Lisa Unger - Smoke

Outside, Jeffrey hoisted the kid back onto his shoulders as Dax slid out the door with less grace than he once might have. He got up stiffly and took what looked like a grenade out of his pocket.

“What are you going to do with that?” Lydia asked as he pulled the pin. He let it go and rolled it through the door.

“Holy shit,” she said, and they all started to move quickly toward the Rover, Lydia taking up the rear with her gun drawn. Dax was limping badly; Jeffrey was carrying a body. Someone had to keep an eye on what was coming up behind them. And then the blast rang out. Lydia felt the vibration in her chest, in her bones.

“Don’t worry,” said Dax. “It wasn’t a grenade, exactly. Not exactly. More like a flash bomb. More sound than fury, if you know what I mean.”

Nobody came out the door after them. And they made their way back to the car with no one behind them. Dax unlocked the hatch and they put Charley in the back of the Rover.

“Who the hell’s this?” asked Dax.

“I don’t know. His name’s Charley. I couldn’t leave him there. I think he’s just a kid.” They all looked at him for a second; he was still out but starting to stir.

“Looks like you hit him pretty hard,” observed Lydia.

The blood had traveled from his nose and soaked the front of his white tunic. It looked like spilt tar in the darkness.

“Yeah, I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

Dax shrugged. “Maybe he knows something.”

They got in the car, Lydia and Dax up front, Jeffrey in back with his gun on the kid. Who knew how he’d behave once he came around; he was already shifting and groaning softly in pain. Dax gunned the engine and spun the car around, driving fast up the empty street. They heard the wail of approaching sirens.

“I think we have to call the police,” said Jeffrey after a second.

“The people who do the breaking in, shooting, and bombing aren’t usually the ones to call the police, Jeff,” said Dax sensibly.

“What did you see in there, Jeffrey?” asked Lydia, looking back at him.

“On the video monitors, I saw people with shaved heads lying in hospital beds. They were connected to feeding tubes, heart monitors. They were in five-point restraints. They were conscious, Lydia. Wide awake.”

For a second they all flashed on the image of the emaciated woman with the shaved head, running for her life through a gathering of witches, dinosaurs, and clowns. Lydia’s heart started to race as she imagined the girl’s terror, knowing what awaited her if she was caught.

“Did you see Lily?” asked Lydia.

He shook his head. “No.”

Lydia took the cell phone out of her pocket and called Matt Stenopolis.

Stenopolis, I know you didn’t just call me at home at nearly eleven o’clock at night to tell me about a conversation you had with some old freak in a nursing home.”

Kepler had something in his mouth and he was crunching on it loudly.

“Sir, he says that people are going into that place and not coming out.”

“Has it occurred to you, Detective, that they are exiting another door, one the old man can’t see from the porch?”

Here’s where it got tough. He couldn’t tell Kepler what Jeffrey Mark had found while breaking and entering, then shooting his way out of The New Day. That was fruit from a poisonous tree. He couldn’t admit to involving them in the case he had been told to walk away from. He had to stick with the Randall Holmes tip, which on its own was pretty weak.

Matt sighed. “It’s enough to call in for a warrant, isn’t it?”

“Hell, no, it’s not enough,” said Kepler. “The statement of an old man who, by your admission, is one hammer short of a toolbox is not enough to call a judge at midnight and ask for a warrant.”

“Is it enough to call him at nine in the morning?”

“Good-night, Detective.”

“Sir, let me ask you, if it turns out that Lily Samuels is in there and we knew that The New Day was already under investigation by the FBI for various other allegations and did nothing to follow up on this lead, do you want to be the one responsible? Because I’m not going to twist for it, Captain.”

He could see Kepler turning that shade of red he turned whenever anyone dared to step up to him. Generally a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch would develop just under the lashes of his right lower eyelid.

“And are you prepared to turn in your shield if she’s not in there?” he asked, his voice quiet but white hot with anger.

Matt let out a long breath; it was so unfair and stupid. “No, I’m not. It shouldn’t come down to that. I’m just trying to do my job, sir.”

There was silence on the other line. Matt put his head in his hand. This conversation was not good for his career.

“Go get your warrant, Stenopolis. And you know what? If she’s not in there, you’re going to be in uniform doing the shittiest, most demeaning details I can find in this city until you die or I do.”

Matt felt something loosen inside. “Thank you, sir.”

The line went dead.

He just didn’t get Kepler sometimes. It seemed to annoy him when people were trying to do their jobs; he always seemed to be hindering rather than facilitating. Unless it was a big, high-profile case that brought positive attention to the precinct. But the Lily Samuels case had been that, two weeks ago. Then everyone started getting the vibe that she had taken off on her own, and Kepler had put it on the back burner. Maybe he just didn’t like admitting through his actions that he might have been wrong to give up so fast. Whatever. Matt speed-dialed Jez.

“What’s up,” she answered. That’s all it took. He could tell in her tone, strained and tired, that she was upset. That didn’t take long, he thought. When she was on her own, she was very even tempered most of the time. When Dylan was back in the picture, she was up and down… always elated or depressive.

“Hey, I think we have a lead on where Lily Samuels might be,” he said.

“You’re kidding,” she answered, her tone brightening.

“No, can you get your mother to stay with Ben? Meet me at the Fiftieth Precinct.”

He could hear the covers rustling as she got out of bed. “It might take me an hour or so.”

“No problem. I gotta call in for a warrant.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you all about it.”

This is a direct violation of my client’s first amendment rights,” said Jude Templar. He was a tall, svelte young man with a drawn, pale face and an unsettling pair of jet-black eyes. Matt was used to seeing him in thousand-dollar suits but tonight he wore baggy jeans with calfskin loafers and a soft fleece jersey, zipped at the neck. Even so he had that easy air, the polished and pressed look of the very rich. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses made him look older, more intellectual than maybe he was. He wore them low on his long, thin nose and looked at Matt over their edge.

“Tonight, three people broke into this facility. They damaged property, shot at security guards. And now you have the nerve to show up here with a warrant as if these people are the criminals.”

He’d arrived with two squad cars from the Fiftieth Precinct. Two of the cops who accompanied him had been there an hour earlier investigating a report of a break-in and shooting. But since The New Day had a reputation in the neighborhood as being freaks and weirdos, it had been kind of a half-assed visit. They basically just took a report and returned to the precinct to make fun of the Moonies. What interested Matt the most was that there was no mention made of the kid Jeffrey Mark had carried from the church.

“Mr. Templar, we have information that leads us to believe that Lily Samuels is being held here against her will. And that she’s not the only one.”