Smoke

by Lisa Unger

  Okay, she thought to herself, what’s going on? She searched the room for something to orient herself but the only thing she recognized was her ex-husband and even he looked changed.

  “What’s wrong?” she managed. “What’s happening?”

  He jumped at the sound of her voice and looked at her, first with stunned disbelief and then with joy. He started to cry then, dropped from the chair beside her and knelt beside her bed, putting his lips to her hand.

  “Jesamyn. Thank God.” He just kept saying it over and over. She wanted to reach with her other hand to comfort him but it hurt too much. She’d never seen him cry, not like that. Never heard him sob. What could make him cry like that?

  “Where’s Ben?” she asked, suddenly feeling a deep dread.

  “He’s fine, honey. He’s with your mom downstairs.”

  “Downstairs?”

  He looked at her, seemed to be searching for words. But he didn’t have to. It all came rushing back… the man in leather, the car chase, the showdown on the shoulder of the road. She had him. She had him down, she remembered. How did she wind up shot? She couldn’t remember. She started to cry then. The act of it was painful.

  “Dylan,” she said after a moment when she’d struck up the courage. “Please tell me he’s okay. Please.”

  “Mount?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded.

  “Jez.”

  “Please.”

  “He’s alive,” he said solemnly. “Barely, but he’s alive.”

  She let relief wash over her and felt her sadness and fear start to fade a little. He’d make it; he didn’t have a choice. He was her partner and she needed him. She’d tell him so as soon as she could. Then the darkness came and washed over her again.

  Lily Samuels awoke with a start in her own bed, in her own apartment, and practically wept with relief at the sight of her Ikea furniture. The images from her nightmares still lingered, the white room, the restraints, the feeding tube, the sound of gunshots, the raging fire. But they weren’t nightmares; they were memories. She wondered if this was how soldiers who’d survived combat felt when they woke up after their first night home from war. She wondered if they felt as cored out and empty, the fear and anger still raging in their blood.

  The sun streamed in the tall windows and she could hear her mother moving about in the kitchen. She could hear the Today show on the television. Outside the song of New York City, the horns and sirens, the buzz of a million footfalls and voices. Normal sounds. But they seemed strange. She wondered if normal would ever seem normal again. Right now, it just felt like a veneer over the dark truth of her life.

  She pushed herself upright on the bed, flipped the covers back. She looked at skinny arms and knobby knees she didn’t recognize. She’d always considered herself to be a little fat; she’d dieted and exercised all her life like everyone else trying to get skinny, trying to fit the image the media plunged down her throat every day. Now she just wanted herself back, her healthy pink skin, her too-round bottom. She didn’t want to be gray and sticklike, bony and strained-looking like the girl in the bathroom mirror last night. She couldn’t wait to start eating real food again. In fact, did she smell bacon?

  But there was another, much stronger urge than hunger. She looked around the room for her black case and remembered that she’d lost her computer somewhere along the line. And the notes she’d taken had to be abandoned when she fled the burning New Day compound. No matter; she remembered everything. Everything. Her fingers were itching, and her adrenaline was racing. Lydia Strong had always called this “the buzz.” That tingle in your chest, that racing urge to get the words down, to get them out before they burst through your skin.

  She slid off her bed and went over to the faux leather chair at her desk. She pulled a notebook and a pen from the drawer. And then she started to write.

  Thirty-One

  The headline read: NIGHT FALLS ON THE NEW DAY.

  Hokey but effective, thought Matt. Gotta love the Post; they knew how to write headlines. It blared out at him from Jesamyn’s hands as she read the article out loud from her wheelchair. They made quite a pair, him still in his hospital bed, the healing wound in his abdomen that nearly killed him still making it impossible to sit nearly a week after he’d taken the bullet. The shot that tore up his shoulder making it impossible for him to lift his right arm to hold the paper.

  Jesamyn looked smaller than ever and was being wheeled around in a wheelchair until her bullet wound that had shattered her right thigh bone was healed enough to start rehab. Her shoulder and left calf were healing fine. Her memory of that night was still sketchy. She’d killed the shooter, who remained unidentified. The second van had not yet been found. But the important thing was that they’d both be okay, a hundred percent eventually. They both had a long road ahead of them, but neither of them was complaining. It definitely beat the alternative.

  “I think your kid probably weighs more than you right now.”

  She peered over the paper at him. “You’re pretty ballsy for someone who’s totally defenseless.”

  “What are you gonna do-roll over me with your wheelchair?”

  “Are you going to let me finish this?”

  He nodded.

  “Officials from The New Day have officially distanced themselves from what they refer to as the Rhames Division of their church. Officials claim that he joined as a member in 1998 and moved up the ranks of the organization until he was eventually awarded his own Initiation Center in Riverdale and control of one of their businesses, the New Day Farms in Central Florida. At a certain point, The New Day asserts, Rhames broke contact and affiliation from the organization and that they have been on the verge of initiating legal action to stop him from using their name. The techniques of brainwashing and the usurping of member funds are neither employed nor condoned by The New Day, claimed one official. Likewise, they deny any involvement in what appears to be the framing of NYPD Detective Mateo Stenopolis in the beating death of Katrina Aliti and the shooting of witness Clifford Stern.

