What had he been thinking? He’d done something horrible, terrible, and now his body wouldn’t stop trembling—not just because he was in the trunk of a car, but because he may have sentenced five people to death.
But there was hope. The conductor had seemed panicked when he spotted Alec cuffed behind the building. It was possible that Cody, Markus, and the others survived. Alec still might be able to right his wrong. He just needed to look for the right opportunity.
The car came to a halt and the driver’s side door opened and shut. The trunk popped and a whisk of cold air roused even more gooseflesh over his body. Alec still couldn’t see because of his blindfold.
“Let’s go, MSNBC,” the conductor said.
Alec fumbled his way out of the trunk. A fist grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt. The conductor herded him onto a deck, through a door, then across wooden floors. He was strong for being slight.
Modern music played from what sounded like an elaborate sound system. The conductor shoved Alec onto a comfortable chair, then undid his blindfold.
Alec was in the living room of a home belonging to someone very well-to-do, maybe even a mansion. But curtains covered every window, giving the appearance that it was dusk outside. Books stretched from the ceiling to the floor on either side of the lounging area. Three ornate chandeliers made of antlers hung from the wooded, arched ceiling. Fires crackled from not one but two corners of the room.
The conductor, this black-and-white scarecrow, sat directly across from him in a wingback chair even larger than the one Alec occupied. “Well, that did not go as planned . . . and yet, it went to plan perfectly.” He glanced around as if seeing the house for the first time. “Music plays the moment Mr. Iseman’s home senses a presence. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to reprogram it off this garbage. There was a time only the Gates family could afford such a lavish accessory. Now it’s attainable by all.” He crossed one leg over the other, then pointed at Alec. “You, Alec, are in the opposite situation. It used to be that journalists were respected and brought balance to big bad government, bursting down university doors with would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins. But the field is dying, with the remaining few pen wielders holding on to their positions with death grips. Your path to any sort of career is so narrow you couldn’t thread it with a needle.” He leaned forward. “Until me.”
The conductor reached for a pipe resting on the table beside his chair. He lit it and puffed. “Stop quivering.” He smiled at Alec and tapped his fingers on the chair’s armrests. “Now, ground rules: One, no questions that compromise the string. Two, no sharing until publication. Three, every word goes through my approval, or I’ll take the pen in your hand and drive it through your temples, okay?”
Sitting before him was a monster, Alec knew that. But seeing him in this setting, even with the painted face and dark hood, somehow made him human. Alec was looking into a pair of human eyes, hearing words from a human voice.
“All right,” Alec said, clearing his throat. He needed to stay alert to details that could help the people he’d betrayed—if he ever saw them again. “Let’s start with why. Why the string?”
The conductor put down the pipe and pressed his back into the chair. “Okay. Why.” He sat there for a moment, and Alec could tell the conductor was rehashing his personal journey in his mind. “Greater. Greater is the word I am looking for. It took me time before I realized I was greater. I’d thought that I was the unfavored child. The one who got the belt purely for unlikableness, all because I didn’t feel as others felt. When others cried, I could laugh; when others laughed, I could kill. I was raised to think this was a handicap.”
“Was it?”
The conductor’s eyes, which had been wandering in memory, laser-focused on him. “Yes, that, what you just did there, that’s rule four. Don’t interrupt.” He let his glare linger on Alec as he pulled long-fingered brass knuckles from deep inside the inner pockets of his coat and began fiddling with them. “It wasn’t a handicap at all. It was a rarity. Are you familiar with the Chateau Margaux 1787? Most people are not. But this red wine could run you more than a quarter million. Precious. Revered. Special. You tell me, Alec—how could something so unique go so unrecognized?” He slid the brass knuckles over his fingers and forearms. “I’d been born into greatness. Every social norm”—his mouth twisted as if he’d eaten something disgusting—“expectation, rule . . . just fell off my shoulders.” He pointed at Alec. “You know what I did then?”
