The Face of Death (38 page)

How do we keep from giving it to him?

And what about the other? The thing that’s been trying to swim up through my subconscious, the thing that nagged at James as well?

“Thanks,” I say to Gibbs. “We have to go.”

“You’ll let me know?” he says. “In case the outcome affects the trust?”

“We will.”

“Who is he?” I’m on the phone with Barry.

“Gustavo Cabrera. Thirty-eight years old. Came to the US from Central America in 1991. Naturalized citizen as of 1997. That’s all pretty uninteresting. What is interesting is that he’s got himself a huge house on a lot of property with no evidence of holding a steady job, and there’s some unsubstantiated chatter about him stockpiling weapons.”

“What—like militia?”

“Or maybe just a gun-nut. Nothing ever came of it. The informant that tip came from was generally considered unreliable and has since died of a drug overdose. Two other pieces of information. Both are supposed to be confidential—personal medical information—but someone found out and made a note of both. First one: Cabrera is HIV positive.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“And the second?”

“Doctor noted at some point Cabrera had been a victim of torture. What appeared to be whip-scars on his lower back and—get this—scars on the soles of his feet.”

“Holy shit. Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“I’ll let you know what happens.”

I hang up still feeling troubled and distracted.

There’s a missing, a nothing, a something-that-should-be-there.

Cabrera. He seemed to come from the right place, geographically. He’s got the scars. Was he The Stranger? Why was I so reluctant to just say yes?

Sarah’s diary. What did she leave out?

“What’s the problem, Smoky?” Callie asks me, her voice soft. “What’s troubling you so?”

“It’s too easy,” I say. “It’s too pat. Something about it doesn’t fit him. It doesn’t fit who he is.”

“Why? How?”

I shake my head, frustrated. “I don’t know, exactly. I just don’t think it should be this simple. Why would he lead us right to him?”

“Maybe he’s
crazy,
Smoky.”

“No. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He wanted us to get a subpoena, and he wanted us to see that file. He stirred the FBI like a beehive by doing his
Terminator
number in the lobby. He’s shot himself to the top of the Most Wanted list and let us see his face after staying hidden for so long. Why?”

“You’re the one who can think the way they do,” she prods. Expectant. Confident that I’ll provide a revelation.

“I can’t see it. I know it’s there to see, but I can’t see it. Something about Sarah’s diary. Something missing from it.”

I can feel it now, on the edge of my vision. I can see it out of the corners of my eyes, but if I turn to view it head-on, it disappears.

Something not there that should be there.

Something, something, some—

I stiffen and my eyes go wide as understanding rushes in.

This is how it happens. This is the end result of drinking down the ocean of information, evidence, considerations, conclusions, possibilities, and feelings. It’s like filtering a mountain through a sieve to obtain a grain of sand but, oh, how vital that grain can be.

Oh my God.

Not something.

Someone.

“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” Callie murmurs.

I manage a nod.

Not everything, I think, I haven’t figured out everything. But this…I think so, yeah.

Some things have just become clearer, clearer and more terrible.

51

“
ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS, SMOKY?” AD JONES ASKS ME.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t like it. Too many variables. Someone could end up dead.”

“If we don’t do it my way, sir, we could lose hostages that might still be alive. I don’t see an alternative.”

A long pause, followed by a deep sigh. “Set things up at your end. Let me know when you want us to move.”

“Thank you, sir.” I hang up and look at Callie. “It’s a go.”

“I’m still having trouble believing it.”

“I know. Let’s go nail down the last facts we need.”

The safe house Kirby had moved Elaina, Bonnie, and Sarah to looks
unsafe
. It’s a house in Hollywood, old, beaten-down, ramshackle. I guess that’s the point. Kirby opens the door as we approach and ushers us in. She has a grin on her face and a handgun tucked into the front of her jeans. She looks like a deranged blond pirate.

“The gang’s all here,” she exclaims. She’s stopped trying to cover up her killer’s eyes. They roam over the outside and her fingers tap the butt of her gun. She closes the door.

“Hey, Red Sonja,” she says, grinning. She sticks out a hand. “You must be Callie. I’m Kirby, the bodyguard. What do you do, exactly?”

Callie takes Kirby’s hand, flashes her a smile. “I brighten the world with my presence.”

Kirby nods, not missing a beat. “Hey, me too. Coolness.” She turns toward the back of the house. “Olly olly oxen free. Come on out.”

Sarah, Bonnie, and Elaina appear. Bonnie comes to me, hugs me around the waist.

“Hi, munchkin.” I smile.

She looks at me, at Callie. Her eyes fill up with concern.

Callie gets the message. “We’re fine, just some dirty smoke. Nothing a little soap and makeup won’t handle.”

“Tommy got hit by some shrapnel in the shoulder, babe,” I tell Bonnie. “But he’s going to be fine. It’s not serious.”

She searches my face for the truth. Takes a moment to gauge the state of me. Gives me another hug.

Elaina is worried, but I can tell she’s being strong for the girls. Or perhaps they’re just letting her think so.

