Last Shot (2006)

by Gregg - Rackley 04 Hurwitz

  "I need you to tell me where that tape is."

  "My partner took it last night. Go wrestle him for it."

  "You know how the game is played." Walker nodded to the house. "I could go in and have a look."

  Tim's heart seemed to hold beatless for a suspended moment. "If you threaten my wife or my boy, I will kill you." He sat upright, bringing his glare within a foot of the mirror. "Look at me. I will kill you."

  "You been trying. So far you're not doing real well."

  Walker reached for the door. Tim's rage flared, and he thrashed against the cuffs.

  When he came to, he felt some good pain through the buzz, his head bent forward across the wheel. It took a moment for him to realize that Walker wasn't pressing the gun to the base of his skull, that the throbbing he felt was the aftereffect of getting pistol-whipped. Walker sat relaxed against the backseat, shuttling the dubbed copy of the microcassette across his knuckles like a casino chip. Tim's badge and wallet were spilled on the seat beside him. The clock showed 7:05; Tim had been out less than a minute. Dray was gone from the kitchen, probably fighting Tyler into his clothes. That could take a while.

  A band of shadow darkened Walker's face, but Tim could make out his amused eyes. "Must be something. To feel like that. To have that kind of..." He sucked his teeth and looked away. "Most people fake it. Want to give themselves a sense of purpose. Something to do. Some people, though, like you, it's the real deal. Tess was that way. My ex, sure, her, too. Same genes, me and Tess, but I'm not built that way. That's where I have an advantage over you, Rackley: I don't give a fuck."

  From what Tim knew of Walker, he rarely spoke, let alone for so long. He wanted to talk. He already had what he'd come for and could've just split while Tim was unconscious.

  Straightening himself in his seat, Tim fought through the blur of pain to find a way to keep him engaged. "It's not about giving a fuck. It's instinct. How would you react if I threatened your nephew?"

  "I don't give a shit about him. That's what people like you can't get."

  "How about your ex-wife? She seems like a hell of a woman. If you don't care about anything, how'd you land her?"

  "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again."

  Tim still expected him to bolt with the tape, but he just sat there, studying Tim's house.

  Walker said, "You got a nice family." Not a threat. Envy. "You were a killer once. I checked up on your record in the Rangers, too. How do you get from that to this?"

  Tim tried to figure out if Walker saw Tim's settling into his life as an advance or a degeneration. Probably both. He stared at Tad Hartley's lawn, wondering why, on this of all mornings, Tad had decided to take a pass on his yard work. No joggers in sight. Living in a cul-de-sac meant no through traffic. "You give up the stuff you think matters the most to you. And you do it before you find out that it never really mattered to you anyway."

  Walker made a noise, and his chin dipped in faint acknowledgment. "If you get in my way, I'll kill you. You're a husband. A father. You really want to put your life on the line for these scumbags?"

  "Not for them."

  "For what, then?"

  "For me. It's my job."

  "To protect rapists and murderers?"

  "My preferences don't figure in here."

  "They used to."

  "I was foolish and self-righteous and pissed off. Like you."

  Walker's face was drawn, menace etched in the squint lines. "Man, you haven't learned a damn thing. People like us get used. There are no rules for the policy makers and the baby kissers. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." A good-natured smirk. "There didn't have to be. We brought our own. Depleted-uranium bullets. Gulf War syndrome--and its sequel--ain't no syndrome. It's low-level radiation poisoning. I got buddies whose wives can't sleep with them no more. Stings when they cum. We pack off on a lie and a flag and come back broken, and nobody gives a shit." He wiped the trickle of blood from his lip. "I was supposed to deploy for six months, wound up in the dirt almost two years. Cost me my marriage. People drift. I sure as hell did. But, hell, I paid the price and I shut up. I even served my time when they put me behind bars for doing the right thing to the wrong person. But meanwhile, back here"--he firmed his mouth, rage overpowering a flicker of something more tender--"back here they can haul your sister into a limo and rape her, then kill her for her troubles. I don't get it. Maybe you do. You're a guy like me. How come it worked out so much better for you?"

  Tim could produce no judicious reply, so he kept his mouth shut.

