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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
The Third Highway Series Part 14:
Nexus
Chapter 1
Witch1
The Boardwalk Family Fun Park
Wildwood, New Jersey
Oddly enough, it was the leaden sky--the dark, unmoving clouds and the thin bands of eerie, peach-colored brightness growing between them as the sun set--from which Harvey Allan couldn't take his eyes. He knew he should be paying more attention to the man dressed all in black who was pointing a gun at him: he should be memorizing his face, getting prepared to describe him to the cops. Because he certainly expected that would be his next step, that he'd soon enough be talking to the law, even if he'd hoped to avoid that. After all, that was why he'd shown up as demanded with an attache case full of cash--fifty grand neatly wrapped and stacked in almost obscene tidiness--he didn't want the cops involved. The money was what this guy with the gun had wanted, and he'd promised Harvey that if the money was delivered he would shut up and go away.
A part of Harvey had never believed a word of it. A part of himself he thought of as 'smart-ass Harve' had always suspected that the money would not be enough. Blackmail had a way of going on and on, this pessimistic voice had told him. And, even more sobering, there had been, from the first moment this guy had contacted him, a sense of total, nauseating fatality to the whole business. That cynical little voice of doom--which had plagued Harvey his entire life, sapping the joy out of nearly everything did--had told him his luck had finally, completely run out.
And perhaps that's why he sat and stupidly stared at the sky, looking right over the guy's shoulder like he wasn't even there, transfixed by the rich pinks of the sunset, by the lavenders and blues he'd never noticed before. Perhaps it was that sense of his own fleeting, doomed mortality that turned his eyes westward and taught him to look out past the face of the man who threatened him and to breathe in deeply, one last time.
He made a conscious effort to shake off the lethargy his fatalism was causing.
"What's this total fucking bullshit?" Harvey managed to ask. "You got your money, pal--so what the fuck do you want with me, now?"
The man with the gun smiled coldly. Harvey registered that smile as something between shark and snake. Or weasel, perhaps. Harvey decided the guy looked exactly like a weasel. That was what he'd tell the cops when he finally got out of this: look for a guy, dark hair, smiles like a weasel.
"Why not talk to me, Harvey," the guy said. "Why not tell me how much money it took to buy you. To buy the lives of those kids that died. Because it was your fault, wasn't it? You passed this roller coaster through the state inspection, didn't you, even though you saw the fractures in the steel? You passed it as safe--for a price. And those kids died--plunged off the top of this coaster into the ocean and died--because of your greed."
Harvey blanched. The whole thing was getting way out of control--the guy was starting to sound as if he was personally offended by what had happened, or something. He wondered if he was related to some of the people who had died, or what. Personal vendetta--that was a motive he could at least understand.
Harvey looked down at his hands: he'd handcuffed himself to the safety bar of the coaster, just as the man had demanded. In and of itself this was no big deal: the stress fractures in the steel the guy was talking about had been repaired months ago. The entire coaster had been gone over and reinforced. It had run all summer without any further accidents. If the guy was planning to turn it on and send Harvey for a ride it would be damned cold--there was a good reason February was considered off season and all the rides were closed --but he'd survive. Still, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that more was at stake than that.
His mother had always told him he was psychic. That he knew who was calling on the phone, which bar his dad was holed-up in, which good neighbor was a made-guy and which one was a wannabe. He'd laughed at his mom, he'd told her he just had a good imagination.
He looked back, past the guy's shoulder, at the sky again. He was expecting the shot at any second. He knew he was going to die.
"You did it for the fucking money, didn't you, you sick son of a bitch?" the guy was demanding. Harvey glanced at him vaguely, at the barrel of the big gun pointed at him. He no longer cared. "Tell me, Harvey: you like roller coasters, huh? Like to be scared? Like to scream? Because I'm sending you on the ride from hell. One way, Harve: one fucking way."
"Go on and shoot me," Harvey said woodenly. He was still looking at the sky. When did sunsets start coming in gold and purple and peach? He'd never seen anything like it before in his life. It was like the whole sky was lit up by big neon tubes or something. It was beautiful. Better than Vegas. He couldn't look away.
"Shooting you would be too quick, Harvey, too clean. That's not how sixteen year old Jennifer Daughtery died, is it? Or eighteen year old Brian Kimmel? What about little Bobby Redman--eight years old? Or--"
"Jesus fucking Christ: just pull the fucking trigger and get it over with!" Harvey demanded. He'd snapped back, suddenly, into emotional engagement. The guy was driving him nuts. He'd always hated people that toyed with you like that. It was very unbusiness-like.
"Too easy," he told Harvey evenly. "Too fucking easy, by half. You, Harvey, you're going out with a real bang. You'll be in all the papers tomorrow, Harve--first page, headline. Because I decided to do a little work on this coaster, myself. A little--shall we say--tweaking."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Harvey demanded.
"I read the reports. On the 'accident' All those pesky stress fractures. And then I just made some 'stress fractures' of my own. You gotta love these oxy-acetylene blow-torches, don't you, Harve? Lightweight, portable--you can take 'em anywhere. Even underneath a roller coaster. Just juice the torch all the way up and then go to pure oxygen--the steel just melts away. Beautiful thing, melting steel."
