The Devil's Elixir ts-3

by Raymond Khoury

  She wasn’t about to hang around and watch. Especially not when her gut was screaming at her that the man probably wasn’t alone.

  She threw a flat kick at the gurgling intruder’s midsection, sending him crashing into the wall of the hallway, away from the fallen handgun, which was lying there, tantalizingly close. She bent down to grab it when another man appeared, at the other end of the hallway, similarly masked and armed. The man flinched with a stab of shock at the sight of his bloodied buddy, then his eyes locked on Michelle’s and his gun sprang up in a solid, two-fisted grip. Michelle froze, caught in the crosshairs, staring death in the eye, right there, in the hallway outside her kitchen—but death never came. The shooter held his stance for a long second, long enough for her to dive at the handgun, spin around, and loose a couple of rounds at him. Wood and plaster splintered off the walls around him as he ducked out of sight, and she heard him yell out, “She’s got a gun.”

  There were others.

  She didn’t know how many, nor did she know where they were. One thing she did know: Alex was out back. And it was time to hightail it out of there and get him to safety.

  Her mind rocketed into hyperdrive, focused acutely on that single objective. She darted back and took cover behind the kitchen wall, tried to ignore the pounding in her ears, and listened to any sounds coming at her from the front of the house, then she made her move. She fired off three quick rounds down the hall to keep them guessing, then rushed across the kitchen and flew out the patio doors, running to the drumbeat of survival as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Alex was there, on the grass, orchestrating yet another epic confrontation between his small army of Ben 10 figurines. Michelle didn’t slow down. She just stormed over to him, tucking the gun under her waistband without breaking step, and scooped up his tiny, three- and- a-half-foot frame in her arms and kept going.

  “Ben,” the boy protested as a toy flew out of his tiny grasp.

  “We gotta go, baby,” she said, breathless, one arm clasped around his back, the other pressed down against the back of his head, holding him tight.

  She sprinted across the lawn to the door that led to the garage, stopping to glance back only once she reached it, her heart jackhammering its way out of her rib cage. She saw one of them appear through the patio doors just as she flung the garage door open and ducked inside, fiddling with its key to lock it behind her.

  “Mommy, what are you doing?”

  His mouth was moving, but nothing was registering as her eyes surveyed in all directions, her mind totally channeled on one thought: escape. She told him, “We’re just going for a ride, okay? Just a little ride.”

  She flung open the door of her Jeep, hustled Alex inside, and clambered into the driver’s seat. The Wrangler was parked with its back to the garage’s tilt-up door, which was shut.

  “Down there, sweetie,” she told Alex, herding him into the passenger’s foot well with a careful mix of urgency and tenderness. “Stay there. We’re gonna play hide and seek, okay?”

  He gave her a hesitant, uncertain look, then smiled.

  “Okay.”

  She dug deep and found him a smile as her fingers fired up the ignition. The V6 sprang to life with a throaty gurgle.

  “Stay down, all right?” she told him as she threw the gear lever into reverse, floored the gas pedal, then turned to face back and yanked her foot off the clutch.

  The Jeep bolted backward and burst through the garage door, careening onto the street in a storm of rubber and twisted sheet metal. She spotted a white van parked outside the house and slammed the brakes, and just as the Jeep screeched to a halt, she saw two men, also in white coveralls, rushing out from her front door. She slammed the car into gear and roared off, keeping a nervous eye in the mirror, expecting the white van to come charging after her, but to her surprise, it didn’t. It just stayed in its spot and receded into the distance before she hung a right and turned off her street.

  She snaked her way past slower cars and turned left, right, and left again at the next crossings, zigzagging away from the house, keeping one eye peeled on her rearview mirror, her mind ablaze with questions about Tom and what had happened to him. She didn’t know what state he was in, didn’t know whether he was even still alive, but she had to get help to him, fast. She reached into her back pocket, pulled out her phone, and punched in nine-one-one.

