Checkmate

by Steven James

  So the photo’s recent, taken since the accident.

  Find out more about that accident.

  Timing.

  Location.

  Through the Federal Digital Database, I sent out a national law enforcement inquiry into moving-vehicle accidents that involved anyone named Everhart.

  I was hanging up when I saw a text from Lien-hua that Corrine’s friend Isabelle Brittain had been on the phone with her Monday evening from 10:26 to 10:32 p.m. Traffic-camera footage down the block caught a white van entering the neighborhood about forty minutes earlier. It left the area Tuesday morning.

  Checking Everhart’s records, I saw that a white 2004 Chevrolet van was registered in his name. A recent purchase.

  Oh, this was good.

  Exiting my car, I started toward the elevators. Slightly distracted, I noticed how poorly lit the parking garage was and I was thinking about how lighting is such an easy step in crime prevention, when movement caught my attention.

  A van, pulling around the bend.

  White.

  Yes.

  An older-model Chevy.

  The plate number matched.

  The van turned before I could see who the driver was, but it was Everhart’s vehicle, alright.

  So—follow it or continue up to the apartment?

  There wasn’t enough evidence to allow us to bring him in for questioning, but there was certainly enough for me to follow his van and have a little talk with him, and if that was him driving, then going to his apartment wasn’t going to do me any good.

  I needed to make a decision fast because the driver was approaching the exit and I might lose him if I hesitated.

  Go.

  Quickly, I returned to my car and saw the van angle left out of the exit. Recalling the 3-D hologram and Guido’s tour, I reviewed the street layout in my mind. There were a lot of one-way streets in Charlotte and that would affect the route the driver would need to take.

  I hopped in, left the garage, made the turn, and caught sight of the van up ahead of me at the end of the block.

  As I merged with traffic, the thrill of the hunt caught hold of me.

  And it felt good.

  Whether or not this turned out to be a dead end, I was making my way deeper into the labyrinth. And right now that’s exactly where I needed to be.

  + + +

  Out of instinctive modesty, Corrine kept on her bra and panties, but set her shoes, shirt, and jeans beside the water, shoved against the wall.

  Besides, when you swim to safety, you don’t want to be naked, do you? When you finally get out of here? How would that look?

  Strange thoughts. Odd thoughts.

  But they were real.

  Everything was real.

  She stood at the water’s edge and thought about what she was getting ready to do.

  If you go in, if you do this, there’s no turning back. It’s going to be hard to dry off again, almost impossible to get warm.

  Is that what you want?

  Are you ready for that?

  She sat down and started to lower her feet in, but gasped and pulled them out again as chills shocked her. It felt like jolts of cold electricity shooting up her body.

  You can make it.

  She had no idea how deep the water was: if it was four feet deep or forty or four hundred. It might lead to another tunnel, or it might just be a shaft that sank down into the earth.

  No, something’s not right. Go back to the other end of this tunnel. Wait for help, Corrine. Wait—

  But she felt compelled.

  Swim, a persistent voice inside of her said. You can swim out of here.

  She dipped her feet in again, then slid forward and drew in a deep, hurried breath as the chilled water enveloped her body.

  Electricity.

  Cold and alive.

  Shivers that coursed up and down her spine.

  Hand over hand she moved to the right, feeling around with her feet.

  Nothing.

  Complete darkness—

  You have to get out!

  No.

  It’s a shaft that’s filled with water. But it leads to another tunnel. It has to.

  But wouldn’t that be filled with water too?

  On the one hand, it all seemed logical. On the other, she knew she was not being guided by logic at all.

  She felt her way along the edge until she came to the wall on her right, then along that wall to the one she’d thrown stones at earlier—all those hours ago or days ago, she had no idea.

  Her feet never touched bottom.

  You can do this.

  Only one thing mattered: getting out of this mine as quickly as she could.

  She made her way all the way back where she’d started, by her pile of clothes.

  Okay.

  So.

  You need to go under. You need to see if this shaft leads anywhere.

  This is crazy, Corrine. There’s no way you can swim to safety.

  Shivers.

  A dream.

  You’re in a pool. You can swim to the other end.

  “I can make it.” She heard the words, realized she had spoken them aloud.

  You’re talking to yourself again.

  Yes, but that was okay, it was all okay.

  She tentatively dipped her head under, feeling around with her feet, tracing her hands down the shaft, then rose back to the surface.

  Deeper. You have to go deeper.

  She filled her lungs, readied herself, then brought her legs together, drove her arms upward in the water and forced herself under, dropping feet first as far down as she could.

  She wasn’t sure how far she went, but as her ears popped, her feet eventually did hit the bottom. Desperately, she felt in every direction to see if there was another tunnel, but she couldn’t feel anything.

