Aftershocks Five: Pointillism I’m not sure which is worse – having to make a hospital visit when it’s someone special I’m there to see – when I’d rather see them just about anywhere else – or waking up there myself. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done both. When it’s me, it’s usually a private room, and the first thing I hear when I wake up is how lucky I am to be alive at all.
I never wake up feeling lucky, though.
Especially not if someone else wasn’t so lucky. And then there’s the disorientation of trying to figure out how much time has gone past in the world while you were out of touch.
But private rooms go with the territory – it’s the same thing when it’s a colleague. Since I hate feeling helpless, and I hate being seen that way, I’m usually grateful for the isolation – or I would be, if my friends ever left me alone.
I do know that the very worst of all is not being able to be there when you’re needed . . . when someone needs you, and you aren’t there, can’t manage it. I’ve done that, too. I guess it’s only been a few times . . . but even one is too many.MacGyver threw Gregory a puzzled look as they crossed the lobby of the Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He had spotted the plainclothes private security guard idling inconspicuously near the gift shop as Gregory guided him to the wing where the high-end private rooms were located – and he knew that the guard had spotted them first. He wondered if they had a second man covering the side entrance. Probably.
“What’s Ruth doin’ in an LA hospital?”
“It was thought . . . more prudent . . . to move her as soon as we were confident that she would take no harm from the relocation.”
“You’re keeping her whereabouts dark.”
“Exactly. She is here under an assumed name; Mr. Collins is staying at the Bel Age Hotel nearby, also under false colours.”
Gregory seemed calm on the surface, but he didn’t
feel calm to MacGyver. “What’s goin’ on? I thought you said Ruth got mugged.” Mac’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t the first ‘incident’, is it?”
Gregory cleared his throat. “There has been nothing certain.”
“The Mustang.”
“Precisely. And three weeks ago, an unknown person in an unfamiliar vehicle attempted to force us off the road.”
“And you’re sayin’ that’s ‘not certain’?!”
“Mrs. Collins prefers to hold out for it being coincidence. Mr. Collins is less sanguine. After she was attacked the night before last, he insisted on taking precautions.”
“Kinda late to start.”
“He did remark on the need to keep his remaining horses securely in the barn.”
The private room was bathed in sunlight and awash in flowers – which must have been entirely Henry Collins’ doing, since Ruth was there incognito. Mac hadn’t even thought to get any.
“Ruth.” MacGyver stood in the doorway of the private room, shaking his head reprovingly. “What did I tell you about getting into fights on the playground?” He pointed a long accusing finger at her. “You are so grounded.”
He was inwardly shocked at the sight of her: her face was a mass of bruises, with a split and swollen lip and one black eye in full bloom. Stitches showed on a ragged cut on her forehead; her left hand and arm lay outside the covers, and black and purple bruises starkly mottled the pale skin. The indomitable spark in her eyes was still there, but it was at a low ebb.
Ruth grimaced at him. “
Must you make me laugh, MacGyver? It really does hurt, even with all the painkillers they’ve poured into me. Good God, how I
do hate drugs.”
She peered past Mac, piercing Gregory with a probing look as he tried to retreat into the hallway. “Gregory, I don’t remember telling you I wanted to see MacGyver. Not that the sight of him isn’t truly welcome. But still. I trust you have an explanation?”
“Mr. Collins wished to see him, and Mr. MacGyver insisted on seeing you first. I believe he wanted to be certain you were all right.”
“Depending entirely on how broadly you’re willing to define ‘all right’.” Ruth glanced around the room. “As you can see, Henry has already raided every florist in Los Angeles County, so that angle is nicely covered. You’d better talk to him, MacGyver – and if he’s planning a guerrilla assault on the Huntington Botanical Gardens, I’m counting on you to dissuade him.”
“I’ll do my best.” Instead of retreating, Mac exchanged a glance with Gregory; the older man nodded and withdrew into the hallway, shutting the door. Mac walked over to Ruth’s bed.
She gave him a sardonic look. “Forgive me, but I’m not in a terribly social mood right now. I should have informed the staff that madame is not at home to visitors this morning.
Is it morning? What day is it, anyway?”
“Yes, it’s morning. It’s Wednesday. Ruth, what the heck
happened?”
Ruth lay back on her pillows. “I was mugged, MacGyver. That’s all.” She glanced away from him, studying one of the magnificent arrangements of sunflowers and chrysanthemums. “I’m an old woman. I don’t bounce back the way I once did.”
