Bitter Waters (5 page)

“I'm afraid that if I give her time to think about all that, she'll say no.”

Mom Lara came to wrap her arms around him, as if to shield him from harm. “If it's right, all the time in the world won't make her say no. But if it's wrong, it's better to figure it out before you get too deep and get hurt.”

The problem was, Ukiah suspected that he was already too deep.

 

The wheeled garbage can sat empty at the curb when Ukiah pulled up to the office. He walked down the driveway and pushed it back to the garage. It took both hands and his teeth to carry Kittanning and his assorted baby accessories into the kitchen. Max stood washing dishes, by the smell, mostly containers of various refrigerated leftovers that had gone bad while they were gone. Max wore only his sweatpants, his lean muscled frame damp from his morning workout.

“Morning, kid,” Max called without looking up. “I heard you bring up the can. Thanks. I was in the middle of my last set when I realized if I didn't get this stuff out this morning, it would sit here all week, driving you nuts with the stench.”

“Thanks,” Ukiah said, setting Kittanning's car seat on the table. “But I doubt if I could smell even that over someone's full diaper.”

Max glanced up, saw Kittanning, and grinned. “Hey! How's my boy!”

“Stinky,” Ukiah said.

Kittanning squealed with delight.
“Max!”

“He's happy to see you,” Ukiah translated, wincing slightly as the noise seemed to approach the supersonic range.

Which made Max smile wider. Max set the last dish into
the drying rack, let the soapy water out with a quiet sloshing noise, and dried his hands while Ukiah gathered supplies for a diaper-changing mission. Changing pad. Diaper wipes. Powder. Empty bread bag.

“Come here, big boy.” Max lifted Kittanning out of the seat, and grimaced as the smell attacked him. “Oh, yeah, that's one stinky diaper! What're your moms feeding this baby? Curry and skunk weed?”

“It comes out deep green, whatever it is,” Ukiah said, frowning as the search for a diaper was coming up empty.

“With your nose, how can you stand changing him?”

“I try not to breathe,” Ukiah said, checking the next bag. He knew that by the end of the day, everything in the bags would prove invaluable, but it still mystified him as to how someone so small needed so much stuff. “I think I'm out of diapers. Oops, no, here's some.” He pulled three diapers out of the bottom, and then searched a little more to verify that they were the only diapers left. “Looks like I'm going to have to run to the store in a few hours.”

“While you're there, could you pick me up some stuff?” Max asked, and yawned deeply. Kittanning took the opportunity to stick a hand into Max's mouth.

The yawn served to remind Ukiah about Max's late-night search. “Did you find anything out about Hutchinson?”

“Not as much as I hoped.” Max pretended to munch on Kittanning's fingers, making the baby laugh. “The government frowns on people investigating their agents. I ran the standard nonintrusive background check. Credit reports. Newspaper articles. Courtroom caseloads. I printed everything out so you can scan over it.”

“What's the condensed version?” Ukiah laid out the changing pad.

“Born and raised in New England, he attended Boston University and moved to Washington, D.C., to join the NSA. He appears to be a serious bulldog; whatever he latches on to, he drags down and nails cold. He's paying on a Saturn, has two credit cards with modest balances, and rents an inexpensive town house in Maryland. I ran across an old engagement announcement, but no signs of a marriage. In 2002, after
Homeland Security formed, he ended up under their umbrella. I'm clueless, though, what he might want with us. The Pack, as a biker gang, falls into FBI jurisdiction.”

“Ari said he had photographs of us.” Ukiah positioned the rest of the diaper-changing accessories clockwise around the pad. “Professional quality. I'm ready for Kitt now.”

“Every case you've been on usually has had at least one newspaper photographer covering it.” Max handed Kittanning back to Ukiah, and then tugged on Ukiah's braid. “What's this?”

Ukiah grabbed hold of his braid and inspected the band holding the end. “A hair tie.”

“It's purple.”

“It's one of Cally's.” Ukiah tossed his braid over his shoulder. “The other choice was pink.”

“Time for you to get your hair cut.”

“Indigo likes it long.” Ukiah steeled himself and peeled the diaper tapes back. Amazingly, the smell could get worse. “Besides, Magic Boy always wore his hair long. It's the way of my people.”

Max shook his head as the phone rang. He crossed the kitchen to pick up the phone. “Bennett Detective Agency.” Ukiah couldn't hear the voice on the other side, but judging by the sudden full smile, it was Sam. “You're up and about early.”

