Schism

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The boy's phone buzzed in Bryan's pocket.  He opened the text message.

CONFIRM

He stared back at it, slowly thumbed the numbers 311 in and sent the reply.  He waited, phone in hand, as the other detectives buzzed around the squad room, made frequent trips to the coffee machine by his desk.

The answer came back quickly.  It was an address and a time for late that night.

Bryan looked up from the phone and looked around the squad room.  He'd thought through his options since William had left him on the street.  None of them felt right.  He felt like he was turning his back on William, but also knew that he had to push that out of his mind.

He had his duty as a police officer.  He had to protect Jessica, and if William wasn’t the direct source of danger, then the trouble that William seemed to pull in was.

But that was all B.S.  His rationalizations only made him feel worse about what he was thinking of doing.  If he was being honest, he wanted to protect Jess because he wanted her.

He opened the bottom desk drawer, reached in to pull up the photo of Claire and the baby, but realized he couldn't look at it.  He shut the drawer, sat there, staring at the cell phone.  He had to do something.  He had to keep Jess safe.

His other option was to try to stop the fires.  He could talk to Meyers, who was the only cop he trusted anyway.  Meyers could help him stop the fires tonight.  If they came in force, they might be able to catch the leader, the one named Jared Smith.  He might be the source of the big fires, even though Meyers and the arson task force hadn't found any evidence linking them.

But if this Smith wasn't behind the large fires, then Bryan would be nowhere.  It would all have been for nothing.  He wouldn't know who killed his family and William would still be out there. 

Which meant Jess would still be in danger.

And, Hayes would find out that he had been looking into the fires.  It was smarter all around to stick with the vigilante approach.  If he had to, he could simply tell his lieutenant that he had picked up a tip on where the vigilante might be.  Then it would simply be a coincidence that the vigilante turned out to be his escapee.

If they caught William tonight, they could still go after the white supremacists.  He could sneak the information to Meyers later.  William would be locked back in the hospital, Jared Smith would be caught, and Jess would be safe.  And, Bryan would find out, somehow, who killed his wife and son.

It had to be that way.

He stood, peered over the cubicle wall.  Cray and Rios were hunched over their paperwork.  He knocked on the top of the wall and they both looked up at him, their eyes bloodshot.  He knew they had no leads and had been spending every available hour on the streets.

"Coffee's on me.  Come on.  I think I have something for you," Bryan said.

*

Even in the dark, it became harder for William to move unnoticed as the area became more residential.  The larger buildings had given way to old homes, their wood and brick facades crumbling in places, but patched and cared for in others.  This was still a neighborhood, and there might be people out.

The Hunter loped around the block ahead of him as The Advisor pointed to the front doors on twelve of the eighteen houses.  It took William a moment to see the mark, even with The Advisor's help.  Invisible to others, it was a foot tall X in the middle of the front doors that glowed and wavered in the fog.