Jared's Ghost (1/3)
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Part 1
‘In diagnosing a vascular injury,’ said Dr Wilcox, ‘a high index of suspicion is necessary.’
That was the sentence that had made Jensen notice the tall kid with the messy hair. When Dr Wilcox, the guest specialist for the day, made his statement, there was a quiet snicker of amusement. Jensen glanced around at the students-most of them interns, and a few researchers-and quickly found the culprit, who was still looking down at his phone, grinning, oblivious to the fact that Dr Wilcox had stopped speaking and was now glaring in his direction. Wilcox had a reputation for pedantry, but as the only attending physician in the room, Jensen would have to play the disciplinarian.
He glanced at the name on the tall guy’s tag. ‘Something funny, Dr Padalecki?’
Padalecki quickly schooled his features into a poker face, his dimples vanishing. ‘Sorry. Got distracted for a moment.’
Wilcox had unceremoniously asked Padalecki to leave. To the kid’s credit, he was already halfway out the door before Dr Wilcox had finished speaking, declaring that he’d been bored anyway.
Jensen had run into him in the staff cafeteria at lunch, staring down into a paper plate that seemed to consist of little more than a pile of wilted lettuce.
‘You okay?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Padalecki looked up, saw who it was, and brightened almost immediately. ‘I will be if you join me,’ he said, gesturing to the chair across the table, and Jensen grinned at him and took a seat. They ended up talking for thirty minutes about everything and nothing in particular: how Jared really wanted to finish his research in forensic science, how the Rangers were never going to have a good season, how Jensen always got the cheese-and-potato sandwiches for lunch because nothing else on the cafeteria menu was edible.
Jared was older than Jensen had assumed, twenty-nine years old and in the last stages of his research for a PhD in forensic pathology. He’d ended up eating most of Jensen’s fries and half his sandwich, making up for stealing Jensen’s food by sharing his strawberry milkshake with him. It was pretty good, really, but Jensen had teased him mercilessly for ordering a milkshake; what sort of grown-up did that, anyway? Mentally, he’d already been marveling at himself for his familiarity with Jared. He was hardly the type to spare strangers a smile of courtesy, let alone share his thirty-minute alone-time at lunch with them, and here Jared literally had Jensen eating out of his hand. There was just something about him.
Now, more than a year later, Jensen remembers that day, remembers how much he’s missed Jared for the last six weeks. Jared had moved into Jensen’s house two months after their first meeting, and after spending almost a year living with him, Jensen still wakes up and reaches for Jared before remembering that he’s on the other side of the planet.
Sitting in front of the flickering TV in the semi-darkness, too bone-tired to get up from his couch or return Jared’s call-he doesn’t even know what time it is in Sri Lanka-Jensen’s about to reach for the remote and switch the TV off when the flaming red ‘breaking news’ sign appears at the bottom of the screen. Everything is breaking news these days and he isn’t about to sit through the news report unless they’re saying that the world’s about to end or something. Then he sees the words ‘Sri Lanka’ on the screen and his world really does end, sort of.
--
Three hours later he’s at the Sri Lankan embassy, waiting for his emergency visa. Eleven hours later he’s on a plane, not even thinking about the length of the journey ahead, because six cups of coffee in as many hours and desperate anxiety about Jared are keeping him preoccupied.
The news report hadn’t said much: just that a team of forensic investigators had disappeared at a historical site in Sri Lanka. The incident had only made the news in the United States because ‘an American’ had been part of the team. They hadn’t even mentioned Jared’s name, but Jensen had known, with pure and terrifying certainty, that the missing American was Jared. It was unlikely that there was more than one American forensic scientist sent by the Human Rights Commission to Colombo.
A quick call to the American embassy in Colombo had confirmed it: Jared’s team had been taken somewhere on the road between Colombo and Kandy. The person on the phone had explained that militant groups were always in need of professional help for their wounded, and that kidnapping medical teams was a regular occurrence. Often, the doctors were kept for months at a time. About twenty percent of the abducted doctors were found dead, around a third were released, and the rest simply disappeared. There was no point in Jensen visiting the area, the man had explained, trying to be sympathetic. There was nothing that Jensen, who knew neither the country nor the language, could accomplish that the authorities couldn’t.
Jensen had thanked him for the information, and told him that he would be at his office at ten a.m. the next day.
--
He lands at Colombo at four in the morning after a sixteen-hour flight, and gets a pre-paid cab from the terminal to take him to the hotel Jared had checked into. The cab driver seems barely more awake than Jensen himself. Jensen hasn’t smoked in four years, but when the guy offers him a pack of a brand named Gold Leaf, he doesn’t refuse. The man speaks enough English for Jensen to quiz him about the best route to Kandy, and he scribbles the man’s suggestions in his notepad, asking him to spell the names of places he doesn’t know. He’s not the type to open up to strangers, but as they speed down the deserted streets of the capital, Jensen half-wishes he knew how to tell his temporary companion that he’s so terrified he can hardly breathe.
--
At the hotel, he requests to see the room Jared had been in, and is escorted to a large, comfortable room with a single queen-sized bed. Jared’s duffel is in a corner; he’d obviously taken his backpack with him. There are a couple of books on the writing desk, an open notepad with Jared’s familiar scrawl on it, his ball point pen still open. Jensen presses the top, and the nib withdraws with a quiet click. He wants to fucking cry.
