by Blaze Ward
They rose and Rachel smiled up at him. Friendly.
Greyson wondered if her face would break doing that, as sad as it seemed to him. He’d thought his own might, a time or two.
But he returned the smile. It seemed to lift something off his shoulders.
They got to the cafe upstairs just as a rush of people were leaving, apparently getting off at Manhattan.
The manager took a look at the two of them, smiled, and seated them in a weird corner where a section of wall cut into the booth.
Space for two, where most of the others in here were for four or maybe six, depending. Last time he’d ridden a train like this, they just randomly seated you with strangers based on time or reservation.
Hell, did the man think they were lovebirds? Seated alone where they could whisper sweet nothings to each other across the table and maybe hold hands?
Greyson tried not to roll his eyes.
The waitress was a pro. Came quick. Got orders for coffee and left menus. Retreated around the corner into the kitchen space. Left them alone.
Rachel pulled out her comm and spun it around so he could read the screen. She powered it on and opened the texting app to a conversation with…
Edgar Redhawk?
Interesting.
Greyson wasn’t all that surprised. Except that maybe they were watching him closer than he had expected.
Greyson had originally figured that the call would come about the time they hit Richmond. Or maybe as late as Raleigh when neither of them came into the office or checked in by noon.
For a long moment, he wondered if he should ask Quinton Laux about setting up a fake credit account for him under some other name, just so he could hide and not be tracked through the system electronically.
Make people like Parsons and Redhawk work a little harder to keep tabs on him.
But it was a momentary itch he could ignore.
As long as it didn’t become a habit on their part to follow him wherever he went. That might just piss him off.
“I done good?” Rachel asked as he handed her back the device.
“You did,” Greyson told her, remembering that for all her skill and ruthlessness, Rachel Asher was still only twenty-three. Wet behind the ears in a lot of ways, but getting better. “I’d like to show up on the man’s doorstep unannounced, if that’s still possible. I have no idea who might leak, but I doubt that Redhawk is a threat. That man exists to protect Denise from people like Zielinski.”
“Probably sees us as his hunting dogs?” she asked.
“As good a comparison as any,” he nodded.
He ordered a heavy breakfast, assuming a long day and not many options once they got to Panama City. Once Zielinski knew they were there, all hell would probably break loose.
“So are we just knocking on his door to give the man a heart attack, or do we have a plan when we get there?” Rachel asked after they were alone again.
“Considered a number of options,” Greyson replied as a placeholder.
“I didn’t bring a bikini, so you’d have to take me shopping if we go down that path,” she retorted with a grin.
He couldn’t tell how serious she was. She didn’t do flirtatious with him all that much, but it slipped out occasionally. Like she was doing right now.
But she also read Cop/Alien romance books, so he had to walk a fine line, unwilling to ask exactly where the woman’s kinks might run to.
“Doubt you’d manage to turn Zielinski’s head,” Greyson said in a more serious tone. “Never once saw him show any interest in anybody that way, male or female. Man might be an ace, for all I know.”
Ace. Slang term for someone exhibiting Asexual tendencies. Greyson was just old enough to remember the great awakening in this culture, when everyone discovered that there were more options than white-bread hetero.
Folks like that had always been there, but for the longest time the power structure in his country had come down hard on anyone deviating from the strict party line, both legally as well as socially.
Greyson just assumed that Zielinski hated everyone too much to want to fuck them.
His own anger probably kept him warm at night. Greyson had known a few people like that over the years.
Rachel grinned at some internal joke and shrugged.
“So inviting him to dinner probably doesn’t get you the results you want,” she continued. “Unless scaring the man shitless is the purpose of this trip.”
It was Greyson’s turn to grin. There was something to be said for it.
He owed Olek a few, going back more than a decade. This might be his last chance to cash those tokens in.
“We’re way ahead of anything that man had planned,” Greyson replied. “First off, we survived. Second, we’re on this case. Third, it’s only been about twelve hours since Jansen got run over, so Zielinski might not even know that something happened, let alone our connection to it.”
“What if he’s not there?” she asked.
Greyson felt a mental earthquake nearly knock him out of the booth. He’d been assuming he could just show up and hustle the man, push him, knock him sideways into enough of a confession to bring in warrants and Forensics folks after he arrested Zielinski on suspicion of a crime for long enough that he couldn’t destroy any evidence.
What if they did this and Zielinski wasn’t there?
Or better, what if they could draw him out of his lair?
“I like you, kid,” Greyson said, the two of them grinning.
“Call Redhawk and have someone pass a message along to Zielinski that Jansen got hurt?” she asked. “If Jansen’s in a coma for a few days, he can’t spill anything good to Zielinski right away. Gives us time to commit another Breaking and Entering. And we’re in our jurisdiction, however barely.”
“Yeah,” Greyson nearly growled. “We’ll make the call about the time we hit Jacksonville. That’s mid-afternoon. Maybe time for him to drop everything and jump on a plane or semi-ballistic back to Boston and not clean things up here.”
“He got a dog?” she asked.
