He hunched over, cradling the thought. Had he been sensing his own fear, his own reaction to what he'd unconsciously perceived? If so, why hadn't he seen it before? Yes, because Red didn't even know it was there. Other killers had thin facades. But Red had no such thing. He was, indeed, both killer and family man.
Carter winced as he pushed his fingernails back down. He shook the last blood onto the snow, then got into the Malibu. As he pulled away, the skeletons of winter trees stood in the foreground of a bright orange eastern sky. The sun warmed his face.
Danger
. . . Good to see it there.
* * *
Jim Mayard eyed Carter through the living room window as his tires crunched over packed snow. The icy ruts seemed to be hanging around forever on the streets. Unusual, this heavy snow. Moist, like in North Korea during last month's snoop and poop. He pulled his finger back from the curtains and turned to Red, scrunching his nose. “Seems like a nice enough guy.”
Red smirked. “You're just turned on because he called you
sir
.”
“Beats the treatment I get from you. Still curious. What's this âInternet star' thing he said?”
Red waved his hand. “Plenty of time for that. Hope you're hungry. My one day off and I'm cooking. You're a full bird now, so no one notices when you don't show up to work. Right?”
“Gotta get to Hampton Roads. But I'll stay if you're making pancakes.”
Red lifted three small pans, one cast iron, from the pot rack above his head. The iron one went on the counter while he held the other two by the handles. His blue eyes shone. The tip of his tongue stuck out to one side. He tossed one into the air and then the other, handles spinning, almost smacking the ceiling. As the second left his hand, he grabbed the iron one from the counter and tossed it in turn.
Red had the best coordination of any team member Jim had ever known. Could throw a knife spot-on at thirty feet. Did he still remember nothing? Dr. Sato's warning call hadn't been a surprise, but she'd said not to ask direct questions.
Jim glanced up at the wrought-iron pot rack hovering over them like a bomb rack ready to drop its ordnance. He selected a fourth pan. Red was in a steady rhythm, even with the iron one that wobbled clumsily.
Lori scowled. “You break it, you fix it.”
Jim returned an ornery smile, then lobbed the fourth to Red, its handle looping.
Red dropped to a knee and caught it, speeding up the rhythm. He managed a single round, then one of the pans crashed to the floor, followed by another.
Never could handle that fourth one, Jim mused. “Hope the 'cakes are better than your juggling.”
Red leaned over the stove. In short order the kitchen smelled of coffee and hot bacon. Jim sat across from Lori as she told him about the Walmart incident. He tried to act surprised. There were no hints Red remembered anything. Red pulled some blueberries from the freezer and Jim's mouth grew wetâhis buddy still remembered his favorite.
Jim told them he'd spent two of the last four years in South Korea, but was reassigned to Hampton Roads. At least that much was the truth. “It gets harder to make an honest living the higher in rank you go. They keep trying to put me behind a desk at the Pentagon. I keep telling them to go to hell.” He glanced over a sticky plate at Lori. He'd always been jealous of his friend in several ways. Red lived gracefully, even as an operator. So intense on an op, but turned it off like a switch at the end. Those years together, Jim had depended on Red's spirit to balance him out.
“Remember how the squad would play basketball at lunch?” Jim asked. “You were such a son of a bitch onâ” He hunched his shoulders. “Sorry. Kids aren't up, are they?”
Red laughed. “Won't be long, though.”
“You were such a son of a bitch on the court. Ran circles around me.”
Red shoved a triangular three-stack into his mouth. “Yeah. You'd lay me out for a while once you'd had enough.”
“I'd call it your
cooldown
.”
The lights glimmered off Red's eyes. “Funny. Ref always called it a technical foul.”
Jim missed that about Redâhe never held a grudge. Not like the backbiting political pansies trying to put an end to his squadron. Jim dreaded the conference room full of them in Hampton Roads. He checked his watch. Better be late, to make sure the mood of the room was ripe. He twisted the band on his wrist and stood. “Got to get moving. Thanks for breakfast. You haven't lost your touch.”
As he walked to the front door, Penny came downstairs in pink Disney princess pajamas, the bottoms pulled halfway up her calves.
“Remember Uncle Jim?” Lori asked. “You were only five last time you saw him.”
Penny looked up and smiled, then hugged his leg without a word, rubbing the sleep from her eye with a knuckle.
