Glistening Haven: A Shape Shifting Dystopian Boxset

by Jill Cooper

  “Outside to talk with a guard. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “Me too,” was all Dirk said, but Jenna knew there was more on his mind. There was more on hers too.

  Slipping outside, she was hit with a blast of warm wind that smelled like bagels, red meat, and potatoes. Separately the smells were fine, but together they mixed in a way that turned her stomach.

  The vehicles were still parked in a straight line, waiting to be let out of New Haven. Agitated, the drivers slammed their palms on their steering wheel, sipped coffee, or said derogatory things about the police force loud enough for everyone to hear. Jenna understood their frustration, but it couldn’t be helped.

  There were two guards at the front gate. One tall, one short, both were trim. “Jon Vicars?” Jenna asked and eyed them both. It was the tall one that raised his hand slightly. “I have a few questions for you. You signed off on Rebecca Seers’s crew leaving New Haven ten minutes before the explosion.”

  “Everything was in order,” Jon defended.

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t.” Her eyebrow cocked over her left eye. “Was something out of order?”

  “Her paperwork was in order, same as usual. She was a bit hot under the collar. More than usual.”

  “How so?”

  “I wanted to inspect her manifest, for the things in the back of her van. She said she’d mark me down as uncooperative, but I wasn’t being that way. Well,” his eyes rolled up as he thought, “not completely that way. I was just trying to do my job.”

  “And it made her jumpy,” Jenna said. She wondered what this meant. The van she traveled in was a simple black, just like Jameson’s.

  Her ear buzzed again. “Thanks, officer.” She turned her back and touched her lobe. “You find something?”

  “It’s more what we haven’t found,” Dirk was tense. She could practically see his shoulders hunch. “You better get back in here.”

  Dirk was facing off with Officer Dawson, in charge of surveillance. Both of them turned and looked at Jenna as she entered the room. “All right, what’s going on?” She glanced down and saw Dirk’s hands clenched. When she inspected Jameson, she saw he didn’t look much better, which bothered her more.

  “There are surveillance vids missing,” Dirk said hotly, shooting a glare over at Dawson. “And this guy can’t find them.”

  “They should be stored on the local server,” Jameson explained, “but they’re not there.”

  “We’re running a diagnostic,” Dawson swallowed. “We’re checking the backup drives. The cloud.”

  “I know I’m not a technical whiz, but are we saying someone deleted the vids?” Jenna asked, sweeping their faces for answers.

  “Oh, somebody deleted them all right,” Dirk said. “We saw the van turn right onto Main Street. We pulled another vid that showed them turning left onto Chocolate Circle and then, every vid after that is gone. For every connecting street that might lead to a getaway.”

  “Someone, here. In this office. Deleted the escape root vids?” Jenna’s blood pressure was beginning to rise. She felt faint and put a hand down on the table to steady herself.

  “We can use the lack of vids to tell us where they went. If we know a certain street was deleted, it’s probably safe to assume they took that root,” Jameson said.

  “Helpful, but not the point.” Jenna’s eyes flashed with anger. “We’re saying someone in this office helped these guys blow up Travis’ home. That’s what we’re saying.”

  Dawson broke eye contact, his cheeks red. Dirk stared him down. “Yup, right under their noses.”

  “Why?” Jenna demanded. Was this why they kept her out of Outpost last night? Was someone busy, covering their tracks? She knew there was no answer. Not yet. “For all we know, you did it,” she accused Dawson.

  He blinked, startled. “Excuse me? I let you in here and now you’re accusing me—”

  “Yeah, I am.” Her eyes went wild,and her mouth opened wide. “You were alone when we got here. You have access to the vids. And you have the clearance to servers. Local. Main. I don’t think we can trust you.” Jenna said and leaned on the table, peering into Dawson’s face.

  “What should we do with him?” Dirk asked.

  “Uh, guys? Don’t you think we might be jumping the gun a little? We technically shouldn’t even be here,” Jameson said.

  “Damn right you shouldn’t be here.” The voice was low, smoldering, and Jenna didn’t need to turn around to know it belonged to Laurel. She did anyway so they could make eye contact. “What is the meaning of this, Officer Morgan?”

