His eyes opened as she approached.
“I’m sorry, were you sleeping?”
He shook his head, gently. “Nah.”
Shannon sat down on the edge of his bed and picked up his free hand, wrapping her hands around his. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good, actually.” Dennis pressed a large blue button on the bed, raising himself up. “I’ll be out tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Dennis pulled his hand away and gently brushed a strand of brown hair out of Shannon’s face. “You sure are beautiful.”
She smiled and leaned down to kiss him. When she came back up, Dennis took a deep breath and pushed himself up in the bed.
“How did the delivery go?”
“Good. Really good, actually.”
“They’re both okay?”
“Yes. Her mother wasn’t showing any serious anxiety or dislocation symptoms, and Katie was already coming around by the time we arrived. The next couple months will be hard, but with treatment, they should come out okay.”
Of course, Shannon knew that “okay” was a relative statement. Intense emotional trauma was, by its very nature, unpredictable. But the two Keyes both displayed signs of natural resilience, which made all the difference. Many were not as fortunate. Deena, one of the other girls, and her parents had a much harder road ahead of them.
“And how’s Evan?”
“Good. He seems to be embracing things pretty well.” Shannon stopped and grinned at the thought. “Perhaps even literally at the moment.”
Dennis laughed and clutched his side, moaning. “They’re a good match, aren’t they?
“They sure are.”
He breathed easy and grabbed Shannon’s hand again. With a roll of his head, he looked out the room’s window at the thick gray clouds and the giant Las Vegas city sprawl below it. “At least I have a room with a view.”
She winked. “I’m sure it’s an extra cost.”
He smiled but kept staring out. “And what about Taylor?”
“He’s gone.”
Dennis turned back to her.
“After a long talk with Evan, he left on foot. Headed home. He said he’s not ready for a life of searching for lost children.”
Dennis frowned. “Not ready, huh?”
“I think he has other issues to work through. There’s clearly a lot in his past he hasn’t told us.”
“Not that he ever would have.”
“That’s probably true.” Shannon sighed and changed the subject. “So, have the police talked to you?”
“They were here this morning for almost two hours.”
“And?”
Dennis shrugged. “I explained that I had tracked down those Cambodians on the street. They already had a reputation, so it wasn’t all that unbelievable. I said I followed them into that alley and waited for them with the tire iron.”
“And they believed you?”
“Not really. There are some inconsistencies, but they’re much more interested in digging deeper to find who else those three guys were working with rather than how they met their maker. And trust me, the thought of these thugs standing before their maker is going to bring them a smile for a long time.”
“What about the girls?”
“The detective will want to talk to them at some point but probably more as a formality. They just want to see the kids home safe, like anyone else.”
“I’m sure.” She reached down, straightening his gown, looking at him with love in her eyes. He really was an amazing man. Neither of them would ever take things for granted again.
“So, is Evan going to hang things up?”
Shannon smirked and stood up. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
She answered amusedly as she walked back toward the door. “I mean I’m pretty sure he’s just waiting for you to get out of here.”
Dennis began to speak but stopped when Shannon disappeared back around the corner. His heart quickened when he heard her open the door.
A few moments later, she returned with Ellie who stood nervously at her side. Her young eyes grew wide with concern when she saw the bruises on his face.
They both stared at each other until he smiled and spread his arms. “Hey, Pumpkin.”
Ellie wiped her tears away and ran to her father. “I was worried about you, Daddy.”
Dennis Mayer lowered his good arm to scoop her up onto the bed and felt her tiny arms wrap around his neck and squeeze. His eyes filled with tears.
35
The light drizzle continued for a third day, preventing anything from drying out. The air was warm, but the damp leaves covering the ground acted as a thin, slippery blanket, making traction difficult. The area had some of the densest foliage in the Malibu Creek State Park, making it a better hiding spot than most, particularly for things that took time to hide.
Evan stood quietly on a small hillside, trying to keep his footing in spite of the slick leaves. Another shiver ran through him as he leaned into the slope, trying to detect the voices far above him. His waiting had nothing to do with being able to climb the hill. He’d already done that.
Evan knew what they were going to find. And he didn’t want to be there to see it. He couldn’t. It was too difficult. He wanted to make sure they were found, but he couldn’t watch it happen. Instead, he waited out of sight while they dug.
He finally heard the sound of wet, squishing footsteps headed toward him. Several seconds later he saw a figure appear above and slowly make his way down the embankment. He was a Lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department and a friend of Dennis Mayer. A man that Mr. Mayer said could be trusted. Along with a few discreet others, these officers all made sure the rest were found.
Black, the man who shot at them in Bakersfield, turned out to have a lot more to hide than they could have imagined. The secret room in his house implicated both him and his brother in several kidnappings. And Dan Taylor was right. Walking into that hidden room made him sicker than he could imagine. But he had to find them.
