Chapter 4
One foot in front of the other. Play it cool. Don’t look back.
Or he’d mash that lying piece-of-shit Madden’s nose into pulp. And then drag Liv off to a cave. He narrowly missed walking into a telephone pole. His mind was blank, hands shaking, stomach wonky.
Madden’s sticky, possessive vibe made him want to cave that arrogant prick’s head in with a rock. The shit-eating insect didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Liv Endicott. Not that he himself did, either, but whatever. Fuck Blair Madden anyhow.
Wow. He thought he’d let that old anger go. After all, Blair’s amateur attempts to mess with him back in the old days had paled in significance compared to the real problems Sean had faced. That was the thing about the hammer blow of tragedy. It put the small stuff into perspective. And Madden was small. Like, scuttling cockroach small.
Keep it together. Impulse control. Actions have consequences.
The endless stern lectures from his father and brothers had clubbed into his head looped in his brain in a chaotic babble of mental noise.
Hey, he was trying. He’d controlled his impulses. Except for the impulse to come on to Liv. There were limits to a guy’s self-control. One lofty look from those big gray eyes turned him into a grunting caveman.
Maybe it was the sexpot cavewoman look that did it to him; the wild hair, the soot-smudged face, the notable absence of underwear.
The effect could only be improved by ripping the clothes off, pinning her down on a fur rug, and having at her like a wild beast.
God, she was fine. What a woman. Girl was too frivolous a word. The world was full of girls. His address book was full of their phone numbers. Girl was a category, a concept. A consumable.
The word woman had a different feel to it. It filled his mouth. Round, soft, mysterious. Unique, singular. Liv, grown up, filled out.
He had lots of photos, but Liv tended to wear big sweaters and long skirts in the winter and loose, baggy sundresses in the summer. A body like that had to be seen to be believed. She’d developed full, swaying tits. And that ass, those hourglass curves from waist to hip, Jesus. He’d thought she was perfect fifteen years ago, but nature had decided to go all out. Fudge sauce, whipped cream, nuts and sprinkles.
Those scanty clothes showed every tremor and sway. No wonder half the town was lined up to watch. He was an equal opportunity ravening wolf-pig when it came to female yumminess. He appreciated all colors, sizes and shapes, though he particularly went for lush curves.
But Liv was a different category of female beauty altogether.
It wasn’t just the way she looked, though she was drop dead beautiful. It was something intrinsic to her. Something so regal and proud. Dignified. Elegant to her bones. She took no shit off anyone. He felt like a dog on the furniture, unworthy to lick those tiny, arched feet, but slavering for it all the same. Bouncing like a puppy, tongue hanging out. He’d do anything to make her smile. Or better yet, get one of those smothered, giggling snorts. Scoring one of those was like winning the lottery. He’d gotten a few today. He was still jittery with triumph.
So his sweet talk still made her cheeks blush pink and her brights go on, ping. Raspberries, crowning those jouncing ta-tas. What a rush, to get the princess all hot and flustered using nothing but words.
That knife cut both ways, though. No coat, box or bag to camouflage his raging boner. He’d had the same problem the first time he saw her. He’d been working construction, and the crew had stopped dead when the boss’s daughter walked by. Gauzy skirt, tits bouncing under her prim blouse, cloud of dark curly hair, downcast eyes. Luminous, rose-tinted skin. No makeup. No need for it.
The whole package screamed “virgin.” Delicious, innocent, succulent virgin. Unaware of her power over men. She hadn’t even noticed the crew wiping the strings of drool off their chins. She just wafted along. On another plane. La la la.
He’d been naked to the waist, wearing boots, ragged jeans and a hard hat. Dripping with sweat, rank as a goat. No way in hell to hide his woody, not that it mattered. She didn’t notice him.
Her sandals had made tiny, dainty prints in the cement dust.
