Vacant

by Alex Hughes

  So, as I let myself into the judge’s house, I told myself I had to try. I had to. Even if it didn’t work, even if my mind was too tired, the connection too fragile, and I did damage to both. I had to try. What else was I going to do?

  Mendez sat behind Jarrod’s board of electronics, headphones on while she talked to someone on the other line. A map of the city was folded out in front of her, a map and at least four different-colored markers with their caps off, as she had dotted the map over and over in different colors.

  When she saw me, she said to the person on the phone, “Could you hold on?” She dropped the headphones to around her neck. “You finish the door-to-door? What sector?”

  I told her where I’d been. My voice must have been as flat as my mood, because she paused before marking down the streets on the map. “I didn’t finish,” I said, and told her about Quentin.

  “Well, you’re on the abracadabra duty,” she said. “Whatever you can bring to the table that we can’t, you should do.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.” I dug my hands deeper in my pockets. “Listen, I’m going to lock myself in the coat closet, okay? Don’t disturb me if you can help it?”

  She frowned at me.

  “Telepathy stuff,” I said. “It may not work, but I’ve got to try.”

  Her face cleared, and she nodded. Then a tinny sound came from her earphones and she pulled them back up, folding out the microphone again. “Yeah, sorry. I’m here. Yes, Abercorn? You got it. Be advised Metro PD is covering the area starting at the Burger Spot at the end.” And she kept on in that vein while I went to the kitchen, forced myself to eat yogurt from the fridge and drink water, quickly. I’d need the strength for what I was about to do.

  For what I had to do.

  * * *

  I locked myself in the closet and fought off horrible thoughts of how I’d failed, how I’d ruined everything. And what might be happening to Tommy right now. I fought them off, and hands shaking, I won. This time. I had to do this.

  Last year, when Cherabino had been taken by a serial killer, I’d used our small proto-Link to connect with her, to figure out where she was, and I was hoping I’d be able to do that now, with the boy.

  I wasn’t sure it would work. We didn’t have a Link, or at least any kind of Link I’d ever seen before. I’d never felt the kind of location-based tether I had with this kid; with his latent telepathy, he’d done something that I didn’t know how to categorize. Maybe it would act like a Link, though. Maybe, if I was calm enough, and smart enough, I might figure out some clue that would get us to Tommy faster. I couldn’t help with Jarrod’s coordination of the police officers in the area—they’d pulled out the old AMBER Alert laws to get absolute cooperation from several agencies. Maybe they’d find him that way. But I had to try, had to do my own search, no matter what it cost me.

  I turned off the light in the small closet, coats shifting above me with a rustling sound. It smelled of rain pollution and mold from the jackets and the umbrella next to me, and of the powdery, sandy dirt from the two sets of boots on the floor. But the nearest mind felt far away, and in the dark, and the quiet, I could push the failure aside enough to focus.

  I did what we taught kids at the Guild to do first, what I hadn’t managed to teach Tommy yet in so many words. I took a deep breath and turned inward, diving inward, to the crowded spot in the back of my head that held my Links, the fading one to Cherabino, the old, bricked-up one to my ex-fiancée, Kara, and the tag that connected me to Stone at the Guild. There, like a frayed cord next to them, sat the connection to Tommy, askew, broken, and not at all like the others.

  I turned inward, and followed that connection like a Link, deeper, deeper, with the intention of finding Tommy and figuring out where he was and how I could help.

  The sensation of falling, falling slowly through horizontal space with overwhelming pain, and then the sound of distant police sirens. The pain eased.

  Quiet, the bad man’s voice said. Quiet. It was a dark tone, a bad tone, and I shivered from fear of it. I wanted to go home, I thought, folded into the wheel well like the other bad day, the day when Tanya died.

  Tommy felt me there then. Adam? Adam, come get me. I’m scared.

  Where are you? I asked. What does it look like around you?

  I don’t know. I’m sorry I ran ahead.

  I know. I’m sorry too. A crushing sense of failure hit me, but I pushed it away. I was here. It was working. Can you see anything around you? I asked. When I’d done this with Cherabino, I’d been able to see with her eyes, hear with her ears, but it didn’t look like it was going to work that way this time. What do you hear? Are there buildings or trees?

  He swallowed, scared.

  Just try to look, I said. If I could get information this way, if I could get his location . . . if I could get his location I could make this right. I could help save him.

  Slowly, slowly, he unfolded from the wheel well, lifting his head up, up to see out the window.

  Trees, he said. Big ones. Lots of them.

  Where is the sun? I asked. What side of the car?

  He thought about that then—burst of fear. Then pain, pain as someone hit him across the jaw.

  And the connection was broken.

  Crap. My head hurt, from the reflected pain, from my own pain, from the strain of holding a long-distance connection on the tatters of that connection. Back in the closet, I rubbed the nape of my neck, over and over, the movement soothing. I had to try again. He was scared, and he deserved to at least have someone with him. I was genuinely afraid that this time, the tatters of the connection would break permanently, and I’d be out of luck.

