Chapter Fourteen
Invoke
"Leaving?"
Seth didn't turn at the voice, choosing to ignore the nurse in exchange for reaching the stairwell and throwing off her pursuit. He pushed open the door and quickstepped down three levels while he reset the countdown timer on his phone. He had just stopped at the magnetically locked fire door to the parking garage when the voice returned, "Wait."
He whirled in surprise.
Marley Adams bounced down the last step and walked right up to him, "No soap? Right?"
"No soap," he said. "And really, thanks. You're right."
"Probably, but about what?"
He looked past her at the doors, and then said, "About having a purpose."
"Did you figure it out?"
"Getting there."
"Call me if you need anything. I do twice weekly sessions for noobs, you still have my cards right." She glanced past him, "Those doors are way locked by the way."
"Maybe," he looked away and then back. "I'm not afraid. So thank you."
Marley narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
He turned his phone to her as the timer ticked down from twelve seconds. "Because I'm good at this…."
Her gaze came away from the phone just in time to hear the metallic click of the fire door locks, followed in an instant by the wail of the hospital fire klaxons. The alarm in the stairwell flashed a brilliant strobe in addition to the bleating assault upon their ears. She smiled, cocking her head in admiration.
Seth waved as he pushed backward out through the heavy doors and trotted down the ramp to the waiting cab. They swung shut with a thunk, sealing out the sudden cold blast of air. She didn't hear the two detectives in all of the noise, but they all made eye contact as they too hit the doors running. This time she held the door and braved the cold.
The cab was gone.
* * *
Whit's Gulfstream 650 was beyond opulent, but he didn’t indulge himself in anything more than a bottle of water and CNN. He waited in a leather chair until he saw the now familiar segment with his father begin. Whit certainly wasn’t jumping up and down for attention. It wasn’t like him to do so anyway, but when the cameras were outside every morning it was hard for many people not to crave their fifteen minutes of fame. Whit wasn’t one of them. He’d made an initial statement on the first day, from the window of the Jaguar, to the effect that he himself didn’t know much yet, and to please back the fuck up. It would have been funny. No one quoted him, that was for certain.
Had Seth been a fry cook, the already sizable gap between his father and himself would have been insurmountable. He knew it and so did Whit. His dad would have distanced himself even more in the press–going so far as to dispute the fact that Seth was in fact even his colt, but as it was, his son was a wealthy up and comer in the world of computer security and for a Wall Street guy, that was respectable.
It also garnered a little sympathy for the old man Seth was sure, and while distantly irritating, that was life. People used what advantage they could secure. That was the game.
As they climbed out through the D.C. overcast and into the sunlight that had briefly warmed him earlier that morning, Seth was beginning to see just what it would take to reconnect some of the dots in his life, and part of the framework that kept forming in his mind included Whit. So many other points of light had just been blotted out; he needed at least one that he could trust. He turned up the television and stared out over the expanse of sunlit clouds.
The CNN anchor explained that while there were no new leads, the police were confident about their ability to apprehend the killers. A man named Hopkins stood behind a bank of microphones under lights that made him shield his eyes, and explained that the department had their best people on the case and that already they’d made some substantial headway in tracking these people down. He concluded by saying that this appeared to be a random act, not one aimed at this particular family. Seth closed his eyes before the segment ended and drifted into an exhausted sleep. The beautiful clouds stretched forever in his mind's eye, brilliant and eternal... heavenly. It was all so wrong. The jet began a smooth descent along the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay, just a few miles outside of Whit’s estate, but Seth knew none of it. He was lost inside of a nightmare from which he could not wake; one that filled in the gaps in his memory with a malicious omniscience. And as was his way, Seth dreamed like a man staring into a beautifully cut diamond. With perfect clarity he would see the facets, each holding their own razor sharp image, each telling its own simultaneous tale. Still, the terrors of his sleep did not begin with his daughter's shrill cries, but rather with memories of good times not so distant, tantalizingly–maddeningly–close… but wholly out of reach. Forever.
And when the Gulfstream touched the pavement an hour later, the impact caught Seth in the gap between dream and reality. The sheer terror of the moment spanned his consciousness. He could literally feel the dull thud as the gun crushed his teeth–and he was forced into the realization that there was absolutely no difference between the nightmare from which he woke, and the reality from which he could not.
