Blood Victory: A Burning Girl Thriller (The Burning Girl)

by Christopher Rice

  Or I’ve pushed her too far.

  Charlotte dug until the concrete wouldn’t give underneath her clawing hands anymore. When she crawled her way up out of the last hole she’d dug, her fresh scratches didn’t heal right away, and her fingers were bleeding like a normal person’s. She told herself she just needed a minute to regroup, to recover, to catch her breath with lungs that were no longer superpowered. But as soon as she gazed into the middle distance, her vision went misty, and when people spoke to her thereafter, she heard them and even formulated answers to their questions, but those answers got stuck on a tape loop inside her mind.

  It’s her fault she ran out of time. Once she realized she wouldn’t be able to remove the bodies from their concrete graves intact, that her incredible strength was ill suited to such a delicate and intricate task, the sheer volume of the dead she was uncovering started to overwhelm her. She had no idea what condition they’d be in when she started to dig. She’s not a chemist. She’d hoped for something close to preservation. While there were some variations to their conditions, for the most part they were mummies. Some badly decomposed, whole body parts missing.

  If she couldn’t extract them, she would reveal them. That’s what she’d decided. The crown of a skull or a bent arm. A distress flag, no matter how grotesque. Something to say I am here and I will not be forgotten or erased by the madness that took root on this property.

  “Charley?”

  Cole’s here. As usual, he looks like a menswear model amid the horror.

  “Zoey,” she says.

  “What?”

  “The woman I saved. Her name’s Zoey Long. We take care of her. We figure it out.”

  Cole nods.

  “That means we don’t drug her and leave her on the side of the road and make the world think she’s crazy.”

  “I get it,” Cole says.

  Steadying her voice as much as she can, she points one dusty finger toward the expanse of pits before them. “We learn their names, too. Every last one. And we let their families know. Or so help me God I’m never doing this again.”

  Cole turns to survey the awful sweep of the barn’s freshly opened floor.

  He’s hesitating.

  She’s waiting. She’ll wait for hours if she has to.

  “Deal,” he finally whispers.

  The men standing guard outside the barn part before her like she’s the president, clearing a path to the Black Hawk, where Luke stands waiting for her next to the open door. Zoey Long’s already inside, wrapped in a blanket, watching her approach. She looks alert, present inside her skin, and that fills Charlotte with relief.

  Cole wants them airborne as soon as possible. She can hear him giving orders to the response team members behind her, telling them to scrub all evidence they’ve been there, including removing the third truck they found left on the property, the one in which the slain victim presumably died. Luke’s helping her into the Black Hawk when she hears one of the ground team guys ask Cole, “What’s the cover story?”

  Cole says, “This time we’re not using one.”

  For a second, she thinks that means Graydon Pharmaceuticals is about to out itself to the world as a freelance hunter of serial killers. But that can’t be it, and she’s too tired to figure out what else it might be. Inside the helicopter, she settles onto the bench seat. Luke sits down next to her as the door slides shut next to him. He slips her headphones on, puts on a set himself. He’s explaining how they’re going to make a refueling stop on the way back to Kansas Command, but she’s not paying much attention. She’s just spotted something outside.

  The Black Hawk is lifting off above the parched landscape of Marjorie Payne’s ranch when their angle shifts and the bright-orange sunlight reflecting off the windows of Cole’s personal helicopter leaves the glass. Now she can see inside the passenger compartment, where a familiar face is watching the Black Hawk rise into the dawn.

  It’s been six months since she’s heard his voice, even longer since she’s laid eyes on him. Once she called him Dr. Thorpe; then, when they became more comfortable with each other, Dylan. Then, after he tricked her into taking a drug that could have killed her, he became a nameless monster until his real name was revealed to her. Noah Turlington.

  Luke falls silent when he realizes what she’s seen.

  When she looks to him for an explanation, he says, “Yeah, there’s also that.”

  And Charley realizes she might not be too tired for anger after all.

  42

  Lebanon, Kansas

  “Sit,” Charlotte says.

  Noah Turlington obeys.

  Leave it to Cole to lace the grounds around his top-secret command center with paved walking trails and little clusters of benches shaded by sycamore trees like the one she’s sitting under now. While most of the vast farmland next to the airstrip is just empty fields, these landscape ornamentations around the hangar and the main house will mislead unwanted visitors into believing this place is a corporate retreat dropped in the middle of America’s rural heart. Although with Cole’s levels of security, she has trouble imagining unwanted visitors getting anywhere near here.

  Noah’s windbreaker is more suited to the cool breeze kissing the property than the heavy woolen blanket Charlotte wears over her shoulders. But ever since they finished her examination in the infirmary, she’s been clutching it for security, not warmth.

  Luke offered to attend this uncomfortable sit-down with her, and while she appreciated the gesture, she needs to do this one alone.

  “He says you helped,” she finally says.

  “Cole said this?”

  “No, Santa Claus.”

  “I see. So we’re going to do sarcasm.”

