Try Dying (Episode Six: The Nightshade Cases)

by Larsen, Patti

  Gerri shoved him toward Mills who passed the Divinities leader off to another unit while the detective turned to Foster. Who stared at Jordan Michaels. Gerri could care less for the con artist and his stupid ass lies. She was all about Kinsey, crouching next to the anthropologist, holstering her gun before offering the blonde her hand.

  But Kinsey was staring at Jordan, too, even as Foster bent and prodded the bloody smear on the fugitive’s leg.

  Jordan winced, but not enough. His flinch came from discovery, not from pain, as Foster’s fingers tore at the hole in his jeans, exposing the already healing bullet wound. Gerri inhaled a sharp breath through her teeth as the slug emerged, popping to the surface, the skin closing up behind it.

  Foster’s golden gaze met hers. “Detective,” he said. “You have some explaining to do.”

  ***

  INT. – AGENT FOSTER’S CAR – EVENING

  Kinsey sat with Jordan in the back of Agent Foster’s car, listening to Gerri explain everything. It felt strange to have this paranormal stuff out in the open, even if it was just with one FBI agent. Foster stared, alternating between looking back over the seat at Jordan and Gerri next to him in the front, his amber eyes full of shock and rimmed with fear.

  Gerri didn’t stop with Jordan’s unique ability, but filled Foster in on some of the other weird things they’d encountered, keeping her voice down, back turned to the waste of space in the back seat. He might catch a few whispers, but Gerri hoped Kinsey kept him distracted enough he’d miss the main gist.

  By the time she was done, the detective’s voice rough with her own denial despite her words, Foster had regained some composure.

  “I’d say you were out of your mind,” he said, “if I didn’t just see that for myself.” He pointed at Jordan’s leg. And swallowed. Swallowed again. “Okay.”

  Kinsey caught herself smiling. “Just like that, Agent Foster?” He finally met her eyes, the shock gone, the fear lingering, but determination and trust strong enough Kinsey knew he at least wasn’t about to run off and tell anyone else.

  “I’m not saying I believe all of it,” he said. “But, I’ve encountered enough… weird… in my day, I’m willing to put aside disbelief and focus on what’s important.”

  “Catching whoever killed Ryan Beecher.” Gerri nodded when Foster grunted affirmative.

  “They’re going to keep coming after me,” Jordan interrupted. “Until they either succeed at killing me, or think they have.”

  Foster’s sharp scowl darkened his eyes to gold. “Maybe we should just toss you to the wolves, Michaels,” he said. “After you tell me who really killed Alroy O’Reilly.”

  “And the gambler, Patterson, at the Dark Continent,” Gerri said.

  Kinsey’s insides trembled with the need to defend Jordan, but she knew better. This electric hold he had over her emotions seemed to be fading in the light of understanding.

  “Ryan did.” Jordan looked back and forth between the pair in the front seat, body vibrating with innocence. “I swear it.”

  “Then, why do they seem to think otherwise?” Gerri leaned over the back of the seat, her green gaze full of anger. Kinsey knew that look, fearing for Jordan because of it. But, it was obvious to her now he deserved it. He'd been lying to her all along. If only she could muster enough of her own temper to snap herself out of this attraction to him. “Connell O’Reilly says you killed his grandfather.”

  “While Peter Ashmore suggested you were behind the trigger at the Dark Continent, not Ryan.” Foster’s stare was equally as dangerous. His intensity, while not truly unusual for someone in his line of business, stirred a faint trigger of PTSD. Kinsey suddenly felt like she was back in the line of fire, heart pounding, terrified the Divinities were going to kill them both. Jordan would be fine. But she’d be dead. She’d hidden her cell phone as best she could, hoping Gerri would find her in time. She almost wept when the withered old man who led them smashed it on the ground. Until she heard the rev of an engine and knew—knew—Gerri was coming for her.

  Only to be trapped back here, with Jordan, terrified all over again under the scrutiny of Foster. He reminded her too much of her grandmother’s oppression, years of submission rising to choke off her air. It was only then she realized whatever it was that lived in Gerri, Foster had it, too.

