by A. J Tata
“You had her?” she said to him.
He turned so that he was facing her, with the two deputies to his left. He kept turning so that his shoulder actually was blocking them and creating a two-way conversation between Layne Constance and himself.
“I did. I’m sorry.”
“I need to know what happened,” she said. He saw a flint of steel in her eyes, which were fixed on his, steady and unwavering. He guessed her to be a woman who normally had firm control of her life, and Misha’s apparent disappearance was altering her balance.
“I came to the school earlier today to see a friend, Promise—”
“Promise White. Her tutor,” Layne said with affirmation, as if each fact Mahegan provided would increase her balance, give her something to hold on to as she climbed out of an abyss.
He nodded. They drifted away from the grouping of police officers and the detective. They were standing about twenty feet now from the law enforcement personnel, who were huddled over a car hood, talking about something.
“Misha is autistic, and while she was included in all the fifth-grade activities, she’s not a fifth grader. She could be a college student if she had the social skills. Promise worked with her every day after school. Promise has a master’s degree in mathematics, and Misha is actually taking calculus and differential equations with her.”
“An eleven-year-old? Calc and diffy q? I thought you homeschooled her.” Patch had mentioned to him that Misha was studying these courses. He hadn’t focused on them a few minutes ago, but hearing her mother reaffirm that Misha was studying heavy-duty college mathematics made him see Misha’s intelligence as a potential fact bearing on the situation. He had taken those courses in his college days, as he had a natural leaning toward hard numbers. He took solace in the certainty they provided. But still, an eleven-year-old?
Layne nodded. “I do, but not in a traditional sense. Every Tuesday and Thursday she is home for half the day, but her condition was improving, and I wanted her included in classes for social-skills development. Years of speech therapists, occupational therapists, probiotics, every fad . . . We tried it. And then Roger makes her those glasses, and she starts getting better.”
She looked away from him, tears cutting paths along her cheeks. “Maybe that’s the wrong term, getting better, because I don’t know if you ever get better, but maybe, you know. We have some hope. Temple Grandin gives us hope. And I can’t teach her what she needs. Last semester she had probability and statistics. She’s a savant.”
“Temple Grandin?”
“Adult autistic author and speaker. Misha loves her. Has read everything she’s written. Watched her speeches online. Gives us hope, you know?”
He didn’t know but could empathize. He nodded and let her take a breath before he asked her what would be a shock to her, he was sure.
“Any reason someone would want to kidnap Misha?” he asked.
“Kidnap? Who said anything about kidnap? They’re still counting heads over there.” She looked over again at Detective Patterson. “Wait, is that why Paul’s here?”
“Who’s Paul?” he asked, wanting to check her response. Now that Misha’s intelligence could be a factor in the bombings, Mahegan slipped into information-gathering mode.
“He handled the case when Roger was killed. My husband. Misha’s father.”
“Handled? So the case is closed?”
“Well, they’ve declared him dead. The life insurance paid the claim. Not much. Two hundred thousand. Better than nothing, I guess, but certainly not enough to live off for the next forty years, especially with all the treatment Misha requires.”
Two hundred thousand was a nice chunk of money, but perhaps not worth killing for. Not that he considered Layne a suspect in the murder, but the spouse was always person of interest number one. Mahegan could not imagine how much money it cost to provide for an autistic child, but he was certain that two hundred thousand would not be enough.
“I’m sorry, but that must be why he’s here. Either she ran from the scene or she was taken. Do you know who might want Misha?”
The tissue came back up to wipe the streaming tears from her face. He noticed her hands were slender and her nails expertly manicured with a red polish. She wore no wedding ring, which he found unusual, with a husband who had become deceased only a month ago.
“No one that I can think of,” Layne said. Her gaze was steady on the group of children and parents hugging across the parking lot. Her eyes reflected any parent’s desire to find her child. They were drawn, yet focused. She scanned the group, hoping to see a blond-haired girl in a blue dress looking for her mother. “Her daddy and now this,” she muttered.
She turned away and walked toward the throng of parents, then stopped, as if she didn’t belong there.
Mahegan said, “I’ll check for her one more time inside.”
She nodded as she kept her back to him, her blond hair sweeping against the blue blazer.
He stepped past the police officers and the men in suits, felt Paul Patterson’s eyes on him, and walked toward the front door of the school building. He could see parts of the suicide bomber splattered on the I beams and the sidewalk where he had dumped him. There was a forensics crew working the scene, placing little flags where DNA or debris from the blast was located.
Register caught up with him, saying, “Hey, the suits don’t want you in here. You’re a witness.”
By then Mahegan was already in the lobby where he had originally stopped the bomber and where Promise had put a bullet in the head of the man he was holding. He thought about that for a second, amazed that she had taken that shot and killed the man, even though Mahegan himself had been inches away from where the bullet impacted.
He turned right and then right again, leaving the hallway and entering Shea’s classroom, where he had patched Misha’s cut. He saw the detritus of first-aid supplies and desks scattered in haphazard fashion and showing the path of the children’s rapid escape. He studied the classroom and saw cubbies for book bags and raincoats, as well as two desks that he assumed were for Shea and her assistant. He walked beyond the desks, toward a row of windows. Through one of the windows he could see the suits in the parking lot looking at him inside the classroom. Register was still behind him in the classroom, nervous. He could feel his anxiety coming off him in waves.
