Three Rivers Chapter 4

Jeffrey circled the block several times, hoping that nobody would follow him to Sue's. By three o'clock, he knew he was alone. As much of a mess as Jeffrey was, he hoped to get showered and into a change of clothes before Sue got home.

Parking his truck in the visitors parking area, Jeffrey grabbed his bag and snuck in through the service entrance. Putting his skills to use, it was good that he knew how to infiltrate. As he passed maintenance area, he grabbed an ugly colored blue jacket. It was cleaner than the soot in which he was covered.

Jeffrey made it to the elevators before having to slink around to the residential elevators. At three in the morning there weren't many moving throughout the building. He could get up to the third floor with ease. Stepping inside, pressing the lit up number three, he got the door to close before anyone could see him. He made sure to hold the strap of his bag over the nametag on the stolen jacket and keep his face from being obvious on the security cameras.

Sue lived in 314. It was a quick walk to her apartment. Perhaps it was because she comforted, perhaps something else, but Sue always left a spare key atop the doorframe. She did have a habit of locking her keys in her apartment and the maintenance staff could take forever after midnight. Either way, Jeffrey was glad she did. His hands were still shaking from the explosion. There were no doubts in his mind that it was because of the blast and the effect it had on him.

The apartment was empty, except for her cat, Jinx. When he sat down on the couch, Jinx joined him, his excited purr as loud as an engine. Laying his head back onto the cushion, Jeffrey closed his eyes. The flashes of light that he could still see, bright and orange, were from the explosion. They had blown it all to pieces and drug off a prisoner in the process. As much as the pain in his body kept him from getting comfortable, the thoughts in his mind kept him from resting.

Jeffrey heard a key in the door to the apartment, warning him that someone was there. He pulled a gun from his bag and aimed it toward the doorway. He quickly found that moving was now harder than before. He stiffened up as he rested on the overstuffed sofa.

The door opened and he heard someone's footsteps as another person entered the apartment. It was just a single pair, but in his condition he feared a single person could ge the drop on him. Jeffrey held his Glock steady, aimed at the opening to the hall. His eyes locked on the sight picture that give him the signal whether or not to pull the trigger.

"Jesus," Sue screamed, pulling back and against a wall.

Jeffrey was frozen in time. He saw Sue, standing there in fear. The oldest of his friends had almost become another of his kills. His arm dropped, his gun bouncing on the cushioning as his head fell back into the arm of the couch. All he could do was to mumble.

"I'm sorry, I had nowhere else to go."

Daylight, I'm alive, thought Jeffrey as his eyes fluttered in their sockets. There was music. It was too loud. He looked around in shock, grabbing for his gun. It was gone. Someone moved it, moved it out of sight.

Jeffrey was laying on the sofa, but the sheets beneath him weren' t there last night. It was Sue. She'd made him as comfortable as she could. His hands were cleaner, as he looked at them closely. He wondered where his shirt was, then checked for his pants. He let his head softly fall back. It all came back to him slowly. He passed out in her apartment. Jeffrey knew he was going to have to explain what he was doing there.

Even from behind blurred vision he could tell it was Sue coming into the room with a tray. She didn't look at all happy.

"He's awake," she said, setting the tray down and sitting on the coffee table.

Sue held up a bottle of water. She put it to his lips, slowly tipping it back as she instructed him to drink. As thirsty as he was, he would have drank the entire bottle. She pulled it back as he got half of it down his throat, letting out a slight groan as he moved.

"Easy there, big guy," she said, her bedside manner better than his would be.

She dropped two pills in his mouth and returned the bottle to his lips, letting him take several more gulps of its' coolness down his throat before again pulling it away. Sue set the bottle down, pulling back the blankets over his body. She checked his wounds as he lay there. Taking a moist towel and wiping him down.

"You should have been a nurse," he told her.

"I never had the tolerance for whiners," she answered his suggestion. "So don't you start becoming one."

"Got it," he told her. "Anything else?"

