Road Kill; Puppet Master; Cross Wired

by Jan Coffey

  Steven reminded himself that there was no point in trying to analyze her dream. Kei was worried about Nathan and, awake or asleep, the worry wouldn’t go away until she actually saw him.

  She closed her eyes and another tear squeezed out onto her cheek.

  “You’re supposed to sleep so you can rest, not have nightmares,” he told her, wiping away the tear. “Listen, we’ll be arriving in Istanbul in no time. We’ll find him, my love. We will. I promise you we will. He’s fine. You’ll see.”

  As the words left his mouth, though, Steven Galvin knew that he’d been making a lot of promises to his wife these past few days. Promises that he hadn’t been able to keep.

  CHAPTER 13

  DESPAIR

  New York Presbyterian Hospital

  David Collier couldn’t stop pacing the emergency room waiting area. He didn’t know what to do, where to go, who to talk to. The attending doctor had asked him to stay outside while they ran a number of tests and scans on Leah. They needed to have full access to her. They would keep him informed as to her condition, but right now David was getting in their way.

  So he paced.

  When David spotted a young resident come through the doors into the waiting room, he was on him in an instant. This doctor had been shadowing the attending physician who was directing Leah’s care.

  “Mr. Collier. I’m Doctor—”

  “I know who you are,” David said shortly. “What’s happening to my daughter?”

  The resident moved to the side to allow a patient on a wheelchair to be taken through the doors. “Your daughter…Leah…has developed severe electrolyte disturbances. Her blood tests show toxic levels of waste products. She’s also suffering from fluid overload. Of course, we have only done a fraction of the tests that need to be performed.”

  “What’s being done for her now as far as medications, dialysis?” David wished Nicole were with him now. She was so much better than he was in this kind of situation.

  “We’re starting with the blood transfusion. We have to control the anemia. Before we start with dialysis, though, we’d like to admit her.”

  The young doctor continued to talk, but David didn’t have to hear it. He already knew the scenario. They were at worst case. Leah’s pediatrician had gone over it with him last week. As a previous recipient of a kidney, Leah would be low on the transplant list. But even if some miracle occurred and they could find another donor, it was very likely that the eight-year-old’s body would reject the organ. David was no match to his daughter. Nicole, on the other hand, had been a perfect match. But by the time Leah’s illness had been diagnosed, Nicole’s cancer was spread though her body.

  The young doctor touched him on the shoulder gently and motioned to the window were a receptionist sat. David couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t hear. His daughter’s kidneys were shutting down. David’s mind was following suit. He sat down on the closest chair. He leaned over and planted his head in his hands. The pediatrician had told him that in a case such as this, Leah would have to remain in the hospital under continuous dialysis until…until another donor was found. And then they’d start the process all over again.

  He was a grown man, but he was crying. Nicole had died and there had been nothing he could do to stop it. And now his daughter.

  “I believe you dropped this.”

  The man’s voice startled him. He lifted his head and looked at the manila folder the man sitting beside him was holding.

  “I don’t think so. That’s not mine.”

  “I’m sure it is,” he said. “You might want to check inside.”

  David wasn’t in any mood for this. He snatched the folder out of the man’s hand and opened it.

  His name was handwritten at the top of a cover letter clipped to a thick sheaf of papers. David recognized the letterhead of the research hospital in Germany that he wanted to take Leah to…the one the insurance company had rejected.

  “What is this?” he asked in a low voice.

  The letter was addressed to him, and he scanned it quickly. It was an acceptance letter, confirming financial arrangements and welcoming Leah to participate in the organ cloning program.

  “What is this?” David asked again. He turned to the man sitting next to him. “And who are you?”

  CHAPTER 14

  FEAR

  Istanbul, Turkey

  “Your name.”

  “I’m Nathan Galvin. Age twenty-three. I’m a U.S. citizen. A tourist…and I need water.” Nathan had lost count of the number of times he’d repeated the same thing. The man asking the questions today was different from the one who’d questioned him yesterday. That interrogation session had been the only other session that he’d been reasonably conscious for. He was exhausted and very weak, but at least they’d stopped batting his head around.

  His interrogator sat across the way, the small metal table separating them. The man’s face was visible in the dim light of the bulb, and he didn’t try to hide his identity. He was wearing a black print sports shirt, buttoned at the wrists. His hands, when they appeared on the table, struck Nathan as delicate. They were the hands of a musician or a scholar.

  They’d untied Nathan’s hands and feet yesterday. He knew they no longer saw him as a threat. He’d had no food since they’d brought him here, and it was taking its toll on him. They’d given him water only sparingly.

  “Your name,” the man asked again.

  This man spoke English fluently and had a vaguely British accent. Both of these last two interrogators had been unafraid of Nathan seeing their faces. And this scared the hell out of him. He wondered if they were going to kill him, no matter what he told them.

  “Your name?” the man asked in the same monotone. No anger, no beatings, just the same question over and over again.

  “Please do not require us to use more persuasive means. We only ask that you be honest with us.”

  “I have been,” Nathan murmured. “You’re not listening.”

  “Your name?”