“You shouldn’t be in here, Mahegan,” he said. “I’ve given you some wide latitude, but this is pushing it.”
Mahegan turned around and saw a door next to the protruding cubbies that wasn’t visible from the front of the classroom. He remembered that Promise had said that her classroom was connected to this one and that she had exited through this door. He walked to the door, expecting it to open to a connecting bathroom. It didn’t.
As he turned the knob and pushed the door inward, he saw a smaller classroom, the size of a mid-level bureaucrat’s office. After flipping on the light switch, he noticed two chairs and a high-tech whiteboard. Across the whiteboard was a big smiley face. He figured that this was where Promise tutored Misha after class. He could visualize Promise’s nurturing smile and Misha’s earnest, intent gaze as Promise led her through the complex math theorems of differential equations. Or maybe it was the other way around. Was Misha the one teaching Promise? He thought about the ANTS comment and what Patch had said. He walked up to the board and noticed it had a small diode light flashing, as if it was connected to a Wi-Fi network. He ran his hand along the side and felt a bump on the back. He saw another door on the opposite side, which most likely led to Promise’s classroom.
“Satisfied? We already checked in here,” Register said.
Mahegan immediately knew that someone else had joined them. He turned around and saw one of the suits standing next to Deputy Register.
“I’m Bill Price, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wilmington Division.”
They shook hands. His grip was firm, like an athlete’s. He was shorter than Mahegan by maybe an inch or two,
making him, best case, six feet four inches. He could have been a point guard or defensive back in high school and maybe college. He carried a confident swagger, which left no doubt that he believed he was in charge of wherever he might be. Over Mahegan’s shoulder, he saw Paul Patterson leaning against the doorjamb, taking in the conversation.
“Jake Mahegan,” he said to Price.
“We know who you are, Jake,” Price said. He was dismissive, as if there was no way he would be uninformed about anyone.
“Just needed some time in here,” Mahegan said. “I patched up Misha right over there.” He walked the entire crowd away from the small room and closed the door behind him. “Coming back here helps me visualize what happened. Maybe it will help me remember some things.”
“We’ve gone over this place with a fine-tooth comb,” Price said. “Leave the rest to the forensics while we go talk.”
Mahegan nodded and kept walking, anything to move them away from the tutoring room. “Where would you like to talk?” he asked Price. “I want to make sure I tell you everything I saw.”
They now stood at the rear entrance where the second bomb had exploded. He saw the doors were buckled inward, much like the front doors. It was almost as if the attackers had calculated enough explosives to seal the doors, but not enough to rubble the building. Point being, if they wanted Misha alive, they had taken some risk but had mitigated that risk, it seemed. The suicide bomber most likely had had some type of camera on him, and there was no way the attackers would have detonated him near Misha.
“Our offices are in downtown Wilmington,” Price said, breaking his train of thought.
“I still haven’t been checked out by the doctors. They’re expecting me back. Let’s compromise and meet at the hospital.”
Mahegan was feeling fine. He had a slight headache and a few scratches, but then he thought of Casey Livingstone and the assurance he had given her that he would return.
“That’s fine,” Price said. “We can debrief you in the hospital after you’ve been checked out.”
“Thanks.”
Mahegan followed Register, and Price followed him, as if they were escorting him out of the building, which in a sense, he guessed, they were. Patterson hadn’t spoken throughout the encounter, and he disappeared behind them, possibly to explore the tutoring room or check out the rest of the school. They retraced their steps through the lobby, beneath the portico, past the suicide bomber’s DNA, and into the parking lot.
As they walked to Deputy Register’s blue-and-white police sedan, Mahegan noticed a red car driving down the long road that led to the school. It wasn’t a Ferrari, but it looked something like one to Mahegan. It made a smooth turn to the left into the parking lot, wove around the throng of parents without slowing, and then pulled to a stop twenty feet in front of him.
From the passenger side stepped a tall Latina woman wearing a white silk blouse and a gray skirt. Big Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses covered half her face, but she carried the executive air of a woman in charge. She pushed the sunglasses onto the top of her raven hair, revealing a smooth face and large copper eyes. She looked at the suits and then at Deputy Register, maybe trying to figure out who was in charge. She didn’t appear to be the type of person who spent time working her way up the bureaucratic ladder to get answers.
Then she looked at Mahegan and walked in his direction.
“Ximena De La Cruz,” she said in slightly inflected English as she held out her slender hand. The words rolled off her tongue in that seductive mix of Spanish and English. Ximena came out “Hee-Men-nah.” He shook her hand, which was cool to the touch.
He must have been staring at the empty driver’s seat of her car, because Ximena removed her hand and said, “It’s an autonomous vehicle. We make them at our new plant in Brunswick County, across the river.”
“I have heard about them but have never seen one,” he said. That wasn’t entirely true, because he had employed robots and unmanned aerial systems in combat. But he had never seen an autonomous sports car that drove itself anywhere. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“Misha’s father worked for me. My company, Cefiro, manufactures these cars. He was an important member of our team.”
