False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  She hoped Father Lance was still breathing.

  XXX

  Jason sped out of the parking lot in Father Lance’s hatchback. Kasumi was in the passenger seat, mind going a million miles an hour and Theresa, occasionally letting out a whimper or a sniffle, was strapped in in the back seat behind her.

  “Where are we going?” Theresa asked in a whiney voice.

  Jason looked over to Kasumi after hitting the main street. “Your hotel?”

  She shook her head. “They’ll know. If Dent did this, that’s the first place they’ll look.” She twisted, watched the lights and Saint Nicholas Parish grow smaller in the distance.

  “Your place,” she said after turning back.

  “Won’t they figure out you’re going there?” Theresa asked. “Since you guys are dating, it only makes sense.”

  “We’re not dating,” Jason quickly pointed out.

  “Shut up,” Kasumi called back at Theresa, partly because of Jason’s comment, partly because the stupid girl wasn’t making things easier.

  “Whoa, Kasumi,” Jason chastised her. “She’s just trying to help.”

  “No, she’s the reason we’re in this mess!”

  This spurred another round of wet sniffles and sobs from the backseat.

  Jason, drawn in by Theresa’s crying, or maybe her forced emotions, looked into the rearview mirror and asked the girl in a sweet voice, “Where do you want to go?”

  “It’s not her choice!” Kasumi snapped.

  “It’s not her fault!” he snapped right back.

  “Yes it is!”

  Theresa cried even louder, Jason’s hands twisted on the steering wheel, and Kasumi was worried for his sanity, and their safety. With Theresa forcing Jason to want to help her and Kasumi’s anger bleeding out into him, she was scared that he might snap. God knows what was going on in his mind this very moment.

  Now, more than ever, Kasumi wished she had the promised eBlocker with her. At least she could use it to keep herself from affecting Jason, make it easier for him to pay attention to the road.

  “Jason, take us to your house. Theresa, stop crying. And nobody talk unless I tell them to,” Kasumi ordered.

  From the backseat came, “So now you’re the boss?”

  She spun to face the girl while Jason said, “Easy, Kasumi ….”

  “No! You pay attention to the road. Or else I’ll drive.”

  “You don’t know how.” Then, in a helpful voice he said, “I could teach you.”

  She wanted to scream. Couldn’t Theresa turn it off just for a minute?! She didn’t want Jason to be overly helpful, she wanted him to shut up and drive.

  “Kasumi?” Again, Jason with the light, friendly voice.

  She glared at Theresa and yelled, “Stop it!”

  Theresa sank back into her seat. And the car started to slow. She whipped back around, stared at Jason. “I meant stop to her, not you. Just … Just drive, Jason. I know it must be crazy for you right now, but just drive.”

  Hopefully Dent was at Jason’s house. Where else would he go? She needed him badly. He wouldn’t be caught up in either her or Theresa’s forced emotions. At least she could count on him to be rational.

  The car went blessedly quiet for a few minutes and Jason wound his way out of the center of the city.

  And then, “Oh, shit.”

  “I told you to be quiet, Theresa!”

  “You be quiet!”

  Kasumi turned, a vicious reply on her tongue, but the flash of red and blue farther back on the street they were on kept her quiet. “Oh, shit!”

  She turned to Jason. “Why didn’t you tell me the cops were following?”

  “You told me to shut up.” All anger in his voice on that one.

  “Whatever.” She was beginning to think Dent had it easy, with his ignorance of just how annoying people and their emotions could get. “Just step on it!”

  Hands strangling the back of her seat, she watched as the flashing lights receded then disappeared as Jason took another corner. To Theresa, she asked, “Why are you afraid of the cops? I thought you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “It’s not the cops I’m worried about,” Theresa said. “It’s the people who’ll be following them. To get me back.” She gripped the back of Kasumi’s seat. “They’ll kill you guys to keep my secret from getting out.”

  “Oh, now you’re worried about our safety?” Kasumi threw back at her.

