Fatal Strike (7 page)

That hope withered and died when this man spoke. She hated him for it. Tears flooded her eyes. She forced them back. “If you’re not the monster, then why didn’t you let me go?”

“It’s complicated, but it will all be made clear. Sit down.”

“Complicated, my ass! I want answers! Who the hell are you?”

He let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. “My name is Thaddeus Greaves. I am your host. And I want. You. To. Sit.
Down.
”

Lara gasped, muscles seizing up as her body moved. Not of her own volition, but as if she were a doll. She clamped down on the rising panic, fighting to keep her legs beneath her. When she was near the table, the chair he’d indicated floated up, did a quarter turn, and settled, feather light, behind her. A shove at her waist, another behind the crook of her knees, and
flop,
down she sat. Hard and graceless.

“Sorry about the bump.” Greaves stirred a small lump of sugar into his coffee. “Gravity’s a bitch. Sometimes she just can’t be reasoned with. Hope I didn’t scare you.”

She fought for control of her voice for a few moments. “Not at all,” she finally managed. “I prefer it when the thumbscrews are out there for me to see. I like to know where I stand.”

Greaves pushed the plate toward her. She stared at the heap of hot, golden pastries, the pats of butter in a dish, the little silver knife.

They looked amazing. She hadn’t put anything that tasted good into her mouth since they had captured her. After months of stale, gummy food that she had to muscle past her gag reflex, her salivary glands were going nuts. Her hands shook.

But anything this attractive had to be a trap. She shook her head.

“Lara,” Greaves chided. “They’re delicious. Why not?”

She kept her voice carefully even. “I will not voluntarily ingest anything you offer me.”

He looked affronted. “If I wanted to poison or drug you, I would have Anabel shove a needle into your throat. Please, relax.”

She stared at the plate, at him. He smiled.

It was his smile that did it. It sparked flesh-creeping dread, just like the sting of the psi-max needle, and she caught her breath as the pit yawned suddenly, the double vision. This world and the swirling visions, somehow coexisting. Then the sickening dip in blood pressure, the deep, hard suck . . . a vortex, dragging her.

She fought it, jaw locked. Resisted that sucking pull . . . rooted to the ground . . . fighting with everything she had.

She wasn’t strong enough. It launched her into the dream world.

The shock jolted her violently back to the bright, airy room, and waking consciousness. Her thudding heart slowed. The darkness before her eyes cleared. She panted. Sagging in the chair. God. She’d gone off on a trip. Right in front of this creepy guy, and they hadn’t even injected her. Not for ten hours, and the effect had never lasted that long before.

“. . . amazing!” Greaves was saying, jubilantly. “Finally, we might have a viable formula! Your psi took off spontaneously. Excellent. What did you see? You came back before I established contact.” Greaves knelt by her chair, tipped a cup into her mouth. She sputtered, choked.

He jerked back. Not fast enough. His shirt was splattered with coffee. “Do it again,” he said. “I want another look.”

“I can’t,” she said, shakily. “I can’t control it.”

He stared into her eyes. “You will learn,” he said softly. “You will train with me. Rigorously. This is so exciting, Lara. To actually glimpse the future. I’ll come along with you, on your next trip.”

“You?” Her stomach was in free-fall, but his words weren’t a surprise, not after that agonizing mind-stab. Worse than Anabel’s. “You . . . you’re—”

“A telepath? Among other things. I can’t wait to put you through your paces. You’ve been giving Anabel trouble with that shield of yours, but I’m a different proposition. We’ll see if you can get behind your shield with me in the saddle.”

His tone made the words seem horribly lascivious. “I thought . . .” She cleared her throat. “I don’t block anyone on purpose. I—”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t block me. I have many gifts, Lara.” His eyes slid down her body, assessing. “As do you. I look forward to discovering them. In fact, after your next dose, I think I will take you back home with me.”

A steel band seemed to squeeze her throat. “Home?”

“We’ll have privacy,” he said. “If you are with me, there’s no need for locks and bolts or restraints. I will keep you absolutely secure.”

As he spoke, she felt her wrists and ankles squeezed, as if hot, greedy hands clutched her there. Her guts lurched.

“I’m sorry for how painful these past months have been,” he said. “I look forward to making it up to you. And I’m curious about your shield.”