It had started out as a game, just getting that floating uptown angel to notice his raggedy-ass self. It swelled quickly into something hotter, wilder. He wanted to make her want him. He wanted to spirit her off into the woods. Lay her down on a bed of pine needles and rock lilies, peel off her panties and lash away at her delicious, candy-sweet girl body with his tongue until she was begging him to deflower her.
And he would oblige. Oh, yeah. He’d been dying for it.
That plan had backfired when he fell madly in love with her.
Kev had been pissed with him for going after a girl like Liv. She’s not the fuckbuddy type, he’d lectured. She’s gonna get hurt.
She won’t, he’d assured his worried twin. Hurting Liv was the last thing he’d ever do. He worshipped her. He was saving up for a diamond.
Thinking about Kev made this morning’s dream flash through his mind again. You’ve got to do something about Liv’s car, Kev had said.
Strange. He didn’t even know what kind of car she drove.
What a jolt, when she’d asked about Kev. For a split second, it was like Kev had never died at all. None of the bad stuff had happened.
Kev had gotten his doctorate, become a famous scientist, published papers, won prizes, patented amazing inventions, fallen in love, gotten married, had kids. The whole sequence of Kev’s hypothetical life played through his head in a blinding flash, whoosh.
And man, it hurt when reality came crashing back to displace it.
The sinkhole in his gut widened into a crater. He had to haul ass. Bursting into tears in downtown Endicott Falls was his idea of hell.
He’d always sucked at hiding his feelings. Macho stoicism was Davy’s specialty. Kev’s, too, in a lighter way. Davy’s stoicism had a steely weight to it, like Dad’s. Kev’s had been more like a zen monk’s calm. Like a reflecting lake. So mellow.
Christ, he missed Kev so bad. His throat felt like a burning coal.
He clenched his jaw, loping toward where his truck was parked. He was history. Miles was a grown-up. He could fend for himself.
You’ve got to do something about Liv’s car.
He wished he hadn’t interrupted Kev in the dream before he’d finished that sentence. Something was eluding him. Tickling his mind.
Our union will be explosive.
He wished he could look at T-Rex’s letter. The e-mails, too.
Stay away. The cops were all over it. Her folks had mountains of money. If anybody ever had her ass covered, it was Princess Liv.
The something’s-not-right feeling was swelling, bigger and badder. Fire ants in his head. Itching and twitching. What had T-Rex said? Burning in the fire of his passion? Our union will be explosive.
He’d stared at the twisted wreckage at the bottom of Hagen’s Canyon for hours, before they’d climbed down and hauled him away.
Our union will be explosive. Repeated in his head, pounding like a jackhammer. His brother’s body had been charred black. Carbonized.
“Hey! How’d it go?”
Sean jerked as if he’d been stung by a bee, but it was just Miles, coming out of the computer store, his eyes big with curiosity. “Did you see that girl? What did she say? Was she surprised to see you?”
Sean couldn’t speak for the pressure building inside him. He doubled over, pressed his hand against the sucking crater in his torso.
“Jeez. Are you OK?” Miles grabbed his shoulder. “Are you sick?”
He was going to hurl his coffee and sweet roll, right into the potted geraniums in front of Endicott Falls Fine Antiques and Collectibles. Oh, man, what a way to repair his social image.
Our union will be explosive.
He peered back through the haze of smoke. His eye fastened onto Liv’s graceful form. Blair Madden marched beside her, chest flung out.
Liv’s car. Burning. Explosive.
They split to walk around the battered pickup. That wasn’t a trophy vehicle a pompous dick like Madden would drive. Must be Liv’s.
Click. It fell into place. His panic released, like a coiled spring.
He took off towards that pickup like he had rocket launchers under his feet. He barely recognized that howling voice as his own. Time warped, like in combat. People flinched away as he pounded by. Madden goggled at him behind the windshield. Liv’s eyes were huge.
“Get away from that car!” he bellowed. “Get back!”
