Dominion

by Greg F. Gifune

  “Did you see her?” Daniel asked weakly.

  “Who?”

  Daniel didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Forget it.”

  “You all right?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, I’m OK. Thanks.”

  The man didn’t seem convinced but nodded and strode over to the dumpster anyway. After tossing the bags into the bin, he returned to the diner, warily staring at Daniel the entire time.

  Once his bearings had returned, Daniel pushed away from the SUV and scanned the parking lot one more time. There was still no sign of the woman. Rubbing the back of his head, he returned to his car.

  Like someone who had stepped off a cliff only to realize he could fly, Daniel tried to understand that which was clearly impossible but happening right before his eyes. Even in his present state, he knew his best chance at doing just that was in attempting to find some semblance of sanity in all this. There had to be an answer rooted somewhere in reality, in common sense and logic and reason. In the meantime, he was still flying off the edge of that cliff, catching the wind and helplessly gliding away over the earth, a scrap of debris blown about without rhyme or reason, hopeful that somewhere beyond the horizon there existed not only a meaningful destination, but something greater that might catch him should he fall.

  He wondered if Lindsay had thought the same thing in the days before her death.

  Daniel glanced at the diner. The waitress, back behind the cash register, stared out through the glass at him, the look on her face a fusion of mystification, unease and fear.

  He knew just how she felt.

  FOURTEEN

  Upon Daniel’s return home, he found the answering machine blinking with a message. Oddly, if not impossibly, the call had somehow circumvented the caller ID, as according to the device, no calls had come in. But the answering machine had captured a single message, an odd series of apparently random sounds and noises reminiscent of the sounds he’d heard in his dream. The sound of water in gentle motion, mixed with soft gurgling noises and the vague trace of what sounded like steady breathing somewhere in the distance continued for two or three minutes then disconnected. He played the message three times, and though there was something faintly familiar about the sound, whatever point the caller had tried to make remained beyond his grasp.

  Daniel saved it then moved slowly through the house trying to decide what to do next.

  Awaiting night and huddled in every corner, shadows stained the walls. When Lindsay was alive Daniel had rarely noticed shadows—hadn’t paid them any particular attention, really—but since her death they had become more manifest, watching over him, perhaps stalking him. He couldn’t be sure, he only knew they were there whenever he looked for them, constant reminders that light, and all the warmth and safety that accompanied it, was fleeting and unreliable.

  The bareness of the bedroom had never been stronger. It was cold in this room, spiritless and hollow, and though Daniel was surrounded by remnants of the happier life he’d once known, they were incapable of weakening his feelings of doom.

  Old photographs on both bureaus watched him.

  He’d had a nice childhood, a good life, a loving marriage and a successful career. But now he couldn’t help but think it was all catching up with him, demanding payback, the chit called in for all those years of happiness to be traded now for the misery which was due.

  Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, a lost soul hoping for rescue.

  The conversation he’d had with his mother and the subsequent events at the diner festered in his head for a while.

  His eyes locked on a photo of Lindsay on his nightstand. Taken a few years ago, while on an afternoon outing, it was one of his favorites, a breezy picture of Lindsay on the steps of the Museum of Fine Arts. It had been a gorgeous summer day, and he’d snapped it just as she turned and looked back over her shoulder at him, her hair still in motion when the picture was captured. He remembered the dress she wore that day, how it moved when she walked and how her body felt beneath it when he’d held her against him. “Are you still with me?” he asked the photograph.

  The silence was suffocating.

  Daniel forced himself to his feet and down the hall to the computer room. He powered the desktop on, and while it went through its paces, he grabbed Lindsay’s PDA from the canvas bag he’d left against the wall previously and checked it again, this time for numbers or contacts in Pennsylvania. Nothing. He tossed it aside then turned back to the desktop. He increasingly believed there was a computer connection in all this somewhere, but at this point he was doing little more than wandering in the dark and hoping he might bump into something of value. For Daniel, computers were either tools he used through work or toys he used at home, and while he could competently operate them in a basic sense, he was far from an expert. He needed the help of someone more knowledgeable in this area, someone capable of finding things he never could. He remembered Lindsay mentioning a problem Audrey had encountered about a year before with a man bothering her online, and how a friend of her husband Elliot’s had gotten them in touch with a hacker that had found the man’s identity for them relatively quickly. He couldn’t remember the details but remembered Lindsay telling him about it not long after it happened. Daniel hadn’t given it much thought since, but made a mental note to ask Elliot about it.

  He signed into Lindsay’s chat messenger program, listed her nickname as “available” and waited. As before, no one came looking for ADGURL32.

  Maybe it was a matter of dangling the bait in the water a bit longer, he thought.

  Daniel grabbed his coat and headed to Audrey’s.

  This time he left the computer on.

