Deathgrip Page 27

  Gabe held it, stared into its depths. Dad, did you see yourself die? He could hate the man in such moments, this man he barely remembered and who had condemned him to a childhood and an adolescence in a state home. Look at that fractured image, try to find the youngster behind those adult eyes. No wonder he’d never been adopted. He had never been a cuddly child.

  But he had grown up extraordinarily self-reliant. Could a lesser man have so efficiently dealt with the situation he’d encountered this past Wednesday at Donny’s house? Unlikely.

  Edie Carson, formerly trusted nurse, allowing some mystery man to shoot photos of Amanda. Only blind luck — Gabe’s having to courier the film to the studio — had prevented this scheme from reaching its intended conclusion. Whatever that had been. Motives were foggy. The man had gotten away with his camera, and Edie certainly wasn’t talking.

  Gabe had been unable to trace the man down, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d tapdanced a verbal routine with local emergency rooms — surely the fellow could not have plunged three stories and escaped unscathed, not the way he’d landed — but Gabe had come up empty-handed. Whoever the man was, he hadn’t sought local medical attention.

  Dealing with Edie’s body had been the worst problem. An impromptu burial was out of the question. Too many hours of daylight left, and not enough time in his day as it was. The temporary solution wasn’t long in coming, though.

  He twisted her head back around so it faced front again, then temporarily hid her in a closet. Went home to his apartment to retrieve a large trunk used only for junk storage. He brought it back empty and stuffed Edie inside, a tight fit, folding her one way and another until he could shut the lid and padlock it.

  Next he carted the trunk over to the cafeteria that served the mailroom employees and the dorms. Edie’s final stop was the walk-in refrigerator, a back corner, little rearranging required. He boldly left a sign taped to it, PROPERTY OF GABRIEL MATTHEWS, DO NOT DISTURB, and felt confident that none of the kitchen peons would bother with it.

  Rank had its privileges. A man with the run of this place could get away with murder.

  Of course, she couldn’t stay there indefinitely. Rigor mortis would run its cycle and depart, but he could not prevent her eventual decay. For now, though, time to spare, worry about it when he had more time.

  Back at the house, Gabe had phoned a glazier to arrange a quick repair on the window the photographer had broken in his haste. Amanda had to be dealt with, temporarily ferried to another bedroom with all her health care items, and most of her smell had aired away by the time the glazier arrived.

  Gabe had also placed an indignant call to Doctor Irv Preston to raise hell about the unreliability of one of the nurses. Edie Carson, nowhere to be found, Amanda lying comatose and untended in an empty house. Preston made profuse apologies and promised to have her replaced by the next day, and if he had any say about it, Edie would never work in Oklahoma City again.

  The day had ended as smoothly as could be expected, the lies and the cover-ups intact. And the longer the day wore on, it seemed reasonable to assume that if the photographer was going to cause trouble, he would already have done so. Nobody waits until tomorrow to report witnessing a murder. Likely, this stranger had had something illegal up his own sleeve — blackmail, perhaps — and had gotten ice-cold feet after realizing what he was letting himself in for. The longer Gabe thought about it, the more this made sense.

  Yet the question remained, having occurred to him a full day after the killing: Why did I do it in the first place?

  Quite frankly, there had been no need.

  Paul, the elusive object of a long worldwide search, had already been located. And if his identity as one of the four Scapegoats had yet to be ascertained, it was but a formality. Gabe had seen the man’s ability with his own eyes, had been on the receiving end of that awesome power. For Gabe, maintaining a cover with Dawson Ministries was no longer vital.

  I was confused. Who I was. What I was…

  Where my loyalty lay.

  Staring into the mirror, all those eyes staring back. He was Gabe. He was legion.

  I need … help.

  No. No. No. No. Too late for regrets now, too late for doubt. He’d covered his tracks well, every act that of a logical, thinking man, precisely what he’d needed to be in those moments. It would be his secret, with no need to inform Gavin. Gavin would worry needlessly. A thoughtful son protects his father from needless worry, and father is as father does.

