Chris Jordan - Torn

“Meaning I get the old heave-ho?” Shane says affably. “You folks play rough!”

“Your time has measurable worth, sir. So does ours.”

Shane shrugs. “That seems fair enough. I’ll have my butt in the seat, don’t you worry.”

The ‘domicile unit’ is, as promised, cozy, in that it’s quite small. Certainly not the typical motel room he expected. No TV, no broadband or wireless connections, further limiting access to the outside world. The single bed is too short for his elongated frame, but he’s used to that, and in any case doesn’t expect to be getting much sleep, or to spend much time in this little room. The only entertainment on offer is a freshly minted copy of The Rule of One, situated on a bedside table in roughly the spot that you might find a Gideon Bible in a regular hotel chain.

He decides the room has the feel of a monk’s cell, except that he supposes monks don’t get their own showers or toilets, or fluffy fresh towels.

Shane unpacks, placing his shaving kit within reach of the shower stall and sink. He takes a long, pleasantly hot shower and then dresses in dark clothing. Figuring on taking a midnight stroll, getting a feeling for the layout of the village, maybe a sense of when the security patrols come through, and how they might be avoided. Maybe get a glimpse of the so-called Pinnacle, if the stars stay bright.

You never know what you might see when the rest of the world is asleep.

His gut instincts tell him that Haley Corbin is being held somewhere in the vicinity. Probably not in the village itself-it’s unlikely that her captors would risk her being seen by visitors-but definitely somewhere within Ruler territory. He’s mindful that although Conklin County comprises something like two thousand square miles, most of the occupied part is right here.

She’ll be somewhere close.

Shane checks the time. Barely nine, much earlier than he thought, considering the starry depth of the night, or the general sense of slumbering quiet within the motel, or the domicile, or whatever. Maybe he doesn’t need to wait until midnight for his walk on the wild side. Eleven will do. No problem.

Shane lies down on the narrow bed, fully dressed. His feet extend well beyond the foot of the bed, but the mattress has a pleasing firmness and the pillow is, to his surprise, pure heaven. He’s thinking the room is a bit stuffy, maybe slightly too warm-is there a thermostat? He can’t recall seeing a thermostat-and the air has a faint medicinal odor-what is that exactly, and why does it seem so familiar?

He closes his eyes.

In three deep breaths he’s sound asleep.

“We were never able to develop any proof,” Weems says. “Not actionable proof.”

The man is explaining how he knows that Jed and twenty-six other equally innocent passengers were murdered, and yet he remains utterly calm. It makes me feel like screaming, or scratching his eyes out, or both.

How can they be doing this to me? First stealing my little boy, then making me relive the horror of my husband’s death all over again? How can they be so cruel and yet remain so calm? How can they be so cruel, and yet remain so cool about it? Weems acts as if he’s delivering a lecture. Missy and her husband sitting there like toads, blinking at me, as if they’ve heard it ad nauseam. And maybe they have.

“Monsters,” I say, my throat thick. “Jed always knew what you were. That’s why he cut himself off from you horrible people.”

Weems nods sagely, as if anticipating my every response. “Great men often have problems relating to their children. It goes all the way back to the ancient kings. In the animal world, male lions will sometimes destroy their own cubs, rather than risk competing with them when they’re fully grown. Arthur is-was-a genius, a transcendent thinker, but like all humans he’s not without faults. He drove his only child away, and that is a terrible thing, even if his intentions were otherwise. Even if he later regretted what he had done.”

“Jed never even knew his mother was dying! How could anyone do that to a boy? His own father!”

Weems sighs, shakes his head. “As I said before, I can’t believe that cruelty was Arthur’s intention. He thought he was protecting the boy.”

“By not letting him see his own mother?”

He shrugs, conceding the point. “As I said, even the great Arthur Conklin is not without fault. The point is, he changed his mind about Jedediah. After he suffered his first heart attack, when his mind was still reasonably clear, he asked me to make contact with the boy. Sorry, I continue to think of Jedediah as a boy, since that’s how I knew him. By the time his father expressed an interest in reconciliation he was, of course, a full-grown man, with a wife and child of his own-indeed with a life of his own, a man in full.”

A man in full. Not a phrase I’d ever thought about, but it described Jedediah exactly. Out of necessity, out of the emotional cruelty of his own family, he’d been forced to grow up when he was still very young. When most boys his age were still having their boxers washed and folded by their indulgent mothers, Jed was living entirely on his own, working his way through college.

My man in full.

“I did manage to contact Jedediah,” Weems says. “It was a few months before he was killed. Did he mention that to you?”

I shake my head, ashamed that Jed felt he had to keep secrets from me. Although he had alluded to something going on in the Ruler organization, and joked that if he ever disappeared it would be because of his father. The truth is, I hadn’t wanted to know. Hadn’t wanted to think about anything disrupting our life, and assumed it was just some sort of residual paranoia, understandable when dear old Dad runs a cult.

“He made it clear he had no desire to have any sort of contact, that it was too late to mend fences. I said something about how we could make things better for him, if he came back into the fold, and he said, and I’ll never forget this, ‘How can you improve on perfection?’ He was quite serious. Jedediah felt that his life was perfect exactly as it was. Those were his words. ‘I have the perfect wife, the perfect child. All my father could do is mess things up. So thanks but no thanks.’” Weems heaves a sigh of regret that sounds almost genuine. “I must confess, Mrs. Corbin. I truly did not understand what he meant until I met you and had a glimpse, however brief, of your little boy.”

By then I’m bawling so hard, so convulsively, that I barely notice Missy fussing anxiously, trying to blot my flood of tears with a wad of tissues. If Weems is troubled by my reaction, he doesn’t show it. He simply waits until the crying abates, then continues where he left off. “Whatever I believed his motivations to be, Jed made it abundantly clear that he would remain apart, no matter what pressures might be brought to bear,” he says, sounding philosophical. “I broke the news as gently as I knew how to Arthur, who by then was beginning to fail-his mind was no longer clear-and I’m not sure he even truly comprehended the situation. But Evangeline assumes that everyone shares her lust for power and wealth. She convinced herself that Arthur was going to name Jedediah as his successor, cutting her out. So she arranged to have him killed, and to make it look like an accident. Somehow she made it happen. I’ve never been able to determine the details. Some clever, undetectable form of sabotage, no doubt.”

In the back of my mind, the image of a plane falls from the sky, tumbling like a bird with a broken wing. It’s more than I can bear. I have to force the image back into its little box or it will drive me mad.

“I’m sure it’s distressing,” Weems says, “but you need to understand what she’s capable of. At the moment she believes that controlling Arthur’s only grandchild is somehow to her benefit. The moment she no longer believes that, he’ll be a liability, and, as I say, Evangeline’s liabilities have a way of vanishing without a trace.”