Arnie hung up the phone and sat in silence for a few moments. When he spoke without looking up, his voice was even. “Aydan, could ya go out an’ pick me up a case a’ beer?”
His fridge was always full of beer.
I made for the door immediately. “I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll be at least an hour.”
“Thanks, darlin’.”
I closed the door softly behind me and made it out to my car before I broke down completely.
It was close to eight o’clock by the time I pressed the call button again. I’d picked up the beer and driven aimlessly the rest of the time, in a state of suspended pain. When Arnie opened the door, his cat, Hooker, made a determined dash for freedom. I scooped him up and carried him inside while Arnie took the beer.
“Hey, big guy,” I murmured as I cuddled the furry armful. “Where were you earlier?”
“I put him in the bathroom,” Arnie explained. “Naomi said she was allergic.”
“Mm.” I still couldn’t think about Naomi without wanting to destroy her for her callousness. I massaged Hooker’s scruff and my eyes threatened to fill with tears again when he squirmed up to squeeze his paws around my neck, purring mightily.
Arnie turned away, carrying the beer. “D’ya want one?” he called from the kitchen.
“I better not.” I changed my mind. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
I gave Hooker one last cuddle and put him down as Arnie handed me a cold one. He eyed me searchingly before laying a gentle arm around my shoulders.
“Come an’ sit down, darlin’. Before ya fall down.” He guided me to the couch and eyed my trembling hands. “When did ya eat last?”
“I don’t know. Around four or five, I guess. I don’t want anything.” I took a deep swallow of beer.
“Ya sure? I got some leftover pizza in the fridge.”
“No. Thanks.”
“Okay.” He sank into his chair and drank off half his bottle in a long swallow. When he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, the lines of pain in his face wrenched my heart.
I poured another generous dose of beer down my throat. I knew it wouldn’t help, and I didn’t care.
Arnie’s eyes opened again, and he came to sit beside me on the couch. He took my hand, turning it over to inspect the three-day-old scabs and the fresh cuts and scrapes. He traced the bruises up my arm, barely touching me.
“Can ya tell me what really happened?” He searched my face. “Somebody beat the hell outta ya, looks like a few days ago. An’ then there’s fresh stuff here. Aydan, tell me who did this to ya. Lemme help ya.”
I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder, taking comfort from his closeness. “The guys who beat me up a few days ago are in jail.”
“Guys?” His hand tightened on mine. “How many guys?”
“Two.”
“An’ how many today?” His voice was very quiet.
“Three.”
“Tell me who they are.”
“I can’t. I don’t know who they were. And it wasn’t their fault. They weren’t trying to hurt me, just hold me.”
“Three guys to hold ya? Brave guys,” he spat.
I raised a tired shoulder. “That’s what it took. There were actually five. I sent two to the hospital. I was completely out of control. But it didn’t matter. I was too late anyway.” I hid my face in his shoulder.
“Aydan, I can see how much punishment ya took. I know ya woulda saved him if ya could.”
“Yeah.” I choked up again and tipped up my beer for another long drink to hide it. Down almost three quarters of the bottle in just a few minutes. I should slow down.
Arnie set aside his empty bottle. “Ya want another?”
“No, not yet.”
When he returned with his fresh beer, he put his arm around me again, and we sat in silence for a while. I swallowed the last of my beer. “Was that a funeral date you were writing down earlier?”
“Yeah. It’ll be in Winnipeg, on Saturday at one o’clock. I’ll see what I can get for flights, but I’ll prob’ly go out Saturday mornin’, come back Sunday or Monday.”
“I’ll see if I can do that, too. Will it work for us to share a rental car?”
“Yeah, if we can get the same flights.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll be stayin’ with Kane’s Dad. Ya could prob’ly stay there, too.”
“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude. I’ll get a hotel.” I looked up at his strained face. “John never mentioned his mother. Is she...?”
“Dead. Sixteen years ago. Aneurysm.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but shook his head and drank off a couple of inches of beer instead.
“How’s his Dad holding up?”
Arnie tipped up the bottle again and lowered the level of his beer to the halfway point. “He’s tough. He’s a tough ol’ man.” He gulped another long swallow. “But he’s hurtin’.” He took another slug. His second beer was almost gone.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose both your children,” I said. “I don’t even want to think about what he’s going through.”
Arnie pulled back to look at me. “Ya knew about Dan?”
“Yes, I saw his picture at Kane’s and asked about him.”
“Oh. Ya were at Kane’s place?” His shrewd eyes searched my face. “Were you two...?”
“No.” I pushed down the regret. “I was over at his place to look at some documents when we were doing that mission at Harchman’s.”
