Lisa Miscione - Twice

“McKirdy,” he answered. “Oh, yeah?” he said after a second, his eyebrows raising in interest. Another pause, then, “What do you mean, ‘unusual’? He tapped an impatient finger against the dash. “Well, I’m more than an hour away.”

He looked at his watch and then at the sun hanging low and white in the sky, the sky growing dim as night began to fall. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“What’s up?” she asked as he put the phone back into his pocket.

“Turns out there’s a surveillance tape from the Ross building.”

“Really? What’s on it?”

“They can’t tell. One of the junior detectives I got working with me says they can’t make sense of what they’re seeing. The camera was in the basement of the building, in the laundry room. They see something strange around two-thirty in the morning and then it goes black.”

“Huh,” said Lydia. “So… what?”

“So looks like it’s back to NYC after all. Haunted will have to wait until tomorrow.”

She pulled out onto the road and headed back toward the city. Relief and anxiety fought it out in Lydia’s stomach. Part of her wanted to head toward Haunted and away from everything that was happening in her life, as if to lay distance between her and the possible outcomes of Dax and Jeffrey’s mission were to make it less real. And the other part of her wanted desperately to be there, to be present, as if just being in the city would prevent the worst from happening. It was the helplessness that she couldn’t handle, that tied her up inside, that caused a dull ache in her head. She gripped the wheel and forced her foot down on the gas. The car struggled in response, but she kept pushing as if going faster would speed up time.

“ This is as far as I go,” said Violet. “I’ll wait here to take you back.”

They stood at a point where two tunnels met. About a hundred yards away they could see in the beam of Dax’s flashlight a metal staircase leading to a landing and a narrow catwalk that led to a door.

“Is he in there?” asked Dax.

“I know he lives just past this divide,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s in there or not.”

“Let’s wait a bit,” said Jeff to Dax. “Turn out the light and let’s just see if there’s any activity.”

“Come on, man. Let’s take this fucker. We’ve waited long enough. I’m getting fucking claustrophobic down here,” said Dax, cracking the tension out of his neck.

“There’s no point in just busting in there if he’s out and about. We’ll just give ourselves away and lose our chance. Patience.”

Dax turned out the light and Jeffrey motioned for him to follow as he made his way toward the staircase. Beneath the metal landing there was a narrow break in the wall that looked like it had once held an emergency phone. There was enough room for both of them to stand side by side. There they could see anyone coming from either direction and were just below the doorway.

Dax sighed and crouched down on the ground. He pulled the Magnum Desert Eagle from the holster at his shoulder and examined it, clicking off the safety. Jeffrey removed his new Glock from his waist. He’d never recovered the gun he’d lost in Albania a few months ago, and this one had never been fired off the range. He liked the semiautomatic and generally carried one, but it always seemed like a wild card compared to the revolver. Revolvers were workhorses, they never jammed; semiautomatics were less reliable but had more rounds.

He tried to get a feel for their situation, but it was as if being in the tunnels had dulled his senses. He had always believed as a young FBI agent that you knew when you were walking into a mess, when the house that was supposed to be deserted, wasn’t; when a bust was going to go wrong; when a negotiation was about to fail. But he’d learned over the years that there was no way to tell how bad things were going to get, even if you had the instinct that things weren’t going to go your way.

He leaned against the wall and ran his free hand through his hair, which was damp with sweat and the moisture in the dank air. He regretted walking out on Lydia without saying good-bye. He felt it now in the form of an ache in his solar plexus; it had been arrogant to assume he’d be back before she knew he was gone. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or how long it would be before he saw her again. He would have strangled her if she’d tried to pull something like this over on him. The only comfort he had was in knowing she probably would have done the same thing.

“I heard something,” said Dax.

“From where?” asked Jeff.

“From inside the door.”

Jeff listened carefully in the darkness and then he, too, heard a shuffling from above them. “Let’s move,” he said quietly.

The metal staircase was surprisingly strong and didn’t creak under their weight even slightly. They climbed carefully and then edged their way along the catwalk, backs flat against the wall. At the landing, Dax stood on the far side of the door examining the hinges. He was glad to see that the door opened in; it made for a much easier and more surprising entry. The heavy gray metal door had a latch for a padlock but was unlocked from the outside anyway. Dax touched it with his finger and it moved just slightly. It was open.

Jeff held up one hand and counted to three on his fingers, and before he’d reached go, Dax had pushed open the door with one hand and was moving in with his gun aimed in the other.

“Get down on the fucking floor,” yelled Dax at no one, as Jeff followed him in, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other. His booming voice echoed against the walls.

The room was empty except for a large rat rustling through a Balducci’s bag. The rodent looked up resentfully at the intrusion. Beside the bag lay a copy of Lydia’s first book and a piece of notebook paper on the floor.

“Mother fuck ,” said Dax, feeling his face flush. He picked up the piece of paper and held it up for Jeff. It read, “You didn’t really expect it to be that easy, did you?” Then he crumpled it in his fist and threw it against the wall. The rat moved past them slowly, unafraid.

“Looks like that game of ‘Telephone’ goes both ways,” said Jeff, staying in the doorjamb in case someone was looking to surprise them from behind.

“He’s slippery. I’ll give him that,” said Dax, trying to keep his voice light but unable to control the tight line of his mouth. Jeff saw the anger in his eyes, how it turned his normally affable face cold and hard.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Jeff, the walls suddenly closing in on him. He took a last glance at the room, shining the light onto the walls and up onto the ceiling. There was no other exit from the room. Jed was gone before they had arrived. Just as Jeff was about to turn around and leave, he caught sight of something on the wall… pieces of masking tape with shreds of paper stuck beneath. It looked as if something had been affixed there and then ripped from the wall in a hurry.

“What’s that?” asked Dax.

“I don’t know,” Jeff answered, moving in to examine the pieces. He could see the edges of some type of drawing, but couldn’t begin to make out what it might have been.

“Shit,” he said, the frustration of Jed McIntyre slipping through their fingers raising his blood pressure.

As Dax and Jeff moved down the stairs, Jeff shone the flashlight over to where Violet had been standing, but he didn’t see her there. He wanted to call out her name but thought better of it, not sure who was skulking in the darkness. He suppressed a feeling of panic when they rounded the corner and Violet was nowhere to be seen. They stopped and looked at each other.