Thicker Than Water (16 page)

She saw Lizzie pass by carrying a tiny newborn baby girl in her arms. And nearby, as she had always been, she saw herself, seventeen and lost. “Oh, God!” The words were ripped from her chest as she leaped to her feet.

“What?” Sean asked. “What's wrong?”

Julie snatched the remote from MacKenzie's hand and stopped the tape, returning the TV screen to gray-and-white snow. “I thought you said the feds confiscated all your footage of the compound?” She fought to make her tone calm, objective, and tried to keep the tears of shock from surfacing in her eyes.

He was watching her, probing her eyes so deeply that she had to look away. “I made copies before I complied. Figured they might come in handy someday.”

He paused, there, as if waiting for her to speak. She didn't; she couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

“Why the overblown reaction, Jones?”

She closed her eyes, gave her head a shake. “You could get into a lot of trouble for having those tapes. I was…I was shocked to see them, that's all.”

He shook his head slowly. “So you're worried about me?”

“And me. You're my partner, and now I've seen them. I'm as guilty as you are.”

He narrowed his eyes, and she knew he wasn't buying it.

“No one else can know you have this footage, Sean. No one.”

“You think I want them to? No one's going to know, Jones. This is for our eyes only.”

She lifted her chin. “Is there just the one tape?”

“I dubbed all the footage onto one, yeah. I have the raid, the fire, and just a little bit I took that day before all hell broke loose.”

“And that's the only copy?”

He frowned at her, tilting his head to the side. “Why?”

“Just…curious.” She walked to the VCR, hit the eject button, took the tape in her hand. “I'd like to take it home, review it myself.”

“How is that better than watching it with me?”

“I can concentrate better if I'm alone.”

He smiled just a little, but she got the feeling it was forced. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

“Take it any way you want.” She hugged the tape to her chest. “So is it okay with you?”

“Why do I get the feeling you're gonna take it either way?”

She shrugged.

“Go ahead, Jones. Knock yourself out.”

She nodded and left his office without another word.

“G
ot a real coup for you, Sean,” Allan Westcott said, leaning into Sean's office.

Sean looked up fast, startled out of his thoughts. He'd been sitting at his desk, wondering just why the hell the sight of that tape had upset Jones so much.

“Do tell,” he said, trying to work up a little enthusiasm.

Allan came the rest of the way inside. “Got a list here of celebs and dignitaries planning to pass through our fair city in the next two weeks. Some heavy hitters. Figured I'd let you and Julie take your pick on who to cover.” He handed a sheet to Sean.

Sean skimmed the list. The governor was going to be in town, a former first lady and current U. S. Senator, two authors, a soap star doing his hunk routine at the Carousel Mall, and the hottest psychic on the circuit, Nathan Z.

“What's the guru promoting?” he asked. “He release a new line of crystal balls or something?”

“Press release says his cable show's about to go network.”

“Really?” Sean's eyebrows rose. “Our network?”

“Yup. He'll be touring the country, taping in a different location every week with a live audience, just the way he's done in the past. Turns out Syracuse is the first stop. He's in town now, will be here all week.”

“So do they sell snake oil at the door?”

“Yeah, I knew you'd be a skeptic.” He tilted his head. “We could have Julie take the more open-minded angle, and you two could go at it over the whole New Age movement. The two of you could have a ball with this.”

“I think she'd rather play the skeptic in this case. Speaking of which, where is Jones, anyway? Shouldn't she be in here for this discussion?”

“She didn't tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“She was feeling ill, so she decided to go home. Said she'd be back in time for the evening broadcast, though.” Allan shook his head slowly. “She hasn't been herself lately, Sean. Frankly, I'm worried about her.”

Sean almost said, “So am I,” but bit his lip in time. Instead he looked his boss squarely in the eye. “You don't have to worry about Jones. It's nothing more than a passing head cold. She's a professional. She's not gonna let it interfere with her work.”

“Oh, I know that. So should I book the interview with Nathan Z?”

Sean nodded. “Yeah, I think it'll make for good television. As for the rest, I'll check with Jones first. Just leave the list, all right?”

“Sure. What are you working on now, Sean? The undead Mordecai Young or the Harry Blackwood murder?”

“A little bit of both.” He yanked his jacket off the hook. “I have to go out—got a source to check on—but I'll be back later.”

“Great.” The boss followed him out of the room and said goodbye in the hall.

