Knowing (18 page)

“That’s the last part of your prayer. You don’t remember it? You say it whenever you get nervous or feel cornered.”

Harlan shook his head. “If you say so.” He read the lines again. “What do you reckon he means when he says, ‘I will face the darkness’?”

Jane pondered how she should frame her answer. “I think it relates to who he worked for.” She laid out everything that Nanette shared with her about Gabe’s employers. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but Gabe really was a professional killer.”

The light seemed to drain from Harlan’s face. “Okay.” He allowed that realization to gel for a few minutes. “Who’d he work for?”

“I don’t know yet. But Nanette said that Gabe called them invisible.”

“She used that word, eh?” Harlan’s interest quickly grew.

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “Yep. I know that to be true. The crazy thing is, Jane, that I can feel invisible too sometimes. Like when I left the hospital to get away from Mr. Ramos? Nobody looked at me. Nobody stopped me. It was like they couldn’t even see me.” He handed Jane the photo.

“Hiding in plain sight,” Jane murmured. “I get it.” She took another look at the photograph. “Maybe Gabe knew how to become invisible.”

Harlan launched into his second burger. “For real?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he knew how to disappear off the map?” Jane reflected on a few key points Nanette shared with her. The card with the photo was not mailed to Nanette, indicating that Gabe personally left it in her mailbox. It was the kind of thing you do when you’re leaving town quickly and you want to make sure you make final contact with the people you care about. Nanette commented that the last time she saw Gabe was just over four and a half years ago. If he was thirty in the photo, it would make him thirty-three when he was killed. Taking into account what Nanette told her, Jane knew Gabe was in Scotland right before returning to the States. Her comment that “maybe he got out” and that perhaps he was going to “find himself” felt eerily accurate. It was a leap on Jane’s part but sometimes it was those leaps that often led her toward the truth.

Perhaps, she considered, something horrific occurred in Scotland—something that shook Gabe to his core. If her gut was leading her in the right direction, whatever happened had to be so viscerally haunting that he turned his back on the clandestine group he worked for and disappeared. Jane focused on the disconcerting scene that unfolded in her mind’s eye the previous night. She replayed the entire disturbing vision moment by moment, realizing now she was strangely witnessing Gabe on one of his sinister missions. Walking behind him down the shadowy hallway and then following him into the room where he shot the old man behind the desk, Jane recalled the unrushed manner in which Gabe inspected the files and separated them into piles. Then there was the white binder with the curious “IEB” on the front and the chilling question she mentally sent to him, “
What do you want from me
?” and his unsettling reply, “
Only what’s necessary
.”

Jane wondered if whatever was in those files and in that binder brought the gauntlet down on Gabe’s career. Why else would she have been shown such a disturbing set of events if it meant nothing to the case? The fact that Jane was even seriously postulating about what she saw in that scene made her take a mental step back. Her entire career was built on formal investigation and facts. And yet, there was always that free-floating vapor of intuition that operated just outside her perception of reality. When all else failed, she could dip into that strange mist of infinite knowledge and somehow always grasp the truth. But to simply hold someone’s hand and be privy to their dreams, nightmares and insights was pushing her usual abilities to a different level. If she was still a drinker, she’d blame it on the booze. If she hadn’t experienced all the unexplainable events that had taken place over the last few years, she would chalk it up to stress, low blood sugar or any other suitable explanation that swept it neatly under the rug. The thought crossed her mind that all those odd encounters from the past years occurred so that she could easily wrap her mind around this bizarre case. It was like priming a pump so that once it was primed the water flowed freely. And through that, she could plausibly accept what someone else could not begin to concede.

Allowing that understanding to percolate, Jane hypothesized that Gabriel might have easily disappeared for up to three years before being killed. What occurred during those missing years could have a lot to do with why he was taken out. If he did know something that wasn’t supposed to be revealed, he would be a defined target. She recollected the tried and true statement she’d mentioned to Harlan—
people are only after you if you know something, stole something or saw something
. If her indeterminate vision was accurate, Jane had to assume that Gabriel qualified for all three of those possibilities. Proving that conjecture was going to be a lot more difficult.

