FIC: The Geek Rock Series (LGM, Part 3c/8)
The beginning of the chapter is here.
As dreams went, Jimmy's were fairly mundane.
Often, they were memories, mostly of football and girls, of the winning point after the touchdown and a redhead named Rebecca. Sometimes he dreamed his childhood, too. Like Thanksgiving back when there'd still been enough family to fill all the seats at the dining room table, or the days when he'd bring his dad slices of homemade bread, wrapped in wax paper and thick with butter and preserves, in the office behind the church.
When he had nightmares, those were mostly memories, too: getting lost in the Stewarts' field of sweet corn when he was six, waiting down in the cellar while tornadoes tore through the town outside, the day his dad died, a lone helmet lying on the Astroturf and exactly what the angle of a
broken neck looked like.
(Though, lately, he'd been having this nightmare about radioactive sharks that he couldn't make heads nor tails of.)
And sometimes, maybe more often than he really liked to admit, he dreamed about Yves. They weren't nice dreams, not usually. He dreamed a lot about the last time he'd seen her. He also dreamed about where she might be these days and what might be happening to her.
Something usually triggered those dreams, something that jogged a memory or made him wonder whether she was all right. So it made sense that he would dream about her that night. Earlier, he could have sworn he smelled her perfume. How he knew it was hers was up for debate. His knowledge of her was spotty, intentionally incomplete, a strange mix of intimate and impersonal.
He knew that her skin tasted like sandalwood and cocoa butter, and what the rhythm of her breath sounded like when she cried, but he didn't know how old she was or her real first name.
She'd been crying in his dream, too, asking him please not to do something but refusing to tell him what.
“Yves, please. I don't understand.”
“No, you don't,” she said, and that's when he'd woken up.
He woke up on one of the ratty couches in the Lone Gunman office, and couldn't quite remember where he was for a minute. The phone was ringing, loudly, which must have been what woke him. He hauled himself up off the couch and went to answer it.
Halfway there, Langly intercepted him.
“Don't,” he said, emerging from a back bedroom, clad only in a t-shirt and boxer shorts printed with the logo of one of the many reincarnations of the Star Trek series. “I'll get it. It might be important.
“Lone Gunman... Oh, hey. Yeah, this is Langly. Seriously? That's good news. I'll tell Frohike. You need us to go pick him up? Oh, okay. So later today probably? Hey, good work.”
Frohike wandered out into the office as Langly hung up.
“Good news, man.”
“If you tell me that you just saved money on car insurance, I'm gonna pop you one,” Frohike said crankily, rubbing his eyes with both fists and heading for the coffeemaker.
“The ex is getting Byers sprung from the big house.”
“In English this time?”
Langly wadded up a piece of notepaper and threw it at him. “Meg called. She did some lawyer-fu and got a judge to agree to make the feds release Byers.”
“Excellent.”
“That's great news!” Jimmy said, beating Frohike to the coffee and pouring three cups: one black, one with cream and two sugars, and one with skim milk.
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“She said she's coming by here first...”
“And?”
“Well,” Langly went slightly pink in the cheeks, “I just thought maybe we should clean up a little.”
He gestured at the take-out boxes and empty cans of Mountain Dew littering the tables. Bags of dirty laundry were stacked by the door for their weekly laundry run. A Playboy lay face down next to one of the keyboards.
“I'll do it,” Jimmy offered.
Langly and Frohike both started to protest at once.
“And I promise not to throw anything away without running it past you guys first, okay?”
“All right, Jimmy,” Frohike said, giving in. “I'll make us all some breakfast.”
Byers' ex-wife showed up a few hours later, while Jimmy was hauling laundry bags out to the van. He caught her hesitating on the steps when he opened the door, the expression on her face unreadable and one foot stepping backward as though she might just leave without coming inside.
“Uh, hi,” he said, shifting his grip on the laundry.
She was the tiny sort of girl he probably would have picked up and carried around under one arm in high school, just to prove he could.
She blinked up at him. “Hi. I think maybe I, uh, have the wrong place...”
Her gaze shifted to the number on the warehouse door.
“If you're looking for The Lone Gunman, you're in the right spot. You're Meg, right?”
“I guess I am in the right place then,” she said, giving Jimmy a second look.
“Here, let me toss this in the car and I'll let you in.”
Jimmy sprinted back up the steps, punched in the security code and held the door for her.
“It's so great that you-” he began, but a voice from inside cut him off.
“Jimmy, what are you- Oh, it's you,” Langly said, squinting at Meg through his glasses. “I didn't recognize you at first.”
“Yeah. Well, it's been awhile,” Meg said dryly, glancing around the office. “Wow, I don't think I've ever gotten to come inside the clubhouse before.”
“Security, you know. We don't exactly give hourly tours.”
She toyed with the corner of a mock-up of the upcoming issue. The headline read, 'Secret CIA Planes Kidnap Terror Suspects.'
“Uh-huh.” She was still looking around, as though trying to memorize what the inside of the place looked like.
“Hey, good job, kid,” Frohike said. “We owe you big time.”
“Thanks. But getting John released doesn't mean you guys are out of trouble yet, you know.”
“Trouble's practically our middle name,” Frohike said with a grin.
“I don't doubt it.”
“So, was there something else you needed from us?”
Meg hesitated, then said, “Actually, no. To be honest, I just really wanted to see this place -- and the chances of that happening on a day when John's not behind bars are pretty slim.”
But Jimmy had the distinct sense she wasn't telling the entire truth.
“So, what should our next move be?”
“For the moment, I go get John and you guys stay here and try your best not to get into any more trouble.”
“Oh, yeah,” Frohike said. “That’s worked so well for us in the past.”
“Well, I did say ‘try’.”
“We’ll give it our best shot. You want coffee?”
“Uh, sure. Why not?” she said, taking a seat.
Frohike grabbed Langly by the sleeve and hauled him over to the coffeemaker, where the two spoke in hushed voices while Frohike rinsed off a stack of dirty mugs.
“I'm Jimmy, by the way,” Jimmy said, sitting down and extending a hand to Meg. “I don't whether Byers has mentioned-”
“Sorry. He hasn't.” She smiled at him, shaking his hand. “But then, he probably hasn't told you anything about me, either. That's kind of his thing. It doesn't mean he doesn't care.”
“He doesn’t really talk about that stuff. Maybe with Frohike sometimes, if there’s beer…”
“What stuff? Girls?” She glanced around the office again. “I guess this really is the clubhouse, isn’t it? ‘No girls allowed.’”
He wasn’t entirely sure whether she was joking or not, but he said, “Aw, we let girls in sometimes.”
She laughed softly, and he relaxed. He’d guessed right.
“Oh, I bet all the girls come here to see you,” she said, still laughing, and he felt himself blush a little bit. “How did you get mixed up in all of this, anyway?”
“The guys helped me out awhile back. I really appreciated what they were trying to do, how they were trying to help people. So I invested.”
“Invested?” she said, looking surprised. “Like real money?”
“Yeah. That’s usually how it works, right?” he said, running a hand through his hair. He got the distinct sense she disapproved.
“How much money, exactly?”
“Well, I… uh, don’t really know off the top of my head.” Which was, of course, a total lie, but he somehow couldn’t bring himself to say the amount out loud -- especially not to her.
After a minute, though, her face softened. “You have a lawyer, don't you, Jimmy? And a financial planner?”
“Yup.”
“And what did they say about this investment of yours?”
“That charities were a better tax write-off, and that magazines have a high rate of financial failure.” He smiled back at her. “But I knew all of that already.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you-”
“You didn't. Under different circumstances, Byers would probably have asked the same thing. He doesn't like to see people being exploited either.” He paused. “Which I’m not, by the way. The guys have never accepted anything I didn’t offer first.”
She frowned, and he worried that he'd said something wrong.
“Are you all right?”
“Just remembering a lot of old baggage.” She sighed. “And it seems like there are still just as many secrets. I'm not sure who I'm allowed to tell what.”
“Byers told you not to tell us something?”
She hesitated. “Not exactly. There’s just a lot of double-talk, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me at all. And then there's this business with that woman-”
“Who? Susanne?” Jimmy didn’t know much about that part of Byers’ life. Just a name and some vague hints.
