“Fine,” I say, my voice low and hoarse. “I’ll leave.”
“Wise decision.”
The gun is lowered.
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I turn and head back toward the escalator, but Fat Guy calls my name. I stop but don’t look back.
“I saw her, by the way. I visited her cell earlier today.”
My lips press together, and my fists clench so tight my nails nearly break the skin. Slowly, I face him.
“She’s a cute little thing. Nice ass. Great tits.” He sighs loudly. “Too bad about her face though.”
I take a step toward him.
“Yeah, I got no idea who gave her that bloody lip. Or those black eyes. Someone must’ve really worked her over good. Ah, who knows though? Maybe it’s not just her face.” He grins at me. “I’ll check out her body later.”
In hindsight, I’d agree that this was a bad move. But in the moment, when a red haze clouded my vision and animal instinct took over, I didn’t hesitate for a moment.
I run, teeth bared, back to that desk, armed with only the sole intent of beating the living hell out of the guy. I’m four feet, then two feet away. I’m so close when suddenly he brings up his right hand. It’s such a casual sort of movement that, at first, I don’t even see the large gun he’s holding. And I certainly never see him pull the trigger.
It’s like a freight train knocking into me. One minute I’m on two feet, the next I’m flying through the air, as if an invisible rocket were pushing into my gut, forcing me backwards. I slam against the wall and drop.
Fat Guy saunters over to me. He raises the gun as if he were showcasing a carnival prize. “And this here is the Kimber Ice 2000. It weaponizes the very air around a person, creating something akin to a mini tornado. It’s like getting hit by a Chevy.” He smiles. “I call this the Crazy Mother Fucker.”
I struggle to sit up. My rib cage feels like it’s being ground down by sand paper. Once on my feet, I take a deep breath. Try to, at least.
“You got something to say, Blondie?”
“I’m impressed. You know what the word ‘weaponizes’ means.”
Fat Guy laughs and, before I can blink, he pulls the trigger once more.
VICTORIA
Jace is almost out the door. It’s now or never.
“There was an e-tab in the trunk. I turned it on. There were pictures…who was that woman?”
She was murdered a few weeks ago.
“What was her name?”
Issy Campbell.
“Did you find who killed her yet?”
No. Not yet.
“How did she die?”
She was beaten to death.
“Who killed her?”
I’m not sure yet.
“Are you close to finding him?”
Yes.
“How do you know? Did you find something?”
Jace pushes himself from the wall.
All investigations are riddles. They’re filled with sleights of hand and red herrings. They’re lies within lies. And after many years, I’ve learned one thing for sure.
“What?”
The truth is unstoppable.
DEREK
I wake up on the sidewalk, tossed out to the curb like garbage. Fat Guy wasn’t kidding; it really does feel like you’ve been hit by a car. I get to my knees and crawl over to a trash can. I use it to hoist myself up.
Slowly, I stutter-step to my car, thinking about what Fat Guy said about Victoria. Was he lying? Was he saying those things just to get to me? Or was he telling the truth, knowing it would drive me crazy? I try to shake the image away of my Victoria, beaten and blackened, but it sticks in my mind and refuses to leave.
For some reason, I think about one of my very first physiology classes. Dr. McNulty was talking about ligamentous sprains. It's when a joint is twisted or wrenched so violently, so suddenly, that the ligaments—hence the name—or fibers, will stretch and hemorrhage. But sometimes, she warned, you can push yourself too far, work yourself too much, go beyond your limits, and these fibers will not only stretch, they’ll tear completely. The symptoms can be severe, and the long term effects can be dire.
Be careful, she had said. There’s no only so much stress a body can take before it breaks.
Finally, my car comes into view. The Steel Tower may have been a bust, but there’s another building that may provide me with some answers. I pull out into traffic and head north.
<><><>
It's complete bedlam when I arrive at Victoria's house. People are everywhere, though I don't know a single person. Large trucks are parked haphazardly all around the front, and cars are piled in the driveway. I notice William's BMW nestled all the way in back.
The front door is open, so I just walk in. I pass the dining room. You know those gargantuan tables you see in movies, the ones that are always some dark stained wood with about twelve chairs on each side of it? That's this dining room table. And you know those dining rooms you see in movies where everything is old and antique and looks like it would cost you your firstborn if you broke anything? That's this dining room.
I had hoped no one would be here, that I’d just be able to get in and out and be done. I hoped wrong.
Three people are pouring over e-tabs and readers, and several others are speaking on cell phones. Two men sit across from each other, black laptops up and open in front of them like a game of Battleship. The guy closest to the windows looks like his main fleet was just sunk.
The next four rooms hold a lot of bodies but for how many people are here, for all the activity going on in the house, it is intensely quiet. It's eerily quiet. As if people are afraid of making any noise at all. It reminds me of that reverent hush that comes over a person when they step into a graveyard.
The last room on the first floor is the sun room at the very back of the house. It is the smallest, but it is my favorite. There is an almost edible quality to the space. The peaches and apricot coloring. The crème and vanilla hued furniture. The streams of sunlight that always look like freshly squeezed lemonade.