Chapter Fifteen
Impede
“Let’s have it,” Hack said. He hadn’t left his computer in several hours and had the gallon milk jug of piss to prove it. His head spun, churning up endless possibilities. Access to the inexhaustible Internet further sustained his ability to conjure and so long as his pencil supply held out, Hack would be high for as long as the story lasted.
“It’s looking like a gang thing.”
“Shit.”
Silence.
“Well go on,” Hack said. He had little patience for silence.
“There’s pretty good evidence that it’s a random gang initiation. It sounds like Meek wasn’t involved at all.”
“Fuck. How’s the computer coming?”
“I’m working on it. Meek hasn’t been answering his telephone.”
“You have his direct number?” Hack sat forward so quickly that his chair nearly rolled out from under him.
“Yeah.”
“You dumb shit, what is it?”
Chapter Sixteen
Improvidence
Seth drove up to the gates at around seven that evening.
He’d opted for a rental at the airport rather than the big town car that Whit had sent for him, telling the driver that he needed to run some errands on the way to the estate. The driver had given him detailed directions and then vanished.
Now, as he pulled up, he found himself wishing for the dark windows and privacy of the town car once again. There were two news vans parked just across the road from the front gate. They’d seen him coming–there wasn’t much out here in the evening, but it wasn’t until he turned in to the estate that they pounced. Two bright lights came on, illuminating the dash of the car as if it were daylight. Several faces were already asking questions before he rolled the window down and pushed the button on the gate's intercom. Seth tried to identify himself, he could hear a voice from the speaker, but it was of little use. The questions went on, the lights glared, and he felt trapped.
Less than fifteen seconds later a half dozen well dressed young men appeared out of the twilight and reminded the camera crews that the driveway was in fact private property. The crews fell back, filming in retreat, and the gates swung open.
Seth was nervous. It had been a long time.
It was almost half a mile down a well–lit woodland drive before he could see the lights from the guesthouse, and another minute or two until the main estate came into view. A sprawling Frank Lloyd Wright sort of affair, Whit’s place was understated from the outside. Kind of like Whit himself, Seth thought. The guy was a thousand times bigger on the inside than he was on the outside. Whit’s life was concealed within the convoluted 1400cc calculator that rested between his ears, whirring and ticking out figures unbidden in a ceaseless effort to turn a profit. Whit could not help but be rich, and Seth didn’t doubt for a minute that if his father lost everything today, he’d be back on his feet tomorrow, washing windshields. The next week he’d own a carwash, then a chain of them. It was how he was, fearless, with the catlike ability to turn his charm on and off at will. Mostly it was off, but mostly he didn’t care, either.
Seth parked his rental on the wide turnabout in front of the main house and left the engine running. A man in a long coat dashed over and asked if he’d like the vehicle ‘put up’ for the night.
Everything about Whit seemed somehow linked to the horses that he’d never owned. Seth wondered if now, with plenty of cash to burn, more than enough land for them to prance around on, and people to scratch their ears, Whit might have finally broken down and bought himself a pony.
“Leave it, I’ll be out.”
“Yes sir.” The kid went to parade rest and stood there in the high beams casting a thirty–foot shadow on the east
wing
of Whit’s place.
Seth slid from the warmed seat into the cold air. His dad was standing at the front doors, a Scotch for each of them. He extended one and Seth took it. That was a Whit hug.
“Thanks, Whit,” Seth said and fished an ice cube out of the Scotch. He squeezed it into his mouth and crunched it down.
“Hard to drink with your lips like that?”
“Kinda.”
“You want to come in?” Whit asked. He didn’t move out of the doorway, but he knew there were genetics at work.
“Not tonight, thanks. I saw the lights on in the guest house.”
“It’s all ready for you, I thought you might want some peace for awhile.”
Seth nodded and handed back the Scotch, “Thanks for this Whit.”
“If you need anything….”
“Thanks, just some sleep I think.”
Whit hoisted his glass and watched his son walk back to the car. The sentry stood aside.