  “Not yours ….”

  Kasumi looked over at Jason. His face was a mask of concentration, his eyes darting from road to mirrors and back. Great. Just great. She wondered if Jason had any clue that Theresa liked him.

  Kasumi could come up with nothing to say. How much worse could this night get?

  She just prayed that she could find Dent. He was the one person she could rely on to never change. To never hurt her.

  ---

  Dent’s eyes peeled apart. His fingers wiggled, then his toes. His mind was seconds behind.

  He made to sit up, but a disorienting wave sloshed through his head and hot pain shot through his side.

  Bed. Lynn’s bed. He was still in bed.

  Slowly this time, he scooted back against the pillows and headboard into a seated position. He looked down at his abdomen and noticed the repair work Lynn had done on him had been redone. The duct tape that had been wrapped around him to hold the rags to his wounds had been cut and peeled away on his injured side.

  Proper bandaging had been applied and the skin around the new bandage was stained a rusty orange. Carefully, he peeled one corner and saw that he now had been stitched up. Securing the bandage again, Dent let his head fall back.

  What happened?

  Did he and Lynn …? He threw back the covers fully, saw that he still wore his ruined pants. So they hadn’t done anything that intimate. He remembered her leaning in. Or maybe he had pulled her down. And then it all became fuzzy, blurry.

  Someone apologized for something ….

  He saw the empty bottle of liquor on the floor next to the bed. On the bedside table, the sports drink bottle. He reached over, held it up. There were particulates gathered in the small amount of liquid inside. With a slow growl or realization, he threw the bottle across the room, where it crashed into the closet door.

  She’d drugged him. Drugged him, and made him follow whatever drug she’d given him with alcohol. That explains why he had felt so … uncharacteristically friendly with her. Why he felt so groggy right now.

  But the question remained, Why had she drugged him? Glaringly obvious she was part of whatever was happening at Saint Nicholas. She’d kept him close, kept an eye on him. But if she was with Chisholme, why was Dent still alive? And why did she pretend she knew nothing about caring for serious wounds only to patch him up after she’d knocked him out.

  And why the hell did she have to kiss him?

  He felt a flush rush through him. Anger. Betrayal. He twisted his body, purposely inviting pain from his wounds to shoot through his body, to clear his mind of thoughts of Lynn and what it all meant.

  One thing for sure, the woman was the enemy. Patching him up did not absolve her of what she’d been doing here all these years. And what she put him through, leading him on? He’d put a bullet in her head for that. Easier than asking her why she’d taken the time to fix him up.

  She was the enemy.

  And his mind, still working to catch up to the predicament he was currently in, turned to thoughts of Fifth.

  She had been with Jason when he called her. Jason is Lynn’s son. Two and two, equals four. Fifth was in danger. That horrible thought forced Dent to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Pain from his leg, numbed to the point of feeling like he’d been kicked by a horse, drew his attention. Lynn had tended to that wound as well, replacing duct tape with real bandages. No doubt she’d stitched him up there, as well.

  Hands going to his pocket, he remembered he no longer had his phone on him. No way to get a hold of Fifth. He’d
have to use Lynn’s landline. But first, he had to get out of bed. Careful of his wounds, he managed to stand, if a bit wobbly, and after a moment of searching, found his jacket. Easing it on over his bare chest and leaving it unzipped, he made his way out of Lynn’s room.

  At the doorway, he stopped. Where was his gun? He was sure he’d brought one in with him. Turning back into the room, he kicked clothes and rags around, threw the sheets aside, tossed pillows to the other side of the room.

  She’d taken his gun.

  Bitch.

  Again anger rose up in him — from whatever drug/alcohol combination or from Fifth’s emotional magnetism, it didn’t matter at this point. He kicked the bedside table, knocking over a lamp and clock, and there he saw, were his car keys. Scooping them up, he headed for the front of the house.

