Unknown location Kansas
Thursday, 10:48am
Chris Ingersoll kicked the 9mm shell casing with the toe of his shoe, dislodging it from the cracked, dry mud. “Forensics missed this one,” he said, “but it won’t matter. Like the rest, we won’t find any prints.”
His partner, Al Vincente, whistled for one of the FBI crime scene technicians and waved. He pointed at the ground, and they both saw the approaching technician nod. “Any word on what was stolen yet?” Al asked as he tracked the oncoming agent over the open expanse.
Ingersoll shook his head. “Still waiting for a callback. Two of their big brains are proving hard to find.” He was referring to a pair of missing research leads, both of whom had been unaccounted for since the attack on the facility. “Either, one of them took off with the experimental hardware to keep it safe, or our guy got away with it. We’re still not sure.”
“You think our guy kidnapped the research leads?” Vincente struggled to hide the skepticism in his tone.
The question made Ingersoll pause, concluding with a shrug. “That wouldn’t fit with his MO, but who can say? He’s never taken anyone before. He’s never killed anyone on the technical team before, either. Still, there’s a first time for everything.”
“More likely they ran,” Vincente said quietly. “I sure as hell would.”
Ingersoll grunted in agreement and swept his gaze across the dozens of flags marking the locations where evidence was still being collected throughout the visible acres of the compound. At least a dozen additional technicians were working at the underground facility to gather similar forensic evidence.
At six and a half feet tall, Ingersoll had broad shoulders and blonde hair buzzed short in a military style, although he’d never served in the military. He’d joined the FBI straight out of the University of Michigan. At the age of forty-two, he specialized in hunting fugitives.
“The on-site tech just confirmed,” Vincente said as he watched the technician begin photographing the shell casing and start the collection process. “The surveillance system is a complete wash.”
“Trashed?”
Vincente gestured toward the cinderblock building housing the elevator. “No, it’s completely functional; it’s just blank. The time codes even show it was working all night. The recordings only display black screens with no audio.”
Al Vincente was an Italian-American cop turned FBI agent. After making a name for himself on an anti-terrorism task force on the West Coast, he completed a night school degree and joined the FBI. At 45, though a couple of years older than his partner, he was technically the junior agent on their team. He stood stout at five feet eight inches, powerfully built with a short, thick neck and cauliflower ears. His thinning dark hair and inability to grow anything but patchy facial hair, even with months of effort, meant he had been cursed with a baby face all his life.
Ingersoll walked across the hard-packed dirt, which had shown signs of being mud just a few hours earlier but was already drying and cracking in the early morning sun. He looked up at the clear blue sky and reflected on the ferocity of the storm the night before. “It’s not the first time we’ve experienced something like that,” Ingersoll admitted.
“Same goes for the ordinance,” Vincente said, holding out a handful of spent 9mm cases. “Same MO. He didn’t police his brass. No one was injured—at least not seriously. And I’ll give you two guesses as to who owns the place.”
Ingersoll stopped short of the service door to the underground complex and consulted one of the file folders tucked under his arm. “I thought it was the Woodlawn Research Group?”
Holding his cell phone aloft, Vincente grinned. “This just in: Woodlawn is a subsidiary of…” he offered a dramatic pause.
“Arlington Technologies Global?” Ingersoll finished, rolling his eyes. “Son of a bitch. How’d I see that coming? Our guy has a serious axe to grind with ATG.”
Three and a half minutes later, they exited the first of the complex’s two elevators. Vincente stared wide-eyed at the poured concrete walls surrounding the exit at the base of the elevator they had just stepped from. “You know what that was, don’t you?” Awe was clear in his voice. “We just came down the shaft that used to house an intercontinental missile. A freaking nuke. Can you believe it?”
Ingersoll shrugged, not seeing what was so special about it.
“You’re kidding, right? This underground silo was here for most of a generation, and no one got wise,” Vincente explained. “For much of my childhood, this was part of the nation’s nuclear defense. This massive missile was right under everyone’s feet, yet no one knew it.” He waved his hands in the air. “Fast forward a dozen years, and the government sells the space to private companies.”
Ingersoll waved him forward. “It’s not like they sold the nuke with it,” he mumbled. “What do you suppose something like this sells for? That’s what I want to know.”
A voice echoed from the far end of the hallway. “It was believed to be a good investment at the time,” the woman said. She walked forward with her hand extended and shook hands with both agents. She introduced herself as Linda Meeks. “I manage facilities for ATG,” she explained. “Thank you for meeting with us,” Ingersoll said. “Can you explain what ATG does at this facility?”
“Sadly, as of this morning, nothing at all. We were conducting a single experiment, but with the theft of the hardware last night, the operation will be shut down until the device can be recovered. I’m told that’s where you gentlemen come in?”
Meeks was in her early fifties, with short dark hair and thick-framed glasses perched atop a thin, bird-like nose. She appeared thin to the point of looking in poor health, though Ingersoll found her handshake firm and commanding, just like her voice.
“Absolutely,” Ingersoll replied with more confidence than he felt. “We’ve already walked the scene with your head of security, Mr. Huxley. If you wouldn’t mind walking the same ground with us, we would like to ask some additional questions.”
Ingersoll knew this was an exercise in appearing to do their due diligence. He had little hope of finding new evidence. The security system had recorded no images of the perpetrator. While the forensics team was still working, based on what they had seen at numerous similar crime scenes, he had no doubt there would be no useful evidence left behind. They had collected multiple 9mm shell casings, as they had in the past. However, there was nothing significant about the brass, the residual powder, or anything in the chemical analysis. None of the guards interviewed remembered the attacker beyond a man dressed in black. Whatever non-lethal ordnance was used on them seemed to impact their short-term memory.
Interviews with the research team produced a surprising result. Multiple interviewees agreed that the single attacker removed his mask for a short time. However, this did not help, as blackout face paint was used. No one could agree on his facial features, let alone his ethnicity.
