Chris Mooney - The Soul Collectors

'How'd you get the locals to sign off on it? Did you have your people pose as army officers? Have them sign forged documents and threaten them with the Patriot Act?'

'Using sarin gas is an act of domestic terrorism,' he said. 'That was our way in. We had to take over the investigation in order to keep your name out of the papers.'

Bullshit, she thought. There was more to it than that.

'From day one,' he said, 'my goal was to keep you safe.'

'But these people somehow still managed to find me.'

'Yes, I know.'

My phone. She had left her iPhone in the lap of the thing with the egg-white skin. All of her information was stored inside that phone. Everything. They must have found it when they cut him loose from the tree.

'When did you plant those listening devices inside my condo?'

Casey looked genuinely surprised. 'You found bugs in your home?'

'Only one, as far as I know,' she said. 'On my kitchen phone. Sloppy job, so it was easy to spot.'

'We didn't do it. I'd like to take a look at that, with your permission.'

'Tell me why you used me as bait.'

'I wasn't using you as bait.'

'Then why would you send me out there without telling me about these people? That they would be watching me?'

'We kept your name out of this. We thought there was no way for them to find you. The mobile command trailer? The tapes were still there and we pulled them.'

'And the body in the ambulance?'

'Gone,' he said. 'They shot the EMTs. I put people on you as a precaution.'

'Federal agents or Secret Service?'

'Both.'

'When were you going to tell me?'

He didn't answer.

'How long?' she said.

'How long what?'

'How long were you going to have people watch me?'

'As long as it took,' he said.

'Because you know these people.'

'Let's just say I've had… experience.'

Darby waited for the details. Casey didn't offer any.

'I want it all out on the table,' she said. 'Right now.'

'If I tell you, will you go to a safe house?'

'No.'

'That's the only way I can protect you.'

'I've seen your people's talents in action. No, thanks.'

'You're not getting it.' Some of Casey's anger resurfaced. He slid off the desk and stared down at her. 'I'm trying to protect you. I've been trying to keep you safe all this time but you keep kicking me in the goddamn face.'

'Then you shouldn't have lied to me.'

His expression softened slightly. 'This group has been — they're dangerous.' He paused, then added, 'Very dangerous. I can't stress that enough. You need to go with the agents to the safe house. Please.'

Casey had delivered the words without the usual cornball melodrama seen in bad TV shows. He said them almost painfully, and she would have forgiven the cheesy pregnant pause — a lame attempt to let the seriousness of his words sink in — if it wasn't for the way he was looking at her right now, this odd, almost paternal expression.

'What do you want?' she said. 'A hug?'

'You don't understand — '

'I understand perfectly,' she said. 'I tried to bait them at the blast site. They installed tracking devices inside my jacket and on my bike. I thought I was being followed by one, maybe two of these people. Turns out they brought six, three of which I wouldn't even classify as human.'

'What are you talking about?'

She told him about hiding in the dumpster, about watching the three people standing on the edge of the woods. Told him about watching these three through her night-vision goggles when the ghoulish-looking creature scrambled to the edge of the crater holding a stun baton. Told him about the thing scrambling down into the crater and into the basement and then coming back up and making that creepy squawking sound in the night air.

Casey should have refuted what she had just said, maybe excused himself and then returned with two psychiatric orderlies holding a straitjacket clinking with buckles. But he didn't say anything, didn't seem at all surprised.

'Why did they want to capture me?' she asked.

'I don't know, which is why you're going into seclusion for a while.'

'You're a bad liar.'

'Come on, let's go.'

'I'm not sitting in a safe house with a bunch of low-grade feds who got stuck babysitting me.'

'What are you going to do? You can't go back to work.'

'I'm going to find Mark Rizzo.'

'He's already dead. If he isn't, he's on his way.'

'Then I'll keep digging.'

'Small problem,' he said. 'You're no longer in law enforcement.'

'Neither are you, but here you are, plucked out of retirement and running the show. Why?'

He didn't answer.

'I've already uncovered evidence,' she said.

That got his full attention.

'What sort of evidence?' he asked.

'I'll turn it over after you bring me on board.'

'To do what?'

'To assist in the investigation,' she said. 'I've seen these people up close. And if you're worried about protection, then move me into the inner circle. I'd be safer, sticking close to you since — '

'Deliberately withholding evidence is a clear charge of obstruction of justice.'

'It sure is. And you can get me locked up for it too.' She snapped her fingers, then added, 'Oh, but then you're back to your original problem of having me speak in front of a judge, and you're not going to allow that to happen. And I'm not going to sit around a safe house waiting for these people to find me — and they will. They found Mark Rizzo, and my guess is they're also looking for you.'

She waited for Casey to speak, to refute what she had just said, but he only sat there, staring.

'I think I know why you're here,' Darby said. 'The real reason you're here.'

'I've read about you,' Darby said. 'Followed you in the papers and on the Internet.'

'You shouldn't trust the press,' Casey said with a wry, tired grin.

'So you're saying you didn't plant that fibre evidence at Hamilton's house.'

'I'm assuming you have a point to make so let's hear it.'

'After the Hamilton case, you retired from the Bureau. Then, years later, you came back to police work — as a detective here, in Massachusetts. You worked the Sandman case. With Malcolm Fletcher.'

No reaction from Casey.

'Miles Hamilton,' she said, 'has been gearing up for a retrial for the past few years, and there's been no word from you. The Bureau has stated in the press that you moved out of the country. That they had no idea of your whereabouts or how to get in contact with you, yet here you are, surrounded by federal agents and heading up an investigation. Want to know what I think?'

'Sure, why not?'

'I think you've been in the country the whole time. I think you've been living under an alias and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Bureau helped you because they don't want you to take the stand in Hamilton's retrial. And I think you have some sort of history with this religious group or cult or whatever you call them. I think they've been looking for you for a long, long time. I think you've been moving around a lot. I think you remarried — you have a faint white line on your ring finger, but you're not wearing your wedding band — and I'm willing to bet you have at least one child. I think that, given what happened to your first wife and your unborn daughter, you agreed to come out of exile and make a run at these people because that's the only way you can keep your new family safe.'

Casey stared at her, his body very, very still. It reminded her of the way the air turned just before a thunderstorm broke.

Darby said, 'I don't think they'll make a run at me again, at least in the short term. Right now, they're too busy planning. They're going to try to find a way to bait us. My guess is they'll come after you since I don't have anyone they can use against me. My parents are dead. I don't have any brothers or sisters. I'm not married, and the only person I care about is the man you saw sitting here at this table.