Centralia (19 page)

“Nichols?”

“Yeah, but he’s a ghost. He doesn’t exist anywhere. You’ll find no record of him; he’s on no payroll. I don’t even know if that’s his real name. I doubt it is.”

Peter couldn’t make sense of this. It was too much. This man, who’d nearly killed him, was asking him to believe that the very reality he knew and understood was all a lie. Where was the truth? How could he find it? Was there any such thing, or was it all just a matter of whose perspective, whose spin on the facts?

But even as the thought occurred to him, he knew it was faulty reasoning. Regardless of any lies that were fed to him, something had
actually
happened. Truth
 
—reality
 
—was more than just the way somebody told the story or the way he remembered it. He just
had to find a way to sift the truth out of it, like panning for gold
 
—whatever’s real will settle at the bottom.

Maybe this man, his captor, had some of the answers, but could Peter trust Habit? The guy might be the one feeding him a bunch of lies, luring him in as one would a starving dog with a slab of raw meat only to capture it in a kennel and haul it away to be euthanized. He might be feigning camaraderie when his intent was catastrophe.

But there was a Mr. Nichols. That much at least was corroborated by his dream. And Peter had a phone number to go with it. But how had he ever learned the number? How did he know this Nichols? How did that information wind up in his dream? Somewhere and at some time, Peter must have had some interaction with Nichols, even if it wasn’t directly.

“I have his phone number,” Peter said.

“Who?”

“Nichols. And what about Abernathy? Do you know him?”

Habit paused and shifted his eyes. “Abernathy.” He said it like he was surprised Peter knew the name. “If Nichols is a ghost, then Abernathy is a mere idea. He has nothing to do with this now. Not anymore. Though if he did . . .” Habit tensed his jaw for a moment, then winced at the pain this must have caused in his cheek. “How did you come by Nichols’s number?” Habit seemed truly surprised that Peter would possess the number of such an enigmatic man, as if the number was more elusive than Nichols himself.

Peter wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Habit the truth. Just yesterday Habit might have killed him if Peter hadn’t grilled his face. “That’s none of your business.”

Habit’s eyes narrowed. “You forget I’m the one holding the gun.”

Peter glared at him.

“And,” Habit continued, “I’m the one who can help you find your wife and daughter. Karen and Lilly, right?”

The way Habit said their names, with a kind of familiarity he didn’t deserve to have, made Peter’s skin burn with anger. He slapped the desk and jumped to his feet. “Where are they?”

Habit took a step closer and tensed. “Sit back down, Patrick. Not so quick. I have something I need you to do first.”

Lawrence Habit was in no mood to negotiate. This was survival time. Kill or be killed. He had to get to Nichols, and Patrick was his way in. He had no idea how Patrick could have gotten Nichols’s phone number, but if he was telling the truth, that number was worth a trainload of gold to Lawrence.

Patrick sat back down on the desk, his hands balled into fists, neck tense and veins bulging. Lawrence had seen him like this before, on the field of battle, in the heat of a mission.

“Here’s the deal,” Lawrence said. “You get me to Nichols and I’ll get you the truth about your wife and kid.”

“Why do you want Nichols?”

Lawrence smiled. “Now that’s none of
your
business.”

“What do you want me to do?” Patrick was ready to concede. Lawrence knew he would. The guy’s family instinct was too strong; it was always his weakness. No matter how hard the agency tried, they couldn’t scrub him of that. “I want you to call Nichols, arrange a meeting with him.”

Patrick’s face showed no emotion, but Lawrence knew he was surprised by the request. “How do you know he’ll meet with me?”

“Oh, he’ll meet with you. Trust me. You’re a top priority.”

Patrick seemed to think about that. He pushed his hand through his hair, rubbed his face, the back of his neck, then his temples. Finally, “Okay. Then what?”

“Then you let me handle it from there. You just get Nichols out in the open. Get him to reveal himself. He will for you.” Lawrence shook the gun at Patrick. “You really don’t know how special you are, do you?”

Patrick’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I don’t even know who I am.”

“I told you. You’re Sergeant Jed Patrick, Army Rangers.” Lawrence could see Patrick didn’t believe it, though. “It’ll come back to you. Give it time.”

Jed Patrick.
Peter said the name over and over again in his mind, tried to imagine Karen saying it, tried to hear her voice saying
Jed
. But there was nothing there, no recognition.

