Jeff Abbott - Fear

Miles made no answer, but if he could have spoken he would have said, No, I don’t trust him, not a bit, so shut up.

Miles waited for the time to pass and for Groote to get calmer before he asked his questions. The stress of the ordeal exhausted Nathan; he’d fallen asleep, leaning against Celeste’s shoulder. Celeste stared at the car’s ceiling, lost in her own thoughts. Groote fiddled with the satellite radio, found a news channel, and they waited for the sniping spree in Yosemite to make the broadcast. The major news story was a bad tenement fire in New York that had killed a dozen people.

‘A man came to Sangriaville asking for me,’ Miles said. ‘I heard you say it when you talked to Hurley.’

‘Careful what you say,’ Andy said. ‘It got me killed.’

He watched Groote for a reaction – a tightening grip on the steering wheel, a frown that touched the mouth – but Groote’s face betrayed no secrets.

‘I’ll bet his name was DeShawn Pitts.’

‘Yeah, that was the guy,’ Groote said.

‘What did he tell you about me?’

‘He was tight lipped. Told me you might come around asking questions. Or seeking counseling. Asked me to detain you and call him if you showed up.’

‘That all?’

‘He didn’t tell me you were a federal witness. I figured that out myself.’

‘The FBI’s been very quiet in looking for me. Not putting my name, my face, on the news. That won’t last. They’ll do it…’

He stopped.

‘Do what?’

Miles repeated: ‘They’ll do it…’

‘You okay?’ Groote asked.

‘They’ll do it… as soon as… we turn off the tape,’ he said. He put his hands to his face.

‘What tape? Miles?’

Miles fell silent, took a long, shuddering breath. ‘Nothing. I’m okay. Sorry.’

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Groote asked. ‘Do you need medications?’

‘I’m fine. I just remembered something.’ And he put his gaze to the window and said nothing more.

Then the news shifted to the shooting in Yosemite, two people dead, another body found a distance from the falls, shot at close range, but no suspects, no motive, no explanation yet.

Groote let the news run its cycle of stories and thought, If the FBI wants you, Miles, my man, they get you. You’re my bargaining chip once I get Amanda back and she and I need to vanish. I give you to the FBI, I blow the whistle on Dodd’s operations, I get forgiven all my sins. But he said, ‘The Bureau doesn’t want to expose you, which means they’re not giving up on getting you back as a witness.’

Miles took a long time to answer; whatever he had remembered when they talked about the FBI, Groote could see it rattled him to the bone.

Miles said in a low voice, ‘You and I get them to safety, and then we go on without them. I don’t want them in any more danger.’

‘They’ll be quiet about me – what I did?’

‘Yes. I guarantee it.’

Groote nodded. It would, he knew, make his life so much easier. One enemy in his pocket was easier to manage than three. He hoped nothing was said on the satellite news about a missing WITSEC inspector; life was complicated enough right now.

They reached Tustin, in Orange County, late Saturday night.

Celeste could see Miles was shaken. She thought he was nervous about trusting Victor Gamby not to call the authorities on them.

‘This is a bad idea,’ Miles told Celeste. ‘You’ve never met this guy face to face.’

‘I know him,’ she said. ‘I trust Victor.’

‘You know him through e-mails, for God’s sake.’

‘Victor has done more to help PTSD patients through his blog than anyone else I know.’

‘He would be entirely in his right mind if he called the police.’

‘None of us are in our right minds,’ Celeste said. ‘Wait.’ She walked up to the doorway of the modest house in a quiet stretch of Tustin. The jacaranda trees were heavy with bloom and the breeze knocked purple blossoms settling on her head as she walked up to the front door.

Nathan said, ‘I still have a job to do. Getting Frost for the soldiers.’

Miles put a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. ‘You do this my way, Nathan. Dodd stuck you in an illegal medical testing program, he took advantage of your disease and your guilt, and he’s dead and you don’t owe him a thing.’

‘I’m going to find Frost.’ Nathan’s voice was unsteady.

‘Nathan,’ Miles said, ‘we’ll discuss it later.’

Miles saw the door opened by a fortyish man in a wheelchair. Celeste spoke to him and then the man opened his arms – one of them a prosthetic – and Celeste leaned down to him and embraced him.

They talked for ten minutes, Celeste kneeling by his wheelchair. The man listened intently; he never interrupted Celeste. Then he gestured at the car, a welcoming wave.

Miles and Nathan walked toward them. Groote hung back near the Navigator.

‘Miles, Nathan, this is Victor Gamby,’ Celeste said. ‘Victor, Nathan Ruiz, Miles Kendrick. Back there is Dennis Groote. He’s, um, shy.’

He shook hands with both of them and said, ‘You boys c’mon in and we’ll talk.’ He motored the wheelchair around – Miles saw that his legs were missing as well, the pants legs tidily tucked in under stumps – and they followed him inside. Groote brought up the rear, glancing around as though the house were a trap.

‘Thanks for your hospitality, Mr. Gamby,’ Miles said.

‘You’re welcome. Nathan, forgive me, but Celeste says you dislike mirrors.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Nathan said. He hung back, staying close to Celeste.

Victor said, ‘Freddy! Company!’

A young man, in his early thirties, came in from the back. Wearing wraparound sunglasses, walking with a cane. Blind. Scar tissue inched out along the edge of the sunglasses.

‘You fought in Iraq’, Nathan, that right?’ Victor said.

‘Yeah.’

‘So did Freddy. Blinded by an IED outside Tikrit.’

Freddy said hi as they all shook his hand.

‘Freddy, Nathan doesn’t care for mirrors, which makes no sense because he’s about ten times handsomer than I am. Would you go around, hang sheets on the mirrors that Nathan might see?’

‘That’s okay,’ Nathan said. ‘I can control myself.’

‘No reason to be embarrassed.’

‘If I’d known that,’ Groote whispered to him, ‘damn, I wouldn’t have used the screwdriver.’

‘Shut the hell up,’ Nathan said quietly, ‘and stay away from me.’

Miles stepped between them.

‘Then when you’re done with the mirrors, Freddy, if you’d make sandwiches for our guests?’ Victor said.

‘Sure, but the only bread we got is rye.’ Freddy had a surfer boy’s easy accent.

‘That’ll do, I’m sure. Thank you so much.’ Victor waited for Freddy to leave the room, put an unafraid gaze on Miles. ‘Celeste’s told me the basics of the trouble you all are in.’

‘I appreciate your willingness to help us,’ Miles said. ‘I know you run a popular Web site for people with posttraumatic stress disorder…’

‘And you want to know if you can trust me with your secrets.’

‘Well…’

‘It’s all right, Miles. I’ve had my site for a couple of years now. A million hits a month. I do database consulting work for the government, I’m an independent contractor. Don’t worry, I’m not a fed. I’m not calling the cops on you all, because Celeste says you’re after a medicine that could help every traumatized patient in the world. Including me, including Freddy.’

‘Is he, um, your boyfriend?’ Nathan asked.

Victor shook his head. ‘No. I find me a lost lamb, let ’em stay till they’re on their feet. Always a PTSDer. Like you, like me. I got my legs and arm blown off on 9/11.’