Mad, Mad World

by J. D. Sloane

  “I know because I was there. Your father sent me after you that day.”

  Michael paused, his face filling with surprise and then shook his head slightly as his eyes narrowed.

  “And why would he do a thing like that?”

  “To make sure things didn’t get out of hand. And to make sure that you fought.”

  Michael’s face stiffened with rage and then he smirked, his strange pale eyes filling with a sharp blend of understanding and contempt.

  “Well, then you know all about it. My father’s legacy. A murdered wife, a killer for a son and one broken wrist watch. Quite the impression he’s made on the universe.”

  “All legacy means something, Michael. Even bad legacy.”

  Michael picked up his suitcase, his face becoming a smooth, violent blank and Byron turned quickly as he headed for the door.

  “And the girl? Jessica? What of her?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a police officer.”

  “She thinks you’re going to help her.”

  “I am. Just not in the way that she thinks.”

  “Would it be so terrible to consider doing it her way? To help her bring this man to justice?”

  “There’s that conscience again, Byron. Whatever happened to the man who told me that the only professionals who leave witnesses alive are the ones who dream of a life behind bars?”

  “Or maybe the fact that you care about her is clouding your judgement.”

  Byron followed Michael as he pocketed his keys, and tipped his eyes in his direction, shrugging lightly as he stepped into the foyer.

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Then you didn’t see her last night?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, Byron…”

  “And did you have the information about the doctor with you? In your phone, perhaps?”

  Michael looked at him quickly, his dark brow furrowing and Byron nodded, glancing towards his laptop propped up on the dining room table.

  “I only ask because someone at her IP address looked up the train schedule this morning. The Dearborn to Chicago run. Leaving at 8am this morning.”

  Michael eyes widened, and Byron gave him a knowing smirk, gesturing to his laptop.

  “Like I said, I have security Michael. Just not the kind everyone would notice.”

  Jessica walked into the crowded train depot and stepped into line, loosening the white scarf around her neck with a distracted tug. She glanced to one side as a group of college kids glanced over their shoulder as the door swung open and then put their heads back into an urgent circle, tapping at their phones with an intensity only the very young seemed to understand.

  She reached for her credit card as the line moved up, the snug collection of bodies inside the depot making the place warmer than it seemed and then pulled her credit card out of her jacket pocket, tapping it on the counter as she glanced above her.

  Christmas carols, she thought, a rueful smile touching her lips as she glanced at her watch. It’s hard to believe it’s only a few weeks away. I bet that’s what all the rush is. No one likes to be away from home on the holidays. Not even teenagers.

  She smiled politely as the last group of kids stepped away from the window and then glanced at the clock as the cashier looked up at her, his demeanor a few degrees south of what she considered standard customer service.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I need a one-way ticket to Chicago.”

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Do I need one?”

  The cashier looked up at her as if she had just interrupted a one-man game of keep away and tapped at his screen without looking up.

  “I have three seats left in coach. Seventy-eight dollars. No reserve.”

  Jessica raised her brows and the cashier sighed and pointed to the crammed room full of teens behind them.

  “Means your seat is on a first come, first serve basis. If you get up to go the observation car you may lose it. Those cars are going to be pretty packed from now until the holidays.”

  Jessica held up her credit card and nodded, brushing her blond hair away from her face as the door behind her swung open again, the entire crowd turning away from the sudden gust of wind that followed it.

  “That’s fine,” she said nodding. “I don’t mind being bumped. Could you tell me if…”

  She glanced up as someone snatched the card out of fingers and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away from the window with an unceremonious tug. She shook her arm sharply as she turned around and then froze as Michael placed her card in his front pocket and tipped his chin towards the door.

  “You’re bad at this,” he said, his voice low and clipped as he turned his pale colorless eyes in her direction and started to walk her towards the door. “Even for a police officer. Let’s go.”

  Jessica glanced over her shoulder as the cashier called after her and then began moving in the direction of the door, pulling her arm back as he swung the depot door open for her.

  “How did you find me?” She asked, the wind whipping her hair back from her shoulders as Michael set a brisk pace, weaving them through a maze of travelers and well-wishers as the 8 o’clock train howled behind them.

  “I could ask you the same question, Jessica. No, don’t tell me. I bet you just love Chicago this time of year.”

  Jessica blushed and looked up as Michael turned his head to look at her, his face so annoyed she felt a brief pang of conscience.

  “My phone,” she said. “You’re tracking it.”

  “What a clever guess,” he said, yanking the door open to his Maserati as she placed her hand on the open door. She slid into the passenger seat as Michael slammed the door behind her and pulled off her scarf as Michael slid in beside her.

  “I’m not going to apologize,” she said, her low voice buried in the roar of the engine as Michael pumped the gas hard for a moment.

  “Who asked you to?”

  “You weren’t going to help me. I knew that last night. No matter what you said. I knew you were just going to tell me what I wanted hear and then kill him anyway.”

