Cold Harbor (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 3)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  PRAISE FOR MATTHEW FITZSIMMONS

  PRAISE FOR POISONFEATHER

  An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category

  “FitzSimmons’s complicated hero leaps off the page with intensity and good intentions, while a byzantine plot hums along, ensnaring characters into a tightening web of greed, betrayal, and violent death.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[FitzSimmons] has knocked it out of the park, as they say. The characters’ layers are being peeled back further and further, allowing readers to really root for the good guys! FitzSimmons has put together a great plot that doesn’t let you rest for even a minute.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  PRAISE FOR THE SHORT DROP

  “. . . FitzSimmons has come up with a doozy of a sociopath.”

  —Washington Post

  “This live-wire debut begins with a promising lead in the long-ago disappearance of the vice president’s daughter, then doubles down with tangled conspiracies, duplicitous politicians, and a disgraced hacker hankering for redemption . . . Hang on and enjoy the ride.”

  —People

  “Writing with swift efficiency, FitzSimmons shows why the stakes are high, the heroes suitably tarnished, and the bad guys a pleasure to foil . . .”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “With a complex plot, layered on top of unexpected emotional depth, The Short Drop is a wonderful surprise on every level . . . This is much more than a solid debut, it’s proof that FitzSimmons has what it takes . . .”

  —Amazon.com, An Amazon Best Book of December 2015

  “Beyond exceptional. Matthew FitzSimmons is the real deal.”

  —Andrew Peterson, author of the bestselling Nathan McBride series

  “The Short Drop is an adrenaline-fueled thriller that has it all—political intrigue, murder, and suspense. Matthew FitzSimmons weaves a clever plot and deftly leads the reader on a rapid ride to an explosive end.”

  —Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of My Sister’s Grave

  ALSO BY MATTHEW FITZSIMMONS

  The Short Drop

  Poisonfeather

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Planetarium Station, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503943353 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503943356 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503943346 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503943348 (paperback)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  First edition

  For Declan, Harrison, and Kaitlyn

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  The door would never open.

  The prisoner accepted that now.

  How old was he? He couldn’t be sure. Another mooring post that had drifted out of sight in this windowless cell. One thing less anchoring him to the world beyond these walls. This cell where the lights were never off and time had overrun its banks and flooded his minutes, hours, and days so that he could no longer tell where one moment ended and the next began.

  Meals arrived in his sleep. Always while he slept. Sometimes he would pretend. Simply to see a human hand would be a comfort. To know there was someone on the far side of the door. He hadn’t heard a sound from outside since they’d put him here. Not even when he pressed his ear to the door and strained against the silence. Not a voice. Not a cough or a prayer, a footstep or any proof of life. So he would mimic sleep like a child on Christmas morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone, anyone. But they always knew. How did they know when he lay so still?

  Were they inside him?

  The meals never varied. No breakfast or lunch or dinner. Laid out on the floor—no tray, plates, or utensils. He ate with his fingers, the same tasteless bars, processed beyond recognition, for every meal. He couldn’t say he ate three times a day, because what was a day? When the food came, he ate. When it was gone, he didn’t. Never hungry until the food came, and then ravenous, as if it had been a lifetime since his last meal.

  No mirror—he longed to see his own face. To confirm he was still himself. Maybe they had changed that too while he slept. Were these his arms? His legs and feet? His stomach? His chest? They looked familiar but maybe only because they were all he ever saw. Was he he? If he could only see his face, he felt reasonably certain that he would know the answer. He knew the question itself was madness, but it ate at him until sleep claimed him. Blessed sleep.

  This was hell, and the door would never open.

  The prisoner accepted that now.

  If he died, would anyone come? Would the door open at last, or was this also to be his tomb? No, the door would never open. He accepted that now.

  In despair, he had run at the wall, slamming his forehead against the unforgiving cinder block. He woke on the floor in a halo of blood. His meal waited in the usual place.

  The blood had long since flaked away, leaving a rust-hued outline. He found it pretty and adopted gnawing his arms until he broke the skin. Dripping blood on the floor carefully to see what shapes he could make from it. Cave paintings of himself.

  When they’d put him here, he had yelled defiantly. Sworn that they would pay. That he would never break no matter what they did.

  He was broken now, and they had done nothing.

  His cold fluorescent sun reflected off the white walls of the cell, seeped between his fingers, through his eyes, and cast shadows on his mind.

  He longed for a moment of darkness.

  Afraid of what the dark might bring.

