by Jonas Saul
Sarah directed Diner until they were backed into a spot. Once they were parked, Diner left the car running and turned in her seat.
“So, what is this?” Diner asked.
“The reason you’re in law enforcement.”
“Oh really. And why is that?”
Sarah looked down at her legs. It was odd knowing so much personal information about the detective. It made Sarah feel invasive. But it was necessary.
“Your sixteenth birthday. Brad, your fraternal twin brother, had an argument with your father.”
Sarah heard Diner adjust herself in the front seat.
“Your father had been in a car accident,” Sarah said.
“No,” Diner broke in. “Correction. My brother killed that woman.”
Sarah looked up and met Diner’s eyes. Behind them, she saw a struggle. Diner was fighting back the tears, but the tears were winning.
“Your father was driving,” Sarah whispered.
“That’s impossible. My brother admitted it. He confessed. He went to jail for it.”
“He did the time,” Sarah nodded. “But he was a youth under the Young Offenders Act. The charges were dangerous driving, failing to remain, vehicular manslaughter and something else. Basically a hit and run, but a woman was killed. He got probation and a year in a youth center. Shortly after the trial, your father died. Alcoholism caught up with his liver, his body.”
Tears bubbled up under Diner’s eyes, then dropped off her face as the painful memories surfaced. “How in the hell could you know all this?” She used the tips of her fingers to mash the tears off her eyes. “I checked years later. The criminal record was purged when Brad turned eighteen.”
“Your father was drunk that day,” Sarah said. “He had taken Brad out to teach him how to be a man but Brad didn’t want to drink. When your father hit that woman with his car, he panicked and left the scene but a neighbor wrote his plate number down. By the time the police arrived, he still hadn’t sobered up. He said Brad was learning how to drive. It was an accident. At first your brother denied it, but your father convinced him that one year wasn’t a lot. If good old dad had to take the fall, charged as an adult, well you know better than me how that would go.”
Diner turned away and lowered her head, fumbling with something in her lap.
“When my brother got out, he never came to the house.” Diner’s shoulders hitched. She swallowed. “He never came to my father’s funeral.”
“You always wondered what happened that day. Why they argued. Your search for the truth started there. Your mother never spoke a word of it because she didn’t know any better. As far as she was concerned, Brad was a murderer.”
Diner nodded. “My alcoholic father ruined our family, then died.”
“Have you forgiven your father?” Sarah asked.
Diner watched a car drive by in search of a parking spot as if she didn’t hear Sarah’s question. “How sure are you that my dad was driving?”
“Sure enough that I brought you to see your brother. Ask him yourself.”
She swung around in her seat like someone had jerked on her head with a rope. “He’s here? Right now?”
Sarah nodded slowly.
“I looked him up,” Diner exclaimed. “I hunted for him. After he got out of jail, he disappeared. How could you find him?”
Sarah gave her a come on, really, look and said, “Brad isn’t Brad Diner anymore.”
“What’s his name?” she nearly shouted.
“Marcus Appleby.”
“Marcus? What?” Now she was screaming. Then she started to laugh through her tears. “Who the hell calls himself Marcus Appleby?”
Sarah nodded at the dash. “What time is it?”
Diner wiped her eyes and bent closer to the clock, still uttering a few choking laughs, or sobs, Sarah wasn’t quite sure.
“It’s seven minutes after two.”
“Roll the window down on my side.”
Diner did, but it only went half way.
“In three minutes, at 2:10, Brad, or Marcus, will enter that black Camaro two cars over. I’d suggest you get out and say something to him.”
“What? But I haven’t seen him since we were sixteen. What would I say? What am I supposed to—” she stopped, then narrowed her eyes. “You researched me. You looked me up and now you’re making fun of my pain.” Her face turned serious. “There’s no way in hell that you could know all that. This is a prank, isn’t it?”
“I agree. There’s no way in hell. When Marcus walks by, you will have no choice but to embrace your twin brother and to embrace the fact that there is something to this dead sister talk of mine.”
Diner checked her watch. She opened her car door and got out, leaving the car running and the air going full. Ten seconds later, she stuck her head back in.
“In one minute I will see my brother. Or I will make it my life’s mission to cause you as much pain and sorrow as I can for the rest of my life.”
She slammed the door so hard the cruiser rocked back and forth. Diner moved to the front of the cruiser and leaned on the hood.
They waited.
A woman walked by pushing a stroller, a balloon attached to the handle. Beside her, a boy about the age of four, cried as she schooled him on his behavior. Two teenagers who were supposed to be in school ran by, one clutching a skateboard.