The story of the pine needle beer intrigued Jane. It wasn’t just the sync with the pine nuts and pinecone that Harlan collected in his mysterious bag. It was the tale about how Gabe refused to drink any beer that he felt was created to control or destabilize a man’s innate power. Jane felt that statement was not just relating to a man’s sexual power; somehow it referenced power and control that subverts a person’s will. Jane sensed that as much as Gabe may have cared for Nanette, he wasn’t about to discuss his work with her in any depth. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t talk around the subject. His comment to her that “everything we cling to is really an illusion that’s manufactured by people who want to control us,” hit Jane hard. After her last case in Midas, she was patently aware of how
control
of another person’s life and thoughts was critical if the goal was to usurp their power.

Since he was alone so much, Jane reasoned, Gabe had the need to unchain himself when he reconnected with Nanette. From her own experience, if you didn’t have someone to unload on—even if full disclosure wasn’t on the table—the chance of a person falling into a mental hellhole was more likely. You can repress your experiences with booze, cigarettes, drugs and sex but if you don’t set them free just a little bit, the ulcers appear, the heart attacks happen, the depression sets in and your mind becomes a trap that destroys your soul. It was the reason why the average criminal talked to someone about what they did. It wasn’t so much bragging rights, it was to relieve themselves of the burden that the event held over their psyche. Once spoken and released, they could live again and go about their day without the shadow of the darkened memory encroaching.

The more she contemplated the idea, the more she felt that this was exactly what took place between Gabe and Nanette. Somehow Gabe knew he could trust her. After all, when Nanette snooped in his duffel bag and found the ten passports with ten different names, he didn’t attack her or stop seeing her. He just
knew
she would keep her mouth shut without him having to ask her. Jane sensed that Gabriel Cristsóne had the uncanny ability to know what people thought and how they would react, given various circumstances. That made him a valuable soldier and probably an invaluable asset and assassin for his employers. With his innate gift of perceiving people and their motives in a way that others were incapable of, Gabe was miles ahead of everyone else who still relied on fallible data and second hand information.

While Harlan continued to chow down on the drive-in food, Jane brought out the greeting card and looked at the front again. There was the gold Egyptian Pharaoh’s statue with the brilliant gem blazing in the center of his elongated forehead. What was with all the Egyptian references? From the doomed
Anubus
to the popular Egyptian-centered tattoos at Alex’s shop and then onward to the Eye of Horus etched into the piece of lapis, it was clear that Gabe’s essence was screaming something at Jane but her ears weren’t yet tuned to the frequency.

She read the quote again from Matthew 6:22: “If your eye be single, your whole body should be full of light.” Jane peered at the golden Pharaoh and the solitary gem illuminated in its head. “If your eye be single…” she whispered to herself. She flashed on the Eye of Horus. That was a single eye, she figured. She recalled all the items Harlan collected in his bag—the pine nuts, solo pinecone, the
Yogi
book, the Patsy Cline cassette tape, a bottle of sandalwood oil, the Eye of Horus on the lapis, the key, the Eco-Goddesses brochure, the comical illustration depicting a Blue Heron walking tipsily across the road,
The
Q
magazine and the Easter card featuring the Angel Gabriel. She grabbed her computer, hoping that somehow she could hijack a Wi-Fi signal out there in the middle of BFE but she came up short.

“We have to find a motel,” Jane stated.

“But I thought we had to lay low—”

“I can’t keep working out of this car, or break into mountain cabins or pray that we’ll stumble upon another classic car show.” She could feel the pressure building inside her. “If we’re going to punch this investigation forward, I need to find us a shitty, low-rent motel that has Internet access.”

