False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  No laughter this time.

  “Tell me,” Dent demanded, leaning in closer and regretting it as his right knee buckled. He caught himself at the last moment with an elbow to Julius’s chest. His vision wavered and Julius groaned under Dent’s weight.

  Drawing back, Dent asked one more time. When Julius refused to answer, Dent put the barrel to Julius’s knee and squeezed the trigger.

  Three more attempts to get an answer, three more bullets to entice an answer. Julius finally gave in, his two hands doing nothing substantial to staunch the blood flowing from four separate holes in his legs.

  Dent took one last look around the control room. All of this, and all he’d gotten was definitive information that Jason was one of ten. He snagged Julius’s car keys and started to head out of the room, to where Julius had given up directions to the tunnel leading up to a small storage unit two blocks away, but stopped short.

  He didn’t have time to destroy this place, to vent what he believed was frustration and anger seething inside his chest.

  But he did have time to destroy one thing.

  He turned, brought up his right hand, and added bullet number five to Julius’s body.

  This time, right in the throat, ensuring Julius would never laugh again.

  XXVII

  It took nearly five minutes for Dent to stumble through the concrete tunnel, locate Julius’s Audi A4 in the parking lot at the rear of the storage facility, and finally pull away from the immediate area of Saint Nicholas Parish.

  The street lights haloed in his wavering vision and it felt as if every heartbeat left him that much weaker. He needed help, and he needed it fast. The sudden blare of a car horn informed him he’d veered into oncoming traffic and he yanked on the wheel, screeching the Audi back to where it belonged. He eased up on the gas, his mind racing of where he could possibly go.

  The Wine & Vine was out of the question. If the team called in against him were any good, they’d know that he was staying there. If not, he still ran the risk of leading the security team straight to Fifth. Thoughts of the girl slammed into his gut.

  He fumbled for his phone and managed to call Fifth. He would have to warn her to leave The Wine & Vine, get somewhere safe. But where?

  The phone rang.

  And rang.

  On the third ring she picked up.

  “Dent?” Her voice sounded muffled. It may have been due to the lightheadedness he was feeling.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks for aski—”

  “Where are you, Kasumi?” He thought he may have shouted into the phone.

  “Whoa! Is everything okay? I’m with Jason. We’re going to meet with his friends. I want to see if I can—”

  “Get away from Jason. Go somewhere safe. Now!”

  “Dent … You sound … You’re scaring me, Dent. What’s happening?”

  He was driving on auto-pilot, struggling to maintain a straight line on the road. He had nowhere to go. But Fifth was safe. She was with the most likely target, but he didn’t think Jason would hurt her. Not yet. All that mattered was that she was safe. For the moment.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter. Get somewhere safe. Don’t go to Saint Nicholas.”

  “Wait! What?”

  “Hide, Fifth. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just hide. Stay hidden until you hear from me.”

  “But what about finding out who—”

  “I’ll call you when I’m … safe.” Talking and keeping the Audi in one lane was too much for him, evidenced by another car horn blaring when he strayed too far to the left. He was drawing too much attention.

  “Where are you going? Dent? Dent!”

  Her shrill voice fought back the wave of darkness that had momentarily clouded his vision. “I’m here. I don’t know. I’ll call you. Hide.”

  He hung up. He didn’t want to. He had to. The girl could handle herself. He’d known her long enough to know that simple fact. She had to.

  His phone rang, likely Fifth calling, but a yellow light and a left turn threatened to send the Audi into a spin. He managed to right the vehicle, but the phone was thrown between the passenger seat and door.

  Where was he going? He only knew a few places in town, of which perhaps one place would be the best option.

  He just hoped she was home.

  ---

  Dent pounded on the door, leaving smears of his blood on the wood. Flight of the Valkyries chimed on and on. Another round of pounding and his brain belatedly signaled that his fist was no longer hitting wood. In fact, he was no longer standing, but falling forward.

  “Marion! Oh, my God, what’s happened?”

  Good, he thought as he collapsed into her. Lynn was home.

  Her voice peppered his consciousness. Raised pitch and tone, jumbled words and varying degrees of inflection, it was all lost on him. Somehow, he found himself laying down. He held his forearm over his eyes, briefly catching a glimpse of what must be Lynn’s room.

  Several times he’d heard her voice diminish and return, each time accompanied by the mattress jostling as she sat or knelt over him. In minutes his bloody jacket and sweater were off, tossed to the side by Lynn. Again her voice came and went, this time accompanied by bouts of searching pain in the bullet wound in his side. Next, he felt his pants ripped open at the wound on his thigh. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t being entirely gentle about it.

  Something that tasted like a sports drink wet his lips. He greedily tried swallowing but Lynn pulled the bottle away.

  “Slowly, Marion,” Lynn said softly. “I have no idea what’s wrong.”

  Now that he was in a stable position, Dent’s mind became a touch clearer. “Bullet wound,” he offered. “Wounds,” he clarified after a harsh swallow.

  A string of mumbled words too low for Dent to decipher and then Lynn stood. “I have to call someone. You need a doctor.”

