Blind Rage (13 page)

“Thank you, Alice.”

She rounded the desk and sat down, dismissing me. I turned for the door and nearly jumped out of my socks when Tess screamed—again.

“
¡Ay, Dios mío!
” Rosa cried.

Footsteps clattered into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” Alice said. “What’s the matter?”

“
El fantasma de su padre
,” Rosa whispered. “
Dios mío
.”

“English, Rosa, please!” Alice said shortly. “Tess, what happened?”

Tess held up her phone and sobbed. “I got another e-mail message. From Dad.”

“You must be mistaken, Tess,” Alice said.

“I told her it’s somebody’s sick idea of a joke,” Oliver said.

Tess swung her head wildly from voice to voice. “Stop it, all of you! You think I don’t know an e-mail from my own father?”

She jumped up and fled from the room, arms flailing in front of her face to ward off onrushing walls. She cracked her knee against a stool, rapped her knuckles against a doorframe, and bruised a shoulder on a wall, but succeeded in getting away.

Behind her, Tess heard Alice say, “Oliver!” She stepped up her pace. Feeling her way down the hall, Tess grabbed the banister and bolted up the stairs.

“Tess!” Oliver called. “Wait!”

His footsteps pounded up after her, and she felt his hand on her arm before she reached the top. Oliver’s breathing was heavy and ragged, and Tess took some small comfort in knowing she’d made him work to catch up.

“What do you want?” She wrenched her arm away and took another stair.

“Hold up. C’mon, Tess. Wait a minute. Look, I get it. I know what it’s like.”

“You couldn’t possibly know what this is like.”

“Yes, I do. My mom died when I was little, and my dad ran out on me. I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. If I got an e-mail from him, I’d freak.”

Tess digested that slowly, momentarily confounded. “You’re probably just telling me that to make me feel sorry for you.”

“No, I’m not. It’s no big deal for me because it happened so long ago. For you, it’s fresher, so it hurts more. I just wanted you to know I understand what you’re going through.”

Thoughts blazed through her mind, leaving trails of sparks.

No one could possibly understand what I’m going through.

She said nothing.

“It has to be a prank, Tess. Someone’s messing with you.”

“But why? What have I done to anyone?”

“I don’t know. That kid Toby, maybe? Or Carl. He’s a big enough asshole.”

“Not smart enough. And I can’t believe Toby would do something like that. Not to me.”

“What about your friend? Adrienne? Not a lot of love lost between you two, I’m guessing.”

Tess couldn’t stop the tears that started running down her cheeks again.

Oliver groaned. “Jeez, not again. Everything’s spinning, fading. I feel so weak. Kryptonite, I’m telling you. Got—to—shield—myself—from—”

Tess felt a tissue being pressed into her hand, and she laughed in spite of herself.

“Come on, let’s get you something to eat. We’ll figure this out.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Okay, so let’s go somewhere quiet and think this through.”

“The library,” she said.

“Which way?” Oliver said.

“I’ll show you. Take my arm.”

Tess turned. With one hand on the banister, she led Oliver down the stairs. She put her hand out and lightly touched the wall at the bottom of the stairs, but she could find the library easily without feeling her way or counting steps. When she reached the door, she stopped.

“This is it?” he said. “How did you do that?”

“I know my way around my own home.”

She heard Oliver open the door. He guided her through the opening.

“Wow!” he said. “Nice.”

“It’s my favorite room.”

She could picture it perfectly—the walls of shelves, two of which were bifurcated by a catwalk accessible from a spiral staircase. A pair of big, stuffed wing chairs flanked a leather couch in front of the fireplace. A reading table with four straight-backed chairs around it anchored the middle of the room under a hanging lampshade of green glass. It was exactly how a library in an old English manor should look. The rest of the house was contemporary, which may have been why she loved the library so much. It felt cozy, and much more inviting and warm than the other rooms, no matter how comfortable they were.

“My dad used to say this library was bigger than the library of Alexandria.”

“Alexandria probably had nearly four hundred thousand scrolls.”

“It took several scrolls to make a book,” she said, “so it still didn’t have that many books.”

“How many do you have here? A few thousand?”

Tess nodded. “Around five thousand. But we sort of cheat. The Internet, you know.”

