Deena Riordan: Indelible Ink Part 4

The officer held up his notebook and flipped through the pages, checking a couple of notes twice. "Well, so far forty-six claim to have seen the whole thing. But we've got a ways to go yet."

"How many of them have mentioned this in their statements?" He nodded to the dark green ambulance on the opposite side from the crowd where they'd found the shooting victim. Evidence techs were swarming over it like ants looking for a crumb.

The patrolman shook his head. "None that I've interviewed. I can check with the others," he said.

"Do that. Thanks." Garrett watched the patrolman walk away.

"Want some good news?" Beth Pelligrino, one of Garrett's team, walked up from the side. "Well, potentially good news?"

Garrett admitted to himself that he needed a little cheering up. The case was only a few hours old and it was already giving him a headache; a blown up bus with nine dead pa.s.sengers, three hanging on in intensive care; a man shot dead in a nearby ambulance-an ambulance whose registration didn't exist; and dozens of city officials who already wanted answers. "Sure, Pel, that'd be great."

Pel pointed upward to the roof of the bodega behind Garrett.

Garrett looked at it and shrugged. It wasn't pointed at the bus or the ambulance. Maybe it caught someone in pa.s.sing, but certainly nothing regarding the explosion. "So?"

"I got a quick look at the footage before I grabbed it. The thing was trained on that alleyway over there, right?"

"Get on with it," Garrett said. He wasn't in the mood to play guessing games.

"Nothing during the explosion, obviously. But some time later, this huge guy with a nice suit comes wondering out of the darkness. No big deal, I guess. A minute or two later he comes back with a woman and they disappear back the way he came." Pel smiled.

Garrett looked at her for a moment. True, it could be something, but no reason to get as excited as Pel was. "Is there more? Or do you think my requirements for good news have dropped considerably in the last few hours?"

"Oh. Did I not mention that the woman was pulling off what appeared to be a jumpsuit as she hit the alleyway? Possibly the type of coveralls worn by paramedics?" Pel smiled as she held up a baggie with a video tape in it. "My bad."

Garrett was tempted to take it from the woman, run back to the office and watch it, but he knew it would be a long while before he'd be able to leave the scene. It was tempting, though. "Log it into evidence, and start watching it as soon as you can. Don't hang around here to do anything else, just go. Print out pictures of the two in the alley, start trying to match them in the database and bring me a print-out when you get a chance."

"I could email a copy to you on your phone," Pel smiled. "Be a lot easier than bringing a physical copy."

Garrett shook his head emphatically. "Stupid thing is broken. Won't turn on."

"Did you remember to charge it today? When's the last time you plugged it in?" Pel's smile grew wider.

"f.u.c.k you, I charged it." He hadn't. "Just go back to the office and get to work." His hatred for electronics and handheld devices was legendary, which was probably why they teamed Garrett with the tech-savvy junior agent.

Pel started off, but paused. "Oh. On my way over, one of the officers said they think that our ambulance was the first on the scene," she said.

"That's something." Garrett looked at the ambulance again and discovered Pel was staring at it as well. "Are you waiting for a fist b.u.mp or something?"

Pel shook her head and disappeared into the crowd of police and fire officials.

At least that's something, two somethings really. Garrett thought. And those are my only somethings at this point. He turned just in time to see several men in ridiculously expensive suits cross under the yellow crime scene tape. Garrett knew two of them from the mayor's office. The others were new, but he figured them for one of the other government agencies that would be interested in this madness. In his job with the FBI's special teams, he'd come to know everyone else there, but the new guys could easily be CIA or DEA or any number of letter collections in the alphabet soup. He straightened his tie and started walking toward them, all the while wondering how much time his interaction would take away from the investigation.

11.

"Aren't you going to answer your phone?" Kevin asked.

Deena had been half asleep with her head propped on her hand. "Huh?" She thought maybe she was dreaming, the haze of sleep in her eyes made the young man look angelic in the light from the window. It was nearly dark and Deena had drifted off while waiting on Avi to come back and trying to come up with a better plan.

"Your phone. It's ringing."

The sounds of a generic bleating ringtone emanated from somewhere inside the pockets of Deena's backpack. "Wow. Uh, thanks. I really s.p.a.ced out there," she said. She unzipped the bag and dug through the junk inside. The phone was familiar in her hands, but she couldn't remember her number or anyone else's for that matter. Luckily, the caller ID showed the incoming call as "SIS", saving Deena from wondering who it was for too long. She flipped it open. "h.e.l.lo, Harper? I've been trying to call you all day."

She was not greeted by the voice she expected. "Not Harper."

"Marsh."

"You remember me. Good. I was thinking you forgot," Marsh said on the other end of the phone. It was what he typically said when she was late checking in with him. "Seeing how our call went earlier today, I was sure that you'd forgotten how to talk to me politely."

"Why do you have Harper's phone?"

Marsh laughed. "Did you not think there would be consequences to walking away from me? What sort of childish notion did you get in your head that made you believe that would be all right with me?"

"Where's Harper?" Deena believed her sister would have had time to get out before Marsh decided to do anything drastic, but Marsh was right.i.t was a dumb move. Since the break from her former self, everything seemed urgent. Like if she didn't do the things she wanted to do, right away, they wouldn't happen and she would slip back to what she was without taking advantage of her window of time.

"Your sister is right here. She's fine. For now. Say h.e.l.lo."

Harper's voice came through the speaker. "Deena? What the h.e.l.l is going on? They have my hands tied."

"Everything will be fine. Just don't worry," Deena said. "I'm sorry. This will all work out."

Harper's voice abruptly stopped, replaced by Marsh's. "Yes. It will be just fine. If you do what I tell you."