Eleven hours later, Vincente and Ingersoll met by their sedan to compare notes. They agreed that they had collected no significant evidence. At best, they had plaster casts of boot prints in the mud.
“No one could positively identify him,” Vincente said as he slumped in the passenger seat. Exhaustion was evident in his tone.
“They don’t need to. We know it was Grady Ledger,” Ingersoll grumbled. “The question is, why does he bother to hide it now?”
“The real question is, what’s his beef with Arlington Technologies Global? We know about six cases of industrial espionage. The one thing they all have in common is ATG.”
Ingersoll woke up his digital tablet and refreshed the map of the United States. Last night’s storm over Kansas had been added to the cumulative overlays. Recent unexpected storm fronts, similar to the previous night, had occurred near Seattle, Bozeman, Sarasota, and Boulder. All these locations have ATG offices or facilities, and someone matching Grady Ledger’s general description had also been sighted there.
“What’s with the map?” Vincente asked.
Ingersoll flicked the app off his screen and transitioned to his encrypted email. “Just checking the weather,” he replied. “I heard back from my buddy at the NSA. He’s searching the video we discussed, but we need to keep that between us. Are you still comfortable with the approach?”
Taking a slow, contemplative breath, Vincente nodded. He waved to the crime scene beyond his dashboard, and his slow nod gained enthusiasm. “At this point, we need to use every tool we have. Sooner or later, someone will get hurt—and ATG is losing tens of millions with each attack.” He met Ingersoll’s gaze, and his tone grew grave. “We won’t be able to use whatever our team provides in court. Do you have any concerns about that?” Ingersoll shrugged. “I’m not worried. If this works as I expect, my guy can help put us on the scene with Grady Ledger. Once we’re there, it’s up to us to build the case or put him in the ground.”
“I’d prefer to eliminate him.” A grin spread across Ingersoll’s face. “He took out how many professional hard cases by himself last night? How many more last month? And how many more back in June? You’re skilled, and I know I’m better—but let’s be realistic. If I end up face-to-face with him, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure his story ends then and there. You have to be willing to do the same.”
Alison Springs, Maryland
Friday, 8:17pm
The bar was called The Borderline, which was odd because it was nowhere near the edge of town, and Alison Springs wasn’t even close to the edge of the state of Maryland. It was near the coast, so if they were referring to the border with the Atlantic Ocean, I guess a connection could be made. That still seemed like a stretch to me. As far as bars go, it wasn’t anything special. It was narrow, maybe fifty feet wide, though most of its space came from a depth three to four times greater than its width. The bar counter ran along most of the left wall. That amount of counter space might seem excessive until you consider that this was a college town, and the bar was one of three businesses pinning the end of a rundown old plaza. There was a dingy old pool hall with threadbare tables on one side of the bar and a down-home pizza joint with peanut shells on the floor on the other side.
I walked in on a Friday night, and the place was packed. I shouldered through the crowd in time to see one of the horseshoe-shaped tables along the right wall clear out. It was occupied by four or five coeds who seemed to find something suddenly noteworthy near the back of the bar, where a stage was assembled of painted black plywood and exposed timber. I slipped into the booth to claim the prized real estate before any of the envious onlookers could scavenge it.
The U-shaped booth had its back to the wall. I have an aversion to sitting with my back to the building’s entrance. Some call it the gunfighter seat. Remember, it’s not paranoia if they really are after you, alright? Still, having my back to the crowded room wasn’t much better, especially since all I knew of the rear entrance came from a building floor plan provided by Esker. There were too many people in the room to scout firsthand, and I was lucky to grab the vantage point when the table freed up.
As I slipped into the booth, I pressed my back against the wall. The table and built-in bench seating were made from two-by-fours and two-by-sixes without any cushioning, suggesting that comfort was expected to come from the drinks served. The purpose of the night’s outing, and the merit of my vantage point, was the view of the crowded bar.
I was feeling anxious. Maybe that’s not the right word; it was actually hard to describe. I felt uncomfortable in a way that was entirely foreign to me. I wasn’t this uncomfortable when I jumped out of that Cessna into an angry storm with my name on it. This unease made me question the root cause of my anxiety. It has been said that if the cause of concern can be identified, it can be addressed.
Until that moment, I hadn’t examined my worries in detail. You might not know it from how I talk, but I’m not the most introspective of folks. I can talk all day about the world around me, while what’s going on in my head barely registers.
As my eyes scanned the bar, watching dozens of young men and women jostle for each other’s attention or generally make fools of themselves, the cause of my concern finally clicked in my mind. Jumping from that plane, infiltrating the base, and escaping with the stolen artifact were easy because I believed in the cause and knew what I was doing. Here and now, I felt lost and confused, lacking confidence. I questioned my own motives while battling self-doubt. There was a chance I was here tonight for the wrong reasons, which could ultimately end in disaster.
That’s when I saw her.
The sight of Piper Hudson took my breath away. Leaving her had been the most painful experience of my life, but seeing her again after a year and a half brought back a rush of emotions like a hammer blow. I slouched in my seat and pulled my baseball cap lower over my brow, but I couldn’t look away from her. She moved behind the bar with a grace and ease that suggested many hours serving drinks in hectic conditions. Ducking and weaving, she danced in a ballet with three other female bartenders and one young male bartender.
Piper stood five feet eight inches tall, with long blonde hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. They resembled something from a Crayola box, but they sparkled with a unique energy. Despite how well I knew her, I couldn’t tell if that sparkle stemmed from her intelligence or her passion for life. Her beauty was unmistakable, beginning with her eyes. There was something captivating and immersive that drew me in the first time I looked into them. The rest of her appearance was also hard to overlook, and I considered myself as red-blooded as any American boy. Her blonde hair and fair complexion reflected her Norwegian heritage, and her slim, athletic frame confirmed every stereotype I had come to associate with beautiful women from that part of the world.