He eyed me seriously for a few moments. “Well, darlin’, he trusted ya, then. He never took anybody to his place.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard and tried to take another gulp of beer before realizing my bottle was empty.
Arnie went to the kitchen and returned with two more beers. We each took a long drink and sat in silence again.
When I glanced over a few minutes later, Arnie’s third beer was almost gone, and I started to get concerned. I’d never seen him pound them back like this before.
I gestured to his almost-empty bottle. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He leaned his head back. “Just thinkin’.” He absently drained the bottle. “Ya know, darlin’, I got two blood brothers, but Kane’s... John was my real brother.”
“I didn’t realize you had brothers. I guess I never asked. Sorry.”
“Yeah. Two brothers an’ a sister. I ain’t seen Don and Jim in... Christ, ten, fifteen years. More, prob’ly.” He sighed. “Kathy, the last time I saw her was thirty years ago. Shit, thirty years ago this year. I dunno if she’s still alive. Prob’ly not, but I keep lookin’...”
He raised his empty bottle and squinted at it. I handed him mine, and he took another deep swallow.
“What happened thirty years ago?” I prompted gently.
“Nothin’.” He shrugged. “That was just the last time I saw her. I’d joined up with the army, an’ I told her I’d got a mailbox for her so I could send her money. She was hooked on drugs, livin’ on the street. Guess she was prob’ly in the sex trade. Dunno how else she coulda paid for her shit. Hell, I was only eighteen. What’d I know?”
He slid lower on the couch. “But my cheques never got cashed. Next time I got out on leave, I went lookin’ for her, but she was gone.”
He sat up a little straighter and looked me in the eyes. “Kathy was a good person. She tried to take care a’ me when we were kids.”
He slouched down on the couch again and drank some more beer, staring off into the past.
“But it was John an’ his folks that saved me,” he finished quietly.
He drained the bottle and headed for the kitchen again. “Ya want another?”
“No, thanks.”
He brought back two bottles anyway, and handed me one before sprawling back onto the couch beside me.
Arnie drank off a couple of inches as if they were water, and I decided it might be smart to keep him talking just to slow him down.
“How did John and his parents save you?” I asked.
He turned and examined me, his eyes searching mine. I’d felt that expression on my own face often enough. He was trying to decide if he could trust me enough to tell me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”
He blew out a breath and leaned his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. After a moment, he spoke without opening them. “Yeah. Ya know what, darlin’, yeah. Tonight, I wanna talk about it. ‘Cause somebody else should know what they did for me.”
He took another long swallow of beer.
“My fam’ly was fucked up from the start,” he began. “The ol’ man was shitfaced mosta the time. Mean sonuvabitch. Beat the hell outta my mom, beat the hell outta us kids. When I was about five, he was whalin’ on me, an’ Mom tried to stop him. An’ he killed her. Beat her to death right there on the spot.”
I clutched his hand, barely able to comprehend the horror. “Arnie, I’m so sorry.”
“Cops came, but they were too late,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “We ended up in a foster home. Jim was the oldest, he was thirteen then. Mean sonuvabitch just like the ol’ man. He’s pretty much in jail for good now, far as I know. He ain’t on my Christmas card list.”
The beer bottle sloshed again. “Don, he got married, beat his wife an’ kids. I kept tryin’ to get ‘em both to get help. Last time I went, Don’d been drinkin’ again, an’ he got mad.”
He absently rubbed the jagged scar on his forearm. “Sometimes, ya gotta know when to give up. Ain’t seen him in years.” He tipped the last of the beer down his throat and reached to take mine out of my hand.
“Kathy, now.” His eyes softened. “She was nine when Mom died. She was always tryin’ to take care a’ me. Lookin’ out for her baby brother. All she wanted was for somebody to love her. She started goin’ with this asshole when she was thirteen. He got her hooked on drugs. She never had a chance. Poor kid. Never had a chance.”
He stared across the room. I sat in silence, overwhelmed by his pain, letting him take his time.
He came back to his story with a sigh. “An’ then there was me. They put me into grade one the next fall, an’ that’s where I met John. We were buddies right from the start. His mom used to invite all the kids over. Guess she felt sorry for me, an’ I ended up spendin’ mosta my time over there.”
He shrugged. “They gave me a bedroom at their place, ‘cause I was there all the time anyway. Treated me like I was one a’ their own kids. Got me into hockey with John an’ Dan. Helped me with my homework. Got me music lessons, for chrissake.”
He leaned his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling with a twisted smile. “John and me, we were always pushin’ each other. I was more into partyin’ than studyin’, but I got good marks ‘cause I hadta beat John. He’d bug the shit outta me when he beat me on a test.”
