The asset, p.19
The Asset, page 19
“Yes. He has been speaking to his dead wife.”
“Does she…talk back?”
“I’m sure she does. Shoshone believe that once we get in tune with the spirits around us, we can hear them.”
“So you think my mom’s spirit is in the room with him and talking to him?”
She said, “If that’s what he thinks he is hearing, then yes.”
“Have you ever noticed him say something to you that he doesn’t remember saying?”
“Ah, you witnessed it!” Kymana clapped her hands. “What a gift for you.”
Heather squinted. “I’m not following. What did I witness?”
“Martin’s wife spoke to you through him.”
Heather held still, even though she felt as spooked as a horse who saw a snake in the grass. “You believe that?”
“Yes. If she spoke to you directly, using your father as the vessel, it must have been important.”
“Or there is a more logical explanation.” Heather looked down at her hands. She had been drumming them on the desk without even realizing. “My father is a sick man. He might be having a psychotic breakdown.”
“Does he look psychotic to you?”
She let out a deep breath. “No. He doesn’t. He looks good. He didn’t smell of alcohol. His color looks healthier than it has in a long time. He seems . . . better.”
“Then you have your answer.”
Heather went in for the kill. “Of course, another explanation is that someone is telling him to say these things, overtly or subliminally.”
“I don’t understand. Subliminally?”
Heather rose. She needed to pace. “Subliminal messaging is all around us. In the papers, the news, advertisements, things we hear in the community. Sometimes it is subtle, below the conscious level, sometimes it is much more”—violent, painful, scary—“overt.”
Kymana studied her. “Your face and body language.” She rose and came closer. Very softly, she said, “You are scared. What is it? Please, think of me as an ally.”
The way she spoke so calmly, with no level of anxiety or emotion, was like a wave softly rolling on the sand. Her voice cooled Heather’s nervous system. Instantly, she felt better. Less heated.
Heather wagged her finger. “Ah, you are good.”
Kymana smiled. “I try. Go on. Tell me what worries you about Martin’s wife’s spirit talking to you.”
“I have experienced, firsthand, how disorienting it is when someone has access to your thoughts. When they get inside your mind and twist things around, it makes you think that nothing is real. It’s more than disorienting. It’s terrifying. You lose a sense of who you are. What you believe. Who you love. You end up not trusting anyone. When they erase bits and pieces of your experiences, the things that make you the person you are, you feel…lost. Less than human. Alone. If someone is doing that to him…”
She didn’t know what her face was doing at that moment, or her body, but Kymana rushed to her and pulled her into a hug.
“Someone did that to you?” she whispered.
Her handler was still doing it to her. She could get grabbed and mentally manipulated at any moment. “Yes.” Heather pulled back and went back to sit in her chair. “This is why I am worried about my dad.”
Kymana squinted, trying to understand. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you are asking me.”
“Did you tell my father that a messenger was coming to talk to me?”
Kymana didn’t flinch. “No. I didn’t know anyone was coming to talk to you.”
Heather studied her face. The woman held her own and didn’t give off any vibes that she was hiding something.
“Has anyone else been in the room with my dad?”
“Not that I know of. We’ve isolated him so he doesn’t have a lot of extra input or distraction to hinder his healing. It’s just me with him.”
“Are you positive?”
“I guess someone could have entered when I was out, but I doubt it.”
“What about the soft music I heard piped into his room? Are there any words in it?”
Kymana shook her head. “It’s just soft background sounds. No lyrics.” It was Kymana’s turn to study her. “Who is bringing you a message?”
“You really don’t know?”
“I do not. What else did the spirit say to you?”
“To stay here, at the reservation, listen, and prepare for whatever is coming. It’s as if the spirit, or whatever, could see a terrible thing heading for me straight from the future.” She didn’t tell Kymana anything about her daughter. The woman didn’t need to know anything more about her. She also didn’t ask her about the battle the chief had talked about. She didn’t know how much the shaman knew.
“Spirits are not tethered to this time and place,” Kymana said matter-of-factly.
“What does that mean?”
The shaman’s face held a look for the ages. “It means you better get yourself ready. The future is heading straight for you. For us all. If I were you, I’d listen to the dead wife.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Heather stayed two nights at the reservation, waiting for the intel Tommy might be bringing to her. She hoped it was something juicy to add to Blockwell’s list of sins that could implode the president and bring a violent end to his reign.
A girl could dream.
She didn’t hate being at the reservation, either. The people mostly left her alone to wander around. It was a well-functioning small town behind the thick reservation walls. She liked the hum and flow of humanity and normal life. For a few days, she could lower her own defenses, just a hair, and pretend she really was on a vacation. It amazed her that the food was good and the people seemed healthy. And she kept her eyes and ears open. It was old-school spying, without any of Hammer’s high-tech devices.
What did she find out? Nothing. It seemed no one knew the secret intel Tommy was bringing. People didn’t venture beyond the walls to know what was going on outside. They were reliant on the occasional scouts from other tribes to bring them news. And those scouts were apparently becoming few and far between.