“I’m glad everyone is okay,” Elaina says, her worry appearing in the form of brief hand-wringing. “But—why did we have to come here?”

“It was a precaution. It could have been a random act of terror. The FBI certainly has plenty of enemies. But the profile we’ve been considering suggested it’s also the kind of thing that The Stranger might try. Turns out we were right.”

Sarah steps forward. Her face is calmer than it should be as she speaks.

“Who is he?”

“His name is Gustavo Cabrera. He’s thirty-eight years old and he came from Central America. We don’t know much more about him.”

Sarah looks down at the floor. “So what happens now?”

I sneak a glance at Kirby and Callie. Both of them know. Elaina does not.

“Now,” I answer, “you and I need to talk. Alone.”

Her head shoots up. Her look at me is wary. She shrugs, trying for indifference, but I can see the tension in her shoulders.

“Okay,” she answers.

I raise my eyebrows at Kirby.

“Two bedrooms in the back,” she chirps. “The rest of us girls will stay right here and talk guns and makeup.”

I walk over to Sarah, touch her lightly on the shoulder. She looks at me and something deep and terrible and haunted stirs in those beautiful eyes.

Does she know? I wonder.

Not for sure, I think. But she
fears.

I take her back to the bedroom and shut the door and we sit on the bed. I prepare myself to ask the question.

The hardest evidence to see isn’t the evidence that’s there. It’s the evidence that should be there, but isn’t. We miss omission because, by its nature, it is absent. This absence is what had troubled first James, and then me, after reading Sarah’s diary.

Once we realized what was missing, and coupled it with what we knew of The Stranger, things became clear. It was only a suspicion not yet proved, true, but our confidence was high.

We’d felt him against our skin, James and I.

This made sense.

This made sense.

I ask her the question.

52

“
SARAH, WHERE’S THERESA?”

The change in her is a lightning strike. Horror fills her face and eyes and she shakes her head, back and forth.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she whispers. “Please. She’s—” Her face twists, her whole face.

Like a towel being wrung tight.

“—she’s
all
I have
left
…. If I lose
her
…it’s all
gone
…gone…
gone
…gone…”

She hunches into herself on the bed, hugging her knees, her head down. She begins to rock back and forth. She’s still shaking her head.

“He has her, doesn’t he?” I ask.

The thing that had bothered James and me was a complicated amalgam of half-seens and missing grains of sand. The feel of The Stranger. Sarah’s love of Theresa. The taking of a hostage. The path we’d been led down.

But most of all, the absolute absence of Theresa from the rest of Sarah’s story.

Theresa had been told not to contact Sarah while she was at the group home. Fine.

But then what had happened? She loved Theresa, and she told us what happened to everyone else she loved. What about her Theresa?

“Sarah, tell me.”

She keeps her face down, her forehead resting against the tops of her knees, and she begins to talk. Begins to run, even though these words aren’t on paper. One more trip to the watering hole.

Sarah’s Story
The Real Ending

53

SARAH HAD TURNED FOURTEEN AS SHE SLEPT AND SHE HADN’T
cared. She woke up realizing she was another year older, and she didn’t care.

Caring wasn’t something she did much, anymore. Caring was dangerous. Caring could mean pain, and pain wasn’t something she could deal with.

Sarah walked a tightrope these days. She had been for the last few years. The bad experiences had piled up and her soul had reached a tipping point. She’d realized that she was just a step away from going bonkers. One feather touch was all it would take to send her flying. It wasn’t long from flying to falling.

She’d realized this one morning at the group home. She was sitting outside, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing. She was scratching an itch on her arm. She blinked, once, and an hour had passed. Her arm hurt. She’d looked down and found that she’d scratched herself until she bled.

The moment had pierced her numbness. It had terrified her. She didn’t want to lose her mind.

Sometimes too, she’d get the shakes. She tried to make sure she was alone when it happened. She didn’t want to show her weakness to the other girls. She could tell when it was about to happen: She’d get a queasy feeling in her stomach and the edges of her vision would get dark. She’d go lie in her bed or sit in a toilet stall and wrap her arms around herself and shake. Time had no meaning when this happened.

The moment would pass.

So she was afraid, and she had reason to be. Staying sane was work now. Something she had to
make
happen, not take for granted.

But most of the time, she just didn’t care about anything. The big black pool was inside her, bubbling and oily, always hungry. She fed it her memories and lost a little more of herself every year.

She was fourteen now. She felt like she’d lived forever. She felt old.

She got out of bed and got dressed and went outside. She hadn’t heard from Cathy, and she was getting ready to drop Cathy into the big black pool, but she figured she could sit outside and wait one more time before doing that. Maybe Cathy would show up. Maybe she’d bring Sarah a cupcake. Cathy did her best, Sarah knew that. Sarah understood the war that went on inside of Cathy’s heart, the struggle with closeness. She didn’t begrudge the cop for it.

It was a nice day. The sun was out, but there was a cool breeze, so it wasn’t too hot. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, let herself enjoy it for a moment.

