The Girl and the Deadly End (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 7)

by A J Rivers

  “Yes,” I confirm, nodding. “I was born at my grandparents’ house. It’s one of the reasons I was so confused about finding out about the house in Iowa. That’s where my father was born. I never knew that. I didn’t realize they still spent stretches of time there when I was young. I thought they were always in Virginia. I don’t have many memories from when I was really little, but some of them are from Sherwood. I know we didn’t stay there consistently, and I don’t have any really strong memories until I was about six or seven.”

  “Emma,” Dean says, obviously trying to stem the flow of words. “A woman who has an unattended homebirth can go into a hospital with the baby to get it checked out and file for the birth certificate. She doesn’t need to provide any proof of when or where she gave birth. All that matters is what she says.”

  “So, you believe my mother gave birth to me in Feathered Nest, then brought me to Sherwood to get my birth certificate?” I ask, knowing I sound completely incredulous.

  “Yes,” he says. “I think that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Why would she do that?” I ask.

  “The one reason a mother will do anything. To protect her child.”

  Chapter Ten

  Him

  Seventeen years ago …

  One thing this world can always rely on is death.

  It never stops. It doesn’t show mercy by slowing or taking a break, even for a day. If anything, mercy is there only when death comes faster.

  But it was that truth, that reliable constant, that meant he could at least get into the building. He wouldn’t be able to go into the room. Not with the others who would see his face and question it. But he couldn’t stay away. The second he saw the announcement, he knew he had to find a way to be there, to be close to her one last time. Reading her obituary took what little was left of his soul and scattered it. She was gone. There was no question about that. There hadn’t been since the night she died, and he stood, overlooked in the shadows, and watched them load what should have been his life into the back of the ambulance.

  Yet reading the obituary made that pain more intense, more real. That night it had been just the private pain of the two people who loved Mariya most: Emma and Ian. And him, too. He shared in their pain, though they didn’t know it. Keeping it close, holding it only for themselves, made it more bearable. If they were the only ones who knew, then she still existed. She still breathed in the minds and thoughts of everyone who didn’t know yet, like a flame kept lit from a candle long after its source has gone out. That kept her real. That kept her alive.

  But even that flame smoldered. Knowledge spread. It became official. It spread out, claiming every memory of her it touched. Those final breathing moments of her ran, pushing into the farthest recesses of people’s minds, but the obituary ended that. It killed those fleeting moments. Her death was not final until the world knew. She was gone now. He could still think of her, but he could no longer pretend she would ever return.

  He needed that one last chance to be close to her. He needed one more time to be in the same space as her, even if it was only her body. Seeing the announcement proved to him, no one knew what had really happened. It was reassuring, in a way. Not because it meant he was safe. He didn’t care about that. It meant he could continue his mission. More importantly, he could ensure justice. Mariya deserved that. She deserved more than a court would ever give her.

  He went to the funeral home long before her service was set to begin. Disappearing into the milling mourners going into other rooms, he walked into the building without being noticed. Death was one thing he could rely on. It was not just her there. There were more, who became nothing but memories on the same night she did. The place filled with people who wanted those last fleeting moments with them. They wouldn’t notice him joining them.

  Grief rarely produces questions. No one wants to pry into why you are paying your last respects. When a stranger appears at a wedding, everyone wants to connect the dots, to create those connections that stitch together the tapestry of a new life for the couple. At a funeral, no one wants a closer glimpse of that tapestry unraveling.

  It was his intention to only linger at the back of the room where he could be hidden by the mourners and still glance out to see the door to the room where her coffin lay. But something drew him to the front. He couldn’t resist the magnetic pull that brought him down through the rows of chairs and to the side of the casket. It was open. For the first time, he looked at the face of the man being grieved. There was nothing about him that was extraordinary. Nothing that made him stand out against anyone else. Yet the room continued to fill with tearful eyes and trembling hands. Layers of black fabric crushed against each other in tight hugs, exchanged for no other reason than they still had life in them to give them.

  He was suddenly curious about the man, wondering who he was and what he meant to each of the people coming into the room. But he also wanted to know his secrets. Everyone has them. No one who is born into this world and lives beyond childhood leaves it without something buried deep inside them. What were this man’s? What did he hide from these people? And how many of them were now hiding them from each other?

  He stood at the edge of the casket and stared into the man’s face, wondering what his eyes looked like when he was alive. How his voice sounded. It was hard to imagine either one. He almost didn’t look real, like this was all in place just to make use of the room. It wasn’t like the other times he’d seen bodies without souls. This wasn’t new to him. But there was something strange about looking at someone prepared so carefully after death. It was ritualized; designed for the living, not for the departed. He knew the process of separating life from its vessel. He’d watched the moment when all the light of life pulls away from flesh and bone to turn to dust again. It was familiar to him. More familiar than life emerging into the world.

  But he wasn’t as familiar with what happened in the days following that transition. When the body was taken into the responsibility of someone who held claim to it, someone who loved what once dwelled inside. It was strange to see the careful, delicate way the body was treated. The way it was painted and powdered until it barely resembled the person, and then filled with chemicals in a desperate bid to cling for just a little longer.