  The dispatcher picked up almost instantly. “What’s your emergency?”

  “I’m calling to report a shooting. Some guys showed up at our house and—” She suddenly realized Alex was in the car with her, eyeing her curiously from the foot well of the passenger seat, and paused.

  “Ma’am, where are you calling from?”

  “We need help, okay? Send some squad cars. And an ambulance.” She gave the dispatcher her address, then added, “You need to be quick, I think my boyfriend’s been shot.”

  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  Michelle thought about whether or not to answer as she glanced at Alex, who was still staring up at her, wide-eyed. She decided there was no point in adding any more information at this point.

  “Just get them there as fast as you can, all right?”

  Then she hung up.

  Her heart was thundering away furiously in her chest as she checked her mirror again and flew past another slow-moving car. There was still no sign of the van. After about five minutes, she started to breathe easier and helped Alex up and into the front seat, where she belted him in. It took her another half an hour of just putting miles between her and her house before she felt she could pull over, and finally did so in the parking lot of a large mall out at Lemon Grove.

  She didn’t move for a while. She just sat there, in shock, picturing Tom—and started to cry. The tears smeared her cheeks, then she looked over and saw Alex staring at her, and she forced herself to stop and wiped them off.

  “Come on, baby. Let’s get you back into your seat.”

  She got out of the car and helped Alex into the back and onto his booster seat, belted him in, then got back in and sat there again, shivering, collecting her thoughts, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  Trying to figure out what to do next. Who to call. How to deal with the insanity of what had just happened.

  She looked up into the mirror and glanced at Alex. He was just sitting there, looking tiny, staring at her with those big, vulnerable eyes of his, eyes that fear had now firmly in its grip, and as she stared at his face, one name broke through the daze and the confusion swirling around inside her head. And although it was someone she hadn’t spoken to for years, right now, it seemed like the right move.

  She scrolled her phone’s contacts list, found his name, and, mumbling a silent prayer that his number hadn’t changed, hit the Dial button.

  Reilly picked up on the third ring.

  2

  MAMARONECK, NEW YORK

  I was dumping some dry cleaning and a beer-heavy grocery bag on the passenger seat of my car when my BlackBerry warbled.

  It was a typical July morning in the small coastal town, hot and still and humid, but I didn’t mind it. Between the unrelenting heat wave that had turned Manhattan into a sweaty, oxygen-starved cauldron for the past couple of weeks and the heightened-alert July Fourth weekend I’d just spent there dealing with its associated onslaught of false alarms and hysteria, a quiet weekend by the ocean was definitely a heavenly proposition, regardless of the supernova looming overhead. As an added bonus, my Tess and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Kim, were out in Arizona, visiting Tess’s mom and her aunt at the latter’s ranch, and I had the house to myself. Don’t get me wrong. I love Tess to death and I love being around them, and since Tess and I got back together, I’ve realized how much I hate—truly hate—sleeping alone. But we all need a few days alone, now and then, to take stock and ponder and recharge—euphemisms for, basically, vegging out and eating stuff we shouldn’t be eating and being the lazy slobs we love to be when nobody’s w
atching. So the weekend was shaping up pretty sweet—until the warble.

  The name that flashed up on my screen made my heart trip.

  Michelle Martinez.

  Whoa.

  I hadn’t heard from her for—how long had it been? Four, maybe five years. Not since I’d walked away from what we had going during that ill-fated stint of mine down in Mexico. I hadn’t thought about her for years either. The marvelous Tess Chaykin—I don’t use the term lightly—had burst into my life not too long after I’d got back to New York. She’d snared my attention in the chaotic aftermath of that infamous horse-mounted raid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had quickly engulfed my world, infecting me with that earnest, addictive lust for life of hers and crowding out any musings I could have had about any past loves or long-gone lovers.

  I stared at the screen for a long second, my mind running a meta-trawl through possible reasons for the call. I couldn’t think of any, and just hit the green button.

