by HN Wake
“I’m very sorry about everything that has happened.”
Hettie stared at the ceiling of the ambulance with blank eyes.
“It will not make sense for a while. It’s going to take some time to sink in. You take all the time you need.”
Hettie’s brow wrinkled.
“Hettie, do you remember what happened in your apartment?”
Hettie shook her head and whispered, “No,” before looking into Dom’s eyes.
The Rhypnohl had done its job—it had wiped her memory. It meant Hettie didn’t know what her mother had done to her. Or that Micah was gone. Dom took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you that is not going to be easy to hear. Are you ready?”
With wide eyes, Hettie nodded.
“Hettie, your mother drugged and kidnapped you.”
Hettie’s face wrinkled.
“Then she bundled you up and brought you here to Titus Hill. To keep you from the trial in Toronto.”
Hettie stared at Dom’s lips.
“Trust me when I say that all this will be your past. You will have your future. It will be yours. You will be in charge of your future. Not your mother. Not your father.” Dom swallowed. “Hettie, there’s one more thing.”
Hettie waited.
“Your mother also hired someone … to kill Micah. Hettie, Micah is dead.”
Hettie’s eyes dilated.
“I’m sorry.”
Hettie blinked.
“I’m so sorry.”
Wait for it. Wait for it.
The blue eyes froze, locked on Dom’s.
It was shock. And shock took time. Hours. Maybe days.
Dom squeezed Hettie’s hand. “You are strong, Hettie Van Buren. I know all about you. Remember, you are strong.”
From the end of the drive, a large black Mercedes roared up the drive and squealed to a break.
With a final look at the dazed young woman, Dom crouched out from the ambulance.
In the center of the brick drive, Claude threw himself out of his car. “Where is my daughter? Where is Hettie?!”
A rescue agent pointed at the ambulance and Claude broke into a run.
Dom stepped out of the way and approached the front of a black SUV in the convoy line. Inside, Yvette stared contemptuously past the windscreen at the manor, ignoring her surroundings. Dom leaned close to the glass and tapped it. Yvette turned with hard eyes and a small confident smile.
“I have evidence, Yvette. Plenty of it. I’m going to send you away for a very long time. Oslo Bockel won’t be able to help you. Oh yeah, I’ve got the evidence. I’ve got you.”
The smile faded, and Yvette glared.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got the evidence.”
In Dom’s mind, Stewart Walker whispered, “See, my Dom, you are enough.”
In the dark of the neighbor’s drive, cocooned in the silence of her car, Dom cracked her neck. Time to check in. She dialed Fontaine’s number.
He answered quickly. “You out of there?”
“Yeah, the Philly field office has it under control. I left Hettie with the EMTs. Claude just showed up.”
“And the private guys?”
“They’re fine. Pretty professional actually. They were invited on the property by Claude. So, in the end, there was no illegality on their part. Yvette shot one of them when they breeched.”
“He okay?”
“Yeah, it was a graze.”
“And Yvette?”
There weren’t many words to describe Yvette Van Buren or the feelings Dom had about her. “She’s in custody.”
His voice turned soft. “And Hettie?”
Dom stared into the darkness. Hettie was strong, but what she needed to recover from this diabolical situation was resilience. “I dunno. You never can tell.”
“You found her, Dom, alive. That’s all that matters. It’s a win.”
It didn’t feel like a win. How often in her FBI career had the win turned out to be pretty horrible? Too many. Too many to think about right now. There were too many monsters destroying lives. “Yeah, I guess.”
“It’s the best possible outcome.”
“Sure.” The sadness felt infinite.
“Take the weekend off. We’ll wrap up the paperwork on a school day.”
The gentleness in his voice made her close her eyes.
“And Walker?”
Whatever he was about to say, she wasn’t ready for it. Coming so close to Yvette’s evil and having witnessed Hettie’s devastation, Dom Walker wasn’t ready for kindness.
“You did really good. You’re a solid special agent, Walker. Come on home.” Then he was gone.