You’re rolling your eyes at me already, I can tell. But it wasn’t just my impression. Out of the four young women tending bar—all similar, young, and scantily dressed in too-tight jeans and even tighter tank tops—Piper was receiving the most attention by far. It wasn’t merely her appearance; it was everything about her. She exuded a remarkable sense of approachable warmth.
People were drawn to her.
We met a little over two years ago, and she changed my life. The chaos with Wild-Side had just begun, and I was starting to understand my confusing ability to move between Branes. At a time when nothing seemed real, and when I probably should have questioned my sanity, she kept me grounded. She was my anchor in this world, helping me make sense of what was happening on Wild-Side.
I don’t know what I would have done without her. Leaving was the most difficult and painful experience of my life, but since it was the only way to keep her safe, I did what had to be done. Now, fate, karma, or some force beyond my understanding brought us back together.
Part of me wanted to believe that sentimental nonsense, but more and more evidence supported it. Events on Wild-Side suggest manipulation from an outside force—something with the power to influence the Seeley as a collective race. Considering that, maybe seeing similar machinations here wasn’t such a stretch.
Meeting Piper in the first place was incredibly random. Looking back, we both acted very uncharacteristically right from that first day on the boat. Each of us reached far outside our comfort zones to make a connection that brought us—well, me, for sure—something needed to make all of this worthwhile.
Or maybe I am just slipping into insanity after all. If I’m being honest, seeing Piper again threw me off my game and brought me dangerously close to introspection.
I am not introspective.
I hoped for a beer. Several waitresses roamed the floor, taking and delivering orders with an agility I couldn’t manage. With the capacity of this place nearly at maximum and more people still pushing their way through the doors, I was beyond my comfort zone. I needed a drink or three to keep my nerves from snapping like an overwound rubber band. With more people filling the joint, the odds were good that Piper wouldn’t notice me. She was already doing the work of three people behind the bar, so there was little chance of that. But since the goal for the night was reconnaissance, I would be happy to gather whatever intel I could and put off the unpleasantness of our reunion until tomorrow.
No question showing up that night, was a bad idea. Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It had been a year and a half, and just seeing her made it all so much more real. She had been there from the start, well, almost at the start. If anyone could understand what was happening, it was Piper. At the same time, if there was one person who would resent how I had handled things, no one had more reason to hate me than her.
A young guy in a cowboy hat stepped up to the table and started talking. I missed his first few words as I was off in my own little world. “You reading me, friend?” he said with a wave and an aw-shucks grin. “Are you alright?”
“Sorry,” I said. “What was that?”
“I was asking if you were expecting company. You got friends coming, or do you mind sharing some of your space with me and a couple of my friends? My lady friends, if that matters,” he said with a wink.
Inwardly, I cringed. This guy seemed young, probably my age, in his early twenties. He was decked out in denim from head to toe: not just jeans, but also a denim jacket and shirt. He sported a cowboy look, complete with a hat and boots—a serious commitment to the motif. Still, he wore that good old boy grin, while I received disapproving looks from more and more people, making me feel guilty for occupying a table all by myself. Sharing the table with a couple of others would help me blend in, even if it meant interacting with, you know, those actual people.
Did I mention I’m not people-oriented or naturally social?
I shrugged. “Pull up a chair—er, well, some timber?” I made a point of not moving from my ideal position at the crook of the U-shape. I was willing to share, but I wasn’t willing to give up my observation post or turn my back on the entrance.
“Much obliged,” the cowboy said, touching the brim of his hat in appreciation. Perhaps he wasn’t merely playing cowboy. Either he was a committed method actor, or there was more Texas in him than just his twang. I watched as he waved to a pair of young women.
The cowboy guided a slim, raven-haired girl into the booth to sit between me and the spot he quickly took at the end of the U. “This is Trini,” he said with a nod. He motioned to the girl with short red hair who slipped into the booth opposite him and Trini. “And this here’s Renee. My name’s Walsh, Tommy Walsh, but my friends just call me Walsh.”
I shook hands with him, then with Trini and Renee in turn. “I’m Grady Ledger,” I said, only loud enough to be heard over the buzz of the surrounding crowd. I wasn’t comfortable introducing myself, but there wasn’t a way around it. I had already weighed the pros and cons and decided this was the best path, given my plan to insert myself in the experiment Breslin was financing at the school here. Since this wouldn’t be a smash-and-grab operation, I would need to spend time with the team working on the project. “My friends call me Gray.”
“Are you new here,” Trini asked.
I nodded. “Just pulled into town this afternoon. I went for a drive looking for a place to get a drink and ended up here.” Walsh put an arm around Trini, a not-so-subtle way of marking her as his girl, though I don’t think he was being territorial. I was already getting a vibe from him suggesting that he was a good enough guy. I think he was just ensuring nothing got confused from the start.
“Are you transferring?” Walsh asked. “You know classes started a month ago?”
Given the timing, this was the tricky part. Had the timetable been a little different, I could have joined the school as a student and had more freedom and flexibility. As it was, I would have had to shoehorn my way into the project and hope no one asked the wrong questions of the right people.
“I’m not a student. There’s a project on campus that uses some specialized equipment. I’m here to install it and fine-tune the hardware. I’ll probably be here for a couple of months.”
The waitress finally showed up, and I was tempted to order a couple of shots. I’m not kidding; I would rather face a pack of Elend than sit around making small talk in a room filled with strangers.
Walsh ordered a rum and Coke, which I didn’t think was particularly cowboy-like. The girls both ordered drinks that sounded both girly and tropical. When it comes to drinks, I stick to the basics. I know what I like and don’t get creative. “I’ll take a Modelo if you have it; a Corona if you don’t,” I told the waitress.