Liv froze, one foot already inside
Madden locked his door, lunged across the seat, grabbed Liv’s wrist to yank her in, the cretin. Fuck. Sean shattered the driver’s side window with a flying kick. He unlocked the door, wrenched Madden out.
The guy grunted as he hit the hot asphalt. Liv backed away ’til she hit the glass display window of Trinket Trove Gift Emporium.
“Get away!” he yelled, waving his arms at her and everyone else he could see. “Back! Farther! Now, goddamnit!”
Everyone obeyed. Nobody wanted to be near the howling psycho.
The keys were in the ignition. He popped the hood. Any movement could trip the bomb, but he had to take that risk upon himself. Nobody was going to believe him. He knew that from bitter experience.
He wasn’t even sure he believed it himself, but hell. He had no choice but to trust an impulse strong enough to make him practically blow chunks all over the spit-shined Endicott Falls shopping district.
He scanned the Toyota’s engine for bomb designs he was familiar with, but there were infinite variations, endless new strategies, and he’d never tinkered with the guts of an aging Toyota. He wouldn’t recognize a wire out of place if it bit him in the ass. He stared at it, stomach churning. He dropped to the ground, shimmied under the pickup on his back. Switched on the penlight on his keychain. Peered around.
A thrill of confirmation jolted his nerves. A wire wrapped around the drive train. Old classic. Easy to spot if you were looking for it, but why look? He poked around delicately. There it was. A wad of plastic explosives, molded between the gas tank and the truck body. If Madden had driven a few inches, the turning driveshaft would’ve pulled the trip, and ka-boom. He let out a jerky sigh. Tension drained out of him.
The smell of sunbaked asphalt tickled his nose. Scratches on his back began to sting. He stared at the destruction clinging to the belly of the truck, like a malignant growth. So close.
He wiggled out from under the Toyota. It took some eye-rubbing to recognize Officer Tom Roarke. The man had put on weight in fifteen years, but the hostility in his face was immutable.
Sean hardly blamed him. Punching an officer of the law in the face and restraining him with his own cuffs was a very undesirable course of action. Even in his wilder days, Sean had known that.
And all for nothing, in the end. He’d been too late to save Kev.
“Mr. McCloud, would you like to explain to me what you’re doing vandalizing Ms. Endicott’s car?” Roarke’s voice was as harsh as gravel.
“Verifying the presence of unexploded ordnance,” Sean replied.
Roarke’s face went blank. “Huh?”
Sean sat up. “Take a look,” he offered. “There’s plastic explosives around the gas tank. A wire around the driveshaft. Could be a decoy, though. Somebody could be watching with a remote detonater.”
“You’re kidding.” Roarke’s face went an odd, purplish shade.
“I wish I were. I suggest you evacuate this block right now.”
Roarke yanked his walkie talkie out of his belt. Sean turned, and found Liv standing in the street, way too close to her car. Miles, too, was wandering closer than he should, goggle-eyed and slack-jawed.
“Detonator?” she echoed faintly. “You mean…a bomb? In my pickup? But I drove it this morning. I parked it here at five A.M. It’s been right out here in public, all morning. How on earth—”
“Get the fuck away from the car, Liv. You, too, Miles. Move!” Weird, to hear his father’s drill sergeant voice coming out of his own mouth. It had no discernible effect on Liv, though. She didn’t bat an eye. Sean spun her around, and shoved.
“Get your hands off her.” It was Madden, his voice shaky and high. His face was wet with sweat. He grabbed Sean’s arm.
Sean just towed the guy along with them. “Let’s have this pissing contest out of blast range,” he growled.
“I’d like to know how you knew about that bomb, McCloud.”
Sean’s gut clenched. A lot of people were going to be unpleasantly curious about that. I had a funny feeling didn’t get you far when people were casting around for a scapegoat, and he made a kick-ass scapegoat.
He braced himself. “I had a hunch.”
“I see,” Madden’s voice heavy with scorn. “A hunch. How convenient and timely. You’re so obviously an expert, I’m surprised you’re not defusing this so-called bomb all by yourself, on the spot.”
