by Cate Clarke
“You okay?” Rex asked Diana as she stepped out of the shower and into the master bedroom.
“What are you doing in here?” Diana snapped, pulling the towel closer to her chest. “You think just because you moved back in that this is okay?”
She stomped over to the dresser, looking to the half-filled suitcase on the bed.
“To be honest, I didn’t even think about it…” Rex mumbled, sorta putting his hands over his eyes. “Sorry about that.”
“What is it?”
The shower had felt good. Rex had been right about that. Before she went after Kennedy, she needed to eat and bathe. Sleep would come after she had her daughter back in her arms. Diana quickly pulled on a tank top and some jeans, covering it all up with a dark gray hoodie.
“I said, what is it?” Diana asked, turning to Rex who had been unabashedly watching her change. She sighed and said, “Rex.”
Blinking and clearing his throat, Rex said, “It’s Wes. I talked to him.”
“And?”
“Well, he told me some stuff but I thought it would be better for him to tell you. He’s waiting on the couch.”
“You convinced him to talk to me?” Diana raised her eyebrows, turning to the suitcase, filling it with what she still needed. “I’m impressed.”
“I know you love to forget,” Rex replied. “But I’m a pretty good dad.”
“Shit husband though.”
“Well… okay, yeah. I’ll give you that.”
“It’s okay.” Diana shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly the perfect wife.”
There was a small moment of silence as they stared at one another, reminiscing on their brutal fights and screaming matches in the locked master bathroom so the kids wouldn’t hear.
“He’s out there now?” Diana asked.
Rex nodded.
Throwing her last T-shirt into the suitcase and zipping it up, Diana hastened down the hallway, Wes turning to both of them as they made it to the living room. The electric fireplace was on, filling the room with an artificial blue and orange light. Just now, Diana realized the Christmas tree was still up. March. That had to be some kind of record for her.
The downfalls of a one-track mind, forgetting about the basics.
“Hey,” Diana said awkwardly, sitting on the loveseat across from her son. Rex sat next to Wesley and nudged him on his side.
“Mom,” Wesley started like he was giving a Power Point presentation in a classroom. “I was— Okay, let me just start at the start. I was on Reddit, okay? And there was this thread about Kennedy. The guys were saying all this wrong stuff! Like that she was an only child and that it was because of you she got lost…”
Diana scooted closer to the edge of the couch cushion, folding her hands between her knees, wishing she’d sat on the other side.
“Go on, Wes,” Rex said, and Diana nodded.
“Anyway, one of them DMed me asking how I knew all of the stuff that I corrected them about. We talked for a bit…and I don’t know…I told him about your money.”
Leaning back a bit and looking to Rex, she asked, “What money?”
“I found it a couple of years ago. It was just some letter in the mail, and I opened it by accident. I didn’t understand for a little while.... But then I thought about it for a bit and I realized that it was your money. That account in Keyman Islands—”
“Cayman Islands,” Diana corrected, heat rushing to her face and neck. Not even Rex had known about that emergency money.
“Yeah, that one. Well, I didn’t tell them about that. Obviously, ’cause I don’t even know the name, but I kinda clued them in on the fact that you had money… I think if they didn’t know about it…they probably wouldn’t have done what they did. And— and— I’m sorry, Mom.”
Tears broke out of the sides of his brown eyes. Rex moved his large arms to take Wesley’s head in his chest, moving his crumpled frame into his lap.
“Thank you for telling me, Wes,” Diana said, standing up from the couch. “I have to go.”
“That’s it?” Rex hissed across the room, throwing daggers with his eyes.
Lifting her hands, Diana mouthed, “What?”
“Say something!” he mouthed back.
“Wes,” Diana tried. “Wes!”
Her phone buzzed, the details from Merino. Ratanake’s visit was still shaking her, affecting her every move. It was happening already. It had been happening anyway. Slowly slipping back into the military mentality, not allowing herself to open all the way and shutting down anyone who tried.
“It’s not your fault, Wes,” Diana said as Wesley finally lifted his head and wiped at his tears. “Those guys were trying to take advantage of you. That’s what people do. They see weakness, and they pounce on it. So…don’t let them see it.”
Sensing immediately it was the wrong thing to say and reaffirmed by Rex’s shaking head, Diana grabbed the suitcase, heading, once again, toward the door.
“You okay?” she called across the house to her son.
With one more sniffle and a sigh, he said, “Yeah. I am.”
She believed him. Because these were her kids. This wasn’t just Wesley and Kennedy that were going through this shithole with her. They were Weicks. They were strong and determined. But there was a worry, constantly, that they had inherited the worst of her as well. The part of her that wouldn’t let go. The part of her that drew enemies.
Rex’s car was much smaller than the Subaru. Diana felt cramped against the steering wheel, trying to shove her long legs into the Mitsubishi. This was Rex’s version of a sports car—a teal 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT. Diana only remembered those exact details because of how often Rex had talked about buying one when they were married, pointing one out whenever they saw it at a dealership or in an auto flyer. But he’d waited until they were divorced to finally trade his practical sedan in for the cheapest cool car he could afford.
