CHAPTER 35
Locke fixed his thoughts on Jade. He wanted to hear what he missed. Maybe she had more insight into her graph idea than what she could mention on the phone, even though he doubted her opinion. How much had she missed him? He’d tell her how much he missed her.
The limousine pulled up in front of the living quarters. The driver hustled to get the bags, but Locke grabbed them himself. He had dragged them around the World. Lugging them thirty more feet was inconsequential.
As he approached the front door, he expected Jade to peek out one of the windows. He wanted to surprise her, but she had to have heard the automobile outside.
Yet, she didn’t appear.
The front door was unlocked. Odd. She never left it unlocked when she came home. It was automatic. Come in, lock the door.
He set down his luggage, having the urge to call out to her, until he heard the water running. She was in the bathtub. No wonder she hadn’t heard him.
He’d surprise her after all.
Tiptoeing into the bedroom, he approached the bathroom door, cracked open three inches. He began to take off his jacket and tie when the steam rolling out of the bathroom caught his attention.
Locke threw his tie on the bed. His concentration diverted from seeing the steam to the slightest sound of crying. It wasn’t outright crying--more like sniffling.
“Jade?” he nudged the door open.
“Michael? Michael?” A hesitation. “You’re home?” She sounded more bothered than surprised by his unexpected voice. “Uh . . . don’t come in here . . . I’m almost done.”
As he pushed the door open a little further, pangs of confusion flowed through his mind, wrinkling his forehead. Jade should have been more excited to hear he was home. He heard water splashing. Jade seemed to scramble around in the water.
Snaking his neck around the door, he glimpsed the bathtub where the curtain was pulled closed. Locke found this strange. If she were taking a bath, why would she pull the curtain?
“Jade? What are you doing in here?” he asked, seeing Jade’s blurred silhouette behind the translucent curtain.
He took another step and felt warm water seep into his shoe. An inch-deep layer of water covered the tiled floor. His detective senses detonated. He knew this scene. He’d seen it before, but usually the subject was already dead.
“Jade!” Locke ripped open the curtain.
She stood there. Though hot water poured from the shower faucet, she shivered. Her arms wrapped around her mid-section, head bowed, knees knocking in the tub full of water.
“Jade! What are you doing?” His eyes raced over her, searching for the object he dreaded. “Where is it?” Locke yelled.
“What?” She buried her head in the far corner.
“You know what!” Locke searched around the edge of the bathtub. Nothing. He checked the sink. Nothing there. Then he noticed that while Jade’s left hand covered her face, her right hand was still clenched and remained tight against her body.
He grabbed her arm and pulled it away from her body. She let out a stifled yelp. She tried to pull her arm away but he was too strong. She fought him, but Locke pried open her fist revealing a razor blade. He swiped it out of her palm and threw it into the toilet, flushing it away.
Her right wrist had no cuts. He let her right arm go and yanked her left arm away from her face, examining the other wrist. No cuts there either. And no blood in the water.
Saved her.
In the nick of time.
“Aw Jade . . . ” Picking her up out of the shower, the water from her body drenched his suit. Jade sobbed with the power of a caught Offender. She tried to start sentence after sentence. But it was no use.
He laid her on the bed and she curled into a ball. He rushed into the bathroom and retrieved a towel. “Jade, why were you doing that!”
She continued to wail.
“Honey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Why were you doing that?”
All thoughts of Symbols, Hiss, Hamilton, messages, and Govicide fled. His only concern was the female he loved.
He moved her to a dry spot on the bed then wrapped her in her robe. “Did you swallow anything?”
She cried and shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. Pulling up the covers, he lay beside her, arms wrapping her in a cocoon of protection.
For a few a minutes, they said nothing. All his thoughts centered on her. She seemed fine when he left over a week ago. She called him in an attempt to figure out what the Symbol meant. Everything was fine with her work. She still didn’t look pregnant.
What happened to make her try to kill herself?
As a Homicide Detective, though, he saw this often. When a subject was found dead, even if the subject was alone, Locke got the call in case it was a homicide. In ninety-nine percent of the cases, it was easy to tell.
Sometimes the family didn’t want to believe it, but the cause of death was evident in all cases. Pills, razors, an occasional un-mandated gun, et cetera. A subject didn’t need to be a detective to know the cause of death.
And in his twelve years, suicides had become more frequent. Granted, suicides made more Goods and Services available. So, in a way, these subjects killing themselves were doing the OWG and the Masses a favor.
But, why would subjects want to leave the perfect OWG? Why were suicides increasing? And how had this epidemic found its way to Jade?
