Weavers (24 page)

CHAPTER 55

Darryl was working on Robert’s mind like an archaeologist slowly brushing the dirt off of an ancient fossil.
The trick was to learn everything about Robert’s scam, to learn the kid’s limitations, and to never let Robert suspect the thoughts he was having were anyone’s but his. It was hard work and slow going, but Robert was special. Darryl had bludgeoned himself over and over about just how much money and time had been wasted by the way he’d burned through Vincent, and it wasn’t a mistake he intended to make twice. Robert was going to be the perfect project, one that would see them to a massive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Darryl was so involved with the work that he no longer felt frustrated with their small apartment or bleak circumstances. The cops were looking for them, but Robert was going to lead the way to salvation. There might be a top-secret government task force headed their way, but Robert was the key that could lock all of those problems away, never to be seen again. Darryl knew he was leaning too hard on the possibilities presented by the faraway boy and his magic brain, but he didn’t care. The sands of Mexican beaches still called to him in a way that no place on earth ever had, and now he knew that someday he would live in such a place again.

It had been weeks since Darryl had taken a drink, enough time that he was starting to wonder what the appeal had been in the first place. Terry had been clean, too, though his friend mostly stayed in his room and just sat quietly. Darryl thought he knew why. Terry was coming down from a mean bender of hatred and probably had a lot to think about. Darryl had filled him about to the brim with ugly medicine, and Terry had to have been reeling from the hangover.

Still, quiet or not, at least Darryl knew that Terry wasn’t out killing. Neither had left the apartment alone, and Darryl made sure that even their dual supply runs happened as rarely and quickly as possible. Darryl had certainly never wanted to live in a place like North Harbor, but it had just felt right. And so far the instincts he had grown to trust had delivered once again: the apartment complex was proving to be a fine place to put their feet up and go incognito.

Currently, Darryl was a few hundred miles away and watching as his new recruit checked in on his scam, Darryl frankly a bit jealous of the kid’s ingenuity. The kid was grifting on a far grander scale and at a far younger age than Darryl ever had, and he was even proud of him in a weird way. Of course, Darryl wasn’t visiting Robert to steal a password or to admire the boy from afar; he was there to begin making inroads of suggestion that would allow him to work the boy like a puppet when the time came. Darryl had never been in someone else’s mind so frequently or for such long stretches of time, and it was fascinating to be in so deep. He watched through Robert’s eyes as the boy checked his pilfered deposits for the day and then closed down the browser before leaving his room.

With Robert untethered from his machine, Darryl slipped back into himself before his own computer and considered again his endgame for the Robert project. It was pretty simple. When he was ready, he was going to order Robert to do something, and he was going to order it in such a way that it felt to Robert like his own wild idea, not one thrown into his mind by someone like Darryl. If that worked, Darryl figured he and Robert would have a lengthy working relationship. Worst-case scenario, however, Darryl had prepared himself for the possibility that he might have to content himself with a slash-and-burn sort of plan. Some horses aren’t meant to be broken, and Robert could very well be one of them.

If that proved to be the case, though, Darryl wouldn’t be happy with the pittance he’d extracted from Vincent. No, Darryl would make the boy gather all of the money from his parents’ accounts, along with those of the insurance company clients his dad was even tangentially connected to, and then have all of that money wired to an offshore account. This would amount to a payday of satisfying, if not staggering proportions—enough to ease the pain of having to dispose of the kid.

Still, Darryl preferred not to dwell on such a dark contingency. Though it was much harder to work with a scalpel than a club, Darryl was already discovering that using the blade offered a whole new sort of reward.

CHAPTER 56

“I’m never going to do it again,” said Cynthia, and Mrs. Martin only nodded in answer.

Cynthia had been dying for the past two days to see the older woman—two days spent in the hospital, at the police station, and finally, at a firearms store, where Mom had looked into buying a gun and settled on pepper spray due to the cost. There were a million questions Cynthia had wanted to ask her mother, but she had asked none of them. Mom was heartbroken—Cynthia could see it in her eyes—and Cynthia knew that Mom thought it might have been her fault as well as Dad’s. Right now, Cynthia didn’t care about fault or anything else. She needed to find out from Mrs. Martin why she hadn’t been able to make Dad calm down.

When Mrs. Martin didn’t respond the first time, Cynthia repeated herself. “I won’t,” she insisted. “I won’t do it again.”

