In the Grey

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “What about him?” Cee Cee sneered at Raz.

  “You killed a young woman, Mr. Joiner,” Raz said. “And you’ve entered the country illegally.”

  “You mean, because I don’t have access to dough anymore, I’m stuck,” Cee Cee raised his hand and pointed at Alex. As if it could stab her, he lowered his hand in a kind of chopping motion. “This is your fault.”

  “Oh?” Alex pretended to be surprised. “How so?”

  “You seized my funds,” Cee Cee said. “Talked Cecil into cutting me off.”

  “Hmm,” Alex said. She nodded to Raz, and he took a small plastic folder from the inside pocket of his jacket. He gave her the folder. “I promised your ex-wives that I would bring this to you.”

  “My who?” Cee Cee looked genuinely confused. “I don’t have any ex-wives, honey.”

  “You’re still married to Buffy,” Raz said.

  “That’s a fact,” Cee Cee said.

  “And the others?” Alex felt her heart squeeze with rage. “Trixie? Sue Ann? Becki? Courtney?”

  Cee Cee shrugged.

  “What about your children?” Alex asked.

  “Come on, honey, even you’ve got to have figured the dollars and sense of that situation,” Cee Cee said.

  “And the ones you killed?” Alex asked. “David? Daniel? Marvin?”

  “Who?” Cee Cee shrugged. “Is that who I killed in China? ‘Cuz I’d sure hate to have to die over something as stupid as the death of some dumb kid.”

  Alex took a step toward him, and Raz put a hand on her arm. He didn’t hold her back. He just put a hand on her arm to remind her of who she was. She turned to look at him. He gave her a soft smile. She knew he wouldn’t judge her if she beat Cee Cee Joiner to death. In fact, he might join her. She nodded and turned to face Cee Cee.

  “This is a picture of David and a picture of Daniel,” Alex said. “I’m showing them to you so that you’ll recognize them when they escort you to hell. This is Marvin and a picture of his mom, Jenni-June.”

  “What did I do to Jenni-June?” Cee Cee asked. Alex paused for a moment. It was the first time he’d indicated remembering any wife but Buffy.

  “After Marvin’s funeral, she got drunk and ran her car into a pillar of a freeway overpass,” Alex said.

  “How does that have anything to do with me?” Cee Cee asked.

  “Grief-induced suicide,” Raz said.

  “That’s all we wanted to say,” Alex said. “We’ll let them execute you now.”

  She moved to stand in front of the door.

  “Wait,” Cee Cee said. “Don’t you want to know who killed your team?”

  “That’s all right,” Alex said. “You’ve already indicated that you don’t know anything.”

  The lock to the door clicked open and Alex put her hand on the door knob.

  “I lied,” Cee Cee said.

  Alex stopped moving.

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t just let them shoot you now?” Alex asked.

  When Cee Cee didn’t say anything, Alex turned around to look at him.

  “I can’t think of one,” Cee Cee said. “Listen, I know what I am. I do. It’s just that . . .”

  Alex watched a kind of longing settle on his face.

  “You and I,” Cee Cee said. “We’ve been doing this for such a long time that I . . . You’re my worst enemy. That’s the closest thing to a best friend that I’ve ever had.”

  Alex felt the weight of Raz’s stare on the side of her face. His voice in her head repeated what he’d said in the car: “Cee Cee Joiner is a psychopath. Psychopath’s manipulate people. It’s what they do. You will be the last person he will ever be able to manipulate. Don’t let him.”

  She examined her own feelings and was surprised to find that she felt sorry for him.

  “Tell me a story then,” Alex said. “How’d you get to be like this?”

  “I’ve always been like this,” Cee Cee shrugged. “I guess I get it from my daddy.”

  “Cecil Joiner?” Alex asked.

  Cee Cee laughed. Raz took a step forward.

  “Cecil’s not my father,” Cee Cee said.

  “What?” Raz uttered the words without realizing he had said anything. Alex glanced at him. His eyes were intent on Cee Cee’s face.

  “Cecil had a brother,” Cee Cee said. “Not a nice brother, a brother like me. He appeared one cold, rainy night and did what evil brother’s always do.”

