Georgina's Story

by Patrick Logan

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he offered with a smile. His apology was met with a sneer.

  Top of the mornin’ to you to, m’lady.

  Tom reached for the door to the Dunkin’ Donuts when a sound from behind him drew his attention.

  It was a buzzing sound, a persistent whir that reminded him of an electric lawnmower. Confused, he noted that Simon had stepped from the car and was also looking around.

  “Simon? You hear—”

  And then he saw it: hovering roughly fifteen or twenty feet above his car was a drone. It was roughly the size of a paperback—a thick paperback of the George R.R. Martin doorstop variety—with four blades that held it suspended in midair.

  Tom tilted his head as he stared at the spinning blades. Something in the back of his mind told him that he should get inside, that nearly all of Washington, DC, was a no-fly zone, but he was intrigued, hypnotized even.

  “Sir?” he heard Simon say.

  There’s a camera on the drone, Tom realized. As if the machine had read his thoughts, the gimbal holding the camera spun and focused directly on his face.

  This was no amateur drone operator who’d accidentally stumbled upon a US Senator on what was to be his greatest day as a politician. No, this was deliberate, planned.

  “Shit,” Tom grumbled, scrambling to pull the door to Dunkin’ Donuts wide.

  He never heard the shots. In fact, he didn’t even hear the boiling of air as the high-speed rifle rounds accelerated toward him.

  Something struck the binder under his arm, and he looked down at it, a confused expression on his face.

  There was a smoldering silver-dollar sized hole in the center of The Great Seal. Tom pulled the binder away from his body and was shocked to see a similar sized hole in his suit jacket.

  “What the—”

  Something struck him in the chest, knocking him backward. He tried to stay on his feet, but it was suddenly difficult to breathe. Tom DeBrusk's grip on the door failed and he slid to the ground. With blood spilling from the two wounds, he slumped into a seated position with his legs out in front of him.

  The last thing Senator Tom DeBrusk heard was that strange whirring sound. The last thing Senator Tom DeBrusk saw was the drone ascending to the heavens.

  PART I – Broken

  THIRTY-ONE YEARS AGO

  Chapter 1

  "She down there, hole number two."

  Jeremy Stitts took a drag of his cigarette and surveyed the quarry. It had long since been abandoned, and now served as a surrogate garbage dump for the local residents.

  Which made it the perfect place for Chase Adams to go and die.

  Rock Quarry Two was about a hundred yards to his left, marked with a sun-weathered sign that was only just legible. Stitts swallowed hard and turned to the dope fiend who was looking up at him with bloodshot eyes.

  "You sure?"

  The man nodded vigorously, and he ran his tongue across his festering lips. He held a filthy hand out to Stitts.

  "I'm sure. They be saying she's been here for two days, at least."

  Stitts glanced down at the man's filthy palm, making no effort to hide his disgust.

  Two days? The last two days had been miserable; it had rained nonstop and twice the temperatures had dipped to below forty degrees.

  He couldn't imagine someone being out in the quarry overnight, let alone for two days.

  It wasn’t just possible that the fiend was lying to him, but likely. After all, every one of his other inquiries had led to dead ends.

  Still, he had to keep looking.

  Shaking his head, Stitts pulled the cigarette from his lips and then brought the fingers of his opposite hand to his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  "Over here! Quarry number two!"

  The three men and one woman who were congregating around a Tesla Model X, looked over at him, identical expressions of concern on their faces. Like Stitts, they too were tired; tired of wild goose chases and tips that led nowhere.

  But, also like Stitts, they were unwilling to give up.

  One of the men, a man with a goatee and short blond hair, knocked on the car window. A fourth man, this one sporting an expensive looking suit, stepped out.

  And then they started in Stitts's direction, moving at a clipped pace.

  Stitts waved again and then he turned in the direction of quarry number two.

  "Hey, man, you going to—"

  Stitts cast a glance over his shoulder and saw that not only had the fiend extended his grubby hand, but he was now rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.

  Stitts scowled and the fiend’s expression suddenly changed, his eyes going wide.

  "Hey man, you promised, you said if—"

  Stitts reached back and shoved the man in the chest. Beneath the soiled sweatshirt, the addict was rail thin and he stumbled backwards, only by some sheer miracle managing not to fall on his ass.

  "I promised not to throw you in jail. Now get the fuck outta here before I change my mind."

  The addict's eyes narrowed, but when Stitts took another step forward, he just shook his head and turned away, mumbling something about pigs.

  Moments later, the man in the lead, who had bleach blond hair and was carrying a medical bag in one hand, made it to Stitts.

  "What's Hunter S. Thompson’s problem?" the man asked.

  "A handout," Stitts grumbled, turning back to quarry number two. "They always want a handout. Says that she's in number two, but I doubt it. Probably just thought he could drag me out here and rob me. Probably never even see her before."

  He took another drag of his cigarette.

  “You go… just in case.”

  The man with the blond hair nodded.

  He understood.

