by Chaz McGee
“Get them out of here,” Christian Fletcher ordered immediately. He glanced at Maggie and Calvano and I realized he had, indeed, registered her presence all along. “Those two can stay.”
It was one of the few places in town where the feds were outranked and their outrage could not save them. They were swept from the treatment area by a pair of intractable nurses, but quickly abandoned the fight once one of the nurses told them the colonel was still alive and in a burn unit upstairs. They raced for the elevator instead.
Yeah, good luck with that one, boys, I thought. The colonel’s not going to be able to help any of you. He’s busy fulfilling his fate.
A nurse showed Maggie and Calvano to the staff break room and told them to wait there. She did not seem to agree with Fletcher’s assessment that they could stay, and made a conspicuous point of removing a pile of patient records from a counter before she left the room. Neither Maggie nor Calvano noticed. They were too preoccupied with their troubles. They paced the room, both lost in their own fears. Maggie’s worries were for the young man and for Tyler Matthews, who might have died in the fire. Calvano’s worries were for himself. He knew his career was over if the man who had taken Tyler died with bullets from Calvano’s gun in his back.
But Maggie’s fears, at least, were lessened when Gonzales was shown into the room by an attendant. In my town, there was no force that could keep Gonzales from going where he pleased. He outranked God. I thought Calvano might crap in his pants when the commander walked through the door, but Maggie ran to him like a sinner seeking salvation. “What did they say?” she asked.
“No other bodies,” Gonzales told her, grabbing her arm and holding her gently in place. I felt Maggie grow calm as relief and his steadying presence swept over her.
“Are they sure?” she asked.
He nodded. “The fire was contained pretty quickly. It’s mostly smoke damage in the interior, except for a couple back rooms. They checked those carefully and searched the basement. There is no attic. And there are no other bodies. Which means Tyler Matthews may still be alive. Has the arsonist said anything?”
“No,” Maggie said, sitting down abruptly and trapping her hands between her knees to steady them. “I’m not sure he’s going to.”
For the first time, Gonzales seemed to notice Calvano, although I knew he had been aware all along that he was waiting, stricken, in a corner of the room for his judgment. Ignoring him had only been the prelude to what awaited Adrian Calvano.
“You,” Gonzales said, pointing straight at Calvano. Oh, this was bad. He was not even going to call him by his name. Calvano knew it, too; his face drained of all color. “Get out of here. Go back to the department and wait. A car’s outside to take you. I don’t want you getting near any case files or within two floors of the squad room. Sit in the lobby waiting area and wait. Talk to no one. IAD will be there when they can.”
“The public waiting area?” Calvano asked, mortified. “The media can’t be far behind. I’ll be crucified.”
Yeah, dude. I kind of think that’s the point. I was suddenly very glad I’d been so low on Gonzales’s radar while I was alive that he’d not ever even bothered to judge me.
“Then call your union rep and work it out,” he told Calvano, unconcerned. “I’m busy. Just get out of here.” Gonzales turned his back on Calvano. He was done with him. It was a devastating dismissal for someone who needed his approval as badly as Calvano did.
Humiliated, Calvano slunk from the room. I felt no satisfaction. I remembered all too well what it felt like to screw up that badly and, at least in my case, I’d had alcohol to blunt my mortification. Calvano would be facing his disgrace stone-cold sober.
Maggie’s mind was already miles beyond Calvano and his well-deserved fate. “If Tyler wasn’t at the house, where the hell is he?” she asked out loud.
“That’s what I need you to find out,” Gonzales said, pulling up a chair so he faced Maggie directly. I could feel his peculiar, supple energy reaching out to Maggie and wrapping around her. Gonzales was a chameleon. He could become whatever you wanted him to be, and he often did to further his own aims. He was going to be Maggie’s father, a seasoned, older detective, treating her like a colleague who was just a little bit smarter than she was. And it was going to work.
“The feds will be raining down an army of people to find the boy,” he explained. “But they aren’t going to find him because they aren’t from here, Maggie. You are. We can’t count on that young man in there pulling through and telling us where the boy is. And Vitek is barely alive. He’ll tell us nothing. He’s in a medically induced coma, and we’re not going to be able to countermand that order. He could die at any moment. The feds don’t know that, so he’s distracting them for at least a few hours. I need you to think, to think hard, on how we can find the boy.”
Some people become detectives for the challenge: they thrive on puzzles and outsmarting criminals. Others love the ego trip. But some, like Maggie, do it for the victims. She was in it for Tyler Matthews, and her mind was uncluttered by anything but how best to find him. Gonzales was smart enough to know that, and so he had come to her. She would make him look good.
“The first thing we have to do is find out who that man is lying in the other room and why he set the fire,” she said quietly as her mind began neatly cataloging her options. She was an amazing force at times like this, the human equivalent of a Porsche built for speed, beauty, and absolutely flawless performance. “He had no ID on him, so we need to find out how he got to Vitek’s house, and then search his vehicle. The license plate is probably on the lists Martin took down near the park the morning before Tyler was taken. We can run the plates and see who it’s registered to.”
“Good,” Gonzales urged her. “Go on.”