Alec remained silent.
“You can answer.”
“What did you—”
The conductor shot forward from his chair, landing on his hands and toes on the coffee table between them like a panther.
Alec jolted back, blocking his face with his arms.
But the conductor just kept talking, knuckles digging into the table’s finish. “I took the belt that had raised me, crept into my father’s bedroom, and beat him mercilessly. My brother came next, running in to find the commotion. I strangled him and set the place ablaze, watching it from a tree in the distance.” He motioned with his hands as if they were a flower blossoming. “And for the first time, I felt free.”
He smiled and stood on the coffee table. “There, Alec, there started the journey of why. I was different. I was special. But what did it mean?” He stepped off the table. “I hardly had time to ponder this question as I ran from social expectations and blue and red lights. I felt crushed under the weight, wondering if anyone understood. My gift, though a superpower, didn’t mean I liked living off garbage and the heat of burning barrels. I didn’t choose freedom to feed beside scum. I was a king in filthy rags, yet nobody knew.” He picked up the pipe once more and meandered around the room. “Until another found me—another like me, powerful and unfeeling. He brought me not just into a home but into safety so I could discover the why. And that why, Alec, is power. Godlike power.” The conductor drew off his pipe and returned to his wingback.
Alec kept mentally deflecting the questions he so badly wanted to ask. What are you planning on campus? How long have you been planning it? Where does your godlike power fit into what you’re doing? He wanted to know if Markus, Cody, and the others were harmed, but the conductor would consider such a question as serving Alec, not the story. He had to phrase it another way.
“How many have died since the string began?”
“Come, Alec, there are so many more types of death than ceasing to breathe. Emotional death—death of the will—is my vice. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over impaling you with that fire iron.” He pointed to one of the fire pits. “But extrapolate that to the ends of the earth, wherein everybody’s dead. I see little power in that because there’s little creativity, little challenge. What is power, after all, if not the ability to influence the behavior of others or the course of events?” He pressed his hands to his mouth, then breathed out, extending his fingers toward Alec. “Hence, the breaking of the will.” He rubbed one palm against the other. “Extrapolate that to the ends of the earth, wherein everyone’s soul has been utterly crushed but they’re alive. The first scenario leaves the mighty without any other to compare their greatness to, while the second draws endless reverence from pliable people desperate for something, for someone, to make them whole.” He extended an open palm to Alec. “Which sounds like power to you?”
His voice suddenly grew harsh. “Physical death need only be necessary when one believes their will to be stronger than mine, see?” He flicked his wrist. “Consequences and all.”
That triggered a thought in Alec. Perhaps he could learn about the present by asking the conductor about the future. “Is the string your legacy or just the beginning?”
The conductor allowed a slight smile. “For some you may call it the end of a legacy.” He rested his chin in his hand. “For me, well, power in my possession is like a terrible, beautiful tumor: it only grows.”
“Haas—he’s special to you. Why?”
The conductor froze.
Alec couldn’t tell if he was trying to smile or hold back a smile.
“What good is a god if he can’t bring into submission whomever he wishes? The university policeman isn’t just a man pretending to be a mountain. He’s got something, a will that may as well be Goliath.”
“And the bigger they are . . .” Alec said.
The conductor refrained from finishing the thought.
Alec continued questioning the conductor into late morning—some about the past, some regarding the future—and took copious notes for the book the conductor had relinquished his rights to. Some of the details he learned desperately needed to be relayed to Markus, Cody, and Janet . . . if they didn’t kill Alec at first sight.
Finally, the conductor sprang to his feet. “The rest you’ll get soon, Alec. I expect a draft from you before the next sun rises, but not before the crescendo—no, not before the crescendo. We need to let the rest of the story play out.”
The man with the white face walked behind him. Alec could swear spiders were crawling inside his own pants and up his torso and congregating just under his collar.