  Jenna took a deep breath, felt smug, but was pretty sure she looked even smugger. “We’ve been tracking the bomber and someone has erased the vids to the escape route. Someone in this office. You’ve got a leak, Commander.”

  Laurel’s face didn’t change for a second. She looked as indignant as ever. “You shouldn’t even be here. Just the fact you and your crew had access to the equipment compromises this investigation. Nobody trusts you, Jenna.”

  She knew there was an anymore tacked on to the end of that sentence. “Travis did.”

  “And now he’s dead,” Laurel’s voice softened when she said it. “They’re moving the bodies into the Outpost now.”

  Jenna nodded slowly, blinking her eyes. She could feel Dirk’s penetrating stare on her, but ignored it. “Thanks for breaking the news to us gently.”

  Laurel’s nose flared “Like it was broken easily for the officers whopulled what was left of him from the rubble? Everyone loved Travis. You are no different.” Laurel took a deep breath to compose herself. “Look, I understand why you want to help, but I can’t let you. I think you know that.” She turned her head to speak to two officers that came in behind her. “Escort them out of Outpost and back into New Haven.” Her attention turned back to Jenna. “Return to your van at once, or I will have you thrown into a holding cell.”

  Jenna wanted to scream, claw her eyes out, and tell her she couldn’t do that. Travis was more than her boss, more than her friend, and she wasn’t going to sit idly by and just let the investigation continue without her. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She pushed past her, the other officers and everyone else who got in her way. Jameson and Dirk chased after her, but she didn’t stop until she back inside the van. A moment later her two partners took their seats and watched her with suspicion. “We’re just going to do this? Give in without a fight?” Dirk asked.

  “It’s not like you,” Jameson agreed. “Normally I would cheer you on for your anger management, but the Chief was the man. He dug us, even when he shouldn’t have.”

  “We can do more investigations in there more than we can do in here. We’ll never get anywhere with Laurel breathing down our necks.”

  Dirk gave her a grin. It made her heart skip a beat before it normalized again. “Should’ve known you were up to something.”

  Jameson started the engine when two police officers waved them on through the gate back into New Haven 56. “Should we get some hash browns or should we just got on with it?”

  “What do you think?” Jenna sneered.

  Jameson was a bachelor, but lived in a stylish modern pad. Nothing seemed to go together. He had a fine Italian leather sofa, but a surfing board hung on his wall. There were trophies and medals for his Xtreme ironing skills next to fine art that looked like it belonged in a museum. The television was always on, and was balanced on top of a well-worn ironing board.

  Jenna sat on the sofa sipping her coffee while the men took chairs on the opposite sides of a coffee table. Jameson was hunched over, working on one of his many cell phone computer contraptions. She was pretty good with technology, but mostly used it to game or for fun. “Okay, I used the alert system we usually use to spy on the Outpost. Man, they’re gonna kill me if they ever figure this out.”

  “It’ll be an honorable death at least,” Jenna offered.

  Dirk put his feet on the coffee table, but slowly pulled them back
when Jameson glared at him. “Would you do that at my dear old mother’s? Have some respect for the glass top, Dirk.” Jameson shook his head. “Okay, well, here’s a bit of news. There were two body bags brought in. Not three. Bulletin says the daughter’s body wasn’t recovered.”

  Jenna and Dirk shared a look. “She wasn’t in the house?”

  “Or her body wasn’t recovered yet. My money’s on she wasn’t home.”

  “Or,” Jenna said, “she was kidnapped by whoever did this. She got in the way and she saw something she shouldn’t, so they snatched her.”

  “The force will be all over this,” Dirk said. “APB already out on her?”

  Jameson nodded. “Officers are looking for her all over New Haven.”

  “They’ll check all the regular places,” Jenna said. “Her friends, hot spots, probably school. But if she’s with whoever did this, she won’t be so easy to track. Not if someone on the inside is helping. There’s something about this I really don’t like.”

  “Which part?” Jameson asked.

  “The part where someone on the force deleted the vids and helped kill the chief and kidnap his daughter.”