“He’s probably using a fake name—and so is Vitek, for that matter—so we need to find out who both of them are. Vitek’s beyond fingerprints, but the boy isn’t. And we can run DNA for both. And let’s find out who owns the house where Vitek was living and how he ended up there.” She was just getting started. Like Gonzales, she wanted a victory, and she wanted that victory to belong to the department, not to some faceless men in suits who looked down on the hometown squad.
“What else?” Gonzales urged her. “All that is going to take time.”
“The disks,” she said, looking up. “We have the files Robert Michael Martin brought into the station. The ones he copied off of Vitek’s hard drives. If the boy is in some of them, maybe there’s something in the background that will help us pinpoint the location?”
“They found footage of the boy a few minutes ago,” Gonzales confirmed. “But there was a lot of material and they’re still looking through it.”
“Then we need to bring in Tyler’s mother, sir,” Maggie told him. “Have her look at the footage we have of her son. See if she recognizes anything in the house where he’s being held. Stranger abductions are rare. Chances are good she knows whoever took him or that they at least had contact before. We need to bring her in again.”
Gonzales nodded, but reluctantly. Callie Matthews was not in good shape. Seeing her son alive on Vitek’s video files might reassure her, but it might also put her over the bend. I thought Gonzales might protest, but he didn’t. Like me, he had noticed Maggie’s expression, and it puzzled him. She looked almost shamefaced. I wondered what on earth she had to feel so guilty about.
So did Gonzales. “What is it, Gunn?” he asked.
“I apologize,” she said quietly. “About Fiona Harker. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, I get pulled onto the Matthews case. I haven’t forgotten about her, sir. I will find out who killed her.”
Gonzales looked bemused. “Gunn,” he said, shaking his head. “The dead can wait. Let’s just find the boy. But in the meantime, I’m giving you a direct order. I want you to go home and get some rest. I’ll set the wheels in motion on everything else. I’ll need you fresh in the morning. So go home, shower, and rest.” His
voice was surprisingly kind for someone whose entire existence revolved around self-interest.
His cell phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID. “Gonzales,” he said into the phone, with the tone of voice he reserves for people more important than he is. He held his hand over the receiver and mouthed four words at Maggie: “Do what I say.”
Yeah. As if that would stop Maggie from doing what she thought she needed to do.
Chapter 26
As soon as she left Gonzales, Maggie phoned her father. Colin had been waiting. He had his police scanner on and had followed the dispatches sent over the radio. He’d heard about the fire called in and had heard Maggie’s call for an ambulance when she had tagged the man Calvano shot as a “critical witness” priority.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is the fire related? Did they find the boy?”
Maggie told him about Vitek’s sham background and his house burning. She also explained that Tyler Matthews was still missing, his whereabouts known only by the man whose life hung in balance.
“So you can’t find the boy?” Colin said. “Not without this man’s help?” He shook his head. “I don’t think Calvano’s uncle can save him from being sacked over this one. Barring a miracle, he’s done. And that’s too bad. Many a man has made a great detective once he’s been humiliated. You just need to break him, like a stallion.”
If that was the case, I’d have made a stellar detective. God knows, I’d humiliated myself often enough.
Maggie didn’t want to think about Calvano. She had enough to worry about. “We’re going to try finding the boy some other way,” Maggie said. “We’re not waiting on this guy to pull through. He may not make it.” She outlined what she had suggested to Gonzales. “Can you think of anything else we could do?”
“Bring in the KinderWatch volunteers one by one,” her father said promptly. “Find out every scrap of information they know about Vitek and the other man. You’ll at least figure out what name he was going under. That may tell you something.”
“Yes,” Maggie said, angry at herself. “I should have thought of that.”
“The FBI would have suggested it soon enough. But it won’t hurt to propose it first. That way, they’ll overcompensate by taking over the questioning completely—and you can get out there and look for the boy. If you had to stay inside talking to people, knowing that boy was still missing? You’d go crazy, Maggie May. Trust me on this one. You’re like poetry in motion. You need to keep moving.”
Ah, but Colin Gunn loved his little girl.
“I love you, Dad,” she told him. “I’ll fill you in later.”
“Wait,” he added. “Don’t go feeling guilty about Fiona Harker. Her turn will come. Things have a way of working out.”
Maggie hung up and was pacing the halls of the emergency room wing when Peggy Calhoun arrived. Peggy looked distressed.
“You okay?” Maggie asked.
“No, I’m not okay,” Peggy admitted. “I can smell that burned man in the emergency room. I can smell him, Maggie. I can only imagine what kind of agony he’s in.”
“I know,” Maggie said. “But I’m betting we’ll find he’s left hundreds of victims in his wake, all of them kids. His whole identity was fake. Does that make it any better?”
“Maybe a little. How about the other guy? Is he going to make it?” She knew finding Tyler Matthews probably depended on it.
“We have no idea. We’re hoping you can help us find out who he is. That way, even if he doesn’t make it, maybe we can at least pick up his trail. Follow me.” Maggie led her into the treatment room where Christian Fletcher was still working on the man. But fewer nurses surrounded him now, and the urgency in the room had abated.