She pointed in the direction of a study carrel in a corner. The nook was equipped with a computer and high-speed broadband connection.

“How do you do that?” Oliver said.

She turned to the sound of his voice. “Do what?”

“You pointed right at that computer.”

“I told you, I know my way around the house.”

“And that. What about that? You’re looking right at me, Tess.”

“I can’t see you.”

“But you’re not looking at me the way a blind person would. You know, sort of unfocused and off to the side. You look at people when they speak.”

“I don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. I guess I’m still trying to see you talk. I just ‘look’ at the sound of your voice.”

“If there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, why can’t you see?”

“They told me the accident probably caused a brain injury.”

“I’m sorry.” Oliver paused. “Is there . . . ? I mean, can they—?”

“No. There’s nothing they can do. I don’t want to talk about it.” Tess swallowed hard. “I want to show you something.”

She turned and took two steps before banging her hip into the back of a chair. Oliver’s hand was on her arm in a flash.

“Let me help,” he said. “Where to?”

She bit her lower lip and pulled her arm away. “I have to learn how to do this on my own.”

Oliver didn’t reply, so she put her hands out and felt her way around the table, oriented herself, and gingerly stepped to the bookshelf. Her hands worked out in both directions until they found the edge of a section. She moved books to the side and thrust her hand to the back of the shelf. Her fingers discovered the outline of a keypad. Tracing the keys lightly, she put her fingers in position and pressed in a ten-digit code from memory. She heard a satisfying click, and pulled. The entire shelf swung into the library, exposing an opening into a room beyond.

“Holy smoke!” Oliver said. “A secret panel? What’s back there?”

“Come on,” Tess said as she stepped through. “Help me. I haven’t been in here in a while.”

Oliver took her arm and walked her a few paces inside the room. They stopped. She imagined what he saw—a functional but still comfortable office. A large flat-screen monitor topped a teak desk. A couch ran part of the length of one wall.

“What is this?”

“My dad’s private study,” Tess said. “Specially designed and constructed to serve as a panic room if necessary. He used to come in here when he was working on a problem and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“What sort of problem? What did he do?”

“Designed video games.”

Tess wished she could watch him working at his desk, intense concentration on his face. Even though she was blind and he was gone, she could feel him in the room.

“They’re not a prank,” she said. “The e-mails. They’re from him. From my dad.”

“Tess,” Oliver said, “maybe you should let your parents go.”

She blinked back the tears welling up in her eyes. “How can you say that? Just forget they ever existed?”

“No, of course not. Love them. Cherish your memories of them. But let go, Tess. You’ll go crazy, otherwise.”

“He wanted me to know something. I’m sure of it. He’s trying to tell me something.”

“What did the e-mail say this time?” Oliver’s voice was still soft, calm.

“‘Don’t believe everything you hear.’”

“That’s it? You can’t see, but ‘seeing is believing.’ You depend on hearing more than ever, but you’re not supposed to believe everything you hear. Either that’s the worst advice your dad ever gave you, or someone’s punking you. Come on, Tess. What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know!”

She wanted to scream and stamp her feet—or hit something. But it had slowly begun to dawn on her that this was her life now. Standing here in her father’s study, she knew that if her parents
were
still alive, they’d both be telling her in their own ways to get over herself. To move on.

“But I know how we can find out,” she said.

One year earlier
. . .

An op of this magnitude required time to plan carefully, and but Travis had had less than twenty-four hours. A shiver of excitement ran through him, and his stomach flip-flopped the way it always did before a mission. A hundred things could go wrong, but if everything went right, this op just might solve their problems.

He gazed out the darkened windows of the big snowcat, slowly panning in a wide arc. He had a surprisingly clear view of the terrain on almost all sides, but that meant he was visible, too—if someone knew where to look. The black highway snaked through the snowy pass below him, stretching nearly two miles in each direction before disappearing around the shoulders of mountains. The bright lights of the ski resort glowed on the other side of the highway. White ski trails climbed the side of the mountain above the resort, dotted with bright pools of light. Tiny black dots zigzagged down the mountain, dipping in and out of the pools.

