Chapter Seventeen
Fausta Wolff sat next to Riley in the waiting room with her head tucked under his shoulder. In one callused hand, she clutched pearl rosaries. Her lips moved silently as she prayed over each bead. Another hour crept by with no news. Riley’s patience thinned with each minute. There should have been an update by now, dammit.
He patted Fausta’s arm. “I’m going to check with a nurse.” His phone vibrated before he could leave. The cracked glass hid the first half of Kelly’s name.
Riley took a breath before he answered. “How ticked is McCleary?” he asked before she spoke.
“He has bigger shit to deal with than you,” she responded. “Our perps refused to talk. Their lawyer is from some big DC firm. We won’t get anything from them.”
Riley gently squeezed Fausta’s shoulder and pointed to his phone. “I’ll be back,” he murmured in Spanish.
“Don’t forget to check with the nurse please, mijo,” she said.
“I won’t, Tía.” He took the phone to the hallway. “What now?” he asked Kelly.
“We press on. Fingerprints came back. Two former marines, one Delta Force. None registered with FSI.”
“Nothing linked to Cole?”
“Not yet.”
“Do we know how many more are out there?”
“Porter, and at least two more unaccounted for. Can’t be many willing to go up against the FBI, not to mention men with the skills and cohesion of this team. We’re running known associates. The Department of Defense is handling military records searches. The AUSA is requesting a search warrant for FSI right now. It’ll be all hands on deck tomorrow. We’ll find them.”
“Where’s Cai?” Riley asked.
“Getting stitches. Press fucking flashed that kid’s face all over the news. Assholes. As if this case wasn’t enough of a clusterfuck.”
“Get him someplace safe.”
“I took him out of the ambulance myself. We’re at the hospital across town.”
Riley loosened his tie. “How bad were his injuries?”
“Scrapes, scratches and bruises. Nothing major. The brother has called McCleary at least twenty times, insisting on seeing him. Any advice on how to get him off our backs?”
“Talk to Austin instead, then let him deal with Peter. They’re on their way to a safehouse?”
“Yeah. McCleary scooped them up after the first call. They should be there already.”
“Peter won’t trust anything less than seeing Cai in person. Bring him to the safehouse asap.”
“I’ll bring him over there after we’re done here. How’s the good father?”
Two nurses walked by, shoes squeaking on the linoleum as they conversed over a shared chart. Riley zoned out, thinking of Cai’s big feet squeaking on his brand new flooring.
“Riles?”
“His surgery went well. We’re waiting on nerve damage tests.”
“Think he’ll be able to talk soon?” she asked.
“Should be able to, if I can convince our mothers to let me.”
“We’ll compare notes after I question the kid.”
“Cai.”
Kelly stayed silent for a few uncomfortable seconds. “Okay. Cai. Should I use the same tactic as last time?”
“No. He won’t play you the same way. You’re going to have to work for it this time. Be straight with him. He likes you, build rapport on that. If you hit a dead end, play on his guilt over putting his family in danger and getting Jeremy shot. Or his guilt about putting me in danger.”
“He’s asking for you. Threatening to refuse protection if you’re not assigned to him.”
“What’s McCleary say?”
“He says you can stay with him at the safe house, but you’re still off the case.”
“I’ll stay with him.”
“Yay,” she said, without a single note of joy in her tone. “Call you later.” She hung up.
Riley left the waiting room in search of a nurse or doctor.
* * *
When the clouds gobbled up the moon, Cai turned his attention from the window to the dog shivering between his legs. Fuzz’s ears were like two floppy sheets of ice. Cai tilted the vents down. “Thank you for getting Fuzz before they took him somewhere,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” Agent Marks turned the car’s heater higher and leaned toward the steering wheel to peek up at the sky. “Big storm’s coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re a very polite young man.”
“Um…Thank you?” She had a great profile for sculpting. Round cheeks, long structured brow, deep set eyes, dark skin. He moved thumbs over the dog’s fur, imagining carving the dips and curves of her lower back. “You’re…muscular?”
“That was random.”
“About as random as ‘you’re very polite’?”
“True.” She laughed, rich and deep, with her whole body.
Had she expected him to be rude? “You can’t know me by reading my file, ma’am.”
She tapped the steering wheel. “Fair enough.”
“Peter and Darryl were very strict with me. We couldn’t have social workers or nosy teachers looking into us. Being polite was a necessity.”
