Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) (24 page)

I reach out for Gabriel, the way a person reaches out for a light switch in a dark room, fingers groping for something they can’t see. I’m filled with that moment of panic when I can’t find it, when nothing happens.

The dirt stops falling. The weight is heavy but not crushing. Coughing and spitting, I manage to pull myself out of the heaping mound of trembling earth. I turn toward Liza but she isn’t there.

“Liza?” I say. I spit more dirt from my mouth. “Liza?”

Then I see her body lying motionless in the dirt. Without thinking, I jump up and run toward her. I go down on my knees beside her and seeing her like that, she looks like a kid.

Just a
kid
.

I roll her over in my hands and see something protruding from the side of her neck, like a miniature dart. I pluck it from the skin with my fingers. “What the hell is this?”

Jesse
! Gabriel’s scream makes my spine jerk. I suck air.

Something stings the side of my neck. A cold chill runs down my body, making me shiver and cringe. My fingers go to my neck with a fumbling urgency. I’m sure I was just bit by some weird bug until I feel it. Something large and
attached
to me. I pluck it from my neck and a small dart like the one in Liza’s throat rolls to a stop in the middle of my cupped hand.

The world slows to a standstill. It blurs as if suddenly made of paint and a giant hand smears everything with one angry swipe. I try to stand but I’m dizzy. The world is moving on a tilt.

Only a single dark shape, more of a shadowy blob than anything, moves toward me.

My knees give and I fall right into someone’s arms.

“Gabriel?” I ask and wonder how my hallucination would be capable of catching me.

“No,” the voice says. “Try again.”

Ally

B
rinkley agrees to meet me at the Dunkin Donuts off of 21
st
Avenue. Dr. York assures me that it will be a couple of hours before Gloria is stitched and braced and ready to go. No matter how much she protests, he will give her a heavy dose of meds and make her sleep for a few hours before discharging her. Sleep is the best medicine he says and having watched Jesse rehabilitate countless wounds in her own hibernation states, I must concur.

The parking lot is dark, with halos of white light casting circles upon the black cement. When I step from the car, I button my red coat immediately. My breath billows white in front of my face like puffs rising from a winter chimney. I hear his voice first, before ever seeing him.

“Why do you have Winston in your car?”

“It’s been a long night,” I say.

A dark shape hangs at the edge of the nearest white halo spotlighting an empty parking space. He doesn’t want his face to be obvious in such a public place. I concede and cross the spotlight first.

“Where is she?” he asks.

I tell him everything Gloria told me to tell him. He’s staring at his shoes like the way a little boy who is in trouble will stare down at his feet, head hung low.

When I stop talking, he lifts his head, throws it back like he would howl at the first rays of light cracking the horizon. Instead he releases a long exhale and his breath rolls up into the sky.

“Fuck,” he says. A very precise but accurate assessment. “What I wouldn’t give to still have that tracking node in her neck.”

I’m not sorry he removed it. It was inserted for a different mission and it hadn’t helped us one bit. Worse, it turned into this thing that Jesse played with. It was gross watching her shift it under the skin in her neck.

I release the anger I’ve been holding like a breath under water. “How could you be so stupid?”

He opens his mouth to speak and usually I’m very good about not interrupting. Unlike Jesse who prefers to get her point across before anyone has had a chance to speak.

“You sent her out-of-state to chase down a girl with NRD.
Surely
it occurred to you they might cross paths with Caldwell.”

“But—”

I barreled on. “After what happened last year, you didn’t hesitate to think that perhaps this was another trap? No, forget that. Of course it was a trap! Everything to do with Caldwell is trap. How could you be so predictable and reckless? How do you know Micah wasn’t counting on Liza and Jesse convening in Ohio and him capitalizing on the two-for-one special!”

“I sent Gloria to protect her.”

“Gloria almost died!” The neon orange OPEN sign flashes on and Brinkley takes a step deeper into the parking lot shadows. But dawn is almost here. Soon there won’t be any shadows. “Where were
you
?”

“I had affairs to tend to in Memphis,” he replies and I can tell he didn’t mean to say this. “Unfortunately, it couldn’t wait. I needed them to handle this alone.”

“I hope those
affairs
were worth it,” I hiss. “If Jesse dies it better be for a good reason.”

He can’t look at me. “I told Gloria to look for Caldwell.”

My anger erupts. What began as a slow irritated boil, a collected heat around my face lashes out. The heat grows from warm to flaming. I’m seeing red. “I know it’s incomprehensible to you, but Micah is the better AMP. There I said it and I’ll keep saying it if it means we quit making stupid mistakes. We cannot just rush in because Gloria gives the clear anymore. She
can
be wrong and she might be wrong again. I don’t know what it is about this guy but he gets her every time.”

Brinkley runs his hands through his hair and it is this small gesture more than anything that makes me realize he is real. This isn’t some bizarre dream I’m having out of exhaustion or panic over Jesse. Brinkley is alive and standing before me, not just someone Jesse spoke about like a ghost. I was in on the secret that he’d faked his death, supposedly perishing in the basement though the rest of us survived. And though I’d known he was alive, this is the first time I’ve seen him.

He looks like shit, no longer the slightly plump guy I knew as Jesse’s FBRD handler. He’s lost at least 20 pounds, maybe more though it’s always difficult to tell with men. He’s quit shaving for sure. His dark features are further exaggerated by deep circles of exhaustion. He has more gray around his temples than I remember.

“You look terrible.”

“You’re more charming than I remember,” he says. “Has Jesse worn off on you?”

“I am angry and I am tired.”

“We need somewhere safe to talk,” he says.

“Follow me.” I climb into my car and back out of the parking spot. He climbs into his car and follows me.