“I'm not up yet.” Sam's voice was audible as Max glanced at the kitchen clock, visibly doing the math. In Wyoming, Sam was two hours behind them, meaning it was only six-thirty for her. “I'm just lolling around in bed, thinking about you.”

“You are?” Max all but purred as he turned his back to Ukiah.

Ukiah couldn't hear Sam's response, but it made Max laugh. Ukiah concentrated on the messy diaper and not on the small prick of jealousy. After his wife was killed in 1998, Max fell into a near-suicidal depression; Sam was the first woman Max showed any interest in since then. For Max's sake, Ukiah was glad. Still, after three years of being partners, it was hard being on the outside.

Ukiah got a fresh diaper onto Kittanning, strapped him back into his car seat, and dropped the diaper into the bread bag, which he tied shut, effectively enclosing most of the foul odor.

“No, no, no,” Max said to Sam. “You don't want to go that way. That puts you into Chicago. You should drop down to Route 70 at some point. Here, let me get a map.”

The second line rang. Carrying Kittanning to his office, Ukiah picked up the phone. “Bennett Detective Agency.”

“Is this Max Bennett?” a man's voice asked.

“No. He's not available at the moment. Can I help you?”

“Who am I talking to?”

“Ukiah Oregon.” He identified himself reluctantly. “Who is this?”

“You're the boy raised by wolves?”

Ukiah looked at the caller ID display. It was Agent Hutchinson's cell phone number. “Yes. I
was
a feral child, Agent Hutchinson. Is there something the Homeland Security needs help with? A tracking case?”

“How do you know who I am?”

“We had a missing persons case last night. Officer Ari Johnson was there. You gave him a business card. You're calling from your cell phone.”

“I see.” A stylus tapped out notes on a PDA close to Hutchinson's receiver. “And Bennett lets you answer the phone?”

“Yes,” Ukiah said simply—Max held that the less you gave out, the more you kept the upper hand. “Can you tell me why you're calling us?”

“I want to talk to you both.” Hutchinson appeared to hold the same belief. “Face-to-face. Today.”

“Max won't be available until later today.”

“I'll be at your offices at four this afternoon. I'd advise both of you to be there.”

Shadyside, Pennsylvania
Monday, September 13, 2004

“Why didn't you get me?” Max had gone straight from talking to Sam to the shower, so Ukiah caught him on the way out to tell him about Hutchinson's call and their afternoon appointment.

Ukiah shrugged. “I was handling it.”

Max looked at him as if surprised. “Is that a little bit of Magic Boy surfacing?”

“Perhaps.”

Max frowned at the news; he'd been against Ukiah taking in Magic Boy's memories at the risk of losing himself. Obviously he was still worried about the consequences.

Ukiah indicated the pile of luggage stacked in the foyer. “I see that the luggage made it home. Did you order the armor?”

“Yeah. It should be here in a day or two.” The grandfather clock struck nine, reminding Max that he had someplace to go. “I've got to go pick up the Volvo. Since I'm going to be over in the South Hills, I'm stopping by Kraynak's to see if he and Alicia got home okay.” He snapped his fingers, remembering something else that needed to be done. “And I need to stop in on Picray.” Picray was Michael Picray, their accountant, not to be confused with Mike their mechanic, and Michael, Janey's sometimes boyfriend. “He left a message on Friday that he needed to talk to me. Quarterlies are due at the end of the month.”

“What are quarterlies?”

Max startled at the question, and then seemed torn between being pleased at his interest and annoyed at his timing. “There are certain things, taxes and such, that we have to pay every quarter, which is every three months: unemployment, workmen's comp, social security. I also escrow everyone's wages for the next quarter, in case something happens to me, it gives you time to learn the ropes.”

“I'd like to learn the ropes now.”

Max sighed. “Today isn't the day to start, kid. Picray and me bickering will only mystify you. I'm not even sure how to teach you this stuff; we might have to back up to basic math before you can grasp it.”

“I can add and subtract and everything.”

“Oh, kid, double entry accounting is as simple and a hell of a lot more complicated than just adding and subtracting. Look, we'll talk about it later. Today, it's important for you to work with our open cases, get us back on track with them before we lose the bread and butter accounts.”

“Okay.”

“I'll be back at three then.” Max handed Ukiah a shopping list on a Post-it note. “When you go to the store, could you pick up this stuff for me? I ordered everything else on-line and it should be delivered tomorrow morning early.”

