Weaver

by John Abramowitz

  Chapter 9

  Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.

  Once again, Moira McBain and Andy Hall sat side by side in an interrogation room in the Dallas County Correctional Facility. This time, however, it was not Jack Dunnell who sat opposite them, but rather a kid, his face surly-looking, long black hair tied back in a ponytail. He gave the agents a withering glare as they sat there, both he and they silently taking each other’s measure.

  “So, Zachary,” Moira started, but the young man interrupted him.

  “I go by Zach.”

  “Zach, then. I just wanted to make you aware of the charges –“

  “I know the charges,” Zach interrupted him again. “I want a lawyer.”

  “Well, look at that,” Andy quipped. “A smart one.”

  Moira flashed him a sardonic grin, then turned back to Zach. “All right. I’ll arrange it. But since we both know we can’t tie Mrs. Nemeyer’s death to you anyway, you might as well tell me: why did you give the list of Wells Society members to the Xorda?”

  Zach seemed puzzled. “The who?”

  “The Xorda. Big soul-sucking creatures that are invulnerable to everything but fire?”

  Zach actually laughed in her face at that. “Is this Law and Order, or the X-Files?”

  “Says the pyrokinetic?” Andy retorted.

  But this time Moira put a hand on Andy’s arm to forestall him. “You really don’t know what a Xorda is?” she asked.

  “No. Why should I?” came the sarcastic reply. “And what do you mean, Mrs. Nemeyer’s dead?”

  Moira shot Andy a significant look. As she did, she saw him looking back at her, her question mirrored in his eyes: If Zach didn’t tell the Xorda about the Wells Society, who did?

  --

  4:30 p.m.

  Moira was so engrossed in the file she was reading as she walked up the sidewalk to the federal building that she didn’t even notice Ainsling Cronlord until the other woman spoke to her. “I understand you’ve recovered my daughter,” came Ainsling’s voice into her thoughts, rich with authority as always.

  Moira looked up, startled, smothering her surprise with cool confidence as quickly as possible. “Mrs. Cronlord,” she greeted the other woman, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “Alex isn’t with me – I think your husband –“

  “You know where she is, I know you do,” Ainsling told Moira, venom seeping into her voice.

  “I can’t comment on pending investigations, Mrs. Cronlord,” Moira told her, starting to walk past Cronlord.

  But Ainsling moved to block Moira’s path. “That’s a bullshit answer and you know it – Alex isn’t under investigation, she never was. Unless you’ve decided to drag my daughter into the spotlight to get at me?”

  Moira sighed impatiently. “We’ve been over this – I’m not like you. I don’t use children as pawns in my personal crusades,” she told Ainsling sternly. This time, when she said the words, she had no doubt that they were true. A great inward rush of gratitude to Andy flooded through her as she realized that. In a very real sense, her partner had saved her life. “But even if I did know, you’re right that I’m not much inclined to help you find her.”

  Ainsling’s answer was quick, and her tone was dry and lethal as she spoke. “Do you know what ‘tortious interference with custody’ is, Agent McBain?”

  “I’m not interfering with your custody of your daughter, Mrs. Cronlord,” Moira responded, unfazed by the implied threat. “That’s between you and your husband.”

  “What he’s done is tantamount to kidnapping. Believe me when I say I’ll be pressing charges against him – and you as well, if I find you had anything to do with it. Good day, Agent McBain.” With that, Ainsling pressed past Moira and strode down the street.

  Moira called out to her as she went. “You never answered my question last week.”

  Ainsling turned a look on Moira that suggested that giving the FBI agent any more of her time was a gross insult. In a commensurate tone, she asked, “What question?”

  “Whether Alex actually matters to you, beyond as a lab rat.”

  Ainsling’s face slipped a bit from its normally regal, authoritative demeanor. For a few moments Moira clearly saw pain in the other woman’s features. Ainsling smothered it quickly. To Moira’s own amazement, an inkling of something like sympathy for Ainsling shot through her.

  “You know,” Moira intoned, “if you don’t like what you’ve done, don’t keep doing it. You’re still her mother, I’m sure she’d forgive you.”

  “So in a week, you’ve gone from my cold-blooded equal to my father confessor?” Ainsling shot back disdainfully. “Spare me, Agent McBain. Things aren’t nearly so simplistic as you apparently believe.” With that, she turned to walk off again.

