Farewell to Dreams: A Novel of Fatal Insomnia

by CJ Lyons

  Marcus’s gaze never wavered. “They were trying to protect everyone—all the families over at the Tower, Devon. You were too young to remember how bad things were back then. Not a night went by without another murder in a stairwell or another woman raped. The cops didn’t give a shit. The only way to get any help was to keep Kingston happy.”

  “And do you remember what my mother went through? How beautiful she was before Kingston got to her? Remember what she looked like that last day when they took her away, Marcus? Eyes flat, staring at nothing, drool on her face, worse than dead.”

  Marcus glanced up as if expecting his God to answer.

  “Eight years, Marcus. Eight years she endured that monster. Eight years my family played Judas goat for the rest of the Tower. Don’t you think after all that I deserve some answers?”

  Marcus remained silent, his eyes on the crucifix above them.

  “You know something.” It wasn’t a question. From the way Marcus stiffened, he understood how serious Devon was. “Tell me. Now.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” All his life, Devon had never heard Marcus apologize to anyone for anything.

  “Where’s Mrs. Anders? I know she kept those kids down in the tunnels. Did she hide Esme somewhere? Who wants Esme dead and why? Who killed Patrice and,” his voice faltered, “Jess?” As the questions poured out, Devon came as close to tears as he had in decades.

  Still, Marcus remained silent.

  “You want to die?” Devon shouted, his voice echoing back from the stained-glass effigies as if the saints all had the same question. “I don’t mind killing a priest. But I’d rather not kill a friend.”

  “If I told you what I know, I’d just be condemning someone else, wouldn’t I?” They must have taught Marcus how to use double-talk in the seminary because he used to be a straight shooter. Said little, and what he did, you could count on. “Guess that means you might as well kill me. Save me from having more blood to atone for.”

  “Marcus—”

  “It’s Father Vance.”

  Damn. That was cold.

  Devon tried another track. “You can’t tell anyone anything said in confession, right?” Marcus nodded. “So I’m making my confession, Father Vance. Esme is my daughter.”

  “I know.”

  “Who told you?”

  Marcus remained silent. Of course. As a priest, he now got to keep everyone’s secrets. Made him a powerful man without raising a fist.

  He folded his hands together as if praying. “If I knew where Esme was, I wouldn’t be here, Devon. I’d be out there, trying to help her.”

  “You sound almost like your old self, Marcus. Almost.” Like he was going to trust a priest to take care of business. As always, it was down to Devon to get the job done. He turned to leave, not bothering with genuflecting or even glancing toward the altar with its silent God.

  “Devon. Don’t you want absolution?”

  “Haven’t done anything needs forgiving, Father. Not yet. But you want something on your conscience, Father Vance? My daughter’s gone, her mother dead, and someone’s gonna answer for that. I figure my best bet for answers is Mrs. Anders. She can’t hide behind no confessional.”

  “Mrs. Anders might have gone too far, but she’s always done what she thought was best for the people of the Tower. She loved your mother, and she loved you, Devon. Just as she cared for Jess and Esme.”

  “You saying she doesn’t know anything?”

  Marcus considered, his lips twisting as if trying to untangle a truth that wouldn’t violate his precious priestly obligations. “I’m saying maybe start with the man who knows everything that goes on in the Tower.”

  “Daniel Kingston?” No way would Daniel ever tell Devon anything. And why would he be involved in Jess’s death or taking Esme? He’d never shown any interest in them before.

  “Kingston? He hasn’t given a rat’s ass about the Tower, not since he finished with your mother. I’m talking about the man who does Kingston’s dirty work for him, cleans up after him, keeps folks in line so Kingston doesn’t have to worry. Tyree. He’s who you need to be talking to.”

  <<<>>>

  Ryder’s fingers cramped with the urge to draw his weapon and charge in after Rossi as she and Tyree held their tête-à-tête in this crazy-ass rooftop porn palace. Once he was past his initial juvenile impulse, he watched Rossi. The woman was fearless, giving Tyree’s shit right back to him, standing toe-to-toe with the gang leader and never flinching.