Meg frowned. “Is that what she's calling herself this week? She certainly fancies herself some sort of super-spy, doesn’t she?”
Jimmy blinked. That didn’t fit at all with what he’d heard about Susanne, but before he could ask, Meg was talking again.
“You know, I came here partly because I’ve always been curious. That wasn’t a lie. But,” she hesitated, “I also thought maybe I ought to ask… or tell… or, hell, I don’t know.”
She flopped back against the red velour sofa.
“You seem like a normal guy, Jimmy. How do you deal with all this?”
“All what?”
“Here you go, kid,” Frohike interrupted, trotting over with a cup of hot coffee. “I couldn’t remember how you take it so-“
“That’s fine. Thanks.” Meg took a sip, made a face, and surreptitiously set the cup on the arm of the sofa.
“I thought I'd buy dinner tonight,” Jimmy said, looking first at Frohike, then back at Meg. “You know, to celebrate -- and to thank you for your help.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to.”
“That’s a good idea, Jimmy,” Frohike said. “We’ll chip in for the chow, though. You don’t have to buy. How does Star Thai sound?”
“I was thinking maybe Chinese,” Jimmy said. “Byers likes Chinese, not Thai.”
“Because he doesn't like peanut sauce.” Meg shook her head. “I'd forgotten that. You’re a good friend, Jimmy. I hope he appreciates you.”
“He does.”
Meg didn’t exactly seem convinced of that, though.
“Yeah, yeah,” Langly said. “We’ll all have a big group hug once Byers gets home.”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Meg said. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring him home in one piece, boys.”
*
He never would have believed it, but after awhile even a federal interrogation got boring.
“Come on, Mr. Byers,” Agent LeClaire was saying, “we can help you, if you'll just work with us.”
She had dark circles under her eyes, her hair frizzing at the ends, and looked like she hadn't gotten much more sleep than Byers had.
“And I've told you... for going on, what?” He glanced at his watch. “Eleven hours now? That I don't have the information you want. You can keep asking, but I really don't know where Yves is or much of anything about her background.”
He heard voices out in the corridor then, and the door swung open.
“Meg,” he said, relieved. “Am I glad to see you.”
“I think you'll be gladder to see this,” she said, holding up a folded piece of blue paper and grinning at him. He had a sudden memory of her doing the same once with a backstage pass at a U2 concert.
“What's that?” LeClaire asked, warily.
“Oh, this?” She handed it over. “This is just the opinion of one Judge Judith Maxwell of the Fourth Circuit Court that you're holding my client illegally. Come on, John. We're leaving.”
LeClaire looked to the doorway, but the agent standing behind Meg just shook his head.
They processed his paperwork quickly and brought out his personal effects. He sorted through the box, pulling out his cellphone, his wallet, his tie, his keys... Oh, damn it. They'd pulled the hard drive out of his laptop. Damn it. He knew better than to keep anything important on it, but still.
“Typical,” Meg said, looking at the computer. “We can file a claim to get you reimbursed for the damage, but you're probably not getting any of your data back.”
“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I mean, I could definitely use the money, but there wasn't anything on the drive that isn't replaceable.”
The sun was setting when they emerged from the building. Meg's tiny, aquamarine hybrid didn't have much in the way of leg room, even when he pushed the passenger's seat all the way back. Meg, of course, was five-foot-nothing in heels so it probably wasn't usually an issue.
“Sorry,” she said, watching him struggle. “It's not just you. Jack completely refuses to ride in this car.”
“How is Jack?” he said, fastening his seatbelt as she pulled out of the lot.
“None of your business. I thought we'd covered that?”
“You brought him up,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt collar and pulling his tie from his coat pocket.
“In passing.” She paused as she waited for the traffic signal to change. “You'll notice I haven't asked about your personal life at all.”
She said it casually, but there was something in her tone that suggested she knew more than she was letting on.
That represented decidedly dangerous territory, so he decided to change the subject. “Thank you for coming to get me, by the way.”
“There's no need for that.”
“Well, thanks anyway.”
"Like I said, no need. Just for the record, though,” Meg said, “this makes twice now that I've managed to get you out of jail."
"Didn't you promise to let me rot there, after the first time?" he said, attempting to fasten his tie by the light of the vanity mirror.
“Things were different then. For one thing, back then you told me you were off visiting Carol when you were actually in an abandoned warehouse in Philadelphia hacking into a government mainframe.”
“To be fair, they didn’t arrest us for hacking, just breaking and entering -- and they wound up dropping those charges anyway.”
“Which might have made a difference if that had actually been what I was angry about.”
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked, feeling defensive despite the fact that she'd made the comment lightly. It had been a long time since he'd found himself in this particular situation. Somehow, despite all the time and distance in between, Meg managed to make him feel like as big a jerk as ever. “I couldn't just announce to you that we were about to commit a crime.”
“Why not?”
“Because-” Because it would have put her in danger, because she could have been arrested right along with him, because he just plain hadn't wanted her to see that side of him. “Just because,” he finished.”
“Well, it's nice to see that some things haven't changed,” she said, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Apparently not,” he snapped. “You still resent my work, for instance.”
“Resent it? Is that what you really think?” she said, starting to lose her cool a little.
“Well, what else would you call it?”
“Stop,” she said. “This isn't going to get us anywhere. We've been doing so well. For the first time in years, I feel like we might be able to really be friends again. I don't want to jeopardize that by bring up old baggage-”
Of course. So she got to be the bigger person, the mature one. This was so typical. It was as though the past eight years hadn't even happened.
“Clearly, it isn't so old that we can't still fight about it.”
“We're not fighting. I don't want to fight.” She shot a look over at him, as though wondering how the conversation had gone so suddenly and spectacularly wrong.
They drove in total silence for a few minutes. Meg reached over to turn up the radio. He put a hand out and stopped her.
“You never believed, Meg. You never believed in the work, which meant you never believed in me.”
“That does it,” she said, and abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. “We should have hashed this out a long time ago, but you're the one who never seemed to want to. You've been keeping me at a safe distance for years. So, fine. Now you want to talk about it? Have at it.”
And very suddenly he found that he didn't have anything to say.
“Go on. I'm waiting. You were saying that I never believed in you.”
“Meg-”
“Because it isn't true. I believed in you. I believed that you were a good man, that you were brave and that you loved me.” She put the car in neutral and turned to look at him. "It was never that I didn't believe in you. It wasn't even that I didn't believe in what you were trying to do, John. I know there's government corruption and injustice, that there are powerful people who game the system or just ignore it altogether because they think the law doesn't apply to them. I see it everyday. I agree with you there. What I didn't agree with- what I don't agree with is your methods."
He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand.
"That's not even really what I mean." She took a breath, as though choosing her words carefully. "Civil disobedience, outright dissent, those things are valuable. But they lose their effectiveness if that's all you ever do. I don't disagree with your mission; I disagree with how you pick your battles."
He was silent for a long moment, then said, "Why didn't you tell me all this eight years ago?"
"I didn't know I felt it, at least not clearly enough to put it into words. I was too hurt. All I knew for sure was that the only person I'd ever really loved valued something else far more than he'd ever value me. I couldn't look past that to see the logical reasons why you did what you did, or why I thought it was wrong." She shrugged. "Also? I thought there was someone else."
"There kind of was," he admitted. "Not the way you probably thought, just an idea of someone else. A memory, really. But, either way, it wasn't fair to you."
"This woman you're looking for?"
He blinked in surprise. “How exactly do you know about that?"
"I had a chat with your friend Hayat, or Yves, or whatever her name is." At his surprised look, she said, "She contacted me. I got the distinct impression she was worried you were going to get shipped down to Guantanamo Bay because of her. She's... an interesting case."
"And she told you about Susanne?"
"Not details. Just that there was someone you were trying to find, a woman, that it had something to do with 9/11. I don't get the impression that you're one of those nut-jobs who thinks George Bush planned and executed the attacks via the CIA, so I filled in the blanks myself. I could still be wrong, though."
"About Susanne? Or that I'm a nut-job?"
"The jury's still out on both counts." But she smiled a little when she said it. He tried to smile back.
