DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3)

by T. J. Brearton

  He stared into her eyes. “Okay.”

  She started to unbutton his shirt. “Always so sharply dressed, Mr. Healy.”

  He found himself still grinning, but the nerves were cycling through his body. This was what he wanted, this was what he had wondered about, fantasized about. This was what had helped him survive the inside. And now here it was, it was happening. There was just something not quite right — he knew she was brazen, that she was someone who didn’t take orders, did what she wanted; he’d known that from the first moment he’d met her. But there was an even greater self-possession about her now that he hadn’t quite expected. The Sloane he remembered and had conjured in his mind over the days, the weeks, the months, was a spitfire, intelligent, but also a bit dark and aimless. This woman undressing him was all those things, but she didn’t seem aimless.

  You’re over-analyzing.

  Maybe. People tended to misunderstand other people, and we made up the past every time we remembered it.

  Brendan stopped resisting. He let Sloane pull his shirt off. He held his stance as she touched the scars on his chest before taking her own shirt up over her head. He helped her. Her breasts were small in the cups of her black bra. He bent over and leaned into her, kissing her. Her hands came around his lower back again, her tongue flickered in over his teeth, and he inhaled her scent, pulling her into him, lifting her up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY / THURSDAY 8:14 PM

  Cotuit Bay. The tug boats cut frothy grooves through the gray water. The long, dusty piers creaked in their pilings. Kayaks beached along the wet sand with scattered broken seashells. Million dollar homes rimmed the bay, lamplights flicked on as the sun set. In the distance, Jennifer thought she could hear the sound of thunder as the earlier storm continued to roll away. Or maybe it was helicopters.

  The setting sun burned the beach sand a deep gold. She took off her shoes and walked barefoot through the long shadows down to the water’s edge. Bostrom was just behind her. “See over there,” she pointed across the water to a line of buildings on the other side, “that used to be The Cotuit Inn. Now it’s all condos.”

  She glanced at Bostrom, his face dark in the eventide. She breathed deeply, inhaling the minerally smell of the beach, the saltwater air, the traces of gasoline from the motorboats trolling nearby. The whole thing was surreal, being back here, a place of sanctuary; taking a moment like this after the recent harrowing events, she could almost forget what was happening.

  She looked up into his eyes, which caught the light of the late sun.

  “Bostrom, I’ve decided: I like you. But if you’re about to take me to a group of vigilante cops-turned-revolutionaries, some paramilitary group who thinks the US Military or UN Troops are about to occupy American soil, and trot out the second amendment for us all to rally around, I’ve got to tell you, I’m going to stay right here. Right here on this beach. Maybe never even let my own people find me. Maybe be done with it all. Because the only thing that’s going to come from civilians fighting against our own military is the death of more civilians. Our women, our children, good men like you.”

  He gazed at her. “I hear you.”

  “Look. Right here. Right where we’re standing. This is where children play. So I’m being straight with you — if you want me to be involved in some kind of revolution, despite everything you’ve told me, and even after what I’ve seen, I don’t want any part of it.”

  “You have to trust me.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. Trust was a word a lot of people had been using lately, herself included. A breeze tousled her hair.

  “I like you too,” he said. “And there’s one last thing you need to know. Maybe it will help you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He watched the tugboats cut a path through the water. “One of the top people in Nonsystem. One of them is someone you’ve already met.”

  She stared at him until he turned to look at her. “Tell me.”

  He turned on one of his smiles. “Over dinner,” he said.

  She immediately opened her mouth to argue, but then thought better of it. She was starving. Her last meal had been a paltry continental breakfast at the hotel in Rochester. That seemed like days ago. But, she was a complete mess, her clothes still damp from the rain.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I take a shower and change. Okay with you? My family’s home is not far from here. Or, I guess you already knew that.”

  * * *

  During the 1970s, a popular Cotuit restaurant called ‘The Harbor View’ was torn down, much to the dismay of residents and regular visitors. A private residence was constructed in its place. Years later, when the residence sold for a tidy sum, the new owners learned of the history and put a ton of money into a new restaurant for the town, which bore the unimaginative name of ‘The Harbor View Too.’

  Jennifer remembered the town debating the merits of the new name. But, eventually the people settled in to enjoy the Baked Stuffed Filet of Sole served with Lobster Newburg sauce, the Broiled Famous Boston Scrod (fresh from the waters of Georges Bank) or the Bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise — the menu declared that this famous French creation combined finfish and shellfish in a sauce made from fresh tomato, leeks, saffron and garlic.

  “How about the steak?” Jennifer said, looking up at the waiter.

  “Oh, our roast prime rib is especially succulent. Comes with a baked potato. The steak has been drizzled with a . . .”

  “I’ll take it,” she said smiling and setting down her menu. “Rare.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Same,” Bostrom said. He ordered a bottle of red wine for the two of them and the waiter nodded and walked off scribbling in his pad. A college kid home for the summer, Jennifer thought. The Harbor Too was as nice as she remembered. Floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows overlooked the Hyannis Bay, fifty feet below. It was dark now, the stars hazy motes in the sky, the lights of Cotuit village twinkling in the humidity off in the distance. A ghost of herself looked back. Jennifer felt surreal again for a moment, disembodied.

