Cold truth

Chapter 34

Mason crawled to the mouth of the vertical shaft, rising in a half-crouch, hands and shoulders hard against the immovable ceiling, slumping back to the bottom, knees to his chest. The passageway thinned, though he knew the sensation was more panic than real, the darkness tightening around him, the concrete scraping through his pants as he slithered back to the other end of the tunnel. Unable to see his watch, he guessed at the time, calculating the odds that Samantha would arrive before Centurion got away, measuring Abby's chances in minutes and seconds.

He scratched and pawed the trapdoor, searching for the handle, disoriented by the claustrophobic blackness, choking on the dust and his fear of being too late, finding it at last, a steel ring frozen from lack of use. Mason slipped the blade of the box cutter beneath the ring, popping it free. Pulling the door up, he poured out of the shaft onto the platform above the basketball court, pounding on the switch to lower the ladder, leaning over the side when nothing happened. The ladder lay on the floor, fifteen feet below, ripped from the platform.

Mason eased himself over the edge of the platform, dangling by his fingertips, swinging his body away from the ladder, dropping and rolling, grunting as he absorbed the hardwood impact. Racing back through the weight room, he glanced in Nix's office. The money and drugs were gone. Nix wasn't.

He was sprawled on his stomach across the width of his desk facing the door, feet just off the floor, arms hanging over the sides in an embrace, blood oozing onto the desk blotter, eyes open, lips moving soundlessly. Mason helped him onto the floor, propping him up to ease his labored breathing.

"Hang on, Terry," Mason told him. "Help is on the way."

"Too late, man," Nix whispered, fingering the gunshot wound in his chest, Mason could hear Nix's death rattle.

"Is there another way out of here besides the main road?" Mason asked, leaning close to Nix's mouth.

"Path into the woods, behind the barn," Nix managed.

Mason said, "You knew Gina and Robert Davenport when you lived in St. Louis. You sold dope to Robert and a baby to Gina."

Nix nodded, wincing.

Mason asked, "What about Emily's birth certificate? How did you manage that?"

"Wasn't my part of the deal," Nix said through clenched teeth. "Gina said she had that covered."

"When you came to Kansas City, you picked up where you left off with Robert and blackmailed Gina about Emily. Is that how it went down?"

"Yeah," Nix said, moaning and leaning his head back, pressing his hand against his chest.

"Stay with me, Terry!" Mason said, holding Nix's head up. "Then Gina came to you when Abby called her about her baby. What was Gina going to do?"

Nix blinked his eyes, clearing the growing fog for a moment. "Just like when Emily killed herself, tell the whole fucking country," Nix said, barely able to force the words. "Said her listeners would understand and forgive her."

"Good for her, bad for you and Centurion. Did he kill her?"

"Nah," he rasped, "woulda told me to scare the piss outta me. Told me I better shut her up."

"The drugs the cops found in Gina's office. Did you do that?"

Nix smiled, a thin trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "Get her busted, shut her up. Tipped off the cops too, 'cept they didn't bust her before she got killed. Pretty smart, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty smart," Mason said, cocking his head at the sound of sirens mixing with the rotor beat of a helicopter. "Just a few more minutes, Terry. You can make it. What about Emily? Was Abby Lieberman her mother?"

Nix struggled to answer, his words lost in his last breath.

Mason left him, emerging from the house a moment later, greeted by a SWAT team standing in the red shadow cast by the still-roaring barn fire, the helicopter hanging aloft in the near distance.

"Don't shoot him," Samantha said. "At least not yet."

"Centurion took Abby," Mason began. "If you didn't see him on your way in, there's another way out through the woods."

"We didn't pass anyone," Samantha said, radioing instructions to the helicopter pilot, the chopper tilting toward the woods, cutting the night with a broad-beamed searchlight. "What about Nix?" she asked, motioning the SWAT team into the house.

"Office in the basement. Dead. Centurion shot him."

"What about you?" she asked, losing her cop's edge.

"I'm good," Mason said. "Ruined another suit, but none of the blood is mine."

"Give me the details," she instructed him.

Mason told her what had happened, ignoring her raised eyebrows when he described setting the fire in the barn, explaining why the law of necessity trumped the law against arson. She took it down, shaking her head.

"All clear in the house," a member of the SWAT team radioed to her. "One dead in the basement. No sign of anyone else."

"Give me your car keys," she told Mason.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not letting you run loose until I have a better idea where Centurion is."

"You can't do that," he told her.

"Really?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. "I can arrest you for arson and handcuff you to a tree if I want to. I'm not going to waste manpower having someone drive you home and I'm not going to let you play Junior G-man and race off into the woods after Centurion and your girlfriend. I know you, Lou, and it's not happening. We'll find them and we'll get Abby back, so save the I'm-going-with-you speech because you're not. You're staying here until we're all ready to go home."

Mason hesitated, hands in his pocket, fingering his car keys.

