The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

by A. C. Fuller

  "What now?" Camila asked.

  "You look up Kenny White, and I'll try to track down Innerva Shah the old-fashioned way."

  35

  City Hall, Somerville, Massachusetts

  "We're late," Lance said, almost growling. It was a little past 3 p.m. on the east coast, and he was trudging up the steps of the three-story brick building, trailing Greta, who was bounding up two stairs at a time.

  "I'm sorry," she called back. "I texted Sadie, and she said they were waiting. Apparently, a ton of couples are coming up from New York to get married these days, so they had to wait anyway."

  "We're not telling her about James, right?"

  Greta waited at the top of the steps. "I guess not," she said. "Still kinda think we should, but—"

  When Lance caught up to her, he was breathing hard. "It's her wedding. And she doesn't really even know James. No sense in ruining her day."

  Greta opened the door and spotted Sadie Green at the end of a long hallway to their right. "I'm sooooo sorry we're late," she said after walking briskly to her. "It was my fault."

  Lance trailed behind Greta. "Not sorry enough to be on time, though," he said when he'd caught up. He hugged Sadie, then stepped back. "What the hell are you wearing, girl?"

  Sadie wore a brass-colored bikini, with brass arm bands and a large black cape. "It's a reimagining of the Princess Leia outfit from Return of the Jedi. It's what she'd look like if she'd been allowed to train with Yoda, like she should have."

  A slender woman slid up next to Sadie, standing almost a foot taller than her.

  "Everybody, this is Veronika with a k," Sadie said.

  Veronika wore a sleeveless black evening gown with a gold shawl that half covered a black lattice tattoo running up her arm.

  "Great to meet you, Veronika. I brought this for you both," Lance said as he pulled out a rhinestone-studded flask engraved with the words Hers and Hers. "Filled with cognac. Thought you might need a shot before the ceremonies."

  Veronika took the flask. "Oh, it's perfect. And Sadie said you were lame."

  "No," Sadie said, shaking her head. "I said Alex was lame. Lance is just . . . Lance. We love it, Lance."

  Greta ran her hand over Sadie's cape. "You both look incredible, but I have to admit that Veronika's style is a little closer to my own. What is this, Vera Wang?"

  Veronika nodded. "Good guess."

  "Oh, it wasn't a guess," Sadie said. "Greta reads fashion blogs like porn."

  Veronika winked at Greta. "Well, I'm sure it's strictly for the articles."

  Sadie put her arm around Veronika's waist. "Doesn't she look gorgeous?"

  "You both do," Greta agreed.

  "You certainly make an odd pair," Lance said. "Anyway, can we do this?"

  "I think we're next." Sadie pointed at a window with a placard that read: CITY CLERK, GENEVA HARRISON. "They're gonna call us any minute."

  "You guys ready for this?" Greta asked.

  "Veronika is," Sadie said. "I'm not much for ceremonies or the whole industrial-marriage complex thing. But we're gonna have an epic party back in New York in a few weeks."

  Veronika leaned down and kissed her fiancée's cheek. "I let her buy a bottle of Gran Patròn Burdeos Añejo. It's a $500 bottle of tequila."

  "And we're gonna chase it with PBR," Sadie said.

  Lance laughed. "What the hell is it with you young New Yorkers? Chasing good sipping tequila with Pabst? Is there a word for that?"

  "Hipster," Greta suggested.

  "Possibly," Veronika chimed in. "But I think a hipster would just drink the PBR. What about culturally bipolar?"

  Greta smiled. "High-low hipster elitist?"

  "Boojie," Veronika proposed.

  "How about urban bourgeois?" Lance asked.

  Sadie was smirking. "It's called having 'Catholic tastes.' Okay, guys?"

  "You know we love you, Sadie," Greta said, just as her phone rang in her purse. She dug it out. "It's Alex. Do you think I have a sec?"

  "Sure," Sadie said, giving her a wave of permission.

  Greta took a few brisk steps down the hallway. She was still frustrated with Alex, but her concern for James had her answering eagerly. "Any word on James?"

