TPG (24 page)

“Your niece’s
situation is unfortunate. It is,” Fisher said. “But there’s nothing we can do
about it and it’s in your best interest that those letters, if they exist,
remain in their envelopes.” He narrowed his eyes. “And that’s a fact, Mr.
Murdock, not a threat.”

Liam didn’t say
anything else, but Kyle was already preparing the speech he’d give Liam the
next day, already planning to impress upon him that he should just drop it.
Stay silent. That nothing good would come from taking things any further. Not
for Liam, not for him, and not for Allie.

“There’s a car in
the driveway,” Fisher said, looking away and pointing out the window. “It will
take the both of you home.”

“What about
Eddie?” Kyle asked.

“We’ll speak to
him as well.”

“Same deal for
him?”

“Same deal,”
Fisher confirmed.

As they walked
toward the front door, Kyle turned to ask one last question. “Was Hillier
really a killer for you?”

Fisher didn’t
respond.

“Is that what he
did?” Kyle pressed.

“Just go about
living your life Mr. Vine,” Fisher said, “and forget any of this ever
happened.”

And then he walked
away.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Instead of having the driver take
him home, Kyle went to see Bree at Sheila’s. As soon as he opened the door she
came running over. He didn’t ask how she was, didn’t say much of anything at
all. He couldn’t. He just needed to hold her, and needed to feel her hold him
back.

He didn’t leave
Sheila’s until Bree fell asleep, exhausted by the day’s events. He stayed by
the side of her bed, continuing to gaze at her until he heard her deep breaths
of slumber. Sheila wanted to go over what had happened and how it might be
connected to the video he received while Bree was at camp. But he didn’t want
to talk about it, so he brushed it off and said he doubted the two were
connected. He told her he’d be back early in the morning, before Bree woke.

As he walked over
to Broadway to catch the subway home he dialed Eddie, having already received a
few texts from him saying the scans at the hospital indicated everything seemed
normal with Celia. That led Kyle to believe Celia had been too far away for
Hillier to have a strong enough connection to draw in all of her energy, which
he realized was probably also why Hillier hadn’t started to connect with him
until he was close to the utility room. He’d been too far away, a fact that
might’ve saved Liam’s life as well.

Eddie picked up
after the first ring. “Bree okay?”

“She is.”

“I … don’t
even know what to say. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t seem to cut it. I can say I didn’t mean
to put you through that—to put her through that—but I’m the one who
did it, so it’d be empty, right?”

Kyle didn’t want
to go there. Not yet. Yes, he was angry with Eddie. Very angry.
Extremely
angry. And he wasn’t quite
sure how he could forgive him, how their friendship could endure. But that’s
not why he called.

“Did they speak to
you?” he asked.

“Who?” Eddie
responded. “Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

Kyle wasn’t in the
mood to banter. Not in the mood at all.

“Yeah,” Eddie
said, getting the hint. “They paid a visit. Said their names were Fisher and
Harkin. Told me to stay quiet about everything that happened.”

“And you’ll
listen?”

“I’m not big on
threats,” Eddie said, “but I want to forget about this shit more than they want
me to. So, yeah, keeping quiet won’t be a problem.” Eddie let a beat pass.
“They also told me what happened after I left. They said Liam did it. How’s he
holding up?”

“I think he’ll be
okay.”

“Are we gonna be
good, Ky?”

“We’ll talk about
it another time,” Kyle said.

“Sure,” Eddie
said. “Another time.”

Kyle hung up and
walked down the stairs at the Seventy-ninth Street Station, unable to distract
himself from thinking about the events that had just happened, his mind
remaining mired in a murky haze as he rode the subway then walked over to his
building. Even the long, steaming hot shower he took did nothing to dissipate
the cloud.

He was exhausted,
physically and mentally, and he finally collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.
It was six in the morning when he woke to the ringing of his BlackBerry. The ID
said it was Liam.

“They did it!”

Kyle was confused
at the upbeat shout. “Did what? What are you talking about?”

“Allie!” Liam
shouted. “She’s up!”

“She’s out of the
coma? Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?” Liam
laughed. “Here. Maybe you’ll believe
her
.”

“Kyle?”

It was Nicki.

“Is Allie really
awake?” he asked.

