by Jason Brant
“What did you run through? A waterfall of skunk piss?”
Drew whistled. The sound was so loud and startling in the small room that both Nami and I jumped. “I’d rather not stand here and talk about Ash’s hygiene. Let’s get this over with so we can all get to work.”
“Sorry, Baldy. I’m sitting this one out.” I plopped onto the couch.
Dust puffed up around me.
Nami took a few steps back, her eyes growing into horrified ovals. “I’m literally in Hell.”
“Here’s the pitch,” Drew said. “A new unit has been formed to find Smith and everyone working for him. Nami and I have been brought in because of our skill sets and our knowledge of what happened with Murdock, you, and Smith. But if we’re being honest, there’s only so much we can do without you.”
“Murdock is dead,” I mumbled. “And you don’t need me to find Smith. Unless I get within a few hundred feet of him, or someone working for him, then I won’t do you a damn bit of good. You’re the detective. Go detect.”
“Stop being a pussy,” Nami said.
I clapped my hands together. “Oh, well, never mind then. You’ve convinced me.”
Drew ignored both of us. “Things are worse than we thought, Ashley. Smith has more telepaths working for him than anyone knew about. He kept them, and a whole lot else, secret. We don’t even know how many of them there are. And he’s using them to blackmail key people in the intelligence industry. He has moles working inside the system everywhere.”
I didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Shit.”
“It gets worse,” Drew continued. “We think he’s planning something big, but we don’t know what or where.”
“How do you know he has something planned then?” I asked.
Drew nodded at Nami. “She managed to recover data from some destroyed hard drives left behind at the Psych Ward and identified one of the agents Smith was blackmailing. He didn’t have much information to give us when we arrested him, but we found out that he’d stolen some cryptography equipment for one of Smith’s men. He didn’t know who the man was, but he described him as tall with short hair and dead eyes.” Drew paused for effect. “And he wore a black suit.”
My shoulders tensed.
He’d just described the bastard I’d known as the Man in Black. We’d duked it out in a hallway and elevator not that long ago, with me winning the fight, but taking a beating of biblical proportions. My knee had been stiff for quite a while after that shithead had stomped on it.
I’d had to get stitches inside my mouth because of him.
That hurt.
Drew saw the sour expression spreading across my face. “Yeah, him. This man had kidnapped the agent’s mother and beat the tar out of her until he got what he wanted from the agent.”
I rubbed my temples. A headache was forming in a hurry. “So what you’re saying is that you need me to help you find out who is being blackmailed and who isn’t. You don’t know who to trust in our own government.”
“Exactly. We don’t expect you to go out on missions with us if you don’t want, but we sure could use your help when we bring someone in for questioning. You’ll know instantly who has done what and why. It’ll save us a ton of legwork.”
“And you’ll get paid,” Nami said. “Then you can actually take a shower every so often, you know? You’re so gross right now that you probably have mushrooms growing in your ass crack.”
I needed a drink in a bad way, so I got up and walked over to the fridge. Grabbing a can from the upper shelf, I popped the top. “You’re asking me to go inside of people’s heads again. You know what that does to me.”
Drew inspected his feet. “I know, man. I know. But I’ve run out of options here. People are scared shitless of what Smith might be planning. Considering what he tried to pull off in D.C., it’s hard to imagine that his next scheme will be anything short of catastrophic to us.”
“And you’re the Great White Hope.” Nami grinned at me. “Which really says a lot about how fucked we are. You’re drinking beer at sunrise and we’re asking for your help.”
I took a sip from the can. “Why are you here so early, anyway? I mean, it’s a good hour and a half drive or more to get here. You had to leave by, what, four in the morning?”
“The agents keeping an eye on you told us that you’ve been shithouse drunk by noon.” Drew pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the screen for a second. “We knew that we had to get here early if we were going to find you halfway sober.”
“Looks like we screwed the pooch on that one,” Nami said.
I shrugged and took another swig. They were right, of course, but I didn’t particularly want everyone listing off my numerous problems to me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I’d slipped into full-blown alcoholism.
I’d started drink number two by breakfast, for Christ’s sake.
“So, what, you’re the IT support for this little operation?” I asked Nami. “They call you if someone’s email doesn’t work?”
“Don’t sass me, Ogre.”
“And I assume you’re helping with investigations?” I tipped my can at Drew. “What about your regular job at the station?”
“I’m doing both, right now, though I’ve been spending a lot more time on this lately. The feds told my captain to keep it quiet while I’m helping them.” He watched me for a bit. I returned his gaze, unblinking. “So, what are you going to do?”
I pretended to think about it as I polished off the last of the beer, but I’d already made up my mind. My fighting days were over. When I got involved, things went to hell. “Sorry, ladies. I’m retired.”
The empty went to the top of the pile. I was the John Elway of beer throwing.
“That’s what I thought you were going to say.” Drew walked across the room, heading for the door.
For a moment, I thought he might have actually given up.
I should have known better.
He stood in the doorway and waved at someone outside.
