Abandoned: A Thriller Read online

  The eyes looked at him, and he looked at the eyes, and Martin understood something in that moment with a clarity he almost never had. Something important.

  Martin wasn’t smart, but he was smart enough to know that he was a bad kid. He hurt other kids and stole from them and terrorized them. He made them beg and sob and, a few times, had even made them wet their pants. It didn’t much matter that he did these things because they provided relief. THE FISTS weren’t enough of an explanation for why he sometimes grinned when others were weeping. He was bad. He accepted this as he accepted his inability to change it.

  The eyes looking down at him belonged to a whole different level of bad. They were devoid. There was no grief or joy inside them, no unspent tears, no laughs waiting to happen. This wasn’t a kid who went home to read Batman, and Martin would bet sure as shit he’d never watched a single God damn episode of Happy Days.

  The eyes watched Martin, the whole of him, they waited with implacable promise, and he knew in that moment that it didn’t matter about the sun and the sidewalk or that they were ten years old; the only thing that mattered was understanding this: Every word had been a promise, and every promise would be kept.

  “I understand,” he whispered.

  The eyes watched him, searching for the truth, and Martin wept as he waited, hoping to be believed. After too long a time, the Boy nodded, straightened, and tossed the half broom handle away.

  “First payment is this Friday,” the Boy said.

  Then he turned and walked off.

  The Boy got home satisfied. He didn’t whistle like Martin, and he didn’t smile a secret smile. Those were unnecessary things, ornaments of humanity. But he was satisfied. He hadn’t just solved his problem, he’d solved every facet of it.

  What if, for example, his father upped the ante in the future and wanted more than a dollar? It was a thought that had occurred to him last night, as he’d considered and ached in the dark. He’d decided it was very possible. If life could want a dollar, couldn’t it want two? Or three?

  The shortest distance between two lines was to take from those who had, but that presented another problem: how to keep from getting caught.

  All roads had led to Martin. The larger boy would do the work and he’d take the heat when it came. And if Martin did decide to tell on the Boy, who’d believe him?

  The rest was just judgment and calculation. How much pain to cause, how much fear to instill, how much certainty would result. Human calculus was the easiest math of all, if you had a knack for it, and that was the day the Boy learned that he did.

  Not all evil is an accident. Sometimes it is grown in a dark cellar under a dark sun, tended by a dark gardener with a hoe made of bone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PRESENT DAY

  I long for my gun to be in my hand right now. It is a Glock 9mm, and I am as comfortable with it as I am carrying a purse or wearing a pair of well-fitting shoes.

  I am a markswoman with a handgun. It’s a skill that seems to have crawled out of some ancestral DNA, because neither my mom nor my dad liked guns. I was introduced to this passion when I was eight by a friend of my father’s. He was a gun nut, and so was I after that day. There was something just … right about having a gun in my hand. It belonged.

  I was a natural from the start, and though I’ve never competed, I suspect I’m in the top hundred in the world. It’s a skill that’s come in handy far too often, and one I wish I could utilize now.

  “This dress is too damn hot,” I growl.

  It’s late February in Los Angeles, and Callie’s wedding is just off the beach. The air is cool, but for some cursed reason there’s no discernible wind today, and the sun that would be comfortable in normal clothes is turning my maid of honor dress into a miniature sauna.

  “My ass is sweating,” Marilyn whispers back to me, and giggles.

  Marilyn is Callie’s daughter. She and Callie reconciled only a few years ago. Callie got pregnant at fifteen and gave Marilyn up for adoption at the urging of her parents, something she always regretted. One of the men we were hunting had ferreted out this information and threatened to use it against Callie. The result was a reunion of necessity that has turned into a real relationship.

  “Quiet, Mama-Smoky,” Bonnie chastises. “You too,” she tells Marilyn.

  I glance over at Bonnie, who stands next to me in her sun-yellow bridesmaid dress. She has her hair up and tied with a yellow ribbon, like all the women. She is beautiful, and I smile at her.