“Do I have your cooperation?” Habit asked.

Peter said, “Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice. Life and death, it’s always a choice.”

“Tell me what you know about Nichols and the agency. Why can’t I remember? What are they doing with Karen and Lilly?”

Habit wagged a finger at Peter. “That’s not how it works, Patrick. You don’t get to negotiate here. You only say whether you want a chance to recover your wife and kid. That’s it. We get through this with Nichols out of the picture, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Until then, I’ve already told you too much.”

“Too much? You haven’t told me anything.”

“I told you your real name, and I gave you the name of the man behind your problems. And I gave you my word that I’ll take care of him. Isn’t that enough?”

It wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough. Peter had so many questions that had gone unanswered. But Habit wouldn’t waver. That wasn’t his style. “What do you need me to do?”

“You got a phone?”

He still had Ronnie’s smartphone. “Yes.”

“Good. Call Nichols. Tell him you want to talk. In the open. Tell him he needs to come to you. He needs to come to the surface.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll understand in time.”

“And what if he doesn’t come?”

Habit smiled and shook his head. “You don’t get it. For you, he’ll come. You’re worth so much to him. And you could do so much damage. People like him are all about self-preservation, covering their tracks, avoiding exposure.”

Peter didn’t like the sound of the deal. It was too risky, and there wasn’t enough assurance for him that Habit would uphold his end. “And how do I know you won’t just kill me too?”

Habit’s smile melted and he furrowed his brow. “I’m not like that, Patrick. If you remembered me, you’d know that.”

“You already tried to kill me.”

“I was trying to bring you in. That’s how bad they wanted you. But that was different, anyway. It was work, an assignment, nothing personal.”

“So what’s changed now?”

“Everything. I don’t work for them anymore, and now it’s personal. You do this, you get Nichols in the open, and I’ll keep my word.” He pointed at the bandage covering his face, protecting the burns Peter had caused. “I’ll even forgive this and let it go.” His eyes unfocused for a moment, looking at something beyond the confines of this room, this town. “After all, it’s the least I can do.”

“Why is it so important for you to get Nichols?”

The grin was there again, pushing Habit’s eyes into crescents. “That’s not your concern. Stay focused, Patrick. That’s what you were always so good at.”

“And what if I say no to this whole plan? What if I want to take my own chances at finding my family? What then?”

“Like I said, you have no choice here but life and death. That’s it. Accept my help and live, or I leave you for the wolves, and your wife and kid lose all hope of ever seeing the sunshine again. Believe me: Nichols will keep sending his goons in greater numbers, and they won’t stop coming until you’re in custody or dead.”

They took her daughter again. Three men
 
—three different men
 
—came and escorted her out of the room. The woman fought them this time; she ran at them, swinging her arms, kicking her feet, hollering like a mother bear bent on fighting to the death. It wasn’t like her; she wasn’t the violent type. Never had she lashed out at her husband; never had she struck her daughter. Never before had she balled her hands into fists and gone after someone with all the latent fury and ferocity within her. But all it got her this time, her first time, was a swollen lip and a bruised cheekbone. Regardless of the indignation her vigilance ignited, she found out rather quickly that she was no match for three men.

She knew they’d be torturing her daughter again, and it drove her nearly mad. They could call it whatever they wanted to, but it was torture. They were torturing an eight-year-old.

Her daughter, God bless her, never showed any fear. She willingly stepped forth, her faith intact even if her emotions were shaken, and kept telling the woman that she’d be okay, that God would protect her, that he would comfort her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

The woman wished she had that kind of faith. She wished she could be as steadfast. So fierce was her mettle that in spite of several blows to the head and face and one to the abdomen, she fought the men right up until they shut the door; then she fell to her knees and railed at God. Why had he allowed this to happen? How could he just stand by and let them abuse her daughter, her precious little girl? How could he reward a child’s faith with such disinterest?

And she cried
 
—oh, how she cried. The tears poured from her eyes like water from a hose. She cried until she had no more tears to cry, until her head throbbed and her throat was as raw as if she’d swallowed barbed wire. She was so helpless and the situation was so hopeless. What kind of a mother couldn’t protect her daughter?