"Sergeant!" Samantha snapped over her shoulder at a cop who materialized at her side.

"Okay, okay," Mason said, raising his hands in surrender, and giving Samantha his keys. "I'll behave."

"Sergeant, station a man at the door of the house. Make sure Mr. Mason stays inside until I get back."

Mason looked at Samantha, taking comfort in the hard set of her face as she issued commands, directing search teams into the woods, setting up roadblocks on the highway, studying a map one of her men held up while another shined a flashlight on it. He walked slowly toward the house.

"Lou," she called to him, turning him toward her. "I'll get her back."

Mason wandered around the first floor of the house, his failure to protect Abby gnawing at him, his love for her turning his frustration and fear to a simmering rage. They had not talked about their feelings for one another, expressing themselves instead with touches, looks, and embraces. Their reticence was mutual, springing from past disappointments, an intuitive superstition that speaking of love too soon was bad luck. Threatened with losing her, Mason regretted his reluctance, and resolved to cast it aside if Samantha made good on her promise.

Touring the house was a small distraction. In addition to the standard rooms for eating, dining, and sitting, there was a well-stocked library, a media room with a big screen and video games, a sunroom, a study, and a music room, each room sponsored by people and companies trying to do the right thing.

Whether by intent or accident, Centurion and Nix had done a few right things, Mason conceded. For many of the kids who lived there, Sanctuary was exactly that. Nix, for all Mason knew, may have been a decent counselor, handing out good advice even while he was working the angles. Centurion proved that a successful partnership between business and social services was possible, even if he corrupted the model. The trouble was no one would remember any of that. Instead, they would only remember the deceit, making the right thing that much harder to do the next time.

Mason sat down in an easy chair in the study, examining the frayed patches of wool that covered his knees, rubbing his hands over the fabric of his suit, able to sit still for a full minute before launching himself into another tour of the house. He stopped at a phone on a counter in the kitchen, pacing in short circles as he checked his voice messages at the office, stopping cold when he heard the last message.

"Mason, it's Roy Bowen. Next time you ask me to thread the bureaucratic needle, it's going to cost you. I don't speak their language or trade in their currency, but I got what you're looking for, I think."

Mason listened to the rest of Bowen's message, replaying it twice to make certain he heard it correctly, calling Mickey when he was sure.

"Drop whatever you're doing," Mason told him.

"No problem. I'm not doing anything," Mickey said.

"I get what I pay for," Mason said. "Find Blues and Harry. Tell them to sit on Arthur and Carol Hackett round the clock until I catch up to them."

"That's it?" Mickey asked. "You tell me to make a phone call and you complain that I'm getting paid to do nothing? I make a pretty damn fine phone call."

"The best in the business," Mason told him. "Don't forget to dial the area code first. I left the passkey to the Cable Depot in the center drawer of my desk. Get over there and see if you can get into Trent Hackett's office."

"What am I looking for?" Mickey asked.

"Trent's the wild card in all of this. I can't connect him to Centurion and Nix. I need someone to take a fresh look, find what I'm missing."

"Didn't the cops go through everything after Trent was killed?"

"Sure they did, and once they charged Jordan with killing her brother, they forgot about it."

"What are you up to?" Mickey asked.

Mason told him, extracting Mickey's promise not to round up Harry and Blues for a posse. He made his way to Sanctuary's second floor, trying to make sense of Bowen's discovery. Mason found the explanation in the image of the trash chute that ran from Arthur Hackett's office to the Dumpster behind the Cable Depot, and in Paula Sutton's reaction when he showed her Jordan's cell phone. He understood it more fully when he thought about Carol Hackett's maternal detachment.

The second floor was a dormitory, eight bedrooms, two to a room, three large bathrooms for the sixteen full-time residents. Mason poked his head in each room, the stripped beds, empty drawers, and torn corners of posters left on the walls reminiscent of college dorms everywhere, giving no hint that they were a grand illusion intended to conceal the black market run by Centurion and Nix.

The center stairwell went from the basement to the second floor. Mason went downstairs, looking for access to Centurion's third-floor apartment, finding it behind a pair of French doors that concealed an elevator. Stepping in, he picked up a queasy chill, an involuntary reminder of the last ride he took on a private elevator. SWAT team boot prints were still visible on the carpeted floor of the elevator, comforting Mason with the knowledge that the elevator worked and that Centurion's apartment was empty.

The elevator opened onto a space that no corporate donor could have underwritten unless Centurion was sleeping with the CEO. The floor was polished parquet wood, the rugs Persian, the walls papered with gold-fleck fabric. The ceilings were high, the art was modern, the furniture oversized and plush. The place was also a wreck, with chairs and sofas pushed out of position, tables overturned, and paintings hanging at cockeyed angles. Mason couldn't tell whether the disarray was the result of Centurion's hurried departure or the SWAT team's search.

