Rehab Run

by Barbra Leslie

  Laurence hugged me again, and he was trying not to cry. “She’s always been like this. Almost always.” Almost meaning the years I gave up and sat in my apartment doing crack with Gene.

  Jonas clapped his hands. “We’ve got work to do, lovely people,” he said.

  “We do have work to do,” Dave said. “Here’s what I propose. Laurence, you get Danny settled into her room.” He looked at me. “Laurence got you some new things to wear and some fun little bits of disguise.”

  “I’m going to make dinner,” Jonas said. “No meat. I’m sorry, and you seem like nice people, but I cook animal flesh for no man. Or woman.”

  “Absolutely fine,” I said. Quinoa, here I come. And I surprised myself by looking forward to it.

  “Danny, have a bath, relax, lie down for a bit. I’ve got some more work to do around here, and we’ve got a couple of guys coming to do some more…”

  “Modifications?” I said.

  He grinned and scratched his ear. I liked that habit. “Yeah. But I’ve got the place for a few months at least, and the owners may be amenable to an offer.”

  A few months. “Do you think this is going to take that long?”

  “God, no,” he said. “But once we do something like this—” he indicated the house “—it’s done. It can be a safe house for us, for our friends. A vacation house, whatever. This is a nice part of the world.”

  “And the other thing?” I asked Dave, and he nodded.

  “Yes. I have coke for you. But it’s sort of… medicinal only. A tool. Laurence and I will have it; you won’t be storing it up in your room. You do it in front of us, or not at all.”

  “I can live with that,” I said, all calm, as though I wasn’t jumping up and down on the inside.

  * * *

  My room was bare-bones, like the rest of the place, but comfortable. I’m not exactly a Kardashian. Laurence had a few bags of clothes for me, and he’d chosen well. Though when I looked through some of what was there, I thought Dave must have chosen. Tactical stuff: good boots with excellent treads, with a steel toe but still light enough. A couple of pairs of good-quality black combat pants that wouldn’t look out of place anywhere. A pair of what looked to be ballistics sunglasses. In pink; a bizarre concession to femininity, I supposed. Some gloves, which made me mourn the loss of the Kevlar gloves. A very cool leather purse/fanny pack deal which, after playing with it for a bit, I realized could be strapped to me in a bunch of different ways, including around the thigh to use as a holster.

  Yes. Dave and Jonas definitely had to have supplied this stuff. Other bags had underwear and sports bras, and I really hoped Laurence had bought those. And then there were a couple of wigs, some makeup and simple jewellery, and studenty shorts and t-shirts.

  I was relieved. When Dave had said something about disguise, I had visions of high heels and spandex, but this was a university town in early summer. If I had to be incognito anywhere around here – and I couldn’t see why that would be necessary, but I was out of the loop, obviously – blending in as part of the university or a basic townie would be more effective than anything elaborate.

  Besides, I had never once been able to walk convincingly in heels.

  I collapsed on the bed and shut my eyes for a few minutes. I was happy, or as happy as I was going to get until this was all over. I had the kind of support I would have killed for a week ago, I had cheated death, and, a little later, I was going to be allowed to get high. And still be productive.

  I let myself put Des and Mary and Dickie out of my mind for now. We would be brainstorming later, obviously. And I did have a touch of a sore throat. Rest.

  * * *

  A while later, there was a quiet tapping on my bedroom door. “Danny, dinner’s ready! Your presence is requested, man!” Jonas. I really liked Jonas. I bet the boys would like him, Matty and Luke. In my head, I had somehow already adopted Jonas into the family circle.

  Dave? That was a little more complicated.

  I got off the bed and stuck my feet into a pair of flip-flops that were in one of the bags, and headed down the hall.

  I walked through the kitchen into the dining room.

  “Surprise,” they were all yelling. There was wine, and candles, and the smell of good food. Some spices I couldn’t place, maybe saffron? And in the middle of the table, a cake.

  “Happy birthday Danny,” Laurence said. He looked emotional, and a bit nervous at my reaction.

