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Chapter 7

“Detective. Rafferty . . . ?”

September was in the process of striding back through the station’s main entrance and past Guy Urlacher after taking Phillip Berelli back to his car. She gave Guy a long look, just daring him to ask for her ID.

“Yes,” she said in a tone that warned him not to get in her way. It was like an uncontrollable obsession with him and though he contained himself with Gretchen most times as she would glare ice at him if he should even speak to her, he did not feel the same restraint when it came to September.

This was the curse of being the newest detective on staff. No uniform. No name tag. Guy Urlacher didn’t know how to handle it.

It was dark outside and she was tired. Too tired to deal with him in any professional way. She could feel the cloud over her head as she stepped around him with a dark scowl, then marched down the hall to the squad room.

She overheard Gretchen saying to George as she entered, “The guys upstairs didn’t know what went down. They don’t leave unless they absolutely have to, apparently. Someone takes a lunch order for them and otherwise they’re just there.”

“Who took the lunch order today?” George asked.

“A guy named Rad. Yes, Rad. He went out about twelve, got back about one, and then went upstairs. The accountant, Berelli, has an office in one corner, and Rad got him something, too.”

September already knew this as she and Gretchen had walked through the “control room” and spoke briefly to the nine or ten programmers. To a one they were slack-jawed with shock. Their world, apparently, was inside the games they developed, games that were rife with violence. But they were just games after all, and the programmers didn’t seem to know what to think about life and death events in the real world.

Rad had insisted he was the only one who’d gone in and out of the upstairs door that day other than Berelli, and September was inclined to believe him. Backgrounds were being checked but on first glance it appeared none of the computer geeks was connected to the grisly massacre that had taken place on the first floor.

Gretchen’s desk phone rang and she swiveled around to answer it, smashing the receiver to her ear. September, who, at a request from Gretchen, had stopped at a deli on the way back, plopped the brown bag on Gretchen’s desk. Gretchen was tapping her fingers and staring up at the ceiling, clearly irked at some delay on the other end as September pulled out tuna fish sandwiches for herself and her partner.

George said, “Nothing for me?”

“You gotta put in an order,” September said.

“Tuna,” he said, spying the sandwich and wrinkling his nose. He made a sound of disgust and turned back to his work.

“Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know!” Gretchen snarled into the phone and crashed the receiver into its cradle. She picked up half of her sandwich and waved it at September. “Everybody’s an asshole,” she declared, before taking a bite.

“Everybody?”

“Everybody,” she stated firmly.

“What was that about?”

“The lab. Nobody can get jack shit done unless it’s an act of Congress.”

They munched on their sandwiches and Gretchen washed hers down with cold coffee. September got up, walked into the hallway and to the water cooler and poured herself a small paper cupful. She returned just as Gretchen demanded, “Where’s this Olivia Dugan person?”

George spoke up, “D’Annibal sent someone to find her. Wes, maybe.”

“Why hasn’t she called us?” Gretchen asked. “She should have called us by now.”

September shrugged. “Maybe she’s scared? Maybe she still doesn’t know we’re looking for her.”

“She’d have to live on another planet not to know, with all the press that’s come down. And she should know to wait for the police. Where’d she go after she left Zuma?”

September shook her head. No one had that information.

“Did you get through to the de Fores?” Gretchen asked George, who’d been tasked with finding the man’s family.

“Finally,” he said, exhaling heavily. “Mom and Dad live in Medford and are flying up, so they’ll be here in an hour or so. You gonna be at the morgue when they arrive?” he asked Gretchen.

She grimaced. “Yeah.” She turned to September. “How’d you do with Upjohn’s ex?”

“I talked to Camille on the phone. Camille Dirkus. She was at the hospital earlier, maybe still is,” September answered. “She took back her maiden name, but Aaron was their son together. Camille’s beside herself about Aaron’s death, and I don’t know . . . I think if Kurt Upjohn lives she could actually try to kill him.” She was half-serious.

George said, “Hmmm.”

“She blames him?” Gretchen asked. At September’s nod, she said, “We’ll go see her tomorrow.”

“What about the receptionist? Maltona?” George asked.

“Maltona doesn’t appear to have anyone but the boyfriend, a Jason Jaffe who’s an artist of some kind,” Gretchen said in a tone that suggested what she thought of artists in general. “I started leaving messages on Jaffe’s cell phone this afternoon and he’s texted me back stuff like ‘ok’ and ‘at hospital.’ I don’t really know if he’s telling the truth; nobody at the hospital’s seen him. He’s first on my list tomorrow to track down.”

