The Truth of the Matter

by Andrew Klavan

  I blinked hard. I looked around me. I could see that night had fallen. There was only darkness at the windows. In that darkness, or over it, like a transparent image, I could still see the trellises blooming in the maze, the thorny bushes bursting with bloodred roses.

  “Margaret,” I said.

  She heard me this time. So did Larry. Startled, they both looked over their shoulders. Sport lifted his head to look at me.

  Margaret jumped to her feet and came to me where I stood.

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” she said.

  “I remember.”

  “Quiet now. You have to lie down.”

  “I can’t. I remember. I remember who it was. My contact after Waterman left. The one who arranged for Milton One to come to me in my jail cell.”

  “Calm down. Calm down. I don’t understand you.”

  “He was the one who whispered in my ear that I should find Waterman. He was the one who unlocked my handcuffs.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  I looked at her tired, kind, and peaceful face. I could see her through the images of my dream that kept flashing before me. The dark maze. The white room. The blooming roses.

  “I am making sense,” I told her. “I finally remember. It was Rose. He’s my contact. It was Detective Rose.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  They’re Here

  Margaret helped me to a chair. I sank into it. I shivered, feeling cold wearing only my boxers and T-shirt. Sport sat beside me and sniffed at me with concern.

  “Let me get your clothes,” Margaret said.

  She left me there. I hugged myself for warmth. The dog watched me eagerly. I looked up and saw Larry watching me eagerly too, staring at me over the back of the sofa with wide, worried eyes. I tried to wink and smile at him, to reassure him.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  He sank down a little behind the couch, but his eyes continued to peer at me over the top of it. The dog lay down at my feet.

  A moment later Margaret came back carrying the rest of my clothing: the jeans, the sweatshirt, the fleece, the socks, all freshly washed and folded. I talked while I put the clothes on.

  “I had a dream . . . ,” I told her. “Only it was more than a dream. You know? It was like a memory only with symbols standing in for things, if you see what I’m saying.”

  “I see,” said Margaret. “Go ahead.”

  “I was in this maze . . . I think that was supposed to represent my memory . . . and all along the walls of the maze, there were these vines with thorns on them. I didn’t realize what they were at first, but then, in the dream, they blossomed and I saw they were rosebushes. And there was this guy at the center of the maze who talked to me, who helped me. He was my ally. Only I couldn’t see his face. He was like the vines: I didn’t know who he was. But when the vines blossomed . . .”

  “No!” said Margaret. She understood a moment before I explained it.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding slowly, remembering the blossoming walls of the maze. “They were rosebushes. And the guy in the maze was Rose. He was my ally. He was the one who told me about the device in my mouth, about how the Homelanders were going to break me out of prison. He was Waterman’s contact on the police department. It was Rose all along.”

  “Are you sure, Charlie?” Margaret asked me. “He didn’t seem like any kind of ally when he was just here.”

  I stood out of my chair to pull the sweatshirt down over my head. “I’m sure. I remember it now. It all makes sense. Just after I escaped from the Homelanders the first time, I was arrested. I was handcuffed and Rose and a bunch of deputies took me to a car to take me back to jail. But just before they put me in the car, someone unlocked my handcuffs and whispered in my ear, ‘Find Waterman.’ It was Rose. It must’ve been—he was the only one close enough to do it. I guess he couldn’t help me more than that without giving himself away. Later, I saw my chance and I escaped—but he must’ve given me that chance, must’ve let me do it. Where are my shoes?”

  “What do you need your shoes for? You’re still sick. You’re too weak to go anywhere now.”

  I looked at her for a moment, at her kind and tired face, her kind and tired eyes. I did my best to smile.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “Remember you talked about doing what you have to do? Now I know what I have to do.”

  She hesitated another moment, then did her best to smile back. “I’ll get your sneakers.”

  They were right there, against the wall by the computer table. She handed them to me. I sat down and put them on.

  “What are you planning?” she asked me.

  “I’m going to find him. Rose. He’s the only contact I have left, the only one I can get to anyway. Maybe he can set things straight once and for all.”

  “Wait,” said Margaret. She went back to the alcove, back to the table. She picked up a small rectangle of cardboard lying next to the laptop. She held it up. “You don’t have to go anywhere,” she said. “He gave me his card. He said I should call him if I saw you. We can just call him and he’ll come. He’ll know what to do.”

  She went to the phone.

  “No,” I said. “Let me. I don’t want anyone to think you’re calling for help. If the other police think you’re in danger, one of them might shoot me or something. It would ruin my whole day.”

  She nodded. She picked up the phone’s handset and gave it to me.

  From the sofa, there came a short laugh. “‘Ruin my whole day,’” Larry repeated, getting the joke. He was listening to every word we said.

  I laughed. Suddenly, I was feeling pretty good, pretty hopeful. If I was right—if Rose was on my side—if I had at least one friend in the police department—the situation might not be as bad as I thought it was.

  Margaret read the phone number aloud off the card. I keyed the numbers into the phone. I held the phone to my ear. It was silent.

  “I guess I didn’t do that right,” I said. “Read me the number again.”