“Doubt it,” Greyson said. “That would be someone he had to care for. Take care of. Maybe even like. Don’t see him ever being that friendly to any creature.”
“So we can possibly get in without being seen,” Rachel said. “Assuming he doesn't have any hookers tied up or anything. Then what?”
“People live messy lives when they aren’t expecting Hunters to show up,” Greyson said. “Fred had that picture. It was innocent enough, except that it tied the two men together in time and place in a way that made Fred look really bad. Zielinski doesn’t come out of that looking much better.”
“Yeah, the Captain I remember wasn’t that geeky,” Rachel pivoted the conversation on him. “Where’d he get that chip made? I can see the gun. Bunch of cops and Hunters seem to have that fetish.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the man got a receipt for it,” Greyson said.
“But we’re really going to take him down?” Rachel asked.
“If the man gives me any reason to, Rachel,” Greyson said. “Somebody wanted you and me dead. Don’t forget that part. I’m guessing it was Zielinski, but if not, I’ll apologize to the man in my head and we’ll start looking at Kwan and Owens next.”
She nodded and fell silent as food arrived.
Greyson didn’t figure he’d ever have to say he was sorry. Not with a punk like Olek Zielinski.
22
Jacksonville
They had blasted through the southern portion of the Atlantic seaboard from Raleigh without any incident, other than Rachel taking her turn to have a quick nap while Greyson watched over her.
He had picked this train because it skipped Atlanta and all that craziness, although you could exit here in Jacksonville and take a spoke line inland, on the way to Memphis and then either Chicago or Dallas, depending.
The rest of the day had passed easily enough. Outside, it was mid-afternoon, but you could never tell.
/> It was raining like hell as the train pulled to a stop and people started migrating. Pissing hard rain so bad that you could barely see the terminal building below.
Helped Greyson feel like he was sneaking up on his prey.
Rachel sat across from him and read, looking up now as he double-checked that the cabin door was shut and pulled his comm. Edgar Redhawk was in there, but Greyson rarely ever called that number.
The man answered on the second ring.
“Wondered when I’d hear from you,” Redhawk said immediately.
“Rachel and I been up to no good,” Greyson replied, letting the man know where everyone sat on this one. “Need you to do me a favor. It’s a really mean one, so I figure you’ll like it.”
“Oh?”
“Has anyone called Zielinski and let him know that his old buddy Fred Jansen got hit by a truck last night?” Greyson asked in as innocent a tone as he could manage without rolling his eyes. “That he’s in the hospital right now?”
Rachel did roll hers as she watched and listened.
Redhawk was silent for a long moment.
“You know what?” he finally said. “I don’t think so. Should we correct that oversight?”
“I managed to locate an interesting piece of evidence last night when we went by Jansen’s place for clean clothes,” Greyson said. “Haven’t entered it into the evidence tracking system yet, but I’m kind of in hot pursuit right now.”
“According to the train schedule, you should be arriving in Jacksonville any minute,” Redhawk pointed out, letting Greyson know that the man was on top of things up north. “If we call, Zielinski might just have time to make it to the airport as you crossed the panhandle. You would probably miss him.”
“That would be a shame,” Greyson cried crocodile tears. “I doubt that the man would be armed if you needed to take him into custody at the hospital or if he swung by the Bureau office in Boston, but you might keep it in the back of your mind for later.”
“What did you find?” Redhawk asked sharply.
“A thread,” Greyson said. It was pretty much an honest and straightforward answer. “I’m tugging on it right now to see what might unravel when I do.”
“I see,” Redhawk replied. “And you didn’t call Parsons because?”
“She’s not as paranoid as you are.” Greyson smiled. “At least not yet. Still getting her feet underneath her and this will rattle the entire office a whole bunch. Best if she can blame those damned politicians in DC for meddling, right?”
“I do like the way you think, Leigh,” Redhawk laughed. “And I’ll keep both ladies in the loop. Anything else you needed?”
“Nope,” Greyson said. “Next call will probably be in about three hours, so I’m likely to interrupt a late dinner, knowing Denise’s regular schedule. But I’ll know more then.”
“Will you have the case solved by then?” Redhawk asked, his voice turning deadly serious now.
“Not making any promises,” Greyson replied.
He hung up without any other comments and looked closely at Rachel.
“Now’s when it gets ugly?” she asked.
“Now,” Greyson agreed. “Everything up until this has been merely the antipasti.”
“That’s what frightens me,” she nodded.
23
Bolthole
Greyson knew that Panama City was a different world from the rest of Florida. Hell, it was far more like the nearby parts of Georgia and Alabama, just north across the old state lines that didn’t mean all that much anymore, than it was like Orlando or Miami.
Old Confederacy, even today, two centuries after the Lost Cause that had never quite flamed out enough to finally just do everyone a favor and die. The farther east and south you got from here, the more cosmopolitan and touristy things got, but this chunk of the state had never gotten that memo.
Greyson didn’t want to call it backwards, but it was. Insular might be a better term. Running on an older clock that hadn’t really adapted well to the arrival of aliens. Hell, parts of the area hasn’t really adapted well to losing the Civil War.