The conductor leaned close to his ear and slid a ticket into Alec’s shirt pocket. “Stay close to campus; you don’t want to miss a thing.” He inserted a needle into Alec’s neck.
Then the room went dark.
17
SUNDAY, 9:26 A.M.
In Mike Mitchell’s truck—broken windshield and all—we pulled into my driveway and Cody made quick work of a perimeter check around the condo before moving inside for a walk-through. This Trenton suburb area wasn’t nearly as remote as Stephanie’s house, but still vulnerable.
After Cody had finished his sweep, I opened the car door for Stephanie but thought it best to remain silent. She looked nearly as exhausted as the slumbering Isabella and Tilly and needed space. Despite the conductor’s manipulation, he’d been right about one thing: I hadn’t been fully truthful to Steph. I could only imagine the pain I’d caused her today.
Steph picked up Tilly first.
“I can take—”
“Cody,” Steph said loudly before walking to the door without making eye contact.
Cody jogged up to us. “Yeah.”
I nodded at Isabella.
“Right.”
Inside, I watched Steph turn down the hallway that led to the guest room, master bedroom, and office. I wanted to direct her to the master bedroom so that she and the girls could have the most space and comfort, but a voice kept telling me to stay quiet. An elephant was in the room and it had to be broached at the appropriate time, unforced. She chose the guest room.
Cody followed Steph with Isabella, then made his way to the kitchen to whip up something to eat.
I activated the security alarm, replaced the gun I’d left at the armory, and turned to find Cody leaning against the archway that led into the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. I walked over to him and gripped his shoulder, letting him know that the people I loved most wouldn’t be alive without him.
He nodded, then promptly put his hand on mine. “Neck rub, perhaps?”
I looked at the bowl. “You twelve?” I handed him one of my extra Glocks.
He shoved it into his holster then scooped a heaping amount of cereal into his mouth. “Remember whose cupboards this came from.” Cody bumped my shoulder with his fist. “I’ll keep watch.” He peeked down the hallway, then turned his attention back to me, nostrils flared. “What did he do to them?”
We debriefed for a solid hour and a half while checking for bugs.
“Steph’s in shock,” Cody said. “She’ll come around.” He stared at me until it got uncomfortable.
“Never seen her like this,” I said. “I lied to her.”
“You’re not the first one, Haasy.” Cody allowed half of a smile.
“This is different.”
Cody let his arms dangle at his sides. “She and her daughters were abducted, Haas. Of course this is different. What’d you lie about?”
Headlights pulled into the driveway.
Cody and I reached for our weapons and spread out for better vantage points—he to the living room window, I to the glass cutout in the front door. Whoever had arrived wasn’t being stealthy about it.
Then I noticed the Uber and Lyft signs on the vehicle’s dashboard, and the passenger door opened.
“David,” I said.
Cody peered out the window. “Alone. I’ll watch for a tail.”
I opened the door as David approached. He was sweating and his hands were clenched into fists.
“What happened?”
“Doctor tried injecting me with something, but Janet stopped it, that’s what.”
Cody approached. “Where’s Janet?”
“She said she needed to stay with her sister. Told me how to find you with her phone.” He held up Janet’s phone. “Said you’re the good guys.”
I stared at the cell, surprised. What would the conductor do to Janet now that he couldn’t contact her? “Has anything come through from the conductor?”
“Nothing. Hasn’t so much as pinged once.” David winced. “I’m on over-the-counter meds. Have anything stronger?”
“Hold on.” I retrieved a bottle that had four or five muscle relaxants from when I’d hurt my back. “Here.”
David gulped two of the pills, and Cody and I helped make him comfortable in the living room.
“Janet said you were going to get him. You didn’t though, did you?” David said flatly.
I shook my head as images flashed through my mind: the armory, Mitchell’s ambush, Doug’s rescue, Dominguez’s and Adams’s deaths, the chamber and viewing room, and finally, Alec.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind us. We all turned. It was Steph. “Markus, can we talk?” She turned back down the hallway and into the master bedroom.
