“It helps if you know your Greek mythology,” said Robie.
“Come again?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right. Nothing matters for either of you anymore.”
He led them to the edge of the quarry. There was something large lying on the ground with a tarp over it.
Fitzsimmons lifted the tarp to reveal Bender’s body perched on what looked like a seesaw. They noted there were chains and weights wrapped around the corpse.
“Now, the disposal method. I think you’ll find it relatively straightforward.”
“Wait!”
They all turned to see Patti Bender striding toward them.
She didn’t look at Fitzsimmons, Robie, or Reel as she passed by.
She knelt down next to her dead half brother. “Give me some privacy,” she said quietly.
Fitzsimmons nodded at the guards, who grabbed Robie and Reel and hustled them away. Fitzsimmons slowly followed, glancing back twice at Patti.
From a distance Robie and Reel watched as Patti gently touched Bender’s face and crossed herself. Robie could see her lips moving but couldn’t hear what she was saying.
She finally rose and walked over to them. She had on dirty jeans, a compression Under Armour shirt, and a parka. A Glock rode in a holster on her hip. Her boots were dusty. Her hair was tied back with a rubber band.
She studied the ground for a few moments before looking up at Robie.
“I will never forgive you for this,” she said. She glanced at Reel. “Both of you.”
Reel said, “I didn’t shoot your brother, so I don’t think forgiveness is my problem. I think it’s yours.”
She slipped a knife out of a holder on the back of her belt and held it against Reel’s throat.
Reel looked down at her, her features relaxed. “That’s the easy way, Patti. I would expect better from you after coming up with your drug empire.”
“We did have a plan, Patti,” said Fitzsimmons nervously. “And I think we should carry it out.”
Patti put her hand up to Fitzsimmons and he instantly fell silent.
Robie noted that the two guards had stepped back and would not make eye contact with the woman. It was clear to Robie that Patti Bender and not Fitzsimmons was running the show and had the respect of the guards.
Patti slid the blade along Reel’s throat, drawing a bubble of blood a centimeter from where Reel’s carotid wobbled at the surface.
She smeared the drop of blood along Reel’s throat before putting the blade away.
“You came here for the truth?” she said.
“Only reason we came to this place,” said Reel.
“You won’t find it. Truth doesn’t exist.”
“Your partner here has already tried to wax philosophical with us. But we’re blue-collar types doing a job. No ivory towers need apply.”
“I didn’t mean that,” said Patti. “When I say truth doesn’t exist, it’s a fact, not a theory.”
“So does this mean you’ve been sampling some of your product, because I’m not following,” said Reel.
“I loved Derrick even though we had different fathers.”
“I really can’t believe that, since you murdered him.”
“The moment you brought him here you killed him. My brother was the law. This place is not about the law.”
“Meaning he would have exposed you and sent you to prison. You killed him to avoid that happening. Doesn’t sound like love to me. Sounds like every selfish crook I’ve ever come across.”
“I did what I did so he wouldn’t find out what I’d done. I don’t care about prison. I’ve been living in one all my life. But I didn’t want Derrick to know this about me. I couldn’t have lived with that.”
“Well, you made damn sure that he couldn’t live with that, either.”
“Where are the others?” said Robie. “Walton and the others?”
“They’re here,” said Patti. “They’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For you, of course.”
With that she turned and walked back into the tunnel.
Fitzsimmons stirred and said, “Well, now you know. You will meet up with your friend, Mr. Walton.”
“He’s Patti’s father, did you know that?” said Reel.
“Perhaps I did and perhaps I didn’t.”
“Is that what this is all about?” said Robie. “She has daddy issues?”
“I’m a chemist, not a psychologist. And I don’t really care.” He shook his head and grimaced. “To think that all of this started because that idiot Lamarre saw something in the back of a van that he shouldn’t have seen and then started blabbing. Every day it seemed like we had one more person we had to silence. It was like a virus mutating.”
“Well, sometimes the virus wins,” said Reel.
“And sometimes it doesn’t,” replied Fitzsimmons. “The key is quarantine. And then finding a way to kill the contagion.”
Fitzsimmons motioned to two of the guards, who came forward and lifted up one end of the seesaw. Now Robie and Reel could see that it was actually being used as a slide.
Bender’s body zipped right down the board and then off it.
They watched it fall over two hundred feet, where it hit the mucky water and then slipped under the surface.
Fitzsimmons explained, “We always slit the lungs so they won’t inflate when the gas builds up as a result of decomposition. And of course the weights and chains serve to keep the body at the bottom. It’s quite deep down there. And impossible to see anything in the depths.”
“Why do I think that’s not the first time you’ve done that?” said Reel. It was clear from the revulsion on her features that if she could have gotten to Fitzsimmons, he would be a dead man.
“Well, it’s not.”
“And I guess that’s where we’ll be ending up,” said Robie.
“I normally leave that up to Patti. But be warned, though I can kill in cold blood, I’m actually simply a humble chemist and genuinely a nice person. She’s far more dangerous than she appears.”
“So are we,” Reel muttered under her breath. “So are we.”
Chapter
67
“DO YOU THINK Blue Man is dead?”
Robie didn’t answer Reel’s query right away.
They were back in the same cell.
“I don’t think so. Patti said they were waiting for us. Not that I have any reason to believe her.”
“So she figured we’d end up here as prisoners, too?”
“She seems to be a long-range planner,” replied Robie.
“Where do you think those prisoners are coming in from?”
“From the little I could see behind the blue scrubs, they looked to be young and mostly Hispanic.”
“Are they snatching them from their hometowns?”
“Maybe they’re runaways or they came into the country illegally. That might make more sense. You start snatching kids from homes, there’re going to be a lot of questions and people looking for them.”
“You’re probably right.”
“They might have sold them a story of good-paying jobs and a new life before putting bags over their heads.”
“Some life.”
Robie leaned back against the cinderblock wall. “I’m not sure how good our lives are looking right now.”
“Well, I don’t see too many options.”
He said, “We have to wait. And adapt.”
“Story of our lives. What’s Patti’s motivation, do you think? It’s not like she’s living this rich lifestyle. She’s still here in her dirty jeans and boots.”
Robie shrugged. “I mentioned she might have daddy issues. Maybe that’s it.”
“Blue Man didn’t even know he had a daughter.”
“That’s what Claire told us. Maybe she told Patti something else. Or she might have discovered it on her own.”
“But that couldn’t be why she went into a b
usiness like this,” pointed out Reel.
“Like Dolph—or Fitzsimmons—said, I’m not a shrink. I don’t know. All I do know is that we’re in a tight spot with very few options.”
“They’re not going to let us sit here long. We’ll be reported as missing at some point.”
Robie said sharply, “By who? Both of the cops in this jurisdiction are out of commission.”
“The Agency. When we don’t get back to them.”
“We can’t count on that saving our lives.”
“I’ve never counted on anyone else saving my life,” retorted Reel.
Footsteps along the corridor alerted them that someone was coming. They both sat up straighter and stared expectantly at the barred cell door.