Fear

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘PTSD,’ Celeste said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Pathetic Terrible Stupid Disorder,’ Nathan said. ‘That’s what I call it. I got freaky. I’d go nuclear in two seconds flat. Beat up an orderly at the psych ward in Germany they sent me to. But I got the honorable discharge, got the medal for standing ten feet further away from the battery than my friends.’

  ‘And then you ended up at Sangriaville,’ Miles said.

  ‘When I didn’t get any better. My folks were good to me, but after a couple of years, they’re saying, Nathan, get over the sadness now. Stop whining. Stop seeing dead people in the mirrors. Stop being this freak, be our son again. Tried selling furniture at their place in Albuquerque; went from supporting missile systems to futons.’ He tried to laugh. ‘I wasn’t good at moving the merchandise off the floor. I punched a guy when he couldn’t decide between two recliners. Jesus, it’s not a life-or-death decision. Pick after thirty minutes of shopping and sitting and fricking reclining. So the folks found a vets’ program in Phoenix that got me free treatment – then my folks found out about Hurley’s program and moved me to Santa Fe.’

  ‘I read about those virtual-reality treatments,’ Celeste said. ‘But they’re considered promising, and they don’t involve drugs.’

  ‘I didn’t sign up to test drugs, none of us did, I signed up to test the virtual-reality treatments.’ Nathan closed his eyes. Miles put a steadying hand on his shoulder. The trembling stopped. ‘I didn’t know about the drugs till Allison told me.’

  ‘It’s all cool. Just tell us what you know about Allison’s death,’ Miles said. ‘Start at the beginning.’

  ‘Sorenson – he’s lying.’ Nathan took another bite of sandwich. A dribble of strawberry jelly lay near his lip. ‘I didn’t kill her. You got to believe me. I would never…’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Th-thank you. For getting me out of the torture chamber.’ He clenched his fists, pressed them into his face. ‘I thought I was fixed but now I feel worse than ever. Allison was the only person who helped me-’

  ‘I swear I’ll help you, Nathan,’ Miles said. ‘But you have to help us.’

  ‘Help you what?’

  ‘Find justice for her.’

  Nathan laughed. ‘How high and mighty. Justice.’ Nathan cleaned the jelly off his chin with his thumb, the way a child would, sucked the jelly off the nail.

  ‘She was our friend,’ Celeste said. ‘Our doctor.’

  ‘You can’t help a dead person,’ Nathan said. ‘They’re dead, end of story.’

  ‘Not end of story. She tried to help you,’ Miles said.

  Nathan’s mouth went into a thin slash. ‘I want to know what I’m getting into, I still don’t know why you use two names.’

  ‘I’d like to know why, too, Miles,’ Celeste said quietly. ‘Which name do you prefer?’

  He could unfold the confession he kept in his pocket, let them read it. But he wouldn’t. He needed Nathan to trust him, but he wasn’t sure yet he could trust Nathan. He knew the attitude was wrong – when he preached cooperation to a scared, beaten kid – but he couldn’t help himself. So he kept the explanation edited. ‘My dad died. He owed three hundred thousand dollars to a crime family in Miami. They forced me to work with them to pay the debt. They had me spy on their rivals. I finally cooperated with the feds, testified, and went into the witness protection program. The government moved me to Santa Fe and named me Michael. But I’m not in witness protection anymore.’

  ‘Tell them the whole story,’ Andy hissed from the kitchen table. ‘I’m waiting.’

  Celeste, as though she heard Andy’s whisper, put a hand on Miles’s arm.

  ‘That’s your trauma?’ Nathan said. ‘Jesus, that’s fricking nothing, man.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Celeste said. ‘This isn’t a competition.’

  ‘I’m just saying I don’t see how being in witness protection would drive you nuts,’ Nathan said.

  ‘I killed a man,’ Miles said suddenly. ‘He tried to kill me and two undercover cops who had infiltrated the ring. I shot him.’

  ‘What caused him to go postal?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Miles said. ‘We were just talking to him and he pulled his gun and he tried to kill me.’

  Nathan glanced at Celeste. ‘Be careful what you say.’

