Abandoned

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Honey-love!”

“Boss woman!”

“Smoky!”

Only James is silent, but his gaze lingers longer than usual. His version of a welcome, I suppose.

Alan’s arm is in a sling. Dali had been kind to him, just two bullets—one in the shoulder, one in the upper chest. Which leads me to wonder: kind to him, but not to me? Why? He knew Alan’s wounds weren’t fatal. Why tease me with the possibility?

“Not sure the chrome-dome look works for you, she-boss,” Kirby says, giving me a critical eye. “Too much fish-belly white.”

“Kirby,” Callie chides. Surreality—Callie preventing someone from giving me a hard time.

“Relax, Callie,” I say. “I’m not that fragile.”

Not while the lights are on, at least.

“Well,” Callie says.

Kirby punches Callie’s arm. “She was worried about you, that’s all. Big old softy, just as I suspected.”

“Hit me again, and we’ll see how soft I am,” Callie sniffs, tossing her hair back.

Kirby grins. “That’s my cue. I had to say hi and watch the entrance. I’ll go check on my guys now.” She stops as she’s walking by me and gives me a bump with her hip. “Maybe we’ll start calling you Nine-Finger Barrett, boss lady. Whatcha think?” She is out the door before I can offer a reply.

I’m left alone now with my team. Somberness sets in. Kirby is liked, but she’s not one of us. Time for our true faces to come out.

“Too bad about the kid,” Alan offers.

Callie sighs. “Leo was turning into a good man.”

“We won’t give him justice by talking about it,” James says, razoring over us with an impatience that’s just a little too raw. I look at him and I catch what I think is a spark of grief in his eyes. There, then gone. “Let’s find the man who did this to him. You’re our best and newest witness. What can you tell us about him?”

I will tell you everything but the one thing, the thing I saw. Why? I don’t know yet. It’s a feeling, something whispering in my subconscious.

“We’re missing something about him, who he is,” I begin. “Contradictions. The car crashes. The fingerprints. Letting Heather Hollister and me walk. If we operate on the assumption that he’s pragmatism personified, then we have to assume that all of those things are purposeful, that they serve a higher aim. The other side of the argument would be that we got it all wrong to begin with.”

I tell them everything I can remember about my incarceration. I leave out the specifics of the sun-drenched meadow and the theological debates with my baby.

“Again,” James muses, “the sadism. Cutting your finger. It’s at odds.”

Alan shrugs. “Maybe not. What he does is pretty damn twisted. Maybe sadism is the altar he’s praying at after all, and the money motivation is just a smoke screen, a way of hiding the truth from everyone. Even himself.”

“Many of them do develop self-deception to an art form,” Callie says.

Except the ones who have no shame about what they are. Nothing I saw painted Dali in that light. He knows what he is, and he’s not worried about the next life.

“None of that is going to get us anywhere right now,” I say. “Let’s focus on what Leo told me. He thought Hollister was the one who tipped Dali off.”

“Sounds like we need to have a little private chat with Hollister,” Alan says.

“Leo also said that we should have a really good computer tech examine whatever server or servers Hollister used at his job. He said we might find something.”

James nods, thoughtful. “Perhaps Dali made a mistake. It’s almost impossible not to leave any footprints in the digital age. Maybe he knew that and knew his only option was to hide it really, really well, by enlisting the aid of those who could.”

“I don’t follow.”

He waves me off. “Supposition. Let Callie and me get a tech on this. We’ll chase the warrants. You and Alan should go and interview Douglas Hollister.”

“Who died and made you boss?” Alan grouses.

“Am I wrong?”

“No, James,” I say. “It’s the correct division of labor. Let’s get on it.” My cell phone rings. “Barrett,” I answer.

“Who the hell cleared you to get back on the job?” AD Jones.

“That would be me, I guess, sir.”

“Too fucking soon, Smoky.”

“Sir—”

“Get your ass up here.”

I put the phone back into its holster. “I have to see the AD, Alan. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Good luck,” he calls after me.

“Jesus Christ” are AD Jones’s first words when he sees me.

“Just me, sir,” I joke, taking a seat in one of his leather chairs.

He rose as I came through the door. He sits down now. He regards me long enough to make me feel uncomfortable.

“Take a picture, sir. It’ll last longer.”

I get a sour look. “All flippant bullshit aside, Agent, what are you doing back here? I read your debrief, what there was of it. You just finished four weeks of incarceration and torture, culminating in the partial amputation of your little finger. Not to mention that you’re balder than a billiard ball and pregnant to boot.”

“Thanks a lot for that, sir.” I’m losing my sense of humor about the hair loss.

He rubs his face with both hands. Sighs deeply. When he looks at me again, I see a man trying to get himself under control, to be reasonable. “You’re on mandatory leave, Smoky.”

“That won’t stop me, sir.”

Anger rises in his eyes. He tamps it down. “Why?”

“Because I’m not crazy now, but if I don’t work on getting him, I really will be. That’s the bottom-line answer.”

He tries on a sympathetic face. It doesn’t sit well on him; that’s not how this man is built.

“I understand, Smoky. I really do. But I’m sorry. You’re on paid mandatory leave until you get clearance from a shrink to return to work.”

Rage sweeps over me, leaving me a little bit dazed by both its suddenness and its fury. I do my best to bite it back, but some of its fire and bile leaks into my voice.

“Can’t follow that order, sir.” The words sound like rock grinding against rock.

He points a finger at me and shouts, “You’ll fucking follow orders or I’ll have you escorted off the premises!” So much for sympathy.

“Go fuck yourself,” I shout back, jumping up.

I hear myself speaking from a distance. It’s me, yet it’s not.

Rein this in now, or something’s going to happen here that you can’t take back.

AD Jones hits his feet as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him this angry. It strikes me that this reaction is probably based as much on fear for me as anger at my defiance.

“Give me one good reason to keep you on the job!”

I explode inside. It’s all internal. It’s as though I’m in the meadow again, but this time the light is atomic. A mushroom cloud rises, and the winds erase the living.

This rage, I realize, is for Dali, not the man in front of me.

“Because, sir.” My voice shakes. I grip the desk and look into his eyes. “Because he came into our world and he took two of us away and one of us is never coming back. He has to answer for that. Nothing is going to stop me from going after him.”

I watch him struggle. He wants to destroy something right now, but it’s not me. He slumps back down in his chair. “Fuck it and fuck you. Get out and catch him, then.” He doesn’t look at me. “If you screw up, you’re fired.”

My mouth opens in surprise. I’m angry again, rage thrums. “Fine.”

He doesn’t seem to care.

No other response is forthcoming, so I turn and leave the office. A final glance back catches him looking after me. I’m shocked at the sadness I see in his eyes. It’s as if he’s already mourning my loss.

Why? Does he know something I don’t?