“Maybe you will and maybe you won’t,” said Mrs. Martin. “If I had to guess, I’d say there are a great many young people who choose to stop weaving at a young age and never take up the mantle again.”

“Why?”

“Because they decide what they are doing is wrong or just a weird game of make-believe,” said Mrs. Martin. “Most of them wind up drinking too much, or taking pills, or going to the hospital over it, but I’m sure there are some perfectly happy people out there who know what they are and simply choose to ignore it.”

Mrs. Martin took a drag on her cigarette, then fixed her eyes on Cynthia’s. “Did I tell you that something similar to what happened with your father happened to me once?”

“No,” said Cynthia, her mouth twisting in confusion. Cynthia knew that she could do things that Mrs. Martin could not, but she had still never considered the idea of her teacher being beaten back like she had been. “I couldn’t do anything,” said Cynthia, hating the whine in her voice. “I couldn’t do anything at all at first, and then when he ran at Mr. Fisher, I knew I had to do something, but nothing that you taught me worked. He was so angry, so mean, and when I tried to weave him, it hurt. It made me feel sad inside, like there was something wrong with me.”

“Doing bad things can make you hurt, and sometimes doing good things for a person who is very sick can make you hurt as well. Your father was very angry, so he was not, I’m sure, considering the consequences of his actions. It would have been hard for anyone to rein in.”

Cynthia nodded but was barely listening after the word “consequences.” Mom had said the same thing on the phone and at the police station: Dad was still out there somewhere, likely more mad than ever about the loss of his house and family.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me,” said Cynthia. “That part was my fault. I think he meant to hurt Mr. Fisher and anyone else who got in his way, but I don’t think he wanted to.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you, dear, but he hurt you all the same,” said Mrs. Martin. “Your threads will lose the black soon enough—you’re young—though I think it will be best to leave it where it is and keep the memory of what happened fresh in your mind. The scars you wear will be a good reminder that we are not comic book heroes.”

“Then what are we?”

“We are Moirai, just like I’ve told you since the beginning,” said Mrs. Martin. “We control what we can when we can, but we can cut whoever we like. Do you understand what I mean, Cynthia?”

Cynthia nodded, not sure that she did, but not sure she wanted Mrs. Martin to explain. She did, anyway.

“We can cut the threads of any man or woman we choose,” continued Mrs. Martin, “but we are the ones who bear those consequences, and sometimes we can be wounded, even if we cut for the wrong reasons. There is more to it all, of course—there are things that you will only understand later—but for now, just remember: to keep yourself safe, you can be a blade. I can’t even imagine how easy it would be for someone with your powers to reap.”

“I can’t do that,” said Cynthia. She liked Mrs. Martin, cared for her intensely now that she was one of the only people Cynthia interacted with, but this was too much.
She’s telling me to kill Dad
,
thought Cynthia, and not only was the suggestion repellant, it was impossible. Cynthia didn’t even like to step on ants. She couldn’t hurt her dad, could hardly imagine doing something worse than that.

Seeing the distress on her face, Mrs. Martin said, “Cynthia, you mistake what I’m saying. I am telling you what you can do, dear, not something that you must do. You have great powers in your young mind and a great heart, and the last thing I would want is for you to be corrupted, but—”

“But if I need to protect myself, I can,” said Cynthia slowly. She still couldn’t imagine doing it, but Mrs. Martin was right. It was good to know she could if she needed to.

“Remember the old story,” said Mrs. Martin. “There were three sisters—the spinner, the drawer, and the cutter—all tasked with different parts of controlling how long a person should live. But I think the reality is different. I think the real Moirai were all just cutters and that the other two jobs were invented long after the Moirai themselves were dead. There are powerful people in this world who would hurt you because of what you are, Cynthia, and when I speak of using your abilities to cut, I’m talking about them.”

“Why would anyone want to hurt me?”

“Because they are scared of you, my child,” said Mrs. Martin quietly. “Do you think that what you said earlier is still true—that you will never do it again? Or have you learned another lesson?”

Cynthia thought about that. “I won’t stop being what I am, but I won’t mess around anymore, not if I can really hurt people.”

Mrs. Martin smiled and then bent across the table to pat the top of Cynthia’s hand. “There is still time for fun, but being a weaver and being safe is hard work. You must be careful, with both yourself and others.”