“Bull.”
She looked at him sharply. “If that was intended for a compliment, it lacked a certain
je ne sais quoi.”
Mac met her eyes evenly. He folded his arms and settled back on his heels. He looked ready to stand there all day.
After a long, stubbornly silent moment, Ruth sighed and let her head fall back again. “Damn your eyes. What part aren’t you buying?”
“Weellll . . . I get that laughing hurts and you don’t like the painkillers.” Mac unfolded his arms and hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “C’mon, Ruth, stop stalling. What the heck are you up to? What brought this on?” When she still hesitated, he added, “It’s something to do with the Brandenburg case, isn’t it? Pete can’t do anything, Phoenix is boxed in . . . but you don’t give up that easy. Not when there might be Nazis involved.”
Ruth sighed. “Ex-Nazis.”
“D’you really think there
is such a thing? Isn’t that kind of like ‘ex-murderer’?”
“I think you can guess my answer to that.”
“Okay, lemme speculate a little. Maybe – just maybe – you got hold of a copy of Frau Brandenburg’s files. You’re pretty good at getting what you want, after all. Maybe you’ve been following up on her list of folks who are supposed to be part of their big scheme for a Nazi takeover – the inquiries that Pete can’t make.”
Ruth’s lips tightened, but she didn’t reply. Mac pressed on.
“And if that’s what you’ve been doing – maybe you’re not talkin’ to me because you don’t want me to talk to Pete?” Mac saw a spark of distress in her eyes, and his mind made a rapid leap in the direction he suddenly knew was the right one. “No – it’s because you don’t want to make me choose between Pete and you.”
Ruth looked cornered. “Has Willis been talking to you?”
“Nope, but you just confirmed my next hunch.” Mac picked up the call button that hung beside Ruth and turned it over idly in his fingers. “Ruth, back when we were all up in the Bay Area for the art exhibit – I thought we had an understanding. I’ve been waiting for you to get in touch. If there’s a choice to be made, I already made it.”
Ruth spoke softly. “What about Pete?”
“He knows me real well, and he reads signals. I don’t think he’ll ask too many questions, not unless I have answers.”
Ruth retrieved the call button from MacGyver. “I really don’t have anything for you yet. And I didn’t want to tap you until I had something . . . so far, there’s very little evidence yet that the ‘conspiracy’ ever existed, except in Frau Brandenburg’s deranged ego. However . . . ”
“Seems to me there’s a real big difference between ‘very little’ and ‘none’.”
“Well, yes. But if you were afraid that you’d wake up some day to find that California has been annexed into a new Aryan homeland, I can say with assurance that that was never anything more than a pipe dream. I’ve been comparing notes with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League – ”
“So you
did get copies of Frau’s files.”
“Well, of course I did. The very idea that we might have escaped Nazis buddying up with our own home-grown racist thugs gave me nightmares for weeks. The one consolation I ever had, knowing that there were Nazis who had slipped the net after the war and escaped to other countries, was that they hadn’t been able to carry the insanity with them or start it up again. Every once in a while, one of them is caught and held accountable . . . and time will eventually take care of the rest. It will take care of all of us, on both sides. We’re a dying breed.”
“Don’t say that,” Mac said fiercely.
Ruth patted his hand. “Oh, don’t worry. I have no plans to go gentle into any good night.”
“Then why didn’t you recertify as a field operative last year? You let it lapse instead. Did you think I didn’t notice?”
Ruth glowered at him. “Well, damn your nosiness.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“True enough. I did not.”
They locked eyes for several moments before Mac threw up his hands. “Okay,
fine. But don’t think I’m not gonna get on your case about it again later.”
“You
have made recertification a damned sight more difficult.”
“Nothin’ you can’t handle.”
“Says the man who won’t renew his marksmanship credentials. What are you going to do if you ever actually have to use a gun again?”
“I already have. They make great wrenches.”
Ruth leaned back on her pillows and laughed, wincing as she did so.
Mac grinned. “So what’s your next step with Frau’s files?”
“More of the same – picking through lists, eliminating dead ends and flights of demented fancy. It is quite legal in this country to hold detestable opinions – and with a very few exceptions, it’s not illegal to express them. Although it does have consequences; people tend to forget that. It
is illegal to lie on a citizenship application.”
“Yeah – Pete says they haven’t decided whether to deal with Frau Brandenburg here, or ship her back to Germany.”
