“How much sauce?” Heather asked. “Dripped or drowned?”
“Drowned.”
She ladled sauce from a pot on the stove, expertly swirling it over the pasta. He smelled the onions and peppers, saw the steam rising as she set the dish down in front of him. Then she ducked into the fridge and placed some shredded parmesan on the table, opened the cabinet and took down the pepper grinder.
“You know more about my kitchen than I do,” he said.
Finally, she set out cutlery, then joined him with her own dish. “You keep yourself busy when you’re pent-up.”
He took a bite, savoring the flavors just long enough to get the damned food in his empty stomach. After he’d eaten enough to appease the monster inside, he dabbed his mouth with a napkin and looked across the table at her. “Are you doing okay?”
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, twirling pasta into a spoon. “I gotta say, it’s actually been nice having more time with the girls. You know, you think of single parenting and you imagine someone just up to their eyeballs in kids all the time.” She took a bite, chewed, looking lost in thought. After she swallowed she said, “And it’s like that, but it’s also a lot of time apart. I work all week. It’s good I get out at four, but it’s still long days for the girls.”
The anxiety curdled the food in his stomach. But he wanted to put off the inevitable a moment longer. “What does Olivia do? School doesn’t go until four, does it?”
“Ha. No. She goes to an after-school program. It’s right there in the same building, like a built-in day care. But I drop them off in the morning before eight and pick them up after four. So it’s still about a nine hour day for each of them. That’s a lot for two little girls.”
Tom’s ears pricked, hearing the remorse in her voice at the end. He gazed at her as she set down her fork and spoon and looked out the kitchen window. She seemed to gather herself back together and resumed eating.
“That sounds tough,” he said.
“I don’t know. Yeah, it is. But they seem okay. They’re such good girls. I think I give them a good life.”
“I know you do. They’re wonderful.”
She didn’t look at him. He watched her blush, and then her eyes came up, flustering him with their directness. “You were telling me you had, ah, a good experience with the Johnsons. When you were older.”
He was coming to think that focusing on other people was part of how Heather coped. He said, “I did, yeah. They were good people. But, Heather, I need to talk to you about something.”
She stared at him. “DFS is coming back. I know.”
Tom wasn’t sure what to say. He’d expected this to be upsetting, but she already knew or suspected.
“I work with DFS all the time,” she said. “I understand how this works. I figured when Agent Blythe was here she was going to notify them.”
“I’m sorry — I shouldn’t even have told her you were here . . .”
Heather raised an eyebrow. “She’s your supervisor. And she’s only doing what she has to do.”
“You’re taking this pretty well.”
“I’m devastated. But now I have to be really careful, anger only makes all of this grip you tighter. And I spoke to the girls this morning, told them they might have to stay with some other people for a little while.”
“How did they take it?”
Heather looked off toward the living room. “They’ll be okay.”
He didn’t know what to say, or if there was anything he could say.
“What about when you were little?” There she was, focusing on him again. “You and Nick, you’re about the same age apart as the girls. What was life like for two little Lange boys?”
He smiled through the deep ache rooted inside him. Normally he would provide some pat answer and get out of it. But the least he could do was oblige her with the distracting conversation.
“We had our good times. We had one place we lived, there were woods in the back, and we had a clubhouse. Like, the real deal. Nick even painted a sign, called us ‘The Protectors’.”
“The protectors?”
“Our job was to protect the woods.”
“A couple of budding environmentalists.”
He shrugged. “It was somewhere we could get away. You know what I mean? Sacred.”
“Sure. You were protecting it from the world.”
He looked down at his empty plate. “No one really bothered us.”
“Well, then you did a good job.”
“Except our father, once. Came out after us, found the clubhouse. And it was kind of over after that. We didn’t really . . . you know, we didn’t really like it anymore after that.”
When he looked up, she was regarding him in a certain way. It didn’t make him uncomfortable, but persuaded. He gently set down his fork and spoon, wiped his mouth again, and then stared into her blue eyes. “Our father . . . was violent with our mother. And he beat Nick. He hit me, too, but I never got it as bad.”
“Tom. I’m sorry.”
He fought the impulse to leave the table. “It happens, I guess.”
“Have you talked about it? You said you were seeing someone through your job.”
“I didn’t talk with him about it. But, I had a shrink when I was a kid. Court-appointed. I think I told you that. We talked about it; he called it an ACE or something.”
“Adverse Childhood Experience.”
“Yeah, right. One of those. Everyone has those, right? I’m going to get a drink, you want something?” He rose, dropped his dish in the sink and opened the fridge.
“Well, everyone had some bad experiences in childhood, sure. But, certain things, experiencing abuse, witnessing abuse . . . that can have a real long-term effect.”
The fridge blasted his face with cool air. “Orange juice? Milk?” He retreated and started going through the lower cabinets. “I think I have some wine around here . . .” He suddenly felt foolish. “Probably not the best time, for that, though.”
“It’s two cabinets over,” she said.
He glanced back at her and she winked. He found the Cabernet and pulled it out, then sifted through the drawer above for the bottle opener. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I can have a glass of wine. Life goes on. I’m not going to down the whole bottle.”
