Scar Tissue

by Samantha Simard

  Cautiously, Frankie straightened up and felt at his own windpipe. Although everything in the area burned and was already swelling, it all seemed to be in working order. “It’s okay,” he said, and winced at the sound of his own voice; it was like a brick rattling around in a dryer. “Are you all right? Looked like one hell of a nightmare.”

  Wolfe sat up on the couch and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Not really. I think seeing Laine last night—” a glance at his watch, worn with the face turned inward toward his body to prevent reflections “—or the night before last, I guess, fucked me up.” He rested his elbows on his knees and looked up at Frankie, eyes ringed red with fatigue. “She’s the one who saved me, Frankie. Without her I wouldn’t have made it out of Iraq.”

  Frankie blew out a breath. “Damn, Jimmy. That’s rough.” He took a seat on the coffee table, wriggling the tactical belt off his uniform and tossing it in a chair, gun and all. “You think we need to bring someone else in on this thing? I’m starting to think the five of us aren’t enough.”

  Wolfe didn’t look thrilled at the idea—he liked to keep his circle small and trustworthy, and Frankie respected that—but he didn’t shoot it down either. “I’ll think about it, maybe talk to Scarlett tomorrow.” He clapped Frankie on the knee. “Let’s try to get some sleep, yeah? Big day once the sun’s up.”

  ~***~

  A few hours later at the apartment on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan, Aiden Parker awoke to his sister bolting from the bedroom to the bathroom. The hollow echo of vomit hitting the toilet bowl brought him fully out of sleep, and he reached under the couch cushions for the repurposed acetaminophen bottle he kept there before trudging in to join her.

  He stood in the doorway, wincing in disgust as Laine heaved some more, and distracted himself by pouring a single capsule about half the length of his pinkie finger into his palm. The capsule was clear and contained a swirling silver liquid that Laine thought was medicine to help her PTSD. It was actually the capsule version of Rapture, the highly-addictive and dangerous party drug pioneered by Anton Codreanu—but in Laine’s case, the Rapture’s reality-altering properties were being used to reinforce the subliminal messages planted in her brain during her time at Blakely Manor.

  If this was the only way to get his hardheaded sister to listen to him, Aiden would gladly take it. “Here, swallow this. And for God’s sake, rinse your mouth out.”

  Laine did as she was told and flushed the toilet, leaning back against the vanity cabinet and shutting her eyes while she waited for the “pill” to take effect. “I’m sorry about yesterday. It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not,” Aiden said, half threat and half statement of fact. If Laine fucked up again like she had last night with Wolfe, it wouldn’t be long before she’d be back in the basement at Blakely Manor—and this time, Aiden thought with a shudder, he would be joining her. Codreanu was just as vindictive and conniving as the Parker siblings; they’d had a less than friendly text exchange after the mess at Fenway that contained specific instructions on their next assignment. “Our best shot to stir things up is that big charity gala happening at the Four Seasons tonight. We can’t go after Sullivan directly, not after last night, but maybe there’s another way to destroy him.”

  Laine’s body was relaxing in increments, the knot of scars across her face smoothing out. “How?”

  “Findlay Catering is doing the food, so I already have an in. They always need extra sets of hands for shit like this, and who’s going to say no to a vet volunteering to help out at an event for veterans? That gets you into the gala too.” Aiden laid out his plan with sweeping gestures that were a little too grand for their dingy bathroom. “You’re a knockout except for that damn scar, so you find that Mike Draymond asshole and start chatting him up, buy him drinks. You slip something in one, he takes a tumble—maybe he kicks the bucket, maybe not—and meanwhile I’ll find some evidence to plant that points to Sullivan.”

  Laine nodded along, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “That… makes sense.”

  “Good,” Aiden said. “Because we don’t have a lot of choices now that you fucked up.”

  He left the bathroom, the details of the operation spinning themselves out in his mind like twisted cotton candy.

