TPG (20 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Kyle raced through everything to
bring Liam up to speed, telling him about the video from Bree’s phone at camp,
about Adrea and Bree being kidnapped, even his suspicions about Liam himself.

Of course it was
the latter Liam focused upon when Kyle finished.

“Me?” he asked.
“You thought
I
was somehow involved
with this?”

“Eddie did,” Kyle
said, having no time to massage the man’s feelings. “He and I discussed it when
we were staking out Hillier’s place. But it never really made sense to me.”

“
Eddie
thought I was involved?”

“Yes.”

Liam’s chin sunk,
the news that Eddie was the one who had initiated the suspicion somehow causing
him even more concern.

“So
that’s
why he kept calling,” Liam said.
“He didn’t care about what I thought, he wanted to know if I was involved.”

Kyle turned. “What
are you talking about? Eddie? Eddie’s been calling you?”

“Lots of times.”

“When?”

“Almost every day
since the stakeout. First he wanted to know everything I knew about energy
transfers, how they worked and what they could do. Then he focused on who else
might be killing these people if it wasn’t Hillier.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me? Why didn’t
he
tell me?”

“You said you
didn’t want to be involved anymore.”

He’d said that to
Liam, but he hadn’t said it to Eddie. They’d just stopped talking about it.

“The other day,”
Kyle said, pacing around the room, “when you came to Hunter, you said you knew
who the killer was. Does Eddie know who it is?”

“Of course.”

“Does he know you
tried to tell me?”

“Sure. I told him
after I left you.”

Kyle shook his head
as he continued to pace. It didn’t make sense. Why would Eddie be calling Liam?
Why did he care so much? And why hadn’t Eddie said anything to him? He slipped
out his phone and dialed Eddie’s work number. The receptionist said he was at a
meeting. He tried his cell again. Straight to voicemail. He left a message and
then sent a text. Then he tried Dana’s cell. No answer. So he called the house
phone down at the shore, expecting to leave another message.

But someone picked
up.

“Kyle?”

“Yes,” Kyle said,
recognizing Dana’s voice. “Where’s Eddie? Is he down there with you?”

“Eddie stayed up
in New York with Celia,” she said. “They’ll be coming down tomorrow. Aren’t you
coming with them? Is everything okay?”

“Have you spoken
to him today?”

“About an hour
ago, yes,” she said, her voice growing concerned. “Kyle, is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s
fine.”

“Then what’s going
on?”

“It’s nothing,”
Kyle said, trying as best he could to sound calm and reassuring. “I just
couldn’t get in touch with him and wanted to tell him a few things about the
mediation today. That’s all. Just needed his advice.”

“Did you try his
cell?”

“Yes,” Kyle said.
“No answer. So I thought maybe he was with you.”

“He’s probably
with a client,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll call you as soon as he’s done.”

“I’m sure,” Kyle
said. “I’ll try his office again and leave a message with the receptionist.”
They exchanged goodbyes and hung up. He looked over at Liam. “Did Eddie say why
he was so interested in learning about energy transfers?”

Liam shrugged. “He
just said he was curious.”

Kyle searched his
memory for any similar interest Eddie had taken in their conversations. There
wasn’t much, just the conversation about John of God. Maybe a few other small
ones, but Eddie didn’t really have to show an interest because Kyle always told
him everything anyway. Eddie was his sounding board.

“So tell me,” Kyle
said, “who do you think is behind all of this if it’s not Hillier?”

“It
is
Hillier.”

“But how?” Kyle
asked. “We saw him on the ferry when the last one happened.”

“That’s what I was
trying to explain to you when I came to your office yesterday.”

“But how can it be
Hillier if we know he didn’t kill the woman in Union Square?”

“Oh, he killed
her. I’m sure of it.”

Kyle was confused.
“But how? We were
with
him when she
died.”

“It’s Hillier.
There’s no doubt about it,” Liam said, then relaxed his brow. “But it’s not the
man you’re thinking of.”

The wave of
confusion crashed against a wall of suppositions as Kyle struggled to make
sense of what the hell Liam was saying.

How could it be
Hillier if it wasn’t the man he was thinking of?

But as the wave
settled into a placid sprawl, the confusion was pulled back and Kyle suddenly
knew who Liam was talking about.

He knew who the
killer was.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Hillier watched as the man slightly
shifted about in his chair.

“We’re going to
change tactics here,” the man said. “I’m just going to get at what I’m really
looking for. How about that?”