“It’ll have to be Corona, hun,” the waitress said with a wink. “Sorry about that.”
I looked around the room. “Looks like they’re keeping you pretty busy,” I said. “Would it save time if you just brought me two?”
Her eyes settled on me for a long second. “They don’t like when we do that,” she said with a knowing grin. “If anyone asks, you tell ‘em your friend is in the can?” I nodded, she gave me a wink, and off she went. Walsh chuckled, “You came to play, is that it, hoss?” Trini promptly elbowed him in the ribs, which I thought was odd until I read her lips when she harshly whispered to him, “He doesn’t like crowds, you asshole.”
I thought that was unusually intuitive for someone so young, and I instantly wondered what Trini was studying. She had the makings of a good therapist. It wasn’t the crowd that had my senses tingling on high alert; it was the fact that in the last nine months, I had evaded five bounty hunter teams thanks to the price placed on my head by my old friend Breslin. After my recent attack on his facility in Kansas and the fact that I had stolen the artifact vital to what might have been a very promising new experiment on his part, there was a solid chance that he was about to double down on the current bounty.
Though unlikely, anyone in the room could be looking to bag me. The only saving grace in that scenario was their need to keep me alive. For every attempt Breslin made to open the bridge or doorway between my world and his, I was his best chance at finding a solution.
Looking at the bar again, I reconsidered the idea of returning Piper to the proverbial playing field. If Breslin could take her, he would have everything he needed to leverage me. He just didn’t know it yet; if he did, the game would already be over. Piper was participating in one of Breslin’s experiments, although it was unbeknownst to both her and Breslin. Breslin financed the experiment at Alison Springs, where Piper worked with Professor Mundy.
The waitress returned. Walsh received a surprisingly tall rum and Coke while the two girls seemed pleased with whatever pink, pineapple concoctions they’d ordered. Then, to my surprise, the waitress leaned down the length of the table to slide a pair of short, wide Modelo bottles in front of me. I shot her a look that must have expressed my confusion.
“We keep a stash in the back of the cooler for special clientele,” she said with a smirk and a tip of her head. “I was also told to deliver your drinks with the caps still in place. I hope that’s alright with you?” I groaned and cursed inwardly.
Piper saw me.
Tonight was a bad idea, after all. Now my nerves were shot; I would owe Esker twenty bucks, and my plan for tomorrow would suffer from whatever fallout came from tonight.
Sliding a hundred-dollar bill down the table, I glanced up at the waitress, knowing defeat was clear in my expression. “Keep it,” I said. “And thanks.”
“Are you alright?” Renee said. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Close enough. Pretty sure you’re looking at a dead man.”
I quickly finished my first beer and took my time with the second. Taking care of the waitress with that tip had unintentionally captured her attention for the rest of the evening. A few minutes after my first bottle was empty, it was replaced by another. She was no longer worried about anyone raising concerns over my having more than one beer at a time. By that point, it didn’t matter. After just a slight buzz, it was enough to ease my nerves, allowing me to tolerate sitting still. I had Esker monitoring camera feeds at both the front and rear entrances and four different views inside the bar, and he was also observing traffic cameras and municipal feeds within a three-block radius. He updated me through the audio feed in my inner ear. It seemed even my digital sidekick was aware of my social anxiety.
Looking around the table at my new friends, I decided it was time to do something to break the ice. I’d faced awkwardness in spades over the last year and a half in my time with the Seeley. For a race of technologically advanced people, they had no concept of art. Things like technical drawings and schematic diagrams came easily to them. Still, they had no frame of reference for artistic drawing, painting, music, theater, or anything creative. They were a race of socially undeveloped, advanced versions of the people of our world.
I bring this up now because I fell back on the same approach I used when initially trying to relate to the Seeley. It would either work, or I would get my new friends to leave me alone.
“Little Drew sat down at his desk, and the teacher said, ‘Today we’re going to learn about multi-syllable words.’” I said this as my gaze swept the table, breaking the awkward silence. “The teacher asked, ‘Does anyone have an example of a multi-syllable word?’ Little Drew got excited and raised his hand. ‘I do, Miss Radtke! Mommy and Daddy were talking about one at breakfast this morning.’ ‘Alright, Drew,’ Miss Radtke said with some relief. ‘What was the word?’ ‘Mas-ter-bate,’ Drew said, carefully breaking the word into syllables. Miss Radtke grew a little pale but quickly recovered. ‘Impressive, Drew. That’s quite a mouthful.’ Drew shook his head. ‘No, you’re thinking of a blowjob.’”
The three faces at the table stared at me with slack-jawed expressions for what seemed like an eternity. Then, some kind of strange group stasis broke. Trini let out a gurgling choke that turned into a racking cough as she spewed the swallow of drink she’d been in the process of taking. At the same time, Walsh’s face lit up with a toothy grin. His head tipped back with a belly laugh that nearly caused him to topple his Coke. Renee was just starting to take a bite from the large pineapple slice hanging from the rim of her drink only a moment before. She began to laugh, which sent the fruit bouncing off her chin and the edge of the table before it landed in her lap.
With that, the ice was broken. Everyone quickly became more comfortable, and small talk filled the table. Throughout the evening, I kept my eye on the bar, not in a creepy way. In my line of work, you learn to observe without being obvious. Still, as Esker had pointed out while I was still sitting in the parking lot, given his access to the bar’s numerous camera feeds, there really was no reason for me to enter the bar in the first place. I could have had an unobstructed view of Piper from my hotel room all night. I tried to explain to him that this would have been creepy, but he didn’t understand the distinction. As I sat in the crowd, wondering what I hoped to accomplish, I questioned if he’d been right after all.