  ~***~

  Like a scene out of his own fucked up Groundhog Day, Jake found himself sitting in the Camaro in the parking lot at Caruso’s Grocery, the inside of the car already sweltering in heat that just wouldn’t break. Sweat sliding down his temple, Jake stared across Broadway at the front of Voici Spiritueux. It didn’t look as busy as it had when he was there the last time, and he warred with himself, wanting to go back and get another hit of Rapture. He knew if he did that Misha would be apoplectic enough to do something damaging—like tell Jimmy about Jake’s new hobby.

  Then again, if anyone would understand Jake’s need to escape himself for a while, it would be Jimmy. His brother was good at hiding his PTSD most of the time, but when he’d first come back from the Middle East, Jimmy was like one of those creepy jointed puppets getting rattled around by an unseen master. He wasn’t himself and never would be again; he recovered bits and pieces of that person, but his time in the desert changed him irrevocably.

  Jake’s time in the Mass Art Murderer’s basement had changed him too. Not in the same ways, maybe, but in the ways that mattered. His naturally optimistic nature about people was crushed like a bug, as had any dreams of being an artist for a living. Between the debilitating injuries to his hands that cost him dexterity with a paintbrush and the nightmares that plagued him even when he was awake, Jake hadn’t been able to paint one single stroke since he got out of the hospital. Not one.

  And all of that was bad enough without considering the worst part of the whole ordeal. Not the pain, not the scars, not even the friends he’d lost (to death and social stigma alike) or the constant hounding from the media. No, the worst part was the secret, the answer to the riddle countless pundits and cops and online theorizers had been trying to solve for almost four months.

  Jake knew the identity of the Mass Art Murderer.

  It would be so simple to tell someone. Jimmy, their mom, even Frankie or Detective Kamienski—those last two weren’t his biggest fans, but he knew they’d believe him. But every time the words bubbled up into his throat he swallowed them back like tar, because the Mass Art Murderer’s final threat (his oldest brother’s final threat) was frighteningly clear. If Jake told anyone who’d committed the torturous murder spree in Boston, when Josh came back the next time he would start with their mother and Jimmy, making Jake watch while they died slow, miserable deaths.

  “Fuck it,” Jake muttered, unbuckling his seatbelt and stalking across Broadway, sweat breaking out on every part of his body thanks to his long sleeves and pants. If he had to live with this shit he was going to do it on his own terms. He yanked on the door to Voici Spiritueux and frowned when it didn’t budge. “What the hell?”

  “They’re closed,” a voice said, behind him and to his right. “Sign says it’s for cleaning, but I don’t see anybody inside, do you?”

  Jake spun around, heart hammering. He’d never been a fan of surprises before, but now the slightest unexpected sound had him jumping for the ceiling. A derogatory comeback was on the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it back when he saw a woman around his age with short, choppy hair dyed bright orange and skin as fair and likely to burn as Jake’s own. She stood with her arms crossed over a green tube top and linen shorts, a pair of Ray-Bans masking her face from the nose up.

  Even with the sunglasses, Jake recognized her from the news stories that had aired around the same time as his—this was Lacey Stahl, rock n’ roll heiress and fellow kidnapping victim.

  “Well if they’re not cleaning, then why are they closed?” Jake asked.

  Lacey pulled down her sunglasses and regarded him with bloodshot eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

  Sensing this was some kind of test
, Jake replied, “Because I wanted to buy a bottle of Communion wine.”

  Lacey’s mouth twitched into a smile, but it wasn’t particularly happy. “Me too. My boss is just dying to try some.” She stared hard at the darkened interior of the wine shop for a moment before turning on the heel of her sandal. “I have an idea about how we can get all the Communion wine we want, but I’m not talking about it here. Too many eyes and ears—you want a fix, come back to my place.”

  Jake’s gut told him this was a colossal mistake, worse than coming home without groceries or trying Rapture in the first place. Jimmy and Scarlett had told him about how they’d found Lacey Stahl with Sebastian in a motel room, both on the brink of death thanks to Danh Sang. He was ninety-nine percent sure the boss to which she was referring was Sang, but his feet moved on their own and he followed Lacey down the road.