  “Dr. Turlington, it will be a very long time before I’m interested in what you think of my tone.”

  Noah bows his head and clears his throat. What he cleared it for, she’s not quite sure, because he doesn’t say anything further. Maybe he realizes he overstepped and got this meeting off on the wrong foot.

  “You weren’t supposed to be here,” she finally says. “Ever. That was the deal I made with him.”

  “With Santa Claus, you mean.”

  When she glares at him, he gives her a smile that’s probably earned him far too many things he doesn’t deserve. Fine. She’d prefer charm over condescending superiority. If it’s a choice between one or the other. But does it have to be? She’s the one who called this meeting, after all.

  “Well, he’s kind of like that for us, isn’t he?” Noah asks. “The man who makes all our dreams come true.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call this a dream.”

  “I didn’t say it was a pleasant dream. It’s just beyond the realm of the everyday, that’s all.”

  “Sure, OK.”

  “Charley, can we . . .”

  “Can we what?”

  “Can we maybe agree on some sort of suitable punishment I can go through? Some benchmark I can meet that will satisfy you in some way? I mean, unless we’re all going to find some way to call it quits, which I don’t recommend, we’re going to have to work together somehow.”

  “I didn’t agree to work with you. You were supposed to be off in some lab trying to turn your drug into something Cole could actually sell to the world. I was working with him, not you.”

  “Because he’s a saint and I’m not?” Noah asks.

  “Because he didn’t almost kill me in Arizona. You did.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “You can’t forgive me for lying to you, and I don’t expect you to.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “Good. Then in light of that, maybe you can stop asking me to apologize since you’re never going to accept any apology I give.”

  “I don’t need an apology.”

  “What, then?” he asks.

  “Answers.”

  “Fine.”

  “The woman you tested Zypraxon on before me, after
you left Graydon.”

  “I didn’t leave Graydon. I was forced out.”

  “You weren’t. Cole didn’t fire you. He just shut down your labs.”

  “That’s Cole’s version.”

  “Stop deflecting. The woman you tested it on before me. Who was she?”

  “I’d rather not discuss this.” He’s staring right at her when he says this, a poor attempt to make it seem like some empowered assertion of selfhood rather than a curt dismissal.

  “I bet you wouldn’t. There’s a lot I wouldn’t have discussed with you back in Arizona if I’d known who you really were.”

  “That’s fair, I guess.”

  “You guess? You spent months picking my brain, trying to find anything that could let you manipulate me into taking your drug. And now you’re going to stonewall me?”

  “Here’s the answer you want.” The charm’s gone. So’s any pretense of cold remove. There’s an intensity in his eyes that seems genuine. “I didn’t know you’d live. I’d love to make up a story about how I’d fine-tuned Zypraxon to the point where I was sure it wouldn’t be a risk. But that would be a lie, and I’ve told you enough lies.

  “I had a theory, a theory that was mostly conjecture. Every test subject until then, every one, including the woman before you, had experienced violent physical trauma throughout their lives. It was the one thing every failed test had in common, and it suggested their neural pathways might have been altered in similar obstructive ways. You hadn’t. You’d been near violence, but it had been hidden from you. You were never the direct victim of it. But none of that was enough to make me confident you’d survive the test. That’s not why I picked you.”

  “Then why?” she asks.

  “I picked you because of what it would mean if you did survive. Not just because the drug had finally worked, but because of who you were. I knew you’d see the potential. You’d be my ally, and together we would change the world. And I was almost right.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?” she asks. “Changing the world?”

  “Ask Zoey Long.”

  He’s given her some version of these answers before, but up until now he’s always overstated how confident he was she’d survive her first dose. Should she count that admission as a victory? Is there ever going to be any such thing as a victory when it comes to Noah Turlington?

  “If you’re going to change the world with someone, you should ask them first,” she says.

  “Noted,” he says with a nod.

  “Cole should have asked me before he brought you here.”

  “I think he could benefit from hearing that.”

  “He did. In no uncertain terms.”

  “Good.”

  “So what were you doing while we were out there anyway? Lecturing him on my brain? Trying to predict my next move?”

  “That was just his pretense for bringing me here.”

  “What was the real reason?” she asks.

  “His business partners are turning on him, and he needed to see where my loyalties lie.”

  “And where do they lie?”

  “With you. And after what I saw him do on your behalf, with him.”

  “I see. So it’s going to be like this from now on?”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re going to be more involved.”

  “I think so. But that doesn’t mean you have to forgive me. It just means you’ll have to be able to stand the sight of me now and then without retching.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up.”

  “I should get back. We’ve got a lot to review. Not the least of which are your test results.”

  She doesn’t protest, and mercifully, he doesn’t pat her on the back or the head or give her some other physical gesture of farewell she isn’t ready to receive.

  He’s a few paces from the bench when she says, “His business partners.”

  Noah turns but says nothing, his face a fixed, blank mask.

  “What did they do? Aside from telling me to stand down.”

  “There was an attack on your remote dosing system,” he answers.