  He needed to find a phone, call Fifth, grab his other gun, and put a bullet in every bastard who had the even slightest of association with Saint Nicholas Parish and Grant Chisholme. He limped into the kitchen, remembering seeing a cordless on a counter top from one of his earlier visits here.

  That was when the front door crashed open.

  In less than a heartbeat, Dent lunged across the counter top, ignoring the pain from both wounds as he hit the marble, and pulled a knife from the block near the sink. Voices, high pitched, rapid, arguing — children. And one, he recognized, would recognize anywhere.

  “Shut up and sit down!” He heard Fifth yelled over the others. “Jason, close the door! We don’t have much time.”

  Dent stepped around the corner, knife held down but at the ready.

  “Much time for what?” he asked.

  Fifth turned, slowly, deliberately. He saw her eyes pop and glisten as they alit on him.

  Then, pain flooded his side as she flew into him.

  XXXI

  Dent grimaced and pulled the girl off of him. Even with the pain, he managed a smile for her. Even with all that had happened to him, for the moment he focused solely on Fifth.

  “I thought … I ….” Tears welled in her eyes and she looked away.

  Dent patted her shoulder and only then did he take in Jason and the other girl. Jason stared at him, at Fifth, at the knife Dent held. The unknown girl was sobbing on the couch.

  “Where's my mom?” Jason said, stepping closer.

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to answer.

  “Dent,” Fifth said, wiping her eyes. “Where is Miss Wilkens?”

  He shook his head. The distant sounds of wailing sirens tickled Dent’s senses.

  “Why are you half naked?” Jason demanded at the same time Fifth said, “Oh, Dent. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said.

  “Not what I meant,” Fifth said, taking obvious note of his state of undress.

  She didn’t explain further what she had meant as Jason rushed past him, screaming out for his mother. And of course, after his rapid search of the house resulted in nothing, he came back, shouting, “What happened? I swear, if you hurt my mom ….”

  If Dent had it in him, he would have laughed at the boy. Or punched him.

  Fifth stepped between them, palms raised in each of their directions. “Not now, Jason.” Then, “Dent, where is she?”

  He looked at Jason, saw the steady glare the boy was giving him, and had a brief moment of indecision. Was the boy in on this? Should he be treated as a threat, just like his mother?

  Fifth, somehow reading his very thoughts, said softly, “Jason helped us escape, Dent. With her.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the girl on the couch. “Theresa is the one who’s been forcing people to become super helpful and nice.”

  “One of the ten,” Dent said softly to himself, briefly looking over at the girl. The target.

  Fifth searched his eyes. “What?”

  “It’s not Jason?”

  “No.”

  “But ….”

  “Where is my mother?”

  “Jason, hush! Wait. Dent will figure this all out.” She looked back up at him. “Right?”

  Still keeping an eye on the boy, Dent nodded. He didn’t trust himself to answer. Because he didn’t know what was going on. His mind was still slow, his thoughts sluggish. One thing he did know is if that the boy helped Fifth escape then it meant he wasn’t aware of his mother’s involvement. He’d likely just caused his own mother more trouble down the road.

  Dent had an urge to tell the boy what his mother was, how the woman was one of the bad guys, the role she’d played in keeping Saint Nicholas in operation, using Theresa to elevate half of the city’s emotions. He wanted to tell the boy, to mar the image of his mother. To get back at her for what she had done to Dent.

  What came out was, “Your mother helped me, tended to my wounds, and left for fear of her safety around me. I don’t know where she is.” Every word he’d spoken was the truth, if only partially. He just couldn’t bring himself to hurt the child for the sins of his mother.

  Jason’s eyes seemed to lose some intensity and slowly, his shoulders dropped. Fifth was there in an instant, holding his hand. Those sirens that had taken a backseat in Dent’s focus now became blaringly insistent.

  “What are we going to do?” Fifth asked no one in particular.

  “Tell me what happened,” Dent said. “Why, and who, the girl is.”