  She read the number again. This time, I pressed the Talk button first, then dialed the number. But when I held the phone to my ear, there was still nothing. It was still silent.

  I pressed the Talk button. Listened. No dial tone.

  “How do I get a dial tone?”

  Margaret took the phone. Pressed the button. Listened. “Seems to be out. Maybe the battery . . .” She tapped the buttons, repeating Rose’s phone number out loud a third time as she did. She listened. Shook her head.

  “You have a cell?”

  She left the room to get it. I heard her footsteps on the kitchen linoleum. A moment later, she was back with her cell phone.

  “The kitchen phone is dead too,” she said.

  The first tremor of fear went through me. I opened her cell. Looked at it. “No signal.”

  Margaret shook her head. “That’s impossible. There’s a cell tower just up the road. I always get full bars.” She took the phone. Stared at it. Stared at me. “How is that possible?”

  I didn’t want her to see the fear in my eyes, but I knew she did. My voice was hoarse and tense as I said to her: “Get the boy out of here.”

  It took only a second for Margaret to understand. It was the Homelanders. It had to be. They had cut her phone lines, jammed her cell.

  Now I could see the fear come into Margaret’s eyes too. She gave a quick glance at her son, a quick shake of her head. When she spoke again, she dropped her voice low, hoping the boy wouldn’t hear.

  “They must already be here. Outside.”

  I turned to look at the window. Nothing visible out there but darkness; night. But I knew she had to be right. Why would they have cut the phones if they weren’t here, ready to make their move?

  The boy went on staring at us over the back of the couch. I sensed his worried eyes on me. I tried to look relaxed. But I dropped my voice to a whisper too.

  “We probably don’t have a lot of time.”<
br />
  “No time, more like,” Margaret said.

  “Is there a way out from upstairs?”

  She thought for a second. Then she gestured at her son. “He’s light enough to climb down the drainpipe. He’s done it before.”

  “Wait till they’re in the house,” I said. “Then tell him to go into the woods and hide.”

  She was already moving to the sofa. She grabbed Larry’s hand.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “Where we going, Mommy?” Larry piped.

  “Up to the attic.”

  He dragged his heels. “But I want to see the end of the movie.”

  Margaret gave his arm a good stiff tug. “Don’t you argue with me, boy. Come on!”

  “But Mommy . . . !”

  “Hurry!”

  With her other hand, she took Sport by the collar and pulled him along as well.

  They all went up the stairs quickly.

  My eyes went back to the front window. Out there in the dark, looking in at us here in the lighted house, they’d be able to see every move we made.

  I went to the light switch. I turned the top light off, then moved around the room, killing whatever lights I found—including the TV still showing the DVD . There were still lights in the hall, some in the kitchen. I turned those off too. Now the house was almost as dark as the night outside.

  I waited in that dark. Long minutes went by. I looked out the kitchen windows. I saw nothing. I listened. The house creaked and settled, but there was no other sound.

  I began to wonder if maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe the Homelanders weren’t here after all.

  After a few more minutes, I felt my way through the dark house back into the living room. I took a step toward the front window, to see if I could get another angle on the outdoors, maybe spot something on the front drive.

  Before I took a second step, the door burst open and the Homelanders came charging in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Caught

  There were three of them. They had machine guns with flashlights mounted on the barrels. The effect of the lights was awful, like something out of a horror movie. All I could see in the darkness of the house were the crisscrossing white beams, and the black death-dealing bores of the gun barrels, and the gunmen’s twisted grimaces and hate-filled eyes half illuminated in the outglow of the light.

  The deafening crash of the door bursting in stunned me. The moving light beams dazzled me. But in the instant before they spotted my location, I managed to make my move.

  I leapt away from the window and dove for the living room floor.

  “There he is!” someone shouted.

  There was a coughing burst of gunfire. A stuttering flash of flame. I heard glass breaking as bullets flew through the room. I heard Sport barking wildly somewhere far away. I hit the floor and rolled beneath the crisscrossing beams of light.

  I rolled to my feet and ran in the direction of the dining room archway. The light beams scanned the darkness. I saw the archway—the dark shape of it in the half-lit shadows. Then the lights found me. I dove again as the gunfire exploded behind me. I felt a terrifying breath of air as a bullet whistled past my ear.

  I hit the floor and somersaulted, rolling through the arch. I dodged to the side as the lights went back and forth through the darkness above me like the spotlights at some nightmare movie premiere. The beams flashed in a mirror on the dining room wall. The guns stuttered death and the mirror shattered, the light flying everywhere in a weirdly beautiful and sparkling chaos.

  I got behind the wall and crouched low. I heard a Homelander bark a gruff command.

  “Find the lights. I’ll find him.”

  One flashlight beam broke off from the others and moved toward the dining room, where I was. The other two must’ve gone off looking for a light switch.

  I crouched behind the wall, waiting. As long as the house lights were off, I had a small advantage: I could track them by their flashlights, but they couldn’t track me.