“Going to beat that dead horse until we can make hamburgers with it?”
“Um…sorry?” He grimaced.
“I can’t comprehend a twelve-year-old and fourteen-year-old raising an eight-year-old properly. Sounds like a chaotic upbringing with two caregivers barely more mature than you.”
“I was just telling Father Jeremy how arbitrarily people assign ideas and thoughts to someone based on a number. Twelve. Fourteen. Here’s some more random numbers. Peter held his first gun at ten and Darryl watched his father strangle his mother to death at thirteen.” Cai figured that’d shut her up for a minute while he tried to figure out why she’d switched how she talked to him.
“Do you think you might have made better choices with better role models?”
Cai’s spine stiffened. “Do you think your kid might make better choices if you weren’t working every night and were at home with her instead?”
“I see we’re giving up on politeness,” she threw right back with a sardonic smile twisting her lips.
“Sorry.” He sighed at himself again. He wasn’t sorry. Peter and Darryl had done their best. She had no right. But at least she was speaking to him like an adult for a change. Why wasn’t she mad? Anyone would have been angry by what he said. Well, anyone but Riley. Why wasn’t she rising to his bait? Then it hit him. “Establishing rapport. Building trust? That’s what you’re doing, right?”
“We’re going to be around each other a lot. Seems prudent to build trust. You’re the one who said I can’t get to know you by reading your files. Also, believe it or not, I haven’t had time to read all your files. I’m not sure there is enough time to do that.”
“I liked it better when you were direct. You don’t want to ‘know me’, you want to know how to manipulate me, and you want to know if I’m dangerous.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind you’re dangerous. I’m trying to figure out your moral code, if you have one.”
“I’d never beat a horse, if that helps. Not even a dead one.” People seemed at ease knowing he wouldn’t hurt an animal on purpose. Weird, considering he wouldn’t think twice about beating some humans to hamburger.
“Is that true about Daniel witnessing his mother’s murder?”
“Darryl,” Cai corrected. “He doesn’t like Daniel. None of us want to remember our old lives. Our old names. And yes, it’s true. Why would I lie about that?”
“What happened to the father?”
“Nothing. The organization cleaned it up.”
“What do you think should have happened to him?”
“I think…” He considered telling her the truth. Considered saying that Darryl’s father should be the one beat to hamburger, but he needed to ease her mind about him. It’s not like he could explain that some bad people just needed to die. Like Riley, she was probably very black and white about these things. “I think you’ll judge me harshly for my response, so, instead of lying, I’m not going to answer that.”
Agent Marks glanced at the dog and then at his face before turning to the road. “Okay, then what happened to your cat, Mr. Strakosha?” she asked.
He wanted to tell her to call him Cai again, but Mr. Strakosha was so much better than ‘kid’. She might revert if he corrected her now. Best not to rock the boat. “Do you want the real story or the one that makes the world easier to manage?”
“I was a beat cop, then a homicide detective, Mr. Strakosha. Nothing about this world could disillusion me anymore.”
“Rachel’s mom happened to Begone. Punishment.”
“For what?”
“For refusing things a mother should never ask her daughter to do,” he said quietly. “Most of the time Rachel did what she was told, but sometimes she cried and said she didn’t want to. And then she made the mistake of bringing a kitten home. We were squatters in the room next to them. That’s how we met. We’d heard the screams and figured it was another beating. Dare grabbed a bat and then kicked the door down. Only it wasn’t just Rachel screaming.” He took comfort by scratching Fuzz’s head. “Best leave it there, Agent Marks.”
“Why, what happened to Rachel’s mother?”
“Her mother? Nothing. I just meant Rachel and Begone are fine now, why talk about the terrible things that happened to them?”
“I can handle it,” she said.
“Yes, Agent Marks, I’m sure you can. It’s me who doesn’t want to remember that night.”
They pulled up in front of a two-story country home surrounded by fallow wheat fields. The nearest buildings were far enough off that their lights were pinpoint dots. Two cars with backup agents stopped behind them, headlights blinding him in the sideview mirror.
“Are you playing me, kid? What happened to the mother? You just let her go?”
Cai clenched his fists around the leash. People like her and McCleary wouldn’t be happy until they’d confirmed their prejudgment. “I heard someone drove a nail through her brain,” he lied, his face heating.
“What happened to the mother?”