  "We know he made it out of the hotel, but that's all so far."

  Greta let out a sigh. "Oh, good."

  "And you wouldn't believe me if I told you what I found out."

  "What?"

  "I'm leaving tonight and will be home tomorrow. I'll tell you then."

  "Should I come back early?"

  "Just . . . I don't know."

  He sighed deeply, and Greta glanced quickly at Sadie and Veronika, hoping her concern wasn't too obvious. "Alex, what is it?"

  "Bice . . . I . . . I'll tell you about it back in New York, but . . . is Lance there?"

  "I bet you can talk about it with Camila, though, right?"

  He didn't respond, and she immediately regretted saying it. "You know where I am?" she asked, trying to sound light. "Sadie's wedding."

  "Oh, God. I forgot that was today. Say . . . happy wedding, or—"

  "Congratulations?"

  "Right, say that. Look, is Lance there?"

  "Yeah, he's just a few feet away."

  "Can you put it on speaker?"

  "Alex, we're at a wedding."

  Greta stepped over, grabbed Lance's hand, and walked with him to the corner of the hallway. "Be quick," she said to Alex after putting him on speakerphone.

  "Lance, are you there?"

  "I'm here," Lance said. "You'll never guess what Sadie is wearing."

  "Princess Leia costume. Showed it to me a few weeks ago."

  "She modeled it for you?" Greta asked.

  "You can't be jealous of her, too," Alex said. "She's about to get married. To a woman."

  "Oh, for God's sake," Lance grumbled. "Alex, why did you call?"

  "You ever heard of a Kerry staffer named Kenny White?"

  "No. How'd you hear about him?"

  "Researching this hacker who died in lower Manhattan last month. Bhootbhai. We don't have much on him, but we know he communicated with Kenny White, and we know it had to do with the election."

  "Never heard of him," Lance said.

  "We know he's in Boston, which makes sense if he's involved with Kerry. Someone up there must know him."

  Sadie called to them from down the hall. "Oh Gre-ta. Time to watch me attach the ball and chain."

  "Alex, we gotta go," Greta said, cutting him off.

  "Lance, just tell me you'll ask around about this guy."

  "I will."

  Greta was pulling Lance down the hallway.

  "Great," Alex said. "Let me know what you find out. And tell Sadie to call me when—"

  Greta pressed "End" just as Sadie and Veronika turned to walk arm-and-arm through a doorway.

  36

  "Hello? Greta?" The line was dead.

  Alex grabbed his laptop and flopped down in the reading nook by the window. He opened the computer, but didn't look at it, staring out at the water instead, thinking about his girlfriend. He felt far away from Greta, and guilty that he wasn't with her at Sadie's wedding. And he was unsure why he hadn't wanted to talk about Bice killing his parents.

  But thoughts of Greta faded quickly and his mind returned to Kenny White.

  Alex searched for White online, but all he learned was that he had indeed been a Kerry staffer for much of the last year, but no longer was. According to a press release from the Kerry campaign, White had left his job as "political consultant" two weeks earlier for personal reasons. And because he'd been fairly low-level, his departure hadn't garnered a single news article that Alex could find.

  He figured Sadie was his best chance to find out anything about White. She had more contacts in Washington than anyone else he knew, and she owed him some favors. But, right now, she was saying, "I do."

  "Cam, how long does a wedding take?" he asked, not looking up.

  "Um . . ."

&nb
sp; "Yeah, I know, stupid question. Not much online about White, but Lance is going to see if he can find anything out while he's in Boston, and I figure I can try Sadie in an hour or so. There's a decent chance she'll be able to find something."

  "What do you want to do until then?"

  Camila was on her bed, and he turned to face her. "Did you find anything on Innerva?"

  "No. I called the hotel, and like we thought, they didn't have anyone checked in by that name."

  "Did you check online?"

  "Nothing. Likely, a fake name."

  "So, we're nowhere." He stood up to pace, then changed his mind and sat down in the nook and looked out at the water.