The anger intensified then to rage, against the men for taking her baby, against her husband for abandoning them, against God for doing nothing. For what seemed an hour, she pounded the bed and pulled at her hair.

And then, fully exhausted and drenched in sweat, she cried again. But this time it was tears of remorse and sorrow that leaked from her eyes. This time, as she fell to her knees, it was not to question or accuse God but rather to petition him, to beg his forgiveness, to ask for strength and courage and most of all faith. Her husband had not abandoned them. God had not deserted them. He was there; he was very present.

Her daughter knew that. The woman knew it too.

Peter Ryan clutched the phone in his hand and stared up at the late morning sky as if expecting the clouds to suddenly reconfigure and form a map showing him the way to Karen and Lilly, giving him a way out of the fix he’d found himself in. The cloud cover that had previously blanketed the area was breaking up, revealing patches of bright blue. But other than clouds, the sky was empty. No birds flew overhead; no contrails from planes striped the sky; no messages materialized; no maps appeared. And the town was still eerily quiet.

Habit had taken Peter’s guns and given him precise instructions. He was to go to an abandoned house on what used to be Elm Street, call Nichols, and demand he meet Peter outside the house. Alone.

Peter didn’t like the plan. It left him too exposed. Men from the agency had been after him since yesterday morning. What would keep them from coming for him now? And he still didn’t trust Habit. Peter had been backed into a corner with the only way out directing him into a trap. But if he ever wanted to see Karen and Lilly again, he’d have to go along for now, comply and take his chances, and somehow stay alive.

The house was not much of a home anymore. All the windows had been busted out, the paint had peeled and disintegrated decades ago, and the wood trim was bare, worn smooth by years of exposure to rain, sleet, snow, and wind. The roof had caved in on the east end, leaving a gaping hole the size of a small car. The sidewalk leading up to the house lay splintered and cracked. Whole slabs jutted out of the ground as if the soil beneath had opened its mouth and attempted to swallow the walkway only to spit it out again after chipping its teeth. Lastly, the house had shifted atop a
crumbling foundation, creating a kind of lopsided fun house where the only thrills one would experience were the near-death type. Peter half expected a machine gun–toting clown to emerge at any moment and welcome visitors to his house of confusion.

Forcing his hand to move, Peter put the battery back into the device and dialed the number from his dream.

After two rings a man answered. “Peter? Is that you?”

The voice. It was the man from his flashbacks.
“Welcome to Centralia, Sergeant. Are you ready to become the soldier you were born to be? The soldier your country needs?”

As Peter expected, they were waiting to track Ronnie’s number and triangulate his location. But it didn’t matter now, since the whole purpose of the call was to arrange a little face-to-face. And it only made sense that Nichols would know, would be expecting this call. Like the creator of a fantastically creepy world where nothing was as it seemed but much more mysterious and bizarre, Nichols had been there from the beginning, whenever that was, lording his command, reveling in his control. He held the key to Peter’s identity. The memory flashed back so quickly it nearly caused him to drop the phone. The water. The suffocating, drowning.
“Ryan, get up!”

That voice.

“Peter. Are you there, son?”

Anger clawed at Peter’s gut and climbed into his chest and up his throat. He clutched the phone so tight he felt he could easily crack its casing. “Who are you?”

“Who I am is irrelevant to you, Peter. We need to talk, don’t we?”

“Who am I? What did you do to me?”

“You don’t remember?” There was a pause, a few awkward beats of silence. Then, “But it’s coming back to you, isn’t it?”

Peter remained quiet while he struggled to calm himself. Anger
clouded the mind and made a person more prone to foolish decisions. And besides, he didn’t want Nichols to hear the desperation in his voice. Finally he said, “Where are my wife and daughter?”

“We need to talk, Peter. Straighten all this out. You deserve to know. Why don’t I send some of my men to get you, and we can talk in a safe place.”

And be trapped and shot like a dog? “No. We talk out here in the open.”

Another long pause
 
—so long, in fact, that Peter thought Nichols had disconnected. “Okay then. It’ll be your way. I’ll come to you. But I hope you see this as the gesture of goodwill that it is.”

“Of course.”

“Where are you?”

Either he genuinely didn’t know yet where Peter was or he was bluffing, feigning ignorance so as not to raise Peter’s sense of alarm and alertness.