  Bonnie is thirteen, and she looks like her mother, all blond hair and crisp blue eyes. The same perfect white teeth. It’s what’s behind her eyes that makes her different. She’s a thirteen-year-old physically, but there’s a stillness to her gaze that belies that. She’s seen and experienced too much.

  Her mother, Annie King, was my best friend in high school. She was murdered and mutilated by a man because he’d wanted me to hunt him, and he forced Bonnie to watch it all.

  Annie had left Bonnie to me. I still don’t know why.

  Avenging Annie became the first lifeline in the aftertime of Joseph Sands; Bonnie became the second. Bonnie was driven mute by witnessing the murder of her mother, but over time she’s come back to herself. She is thirteen now; she speaks; I love her. She’s my child in all the ways that count.

  Bonnie smiles back at me, and it burns away that watchful look in her eyes like the sun burning away the fog.

  “You’re not hot?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “I can take it. It won’t be for long.”

  I glance over at Samuel Brady, the man Callie will be marrying. He’s the head of the SWAT team at the Los Angeles FBI office, and he looks the part, even in his black tuxedo. He’s tall, about six feet four, and he keeps his dark hair like all the SWAT guys do: short and tight, military style.

  “Sam doesn’t seem nervous,” I whisper to Marilyn. “I don’t think much scares him,” she whispers back, “except maybe Callie.”

  I stifle a snort at this. Callie Thorne is both my friend and a long-term member of my team. She’s a tall, skinny, leggy redhead with a master’s in forensics and a minor in criminology. She’s known for her irreverence, which is generally excused by her competence. She is ruthless in her search for the truth.

  The fact that she’s getting married is still a surprise to everyone at some level. Before Sam Brady, Callie was what we affectionately called a “serial non-monogamist.”

  Standing next to Sam is Tommy. He catches my eye and gives me a wink. I stick my tongue out at him, which earns me another nudge and frown from Bonnie.

  “When did you become such a little narc?” I whisper to her.

  “Since Kirby made me second in command,” she answers.

  Now it’s my turn to frown.

  Kirby Mitchell is an assassin. She also happens to have assumed the role as Callie’s wedding planner. She’s got the look and attitude of a California beach bunny, but her history is much darker than that. There were vague rumors of her using threats, even flashing her gun, to get some of the vendors to cut Callie a break. I’m not sure how I feel about Bonnie getting close to her.

  I let it go, as I let so many things go in my life. It’s not like I have much choice. I’m surrounded by people like me, people who have both visible and invisible scars, people who have killed others and will kill again. It may not be the best environment in which to raise a child, but it is the one I’ve chosen and the one I have.

  Next to Tommy are the last two members of my team, Alan Washington and James Giron. Alan is the oldest of us all, almost fifty now. He’s a linebacker-large African American man. His tuxedo tightens dangerously every time he moves, straining at the seams. Size hides the truth of Alan; he’s got a mind for detail and an endless patience that makes him a formidable investigator.

  James checks his watch, and a sour expression crosses his face. I roll my eyes. At thirty-one, James is the youngest member of my team. He’s also a misanthrope. I can’t say that he hat
es people, but he sure doesn’t seem to care for them. He has no use for social graces and generally gets on the wrong side of everyone he meets, present company included. What James lacks in the likability department he makes up for with his mind. James is a genius. He graduated high school at fifteen, burned his way through a PhD in criminology in four years, and joined the FBI.

  One hint of James’s humanity lies in his reasons for becoming an agent. He had a sister, Rosa, who was murdered when James was twelve. She was twenty. It took her three days to die as she was burned with a blowtorch and raped repeatedly. James decided at her funeral that he wanted to join the FBI.

  He also shares my gift: the ability to understand the dark things. Like me, he can sidle up against the hissing and the slithering and the sticky, he can smell the smell and taste the taste, and come away changed but intact. Much as I dislike him sometimes, when I need someone to commiserate with about the mind of a killer, James is my invaluable and constant companion.

