The Dead Room

59

Darby drifted back to consciousness, heading towards a hot, roaring pain that covered what felt like every square inch of her head, jaw and face. She thought she smelled fried seafood and it triggered a hazy childhood memory (or is this a dream? she wondered) of a summer sunset at Maine’s Kennebunk Beach and her father sitting next to her on a blanket, paper plates of fried clams between them, the white, waxy paper fluttering in the soft, warm breeze blowing up from the water, where her mother walked along the shore collecting sea glass and shells that she’d later put in a glass vase inside the kitchen. Darby couldn’t remember how old she’d been or what she and her father had talked about (although, given the season, it probably had something to do with baseball), and as her eyes fluttered open she had the sense that her father had, at least during that moment in time, been truly happy.

The room was semi-dark. Hot. Her head hung forward and she saw her lap. She was bound to a chair – hands tied behind her back, thick strands of rope wrapped around her thighs and ankles. Her head was no longer throbbing; it was screaming like a fire alarm, triggering her panic.

The pain can be managed, she told herself. The pain can be managed.

She took in a slow, deep breath, catching the faint smell of machine oil behind the fried seafood.

‘How’s your head?’ a man asked.

Darby swallowed, tasting blood. She took another deep breath and held it as she slowly lifted her head.

To her left, large bay windows dripping with rain. They looked out to a street light, the sky dark beyond the glass. Dull yellow squares of light with shadows from the raindrops covered a pale-coloured wall in front of her and, just a few feet away, the scarred top of a wooden table littered with paper cups, green beer bottles and a box that had probably been used to carry the grease-spotted cartons of fried clams, scallops and shrimp set up in front of the man who had talked to Baxter.

The driver of the brown van – the man who’d worn the tactical vest and left the blister pack of nicotine gum – sat on the other side of the table. Special Agent Jack King, or whatever name he was going by now, wore a dark shirt, no tie. She could see a small gold cross hanging from a chain.

Darby opened her mouth, relieved to discover she could move her jaw. ‘How many times did you hit me with the shotgun?’

‘Just once,’ King said. Beads of sweat dripped down his bald head. ‘When you fell to the floor, I switched to these.’

He held up his hands. They were covered in black leather gloves. ‘They’re lined with lead powder.’

That explained how he had managed to knock loose her cheek implant. She could feel it sliding underneath the swollen, throbbing mess of torn skin. He had split her stitches.

‘My apologies for hitting you so hard,’ he said, picking up a plastic fork, ‘but I was told you knew how to handle yourself – “she’s James Bond with tits” was what I was told. So I worked you over a little extra just to make sure you’d cooperate long enough for me to tie you up and bring you to the boot.’

He speared his fork into a fried scallop, grinning as he dunked it into a container of tartar sauce. Darby took in another deep breath, her chest constricting against the rope, and held it for a count of three.

‘Nice car, by the way,’ King said. ‘Goddamn shame to ruin a car like that, but it had to be done.’

Darby exhaled slowly through her nose. Deep, slow breathing; that was the key to managing the pain, to keeping it at bay and keeping her heart rate low and her muscles relaxed. The pain can be managed, she told herself, taking in another slow, deep breath through her nose. I can manage the pain. The pain can be managed. I manage the pain.

‘You don’t mind if I eat, do you?’ King asked. ‘I’ve got a long night ahead of me and I hate working on an empty stomach.’

‘Go right on ahead, Special Agent King.’

He ate another fried shrimp. ‘How’d you find out?’

‘Sorry, but that information is confidential.’

King grinned as he chewed. Darby spotted her SIG lying next to her mobile phone on the table. She stared at the nine, which was less than two feet away. If I could only cut through this rope I –

She straightened and pressed her back against the chair, hot bolts of pain slamming through the centre of her skull and drilling their way down her spine. She gritted her teeth, hissing.

THE PAIN CAN BE MANAGED.

‘You want some Percocet?’ King asked, forking another shrimp.

I CAN MANAGE THE PAIN.

‘I can give you some,’ he said. ‘Percocet, Oxy, whatever you need.’

‘No.’

