S. Harper - Cursed

Zack takes up the position I’ve left at the wall. “I appreciate that. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Things I’d rather forget. Not just for the government.”

We stare out at the ocean. I understand what it’s like, having to live with monumental regret. “It wasn’t my intention to dredge up bad memories.”

“You were worried about the money for this.” He waves a hand. “Whether I came by it honestly.”

“Yes.”

There’s a long pause. I wait while he struggles to find the words. Finally he does.

“I spent more than a decade in constant danger, putting my life on the line every day.” He shakes his head as if ridding himself of an unwanted memory. “What I did paid obscenely well. I’ve struggled with what to do with the money. Admittedly, this place is an extravagance. But it reminds me of a life I once had.” He pauses. “Did I come by the money honestly? At the time, I thought what I was doing was legit—for the greater good.”

“Now?”

“Now . . . I think some of it wasn’t. I know some of it wasn’t.”

“That’s how you paid for the house.”

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Yes. That’s how I paid for the house.”

I draw a breath, too. I can taste the salt in the air. When I open my eyes again, Zack is watching me. I look out toward the ocean. “You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful view.”

“I love the ocean. I grew up in Hilton Head. My family had a place right on the beach.”

I remember Sarah was born and raised in Hilton Head. Perhaps they have even more of a past than I thought.

“Do your parents still live there?”

His shoulders tense. “No. They died some years ago.”

Yet he spoke of his mother in the present earlier. “My mother will be relieved. . . .”

Zack turns his back to me, attending to the grill, a not so subtle way to close the subject.

I walk over to the wall, giving him time and space. I want to ask about his mother. I want to ask about Sarah. But it’s clear he’s already revealed far more to me than he ever intended to. Instead I back off, drink my beer, and watch the waves. In a moment he joins me and we stand in companionable silence, gazing out at the ocean.

“The crashing of the waves lulls me at night,” he confesses. “Without it, I don’t sleep.”

A sense of melancholy settles over me. I, too, spend sleepless nights, being chased by past demons.

He leans in and bumps my shoulder. “I’ve told you my secret. Quid pro quo. You gonna come clean now and tell me yours?”

The playful tone and gesture lifts my spirits.

It doesn’t, however, change how I answer. “Probably not in this lifetime.”

“What happened to partners not having secrets?”

I return the shoulder bump. “Now, you and I both know you’ve yet to spill all of your deep, dark secrets. You just threw me a little ol’ bone.”

He doesn’t reply. Doesn’t push.

Instead he returns to his post at the grill. But the message in the look he sends back over his shoulder is clear.

I’ve been granted a reprieve, all right. But it’s only temporary.

“More steak?”

I lean back in my chair and shake my head. “I’m stuffed.” I take another sip of wine and watch Zack as he refills his own glass. Dinner was far more comfortable than lunch. Zack filled me in on what was happening with the Mason prosecution and I filled him in on his new colleagues.

I gesture toward the now empty plates. “Everything was great. Do you cook like this often?”

Zack shrugs. “When I can. You know how it is, crazy hours. Most days I grab something on the way to work in the morning, stop someplace for a quick lunch, and then it’s dinner alone at a restaurant or takeout.”

“I’ve got a delivery service on speed dial. Hector is probably filing a missing person’s report as we speak because he didn’t hear from me tonight.”

Zack smiles. “Hector? You’re on a first-name basis with the delivery boy? Please tell me the two of you don’t have a thing going.”

“A thing ? You, my friend, are watching too much porn.”

“Can a guy watch too much porn?” Zack checks his watch.

He tries to be subtle, but I notice—trained observer that I am. I glance at mine, too. We probably have a little over an hour before the moon rises and our evening has to come to an end.

I stand up and start to clear the table. “I’ll do the dishes.”

Zack follows me into the kitchen with the salad bowl and bottle of dressing in hand. “Just leave them. I’ll throw them in the dishwasher later. We’ve got about thirty minutes of tape to review.”

“Mind if I make some coffee?”

Zack is already on his way over to the flat-screen. “Help yourself. Beans are in the container next to the coffeemaker. It’ll take me a few minutes to hook this up.”

I make short order of grinding the beans and within a minute or two the kitchen fills with the aroma of a dark French roast. Zack has hooked his laptop up to the flat-screen television. The display shows eight labeled views of Barakov’s offices divided into blocks: Lobby, OR, Recovery, Reception, Elevator, Stairs, Break Room, Hallway.

“Mugs?” I ask.

“Next to the sink.”

I pour two cups, adding the requisite cream and two sugars to Zack’s, then join him on the sofa.

“All set?”

“I have this paused close to the time Isabella Mancini’s car went through that light. This way we won’t miss her.”

I nod. “Hit it.”

Zack presses PLAY and the various blocks on the screen begin to change. People walk in and out of the lobby. The OR and recovery room remain empty. We watch Silvia Barton move from her post in reception to the break room and back. Barakov walks down the hallway into what I guess is an exam room. A minute or two later he emerges and goes into his office. A woman comes out maybe a minute after him and then joins him. Her face isn’t visible, but her stature and hair color are wrong for Isabella. There are two elevators, and the block showing those images alternate between the two.

“There’s no view inside Barakov’s office or the exam rooms,” I point out.

Zack has been quietly sipping his coffee. “No. But we’ve got the stairwell and the hallway. If anyone were to go in or out, we’d know. Keep watching. I’ll be right back.”

Zack gets up suddenly and heads for a door at the far end of the living room, past the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him go through it. I reach for the mouse on the coffee table in front of me and pause the video.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Zack is already on his way back, a set of rolled-up papers in his hand. “I picked these up from the city. They were filed at the time of the renovation of Barakov’s office.”

He spreads the plans out next to the laptop. “Unless you’re Spider-Man, there’s only two points of entry. The way we came in and the way we went out.”

“So if we don’t catch Isabella in the stairwell or lobby . . .”

“She didn’t enter the building,” Zack finishes.

We resume play. Ten minutes go by, then another ten. It’s past Isabella’s appointment time.

“What about the parking garage below? Any cameras there?”

“No. I swung by there after picking up the plans. There are no cameras on or in the garage, so no visual records. But there’s also street parking and several nearby lots.”

I reach over and click the mouse to fast-forward. Within a few minutes, the video comes to an end.

I set my cup down on the coffee table. “How do we know she wasn’t late? Or maybe Barton or the doctor did something to the footage?”