Fear

by Jeff Abbott

‘Miles, what aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her.’

  ‘Far as I know, her house checked out just fine.’

  So. The shooter had cleaned up before he left, didn’t want anyone unduly suspicious about what had happened at Allison’s house. The shooter had talked about paying Miles for research, which he called by the name Frost – a code name, Miles guessed, since it had also been inscribed on Nathan’s medical bracelet. Research could be either big bulky files of paper or computer disks or both. Easily hidden, but also easily found and moved.

  Miles said, ‘Let’s cut to the chase. Are you all going to move me?’ He reckoned Washington bureaucrats were at work figuring the calculus of his life’s worth, wondering if moving him was warranted just because his doctor had died in an unusual way. But he couldn’t tread water and stay in the Michael Raymond life; not if the shooter tracked him through Nathan’s knowing his name or through the cell call. He couldn’t hide in his new life and he couldn’t run.

  ‘Not if there’s no real chance your identity was disclosed. But I’d feel better if we put you up at a hotel for a few days under a different name. Until the arson investigation’s done.’

  ‘Fine. Can I go to work now?’ Miles asked.

  ‘Are you up for peddling art? I know you cared about Allison…’

  ‘Work’s the best thing for me right now.’ But Miles didn’t mean updating the gallery’s Web site or moving sculptures. I need dirty work, he decided, the kind I used to be good at, bringing secrets to light.

  The gallery was not yet open, but Joy was working the phone at a sales rep’s desk, sweet-talking a deal with a collector in Boston. She wiggled fingers at him in a friendly wave, frowned at the scrapes on his face. He gave her a thumbs-up and suddenly wanted never to lose this job.

  He unrolled the morning paper and scanned it. Nothing that DeShawn hadn’t already told him. Investigations continuing, the building a loss, remains recovered in such bad shape that DNA testing would be required. The article said Allison had lived in Santa Fe only a few months longer than Miles had; it surprised him she didn’t have deeper roots here. He checked the police report section: not a word about responding to any disturbances along Cerro Gordo. Maybe Nathan had gotten away.

  Miles sat down at his desk, fired up the management software that the gallery used to track sales, contacts, artists, and works. He sorted through a list of incoming paintings to process, saw Joy’s note to craft e-mails to three major collectors interested in one artist’s seventeen new paintings that the gallery had received late yesterday. He needed to take digital photos of all the new paintings, load them onto the Web site, and enter them into the system so they could be tracked. Then a schedule to rotate paintings: hang selected new arrivals (all landscapes and portraitures of the high desert), ship the unsolds back to the artist or see if the staff could sell the works from the back room. And Joy’s new computer had arrived yesterday afternoon; he needed to hook it into the network and load it up with software. A long day. But he had his own mission to perform.

  Joy hung up. ‘Good morning. What happened to you, hon?’

  He touched his face. ‘It’s not an interesting story.’

  ‘I figured you were going to say you’d been out drinking with Cinco.’ She frowned. ‘Did you hear about that fire over on Palace?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. Awful. If you don’t mind, I’ll get your new computer set up first thing this morning. It just may take more time to get it hooked into the network. New operating-system protocols.’ Sweat showed its guilty face on his arm, in his hair, on his lip. He really hated lying to her. But no one could know what he was doing. Joy’s eyes glazed as soon as he said protocols.

  ‘Well… go do your voodoo.’

  ‘Okay.’ He startled at the jingle of the back door. Joy’s son Cinco, holding a massive cup of coffee, came in, yawning.

  Miles asked, ‘Has either of you heard of a place called Sangriaville?’

  ‘No. Is it a new bar?’ Cinco asked. ‘Because new bars are officially off my list.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I thought it might be a town with a mental hospital.’

  Joy blinked. ‘There is a private mental clinic way up the road, near where Canyon dead-ends, called Sangre de Cristo.’

  Sangre de Cristo. Sangriaville. ‘Maybe it’s one and the same,’ Miles said.

  Joy said, ‘I don’t know, honey. But then, I don’t know any crazy people.’

  FOURTEEN

  Upstairs, Miles closed the door to Joy’s office so no one could surprise him. He unboxed and fired up the new computer, hooked it up to the gallery’s wireless network, and downloaded a free open-source Web browser that he would delete when he was done; he didn’t want to leave a trail for Joy to find.

