Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) (13 page)

Jeremiah has her hair wrapped up in his hand as he knocks her hard across the jaw. The cheek blooms immediately, flowers purple and the long stretch of her exposed neck and the jaw bone that protrudes blushes deeply.

My hand goes over my mouth and a small sound escapes my lips. The hallway is suddenly cold as my skin ices. The blood in the corner of her mouth catches the overhead light and could be mistaken for smeared lipstick, if not for the thick moist appearance.

I look away from Jeremiah and the woman to Nikki.

She’s stoic, almost casual, in the corner as she watches the two of them. It is strange to see her that way—so cold and hard—when she is so warm with me. She says something to Jeremiah and he lets go of her hair and straightens. I can’t hear her words through the glass and realize the room must be sound proofed. Jeremiah regains his composure and pulls at the bottom of his thin sweater. The woman says something and Jeremiah tenses but doesn’t say anything.

Instead he turns his back on her toward a tray on the low table behind them. It’s a fold out dinner tray more than anything. The horror digs its claws into my spine as he lifts a silver scalpel from the tray.

I’m rapping hard against the glass before I realize what I’m doing. Both Jeremiah and Nikki look up, then at each other. The woman looks alarmed and I can’t bear it. The wide whites of her eyes in fearful anticipation. Her hair has grown greasy and damp in the warm room. I could only imagine how sore her body is from sitting in that chair for days. Her chaffed wrists, red, swollen, and peeling, are hard to look at, but easier than her bruised face. And I have to look. It’s the least I can do.

Jeremiah and Nikki both come through the door. Jeremiah’s face tightens in anger when he sees me. At least Nikki still looks concerned, if a little worried.

“What is it?” Jeremiah says.

“I have news,” I begin. I realize I’m shaking and my voice trembles with the rest of me. “I know of a child Caldwell took. It’s a little girl that Jesse replaced recently.”

Jeremiah’s anger recedes and his questions begin. I answer what I can but I don’t know any more than what Regina told me.

“The father is uncooperative,” I add.

“No surprise,” Nikki says.

I’m doing my best not to look through the glass back at the woman. But it’s harder to look into Jeremiah’s eyes than I thought it’d be. “I’m hoping we can make arrangements for the mother and the child, if we find her. Is there somewhere we can send them?”

I already know the answer is yes. We’d send them away like we’ve sent away dozens of others. But I need Jeremiah to share his rationale. I need him to act human before I run out of this building and never return.

“If she was taken yesterday then it wasn’t like the other children.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I say, and I tell him about the men who collided with Regina before taking her daughter away. None of us marvel over the audacity to run over a woman and take a child in broad daylight, the lack of police involvement and so forth. Caldwell has deep pockets and we’ve known that for a long time.

“Either Julia is a special circumstance,” Jeremiah says. “or this woman isn’t as integral to his plan as we thought.”

My heart leaps at the opportunity. “Let me take over.”

“Excuse me?” Jeremiah shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

“Beating her to death isn’t getting anywhere. Let me investigate this Lovett lead and see if we can find the children that way. Just put her on ice for now.”

Please, please, please. Let me show you this isn’t the right way.

“I’ll help her,” Nikki says. “We’ll go through the intel we already have and try to pinpoint a better connection. We can collaborate with the mother, get descriptions, run them through and follow the leads. A traffic camera might have gotten the plate.”

Jeremiah opens and closes his hand. I wonder if it’s his boredom with torture more than my well-timed request that works in my favor.

“Fine, but you only have a few days. After that we either need to transport her or kill her.”

He pushes past me toward the large front room where Parish sits at the monitors. I turn and watch the two men exchange words. Soft fingers brush my abdomen, making me turn back.

“I know you’re trying to save this woman,” Nikki says. She leans against the wall with the door and watches me with careful eyes. “Let me help you.”

“I’m trying to save a lot of people,” I say. I sound bitchy even to myself. But I know Jeremiah would have never let me take the case if she hadn’t spoken up for me. I squeeze her hand for just the briefest of moments.

“You can’t save them all,” Nikki warns.

“It doesn’t mean I won’t try,” I say, but I’m terrified that she is right.

Jesse

I
t’s 12:30 at night and I’m gobbling my stack of pancakes while Brinkley catches me up on the status of the Lovett hard drive. He managed to decipher most of it and it has given him two pertinent pieces of information. But it’s hard to take him seriously in his current disguise, a ridiculous disguise if you ask me: long strawberry-blond beard and mustache, dark shades, and Rasta beanie hat. He’s kept the leather jacket, but he’s changed the collared dress shirt for a Bob Marley T-shirt and jeans full of holes. His boots are the same black combat boots as always.

“I have reason to believe this is the list of potential targets,” he says, the beard bobbing.

I cut one more bite of my pancake stack and shovel it in. “This is a million pages long.”

“Look up the word hyperbole,” he says. “It’s only 44 pages.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah but look at how tiny the font is. It must be 100 names per page.”

He shrugs. “Roughly. Your name is on the first page.”

I was about to add more ketchup to my hashbrowns but shove my plate aside instead. “Let me see.”

I am on the first page,
second
name.

“Why am I the second name?” I ask.

“I think it’s ranked in order of importance,” he says. “I would consider anyone on the first couple of pages top priority.”

“Is Lane—”

“Page 44,” he says, stroking his fake beard.

Brinkley has to wear a disguise whenever in public for a couple of reasons. The most important is that he’s supposed to be
dead
. According to the FBRD’s record, he died in the line of duty, protecting his charge—me. He even has a grave marker and everything at Mt. Olivet.

“At least he isn’t a priority,” I say. I exhale a breath I’ve been holding and my shoulder blades slide away from my ears.

