Smoke

by Lisa Unger

  “Maybe The New Day knew who he was all along,” said Lydia.

  “It’s possible, I guess. They knew everything about my stepfather.”

  “How did your brother get involved with Mariah?”

  “He met her at one of The New Day meetings. It was right at the point where his journal entries started to shift. He started out with nothing but disdain for them and slowly began to express a kind of grudging admiration.”

  “He didn’t connect that Mariah was Marilyn.”

  She shook her head. “No. He never made that connection that I know of. We’d never met her while my father was dating her. So he would have had no way of knowing what she looked like. Maybe Tim never even told him about her. I only learned that they were the same person after Mickey died. When I found the journals, I confronted Tim. He admitted to me that he’d confided in Mickey but claimed he had no idea what Mickey was planning.”

  “At that point, Lily, why didn’t you take what you knew to the police?” asked Jeffrey.

  She looked at him. “My stepfather. He has made some terrible mistakes that he thought were dead and buried. Trevor Rhames knew those secrets, threatened to expose him.”

  Lydia shook her head. “What could be so bad that he would sacrifice his children to escape it?” It was the second time she’d asked that question in forty-eight hours.

  Lily turned her eyes to Lydia. “I really don’t know. But he said it involved my mother and that she would be hurt by the exposure, as well.”

  “You weren’t curious to know what they might be, these secrets?” asked Lydia, knowing the heart of a journalist too well to let that slide.

  “I pressed him, believe me. I did some digging on my own. The best I can figure is that it has something to do with Body Armor and possibly his military career before he married my mother.”

  She saw Jeff shift in his seat and Agent Hunt scribble in his book. She thought of the Privatized Military Companies Grimm talked about, she thought about the weapons, the pink diamond they’d found. Everything vague, their connections as delicate and translucent as a spider’s silk.

  “So you decided to follow Mickey’s plan and get yourself into The New Day?” said Lydia.

  Lily looked at her; there was a flash of something in the young woman’s eyes. That fire they both had to know, no matter the cost.

  “I wanted to free my stepfather from their grasp. I wanted to prove that they killed my brother. I wanted to expose them. I thought I was stronger than Mickey. That I had a more evolved sense of myself, too much so to fall prey to their brainwashing.”

  “But?”

  “But their program is amazingly strong,” she said with a long exhale. “I didn’t know how tentative a hold we have on reality, how under the right conditions we lose ourselves and our ideas of right and wrong like a cheap pair of sunglasses. They take you away from everything that defines you, family, friends, your profession, your privacy. And then they create a new world for you. It’s wild. I thought I could resist.”

  “And you did,” said Lydia.

  She laughed sadly. “Just barely. I took some precautions; I used my connections at the paper to get in touch with the FBI. I called around and got a lot of sidestepping, no one knew anything about The New Day, no one was available to speak to me, until finally Grimm contacted me. You met him?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Grimm wanted The New Day but couldn’t pursue them for political reasons… or that’s what he told me. The deal was: I infiltrated, got all the info I needed to do a ripping exposé and gave him the juice he needed to bust them. In exchange, I kept in contact with him and if I didn’t report he was supposed to come in after me.”

  “How did you keep in contact?”

  “However I could. I wasn’t a prisoner, ostensibly. I could come and go as I pleased. I called a couple times from my own cell phone, from pay phones at coffee shops. Emailed from an Internet café. I just didn’t count on the drugs and then the cleansing.” She gave a visible shudder and then drank from the water bottle. The very act of talking seemed to drain her.

  “I went to a Monday night meeting and I stayed. It was only a matter of days before I turned my money over to them. I figured I should go along with it, just to be convincing. Eventually, keeping in touch with Grimm started to seem like a smaller and smaller priority. By the time they started pushing the ‘cleansing’ on me, it seemed like a promotion, some kind of honor.”

  She paused here and looked at the floor. Then out the window into the blackness. They all stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.

