Russell Cage eased down onto the mattress, cradling his broken hand against his chest. "Well, at least she keeps her word." He muttered and laughed nervously. He wasn't really surprised that she had broken the hand he'd used on her lackey. He was, however surprised that she'd had it set and a cast put on it.
When asked later he would admit that it had been a profoundly stupid thing to do. At the time, and even currently, he didn't see it that way. He had been enraged and just wanted the man to stop smacking him in the back of the head no matter what he had to do to make that happen.
The pain meds the doctor had given him left his head spinning and his stomach vaguely nauseous. He eased into a supine position. He turned onto his side, the one without the broken hand, and closed his eyes willing the meds to make him sleep.
He could hear movement in the room. It wasn't the first time. It usually happened when he was in that twilight state between true sleep and true wakefulness. At first, the sounds of slithering scales against stone had freaked him out, but then he wrote it off to his imagination. Solitary confinement, especially in the dark could cause hallucinations, and given the fact that his captors worshiped a giant snake idol, it was not surprising that he was hallucinating snake sounds. Understanding what was happening was what his training had taught him so that he could withstand this kind of torture. That was what he kept reminding himself of as he lay there in the cold feeling his heartbeat throbbing in his hand.
BE PATIENT. HELP WILL COME.
"You're not real," Russell said firmly. "Drugs and isolation. That's all you are. Drugs and isolation."
HELP WILL COME. Nag repeated, then fell silent and retreated his consciousness back to the idol that was his prison.
Ken Sakura let out a long low whistle. "You have been through the wars, that's for sure. Okay, so I have been tracking down the scrolls for years. It was a project our father began when we were children. I have an extensive collection, but there are many more out there that I don't have. I've got leads on a few of them. I believe the one you are looking for is in Dallas. I was there a few years back but time didn't allow for me to … liberate… it."
"Liberate?" Peter laughed "You do realize you're talking about art theft to a cop right?" He said good-naturedly.
"I only … liberate… things from criminals. Everyone else I pay for them like the fine upstanding citizen I am."
"Okay, so who are we liberating the scroll from?" Peter asked.
"Franklin Price." He said. "The kind of low life that does whatever he wants because he has enough money to cover everything up, and what he can't cover up his battalion of lawyers buries in so much red tape that it never sees the light of day."
"I'm familiar with the type. You know exactly what they are doing and you just can't get enough evidence to put them away." Peter said, "So this walking stain is in Dallas?"
"Don't know. But I do know the scroll is in Dallas."
Peter nodded "So what's the plan?" He asked. "How do we go about getting it."
"You don't. I do." Ken said. He shook his head when Peter started to object. "You said it yourself, you're a cop. If things go wrong you do not want to end up arrested. Even an out-of-state cop is going to be in for a world of hurt in prison."
"Yeah well, receiving stolen goods is a crime too, so in for a penny in for a pound," Peter said. "And I'm not very good at sitting back and letting others handle things."
"How are you at scaling walls," Ken asked bluntly. "I do not doubt that you are capable of extraordinary things if you are anything like your father. But are you going to be able to make your way up the outside of a building in order to get into the penthouse?"
Peter blanched. "Not so good at scaling tall buildings. But at some point, I am going to have to climb a thirty-foot snake idol. So I'm going to need someone to teach me to deal with that. Probably not going to scale a skyscraper my first time out though."
"I'll help you with that while Kwai Chang and Kenjiro retrieve the scroll," Noriko said.
Peter was frustrated but nodded. "Okay." He hated not being part of it, allowing others to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, he also knew that they were right. He'd be useless on that particular mission.
Paul followed Karen Simms into her apartment. "I appreciate you letting me call Annie from here." He knew his phones were tapped both at home and at his office. He gave a sweep of the apartment to make sure that hers wasn't bugged as well.
"You're welcome. I hope she doesn't believe the rumor mill when she comes home."
"Annie knows me better than that." Paul said "That and I told her what was going on in a letter. It was in Braille so even if they managed to intercept it from the post office I took it to they wouldn't be able to read it easily."
Karen nodded. "That has to be challenging."
"She's been blind for as long as she can remember. Sometimes it's easy to forget that she's blind. There are of course challenges but she meets them head-on. She is incredibly independent."
Karen nodded in understanding. "Shall I put a pot of coffee on?"
"That would be nice. Thank you."
"I'll leave you to make your call." She said and left the room.
Paul dialed the number for his sister-in-law and waited. "Hello Darleen, it's Paul. Is Annie available?"
"Yes, just a moment." She said and the phone was silent for a bit before Annie picked up.