  “You aren’t exactly making the case for standard police procedure.”

  Jessica bit her lip as Michael threw the car into gear and looked out the window as a cloud of white snow flew past the window and then disappeared as they turned out of the parking lot.

  “Did it ever occur to you that if I can follow your trail, then White can too?” Michael asked, his face tight and serious in the soft gray tint of the windshield.

  “You didn’t know when I was tracking you.”

  “That’s because I wasn’t looking for you,” he said, his voice annoyed. “You’re leaving a trail a mile wide. White doesn’t even have to catch up with the doctor, who changed his name twice by the way. All he has to do is start following you.”

  Jessica rubbed her hands together, reaching for the seatbelt and winced slightly as she yanked it loose, her face falling as she pressed it into place. Michael gripped the wheel tighter, his brow furrowing with a moment of self-recrimination.

  “You think I gave his location away?”

  Michael glanced at her as she brushed her hair away from her eyes and felt his heart twist oddly as she turned his eyes up towards him.

  “I don’t know,” he said, softening his tone as Jessica looked out the window, the white city around them smoothing out into the calm, anonymous stretch of the interstate. “It depends how close he’s watching. That’s why we have to get to the doctor first.”

  “And then what?”

  “You know, you are the second person to ask me that question this morning.”

  “What was your answer the first time?”

  “The same answer it always is. That I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

  Jessica sighed in the warm space between them and Michael had a sudden vivid image of her raising her hands to his shoulders,
her body writhing on top of him as her eyes snapped shut. He rubbed his lips slightly, tapping the map to distract himself and felt the weight of their strange and sudden connection create an uncomfortable rift between them, making every moment they spent together feel heavy with hidden meaning. He pulled back his hand as Jessica reached for the radio and gripped the steering wheel harder as she changed her mind, turning her body towards him slightly as her lips quivered.

  Don’t say it, he thought. There’s no need to say anything because I already know. No quick fixes here on the wrong side of the worst thing that can ever happen to you. I should know better. I really should.

  “About- what happened,” Jessica said, her voice low and halting. “I didn’t want to bring it up, because I didn’t want you to think that I regretted it. I didn’t. I don’t. But it was about other things too. Things that have nothing to do with you. I’m sorry. I know that must sound incredibly selfish.”

  Michael glanced at her without speaking, not quite trusting himself to say something that wouldn’t come out sounding careless and bitter.

  “I didn’t want what he did to me to be the last time I kept remembering. Not that it erases it. I guess I just wanted to blur it a little.”

  Michael looked at her out of the corner of his eyes.

  “And did it work?”

  “It did,” Jessica said, giving him a gentle smile that tried to be playful and missed the mark by mere inches. Michael bit back a sigh as Jessica dropped her eyes, struggling to hide the way her expression soured, that pensive, searching look back on her face back almost instantly.

  But not for long, he thought, trying not to let the idea make him feel so bitter. No, until she finds him everything else in her life will seem like emotional white noise. Just something she does to distract herself through the inevitable lulls in the hunt.

  “I am sorry, you know. About leaving a trail. You’re right, I’ve been careless. I’m not really used to operating on this side of things.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he said. “There isn’t much of a learning curve at the smash and grab level.”

  Jessica gave him a distracted smile, tapping her fingers lightly against her lips and he realized that she was closed to him again, her mind now thrumming to the beat of a rhythm so ancient that people barely noticed when they slid into its rutted one-way track and followed it right into the grave.

  “You can’t kill him,” Jessica said, her eyes suddenly moving rapidly over the landscape as if witnessing something only she could see. “The doctor. If we have him, we have all the leverage. White will be forced to deal with us. No one else knows what he needs to find out.”

  “You’ve don’t know men like this. Take my word for it. Men like White never stop. They never stop and they never deal. Any attempt to bring him in will just end in more death.”

  “I have a plan,” she said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes.

  “Jessica…”

  “No. Just let me think about it for a little bit. There’s a way that we can both get what we want. I swear it. Just give me a few hours. Just until we reach the city.”

  Michael looked at her face, her hazel blue eyes more animated than he had ever seen them and shook his head slightly as he pumped the gas.

  The hunt, Michael thought. Always the hunt.

  “Fine. Until we reach the city.”

  “And if it’s a good plan then we try it my way, agreed?”

  Michael shrugged.

  “No promises.”

  Jessica pressed her lips together as he cut his eyes in her direction.

  “And who decides if it’s good or not?”

  Michael rolled his jaw slightly and then sped into the left lane, taking the far exit as he glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “I do,” he said, turning his eyes back towards the road.

  Byron looked up as his phone rang and glanced at the number automatically, setting it back down on his computer desk as he typed in White’s name to the criminal data base, pulling up every known associate that was connected to him in one screen after another. He scrolled through some of the names he already knew looking for any overlaps he might have missed and then tapped through a collection of mug shots with a quick distracted swipe. He paused as he came to a recent news article about Alek Danshov being released and then sighed with annoyance as he started to pull up all of his known associates, the field of his laptop filling up with several tabbed and coded folders.

