The Clearing - DSA Season One, Book One

by Lou Paduano

  “And you’d be wearing a new pair of bracelets as well, Em.” He sighed, unable to find the words. His attorney had struggled to defend against the insurmountable evidence that appeared to crop up overnight. Analysts and experts in a dozen fields attested to the documents gathered by Waters. There were bank statements for accounts, both domestic and overseas. Witnesses Ben had never met, never knew, yet somehow were able to relate intricate details of the crimes laid at the former officer’s feet. Everything and everyone pointed at Ben’s complicity and his guilt. All because of his damn curiosity.

  “Why couldn’t you have stayed away, Ben? Why couldn’t you have listened just this once?” Her voice was bitter. He knew it wasn’t directed at him, but at the chains along his wrists. She took his hand in hers and squeezed. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I can fight this. We can—”

  “No.”

  “This is your life, Ben.”

  “And they took it from me, Em. They took it and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop them,” Ben said, his voice cracked and strained. She swiped at the tear in his eye and he fought to smile. A lesson learned from his mother, long since gone from this world. To find the light in the moment, even in the darkest of times. He admired her in that regard, dreamed of better days at her side. “Hey. I’ll be all right.”

  “How?”

  “I still have you, don’t I?”

  She nodded, fighting back her own tears.

  “I’ll figure this out, Em,” he said. They inched toward the door and the sound of impatient steps approached. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “Together,” she finished.

  Ben’s hand hovered over the handle to the men’s room, unable to pull the door open. His thoughts dimmed. His enduring smile struggled to return. When he’d joined the department, when he’d caved to the wishes of his father to pin the badge to his chest to make a difference, he had done so with the conceit that he would make the world a better place. That through the abuses of power, through the ignorance of violence, Ben Riley would stand as a force for change. For the job instead of from the job, as his father always said.

  Only, the job had won out, taking it all away from him.

  They entered the hall, the escort quick to confirm the cuffs were still intact around his wrists. Emily trailed at his side as they started for the transport parked out back. Reporters were pushed aside until the quiet of the building returned. Emily stopped at the end of the hall. The guards rounded the corner to check out the situation. She fixed the hair from her face, tucking the thick strands back effortlessly. “Ben...”

  She pulled him close. Her lips fell on his and he held her for a long moment, one he never wanted to end. Comfort and safety from a single sensation. When the kiss ended, it stayed with him. From the gleam in her eyes, Emily matched his reaction.

  “You’ll visit?”

  “Ben, I—”

  “And don’t steal my stuff.”

  She fought for a smile. “Your junk, you mean.”

  “Those comic books will be worth millions one day. Guaranteed.”

  “I’ll let you know after I sell them,” she replied. “Kidding.”

  “Be safe, Em.”

  “You too.”

  His escort steered him through the building. He glanced back, trying to wave, trying to hold onto the moment and her image for a second longer. But she fell away into the shadows, like so much of his world since his arrest.

  Ben took a sharp breath. His hands grazed the bloodstain along his tie. He stepped ahead of the two burly agents. “Any chance for a bite to eat before we head out?”

  “Quiet now, Mr. Riley.”

  “No speaking? You really don’t know me at all.”

  The bus waited beyond the exit. The door was open, the gloom of the evening settling over the lot. One of the guards left his side to exit the courthouse. He reached into his pocket and removed a slip of paper, handing it to the waiting driver. When he returned, he offered his partner a slight nod.

  “This way,” he muttered. The guard shoved Ben toward the emergency stairwell, the sound of metal grinding as the exit opened. The prison transport’s engine revved before starting down the block.

  “What? Where is he going?” Ben stopped in the doorframe, shaking loose from the guard. “Guys? Pretty sure we just missed the bus.”

  The pair stood stock-still, one holding his hand close to the earpiece tucked on his right side.

  “How about an answer?” Ben called once more. “A grunt? Anything?”

  “Yes,” one answered. Ben started to speak, but was waved down by the other agent as the first continued his conversation. “Sending him up now.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Ben demanded without success. They barred his exit from the stairwell, forcing him up the first flight without a word. “Who the hell were you talking to back there?”

  Silence was the only response. Their climb extended up floor after floor until reaching the rooftop. The agent in the lead propped open the door then shifted aside. A key fell loose from his pocket, and he unlocked the cuffs.

  “She’s waiting for you.”

  Ben waded into the evening air, heavy with impending showers, and found her near the ledge. Auburn hair and sharp blue eyes, the confident woman stood straight and bold in a long skirt and flats.

  She grinned at his arrival. “Let’s discuss your future, shall we, Mr. Riley?”

  Chapter Seven

  “Coffee?” Slender fingers extended one of a matched pair to the confused newcomer. Ben followed her exacting gaze, almost hidden by her hair whipping around in the early-evening wind.

  Ben shook his head. “I’m partial to smoothies, actually.”

  No annoyance sat in her face. No emotion lost at all in her stance. She simply turned to place the second cup along the ledge, then took a moment to savor some from her own beverage.

