The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6)

by Clayton Lindemuth

  She’d asked her father about the blood on his sleeve.

  “Transitions,” he’d said in Spanish, “are the most dangerous.”

  An answer that had said nothing useful in the moment but spoke truth several years later.

  Transitions…

  Eventually they’d have to take her out of the car and walk her inside a building. It would be her only chance to disappear.

  Corazon’s thought-world moved at light speed. Meanwhile, the FBI sedan passed where she’d pitched her cell phone in the runoff drain as she and Tat walked to DeChurch’s place. She glanced, but didn’t allow her gaze to linger, in case police cameras harvested clues. It was difficult to guess where technology might be lurking.

  Had she allowed her clothes to soak long enough in the oxy bleach?

  Her blade?

  There!

  Across the road, through the window of a parked car, Corazon observed an oval face surrounded by black hair.

  Tat.

  Corazon placed her hand on the glass and caught her breath. She forced herself not to look at the tall one in the back seat with her. He lowered his head to the window.

  Had he seen her reaction?

  Corazon watched street corners for landmarks. The names on the signs were small and most times not illuminated by headlights or streetlights, so she memorized their path by studying buildings and committing their features to memory.

  Minutes passed but no escape opportunity presented.

  Corazon shifted in the seat and reduced the pressure on her handcuffed wrists. The agent watched her face. Corazon warmed her eyes toward him and twisted on the seat, lifting her right thigh. Her leg folded at the knee and her foot touched his leg. She lowered her head, slitted her eyes and allowed the barest smile.

  He pushed away her foot.

  She twisted forward and leaned to him. Slid her tongue between her lips, locked eyes with his and felt along the seat with her cuffed hands. Without changing her gaze, she located the opposite door latch, flipped her hands so her palms were close to her back to get them high enough to reach the door release.

  Her fingertips reported something cold and smooth as Toyota chrome — and with her hands upside down and backward from how she normally experienced them, she pressed to confirm it was a door handle.

  She felt a soundless click. The door shifted. Road noise seemed a fraction louder.

  Loving her agent’s pupils, desperately communicating lust, she wondered why the dome light hadn’t triggered.

  Sometimes, Corazon thought, she just had to trust things would turn out okay. She’d introduce a little confusion into the FBI agents’ night and perhaps discover a route of escape.

  Sharing a deeply committed gaze with the backseat FBI agent, Corazon flashed her teeth and directed her stare toward his crotch a long moment, then returned her look to his face.

  The man’s mouth twitched.

  Corazon heard Baer Creighton’s voice in her mind. Fella look like a fish doin’ trig.

  Why think of Baer?

  Her hands still contorted behind her, Corazon pulled the chrome handle.

  The door vanished and Corazon tumbled outward as the dome light flashed. The agent’s eyes popped white as she rolled onto nothing. She shoved with her folded leg first, then with both, driving herself backward out the door. Her thighs, then calves and feet slipped across the seat. Cold wind blasted her face and her hair tangled in her eyes.

  Chapter Four

  Corazon tucked her chin to her chest and hit the pavement with the back of her shoulders. She tumbled and her left elbow flashed incandescent pain.

  Tires squealed.

  Corazon threw a leg, stopped her roll and with her elbow nestled to her ribs, lurched to her feet.

  “Stop!”

  Corazon shuffled; her feet were free but she waddled without her arms for balance. How could she free her wrists in seconds? She had to run faster. Her only hope was if Tat or some other benefactor interfered with the agents. Baer Creighton? She had to create more distance…

  A car door slammed.

  Agents shouted.

  Her lungs burned and her breath blasted from her mouth. She lurched into a run and a mountain tackled her from the left.

  Corazon’s shoulder crushed to the cement and her head bounced. Hands smacked her butt then pattered along her legs to her ankles and crushed them together. Pebbles cut the skin on her head. The three agents manipulated her body and returned Corazon to her feet. Her eyebrow seeped blood into her eye.

  “That was stupid,” the giant agent said.

  “Must have hit the door lock with my elbow,” the woman agent said.

  She looked into Corazon’s pupils and Corazon wondered at the blankness she observed. The female agent shoved Corazon toward the car but not in anger, more like when Tat and she used to mock fight.

  The giant agent stopped her at the door. He turned her shoulders and positioned her face under a streetlight, then peered at the cut in her brow.

  “The bleeding is slow. We’re a few hundred yards away. We’ll get you patched up.”

  Pain stabbed her mind and Corazon’s ears rushed like an amplified ocean. The skin on her face and neck tingled with a million pinpricks. The place where her head hit concrete throbbed. Corazon’s vision blurred as the world receded. Blackness rushed from the edges of her awareness and she waited as it consumed her.

  Corazon’s knees buckled.

  The giant agent swung his right arm around Corazon’s shoulder and pinned her to his hip.

  “Easy. You’re all right. Steady yourself.”

  His sweat stink brought her back. It must have been a long stakeout. Maybe they’d been waiting the entire time Corazon and Tat had been at Jubal White’s place, enduring long shifts by pounding down Red Bull, while frustration and nerves burned stink into their armpits.

