The Devil's Dream: Book One (28 page)

"Laying low isn't
really his M.O., is it?" Allison asked.

"Hasn't been so
far. How's the time off?"

"Not so good,
Jerry left."

"You're kidding?"

"No, left a note
and went to his parents."

"Jesus, Allison.
I'm sorry. How are you holding up?"

Allison looked to the
other couch, looking at the spot Jerry would have sat if he still
lived here. He would have been drinking tea instead of coffee, both
of them waiting on Marley to get up so they could begin their day. He
would read the paper; she would watch the news with the volume low.
Neither of them would have said much.

The news was on, and so
if she looked away from the couch, she could imagine it everything
was the same. She could imagine that he was here and Marley in bed.

"I've been
better," she said, pain cracking her voice. "We're talking,
though, so there's some hope."

Art didn't say anything
back to her right away, just let silence fill the line.

"If you need
anything, if there's anything I can do, let me know."

"Okay, Art,
thanks."

"If you need more
time before coming back in, that's not a problem."

"Thanks," she
said. She put a finger to the corner of her eye, wiping away a tear
looking to escape.

"Okay, talk to you
soon. Bye, Allison."

She hung up and looked
at the television. Art was right, the morning shows hadn't mentioned
Brand once yet, moving onto the next flashy item they could rile
people up about. She didn't know if he was dead, and she really
didn't care that much. Didn't care at all, to be truthful. The man
that had filled up every waking moment for the past month and a half
now seemed like the silliest thing she could think about. Why had she
ever cared about him so much? Why had she ever left this house to
travel across the country looking for him?

Jerry and Marley didn't
live in this house anymore, and she had just let them walk out.
Jerry's letter said she practically pushed them out.

She hadn't called Jerry
on the way back, wanting simple solitude and time to think about
being relieved from the case. She showed up to her house expecting to
be greeted by her husband and child, and instead walked into a still,
quiet house. She put her bags down at the door and walked around for
a minute, calling out names, and then realized no one was going to
answer her. The house was empty, and when she walked into Marley's
room, she understood the emptiness wasn't just for the hour. Her
things were all gone. Her clothes, her toys, her little girl make up
she liked to put on sometimes.

Allison found the
letter and read it as tears flowed down her face. She didn't stop the
first time, but her eyes just went right back to the top and scrolled
down again, reading his chicken scratch letters and letting their
meaning sink into her. He wasn't here. Marley wasn't here. They
weren't coming back.

He wasn't here.

Marley wasn't here.

They weren't coming
back.

She collapsed to the
floor, curling up and bringing the letter to her chest, whimpering as
she continued reading.

Three days later, she
hadn't stopped crying but she wasn't on the floor. She was able to
sit on her couch and only cry when she looked over at the empty spot
where Jerry should have been.

"Will you come
back?" She asked him over the phone that first night. "Please,
just bring Marley and come back."

"How long are you
going to be there?"

She swallowed because
she had already received her next assignment. It wasn't in Florida,
but it wasn't in Arizona, and they wanted her to leave by the end of
next week. When she pulled herself off the floor and put the letter
aside, she went to her work email because she didn't know what else
to do. The message told her she was going to south Texas to look at
some bodies turning up regularly.

"I'm supposed to
leave next week," she answered.

"We're not coming
back then." His voice sounded so cold, a distance that she had
never encountered before with him. It sounded like indifference to
her, like he didn't care one way or the other what she chose. His
life would go on either way.

"Jerry, what do
you want from me? Do you want me just to quit?"

"I want you to
raise your daughter and I want you to be my wife. That's all."

He was right. That's
the part she hated the most. She couldn't be angry, could rail at him
because he left her with this big house and took her daughter away.

"You can come get
Marley tonight, if you'd like. Or tomorrow, whatever works best for
you. She really misses you, Allison."

He hadn't taken her
away; he'd removed himself from the equation. He said he wasn't going
to be here for her, if she wasn't there for him. She couldn't hate
him for that. Couldn't be angry.

Except even three days
later, she couldn't tell him she was going to quit. She couldn't tell
him that the job would change or she would change jobs; she sat there
silent on the phone, unable to give him the answer he wanted. The
job, the chase, it was her life and she felt an almost visceral
reaction when she even thought about giving it up.

Allison was addicted to
it, and she didn't know how to quit. Her family had left her, and she
sat alone in her house unable to say: "Yes, I'll stop. I'll do
something else, now just come back."

Day three of this same
thinking. Day three of asking him to come back and being told not
until she agreed to what he asked.

She couldn't sit here
anymore thinking about this. She needed a break, if just for a few
hours, of the crying and heartache and insanity that wouldn't let her
say yes to Jerry.

Tom
Riley
.

The name swam up from
some recess of her brain, a name that she hadn't thought about in
weeks. No one in the entire case had looked back to Tom Riley at The
Wall once Brand began his spree. The man was forgotten, left behind
with his computers and silos and brainpower, not a word to be heard
from him since. He was an hour away, and surely he could help take
her away from all this for a little while. She wasn't going to solve
this case going out there and she didn't care to, but maybe just
listening to what he had found over the past month would allow her to
forget about her own life for a just a bit.

* * *

The playground
contained just about everything anyone could want. Monkey bars,
swings, a basketball court, tether ball, a sand-box, a plastic fort
with a slide leading out of it. The place was a McDonald's play-pen
on steroids. Kids were spread about like ants on a disturbed pile,
running around, bumping into each other. The girls and boys were
segregated for the most part, at ten years old still not feeling the
need to explore the opposite sex any more than they were forced to in
class. Teachers stood around the building, chatting, laughing,
enjoying their one respite from the remainder of the day that
included telling kids to quiet down and sit in their seats so the
lesson could continue.

