Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

That was assuming his suspicions were even correct. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the things Franklin had seen. For the life of him he couldn’t imagine what that explanation might be, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be one.

So he had waited across the street from Strange Dude’s tenement building, sitting on the sidewalk with his back propped against the stained red brick façade of a long-abandoned dry-cleaning establishment, smoking cigarettes and watching, waiting for his morning hangover to subside.

Sometime after noon, Franklin wasn’t sure exactly when—he didn’t wear a watch anymore because time meant nothing when you had nowhere to go—Strange Dude had come out the tenement’s battered front door like he owned the place and turned toward Government Center. Franklin watched him walk briskly away, his form growing smaller and smaller until he disappeared from sight. Then he waited a little while longer before tossing his cigarette into the gutter and rising unsteadily to his feet. He circled the building and entered through the long-abandoned service entrance in back.

Franklin arrived at the third-floor landing and slipped quietly down the shabby hallway. He expected to see no one and did not. A series of three doors lined each side of the narrow corridor and for a moment Franklin was stymied. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be more than one possible apartment up here. It seemed obvious now, but he hadn’t given the situation much thought. Hell, he was just some homeless loser, not a fucking private detective.

He stood still, a couple of steps inside the hallway, unsure of how to proceed. Then he smiled. Strange Dude had provided a roadmap straight to his front door. The entire building was understandably in poor condition. After all, it had been deemed unlivable years ago by some anonymous building inspector. But dirt and dried mud caked a path straight to one door—the door roughly one-third of the way along the hallway on the left. It had to be the one.

Franklin reached it in a few steps and studied the cheap lock built into the punky wood above the tarnished brass knob. It was exactly what he had expected to find: worthless protection that would provide no challenge. He fished his lock-picking tools—he had liberated them from his mentor’s coat one morning after discovering the man dead as a doornail on a park bench—and got to work.

Within seconds the tumblers clicked into place and the lock turned and Franklin was in.

Cait was not one to be bothered by crowds. She liked people, enjoyed being around them, interacting with them, even when they were all strangers. Today was a different story, though. Today she felt out of sorts, thrown off her game by the terrifying Flicker she had experienced back at the hotel room. Seeing the young girl die right in front of her—experiencing the awful torture in a way that was as real as if she had been standing next to the killer—was a completely new and unsettling experience.

The scene had been unlike any Flicker she had ever lived through, graphic and disturbing, and when she walked through the automatic sliding doors leading into the terminal at Logan Airport and saw the throngs of restless travelers, she was thrown for a loop. She shrank against Kevin reflexively, covering her mouth with her hand and gasping.

“What is it, babe? What’s wrong?” Kevin held her tightly and his eyes bored into hers. “Is it happening again?”

“No, I’m okay,” she answered with a nervous laugh, making it perfectly clear she was anything but. “I just don’t feel like myself. Everything seems a little…I don’t know…off, I guess.”

“Well, that’s understandable. First you find your long-lost mother, then you discover you have a twin brother you never knew about, a man who, for reasons completely unknown, would like nothing better than to see you dead, then your newly located long-lost mother tells you she never wants to see you again. Then, to top it all off, you have to live through the worst Flicker ever—a horrific, bloody murder.”

A young mother trudged past, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her with one arm and holding a squalling infant with the other. She looked at them sharply as Kevin’s voice bounced off the walls of the terminal, magnifying the words “horrific, bloody murder.” She shook her head in disgust and leveled a withering stare at them.

“Sorry about that,” Kevin said to the woman, lowering his voice to nearly a whisper. Then he turned to Cait. “But you get my point, right? Anyone would be feeling a little off after the kind of day you’ve had.”

Cait started to giggle and a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob came out. “Yes, I get your point. So does everyone else here in Terminal B. We’d better buy our tickets back to Tampa before the TSA decides we’re terrorists, discussing bloody murders and the like. Much more talk like that and we’ll end up in a holding cell.”

Kevin smiled and they walked to a row of uncomfortable-looking molded plastic chairs. He indicated she should sit and said, “Wait here. I’m assigning you the very important job of keeping an eye on our luggage. Just relax and I’ll get us on the first flight back to sanity.”

Cait slumped in her chair—it really was as uncomfortable as it looked—and wondered how in the hell she could even begin to relax. She decided the chances were pretty good that she would never relax again. She watched Kevin as he waited in line at the ticket counter, fidgeting and glancing back in concern every few seconds. He was big and strong and overprotective and she had never loved him more than she did right now.

Her eyes felt grainy and heavy and began to close, and then what seemed like a second later a hand clamped down on her shoulder and she was being shaken gently awake. Kevin smiled down at her. “Hey, sleepyhead. Some watchdog you turned out to be. I turn my back for one minute and you fall asleep on the job. Fortunately for you our fancy, expensive luggage is still here, otherwise you’d be out on your ass looking for a new job.”

Cait glanced at the two worn duffel bags, still on the floor at her feet where they had been placed. “Ha!” she said. “Fat chance this ‘fancy, expensive luggage’ would ever be stolen. No self-respecting thief would be caught dead stealing our crappy stuff.”

She forced herself to her feet. Her body felt heavy and slow, filled with a bone-deep exhaustion. All she wanted to do was get on the airplane and go back to sleep. She had no doubt she would be unconscious all the way back to Tampa. “How long was I out?” she asked, trying to stifle a yawn and mostly failing.

“Almost half an hour. That was the slowest-moving line outside of the DMV I’ve ever had the misfortune of waiting in.” Cait could see the concern still etched in Kevin’s eyes. He was trying to keep the conversation light for her benefit but was clearly worried about her and she loved him for it.

“Let’s get moving,” he said. “We have a date with two coach-class seats on the next flight out of this burg, but if we hurry, we might have enough time for a quick dinner first. Play your cards right and I might even buy you a drink.”

“Ooh, big spender,” she teased halfheartedly.

“If you’ve ever eaten in an airport restaurant, you know just how big.”

“And you’re going to spring for drinks too? What did I do to deserve this?”

“Drink, I said. Not drinks. I want you just buzzed enough to accept my advances but not so trashed you’ll fall asleep before we’re done. Again.”

Cait burst out laughing, something she wouldn’t have believed possible even ten minutes ago. “As if I could ever fall asleep with you at the controls, lover-boy.” She hooked her arm around his and he shrugged both duffel bags over his shoulder. They moved through the crowd, weaving and bobbing, making slow but steady progress through the terminal until spotting a franchise steak house.