  At first, he could sleep only with an arm draped over his eyes, but now nothing prevented his sleep. Sleep was all he had, and he embraced it. Waking became a hateful thing.

  To survive, he retreated further and further into memory. Reliving the fin
est moments of his life over and over. His wedding. Kissing Nicole at the altar. Their first night together in their home. The birth of their daughter, Eleanor. Adding new chapters, rewriting the past. Unmaking his mistakes. He and Nicole were still married. Still living on Mulberry Court in their sturdy, two-story Cape Cod. He could hear Ellie playing upstairs, but she never came down, and he never went up.

  Eventually he began to talk to his memories and to the people in them. Living inside them. They made good company and would sit silently while he ate, listening to him ramble on. On one level, he knew they weren’t real; on another, they were all he had. Did not wanting to be alone mark you insane?

  Then came the time when the memories spoke back. They took the guise of Suzanne Lombard—his Bear. She was a little girl again, before tragedy struck, as he needed her to be. She told him about the secret passage. That she could take him away. As long as his body stayed behind, the guards would never know that he had escaped. This he knew to be a dangerous precedent, but he didn’t hesitate. He preferred madness to the lonely white walls.

  The first night, Bear took him by the hand and led him away. She led him out through the secret passage to her family home in Pamsrest. They found a comfortable chair, and he read to her as he had when he was a boy. Nestled against his shoulder, Bear turned the pages for him.

  She told him that Ellie was doing well, growing up. Healthy and happy. He asked if he could see her, but Bear shook her head and told him it wasn’t possible. The prisoner wanted to argue but knew it was for the best.

  Bear squeezed his hand. “You have to survive,” she said. “For her.”

  “The door will never open,” he said.

  “She’s all that matters now.”

  Bear turned the page. When she became sleepy, he folded a corner to mark their place. She took him back to his cell but promised to return soon.

  The next night, the prisoner followed his father to the old diner in Charlottesville. Their Sunday-morning ritual. They sat at their regular table and ordered from a waitress who looked delighted to see them. It was the week before his father died, yet somehow his father knew everything that had happened in the years since his own funeral. When their breakfast came, his father told him why he was there.

  “The man who put you here.”

  “Damon Washburn.” The prisoner whispered the name like a prayer in an abandoned church.

  “He has to pay.”

  The prisoner agreed but explained that the door would never open, that he’d accepted it now.

  His father winked his trademark wink. “Our time will come.”

  The prisoner didn’t believe that, but planning revenge helped to pass the intervals when sleep would not come. So together they began to strategize. Eventually it was all they ever talked about. His father had an incredibly cunning mind, and the cruelty of his plan shocked the prisoner.

  His father saw it on his son’s face. “I’m done with people pushing our family around and getting away with it. Do you understand me?”

  The prisoner looked away, ashen-faced and ashamed, but his father wasn’t finished.

  “This is all because you let her live. After what she did to me, to Bear. You let her live.”

  Calista Dauplaise.

  The prisoner, knowing better than to speak her name aloud, said only, “I’m sorry.”

  “Never again.”

  “Yes, sir.” The son followed the father back to the cell. He tried to apologize again, afraid that his father might abandon him in this place. His father only smiled and hugged him.

  “I won’t die again. Because of you.”

  It was true. The following week, when the son came home, he didn’t discover his father hanging from a rope in the basement. Instead, beer in hand, his father was turning thick steaks on the grill in the backyard.

  “Your mom will be down in a minute,” his father said. “Why don’t you set the table for three.”

  His mother, who had passed away when he was three, would be down in a minute. And even though she never did come down to join them, it was a comfort knowing she was close by.

  Through the secret passage, the world existed only as the prisoner needed. It was a seductive power—to experience his life as he wished it had been—and he used it to escape his cell at every opportunity. Why shouldn’t he? If he could, he would gladly die to end this solitary existence. To escape this hell. He would do anything his keepers asked. If only they would ask. But they never would. The door would never open. He accepted that now.

  And then, after a thousand years or perhaps only a single day, something unforeseeable happened.

  The door opened.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The aircraft banked to the left and continued its descent. Beneath the hood, Gibson Vaughn’s ears popped. A small detail, but one that made him believe that all this might actually be real. Could you hallucinate a change in cabin pressure? He hoped not.

  During his imprisonment, he had imagined his release innumerable times—it was the cruelest trick that his mind played on him—and now he feared that this was but another of his elaborate fantasies. It concerned him that he couldn’t easily differentiate one from the other. Frustrating that, even though he knew intellectually that he’d lost his mind, he still couldn’t bring it to heel. He leaned forward in his seat to take the tension off the shackles that bound his wrists and ankles. His hands tingled as sensation rushed back into fingers. It felt so real. It had to be real, didn’t it?

