Chimera

Chapter 2

Watching the sunrise was a tradition for lovers, nature enthusiasts, or poets. It wasn’t for the likes of me. But I sat there anyway, on the beach with sand gritty between my toes. Rays the color of a beautiful woman’s hair spilled across the horizon, strawberry blond silk gleaming bright. Crimson and gold, it reflected onto the ocean, transforming it into a fractured kaleidoscope. The colors of the peacock and phoenix mingled into an incomparable whole. I laughed without humor. Maybe I was a poet after all.

I’d discarded my shoes, worn black loafers, at the water’s edge. They were probably halfway to Cuba by now. I had spent nearly a half hour standing in the water, the salt scouring the skin of my ankles and feet cleaner than they cared to be. If it would’ve helped, I would’ve dunked my head and let the salt scrub my brain. Last night was a memory I wouldn’t have minded having wiped clean—four bodies wrapped in plastic tablecloths and duct tape. I hadn’t been in the room when Gregori was “promoted,” but I’d felt the heavy weight of an erased life in my hands when I helped load his still body into a car trunk and watched as he and the others were carried away. Death no longer rode astride a pale horse. He’d traded up . . . Mercedes, Jags. The Grim Reaper had expensive taste.

Now I sat, my legs unwilling to carry me back home. Drifting, I’d gotten carried into some damn black water, and I wasn’t sure I cared enough to try to swim out. Almost half my life had revolved around finding my brother. I hadn’t paid attention to much else, and this was where it had landed me.

And I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do about it.

Lukas wouldn’t have gone this way—never; not even if things had been reversed and something had happened to me. If I’d been stolen away and he’d blamed himself, he still wouldn’t have fallen into a violence of convenience. Lukas had been made for better things. He’d been made a better person. He was only seven, but you could still see that difference in the tranquillity of the eyes, a quality that seemed to belong to someone much older.

Ignoring my stubborn legs, I stood as sand cascaded off me. Soon it would be time to meet Saul for lunch. It could be he had information pointing to Lukas. And if not? Head down, I trudged on, long strands of hair hanging in my eyes. If not, maybe I would go back to the bar and kick the dermo out of Sevastian . . . just for the hell of it.

By the time lunch rolled around, it felt as if the sand I’d showered off had ended up beneath my eyelids. I hadn’t slept and I was sure it showed in the lines bracketing my mouth and the annoyed twist of my lips. I was old at the age of twenty-four. Saul didn’t comment on my rough look; he just raised his ginger eyebrows and returned to checking out his menu. Feeding the man could be a chore. He was a vegan—meat or any animal products whatsoever were verboten. Breaking a finger or two for information, that was no problem. Scrambled eggs with cheese? That was a blasphemy against God and nature. Yeah, you had to respect a man with morals.

Not that I was in any position to judge. “Jesus,” I snapped as he lingered over the choices. “Go with the fungus of the day and let’s get this show on the road, Saul.”

“Temper. Temper.” He snapped the menu shut and motioned for our server. “Does baby need a nap?”

Our server arrived just in time to receive the full force of my scowl. Understandably, she turned to take Saul’s order first. Skoczinsky had no problem with that. Running a hand across his highlighted auburn hair, he flashed a blinding smile framed by a prematurely white-streaked goatee. I waited impatiently as he and the equally interested blond waitress flirted endlessly. Finally, I rapped my order, cutting off the mutual drooling. Offended, improbably aquarmarine eyes narrowed at me as she scribbled on a pad, and, pushing out her equally improbable breasts, stalked off on heels high enough to give that stalk a helluva bob and sway for Saul to watch. Watch, he did, too . . . on my time and my dime.

“You need to get married,” I grumbled. “It’d keep these meetings shorter if you got your rocks off at home.”

“The things I’m thinking about her aren’t legal, even if I were married. There are still a few states lagging behind the times,” he said, putting the leer away as he turned his attention back to me. “No leash for me. A stallion’s gotta run, baby.”

That line, so old and hackneyed, had me snorting into my ice water. “Yeah, you’re a real beast, Skoczinsky. A walking cologne commercial, tackled by women wherever your ass goes.”

“The day I see you wearing something you didn’t buy at Wal-Mart . . . then you can mock me. You couldn’t pay a woman to screw you, much less get her to give it up for free,” he shot back the barb with the good-naturedness I’d gotten used to from him. Switching to a much soberer mode, he massaged the back of his neck and straightened in his chair. “We’d better get down to business, Stefan.” That was my cue. I slid an envelope plump with cash across the table and watched it disappear like a rabbit in a hat. But while the payment-up-front process was familiar, Saul calling me by my real name was not. As his work was only slightly more legal than mine, he gave his clients nicknames. That meant if he was in public with them or someone of a federal nature was listening in, the client’s identity was protected.

