Lisa Unger - Smoke

She pushed herself upright on the bed, flipped the covers back. She looked at skinny arms and knobby knees she didn’t recognize. She’d always considered herself to be a little fat; she’d dieted and exercised all her life like everyone else trying to get skinny, trying to fit the image the media plunged down her throat every day. Now she just wanted herself back, her healthy pink skin, her too-round bottom. She didn’t want to be gray and sticklike, bony and strained-looking like the girl in the bathroom mirror last night. She couldn’t wait to start eating real food again. In fact, did she smell bacon?

But there was another, much stronger urge than hunger. She looked around the room for her black case and remembered that she’d lost her computer somewhere along the line. And the notes she’d taken had to be abandoned when she fled the burning New Day compound. No matter; she remembered everything. Everything. Her fingers were itching, and her adrenaline was racing. Lydia Strong had always called this “the buzz.” That tingle in your chest, that racing urge to get the words down, to get them out before they burst through your skin.

She slid off her bed and went over to the faux leather chair at her desk. She pulled a notebook and a pen from the drawer. And then she started to write.

The headline read: NIGHT FALLS ON THE NEW DAY.

Hokey but effective, thought Matt. Gotta love the Post; they knew how to write headlines. It blared out at him from Jesamyn’s hands as she read the article out loud from her wheelchair. They made quite a pair, him still in his hospital bed, the healing wound in his abdomen that nearly killed him still making it impossible to sit nearly a week after he’d taken the bullet. The shot that tore up his shoulder making it impossible for him to lift his right arm to hold the paper.

Jesamyn looked smaller than ever and was being wheeled around in a wheelchair until her bullet wound that had shattered her right thigh bone was healed enough to start rehab. Her shoulder and left calf were healing fine. Her memory of that night was still sketchy. She’d killed the shooter, who remained unidentified. The second van had not yet been found. But the important thing was that they’d both be okay, a hundred percent eventually. They both had a long road ahead of them, but neither of them was complaining. It definitely beat the alternative.

“I think your kid probably weighs more than you right now.”

She peered over the paper at him. “You’re pretty ballsy for someone who’s totally defenseless.”

“What are you gonna do-roll over me with your wheelchair?”

“Are you going to let me finish this?”

He nodded.

“Officials from The New Day have officially distanced themselves from what they refer to as the Rhames Division of their church. Officials claim that he joined as a member in 1998 and moved up the ranks of the organization until he was eventually awarded his own Initiation Center in Riverdale and control of one of their businesses, the New Day Farms in Central Florida. At a certain point, The New Day asserts, Rhames broke contact and affiliation from the organization and that they have been on the verge of initiating legal action to stop him from using their name. The techniques of brainwashing and the usurping of member funds are neither employed nor condoned by The New Day, claimed one official. Likewise, they deny any involvement in what appears to be the framing of NYPD Detective Mateo Stenopolis in the beating death of Katrina Aliti and the shooting of witness Clifford Stern.

“In spite of their disassociation from Rhames, an official federal investigation has been opened into The New Day. Charges could include kidnapping, extortion, coercion, and fraud. And past complaints from former New Day members, including some that ended in the complainant’s mysterious deaths, will be reexamined.”

“So what does that mean?” asked Matt.

“It means that Trevor Rhames takes the fall in the public eye and for The New Day, it’s probably business as usual. A couple of well-placed contributions and I bet that investigation goes away.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Lydia Strong, walking into the room with an armful of pink and white tulips in one hand and a large white take-out bag in the other. Jeffrey Mark was behind her.

“Hey,” said Matt. “The nurse’s station told me that you’ve been calling to check up on me.” He tried to rise a bit on instinct and received a nasty reminder from his middle that it wasn’t an option.

“I don’t know what they’re feeding you in here,” she said. “But I brought you some take-out from the Greek place where we ate together.”

He could smell it from where he lay. “You rock. I don’t know if they’ll let me eat it… but just the smell is making me feel better.”

“We’ve never met,” said Lydia, holding her hand out to Jesamyn. She took it and gave Lydia a smile. “But these are for you, Detective Breslow.”

“Thank you,” she said. “They’re gorgeous.”

“This is my husband, Jeffrey Mark,” she said. Jesamyn nodded and took his hand.

“Good to meet you both. Thanks for bringing Lily Samuels home.”

Matt thought he detected a note of sadness in her voice but when he looked at Jez’s face, she was smiling. Maybe he was the one who was sad it hadn’t been them to help Lily.

“You both look like you’re on the mend,” said Jeffrey, moving into the room and leaning against the windowsill.

“We’re getting there,” said Matt. “I’ve been dying to hear what happened that night in Florida.”

Lydia told them about their visit from Grimm and their fall down the hole. She told him how Dax blasted them out and the ATF tried to hold them as scapegoats, then changed their minds and let them return home with Lily. She told him about their last visit with Tim Samuels and then about his suicide, and how a former employee from his company, Body Armor, was linked to the jewel robbery on the service road at JFK.

“So did you figure it out? What deal he made and with who?”

“The beneficiary on his policy was his wife, just as it should have been. Now she and Lily are left with nothing. The only one he screwed with his suicide was his family.”

“Seems like he had a lot of practice at that,” said Matt.

“And Rhames?” said Jesamyn.

“He disappeared that night. With his resources and connections… he’s going to be hard to find.”

“Is anybody looking?”

Lydia looked away and Matt could tell that there was more to say but that she wouldn’t say it to him.

“So how is she?” asked Matt, trying and failing to seem casual. He was nursing a fantasy that she would come to see him, but that hadn’t happened.

“Lily? Tough enough to write that article,” said Lydia, nodding toward the newspaper in Jesamyn’s hand. “But I think it’s a long road back to normal.”

His eyes traveled over to some pink roses that sat on the dresser across from his bed. “She sent those, thanking us for searching for her and not giving up.”

“She’s a good kid, stronger than I would have guessed. She’ll be okay,” said Lydia. She went on, saying how Lily and her mom were living together in Lily’s apartment for the time being, trying to move forward together, but Matt stopped listening. He was watching Jesamyn who suddenly had gone pale; she had a dazed expression on her face, her head cocked to one side.

“Jez?”

“Oh, shit,” she said. She held the paper in her hand and was looking at it closely. “This picture.”

She handed the paper to Lydia. She saw the picture of Mickey and Michele LaForge that she’d taken from Lily’s apartment early in the investigation. It was the only recent picture they had of the woman who remained at large, so Lydia had returned it to Lily for her article.