I met Mr. King in this room. I shook his hand right by the bay window. And then I sat down beside Victoria on the couch, across from him as he sat in the reclining chair, and all three of us talked for hours. It was just that kind of perfect day.
But as I open the door now, the room that held such attraction seems garish. The sunlight is a mockery; the furniture belongs in a doll house. Every piece looks too tender, too delicate, to be out in such a volatile atmosphere. The tones and hues are so exponentially out of proportion with the mood that it's almost savagely jarring.
I head upstairs to Victoria's room. I'm not exactly sure what I’m here for, except that I figure maybe I’d find a clue, a hint, anything that might help me solve out who would want Mr. King dead. Perhaps he left an e-tablet somewhere with—I don’t know—emails on it or something. Or maybe Victoria noticed something and she typed it down in her Digi-Di. Honestly, I may be grasping at straws here, but it’s time to start somewhere. Why not at the mothership?
I stop abruptly as I pass Mr. King's bedroom. I backtrack and don't even bother asking if I can come in. I stand stock-still as I watch him pile item after item into a huge cardboard box. I can clearly see most of what's inside: a pink polo that Victoria forever made fun of him for, a Duquesne sweater, a Notre Dame t-shirt, a white button down with the letters VWK embroidered on the cuff, a shoe shine kit, a black pocket knife, a watch. I know for a fact that not only are these Mr. King's clothes and possessions, they are the things Victoria herself had bought him.
William follows my gaze and scoffs. “What do you suggest I do with them? Build a shrine? Put them on ice? Dip them in gold and have them—”
“You could keep them.”
In reply, he drops another shirt in the box.
“She'll hate you.” I don't need to bother to explain who that is.
“Yeah, well, I'm not too
fond of her either.”
“Why are you so eager to get rid of him?”
William tenses. I can see the restraint in him, but I have no idea if he's restraining himself from physically doing something—like strangling me—or if he's restraining himself from saying something. Maybe both. After several deep breaths, he says with a careful, constructed calmness, “I'm not eager to get rid of him. I'm just eager to get rid of his clothes. There's a difference.” He walks to a large dresser and begins to unload it. As he does so, he says, “Why are you here anyway?”
The lie comes quick and easy. “I thought Victoria would want some clothes. Her own pillow. And some of her father's things. Maybe a memento or keepsake to help her through this.”
His lip curls in disdain. The iBullet clipped to his belt begins to beep, but he quickly taps it off. Geez, does that thing ever stop? William says, “Take what you want. I don't care. I'm throwing it all away anyway.” He glances at me. “Whatever you take though, know that it'll just become clutter in your own house. The Corps won't allow her any personal possessions.”
I don't say anything. I just continue to watch as he packs up his father's possessions. His movements aren't rushed, but he just dumps the items in the box without a care as to how they land or if they’ll break. Finally, playing along with my own fiction, I go over to Mr. King's tall bureau and grab the gold cufflinks Victoria bought him only a few weeks ago. I think back to being with her in the store, how happy she was that she found them. The memory makes my heart squeeze painfully.
I put them back on the shelf.
I turn and find William looking at me. His eyes are unlike I've ever seen them. No longer hard, cold ice. They are soft as snow now, melting under the heat of something so much bigger than he is. Quietly, he says, “It won't make her feel better.”
“How do you know?”
William reaches slowly into his pocket. In his hand is a pair of men's reading glasses. “Because,” he says, “I already tried it.” He tosses the glasses on top of the clothes he just put in. They land without a sound on top of a World's Best Dad sweatshirt. “And it didn't make me feel better.”
I can't take my eyes off of Mr. King's glasses. I stare at them while William leaves, I stare at them for moments after he's gone. Finally, I turn and walk out of the room. And then the house. And I try not to notice the For Sale sign in the front yard as I pass it.
VICTORIA
In the quiet of my room the walls bend around me. The floor rises up in waves. My body is slick with sweat and nerves and tears and salt and anxiety. I'm a fish on hot sand. And even when I close my eyes, I can still see his face and hear his voice.
Twenty-Three Days Before Victor King’s Death
(Late Evening)
He tries to come in quietly but I’m wide awake on the couch. I pretend like I’m sleeping, though, and watch him through squinted eyes. His hair is disheveled and his posture is stooped, exhausted. He heads upstairs and that’s when I notice he’s carrying his old luggage bag. Odd. He hasn’t used that one in years, not since I bought him a new set with his monogram sewn on each piece. After a few minutes, I hear a door shut, the shower turn on.
I stand and quickly, quietly make my way upstairs.
A single lamp illuminates his bedroom as I push the door open. His cell phone is on the nightstand and I check that first. The call log is empty. His texts are all clear. There’s not a single picture or video saved. It’s like he wiped any information from it completely.
I set it back down and move to the other side of the bed. Nothing. I go on my stomach and peer beneath it. Nothing. Finally, I open his closet and that’s when I see the bag. Crouching down, I unzip it, grimacing as the sound seems to scream in the quiet. I flip open the top.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. I’m about to reach out when suddenly, a rough hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me up. I’m whipped around and am face-to-face with my father’s furious gaze.