  It was futile. No chemicals, no metal-lined casket, no concrete vault could ever stop the ravages of time. The body is only lent to the soul. Once life separates from it, the earth has every right to reclaim it and nothing can stand in its way. It seems a cruel narcissism to go to such lengths to preen and pamper a body just for the sake of those who want to be comforted by the illusion of life rather than confronted with the reality of death.

  He stayed there until the family took notice of him and started to ease in closer. He didn’t want them to see his face enough to recognize it later. Especially if it wasn’t him. He was walking a very fine line being there, just yards away from the people starting to trickle in to stand in the room with Mariya, to crush black clothing against each other because they couldn’t hug her. One of them might see him and think they were seeing someone else. It wouldn’t be unusual. An easy mistake when you share your face with another.

  The temptation was strong. He wanted to be near her, to look at her the way he’d looked at the man and see how they changed her. He should have been the one they called. It should have been him to take care of her. No one else knew her like he did. No one else loved her as much.

  Setting the program for the man’s service on a chair set up by the door, he walked out of the room, meaning to leave the building. But his feet planned otherwise. They brought him down the corridor, past floral arrangements honoring the lost loved one of whoever walked by. Mariya’s room was right there. He could see the people inside. He stopped himself from going in but walked past, trying to catch a glimpse. He walked past again, closer this time, and confirmed what he thought he saw the first time.

  Her casket was closed.

  Why would it be clo
sed? Why would they cover her beautiful face?

  The thought rushed through him and made him sick. Her face. That’s what they destroyed. When Thomas and Levi shot without looking, they didn’t see their guns aimed right at her perfect face. They mangled her, so the lid of her casket had to be down, shielding her from everyone seeing what they had done, what was left of her. He’d never get another look.

  Turning to leave, he saw a podium. Names of the visitors filtering through the front door and to the various rooms filled the lines of the paper in the book opened on top. He walked up to it and let his eyes scan over them. A few familiar ones stood out against the others. He wondered who the others belonged to, wondering if he could pick them out of the crowded rooms. Picking up the pen, he flipped several pages in so it wouldn’t be easily seen and signed his name. By the time anyone saw it there, it would mean nothing. But he couldn’t just walk away. He wanted her to know he was there.

  Chapter Eleven

  Now

  “Protect me from what?” I ask. “What would covering up where I was born protect me from?”

  “I don’t know,” Dean says. “But there has to be a reason she didn’t want you to know she gave birth to you in Feathered Nest.”

  My phone rings, and when I don’t move to answer it, Sam walks toward it.

  “I just don’t understand,” I sigh. “I never heard either of my parents mention Feathered Nest. Ever. That’s something I would definitely remember. And I know I never lived there.”

  “Emma,” Sam says.

  “I know I have some gaps in my memory from when I was younger, but don’t you think it would have come back up when I was sent there? As soon as I went into the town, something should have triggered. But none of it looked even vaguely familiar,” I tell him.

  “Emma,” Sam repeats. “I need you to pay attention to me.”

  I whip around to face him and see a tense expression in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Greg’s awake,” he tells me.

  My arms fall away from where they were crossed over my chest, and I take a step toward him.

  “He’s awake?” I ask.

  Sam nods.

  “We’ll be right there.”

  I run into the bedroom to put on actual clothes, splash some water on my face and head, and throw my still-wet hair up into a ponytail. The chill of the air stings through the wet strands as we run outside into the glow of dawn. I didn’t even realize what time it is. When my dream woke me, I felt like I’d been sleeping for only a few minutes, but it must have been at least a couple of hours. We’re silent as we drive toward the hospital, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I wonder what the men are thinking. Of the three of us, only I actually know Greg. Sam is familiar with him, having heard about him and his disappearance even before he and I reunited. But Dean has only a cursory knowledge of him and what happened before my undercover assignment in Feathered Nest.

  What he does know is the brutality shown to him. Part of me feels defensive having either of them there in the first moments Greg is awake. He doesn’t know either of them, and they don’t know him. It might embarrass him or make him uncomfortable. At the same time, there’s value in what they observe and how they feel about anything he has to say. They are at a far greater distance from Greg and the situation than I am. That means they might be able to perceive things I don’t just as I can make links they can’t.

  This early in the morning, most people would like to still be curled up in bed, especially in the sharp chill of February. But D.C. is already wide awake and bustling. People rush around to get to their buses, the metro, class, and work breakfast, and coffee. Politicians, lobbyists, business people, students. The sidewalks are already full, and the day is already long for many of the people on them. We fight around the traffic and finally make it to the parking deck.

  “Did they tell you anything?” I ask as we get out of the car.

  “No. It was actually Eric who called. The hospital called him. All they would tell him is Greg woke up.”

  I nod and continue inside. Eric meets us at the elevator, and we ride up together.

  “They didn’t say anything about his condition?” I ask.