  ~***~

  Chapter Nine

  Due to the less than natural circumstances of Otis’s death and not knowing whether their voices were heard by whoever had killed him remotely, David and Diana decided the best thing to do was lie low for a while. Neither of them went home, choosing instead to buy some cheap suitcases and clothes at the Primark in Downtown Crossing before renting a queen suite at the Courtyard Marriott across Tremont Street from Tufts Medical Center. It was a nice room with luxury finishes and a view of the Chinatown skyline, and the complimentary breakfast meant they only had to venture out for two meals a day.

  David let himself back into the room while balancing a drink tray and paper bag from the McDonald’s across from Boston Common. He was greeted by the sight of Diana tapping away at her laptop at the desk in the corner of the room, black hair like a cascade of ink over one shoulder. She wore a ruby-red tank top and a pair of high-waist denim shorts, bare feet hooked over the bottom rung of her chair, eyes narrowed at her computer screen. She was the single most beautiful thing David had ever seen, and just thinking that made him feel like a dirty old man.

  Diana didn’t look up as he entered the room, which showed how well they knew each other; if he were anyone else, she would’ve been out of her seat with a gun in her hand before the door had opened. “Did they have the hot sauce?”

  “Yep.” David swallowed down his feelings in favor of tossing a couple of sauce packets in her direction, which she caught effortlessly, gaze never leaving the laptop. “Find anything good on Blakely Manor?”

  “They have a nice website,” Diana replied dryly, opening her box of chicken nuggets and nodding toward the laptop. “Pretty pictures of the outside, a bit of property history, but nothing much on its current purposes.”

  David leaned down to read, inadvertently breathing in the scent of Diana’s shampoo, some heinously expensive thing from Sephora that smelled springy and fresh. He eyed a black-and-white picture near the top of the webpage. “Who’s the guy dressed like Colonel Sanders?”

  “Doctor Donald Blakely. His family bought the manor after the Vietnam War and converted it into a nonprofit asylum for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder—not that they were calling it that then.” Diana scrolled down to some photos of the manor, which was a vast, sprawling thing made of stone and high arches; to David’s untrained eye, it looked like a cold place to put someone with mental health issues. “It stayed that way until Dr. Blakely died a few years ago—he had no known relatives, and as far as I can tell the place is kept alive through charitable donors.”

  David sipped his Diet Coke contemplatively. “Where is it?”

  “In the middle of fucking nowhere,” Diana said. “They don’t list an exact location on the website, so I had to run a reverse image search.” She clicked on another tab open to Google Maps. “The closest town to the property is Petersham, and that is the biggest thing northwest of the Quabbin Reservoir.” She showed David a satellite image of the town, which contained maybe two intersections, a few houses, and not much else. “The back of Blakely Manor shares a border with the Petersham State Forest, and the main attractions there are a gun club and a priory.”

  “I don’t suppose that phone number they list at the bottom of the site works?”

  “It rang when I called, but no one answered.”

  “That means someone pays the bill—any idea who?”

  “The property is held in a trust, and the executor is a place called Morningstar Holdings, which is almost certainly a shell corporation.”

  “Morningstar?” David repeated. He hadn’t set foot in a church in decades, but he wasn’t likely to forget Sister Margaret from Sunday school or her ruler against his knuckles. “Like the Bible? Because that’s another name for Lucifer.”

  One of Diana’s eyebrows twitched upward. “Well, that is about as subtle as a flying brick.” She nibbled at a French fry, eyes narrowing. “What are the chances it’s a coincidence Anton releases a drug with a name like Rapture and is also indirectly connected to Blakely Manor, which is owned by a shell corporation that is named after an actual devil?”

  “Pretty damn slim,” David answered. “How do you want to play this?”

  Diana shrugged. “We could bring in Byrne, see if she can find more information in the cyber world.”