Harvey's mouth dropped open. He was about to be shot out into space off the top of the coaster, handcuffed to a steel car, and dropped into water that was probably forty-five degrees, max. Getting shot through the head was starting to sound really, really good.
"You sadistic son of a bitch!" he screamed. "Who the fuck are you, you bastard, that thinks he can play god with me?"
The guy with the gun had moved over to the control shed--Harvey heard the rasp of a motor engaging and a gentle jerk as gears shifted and the coaster began moving slowly forward.
"Who the fuck are you?" Harvey yelled one last time as he was pulled inexorably away from the platform, from life.
"Just call me 'Jarod'," the guy said over his shoulder.
As he walked away from Harvey he casually dropped onto the boardwalk a slim red notebook bulging with newspaper clippings.
He didn't look back.
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Cape May County Police Department
Cape May, New Jersey
38 hours later
"I'm not sure you're hearing me clearly, Chief Reynolds: my 'authority' here is explained in the fax you received, completely. You don't need anything further. You won't get anything further. Are we clear?"
The puffy man stuffed into a too-tight police uniform--whose deep pink skin was growing pinker by the instant--backed up a step. This tall, thin woman with the over-bearing attitude was scaring the hell out of him. The fax had been bad enough: from the freaking Justice Department, for god's sake. But once she and her friends--a skittish geek, an old guy and two huge goons, all of them completely deferential to the broad--had actually shown up, he'd started to really get the creeps. These weren't normal people. This woman acted like he was some piece of dirt she was too proud to bother wiping off her shoe. He took a deep breath. And then pushed the plastic bag with the red notebook in it across the counter to the woman.
"Smart move," she hissed. She didn't even bother to touch it--one of the goons reached around her carefully and scooped it in his big hand. "Who knew an inbred Piney could be so smart, huh?" she added.
In spite of himself he opened his mouth to tell her what for--in South Jersey, calling someone a "Piney" was a huge insult--but he thought better of it when she raised one perfectly-arched eyebrow expectantly. She was enjoying baiting him.
He decided to let it go. Let the bitch have the notebook as well as copies of all the police files on the killing: it wouldn't make any difference. It wasn't like they'd ever solve Harvey Allan's murder, anyway. It was clearly one of these New Wave mob hits or something. The Wiseguys were watching way too many freaking movies--that "Pulp Fiction" crap--and getting creative with the killings all of a sudden. Once, a bullet in the brain was plenty artistic enough for them. Now they were trying to out-Hollywood each other.
Reynolds twisted his mouth into a mocking smile. "You have a nice day . . . ma'am," he told the tall bitch.
He thought for a minute she was going to hit him. He'd seen that out-of-control look in lots of eyes over the years, but never before in such pretty ones. He smiled even more. Women were so predictable. The one thing they all hated was being called 'ma'am'.
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Suquamish Island
Washingtton State
Laura was trying to focus on the computer screen in front of her, but the words seemed jumbled and unsatisfying. She was about halfway into the first chapter of a new book about the I Ching, Tarot, and the stock market she was co-authoring with her ex-lover Alex--who had called her out of the blue saying the publisher had sent him an advance and asking for her help--when she heard the distinctive low rumble of a Boston Whaler's engine approaching.
She got up and walked over to the big window that overlooked the Straits of Juan de Fuca: she saw the dim outline of the boat in the deepening dusk, and then the silhouette of a man tying it to the dock. There were two Whalers--one for going back and forth to the island, one left in the boathouse at the mainland dock. It was there for Jarod, mostly, in case he decided to show up without warning.
"Damn!" she cursed quietly. She ran her fingers through her hair--dirty and tangled from an afternoon outside in the wind hiking around the island with Harry, her terrier mutt, and a brisk spin in the kayak before that.
She looked down at her clothes in distress: an ancient black wool sweater so thread-bare it was torn at the elbows over a stretched-out cotton turtleneck. Sweat pants. Heavy wool socks and big, clumsy, Bavarian wool clogs. She felt about as sexy as she looked: not very.
She watched the man bounding up the three flights of steps from the dock two at a time--it had to be Jarod.
She pondered running into the bathroom and jumping in the shower. Then decided, basically, to let it go. This was what she was, at the moment: no sex goddess, just an average woman in a moment of slight disarray. He'd have to deal with it.
Her insecurity around him still annoyed her, anyway. She'd never given a damn about what any other man had thought about her appearance. She hated even the thought that she worried about such things.
But he hardly even looked at her when he jerked open the door and more-or-less ran into the room. He went right up to her and grabbed her, hugging her almost life-threateningly close. He seemed to be crying.
"What?" she gasped, trying to loosen his grip enough to take a breath, "what?"
"I think he's alive," Jarod said, his voice choked with emotion. "Kyle--my brother--I think he's alive!"
Laura tensed in his grip. And then pushed away from him, looking at him thoughtfully.