And they did find them. All eight. But they were far too late. Evan deeply wished they had found out sooner. The sense of loss he felt left him almost as sick as being in that terrible room.
Though with the help of Mr. Mayer’s friends, they found them and took them home. These deliveries he couldn’t watch, but knowing they were with their families again still gave him some comfort.
The solemn look in the Lieutenant’s eyes let Evan know that they’d found the last one. He nodded and turned around to descend the hill. When he reached the bottom, Evan walked out onto the small pasture’s bright green grass. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, feeling the light drops of the rain on his face.
He knew there were more out there. More he could still save. And he was going to save as many as he could.
AFTERWORD
There was something indescribable about the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. The dark green pine trees layered against the gray and white background of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were truly something to behold. Topped with a crystal blue sky, it felt like viewing a window into heaven.
Dan Taylor leaned forward in his seat, gazing into “God’s country,” with his breath just close enough to fog a small corner of the window. The train curved to the right, allowing him to glimpse the distant train tracks as they wound in and around the snow-covered passes.
Without a word, he stared at the fog as it seemed to crawl across the glass before disappearing just as quickly. It was the only indication of the frigid temperature outside.
The seat next to Taylor was empty, which was fortunate. His large frame would have made a tight fit. Instead he relaxed, twisting slightly in his seat and watching the scene pass by in amazing grandeur.
Evan should have been able to locate the other children by now. Hopefully, he stayed away during the exhuming. Connections with the dead were very powerful, like a magnet, whether you were in the fog or not. It ma
de coming back from out of the fog more difficult. In many ways, death was like a black hole. Much more powerful than it looked and once too close, there was no return.
Taylor couldn’t deny his feeling of remorse over leaving the kid. An emotion he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Evan was bright and exceptionally gifted. And there was something about him that made Evan immediately likable, something Taylor wondered if he was even aware of. More than all of that, the kid had a longing to help. A need so deeply inborn that he didn’t think Evan would ever stop. He would continue sacrificing himself for others until one day it went too far. One day it would get too close and the fog would take him.
Taylor had initially seen it as foolishness. Recklessness, really. But now he wasn’t so sure. Now, he viewed things differently. He realized how truly empty a life of hiding had left him. Decades that could have been used for something meaningful. Instead of hiding, he could have been helping someone. Like those children. Even if not right away, he could have eventually done something.
Yet his fear had won out. Fear that they would find him again. And this time they wouldn’t make the same mistakes. They would dissect him like a lab rat to understand how he worked.
Taylor sat quietly, swaying with the side to side motion of the train. As the tracks rounded again, a giant mountain came into view. Timeless, the peak towered above, its granite cliffs spotted with white patches of snow. He gazed up as they passed. It was ageless. Frozen in time and completely unaware of the tiny speck of machinery passing beneath it. Unaware and uncaring.
Taylor wondered how long it had been there. Millions of years, at least. He wondered how many specks had lived and died before that very mountain.
As Taylor stared upward, he was overcome by his own mortality. No, it was more than that. It was a feeling of utter insignificance. Insignificance of a life that was nothing more than a tiny blip along an incomprehensible timeline. The briefest of flashes. One so fast and so small and virtually unnoticeable. How many billions of things lived and died in that same blip of time without ever making a ripple in the world around them? It was as if the earth had never known they existed.
He thought about fate. Would his life be the same? Nothing more than a flash in time, and then disappear without a trace? Without anyone knowing he was ever there. What was the point? What was the point of living if it meant leaving no impact or ripple at all?
It was worse than that. Dan Taylor was unique. Unique in a way that virtually no one else was. Whether it was a curse or a gift didn’t matter. It was an ability that few had ever heard of, and only a handful had probably experienced. And what did he choose to do? Hide away and live a life of nothingness.
Hiding out of fear. Fear of what…pain? Fear of death? Everything died. Everything. Including him. How many of those billions of life forms died in permanent obscurity?
Taylor leaned back in his chair. He stared at the floor, blinking. It wasn’t about how you died. It was about how you lived.
And he wasn’t living at all.
He thought about those bastards. The spooks at the CIA. They’d driven him underground. They’d driven him into a life of fear and nothingness.
He shook his head. Christ, were they even looking for him anymore? Any of them?
It had been over twenty years. Technology was leaps and bounds beyond what it was then. Today governments could spy with impunity, and they did. Every time you touched something with a computer chip, it left a trail. Now they could see everything and they could do anything. To anyone.
What he did for the government then was now done by a fleet of satellites and drones. What could they possibly want with him anymore? Nothing, that’s what. He was still hiding…from something that happened two decades ago.
Taylor frowned. Good or bad, he had an ability that could allow him to leave a ripple. How many people could make their brief flash in the universe actually mean something?
