Shift: Infected, #5, page 37
She jumped ahead to the Seattle Times’s webpage and the huge obituary they ran for Cook. Okay, now he believed it. “He bought the domain name when?”
“For the snuff site? Six months ago.”
“From before he died?”
“No, hon, six months ago.”
Yeah, okay, that didn’t make sense. “Who’s the head of Visionics Limited now?”
“No one. It’s a dummy corporation.”
He knew Fiona wasn’t trying to be irritating, but this kind of was. Would it kill her to just spit it out? “Who’s in charge of Cook’s estate?”
“No one.” Her blue eyes gazed back up at him expectantly, as if she was hoping he would make sense of all of this. “His family was gone, he was an only child, he never married or seemingly had a serious girlfriend. I think he was closeted gay or asexual. Anyways, his will stipulated that all his money be shared between six different charities.”
“So the Visi-whatever the hell name is up for grabs.”
“Technically, although not a lot of people know about it.”
Roan considered this all carefully, feeling he was getting closer to something big and ugly. “Hatcher had to know about the shell corp.”
She bit her lower lip in thought. She wasn’t wearing makeup right now, but she was still attractive in a warm, open way that you really wouldn’t anticipate from someone with a footlocker full of whips and nipple clamps. “You’d think so. But you don’t think the snuff site is his, do you? Why would he hire you if it was? He wouldn’t want this coming out.”
“How would it? He hired me to look for Jordan, not for the owner of a snuff site.” A couple of things seemed to suddenly pop up in his mind, like corpses finally rising to the surface of a stagnant pond. “That’s why he’s been ducking my calls. He can’t find the owner of the site ’cause it’s him, and he doesn’t want me to know. Bet the server isn’t in Romania either. Son of a bitch.”
“But if Jordan’s run off to find the snuff film location, wouldn’t he know?”
“Hatcher’s a busy guy. I bet he’s not hands-on with the site. In fact, he may just profit from the fucking thing, and someone else runs it. Someone who wouldn’t know Jordan on sight, especially if he gave them a phony name.” Did that sound right? No, none of this would ever sound right, but it felt sickeningly plausible. Was that how Jordan found the site in the first place? He found the name somewhere among his dad’s stuff and checked it out and discovered he liked it. But he never let his father know he was in on his dirty secret. It allowed him to hide in plain sight from his father, and who would look for him on a porn site? Certainly not Hatcher.
“Then...,” she began, turning back to the computer screen. She sounded like she didn’t know what to say. “Are we dead? Is he gonna have us killed ’cause we know his dirty little secret?”
“You watch too many bad movies. Killing us would just bring more attention to the problem he’s trying to sweep under the rug.”
“So how would he sweep us under the rug?”
She locked eyes with him, and he felt something loosen in the pit of his stomach. A man like him would delegate, would get someone—someones—with no connection to him whatsoever to take care of the problem.
Like white supremacists? He suddenly wondered how you went about hiring a gang of them, and how much it cost.
If Hatcher had started this ball rolling, Roan didn’t care how much money and power he had. He was going to kill the bastard.
18
Woolen Heirs
ROAN stormed out of Fiona’s place with a full head of steam (not just a cliché—it actually felt like it, like his head was a teakettle, and steam was just going to erupt through his ears at any moment). He called Hatcher’s number and got his machine again, so he simply said, “Either get back to me immediately, or this is all over the web. Hope you’ve had a colonoscopy recently, ’cause the Feds will be crawling up your ass by the end of the day. Close your eyes and think of England, you sick fuck.” He felt like throwing the phone, but he would have broken it. He made himself remember that this was his cell and not Hatcher himself. He just had to wait; then he could pick up Hatcher and throw him, hopefully from a very tall building.
What if his own money-grabbing exercise had killed his own son? Would that convince him that maybe, just maybe, this was all a big fucking mistake? Hard to say with raving capitalists sometimes.
He had just gotten in the car when his phone went off. Checking, he saw it was home calling. In a way, he hoped it was trouble, because then he could vent some steam on some assholes. “Yeah.”
