Nightmare City

by Klavan, Andrew

  But the protest died in his mouth. He knew deep down that Karen Lee was telling the truth. Dr. Cameron’s guilt would explain a lot. It would explain what Marie had been saying to Gordon in the gym. She and her father had been trying to make a friend of Tom so they could convince him to stop looking for the rest of the story about the championship Tigers. They thought if Tom liked Dr. Cameron enough—and if he thought he had a chance to win Marie—they might be able to convince him to leave the story alone, to keep Dr. Cameron’s guilt out of the newspaper.

  Oh, come on, baby, he could imagine Marie saying to him. In that same irresistible coaxing tone she had used on Gordon. Just do it for me.

  Tom took a deep breath. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. There was a recorder function on it. He pressed the button. He held the phone out toward Karen Lee.

  “Miss Lee,” he said. “Tell me the story. Tell me the whole story from the beginning.”

  Karen Lee’s tears were subsiding. “All right,” she said with a weary nod. “I can’t keep it secret anymore.”

  Twenty minutes later Tom had it all, the whole story recorded on his phone.

  Dr. Cameron—Karen Lee told him—loved being an important man. He loved being appointed to boards, loved having his picture taken with politicians and celebrities. But that way of life cost a lot of money, more money than he made in his medical practice. So he had begun making risky investments in the stock market, hoping the large returns would allow him to live at that high level that made him feel important.

  When the market suddenly dropped, his money dried up. Dr. Cameron went into debt, deep into debt. But instead of cutting back on his spending, instead of sacrificing his wealthy life and his pride, he began to borrow—to borrow a lot—from the banks, at first, and then, when the banks wouldn’t lend him any more, from loan sharks, mobster thugs from Nevada who charged insanely high interest and demanded to be paid every week or else.

  The further into debt Dr. Cameron went, the more risks he took in the market, hoping to hit it big and get free from the mobsters’ clutches. The more risks he took, the deeper into debt he went: a vicious cycle. Soon the thugs were threatening him—threatening his wife—threatening his children. If he couldn’t pay back the money, they said, he would have to pay them back in other ways: by supplying them with prescription drugs that they could resell on the black market.

  So now the respectable doctor had become a criminal, a drug dealer.

  Dr. Cameron was desperate to get out, desperate to get free of his troubles. And he thought he saw a way. Coach Petrie was one of his patients. The doctor suggested he could help the Tigers play better, ensure they would start winning. He said he could give them a chance to make it all the way to the Open Division and take the state trophy. Coach decided it was worth a try. He was soon visiting the doctor’s office more and more often, buying more and more of the illegal performance enhancers that gave his players extra size and strength. The Tigers started winning—against all odds, against all expectations—and Dr. Cameron started using his drug profits to bet on the final outcome of the championship with the bookies in Vegas. The odds against the Tigers at that early stage were enormous. If the Tigers won it all, the bookies would have to pay off big. Dr. Cameron could get out of debt at last.

  It was no wonder Dr. Cameron was so frightened his story would come out. If his role in the Tigers’ corruption became public, all his criminal dealings would be exposed. Not only would he be sent to prison for a long time, but there’d be some very angry thugs in Nevada, tough guys who felt he’d ripped them off by rigging the big game without telling them.

  His life—his honor, his importance, his friendships with governors and mayors and celebrities—it would all come crashing down in ruin and disgrace.

  Karen Lee had been on hand as much of this tragedy unfolded. She had witnessed some of it and overheard some, and Dr. Cameron, in his misery, had even confided some of it to her. But she’d been afraid to tell anyone—afraid she would get in trouble herself and afraid of the lengths to which Dr. Cameron would go to silence her. She had kept her secrets for three years—right up until she had read Tom’s story in the paper. Then the quiet promptings of her conscience had grown louder and she could no longer resist them. Before calling Tom, she had tried to convince Dr. Cameron to come forward with the truth himself. But he had refused—and then, later, he had come to her apartment and tried to terrorize her into keeping her long silence.

