by K. M. Hodge
Why? Everyone knows Senior Special Agent Toddson is a stooge.
There would be no investigation, and that made him more determined than ever to find the connection between the two. Who wanted Katherine dead? And why did his boss not want him to look into her attempted murder?
***
FBI Headquarters: Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
March 9, 2008
4:45 PM
~~~
Alex put away his notes on the shooting in his desk drawer and locked it up. The investigation into Katherine’s shooting and the caller who threatened him had gotten nowhere. Danny hadn’t been able to trace the call, saying something about dropped packets or some encryption software. All Danny could tell him was that it originated in D.C. and that it hadn’t been on a land line. In other words... nothing.
On his way out of the Hoover Building to the parking garage, he pulled out his cell and finger-swiped his way through his contacts until he found the number he was looking for.
After three rings a woman picked up. “Hey, Alex.”
He smiled. “Hey, Doc, do you have time to grab some dinner? I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”
“Alex, you need to get yourself a real therapist.”
Her halfhearted chastisement made him smile. There would never be another therapist, only Doc. “You know it isn’t as simple as all that.”
The sound of her familiar sigh filled his ear. “Okay, how about you come by for dinner? We can have a couple beers and throw some burgers on the grill.”
He chuckled. “It’s freezing outside and you want to grill?”
Doc laughed. “Who said anything about me grilling? You want to talk you have to earn your session.”
“Yes, ma’am! I’ll see you in a few.” He ended the call and sighed as he slipped into his car. He’d made a lot of progress in the last few years in dealing with his problems, but he knew he still had a long way to go. Having Doc provide him therapy and medication on the side allowed him to function on the job without fear of losing his security clearance or his rank of Chief Special Agent at the CIA.
As a CIA agent undercover, he needed to assess Katherine and Charles as threats and uncover who within the FBI was allowing an organized crime group to go unchecked. As part of the agreement between the two agencies and the Attorney General, he was also to avail the FBI of his expertise in criminal profiling. He had helped to capture over ten criminals during his short stint as a law enforcement officer.
In all his planning, though, he hadn’t figured out how to keep a boundary between himself and Katherine. The lack of protection left him vulnerable to his natural wants and needs as man, especially in light of his oftentimes crippling addiction. Despite Doc’s best efforts to help him control it, he spiraled out of control too often.
Over the last year he had grown envious of Doc and her husband. He yearned for things most men his age wanted, but nothing ever come easy for him.
He came into the world the son of a crack-addled mother and a meth-head dad. From an early age, he knew he had two options, succumb to his lot in life or rise above his heritage and be something better. It really wasn’t a hard choice for him.
As a naturally gifted learner and someone who worked harder than most, he was able to pull himself out of the situation in which he’d been born. When he was sixteen, he was accepted on a full ride to Howard. To make up for what the scholarship didn’t pay for, he had to work two jobs, but he still managed to get near-perfect grades every semester. In record time he received his bachelors in Criminal Justice and his Masters in International Affairs. While at Howard he became fluent in Arabic, Mandarin and Kurdish.
At age twenty the CIA recruited him and he took on the identity of Alex Bailey—his mother’s maiden name. After he went through training, he traveled the world doing undercover operations during the second Gulf War. Two years ago, his superior, Supervisor Magellan, assigned him to a long-term undercover position within the FBI at the age of thirty-one. At the request of the Attorney General’s Office he was placed within the FBI for training and then assigned to the Counterterrorism Division, and more recently the Criminal Investigative Division.
At a tipping point in his career, and his life, for that matter, he knew it could go either way.
As he pulled out of the Hoover Building’s parking garage, he reminded himself of all he had overcome, and how he had it within him to be successful. Doc had been working with him on resetting the internal dialogue tape in his mind, which whispered to him that he was a failure, a degenerate....
...Like his old man.
---End of Special Sneak Preview---
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About the Author
USA Today Bestselling Author, K.M. Hodge grew up in Detroit, where she spent most of her free time weaving wild tales to spook her friends and family. These days, she lives in Texas with her husband and two energetic boys, and once again enjoys writing tales of suspense and intrigue that keep her readers up all night. Her stories, which focus on women’s issues, friendship, addiction, regrets and second chances, will stay with you long after you finish them.
When she isn’t writing or being an agent of social change, she reads Independent graphic novels, watches old X-files episodes, streams Detroit Tigers games and binges on Netflix with her husband. Sign-up for her mailing list to receive a free gift: Kmhodge.com/subscribe
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SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW
Two men... two methods... two motivations...one darkness—step inside the twisted mind of a killer, and of the man determined to end him at any cost.
Please enjoy this Special 7-Chapter Sneak Preview we offer below, or....
~~~
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~~~
Please keep reading for....