He does cry, later, when the bell boy has withdrawn with a sizable tip. The management had been slightly hesitant about giving Jensen the room, unsure of the protocol about giving a new guest a room from which the previous guest hadn’t actually checked out, but everyone’s seen the news and spoken to the police multiple times, and no one’s actually expecting the American scientist to come back.
Jensen lies awake in bed for a long time, thinking of Jared sleeping in that bed, sitting in that room and trying to call Jensen and not being able to get through. God, he’d been such an asshole. And now Jared was gone and the last thing he’d remember about Jensen was that he hadn’t wanted to talk to Jared.
--
They’d started fighting over small things. It hadn’t been like it was in the movies, with someone cheating or someone’s career coming between them. Jensen had a heavy schedule, it was true. Before Jared, he’d often slept over at the hospital, having no reason to go home after his shift was done. Afterwards, he still worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, but once Jared moved in, they had dinner together almost every night. They bickered over small things, such as who had left the wet towel on the bed or whose turn it was to take out the trash, but for over a year, they didn’t actually fight.
When it was over-when Jared decided to take up the Human Rights Commission project in Sri Lanka and moved out as quietly and quickly as he’d moved in, declaring that some time apart would do them both good-Jensen couldn’t remember how the fights had started. It had been a whole lot of small things, really. Maybe they’d just fallen out of love. That’s what he’d told himself when he’d started working longer and longer hours, unwilling to go home. The place still smelled like Jared’s dogs. It broke his fucking heart to put his key in the lock and hear the silence that wasn’t the sound of their paws scrabbling on the door from the inside, waiting to lick him into a slobbering mess.
That couldn’t have been it, Jensen thinks now, staring up at the ceiling of the hotel room, listening to the rustling of trees outside, letting the shadows on the ceiling startle him with their sudden movements. He couldn’t have fallen out of love with Jared, because here he is now, exhausted and running on caffeine and anxiety and adrenaline, his head on a pillow that smells like Jared’s shampoo, halfway around the world from home and scared to death that he’ll never see Jared alive again.
‘Hey,’ Jensen says to the young waiter. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Aravinda, sir.’
‘Aravinda,’ Jensen says carefully, trying to pronounce the name right. ‘Did I say it right?’
The boy gives him a sudden grin. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Awesome. Listen, Aravinda. You met the guy who stayed here before me?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Jared.’
‘Did he talk to you in the mornings? Like this?’
‘Yes, sir. Sometimes.’
‘Can you remember anything he said, anything he asked you? Anything at all? A phone number? Directions to somewhere?’
‘No, sir. He never asked anything like that. But...’
‘But what?’
‘He talked a lot about other things. He asked me if I liked cricket, sir. And how many brothers and sisters I have, and my mother’s name. He was... nice.’
‘He is.’ Jensen clears his throat.
‘Oh, and... one night’-Aravinda lowers his voice, although no one else is around to hear him-‘he came back with a lady friend, sir.’ The boy doesn’t smile, doesn’t act as if what he’s saying is a joke between them, and Jensen is grateful.
Jensen looks away for a moment, trying to remain objective. ‘Do you know who she was?’
‘Yes, sir. The lady whose picture was in the papers with Mr Jared’s.’
--
The news that Jared had apparently hooked up with Rekha Sharma, the archaeologist who had also gone missing on the expedition, doesn’t really change anything, but it’s a blow nevertheless. Jensen tries to put himself in Jared’s shoes. If he’d been on a tough job in a dangerous place, not knowing for sure where he stood with Jared... If he’d feared he was on the verge of death, maybe he’d have taken comfort wherever he could find it, too. No, he can’t blame Jared, he isn’t going to. If it means finding Jared alive and whole, he’ll give them both his blessing and watch them walk away into the sunset.
Just let him be okay. Please, just let him be okay and I’ll do anything.
He doesn’t even know whom he’s praying to, or if he’s even praying. He’s always thought of himself as an agnostic, not really because he’d thought actively about it, but because he supposed that’s what all scientists did.
Jared had asked him about it one night. It was before he’d moved in, a few weeks after they’d met. They’d just started spending weekends together, and Jensen had started loving going off to work early on Monday mornings with Jared still asleep in his bed. It had felt right.
When Jensen had mentioned that he thought all scientists were agnostics, Jared had asked him to explain. They’d been sitting out on Jared’s terrace, the dogs sprawled next to them. It was a clear night, and Jensen could see the lightness of Jared’s eyes in the moonlight. ‘It’s like that story,’ he said, taking another swig of beer. ‘One night, a cop comes across a drunk man crawling around under a street light, looking for something. He asks the man what he’s doing. ‘I dropped my keys over there,’ the man says, pointing across the street. ‘Then why are you looking here?’ the cop asks. ‘Because the light is so much better over here,’ the man says.’
Jared laughed. ‘So what’s the moral of the story?’
‘Science is like that, right? We don’t yet have the tools to know what we’re looking for, so we just use the ones we have to come to our conclusions. I’m not saying there’s no god, but until we have the tools to find the evidence we need, I’m happy to remain an agnostic.’