  * * *

  Audrey had known Lindsay even longer than Daniel had. Friends since high school, they had remained close over the years, and though the unspoken barrier a history of close friendship can sometimes create between a best friend and a spouse did exist, Audrey and Daniel had always gotten along remarkably well. Still, Audrey was someone Daniel found pretentious at times, and in social settings often preferred her husband Elliot’s company. She married Elliot a year after Lindsay had married Daniel. Each had been the maid or matron of honor at the other’s wedding. Over the last three years Audrey’s career as an interior design specialist had boomed, and she and Elliot, a part-time writer and full-time editor at a small Boston publishing house, had moved from their modest digs in the city’s north end to a beautiful place in Beacon Hill, an exclusive neighborhood located just to the north of the Commons and the Boston Public Garden.

  The approximately half-mile-square neighborhood was known for its small-town-within-a-city feel. From its beautiful, mostly brick row houses, brass door knockers, old-fashioned gas streetlights, window boxes, trees and gardens, to its quaint commercial properties, Beacon Hill was perhaps best known to those outside the city as home to the Massachusetts State House, which sits atop the literal hill and looks out majestically over the Boston Commons. Because parking is notoriously scarce in Beacon Hill, Daniel decided to walk. Though it took several minutes, it gave him a chance to get some fresh air and clear his head before approaching Audrey.

  The city was even quieter on this late Thanksgiving afternoon than it had been earlier, and the temperature was continuing to drop. Though not yet freezing, it had become substantially colder than just a few hours before, and Daniel had gotten less than a few blocks when he regretted not bringing a heavier coat.

  As he increased his speed, cut through the Commons and skirted the still waters of the large duck pond, he was suddenly confronted with a crushing feeling that he was no longer alone. The presence of something moving along the banks of the pond was so strong it froze him in mid-step and caused him to turn to see if someone was beside him.

  Though his eyes told him he was alone in the park, the sensation of a presence other than his own grew even stronger. He could feel it, something impossible but unmistakable, an exhale of air—perhaps a sigh—something close to his ear, and t
hen a subtle brush of warmth across his face, a slow and even sensation passing from familiar lips to his own.

  “Lindsay,” he said, his breath turning in the air like smoke. He’d spent endless nights dreaming of feeling her face against his own just once more, and now that it might be happening he was so shaken he could barely speak. “Is that you?”

  A gust of wind knifed through the trees and across the pond. As it left the park, it carried the sensation of Lindsay away with it.

  “Hold it together,” he whispered. “Hold it together.”

  As quickly as it arrived, his sense of her was gone. Daniel pushed himself forward, walking on until he’d reached Beacon Hill.

  FIFTEEN

  Elliot answered the door with a smile, and after he and Daniel shook hands and exchanged holiday wishes, explained Audrey was freshening up and would be joining them momentarily.

  “Audrey mentioned on the phone you guys were basically laying low today,” Daniel said, following Elliot deeper into the house. “I didn’t want to interrupt anything.”

  “No worries, we decided to go low-key this year. No big family dinners, hoopla or travel. We’re both too busy, and besides, we’ve done it every year since we’ve been married and it’s a nice change to have a quiet holiday at home for once. I’m sure we’ve offended nearly everyone on both sides of the family but they’ll just have to understand.” Elliot, dressed in his usual khaki pants, loafers and drab oxford shirt, guided him from the entryway into a large den, two of its four walls lined with ceiling-to-floor bookcases packed with neat rows of mostly leather bound books, the third sporting an ornate fireplace (in which a fire was presently burning) and the fourth a tall double window overlooking a handsome flower garden. Mozart played quietly through hidden speakers somewhere in the ceiling, and though the fire gave the room a cozy feel, like the rest of their home, the den was a beautiful and meticulously decorated room that looked more like a photographic still in an interior design magazine than a space actually inhabited by human beings. Elliot strode past a plush sofa and set of antique chairs to a full bar on the fireplace wall. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Please.” Daniel remained in the center of the room like the proverbial bull in a china shop, afraid to touch anything as he might muss the “presentation” as Audrey would say. “Vodka and a little ginger ale on the rocks if you’ve got it.”

  “We’re having capon in about an hour or so, why don’t you stay?” Elliot asked as he attended to their drinks. “We’ve got more than enough and it’s just the two of us.”

  “I appreciate it, but I can’t.”

  The awkward moment where someone in his presence tried desperately to think of topics other than Lindsay was something Daniel had become used to, and he could sense it in Elliot, the look on his face as his mind raced for something to talk about. “How’s the family?”

  “Everybody’s fine, thanks.”

  “How’s your mom been doing?”

  “She’s hanging in there.”

  He held out a drink for Daniel. “Such a sinister disease,” he said, “Alzheimer’s.”

  “That it is. How’ve you guys been?”

  “Audrey’s business has skyrocketed to the point where I barely see her these days. She decorates half of New England while I spend my days checking textbooks for typos and my nights slaving over the same damn novel I’ve been writing since my senior year of college. What can I say? All is well.” Elliot offered a comical smile. Seven years Daniel’s senior, his droopy eyes and pudgy shape gave him something of a hound dog look, but his closely-cropped beard, specked with gray, and his dark hair, which he wore a bit longer than most men his age, offset them nicely. “And this place is great, we love it here.” His own drink mixed, he joined Daniel in the center of the room. “But to be honest,” he said, lowering his voice and looking about conspiratorially, “it gets a bit tiring having to walk around my own home like it’s a museum. Sometimes I get the overwhelming urge to knock over a vase, and every now and then when Audrey’s not looking, I muss some pillows.” He chuckled softly, raised his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Listen, I need to ask you something on the QT, Elliot.”