  Gabe pulled on a crisp shirt, tucked it in. And waited for that knock at the door.

  It came, at last, and he answered.

  Gavin.

  He stepped in from the hallway, and Gabe flicked on the room light, and for a moment they stared. Five years had been a long time, but time and distance melted with those welcoming smiles and the fierce embrace. Gabe had missed this man, guiding light that he had been. A voice on the phone was simply not enough.

  Gavin Bainbridge had changed little. Tall, still slender until his shoulders flared wide and blocky. His long face held a few more creases, perhaps, and his lank hair more gray. But time had been kind, and tonight his eyes twinkled.

  Gabe glanced at the door. “No one else?”

  Gavin shook his head. “I made the trip alone. It was just to observe, mind you. I need no help for that. Good heavens, whatever happened to your face?”

  Gabe touched the scabbed furrows, four in a row, a moment’s indiscretion in the sickroom of Amanda Dawson. “I had a bad dream. I tend to thrash when I have bad dreams.”

  Gavin chuckled like a naughty uncle. “It looks as though you’ve had a tiff with some lass.”

  Gabe took his jacket, hung it in the room closet, then ushered him to a chair, sit, sit. A half-hour earlier, he’d had room service send up a bottle of brandy, and poured. Celebration. There was no need for a toast. A toast would have trivialized their find.

  “Were you in the audience tonight?” Gabe asked. “I looked for you on the monitors but I couldn’t find you.”

  “I was there.”

  “So you saw him. Paul Handler.”

  “I did indeed.” Gavin smiled gently. Wisdom. “Rather an anticlimactic moment, after waiting twenty-eight years. But I believe we have our man.”

  Gabe, beaming, “His background checks?”

  “Perfectly.” Gavin leaned back, sipped the brandy, shut his eyes. Opened. “Paul Handler was born on Friday, November twenty-second, 1963. The same day your president Kennedy was shot. Also the same afternoon Albert Meerschaum died in front of me on that elevated train platform in Chicago. The records show that Paul was born two weeks premature in a very sudden labor. His mother didn’t even make it to the hospital in time. And it happened just blocks away from where Albert died.” Gavin shook his head, the story still amazing to him. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know what happened, precisely. But I suspect Albert Meerschaum passed the torch to Paul while he was still in utero. Clever, I’ll give him that. I should’ve expected once Albert knew the truth he would become … rebellious.”

  Water under the bridge, though, all of it. They’d done The Quorum proud. Much had ridden on Gavin Bainbridge’s shoulders the last twenty-eight years, having lost track of one Scapegoat’s lineage, but they had made up for it now. They had done the near-impossible, found a needle in a haystack the size of the world.

  It had happened only rarely throughout Quorum history, a Scapegoat slipping his watchers. But when it did, the search would then be on, worldwide. All possible leads followed up, all avenues investigated regardless of how remote their corner of the globe. The Quorum had agents dispatched on every continent. And for more than twenty years after the loss of Albert Meerschaum, Scapegoat of Pestilence, the search had been fruitless. The proliferation of global mass media made the task handier in terms of centralization, but what a chore to follow them all.

  Then, a glimmer of hope. A tale of an unexplainable healing had wended its way out of rural Alabama. It had never
been written up, this incident more than six years old, had never made the news. But people talk, stories get passed on, and word eventually reached Quorum ears in Atlanta. A field investigator was sent in the guise of a reporter to interview witnesses of the healing of a retarded teenager crushed by a tractor. There had been sufficient validation to warrant an infiltration in the life of the supposed healer: one Donald Dawson, now doing big business as a television evangelist.

  By that time, Gabe’s training in Scotland had been completed by two years. His cover had been established as a ruthless stock trader in Chicago, and he was selected for the task. Infiltration of Dawson Ministries had been shamefully easy, simple manipulation of emotions and presenting himself as someone whose experience could benefit Donny. But Gabe could find nothing to indicate that Dawson had anything more up his sleeve than routine sleight of hand and powers of suggestion. Nevertheless, the assignment had come through from Gavin Bainbridge, now Quorum director: Stay with Dawson and keep your eyes open, potential value may yet come of this.