It wasn’t about him anymore. And it had taken a damn teenager to show him.
Despite the freezing temperature outside, the home kept most rooms at a comfortable seventy-five degrees since many of their tenants had trouble staying warm. And they were considered “tenants,” until they moved into a full-time care facility inside, which they were then deemed “patients.”
For now, at eighty-three, Margaret was still years away from being a “patient.” But it was days like this that made her wonder. Today something didn’t feel right. She remained in her chair, inside her small room, staring outside at the falling snow. It was quiet. Only the ticking of the small clock on her dresser disturbed the stillness.
Margaret let her head fall forward slightly, trying to determine how serious her symptoms were. There was no pain, but she was just so tired. Her arms and legs felt unusually heavy. Her eyes moved to the small table nearby where a small electronic “bell” rested next to one of her magazines.
She heard the soft squeaking of footsteps behind her. “Margaret?” The voice was from her nurse, Elaine. Thank God.
A moment later, Elaine appeared at her side and studied her. “How are you feeling?”
Margaret blinked her tired eyes and struggled to raise her head. It was hard to form words. “Tired.”
“Are you in any pain?”
She thought about the question and answered slowly. “No pain.”
Her nurse patted her arm gently. “Good.”
Margaret didn’t know that the medication Elaine had given her just fifteen minutes earlier contained something more than her normal prescription: a drug that was causing her current condition.
“I’ll be right back, Margaret.” Her nurse straightened and abruptly disappeared from view before she could respond.
“Wait,” was all Margaret could manage. But Elaine was gone.
The nurse closed the door behind her and looked down the hall. When the door clicked shut, she walked toward the two people standing nearby. “Okay. She’s ready.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Elaine looked at her supervisor who then turned to the man standing next her. Silently, the man followed Elaine back to the door where she placed a hand on the knob. She looked up at him with raised eyebrows.
Together they opened the door and stepped inside. She crossed the small room and stood in front of the elderly woman, this time feeling for her pulse. “How do you feel, Margaret?”
Margaret didn’t answer. She merely stared at her nurse with glazed eyes.
Elaine looked up and over the old woman’s head, giving a nod to the man behind her.
Given both her health and her age, this was the only way to be safe. Very slowly, he stepped forward and stood behind the nurse, who was still examining Margaret. When he was seated behind her, Elaine slowly stepped aside and out of the way, allowing the old woman to see the man sitting in front of her.
The recognition was immediate. Even in her dazed state, she gasped and opened her eyes wide as if seeing a ghost.
It had been so very long. Dan Taylor leaned forward in his chair and smiled tenderly. He reached forward and placed his hand on top of hers.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me, Danny.”
The late afternoon sun was dropping quickly now, nearly gone behind the shadow of the Appalachians far in the distance. Headlights were already lighting up Dulles Road as thousands of commuters on their way home snaked past the large but infamous building. Located on Sunset Hills Road, the two giant buildings were easily visible to anyone traveling along Virginia’s State Route 267, especially in slow traffic.
Surprisingly unassuming in appearance, they were as controversial, if not more so, than the White House located less than twenty miles away. However, while the White House was the center of media attention and thousands, if not millions, of photographs, the main offices of the Central Intelligence Agency went to great efforts to minimize their “visual footprint” by eliminating nearly all pictures of its location from various digital maps and databases. And everyone knew why.
The CIA’s reputation was world-renowned. The agency had been involved in some of the darkest moments in U.S. history. It was the very definition of clandestine and had tentacles spread much further around the globe than even the public suspected. In fact, most high-level operatives joked that if the public ever learned of the truth behind the doors of the CIA, it would cause a revolution overnight.
Of course, there was no way to know if that were true. And to many, it was an insignificant concern. The might of the U.S. government was too powerful to be scaled back now. Their skills at propaganda and diversion through public scandals had long been honed to a science. It no longer mattered who was in office. When too much truth was revealed, intentionally or accidentally, the release of compromising information, followed by an arrest and multiple leaks to the press, was enough to distract most of the public until the excitement passed. And those who cared and were actually paying attention controlled too few votes to matter.
Public perception was a science now, fine-tuned and perfected through the last fifty years of modern media channels. And the CIA was the most masterful of all government departments.
Yet even among the unhallowed halls, the night was usually quiet. Mild snowfall and the upcoming Christmas holiday left most of the building’s offices vacant, except just a few with their lights still on.
In one such office, a man sat quietly behind a large elaborate desk, typing on his keyboard. With hair that was neat and gray, he glanced up at his screen through dark-framed glasses. His face was worn but strong.
He looked up at his office door when it suddenly opened inward.
“You’re still here. Good.”
Without the slightest change in expression, the man behind the desk moved his hands away from the keyboard and straightened.
The Unexpected Hero Page 13