The playground was in
the back of the school, hidden by a tall wooden fence and trees that
lined the outside of it. The school was designed for rich parents who
wanted their well-bred kids to avoid being made fun of for wearing
nice clothes, or need to be reminded that they were an actor's child.
The school was designed so that children could learn without having
to worry about how life might treat them because they were
different—whether or not they wanted to be—because of the money
they would inherit. It was a responsibility they didn't ask for and
their parents did the best they could to shield them from it.

Matthew stood against
the fence, in between the large pines planted for the very purpose of
keeping lookers from coming to catch a glimpse. He pressed his face
up to the fence, looking through tiny cracks at the children running
around, clueless that they were being watched by anyone but their
teachers. He looked for the little brunette girl named Marley Moore.
Trying to get a glimpse of the girl that was never going to grow into
a woman. He had found one picture on the school website, that an
errant administrator had put for advertising purposes most likely.

A week and a half ago
he had been all that the world could think about, and in his
recovery, he'd been nearly forgotten. Which was fine. That was how he
wanted it, because in a few hours, he would be in everyone's mouth
again. In a few hours, the world would never hear from him again and
Allison Moore would wonder for the rest of her life where he had
gone.

He figured that out on
his way out to Phoenix.

He didn't know if he'd
beaten the demon inside him for good, the one that said
notice
me, pay attention here because something great is going to happen
,
but he knew that for now it had to disappear. He had to disappear, to
take these last two people and go create his family. There was still
Jeffrey Dillan to deal with, but his warehouse hadn't been possessed
yet, so maybe he could be dealt with a little later. These two here
in Phoenix, Jeffrey wherever he went to, and then Hilman and he could
live where people wouldn't chase them. Where they could do whatever
they wanted.

First though, Allison
needed to pay for what she ordered.

His eye caught the
straight brown hair pulled back in a pony-tail. His hands tensed on
the wood in front of him. He wouldn't try to take her now. His
stomach still felt like corrosive acid was leaking into it when he
exerted any effort, and here, she would be missed if she didn't show
up to class. No, there would be a better time.

He just needed to wait.

* * *

The glass doors to The
Wall opened for her, but not from the card she passed along the
building's security device. The glass doors had remained shut when
she tried that, letting her know that she was no longer welcome here.
Things moved quick, and the moment Art removed her from the case,
someone else realized she would no longer need access to this place.

Allison had to press a
button and state her purpose before the doors opened.

She went in and met a
guard at the front who made her a small paper pass and asked her to
sit in the waiting room while Dr. Riley came for her. She did what he
asked, not remembering his face from when she'd been here before.
Maybe he was new or maybe she had just been too busy to see everyone.
She sat down in the large leather chairs and looked at the magazines
on the table.
Science Daily. The
Journal of Science.
Nothing about law enforcement here.
Nothing about the purpose of this place; the people here only cared
about the science, keeping prisoners from escaping was a secondary
concern. It was such a different mindset and maybe that was how Brand
escaped in the first place. Maybe if Riley and his crew had been a
bit more concerned with keeping Brand locked away rather than
understanding his mind and the magic they were playing with, a lot
more people would be alive.

"Agent Moore?"
Dr. Riley called from behind her. He sounded unsure, like he didn't
know if he was in trouble or why she would be here. She stood from
her chair and turned around.

"Hi, Dr. Riley.
Please call me Allison." She extended her hand and he took it.

"I'm sorry about
you being removed from the case."

"It happens."

They looked at each
other awkwardly for a moment, neither breaking eye contact nor saying
anything.

"How can I help
you, Allison?"

"I'm here as a
civilian, and I really just need to take my mind off of some things.
Would you mind showing me around? I'd appreciate it more than you
know."

"They moved most
of your guys out of here last week. Not that they'd been doing much.
Once the operation moved east, what we did here didn't matter as
much. I haven't lost my job though and that's a blessing. I still
may, but as of now I'm employed. You're welcome to come look, we've
actually made some pretty good progress into Matthew's head."

"Thank you,"
Allison said. She wanted to say more, to say sorry for never looking
back once she left, to say sorry for showing up here because the rest
of her life was in tatters. None of it would really matter to this
man. He would show her around and he wouldn't care in the slightest
what was going on outside of these walls; he probably felt relieved
at having not been involved any longer. So instead of talking, she
followed him into the bowels of The Wall.

"What were you
wanting to see?" Riley asked as they walked.

Everything looked
exactly the same, white floors and white walls, but the business
inside this place had changed. When she was here last, the place was
full of people in suits and ties rushing up and down the
halls—heading into makeshift offices to discuss whatever new
documents they carried. The place had been a beehive and now looked
like someone gassed the hive. Empty corridors and empty rooms.

"I'm not even
sure. Whatever you want to show me, for as long as you'll show me. I
just need some time away."

"Okay. I suppose
we can look at Matthew some. We've uploaded all of our data into the
F.B.I. mainframes, and there's not much we have left to map out. He
has a vault in his head, which sounds insane, but it's true. We've
been hacking at the vault the past few weeks, with some success—not
a lot, but some. It's like chipping at a large rock and seeing flakes
come off. We get bits and pieces of things that he didn't want us to
see, but as a whole, it remains locked up. Brand is," he paused
as he sat down at his computer and moved the mouse around.
"Miraculous. Come over here on this side and I'll show you what
we have."

Allison walked to
Riley's side of the desk, standing beside his chair.