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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I t always starts the same way. I’m standing in the middle of a lake—not a big lake, more of a bay, with a wooden bridge arching over a waterway into the larger expanse.

This lake is surrounded by cattails and rushes frozen in January’s grip, some broken, turned mustard and brown in the crisp air. A thin layer of snow casts over the ice, thick and blue and rippled by the wind. People often believe ice freezes in pristine, skate-able smooth sheets when in fact it is scarred with thick runnels and often littered with the carcasses of unfortunate ducks and geese, trapped in its frozen grasp.

My breath puffs out smoky, then clears in the frigid air. I can almost feel it—the numbing grip of the below-zero temperature stinging my nose, but as dreams go, I can’t really feel anything. I can only hear. The wind, moaning through the willows and behind it a voice.

Always the voice, haunting, calling.

I turn, searching the shore. Empty. Just the skeletal arms of birch and poplar reaching to the gunmetal gray sky.

Then I hear the crack. It’s sharp, like a shotgun, fracturing the air, and although it’s expected, I flinch. Ravens startle and lift from the rushes. The wind whips the snow into a dervish at my feet and only then do I think to look down.

A vein has fissured open below my feet.

I start to run.

I’m fast. I can feel it, running with my mouth open, breathing hard. I pump my arms, careening across the ice, but my feet betray me and I slip. I fall, slam hard. My wind explodes out of me.

Another crack, and this time the report shatters my bones. Shaking, I lift myself off the glass. The ice webs under my mittened hands.

As I scramble to my feet, I’m no nearer the shore.

Now, a voice is calling.

I’m gasping, my breath labored, fatigue weighting each step.

The cycle repeats. I run, I fall hard, and it knocks my world sideways. Then the crack, the voice and in my soul, I know I’ll never reach shore.

The lake will open, and I’ll slide into the dark, murky, frigid depths. Disappear.

They’ll never find me.

Rembrandt!

I wake with a rush, as if the voice is right beside me and I’m trembling, my breathing rough. If I were at home, next to Eve, she would have her hand pressed to my chest, her voice in my ear. It’s just a dream.

I lean my head back into my headrest. I might be able to travel through time, but clearly I’ve brought my demons with me.

Sweat slicks my body and I run my hand across my mouth, find it dry.

The dawn has peeled back the night, sun hovers just above the horizon, filtering light along the dusky streets. Gold dew speckles my windshield and a chill slinks through my car. June in Minnesota can still find the temperatures in the low sixties and I shiver, now free of the horror of the dream.

I need coffee. Ironic, I know, but I glance at the shop across the street, wondering if it’s open.

The windows are dark. A car drives up and pulls into the alley, to what I assume is parking in the back.

I glance at the watch. A little after 5:30 a.m. It must be the owner, up at the crack of dawn to care for the early risers. The shop is still dark, the place locked up. I sit up, scrub a hand down my face, the other on the steering wheel. Burke hasn’t called, and I pick up my phone just in case he texted.

Nothing.

Then it hits me.

5:30 a.m. Up at the crack of dawn .

Right now, my father is heading to the barn to feed and milk his small herd of dairy cows before he takes off for work.

Mom is in the kitchen, making his breakfast. By six a.m., Sheriff Rickland will have arrived, and with my father still in the barn, Rickland will accept the cup of coffee my mother offers.

But she’s suspicious, and doesn’t need to wait for my father to know the truth. She’ll guess that Rickland is there with news of my brother’s body recovery, and then time will repeat itself.

Her high blood pressure will burst a vessel in her brain, and she’ll collapse with a hemorrhagic stroke.

Maybe it’s just naive, but I’ve always believed that if my father—or I—had been with her, maybe the stress would have been easier to bear, and she wouldn’t have collapsed.

Wouldn’t today—or at least in my today—be walking with a cane, struggling to speak.

The light in the coffee shop flickers on.

The street is still empty. But I know, and it’s not just my gut, but history , that tells me the bomber will be here. The bomb explodes shortly after 7 a.m. Before, I was in bed, sleeping.

Before, I was awakened by Burke.

Before, I didn’t answer my father’s frantic call as he rode in the ambulance with my mother because I was counting bodies outside 10th Avenue Brew.

I pick up the phone and dial, my gaze scanning the street. Please.

“Hello?” My mother’s voice is cheery and for a few seconds, it jars me to hear it so pure, so unblemished.

I swallow, clear my throat. “Mom. It’s me.”

“Rembrandt. It’s so early—are you okay?”