"I offered months ago to try to find him for you, Jarod--in the psychic sense. On the 'third highway': out-of-body," she said. "To see if he's still alive. I told you I thought that whole thing was too odd: certainly that once again Sydney was either lying to you when he said there was no scrap of Kyle's body found, or is himself swallowing a whole raft of bullshit. But you didn't want me to, you said it hurt too much. So what's changed?"
Jarod leaned down and unzipped the duffel bag he'd brought and pulled out yet another of his signature red notebooks, handing it without further explanation to Laura.
The newspaper clippings detailed first the mysterious murder of one 'Harvey Allan': handcuffed to a roller coaster car and shot off it's highest point into oblivion, and the Atlantic ocean. She skimmed the story quickly. Except for the bizarre nature of the murder weapon, here was nothing very noteworthy. The next item was a printout from a report on the murder Jarod had pulled off the Police Net. Her attention was caught by a quick mention at it's very end about a strange clue found at the crime scene: a red notebook full of newspaper clippings about Allan's trail. The last paragraph noted that the suspect had been described by several witnesses rather vaguely but had been using the first name, 'Jarod', with a number of different last names.
She glanced at the following clippings: they detailed Allan's trial and the surprising not-guilty verdict, and his alleged mob ties. Laura looked back at Jarod: he was standing there staring at her, waiting for her response.
"Well, if it's Kyle he's one whacked-out, sadistic son of a bitch," she told him. "Why the hell is he using your name and M.O.?"
"I think," Jarod started slowly, "he's trying to send me a message. He's trying to be like me, don't you see? He's trying to do what I do. To right a wrong. Only he's been so hurt and is so confused that--"
"Holy shit, Jarod: he fucking killed this guy in cold blood! Ah: 'hurt and confused'? Hel-lo! That's just a bit of an understatement, don't you think?"
"You judge people too quickly," Jarod told her, and she was so incensed by that answer she was at a loss for words for a long moment, staring at him.
"I judge people too quickly?" she nearly shouted after the pause. "Like it's MY fucking problem, here? You're Mr. Judge/Jury/Jarod, not me! I don't go around assuming I can see everything more clearly--and judge more correctly--than anyone else!"
She regretted her words instantly: he looked incredibly hurt. After all, he'd come to her for help, and to share something that was important to him. And it was the first time he'd ever done that. The last thing she wanted to do was make him feel badly about having confided in her.
She frowned and touched his arm lightly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can imagine how important this is to you. He's your brother. OK, give me a moment, please? I need to calm down and then focus on this--on him. I need to think about it a bit and relax. And then I'll see what I can find out--if he's alive or dead. Maybe even if he's the one who did this."
Jarod smiled broadly and took her into his arms. "I knew this was the place to come," he said softly.
And she was so uncharacteristically overwhelmed by emotion--by this choking wave of gratitude and happiness and the absolute terror it all caused her--that she could only gulp back unexpected, instantaneous tears and hold onto him tightly, hoping for whatever reason that he didn't notice her distress.
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
"Have you gone insane, Sydney, or have you always been there and just hidden it better until today?"
Sydney pursed his lips and rocked backward on his heels. Miss Parker's heated accusations did not surprise him: he'd watched her escalating impatience for some time. Mostly, she'd directed her wrath at Broots, who seemed able to either absorb it painlessly or perhaps even--in some deeply disturbed way--relish it. Sydney wasn't quite sure, yet, which it was. But he wasn't Broots, and he didn't enjoy her being, as people now said, 'in his face'.
"It's not Jarod's red notebook," he repeated, evenly. He remained, on the exterior, completely unemotional.
"Well, then what the hell is it, Syd--the new 'Bridges of Madison County'?"
"I don't know what it is, Miss Parker," Sydney replied steadily, "but it's a clever fake--"
"Why?" she demanded, turning to Broots. "Why would anyone be pretending to be Jarod?"
Broots cleared his throat. She was staring expectantly at him. He wasn't sure what he was going to say--he hadn't really analyzed all the implications and come to any coherent conclusions--but he didn't want to disappoint her.
"Perhaps, " he began tentatively, "it is Jarod's, but he wants us to think it isn't?"
"Then why use 'Jarod Seagal' to rent the car he was using in Jersey? Why sign the motel books 'Jarod Bronson'? He was going out of his way to tell people his name--let's not forget 'Jarod Van Damme'--he's playing games with us, he's teasing me," Parker said bitterly.
"But the notebook is--different," Broots added. It was 'different', all right: it had obscenities scrawled all over the newspaper clippings about Harvey Allan's controversial trail and the even-more controversial 'not guilty' verdict. None of Jarod's multitude of red notebooks had ever looked like that.
"It's like he's trying to throw us off his trail," Broots expanded, thoughtfully. "Like he wants us to doubt this is his notebook in the first place."
"Or that he's simply gone loony," Parker offered. "I mean, he wrote colorful variations of 'mother-fucker' twenty times on this one clipping--"
"Which is why we know it's not Jarod's, in the first place," Sydney interrupted.