  Corrine kicked off the bottom and shot back to the surface.

  Gulped in some air.

  There has to be a way out! It must lead out to another tunnel. It has to.

  She went under again, and this time found that there was an opening on her right.

  Go.

  No! What if you can’t make it back out?

  You will. Of course you will. You’re going back home, Corrine.

  She returned to the surface one last time for more air, then went back under. Feeling along the wall, she found the opening and pulled herself forward into the tunnel that led to safety, that she knew, she knew, just had to lead to freedom.

  38

  Corrine flipper-kicked her way into the fathomless darkness stretching before her.

  As she stroked, she found her hands brushing the tunnel’s sides. She went on.

  Five strokes.

  Then six.

  But then she felt the tension rising inside of her from not having enough air.

  Relax.

  Think about getting out of here, about going back home.

  She struggled forward another two strokes, feeling along the ceiling now. A beam. Just like the ones in the tunnel she woke up in.

  Keep going.

  No, go back! Now, before you use up your air!

  Everything she’d been through this week seemed to swirl around her: Coming home. Finding that man waiting for her. The van ride. Waking up in the tunnel.

  Justice being played out. Being postponed. Denied.

  Memories. Of growing up.

  Of her brother.

  He loved you.

  Does love you.

  Hands on the ceiling, she drew herself forward.

  And then realized she had gone too far. A gasp of air escaped her lips.

  Go back.

  Turn around!

  Corrine pressed off the wall, spun
around, kicked, swam.

  You can make it.

  Disoriented, she banged into the side of the tunnel. She tried to hold on to her air, but more bubbled out of her mouth. She went two strokes in the direction she thought was correct, but her hand found another beam.

  Pull yourself forward!

  Instinct took over and she tried to grab a breath but gagged on water, and then she was shaking, dreaming, drifting, but she forced herself to keep swimming and when her hands found nothing, no ceiling, she frantically kicked upward.

  Up.

  And up.

  Her hand splashed out.

  Air.

  She emerged and gasped. Sucked in a breath.

  A deep, urgent breath.

  Trembling.

  Shivering.

  Corrine climbed out of the water. There was no swimming out of here. She knew that now, had to have known it all along, but she wasn’t thinking clearly, no she was not, not anymore.

  Her body must have gotten used to the temperature of the water when she was in it, but now, as she got out, chills writhed uncontrollably through her. Knowing that she needed to get her core temperature warmer fast, she used her cotton jeans to dry off, and then pulled her shirt on.

  The jeans were too cold and damp to wear.

  You’ll be alright. You just need to warm up.

  The shivers made it hard to stand and she dropped to her knees.

  But at least you’re shivering. At least your body hasn’t given up.

  And that’s how she tried to comfort herself, but she knew that soon enough, now that her core temperature had dropped, the shivers would eventually stop.

  The laughter that she heard echoing dully around her didn’t sound anything like hers. It was someone else. It must be someone else. Echoing and dying.

  But it wasn’t someone else.

  It was her. And it was always going to be her, deep and alone beneath the earth, laughing by herself until the laughter disappeared for good.

  + + +

  As I drove, I had my cell phone read me the background we had so far on Everhart—and it wasn’t much. Yes, there was a spotty work history, a past address in Athens, Georgia, where he apparently worked construction and a series of odd jobs.

  It wasn’t the inconsistencies that caught my attention, but the consistency of it all. Nothing to raise a red flag.

  Which is a red flag in itself.

  Real lives are messy and when a background is too neat, it often doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I’ve seen fake-identity packages before, and that’s what most often gives them away.

  Keeping my distance, I followed Danny Everhart—or whoever he was—as he drove through Third Ward.

  + + +

  Tessa and Beck were in the living room. He was on the couch. She’d chosen the leather recliner. Only five or six feet separated them.

  Neither seemed to know what to say.

  You’re almost nineteen. He needs to know that, to know that you’re not some little girl. But how do you tell him that? Offhandedly mention that you’re packing for college?

  It just didn’t seem like the right time, but she wanted to, needed to say something. He’s probably got a file on you anyway. Probably already knows all about you.

  For the moment she steered clear of talking about herself.

  “So,” she said, “when’s your partner taking over for you?”

  “Agent Woods is supposed to be here at two—so I guess half an hour or so. But I’ll be back tonight at eight.”

  “Oh.”

  “That is, unless your mom gets back and doesn’t need me here.”

  “Right. That makes sense.”

  Even though her real mom was dead, Beck would have no way of knowing that—other than her not being Asian—and Tessa didn’t mind him referring to Lien-hua as her mom. She actually did so herself. It made her feel like she was part of a family, something she’d always wanted.