“Pharmacology,” Walsh said with a dismissive shrug as I tuned back into the conversation across the table. When he saw my confusion, he continued to explain. “I grew up in East Texas. When I was in school, lots of kids were going to jail for cooking meth. We’re talking about some stupid ass kids. But they seemed to have at least enough understanding of the chemistry to either go to jail or get killed. Neither option was of interest to me, but it bothered me that these hillbillies were skilled at something I didn’t understand. So I started reading up on it. The next thing I knew, I was interested. Now I’m going to school for something constructive.”
I tipped back the last of my second beer and looked at the man in denim. The insight impressed me. He looked more like the cowboy jock type. Judging by how Trini was nodding along with the story, he must have had the qualifications to back it up. “He’s soft selling it,” she said, clarifying. “Walsh is working on a mobile application to help people understand what to expect from drug interactions. There are plenty of tools that help pharmacists understand when prescription drugs interact. His app will do that, but also take into account the thousands of over-the-counter treatments people take but normally never consider.”
Walsh waved a hand. “I’m working on the data model,” he clarified. “Trini’s doing the coding for the app.”
I grinned and looked around the table. “That’s what I get for deciding to drink at a college bar. Everyone here is smarter and more ambitious than I am.” I glanced at Renee. “What about you? A major in rocket science with a minor in neuroscience?”
She sipped her second drink, brushed her bangs from her eyes, and looked at me with amusement. “I’m the underachiever. I’m majoring in social science.” Trini laughed.
“She’s being modest. It’s a double major. The other part is psychology.” Her amusement was cut short when it seemed like Renee kicked Trini under the table. It must have been a hard shot because the look on Trini’s face suggested it hurt. This was interesting because it meant Renee’s ability to notice my discomfort in the setting was a trick of the trade. At least, I hoped it was.
“What the fu—” Trini wheezed.
“Know when to stop,” Renee whispered across the table through clamped teeth.
I shot a look to Walsh, saying, does this happen often?
“Seriously?” Trini countered, this time not in a whisper.
“I just wanted him to know you’re smart and single.” Renee leaned forward across the table, seeming to want to look at her friend more closely in the eyes. At this point, I was pretty sure both girls had forgotten that Walsh and I were even there. “Not going to matter.” She stretched out the last word as if it had twice as many letters. “He’s been eye fucking Grazer since the second we sat down. I could take my top off and sit on his lap, and I don’t think it will matter.”
Walsh clapped his hands once, waved them in the air, and then pushed the near-empty drinks in front of the girls as a distraction. “I’m going to interrupt now before this gets uncomfortable,” he laughed. Then he looked me in the eye.
I was sitting back in my seat with my mouth agape. I had never seen anything like the display that had just occurred. In unison, as if participating in a synchronized event, they each took a long pull from the straws in their drinks to drain them. The sound of their sucking air from the bottom of the glasses echoed together. Then they looked up at each other before turning to me, their faces turning shades of pink.
Renee’s hand covered her mouth as she struggled to breathe through a sudden fit of laughter. “I just said all that out loud, didn’t I?” I didn’t know if she was talking to me, Trini, or herself. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes as she laughed uncontrollably.
Then I looked at Trini. She was laughing and nodding vigorously, her eyes welling up.
Walsh waved to the waitress, swung a finger in the air signaling for another round, and then looked at me. He just shrugged, and it seemed to mean that this happened occasionally. He wasn’t shocked by the display.
Once the next set of drinks was served, my eyes cleared, and I regained some semblance of composure. It was fair to say I had questions. I decided to stick with what I needed to know since some of the questions bouncing through my mind were not going to lead in productive directions.
“You ladies left a lot of material to unpack with that ping pong match,” I admitted. I looked at Renee and smiled broadly. “Thank you for the vivid mental image, by the way. Truly one of my special moments of the evening.”
Her hand returned to her face, but it was clearly to hide a shy smile this time. “These drinks might be a little on the strong side,” she admitted. “My verbal filter is clearly not fully engaged tonight.”
“Nor should it be,” I said with a shrug. “I say, save that for your professional career. Something tells me you’ll be a good therapist, analyst, or some kind of -ist. But you said I was eye fuc—er, I’d been watching someone ever since you sat down. I thought you said, Grazer? What did that mean??”
“Oh, yeah,” Walsh said. “No offense, man, but that’s not happening. She catches the eye of every guy who comes through here. Better men than you have tried and all have gone down in flames; some even leave on a stretcher.”
I clearly didn’t understand. All I could do was stare.
“Piper?” Trini asked for clarification. “They are saying you were watching the blonde bartender. Her name is Piper. The less tactful among us sometimes call her Grazer,” she said.
I nodded in understanding, then squinted and shook my head. “Why Grazer?”
Walsh chuckled and tipped his head back as if collecting his thoughts. “It must have been a year ago now, wouldn’t you say?” He glanced at Trini, who nodded. “The bar does good business on just about any night of the week, as you can see. Near the end of the night, on any night except Friday or Saturday, there are only two bartenders here to close up. There’s enough cash on hand for that to be a little too tempting for some of the local lowlifes, so they always make sure a bouncer stays to lock up and walk everyone to their cars.
One night, there was a pretty big throwdown, and the place got busted up. The cops were here and everything. They took old Bobbie down to the station to give a statement. Bobbie is the bouncer, you see. The entire process took much longer than expected, and Bobbie didn’t make it back before closing time. Just as the bartenders were locking up, a guy in a Halloween mask, of all things, pushed through the door, waving a gun. He forced Jimmy over to the register and made him start emptying one cash drawer and then the next.”
Walsh tipped his head toward the bar while telling the story, suggesting that the Jimmy in the story was the young man working tonight. This told me things worked out alright in the end. Still, amusement was evident in Walsh’s grin, as if he were winding up for the punchline of a joke rather than sharing a sad tale from the nation’s heartland.
