Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2)

by Scott J. Holliday

  He looked around for a clue but found nothing of interest. He sat down with his back against the willow’s trunk and cleared his mind of the case, the machine, the voices. The wind picked up, blowing cold against his water-soaked legs. He thought of Ricky here with Freddie Cohen, the two of them burying the time capsule. Hopeful young boys. Innocent, even as carnal needs spoke from within, directing thoughts and actions in misunderstood ways, mimicking what was learned from parents, what was seen on TV.

  “I never meant to hurt him.” Freddie Cohen’s voice, still that of a twelve-year-old boy.

  “I know.”

  “I love him.”

  “We all did.”

  “Where am I? Is this Heaven?”

  Barnes laughed out loud. “Afraid not.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Shhh.”

  Barnes tilted his head back and looked into the canopy. For a second he saw Leo up there, hiding. The false Leo.

  William Franklin is telling you lies.

  “Why?” Barnes said.

  “The Madrox Project.” The familiar voice.

  The wind picked up again. It pushed the willow’s canopy around, the weeping limbs like so much hair, splitting and colliding, exposing the dark sky and stars above. Barnes recalled Freddie stepping under the canopy to watch Ricky scale the willow until he was lost from sight.

  He stood and faced the trunk, rubbed an open palm against the bark.

  “Be careful.” Freddie Cohen’s voice.

  Barnes began to climb. The tilt allowed him to easily find the first major branch and pull himself up. He moved from branch to branch into the depths of the canopy, feeling a surge of youth as he ascended. His muscles and bones recalled the movements. Their own memories. Memories from a time when a boy would climb a tree just because he could. But no, that was the adult-filtered version, wasn’t it? A boy climbed a tree not because he could, but to conquer the damn thing, to attain new heights, to get to the top and look out at the world from a higher perspective. As a boy, Barnes had often wondered, whenever he put his foot down in a forest, had another foot ever been in that exact spot? Some Native American from years ago? Some kid just a couple of grades higher? It was impossible to know, but he liked the idea of his foot coming down in a place no foot had ever before stepped.

  And what if no one but Ricky had ever reached the top of this willow? What if Barnes got to the final branch and occupied a space on this planet only he and his brother had ever occupied?

  Barnes reached the last climbable limb. The trunk was thin here, and the branches were pliable but strong enough to keep him in place. From his vantage point he could see across great strips of Whitehall Forest, all dark now, the tumble and rumble of differently shaped trees swaying in the breeze like the chop of a black ocean.

  But there, not too far away, back down the path he traveled to get to this spot, emerged a point of light. Headlights in the darkness. The light barely reached above the tree line, emerging like yellow fog. He watched the light for a moment, watched it play in the tops of the forest, and then, as fast as it appeared, it was gone.

  “I’m here,” Barnes said, tilting his head back and speaking into the night sky. “Ricky. I’m here.” He found the Big Dipper and then rotated his head and arched his back to find the Little Dipper. He grabbed the trunk to stop himself from toppling backward. His hands clutched the bark as his fingertips found a knothole. The hole was small, just wide enough to allow his hand inside. He reached down into the hole and felt around. Debris at the base. He dug at it with his fingers until he found something that felt man-made.

  Barnes pulled out the item, a lightweight ball of duct tape roughly the shape of a small puck. Barnes began carefully peeling back the tape, brittle from years of weathering. The first few strips ripped apart as he removed them, but once he got closer to the center the tape was less weathered, stronger. He got a good peel going and managed a long strip, reducing the puck as the tape uncoiled.

  Black lettering appeared on the white inside of the tape. Magic Marker. Barnes peeled until the lettering stopped and then read what was written.

  COME GET SOME, HURRICANE.

  Barnes continued unraveling the tape to reveal two George Washington quarters buried at the center of the ball.

  A two-player game.

  Mano a mano.

  Dynamite Ricky versus Hurricane John.

  He looked back up toward the sky. “You’re dead meat, Dynamite.” He pocketed the quarters and began climbing down. He reached the bottom, crossed the river, and traveled the riverbank back toward his car.