Jared watched him for a moment, silent, his brow furrowed in that habit he had when he was thinking. ‘Not everything is scientific,’ he said finally.
‘Really? You’re a scientist, and that’s what you believe?’ He cupped the nape of Jared’s neck with his hand, scratching up into his hair. Jared arched into the touch.
‘I think there are some things I’d rather use my instinct about,’ he said, and leaned up for a kiss.
Now, Jensen wants to bargain with whichever god will listen, trade anything for Jared’s safety, trade his life for Jared’s if he can. He realizes with a start that he doesn’t even know where Harley and Sadie are.
--
He wakes up with his face wet. Trying to push the dream away as quickly as possible, he showers with the hot water turned off. He pulls on one of Jared’s hoodies over his t-shirt and stuffs Jared’s notebook into his bag. His cab’s already downstairs, waiting to take him to the embassy and then follow the route to Kandy that Jared had taken.
He’s just pulled the door shut behind him when his phone rings.
‘Dr Ackles? This is Caroline Chikezie from the Human Rights Commission.’ The voice on the line is crisp, British. ‘We’ve just received word that a member of the forensics team has been found. He’s at Memorial Street Hospital. I’m on my way there now.’
‘I’ll meet you there.’ Jensen scribbles down the address. Too wired to wait for the elevator, he takes the stairs three at a time, thrumming with nervous energy.
--
Caroline Chikezie turns out to be a striking woman in her late twenties. She’s wearing a plum-colored business suit, looking far too awake for that hour of the morning.
‘Dr Ackles?’ She holds out a hand as soon as she sees him in the corridor, and Jensen shakes it.
‘Jensen,’ he says. ‘How’s the victim doing?’
‘He was...’ She pauses for a moment, and it’s clear that she’s schooling her features into remaining expressionless. ‘He was found with his hands nailed to the ground just off the highway.’
‘Jesus.’ Jensen scrubs a hand over his face. ‘Any other injuries?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s conscious. The police are about to question him now, and before you ask, yes, we can talk to him when they’re done.’ She hands him a visitor’s pass. ‘If anyone asks, you’re with us. You must have friends in high places.’
Jensen shrugs, silently thanking Sam Ferris, the hospital’s director, for coming through. ‘I just want to get my friend back.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ she says with a small smile, and he follows her into the ICU.
--
The man on the bed is young, maybe a little younger than Jared, his eyes open but glassy. His hands are thickly bandaged, and Jensen looks away from them, trying not to think about how it might have felt to be crucified to a road.
‘Assaf,’ Caroline says, taking the chair by the bed. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’ The man’s voice is hoarse, but audible.
‘I’m Caroline, and this is Jensen. He’s a friend of Jared’s. Can you tell us what happened?’
The man coughs, and waves aside Caroline’s offer of water. ‘Already told the police.’
Jensen takes a step forward. ‘We really need your help, Assaf.’
Assaf looks up at him. ‘Jensen,’ he says, as if only just remembering. ‘Jared mentioned your name.’
‘He did?’
‘Yes. When we were examining a skeleton-a skull-with a head injury. He said you’d know what had caused it.’
‘I’m a doctor.’
‘Don’t say that aloud, or you might get taken.’ Assaf gives him a ghost of a smile.
‘I need to know what happened.’ Something of his desperation must have bled into his tone, because Caroline shoots him a warning glance.
Assaf lets out a sigh. ‘It was around seven in the morning. We were at the Grove of Ascetics. We were just planning to head out to Kandy when the camp was attacked. They took three of us. Rekha, Jared and me. They thought we were doctors, so they spared our lives.’
He coughs again, and accepts a sip of water from the glass Caroline’s holding. ‘They tied our hands, put bags over our heads. Threatened to shoot us if we put up a fight. There were at least a dozen of them. Nothing we could do.’
He stops to take a breath, and then continues. ‘They separated us, took me to some sort of a militant camp. I didn’t see the others. There were tents full of wounded men, some women. Some of the wounds were terrible. Shrapnel from military bombs, mostly. Lots of bullet wounds. There was a kind of common room with a TV. When they heard on the news that the American government had gotten involved, they decided to make an example out of me as a warning that no one was to come after them. They took me out in the middle of the night. My guess is that wherever they are, Rekha and Jared haven’t said anything about not being doctors. It’s the only thing that’ll keep them alive.’
--
‘I’m going to the woods. This grove that Assaf talked about,’ Jensen says. He takes a sip of the oily hospital coffee, wraps his fingers around the cup for warmth.
Caroline nods. ‘I figured as much. I can come with you up to there, but we have no jurisdiction, Jensen. This war has been on for decades, and the locals in the area fear the militants more than the authorities. Hundreds of people go missing every week. People are scared for their families. After what they did to Assaf, no one will want to help.’
‘I know,’ Jensen says wearily, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘But I have to try.’
‘Can I give you a word of advice? There’s a doctor here at the hospital, an Anjali Jay, whom Rekha Sharma and your friend consulted with on the case they were working on. You might want to talk to her before you go tearing off into the wilderness.’
--
‘The last I knew,’ Anjali Jay says, pulling on her lab coat and gesturing them toward the elevator, ‘Rekha and Jared were working on a report about the skeletons that were found. It was all very hush-hush. I figured...’ She waits until the doors slide shut before she continues. ‘It must’ve been something that implicated the government in the murders.’
