Last Light (4 page)
“Goddess,” she corrected, leaping into the hospital’s empty dumbwaiter shaft. “Gravity is a she. Mother of the universe. Even Einstein worshiped her.”
She liked how her voice thundered back to her as it echoed against the brick walls of the narrow shaft. Originally designed to open on both sides to carry equipment where it was needed, the doors and hardware were long gone, leaving openings up and down all seven stories, like a boxer with half his teeth knocked out.
TK used her momentum, bringing one foot up to plant firmly against a solid wall, then vaulted through the opposite opening on the floor below. Most of the outside wall was gone on this side of the building, leaving the foundation littered with small mountains of crumbled cement and bricks. Pittsburgh was filled with buildings like this, especially here on the Southside, where gentrification was only now catching up with decades of urban decay. Making it a parkour runner’s dream landscape.
She raced through the maze of debris and turned the corner, the sky opening up in a golden-blue umbrella above her. Now came the challenge move: up and over a twelve-foot cement foundation wall. The approach was short, making it difficult to build up momentum. TK sprinted forward, slammed both palms high up on the wall as she pushed her shoulders back, giving her legs room to run up the wall. When they caught up with her body, she flew up into a handstand, then flipped upright.
“You don’t defy gravity,” she said as Wilson began his approach on the wall, tackling it head-on as if he’d rather plow through it instead of going over it. “She embraces you, anchors you, then finally sets you free.”
Wilson scrambled for a handhold on the ledge, missed it, and tumbled back. He landed with a thud on the concrete floor.
“I think your goddess is a bitch.” He groaned, stood, and backed up a few steps to try again.
TK crouched on top of the wall, nodding. “Yep. But an equal opportunity bitch. That’s my point. None of this favoritism bullshit. No matter how high we fly, in the end, gravity always wins.”
Wilson slammed into the wall again. This time his trajectory was off by miles, leaving him unable to get past his first foot plant. He lay on the floor looking up at her, chest heaving.
When TK planned their runs, she always left the toughest obstacle for last. It was selfish, giving her a slight edge since her slimmer, more flexible build made parkour’s urban-obstacle free racing easier. Not that Wilson ever gave her any slack when they sparred in the ring, even though he had the longer reach and greater strength.
“It’s all about momentum,” she told him.
He grunted and rolled to his feet, recalculating his approach, and this time he was able to scramble up the wall, using his muscles to haul himself up and over. It wasn’t pretty or elegant in the least, but it got the job done. Too late. TK had already leapt past the mounds of broken concrete littering the former reception area, raced down the graffiti-covered hall, through the side exit, and was waiting for him when he finally chugged his way to the tree she’d designated as their finish line.
She grinned at him, looking for some acknowledgment of her victory, but he simply reached for his water bottle from his pack.
As he drank, he glanced back at the former hospital, a gloomy hulking shadow marring the golden light. Beyond it Pittsburgh’s Southside was waking up to greet the day.
“You’ll need an alternative to that last wall for the group run. Make it a cooperative exercise,” he finally said. “And we should do the dumbwaiter as a chimney with spotters.” Today’s run was to prep the course for the class they taught on Thursday. “You keep forgetting parkour is about community, working together. It’s not a competition. It’s not about winning.” He eyed her; she looked away, pretended her shoe needed tying. “Or about escaping.”
“Learning to trust your body and your instincts as well as your partners,” she droned, repeating the instructor manual. TK had taken up parkour only a few months ago after she’d stumbled across one of Wilson’s groups running a course, but he’d quickly taken her on as a co-instructor.
“Even a Marine understands leave no man behind,” he said bluntly. Wilson had been an Army Ranger and had seen his share of combat.
She grunted, conceding the point. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. They jogged side by side, cooling down as they headed back to Greene’s Gym down by the waterfront.