  I look out at the attendees, seated in their plastic folding chairs. There aren’t all that many. Callie’s parents aren’t here; they weren’t invited. She’s never forgiven them for forcing her to give up Marilyn. Alan’s wife, Elaina, is there. She smiles at me, a crinkling of the eyes. I smile back. Elaina is one of the few truly good people I’ve ever met.

  I view almost everyone with a cynical eye. I’m too familiar with the secrets people keep behind their cloaks of decency and their bright-toothed smiles. Elaina is different. She’s not perfect, not Pollyanna. She can get angry and she’s had moments of poor judgment, like all of us. But Elaina is the one who came to see me in the hospital after Sands’s attack, when I was lying there in my shock and agony, staring at the white ceiling tile and listening to the cold beeps and hisses of the medical machines. She pushed the protesting nurse aside, and she came and gathered me up in her arms and both made and let me cry. I sobbed myself out against her until I literally passed out, and when I awoke, she was still there.

  I love her. She’s like a mother to me.

  AD Jones, my boss, is seated next to her. He seems to be tolerating being here, but no more than that. I guess getting married and divorced two times would do that to you. His smile is more of a scowl, and he keeps sneaking glances at his watch. AD Jones has been my longtime mentor, sort of my professional rabbi. He’s too much of a leader to be a real friend, but he’s a great boss.

  There are others in the audience: Sarah, now nineteen. A man had chased her through her life, killing anyone and everyone she ever loved. Theresa, her foster sister, sits next to her. Both have suffered more than I have in their short lives, which gives me pause. Perhaps that’s why Bonnie feels such a kinship with them.

  The chairs are filled with ex-victims and hunters and a mix of the two. People who deal in suffering and death. I glance at Bonnie again and stifle a sigh.

  This is my life. It’s not perfect, but this is my life. And she is loved. I recite the words and even believe them. Mostly. My cell phone chirps, signaling the arrival of a text message. “Turn that off!” Bonnie whispers, outraged.

  “Can’t, honey,” I murmur, plucking the phone from where I’d stuffed it in the bouquet I’m holding. She grumbles something by way of reply and stares daggers at me.

  I open the phone and freeze as I read the message.

  I’m sending something to you, Special Agent Barrett.

  I look up and around, scanning the crowd and surrounding area. I see a couple walking on the beach who’ve stopped to take in the wedding. A dedicated surfer is paddling out in what has to be freezing cold water. The hotel nearby has people coming in and out, but I don’t see anyone stationary.

  Could have rented a room. Could be watching us from a window.

  I look up, but the windows are one way, and besides, the hotel has ten stories and four sides. I close the phone and put it back into the bouquet.

  Sending me something? What? And now or later?

  I’m more afraid than angry. He knows my cell phone number—not an easy trick—and he might be watching us right now. Us, including Bonnie. I look at her and find her staring right at me, assessing my state of mind with those too-old eyes.

  “You okay?” she asks me.

  Time to compartmentalize. I can stand here and worry about something beyond my control, or I can do what I’m here for.

  I free a hand from the bouquet and touch her cheek. “I’m fine, honey. Where the hell is Callie?”

  We left her almost ten minutes ago. She had her dress on; her makeup was perfect; all she needed to do was slip on her shoes and cue up the music.

  “Maybe something with Kirby?” Marilyn whispers.

  It’s true, the simultaneous absence of Kirby is disturbing. I look at the priest, Father Yates. He smiles at me, the picture of patience. I met Yates during our last case, and our relationship has continued. I am a long-lapsed Catholic, but he seems to be enjoying the chase. He’s another giant, standing almost six-five.

  I point this out to Marilyn. “Look at all the guys. They should start a basketball team.”

  She fights back another giggle, which gets me going again and earns me another stare-down from my adopted daughter. Then the music starts up, forcing us to stifle it. I watch Kirby hurry down the aisle to her spot in the front. She seems angry.

  “That’s not the song Kirby chose,” Bonnie whispers.

  What’s playing is “Let It Be,” by the Beatles, the original version, just Paul and his piano. I think it sounds great.

  “What did Kirby want?” I ask.

  “‘Here Comes the Bride.’”