  There must be someone I’m missing, he thought, adjusting his reading glasses with one hand as he scrolled through a few of Alek’s more well-known crew leaders. My guess is that his last witness wasn’t killed by happy thoughts alone.

  Byron glanced over his shoulder as someone knocked at the door and then sighed as he eased out of his chair, hearing the low insistent bark of his neighbor’s Pekingese right through the floorboards.

  And since his own men have been under surveillance for months now, it merely begs the question, he thought picking up his phone as it rang again. Which of White’s men completed the job and why isn’t there any record of him in any criminal database I have access to?

  He answered it as he walked to the door, pulling off his glasses as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Hello?” He said, his voice crisp and polite as he unlocked the deadbolt and then turned his head as the door slammed him hard against the chest, the blow knocking him to the floor as the phone skittered away from him.

  Byron rolled his eyes upwards as he saw two men enter his apartment rapidly and shot his boot into the knee of the one closest to him, a fierce rush of triumph rushing through him as he heard a sharp crack. He heard the man bite back a low scream and pulled himself to his knees quickly as he felt a cool barrel shoved into the back of his neck, his body freezing as he heard someone pace around him. He saw a tall young man glance down at him curiously, his arms so muscular they seemed as if they were about to burst through his plain black leather jacket.

  Byron watched the man’s eyes light up with surprised amusement, his flat, stoic expression barely moving and then tipped his eyes in the other man’s direction as he snapped his neck forward, knocking the gun away from his neck. Byron grit his teeth as he grabbed the younger man’s arm and then rolled onto his back and swept his foot behind his left ankle, grabbing for the gun as the man stumbled forward.

  Byron yanked the gun out of his hand, spinning it around deftly as he snapped it into his face and then dropped the barrel slightly as the younger man reached for his second gun, his pale face pulled up in an expression of disbelief.

  “No,” Byron said, his voice low and reasonable as the younger man paused, glancing at the other man quickly. “I don’t think so, my friend. That would be a very bad decision for you. Worse than coming here.”

  He glanced behind his head swiftly as he heard the soft thump of a bullet enter the floorboards near his head and shifted on his back as the older man walked back around to meet him, his lips suddenly twitching with the hint of a smile.

  “White said your man would keep dangerous company. I should know by now not to doubt him about things like that.”

  Byron rolled his eyes in the older man’s direction, beginning to sweat as he held his gun on the middle of the younger man’s face.

  “Then you know better than to waste time asking questions,” Byron said, pulling the trigger back another precious millimeter as the younger man’s face shifted rapidly between terror and hatred. “Take one more step and I’ll kill him. It’s your choice. And either way you leave with nothing.”

  The tall man paused at the outer edge of the oriental carpet he was standing on and then crouched down until Byron and he were eye to eye, holding his long, silenced pistol between his knees.

  “But I’m not the one doing the asking,” he said, his dark eyes flashing with a moment of detached compassion. “I’m just here to get you were you need to be. And trust me, Byron, whether
you kill him or not, there is no way I’m not going to do just that.”

  Jaxson paused at the glass double doors that lead into White’s long, converted apartment and knocked on the wall next to them, glancing away politely as he saw Holly walk towards him through the frosted glass. He stepped aside as she swung the doors open, giving her an automatic nod and tried to quell the strange sense of déjà vu he felt when she looked up at him, her red high-necked dress a dead ringer for a dress he had seen Brooke wearing years ago. He gave her face a quick double-take, half-expecting her bright gold eyes to morph into a beautiful smoky shade of green and then cleared his throat as she gave him an icy stare and stepped aside for him to enter.

  “Hey Holly,” he said stepping into the kitchen area at the end of the rec room, the television in the corner running what looked like a scrolling, endless loop of the night they had kidnapped Nolan.

  Or the night of the Archangel, he thought, swallowing a low sigh as he saw the footage of a man leaping from the top of a stone statue into thin air rolled again, the sound so low he could barely make out the commentary. Depending on whose side you’re playing for.

  “Don’t mean to bother you so early.”

  Holly gave him that cool look again and then glanced over her shoulder as Ronan looked up from his paper, his dark eyes a note of violent amusement in his placid, half-bored expression.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ronan said, raising his brows as he turned the page of his paper and then smoothed it out with a crisp snap of his wrist. “Holly isn’t actually allowed to speak today. Isn’t that right, Holly?”

  Holly slid her eyes towards him, her mouth pulling into a soft sneer and Ronan grinned as she walked back into the kitchen, standing with her back against the counter as Ronan followed her with his eyes.

  “There’s a good girl,” he said his low, gravelly voice curling with amused gratification.

  He turned back to Jaxson as she averted her eyes and his expression dropped, his dark eyes doing that strange twirling dance of theirs as he flipped the page again without looking up.