  He kept his calm, followed her lead. Ignored the drip of sweat that inched down his spine. Finally, Tyree waved her away as if giving her a benediction, and then she and the dog were back in the elevator with him, on their way down to the fourth floor to where Alamea Syha had lived with her family.

  Here there was no red velvet, no sense of open space. Just anonymous plywood doors painted an indiscriminate color lining the two wings stretching out from either side of the elevator. An armed sentry stood guard at the elevator, and two more patrolled each hallway.

  Their escort nodded to the sentry and led them to a door a third of the way down the east wing. He pounded on it with the side of his fist then left before it opened.

  Rossi moved to stand in front of the door, but Ryder waved her back, and she joined him to one side. His hand was on the butt of his weapon, ready to clear it from its holster. The door opened, revealing a stooped Asian woman with sparse gray hair and the white film of cataracts covering her eyes.

  Ryder scanned the space behind her. People sitting on couches and the floor, a few crying, others conversing in a foreign language. He relaxed his guard and let Rossi take the lead, interested in seeing how she’d handle this crowd, knowing they’d be more comfortable with her than a cop.

  She used the dog to help soften the blow, just like she had with the kids. Allie’s family was Laotian, here illegally except for the children who’d been born in Cambria: Allie and a younger brother. The brother, a fourteen-year-old dressed in baggy jeans and a Penn State sweatshirt, did the translating. His parents, aunt, uncle, and grandmother collapsed in tears around him when Rossi broke the news—news they’d already heard from Tyree’s boys, no doubt. But the boy, the brother, he kept looking at Ryder. His gaze wasn’t filled with grief. Rather anger and mistrust.

  While Rossi comforted the family, Ryder beckoned the boy to join him.

  “I ain’t done nothing.” The kid’s first words confirmed Ryder’s suspicion. As did the still-angry-red brand on the back of his hand.

  “When’d you get that?” Ryder nodded to Tyree’s brand. The boy shuffled his hands, not sure what to do with them, settled for folding them and his arms against his chest and leaning against the doorjamb like the gangster he wasn’t.

  “Whassit to you?”

  Ryder waited. Kid caved fast.

  “Few days ago. After Allie went—” Kid finally let some grief filter through the anger. Blinked fast, eyes wet. Turned his face away from Ryder to look at his family. “Someone had to do something to protect the family. Not like you all do.”

  “Tell me about Allie. What was going on in her life?”

  The kid looked down at his feet, embarrassment sprinting over his face when he lost his balance and had to straighten, assume a new pose. “Girl had her dreams, and she stood by them. Decided she was going to play in a band, run away to New York, anywhere but here.”

  “Sounds like an expensive dream. Did Allie have any money?”

  No pose, this time it was pure rage that ratcheted his spine straight. “Tyree told her he could help her make some. Fast. Know what I mean?”

  “She was working for Tyree?”

  “No. She said no. Girl was such a dreamer. Didn’t realize no one says no to Tyree. Not ever.” He picked at the fresh burn scar on his hand. “But one thing about Tyree. He protects his own. That’s for real.”

  Right. Until Tyree had no more use for “his own.” Ryder tried another track. “If Allie wasn’t going to work for Tyree, where did sh
e plan to get the money to go to New York?”

  “I dunno. But she had something planned. Dressed real nice—extra nice—that last morning when she left for school.”

  “What day was that?”

  “Monday. Said something about coming home with enough money so none of us would have to worry about anything anymore. Talked about taking us all with her.” He pursed his mouth as if ready to spit. “Girl was such a fool.”

  He gave the kid the other rape victims’ names. “Any of them know Allie?”

  His expression immediately closed down. “Don’t know nothing.”

  He turned to go back inside, ending the conversation. Ryder had one last question. “Why didn’t you or your folks report Allie missing?”

  He figured the answer would have to do with their immigration status. The kid surprised him. “Because that’s when the money started coming. A grand every day she was gone. Note said not to tell.”

