by David Beers
Hours passed without Matthew slowing. When he encountered a dead end, he simply started elsewhere.
There was an end though. There was always an end to the accumulated knowledge on a given subject. Ten hours in, he put his computer aside side and closed the lid. Allison Kyra Moore, the woman tasked with catching him. The woman with a husband named Jerry and a daughter named Marley. Matthew nodded, looking at the television still showing its images silently. There had been a lot written on Matthew over the years, but he doubted Allison had done her homework as he had. She knew what people told her about him; she knew what a book or so said. She couldn't live inside his head, not like he could hers.
She thought she knew which state he was in, but didn't know much else. There were quite a few states to choose from, but she was smart enough to know he wasn't on the west coast, not after his idiotic call to Rally. She knew he was east, but she probably thought Boston instead of Daytona. Go after the wife, not the child. The one closest to the murder.
He felt that old demon rise in him, coming from the ashes that he had hoped were buried deep in the Silo. The demon that said, tell them. Tell them where you are and let them try to catch you. They paraded your son's death around television, paraded all those god damn cops when they were found not guilty. They paraded you across that TV too when you were caught. So let them know where you are and let them try to find you. They won't be able to. Not this time.
He shoved the demon away, knowing it would end him if he let it. That prideful lust for glory, for the world to know that he wouldn't be stopped, that as long as he lived here they had no say in what happened.
"Not today," he said to the silent television. "Today you keep your mouth shut."
Tomorrow equipment would arrive. The warehouse was ready, looking like a laboratory rather than an industrial cleaning shop. What was he to do? Risk that? Risk his son again? Matthew hadn't seen his face in twenty years outside a photograph or memory.
"No. That part of your life is over."
He pulled the blankets up to his neck, hoping it to be true.
Chapter Fifteen
David Stewart marked down the fourteenth truck on his paper. He waved the driver through, closed the window to keep the heat from pushing further in, and looked down at the clipboard. Fourteen trucks, one day. Was that what the man wanted?
"You see a lot of deliveries coming in this place, over a day or over a week, I want you to call me. You work this shift every day, right?"
"Yeah," David told him. The job wasn't working for The Ritz, but it allowed him to keep the Internet on at home and didn't drug test, so he kept showing up.
"Well, if you see a lot of stuff coming in, big stuff, nothing small, I want you to call me. Just call me and tell me where it's going. That's all you have to do."
The man's car had rental plates on the back and he wore a hat and sunglasses. Clean shaven, but unable to really see much besides those large black glasses hogging up much of his face. It was pretty clear he didn't want anyone seeing him but David didn't really care what he looked like. He did care about losing the job, because he liked weed and didn't like pissing in cups which a lot of other jobs around Daytona made you do—at least all the jobs that paid as much as his current one: security guard at an industrial office park.
"A grand for a phone call?" David asked.
"A grand. I give you half now. I give you half when I show back up and you let me inside. I don't pay, you don't let me in."
David thought it through. A grand would buy...maybe four ounces of primo pot. Primo.
"You ain't going to tell anyone?"
"Tell anyone what? That I paid you a grand to tell me when some people entered this place? No man, I'm good. It's my fucking money I'm spending."
"Yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. When should I expect this stuff?"
The man looked out the front window of his car then, at the gate to the industrial park in front of him.
"I don't know, to be honest with you. I think soon, though. Definitely within a month."
"Alright, man. Where's the money."
A white envelope emerged from the car's window. "The number to call is on the inside. Don't lose it. You got it? You lose the number, you lose five hundred bucks."
"I got it, man. I'll call."
Fourteen deliveries in one day. A lot of things came through here, things that needed washing, things that needed mending, and things that need building. Fourteen trucks that size didn't just roll through all the time though, not heading to the same spot.
David pulled his cell phone from his pocket and the white envelope from his wallet where he had kept it since spending the five hundred dollars.
Someone picked up the phone call after a few rings.
"I think whatever you're looking for just arrived," David said.
* * *
Jeffrey kept the windows down and let the air rush around him. His hat sat on the passenger's seat, the glasses too. He would put those on soon, but for now he just wanted to feel this freedom, this air blowing at ninety miles-per-hour as he rushed down the highway.
Fourteen trucks sounded like his man. Fourteen trucks sounded like old Matthew Brand was getting busy indeed. It had been a long shot and an expensive one too. There were twenty industrial parks in the Daytona area, and a lot more outside of that. He figured Brand wouldn't want to transport his cargo far once he did his damage, so Jeffrey went to all twenty. He greased wheels in each place, or as many places as he could. Some wouldn't budge and there wasn't a lot he could do about that. He had other things in the works, but if a lot of shipments showed up out of nowhere at one of these places, it could mean Brand had begun working.
Now this stoner from Red Isles Industrial Park had called him and told him he was basically hitting the lottery. He'd laid out the money a week ago, not knowing if it would work and how long it would take, but—
God damn it, it had worked!
Jeffrey turned the music up in his car, letting Tom Petty's ragged voice out into the air around him.