He turned to the mountainside stretching away from the snowcat. The snow that had fallen steadily all day had nearly stopped. Cold air seeped into the cabin. Without the heater running, Travis could already see his breath. He rubbed his hands together. The conditions could not have been better. A wet, cold winter had dragged on into spring, resulting in one of the deepest snowpacks in years. Skiers and snowboarders would be happy to see the season extend to late May or early June.

He keyed his radio. “All units check in.”

One by one, the men in the field responded, letting him know they were in position.

“Status, Red?” Travis said.

Red’s reply crackled through his headset. “The package just reached the top. Headed down the chute now.”

“Heads up, Fred,” Travis said. “Could be the last run of the day. If so, you’ll have to pick up the package at the bottom. Red, head out for the rendezvous. Everyone else—on your toes.”

Marcus had objected to using first names in their radio communication, but they used mostly military-spec hardware, including tactical radio gear with encryption. The frequency they were on was a little-used military band that wouldn’t interfere with the state highway department’s radio equipment.

Travis turned to the man next to him. “Comfortable with the range, Luis?”

“I wouldn’t mind being closer, captain, but I can hit the targets you gave me.”

“Almost showtime.”

“I’m ready.”

Luis cradled an M3 MAAWS—medium antiarmor weapon system—on his lap. The recoilless rifle could launch a high-explosive round about eleven hundred meters. He fingered the large metal tube absently and glanced at Travis.

“Thanks,” Luis said, “for giving me a spot on your team.”

“No reason I shouldn’t,” Travis said, a little gruffly.

Luis looked about to say something else, but just nodded and said, “I’m going to set up.”

He pulled on a pair of gloves and donned night-vision goggles over his ski hat, then opened the cabin door and jumped out into the snow. Travis lifted a pair of night-vision binoculars and did another sweep of the mountainside, the highway below, and finally the slopes at the base of the ski resort. His thigh muscle twitched. Waiting was always the hardest. All of them were accustomed to action, but he knew patience was key to success. He gloved up, grabbed an extra HE round for the MAAWS, and climbed down to the snow.

The radio buzzed to life, and Fred’s voice said, “The package is down.”

“For good?” Travis said.

“Wait for it,” Fred said.

The seconds ticked by. Luis crouched in the snow several yards away with the MAAWS on his shoulder, looking back at him, waiting for his signal. Travis’s heart hammered in his chest, but he felt calmer than he had a few moments ago.

“Boots are on the ground!” Fred said. “It’s a go!”

“Roger that. Go! Go! Go!” Travis said.

He swung his binoculars left, to where the highway disappeared around a curve. He waited.

“Marcus, I don’t see you,” he said. “Are you in position?”

“Coming up on my mark right now. Setting up took longer than I thought.”

Far below, headlights pulled onto the shoulder on the highway heading east, away from the ski slopes, and stopped with a bright flash of red. Emergency flashers reflected off the dark pavement and brightened the snow at the side of the road. Two minutes later, another pair of headlights rounded the curve toward the resort. With the binoculars, Travis could easily make out a semitrailer truck as it barreled down the road. Just before it drew even with the vehicle parked on the other side, the truck cab slewed left, and the whole rig went into a sliding skid. The trailer tipped up on one set of wheels and teetered before crashing on its side, taking the cab with it. The faint screech of metal on pavement as the rig slid along the highway floated up the mountainside. The truck skidded to a stop, effectively blocking the westbound lanes.

The driver’s door popped up toward the dark, cloud-laden sky, and a figure climbed out. Travis breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Kenny hadn’t been hurt in the wreck. The kid could drive as well as he’d said he could. Kenny clambered down from the rig and ran across the highway to the waiting car on the opposite shoulder.

The snow fell more thickly now, big wet flakes drifting down, partially obscuring the scene, like a fuzzy TV picture. Travis swung the binoculars to the frontage road. An SUV approached the main highway. A large snowplow followed in its wake and slowed when the SUV turned onto the main road. Travis could just make out Barney’s small figure dropping safety cones across the highway entrance, then quickly swinging up into the snowplow cab with Fred. The plow slowly rumbled onto the highway behind the SUV. Travis gave Luis the high sign. The ex-marine double checked the laser rangefinder, sighted, and fired a shell.