‘Murders?’ Caroline asks sharply. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Pretty much, yeah. Jared was going to file the report in his name. Rekha was born in India, but she’s a Sri Lankan citizen now and could have gotten into real trouble if she had anything official to do with the report. As far as I know, they didn’t have enough evidence to finish the report.’
‘What did they consult with you about?’ Jensen asks.
‘I’ll show you,’ Anjali says as the elevator doors open to reveal a brightly-lit corridor. ‘This is where the morgue is. We hid the findings in one of the rooms here, so no one would stumble across them by accident.’
She leads them into an office, and rummages through a drawer before pulling out some X-rays. ‘Here,’ Anjali says, turning on the projector and displaying one of the X-rays. ‘This is a shot of one of the skeletons they were investigating. See that injury on the skull?’
‘Looks like a bullet wound,’ Jensen says, leaning in for a closer look.
Anjali nods. ‘Exactly. Plus there were traces of metal that matched the consistency of military-issue bullets.’
‘This wasn’t evidence enough?’
‘Apparently not. There was nothing to prove that this man hadn’t been shot by a militant using a stolen gun.’
‘What were they hoping to find in Kandy?’
‘As far as I know, they were trying to identify the victims.’
‘Find the victim, and you find the killer,’ Caroline muses aloud, staring at the shattered skull on the screen.
‘Something like that, yeah. They were a little secretive, trying to protect the work, protect others like me from getting too involved. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.’ She looks at Jensen. ‘I hope you find your friend.’
--
Kandy is a four-hour drive away, and the Grove of Ascetics is in a forest just outside the city. Caroline arranges for an SUV driven by a large, silent man named Faran Tahir, who is apparently an expert on the area. She sits in front with him while Jensen gets into the back. He can’t manage any sleep beyond a few minutes’ dozing at a time.
They’d planned to take a road trip together, Jared and him, a trip that had never materialized. Jared had been planning to take a short break from work once he was done with his doctoral research. He’d spent too many nights falling asleep over his desk, and Jensen had woken him up with a hand on his shoulder and led him to bed. Most mornings, he woke as early as Jensen and took the dogs for a run. Over dinner, they tried not to talk about work, and talked about what they’d do to celebrate once Jared was done with his thesis. Jared wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and they talked about getting into Jensen’s jeep and driving for days, maybe taking the dogs along if Genevieve couldn’t babysit them. Jared had been excited to talk about it, and his enthusiasm was infectious.
They hadn’t made the trip. Jared’s thesis was done, his defense had come and gone, and he’d been offered the Human Rights project. They hadn’t exactly fought about it, but Jensen hadn’t liked the idea of Jared spending weeks, maybe months, in a place where there was an unofficial war on. Jared had spent five years in Sri Lanka as a child-his mother had been the US ambassador in Colombo-and he’d all but leaped at the chance to go back there.
‘What’s wrong with the FBI consulting job?’ Jensen asked in frustration one night.
‘I can do that anytime,’ Jared pointed out.
‘You can go to Sri Lanka anytime,’ Jensen snapped back. ‘At a better time, even, once this terrorism stuff is done with.’
Jared didn’t respond for a minute. ‘You’re scared for me,’ he said finally.
‘Of course I’m scared for you.’ Jensen reached across the table, covered Jared’s hand with his. ‘What did you think this was about-holding you back from what you wanted?’
‘No, I guess not. I just...’ Jared looked up. ‘I just really want to do this. I can’t explain it. I want to so bad.’
‘Just promise me you’ll think about the consulting job. It’s right here in the city.’
‘I get where you’re coming from.’ Jared squeezed his hand. ‘You know I do. But I can’t stay here just because it would be convenient.’
‘That’s what this is, then?’ Jensen pulled his hand away, gesturing between them. ‘Something convenient?’
Jared closed his eyes. ‘No. Fuck, Jensen, don’t put words in my mouth.’
Jared hadn’t come to bed that night. Jensen awoke to find him asleep on the couch, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
Halfway through the journey, they stop at a roadside stall for tea. Tahir disappears into the small restaurant, and Jensen and Caroline sit at a bench outside with long, transparent glasses of steaming tea.
‘You look like shit,’ Caroline says, watching Jensen as he lights a cigarette, shaking her head when he offers her one. ‘I quit.’
‘I’d quit too. Until a couple of days ago.’ He glances up at her. ‘You been here long?’
‘A couple of years. I’m a sci-fi buff,’ she says with a little laugh. ‘I guess I took this assignment mostly because I wanted to see Arthur C. Clarke’s house.’
‘Did you?’
‘Nah, been too busy. But I will before I leave. Do you dive?’
Jensen shrugs. ‘A little. I’m no expert.’
‘Clarke was. He moved here because it’s one of the best diving regions in the world.’
‘Are you into it?’
‘Yeah. I wanted to be a diving instructor when I was little. Then I read The Ghost from the Grand Banks and I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau instead.’
Jensen smiles. ‘Cousteau is one of Jared’s idols. You’d both have a lot to talk about.’
He half-expects her to say something reassuring. She gives him a small smile and takes another sip of her tea.