  “In spite of their disassociation from Rhames, an official federal investigation has been opened into The New Day. Charges could include kidnapping, extortion, coercion, and fraud. And past complaints from former New Day members, including some that ended in the complainant’s mysterious deaths, will be reexamined.”

  “So what does that mean?” asked Matt.

  “It means that Trevor Rhames takes the fall in the public eye and for The New Day, it’s probably business as usual. A couple of well-placed contributions and I bet that investigation goes away.”

  “We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Lydia Strong, walking into the room with an armful of pink and white tulips in one hand and a large white take-out bag in the other. Jeffrey Mark was behind her.

  “Hey,” said Matt. “The nurse’s station told me that you’ve been calling to check up on me.” He tried to rise a bit on instinct and received a nasty reminder from his middle that it wasn’t an option.

  “I don’t know what they’re feeding you in here,” she said. “But I brought you some take-out from the Greek place where we ate together.”

  He could smell it from where he lay. “You rock. I don’t know if they’ll let me eat it… but just the smell is making me feel better.”

  “We’ve never met,” said Lydia, holding her hand out to Jesamyn. She took it and gave Lydia a smile. “But these are for you, Detective Breslow.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “They’re gorgeous.”

  “This is my husband, Jeffrey Mark,” she said. Jesamyn nodded and took his hand.

  “Good to meet you both. Thanks for bringing Lily Samuels home.”

  Matt thought he detected a note of sadness in her voice but when he looked at Jez’s face, she was smiling. Maybe he was the one who was sad it hadn’t been them to help Lily.

  “You both look like you’re on the mend,” said Jeffrey, moving into the room and leaning against the windowsill. />
  “We’re getting there,” said Matt. “I’ve been dying to hear what happened that night in Florida.”

  Lydia told them about their visit from Grimm and their fall down the hole. She told him how Dax blasted them out and the ATF tried to hold them as scapegoats, then changed their minds and let them return home with Lily. She told him about their last visit with Tim Samuels and then about his suicide, and how a former employee from his company, Body Armor, was linked to the jewel robbery on the service road at JFK.

  “So did you figure it out? What deal he made and with who?”

  “The beneficiary on his policy was his wife, just as it should have been. Now she and Lily are left with nothing. The only one he screwed with his suicide was his family.”

  “Seems like he had a lot of practice at that,” said Matt.

  “And Rhames?” said Jesamyn.

  “He disappeared that night. With his resources and connections… he’s going to be hard to find.”

  “Is anybody looking?”

  Lydia looked away and Matt could tell that there was more to say but that she wouldn’t say it to him.

  “So how is she?” asked Matt, trying and failing to seem casual. He was nursing a fantasy that she would come to see him, but that hadn’t happened.

  “Lily? Tough enough to write that article,” said Lydia, nodding toward the newspaper in Jesamyn’s hand. “But I think it’s a long road back to normal.”

  His eyes traveled over to some pink roses that sat on the dresser across from his bed. “She sent those, thanking us for searching for her and not giving up.”

  “She’s a good kid, stronger than I would have guessed. She’ll be okay,” said Lydia. She went on, saying how Lily and her mom were living together in Lily’s apartment for the time being, trying to move forward together, but Matt stopped listening. He was watching Jesamyn who suddenly had gone pale; she had a dazed expression on her face, her head cocked to one side.

  “Jez?”

  “Oh, shit,” she said. She held the paper in her hand and was looking at it closely. “This picture.”

  She handed the paper to Lydia. She saw the picture of Mickey and Michele LaForge that she’d taken from Lily’s apartment early in the investigation. It was the only recent picture they had of the woman who remained at large, so Lydia had returned it to Lily for her article.

  “What?” said Mount.

  “The second van, the shooter that got me in the shoulder. There was a couple… a gorgeous woman with long blonde hair and a young guy. He shot me.” She let her sentence trail off, shook her head, and they all looked at her. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve only had this really vague memory of that night. And this picture-it’s shaken something loose.”

  Lydia felt her heart thump. “That man is Mickey Samuels,” said Lydia. “He’s dead, Detective Breslow.”

  Jesamyn nodded slowly. “I know,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “But I’d almost swear to it. These are the people in the second van.”

  “Is it possible?” said Matt.

  Jeffrey and Lydia exchanged a look, both afraid that it was entirely possible… and that they’d been wrong about everything all along.

  Where are we going?” asked Jeff, gripping the dashboard as Lydia quickly wove the Kompressor through the thick street traffic. She saw him pump his right leg, instinctively reaching for the breaks. He didn’t like the way she drove. He said she was an “offensive” driver rather than a “defensive” driver. But Lydia believed that, even in driving, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

  “To Riverdale. To talk to Dax.”

  “Why? What does he have to do with this?”

  She glanced at him and then put her eyes back on the road. “Think about it.”

  He stared ahead for a moment and then lifted his hands. “You lost me.”