  At least she’d gotten to change. She was wearing clothes she hadn’t put on in years, adding to the surrealness. And then there’d been the phone message from Brendan Healy. It had just about floored her. She’d checked her voicemail from the house landline to hear Brendan report that he was out of jail and in New York City. He’d given her the name of his hotel, and told her he’d be in touch.

  She reached for her wine and slipped the stem between her fingers and cupped the smooth, round shape of it. The other patrons in the restaurant murmured contentedly, silverware softly scraping ceramic. She realized there was music playing, soft rock in the background.

  The feeling persisted. Like she had stepped into a new existence. She looked at Bostrom, her palm still cupping the undrunk glass of red wine. He stared out the window. Down below, the bay waters turned white with chop as a wind swirled through.

  “Okay,” she said to him. “Talk.”

  His eyes met hers. “Alright,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE / THURSDAY, 11:49 PM

  “I got a book from a cop while I was inside,” Brendan said. He and Sloane lay in bed together. Night had spread over the buildings outside, a haze holding the city lights in a greasy glow. “Remember Colinas?”

  “Colinas?” She was burrowed in beside him, one arm draped over his bare chest. “Guy you were always talking to on the phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What was the book?”

  “Called The Great Divorce.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “By C.S. Lewis.”

  “Isn’t he a religious guy?”

  “He wrote The Screwtape Letters, a book that turned out to be a big part of the investigation into Rebecca Heilshorn’s murder.” He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Rebecca had two daughters. One, I saved: Aldona. She’s back with her biological father. The other is Leah. She would be around six years old n
ow. I think she’s with Heilshorn’s wife, Greta.”

  “Greta sounds like a witch in a kid’s story.”

  “Real-life version.”

  Sloane shifted beneath the covers and propped herself up on an elbow, fans of her hair sliding across her forehead. She brushed it back and said, “So, wait a minute. Why did Colinas send you that book? What does it have to do with some little girl?”

  “Well, she’s not just some little girl. You were in trouble once, and someone helped you.”

  Sloane squinted, her expression severe, but her tone light. “You trying to pick a fight with me? After the first time we finally have nookie?”

  Brendan laughed; it had just snuck out. Suddenly he felt like he and Sloane had been in a relationship for months. In a way, maybe they had. From a distance. She was frowning at him, angry he was laughing at her, and so he tucked his head to his chin and rolled into her playfully. She responded by hitting him on the shoulder and he cried out in mock pain. He stole a look at her and saw she was smiling. Then she became serious again.

  “No, come on, tell me. What does a book have to do with Leah Heilshorn? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m worried about Leah. I always have been.”

  Still skeptical, scowling slightly, “How do you know where she is? Or, how does Colinas?”

  “It’s not like he came out and told me. He marked a page in the book. It made me think about my past. And I think there might be a connection.”

  “Oh. I see . . .”

  He gave her a close look. “What?”

  Her eyes seemed hard. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, now that you’re out, you go and find this girl. What are you going to do then?” Her eyebrow arched. “Play house? You think finding her is going to somehow absolve you? You can forgive yourself for what happened to them? To Angie and Gloria?”

  He felt struck. To hear someone else say their names aloud — he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Years ago. A decade? Since the cops came to his house that night. Maybe in AA, maybe he’d spoken of them at some point sitting with Argon years ago in the group. He couldn’t remember.

  He thought about it, like he’d thought about it for the past ten years, and more recently, over the interminable nights at Rikers Island. He remembered the evening that it happened, how he had stayed behind at the restaurant after the argument with Angie, staying to drink while his wife and daughter drove away. He’d told himself they were better off without him anyway.

  She turned over, as if she was going to get out of the bed, and he reached out and grabbed her.

  “Hey,” she called out, her forehead creasing with a scowl as she looked at his hand on her. He let go. He searched her face and she gradually softened. She eased back over to him, watching him, and then she curled back up beside him. “It wasn’t your fault. And it’s over.”

  Brendan couldn’t look at her anymore. He stared up at the ceiling.

  “Just tell me,” Sloane said. “Get it out and let it go. Once and for all.”

  He waited. He thought of all the years struggling with the depression and the grief. Brendan took a deep breath, let it vent in a long sigh. Then he spoke.

  He told Sloane how that night he’d finally drunk himself to the point where he wanted to leave the restaurant, grab a taxi, pick up more booze on the way home. He’d been convinced that he would be able to smooth everything over with Angie once he got there. Maybe she’d even have one with him. Gloria would be asleep, and he could coax out the old Angie. The one who would stay up with him all night, outrunning the dark right beside him, sitting there and listening to his theories with genuine interest and attraction. Angie, with her clear mind, who could distill what it took him an hour to express in a single moment, in one sentence.

  Who had once told him that living with him was like living with a time bomb.

  He’d ridden home in the taxi even thinking, in this fantasy scenario, that he’d be able to woo her into bed. They would talk, he would explain that having them leave the restaurant without him had been for the best — a wise decision, even.