She flinched. God forbid he get anywhere near the Citadel. He’d find some way to twist it, pollute it. “I don’t know where I go when they drug me,” she said. “It’s a nightmare, and I just endure it until it stops.”

He scrutinized her. “There’s no place for lies here.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. That was how it had been, until she found her Citadel. That was where she had stashed what was left of her sanity. If she lost her safe place, she was so done.

She dragged air into her tight chest. “How did my mother die?”

He brushed his fingertips over the coffee spots on his white shirt with distaste. “I wasn’t there,” he said. “Ask Anabel.”

“Anabel killed my mother?”

He made an impatient gesture. “Lara, please. I’m very sorry about your mother, and I was very angry about how that was handled. I claim no responsibility for it. I understand how you feel about your parents, but it’s done and gone. You have to look to the future.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “What do you want, Greaves?”

He smiled flirtatiously. “Besides the obvious? I want to save the world. To make it a better place. I am absolutely committed to that.”

Laughter jolted out of her throat again, hard, and suddenly she was doubled over, wheezing and shaking. Eyes watering, as her chest convulsed. It was so stupid to laugh at him, it went against every instinct of self-preservation, but she could not stop
.

“I see we have a great deal of work ahead of us,” Greaves said.

She shook her head. “Why don’t you just strangle me telekinetically right now and save yourself a lot of time and bother?”

His gaze was fixed and hard. “Where’s the fun in that? Anabel, Hu, take our guest down to the testing room. My patience has ended.”

Anabel and Hu were at her elbows, hauling her to her feet.

“Sir,” Hu said, his voice vibrating. “Sorry to inconvenience you—”

“Then don’t, Hu,” Greaves suggested, pleasantly.

Hu gulped. “It’s still too soon now, after her last dose. Her blood levels will still be—”

Greaves cut him off with a sharp sound. “How long must we wait?”

“Uh, twenty-two more hours would be the optimal—”

“Split the difference, make it fourteen hours,” Greaves said briskly. “We’ll meet in the testing room for the final dosing at six

A.M.
tomorrow morning. Take her away, please. I need to change this shirt.”

Hu cleared his throat. “Sir? About that testing . . . at six . . .”

Greaves looked back from the door he was opening. “Yes?”

“My wife is having a serious operation tomorrow morning, at Good Samaritan, and I was hoping—”

“You want to take personal time now?” Greaves’ voice was soft with disbelief. “At the culmination of your most important assignment ?”

“. . . a tumor removed,” Hu said desperately. “From her esophagus. It’s a delicate operation, and I need to—”

“
You
need? Hu, is it possible that your wife does not understand the importance of your work? Is she that selfish, that small-minded?”

“I . . . of course she . . . ah . . .” Hu’s mouth worked.

“Because if she doesn’t, maybe you should find a different wife. Maybe one who doesn’t have cancer. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Hu’s voice was impassive. “I’ll be there.”

“Excellent.” Greaves shut the door sharply behind himself.

Lara barely bothered to keep her feet beneath her on the way back down. She had no fight left. Greaves had sucked it all out of her. She let them drag her dead weight, but one thought kept circling in her mind as she stared up at Anabel’s profile. “Did you kill my mother?”

Anabel snorted. “She killed herself, you stupid bitch. Some use rope, some use razors. She used me. She would have died anyway.”

“I’ll kill you for that,” Lara said.

“Yeah? You terrify me, babycakes.” Anabel jerked Lara around and pushed her against the wall. “But I won’t have to look over my shoulder much longer! The boss is taking you away to be his little pet. Lucky girl! Sing pretty for him in your gilded cage! Tra-la-fucking-la!”

“Anabel, stop bruising her,” Hu fretted. “Looks like the boss will be seeing her naked soon enough. He won’t like the marks.”

Anabel twitched up Lara’s shirt and tweaked her exposed nipple brutally hard. “He’ll kill me one of these days anyhow. What the fuck.”

“Don’t lay your death wish on me,” Hu grumbled. He pulled out his keys, opened locks. Anabel pushed Lara inside. “Want to know a fun fact?” she asked. “I was his pet, once. For about twenty minutes or so.”

It was clearly a trap, but desperation drove to ask it. “And? So?”