“Upjohn’s first on mine,” September said.

Gretchen stretched her arms over her head. “It’s six-thirty. After the de Fores, I’m done for today.” She scooted back her chair and gathered up the second half of her sandwich.

“I hear ya,” George said and Gretchen shot September a sideways look. George did as little as possible when it came to dealing with people, especially bereaved people.

September thought of her rented condo. She’d lived there for three years, ever since the owners had bought it, and a number of other units, out of foreclosure and turned them all into rentals. When she’d first moved in she’d painted all the rooms and bought new towels and an overly expensive couch, but since that first flurry of pride of house, she’d spent more time advancing her career than caring about hearth and home. Now, she didn’t really relish going back to her empty rooms.

“I think I’ll stick around a little bit longer,” she said.

“Suit yourself,” Gretchen responded as she took a left out of the squad room. George hefted his bulk from the chair and headed down the hall after her in the direction of the staff room.

After they were gone, the squad room was nearly empty and had a strange echoey feel that didn’t exist during the rest of the day. She thought of her family—two brothers, one sister, her autocratic father and stepmother—and decided she didn’t want to talk to any of them, either.

Detective Wes “Weasel” Pelligree stuck his head inside the squad room from the hall to the lockers. A tall, lean, black man, he had a killer smile, a slow-talking manner and a dry wit. He made September’s heart race a little faster whenever he appeared, but he was firmly entrenched in a long-term relationship with his high school girlfriend and had been for fifteen years or so, so the rumor went. He was also on a mission to arrest every crack and meth dealer he could find, a result of the death of his older brother, a user, who’d nicknamed Wes “Weasel” long before Wes had grown to his full six-foot-three height.

“How ya doin’?” he asked her.

“Been a long day,” September admitted.

“Sandler’s a bitch, but she knows what she’s doing,” he said.

“I guess that’s a recommendation of sorts.”

He grinned. “Look forward to the day when someone says it about you. Then you’ll know you’re a detective.”

“Oh, joy.” When he ducked back out, she yelled after him, “Aren’t you on the trail of Olivia Dugan?”

“The Zuma employee? Uh-uh. Probably somebody D’Annibal thinks’ll look good on TV. Channel Seven’s all over this.”

“All the stations are,” September said.

“Well, try to stay away from Seven’s Pauline Kirby. That woman’s a barracuda.” He gave a mock shudder. “And a bitch.”

“So, she’s good at her job?”

He snorted. “You can be a bitch and a lousy detective,” he allowed. “You just don’t last long.”

“How about nice, or at least personable, and good at your job?”

He flashed her his pearly whites. “Never happen.”

September was still smiling after he was gone. “Then I guess I’ll just have to be a bitch,” she said to the empty room.

Trask Burcher Martin was a pothead. And a drunk, kinda. And definitely a slacker. But he was a good guy inside. Ya just had to look a little harder, sometimes, to see the good of it all. At least that’s what he told himself whenever he thought hard about the whole thing, like now.

He exhaled a lungful of smoke, lost in a bit of a weed dream-state. He liked Jo. Loved her, maybe. She was his woman and they were together. Taking another toke, Trask relaxed into the couch cushions. A little MJ from time to time kept him from noticing that he and Jo didn’t have too much going for them, really. Not cash-wise, anyway. Making the rent payment every month was kinda tricky, and well, his job pumping gas wasn’t gonna make them rich anytime soon. Jo was a clerk at the local convenience store, but she would only work the daylight hours because of all the sick fucks who held up places like hers late at night, so that kept her from any serious greenbacks.

Still, it was okay. Pretty okay. Kept Jo safe and that was good.

He squinted an eye at the television cable box. If he didn’t pay that bill soon, it would shut off and be over. But for right now, he could read the time: eight-thirty.

So, where was Jo, huh? It was getting damn dark.

“Jo,” he said aloud. And then burned the end of his fingers with the last ember of the doobie. “FUCK!” He dropped it and stamped it out with his foot, waving away the smoke. Lucky for him, his neighbor, Liv, was spooked by about everything so if she smelled anything she wasn’t likely to call the authorities down on him. Like the landlord. Or the police. Or anybody.

Shaking his head, he sucked on his fingers, then ran them through his hair and stepped outside onto the concrete balcony that fronted the parking lot side of the L-shaped building. A wave of August heat burned up from the pavement below; he could feel it rising beneath his bare feet, too. It was just barely dark, but still fuckin’ hot. He could see the faint glimmer of stars above the fir trees at the back of the lot.

And the GMC truck was there. The 2005 one that . . . was kinda like his old one.