Ruth nodded. “I have to admit that the project is giving me an entirely new set of nightmares. I never
wanted to understand racists, and I still don’t. After spending so many years fighting on behalf of freedom and human rights, it’s infuriating to see people hide behind those freedoms for the purpose of denying them to others. MacGyver, if you don’t stop fiddling with my call button, the nurse is going to come in here and discover
us conspiring.”
Mac looked sheepish as Ruth confiscated the call button again. “Tell me how the art project is going. Has your young protegé settled down all right?”
“Rafé’s doing okay. He and Stephanie went through a few bumps, but nothing they couldn’t work out. We’ve already got someone after the paintings, though – ”
“What a surprise. Fill me in.” She nodded as Mac gave her a quick summary. “How charming. A new threat already. Well, it’s not as if we didn’t expect it. How is Laura taking it?”
“Laura? She’s . . . ” Mac stopped himself before he said
fine. “I’m not sure. Kinda edgy. She hasn’t been hassled herself, but she’s pretty upset about it anyway.”
“Damn. So much for the feeble hope that it was my fevered imagination working overtime. MacGyver, I’m worried about Laura. She has not been inclined to discuss it, but I’m afraid . . . she was dreadfully upset over the entire Brandenburg incident. Did you realise that?”
“Um, well . . . ” MacGyver shrugged.
“I can believe that having someone try his damnedest to kill you has been part of your job description for so long that the novelty has quite worn off,” Ruth said tartly. “But for most people, it is, shall we say, a unique experience. And a shattering one. Pete had a dreadful time convincing Laura to stay on with the project, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Ruth, having someone gunning for you – it’s not anything you really want to get used to.”
“Have
you? Gotten used to it?”
Mac’s lips tightened. “Nope.”
Ruth nodded. “I thought I did when I was younger, but that seems a very long time ago.” She drummed her fingers on her bedspread. “I’m rather surprised to hear your skinheads are being used as front men for art thieves – but I doubt they’re being directed by whoever’s in charge of them in the white supremacist movement. If anyone is. In charge of them, I mean.”
“What?”
“It’s a peculiar breed of enemy. They have organisations, but they’re entirely decentralised. They’re very hard to nail down because of that. I’m not certain whether it’s shrewd tactics or paranoia – or a preference for keeping groups small enough so that the men in charge can glory in the sense of power, even though their kingdoms are small.”
Mac nodded. “If they actually got together, they’d have to agree on who’d be the boss.”
“Exactly – which is why the idea of an escaped Nazi pulling them all into harness together is such a nightmare. For the present, their power to do real damage is seriously curtailed by that same lack of unity. Thank God for that. It’s the only thing that’s letting me sleep at night.”
There was a tap on the door, and Gregory appeared. “Mr. Smith has arrived, ma’am. Do you want him to wait, or to come back later?”
“You’d better let him come in, Gregory – if I make him wait he’ll only get cross, and I don’t want him cross.”
MacGyver raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Mr. Smith’?”
“Believe it or not, it’s his real name – I’m borrowing him from Phoenix’ Legal department.”
“Isn’t that sailin’ a bit close to the wind?”
“Very likely. But as long as I’m stuck here in an LA hospital, I can at least follow an odd thread or two. As I told you, most of them are leading exactly nowhere.”
A young man bustled in: blonde hair, grey eyes, grey suit, navy tie, brown briefcase. He smiled blandly and proffered a hand. “Mrs. Collins? Ryan Smith. I’m honoured to meet you in person – and I’ve been strictly enjoined to do whatever you ask, short of actually subverting the Constitution.” He shook Ruth’s hand briskly – somewhat too briskly; Mac saw the faint crease of repressed pain in her eyes as he squeezed her fingers.
Mac shook his hand in turn. “MacGyver.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “No kidding?
The MacGyver?”
Mac winced. “Aw, c’mon. Don’t believe all the stories you hear. How long have you been at Phoenix anyway?”
“About ten months.”
The lawyer’s scrutiny made Mac feel like a lab specimen. He shrugged. “Should I ask just how bad the stories are this year?”
“Our head counsel calls you MacLiability.”
“Ouch.” Mac heard Ruth chuckle and glanced at her in time to see the wince that followed the laugh. “Double ouch.”
She waved an irritable hand at him. “Off with you, MacGyver. Come back tomorrow and bring your protegé with you. I’ve been wanting to meet him, and if I shall go quite mad if I don’t get some company.”