  "Maybe you should try to meditate," Camila said. "You're making me anxious."

  "Please don't go there, Cam."

  She was already moving toward him.

  "Cam . . ."

  "I'm just saying, it worked last time."

  Camila grabbed his legs and swung them onto the floor. "Jung says that 'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'"

  Alex gave her a look halfway between a smirk and scowl. "So how do you make the unconscious conscious?"

  "Lots of ways. I mean, people do therapy, go on vision quests, smoke pot. My way? I just sit still. Get comfortable, and see what arises."

  He had to admit that she was right. He'd tried sitting still and doing nothing just once in his life, at her direction, and it had worked out pretty well. But, instead of closing his eyes, he picked up his Blackberry. "I'm gonna try Sadie."

  She grabbed his Blackberry from his hand and tossed it onto the bed. "Try it. The reason you want to do something is that you spend your days lost in thought, daydreams, fantasies, cyclical thinking, and so on. You're afraid that if you don't, uncomfortable feelings will start to arise, old memories and interactions. This is reality trying to push itself into your consciousness, which you are trying your best to wall off."

  She was right again. He'd never tried it a second time because he was afraid of what might arrive in the absence of activity.

  He sighed and crossed his legs, rotating in the nook to stare out toward the water. The wood of the ferry dock was a faded brown-gray, and the water took on the gray of the sky. A sailboat with a tall blue sail glided into the harbor as a few seagulls circled above it.

  When he closed his eyes, the first thing he saw was an image of his parents, sitting at the table on the night of his graduation dinner. His memories of that dinner had always been fragmented, appearing in little waves, but—and Camila was right about this—he'd always bolted toward distraction the moment they appeared.

  Now, however, they came in full color, tinged with sounds and smells.

  He was twenty-two, still dressed in his black robes, but wearing an NYU baseball hat instead of his graduation cap. He saw his mother's blonde hair brushing the table as she twirled her fork to wrap a bite of linguini. The briny smell of clams.

  His father was quiet—smiling, but in a forced way.

  "What did you guys think of the graduation ceremony?" Alex asked, sipping an Italian beer.

  "Oh, it was lovely," his mother exclaimed.

  "Fine," his father replied.

  A waiter brought his dad a root beer.

  "I didn't know you drank soda, Dad."

  "I usually don't."

  "Why today?"

  His mother gave his father an odd look while chewing her linguini. Alex watched her, then him. He recalled the excitement of the day, the possibility he'd been feeling, the sense of potential his life held. He sipped his beer again and continued to look back and forth between them.

  "I don't know," his father said at last. "Just felt like I needed something sweet."

  As the memories became clearer, thoughts swirled in his mind.

  Greta. Out there in Boston with Lance.

  Sadie getting married.

  Bice.

  The spiderwebs at the entrance to the storage container.

  He recalled the sailboat gliding across the harbor. For a moment, the sailboat and the restaurant scene overlapped, but the sailboat seemed more real. He remembered Camila, sitting in the room, and grew self-conscious.

  He felt his attention coming and going, and tried to focus in on his memories of the meal. The scent of clams. It was as though he'd both known and not known that something was wrong. He even remembered opening his mouth a few times to ask his parents what was up, but in the end, he hadn't.

  He remembered his parents walking him back to his dorm, everything strangely formal. Then, a hurried breakfast the next morning before they grabbed a taxi to the airport.

  The more he sank into the memories, the more the quality of them changed. They weren't in his head, but in his whole body, as though he were reliving them. More like a full-body dream than a memory.

  His shoulders relaxed and dropped half an inch as the memories became more fluid.

  He waved to his parents as the taxi drove up Bleecker Street, the sick feeling that something was wrong still lodged in his belly.

  Then, a new memory came, the one he'd been trying to tell Camila about in the diner.

  Asleep in bed in his old home, he awoke to the sound of shouting, then crept silently down the hall. He stood at the top of the stairs, listening to his parents yell at each other. He wasn't able to hear any of their words, but the sense of dread was there.