The lights from passing cars went arcing across the interior of the car, reflecting in the mirrors. Something soft and acoustic played on the radio. Meg turned and looked out the window, while he watched her and considered.
"I met her in 1989," he said, after a minute of indecision. "The circumstances of our meeting, the things that happened to her... It changed my entire perspective."
"You were lovers?"
"Not then."
Meg turned back to look at him, chewing slightly on her lower lip, something she'd done when they were younger -- before an exam, after a fight with her mom. Back then, it was how he'd been able to tell when she was really upset.
"When?"
"Not until years later: '99. I saw her again in Las Vegas."
Meg stopped chewing on her lip.
"I never cheated..." he began.
"It's all right. I didn't really think you had." She'd gotten better at lying, over the years. He could still tell, though.
"Meg-"
"I think we've talked enough for one night, don't you? Besides, all this honesty is making me hungry, and you must be starved." She smiled at him again, but there were lines of exhaustion around her eyes that hadn't been there before. "What do you say? Let me buy you a cinnamon roll and some coffee?"
"Sure. But this time, I'll buy."
*
“Fascists,” Langly said, staring at the gutted laptop.
Byers walked over to the worktable, rubbing a towel over his damp hair. The first thing he’d done upon returning home was to thrust his computer into Langly’s hands; the second had been to take a shower.
“Is it as bad as it looks?”
“Just about.” Langly squinted at the gaping hole where the hard drive had previously been. “We’ll have to find a new one somehow, and that won’t exactly be cheap.”
“Meg said she thinks she can get some compensation from the FBI…”
“Oh, sure,” Frohike said. “That’ll happen… about two weeks from never.”
“Where is Meg?” Jimmy said, from his seat on the couch. “I told her I'd buy dinner.”
Byers turned to face him. “You asked my ex-wife out for dinner?”
“Relax,” Frohike said. “We were all gonna go to dinner. Which, by the way, I think is still an excellent plan. I'm starving.”
“Did you guys spend a lot of time with her while I was in custody?” Byers asked.
“Your wife can bake, man,” was all Langly said, followed by a noncommittal shrug.
“Should I even…?”
“Probably not, man.”
That was likely for the better. As was the fact that she wouldn’t be joining them for dinner. He and Meg had gone through the drive-thru at Kripsy Kreme on the way back to Takoma Park, Meg ordering two decaf coffees and a maple cinnamon bun.
“Try not to get frosting on the seat, okay?”
He had, but she’d had the good grace not to mention it. Much.
They’d also managed to make it the rest of the way home without getting into another fight, much to his relief.
“I think-“ he said when they were finally parked out front of the warehouse, “I think it's better if you don't come in.”
Meg sighed and made a face that indicated she wasn't especially surprised.
“The others... Langly, Frohike... they don't know about Yves, and I'd like to keep it that way. It's a complicated situation...”
“When isn't it?” She frowned more deeply. “John-“
“It's not that I don’t trust-,” he began quickly.
She looked away and unlocked the doors. “I'm not sure you trust anybody, John. At least, you haven’t for a long time now.” Then her expression softened a little. “But thanks for the coffee.”
“Thanks for getting me out of federal custody.”
“Any time.” She still wasn't quite looking at him. “And by 'any time,' I mean never again. Try not to get caught again, okay?”
“Or you’ll let me rot there next time?”
She sighed heavily. “I think maybe there’s a limit to how involved I can be in your life.”
“So… what?” he said, opening the door and getting out. “Lunch is fine, but no violations of the Patriot Act?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “I’ll call you soon, John. Please try to stay safe, all right?”
She’d driven off before he could reply, though.
And, apparently, while he’d been gone she’d somehow gotten conned into providing Langly with baked goods.
“Peanut butter,” Langly said, and Byers realized he was staring.
“What?”
“The cookies. They were peanut butter.” He returned his gaze to the computer screen in front of him. “Oh, hey! Frohike, come take a look at this. I told you I was right.”
“Right about what?”
“Somebody hacked into the Maryland DMV yesterday, and guess whose VIN number and driving record they pulled?”
“The Baltimore Ravens,” Frohike snapped, leaning over Langly’s shoulder. “How the hell should I know?”
“Meg Halliday,” Langly said, turning the monitor around so Byers could see as well. “I told you there was a reason she showed up here earlier. Something spooked her.”
“Yeah,” Frohike said. “Something or someone.”
“What are you two talking about?” Byers asked.
“Your ex paid us a courtesy call before she went to get you. We figured it wasn’t our sparkling personalities alone that attracted her.” He turned to Frohike again. “I told you that Yves turning back up would mean trouble.”
“If it was Yves,” Frohike said. “We’re just speculating.”
“The hack had her fingerprints all over it. She’s at the bottom of this, man. I’m not sure how or why, but she is. What did the feds say, Byers? Did they ask you if you’d seen her?”
“Yves is back?” Jimmy said, looking up suddenly.
“No,” Byers said, a little too sharply.
Jimmy flinched.
“What I mean,” Byers amended, “is that we don’t know for sure whether she’s back. Some people seem to think she is.”
“Because the evidence is pointing pretty obviously in that direction,” Langly said. “Unless you know someone else who routinely hacks into the FBI’s counterterrorism database.”
“Sure. Lots of people.”
Langly made a face. “I mean successfully. And who walks away afterward without leaving a trace behind.”
“Wait,” Jimmy said, “what are you guys saying-?”
“We don’t know anything yet, Jimmy,” Frohike began, while Langly started running through all the indications they’d had that Yves was currently somewhere in the D.C. metro area.
Byers, for his part, decided to take advantage of the distraction to slip away.
But before he could make his escape, Frohike grabbed him by the elbow and manhandled him into a quiet corner of the office.
“Not so fast. You know something about this, don't you, buddy?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You've been all squirrelly lately.” Frohike paused. “Plus, your ex is a good liar… probably an essential skill for a lawyer… but she’s not good enough to fool me. Something’s up. So spill.”
Byers sighed. He was really too tired to keep fighting this, and, besides, he’d already been through one interrogation on Yves’ behalf. He really didn’t feel like he owed her another.
“All right. Fine. Yves is back in D.C., and, yes, the FBI is looking for her. But if you’re asking me if I know why they want her, the answer is no.”
“And you didn’t share this with the rest of us why?”
He shrugged. “I needed some information from her. One of the conditions was that I not tell anyone I’d seen her.”
“Damn it, Byers-“
“I made a judgment call. Maybe it was a bad one, but I made it and it’s done.”
Frohike considered for a long moment, then said, “Should we tell Jimmy?”
“I promised I wouldn’t. Yves was… especially vehement on that point.”
“Well, she would be, wouldn’t she?”
Byers frowned. “What makes you say that? Not that I disagree, but…”
“Something happened down in Miami. It doesn’t take a genius.”
No, it really didn’t.
“By the way,” Fohike said, finally letting go of Byers’ sleeve, “I like the wife. So does Langly. You should have brought her around more, back before… you know.”
Byers edged toward the door to his room. “You think that spending quality time with you two would have saved my marriage?”
Frohike made a noncommittal face. “It’s not like it could have made things too much worse. Could it?”
Byers just closed the door without answering.
He sat down on the bed, the second-hand mattress sagging under his weight. While he’d been in interrogation, his cell phone had gone dead, its LCD face blank and silver. He plugged the phone into the wall and waited while it charged to life again.
They lived mostly off the grid, thanks in large part to Langly’s hacking skills, but the cell phone had been one modern convenience Byers refused to give up. It was actually in his name with a listed number, despite the other’s protests.
The phone chirped a voice mail alert. He had four new messages, though two of those were from Langly from the previous morning. There was a message from his dad, something of a rarity, and he made a note to call him back the next day.
Reg Moncrieff had left a message as well. "I have something I think you might like to take a look at. Give me a call back when you get this. It might not be anything important, but it seemed... Well, just give me a call."
Byers hit reply and waited while the phone rang. An unfamiliar voice answered.
“Dr. Moncrieff?”
“No. This is Detective Mortenson of the Prince William County Police. Who is this?”
“I'm- My name is John Byers. I'm an associate of Reg Moncrieff's. Is, uh, everything all right?”
