Read Afraid of the Dark Online
Authors: James Grippando
A
ndie spent Sunday morning coloring her hair. Luckily, raven black looked best all one shade, no highlights, so it was easy enough to do it herself, given the time constraints. Losing the blond was for Jack, but she also hoped her boss would like it. Or more precisely, Lisa Horne’s boss. Danilo Bahena was the principal reason that the FBI had arranged for Andie’s crash course in male fetishes at Capital Pleasures. Andie caught up with Bahena at a private heliport in northern Virginia. Bahena took her inside the executive waiting room, away from the noise of the company’s Agusta AW-139, where they could talk in private.
“Black is more . . . authoritative,” Andie said. “A good thing, don’t you agree?”
Bahena stepped closer for a better look. As usual, his expression was about as easy to read as tea leaves in a windstorm.
Bahena’s official title was vice president of training and recruitment for Vortex Inc., and Andie—Lisa—was a trainee on the cusp of what Vortex referred to as “activation.” Vortex was a privately held company, a subsidiary of a foreign corporation of obscure ownership, which made it impossible to know what the real business of Vortex was and who was actually running it. Bahena was equally enigmatic. He claimed to be from Los Angeles, California, but Andie and the FBI knew better. His closer ties were to Angeles, Pampanga, in the Philippines—a hotspot for human trafficking and sex trade. The skinny on Bahena was that, before he’d moved to Pentagon City and become such a friend to the U.S. government, the Japanese Yakuza and Chinese Triad had paid him a small fortune to feed their insatiable appetite for young prostitutes. He was built more like a wrestler than a businessman, and Andie could easily have envisioned him standing up to any element of organized crime. He was also a man of few words, which made him a tough study.
“I like it,” he said finally.
“I thought you would,” said Andie.
Bahena went to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. He didn’t offer Andie anything.
“Now for the bad news,” said Andie. “I need a week off. Family emergency.”
“No,” he said.
“Sorry, maybe you didn’t hear. It’s an emergency.”
“I heard you fine. I said no.”
Andie disliked Bahena more than anyone she’d ever worked for—which was saying something, since in actuality she didn’t even work for him. “Look, I wouldn’t ask, but it’s my mother. She needs—”
“I don’t give a shit about your mother. We’ve got too much invested in you, and we’re on a strict timetable.”
“I’m only asking for a week.”
“I said
strict
. If your mother’s sick, hire a home health-care nurse.”
“It’s not a medical emergency.”
“Then call your sister.”
“My sister—”
Andie stopped herself. She’d never spoken of a sister to Bahena, and in her FBI undercover profile, she was an only child.
Did Bahena just bait me?
“My
step
sister, I mean,” said Andie, her heart pounding and her mind racing as she backpedaled her way out of blowing her own cover. “I have a stepsister who is useless. So unless you’re planning to put me in handcuffs and drag me to the airport, I’ll see you in a week.”
Bahena unleashed his patented stare of intimidation, but Andie gave it right back to him. She had him pegged for the kind of man who didn’t respect any woman who wasn’t prepared to spit in his eye, and it was time to turn on the attitude.
“Have a nice flight,” she said as she started for the door.
“Lisa,” said Bahena.
She stopped and turned quickly—quickly enough to disabuse him of the notion that her real name was anything but Lisa.
“I’ll give you till Friday,” he said.
Andie didn’t nod her agreement, and she sure as hell didn’t thank him. She opened the door and left the heliport without another word, kicking herself for the lapse about a sister. And wondering if she could ever come back.
I
t’s nowhere near as bad as twenty years ago,” said Theo, “but it’s straight out of the bad old days.”
Jack parked his car down the street from the cemetery, directly across from Tucker Elementary—where Theo had gone to school in the sense that, on occasion, he had physically occupied space there. Charlotte Jane Memorial Park was part of Theo’s old neighborhood, just two blocks away from where someone had slit his drug-addicted mother’s throat and left her to die on the street. Theo had been just thirteen when he’d found her body outside Homeboy’s Tavern.
“I know you hate coming around here,” said Jack. “But I didn’t know what to think when Mays called and said he had to meet me at McKenna’s grave. Every time I start to see Mays as a potential ally, he says something that makes me think he’s nothing but trouble.”
“You want me to kick his ass?”
“No,” said Jack, groaning. “Chuck Mays thinks he’s the smartest person in the world, which means I don’t want it to come down to my word against his if there’s ever a dispute about what was said between us.”