The gym was in an old two-story warehouse that once serviced barge traffic on the Mon. It was prime real estate now that Homestead was being gentrified, but Sal Greene refused to sell. Instead, the warehouse owner was finally committing to some much-needed renovations, trying to placate both the old gym rats who liked working out in a place that had no machines as well as his new clientele who loved the “authenticity.” And felt like they were getting a better workout if an old man who looked like he could have been an extra cast from
Rocky
yelled at them during it.
“Construction starts next week,” Wilson said as they rounded the corner to the gym. “Where you going to move?”
TK sighed. Her arrangement with Sal was teaching parkour, mixed martial arts, and self-defense classes in exchange for free room and board at the gym. It was the only way to keep a roof over her head since she’d separated from the Corps and returned stateside, when, after eight years of Uncle Sam seeing to her care and feeding, homelessness had become her new reality.
“Not sure.”
“I thought now that you got that gig with Beacon you might move into a real place.”
“I’m still work-for-hire, which doesn’t work out to so many hours a week. But there’s some hotshot retired FBI agent coming on board. They’ll decide if I get to stay on full-time.” And if she got a chance to do what she really wanted to do: get into the field and out of the damn office.
“That must suck. Getting all spit and polish for a new CO.”
“Tell me about it.” Resentment bled into her voice, but Wilson was right: it did suck. Having to prove herself over and over again. And she’d read up on this FBI chick, Lucy Guardino. The woman had been with the Bureau for fifteen years, would no doubt expect her new team to genuflect and worship at the altar of rules and regs. TK had had quite enough of that, thank you very much. Fellow grunts, she’d die for her team. But that respect was earned, not commanded.
In the past six months, she’d done good work for the Beacon Group, including identifying a decades-old John Doe body and finding a missing person who had been living under an assumed name. It was what the Group was all about: solving cold cases and bringing justice—and some sense of closure—to the families left behind. TK had surprised herself by enjoying the work, but she wanted more. She wanted to tackle the real cases, the unsolved murders, the stuff nightmares were made of. At least for normal people.
For TK, after what she’d been through in Iraq and Afghanistan, murders that took place years ago didn’t hold a candle to her own night terrors. But studying them, along with working out and devouring language tapes, helped to keep her mind occupied with anything but the all-too-real horrors that were her memories.
Wilson held the door open for her
—the closest thing to conceding her victory today that he’d ever give her. “Worse comes to worse,” he said as he followed her into the cavernous space that stank of machine oil, sweat, and testosterone, “you can always bunk with me.”
“In your dreams, Army.” She laughed to soften the blow, but living with someone, anyone, especially a man, was out of the question. She’d rather go back to the streets. Alone.
Maybe there was a reason why TK couldn’t run a parkour course any way except to flat-out win...because the last time she’d trusted someone, she’d lost. Lost everything.
BEACON FALLS, THE
hamlet where the Beacon Group had their headquarters, was an easy drive from Lucy’s home on Pittsburgh’s Southside, especially since she could take back roads winding over the hills of West Mifflin.
Twelve minutes after leaving her house, she was heading up the drive that led to the large Queen Anne on a bluff overlooking the gorge above the Monongahela River. For centuries the people who lived here—first Iroquois, then the French, and eventually British colonists—had outposts here, lighting bonfires each night to warn others of the treacherous waterfalls that waited, invisible, around the sharp bend of the river.
Lucy parked her Subaru between a BMW motorcycle and a Volvo in the small paved lot on the near side of the house. The bluff was high enough that she could see across the river to the east for miles, and from the other side of the house, she’d have an unobstructed view up the Monongahela River to the Pittsburgh skyline. Excellent tactical advantages. No wonder armies had fought over this tiny piece of mountaintop.
At the far edge of the bluff stood a tall iron tripod topped by a large bowl cradling a flame. Beside it, gazing out above the morning mist that obscured the river below, was a slim woman with black hair streaked through with gray, wearing a dress so simple in its lines that it had to be from a designer, topped by an intricately knotted length of silk. Valencia Frazier. Lucy bet she never dunked her scarf in her food. The woman was the epitome of grace and elegance.