  “Oh, that part.”

  “What do we do?” Dirk asked. “What’s our first step?”

  Jenna rubbed her face. Did they focus on finding the girl? Or focus on finding out why the chief was murdered? “Jameson, can you pull down everything Travis did yesterday? Everything that shows his schedule? I gotta believe that if someone killed him, it was for a big reason. Just to kill the chief—just, can you do it?”

  “Yeah, you know I can. It’ll take me a few minutes.” Jameson’s eyes moved across multiple screens at once as his fingers flew.

  “Look for anything out of the ordinary. See when the call to 911 came in. If anyone flagged it, tried to hide it, anything. Mind if I raid your fridge? Just need something to take the edge off.”

  Jameson shook his head, but his eyes didn’t leave his cell phone. “Go for it. Have whatever you like except for the green substance in the fridge. I’m not sure what it is. I think I’m growing my own ecosystem.”

  Jenna’s nose wrinkled before heading off into the kitchen. It was small, but had all of the necessary components; except for edible looking food, she thought sourly. Peering inside the fridge, she saw it was mostly bare and the green substance in a small container did scare her. Luckily, she found a box of crackers by the stove. They were soft rather than crunchy, but at least they would calm her stomach. Jenna crammed a handful in her mouth and chugged some water after them.

  Her mind floated back to Travis, the last time she was at his house and had dinner. Alice was never Jenna’s biggest fan, but she didn’t have a lot of those. Still, they tolerated each other, and she really liked Wendy. A sweet, innocent girl. She didn’t deserve what was happening to her, if indeed she was kidnapped. Hopefully they would find her at a friend’s house, unaware of what happened

  Jenna braced the counter, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. She hated crying. Travis believed in her before anyone else did and even when he shouldn’t. She didn’t care what Laurel said, she’d find who murdered him. So worked up, Jenna didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late to compose herself and felt the warm touch of Dirk’s hand on her shoulder.

  “I bet you’re loving this,” she said coolly.

  The lines on his face were drawn in sadness. “No, I’m really not.”

  “Sorry. That was—I was out of line. You just always show up when I’m vulnerable.” Jenna wiped her hands on her jeans, trying to give them some distance, but she was already backed into the kitchen counter, and there wasn’t much she could do other than to meld with the wooden top.

  “I know when you’re hurting. We all are, but I know he was special to you.”

  “Still is,” Jenna’s jaw was firm, defiant. “He’s been dead only a few hours and already he’s so past tense. The glistenings here,” she shook her head, “none of them will ever know how much the job meant to him. Sometimes I think he was a crackpot, caring so much.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re monsters. They’d eat us if we turned the other way. But instead they’re in here, pretending to be us. Like they’re so normal, family, friends, flying friggin’ kites with their families. He gave up the chance to do all that to protect them, make sure they were safe. They’ll never know what he gave up. For them.”

  “I know, Jen.” Dirk put his arm around her shoulders. Despite everything that was left unsaid, Jenna leaned against him. Her hands curled into tight fists, bundles of pent-up emotion and her head lay on his shoulder. It was wrong, but familiar.

  Dirk kissed the top of her head and it felt nice, too nice. Pushing him away was the right thing to do, but Jenna only wanted to keep him close. Wasn’t fair to her, wasn’t fair to him, but there she was, letting it linger on. “About earlier—”

  “Forget it,” Jenna stretched away, breaking the embrace. “We have more important things to worry about than us right now.”

  Dirk gave a slight nod that barely registered as movement. “If you’d feel better to talk about it now, get it out in the open—”

  “I really wouldn’t,” Jenna said. She picked up her coffee from the counter and headed toward the living room. Hoped it would serve as a message.

  She heard Jameson bellow from the living room. “I found something!”

  Jenna stepped from the kitchen and into the living room. “What do you have?”

  “A 911 call came in at 8:15. George, stationed two blocks from the chief’s house, was the first to radio in that he was approaching the scene, but get this. He didn’t get there until 8:23.”

