by TL Schaefer
I cast a sidelong look at Davis. I was still really, really freaked out by the way he’d bought into everything, lock, stock and barrel. If I hadn’t worked for the man for ten years and developed a genuine liking for him, it would have made me very leery. But right now I had enough on my plate, thank you very much.
Like how royally pissed I’d been when I got over my shock at Monica’s revelation that Brian had been married. How dare he judge me when he’d withheld such a huge portion of himself? Lie of omission my happy ass.
Now that I knew the score, I wasn’t going to go crawling back to him. Because if he’d freaked out over something like that, when he’d been holding out on something as well, what would be the next thing to set him off? And why in the hell would I want to get involved with someone who’d left me like this after only one night together? Brian had even more issues than I did, and last time I looked, my picture wasn’t next to the word “normal” in the dictionary.
Yeah, I was working pretty hard to hold onto my anger, but it was twofold... I wasn’t looking forward to “seeing” what was inside the florist’s shop.
As soon as I walked into the stockroom, Wes’s aura hit me like a punch, even with my glasses on. How the hell I’d missed him back in the squad room was a mystery. Either he’d learned how to cloak himself, or I’d been so absorbed in hating Hiram it hadn’t made an impression.
I pushed my glasses on top of my head and took it all in.
Visually, Amy’s terror—and Wes’s distaste with the whole affair—was nauseatingly clear. In that clarity, I figured out something important. Amy had been a test—for me. A fucked-up-beyond-comprehension test. Apparently I’d passed, but the knowledge left me even more unsettled than ever. Had he taken her after seeing me, to gauge how I would react? If so, why?
Originally I’d thought he was killing off talented children or maybe benefactors to CASI, but now I wasn’t so sure. There was an underlying satisfaction in his aura that didn’t mesh with my original supposition. Something more was going on here, but it wasn’t anything I could pin down right this second. So instead of concentrating on his aura, I buckled down and let my newfound ability take flight.
I closed my eyes and saw sweeping high plains and towering mountains, tasted the spice of chilies on my tongue, smelled the pinion pines. A quaint old square was laid out in dramatic lines, colored in the duns and taupes of the old world. I knew immediately where it was.
“Santa Fe,” I said, concentrating hard on the visual. “He’s only got one target there, maybe two.” I looked further, and my blood ran cold. “He’s going north after that. He’s going back to Colorado.”
“Jesus,” Foudy breathed on a whisper. “You really got inside his head, didn’t you?”
I opened my eyes. “No,” I paused, struggling for an explanation of what I’d seen, felt. “It’s more like a sensory memory. He’s been to Santa Fe before, so I could see what he remembered the most through his eyes. But there was a sense of purpose behind it that tells me he’s heading that way.” I shivered. “And then on to Colorado, but not CASI. Someplace else. I saw a bridge, spanning a deep canyon.” I shot an apologetic glance at Brian.
“I still can’t believe you can do this.” Foudy was shaking her head.
“It’s not like I gave you the address of his next victim,” I snapped.
“Could you, if you tried?” This from Davis, who was looking at me with an unholy gleam in his eye.
“No,” I shook my head. “Wes might be able to. He was trained for it. I’m going off of instinct and the goofy-assed notes I took last night, trying to remember when I’d anticipated things. There’s something else. I think I may have been wrong about why he’s taking these people out, but I can’t put my finger on it.” I looked up and saw three mouths simultaneously open in question. “I’ll tell you as soon as I do, promise.” I kicked at the front counter aimlessly. “Do you think he’ll pull the same thing he did here? Show up at their headquarters as a ‘professional courtesy’?”
“Probably,” Davis conceded with a slow nod. “I’ll contact their chiefs and see what the lay of the land is without tipping our hand. If this Burke is as good as you say, he’d see right through them the second he met them.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He would.”