It had been easy to forget just how much he liked his dad. They’d grown apart, though not of malice as some men do over time. They’d grown apart like continents, creeping away so as not to notice. Each worked on his own little chunk of life, and didn’t miss the other until faced with a meeting. And even then there wasn’t much to say, but the Scotch cube was a good start.
Seth pulled the car around the circle to the guesthouse. His fatigue level was far beyond exhausted, but he would become helpless if he slept… unable to hold back the terror with the force of his will.
“Need help with your things, sir?” the kid asked from the window. Seth realized that he’d been sitting there for a few minutes.
“There’s a box in back, and just leave the car here, alright?”
“Will do, sir. If you need anything just ask.”
Seth acknowledged him and popped the trunk.
The guesthouse was expansive. A fire had been burning under the brick hearth across the room, calm and only just flickering–it probably needed a log or two soon. He walked toward it, looking up into the loft high above. Everything was clean, but the well–used, sort of burnished clean, not the sterile sort he’d endured for these last days.
The box was beside the couch, and the valet gone. He sat for a moment staring at the fire. It was soothing so he walked over and tossed a couple of thick cedar limbs across the embers. Soothing wouldn’t do right now but searing might. He closed one of the glass doors and caught a glance of himself in the flickering reflection. Seth pushed at his puffy eye, prying it apart at the corner a bit. The swelling was subsiding, but he still looked vandalized.
A pop from the cedar made him jump. He was coming unhinged; he could feel it. Everything was closing in and all of the strength he'd had was gone. No longer could he hold the thoughts at bay; images appeared in his mind unbidden, horrifying flash cards of his family's last moments—he could see it all, every detail. He paced a circle and cracked his knuckles one by one against his hip. He suddenly wanted the Scotch back.
Twenty urgent strides brought him to a cabinet near a tall archway that led into the kitchen. He located and liberated a thick crystal snifter full of what smelled to be brandy. He ignored the stinging as it coated his lips, wiped tears from his eyes with his sleeve, and then stopped. Above the bar a baseball bat, a pot–marked, abused, old bat, hung like a trophy. It was the bat that Whit had given him the first time he’d come to visit his estate as a kid. He stared at it for a moment, and then turned away from the past.
The journey from well–adjusted to non compos mentis batshit insane seemed ridiculously brief.
People are like eggs, Mr. Meek. Squeeze one way and you can’t break them no matter what you do, squeeze another and....
That doctor had cried when she’d learned that Emily had died. Seth had watched it hit her as she stood in the hall talking to a nurse, unaware of his gaze. From composed veteran surgeon to fragile human being in five seconds–she was right, how fragile we really are. He wondered if he hadn’t already
gone
insane, thinking about eggs and doctors he’d never see again. A few days ago he was annoyed at himself for forgetting that the Civic’s gas tank was on the
left
side of the car and having to drive around the pump to get it straight. Today he was unhinged by the thought of his unborn child being cut in half by a bullet.
He wiped at his eyes again.
It would be easier to just kill himself, this much was clear. He considered how he’d end his life and felt brief remorse for his lies to the Marley person. She seemed genuine. She seemed invested, and he imagined how she would feel both grief and relief at his minor betrayal.
So. Somewhere easy to clean. He hated the idea of someone having to wipe him up in a sponge. Somewhere clean and out of the way. Maybe so that there wasn’t a mess at all. But not pills. Pills were cowardly.
But you’re a coward, it’s perfect.
A gun was too fast. Maybe he’d go swallow a half–gallon of bleach or poison. Rat poison. He deserved nothing less than the agony he’d allowed. It was his to bear all alone.
He let go of the crystal snifter, watching it wobble in the air until it touched the floor and flashed into shards. Seth gripped his head in his hands and pressed, savoring the pain in his face, concentrating on it… feeling the tension grow across the sutures until one popped. He tasted blood… and it steadied him.
The metallic reassurance of his own blood flooded his senses and for a moment he saw a future where he was not yet dead. He glanced at the bat on the wall; it didn't represent the past at all. Seth's mind focused so suddenly, so harshly that it was tangible; he could see the graffiti in his mind, and suddenly he understood. Code didn't intimidate Seth and Marley was right, he wasn't afraid.
The insanity didn’t lift.
It settled.