“Honey,” Dylan said in a quiet, lilting voice. “I don’t want to alarm you, but our home has been infested by hockey players.”
“Not the entire team, I hope.”
“No. Actually, Tank is a hell of a cook.”
That was a surprise. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah! He made these buttery, cheesy omelets that were so good, I swear if he was gay, I’d have left you for him.”
“That’s it. Pack your shit and get out, you disloyal bastard.”
Dylan snickered. “He claims he can only cook breakfasts, though. Omelets, pancakes, crepes.”
“He makes crepes? Hot damn, I’ll leave you for him first.”
“I’ll try and save you some eggs, but hockey players eat like pigs. Scott already had to take off on an egg run.” He paused briefly. “Tank has an interesting story.”
“He’s been talking?”
“No, but he doesn’t have to. There’s a surprising amount of depth in his eyes. He always seems to be thinking. I bet he’s a hell of a lot smarter than he seems to be, probably—no offense to the rest of the Falcons—the smartest guy on the team. He’s also surprisingly good-natured for a man I wouldn’t trust around a loaded firearm. Speaking of which, I called my therapist.”
Dylan used to see a therapist on a regular basis but had quit about two years ago. Roan scoured his brain, trying to dig up the name. “Savage, right?”
“Yes, Doctor Savage. She has an opening on Thursday and can squeeze me in.”
“The problem is me, not you.”
“Bullshit. I learned how to manage my anger effectively, and I backslid. I don’t want to keep falling backwards.”
“Then you probably need to get away from me.”
“None of that. My wanting to protect you isn’t a failing on your part. It’s me needing to deal with my issues.”
“You know, it’s very sweet you want to protect me. Most people figure I’m on my own.” He leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. For some reason, anger often exhausted him.
“Well, you are a super-macho dude.”
“And inhuman. Don’t forget that.”
He sighed dramatically. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetie, but fuck you to hell.”
That made Roan chuckle. Really, he deserved no less. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just a little tired. I still can’t believe someone did that. Also, I can’t believe I’m entertaining a bunch of jocks from Canada.”
“Grey’s American.”
“Which explains so much about him. Of course he’s the team enforcer. Can we sue the Falcons for stereotyping?”
“You know, you’d think we should be able to. But it’s a fair cop, and society is to blame.” It was stuffy in the car, so Roan rolled down the window and noted how much better he was feeling. When he'd first got in here, he was ready to kill someone (Hatcher). Talking to Dylan had pulled him back to sanity, which was probably the best thing for everyone involved.
“You can’t go to the Monty Python well forever.”
“You’ll pry Monty Python from my cold, dead hand.”
“Wow. There’s so many things wrong with that sentence.”
“Yes, well, there’s so many things wrong with me.”
“Knock off the self-pity shit. But does that explain why you sounded so pissed off when you answered the phone?”
“Yeah, I was expecting another call. In fact, I’d better get off. And you’d better buckle up, ’cause there might be a shitstorm after this.”
“Another?” He sounded genuinely exasperated. “I know money is tight, but can we go somewhere and get you away from all this trouble you seem to be causing? Drive to California or something? What about Canada? We can go back to Canada.”
There was almost a plea in Dylan’s voice that made Roan feel bad. He was putting him through the wringer, hurting the only person he really didn’t want to hurt. He had to make this right with him, but he didn’t know how, or even if he should. If Dylan was a friend, describing a relationship with someone else, he’d advise him to pack up his shit and run, put as much distance between him and this drama-magnet boyfriend as possible. It was what he should tell Dylan now, only he wasn’t that noble. “Once we get through this, we can go wherever you want. You pick the place.”
Dylan thought about it a moment. “Atlantis.”
He smiled weakly at Dylan’s attempt at a joke. “The place has to actually exist.”
“Damn it. What is it with you and these picky loopholes?”