  “What’s that?” Alex asked.

  “Rape and torture the wife for a while, of course,” Cee Cee said. “Make the parents watch and wait for the brother to come home.”

  Alex nodded. She’d always known that there was something fishy about the car accident that killed Cee Cee’s grandparents.

  “Cecil shot him, and he still escaped,” Cee Cee said. “Nine months later there was me. He came back later for a little more fun, but wound up killing her parents instead. Cecil finished the job that time.”

  Cee Cee nodded.

  “To Cecil’s credit, he raised me like his own,” Cee Cee said.

  “But your DNA . . . ,” Raz started.

  Cee Cee raised his eyebrows in a kind of “work it out” challenge.

  “Cecil had a twin,” Alex said.

  “Yes, he did,” Cee Cee said. “My daddy, Cyril Joiner, was a doodlebug.”

  “A what?” Raz asked.

  “He could find oil with a divining rod,” Alex said.

  “Cyril Joiner found the oil that started Pecos Oil,” Raz said.

  “He did that too,” Cee Cee said. “Cecil thought I had the gift. I did too. But . . . I guess you of all people know my only true gift is drinking and abusing women.”

  “You’re quite fertile,” Alex said.

  Cee Cee smiled.

  “I remember my first . . . um . . . Tristan,” Cee Cee said. “He was a beautiful baby. Everyone who saw him commented on it. Such a sweet boy. Buffy didn’t know what to do with such a nice kid. Did I kill him?”

  “Almost,” Alex said. “Tristan’s in junior college in California. He’s quite a bit like Cecil.”

  “Figures,” Cee Cee said.

  Cee Cee seemed so present and real that Alex decided to ask him what she wanted to know.

  “What do you know about the death of my team?” Alex asked.

  Cee Cee’s eyes focused on her face.

  “In Paris,” Alex said.

  He looked away from her.

  “Answer the question.” Raz’s voice echoed off the concrete space.

  Surprised, Cee Cee’s body jumped. He turned his attention to Raz. When he looked at Alex again, he looked as if he’d just realized the game was over.

  “Nothing,” Cee Cee said. “That’s the truth.”

  “How can that possibly be true?” Alex asked. “You were in the center of everything! You knew all the players!”

  Angry, she held her breath to keep from screaming at him.

  “You’re right,” Cee Cee said. “I should know something. I don’t. I didn’t even know it had happened until I read it in the newspaper.”

  Cee Cee shrugged. Alex felt a wave of despair. She hadn’t realized how much she’d counted on Cee Cee’s help until he couldn’t provide it. She lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose with her hand.

  “My mom, Ethyl, you know? She used to get me to do things by lining everything up,” Cee Cee said. “Like a rat in a maze. I did what was next because it was right in front of me.”

  Alex’s eyes shifted to look at him.

  “That’s how I’ve always lived,” Cee Cee said. “I never made any effort to meet women. I just took the one right in front of me. I’ve never bought drugs. Hell, I’ve never been in a liquor store in my life. Ever. I just drank what was there – no more, no less; ate what was there – no more, no less; screwed what was right in front of me – no more, no less. That’s what I’ve always done.”

  Alex looked at Raz. Cee Cee’s words matched every interaction she’d had
with him. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, Cee Cee was telling her the truth. As if he’d heard her thought, Raz nodded.

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Cee Cee said. “I was always just . . . What’s that white guy you hang around with always say? Uh . . . I was Ringo Starr – just along for the ride. Pretty sad to say, but it’s true.”

  The lights flickered. They had only ten minutes left. Alex felt a wave of desperate frustration.

  “What can you tell us about Robert Powell?” Raz asked.

  Alex glanced at him.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Cee Cee said.

  Alex and Raz stared at him in disbelief.

  “You have to know who that is,” Alex said. “You met him when we came to rescue you the last time. You drank tequila with him and . . .”

  Cee Cee shrugged.

  “How did you get to China, Mr. Joiner?” Raz asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cee Cee said. “One minute I’m in rural Thailand, and the next minute I’m here. No . . . Wait . . .”