  He arrived at the clearing. Something was different now. A scent in the air like spray paint. He scanned the clearing to find that the boxcar was no longer a silhouette. The door was open a crack, and a yellow hue of light spilled out from within.

  MADROX was spray-painted in huge letters on the boxcar’s outer wall.

  Barnes moved slowly across the clearing, giving the boxcar a wide berth. He returned to the spot beneath the pines from where he’d approached the car years before, when he’d apprehended Calavera and taken three bullets in the process. His scars burned at the memory. He touched the raised flesh above his heart as he moved closer, felt its heat like fire, felt the ache in his knee and his shoulder. He stepped toward the door, breathing heavily, hands shaking. His eyes were undistracted by movements in the trees, leaves turning in the wind. The cedar scent was suddenly stronger than the paint. The crickets stopped chirping. He gripped the boxcar handle and was set to pull it open when he heard a voice from inside.

  “We can’t keep going like this.”

  Jessica.

  “We’re living with a stranger,” she said. “It’s not just weird, it’s dangerous. He has no loyalty to us, and why should he? He doesn’t even know who we are.”

  “We offered to pull you,” a voice replied. Franklin’s voice. “You wanted to stick it out. We can pull you now, if you want. There’s a safe house in—”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jessica said. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “If we felt you were in danger,” Dr. Hill said, “we wouldn’t have given you the choice. Remember who he is right now.”

  There was a pause. Then Jessica said, “I know. I’m sorry. I mean, to say he’s dangerous with you sitting here, it’s just . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Barnes pulled the door open.

  29

  Barnes stepped into the boxcar to find Franklin, Dr. Hill, Jessica, and Richie sitting in folding chairs formed into a half circle. There was an empty chair in the middle, facing them.

  “Hey, buddy,” Franklin said. He gestured toward the empty chair. “Have a seat.”

  Barnes shook his head no.

  “Suit yourself,” Franklin said. “How are you feeling?”

  “What is this?” Barnes said.

  “You might call it an intervention,” Dr. Hill said.

  Barnes looked at Richie. The boy’s feet were dangling from the chair above the wooden slats of the boxcar. He swung them back and forth in a chopping motion but stopped when Barnes’s eyes came to rest on him. The brave kid held Barnes’s gaze for a moment but then looked down. His long hair fell from his shoulders and dangled.

  “You dragged my son into this?” Barnes said to Dr. Hill.

  “The method is to—”

  “I don’t care about your fucking method,” Barnes said. He reached halfway toward the gun in his armpit but stopped when Jessica gasped and Richie screamed. Barnes stared at his family, crying, Jessica’s face contorted in confusion and pain.

  “We had to minimize the other life presences in your mind,” Dr. Hill said. “In order to do that, I’ve—we’ve—had to force you to question your ability to conceive reality.”

  Barnes turned to Franklin. “What’s he talking about?”

  “The Madrox Project,” Franklin said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “What do. You think. Now?” Dr. Hill s
aid. He waggled a cell phone.

  “I think you’re a maggot,” Barnes said. His hands began to shake. His core grew cold. “You knew all those riddles. You led me on this chase. For what? For these?” He held up the two quarters he’d acquired from the tree knot. “I guess Freddie Cohen’s letter was fake, too, huh?” He looked at Franklin. “Huh?”

  “No,” Franklin said. “The letter was real. Ricky’s time capsule was real.”

  “But you knew about it,” Barnes said. “You knew what was in there and where it would lead me?”

  Franklin nodded.

  “We used it to help you,” Dr. Hill said.

  Barnes drew his weapon. He pointed it at Dr. Hill. “Shut the fuck up!”

  Richie cried out. “No!”

  “It’s okay, son,” Barnes said. He kept his gun aimed at Dr. Hill and offered Richie his half of their monkey bite handshake.

  Richie didn’t respond.

  “Hey, bud,” Barnes said, stepping closer. “Come on. It’s me.”

  “No, it’s not,” Richie said.