  He wanted to call out, to tell them to stop, to love each other like they usually did. But he didn't. After listening for a few minutes, he went back to bed and hid under the covers, barely breathing, thinking about the ice cream he'd eaten earlier that day.

  The same feeling had been there on Bleecker Street as he waved to his departing parents. The dread, the desire to say something, to ask what was wrong, followed by the decision to stuff that feeling down, to focus on the possibility, the potential in front of him.

  As the taxi rounded the corner, he marched off to the first of three graduation parties scheduled for that day.

  He thought of Camila again, of the inn's guest room, and the same decision point arose. Stay with the memory I'm having, or distract myself by doing something else.

  He decided to sit for another minute.

  The next clear memory was the call.

  He was back in his dorm room, changing from shorts and a t-shirt into jeans and a button-down. The transition from afternoon party to evening party. He was tipsy, but not drunk, when he answered the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Is this Alex Vane?" Endo's quick, efficient voice.

  "Yes."

  "Mr. Vane, this is Officer Endo, Bainbridge Island Police Department." Endo's voice cracked. "I knew your parents and I—"

  "Knew?" Alex dropped onto the bed in his dorm room.

  "They both passed away this afternoon."

  The sick feeling in his stomach took over his body.

  "Their car. It crashed coming back from the airport."

  "What?"

  Endo's clipped voice, like he was just trying to get through each sentence. "They were coming back from the airport. They crashed."

  All the memories were jumbled together now. Him at the top of the stairs, listening to them yell like the whole world was breaking. The smell of clams. His dad sipping root beer uncomfortably. Waving on Bleeker Street. Dropping the phone as Endo spoke.

  He opened his eyes.

  The room seemed foggy. "This is worthless. I don't see what the point is."

  Camila was reading a magazine on the bed. "What did you think about?"

  "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do."

  "My parents. Their deaths. The day they died. Just having memories." He looked at her. "You know how you said once that our identities crystallize around feelings and experiences that are too difficult to bear?"

  "Yeah."

  "I know what you meant by that now . . . I think I knew something was wrong. Like, from when I was a kid. Kids know things. I was
remembering this fight and . . ." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I don't know."

  "What? Say it."

  "It's not like I knew there was some big secret, something they weren't telling me. But, now that I do know, it makes sense."

  "And?"

  "And nothing. It doesn't do any good. Doesn't get us any closer to finding James."

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  "I'm gonna call Sadie."

  37

  "On my honeymoon?" Sadie asked. "Really?"

  Alex had moved down to the street outside the inn, and started walking toward the ferry dock as he spoke. "Congratulations," he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "How does it feel to be a married woman?"

  "Feels like I need a cocktail." She was speaking fast and loose, and there was a whooshing sound in the background.

  "Sounds like you've already had one. Are you on the road?"

  "I may have had a shot or two after the wedding. Lance gave us a flask. And, yeah, Veronika's driving us to Provincetown. Three nights at the gayest B and B in the region." She slipped into her Yoda voice. "Make a baby, we will."

  "Um, I'm not sure you understand the fundamentals of that process, Sadie."

  "Mmm, an arrogant oppressor you are. For eight-hundred years have I made love to women. My own council will I keep, as to how and how not to make a baby."

  "Sadie, I don't have time for the Yoda voice. I need to tell you something."

  "Don't have time, mmm? Combatting the horror of episodes one and two, I am. Need to keep Yoda alive, do I, so Jar Jar flourishes not."

  "Sadie!" Alex yelled. "I need help."

  She dropped the voice. "Sorry, what's up?"

  "I'm back home. Bainbridge Island."

  "I thought you'd be at the conference."

  "We were, but James disappeared. He's been taken or . . . something. We don't know for sure."

  "What? By whom?"

  Alex stood at the top of the sloped parking lot that led down to the ferry entrance. The memories were still moving through him as he told her about the calls they had gotten after the article, and the call James had had with Innerva Shah. He told her about the night James had disappeared, and his own meeting with Bice the following morning.