Her throat thickened, and the back of her lids stung. Pride nudged the sadness. Fidelity, bravery, and integrity. She would always fight the monsters. It’s what she did.
The phone vibrated with an incoming call. She clicked it on.
“Special Agent Walker? It’s Mila Pascale.” The faint voice sounded exhausted. “Can you pick me up from the hospital?”
THE NEXT WEEK
The male called wildly for her to follow. The terror of the ground had not yet left him. But the female didn’t move. He circled and recircled above and his plaintive cries must have reached her, but she didn’t call back. A long time later he overcame the fear and landed on the ground close to her.
—Fred Bodsworth, “Last of the Curlews”
55
On the fourth-floor landing of the Mott Street apartment building, Dom unlocked the door and felt it push against a wedged chair. Cracking the door open, she hooked her hand through, grabbed the chair, and wiggled it aside. Inside the raw floorboards creaked under her feet. A blue bedspread was lumped near the end of mattress on the floor. A small kitchenette table sat at the end of a long laminate counter and a battered leather armchair was hunkered by one of the tall windows. The bright sunlight, white walls and white-washed floorboards made the small room feel large. The place was incredibly clean—no dust balls, no dirt. A glass jar held hundreds of pennies, but otherwise there was very little color and no knick knacks or photos. Most young women had stuff, but she and Beecher learned over the weekend that Mila was not most women.
A breeze billowed white gauzy curtains. The last time Dom had entered another woman’s empty apartment, the pungent smell of lilies jarred a warning. So much had happened since last Tuesday. Micah’s torn chest. The Zapatas wailing. The ghost-like cement of Port Morris. The Aerie view of the city from Rittenhouse Equity. The glistening highway on the way to Titus Hill. Hettie’s hair brushed back over a white pillow. So much tragedy at the hands of a single demented woman. Life was fragile and transitory.
Had it really already been three days since she raced from Gladwyne back to New York’s Bellevue Hospital?
Dom found Mila sitting upright on a hospital bed in the emergency section, pale and thin, an oddly serene creature in the midst of the medical chaos. Machines pinged, children screeched, a drunk rambling incoherently, and Mila’s bandaged feet rested at the foot of the bed.
A young doctor, working with tweezers on her hands, glanced over his shoulder as Dom stepped into the antiseptic room. “Well, now I get to meet the family of my bravest patient.”
Mila glanced up at Dom with a pleading look.
Dom asked, “What happened?”
The doctor said, “Looks like Mila got in a fight with some very sharp gravel and a whole farm of splinters. I’m working on her hands. Glad to see someone’s come to get her home.”
“She okay?”
“You’re going to be just fine, aren’t you, Mila?”
Mila nodded, her eyes on Dom.
He returned attention to the splinters in Mila’s hands. “We’re getting all the offending culprits out. She’s had a tetanus shot, we have her on antibiotics, and we’ll bandage her up in a few minutes. She’ll be good to go home soon. A few days and she’ll be back to fighting fit.”
Over his head, Dom nodded to Mila. “Okay, good. Thanks, Doc.”
Mila gave her a timid smile.
An hour later, Dom had settled Mila into the Lancia. “What happened?”
Bandaged hands rested in her lap, and bandaged feet wore hospital slippers. “I appreciate you coming to get me.”
“What happened?”
Mila’s eyes were sunken. “It was a bad night.”
“I left you at the coffee shop near CAN a few hours ago. What happened?”
Mila gazed across the hospital parking lot. “A lot.”
“Start talking.”
Mila bit her lip before slowly relaying the story of her research on the Filthy Five and the lists she discovered in the New York University Law School’s Police Records Project.
The Filthy Five. Dom’s stomach dropped. It had been a long time since she heard that reference. She relived the march down the steps of the courthouse, the press yelling questions, her hand squeezing Beecher’s, and Esther following behind. It had been the beginning of the rest of her life. Her chest clenched.