  If Chase was in the quarry, and she was indeed dead, he didn't think he could see her. After everything that had happened, everything they'd been through together, he didn't know if he would ever get over seeing her like that.

  “Fuck,” he grumbled, flicking the cigarette butt.

  "You stay here," the man said. “I’ll check it out.”

  Stitts nodded and watched him leave. A moment later, a hand came down on his shoulder. He didn’t turn.

  "S-s-special A-a-a-agent Stitts, are you o-okay?"

  Stitts didn't reply. He couldn't. In fact, breathing had suddenly become difficult.

  For the better parts of three months, Stitts had devoted nearly every waking hour to searching for Chase. For half of that time, he’d worked alone, but there’d been just too many crack dens and trap houses to search. Too many addicts hiding in alleyways, too many dope fiends squatting in abandoned buildings.

  In the end, he’d needed help. Chase thought she was alone in this world, and Stitts didn't blame her; after what had happened to her all those years ago, and what happened when she finally found her sister again, it was too heavy a burden for one person to bear.

  But that’s where she was wrong.

  Chase wasn’t alone. For one, she had him. But that wasn’t all; she’d made an impact on others as well.

  Stitts sighed and looked over at Floyd Montgomery. His usually goofy expression had hardened into something more serious.

  He didn’t think he’d ever seen the man look like this before.

  "I'll be fine,” Stitts said as he reached for another cigarette.

  The others had arrived now, and Stitts looked at all of them as he lit his smoke.

  The first was Louisa, the person who had perhaps the most in common with Chase, having been kidnapped by the same men who’d taken her and her sister. Both had run.

  Both struggled with addiction.

  The man in the fancy suit was Stu Barnes. The wealthy millionaire that Chase had managed to convince to give her two million dollars after only meeting him twice.

  And then there was Screech. Screech, who Stitts had a better relationship with than his curmudgeonly partner, a man who'd also undergone significant changes since their time in New York. Screech had g
one from a low-level tech analyst to someone who had witnessed things that, well, quite frankly, no man who spends most of his days behind a computer had any business seeing.

  Dead sex slaves, mass poisonings, prison breaks, and gangland murder.

  Yeah, Chase touched a lot of people in her life. She meant something to them, too.

  And she meant a lot to him, of course.

  There was only one man who was missing from their crew, one who’d worked closely with Chase for—

  "She's alive!" someone shouted from behind Stitts. "Help! Help! She’s alive! Goddamnit, Chase is in here and she’s alive!”

  Stitts spun so quickly that the cigarette fell from his lips. And then he was off and running toward Rock Quarry Number 2 and Dr. Beckett Campbell’s voice.

  Chapter 2

  Flash

  Stitts's face, coming close to hers, their lips meeting, his tongue probing.

  Flash

  Blood. Blood on her hands, blood on her wrists and forearms.

  Blood soaking the front of her white dress.

  Her knuckles raw, sliced, her palms shredded.

  Flash

  Georgina's face, round and cherubic, looking up at her with watery eyes.

  "Don't leave me, Chase. Please, don't leave me."

  Flash

  A dirty needle, the syringe filled with a yellow, murky substance. The rim around the insertion point in her soft skin, raw and red. A shaking hand—Is it mine? Is that my hand?—a thumb with a filthy nail pushing the plunger down. A tremor, then relief.

  Flash

  "You're going to be okay," a disembodied voice, coming from the ether. A flicker, then brown eyes, a shaved head, a wispy goatee. A young man, someone she should recognize, but doesn’t. "Hang in there, Chase."

  Flash

  Handsome, older. A perfectly manicured white beard. A bespoke suit. Her hand shoots out and she fumbles with the man's belt. She tries to get inside his pants, tries to grab a hold of him, but he pulls back and fades into the darkness.

  Flash

  Incredible pain. Eyeballs that feel as if they are going to explode. An itching so intense that she wants to take a cheese grater to her skin, to tear it all off so that she could get at the creatures beneath. The millions upon millions of tiny insects—ticks, fleas, spiders, millipedes—that were feasting on her from the inside. Grinding her teeth so hard that a fine powder coats her tongue.

  Seizing. Her back arching, her toes curling. A moment of sheer ecstasy.

  And then pain.

  Flash

  "Shock her, shock her! She's going into cardiac arrest. Give her a jolt!"

  A beep. A blur. Another tremor.

  Flash

  "You were never there, Chase. You got away. You ran."

  A lightning bolt inside her brain. The taste of burnt rubber in her mouth.

  "You got away. That's what happened, Chase. They took your sister, but you got away."

  Flash

  A man with a bomb strapped to his chest, his thumb on the dead man trigger. A woman carrying matchsticks and duct tape in one hand, a beer bottle tucked into the belt of her pants. A man with his forehead caved in, but somehow still grinning. He’s clutching a cast-iron pan in one hand and it was sizzling.

  The smell of burning meat in the air.

  A man in blue overalls, huge aviator sunglasses covering most of his face. Crooked, yellow nicotine stained teeth.

