Where All Paths Meet, page 14
part #3 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
“H’s car is over there too. We parked right next to each other. Rivera, you’re going the wrong way.”
“Detective Rivera,” he said grimly.
“What the hell? H, help! I’m being kidnapped.”
We were approaching a Chevy Tahoe done up with the Utah County Sheriff’s Department logo or seal or whatever you called it, and now Rivera released me, turning the movement into a shove that sent me stumbling toward the SUV.
“Is this funny to you?” Rivera snapped. “Is this a big joke?”
“Easy,” Yazzie said.
I caught myself on the Tahoe, turned, couldn’t meet Rivera’s eyes.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rivera shouted.
“Take a walk,” Yazzie said.
Rivera rounded on her like he might shout at her too, but she stared him down. Shaking his head, Rivera turned away. He stalked toward the far end of the parking lot, ranting to himself, the words too low for me to hear them.
“What’s his problem?” I asked.
“Get in the back of the truck,” Yazzie said, and she took out a fob, and the Tahoe beeped twice.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, Jack, you’re not under arrest. Get in the truck, please.”
I looked at Holmes. He glanced back at the Scorpio building; Jowly and his partner had followed us outside. “I believe it would be best if we did what they said.”
“Fine.” I yanked open the Tahoe’s back door. “Come on.”
“Holloway’s going to keep me company,” Yazzie said, holding out a hand to stop Holmes.
“Are you for real?”
From the end of the lot came Rivera’s strangled scream: “Get in the fucking truck!”
So, I got in the truck.
Yazzie walked Holmes toward the back of the lot. I could still see them if I craned my head, but then I couldn’t keep an eye on the Zodiac security goons. I figured maybe that was the point. Inside the Tahoe, the air was too warm for comfort, so I kept the door open. The breeze came into the truck in cool little licks, but I still had sweat on my forehead by the time Rivera came back.
He climbed into the front seat, started the Tahoe, and cranked up the air. He’d loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. I wasn’t sure how old he was—not too old, I didn’t think—but he sure looked tired. You could see it in his bloodshot eyes, in the way he held his head.
“Close the door,” he said.
I closed the door. It was better with the air on. Something was playing on the Tahoe’s sound system, but it was too quiet for me to make it out.
When Rivera spoke again, his voice had a measured calm. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Ok, first of all, we didn’t do anything. H has every right to be in that building. It’s his dad’s company, and—”
Rivera looked at me in the rearview mirror, and I stopped talking.
“I like you, Jack. Against my better judgment, actually. You’re about as dumb as they come, and you fall ass over banana into trouble every time I turn around, but I think you’re a good kid.” He seemed to consider that statement and added, “More or less.”
“Um, thanks?”
“Do you understand what happened up there?”
He held my gaze in the mirror, and I broke first. I nodded and mumbled, “I was saying dumb stuff because—I don’t know. I was still freaking out a little.”
“Fine. That’s fine. I don’t care about that. You say dumb stuff all the time; I’m used to it. I was…out of line. Adrenaline gets going, you know?”
His silence lasted until I nodded.
“So,” Rivera said, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” His eyes were waiting for me when I checked the mirror again, and I flushed as I added, “Me too.”
“Here’s the deal, Jack. I don’t know what I stumbled into. I don’t know why someone broke into Margaret Moriarty’s office last night. I don’t know who it was, although I’m starting to have some thoughts about that. I don’t know why her car was abandoned up Provo Canyon—”
“Wait, what?”
“—but I just stood in a room with eight men who were thinking about killing me because they didn’t want to let you and Holloway out of their hands, and I don’t like that. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on. Not knowing what’s going on gets you killed. And I would really, really like to see my kids graduate high school.”
Whatever was playing on the sound system, it was soft and kind of nice. Rivera moved his hands on the steering wheel. He turned up the air even though it didn’t need it.
“I didn’t know you had kids.”
He shrugged. “I don’t, most of the time.” He must have seen the question on my face because he said, “Divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s what happens. You let things get away from you. You get angry. You hold grudges.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It wasn’t my fault. I’m fucking perfect.”
That startled a laugh out of me, and I was surprised by the quick grin in the mirror, the way it crinkled his eyes. I asked the question before I’d even considered it: “How many kids do you have?”
“Two. Girls.”
“How old are they? Are they in high school?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing!”
“Are they in high school? Why? You want to date them? Jesus Christ, Moreno, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I didn’t—that’s not what—” The grin didn’t surface this time, but I could see it in those bloodshot eyes. “You are such an asshole!”
That flash of amusement again. “Seven and nine.”
I sat with that. Rivera turned up the music. I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t even know what it was. It made me think of Renaissance Faires and girls with long hair who loved crystals. Finally, I asked, “What is this?”
“Enya.” When I didn’t say anything, Rivera added, a little defensively, “Yazzie says I need to listen to something for my blood pressure.”