I followed her and started to close the door behind me.
Stephanie uncrossed her arms. “Not all the way, I want to see the girls.” Her eyes were downcast and her shoulders were hunched. “You whispered that it wasn’t true. So let’s hear it, loudly this time.” Her eyebrows shot up for a split second, then back down. “A reason for everything—just like Declan.”
“It’s not like that, Steph.”
She used her arms as though she were taunting an opponent to step inside the ring. “Then get talking, because someone close to me, someone I trust”—her index fingers shot toward me from closed fists—“convinced me to never let Declan get close to me or my girls ever again. That was you who said that, right?” Her eyes narrowed. “Well, if I had known that all men are sick and alike, I would have just stuck with my girls’ real father.” She looked away and wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Steph—”
“What!”
I let out a breath and started to reach out to her, but caught myself and kept my hands by my side. “Steph, those pictures, those things you saw—they may have been me, but they weren’t me.”
She rolled her eyes.
I needed to get straight to the point and tell her what no other soul in my new life knew, not even Cody. “Deep cover. I was working deep cover.”
Steph leaned back, losing a bit of her edge. “What? Like, secret agent undercover? Or under as in under the covers with those women? Not woman, women.”
I shook my head but kept my eyes on hers. “No sex. Not a kiss, not a touch. The moment the door closed, I was law enforcement. As an agent, yes. FBI. That’s how I was able to put an end to the ring.”
Stephanie squinted through a glare. “Okay, let me get this straight. You somehow ‘work’ for the FBI in who-really-cares-ville Trenton, you’re on payroll for posh stripper parties—on quite the regular basis, I might add—but there’s no hanky-panky, none at all, because you’re superhuman and saw those curvy models as nothing more than underdressed cleaning ladies wearing chastity belts, right?”
“Steph—”
“Oh, and you said you were FBI, so I take it you’re no longer FBI, and th
ey probably burned all the records so that when people like me call up and say, ‘Hey, my boyfriend’s telling me a really creative story about his undercover work that I’d like to confirm, so would you please connect me to HR,’ they simply respond, ‘Markus who?’ and hang up. Is that it? Is it?” She flung her hands up.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Not a chuckle but a full-on, hurt-your-stomach laugh.
Stephanie punched my shoulder. “Stop it.” She allowed the tiniest grin before the scowl returned. “Tell me the truth.”
I reached out with both hands but didn’t touch her. “I’m telling the truth. I came to Trenton undercover to work a case against Eric Ward—it’s how I got the job as university police in the first place.” I looked at the floor, remembering the sickening details. “My cover got so dark, I couldn’t wait to make the bust any longer. I blew the operation to save those girls. And when it was over, I quit. But I kept the job I’d worked myself into under deep cover.”
The anger had left her eyes, leaving only brokenness and hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was against the law and would have put you and the girls in danger.” I took a step closer. “That’s the truth, Steph.”
“But you’ve always said you wanted to become FBI. Why lead me on with a lie for so long?”
“It was an outlet,” I said. “My new job is . . . kind of boring, outside of roasting shish kebabs. I thought that one day, if things went well, I might end up with the bureau again.”
“Why quit in the first place then?”
“I met this girl.” I looked at the ground again and felt my cheeks flare up. “A girl who could knock a roomful of people to the floor with just her smile. A girl who got excited about taking snaps of just about anything, and forced me to take quizzes like ‘What Walt Disney Princess Are You?’ and ‘Which Colorado Town Are You?’ and my favorite: ‘What Should You Buy?,’ which told me I’d do well to purchase a handbag. A girl who’s taught me a couple of things about faith—which I realized today more than ever. A girl unlike any other I’ve met. Beautiful heart, warrior strength, and a mother of two incredible girls who are turning out”—I looked over my shoulder and into the guest room where Isabella and Tilly were sleeping—“kind of like her.”
The String Page 17