  Barnes squinted as pain shot from one temple to the other behind his eyes. His bones became cold steel, his guts constricted with stabbing pains like shards of ice, his muscles twitched with spasms. When he regained focus, he found Richie had been replaced by a young girl with long red hair. Her face was full of freckles.

  “Richie?” Barnes said.

  “My name’s not Richie,” the girl said. “It’s Amanda.”

  Another bolt of pain behind Barnes’s eyes. He grimaced and clutched his forehead, dropped to his knees.

  “We had to get you back on the machine,” Dr. Hill said. “We had to give power back to the other life presences in your mind. Give them the strength to minimize your piece of the pie.”

  The pain in Barnes’s head grew worse. He trembled all over. He fought it back and focused on Dr. Hill, the gun still aimed. “Fuck you.”

  “I’m not your enemy,” Dr. Hill said.

  “We’re here to help,” Franklin said.

  “Is that right, partner?” Barnes said, transferring his aim to Franklin’s chest. “Here to help me what?”

  “Let go,” Jessica said.

  Barnes turned to her.

  “We’re here to help you let go.”

  Barnes examined her dear face. So beautiful, and once so bright. Always full of pain these days, always dim. Her smile was a stranger, her laughter only an echo. He recalled the day he took her in for fingerprinting. The way she smiled at him in the rain. The way she ran across the police station parking lot, stopped at the door, and looked back at him. Back then he had thought, Ricky would love her.

  Another shot of pain through his head. His body quaking madly, he dropped to all fours. When he opened his eyes and looked up, Jessica wasn’t there. She’d been replaced by a woman he didn’t know. A woman with red hair and freckles, just like . . . Jesus, just like her daughter. They were both weeping now, holding each other.

  Barnes turned back to Franklin and Dr. Hill. “Who are they?”

  “We had to give power to the others inside your mind,” Dr. Hill said. “Had to make way for—”

  “Who are they?” Barnes screamed.

  Franklin gestured toward the woman and the girl. “Meet Joanna and Amanda Flaherty.”

  Barnes turned back to the two huddled together. Joanna, the mother, glared at him from the corner of her eye while comforting her child.

  “You’ve been seeing things as you want to see them,” Dr. Hill said. “Not as they really are.”

  Barnes felt weak. He dropped his gun and came up to his knees. He placed his hand on the scar above his heart. No tickle, no sting. No scar. His knee and shoulder no longer burned, no longer ached.

  “Hey, partner,” Franklin said.

  Barnes refused to face him. He kept his eyes on Jessica. No, not Jessica. Joanna. Joanna Flaherty.

  “John,” Franklin said.

  Barnes turned to him. He knelt before his old friend with his hands at his sides, clutching Ricky’s quarters, unable to stand. He picked up the gun again, laid it against his thigh.

  “Adrian spent a lot of time as you on the machine,” Franklin said. “He had your Calavera memory cut into a binge. He thought it was making him a better detective. No one was aware of how much he used. We thought he was tapping into victims’ memories, trying to solve cases.”

  “But it was me.”

  Franklin nodded. “After some time it occurred to him that you were gaining control. He was losing time, having blackouts. He wanted it to stop, but he was too late. He knew you might seize full control someday, so he let me know.”

  “‘Barnes will know how to find me,’” Barnes said.

  “Right.”

  “So what, then? I’ve been solving this Eddie Able case as Flaherty?”

  Franklin and Dr. Hill exchanged a glance.

  “What?” Barnes said.

  “Flaherty was solving the case,” Franklin said. “The break came when we got Freddie Cohen’s letter, addressed to you. Flaherty rode the memory and pieced it together with what we had from the crack house on Caulfield Avenue. That Eddie Able in his memory had just killed Georgie and Alice of Sparky Time Amusements. The timelines matched up.”

  “The 911 call,” Barnes said.

  Franklin nodded. “It gave us a new angle on the cold case. We went back to the crime scene evidence and started to track down Leo.”

  “You said Flaherty created a cover-up. The Madrox Project.”

  Franklin shook his head.

  “What?”