  So it was. For the first time in my life, I had forgotten my own birthday. It was the first time Ginger hadn’t woken me up with a phone call. It was my first birthday without my twin.

  “Wow,” I said softly. “Thank you.” I felt shy suddenly, and moved. But there was no way I was going to start crying in front of these guys. Not twice in one day.

  “No, no! Happy day! Take a load off and eat.” Dave pulled out a chair for me, and I sat down, feeling touched and awkward and also bereft. My twin sister wasn’t here.

  Jonas started bringing out food, and Laurence poured me a glass of wine. A small glass. “It’s going to be a long night,” he whispered.

  “We should be working,” I said. “You guys didn’t have to do this.”

  “We’ll work later,” Dave said. He raised his wine glass, and the others followed. “Danielle Jacinta Cleary, you have survived this year, against the odds. First we celebrate a bit, then we’ll get down to work.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I looked at Laurence. “You told him my middle name? You shit!”

  Dave smiled. “He didn’t.”

  “I didn’t, I swear to God!” Laurence said. He was grinning. He looked happy.

  “Would you people please eat?” Jonas said. “You all need fuel, especially this one,” he said, nodding at me. “I used to be a private chef, in another life. Don’t let it all get cold.”

  “A private vegan chef,” Dave said. “I’m not sure that counts.” Jonas flipped him the bird.

  “Did you make the cake?” It was pretty, black and white frosting with one big pink rose in the middle.

  “Dude! That sugar bomb? No. But you know, go ahead and enjoy, once you eat something that’s actually good for you.”

  I started to eat. Ginger, I thought, I miss you so much it’s like an amputation. But I’ve got this, and I have to try to be happy.

  I felt a pleasant breeze along my brow that felt like a kiss. But it was probably just the fan.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  There was a young woman and an older guy I hadn’t seen earlier working on putting some kind of film over all the windows while we were eating, and at one point Jonas excused himself to go to the back room to check on some system he had set up. Dave apologized several times for having to check his phone when it beeped. But as far as I was concerned, the less attention on me and my birthday, the better. It’s not an age thing – I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that, and frankly I couldn’t believe, in a way, that I was only thirty-three. In some ways I felt like I had lived enough for three lifetimes.

  But being the centre of attention has never been my bag, and I love a bit of bustle going on around me. Especially when I know it’s to keep us all safe. Especially my brother. Having this birthday without Ginger was more than I could really handle thinking about. Nothing was going to happen to Laurence on my watch, and I wasn’t the only one making sure of that now. Having all these people here was going to help me end this shit, and hopefully bring Dickie back safely. If not in one piece, I was hoping to at least get him back alive.

  Plus, it was kind of exciting. I had never entered the world of high-tech security before.

  “It’s not that high-tech, but don’t tell Jonas,” Dave said. “We’re doing what we can in a short space of time, in an area that isn’t rife with resources for this kind of thing.” He nodded at the couple in the living room. “That film is reinforcing the glass, making it more or less shatterproof. Not bulletproof, though. We just didn’t have time.” He grabbed his wine glass and leaned back. “
It’s also rare, in that the tint will make it impossible for anyone outside to see in.”

  “Dave,” Laurence said, “what is it that you actually do?”

  Dave smiled. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He looked at his phone, but it hadn’t beeped.

  “Bitch, please,” I said. “I am beyond grateful that you’re here. And that we’re here,” I added. “And I wouldn’t be sitting here with my brother if I didn’t trust you.”

  “I know,” Dave said. He sounded serious. “Thank you for that.”

  “But we are, quite literally, putting our lives in your hands. Are you former military? You sell security systems? A private investigator? MI6? CIA? CSIS?”

  “Mossad?” Laurence said. He was flushed with wine and quite enjoying himself. I was obviously not the only one who felt a bit giddy to not be so afraid. “Hezbollah?” We laughed.

  “You left out the A-Team,” Dave said.

  “Don’t forget the Black Panthers,” Jonas said, coming back into the room with bottles of water. “We’re having a resurgence. Dave’s a bit pale, but I vouched for him at the door.” The people in the living room finished the last window there, and said hi cheerfully to us, as they crossed through to head down the hall.

