Chapter 15 Cal #2
Slovenly but sharp had been Cal’s impression. Agent Kranski would show up late to meetings in wrinkled suit jackets stinking of Pall Malls and meatball subs. He got the job done, though. That counted for more than the slick special agents murdered out in black and with an almighty ego to match.
“Agent Kranski was investigating Burt Shaw’s death. He was at Mr. Dauer’s party for unrelated business.” Agent Bright paused a beat. “Unfortunately, he didn’t survive.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Look, I don’t mean to be crass, but what was there to investigate?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m sure you already know that the Velascos have reorganized at the top.”
That was a delicate way to put it. Philippe and his deputy were executed in brutal fashion.
For the remaining ranks, it should’ve been a violent scramble to the top.
Instead, someone had orchestrated a stunning and orderly transfer of power.
Cal had never seen anything like it. Even the hand-off from Liam Moriarty to Emory Holt had its growing pains and a few flickers of discontent from other captains.
“What about it?” Cal asked.
“Burt was tangled up in things he shouldn’t have been.
He knew about the Velasco overthrow before it happened and likely knew the identity of the man involved, the one holding power now.
I understand your daughter interned for Burt.
Did she ever mention anything to you about the work she did, anything she might’ve seen? ”
Cal stared through the sliding glass door. The backyard was dark, and the shadowed trees bobbed with the breeze. He drew the vertical blinds shut and killed the box fan. The house went deathly quiet as he paced the kitchen.
“She rarely talked about it. What does she have to do with this?”
Soft static filled the line. Cal pulled the phone from his ear. The call timer ticked along for three, four, five seconds more.
“Amelia saw the information Burt uncovered about the Velascos and—”
“That’s why she’s running.”
Cal collapsed to the chair not unlike the night the medical examiner called with the news. Yes, the remains were Helen. No, he’d have to wait a few more days to collect her.
“Running,” Agent Bright repeated incredulously. “You think your daughter is alive?”
The question was innocent, but Cal was heartsick and tired and doing his level-best to keep it together.
He’d made the phone calls, picked the hymns, assigned the readings, lit the candles, minded the flowers weeping petals to the living room floor.
He’d said hello to distant friends, tolerated stupid stories, and amassed condolences that boiled down to the same fucking sentiment.
Be strong, Cal. Be brave. Smile. Heal. Move on. She’s dead. They both are. She’s dead. Your baby is dead.
“No, I don’t think!” Cal erupted with his fist pounding the table.
“I know she is. I know it like I know my wife died a cruel, senseless death. I understand the crime scene is still being processed, that most victims won’t be identified for weeks, if ever at all.
I’ve got the Portland police telling me it’s pointless to open a missing persons investigation, and now you’re implying she was targeted because of some stupid internship she never wanted in the first place, one I pushed her into.
So, which is it, Agent Bright—is Amelia in danger, or am I a moron for believing my girl is alive? ”
“Woah, woah. Cal, listen,” Agent Bright broke in and departed with the polished facade. “I believe you. I do. I think Amelia is alive.”
Dizzy again, Cal steadied himself against the table. “You do?”
“Yes, and I want to help you find her. Do you know where she might’ve gone, where she would’ve run to if she knew she was in danger?”
“I don’t know.” Cal raked his fingers through his hair, still at a loss no matter how often he asked himself that question.
“But I don’t think Brian Burrows’s death was a coincidence.
He was Amelia’s best friend and at that party.
They must’ve been together at the motel.
That boy who worked there, the clerk, he would know for sure. ”
“Well, if he wakes up,” Agent Bright replied gravely. “The doctors say it’s not looking good. I asked the sheriff’s office to go back to the motel and search the area. They found a pair of bloody pliers on the side of a nearby road. It looked like a struggle.”
“She was taken?”
“Possibly.”
Cal’s elbows dug into the table’s wood grain, and he cradled his forehead in his hand. When he didn’t speak again, Agent Bright continued with urgency lacing his voice.
“I have more to share, but it’s better if we talk in person. In the meantime, I really think you should get out of Portland. Do you have any family you can stay with?”