“I'm afraid not, Mr. Byers. Does Dr. Moncrieff have any family in the area?”
“Not that I know of. I believe his ex-wife lives in Boston.”
“We're going to need someone to come down to the station...”
“I can call his research assistant. I know they're close. From what I've seen, she's probably the closest thing he has to family.” He paused. “I take it the situation is bad?”
The detective sighed heavily. “Yeah, it's bad. I'm sorry.”
Not half as sorry as Byers was.
*
Kate the grad student was already there when they arrived, white-faced and holding onto a styrofoam cup of police station coffee so tightly her knuckles blanched. Frohike spotted her from across the waiting area as they entered and nudged the other two in her direction. Byers' call must have gotten her out of bed because her hair was pulled messily back and she had puffy circles under her eyes. She was wearing faded blue jeans and an oversize sweatshirt that read "Our Drinking Team Has A Football Problem."
Frohike took a seat across from her; so did Langly. But Byers went over and put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.
"Don't be nice to me yet," she said, putting her coffee cup down. “I'll just wind up crying, or something equally embarrassing. Thank you for coming, though. I'm not sure I could deal with this by myself, and he didn't-” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “He didn't really have anyone else.”
“I'm so sorry,” Byers said, sitting down beside her. “I hope we can help.”
She turned to look at him, profiled in the precinct's fluorescent light, and Frohike had that sense of deja vu again, strong as it had been days earlier in Moncrieff's office.
“You've already helped,” she said. “Thank you.”
“We want to do whatever we can,” Byers continued. “Not just to find out who did this, but to ensure your safety as well.”
“You think he was killed for a reason,” Kate said, her voice flat, as though she was stating a known fact. Just a few days earlier she'd been arguing with them in Moncrieff's office, insisting that the government wasn't capable of pulling off any sort of complex conspiracy. “A reason beyond just a simple robbery.”
“It's too soon to be sure of anything.” Byers paused. “But the timing is suspicious.”
Frohike half-expected her to protest, but instead she just watched Byers with that somehow, somewhere familiar look of concentration on her face.
“This happen to you guys a lot?”
“Not a lot. But there is definitely precedent.”
Precedent? Oh, yeah. Off the top of his head, Frohike could list at least ten dead bodies that the three of them shared some measure of responsibility for. Not all of them had stayed dead, but that was an entirely different story.
“Well,” she said with something like grim humor, “now you tell us.”
Funny how a little spilled blood tended to make people into true believers.
The cops said it looked like Moncrieff had come home and interrupted a burglary in-progress -- as if that wasn't the oldest BS story in the world. He'd taken two to the chest, sloppy and badly-aimed. Or, at least, someone had wanted to leave the impression that he'd been shot in a panic, by someone who didn't know much about how to handle a gun. Frohike wasn't buying it, though.
“Katherine Grey?” someone called.
“That's me.”
“I'm Detective Mortenson.”
“Detective,” Byers said, standing up and extending a hand in greeting. “I'm John Byers. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Byers, Ms. Grey. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you some questions. I understand that this is difficult...”
“No,” Kate said. “Ask anything. I understand you have to do your job.”
"He have any family?"
"No, there wasn't anyone," she said.
One look at Byers' face showed that the words hit a little too close to home. After all, it could just as easily have been any of them.
“In that case, there's the question of making a positive I.D.-”
Frohike wouldn't have thought Kate could get much paler, but she did.
"Come on,” Langly said. “Cut her some slack."
"Sorry," the cop said, not looking particularly sorry. "It would be better to do this now."
"I'll go," Byers said, "if that's all right."
The cop nodded and Byers followed him. Kate sat back down and wouldn't look at either of them for a couple minutes.
She really reminded Frohike of someone: her mannerisms, her body language, the inflection in her voice when she'd thanked them for being willing to come down there. He'd only vaguely noticed it before, but now the similarity was remarkable. There was something tantalizingly familiar about her slight hardness, about the resignation in her manner. He just couldn't quite place where he'd seen it before.
Byers came back after about ten minutes, looking a little shaken, but he actually covered it fairly well. For Byers, anyway.
“I don't suppose,” Kate said, that edge still in her voice, “that there's any chance this is all a horrible mistake?”
“No, there isn't.”
She blinked a couple times, then said, “Okay. Now you can be nice to me.”
Byers sat down beside her, putting a hand on the back of her chair.
“Shouldn't someone call his ex-wife and let her know what happened?” Frohike suggested.
“Gina?” Kate said, in the same tone of voice that most people used for the word 'terrorists'. “I doubt she'd care. My general -- and admittedly biased -- impression is that she's a hellish psycho bitch who only cares about herself. She left him for one of the assistant professors he worked with at Cornell -- and when she left, she actually told him she didn't care whether he lived or died. So I'm guessing that probably still holds true. Let the cops call her. Hopefully, it will sting a little -- but I doubt it.”
“Meow,” Langly said, and Kate shot him a dark look. “What? Too soon?”
“Way to soon, you jackass,” Frohike said, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him over to the coffeemaker.
Byers aimed a displeased frown in their direction and sat back down with Kate.
“Nice, Langly. Real nice.”
“Emotions and stuff make me uncomfortable,” he said, not looking contrite in the slightest. “You know that about me. If you want appropriate emotional responses bring Jimmy next time instead.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Langly poured himself a cup of coffee, and Byers motioned at Frohike, jogging halfway across the waiting area so they would meet in the middle.
“I'm going to drive back with Kate.” He looked exceptionally serious, even for Byers. “I don't think she should be alone.”
Frohike just barely managed not to roll his eyes. That was Byers: solicitous to a fault, even when he didn't need to be.
“All right. We'll meet you at home.” Frohike paused. “Just don't get talked into being a hero, okay?”
“I just want to make sure she's all right.”
“She strikes me as a fairly tough cookie.”
Byers frowned. “She needs our help.”
“Oh, boy.” Frohike gave in and rolled his eyes.
“She could be in danger,” Byers pointed out reasonably. “I told her to make plans to stay with a friend for a few days until we get this all sorted out. I want to make sure she gets there safely.”
“Uh-huh.” And the fact that she was a doe-eyed, helpless female presumably had nothing to do with it. Byers was so easy. He did have a point, though.
Langly tossed his non-biodegradable cup of coffee into the trash and walked over.
“We outta here yet?”
“Byers is playing Sir Galahad, so it's just you and me for the ride home.”
Langly shrugged. “Okay. I'll be right back. I've gotta pee.”
“Well, get a move on.”
Byers went over and fetched Kate from where she was slumped in one of the station's plastic chairs. To be fair, Frohike reflected, she did look pretty broken up. Byers offered to take her keys, but she shook her head and they walked out toward the parking lot. Frohike watched them go, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
They stopped, profiled just outside the wide double doors, speaking seriously to each other. Kate reached out a hand, leaned in close, said something that only Byers could hear. Her face softened when she looked at him, and for a moment Frohike felt like he was standing on a thirteen-years-earlier Baltimore street corner watching almost the exact same scene play out.
Oh, crap. But at least it solved the mystery of who she looked like. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it sooner.
It might also, he realized with a sinking feeling, be another reason Byers had seemed so reluctant to drop this story. Another goddamned damsel in just enough distress to get them all killed. Or worse. The timing of all this, especially this business with Yves, especially with the subject of New Mexico coming up again, just seemed way too convenient. Events were coming together in exactly the sort of way that made his survival instincts tingle, and he wouldn't put it past Them to have staged this kind of distraction. Byers' weak spot where Susanne was concerned was well-known and a mile wide, even after all this time.
Frohike was going to have to find out exactly where little Katie had been when Moncrieff was shot -- and he was going to have to do it without tipping his hand to Byers. At worst, she was in it up to her admittedly fetching eyebrows. But even the best case scenario -- that the kid just happened to bear a passing resemblance to Susanne and they were the three unluckiest guys in the world -- was still asking for an incredible amount of trouble.
Oh, yeah. No way this ended well, for anybody.
“What's up?” Langly said, coming up behind him.
“We've got a problem,” Frohike said, watching Byers climb into the passenger's seat of Kate's car. “I don't trust the kid.”
“You think she was involved in the shooting?”
“I think,” he said as the car pulled away, “that we'd better find out.”