“They say the guy with the gun was yelling a lot,” Walsh continued. “I’ll give him some credit. He thought to lock the door when he entered. And from what I’ve heard, he did a good job of haranguing Jimmy. But he made a big mistake. He never confirmed he had the place to himself. Turns out Piper was in the kitchen when all the hollering started. So what does she do? She goes to the manager’s office, dials 911, grabs the pump-action Mossberg from the manager’s closet, and goes to tend bar.”
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I could picture every moment as clearly as if I’d seen it on tape. Piper was good with a shotgun. I had taught her to shoot. She was a natural. “You’re kidding me,” I said…because I had to say something.
Renee shook her head. “Nope. That’s completely true. My uncle is a deputy for the county. I saw the security footage.” Her hand went to her mouth again, and she looked suddenly embarrassed. She slowly pushed her empty drink away, a guilty gesture. “Um, I wasn’t supposed to say that either.”
Walsh laughed. “Tell the rest. You saw it. I don’t want our new friend to think I’m messing with him.”
Taking a long, slow breath, Renee composed herself. “To be fair, Piper told the guy to drop the gun. Then she gave him almost a full second to comply before she blasted him in the knee.” She dusted her hands off theatrically before dropping them back in her lap and blowing air through her lips dramatically. “That was all she wrote.”
“The cops arrived within minutes,” Walsh concluded. By then, Piper and Jimmy were sitting on stools, watching the poor bastard howl and cry.”
I laughed, and everyone at the table joined in. “But wait,” I said at last. “That still doesn’t explain why you called her Grazer.”
“Oh,” Renee said with a sheepish grin. “Someone leaked the police report a couple of days after the incident. Uncle Kyle is pretty sure it was the bar’s owner in an attempt to make the place feel safer again. Anyway, the arresting officer asked Piper why she did what she did. She said the sawed-off they keep under the counter up front is always loaded with rock salt, so it’s less likely to kill someone if they have to use it. But since she pulled the Mossberg from the closet, she couldn’t be sure what it was loaded with. Better to graze him; that way, he wouldn’t lose the leg.”
The story made everyone laugh.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever shot,” Walsh explained. “But shooting with that kind of accuracy, let alone under those conditions? Let me tell you, it takes one cool customer. No one messes with that girl.”
“Oh, there was that guy a few months back,” Trini added.
“Oh, yeah!” Renee exclaimed, her eyes wider than saucers. “It was just you and me that night. I forgot!”
“What did I miss?” Walsh protested.
“Some guy had too much to drink and got handsy with Piper.”
“And?” Walsh insisted.
Renee held up four fingers.
Walsh and I looked on questioningly.
“Four teeth,” Trini explained. “It cost him four teeth. She only hit him once. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Walsh laughed and glared at me. “See? I’m no fortuneteller, but I can confidently tell you Grazer’s not in your cards.” He tipped his head toward Renee but kept his eyes on me. “Let this one take her top off for you and call it a night. You won’t be disapp—”
Another kick went flying under the table, and everyone burst into laughter.
It was nearly 2am when the festivities were winding down. The joint wasn’t as crowded as before. Two out of every three tables were empty, and there hadn’t been a line at the bar for almost an hour. Only Piper, Jimmy, and another girl were still working. The other bartender was helping the waitresses close out tabs and clear tables in preparation for closing down.
By this point, there wasn’t enough cover to keep me from being plainly visible if Piper spent more than a second or two looking in my general direction. But that was the odd part. She had yet to even look my way. I mean, the entire night. I would have written off the persistent delivery of Modelo as the work of a diligent waitress if it weren’t for the fact that every bottle was served with the cap still on. That wasn’t standard practice— not in any bar I had ever visited.
Walsh had his arm around Trini. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. He took a slow, tired, deep breath and then looked at me. “We’ll, it’s gettin’ late, hoss. Think it’s time we hit the road.”
I shook his hand. “I’m glad you guys decided to sit down. It was a lot of fun.”
Trini shook with me. “Are you heading out or sticking around until they lock up?”
She was asking if I would wait around and try my luck with Piper. All night, I had admitted nothing about it, so I wasn’t going to start now. I just held my half-empty bottle up to the fading light. The overhead lights had been dimmed to urge folks to pack up. “I’ll leave as soon as this is gone,” I said.
I watched how clumsy Walsh was as he pulled himself to his feet after sliding from the booth. He’d been putting away those Cokes with practiced efficiency, but until now, they’d shown little impact.
“You guys aren’t driving, are you?” I asked somewhat nervously.
Renee leaned closer to me and spoke in a hushed tone. “Trini has an apartment a couple of blocks over. Tommy will be staying with her. It’s one of the best parts about drinking here. Safe walking distance,” she said with a wink. Then she slid a torn-off scrap of paper over so it was wedged under the corner of my bottle. It had a phone number neatly penned. Then she whispered more quietly, “In case you want to practice some multi-syllable words.”
I felt her hand a little high on my thigh. Honestly, I hadn’t noticed it until she gave me a squeeze. Then she left the booth and headed for the parking lot.
Trini and Walsh watched Renee leave. I think Walsh was confused by Renee’s quick exit. For her part, Trini watched Renee go, then looked back at me. Her gaze shifted between Renee and me. I saw her focus center on the slip of paper still under my bottle. “Did she just—” Her gaze fell to the floor, and she shook her head. “I really should have seen that coming,” she muttered.
Our waitress returned, even though I was the only one still sitting. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“We’re good,” Walsh said. “Had a great time, though. We’ll be back to see you later in the week.”
“Looking forward to it,” the waitress said with a surprisingly sincere smile, given the late hour.
The waitress leaned over the table and placed a full shot glass near me. “Hope you’re not leaving yet, honey. Piper wants you to have a drink with her before we lock up.”
My stomach dropped in a way that had nothing to do with what I’d been drinking all night. I looked at the shot glass for a long second, then at the waitress. I gave her a slow nod. “Sounds good. Thanks.” There was a reluctance in my tone that must have expressed my apprehension.