“I’ll make the calls, and we’ll move on Santa Fe quietly. In the meanwhile, I’ll have some uniforms begin canvassing rental car agencies and DFW. The hoodies over there said the car was a rental, and our CI led us here. So far, everything is by the book. We’re using Sara as a nudge in the right direction. It’s what we would have done anyway. We’ve simply got a few hours’—or days’—head start.”
I looked up, and Brian was watching me with a brooding expression. In that moment, I wished I could read him because I would have given anything to see what was going on in that brain of his. I had to wonder what the hell he had to brood about. He’d been the one to put “us” into this situation. If he’d stayed and listened to me instead of storming out and putting up the wall of silence... But even as I thought it, even as I sprung to the defensive by pushing the blame on him, I’d been just as complicit. I hadn’t made an effort to call him back, and that was my own fault. In the end, it didn’t matter because the damage had been done. There were no take-backs.
“Pack your bags, kiddies. I’ll hold down the fort here, but we need Sara in Santa Fe to see if she can pick up Burke’s signature.” Davis reached into his jacket and handed me the shield and ID I’d returned. “You’ll need these.” He paused, his hand still stretched out in midair. “Sara, they’re yours when you return. You’ve earned them.”
I held out my palm and accepted his gifts. “We’ll see,” I murmured.
“Good try, Covington,” he said quietly, and his hand closed around mine. “I’m the one who does the hiring and firing around here, and I’d be a complete idiot if I didn’t take advantage of who and what you are. I think we’re all agreed I’m not an idiot.”
“No sir,” I said with a small smile. “Let’s see how it plays out, and we’ll take it from there.”
“Fair enough, but I’m not going to change my mind,” he warned. He squeezed my hand and turned abruptly away. “Now y’all get on the road and catch this lunatic.”
So, in the space of a few days, I was flying again. We could certainly have driven. After all, Albuquerque is only eight hours (when you drive like a bat out of hell) from Dallas, but Davis wanted this collar...bad, and was sparing no expense to get it. It would play hell on his budget, but who was I to raise the flag?
This time our pilot and co-pilot were Air Force Reservists (their auras were a vibrant red, tinged with Air Force blue), and if anything, I felt safer than when we’d flown to Denver.
Today Brian was on the aisle, with Foudy in the middle. After our little conversation, I had no doubt she’d manufactured a leg-room excuse or some such nonsense to help us out. While I appreciated the gesture, I would’ve loved to have him sit next to me again, to feel, at the very least, his leg against mine. The anger I’d nurtured this morning had faded to dull sorrow. I still wanted Brian, still wanted to explore what had sparked between us, but it had to be on my terms, and his wall of righteousness wasn’t something I was going to butt my head against. If he couldn’t see what we’d had, I wasn’t gonna spell it out for him.
I tuned the iPod to BB King, leaned against the headrest and let the music speak for me. It was, after all, the blues.
The flight was short, and we landed in Albuquerque, got a rental car and headed up the mountain to Santa Fe.
If you’ve never been there, it is definitely one of the most magical places on this green earth. Or at least one of the more magical places I’d ever visited. Not that my travelogue was bursting at the seams with exotic locales.
There’s something about the colors of the whole town that soothes your soul. Yeah, there’s the requisite strip of fast food chains and Motel 6s, but the charm of the city itself makes you forget about
modern conveniences like that.
Our first stop was the local PD, where Davis had greased the wheels for us.
Lieutenant Jones, the night supervisor, met us with a gruff handshake and an offer of any assistance his department could offer. And while I knew without even reading him that he was wondering why the hell the FBI wasn’t involved in a serial killer hunt, especially one that crossed state lines, he kept mum. I suspected Davis had given him enough to tantalize but not enough to alert Wes, should he show up. I could only hope his boss, Chief Simpson, would be as easy on us.
We bedded down in a hotel right off the main plaza (three rooms this time), and I have to admit, I sulked. We were doing the right thing by stopping Wes, but what I’d seen at CASI bugged the hell out of me now that I’d had time to process it. My time on the plane hadn’t all been spent obsessing over my turbulent love life...or lack thereof.
