by Jeff Abbott
Groote drove over the speed limit all the way to Santa Monica. Oliver Quantrill’s house, a fusion of steel and glass, stood in a wealthy neighborhood. Quantrill sat on his expansive tiered deck, drinking mineral water, tapping on a laptop. He was tall, gym-club and protein-diet gaunt, in his early forties. He closed the laptop as Groote approached him.
‘How did you know about my daughter?’ Groote cooled his rage – No, be honest, it’s not rage, it’s fear – down to a simmer.
‘Calm down, Dennis. I had you checked when I first hired you. It would have been foolish not to, given your past. I mean Amanda no harm.’
‘Talk. What job could I do for you that helps my kid?’
‘Do you know exactly what I do, Dennis?’
‘You sell information. I don’t know specifics.’
‘Here’s a specific. I’ve acquired medical research designed to help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. People such as Amanda.’
Groote’s legs went weak. He sat down. ‘Research.’
‘Abandoned research. It didn’t work the first time. I’ve had my team make improvements. Now it works.’
‘Works how?’
‘It’s a drug that makes PTSD controllable. Possibly curable.’ Quantrill sipped at his orange juice. ‘Would you like your daughter back, Dennis? What would that be worth to you?’
Groote opened his mouth, then closed it.
‘Everything, wouldn’t it?’
‘Sure,’ Groote said. ‘I would want it for my daughter.’
‘You and many, many other people. Experts estimate that up to ten percent of the American population, ten percent of the European population, suffers from a form of PTSD. That’s many millions of potential patients. And then we have all the soldiers coming back from the Middle East fresh from war, with as many as forty percent with traumatic memories. Huge cost, right there. And the civilian populations in the war zones. Add in all the other horrors of life that can haunt us: hurricanes, assaults, rapes, car crashes, accidents, terrorist attacks… well, you can see fighting trauma is a growth market.’ Quantrill took another sip of his juice, poured a glass from the carafe for Groote, handed it to him.
‘I haven’t heard of any drug research along these lines, and I follow anything that could help my girl.’
‘The research and testing has been done, well, under the table. So I can sell the research to a pharmaceutical and they can claim it’s a product of their own development. I get an ongoing percentage. Sooner that’s done, sooner Amanda and everyone who needs the drug gets it.’
Groote’s mouth went dry. ‘Why’s the research got to be secret?’
‘Not your worry. But I do need you to worry about a woman in Santa Fe. Her name is Doctor Allison Vance. She’s been working with the patients who’ve tested the drug in a psych hospital I own there. My research director’s worried that she might blow a whistle on me to the FDA. She does that, no miracle drug for anybody. Including Amanda.’
‘I already dislike Doctor Vance intensely,’ Groote said. ‘I’m sure she’s a truly awful person.’
Quantrill grinned. ‘I knew you were the right guy for this job. Go to New Mexico on the next available flight. Bring back the research materials to me. I know they’ll be safe with you. And if Doctor Vance becomes a problem, then I need you to introduce her to a very serious accident.’
THREE
Pull yourself together, Miles told himself. Andy quit following him as he ran along Paseo de Peralta and turned the corner onto Canyon Road. He’s fighting you because he’s afraid you really will make him go away.
Miles stopped running, stuck a hand in his pocket, closed his fingers around the pills Allison had given him. No, he wouldn’t take one yet; he wanted his mind sharp at work. As sharp as it could be. If Andy reappeared… then down the pill. But Andy didn’t seem to enjoy the gallery much and Miles walked on surer footing inside its walls.
The exercise calmed him, but he couldn’t shake Sorenson out of his thoughts. The man had seemed ready to take a swing at Miles; he didn’t carry the soothing air of a psychiatrist easing a startled patient. Miles played the odd session back in his head. Just springing another therapist on him was wrong, dead wrong, not the sort of thing Allison did. A therapist wasn’t supposed to do the unexpected. Life rattled his cage enough most days.
Right now the gallery beckoned as his refuge.