It was a lack of enthusiasm that was entirely lost on Walsh. He stared at me with wide eyes; his brows arched so high they appeared as one long hairline across his forehead. The expression pushed his hat comically far back on his head. “How in the hell did you manage that?” He stage-whispered to me. “You never even left the table.”
Trini rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said and slapped him on the chest. “Something tells me I gotta start prepping Ren for a letdown.”
“No, seriously,” Walsh pressed. He was reluctant to let his girlfriend guide him away. “Was it some kind of telepathy thing? What did you do?”
Trini pulled hard on his arm and finally got him moving. “Dammit, Tommy, you’re drunk. He’s not a Jedi or nothing.”
I laughed. “I’ll see you guys around. Have a good night.”
“That was epic,” Walsh was mumbling. Then to me, he called over his shoulder, “Night, hoss. We gotta do this again.”
I left my beer, grabbed the shot glass, and walked to the bar. Four strangers were still taking their time milking the dregs of last call and running down the clock. It was 1:56am, so 2am was clearly closing time. The far left of the counter was completely unoccupied, so that’s where I grabbed a stool. I put my shot down on the pristine counter and watched Jimmy clear empty mugs from the last remaining stragglers. He exchanged pleasantries with them in hushed tones but was anxious to coax them out the door.
Then Piper stepped through the double saloon-like swinging doors in the back wall, presumably leading to the kitchen. She said something to Jimmy and waved to the other bartender, whom I hadn’t even noticed at the far end of the counter; then, she started washing her hands in a sink. While rinsing her hands, she glanced in my direction for the first time. Her expression didn’t change. It was unreadable. She just looked at me for long seconds while wiping her hands.
I was about to face the music. Coming here was a mistake. The plan had been to spring my return on her at the school’s lab tomorrow. Even that would be a gamble. The wager was that if I caught her off guard and didn’t give her time to contemplate my arrival, she might delay ruining my chances until I could establish myself in her project.
By arriving at the bar the night before my admittedly underdeveloped plan, I put myself in a situation where I had to get the next part exactly right the first time. If I didn’t, things would escalate out of control. The problem was that at that moment, I was the one who felt ambushed and unprepared.
Piper strolled toward me. It was my first chance to get a good look at her since I stepped foot in the place. She wore the bar’s standard uniform of tight black jeans and matching top. It made her pale, Nordic skin look like porcelain. Her hair was longer than before, falling halfway down her back. The blue of her eyes fairly glowed in the bar’s dim light.
She was undeniably gorgeous. At least as stunning as she’d been back in our time. Frustratingly, her expression remained unreadable.
I suddenly had absolutely nothing to say.
She grabbed an empty shot glass from a shelf under the bar as she approached. Without so much as breaking eye contact with me and losing a step, she snagged a bottle from the rack on the wall to her right. She stopped opposite me, placed the glass on the counter between us, and poured the tequila…again without breaking my gaze. She completed the pour without spilling a drop.
“You look good,” I finally said.
Yeah. It was lame.
She raised the glass and waited for me to click it with mine. She continued to stare.
I tapped her shot, and we drank.
The glasses both went down on the counter with a single tap reverberating through the now-still establishment. Both of her hands lay open, palms on the battered old wood surface. There was a slight quiver in one hand. It was the only break in her demeanor. Still, long seconds passed.
“Why are you here, Grady?”
She never called me Grady. No one did. I had never heard her use my given name.
“Do you want me to go?”
Her expression softened, finally. She shook her head.
Jimmy said something from the front door. I think he had to speak twice before getting Piper’s attention, which felt like a point in my favor. She didn’t seem any more prepared for whatever came next. Jimmy was asking if he and the other bartender should stick around. Her name was Amanda! I knew I would remember it eventually. Sorry, that was driving me nuts. I hated referring to her as the other girl bartender.
I know, I know—not cool.
Anyway, Piper told Jimmy and Amanda it was all right to go. They locked up and left us alone in the Borderline. It was a little weird, but going someplace else would have been even weirder at that point, so I just went with it.
“You’re still on the run,” Piper said, somehow cutting to the heart of where we had left off with precision, if not tact.
I nodded. “Big time.”
That made her smile. “You’re not supposed to be proud of it,” she laughed. It was a reluctant chuckle, but it was progress. A small amount of the weight on my shoulders shifted if not exactly lifting.
“Once you know the full story, you might change your mind.”
She poured another round of shots and looked at me accusingly through narrowed eyes. “Six U.S. Marshals broke down my door with a warrant for your arrest. That was the last time I saw you, and it was a year and a half ago.”
I held up a raised finger with one hand and tipped back the shot with the other. A lot was going through my mind in those few seconds, not all of it helpful or productive. I thought, hey, that’s fantastic—she knows exactly how long it’s been. You’re still on her radar because she still cares.
Then I started thinking, no… she knows how long it’s been because she’s been holding onto the number those Marshals gave her, and she’s been waiting to drop a dime the second you resurfaced. Like a dumbass, I have been sitting around all night drinking and wasting time. I started to envision a parking lot filled with Breslin’s private security goons waiting to taser me the moment I walked out the door.
Not all of this made sense because it wasn’t as if Piper was unaware of my nighttime excursions to Wild-Side. She had been with me in the early days, back when I realized the dreams were trips to another plane of reality. So, when the rational part of my mind reasserted itself, there was no legitimate chance that Piper would have reported seeing me, not to the authorities nor to anyone else.
That didn’t mean she would be happy to see me or welcome my return. It certainly didn’t mean there was even a place for me in her life anymore. Looking back, I realize that was my single greatest fear and what kept me at the periphery of the barroom for far longer than was logical.
“They weren’t real Marshalls,” I said after I swallowed the tequila.
