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There was only one functioning computer that day. It was just as well. He was useless. All he could do was contemplate the ache in his stomach. So like, and yet so horribly unlike, the ache he usually had when staring at a woman he’d been boffing for a few days. Usually by now he was casting around for a gentle, non-hurtful way to extricate himself. Though he knew, in practical terms, that no such thing existed. It always hurt.
But looking at Liv’s elegant back seated at the computer, he realized it was backwards. He wanted to handcuff her to his body, he was so anxious to keep her safe. He was so afraid of failing.
His track record sucked, so far. He’d never gotten there in time to save anyone. He’d been too small, when Mom died. He still remembered his fury. He’d dreamt of saving her with some act of glorious heroism. Woken up crying because it wasn’t real.
He’d been the one to find his father lying in the crushed bean vines, staring up at the sky. Eamon’s body had still been warm.
Kev had been burned to ash by the time he galloped to the rescue. He’d been too late to help his older brothers when they got into their messes, too. Thank God, they’d pulled themselves out of the shit with their skins largely intact. No thanks to him.
“Sean.” Liv’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Take a look at this.”
He leaped up, and stared over her shoulder at the screen, displaying an editorial, by Jeremy Ivers, dated November 2.
The Brain Drain: Young Geniuses Vanish
Micky Wheeler was puzzled. Sunday morning, bright and early, his friend and classmate, Heath Frankel, a doctoral candidate in applied physics at the University of Washington, didn’t show for their climbing date. Messages were unanswered. His apartment was deserted. When Micky tried to get in touch with Heath’s only close relative, an uncle in San Diego, he found the uncle away on business. After days of worry, Micky went to the police and filed a missing persons report.
That same day, he heard of another acquaintance, Craig Alden, a computer engineering student at University of Washington. According to Alden’s girlfriend, he’d disappeared at the same time. Coincidentally, Alden also had little family to sound the alarm. As one friend put it, “He’s a genius, but he parties hard. He’s probably sleeping off a bender in a hotel in Reno.”
Sean skimmed the rest, pulled out his cell, and dialed Davy.
“Yeah?” Davy demanded. “So? What did the janitor say?”
“He saw bodies, blood, and a guy who threatened to eat his grandkids’ livers. He doesn’t want to be involved. Find me a guy named Jeremy Ivers. Reporter. Wrote for theWashingtonianfifteen years ago. Have Nick check on the status of these missing persons. Heath Frankel and Craig Alden.” He hung up, before Davy could bust his balls.
Liv blinked up at him. “And now?”
“Now Davy does his magic thing and finds the reporter.”
She looked up through her eyelashes. “I don’t suppose we could do anything so mundane as get some lunch in the meantime?”
He opened his mouth to say no when his stomach growled.
The seafood restaurant Liv picked had a great view of the surf. There was something surreal about ordering food in a restaurant with a woman. Like they were playing make-believe at being a normal couple.
He felt much more anchored to the ground after his combo platter. Lobsters in drawn butter, plus smaller portions of barbecued shrimp, pan fried oysters, grilled swordfish and batter fried halibut, with baked potato and Caesar salad for sides.
Afterwards, Liv tried to drag him down to the beach, which is where he drew the line. “No way,” he told her. “We’re lying low.”
“Oh, come on,” she coaxed. “We’re just another couple on the beach. No one knows we’re here. We didn’t even know we were coming. Let me take off these silly shoes Tam got me, and we can just bathe our toes in the surf.”
That was when he saw it, and practically broke his own neck twisting to look. A stunt kite, the kind that could pick an unwary man off his feet on a blustery day and carry him to his death. He had several himself, but this one made his heart jump out of his chest. He recognized the hypnotic mandala on it. Kev had painted that design onto their bedroom ceiling the year their father had died. He’d spent hours lying on his cot, staring at it.
He took off after it, feet churning in the sand, dragging Liv behind him, stumbling in her ridiculous shoes, his hand clamped like an iron manacle over her slender wrist.
“Sean? Sean!” she protested. “Hey! Ouch! Where are you going?”
He couldn’t answer. His heart was going to explode like a grenade. The guy flying the kite had a pointy goatee. He wore tie-dye, baggy canvas shorts. He saw Sean heading towards him. His eyes went big.
“Where did you get that kite?” Sean gasped out.
The guy’s jaw flapped. “I didn’t steal it—”
“I never said you did.” Sean could not control the snarling edge in his voice. “Just tell me who you got it from.”
The guy kept backing away to keep his kite aloft. “Uh…uh, at a sporting goods shop, in San Francisco. They specialize in—”
“Who designed it?” he barked out.