  Jenna raised her eyebrows. She picked a mug off the table and sipped it. It was bitter and cold, but also wet, which was something her mouth was missing right about then. “We have to expect that when the news came in, he drove faster than a bat out of hell, so why’d it take so long?”

  “He was two minutes away, tops.” Dirk said.

  “We find George. We find out what he was doing for those extra five minutes.” Jenna threw her attention to Jameson. “Can you still pry and spy from the road?”

  He nodded. “Someone else will have to drive.”

  Jenna picked up the van’s keys and tossed them to Dirk. “I have the back. Gentlemen, just in case, make sure you’re packing. If George is up to no good, he might suspect someone is on their way.”

  Chapter Twelve Wendy

  Glistening Rights and Protection Agency

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Wendy awoke early that morning with a stretch. She begged for sleep to stay around awhile longer and refused to open her eyes. Slowly she became aware of her surroundings; her pillow was soft and the goose down comforter snug around her body was warm. She felt like she was home, secure and safe. Under the covers, she stretched her hand out and felt the heat of another body beside her. Her fingertips stroked his leg, feeling the small hairs on his flesh rise up. Finally she allowed her eyes to flutter open, smiling slightly at the sleeping face of Jake.

  There was so much excitement and happiness the night before. Everyone she met at the Glistening Rights headquarters was so excited and after a long meet-and-greet, Wendy went to bed exhausted. For the first time, she fell asleep in Jake’s arms. It was just like she imagining, just like she always thought it would be. She was sad for leaving her parents, but one day she’d be able to tell them. She really believed that. And maybe one day, with the help of her baby, Jake and all those like him would be accepted. Wendy hoped so. Wouldn’t it be cool if it were their child that brought the world together?

  The thoughts warmed her heart as she glanced around at their living quarters. It was comfortable and clean, if a bit on the sterile side. Wendy was looking forward to having her own place, doing with it what she wanted, buying her own things, finding a sense of style and making it feel like home. This place wasn’t home, but would do while Rebecca and her staff made sure her baby was okay.<
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  Thinking about him, Wendy slid a hand across her belly, warmly patting it. Somehow now that she was out of New Haven, it felt bigger, but she didn’t care. It was her baby and out in the world. It would be okay to admit it.

  Leaning up, she kissed Jake’s lips and watched him smile in his sleep. She did it again, feeling his arms tightening around her. They kissed some more and she enjoyed his morning’s breath, his warm body pressed up against hers. Falling into a deep embrace, she nuzzled her nose against his neck, sighing contently. There would be trouble, rough decisions in the future, but for now she was so happy to be with him and in his arms.

  “Morning,” he finally said with a smile, his eyes slowly blinking open.

  “Sleep okay?” Wendy asked, even though she knew he had.

  Jake kissed the side of her head, his nose nuzzling her hair. “Perfect. It’s nice to wake up with you. Think they serve breakfast in this place?”

  “I think they’ll do anything we want. They act like we’re Adam and Eve.”

  “More like you’re Eve and I’m the forbidden fruit.” Jake slid his hand across her abdomen. “Are you feeling all right?” His eyes turned dark, concerned. It made Wendy smile to see how much he really did care for her. She wished it were something her dad could have seen. One day, she hoped he would.

  “A little queasy, but I’m okay. A little nervous. Today is the big day.” Wendy sat up, both hands on her belly. “The first time we get to see him. I hope he’s all right.” The edge of fear was in her voice and no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t keep it out.

  Jake understood, wrapping his arms around her. “And if he’s not, will you regret everything? Being with me?”

  “Not on your life,” Wendy whispered, leaning on his shoulder.

  “He’ll be fine. You’ll see,” Jake said and it sounded perfunctorily, like something you said because you had to.

  Wendy felt like a slab of meat on display in the butcher’s case. The doctors she met were nice, but as she lay on the table with her extended belly exposed she felt on display. They talked amongst themselves rather than to her or Jake, and she just wanted to scream, Is my baby okay? Instead she blinked her eyes, searching their faces while gripping Jake’s hand hard. He wore the pensive look of concentration, his eyes searching the monitor at the lumps and swirls that Wendy was pretty sure was her baby. But was he okay?