Mahegan said nothing.
“He was killed . . . recently, and Misha took it rather hard. I had gotten to know the family. I understand you’re the one who had Misha when the explosion came?”
He listened very closely to her words, and perhaps it was a language translation issue, but she was correct in that the explosion had come. It had arrived in an autonomous vehicle not unlike the one in which she had arrived. So, either this was the boldest display of crime-scene voyeurism ever or it was a huge coincidence.
“An autonomous vehicle delivered a bomb to the school, perhaps two vehicles,” he said, watching her face.
“I heard that. Cefiro had nothing to do with this, of course, and my main concern is for Misha. She is without her father, and now I hear she is missing.”
By now Price and his suits had closed into a tight circle around Mahegan and De La Cruz. Deputy Register was trying to get him out of there. Paul Patterson was hovering in the distance, observing. Mahegan was ready to let Deputy Register get him to the hospital.
“These men are with the FBI,” he said. “They may be able to give you more help than I can.”
As he turned to go, she placed a light but firm hand on his right arm. “Take my card. Call me. I understand you have special skill sets that might help us find Misha.”
“Us?”
“Generally speaking. All of us,” she said, waving her hand around the group.
He nodded, held on to the card as he stepped into Deputy Register’s car, and then slid the heavy-stock business card into the Velcro pocket of his board shorts.
Beside it was the small flash drive he had removed from the Smart Board that Promise had been using to tutor Misha.
He didn’t know what was on the flash drive, but he did know that his vow to protect Promise overrode everything else at the moment.
CHAPTER 3
“YOU’RE LATE,” NURSE CASEY LIVINGSTONE SAID TO HIM. HE HAD walked quickly enough from the parking lot to create some space between Deputy Register, the FBI, and himself.
“Sorry,” he said. “The FBI wants to talk to me. So I’d like you to do an extremely thorough examination of me.” He walked directly toward her as she stood beneath the emergency room portico. As he approached the sensor for the automatic doors, it must have picked up his movement, because they opened. Casey looked over her shoulder and then back at him with an understanding nod.
“This way.” She turned and started walking. They left Register and Price behind as they walked through STAFF ONLY doors.
“Any status update on Promise?” he asked.
“I just checked,” she said. “She’s stable but critical and still in a coma.”
Images of Promise running the mile in record time or spiking a volleyball competed with the visual he had now of her lying in a hospital bed with a ventilator forcing air into and out of her lungs. He could feel the flywheel in his mind tighten, which was sometimes a precursor to him losing his temper with directed anger and energy. The same loss of control had happened two years before, when he killed Commander Hoxha, an enemy prisoner of war in Afghanistan. When his best friend’s vehicle exploded, Mahegan had hot metal embedded in his left deltoid and Hoxha was attempting to run past him. He rammed the butt of his M4 carbine into Hoxha’s temple, perhaps not deliberately so, but he couldn’t swear to it. The flesh and brain matter hanging off his weapon told him all he needed to know about Hoxha’s status as he ran to try to rescue Sergeant Colgate. But he was already dead, charred beyond recognition.
Now, picturing Promise vulnerable and hurt, knowing he hadn’t been able to stop the attack, he knew he needed to calm down. He looked around the hospital room and saw only good people doing good things for others, which worked to loosen that flywheel in his mind a bit and
help him stay in control. He felt the tension in his muscles ease. Took a deep breath. To focus the energy on something productive, he began making a list: study the flash drive; figure out what Misha and Promise knew that made them targets; find their attackers and bring them to justice, whatever that meant. Simplify life. Have a plan.
While none of that would bring Promise or Misha back from wherever they were, it would help him cope with the reality that he had been unable to save either of them. Cognitively, he knew that his actions had been good and useful in the school, but ultimately, he had not been able to protect everyone. He knew that some might consider it unreasonable that he placed that high standard on himself, but if he lowered it, then what did that make him? If he did not hold himself accountable, who would?
Casey turned into a small room and closed the door after he entered. Then she locked it.
“Lie down on the examination table,” she said, pointing at a well-worn brown table that collapsed at three different locations. There was a strip of white sanitation paper running down the middle. He sat on the table with his legs hanging over the side. The paper crinkled loudly as she snapped on a pair of purple latex gloves.
“What were you doing before you went to the school?” she asked, eyeing his board shorts and long-sleeve rash guard.
“Surfing. I had just stored my board where I crash for the time being in Wrightsville Beach.”
“South End Surf Shop?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I spend some time down there. Grew up in Wilmington and went to UNCW. I’ve done my fair share of surfing. I’ve got a six-six fish, a nine-foot longboard, and some others. I’m guessing you’ve got the longboard.”
Her hands were working on his lacerated scalp, and he could feel the sting from the antiseptic she was dabbing along the cut. She was engaging him in conversation so he would think about something else, which was unnecessary. Her proximity to him made him think about her, which was just fine. He got a good look at her arms and neck, which were tan and toned. Her face flashed in front of his occasionally as she worked on him. She had sculpted features, with high cheekbones and a perfectly small nose with a minor upturn at the end.