He drove the sharp tip of the opener into the wine cork and screwed it down. He had his back to Heather as he spoke. “Our father would have these gregarious, nice-guy spells. Every once in a while he’d take us on a trip. Took my mother to a hotel for the weekend, the only time. I thought maybe he was trying to make it all up to her.”
The air made a popping sound as he extracted the cork. “There was a fire at the hotel. A few people died, including my parents.” He set the items aside and opened the upper cabinets, found two wine glasses, set them aside.
When the emotion bubbled up, he wasn’t expecting it. He spread his hands across the counter, and, feeling dizzy, lowered his head.
Gradually he turned around. Heather was watching him, not with pity, not in judgment; just listening.
There was thumping upstairs, the sound of feet traversing the bedroom. Then pounding down the stairway at the back of the condo. “Mommy?”
Heather got up from the table and intersected Olivia in the living room. Tom heard their voices.
“Abigail pulled my hair,” Olivia said.
“She did?”
More pounding upstairs. Going the other direction, like little Abby was running away.
Tom poured a glass of the wine. He listened as Heather moved off with Olivia, headed back up. He was lost in thought about childhood and parenting when his phone vibrated in his bag by the kitchen door. He pulled it out and saw the new text.
How you doing, Tom?
Tom ducked back into the kitchen and was quick to reply.
Tell me who you are.
This time the text went through. He waited, feeling his heart beat a strong rhythm. Then new words appeared.
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br /> What would you do to protect your secret?
It was another 945 number. He knew the last digits were different without even having to compare them this time. Who was it? Daryl Trenton was in prison. Todd Whitcomb was a thousand miles away.
He wrote back again. I’m going to find you.
Once more he waited. The phone vibrated with the new message.
Check your email.
Tom set down the phone and grabbed his bag. He opened up his laptop on the table, logged into the state bureau’s system and entered his email password.
His skin crawled as he scanned the two dozen recent messages. Everything he saw came from someone within the FDLE. Nothing drew his attention — they all seemed non-threatening. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for and needed to go through each one. But he checked his personal email first.
His Gmail account open, Tom pulled his hands back from the laptop as if it had become radioactive. The most recent message, from [email protected] read: Tom’s a Liar.
He double-tapped the mouse pad and opened the mail.
Tom stared at a picture of his own face, but years younger. Just barely a teenager. A bruise marked one cheek, and his eye was threaded with shattered capillaries. A mug shot.
The heat worked its way up the back of his neck, around his ears as he leaned in to read the text beside the photo. On top was the insignia for Yonkers Police Department. Below that, his name, date of birth, physical characteristics, then the list of charges.
His phone buzzed again. Not a text this time, but an incoming call. The same 945 number.
“Who is this?”
“Pretty heavy stuff, Tommy,” the voice was synthesized, flat of affect, just as Heather Moss had described. “Drug possession, destruction of property, assault, resisting arrest — quite a sheet. You were a bad boy.”
Tom’s mouth was dry, his eyes riveted to the screen. “Those records were sealed.”
There was a pause, then: “Tom, anyone today who thinks something is sealed is naïve. People hack the IRS. Elections are influenced. Companies are toppled. Nothing is safe, Tom.”
Tom stared at his thirteen year-old self, remembering that day. Many of the events leading up to it were a blur, but nothing was as crisp and clear as being arrested and processed. Below the frame of the mug shot, his knuckles had been scraped bloody.
“Focus, Tommy. Lying on your application for the state bureau is a major offense. Maybe even prison. And you will never, ever, be a cop again.”
Tom struggled to find the words. He was still gripped by his memories. After their parents had died in the fire, he and Nick had gone into the foster care system. But it wasn’t easy keeping two pre-teen boys together. Tom had fallen in with the wrong crowd. By thirteen, alone, angry at himself for not protecting his mother, he’d wanted to watch the world burn.
Maybe just like his father.
“It is amazing how things work out,” the caller said in that toneless electronic lilt. “You are even better than I had hoped.” But, Tom realized, the caller wasn’t talking at all. Rather, he was sitting somewhere typing the words.
“Better for what? For your fucking games?” He was aware his voice was rising. He thought he heard Heather coming back downstairs but couldn’t be sure. “You think you’re going to threaten me with this?”
Another brief pause. “I know it threatens you. It will undo everything you have worked for. It will completely ruin your life.”
Tom strained to hear sounds from the other room. Someone was definitely coming. Heather was being quiet, though, maybe not wanting to disturb him, maybe listening.
He spoke in a harsh whisper. “How did you get that information? And how did you get my new number? Did you hack into the state bureau, too?”
“I get what I want when I want it. Everyone has a secret. Even Mrs. Moss has a secret.”
He glanced up at the sound of her name, caught a glimpse of her in the kitchen doorway, then she retreated.
“I am not the bad guy,” the caller said. “I am the liberator. Howard Declan was a pedophile. Brian Hamer an extortionist. Your friend Coburn invaded people’s privacy.”