“I’m an asshole. Now I know it’s a pain in the ass, but stick with the rough boys ’til you hear from me again.” The rough boys were, of course, Grey, Tank, and Scott (and any secondary Falcons they may have roped into this baffling guard duty).
Dylan sighed heavily and seriously. He probably hadn’t been thrilled to wake up and find everyone else but Roan in the living room. “And when will that be?”
“I don’t know, honey. Soon, I promise.” He paused, looking out of the windshield, finally noticing it needed to be cleaned. If these Aryan fucks weren’t amateurs, he knew leaving Grey, Tank, and Scott to protect Dylan wouldn’t be enough, would just get them all killed, but they were amateurs, and Grey alone would be enough to take them out. But the others were just insurance, a guarantee that no matter what, Dylan would get through this okay. Physically okay, at any rate. “I love you.”
“You’d better,” he replied, in mock anger. “And remember, you’re not indestructible. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“You know damn well it’s too late for that.”
Roan waited for Hatcher to call him back, but he didn’t, and by the time he was driving along the lake, headed for Hatcher’s extravagantly expensive house, his anger had swelled to a nearly unmanageable size. He called Fiona to let her know he was going in, and if she hadn’t heard from him within an hour, to go ahead and let it run. She was ready to post at some hard-core tech sites, giving them the breakdown of Hatcher’s connections to the website. Not only would it then spiral, as web gossip was wont to do, but she was convinced there’d be some quality Hatcher-hating crackers (not hackers—that was apparently a gauche term) who’d infiltrate anything of Hatcher’s they could get their hands on. She was sure, illegal or not, they’d dig up even more dirt.
He drove up to the gate and gunned the engine. As soon as the speaker clicked on, he said, “Either let me in or I bring this gate down. There’s enough steel in this car to do it.” There was. Oh, how he loved Paris and his love of Road Warrior cars even more now. He could drive this puppy through the gate and straight into Hatcher's living room, and with its huge windows, it wouldn’t even be remotely difficult. He could probably keep the GTO going until the kitchen before he met sufficient resistance.
He was starting to judge how far he’d have to back up before getting sufficient momentum (Paris also made sure the engine could go from zero to sixty in almost no time at all) when there was a buzz, and the gates started automatically opening. Believed him, did they? Good; they should, because he was more than ready to do it. Oh sure, Hatcher could sue him for property damage, but fuck it—he was too poor to ever be able to pay him a cent. He probably knew that.
Roan screamed up the drive, ignoring the pristine view of the water, and barely stopped before he collided with the ornamental fountain. He launched himself out of the GTO like a bullet, stomping up to the door and almost colliding with it before officious Andrew opened it and stationed his narrow, angular form in the entryway. “Mr. Hatcher does not—” he began, his voice cold and sharp.
Roan snarled. Not a human approximation, but the real thing; he let enough of the lion out that it was happy to make itself known. Andrew jumped, and Roan continued growling while he forced himself to spit out words, which sounded like he was trying to talk through a mouthful of broken glass. “Get out of my way or pay for it.”
Roan pushed through the doorway, and Andrew was backing up in horror, mouth opening and closing dumbly, a pale hand fluttering to the base of his throat. Had he started changing? Roan honestly didn’t know. He knew his jaw hurt, he knew his vision was a little blurry, but that often happened when he was this angry. It didn’t mean he’d changed; it just meant he was on the verge of losing his shit. But the way Andrew was acting, the way the fear reek came off of him like bad intentions, maybe there was some change occurring; something (even if it was only anger) was transforming his face.
They were in the sterile, expensively appointed front room before Roan was even aware of it, bathed in so much light it was like being in heaven’s waiting room. Hatcher appeared in the archway of his study, and said, “Would you stop terrorizing—” Hatcher’s sentence broke off as he stared at Roan, and his expression was a studious blank, a wonderful poker face that actually told him all he needed to know. Hatcher was scared too.
Roan walked around Andrew and headed straight for Hatcher. “You motherfucker....”
