The Pain Colony

by Shanon Hunt

  “I’d really like an attorney present for this questioning.” Her stomach churned, threatening to toss the handful of crackers she’d eaten. Her face felt slick with sweat.

  “You’re not under arrest, Allison.” Gadorski rolled his eyes and sounded like he was talking to a child. “We’re just trying to track down our fugitive. It seems likely that a woman who’s in a physical relationship with him might know his whereabouts. It’s perfectly safe to answer the question. Unless you have something to hide.”

  “I’d like to call Kiran Parsons, our legal advisor here at Quandary. He should be part of this meeting.” She stood up, feeling confident once again.

  “Sit down.” The words came out in a low growl, like a junkyard dog facing off with an intruder. The half-smile he’d been struggling to hide vanished from his face. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Chapter 28

  Allison sat back down slowly and folded her arms, gripping her elbows.

  Agent Gadorski’s facial muscles relaxed a little. “Let me reiterate. You haven’t been charged with a crime, Allison. Not yet, anyway. You don’t need to exercise your fifth amendment rights.”

  He opened his briefcase and pulled out a large yellow envelope containing a stack of photos, which he began laying out on the table in a straight line in front of her. He moved slowly, lining them up perfectly. She knew this was for dramatic flair, to show his authority and his power over her. Just like addressing her by her first name. Her time wasn’t important in his eyes, and he wanted her to know it.

  “But I’m sure you’re beginning to see why you might be a person of interest in my case.”

  Adrenaline washed through her, making the images swim before her eyes. Perhaps this was nothing more than one of her anxiety dreams. She’d wake up at home, alone and sweating and scared, but so much safer than trapped in a conference room next to a bully with a badge.

  But Gadorski didn’t melt away; he was very real and very serious.

  The pictures appeared to be candid shots taken from … who? The FBI? A private investigator? Someone had been watching them? The first image was her and Austin on a ski trip in Switzerland. She had her arms around him in a loving embrace. They’d taken an extra weekend after a conference presentation, and it was the happiest two days Allison had ever had with Austin. They’d been completely in love and spent every moment of the weekend kissing, hugging, making love, and having fun. She’d become convinced that weekend that she and Austin would live happily ever after as the king and queen of Quandary Therapeutics.

  The remaining photos were more of the same. The two of them hiking in the Redwoods, the two of them kissing on the green at UCLA, Allison on Austin’s back on a beach in Cancun, their arms entwined as they shared a glass of champagne in the Signature Room at the 95th in Chicago.

  Emptiness from the loss of Austin consumed her. They’d been so perfect together. How had it come to this? When had it all changed?

  “You and Austin sure do make a cute couple. That looks to me like love.” Gadorski was watching her intently.

  She turned away from the pictures and fixed her gaze on the whiteboard, still refusing to speak.

  “In fact, it looks to me like you built a pretty good life together. You’re practically married.” Gadorski set one last picture on the table.

  Her eyes widened. What the hell?

  She leaned closer to get a better look. She and Austin stood with their arms around each other on the lawn in front of a house. A For Sale sign hung from the post staked into the grass behind them, and she was holding up the small vinyl Sold sign, grinning from ear to ear.

  But that had never happened.

  She wanted to pick up the picture and take a closer look, but she refused to touch it. That was definitely her face, so real and so perfect that she had to stop to think. Had she bought a house with Austin?

  It was ludicrous. She was photoshopped into the image. She didn’t know Photoshop, but she knew the capabilities of producing exactly this kind of doctored picture were readily available.

  She hoped her face appeared passive and uninterested as she leaned back.

  Gadorski pulled one another sheet from his vile little envelope of lies. “Nice house. It took us a while to find it, but we did.” He produced a certificate of title, and indeed her name was on it. “I couldn’t afford a nice house like that, mortgage free, in my twenties. What about you, Paul?”

  “Not on my salary.”

