Shadow Unit 15 (3 page)

Dice swipes his hands over a paper napkin before he shakes hands with Eddie. Good firm grip. Look him in the eye. Half a smile.

"Take it easy," Dice says, and turns to go. He makes it to the door before Eddie speaks again.

"Dice."

"Yeah, Ed?"

"I'm sorry I hurt your hand."

"It's okay," Dice says. It's out before the surprise at the apology even hits. "It's okay, little brother."

Leesburg, VA, May 1, 2014

You know you're awake, but you can't move because sharp, heavy claws are digging in and holding you down. You don't want to look at the mirror to the side of Ash's bed, but all you can move is your eyes and they track inevitably to the closet doors.

There's the hump of your hip, and the sharp drop of your shoulder. No beast digging painfully into your ribs, crushing your breath. But it's there, pressing the breath out of you, and you can't remember the words of protection, you can't call the white light to you so you think,
Help me, Ashley.
The tingling warmth touches the crown of your head and melts the beast away.

All at once you're ... awed. The tingling brushes over you and you shove down the thought that it's just ASMR and not what you feel when magic happens. You were wrong. You doubted, when you lost the feeling after—

No. Hold the light. Hold the magic. You've got it back, and that warmth and light and radiance just behind you is Ash.

She's come back, to save you. To show you that it really is real. Even though it's your fault she's dead.

It's not. I'm here. I'll leave you your privacy but I'll come when you need me.

It feels so good. As good as it felt when Ashley did Reiki with her hands just over your skin, as good as it felt when she would whisper you through a walk through the forest. Ashley could always stop the fear. Ashley could always make it safe. You keep your back to her, because if you turn and can't see her it will be harder to believe.

You keep believing until you fall asleep again.

When you wake up, you're starving. But now you're not alone.

Somewhere in Virginia, May 4, 2014

The road to Hell is in bloom.

Dice drives, Tyler rides shotgun, circular needles in his lap and his knitting pattern clipped to the passenger visor. They're on a Sunday drive to their support group, one where everyone is coming in.

"So how's Eddie enjoying being upstairs?" Tyler asks, watching the country road go by.

"I dunno. Mixed signals. Apparently he stays in his room a lot. Then he got on my case about how I should date Natalie."

"You should not do that," Tyler answers. "What on Earth."

"She's beautiful, she's rich, and she's doing really well, and Eddie is the sort of person who thinks a woman paying sincere attention to you wants you in bed."

"Yow. Okay! So I'm guessing you didn't tell him."

"I didn't tell him," Dice agrees. "I kind of pitched it out the window. I don't think it was a good time."

"Nothing says you have to come out to anyone, you know. You get to decide who you want knowing that," Tyler says. The knitting ends up in his hands, yarn wound around his fingers.

"I know, but it seems wrong. You guys all know. My brother? He doesn't know. I ought to tell him."

"Because he's your family?"

"Yeah. But he's, you know, he's—"

"Lacking in social empathy."

"That's so nice it swims under the point. But he's different. He doesn't say so much of that stuff lately. I wondered if he figured it out."

"Don't tell him until you feel like you're ready."

The miles wind by—some in silence, but Tyler mentions his workload at school, and Dice tells him about his new project at work to bring in a bottled beer from each state and territory, until Dice has to ask.

"Still don't want to see Natalie?"

"I still don't," Tyler agrees. "I dunno. I worry that she'll see it as a sign that all is forgiven and it's not. I don't know how much of that school year was real. I don't know how much she pushed me."

"I get you."

"I can't trust her. I hope she's getting better, but she's an alleged serial killer. I'm not even sure I want to encounter another one."

"You're going clinical, though."

"Irony, right?" Tyler chuffs out a laugh and digs around for his water bottle. "Oh, hey. Do you think Rupert Beale will be there? I want to ask him about how he decides what to write and what not to write. When it comes to the anomaly, I mean."

"I almost want to listen to that. I don't know if he'll be there or not, though."

Purcellville, VA

Purcellville's gentrifying. You've watched it happen ever since you moved into your house, tiny on its big lawn compared to the houses that have gone up around it. When the new neighbors move in, they don't talk to you, till one by one everyone you knew on the street is gone, to foreclosures or simply an offer they couldn't refuse, and the pressure for you to follow suit is on. They don't see you when you mow the lawn. They don't see you when you rake the leaves. They don't see you when you shovel the walk and the drive. Their eyes slide off your Jetta, snug in the driveway.