“I was gettin’ into the party scene pretty good by the time we graduated,” he continued. He raised the beer bottle in an ironic toast and had another swig. “Dunno where I woulda ended up if John hadn’t dared me to join the army.”
He gave a faint, humourless chuckle. “So I hadta do it. He was always buggin’ me, ‘Ya can’t take it. Bet ya quit before I do’. Next thing I know, I got my twenty years in. Kept me outta trouble. Mosta the time.”
He grinned, then sobered again. “I stayed in a year after he got out, just to prove the point. An’ when I got out, John’s the one that got me into bein’ a PI.”
He took another drink of beer. “When I was kid, I swore I’d never be like the ol’ man. An’ I ain’t,” he said quietly. “John an’ his folks, they saved me.”
I gently pried the bottle out of his hand and used the beer to swallow the enormous lump in my throat. As an afterthought, I poured the rest down as well. Then I sat and held his hand in silence.
A couple more beers and some rambling reminiscences of Kane later, I pulled Arnie up off the couch and guided him into the bedroom. I got him undressed and into bed and crept in beside him. His arms closed around me, and within seconds he was snoring softly.
Sleep eluded me for a long time.
Kane stood in front of me, his clothes plastered with mud. He raised his gun and aimed it at me. Then he fell, his body collapsing bonelessly. His outflung arm bounced as it hit the ground. The gun slid out of his slack fingers to lie on the muddy grass. Stemp smiled at my screams. His gun pointed at my forehead, and his finger tightened on the trigger…
“Aydan! Stop, darlin’, shhh, it was just a dream.”
I opened my eyes to Arnie’s anxious face hovering above me in the semi-darkness. “Aydan. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
I curled into an aching ball of misery. “No. It wasn’t.”
He sighed and curled himself around me, stroking my hair.
I opened my eyes to see Arnie watching me in the morning light. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he murmured.
“Good morning. How’s the head?”
“Been better. Been a long time since I tied one on like that.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t.”
“I’ll get you some painkillers.” I rolled over with a groan and sat up slowly. Every inch of my body hurt.
“Stop, darlin’, you’re in worse shape than I am. Stay here an’ I’ll get the pills.”
He rolled out of bed and returned in a few moments with a pill bottle and a glass of water. He froze as he came around my side of the bed.
“Aydan, what the hell’s that?”
I followed his gaze to the nightstand. “Glock G26.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I meant, what’s it doin’ here?”
“It’s not officially here. You never saw it.”
He sat slowly on the edge of the bed and handed me the water and pills. “Darlin’, ya know ya need a permit for that.” He leaned closer to examine it. “That’s a concealed holster, too. Ya do know that’s illegal, don’t ya?” He eyed me with concern.
“I have a permit. And a license to carry a concealed weapon. And you never saw that gun, because nobody is supposed to know I have it. Which is the whole point of a concealed weapon.”
He looked from me to the gun and back again. “Back in March, Kane told me ya were a civilian. I wondered about that.” He paused. “I told Dad ya were Kane’s partner ‘cause I didn’t know what else to say. But ya were, weren’t ya? Ya really were his partner.”
“No. I’m just a civilian. We were just working together on this one thing.”
He frowned, and I could see him considering and discarding possibilities. “But Kane got the gun for ya?”
“Yes.”
“So maybe he knew he wasn’t gonna be around to protect ya?”
I almost doubled over at the sudden pain. I barely managed a whisper. “Maybe.”
“Aw, darlin’.” My pain was mirrored on his face when he took my hand.
Suddenly, I just couldn’t think about it anymore. I put the glass on the nightstand and pulled him to me. I kissed him hard, ignoring the pain from my bruised lips. “Arnie, I’ll understand if you’re not in the mood,” I whispered. “But I really need to forget about everything for a while. If you can.”
He kissed me gently. “But you’re so beat up. I can’t even touch ya without hurtin’ ya.”
“I don’t care. You can’t hurt me more than I’m hurting already.”
He looked deeply into my eyes. “Well, now, darlin’, I guess that’s true.”
His hands moved softly over my aching body. When we lay together afterward, the pillow was damp with tears.
The drive back to Silverside seemed even longer than the previous day’s trip, and it was not improved by the knowledge that I’d have to do it again the next morning. Early.
When I got back to the house, I found a message from Spider on my answering machine. It sounded as though his cold was worse. His voice was so hoarse that if he hadn’t said who it was, I would never have guessed.
When I called his cell phone, he picked up on the first ring. “Aydan?”
“Yeah, hi, Spider,” I mumbled. “Sorry I missed your call.”