“She is,” she
said, her voice so much softer than when they last spoke, the shackles of pain
having been removed. “She is. And she’s speaking. It happened about an hour
ago. I was home. The nurse called. She’d shown some twitching the last few
days, some small signs of waking, but she’s fully up now. Completely awake.”

Kyle couldn’t
believe it. He told Nicki how wonderful the news was and how happy he was for
her and Allie, and Liam, the entire family. Nicki thanked him, the combined
exhaustion and elation in her voice clearly evident.

“Can you effing
believe it?” Liam shouted after grabbing the phone back. “I knew it. I knew
it.”

“Did she say
anything about that night? About seeing Hillier?”

“She’s still a
little bit out of it, but she says she doesn’t remember anything about it. Last
she remembers is leaving the bar.”

“So you think it
was them?” Kyle asked. “You think they did something to snap her out of it?”

“Are you kidding
me?” Liam continued in a whisper. “Of course it was them. They didn’t want to
risk me leaking their secrets. Someone probably snuck in here last night and
got Allie right.”

Kyle had some
doubts about that but, at the same time, after all that had happened knew
better than to so quickly discount what Liam had to say, regardless of how
farfetched the theory might be. The man had been amazingly spot-on with
everything else. So why not just relish in the good news? Which is exactly what
he did.

Something he found
to be a very welcome and refreshing change.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

For the next few weeks Kyle stayed
away from Eddie, and Eddie didn’t press him. He’d sent a text here and there,
left a few messages, but for the most part he kept his distance. He knew Kyle
needed time. What had happened had pushed their friendship not just to the
limit, but well over it. And no matter how understanding Kyle was, no matter
how strong of a friendship they had, Kyle simply couldn’t justify Eddie’s
actions, no matter how noble of a place they came from. Not yet, anyway.

Kyle wondered if
he should have realized the connection earlier, had the foresight to realize
Eddie might try to use Hillier to help Celia. And perhaps he should have. But
not to that extreme. There was simply no accounting for behavior he never knew
existed in the man. But the events had taught him a lot about the lengths a
father would go to for their child. He only needed to look at his own choices
with Bree, and Terry Hillier’s with Evan.

It made him dwell
on the strength of the paternal bond. It was something that was usually thought
of as a chemical and biological component reserved for women. Where stories of
mothers acting on maternal instinct in the wild protecting their young were
common, fathers were often portrayed as the predator and, in some instances,
the predator the mother feared most.

But there
was
a paternal bond. Whether it was more
learned than innate, or unique to humans and higher species Kyle didn’t really
know. But his and Eddie’s struggles with balancing their children’s well being
against what they knew was so wrong had proven it. They were both objectively
good people driven to the verge of committing horrible acts, making deadly
decisions. Selfish decisions, no matter how noble it may seem from a familial
perspective. The scales of equity and morality did not side in their favor,
which they both came to realize even if it had taken awhile. But were they
doing it because of an internal, innate paternal instinct? Or because of a
paternal nobility ingrained through teachings and societal life lessons taught
since birth? The man of the house. The protector of the family. Which weighed
in their decision more?

Whatever it was,
it seemed to also be the source behind Terry Hillier’s warped and deranged
“gift” to his son, a gift that started out because of the guilt he felt for the
years he hadn’t been there. He wondered about Hillier often. He wondered about
the morality of the man. Wondered if the man was as sick and evil as the acts
he committed or, just like so many others, simply an addict who couldn’t stop
something he never intended to start.

Kyle didn’t know.

But he continued
to follow Evan Hillier’s starts and, surprisingly, even without his father’s
assistance the man had continued his dominance at home. Which of course led
Liam to continue to theorize about a variety of possibilities: that KnightWare
had someone else feeding him with energy to quell any suspicion, or that Terry
Hillier’s energy continued to linger in him because there had been so many transfers,
or even that Terry was somehow still alive. Kyle didn’t buy any of it and, from
what they both could tell, there hadn’t been any more victims since Terry
Hillier had died. So Kyle had a different theory. He thought that perhaps Terry
wasn’t the only reason why Evan was pitching so well in the first place.
Perhaps the two events—Terry Hillier’s attempts to transfer the energy to
his son and Evan’s string of great home starts—were just a coincidence.
Maybe the transfer really wasn’t much more than what one would experience with
something like Deeksha and just happened to coincide with Evan’s amazing hot
streak. It wasn’t unprecedented. Players with no previous success had excelled
throughout history. It happened.