Miles had had only two job interviews in his whole life. He’d always worked for his dad at Kendrick Investigation Services, in its strip-mall office between a pawnshop and a vintage-clothing store in a Miami neighborhood. When Andy brought Miles to meet the Barradas two days after his father’s funeral, his first job interview had been decidedly one-sided: Your dad owed us three hundred thousand off greyhounds and ponies, Miles, and he put up the agency as collateral. So we could take your business right this minute. But thanks to your buddy Andy, we’re offering you a deal. We need a man to be our own personal spy, Miles. We need you to steal information for us. Get the incriminating evidence on other rings – find out who their dealers are, their suppliers, where they’re stashing and cleaning their money. We have that, we take them down, we take over their business. You can give us leverage, give us a competitive advantage. Mr. Barrada enjoyed reading the latest business-book best sellers and adapting their ideas to mob life. You do that for us when we ask for the next two years, our debt’s settled. And, scared to the bone, he’d had no choice but to say yes.
The interview with Joy Garrison had been equally difficult. He’d walked through the gallery, his Witness Security inspector contemplating the paintings and their high price tags, and followed Joy upstairs to her private office. She was a petite woman, fiftyish, attractive, and at first he thought she was the stereotypical Santa Fe hippy-dippy, in her billowy pants and her silver-and-turquoise jewelry. But as soon as he sat across from her he recognized a toughness in her eyes that rivaled that of Mr. Barrada.
She studied him for an agonizing minute. He forced himself not to fidget in the chair.
Finally she said, ‘You really want this job.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘But you don’t know shit about art, do you, honey?’
‘Not much, ma’am. But I-’ And he stopped because Andy stood in the corner, arms crossed.
‘What’s the matter? But what?’
‘I wanted to go to art school. Learn photography. I didn’t get the chance.’
‘Parents disapproved?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Said they wouldn’t pay for a waste of money.’
‘My parents said the same thing. They were right, I couldn’t draw a straight line. But being an artist and selling art are two different skill sets.’ She laughed. ‘This gallery pays for Mama and Daddy to be in a real nice retirement village.’
‘I’m a hard worker, ma’am. I can move the art for you, lots of those paintings and sculptures must be pretty heavy.’
‘I need brain more than brawn. Inspector Pitts says you’re handy with computers. I sell to collectors all over the country but my Web site’s crap – I need a much more effective one. I also need help tracking inventory.’
‘Yes, ma’am. I can build you a database, build or manage a Web site, run and fix your computers, make your systems more secure, whatever you need.’ He didn’t want to see Andy, so he kept his gaze locked on his lap. ‘You tell me how to sell art, I’ll sell art. I’ll do whatever you need.’
‘Hon, look at me when you talk to me.’
He looked up.
‘We’ll go slow on you selling, until you can look people in the eye.’
He swallowed. ‘That’s probably a good idea.’
‘You’re not my first federal witness to hire. They sent me an embezzler two years ago. She did just fine for two months, then she stole five thousand from my ex-husband.’ Joy shrugged. ‘Better him than me.’
‘I won’t steal.’
‘You understand I’m the only one here who knows you’re a witness.
Inspector Pitts didn’t tell me your real name, or where you’re originally from. Just your new name, and your criminal record and your past work skills as reported to WITSEC.’
‘I don’t have a record, ma’am.’
‘That’s why you have the job, honey.’
He remembered to breathe. ‘Thank you. You won’t be sorry.’
She leaned forward. ‘I can imagine you’ve been through a real ordeal, walking away from your life. I want you to know, Michael, that you can trust me. No one else at the gallery will know you’re in the witness protection program. I will never, ever betray that trust.’
‘Thank you. I hope to earn your trust, Mrs. Garrison.’
‘Call me Joy. You start tomorrow.’
She stood and he stood and shook her hand, and he’d loved the job for the past two months.
The door to the Joy Garrison Gallery jangled as he opened and closed it. The gallery represented fourteen artists who were growing in repute among collectors. Most of the paintings and sculptures were priced at two thousand dollars or more, and Miles wished he could have made a living creating calm beauty on canvas. Miles nodded at Joy and her son Cinco as he stepped into the back office where he and the staff worked. She sat at a sales rep’s desk, jotting on a sticky note. She raised an eyebrow; Cinco stayed on the phone with a New York collector, praising a new painting as a must-have.