  For five years, nothing. Then a media flurry in St. Louis, the spontaneous recovery of eight victims of a hit-and-run. The Quorum had analyzed it — computer hackers tapping into hospital records — but had been unable to determine any common links. One thing was clear, though: Something unexplainable and unprecedented was going on in St. Louis. Someone, somewhere, with a unique ability he or she may have only the barest understanding of. Given its more lethal aspects, the assimilation of such a talent could not be an easy process.

  The directive had gone out from Gavin Bainbridge to Gabriel Matthews. Of all Quorum operatives, Gabe was in the best position to move on this. Maneuver Donny Dawson into a high position of visibility in the St. Louis area, and maybe, just maybe, it might smoke out the true Scapegoat.

  Wonder of wonders. It appeared to have worked. He’d arrived on their doorstep like a lost babe, this last Scapegoat. His brothers and sisters scattered the world over — one in Sicily, one in Ethiopia, one in Argentina.

  With the absentee right here in Topeka.

  “How do you want me to proceed with Paul?” Gabe said.

  “Just get him to trust you, so you don’t have to worry about being surprised by what he might do.” Gavin shook his head sadly. “You can rarely level with these people as to who and what they truly are. They feel freakish enough as it is. I found that out twenty-eight years ago with Meerschaum. They’re tragic enough without adding to their burdens any sooner than you have to.”

  Gabe, reeling within, quietly pinched himself until the pain flared red. Worthy and pure, must be worthy and pure. “You mean to let him continue what he’s doing? As I’ve understood it, this’ll make the first time his kind has done so much healing on such an accelerated level. Are you sure that’s wise?”

  Gavin spread his hands, palms up. “I don’t see as you have much choice. You can’t force him out of it if this is something he wishes to do. Decisions like that must come from him.” His voice became grave. “But remember. There’s a duality to be maintained here. It will not merely consist of healings. You say he’s admitted already having had experiences with the other half. There will be more. I think it best to let him discover that on his own, as much as you find prudent. But Gabe…?

  “Whatever you do — don’t get in his way at those times.”

  Gabe shook his head, his understanding total, with pity and respect and fear and above all, the awe. Ye gods, how many men who had walked this earth got a chance to touch living infinity? And of them, how few were put in charge of it?

  Nergal, lord of healing, lord of pestilence, I love you most of all.

  “You’ll have to play this out as you see fit, Gabe, but here is what I suggest: If you need any manner of leverage within the ministry, you should wield that leverage over Dawson himself. In that way, you can still control Paul, indirectly. Do you think you can come up with a way of doing this?”

  Several moments of thought, then, “I believe I can. Yes.”

  Gavin smiled broadly, with twinkling eyes. “Splendid.”

  They continued to talk for another hour, sitting across from each other at the round table while the brandy slowly went down. Such civility amid discussions of spiritual balance in the world, the precarious responsibility that was theirs alone. Gavin waxed mournful about the secrecy, their life of manipulating other lives, freaks — Scapegoats — who knew only that they were different, often learning why only at sanity’s end, when The Quorum thought it time for them to pass the torch to another, then live and die as any mortal. Such betrayal, not by stabbing them in the back, but by sins of omission: the withholding of their heritage. Gabe empathized, putting it in terms he was more familiar with. Given his upbringing in state homes in Michigan, he had known plenty of adopted kids who never stopped hungering to know their roots. How much greater must it be magnified when, so far as you know, you are utterly alone in the world in your abilities? There was Hell.

  But no, Paul, you’re not alone because I’m with you, and I’ll guide you as much as I can, and if you ask me to worship you, I’ll drop to my knees and do that too. Because I have seen you.

