The Faithful (19 page)

“But even if you don’t know anything about that, you know they are preparing for some kind of Holy War! For the ‘End of Days’! Isn’t that what you guys are trying to stop? Or are you just a bunch of teenagers pretending to rebel against your daddies?”

“No!” Ora jumped in. “It’s more than that! But we don’t know
what
we’re trying to stop! We don’t know
what
they’re
planning
. Do you?”

“Shit, no! Don’t you think I would have said by now, if I did?”

“
Nobody
knows, except the Fathers,” Lexy said. “And they’ve built walls around that information so strong not even the best mind readers can breach them.”

“Somebody knows.” Sumner slumped back into the chair. “Or did.”

“Who?” Ora asked.

“Jack,” Phoenix answered, and Sumner nodded.

“Jack? The boy they . . . ?” Lexy asked quietly.

“That’s right. He knew. He was trying to get to me. Well, me and some woman with red hair. He was trying to warn us. Maybe they knew that and that’s why they killed him.”

“No,” Ora said. She was shaking her head, and a small smile was spreading across her face.

“What?”

“If that’s true, they wouldn’t kill him. Even if they weren’t sure about him, they wouldn’t run that risk.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he dies, he becomes even more powerful, right? How easy would it be to get to you,
Summoner of Spirits
, if he’s no longer tied down by his own flesh?”

“I guess. But I saw . . .”

“It doesn’t matter what you saw. They wouldn’t want him
dead
, but they would have to incapacitate him. So what would they do? Maybe keep him locked up there, or something? Drugged up? Or in a coma?”

“He went off the
cliff
, Ora.”

“Well, let’s test it,” she said to Sumner. “Call his spirit. If you
can’t
find him, then I would bet he’s still alive. And if that’s the case . . .”

“Then we’re going to have to go get him,” Sumner said, beginning to smile.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Are you all right?” Agent Metcalf asked. “I thought I heard you cry out.”

His head poked hesitantly through the doorway. His black hair stood up in ragged spikes and his eyes were bleary and red. He didn’t look at all like an FBI agent. His wild appearance brought me out of the horror of the dream, and the vise loosened its grip from around my chest.

“What?” he asked. “Why are you smiling?”

“You look like a porcupine.”

He rubbed a hand over his head, smoothing the hair down. “Are you in pain?”

Actually I was, but that wasn’t why I had screamed. Still, sitting up proved to be a challenge, so he anchored an arm under my back to ease me upright.

“Oooh.” I swayed, eyes closed against the bolt of pain that pierced my skull. My right leg was throbbing in time with my heartbeat; my left shoulder thrummed with a more distant ache.

“Why don’t we get some food into you, so you can take your next round of meds?” he suggested.

“Coffee.” It was more of a desperate plea than a statement.

“Okay. I’ll make some coffee.”

“No.”

“No?”

“
I’ll
make it.”

“I’m perfectly capable of making—”

“Cricket’s piss.”

“What?”

“You’ll make cricket’s piss. I can tell. I saw the face you made drinking my coffee last night.”

“I think you used a whole bag of beans for one cup.”

“That’s the only way it’s worth it.”

He sighed. “Fine, let’s get you to the kitchen.”

Once I was up and moving around, the pain receded slightly. I went about the happy task of brewing coffee, and then stuffed a couple Pop-Tarts into the toaster before he could stop me.

I sensed his disapproval, but he remained silent. He pulled a pan out of the cupboard and waged his war for healthy eating with my knife and cutting board. He chopped up a pile of vegetables and began to sauté them in a dribble of olive oil. For a time I managed to ignore him, pouring the coffee and sipping out of my MIT mug with something close to religious fervor.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making an omelet.”

“Without the yolks? That’s the best part!”

He conceded and mixed a couple of yolks into the pan. When it was done, he slid a plate and fork in front of me.

I had to admit, the omelet was pretty good. I washed it down with a second cup of coffee, and then happily ate both Pop-Tarts when he turned down the one I offered him. He poured a lot of cream into his coffee, but drank it without complaint.

“Rya . . . I mean Rowan—” he began.

“It’s okay if you call me ‘Ryanne.’”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah. It . . . coming from you, it sounds right.”

“Only if you’ll call me ‘Josh’ instead of ‘Agent Metcalf.’” He shook out a couple of pills and handed them to me.

Shrugging my agreement, I swallowed the pills with a mouthful of coffee.

“So, I’ve been thinking about this problem with your memory. I think you might have been on the right track, talking to that woman, what’s her name? Selena?”

“Kahina Dokubo-Asari.”

“Right. Obviously, we’ve got to get those repressed memories of your childhood back. I’m sure there’s information locked inside your mind that could lead us to the missing children, including Ms. Doku . . . um, Kahina’s granddaughter.”

“Are you suggesting we go see her? Because I’m not really in the mood to be murdered today.”

He smiled. “I promise to protect you from any and all violent grandmas.”

“Are you expecting more than one? Besides, doesn’t the FBI have people who can help with this?”