  All that animosity and focus of attention, even when it only lighted on her briefly, flittered in her belly like a million butterflies. More joy to thank her grandmother for. And triggered her own talent to push back. Softly, subtly, as it always worked, easing the tension in the car, softening the edges until both the detective and the agent turned to look at her, the creatures living in their eyes observing her with respect and questions.

  “We can’t let them keep killing Jordan,” she said at her most reasonable. “If for no other reason than to protect the secret of what he can do.” Foster nodded, Gerri with him. “Unless you two want to explain to the powers-that-be he can resurrect from the dead over and over again.”

  “Thanks, I’d rather leave that out of my report,” Foster said. “The lie of his faked deaths will have to stand.” He turned to Gerri. “I’ll take him off your hands, now,” he said. “Thanks for the help.”

  “You can’t.” Kinsey leaned forward, one hand on the back of the agent’s seat. They turned to her again, watchful, waiting. “Unless you want agents to die, cops, civilians, all while those who want Jordan dead keep trying.”

  Foster’s face darkened. “We’ll put him back in Witness Protection.”

  “Better to kill Jordan off for real,” Kinsey said. “To make it so the Divinities, the O’Reilly’s and your Mr. Ashmore all think he’s finally gone.” She glanced sideways at Jordan. “We can’t go half way on this.”

  The door to the back opened and Ray slipped inside, out of breath, shoving Jordan against Kinsey. “Heard about the ruckus from the security guards.” She sounded casual, but Kinsey knew stress when she saw it, the tightness around Ray’s eyes a dead giveaway. “Thought I’d pop down and make sure you lot weren’t stirring up too much trouble.” She looked around the car, smile appearing. “What did I miss?”

  Gerri shrugged. “We’re going to kill Michaels here once and for all.”

  “I’m in.” Kinsey wished Ray didn’t sound quite so happy about it. But, when the brunette leaned over him and squeezed her hand, eyes rimmed in moisture, Kinsey lost her irritation. “Glad to see you’re in once piece,” she said.

  “Do I get a say in this?” Jordan’s petulance cut one of the strings of his control over Kinsey as they all spoke up together.

  “No.”

  “Whatever we do,” Ray said, “it needs to be public and very, very messy.”

  “Something no one will believe he can recover from.” Gerri’s narrowed eyes hid the plotting and pain she had in mind, but just barely.

  “Just, no fire.” Jordan shuddered. “I can’t ever see me coming back from that.”

  Kinsey felt bile rise to the back of her throat at the thought of his burned and crisped body trying to recover.

  “I can’t believe I’m considering going along with this.” Foster exhaled a deep breath. “You’re a terrible influence, Detective.”

  “Stick around,” Gerri winked, “and you might find out how terrible.”

  Kinsey gaped. Did the redhead really just blush?

  “If I do this,” Jordan interrupted, “what do I get out of it?”

  “Our undying gratitude,” Gerri said. Laughed while Foster chuckled. “See what I did there? Undying?” She snorted another breath of amusement. “I crack myself up.”

  “Good thing someone thinks you’re funny.” Jordan’s sullen tone was getting on Kinsey’s nerves. Finally, was she beginning to think straight?

  “If you pull this off,” Foster said, “I’ll make sure you get a new identity, but after you testify against Ashmore that he had Jared Patterson killed. And get his ass booted out of the country.”

  “He’ll know Jordan’s al
ive,” Kinsey said. Okay, so she still cared.

  “It’ll be too late by then,” Foster said. “I’ll make sure he’s added as a witness at the last moment. The DA will go for it. That way, we can have Jordan testify then get him out of Vegas and into a safe house with a new life before Peter Ashmore can do anything about it.”

  “He’ll still come after me,” Jordan said.

  “What do you care?” Foster shrugged. “You can’t die, right?”

  “Fine, whatever.” Jordan slumped lower in the seat. “I’ll set it up and put on a show they won’t forget. Or be able to ignore.”

  “And you’ll give your testimony?” Foster wasn’t letting Jordan off the hook.