  Most of the roof offered little in the way of movement. A slight platform extended from the top of the stairs along the northern side of the courthouse. Small drops of rain and the cold wind of autumn kept Ben closer to the stairs than he cared to admit.

  “Look,” he called as the woman returned from the ledge. “I’m not sure what the game is here—”

  “No game,” she said with a disarming smile. “Just a job offer.”

  Ben let out a short laugh. She failed to join him. Sharp blue eyes followed his awkward movements. She wore a tan raincoat over her skirt. Her umbrella sat perched beside the door. Always prepared for the occasion--even when it came to standing alone on a rooftop with a recently convicted criminal.

  His escort was gone. The twin behemoths that had shoved him up here in the first place no longer blocked his escape. The thought occurred to make a break for the door—to flee into the city and hope the law never caught up to him. His life would still be over, however. There were also the woman’s eyes which held him in place—all-seeing and all-knowing. She read his every reaction before he even had a clue what was running through his own thoughts.

  “I don’t know you,” he announced.

  “But I know you,” she said. “Benjamin Harrison Riley. Five-year veteran of the Buffalo Police Department. Not your first choice. Your father wanted it though. You stepped up when he fell ill.” Her eyes wavered and her head bowed in thought. “Cancer. He went quick.”

  Ben blinked hard. He hadn’t heard his father’s condition told so succinctly. More importantly, he’d never realized the impact his father’s passing still held on him. Douglas Riley had been a tough man to love, one who’d expected better from all those around him. From the woman he married, to the son he raised alone after her passing, Douglas’ ambitions were set upon all he encountered.

  The startled man with the bloodstained tie left the comfort of the stairwell for the cool air whipping over the courthouse. He stared out over the city. His father’s beat. Not a single route, and not a simple neighborhood, but the whole of
Buffalo.

  “For as much as you maligned the work, you made it your own,” the woman continued, joining him at the edge of the roof. “A solid record. Two commendations. A fast track to promotion.”

  “Gone now,” Ben said. He kicked at the pebbles beneath his shoes. “Not that I’d ever really wanted it.”

  “What do you want?”

  Ben stopped, hesitant for a brief moment. Then he laughed. “Wait. Is this my fairy godmother moment? Are we talking about my shot at a kick-ass pair of glass Skechers and a rave with my Prince Charming?”

  “No,” the woman said. The first glimpse of irritation rested behind the declaration. “This is your chance to keep making a difference. To not give up on your life when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I already fought that fight. I lost, and everyone in this city seemed to want it that way,” Ben said, pointing out at the skyline.

  “This doesn’t have to be the end.” The woman paused. She put the coffee down, placing her hands at her back. “It shouldn’t be. Not for stumbling across something bigger than you knew.”

  “Wait,” Ben muttered. “The house. You know about the house?”

  “What you saw, a level of technology beyond anything we’re currently capable of? They want to keep it that way.”

  “Who?” Ben pushed for more. This was his life on the line, his entire existence, and she knew the truth behind everything he had witnessed that night. “If you know anything, any information at all, tell me. Your testimony—”

  “Would be as easily written off as your own,” she replied, eyes a sea of blue against the gray of the open sky.

  “They killed a man!”

  “For what he found inside.” She nodded. “They could have easily done the same to you. Killing a cop, however, is a messier job. Too many questions. Better to bury you: lock you in a cell and let time finish you off.”

  “You can take them to the house. You can show them what is—”

  “They’ve moved their operation. The keypad you described in your statement is gone. They planted their narrative, falsified evidence—photos, documents, reports—all to maintain the illusion of control. You’re not the first, Ben. You won’t be the last, unfortunately.”

  “Who is doing this to me?”

  “I don’t have all the answers, Ben,” she said. “Horace Waters was involved in some way, but he’s disappeared as well. Every link in the chain has been either fortified or removed. What I’m offering you is the chance to help me find answers we’re both looking for.”

  “I have to go.” Ben moved for the door. “You have to tell them, to make them see that this was a mistake. That sending me to jail isn’t right.”

  “Right has little to do with anything,” the woman answered. “Sending you to jail silences you. I’m sure it won’t be the end of what they are willing to do to you to keep you that way. Keep pushing and your silence will be more permanent, I assure you. Take my offer and you can have your chance against them, a chance to make a new life. You can set your own path.”

  What did he want? What life was there for him? He’d always lived through others or for them—from his father to the precinct and even the people of the city. What was there for him in any of it?

  “This job of yours,” he said. “What does it involve?”

  “Field work for my department.”

  “Field work?”

  “As an agent.”

  “An agent?” Ben squeezed the bridge of his nose. “This… this whole thing is insane. I don’t even know your name.”

  “Susan Metcalf.”

  “This is insane, Susan Metcalf.”

  She nodded and extended her hand. “Sanity is a matter of perspective.”

  The world sat in front of him. There were two options before him. A chance to keep breathing fresh air and find the answers for why he’d lost his life, or to feel the cold metal of cuffs against his wrists once more as he fell into darkness.

  “Ben Riley lives or dies by your choice. Not theirs. What will it be?”

  He took the offer in hand and shook. “Your department. Does it have a cool name?”