  Still, if I could get the direction of the sun and the trees, it would dramatically change the search area. That alone would be worth whatever it cost us; it would get Tommy found and safe much faster than the searchers would be able to do on their own.

  I pushed all considerations of failure down and locked them in a strongbox; I’d have to deal with them eventually, or the box would break open at an unexpected time. But for now, at this moment, with these stakes, I couldn’t deal with them. I couldn’t, no matter how much Swartz said locking things up was a bad idea.

  And I dove again, with again that sense of falling.

  This time was different, though; this time I lost control and fell, fast, wherever the path took me. I suppressed a shriek—this had never, never happened before. Was I Falling In? Was I . . . ?

  And then it was over, and I breathed quietly to myself as I got my bearings.

  I sat behind an old wooden table, scratches layered upon its top in endless lines. My dress uniform pinched my neck, the front slightly too small, so that I couldn’t lean forward without worrying that the breasts would strain the buttons all too much. They were talking about me again, lies, and my anger was a living thing within me.

  Breasts? I separated myself from the stream-of-consciousness thoughts, desperate to figure out where I was, whose mind I found myself in.

  Cherabino?

  She started a little, surprised to hear a thought that wasn’t hers. Adam?

  I didn’t mean to end up here, I told her. I missed her terribly. How’s the trial going?

  Stick around for a few minutes and find out for yourself. Her mood was dark, unhappy, angry, like a wolf with her foot caught in a bear trap, still not quite sure if she could get out with the foot intact.

  I looked out through her eyes. At the front of the large conference room was a chair. They’d pulled out the conference table and put in two old wooden tables, one for her, one for the IA investigator. Technically he wasn’t supposed to be against her. He was supposed to be finding out the truth. But that wasn’t what was happening here. No, that wasn’t what was happening here at all.

  They’d allowed three reporters in the back of the room, along with the union rep and the pol
ice commissioner’s representative. The Internal Affairs guy was one of their senior guys, and he’d been paying far, far too much attention to the reporters and the police commissioner’s representative. She was getting angry, watching this. It was a travesty. Next to her, Chou, the new lawyer, was as tense as a caged tiger.

  Her sensei had just sat down at the chair. He was a wiry man with glasses, Puerto Rican by heritage, in better shape at sixty than Cherabino had been at twenty-five. Those brown eyes saw everything. He nodded at her, and then turned his attention to the IA detective, who had sworn him to tell the truth.

  “Why are you here?” the IA traitor asked.

  “I’m here to speak for my longtime student Isabella,” Sensei Rivera said.

  “Why?”

  Rivera blinked. “She is accused of something I believe she did not do.”

  “Why don’t you believe she did it?”

  “She is a good person who believes in justice and who values her job and its rules above anything else. I do not believe she would treat a man the way she is being accused, and certainly not outside her jurisdiction.”

  The IA detective nodded. “Were you there? Did you see the events of that night yourself?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Did she tell you about that night?”

  “She’s too conscientious for that. I’ve only read about the details in the news, and the basics her lawyer felt comfortable sharing with me. The charge, for example.”

  “So you don’t know what happened. You’re only guessing.”

  “I know Isabella,” Rivera said quietly.

  “You realize we don’t normally allow civilians into Internal Affairs matters. But if you’re here to testify as to Detective Cherabino’s character . . .”

  “I am.”

  “Then I do have a question.” The IA traitor paused for effect, looking back at Cherabino. I wanted to read him in Mindspace, I wanted desperately to figure out what he was up to, but Cherabino’s mind had no such capability. “How long have you known the detective?” the guy asked.

  “Oh, ten years now. She is an excellent student.”

  “And by excellent student, you mean she is good at the form of violence you teach.”

  Rivera stared at the IA guy; he was clearly offended. “She is good at judo, if that is what you mean. It is not a very violent martial art. She is good at its philosophy as well as it forms.” He opened his mouth, to explain the nonviolence emphasis in detail, probably, but the IA guy cut him off.

  “Have you ever known her to have a temper?”

  Rivera set his jaw.

  Now the IA guy was fishing for evidence to support the angle he’d already made his mind up about. He was acting far more like a prosecutor than an impartial detective. Cherabino was livid, taking deep breaths so she wouldn’t show it. Too much anger would only play into his hands.

  “Have you ever known her to have a temper?” he repeated.

  Rivera met Cherabino’s eyes, almost an apology. Then he said, “Isabella has made great progress in managing her anger in appropriate ways. I have been very pleased.”

  “So you’ve known her to show anger in inappropriate ways?”

  “On occasion, years ago. She has learned great control.”

  The IA traitor paused, for a moment. “In your opinion as someone who knows her character, is Detective Cherabino capable of beating a man to death? As her teacher.”

  “She is capable of the physical stamina and skill it would require,” her sensei said immediately. “She has learned her lessons in the dojo well. But under those circumstances I do not believe—”

  “That is not what I asked you. Is she capable of beating a man to death? Not only physically, but the mental decision to do so deliberately? In general.”

  Rivera looked away from Cherabino then.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes, I believe she would be capable.”