Heather didn’t witness Kymana actively manipulating Martin’s thoughts, either. And still Martin continued to improve. He believed in the magic and the belief was healing him. Maybe the spirits in this place really were helping. On the third morning, she went into the stinky spring baths with him.
“You’ll get used to the smell,” he said as he eased his body into it.
She held her nose. “Not sure that’s possible.”
The spring was the color of chalk and coated her skin like thick soap suds. The water was hot and steamy. Raised benches had been created in the pools for bathers to sit in the water up to their shoulders. After about ten minutes, she closed her eyes and the tension in her body did ease back. And for some inexplicable reason, she thought about Mike. No, more than that. She missed Mike. A lot. That bothered her. She wasn’t supposed to be missing her partner as much as she did.
“You okay over there?” Martin asked.
“Hmm?” Her eyes were still closed.
“You were frowning as if you’d stubbed your toe against the rock wall. I did that the first time I got in the water. Hurt like a sonofabitch.”
“No, I didn’t stub my toe.”
“Anything else bothering you?”
“Nope. I’m fine.” She kept her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him. She wasn’t fine. She was suddenly very lonesome.
“You sure? The water brings out lots of stuff. Past stuff. Sad stuff. I was worried you were thinking about Patrick Dunbar.”
That opened her eyes. “Dunbar?”
“Yeah. Were you?”
“No, but maybe we should talk about him. I ran into him the other day. He was…the same.” She was treading on thin ice, but she needed Martin to help fill in the details she didn’t have.
“Still a sonofabitch?”
“To the nth degree.”
“Too bad he wasn’t violently killed in the war. If anyone deserved to be blown to bits, it was that asshole.”
So Martin was still harboring feelings about Dunbar. She needed to press on those and see what she could find out. “We haven’t talked about”—she pulled her hand out of the water and waved it—“any of that. Perhaps we should.”
He winced. “You want to?”
“Yes. It might help me heal my soul too.”
His cheeks had been pink moments ago from the hot water. Now they were a shade darker than the chalky water. “It’s time I apologized for my part in what happened to you.”
“Dad, I don’t hold you responsible for any of it.”
His gaze dropped to the bubbles. “That’s because you don’t know everything.”
She sat up straighter. “You better tell me, then. If I run into Patrick again, I need to know what I am up against. What exactly am I dealing with?”
His gaze lifted. Fervor filled his voice when he said, “Don’t go anywhere near him, baby. I mean it. He’s bad news. Stay away from him.”
“I’m not trying to go near him. He seems to be popping up more and more at the strangest places. Like a poisonous weed.”
“He’s stalking you again?”
Stalking. That was new intel.
“I don’t know. Please, Dad. Tell me what I need to know to protect myself.”
For a long moment, he was silent. His jaw flexed. He scrubbed his face with his wet hands. Finally, he spoke. “I never told you this. I probably should have all those years ago.”
“Do it now. I am over him completely. Nothing you say about him will hurt me anymore.”
He nodded.
“When you started dating that bastard, I paid an investigator to find out everything I could. Bank records, witnesses, disgruntled co-workers, ex-lovers, the gamut. I had the data. The proof. Dunbar was a conman through and through. He was only after our money. I knew he had stalked you back then, trying to trick you into falling for him. It worked. I’m not blaming you, sweetheart, for making that mistake. Dunbar was an expert at making women fall for him. The fact that you were overly protected by your rich old man made you a target. I am sorry.”
Heather shook her head. “Nothing to apologize for, Dad.”
“Yes, there is. I could have been gentler, more understanding when I told you to stay away from him. I told you he was an asshole who didn’t love you. I didn’t take into account that you loved him. It’s my fault you didn’t listen back then. My words drove you away. I forced you to run straight to him.”
She played along. “I was a stupid young girl. You were right. I should’ve listened. He was after our money. What happened next?”
“Are you sure you want to talk about that?”
She did. It might help her to know what he knew about the kidnapping.
He swallowed hard. “I want a drink.”
When she didn’t respond to that statement, he smiled. “But I won’t have one. I’ve been sober since the day the PDs grabbed me and dumped me in the infinity hospital. I’m done with that shit.”
Aww. Maybe that was part of why he was feeling better. “That’s really good, Dad.”
“It’s about time I took responsibility for my recovery. At least, that’s what the good shaman has taught me.”
Now we are getting somewhere. “Kymana? Did she use hypnosis, or some sort of mental suggestion?”
He chuckled. “Nope. Just good old-fashioned ass-kicking and soul-digging. She had me look at myself and go to the roots of the tree, not the leaves.”
“The roots?”
“Yeah. And I realized a lot of what happened…was my fault.”
She held still in the hot water and waited for him to go on.
“When you left the goodbye note for me and took off, my heart broke. I’m not going to lie. It hurt. But nothing could compare to getting that ransom note. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Did the Revos kidnap you when you were on the way to Dunbar’s place? I had believed in the Revos once”—his face was red with rage—“but when they took you…” He was snarling now. “That was it. I vowed to give all I could to Blockwell. I wanted to destroy them for hurting you. And the baby.”
That took the air out of her chest. She was wholly unprepared for words that had hit far too close to her heart. What happened to Heather and her baby? Where was her child now?