"You can tell me what the hell is going on. What have you gotten yourself into, my friend."

Jeffrey didn't know where to start. The story was turning out to be more complicated than anything he remembered facing before this. He knew that he was in no shape to move along, not yet anyway. So he told her to get comfortable as he struggled to sit up. Hesitant, he struggled with where to start. Yet, it was how smart Sue seemed that always attracted him to her. He thought to himself, maybe she can help.

"The incident at the hospital," he started, "what have you heard about it?"

"Only that a teenager ran through your guys, put a few in the hospital, and escaped from the security wing," she said. "There are plenty of stories going around."

"There is a lot more going on with that kid than meets the eye. For some reason, some very powerful individuals have taken an interest in him. One of them just appeared out of nowhere, during the incident in the security ward, and had an ominous warning about not waking the boy," he explained.

"Who was he?"

Jeffrey chuckled, his laughter causing pain. "That's the funny part. His fingerprints come back as non-existent and the person he claims to be comes back with no records".

"I don't follow," she commented.

Jeffrey explained how the man that Joeseph Morris claimed to be didn't exist. There were no records of him traveling to Three Rivers, no records of him being in the country, facial recognition through the Orion system didn't find him coming in at any ports or through airports. He didn't even show up on social media. He told her about Luco, an intelligence acquaintance he knew in Tangiers, and how he ran a dossier on the man only to find out that his history consists of just a couple of years of time.

"Wait," she said, holding up her hand.

Sue got up and went over to her laptop. Punching in the word Tangiers, she looked at the results and stared back at Jeffrey. Sue was now as confused about the stories she heard as she was about the man she'd just recently had in her bed.

"I'll put a pin in my questions," she offered, "but how is it that someone can remain completely off line? Nobody has posted a picture of this guy, not one time. Assuming that the, what did you call it...Orion system can actually do what you describe."

Jeffrey knew she was struggling to grasp everything he just shared with her. Now, she would have questions about him, questions for which, she would want answers.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened to you?"

After telling her how he nearly got blown up by a lawyer, a limo driver, and Joeseph Morris he remembered that they'd snatched someone.

"It looked like an old agency interrogation," he told her.

Jeffrey described the black hook over the head of their prisoner. He described keeping him tied to a chair until they moved him, then dragging him out of the station and out to the back of the limousine.

"I think it was the Lassiter boy, from the hospital," admitted Jeffrey.

Sue looked at him, dismayed by his announcment. She stood up and walked across the room, turning on the morning news. Jeffreys' eyes glued to the television as soon as he saw the Three Rivers P.D. building. The scrolling banner on the bottom, Breaking News, kept repeating that the subject of a city wide manhunt had been found. He watched as the reporter talked about how a seventeen year old mental patient that escaped custody had been recovered late last night. The attorney from the station was standing with Judge Lassiter as the Judge was invited to make a statement. When Judge Lassiter declined, he was replaced by the lawyer.

"The Lassiter family would like to thank the Three Rivers Police for their tireless efforts to safely bring in their son. Their son suffered from an accute Schizophrenic episode at a local hospital and regrettably injured several people. He'll be getting the best help available and in the meantime the Lassiter family would ask that you pray for their son and respect their privacy in this tough and troubling time," said Harry.

The news reporter thanked him, citing that those were the statements of family attorney, Harrison Burr.

"It was the kid," sighed Jeffrey.

"What do you mean?" Sue asked.

"Eric Lassiter," he told her. "That was who they had out at the old filling station."

"Are you sure?"

Jeffrey was sure of what he saw. He was certain of the things he heard. Seeing the lawyer that represents the mysterious Mr. Morris standing chumily with the judge, he was certain that they'd turned Eric Lassiter into the police.

"At least he can't hurt anyone else," said Jeffrey, leaning back against the sofa.

"Unfortunately, there's plenty of others that can," sighed Sue.

Jeffrey looked into her eyes, noticing something had shaken her up. He wondered briefly what could be bothering her so much. She was pretty stable, normally well grounded, and yet something was eating at her. He didn't get to ask, however, as his phone started ringing in his bag.