Jensen glances around, and notices that Faran Tahir has emerged from the small hut that functions as a restaurant. He’s talking to a man who is leaning against a tree, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette made out of some kind of leaf. Tahir speaks English, but for some reason he hasn’t spoken in front of Jensen, except to make functional remarks.
‘I don’t think he likes me very much.’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Caroline says. ‘He’s a man on a mission, so to speak. His family is one of those that were decimated in the last Colombo riots. Apparently one of the militia groups decided to turn anti-Muslim, and targeted the largely Muslim community in which he lives. He lost his father and a brother. I don’t think he’s thought about anything but revenge ever since.’
--
It’s Jared’s birthday in two days. The previous year, Jensen had spent the day in a six-hour surgery. He’d only remembered the date when he’d been stripping off his bloodstained gloves, his knees almost buckling with exhaustion.
Jared hadn’t been home when Jensen had arrived, so he’d sat at the steps in front of the apartment complex. He’d been content to wait, and Jared’s broad smile when his motorcycle had rolled to a stop in front of the building had been worth the wait.
‘Hey,’ Jared said, tugging off his helmet and leaning down for a kiss. ‘You been waiting long?’
‘Nah.’ Jensen curled his hands into Jared’s jacket, keeping him close. ‘Happy birthday, Jay.’
‘You remembered,’ Jared murmured against his mouth.
‘You going to keep talking, or do you want to go upstairs and open your present?’
‘Depends on what the present is,’ Jared whispered back, pressing even closer, and Jensen grabbed the front of his jacket and hauled him to the elevator.
They fell together on the couch, hands all over each other, frantically pushing each other’s clothes out of the way. They didn’t manage to get completely undressed. They’d only been seeing each other for two months, and being with Jared was still thrillingly new to Jensen. He hadn’t expected to be driven so frantic with desire at thirty-four; always thought he’d been there, done that. Jared had changed all that.
‘Just like that,’ Jared gasped below him, his hand flailing to half-pet, half-push at Sadie’s head. ‘Not now, girl, Daddy’s busy.’
Jensen laughed helplessly, kissing the side of Jared’s head and shoving his hand between them to take Jared in hand. He was hard and wet and beautiful, and Jensen wanted him in his mouth, right then. He followed through on that thought in an instant, kissing his way down Jared’s body and sucking his cock into his mouth. Neither of them was in the mood for teasing. He stroked himself as he brought Jared off, Jared’s bitten-off cries and the occasional filth that found its way out of his mouth only turning Jensen on more.
Later, they stretched out in bed and dug into the large piece of red velvet cake-Jared’s favorite-that Jensen had bought, forks in their hands and a single plate between them. When they were done, Jared sat naked and cross-legged on the bed to open Jensen’s presents-a water-resistant watch and a biography of Margaret Leakey that Jared had mentioned a while ago.
‘You remember everything,’ Jared said, leaning in to give Jensen a quick, hard kiss.
‘There’s something else,’ Jensen said, reaching over to the nightstand to pick up a set of keys. He tossed them at Jared, who caught them one-handed.
‘Your house keys?’ Jared looked puzzled for a moment. Jensen sat back and watched him figure it out. When he did, the dimpled smile was dazzling. ‘You want to? Really?’
Jensen shrugged. ‘Yes. I want to see you more than just a couple times a week. Plus, it’s a house. Think of how much the dogs would love the yard.’
Jared walked over on his knees until he was straddling Jensen, his hair falling around his face and making him look ten years younger. ‘So you’re just doing it for the dogs, then?’ He kissed Jensen lightly, still smiling.
‘Mm hm.’ Jensen kissed him back, winding his arms around Jared to keep him in place. ‘You caught me out.’
‘Just can’t resist them, huh?’ Jared pressed little kisses against Jensen’s lips, his hands pushing beneath Jensen’s back.
‘Nope. Not even a little.’ Jensen kissed him slow and deep as they started rocking together, Jared’s cock wedged close and tight and perfect against Jensen’s. They took it slow this time, murmuring into each other’s mouths, pushing languidly against each other.
It was later, when Jensen stroked Jared’s hair away from his closed eyes before turning out the lights, that he remembered he’d have to sneak the keys away to make an extra set for himself. Giving Jared a set had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He hadn’t regretted it, not even when Jared left him, leaving the keys on top of the dining table.
The expert that Jared had gone to meet at the Grove of Ascetics is known simply as Palipana. He’s in his seventies, wearing a checked sarong with a button-down shirt on top, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s completely blind.
‘I moved here when my eyesight began to fail, and Colombo’s libraries were no longer of use to me,’ he says. A girl in a long patterned skirt sets a tray of lemonade down on the table in front of them, and he waves a hand toward the glasses. ‘Lakma looks after me, as you can see. Please, help yourselves.’
He turns on his cane couch until he’s facing Jensen. ‘So, Faran tells me you’re a doctor.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What kind?’
Jensen shifts a little. His nerves are too wound up for this sort of meandering conversation, this thick, languid air of inactivity. Caroline shoots him a glance. ‘I’m a neurosurgeon.’ He clenches a hand around a condensation-soaked glass, takes a sip of the too-sweet drink.
‘Ah. An intelligent young man, then. Just like the other young American who graced us with his presence.’
