James Swain - The King Tides

“Of course.”

Daniels sniffed the air. “I smell something burning.”

He lifted his head and glanced into the kitchen. He’d left the back door open, and smoke was pouring into the house.

“I shot Holloway. He fell on the grill and caught on fire,” he said.

“Good going,” she said.

If you believed what you read in the newspapers, the decline in the national murder rate was due to a less violent population. Fewer people were dying of gunshot and knife wounds each year, which could only mean that the populace was becoming less violent.

Only half of this statement was true. The citizenry was as violent as ever, the number of people being shot and stabbed at an all-time high. What had changed was the medical profession’s ability in dealing with the victims. First responders kept the victims breathing, and emergency rooms saved their lives.

That was why Daniels survived. Ten years ago, this would not have been the case, and she would have died from loss of blood and the shock. But the emergency medical attendants were pros, and they had kept her alive until they reached the hospital.

Daniels’s status as an FBI agent earned her a private room in the ICU of Broward Health Medical Center. She was weak and needed time to regain her strength before starting rehabilitation. To anyone who came to visit, Daniels vowed that she would be back running within six months. No one had doubted her.

Lancaster came to visit a few days later. Melanie, Nolan, and Nicki Pearl were gathered around her bed sharing a story. Melanie hugged him.

“And to think I didn’t want to hire you,” Melanie said.

“It all worked out in the end,” he said. “How’s our patient doing?”

“My sister’s a tough little shit. She’s going to be fine.”

“I heard that,” Daniels said. “What did you bring me?”

Lancaster handed her the gift bag. Daniels undid the bow holding it together and removed a picture frame in distressed gold. Instead of a photograph, there was a quote from the Irish poet Samuel Beckett written in bold calligraphy.

“What does it say?” Nicki asked.

“It says, ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,’” Daniels read aloud. “Is that what we did, Jon, fail better?”

“We didn’t quit,” he said.

She placed the frame on the night table. “No, we didn’t. How’s our victim?”

Ryean Bartell was also a patient in Broward Health Medical Center. Mates and Holloway had given her so many sedatives that she was lucky to be alive. Ryean hadn’t understood the mortal danger she was in until Daniels had blown down the front door and come charging in. The newspapers had nicknamed her “The One That Got Away.”

“The kid’s a survivor,” he said. “She’s going to be okay.”

Daniels started to reply but instead shut her eyes. Melanie reached over the bed and hugged her sister. The bad moment passed, and Daniels reopened her eyes.

“I need to tell all of you something,” she said. “I’m sorry for all the grief I caused Nicki and the rest of you by creating those videos. I have a way to make Nicki’s stalkers go away so your lives can return to normal. It will take a few weeks to work, and then everything will be good again.”

“You’re going to make these bad men leave me alone?” Nicki said.

“I sure am, honey,” Daniels said.

Nicki kissed her aunt on the cheek. Then it was Melanie’s turn, then Nolan’s.

They were a family again. There was a silver lining in every tragedy. This was theirs.

“Would you guys mind leaving the room for a few minutes?” Daniels asked. “I need to speak with Jon in private.”

The Pearls filed out. Before leaving, Nicki gave Lancaster a hug. She wore a pink T-shirt that said CAUTION! THIS PERSON MAY TALK ABOUT HORSES AT ANY MOMENT!

“Thank you for helping us,” she said.

“You’re welcome, Nicki,” he said.

“My dad says that now he has to buy you a new refrigerator. Do you have one picked out?”

“I do. Every time I open it up, I’m going to think of you.”

“That’s cool.”

Nicki left, and Lancaster pulled up a chair and rested his elbows on the metal guardrail on Daniels’s hospital bed. He’d held up his end of the bargain, and now it was time for Daniels to fulfill hers and make good on the two things he’d asked of her.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Daniels said. “My boss came by this morning, and brought along the director of the bureau’s North Miami office. I told them about the two detectives dealing in stolen coke. The North Miami office is aware of the situation. Turns out, there are other detectives involved. They’re going down soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next week. The director told me that the coke is passed to the detectives at a Mexican restaurant. The FBI plans to secretly videotape the detectives receiving the stolen coke, and bust everyone at once.”

The news made him feel better, but only a little.

“What about Zack Kenny?” he said. “He threatened to kill the woman who helped us blow this thing open. I promised her that I’d deal with Zack.”

“I’m afraid that’s the bad news. Kenny’s situation will take longer to resolve. My boss did some digging. Zack had a restraining order put on him by an ex-girlfriend, but is otherwise clean. We need hard evidence to bring him down, and that takes time.”

“Zack has a library of kiddie porn on an iPad in his apartment. That should be enough to put him away for a while, don’t you think?”

“It should, except the tip came from his ex-girlfriend, who obviously hates him. A judge will want to know why the ex-girlfriend took so long to tell the police, considering they broke up a while ago.”

“You’re saying the judge might turn down a request for subpoena.”

“Unfortunately. We need another angle.”

He rested his chin on the cold metal bar. He had promised Karissa that he’d fix this. Karissa had opened the door that had led him to Daniels. Her bravery had made the difference, and he was not going to allow that selfless act to go unrewarded.

“I need to think about this,” he said. “I’m going to the cafeteria to get a drink. You want something?”

“I’m craving sweets. Get me a chocolate doughnut,” she said.

“Coming right up.”

At the doorway he stopped and turned around. Zack Kenny had kept a teenage runaway in his condo, and he wondered if it might be enough to convince a judge to issue a warrant. He started to pose the question, but Daniels had drifted off to sleep.

In the hallway he tried to remember his way to the elevators. A Middle Eastern man wearing designer clothes acknowledged him with a smile. It took a moment to place him. It was Cassandra’s partner from the videos. He’d shaved his goatee, but his dark eyes gave him away.

“I’m Jon Lancaster,” he said.

“My name is Fadi. Beth has told me all about you,” the man said.

“Are you the Reality Thief?”

“I’d rather think of myself as Beth’s boyfriend.”

“You and I need to talk.”

“I really need to see Beth. I just flew in on the red-eye.”

“She’s taking a nap. You want something to eat? My treat.”

“Beth said you were very persuasive. Lead the way.”

They paid a visit to the hospital cafeteria in the basement. Fadi hadn’t eaten on the plane, and Lancaster’s offer to pay for lunch was enthusiastically received. He was a good-looking guy and spoke English better than most Americans.

“How did you make the Cassandra videos look so real?” Lancaster asked.

Fadi blew on a spoonful of chicken soup. “The ability to age-regress photographs isn’t new. I figured out how to transfer the technology to video so each frame was age-regressed and resembled the previous frame. The process is not perfect, by any means.”