  The bone of her brow hurt.

  The agents loaded Corazon into the car and this time Corazon heard the lock switch activate inside the door.

  “That was a stupid thing you did,” the woman said from behind the steering wheel. She shook her head. She sounded like Tat.

  Corazon didn’t know exactly what she expected but the process so far didn’t fit. From her father and the movies, she understood being under arrest to mean she would be beaten when taken into custody, tortured during questioning, possibly drugged during trial and ignored to death in prison.

  But her experience diverged from her expectation.

  The agents didn’t strike her. Didn’t curse her or cast evil looks. The giant one reminded her of a cartoon she couldn’t place: an ogre careful not to allow his unwieldy body to smash things. The female seemed at times reluctant to participate, as if she was distracted or Corazon wasn’t worth the Bureau’s trouble. The man in the front passenger seat was senior to the others, given their behavior around him, but he didn’t give them orders. He spoke quietly and then things happened, but it wasn’t like he was bossing people around.

  They parked in the lot and waited until all three agents exited the car to open the door and pull out Corazon. The female agent closed the door behind her and said, “Take it easy, girl. All right? You’re in better shape than you think.”

  “Don’t,” the white agent said.

  The female agent, unseen by the white man, patted Corazon’s shoulder and the confusion lifted from Corazon’s mind. It was all part of the trick.

  Maybe the two male agents would be her torturers and the woman would show whatever warmth Corazon required to unburden herself of her crimes.

  Except each killing was a badge, not a burden.

  The two male agents each took an elbow and guided her to a building that seemed too new to be frightening. A trick, designed to increase the shock value when they turned on her behind closed doors.

  Inside the building they steered her around a couple of corners then the two male agents stopped by themselves at the end of the hallway and spoke. The white man’s step seemed more crisp th
an before, reminding Corazon of her father when he was angry. Too disciplined to lash out, he channeled his frustration into his posture and step.

  The female agent stayed with Corazon while a uniformed officer received Corazon’s personal items and placed them in envelopes. He spent a moment writing on a form and slid it across the counter.

  The female agent stepped behind Corazon and removed a handcuff from one wrist, turned her and with her wrists in front, re-cuffed.

  “Sign it,” the man said.

  One more man telling her what to do.

  “You speak English?”

  Corazon stared through the plexiglass to the wire mesh cages.

  “She speak English?” the officer said.

  “She did earlier,” the female said.

  “Did anything happen that would affect her language skills?”

  “Bump on the head?”

  The cop in the cage looked at Corazon’s brow and said, “Wait a minute.” He stepped away.

  Corazon tensed as the female agent came close to her ear and whispered.

  “The only word you say is lawyer, got it?”

  The evidence-room officer returned with a Kleenex and passed it through the slot. Corazon looked at it. The female agent blotted blood from her face.

  “You need to sign the form, miss,” the officer said.

  Corazon heard the whisper of rubber soles on linoleum. The giant agent stood beside her.

  “Mark it as refused to sign,” he said.

  The female agent stepped away and the power hierarchy became more apparent. The white man was in charge, then the giant man, last the woman.

  The giant agent took Corazon’s arm and steered her to another hallway where he pushed open a door. Inside the room he moved behind the table and pushed back the chair. He removed Corazon’s right handcuff and snapped it to a metal loop on the table. He left her hunched and standing, but with the chair behind her legs.

  Stooped, Corazon noticed pain from her backward fall from the car. She hurt everywhere: elbow, hip, side of her knee and her brow. She sat.

  In all the movies she had ever seen the questioning room was larger than hers. There was no two-way mirror, just a video camera on the wall with a red dot illuminated.

  The giant agent closed the door. The female sat on the short edge of the table and the giant stood opposite Corazon. He pulled a chair from under the table, looked around the room, and stepped back out.

  The camera’s red light turned off.

  Corazon glanced at the woman.

  “Protocol,” she whispered. “Nothing to worry about.”

  The giant returned and as he threw a leg over the back of the chair began speaking.

  “We have you for murder one,” he said. “The switchblade we took off you… Pretty high tech for a kid. Where’d you get it?”

  Corazon sat.

  “Keeping it a secret. Okay. We’re testing it for DNA and unless you’re the smartest person we’ve met in a long time, we’re going to find human blood that matches one or more of five murder victims.”

  He watched her.

  “We’ve been following you,” he said.

  Corazon made a game of breathing so smoothly her chest neither swelled nor collapsed with each breath.

  “You might wonder how we found you,” he said.

  Corazon’s mouth was dry, but she reminded herself that even if they offered water or soda she must ignore them.

  “Okay, that’s fine. You’re going to prison whether you talk or not. Even without the DNA that knife shows intent. So worst case for Uncle Sam is — ”

  “Uncle Sam is the US Government,” the female agent said.

  The giant smiled too broad and taut. “Yes, thank you. But we both know you speak English like a native.” He waited. “Are you sure you don’t want to know what we have on you, so you can make an informed decision about talking to us? Help us out, things go better for you.”