The question stung. Cal’s brother and only sibling, his parents, in-laws, and his wife were all dead, and Amelia was missing. I’m alone.
“I appreciate the concern,” Cal said. “I’ll think about it.”
Cal hung up the call with a promise to stay in touch and began his nightly ritual of turning off the lights and trudging upstairs.
And where he normally hurried past Amelia’s shuttered bedroom door, he stopped at it now.
Someone had shut it. He didn’t know who, only that it was a kind gesture from one of his friends.
Cal cracked it open, and grief followed him in like the house guest that never left.
The bed was unmade, and Amelia’s phone sat on the nightstand plugged into the charger. He wouldn’t dare see how many times he’d called, how many frantic messages he left.
His fingertips swept over her notebook of poems, but her brush, of all things, did him in. Perhaps it was the strands of red hair colored just like her mother’s or how it’d been tossed to her bed as though she were coming right back.
She’s not coming back.
With that thought, Cal collapsed with the weight of sorrow and regret.
On his hands and knees, he glimpsed a moving box labeled ‘Family Memories.’ Bile hit the back of his throat.
Cal dashed to the bathroom and vomited up the potatoes.
He cleaned himself up, then went to his office and turned on a record for sonic relief.
He laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling as “Wish You Were Here” ripped at his heart. Quiet tears trailed over his cheekbones and gathered warm in his ear. He reset the needle and did it all over again as the hours passed him by.
At a half-past midnight, Cal crawled into bed but tossed in a twilight state of sleep.
It wasn’t the vacant space next to him or Amelia’s empty bed down the hall that kept him up.
Without the air conditioner’s white noise, every sound roused him—a creak then a thump, the gust of wind, the tick of his watch. Cal checked the time.
2:32 AM.
He gripped the sheets, afraid of the dark for the first time since childhood and explained away the sounds.
The creaks were just the house settling.
It was nearly three decades old. And the groans?
The wind had picked up. As for the thumps, well, he didn’t know about that.
Maybe a tree limb had shaken loose. Just as that thought came and went, a tremendous crash slammed against the deck outside.
Cal shot up in bed. His heart pounded as he threw open the nightstand drawer and pulled out his loaded gun. He crept to the window and dropped to his knees to peek at the deck below.
The motion sensor light was on, but no one was there. No shadows moving about. No animals dumbfounded in the light.
Cal stood and slid into his loafers. Downstairs, he clutched his gun and stared out the sliding glass door.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
He stepped outside as the wind picked up again and scrutinized the tree line. Curiosity trumped fear, and Cal walked down into the yard, but the hair on his arms stood on end as he scanned the woods. Still, there was nothing, just the swaying silhouettes of trees.
I’m being watched.
Someone lurked out there. It moved in the shadows, and he stared into the face of something he couldn’t see. The motion light clicked off and plunged Cal into darkness. The sensation creeping over him intensified.
They’re coming.
Cal dashed inside. He slammed the sliding glass door shut and flipped the lock. After a beat of panicked silence, he heard it.
The record player.
Upstairs, “Wish You Were Here” blared and brought with it a cold shock of terror. Sick with heartache, he almost sprinted to his office.
Don’t go up there, Cal. Whatever you do, don’t go up there, a voice warned within.
He bolted through the laundry room, into the garage, and yanked at the car’s door.
Locked, it was locked.
Keys.
He needed the keys.
Cal bounded back inside. His palms collided against the kitchen table, and he upended stacks of paper that tumbled to the floor.
Music blasted through the house in an awful symphony. Delirious with fear, Cal’s vision blurred, but his hands met his keys, and he snatched them up along with his wallet before sprinting to the garage.
With the car in reverse, he jammed the accelerator and sent empty trash bins sailing through the air as he peeled from the driveway. He watched in horror as Amelia’s bedroom light flashed on, and the drapes rustled in the window.
Cal fled Portland. He ran from a threat that had no name or true manifestation beyond the unearthly terror it imparted. He understood something of his daughter’s fear, the reason she ran from home.
Cal had no choice but to do the same.