I have a few reasons for bringing Brinkley to Jesse’s versus back to my place. First, I don’t know if Nikki is there. Secondly, it’s the only other place I have a key for besides my own apartment and the office. We couldn’t go to the office because it was too public and because Lane might be there. I was pretty sure Lane knew he was alive, but I knew he was unaware that Jesse had gone missing. Lane has a savior complex and is a guns-blazing kind of guy. He would probably be brash and irrational in his method of retrieving Jesse. If he could retrieve her at all. And I have zero interest in dealing with anyone’s hysterical boyfriend right now.

Besides, I want to return Winston to his environment. Poor guy has had a long night.

But I didn’t expect it to hurt to walk into Jesse’s place without her. This is a surprise.

The house smells like her, something sweet, floral with a hint of citrus clean beneath. It’s hard to describe her scent, but it is something like fresh laundry and jasmine until she started dating Lane. Now it’s clean laundry and
boy
.

Brinkley insists on checking the house before we speak. I let him, doing my best to assure him that the broken glass will be repaired by Friday. I’m almost asleep on the couch when he finally joins me.

We set up at the kitchen table. Beneath the light of a Coleman lantern, Brinkley spreads his papers over the smooth table top. Isn’t as much paper work as what Nikki and I have been working with, and nowhere near as orderly. Nikki and I have been working from crisp printouts kept pristine in organized folders. Brinkley’s
notes
are a hodgepodge of scraps: gas receipts with scribbling on the back, motel stationary, half-sheets of ripped paper in a variety of ink colors. Very few sheets of paper look like they came from a computer at all—and even these have been folded so much that deep creases mar the pages.

I’m struck by how bizarrely quiet this place is without electricity or Jesse. I’ve long been aware she was a bit of a force. The way she moves about is loud and noticeable, but it’s a noise I’ve grown accustomed to.

“I’ve put out a bulletin. If she appears anywhere public: video cameras, financial transactions, we’ll know,” Brinkley says.

“Good idea,” I say. “Unless he’s got her in a hole somewhere.”

“We’ll have to rely on Gloria for that,” Brinkley says.

“But Micah—”

“Stop doubting her!” His voice is a sharp slap against my ear. It makes me shut up if nothing else. It takes me a moment to recover and he is already talking again. “Yes, Micah is working against us.
Yes
, he is the better AMP—technically.” He shrugs his shoulders inside his leather jacket as if trying to relax a cramp. “But you can’t lose faith in Gloria just because she got her teeth kicked in. She will never forgive herself if something happens to Jesse. Do not make her feel worse.”

I fold my arms across my chest but I keep my mouth closed. I don’t bother to remind him that Gloria’s failings will not keep us alive. And I’m not being difficult. I love Gloria. But I think Brinkley is asking too much—of everyone.

“Gloria is amazing.” Brinkley speaks with sincere admiration, raising his chin ever so slightly. “She is the most talented and dedicated individual I’ve had the privilege of working with. She will figure this out. As soon as she gets a hold of herself, of the situation, she will beat his ass. Just like she did today. Bet he didn’t see that coming, did he?”

Good point.

“And
I choose
to believe in her and stand behind her in this until she finds her footing with this guy. We all have soft spots. And the strong overcome them. She’ll beat him. I know she will.”

My cheeks burn. “I hope so.” And it is a sincere wish for Gloria—for all of us.

“Good,” he says and pulls out a kitchen chair beside me.

But I have to speak my mind—at least one last time. “What happens to Jesse when we all get killed?”

“What?” His brow furrows as he rests his weight on his forearms. I can’t get over how James Dean he looks in this leather jacket.

“What if we die first, before Jesse?” I ask. “How is she supposed to carry on if Micah kills Gloria? If someone kills you, or me? Who will stand between her and Caldwell then?”

Brinkley looks so tired now with the pillows under his eyes. “I’ve made preparations, if anything happens to me. Have you done the same?”

“Me?” I’m surprised by the shift in conversation and in his tone.

“Let’s start with why you’re on Caldwell’s list,” he says. He pulls a piece of paper from the pile scattered across the table and slides it toward me. One of the few computer sheets deeply creased from folding. Sure enough, circled in red is my name:
Alice Gallagher.
I look from my name up to Brinkley’s dark, assessing eyes.

I hold his curious gaze and try to decide how much he needs know. It isn’t out of some loyalty to Jeremiah and his group. I think it’s because I’m still angry with Brinkley for using Jesse the way he did, with such little regard for her safety. Withholding information almost feels like a way to punish him.

“You know about the database that records the deaths, correct?” I begin. “It’s also an online community where information can be shared on message boards and certain chat rooms.”

“Don’t tell me all you’ve been doing is—
chatting
?” Brinkley asks, and he sounds so suspicious.

At first, but look at me now.

“NecroNed runs a youth group for NRD-positives and young adults who aren’t death replacers. VegZombie, she lives in New York, also runs a similar support group,” I say. Brinkley still looks critical with furrowed brow. “The point is they aren’t all death-replacement agents. Many of them are just involved in the NRD community. And being involved in the NRD community, they know things. Just like I know things. It’s a good place to meet people in your own area with similar interests and goals.”
It is how I met Jeremiah
.

Brinkley leans forward, catching my drift. “Like.”

“Like I know Caldwell is up to something in the desert.”

“What do you mean ‘in the desert’?”

“Near Flagstaff, there have been reports of strange things happening in the desert at night, lights and explosions that make the ground vibrate even though no earthquakes have been reported.”

“Sounds military,” Brinkley says. I agreed. “What connects it to Caldwell for you?”

“A ten-year old girl, Molly, reported bizarre stuff happening in the Arizona desert and she identified Caldwell.” Of course, I don’t give Brinkley her real name or care to elaborate.