About ninety minutes east of their location, Jane found exactly what she was looking for. It was called “The Shangri-La,” but they should have called it “The Shangri-Low” because you’d have a hard time finding a motel that was much worse. The two-story structure looked like it was built in the 1950s and hadn’t been renovated since the 70s. But it was in the middle of nowhere and just enough off the beaten path to accommodate their needs for the night. There were also only two other cars in the parking lot that surrounded the motel on all sides and one of those cars was leaving. After checking in under “Anne LeRóy” and getting a room with two single beds, Jane drove the Mustang to their first floor room, #9. At least it wasn’t number seventeen, Jane mused. But it was on the corner of the two-story building, and well out of view from the main office. Jane parked the Mustang in a space three doors down and unpacked the car before telling Harlan to carefully remove himself from the backseat and follow her into the room.

Once inside their room, Jane quickly closed the grimy curtains on the only window in the place. Turning on the lights, they surveyed their temporary digs. It looked like a slightly remodeled storage unit, thanks to the cement walls and bunker-like quality. The twin beds were supported on a permanent concrete frame and separated by a night table that was bolted to the floor. A brown and red shag carpet covered the floor, complete with various holes where it looked like someone had dropped a hot iron skillet and singed the nylon fibers. A bureau that looked like it came out of Goodwill stood at the foot of the beds with an analog television that featured a DVR recorder. There wasn’t even a coffee maker or mini-fridge in the room but the ancient TV had a DVR remote control.

“Don’t drop anything on the carpet, Harlan. We’ll never find it.”

“If these walls could talk, they’d scream,” Harlan offered with a straight face.

“If these beds could talk, they’d beg to be vaccinated,” Jane added, removing her blond wig and sauntering into the cement-blocked bathroom. The shower looked like something you might find in a remote village while on a Peace Corps mission. The towels appeared as if they just came out of a trauma unit. It was the type of motel where you lay your head on the pillow and wake up an hour later with a non-specific sore throat. The kind of place where bed bugs remain bloated on their immovable feast. Where simply brushing against the sticky remote control produces a crimson rash and pinprick pustules. But with everything going against it, it was still better than another cramped night in the Mustang and safer than breaking into a remote mountain cabin.

As much as Jane wanted to dig into her computer, she realized that she could use a hot shower and some soap. The small showerhead put out a powerful blast of water pressure that soothed her aching muscles and slowly renewed her spirit. She washed her hair and was just about to get out when a thought crossed her mind. Standing under the intense jet, she quickly turned the hot water off and allowed the icy cold stream to pelt her skin. At first, the shock didn’t register. There was a moment when the heat and ice felt fine. For those few seconds, everything seemed like it would be all right. But then the shock of the frigid water hit her hard and she wanted to jump out. But she let out a hard breath and allowed the arctic gush to cascade down her spine and then across her face and hair. After several minutes, she’d adapted to the frigid water and even began to disregard the chilly temperature. By the time she toweled off, a wave of heat engulfed her skin as well as a renewed sense of energy and purpose. She dressed in a long-sleeved t-shirt and comfortable sweatpants and joined Harlan back in the room. While he showered, Jane turned on the television to wait for the local 5 p.m. news broadcast. She muted the sound and turned on her computer.

But the sound of loud voices and occasional pounding coming from the room directly above them distracted Jane. Given the fact that the motel was built like a bunker, it was incredible to Jane that she could hear anything. But the murmuring voices and erratic pounding continued until she finally had enough. Grabbing the room key, Jane walked outside and climbed the outside stairs to the second level. The voices coming from the room were even louder. She approached the room and checked the number. “Room seventeen—that figures,” she said to herself. Inside, a man and woman were engaged in a heated argument. Jane edged closer to the front window and was able to clandestinely observe the two. It was clear that the woman, who towered above the man by at least eight inches, was in charge. Jane couldn’t determine whether they were married or not, but the way the woman belittled the guy and occasionally slapped him on his arm or the top of his head gave Jane the impression that she wasn’t in any danger. The guy, however, probably wasn’t as lucky. Jane turned to go back downstairs when the decibel level coming out of the room doubled in intensity. She wasn’t about to endure another crappy night of sleep and so Jane trod back to the room and pounded on the door. To her surprise, the yelling didn’t stop, even when the woman unlocked the door and swung it open.