  “Something Lily said in the motel. When I asked her what secrets her stepfather could be keeping that were bad enough to sacrifice his children. Something her mother would go along with.”

  “She said she didn’t know. She said something possibly to do with Body Armor or with his military career before he met her mother.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “You think Dax might know something about that?” he said.

  She cut across two lanes, leaving an angry cabby leaning on his horn. “Remember what Grimm said about Sandline?”

  “What about it?”

  “How you don’t get fired from a company like that; you get eliminated.”

  “So?”

  “Okay, so what if Samuels worked for Sandline, too? What if he and Rhames knew each other from way back then? And what if that’s the reason he couldn’t say anything to help himself. All the mistakes he supposedly made, like his wife and Lily said, this dark past. He was willing to sacrifice Lily and Mickey. Maybe he didn’t reveal it because he couldn’t, not because he just didn’t want to.”

  “Out of some kind of loyalty to Sandline?”

  “Or fear of what they would do to him.”

  “But his life was already in shambles. The New Day killed his stepson-or so he believed-took his daughter, his wife had left him. He stood to lose all his money. What else could they take from him?”

  “His life; until he took it himself.”

  Jeffrey tapped his finger on the door handle, was silent for a moment. “Maybe Dax was right after all; suicide as the ultimate act of control.”

  “Or surrender.”

  “Okay, say any of this is true. What does Dax have to do with it?”

  “I just think he knows more than he’s saying.”

  Jeffrey shook his head. “If he knew something that would help us, he would have told us.”

  “Not if he thought he was endangering us by doing so.”

  More silence. Then, “Where does Mickey fall into this?” asked Jeffrey.

  “If Detective Breslow truly did see him that night and he’s still alive, then we have to assume that he’s in partnership with The New Day and not a victim,” said Lydia.

  Jeffrey shook his head. “Since Florida we’ve been thinking that he infiltrated The New Day to help Tim Samuels and either they fucked him up so badly that he killed himself, or he got too close and they took care of the job for him.”

  “But maybe Mickey was working with them,” said Lydia, thinking aloud.

  “But why? And how would they even have come in contact with one another?”

  “Maybe Rhames sought him out. You know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  “Did Mickey really consider Tim Samuels his enemy?”

  “I guess it depends on what those dark secrets are, on what Trevor Rhames may have told Mickey about his stepfather’s past.”

  When they got to Dax’s house, the windows were dark and the gate was locked. Lydia rolled down the car window and pressed the buzzer near the gate but the box was silent. She stared at it worriedly, as if doing so would cause him to answer. But it didn’t work. She felt a rise of dread in her chest.

  “He’s not here,” she said pointlessly. She turned anxious eyes on him.

  He released a breath. “Oh no,” he said raising his hand. “You don’t want to break in.”

  She looked at him.

  “Bad idea,” he said. “Very bad idea.”

  She had to agree with him. She took her cell phone from the center console and dialed Dax’s number. The voicemail picked up before the first ring.

  “Leave a message. No names, no numbers. If I don’t know who you are, you shouldn’t be calling.” A long tone.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s urgent. Seriously.”

  She ended the call and looked with dark frustration at the windows of his house. She fought the urge to pound the dashboard with her fist.

  “What now?” she asked, as much of herself as of Jeffrey.

  He was quiet a second. Then, “I think I know where we can get some information.”

  He got out of the car
and walked around to the driver’s side. “I’m driving.”

  She rolled her eyes and slid over to the passenger seat.

  “Control freak,” she said.

  Manny Underwood looked as if he’d been on the losing end of an argument with a jackhammer. He lay on a thin cot in the center of a stone room beneath the streets of the diamond district. He turned swollen eyes on them when they entered the room.

  “You can’t keep him here forever,” Jeffrey said to Chiam Bechim.

  “We’re very patient people. But, no,” the old man said solemnly, “we can’t.”

  “So what are you going to do with him?”

  “All we want to know is where the rest of the stones are,” he said vaguely.

  “And who he was working for.”

  Chiam shifted on his feet, his eyes on Lydia. He leaned into Jeffrey and whispered, “This is not a place to bring a woman, Mr. Mark.”

  “She’s no ordinary woman,” said Jeffrey with a smile. “She’s my wife.”

  Chiam made some kind of uncomfortable throat-clearing noise and looked over at Underwood. “He has been wholly uncooperative. But I have the sense that under the right circumstances, he might begin to loosen up.”

  Jeffrey looked at him.

  “We’re employing a program of gradual escalation,” Chiam said softly, as if he were a doctor discussing the treatment of a terminally ill patient.

  The man on the cot released a low groan. He didn’t sound healthy and Jeffrey felt a wash of compassion for him.

  “Don’t feel too badly for him, Mr. Mark,” said Bechim, reading his expression. “This is a very bad man, guilty of some heinous acts. When we enter this business and conduct ourselves poorly, we all know where we might wind up.”

  The old man’s words were a warning and Jeffrey felt them in his bones. He felt Lydia stiffen at his side. He turned a cold stare on Chiam.