  “In fact, you seem awfully well-heeled for a girl in her twenties.” He twirled a finger at her. “Biotech must really pay well. Looks like we picked the wrong line of work.” They nodded with mutual understanding.

  Allison’s hand drifted to her necklace. Fucking cop had no idea what she’d sacrificed. How dare he imply that anything in her life came without a price?

  “Where did you get that kind of money, Allison?” Gadorski’s voice softened, as if he were trying to switch to the good cop role: Just tell Uncle Gary the whole story.

  She took the last sip of her water bottle and prayed they’d get tired of her silent treatment and leave.

  Instead, Gadorski picked up the picture of the UCLA lawn and showed it to his partner. “Paul, you ever been this in love?”

  “Sure haven’t. Not many couples get so lucky, I figure. Oops, don’t tell my wife I said that.” He snickered at his joke.

  She didn’t.

  Gadorski chuckled, of course. It was part of their act. “That’s the truth. If I were that in love, I’d probably do anything for her, anything she ever asked me to do. Is that it, Allison? Did you collude with Austin and steal from your investors so that you could build a life together? Are you hiding him somewhere to keep him from going to jail?”

  She felt sweat drip down her back. You’re an important element in my planning—my scapegoat. Gadorski stared at her for a full minute before turning to Wymer. The two of them shared a look that Allison read as she was obviously hiding something.

  At long last, he stood and gathered the pictures. “Well, Ms. Stevens, we really appreciate your hospitality. We’ll be in touch real soon. If you’d like to talk, here’s my number.” He set a card on the table. “Oh, one more thing.”

  He pulled one last document from his briefcase, which he set down gently on the table in front of her. He tapped it with his finger and smirked. “You might want to rethink that cubic zirconia story. We’ll show ourselves out.”

  Allison watched them step out of the main office toward the elevators before she slumped back in her chair. She felt as though she hadn’t taken a breath for the last ten minutes. She filled her lungs completely, coughed, and exhaled.

  Gadorski had left a diamond certificate on the table, complete with an enlarged image of her very own ring. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to see her own name as the owner with her own signature. She was, however, surprised to see the value of the ring: $32,000. Shit. She didn’t know a ring could even cost that much.

  She glanced down at the massive sparkling gems studding the eternity ring around her finger. How many times had she caught Austin admiring it? A sarcastic laugh escaped her. She’d thought it was their future together he was admiring.

  She was such an idiot.

  She stoically left the conference room, walking as naturally as she could past Carol’s desk with an “okay” gesture and into her office. Behind closed doors, she slid limply down until her backside was on the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. She drew a deep, shaky breath and exhaled again. It didn’t work, and she broke into sobs. They weren’t a physical reaction to her terror. They weren’t a crash, the kind she sometimes felt after a really stressful presentation. These were plain old tears of betrayal.

  Austin hadn’t changed. He’d set her up from the day they’d met. He’d never loved her. Now he was gone forever, and she was left to wonder what he could have done that was so important it had turned cops into killers.

  She palmed her eyes and caught a glimpse of her reflectio
n in the shiny steel leg of her desk, cowering in a ball in the corner of her office. Her sour stomach threatened to heave, so she lay down in the fetal position, her head closer to her reflection in the steel. Her blotchy face looked distorted, her mouth curved in an unnatural way—a circus freak, bought and exploited.

  She whispered to her mutant self.

  “Why did you do this to me, Austin? What’s so wrong with me?”

  Chapter 29

  Malloy rocked gently in the oversized recliner on FBI Special Agent in Charge John Cramer’s back porch. Cramer let the screen door slam loudly behind him, handed Malloy a tumbler of scotch, and settled with a grunt into the chair next to him.

  “Macallan Rare Cask,” he bragged. “Birthday present from Marie.”