“I thought you said you weren’t in a social mood.”
“I lied. I am merely in a cranky mood, and subject to sudden shifts of temperament.”
“I noticed.”
Henry Collins had taken up residence in the presidential suite of the Bel Age Hotel, barely a mile from the Cedars-Sinai complex. As they ascended in the private lift, Mac studied Gregory thoughtfully. “Gregory, I gotta ask. What were you? OSS?”
Gregory gave a faint smile. “Does someone have a bet on the answer?”
“Yeah, there’s a pool, but I’m not part of it. I’m just curious. I’ve wondered for years.”
“If I tell you, will you tell others?”
“Not if you tell me not to.”
The smile deepened. “I shall bear that in mind.”
When the lift stopped, Gregory gestured to MacGyver to remain in the foyer for a moment. Mac heard him clear his throat before he began to speak. “Mr. Collins? Mr. MacGyver is here, from the Phoenix Foundation. You recall that you had asked me to bring him here so you could discuss Mrs. Collins’ safety.”
MacGyver had only met Henry Collins a few times over the years – since his retirement, he tended to keep a low profile, and spent much of his time in his own greenhouse, where he cultivated endangered species of indigenous Californian wildflowers for transplant back into reclaimed habitat. The last time Mac had seen him, he had seemed vague and abstracted, except when he’d been talking about his plants.
There was no vagueness now. Collins turned away from the window where he had been staring out towards the ocean, dimly seen beyond the pall of smog, and his eyes were sharp and thoughtful. He shook Mac’s hand firmly.
“Thank you for coming here, MacGyver. Pretty damned arrogant, I know – my expecting you to drop whatever you’ve got in hand and rush over here at a moment’s notice – don’t think I don’t appreciate it. Would you like a drink? No, that’s right, you don’t drink, do you? I understand you’ve already been to the hospital to see Ruth.”
“Yeah.”
“Your thoughts?”
“You need to ask? She looks awful. How’d it happen?”
“A board meeting ran late at the museum; she was waiting for Gregory to bring the car around. Gregory was delayed by the car’s failure to start.”
“Sabotage again?”
“As far as I’m concerned. It’s too wild to have been a coincidence. Ruth was assaulted by a young hoodlum who jumped her from behind. He made no demands for money or anything else before he attacked, although he did take her purse when he fled. She wasn’t able to get a good look at him – you saw how badly she was beaten. I personally doubt she was intended to survive the encounter.”
“How
did she survive?” Mac asked bluntly.
“She still knows a few tricks they don’t teach in school. She remembers breaking his wrist, and she thinks she broke his nose as well.” In spite of himself, a warm flash of pride lit Collins’ eyes. “The noise drew the attention of the night watchman at the museum, and the attacker ran – taking Ruth’s purse with him, as I said, but I suspect only as a subterfuge to support the notion that it was an ordinary mugging.” He hesitated. “Did she talk to you – that is, did she say anything about, well, her current, um, project?”
“You mean the Brandenburg business? Yeah – I kinda had to twist her arm out of its socket, but she finally spilled.”
Collins sighed, and Mac saw how deeply the worry lines had creased his face. “I am chagrined at how little I can do to protect her. Admittedly, for most of her life, she’s done an admirable job of protecting herself.” The gleam of pride had returned. “Ruth has buried two husbands already. I’m a selfish old man, MacGyver – I intend for her to outlive me as well, and not through any misadventure on my part. I don’t think I could live without her.”
Mac swallowed, but spoke lightly. “Hey, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Ruth’s tough.”
“Tough, yes. And stubborn. She was vehemently dissatisfied with my having her removed to Los Angeles. She was likewise annoyed when I told her I was going back to the Bay Area tonight.”
Mac blinked. “I thought you’d want to stay with her.”
“I do.” Collins’ voice was flat and curt. “But the best thing I can do to protect her is to return to San Francisco and make sure the papers take notice that I’m there – they will readily assume that Ruth is too. It’s not impossible that I might be a target as well, but we both know that Ruth has a much higher profile, especially these days.” He shook his head. “Most of the enemies I made during my own professional career are overseas or underground . . . mostly the latter. And they were never especially dangerous – or at least, not this vicious in a physical sense.”