“So you want me to
threaten
to kick his ass.”
“
No.
Just keep your mouth shut and listen. Believe it or not, life doesn’t always come down to kicking somebody’s ass.”
Theo glanced at the school’s graffiti-covered entrance, shook his head, and chuckled. “Dude, you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at Tucker Elementary.”
It was late Sunday afternoon, but the cemetery was open to the public until sundown. They climbed out of the car and walked to the west entrance on Charles Street. The sidewalk was dimpled and rutted with symbols that gangs had etched into eternity when the cement had been poured twenty years ago. Jack even found one from the Grove Lords—Theo’s old partners in street crime. The rusted iron gate creaked as it opened, and Jack spotted Chuck Mays and Vince Paulo standing beneath the two large oak trees that Mays had described to Jack in his directions. Jack led, and Theo followed. The sun was low enough in the sky to cast long shadows, and they’d passed just two rows of old tombs when Theo broke into his singing voice, quietly but predictably invoking the memory of Michael Jackson:
“
It’s close to midnight, something something, something dark . . .”
Theo’s recollection of the lyrics expired quickly, but he was still humming the tune as they reached McKenna’s grave. Jack silenced him with a glare and introduced Theo to Mays and Paulo as his “investigator.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Theo had worn many hats throughout their friendship—all of them size XXL.
“Sorry about your friend Neil,” said Vince.
“Ditto,” said Mays.
It was already feeling awkward, standing around McKenna’s tomb in an old Bahamian cemetery, talking about Neil in the past tense.
“I appreciate that,” said Jack.
“It changes things, doesn’t it,” said Mays, “having skin in the game?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Jack.
Mays glanced at Theo, gestured toward the bench beneath the oak tree, and said, “Have a seat, big guy.” He wasn’t being polite. Theo was the tallest man in the group, and Mays clearly wasn’t used to looking up at anyone.
“I’m good,” said Theo.
Jack said, “What is it that you wanted to show me, Chuck?”
“You see where you’re standing?” asked Mays.
Jack looked around, orienting himself. Family plots marked
GUILFORD
and
SANDS
were directly behind him. His left foot was practically touching McKenna’s tomb. “What about it?” said Jack.
Mays’ expression turned very serious. “This morning when I came here, I saw Shada kneeling in that exact spot.”
Jack glanced at the plaque beside McKenna’s grave:
IN MEMORY OF SHADA MAYS
, it read. “You’re one strange guy, Chuck. Let’s go, Theo.”
Mays grabbed Jack by the arm and said, “I saw her.”
“Yeah, and I once had a client who looked down at his grilled cheese sandwich and swore he saw the Virgin Mary. Now let go of my arm.”
“This is not a joke.”
Theo grabbed Mays, his huge hand making Mays’ considerable forearms seem slight. “Let go,” said Theo.
Mays released, and so did Theo, but the tension hung in the air between them. It was palpable, no gift of sight required.
“Chuck is telling the truth,” said Vince.
Jack still had doubts, but if Vince was vouching for his friend, Jack owed them the courtesy of an ear. “Did you talk to her?” asked Jack.
“No,” said Mays. “She ran as soon as I spotted her.”
“How close did you get?”
“Twenty yards.”
“Show me an eyewitness who was standing twenty yards away, and I’ll show you a dozen first-year law students who could rip him to shreds.”
“I know it was her,” said Mays.
“How can you be sure?”
“She left me a message.”
Jack did a double take. The story had suddenly taken on an entirely different quality. “What kind of message?”
Mays went to McKenna’s grave and knelt beside it. “Have you ever heard of a memory medallion?”
“No,” said Jack.
“It’s nothing super-high-tech, but it’s about as computer savvy as graves get.” He brushed away a little dust from a metal plate on the stone marker. It was about the size of a quarter.
“It’s an added feature you can order through just about any funeral company,” said Mays. “The marker comes with a weatherproof portal. If you know the password, you can hook up a USB cable and view photographs or read stories that others have left. Or you can leave something for others to see: pictures, poems, stories. Or you can do what Shada did this morning: leave a message for your husband.”
“That makes no sense,” said Jack. “Let’s put aside all the other questions raised by her resurrection from the Everglades. If she wanted to get in touch with you after all this time, why wouldn’t she just call or e-mail you?”
“Calls and e-mails can be traced. This can’t. We’re the only two people on the planet who even knew it existed.”