He snapped. “I don’t know. I don’t care. She hurt Rachel. She hurt Begone. I hope she choked on her own vomit!” His jaw trembled with his rage. Cold breath escaped out his nostrils. Afraid to look at her, afraid he’d lash out, he kept his eyes on the handle of the car door and wound the leash painfully tight around his fist. He spoke again only when he had control. “She OD’d. A bad batch of H.”
“Why did you really seek out Julian Thompson?”
What was she getting at? What was she looking for? He couldn’t think. Anger clouded his brain. Was that the intention of these rapid-fire questions? Trying to confuse him, taking him down a path to Begone, then Darryl and then switching to Julian in the next second. Had she purposefully angered him? A new tactic? He shook his hair over his eyes and answered with forced indifference. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You didn’t know who Julian Thompson was. Why would you go to England for a perfect stranger?”
“I was going to Europe anyway.”
“That’s not accurate. You applied for a visa weeks after you supposedly overheard the conversation between Jim Diedrich and Walter Cole. I checked the records, Mr. Strakosha.”
“Cai,” he said absently. “I was going to the Louvre. And the Vatican. And The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.” His voice sounded robotic, even to him.
“But you didn’t go to any of those places, did you? Your credit card bills only had purchases in Sweden, England, and Spain.”
Shut her down. Shut her out. He looked through the filthy window trying to find some point of interest in the barren landscape. When that didn’t work, he buried himself in memory. “I met Julian. We fell in love.” I fell in love.
With all the distractions, it took an enormous effort to keep Julian in his sights across the bar. The music punched his ear drums and the lights blazed into his eyes.
Beer made it slightly easier to withstand the multitude of assaults on his senses, but it also interfered with his meds and made him queasy. He’d ordered one to fit in but found himself sipping a second bottle and then a third while he tried the so-called ‘eye seduction’ like Rach taught him.
Apparently, he wasn’t Julian’s type. Everyone else caught Julian’s eye—female or male. They got a wink or a ‘smile. But, even after six walk-bys, Cai never got more than a glance. Unfortunately, that meant he’d have to be the aggressor.
Two hours later, he nursed his drink, while he continued practicing introductions in his head.
Should he send Rachel in? He’d used a portion of his spending money to get her here to help, but so far that ‘help’ consisted of big accusing eyes and a flapping hand from two booths away. When she mouthed, ‘Go, idiot!’, he stopped paying attention to her.
He shoved the remainder of Skittles in his mouth, then promptly gagged. Skittles and beer were a bad combination. He checked around for some place to spit it out. Which was exactly the moment Julian decided to notice him.
Oh, no.
His shoulders sank. He chewed the massive amount of candy in his mouth while scrambling for something flirty to say as Julian slid across from him into the booth.
“You look like you should be starring in porn with a lolly, Big Daddy, and a whip,” Julian said.
Cai continued to chew. Forty seconds passed in utter silence. He knew because he counted, staring at the bright red Skittles bag with a gaze that bordered on stalkerish. Sweat rolled down his temples and candy-phlegm congealed in his throat. If he could channel Dare or if he looked like Peter, they would have been somewhere private hours ago. The Skittles reduced to sugary crumbles, but he had nothing to say.
“Well, ya been achin’ for it, so, c’mon, grab your coat,” Julian said.
A half hour later, Cai ended up with his back pressed against the arm of Julian’s couch, and a warm wet tongue sliding up his neck. He still hadn’t said one word.
“Walt—” he started to tell Julian about Cole. Unfortunately, his stomach decided it was no longer a neutral party in their conversation. He hiccuped, burped, and barely managed to push Julian off before bending over and heaving the beer and a day’s worth of candy onto the wood floor.
Between retches, he coughed out apologies and tried to fight through panic to come up with a dignified exit. Julian waited until the heaves stopped and then threw him a bunch of towels, a bucket, and a devastating grin. “Clean it up. When you’re done, take your clothes off and come into the bedroom, or bugger off.”
Cai gently took the bucket and looked at the colorful disaster on the floor. “Oh, but… You want? …Why?”
“You just hurled up rainbow-vomit. How else am I to know if your boy-juice is made of glitter?”
“Mr. Strakosha? Mr. Strakosha?”
“Sorry?” The smile fell from Cai’s lips as abruptly as the vision faded.