“I love starting my day out here,” Valencia said, beckoning Lucy to join her at the eternal flame. “When the mist is thick or the clouds hang low, you can almost imagine that it’s three hundred years ago...or three hundred years from now. As if anything is possible.”
She inhaled deeply, locked her arm with Lucy’s, and turned away from the stunning view to face the house. “I’m glad you’re here with us, Lucy. I think together we’re going to help a lot of people.”
“Glad to be here,” Lucy said as they strolled along a brick-lined path back to the house.
The Queen Anne was a dusty shade of lavender that looked blue in some light and pink in others. The trim was a darker shade of purple, almost matching Megan’s boots. It was a solid house, comforting in the way it perched on the mountaintop with the confidence of having withstood a thousand storms and the certainty it could face a thousand more.
“When I began the Beacon Group, almost two decades ago now, I never dreamed it would grow to play such a vital role for so many victims and their families.” Valencia stopped to glance back at the beacon with its flame once more. The plaque at its base memorialized Valencia’s late husband, Charles.
Lucy had read about his murder case and the battle Valencia had waged over nine years to find his killer. “You should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
Valencia’s smile was a wistful glimmer and Lucy knew she would trade it all to have her husband back with her.
They crossed the gingerbread-adorned porch and entered through the main doors, intricately carved mahogany, handcrafted with loving hands. Inside, the walls of the foyer were adorned with paintings from artists even Lucy had heard of, names like Remington and Catlin, depicting the history of Beacon Falls. The Fraziers had arrived here in 1752, traders and fur trappers who were among the first whites to call Beacon Falls home. The British had displaced them for a while, sending them north to join the Iroquois nation, but eventually, they’d fought their way back south again and regained their land.
Valencia led Lucy past the reception area in what used to be the front parlor and up a gracefully curving staircase to the second floor, where Lucy’s new office was situated in the Queen Anne’s rounded turret. Windows on three sides offered a view corporate honchos in the city would kill for.
“I’m afraid there’s no time for you to get settled,” Valencia said as Lucy dropped her bag and jacket on the settee beside her new desk. “We’ve had an emergency request.” She led Lucy down the hall past former bedroom suites that had been converted into work areas.
“A missing person?” In addition to cold cases, the Beacon Group assisted law enforcement with critical missing person cases. Given Lucy’s experience with the FBI’s Child Abduction Response Team, missing persons would also fall under her new team’s purview.
“No. A homicide. Three of them to be precise.” Valencia paused outside the closed door of a conference room. “An entire family annihilated.”
Lucy stopped short. She’d been listening to her music on the way here, kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll to psych her up for her first day trapped at a desk. Had she missed something? “I didn’t hear of any—”
“I’m not surprised.” Valencia opened the door. “It happened twenty-nine years ago in a small town in Texas that doesn’t exist any more.”
They stepped inside. Lucy kept her unanswered questions to herself, letting Valencia set the pace. The woman knew how to bait a hook that was for certain.
The conference room had a dining table with eight chairs around it along with an old-fashioned porcelain brick fireplace and elegant tapestry drapes edging the large picture windows that lined the back wall. But the rest of the room was decorated in the latest technology: a state-of-the-art projection monitor that took up the entire side wall, several laptop computers, and speaker phones spread out along the length of the table like trays of canopies at a dinner party.
At the far end of the table was a black man in his twenties manning a computer. He was the first to notice their entrance, glancing up at them with a welcoming smile beneath the dreadlocks that framed his features. Behind him stood a blonde, also in her twenties, wearing cargo pants and a Pucifer T-shirt. The man she was in a heated discussion with was older, mid-thirties, dressed in a conservative button-down and khakis.
“You can analyze the old evidence all you want, Tommy,” the blonde was saying, “but the only way to dig up anything new is to go boots on the ground. We need to re-interview everyone, see what they’re hiding.”
“Um, guys?” the man at the computer put in as he spotted Valencia and Lucy at the door.
“Maybe it’s not as easy—” the man started, then broke off when Valencia cleared her throat. Everyone fell silent and turned to face Lucy and Valencia.
