Chapter 28: all in white (rated T, for adult situations) ;
Mid-town safe-house, same afternoon, December, 2016
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Reese stabbed the code into the keypad at the side of the door and the three entered the lobby. Fusco headed for the elevator bank ahead of them to press the button, but Reese shook his head, no; he pointed to the stairwell, instead. Fusco looked pained.
"Stairs? Come on, Reese. You're killin' us today," he whined. "What's up with you?"
"Allergic to glass," Reese said, in his whisper-voice, and Fusco looked back at the wall of glass in the lobby. He had a point. They were exposed. Reese passed by him, heading for the stairwell. Logan followed, with Fusco bringing up the rear.
The light at the bottom of the stairs still flickered and buzzed. To Reese, the air still smelled flat and stale, like nobody'd been there for weeks. He took the stairs three at a time, so Logan did the same. Fusco trudged up one at a time, rubbing his thighs in pain when he got to the landing. He started to complain again, but saw the looks on the other two and didn't.
Through the glass, Reese peered into the hallway, and then opened the door, checking both ways. Fusco frowned, looking up at Logan to see his reaction. Logan seemed intent, too. An elderly woman with an aide at her side rolled her walker toward the elevator bank. Reese grabbed Fusco's arm as he brushed by, headed down the hall. Fusco couldn't help himself any longer:
"What the –?" but Reese stared him down, and then looked up at the two women waiting for the doors to open.
"Let's not forget our manners, Lionel," Reese warned in his whisper-voice. "Ladies first."
The three stood there until the aide helped the older woman navigate her walker onto the elevator and then released the doors. Then they could hear the whirring of the motor start and the cables lowering them down to the lobby.
"What the hell was that all about?" Fusco complained. Reese didn't answer, but lead the way down to 222, their apartment. He leaned into the retina scanner and the lock clicked. Logan pushed open the door and the three of them walked in, peeling off coats, hats, and gloves.
While the other two headed for the kitchen, Reese made his way down the hallway with two stops in mind.
He looked in on Shaw first. Her room was darkened now. Someone had pulled the heavy drapes and lowered the shade in there. Root had finally given in to sleep. She was curled up next to Shaw in the bed, and someone had thrown a blanket over the two of them.
Reese stepped silently into the darkened room. He stood at the side of Shaw's bed and reached out with his fingertips to touch her skin. Barely warm. He looked down at her face, unlined, unstressed now. And he could see the steady rise and fall of her breathing. Sleep of the innocent jumped to his mind, some long-ago phrase from his grandfather's house. It made him feel something inside, something old like a sense of yearning. For a long moment he stood there by her bed, watching her. This must be what peace looks like and he felt that pull inside himself, like desire for the same thing.
Where had that come from? He turned and stepped silently from her room.
At the end of the hall he found Finch, sitting at his desk, tapping on the keyboard. Finch looked up when Reese looked in from the doorway. When he didn't say anything, Finch waved him in and gestured for him to have a seat nearby.
"Any trouble, Mr. Reese?" Finch watched his face over the cover of his laptop.
"Some," he said, seating himself in the chair. He tossed the metal-jacketed round from his pocket onto Finch's desk. Finch adjusted the overhead light and picked up the round in his fingertips.
"I'm almost afraid to ask where you got this," Finch said.
"Dug it out of the dashboard of your Volvo."
"And how did it find it's way there, Mr. Reese?" Finch asked, now more concerned.
"Someone shot through the back window of the car. I heard it happen. By the time I got to the diner, I could see someone on the roof with a rifle, but he disappeared."
"Was anyone injured?"
"Just your Volvo, Finch." Finch leaned back in his chair, looking up at Reese's eyes. He seemed oddly detached, preoccupied.
"You must have a theory, Mr. Reese." At that, Reese took a deeper breath. With an effort, he re-joined the discussion.
"Can you access video from the front of the diner for the last two hours? We had the back covered, and no one came out that way. Maybe we can see someone entering or leaving with the rifle."
Reese watched Harold lean forward and tap keys on his keyboard for a few moments; then Finch turned the screen around so the two of them could see it together. Reese pulled his chair in closer. Harold advanced through the video on high speed first, until they saw the moment when Reese left the diner by the front entrance. Then he reversed the video until he found Logan entering, then hustling out of the entrance. They could see Fusco pulling across the packed intersection and turning north in the sedan, but then it disappeared from the frame. During all the frames they watched, no one coming or going could have been hiding a rifle, or even looked like they would know how to aim one. Old ladies, children. So, perhaps, the rifle had never left the premises.
"Who are these people in the diner, Mr. Reese?" Harold mused out loud.