  Now, though, as I crouched, waiting, my heart hammering in my chest, a wave of weakness went over me. In the first moments of the Homelanders’ invasion, a rush of adrenaline had given me new energy. But underneath that energy, I was still totally weak and exhausted from my illness and from the memory attacks. I didn’t know if I had the strength to fight now. I knew I couldn’t fight for long. Whatever I did, it was going to have to be quick.

  The flashlight beam came toward the room, sweeping back and forth, trying to pick me out of the darkness. I crouched low behind the wall waiting.

  The flashlight’s advance halted.

  “Turn the lights on, would you!” the gunman shouted with a curse. He didn’t want to come through the archway until he could see. And yet, he started up again, kept coming forward cautiously toward the archway as I crouched there, waiting.

  A voice shouted back, “I’m looking for the switch!”

  The gunman stepped through the arch. Instantly, he swept the light toward me, searching me out, ready to gun me down. Because I was crouched so low, the light passed over my head. Still, the gunman spotted me in the outglow.

  But by then, it was too late.

  I hurled myself at him, coming in under the barrel of the gun. With all the strength I had left, I shouldered the gun barrel upward. At the same time, I struck at him low and hard. The gunman let out a gasp of pain and doubled over. His body went slack and started toppling down.

  With my other hand, I grabbed the barrel of the gun. As he fell, already unconscious, I wrestled the weapon away from him, holding him up only long enough to pull the strap over his head.

  Now I had the gun.

  Just then, the lights went on.

  There was only one Homelander in the living room. It was the fat guy with the stupid face who had been guarding the entrance to the compound. He was holding his machine gun leveled right at me, right at my head— and he was ready to fire and gun me down.

  He had one problem. I was holding a machine gun too. And it was leveled at him. And my finger was also on the trigger.

  “Drop it,” the fat guy growled.

  “You first,” I growled back.

  I moved into the living room, circling away from him, trying to get in a position where I could keep an eye on both him and the guard who had fallen unconscious in the dining room. The fat Homelander circled away from me too. We both kept our guns trained on each other.

  Somewhere upstairs, I heard Sport barking and barking. He hadn’t stopped since the Homelanders broke in.

  “You think you can outshoot me?” the fat Homelander said to me. “I can kill you before you pull the trigger.”

  “Maybe,” I answered him. “Or maybe you miss and die. Wanna take your chance?”

  “You’re finished, West!”

  It was another voice, thick and guttural. Waylon’s voice. I recognized it right away.

  My eyes flicked to the sound of it, and what I saw made my blood turn to ice.

  Waylon was just coming down the stairs. He had Margaret with him. He was holding her in front of him, with his arm around her throat. He had a 9mm pistol pressed to the side of her head.

  “We’ve been watching the house, you know,” Waylon said. “We saw her go upstairs with the boy. That idiot dog’s barking led us right to her.”

  I could still hear Sport barking wildly, locked in a room upstairs, I guessed. And I thought: The boy. Larry. What about Larry? Where was he?

  My eyes went to Margaret’s eyes. I saw the terror in them as Waylon pressed the gun to her. But I saw something else too. She was trying to tell me something. She made an almost imperceptible gesture—a little shake of the head: the boy was gone. She’d gotten him out of the house. Down the drainpipe, into the woods. Just like I’d told her.

  I kept my gun trained on the fat guard, but I spoke to Waylon through gritted teeth.

  “Let her go,” I said. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “I’ll let her go,” Waylon
answered. “Just as soon as you put the gun down. On the other hand, if you refuse, I’m going to blow her head off.”

  I hesitated, trying to think of something to do.

  “Do you doubt that I’ll do it?” Waylon said.

  I didn’t doubt it. I laid the machine gun on the floor.

  “Now put your hands up.”

  The breath came out of me in a sigh of surrender. I put my hands up.

  It was over. I was caught.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Out of the Darkness

  For a moment, we stood frozen that way: Waylon with Margaret held to him, the gun at her head. The fat guard with his machine gun trained on me. The other guard, a tall, slender olive-skinned man, lying stationary on the living room floor. And me, with my hands in the air. We were all motionless and silent. Upstairs, the dog went on barking.

  Then Waylon let Margaret go. He shoved her. She stumbled forward until she was standing next to me. He pointed his pistol in our direction.

  “Should I kill them?” said the fat guard.

  I glanced at him, off to my left. I could see in his eyes that he was eager to pull the trigger.

  Waylon thought about it. Behind his scruffy black beard, his heavy features worked slowly.

  “No,” he said quietly. “Not yet. I still want to find out what he knows.” Then, after a pause, he added very casually, “But the woman—she is useless to me. Kill her.”

  The fat gunman didn’t hesitate to do as he was ordered. The barrel of his machine gun swung from me to Margaret. I saw the gunman’s finger begin to tighten on the trigger.

  I grabbed Margaret by the arm and pulled her behind me. I stood between her and the gun.

  The fat gunman let out a curse. “Get out of the way, punk!”

  I stood motionless and answered him with an empty stare. He couldn’t kill Margaret without shooting me, so for a moment—a second, two, three—he was paralyzed. But it was really we—Margaret and I—who were out of options, out of hope. I could delay the inevitable for only a little while, but the chase, in fact, was finished. I knew we were both less than a minute away from death.