I was the patsy.
David hadn’t laid the trap to catch whoever was hacking the company’s network; he had dangled a big enough prize to get someone into a position where the evidence was overwhelmingly incriminating.
They were going to kill Terence Matheson and pin the murder on the burglar.
That setup would only work if they didn’t have any witnesses, namely me. I could hardly plead my innocence if I was dead. In the back of my mind, I realized that they would also have to silence Chuck.
There was a look of intense concentration on Terence Matheson’s face, as if he were trying to solve a complex equation. He reached his hand to his collar and slowly loosened his tie. Through gritted teeth, he said, “You have to stop this. I won’t hold it in much longer. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“There is no stopping it, Father.”
In an act of desperation, Terence screamed something unintelligible and dashed toward the door behind me. At the same time, he pulled a dark, beaded necklace out from under his shirt—a rosary?
David yelled something and made a jerking motion with his gun hand.
The shot was startlingly loud.
Terence Matheson stiffened as the bullet struck home. There was a look of horror and surprise on his face as he fell toward me.
It all happened like in a slow-motion movie, with the ringing in my ears the only soundtrack.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the crazed look of anticipation on David’s face.
I automatically reached out to catch the senior Mr. Matheson before he hit the ground, but his weight was too much for me. The momentum pulled me down after him and, unbalanced, I fell across him.
He reached out one hand to try to pull me off him; with his other hand, he was trying to rip the rosary off him. “Run,” he said in a breathless rush. “Get out of here.”
Then there was a last flash of life in his eyes. He snapped the necklace from his neck, and it fell to the floor…
…and a fraction of a moment later, I felt as if I were being shredded into a thousand pieces from the inside out.
Chapter Ten
It felt like a balloon of supercharged energy inside me, expanding outward rapidly. Any moment I was going to reach my breaking point and burst.
So much had happened in a short time that I wasn’t sure of the exact order, but I knew I was standing at the edge of death, whether by whatever it was in me trying to get out, or from David and Al, who both had their guns trained on me.
I strained against the pressure in me. If I didn’t get myself back under control, I would not be able to find a way out of this situation.
Struggling to one knee, I found myself speaking. My hearing was slowly returning, and I heard my voice as gritty and strained. “What’s happening to me?”
“No!” David shouted. The disbelief was evident in his eyes. “It can’t be. It’s impossible.”
Al looked as confused as I was, but he didn’t let that stop him from bursting into action. He closed the distance between us with a few strides, and grabbed my arm.
“Don’t touch him,” David barked, his voice rising.
But it was too late.
Something in me snapped, and it felt as if every microscopic part of me exploded outward.
The lights in the room flickered on and off twice, then went out with an electric sound. A spark erupted from the back of David’s laptop, and he jumped back.
I don’t know if I was the only one who heard it, but a deafening roar filled my ears, and the pressure in my head became unbearable.
Like an elastic band pulled to its limit, the force in me snapped. I screamed from the sudden release. It felt as if something were ripping my soul out of me.
I heard a cry of surprise and pain from Al. When I opened my eyes, he was somehow on the other side of the room. A lamp on a half-table shattered when he landed on it. A moment later, he fell to the floor, his arms and legs pointing in all different directions. Faintly, his chest rose and fell; he was still breathing.
I knew I hadn’t thrown him across the room. But something had.
Acutely aware that David still held a gun on me and had a clear shot, I wondered why he stayed his hand. Turning toward him, I paused, not sure what he would do. He had a complex expression, a mixture of shock and anger; maybe a hint of fear.
I knew if I spent anymore time thinking about it, I would lose my nerve.
I backed away from the dead body of Terence Matheson, and edged my way to the door.
“Don’t!” David barked, leveling his gun at me. But he didn’t fire. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t going to wait for him to change his mind.
I bolted.
Behind me, I heard David yell for me to stop, but I didn’t slow, and he didn’t pursue me.
* * *
I ran down the hall to the stairs. At the last moment, I remembered to use my key card to open the glass door instead of running into it. My hand was shaking, and it took two attempts for me to swipe the card correctly. Every nerve in my body was crackling, as if some kind of electric current were running through me. Was this adrenaline?
I got the door open and flew down the stairs and through the lobby to the main entrance as fast as I could.
As soon as I stepped outside into the cool morning air, my stomach heaved, and I puked into the small begonia garden outside the doors.
After spending several years on the streets and the better part of another year in prison, I was no stranger to violence. But I had never seen someone killed.
Murdered.
Why?
My world turned upside down. David, who had never been anything other than kind to me, had turned into a homicidal maniac. His father, Terence, had been petty, mean and tyrannical; yet in the end, his last thought was for my safety. While he was alive, I had disliked him intensely; now, I felt sorry for him. His son betrayed and killed him.
I wiped the corner of my mouth on my sleeve and got up. My chest hurt as if something heavy had fallen on me, and I had to concentrate to take a breath. I could feel the signs of a headache starting in my temples. Every part of my body ached, as if I had run a marathon.
