Ghost Heart

by Ripley Patton

  I downed it in one shot, the auburn liquid setting fire to my insides. I had no idea what it was, but it helped.

  “You’re doing great,” he said, taking the glass back. “Please, go on.”

  “Olivia and Marcus jumped right after us,” I said, skipping the part about Jason’s power. That was for him to tell, if he ever wanted to. “But when they hit the pool, Marcus sank. Olivia tried to dive after him, but he was too heavy and her knee was messed up. She was going to go down with him, if I didn’t stop her.” I had kept Olivia from rescuing Marcus, David Marcus Jordon, who also happened to be Mr. James’s long-lost nephew. He probably wasn’t going to thank me for that, even if it had saved Olivia’s life.

  “So you stopped her,” Mr. James said, his eyes coming back to me, cold and calculating.

  “Yes,” I said. “I had to. She would have drowned going after him. I grabbed her and got her to the edge of the pool.”

  “Then where is she?” he asked, confusion in his voice. “Why wasn’t she with you and Jason?”

  “She couldn’t walk. Not with her knee the way it was.” The horrifying guilt of leaving her pounded into me all over again. “I didn’t want to leave her,” I said, feeling a tear leak from my right eye and run down my cheek. “She told us to. The CAMFers were descending on the pool. Jason said we had to go. They would have taken us too if we hadn’t.”

  “Did you see them take her?” he asked, his voice like ice.

  “No,” I said, a whisper.

  “And what about Marcus? Did you see them take him?”

  “No.”

  “But you know where he sank? You remember where it was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me,” he said, pushing the limo door open and gesturing for me to go first.

  I climbed out and he climbed out after me.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Holbrook charged up to us like an angry bull.

  “My nephew’s body is at the bottom of that pool,” Mr. James said, staring him down. “And I intend to retrieve it. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “The council has instructed me to keep you under my surveillance,” Holbrook answered. He wasn’t backing down, but there was an uncertainty in his voice.

  “Watch me all you want,” Mr. James said. “Just get the damn divers in there. Now.”

  “Okay,” John nodded. “Get the divers prepped,” he called over his shoulder to one of the men behind him. “But the girl comes with me,” he said, his eyes boring into me. “I have more questions for her.”

  “I need her,” Mr. James said. “She knows where the body is.”

  Great. They were fighting over me.

  “My daughter was shot,” Mr. James said. “My nephew is dead. You aren’t the only one who has lost something here, John. At least let me recover my dead before you throw me under the bus. You owe me that.”

  They stood there glaring at each other, two desperate men vying for control.

  “All right.” Holbrook conceded. “You can keep the girl. I’ve been called back to Indy to report face-to-face. But remember,” he said, staring hard at Mr. James, “these men are under council orders to bring you and all the evidence back to the city tonight. This isn’t your show anymore, Alex. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it is.”

  “No, of course not,” Mr. James said, and as Holbrook turned away he murmured under his breath, “It’s your show now, John. All yours.”

  5

  PASSION

  There were three divers, two men and one woman. They looked strange all decked out in their black and neon green scuba gear so far from the ocean, and they were serious and quiet, like aliens eager to return to their home world. I showed them where I’d last seen Marcus, hoping with all my heart I’d gauged it right given the changes to the water level.

  “Sir,” one of the male divers said, turning to Mr. James, “you need to understand that with all this rain and flooding, the likelihood that anything is where it was last night is slim. And we are going to have zero visibility down there.”

  “Just do your job,” Mr. James said.

  The diver nodded and returned to his team, some who were setting up lights around the pool because the sun was beginning to set behind Devil’s Drop.

  It surprised me that the Hold had brought divers to Shades. Maybe Renzo and Juliana had told them about the terrain and the cliff and the river, so they’d come prepared just in case. But was Mr. James prepared to see his long-lost nephew dead? Did he know Marcus could reboot? The way he’d talked to Holbrook about his dead nephew, it sure didn’t sound like it.