“Of course. The thing is . . .” His sudden hesitation peaked my interest.

“What?”

“Well, I’m not sure I should use them.”

“Why not?”

He was cracking the joints in his fingers, one after another, pop pop pop, and peering nervously into his coffee cup.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not really sure. I’ve been with the FBI for seventeen years. I’ve trusted my colleagues, and my superior officers, with my
life
. Time and time again. There’s an unwritten code of trust among FBI agents, and I’ve never questioned it. Never had the
need
to question it.”

“Until now?” I asked.

He ran a hand across the rough stubble on his cheek, sighing. “Right. This investigation . . . well, I don’t know who to trust anymore. There are a lot of kids missing.”

My heart picked up speed inside my chest. “I’m not the only one? Well, Leora. That’s two.”

“I think she’s number seven hundred and eighty, actually.”

Blinking at him, I tried to process the immensity of it. “Are you serious?”

He stood and grabbed his briefcase. He pulled out a binder and slid it across the table. Inside, I found page after page of missing children. There were twelve kids per page, in two rows of six, with the picture on the left, and the name, age, date, and place of disappearance on the right.

I flipped through them, slowly at first, and then faster, until a familiar face stopped me halfway through. Ryanne Elizabeth Jervis, Elkhorn, Nebraska, June 24, 1988.

“This many? And you think they’re all connected?”

“I do.”

“Where did they all go?” I wondered, thumbing through the pages. There were so many.

He gave me a strange look. “You tell me.”

That stunned me, and I could only shake my head mutely. I turned to the last page and gasped.

“What is it?”

“This boy! I had a dream about him!”

“What?”

“You asked me why I cried out. I had a dream about this boy, Jack . . . Barbetti.” I read the name beside his profile. He’d been missing less than two weeks.

“Tell me!” Josh grabbed my good hand, looking at me with a desperate hope that made my stomach churn. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry. I don’t . . . he was trying to escape. He was running through a forest, at night.” I closed my eyes, partly to better visualize the dream and partly to avoid the upcoming pain in Josh’s blue eyes. “He fell off a cliff, or, well, I think someone hit him in the head with a shovel. And
then
he fell off a cliff.”

“No.” His hand released mine, and the sudden coolness on my skin made me open my eyes. He was looking down, his gaze fixed on the image of the little boy with the pale-brown hair and crooked teeth.

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah,
shit
.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep, trembling breath.

“It might not be true. I mean, just because I dreamt it doesn’t make it real.”

“Yeah.”

“The thing is, I think he was looking for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was intent on getting to me. Well, I
think
it was me he wanted. Or some other redhead. And he was looking for a man, too.”

“A man? Could it have been me?”

I shook my head. “He was blond. I can see his face, kind of. In Jack’s mind, he was both a boy and a man, at the same time. It’s hard to explain.”

“Why was he looking for you?”

“He wanted to warn me about something. He knows . . .
knew
something he wanted to tell me. He seemed to think there was some kind of danger coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. But Josh, I think this is way bigger than a bunch of missing kids. Something bad, I mean
really
bad, is going on. And Jack Barbetti knew what it was.”

He was looking at me, eyes wide and serious.

“So, if this dream is
real
, then we need the full force of the FBI backing us,” I told him.

“That would be a very bad idea.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“Because I’m pretty sure some people within the Bureau are involved in this.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I
wish
I was—you have no idea.”

“Look.” I leaned forward. “You’ve been really great. I mean, I’ve told you a bunch of bizarre stuff, and you haven’t once made me feel like I’m crazy. So I should probably return the favor here, but . . . you’re talking about the
FBI
.”

“Yes, I am.” And that’s when he told me about the National Center for Education Statistics. About the PSST exam, and the disappearance of Sumner Macey, the man who was running the program. About his confrontation with his boss and the deputy director of the Office of Congressional Affairs, during which he was threatened off any investigation into the Department of Education. An investigation they should have known nothing about, since he had played it close to the vest for fear of leaking information to the wrong person.

“I haven’t submitted a report in
weeks
, which is completely against protocol. I didn’t want anyone to know where the investigation was going. But they still
knew
. How did they know?”

“What if they find out you’ve found me? One of the missing kids?”

“That would be very bad. That’s why I told Agent Chang I had cleared you of wrongdoing in Leora’s disappearance.”

“And he believed you?”

“I’m a senior agent. I pulled rank on him.”

“Still, they, whoever
they
are, might figure it out if they hear my name.”

“That’s why I’m not letting you out of my sight. It’s also why we need to use civilian sources, like Kahina. We need to get to those lost memories.”

I drained my coffee. “I’ll go get dressed.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

When she came out of the bedroom her cheeks were flushed; Josh guessed it was from the frustration of getting dressed one-handed. She’d managed to pull on jeans and a black T-shirt, and she’d secured her left arm back into its sling.

“I can’t figure out how to tie my hair back with only one working arm. Do you mind?” She held out an elastic, embarrassed.