  “No!” He tried sitting up but the effort forced him back down. “No doctors.”

  “I can’t … you need … God!”

  “Fix me up best you can,” he said, his throat dry and raw.

  “I’m a mechanic, not a medic! I just can’t splice your veins together, slap some bondo on your skin, and call it a day.”

  For some odd reason, that brought a smile to his lips. Why? No clue.

  He asked, “Do you have any duct tape?”

  He’d meant it as a joke, though it did seem the only solution until he could rest and minister to his wounds personally, but Lynn took it as a solution.

  “I do. Hold on, Marion. I’m going to the garage. Got to get some towels, tape, whatever else I can use. Just hold on ….”

  “Brake cleaner!” he called out. “And super glue!”

  True to her word, Lynn came back with towels, duct tape, hand sanitizer, along with a spray can of brake cleaner and glue. Then she just stood there.

  “Clean the wound in my side first,” he told her. “Use the peroxide.”

  She sopped a rag in peroxide and got to work. “I don’t have enough peroxide,” she said halfway through.

  Dent had assumed that to be the likely case. “That’s what the brake cleaner is for.”

  She pulled away from his body. “No way, Marion. I’ve gotten that stuff on my hands plenty of times it’ll—”

  “Feel like ice at first then burn like hell, I know. But for lack of a better disinfectant ….”

  With some words of denial, Lynn did as asked, and the spray cooled then burned as expected. The area around the wound went blissfully numb, allowing Dent to better talk Lynn through the rest. Twenty minutes later, Dent’s entire stomach was bound with duct tape, clean cloth pressed to both sides of the open wound. His thigh was similarly dressed.

  Able to sit up, the tape on his stomach crinkling with the movement, Dent finally had a chance to stare into Lynn’s eyes, which were red, puffy, and watery.

  “Thank yo
u,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to reply, snapped it shut, and stared back at him. A few seconds later she stood, made to bend over to pick up the bloody mess on her bedroom floor, then decided against it. Her hair swayed as her head shook. “I need a drink.”

  She left Dent alone.

  He finished the last of the sports drink, and still his body wanted more.

  When Lynn returned, she had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire and two glasses. He noticed one already had a bit at the bottom. She plopped down on the bed, got up quickly as she’d sat in a blood-soaked section, and sighed. She sat right back down in the same spot and stared at the floor.

  She poured, swallowed, poured again.

  “What the hell?”

  Though she didn’t look his way, he had a strong feeling she was talking to him.

  He worked his way into a more upright position and leaned against the headboard. “It’s complicated.”

  Now she looked at him, eyes nothing more than slits, her jaw clenching and unclenching. “Tell me why you showed up at my place with bullet wounds.”

  “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Not … no. I mean, why were you shot?”

  “Trying to figure out what’s going on at Saint Nicholas.”

  Her shoulders sagged. She poured a glass, handed it to him, and said, “Why are you so fixated on that place?”

  “Why are you not?”

  She took a long, heavy sip. “That place has done wonders for us.”

  “There is much you don’t understand.”

  She looked at him, at his cup, then clinked hers to his before emptying her own. Dent took a long drink under her watchful gaze, feeling the burn in his gut almost as much as in his side.

  She nodded, then refilled both cups. “Where is Kasumi? Is she safe?”

  He took another drink, already feeling the numbing and warming effect of the liquor. “For now.”

  “Does she know?”

  “About what?”

  She only shook her head.

  Dent’s mind began to race as he stared at Lynn’s profile. How could he tell her that her adopted child was … special? That Dent was sent here to … To what? To eliminate him? If Jason was anything like Fifth then there was no “off” button, no way for him to stop doing what he does. If Jason were a machine, there would be no need for an off button. Simply pull the plug, destroy the electronics, and Dent’s side of the contract would be fulfilled. But a child?

  Dent realized he was beginning to overanalyze things. He looked to his cup. How much had he drunk? How many times had Lynn refilled his glass? He put it down on the bed, noting how that slight movement felt sluggish.

  Lynn looked over.

  Could he tell her what he knew?

  His chest felt tight suddenly. Maybe it was the effects of the alcohol or it could be his time spent with Fifth, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell the woman about her adoptive son. He didn’t want to be the reason to send her life crashing down around her. She’d showed Dent that she cared for him. At least, that’s what he believed. She was more than worried when he’d showed up injured. That meant she cared for him. Correct assumption?

  And did he care for her? Were those moments spent in close proximity, those rare moments where he felt his heart race and his skin flush, were those signs that he cared for her?

  “Does Kasumi know you’re here? That you’re with me?” Lynn asked, fingertips gently brushing his chest above the make-shift bandages. Her voice had taken on a different tone, more breath than sound.

  “I … my phone … it’s in the car.” He was having trouble finding words, and Lynn seemed to be closing in on him. He remembered her question, answered with, “No, she doesn’t.”

  His head began to spin, and for a brief moment he thought he felt her fingertips being replaced with her lips. But that couldn’t be. He brought up a hand, sluggish but determined to drape it over her, for he was right. She was on his chest, his shoulder, his neck now.