  As Tom walked out of apartment 6B, he realized he was walking into a world of trouble. The Sentinel story about the Tigers’ drug use had already caused a firestorm of controversy. If he and Lisa ran this additional story about Dr. Cameron’s involvement, the turmoil would grow tenfold. They would not only be accusing one of the most important men in town of breaking the law. They’d be uncovering a world of corruption and drug deals that could have repercussions through the whole city, maybe the whole state. A lot of people—Dr. Cameron, Coach Petrie, and all their important friends and supporters—would do anything they could to stop Tom and Lisa, to shut them up and shut them down.

  So Tom knew he needed to act fast. Once the story was in the newspaper, once everyone knew the truth, Dr. Cameron wouldn’t dare attack Karen Lee again. And any important friends he had would probably turn tail and run instead of helping him. They wouldn’t want to risk getting in trouble themselves.

  Tom’s heart was beating hard as he rode the elevator down to the lobby. Thoughts were crowding into his mind. He had to call Lisa. They had to get to work as quickly as they could. Write the story, put the paper out before anyone could stop them.

  Marie will never forgive me, he thought. She will hate me forever.

  He tried to push the idea out of his mind. What difference did it make whether Marie hated him or not? All her affection for him had been a lie anyway. He couldn’t lose a girl he’d never really had.

  But even as he told himself that, the image of her face came to him. That amazingly pretty face he had loved since he was a little kid. The idea that she might hate him forever hurt—it hurt more than he wanted to admit. And he had a feeling it was going to hurt for a long, long time to come.

  The elevator stopped. The door opened. Tom stepped out into the lobby. The receptionist with the stern face flashed a brief smile at him from behind her desk.

  “Have a nice day,” she said without much feeling.

  Tom nodded and walked out of the building.

  The rain had slowed to a drizzle now. Tom’s Mustang was parked across the street. He got into it, turned on the engine, turned on the windshield wipers. As the wipers swept the rain off the glass, he dug his phone out of his pocket again. He called up Lisa’s name on his speed dial.

  But before he could press the Call button, the phone rang. The readout lit up: Marie Cameron.

  Tom stared at the name for only a second. Then he answered.

  “It’s me, Tom,” she said.

  The sweet, soft voice seemed to pierce through him. “Marie.” Her name came out of him in a low murmur. This was probably the last time she would ever speak to him, he realized.

  “I need to talk to you, Tom,” she said. “It’s important.”

  Holding the phone to his ear, Tom looked out the windshield at the street in front of him, looked through the air gray with rain. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Not on the phone. We have to meet. It’s about . . . it’s about my dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  “Yes. And about the football team. My dad was the one who . . . Look, I don’t want to say it on the phone. Please . . .”

  Tom was quiet a moment, surprised. This was a twist. It didn’t make sense. If Marie had been flirting with him to keep him from finding out the truth, why was she telling it to him straight out like this? “I already know about that,” he said. “And listen, I’m sorry. I wish I could keep quiet about it.”

  “Keep quiet?” said Marie, sounding startled. “No, no, you can’t keep quiet.
Of course not. You have to write about it in the paper. But you can’t write about it until you know the whole story. The real story.”

  Now Tom was just plain confused. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not what you think, Tom. It’s totally different than what it sounds like. Believe me. You have to meet me. Somewhere secret. I don’t want my father to know. Or Gordon.”

  “Gordon? What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Tom,” said Marie—and again, her voice seemed to go right into him. “I promise I’ll tell you everything if you just meet me.”

  Tom only hesitated another moment. What could he do? He had to meet her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn’t know the whole story. Before he did anything else, he had to find out all the facts.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “Where do you want to meet?”

  “Up on Cold Water Mountain,” Marie answered. “No one goes there since the fire. Meet me at the monastery.”

  28.