  Three large splashes, one right after the other, brought me back to my surroundings as the divers plunged into the pool, disappearing in a profusion of bubbles, a rope trailing behind each one of them, held by a tender on shore. I stood on a rocky ledge overlooking the pool with Mr. James. The night air grew chilly, but moisture beaded on my face and forehead. This is how I’d imagined it in my mind for years. The edge of a river. My parents standing together, side by side, stoic in their silent prayer as the police divers searched for my sister’s body. The broken red rental canoe, like the twisted smile of a giant Cheshire cat, propped up against a tree behind them. Of course, those were only my childhood imaginings.I had been left at home for three days, tended to by an aunt I barely knew, and swallowed by a grief I could not comprehend. Had it been my fault the canoe had tipped? Why had it been me safely trapped in an air pocket under it while my sister was swept downstream? What had my father thought when he’d wrenched the canoe upward with all his strength, practically snapping it in two against the jutting log pinning it down, only to discover one daughter, not two. Had he been disappointed it was me there, and not her?

  I would never know the answers to these questions, never have them resolved, even in heaven. Because I would never have the guts to ask them.

  We hadn’t even had a body to bury and mourn over. When my parents had finally come home they’d simply said, “They didn’t find her. But she is gone.”

  Would Marcus be gone too?

  An uncontrollable shiver swept over me, and I jammed my hands in my pockets, trying to get warm, remembering the fillet knife almost at the last second. I shouldn’t have worried. The knife was gone. So was the fishing kit with its water tabs and matches. The only thing left was the magic eight ball, nestled in the rag the knife had once been wrapped in, round and solid to my touch.

  Of course. They’d searched me while I’d been passed out.

  I gave a side-long glance at Mr. James. Had it been his hands that had patted me down while I lay unconscious in his limo, or had John Holbrook done it? Did they think it had been a gesture of goodwill to leave me the toy? I’d thought I’d be safe with The Hold, that Mr. James was on my side, but now I wasn’t sure.

  “Where is Jason?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  Mr. James looked away from the pool, staring at me. “Holbrook took him back to Indy for questioning,” he said. “He suspects Jason disclosed the Eidolon’s location to the CAMFers.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. Jason hates the CAMFers. He would never do that. Besides, I thought you were the leader of The Hold, not Holbrook.”

  “Officially, I am. At least for a few more hours,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “But I’m afraid I have little real power left.”

  I wanted to ask him more, but suddenly bubbles roiled in the pool, and an orange buoy popped to the surface like an oversized fishing bobber.

  Did that mean they’d found Marcus?

  “They’re marking off where they’ve already searched,” Mr. James explained.

  A few minutes later, another buoy popped up.

  Then the female diver surfaced, accompanied by yet another buoy, but this one had a white mesh bag attached to it with something blue inside of it. A blue tennis shoe. Not Marcus’s. I didn’t recognize it.

  “They’re wasting time,” I turned to Mr. James. “If he’s down there—” />
  “They’ll find him,” he cut me off, taking a step closer, his eyes scanning to make sure no one was within earshot. “There’s no rush to find a corpse, you understand?” He turned his piercing gaze on me, but I could read the tension in his body. He wanted them to hurry as much as I did. He knew; he knew Marcus could reboot and it was crucial we find him as soon as possible. He just didn’t want anyone else around the pool to know.

  “I understand,” I said. I could keep a secret. But it wouldn’t be a secret for long if they pulled Marcus up and he rebooted in front of everyone. Hopefully, Mr. James had a plan to prevent that.

  Inside my pocket, I gripped the eight ball, feeling its solid roundness, tracing the circular ridge of the answer window with my fingertips. And I prayed. Please, just let them find him. Let him be alive and able to reboot. And please don’t let him kill me when he finds out I let the CAMFers take Olivia.