  Walker shifted across the seat toward the door. "Stay the hell out of my way. You might catch a bullet."

  "I'm gonna keep coming. You know that."

  "Course. That's our ROEs." Walker smiled, genuinely amused. "If there's one thing you are, Rackley, it's dependable. I can count on you. Ain't that right?" He kicked open the door. "You get me in your sights, you'd better shoot straight."

  He vanished, jogging around the corner to whatever vehicle he'd stowed unassumingly on the middle-class street. Tim hit the disabled horn again, more from habit than anything else, then sat and watched the empty cul-de-sac. His keys were by the gas pedal, and even if he could retrieve them with his foot, he couldn't get them to his hand. He worked off his left boot, then wedged his heel beside the seat, finally reaching the controls. The driver's seat whirred back until the tracks came visible. And the tip of an antenna. Hunched forward so the metal wouldn't grind at his wrists, he fought his sock off using his other boot, leaving red streaks down his shin. He clutched the antenna with his bare toes, retrieving his portable from beneath the seat. Using the ball of his foot, he depressed the call button.

  When the comm center responded, Tim leaned over, talking loudly at the pinned radio. "This is Tim Rackley. Will you call my wife at home and ask her to come outside?"

  Chapter 58

  The front rooms of the Kagan house, mood-lit for a somberness uncharacteristic of the dearly deceased, were scattered with a gathering of soberly dressed people. A few familiar faces, the inner circle able to be summoned at a day's notice to pay tribute to the dispatched CEO. The curtains were drawn. A spread of fine cheeses on a velvet-draped table. Same caterer, same staff relentlessly clearing and replenishing, different pattern of china. The sparse mourners stood around awkwardly, as if unsure of what they were supposed to do. Dean and Dolan were conspicuously absent, leaving the mourners to fend for themselves or to offer condolences in shifts to Jane Bernard, who circled endlessly like a bride greeting out-of-towners while her daughter, buried in the corner amid a swarm of dark suits, played the part of the grief-stricken fiancee. All signs of yesterday evening's assault had vanished. No scattered glass, no jagged hole in the window, no blood spatter.

  Tim and Bear had been screened by guards at checkpoints at the gate, the walk, and the door, but once inside they moved unimpeded. During the command-post debriefing, Tim's headache had dissipated, forgotten, but it returned with a vengeance after he'd had some quiet on the ride over. Bear had returned the file box to an irate Martinez that morning, keeping the second dub that they'd fortunately made the night before. Tim had reached Pete on the drive over, extracting a promise that he'd analyze the security footage from The Ivy within twenty-four hours.

  Received stonily by Jane Bernard, Tim and Bear turned the corner, arriving at Dean's study, where a team of suited extras toiled, parked on every available chair and counter. The fax machine whirred, cell phones hummed, laptop keyboards clacked. Tim caught the gist from six angles--final preparations for tomorrow's investor presentation. Never before had he seen so thin a veil between grief and industry. Dolan alone sat still, occupying a club chair, his legs drawn up beside him.

  The activity paused at Tim and Bear's entrance.

  Bear cleared his throat and announced, grandly, "We've retrieved a tape of you threatening Tess Jameson."

  From behind his wooden slab desk, Dean said, "A moment, please, gentlemen." The think-tank s
uits assembled their paperwork and shuffled out. Looking wan and nauseated, Dolan remained. The door clicked shut, and Dean's eyebrows lifted.

  Bear raised Dray's microcassette player from his breast pocket and punched a button. Dean's voice issued forth. Dean listened to himself impassively. As the recorded conversation progressed, Dolan shook his head faintly at intervals in what seemed like private self-reprimand.

  The tape ended, and Dean said, "I do not need to remind you that it's illegal to record someone without their consent in the state of California."

  "Speaking of illegal," Tim said, "it seems like you had a pretty strong motive to keep an eye on Tess."

  "She was one of a thousand problems we deal with on a daily basis. Nothing more."

  "I don't know. A high-profile rape trial, lurid stories of a pregnancy, a lawsuit threatening."

  "Not 'threatening.' We'd reached an agreement."

  "Oh? Then why'd you pull Sam from the Xedral trial?"