She doesn’t mean to, but she wears in her voice the terrible fear that something might happen to her only remaining son. “I’m fine. Actually, I’m sitting outside a coffee shop, about to go to work, but…” And my brain is groping for something, anything — “Is Dad around?”

“He’s on his way to the barn?—”

“I need to talk to him.”

“I’ll tell him to call you back?—”

“Mom?” My voice shakes a fraction. No one else would have noticed, but I know Mom does. I swallow again. “I need to talk to him right now.”

She’s quiet because we don’t do big emotion in our family, but after a second, “All right. Hang on.”

A car pulls up outside the shop and parks in front. A man gets out, in a pair of track pants, a T-shirt, running shoes, and I agree with him. Coffee before exercise, right? He carries nothing, so I let him go.

One minute, two, then, “Hello?”

My father is out of breath, and a streak of guilt goes through me. I don’t want to lie, but I’m not sure what to say. Stay with Mom.

“Rem?”

“Hey, Dad.”

“You okay?”

They were good parents to me, despite the grief, the complete shutdown of our family after Mickey went missing. And they never said it out loud— you should have stayed with him. This is your fault.

They didn’t have to. It was carved into my DNA.

“I’m okay. But Dad—” I draw in a breath and say the only thing that makes sense. “Happy Birthday.”

Silence.

“What?”

“It’s your birthday today, right?” I’m grimacing.

“I guess so.”

“Well, then, Happy Birthday.”

And then, thank God, I hear my mother’s voice in the background. “Vin, there’s a police car pulling into the drive.”

I lean my head back, my heart punching my sternum. “A police car?” I ask in my very best impression of light concern. “What’s that about?”

“I’m not sure. Um. Thanks for calling, son.”

“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” I say, but he hangs up.

I fight this crazy urge to weep for the pain they’re about to experience. But I’m holding onto a feeble, impossible hope that this time, things won’t end quite so badly.

Across the street, a bicyclist has pulled up, parked and has gone into the shop. It’s still early, a little past 6 a.m.

Over an hour before the blast.

I want coffee. And I want to get eyes on the shop.

I get out and cross the street. Glass windows, a planter out front that overflows with geraniums. A sandwich board with specials sits just outside the door, calling people inside with freshly made butterscotch scones. My stomach is a monster.

The place is small, homey. Groupings of wicker chairs circle low round coffee tables, two slipcovered sofas facing each other, a blackboard with the menu chalked on it, the ceiling high and open to the pipes. Freshly roasted java seasons the air. I would have liked this place.

It’s possible Ramses left a package here last night, so I look around. Three thermoses of coffee, their names hanging in tags are lined up along the bar, but I see nothing out of place. A middle-aged blonde, her hair tied back with a handkerchief and wearing a tie-dyed apron fills a glass case. Her name tag reads Katia.

I spot the scones. And a couple of old-fashioned donuts. And fresh pumpkin bread.

Yeah, I would have found a writing niche here. Maybe I will, someday.

“Can I help you?”

I study the board and decide on today’s special, a macchiato. I order it with extra espresso.

The runner sits in the corner, reading a newspaper. He glances at me, and I notice he has blonde hair cut short, military style, and a tattoo peeks out of his shirt, on his upper arm. He looks away from me and stares into the paper.

The bicyclist is seated at the counter on a high top, talking to the barista. He has his dreadlocks pulled back into thick blonde chunks and is trying to bargain for a free donut.

Katia makes my coffee and I debate sitting inside or out, then decide to head back to the Camaro. If Ramses sees me it’s possible he won’t drop his bomb. Which, of course, saves lives, but also means that I’ll be fresh out of historical leads. I realize I’m cheating, but like I said, I don’t care.

I slide back into the Camaro, take a sip and nearly spill my macchiato down my shirt when knuckles rap on my passenger side window.

Burke.

I reach over and unlock the door and he folds himself inside.

“No luck with Ramses?”

He shakes his head, eying my coffee. “What are we doing here?”

“I have a hunch.”

“Perfect.” He closes his eyes, as if in pain.

I take another sip.

The street is coming alive. Another bicycler, and a car parks in front of the florist. A bus pulls up, coughs and eases to the curb at the end of the street. The neon light in the cafe flickers on and the sign is turned over.

Burke sighs, rubbing his finger and thumb into his eyes. “I need some coffee—Rem… There he is.”