  “The project was our creation,” Dr. Hill said. “This whole thing.” He gestured around the boxcar, at Franklin, at himself. “A way to knock you out of Flaherty for good. We’ve been working on Flaherty for months, hoping we could keep you from taking full control.”

  “But you caught on,” Franklin said. “You invented a cover-up, redacted names from case files, and sent yourself on a personal snipe hunt.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “An unsolvable case,” Franklin said. “Flaherty would defer to you. You’d be in control at all times.”

  “So we had to set you up,” Dr. Hill said. “Give you a false Leo to arrest and solve the case. Give you less reason to stick around.”

  Another bolt of pain through Barnes’s head. He ignored it. “Why didn’t you give me the letter?”

  Franklin smiled sadly. “You weren’t around.”

  “Where was I?” Barnes said. “Jesus Christ, Billy, where am I?”

  Again, Franklin and Hill exchanged a glance.

  “I’m here,” Barnes said. “Billy. Look at me. I’m here.”

  Dr. Hill nodded to Franklin.

  Franklin turned to Barnes and said, “You never walked out of this forest, John.”

  Barnes blinked. He clutched Ricky’s quarters in a sweaty palm. He felt like he was being zapped with electricity.

  “That confrontation with Calavera?” Franklin said. “You didn’t make it, partner. I’m sorry.”

  “But those memories,” Barnes said, his eyes searching Franklin’s face. “Me and Jessica at our new house. Painting the walls, takeout Chinese food . . . Jesus, the pregnancy test for Richie, the hospital.”

  “Flaherty’s memories,” Dr. Hill said. “You took them as your own and constructed a new reality around them.”

  Barnes’s mind traveled back through the scenes he thought were his. He found details he’d never questioned before. Rainbow ponies on a boy’s shoes? Richie’s confused reaction to the Eddie Able birthday gift . . .

  “Why have you done this?”

  “We needed to reduce your slice of the pie,” Dr. Hill said. “It was the only way for Adrian to regain control. The Madrox Project was designed to break your hold on sanity, thereby breaking your hold on Flaherty. We need you to release him.” He nodded at Flaherty’s wife and daughter. “They need you to release him.”

  Barnes felt Flaherty emerge from within, felt his hold over F
laherty’s mind slipping.

  “You’ve been convincing yourself,” Dr. Hill said, “of a reality you needed to be true.”

  “That story you told,” Barnes said. “Leo’s mother. The maid. The man with ALS?”

  “What about it?” Dr. Hill said.

  “Was it real?”

  Dr. Hill shook his head. “Just something an addict once told me. A dream he had.”

  “His eyes,” Barnes said. “They pleaded so.”

  Dr. Hill nodded.

  “Forgive me.” Barnes.

  “You’re forgiven.” The familiar voice. Flaherty’s voice.

  “I knew your voice sounded familiar.” Barnes.

  “Me, too.” Flaherty.

  “What do I do?” Barnes said to Dr. Hill.

  “You have to let go.”

  Barnes turned to Joanna and Amanda. “I’m sorry.”

  Joanna closed her eyes and dropped her head.

  Barnes looked at Franklin, saw the big man’s eyes going red, tears forming and welling.

  “We did good things,” Barnes said. “Didn’t we, partner?”

  “We did,” Franklin said. His voice was choked.

  “Jessica?” Barnes said to Dr. Hill. “How is she? Is she okay?”

  Dr. Hill nodded.

  “Is she happy?”

  “She’s happy.”

  “I get to be with Ricky now,” Barnes said, turning back to Franklin.

  “That’s right,” Franklin said.

  “You still got that eulogy?” Barnes said.

  Franklin smiled. “Dumbass went and got himself killed.”

  “Amen,” Barnes said.

  And then he let go.

  His body suddenly felt light, like a gust of wind had picked him off his feet. He felt calm and warm. He unclenched his fists. His gun slid off his thigh and clattered against the floor. Ricky’s quarters fell to the boxcar planks and rolled. One bounced off Franklin’s shoe and dropped flat. Heads. The other rolled in a circle until it collided with its brother and fell next to it. Tails.