The kids we’d seen a few days ago were possibly being molded into weapons, and even if it was something they wanted, and their parents condoned, the taint of evil still hung over CASI like a shroud. Deep down I couldn’t believe they’d changed so completely, that a one-eighty like that was possible. Maybe my perceptions were way off-center because of my personal experiences there, but I still saw it, still felt it. As much as I’d like to think that an altruistic haven could be created for people like me, I couldn’t see the government or big business letting it happen, not without imposing their own ideals on the curriculum, on the barely formed ideals of the children.
So, while I understood and supported Davis and Foudy and Roney’s purpose, the time on the plane had given me the chance to comprehend a basic truth about myself. I wanted what Wes wanted, to a certain extent. I wanted CASI stopped, even if it was a vendetta on my end. Petty, spiteful? Hell yeah. And a certain way to flush my shield and Davis’s trust right down the crapper.
I stood and began pacing. How could I accomplish both ends? Catch Wes before he killed again and bring down CASI? And how much would that sink me even further with Brian? He and Monica knew how much I hated CASI, and if they hadn’t figured out I’d do anything to see it destroyed, they weren’t the cops I thought they were.
While I’d been psychoanalyzing myself on the plane, I’d recognized what had bothered me so much about Wes’s most recent aura. There’d been pure rage underlying it, toward CASI, but also a hint of avarice, of greed. He wanted something from CASI, and it wasn’t simply to see them implode. As much as I tried to drill down even further, more information eluded me. Until I came up with more, I wasn’t going to go whining to Roney and Foudy. I wanted to be a part of this, not a hindrance, sending us off on wild goose chases.
Coffee’s usually my thing, but right now I needed a sugar rush, so I scrounged up some change and headed to the front door, opening it just as Brian’s hand descended in a knock.
His knuckles barely missed cracking me on the nose.
I should have come up with some pithy little comment, but instead I stared at him. He looked like hell and I knew I was only part of that. Wes’s crusade was taking a huge toll on him now that he knew what was at stake. But as bad as he looked, he was a sight for sore eyes, and I drank him in, knowing that was all I could do, even though I wanted to grab him by the hair and drag him into my room.
He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable for the first time since I’d known him. “I, uh, need to talk to you.”
I stepped back. “C’mon in.”
He looked into my room, then shook his head. “Let’s get some coffee downstairs.”
I huffed out a sigh. It’s not as if I was going to jump him...physically. Mentally we were already naked and sweaty. “Fine. Hold on a sec.” I grabbed a windbreaker and my billfold, then followed him to the elevator.
We didn’t speak again until we were seated in the coffee shop downstairs, drinks on the table in front of us.
I blew on the chai latte I’d eschewed a Snickers for and cocked an eyebrow at him.
He sighed. “Davis is on his way up, and I’m not sure why.”
I mulled over his statement. With the relationship Brian and the chief had, which Brian had glossed over in the past, I didn’t understand what the problem was. Wouldn’t Davis’s presence make things easier in the long run? “That bothers you.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Because he bought into this so easily. I know why I believed in you, but there’s something going on here I’m not sure of.”
I eased back in my chair. Hadn’t I thought exactly the same thing? But for Brian to voice the same concerns made me edgy. “Hidden agenda?”
“I don’t know, and that’s what’s making me twitchy.”
“You said you and Davis had an understanding a few days ago. What’s up with that?” If he had reservations, there was no time like the present to clear them up. I’d been wondering for long enough... Now was the perfect time to force him into an admission.
He took a sip of coffee, then rolled the cup between his hands as if pondering whether to answer or not.
“Look, Roney, you know everything about me...good and bad. How about you return the favor? It might make a difference.”
He was silent for so long I thought he was going to stand up and leave.
“Monica said she told you about Cara. That should have been my prerogative.”