  Flash

  Felix.

  Flash

  Her husband Brad.

  Flash

  Drake.

  Flash

  Stitts.

  Flash

  Georgina…

  Chapter 3

  "You almost died, Chase," Stitts said. "In fact, you were… shit, never mind. We’re not gonna do this like last time. Last time didn’t work. And I won't sit around and watch you kill yourself."

  Chase snarled and stared up at the man. Stitts looked nearly as haggard as she felt; he had huge dark circles around his eyes and his lips were chapped something fierce. He also fidgeted like a fiend—only she was fairly certain that his drug wasn't heroin like hers, but nicotine.

  "I never asked you to watch me. I don't need you to—"

  Stitts surprised her by reaching out and grabbing her shoulder tightly.

  She tried to squirm away, but the hospital bed on which she lay was too small and the best she could do was deepen her scowl.

  "You do need me, Chase. You need me, and I need you. And there are others out there, others that need you, too, Chase. Others who don't want to see dead."

  Chase closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Stitts relaxed his grip on her shoulder.

  Her memories since fleeing her apartment in Virginia were foggy at best.

  She recalled returning to the trap house that Louisa had nearly overdosed in, and she remembered shooting up.

  But everything after that was a blur.

  At some point, Chase thought she saw people she knew, the faces of people that she’d come across over the years, but that could have just as easily been a drug-induced dream.

  Or nightmare.

  She shuddered.

  "This self-destructive streak has to end, Chase," Stitts said in a quiet voice. She opened her eyes. There was a deep sadness in her partners face. A brooding pain that ran deep.

  As there should be, she thought. He lied to me. He’s been lying to me since the moment he met me in New York City. He lied to me, and he can't be trusted.

  "This isn't going to be like before; this isn’t a simple outpatient procedure. You're going to stay here, Chase. You’re going to stay here until you get better. And you’re going to do everything and anything that Dr. Matteo tells you to do. He wants you to walk on water? You're going to do it. He wants to call you Ma’am and be your protector? You're going to let him. He wants you to go to NA meetings for the rest of your life? You'll be there."

  Chase's scowl returned.

  Who is this man standing before me? It most definitely isn't the handsome, introspective man who profiled FBI. This guy… this guy is an asshole.

  A grade A asshole.

  "Or what, Stitts?" she responded reflexively. "You gonna call my Mommy? My Pops? Get me in trouble? Put me in time out?"

  All of a sudden, Stitts’s hardened expression softened and he looked away.

  There he is. That's Stitts. That’s the man I remember. Not the other one, the greasy, leathery Cheerio of an asshole.

  "What? You already called my Daddy? Is he on his way?"

  She was prodding him, deliberately trying to get a response, but Stitts wasn’t biting. Either he had more resolve than she remembered, or—

  All of the scorn suddenly left her voice, and Chase reached out and touched his arm.

  "What, Stitts? What is it"

  A deep, body racking sigh, and then he finally looked at her.

  "The doctor said not to tell you, but I won't lie to you again, Chase. I made a promise to myself, that I’d never lied to you again. What I did—"

  Chase dug her nails into the man's forearm.

  "Get to the fucking point, Stitts. What doesn’t the doc want you to tell me?"

  Stitts took another deep breath.

  "Your dad… your dad's dead, Chase."

  Chase's eyes bulged.

  "He's… what?"

  She’d heard what he said, of course. Only, she couldn’t believe it.

  Chase pictured her father in her mind, not the way he was now—overweight with gray and thinning hair—but the way he'd been back then. Ruggedly handsome, devoutly religious, but a man who liked his beer.

  It had been sometime since she'd seen him. In fact, after Chase had gone her own way in Seattle, her contact with both her father and mother had been sporadic at best.

  She knew that every time they heard her voice, they were reminded of Georgina. And it stung them; it stung them deeply.

  So, she'd shut them out, just like she shut out everyone.

  Tea
rs unexpectedly welled, and Chase looked away from Stitts. She stared into the distance, her eyes not registering the myriad of medical equipment that surrounded her or the tubes that seem to protrude from every one of her orifices.

  "He can't be dead," Chase whispered. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  "I'm sorry, Chase. I'm really sorry."

  She turned her eyes back to his and saw that he too was crying.

  "Was it his heart?" she asked softly.

  Stitts looked down and stared at his nicotine stained fingers.

  When he didn't answer, Chase asked him again, more aggressively this time.

  "You said you never—"

  Stitts’s eyes suddenly shot up.

  "It wasn’t his heart, Chase. Your father… he… your dad committed suicide."

  TO KEEP READING, GRAB YOUR COPY OF DIRTY MONEY NOW!

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are either entirely imaginary or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or of places, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © Patrick Logan 2018

  Interior design: © Patrick Logan 2018

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, cannot be reproduced, scanned, or disseminated in any print or electronic form.

  First Edition: September 2018

  * * *

  [CM1]To be changed later.