"Paul?"
"I'm here. How are you and the girls?"
"We're alright. We all want to come home. How much longer are we supposed to stay here?"
"Just until I can make sure it's safe for you to come home."
"That's never going to happen. No place is going to be safe enough to suit you, and you know it."
Paul laughed quietly. "I can't argue with that. But there are degrees of not safe, Annie." He said "You and the girls would be a sure path to bringing Peter to his knees right in front of Miranda Gray. You would be targeted."
"You may never be able to bring her down. Peter may be on the run for the rest of his life. That woman has destroyed his life, I don't want her to do the same thing to our marriage."
"I won't let that happen and you know Peter eventually he will settle somewhere. It's in his nature. He doesn't like change."
"It's also in his nature to do the most careless and utterly brave things to bring down criminals that aren't out to destroy him. How much more will he do with someone that is out to make him a permanent prisoner? He won't settle anywhere but Bayview." She said, "Have you heard from him?"
"Not directly. When I saw Lo Si a few days ago he said that Peter and his father are at a Shaolin Temple. I suppose at least he's safe there."
"If the priests there are anything like his father, then he's the safest he's ever been." She said but she didn't really believe it. After all hadn't he been orphaned because of the destruction of the temple he'd grown up in?
"Peter is a capable young man. He will keep himself safe no matter where he is. He didn't realize there was a threat before. He's more than aware of it now." Her words had been sure but her tone was not. He knew her well enough to hear what she truly meant.
"I know. It's just … I'm not going to believe he's safe until we're all able to come home."
"Caine will do whatever it takes to keep Peter safe, and I am doing everything in my power to make sure everyone can come home. I promise you."
"I know." She said and sighed. "So how is your work wife?"
Paul laughed. "She's fine. Not entirely comfortable with the charade but she's willing to do whatever it takes to help rid our city of the cult."
"Good." She said. She'd worry if the woman was comfortable pretending to be her husband's mistress. She couldn't imagine any woman older than their children wouldn't want her husband. At least she could be assured that this Karen Simms respected her marriage.
Tyler Beckett slid the manila envelope into the mail slot at the commissioner's house and then walked away. He took his gloves off and stuffed them into his pockets. His car had been parked a block away. Dianne was waiting there leaning against the passenger's side door.
"Is it done?" She asked.
"It's done. It's not going to be enough to bring her down. But it will get him pointed in the right direction. This is going to be a long game. We could bring her down in an instant by sending him in after her latest kidnap victim, but it would also bring the rest of us down as well."
"I'm not sure the long game is a safe game. She will find out what we are up to and then we'll end up dead like Kline."
"Not if you keep your head on your shoulders and don't panic." He said. "There is no reason for her to know anything if you keep your head."
"I hope you're right about this."
Noriko walked with Peter, showing him the Japanese garden, "You missed the cherry blossom trees blooming." She said. She could sense his mood was darker than it had been earlier in the offices. She could well imagine why.
"It looks like everything else is starting to bloom though." He said. "What's this one called?" He asked stepping up to what was either a small tree or a very large shrub. It was near twice his height and covered in tufts of white flowers.
"It is a snowball bush." She said and smiled when he laughed.
" I should have guessed that one." He said.
"Well, not everything is named so blatantly." She said, "When it first blooms they are a vibrant green, that a few weeks later become white and then later turns pink."
"So are we out here distracting me from the planning going on in the dining room?" He asked.
"I thought you could use the time away from it. You are less than happy about not going along."
Peter sighed and put his hands in his pockets. " I know I'd be useless. Less than useless. I just… every step of the way that is exactly what I've been. I'm getting tired of being useless."
"You have a great deal to do once everything is in place." She told him. "No one could carry the weight of destroying such a cult alone."
"I know, I do," Peter said.
"You're used to being the hero of your own story."
Peter laughed a little. "Not just my story, even though that sounds pretty arrogant when I say it out loud."
"You're a police detective and you appear to be a man of good character. The combination could lead to you being someone's hero."
"Appear to be?" He asked, mostly joking.
"Well, I have known you for less than a day." She said and smiled. "I know your father though, and it is easy to assume that you share his sense of honor."
"You and my father were close."
"Does that trouble you?" She asked.
He shook his head "No not really. Before all this turned our lives upside down he had been occasionally dating a friend of mine. Now that bothered me for about a minute and a half." He said. "My mother died when I was very young and we moved to the temple. From then until I thought he had died in the fire I had never seen him with another woman."
"He loved her deeply."