  More and more the room spun, more and more his heart raced. He fumbled his arms around her body as she carefully laid next to him. She whispered something to him before pushing her lips to his.

  He melted under her, and one of the last things he could remember before his mind and body went numb was, Did Lynn just whisper an apology to me?

  XXVIII

  “Stop the car, Jason.”

  He looked over at her, his eyes darting about. He’d heard her end of the phone conversation with Dent, and if that wasn’t enough to confuse and freak him out, her raging emotions were more than doing the job.

  “Wha—” His jaw clenched. “What?”

  “Stop the car. Now!” Kasumi tried to keep her fear and anger in check but failed miserably. Dent wasn’t answering his phone. She tried again, for the third time. Same thing, no answer. She almost threw her phone at the dashboard.

  Jason’s eyes tightened. He whipped his head back to stare out the windshield and suddenly slammed on the brakes, sending the little Nissan into a skidding stop. Horns and headlights blared and flashed as other cars were forced to take drastic measures to avoid smashing into them.

  Her heart was racing, and by the way Jason’s chest heaved and his knuckles gripped the steering wheel, she could tell he wasn’t in a stable frame of mind either. He mumbled something to himself, eased up on the brakes, and pulled the car over to the grassy embankment before turning his glare on her.

  He was angry. Fine. So was she. It was time to cut the crap, no more playing it cool.

  Dent was in trouble. And all because that stupid church. She could actually hear it in his voice over the phone. Dent had been hurt, and for him to snap at her that way, she knew he had to have been hurt really bad.

  Get somewhere safe, he’d said. But where?

  Get away from Jason, he’d told her. But why?

  He must have found out for sure what she’d already suspected. Jason had been playing them the whole time. The fact was that what she felt for him was fake, fabricated by him and forced on her. And the sad thing was, a little voice in the back of her own mind laughed at her, told her that now she knew what it was like to be forced to feel something, to have your own emotions whipped and tossed about by someone special. Someone just like her.

  “What’s going on, Kasumi?”

  “You tell me!”

  His hands choked and twisted the steering wheel. “What?” He practically snarled at her.

  She snarled right back. “You. Me. Us. This.” She wished she had something to choke and twist right about now.

  His hands dropped to his lap, balled into fists. Through clenched teeth he began, “Kasumi ….”

  “Don’t! I know what you are, Jason.”

  “What I am? What are you talking about?”

  “The church. Mr. Chisholme. How you guys are manipulating people.”

  Jason stared at her. Really stared. His eyes were pinning her, keeping her from squirming. After a tense moment he threw his seatbelt off and hopped out of the car, slamming the door closed after him.

  How dare he? He didn’t have a right to be angry with her!

  She got out the car, making sure she slammed her door even harder, and came around the hood to point a finger at him. “You’ve been playing with my emotions the whole time!” she shot at him.

  He wheeled on her, stared at her accusatory finger like it was a knife. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Her hand dropped and her head shook. “Making me like you, that’s what. Using your talent to get people to do nice things. And using the church as a cover.”

  Jason stepped back and something other than anger passed over his face. “Cover? For what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly. Then louder, with forced confidence, she said, “Not yet. Something that Mr. Chisholme is involved with. Which means you … you ….”

  “I’m not messing with your emotions, Kasumi. For one thing, I’m the one that likes you.”

>   Kasumi had to take a step back. It was either that or fall when her knees gave out. He liked her?

  “And the church … Why do you keep talking about Saint Nicholas?”

  Her brain and tongue couldn’t agree to work together. “You … you know. The church. Messing with people’s minds.”

  Jason took a step closer, raising a hand as he did, but not threateningly. “Kasumi, I know what it looks like. I didn’t want to lie to you but—”

  “I knew it!” she snapped, throwing her hands up into the air.

  The look he gave her made her feel like an idiot and she slowly brought her hands back down to a mature person’s level.

  “Kasumi, I don’t really go to church. I know I said I do, but I don’t.”

  “Wait,” she said. Were they on the same playing field here? “What?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought it might make me look like a nice guy, you know? Let you think I go to church all the time. Kind of trying to impress you. My mother thinks I go to Saint Nicholas all the time, but I really only go there for free food or to pick up Chutes and Ladders. Most of the time we’re at the arcade or shooting pool. It’s kind of the only way she lets me get away with driving.”

  “Your mother said—”

  “My mother lets me go to Saint Nicholas whenever I want. It’s a free pass for me to go out wherever I want without her bothering me. She, um … She doesn’t know.”

  Kasumi’s mind was racing, the implications of what Jason was claiming trying to settle in. “So you don’t spend time there?”

  “Only on rare occasions. That place is great, don’t get me wrong, but it reminds me too much of what I am.”

  Her left foot involuntarily slipped back a few inches. “Which is?”

  His head dropped. “Adopted. My real parents didn’t want me. They gave me up.”

  This was not what she’d expected. How could she have gotten this all wrong? Her anger had gone, whipped out of the shattered window that was her mind, and was replaced with an utter sense of sadness for him.

  “I’m so sorry, Jason,” she said softly.