“I probably could, but I won’t.” Sean kept his voice even. “Not without equipment, and backup. I’d do it off the cuff if somebody’s life depended on it, but given the choice, I’d rather call the EOD techs.”
Patrol cars began to pull up. People were trickling out of nearby buildings, scurrying away. Miles was hunched over his phone, ratting him out to his brothers. Then he saw Roarke and two other officers, marching towards him with grim purpose in their synchronized step, and an unmistakable look in their eyes. Oh, great. This rocked.
So he was ending up behind bars today, after all.
August the fucking eighteenth. It never failed.
“Will it hurt?”
Dr. Osterman threw a reassuring arm around the shoulders of the girl he was steering into his private examining room. He flipped on the lights, enabled the video cameras. “Not at all. X-Cog 10 will just enhance your neural activity, and the electrical stimulation will augment blood circulation to selected portions of your brain,” he lied smoothly.
Caitlin’s eyes widened, intrigued. “Cool.”
Osterman gave her a smile brimming with charm. “Basically, we’re trying to use more of your already remarkable brain potential.”
Caitlin gave him a world-weary smile. “There are lots of drugs that help you use more of your brain,” she said. “I’ve tried a bunch already.”
He chuckled. “No doubt, but my approach is more systematic. I hope to develop ways to treat learning problems, enhance academic performance, and ultimately, contribute to human evolution.”
“Wow,” she whispered, her eyes big.
Osterman experienced a flash of doubt as to whether this was worth the risk. Caitlin’s test results were only borderline. Off the charts compared to a normal teenager, and extremely talented artistically, but she was more or less mediocre by his own standards. On the plus side, her family profile was perfect. She was a product of the foster system. Behavioral problems, drug problems, no nosy parents to ask awkward questions when she disappeared. And he’d been waiting so long for a suitable test subject. Helix Group needed results, if he was to keep getting this lavish funding. Demonstrable, profitable results.
Osterman tilted her face up, noting the lovely bone structure. She had big, startled brown eyes. Her lips were shiny with flavored lip gloss.
“You’re special, Caitlin,” he said gently. “This project is important. I can’t trust the others the way I trust you. Do you understand?”
She blinked in the bright light. “Uh, OK.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You’re lovely,” he said.
Her eyes widened, startled. Osterman drew his hand slowly away. “I’m sorry, Cait,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have said that to you.”
Caitlin’s eyes glittered with tears. “It’s OK. I, uh, don’t mind.”
Ah. Working with girls was so gratifying. It was difficult to find extremely gifted girls who fit his exacting social profile, but the ease of management canceled out that disadvantage. Just tell them they were beautiful and special, and the deal was done. It didn’t matter how smart they were. Girls were so vulnerable, so desperate for love and validation.
And he had discovered, by laborious trial and error, that his precious secret baby, the X-Cog neural interface, was easiest to establish and maintain with highly intelligent female subjects.
She batted her eyes at him. “You’ve got a good body,” she coyly said. “For an older guy.” The invitation in her fluttering glance was clear.
Osterman considered it, briefly. These girls were destined for use and discard, so he never had to worry about repercussions. Being married to his work, he preferred to keep his sex life extremely simple.
But all that bucking and heaving took on a tedious sameness after a while. And coming in contact with bodily fluids was unsanitary.
He preferred passions of the mind, when all was said and done.
He stroked her cheek. “Work first, play after. Into the throne.”
She clambered into the chair. Osterman snapped the padded wrist restraints on quickly. “Hey!” She struggled. “What is this? You didn’t say anything about tying me down!”
“Standard procedure,” Osterman soothed, snapping on the ankle restraints. He adjusted the rubber head clamp so that he could position the X-Cog helmet on her head. “Relax. You’re doing fine.”
Her lips really were beautiful, he thought, with a pang of regret. She was babbling anxious questions that he no longer bothered to answer. He was miles above her now, preparing for the grand event.