Trask blinked. Tried to remember. What was that about? Oh, yeah. The lurking asshole in the hoodie outside Liv’s place who wouldn’t show his face.

He wondered if Liv was home. Maybe Jo was with her?

“That . . . would be . . . unlikely,” he said to the parking lot below, working on the thought to keep it from flying around inside his muddled brain.

But the truck . . . ?

Oh, yeah. The dude. He’d been in a truck like that. Asshole.

Trask lurched along the balcony toward the stairs. Whoa, man. He musta kinda overdid it. Was havin’ a few proble-mos with his equal . . . equality . . . equilibrium. Yessirree. Equilibrium. Maybe he should just talk to that dude? See what was on his mind. Ask him what the fuck he was doing hangin’ around Liv’s . . . place . . . room.

Nodding, he worked his way slowly down the outdoor stairs to the ground level, his soles scraping along the concrete steps. Shoulda put on some shoes, he realized belatedly.

He slipped down the last couple of steps, had to grab the metal rail. Whoa. Head rush. Pulling it together, he strode right over to the truck. “Hey,” he yelled, then was incensed when the bastard fired up the vehicle like he was gonna race away.

“Hey!” Trask yelled again. He pointed his finger at him.

I see you. You fucker. I see you!

To Trask’s surprise, the guy slid down his window . . . and pointed the barrel of a handgun at him.

“What . . . whoa, man.” Trask backed up, holding his hands in the air. Fucker! Geez . . . God.

Bang. Bang.

Two shots. No hesitation.

Pain exploded in his chest. In disbelief, Trask staggered sideways, staring down at himself. “You shot me. You fuckin’ shot me!”

The GMC sped out of the lot with a roar, tires burping on pavement. Through a haze Trask tracked its progress. He lurched and fell to one knee, looked around wildly, then gazed across the parking lot to the line of doors and windows of the apartment building. Silence. No one around. No one busting out of a door to help him.

“Hey . . .” he said feebly.

Wrapping one arm around his chest, vaguely aware this was gonna hurt like a son-of-a-bitch later, completely in denial that this was anything serious, Trask staggered across the lot and reeled and stumbled his way up the apartment steps.

He made it all the way to Liv’s apartment before he sank down in front of her door and died.

Driving to Hague’s apartment, Liv kept her eye on the speedometer, careful not to drive too fast, careful not to drive too slow. She wasn’t used to Auggie’s Jeep, but she didn’t want to show it on the road. She didn’t want to give any quota-anxious cop a reason to stop her.

She crossed the Willamette and wound down the narrow eastside streets to Hague’s apartment building, passing in front of it once to get the lay of the land, spying the green and yellow neon script of Rosa’s Cantina as she went by. She parked at the end of the block, left her backpack behind the front seat after a moment’s thought, removed the envelope to take with her, pulled down the brim of her baseball cap to hide her face, and headed toward the building’s entrance. She nearly ran into the same woman with the three children from the night before and turned away quickly so the woman wouldn’t be able to see her face.

Up the elevator she went. She hurried to Hague’s door, rapping so hard against the panels she bruised her knuckles in the process.

Come on, come on, come on. Time was running out. She’d left Auggie tied up and if anything should happen, like an unforeseen disaster, like a fire, or . . .

She shook her head. No. She just had to make this quick and get back and—

Della yanked open the door, a sour look on her face. “You.”

“I need to talk to Hague,” Liv said, trying to step inside, but Della was planted firmly in the door.

“He’s not here.”

“What? He’s not?”

“He’s at the cantina. Holding court. I’m about to go down and get him.”

“No, let me. I’ll find him and send him up.”

She laughed harshly. “Won’t do any good. He doesn’t listen to anyone when he’s in one of his moods. He’s talking. Ranting. Telling the whole world that it’s fucked up and he’s not gonna take it anymore. He just has to wear down.”

Liv didn’t care. It was a chance to see Hague without Della. An opportunity. “I’ll do my best.”

“It won’t be good enough,” she predicted, then closed the door with a firm thud in Liv’s face.

She headed back down the elevator, out to the street and to Rosa’s front door, reflecting that Della hadn’t commented about the Zuma killings. She would have, if she’d known about them, because she knew it was where Liv worked. But Della, because of Hague and his fears, stayed away from the news; more government conspiracy, according to Hague. So, at least that was a good sign. Fairly soon, however, if Liv didn’t turn herself in, someone else would.

She just needed a little more time.

Pulling her hat down yet further, Liv entered the cantina and looked around. Jimmy and Rosa were behind the bar, busy on a Friday night, and didn’t notice her arrival.