  “Money?” Ryder wondered if the other victims’ families had gotten money during their absences. “How did it come? Show me the note.”

  The boy pushed away from the door, out into the hall where they couldn’t be overheard. “Can’t. Burned it after I found the money. It was in our mailbox—me and Allie are the only ones who check it. Figured maybe it was from her, her way of saying good-bye, taking care of us.” He looked over his shoulder at his family. “They don’t know anything about it.”

  “But now you know it wasn’t Allie who sent it. Any ideas who could have?”

  This time it was fear that drove the kid’s balled-up posture, making him less of a target. “That’s why I burned the note. Paper it was on, it had like an invisible ink picture.”

  “You mean a watermark?”

  “Yeah, one of those.”

  “What was it?”

  “Everyone here knows that mark. We see it everywhere we look.”

  “Tyree’s crown? Was it the Royales’ mark?”

  Kid shook his head, holding his hand with Tyree’s brand up as if noticing it for the first time. “People are so stupid. It’s not Tyree’s crown. Never was.” He pointed down the hall to the elevators. Above them was a sign riveted to the cinderblock wall.

  Ryder couldn’t make out the words, but even from here he saw the logo. A lowercase “d” tilted to one side with a capital “K” perched on it at an angle, zigzag lines joining the points of the letters, making it look like a person wearing a crown.

  Daniel Kingston’s logo.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  After leaving the Syhas, we trudged back to the elevator. Tyree’s men were nowhere to be found, but the car was waiting for us. We both leaned against the back wall of the elevator, Ozzie between us. Ryder reached for my hand, and I let him hold it. Wasn’t sure who was comforting whom, but it felt good, and I was too tired to fake being strong anymore.

  It’d been hours since my last fugue state. Other than contact with almost-dead-people, they seemed triggered by heightened emotions: fear, especially. Maybe I hadn’t had one recently because Ryder made me feel safe. Or maybe I was so exhausted that the fear had been leeched out of me.

  Look at me, playing scientist, trying to explain something I was busy denying existed. My dad always said I got that from him—the Rossi ability to argue both sides at the same time, guaranteed to drive anybody crazy.

  I shied away from that thought. Standing here with Ryder, I didn't feel so crazy. Despite the circumstances, I felt pretty damn near normal, and it was refreshing as hell.

  Ozzie led us outside and immediately did his business on the straggly bushes that lined the walkway. I craned my neck up. Few lights this early in the morning, not until you reached Tyree’s rooftop office. And the greenhouse with its eerie red glow. “That greenhouse. Wouldn’t be a bad place to hide a kid like Esme.”

  Ryder looked up. “Easy to guard, hard to approach without warning. I'll see if the staties can swing a helicopter past, get some pictures.” He turned his gaze on me in approval. “I like how you think, Rossi.” Stifling a yawn with one hand, he grabbed his cell phone with the other and called to arrange the flyby. “And get me thermal imaging,” he added. “I’d love to know how many people are inside.”

  He hung up. “They say thermal might be tough because of the heaters for the plants, but we’ll see. You in a hurry to get home?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I still owe you a meal, and I’m starved.” He turned in the direction of my apartment above my uncle’s bar. “You’re just a few blocks from here, right?”

  Yeah, right. “You know I am. Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, Ryder. How much did you bet?”

  The world of sex crimes is pretty small—and more than a little incestuous. Who else are you going to unwind and share stories of the day’s work with when your shift is spent interviewing victims or their rapists?

  My team includes Jacob as our ADA—I pretty much inherited him when I took over the Advocacy Center, but we work well together despite our history, or maybe because of it—two dedicated social workers; four SANE nurses who, like me, divide their time between shifts in the ER and working at the Center; an on-call psychologist who volunteers her time to provide counseling for victims and their families; a corps of volunteer victim assistants; one county sheriff’s detective; and one city detective, the position Ryder was taking over after Harrison’s death a few weeks ago.