Agent Marks sat back hard against her seat and rested her fingertips at the bottom of the steering wheel. She began to tap, slowly, rhythmically, like she was playing background for a beat poet. “Where is the disk drive?”
“What disk drive?” He’d prepared for this line of questioning. She should have stuck with questions about Julian. He might have answered offhandedly.
“The one Patrick Lemelin gave Rachel Lange. The one they think you have. The one they’re going to do anything and kill anyone to get back. Austin, Stuart, your brothers, Riley. None of them are safe because of that drive.”
“There’s no drive.” Cai’s labored breath fogged the window.
“You’d let them die? So your friend could write a story?”
“It’s not about the story. It’s about justice, Agent Marks. The FBI won’t give me that. Walter Cole went to college with the assistant director. They were in the same fraternity. He’s a former state senator. His company has military contracts which he’s received through his connections in the government. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he will probably be our next governor.”
“You’re worried we’ll let him get away with what he’s done?”
“Do you know what he’s gotten away with already? Take away his money and his power, Agent Marks, and he won’t get away with anything ever again.”
“And whatever is on that drive will accomplish that?”
It would be silly and take too much energy to keep lying about the drive. “Why else would he go this far? Why else would his men have risked staying at that church while being surrounded?”
“The FBI has more resources than you do. We could have had it opened by now.”
“Or buried by now.”
“Why are you really after Walter Cole? Did he hurt you? Your family?”
Oh, she was tricky. “Walter Cole has done nothing to me.” Not how she meant, anyway. He met her brown eyes and held them in the moonlight. Then he got out of the car and waited for her to come around. He handed off the dog to the other agents as they jogged over, and then he walked away. She said nothing else as she caught up and escorted him to the door of the safe house. He almost turned and ran the opposite way when he saw his brother sitting at the window.
A pair of shabby daisy curtains framed Peter clenching a mug on a cracked plastic table. Cai followed the pattern of freckles curled tight around the ceramic. He could paint every freckle on those hands by memory.
Peter finally had the life he’d always wanted. He had a family, a chance to go to college, a home. And now? Hiding in a neglected farmhouse miles from that life, on the run again, missing classes.
Cai rubbed the stitches in his forehead. The sharp pain morphed into a lingering burn. He stared at the doorbell with the burning sensation spreading down his throat and into his stomach. He couldn’t go in there and face them. Face what he’d done to their lives.
Agent Marks leaned across him and twisted the knob.
Cai braced himself.
The door swung open.
* * *
Hours later, two nurses wheeled Jeremy into the room where Riley waited. He put his e-reader away while the staff hooked up machines and explained how to use the emergency button and bed remote.
Jeremy looked at the vase of gardenias on the side table and popped a brow at Riley. Flowers? he mouthed.
Your mom, Riley mouthed back, shrugging while discreetly removing the card sticking out of the flowers. The skeptical squint he got said it hadn’t been all that discreet.
After the nurses left, Jeremy attempted to get the bag of clothes his mother had put next to the flowers. He swiped the air several times, reminding Riley of Begone thwacking at imaginary prey. “Did someone pick up my phone?”
“Yeah.” Riley dug the phone out and handed it over, and then sat at the end of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“They shot it? Bastards.” Jeremy sighed. “Why did you give me this? ‘sbroken.”
“That’s as close to a phone as you’re going to get until I have answers.”
“Why are you harassing me? Don’t you have a teenager to dodge? Give me your phone.” Riley tossed that over too. Jeremy picked it up with a hand bearing flakes of crusted blood. “How’d this one break? Didn’t you just get it last month?”
“Jeremy, your mom is going to boot me out of here in a few minutes. I need to ask my questions.”
“And I need to contact Sister Therese so she can take care of the parish. Then we can talk.”
Normally, Riley would go with the flow, but he had to be at the safehouse in a few hours. “Jer, I will cut off your supply of morphine if you don’t start telling me what happened today.”
“Do I get morphine?” Jeremy twisted to look, then winced and laid back down, opting to search in vain for the hospital remote. “Why aren’t you asking the one who isn’t shot and who hasn’t just come out of anesthesia?”
“Because if he lies to me one more time, I’m going to put him in handcuffs, and then I’m not responsible for what I do with him.” Jeremy’s expression had all the hallmarks that a smartass remark was about to pop out of his mouth. Riley interrupted with a warning finger and a terse, “Start with when Cai arrived.”