That made me do what I should have done when they’d first arrived—I let my mind wander out into the open space around the cabin.
Someone else was out there.
Feeling her presence made me suck in a quick breath. “You bastard.”
Drew looked at me over his shoulder. “Sorry, man, but you didn’t give me a choice.”
Sammy climbed out of the SUV outside and made her way toward my cabin.
5 – The Signal
Bob slammed the coffee pot into place and jabbed at the Brew button with his index finger. Getting the coffee ready for the morning commuters wasn’t his job.
Hell, he shouldn’t have even been there at all.
He was the station manager, not the damned night-shift jockey.
Phillis, the shift’s usual employee, had called off for the second night in a row, complaining about the flu.
She was old and obese, hardly a pillar of health, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she would be sick again. But that didn’t stop Bob from wanting to can her ass for making him work an overnight twice in a row.
And now he was doing the first shift’s duties too.
Allison should have arrived twenty minutes ago.
Making coffee was her responsibility, not his.
Bob had tried calling her home twice already and had left nasty messages on her answering machine each time. Allison didn’t have a cell phone, which was another point of contention he had with her.
What moron didn’t have a cell phone in this day and age?
He wondered if she still cleaned her clothes with a washboard.
Maybe she used an outhouse instead of a toilet.
If Allison and Phillis weren’t careful, they’d find themselves on the unemployment line soon. Bob had already etched Allison’s name on his shit list. Once someone found themselves there, it took exemplary work over an extended period of time to get their name taken off.
He should have known better.
Should have listened to his brain instead of his dick.
Allison had a pretty face and a great body. That combination had been deadly to Bob when she’d walked in six months ago, looking for a job. The slutty reputation she had around Arthur’s Creek had nudged him into hiring her.
But she had another stigma hanging over her head like a neon sign—she hit the sauce way too much.
Bob knew for a fact that she was a hard drinker, but he had yet to see evidence of her whoredom. God knew that he’d been trying to get in her pants, but she’d rebuffed him at every turn.
Mumbling to himself as he went, Bob stomped behind the counter and looked at his cell phone, hoping to see that she’d called him back.
Nothing.
Bob sucked in the paunch that had been slowly growing over his belt for the past few years. He’d let himself go a bit, sure, but he couldn’t figure out what it was about him that kept Allison at arm’s length. He had money, by Arthur’s Creek standards, a big home, and a hefty chunk of property in the woods.
It wasn’t like she had a ton of suitors calling on her in their small town either. Most of the men eyeing her up just wanted a quick romp in the sheets, not an actual date. Bob was pushing ever closer to that damned AARP age and didn’t want to spend his twilight years alone. He needed someone to take care of him in his old age.
For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why a slut like her wouldn’t be clamoring for a sugar daddy.
And that kind of thinking was why he’d hired her. It had been years since he’d tapped a fine piece of ass like her, so he’d hoped she would be full of gratitude for the job. Maybe throw him a little action as a way to say thank you. That didn’t turn out to be the case.
She came in hungover every morning, as he’d expected, but he couldn’t weasel his way into her pants.
How long had it been since her husband had died? Ten months? Fifteen? That was more than long enough for her to get over it.
But now, after six sexless months, Bob had reached his limit.
It was one thing if she wouldn’t blow him, but something else entirely if she wouldn’t even show up for work. The constant hangovers were bad enough, but at least she’d made it in for the start of her shifts. If she wasn’t even bothering to call him this morning, she must have gone on one hell of a bender the night before.
Bob leaned against the counter, spinning his cell phone on the laminate surface with his fingers. He decided that she had five more minutes to call in and explain herself—anymore than that and she could tell her sob story to the unemployment office.
A yellow, rusted-out pickup pulled into the station and parked beside one of the gas pumps. Bob recognized the vehicle and groaned. Arthur’s Creek only had a few hundred people in it, maybe a thousand if you counted the folks living in the surrounding mountains, so everyone knew everyone else’s business.
Jim Picking slid from the driver’s seat and meandered his way around the back of his truck. He had on the same stained mechanic’s shirt that he always wore to the repair shop he worked at.
He tipped the bill of his cap at Bob as they looked at each other through the window.
Bob nodded back at him.
They’d spoken on several occasions, but they were anything but friendly. Jim thought of Bob as a white-collar pussy because he didn’t get his hands dirty when he worked. Bob figured Jim to be a working-class moron who wasn’t intelligent enough to keep his hands clean on the job.
Jim grabbed the nozzle and jammed it into his truck, squeezing the trigger.
Two more cars pulled in then, one going to another pump, the other parking in an open space in front of the station.
The same thing happened every morning as the town woke up and hauled its groggy ass to work. People would file in, grab some coffee and a donut, and head on out. Everyone’s daily grind was a boon for the station, which had a primo spot on the main drag leading in and out of Arthur’s Creek.
The little bell above the door rang as three women came inside.
Bob ignored them and kept watching the road, waiting for Allison to show up.
A school bus, one of only three in the area, drove by, kids filling about half the seats.