“I needed corrective surgery. For the damage to my vocal folds.”

Lara stared, uncomprehending. “Vocal folds? What damage?”

“From the screaming,” she said, as the door swung shut.

L
ate to the funeral. True to form. It was all part of his race to see how many people he could offend in the shortest possible amount of time. If that were an Olympic event, he’d be a gold medalist.

Not that Matilda would care, and that sad, sick fact had its own leaden heaviness. He didn’t feel the sadness in the same sharp buzzy way that he had before he’d shielded, but he still bore its dumb, brute weight in his body. It shortened his wind, took the spring out of his legs. It was just so sad. So fucking wrong.

The assembled congregation was singing “Be Thou My Vision,” and the sound of the organ hit him like car alarms going off inside his skull. Funeral lilies took the place of wedding orange flowers, but they packed the same olfactory punch. Matilda’s casket was closed, thank God.

He lurked off to the side while the minister droned on about Matilda’s awesomeness and the mystery of God’s forgiveness. He spotted some of Matilda’s colleagues from the faculty office. In front was a chubby young woman in black who had to be Amy. Beside her was a guy in Army dress uniform. Steve, the husband. The two sat alone. No other family. A final hymn was announced. Miles braced himself for “Amazing Grace” as he chivvied himself into the condolence line, for what insane reason he could not fathom. Why? What point was there? Matilda didn’t care. Amy and Steve didn’t know him from Adam. He didn’t know a soul here, and yet, here he was, using up his tiny margin of crowd endurance to stand in the line and gag on the perfume of a bunch of weeping, shellshocked ladies of a certain age.

He breathed through his mouth and pretended to be normal. As usual, he was being compelled. Some huge entity was playing kick-the-can, he was the luckless can, and he might as well give in before that big boot swung down to connect with his ass once again. He got to the front of the line, clasped the hand of the uniformed guy. He muttered the requisite platitudes, got a red-eyed, tight-lipped nod in response. On to Amy.

She gave him a look that almost fucked his shield, it was so full of raw grief. He reeled, poised on his mountaintop, fighting for balance. Wind in his hair, eye to eye with the eagles.
Please.
No seizures. These people did not need to deal with his problems. Today or any day.

“. . . birthday,” Amy’s tear-fogged voice slid back into focus, abruptly loud. “The day that I found her.”

“Ah, excuse me?” he said, stupidly.

“We always did the same thing for our birthday,” Amy quavered. “We had the same birthday. She raised me, see. After my mom bailed.”

“Uh . . . oh.” And she was telling him this exactly why?

She clutched his hand in her ice-cold grip. “She always took me to Rose’s Deli,” Amy said. “I got a chocolate éclair. She got a Napoleon. Every time. I was going to pick her up. She hated driving since the cataract surgery. And I found . . . I found . . .” Her voice wobbled, disintegrated.

“You should go, then.” Miles hoped he wasn’t lobbing an emotional land mine at the poor chick, but he had to say something. “Go to Rose’s. Have pastry in her honor. She would have liked that.”

Amy’s face wavered, crumpled. She began to sob.

The umpteenth big-ass emotional misstep for the day. How soon could a person yank their hand back from a sobbing bereaved person at a funeral? Miles stood there, helpless, until Steve rescued him, loosening Amy’s clutching fingers, rubbing her hand between his own. He gave Miles a nod that politely invited him to fuck off, which Miles was grateful to do.

Oh, man. Close call. He found an empty corner in the back, and waited for the crowd to file out so he could slink out behind them like a whipped dog. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to breathe.

“So. How did you know the deceased?”

He almost yelped. It was an unremarkable middle-aged, bald guy in a suit.

Cop. The look in his eyes gave him away. Miles was sensitive to it by now. The McClouds all had that vibe. Seth, Tam, Val, Nick, Petrie, and Aaro, too. Professionally alert, professionally suspicious. Of course, any cop with half a brain would eyeball Miles. These days, he looked like a psycho freak who was building a fertilizer bomb. Even in a suit.

“I’m Miles Davenport,” he said. “You must be Detective Barlow.”

The guy’s eyes sharpened. “And how would you know that?”

“I have your number in my phone,” Miles said. “I got it from Steve last night.”