Mila’s voice as small. “I wanted to help find Hettie.”
“So why research me?”
“I wanted to know if you were a good agent or a mediocre one.” The bandaged hands bobbled in her lap. “I did research. That’s what I do. I chase rabbits where ever they lead me. The Filthy Five seemed relevant—”
“They’re not,” Dom said tightly.
“Not to this case—"
“Not to anything.”
“Well, I deduced you chose the FBI to prove yourself. To prove that you are a good person. That was useful data.”
This young woman’s black-and-white view of the world was unnerving. Dom was used to secrets and maneuvering. “So then what happened?
Mila whispered, “The Filthy Five are regrouping.”
Breath caught in Dom’s chest.
“I figured I should tell someone. So I sent a note to their Chief. Told him about the leader, Robert Gessen and his crew. I thought I had sent an anonymous email. But they tracked me down through my ISP. It would have been in the metadata of the email. It was a really, really dumb mistake. A rookie move.” Mila dropped her chin. “So dumb.”
“Why on earth would you send your findings to the Chief of the Precinct?”
Mila turned to her, eyes clear and open. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
Dom hadn’t met someone like Mila in a very long time. Just a good, good person. Odd. But good. “You could definitely have gotten hurt. NYPD do not mess around.” She pointed at Mila. “When this is all over, you and I are gonna have a long talk about your research.”
Mila whispered, “You can’t stop me.”
Dom gaped. “What did you just say?”
Mila stuck out her chin. “You can’t stop me from researching. It’s what I do. I want to be an FBI analyst. That’s why I’m a researcher.”
Dom blinked.
Mila stared.
Dom was the one to break the stare. “Where’s your family?”
Mila glanced away.
Was she alone in New York? “Do you not have family in New York?”
Mila’s voice was small. “No.”
Her tone implied she had no family at all. A pang of guilt pricked Dom’s stomach. “Do you have family?”
“No.”
Dom exhaled. “Well you can’t go home while two crooked cops are chasing you. You’ll come stay with us till I get this sorted. Did they give you pain meds?”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
Mila shrugged. “Drugs are bad.”
Tinks met them with a tap dance, a dangling tongue, and a chiming collar just before sunrise. Mila crouched and stroked Tinks gingerly with bandaged hands. It was the first smile Dom ever saw on her.
Beecher stepped into the kitchen, blonde hair askew, eyes blinking over a big grin. Easy-going, ever adaptable, never-surprised Beecher. “Hey. You both are either up really early for church or coming in really late from a boozy bender. From the look of those bandages, I’d guess the bender.”
Mila stood.
“Mila this is my brother, Beecher. Beecher, this is Mila Pascale.”
“Did you win or lose that fight?” he chuckled.
Mila’s face was blank, but her eyes were curious.
Dom said, “Mila had a run in with some bad guys. Unfortunately, she also had a run in with gravel and splinters, but she’s fine.”
“Huh. You want coffee or to go to sleep?” He glanced up at Dom. “The case?”
“Hettie Van Buren is safe.”
Mila whispered, “We found her.”
Beecher chuckled at Mila’s interference.
Dom said, “It’s a long story, and we need sleep. Beecher, do you mind showing Mila to the guest room?”
His hair flopped as he nodded. “This way, my friend.”
Mila stared at Tinks. “Is she allowed in beds?”
Beecher laughed at Dom. “Oh my, Tinks is about to have a new best friend for life! Come on, Tinks, let’s show our guest how you’ve perfected the art of sleeping.”
A full smile broke across Mila’s face as she shuffled across the kitchen floor after Tinks and Beecher.
In the apartment on Mott Street, Dom stepped to an open window overlooking a wild, unruly park. At this time of day, the gate was open but the park was empty. On Thursday night, it would have been very dark. Mila would have scuttled across the rusty fire escape, barefoot, made her way down the flimsy ladder, would have jumped down to the ground, would have landed on the gravel, and would have raced across the lawn. It would have been a terrifying flight.