“I don’t know what you think you’ve found—”
“Fuck you!” Roan roared, a genuine roar, and he had no idea if the words were even recognizable to anyone else. He gave Hatcher a flat-palmed shove in the chest, and he seemed to fly across the room, hitting the window wall hard enough to have all his breath knocked out of him. It was probably double paned or maybe bulletproof glass, otherwise Hatcher might have sailed right through it, although Roan thought he’d barely touched him. “Visionics Limited,” he rasped, trying to get his growling under control. “Tabu triple x. Your site, you own it.”
Now Hatcher looked baffled as he gasped in breaths like a newly surfaced drowning man. “What? What the hell is this, McKichan? Why—”
“People are dead because of you. They died because of you. You’ve probably killed your own son. You should join them.”
Something new and genuine blossomed on Hatcher’s face, and it was enough to make Roan pause. Confusion, fear, despair, all warring for supremacy. “What? What are you talking about? Where’s Jordan? What’s happened to him?”
Roan studied him carefully, head cocked to the side, looking for the tell, for the twitch that would let him know this was a bluff, Hatcher busting out his acting skills in an attempt to escape justice. But no, his sudden anxiety seemed genuine. Roan decided to interrogate him and make his next move accordingly. “Visionics Limited. You own it.”
“No!” He exclaimed it out of reflex, and he looked like a man who had suddenly lost his footing climbing a mountain. He scrambled for a new verbal foothold. “I-I own it with Conrad Maddux. Why?”
A new name. Not what he needed right now, as he always found it difficult to think like a human when the lion was out. “Who’s he?”
“A business partner. He takes care of....” Hatcher paused.
“He owns the porn sites,” Roan finished for him. “He takes care of that side of the business.”
He looked like he wanted to deny it, but Hatcher glanced at Roan’s face and looked away, down at the floor. It wasn’t a tell; he was too scared to look at him. Why he didn’t look at the flat screen tuned to some British financial news program, he didn’t know, but Roan could see the stock readouts scrolling out of the corner of his eye, see the blandly handsome newsreader talking to a man who looked like an animate scarecrow. “Yeah.”
“The site is killing people.”
“No.” He began shaking his head. “It’s fake. It’s all fake. You couldn’t—”
“There’s bodies. It’s stopped being fake.”
Hatcher froze, his posture stiff, his hands clenching at his sides. “What? You can’t have... it’s not here....”
Wow. Maddux had fucked Hatcher; he’d changed the rules of the game and not even told him. “It is now. Where would it be?”
Hatcher was shaking his head again, and it seemed pathetic, like a child trying to refuse his punishment by rejecting reality. “He wouldn’t dare. You don’t shit where you eat. You don’t bring it into America....”
“He did. And Jordan’s there, Hatcher. Now tell me, where would he put it?”
“Jordan?” Now he looked at him, too shell-shocked to be scared. “Why would he—”
“He found the site. You went over his computer. You must’ve seen it.”
“Yeah, but so? It’s a porn site! It doesn’t mean—”
A snarl of anger escaped him before Roan reined it in. “It’s not just a porn site. It’s fake death, it’s people fucking and killing each other. Pretend or not, it’s sick. I think he may have wanted to get into the business himself but decided in the end to go hands on.”
Hatcher started shaking his head again, but his eyes had the sudden shine of sickening knowledge. “No. He wouldn’t be that stupid. He wouldn’t—”
“I saw him.” Roan remembered the screen cap Holden had sent him and made his hands work, made them come out of fists and search his pockets for Dylan’s phone, which he still had. He found it, but he needed to focus to get back into human mode, to use his fingers and read words. With it, his anger faded, but it didn’t disappear; it remained in the background, as loud as the BBC, brighter than the late-afternoon sunlight.
Roan found the photo still and tossed the phone at Hatcher. It bounced off his chest before he caught it in his hands clumsily, and when he looked at the phone’s screen, he didn’t seem to get what he was seeing. Finally, he said, “What—”
“Friend of mine started going through the film clips, looking for recognizable victims. Jordan was taking part in one of the movies.”
