Catacomb (15 page)

“S
he’s
dead
?”

Dan pulled Abby into the closest café and Jordan followed. Coffee cups and bowls of soup had been abandoned at each of the tables. Every shop on the street stood empty. Everyone was still trying to get a look at the gruesome tragedy unfolding on the street. An ambulance siren whined, growing closer and closer.

“She just ran out into the street!” Dan dropped into a booth, pushing aside the teacups left there. “She got a text and then she just up and ran. Something spooked her.”

“That poor woman.” Abby shook her head, folding her arms on the table and leaning forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Who do you think it was?”

“I’d say it was Trax Corp., except we already know they were shut down almost twenty years ago. I don’t know. She gave me a giant stack of stuff to look through—maybe there’s something in there,” he said. He pulled the papers out for them to see, glancing at the barista to make sure they weren’t being observed. The workers were too busy clambering over the counter to get a look at the chaos outside.

“Do you have your laptop on you?” Dan asked, pulling the rubber band free from the pages.

“Obviously not. Are you crazy?”

Dan played with the rubber band for a minute, then bound the pages up again. “You’re right. We should get out of here. It’s going to be even more of a zoo when the police get here.”

They slipped through the ring of rubberneckers, the whispers rising around them like a hushed tide. An ambulance had arrived, and EMTs were shoving would-be helpers out of the way to get to the body. They were unfolding a stretcher on the cobbles as Dan turned the corner on the block. It didn’t matter how quickly they transferred Maisie to a hospital; he had seen the body, and he was certain there was no saving her.

“I know this goes without saying,” Abby whispered as they speed walked back to Steve’s apartment building, “but this might be a sign that you shouldn’t dig any further into this Trax Corp. thing.”

“I’m with Abby. I have to live in this city now, Dan. I don’t want it to get weird here.”

“It’s already weird,” Dan muttered. “And anyway, I have these files of hers now. What do you want me to do, throw them away?”

“Maybe!” Jordan shouted, stopping at the foot of the building stairs while Dan sprinted up them. “Just think about it. This was trouble enough to put your parents on the run. They were fugitives, Dan. I know they’re your parents, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe they weren’t good people?”

Dan skidded to a stop at the door, rounding on his friends staring up at him from the first step. “Yes! It
has
, actually. Considering they abandoned me, the thought had crossed my mind over and over and over again!”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, Dan, you’re not the only one here who’s been abandoned by their parents. But you don’t see either of us stomping around putting all of our lives in danger. That’s all you and your creepy Crawford ‘bloodline,’ like always.”

Dan thundered into the house, not bothering to shut the door behind him. It only stung more that Jordan had made a good point.

“Don’t you need my computer?” Jordan called, watching him discard his shoes and clomp across the foyer.

“I’ll use Steve’s!” Dan shouted, evading them, desperate to be alone.

U
ncle Steve’s office was empty. It was clear the man didn’t spend much time in there, though the ancient computer worked well enough to get him online. Dan slumped down into the office chair, slamming the stack of papers down onto the desk next to him. The fury had gone out of him. Now he just wanted quiet.

As usual, Jordan wasn’t wrong. So far Dan had very little to prove that his parents
were
decent people.

Maybe that proof was hidden somewhere in Maisie’s collected research. Most of the articles were fairly dry stuff, but Dan ate them up like a man possessed, trying to make organized piles of related stories. There was a lifeline of information in the articles somewhere, he could feel it. But it was finding that lifeline that proved the challenge.

From what he could piece together, it looked like the Trax Corp. investigation, small stakes as Maisie had told him it was over lunch, had uncovered discrepancies the company had successfully hidden up until that point. Dan reopened the articles in order, going back and starting from the beginning.

Trax Corp. Exec Fails to Make the Numbers Add Up
Trax Corp. Hopes to Revive Image with Charity and Outreach
What Is Trax Corp. Hiding in Troy?

Dan read that last article again. A quick skim wasn’t enough. His parents had risked everything over this investigation—enough to drive them to a life on the run from authorities.