  “An attack?”

  “An attempted hack. They were either trying to lock us out of the system so we couldn’t re-dose you or they were . . .”

  “Trying to give me a double dose.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “That could have killed me.”

  “We know. That’s why we stopped it.”

  Her mouth feels dry, and her heartbeat feels like it’s reduced to a dull patter. She’s always seen Cole’s mysterious business partners as a potential obstruction but never as a direct threat to her life.

  “Well, are we going to find out which one it was?” she asks, her voice reedy.

  “We think it was two of them.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Are we going to find out if they were trying to stop me or kill me?”

  “That’s actually become my job,” Noah says with a smile.

  “I see. And if the answer is . . . the latter?”

  “Then they’re both going to die.”

  There’s not a trace of hesitation in his voice and not a hint of it in his steady stare. As if he’s grown satisfied she’s impressed by this promise, he turns and starts back toward the main house. She’s still watching him depart when suddenly he stops.

  “Charley?” He hasn’t turned around.

  “Yes?”

  At the sound of her voice, he looks back over his shoulder. “My sister.”

  Her expression must betray her confusion. Almost a year ago she was given a file on his background. Though it contained some information about the father who’d whisked him out of the country after his mother was murdered by the Bannings, she can’t remember anything about a sister.

  “The woman I tested it on before you. She was my sister.”

  She realizes her mistake. By letting him know which answers she still wants from him, she’s given him something to bait her with.

  “She knew the risks,” he adds.

  “Lucky her.”

  “No. I’m afraid she wasn’t.”

  He wants her to ask more questions, she’s sure of it. Wants her to ask him back to the bench after he made the pretense of politely excusing himself in the interest of getting more valuable, world-changing work done.

  She’s not ready to give in.

  Not yet.

  “See you around, Dr. Turlington,” she says.

  Then she turns and makes a show of staring up at the sycamore’s breeze-rustled leaves until she can no longer hear his departing footsteps.

  IV

  43

  La Jolla, California

  Cole can’t remember the last time Julia Crispin was in his house. Maybe for a holiday party, but it’s been years since he’s had one of those, primarily because they obligate him to rub shoulders with his mother’s dreadful friends. He’s certainly never hosted her for anything as intimate as brunch for three on his glass and steel terrace overlooking La Jolla Bay. But that’s what they’re doing now. Dining on crabmeat salad in the sparkling Southern California sun just a few weeks after exposing the horrors of Marjorie Payne’s ranch to the world.

  He’s shared meals with her before, however, and knows that she’s not moving her latest potential bite of crabmeat around her plate because she’s nervous. She’s just the type of person who assesses every bite of food before she deigns to let it pass her lips.

  “I still think it was a bold call,” she says for the third time. “We could have just wiped the farm off the face of the earth, and nobody would have been the wiser.”

  “It’s a ranch, and that would have meant wiping the victims off the face of the earth. Their families would have gone the rest of their lives without knowing what happened to them.”

  “Still, perhaps we could have concocted some sort of cover story rather than turning it into one of America’s greatest unsolved mysterie
s.”

  “I’m telling you, the condition of the bodies didn’t allow for a good cover story. How many car wrecks do you want me to fake?”

  “Which bodies? The victims?”

  “No, the killers.”

  “We could have vanished them.”

  “Then the families of the victims wouldn’t have had the slightest sense of who was responsible. The only thing worse than knowing your loved one’s been buried in a pit of concrete is not knowing what happened to the people who did it.”

  “Still.”

  “If you’re worried about someone figuring out what actually happened, forget it. People love a mystery. They love it so much they’ll speculate their way past the truth at a hundred miles per hour. A story full of holes invites everyone to fill in the blanks with their absolutely bullshit explanations.”

  He leaves out that his own digital services team is currently flooding Reddit threads and any other public forum they can find with nonsense conspiracy theories designed to throw true crime junkies far off the scent of anything truthful.

  “I’m seeing stuff online about helicopters in the area that night,” Julia says.

  “Men in black. Even better!”

  “Cole, be serious.”

  “I’m very serious. We’ve honored Charley’s wishes. The remains are being excavated and identified by actual law enforcement agencies, and so far it doesn’t look like we left behind a single shred of evidence that any of us were there.”

  Cole lifts his wineglass, and he’s surprised when Julia toasts him back.

  Two sets of footsteps approach across the expansive terrace. Scott Durham and just behind him, Noah, looking unexpectedly dapper in a hunter-green polo shirt and beige jeans. Noah takes a seat at the place that’s been set for him, pours himself a glass of wine.

  When he sees Scott lingering, Cole waves him away. “Thank you, Mr. Durham. But move along now. Plausible deniability and all that.”

  “That’s supposed to apply to the person in charge,” he says with a smile. But he’s gone in a few seconds, and suddenly the three of them are alone for the first time ever.

  Nobody says anything for a bit. Cole knows exactly where Noah’s been, and he’s looking for evidence of his time there in his expression. There isn’t any.