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I need to get a hold of someone who knows computers. Someone more than just a computer expert, though, someone who can find information others can’t.”

  He frowned, drank some more scotch. “I see.”

  “I remember Lindsay saying something about a guy that was bothering Audrey online a while back.”

  “I didn’t think Audrey had told anyone about that.”

  “She said you’d found some hacker or something that was able to help.”

  “Ah, yes, the infamous Bedbug.”

  “Bedbug. Are you serious?”

  “That’s his name, the guy that helped us, Bedbug. As in: ‘crazier than a.’ Well, that’s the name he goes by at any rate. I found him through Jeff, our computer guy at work.” Elliot drifted to the doorway and cocked his head to see if Audrey was nearby. Satisfied that she wasn’t on the stairs or on her way into the room he turned back to Daniel. “He knew Bedbug and got me in touch with him. Interesting guy—a little scary—but interesting. Not the type that always adheres to practices that fall within the law, as it were, but a good person to know if you’re having a problem like Audrey was. That’s why Jeff put me in touch with him. Audrey started getting these obscene emails. At first it was fairly standard fare and she dismissed them. But they kept up, and got continually more disgusting. He wasn’t lacking in the imagination department, I’ll give him that. But eventually they turned threatening. When one of the emails made mention of her full name, home address and what she’d been wearing a few days prior, Audrey went into an all-out panic. I was going to call the police but decided to mention it to Jeff first, because I’d heard a story through the grapevine at work that he knew this hacker that had helped one of the girls in the office with some pervert that was giving her a hard time. Apparently he got into this guy’s computer and downloaded something so deadly it cooked his hard drive on the spot. I thought maybe Jeff’s friend could find out who this creep was that was bothering Audrey. When I asked Jeff about it he said he wouldn’t be able to help, but knew someone who could. That’s how I met Bedbug.”

  “And this guy was able to put a stop to the emails?” Daniel asked.

  “In less than thirty minutes he got us the guy’s name, home address, phone number and even the credit card number that was used to set up his Internet provider account.” Elliot drank more scotch. “Turned out the guy was a sixteen-year-old kid who lives a few blocks from here. Apparently he saw Audrey on the street, followed her home then found out what her name was. He got her email address through her work website. Just some troubled kid with issues. We contacted his parents and showed them the evidence we had. They begged us not to go the police so we never did, but the boy apologized to Audrey and promised to never bother her again. Hopefully they got the little bastard some help.”

  “So what’s the deal with this Bedbug?”

  “I don’t know much about him personally, I only met him once, and believe me that was enough.” Elliot shook his head and smiled. “According to Jeff, Bedbug was a hotshot computer whiz kid or something at one time. He was supposedly involved with military intelligence for a while and associated with black ops and all these hush-hush things—I’ve forgotten the specifics—but he has that kind of murky past. How much is true, who knows? What I can tell you is that these days he’s this nut that lives alone and does God knows what exactly, something with computers obviously, but as to the specifics, I have no idea. Frankly, I don’t want to know, and neither do you. But in addition to whatever the hell it is he’s up to, he also supplements his income by renting his services out to people who need them. Jeff said he tends to be very careful about who he deals with, often to the point of paranoia. I don’t know what happened to this guy, but to say he’s eccentric is like say
ing Jeffrey Dahmer had a minor eating disorder.”

  “Is he reliable?”

  “There’s some risk involved because he doesn’t always work within the confines of the law, but from my brief experience with the man, I’d say yes.”

  “And what do his services cost?”

  “I would think he determines that on a job-by-job basis, I honestly don’t know. I can tell you this, the twenty-some-odd minutes it took him to get our information cost us five hundred in cash. And it was worth every cent.”

  “Is he local?”

  “At that time he was living in Revere, but that may have changed.”

  “Do you think your friend Jeff can hook me up with him?”

  “I can certainly find out, if you’d like.”

  Daniel nodded. “I’d like.”

  “Thing is, Bedbug is way out there. He’s a real fringe sort of individual, not the kind you want to deal with unless you really have to. In other words, you don’t go to him because you have a computer virus or need bootleg software.”

  “I understand.”

  “And you’re sure you need this kind of person?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble, Danny?”

  “No. There may be nothing to this, I don’t know yet. I just want to be sure and in order to do that I need some things checked out. I’d also appreciate it if we could keep this strictly between us.”

  “Strictly as in not even Audrey?” he asked.

  Daniel nodded.

  “All right,” Elliot said, creasing his brow, “but I don’t want any direct involvement. Bedbug only works with people that come recommended by someone he knows or trusts. I’ll see if Jeff’s willing to set something up as a favor to me. After that, I want to be left out of this entirely, all right?”