“Jade . . . Jade . . . please . . . are you okay?” he whispered into her ear.
Her cries quieted into softer sniffles. She seemed to have more control of her emotions, although her legs still shook.
“Jade, why did you try to hurt yourself? Please tell me.”
“Some . . . body . . . knows,” Jade whispered.
He needed no more description. He knew what she meant. His hug slacked off.
“Don’t be mad.” She opened her eyes and locked with his. They started to tear up again. “I did everything I could.”
“Who knows?” In those two syllables he heard his voice crack. He had to find a damper between his tension and his voice, or Jade might feel his confidence breaking down. That would only make her condition worse.
“A female I work with.”
“How does she know?”
“I’ve been . . . throwing up . . . every day since you’ve been gone. And she’s been pregnant before, so she knows what it’s like. And . . . she was in the bathroom with me. She said she knew I was pregnant. I tried to deny it, but the more I did, the more she said she knew the truth.”
Locke shook his head. His immediate thought was to use his Govicide position to influence the worker not to talk. But, that would only make them look more suspicious.
“So, just one female. That’s it?”
“But, she’s the assistant to the OWG Transportation Czar so it’s gonna get spread around real quick.”
Locke stared at the ceiling. He breathed in and exhaled. He started to shake, matching her vibrations.
“Does she know that I’m a Govicide Agent?”
Her chin moved slightly.
Locke closed his eyes shut so hard his cheeks hurt. Granted, the female couldn’t know the fetus was conceived with non-sex credit sex, but that didn’t matter. If she mentioned her suspicions to the OWG Transportation Czar, it would generate news since it was a Govicide Agent’s girlcomrade having children. It was always news. Big news. Word would make its way over to Govicide and go up on the System. The Director would find out, and the call would be made, and Locke would have to answer.
He’d been in a race against time for over a week, but now the finish line had been moved up. The race wasn’t months long anymore. It was hours.
“And . . . I . . . just thought if I . . . you know . . . wasn’t here . . . it would all go away. You’d keep . . . your dream . . . of being a Govicide Agent . . . and you wouldn’t have this on your mind anymore.”
“But Jade, I can’t go on without you.” He hugged her tight.
He should’ve told the Director the truth during his initial interview. But, the opportunity to serve the OWG at its highest level overwhelmed him. He’d been thinking more about serving the OWG than about the love of his life who had the actual problem. His focus should have been on her. He should’ve turned down the interview, period. But an outright rejection would’ve had equally bad repercussions. Nobody said no to the Director.
But, had Locke possessed the courage to decline it then, she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself now.
His life had gone out of control like being dragged behind an OWG bus, being pulled ahead in his life through no action of his own.
He retraced how this happened. How had they gone from being so content to Jade trying to commit suicide?
There was one answer: Hamilton.
If Hamilton had committed his first murder in any other city on the World, Locke would’ve never been on his case. And if Locke were never on the case, the Director wouldn’t have promoted him. In fact, the Director would never have even known Locke. Someone else would’ve caught Hamilton, and the Director would’ve promoted another Homicide Detective.
Yes, the only way he could have avoided this problem was if Hamilton didn’t commit the first murder in Gambling City. That, however, was uncontrollable. Locke didn’t even know Hamilton before the first murder. In fact, according to the System, nobody knew Hamilton before then.
Yet, there he was. In the Homicide Prison.
And here they were. In a prison as well.
But the same male who started this could end it.
Hamilton.
Hamilton had access to medical facilities. He managed to live at least thirty years with some kind of healthcare outside the OWG and the System. They must do abortions. If they fixed teeth, anything was possible.
She’d go back to work and say she was never pregnant. She’d just been sick.
But Hamilton would want something in return.
Something big.
Locke bit his tongue when he followed this thought to its logical conclusion.
What did every prisoner want?
Out.
He’d have to make it appear as some type of breakout. Letting him walk out the front door wouldn’t solve anything. Somebody would have to die. Nobody would believe a murderer broke out of prison without killing someone.
If Hamilton wanted out as payment for getting Jade’s abortion, Locke needed a plan. He pictured the scenario. He’d make it look like Hamilton somehow picked the lock of his cell door. When Locke showed up to talk to him, the murderer overpowered him. He took the prison keys Locke received on the way in then murdered the Guard and escaped using Locke’s automobile. It would be tracked but Hamilton obviously knew how to get around such obstacles.
The problem was trust. Could he trust Hamilton to tell him where to take Jade? Or, would Hamilton want different arrangements?What if Hamilton wanted to take Jade by himself? Would Locke allow that? Hamilton wouldn’t show a Govicide Agent the inner workings of how a subject stayed outside the System.