  Cherabino closed her eyes.

  “You may leave now,” the traitor said.

  Her sensei stopped by the table to say good-bye, and Cherabino greeted him, putting a hand on his arm to let him know it was okay. The truth was always okay, even if it hurt. He’d still come to speak to her character, or try. He’d tried to help. Even if she was so angry she couldn’t think, her anger wasn’t at him.

  I was amazed, this close to her, at the depth of warmth she felt for her sensei. He wasn’t just a Swartz to her. In a way, he was a father.

  Before the door had even shut behind him, the IA detective said, “Detective Cherabino?”

  “Yes?” she asked, still standing. She turned and stood at attention, the lines of her body helping her to stand strong against this fool.

  “Let’s turn our attention to the disciplinary mark on your record from last year. You punched a rookie in the face on no provocation, and your supervisor put you on administrative leave.”

  “There were extenuating circumstances, sir,” she said. “May I explain?”

  “Please do.” He stood, waiting, and all the weight of all the eyes in the room were on Cherabino.

  She felt that weight like a thousand knives. She wanted to concentrate, and she wanted me, at least, not to be here.

  Are you sure?

  Yes, she was sure. She had to be clear and concise and defend herself, and she didn’t need the distraction. She appreciated me trying, though. She appreciated it more than she could express. But I needed to leave now.

  With deep regret, I let go of the Link and found myself back in my own body, at the bottom of a darkened coat closet, my head feeling like an ice pick was jammed behind my eyes.

  Was Cherabino going to be okay? I hadn’t realized things were so horrible. If they were even turning her sensei’s words against her . . . I should be there. Regardless of what she said, I should be there. If her world was falling down around her, I should be there. But I couldn’t. The guilt of that twisted around my guts, a parasite draining my energy.

  Cherabino was in the worst fight of her life, watching all of her life’s work being degraded, her character being called into question, and there was nothing I could do. It hurt. It hurt on a deep level.

  I was failing her, just as surely as I was failing Tommy. I didn’t know what she’d do if it all fell apart.

  I breathed, over and over again, getting the emotions and the pain under control. But when I went to reconnect with Tommy . . . I couldn’t. I tried over and over, but the pain only got worse. And I just couldn’t, not now. I couldn’t help Cherabino, and I couldn’t help Tommy. And I’d broken all my ethics to get here—and here was not working.

  I picked myself up, eyes watering, head hurting.

  For the first time in ten years, I regretted the lack of Guild drugs. They handed out the things like candy, and I’d never approved of how often they were used. If I had a focus drug now, though, I could reconnect with Tommy. Perhaps do myself damage, but I could make my mind work beyond the pain, beyond the warning signals. Maybe help him, so I could get back to Cherabino faster. Maybe I could be there for her.

  Maybe the world wouldn’t fall apart, if I had drugs.

  Then again, it might not work. And I couldn’t have drugs of any kind on the program, not unless they were doctor-prescribed for a legitimate medical condition, and sometimes not even then. Oh, and aspirin. If you didn’t abuse it. Aspirin sounded wonderful about now. The Twelve Steps said it was all too easy to fall for another, different drug, and today I understood.

  I got up, heartsick, opened the door, and went looking for aspirin and food, in that order. As guilty as I felt, I had to do something. Otherwise I would be locked in that closet for the next three weeks, and be no good to anyone.

  CHAPTER 19

  Sunglasses on and aspirin taken, I took a bowl of rehydrated dehydrated very bad soup to Mendez, along with a cup
of freshly brewed coffee.

  Thanks, she mouthed as she listened to the headphones, making another notation in a colored marker on the map, which was starting to have more marker splotches than printed areas. She gestured for me to put the food down across the table, beyond the county map she’d set up and was working on.

  Finally she pulled down the headphones. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and her hands shook. When I looked at the clock, I saw it had been nearly three hours for both of us, and neither one of us had had it easy. Outside the front porch, the sun was going down, the light getting longer and more orange inside the house. Friday night, and not a happy night for anyone.

  “Did it work?” she asked me tiredly. “Whatever it was you wanted to work?”

  “Not enough,” I told her, my own exhaustion meeting hers in Mindspace. “But I did connect with him a little. He’s outside the city, I think, or at least surrounded by an awful lot of trees.”

  Mendez looked at the maps in front of her. “Yeah, that would have to be the case. We’ve covered most all of the city block by block. Any idea of direction?”

  “Trees. Lots of trees.”

  “I hear the frustration. Trust me, we’re all there. You keep working. Once they’ve got him settled, his odds go down, so we need to keep moving.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Eat the soup. I’ll get my own bowl and come back, okay?”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Oh, coffee!”

  I turned as she was pulling her headphones back up, microphone circling out. But then I felt the minds approaching the house. Jarrod, and Sridarin, both tired and upset, and then . . . then a mind I thought must be the judge. I didn’t know her as well, especially from a distance. She hadn’t let me put a tag on her.

  * * *

  “It’s time for you to leave,” the judge’s voice echoed through the porch windows.