the ghetto blaster, turning the volume all the way up. It played the same song it always did: Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine.” It was their theme song.

  Her mom jumped up on the bed and started singing and bouncing. She had a terrible singing voice and it always made her daughter laugh. “Come on, get up here!”

  But she was too busy giggling. The sight of her mother bouncing on the bed like a kid was too funny. And the more she laughed, the louder and more off-key her mom’s singing became.

  “Come on, Ryanne! Don’t be a party pooper!”

  She climbed onto the bed and joined in, holding hands with her mom as they bounced crazily around the bed.

  They sang together, daughter as off-key as her mother, giggling and bouncing like two little girls.

  Through the wormhole and a million light years away, she sang softly to herself under the quilt, pretending she was back there, in that bedroom with her mom on a sweet-smelling Sunday in the spring. Remember, she thought. Remember the sunshine.

  “I’m Dr. Sanchez, the doctor on call this evening. You’re at Mesilla Valley Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”

  I licked my lips. They were so dry. “Yeah. I decided to wrestle with a Ford Escape a
nd lost.”

  His smile was tight. “That sums it up, but you put up a better fight than one might expect.”

  “Can I have some water, please?”

  “Of course.” I waited while he filled a Styrofoam cup and stuck a straw into it. He bent the straw to my lips and held it while I sipped. Once the cup was empty, he placed it on the side table.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. How are you feeling?”

  “Sore. My head is pounding. My right leg feels numb.”

  “The car ran over the lower portion of your right leg. Your X-rays show no broken bones, but your leg is swollen and bruised. It’s wrapped in ice; that’s probably why it feels numb. Expect to have pain and swelling for the next five to seven days, and some difficulty putting weight down on the leg while it’s healing. There is a small chance of a blood clot forming, so we will be keeping an eye on that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your left shoulder was partially dislocated, and we’ve put it back into place. Your arm will need to be in a sling for the next week, and it’s also going to be sore for a while. Pretty much every other part of you has been cut or scraped in some way, but nothing serious. The worst of your injuries is a concussion.”

  “I got thrown headfirst into a tree.”

  He blinked several times. “I see; well, the tree did more damage to you than the car did. We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. I’m going to give you acetaminophen to help with the headache and other body pains. Are you experiencing any nausea or sensitivity to light?”

  “No nausea, but yes to the light.”

  “How about your vision?” he asked. “Is it blurry, or are you seeing double of anything?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Good. I think it’s a mild concussion. I’m not too concerned. But please let us know right away if you experience any vomiting, or seizures, or difficulty with your balance and motor skills.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, cognitive symptoms of a concussion can include confusion, irritability, and difficulty focusing your attention. Also, on occasion, there can be issues with amnesia.”