  The flurry of activity around Paul was considerable at the moment, given the pace of the tour, but Gabe knew the long-term risks. In ten days or so they would be returning to Oklahoma City, and Paul would eventually shed the innocence from his eyes. See what was going on behind his back, under his nose. Right now he was blinding himself, albeit willingly, to the fact that he was being used. That Donny was as much as sticking a tap in him and draining off what Donny needed. Someday Paul would see this, for while he may have been naive, he wasn’t stupid.

  And I’ll be there when it happens. I wouldn’t miss it.

  Gabe had wondered how to deal with one possibility that, thankfully, had not arisen this late night. What if Gavin had ordered him to pull the plug on Dawson Ministries, or to let someone else take over the task of overseeing now that Paul had been identified? Which wouldn’t have been fair, Gabe had worked for this, had earned the right to see it through. The answer, of course, had been quick in presenting itself…

  This hotel was tall. This room had a balcony. Come on out here, Gavin, it’s far too nice a night to sit inside. Have some brandy. The man was nearing sixty, likely Gabe could put him over the railing before he knew what was happening, it would only be fair. What a relief that it hadn’t been necessary. So few people left in this world could he say he truly loved.

  “I best be going now. I’ve a flight back to catch, and I’ve not slept in” — Gavin checked his watch — “nearly thirty hours.”

  Gabe helped him on with his jacket, fretting, then ushered him to the door. To say goodbye now, well, who knew when they would see each other again? Firmly, they clasped hands.

  Gavin, looking into his deep-set eyes, “I was just two years younger than you are now when I lost track of my charge. My rise in The Quorum did not suffer for it. But I did.” Hands, squeezing. “Thank you, Gabe. You returned my pride. Thank you.”

  He was brimming inside, and wanted to weep, so overjoyed this mentor hadn’t proved an obstacle. “Have I made you proud?”

  And Gavin nodded, yes, yes, of course, proud.

  Hands locked, “Then call me your son.”

  Gavin drew back a fraction, rising straighter, and Gabe pressed his hands tighter still while Gavin said, “We’ve gone over this before, we are friends and we share a bond of duty like none other. But Gabe … we’re not related.”

  He felt throat tightening, mouth drying, say it isn’t so, and he trembled. “You gave my life meaning!” He needed to make the cut that would help him focus, attach the clamp that would calm his soul. Vital control, slipping through his fingers, no telling what he might do then. He breathed steadily, calm, focus, calm, then eased himself back from the brink with the sublime realization that frenzy was not the role he needed to play in this moment.

  Ah, better.

  When he looked back to Gavin’s wise eyes, h
e saw reconsideration, a faint smile on those lips. “But inasmuch as you have proven yourself these years? Gabe? I could be no more proud if you were my son.”

  Gabe lowered to knees, kissed the back of one strong hand. It was all he needed to hear, and would suffice.

  For now.

  Chapter 24

  Before leaving his room this evening, Paul barely recognized himself in the mirror. He’d taken up residence in one of Dawson Ministries’ dorms a few days before. And was greeting the weekend with the face of a familiar stranger.

  His hair had been shorn; it barely reached the back of his neck now. His fingernails had been manicured, his teeth cleaned and polished. Every rough edge had been honed down into a smooth mellow gleam. He’d been fitted for hand-stitched suits by the same tailor who stocked Donny’s closet with white ones, and they fit like second skins.

  Conformity. Paul never thought he would see the day when he wore its uniform so comfortably, so willingly.

  At the moment, though, his old autumn attire of jeans and a clean sweatshirt was still the rule. A welcome link to a past that had been yanked from beneath him like a rug. Out for a walk tonight, old habits hard to break.

  There was no pavement here, as he had trod in U City. No traffic lights, no blare of horns, no sirens. Neither bars, nor restaurants, nor hole-in-the-wall shops with secret treasures just past their doors. Very little discernible life at all out here on the compound. Pastoral. Grass and trees, with lights burning here and there in buildings, to ward off the night. An evening breeze ruffled his hair, or what remained of it, and he breathed it in. These were the final days of September, and while the days were still warm, night brought cool new delights. Summer had fallen.