  “What’s so complicated about treating your daughter like a person?” Moira called to her.

  Ainsling turned back once more, once again appearing annoyed. “Continue standing in my way, Agent McBain, and you’ll soon find out. Goodbye.”

  --

  5:00 p.m.

  Alex and James Cronlord sat in the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel that James had checked them into, waiting for their food to arrive. Alex sat there with her face in her hands, a morose expression on her face, staring unseeingly at the wood grain running rivulets across the table.

  Finally, James spoke up. “Alex –“ he started, but his daughter interrupted him.

  “Dad, you don’t have to tell me how proud of me you are, or how I’m practically a woman now, or any of that, okay?” she said, exasperation flooding from her voice and expression.

  James looked taken aback. “… I was just gonna say that if you wanted to talk about whatever’s on your mind, I’m here for you,” he answered, sounding deflated by his daughter’s pre-emptive rejection of his overture.

  Now it was Alex’s turn to be taken aback. “ … Oh. I’m sorry, Dad. I just … it’s been hard lately, that’s all. I didn’t mean to –“

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he told her, putting a hand atop one of hers. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days.” He smiled at her compassionately, but a moment later his look turned troubled. “Was I really that annoying?”

  Alex laughed a bit at her father's self-consciousness. “Only a little,” she answered, giving his hand a squeeze. “But don’t worry, you’re still better than Mom.”

  At the mention of Ainsling, a look of scorn such as Alex had never seen before came over James' face. “That’s not hard."

  “Okay, much better,” she laughed again, this time with genuine mirth, before her own expression turned to concern. “Are you okay?”

  Alex had to admire her father’s self-discipline. His face betrayed pain and unease for only the barest instant before a calm, unworried smile settled over his lips. “I’ll be fine. Really,” he reassured her. “Besides, I’m the Dad. It’s my job to take care of you, not the other way around.”

  “Dad, come on,” Alex answered, the exasperation returning, along with a healthy dose of self-loathing, “this whole mess is my fault. If I can do something to help … “

  “Why do you keep saying that? It’s not your fault your mother’s a loon.” His face soured. “I’m the one who married her.”

  This cheered Alex slightly, in a perverse way. “So we’re gonna celebrate our reunion by playing the blame game?”

  James smirked. “Probably not the best idea for either of us,” he said. Then his brow furrowed. "Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  Alex hesitated, unsure how to explain. “Have … have you ever known something was a bad idea, and done it anyway?”

  “Sure. That’s a pretty typical part of growing up. And more than a few of us do it well into adulthood, myself included. Why?”

  “At school last week … back when I still went …, “ she added, feeling hot shame already rising in her cheeks. “There was this boy named Lucian, and ….” She could hear her mother’s voice in her head, interrupting her to reprimand her for worrying
about boy troubles at a time like this, and she was sure her father was going to do the same thing. But he did not – he simply listened, his expression attentive. That emboldened Alex to continue.

  “I had a dream about him, the night before my first day,” she pressed onward, the story feeling more absurd with every word she spoke, even though she’d lived it, “the first time I saw the future, though I didn’t realize I was doing that at the time. I had a dream where he chased me down and he – he did something. Killed me, I think. I tried to stop him, but he finally caught me anyway – in the dream, I mean. I felt this … this agonizing pain, and then … then I woke up.”

  James nodded. “You couldn’t have been seeing the future perfectly,” he pointed out, “since you’re still here. Unless you think this Lucian is gonna try to kill you at some point in the future.”

  “No,” Alex shook her head. “No, he’s dead. Or at least … I think he’s dead,” she corrected herself, realizing that after having seen him survive a wound that should have killed him, she probably should not take it for granted that Lucian was truly gone. “But I … he asked me … he asked me to go for a walk with him, and I … I went. Even after the dream. Even after I saw him kill me, I let him get me alone. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I did,” she finished, wishing she could crawl into a hole and never emerge. “Why am I that stupid? It’s like … like I’m everything you and Mom always taught me not to be.” Inwardly cringing, she looked over at her father’s face, expecting to see disappointment and revulsion there, perhaps even hate.

  But it wasn’t there. “That wasn’t your fault, honey,” he told her, with absolute certainty.

  “What do you mean, it wasn’t my fault? I was the idiot who went off alone with him – Tyler had to come save my life.” She felt a pang of deep sadness at the memory of her friend, and of seeing his burned body on the ground before Zach and Cloak had accosted her.