  “It was Halloween night. I was supposed to begin my cleansing the next day. They claim to wash you of all the negative thoughts and energies and messages that you accumulate throughout your life. When you’re done, you’re this new creature filled with light and positive thoughts, free of pain and addictions, able to go on to achieve everything the Universe intended for you. I was so happy, nearly euphoric. I just had the slightest memory, the tiniest nagging thought that maybe this wasn’t the right thing, that it wasn’t why I’d come.

  “Then the weirdest thing happened. A car drove past on the road that ran outside my dorm room. The windows were open and the radio blaring. It was a song from the eighties, ‘Shout’ by Tears for Fears. And all of a sudden I was a kid again, walking through the hallways of my high school, the speckled linoleum floors and olive green lockers, the fluorescent lights, the smell from the chemistry lab, and that song playing on a tiny pink Sanyo boom box.”

  For a second, she seemed like the Lily Lydia remembered, animated, excited. Some of the color came back to her cheeks and she started to use her hands to express herself.

  “And just like that, my life started to leak back, my job, my parents, my apartment. I realized that I was about twelve hours away from losing myself completely, becoming one of the zombies I’d seen hanging out in the common room.”

  “So you ran,” said Lydia.

  “Yes, I ran. I ran for my life. But they caught me.”

  She slumped in her chair.

  “They shot me… not with bullets but with those hard rubber pellets riot police use to subdue crowds. It felt like bullets. I thought they’d killed me; I tasted my own blood. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, they had strapped me down, they forced a feeding tube down my throat, played these audio visual messages about shedding the old self, my new day dawning, shifting off the negative messages of a sick society and smothering family. But I don’t remember much of it.” She stopped and smiled here.

  “I just kept hearing that song in my head. ‘Shout, shout, let it all out.’ You know it?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “I don’t know why, but that song saved me. When I heard it in my head I just remembered who I was and where my life was. And I knew that no one could take my power; only I could give it away.”

  The tears fell again. She took a tissue from the box and wiped them dry, blew her nose.

  “I’m not sure how much time passed but as soon as they removed the tube, I started acting like my New Day had dawned. I just did whatever they wanted, looked vacant and euphoric. But I started pouring out the tea they gave me; I realized whatever is in that just makes you really mellow and susceptible. And all this time I’ve been listening, observing, taking notes.

  “I figured Grimm would come for me at some point but then after a couple of weeks I started to get worried. Maybe he couldn’t come in after me; I knew he wasn’t supposed to be dealing with me at all. I started figuring out how I could get away.

  “Then there was some emergency in Riverdale. I thought, finally, it was the FBI coming but they moved us down here… just a few of us. They left some people behind; the ones that didn’t have any more money I think, those whose families had cut them off, who couldn’t be extorted.”

  “So that’s the agenda?” said Jeffrey. “To draw people with problems into The New Day, take all their money, then extort more funds from the families?”

 
She nodded. “I mean, you tell Rhames everything. Between the way he is, his personal power and the drugs, he becomes like your confessor, your lover, the only true friend you ever had. You bare your soul and all your pain to him. And he heals you. Or anyway that’s the way it feels in that controlled environment with the drugs and the audio visual messages they play.”

  There was something pleading to her tone. She wanted them to understand, and Lydia did.

  “But you have to be in pain first, right? In order to be healed by him?”

  Lily looked at her with wide, sad eyes. She nodded.

  “And that’s what you didn’t count on. That your grief over the loss of your brother fractured you, that you were in terrible pain and seeking revenge. It made you vulnerable.”

  “That’s right. And I think I had a sense of it before I went in that night. I’d read Mickey’s journals and contacted the FBI. But I felt so overwhelmed, suddenly, unsure if I was doing the right thing. That’s why I called you.”

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” said Lydia, moving to sit beside her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  She held Lily for a minute and then released her.

  “No,” Lily said, shaking her head. “You couldn’t have known. Besides, if I hadn’t made that call, I might still be in there. Did it lead the police to you?”