“After I’ve called Sister Therese.” Jeremy tried to sit up. Riley pulled the table tray over and rested his elbow on it, chin in his hand. He enjoyed the floundering for a full minute before, finally, moving the bed remote within reach. Jeremy yanked it away and pushed the button until he was sitting up. “You’re going to rack up more penance than I’d assign Judas.” While fluffing his pillows, he must have caught Riley’s grin. “You don’t even do the penance, do you?”
“Not the excessive ones you assign, no. And sometimes I say an Our Father with the words we made up in seventh grade.”
“Degenerate.”
“The story, Jeremy. I don’t have all night. Our mothers are going to barge in here soon which means I’ll hear nothing but ‘my poor baby’ and ‘this is all your fault’ for hours. I swear on my mother’s life that I will call Sister Therese personally the second I walk out the door. Now, hurry up.”
“All right. Let me think.” Guilt pricked Riley’s conscience as Jeremy winced again and rubbed his shoulder. But he needed this information. Guilt would have to wait its turn. “I found Nikolaj standing outside the church, staring at the front. He was three hours early. I don’t think he meant to come by yet because that would mean sitting through morning mass. But he must have been there a while, because Fuzz had laid down on the sidewalk. Oh, that’s right, he said Fuzz dragged him there.”
“Did you see anyone on the street? Notice any vehicles out of place?”
Jeremy scratched around the IV needle and squinted toward the foot of the bed. “It was a busy morning. Mrs. Kline was waiting with David for the school bus. They said hello. The couple who moved into the old Benson place were out walking their Lab. They waved. Lázaro stopped me to ask if the church had a leak. A few cars passed, but I couldn’t tell you what model or even what color they were, Riles.”
“Why did Lázaro ask about a leak?” Fuck. If he’d just talked to the old man...
“He said a plumber van was parked out front for a while. And then he said that kid better get inside, or he’ll catch his death. That’s when I noticed Nikolaj.”
“Did you see the truck?”
“No, sorry.”
“So, you walked up to Cai and…”
Riley took detailed notes as they went through the story, step by step. He stopped writing when Jeremy mentioned a disk drive. “He asked where it was?”
“Yes. Cai said he didn’t have it.”
“Not ‘what drive’?”
“No. He said he didn’t have it.”
“And then?”
“And then the big idiot decided to sacrifice himself.” Jeremy finished with a yawn. “That’s all I remember. Did it help?”
“Big help. Thanks. Sorry I put you through this.” Jeremy waved him off. “Get some sleep.”
Riley picked up his phone to call Kelly with the information about the drives so she could challenge Cai.
Jeremy yawned widely and then murmured, “Did you really flash some woman your zucchini?”
Riley glanced up from his notes. “Did I do what?”
* * *
Peter bounded out of a chair and then crossed the tiny living room in a few strides. He tilted Cai’s chin down, then left and right. “Christ. Your face is a mess.”
“It’s just scratches,” Cai replied, gently twisting out of Peter’s grasp as Agent Marks sidled into the room.
Peter’s face went from concerned to ice. “You can go. He’s safe with us.”
“I’d be happy to wait outside.”
“Petya,” Zhavra Dyachenko yanked Peter’s ear lobe as she walked by him. “This is not how my son will treat people.” She gripped Cai’s cheeks in her large hand and turned his face to the light, tsking and squeezing until he released an embarrassing squeak from the pain. “Nikolaj, what have you done?” she asked in Russian, pulling him in for a closer inspection. Apparently, he was a doll that people could just move around as they saw fit.
“I want you to leave,” Peter said to Agent Marks.
“I’m not staying,” Cai said, gently pushing his brother back. “You insisted on seeing that I’m all right, or I wouldn’t have come at all. It’s better for all of us if I’m somewhere else. Think about Stuart.”
Zhavra grabbed Peter’s heavy winter coat off the rack. She tossed it to him like it was tissue-paper. “Go outside. You will wake my grandson with your fighting and yelling.”
Cai rolled his eyes at the idea of them yelling. Peter never raised his voice. At least, not to Cai. They were due an explosion, but his brother would never let it happen.
He followed Peter through a cozy kitchen and outside into a yard surrounded by a six-foot high wooden fence. Agent Marks trailed them, giving Zhavra a polite nod as she passed by to stand behind the screen door. It bounced closed just inches from her face. That didn’t faze her either. Her gaze followed the fence around the yard and then settled on Cai and Peter. There was enough distance that she couldn’t hear them...he hoped.