Peter nodded "That and to be fair there were only men at the temple. There are Shaolin nuns, but none were in our temple. Anyway, no, it doesn't bother me that you and my father were close." She was the second woman he had met during their wanderings that had at one time been infatuated with his father.
"He is much happier than when I last saw him. He was still grieving your supposed death."
"We ahm, found each other about a year and a half ago." He said. He explained how he had seen a priest save an aged Chinese apothecary from a fire. "I went to the hospital to ask if he had known my father only to find that he actually was my father."
"Serendipity." She said.
"My father called it a happy coincidence," Peter said.
She led the way deeper into the garden "The two of you seem close."
"We are. We do not always understand each other but I guess understanding isn't required for love."
"No. It is not only not required it isn't as common as people would like to believe. Especially not between parents and their children."
"I suppose not." He said. "Sometimes it feels like we don't speak the same English anymore."
"You can always revert to speaking Chinese." She said, smiling.
"Not a bad idea," Peter said. He was still fluent in Chinese. It was one of the things he had never forgotten, unlike so much else from his childhood.
She paused and rested her hand on a tall tree. "I thought that tomorrow we could start by climbing this tree. It won't be the same as the idol you have described but it will at least be a start where heights are concerned."
"I have no idea why heights bother me so much." Peter said, "I didn't fall as a child or anything."
"I am sure that you can learn to overcome it when it is necessary."
"I hope so. I know I could probably say the ritual anywhere in the presence of the statue but If I am on the floor I'll be too easy to get to, they'd be able to prevent me from completing it."
She nodded. "You are determined. Driven. You will succeed."
Paul unlocked his front door sometime a little after 10 pm. He was tired and he doubted he would get any more rest this night than he had the previous night or the night before that. It wasn't insomnia. Not really. He wanted his family home as much as they wanted to be home and he felt as though he was failing them on that front.
He frowned as his foot caught on something and sent it skittering across the floor. He turned on the entry light. He spotted the manila envelope on the floor and picked it up. He didn't like that there was nothing on the outside of the envelope, but he opened it regardless.
He withdrew two 8x10 photographs. The first was of Miranda Gray and the former deputy mayor Harold Cavenaugh. It had been taken after the explosion. That much was clear by the debris on the ground. Not that it gave him a clear image of where that was, there had been debris scattered for blocks in all directions. What did catch his attention was that the pair seemed to be in an intense conversation.
The second photograph was a blown-up section of the first photograph, focusing on their hands. Paul raised both eyebrows seeing the cult's signet ring on Cavenaugh's hand.
No rest for the wicked, he thought and headed into his office. He didn't bother taking off his coat. He picked up the phone and called Kermit. "Hey, up to getting coffee, or am I calling too late."
"Sure I can do coffee," Kermit answered. "I'll swing by and get you."
"I'll be here." He told his friend. He hung up and went up to his room to change into casual clothes and was waiting outside when Kermit pulled up in his green car. He got in but didn't say anything until they were at the restaurant just outside of town again.
They went inside and took up residence in a corner booth toward the back of the restaurant. The waitress brought over two menus.
Paul laughed quietly "I don't think he needs one of those. He always orders the same thing."
"You never know when I'm going to change my mind." Kermit said, "We'll have coffee for now." He told her. After she came back with their coffee and walked away to give them time, Kermit looked up from the trifold laminated menu. "So what's happened?"
Paul passed the manila envelope across the table. "This was waiting for me when I got home from Karen's."
"You were at Captain Simm's place?" Kermit raised an eyebrow, not that it was easily noticed behind the green lensed shades he habitually wore.
"She let me use her phone to call Annie," Paul said.
Kermit opened the envelope and pulled out the photographs. "How are she and the girls doing?"
"They want to come home. They are all three tired of being out there with Annie's sister. I don't blame them. I want everyone home. But that can't happen yet."
Kermit nodded as he studied the photographs. "Huh, Cavenaugh was part of the cult. It shouldn't be as surprising as it is, considering his cousin in New River City is part of the cult."
"Heard anything new from Jordan?" Paul asked.
"I had a certified letter delivered to me at the office today. She's found her way into the NRC branch of the cult. She's avoiding her grandmother because she's currently being stalked by a serial killer and doesn't want to endanger her."
"She's what?" Paul asked, incredulously.
"Being stalked by a serial killer," Kermit repeated. "Unfortunately you can't interrogate a letter for more details."
Paul shook his head. "Hopefully she will be able to give a more substantial report soon. It's going to get even more dangerous for her now that she has an in."
"I know. I just hope she knows how dangerous it's about to become. She'd be better off with the serial killer than that den of vipers."