‘You’re not scheduled today, hon,’ Joy said.
‘No, ma’am, I’m not. I just wanted to catch up on my work for a couple of hours. You don’t have to pay me.’ His voice stayed steady, his hands didn’t tremble.
‘Are you okay, hon?’
‘I just need to keep busy.’
‘Well, if you’re so eager to be of use, could you call and find out when that new computer’s arriving? You can see the way I’ve been replacing e-mails today.’ She held up the sticky-note pad. ‘And I need a bunch of photos taken of the new Krause sculptures and posted on the Web. Then I need you to update the Web site with a new price list.’
‘No problem.’
‘You make me look bad, Michael,’ Cinco said, hanging up the phone. ‘Don’t you need days off?’
‘I get bored easy.’
Two women who were friends of Joy’s were now at the door, bearing lattes and gossip, and Joy laughed and called to them, and they headed to Joy’s office, upstairs at the back of the gallery. Miles carried a small painting Joy wanted to show them.
He came downstairs; two tourists browsed in the front, and Cinco answered their questions about a sculpture of a leaping ram. Miles refilled his coffee mug and decided to call his WITSEC inspector to ask for a vetting on Sorenson so he could join the treatment program if he wanted. But he stepped into the back office and found Blaine the Pain sitting at his desk, drumming fingers. From the office doorway Miles shot Cinco a desperate frown; which Cinco answered with a grin that said, Sorry-you’re-screwed, I got customers, he’s your problem.
‘Hi, Mr. Blaine.’
‘Don’t hi me, Michael. Are you rotating paintings today?’
‘Tomorrow, sir.’
‘Is Emilia Stands in the Sun ’ – his most recent work, a beautifully shaded portrait of a young Latina among high grasses – ‘getting shoved to a back corner?’ Emilia had worked the walls for four months but remained unsold.
‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’
‘Because if Emilia doesn’t get prime wall space, well’ – and he issued his favorite threat – ‘I’ll bolt to another gallery. I have offers. Constantly.’
‘You bolting would break our hearts, Mr. Blaine. I promise you we’re trying our best to find the right buyer.’
‘I just want it to sell. Emilia needs a good home.’ A tinge of desperation edged his voice.
‘We won’t let her be orphaned.’
‘Good. I have to go to Marfa today.’ Marfa was a town in the West Texas desert, reborn from its background as the shooting site for the film classic Giant and emerging as a junior Santa Fe, a thriving arts colony with lower living costs. ‘I might move there, a friend’s driving me there to check it out for a couple of days. I just wanted to be sure Emilia didn’t get stuck in the back. Would you call me if she sells?’ He scribbled a number on a note and handed it to Miles.
‘Yes, sir.’
Blaine the Pain left. Miles closed the office door and dialed DeShawn Pitts’s pager number. He entered his identification code and hung up. Less than a minute later the phone rang.
‘Joy Garrison Gallery,’ Miles said. ‘Michael Raymond speaking.’
‘It’s Pitts. What’s up?’ The voice sounded young but deep, slightly distracted, and Miles could hear the rustle of paper shuffling on a desk.
‘Not on the phone. Lunch. Can you drive up here?’ DeShawn lived in Albuquerque; he was the WITSEC inspector for federally protected witnesses hidden in northern New Mexico. He was responsible for helping Miles protect his new identity, finding him work and settling him into his new life, keeping him safe.
‘Give me a hint, man.’
‘My shrink wants to bring in another doctor to work with me, and I’m concerned about him.’
‘I’m sure Doctor Vance wouldn’t recommend a quack. What’s his name?’
‘James Sorenson.’
‘Why do you need another doctor?’
‘He’s running a project for PTSD patients.’
‘Did you ever tell Doctor Vance you’re a witness?’