So Julie had pled sick and gone home. If Sean had thought she actually was sick, he might even have spared her a get-well wish, but he knew damn well she wasn't. He knew exactly what she was doing. She'd taken that tape home for a closer look. He didn't know what she would be looking for when she did, but there was something on that tape that had sent her into a tailspin.

He hadn't answered her directly when she'd asked if it was his only copy. It wasn't, of course. It was contraband, which meant it was valuable, which meant only an idiot would keep just one copy. He had the footage dubbed onto DVD at home, and he was going to watch it as many times as it took to find whatever had hit Jones so hard. So hard that she felt she had to take the tape and leave work. So hard that she'd been hoping it was his only copy; he'd seen that clearly when she'd asked.

His gut was telling him that he wouldn't see that tape again. He hoped he was wrong. He hoped she wouldn't destroy it on him, but his instincts told him that was exactly what she planned to do.

Sean drove back to his apartment, took his DVD copy out of its locked drawer, stuck it into his VCR/DVD combo and lowered himself to the edge of his favorite leather chair to watch.

He let the footage run from its beginning forward to the point where, as best he could remember, Jones had jumped out of her skin.

He shivered, then, as the action rolled and he remembered.

He'd had to get into position just before dawn. It was the only time he could have gotten as close as he had without being seen. It had been cold that early in the morning, a wet, heavy kind of cold that seemed to seep into his bones.

One of his contacts in the ATF had tipped him off that something big would be going down at the Young Believers' compound that day. He'd gambled on that tip being a good one, and braved the cold and the dark, the mesh fence and the armed guards and the dogs, to get what would turn out to be a the story of a lifetime, one he would never be allowed to tell.

He'd found himself a spot just outside the compound's fence, where the few trees left standing became his cover. He'd been all of twenty-two years old, and ambitious as hell. So he stayed there. He stayed there all day long, and nothing happened. He taped the apparently peaceful, mundane daily lives of the kids—and that was all they were, just kids, from the boys in fatigues patrolling the perimeter with automatic rifles to the placid-faced girls who walked around in bare feet, tending gardens and hanging laundry.

All day he'd watched them. All day he'd taped. And into the night, when the battle erupted and all hell broke loose. The explosions and gunfire, the inferno that house became. And after that, the smouldering rubble. And the bodies.

He'd taped it all. He'd
witnessed
it all.

He'd coated himself in scent-block, a concoction deer
hunters used to keep the animals from catching wind of them in the woods. It kept the guard dogs from picking up his scent. He'd brought along water. No food, and he regretted that by day's end, but he stuck it out all the same.

It got dark again. It got cold again. The pretty young girls went inside, and the boys changed shifts. He'd kept crouching there in the brush, unable to move more than slightly without running the risk of being seen. The trees were thin, small, offering only minimal cover, and he'd been surprised as hell when the dogs hadn't started barking in his direction. He'd ended up with a lot of footage, hours and hours of footage—but it had been this segment, the one he was looking at right now, that had elicited the powerful reaction from Julie Jones.

He squinted at the television screen. He searched the hollow eyes of the young women who walked around like inmates in a prison. Not much older than Dawn, he thought. Dead now. All of them.

When it finally all went down, he'd been in position to capture the raid, though it had been tough to hold on to the camera and keep taping when things exploded. Government agents and police had swarmed, dressed in riot gear. Young's boys—frightened and panic-stricken—fired at the soldiers, and that seemed to break the dam of government restraint. From then on, it was nothing but a storm of gunfire, grenades, smoke and people running, shouting and falling facedown in the dirt. Everyone still able ran into the main house. Within seconds there was an explosion and the house burst into flames.

He'd thought it was over then. He'd expected to see the dazed followers of Mordecai Young come out of the house,
hands behind their heads, surrendering to the troops. He'd focused his lens on the front door, waiting.

But none of them came out. None of them. No one.

He'd been twenty-two years old and certain he could handle anything. But that…

He'd stayed into the morning, when fire trucks were finally allowed to lumber onto the scene and douse the smoldering ruins with water. Even when Sean had been ordered to stop taping, even when they'd confiscated his camera, minus the tapes he'd stashed in his backpack and shoved under a bush, he'd stayed. When the rubble cooled, they'd started pulling out bodies, or what was left of them. Charred and gnarled lumps that had been beautiful young people. Misguided, yeah. But kids, just kids.