I would have spotted him, given another second. He’s gotten off the bus and stands at the stop, waiting to cross the road. Ramses is a handsome, unassuming bomber, wearing a gray T-shirt, a pair of jeans, tennis shoes. Brown hair, a hint of a beard, just a guy stopping in for coffee.

Burke reaches for the door handle.

“Wait. Let’s see if he’s carrying anything.”

He is. A satchel over his shoulder. It bumps against his leg as he looks both ways, then treks across the street.

I set my coffee down. “Let’s get him.”

Burke is already out of the car, and I admit to a silent huzzah that he believes me. Because why else would Ramses be here?

I follow Burke out and we scuttle across the street, not wanting to alert Ramses before we can get close enough to grab him.

But also not wanting whatever is in that satchel to go boom.

Ramses is just about to reach the door when Burke calls his name.

There’s a moment, a hiccup, when Ramses turns on instinct, when he sees Burke, then me, advancing on him.

He hesitates. I can almost read his mind.

It’s over.

Or, he could die a martyr for his cause.

In a second he’s swung the door open and disappears inside. I take off in a sprint, a plan forming. “Burke! Evacuate the coffee shop. I’m going around the back!”

I angle toward the alley, shooting past the door, but in a blinding second of terrible luck, it slams open.

I plow into the bicycler, and we sprawl together hard on the pavement.

“Hey!” he growls.

I glare at him and untangle myself, hoofing it around back.

I hear Burke, now inside the shop, yelling. Please, God, don’t let Ramses pull a trigger.

I’ll come in from behind and trap him.

I find the back door propped open. I sneak inside, picking my way past shelves of supplies—cups, napkins, sweeteners, bags of Good Earth coffee.

When I emerge, it’s behind the counter and I spot Burke standing in front of Ramses, hands up, talking in low tones.

Ramses has— you’ve got to be kidding me —a gun. He’s got Katia by the arm and holds his weapon against her head.

Burke is staying back, but I know he sees me.

And I smile.

Because I know exactly what to do, and I’m hoping, praying even, that Burke knows it too.

An imperceptible nod.

I move behind Ramses.

It happens in synchronicity, almost like a dance. But that’s how we are, Burke and I. Partners. Brothers. We’ve always been able to read each other’s minds.

He dives at Katia, tackling her away from the gun as I simultaneously grab Ramses and slam him onto the floor.

I haven’t forgotten yesterday, the fact that he’s big, wiry, and athletic. But don’t forget I have that twenty-eight-year-old body.

I’m also big, wiry, and athletic.

We land together, and he elbows me, but I’m quicker. I dodge the attack, get a knee in his back and grab for his hand, hoping for a submission hold.

Not in time. He rolls, knees me and lands a blow in my gut. But I shake it off, and hit him with everything I have inside me. My fist meets his face and pain shudders through both of us.

He howls out a curse and grabs me around the neck, pulling me down.

But my fists are free and I land two solid shots in his ribs. He grunts.

I don’t stop.

I know I should, but he’s still holding me down, still writhing and I have twenty-four years of fury roiling through me. I reach for his free hand, but it’s grappling for something between us.

“Rem!”

Burke’s shout coincides with a blinding flash of pain in my side.

Ramses has gotten his hands on a knife and speared it into my side.

The pain takes me apart, blinds me, and I suck wind.

He pushes me off. But I still have hold of his satchel and heaven help me, I’m not letting go.

Then there’s Burke. Where he’s been all this time, I don’t know, but as I grip the satchel with everything inside me, he trips Ramses, lands on his exposed back and gets him into that hold I longed for.

And I’m bleeding like a freakin’ stuck pig.

I still have a hand on the satchel and I drag it off him, scoot back to the wall, forgetting for a second my wound as I scrabble for a look inside.

For once, I’m glad to be right. Inside is a metal cylinder, like a thermos, and my guess is it doesn’t hold coffee.

My look of relief must transmit to Burke because he smiles as he begins to cuff Ramses.

“I told you to trust me,” I mumble, but my voice is strained. I just need to lay down.

“Call 911!” he shouts to Katia and moves to catch me. “Rem, stay with me?—”

The room spins and as I crumple to the floor, strange ringing sounds echo through the shop, almost like an alarm. Or, maybe sirens.

A loud wind bullies the room and finds my bones, thundering through me. Drowning me. Time, spinning up. I close my eyes, letting it take me.

Then everything around me shatters, and I’m falling.

Voices sound a short distance away, but muffled, and when I open my eyes, I half expect to see paramedics, or even the glare of an ER.