  “Grab food,” Dave yelled after them.

  “I left you guys some downstairs,” Jonas added, louder.

  “Downstairs?” I asked.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said. “The basement.”

  “The basement,” I said. I closed my eyes. I felt giddy for a minute, nearly faint. “Oh my God.”

  Dave was looking at me. “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “What’s up, buttercup?” Laurence said. Yeah, he was definitely a little drunk. But that didn’t matter now.

  “Can we move in there?” I said, indicating the living room. I indicated the messy table, the plates that we hadn’t yet cleared. “We need to talk, now. We’ll do this later. Okay?”

  Dave and Jonas moved efficiently. Jonas took a thin laptop from the small table behind him and indicated that I should grab the bottles of water he’d just brought in. Dave went into the kitchen, where I heard him making coffee.

  “Dave?” I said. I wanted the cocaine now, and it really was so I could do what I needed to do.

  Mostly.

  “I’m bringing it, Danny,” he said. “Laurence, no more wine. Start on the water. Coffee’s coming.”

  Jonas had closed all the shutters in the living room and sat on the floor with his laptop. “There are motion sensors all over the property,” he said. “It’s the first thing we did. But those windows aren’t bulletproof, and I don’t take unnecessary chances.” Laurence went down the hall and came back with his head soaking wet, a towel around his neck, and a couple of packs of cigarettes.

  “We’re smoking,” he said to Jonas.

  “Dude, I’m used to it,” Jonas said. He was tapping away at his laptop.

  “I soaked my head in cold water,” Laurence said to me.

  “Smart,” I said. I tried sitting on the floor like Jonas had, but I couldn’t stay still. I had to pace. We were all silent.

  Dave came into the room a few minutes later with coffee for him and for Laurence, and he handed me a small baggie of coke. Probably about two grams. “Coffee table,” he said. It was glass. I felt my pockets, but I had no wallet, no cards on me. Dave rifled through his, and I could tell he was holding back impatience. He handed me a driver’s license and a twenty-dollar bill.

  It probably speaks to how much I wanted to get going that I didn’t even glance at the name on the driver’s license, or where it was from. It wouldn’t have been real, anyway.

  I didn’t waste time. My hands were steady, and I poured a bit of coke onto the table, cut a couple of fat lines with the card, and quickly rolled the twenty into a tight straw.

  I snorted both lines, one into each nostril, and sat back. I felt the coke at the back of my throat, that feeling that tells you it’s decent, not overly stepped on – cut with too much baby laxative or whatever other substance dealers are using nowadays – and that things will be just fine.

  I took a sip of water, then dabbed a bit of water into both nostrils and snorted it back.

  Junkie trick. Don’t ask.

  Laurence wasn’t looking at me, but Dave was. Jonas didn’t seem to even care; he was immersed in his laptop.

  “Okay,” I said. “There have been two occasions, and two places, where the killer or killers have appeared and disappeared seemingly out of nowhere, when police were everywhere. Rose’s, and the woods near Dickie Doyle’s cabin.” I took another long swig of water. Coke makes you thirsty. “The day we were shot at in the dining hall, Laurence, the day Colin was killed? Whoever did that managed to get in and out. Like magic.” I was trying not to talk too quickly. I needed them to take me seriously and not think these were the ramblings of a drug-addled mind. “And Sarah Gilbert’s body appeared there, when there were media everywhere on the road and cops all over the grounds.”

  Dave was nodding slowly. Laurence just stared at me and gulped his coffee.

  “There has got to be an underground bunker of some kind there,” I said. “Maybe not in the woods; I don’t know. We need to talk about that. But my guess is that there is some kind of underground structure, a bomb shelter or just some kind of large cellar, I don’t know, but there is something on the property, or close enough to it, that the killer has been using. And if that’s the case, then who knows. Dickie could be held there. Or Des Murphy, or both.” I leaned over and grabbed Laurence’s cigarettes and lighter, and lit one for me, and one for him.