Cait might have grown into a beautiful woman, given other circumstances, he mused. But she was so damaged. One might go so far as to say he was giving her life a meaning it would never otherwise have had. Progress ground ever forward, for the good of humanity in general. And for Christopher Osterman, MD, PhD, in particular. He slid the needle into her arm, taped it, started the IV drip. He put his own master crown on. Now all he had to do was watch, and hope.
“Fucking pervert,” said a low, grating voice behind him.
Osterman jumped, spun around. He let out an explosive breath when he saw Gordon, his pet assassin, clean-up man and factotum.
Well, “pet” wasn’t quite accurate. Keeping Gordon on staff was like holding a tiger by the tail. One kept a tight grip. The corollary being that Gordon’s grip on Osterman’s own tail was correspondingly tight.
Osterman found the resulting forced intimacy quite unpleasant.
“Do not sneak up on me like that,” he scolded.
“You didn’t answer your phone. I figured you were playing doctor with one of your girlies back here in the pervert playroom,” Gordon said.
Osterman exhaled, and let that insulting comment pass. “Did you take care of that item of business you mentioned in your last call?”
“Ah.” Gordon chewed his lip. “There’s been a new development.”
Osterman waited, hands clenched. “And that is?”
“Kevin McCloud’s brother made contact with the girl.”
Osterman stared. “What do you mean, contact? You were supposed to kill her. How can he make contact with a corpse?”
“I hadn’t concluded the job,” Gordon said. “He talked to her today, at her bookstore. The one that I burned to the ground last night.”
“Burned?” Osterman gaped at him. “Have you gone crazy?”
“You told me to work up a stalker scenario, didn’t you?” Gordon’s voice was faintly sullen. “I took you at your word, Chris.”
“I was thinking dirty letters, slaughtered cats, that sort of thing!”
“I can’t go from dirty letters and dead cats to homicide,” Gordon protested. “You need natural buildup. The violence has to escalate in a way that makes sense. Trust me. I know my abnormal psych.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Osterman muttered.
“Watch the snotty remarks. As I was saying, McCloud talked to her. Then he pulled her out of her car before my bomb could go off.”
“Bomb?” Osterman’s voice rose in pitch. “What bomb?”
“Chunk of Semtex I’ve had lying around. Don’t worry, I wasn’t showing off. Any fool with access to the Internet could build it. I rigged the final touches this morning, while everyone was looking at the fire.”
Osterman’s heart thudded. “This was supposed to be a discreet hit! A bomb in a shopping district? I thought you were a professional!”
Gordon looked hurt. “Think outside the box, Chris. My stalker craves attention. It fills the void inside him. The bigger the gesture, the more he imagines that it will impress the object of his deranged love.”
“Your pseudo-psych bullshit is not a justification for—”
“I enter my character’s personality structure, and follow its directives,” Gordon lectured, enjoying himself. “That way, each crime has its own coherence. Which keeps me, your buddy Gordon, from leaving a signature. In fact, the lack of a signature is my signature.”
“You’ve explained your criminal philosophy to me before. It won’t keep the cops from investigating the shit out of this!” Osterman fumed. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison!”
“Oh, prison wouldn’t be so bad. With that pretty face of yours, I’m sure you’d be very popular.”
Osterman forced himself to breathe. “Are you showing a desire to stop the downward spiral of violence? Is this a cry for help, Gordon?”
“Fuck, no.” Gordon’s toothy grin was cheerfully manic. “Nothing will stop my downward spiral. I live for this shit.”
“The Helix Group will not help us, if the police find your tail.”
Gordon’s shrug was casual. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine. Back to McCloud. As I said during the Midnight Project fuck-up—”
“Do not say the name,” Osterman ground the words out.
Gordon rolled his eyes. “I told you we should take out Sean McCloud in a preemptive strike—”
“I didn’t want the body count to get higher,” Osterman snarled.