It takes me a long moment—blinking into the fading sunlight cascading across a desk, leather chair and credenza—to realize I’m back. In my office.

Back to the life I worried I might never return to.

I’m still clutching my side, and now sit up, expecting the pain to tentacle around me, cut off my breathing, blind me.

But it’s vanished. I’m fine.

Not sitting in a pool of my own blood.

Not holding a satchel that contains a thermos filled with ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and antimony sulfide.

Not watching Burke cuff Ramses Vega, the Coffee Shop Bomber.

My legs shake as I climb to my feet, my entire body trembling with the force of the dream. It had to be a dream, right? My empty whiskey glass sits beside my keyboard and I pick it up.

Smell it.

I don’t feel drugged.

On the contrary, every nerve is lit, the layers of my subconscious alive and vivid in my mind.

I remember the smell of the night seeping into the Camaro, the salty taste of Eve’s skin, the burn of Ramses’s fist in my gut, the explosion of my knuckles against his face. I can describe in detail my old apartment, along with Eve’s, and the expression on Booker’s face as he watched the second bombing. I even remember Laurie Stoltenberg, the witness from the first bombing.

Rich, vivid details to an event that feels as if it happened yesterday.

The kind of details that belong in my book.

My muse is back with a fist pump, and it’s lit my brain with what-ifs and twists.

An ending that just might work.

Voices draw me to the door, and I open it, listening.

The television. I picture Ashley, curled up on the sofa, where I left her, playing a video game, or maybe now she’s watching one of her kids’ shows. I debate going to her, pulling her into an embrace, but I know it’ll lead to tickles and my hunkering down with her to watch something animated and I’ll forget the muse for something richer.

I have a deadline, promises to keep.

I softly close my door.

I don’t hear any of Eve’s footsteps creaking across our bedroom above me which means she’s probably out on her run. I check my watch.

Booker’s watch. The hands are unmoving, stuck at three and seven, like before. I fiddle with the dial, but they remain lifeless.

Maybe it was all a dream.

My screen saver is spinning, so I return to my desk. I cap the whiskey bottle and shove it back into the drawer.

Powerful stuff, that Macallan.

Then, I pull up my manuscript.

The cursor is blinking, taunting.

But the muse is mine, and I’m right beside her as long as she wants to run.

Butcher found Gabby leaning over her microscope, her eye pressed to the lens, a dozen slides lined up beside her.

“Any luck?”

“You’d better have coffee when you slink in this late,” she said, not looking up.

“Why aren’t you at home?” He didn’t mean his tone. It just wasn’t always easy to keep his thoughts straight around Gabby. She wore her dark hair back in a ponytail, no makeup. Still captivating despite her shapeless medical garb.

“I found something.” She got up and went over to a table of twisted black wiring, plastic and other bomb debris, all labeled.

“The bomb was on a timer. I found the remnants of an alarm clock. It’s a simple design, but effective.”

Butcher took it apart. “He planted it, then walked away to watch.”

“Mmmhmm.” She leaned a hip against the table. “So why do you think he watched?”

“A bombing is a particular kind of crime. It’s not easy, building a bomb, and a bomber is a meticulous kind of person. He’d want to make sure it went off.”

Butcher wished he’d brought her coffee now, because he liked the way her face lit up when he did. If he played his cards right, they could work all night.

“It gives them a sense of power,” she said, riffing off his theory.

“Even vengeance. It satiates the frustration boiling up inside.”

“What if it’s all of the above?” Gabby said. “What if he’s both meticulous and has an agenda? What if this is about changing the world, making it fit what he wants?”

“And he does this by destroying the thing he hates and starting over?”

“A clean slate,” Gabby said. “He rebuilds the world as he sees it.”

“Without the mistakes that were made the first time.”

“Isn’t that what 9/11 was about? Wanting to remake the world, starting with vengeance, then a takeover of the world with radical ideology?”

I sit back, hands behind my head, eyes sweeping the ceiling.

Yeah, Ramses might have stuck around for vengeance, but Eve’s words—probably my subconscious, let’s face it—linger with me. “I was thinking about the coffee shop bombing, and I was wondering how Ramses or Gustavo might know how to build a bomb. What if they had an accomplice?’”

It’s an interesting thought—one I’ll talk to Eve about in the morning.

I like where the muse is taking me. The idea of rewriting the world, starting over—it feels like my story has a new beginning, this time with an ending I can live with.

And Butcher and Gabby are headed out for a long-awaited dinner.