Kyle also found
insight in a recent interview with Evan Hillier. In it, Evan was asked about
the earlier interview his father had given, the one that had gotten Liam
thinking it might be Terry who was behind the strokes. The interviewer noted
how proud his father had been during the interview. Evan said he and his father
were never close before and that their recent time in New York together was an
amazing experience he would forever treasure, and it just showed that, even at
this late stage in their lives, it was still possible to mend relationships. He
said it was just what he needed to feel comfortable in a city as big and
intimidating as New York and to deal with the tremendous opportunity of
starting for the Yankees, as just speaking to his father, and getting to spend
some time with him, had helped quell his nerves and made him realize it was
never too late to recapture something before it was lost forever.

Evan was then
asked if they continued to spend time together.

Evan smiled and
said his father had to leave New York on business recently and would probably
be away for a while. He was asked if he was upset about that, and if it would
impact his amazing string of success. Evan’s smile widened as he said no. He
said it was expected and he was just glad he had the opportunity that he did, and
that he was certain his father would be watching his games and keeping tabs on
him. The interchange supported Kyle’s theory that Evan’s success was due to his
father’s guidance and love more so than any energy transfers. Or, he
considered, perhaps the two notions were not so mutually exclusive.

As Kyle walked and
turned off Broadway, the past month’s events swimming around in his mind, he
looked down at his ringing BlackBerry and saw his attorney’s number pop up.

“I’ve got some
good news.”

“Case settled?”
Kyle asked, almost having forgotten that they hadn’t wrapped things up yet.

“It did indeed,”
Paula said. “We paid nada.”

Kyle stopped in
his tracks. “Nothing? They didn’t take anything?”

“Not a cent.”

“But we had
already offered them something in the six figures, right?”

“Correct.”

“Did the carrier
pull it back for some reason?”

“Nope.”

“Then I don’t get
it,” Kyle said.

“If you don’t then
I certainly don’t, because Ricker, who was
not
happy about it, said you’d understand. That it had to do with the talk Henry’s
dad had with you.”

Kyle recalled the
chat, remembered it had meant the world to him to hear Jim Trotter, in a sense,
clear him of any wrongdoing in Henry’s death. But Kyle still thought they’d
take something, at least enough to cover Ricker’s fees. But the more he thought
about it, and the more he thought about the man Jim Trotter was, the more he
realized the principles he lived by, and the more it made sense. Trotter was a
man who lived by values and honored and cherished doing the right thing above
all else. His moral compass couldn’t have been more opposite than Terry
Hillier’s.

“I think I do
understand,” Kyle answered. Then he switched gears. “So, it’s over then? We’re
done? I’m not going to lose every last cent I own?”

“We’re done,” she
said.

Kyle thanked her
for all her efforts, then playfully ended the conversation by wishing her well
and saying he hoped he never had to speak to her again.

He turned onto
Amsterdam and saw the outdoor seating for Fred’s, his hangout with Bree. But it
wasn’t Bree he saw sitting there, and it wasn’t Bree he was meeting. She was
already back at camp. After all that had happened, he thought it would be best
for her to end the summer with friends in her little oasis. And since there was
no longer any threat to her, nor had there really ever been, he didn’t have to
worry.

No, the person
sitting at the table was someone who had become his friend and gained his
trust. And saved his life.

The chubby man
waved as Kyle approached. His T-shirt
du
jour
was a faded blue one with the Captain America shield stretched across
his flabby chest.

Kyle was meeting
Liam for lunch, their relationship having grown closer since the incident. Kyle
owed the man his life, as did so many others who would never know it. Maybe
even his niece, even though Kyle still wasn’t certain if the folks from
KnightWare had played a role in Allie’s sudden emergence from the coma. Liam,
of course, was still convinced they had, and his arguments did make some sense
as, even putting the timing aside, Allie had made a remarkable recovery. Other
than sporadic headaches from time to time and some memory loss, she had no
other real lingering after effects from the stroke. It was truly amazing, but
it was a long stretch from a miracle. The doctors had always said that such a
recovery remained a possibility, especially if the coma didn’t span more than
four or five weeks. And it hadn’t.

But even Liam
didn’t dwell too much on the cause of Allie’s recovery. He was too busy
embracing it.