(Continued in Part 4.)
As dreams went, Jimmy's were fairly mundane.
Often, they were memories, mostly of football and girls, of the winning point after the touchdown and a redhead named Rebecca. Sometimes he dreamed his childhood, too. Like Thanksgiving back when there'd still been enough family to fill all the seats at the dining room table, or the days when he'd bring his dad slices of homemade bread, wrapped in wax paper and thick with butter and preserves, in the office behind the church.
When he had nightmares, those were mostly memories, too: getting lost in the Stewarts' field of sweet corn when he was six, waiting down in the cellar while tornadoes tore through the town outside, the day his dad died, a lone helmet lying on the Astroturf and exactly what the angle of a
broken neck looked like.
(Though, lately, he'd been having this nightmare about radioactive sharks that he couldn't make heads nor tails of.)
And sometimes, maybe more often than he really liked to admit, he dreamed about Yves. They weren't nice dreams, not usually. He dreamed a lot about the last time he'd seen her. He also dreamed about where she might be these days and what might be happening to her.
Something usually triggered those dreams, something that jogged a memory or made him wonder whether she was all right. So it made sense that he would dream about her that night. Earlier, he could have sworn he smelled her perfume. How he knew it was hers was up for debate. His knowledge of her was spotty, intentionally incomplete, a strange mix of intimate and impersonal.
He knew that her skin tasted like sandalwood and cocoa butter, and what the rhythm of her breath sounded like when she cried, but he didn't know how old she was or her real first name.
She'd been crying in his dream, too, asking him please not to do something but refusing to tell him what.
“Yves, please. I don't understand.”
“No, you don't,” she said, and that's when he'd woken up.
He woke up on one of the ratty couches in the Lone Gunman office, and couldn't quite remember where he was for a minute. The phone was ringing, loudly, which must have been what woke him. He hauled himself up off the couch and went to answer it.
Halfway there, Langly intercepted him.
“Don't,” he said, emerging from a back bedroom, clad only in a t-shirt and boxer shorts printed with the logo of one of the many reincarnations of the Star Trek series. “I'll get it. It might be important.
“Lone Gunman... Oh, hey. Yeah, this is Langly. Seriously? That's good news. I'll tell Frohike. You need us to go pick him up? Oh, okay. So later today probably? Hey, good work.”
Frohike wandered out into the office as Langly hung up.
“Good news, man.”
“If you tell me that you just saved money on car insurance, I'm gonna pop you one,” Frohike said crankily, rubbing his eyes with both fists and heading for the coffeemaker.
“The ex is getting Byers sprung from the big house.”
“In English this time?”
Langly wadded up a piece of notepaper and threw it at him. “Meg called. She did some lawyer-fu and got a judge to agree to make the feds release Byers.”
“Excellent.”
“That's great news!” Jimmy said, beating Frohike to the coffee and pouring three cups: one black, one with cream and two sugars, and one with skim milk.
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“She said she's coming by here first...”
“And?”
“Well,” Langly went slightly pink in the cheeks, “I just thought maybe we should clean up a little.”
He gestured at the take-out boxes and empty cans of Mountain Dew littering the tables. Bags of dirty laundry were stacked by the door for their weekly laundry run. A Playboy lay face down next to one of the keyboards.
“I'll do it,” Jimmy offered.
Langly and Frohike both started to protest at once.
“And I promise not to throw anything away without running it past you guys first, okay?”
“All right, Jimmy,” Frohike said, giving in. “I'll make us all some breakfast.”
Byers' ex-wife showed up a few hours later, while Jimmy was hauling laundry bags out to the van. He caught her hesitating on the steps when he opened the door, the expression on her face unreadable and one foot stepping backward as though she might just leave without coming inside.
“Uh, hi,” he said, shifting his grip on the laundry.
She was the tiny sort of girl he probably would have picked up and carried around under one arm in high school, just to prove he could.
She blinked up at him. “Hi. I think maybe I, uh, have the wrong place...”
Her gaze shifted to the number on the warehouse door.
“If you're looking for The Lone Gunman, you're in the right spot. You're Meg, right?”
“I guess I am in the right place then,” she said, giving Jimmy a second look.
“Here, let me toss this in the car and I'll let you in.”
Jimmy sprinted back up the steps, punched in the security code and held the door for her.
“It's so great that you-” he began, but a voice from inside cut him off.
“Jimmy, what are you- Oh, it's you,” Langly said, squinting at Meg through his glasses. “I didn't recognize you at first.”
“Yeah. Well, it's been awhile,” Meg said dryly, glancing around the office. “Wow, I don't think I've ever gotten to come inside the clubhouse before.”
“Security, you know. We don't exactly give hourly tours.”
She toyed with the corner of a mock-up of the upcoming issue. The headline read, 'Secret CIA Planes Kidnap Terror Suspects.'
“Uh-huh.” She was still looking around, as though trying to memorize what the inside of the place looked like.
“Hey, good job, kid,” Frohike said. “We owe you big time.”
“Thanks. But getting John released doesn't mean you guys are out of trouble yet, you know.”
“Trouble's practically our middle name,” Frohike said with a grin.
“I don't doubt it.”
“So, was there something else you needed from us?”
Meg hesitated, then said, “Actually, no. To be honest, I just really wanted to see this place -- and the chances of that happening on a day when John's not behind bars are pretty slim.”
But Jimmy had the distinct sense she wasn't telling the entire truth.
“So, what should our next move be?”
“For the moment, I go get John and you guys stay here and try your best not to get into any more trouble.”
“Oh, yeah,” Frohike said. “That’s worked so well for us in the past.”
“Well, I did say ‘try’.”
“We’ll give it our best shot. You want coffee?”
“Uh, sure. Why not?” she said, taking a seat.
Frohike grabbed Langly by the sleeve and hauled him over to the coffeemaker, where the two spoke in hushed voices while Frohike rinsed off a stack of dirty mugs.
“I'm Jimmy, by the way,” Jimmy said, sitting down and extending a hand to Meg. “I don't whether Byers has mentioned-”
“Sorry. He hasn't.” She smiled at him, shaking his hand. “But then, he probably hasn't told you anything about me, either. That's kind of his thing. It doesn't mean he doesn't care.”
“He doesn’t really talk about that stuff. Maybe with Frohike sometimes, if there’s beer…”
“What stuff? Girls?” She glanced around the office again. “I guess this really is the clubhouse, isn’t it? ‘No girls allowed.’”
He wasn’t entirely sure whether she was joking or not, but he said, “Aw, we let girls in sometimes.”
She laughed softly, and he relaxed. He’d guessed right.
“Oh, I bet all the girls come here to see you,” she said, still laughing, and he felt himself blush a little bit. “How did you get mixed up in all of this, anyway?”
“The guys helped me out awhile back. I really appreciated what they were trying to do, how they were trying to help people. So I invested.”
“Invested?” she said, looking surprised. “Like real money?”
“Yeah. That’s usually how it works, right?” he said, running a hand through his hair. He got the distinct sense she disapproved.
“How much money, exactly?”
“Well, I… uh, don’t really know off the top of my head.” Which was, of course, a total lie, but he somehow couldn’t bring himself to say the amount out loud -- especially not to her.
After a minute, though, her face softened. “You have a lawyer, don't you, Jimmy? And a financial planner?”
“Yup.”
“And what did they say about this investment of yours?”
“That charities were a better tax write-off, and that magazines have a high rate of financial failure.” He smiled back at her. “But I knew all of that already.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you-”
“You didn't. Under different circumstances, Byers would probably have asked the same thing. He doesn't like to see people being exploited either.” He paused. “Which I’m not, by the way. The guys have never accepted anything I didn’t offer first.”
She frowned, and he worried that he'd said something wrong.
“Are you all right?”
“Just remembering a lot of old baggage.” She sighed. “And it seems like there are still just as many secrets. I'm not sure who I'm allowed to tell what.”
“Byers told you not to tell us something?”
She hesitated. “Not exactly. There’s just a lot of double-talk, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me at all. And then there's this business with that woman-”
“Who? Susanne?” Jimmy didn’t know much about that part of Byers’ life. Just a name and some vague hints.