Several more cars went by as the morning sun finally started burning away the night.
Bob gave his phone one last, longing glance before shoving it in his pocket and turning to the register. He’d have to pull a double.
Then, he’d fire Allison.
The women hovered by the candy bar aisle, prattling on about how they really shouldn’t grab those Butterfingers.
Of course, they shoveled them up anyway. Bob recognized two of the women, though he couldn’t place their names. The third, the heaviest and oldest of them, was new.
Another ding of the doorbell preceded two more people walking in.
One of them was Jim, the working-class moron. He wore the same dour expression he always did. The man stood well over six feet. Though he was in his mid-forties, Jim still had the wide shoulders that had made him a moderate standout at linebacker a few decades before.
At least, as much of a standout a player could be in such a small area.
His hands had the meaty, thick quality of a man who’d used them for hard labor his entire life. He towered over the women as he strode past them, not giving them a second glance.
“Bob?”
“Mmm?” Bob blinked rapidly, realizing that he’d been staring at Jim’s wide back for several seconds. He disliked the man, yes, but it wouldn’t do him any good to actively provoke the brute.
Yet another local stood in front of Bob, her eyes gazing up at him expectantly. Her name was Melody, a woman of roughly fifty with short, impossibly black hair that she obviously dyed.
Bob knew her all too well, as this was the woman he spoke to on the phone when the occasional emergency happened at the station. In such a small town, they never had to deal with murders or robberies, but they did have the occasional shoplifter or jackass who spilled gas all over the place.
“What?” Bob asked.
Melody flinched as if he’d struck her. “I need a pack of cigarettes. What’s with the attitude?”
“Sorry.” Bob forced a smile that had all the warmth of a December morning. “I’m pulling a double, so I’m a little tired.”
“Where’s Allison?”
“I have no idea. She didn’t show up this morning.”
Melody frowned. “That’s unlike her.”
Bob mimicked drinking out of a bottle. “You know how she can be.”
The corners of Melody’s mouth fell even further. “There’s no call for that, Robert. Her husband died, and she’s having a hard time with it.”
The overwhelming urge to bend over and shout in the fat woman’s face nearly had Bob moving before he realized it. “Of course. I didn’t mean it that way—”
“What’s the hold up?” a deep voice asked from behind Melody.
Bob’s eyes snapped up. Three women stood behind Melody with Jim looming over the lot of them.
“Ain’t got all day, pretty boy,” Jim said, his voice rumbling.
He held a gallon of chocolate milk in one hand, his other removing the cap. As he drank from the jug, he kept his eyes fixated on Bob’s.
“You haven’t paid for that,” Bob muttered.
Jim lowered the gallon of milk, licking at the brown mustache it left. “That’s cause you’re yammerin’ instead of taking my goddamn money.”
The chittering women fell silent.
They looked back and forth from Bob to Jim.
Melody rolled her eyes. “Can you tough guys wait to fight until after I have my smokes? The sheriff will have my hide if I don’t get into the station soon.”
Bob’s phone vibrated on the counter in front of him. He peeled his gaze from Jim and looked down at the screen. A number didn’t appear as usual, replaced by the word Private.
Bob didn’t answer calls from private numbers.
The phone cant
ed sideways as it vibrated again.
Similar tones came from the bags of the women in front of him.
Melody pulled a small purse from her shoulder, fishing out a large-screen phone. She looked down at it. “Private number? I wonder who this is?”
The three women behind her also pulled out their phones, all giving the screens the same quizzical expressions.
“Must be some kind of automated call.” Jim took another swig from the container. He wiped more milk from his lip with his forearm when he finished. “Garbage like this is why I ain’t got a phone.”
Bob wanted to say that he probably didn’t have a phone because he was a redneck imbecile, but he held his tongue. Instead, he peered through the window and saw two people standing at the gas pumps, looking down at their cells.
“I wonder if it’s an emergency?” Bob asked, more to himself than the others.
“Let’s find out.” Melody slid her thumb across the touch screen and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
The three women behind her mimicked the movement and greeting, each squinting as they held the phone to their heads.
Melody’s face fell slack, her eyes dulling. She didn’t so much as stare at Bob as she looked through him. Her shoulders slumped, mouth drooping open.
Bob looked over her shoulder at the other women. They all held the same vacant expression. “Mel? What is it?”
Melody didn’t answer.
None of them did.
“I’ll be damned,” Jim said. “This is the longest these women have ever gone without yammering on about something in their whole lives.”
Finally, Bob thought. The hillbilly and I agree on something.
The men by the gas pumps also held their cell phones to their ears, staring off into the distance with vacant eyes. The gas meters clicked away beside them, filling their vehicles.
Bob looked down at his phone again as it continued to vibrate on the desk. A sudden pang of fear ran up his spine. He didn’t dare answer that call. “What’s happening?”
Jim stepped around the last woman in the line and bent over, tipping his cap back on his head and inspecting her face.
She didn’t acknowledge him, even as he leaned so close that their noses were less than three inches apart.