Fletcher noticed Maggie the moment she approached. “He’s stabilized,” he told her. “I’m sending him up for surgery. And I apologize, but I just have to ask—were those your—”
“No,” Maggie said, cutting him off. “My partner’s.”
Fletcher shook his head, disapproving. “At least he missed the spine. The kid may lose a kidney, but he’s got a good shot at making it.”
“How soon can I talk to him?”
“Anyone’s guess. He’s still under right now. Surgery is going to take at least three hours.”
Maggie’s frustration was intense but she fought to keep it under control. “We need to know who he is,” she said. “For so many reasons.”
“I can’t help you there.” Fletcher pulled off his gloves and handed them to a nurse. “I can only save them. I can’t tell you who they are.”
“I know. That’s why my colleague needs to fingerprint him and take a DNA sample before you send him up.”
At her words, the three nurses hovering over the man looked up. They stared first at Maggie and then at Fletcher.
“I can’t let you do that,” Fletcher said, trying to keep his voice neutral.
“Can I talk to you alone?” Maggie asked, her voice catching slightly, as if Fletcher had touched her most vulnerable spot.
Maggie, you didn’t do that on purpose, did you?
There was no way Fletcher would say no, not to Maggie, not when she was acting like she needed him and only him. He gestured her over to a corner, where they huddled together, Maggie whispering furiously. Fletcher used the excuse to stand closer than was necessary, his head bent until it nearly touched hers. His professionalism had crumbled with his proximity to Maggie, and his face was a kaleidoscope of emotion as she explained why she needed this favor.
The nurses made no bones about shamelessly trying to eavesdrop. Neither did Peggy, for that matter. She didn’t need a microscope to confirm that what she suspected was true: there was something between the two of them, whether they liked it or not. I fought my jealousy and thought of Tyler Matthews alone in the house near the old reservoir, waiting for the man to come take him to his mother. If this helped Maggie find him, so be it.
Fletcher put up a fight, citing protocol, but Maggie won in the end. Peggy could take her samples, no subpoena necessary. The well-being of Tyler Matthews overruled Fletcher’s professional qualms about allowing his patient to be DNA-typed.
The nurses stepped back wordlessly as Peggy did her job, their eyes still on Fletcher and Maggie. I knew it would be less than an hour before word was out through the entire hospital that they had something going on, whether it was true yet or not. God help Maggie’s reputation if he’d killed Fiona Harker. Her attempts at keeping distance between them wouldn’t stop the gossip.
Peggy worked quickly as she took the unconscious man’s fingerprints and a swab from the corner of his cheek. The nurses did not offer to help her, not even when she had to hold the air tube out of her way to scrape his cheek. They did not approve of Fletcher’s decision, nor did they give a crap about how attractive Maggie was. They believed in protecting the patient’s best interests, no matter what. And they did not have the benefit of knowing a little boy’s fate was at stake.
Peggy stepped back when she was done. Fletcher nodded and two of the nurses began to wheel the man’s gurney toward a back elevator.
Fletcher and Maggie shook hands, and she thanked him—rather unnecessarily, I felt. Also unnecessary was the fact that he was walking her to the exit door. This was not a cotillion. I turned away from them, determined not to torture myself, and saw a flurry of movement inside the wide steel elevator where nurses had loaded the man on the gurney while escorting him up to surgery. They were bending over him, but they didn’t look alarmed. They looked surprised. The man’s arm moved—I saw it distinctly. He reached out and touched one of the nurses. His lips moved and she bent closer, her ear nearly to his face. His hand fluttered again before he grew still. He’d said something to the nurses, I guessed, and then fallen back under, but what he’d said I did not know.
I do know that the two nurses looked up and stared straight at Maggie, their faces filled with synchronized indecision. Then they looked at each other and back again at Maggie, trying to decid
e what to do. But before either of them could react, the elevator doors slid shut, hiding them from view. They were on their way to the operating floor.
Whatever it was, if the man had said anything meaningful at all, it could be hours before Maggie would know. And that’s if anyone bothered to tell her at all.
Chapter 27
As a wanderer through other people’s lives, I have come to understand that human fate is shaped by random events colliding with events that are inevitable. But whether random or inevitable, each moment in a life carries the potential to become the point on which a destiny turns. Even the smallest of events can change the path of a life, if we choose to view it as important; even the largest of catastrophes can matter not a whit, if we choose to decree it inconsequential. But there is always a wild card in the deck of destiny—and that is the ripple effect of other people’s lives on our own. We can never know when another person’s choices will change our own fate profoundly.
So it was with Maggie that night. Unable to talk to the injured man until he was out of surgery, she headed back to the parking lot, knowing she’d never be able to sleep, and determined to use the long hours ahead to help find the missing boy. But Christian Fletcher followed her out to her car, his doctor’s coat still soaked with blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said from the edge of the shadows next to Maggie’s car. He had moved as quietly through the night as me.
She whirled around, surprised to find someone behind her. I felt fear rise in her and just as quickly subside once she recognized Fletcher. A connection between them had taken root, and it was not based on fear. “Sorry for what?” she asked him.