  Corazon swallowed. She looked at the female agent who was again stone faced and her countenance confirmed that in giving advice she went against her superiors. The stony look calmed Corazon.

  “Lawyer.”

  The giant agent locked eyes with Corazon, broke away and slightly dipped his head.

  “You sure you don’t want to hear what we know?”

  The female agent turned her head toward him.

  “Let me rephrase that, since I can’t question you. We lifted your fingerprint from a gas station in Moab. Video too. The video shows you walking quickly with blood on your clothing. The gas station is located less than a mile from a murder scene and you already know this, but the time of death was fifteen minutes before you appear bloody on the video. Does that interest you?”

  Corazon looked at the camera.

  “I’m sorry. I withdraw the question. I was making conversation. The other thing is your fingerprints. We found a match. Your prints place you at a crime scene in Salt Lake City last fall. Maybe you remember? What, nineteen dead?”

  Corazon’s voice started in her throat, but she froze.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Lawyer.”

  “I thought so. You see, we know you were one of the girls that guy — who was it?”

  “Wayman Graves,” the female said.

  “We know you were one of his girls. We know you have all the motive in the world to hunt down men who look like the ones who attacked you. You might get a lot of sympathy for that in the courtroom.”

  He stared at her and clamped his jaw.

  “I have sympathy.” The giant tilted his head and looked away. “I know girls who experienced something like you experienced. It’s the only reason we’re talking like this, after you asked for counsel. But laws are for everyone. Add in your escape attempt, solicitation, and maybe jaywalking when you rolled out of the car… That’s a lot of prison. I’m just letting you know, this won’t go well unless you cooperate.”

  Corazon ran her tongue over her molars.

  “Solicitation means prostitution,” he said. “We have you on that, too.”

  He leaned back in his seat. Corazon fought her desire to glance toward the female agent.

  “Lawyer it is,” he said.

  Chapter Five

  Corazon lay in a holding cell. After the giant agent and the female departed the questioning room, Corazon was left hand cuffed to the table for what felt like hours. She dozed with her forehead on the table, woke to reposition her arm which had also fallen asleep and shortly after, an officer marched her to the tiny cement room where she now stretched on a bench.

  One wall was bars, which was nice because she felt connected to the rest of the building. She’d be able to hear them coming. But otherwise the silence left her feeling as if she’d been abandoned in the basement of a large building.

  At least she was alone. How much time had passed? The sun could be shining on a new morning for all she knew. Six months in a cave and she still had no innate sense of time.

  She closed her eyes but sleep would not come.

  They would torture her in the morning. The female agent was a trickster who had been turned by the government against her kind. And the giant agent with his fake concern… She would give them nothing.

  The most likely scenario she foresaw was they would leave her to worry in the cell for either a very long time or short time. They would wake her when she slept and drag her to whatever place they used for torment. They would reduce her autonomy any way they could, even refusing to allow her the dignity of walking or toileting.

  She would soon meet the man with the needles and pliers.

  The outcome would be the same regardless of their tactics. Remove hope and other nonsense from her mind and only the truth about her fate remained. If she didn’t escape, she would suffer whatever pain the government cared to serve. She would eventually confess everything they told her to confess, and then she would die.

  Tat’s fate was tied to hers, and only two outcomes would spare Tat’
s arrest as well. Corazon must escape — or die trying — before the torture man began his work.

  Seen so clearly, even the rashest attempt made sense. And because the very next time the police opened her cell they might lead her to doom, the best opportunity to attack would be the next she saw, possibly in the holding cell. The police and FBI would have procedures put in place to eliminate her odds of success, but rules had a funny effect on the people who followed them. They ceased to think critically. They were blind to the walls that contained their views and somewhere outside of their boxes Corazon would find an angle to exploit or a weapon to wield.

  Corazon waited for sounds outside her cell.

  She’d learned more from YouTube than just slicing people with knives.

  .

  Corazon positioned herself with her head pointed toward the wall made of bars. Just a regular teen uncomfortable on a concrete bench. Its width allowed her to fold her knees close to her chest, and that meant she’d be able to kick against the wall and launch herself horizontally at anyone within a few feet. A thigh-level attack would be difficult to defend, and all Corazon needed to accomplish was to get one hand on the grip of a police officer’s pistol. The power dynamic would tilt. There were guards and checkpoints along the way but with a pistol in her hand she would prevail.

  They chose this when they interfered with an act of justice.

  She tensed as voices arrived from far down the hall. The eerie feeling of being in a basement returned. The air was cool and dank. Quiet sounds echoed and though they were quieter still, the echoes remained audible. Keys jiggled and two female voices volleyed back and forth as the voices drew closer.

  Corazon placed her hands against the cement wall and tilted back her head as far as possible while remaining on the bench, seeking both to look asleep and learn which of the approaching women might most easily yield a firearm.

  “Time to get up,” one said.

  It wasn’t the female FBI agent. This woman’s voice had a southern pace, as if she dragged each syllable through molasses before winging it toward an ear.