DEREK
Lucas's house is small. Nice, but small. I believe cozy is the word. But for what Sabrina and I are doing, we don’t need this to be some mansion. In fact, the more simple and unassuming it is, the better.
She already has the door open before I even walk up to it.
“Jesus,” she says, taking in my appearance. “What the hell happened to you?”
I come inside and fairly collapse on the living room couch. I tell her everything, from the moment I walked into the Steel Tower to the moment I was unceremoniously dumped outside of it. She grimaces.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll live.”
“Well, if you can manage, come in the dining room. I have something to show you.”
She bounds in, and I follow at a much slower pace. She sits at the table and I take a seat beside her. Two laptops, one silver, one blue, are sitting side by side.
“What’s all this?”
“First things first.” She hands me a cell phone. It's square and black and doesn't have a screen on it.
“Wow, where'd you get this? 2000?”
“Here's a tip: if the enemy uses Morse Code, you use smoke signals.” At my blank stare, she says, “Stay off their radar, Derek. The Corps use smart phones so it's in our interest to use old-fashioned ones. They're a bitch to get but impossible to trace. The FIOS is just on a totally different frequency and it’s…well, anyway, long story short: use this from now on. Throw away your old cell too. If we're about to get as deep into this as I'm thinking, you don't want the Corps knowing where you are.”
I accept the phone.
“Now, I had an idea while you were gone. It’s cool that you went to the source, or y’know, tried to, but I figure let’s not forget about the place itself.”
“What do you mean?”
Sabrina turns to her computers. Her hands are deft and quick as she logs onto the internet and types a series of numbers into the address bar. I watch with some awe as the screen fills with numbers and letters in random jumbles. Suddenly, the Google homepage is replaced by a picture of a familiar street corner.
“I mean,” she hits the return key, “this.”
I lean forward.
“Is that...is that Oakland?”
Her fingers fly across the keyboards again. “And here's Downtown.”
Street cams, ladies and gents. I'm looking through street cams of Pittsburgh.
“How'd you do that?”
“Well, just have no friends for three years and you'll find yourself with the time to do anything.”
I shift uncomfortably.
But Sabrina doesn’t comment further. Her fingers just keep flying. Images appear on screen and I know instantly what she’s trying to do. I tell her where Mr. King was shot, and she brings up the closest street cam, which unfortunately, isn't close at all. It's about two blocks away. Mr. King and Victoria were at Cappelli’s in Market Square, and he was shot as he was walking down a small alley shortcut that led to Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately, no store surveillance cameras caught the incident either.
“Wait,” I say, pointing to the set of numbers in the lower left hand corner, “these are live feeds. How are you going to find out anything about the night Mr. King was shot?”
“See this?” she asks, pointing to the screen. She clicks on the link, which is actually nothing but a series of numbers and lower case letters. They don't spell out a thing. “This is access to the archives. Now, according to my research—”
“Research?” I ask dubiously.
She glances at me. “Yes, Derek. Research. Anyway, traffic cam footage stays on file for a few months, just in case anyone ever contests a ticket or something, or a car is stolen, or who knows. All I know is that the footage stays on file. And since your girlfriend’s father was only shot like, two days ago, we should be able to access it.”
Sabrina puts the pointer on a link, then holds down the control key and starts typing like mad again. But whatever she's doing is working because a series of numbers come up. Dates.
&n
bsp; “October 8th,” I say. “That's when it happened.”
“Do you know the time?”
“A little after eight.”
Sabrina clicks on the date, and the video for it instantly comes up, starting at exactly 8:01 PM. “Fast forward a bit,” I say. “Maybe we'll see someone running from the scene.”
Sabrina doesn't have to say yeah right. I hear the words sound in my own head. But she doesn't argue with me or tell me we'd have better luck winning the lottery. Instead, she fast forwards several hours. A scummy looking group of guys come into frame a few times, once at the beginning, then again around ten, then again around midnight, but that’s it. After a few more views, she shuts the window and logs out.
“Shit. That camera angle is all wrong. We can’t see anything.”
Sabrina nods. “What do you want to do?”
I sit back. The answer comes in an instant, and my body temperature drops ten degrees. I point to the screen. “Those guys walked into frame three times. I’d bet my life that they hang out there all the time.”
“Hang out? Don’t you mean live there?”
I look at her. “Exactly.”
Sabrina doesn’t need to hear more. She stands and gestures with her chin to the front door. “We’ll take your car.”
VICTORIA
Someone is screaming.
Guards are yelling.
A gunshot explodes in the nighttime.
Twenty-Two Days Before Victor King’s Death
(Evening)
I tiptoe to the phone on my desk. The red light is on. Carefully, I pick up the receiver, hold it to my ear.
“…I’m not doing this,” a voice says, a stranger. “I’m not playing games.”
“This is the best for everyone. If you would only see that I’m—”
“You’re not trying to help. Don’t ever say you’re trying to help.” The voice goes mean, vicious… “You know what you’re really doing. People have been doing it my whole life and I’m done. It’s over. No more.”
Unstoppable: Truth is Unstoppable (Truth and Love Series) Page 10