  Eric shakes his head. “No. “

  We get clearance and go to his room. The curtain has been pulled around the track on the ceiling to conceal his bed, and I see movement behind it. For one strange second, I think it’s Greg, that he’s realized he’s going to be late for breakfast and has just gotten out of the bed to leave.

  Typical of him. Always keeping a perfect schedule.

  “Greg?” I call out.

  The curtain moves aside, but instead of Greg, it’s a young nurse named Paula. She’s adjusting his IV and stops to smooth his blanket. When she notices us, she smiles.

  “Good morning,” she says.

  I step further into the room and look at Greg. He looks no different than he did yesterday.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asks.

  Paula looks at me, then back at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a call that Greg woke up,” Eric tells her.

  “He didn’t fully wake.” I look toward the door and the sound of the voice. Amelia comes in, looking smaller and paler than just hours before. I can’t help but notice the redness ringing her eyes. “I’m sorry if that’s what it sounded like.”

  “What do you mean he didn’t fully wake?” I ask. “You called Eric and said Greg woke up.”

  “Again, he didn’t fully regain consciousness. But he showed some improvement. He started speaking,” Amelia tells us.

  “Speaking?” I ask. “What did he say?”

  “Not much. I came in to check on him, and he was muttering a strange name. Lotan.”

  I look at each of the men in the room with me, waiting to see one of them give any indication they know what the word means. They shake their heads at me.

  “Lotan? That’s it? Are you sure that’s what he said?” I ask.

  Amelia nods. “It stuck with me because it was so strange. I’ve never heard a name like that before. But he just kept saying it over and over. The doctors have been lessening the medication that’s keeping him under, so it’s expected he will wake up fully soon. I thought that’s what was happening, but he didn’t come all the way out of it. He just kept saying ‘Lotan’ for a few minutes, then went quiet again.”

  “Is he alright?” I ask.

  “The doctor came in and checked him out. He is getting better. It doesn’t seem he stopped talking because of any type of trauma or worsened condition. His brain just isn’t fully ready to wake all the way up yet. He will be soon,” she says.

  “Do you really believe that?” I ask.

  It’s the first time I’ve let myself ask a question like that. Up until now, I’ve just stayed quiet, assuming the doctors would give us any new information that might come up. But they’ve never mentioned his chances of recovery. It’s always platitudes of him getting better or his injuries healing. Tests look good, though they won’t give us full information about what those tests are. But now I want to know. I need to hear if I’m waiting for a chance that isn’t going to come.

  “Yes,” Amelia nods. “I know he went through a lot, and he doesn’t look the best he’s ever looked, but he’s going to wake up. He’s fighting hard. Something is making him fight to come back.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I look at Sam as she leaves the room. “We need to figure out who or what Lotan is. It must mean something. It’s significant if it’s the first thing he says when his mind starts to rise up to consciousness. I just don’t even know where to start. I’ve never even heard that before.”

  “I have,” Paula says.

  I turn to her.

  “You’ve heard that name?” I ask. “Where?”

  She glances at the door as if to make sure Amelia isn’t there anymore.

  “Amelia can’t know I’m showing you this,” she whispers.

>   “We don’t have to tell her,” I assure her. “At least not yet. Where did you hear the name Lotan?”

  “Do any of you have a computer with you”? she asks.

  “Would my phone work?”

  “I’ll try.”

  I hand her my phone, and she clicks a few things into the search bar. It takes her a few moments and what looks like a complicated series of commands before she pulls up a video.

  “What is this?” I ask as she hands it back to me.

  “I noticed Martin always messing around on his computer during breaks. He never wanted to sit with any of us, and when we asked him what he was doing, he slammed the lid closed and wouldn’t let us see. It was really suspicious, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she says.

  “So, you were nosy,” Dean joked.

  “Yes,” she admits, but looks at him with a hint of bitterness in her eyes. “He did it every day, and it was strange. I just wanted to know what was so interesting. Maybe get a little bit more insight into him.”

  “You didn’t know him well?”

  “None of us did,” she tells me. “He’s a nice guy, and when he did want to talk, it was always fun, but it was obvious he was hiding something from us. I just wanted to know what it was. So, I created a little bit of a disturbance during one of his breaks. Then when he went to handle it, I went into the break room, found his laptop, and copy-pasted the URL into an email to myself. When I got home, I looked it up. It turned out to be an online blog. It was password protected, but it wasn’t hard to crack it. Lucky.”

  “Why was that easy?” I ask.

  “Martin has a tattoo of a clover on his arm and a horseshoe on his ankle. He talked about luck all the time. I put it in and the blog popped up. Most of the entries were videos. I watched the first one and it was so strange, I didn’t watch any more of them. That’s it,” she tells me.

  Dean, Sam, and Eric stuff up close around me so they can look at the screen with me. I press the play button, and Martin’s face appears. He looks like he’s in a small, dimly lit room, maybe even a closet. His eyes are wild, and he looks unkempt. The audio isn’t good. It crackles and fades in and out as if the recording itself was done on a faulty microphone, but I can catch some of what he’s saying.