WITSEC had told him he was permitted to tell his psychiatrist of his status as a protected witness – it was considered crucial for successful therapy, given the enormous mental ordeal relocation was for witnesses. But he’d never told Allison he was in witness protection. She knew only that he’d been involved in a shooting and exonerated by the authorities. WITSEC requested he specifically not tell Allison his real name or where he’d originally come from, unless it was critical to his therapy. All those details were in the confession he’d been too afraid to give her today.
‘No. I never told her I’m a witness.’
‘Group therapy’s not a good idea for you, man, since you got to be circumspect. But we can talk about it at lunch. Meet me at Luisa’s. Twelve-thirty.’ And DeShawn hung up.
Joy hurried back in, grabbed a file off Cinco’s desk, a rich smell of espresso rising from her coffee cup. She hurried back onto the sales floor, calling out to her visitors, and the aroma of the coffee made the world swim before his eyes. Cuban coffee. Rich and heady. A screech of laughter from one of Joy’s friends. The smell and the scream cut straight through to his brain. The gallery transformed into an empty warehouse, shafts of light cutting through the gloom, and he stood in the warehouse and the four men drank the heavy coffee. Miles tried to hide his trembling hands. The two undercover FBI agents, Miles, and Andy talking at the table, Andy about to get the best news of his life, and then Miles spoke, just a few words, and then tried to laugh.
The words he spoke? He couldn’t remember the words.
Andy stared at him, standing behind the two undercover agents, who sat at the table pouring themselves refills of coffee. And then it all went wrong as Andy reached for his gun, Miles grabbing for his own gun in reaction, horrified, saying, ‘Andy, don’t.’
He heard the shots, the triple echo. Opened his eyes. Back in the gallery, the bloodied floor of the warehouse gone. He sank to the floor, next to the copier. He leaned against the equipment and his finger twitched, jerked once against a ghost trigger.
Awful silence, darkness, as if the world had swallowed him whole.
‘It’s pointless.’ Andy knelt next to him. ‘This is your life now. Me. You. Never parted. Give up trying to change.’
Miles shook his head.
‘You’ll die trying,’ Andy whispered.
Then he heard laughter. Joy’s warm, honeyed laughter. The gallery, its wonderful quiet, surrounded him. Miles forced himself back into the chair at his desk. He took deep breaths, trying to ward off the pain and the fear.
; He couldn’t live this way.
‘So don’t. End it. I’ll help you,’ Andy said.
Miles groped at the weight of the pill bottle in his pocket. Allison’s pills. A very mild sedative to help you if you have a flashback, she’d said.
He fished the vial of pills out of his pocket. Plain plastic bottle, no label. He twisted it open. The pills were white capsules.
Folded among the pills lay a note.
He pulled out the piece of paper. He spread the note flat on the desk with his fingers. Dear Michael: I need your help. I need your services as a private investigator. I’m in real trouble. Come to my office tonight at 7 and I’ll explain. Don’t tell anyone. I’m depending on you, see you at 7 P. M. Allison.
FOUR
Miles stood in line at Luisa’s Drive-Thru, a Mercedes in front of him, a homeless man who smelled of dollar wine next to him, and a pickup truck loaded with truant high-school kids behind him, gunning the motor.
When he’d first arrived in Santa Fe, Miles had crafted a careful series of policies and camouflages to keep people from realizing he was Dealing With Issues. Don’t answer Andy in public, resist jumping at sudden noises, close his eyes and stand still when a flashback invaded his mind. He didn’t want to stick out, be noticed, devolve into the street-corner crazy raving at ghosts. Because if you acted crazy, you landed in the asylum.
Today his fit-in-with-the-normals policy was in the toilet.
Luisa’s Drive-Thru was an entirely accurate name for the tin-roofed, simple establishment on a curve of the busy Paseo de Peralta. It offered no counter service; customers used the drive-up window or nothing. So a man who walked everywhere stuck out, standing in line between the cars. On the stroll over he had spotted a gaunt street person he knew named Joe, a man in his late fifties, laid waste by alcohol. He figured Joe received few invitations to dine, so he’d said as he walked past, ‘I’ll buy you lunch at Luisa’s if you want.’ And Joe, without a word, had followed him.