Her hair was damp from her morning shower. Up close, it was an intoxicating blend of copper and gold that deepened to the darkest ruby where the water still clung to it. It smelled like coconut and some kind of tropical flower, and it felt like a heavy blanket of cool silk. He managed to pull it all into a thick rope at the back of her head and work the elastic around it. The result was lopsided and somehow childlike.

He stepped away from her, his hands shaking. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded. Her skin was mottled with embarrassment, and he wondered how much of his internal struggle she had picked up on.

Checking to make sure his gun was properly holstered against his side, he grabbed his bags and followed her out the door. Her yellow FJ Cruiser was waiting beside his rental car in the driveway, and she turned to him with surprise.

“I had an officer drive it home for you,” he explained.

“Thank you.”

He helped her up into the passenger seat of the FJ Cruiser and then climbed into the driver’s seat. The officer had left the key under the mat, as promised, and Josh started the engine and took a moment to adjust the seat and mirrors.

“So, where to?” she asked.

“Let’s see if we can find Kahina at her home.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

No one answered his knock at the neat white rancher on Hoagland Road, but I could see Josh was prepared for that possibility. He climbed back into the FJ Cruiser and pulled a small notepad out of his breast pocket. He’d already written down the address and directions to the Wylie household, and he used them for reference as we wove through downtown Las Cruces southbound.

The Wylie residence was located on Monte Vista Avenue near the university. It was a nondescript, beige, one-level house with a single carport in which an old Buick was parked. The front yard had been paved, and I saw a number of children’s toys and bikes strewn across the cracked concrete. The curtains were tightly drawn against the swarm of media camped outside. Parked askew in the driveway was a late-model red Hyundai Sonata with a personal plate that said “ISEEDP.”

“I see DP?” I asked.

Josh drove past and pulled to a stop around the block. “‘I see dead people.’ Didn’t you ever see that movie with Bruce Willis?”

“I try to avoid movies like that. They’re too close to reality.”

“I’m guessing we’ve found Kahina. Too bad about the media; the last thing we need is to be on the evening news.”

“So, now what?”

He ignored me, pulling his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He punched in some numbers and waited.

“Agent Chang? It’s Agent Metcalf. Just checking in. Have there been any new developments? Right. Uh-huh.” He paused, listening. “How’s the family holding up?” I could barely hear the drone of the other agent’s voice.

“Right. Well, I’m all wrapped up on my end. I’m heading back to DC this afternoon. I’ve got a few leads to follow up on back home. Yup, I’ll keep you informed. Oh hey!” he said, as though he’d just thought of it. “Have you had any more trouble with that grandma?”

Watching him, I couldn’t help but take a mental tally. He’d cleaned himself up since the previous day; his hair was neatly styled, his face clean-shaven. In a dark suit, he was more movie star than federal agent. He also smelled really good, like man-spice.

“Wow. Sounds like she’s raising all kinds of hell. I’ve got nothing to do until my flight; why don’t I have a chat with her? Maybe I can put her mind at ease. Sure, it’s no trouble. Where can I find her? Yeah. Okay, go ahead.”

Josh grabbed a pen and scribbled on his notepad. “Yeah, you can thank me later.” He laughed again at whatever Agent Chang said. “All right, keep in touch.” He hung up and winked at me. “Got her cell number. But we might have a little problem.”

“What’s that?” I asked, but he held up a finger, phone to his ear.

“Ms. Dokubo—” He looked at me in panic.

“Asari,” I whispered.

“Ahem. Ms. Dokubo-Asari? This is Senior Special Agent Joshua Metcalf. Agent Chang called me in on the investigation of your missing granddaughter. I’m wondering if you could meet me somewhere? I have some information for you in regards to the witness, Dr. Wilson.” He looked at me and smiled.

“That’s not true, ma’am. I’m taking your allegations
very
seriously, as is the rest of the FBI. I’ve been investigating Dr. Wilson’s involvement in Leora’s kidnapping, and a few interesting details have cropped up that I would like to share with you.” He paused and I could hear her questioning tone on the other side. “As you can imagine, this is a highly sensitive issue and I’d like to meet with you away from the rest of the family to discuss it. I understand you have an office in town? Could I meet you there?” He paused, listening. “Great. I’ll see you then.” He hung up and looked at me. “How are your self-defense skills?”

I looked down at my left arm, which was sitting ineffectually in its sling, and then back up at him. “They could be better.”

“She’s almost seventy.” The side of his mouth was twitching.

I harrumphed. “You haven’t met her. She’s as tall as you are, and she hasn’t been pummeled by a Ford. She might have the advantage.”

“Don’t worry.” He opened the flap of his suit jacket so I could see the gun holstered against his side. “I’m not opposed to gunning down any grandma who looks at you funny. You just say the word, darlin’,” he drawled like some kind of Old West cowboy.

“My hero. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“Are you kidding?” He looked over his shoulder and pulled away from the curb. “This is the first time since 1988 I’m actually getting somewhere on this investigation. Heroin probably doesn’t feel this good.”