"What do you want?"

"Your sister has messed up yet again. She'd made a spectacle of my business and I'm afraid it will cause me undue attention. I have no use for her," Marsh said. "If you want her to continue living, you'll come back here. You'll do another job for me and I'll let her go free to live her life. And you'll continue working for me without incident. If you don't agree, I'll kill her now. And then I'll kill you. Simple. You want your sister to continue to be in good health, yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'll see you soon." Marsh ended the call.

As she tossed the phone into the backpack, Deena watched Avi walk into the coffee shop and calmly order something. After a minute, he returned to the table, stirring coffee in a pale ceramic mug. He didn't look surprised as she relayed the contents of the call. "He'll kill you both. You know that."

Of course Deena realized that, but for whatever reason, she hadn't considered it would come down to that. She really believed she could walk away and start anew. "But it keeps my sister alive until I get there."

"Maybe."

"You should go back in. Call them and say you lost me. He'll leave you alone, then." Deena took another long drink of the minty concoction in front of her. "I don't want your life to get f.u.c.ked up as well."

Avi stood up and pushed his seat back in behind him. "I dropped my car at a movie theater parking lot down the street. It had a tracer in it that Marsh's people could have used to track the car."

"What was showing?"

Avi paused. "What? At the movies? Why do you want to know?"

Deena shrugged. "Just curious."

"I don't know. Some stupid s.h.i.+t romantic comedy. Can we get back to the plan?"

"They could have found us right away in your car?"

"They're actually probably on their way. Marsh has local muscle he could call in to pick you up."

"So where are they?"

"I'm hoping at the movies, watching some stupid s.h.i.+t romcom. But I doubt it," Avi said. "I also ditched my phone and grabbed one in a superstore nearby," Avi took out his phone and grabbed Deena's. "I'm programming this new number into your phone."

"Shouldn't I ditch mine? Can't they follow me with it?"

"Not if we leave it turned off until we need to use it." Avi slid it across the table towards her.

She stared at it for a minute, realizing it was her only link to her sister now.

Avi grabbed her arm and tugged her to her feet. "Train station is just across town. Let's go. Pick it up."

12.

Deena at 15 the first time around "Pick up the controller."

"No."

Deena grinned. "Quitting again?"

Harper leaned back on the couch and folded her arms.

"Baby." Deena pressed reset and the game started again. She guided her Samurai Super Warrior up the stairs and through the door, breaking everything in the little animated fighter's path on the television. She loved the game. It was all so delicious, the swords and the knives the blood. It was all fake, but she loved it. She had strategy, when she needed it, but mostly, it was brute force, not finesse that got her through.

She was getting tired of whupping on her sister all the time, but no one else would play with her anymore. The neighbors weren't her age and didn't want to come around to play with the little weird neighbor girl. Her parents sucked at all the games, but they never wanted to play anyway.

"Come on, one more game. You can even use cheat codes. And you can have the good controller." Deena held up the illuminated blue game controller.

"No." Harper grabbed a magazine from the pile next to the couch and started leafing through it. Deena turned back to her game.

The clicking of Deena's fingers on the controllers became a rhythm that got faster and faster. The images she saw on the screen became more and more indistinct and she began to react to shapes and colors, sounds and eventually to instincts and feelings. She didn't think about it, much. She usually just let whatever was happening happen. All she knew was that when the game was over, she was sad. She felt an unbearable weight descend upon her chest and she wanted to play again. She wanted to run, jump, fight and slash with a sword of her own.

"Christ. You need to get a life," Harper said. She tossed her magazine on the table and walked out of the room. Deena could hear the back door swing shut as her sister walked out of the house.

Deena didn't look away from the screen. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing with yours?"

Whenever Deena found herself alone with nothing else to do, she would look at the dot on her arm and try to decide whether it had changed, or if she was just imagining it. It seemed bigger some days and others it appeared to have moved a little to the right or left. She could never be positive, and she hated talking to her sister about it. Harper had gone to their dad and told him about it. He suggested they needed to make an appointment with a dermatologist to have it looked at, but he never pursued it.

When she finally put the controller down, Deena noticed the little blemish sort of looked like the yellow b.u.t.ton on the game controller that she pressed to shoot at things in some games and swing her sword in others. It was still round and black, but it seemed to have a raised 'X' in the middle.

It faded quickly, and Deena decided to keep that to herself.

13.

Two men in ill-fitting suits intercepted Pel and Garrett as they got closer to the mayor's people. "We need two minutes," the larger of the two said.

Pel started to point to the group they were headed to talk to.

"Just two minutes," the other man said. He nodded his head toward the mayor. "Those guys aren't going anywhere."

"We've got..." Garrett began.

"We could be done talking by now." The men were adamant about Garrett coming with them for a talk and confident that everyone else could wait.

"What can I do for you?" Garrett looked around the men to make sure the mayor wasn't, in fact, going anywhere.

"Step over here," the large one pointed to a nearby car and walked over to it. He opened a door and waited for Pel and Garrett to get in.

"Seriously? Is this necessary?" Pel asked.

"Two minutes," the shorter one said as he opened a back door for them.

In the comfort of their incredibly non-descript sedan, the tall one behind the driver's seat spoke first. "I'm Agent Rice, this is Agent Rivers. We just want to talk to you about the crime scene."

"Agents of which agency?" Garrett asked.

"One of the less flashy subdivisions of the Bureau," Rivers said without missing a beat. "Reports put this event as beginning at 6:13 p.m. That's about four hours ago."

"Give or take." Garrett didn't look at his watch.

Rice s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in his seat to get a better look at Garrett who was sitting directly behind him in the back seat of the car. "So, what do we know so far?"