by Alex Segura
“Kathy?” Pete said, his voice low but loud enough for someone in the room to hear. “Kathy, where are you?”
The muffled whimper came from the far end of the living room, near the main window that faced the backyard. Then he did something he wished he’d thought of before: he pulled out his cell phone and let the small display light shine on the area in front of him. Within a few seconds he found her, bruised and beaten, her face red and bloodied. She was tied to the couch with what appeared to be one of Pete’s own white undershirts. The same kind of shirt had been stuffed into her mouth. He pulled it out and began to work on untying her hands. The smoke was getting thicker, and he could feel the warmth of fire behind him. His father’s house, the home he grew up in, was on fire. After a few more seconds, Kathy was free.
“We…we have to go,” Kathy said.
“Stay calm,” Pete said. “He’s in my room, on the other side of the house. He’s nuts. He’s ripping the place apart. He can’t hear us.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, her voice shaking. “He was just here. He just tied me up.”
Kathy’s second scream of the night came too late to warn Pete. He felt the thud of something metallic and hard slam into the back of his head. He felt his body get heavy and his eyelids close. The last thing he saw before blacking out was Kathy’s outline, moving toward him through the smoke. It felt warm all around him. His head felt light.
And then everything shut off.
***
“Come on, come on, come on…” It was Kathy’s voice, slow and quiet at first, then louder. Pete heard it as his eyes opened, then closed, smoke sneaking in and stinging them. His head hurt. A lot. It was throbbing—and he felt his body moving—no, sliding. He tilted his head up and got a shot of pain at the base of his skull.
“Fuck,” he said, finally remembering what had happened earlier. An hour ago? A minute ago? How long had he been out?
She hadn’t heard him. Her hands were still at his ankles, dragging him across his living room floor, smoke surrounding them, flashes of fire flickering into the living room from down the hall. Pete was hot. He felt dizzy and fevered. He hadn’t thought to move yet. She noticed he was awake.
“Can you walk?” Kathy said. “We need to get the fuck out of here and I don’t think I can carry you.”
“I…I think so,” Pete said, pushing himself up onto his elbows, each movement causing a chorus of pains and aches. “Is he gone?”
“I don’t know,” Kathy said. Normally, this would be her time to quip or make a remark, but they were past that. Pete could see the bruises and dirt caking her face, even through the haze of dark smoke. His house was on fire, and he could barely move. “We don’t have much time.”
Pete nodded, his teeth gritting at the motion of his head. He felt her move around and get behind him, looping her arms under his and lifting him up. The rush of motion sent his head spinning, but after a few seconds he felt almost normal. He took a tentative step and stumbled, falling back into Kathy. She held him up.
“Just lean on me, but not too much,” she said, a dry laugh escaping her mouth. “I’m not as strong as I look.”
They took a few steps when he felt something with his foot. His gun. He knelt down, holding onto Kathy in case he fell. His hands rummaged around the floor, which was already dark with smoke, a bad sign, he thought. He felt the gun’s handle and picked it up. He’d have something to remember his father by. He thought of their laptops and the piles of research they’d be leaving behind. Their entire case was lost. Nothing he could do about that now. He stood back up and gripped Kathy’s hand with his free one.
“Let’s go.”
The first explosion seemed to come from the backyard. The house shook in response. The crashing plates and toppling furniture could barely be heard over the roar of the growing fire tearing through the house. They looked at each other.
“The fuck was that?” she said.
“We have to go,” Pete said. They were about ten feet from the door, but even that seemed like three football fields of distance. Pete couldn’t go a step without pain scorching his skull and neck, and Kathy looked like she’d just been run over by a few joyriding cars. He thought he heard her sigh in resignation.
The second explosion was less subtle and closer: the carport. Pete’s car. Pieces of his Toyota Celica crashed through the main bay windows on both sides of the living room, sending glass, car parts, tree branches, and gravel hurtling into the remains of the house. Kathy and Pete were knocked off their feet by the force of the explosion and fell back farther into the living room, Pete’s head slamming against his father’s favorite chair.