“When were you planning on calling me? And about what?”

Miles pulled out his smartphone, and called up the archived voicemail. “I was wilderness camping. Came down last night, found this message from Matilda. She sent it to me a week ago.” He set it to play, and handed the phone to Barlow.

Barlow listened to the message, clicked around on the device for a moment, studying it. He handed it back to Miles, his face expectant.

“I called Matilda back,” Miles explained. “Got her granddaughter. She and Steve told me what happened.”

Barlow shook his head. “Hell of a thing.” He was silent for a moment, and said, “That message was sent the day she was killed.”

“I noticed that,” Miles said.

Barlow waited, but Miles didn’t have more to say. Nor was he embarrassed by silence. He’d spent weeks wrapped in silence.

“So,” Barlow finally said. “How did you know Matilda?”

“Like the message said. We had a mutual interest in Lara Kirk. She’d asked me to help find Lara. She’s the daughter of Joseph—”

“I’m familiar with the case. So. What do you think of all this?”

Miles shrugged. “I didn’t find out a damn thing about Lara, and I looked hard. Evidently, Matilda kept looking after I gave up.”

“Should’ve kept at it.” Barlow ran his eyes over Miles. “You might have had more luck with them. If they’d run into you, instead of her.”

It hurt to hear it, but he couldn’t deny it. “Could be,” he said tightly. “Too late now. Wish I knew what she’d found. But I don’t.”

“I wish that, too,” Barlow said. “So where were you on the morning of October twenty-eighth, Mr. Davenport?”

Miles let out a slow breath. “Like I said. Wilderness camping.”

“Kind of cold, for camping. Got anybody to corroborate that?”

Miles shook his head. “I was alone.”

Barlow’s face was impassive. “That’s unfortunate.”

“You think I’m the one who killed her?” Miles asked.

Barlow studied him, at great length. “You don’t look too upset by that idea,” he remarked. “Cool as a cucumber.”

Miles counted down from five. “I’m not a killer,” he said. “Matilda was my friend. She was a sweet old lady. I liked her. I had no reason to hurt her. And I’d never hurt anybody who didn’t really need hurting.”

Barlow perked up. “Yeah? And who might that be, according to you? This person who needs hurting?”

Miles tried to sigh out the tension in his chest. “Any sick, twisted piece of shit who would throw a helpless old lady down the stairs. That guy needs some serious hurting, and if I ran into him, I’d be happy to provide it.”

“Vigilantism is against the law,” the cop reminded him.

Miles waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah.”

Barlow just kept staring, so Miles sighed, and laid it out there. “You’re trying to decide whether to take me in for questioning?”

Barlow shrugged.

“Please, don’t,” Miles said wearily. “It’s been a hell of a day already, and I’m not your man. Plus, if I find out anything, I’ll tell you.”

“Before or after you do the serious hurting to people who may or may not have had a trial by law with a jury of their peers?”

“I’ll be good,” he said. “Look, do you know Sam Petrie?”

The guy’s eyes slitted. “Why?”

“I was just with him an hour ago, at the wedding of a mutual friend. He knows me. Call him. He’ll vouch for me.”

“Wait here,” Barlow said. “Stay put.”

He went out onto the steps to make his call. Miles crossed his fingers that Petrie had kept his phone on and was still coherent. Barlow kept Miles in his line of sight as he conducted his conversation.

He came back in. “So you’re
that
Miles Davenport.”

Miles sighed. “My fame precedes me.” That bad business a couple of years ago with Kev, Edie. A firefight in the woods, a shootout at a murdered billionaire’s house. That shit stuck in people’s minds.

“He vouched for you,” Barlow said. “Going to the graveside service?”

Miles shook his head.

“Then I’ll say goodbye, for now,” Barlow said, peeling a card out of his wallet and handing it over. “Don’t leave town.”

“I’ll pass you anything I find,” Miles said, tucking the card in his pocket. “I want you to find that scumbag and grind him into paste.”

“Me, too. Why don’t you plug that number into your phone right now, and call me with it?” Barlow suggested. “I’d like to keep our lines of communication open.”

Miles could think of no logical reason to object. His own fault, for coming here. Sticking his neck out. He was planning on switching out a new SIM card anyway, for some privacy. He did as Barlow asked.