  ‘Don’t joke. You owe this man your life,’ she said.

  Nathan shut up.

  ‘There’s my truth, Nathan. Your turn. Finish your story. Allison was getting you out.’

  ‘Yeah. I was supposed to get to her house, wait for her. We were going to disappear, go where no one could find us, she said. She said we had to run Tuesday night. I don’t know what made Tuesday special.’

  ‘What about Groote?’ Miles asked.

  ‘Never saw him, or Sorenson, before Tuesday.’

  ‘You ever hear of a man named Quantrill?’ Miles asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Allison should have just called the state board on Hurley and Quantrill,’ Miles said. ‘Why run? Why hide? She could have simply gone to the police. She asked me for help. She sounded like she was making a stand to fight. But then she tells you she was running.’

  Nathan said, ‘Maybe she wanted your help in hiding herself and me. Since you know all about it.’

  Miles shrugged. But the explanation didn’t ring true to him, part of the story was bent, a piece was missing.

  Nathan creaked to his feet with a wince, washed his face in the sink.

  ‘If Frost was fixing you, why would you want to leave?’ Celeste asked.

  Nathan dragged a finger across his lips. ‘Allison said Hurley was going to do extra experiments on me. Because my trauma was so bad. Eventually – take apart my brain to show how Frost worked on it.’

  Celeste said, ‘Oh, God, they’ll kill all the patients?’

  ‘No, they couldn’t risk so many people dying without explanation. But I was supposed to meet with an accident, Allison said.’ Nathan put a hand across his eyes. ‘I need to sleep.’

  ‘Answer one more question. Do you really think Frost helped you?’

  ‘I used to not be able to function at all. But I can now. So I guess I’m better. But lately, I can’t always think straight. I get panicky.’

  ‘Same with you, Celeste?’ Miles asked.

  She shrugged. ‘Nathan, do you feel-’

  ‘I don’t want to talk anymore!’ he nearly screamed. He threw his plate into the sink. ‘Please. Just… I need to sleep. Let me sleep.’

  Miles helped Nathan walk upstairs to a guest bedroom. Nathan eased himself down on the sheets, grabbed Miles’s arm.

  ‘If you try and hurt me while I’m sleeping, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Dial it down a notch, man. I saved you. We’re on the same side.’

  ‘No,’ Nathan said. ‘No one’s on my side.’

  Nathan fell asleep in five minutes. Miles stood in the doorway, watching the slow rise and fall of Nathan’s chest.

  ‘He’s dangerous,’ Andy said. ‘You can’t trust him.’

  ‘You’re one to talk,’ Miles said and went back downstairs. Celeste had brewed a pot of decaffeinated coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Do you believe him?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes and no. We know she stole Frost and sent it to this Mercury Mountain host. Allison doesn’t use her own computer, or one at the hospital, or a public one in an Internet cafe or a library. She uses yours. She takes the pills she tested on you.’

  ‘She told me Frost was an antidepressant. Medical samples so I didn’t have to bother with a prescription, since I don’t – didn’t get out much. I don’t much like being a guinea pig.’

  ‘She might have been giving you the pills purely to help you, if she was sure they would help,’ Miles said. ‘And then she took them back to protect you in case the hospital got suspicious.’

  ‘It’s unethical.’

  ‘I won’t disagree. But you’re out of your house, yo
u’re functioning.’

  ‘True. I don’t doubt Allison’s good intentions.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why Allison didn’t go straight to the police, especially if Hurley planned to carve into Nathan’s brain.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Celeste said.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I do. But I don’t know which part of his story isn’t real. I just get the vibe he’s not being entirely honest.’

  ‘I get one vibe from him. He wants to be a soldier again. Strong. Capable. Confident.’

  They sipped coffee in uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I killed a man today,’ she said. ‘The words don’t fit right in my mouth.’

  ‘ Killed is ugly. You saved me.’

  ‘Did I? You’re a big, strong guy. You kicked Hurley away, into me, the gun fired. It wasn’t as though I fortified my courage and aimed to kill. I could have waited. If you stopped him with your fists, no need for my gun.’

  ‘You did what you had to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem.’