  “She’s too good for you.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  The sun had set and the night temperature had dropped to a very comfortable eighty-two degrees in Fountain Hills. Malloy inhaled slowly. The air quality was so much better at this elevation, and he wondered why he’d chosen to stay down in Phoenix all these years. Not that he was in the mood for admiring Cramer’s golf course view or drinking his scotch while they engaged in vacuous small talk. Frankly, he was pissed he’d had to drive all this way to have a conversation he shouldn’t have needed to have in the first place. He’d known Cramer since the academy. A reclassification of an ongoing investigation could only mean one thing: bullshit.

  He set his scotch down on the glass table between them. “John, we’ve made progress on the LXR case. We learned there was a large payment made to the victims, one of them at least. We need to question the other victims’ families again, and if I can get a warrant, I can track down the bank and account responsible for the transfer. Why would you shut us down now that we finally have a lead?”

  The tone of his voice was clearly accusatory, and he felt a twinge of guilt. Cramer was his friend, and he wanted to give him a chance to explain.

  Cramer stared out over his expansive lawn, which glowed with landscape lighting and an occasional firefly.

  Malloy pressed. “Eight people have died. That can’t be swept away.”

  Cramer squinted down at his drink, which he swirled gently. Malloy turned back to the lawn and waited.

  “Pete, remember that year we all went to Club Med back east?” Cramer asked. “The kids were, what, thirteen? Fourteen?”

  Malloy couldn’t help smiling at the memory.

  “Robbie and Ava were in that ridiculous skit where they played a couple who couldn’t stop fighting. Remember that? They had the whole audience rolling.”

  He remembered. They’d been so convincing; they would’ve made a perfect couple.

  “Suzanne and Marie spent the rest of the trip planning their wedding,” Malloy added. He’d sat at the bar with Cramer that night as their wives conspired in the corner, literally writing out a guest list.

  Cramer laughed. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Malloy felt the familiar tightening in his chest at the memory of Suzanne during that trip. She’d insisted on savoring the full resort experience, participating in every sport the facility had to offer, up every morning at seven a.m. for tennis lessons, volleyball lessons, golf lessons, yoga, even trapeze school. She dragged Malloy onto a sailboat to join the regatta, and they’d laughed and laughed as they sat motionless in the bay for twenty minutes.

  “Robbie’s like a son to me,” Cramer said, “and I know Ava’s like a daughter to you.” He shook his head, his lips in a tight line. He swallowed. “If anything were to happen to Robbie, it would destroy me, same as it would destroy you if anything happened to Ava.”

  Malloy gaped, searching for a crack in his serious expression. The sky had grown dusky already, and Cramer’s features were shaded, making him appear ominous. But his eyes shined in the moonlight, and Malloy could read them clear as writing.

  “How high up does this go?” he asked.

  “Higher than both our pay grades added together.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “Never thought we’d be having this conversation again.”

  It had been years ago. Malloy had been working with the FBI on a case to exploit a drug operation run by a powerful mafia family in Las Vegas. The mob didn’t waste police officers or agents. Instead, they used bribes and threats to family members to thwart any investigation into their business dealings. Malloy and Cramer had been ordered to close the case without explanation, but Malloy had continued the investigation, unwilling to be bullied by the mafia and whatever corrupt officials they’d manipulated at the DEA. He’d been young then. He’d still believed the hero always won.

  But his naive idealism had been shattered the day that Robbie, then a kindergartner, had been collected from school by a uniformed police officer whose name was never captured. Robbie was gone for three hours, unbeknownst to Suzanne, then dropped off up the street from their home. He’d run into the house, excitedly telling his mother about his amazing field trip, then handed her a sealed envelope. The envelope was filled with Polaroid pictures of Robbie having a wonderful time at the zoo, but in several pictures a gun was pointed to the back of Robbie’s head—police issue, for fuck’s sake. Robbie had never realized it. Suzanne sobbed the entire night, and Malloy had closed the case the following day.