  “That’s insane,” Laurence said.

  “And what has been happening isn’t insane? How on earth did anybody get Sarah’s body onto the property? Even if one of the cops was the killer, there were other cops there. The killer had to have brought Sarah from close by, close enough that he could get in and out very quickly.”

  I smoked furiously. I wished Dave would say something.

  “And what about a vehicle? That yellow pickup? Getting to and from the property, if this is the case?” Dave was looking at the ground. I had a flash, just then, of the guy I thought he was when we first met in southern California. The slacker who worked at a pawn shop. Ha.

  “I don’t know. Maybe this structure is larger than we think.”

  Dave shook his head. “No. If there was a door big enough for a car to drive through, someone would have seen it by now.” He paused. “But a simple hatch in the ground, covered in leaves or whatever – and it’s possible that if something like that existed, it’s existed for a very long time.”

  “You know the Underground Railroad was active in the Annapolis Valley,” Jonas said. He wasn’t looking up from his laptop. “My grandmother used to tell me stories she’d heard about landowners right here in this Valley, who would hide slaves on their property.”

  “Why did they have to hide once they got here?” Laurence said. “They were free here.”

  Jonas looked at my brother. “Dude, didn’t you guys learn about this in school? There were agents, slavers who came up here to basically hunt escaped slaves after they passed the Fugitive Slave Act in the U.S. It was dangerous for them. The slaves, I mean.”

  “I did not know that,” Laurence said slowly.

  “No worries, bud,” Jonas said. “But it would not surprise me at all if there were these underground bunker things Danny’s talking about.” He went back to his laptop. Dave grinned and pulled his ear.

  In case I had been wondering if Jonas was paying attention to things other than tech, I had my answer.

  “Look,” I said. I slowly started cutting a bit more coke into lines. It was soothing. And compared to my crack habit, cocaine felt almost wholesome. “There has got to be more than one person involved in this, and obviously it’s been planned for a long, long time. Killing all these people, doing all these things suddenly, out of the blue? No way. It’s precise. It’s like a military strike.”

&nbs
p; “And on the holiday weekend,” Dave said. “That festival thing they have.”

  “The Apple Blossom Festival,” Laurence said.

  “It would cause maximum media impact, and maximum damage to Rose’s Place.”

  “Here’s another fun fact,” Jonas piped up, still looking at his laptop. “Rose Doyle, née Carlisle, was named Queen Annapolisa in 1992. I’ve got pictures here, if anybody wants to see them.”

  “What?” I said. “Holy Fuck City. Laurence, did you know this?” Jonas was giggling, and I was about to glare at him when I realized he was laughing at my potty mouth. So I just smiled.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t. But really, why would I? I knew she grew up around here, but she went down to the States when her father did, when she was about twenty. That’s when she went to Bennington, and she and Dickie met.”

  “Well,” Dave said, “somebody remembers Rose Doyle, née…?”

  “Carlisle,” Jonas said.

  “Carlisle. That’s for damn sure. Danny’s right. The timing is no coincidence.”

  I leaned over and snorted a line. My brain was working. I felt no pain. My brother was sitting eight feet from me, safe.

  Now, we were getting somewhere.

  My phone beeped. I had a text. “Weird,” I said. My old phone was gone, lost somewhere between getting knocked out at Mary’s place and winding up tied to a pier. Laurence had replaced it for me; there was a new one waiting for me at the hospital. But I couldn’t care less about gadgets, and I hadn’t even checked to see if it was the same number. I hadn’t thought to ask him. I’d already talked to everybody in the family, and I didn’t have many close friends. Okay, any. Not since Gene, and since I stopped going to the local watering hole where I’d met him.

  The men all looked at me. I started to laugh before I looked at my phone: Sitting around the kidney-shaped glass coffee table, all of us on the floor to avoid getting shot through the windows, and lines of cocaine spread out, we looked like the last guests at a key party in 1979.

  “Check your phone,” Laurence said. “Could be the police.”

  “They think we’re gone,” I said.