“Aydan...” His voice broke. “What... Where are you?”
“I’m home now. I went down to Calgary to tell Arnie about John.”
He seemed to be having trouble holding his voice steady. “I’m... glad you went to him. Stemp said you’d gone on an errand and you’d be back today. I...” He paused again. “There’s another file in the system. I got an alert.”
Slow nausea crept through my stomach. “When?”
“Yesterday morning about eight o’clock.”
Kane was still alive at that time. I refused to believe he’d sent it. “I need to see it. Are you in today?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Sitting in my office at Sirius Dynamics, I stared blankly across the room. I couldn’t believe Kane would never come through that doorway again. His reassuring presence gone from the sim forever. Who would pour me into a bucket and carry me out? Who would fight through swamps and snakes, and pull open the bars of the cage for me?
I sucked in an unsteady breath and blew it out slowly as I reached for the phone. This wasn’t helping. I’d always taken care of myself. I’d just have to get used to it again.
As I dialled Spider’s extension, he appeared in the doorway. I surveyed him with horrified sympathy as I hung up the receiver. His eyes were reddened and deeply shadowed and his shoulders sagged as if their own weight was more than he could bear.
“Oh, Spider.” Without thinking, I went to him and held him. He buried his face in my shoulder and sobbed like a child. I swung the door shut with my foot to give him some privacy, and my own eyes brimmed with unshed tears while I stroked his hair and let him cry it out.
When he finally subsided into hoarse hiccups, I guided him to the couch and sat beside him with the tissue box. At last, he turned a ravaged face to me.
“I thought you were going to die,” he whispered. “And then Kane...” He buried his face in his hands. “This is awful,” he quavered. “I hate this.”
“I know.” I rubbed his back gently. “I hate it, too.”
“Stemp said he was a traitor.” He spoke without looking at me, his voice muffled by his hands.
“Stemp’s a liar.”
“Really?” This time he did look at me, his face reflecting desperate hope.
“Spider, I believe with all my heart that Kane was loyal. I don’t have any proof, but that’s what I believe. Let’s prove it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Let’s look at that new file for starters.”
“Okay.” He handed me the network key and opened up his laptop. “I’m glad you believe... believed in him, too. I know it doesn’t matter now, but...” His voice quavered into silence.
“It matters,” I told him fiercely. “It still matters.”
The new file turned out to be exactly what I’d expected. It was marked urgent, and it said I would be executed at the dump site the previous morning. I spoke to Spider through the network interface.
“Well, this is actually good news.”
“Why?” He sounded thoroughly dejected.
“Because now we know for sure our leak is somebody with a top-level security clearance. You only found out I was supposed to be executed yesterday morning, right?”
“Yes... Just about an hour before you called me yesterday. The memo was there when I got in. That’s why I was in such bad shape, and I had to pretend I had a cold because everybody had strict orders not to discuss it or let you know anything was going on.”
“So there wouldn’t have been time for our leak to talk to anybody else. He’d have to have sent this message himself. And Stemp said he’d put surveillance cameras in place at the internet cafe the day before yesterday. All we need is those surveillance records.”
“Right!” Spider’s voice regained some energy. “I can get those.”
“Now?”
“No, I’ll have to find out from Stemp where the records are being stored.”
Ugly suspicion reared its head. “Don’t bother, then, Spider,” I said as casually as I could. “We can get them later. Right now I need a break and a snack. I’m coming out.”
I stepped through the portal slowly, but the pain still made me swear and whimper. When I finally straightened and let go of my head, I avoided Spider’s concerned gaze and dragged myself to my feet.
“Come on, Spider, let’s go to the Melted Spoon.”
“I’m not really hungry,” he demurred. “I’ll just wait here for you.”
Shit.
I sighed and let my shoulders sag. It didn’t require much acting skill. “Spider... I’m sorry to be a pain, but I could really use some company.” I let my voice tremble a bit, and he looked up with instant sympathy. I knew I could count on his soft heart.
“I’ll come with you, then. I could use a walk. I’ll just drop the key off downstairs on the way.”
At our table at the Melted Spoon, I pulled out a pen and scribbled on a napkin. “Spider, I was thinking about making some changes to my program. What do you think about this?”
I pushed the napkin over to him, and he frowned at it for a moment while he read my note. He met my eyes cautiously. “I think that might work.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew his scanning device. I held my breath while he activated it.
“Clear.” He leaned forward over the table. “Why the note? What’s going on?”
“I was afraid we might be bugged or under surveillance at Sirius. Or here.”
“Surveillance for sure at Sirius, that’s company policy. Probably bugs, too, and the network is monitored.”