  “Meesh?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m—” I was about to make a joke, something lame about sipping a mojito poolside in the Hamptons, but the edge to her voice ripped the notion to shreds. “You okay?”

  “No. Where are you?”

  I felt the back of my neck stiffen. Her voice was as distinctively accented as ever, a vestige of her Dominican and Puerto Rican descent with an overlay from growing up in New Jersey, but it had none of the laid-back, playful sultriness I remembered.

  “I’m out,” I told her. “Just running some errands. What’s going on?”

  “You’re in New York?”

  “Yes. Meesh, what’s up? Where are you?”

  I heard a sigh—more of an angry grumble, really, as I knew full well that Michelle Martinez was not one to sigh—then she came back.

  “I’m in San Diego and I’m—I’m in trouble. Something terrible has happened, Sean. Some guys came to the house and they shot my boyfriend,” she said, the words bursting out and stumbling out of her. “I barely got away and—Christ, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I just didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry.”

  My pulse bolted. “No, no, you did the right thing, it’s good you called. You okay? Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m all right.” She took another deep breath, like she was calming herself. I’d never heard her like this. She’d always been clear-headed, steel-nerved, unshakeable. This was new territory. Then she said, “Hang on,” and I heard some fumbling, like she was moving the phone away from her mouth and holding it against her clothing. I heard her say, “Sit tight, okay, baby? I’ll be right outside,” heard the car door click open and slam shut, then her voice came back, less frantic than before, but still intense.

  “Some guys showed up. I was home—we were all home. There were four, five of them, I’m not sure. White van, coveralls, like painters or something. So they wouldn’t raise eyebrows with the neighbors, I guess. They were pros, Sean. No question. Face masks, Glocks, suppressors. Zero hesitation.”

  My pulse hit a higher gear. “Jesus, Meesh.”

  Her voice broke, almost imperceptibly, but it was there. “Tom—my boyfriend—if he hadn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then came back with a pained resolve. “Doorbell goes, he gets it. They cut him down the second he opened the door. I’m sure of it. I heard two silenced snaps and a big thump when he hit the ground, then they charged into the house and I just freaked. I got one of them in the neck and I just ran. I grabbed Alex and—the garage has a door that leads out into the backyard, and—I got the hell out of there.” She let out a ragged sigh. “I just left him there, Sean. Maybe he was hurt, maybe I could’ve helped him, but I just ran. I just left him there and ran.”

  She was really hurting over that, and I had to move her away from that remorse. “Sounds to me like you didn’t have a choice, Meesh. You did the right thing.” My mind was struggling to process everything she’d said while stumbling over the canyon-size gaps in the overall picture. “Did you call the cops?”

  “I called nine-one-one. Gave them the address, said there was a shooting, and hung up.”

  Then I remembered something she’d just said. “You said you grabbed Alex. Who’s Alex?”

  “My son. My four-year-old boy.”

  I heard her hesitate for a moment, I could picture her weighing her next words, then her voice came back and hit me with a three-thousand-mile knockout punch.

  “Our boy, Sean. He’s our son.”

  3

  O ur son?

  Two small words were all it took to turn the holes I was sidestepping into a huge, gaping chasm that just sucked me in.

  I felt my mouth dry up, felt a torrent of blood surge into my skull, felt my chest coil up.

  “Our son?”

  “Yes.”

  Everything around me disappeared. The cars and strollers gliding past in the sweltering heat, the mundane bustle and din of a suburban shopping strip on a sunny Saturday morning—it all just died out, like some big cone of silence had dropped out of the sky and cut me off from the rest of the world.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You, me. Down in Mexico. Things happened. What, you forgot already?”

  “No, of course not, but . . . You’re sure?”

