Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘Dial it down a notch, man. I saved you. We’re on the same side.’

‘No,’ Nathan said. ‘No one’s on my side.’

Nathan fell asleep in five minutes. Miles stood in the doorway, watching the slow rise and fall of Nathan’s chest.

‘He’s dangerous,’ Andy said. ‘You can’t trust him.’

‘You’re one to talk,’ Miles said and went back downstairs. Celeste had brewed a pot of decaffeinated coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

‘Do you believe him?’ she asked.

‘Yes and no. We know she stole Frost and sent it to this Mercury Mountain host. Allison doesn’t use her own computer, or one at the hospital, or a public one in an Internet cafe or a library. She uses yours. She takes the pills she tested on you.’

‘She told me Frost was an antidepressant. Medical samples so I didn’t have to bother with a prescription, since I don’t – didn’t get out much. I don’t much like being a guinea pig.’

‘She might have been giving you the pills purely to help you, if she was sure they would help,’ Miles said. ‘And then she took them back to protect you in case the hospital got suspicious.’

‘It’s unethical.’

‘I won’t disagree. But you’re out of your house, you’re functioning.’

‘True. I don’t doubt Allison’s good intentions.’

‘But I don’t understand why Allison didn’t go straight to the police, especially if Hurley planned to carve into Nathan’s brain.’

‘He’s lying,’ Celeste said.

‘You think?’

‘I do. But I don’t know which part of his story isn’t real. I just get the vibe he’s not being entirely honest.’

‘I get one vibe from him. He wants to be a soldier again. Strong. Capable. Confident.’

They sipped coffee in uncomfortable silence.

‘I killed a man today,’ she said. ‘The words don’t fit right in my mouth.’

‘ Killed is ugly. You saved me.’

‘Did I? You’re a big, strong guy. You kicked Hurley away, into me, the gun fired. It wasn’t as though I fortified my courage and aimed to kill. I could have waited. If you stopped him with your fists, no need for my gun.’

‘You did what you had to do.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem.’

Andy sat across from him at the kitchen table.

Celeste caught his quick squint at empty air. ‘Your invisible friend. He’s here?’

Embarrassment flooded him. ‘No.’

She took a bird’s sip of coffee. ‘You told me you killed your friend. You didn’t say he tried to kill two cops too.’

Miles shrugged. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that I killed him.’

‘If you saved lives, you did the right thing, no matter how devastating.’

‘I disagree with her,’ Andy said. ‘What does she know?’

Miles was quiet, not wanting to listen to either of them, tired to his bones.

‘We have to have a plan, Miles. We can’t hide here forever,’ Celeste said.

He put down his coffee cup. ‘We find Frost. It’s the only way, first to prove we’re not crazy and, second, to exonerate what we’ve done. Me running from witness protection, you shooting Hurley.’

Celeste hugged herself, as if cold. ‘I’ll like jail. Since I love being indoors.’

‘You’d hate it.’

‘Have you been?’

‘No. But WITSEC, when they take you into the program, they put you in a facility where you can’t leave for several days, you don’t see other people. No bars, but it’s jail.’

‘I did the same thing you did,’ she said. ‘Walked away from my life. Put myself away from the world.’

The silence between them grew awkward and he said, ‘I need to tell you about what I found in the hospital. Sorenson had beaten the crap out of this Groote guy and was trying to kill Nathan. He suggested Nathan killed Allison, that he knew about explosives. Now, maybe he was just trying to create doubt in my mind, but Nathan was in the army, and we don’t know details of his service…’

‘But why would he kill Allison when she was helping him?’

‘Don’t know. Let’s say Allison stole Frost, then Sorenson stole it from her or killed her. I understand why Sorenson would face off against Groote, but why would Sorenson attack Nathan? How is Nathan a threat to him? He pretends to be a doctor, he kills Allison, he then tries to kill Nathan. I don’t get how this all connects.’

‘We’ll get Nathan talking tomorrow. Right now I’m going to find a bed to sleep in.’ She got up, pulled a knife from a storage rack.

‘What’s that for?’ he asked. ‘You don’t need to cut-’

‘It’s not for me,’ she said. ‘For protection. In case the bad guys come in the night.’

‘I’ll stand guard.’

‘You can’t, Miles. You got drugged, you’ve been through hell. This isn’t a horror movie, sitting around the campfire, waiting for the boogeyman to jump out. We bring our boogeys along with us.’ She thumbed the edge of the knife. ‘Good night, Miles.’

‘Good night, Celeste. I’m sorry I brought all this trouble to you.’

‘You didn’t.’ She went up the stairs.

Miles put his hands flat on the table. My God, he just wanted his old life back. His imperfect, dumb, but wonderful old life, him and his dad running the private investigation agency, no Andy gone mob, no crime rings extorting him to work off his father’s debts, no reasons to hide, no hallucinations.

He drank another cup of coffee. Choose a next step. His head buzzed with a dozen questions, trying to fit together the mismatched pieces of the jigsaw that was the battle for Frost. But he knew with clarity that the only way to beat Groote, to beat Sorenson, to take the fight to them, was to locate the stolen Frost research. The bad guys didn’t want it public; their fear was their only weakness he could exploit. He would find Frost and destroy them with it. So the next step was to find Mercury Mountain, Allison’s recipient of the stolen research. If he couldn’t find anything out from that angle, then he had to find this Quantrill guy in California – he was the chief, the money behind Frost. Follow the money; it had been his one rule in spying for the Barradas, and it never failed him. Except he’d never had to bring two innocent people in tow when he followed the money. His stomach twisted at the responsibility of protecting them; but he had no choice. He would simply have to keep them safe and try not to think about how he had failed Andy and Allison.

‘I’ll make it right,’ he said to himself, to the empty air, to Andy.

He fell asleep across Blaine’s unmade bed, the Beretta under his pillow, the way he had slept in Miami a lifetime ago.

A camera eyed him under the eaves of Celeste Brent’s porch, and Groote frowned. He had on his sunglasses and a cap pulled over his battered face to fend off the early light of Friday morning, but he didn’t like his picture being taken. He yanked the camera loose from its mount and smashed the lens under his heel.

Reaching up to grab the camera made his arm hurt – hell, his whole body ached. His left arm throbbed, his head pounded, his broken nose was taped. He looked as if he’d been in a car crash.

Frost was gone. Sorenson had betrayed him; all the deal making was for nothing, the man had just wanted a shot at killing Nathan Ruiz, for whatever unfathomable reason. Nathan Ruiz and Michael Raymond had vanished. Hurley was missing. A fed named Pitts had nipped at his heels the previous night. Life was bad.

But if he thought of Amanda, he could push on.

He tried the doorbell. No answer. Knocked. Waited. If Celeste Brent was a psycho-level recluse, she might not answer the door.

He slid a lockpick into the door, tested it, eased the tumblers.