“You always get squeamish at the wrong moment,” Gordon complained. “That girl passed the info on, and went into hiding.”
“Then why haven’t they come for us? We haven’t heard anything in fifteen years,” Osterman argued. “He might have been passing by. A burning bookstore attracts attention. Or did that not occur to you?”
“Yeah. Right. Coincidence.” Gordon hawked, and spat on the floor tiles. “McCloud is on to us. He guessed my bomb. He knows, Chris. The question is, do we kill him now, before trouble has time to begin?”
Osterman stared at that hateful glob of yellow mucus, and contemplated ways of killing Gordon. He did not like cleaning up his own messes, but things were getting seriously out of hand.
On the other hand. The prospect of training someone new was daunting.
“I should question the girl before I put her down,” Gordon mused. He glanced over at Caitlin. “Speaking of which. Want me to dump this one for you? She looks like a shredder to me.”
Oh, God, he’d forgotten all about Caitlin. He turned, and knew instantly, as Gordon had, that the attempted interface had failed.
She was twitching, straining against the restraints. Broken blood vessels marred the whites of her eyes. Her mouth was wide, as if she were screaming, though she made no sound. Hallucinations, no doubt. X-Cog had paralyzed her motor functions, but the side effects had fried the rest. Or maybe the electrical stimulation had been too aggressive. He made a note to dial it down for the next subject.
He averted his gaze. That silent scream effect was grotesque.
“Nice titties,” Gordon crooned, fondling them.
“Stop that,” Osterman snapped. “Let’s get back to McCloud. And the girl. Just kill them, for God’s sake, and get it over with.”
“So let’s talk fee adjustment. And take off your pervert crown.”
Osterman lifted off his master crown, and carefully smoothed back his thick, glossy dark hair. “I’m paying you a fortune already.”
“McCloud is high-risk. Ex-special forces. One brother who’s an ex-fed, another who’s a private investigator. Those men are going to be unhappy. It may be necessary for me to relocate. That takes capital.”
Osterman was tantalized by the fantasy of Gordon disappearing from his life forever. “How much do you want?”
Gordon named a sum. Osterman stared at the man, appalled.
“You’re welcome to call someone else,” he taunted. “Feel free. I’d be happy to wash my hands of this. Because you’re bugging me, Chris.”
“Too much,” he said testily, already making the calculations in his head, liquidating assets, transferring this, converting that.
“Your slush fund should cover it. And the big boys at Helix won’t have to worry their pretty little heads, right? We’ll keep it between us. He jerked his chin at Caitlin. “Want me to load her up?”
“Yes. I’m sick of looking at her. I’ll mix up a dose of heroin and fentanyl. Inject her right before you dump her. Don’t let her asphyxiate in the trunk of your car. It looks suspicious to the forensics techs.”
“Might take her a while to finish dying,” Gordon warned. “You want to risk her ending up in the emergency room?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Osterman adjusted the knobs. “She’ll have so much cerebral damage, she won’t be able to tell them her own name.”
Gordon whistled softly. “Now that’s cold.”
The silence behind him made him suspicious as he loaded the syringe. He turned, to see Gordon peeking under Caitlin’s shirt.
“Why do you do that?” he snapped. “It’s disgusting.”
“Why does a man do anything? Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can, Chris. Because he can.”
Osterman shuddered with distaste. “You are such an animal.”
“So throw me a chunk of meat.” He moved his hand down to caress her crotch, and snatched it away with a hiss of distaste. “Yuck. She’s wet herself. I’ll back the van up to the cargo door. You got any more body bags? I don’t want her leaking in my trunk.”
“I’m almost out. It’s really hard to get those in bulk,” he said.
“Yeah, ain’t life difficult? Is that one of your annoying passive aggressive ways of asking me to get some more of them for you?”
The door swung shut on their wrangling, leaving the vidcams to record the subject’s response to X-Cog NG-4. Wrists straining, heels drumming. Face locked in the rictus of an endless, silent scream.