  He Googled for a Web site for the Sangre de Cristo mental hospital in Santa Fe. There wasn’t one. Odd. A modern hospital without a Web site. Didn’t they need to provide information to the medical community or to potential patients? He found the hospital in the Yellow Pages; just a simple listing, no advertisement for their services.

  He found a directory of New Mexican hospitals – Sangre de Cristo was listed, and licensed. Owned by the ‘Hope-Well’ Company. He Googled ‘Hope-Well’; no Web site.

  Someone didn’t want to be found. Time to dig into the old bag of tricks.

  He called the hospital, using his cell phone. ‘Hi, this is Steve Smith, I’m doing a story for Associated Press on the doctor who died last night, and I need to get information on your hospital.’

  ‘What doctor?’

  ‘You don’t read papers? Allison Vance.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken,’ the receptionist said. ‘We have no doctor by that name.’

  ‘May I speak to your public relations officer?’

  ‘We have no comment.’ And she hung up.

  He did a Web search for Nathan Ruiz, adding Santa Fe as an additional search term. There were two Nathan Ruizes in town: one owned a restaurant on the south side, one ran a community center. He clicked through the sites. The restaurateur was in his fifties; definitely not the young man who’d held a gun to his head last night. He phoned the number for the other Nathan Ruiz.

  ‘Corazon Community Services, Nathan Ruiz speaking.’

  ‘Mr. Ruiz, hi, this is Fred George with the State Insurance Board. I’m sorry to bother you but we’re conducting an investigation into insurance fraud and I’m hoping you can assist me.’

  ‘Um, sure.’

  ‘We’re tracing patterns of fraudulent claims. There have been a number of claims filed in your name for care at the Sangre de Cristo Hospital in Santa Fe and I’m calling to see if those are legitimate.’

  ‘I’ve never been to that hospital in my life,’ Ruiz said. ‘Am I liable for these charges? My insurance company hasn’t said a word.’

  ‘No, sir, you’re not liable at all. There may be a patient there with a similar name, but we’re finding that inaccuracies in filing protocols are causing claims to be misapplied to other people with the same name,’ Miles said in a rapid, officious tone.

  ‘It’s not me and I don’t know another Nathan Ruiz,’ the man said. ‘Do I need to call my insurance company?’

  So no relative with the same name. ‘No, sir, you’ve been a big help. Thank you for your time,’ Miles said, and hung up. He went to the search engine, broadened the ‘Santa Fe’ to ‘New Mexico’, searched again.

  He found a Nathan Ruiz in Los Alamos who had earned the honor of Eagle Scout, a Nathan Ruiz who had died in Clovis the previous month at the age of thirty-seven, a Nathan Ruiz who had been hurt in the Iraq war and come home to Albuquerque.

  He clicked on the news story. This Nathan Ruiz had been a technician with an army battery squad, a team charged with firing missiles in the opening rounds of the Iraq invasion. His team had been accidentally bombed in the chaos of the advance toward Baghdad, misidentified and attacked by a U.S. jet as an Iraqi Republican Guar
d missile unit; four of the team had been killed, the others badly injured. Nathan Ruiz had been sent home.

  If he was at Sangre de Cristo, coming home hadn’t gone well.

  His father, Cipriano, was quoted in the story about Nathan’s homecoming. ‘We’re just so proud of his bravery, of his service, and we just want him back home with us.’

  Cipriano Ruiz. Miles switched over to an Albuquerque phone listings site and found the number.

  He dialed. A woman answered on the fourth ring. Her voice sounded dejected, as though each day were simply a series of disappointments. ‘Hello, Ruiz residence.’

  ‘Mrs. Ruiz?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Mike Raymond. I knew your son Nathan in Iraq.’

  Silence.

  ‘I haven’t talked to him since he came home. I wanted to see if he’s adjusting okay.’

  Silence.

  ‘Mrs. Ruiz, may I speak with Nathan?’

  She said nothing for five seconds and he wondered if she’d hung up when she spoke. ‘No. He doesn’t live with us.’