I smiled and covered it with both hands, but the smile faded quickly. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Jack, I think you’re a decent person, but I also think you’re a teenager, which means your brain starts in your dick and ends in your balls. I’d like you to know that what I’m asking you, I’m asking you because I’m a real person. I’ve got a life. I’ve got two little girls who actually like me, believe it or not. I’ve got an ex-wife who burned me in effigy, I shit you not. And I want you to think about all that before you answer when I ask you to tell me what I walked into up there.”
“That’s why Yazzie took H. You think he won’t tell you, and you think I won’t tell you if he’s here.”
“I think it’s good practice to separate witnesses.” He waited a moment and added, “And suspects.”
The A/C was too cold now, and I shivered as goose bumps broke out on my arms. I thought about what he’d said. I figured Rivera might be lying, trying to make me like him or feel sorry for him or think of him as a human being. He was probably telling the truth, though. I could see him with two little girls. They’d be crazy about him.
“What do the police think happened?”
Rivera rubbed his jaw, the stubble rasping under the heel of his hand. He must have considered the question for two or three minutes; one Enya song faded into another, this one with a million flutes. When he spoke, it was grudgingly. “The official story from Zodiac is that there was an attempted break-in, which included cutting off the power to the Scorpio building and disabling the backup generator.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“What don’t you understand?”
I weighed my options. “What did Zodiac say was stolen? Officially, I mean.”
“Nothing. They said the AI labs were targeted, but they weren’t breached, and the thieves left when Zodiac security arrived on the scene.”
“And tried to shoot us full of holes,” I said under my breath.
“Want to try that again? A little louder, maybe. That sounded like it had legal implications.”
I gave him the finger in the rearview mirror, but I said, “Do you know who Lynnissa Baca is?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
He didn’t say anything else, so after a few more moments, I said, “Look her up.”
“No, Jack. That’s not how we’re playing this. This isn’t you and Holmes playing treehouse detectives at your private school for rich kids. This is the real world, and there are people involved, organizations involved, that have a lot of money and a lot of sway. You need to tell me whatever you know. And you need to tell me now.”
This was why I needed Holmes. I didn’t know if I should tell Rivera everything. I didn’t know if I should tell him some of it, or none of it. He might be able to help us find who had killed Baca—and, in the process, recover Watson’s portable safe. I wanted to know what was in that safe. I needed to know. But recruiting Rivera could have the opposite effect. I trusted Rivera, and I trusted Yazzie—but did I trust everybody in the sheriff’s department? The Holmeses and the Moriartys had a lot of sway, as Rivera put it, and anything I told Rivera, I had to assume it would filter through the sheriff’s department in reports, briefings, water-cooler gossip, and the like. Rivera and Yazzie might be cool, but I didn’t believe the rest of the department was untouchable.
“Maggie’s car,” I said. “Did you really find it up Provo Canyon?”
Rivera sat there for a minute. He pushed against the steering wheel like it was holding him up. Then he said, “Nobody has seen Margaret Moriarty since the Zodiac anniversary party last night.”
“What—”
“The official explanation is that she went hiking and got lost or hurt. Search and rescue teams are already looking for her.”
“That’s why you’re here. You thought maybe the break-in was connected to her disappearance.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Jack.”
“I’m telling you the truth! I don’t know!” There were too many possibilities, too many options. Holmes wanted to believe that Maggie could be behind all of this—that she had tracked Baca down, killed her, and recovered the safe. I knew what he’d say when I told him about her abandoned car. He’d say it was a ruse, a decoy, a misdirection. But the truth was, he didn’t want to accept what was right in front of him. He didn’t want to face the fact that his father was a psycho, a monster, a murderer. The reality was that I needed help if I was going to prove that Blackfriar was behind Baca’s death. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t count on Holmes.
“Ok,” I said, “I’m going to tell you, but you can’t tell anyone. Not even Yazzie.”
“That’s not—”
“Not even Yazzie!” I tried to lower my voice. “Or I’m not telling you anything.”
“She’s my partner. This isn’t the Wild West; I’m in a functioning sheriff’s department. I have responsibilities, procedures—”
“If you need to tell somebody, we can talk about it. Maybe. But not yet. Not right now.”
I couldn’t read his face in the mirror when he said, “Fine.”
“Promise me.”
“Jack—”
“Promise!”
“Good Christ. All right, I promise I won’t tell anybody until you and I have a chance to talk it out.”
I took a deep breath. “What do you know about Blackfriar Holmes?”
Rivera turned his head to look back at me. Then he froze.
A soft tap came at my window.
It was like a nightmare, one of those dreams when you can’t run fast enough, when something behind you is always getting closer.
Blackfriar Holmes stood outside the Tahoe, staring in at me, the tarnished tin of his eyes glowing in the spring sun. He wore a sharkskin suit, and as he held up his phone, his mouth offered its rictus smile. “Detective Rivera,” he said through the glass, but his eyes were on me, and he was speaking to me, and the rictus was for me. “I’ve just spoken to Jack’s father. He’s agreed that it’s in everyone’s best interest if I take my son and his friend home with me.” The dead-man’s smile grew. “Now.”
Chapter 16
Training
Rivera talked to Dad on Blackfriar’s phone. He stood out of earshot, his body rigid. When he came back, he handed the phone to me and looked me in the eye.