They waited.
Then Diner pushed off the cruiser and walked around to her door, yanked it open and dropped back in the car.
“I can’t believe I let this go on as far as I did.” She put the car in gear. “And to think, a fucking psychic murderer had me wound up, all ready to—”
“Marina Sue Diner!” Sarah yelled. “Shut the fuck up!”
The car stopped with a jerk.
“Do not move this car,” Sarah shouted. “Look to your right.”
Diner fixed her gaze out the passenger window and stared at the man walking toward the black Camaro. Slowly, she put the car back into park.
“I can’t believe it,” came out of her mouth barely above a whisper.
“If you don’t get out of the car now,” Sarah said. “You’ll miss him.”
Diner froze. Her eyes darted to his face, his pants and the little boy hugging his father’s leg.
“I can’t believe—” she started.
“Excuse me, sir?” Sarah shouted out her window. “Do you have a moment?”
“Sarah!” Diner whispered in a breathy yelp.
Marcus frowned as he opened the backseat of the Camaro and placed his son inside. He set the Wal-Mart bags in the front passenger seat and turned to face the unmarked cruiser.
“Do I know you?” he asked. He narrowed his eyes and turned his head sideways with a conspiratorial grin on his face. “Did John put you up to this?”
“I’m afraid it’s not a joke,” Sarah said. “I need one minute of your time.”
Marcus didn’t come closer. He leaned down to get a look at the driver, but stayed by his vehicle two spots over.
“Looks like the cops to me,” he said, his tone brusque now. “What do you want?”
“The driver wants to have a word.”
Diner opened the door. She got out and walked around the trunk. Sarah watched her progress. When Diner stopped in front of Marcus, realization swept across his face. Maybe it had something to do with being twins. Both of them recognized each other within seconds after almost two decades.
“Little Marina?” he managed to say. “Is it really you?”
Detective Diner shot out her arms and hugged him, not able to speak as sobs overwhelmed her. Marcus held her. They leaned against the Camaro for a few minutes as they tried to get themselves under control.
Questions poured out of both of them. Sarah watched the reunion with growing dread. Someone was going to inform the men at the torture warehouse that Machiavelli and Fletcher were dead. They would shut down soon.
But this was necessary. Detective Diner had to be sold.
And what a good
way to sell her, Sis. I love this stuff.
Sarah wondered if this was what she should be doing instead of all the dangerous stuff.
Maybe we should spend our time bringing people together like this instead of vigilantism.
Vivian whispered that there would be plenty of time to do the lovey-dovey tasks when Sarah was older and more feeble. Not now while she was still able to fight.
Great!
“Detective Diner?” Sarah interrupted. By this point, Marcus had introduced his three-year-old boy and offered Diner to come for dinner to meet the wife. They both agreed it had been too long. “Detective?”
“Yeah?” she turned toward Sarah, her eyes bloodshot. “What?”
“We have to go.”
“Where?”
“A certain warehouse. Not much time.”
Diner looked at the pavement, then back up into her brother’s eyes. They spoke of seeing each other this weekend and exchanged numbers.
Two minutes later, Diner was back behind the wheel and turning onto Brock Road.
“You okay?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah. Let’s do this and then I need a week off. I need to reconnect. I still can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Get back on the 401 and head toward Scarborough. Turn north on McCowan Road. The warehouse we’re going to is five minutes north off of Nugget.”
Diner looked back at her through her rearview mirror. “You sure about this? Just you and me? No backup?”
The refreshing feel of the detective’s voice sent waves of calm through Sarah. Diner was on her side, even if it was temporarily.
“It’s the only way. They have too many cameras, magnetic locks on the doors and security posted outside. I understand from what my sister told me that they even have security posted at several places along the street watching vehicles from over a mile’s distance each way. One word and the place gets locked down. If they can’t get out because of a raid, there’s a large cage, like a panic room in a hiding place under the building. It’s soundproof. In the event of an emergency, the victims are to be herded in there. If all the operators are arrested, anyone inside the panic room will be left to die of starvation as there would be no one to let them out.” Sarah closed her eyes, looking inward, listening. “Only two people know the code to that panic room and they’re both dead. The men in the warehouse don’t know that yet.”
“Wow, you really know your stuff.”
“Most of this I just learned as I spoke it. Trust me. My sister has her own way of doling information out. Pisses me off most times, but everything always works out. In the end, it all works out.”
Diner looked at her again, but Sarah averted her eyes.