Jim lifted her. “Damn, I mean, you're all grown. Too big to pick up.”
Penny smiled, then wiggled herself down and sniffed the air. “What's for breakfast?”
Jim's shoulders drooped, but he leaned on the wall to mask it. “Don't know why it's been so long.”
“Road goes both ways,” Lori said. “Our fault, too.”
He gave her a quick hug and moved toward the door. “Watch your back, Red. Might not be so lucky next time.”
His buddy laughed. “I've punched that ticket. Shouldn't run into it again.”
Jim stepped down the shoveled sidewalk. He sniffed the familiar welcome of the morning cold. He stood next to his blue Taurus and raised a hand to shade his eyes, squinting eastward toward the sun. Funny. It was cold on his face. Nice getting caught up. Even better was Red's innocenceâhe still didn't remember. But with what had happened at Walmart, those memories couldn't be buried too deeply.
Chapter 5
Professionals
R
ed woke to a splitting headache. A hangover? He tried to recall last night, but it took too much effort. Hadn't had anything to drink. The house was pitch black, but then he liked to keep the room dark at night. The mattress felt like a plank. He pushed up.
Not a mattress at all.
Carpet. Red snickered. How had he fallen out of bed?
On his knees, he lifted his head, scanning for the faint glow from the bathroom night-light. Turned completely around, but couldn't find it. Maybe the bed was blocking his view. He reached out to grab it and hoist himself. Instead, his hands landed upon something unfamiliar, hard. There was a dim luminance around the doorway, but from the wrong side. Had Lori moved the night-light to a different socket?
He straightened, almost lost his balance. Why such a headache? He'd get dizzy with a cold, but didn't feel one coming on. Looked for the night-light again. He wasn't in the bedroom, but the hallway. The faint glow came from the clock on the kitchen microwave. Must've been sleepwalking and fallen. He'd never done that before. As a bolt of pain jolted his senses, he ran his fingers through hair soaked from night sweats.
Taking a deep breath, he stumbled downstairs for water, bracing himself with a hand to the wall. Why was the air so cold, but the floor still warm? Have to check the thermostat on the way back up. He pulled the microwave open, casting light over the counter, and reached for a glass. Even that dim glow was too bright. He winced and let go. A big dark smear ran the handle's length from the kids making hot chocolate before bed. He licked the stickiness from his fingers. Tasted of metal and salt. He frowned and held his hand to the light. Blood, not chocolate. Then a memory shook himâthe nightmare before he woke.
He bolted upstairs and slammed on the light switch in the boys' room. Jackson was down from his bunk bed, huddled with Nick, eyes huge. He didn't even squint at the brightness, just got up and ran to Red, hugging his leg. “What's going on, Dad?”
Nick's chest was rising and falling. The boy could sleep through the Second Coming. Red broke free of Jackson's grasp and sprinted to Penny's room.
She, like Nick, didn't move. His daughter slept so soundly he'd put an ear next to her mouth to hear her breathe. As he knelt at the bed, she frowned and rolled over.
Thank God.
He ran to his own bedroom and flicked on that light, too. Lori should be up by now, asking what was going on. She wasn't in bed, so he turned to the bathroom. Door closed. “Lori, you in there?”
No answer. He yanked it open. No Lori.
Ripped back the shower curtain. Nothing.
He pulled his hair and paced the bathroom floor.
Something inside tried to take hold of him. A feeling, distantly familiar, from another lifetime, the same as at Sato's office. Fear, the gut-felt kind like when he was a kid after a bad dream. Knowing he was awake, but too scared to move, eyes searching the darkness. Only this fear was even more gripping. It held weight, possessed substance. This nightmare was real. His teeth cut into his tongue.
Footsteps stalked behind him. Too heavy for the kids. A nightstick grazed the doorjamb, then the faint tinkle of handcuff chains. How'd he know what they were? The fear began to crawl within him, but he pushed it back down. Turned and stared down the barrel of a 9mm Sig Sauer.
“Freeze! Police!”
* * *
Red leaned on the cold metal skin of a police cruiser in his driveway. Carter stood next to him, arms crossed, looking well put together considering how quickly he'd shown up. Red looked down at his wet slippers and wiggled frozen toes. Morning would come in an hour.