Hague was seated in his corner and practically bellowing at a small group of people who were sitting nearby, raptly listening. His rant was about government interference in everything, particularly, for some reason, how it was influencing the medical profession. By the sound of it, Liv half-expected him to launch into his theories about secret studies on humans without their knowledge or consent. Hague definitely believed he’d been subjected to tests and drugs at the hands of various mental health professionals over the years.

Liv walked toward the gathering slowly.

“The government plans these things,” one of the men in the group was agreeing with Hague. “They don’t see us as individuals. We’re like crash test dummies. No feelings! No thoughts! Available and expendable.”

“The government keeps a lid on this stuff so we can go about our daily lives,” Hague stated. “But it’s the hospitals you have to worry about.” He wagged his finger at his listeners. “That’s where the mindbenders are. That’s where experimentation takes place. Hi, Livvie.”

She hadn’t thought he’d even noticed her. “Hello, Hague.”

“This is my sister,” Hague told his followers and all four of them gave her a hard once-over. She was glad for the baseball cap and the jacket. Did they watch the news? Maybe. Maybe not. This was dangerous territory, but she desperately needed to talk to her brother.

“You’re the one who works for the government,” a woman with a long face and stringy gray hair said.

“No,” Liv answered, surprised.

“War games,” the man next to her said knowingly. He had eyes that didn’t quite focus properly.

“It’s that company,” another man, younger and rail thin, said, clearly rolling the idea over in his mind.

Liv’s anxiety level spiked. If they came up with Zuma Software . . . “Could I talk to you for a minute alone?” she asked Hague.

He slid a darting, birdlike look at her. For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, then he gestured to a chair while his four listeners reluctantly scooted their own seats back and walked a few steps away. They perched just out of earshot, apparently waiting to return at the first indication that Hague and Liv were finished.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m in trouble. Someone could recognize me.”

His gaze narrowed on her, cataloguing the way she was dressed. “What kind of trouble?”

She leaned toward him. “There was a shooting earlier today . . . did you know about it?” Hague shook his head, so she quickly brought him up-to-date on what had taken place at Zuma, finishing with, “I know it sounds crazy, but I think they were after me.”

“We’re both crazy, Livvie. Everybody says so.”

“And as a result, I’ve done something—irresponsible.” She lightly tapped one fist against her teeth, seized with anxiety.

“What?”

“I’ve . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Auggie. How she’d kidnapped him and tied him up. Every moment she spent away from him and out in public felt like an eternity.

“Who did the shooting?” Hague asked in a low voice, matching her tone. His eyes darted around the room suspiciously.

“I don’t know.”

His eyes came back to hers, holding her gaze tautly. “Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You know who they are,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “Really, Hague, I don’t. But this has got something to do with the package from Mama. It’s about my past. Our past. Yours and mine.”

“Our past,” he repeated.

“I’ve had this feeling for a while, that someone’s stalking me. And then when I got the pictures from Mama yesterday and then today. . . .” She swallowed hard. “I just want to know what you think. Have I got this right? Do you believe me?”

His eyes were dark pools of an emotion she recognized as fear. “It’s us,” he agreed. “They’re after us. Could be any one of them,” he added, glaring tightly at his disciples, who were still waiting for Liv to leave.

“Not them.”

“I told them about the package. I told them yesterday.”

“You weren’t here yesterday.”

“I was. I came later. They said you’d been here . . .” He glanced over to Jimmy and Rosa and the bar. “I told them. I told all of them.” Now he looked at his four listeners. “There were more here last night. They knew.”

Liv’s heart clutched. Though she felt his paranoia as if it had jumped to her like a spark of electricity, she didn’t agree with him. It wasn’t these people. Quixotically, and like always, the more he agreed with her, the less she felt certain of herself.

“I think it’s the Mystery Man who knew Mom. He’s at the center of it.”

“It’s not these people?” He glared at them, turning his head suspiciously as he looked at all their faces individually.

“I think it’s about the zombie,” she said.

“The doctor,” he said.

“The doctor?” she repeated. He nodded, waiting for her to continue and she questioned him, “The man in the picture? The one who’s stalking to the camera?” She drew the picture from the envelope and slid the photo to him again. “He’s a doctor?”

Hague pulled back from it, as if the paper were covered in germs, but his gaze was zeroed in on the man. “He looks like . . .”

“Who?” Liv asked when he trailed off. “I got the same hit. Like I knew him.”

“We both know him. From when we were kids.”

She gazed at him helplessly. “How can you know him from when we were kids? You were so little.”