Tom kept watch on the vacant doorway. “And what about Heather Moss?”
“She is a liar,” the caller said. “Just like you, Tom. Only, your real vice is violence.”
Tom stood up from the table. As he moved toward the kitchen window he said, “Why Howard Declan? Did you just pick him out of a hat?”
“Everyone serves their purpose, Tom. They walk around, thinking it is fate, or thinking it is God. But, it is not God. It is me they are serving. Just remember what I know about you. When the time comes, you will do exactly what I say. Everyone always does.”
“You’re trying to justify your pathology. You use people for your amusement, then throw them away, a garden variety psycho, nothing special.”
Tom pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the screen. The connection had ended.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
He needed a minute. He couldn’t talk to Heather right now. Culpepper was outside and Tom lit up a smoke, hands shaking.
The agent looked worried. “The hell happened in there?”
“Sergeant Coburn said someone hacked his unit, got information on Howard Declan. I believed it, but the guy just confirmed it.”
“You talked to him?”
Tom nodded. “And he sent me emails.”
“What about the call? You said this 945 number was a repeat, different from the others.”
“Communications department thinks that these phones are essentially reprogrammed to have a different number. It’s the digital equivalent of grinding off serial numbers. Maybe this one repeated, but I doubt we’ll ever see it again. This is well thought-out. This guy has been setting this up for a while.”
He stared off, thinking about Edgar Vasquez, disappearing two months ago. That event seemed to set the whole thing in motion. The timeline wasn’t exactly clear: either just before or after the Everglades County drug-runner went missing, Brian Hamer had shown up on Marco Island — presumably lured to the area by the promise of work — to hack the county jail. But if he’d gotten a bit of an earlier start, he could’ve been the one to hack Vasquez’s brand-new car computer, too, cause the brakes to fail, something. Hamer was, apparently, a genius.
And Vasquez was a rival of Palumbo, so Palumbo had tried to cut a deal. VNB watched the whole thing. Vasquez refused the deal, died. County CID investigated the crash, but it wound up buried under layers of protected surveillance and court orders.
Circumstantial or not, it did all seem to point to Palumbo. The son of a bitch who’d ruined Nick’s life was involved in this thing. Blythe had to be right — nothing else made any sense. This was Palumbo bringing the house down around everyone’s ears. Now he was reaching out — or someone from inside his organization was — and messing with Tom, too.
But no one had asked Tom for money yet if Nick’s debt was involved . . .
Culpepper was staring. “Lange? So the phones are a dead end, alright — what are you thinking? You’re talking emails—”
“I’m not expecting much there either.”
“You’re gonna speak to Matt Forsythe though.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to him . . .”
Who are you? One of Palumbo’s crew I never learned about? An outside hire?
What do you want from me?
“I’ll give you that he seems to have covered his ass pretty good so far,” Culpepper said. “I bet he’s using proxy servers, rerouting his emails all over the place, running them through some public space to become anonymous.” He stuck a smoke in his mouth, and with it wagging between his lips, added, “I was a computer science minor.”
Tom suddenly grabbed the cigarette and threw it aside. He mashed out his own half-finished smoke, too.
Culpepper balked at first: “What are you doing?” Then he put it together. “Ah, Jesus. You got to be kidding me. Poison? You
think so? God, this is crazy.”
A moment later a car pulled up on the street in front. Tom jogged out of the breezeway in time to see the doors opening, DFS workers getting out. The bearded man had a long ponytail and a suit that hung too big, the woman was round-faced and large through the hips with a slight waddle to her walk.
“Agent Lange? We’re with the Department of Family Services . . .”
“Yes, I know who you are.”
“Then you know we’re here to speak to Heather Moss and her children?”
Tom stepped back and extended an arm, led them into the breezeway. Past Culpepper, whose face summed up his own feelings — not only was Heather about to be separated from her daughters, but another location was blown. If DFS knew they were at Tom’s house, anyone might.
When he opened the door on the townhouse, Heather was standing in the living room, getting the girls dressed. The sight of their bags — Abigail’s backpack with the ducks on it, Olivia’s tote with her art supplies sticking out — broke his heart.
The DFS workers introduced themselves, and the woman, Leslie Parker, said, “Mrs. Moss, I’ll just come right to the point: we have reason to believe your children are at imminent risk of psychological harm.”
Heather finished putting Abigail’s little shoes on and stood calmly. Abigail took cover behind one of her legs. Olivia stood solemnly beside her. “I understand,” Heather said. “And what reason do you have to believe they’re at risk?”
“Well, we talked with Olivia and Abigail during their time with us. Both girls said that they’d been scared by the recent events in their lives, Olivia said she was upset that she might be . . . that something bad might happen to her.”
Tom looked at the six year-old, remembered meeting her for the first time, sitting in her mother’s car, happily coloring a picture. Minutes later he’d been shielding her from gunfire.
Parker said, “Mrs. Moss, you know how this works. The judge’s ruling was contingent on witness protection. Since you’re not officially under the care of the state, the judge wants to reconsider the safety of the children.”
Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set Page 48