Piper downed her shot and slammed the glass on the counter hard enough to rattle mine. She leaned toward me and glared. “You think?”
That left me speechless for long seconds. “You knew?”
She took a deep breath and rubbed her face wearily. For the first time all night, she looked tired. I was exhausted, having been up for over thirty-six hours, most of which I spent driving cross-country from Kansas to get here. When I said my mind hadn’t really been on the Kansas operation, I wasn’t exaggerating. I’d been focused, for lack of a better word, on this exact meeting ever since I saw the news report with Piper in the background.
Piper grabbed the bottle and her glass, then rounded the bar. She pulled out the chair at a two-seat table and settled solidly. I took her cue, grabbed my glass, and found the chair across from her.
On our last night together, six men claiming to be U.S. Marshals burst into Piper’s apartment and attempted to arrest me. Long story short, I got the better of them just long enough to escape off a third-story balcony by jumping desperately into an entirely too-small evergreen tree.
“I began investigating the alleged warrant immediately,” she explained. “It looked real, but it was merely paper. There was no additional documentation to support it. The warrant itself was real; it had just been issued regarding a completely unrelated case for a different suspect. When I started searching for the names of the agents from that night, I found nothing. They didn’t exist.”
A sad look crossed her face. “After two months, I realized you weren’t coming back.”
I leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone. I wanted to take her hand but knew it wouldn’t be well received. The last thing I wanted was to risk making things worse, so I kept it short and to the point. “I did come back. I watched you for over four months but couldn’t get near you. They had you under twenty-four-hour surveillance. I couldn’t call or even leave you a note.”
There was more to the story; however, it was too chilling to detail right now. Breslin’s people had tapped her phones, internet connections, email, and chat accounts. They had bugged her car, workplace, apartment, and the homes of everyone she knew. I had stayed in town watching her watchers for four months before pulling back. These were the days before I had access to Esker, so I didn’t have the technology I use today.
In response, I pulled back and went on the offensive. That was when I started attacking Breslin’s experiments. I targeted every operation he had. Any effort he made to bridge the barrier between Our-World and Wild-Side, I made it my mission in life to destroy it.
Piper looked at me across the table for a long time. “I don’t know what you’re waiting for,” she said. “I’m happy to see you, but a lot has changed. If you’re here just to tell me what happened, I appreciate it, but I’ve done what I can to put that behind me. I have tons of questions, but I’m pretty sure the main reason you left is that you won’t be able to answer most of them.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m not asking you for anything. I bought myself some breathing room, in a way. I don’t know how long it will last, but I wanted to make the most of it. I’ll be in town for a while.”
“You’re working on something,” she asked, trepidation obvious in her tone.
I nodded. “That’s only part of it, but yeah.”
She swallowed hard. “Then you’re still going…over there?”
I nodded again. “More and more, it seems. I still don’t understand why.”
“Jesus, Gray,” she whispered. I could see the pain in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I always wondered. I guess… well, I just hoped it had stopped on its own.”
I looked at my watch. I was hitting the wall in a big way, exhaustion pulling hard at my eyes. Things had gone better than I had hoped. I wanted to make a tactical retreat before something could derail what was, by all accounts, a reunion that held promise.
“I gotta hit it,” I said, pushing out of my chair. “I spent a lot of time on the road today and need sleep. And if I end up…you know, over there tonight…I don’t know if I can deal with it.”
“Wild-Side?” She said.
I nodded.
“You have a place to stay?”
I nodded again.
At the door, as she locked up, I kissed her on the cheek. “It was good to see you. I have sincerely missed you.” Then, I ducked into the darkness of the parking lot before I could make the moment more awkward.
Staying inside, Piper pulled the door shut behind Gray and watched him jog through the parking lot. He crossed the cone of light cast from the closest overhead lamplight and disappeared between two parked cars and a large Winnebago. Only then did she take a slow, shuddering breath. The lock in the glass door frame thudded home, and she sagged forward against the pane. Her unblinking eyes refocused on her reflection as her breath fogged the cold surface. Looking further, she watched the lot, not sure what she expected to see. It wasn’t like he was coming back.
Gray was back in town, and she didn’t know what to do. He’d disappeared from her life, both figuratively and literally. When the supposed Marshals chased him from her apartment in the middle of the night, she assumed it was only a matter of time before he would make contact. She had been aware of the surveillance teams watching her from a distance for weeks. At first, she was terrified he would walk into a trap. But as time passed and he failed to reach out, even electronically, she began to fear for his safety.
Then, the surveillance teams pulled back entirely. That’s when she really got worried. She hoped it was only a matter of time and Gray was more patient than the watchers. But when six months passed and nothing changed, she feared the worst. By that time, she knew the Marshals were imposters. Additionally, she understood the dangers of Wild-Side were worse than anything the people of this world could offer. If Gray failed to get in touch, there was a reason. Someone likely got to him, or even worse, something from over there.
But apparently, none of that had happened. Well, that wasn’t true, she reminded herself. While he’d failed to explain what had occurred during their time apart, there was no doubt that times had been tough. She could see it in his eyes. Though he looked alright physically, the miles had taken a toll. There was something… haunted…in his eyes.
Piper sat back in the wooden chair at the bar. She didn’t recall finding the seat. Pouring herself another shot, she continued to eye the front doors with a thousand-yard stare. She had at least a hundred questions for him, yet given the chance to ask them, she’d drawn a blank. Walking out of the kitchen at the night’s start, she’d nearly fallen on her face. Somehow, he’d been the first thing she’d seen, even in the crowded room.
Why was he here? Why now? Why was he not reaching out?
On the off chance someone was watching, she played it cool and stuck to her job. If he wasn’t going to initiate contact, neither would she.
It had been the longest shift of her life. Now, with it over, and she had no answers.
Gray is alive.
She slammed the empty shot down on the table. He’d better have some damn good answers, or I’m going to kill him.