  It was a ten-minute drive to the trailhead. Half an hour’s hike up into the hills. Soon Tom was moving through the part of the woods that had been destroyed last summer by the Independence Fire. The blaze had started after a bunch of kids set off some fireworks near the trail. The dry summer brush had been torched, and the flames had swept through the woods for nearly three days before the firemen had finally managed to put the fire out. It had left behind a hellish landscape: a whole forest of twisted, blackened trees, their gnarled branches stunted, their broken silhouettes twisted against the boiling, cloud-covered sky.

  The rain had stopped, but the light was failing. Evening was spreading across the mountainside like a gray stain. Tendrils of mist twined among the spooky, corkscrewing, coal-black corpses that had once been living trees.

  Tom’s footsteps were the only noises in the deserted place. They were eerily loud as he made his way along the trail, under the gnarled branches. It was not long before the charred timbers of the monastery roof became visible over the ridge. A few more steps and the rest of the retreat came into view.

  Santa Maria had been a retreat for Catholic monks who wanted to get away from the world and contemplate God. Most of the monks came up from the main monastery building in the town below, but others came from around the country, too, to see the artwork here and to appreciate the beautiful views of the mountainside and the ocean. The place had actually been kind of famous for a while. But it was just a ruin now. Jagged, fire-blackened walls stood against the backdrop of the distant sea. There were piles of toppled bricks. A stone chimney still standing lopsided under a burned oak. Remnants of rooms with one or two walls remaining. Pieces of furniture—tables, chairs—burned and broken, lying in the dirt under the burned, broken trees as if they were part of the forest as well.

  Just beyond the building site, there was a huge table of rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. It formed a sort of natural balcony, beyond which Tom could see the town spread out among the trees below, and the ocean, endless and dark blue under the churning gray sky. The monks had often come out onto this rock at the end of the day to watch the sunset.

  Tom scanned the scene. Silent now. Motionless.

  He called out, “Marie?”

  But no one answered. Only the wind stirred, sending the high clouds tumbling and turning.

  Debris crunched under his sneakers as he moved farther into the monastery site. He stepped out from behind the chimney and came into a room. It was the only room left standing here—almost intact, as if the fire somehow hadn’t touched it. It had been the monastery chapel. The roof had burned off and one wall had crumbled to charcoal rubble. But three walls remained standing, scorched though they were. Some of the pews had survived as well, some toppled, some still in their rows, all of them scarred. The chapel crucifix seemed to have been melted into the wall behind the altar, but the shape of the cross remained there. The stained glass was all gone, but the peaked shapes of the windows were still visible high on the wall, open to the sky.

  Tom stepped farther into the chapel, the grit on the floor jabbing up through his sneaker soles. He had the weird feeling that some ghostly presence was watching him—and then he understood why. On one of the walls, a heavy gilt picture frame hung askew. The painting in the frame had been burned away—all of it except one small jagged patch that held part of a face, the part with the eyes.

  Tom felt a little chill. The eyes really did seem to be gazing at him through the gathering dusk. They were gentle eyes but full of pain. There was a line of blood running down the temple beside them. Maybe this had once been a picture of Jesus on the cross, Tom thought, or one of the suffering saints. He didn’t know.

  “It’s sad to see this place in ruins,” said a voice behind him.

  Surprised, Tom spun around. Dr. Cameron was standing at the opening of the chapel, the place where the fourth wall had been before the fire destroyed it. The silver-blond-haired man with that perfect face so much like his daughter’s looked relaxed and casual. He was wearing jeans and a sports jacket over a sweater, as if he had stopped off here on his way to a dinner out with friends. He smiled easily as Tom stood staring.

  “You should see the look on your face,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t have to be so amazed. It’s not like I’m a ghost or anything.”

  It was a moment before Tom could answer. Then he said, “I was expecting Marie.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you were,” Dr. Cameron said with another laugh, a harder laugh. “But I’m afraid I’m the best you’re going to get.”

  Tom understood right away. Marie’s phone call had just been more lies.

  You have to write about it in the paper. But you can’t write about it until you know the whole story. Meet me at the monastery.