He would write the book and maybe, with a little luck and a lot of daring, Brand would see his kid again.
Times were good, indeed.
* * *
"You're sure they all went to the same place?"
"Look at the clipboard," the kid said to him, actually putting it through the guard's window.
"Okay, okay. What number was it going to?"
"A-forty-six."
"How long has it been since the last delivery?"
"Two hours. The last truck left about thirty minutes ago."
"And no one else has been in?" Jeffrey asked.
"Not for that area."
Jeffrey nodded. "Here ya go," he said, handing another white envelope through the window. The kid took it and opened it up, but didn't start counting.
"All right, you want to go in? I can't let you into the building; I'd lose my job for that, but I'll let you drive around."
Jeffrey nodded. "That's fine. Open the gate."
It opened, slowly pulling along the track that held it in place. Jeffrey drove his car through. His heart wasn't racing and the excitement he felt on the road minutes before had disappeared. Trepidation enveloped him, because he knew that when he saw the warehouse, once he knew it was Brand's, he wouldn't be able to turn back. The closer his car wheels took him, the better he understood that he would be observing the cheetah take down antelopes. He would be inside, not just trying to find an opening.
A quick thought came to him. Jail time.
The idea came and went since he had decided to hunt down a convicted serial killer and write a book on him.
Jeffrey pulled his car into a parking spot, looking at the large metal building in front of him. A box, more or less, with a metal garage door separating whatever lay inside from the world.
Jail time. He didn't know the rules to this and he hadn't asked his lawyer. He'd been too busy getting down here, too busy casting a net to think about this question. He could
pull out his cell phone right now and call that bitch F.B.I. agent, let her know he had done all her work for her. The whole chase would probably end within six to ten hours and he would go back home to his vodka and orange juice. The book would be over. Brand would die.
Those two phrases replaced jail time.
The book would be over. Brand would die.
Something very similar to the Scales of Justice began in his head, with jail time on one side, the book and Brand on the other. Other phrases were added as necessary. Aiding and abetting. Fame. Criminal. Television circuit. Brand's son gone forever. Cop killer. He looked out at the building in front of him as the scales weighed his strange justice.
In the end, it wasn't even close.
Jeffrey got out of the car, leaving the door open and the engine running.
The building stood three stories high, with windows looking out on the second and third stories, which wouldn't help Jeffrey look in. He walked around the outside of the building, looking for doors. He found nothing. No opening. The place was sealed.
That means you can still leave. You haven't seen anything. Just get back in the car, drive through David the Security Guard's domain, and head home.
Jeffrey did go back to the car, discarding those thoughts. He needed to talk to the night security guard. He'd paid the man off earlier of course, in case the deliveries came at night, but now he needed twenty-four hour access to the park. He needed to be able to wait and watch, because Brand would show up sooner or later.
* * *
Matthew handed his card to the security guard, waited as it was scanned, and then the gate before him opened. He put his car in drive and went forward, rolling his window up.
Everything had arrived. Two days, twenty five deliveries. It worried him, that many delivers in such a short time span, but the other options were unacceptable. Buying what he needed completely assembled would let the world know where he was fast. The other option was to wait: stretch the deliveries out over an entire year before he began his work. He spent twenty years on this moment. Ten researching and ten in a cell. He wasn't going to waste any more time, which eliminated that idea. So the deliveries were necessary and if they caught him, if a pack of police were sitting at his warehouse waiting on him, well then he would meet his son in whatever afterlife came next.
He drove the road back to his warehouse slowly, looking for anything that might not belong. Everything was quiet, the street lamps casting their golden glow down on the dark road. He saw his building ahead, and if cops were waiting on him, they were doing an excellent job of hiding.
No, they hadn't found him.
He walked from his car to the garage door, typed into the electronic keypad holding the door closed, and slid the door up. Metal against oiled metal, the sound echoing out into the night. Matthew stood in front of his warehouse and understood again—remembered, really—that this was his destiny. That the huge boxes in front of him were why he was born.
Tears pricked his eyes and he didn't wipe them away.
This was it. There would be no other chances, no other escapes and no more luck. All the years before this, from his time as a child studying to his last day in that cell, all of it had been for this. To open these wooden crates, take out the objects and put them together, then to create the life that was stolen from him. Matthew Brand stood in front of his kingdom.
He walked in, placing his hand on the wooden boxes that held the tools he would use. There were tools for birth here, tools for death, and tools for protection in case anyone unwanted decided to show.
Soon, now.
Soon, Hilman.
* * *
Jeffrey had climbed a damn tree and now spread out across one of the branches. He held on like a child playing cops and robbers, trying to hide from the other kids who would come and shoot him with imaginary guns. This wasn't a game though and he wasn't a child. He was a grown man spying on another grown man, and doing it in the most ridiculous way he could imagine. There wasn't any other choice; he paid the cab driver who dropped him off, paid the security guard another five hundred, and then walked the half mile back into the industrial park. He looked at bushes, behind corners, any number of places to try and keep out of sight. Only the tree worked—high enough so no one would look at it, close enough to make sure he could see anyone that showed up.