PART 1 – JUSTICE SERVED, JUSTICE DENIED
~~~
Chapter 1 – June 6, 1995: Tony Hooper
~~~
“...that is the soul, and whether you are a soldier, a scholar, a cook, or an apprentice in a factory, your life and your work will eventually teach you that it exists. The difference between your flesh and the animate power within, which can feel, understand, and love, in that very descending order, will be clear to you in ten thousand ways, ten thousand times over.” – Mark Helprin, ‘A Soldier of the Great War’
I never expected to be a killer.
Who does?
I don’t hate myself. Not really. It’s not as if I don’t recognize the face in the mirror every morning; I just don’t always recognize the man to whom it belongs.
Mitchell Norton, the man responsible for making me who I am, will skip out of his final court hearing today—a mere formality according to the news. They’re set to release him from the psychiatric prison after seventeen years, the thought of which has spun my mind into a whirlwind of memories I’ve long struggled to bury.
I killed my first man in 1975, at the age of fifteen.
Norton’s actions three years later would push me deeper into my transformation, and aim me toward this place. The life I now lead. The me who isn’t me.
Some things I’ve lost forever. Other things.
.. well, other things I’d like to lose, but can’t.
The memory refuses to drift into the eternal ether. If only I could erase the sound and the image, press a button and—poof—it’s gone. Yet it forever haunts me, the first of far too many ghosts....
August 16, 1975
Crash!
The distinctive crushing of metal assaulted our Saturday afternoon, as Alex and I watched television and waited for Mom to return from the store. I jumped from the chair and looked out the living room window, but couldn’t see enough of the street. I darted into the kitchen for a better angle.
Dear God, no!
I yelled to Alex while bolting to the back door. “Stay put, Hoopster! You hear me? Do not come outside!”
Mom was back. Almost. Our Chevy Bel Air sat right in front of our house, crushed into an impossibly condensed version of itself. A half-ton pick-up truck, its front end curled forward in a crescent moon, loomed over the windshield of our car.
I ran through the glass and the debris to the twisted wreckage, tripping over a chunk of something unknown. I fell to my knees and banged my head against the side of the car.
Shit! Oh God. Mom!
I snapped up and peered through the envelope-sized gap where the driver-side window had once been. The back of Mom’s head sagged at a bizarre angle, barely visible above the crushed compartment.
“Mom, are you okay? Mom!”
I pulled my head back, reached through the gap with my left hand, and walked my fingers along the wreckage to reach her. I found her wet, sticky hair, and stretched out... farther... farther. Unable to turn her face toward me, I moved my fingers from her chin and up the far side of her face, and—
I snatched my hand back and bolted upright.
I stared at my left hand even as I used my right one to wipe away the blood and the gray matter. Everything began to spin and close in. My chest hammered with every breath, as though God had reached down and clutched the air from the world. I leaned against the car, and my hands painted two red streaks down the metal as my legs folded beneath me.
I collapsed against the jagged wreck in a dark heap—blank—and vanished for untold moments.
Life resumed when a man fell from the pick-up truck, coughed and spat on the street. He looked at me, inched forward on his hands and knees, and vomited. It took him a moment to recover, but he....
What in hell is he doing?
The rotten sonuvabitch laughed and whooped it up, as though he’d perpetrated some ingenious practical joke. His bloodshot eyes looked as if they would burst at any moment. He spewed a garbled, incoherent mush that I struggled to translate.
“Shit! I think I fucked up my truck, buddy. Can you give a fella a hand?”
He faded in and out as my last image of Mom—what was left of her—overpowered me. Everything grayed again, but as the spinning stopped and my breath returned, the full tragedy came into focus. The wicked bastard who’d crushed my mom... was drunk.
My legs had deserted me, turned to dust. I could only look around in a daze at our neighbors, who’d emerged from their houses to investigate. What should I—
The asshole’s staccato bursts of drunken laughter again pulled me back. The very air I breathed stifled me—gas, oil, burnt rubber and a vague metallic tinge, all mingled with the sour contents of the killer’s stomach poured onto the street. I raised my hands, bathed in crimson and wafting copper, before my face.
A disembodied voice spoke from the void—my voice. “Where did the blood come from? Did I cut myself?”
“What’s that, buddy?” The murderous drunk laughed again. “Shit! You think you got it bad? Look at my fucking truck!”
I floated still, adrift in an endless gray ocean of broken thought, struggling to make sense of the fluid that drenched my hands.
It’s... it’s.... Oh, God, it’s Mom’s blood and brains.
The maddening, driveling voice, like a spear in my gut, stabbed me again. “For Christ’s sake, kid, stop fucking around and give me a hand, will you!”
Rage burned a red sheath over my eyes.
I stood and marched to the killer, who looked up with drunken eyes that meant nothing to me. They were evil. I focused instead on his neck, called up all that I’d learned in Master Komura’s martial arts classes over the previous ten years, and struck.
Though strong for a fifteen-year-old, my success rested on the fragile physiology of that small patch of neck. To crush his trachea required more precision than strength.