Meg frowned. “Is that what she's calling herself this week? She certainly fancies herself some sort of super-spy, doesn’t she?”
Jimmy blinked. That didn’t fit at all with what he’d heard about Susanne, but before he could ask, Meg was talking again.
“You know, I came here partly because I’ve always been curious. That wasn’t a lie. But,” she hesitated, “I also thought maybe I ought to ask… or tell… or, hell, I don’t know.”
She flopped back against the red velour sofa.
“You seem like a normal guy, Jimmy. How do you deal with all this?”
“All what?”
“Here you go, kid,” Frohike interrupted, trotting over with a cup of hot coffee. “I couldn’t remember how you take it so-“
“That’s fine. Thanks.” Meg took a sip, made a face, and surreptitiously set the cup on the arm of the sofa.
“I thought I'd buy dinner tonight,” Jimmy said, looking first at Frohike, then back at Meg. “You know, to celebrate -- and to thank you for your help.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to.”
“That’s a good idea, Jimmy,” Frohike said. “We’ll chip in for the chow, though. You don’t have to buy. How does Star Thai sound?”
“I was thinking maybe Chinese,” Jimmy said. “Byers likes Chinese, not Thai.”
“Because he doesn't like peanut sauce.” Meg shook her head. “I'd forgotten that. You’re a good friend, Jimmy. I hope he appreciates you.”
“He does.”
Meg didn’t exactly seem convinced of that, though.
“Yeah, yeah,” Langly said. “We’ll all have a big group hug once Byers gets home.”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Meg said. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring him home in one piece, boys.”
*
He never would have believed it, but after awhile even a federal interrogation got boring.
“Come on, Mr. Byers,” Agent LeClaire was saying, “we can help you, if you'll just work with us.”
She had dark circles under her eyes, her hair frizzing at the ends, and looked like she hadn't gotten much more sleep than Byers had.
“And I've told you... for going on, what?” He glanced at his watch. “Eleven hours now? That I don't have the information you want. You can keep asking, but I really don't know where Yves is or much of anything about her background.”
He heard voices out in the corridor then, and the door swung open.
“Meg,” he said, relieved. “Am I glad to see you.”
“I think you'll be gladder to see this,” she said, holding up a folded piece of blue paper and grinning at him. He had a sudden memory of her doing the same once with a backstage pass at a U2 concert.
“What's that?” LeClaire asked, warily.
“Oh, this?” She handed it over. “This is just the opinion of one Judge Judith Maxwell of the Fourth Circuit Court that you're holding my client illegally. Come on, John. We're leaving.”
LeClaire looked to the doorway, but the agent standing behind Meg just shook his head.
They processed his paperwork quickly and brought out his personal effects. He sorted through the box, pulling out his cellphone, his wallet, his tie, his keys... Oh, damn it. They'd pulled the hard drive out of his laptop. Damn it. He knew better than to keep anything important on it, but still.
“Typical,” Meg said, looking at the computer. “We can file a claim to get you reimbursed for the damage, but you're probably not getting any of your data back.”
“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I mean, I could definitely use the money, but there wasn't anything on the drive that isn't replaceable.”
The sun was setting when they emerged from the building. Meg's tiny, aquamarine hybrid didn't have much in the way of leg room, even when he pushed the passenger's seat all the way back. Meg, of course, was five-foot-nothing in heels so it probably wasn't usually an issue.
“Sorry,” she said, watching him struggle. “It's not just you. Jack completely refuses to ride in this car.”
“How is Jack?” he said, fastening his seatbelt as she pulled out of the lot.
“None of your business. I thought we'd covered that?”
“You brought him up,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt collar and pulling his tie from his coat pocket.
“In passing.” She paused as she waited for the traffic signal to change. “You'll notice I haven't asked about your personal life at all.”
She said it casually, but there was something in her tone that suggested she knew more than she was letting on.
That represented decidedly dangerous territory, so he decided to change the subject. “Thank you for coming to get me, by the way.”
“There's no need for that.”
“Well, thanks anyway.”
"Like I said, no need. Just for the record, though,” Meg said, “this makes twice now that I've managed to get you out of jail."
"Didn't you promise to let me rot there, after the first time?" he said, attempting to fasten his tie by the light of the vanity mirror.
“Things were different then. For one thing, back then you told me you were off visiting Carol when you were actually in an abandoned warehouse in Philadelphia hacking into a government mainframe.”
“To be fair, they didn’t arrest us for hacking, just breaking and entering -- and they wound up dropping those charges anyway.”
“Which might have made a difference if that had actually been what I was angry about.”
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked, feeling defensive despite the fact that she'd made the comment lightly. It had been a long time since he'd found himself in this particular situation. Somehow, despite all the time and distance in between, Meg managed to make him feel like as big a jerk as ever. “I couldn't just announce to you that we were about to commit a crime.”
“Why not?”
“Because-” Because it would have put her in danger, because she could have been arrested right along with him, because he just plain hadn't wanted her to see that side of him. “Just because,” he finished.”
“Well, it's nice to see that some things haven't changed,” she said, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Apparently not,” he snapped. “You still resent my work, for instance.”
“Resent it? Is that what you really think?” she said, starting to lose her cool a little.
“Well, what else would you call it?”
“Stop,” she said. “This isn't going to get us anywhere. We've been doing so well. For the first time in years, I feel like we might be able to really be friends again. I don't want to jeopardize that by bring up old baggage-”
Of course. So she got to be the bigger person, the mature one. This was so typical. It was as though the past eight years hadn't even happened.
“Clearly, it isn't so old that we can't still fight about it.”
“We're not fighting. I don't want to fight.” She shot a look over at him, as though wondering how the conversation had gone so suddenly and spectacularly wrong.
They drove in total silence for a few minutes. Meg reached over to turn up the radio. He put a hand out and stopped her.
“You never believed, Meg. You never believed in the work, which meant you never believed in me.”
“That does it,” she said, and abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. “We should have hashed this out a long time ago, but you're the one who never seemed to want to. You've been keeping me at a safe distance for years. So, fine. Now you want to talk about it? Have at it.”
And very suddenly he found that he didn't have anything to say.
“Go on. I'm waiting. You were saying that I never believed in you.”
“Meg-”
“Because it isn't true. I believed in you. I believed that you were a good man, that you were brave and that you loved me.” She put the car in neutral and turned to look at him. "It was never that I didn't believe in you. It wasn't even that I didn't believe in what you were trying to do, John. I know there's government corruption and injustice, that there are powerful people who game the system or just ignore it altogether because they think the law doesn't apply to them. I see it everyday. I agree with you there. What I didn't agree with- what I don't agree with is your methods."
He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand.
"That's not even really what I mean." She took a breath, as though choosing her words carefully. "Civil disobedience, outright dissent, those things are valuable. But they lose their effectiveness if that's all you ever do. I don't disagree with your mission; I disagree with how you pick your battles."
He was silent for a long moment, then said, "Why didn't you tell me all this eight years ago?"
"I didn't know I felt it, at least not clearly enough to put it into words. I was too hurt. All I knew for sure was that the only person I'd ever really loved valued something else far more than he'd ever value me. I couldn't look past that to see the logical reasons why you did what you did, or why I thought it was wrong." She shrugged. "Also? I thought there was someone else."
"There kind of was," he admitted. "Not the way you probably thought, just an idea of someone else. A memory, really. But, either way, it wasn't fair to you."
"This woman you're looking for?"
He blinked in surprise. “How exactly do you know about that?"
"I had a chat with your friend Hayat, or Yves, or whatever her name is." At his surprised look, she said, "She contacted me. I got the distinct impression she was worried you were going to get shipped down to Guantanamo Bay because of her. She's... an interesting case."
"And she told you about Susanne?"
"Not details. Just that there was someone you were trying to find, a woman, that it had something to do with 9/11. I don't get the impression that you're one of those nut-jobs who thinks George Bush planned and executed the attacks via the CIA, so I filled in the blanks myself. I could still be wrong, though."
"About Susanne? Or that I'm a nut-job?"
"The jury's still out on both counts." But she smiled a little when she said it. He tried to smile back.
The lights from passing cars went arcing across the interior of the car, reflecting in the mirrors. Something soft and acoustic played on the radio. Meg turned and looked out the window, while he watched her and considered.