  “I’ll tell a jury whatever you want,” the con man next to her grumped

  ***

  EXT. – THE DESERT – NIGHT

  Ray sat in the back of Foster’s car, her ear aching slightly from the small device Gerri gave her, wanting to hold Kinsey’s hand as the blonde stared out into the dark through the window, stiff and silent.

  The car was carefully hidden, far enough away from the location Jordan chose to lure the three interested parties close to him for her safety and Kinsey’s, but still out of line of sight.

  Ray wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep the anthropologist from bolting out into the desert. Right on cue, Gerri squawked in her ear, making the brunette jump.

  “He’s in position,” the detective said. “Mic should be live.”

  “Very much alive,” Jordan’s voice came over the earwig link. Kinsey’s head turned at last, pinched face unhappy. Even more unhappy than she’d been when Gerri told her to stay in the car, slipping into the dark night with Foster to observe Jordan’s unfolding plan and nab him if he tried to pull a fast one. “Thanks for asking.”

  “Just do your thing,” Foster’s deep voice interrupted. “We have you covered if anything goes wrong.”

  “What, like if they kill me?” Jordan’s laugh made Ray shake her head and exchange a grin with Kinsey who suddenly looked less upset and more determined. “I won’t hold my breath.”

  Ray wasn’t fast enough, knew better even than to try, actually, as the blonde reached for the door handle. With a deep sigh, she followed Kinsey into the cool darkness. Feeling utterly ridiculous, she crouched and scooted along, irritated suddenly she’d even joined this fiasco. Kinsey’s rubbish boyfriend would only die and end up on her table all over again. Forcing her to come up with yet another excuse—on paper at least—for the disappearance of his body. She was going to be fired if this kept up much longer.

  Kinsey turned, pale face the only really visible part of her. Ray tripped over something on the ground, cursed softly to herself, feeling the blonde’s hand slip into hers. Ray didn’t bother smiling back as the now excited anthropologist guided her along. Ray had no idea how Kinsey could see in this black, only the stars and a thin sliver of moon overhead offering illumination. But her friend seemed unerring in her direction and, before too long, she made out the vague shape of two lumps perched behind a low hill.

  Gerri’s reaction was immediate and expected. “I told you to stay in the car,” she whispered. And shouted. If a whisper could come out as a shout. Gerri was gifted that way.

  Kinsey just shrugged, turned away from her, looking over the lip of the hill to the scene below. There was light, at least, the beams of a car casting long paths of brightness, reflecting on the puffs of dust only now settling back to the ground, small eddies stirred by the thin wind that made Ray shiver.

  She preferred the city, liked the humidity, a vast change from her childhood in first cloudy and wet England then, on the other side of the pond. The chill wind made her think of death.

  Since she was standing here, waiting for three killers to come find Jordan and kill him once and for all, it made perfect sense to cling to such an analogy.

  Gerri huffed, but fell silent when the sound of rumbling motorcycle engines swelled in the distance. It raised goosebumps on Ray’s arms.

  “I still think this is a terrible idea.” Gerri’s whisper had nothing to do with Kinsey’s choice to join her. “Well, it was the best option in a really bad plan.” Foster whispered back. “I don’t like this at all.” He seemed to have been having second and third and fourth thoughts all along, clearly at war with his FBI training. “We still have time to call this off.”

  “No,” Kinsey muttered as the Divinities rumbled up, keeping their distance to twenty feet as Jordan had instructed, “we don’t.” She hovered next to Ray, eyes locked on the man below.

  “Jordan Michaels.” A scrawny old man dismounted from the leading motorcycle, his voice reaching them, tinny and cold, through the wire Jordan wore. “You’re a fucking lunatic, you know that?”

  The four bikes behind him shifted as the men riding them stepped off.

  Jordan shrugged, the movement visible in the distance. “Thought I’d call a truce of sorts,” he said, his cheery voice turning Ray’s stomach. Wanker. “See if we can work out our difficulties.”

  “Ain’t nothing to work out,” the old man said. “We want our money, Michaels.”

  More light, a car bouncing down the rough path to the location Jordan chose. Ray hugged herself, stayed low, as the vehicle turned slightly, lights passing dangerously close over their hiding place before spinning around to shine on Jordan and the leader of the gang.