‘I’d do anything to find him. Anything you can tell us would be a great help.’
‘He has a large heart, that one.’ Palipana holds out his arms, stretching them wide. ‘This place delighted him, I think. The history in it. The stories.’
‘What did he want here? Why did he come to you?’
‘He brought me something. A ghost.’
‘A ghost?’
Palipana waves a hand at their surroundings. They’re surrounded by tall rocks, many of them bearing inscriptions from thousands of years ago. ‘This is a place where people like him are welcome. People who carry ghosts. Jared believed he was chasing a ghost, when in reality, I think he was running away from one. Or more.’
Jensen leans forward, his hands clasped together. ‘What was he chasing, sir? What ghost?’
‘A bag of bones. A victim. He wanted evidence. Justice.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him to go home.’
Caroline exchanges a look with Jensen. ‘You couldn’t find anything from the bones?’
Palipana smiles, a faraway look. ‘People still trust my hands, still think I can determine things by touch.’
‘Can you?’ Caroline presses.
‘I believe the people who took the scientists are nearby.’
Jensen holds his breath. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Their feet. They were bare. I heard their soles strike the ground as they walked. They smelled of something. Copper.’
‘There are some abandoned copper mines in the area,’ Caroline says to Jensen, her eyes shining with excitement. ‘Did you tell the police this?’ she asks Palipana.
The ascetic shrugs. ‘Perhaps they did not want to listen.’ He gestures to the girl, who’s been standing quietly behind his chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I am tired now.’
--
‘Did he mean what I think he meant?’ Jensen turns to Caroline as they walk back to the SUV. ‘That he practically told the authorities where the militants might have taken Jared and the others, but they did nothing about it?
‘I don’t know, Jensen.’ Caroline bites her lip, shading her eyes from the bright afternoon sun. ‘We have to tread very carefully here. We’re in the middle of a civil war.’
Jensen stares at her. ‘We’re close to Jared!’
‘We don’t know that! We only have a blind man’s word that he smelled copper on the group that attacked this place.’
‘I’m going to these mines, whether you’re coming or not.’
‘You’re going to walk into a terrorist camp on your own? Jensen, if it’s true, they’ll probably shoot you on sight.’
‘Then what? What am I supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing? I won’t abandon him, Caroline. Not when we’re so close.’
‘I’m not asking you to,’ she says gently, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Just listen, okay? I’m going to call the embassy, figure out a way to get backup. We need to go through the right channels.’
‘Palipana said the cops ignored what he told them. What makes you think they’ll listen now?’
‘He said the local cops didn’t listen. You don’t know this place, Jensen. You don’t know how much people fear for their lives, their families. Two weeks ago, just before the Human Rights team got here, there were riots in Kandy. People woke up to find their family members’ heads on stakes. The local cops are not going to help. They’re afraid, Jensen. Everyone in this country is afraid.’
Jensen sits down on a rock, bringing a shaking hand to his head. ‘Tell me the truth. What are the chances that Jared is still alive?’
‘I don’t know,’ Caroline says simply. She kneels beside him, cupping his elbow. ‘But I won’t tell you to lose hope.’
--
‘We can only hope,’ Jensen says.
At the other end of the line, he can hear Harley and Sadie barking. ‘That’s it?’ Genevieve asks. ‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘I don’t know what else to say, Gen.’
‘He’s my best friend,’ Genevieve says. ‘He’s...’
‘I know. And he’s all I have, Gen. And every day, every fucking minute, all I can think about is getting him back. I promise you that.’
‘Call me the minute you have news?’
‘I will.’
--
He’d meant what he said to Genevieve about Jared being all he had.
Jensen had grown up in a series of foster homes. No one had treated him badly; on the contrary, each of the families he’d stayed with had been affectionate and generous. He’d just never felt at home anywhere, and after med school, it had been an easy decision to join the army as a surgeon. He’d never liked the idea of war, but he’d fallen headfirst into serving in the field, feeling something almost like relief at the experience of treating injury after injury until he collapsed into sleep at nights, too tired to think or dream. Three years later, a shrapnel injury had forced him back into civilian life, and he’d gone back to believing he’d never find his place anywhere. He’d told Jared that one night, a few weeks after Jared and his dogs had moved in.
They were lying in bed, sticky and sated and too lazy to move just yet. Jared’s head was on Jensen’s chest, his hair tickling Jensen’s nose, his breathing deep and even. Jensen pressed a kiss to the top of his head, thinking he was asleep.
‘What’re you thinking about?’ Jared asked, his voice soft and sleepy, his lips moving against Jensen’s skin.
‘Nothing.’ Jensen scratched lightly at Jared’s scalp. ‘Go to sleep.’
Jared lifted his head. ‘Something’s bothering you.’
Jensen slid a hand down Jared’s back, palming the curve of his ass, tracing Jared’s hole lightly with his fingertip.
Jared groaned softly, turning his face into Jensen’s neck. ‘Stop trying to distract me, Ackles.’
‘Is is working?’ Jensen stroked him with a finger, circling his rim.
‘Fuck.’ Jared pushed back reflexively against Jensen’s hand, his hole clenching under Jensen’s touch.
‘You like that?’ Jensen murmured against his temple, brushing a kiss there.