  In a flurry of bubbles, all three of the divers came up. They were asking for something, gesturing to the men on shore. In response, one of them picked up a long, rectangular bag made of black mesh with a zippered opening on one end. He quickly attached the bag to a cable and pulley system on shore and reeled out some slack, sending it skimming across the water to the divers.

  “What is that?” I asked Mr. James, afraid of the answer.

  “They’ve found him,” he said, and I could hear the excitement in his voice. “That’s a body bag. A special one for underwater recovery.”

  The woman diver grabbed it, and all three dove again, disappearing below the surface, the cable snaking after them.

  What if, when they pulled it up, it wasn’t Marcus?

  What if it was Purity?

  Don’t be silly. This isn’t the same river. This isn’t even the same state. And that was five years ago.

  The body bag rose from the pool, water pouring from it, leaving only the blurry outline of the form cradled inside. The neon gloves of the divers stood out against its black backdrop as they guided it to shore, like the luminous deep-sea hands of bodiless pall-bearers.

  I turned away, running to some bushes, heaving up chunks of nuts and fruit and beef jerky as I watched, from under my arm, the divers and men on shore heft the body bag out of the river.

  “Here, have some water,” Mr. James said, coming alongside me and handing me a bottle. “It will help.”

  I took a gulp and it did help. A little.

  “They’re loading the body into the truck, sir,” a dark-clad soldier said, strolling up to us.

  Wow. That had been fast.

  “Good.” Mr. James said. “The girl and I will ride with it.”

  “Um, Mr. Holbrook said you’d both be riding back in the limo.” No “sir” this time, but the guy still looked deeply uncomfortable questioning Mr. James.

  “And I am telling you we’ll ride in the truck.” Mr. James dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  I guess I didn’t get any say in the matter. The limo was nice, but If Marcus was going to come back from the dead in a body bag in the back of a truck with an estranged uncle he despised, he was going to need a familiar face there to tell him why. And to keep him from killing said uncle. I wasn’t sure I could do the latter, but I was willing to give it a try.

  Mr. James turned, and I followed him to the parking lot, both of us picking our way between soldiers loading up equipment. It was getting pretty dark and many of them were flicking on the headlamps attached to their helmets. A few glanced our way, their lamps flashing across our faces, but most ignored us.

  Mr. James climbed into the back of one of the big army trucks, and held out a hand to pull me up. The interior was big, and sparse, and cold, and it didn’t help the ambiance any that the central feature of its decor was a soggy mesh body bag sitting in a puddle of murky water. Other than that, there were two long metal bench seats bolted to the floor along the walls. And at the far back sat a large wooden crate, two strange, red, spray-painted Xs above it spaced about four feet apart.

  “Sir, your case from the limo,” a voice said. It was the leader of the group that had taken Jason and me. He was standing at the back of the truck, holding up a hard leather briefcase for Mr. James.

  “Thank you,” Mr. James said, taking it. “You can close the doors now.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guy said, holding up something else. “And here’s a radio, sir, direct to me and the driver up in the cab. Just let us know when you’re ready to go, or if you need anything en route.”

  “Thank you. I will.” Mr. James said, a look passing between them.

  The soldier nodded and swung the doors shut. They clanged loudly as they hit one another, the lock bar slamming into place, metal squealing against metal.

  The cargo compartment of the truck went dark for a second, but then a light in the far corner flickered on, bathing me in a sickly yellow glow.

  “Take a seat and hang on,” Mr. James said, sitting on the bench nearest him.

  As the truck engine rumbled to life, I sat on the bench near me, gripping the edge with my hands.

  The truck backed up slowly, then surged forward, rumbling and clattering even louder as we hit the questionably paved road leading out of the state park. I could feel the vibrations of it in my bones and water from the body bag seemed to be bouncing across the floor toward me.

  We took a hard right, which I thought should have been a left onto the highway back toward Indy, but maybe I’d gotten turned around. Thankfully, the road and the ride smoothed out a bit.

  Mr. James had his briefcase open on his lap, and he took out his phone.