I put the phone to my ear.
“You’re at a sleepover with Rowe,” Dad said.
“Dad, wait—”
“I don’t think so. We talked about this. We talked about the lying.” His silence vibrated across the call. “I am so disappointed in you.”
“Ok, I’m sorry, but—”
“You’re going with Mr. Holmes. You’re going to get in his car, and you’re not going to give him any lip, Jack. And you’re going to thank him. Do you understand?”
Blackfriar watched me from across the lot, a tin-snip gleam in his eyes.
“What did he tell you? What did he say?”
“He said you broke into his company!” The fury bumped Dad’s voice up a notch. “He said you hurt someone! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I didn’t—”
“And instead of pressing charges, he’s sticking his neck out so that you and Holloway don’t get arrested.”
“That’s not what happened!”
I could almost hear Dad wrestling with himself on the other side of the call. Finally, he asked, “Then what happened?”
Rivera folded his arms and stared at me. Dad’s breathing sounded labored, and I wondered if the stress had kicked off a migraine.
“Detective Rivera wants to talk to me. That’s all.”
“That’s not what Mr. Holmes thinks. He thinks they’re going to take you in for questioning, and then they’re going to arrest you. And you know what? When I asked Detective Rivera, he danced around the question.” The tension in his voice broke, and he sounded tired when he added, “Jesus, Jack, what is going on? I thought we were over this.”
The wind soughed through the tall grasses. A thistle, with its bright purple blossom, bobbed and swayed.
“Fine,” Dad said. “I’m coming up there.”
“No.” I glanced around for Holmes, but in the confusion, I’d lost him. Yazzie stood alone, hands on her hips, her expression flat. “No, I’ll go.”
After a long pause, Dad grunted. “You screwed up, buddy.”
“I’m sorry.”
It must have cost him not to yell, not to tell me how hard I was making his life, not to say any of the things he was probably thinking. “We’ll talk about it when you get home.”
“The truck—”
“Don’t worry about the truck. You’re not going to be driving anywhere, Jack. Not anytime soon.”
When I disconnected, Rivera’s dark eyes rested on me.
I shook my head.
“I can put you in the Tahoe,” Rivera said. “He wouldn’t try to take you.”
But he didn’t sound sure about that.
I shook my head again. “No, it’s—it’ll be all right.”
Rivera was doing everything except look at Blackfriar. He stepped closer, and his next words barely reached me over the sound of the wind. “What is it?”
“Jack?” Blackfriar called.
For a moment, frustration marred Rivera’s face. Then he nodded, cuffed me on the side of the head, and sent me over to Blackfriar.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he drove a black Bentley. If anything, it made sense, but I still had a moment of numb disbelief. At his boldness, I guess. And that Holmes hadn’t told me.
Holmes sat in the back seat, and when I slid in beside him, he didn’t look over. I buckled myself in, and Blackfriar started the car, and we eased out of the lot.
“So, Jack,” Blackfriar said, the engine purring beneath his words. “Tell me about school.”
I glanced at Holmes, but his face was vacant, and I realized he wasn’t going to be any help. So, after a moment, I said, “It’s good.”
“How are your classes? How’s chemistry? My son tells me you’re doing better.”
We spent the drive like that, in a kind of grotesque farce of civilized conversation: Blackfriar asking questions that sounded perfectly normal, while beneath the surface, dark waters roiled and churned. And through it all, Holmes remained silent, his face blank. He had locked himself away, and I was on my own.
They didn’t live far, thank God—in Draper, on the other side of Point of the Mountain. On a bluff, of course, looking out over the Salt Lake Valley. We had to stop at the gate, where a line of young oaks and a hedge hid the house from the street. Then we followed a long drive as the gate rolled shut behind us. The lawns were the vibrant green that only comes from gratuitous amounts of labor and chemicals and water, and every flower bed was exquisitely laid out. You could tell that the early bloomers—the crocuses, the tulips, the pansies, the hyacinths—they were part of a plan that would reveal itself over the seasons. To anybody who had lived in Utah, it was obvious this little paradise had been carved out of the mountain—everything artificially leveled and even. Controlled. That was the word. Everything in Blackfriar’s world had been subdued, beaten into submission. Even the mountains. A Holmes must always be in control.
The house itself was a monstrosity—the kind of thing that was too big to be called charming. It might have been beautiful, but it was so overwhelming that even that didn’t feel true. It was a mixture of stone and stucco with a slate roof, dormer windows, a carriage house, hell, an honest-to-God turret. There was even a Juliet balcony. From the side, I caught a glimpse of the deck at the back, where it cantilevered out over the steep drop of the bluff.
Blackfriar stopped the car, and we all got out. I touched Holmes’s arm, and he looked at me, eyes dull, as though he weren’t seeing me.
“Reichenbach Grange, our home sweet home,” Blackfriar said. “It’s pretentious, I know, naming a place, but I couldn’t help myself. It seemed appropriate to remember the place where Sherlock Holmes was thought to have perished, only for him to return triumphantly from the land of the dead. What do you think, Jack?”