  “Long story short, Theresa is the source. The target we were sent here for. Father Lance helped us get her out of Saint Nicholas.” Her voice cracked as she said the last. “He bought us time. But there’s a team of people after us.”

  “And the cops,” Jason added.

  Dent resisted the urge to point out to the boy that the rising crescendo of sirens was a dead giveaway to that fact. He looked at Fifth. “The team of people,” Dent said. “Are they armed?”

  “I think so. Yeah,” Fifth replied.

  “Chisholme’s men. They tried trapping me at Saint Nicholas.”

  Jason drew closer to Dent, raised a fist. “What does this have to do with my mother?”

  Dent didn’t answer.

  “Jason, listen to me,” Fifth said stepping closer to the boy. “Those men after us? They’re dangerous. They will do whatever it takes to keep whatever’s happened tonight quiet.”

  “The cops will stop them,” he said. “Right?”

  Dent almost felt bad for how wrong Jason was. The boy knew nothing. And his mother was in the center of all this. He opened his mouth to put Jason in his place but Fifth spoke up first.

  ---

  “The men after us, after Theresa, won’t be stopped by the cops, Jason. They’ll kill them like they’ll kill the rest of us.”

  Jason looked over at Theresa, then Dent, and finally back to Kasumi. “But we got her out of Saint Nicholas. Father Lance helped ….”

  “I know, I know. I hope Father Lance is safe, too, Jason. It’s just that—”

  “We screwed up,” he said, cutting her off.

  “No, we got Theresa out. That was the main thing.”

  “But now the cops are coming for us. I led them here, to my house.”

  To prove his point, the sirens grew even closer. Blue and red flashed in the front windows in her periphery. She grabbed his hand, tried forcing a calm feeling into him. “We did what had to be done. And now, we just have to figure the next part of our plan.”

  He squeezed her hand, then let it go, running his fingers through his hair.

  “Dent will get us out of this safely,” she promised.

  He looked at Dent.

  Outside, it sounded like the cops were taking over the entire neighborhood. Jason cocked his head, listening. Then he turned, his eyes searching Kasumi’s, his hands seeking hers.

  She didn’t like the resigned look he was giving her. She squeezed his hands.

  “Jason ….”

  He squeezed back. “Kasumi. I have to do something.”

  “No, Jason. Dent will—”

  “Dent may be able to keep you safe, but what about t
he cops? You said it yourself. By leading them here, I put them in danger.”

  She opened her mouth, but words failed her.

  He took a deep breath, faced her squarely.

  “One thing you need to know,” he told her. “I’m not doing this because of her,” he angled his head in Theresa’s direction, “because of what she makes people feel. And I’m not doing this because of you either. Well, it is because of you, but not because of what you can do.” He squeezed her hands even harder and looked skyward as he tried to gather his thoughts.

  Looking back down at her, he said, “I can help you, I can help those cops outside. And I’m doing it for you, not because of you, okay, Kasumi?”

  “We can figure something out. I promise ….”

  “And you will, but not with innocent people getting hurt. I … I ….” He pulled her in, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek. She heard him try to conceal a sniffle.

  He pulled away before she could think to kiss him back. He said, “This is the one way I can help.” He reluctantly stepped away and turned on Dent, who’d watched the display of affection with an impassive eye.

  “You keep her safe,” he demanded of Dent. He looked so small, so young with his finger and head raised to meet Dent’s gaze. “If you don’t ….”

  He swallowed, Dent stared.

  “I’m going to find my mom. And if she’s been hurt I swear I’ll find you.”

  It was the most stupidly brave thing she’d seen someone do, threaten a trained killer like that. And it made her like Jason all the more.

  “Dent,” she pleaded, “you can’t let him go out there!”

  “He’s doing what he thinks is right,” Dent said, never taking his eyes from Jason.

  “But you don’t think he’s right, do you?”

  One last cop car screeched to a stop in front of the house. A spotlight speared into one of the front windows, jerked back and forth before disappearing. Suddenly the gaps around the front door lit up like in one of those alien-abduction movies.