Chapter 22
The trade of journalism had not been prosperous for Jeremy Ivers. That was Sean’s first impression when they pulled up in front of the chain-link fence that surrounded a shabby single-wide trailer home.
Two ferocious pit bulls were chained to a metal pole in the center of the yard. They snarled and lunged when Sean and Liv got out of the car. A garbage pail had been overturned long ago, and its contents were becoming one with the lawn, which had been dug up and excreted upon until it was just a few diseased patches of brownish yellow stubble.
The length of the chain and the ferocity of the dogs made it impossible to approach the door, but the dogs served as a doorbell, so he just twined his fingers through Liv’s and waited. He lifted up the heavy mass of damp dark hair to admire the diamond winking in her ear. She was so damn pretty. He wanted to drape her with jewels.
It pleased him, to see that rock on her. It was about fucking time.
The screen door of the house squeaked. The man who came out was thin, eyes hollow and reddened. What hair there was on his head was greasy and straggling. His jeans hung on him, his limp T shirt was stained and grayish. He hacked, spat. “What do you want?”
“Are you Jeremy Ivers?” Sean asked. “The reporter?”
The man’s eyes bulged. “Who wants to know?”
“My name is Sean McCloud. I wanted to ask you about an article you wrote for the Washingtonian, fifteen years ago.”
Jeremy Ivers had begun shaking his head before Sean finished speaking. He shrank in the door like a turtle retracting its head into its shell. “I never wrote any article,” he said. “You got the wrong guy. I’m not a reporter. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go away.”
The door was closing, the dogs flinging themselves frantically against their chains, barking madly with big, hoarse, hollow voices.
Sean pitched his voice to punch through the noise. “I’m going to kill those murdering sons of bitches,” he said.
The door stopped closing. It opened a crack. Ivers’s eye appeared.
“What murdering sons of bitches?” he called out.
“The ones that did this to you.” Sean gestured at the yard, the dogs, the garbage. The festering despair that permeated the place.
Ivers opened the door and stepped out onto the tiny crooked porch. “What the fuck do you know about what they did to me?”
Sean thought about the nightmares, about staring at the ceiling with a hole in his belly every four AM for fifteen years. About what he had done to Liv, in the jail. “They did it to me, too.”
Ivers looked him over, slowly, and snorted. “Yeah. Sure they did.”
“I mean to rip those murdering motherfuckers limb from limb for what they did.” He held the man’s gaze. “But I need your help to do it.”
Ivers rubbed his stubbly face. He looked lost. “I can’t help you with anything,” he said. “I’m no good to anyone anymore.”
“We’ll see,” Sean said. “Please. Let us come in and talk.”
Ivers shrugged. “Aw, what the fuck.” He shuffled down the steps, and grabbed the dogs’ collars. “Get inside. I’ll hold them until you’re in.”
The interior of Ivers’s home was much like the exterior. Dingy, reeking, with tattered thrift store furniture, an unbroken mass of clutter. Every surface was coated with a skim of oily dust and grime. There was a sour-sweet smell of spilled beer, dog urine and pot smoke.
Liv nudged a heap of junk mail gingerly off the cleanest looking sofa cushion, and perched right on the edge. Sean sat next to her.
Ivers shuffled in, and stared at them for a moment, as if two space aliens had sat down on his couch. “Uh, want a beer?”
He fetched himself one when they declined, and fell down with a crinkle onto a sliding heap of magazines on his sofa. He popped open his beer, glugged half of it down, and wiped his mouth. “So. What have you deluded yourself into thinking that I can do for you?”
“You wrote this article, fifteen years ago,” Sean said, holding up the photocopy. “I just want you to tell me what happened afterwards.”
Ivers closed his eyes, shook his head. His larynx bobbed in his lean, stubbly throat. “Look, you’ve got to understand. They can do what they want to me, I don’t give a fuck. But I’ve got kids.”
“I won’t put your kids in danger,” Sean promised quietly.
Ivers rubbed his wet, trembling mouth. “I was working on a follow-up article,” he said. “I’d poked around, found two more names. One kid from Washington State, the other from Evergreen.”
“How did you find out about the Colfax Building?”
“Ah. That was a stroke of luck.” He laughed. “Good or bad, depends on how you look at it. If I hadn’t talked to Pammy, maybe I’d still have a family. Maybe I’d still be a man. Not a piece of shit.”
“Tell us about Pammy,” Sean suggested gently. He had practice steering disturbed people gently away from the dead-end grooves in their minds, after all those years of trying to manage Crazy Eamon.