The combination of smoke, debris, and utter defeat threatened to overcome what little resolve Pete had left. He let his eyes close for a second, his back on the floor. The heat of the fire and the explosion coated him. He could just let it go now. Go to sleep. He’d done his good deed for the world already; this was just another mess he’d made. Someone would find him. They’d write an obituary, probably critical and not fully accurate, but he’d make the papers, at least.
He let out a long groan and opened his eyes. He looked to his right and saw Kathy crumpled behind him, her body in a weird shape, her breathing shallow. Pete looked himself over, moving into a sitting position. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since the last explosion, but his house wasn’t an armory. It couldn’t take much more. He felt the adrenaline pumping inside him as he stood up, ignoring the throbbing drumbeat slamming into the back of his head. He shook Kathy. No response. He scooped her up, letting out a scream of pain as he straightened his legs. He took a step toward the door. Then another. He felt blood trickling down the side of his face. After a few steps, he tried to hold his breath; the smoke was thicker than before. He heard sirens.
A few more feet until he reached the door. He fell to one knee. He heard Kathy let out a slight cry as he toppled forward. He looked right, down the hallway, toward his old room—his father’s bedroom—and only saw flames engulfing the carpet, the cheap wallpaper, the pictures on the wall of his parents, his high school graduation, his prom, Disney World vacations, and his engagement party. Pictures he’d probably never see again.
Pete was having trouble breathing. He tightened his grip on Kathy and pushed forward off his leg, slamming their bodies against the front door, his free hand jostling around and looking for the handle. The simple task of opening the door seemed impossible. The idea of giving up seemed almost appealing. Just for a second. Pete felt his hand surround the door handle and pull.
Then they tumbled outside, the fresh air whooshing into the house like a tidal wave of breathable space. When thinking back on that night, he could never remember how they got down the front steps before the third, final, and largest explosion went off. It had been as if the bomb—a poor, makeshift plastic thing that would have made a suicide bomber proud, which forensics would later reveal had been planted under the porch—had been waiting for them. The explosion sent a fireball of shrapnel up from the depths below the house. They were launched forward, their bodies thrust into midair by the power of the blast.
They landed a few feet away, close to the street and to a car that was once parked near the sidewalk but was now flipped over. They hit the grass with a thud in front of what used to be Pete’s house. He looked up toward the night sky. The smoke from the fire clouded over the full moon. Had it been any other night, under different circumstances, Pete would have said it was a beautiful moon. He would have turned to Emily, or Kathy, or anyone, and noted it.
He coughed, a quick, empty cough. He saw blood on his hands as he covered his mouth. The sirens grew louder. He let his eyes close again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Julian stepped out of the tub and dried himself with a towel, examining his body for bruises and cuts. He was hurt. But he would be fine.
He walked into his living room/bedroom. Under his loft bed was a small office area. He dressed and slid behind his desk,
booting up his computer.
A window appeared on the screen. The video feed was grainy and inconsistent, but he could see a figure at the center of the camera’s view. It was a young girl, tied up, her eyes covered by a dark cloth. Her wrists and ankles were bound together. He noticed scrapes around her wrists and ankles and he smiled. She’d been trying to get out. She must have noticed the light flickering on, or heard the camera moving, because she began to move her head around, trying to look past the blindfold.
“Hello?” she said, her voice dry and low. “Who’s there?”
Julian slid his chair closer to the screen and rubbed a finger over his chapped lips. How long could he let this go on? Not much longer. But he wasn’t sure Fernandez had gotten the message. The bugs the Messenger provided and planted in the house had worked well. He knew where Fernandez and his friend stood. The explosion had to happen now—to destroy their evidence. He had hoped they’d be destroyed too.
The phone rang, vibrating on his tiny coffee table. He got up and opened it, waiting for the Messenger to respond.