  Tara Byrne was a world-renown hacker and part of a group of misfit agents David and Diana had recruited to the CIA for an ongoing op called Project Renegade. While Byrne’s skills could be useful in finding out more about the shell company, David shook his head. “You know if we bring in Byrne, the rest will follow. I lost both eyebrows the last time we worked with Devereux and Walker and I’m not eager for a round two.”

  “Wuss,” Diana accused, but there was a barely-detectable fondness behind the word that made David feel warm. “Fine, we don’t call them in—what’s our next move?” Before David could reply, Diana’s phone vibrated with an incoming call where it sat on the desk. She checked the display and frowned. “It’s Anton. What should I do?”

  “Answer it.” David took a seat on the end of the bed and unwrapped his cheeseburger. “I’ll do my best impression of a church mouse.”

  “Just don’t start nibbling at the walls.” Diana waited a few rings before she accepted the call, turning up the in-call volume so David would be able to hear Anton’s end of the conversation too. “Da?”

  “Dijana.” Anton had a habit of calling Diana by her given name even though he knew she disliked it; David suspected it made him feel like he had more power over her than he actually did. “I need a favor from you, my dear.”

  Diana and David exchanged twin looks of surprise. They had both expected him to open with outrage regarding what happened to Otis and the fact that Diana was working with David. Maybe he didn’t know about the circumstances surrounding his former employee’s death, but then who had killed Otis?

  “And what would that be?” Diana asked.

  “I wondered if you would be able to speak with Sebastian. I suspect, although I cannot prove, that someone is attempting to copy the Rapture formula. I would like to make sure that information is not being leaked from him, but I fear that if I attempt to have that conversation with your brother things will turn… unnecessarily contentious.”

  “Do you not trust Sebastian, then?”

  “It is not a matter of trust, Dijana. With the work he is doing, spying on Wolfe… it is easy to become complacent. Get back to me with his response.”

  Anton hung up, and Diana stared at her phone screen for a second before she did the same. “What the fuck was that about? The Rapture’s selling out of Lavinge’s shops, and nobody’s tried to copy it.”

  “Evidently Anton’s paranoid,” David said, resisting the urge to brush an unruly lock of Diana’s hair out of her face. “So Agent Johnson, what’s our next move?”

  “I will gather some supplies for a trip to Blakely Manor and talk to my brother,” Diana replied. She threw a French fry at him for the agent quip and rolled her eyes when David caught it out of the air and winked at her. “Why don’t you take a drive by the shell corporation? I’ll get you the addres
s.”

  ~***~

  Scarlett Vaughn was the proud owner of a two-bedroom, one-bath condominium in a cluster of buildings located off Warren Street in Boston’s Dudley Square neighborhood, which was all winding tree-lined streets that featured an eclectic combination of churches, mosques, and funeral homes. Normally on a Saturday morning Scarlett would be up and jogging the block, stretching while she waited at crosswalks with music blaring in her headphones. But this particular Saturday she’d elected to catch a few extra hours of sleep in order to be fresh for the veterans’ gala that evening.

  She’d slept like a rock all night, so an alarm bell started ringing in the back of her mind when her eyes snapped open to stare at the ceiling. Her bedroom was the bigger of the two, with a picture window covered by teal curtains and an off-white country-style bedroom set she’d bought from a second-hand store; the wall-mounted air conditioner hummed away, filling the space with cool breezes. Scarlett glanced at her alarm clock—almost eleven in the morning, damn—and wondered what woke her.

  A faint but unwelcome sound reached her ears: a shoe scraping against the tile entryway.

  Scarlett rolled off her mattress, grabbing her M1911 off the nightstand and landing in a silent crouch on the floor. She racked the slide to check the load and was thankful that she didn’t sleep naked, even if all she wore was a too-big Army t-shirt she’d stolen from Wolfe. Nearly everyone in the former sergeant’s life had appropriated at least one for their own purposes. Despite being a gigantic overfunded war machine, the Army manufactured some of the comfiest shirts around.

  She slipped out of her bedroom, walking on the balls of her feet down the short hallway that led to the kitchen and living space. Stepping out with her gun raised, she was ready to confront just about anything—except her father. “Dad?”