"While you were gone, I did some research into that very question, and I have some interesting findings. This diner is a fixture in Mid-town. It's been there on that corner since the 1920's, of course not always as a diner. It has had several reincarnations through the years, but a few years ago it was purchased by a large corporation here in Manhattan, a shell corporation. In fact, a network of shell corporations, which makes it difficult to know precisely who owns it now." Harold leaned back in his seat and went on.
"It will take me some time to find them, but I have no doubt that I will. The previous owners were Greek brothers, three of them, who apparently never wanted to sell, but were induced to do so by the current owners. No one knows where the brothers are, Mr. Reese. They've apparently vanished, after selling the business, under duress, to this shell corporation."
Reese nodded. He had a bad feeling about the fate of the brothers – things didn't look good for finding them healthy. Reese had another piece to add to the puzzle. He pulled out his cellphone, and opened it, then swiped the surface twice and turned the screen to face Harold.
"I caught these two when I made a visit to the office inside the diner. Russians, not Greeks. See what you can find on these two, Finch." Reese handed his cellphone over to Finch, who attached it to a wire and tapped some commands on his laptop. The photos copied into a file, then Finch disconnected the phone and returned it to Reese. Facial recognition software and the Machine's long list of databases to search would likely come up with a match if these men had any crime history. Harold clicked Enter to begin the search.
Down the hall Root woke with a start. She raised her head up. She'd fallen asleep in her chair, leaning forward with her head and arms extended on the side of Shaw's bed. She was a little stiff from the awkward position.
A blanket slid down off her shoulders into the chair behind her, and she noticed how dark it was now in the room. Drapes were drawn behind her, and the shades were pulled, too, plunging the room into darkness deep enough for Sleep to finally overtake her.
She felt so groggy. Her brain refused to make any sense – it desperately wanted to return to slumber. But she'd heard something, saw something on the other side of Shaw's bed, and she needed to figure it out. So tired. She was just so tired, she could barely see.
From out of the darkness, a figure slowly appeared. All in white. Hazy. But she could see it like it was taking form in the air over there. It was staring at her. Root turned to the figure in the bed then. Sameen. She was there, lying on her back, motionless, unaware of any of this. "Here I go," Root heard.
Root returned to the figure taking form. It reached out a hand toward Sameen – slowly reaching, leaning forward until the pale fingers touched. Then the figure raised its eyes to Root. Their eyes met and Root realized the figure was Sameen, dressed all in white, a hood drawn up over her hair. The figure all in white was Sameen, a ghostly vision of Sameen. She kept her eyes on Root, and then there was a sound, like water pouring in around them.
Root turned her head – all around her from the walls, water was pouring in, down from the walls like a waterfall surrounding them on all sides. She looked back at Sameen – lying there in her bed with water rising around her. The figure in white watched them, her face mild and undisturbed, dark eyes watching. Wind began to blow, and waves sloshed over the side into Sameen's bed. She needed to move, rise up, but she wasn't doing it. Root sensed her drifting. If she didn't do something Sameen would be lost.
Climbing. She was climbing in next to her, and lifting her face.
"Wake up! Wake up, Sameen," she called out, in the heavy wind. "You have to wake up."
Root leaned in, and pressed her lips against Sameen's. "Please... please..." Tears slid down her face.
Don't let her go. She held Sameen in her arms, desperate to keep her there, keep her from drifting away. Leaning into her, "come on, let's go," Root said.
The figure in white watched them, her face mild and undisturbed. Their eyes met. And at once, Root felt a calm inside. A kind of peace settled over her, and she realized she'd closed her eyes then. There was movement, a kind of lightness like a feather carried softly upwards. Away from the struggle. Free from all that held them back. Sameen had had her chance at love before, and it was true. Could love come in and rescue her, give her a reason to stay?
Root felt surrounded by lightness, rising without effort. She opened her eyes and there was Sameen, all in white, her arms around the two of them. She was lifting them from rising waters - without effort or toil, her face mild and undisturbed. Up in the air she carried them both.
Sameen lay in Root's arms. She held her near to her. They rose together, leaving the wind and the water below. Darkness, like the still before dawn, surrounded them. Here was the moment. Root knew Sameen could go at any time, even now. Teardrops fell and landed like sustenance on her face. Root held her close to her now, kissing her, reminding her why she should stay.
And then, at the very top, they drifted to a stop. In the darkness, Root could see the figure in white lean forward - and give them a little push. Releasing them, floating them away. In her soft dark eyes, a barest hint of loss. She'd come so close this time. Root pulled her in closer again. Time to choose.
Down the hall, Reese left Finch's room. He was thinking he needed to check on Shaw. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was summoning him back there.
He stopped at the door and looked in. Something was different. He walked in, silently, to the side of her bed. Root was still there, curled up next to her. But there were tears on her face – she'd been crying in her sleep. He turned back to Shaw. What had happened?
Reese reached out with his fingertips – let them fall slowly until they settled on her skin.
Shaw's eyes opened and she looked up at him.