My eyes hurt, and everything seemed to be blurry.
I took my glasses off, and the world jumped into focus. I had to be imagining things. Putting the glasses back on, everything went blurry again, and I felt a sharp pain as my eyes tried to make sense of it, and pulled the glasses away from my face.
There was no way this was right. I’d had vision problems all my life. Now, I could see clearly. Was this connected to what had happened upstairs?
What had taken me over?
I knew—I knew—I hadn’t laid a hand on Al, yet something had knocked him a dozen feet away.
The entire incident was a setup from the beginning, a way for David to get rid of his father and have someone else, like me, take the fall.
Now that I thought about it, it seemed that David had expected something tangible to happen upon his father’s death. Whatever he had wanted to happen, it hadn’t.
Instead, I had felt an overwhelming force come out from somewhere within my core.
It had hit Al and sent him flying.
David, who should have killed me right after murdering his father, had let me live.
My confusion grew stronger even as I tried to make sense of it.
Pulling the prepaid cell phone out of my pocket, I flipped it open to call Chuck, but the phone wouldn’t turn on no matter how many times I pressed the power button. I even pulled the battery out and put it back in, but the phone was dead. It was possible something had broken when I fell on top of Terence Matheson.
Or…
I didn’t want to think about that terrific force that had come from within me. Had it somehow short-circuited the phone?
Half-expecting David or Al to come running out of the building and finish me off, I broke into a jog and headed for the main gate of the airfield.
One thing I had learned fr
om my homeless days was to be elsewhere when there was trouble. I didn’t have a good track record where that philosophy was concerned, but that didn’t stop me from doing my best to get as far away from Worldwind Avionics as I could.
There was a growing feeling of dread as I neared the gate. All it took was a simple phone call from David to warn Jorge, and the guard would stop me long enough for the authorities to show up and arrest me.
Because he hadn’t shot me, there was always the possibility that David wouldn’t call the cops on me.
I didn’t have any other choice but to chance it, so I didn’t break my stride until I was at the gate.
Jorge spotted me and stepped out of his booth. He offered a congenial but concerned smile as I approached.
“Not going to wait for Carl?” he asked.
I slowed to a stop and leaned over slightly, my hands propped on my thighs, while I caught my breath. I shook my head.
“I found my wallet,” I said, lying through the smile I manufactured for his benefit. “Someone must have emptied my locker. All my stuff was in a box in the change room.”
“Oh.” Jorge glanced toward the main road. “Your friend is long gone. Want me to call him for you?”
I waved off the suggestion and pointed to the bus stop across the street. “He’s got places to be. I’ll just wait for the Metro.”
He stared at me. “Something’s different about you. Where are your glasses?”
I struggled to think what to say. “Oh, I mostly just need them for reading,” I lied.
“All right.” Jorge reached back into the guard booth and pressed the button to open the gate. “Best of luck to you.”
“Thanks, Jorge.”
With a relief I could almost taste, I walked off the Kingsway Airfield and crossed the street. I was very proud of myself that I didn’t look back until I reached the bus stop.
If I was wrong, and David was going to call the cops, I would see them from a mile away.
As it turned out, I wasn’t wrong. A few minutes later, a large bus grumbled up to the stop in front of me. I got in, paid my fare, and made my way to the back. I looked out the window across the distance to the Worldwind Avionics administration building.
Perversely, I had almost hoped I had heard the telltale sounds of a police siren. That would have been a normal and expected conclusion to the events of the morning.
The fact that David had not called the authorities meant things were probably going to be much worse for me than going back to jail.
Chapter Eleven
With Kingsway Airfield out of sight, my heart stopped pounding and my breathing evened.
This early in the morning, the bus was crowded with people heading to work, and it was standing room only. I kept thinking someone would pull out a cell phone any time now and report me to the police.
Fifteen minutes later, without any sign of a squad car or siren, my paranoia lessened enough for me to go over in my mind what had happened in David’s office.
I didn’t focus on the CEO’s murder, or that David and Al were behind it. I didn’t try to think about the setup and what that meant for Chuck and me, or that I suddenly didn’t need glasses.
I thought about that internal force that had burst out of me when Al grabbed my arm. What the hell had it been?
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew it had come from me. How was that possible?
I had heard an electric shock could throw someone several feet away, but static buildup couldn’t produce that much force, could it?
There was one other possibility, but I dismissed it from my thoughts as quickly as it developed. No, I wasn’t going to go down that path.
But was there any explanation other than paranormal that fit? How was it even possible? It defied logic and physics.
I had to think through it, if only so that I could laugh at myself later for even considering it.
I didn’t believe in the supernatural, Atlantis, black magic, or ghosts and goblins … yet, I couldn’t explain what had happened in that office this morning.