“She was the girlfriend of one of the missing boys. Craig Alden. She told me that he’d been doing drug experiments, getting paid good money for it, three hundred bucks a pop. She was into mind-expanding stuff like that, so he brought her up to the Colfax to see if he could sign her up. Double their money. To support her other drug habit, I expect.”
“And?” Liv prompted. “Did he? Did she?”
“No,” Ivers said. “The guy running the experiments didn’t want Pammy. She said the guy was pissed at Craig for bringing her there. Not surprising. She was a meth head. I wouldn’t have wanted her, either.”
“Did she remember the doctor’s name?” Sean asked.
Ivers let out a derisive grunt. “Like it could be that easy. All she remembered was that he was tall, dark and handsome. Helpful, huh?”
Sean shrugged. “It narrows it down a little. Go on.”
“So a couple weeks later, Craig didn’t come home. She figured he’d gotten bored, run off with some girl. I was curious at that point, so I followed up. The building was closed. I tracked down the janitor who’d worked there, but he didn’t know anything. I kept digging, found out the building was owned by Flaxon Industries. Big pharmaceutical company. I tracked down the local company rep. Guy told me there had never been any drug trials conducted there to his knowledge, so I figured Pammy had been dropping acid. But that night…” He stopped, rubbed his mouth. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I’m slitting my own throat.”
“No, you’re not,” Sean said patiently. “What happened that night?”
Ivers covered his eyes. “I woke up,” he rasped. “A guy with a mask was holding a knife to my wife’s throat. He told me I was going to stop writing articles, stop asking questions, or he’d cut her in front of me. Then he’d start in on my kids. Make it look like I’d done it. Three and six years old, sleeping down the hall. Those sweet, innocent little kids.”
Liv leaned forward and put her hand on the guy’s arm, making him jump. “I know how you felt,” she said.
He yanked his arm away. “How would you know?”
“He had that knife at my throat two days ago.” She nodded towards Sean. “He saved me. Or I’d be in a hole in the ground now.”
Ivers’s sharp laugh sounded bitter. “Whoop-de-doo for you, honey. Got you a big macho man, huh? My wife wasn’t so lucky. She was gone in less than a month. With the kids. Bye bye to the ball-less wonder.”
“I’m sorry,” Liv said quietly.
“She married again,” he said dully. “The kids have her husband’s name. The only thing I can do for them is stay away. I haven’t seen my kids in ten years.” Ivers sagged, putting his face in his hands.
Sean waited for Ivers to get his boozy weeping under control, and pressed on. “Do you remember the name of the Flaxon rep?”
Ivers mopped his face, gulping snot. “Charles Parrish. But I don’t recommend calling. Unless you want a nighttime visit from Godzilla.”
Sean hesitated a couple of beats. “Bring him on,” he said.
Ivers stared at him. “Fuck you,” he said. “I hope you get those filthy bastards. But fuck you anyhow.” He glanced at Liv. “No offense.”
“None taken,” she said.
Ivers got up, and yanked the door open. “It’s time for you to take your extra load of testosterone and get lost,” he said. “I’ll hold the dogs.”
Sean nodded, unoffended. The guy’s shame and anger made perfect sense to him. He and Liv got through the gate, but he stopped before getting into the car. “Hey,” he said. “If I get lucky and nail those guys, I’ll contact you. Give you the all clear. You can go find your kids.”
Ivers stared at him, his mouth turned down. “Too late,” he said. “I’m wasted now. I’m all fucked up. They’re better off without me now.”
“It’s not too late.” He had no idea where the intensity in his voice came from. “Those bastards put it to you for fifteen years. Do not bend over and let them do it to you again. It’s not too goddamn late.”
He got into the car, started it up. Ivers stood like a statue in the yard, the dogs snapping and lunging on their chains. His big, hollow eyes followed them as the car pulled down the street.
Liv was startled to see Nick at the bar, along with Sean’s brother Davy, when they walked into Tam’s kitchen.
“What’s with him?” Sean asked Tam. “What, haven’t you gotten that thermal imager installed yet?”
Tam grunted sourly. “He knows where I live. The only remedy now is to put him through the woodchipper and feed him to the pigs.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You don’t keep pigs. You don’t chip wood, either. And you need to do something about that irrational hostility.”
“Where’s Con?” Sean asked hastily, before the bristling Tam could gather herself for a cutting reply.
Davy made a disgusted sound. “Scouring the streets for Cindy. He bawled her out for jumping into this investigation. She got her feelings hurt. Pried the beacon out of her phone and skipped out.”
“Oh, man.” Sean winced. “She picked a tasty time for it.”
Davy shook his head. “Glad it’s not my job to run herd on that hellcat. Poor bastard. What the hell have you guys been doing all day?”