Peter cupped his hand over a cigarette and lit up. “What’d you tell the feds?”
Cai plucked the cigarette from his lips and tossed it in the snow. “Only what they needed to know.”
Peter took out his cigarette pack and crushed it in one fist. He huffed, then tossed the package in the trash can under the eaves. The lid fell closed with a bang. “Okay. Where’s Julian?”
“Dunno.”
“What do you know? What the hell were you doing there?”
“I took the dog for a walk. It wasn’t my fault.”
“It never is.” Peter felt in his pockets and then hissed another breath at the trash can. “You need to stay here. We need to stay together. Goddammit, Cai!”
Here we go. Something finally got him mad. Maybe they’d have a real conversation. Anger rushed in to smother Cai’s shame. “Say it, Rabbit.”
His brother sighed, visibly letting his anger go, and combed his fingers through his hair. “I was just getting used to being ‘Peter’,” he said.
“Can you just...can’t you...” Cai almost drove his hands through his hair in frustration, but it was so much like Peter, he stopped himself.
“Hey.” His brother stepped forward and cupped Cai’s neck. “We’ll work it out.”
“Why do you treat me like I’m eight years old?” Cai screamed and pushed away. “Get mad at me! Get...something! Besides coddling and condescension!”
“I can’t!” Peter felt his pockets and clenched his fists.
“Why? Because I’m too unbalanced? Crazy?”
“Because you react, Cai! You react and damn the consequences!”
Cai reeled back, the wind searing tears into his eyes as he stared, unblinking. Is that what Peter thought would happen if he got mad at him? “You...you think I would hurt you?”
“Not me.” Peter strode forward and pushed Cai’s sleeves toward his elbow. Grabbing one wrist, he held up a scarred arm. “When it’s me you’re pissed at, you jam a knife into your skin and split it open from wrist to neck!”
Cai tried to jerk his arm back, but his brother held it with an iron grip. “I—”
“Or you douse yourself in turpentine and try to light yourself on fire! I can’t afford your anger. No one can! Does he know? Does he have any idea what you will do to yourself when he makes you angry?”
“That’s The Crazy. It’s not because of anything you did or didn’t do, Rabbit. I thought you understood. Now that my meds are fixed…” He squinted as Peter let go of him and turned away. When Cai had hurt himself in the past, his hypomania had been ramping up for weeks. It had nothing to do with anger. Why was Peter on this tangent? First worried about Cai’s self-harm and now about Riley? You react and damn the consequences. Cai looked around and remembered that he’d upended Peter’s life again, made him flee his home, and put him in danger. “This isn’t just about that. This is about Uncle Nikki. I ruined your life once, now I’m doing it again.”
“You need to tell that agent—”
“Do you hate me, Rabbit? Just a little?” Cai blinked as the wind whipped hair into his eyes. He’d never wanted anything more than he wanted this fight.
“I love you, Cai. You know that. Don’t say stupid shit.” Peter looked at the door, his blue eyes narrowing to slits at Agent Marks. “She’s gonna ask why you did it. They’re all gonna ask.”
“And you want to know what I’m going to say, Rabbit? I told them the how, but you’re afraid of the why. Is that it? Are you wondering if I’m a psychopath, too?”
Austin came up behind Agent Marks and distracted her with whatever he said. Peter yanked Cai further away from the door and pushed him into the dark side of the house. “Didn’t I just say not to say something stupid? Then you go and say something stupid!”
All this time Cai thought he’d been justified. Had he been wrong?
Peter couldn’t lie to him. Cai would read it in his face. If he told the whole truth, Peter would never be able to hide what he really thought.
“Uncle Nikki thought you were weak,” Cai said, under his breath. “Because daddy had taken me with him on the job, and I was just fine. But you? Couldn’t even handle a gunshot. Smallest amount of blood and you were crying, throwing up. He kept saying it. I made you weak. I made you weak. Weak. Weak. Weak! But I couldn’t make you weak if I was dead.”
“I was handling it! I wasn’t going to do what he wanted. I would never hurt you,” Peter ground out. “Dare ‘n me went to the FBI that fucking night!” Cai looked up, his mouth pinching, eyes hard. Peter’s mouth opened in an unvoiced reply. Fear and horror radiated from his expression. “You knew.”