Hillier didn’t
answer.

“Okay. Here’s what
I know. I know you kill before each game.” The man paused. “Or, at least, they
usually
die.”

Hillier knew the
last statement was a reference to the girl, the one in the coma.

“In any event,”
the man continued. “I know your health improves miraculously after you do it.
And I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the mind’s energy. Like an
energy transfer. So let’s start out small. Am I right?”

Hillier eyed the
man. “Why do you care?”

“Because I need to
know how you do it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not to stop
you, if that’s what’s worrying you,” he said. “I just want to know how you do
what you do. If I wanted to stop you, I’d just use this.” The man raised the
gun he was clutching.

He was right.
Hillier knew that, and had already considered it. And he didn’t have many
options. His energy was waning, his mind slipping. He didn’t have time. So he
looked up and asked, “What do you want to know?”

The man’s eyes
widened and he leaned forward with interest. “Just that. How do you do it?”

“I just do,”
Hillier said. “I always could.”

“But how? Who
taught you? Was it some kind of energy practitioner? Deeksha?”

“I’ve talked to a
few practitioners to learn more about what I do, but no one
taught
me how to do it. It’s just
something I’ve always been able to do.”

The man sighed.
“So it’s just part of you? No one taught you and you can’t teach someone else
how to do it?”

“Not to this
level, no. And if you can,” Hillier shrugged, “I don’t know how.”

“Fuck,” the man
said, standing up. “So it’s one of those things where either you have it or you
don’t?”

“It is.”

The man was
visibly frustrated, but composed himself quickly. “All right. Okay. But you can
transfer it, right?”

Hillier remained
silent again.

“You’ve been doing
that, haven’t you? That’s the reason why he’s been lights out, isn’t it?”

Silence.

“Look, I know you
can. Why else would you be timing the strokes to his starts? So I get it, okay?
I know. I know you can transfer the energy you bring in over to someone else.
Like those Deeksha guys, you can transfer the energy you receive. So let’s stop
with the games and just confirm it. You can do that, right? You can transfer
the energy.”

Hillier looked
down, glossing over his limp body. “If I had the energy to spare?” he asked.
“Yes, I can.”

The man’s eyes
brightened. “And will it have the same effect on whoever you transfer it to as
it has on you? Can it make someone healthy again?”

The answer wasn’t
as cut and dry as the question assumed. Yes, there were some tangential affects
to other parts of the body, but it didn’t necessarily make someone physically
healthy again. Not unless it was an illness the mind could control. But he
wasn’t about to go into details with the man. He’d just give him the answer he
was looking for, so he said, “Yes, it will.”

“And it can even
get someone paralyzed walking again?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“So what do you
need?” the man asked.

“For what?”

“You know what. To
get you healthy again and do a transfer.”

“You know what I
need,” Hillier said.

“But who?”

“The person has to
be a match.”

“What type of
match? Like a certain blood type?”

“Frequency.”

“Frequency?”

Hiller nodded.
“The brain emits energy. I work better with certain types, and not at all with
others.”

“So that’s how you
do it? You go out on the prowl and hunt for someone who’s a match?”

“Yes.”

“And how do you
know? Do they have any specific markings?”

Hillier shook his
head. “It’s a feel. I just know. There’s an attraction, and the stronger it is,
the stronger the source.”

“Does it have to
be someone young?”

“It does if you
want me to have enough to get myself healthy and then still have enough to
transfer energy to someone else.”

The man stood
still, looking straight into Hillier’s glazed eyes. “And you have to kill
them?”

“In this
condition,” Hillier said, again looking down at his frail frame—limbs
that trembled whenever he exerted the tiniest of tension, “I wouldn’t even draw
enough to get myself healthy, let alone spare some for someone else if I didn’t
take it all.”

The man’s
expression seemed mixed with confusion, wondering if he should press on. But he
did. “And if you do that,” he said. “If you find a match and take it all, you
could transfer it to someone to make them healthy again? Make them walk again?”

“Yes,” he lied
again.

The man nodded.
And the more he nodded, the more he seemed to be absorbing what had been said
and the more his expression changed—becoming more resolute, more
convinced. He’d made a decision. But he didn’t say what it was. He didn’t get a
chance before they heard the doorbell ring above.

The man didn’t say
anything, and neither did Hillier. The man simply walked away and went
upstairs, leaving Hillier to wonder if he’d done enough. Wondered if the man
was desperate enough to trust him.