As for Allie’s
contact with Kyle, it remained minimal and, par for their course, was
restricted to texting.

The day after Liam
had called letting Kyle know Allie had woken from the coma Kyle received a text
from her:
My uncle told me what u did.
Thank you.

Kyle wasn’t sure
exactly what Liam had told her, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. So he
just texted back,
It’s your uncle you
should be thanking.

Sorry about getting u involved in the first
place
, she wrote back, the texts nothing near the salacious tone of the
ones that had previously gotten his heart racing.

Just glad ur okay,
he responded, using
“ur” instead of “you’re” not to make himself feel or seem young this time, but
looking to add some levity to the exchange, trying to let her know all was
okay.

I won’t be coming back to class. :(

Figured that. Take care. And stay away from
the old guys!

:)

At the time, Kyle
hadn’t known how profound the playful admonishment was. He found out about a
week later while discussing the prior texts with Liam. He had felt the need to
apologize and explain his actions, so the two met for a beer at the same bar
they had the night of the stakeout. Hillier was pitching again. Liam ordered
the same thing he had the last time—Michelob Ultra. Kyle started
apologizing for the transgression, saying he didn’t have an excuse and that he
recognized it was wrong even while he was doing it.

“It’s not your
fault,” Liam said.

“It is,” Kyle
countered. “There’s a trust factor there, a relationship that shouldn’t be
taken advantage of.”

Liam smiled.
“Allie ever tell you about her high school AP English teacher?”

Kyle shook his
head.

“She dated him
right after graduation. He was twenty-six. The precedent was set.”

“Twenty-six isn’t
anywhere near forty-one.”

“She ever tell you
who she dated her freshman year at college?”

Again Kyle shook
his head.

“Her Linguistics
Graduate TA,” Liam smiled. “Then in her sophomore year she dumped him for her
Sociology professor. And that guy was married with two kids.”

Kyle understood
the point. “But still …”

“She ever tell you
how old her dad is?”

“She didn’t.”

“Sixty-five,” he
said. “More than twenty years older than my sister. He’s a banking guy. My
sister was his trophy wife. His second marriage. They’ve been divorced for
about five years now. He’s already on his third wife.”

“I didn’t know.”

Liam shrugged.
“She’s got an Electra complex,” he said. “They both do. I’m sure my sister was
looking to replace my dad because he was taken away from us so young. She was
looking for someone to fill that role, I guess. Her shrink says it might be something
else, it might be that she was looking to find someone to replace my
grandfather.” Liam shrugged again. “But who knows, right? At least she
recognizes she has it, and she knows Allie’s got it too. We’re definitely a
dysfunctional mess.” He chuckled. “But what family isn’t, right? You played
into Allie’s hand. I might be her uncle, but I know what she looks like, and I
know she gets what she wants.”

“Still …”

“Still nothing.
Forget about it. I didn’t even read the texts. Never told my sister about them
either.”

And that was it.
He didn’t discuss it with Liam any further. Nor Allie. But he did speak with
Nicki, though not about the texts. She’d called a few times to update him on
Allie’s progress and thanked him again for helping Liam. Kyle told Liam about
the calls. He didn’t want there to be any secrets. Not to that level. Liam just
smiled, seemingly relishing the potentially awkward budding relationship and
the continual closeness of Kyle to their family. Not that Kyle knew where, if
anywhere, it was heading. But there seemed to be something there, some
connection between him and Nicki. He didn’t know where they might take it, but
he wasn’t afraid of venturing down that path. Even though he knew he’d have to
tell her about his texts to Allie. But he didn’t care. In fact, he was actually
looking forward to where things would lead—on all fronts. Sure, he’d be
careful, but he wouldn’t deny that the potential relationship excited him,
invigorated him. And so did the odd circumstances that came with it. Liam was
right. All families had their own dysfunctional issues. It was just a matter of
how they handled them.

And he was pretty
sure he would eventually forgive Eddie as well. He knew as time passed their
friendship would endure. Maybe not to the same degree as before, but it would
rekindle again at some point. It just needed more time.

As he approached
Liam at the table, Kyle saw chunks of bread hanging in the man’s beard and a
few poppy seeds stuck in his teeth.

Kyle smiled.

The man was a bit
of a mess and was definitely odd, but he had become a friend as well. A good
friend.