The 6:20 Man

Chapter 79

It was nearly four a.m. when Devine rolled over in his bed and coughed. Then he coughed again, harder. The next moment he couldn’t catch his breath.

In his murky mind he thought, Am I having a heart attack?

He sat up in bed and his head felt like it was underwater. What the hell was going on? He’d had two beers, not ten.

Then he inhaled and the smell answered all his questions.

Shit!

He jumped out of bed and almost crashed against the wall. He ripped open the door and gagged. He pulled his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth, went down to his knees, and scuttled across the hall to Speers’s room. He tried the knob. It was locked. He rose and put his shoulder to it. It flew open and he saw Speers in the bed. She didn’t react to his crashing into her room, which was not a good sign.

He stumbled over and tried to wake her. He checked her pulse. Still there. Barely.

He lifted her up and carried her down the stairs and out the front door. He set her down in the grass and ran back in. He checked Tapshaw’s room next. Her door was not locked. She was unconscious on the floor. He confirmed that she was still breathing and carried her outside and set her next to Speers.

He ran back inside and knocked open Valentine’s locked door. He wasn’t in there. Devine looked wildly around and even checked under the bed, in the closet, and also the bathroom. The man wasn’t there.

After grabbing his phone, he ran back outside and called 911 and then the gas company’s emergency number. There was a garden hose next to the front door. He turned it on and sprinkled water over the women. Then he patted their faces, turned them on their sides, and applied pressure to their backs to help their lungs expand. Their breaths started getting deeper, and their color finally started returning; Speers even managed to sit up. She looked at Devine.

“Wh-what is... what is...?”

“Gas in the house. You’re okay now. I called the ambulance. But I can’t find Will.”

She plopped back down in the grass and threw up.

Tapshaw briefly came to, and Devine told her the same thing.

Then he turned and ran back into the house. He threw open windows everywhere and also the back door. He searched every inch of the space for Valentine, but the Russian was not there.

A minute later two ambulances pulled up. The EMTs jumped out and administered oxygen to both the women and Devine, too. They ran fluids into the women as well, but Devine declined, telling them that he was fine.

“What about the town houses on either side of you?” said one of the EMTs. “The gas might have seeped into them, too, or originated from there.”

“They’re both empty,” said Devine.

After triaging the ladies, the EMTs decided to take them both to the hospital. The ambulances pulled out about the time the gas company showed up. Two men quickly climbed out of the truck, and Devine told them what had happened.

Thirty minutes later they came back out of the house.

“Somebody did it on purpose,” said one of the men. “Fiddled with the line going into your town house and then opened up the pilot on the fireplace in the living room. We got safety features for that now, but this is an old house and nobody upgraded it.”

“I told the EMTs the homes next door were empty. But they’re being renovated and guys might be showing up to work there today. Some of the gas might have gone in there.”

“We’ll put up signs for them to stay out. Then we’ll contact the owner and get the places checked and cleared out if need be.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Lucky escape for you,” said the other man. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Is it safe to go in now?”

“Yeah, it’s all aired out, but don’t turn on any electrical switches for a while, just to be sure. I’ll have a crew out here in an hour to check everything seven ways from Sunday.”

“Thanks.”

“You got any enemies, buddy?” asked the other man.

Devine looked at him. “Well, I got at least one.”

Another team from the gas company showed up later and gave the house a thorough going-over. They also checked the homes next door after getting in touch with the owner. There was no evidence of gas in either of them.

Devine went back into the house after calling the hospital and checking on Speers and Tapshaw. They were both in the ER and being monitored. Their oxygen levels were still low, and the doctors had decided to keep them in the hospital until they were completely out of danger.

Devine looked around the house once more and found no sign of Valentine. Devine had called and texted him but gotten no reply. He went up to the man’s room and found that his bed had not been slept in. They had gotten home around eleven last night, and Devine had fallen asleep pretty much right away. Obviously, Speers and Tapshaw had too.

Nor was Valentine’s laptop or phone anywhere to be found. But a suitcase he had spotted in the closet when he had previously searched Valentine’s room was gone, along with what looked to be some clothes.

He went into Tapshaw’s room and looked around. Then his gaze froze on her computer screen. Taped to it was a diagram on a piece of paper. He sat down and read quickly through it.

It started off with the oddly numbered email sender addresses that he had given Tapshaw to track down. In a flow sheet structure, it went from that line of numbers to a dozen different configurations, which he supposed were the electronic subterfuges the sender had used to disguise their identity and also to send an email without the requisite internet protocols. When he got to the end of the flow he gaped. There was an email address that he seemed to recognize. And under it, in parentheses, was written a name:

WILL VALENTINE. And next to that: HOLY SHIT.

Devine went back down to the living room and stared at the gas fireplace. There were no signs of forced entry. Whoever had manipulated the gas here had been inside the house last night. Clearly, suspicion fell on the man who had not almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning. And who was now AWOL.

Now things started to fall into place for Devine. Valentine was Russian. He had come to the town house about the same time Devine had. A good portion of the money pouring through Cowl and Comely had been identified by Campbell’s people as coming from Russia and countries friendly to it. Valentine was a genius with computers, so it would have been easy for him to put together a very difficult email to trace.

Ironic that I asked him to track an email he’d sent. The guy must have laughed his ass off about that one. I was filling him in on an investigation in which he was already a part — only on the opposite side. And he would tell me nothing about Area 51. Of course he wouldn’t.

How could he have been so blind? Valentine also knew about Devine and Sara Ewes dating, the only roommate of Devine’s who had before Ewes had been killed.

That means that the motive for killing them had nothing to do with me. That was just misdirection. It had everything to do with what Sara found out about the Locust Group. And then she told Jennifer Stamos. And Stamos had come here. Valentine had let her in. He might have eavesdropped on their conversation on the front porch. And so Stamos had to die, too. And the Eweses were in their daughter’s house. Valentine and company couldn’t take the chance that they might find additional evidence their daughter had left behind. Just like I thought before. Always go with your gut.

The symbolic murders that Devine had theorized about were all bullshit distractions. This was all about two things: money and power. But in reality, they were one and the same.

Devine left the house and went to the hospital.