  Cee Cee looked away from them for a moment.

  “There was a ticket to Chongqing,” Cee Cee said. “Just sitting on my bureau. I don’t remember buying it but I usually don’t.”

  “You usually don’t what?”

  “When I’m drunk, I buy plane tickets, bus tickets, sometimes even cars,” Cee Cee said. “I find them the next day, sometimes just in time, and sometimes I miss the flight. That happens all the time. I came here. A driver waited for me at the airport, like usual. He took me to my hotel.”

  “And the girl?” Raz asked.

  “She was in my room,” Cee Cee said. “I tried to say this at my trial. Why was she in my room if she didn’t want sex? I sure did.”

  “Why did you beat her?” Raz asked.

  “I don’t know why I do that,” Cee Cee said. “Just happens.”

  “You don’t remember doing it?” Alex asked.

  “Most of the time,” Cee Cee said. “Sometimes, I think I didn’t do it. You know, like someone else was there.”

  His eyes slipped over Alex.

  “I wonder, sometimes, if I have a twin, like dear old dad,” Cee Cee said. “Like you.”

  “Someone inside of you?” Alex asked.

  “Inside, outside,” Cee Cee shrugged. “Just how it feels.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “You know they can’t harvest my organs,” Cee Cee said. “Liver’s broke. Kidneys, too. Even my pancreas, whatever that is, is messed up. No, they’re going to shoot me, burn me, and that will be all.”

  “Is there anything you want to tell your wives? Your kids?” Alex asked.

  “Make up something they’d want to hear,” Cee Cee said. “I have no idea what that might be. Bet you do.”

  Alex gave a sad nod.

  “I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble,” Cee Cee said.

  “Me too,” Alex’s eyes glanced over him. She felt as if another fragile thread of her old life was slipping through her fingers. She turned to go.

  “Tell Buffy that I’m sorry I let him down,” Cee Cee said.

  The door opened and two guards came into the room.

  “Him?” Alex asked.

  “I never could get things right,” Cee Cee shook his head.

  “What things?” Alex asked.

  He gave her a boyish grin and raised his eyebrows in a kind of “good-bye.” Raz put his arm over her shoulder, and they left the room. A guard escorted them into a warm room next to the room they’d been in. They sat down in front of a mirrored window with a view into the execution chamber. Cee Cee turned his head toward them.

  The guards asked him a question that Alex couldn’t hear. They forced him down to his knees. A third guard walked into the room. He checked to make certain Cee Cee was secure. The guards put in ear plugs. The executioner put his handgun to the back of Cee Cee’s head.

  “Joke’s on you,” Cee Cee mouthed in Alex’s direction.

  His mouth had just finished forming the “ew” sound when the bullet from the guard’s handgun blew his brain, blood, and teeth through his lips. The force of the bullet pushed his body forward until the chain on his handcuffs caught against the loop in the floor. He hung, suspended in the air, until the guards unlocked his handcuffs.

  Alex was shaken by the finality of Cee Cee’s death. This man had caused her so much grief and despair. He was the focus of more than one CIA task force. Now her enemy was gone, taking with him another tiny ribbon of fragile hope that she would ever understand what happened to her friends, her team, and her life. She stared at the lifeless body of Cee Cee Joiner. When Ji opened the door, she jumped with surprise.

  “Time to go,” Ji said from the doorway.

  Alex shuffled out of the room. They walked down the hallway and into the open space of the foyer into Yuzhou Prison.

  “Can you give us a minute?” Raz asked Ji.

  “Of course,” Ji said. “We’ll wait for you here.”

  Turning his back to Ji, Raz too Alex’s elbow and led her to a quiet corner. He stood an inch in front of Alex.

  “Did you see him?” Alex whispered. “What he said?”

  “Joke’s on you,” Raz replied in a low tone.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Alex asked. She shivered.

  “What is it?” Raz asked.

  “Just a cold chill up my back,” Alex said.

  “You’re upset by Cee Cee’s death?” Raz asked.

  “Any death is upsetting, sure,” Alex said.

  “But?”

  “I have this feeling that . . . he told us more than he’d meant to,” Alex said. “More than he was supposed to.”