"Which is why you want to BELIEVE it's not Jarod's," Parker replied. "Not willing to believe your Brainiac might be feeling just a tad stressed out there in the big, bad world, huh, Syd? That maybe Mr. I-Am-The-Law has finally flipped out completely? Or it is merely the language you object to--not like Jarod to use that word, huh?"
"Jarod does nothing without a reason," Sydney replied without emotion.
"Which is why this looks like an intentional mislead, to me," Parker countered. "He's hiding something."
But Sydney was already shaking his head 'no' with unusual violence. "Jarod is proud of what he's doing--of righting the world's wrongs, " Sydney explained. "He would never try to deceive us about that."
There was a pause while Parker pondered that statement. "OK--makes sense," Parker agreed between deep inhalations from her cigarette. "He's never tried to deke us on that before. He's too smug and all-knowing. It's not like Mr. Moral Conscience to suddenly tone down the self-righteousness."
"Yes," Broots stammered, trying to play catch-up. "You're right--that's a theory we can get rid of. But the other possibility is that it ISN'T Jarod's notebook, and that means someone else is pretending to be Jarod. And they're trying to . . . " he let the sentence trail off. Parker was watching him closely--he had to look away. He took a deep breath and then the words just poured out, without any plan, surprising him as much as they did the others. He hadn't realized he had another theory until he heard his own voice explaining it: "They're trying to decoy Jarod TO them. They want to find him. They've got some grudge--maybe it's one of these people he's set up, you know? So they pretend to be him. They do a sting like one of his--but they go further and kill the guy. So Jarod gets mad and goes looking for them. And they're ready--it's all a trap. Presto--they've got him!"
Sydney looked impressed and thoughtful. Parker frowned for a moment, thinking.
"Not bad, Sherlock," she practically purred, after a moment, leaning much too close to Broots, "keep it up and we won't need Jarod back, will we? We'll have a brand new Wonder Boy on our team."
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City Hall We-Park-U Lot
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
John Rafferty was sweating into his expensive suit even though his big Mercedes' heater was barely able to deal with the sub-freezing temperatures and keep the interior of the car moderately warm. It was two in the morning: he glanced for the millionth time at the attaché case full of cash on the leather seat beside him.
He saw the other car ease into the parking lot, gliding past the chain whose lock he had opened--he owned the lot, and another eighteen like it, spread all over center city Philadelphia. They were virtual goldmines, and they'd made him a very, very wealthy man. Which explained the cash, of course: he'd hardly had to sweat to put together the demanded two-hundred grand. But he was sweating now, as he watched a man dressed completely in black get out of the other car and walk steadily toward him.
Rafferty couldn't take his eyes off the man's gun. It was the biggest, shiniest hand gun he'd ever actually seen, and it was pointed relentlessly toward him.
"Get out of the car," the guy told him.
Rafferty did as he was told, oblivious to the bitter cold air. He stood as told and put his hands on the Mercedes' cold, shiny roof--he felt the chill through his leather gloves--as the other man patted him down, checking for weapons.
"Go stand over there," the guy directed, pointing toward the rear of the lot. There was a narrow cul-de-sac there, formed by the backs of the neighboring buildings. It was a short, dead-end alley that, during business hours, would be packed by the valets with commuters' cars. Right now it was starkly empty except for a few shreds of wind-blown trash.
Rafferty walked into the alley, stopping where he was told. He saw the guy open the door to his car and start getting in and was suddenly incensed: money was one thing, but he loved that car.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Don't you steal my car, man!"
The guy with the gun stopped and stared at him, motioning him back with the gun barrel. "Oh--you mean the car that you were driving the night you ran over Shania Williams? The same car that killed a twelve-year old right around the corner from here? THAT car?"
John Rafferty sputtered in rage. The guy had extorted the money on the promise no one would ever see the evidence he'd somehow dug up--the paint match that had been repressed during his trail. It had cost him even more for the fix, but it had worked: he'd been acquitted because the jury had never seen the one incriminating clue that put his car at the crime scene that night.
"Because that's what you did, right, John-Boy? Killed a little girl and then walked away scott free? And kept driving the same fucking car--you know, that's the part that gets me: I couldn't do that, bubba--drive the same car I killed an innocent kid with. I couldn't freaking do it. Guess that's the difference between you and me, huh?"
"You son of a bitch!" Rafferty screamed. "You're nothing but a shit-assed blackmailing scumball! Who the hell are you to get all fucking moral on me, mother-fucker?"
"I'm your conscience, John-Boy, come home to roost," the guy told him steadily. "And you can just call me, 'Jarod'."
Which were the last words John Rafferty was destined to hear. Because no sooner had the man with the gun told him that than he got into John's car and stomped on the accelerator pedal.
John Rafferty died within thirty minutes from the massive internal injuries he'd sustained when the sturdy grill of that powerful pride of German automotive engineering pinned him against the brick wall at the end of the alley, and squashed his insides like a bug's.
He wasn't conscious when the guy with the gun kicked him to see if he was still alive, and he never saw him drive away with both his money and his car, immediately finding a country music station on the car's radio as he did.