  ‘Is there a number where I can reach him?’

  ‘He – he’s in a hospital.’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s at a special clinic. For when you have problems after war, you know. He…’

  ‘I don’t mean to pry, Mrs. Ruiz. I just wanted to see how he was.’ He paused. ‘If he’s at a clinic, is it Sangre de Cristo up in Santa Fe?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, just that it’s very good.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I hope they take good care of him. Because…’ and she stopped. ‘I don’t understand.’ She paused again, as though wrestling with the words. ‘You tell me, why he doesn’t just get over it… the sadness.’

  Miles’s stomach tightened. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He survived. Those other boys died. He should be grateful he didn’t die. Why isn’t he happy? He’s alive.’

  ‘The post-traumatic stress disorder, ma’am, it’s’ – he struggled with a way to describe it – ‘it’s not a lack of willpower. It… affects the way the mind works, the way he reacts to everything. It’s a fire he can’t put out. You think the fire’s out, it’s gone, then it burns again.’

  ‘Then get an extinguisher.’ She sounded beaten. ‘He wants to cry and jump at shadows and have bad dreams forever? Mister, I had a baby die. Nathan’s older brother, he was only three weeks old and he died in his sleep. Crushed my heart. But if I didn’t get over it, I don’t have Nathan. I don’t have a life. Where’s his strength?’ Her voice wobbled.

  ‘He still has his strength, ma’am, I’m sure.’

  ‘Last time I talked to him, leaving him at the hospital, I said, Have hope, baby, and he said, Mama, all my hope’s dead because I’ll never forget. I say, Don’t forget, just deal with what happened, and he shakes his head at me like I’m crazy.’

  ‘How long ago did you see him?’

  ‘When he went to the hospital, six months ago. I miss him terribly. We get him home, out of danger, and’ – her voice broke – ‘but he’s not doing well, it hurts my heart.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs. Ruiz. Would it be possible, do you think, for me to see him?’

  ‘No visitors. Not even family. The doctor said it’s part of the therapy.’

  ‘That seems really unusual. Who’s his doctor there?’

  ‘Doctor Leland Hurley.’

  ‘Well. I’d like to write Nathan a letter, then.’

  ‘No contact. At all. The only way to clean out all the pain from his mind, they said.’

  He inched onto thin ice. ‘That must be expensive. I didn’t think the government would cover a private clinic.’

  ‘I’m not supposed to talk about the program,’ she said suddenly. ‘What was your last name again?’

  ‘Michael Raymond. I’d really like to talk to Nathan when he’s back home.’

  ‘You leave me your number, I’ll give it to him.’

  He left her his cell-phone number. ‘Thanks, Mrs. Ruiz, I hope Nathan is better soon.’

  ‘I hope so too. Before he hurts himself, before he hurts somebody else. Good-bye.’ She hung up.

  I’m not supposed to talk about the program. No contact, that’s what the doctor said. Weird. He didn’t know what was considered cutting edge in PTSD treatment, but surely isolating a patient from his loved ones wasn’t typical.

  Allison said Sorenson ran a special program. Sangre de Cristo offered a special program. So was it one and the same, and was the shooter connected to the program?

  The next name on his list was Celeste Brent, the woman who’d left the message on Allison’s phone. He Googled her name combined with ‘Santa Fe’ and got an avalanche of results. The first was a headline: ‘Reality TV Star Moves to Santa Fe after Tragedy.’

  TV star?

  A knock sounded against the door. Miles closed the browser.

  ‘The computer working yet, sweetie?’ Joy asked, sticking her head inside.

  ‘Having trouble getting your e-mail running,’ he fibbed, ‘but I’ll figure it out.’

  ‘We need to rotate a few pieces, can you please come help me?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. He could read the rest about Celeste Brent later. But he realized with a cold shiver, if he was to find the truth, he had to get inside that hospital, Sangre de Cristo, find out what was going on there.

  A mental hospital. His worst nightmare.

  ‘The crazy guy,’ Andy said from the other side of the room, as Miles hung a new painting with Joy’s guidance, ‘breaking into the asylum. This I have to see.’