  Nathan had to play the same game. He repeated the information that he was authorized to release and nothing more. He didn’t know who these people were—Turks, Arabs, Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians? He didn’t know which faction of al-Qaida—if they were al-Qaida—they were connected with. There were plenty who hated U.S. policy in the Middle East, and Nathan was too green to distinguish between them with any certainty.

  The door to the room creaked open, and Nathan saw his backpack being handed in to the man questioning him.

  He watched in silence as the backpack was emptied on the table in front of him. Nathan stared at the contents as the standing man pawed through everything. He picked up the small notebook. Nathan remembered that had been in his pocket.

  “These are directions. What for?”

  The stick drives weren’t on the table. Nathan had no doubt his captors had them. “Someone gave me those directions and asked me to exchange a flash drive for him at the Kapali Carsi. That was where I was going…to that shop.” He motioned to the notebook.

  “Who gave you the directions?”

  “I’ve told you people a hundred times…a kid I met having coffee at the hotel where I’m staying. I don’t know him. I just happened to meet him. He was leaving for the U.S. and had forgotten to return the stick drive to a friend.”

  “Why did you agree to do it?”

  “I don’t know. He offered me a couple of bucks. I needed the money and it was a good chance to practice the little Turkish I know. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”

  Nathan looked at the other things that were spread on the table. His baseball cap, gloves, a tourist book, cash in liras. Intentionally, he hadn’t brought along his wallet. “There was a cell phone in my pocket. It should be among my things. It’s not here on the table.”

  Perhaps if they turned on the cell phone, his location could be traced. Nathan knew his parents would be beside themselves by now. They’d been looking for him themselves.

&nb
sp; The man gave no indication that he’d heard Nathan. He continued to paw through the things.

  “I know you have it,” Nathan insisted. “You want to know my real name, look at the numbers I’ve been calling on my cell phone. Call them. Call my parents. I swear, I am telling the truth. I’m a tourist. I don’t know what or who you’re looking for. But I’m not it.”

  His captor picked up the notebook but left everything else on the table.

  “Touch nothing,” he said before walking out of the room and leaving Nathan alone.

  CHAPTER 15

  TERROR

  Belfast, Ireland

  Finn waited for his wife and two children in the parking lot at Saint Brigid’s Church on Sunday morning. Mass would not start for another twenty minutes, but he’d come straight here from the airport.

  From where he was parked, near Malone Road, he had a view of the new building’s construction next to the old, red brick church. To Finn, Saint Brigid’s was a sign of the times in Belfast. Hardly a hundred years since this church had been built for the area’s Catholic servants who worked for the ruling Protestant class. Today, this parish was the fastest growing—and the richest—in the city.

  Finn himself had made a sizable donation toward the three million Monsignor Cluny had asked to aid in the construction of the sanctuary next door. Finn had given proudly. This was his family’s parish now, since he’d bought a home in this area four years ago. A brilliant move, all things taken together. The bloody house had already more than doubled in value.

  These days some of Belfast's most expensive homes were here in the affluent residential district on the south side. They called Malone Road a “mixed” area where wealthy Catholics and Protestants lived together. A far cry from the neighborhoods where Finn and his brother Thomas were raised.

  Finn figured this church, this neighborhood, justified the years he was involved with IRA campaigns. But they were done with the killing and bombing now. Most Catholics were considered equal. Or at least, they considered themselves equal. He knew he was. And he deserved it. He’d fought for it. He’d lost Thomas to the fight for their bloody rights. He had every right to enjoy what he had, and bollocks to the naysayers still crying about there being problems.

  He’d read a flyer last week that said a Catholic male was 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed than a Protestant male, and that Catholics were still underrepresented in management levels of companies. No doubt there was some truth to it, but it was someone else’s job to fight those battles.

  A Mercedes pulled into the lot and honked the horn at him. Finn nodded to the folks in the car. A Volvo followed it in, and there was another wave of recognition by the driver.

  When Finn saw his wife’s Mercedes SUV come up Malone Road, he got out of the car. For his work, he needed to be away a few times a month, and he missed Kelly when he was gone. He missed the twins bloody awful. He could see the lads already jumping about in the back seat before Kelly had a chance to pull into the parking space beside him.

  He opened the back door, and Conor and Liam tumbled out. Five years old and an armful, the little devils.

  “What did you bring us, Da? What did you get us this time?” They asked at the same time while climbing over each other to get to him.

  The pair of them might be two years old, the way they acted. When it came to fighting for his attention, they were little heathens, to be sure.

  “I’ll tell you after Mass,” he told the boys, giving them hugs. He tried to straighten their jackets, but they had too much energy to stand still.

  “Come on, Da! Now…now!”

  “I said after, ya puppies. And that’s only if you behave yourselves during Mass.”

  “Let me peek in your car,” one said.

  “Yeah, let us peek,” the other agreed.

  “What did I say?” Finn said, trying to look stern. “After Mass.”

  “Did you bring us a video game?”

  “Yeah, like the last time. Did ya?”