  But Angie hadn’t been there. His wife and daughter had never come home.

  “After that night, after it happened, I left. I was away for a long time. When I came home, I still had the house. I remember I had to break in. The car was in the garage, four years of dust on it. But it started up, I got in it, and I sat there, the windows down. I’d never followed the investigation. I knew that it was a truck driver, supposedly awake for three days, half asleep at the wheel, who lost control and hit them.”

  She propped her head up on an arm. “He went to prison, right?”

  Brendan found it hard to meet her eyes. “He did. But he was out in thirty months.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I traveled. Stayed in the mid-west. I even made it to Laramie. I went there again after the Rebecca Heilshorn case. But the first time I was there, that’s where I was when I found out.”

  “About his release.”

  Brendan rolled over on his back and tucked his hands behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. When I heard he was out.”

  “And you went after him.”

  Brendan was silent.

  “Did you find him?”

  Brendan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not right now. It was too much. His reunion with Sloane was something he’d been anticipating for months.

  She got out of the bed. This time he didn’t stop her. She pulled at the sheet as she stood up, attempting to spool it around her. Brendan had to lift up his butt to free some of it. He looked at her body as she pulled on the blankets. Her ribs, her protruding hip bones, her small breasts and nipples, the color of raspberries.

  Her body reminded him of Angie’s. Sloane had a scar running from her ribcage down to her pelvis which he hadn’t seen before. Angie hadn’t had any scars. She’d had skin the color of cream. Dark Italian eyes and hair, but light skin.

  He’d actually thought he was going to get Angie into bed that night after the restaurant, when he’d showed up at the door with a bottle of vodka and a six-pack. Already ten drinks into the evening, swaying on his feet, grasping the doorknob to his home and turning it and finding it locked. Dark out now — it had still been light when they had left the restaurant — the hedges and trees jagged shapes, the insects buzzing and chirping in the grass. A locked door. No lights on. She’d locked up on him. She’d fucking locked his own house on him.

  Enraged, he’d pounded on the door, rattling the windows, and lights had flipped on in the neighboring houses. Brendan standing there on his little suburban stoop, fishing around in his pocket for the keys, unable to find them, more furious as the minutes wore on, until finally he’d gotten the cops called on him when he’d turned and tossed his head back and screamed her name up at his house.

  Angie.

  His cry echoed in his head now as Sloane, fully cocooned in the bed sheet, standing in a hotel room in New York City all these years later, looked down at him.

  “I’m going to get in the shower,” she said, and walked off towards the bathroom, the sheet dragging along behind her like a bridal train.

  She left him lying there in the bed. He was tired, everywhere he was tired. In his bones he was tired. But he also felt alive.

  He closed his eyes. He forced out the other thoughts and replayed their lovemaking. His hands on her skin, the feel of her ribs, the supple skin, the sound of her voice when she came.

  The man standing on the porch in Hawthorne, defeated, drunk, drinking from the vodka bottle when the cops showed up, not to arrest him for public intoxication or disturbing the peace, but to give him the news. To stand there — it had been a male cop and a female cop, exchanging looks with one another — and to tell him that the reason why his wife and child weren’t home was because they were on the Saw Mill Parkway inside a twisted mass of metal that the rescuers were now prying open.

  That man was still there. A ruined man undeservin
g of the two of them in the first place, he was still there. He would always be there. But it was as if that man belonged to another life now. That man was in his place. The time now belonged to this Brendan, the one possibly in love with the woman running the shower in the bathroom. The one standing there, her perfect bare feet on the hard white tiles, equally white sheet draped around her slender scarred fame, sticking her hand in the beading water as it warmed. This miracle of a person, who hadn’t been meant for the world but yet was somehow still here, just like he was. He didn’t want to ruin that.

  He settled back into the bed, listening to the shower. He thought he even heard her humming a tune in there, and he drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  The knock at the door woke him.

  He sat up, half-awake, groping for his gun on the nightstand. There was no gun; he didn’t have one any more. He cocked his head, listening — maybe he’d heard something else, like Sloane drop the shampoo bottle in the bathroom shower. But then it came again; someone was knocking on the hotel-room door.

  He swung his legs out of the bed, his body lighting up with alarm, his skin breaking into gooseflesh. He found his pants on the floor between the bed and the wall, hooked a foot into the waist, and pulled them on. But he’d stood up too fast and his vision blurred. He lowered his head and hunched forward for a moment. He saw a plain white undershirt, pulled it over his head. Another rapping on the door, knock knock knock, soft but insistent. The shower continued to hiss in the bathroom; Sloane couldn’t hear anything.

  Sloane, he thought, both remembering the way they had messed up the bed he’d just climbed out of, and the self-possessed way she had entered the room an hour before. How she had come back into his life a different woman.

  Brendan padded across the plush carpet to the door, and cautiously bent towards the keyhole.

  A young man dressed in a hotel uniform was standing there. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, the employee looked as chipper as the front-desk clerks, standing at attention like a cadet at a military school, his face twitching as he practiced, no doubt, the apology he would offer for intruding at such an inappropriate hour.