  James shook his head. “It wasn’t. I know that for a fact.”

  “How?”

  He smiled sardonically. “Your mother, believe it or not. She told me about Lucian – he’s something called a ‘Xorda’. Apparently they give off some kind of pheromone or something that makes them irresistibly attractive. I know it sounds like something out of a cheesy romance novel, but if psychics and pyrokinetics are real … “

  So it wasn’t her fault. She’d simply been at an unfair disadvantage. Somehow, this made her feel only marginally better. “I still feel stupid,” she told her father ruefully.

  “That makes two of us." Bitterness touched his voice as he spoke, and he gave her a significant look. The analogy between her situation with Lucian and his own with Ainsling was unspoken, but clear.

  “We’re just a pair of cheerful people tonight, aren’t we?” Alex asked, smiling.

  James smiled back, but before he could answer in words, his phone rang. He pulled it from its holster at his side and checked the number. “Hmm, wonder who it is,” he mused, flipping it open. “Hello?”

  --

  "Mr. Cr -- err, James," said Moira. "This is Agent Moira McBain of the --"

  "I know who you are, Agent McBain," said James. "What can I do for you?"

  "I wanted to let you know that I was just paid a visit by your wife."

  "I see. And what did she want?"

  "Among other things, to tell me that she considers what you're doing kidnapping and intends to press charges as such." Moira tried to suppress a wince. She did not want to have to tell him this.

  "I see. Well, I respectfully disagree with her opinion." The defiance in his voice brought a smile to Moira's lips. She smothered it quickly.

  "Unfortunately, the law doesn't, Mr. Cr -- James." Got to get used to the first-name-basis thing. "Legally speaking, you have no right to deprive your wife of custody of her daughter."

  "I think what she did to Alex constitutes child abuse, don't you?"

  "Not if you don't have proof."

  There was a long silence at that.

  "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this," said Moira, "but --"

  "Then we need leverage." His voice held anger and cold certainty.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Leverage. Over my wife. To make sure she can't ever press those charges."

  "Mr. Cronlord, it's not my role to get involved in family squabbles, no matter how much I might sympathize with your position." This time, Moira deliberately avoided using his first name. "And since it sounds like you may well be talking about something illegal, I'd suggest we not continue this conversation any further."

  "You're chickening out now?"

  "I was never in, James. I was trying to protect Alex."

  "Which is what I'm trying to do right now. When you came to our house last week, you made me believe you hated these people."

  Compassion mixed with rigidity in Moira's voice. "I do. I just don't hate them enough to become one of them. Or risk losing my job or -- or anything else to bring them down."

  "Anything else? What are you?"

  "Goodbye, James." Moira hung up, then stood there in silence for a long moment, staring at the wall.

  Andy's voice intruded on her thoughts. “You sure about that?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Not helping Mr. Cronlord,” Andy answered. “I know you, Moira – helping him get his daughter away from those people would tickle you, you can’t deny it.”

  “Yes, it would,” Moira admitted frankly. “But there are more important things to me than stopping them. Which there’s no guarantee helping him would do, anyway.”

  Andy raised an eyebrow. “More important things? That’s a new one. What happened?”

  “You did,” Moira answered, smiling coyly at him.

  Andy’s eyebrows shot upward, though he seemed more hopeful than surprised. “Me?”

  Moira walked toward him slowly, shyly, taking one of his hands and running her thumb gently across the knuckles. She looked up at his face, a warm glow in her expectant gray eyes.

  “Moira …" His voice dropped several octaves as his own eyes searched her face. “I’m not sure …"

  Moira felt her expression buckle. She hadn't thought about just how much she was exposing herself here. “I thought … it seemed like you wanted …”

  “I do,” he said. “Oh, believe me, I do. Just … maybe not here?” He waved his hand around the room, indicating that they were still standing in their FBI office.

  “Oh,” Moira flushed beet red. “Right … that’s probably a good idea.”

  Andy grinned tightly at her. “Come on,” he told her softly, “let’s get outta here.”

  She smiled, and they walked hand-in-hand out of the office.

  --

  Alex felt her heart pounding in her chest as James hung up the phone. She reached out and grabbed his arm. "I can't go back to her," she said, voice just above a whisper.

  James took the hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna let that happen."

  The hardness in his voice and expression spoke of utter certainty on that point. Alex only wished she felt as sure as he sounded.