For a long moment, he closed his eyes, allowing those thoughts to subside. He plunged back into the article and tried to be as calm and objective as possible. “Sources” had led Maisie Moore to believe that Trax Corp. was smuggling untested, experimental pharmaceuticals to treatment centers and hospitals all over the country. This was worrisome, she concluded, because not only were those drugs not regulated or approved by the FDA, but without proper documentation, there was no telling how long the company had been profiting from the operation off the balance sheets.

Though none of the shipping manifests list the contraband drugs, Trax Corp. has close ties to suppliers like AGI and the Cambridge Group. When reached, neither AGI nor the Cambridge Group agreed to comment for this story.

Dan opened a browser tab and searched for AGI, which turned out to be a now-bankrupt company that acted as a central distribution and logistics center for Kentucky-based hospitals. The Cambridge Group was still in business, he
found, and at last, he thought, reading their company statement, he had found his lifeline.

Proudly serving New England hospitals and facilities since 1962.

He was breathless as he followed the rabbit hole of the Cambridge Group’s history. They didn’t seem to care about hiding it—it only took a perfunctory search of their accolades and awards to find a credible listing of the specific hospitals that had used them for distribution, buying everything from hospital gowns and bedpans in the old days to supplies like iodine, penicillin, lithium.

Worcester State Hospital, Danvers State Hospital, Metropolitan State . . .

And Brookline.

Dan stared at the word, feeling for all the world like he had been slapped hard across the face. Mentally he traced the map of the hospitals on the list—Missouri, Chicago, then east to New Hampshire and Brookline. It could be a coincidence, he allowed, or it could be the one other bond besides blood linking him to his parents.

He started, hearing his phone buzz noisily across the room. Dan closed down the articles and browser tabs, rubbing his sleep-deprived and screen-addled eyes.

His relief that the message wasn’t from Micah was short-lived.

Thanks for passing along your number. This is Oliver. Think you can meet this afternoon? I found something you might want to see.

Dan sighed, squishing his face down into his cupped hands and breathing until he could muster the energy to respond. Maybe it had been a mistake to give Oliver his number. But
he wasn’t about to blunder into another creepy séance for no damn reason.

“What did you find?”
he texted back.
“I’m supposed to be having fun while I’m here, not playing detective.”

Here’s a pic. Any relation?

It took a minute for the photo to load, but once it did, Dan felt his stomach drop out. He knew who they were. Oliver didn’t need to send a follow-up message, but he did.

Cleaning. Found in Dad’s old desk. Could be wrong, but it looks like you.

He looked younger, happier, than the echo of the man Dan had seen in the Arlington School. But it was definitely the same man, and it was as if Dan was looking at his own face, but more mature, with a tidy dark goatee and a suggestion of dimples under the sharp cheekbones. The woman next to that man was looking over her shoulder, slightly off-camera, her dark red hair bouncing over one shoulder. Well, now he knew where he’d gotten his pointed chin.

“Why did your dad have that?”
Dan texted back, shaking.
“Why did he have a picture of my parents?”

D
an managed to slip out the door without alerting Jordan or Abby.

As he crept down the hall and made his way silently down the stairs, he heard soft music coming out from under the door of the guest bedroom. Abby and Jordan were probably in there complaining about him right now.
Well, fine
.

Dan followed the directions on his phone, heading southeast down Decatur toward the heart of the Quarter. He passed row after row of low, two-story buildings with businesses occupying the first floors and housing sitting above. The colors alternated between brown, darker brown, and then peach, brown, brown, peach.

Heavy clouds gathered overhead, making it feel later than it was. The humidity from earlier had only intensified, and the first sprinklings of rain darkened the sidewalks, sending pedestrians huddling under well-used umbrellas.

It was a longer walk than he expected, and Dan couldn’t help glancing behind him as he hurried down the blocks; maybe it was lingering fear from being followed and photographed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

A line out the door greeted him at the hip little coffee joint where Oliver had wanted to meet—something called Spitfire
that had a small, simple sign hanging from the walkway over the greenish-black door. Trying to poke his head inside, Dan nearly ran headlong into Oliver and Sabrina.

“Hey there,” Oliver said, handing Dan a to-go cup. “Not many places to sit inside. We can head to the square and find a bench.”

Dan didn’t argue, openly staring at the folder tucked under the boy’s arm. The picture of his parents was inside, and he didn’t care if they made him run a marathon through the city, he would get his hands on it.