  “Um . . .” She was right where she wanted to be—alone in the house with Beck—and her feelings thrilled her but also frightened her. A catch-22.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “A root beer? Some chips?”

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  Silence, silence, silence. Awkward, awkward silence.

  Finally, he said, “Um, there is one thing you might be able to do for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s something I’ve always been wondering and you seem like the kind of person who might be able to help.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s sort of philosophical.”

  “I like philosophical.”

  “Okay. Here it is: If a blue box was invisible, would it still be blue?”

  “You’ve always been wondering that?”

  “Well . . . Okay, you got me. It’s only been a month or so, ever since I was at a party and someone asked me what superpower I would choose if I could have one, and I said I’d like to be able to be invisible. It got me thinking about what color my clothes would be. What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “What superpower would you want?”

  To actually know what to say to guys so I don’t sound like a complete moron.

  “I’d need to think about that.”

  “Yeah, of course. That’s fine.”

  “But as far as your blue box goes, we could approach it from Plato’s forms or from modern quantum mechanics, in which the presence of a conscious observer is requisite for existence.”

  “A conscious observer? So someone there to watch things unfold?”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Let’s start there and see where it leads.”

  “Let’s do.”

  + + +

  Corrine stopped shivering.

  This is it. You need to end this.

  The shaft at the far end of the tunnel.

  All you need to do is jump. Just walk over to the edge and step into the darkness. It’ll all be over. No more wondering. No more questioning.

  You won’t be cold any longer.

  You’ll finally be free.

  Justice.

  Yes, she should have been able to tell that something was wrong with her brother. She knew him as well as anyone. If only she could have seen where things were heading, all those people might not have died.

  You should have stopped him.

  It’s not your brother’s fault.

  No. It’s yours.

  Finally be free.

  She started to make her way through the tunnel toward where it met up with the shaft that dropped off into the unknown depths of the earth.

  39

  Everhart pulled into a deserted street behind a long-neglected warehouse.

  Doing my best to keep my distance, I parked down the road and used the video function on my phone to zoom in and record him. The bruises and swelling were gone, but it was the same guy from the DMV photo.

  He unlocked a padlock on the swinging gate on the edge of the property and drove through.

  I hadn’t finished listening to the background information on him, and now I quickly scrolled through it and found no evidence that he owned the place.

  I put in a call to find out who did.

  Everhart locked the gate behind him, so if I was going to follow him I would need to get over that fence. I’ve climbed over razor wire before and it’s not very fun.

  A stout oak tree with thick, sweeping limbs grew beside the fence near the northeastern corner where it angled along the edge of the property.

  Just climb the tree, get on that limb, and jump down on the other side of the fence.

  Voilà!

  If I were careful, maybe I could even pull it off without ripping those sti
tches out of my side.

  Yeah, well, probably not.

  But was that the right course of action?

  I could certainly call for backup; however, at this point Everhart hadn’t done anything wrong—unless he was trespassing, but that wasn’t really a big deal.

  However, it was enough of a reason to follow him.

  He was carrying a large duffel bag.

  It won’t hurt to have a look around.

  I didn’t necessarily need to enter the building, but there were windows surrounding it and I could take a peek inside.

  Just a little peek.

  He disappeared out of sight.

  I’ve never been good at sitting around waiting for things to happen.

  Just not my thing.

  I opened the car door and headed for the oak tree.

  + + +

  The bard emptied the contents of the duffel bag onto the table near the shaft.

  He spread out all of his climbing equipment—headlamps, a couple of harnesses and rappelling devices, some Prusiks, and an ascender.

  He had a small hip pack with the items he needed to use to check the Semtex.

  Yes, it would have been possible to do his readings from the tracks that led past the stadium by using the pressure-release mechanism he’d buried up there in the ballast of the track, but doing so from down here allowed him to also visit Corrine.

  After putting on one of the harnesses, he positioned a headlamp on his forehead, then grabbed the ascender and Prusiks he would need to get back up the rope. He clipped in for a rappel and, after confirming that he had his folded up blade in his pocket, lowered himself into the shaft.

  + + +

  After all my years of rock climbing, scaling the tree was no problem, but keeping those stitches intact in my side was.

  I felt a tight, searing pain as they tugged free.

  The blood on the shirt was no big deal. I could change later.

  I edged out on the limb and leapt to the ground on the inside of the razor-wire fence.

  Before looking in the warehouse’s window, I decided to have a peek in Everhart’s van to see if there was anything there that might implicate him.

  Inside: a computer bag next to a pair of handcuffs.

  Okay.

  Now that’s interesting.

  I crossed the scraggly grass growing between the van and the building.