  FIFTEEN

  First the fists, then the rubber hoses, then finally the screwdriver, brought back into the act for a virtuoso encore, won Groote a name from Nathan’s battered lips. Groote derived no pleasure from hurting others; agony was a means to an end. But two hours into the torture – really, Tin Soldier had done an impressive imitation of a hero, holding out far longer than Groote had figured he would – he’d screamed out a name for Allison’s shadowy partner: Michael Raymond. The MR in Allison’s cell. Five minutes later he got a physical description as well: about six two, strong build, brown hair, brown eyes.

  Groote called a friend immediately back in California – a friend who made his living piercing firewalls, to test the security of the cell-phone provider. His friend, assured of a generous payment, spent the day hacking and then late Wednesday afternoon gave Groote a home address and a work number for the account. Groote dialed the work number, got a woman’s voice welcoming him to Joy Garrison Gallery on the world-famous Canyon Road, listing the employees and giving a number to reach their voice mail. ‘For Michael Raymond, press four,’ the computerized voice intoned.

  Groote hung up. Gotcha, asshole.

  Groote stood in the compact kitchen on the Sangre de Cristo’s top floor and drank a glass of ice water. He dumped the ice into the sink and scrutinized his hands. Nathan’s blood had crusted underneath Groote’s nails and he needed to give them another hard scrub.

  He shuddered. You did what you had to do. For Amanda. For all the other poor sick bastards out there who need to be unchained from their nightmares. Even if Nathan Ruiz was one of those same poor bastards.

  Doctor Hurley – sleepless, frazzled, a scared rabbit in a forest full of foxes – unlocked the door, stepped inside the kitchen, locked the door back behind him. ‘Quantrill’s on the phone. He sounds unhappy.’

  ‘Imagine.’

  ‘This isn’t my fault. Not at all. I asked Quantrill for additional security and he balked. He should have sent you earlier. I won’t be held responsible-’

  Groote hit him, not hard, but enough in the stomach to shut his mouth. He sagged to the floor, vomited up a splash of coffee.

  ‘I can hit you next time, in the nose just so, Doctor Hurley, and send a splinter of bone right into your brain. It’s no sweat off my back. You understand me?’


  Hurley nodded, real fear in his eyes.

  ‘So shut up. I’m in charge now, you’re not. You don’t have to worry your overstuffed head about responsibility. But I can’t abide whining.’ He helped Hurley to his feet.

  ‘You – you should take his call in my office,’ Hurley said in a daze.

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  He walked back to Hurley’s office and thumbed the phone’s button. ‘Groote.’

  ‘Tell me you have Frost back.’

  Groote kept his voice calm. ‘Cut the drama. If I had it I’d have already called. I need you and Hurley to keep your heads on straight, you got me?’

  He heard Quantrill take a calming breath. ‘So what’s the situation?’

  ‘I have a theory. She takes on exposing you, it’s natural to assume she had help, and Nathan says she asked this Michael Raymond guy for help. Raymond works at an art gallery, which doesn’t make sense in terms of how he could help her – but say Nathan’s telling the truth. Michael Raymond realized your drug was going to go for a premium price. So he uses Allison to get Frost. Then he gets rid of Allison.’

  ‘A bomb… who would use a bomb?’ Quantrill’s voice held a sudden fear in it that replaced the impatience of a minute ago.

  ‘We don’t know it was a bomb. Could have been he rigged a gas explosion. We don’t know shit about this guy except his name and he works in an art gallery.’ He paused. ‘Both mentioned another name. Sorenson. Nathan and Raymond claimed Sorenson was a guy who came to Allison’s house after she died, but I never saw him. So either there’s another player working here, role unknown, or they’re lying to me. I got to go with what I know.’

  Quantrill considered in silence.

  ‘Mr. Quantrill,’ Groote said, ‘I need you to be honest with me. You got enemies, I’m guessing, other than this woman who might have been a whistle-blower. Who knows about Frost? Who might try to steal it from you?’

  ‘A pharmaceutical. Another information broker.’

  ‘The drug company so they could produce it. The broker so he could sell the research.’

  ‘Or,’ Quantrill said slowly, ‘Michael Raymond might want a financial payment. He doesn’t blow the whistle the way Allison would. He sells me back the research copies for a price.’