Due to the size of the car, the narrowness of the rearview mirror and the perpetual drowsiness, Diana didn’t notice the truck following behind her until she hit the freeway, heading toward the last seen location of the Honda Odyssey.
The windows were tinted. It was keeping behind her, following at a distant pace, but every time she changed lanes, the truck did. When she pulled over to get gas, the truck did too. The gas pump clutched in her palm, her eyes glued to the truck door on the other side of the parking lot, her phone rang, vibrating on the front seat of the Mitsubishi.
She reached in through the window, grabbing it and putting it to her ear, her gaze still on the truck.
“Ms. Weick,” Merino said.
“What? I’m about an hour away from the van.”
“Okay. Well—”
The truck door opened and one cowboy boot stepped out.
“Can you put this in a text?” Diana asked, clicking the gas pump off and hanging it up.
“I mean, yeah. I guess—”
Diana hung up the phone, striding inside the gas station. Picking out three items, a Red Bull, a disposable camera and jumper cables, she placed them on the counter and paid for her gas. The cowboy was standing at the side of the truck, but Diana knew they were still there, cigarette smoke rising into the night sky from beyond the tinted windows.
Sliding the Red Bull can into her pocket, Diana rounded the truck, going right past it and around to the backside of the gas station. The dumpsters stank of corn dogs and rotting fruit. She listened for the boots, clicking along the brick building, turning the corner.
Flash of the camera. Dilated pupils. Jumper cables immediately pulled around his neck as Diana pulled his disoriented body back against the wall, one hand gripping to the cables and the other hooking his arms behind his back. He struggled for words as she snapped the camera in front of his face again, the flash blindingly bright.
“Why are you following me?” she muttered into his ear.
“I— I—”
She loosened the jumper cables slightly.
“I work for—” He c
oughed “I’m a journalist!”
Diana dropped the cables, pulling them back around his head and stepping out from behind him.
“You’re an idiot,” she said, looking back at the jeans tucked into the cowboy boots, greasy black hair hanging around his ears and wire-rimmed glasses. His eyes were wide, and his skin was bleach white. She asked, “Which paper?”
“Well… not exactly a journalist,” he replied, snivelling. “Blogger. Mystery Gumshoe.”
Taking a step back and shaking her head, Diana began to walk away.
“Wait!” he called. “I was gonna say something… I was just a little nervous. Which, I mean, makes sense. Come on. Look at you!”
He gestured his hand forward at her flexed frame, hairs falling out from her blonde ponytail, jumper cables and camera clenched in her grip.
Diana snapped, “What do you want?”
“What trail are you following?”
“How do you know I’m following a trail?”
“Well, you’re going somewhere. There’s a duffel bag in your backseat. It’s about Kennedy, right?”
Diana’s eyes flashed upwards. She took a step back toward him. He was short. Towering over him, she said, “Right.”
“About her online friends?”
The smell of the dumpsters was dissipating, Diana getting used to it and the evening chill blanketing it. But the blogger’s words caused the smell to disappear completely, her focus entirely on him.
“What about her online friends?”
“Uh—” The blogger looked around, peering over her shoulder, but Diana knew there was no one behind them. No one coming to save this rat if she decided to beat him to a pulp and add him to the dumpster.
“Tell me,” she said.
“It’s nothing. I don’t know. We’ve got a guy… He did some scraping and found that some of the guys she was talking to were kinda sketch,” the blogger mumbled, lifting his hands by his ears.
“What else do you know?”
“That’s it! Swear on my life!”
“Kinda sketch in what way?”
“Catfishing. Weird dark web connections…”
“Dark web?”
The blogger shook his head, black hair flopping out from behind his ears. “You want me to explain it to you? We can have an interview over some coffee.”
“No. You tell me now.”
“The one guy had an untraceable connection through to the dark web.”
“What one guy?”
“The guy from the Discord that she talked to all the time?”
Diana gave him a blank look.
“It’s like a chatting service—”
“I know what it is!”
“Jeremy Something. His username is CrypticFruiter—”
As soon as the name was out of his mouth, Diana turned on her heel, heading back around the building and back to her car. There were now a couple of cars idling behind her whose drivers shook their heads as she plopped herself back inside the Mitsubishi and turned it back on.
Picking up the phone and placing it upside down in the cup holder, she called Merino again. The car rumbled past just as the blogger stumbled back toward his truck, watching the teal kinda sports car rejoin the freeway.
“Merino?” she shouted into the phone, checking the mirror for the truck, but it was still back at the gas station. It would be posted about tomorrow or maybe tonight—her wrapping jumper cables around that blogger’s poor greasy neck, only mere days after assaulting children with a baseball bat. Diana was painting herself to be a villain. She knew that. But she still just wasn’t sure if she cared. Ten years ago, she would have. When they’d first started printing the rumors and allegations, the pictures and drudged-up past, she had taken the time to go through every one, reading information about her life that she barely knew herself. Things were different now. Diana cared less but the newspapers, the magazines, the blogs had more ammunition than ever.