MacGyver had sat down on one of the suite’s lush leather sofas and was watching Collins as the old man wandered around the room, from the huge windows with their wide views and discreet curtains to the broad sideboard with its blandly tasteful floral arrangement and battery of liquor bottles. The bottles, he noticed, were unopened and untouched. He was pretty sure he knew where the conversation was going to go next.
“MacGyver . . . I’m not certain how best to ask this . . . ”
“You want me to keep Ruth safe while she’s here in LA.”
“When you put it that baldly, I cringe. Both because it’s a dreadful thing to ask of you, and because it’s so clearly impossible. But will you try? If it hadn’t been for you, she might well have died in that damned car the night of the museum reception.”
“For all we know, I was the one who was supposed to be killed. Ruth could’ve been incidental.”
“True enough.” Collins sighed. “Like most old men, I tend to focus on the centre of my own universe. Unlike most old men, that isn’t always myself. Have there been any further attempts on your own life since then?”
“Um . . . ”
Collins looked at MacGyver ruefully. “On second thought, please don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know.”
Mac grinned. “Maybe you should ask Ruth to protect
me. Keep us both outta trouble.” He picked up the remote for the TV, which lay next to him on the side table, and turned it absently over and over in his hands. “You should know I’m already working on something else.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Aren’t you always?” Collins turned back to the window and stared out at the broad sweep of Beverly Hills. “I can make it worth your while.”
Mac flushed with temper, and Collins winced with embarrassment. “I beg your pardon. That was unworthy. Ruth is much better at this these days than I am. You’d hardly mistake me for a diplomat now, would you?”
Mac set down the remote and stood up. “You’ve got her pretty well secured at Cedars-Sinai; I’ll keep an eye on her, and see what I can do for her when she’s ready to leave.”
Relief flooded the old man’s face. MacGyver held up a warning hand. “But it won’t help if she keeps inviting folks to drop in. There must be at least four people at Phoenix who already know where she is, and that’s three too many.”
Collins nodded. “Ruth and her damned web of contacts . . . I don’t know how she remembers them all.”
In spite of his misgivings, MacGyver brought Rafé with him the following day when he visited Ruth. Rafé was better at keeping his mouth shut than most adults.
But not even his rough background made him immune to the sight of Ruth’s battered face. “Shee-it, Mac, she looks
bad. Who the hell would beat up an old lady like that? Man, if she was my gramma, I’d . . . ”
MacGyver shushed him; Ruth had been on the phone when they arrived, and she was now ringing off. She beckoned to them.
“You must be Rafael Alvarado.”
“Yes’m.” Rafé shook Ruth’s hand, very carefully. “Mrs. Collins, Mac says you the one set me up with the internship. He thought I’d like the chance to thank you in person.”
“You’re quite welcome. Have you always been interested in art?”
“Well, uh, I always liked to draw and stuff. My mama used to keep me out of trouble by lettin’ me draw on grocery bags – she’d get paper ones ‘stead of plastic just so’s I’d have somethin’ to draw on.”
“From what I understand of your background, that might not have been an easy interest to pursue.”
“It ain’t something you talk ‘bout to your homies, if that’s what you mean. I don’ do taggin’. But they was this mural project goin’ on at the Challengers Club, an’, well – ”
Mac broke in as the young man stumbled for words. “Rafé did all the layout and sketchwork. He’s amazing. A total natural.”
Rafé turned red and stammered, and Ruth smiled. “And now you’re spending every day surrounded by some of the great masterpieces of Western art, and probably wondering what all the fuss is about – all those dull pictures painted by dead white men.”
“Uh – well, kinda . . .” Rafé looked nervously at MacGyver, as if he’d been caught messing around in class.
“I presume Laura Sandburg has filled you in on the collection’s sordid past. Phoenix may be able to clean the grime off the paintings, and restore at least some of them to the rightful heirs of their murdered owners, but nothing will wash the blood out of their history. Have you taken the time to look closely at any of the paintings and tell yourself, ‘Someone died for this’?”
Mac watched as the image settled into Rafé’s imagination. He could almost see into Rafé’s mind, as the faded paintings and the barely-noticed details of stuffy history sparked into vivid life and relevance.
“If you’re dealing with something people have died for, and you don’t understand why they bothered, pay attention until you figure it out. And don’t forget the other side.”
“Other side?”
“Any time people have died for something, it means there were others who killed for it. If you can’t understand
them, you have only half the picture, which is often more misleading than no picture at all.”
They were interrupted by the electronic warble of a pager. Ruth raised an eyebrow at MacGyver.