  Lydia nodded. “And then we came looking for you.”

  Lily smiled a real smile for the first time. “Thank you.”

  After a moment, the smile faded and worry clouded her features.

  “I need to get in touch with my parents. They need to know I’m okay. And they need to be warned. They’ll come after me. And they’ll do that by trying to get to my parents.”

  Lydia looked down and took Lily’s hands. “Your mom is staying at your apartment in New York. We can send someone to look out for her.”

  Lily nodded. “They’re having problems again,” she said, as if she suspected it was inevitable. “Where’s my stepdad? At the house?”

  “I’m so sorry, Lily,” Lydia said. She hadn’t wanted to tell Lily about Tim Samuels, but she didn’t want to lie either. Lily deserved better than that.

  “What?” said Lily, her eyes widening.

  “He’s dead,” she said simply. There was no better choice of words.

  Lily jerked as if Lydia had slapped her. And Lydia instantly regretted her decision to tell the truth. Lily wasn’t strong enough to handle the news. Lydia reached for the younger woman.

  “What?” she breathed into Lydia’s ear. “How?”

  Lydia shook her head, searching for what to say. Lily drew away from Lydia and looked her in the face. There was something hard and angry in her expression, a look Lydia had never seen on her. It turned her prettiness to granite. The girl was gone. In her place was a woman made hard by bitter experiences and crippling grief.

  “It was suicide.”

  “Suicide?” she said, incredulous.

  Lydia nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Lily. Yes.”

  All the air seemed to suck out of the room as they waited for her to crumble beneath the weight of this new grief they’d delivered. But she didn’t crumble. Her face went blank and her lids lowered in rage.

  “That bastard,” she hissed. “That coward.”

  She stood suddenly, then lost her legs and fell into a pile of skin and bones on the filthy carpet. Lydia knelt beside her. Lily put her head in her hands and started to sob, terrible wracking sobs that connected painfully to the grief in Lydia’s own heart. Lydia pushed back tears, rested a hand on Lily’s shoulder. She hadn’t expected anger like that from Lily; it surprised her.

  “He did this to us, to all of us,” she managed, between sobs. “And then he just bails? How could he?”

  She leaned into Lydia and started to wail. Lydia looked up at Jeffrey who was leaning into them, his hand on Lydia’s shoulder. Agent Hunt stood back from the scene, looking uncomfortable and useless. On Jeffrey’s face she saw concern but she saw something else, too. Suspicion.

  ***

  The high beams of the van were blinding her in the rearview mirror and the roar of its engine told her that it was souped up. Her Explorer was all bark and no bite, its engine no match for whatever was humming beneath the hood of the white van. The van rammed her hard from behind and she jerked hard from the impact. She’d managed to get her seat belt on before she started driving and she was glad for it when it locked and held her tightly in place, though she felt the sting of the friction burn on the side of her neck. She pressed her foot to the gas and the Explorer and the headlights dropped behind her but kept following fast.

  “Matt,” she called. “Matt, please.” But there was no answer from behind her and she felt panic rise up in her throat. Her heart was thumping hard and her arms and hands were tingling with adrenaline. A few cars flew past her on the other end of the highway in the opposite direction. Her Glock lay between her thighs. The van came up fast and rammed her again; this time so hard she involuntarily let go of the wheel for a moment and the car veered toward the shoulder. She caught the wheel and held the vehicle steady. The van was bigger and had a lower center of gravity; the driver was trying to get her to flip. Then when they were stunned or trapped in the vehicle, he’d walk up and kill them both. She could just barely see him in her rearview mirror, a large, dark, hairless form at the wheel. Terrified tears threatened then, but she held them back.

  “No way,” she said out loud, gripping the wheel hard. “No fucking way this guy’s going to get us.”

  But there was only silence in the back of the Explorer.