But somehow, you can't mow that lawn now without feeling the eyes. You're out in a singlet and work pants, a trashed pair of ex-work boots. You know what they think of your man's job, the easy loping pace you set on the trail run, the cuts and curves of your shoulders, your arms. A woman living alone, her only visitor another woman, a woman with no makeup and a bodybuilding habit, a woman of speed, strength, endurance. You push the manual mower the same as you shovel the drive and the corner lot's stretch of sidewalk—at a patient pace you can keep up for twenty minutes, hydrate, and back at it. The neighbors use contraptions they can drive around—the neighbors who do their own landscaping and snow clearing, anyway.

You know what they think of Ash and you. It's no different than what they thought in school, what they thought at the dances, what they thought at the coffee cauldrons and open circles and spirit gatherings.

Who cares what they think? And who would care even if they were right?

You stop in your tracks. You stand up straight and inhale slowly, trying to catch the smell of sandalwood and honey. It's just cut grass, that's all, but you swear you heard it, like Ash was just there—and you're sure that she is, just behind you. You can feel her. You can—smell her.

She can't be there.

But she is.

"You're not there," you whisper, and an oriole sings above your head.

Because I'm dead? Em. Do you think I would leave you alone? I know you haven't reached out to anyone. Not even Connor.

"Connor's got his own thing. He doesn't want me hanging around."

Connor loves you.

"I know," you say, and start pushing the mower again, grass blades flying into heaps.

Not like a brother.

"I can't," you say, and turn with your eyes shut.

The sense of Ash follows you back toward the house.

"I can't," you mutter again, but there's no answer, and after a while the feeling of Ash goes away. You push the mower until your phone buzzes the time, and you stop right where you are and drink a glass of water from the pitcher on the porch, the ice in it melted to little floating pebbles.

"All that yard with a push mower," a voice says, and you turn around.

The man halfway down your driveway smiles. He's tan, wearing a crisp white shirt, no jacket, no tie, but those pants have a jacket somewhere. His hands are in his pockets, no briefcase, no bright brochures.

"Shovel the walk by hand, too," you say, and put one hand on your hip.

"A dedication to lower emissions, or fitness?"

"Spend an hour a day working out," you say. "Reckon yardwork's like Zumba."

"I can't see you in a Zumba class," the man says, and sandalwood tickles your nose.

"Don't look light on my feet, then?"

What's he want?
Ash says, and you take a long breath in through your nose trying not to let your shoulders fall in relief. You know she's not real.

But having her there feels so good.

I don't trust him.

I don't either,
Ash says in your mind, but it's not a thought-voice, it's her voice, clear and light with a little air in it, and you're hearing it, but this man doesn't, this man who looks at everything like he's recording it with his eyes, eyes that come back to you and don't smile right when he says, "Not much like Regency dance, is it? But you haven't been into that, lately."

"I think it's about time you start explaining why you're on my land, mister."

"I'm a friend of a friend," the man says.

He's lying,
Ash says.

"Good to hear. Our mutual friend should introduce us," you say.

"I would give a lot for that to be possible."

He's lying, he's lying, Em, he's full of it I don't know him I never did.

I know,
you think, and you shake your head. "I didn't see you at the ceremony."

"I don't think you were looking around much. You were in the inner circle. You were wearing Ash's lace stole, the one her cousin knitted for her for Christmas two years ago. Though Ash would have called it Yule, or Sol Invictus. And you would have, too, at one point."

How does he know that? How—

Aunt Irene,
you and Ash say in unison. Ash giggles. You always did that—say the same thing at the same time.

"I didn't know her well," the man goes on. "Not like you. You went to school together? Ten years ago?"

"Thirteen," you say.

"Fast friends," he says. "You did everything together, the Regency dances, the spirit gatherings—but you quit. Four years ago, wasn't it?"

How does he know this I don't know him Em I don't what does he want? Get him out of here he just wants to hurt you

"What paper did you say you worked for, again?" and the way his face flattens out you know you hit it.

"I didn't," he says, but that smile's shiny plastic. You don't believe it.

"Get off my land," you say, and you go into the house, lawn half done, and you snap the lock behind you. You want Ash to soothe you, but she doesn't say anything.

Ash?

Then it slides over you. You can't feel her.

There's a feeling, like someone is right behind you. You know the feeling. You have it when Ash is there, a soft body-heat warmth and the feeling when you try to force two magnets together, the feeling between your hands when you do Tai Chi, the same feeling you put into spells when you believed in them...

Fourteen minutes of her there, eight spent denying it, and now she's gone and it's like a hole ripped open all over again. She's gone and that... man asking questions, that's why and you hate him suddenly, hate him with a rage and pain you couldn't feel for the other driver, dead, too, dead to her steering wheel just not working and the panic rising up as she shoved the brake down to the floor, never thinking about the drivers behind her...