Nexus
Chapter 1
Witch1
The Boardwalk Family Fun Park
Wildwood, New Jersey
Oddly enough, it was the leaden sky--the dark, unmoving clouds and the thin bands of eerie, peach-colored brightness growing between them as the sun set--from which Harvey Allan couldn't take his eyes. He knew he should be paying more attention to the man dressed all in black who was pointing a gun at him: he should be memorizing his face, getting prepared to describe him to the cops. Because he certainly expected that would be his next step, that he'd soon enough be talking to the law, even if he'd hoped to avoid that. After all, that was why he'd shown up as demanded with an attache case full of cash--fifty grand neatly wrapped and stacked in almost obscene tidiness--he didn't want the cops involved. The money was what this guy with the gun had wanted, and he'd promised Harvey that if the money was delivered he would shut up and go away.
A part of Harvey had never believed a word of it. A part of himself he thought of as 'smart-ass Harve' had always suspected that the money would not be enough. Blackmail had a way of going on and on, this pessimistic voice had told him. And, even more sobering, there had been, from the first moment this guy had contacted him, a sense of total, nauseating fatality to the whole business. That cynical little voice of doom--which had plagued Harvey his entire life, sapping the joy out of nearly everything did--had told him his luck had finally, completely run out.
And perhaps that's why he sat and stupidly stared at the sky, looking right over the guy's shoulder like he wasn't even there, transfixed by the rich pinks of the sunset, by the lavenders and blues he'd never noticed before. Perhaps it was that sense of his own fleeting, doomed mortality that turned his eyes westward and taught him to look out past the face of the man who threatened him and to breathe in deeply, one last time.
He made a conscious effort to shake off the lethargy his fatalism was causing.
"What's this total fucking bullshit?" Harvey managed to ask. "You got your money, pal--so what the fuck do you want with me, now?"
The man with the gun smiled coldly. Harvey registered that smile as something between shark and snake. Or weasel, perhaps. Harvey decided the guy looked exactly like a weasel. That was what he'd tell the cops when he finally got out of this: look for a guy, dark hair, smiles like a weasel.
"Why not talk to me, Harvey," the guy said. "Why not tell me how much money it took to buy you. To buy the lives of those kids that died. Because it was your fault, wasn't it? You passed this roller coaster through the state inspection, didn't you, even though you saw the fractures in the steel? You passed it as safe--for a price. And those kids died--plunged off the top of this coaster into the ocean and died--because of your greed."
Harvey blanched. The whole thing was getting way out of control--the guy was starting to sound as if he was personally offended by what had happened, or something. He wondered if he was related to some of the people who had died, or what. Personal vendetta--that was a motive he could at least understand.
Harvey looked down at his hands: he'd handcuffed himself to the safety bar of the coaster, just as the man had demanded. In and of itself this was no big deal: the stress fractures in the steel the guy was talking about had been repaired months ago. The entire coaster had been gone over and reinforced. It had run all summer without any further accidents. If the guy was planning to turn it on and send Harvey for a ride it would be damned cold--there was a good reason February was considered off season and all the rides were closed --but he'd survive. Still, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that more was at stake than that.
His mother had always told him he was psychic. That he knew who was calling on the phone, which bar his dad was holed-up in, which good neighbor was a made-guy and which one was a wannabe. He'd laughed at his mom, he'd told her he just had a good imagination.
He looked back, past the guy's shoulder, at the sky again. He was expecting the shot at any second. He knew he was going to die.
"You did it for the fucking money, didn't you, you sick son of a bitch?" the guy was demanding. Harvey glanced at him vaguely, at the barrel of the big gun pointed at him. He no longer cared. "Tell me, Harvey: you like roller coasters, huh? Like to be scared? Like to scream? Because I'm sending you on the ride from hell. One way, Harve: one fucking way."
"Go on and shoot me," Harvey said woodenly. He was still looking at the sky. When did sunsets start coming in gold and purple and peach? He'd never seen anything like it before in his life. It was like the whole sky was lit up by big neon tubes or something. It was beautiful. Better than Vegas. He couldn't look away.
"Shooting you would be too quick, Harvey, too clean. That's not how sixteen year old Jennifer Daughtery died, is it? Or eighteen year old Brian Kimmel? What about little Bobby Redman--eight years old? Or--"
"Jesus fucking Christ: just pull the fucking trigger and get it over with!" Harvey demanded. He'd snapped back, suddenly, into emotional engagement. The guy was driving him nuts. He'd always hated people that toyed with you like that. It was very unbusiness-like.
"Too easy," he told Harvey evenly. "Too fucking easy, by half. You, Harvey, you're going out with a real bang. You'll be in all the papers tomorrow, Harve--first page, headline. Because I decided to do a little work on this coaster, myself. A little--shall we say--tweaking."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Harvey demanded.
"I read the reports. On the 'accident' All those pesky stress fractures. And then I just made some 'stress fractures' of my own. You gotta love these oxy-acetylene blow-torches, don't you, Harve? Lightweight, portable--you can take 'em anywhere. Even underneath a roller coaster. Just juice the torch all the way up and then go to pure oxygen--the steel just melts away. Beautiful thing, melting steel."