  “Not in the least,” she said with a laugh. “Have you ever heard of the DSA?”

  Chapter Eight

  The sound of their phones stirred them. One vibrated against the grain of the dresser across the room and the other rang from the kitchen. They fought the pull, listening to the rhythmic hum in stereo. Finally, Ruth surrendered to the day. She crept away from his embrace for the cold floor.

  Lincoln struggled to open his eyes, grateful for the view and the thin stream of sunlight slipping through the curtains. Bare skin danced across his field of vision. She reached for the phone and the item slipped between calloused fingers. The notification, short and to the point, caused the joy on her face to fade.

  “That the call?” He shifted for the edge of the bed, where he grabbed for his fallen shorts.

  Ruth nodded, letting the phone clatter against the dresser. “Metcalf’s back.”

  For weeks they’d waited for word from their errant boss. Weeks were spent dealing with the aftermath of their loss. Their grief endured, thanks to the ceaseless inquiries from sister agencies wanting nothing more than a scapegoat for the whole affair. It broke them, reliving the nightmare of watching Grissom die before their eyes, unable to save the man who had done so much to rescue them from their previous failures.

  Loss brought them closer together. More than Lincoln and Ruth ever could have imagined. Shared grief had turned to consoling, turned to something unexpected and wonderful. Now, all had been shot to hell by a single text message.

  “There’s a briefing at 1800 hours,” Ruth continued.

  A sly grin escaped and he pulled her close. A kiss ran along her neck. “Then there’s no rush.”

  She returned the kiss then pushed him away playfully. For a second, there was hope in her eyes: hope that this, their connection of the last few weeks, would continue without question. It vanished, like so much else in the light of the morning sun.

  He understood immediately, catching her hesitation which turned to remorse at the act. Metcalf was back. A briefing was on the docket followed by routine and obligation. Life as they once knew it returned, obscuring the one they’d built while the DSA had been on pause. They had finally caught their breath, only to see it drawn away at the department’s leisure.

  “Linc,” Ruth started. She grabbed at fallen clothes and rushed to cover her beauty from view. “I have to head in.”

  Work meant a return to reality. Back to normal—for the good of the team. For the DSA. Always pushing the cause ahead of their own lives. Lincoln understood, and had believed in the job for years since his recruitment. Their short time together, however, had opened up a new path. One closed now, by all appearances.

  “I get it.”

  Her shirt fell in place and she pulled it taut. A hand ran along his shoulder, massaging scarred skin lightly. “She’s put me in charge of the field team. With Grissom gone…”

  The memory stuck with them. Grissom’s shadow sat in every room, in every interaction. He was the reason they had connected and the reason it had to end at the same time.

  Lincoln shook his head. He held her close. “You’re nervous. Don’t be. He picked you for this.”

  “I can almost believe it when you say it.”

  “Believe it.”

  She kissed him, hard and fast. He fought for more, one more second, but she fell away and started for the door, the shadows swallowing the light in the bedroom.

  “I’ll see you there?”

  “I’m right behind you,” Lincoln said.

  The door closed, leaving silence in the apartment. Lincoln grabbed some clothes from the dresser and tossed them in the bathroom. He needed a quick shower, not that he cared to move with any sense of speed or purpose. He merely stood in the center of the bedroom, the strewn pillows and rumpled sheets the on
ly remnants of their time together.

  A sigh uttered, Lincoln reached for his shoulder holster, hanging off a nearby chair. His Glock waited inside. He pulled the cold weapon loose and ejected the clip—full and ready for the day ahead.

  “Back to it, then,” he muttered. He slammed the clip in place. Then he headed for the shower to wash away the serenity of his downtime.

  There was more work to do.

  Chapter Nine

  She read the same line again. Each word, taken in turn, failed to penetrate. Morgan sipped at her coffee, more than willing to keep to the same page of the book. It wasn’t that the book was inherently bad or overly convoluted. It was the act of reading itself. Sitting still for long periods of time had never suited her, though she continued to make the attempt. Sitting drove her anxiety level through the roof. Downtime was for people who didn’t have better things to do.

  Not for Morgan Dunleavy.

  The coffee helped. So did the fresh air. The corner cafe in downtown Bethesda overlooking the Round House Theatre distracted her enough to force her to relax for a moment. To take another day, another moment for herself.

  She hated it.

  When the text came through from Metcalf and the meeting was scheduled for a return to the status quo, part of Morgan wanted to jump from her seat in exclamation. It was time to go back to work, not that she hadn’t been there every day to check in on things. Stephanie and Zac offered little in the way of updates. The hub gave her less to accomplish before shuffling her back into the autumn wind and a book she barely recalled even after staring at the page for minutes on end.

  She needed work, the energy and the constant movement it provided. She needed anything to keep her from thinking; from dwelling on the past—and on Grissom.

  Dammit, Jake. Why did you have to die?

  The same question she’d asked every day since the man’s fall. He had saved her from a life of emptiness, fed her a new purpose and propped her up. He’d deserved to be saved, deserved the same second chance he’d offered her. She had failed him.