He could only
hope.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

As soon as Kyle had it figured out,
he didn’t wait to ask the how’s and why’s. They had to move. He had less than
an hour.

He grabbed Liam,
rushed outside and hailed a taxi. He told the driver to head to
Brooklyn—to Carroll Gardens. He then made a quick call and left a
voicemail message saying where he was headed. He wasn’t certain that’s where
they’d find Hillier, but it was a pretty good guess. And he didn’t think his
chances of coming up with something better would increase with whatever else
Liam could tell him, as Kyle had already figured out who the killer was. It
wasn’t difficult once Liam insisted that the man’s name was Hillier, just not
Evan
Hillier. Not the Yankees’ ace. And
since the killings were occurring before each of the pitcher’s starts, there
still had to be some connection between the journeyman’s historical performance
at home and that the hemorrhages were occurring like clockwork right before
each home start. So it had to be a family member, but Hillier wasn’t married
and had no children. So that left either his father or mother, or some random
member outside the immediate family. Kyle went with the parents first, quickly
crossing the mother off the list of possibilities. Besides the fact that her
name wasn’t Hillier anymore—having remarried after divorcing Hillier’s
father while Evan was still a toddler—the woman lived in New Mexico. He
remembered that because the media made a big deal of how Hillier’s thirty-eight
inning scoreless streak was snapped when his mother came to see him pitch in
Arlington.

So that left
Hillier’s biological father. Kyle didn’t know much about him other than
remembering a few interviews he’d given, but he was pretty confident Liam had
tracked the man down and pinned him as the primary suspect.

When they settled
into the taxi, Kyle didn’t even bother asking if he was right. Instead, he jumped
to the next plausible theory he assumed Liam had discovered. “You think he’s
transferring the energy to his son?” he asked.

“He has to be,”
Liam said.

As the taxi weaved
around traffic Kyle asked, “So give me the specifics. What did you find out?”

“I came across
some fan’s website devoted to Hillier and clicked on an interview his father
gave over a month ago. It was a short sit-down before one of Hillier’s games.
The interviewer probed into Hillier’s childhood, and how the dad hadn’t really
been in his life.”

“I read the same
thing,” Kyle said. “It was in one of the early articles when Hillier first
started to string together a few stellar outings. The dad … what’s his
name? Troy?”

“Terry.”

“Right,” Kyle
remembered. “Terry. He and the mom were married right after high school.
Shotgun wedding. They lasted about a year before they divorced. I think the
article said he was still a part of Evan’s life, but it didn’t seem like a
major one. I didn’t get the sense there was any animosity there, but I did get
the feeling the dad wasn’t around too much.”

“Yup. And in the
interview he was asked about that,” Liam explained. “About whether he saw the
potential in Evan during Little League games and playing catch with him. You
know, trying to set the scene like he was Robert Redford or Kevin Costner
playing catch with the kid in the cornfields. And Terry had this weird pause
when he was asked the question, visibly uncomfortable with the topic. It was
clear. And then he curtly answered that he didn’t, that he wasn’t around much
because Evan’s mom had moved the family to New Mexico and it was tough for him
to get out there much because of his job. And then his eyes started to get
watery, and he gave one of those sappy responses about coming to a point in
your life where you feel the need to correct your wrongs, and he rambled a bit,
like he was lost in the moment, forgetting he was being interviewed on
television. Then regained his composure and became tight-lipped when pressed a
little further about what he meant. All Terry would say was work made things
difficult to be more involved with the kid.”

“Did he say what
he did?” Kyle asked.

“He didn’t, and
they moved on and for the rest of the interview it was all about Evan, how
proud he is as a father, how his son’s perseverance should set an example to
kids to never give up. Typical fluff piece.” Liam adjusted his glasses as he
paused to soak in the moment and embrace the undivided attention. “So it got me
thinking. What the hell did this guy do? So I Googled him up the whazoo, even
had my cousin, who’s a lawyer, do a Lexis search on him, and paid to have a
background search. I found out the guy owns a consulting firm and has homes in
Manhattan, Aspen, Paris and Mexico. Immediately my antenna went up. So I got in
touch with a few of the Crusaders and tossed it around with them and, sure
enough, one of them found a link.”

Liam let the
sentence linger some, waiting for the prompt Kyle eventually gave him. “What
was it?”

“KnightWare.”

“He worked for
them?”

“His consulting
firm had a few contracts with them.”

“For what?”

“Consulting.”

“Obviously. But
consulting for what?”