Harvey's mouth dropped open. He was about to be shot out into space off the top of the coaster, handcuffed to a steel car, and dropped into water that was probably forty-five degrees, max. Getting shot through the head was starting to sound really, really good.
"You sadistic son of a bitch!" he screamed. "Who the fuck are you, you bastard, that thinks he can play god with me?"
The guy with the gun had moved over to the control shed--Harvey heard the rasp of a motor engaging and a gentle jerk as gears shifted and the coaster began moving slowly forward.
"Who the fuck are you?" Harvey yelled one last time as he was pulled inexorably away from the platform, from life.
"Just call me 'Jarod'," the guy said over his shoulder.
As he walked away from Harvey he casually dropped onto the boardwalk a slim red notebook bulging with newspaper clippings.
He didn't look back.
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Cape May County Police Department
Cape May, New Jersey
38 hours later
"I'm not sure you're hearing me clearly, Chief Reynolds: my 'authority' here is explained in the fax you received, completely. You don't need anything further. You won't get anything further. Are we clear?"
The puffy man stuffed into a too-tight police uniform--whose deep pink skin was growing pinker by the instant--backed up a step. This tall, thin woman with the over-bearing attitude was scaring the hell out of him. The fax had been bad enough: from the freaking Justice Department, for god's sake. But once she and her friends--a skittish geek, an old guy and two huge goons, all of them completely deferential to the broad--had actually shown up, he'd started to really get the creeps. These weren't normal people. This woman acted like he was some piece of dirt she was too proud to bother wiping off her shoe. He took a deep breath. And then pushed the plastic bag with the red notebook in it across the counter to the woman.
"Smart move," she hissed. She didn't even bother to touch it--one of the goons reached around her carefully and scooped it in his big hand. "Who knew an inbred Piney could be so smart, huh?" she added.
In spite of himself he opened his mouth to tell her what for--in South Jersey, calling someone a "Piney" was a huge insult--but he thought better of it when she raised one perfectly-arched eyebrow expectantly. She was enjoying baiting him.
He decided to let it go. Let the bitch have the notebook as well as copies of all the police files on the killing: it wouldn't make any difference. It wasn't like they'd ever solve Harvey Allan's murder, anyway. It was clearly one of these New Wave mob hits or something. The Wiseguys were watching way too many freaking movies--that "Pulp Fiction" crap--and getting creative with the killings all of a sudden. Once, a bullet in the brain was plenty artistic enough for them. Now they were trying to out-Hollywood each other.
Reynolds twisted his mouth into a mocking smile. "You have a nice day . . . ma'am," he told the tall bitch.
He thought for a minute she was going to hit him. He'd seen that out-of-control look in lots of eyes over the years, but never before in such pretty ones. He smiled even more. Women were so predictable. The one thing they all hated was being called 'ma'am'.
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Suquamish Island
Washingtton State
Laura was trying to focus on the computer screen in front of her, but the words seemed jumbled and unsatisfying. She was about halfway into the first chapter of a new book about the I Ching, Tarot, and the stock market she was co-authoring with her ex-lover Alex--who had called her out of the blue saying the publisher had sent him an advance and asking for her help--when she heard the distinctive low rumble of a Boston Whaler's engine approaching.
She got up and walked over to the big window that overlooked the Straits of Juan de Fuca: she saw the dim outline of the boat in the deepening dusk, and then the silhouette of a man tying it to the dock. There were two Whalers--one for going back and forth to the island, one left in the boathouse at the mainland dock. It was there for Jarod, mostly, in case he decided to show up without warning.
"Damn!" she cursed quietly. She ran her fingers through her hair--dirty and tangled from an afternoon outside in the wind hiking around the island with Harry, her terrier mutt, and a brisk spin in the kayak before that.
She looked down at her clothes in distress: an ancient black wool sweater so thread-bare it was torn at the elbows over a stretched-out cotton turtleneck. Sweat pants. Heavy wool socks and big, clumsy, Bavarian wool clogs. She felt about as sexy as she looked: not very.
She watched the man bounding up the three flights of steps from the dock two at a time--it had to be Jarod.
She pondered running into the bathroom and jumping in the shower. Then decided, basically, to let it go. This was what she was, at the moment: no sex goddess, just an average woman in a moment of slight disarray. He'd have to deal with it.
Her insecurity around him still annoyed her, anyway. She'd never given a damn about what any other man had thought about her appearance. She hated even the thought that she worried about such things.
But he hardly even looked at her when he jerked open the door and more-or-less ran into the room. He went right up to her and grabbed her, hugging her almost life-threateningly close. He seemed to be crying.
"What?" she gasped, trying to loosen his grip enough to take a breath, "what?"
"I think he's alive," Jarod said, his voice choked with emotion. "Kyle--my brother--I think he's alive!"
Laura tensed in his grip. And then pushed away from him, looking at him thoughtfully.