“He isn’t the only one we know,” he says.

It’s hard to read Brinkley’s face in this getup of his. But I know the bad news voice.

“Who?”

I scan the pages again, more closely. I sweep my eyes down the column and don’t see it. Then I look again and rely on the point of my finger to separate the names out of one big alphabet soup blob into individual lines.

Name: Alice Gallagher. Last Known Location: USA/Nashville. Priority 8

“She’s number 8,” I say. How could I miss that? “If I’m number 2, how the hell is she number 8? She’s not even a zombie!”

“Keep your voice down.” Brinkley’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly at the z-word.

“But they only know about Ally because of me and I’m not even the most important person,” I say. I look at the names again. “Liza Miller is number one. Wait, I know that name—”

Brinkley stops me from saying more. “Gloria’s trail is hot. Not that I’m surprised.”

Nor am I. Gloria is damn good.

“Cindy is on page 2,” he says. “Gloria is number 23. Rachel is on page 14 and I couldn’t find my name anywhere.”

“Because you’re dead,” I say. My heart knocks hard against my ribs. “How is Ally on this list?” Maybe if I just keep repeating it, it will make sense.

Rastafarian Brinkley comes forward on his forearms, clasping his hands together in front of him.

“Unfortunately they didn’t post a detailed explanation of their ranking system,” he says. “They aren’t working strictly in order anyway. Look at the names I’ve highlighted.”

There are eleven highlighted names on the first two pages. “Who are they?”

“They’re victims with NRD that have been killed since this list was last updated.”

“Gee-
zus
,” I say. “Why rank them if they’re just killing them at random?”

Brinkley sits back in his seat again, and tries to look relaxed. We both know we’re on camera. Everyone and their maids have cameras these days. “Maybe this is a prize system. Higher rank, better prize.”

“Gruesome,” I say. “So you still think they’re working in small groups?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe some groups are just better than others,” I say.

“I’m not sure of anything,” he says. “But I want you to take a good long look at your name. Number
two
Jesse.”

I stare at my name on the page.
Jesse Sullivan. Location: USA/Nashville. Priority 2.

“That word priority is my only clue. I’ve tried to see if it’s alphabetical, geographical, financial, and a bunch of other ways, but priority is the system that makes most sense.”

As I stare at my name on the sheet my eyes gravitate downward. It isn’t my name that worries me on the page. I’ve known for a whole year my own damn father wants me dead. But why Ally? Ally has never hurt anyone in her whole life. And Ally is normal, perfectly human. Worse—I’ve replaced her already. I had to in order to save her life after she was stabbed, which means I can’t ever save her again. Something about replacing a person reverses that person’s magnetic charge. A second replacement is impossible—for anyone. It simply doesn’t work. So I can’t even beg my boyfriend to save her if she dies a second time.

“I can’t save her twice,” I tell Brinkley. I feel sick. “If they try again—”

Brinkley stares at me through the dark shades, unmoving.

“If they take her. Maybe torture her—” I begin.

“We won’t let them get that far,” Brinkley says. If those words are meant to reassure me, they don’t. The more I think about it the more I’m certain I will puke.

“Jesse?” he asks. “You’re losing color. Look at me.”

“Tell me about Liza or something,” I say. “And get this freaking plate out of my face before I barf on it.”

“She used to be a death-replacement agent in Philadelphia,” he says. “Then she was attacked a few months ago like you. She disappeared. Her handler’s body was found in the Delaware Bay. Probably dropped into the river outside Philly and washed down. And they found another body too, Liza’s boyfriend who also had NRD.”

That sounds familiar. “Wasn’t there a huge earthquake there recently?”

He nods, stroking that damn beard again. “It’s one of the reasons they were reluctant to claim foul play on the body. There were a couple other deaths in the quake.”

“So she’s missing and her handler and boyfriend are dead,” I say. “Déjà vu.”

“We need to know what she knows. Maybe she saw something or maybe she knows things about Caldwell,” he says.

“If I were her,” I say. “I’d keep running and never look back.”

“Gloria has found moving targets before.” His voice is steady. “I don’t doubt her.”

I tap Ally’s name one last time. “This really freaks me out. Why her? Just to hurt me?”

“There are others on the list connected to you, but they aren’t high priority. She must be doing something more than picking up your dry cleaning.”

Secrets. Ally is keeping secrets.

Brinkley is speaking again, pulling me out of my thoughts. “When Gloria finds Liza, I need you—”

“I know.” I cut him off. I just need some time alone to think about all this—about Ally. “Liza is more likely to trust me if she knows what I am. And we need her to trust us and tell us what she knows.”

“Exactly,” he says and throws a twenty on the table to cover our meal.

And who else would be willing to go anyway? We’re our own small tactical group. Sometimes I hate Brinkley for taking on half the freaking world and asking me to go down with him when really all I want to do is spend a Saturday night on the couch with my boyfriend and best friend—as if they could ever be in the same room together—eating junk and thinking about stupid shit like when is the next time I’m going to get laid.

Then other times, I know better. Even if Brinkley hadn’t gone rogue, even if I hadn’t been attacked by Eve and the hate mongers hadn’t rolled in like the tide, I’d still be in this shit sooner or later.

Because Caldwell is my father and he wants me dead.

But why Ally?

Why
?

Ally

N
ikki and I crouch around my low coffee table littered with papers, photographs and notes. I’ve also taken the trouble to place a plate of cheese, crackers, and fruit, along with steaming cups of tea on the low table. It is the best I could do as hostess, failing to recall the last time I’d had someone here for any reason at all. I’ve spent the last year—since I stopped staying over at Jesse’s— just getting used to sleeping in my own bed.