“You’re causing too much trouble,” the Messenger said, sounding agitated. Nervous. “Things aren’t supposed to pick up like this yet.”
“This is my game,” he said, his voice clear. “You gave me notes to work from. I don’t need them anymore.”
“Oh, really?” the Messenger said. “That’s an interesting way to look at things. Seems as though you needed a little help tonight.”
“You pushed for this,” Julian said. “You’re the one who thought Fernandez was a threat. Now he isn’t. We can continue with our work.”
“It’s not that easy,” the Messenger said. “They still know too much. We have to…”
“I’m in control now,” he said, keeping his volume low and his tone measured. “I’ve always been in control. Understand that.”
He closed the phone before the Messenger could respond. The sound of Nina’s crying drew him back to his computer screen, his face bathed in the bright blue light of his monitor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Pete let his body collapse onto the small cot in the Book Bin’s cramped back office. It was close to three in the afternoon and he already felt spent. He looked over his arms and hands, still bruised and cut from the explosion. He’d walked away from it all with only a minor concussion, a few broken ribs, and a black eye that looked much worse than the last one. He was lucky. Dave had been kind enough to offer up the Book Bin as a temporary base of operations, but Pete wasn’t sure how long he could take him up on that. The dank smell of the bookstore was the least of his concerns. His cat, Costello, hadn’t made it out of the house. Pete only hoped he hadn’t suffered much. Kathy survived, but was as much of a wreck as he was. She had an apartment, at least. He still needed to meet with his insurance company to properly assess the damage. One thing at a time. His meeting that morning had helped.
There was also the matter of Nina Henriquez. From what little Pete remembered from his encounter with the killer—or was it killers?—it seemed like he was referring to her in the present tense. As time passed, her chances of survival faded. Pete had avoided the press following the explosion. They were naturally curious, but he’d made himself hard to find. His job at the store wasn’t on the books, per se, so without a residence it was like he’d fallen off the map.
It was harder to shake the cops and FBI. Harras had hovered over his hospital bed, waiting for the right time to begin questioning him. When that time arrived, Pete was as honest as he could be—even with the details blurry. The killer had been there. The killer had blown up his house and almost killed him. Pete hadn’t mentioned Nina Henriquez. He wasn’t sure why he held it back—and he knew he was putting her life at risk. But something in his head told him to hold onto that bit of info a bit longer.
He’d heard very little from Kathy since the explosion. “Shaken up” could only begin to describe her state of mind when she was discharged from the hospital—her face bruised and cut, her arm in a sling. Pete felt bad for her, which was the last thing Kathy wanted anyone to feel.
He heard the door chime and walked to the front door.
The two men—dressed in nicely pressed black suits, blue ties, and matching sunglasses—could have been twins. Both were white, tall, and clean-shaven with matching buzz cuts. One had an earpiece. The one on Pete’s left nodded as Pete came into the store’s front display area.
“Pete Fernandez?” Lefty said.
“Who’s asking?”
“FBI—your presence is requested,” said the one on the right.
“Show me some ID,” Pete said.
Lefty walked up to Pete and showed him his badge. Seemed legit. But Pete wasn’t exactly an expert on proper FBI agent identification. His name was Gran. Pete preferred thinking of him as “Lefty.”
“My partner is Agent Davidson,” Gran said. “Now, I’ll ask again: will you come down to our offices?”
“That’s very polite,” Pete said. “What if I decline?”
“If you don’t come willingly, sir,” Gran said, “we’ll have to bring you in anyway.”
“Let me guess,” Pete said, trying to stall and think over what few options he had left. “Harras sent you?”
“We’re not here to elaborate, sir,” Davidson said. “Please follow us.”
Davidson turned and exited the store. Gran walked out and held the door open for Pete. Pete felt a tingling feeling all over his body—a mix of fear and stress. He didn’t like it.