She probably heard the uncertainty in my voice.
Chapter 30
Detective Marina Diner drove past the warehouse without slowing to get a look at the building.
“I don’t see any guards posted outside,” Diner said. “You know, something’s telling me this is not a good idea.”
Sarah adjusted herself as the handcuffs were cutting into the flesh of her wrists. And now she had to pee so bad her leg wouldn’t stop bouncing.
“Pull in up here and turn around. Before we get back, listen to me and listen good because I’ll only have time to say this once.”
Diner slowed to perform the U-turn.
“I’m listening.”
“We’re going in as guests.”
“We are? Whose guests?”
“Diner,” Sarah said, her voice low. “Listen.”
Marina nodded, then pulled back onto Nugget Road heading back the way they had come.
“You’re taking me in to abuse me.”
Diner’s head shot up to look in the mirror.
“Play along, Detective. I’m handcuffed. They will understand this. They will know my face already. And they know who you are.”
“How?”
“Because of Mason.”
Diner slowed the vehicle to pull in to the warehouse’s parking lot.
“You’re going to ask for a medical room,” Sarah said.
“What’s that?”
“No idea, but I’m sure we’re about to find out.” Sarah studied the building trying to find their security, but no one was in sight. “Park up here.”
Diner pulled in beside a BMW and turned the car off.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Leave your weapon in the car.”
“No way.”
“They’ll frisk you. You have no choice. Hide your cell phone, though. Take me in as your prisoner. Ask for the medical room. Lock the door behind you. Then call for backup. Got it?”
“Is that your master plan? All this way and that’s how you expect to bust these guys, from the inside?”
“That’s all I have.”
“How do we get inside?”
Sarah didn’t get a chance to respond as Diner’s door was ripped open. A large bearded man in a black suit stood by the door, a machine gun draped subtly under his suit jacket, the tip sticking out by his thigh.
“Step out of the car, Detective Diner.”
A radio crackled nearby.
Diner snuck a glance at Sarah, then got out. “You got a permit for that thing, Mr. Turner?” she asked.
Not the best way to infiltrate them, Diner.
“Step aside,” Turner ordered.
Behind three different cars, men wearing the same suit as Turner stood with machine guns of their own.
Why does it always have to look so hopeless?
Her leg bounced faster as her bladder threatened to release.
Then her door opened.
“Sarah. Exit the car.”
A slimmer man, clean cut and handsome, wearing the same suit with the same large anti-aircraft gun slung over his shoulder, held the door open for her.
She edged sideways along the car seat, set her feet on the cement and pushed off. He guided her around the car to stand beside Diner.
Sarah counted seven men watching them now. The radio crackled again. Turner touched something on his belt, then placed a finger on his earpiece as he listened to it.
When he removed his finger, he focused his eyes on Diner.
“You’re alone?” His tone wasn’t as much a question as it was surprise. Like, Really? Why the hell would you come here alone?
Diner nodded. “Just the two of us.” She sang the words in a carefree tone.
That’s how you play this, Diner. Cool.
“Why?” Turner asked.
“She’s mine,” Diner nodded at Sarah. “I’m taking her to the Medical Room.” Diner stopped talking, adjusted her weight, then said, “And when we’re done, ashes to ashes, right?”
Okay, Diner, talk less now. I’m not enjoying this anymore.
“Invites?” he asked. “Pass cards? Anything?”
“In my pocket,” Sarah said, thrusting her hip out slightly.
Diner frowned. Turner offered a brief smile, then it was gone.
The detective eased her finger inside Sarah’s pocket and pulled out the two ID cards Mason had given her in the basement of the funeral home, and then handed them to Turner.
He examined them and nodded. “They’re cleared. IDs are in order.” He walked away. “Take them inside. Make sure Medical Room number two is clean and prepared.” When he was ten feet away, he turned back and looked at them over his shoulder. “Ladies, if you will follow me.”
They started forward. The instant Turner spoke, the seven guards disappeared back to their hiding places. Only the handsome one followed them to the front door of the warehouse.
Turner held the door open as they entered, Diner in the lead. Sarah hoped she remembered to bring her cell phone.
Once inside a two-door chamber that puffed air on them like a bomb scan at an airport, they entered a search area akin to airport security.
Three guards moved in and frisked Diner first. When they were done the manual search, one of th
e men scanned her body meticulously with an electronic wand. The only thing they pulled out was her cell phone, but then offered it back to her when they were done.
“No weapons, no wires, no listening devices, nothing. She’s clean.”