“It didn’t say. An
activist group was able to get the government to do some B.S. investigation on
KnightWare about ten years ago and Hillier’s company showed up on some tax
records that were made public as having a few contracts with a KnightWare
subsidiary for consulting services.”

“His website
doesn’t say what type of services his company performs?”

“No website, no
advertising, nothing.”

“Did you find out
anything else?”

“About the
company? No. But it’s so obvious. He has to be the guy my contact told me
about, the KnightWare assassin. It makes perfect sense. Hillier probably set up
the consulting firm so he could funnel in the money he receives from KnightWare
and whoever else hires him without raising any eyebrows with the IRS about
where he’s getting it from. Meanwhile, his consulting services actually consist
of taking out people in a way that doesn’t even leave a suspicion of them
having been murdered.”

“But who? Who is
he murdering for money?”

Liam shrugged.
“Who knows? Could be anyone. We would never get suspicious because the cause of
death would have been a stroke. Could be a political activist about to find out
some dirt, could be a rival CEO or political enemy someone wants out of the
way, maybe even a spouse someone with the dough would rather want dead than pay
through the nose in a divorce. Who the frig knows? People plot murders for any
number of reasons. And if you have the money at your disposal, hiring a guy
like Hillier is the cleanest way to do it. How can anyone ever prove it was a
murder? It’s genius. It’s the perfect cover story.”

Kyle couldn’t
dispute the theory, no matter how lacking it was in hard evidence.

“But it doesn’t
matter about the specifics of who he’s killing and who he’s contracting with,”
Liam continued. “I didn’t need to know that much detail. The larger pieces of
the puzzle were in place. Terry Hillier was the one siphoning the energy,
killing these people, and then transferring it to his son on game
day—kind of like a really supped-up version of Deeksha. The KnightWare
connection was more like the last bit of glue that brought it all together.
He’s gotta be the guy in the story. He’s the assassin.”

“Did you ever
follow him? Talk to anyone he knew?”

“Dang right I
did,” Liam said. “I did surveillance for a few days, and the man I saw was
not
the man in the interview.”

Kyle didn’t
understand.

“He looked older,”
Liam explained, “frail, unsteady.”

“So you think he’s
doing both?”

Liam nodded. “He’s
soaking in the energy to get himself healthy, then he’s transferring it to his
son on game day to give him the extra edge he needs. Helping him dial in with
super-focus when pitching.”

“You think the kid
knows?”

Liam shrugged.
“Probably not, right? It didn’t seem that way on the ferry. If he did know, he
probably would’ve given up the midnight superstitious ferry trips a while ago.
He’d know it wasn’t superstition that’s mowing down those batters.”

Kyle turned and
looked forward, absorbing the specifics, already having guessed at the
generalities once he figured out whom Liam had been talking about. “You’re
probably right. He probably isn’t even conscious of the transfer. If Terry can
siphon someone’s energy without them even knowing about it until it’s too late,
I’m sure he’s able to give his son a boost without him ever knowing what was
happening.” He looked back at Liam. “And Eddie? You told him all of this?
Everything you just told me?”

“Yes,” Liam said,
then let his mind wander to a conclusion he hadn’t even fathomed a few minutes
earlier. “You think it’s Eddie that has him? You think he did it to keep me
from getting in trouble by doing it first?”

Kyle drew a deep
breath. “No.”

A sheet of
surprise enveloped Liam’s face. “You
don’t
think Eddie has him?”

“Oh,” Kyle said,
“I’m sure he has him. It’s just got nothing to do with you.”

“You think he just
wants to stop him from killing?”

“No.”

The taxi pulled up
in front of Clinton Street as Kyle paid the driver and both men stepped out.

Liam looked up at
the twin brick townhouses and their matching rounded ornate bay windows. “This
is Eddie’s house?”

Kyle nodded.

“I don’t
understand,” Liam said, following Kyle to the ground floor entrance, watching
him stoically ring the doorbell. “What would Eddie want with Terry Hillier if
he didn’t want to stop him?”

Kyle turned to
Liam, an eerie sense of calm having erased his panicked urgency. “You ever meet
Eddie’s daughter, Celia?”

Liam shook his
head.

“Eddie ever tell
you about her?”

Liam shrugged.
“Nothing specific. Just that she’s one of his kids.” Liam turned as Eddie’s
door opened. He looked down at the girl in the doorway.

Without her even
having to introduce herself, Liam knew it was Celia.

And he now knew
exactly what Eddie wanted from Terry Hillier.