He flipped the store sign to “CLOSED” and locked the door behind him.
***
The Miami branch of the FBI was housed in a light gray, unspectacular office building nestled off the Golden Glades Interchange—a beautiful name for a five-highway pileup that was the nexus of nightmares for most Miami drivers. I-95, the Florida Turnpike, and the Don Shula Expressway—to name a few—all met in the same place in North Miami, and it made sense for the FBI to set up nearby. This was all built on the presumption that traffic wasn’t a complete disaster and one could easily hop on any given highway to get where they needed to go. Unfortunately, traffic was always a shitshow and despite its logic-based layout, Miami was anything but an easy place to navigate. Pete would have dreaded the trip to North Miami for any reason. He was especially anxious today.
The interior of the building—from the drab lobby to the stale-smelling elevator, to the string of cubicles and utility closet-sized offices—was as dull as the soulless exterior. But Pete hadn’t gotten the grand tour. Upon arrival, he was immediately ushered into a small interview room on the building’s third floor. He sat at a long table, a cup of lukewarm coffee in front of him, almost daring him to drink. The air felt recycled and artificial. Pete fought the urge to close his eyes to shut out the bright lights coming from above.
Harras stepped in with little ceremony, closing the door behind him. Pete heard a lock click on the other side. He would only be leaving when they wanted him out.
This was bound to happen, he thought. He’d pushed it as far as he could and now the FBI was waking from its slumber and taking a closer look at him. Not out of any kind of admiration, but probably something closer to resentment. Who was this little shitbird mucking with their investigation? The thought of things getting any worse hadn’t crossed Pete’s mind until now, but the reality that, yes, things could continue to slide south seemed more possible the longer he spent in this cell-like room.
The FBI agent sat across from Pete and folded his hands. He looked Pete over, concern in his eyes.
“How’re you holding up?”
“Oh, just dandy,” Pete said. “I really like roughing it. Sleeping on a cot that’s about as comfortable as a stack of planks, showering at the YMCA, eating fast food, and only a gun and a bus pass to my name. Kind of romantic, don’t you think?”
Harras winced.
“Cut the attitude,” he said. “And I bet you’ve heard this a number of times, but I’ll say it again: you’re lucky to be
alive.”
“Yes, so very, very lucky,” Pete said, looking down at the table for a second. “Where’s your partner? He’s not part of the welcoming committee?”
Harras avoided Pete’s eyes.
“Aguilera is taking some time off,” he said.
“For punching me at my job for no real reason,” Pete said, a statement not a question. “Glad I took a minute to let his bosses know. Is that why I’m here? To file a formal complaint?”
“For a change, you’re partially right,” Harras said. “He shouldn’t have done that, no matter how much we both wanted to.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d call that good news,” Pete said. “But I’ll take it. I could do without that volatile twerp for—well, forever.”
“Don’t start planning a parade just yet,” Harras said. “He’ll still be shadowing me on this. So, as far as you’re concerned, nothing’s changed.”
“A slight slap on the wrist,” Pete said.
Harras ignored him.
“Well, let me clear up the whole ‘why am I here?’ bit for you,” Harras said. “This isn’t just a warning. This is a reminder. This is a gigantic Post-it note on your thick forehead: we can make your life extremely miserable. More miserable than even you’re used to, which is saying a lot. We’re not some banana republic local police force—we’re national. We don’t take kindly to amateurs bumping and crashing into things we’re investigating. We tried to do it your way. We tried to loop you in. I felt like I’d made myself clear, but it doesn’t seem to be working with you. I’m hoping your entire house exploding might be enough, but my guess is no.”
“I feel really special,” Pete said. “You invited me to your big, boring office to yell at me? I must be really getting on your nerves.”
Harras sighed. “You’re an idiot.”
Pete’s shoulders sagged and he leaned back in the tiny, uncomfortable wooden chair. He laid his hands on the table in front of him, palms up—as if to say “can we get on with this?”