  "I'm afraid you're mistaken there, Deputy." Dean shoved back from his desk, the chair casters squeaking on the floor. "She elected to drop her son from the study, not vice versa."

  Dolan emerged from his groggy state, his attention pulling to his father.

  "Sure," Bear said. "She's gonna remove her son from the one clinical trial that might save his life?"

  "Odd, I know," Dean said. "We questioned it ourselves. But I think we can dispense with the notion that all Ms. Jameson's actions were rational. I have it here in her hand." Without lowering his gaze, he slid open his top desk drawer, removed two sheets of paper, and extended them to Tim.

  Dolan pushed down on the chair's arms, almost rising to his feet.

  Bear laughed once, in disbelief. Confounded, Tim stepped forward and took the papers. At once he recognized the lavender-tinted stationery and Tess's distinctive handwriting. The second paper was a faxed version of the same letter.

  4th June To the Vector Biogenics Department of Human Trials: After some deliberation, I have decided to remove my son, Samuel Jameson (Samuel Hardy in earlier paperwork), from the Xedral Phase I and II combined study. Sam's doctor believes that he has at least a few months, and we're hopeful we should be able to secure an O-type liver for transplant in that time. We've elected to pursue this less uncertain course. With much thanks for your consideration, Tess Jameson

  Dean said, "Apparently she thought it was a choice between a guess and an outright crapshoot."

  Wordlessly, Tim handed the letter to Bear, but Dolan snatched it away and read it while Bear occupied himself with the fax copy.

  "The agreement requires written notice if a prospective subject decides to drop out," Dean said, "and written notice we received."

  "She wrote that under duress," Bear said.

  "A handwritten letter? A full page?" Dean shook his head, as if saddened to see Bear clutching at straws. "Send it to your handwriting analysts. They can tell when one has written at gunpoint, if I am to trust my le Carre."

  The letter was dated four days before Tess's murder. The day before she'd called Melissa Yueh for an appointment. Maybe she'd discovered something in the three-day interim between firing her lawyer and yanking Sam from the study. Something to do with what she'd seen on Chase's BlackBerry. But they couldn't explore that possibility unless Pete worked magic with the digital enhancement.

  Bear was still forging through denial. "The trial starts what? Monday?"

  Still regarding the letter, Dolan nodded faintly.

  "She fought to get Sam into that study. He was dying, on a clock. She's gonna opt for a liver transplant--that they were way down the list for--when they were just two months away from starting gene therapy?" Bear shook his head, aggravated, it seemed, at all of them, Tess included. "I don't buy it. Unless you escalated your threats. Unless you scared her so much she decided to stay away from you."

  "At the cost of her son's life?" Dean chuckled. "I assure you--not a woman of that constitution. It was a big decision. She got cold feet. We see it all the time."

  "Right," Tim said. "Hysterical, emotional Tess Jameson."

  Dean shrugged. "Out of character, perhaps, but consider the stakes. An experimental protocol, a young life on the line. These are not matters to be taken lightly. And bear in mind, once a patient begins gene therapy, he is removed from the organ-donor list."

  "It does explain a lot. What it doesn't explain is how a few days ago you maintained no recollection of this woman."

  "I never maintained anything of the sort. I fear you're mistaking me for my younger son."

  Dolan's hand was trembling; he'd creased the letter. "How could you not tell me? That it was her choice?"

  "I couldn't see how the manner in which this woman opted for euthanasia for her son was relevant to your work," Dean said.

  "It would have mattered to me."

  Dean leveled his hard, dark eyes at Dolan. Dolan's shoulders lowered, and then he eased back into the club chair.

  Bear said, "Tess had better judgment than that."

  "Yes." Dean sighed. "But she wasn't well. She committed suicide within the week. Depression is a serious illness"--deadpan--"that must be medicated."

  "About that," Bear said. "You might be interested to know Tess Jameson's case has been reopened. As a murder."

  Dolan jerked in a deep breath, but Dean just calmly said, "Really?"

  Tim said, "So you knew she was killed?"

  "Why would I know that?"