“They would have taken you away from me,” Cai whispered, his anger cracking under the pressure of fear and guilt. “They would have split us up. He was a bad man. He was. I promise he was.” Cai frantically searched his jacket for sugar. After finding a bag, he poured a handful of Skittles into his palm.
“That is a child’s argument, Cai. It’s not okay!”
“I was a child!”
Peter grabbed his arms and shook him. The candy emptied out into the snow. “This is why you can’t be around someone like Riley. You need to stay away from him!”
“Yo, Inappropriate-Timing Twins,” Austin called out from the doorway. Neither Peter nor Cai looked at him. “Not that I don’t enjoy these chats you two decide to have amidst every crisis, but A, Stuart can hear you through the window above and B, can we worry about current murderers before we discuss Cai’s lack of moral development?”
“You stay here. Got it?” Peter’s finger struck his chest.
Cai didn’t answer him. He broke from their locked gazes and replied to Austin instead. “What happened to your eye?”
“Darryl. I met him to assure him everyone was okay.” Austin said. “And he took what I said wrong.”
“What’d you say now?” Peter asked.
“Nothing. He saw the news and considered bringing Julian to us.” Austin shrugged. “I simply stated that he would be the obvious choice to keep Julian safe at the moment, seeing as how it’d be more dangerous to us if they were here.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “How did you ‘state’ it?”
“I may have mentioned that the English prefer being ruled by a prissy old queen.”
“You had contact with Julian Thompson, Mr. Glass?” Agent Marks stepped forward.
Austin held up a piece of paper. Agent Marks took it and disappeared into the house with her phone against her ear.
“You just told her where they are?” Cai took two steps before Peter grabbed his arm.
“After what I just heard? Damn right.” To Peter Austin said, “Stuart needs you.”
“In a minute.”
“Pete, he heard everything you two just said.”
“Shit.” Fear and worry manifested in the glassiness of Peter’s blue eyes and his hesitation to leave. Austin came out and whispered in his ear. Peter turned to Cai. “Stay here. Okay? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
When it was just him and Austin, Cai stuffed his fists in his pocket, wiggling his fingers into his mittens. He stayed in the shadows, somehow feeling that’s where he belonged. The Dark was creeping in, but he’d take a little of that numbness over the guilt and shame. “How’d you find them?”
“It wasn’t hard. I told Dare you needed him. He met me and I had just enough time to stick a tracker on his truck. Then I followed him.” Austin rested his shoulder against the wall. Directly above him, the window to Stuart’s room slammed shut. “What is going on in that head of yours?”
Cai looked at the window where Peter and Stuart’s shadows momentarily crossed over the blinds. “I wish I had a ‘reply all’ button for ‘I don’t know’.”
“Bullshit,” Austin said. “Rachel told me everything. She’s terrified about what you’re doing.”
Fear pulled Cai from the shadows and close enough to whisper to Austin, “You can’t tell Peter. He—”
“Of course, I can’t. I would never tell him this.”
“Are you going to try to stop me?” Something else they both knew. If Austin wanted to stop him, he could. Some part of Cai even wanted that decision made for him.
“How could I possibly stop you? You’re nineteen. Old enough to make your own choices. I’d prefer they were less morally bankrupt choices, but at least that you moved out before you brought this shitstorm down on us. When does it end, Cai?”
“Tommy will be the end of it.”
“Will he?”
Something was wrong. “Rachel didn’t tell you anything!” Austin had never lied to him. Not even when the truth had been devastating. “You lied to me?”
“Of course, I lied to you, you little shitfucker. Did you think you held exclusive rights on lying? You involved us all in another fucking nightmare! I will do anything, anything, Cai, to keep Peter and Stuart safe, even if it means lying. Even if it means locking you up. Got it?”
“I didn’t mean to involve you.”
“Oh, well,”—Austin stalked over to him until they were nose-to-nose—“That makes it okay then! After we bailed you out of jail, paid for a trip to Europe, let you put off college, and helped you move out, you repaid us by putting our lives in danger. Again!” He grabbed Cai’s lapels and shook. “This better be goddamn important, Cai. I mean, this better be Save The Fucking World kind of important! Is it? Is that what it is? Are you saving the world, Cai?”
“I’m saving mine!”
“What does Tommy have to do with that?”
Fury pulsed through Cai. He wiped his thoughts of anything except the mixing of colors to match the night sky.