  Now I was the one in shock and fumbling around for words, my mouth buying time, waiting for my brain to catch up. It was a dumb thing to say, and I knew it. I didn’t need to ask. I knew Michelle. Knew her well enough to know that if she was anything, she was solid. Reliable. She could joke and be a real goof when she wanted to, but when it came to the serious stuff, the stuff that mattered, she didn’t mess around. If she was saying I was the father, it had to be true.

  Scary how easily that just came out.

  Something else I knew about her: She didn’t take kindly to anyone doubting her word, least of all someone she’d been as close to as yours truly, and even less on something this important.

  “I wasn’t seeing anyone else on the side. You were it. I thought that was kind of obvious.”

  It had been.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I backpedaled.

  “It was. But that’s okay. You’re pissed off. And you have every right to be.”

  A maelstrom of conflicting emotions was coursing through me. Selfish, I know, given what she’d just been through, but it’s not every day you get a call informing you you’ve got a four-year-old son.

  “Well, yeah, I am,” I replied. “I mean, Jesus, Meesh. How could you not tell me about this?”

  “I—I’m sorry, Sean.” Her voice went softer with contrition. “I really am. I wanted to. And this isn’t how I ever imagined telling you about it, obviously, but . . . it wasn’t easy. Keeping it from you. All this time. The amount of times I picked up the phone to call you and tell you . . . but every time, I just—something kept me back.” She paused, then said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you, not now, not like this. I’m just not—I’m not thinking straight.”

  My mind was still tripping over itself, struggling to get to grips with the notion—but I had to vault that for now and change tack. The reasons and blame games could wait. Michelle had just gone through hell, and she needed my help. My more immediate concern had to be making sure they—making sure she and her son, our son—were out of harm’s way.

  “All right, don’t worry, we can talk about it later.” I took in a breath, fast-reviewing the sketchy information I had, then asked, “Where are you now?”

  “I’m parked outside a mall. Plenty of people around. I’m safe for the time being. I think.”

  “Were you followed?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I tried to form a mental picture of it all, but there were still too many unknowns. “You think this could have anything to do with your work? You back on the job?” I’d heard that she’d left the DEA, not long after I’d left Mexico City, but that information was ancient.

  “I’m out, Sean. T
hose days are long gone. I teach at a high school now. Nothing dark or dangerous there. I’m a basketball coach, for God’s sake.”

  “So you don’t know who or why?”

  “Not a clue. All I know is, they weren’t there to kill me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “One of the shooters, in the house. He had a clear shot. But he didn’t take it. If they’d wanted me dead, I’d be dead, for sure.”

  “So they were there to grab you?”

  “I guess. And it’s got me real scared, Sean. I mean, dammit, what about Alex? What would have happened to him?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that, but I needed to move her away from that train of thought. “We need to get you somewhere safe. You still have friends at the agency?”

  “Not really. Besides, I’m not sure I want to go there. Not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “This was a professional tag team,” she said. “They were there for a reason. And that’s got me racking my brain and second-guessing everything, ’cause I can’t for the life of me think of what the hell anyone could want from me. I mean, ever since I left the agency, my life couldn’t be any more ordinary. Which can only mean that it has something to do with my past life. And if it does, then I’m not sure who I can trust at the agency. I worked undercover. Not many people knew what I did. Which means that if someone’s after me because of my days on the job, then they’ve got a feed from the inside. That’s partly why I called you.”

  The other part was obvious. And anyway, I was glad she did.

  “All right. What about San Diego PD?”

  “I can’t call them up. Not like this. If they found Tom dead in our front hall, how’s it going to look? Spouses and girlfriends make great suspects, right? Hell, the gun I took off one of them’s probably the one they shot him with, and now it’s got my prints all over it.”

  “You not calling it in makes it look worse.”

  “I know. But if I do a walk-in, it’s gonna get messy. You know how these things play out. They’re gonna assume the worst and they’re gonna want to hold me while they figure things out. And I don’t want to do that and have Alex palmed off to some CPS deadbeat,” referring to the state’s Child Protection Services agencies. “He’s four, Sean.”