Deadly News: A Thriller (20 page)

“Abby? Abby Melcer? Are you there?”

“Of course she’s there, she’s not a telephone.”

Another figure approached.

Abby rubbed her eyes. She was in a hospital bed—that made sense. Fe and Emily were in the room with her. Somehow that did too. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Fe said. “How you feel?”

“Tired. What—” But then she remembered, the bridge. Walking into… Where had she walked into?

She took a few breaths. “I did something crazy. I don’t remember what, but I hope it was worth it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Emily said. “It— I mean— That wasn’t supposed to happen. They didn’t say anything about that.”

“God,” Fe said. She wiped at her eyes. “You must think we’re horrible. Both times you get put into protective custody you are—” her words choked off.

She had gone to a gas station, she remembered. She had been tied up outside it. “Yeah, it’s becoming a thing. Maybe if there are drugs, the DEA can get involved. I’m sure some drug lords could come up with some inventive ways to fuck me.”

Fe put a hand to her mouth, but didn’t take her eyes off Abby.

Emily looked away. After a moment, she said, “I don’t know about worth it, but we did get our guy back, and his family’s very happy about that, especially his two kids. Five and seven,” she added absently.

“I don’t need your stoking,” Abby said. “I need Ecks back, alive.” There was silence at this. After a moment, she said, “I’m glad your guy’s okay.”

“Me too,” Emily said. “Thank you.”

“Wait, wasn’t—” Abby felt her neck. “What about the drive?”

“If they told the truth? Less than a week to brute-force a password of that length.”

“Password?”

“You don’t remember?” Emily asked.

Abby shook her head.

“Something to stall for time,” Fe said. “Bullshit.”

“That wouldn’t make sense,” Emily said.

“Nothing they do makes sense,” Fe said.

“We have some very good analysts telling us otherwise.”

Abby closed her eyes and interrupted: “If they didn’t?”

“If they didn’t?” Emily asked.

“
They
,” Abby said, looking at Emily. “Didn’t tell the truth about the drive. They lied about Ecks, they could have lied about that too.”

“Then we won’t crack it, or if we do it won’t have what we expect.”

“What was on it?” Abby asked.

“That’s classified.”

Abby found she didn’t really care. “Was there anything else?”

“Evidence wise? No. Oh, Quantico got some results back to us on the samples from your boyfriend’s apartment.”

“Already?” Fe asked.

Emily nodded without looking at her.

“And?” Abby asked.

“And we know what brand shoes they were wearing, and in the stuff we vacuumed up they found hair that doesn’t match yours or his. So we’ll see if there’s a match on that today or tomorrow.”

“Good,” Abby said.

“Yeah.”

Emily pulled one of the chairs closer to the bed and sat in it. She was below Abby’s eye level now. “I’m really sorry, I can’t even imagine…” she shook her head.

Abby, with great effort, got herself sat up. It was only after she did, that she noticed the bed’s control in the arm rail. She had meant to respond, but instead asked, “Why am I so tired?”

“Temazepam,” Emily said, leaning back, her tone changing. “Brand name Restoril. It’s a sleeping aid, often used in date rape. He injected you with a pretty high dose.”

“Bastards,” Fe said.

“That guy,” Abby asked. “Did you catch him?”

Emily nodded. “Don’t know that catch is the right word, but we have a full twenty minutes of his truck on multiple security cameras, front and rear plates. So, yeah. We talked to him, but, well…”

“What?” Abby asked.

Emily gestured toward Fe, who walked to the window before answering.

She stared out as she spoke. “She’s right, sick bastards. That man, the one who—” The side of her face Abby could see scrunched up in a grimace. “He was put up to it also, they threatened him—”

“Jesus! Who are these people? They just go around threatening people, bossing around police and FBI. What happened to not negotiating with terrorists?”

Emily shrugged. “We haven’t negotiated with anyone. What private citizens do among themselves…” She shrugged again.

Abby shook her head, but kept her mouth shut. Maybe she could use this in her story if she didn’t draw too much attention to it. FBI negotiating for their agents—and how had ‘They’ taken an FBI agent hostage anyway?—involving civilians, knowingly taking false testimony, or at least a confession of a crime they knew wasn’t committed. Abby wondered if a terrorism conviction would go on her record. She somehow doubted it.