  He should’ve known. None of what she had said was true. She had just been doing her father’s bidding. Tricking him into coming up here where there was no one to hear them, no one to see. Tom had been a fool for her from the beginning. Nothing had changed.

  “I was worried that Ms. Lee might not be able to keep her mouth shut,” Dr. Cameron went on. His footsteps crunched over the dirty floor as he came forward. “I paid the receptionist a few bucks to keep an eye on her for me. She told me you came by. I knew why.”

  “So you had your daughter call me and lure me up here,” said Tom.

  Dr. Cameron gave a full laugh, his white teeth gleaming in the darkening twilight. “Lure you! That’s a sinister phrase! What do you think I am, some kind of gangster?”

  Tom decided not to answer that.

  “I just wanted a private place where we could talk,” said Dr. Cameron. “I wanted to reason with you before you did something that could hurt a lot of people—and that might make your own life pretty difficult as well.” He stopped advancing and stood still a few yards away from Tom. The gilt picture frame was on the wall between them. The suffering eyes that were all that was left of the painting seemed to watch them both. “Your choice is pretty simple, my friend. On the one hand, you write a story in the newspaper about me. You’ll be pulling a thread that will unravel relationships throughout this town, throughout this state, even beyond that, and the repercussions will be enormous. You’ll suffer. I’ll suffer. A lot of important people will suffer. And Marie—Marie will suffer maybe more than anyone. If things go badly for me, her life will become”—he gestured at the burned-out walls around them—“a ruin, like this place. So that’s one way you can go. The other way: you let me be your friend. I can help you—and your mom. There might be some money for you, for instance. You could use that, I’ll bet. And I can help you get into a good college, get a good job. I have a lot of friends, Tom. Powerful friends. We can all help you.”

  Tom nodded. “If I agree to lie.”

  Dr. Cameron shrugged. “Nobody’s asking you to lie. Not at all. I’m just asking you to use some discretion. Hold back. Don’t write about me in your newspaper. Don’t give people information they don’t need, information that’ll only do harm.”
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br />   “Leaving stuff out is lying, too,” said Tom. “Not telling the whole truth is lying.”

  Dr. Cameron smiled again. Looked down at his loafers. Shook his head. Looked up at Tom. “Have it your way. But here’s how it is. If you tell the whole truth about me, you’ll cause yourself and everyone else around you pain. If you . . . lie, as you say, I can give you so much. Money, contacts, success. The keys to the world. Don’t be a fool, Tom. It’s a good offer. It’s everything. All you have to do is keep silent.”

  Tom hesitated for a moment before he answered. He knew Dr. Cameron was right. It was a good offer, as these things go. And maybe he should have felt tempted. But he didn’t, not really. Money, contacts, success—sure, he wanted all that. But to lie in bed every night knowing he was nothing but a liar and a coward and a man who could be bought off—well, that didn’t sound like having the keys to the world. That sounded like hell on earth.

  A memory flitted through his mind then. Something Burt had told him once. Just a goofy piece of big brother–type advice he’d given him when they were both a lot younger, something about playing what Burt called the “bigger game.” It was a long time ago now, one of Tom’s birthdays. Burt had given him a baseball bat, Tom remembered, a Louisville Slugger Warrior. He still had that bat in his closet somewhere. Even though he never used it anymore, he wouldn’t let his mother give it away . . .

  “Tom?” said Dr. Cameron, breaking into his thoughts. “It’s getting dark. I have a dinner engagement. I need an answer. Now.”

  “You know, my brother died in Afghanistan about six months ago,” Tom said. It hurt him even now just to mention it. “He was helping evacuate some kids from a school that was in a danger zone. He was getting them to safety when a sniper shot him.”

  Dr. Cameron gave a puzzled gesture. “Yes, I heard. Too bad. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “It’s just . . . He didn’t have to be there, you know. He volunteered. He didn’t have to. He could’ve gotten a job. Earned some money. Become a success in the world. He wanted that. He wanted all that stuff. All he had to do was stay home. Just stay home. But he was playing a bigger game.”