Stop. Focus...you can't. You're shaking and dizzy when you go into the kitchen—the heat, the stress, some juice will help—and the carton of orange juice is gone in a few swallows, it seems, and you've got an apple in your mouth while you go rooting around for more.

You can't feel her. You can't feel her. She's supposed to be there, but she's gone and the spot just where you feel warmth from her is cool and empty and you're going to faint if you don't keep eating, the juice wasn't enough, the apple wasn't enough. You drop a scoop of protein powder in a shaker and top it with milk. It's supposed to be a meal replacement but it's not enough, not from the odd tingling in your hands and ears.

There's a mini microwave lasagna. You poke the film with shaking hands and wait for the microwave to beep with your head between your knees. You're halfway through the third, well enough to sit up and eat slowly, washing down pasta, tomato sauce, and ground beef with long swallows of protein powder and milk when you catch a whiff of honey and sandalwood.

It's all right,
Ash says.
You're safe. He won't ever come back.

She's back.

It's all right now.

You don't look at the other two containers while you finish the third.

J. Edgar Hoover Federal Building, Washington, D.C., May 5, 2014

Daniel Brady pops into Hafidha's office on the first Monday of May with an invitation to have two dozen red velvet cupcakes to go with Chaz's coffee.

She leads the way into the kitchen and plucks up a cupcake, peels the paper liner down, and eats it while pouring a milky coffee. "Chaz better get 'em while they're hot, all I'm saying."

"Where's Chaz?"

"Up the hall, helping with a geographic profile. They think they've got a serial abductor but no pattern, but Doc is a bright girl and thought they'd better check with Chazzie and make sure." Her eyes flick up, a bit left of center. "Yeah, he found something interesting, at least."

The cupcake's gone in a blink, paper wrapper tossed out with a napkin. Brady's barely gotten two bites. "Oh, yeah? Our kind of thing?"

"Doesn't seem so, no fnords, but that just means if there is a gamma they're not messing around with computers."

"Well, that's a relief."

Brady refills his coffee. "I know Nikki wasn't going to be in today anyway. Where's Mom?"

"Meeting."

"Do we even have the Gulfstream?"

"That's a good question. I can check for you. Just give me a second with these patient records."

Hafidha walks out of the kitchen with a little plate bearing a cupcake on top of her coffee mug. Brady stares after her. She's cheerful. Complimentary. No claws in a word she said.

She's allowed to have a good day,
Brady tells himself, and he takes a cupcake along with him to the bullpen.

*

Sol Todd strolls in at about eleven. "Oh good, you're all still here."

"No case for us. I'm not even sure we have the plane," Brady says. "Hafidha said she'd tell me after she was done looking through patient..."

Solomon watches half amused as Brady slows down and swivels his head toward Hafidha's office. "Something wrong?"

"One second."

Brady gets up and sticks his head in Hafidha's office, and Sol follows. Hafidha stares at her monitors and a tablet, each of them scrolling forms. Sol catches the word "Inova" on the tablet and huffs a bit.

"Hafidha, are you hacking a hospital?"

"Only a little bit." The tablet switches to a home screen, but the other monitors keep scrolling. "I have a hunch."

"What's the hunch about?" Todd asks.

Her right shoulder goes up, a shield. "Motor-vehicle accidents."

"You have a hunch about motor-vehicle accidents, because..."

"I'm looking for a connection, if there is one, between motor-vehicle accidents in a radius around D.C. But I'm not Chaz, and there are no fnords. But still."

Brady nods, half to himself. If he had a glass of water Sol imagines that he would take a sip, just to give him a bit more time to think, but he forges ahead. "Hafs, I know I don't have to tell you—"

Hafidha puts up one long hand. "That Erik died from being smacked by a car? You don't have to tell me. That Daphne got mowed down by a semi? You don't have to tell me. That the actual details of the accidents were different and there wasn't a James Vijay Singh around to cause a stroke or aneurysm in the driver who killed Erik? You don't have to tell me that, either. That I'm probably obsessing over this because the Bug loves it? Loud and clear, baby. But I have a hunch."

"Okay," Brady says. "You want to talk about it?"

"No," Hafs snaps, and then leans back and kneads her forehead. "But I ought to. And I've been jamming all morning. I should eat something that isn't cupcakes. Cheeseburgers and pie?"

"Cheeseburgers and two pies."

"Okay, but what will you eat?"

"I'll think of something. Do you want anyone else with us?"

"No—ahh, Arthur. I'm feeling gentle today. Let's bring the new kid."

"I'm still the new kid?" This from Arthur Tan, who leans against the doorjamb, one foot in and one foot out.

"Until someone supplants you, New Kid. Cheeseburgers and pie?"