  Was Robbie really any safer now, out in California working on his PhD? Did they have that kind of reach? Would they send someone all the way to Caltech?

  Cramer leaned toward him, his face solemn. “Listen, Pete, I don’t know much more than you do about this case, but I was told it was some Olympic training group outside the country, some doping ring testing performance enhancers that sneak past the standard drug tests. Said only eight people in the US took the drug. It’s over.”

  Malloy had never heard such bullshit come out of Cramer’s mouth. “That doesn’t make any sense. A performance drug given to four homeless—”

  The screen door opened, and Marie stepped onto the porch. “Pete, I’m putting a steak on the grill for you. You’ll stay, won’t you?”

  “Ah, no, I can’t, really. I just came by to drink John’s expensive scotch.”

  “I’ll take it personally.”

  He wasn’t interested in spending another minute listening to lies and cover-ups. He stood up and gave Marie a hug. “Next time, I promise.”

  Cramer stood too and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Take a few days off, man. You work too hard. We all need a break sometimes for some self-reflection. You gotta make sure your priorities are in the right place. And you have your team to think about, too.”

  Malloy heard the plea as he shook his friend’s hand, and he wondered, with deep disappointment, how Cramer had become part of the problem.

  Two blocks later, he pulled off the road and pounded the steering wheel with his palms. Fuck. Whatever this was really about meant no one at the bureau would be looking into the deaths or the operation behind it. How could he live with himself if he walked away now? How could he tell his team the case was closed, after all their hard work?

  Fuck it. He dialed Darcy.

  “Uh-oh. You’re not soused, are you?”

  He chuckled despite his foul mood. Darcy had a quick, tomboyish wit he was really starting to love. So different from Suzanne’s girlish charm.

  “Good evening to you, too. And no.”

  “Well, if you’re looking for a booty call, I’ve long since jammied up for the night.”

  “How would you like to spend a few days with me? Drive up the California coast. Head out tomorrow bright and early.”

  Silence. He knew what she was thinking. He didn’t take vacations at all, let alone last-minute ones. Or maybe she was thinking she couldn’t possibly leave her clinic with no notice.

  It was a dumb idea, and he opened his mouth to say so.

  “I’d love to.”

  He exhaled. When you’re in love, you’ll drop everything, Suza
nne had told him years ago. Maybe if Darcy could drop everything, he could drop one corrupt case.

  Chapter 30

  Austin stepped out of the Escalade. His lower back ached and his legs were cramped after almost two straight days of driving with barely a handful of stops to take a piss. He reached out to the side of the truck to brace himself while he stretched.

  “Shit.” He yanked his hand back from the burning-hot chrome trim.

  Mexico City—god, he hated this country. It smelled like rotten fruit. But his mood lifted as he took in the property. At the end of the driveway, a cast iron gate opened to beautifully manicured grounds. Shrubs lined an expansive mosaic cobblestone walkway leading to a cement colonial house. The grounds were artfully decorated, giving the place a warm, inviting look.

  “Dr. Harris, it’s been a pleasure serving you.”

  Austin turned to see his escort, the driver, holding out his hand. He reflexively shook it, then felt stupid. A hostage shaking hands with his captor?

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

  “Our operation has completed. You’ll be greeted by your host and his employees momentarily. Very best of luck to you in your future endeavors, sir.” The driver handed him a leather zipper bag containing his passport and cash, then stepped back into the Escalade and drove off.

  His small duffel bag sat waiting on the walkway—everything he owned in the entire world, right there in a bag on a sidewalk in goddamn Mexico. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, turned back to the house, and took a hesitant step toward it.

  In an instant he was greeted by a very tall, very broad, much older Hispanic man. The man was dressed in a military uniform and wore an earpiece like Austin’s escorts; however, this man was in no way trying to be subtle. The thick leather belt around his waist held a pistol, a nightstick, and a walkie-talkie.

  Austin took a step back. Was this where the Fixer lived? Why this diversion?