"I'll let you answer that," she told him.

Jeffrey grabbed his phone, put it to his ear and answered. It was Alex, checking in on him. Alex had news to share.

"What? When?" asked Jeffrey, rubbing his temples.

Jeffrey sat listening to Alex tell him some disturbing news. After Alex finished, he told Alex where they would meet later, to discuss it further. He didn't want to tell him where he was, not just yet.

"I've got to go," he said, as he sat the phone back in his bag.

Sue put her hands on his chest, nudging him back toward the sofa cushions, urging him to rest. She knew he could barely move, the trauma of the explosion bruising most of his body. He had first degree burns over his legs, two cracked ribs, and a concussion. Sue told him he had no business going anywhere, except a hospital.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "Something else has happened, something terrible."

"What?" she softly asked. "What is it, Jeff?"

"I can't," he told her, putthing his hands on her upper arms. "Adam Dorn was murdered. He was the youngest member of the teams, the only other one from Three Rivers. I've got to go..."

Jeffrey stumbled around, getting dressed, and then left as abruptly as she found him in her apartment. Sue was left with more questions than answers.

Lila Michaels woke up in her bed. She sat up, her taught, young body on display as she stretched her arms above her. She still heard the voice in her head. It was what got her up and moving around. This was not Lila's favorite time of day, being a natural night owl and a gamer.

The youthful, athetically gifted, part-time college student enjoyed the nights in front of her computer. If she wasn't studying she was on one of three different sites, or gaming with online friends from around the country. Lila liked to sit in front of her computer and write, fancying herself as the next success story in Hollywood.

When she wasn't in front of her computer, Lila ran a webcast, doing yoga and lifting weights. At first, when she was just eighteen, she realized an attractive young woman could make plenty of extra-money with one of the pay-to-peek sites. Now, she did naked yoga, ran on her treadmill while talking to her fans, and lifted weights wearing just her running shoes. The site made a couple of thousand dollars a month. She worked a part-time job, to explain to her parents where her money came from.

Crawling out of bed, Lila pranced into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She stood there, admiring herself, as she scrubbed back and forth across the inside of her mouth. The voice in her head complimented her on keeping herself so sexually attractive. It admitted it was enjoying the show. Lila smiled, pulling the tooth brush out of her mouth to respond. She smiled widely, her cheeks slightly blushing from the compliment.

"Well, thank you," she told herself, looking in the mirror as if someone else might look back.

Before doing her pod cast, she needed to get something to drink and perhaps some food. She rubbed the middle of her stomach, trying to calm its' growl. She pranced out of her room and down the hall toward the stairs. Bouncing along, her breasts putting on a show as she moved, she was working her way to the main part of the house.

As Lila started making breakfast, pourring herself some juice, she turned toward the table.

"Well, there you are!" she said, excited to see her parents.

Lila ran over to the table, kissing both mom and dad on the cheek, before going back to the toaster in time for her toast to pop up.

The voice in her head told her, "I'm proud of you."

She looked down at the counter, buttering her toast, and thanked the voices. Lila admitted that she'd always wished her parents could be more supportive. She'd been an entrepreneur the majority of her life, hard working, talented, intelligent, and popular.

"Why can't the support me? I'm paying my way through college. I have more financial stability than either of them did at their age. What do I have to do to gain their approval?" she asked.

"I don't know," she heard the voice echo. "Perhaps you should ask them," it suggested.

Lila turned to her parents, butter from her toast dripping down her chin, running onto her ample bossom. She smiled coyly at them, standing there, rubbing the butter off as it drizzled down her right nipple. Finally, she thought of the words to say.

"Why can't you support me the way he does?"

She heard the voice laughing in her ear as she stared at the shocked, frozen faces of her elderly parents.

"Oh, he's right. You can't answer with those kitchen knives stuck in your throats like that," she chuckled, skipping out of the room. "Silly me."