“I’m afraid to discuss anything about this leak while we’re inside Sirius. If it’s somebody with a high-level clearance, they’ll be able to listen in on everything we say.”
Spider’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Crap. Oh.” Comprehension dawned on his face. “That’s why you told me not to bother with the surveillance records.”
“Yes. Can you hack them instead?”
He sat back smugly in his chair. “I can hack anything.”
I laughed. “Anybody else, I’d accuse of boasting. You, I believe. How soon can you get them?”
“Gee, I just happen to have my laptop with me.” He set it on the table between us.
“You always have your laptop with you,” I teased him. “It’s a permanent part of your body.”
“Uh-huh.” His fingers flew across the keyboard, and my heart eased as the sparkle came back into his eyes.
I sipped my tea and nibbled my muffin while he worked away, utterly absorbed. I was just draining the last few drops of lukewarm tea when he straightened.
“Here we go.” He turned the screen so we could both see, and brought up a surveillance record. “This is from yesterday morning, starting at seven A.M. when the cafe opened.”
We watched the fast-forward intently and my heart plummeted when Kane’s massive shoulders temporarily blocked the camera. “Stop there!”
Spider punched a key and we exchanged a sick look as he rewound and then played the record forward. We watched Kane sit down at a terminal. He worked for a few minutes before rising to leave.
My hands were shaking. I peeled my tongue loose from my dry mouth. “What time was that?” My voice came out in a whisper.
“Seven-thirty.” Spider’s voice was full of relief. “Too early. The file wasn’t sent until eight-ten.”
“Oh.” It came out sounding like a sob, and I quickly added, “Good. Keep going. Go a little slower now. This is our critical timeframe.”
“This is starting at eight o’clock. I’ll run it at regular speed.” His fingers flew across the keyboard again, and we exchanged glances while the video ran. He paused it at the eight-twenty mark, and we stared at each other.
“Shit.” I rubbed the frown wrinkles out of my forehead. “What are the chances that three top-level Sirius people would be there at the same damn time?”
I peered at the screen again. “Can you tell what they’re doing?”
“No. But I think Mike Connor spends most of his waking hours there. He was just getting into World of Warcraft when I met him in March, and he’s been going crazy on it ever since. But we investigated him in March, and he came up clean.”
“Well, I don’t believe Germain would rat me out,” I said firmly. “It’s got to be Stemp, dammit, I know it! He’s such a slimy sonuvabitch!”
Spider turned an anxious face to me. “He’s the director. It can’t be him.”
“Well, it’s got to be somebody. And I don’t trust him any further than I can throw him. A lot less, in fact. He’d lie to you as soon as look at you.”
“Yes, but...” Spider’s voice trailed off. “But I just don’t dare think of the ramifications if the director himself is corrupt.”
“Better start daring,” I said grimly.
“But he put the cameras in himself,” Spider argued. “He’d have to be an idiot to go in there and send that file when he knew he’d show up on the video.”
“That guy’s so twisty, he could make it look like anything he wanted.” I rubbed my forehead again, feeling the precursors of what promised to be a whopper of a headache. “Well, until further notice, we’ll have to consider Stemp, Germain, and Connor under suspicion.”
Spider’s face fell. “I really hate this.”
“Me, too. Let’s go, we’ve already taken too long a coffee break. We don’t want anybody to get suspicious.”
As we walked back to Sirius, I turned to Spider. “Hey, Spider, can you sneak me one of those scanning devices?”
“I thought you didn’t want one.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Okay.”
My headache fulfilled its potential after a couple more hours in the network, and I groaned as Spider and I walked down to the main lobby to turn in our security fobs. “God, I’m not looking forward to a two-hour drive tomorrow morning.”
“Oh. Are you going...” Spider gulped. “Are you going to the funeral?”
“Of course. I fly out tomorrow morning at eight-fifteen.”
“Germain and I got a flight at eight. Do you want to ride down with us?”
“Depends, when are you coming back?”
“We leave Winnipeg on Sunday at two-thirty.”
I sighed relief. “In that case, yes, I’d definitely like to ride with you. I leave at one-fifty, so I’ll just hang around the Calgary airport until you guys get in. Oh, and can I ride with you in Winnipeg, too? I was going to bum a ride with Hellhound, but he went out this afternoon, and he’s not coming back until Monday.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks, Spider, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Can we pick you up at five tomorrow morning?”
“That’ll work.”
I trailed into my stuffy house and opened all the windows before scrounging for some semblance of nutritious food. I nibbled without enthusiasm before wandering outside to my garden.
There, I stood in the moist aromatic soil and held back tears while I ate fresh peas.