“That’s easy,” Tam broke in. “She left this morning with a blond wig, and unfortunate panty lines. I meant to tell you to go with the thong, but it slipped my mind.” She lifted up the mass of Liv’s tangled hair. “She comes back with smeared mascara, whisker burn, no wig, and no panty lines.” She winked. “You do the math, gentlemen.”
Sean made a growling sound, not unlike Ivers’s chained dogs. Liv blushed fiery hot, and Davy spat out some incomprehensible epithet.
“Sean, do you think you could possibly redirect some small percentage of your blood flow from your dick back to your brain?” he snarled. “I know sex is your number one coping mechanism, but—”
“Shut up, Davy,” Sean broke in. “Do you want to hear about the janitor and the reporter, or do you want to waste time giving me shit?”
Davy subsided, his face furrowed with concentration as Sean recounted the details of their two interviews. He passed the photocopy of the article to his brother. Tam and Nick read it over his shoulder.
“I checked those names in the missing persons database,” Nick said. “Just like Ivers said. All male, all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three. None have ever been found. None had much family. Some reports were filed weeks later. No one noticed they were gone ’til the rent came due. There were no prints on that Beretta, other than hers and a couple of yours. Guy must have wiped it down.”
“He was wearing leather gloves,” Liv said.
There was a chilled silence. Sean took a deep breath and shook himself. “So,” he muttered. “What’s next?”
Davy steepled his hands together. “We squeeze Beck again. Cindy rattled him when she mentioned Kev, Con said. That makes me think we should go rattle him again. Harder. See what falls out.”
“Beck? You mean that chemistry professor that Kev—”
“Was teaching for, yeah. We talked to him fifteen years ago. You were still locked in the drunk tank,” Davy said. “He was worse than useless. A total zero. Makes you wonder how he became head of the chemistry department. You’d think a functioning brain would be a prerequisite.” He smiled thinly. “Let’s go ask him how he pulled it off.”
“We need to track down Charles Parrish,” Sean said. “Ivers’s contact with him is what touched off the hit man who attacked him.”
“Let’s leave for Endicott Falls tonight,” Liv said. “Then we can go see this guy first thing in the morning.”
Sean turned on her. “We? What’s this ‘we’ business? You’re staying right here. I thought we had an understanding.”
“Ah, no,” Liv said delicately. “I want to—”
“You are staying right here, and that is fucking final.”
Everyone flinched. Davy cleared his throat. “Ah, could you guys maybe have this particular conversation in private?”
“Forget it, Liv.” Sean ignored his brother completely, still staring into her eyes. “Just get it out of your head.”
Nick broke in. “Weird, how they were all science geeks, huh? And all short on family. So sad to be all alone in the world.”
“The guy must have been licking his chops when he met Kev,” Davy said. “Crazy brilliant, no parents, no money. But he didn’t factor us in. Maybe Kev didn’t even tell him he had brothers.”
“Why should he factor us in?” Sean said. “McCloud boys are easy to manage. Just tell them their brother went bonkers, and they’ll fall right into line. Yes, sir. No, sir. Anything you say, sir.”
“Hey.” Davy’s face hardened with anger. “Cool it, punk.”
“I did,” Sean replied, his voice bitter. “I did cool it, and it was a bad call, Davy. I should have known. I should have stayed hot.”
“What difference does it make now?” Davy roared. “If we set it straight now or then? Kev’s gone. Timing is nothing to a dead man.”
“But I’m not dead,” Sean spat back. “I’ve been playing dead for fifteen years. I’m fucking sick to death of it.”
Davy shot to his feet. Nick backed away from the bar, keeping a wary distance. “Watch it, boys,” Tam said, her voice a warning hiss.
“Stop it right now, both of you.” Liv’s voice was not loud, but its crystalline crispness sliced right through the red haze in the room.
Everyone looked at her, startled into silence. She glared at Sean.
“This carrying on is not useful,” she told him sternly. “Not to Kev, and not to you. Control yourself.”
Sean flinched. He got up, and stomped out of the room.
Davy just stared at Liv. “I’ve been lecturing that spaz since he was born,” he said. “How come I never get that kind of results?”
“Cunt power,” Tamara purred.
Nick snorted with smothered laughter. Tamara turned her tilted amber eyes on Liv. “Our business is concluded. If I were you, I’d go after him and remind him that you’re not wearing any panties. Turbocharged sex is so much more fun than a screaming argument. And men are so much more reasonable when they’ve just ejaculated. Try it.”
Liv felt her hackles rise. “You are out of line, Tam.”
Tam’s laughter was deep and throaty. “That’s high praise, for me.”
Liv slammed the door as she left the room. She was appalled with herself as she followed in Sean’s footsteps. And after her snarky little lecture to Sean too. She’d never slammed a door in her life.