CHAPTER 57

Jessica walked into the conference room, where Howard waited for her.
The bravado she kept on display for her net-researching kids was gone. Now she felt like the tired little old lady who she was so scared of becoming. This wasn’t a bad hair day; this felt like the dissolution of her as a person.

When she had sat heavily across the table from Howard, he said, “So, do you want to tell me why you brought me here?”

“I need to clarify some things,” said Jessica. “My project isn’t offtrack yet, but it could get that way, and fast. I need your assurance that you still have faith in me.”

Howard nodded, stood, then walked to the drink cart and stared at it for a moment before removing a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. “Do you know who keeps us supplied with this stuff?”

“I’ve never really thought about it.”

“We have a budget, set by your father, of ten thousand dollars a month for liquor,” said Howard. He scanned the room. “Don’t you ever wish these walls could talk? I was in Research back then, you were only a field agent, so we missed those big decisions by those old Knights of the Round Table.”

She hadn’t called him here for a stroll down memory lane, but he was right, of course. Presidents had sat at this very table and brokered deals. Her father sat here and negotiated the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution just four months before he dropped dead of a heart attack.

“Those were men of action,” said Howard, returning the bottle to the cart and then walking back to his seat. “Now, with all of the regulations we’re forced to operate under and the very justified fear of having our efforts laid bare for the world to see, we’re constantly hamstrung. That was the golden age.”

“I have a million dollars in the wind right now,” said Jessica. “Is that playing fast and loose enough for you?”

“I guess I should mention that I knew that,” said Howard with a sigh. “And I suppose I should have poured us a pair of drinks when I was at the cart.”

“No need. I can take my licks sober.”

“No punishment—not in the TRC, not for a Hockstetter. What do you think the world is coming to?”

“Knock it off. Can we get to it?”

Howard stood and returned to the cart anyway and this time poured them each a few fingers, neat. He placed her glass before her, set his own in front of his place at the table, and then sat. “All right. The money.” He took a drink, appeared to enjoy the bourbon’s trip down his throat, and then looked at her. “Is it still something we can get back, or have they transferred it offshore?”

“It’s not gone,” said Jessica, her own drink untouched. “Right now it’s in a Grand Cayman account that we can access, but that could change at any minute.”

“Assuming it hasn’t exited yet, could you call your geeks and have them retrieve the money?”

“Of course. In a matter of minutes. But then the game would be up,” said Jessica. “We are making some headway.”

“We’ll come back to the money. I like headway. Tell me about headway.”

“Well,” she said, “headway might be overselling it, but we can absolutely verify that at least one of these men is still in the lower peninsula of Michigan and that he’s been active on the web.”

Howard nodded, then made a show of taking a drink and another of slowly placing the glass on the desk between them before looking up at her. “Including the girls they killed in Mexico, these two are responsible for eleven deaths in the past few months,” said Howard. “Eleven. Eleven is enough that we might have been called in regardless of a TK being involved or not. We need these men captured, Jessica.”

Parched from his little speech, Howard drank again, then shook his head and continued. “Another thing. I want these men brought in, but I don’t want them for the TRC. I want them here so I can have them exterminated.”

Jessica had to tell herself to close her mouth. She’d let her jaw drop open. “Howard,” she said, “we can’t do that. You heard Herm. This whole program is predicated on our success. Unless you’re planning on executing these men yourself out back by the Dumpster, they’re not going to sign off on anything like that.” Jessica grabbed her glass, drained half of its contents, and then set it back on the table. “I’m willing to let this play out, but I will call a board meeting, Howard.”

“We haven’t had a true board meeting since the Mogadishu conflict,” said Howard. “Do you really think they’d even agree to gather over something so obvious? Take off the blinders.”

“Christ, is this ever ass backwards?” said Jessica. “I came here to beg you to let this thing go on and to give me the room that I need to run my operation. You tell me that’s fine but that when I succeed, you’re going to execute the people that I bring in. Howard, is that the only bottle you’ve been drinking from?”

“I don’t care about the money, and you can call whatever meeting that you want. I already know the answer. I just want you to know that I back every single part of this mission, but I will fight you when it comes to bringing these men in as TKs. They’re not that special. Not every dog gets adopted, Jessica. There are a lot of strays that get put down. These are two of them.”

“Board meeting, Howard,” said Jessica.

“Best of luck,” said Howard.

Jessica wanted to tell him that the joke was on him. They weren’t even close to finding these men and nailing this thing down.