The burnt smell of the fire drifted throughout the apartment carried on a cold breeze through the open sliding door in the master bedroom that led onto the widow's walk. He had noticed the widow's walk the first time he came to Sanctuary, a narrow passage around the outside of the third floor. At the time, it had seemed like an architectural indulgence, a feature without a purpose. He stepped outside. It was five feet wide with a waist-high rail, affording an expansive view in every direction. He could see the helicopter's searchlight stabbing into the woods. He could make out the red taillights of the SWAT team vehicles bouncing down the rough path behind the barn. Beyond the woods, he could see the emergency flashing lights of roadblocks set up on the highway and the fire trucks racing to put out the fire he had started.

Three stories below, the outer walls of the barn had collapsed, bringing down the remains of the roof, the fire subsiding for lack of fuel, though still hot and dangerous. Gray smoke rose from the pile, accented by eerily glowing debris and sporadic bursts of flame. Mason gripped the wrought-iron rail with one hand, pounded it with the other, tormented by what he saw, tortured by what he heard.

"Jump," Centurion said from behind him.

Mason wheeled around, his back to the night. Centurion stood just inside the bedroom, framed by the sliding door, his left arm wrapped around Abby's neck, his right hand holding a pistol to her temple. Compared to Centurion's bulk, Abby was a rag doll, wedged against his chest, her head jerked up against the barrel of the gun. Her face was flushed, her eyes frantic, darting from Mason to Centurion.

"I said jump," Centurion repeated.

"Is that the same offer you made to Gina Davenport?"

"Mason, you are hardly worth killing, though I'm going to enjoy doing it. I didn't kill that radio bitch. Now get that out of your head. If you woulda just left well enough alone and let Jordan plead guilty, none of this woulda happened, man. You wouldna gone sniffin' around my business, and I woulda lived happily ever after and you woulda just lived. Now you gonna die."

"I can get you out of here," Mason said. "Let Abby go. There's only one cop outside. I'll distract him, you take the Lexus in the garage. You want a hostage, take me."

"Mason, I am not stupid. You're about the most worthless hostage there is. Who gives a shit what happens to a smart-mouth lawyer? Now this little girl," he said, yanking on Abby's neck, "she be worth something."

"You're running out of time," Mason said. "The fire department will be here in a few minutes, the cops will give up on the woods and come back. You'll be trapped no matter how many hostages you have."

"Uh-uh," Centurion said. "I'm not trapped. I'm hiding. I got me one of them panic rooms built behind my closet. Got all the conveniences and enough supplies for a week. I just come out to see what was going on. I can wait a couple of days if I have to. No one is going to find me."

"Then you can't kill me," Mason said, "or the cops will know you're still here and they'll take this place apart a brick at a time to find you."

"That's why you're gonna jump, cockroach. Ain't nobody gonna blame that on me."

Mason looked over his shoulder. The cop Samantha had left behind was on the other side of the house. Mason put his hands in his suit jacket, grasping the handle of the box cutter in his right side pocket.

"No, thanks," Mason said. "You better shoot me."

Centurion grinned, a demon smile. "I'll shoot your girlfriend first, Mason. You want to save her, kill your own damn self."

Mason and Abby looked at each other, seeing nothing else for an instant, pledging themselves to one another with a slight nod. Mason turned his right side toward the rail so Centurion wouldn't see him draw the box cutter, palming it as he gathered himself. Mason gazed over the rail, then looked back at Centurion, flashing his own delusional grin.

Abby screamed, a piercing shriek distracting Centurion as she plunged her hand into his groin, squeezing his testicles with a fury. Enraged, Centurion flung her off of him, aiming his gun at her as Mason launched himself through the open door, adding his own primal yell. Centurion swung his gun toward Mason, firing and missing as Mason, wielding the box cutter, opened bloody gashes on Centurion's arms. Another swipe on the wrist severed Centurion's grip on his gun. Centurion smashed Mason in the face, the blow knocking him out the sliding door, onto the widow's walk, and halfway into next week, the box cutter skittering over the edge into the gutter.

With no room to maneuver, Mason ducked Centurion's next swing, stepping inside, punching the bigger man in the chin and kneeing him in the gut, getting caught in a suffocating bear hug, Centurion dangling him over the rail like a bag of dirty laundry. Mason squirmed, kicking his legs, hitting air, pounding Centurion's ears with his fists, catching Centurion's sweat in his eyes, not believing the gunshot that loosened Centurion's grip. Mason held on to Centurion as he swayed unsteadily, his eyes fixed, his mouth wide, his body crumbling and falling over the rail. Mason grabbed the wrought-iron bars as Centurion tumbled past him.

Mason's hands slid down the bars, his grip holding at their base, his feet scraping the side of the house. Abby shouted for him, reaching through the bars, her hand clasping his wrist.

"I've got you," she said, pulling him up enough that he could throw his leg onto the ledge, then helping him back over the rail.

"I killed him," Abby said.

"Don't apologize," Mason told her.