‘You know I do.’ Jared’s hand tightened on the nape of Jensen’s neck. ‘Talk to me, Jen.’
Jensen talked to him. He also fingered Jared lightly throughout the conversation, smiling at the way Jared struggled to keep up with his words. To the kid’s credit, he managed to keep up his end of the conversation for a while, until they both became too distracted to talk. Later, Jensen couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to Jared, only that he’d managed not to reveal just how closely he’d begun to associate Jared with his sense of home.
--
The only time they got into a somewhat physical fight was about a month before Jared left for Sri Lanka.
Jensen got home after a gruelling day to find that Jared had been drinking. The smell of vodka made Jensen feel more nauseated than he already was. He pushed past Jared and went into the study, slamming the door behind him.
An hour or so later, he wandered into the kitchen in search of something to eat to find Jared at the table, peeling an apple with a paring knife.
‘I don’t think you should be handling a knife right now,’ he said, opening the fridge to dig out the previous night’s leftovers.
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ Jared snapped back immediately. He turned into a petulant kid when he had too much to drink.
That night, Jensen couldn’t really find it in him to drag out the argument. He knew it was partially his fault that Jared was upset.
‘I’m not,’ he said, switching on the microwave. ‘Just be careful.’
‘I’m not a child, Jensen. Stop treating me like one.’
‘I’m not...’ Jensen began, and then shrugged helplessly. ‘Fine. Whatever.’
Jared stayed quiet, but he stabbed the knife viciously into the apple. ‘Fine. Whatever,’ he echoed.
‘Jared.’ Jensen caught his wrist. ‘You’re drunk. Let go of the knife.’
Jared’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. ‘You think I’d hurt you?’
‘No. I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself. Just let go of the knife, please.’
Jared’s hand twisted in Jensen’s grip, struggling to get free. ‘Let go of me, Jensen.’
‘No. Not until you drop the knife.’
Jared pushed hard against Jensen’s chest with his free hand, getting to his feet at the same time. Caught off guard, Jensen stumbled back against the fridge. A glass that had been lying on top of it crashed to the floor, sending shards everywhere.
Jared was still holding the knife. Jensen caught his wrist again, keeping his grip tight until Jared’s fingers loosened and Jensen could wrest the knife away from him.
Jared left the kitchen without a word, and it was only when he saw the drops of blood on the floor that Jensen realized that Jared must have cut himself on the broken glass. He’d been barefoot.
He followed Jared to the bathroom and heard the water running on the other side of the door. ‘Jared?’ The door was locked. ‘Jared, come on. Let me in.’
Jared didn’t let him in, didn’t say a word. Jensen sank to the floor, his back against the bathroom door. He hadn’t thought for a second that Jared would use the knife against either of them, but the sight of it in Jared’s hand had unnerved him.
Jared hadn’t emerged for a long time. In the morning, Jensen had found him asleep on the couch, a band-aid on his foot, and he’d felt his heart break a little.
‘What’re they doing down there?’ Caroline says, sounding as frustrated as Jensen feels.
They’re in a car with bulletproof glass, parked outside the copper mines and surrounded by soldiers. It’s been more than thirty minutes since a dozen commandos went down the rickety elevator into the mine shaft, and there’s been nothing but silence since.
It’s another half hour before the all-clear sounds. Jensen already knows they won’t find any militants down there; the lack of gunshots had told them already that if anyone had been down there, they weren’t any more.
It’s another forty-five minutes before he and Caroline are allowed down into the mines.
‘We found a survivor,’ Captain de Silva says simply, as soon as the elevator comes to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. ‘It’s the woman.’
There’s a team of paramedics there already, strapping an unconscious woman onto a stretcher. There’s an oxygen mask over her face, and her clothes are filthy and bloodstained.
‘Rekha Sharma,’ Caroline says, her voice barely a whisper. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Running a high fever,’ the Captain says. ‘We think they left her for dead.’ He holds out something to Jensen. ‘Is this your friend’s?’
It’s Jared’s blue plaid shirt, the one he used to wear all the time when he was stressed and working late. It was old and broken in, he’d said. A couple of times, Jensen had wrestled it off him to get it into the washing machine. A couple of buttons are missing, one of the sleeves torn. The front of it is covered in blood.
--
‘It may not be his blood.’
It’s the third time Caroline’s said the words, and Jensen is starting to agree. Looking at the shirt in the bright sunlight outside the mines, he’s beginning to think that some of the blood is older than the rest. Surely, if Jared has been pretending to be a doctor, he must have been asked to tend to people whose blood might have gotten on him.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, it might not be.’ He swallows hard, as he’s been doing every few minutes to keep the bile from his mouth.
Among the belongings left behind, they’ve also found several empty cartons of medicines, and a few scraps of paper with Jared’s handwriting on them. There are no clues there, just lists of medical supplies that Jared must have asked for. Gauze, bandages, forceps, painkillers. Jensen goes through each list carefully anyway, realizing that most of the medicines Jared had listed were basic ones, ones that any general physician would have thought to prescribe. He wasn’t-isn’t-a doctor, but he’d known enough to get away with his ruse.
‘Dr Sharma,’ Jensen says, looking up at Caroline. His vision is starting to feel blurred. ‘Why d’you think they left her behind?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they thought she was already dead, as the Captain said.’