  "Her brother knows," Bear said, "and he holds you responsible and intends to kill you. And he's willing to literally swim through shit to do it."

  "Well, I'm sure that a delusional prison escapee has all the right answers."

  Dolan couldn't help himself and broke in. "She was killed? How do you know?"

  Tim said, "Tess was left-handed. The entry wound was on the left side of her head. Only problem is, she was a right-handed shooter."

  "Couldn't she have used her other hand? Lots of left-handed people are pretty ambidextrous."

  "I don't know, Dolan," Bear said. "Gun to temple. Pretty important moment. I think you'd want your shooting hand."

  "How...? Who do you think did it?" Dolan asked.

  "Sources tell us she was murdered by a contract killer called the Piper," Tim said.

  Dolan looked shocked, his Adam's apple vibrating.

  Bear said, "But what we're more interested in is who hired the Piper."

  "And?" Dolan said.

  "Tess was pregnant," Tim said, "with Chase's child." He eyed Dean. "That's a start, though I'm sure there's more to the story."

  Dolan sank back in the chair as if he'd lost all strength. "Chase's? You have proof of this?"

  "Of course not. Can't do a DNA analysis on cinders, now, can you?" Dean's tone never wavered, but he tugged a handkerchief from his pocket, fluffed it out, and dabbed his forehead. "Now, if you don't mind, I have a son to put into the ground and a presentation to finish for him." He tapped a button on his desk, and the door opened, the executives shuffling in. Briefcase lids snapped up and computers chimed back to life, but no one spoke.

  Bear walked out, but Tim lingered a moment, noting the contrast between Dean's reengagement and Dolan's near-catatonic repose.

  Dean and his team were back in the swing by the time he slipped out.

  Chapter 59

  Other kids ran and squealed with after-school exertion, but Sam slumped in the swing, his jaundiced face lax with exhaustion. The swings on either side of him were empty, the only unoccupied pieces of playground equipment in the whole park. The sole trail of footprints across the sand pit was his own.

  It took two tries for his hoarse voice to grow loud enough for Kaitlin to hear him over the clanking of the seesaws: "Push me."

  She rose from the bench and headed toward him, dodging a jump-rope threesome and a swirl of kids hanging from the merry-go-round. Her waitstaff vest was unbuttoned, her dress sleeves cuffed. Though it was just past four, a blanket of clouds blotted the sky, a premature dusk that
left their house, a mere block away, blended into gray.

  Kaitlin reached Sam and gave him a soft push, getting him going again. "You ready to go home?"

  "Ten more minutes."

  "We gotta get dinner going."

  Together they said, "I'm not hungry." She laughed, and he managed a smile.

  Dylan threaded through the playground on his dirt bike. The other kids quieted a bit, noting the older boy's presence. He was only eleven, but thick like a young teenager, and his fake toughness was palpable, precocious.

  "What's a matter, Piss-Eyes?" Dylan shouted. "Can't pump yourself?"

  Sam said softly, "Okay. Let's go home."

  Dylan popped a wheelie, then rose up, shoving down on the pedals, the bike jerking side to side as he burst from the park. He got about ten yards down the street when a form melted from the sidewalk bushes, stepping in front of him and grabbing his handlebars so he slid forward, racking his nuts on the high bar.

  "Ow! What the hell!"

  "You're gonna leave that kid alone."

  The boy yanked his handlebars back, but they didn't budge in Walker's hands. "You're a grown-up. What are you gonna do?"

  Walker leaned forward over the grips, and here the kid's eyes flickered. "I'm gonna hunt you down, in your bed, while you sleep, and cut out your fuckin' heart. That's what I'm gonna do."

  He released the handlebars, and the kid jerked back in sudden recoil, tangling in his bike. He scrambled up, running and dragging his bike beside him until he could swing a leg over the seat and pedal furiously away.

  Walker continued toward the park's entrance. Kaitlin and Sam stepped through the gate. Sam looked weak, sagging against her side. A noticeable deterioration even from three days ago, when Walker had first seen him at the house.

  Walker started toward them, but Sam just stared at him blankly, then looked away. Kaitlin stiffened. Walker stepped to the fence, putting a parked ice cream truck between him and the street. "What?"