“She could have just knocked on your door,” said Theo.
“Not if she didn’t intend to stay. Obviously, she didn’t. She ran as soon as we made eye contact.”
A million questions came to mind, but Jack was speechless, not sure what to ask. “Why did she run in the first place?”
“I don’t know,” said Mays.
“Because she thinks she can,” said Vince.
Vince had a troubled expression on his face, and Jack worried that it wasn’t his place to probe. But he needed to understand. “What does that mean, Vince?”
Vince patted his guide dog, and Sam sat up straight, as if his master had something important to say.
“It doesn’t matter where I go, what I do, or who I’m with,” said Vince. “I could change jobs, change my name, change my life—change my gender, if I want to get crazy about it. No matter what, I’m still blind. The man who butchered McKenna left me that way. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve accepted it. Shada—and this is just my take—is another story. She hasn’t accepted anything. She thinks that if she runs far enough and long enough, she can get away from what happened.”
No one spoke, but after a minute or two, Mays was shaking his head. “You’ve known a long time, haven’t you, Vince?”
“Suspected. It was all so amateurish. The sleeping pills in the car. The canoe in the Everglades. Today cinched it for me. You tried to sound surprised, but—”
“I actually was surprised to see her,” said Chuck. “But not because I thought she was dead. I just never thought I’d see her again, after she left.”
“She just left you?” asked Jack.
“It was her idea. But I let her go.”
“What do you mean you let her go?”
“Shada was a mess. She lived in fear of McKenna’s killer coming back for her. She blamed me for leaving the country and not doing something about Jamal before it cost McKenna her life. She wanted out of her life, out of everything she’d ever known. I let her go.”
“Why did she come back? Why now?”
“She didn’t say in her message.”
“Exactly what
did
she tell you, Chuck?”
“She told me that she was sorry it had to be this way. And she told me not to worry.”
“Worry about what?”
“Being charged with murder.”
“Whose murder?”
“Hers, of course.”
Jack blinked hard, not comprehending. “Why would you be charged with Shada’s murder?”
“As much as Shada tried to make it look like she committed suicide, the investigation was homicide all the way. Like Vince said, it was pretty amateurish. Is anyone here
really
that surprised that it turned out to be bullshit? Jamal was the chief suspect for almost three years, but now we know he was in Gitmo when Shada disappeared. The cops are back to square one. Any time a wife disappears, square one is the husband.”
“So when Shada told you not to worry, she meant what? She’s officially coming out of hiding?”
“She’s coming out of hiding if—and only if—the same assholes who can’t catch McKenna’s killer try to pin something on me that I didn’t do. Like killing her. Killing Jamal Wakefield. Or killing your friend Neil.”
“Are you saying that she knows who killed Neil?” asked Jack.
Mays didn’t answer. Jack pressed: “Did she tell you that in her message?”
“She told me more than she realizes,” said Mays.
“Stop being so damn coy,” said Jack. “What does that mean?”
“It means that Shada’s message reveals enough for me and my computers to figure out where she’s been for the past three years. And that’s key for everyone here. Because I believe she’s spent all that time—every minute of every day for the past three years—looking for the monster who killed McKenna and blinded Vince. And I think that same son of a bitch is the guy who murdered your friend.”
Jack had the same suspicion, but he had no proof. And until now, he had no conceivable way of getting it. “What are you proposing?” asked Jack.
“I’m proposing that you get off the dime. We’re right back where we left off before you buried your friend. Except now the pot is sweeter.”
“How much sweeter?”
“My supercomputers are only as good as the data I input, and now all the pieces are within reach. I know I can find Shada. If I can add what Shada knows to what I know, what you know, what Jamal told you, what Jamal’s mother knows . . . bingo. This fucker is mine.”
“You mean mine,” said Vince.
“He’s not anyone’s,” said Mays, “unless the rest of us are all on board. So what’s it gonna be, Swyteck?”
A cool breeze whispered through the oak limbs overhead. Day was turning into night, and the shadows across the cemetery were now so dark that the marker on McKenna’s tomb was no longer readable. A strange feeling hit Jack, but it was nothing supernatural. It was the survivor’s paradox that follows every funeral—that moment when you’re faced with a decision because a friend or loved one is dead, and you catch yourself wishing he were there to help you decide.
Jack glanced at Theo, but it wasn’t up to him. Then he looked at Mays, and he went with his gut.
“I’d say he’s
ours
,” said Jack.