  Well, no wonder, I think. Conformity isn’t exactly Callie’s style.

  The woman of the hour appears, and my mental chatter dies away. I stop worrying about the mysterious cell phone message and the sweat sliding down the small of my back. Callie is too beautiful.

  She’s wearing a simple long white satin dress. Her red hair is down and wreathed in flowers. It looks like horses made of fire galloping down her back in the afternoon sunlight. She sees me gawping, gives me a wink. My heart squeezes in my chest.

  I was always afraid that Callie would end up alone. I’m forty-one now, and Callie is about the same age. We are at our prime, but I’ve seen the future, the coming cusp, the place where the dust begins to settle and the lines begin to deepen. A time will arrive when this thing we’ve devoted our lives to, this chasing of the insane, will reach its end. We’ll lay down our rifles, too old for the hunt. Maybe we’ll teach the newer, younger hunters. Maybe we’ll grow old at home, bouncing grandchildren on our knees, but whatever happens, old age is coming. I can hear the hoofbeats clearer now than when I was a fresh-scrubbed twenty-one.

  So I worried about my best friend growing old and alone, and I find myself relieved and happy. She loves a man. He loves her back. They’ll be together now, whatever happens.

  The joy I feel is tempered by another, sudden vision. I see Matt and me on our wedding day. I wore white satin too. Matt and I were both incredibly young, a youth I can barely remember. Most of that day is a blur, but three things stand out in clear relief: our love, our laughter, our joy. Who knew that it would end the way it did?

  Callie arrives next to Samuel, and he grins at her. It’s the grin of a boy, beautiful on this normally taciturn man. It strips ten years off his age. Callie’s smile in return is shy, which is almost as strange and at least as wonderful. Father Yates begins the ceremony, written by Callie herself. It is a mix of religion and promises, with no trace of humor. This surprises me on some level.

  I think about my life now, about the divisions I’ve placed between myself and aspects of the truth. There is the secret I’ve sworn Tommy to keep. Then, of course, there’s the one big secret, the new and devastating one. Who knows what I’m going to do about that? I hide some of these things not out of fear, some of them out of love. This is my life, for better or worse. I feel the sun on my neck and watch my friend fall into happiness.

  “You m
ay kiss the bride,” Yates says, smiling, and Samuel does. The breeze finally blows a little, chilly but happy, and the sun shines hard, doing its best to bless the day.

  I catch Tommy’s eye, and we grin at each other.

  “May I present Mr. and Mrs.—”

  Father Yates is cut off by the black Mustang with the tinted windows that roars up in the parking lot about fifteen yards away. It stops, engine rumbling. The door opens and a woman is tossed out onto the asphalt. The door slams shut and the car speeds off. The car has no license plates.

  The woman stands up. She’s shaved bald and is wearing a white nightgown. She stumbles toward us. When she’s about five yards away, she puts her hands to her head, turns her face to the sky, and begins to scream.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We’re a strange group for the hospital. Callie is still wearing her wedding dress, though she slipped on a pair of tennis shoes. I’m still in my maid of honor gear, and Tommy and Samuel and Alan and James are in their tuxedos.

  The woman collapsed after screaming, and we sprang into motion. Callie and I ran over to administer first aid. Tommy and Samuel raced to see who could call 911 first. Kirby went racing after the black Mustang, heels and all, with a gun that had somehow been secreted underneath her bridesmaid’s dress.

  Until the ambulance arrived, the woman remained essentially unconscious, her eyelids fluttering and the occasional moan escaping from between her lips.

  Her appearance had been shocking. She was gaunt, though not emaciated. Her lips were cracked and she appeared to be dehydrated. The skin under her eyes was almost black, but not from physical abuse. They were the eyes of someone who hadn’t slept in days, or maybe weeks.

  Her skin was the whitest I’d ever seen, pasty, almost paper white. She reminded me of those blind albino rats you hear about sometimes, born in the dark and raised without ever seeing the light.

  “Marks on her wrists, ankles, and neck,” Callie had noted with a nod of her head.