He usually called me Smirnoff. Russian vodka. Big leap, but I didn’t care. With Saul’s lethal verbal jabs, I was only grateful he hadn’t gone with Rasputin. The most infamous death in history: poisoned, shot, beaten, stabbed, his dick cut off, and then what was left of him heaved into an icy Russian river. Good luck couldn’t go with a nickname like that, and I needed all the luck I could get.

“Give,” I said impassively.

Saul and I weren’t friends. I wasn’t sure either of us was equipped emotionally in that department, but we did have a mutual respect for each other. It tended to be oiled by my money and his skill, but it was there regardless. In the past it had him making a gruff attempt to ease the blow when he came up empty. This time he didn’t make an effort. This time, for the very first time, he didn’t have to.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” The hazel eyes were grim, but the finger he tapped repeatedly against the table gave away his excitement. “But I think I might have found something.”

Under the right circumstances a moment can last forever. This was that moment. There was an eternity of clinking glasses, midday chatter, and the soft strumming of a sidewalk musician lounging against the patio rail. I was a fly stuck in an empanada-and-paella-scented amber. Not twelve hours ago I’d seen death come and go, barely missing me in the process. It had been more than a hiccup in my routine; I had the bloodshot eyes to prove it. But this . . . This staggered me. This rocked me at every level in a way nothing else could.

“What?” The word fell between us, hoarse and choked. Clearing my throat, I went on flatly. “What did you find?”

Did you ever hope for something so fiercely, with such devotion, that when you closed your eyes you could all but feel it in the palm of your hand? I never had. That was the kind of faith usually only children possessed. I’d lost my childhood the second I’d lost Lukas. And it had been me—only me. Losing my brother had been a responsibility I’d never shirked, not even to myself. So, as a sinner did penance, I looked for him; I always would.

But not for one moment did I imagine I would find him.

Searching for Lukas had kept my mind occupied. It kept me from thinking of things that couldn’t be changed, past and present. Now my excuse might disappear. It had my fingers tightening on the water glass, the rough cut-diamond pattern pressing into my flesh. Hope was a four-letter word all right; the most profane I’d ever heard.

I’m not sure what it was that Saul caught a glimpse of in my eyes, but he seemed relieved that our food arrived so promptly. Sizzling portobello mushroom fajitas were slid in front of him, and I didn’t have a clue as to what I was given. I didn’t remember what I’d ordered, and I didn’t bother to look. “Tell me. What did you find?” I repeated.

Saul picked up a fork and speared a mushroom. “Fungus o’ the day as ordered,” he said with a faint grin as he began to assemble his fajita. Taking a bite, he chewed, then swallowed before exhaling. “Okay, this is the drill. Since you hired me three years ago, I’ve done a bit of subcontracting in addition to my own investigating. It wasn’t much, but I paid some people to keep an eye out for a teenager who matches your brother’s description. I plugged his picture into my own age progression program. It beats the feds’ any day of the week. Pumped out some prints and gave the info to the guys. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered going that route on a case as old as this one. Spotting a kid after ten years, it just ain’t gonna happen. But Lukas with his different-colored eyes could be the exception to that rule. So I said what the hell.”

“Who are these people? The ones who look?”

“Could be anybody.” He shrugged. “Anybody I find reliable. Best ones are women who work in the mall. They have the eyes of eagles and the boredom of the ages driving them. The second best are people working at the schools or hospitals. Most kids go through there one way or the other when it comes to my business.” He didn’t have to elaborate; I understood all too clearly the hospital reference. Tilting his head slightly, he said honestly, “It was a long shot, Smirnoff, you know? I had no idea it might turn anything up. Chances are if Lukas is still alive, he’d be far from his original abduction site.” He drained his glass, eyes gleaming with the thrill of the chase. “One big-ass long shot that just might have paid off.”

I liked Skoczinsky well enough, I did. I didn’t have any particular urge to do the man harm . . . not until now. Right then I could’ve cheerfully pounded his head to a bloody pulp against the table without an ounce of remorse. Narrowing my eyes silently, I waited. It was something I was good at by now. The poker face I wore came with long years of practice, but card games had little to do with it.

Regardless, Saul seemed to take the hint. Uneasily, he shifted a bit in the chair. “One of the girls in the International Mall spotted someone yesterday who looked like the picture—not exactly, but close enough. One green eye, one blue. Hair was brown, not blond, but that wouldn’t be unusual. A lot of blonds get darker hair as they age. Kid looked about sixteen or seventeen, as Lukas would be. Paloma’s young, nineteen, but smarter than most anyone has a right to be. I trust in her. If she says he matched our specs, then he did.”