"I offered months ago to try to find him for you, Jarod--in the psychic sense. On the 'third highway': out-of-body," she said. "To see if he's still alive. I told you I thought that whole thing was too odd: certainly that once again Sydney was either lying to you when he said there was no scrap of Kyle's body found, or is himself swallowing a whole raft of bullshit. But you didn't want me to, you said it hurt too much. So what's changed?"
Jarod leaned down and unzipped the duffel bag he'd brought and pulled out yet another of his signature red notebooks, handing it without further explanation to Laura.
The newspaper clippings detailed first the mysterious murder of one 'Harvey Allan': handcuffed to a roller coaster car and shot off it's highest point into oblivion, and the Atlantic ocean. She skimmed the story quickly. Except for the bizarre nature of the murder weapon, here was nothing very noteworthy. The next item was a printout from a report on the murder Jarod had pulled off the Police Net. Her attention was caught by a quick mention at it's very end about a strange clue found at the crime scene: a red notebook full of newspaper clippings about Allan's trail. The last paragraph noted that the suspect had been described by several witnesses rather vaguely but had been using the first name, 'Jarod', with a number of different last names.
She glanced at the following clippings: they detailed Allan's trial and the surprising not-guilty verdict, and his alleged mob ties. Laura looked back at Jarod: he was standing there staring at her, waiting for her response.
"Well, if it's Kyle he's one whacked-out, sadistic son of a bitch," she told him. "Why the hell is he using your name and M.O.?"
"I think," Jarod started slowly, "he's trying to send me a message. He's trying to be like me, don't you see? He's trying to do what I do. To right a wrong. Only he's been so hurt and is so confused that--"
"Holy shit, Jarod: he fucking killed this guy in cold blood! Ah: 'hurt and confused'? Hel-lo! That's just a bit of an understatement, don't you think?"
"You judge people too quickly," Jarod told her, and she was so incensed by that answer she was at a loss for words for a long moment, staring at him.
"I judge people too quickly?" she nearly shouted after the pause. "Like it's MY fucking problem, here? You're Mr. Judge/Jury/Jarod, not me! I don't go around assuming I can see everything more clearly--and judge more correctly--than anyone else!"
She regretted her words instantly: he looked incredibly hurt. After all, he'd come to her for help, and to share something that was important to him. And it was the first time he'd ever done that. The last thing she wanted to do was make him feel badly about having confided in her.
She frowned and touched his arm lightly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can imagine how important this is to you. He's your brother. OK, give me a moment, please? I need to calm down and then focus on this--on him. I need to think about it a bit and relax. And then I'll see what I can find out--if he's alive or dead. Maybe even if he's the one who did this."
Jarod smiled broadly and took her into his arms. "I knew this was the place to come," he said softly.
And she was so uncharacteristically overwhelmed by emotion--by this choking wave of gratitude and happiness and the absolute terror it all caused her--that she could only gulp back unexpected, instantaneous tears and hold onto him tightly, hoping for whatever reason that he didn't notice her distress.
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
"Have you gone insane, Sydney, or have you always been there and just hidden it better until today?"
Sydney pursed his lips and rocked backward on his heels. Miss Parker's heated accusations did not surprise him: he'd watched her escalating impatience for some time. Mostly, she'd directed her wrath at Broots, who seemed able to either absorb it painlessly or perhaps even--in some deeply disturbed way--relish it. Sydney wasn't quite sure, yet, which it was. But he wasn't Broots, and he didn't enjoy her being, as people now said, 'in his face'.
"It's not Jarod's red notebook," he repeated, evenly. He remained, on the exterior, completely unemotional.
"Well, then what the hell is it, Syd--the new 'Bridges of Madison County'?"
"I don't know what it is, Miss Parker," Sydney replied steadily, "but it's a clever fake--"
"Why?" she demanded, turning to Broots. "Why would anyone be pretending to be Jarod?"
Broots cleared his throat. She was staring expectantly at him. He wasn't sure what he was going to say--he hadn't really analyzed all the implications and come to any coherent conclusions--but he didn't want to disappoint her.
"Perhaps, " he began tentatively, "it is Jarod's, but he wants us to think it isn't?"
"Then why use 'Jarod Seagal' to rent the car he was using in Jersey? Why sign the motel books 'Jarod Bronson'? He was going out of his way to tell people his name--let's not forget 'Jarod Van Damme'--he's playing games with us, he's teasing me," Parker said bitterly.
"But the notebook is--different," Broots added. It was 'different', all right: it had obscenities scrawled all over the newspaper clippings about Harvey Allan's controversial trail and the even-more controversial 'not guilty' verdict. None of Jarod's multitude of red notebooks had ever looked like that.
"It's like he's trying to throw us off his trail," Broots expanded, thoughtfully. "Like he wants us to doubt this is his notebook in the first place."
"Or that he's simply gone loony," Parker offered. "I mean, he wrote colorful variations of 'mother-fucker' twenty times on this one clipping--"
"Which is why we know it's not Jarod's, in the first place," Sydney interrupted.