There was a shuffle on the other side of the phone.
“Diana?”
Not Merino.
“Ratanake? What—”
“Yeah—”
Merino was yelling in the back.
“What are you doing?” Diana sighed.
“Giving you the update that Merino was trying to take credit for,” he growled, his low voice taking up all the space in the small car.
“Does credit really matter?”
“It matters when he’s trying to reach above his pay grade—”
“Play nice,” Diana replied as there was more scuffling and muttering in Spanish in the back. “What did you find?”
“Where are you now?”
“About an hour away from the van.”
“Still?”
Checking the rearview mirror again, Diana tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Yeah, still. I had a little interruption.”
“Understood.”
At that moment, Diana was glad it was Ratanake and not Merino so she didn’t have to explain herself or be scolded for protecting herself once again.
“Don’t stop at the van—”
“Why? There’s gotta be—”
“We got them on camera. Just outside Death Valley, Pinepoint Motel on the 95.”
“Kennedy too?”
“Yes.”
Brake lights spread out in front of her, blurring together in seas of red as her eyes welled. Two deep exhales out of her mouth, her knuckles whitening around the steering wheel, she asked, “Does she— Is she okay?”
Ratanake cleared his throat and said, “Unscathed. I’ll send the video to your phone. But you’re hearing me, right? Go right past the van, straight to the Pinepoint and you might be able to catch them.”
The night seeped into the car, cool air resting on her arms. Kennedy was alive and okay, at least physically. They knew where she was. Finally, Diana was encroaching on the end of the tunnel, the light expanding into a whole wall of white, Kennedy just out of reach.
“We haven’t been able to identify the people she’s with yet,” Ratanake continued. “But it’s a couple. Middle-aged. We’ve gotta be real careful about this. We’re not going to try and scare them off, especially since it seems that they might be working directly for Kushkin. Don’t think they’ll let me use military power on this one, but a couple of FBI agents are already on their way—”
“No,” Diana said. “Tell them to not engage. Wait for me. Stakeout only.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. You hear that, Merino? Yes, I told her that already. No, she’s not. Okay,” Ratanake sighed into the phone as Diana waited for them to finish spitting frustrations at one another. “I’ll send you what you need, and I’ll leave you a package in your room at the motel. Using alibi three.”
“There’s something else, Ratanake,” Diana said. “Put me on speaker.”
There was another sigh and a shuffle and then Merino was yelling into the phone, “I don’t know how you dealt with this guy for years, Ms. Weick.”
“It’s easier to just do what he says, Merino,” Diana half-laughed as she ran her hands through her hair. Remembering the Red Bull in her pocket, she took it out, cracked it open and took several large sips.
“Listen, I ran into a blogger for a website called Murder Gumshoe—”
Merino interrupted, “That’s a glorified tabloid that believes in ghosts.”
“Sure, but the guy mentioned something that they dug up about Kennedy’s online friends. Jeremy Something. Username…” Relying on her memory, her eyes glued to the road in front of her, passing by in black and yellow streaks. “CrypticFruiter.”
“Got it,” Merino said.
“What do you want us to do with that?” Ratanake asked.
“Look him up. Find what you can—” Diana replied. “Go to his damn house.”
“We’re—”
“We got it, Diana,” Ratanake said, taking control of the phone call once again. “You okay out there? I can
meet you in a couple of hours.”
“No,” Diana said and then she hung up the phone. Her white knuckles didn’t loosen as she continued down the road, the black pavement blending in with the night, only the yellow nicks of the highway lines lighting her way back toward her daughter.
Chapter 15
Taras Kushkin
Kherson Oblast, Ukraine
Rows of tables filled with computers and wires ran down the length of the living room. There was a distinct warmness in the tech room when compared to the cold dark hallways of the mansion. Men sat in the chairs, their legs up on the desks, mugs of half-drunk tea and booze laid out between the sea of twisting black wires. It took them a moment to notice Taras standing at the marble stairs, chandelier hanging overtop of his head, shined floors reflecting the gleam of his watch.
“Sir,” one of them said, nearly tripping over himself when getting to his feet. The others stumbled into positions that made them look as though they were working, searching Taras with wide and fearful eyes from behind their screens.
“The picture, Chumak.”
A young bald man hustled over to one edge of the table, peeling a paper off of the printer. Taras clicked his way forwards, rolling up his sleeves, his eyes gliding around the room. Girls in the corners, waiting, gazes cast down.
Chumak passed him the printed picture, a large full-sized security camera still of the girl and the two American twits that had agreed to pick her up for half price. He placed the picture back on the table, looking around to the tech workers whose faces were illuminated with faded blue light.
“The connection with the boy—” Taras started. “Sever it.”
“Entirely?” Chumak asked.
Taras nodded. “It’s no longer necessary. We have her.”
“Sir, she’s not yet—”
“Sever it.” Taras looked down the table to where Chumak was huddling by the printer. His father had always advised him of a balance between fear and respect. If they only feared him, they would only heed his orders because of it, not because of a want and an understanding of their goals.