  All of them—except the volunteers, who were pretty much civilians, didn’t socialize with the rest of us—knew I never invited men to my place. Never invited anyone there, in fact. But that didn’t stop them from hazing any newcomers as an initiation to our select group of merry mischief-makers.

  “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about,” Ryder said, but his grin gave everything away. Despite being up all night, almost shot, almost fired, and almost incinerated, he crackled with energy.

  Okay, two could play at this game. I recalled his address from his ER chart and turned south. “You’re just a few blocks from here on Riverside, right?”

  Without waiting for his answer, I started walking, Ozzie at my side. I turned back and called over my shoulder. “C’mon, you still owe me breakfast.”

  He shook his head, chuckled, and jogged to catch up. “Hope I didn’t cross a line. Is it because of Voorsanger?”

  Why did he assume Jacob was still in my life? I mean, he was, but not the way Ryder seemed to think. “No. And don’t take it personally. Jacob never gets an invite either.”

  He considered that, a sly grin slipping across his face as if he was keeping score. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Men. Did they ever think of anything but sex?

  We settled into a steady rhythm, the street empty. No Black Friday predawn shoppers here. They were all beyond the city limits, with the strip malls and big-box stores.

  As we walked, the darkness punctuated by the occasional streetlamp, I couldn’t stop thinking about those kids: Esme, Allie, the other children… it was like catching water, as soon as you closed your fist, everything that you thought you had a firm grasp on drained away, leaving nothing.

  <<<>>>

  Ryder’s house was a Craftsman-style bungalow with a river-rock foundation supporting a wide porch, peaked gable, and wide-lathed siding painted a gentle dove gray with cobalt blue trim. In the soft glow of the porch light, it looked like a house out of a fairy tale, complete with moon gate and a cobblestone path leading to the porch. Obviously a house that had been lovingly restored and cared for. Unlike many of its neighbors.

  I climbed the steps to his front door—also cobalt blue—and spotted matching rocking chairs sitting on the porch, waiting for winter to loosen its grip.

  “Nice place,” I said as he ushered me and Ozzie inside and took my coat.

  “Thanks. My folks live across the river, my sister and her family two doors down from them. But when I came home from the Army, I needed space.” He looked around as if noticing his own house for the first time. “And this place needed tons of fix
ing up. Which worked out fine, since I was in the mood for a lot of hammering and pounding back then.”

  “You did all this yourself? It’s lovely.”

  He seemed abashed at the adjective. Probably not manly enough for a cop’s bachelor pad. But it was lovely—not fussy, just simple, rich colors, clean lines. Not jumbled and messy like my place. Or my life.

  Serene. That’s what the ivory-colored walls with their black and white photographs and the classic Shaker-inspired furniture on crisp heart of pine floors felt like. An oasis. Safe haven.

  I wandered over to the stone fireplace that took up an entire wall of the living room. The wide mantel was cluttered with photos: Ryder and an older couple, him with his arms wrapped around a woman a few years younger on one side and a man a few years older on the other, him rolling in the grass with a young girl and boy and a mixed-breed puppy, and several of him in various types of uniform with his fellow soldiers. He looked much, much younger then—and, despite the stark, mountainous landscape in the background, much happier.

  “When did you serve?” I asked.

  “The 1-87 was one of the first in Afghanistan. Finally came home in 2004, joined the force, been a cop ever since.” He shrugged away his years of service, even as his hand brushed the photo, aligning it just so as if it were a holy relic.

  He pushed away from the mantel. “Better take care of the dog.”

  Ozzie and I followed him into the kitchen. Maple cabinets blended with a modern mosaic-glass backsplash. Instead of the current trend of bulky islands to break up the space, he’d chosen a farmer’s table, solid and scarred, the kind the Waltons would have been at home gathered around.

  “Yard’s fenced in,” he said as he let Ozzie outside. Then he surprised me by dragging two large stainless steel dog bowls out of the pantry along with a bag of kibble. “I dog-sit for my sister’s kids.”

  I riffled through family photos stuck haphazardly between duty schedules, coupons, and takeout menus on his fridge. “They’re cute. How old?”