  “Please, God,” she said, as she saw the van come at her again fast for another try. She sped up and veered into the right-hand lane. The exit she needed was less than a mile away; if she could get to it, she figured he wouldn’t follow her onto the streets. At nearly four A.M., the BQE was practically empty, with just a smattering of cars making their way through the dark morning. She hoped one of them had a cell phone and might call the police to report the van ramming her, two drivers racing out of control. Her own phone was out of reach in her bag on the floor, and she didn’t dare take her eyes off the road.

  He rammed her again, this time harder, and she lost control of the Explorer for a second, felt the left side of the car leave the ground. She caught the wheel and righted herself. Something in the engine was straining hard.

  “Jez,” said Mount from the back. “Slow down. Let him approach the vehicle and then blow his head off.”

  She practically wept with relief to hear his voice. “Slow down? Are you crazy?”

  “We can’t outrun him.”

  “We can make it to the hospital. Just one more exit. Once we’re on the streets, he’ll pull away. He’s not going to follow us into a populated area where there’ll be good witnesses.”

  “Just pull over. He’ll never expect you to do that.”

  The van had dropped behind but was picking up speed again for another hit. Harder. It went against all her instincts screaming to drive as hard and as fast as she could. But she knew in her heart that Matt was right. They couldn’t outrun the van. They had a better chance if they stood and fought.

  She let the vehicle slow and pulled onto the shoulder as if she was in distress. She reached quickly for her bag and dialed 911.

  “This is Detective Jesamyn Breslow with the Ninth Precinct,” she said, watching the white van pull over a hundred yards behind her and sit idle. “Officers in trouble. We need backup on the Eastbound BQE, just before exit 121. Assailant in white van, armed.”

  The dispatcher was saying something, but Jesamyn let the phone drop on the seat beside her. She turned around and used the back of her seat as a barricade, holding her gun over its edge. She looked down at Matt, who had his hand on his chest; his paper-white face seemed to float in the darkness.

  “As soon as he starts to move on us, unload your weapon into him. Don’t wait for him to fire first. They want us dead.”

  The door to the
white van opened and a man identical in dress and hairstyle to the guy whose ass she’d kicked early, stepped out onto the road. An eighteen-wheeler whipped past them, horn blaring. Jesamyn felt the Explorer rock in its wake.

  When he stepped into view, her heart did a flip from her chest to her stomach. He was taller than the other man, broader through the shoulders. She couldn’t make out his face very well in the dark but she could see clearly that he had some kind of huge gun in his right hand. She couldn’t tell what it was… a shotgun or an assault rifle; something big and nasty.

  She breathed hard against the dread that was growing in her.

  “Stay calm, make sure he’s in range, and then just let it rip,” Matt said weakly.

  In the way far distance she heard the sound of sirens. They were far, maybe five or six minutes away. They won’t get here in time, she thought, as the monster lifted the gun and started moving toward them slowly.

  “Stay down,” she yelled to Mount. She opened fire through her rear windshield and the air around them came alive with sound and light and a blizzard of glass.

  Twenty-Seven

  The Gulf slapped lazily against the white sand and a sliver of moon hung over palm tress that stood perfectly still in the windless night. Lydia lifted the beer to her lips. It wasn’t as cold as it needed to be and there was no lime but it still tasted okay. Jeffrey grimaced as he drank it.

  “It’s warm,” he complained.

  “It’s something.”

  Lily was finally sleeping in one of the queen beds and Lydia and Jeffrey sat outside on the cinderblock patio in white plastic chairs drinking Coronas. Agent Hunt had left to return to the scene, leaving behind two agents to ensure they made good on their promise to stick around. Lily had had a tearful conversation with her mother on the phone and then collapsed into bed after Jeffrey called Striker, asking him to send someone to protect Lily’s mother and to send a lawyer down to Florida. Chances were the ATF would just let them go at a certain point, as long as things went their way. But you never could tell when federal agencies would be looking for a scapegoat; Lydia was glad Jeffrey took the precaution of getting a lawyer.