 

Max and Ukiah's partnership had started by chance; Mom Jo picking the Bennett Agency solely on the large yellow page ad that read S
PECIALIZES IN
M
ISSING
P
ERSONS
. In truth, Max had been playing at being a private investigator, turning away everything but missing persons cases. The agency had been little more than that ad, one room of office furniture, and Alicia Kraynak answering phone calls between her freshman college classes. The grandfather clock in the hall measured out time to a nearly empty house.

From the start, though, something between Max and Ukiah
worked.
Max had the ability to see through people's surfaces to see their true selves; he alone looked at the Wolf Boy and saw the potential man stagnating at his mothers' farm. Ukiah's open honesty moved Max out of his grief-stricken
depression to the land of the living. It was a balanced mix of liking, trusting, appreciating, and plain needing each other.

Ukiah started by tracking for Max a few scattered days at a time, but his work schedule slowly evolved into almost daily commutes to Pittsburgh. Ukiah remained, though, a part-time employee until they ran into serial killer Joe Gary. During the short, vicious battle, something changed in their relationship, or more specifically in Max. In the weeks that followed, Max rearranged the business and Ukiah's future; giving half of the agency to the boy, Max started to train Ukiah as a full partner.

At first Ukiah hadn't been aware of the change. Later he thought gratitude had been Max's motivation, or perhaps guilt about nearly getting him killed. With the Pack's and Magic Boy's knowledge of humans, Ukiah could see the events with new eyes. Their brush with death had made Max realize that he loved Ukiah like a son. Max recognized too that Ukiah had neither the ability nor means to live alone in the world; a simple accident could reduce Ukiah to a savage adrift in a hostile world, this time without even wolves to protect him. All the changes Max made to the business had been acts of love.

With the new edge to the business, however, they had to take on two part-time employees, Chino and Janey. The two had their strengths—investigative work wasn't one of them. While Max and Ukiah were in Oregon, Max had directed the two through the open cases long distance. A quick glance at the files showed that they were floundering.

They truly needed Sam as a third full-time investigator.

Hampered by Kittanning, it took Ukiah most of the morning plugging holes to keep the cases afloat. He had just fed Kittanning, changed his diaper, and started to settle him for his morning nap when the front door opened and closed softly.

“Ukiah?” Indigo called.

“Stay here.”
Ukiah tucked a blanket around him. Kittanning fussed quietly as Ukiah walked away, wanting attention.

“I'll be right back.”

Indigo waited in the foyer, stylishly composed as always in a black wool pantsuit and white silk blouse. Her only jewelry
was a strand of pearls, which gleamed with soft luster at her throat. With her raven-black hair combed, and her clothes still carefully pressed, only a slight smudging under her eyes indicated that she had been working for hours on a case.

Ukiah felt a smile take control of his face. He wrapped himself around her compact serenity, burying his face into the warm hollow of her neck. Throughout the long difficult case in Oregon, just her voice had acted as his wellspring of peace, soothing away troubles with unflappable reason. In this chaotic morning, it was a blessing to hold her tight.

“Welcome home,” she breathed.

“I'm so glad to be home safe,” Ukiah said.

Yet, there was a tension, a flaw, to Indigo's stillness. She hid it well as she hugged him tight, and then, responding to Kittanning's burble in the next room, went a shade too quickly to his office, saying, “Oh, you have Kittanning here!” with a micro-tremor in her voice that no one but Ukiah would have heard.

“What's wrong?” Ukiah asked, following her.

Indigo had draped a blanket over her shoulder and cradled Kittanning to her now. She glanced to Ukiah; lips pursed that melted slowly to a sad smile. “You're learning to read me too well.”

He put his arms around her and she nestled against him, Kittanning in the protective center. Man, woman, and child. Ukiah felt complete. This was right. This was good.

“Tell me what's wrong.”

“Something upset me, but I'm fine now.” She tilted her head up to be kissed. Her mouth was wonderful because it was hers. He could feel her tension, though, in the tautness of her muscles.

“You're still upset. Please tell me what's wrong.”

She sighed kisses along the line of his chin. “It's work.” She was quiet for several minutes, breathing warmth against his neck. “Four children were kidnapped from foster homes in the last two weeks. A landfill worker found one of them early this morning. She was only a year old. The worker thought she was a very realistic doll at first, naked in the garbage.”

What did one say to someone that witnessed such an awful
sight? He kissed her temple, only able to give her wordless comfort.

“I had to break the news to her parents. The autopsy is in a few hours and I'm—I'm sitting in on it.”

“You'll find who did this and make them pay.”