I was stunned, literally. A hammer slamming between my eyes wouldn’t have produced a much different reaction. A mall—he’d been in a mall. How could that be? It was as if the Holy Grail had shown up in a crane-operated arcade machine, surrounded by stuffed animals with the mechanical claw poised right above it. I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

“In fact,” he continued, “I trust her enough to have followed him. She called me and I was there in fifteen. I picked them up before they hit the parking lot.”

“Them?” I was surprised my vocal cords were still working. For that matter I was surprised any of me was still working.

“It looked like he was on some sort of field trip.” He frowned, striking his fork lightly against the edge of his plate. “Some sort.” I could tell something had puzzled him as he’d watched the group. Before I could ask what, he elaborated. “There were fifteen of them—quiet, well behaved. Weirdly so. Not at all like normal kids turned loose in a mall. I thought private school maybe, something parochial with those ruler-wielding nuns.” Shaking his head, he instantly refuted his own theory. “But that wasn’t it. Their teachers weren’t nuns, that’s for damn sure. Not unless they were drill sergeants on their days off. These guys looked like guards. Yeah, sure, they were wearing typical teacher crap. Polyester blazers, cheap button downs, bad shoes. But it was just a look. Whatever link they have to the educational system is damn slim at best. Most of them looked like you.” He grimaced and added, “Sorry, minus the polyester of course.”

“Thugs, in other words.” With a shrug, I cut off whatever else he was going to say. That was just Saul, thinking the fashion commentary was more of an insult than comparing me to a chainik, a professional bully. I knew what I was. It would be rather futile to get pissed off when someone pointed it out. Plus, Saul was more than on the shady side himself when it came to “physical persuasion.” He simply concealed his a little better than I did. Maybe it was all about fashion sense. “Where’d they go?”

“That’s where it gets weirder.” Saul’s gaze was frank on mine. “Lukas . . . If this is Lukas, he wasn’t the victim of an ordinary child abduction. At least not ordinary in any sense I’ve seen before. They came to the mall in two vans, not a bus. I followed them about two and a half hours west to their school. Hell, if you could call it that. It was more like a compound, a fucking miniscule military base.” While my appetite had long disappeared, his was still in full force. Efficiently rolling another fajita, he made quick work of half of it in two bites. “I looked it over all I could, which wasn’t much. They got a gate straight out of Dade Correctional and a wall that would put that one in China to shame. The president should have their security.”

What did that mean? What did all of this mean? “Government?” I couldn’t imagine how the hell the government could be involved in Lukas’s disappearance. That made no sense whatsoever.

“That’s what I thought at first, but . . .” The waitress chose that moment to come back for a second round of water and flirting. The black scowl and flash of bared teeth I turned on her had her rethinking that in a hurry. Saul watched her go with a wistful glint in his eyes, but he knew better than to complain. Knowing how pivotal a moment this was for me and how unexpected, he also knew I was hanging on to my control by a fast-unraveling thread. “Keep it together,” he ordered quietly. “We might finally be there, so don’t lose it, okay? Stay with me.”

If anything was ever easier said than done . . . Never mind the world had disappeared beneath my feet and left me in dizzying free fall. Swallowing against the chunk of dry ice burning in my throat, I consciously unclenched my fingers on both hands and uncurled my fists. Placing my hands flat on the table beside my plate, I sucked in a deep breath and said calmly, “I’m okay.” At his skeptical snort, I qualified, “Really. I’m okay as I’m going to be. So, let’s get on with it. Not the government? How do you know?” It wouldn’t be long before the shock wore off and reality set in. Reality didn’t have a history of playing well with others.

Saul went on to tell me just what he had found out. He’d run a title check on the land where the compound resided. There was a series of dummy corporations, but Saul had cut his teeth on that kind of duplicity. It’d slowed him down, but it hadn’t stopped him. At the end he’d run into a company he simply couldn’t crack, but it wasn’t federal. That didn’t mean there might not be federal ties, but the organization was privately owned. Although he couldn’t find out what the organization was, he could find out everything that it wasn’t. They weren’t owned by the government and no one in the business world had any idea they existed. They had no stocks; they weren’t insured; they had no accounts with any bank in this country. And as far as Saul could determine, they didn’t pay taxes. So either the government didn’t know they existed, or they turned a blind eye for some reason.

It didn’t make any goddamn sense, none of it. And the more Saul talked, the less sense it made. A compound in the boonies, a school that wasn’t a school, security that back in the old days would’ve made the KGB say, “Damn, where you been shopping?”

Eventually Saul ran out of things to say, and in many ways I was as lost as I’d ever been. Bits and pieces made up a jigsaw puzzle designed by a schizophrenic. I wasn’t missing a few pieces; I was missing an entire frame of reference. I wasn’t sure I was any closer to knowing what had happened to Lukas, save for one small difference.

Now I could ask him.