He kept headphones in his ears and a Podcast playing on his phone, spending hours on the tree. Sometimes he lay across the branch, other times he would sit up, trying to keep his muscles from cramping. Hours passed and Podcast after Podcast played.
The lights of a vehicle approached and the noise in Jeffrey's ears ceased mattering. The tired ache in his muscles disappeared. The lights, slowly winding around the curve, became all important. An old Buick pulled through, the street lamps not penetrating its windows, revealing only blackness inside. It rolled right by the tree without slowing, heading forward another hundred yards and stopping right in front of the warehouse Jeffrey had come to watch.
"Here he is," Jeffrey whispered, pulling up the binoculars hanging from his neck. He put them to his eyes and waited on the car door to open.
A bald man emerged from it. Facing away from Jeffrey, he walked to the door, unlocked and opened it.
Jeffrey let his breath out, realizing he'd been holding it all in his lungs.
He watched the man walk in, touching huge boxes that were as tall as basketball goals and as wide as trucks. The man took his time touching, letting his hand run along the wood as if it was a lover's face. He still didn't turn around, didn't let Jeffrey get a look at his face—only the back of his head.
"Just turn. Just for a second. Show me it's you, Matthew."
He kept walking through the warehouse, a glittering, metal room with bright lights that shone down and illuminated everything. He walked slowly, his legs moving with a grace that reminded Jeffrey of a butterfly landing on flowers for a few seconds before taking off.
Eventually though, the man walking through the warehouse, touching the boxes like they were children instead of wood, did turn around.
Jeffrey Dillan saw through his binoculars.
He saw Matthew Brand.
Chapter Sixteen
The Devil's Dream
By Jeffrey Dillan
Chapter 7
The blessing of Matthew Brand's life, perhaps a blessing for the world given what he might have done otherwise, was that he did not witness his son's death. Matthew saw Hilman in the morgue. He watched Hilman's body descend into a hole in the ground and then watched people pile dirt on it. All of that is horrible enough, but at least he didn't see the boy die.
Hilman Brand would have gone to Harvard. He said his end goal was to go into politics, but he'd like to try his hand in medicine first. At the age of seventeen, Hilman thought the most good could be done as a politician. He wanted a fairer society even though he might have been bit young to understand such things. The kid was bright, not valedictorian in his high school class, but in the top five. He worked hard and he genuinely enjoyed learning. Hilman was destined for Harvard, both as a legacy and the adopted son of Matthew Brand. Once there he planned on majoring in biology and he would have done well. Bright kids with a love for learning and a willingness to stay up late rarely performed poorly in school, or life for that matter.
Hilman met a girl named Julie at Harvard—white like his mother and father—with parents who didn't mind her interracial dating. The two met his junior year and managed to stay together his senior year as well. They thought his leaving for med school would be difficult, but they didn't consider breaking up. She started her senior year while he started Johns Hopkins Medical School. They saw each other once a month and made love when they did, using a fierceness that only the young and much missed can muster. She graduated and moved in with him, working at a marketing agency. He began his residency and again their time together was short, but they married anyway, and visited with his parents on Thanksgiving and hers on Christmas. His dad,
who had been such a strong force in Hilman's life became less and less as school moved on and his life with his wife grew. They spoke regularly enough, every other week or so, both of them catching the other up on what they were doing, and his dad was proud of his son. When he completed his residency and passed his boards, Hilman took a picture hugging his mother, his father, and his wife, and that was one of the happiest days of his life.
He went to work, taking very little time off for any kind of break. Loans were nonexistent for Hilman—money had never been an issue—and while he wanted to help those who had less, he knew how far removed he was from their circumstances. Maybe both were reasons why he took in people who couldn't afford his services, both trying to help and issues with himself never having experienced poverty.
Hilman grew older and had children with his wife. Their skin was light coffee and they were beautiful. Hilman's father continued ripping along, creating, inventing, and discovering. Hilman's medical practice grew until at one point he decided that it was time to work on his childhood dream. Politics. He found friends and relatives willing to help and began the American Politician's Right of Passage—grassroots campaigning. He was trying for a Senate seat, the first time in twenty years the spot held no incumbent.
Hilman's advantages were vast because his father was Matthew Brand. With the name recognition came the ability to raise money easily. Being able to say your adviser was the smartest man to ever live didn't hurt much either.
Hilman won the race and life changed again for him and his family. They went to Washington D.C., moved into a new apartment and received a new salary. His children, two of them at this point, went to a new school. Hilman learned as fast as he could, meeting people and doing his best to remember why he came to Washington. He was introduced to the most important people in either party, and he attended their dinners and get-togethers. Everyone wanted to invite him because everyone wanted the possibility that Matthew Brand might show up at one of their campaign events.
He cosponsored legislation and his children grew older. Entering middle school and high school, the world they knew was far away from the one Hilman thought of helping in his younger years. The crux of his bills always focused on the poorest in society though. He donated money to charities like United Way and The Heifer Organization. His wife became even more involved in the charities, serving on boards and helping fund-raise throughout the year.