  Supposing for a moment that it was, he still had no idea how long they’d been in the air. His captors had dosed him with something to calm him, and by the time it had worn off, they’d already been airborne. It had been a blessing, protecting his mind from too much, too soon. After so long in solitary confinement, the world beyond his cell door had been traumatic—an overload of brutal sensation. It had overclocked his senses, overwhelming him, and at first he had fought the guards like a lunatic. Simple human contact had felt like fire on his skin; human voices had been a dentist’s drill grinding into a brittle molar. Ironic, since it had been all he’d craved. It had taken three men to wrestle him to the ground and sedate him.

  Strong hands on his shoulders pressed him back in his seat, checked his restraints, tightened his seat belt. The vibration of the aircraft’s hydraulics hummed as the landing gear extended. That felt real too. Fear and excitement swept through him at the prospect of landing. He didn’t know where, or even why, but it was something new, and that was enough.

  Duke Vaughn snorted from the window seat. “You really believe that? This is a trick, son. They flew you in a circle. You’re going right back into the same cell. To break you.”

  “I’m already broken,” Gibson whispered from under the hood.

  The aircraft touched down on the runway. Gibson was thrown forward as the plane decelerated in a roar. When it lurched to a halt, hands lifted Gibson from his seat and marched him down the aisle. He shuffled forward in abbreviated, manacled steps. A knife of cold wind cut through his clothes. He dug in his heels, whining like a beaten dog, and struggled back from the open door, certain that they meant to throw him from the aircraft. A hand clamped around the back of his neck; an unsympathetic voice told him to calm down. Gibson remembered the plane had landed. How had he forgotten that already?

  The hand at his neck guided him down the airstairs. He stumbled on the last step but righted himself before he sprawled across the tarmac. A short distance from the aircraft, the voice ordered him to kneel, shoved him roughly to his knees when he was slow to comply. In the wind, he heard a click. He braced for the bullet that would put an end to his life. Instead, the shackles came off. The voice told him to lie facedown and lace his fingers behind his head.

  The runway was a block of ice, so cold it hurt his bones. But it was a wonderful pain, the pain of being alive. Outside. Unbound. A miracle. The door had opened. The wind blew right through his lightweight clothes, and he laughed crazily at the sensation. The engines of the pl
ane powered up and began to recede into the distance.

  “Hello?” he called out.

  No reply.

  He called out again, then once more. Gibson struggled to his feet and yanked the hood free. The daylight, reflecting off snow that had been shoveled to the edge of the runway, burned his retinas. He shielded them with his hands, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the glare. He looked about wildly to confront his jailers but saw none. At the far end of the runway, an aircraft climbed the morning sky. The sky. Dear God, the sky. Vertigo swept over him as his mind tried to make sense of it. A kaleidoscope exploded before his eyes. Heart galloping. He dropped back to his knees and cowered at the overwhelming grandeur of a gray winter’s morning, certain that this must be dying.

  His nausea passed, his vision cleared, and he dared uncover his eyes. A hundred yards away stood a corrugated hangar and, beyond that, a simple office. There had to be two feet of old snow on the ground, salt brown. The airfield looked vaguely familiar, but his mind pulled in a thousand different directions, and he couldn’t place it. At his feet sat his old duffel, the one he’d had with him when the CIA had taken him. Shivering, he knelt, unzipped it, and pawed through his dirty clothes. They were all lightweight spring clothes that he’d taken to West Virginia a lifetime ago. Little use in winter, but he put on his windbreaker for all the good it would do.

  Bear’s baseball cap was missing, and he panicked until he remembered that he’d left it with Gavin Swonger. He wished he had it now; he thought it might tell him definitively if any of this was real. Could this be real? Had he gone through the secret passage without knowing it? He dug through the duffel again but found only a plastic bag. Inside were his wallet, his keys, and his phone. The phone had long since lost any charge. He put it in his pocket, if only to feel normal.

  Across the runway, another hooded man clambered to his feet. The man had also been lying facedown on the runway, but his gray suit had been the perfect camouflage. Gibson watched the man pull off the hood and look around in confusion. Even under the shoulder-length hair and matted beard, Charles Merrick was unmistakable. The last person Gibson expected, but, seeing him, Gibson knew it couldn’t have been anyone else. The same man who had condemned him to that damned cell.