Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

“Sleepy.”

“You’ve been given a mild sedative. Nothing like the powerful hypnotics you were given, but it will help with the anxiety.”

“No,” he says, struggling to rise. “The boy! The boy!”

He sleeps.

“Hey, Shane. That’s what they call you right? Just plain Shane? I’m your attorney. And don’t you worry, we’re going to get ’em.”

“What?” he asks, mouth dry.

Strange, but he doesn’t remember waking up. Another young woman. Pixie with big eyes. Not like the doctor, who has freckles, chubby cheeks and seems to be afraid of him. This one isn’t afraid.

“The bad guys,” the pixie says. “Identity as yet unknown. We’ll find ’em, though. Naomi Nantz is on the case, and she always gets her man, ha-ha. Seriously, she does. So, do you remember anything at all?”

“Nothing there to remember. Black hole. Who you?”

“Sorry. Dane Porter. I’m the only one allowed to talk with you, other than your physician.”

“Lawyer.”

“Correct. I’m representing you. This murder beef is bull, we know that much. A bad frame job, way over the top. I’ve been on the horn with Tommy Costello, he’s the Middlesex D.A., about what kind of guy you are, a genuine hero, and how there’s no way you shot your client, not a possibility, did not happen. He’ll come around. Leave that to me. Until then, the important thing is to find the kid, right? The little boy? Your client’s missing child? Joey? That’s the boy’s name, correct?”

Shane feels as if a small, dim light has been turned on, in the darkness inside his head. “Little Joey, yes. Call his father, please. Very important.” He searches, is astonished to find the name. “Joseph Keener,” he exclaims. “Professor, MIT.”

The pixie winces. “Sorry. Professor Keener was killed in his home. You found the body. I’m sorry, I assumed you remembered that much.”

“I found the body?”

“Uh-huh. Called 911 to report it, then arranged to meet your buddy Jack Delancey. He brought you to see Naomi Nantz. But before you had a chance to tell us much about the case, a team of badass cowboys kicked in the windows, put you down, took you away.”

“Cowboys?”

“Figure of speech. More like a covert special-ops team. They had you for three days. You were tortured, drugged, then dumped at this hospital.”

“Wrecked my brain. Stole my memories.”

“Yeah, that really sucks, I’m sure,” she says kindly. “We’re hoping you get it back. The memories. Not the torture memories, it might best if you forgot that part entirely. But anything you know about the boy. Where he might be. Who might be holding him. And for that matter what happened to his mother.”

“Here,” Shane says instantly, the word firing like a bullet from a waking synapse in his brain. “Joey is here.”

“Oh my God,” the pixie says. “You remembered something! The boy is here? Where, exactly? Do you know?”

Shane shakes his head, trying to clear away the tendrils of emptiness. “Bridge,” he says suddenly. “Crossing Harvard Bridge. Video.”

The pixie looms closer, her eyes as large as moons. “Let me get this: you saw a video recording of Joey Keener crossing Harvard Bridge?”

“Yes.”

“By himself?”

“Can’t remember. No, somebody else was there.”

“His mother?”

“Can’t remember. No, not his mother.”

“Where did you see this video? Was it part of a ransom demand?”

Shane grits his teeth, concentrates. Nothing. Wherever it came from, the memory has retreated.

“Gone,” he says, and collapses back on his pillow.

Somebody groans in pain. Can’t be the pretty pixie, voice too deep. Then the darkness reaches up, pulls him down.

He doesn’t fight it.

“That’s huge,” Naomi says. “Harvard Bridge. That puts Joey right in the middle of the MIT campus, not far from the professor’s residence.”

“Maybe he was going the other way,” Teddy points out. “From Cambridge to Boston. Like running away.”

“A possibility,” boss lady concedes. “Jack? Any thoughts?”

“Shane might well be referring to a video ransom note, as Dane suggests. Sent to the father, I’m assuming. We’ve got your son, close enough for you to reach out and touch. Here’s proof, now pay up or else. Or give us the secret, or whatever they’re after. Whoever they are.”

“There were no cameras or computers found at the residence,” Naomi points out. “No DVDs. Not even a cell phone. Nothing to store a video file.”

“We already knew the place was wiped clean,” Jack responds, his arms folded.

We’re in the command center, convening. More like kibitzing, firing out ideas, hoping something will stick. Everybody is pumped. Hope is alive, feeding us energy.

“Teddy? Find out if there are traffic cams on Harvard Bridge. If so, we need access to any recordings within, say, a two-week time frame.”

Naomi leans back from her desk. Her eyes have that faraway look that means she’s processing information. We all wait. Thirty seconds pass. A very long half minute. I’m studying my nails-what to do about the cuticles? — when she snaps back, totally in the moment, and goes, “What about Shane? He started out as a computer geek, right? Therefore he would have had a laptop, at the very least. Was it recovered at his motel room by the state police?”

“If so, they’re not sharing,” Jack says thoughtfully. “But you’re right, he’d have had a laptop. Absolutely.”

“So that’s another question that needs answering: where is Shane’s laptop?”

“Wait,” says Jack, sitting up even straighter. “Damn! He has an iPhone. That’s how he called me. Not on the professor’s landline, because his name popped up like it always does, and when I met him in Kendall Square he had the iPhone in his hand, slipped it into his pocket.”

Naomi considers, then pronounces, “Forget the phone. His assailants will have seized that, and accessed whatever it may or may not contain. But the laptop is interesting. Obviously he didn’t have it with him when he came to us. That leaves three possibilities. One: he left it in his motel room, and it has been seized and taken into evidence by law enforcement. Two: he secreted it somewhere in his vehicle, which has been impounded and, we assume, thoroughly searched by Cambridge felony detectives. Three: he hid it elsewhere.”

Jack is already shaking his head. “No way he left it in his ride. He knew the car would be impounded at the scene. He assumed the vehicle was compromised because his gun had been taken. That’s why he abandoned the car and proceeded on foot to Kendall Square to meet me.”

“He told you that, specifically?”

“Didn’t have to. That’s what I would have done. The missing gun told him everything. From that moment, Shane knew he was in the middle of a frame. He couldn’t risk driving the car-for all he knew, it had already been tagged with a GPS tracker.”

“Again, he discussed this with you?”

“No discussion required. It’s an understood thing.”

“So you and Shane have, what, a psychic connection?”

Another man might have been insulted by the caustic comment, but Jack, knowing boss lady’s methods, shrugs it off. “We received the same training. To a certain extent, in operative terms, we think alike.”

“Operative terms.”

“Correct.”

“Acknowledged,” she says, satisfied. “Good point. Find out if the Cambridge cops found a tracking device in his car.”

“Done,” says Jack. He opens his cell and steps out of the room.

Naomi swivels in her chair. “Teddy? Any joy on the traffic cams?”