  Finn shook his head and hugged the boys against his legs, holding his hand over their mouths playfully. Looking over at his wife, he noticed that Kelly was taking her time getting out of the car. She was looking in the mirror, checking her makeup. Something was not right with her.

  “Go in the church, lads, and save a seat for your mother and myself.”

  The boys raced across the parking lot to the door of the church. Finn walked around and opened the driver’s door. Kelly turned and smiled at him.

  The makeup and the smile did nothing to hide the tears in his wife’s hazel eyes.

  “What’s wrong, darling?” he asked, crouching in front of her open door. “Were the boys too much again this morning?”

  He was around enough Sunday mornings to know you needed eight hands to get the lads in church clothes and keep them reasonably clean until they got here.

  “They were no trouble at all.” She shook her head and took a pair of sunglasses out of her purse, pulling them on. It was overcast outside. She stepped out and gave him a hug and a quick peck on the lips, before locking the car.

  “Let’s go in. I don’t want to be late.”

  Cars were still arriving. “We’re not going to be late. What’s bothering you, Kelly?”

  “It’s Mick.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” he asked quickly. Mick was Thomas’s son. Finn had been raising his nephew as his own since before Thomas’s death. Mick was now nineteen and smart as a pet fox. He was the first lad in Finn’s family to have been accepted at the university.

  “He’s at the house. A friend of his drove him up this morning and dumped him at the front steps.” She lowered her voice. “I tucked him snug in his bed. He’s stoned, Finn. Totally.”

  More parishioners who had parked were coming by the car now, and some began to exchange greetings with them, curtailing the discussion. Finn nodded and smiled, all the while paying no attention to what was said. He took his wife by the hand, and they followed the parishioners.

  This was the third time in two months, Finn thought, his stomach churning. Mick didn’t touch the stuff when he lived at home. He’d been a wholesome kind of kid. No drinking to speak of, no serious girlfriends. A hard working lad, to be sure. Something was happening to him, and not for the better. Finn couldn’t let that happen. He had to take a better care of Thomas’s son.

  Monsignor Cluny was greeting the parishioners at the door. “Finn, Kelly, I saw the twins. I thought you’d be coming along behind them.”

  Kelly made the quick excuse that she’d better see to them. She took her glasses off as she went inside. Finn was ready to follow his wife, but the priest took him by the arm.

  “Can you stay on a bit after Mass, Finn? I’ve been wanting to have a word with yourself.”

  Finn was surprised. Usually the priest liked to get together with his big donors over a cup of tea at the rectory or, for serious money talk, a pint or two down at O’Rourke’s after the last Mass.

  “Sure thing, Monsignor. Something you’d be needing?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. It’s…well, we need to be having ourselves a chat about Mick.”

  CHAPTER 16

  LOSS

  Alanna had to go to work every day this past week. She needed to pretend that nothing had happened. Ray insisted that she keep her routines just as they always were. He didn’t want anyone suspecting that he was back in the San Francisco area.

  After that first day at her apartment, Alanna didn’t know where and when they would meet. She couldn’t contact him. He said it was too dangerous. He called her, at least, late every day from a blocked-ID phone number. He told her where to go, what time to be there. She had to be extremely careful that no one followed her.

  Every day, they met at a different motel. Wherever they met, however, it was only for a couple of hours. Generally located in San Jose or in Fremont, the motels were the kinds of places that people rarely stayed the entire night…and only paid cash. One day they’d met at a smal
l motel off the Cabrillo Highway. They didn’t even have sex. They just lay on the bed talking, holding each other, and listening to the waves of the Pacific pounding against the shore outside the window.

  Alanna was seeing herself differently these days. She wasn’t offended by any of this. She wasn’t even embarrassed. She was happy for every moment they had together. She was being given a second chance at life, and she planned to take whatever it offered.

  At the same time, the reality of what she was planning to do—disappear—was pricking her conscience with its details and its consequences. Besides Ray, there were two things that mattered to her in life: her grandmother and her job. With Alanna gone, both of those would suffer.

  Immediately after landing the position at NASA, Alanna’s first priority had been to situate her grandmother in a place where she’d be comfortable for the rest of her life. She didn’t want Lucia to work for anyone again—no cleaning houses and looking after stranger’s kids. Of course, Lucia wouldn’t have anything to do with that. She liked the family she was working for. The children meant a great deal to her, and until they were grown up and off to college, she was unmovable. So it wasn’t until a year ago, at the age of eighty-seven, that she’d finally been persuaded to stop working.

  Alanna had arranged for her to move to an assisted living facility in Mountain View where she had her own room and all her meals and her needs were taken care of. But that was only the beginning. Now more than ever, Lucia wanted to be closer to Alanna. They spent most Sundays together. And one other day in the week, Alanna had to bring her abuela back to her apartment so that Lucia could cook every meal her granddaughter would need for the following week.

  Ray’s accident had affected Lucia, too. She’d liked him, had doted on him when he’d been around, and had taken his death pretty hard. It was sad that Alanna couldn’t share the news of Ray being alive with her abuela. And even more tragic for all of them, Alanna couldn’t imagine how her grandmother would function if she herself were to disappear forever. Alanna was the only real family her abuela had.