“The man,” Fe said, not looking away from the window. There’s more.”

Emily sighed. She put her face in her hands. “I don’t think you need to hear this.”

“She deserves to know.” Fe turned to Abby. “If you want to, I mean. It’s up to you.”

Everything was up to her, she thought. All
her
choices, no one forcing her. She said, “Well, great, of course now I want to know. What is it?”

“The sick part”—Fe shook her head—“not really because of threatening his family, but because of why—at least why we think—they chose him.”

‘They’, Abby thought. That word would forever haunt her, she was sure.

“His daughter—his oldest, he has two—his oldest daughter was raped.” She paused, went on, “He found her.”

“I guess what he did wasn’t easy for him,” Abby said. She was having trouble remembering what he did. She wondered if that was a good sign or bad. It was probably the drug, that would make sense. She didn’t remember taking anything though. She frowned. Someone had drugged her. A man. The man they were talking about.

She rubbed at her face. Jesus, she was out of it.

“That’s not all,” Fe said. “She was restrained exactly as you were. Drugged exactly as you were, dose exactly the same. She was your age. They made him recreate the way he found her, recreate it exactly.”

“Not quite exactly, it wasn’t a gas station.”

Fe waved this away.

“Fuck,” was all Abby could think to say.

“Yeah.”

“Now that you know, I’m hoping you won’t press charges?”

“Press charges? For a felony?”

“It’s only a crime if it was against your will.”

Abby stared down the length of her legs, the white blanket covering them. She focused on the footboard, its fauxwood finish, the black strip around the edge. She wondered if it was there for safety, or some other reason.

She shook her head. “Everything we did, I agreed to.”

Fe pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Okay,” Emily said. She smiled. “I’d say we’ll let you get some rest, but…”

“Yeah, I’ve had enough of rest.”

“How ‘bout we get out of here?”

“I can leave?”

“Well, technically I think you can leave when you like. But I mean down to the cafeteria. It’s been almost a day since you ate.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“It was pretty much an overdose. They had to pump your stomach.”

“Pump my stomach?” Was her memory really that screwed? she wondered. “Am I imagining it, or did you say he injected me?”

“Eh, figure of speech. I don’t know what they actually did. Charcoal? I don’t know.”

“Antidote,” Fe added absently.

Emily got up, went to a wardrobe and removed a pair of fuzzy blue slippers, with grippy rubber on their bottoms. She handed them to Abby.

“Thanks,” Abby said, and got out of bed.

After checking with a nurse that it was okay for Abby to leave her room, they headed down to the hospital’s cafeteria.

“So what happened while I was out?” Abby asked, sitting down with her tray of food. Walking down here had woken her up enough to think clearly. At least she thought she was thinking clearly. Though how could she really know?

She flexed her eyes wide, focused on the outside world; she didn’t want to fall into that spiral of meta thoughts.

Fe and Emily were across from her, and already eating.

Emily shook her head, mouth filled with food. “Told you everything,” she managed.

“You still don’t have any idea who they are?”

This caused both Fe and Emily to pause and look at each other.

Abby halted the ascent of her fork to her mouth. “What? What is it?”

Emily set down the bagel she had been about to bite into. “Um, okay. This is off the record, not in your story, tell no one.”

Abby waited.

“Okay?”

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“Nothing is confirmed, but there is evidence, circumstantial, shaky evidence, that one of the people involved is—” She shook her head. “Let’s just say he used to work for us.”

“The FBI?”

“I can’t say. And no, and I won’t elaborate on that at this time.”

Abby almost laughed. “Fine, whatever. But you know who he is?”

Emily spread more cream cheese on her bagel. She then took a bite and nodded.

“That’s it?” Abby said giving her head a little shake and briefly flashing her hands in front of her. “That’s all you have.”

Emily swallowed. “We’re picking him up.” She gestured between her and Fe. “Our respective agencies, anyway, not us specifically.”

“Well that’s good. Do you think— I don’t know, do you think something will come of it?”

“I fucking well hope so.”

