The Harbinger Break (6 page)

  
She returned a few minutes later, a glass of tea in each hand. She placed a glass in front of Summers, and sat down on the chair across from him, crossing her legs. Taking in the smell of the tea, she held the glass underneath her nose, waving the aroma upwards.

  
"Try it, Mr Summers. It's wonderful, so good for your body and spirit."

  
He studied the dark color of the glass's contents, then lifted it. The aroma hit him like a punch to the face, nothing shy of nuclear fallout, and he found himself in a life and death struggle with the urge to grimace. Forcing his lips to the glass, he lightly slurped and poker-faced through the bitter sweet jolt that clawed at his tongue. It was stronger than bourbon, with hints of ginger, lemon, slight mint, and rooibos. He'd survived staring contests against men with guns primed and aimed at his chest, and somehow this tea brought back those memories, and when she took a sip and smiled, closing her eyes, making love to the tea, he took a large, painful gulp, and frowned at how much was still left in the glass. He missed the simplicity of bad guys with guns. It was the emasculation game, and she held all the cards. As she audaciously smiled at him, a train of Fuck You's rumbled across his mind.

  
"Doesn't it just invigorate your spirit, Mr Summers?" she asked.

  
"Yes," he replied through clenched teeth. "It's very rich."

  
Her smile broadened. "Remind me to pack a small baggie for you before you leave. Please, it's my treat. I love a man with good taste."

  
Ignoring her, he placed the glass on the coffee table. "About Shane…"

  
She postured, shoulders back, sitting straight–the master of her domain. "What about him?"

  
"Did you know he's still alive?"

  
The split second moment of shock was wiped away by a grin and a nod. (And the best actress in a leading role goes to…) "That's great news! Good for him!"

  
Summers cleared his throat and refocused. "He murdered an innocent man. We caught him red handed."

  
Her eyes widened, and a satisfying–albeit somewhat guilty–warmth rushed through him. Not a good enough actress that time, he thought. Or maybe she had enough tact to know when to drop the act. She covered her gasp. "Patches? Never!"

  
Summers nodded solemnly, took out his notebook and licked the tip of his pen, crossing his legs. "Tell me about him."

  
Claire twisted her hair in her fingers and looked at the ground. "I don't wish to tell you about how we first became friends, but I can tell you about him."

  
At that moment, Summers reasoned that it was necessary to break her defensive outer shell to acquire the truth, and he felt a certain pride knowing what he knew. There was just no hiding facts from a detective of his caliber, and now the ball was in his court. "I'm aware of that story, Claire, if you're referring to the lunch, of course."

  
It was like a cannonball to her fortress. He shattered something–he knew a secret that she'd rather die than tell.

  
"Y-you know?"

  
"I spoke with Sam Higgins."

  
"Who?"

  
"At GenDec with you and Patches, same age as you both."

  
Claire shook her head and grinned. "You have to understand, Agent–there were a lot of boys at GenDec."

  
"It's irrelevant. Higgins is likely dead now, at the hands of Shane as well."

  
She gasped. "I thought you caught him red handed?"

  
"From the murder of his psychologist. Slit the man's throat. He got to Higgins afterwards, and now the pair of them are missing."

  
"I still don't understand. If you had Patches in cold blood from the first murder, how is he missing? How has he murdered again?"

  
"He escaped after the psychiatrist. It's a long story."

  
She narrowed her eyebrows. "Mr Summers, I'm afraid I can't help you if I don't know the full story."

  
Summers sighed. Clearly this wasn't her first rodeo either.

  
"He murdered a cop, who'd apparently been abusing his power, and Shane caught him off guard. He put the corpse in his bed, and snuck out in his uniform. And I won't call it a coincidence when I tell you it was the same cop that reported Shane had whispered to him something along the lines of 'I know what you really are, I've seen your true face'. Do those words mean anything to you?"

  
She took a sip of tea before responding. "I don't have the slightest idea what those words mean, and Mr Summers, you have to understand–this is all very incredible to me. For all I'd known, Patches died attempting to escape from GenDec. You coming here now, and telling me that not only is he alive, but he's a murderer! My, it's really unbelievable. Patches was the sweetest boy."

  
"Tell me about him."

  
She took another sip of tea, then lowered the glass to her lap.

  
"How about we make a deal? Mr Summers, you tell me how he survived for so long after GenDec, and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

  
Summers narrowed his brow. He didn't have time for this, but he needed answers and had no other options. And she knew that too. Recognizing bargaining chips was a skill required for her line of work, and he could tell she was good.

  
"It's a deal," he said. He scratched his head and opened his notebook. "After GenDec we discovered Shane escaped to Jacksonville and hid out for three years in the basement of a condemned apartment complex. We aren't certain of how he survived, whether he obtained a low-key job or survived off scraps, but when the report came from GenDec about the escapee, and the FBE got word of his IQ, we immediately took the case off the FBI's hands and began a full-scale manhunt. When we found him years later, he was on the verge of a mental breakdown, so we set him up with living arrangements on the terms that he visits the psychologist he murdered four times a week. From the reports, Shane had been making progress–that is, up until recently. From there on you already know."

  
Summers took his pencil from behind his ear and opened a new page in his notebook.

  
"Now it's your turn, Claire. So, about Shane?"