A car honked, loud, startling her from her reverie. It honked again, insistent, and she frowned, looking toward the street. She was seated near the fence that surrounded the property, away from other people. A residential street was to the right of her, and the car was there, by the curb. Some shitty blue American car, looked like a real beater. Someone was at the passenger-side window.

It honked again, and now she was pretty sure it was honking at her, and she wondered for a moment if it might be Cathy, but no—Cathy drove a Toyota. She stood up and went to the fence. She peered at the car, her eyes focusing on the face at the dirty passenger-side window.

She could almost make it out, it was a young woman…

The face was slammed against the window, and Sarah saw it clearly, and her blood turned to slush in her veins.

Theresa!

Sarah stood, transfixed. She couldn’t move. The wind ruffled her hair.

Theresa was older—

(she’d be twenty-one now, yep)

—but it was Theresa

(no bout adout it, take a picture it’ll last longer)

—and she was terrified and sorrowful and weeping.

Sarah could make out a shadow behind Theresa. The shadow moved and Sarah saw a face, a face that looked melted by the panty hose that covered it. It grinned.

Sarah stood on the precipice and felt her arms pinwheeling as she tried to keep her balance, and something bubbled up from the big black pool, it was

(Buster’s head, Buster’s dead, Mommy hugged the gun)
and she was still pinwheeling but—

(Whoopsie…)

She turned her face to the perfect sky and she screamed and she screamed and she screamed.

Time passed, probably.

Sarah woke up and marveled that she wasn’t crazy. It occurred to her that maybe it wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe sanity was overrated.

Her wrists were strapped to the bed. So were her feet. The bed looked medical, the way, well, medical beds look.

She grinned at this.

Drugs, they’ve given me drugs. Good ones. I feel happy and like I want to kill myself at the same time. Yep, definitely drugs.

Sarah had woken up in this place once before, after a vivid dream that—golly—she just couldn’t get out of her head.

Sarah giggled once and passed back out.

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed and tried to plan how she’d do it.

They’d released her from her restraints two days ago. She was in a locked ward, but they didn’t keep a real close eye on her. Just gave her meds that she faked taking and left her alone, which was fine by her. It gave her time to plan her suicide.

How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways.

Something they couldn’t bring her back from.

She gave it a lot of thought. In the end, she realized she’d have to get out of this place first. They’d never let her die here. Annoying, but true.

She’d have to convince them she was back in control, ready to head back to the

(roll your eyes, party people)
healthy environment of the group home.

No big deal. It wasn’t going to be that hard. They didn’t care enough here to look at you real close.

Sarah arrived back at the home a week later. Skinny Janet seemed happy to see her, and smiled. Sarah thought about Janet coming upon Sarah hanging by a rope from a rafter, and smiled back.

She arrived in her dorm to find a new girl in her bunk. Sarah explained how things were to her. She explained by breaking the girl’s index finger and tossing her and her shit into the middle of the dorm. Sarah wasn’t mad—the girl was new. She didn’t know what everyone else did: Don’t mess with Sarah.

She glanced at the girl, who was holding her finger and howling, and thought, Now you know.

She rolled into her bunk and tuned the girl out. Sarah had more important things to think about. Like dying.

She was still thinking about this a few hours later, when one of the girls came in and walked over to Sarah’s bunk. She looked nervous, deferential.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Mail.” The girl was really nervous.

Sarah frowned. “For me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, hand it over.”

The girl gave Sarah a white envelope and fled.

Sarah stared at it, and recognized the false banality of the white paper for what it was.

This is from him.

She thought about throwing it away. About not opening it at all.

Right.

She cursed herself and opened it up. Inside was a single sheet of white paper. It was a letter, typed on a word processor and printed out on an ink-jet printer. Faceless, like him. Menacing, like him.

Happy Belated Birthday Sarah,

Do you remember my first lesson about choices? If you do (and I’m sure you do) then you will remember the promise I made to your mother, and you know that I kept that promise. Think of that, as you read the next.

Theresa is fine. I won’t say she’s well—she’s a little under the weather, to be honest—but she is healthy. We’ve been together now for some three years.

She wants to see you again, and I would like to make that happen.

But she won’t see you while you’re in that place.

Let us know once you are settled into a foster home, and we will be in touch.

There was no signature.

He’d written it so that if someone else read it, they’d find it curious but innocuous. Sarah understood its full meaning, as he’d known she would.

Theresa is alive. She’ll stay alive as long as I do what he says. He wants me to go into a foster home again and wait.

Sarah had been resistant to being fostered of late. But she knew all she had to do was let Janet know she was interested and smile when prospective parents came by. She was pretty, she was a girl, couples always wanted to foster her in the hopes of an actual adoption.

The thought came to her, unwanted.

What will happen to them? Whoever it is that takes me in?

She felt the darkness edge her vision and the queasiness rise in her belly. She turned toward the wall, hugged herself, and shook.

An hour later, she destroyed the note and went to see Janet.