The slobbering murderer collapsed, clutched his ruined throat, and gasped for air that would not come. His eyes blazed in one final, sobering realization. They pleaded for mercy and begged an answer to the simplest question: Why?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
Yet I had to make sure he understood. “You rotten fuck! Did you think you could murder my mom and get away with it?”
I shook under a roiling tremor, an earthquake of anger. I should have been crying for Mom. Why wasn’t I crying? Never had such fury engulfed me. I wanted to pummel him, again and again and again and again, as he lay helpless on the street.
“What do you think now, you murdering sonuvabitch? Still feel like laughing it up? How about another drink, you miserable—”
His empty eyes, free of remorse or guilt, unburdened in death, stared back at me.
I’d meted out justice—simple, swift, final.
Now I needed to... to.... I shook off the cobwebs as my neighbors gaped in stunned silence, turned to the right, and—
Oh God. Oh God.
My little brother, Alex, knelt at the edge of our driveway with a face painted in tears, confusion and terror. Just seven years old, he wept alone on the worst of all possible days. My feet were as tree stumps sprouting from the bottoms of my legs, as I shuffled over and crouched before him. All the while, his gaze shifted between Mom’s car and me, and he blinked through the tears no dam could contain.
He choked and sputtered, “I... want my... mommy. Where’s Mommy? I... I... I want my mommy!”
I could barely whisper, “Me too. I want her too.”
I wrapped my arms around him, and he hugged my neck as though he would fall to his death if he let go. Together we unleashed a tsunami of sorrow.
Another thought arrived through the haze: I killed a man. I’d thought nothing of it; I’d merely reacted. After witnessing the devastation of that horrible wreckage, the destruction of flesh and bone and tender love, I didn’t even care. Yet wrapped in my arms was someone for whom I cared deeply, someone who needed me more than ever.
I stared at my bloodstained hands and clenched my fists to still the shaking.
Oh shit! I killed a man.
It occurred to me that jail would likely be my next stop. Where would my little brother be then? What would be left of his family, his life? He’d witnessed—
Oh God. Hoopster watched me kill a man.
I clutched him to my chest. “Forgive me, Alex. I’m sorry.”
Return to June 6, 1995
Frozen forever in time at the age of thirty-six, Mom had given us light and wisdom, warmth and love, a path to guide our way. Who would be our rock now?
My childhood ended with her. What choice did I have? Was I ready?
It hardly mattered.
Law enforcement took rather a cursory glance at me, given both my young age and the circumstances of the event. A state-appointed psychiatrist determined that, in that moment of anguish, and in accordance with strict legal definitions, I was simply insane. Temporary insanity? Sure. Why not?
The psychiatrist thought so, and that was good enough for the judge. They declared me healthy and normal, and sent me home.
Ah yes, home.
Dad floundered and withdrew from Alex and me over the next few months. Our first holiday season without Mom, regrettably, left an indelible scar. The elephant, as they say, was not in the room; only its ghost remained. Mom’s absence nearly suffocated us.
Alex’s vacant brown eyes an
d perpetual frown, his continuous soft sigh and the musty smell of sweat and tears on his Scooby-Doo pajamas, the way his chin rested continually on his chest—these left me utterly heartbroken.
I could only pray that the dark Christmas of 1975 would slip into history as the worst I would ever experience. Surely, Dad, Alex and I would recover our happiness, our optimism, as our futures unfolded according to a new plan, albeit a motherless one.
That little executioner’s waltz I’d performed on the street in front of our house in August would no doubt be my last dance.
Little did I know: more monsters roamed the world than I’d ever imagined.
They weren’t finished with me.
Chapter 2 – June 6, 1995: Tony Hooper
~~~
Mitchell Norton, the man I’ve long considered the devil, smiles atop the courthouse steps and waves to the simmering crowd. He tilts his head back to soak in the sunshine and cool breeze of the late spring day, the tranquility of which stands in stark contrast to the circumstances of this event.
The mere sight of him pushes me to the dark edge of my mind, where sanity hangs like... like... like a balloon in a tornado!
I stand in shadow across the street, one amongst many in the crowd of curiosity-hounds gathered to watch a monster’s release. As my face blazes, fists clench and teeth grind, I can easily imagine the onset of a stroke, an aneurism, a pulmonary embolism, a raging scream—
Control yourself, Tony!
I long to charge across the street to destroy him—no remorse—as if stepping on a cockroach. Only sheer force of will prevents my doing so.
For seventeen years, I assumed this day would never come. How could they even consider releasing this vile creature, this very personification of evil?
In 1978, Norton murdered innocent kids who’d barely tasted of life. He tortured two of them beyond the limits of rational imagination, for to imagine such deeds was to summon a devilry that we dared not face. Yet the jury held him not responsible, a victim himself to the ravages of an illness that drove him to insanity beyond our reckoning.