Allowing Jade to go off by herself with a murderer was a stretch. To allow Jade to leave with Hamilton could make her a hostage. Or worse, a victim. Locke would rather be kicked out of Govicide and be dead than put his precious Jade in danger.
The only choice would be for Hamilton to give Locke an address so he could take Jade himself. Or, Locke and Jade might follow Hamilton to wherever his group performed abortions for their females.
“There’s something I have to do.”
Jade opened her eyes. “What?”
“I think there’s someone who can get us out of this jam.”
Jade rose on one elbow. “Someone in Govicide? Someone who works for the Healthcare Czar?”
“Uh, no. No one so official.” He might as well just tell her. “Hamilton.”
“The murderer?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t think this is a good time for a joke.” She was starting to sound like her old self.
“No joke.” Locke took a long breath, feeling like he sucked in all the room’s air then blew it back out. “Jade, I’ve seen things across this World over the last week I cannot explain. Clues that add up to my belief that we’ve been lied to. Facts that just don’t make sense. Observations that are connected somehow. Hamilton has the answers. And I believe he’s got a solution to our problem as well.”
Jade curled up close to him. Her eyes were still red from crying. “You can’t trust him. He’s a murderer. Not just any killer out there. He murdered Govicide Agents like you. Agents going out there to make sure everyone gets everything from the OWG.”
“But . . . what if there are subjects out there who don’t want what the OWG offers? What about them?”
“Who would be like that?” Jade, for a second, almost sounded like Hiss.
“Hamilton. And he has comrades. Maybe a lot of comrades.”
“How do you know?”
Locke shook his head. “I don’t have time to tell you. But Hamilton can help us. He can get around the System.”
“He’s not gonna do this without wanting something in return, Michael. He is in jail, after all.”
Locke didn’t answer.
Jade dropped her head. “I don’t want to know, do I?”
“Jade, I need to be sure you aren’t going to hurt yourself if I leave. You have to promise me you’ll stick this out, because I can’t go on without you.” His body struck a chord, making him feel like he might throw up. The rest of his body was finally discovering how serious he was about this.
“Michael, I promise you I’ll be fine because I trust you. Releasing him sounds risky, but if it gets us out of our problem then I support you. But to me, it sounds impossible.” She hugged him.
He took a few minutes to change out of his wet clothes. He chose attire a bit more casual and non-black. Better to not dress like a Govicide Agent and not draw attention to himself if something went wrong.
“Be careful,” she reminded him, her tearing eyes betraying her relaxed posture.
He left their living quarters with worry for his girlcomrade and fear for the upcoming hour. So much was riding on this meeting. Bargaining with the killer. Betraying everything Locke learned from the OWG. The murder of a Guard. The plan to get Jade to an abortion.
By the time Locke got on the road, it was well past ten o’clock. No need to worry about being tracked; he was mandated to see Hamilton. If anything, this would even lend more credibility to his future lie that he had nothing to do with Hamilton’s breakout. A subject couldn’t be tracked if he were going to break out a prisoner.
His guts were still a question and desperation dominated him. This was an even more overt act against the OWG than his other indiscretions. His first un-mandated visit to Hamilton paled in comparison to this. Lying to Hiss about the trip to the library was nothing now. Keeping those messages a secret didn’t rise to breaking an Agent-killer from prison.
But busting him out was the plan. The only plan if he couldn’t persuade Hamilton any other way. It still had some problems, but Locke hoped Hamilton might be able to add some input to pull it off. Hamilton was the real criminal, after all.
Counting the Symbols as he passed them, he still needed an answer to what those were. A shaky laugh emerged--he was certainly hoping for a lot in this meeting with Hamilton. An explanation for the Symbols . . . how all the sites related to each other . . . and . . .
. . . oh yeah, can you help Jade get an abortion?
The Homicide workers had long since gone to their living quarters as he pulled into the parking lot. A bus passed within feet of his parked automobile. Locke caught a glimpse of the subjects sitting in the back. Heads down, not looking at each other. He couldn’t wait to ask Hamilton about that.
Locke grabbed the envelopes, the messages, and his keys. He took his Govicide badge but left the scanner and cellular phone in the car.
Like before, Locke got in with his spare Homicide key. He flipped on the general office light. He noticed somebody else had already moved into his old office space. The Homicide Division of Gambling City moved on, and so had Locke.But he still found himself returning to this place.
A week ago bringing the case to a close would have solved their problem.
Now he expected Hamilton to help him and Jade out of their situation even if it meant a murder and letting Hamilton go in the process.
My, how things had changed.