His voice was carefully neutral, and it pissed me off. What I’d said a minute ago was true... He knew every bit of dirt about me, and all I’d received in return had been a few glimpses into his past. But dammit, I wasn’t going to beg. If he wanted an “us”, he had to put some effort into it. “Yeah, well in case you missed it, Foudy pretty much does whatever she wants.”
That teased out a small, strained smile before he switched to the topic at hand. “Remember that op that went bad I told you about? Davis’s kid, Arnie, was part of that unit. Any war has its ups and downs, and a couple of weeks later, Arnie and two other guys got pinned down. He got hit and we went in and got them out. It was before I was shipped back to the states for a psych eval, the last mission I went on. So Davis thinks he owes me. Family is important to him.”
I weighed his response to what I knew of Davis. Yeah, I could see it. “Okay, but what does that have to do with the here and now?”
“I don’t know, but my gut tells me it’s important.”
“And your gut is always right?” We’d spoken of this before, obliquely, but I wanted to hear it again, bald-faced and out there.
“Not always, but most of the time. Kept me out of intensive care when I should’ve been ventilated more than once.”
I wished, for the gazillionth time, that I could read Brian. I knew he was being straight up with me, but damned if I didn’t want to see the emotion he was so carefully masking.
“I’ve never read Davis. Kind of a respect thing, I guess. When he gets here, I will.”
Brian lifted his eyes and stared into mine. “Thank you, Sara.”
And with that, I could see he’d taken the first step in meeting me halfway. Now none of my memories could hurt us.
Chapter Sixteen
Before
We waited tense moments until the faceless men had bundled their unholy cargo into the trunk of a car and pulled away.
I pushed away from the building, shivering as freezing air whipped around us, and glared at Carl. “Who was it?”
He stonewalled, but after what I’d been through, I pushed back. I’d been pushed around for too long, and it stopped here. “I mean it, Carl. I need to know who it is.” Even though I thought I knew, deep down in the pit of my suddenly nauseous stomach.
“It’s your friend, all right? The one you hang out with. Whatever you two did to them, they were pissed off enough to kill him. They’re gonna blame it on you, then have you commit suicide. They’re using it being Thanksgiving and all tomorrow as their excuse. Telling the other kids you’ve been detained for your own safety. I heard your friend’s shrink talking about it a few minutes ago. That’s
why I went down into the basement. I had to warn you.”
I stared hard. He was telling the truth. And as I saw it, I began to cry. Carl reached out in comfort.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. I took a deep breath, then looked at him. “I’m sorry.”
“You need to get out of here, pronto. I’d offer to smuggle you out, but they check us as if we were working in a goddamned diamond mine, y’know? I need to get downstairs to revive Green, but I’ll wait until you’ve been gone long enough.”
I nodded, and a distant part of me found it morbidly amusing that Carl had been sitting in on our cultural history classes. My hand absently crept up and began tugging on a piece of hair. “Thank you, Carl. You didn’t have to do this. There’s good in you. Don’t let them kill it.”
“I know you don’t like me much, what with how you can read minds and all—” he hung his head— “but I’m a normal man, and you’re a beautiful girl. Regardless, it ain’t right, what they’re doing here.”
“No, it’s not. I’m going to disappear now. If I turn into a Popsicle, it’ll be better than what they did to Wes, and whatever they might do to me.” I jerked on my hair once again, more to settle myself than anything, then stepped off a side stairwell, wearing the clothes I’d been in for God knows how many days, and into my life...or death.
It didn’t really matter because in effect, I’d killed Wes myself. And on my sixteenth birthday, no less.
Now—Saturday 9:00 a.m.
Friday came and passed with no sign of either Davis or Wes. The three of us did the only thing we could... We drove around Santa Fe, hoping for a one-in-a-million glance of the man we sought.
As much as both Brian and Foudy reassured me, I had to wonder if flexing my hidden-until-now talent hadn’t been dead wrong. Because of that, I spent a good part of the night obsessively searching the Net, looking for a recent news story on a kill by Wes in a different city. To my relief—and aggravation—there was nothing.