  “You think it was an act?” Raz asked.

  “Do you?” Alex asked.

  Raz shook his head.

  “I don’t either,” Alex said. “But it’s a mind worm. If he wasn’t supposed to tell us all of that, was he supposed to be killed? If his life was like he said it was, did someone set him up for this fall? Do the girl’s parents know something? If they can’t harvest his organs, was he ‘put down’ because he was sick?”

  “Or is all of this the psychotic process of a madman?” Raz asked.

  “Or psychopathic process – leave me with a mind worm so he can control me in death,” Alex said.

  “We’ll have find out from Chris and Andy if what he said matches their experiences with him,” Raz said.

  Alex nodded.

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Ji said. “We have news that the Korean People’s Army is preparing to take the site tonight around midnight.”

  “Whether or not we have Steve?” Alex asked.

  “Correct,” Ji said. “If we don’t leave now, we will miss our opportunity to retrieve Mr. Pershing.”

  “Same time as the awards ceremony,” Raz said under his breath.

  Alex looked up at Raz. He gave her a quick, tight hug and stepped back. They followed Ji out to another limousine. Max was waiting in the back.

  “Did you get everything we need?” Alex asked Max when she got in.

  “With Ji’s help,” Max said. “You ready?”

  “I am,” Alex said.

  They drove to the airport in silence.

  F

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Monday evening

  November 8 – 7:11 p.m. MST

  (November 9 – 10:11 a.m. China Standard Time)

  Denver, Colorado

  Samantha was standing in the middle of the rooming house kitchen wondering what to do next. She’d come over to see what Cian and Wyatt had going on. Finding no one, she’d opened a bottle of red wine, poured herself a glass, and checked the house schedule. John was on-call at the University Hospital in Aurora. Cian had taken Troy’s boys to Eoin’s house. Wyatt was working on his research project.

  “It’s so quiet with everyone gone,” Neev said as she came into the kitchen. “It’s like a mass evacuation.”

  Samantha smiled.

  “
Is it always so quiet when Alex’s team leaves?” Neev asked.

  “It can be quiet when they’re here,” Samantha said. “It’s like a wave. Sometimes people are here; sometimes they aren’t. Most of us work a lot, so when the team’s gone it’s kind of a welcome relief to focus on work. John takes a lot of call because he’s still learning, and it’s good money.”

  “Do they need money?” Neev asked.

  “Look around,” Samantha smiled. “This place is a money pit.”

  “Looks that way to me,” Neev nodded. “Are you relieved when they’re gone?”

  “Sometimes,” Samantha said. “Usually, I have a trial or a brief or something due. But my schedule is clear for the holidays. Of course, every time I think my schedule is clear, Alex or one of her friends gets in trouble, especially in the fall.”

  “Keeps you busy,” Neev nodded.

  “I like being busy,” Samantha said. “It’s kind of the way my family operates. We’re busy, ‘doing’ kind of people.”

  Neev nodded.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Samantha asked. “It’s Cian’s finest plunk.”

  “Plunk?” Neev looked puzzled. “Might you mean plonk?”

  “Plunk? Plonk?” Samantha shrugged. “It’s cheap and pretty good.”

  “Plonk it is!” Neev beamed.

  “If you say so,” Samantha said and poured her a glass of wine.

  “Oh indeed,” Neev said. “This is delicious plonk.”

  “I was thinking about going to my sister Erin’s house,” Samantha said. “Would you like to come with me? We’re talking about getting dinner.”

  “Erin’s not home,” Neev said. “She went to a wives thing.”

  “Fey wives?” Looking away, Samantha tried to remember if she’d received an email about a get-together.

  “I don’t know exactly what it was,” Neev smiled. “It sounded like chocolate, wine, and babies. She invited me to go, but I’m still adjusting to the altitude.”

  “It’s not easy,” Samantha said. “Well, I should head back.”

  “What are you up to?” Neev asked.

  “No idea,” Samantha shrugged. “You?”

  “None,” Neev smiled.

  “Would you like to come over?” Samantha asked. “I can make us dinner. I’m no gourmet, but . . .”