‘Or maybe they found out she wasn’t really a medical doctor, and abandoned her to die.’ Jensen swallows again.
Caroline presses a bottle of water into his hands. ‘He was here, Jensen. As far as we know, he’s still alive. Take heart from that.’
Jensen nods. A soldier comes to take Jared’s shirt away in an evidence bag. Jensen hands it over. He keeps the scraps of paper, pressing them between the pages of Jared’s notebook.
--
‘There’s something here.’ Jensen’s head is in his hands, his fingers clutching at his hair. ‘There’s something here and I’m not seeing it.’
Jared’s scraps of paper are spread out on a table in front of him. They’re at a boarding house in Kandy, and Jensen has been staring at the bits of paper for hours.
‘Jensen,’ Caroline says, leaning forward in her chair. ‘Maybe you’re just looking too hard.’
‘He’d have done something, damn it. He’d have tried to leave a clue, get a message through to us somehow. He wouldn’t just give up.’
‘Maybe he didn’t know what to say,’ Caroline says helplessly. ‘Maybe they didn’t tell him anything.’
Jensen shakes his head. ‘I won’t believe that. He lived here as a kid. He knows something of the Sinhala language. He would have figured something out. He would have...’ He crumples the paper in his hand, his voice shaking.
‘Jensen, stop. Just, please. You’re upset and exhausted. Just get some rest first.’
Jensen buries his face in his arms, closing his eyes. Grief wants to spill out of him, pushing at his insides, swelling up inside him like a balloon that’s about to burst. ‘There’s something here,’ he says, his voice muffled. ‘There has to be.’
‘I can wear it for another night,’ Jared protested, trying to pull away from Jensen as he caught hold of Jared’s collar.
‘No,’ Jensen said firmly. ‘You smell like dog and sweat.’
‘I’m busy!’ Jared yelled, ducking under Jensen’s arm. He tripped over his feet and fell on the bed, laughing.
‘That’s why I’m not making you do your own laundry,’ Jensen pointed out, standing over him. ‘Take your clothes off right now, or I’ll drag you into the bathroom by your hair and hose you down.’
‘Sounds kinky,’ Jared said, grinning up at him, but he shrugged out of the shirt and obligingly pulled his t-shirt over his head, too. ‘There. Happy now?’
‘Keep going.’ Jensen gestured toward his sweat pants.
Jared kicked the pants off, flinging them at Jensen. ‘You sure you wanna do laundry?’ he asked, leaning back on his elbows.
They jerked each other off against the washing machine, the clothes spinning and whirring below them.
--
Jensen wakes up several times during the night, twice to nightmares about finding Jared’s lifeless body, and a few times to dreams he can’t remember that leave him shaking and drenched in sweat.
At dawn, he gives up trying to sleep and goes downstairs to the small dining room at the lodge. Caroline is already there, sipping from a cup of tea. Seeing Jensen, she pours him a cup from the teapot.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
He shrugs, dropping into the chair opposite hers. ‘Any word from the hospital?’
‘She’s stable, but they’ve induced a coma. Her vitals aren’t great.’ Caroline glances at the ever-present notebook in Jensen’s hands. Jared’s scraps of paper are poking out of its sides like makeshift bookmarks. ‘You still looking at those?’
‘Humor me, okay?’
‘Yeah, okay,’ she says, her eyes sympathetic. Jensen thinks he might scream if she thinks of saying anything kind, but she doesn't.
He lays out the lists of medicines on the table again. He’s memorized them all by now, but there’s still that nagging feeling at the back of his mind. All the names on the list are familiar; there’s no hidden code, no secret meanings to be found, just the names of medicines, but he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something. Maybe Caroline’s right, and he’s trying too hard.
‘Wait a minute,’ he says, glancing from one of the lists to the other.
‘What?’ Caroline looks up, hopeful. ‘Did you find something?’
‘I think so. I don’t know yet.’ Trying to stop his heart from pounding painfully, Jensen pulls a couple more lists toward him. ‘Look at this. Every list has Mercurochrome on it.’
Caroline looks up at him, puzzled. ‘Yeah. So?’
‘So it’s a pretty dated drug,’ Jensen says, getting more and more excited. ‘It’s not even legally available in the US. There are alternatives that are much more easily available, and cheaper.’
Caroline lets out a soft breath. ‘Maybe not in this country, Jensen. You ever watch The Constant Gardener? There’s a reason human rights groups are at arms with pharmaceutical companies.’
Jensen winces. ‘Yeah. I know Jared was concerned about stuff like that. He once dragged me to a seminar about how dangerous drugs were being marketed in developing countries.’
‘And you think that’s why he asked for Mercurochrome?’
‘Maybe, just maybe, he was trying to give us a clue. Mercurochrome can’t be as easily available as other substitutes, and I’m willing to bet he told his kidnappers that a substitute wouldn’t work as well.’
‘But even if that were true, it’s no use now, is it? Even if we can trace the pharmacist from which they got their drugs, they’re long gone now.’
‘Yeah, but what if they’re still in the area? What if there aren’t too many places that stock Mercurochrome?’
As it turns out, there are only two pharmacies in all of Kandy that stock Mercurochrome.
Masterpost | Part 2