“Don’t tell me. Your connection’s calling you about a smuggled camel.”
“Nope, not this time.” Mac grabbed a pen and jotted down the number that had appeared on the pager’s display. “Can I use your phone?”
Ruth waved a desultory hand, and watched as Mac dialed. “MacGyver, that’s one of the Phoenix numbers. I thought you got that pager from your charming skinhead playmates.”
“I left their pager with Willis – he’s gonna try to trace the call. He set it up so that pager forwards to this one.”
Ruth exchanged a look with Rafé. “Ten bucks says the phone numbers don’t match.”
“Rafé, do
not take any bets from Ruth, you got it? And Ruth, would you lay off corrupting the younger generation for once? – hey, Willis. Did you get it?”
“Working on it. You know we have to work through the phone company – that means warrants and red tape, and that doesn’t happen instantaneously. Keep your shirt on.”
“And you know I have to call the number they sent me, and pronto – and it’s probably gonna be instructions for a meet.” Mac read the number to Willis. “I may not have another chance to call in, so do what you can. Is Pete there?”
“I’ve got a call out to him. Mac, you be careful, okay? Don’t do anything stupid?”
“Define ‘stupid’.”
“It’s kind of like ‘art’ – I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”
Mac rang off. “Ruth, can Gregory get Rafé back to the Phoenix building? I gotta go make a phone call.”
“Mac, what you talkin’ ‘bout? You just made one!”
“Pay phone this time, Rafé. Next step towards catchin’ the bad guys.”
“What about those two creeps from the club, man? I thought that was what you wanted!”
“They’re just dumb kids with a grudge.” Mac’s eyes were pools of shadow. “I want whoever’s running them.”
The sad thing is that Dexter isn’t really all made up. When I was at Western Tech, there was a computer whiz kid there – brilliant guy, maybe the smartest person I’ve ever met. Freddie could make a computer do anything. And that was all he ever did. He had no friends, didn’t like anybody, didn’t even like talking to the other wonks and geeks. Most folks thought he was better off left alone, but I kept trying to connect with him.
When Freddie didn’t show up at the computer lab for five days running, I was the only one who went looking for him. I was the one who found him. I didn’t have to turn off the gas oven – he’d rigged a timer for it.
So that’s where Dexter gets his edge, and the anger that makes him spark. I never completely understood what Freddie was so mad about, but it was there. And when I use Dexter to pull something off – to help someone – I feel like it’s something I can do for Freddie, even now, all those years later.
MacGyver parked his truck half a mile away from the warehouse on East Olympic Boulevard and covered the remaining distance on foot. He could hear the deep growl of the freeway traffic not far away, where the Santa Monica and Pomona Freeways met the Santa Ana in a never-ending confluence of diesel fumes and red taillights; but even with the covering noise he moved softly, circling round to approach his destination from a different direction, slipping through the shadows as softly as rubber soles and long practice allowed.
A single light burned over the side entrance to the warehouse where he’d been directed; as promised, the door was unlocked. He took a deep breath and adjusted Dexter’s horn-rimmed glasses. MacGyver would have opened the door carefully and slipped inside after taking a quick look around.
Dexter looked anxiously over his shoulder, pushed the door open in a single nervous movement and walked in. He let it slam shut behind him and jumped at the sound. No-one was in sight; the ranks of crated goods stretched away eerily into the shadows under the dim after-hours lighting.
“Cody?” he called out hoarsely. “Jake?” He let his voice edge into a petulant whine. “Hey, you guys. This isn’t funny.”
The skin prickled on the back of Mac’s neck.
Time to bail? But if I do, the lead goes dead . . . He thought he saw something in the shadows down one aisle of crates, and hurried forward. Yes, there was something on the floor . . . he bent down and peered ahead.
What had looked like a crumpled pile of rags resolved into the still form of Cody, lying in a motionless heap on the warehouse floor. The close-cropped hair did nothing to conceal the streaks of blood that stood out dark against the pale skin of his scalp.
Mac’s reactions collided and fought with themselves. His immediate instinct was to hurry forward and kneel next to Cody, check his pulse and make sure he was still alive. That was MacGyver’s impulse.
Dexter let out a squawk of alarm and jumped back in horror at the sight.
As he turned to run, he sensed the presence that had come up behind him, but he had only a glimpse of two burly figures looming up in the shadows before the blow fell and the lights went out.
Darkness.