She found him in the north tower, looking up at the last faint bit of twilight in the skylight above. His body radiated suppressed emotion.
She hesitated, intimidated, and forced her spine to stiffen. This hot-headed jerk was her man, and she’d be damned if she’d tippytoe around him like a scared little girl. That was no sort of life.
She slid her arms around his waist from behind. “Sean—”
“You’re staying right here,” he snarled.
“Ah, yes,” she murmued. “Right here. While Vadim Zhoglo and Daddy Novak with their testicle tongs comb the globe for my prickly hostess. Really safe, Sean.”
His muscles jerked under her hand. “It’s the best place I know of.”
“If you don’t want me to participate, I’ll just take my chances with the police. I’m sure they’ll be interested to know what we’ve been doing.”
He rounded on her with violent swiftness. “You can’t tell them what we did today. Not unless you want to read about Ivers and the Trung family in the obit pages. I promised them.”
“OK,” she said quietly. “I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go with you. I helped you today. And I could help again.”
“Oh, you helped. You fulfilled one of my fantasies. The Endicotts’ perfect china doll daughter, on her knees. Sucking my dick.”
She flinched, hurt clouding her mind, but something behind it whispered to her in a constant, steadying stream. Reminding her of the look in his eyes when he made love to her. The diamond in her ear. Intimacy like she’d never imagined it. He could throw up all the smoke screens he wanted, and she would see right through them.
“You can be as nasty and ugly as you like.” Her voice was small, but steady. “I won’t fall for it. Not a second time.”
“Oh no?”
“No. You’re in my head. You can’t lie to me. I know you, Sean.”
“You think so?” He backed her up to the wall. She stumbled as her high heels caught in the weave of the rug. Her back hit the wall.
“You think you know me?” His voice was a hiss of menace. “You have no idea of the shit I’ve done, the men I’ve killed, the women I’ve screwed, the things I’ve been paid to do. I fucked your brains out, so you think that means you know me? I’ve fucked a lot of girls’ brains out. They’d run screaming if they knew me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not working. All I hear is blah di dah. Sean’s having a tantrum. Freaking out because he can’t get his way.”
He shook his head, unbelieving. “Can’t get my way,” he repeated. “What are you going to do, Liv? Give me a lollipop to shut me up?”
“That’s what Tam suggested,” she said.
“The day you take Tam’s advice will be a scary day for you, babe.”
“I’m getting used to scary days. They’re the new norm.” She grabbed her skirt, and tugged it up, high enough to see her nakedness. The puff of hair between her thighs. “Want a lollipop, Sean?”
Sean stared at her body. His hand reached out, as if of its own volition, cupping her. His finger pressed against the damp, hot seam hidden in the silky curls. “Might work,” he said hoarsely, fingers curling to grip her mound. “But don’t jerk me around. My sense of humor’s gone AWOL.”
“Then don’t set yourself up for it,” she retorted. “Silly jerk.”
The liquid rush of her arousal moistened his hand. His growl vibrated through her body as he thrust his fingers inside her. “Fine, babe.” His breath was hot against her throat as he wrenched open his jeans and hoisted her against the wall. “Don’t come crying to me if you don’t like it. You begged for it. You drove me to it.”
“I’ll beg. I’ll do what I have to do. Take what I have to take.”
He drove inside. She knew that some part of him wanted to punish her, but his body wouldn’t let him. They were too attuned to each other, every clutch and stroke, every thrill of pleasure. He couldn’t make good on his foolish threats. He could do nothing but pleasure her. She wrapped her arms around him.
Hell and heaven broke loose together.
She clung to him, digging her nails into his shoulders. The jolting rhythm might have seemed violent if it hadn’t been precisely what her body craved, to drive her to that magic place where boundaries melted, where lies became meaningless. She felt his need, his desperation, his fear. She wanted to soothe him, heal him, but all she could do was cling to him, offer up all her yielding sweetness.
His climax wrenched through him. She could not distinguish his pleasure from her own. It melted her down. She knew the second Sean registered her weeping, and the next second, when he misinterpreted it.
He pulled out, stepped away. She slid down the wall and thudded onto her bottom, stockinged legs splayed wide. She curled her legs up.
It shattered her, how huge this feeling was. How small she felt in its grip. How completely her happiness hung on the thinnest of threads.
He tilted her face up. “When I get these guys, and rip their guts out, you’ll be free to leave. Until then, you stay where I put you. Nod if you understand me.”
She nodded. He got to his feet, and headed for the door.
“I’m not a ch-china doll, Sean,” she forced out, voice shaking.
He paused. “That doesn’t mean you’re not breakable.”
The door closed. His footsteps faded down the stairs.