It had been a retirement kind of community for a long time, but retirement for folks just making enough from a pension or savings to hang on, rather than living large. You moved to Jacksonville or Miami/Dade for that sort of thing.
These were the office workers from up north that had hit the magic age number and then moved to the Gulf Coast to slowly die in the sun.
From Tallahassee, he and Rachel had caught a local train down here and checked into a hotel. Greyson had offered to get two rooms, but Rachel had been fine with a single as long as it had two queen beds. Otherwise he might have insisted.
Greyson didn’t need that complication, and wasn’t going to even ask at this point.
They had rented a car as well, so they could get around, and just finished eating dinner at a local dive that catered to tourists, so seafood that wasn’t that great, but let you tell folks back home that it was authentic.
Probably just about as authentic as the boxes it might have been served from in Kansas City, but he wasn’t going to complain. It was good enough and he didn’t have delicate or educated tastes, in spite of what Emmy had attempted with him.
“Now what?” Rachel asked as they got into the car and looked around the parking lot of The Hungry Shak.
Greyson studied the sun through the few clouds that were breaking up. Panama City faced more or less south, so the sky was just starting to turn red as it set over the water in the southwest.
He keyed his comm.
Redhawk answered immediately. Again.
“Zielinski just boarded a red-eye flight from Tallahassee to Boston about ten minutes ago,” Edgar said instead of anything prosaic, like hello. “They’ll be in the air in about thirty minutes and here around midnight.”
“He make any calls locally after whoever talked to him?” Greyson asked, mostly on a lark.
But you never knew. Redhawk might have managed to put some serious resources on tracking the man once he knew what Greyson and Rachel were up to.
“None that matter,” Redhawk said in an offhand manner that suggested they had been recorded at the time and reviewed for evidence immediately afterwards.
A little frightening, but that was the flip side of the modern world. Everything bound up in a single, electronic whole made it fast and efficient to talk and buy things, but it also made it simple to track someone’s life once you targeted them with law enforcement tools.
Calling Quinton Laux for some help keeping private things private sounded more and more useful. Greyson wondered when he’d gotten so paranoid, but he knew the answer to that.
The day he had developed secrets worth being killed over.
“We’ll move forward from here,” Greyson said.
“You’re still in the Eastern Metroplex,” Redhawk reminded him obliquely.
“And Zielinski is probably good pals and drinking buddies with the chief of police down here, knowing him,” Greyson countered. “I’ll take my chances talking to any beat cops that get called. Parsons can always come rescue me tomorrow if she has to get me out of jail. Denise needs to be protected.”
“Oh, she is,” Redhawk said sternly. “Trust me on that.”
“Will do,” Greyson said and hung up.
Edgar Redhawk wasn’t kidding, either. He’d fall on his own sword if it became necessary rather than allow any of this to splash his boss. He’d been the same way with Owens, until it became clear just how bent the man was and that nothing was going to save him from Denise.
Nothing that had ever come out publicly, but the Metropolitan had given several of her Police Commissioners the options of retirement quietly or prosecution noisily when the shit started rolling downhill. Everyone had wisely seen it her way and packed their desks.
Edgar Redhawk was a political creature, but a loyal one. When his old boss had been taken down, Denise had hired him and he’d given her the exact same loyalty.
Probably better, since she was honest and Redhawk wouldn’t have to hold his nose at too many things.
Tonight might be stretching it, but they were in pursuit of justice.
Just not doing it according to the book.
Or rather, the Book of Greyson Leigh instead.
He looked at Rachel.
“You’re navigating,” he said as he flipped the car on and checked the batteries. Full charge and everything responding as it should.
“North on Beck here,” she pointed at the road in front of them. “It’ll take us past Pretty Bayou and up to Lynn Haven. We’ll catch State Road 77 across the bridge and over the top of Fanning Bayou. He lives in what looks like a dump on the edge of a town called Southport, on the other side of the bayou itself.”
While Greyson got them in motion, she programmed the nav system and they were off, listening to the car beep at him with things he was supposed to do.
It was weird, driving on roads laid out on a proper, Jeffersonian grid, but he’d spent too much time in Boston where all the roads were crooked, and before that in places once categorized as the Third World. Back before all of Earth turned out to be a backwater, much like Panama City was today.
He drove them further into the past as they headed north. The rain earlier in the day over on the Atlantic coast had given way, but things were still gray and a little overcast on the Gulf coast once the sun got low enough.
Greyson hadn’t thought about storms, but the hurricanes were more frequent and more intense than they’d been when he was a kid. A lot of the retirees were having to move farther inland every year, or build houses like fortresses if they wanted to stay on the beach.
As they got closer to their destination, Greyson could see the evidence of change. A good Gulf hurricane would push a lot of water up this bayou, and he wasn’t sure how high a surge might go.
The place where Zielinski lived looked like it had been left to the elements. Greyson could see marks that might be super high tides leaving moss and salt stains on the cinder block bricks that made up the bottom of the various buildings and covering most of the parking lot about axle deep on most cars.