A backup cruiser had arrived minutes after the first officer found Red. Soon it seemed half the police force showed up, then reporters. Red had called his parents, who lived across town. They were both sitting with the kids now in the back of an ambulance, on the way to the hospital to get checked out. Thank God the kids left before the news agencies showed up.
The cold felt like sandpaper under Red's feet. “Sorry you had to get up so early.”
Carter smiled, but said nothing. Frozen air pressed Red's skin, like he was back in the debrief room. The cruiser across from him was pocked with bullet holes, its metal skin riddled with automatic weapons fire. All windows were shattered. He wrinkled his forehead and pointed to it. “What happened?”
“That's the cruiser from my officer that found you,” Carter replied. “Wasn't like that when he left the station.”
Red stared, breath frosting in the morning air. Was he kidding? Hadn't been any shots. Had he forgotten something again? He looked to a black sky. “Anyone hear from Lori?”
Carter took a step closer and put a hand on Red's shoulder. “No. Remember anything?”
A sharp pain stabbed his gut. Was he losing his mind? He wasn't angry at Carter, but himself. He took a few steps toward a holly hedge at the edge of the yard. Hands on hips, he looked up, groaned, then doubled over and heaved pizza chunks and broccoli into the bushes.
Sounded like a good combination at the time.
After his arms stopped shaking, he raised himself and breathed deeply, staring at the side of his neighbor's Pepto-Bismol-colored house. He struggled to gather his thoughts.
Carter broke the silence. “You okay?”
Red blinked. It was all he could manage at that second. “I've got a problem not remembering. You know that. If I had anything to do with this, lock me up. If not, I'm gonna kill 'em.” It was done. He was certain how it would play out.
Carter squinted. “Red, I told you. This wasn't you. Someone else did it. That's why the cruiser's shot up. The officer came on someone carrying Lori from the house. Only thing that kept him alive was ducking behind the cruiser's steel rims. He saw them take her. Remember me telling you this? Know who they were?”
“No.”
“You or Lori have any enemies you haven't told me about?”
“No.”
“What about the families of those guys at Walmart?”
Red managed a step away from the hedge. “Maybe. Listen, I don't know how much good I'm going to be. I don't trust myself anymore.”
“You're all we've got. We need you on this.”
“What do you mean I'm all you've got? Your guy saw them. How'd he get here so quick?”
“Got a call from your security system. But your neighbors already phoned a few minutes earlier. Saw two people in their backyard, so we had a cruiser on the way.”
Made sense, sort of. “The officer that got me in the bathroom, he did a good job. Pass that on to his boss.”
“You just did,” Carter said.
“One problem, though. We don't have a security system.”
Carter frowned. “No?”
“You're the detective. Figure it out.”
A man with bed-head kicked snow as he approached. Green plaid flannel pajama bottoms were too short, exposing bare ankles in Nike running shoes. A grease-smudged Carhartt jacket bulged at the pockets. A badge hung loosely from his neck. He stared at a pad of paper in his palm. “Boss, we found something.”
“Sulley, you look like hell,” Carter said.
Sulley lifted his head, one eye closed against the flashing red and blue from the cruiser's light bar. “You said get here on the double. I did.”
He led the pair across well-trampled snow, through a side garden gate. Tracks were everywhere in the backyard. One detective was cursing as he tried to pour plaster into a footprint. Sulley stopped beneath the bedroom window and stepped into the flowerbed where Penny had planted Easter lilies in the spring. Sulley lifted a small metal canister with a gloved hand and held it out to Red.
“Found this on the ground right here, under the bedroom window.”
Red went to grab it, but Sulley yanked it back.
“Don't touch.”
“Okay. Looks like helium. We've got a can like it in the garage for birthday balloons.”
Sulley lifted it over his head, studying a white sticker on its bottom. “Same idea, but not helium. Feels empty, but take a sniff near the valve.”
Red stared into the distance and inhaled. It was a familiar scent. “Smells a little like . . . citrus? Kind of like oranges. Not exactly, but something close.”
Carter took a quick sniff. “Knockout gas. Of some variety. Have it tested, but for now let's assume that's it. Get any prints?”
Sulley waved to a portly woman in a black police uniform as she walked by, and held the canister out to her. “Wiped clean. Not a trace. If this tank says anything, the perps didn't leave any.” He pulled a quart-sized plastic bag from his jacket. Inside was a large needle. “Looks like the perps slid this between the seams of the window. See those gouges there? That's what I don't like about these sashes that tip in. Not secure.” He pointed to the heat pump next to him, hidden behind low hollies, clusters of red berries topped with snow like whipped cream on cherries. “They cut the power feed. That's why it's cold inside. I figure to keep the air system from coming on. Got enough gas in the room that way. Once the tank was empty, they smashed the front door.”