"I met her in 1989," he said, after a minute of indecision. "The circumstances of our meeting, the things that happened to her... It changed my entire perspective."
"You were lovers?"
"Not then."
Meg turned back to look at him, chewing slightly on her lower lip, something she'd done when they were younger -- before an exam, after a fight with her mom. Back then, it was how he'd been able to tell when she was really upset.
"When?"
"Not until years later: '99. I saw her again in Las Vegas."
Meg stopped chewing on her lip.
"I never cheated..." he began.
"It's all right. I didn't really think you had." She'd gotten better at lying, over the years. He could still tell, though.
"Meg-"
"I think we've talked enough for one night, don't you? Besides, all this honesty is making me hungry, and you must be starved." She smiled at him again, but there were lines of exhaustion around her eyes that hadn't been there before. "What do you say? Let me buy you a cinnamon roll and some coffee?"
"Sure. But this time, I'll buy."
*
“Fascists,” Langly said, staring at the gutted laptop.
Byers walked over to the worktable, rubbing a towel over his damp hair. The first thing he’d done upon returning home was to thrust his computer into Langly’s hands; the second had been to take a shower.
“Is it as bad as it looks?”
“Just about.” Langly squinted at the gaping hole where the hard drive had previously been. “We’ll have to find a new one somehow, and that won’t exactly be cheap.”
“Meg said she thinks she can get some compensation from the FBI…”
“Oh, sure,” Frohike said. “That’ll happen… about two weeks from never.”
“Where is Meg?” Jimmy said, from his seat on the couch. “I told her I'd buy dinner.”
Byers turned to face him. “You asked my ex-wife out for dinner?”
“Relax,” Frohike said. “We were all gonna go to dinner. Which, by the way, I think is still an excellent plan. I'm starving.”
“Did you guys spend a lot of time with her while I was in custody?” Byers asked.
“Your wife can bake, man,” was all Langly said, followed by a noncommittal shrug.
“Should I even…?”
“Probably not, man.”
That was likely for the better. As was the fact that she wouldn’t be joining them for dinner. He and Meg had gone through the drive-thru at Kripsy Kreme on the way back to Takoma Park, Meg ordering two decaf coffees and a maple cinnamon bun.
“Try not to get frosting on the seat, okay?”
He had, but she’d had the good grace not to mention it. Much.
They’d also managed to make it the rest of the way home without getting into another fight, much to his relief.
“I think-“ he said when they were finally parked out front of the warehouse, “I think it's better if you don't come in.”
Meg sighed and made a face that indicated she wasn't especially surprised.
“The others... Langly, Frohike... they don't know about Yves, and I'd like to keep it that way. It's a complicated situation...”
“When isn't it?” She frowned more deeply. “John-“
“It's not that I don’t trust-,” he began quickly.
She looked away and unlocked the doors. “I'm not sure you trust anybody, John. At least, you haven’t for a long time now.” Then her expression softened a little. “But thanks for the coffee.”
“Thanks for getting me out of federal custody.”
“Any time.” She still wasn't quite looking at him. “And by 'any time,' I mean never again. Try not to get caught again, okay?”
“Or you’ll let me rot there next time?”
She sighed heavily. “I think maybe there’s a limit to how involved I can be in your life.”
“So… what?” he said, opening the door and getting out. “Lunch is fine, but no violations of the Patriot Act?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “I’ll call you soon, John. Please try to stay safe, all right?”
She’d driven off before he could reply, though.
And, apparently, while he’d been gone she’d somehow gotten conned into providing Langly with baked goods.
“Peanut butter,” Langly said, and Byers realized he was staring.
“What?”
“The cookies. They were peanut butter.” He returned his gaze to the computer screen in front of him. “Oh, hey! Frohike, come take a look at this. I told you I was right.”
“Right about what?”
“Somebody hacked into the Maryland DMV yesterday, and guess whose VIN number and driving record they pulled?”
“The Baltimore Ravens,” Frohike snapped, leaning over Langly’s shoulder. “How the hell should I know?”
“Meg Halliday,” Langly said, turning the monitor around so Byers could see as well. “I told you there was a reason she showed up here earlier. Something spooked her.”
“Yeah,” Frohike said. “Something or someone.”
“What are you two talking about?” Byers asked.
“Your ex paid us a courtesy call before she went to get you. We figured it wasn’t our sparkling personalities alone that attracted her.” He turned to Frohike again. “I told you that Yves turning back up would mean trouble.”
“If it was Yves,” Frohike said. “We’re just speculating.”
“The hack had her fingerprints all over it. She’s at the bottom of this, man. I’m not sure how or why, but she is. What did the feds say, Byers? Did they ask you if you’d seen her?”
“Yves is back?” Jimmy said, looking up suddenly.
“No,” Byers said, a little too sharply.
Jimmy flinched.
“What I mean,” Byers amended, “is that we don’t know for sure whether she’s back. Some people seem to think she is.”
“Because the evidence is pointing pretty obviously in that direction,” Langly said. “Unless you know someone else who routinely hacks into the FBI’s counterterrorism database.”
“Sure. Lots of people.”
Langly made a face. “I mean successfully. And who walks away afterward without leaving a trace behind.”
“Wait,” Jimmy said, “what are you guys saying-?”
“We don’t know anything yet, Jimmy,” Frohike began, while Langly started running through all the indications they’d had that Yves was currently somewhere in the D.C. metro area.
Byers, for his part, decided to take advantage of the distraction to slip away.
But before he could make his escape, Frohike grabbed him by the elbow and manhandled him into a quiet corner of the office.
“Not so fast. You know something about this, don't you, buddy?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You've been all squirrelly lately.” Frohike paused. “Plus, your ex is a good liar… probably an essential skill for a lawyer… but she’s not good enough to fool me. Something’s up. So spill.”
Byers sighed. He was really too tired to keep fighting this, and, besides, he’d already been through one interrogation on Yves’ behalf. He really didn’t feel like he owed her another.
“All right. Fine. Yves is back in D.C., and, yes, the FBI is looking for her. But if you’re asking me if I know why they want her, the answer is no.”
“And you didn’t share this with the rest of us why?”
He shrugged. “I needed some information from her. One of the conditions was that I not tell anyone I’d seen her.”
“Damn it, Byers-“
“I made a judgment call. Maybe it was a bad one, but I made it and it’s done.”
Frohike considered for a long moment, then said, “Should we tell Jimmy?”
“I promised I wouldn’t. Yves was… especially vehement on that point.”
“Well, she would be, wouldn’t she?”
Byers frowned. “What makes you say that? Not that I disagree, but…”
“Something happened down in Miami. It doesn’t take a genius.”
No, it really didn’t.
“By the way,” Fohike said, finally letting go of Byers’ sleeve, “I like the wife. So does Langly. You should have brought her around more, back before… you know.”
Byers edged toward the door to his room. “You think that spending quality time with you two would have saved my marriage?”
Frohike made a noncommittal face. “It’s not like it could have made things too much worse. Could it?”
Byers just closed the door without answering.
He sat down on the bed, the second-hand mattress sagging under his weight. While he’d been in interrogation, his cell phone had gone dead, its LCD face blank and silver. He plugged the phone into the wall and waited while it charged to life again.
They lived mostly off the grid, thanks in large part to Langly’s hacking skills, but the cell phone had been one modern convenience Byers refused to give up. It was actually in his name with a listed number, despite the other’s protests.
The phone chirped a voice mail alert. He had four new messages, though two of those were from Langly from the previous morning. There was a message from his dad, something of a rarity, and he made a note to call him back the next day.
Reg Moncrieff had left a message as well. "I have something I think you might like to take a look at. Give me a call back when you get this. It might not be anything important, but it seemed... Well, just give me a call."
Byers hit reply and waited while the phone rang. An unfamiliar voice answered.
“Dr. Moncrieff?”
“No. This is Detective Mortenson of the Prince William County Police. Who is this?”
“I'm- My name is John Byers. I'm an associate of Reg Moncrieff's. Is, uh, everything all right?”
“I'm afraid not, Mr. Byers. Does Dr. Moncrieff have any family in the area?”