He'd left that place finally, exhausted and sick to his soul. He'd managed to make copies of his footage before the feds got around to coming to him with a subpoena and a search warrant. But mostly he'd gone home and asked himself again and again how he was ever going to live with the fact that he had known the raid was coming and had hidden in the bushes waiting to get it on tape, when a single word of warning to any one of those young kids he'd seen earlier in the day might have saved them.

It was still with him, that weight on his shoulders. Still with him, and he didn't think he would ever be able to shake it.

If Mordecai Young were still alive, then Sean MacKenzie would bring his ass down.

Sighing, focusing again on the TV, he realized he'd become too lost in his memories to pay attention. He hit the remote's back button and began viewing that opening sequence again. He let it play, then watched it again, each time trying
to narrow it down a bit closer to the very frames that had caused Julie to lose it. He'd better find it soon, he was due to go on the air in a short while.

He watched as two girls walked from the house to the gardens in back and knew he was close to the right spot. One of the girls carried a baby in one of those sling-type baby carriers that slid over her shoulders. Another girl walked along beside her. As he watched, she said something, smiled and tipped her head in a certain familiar way.

Sean stopped the DVD, freezing on that frame as he studied her face. He used the remote to isolate that section and enlarge it.

He got off the chair, moving closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes on her, tracing the shape of her jaw, the line of her nose, the wide set, almond eyes and the deep, rich color of her skin.

“Jesus,” he said softly. “She was there. Julie Jones was there.”

And that, he knew in that moment, changed everything.

* * *

Dawn and Kayla walked along the roadside, backpacks slung over their shoulders. They took the trail that led off the road and around to the lakeshore. The lake gleamed crystal blue in the late-afternoon sun, and the hills around it blazed with color. The poplars had gone yellow-gold, and the sugar maples orange, scarlet and russet, while the pines held stubbornly to their deep green hue. “We really do live in a beautiful place,” Dawn remarked. It was the first time either of them had spoken. They'd been silent and serious since leaving school, and Dawn thought that Kayla sensed just how important this mission was, even though she didn't know the details.

“Yeah. The lake looks like a postcard today.” Kayla sighed, eyeing Dawn. “So you're really not gonna tell me what this is about?”

“I can't.” Dawn paused in walking, glancing at the worn path ahead, which twisted away from the road. “In fact, you should wait here. I'll go a few more yards, do what I need to do and come right back. Okay?”

A car passed on the road behind Kayla. The girls automatically perused it as it approached, just enough to be sure it wasn't one of their parents or someone who knew them. Dawn grimaced a little. It was a sleek black Jaguar with tinted windows and custom hubcaps. “Glorified Ford,” she muttered. She'd never liked Jags.

Kayla sighed. “You care way too much about cars.” Then she gave Dawn a nod. “Go on. Get it over with. I'll wait here.” She glanced at her watch. “But make it quick. It's past five now, and we have to be back at school for Mom to pick us up from that review class we told her didn't end until six.”

“Thanks, Kayla. I know you hated lying to your mom for me.”

She shrugged. “It wasn't a lie, exactly. I just added an hour to the class.” She pursed her lips. “And that's not saying I like any of this, Dawn. I don't.”

“I don't like it much, either.” Dawn turned and trudged along the path until she rounded a bend and was out of Kayla's sight. She glanced out over the water. It was deep here. There was a steep drop-off not far from shore. She should be able to hurl the knife that far without too much trouble. And no one would ever find it again.

She shucked her backpack, set it on the ground and hunkered over it, opening it and reaching down deep for the
gross thing. Her mind was working overtime as she pawed through the bag, digging beneath the heavy books. She could wipe the fingerprints off with the towel, she thought. But she wouldn't throw the towel into the lake. No sense leaving anything with the knife that might connect it to her house or her mom. She would have to smuggle the towel back into the house and run it through the washing machine—maybe a few times, just to make sure. Or maybe she should burn it, just to be safe.

She stopped digging in the bag, frowning down into it instead. Slowly she began taking things out, textbooks, a binder, a stack of notebooks, her assignment pad…. There was nothing else. Just a handful of pens and pencils resting at the bottom of her bag.

“Oh, no!” She clapped a hand over her mouth after the exclamation burst from her.

Sudden movement made her spin around almost guiltily, but it was only Kayla, racing toward her. “What? What happened?”

Dawn pushed her hair back, staring helplessly into the empty bag. “It's gone. The thing I had to get rid of is gone. God, where could it be?”