  Andy sat across from him at the kitchen table.

  Celeste caught his quick squint at empty air. ‘Your invisible friend. He’s here?’

  Embarrassment flooded him. ‘No.’

  She took a bird’s sip of coffee. ‘You told me you killed your friend. You didn’t say he tried to kill two cops too.’

  Miles shrugged. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that I killed him.’

  ‘If you saved lives, you did the right thing, no matter how devastating.’

  ‘I disagree with her,’ Andy said. ‘What does she know?’

  Miles was quiet, not wanting to listen to either of them, tired to his bones.

  ‘We have to have a plan, Miles. We can’t hide here forever,’ Celeste said.

  He put down his coffee cup. ‘We find Frost. It’s the only way, first to prove we’re not crazy and, second, to exonerate what we’ve done. Me running from witness protection, you shooting Hurley.’

  Celeste hugged herself, as if cold. ‘I’ll like jail. Since I love being indoors.’

  ‘You’d hate it.’

  ‘Have you been?’

  ‘No. But WITSEC, when they take you into the program, they put you in a facility where you can’t leave for several days, you don’t see other people. No bars, but it’s jail.’

  ‘I did the same thing you did,’ she said. ‘Walked away from my life. Put myself away from the world.’

  The silence between them grew awkward and he said, ‘I need to tell you about what I found in the hospital. Sorenson had beaten the crap out of this Groote guy and was trying to kill Nathan. He suggested Nathan killed Allison, that he knew about explosives. Now, maybe he was just trying to create doubt in my mind, but Nathan was in the army, and we don’t know details of his service…’

  ‘But why would he kill Allison when she was helping him?’

  ‘Don’t know. Let’s say Allison stole Frost, then Sorenson stole it from her or killed her. I understand why Sorenson would face off against Groote, but why would Sorenson attack Nathan? How is Nathan a threat to him? He pretends to be a doctor, he kills Allison, he then tries to kill Nathan. I don’t get how this all connects.’

  ‘We’ll get Nathan talking tomorrow. Right now I’m going to find a bed to sleep in.’ She got up, pulled a knife from a storage rack.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he asked. ‘You don’t need to cut-’

  ‘It’s not for me,’ she said. ‘For protection. In case the bad guys come in the night.’

  ‘I’ll stand guard.’

  ‘You can’t, Miles. You got drugged, you’ve been through hell. This isn’t a horror movie, sitting around the campfire, waiting for the boogeyman to jump out. We bring our boogeys along with us.’ She thumbed the edge of the knife. ‘Good night, Miles.’

  ‘Good night, Celeste. I’m sorry I brought all this trouble to you.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ She went up the stairs.

  Miles put his hands flat on the table. My God, he just wanted his old life back. His imperfect, dumb, but wonderful old life, him and his dad running the private investigation agency, no Andy gone mob, no crime rings extorting him to work off his father’s debts, no reasons to hide, no hallucinations.

  He drank another cup of coffee. Choose a next step. His head buzzed with a dozen questions, trying to fit together the mismatched pieces of the jigsaw that was the battle for Frost. But he knew with clarity that the only way to beat Groote, to beat Sorenson, to take the fight to them, was to locate the stolen Frost research. The bad guys didn’t want it public; their fear was their only weakness he could exploit. He would find Frost and destroy them with it. So the next step was to find Mercury Mountain, Allison’s recipient of the stolen research. If he couldn’t find anything out from that angle, then he had to find this Quantrill guy in California – he was the chief, the money behind Frost. Follow the money; it had been his one rule in spying for the Barradas, and it never failed him. Except he’d never had to bring two innocent people in tow when he followed the money. His stomach twisted at the responsibility of protecting them; but he had no choice. He would simply have to keep them safe and try not to think about how he had failed Andy and Allison.

  ‘I’ll make it right,’ he said to himself, to the empty air, to Andy.

  He fell asleep across Blaine’s unmade bed, the Beretta under his pillow, the way he had slept in Miami a lifetime ago.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  A camera eyed him under the eaves of Celeste Brent’s porch, and Groote frowned. He had on his sunglasses and a cap pulled over his battered face to fend off the early light of Friday morning, but he didn’t like his picture being taken. He yanked the camera loose from its mount and smashed the lens under his heel.