“I grew up though,” he said, his eyes starting to lose focus.

“No, Hague. Don’t leave. Please.”

“He’s always there . . . out of the corner of my eye.” Slowly his head turned and he focused on the bar and Jimmy and Rosa and the red pepper lights looping around the glasses hanging upside down.

His hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm and Liv yelped in surprise. “Don’t let him get you, too.”

“The stalking man?”

“He’ll drill holes in your head. And he’ll put receivers inside the folds of your brain. And you’ll be a zombie, too.”

She saw his eyes start to roll.

“Wait. Hague, wait.” He was going into one of his fugue states again. “Don’t . . . don’t . . .”

“We saw him again, didn’t we?” he asked in a drifting tone.

“Hague!” she hissed harshly.

But he was gone. Into that distant place. His eyes becoming slits and then closing altogether. Liv looked around for help and the four acolytes rushed back.

“What’d you do to him?” the woman with the long face and straggly hair asked.

Liv edged away. “He does this sometimes.”

“But you sent him there!” the younger man accused her.

She shook her head vaguely as she backed toward the door. Della had been right: she wasn’t able to get Hague back to the apartment. Especially not now.

With thoughts of letting Della know about Hague, she stumbled toward the cantina’s entrance but when she got to the door Della was already there, blocking her exit. She glanced past Liv to Hague, muttered something furious, then pushed on past her.

Liv didn’t have time to care. She was filled with wriggling eels of anxiety herself. She needed to get back to Auggie and away from places and people who might recognize her. She needed a place to hole up and think. Time.

How long would it take? How many hours, or days? Or weeks?

She’d embarked on this crazy journey and now she didn’t quite know what to do next.

“Groceries,” she said aloud, halfway back to his place.

Exiting Sunset Highway, she wound the Jeep down Sylvan hill and toward a strip mall with a Safeway as the anchor store. Keeping her head low, she hitched her backpack over one shoulder, grabbed a shopping cart and headed inside the brightly lit grocery, winding through the aisles, grabbing items for more sandwiches, her mind far away from the errand at hand.

In line at the checkout, she heard the checker behind her talking over the Zuma massacre with a male customer.

“Two of ’em are dead,” the female checker was saying in a conversational way. “They’re not saying who yet. Gotta inform the family first and stuff.”

The man answered her: “How many were shot?”

“Half a dozen, maybe?”

Four. Liv swallowed hard and carefully perused the rack of magazines at the end of her checkout stand. Her mind’s eye flew through the faces of her coworkers: Paul, Jessica, Kurt and Aaron. Aaron . . .

“Are you all right, miss?”

Liv’s checker was looking at her with concern and Liv realized she’d made some kind of whimpering sound. She swallowed, shook her head, and said in a forced rasp, “Dry throat. Got a cold.”

“Yeah. Been going around.” Liv focused on the woman’s name tag: JEANNIE. She kept her eyes lowered so Jeannie wouldn’t spend too much time looking at her face, then reached in her backpack for her wallet, careful not to let anyone see her gun. She then counted out the cash for the groceries, and watched as a helper put the sacks in her cart. He insisted on wheeling the cart out toward the Jeep, though Liv would have preferred to do it herself. A scream was building up inside her head, one she just managed to tamp down as she thanked the young man and climbed behind the steering wheel, letting out a pent-up breath.

It took another fifteen minutes to drive the rest of the way to Auggie’s house. She’d left the garage door open, but once parked inside she leapt from the vehicle and ran around to the rear, yanking the door down behind the Jeep, cutting off the view from prying eyes, throwing herself into pitch dark. She stopped for a moment, gathering her bearings, then she opened the driver’s side back door and hefted out the two bags of groceries, noting how clean his car was except for the gray hoodie flung across the other back seats.

Juggling the bags, she was closing the Jeep’s back door when her brain kicked in. Setting the bags down, she kept the door ajar to keep on the interior light, then she circled the front of the vehicle and opened the passenger door. Punching the button on the glove box, she held her breath, expecting . . . what? Some big reveal about him?

The glove box was locked.

He’s careful, she thought. But then so was she.

Still, she was disquieted. Quickly, she sorted through his keys but the one for the glove box wasn’t there.

What are you doing, Liv? What are you doing?

Shutting all doors to the Jeep, she waited until the interior light switched off, grabbing her backpack and leaving the groceries in the garage for the moment. Then she cautiously slipped into the breezeway and across to the back door, unlocking it and stepping into the kitchen. It was dark, but she could see Auggie still tied up to the chair by the oven door. Moonlight filtered in and touched his face, glistening on his open eyes.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.