“In our line of work, there’s just a thin line that separates us from the monsters we chase. Once it has been crossed, you’re Ahab, you’ve caught the disease, whether you know it or not,” she’d said to him once. He’d never forgotten those words; they resonated with him. Maybe she was right. Maybe he had the disease and he just didn’t realize it. Maybe she thought she saw it in him now and would never be able to see him any other way. The thought pained him. Jeff and Lydia were the only true friends he’d ever known.
He reached for her but before his hand touched her shoulder, the ground fell out from beneath his feet and he was falling, falling into black. He heard Lydia screaming Jeffrey’s name and then there was nothing.
Twenty-Five
Jesamyn stood on Mount’s porch, ringing the bell and freezing her ass off. She knew it was pointless and stupid. He wasn’t going to be there. But part of her was just hoping that he’d come to the door in his sweatpants, groggy from sleep.
“What are you talking about?” he’d say, giving her that look he gave when he thought she was acting crazy. “Arrested? On the run accused of murdering one, possibly two people? That’s nuts.”
But he didn’t come and eventually she took the keys from her purse after a few more rings and let herself in. They’d exchanged keys a long time ago. It was in case something ever happened to either one of them and, for whatever reason, one of them needed entry into the other’s residence. She promised that if he was ever hurt or killed on the job, she’d go and take his porn videos and throw them out so his mother wouldn’t find them. Other than that they hadn’t really thought it through. It had just seemed like a good idea. She was glad for it now.
She was immediately assailed by the smell of garlic and oil as she stepped inside. The heat was blasting and she was grateful for the warmth. She closed the door behind her and stood in the living room, listened to the silence of an empty old house. She wasn’t sure why she’d come here, what she was looking for exactly. She guessed she’d know it when she saw it. She felt tired suddenly, the last few days catching up with her in a big way. She sat on his couch, threw her bag down beside her, put her feet on his coffee table and tried to think like Mateo Stenopolis.
He was a person that she knew. She knew her son Ben. She knew her mother. And she knew her partner. She had loved Dylan deeply once and maybe still did but she’d never really known him, at least not in the way she imagined she did. He kept secrets, told lies, wouldn’t share big parts of himself. You can’t know a person like that; you can love him, fill in the blanks with all your own dreams and desires. But, of course, he’ll disappoint you again and again, until you wake up and realize you can’t build a life with someone who won’t give himself up to it. You can’t live a life built on the romantic imagining of a person.
Mount never held anything back; he wasn’t even capable of it. He was hopelessly open and honest, couldn’t lie or be fake if he wanted to. That’s why he didn’t get along well with people; that’s why he was always vulnerable to getting hurt. She let the fatigue take her, let a few tears drain from her eyes and spill down her face.
“Mount,” she said. “Where did you go?”
She heard it before she saw it; it was a slight creaking of the wood on the porch where she’d been standing just a minute earlier. Then a large shadow drifted past the glass. She was grateful that he hadn’t turned on the lights and then wondered if she’d locked the door behind her. She slid from her place on the couch, crouched behind the big overstuffed arm and took the Glock from the holster at her waist as the knob started to turn.
Lydia.”
The voice came from deep inside a long, dark tunnel; it was sweetly familiar and edged with worry.
“Lydia, come on.”
She felt warm hands on her shoulders, a soft palm on her face. She woke then with a start, taking in a ragged, gasping breath. Her eyes were open but it was still pitch black; she kept still, unsure of where she was or how she had gotten there. Her mind raced, struggling to make sense of what was happening. She thought of the hotel room they’d been in, the walk along the dark drive.
“Are you okay? Lydia, say something.” Jeffrey. She could feel him and hear him, she could smell his cologne but she couldn’t see him at all. It was that dark where they were.
“I-” she began. “What happened?”
“Can you move? Are you hurt?”
She lay flat on her back on a cool, gritty surface. For a second, she didn’t even want to try to move her limbs or lift her pounding head from the ground. She was afraid; she felt like someone had put her in a giant cocktail shaker and shaken mercilessly. What if she tried to move and she couldn’t?
“I don’t know,” she said, lying still. “Are you okay? I can’t see you.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “We fell. I don’t know where we are now.”
She tentatively moved her feet, then bent her legs. Same with her arms. Then she pushed herself up. There was a general feeling of physical trauma but nothing sharply or frighteningly painful anywhere as she came to a sitting position.
“Nothing broken?” he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders, her arms, then her legs, as if checking her for fractures he might be able to feel with his hands.
“No.” She put her hands on his face, still unable to see him in the darkness. “You’re fine?” she asked him again. “You’re sure.”
She felt him nod, then he took her into his arms. “A few bumps and bruises but okay for the fall we took.”
“Where’s Dax?” she said into his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said, moving away from her and then pulling her to her feet.
“You said we fell? Fell where?”
“We were walking and then we fell into some kind of a hole. Now we’re here.”
“At the bottom of the hole?”
“I don’t think so. Our guns and our cell phones are gone.” He took her hand and placed it on cold, smooth concrete; she felt the rough ridges and valleys of brick and mortar. “These are man-made walls. There’s no light coming from up above.”
“Is there a door?” she asked.
“Here,” he said, pulling her over. She felt cool metal. Her hand drifted down to a locked knob. She yanked on it hard but it acted like a big, locked metal door. She let go of a sigh.
“So we fell down a hole. Someone then came, took our cell phones and guns, moved us from the hole and now we’re trapped,” she said.
“I’d say that’s a fair guess.”
She let herself slide down the door and come to a crouch near the floor. “How did we get here?” she asked. “Again?”
She was thinking of Jed McIntyre’s lair beneath the city streets of New York, about the tunnels where he chased her and then she chased him.
Jeffrey sat beside her. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Really? When? While I was lying here unconscious?”
“I’ve been sitting here beside you in the dark for a while. As long as you were still breathing, I figured I’d wait for you to come around.”
She didn’t say anything, knowing he’d go on.
“I think we’ve made some serious errors in judgment.”
Given their current situation, she couldn’t really argue with him. He slid down beside her and she leaned against him. Just his nearness quelled the low-grade panic she felt at being trapped, her fear for where Dax might be. She rested her head on his shoulder.