  “Here, I need you to hold this,” he said, tossing it to me.

  I didn’t exactly catch it. More like it hit my chest and fell in my lap, but at least I didn’t drop it.

  “Do you see the moving green blip on the map?” he asked, and I looked down to see a GPS tracking grid on the screen. “That’s this truck. Now, do you see the red dot to the northwest about two miles from here?”

  I nodded.

  “I need you to tell me exactly when we reach it.”

  “Why? What is it?” I asked.

  “My last hurrah,” he said, taking a large handgun from his briefcase.

  I stared at the gun, my limbs trembling, my mind screaming in fear. I would have run if there had been anywhere to run to.

  “Passion,” he said, glancing from my face to his gun and back again. “I’m not going to hurt you. There is a chance I can get you, Marcus, and Jason out from under the grasp of John Holbrook and his new council, but we only have one shot at it. Do you understand?”

  “No—I—how? You said they took Jason to Indy.”

  “I lied,” he said, nodding toward the big wooden crate.

  I looked at it, completely confused.

  “Jason is in there,” Mr. James said. “He’s drugged a little, but he’s fine. At least for now.”

  “You put Jason in a crate?”

  Mr. James nodded.

  Oh, Jason was going to be royally pissed. But, at least he was still with me, not whisked off to Indy by himself.

  And wasn’t this a strange turn of events; Mr. James trying to get us away from The Hold, rather than into it? How had things changed so much in one night? The world had changed. Everything had changed.

  “How much further?” Mr. James asked me.

  I glanced down at the phone. “About a mile.”

  “Good.” He shut his briefcase and lodged it under the bench. Then he got up and made his way carefully to the back of the truck, his gun in one hand, the radio to the cab in the other. He braced himself against the wall and looked at me. “Just tell me when,” he said.

  The green blip moved closer to the red dot. We were almost on top of it.

  “Now,” I said.

  “Hailing the cab,” Mr. James spoke into the handheld radio. “We need to make a pit stop. The girl needs to relieve herself.”

  There was a moment of silence and then a crackle of static. “No can do,” a voi
ce came back to us. “We have orders not to stop until we reach HQ. She’ll have to hold it.”

  “Shit!” Mr. James clicked off the handheld, scowling. “They switched out my man. Holbrook must have gotten wind of something. Looks like we’ll just have to do this the hard way. Hold on to something.”

  I was already holding onto the bench, but I gripped it harder.

  He placed the barrel of his gun on the wall of the cab, right over the red X furthest to the right, and he pulled the trigger.

  I screamed and covered my ears against the echo of the blast. Before the sound had even dissipated, there were three more in quick succession—four shots total, two into each X on the back wall.

  The truck swerved wildly, throwing me off the bench and smack onto the body bag, the eight ball in my pocket digging into my hip. I could feel the wet oozing into me, the clamminess of Marcus’s body under me. And even though my brain was screaming at me to get off, I clung to the bag as we slid around the bottom of the truck, me and my soggy sled of death.

  And then the truck slowed. The body bag, with me on top of it, came to a gentle rest against the back doors of the truck. We were stopped on a slight slant.

  The truck engine sputtered and died.

  The yellow light flickered out, plunging us into pitch darkness.

  There was a noise outside, a low hum, muffled by the ringing in my ears.

  “Are you all right?” Mr. James asked, his voice coming from my left. He’d killed them, the driver and the passenger. He’d shot them right through the cab wall.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” I wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. He still had the gun, and I was locked in the back of a truck with him.

  I heard him move, and there was a loud thud. At first I thought he’d tripped, but the thudding continued, growing louder and more frantic, like someone trying to beat their way out of something. Because they were. Jason had apparently woken up in his crate.

  “Find my briefcase,” Mr. James instructed over the noise. “It should be near you, and there’s a small crowbar in it. Oh for Pete’s sake,” he added, banging the lid of the crate loudly. “Be quiet, or we won’t let you out.”