"Which is why you want to BELIEVE it's not Jarod's," Parker replied. "Not willing to believe your Brainiac might be feeling just a tad stressed out there in the big, bad world, huh, Syd? That maybe Mr. I-Am-The-Law has finally flipped out completely? Or it is merely the language you object to--not like Jarod to use that word, huh?"
"Jarod does nothing without a reason," Sydney replied without emotion.
"Which is why this looks like an intentional mislead, to me," Parker countered. "He's hiding something."
But Sydney was already shaking his head 'no' with unusual violence. "Jarod is proud of what he's doing--of righting the world's wrongs, " Sydney explained. "He would never try to deceive us about that."
There was a pause while Parker pondered that statement. "OK--makes sense," Parker agreed between deep inhalations from her cigarette. "He's never tried to deke us on that before. He's too smug and all-knowing. It's not like Mr. Moral Conscience to suddenly tone down the self-righteousness."
"Yes," Broots stammered, trying to play catch-up. "You're right--that's a theory we can get rid of. But the other possibility is that it ISN'T Jarod's notebook, and that means someone else is pretending to be Jarod. And they're trying to . . . " he let the sentence trail off. Parker was watching him closely--he had to look away. He took a deep breath and then the words just poured out, without any plan, surprising him as much as they did the others. He hadn't realized he had another theory until he heard his own voice explaining it: "They're trying to decoy Jarod TO them. They want to find him. They've got some grudge--maybe it's one of these people he's set up, you know? So they pretend to be him. They do a sting like one of his--but they go further and kill the guy. So Jarod gets mad and goes looking for them. And they're ready--it's all a trap. Presto--they've got him!"
Sydney looked impressed and thoughtful. Parker frowned for a moment, thinking.
"Not bad, Sherlock," she practically purred, after a moment, leaning much too close to Broots, "keep it up and we won't need Jarod back, will we? We'll have a brand new Wonder Boy on our team."
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City Hall We-Park-U Lot
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
John Rafferty was sweating into his expensive suit even though his big Mercedes' heater was barely able to deal with the sub-freezing temperatures and keep the interior of the car moderately warm. It was two in the morning: he glanced for the millionth time at the attaché case full of cash on the leather seat beside him.
He saw the other car ease into the parking lot, gliding past the chain whose lock he had opened--he owned the lot, and another eighteen like it, spread all over center city Philadelphia. They were virtual goldmines, and they'd made him a very, very wealthy man. Which explained the cash, of course: he'd hardly had to sweat to put together the demanded two-hundred grand. But he was sweating now, as he watched a man dressed completely in black get out of the other car and walk steadily toward him.
Rafferty couldn't take his eyes off the man's gun. It was the biggest, shiniest hand gun he'd ever actually seen, and it was pointed relentlessly toward him.
"Get out of the car," the guy told him.
Rafferty did as he was told, oblivious to the bitter cold air. He stood as told and put his hands on the Mercedes' cold, shiny roof--he felt the chill through his leather gloves--as the other man patted him down, checking for weapons.
"Go stand over there," the guy directed, pointing toward the rear of the lot. There was a narrow cul-de-sac there, formed by the backs of the neighboring buildings. It was a short, dead-end alley that, during business hours, would be packed by the valets with commuters' cars. Right now it was starkly empty except for a few shreds of wind-blown trash.
Rafferty walked into the alley, stopping where he was told. He saw the guy open the door to his car and start getting in and was suddenly incensed: money was one thing, but he loved that car.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Don't you steal my car, man!"
The guy with the gun stopped and stared at him, motioning him back with the gun barrel. "Oh--you mean the car that you were driving the night you ran over Shania Williams? The same car that killed a twelve-year old right around the corner from here? THAT car?"
John Rafferty sputtered in rage. The guy had extorted the money on the promise no one would ever see the evidence he'd somehow dug up--the paint match that had been repressed during his trail. It had cost him even more for the fix, but it had worked: he'd been acquitted because the jury had never seen the one incriminating clue that put his car at the crime scene that night.
"Because that's what you did, right, John-Boy? Killed a little girl and then walked away scott free? And kept driving the same fucking car--you know, that's the part that gets me: I couldn't do that, bubba--drive the same car I killed an innocent kid with. I couldn't freaking do it. Guess that's the difference between you and me, huh?"
"You son of a bitch!" Rafferty screamed. "You're nothing but a shit-assed blackmailing scumball! Who the hell are you to get all fucking moral on me, mother-fucker?"
"I'm your conscience, John-Boy, come home to roost," the guy told him steadily. "And you can just call me, 'Jarod'."
Which were the last words John Rafferty was destined to hear. Because no sooner had the man with the gun told him that than he got into John's car and stomped on the accelerator pedal.
John Rafferty died within thirty minutes from the massive internal injuries he'd sustained when the sturdy grill of that powerful pride of German automotive engineering pinned him against the brick wall at the end of the alley, and squashed his insides like a bug's.
He wasn't conscious when the guy with the gun kicked him to see if he was still alive, and he never saw him drive away with both his money and his car, immediately finding a country music station on the car's radio as he did.