His voice was low and had a deep rumble to it. “I can see you’re shocked. Yes, I knew you were pregnant because I’d paid a pretty penny for your hospital records. What did I learn? My baby was carrying my grandbaby.” He let out a small, heart-crushing sound. “A child I never got to see.”
Before she could stop them, her own tears ran down her cheeks. In that moment, her own pain and loss blended with what the real Heather would be feeling, if the woman were still alive.
“It was my fault for making him so angry. I knew what kind of man he was. Not just a conman. He was pure evil.” Martin slapped the water with his hand. “He wanted to punish me for revealing who he was to you. For fighting him and barring him from your life. We had our own war, Dunbar and me. He obviously won.”
“No, he didn’t. We’re still here, safe. He can’t touch us. And the money he and Blockwell have been trying to steal from you? It’s safe too.”
“The money means nothing when your child goes missing. He knew my weak spot and went straight in, a missile to my heart. He impregnated my daughter to use both of you as leverage against me. He took his rage out on me by turning my sweet girl over to those damned Revos.”
This was a different take on the story than she had imagined. Had Dunbar kidnapped Heather to punish Martin for his crime of trying to protect his own daughter? Had he ordered her death and blamed Revos? Two birds with one stone.
“The Revos did those things to you because”—his voice cracked—“because he paid them to break me.”
Suddenly, she realized the reason Martin had devolved into mental illness and alcoholism. He believed Revos had hurt Heather as retaliation for his sleuthing about Dunbar. He seemed to believe it, but she didn’t. She held her tongue and let him keep talking. And wrestling with his demons.
“And then that sick sonofabitch left you with Revos, who fleeced me for the largest ransom in history. Against the advice of law enforcement and my financial advisers, I paid it. Of course I did. I would do it again and a million times more to bring you home. I would have borrowed, stolen, and cheated for the money to save you. But they lied. They didn’t turn you over to me. They left you to die in the war zone. Your face…” The look on his face was utter sorrow. “It was so bad, honey, so destroyed. It was a miracle I found you in that hospital bed.”
But he hadn’t found his daughter in that hospital bed. He’d found a faceless Jane Doe. He’d found her—the perfect lie.
Silence hung heavy and thick in the quiet air around the baths.
“Now you know everything. Stay away from him,” Martin said. “That sick bastard has only gotten more and more powerful. Blockwell loves the guy. He’s dangerous, sweetheart. You need to stay as far away from him as you can. He came after you once, and he came after me. Who knows? Maybe Dunbar was the mastermind behind sending me to the infinity hospital.”
Uh, no. I was. And it was no mastermind plan. It was a horrible accident.
“Dad, thank you for telling me all of that. I can’t remember a lot of what happened back then. I wish I did. But I do wonder”—she had to tread lightly here—“what if Dunbar wasn’t working with the Revos at all? What if it was Dunbar all along? The kidnapping, the note, taking the money…all of it.”
“No.” He shook his head. “The private investigator found out you had been with them right before the bombs dropped. You were with the Revos, Heather.”
“Hear me out.” She raised her hands out of the water. “I don’t remember what happened because of the bombs. But when I saw Dunbar, he acted like he was still stinging from an ex who’d burned him. A man doesn’t act like that when he’s fully in charge of the situation. What if Dunbar tried to convince me to go with him for the ransom money and I got away from him? I could have escaped from his secret basement, or whatever, and the Revos rescued me?”
“No. That can’t be. No.” He shook his head violently, like a man who couldn’t face the truth even when it was in front of his eyes. “They hurt you. I never forgave them. They are monsters and deserve to be destroyed.”
“Dad. On this side of things, after what they did to us at Blackthorne Infinity Hospital? I think we can both agree that Blockwell and his men are the true monsters.”
He stared at her.
“We have the opportunity to see this with 20/20 vision after the emotions are dimmed, right? Who actually benefited from the kidnapping?”
“The Revos. They got my money.”
“Did they? I don’t know. I can imagine Dunbar would still have gone through with his plan to steal the ransom money, even without having me in his possession.”
His eyes were wide. His sober brain was hearing the truth after all these years.
“But it is clear to me the real winner was Blockwell. He got more money from you than the ransoms ever did. And you changed alliances, turning against the Revos. Win-win for Blockwell. What if he was behind this thing the whole time? Or what if Dunbar brought it to him as a way to win favor and get into Blockwell’s good graces?”
Martin made a sound that she had never heard before. It was a strange combination of air escaping a man-sized balloon, weighed down by a string of curse words. And then he sank under the water.
“Dad?” The water was so thick that she couldn’t see him. “Dad?” She was just about to dive under to rescue him when he came up, sputtering.
He wiped his eyes. “I have been such a fool. Do you forgive me?”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ve both been fools. Let’s forgive each other and focus on fighting the true demons from now on.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you still think Revos are the problem?”
“I am not sure. But I can tell you one thing—Blockwell is dangerous and on the wrong side of history. I wish I had figured that out a long time ago, before it was too late. I might have been able to stop the war, or at least help the Revos.”