  
She nodded and put her glass back on the table. "Well, after the lunch incident, we became close. He was in love with me, you have to understand that, and I was young, and loved the power I had over him. By the time I came around to developing any sort of feelings in return, I was so caught up in this whirlwind of control, having him head over heels trying to impress me and doing things for me, that I couldn't let it go. I regret that so much now, that whole experience was just awful, and even taking into account the electroshock therapy and the food depravation, that was still, by far, the worst part of the whole experience."

  
"What was?"

  
"Ruining a nice, sweet boy."

  
As Summers jotted down a few notes, he couldn't help but wonder exactly how much of this performance was a perfected act of hers. In the few minutes he'd known her she'd turned him into a cold-hearted cynic. He kept his professionalism and continued. "If you don't mind–expand on that please, Claire."

  
She sighed. "He was so smart. Did so well in his classes. He was so…
good
. Like, while most kids were in gangs and stuff–"

  
"Yeah, I know he wore yellow. What was your take on that?"

  
"Well, he wanted everyone to know he was good. Like be the golden boy in the puddle of shit. It was interesting, it was one of the reasons I made him do so much bad. After we started to hang out, he was going in for shock therapy every week or so. I'm ashamed."

  
"What kind of stuff did you make him do?"

  
"At first minor things, but the last thing I convinced him to do–I said 'those guys in gangs are so attractive. You should join a gang.' Next day, he attempted to join the Midnight Crew–"

  
Summers held up his pen. "Sorry. Midnight Crew?"

  
"They wore black." She noticed his look of confusion and sighed. "Bloodsuckers wore red. They punched each other in the mouth as initiation. Really, the mildest of the gangs. The Blues wore blue, they would strangle each other, called suffocation 'the blues'–it was dumb. But the Midnight Crew were the worst. Disappearances. Deaths. Possible murder. They had Patches create a diversion so they could gain access to the kitchens. God knows why they wanted to do that. He rigged up something explosive, tampered with a hallway light or something, and rearranged the electricity to blow out the lights in a sector. Instead, he blew a massive hole in the wall. Attempting to escape was practically punishable by death. He had no choice, he had to run. We all thought he'd died. That's how they made it sound."

   They spoke for a couple more minutes, then Summers thanked her and stood to leave. She made him wait, and packed him a bag of her tea, even though his glass was still as full as it had been after his first sip. "It's a tough drink the first go, but you get used to it and it's so good for you."

  
He thanked her, and made to leave. She kissed him on the cheek at the door, and the unexpected gesture stupefied him, if only for a moment. He shook it off and decided to update the FBE and Paige on the case.

◊   ◊   ◊

   Claire Waltz closed the door behind the agent, then retrieved her cellphone from her purse. She dialed a number and put it to her ear. It rang a few times.

  
"Lee, it's Claire… yeah, I need a small favor. Can you search our database for a Higgins, Sam. Possibly Samuel. Please?" She strummed her fingers on the countertop as he stumbled over his words, unable to agree fast enough.

  
She grinned. "Thanks so much Lee, you're a doll. Call me back when you have something."

  
Placing her phone onto the counter, she found herself frowning. Sam Higgins. Who the hell is that, talking to strangers about her? And he might
not
be dead, and hiding out there somewhere with Patches?

  
It was too much to resist. She'd have to call out sick for a week or two. Ensure that Patches had taken care of the rat–and if he hadn't, fix the spill herself.

  
Shrugging off her robe and letting it slip off her body and onto the floor, she strolled through her master bedroom and into the bathroom to shower, and from there to pack.

◊   ◊   ◊

   A missing persons bulletin was filed for Sam Higgins. He was presumed dead, and most search efforts were done through tall grassy fields and nearby swamps and dumps for his corpse.

   Pat and Sam left the crummy motel, taking the highway to Savannah, Georgia, where they stopped for the night. They couldn't travel via Skyway, as travel through checkpoints was monitored, so byways parallel to I-95 were the safest method of undetected travel.

  
"Why can't I just go home?" Sam, on the verge of tears, asked Pat. Looking woefully out the window at the gothic high-rises, horse and buggies, and hundreds of people looked like they'd never heard of hair conditioner, Sam longed to return home, back in the comfort of his routine. Pat sighed at Sam's question, apparently tired of answering it for the third time consecutively.

  
"Because you know to much, and you'll spill everything under threat of sterilization. Plus, you're useful. The aliens might be here–you agree there is a chance of that. If they are, and we stop them, we're heroes."

  
"Can't I just go home please?" Sam cried. "How do we even stop them?"

  
"Kill one, then see what happens from there."

  
"Ugh, how do we even find one?"

  
"Listen, Sam–enough, alright? If the food is drugged, follow the food. There's a Bixplus distribution center right off I-95 on Maple, about thirty minutes north of here. We'll leave tomorrow morning."

  
They parked at The Quarter Moon Inn, a supposedly haunted inn that publicized itself as a resort for psychics. It had been popular in the 70's, before the aliens, but after 1981 professions in fields ostracized by science declined rapidly, due to government benefits for those who assisted in the human technological advancement, or as politicians referred to it, The Technological Revolution.

  
Regardless, a few psychics claimed to have developed connections with the aliens, and they would meet at various locations along the east coast to promote psychic communication as viable means of alien contact.

  
Sam Higgins wasn't happy. He was with a psychopath who targeted those whom he thought were aliens, and here, in the parking lot of a rundown inn, the two of them were soon to be surrounded by flamboyant men and women claiming to know the innermost thoughts and plans of the Europans. Yep, Sam thought, groaning–someone was going to die tonight.