She turned in his arms and kissed with bruising desperation. He tried to pour comfort out to her. With a quiet whimper, she drank it in. Kittanning protested, sensing their distress. Ukiah took his son from Indigo, and put him into the car seat with a gentle command of
“sleep.”
Slipping a thumb into his yawning mouth, Kittanning slept.

“Let's go upstairs,” Indigo whispered, reaching for the handle of the car seat.

He hid a moment of unease. This was his second home. Before he had gone to Oregon, he had been comfortable being intimate here. He was suddenly aware of Max's ownership of the house; to make love here felt like marking another male's territory. Only he knew Max didn't care, and he certainly didn't have a place of his own, except his treehouse at his moms' farm.

So he locked the doors as Indigo carried Kittanning upstairs to the nursery and settled him into his crib. She met Ukiah in his bedroom, baby monitor in hand. Usually she locked his bedroom door; this time he did. She handed him her suit jacket, and as he hung it up, she stripped off her gun and shoulder holster.

“You've grown some more,” she whispered as she ran hands over the hard muscles of his abdomen. Her fingernails were painted the same warm white of her necklace, each nail carefully rounded and neat, they gleamed like pearls on his dusky skin. Under her blouse was a silky camisole and white lace bra—delicate things that graced her body like pieces of jewelry. They went slow, rediscovering each other, savoring the reunion.

 

“It's ten after twelve,” he said, gazing over her shoulder at the clock beside his bed. Max had said three, but he might be back earlier.

“Hmmm,” she said without uncoiling from his embrace. “I
should start to get ready. I don't want to go, though. It's going to be heinous, cutting a baby up like that, and why? Mostly for evidence at the trial, where we play games at justice.”

So he held her as she talked.

“She had these wounds all over her. The coroner said that they looked like electrical burns, like you get from a Taser. The thought of an adult using something like that, over and over again, on a child barely able to walk, a baby they stole away just to kill—I can't find any way to distance myself from my rage.”

“Is it such a bad thing, to be angry?” he asked, because he could see no way to prevent such a natural thing. He had not seen the photos of the missing child, handled the abused body, spoken to the grieving parents, or faced the grim autopsy, and yet he still felt anger.

“I don't want to give such monsters that control over me, to
make
me angry, or scared, or anything. I will choose what I feel.”

“Can't you choose to be angry?”

“If I let myself be angry, then when I find the people responsible and have my gun trained on them, it might be my anger that chooses to pull the trigger.” She slid out of bed. “Fighting the Ontongard has loosened a demon in me. Killing came so easy, since they were nothing more than walking dead, to shoot without feeling.”

There was fear now in her voice, fear of herself. He got up to wrap his arms around her and kiss her bare shoulder blade. “You know the difference, and you won't kill out of anger.”

“How can you know, when I don't know for sure myself?”

“I have this long memory, now, of human nature. You're a very strong-willed person. People like you might fear how they react, but when the time comes, they do the right thing.”

“You trust me so much.”

“I trust you because I know you. Even the Pack recognizes your strength.”

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I'm going to be late if I don't start moving.”

“Do you really have to go to the autopsy?”

“If I go, I'll be there to answer questions for the coroner,
and not have to wait for his report. There are three other children still missing.”

“All the same kidnapper?” he asked.

“We're reasonably sure. The MO is the same.” She ticked through the points as she did a quick wash in his bathroom. “The kidnapper walks in and takes the child before anyone can react. We're looking for at least two people working as a team, maybe more. Witnesses have verified that the kidnappers are not family members or close friends. All the children were in the foster care system and there haven't been any ransom demands.”

“They just take the child? No one tries to stop them?”

“The kidnappers seem to monitor the house and strike when the caretaker is distracted; in another room on the phone, doing laundry in the basement—” She rolled her hand to indicate that the other two kidnappings followed the same pattern. “Two have been in supermarkets, where the guardian was distracted for only a second. Very well timed. Very professional. The first one was so slick that we mistook it for an opportunist crime and focused on the neighbors. It wasn't until the second kidnapping that we realized that the kidnappings were extremely well planned.”

“And all the children are in foster care?”

She nodded. “We thought that since the first two mothers were in Allegheny Women's Correctional for drug charges that connected the two kidnappings. Then they moved to a baby who had been found abandoned a few months ago. Now—now this.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, keeping in whatever emotion that wanted to slip free. When she trusted her voice again, she dropped the hand away. “We're contacting other field offices to see if these are serial killers that moved hunting grounds.”