So, if it wasn’t some kind of supernatural event, what was it? Where did it come from? Did it have something to do with where we were, or was it something generated from within me?
If that last was the case, it only followed that I should be able to reproduce the effect.
I tried to recall all the sensations I felt in the moments before the power hit Al. I had felt an electric tingle in my skin and an incredible buildup of pressure within me. Unless it was an unconscious reaction, I didn’t know how it had started.
Staring at a scrap of a newspaper tucked underneath one of the benches, I willed it to move.
If anything, it was remarkable how much it didn’t move.
I took a breath and trained my eyes on the paper once more. If only to say later that I tried everything, I concentrated my hardest on making the piece of scrap move. To the exclusion of everyone else on the bus, I focused on it.
Just when I thought I couldn’t push myself any further, the paper lifted a few inches into the air and swirled two seats down. For a moment, I didn’t believe it had happened. I had the ability to move objects!
Then I noticed several other pieces of waste—a gum wrapper, an empty soft drink can, a pen—rolling in the general direction of the newspaper.
I looked up. Someone had cracked open a window several rows down, and I laughed silently when a gust of cool wind blew across my face.
* * *
After catching several connecting buses, I finally got off about a block away from Chuck and Stacy’s apartment.
I assumed he would head back to his place after leaving me, and I needed to let him know what had happened. Perhaps he had some idea what was going on, or could at least offer some suggestions, or maybe even help me figure out what my next step was.
As I neared the apartment, I saw my mother’s car parked out along the curb, and I quickened my stride. By the time I got to the walkway, I had broken into a light jog, and slowed down when I reached the steps at their front door.
I knocked and waited for a handful of seconds. When there was no response, I went to the basement window and peered inside, hoping none of the neighbors thought I was trying to break in.
Chuck’s laptop was gone from his desk, and I couldn’t see any sign of him.
I went back to the door and on a hunch tried it. The door was unlocked, and it swung open with the barest hint of a creak. That was odd.
“Chuck?” I called out. “You here?”
After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The main floor was deserted, and I quickly made for the basement, taking the steps two at a time on the way down.
There was no sign of Chuck, and both of his computers were gone, but other than that, nothing else seemed out of place.
My first thought was that, in light of the botched burglary attempt, he had decided to get rid of any incriminating evidence, on the off-chance that someone figured out what we had tried to do. There was no way Chuck could have known what had happened after I called him, so I guessed it was a precaution on his part. Maybe it was a standard procedure for him to destroy his computers periodically and replace them with new ones.
Stacy and Chuck shared a car between them, and Stacy had used it to drive to my place. As far as I knew, she and the car were still there. Wherever Chuck went, he must have either gone on foot, or gotten a lift.
Still, the front door was unlocked. I didn’t think Chuck was the kind of person to leave his house open like that. Maybe he was tired and had gone to bed, forgetting the door.
Just to be certain, I ran up the stairs to the top floor and checked the bedrooms. There was no one in the house except me.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
Was David responsible for Chuck’s disappearance? He had as much as admitted that he knew about Chuck hacking into the network, and laid the trap for him. Perhaps, I speculated, he had somehow traced Chuck to his hous
e and prearranged to have evidence of the setup removed.
Was it possible David had had someone watching their apartment all along? I dashed to the window and looked outside, scanning up and down the street, but I didn’t see any suspicious vehicles.
I shook my head. I was jumping to conclusions. I was overtired, and the events of the morning had obviously pushed my ability to think logically. It didn’t make sense that David would go through all that trouble to get rid of Chuck and his computers, when, on the other hand, he had let me go even though I witnessed him murdering his father.
It was more likely that Chuck had decided to make himself scarce. Maybe Stacy would know where he was. If she didn’t, he was sure to contact her at some point.
I didn’t look forward to it, but I would have to explain to my mother and Stacy what Chuck and I had attempted. At the very least, I would have to get as far from Seattle as I could, or return to prison. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that Stacy wouldn’t simply dump me on the spot once I told her what I had done. Nevertheless, I owed her the truth.
After a quick and fruitless look around for my car keys, I headed out of the apartment and down to the street. Grabbing the spare key I had put under the tire well with one of those magnetic containers, I hopped in my mother’s car and headed for home.
Despite all my efforts, my life was getting worse by the hour.
Chapter Twelve
Still feeling paranoid, I slowed my mother’s car to a crawl as I approached my street, and kept a watch for anything out of the ordinary. The likelihood of David calling the police was next to none, but that didn’t negate the possibility that he might change his mind about letting me go, and send Al to finish the job.
I didn’t see any unfamiliar vehicles in the street, or silhouettes behind any trees. The neighborhood looked calm and clear.
Stacy’s car was still parked at the curb, and I felt my gut clench.
I had told her how I was trying to be a better person, but it was apparent that I wasn’t able to change the patterns of my life that had led to my incarceration.
Angel's Breath: The Second Book of Fallen Angels Page 7