Bastards. That had tracked her here. One of them, probably that bastard Robert Gessen, had lumbered up the stairwell and banged on the door while the other waited in the shadows by the gate. It had been a well-planned approach—calm and rationale—and diabolically frightening. What had Mila called them? Terrifying Dirty Cop and Fiendish Partner?
It had been a spine-chilling stalking, but it was not criminal. Further, if they had wanted to actually kidnap Mila, they would have merely waited for her to come or go from the apartment. But calm, rationale cops didn’t just nab young women. That led to a lot of unnecessary hassles. Where to hide them? Who to watch over them? What to do with them when they were done? No, that bastard Robert Gessen and his partner had simply wanted to scare Mila.
Well, gentlemen, two can play at that game. Once I’ve gotten Mila off your radar, I’m gonna dig into the Filthy Five reunion. Because you motherfuckers broke up my family.
Her phone pinged. It was a message from Fontaine. “OPR is ready for you. Interview is scheduled today for one pm. Javitz floor three.”
She headed across the creaky floorboards. The hits just kept coming.
56
Toronto, Ontario
She didn’t like Toronto. It was clean and the people had treated her nicely, but she didn’t like the sun. Maria much preferred the yellow heat in Honduras that warmed her face and arms than the diluted glow this far north. They had put her in a hotel with a huge soft bed. But she had difficulty sleeping, sinking into the grasping mattress. She did not like being confined.
This morning they discussed the trial. They explained they would take her to a grand courtroom where a translator would help and a lawyer would ask questions. She thought of the office in Tegucigalpa with the large man with the thick neck and wondered if the courtroom lawyer would treat her dismissively. It didn’t matter. She was here to tell the story. An arrogant lawyer could not stop her.
She sat on a large wooden chair staring over the courtroom and a sea of a thousand eyes. A young translator stood by her left ear. To her right, an imposing woman judge watched over her, a soothing guardian in a black robe and red sash. She never imagined a woman could be a judge.
The lawyer stood and walked to her. His eyes were kind and gentle. He knows, she thought. He knows what’s coming. It is time to tell our story.
The lawyer said softly, “Hello, Maria.”
S
he nodded as the young translator whispered in her ear.
“Maria, we would like for you to tell us about what happened on March 25, five years ago in Rapoosa. Are you able to do that?”
For my Ines, I am able to do this. “Si.”
The translator said “Yes.”
“Thank you,” the lawyer said with sad eyes. “Why don’t you tell us in your words what happened that night?”
She cleared her throat. “Early that night, at sunset, there had been a red sky and a sound over the lake. The sound wind makes when it is angry.” She looked at the translator and said in Spanish, “Aullido.”
He nodded. “Howling. The wind was howling.”
She and the translator continued. “In the village, before that night, we taunted the children, tell them bad things happen when there is a blood red sky that howls. I can’t remember if we joked that night. But I remember the red sky and the wind.” She swallowed. “We don’t joke anymore.” She wrung her hands and swallowed. “They came in the middle of the night when we were sleeping. They came quietly, like a pack of coyotes. They must have known that many of our village had gone to Tegucigalpa. Most of the men had gone. They must have known that they had gone to protest.” She didn’t know if she should explain the protests, the mining company Phalanx, or the new mine.
The lawyer said, “We know about your protests, Maria. No need to explain all that.”
“I remember there were only three men left. Us women and girls stayed behind. We woke to the fires. The smoke from the roofs. The reeds popped as they burned. I ran out of my home and saw all the homes on fire. They must have set all the homes on fire at the same time.
“There were ten coyotes. They were large men, dressed in black. They stood in a circle around our homes. We were in the center, trapped.
“We stood in a group, in the middle of the burning. Fifteen women, the three men, and the children. We were crying, our men were yelling—Miguel and Rodrigo were yelling the most, trying to be brave. We were terrified.
“Then the coyotes moved in, coming closer. Miguel and Rodrigo moved to meet them.”