  “Chigger’s here,” Gerri whispered. “This must be Connell O’Reilly.”

  Foster grunted softly in answer.

  Two of the three. So far, so good.

  The car purred, engine still alive, as the four doors opened and the same number of bulky figures exited. Foster nodded to Gerri, confirmation Ray guessed as to identities, before she returned her attention to the action below. And realized, with a start, she was actually rather excited to see how this would end.

  Gerri and Kinsey’s fault, no doubt. Terrible influences, the pair of them.

  The Divinities leader seemed angry from his body language, aggressive as the four men approached. His words backed up his physical response.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “As I said,” Jordan spoke up, still cheerful, hand raised toward the leader of the new bunch. “Difficulties to work out.”

  “I thought you were coming quietly.” New voice, soft and deep, faint Irish accent. Connell O’Reilly, she presumed.

  Jordan gestured for the mob leader to join him, doing the same for Chigger. Both men seemed uncomfortable, almost nervous, looking around while their men turned outward, scanning the desert.

  “We’re waiting on one more,” Jordan said. “And then we can talk.”

  “Maybe we just kill you here and now and be done with it.” The Divinities leader seemed the most untrusting, though Connell held back, hands on his hips.

  “Maybe,” Jordan said. “But you might want to hear what I have to say, first. Just in case.”

  Both men remained silent. Acquiescence? Since neither pulled guns and shot the young idiot, Ray could only marvel at his charismatic luck.

  “I take it you’ve been waiting for me.” Ray started, heard Gerri curse, saw Kinsey jump out of the corner of her eye. Only Foster didn’t seem surprised when a tall, slim man in a black suit stepped out of the desert and into the light of the two car’s headlamps. Alone? Without backup? She shivered and looked over her shoulder, expecting a horde of similarly suited and well-armed men to discover them and the firefight to begin. But the desert behind her was empty, quiet.

  Ray turned back in time to see Connell and his boys pull baseball bats out of the back seat of the car.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Connell gestured to Jordan with the tip of the bat. “One of my boys shot you twice, you slippery bastard. But you’re not going to survive tonight without God on your side.”

  Jordan held up both hands, but didn’t try to retreat. “You haven’t heard my proposal,” he said.

  Another curse from Gerri. “What the hell are y
ou doing?”

  Foster grunted, hands flexing around his gun. So, Ray’s vision was finally adjusting. If that was a good thing.

  Jordan didn’t answer the detective as the three leaders surrounded him.

  “Talk,” Chigger said, hocking up a most disgusting amount of phlegm before spitting it out. Ray was grateful she only had to hear it, not see it. Though, her imagination was more than acute enough to give her the image required. “You got six seconds.”

  Jordan’s hands fell. “All of you have reason to want to kill me,” he said. “But I have valuable information that might change your minds.”

  “I’m done listening to your smooth talk,” Connell said, but the lone man raised one hand, and to Ray’s surprise, both Chigger and the Irish leader seemed to defer to him.

  “Speak,” he said.

  “You son of a bitch,” Gerri hissed. “If you try to betray us, I’ll tear you into tiny pieces and see how much it hurts to put yourself back together.”

  Again, Jordan didn’t answer her. “You all want to know how I managed to fake my own death,” he said. “Some trick or slight of hand. But, it’s nothing like that.”

  “I’m going to shoot him myself,” Gerri muttered, even as Foster’s hand came up, pulled her gun down.

  “They’ll never believe him,” the agent said, voice low and intense.

  Kinsey looked away, silent to this point, her face tight all over again, disappointment oozing from her. Ray set one hand on her shoulder and squeezed, feeling badly for the blonde. But what did she expect from a con man?

  “I can’t die.” And, with those three words, Jordan Michaels sealed his fate. Foster grumbled to Gerri who kept trying to shoot the young man. While the three leaders below remained silent a long moment. “No,” Jordan said as if in response to their expressions. “I can’t. Shoot me, drown me, beat me to a pulp. Nothing kills me.” He paused. “That I know of.”