Carter started out the gate. “Got anything else?”
Sulley led them up the front steps. The house was full of people, some uniformed. The air stood cold, the room lifeless, despite everyone milling about. A detective with blue neoprene gloves was pulling prints off the black granite counter where they'd met with Carter a few days before. Another was picking at something with tweezers from the blue oriental rug that Lori had picked from an open-air market in Morocco. Sulley led them upstairs, past the knob at the top of the rail he had to reattach at least twice a year after Lori'd given birth to two boys. Would he see her again? He'd better give his mother a callâthey would be at the hospital by now.
“Red, anything else coming back?” Carter asked.
He stumbled across the top step. “You know those nightmares where you try to wake up, but can't? That's what the dream was like. Seemed everything was in fast-forward.”
“Sounds like gas. Probably a chloroform derivative. Get a look at any faces?”
“No. I was lying in bed, awake, but couldn't move. One threw Lori over his shoulder. She flopped like . . . she was dead.” Red's eyes started to tear but he tensed his stomach so his voice held steady. “All this rage inside, but couldn't do anything. Not even scream. The other picked me up and started out the bedroom, then dropped me. I don't remember anything after that.”
Carter nudged Sulley's shoulder. “Why would he drop Red? Why leave him if he wanted him?”
“Maybe that's when our first responder showed up. He said there were three perps. One on the street in the car. That guy opened fire right away. The other two shot at him from the house.” He grimaced. “The extraction team.”
Red felt lightheaded. He leaned on the wall and rubbed an eye with his palm. “You're making it sound like these guys were professional.”
Carter squatted next to a hall table, inspecting something on its surface. “They gassed you, breached the door, and made off with a hostage. All in . . . maybe four minutes. Professional.”
“Why?”
Carter straightened and motioned Sulley to the table. “Don't have a motive. Just going by what I see. These guys were good.”
“Then why didn't they get both of us?”
“Remember the cruiser out front? Lots of holes.”
Red took a step down the hallway toward the front of the house, then leaned onto the wall again.
“Bullet holes are all over the side facing the house,” Sulley said. “The guy probably dropped Red and helped cover while they all got away. Our guy tried, but he's lucky to be alive.”
Carter pointed Sulley to a splattering of blood on the table and dots of crimson on the carpet beneath. “Our officer couldn't pursue. Car was shot up. He called in the situation, then went inside. That's when he found you,” he said, pointing to Red. He tapped the hall table. “Hit your skull on this when the intruder dropped you. Explains the gash in your head and the reason you don't remember shots. You were unconscious. Woke up after the firefight, but before our officer came in.”
“What about the getaway car?” Red asked. “Anything on that?”
Carter rubbed eyebrows. “Might have a license plate if the memory stick from the cruiser's camera is okay. Even if we run the plates, won't turn up anything. They'll be stolen. It was a newer model Toyota Camry, silver. Thousands of those out there. Not an accident.” He lifted his chin toward Red. “No, this isn't the family of those guys you killed. Think hard. Who would
want
to do this?”
Red squatted and stared. He'd never noticed how narrow the hallway was. He glanced at the scuffed paint next to the bloody handprint left as he'd steadied himself earlier. Nomadic desert, the name of the shade. Lori was so proud of it. Sounded like such an elegant color. Now it was empty. Dry. The whole home was bare, pressing, cold as stainless steel.
Something bubbled within his belly, like nervous butterflies. A resolve. “I need to get some air.”
When he passed through the front door, he paused. Pressed his fingers against the rough, freshly splintered wood where the lock bolts had been rammed through the doorjamb. He trod out to the cruiser, riddled with bullet holes, and pressed his pinky into several. The metal was cold, hard. Flecks of paint stuck to his finger. He brushed them off into the snow.
He craned his neck backwards, the black sky a backdrop for frosted breath in bitter air. Tree skeletons stood gray against a faint glow, low in the east. Soon be time for the morning run. He chuckled at the absurdity of the thought. But that's what he wanted to do. To run, to clear his head, to remember, and understand.