Austin released him and fixed the jacket collar around Cai’s neck. Then he adjusted the hat, pulling it over his ears. “After all we’ve given up for you.”
The tenderness had the desired effect. Cai’s anger withered under the weight of his shame. “Please understand. I can’t tell you. It’s not just about me.”
“Looks like that’s all I’m gonna get, Agent Marks,” Austin said louder. “I hope you can find out who Tommy is.”
“Yup. Think I know. Thanks,” she said from the doorway.
“Now,” Austin said coldly, “You leave with her.”
It was the kick in the gut he deserved. Cai nodded and then let Agent Marks steer him to the front door, away from the safety of his family. He drifted down the walkway, only half aware of his surroundings. The Deep Dark closed in and he wasn’t sure he wanted to resist it anymore.
Peter charged down the steps. “Where the fuck you taking him? Get the fuck off me, Austin!” As Kelly Marks shut the door to the farmhouse, Peter’s cry pierced the night, “Cai!” His voice grew hoarse and desperate. “Cai! Cai!”
* * *
“You ready, Mr. Strakosha?”
Reeling from Austin’s words, Cai stared at her without comprehension. In another timeline, he’d have raced home to create the bright shade of pink on her earmuffs. Permanent rose with white and cadmium medium yellow? Quinacridone red, too.
“Mr. Strakosha?...Cai?”
“Yes?”
“Are you ready to go?”
He stared at her until the words made sense. “Begone?”
“That’s the cat?” At his nod, she gently nudged him toward the car. “I’ll have marshals bring her here or your safe house if you prefer.” She made some gestures and the two sets of agents who had followed them returned to their SUVs.
Once they were buckled up and moving, she turned on classical music low. The Hagen Quartet played Mozart’s String Quartet No. 9. “This good?”
It was completely inappropriate for the mood, but the radio couldn’t tune in to Quartet No. 15 on demand. He wasn’t about to remind her he had his phone, let alone a playlist. “Ye—” He suddenly connected that ‘here’ and ‘safe house’ were not the same. “Sorry, you said here or my safe house. But we just left the safe house.”
“Your safe house is across town.”
“My safe house? But I’m staying with Riley.”
Her laugh came out as a literal ‘hah!’ “That you’re definitely not doing. But he can stay at your safe house.”
“I stay with Riley, or I’ll find another place to stay.” Away from the FBI’s prying eyes. He had to be where he could meet Julian and Rachel.
“You know who found you a few hours ago? Big men with resources and guns.”
“You know who saved me despite all your resources? Just one big man with a gun,” he shot back. “You aren’t going to guilt me into being around a bunch of FBI agents or cops.” What if he doesn’t want me? “If Riley doesn’t want me to stay with him, then drop me off at The Manhole downtown.”
She honked the horn and pulled onto the shoulder. “You have killers after you. After Riley.”
“Exactly why you need me with him. He’s one more agent.”
“Who will be distracted by you.”
“Nothing distracts Riley.”
“While clearing your apartment he stopped to pick up a picture frame. He defends you about murder, about manipulation, even about that cat. He can’t, or won’t, see you for what you are.”
“A psychopath?” Her too, it seemed. He was starting to believe it.
“No, a selfish, reckless brat who manipulates everyone around him, as evidenced by that show you put on back there.”
Was brat better than psychopath? “That’s not fair.” Was it?
Her phone interrupted any response. “Yeah, it’s fine. No… he’s refusing to go there. Yes, hold there and I’ll let you know.”
She clicked the phone off and tossed it back in her bag. “I—”
“Did you set that up with Austin?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think I’d done something to my cat?”
“No.”
“You manipulated me. Tried to rile me up. I’m guessing for an excited utterance or to see if I’d give you something useful.”
“Yes. I won’t apologize for doing my job.”
“And I won’t apologize for using any advantage I can!”
“There’s a difference,” she insisted. “I’m trying to save you and your friends. You are selfishly involving everyone you care about for what? Why would you deliberately put Riley in danger while at least two more killers are out there? We only have three in custody and no idea who, or how many more there are. Not to mention no one has seen or heard from Max Porter in at least a week. He’s a former Navy Seal! You don’t know where he is. What he’s planning. You have no idea what he’s doing.”
“Gee, Agent Marks,” Cai said calmly. “In all honesty, Max Porter isn't doing much of anything anymore.”