An ex-FBI agent, Abby thought as she ate. That would almost explain how ‘They’ knew so much, were able to get away with so much. If she could stick with this story—and not get killed, don’t forget that, she reminded herself—it could make her career. This
was
big, Soren had been right about that.

She just needed to live long enough to tell it, and get Ecks, and Soren, and revenge. Anything beyond that would be a bonus.

Abby was made to stay in the hospital until after dark, though no one would tell her why. The doctors suggested it was for her safety, and Fe and Emily suggested it was for her heath, and Abby suspected it was for the benefit of someone else entirely.

Fe had had the clothes some kind officer had bought Abby the last time she was in a hospital washed, and so she changed into these as Emily explained how they were going to leave.

“And then Agent, uh”—she gestured to the closed door—“the big guy out there, you’ll fall in behind him until we reach the vehicle.”

Abby pulled the bulletproof vest over her head. “So you think I’m going to be assassinated?”

“You want to take that risk?” Fe asked.

Abby sighed and shook her head. She tugged at the vest, trying to get it comfortably situated.

“Let me help,” Fe said, coming over and somehow making the thing tolerable. It was still heavy, though.

“Great. We ready then?”

“Let’s roll.”

No attempt was made on her life as she exited the hospital and got into yet another unmarked police vehicle. As they drove her wherever, she tried to list in her mind the things she needed to do. Get Ecks, find Soren, call Becky, get a new cellphone, see if they got her things from the hotel— “Hey,” she asked Emily, who was sitting on her left. “Did anyone get my stuff from the hotel?”

“Huh?”

Abby shook her head and turned to Fe. She was looking out the window. There was road work going on and the car had slowed enough in the construction zone that Abby could make out the faces of the men under the bright gas-powered lamps that lit the work area. “Fe?”

“Huh?”

“Jesus,” Abby said, slapping her hands against her thighs.

“What?”

“Calm down,” Emily said.

The man in the passenger seat turned back to look at them, see what was going on and perhaps get in on the fun.

Abby gave him a tight, flat-lipped smile, turned back to Fe. “I’m just asking about my stuff, if anyone found it, or if it was destroyed.”

“I’ll have someone check it out,” Emily said.

“Great.” Abby slouched in her seat. She was about to say more, but there was a loud noise, and the vehicle began to rock violently.

“Goddammit!” the driver screamed.

Abby froze midway sliding down the seat, but she was oddly calm. This was it, then. She wondered if the doors and windows were bulletproof. She wondered what dying would be like.

The impact came soon after.

Abby opened her eyes. Instead of blood and broken glass, everything looked much as it had. She checked on the two women on either side of her. They were looking around.

“Tire blew,” the driver said.

“Are you fucking me?” Emily asked.

The driver mumbled something. The passenger laughed, then turned back, peered over their heads. “Probably a nail.” He gestured at the construction zone they’d just driven though. He squinted. “At least I don’t think I see any black helicopters coming after us.”

“God, you’re hilarious Chambers.”

“I know.”

“Rees is two blocks away,” the driver said. “Diverting now.”

“Good, we’ll switch over while you monkeys change the tire.”

“We’ll miss you too.”

The changeover happened without incident, though Abby felt like she had mainlined a gallon of coffee. She couldn’t prevent her head from snapping like a bird’s at every sound, every shout. By the time she was ostensibly safely in the back of yet another unmarked vehicle (which she called YAUVs in the article she was writing in her mind), she was sweating and could feel her blood slamming through her seatbelt-restricted veins with each thump of her heart.

“I think I’m going to lose my mind,” she said.

“Yeah, that got my blood pumping too,” Fe said from beside her. Emily was now sitting in the passenger seat. An incredibly large man was on Abby’s other side. She supposed he was back here because he wouldn’t fit up front. She cringed as she thought of her remark when she’d gotten in, ‘You’re big.’

He’d just nodded.

“So, now can I know where we’re going?” Abby asked. She saw Emily take in a deep breath. Abby thought, Uh oh.

“Abby, I have a friend I’d like you to meet.”

“And I guess I don’t have a choice here?”

“It would be really helpful if you met with him. He has something he wants you to see, wants your opinion on.”

Abby had so many things she could say to that, but what she actually said was, “And what is that?”