  Reaching up to grab the camera made his arm hurt – hell, his whole body ached. His left arm throbbed, his head pounded, his broken nose was taped. He looked as if he’d been in a car crash.

  Frost was gone. Sorenson had betrayed him; all the deal making was for nothing, the man had just wanted a shot at killing Nathan Ruiz, for whatever unfathomable reason. Nathan Ruiz and Michael Raymond had vanished. Hurley was missing. A fed named Pitts had nipped at his heels the previous night. Life was bad.

  But if he thought of Amanda, he could push on.

  He tried the doorbell. No answer. Knocked. Waited. If Celeste Brent was a psycho-level recluse, she might not answer the door.

  He slid a lockpick into the door, tested it, eased the tumblers.

  The door opened. No alarm chimed. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him. He left the lights off.

  He nearly tripped over Hurley’s body, sprawled on the floor.

  ‘Dumb-ass,’ he said under his breath. He drew his weapon, borrowed from an off-duty guard at the hospital, with a grimace of pain. Did a search. The house was empty.

  He checked Hurley without touching him, but he didn’t need to touch him to see that the man was dead. The man who had been a pain in the ass but could have helped his Amanda.

  ‘I told you I should have come with you,’ he said to the dead body.

  He searched the house. No one there.

  If the cameras ran constantly, they could tell him a story. He found a computer in the bedroom, with a massive external hard drive attached and video cables that fed into the walls. He fired up the computer. No login password. Not a surprise: no one ever used this system other than Celeste Brent. He searched the external drive; she kept the cameras’ images in digital form for only a few days, then reused the drive’s real estate. He accessed the video files, starting with yesterday’s. The camera was motion-activated, saving frames when people neared the front door.

  An older lady, matronly – probably a caretaker. Arriving, letting herself in with a bag of groceries, letting herself out. Then Michael Raymond showed up. Held up a sign.

  I KNOW ALLISON’S SECRET.

  Holy Mother of God. Groote’s stomach churned. He fast-forwarded. Michael
waits, then steps in. Nothing. Then Hurley arrives, waits. Goes inside. More nothing. Then Michael and a woman – clearly frightened, as though she were unexpectedly walking on the moon – sticking close to Michael, stumbling out of frame. Damn. No sign of a car, no plates to trace.

  He jumped back to the video files from Tuesday, the day Allison died. Fast-forwarded through the day until Allison appeared on the doorstep. Fast-forwarded until she left. Nothing else.

  Celeste Brent had been in league with Allison Vance and so had Michael Raymond.

  I KNOW ALLISON’S SECRET.

  Four words to chill the bone.

  He had to figure out where they had gone – because from the date/time stamp on the image, he guessed they had gone from here to the hospital. But first deal with Hurley. He couldn’t leave the body. Celeste Brent was a has-been celebrity, but she was still a known name to many people; a body found inside her house would earn national attention. The caretaker woman might come back tomorrow; Hurley dead might be more of a problem than Hurley missing.

  He stripped apart the computer system; maybe there would be helpful information on the hard drives to tell him where Miles and Celeste might run. He carried the hard drives out to the car, put them inside the backseat of the rental. Now. The trunk for Hurley, then the desert.

  He closed the door and there, on the other side of the low adobe wall that separated the yard from the dirt road, stood DeShawn Pitts.

  ‘Hello,’ Groote said. Calm. You can talk your way out of this, man, you have to, for your daughter.

  ‘What happened to you, Mr. Groote?’

  ‘An accident at the hospital. My own fault, I slipped and fell down a flight of stairs.’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yes. How’d you find me here?’ He put a laugh in his voice.

  ‘I parked down near the hospital. Wanted to grab Doctor Hurley for a talk. Saw you leaving, saw your face all beaten. Made me curious. Followed you.’

  Too much suspicion from the guy. It saddened Groote.

  ‘This your place?’ Pitts asked.

  ‘I wish. No, it’s a patient of Doctor Hurley’s.’