Peter said, “By the old house on Elm Street, the only one left standing.”

“I know it.” And then the phone went dead.

Peter stood there for a few seconds with the phone still to his ear, his heart thundering, sweat beading on his brow and chin. He’d have one chance at this. He’d determined already that he couldn’t trust Habit to keep his word. After he killed Nichols, he’d kill Peter. So Peter had to quickly formulate a plan to both get the information he needed from Nichols and get out alive.

Peter checked his watch. Five minutes had ticked by and no sign of Nichols. Then ten minutes. Fifteen. He was about to leave when he heard footsteps inside the house, floorboards creaking, shoes scuffing.

A middle-aged man emerged from the dilapidated structure just
as casually as if he lived there and was exiting to welcome visitors to his humble dwelling. No more than sixty, Nichols was slightly overweight, thick in the midsection, with rounded shoulders. His eyes were heavy and tired, and he had thick jowls, like a bulldog. A healthy crop of white hair sat atop his head, ruffled and mussed. He wore a white shirt, tan dress pants, and a tie loosened around his neck. Not appropriate attire for a man who apparently spent his time hiding out in abandoned homes.

To the surface,
Peter thought. There must be an entrance in the house to an underground structure. The ramshackle house was merely a front, the tip of an iceberg or network of icebergs housing a government agency as ghostlike and shadowy as any paranormal hunter’s film negatives.

Nichols stepped down off the porch and carefully navigated the ruined sidewalk.

Nothing about the man was familiar to Peter. Not his face or his dress or the way he walked. If he’d ever known Nichols, if he’d ever seen him before, he didn’t remember it now.

Stepping onto the road, Nichols walked up to Peter and said, “We really need to do something about that sidewalk, huh?”

Peter said nothing. He looked past Nichols at the house. It appeared empty, but appearances could be deceiving. Nichols would be an important man, and men like him rarely, if ever, traveled alone. He had backup; they were in there, hidden in the shadows, looming in the darkened places. Habit must know it too. Peter didn’t know where the big guy was, but he assumed Habit remained at a safe distance, ready to pick off Nichols with one squeeze of the trigger.

Nichols stuck out his hand. “Peter Ryan, what a pleasure it is to meet you. Again.”

In another place and another time Nichols would appear to be anyone’s father or grandfather, a gentle man, cordial, polite, friendly. But here, he was a menace and a phony, every movement calculated, every sentence carefully parsed. And for this reason Peter didn’t shake his hand. “Don’t you mean Jed Patrick?”

Nichols smiled. “Your name is Peter Ryan.” He looked deep into Peter’s eyes as if through them he could peer directly into a place he’d been before and had spent some time: Peter’s soul. “But I think you know that.”

Peter stared back at him, feeling naked and vulnerable and trying not to show the emotion that was building within him. He didn’t know it. Or did he?

Nichols tilted his head to one side. “What is it you want, son?”

Peter didn’t know what Habit’s plan was. He presumed there would be a shot, a single shot, that would drop Nichols. But he’d also presumed it would have happened fairly quickly. What was Habit waiting for?

“Why were those men trying to kill me yesterday?”

Nichols sighed, shook his head. “I’m afraid that was a misunderstanding. A terrible misunderstanding. And unfortunately it cost a few lives.” Nichols coughed, then coughed again, harder this time. The cough quickly became a hack, loud, forceful. His face turned red; he loosened his tie even more as his coughing fit continued, almost doubling him at the waist.

Peter was considering what to do when Nichols stopped coughing and stood upright and somehow had a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Peter’s head. They were more than an arm’s length apart, taking away any defense the quicker Peter might have had if they were closer.

Peter took another step backward.

“Hands where I can see them,” Nichols said.

Peter turned his palms toward the older man.

“On your knees.” Nichols motioned with the gun toward the pavement. “Now.”

Peter hesitated. Where was Habit? Why hadn’t he taken the shot? Maybe he was in it with Nichols. Maybe this was a ploy to take Peter alive. But Habit had had Peter at gunpoint in the school. He could have taken him then. Why hadn’t he?

Peter’s heart raced like the hooves of a herd of wild stallions. Something had to happen now; he had to do something.

Nichols took a step closer. “Now, Peter! On your knees.”

Suddenly the concussion of gunfire sounded, and Nichols’s head snapped back.