Tension drained out of Miles’ body as he watched the guy walk away. Barlow seemed like a reasonable guy, but still, it paid to be careful with the Man.

The church was almost empty now, just a round little woman in her seventies, taking down photos displayed on a bulletin board.

Miles walked over to look. The woman wore White Shoulders, and some godawful hairspray. She reached for a picture of Matilda with an eighties hairdo, holding a tiny Amy. Baby pics, graduation photos. A shot of her, Amy and Steve on a sternwheeler cruise on the Columbia.

Pressure built in his throat. What was up with him? Why was he even looking at this stuff? Jerking himself around on purpose? Did he actually
want
to wake up in Urgent Care with tubes in every orifice?

The lady strained for a photo pinned too high for her short frame. Miles reached to get it for her. It was Matilda, in the mountains—

His hand froze. The horned hill. Its base was half-hidden by Matilda’s head, but the top was pronged, with that big nose jutting down between. The lady swiveled and looked at him over her glasses.

“So?” she asked. “Are you going to take that down for me, or not?”

“Did you take this picture?” he asked

“No, I got it off Facebook. It was the best recent picture of her that I could find. That lovely smile.”

“Facebook?” Miles stared at it. “Do you know where it was taken?”

“She posted it a week ago,” the lady said. “Her new profile picture. Only a few days before she . . . before she . . .” Her voice clogged up.

Miles pulled out Edie’s drawing. It was the same, but from a different angle, which caused the nose to slant more to the right. Some part of him pulsed like a strobe light, deep inside.

“She’d taken a few personal days to tend to some business. And that was the last time we saw her.” The woman proceeded to dissolve.

Without vetting the idea for practicality, or even baseline sanity, he found himself hugging her, and getting a big whanking noseful of White Shoulders and toxic hair fixative in the process.
Whap.
Kick that can. He patted the lady’s back and pulled away, trying to be subtle about gasping for air.

“I’m sorry.” The lady’s voice was soggy. “Are you part of Matilda’s family?”

“Just a friend.” Miles held out the photo. “Can I keep this?”

“Sure thing. I’ll just print up another.”

“Thanks.” He helped her take down the rest. She patted him on the cheek. He barely managed not to flinch.

“You’re a lovely young man,” she said. “Thank you.”

The photo lay on the passenger seat as he drove back to his motel. One lone puzzle piece. The only person who could explain its significance was dead. Just a fresh opportunity for torturous self-doubt.

Another Olympic event at which he excelled.

Once in the room, he got out his knife and released his laptop from its prison of bubble wrap and duct tape. He switched on the router. The electro-buzz made his ears ring and his teeth hurt, but he was highly motivated to endure it right now
.

He called up the Facebook login menu, and poised his fingers over the keyboard. Her sign-in email he knew, but the password . . . ?

One granddaughter. One birthday between them. Matilda was no techie. She would go for a simple password, and to hell with security. He could run the password cracking software he had on his laptop, but he doubted he’d even need to, if his hunch was correct.

He started typing in combos of Amymatilda, then the numeric date. And on. And on. And on. He was about to give up in disgust and just run the software when it occurred to him to try Aimee.

He hit pay dirt, first try.
Bingo.
Aimee had posted on Matilda’s wall with the funeral details. Miles clicked around, checking out Matilda’s photos. He found several from the same series, of Matilda in that white sweater in the woods, but only one that featured the horned mountain.

Bullseye. The jpeg had geospatial data. Latitude, longitude, even elevation. He checked the coordinates, and found that it was in Central Oregon, near a town called Kolita Springs. Only a few short hours’ drive away.

He almost hyperventilated on the spot. He had to shut off the router and flop down on the bed until he stopped freaking out. Holy shit, he’d nailed Edie’s picture. It had to mean something. But what?

One piece of the puzzle. Only one.

This was going nowhere, so he tried to put it aside. He choked down a protein bar from his dwindling stash. His stomach was cramping with hunger, but cranky about actually dealing with any food that he put into it.

He flung himself onto the bed, which stank of dust, smoke, and mold. Pulled the pillow over his head to block out light and sound, but that left him choked with detergent, dead skin flakes, and dust mites. Plus toxic exhalations from cleaning solvents, paint, wood paneling.