“Not that I know of. I believe his ex-wife lives in Boston.”
“We're going to need someone to come down to the station...”
“I can call his research assistant. I know they're close. From what I've seen, she's probably the closest thing he has to family.” He paused. “I take it the situation is bad?”
The detective sighed heavily. “Yeah, it's bad. I'm sorry.”
Not half as sorry as Byers was.
*
Kate the grad student was already there when they arrived, white-faced and holding onto a styrofoam cup of police station coffee so tightly her knuckles blanched. Frohike spotted her from across the waiting area as they entered and nudged the other two in her direction. Byers' call must have gotten her out of bed because her hair was pulled messily back and she had puffy circles under her eyes. She was wearing faded blue jeans and an oversize sweatshirt that read "Our Drinking Team Has A Football Problem."
Frohike took a seat across from her; so did Langly. But Byers went over and put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.
"Don't be nice to me yet," she said, putting her coffee cup down. “I'll just wind up crying, or something equally embarrassing. Thank you for coming, though. I'm not sure I could deal with this by myself, and he didn't-” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “He didn't really have anyone else.”
“I'm so sorry,” Byers said, sitting down beside her. “I hope we can help.”
She turned to look at him, profiled in the precinct's fluorescent light, and Frohike had that sense of deja vu again, strong as it had been days earlier in Moncrieff's office.
“You've already helped,” she said. “Thank you.”
“We want to do whatever we can,” Byers continued. “Not just to find out who did this, but to ensure your safety as well.”
“You think he was killed for a reason,” Kate said, her voice flat, as though she was stating a known fact. Just a few days earlier she'd been arguing with them in Moncrieff's office, insisting that the government wasn't capable of pulling off any sort of complex conspiracy. “A reason beyond just a simple robbery.”
“It's too soon to be sure of anything.” Byers paused. “But the timing is suspicious.”
Frohike half-expected her to protest, but instead she just watched Byers with that somehow, somewhere familiar look of concentration on her face.
“This happen to you guys a lot?”
“Not a lot. But there is definitely precedent.”
Precedent? Oh, yeah. Off the top of his head, Frohike could list at least ten dead bodies that the three of them shared some measure of responsibility for. Not all of them had stayed dead, but that was an entirely different story.
“Well,” she said with something like grim humor, “now you tell us.”
Funny how a little spilled blood tended to make people into true believers.
The cops said it looked like Moncrieff had come home and interrupted a burglary in-progress -- as if that wasn't the oldest BS story in the world. He'd taken two to the chest, sloppy and badly-aimed. Or, at least, someone had wanted to leave the impression that he'd been shot in a panic, by someone who didn't know much about how to handle a gun. Frohike wasn't buying it, though.
“Katherine Grey?” someone called.
“That's me.”
“I'm Detective Mortenson.”
“Detective,” Byers said, standing up and extending a hand in greeting. “I'm John Byers. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Byers, Ms. Grey. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you some questions. I understand that this is difficult...”
“No,” Kate said. “Ask anything. I understand you have to do your job.”
"He have any family?"
"No, there wasn't anyone," she said.
One look at Byers' face showed that the words hit a little too close to home. After all, it could just as easily have been any of them.
“In that case, there's the question of making a positive I.D.-”
Frohike wouldn't have thought Kate could get much paler, but she did.
"Come on,” Langly said. “Cut her some slack."
"Sorry," the cop said, not looking particularly sorry. "It would be better to do this now."
"I'll go," Byers said, "if that's all right."
The cop nodded and Byers followed him. Kate sat back down and wouldn't look at either of them for a couple minutes.
She really reminded Frohike of someone: her mannerisms, her body language, the inflection in her voice when she'd thanked them for being willing to come down there. He'd only vaguely noticed it before, but now the similarity was remarkable. There was something tantalizingly familiar about her slight hardness, about the resignation in her manner. He just couldn't quite place where he'd seen it before.
Byers came back after about ten minutes, looking a little shaken, but he actually covered it fairly well. For Byers, anyway.
“I don't suppose,” Kate said, that edge still in her voice, “that there's any chance this is all a horrible mistake?”
“No, there isn't.”
She blinked a couple times, then said, “Okay. Now you can be nice to me.”
Byers sat down beside her, putting a hand on the back of her chair.
“Shouldn't someone call his ex-wife and let her know what happened?” Frohike suggested.
“Gina?” Kate said, in the same tone of voice that most people used for the word 'terrorists'. “I doubt she'd care. My general -- and admittedly biased -- impression is that she's a hellish psycho bitch who only cares about herself. She left him for one of the assistant professors he worked with at Cornell -- and when she left, she actually told him she didn't care whether he lived or died. So I'm guessing that probably still holds true. Let the cops call her. Hopefully, it will sting a little -- but I doubt it.”
“Meow,” Langly said, and Kate shot him a dark look. “What? Too soon?”
“Way to soon, you jackass,” Frohike said, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him over to the coffeemaker.
Byers aimed a displeased frown in their direction and sat back down with Kate.
“Nice, Langly. Real nice.”
“Emotions and stuff make me uncomfortable,” he said, not looking contrite in the slightest. “You know that about me. If you want appropriate emotional responses bring Jimmy next time instead.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Langly poured himself a cup of coffee, and Byers motioned at Frohike, jogging halfway across the waiting area so they would meet in the middle.
“I'm going to drive back with Kate.” He looked exceptionally serious, even for Byers. “I don't think she should be alone.”
Frohike just barely managed not to roll his eyes. That was Byers: solicitous to a fault, even when he didn't need to be.
“All right. We'll meet you at home.” Frohike paused. “Just don't get talked into being a hero, okay?”
“I just want to make sure she's all right.”
“She strikes me as a fairly tough cookie.”
Byers frowned. “She needs our help.”
“Oh, boy.” Frohike gave in and rolled his eyes.
“She could be in danger,” Byers pointed out reasonably. “I told her to make plans to stay with a friend for a few days until we get this all sorted out. I want to make sure she gets there safely.”
“Uh-huh.” And the fact that she was a doe-eyed, helpless female presumably had nothing to do with it. Byers was so easy. He did have a point, though.
Langly tossed his non-biodegradable cup of coffee into the trash and walked over.
“We outta here yet?”
“Byers is playing Sir Galahad, so it's just you and me for the ride home.”
Langly shrugged. “Okay. I'll be right back. I've gotta pee.”
“Well, get a move on.”
Byers went over and fetched Kate from where she was slumped in one of the station's plastic chairs. To be fair, Frohike reflected, she did look pretty broken up. Byers offered to take her keys, but she shook her head and they walked out toward the parking lot. Frohike watched them go, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
They stopped, profiled just outside the wide double doors, speaking seriously to each other. Kate reached out a hand, leaned in close, said something that only Byers could hear. Her face softened when she looked at him, and for a moment Frohike felt like he was standing on a thirteen-years-earlier Baltimore street corner watching almost the exact same scene play out.
Oh, crap. But at least it solved the mystery of who she looked like. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it sooner.
It might also, he realized with a sinking feeling, be another reason Byers had seemed so reluctant to drop this story. Another goddamned damsel in just enough distress to get them all killed. Or worse. The timing of all this, especially this business with Yves, especially with the subject of New Mexico coming up again, just seemed way too convenient. Events were coming together in exactly the sort of way that made his survival instincts tingle, and he wouldn't put it past Them to have staged this kind of distraction. Byers' weak spot where Susanne was concerned was well-known and a mile wide, even after all this time.
Frohike was going to have to find out exactly where little Katie had been when Moncrieff was shot -- and he was going to have to do it without tipping his hand to Byers. At worst, she was in it up to her admittedly fetching eyebrows. But even the best case scenario -- that the kid just happened to bear a passing resemblance to Susanne and they were the three unluckiest guys in the world -- was still asking for an incredible amount of trouble.
Oh, yeah. No way this ended well, for anybody.
“What's up?” Langly said, coming up behind him.
“We've got a problem,” Frohike said, watching Byers climb into the passenger's seat of Kate's car. “I don't trust the kid.”
“You think she was involved in the shooting?”
“I think,” he said as the car pulled away, “that we'd better find out.”
(Continued in Part 4.)