‘How about a beer? I’ve got Rolling Rock and Becks.’

‘Maybe later, after you’ve been arrested.’

‘You’re an original, McCormick, I’ll give you that. Your old man would be proud of you.’

‘How do you know him?’ Darby wiggled her fingers. She could feel the damp fabric of her shirt, the back waistband of her trousers. The rope didn’t have much give; she felt it biting into the skin of her wrists.

‘I never met him personally; just heard stories,’ King said.

‘Were you the one who killed him?’

He seemed to be considering the question when a mobile phone chimed. Hers. She saw the light come to life on the cracked screen.

King picked it up. Not a phone call; a text message. He read the screen and stopped chewing.

She pinched her belt between her fingers and pulled. ‘Anything good?’

‘Someone named Madeira James sent you an email, wants you to call her immediately.’

‘Great. Can I borrow my phone for a moment?’

King didn’t answer but continued reading the message.

Darby moved the belt another quarter of an inch. The buckle got caught on a trouser loop.

He read the message for what seemed like a long time. He put the phone down and grabbed a bottle of Rolling Rock. His face had changed.

‘Bad news?’ she asked.

‘Nothing we can’t handle.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘Got a proposition for you.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘Kendra Sheppard had audiotapes, pictures and notes on certain people. Hard copy, in other words. We haven’t been able to locate it.’

‘That’s too bad.’

‘We need these files, so you have to tell me where they are. You tell me where Kendra hid these audiotapes, notes and whatever else she had, and I might be willing to answer some of those nagging questions you’ve got about your old man.’

‘You’re the one who tortured her to death – what did she tell you?’

‘I wasn’t there, I was –’

‘You were in the woods. You came there to retrieve your friend.’

‘Bingo. Kendra didn’t, ah, hand over the information that was requested. My interest – your interest – is these tapes and whatever else Kendra has. I need to know where they are.’

‘Small problem,’ she said.

‘And what might that be?’

‘Kendra was dead when I found her. I mean, really dead. Unlike you, she didn’t manage to rise from the ashes. How did you manage to pull off such a great disappearing act?’

‘What did Sean tell you?’

‘He didn’t tell me anything.’

‘You talked to Ezekiel.’

‘Who?’

He sighed. ‘We know Kendra visited him. And we know you talked to him.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘A little birdie told me. Problem is, the schizo shit-head did that whispering trick and we couldn’t hear so good. The listening devices we planted in there, as good as they are, there’s still a lot of interference. The conversation you had with him, we can have it enhanced, but that’s going to take some time, so I decided to bring you here and jump to the chase.’

Darby pulled on the belt – not an easy thing to do with only two fingers.

‘You can stop your fidgeting,’ King said. ‘Even if you pull some sort of Houdini act, you’re not going anywhere. You’d be dead before you reached the front door.’

‘Brought your friends with you?’

‘Yes, the whole gang is here. Now, back to Ezekiel. What did you two talk about?’

‘Ask him.’

‘No can do. He hanged himself in his cell this afternoon.’ King winked, then popped a fried clam into his mouth.

Darby pulled on the belt. ‘I take it his suicide wasn’t voluntary.’

‘We hired someone on the inside. We’ve got people everywhere.’

‘How many people are involved in your little club again?’

‘Too many, if you want to know the truth.’

‘You should have hired someone to remove your fingerprints from the database.’

The humour left King’s face.

‘That’s probably why you’re in such a hurry, right?’ Darby gave another hard tug on the belt. ‘Now that your prints and Special Agent Alan’s prints rang the cherries on the Federal-owned database, I’m figuring the head of the Boston office is getting a call asking why the prints of not one but two dead Federal agents have suddenly appeared. Oh, and a body. I forgot we have Special Agent Alan’s body in a freezer.’

‘It doesn’t have to be painful,’ King said. ‘I can make it quick.’

‘Good to know.’

‘How much longer are you going to keep up the Clint Eastwood tough-guy routine?’

‘I don’t know. How much time do we have?’

King stood. Darby let go of her belt as he came around the table. He stepped behind her and gripped the back of the chair.