Episode 85
By the time Daryl graduated with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, Rin had reconciled herself to his new path. To her chagrin, he got a job at an oil company. She wondered whether he would run into Eric. Maybe Eric would be his boss. Maybe he’d try to use her knife on Daryl. Daryl would take him apart. Engineer or no, he probably still could handle himself.
When Daryl had a son, Raoul, Rin gave up all hope for him. She decided to hold a simple memorial service in her apartment. He was supposed to have died by her hand a decade earlier. Well, better late than never. She wouldn’t kill him, because by any meaningful measure he already was dead. She gave a simple eulogy that read more like a litany of his shortcomings and, with great pomp, blew out a candle for him. Then she decided the whole thing was stupid.
She wouldn’t have mourned him if she had killed him, so why now? Daryl was alive and could be redeemed. Unfortunately, she knew only one means of redemption and had no desire to practice it on him. At least, Raoul was a respectable name.
From then on, the surveillance packets remained thick, and Rin resigned herself to accepting what Daryl had become. She wondered if this was how parents felt about a disappointing child.
Daryl appeared happy with his job, and Rin grumbled to herself about this too. The ingrate damned well better be happy. That job had been one of her few overt interventions, and not an easy one.
The first time Rin interfered was not long after Daryl started his new life. Following a year in New York, he had moved to Washington D.C. to attend university. Something must have raised a flag concerning his immigration status. The State Department kept asking for more and more information, while assuring him that he was on the cusp of receiving his new visa.
Rin had seen this dance before. It meant they had opened a formal investigation into him, and constituted the first in a long chain of dominoes that inevitably would land him in jail or deported. This wouldn’t be a very promising start for his newfound zeal for the ordinary. Rin made appropriate arrangements, and the problem went away. The whole debacle seemed uncharacteristically sloppy of Karkov. He had promised Daryl a new life in America as part of his bargain, and managing this sort of rubbish was his forte. Rin wondered whether it was deliberate, an effort to keep her involved.
The second intervention had been as foreseeable as it was necessary, and Rin made arrangements well ahead of time. Who the heck would hire a forty-year old recent grad? If Daryl had played to his strengths, he could have been running his own ops team by then — or at least have had the decency to get himself killed. Either way would have been better.
Rin didn’t plan to coddle the boy, but this was a special case. Daryl could sink or swim on his own merits, but only if he made it to the pool. She just wanted to ensure he wouldn’t be kept out due to his age. With a lot of grumbling about the cost of caring for a puppy, Rin asked one of her aides to discreetly arrange a job for him. It somehow ended up being on that damned oil rig. She blamed herself for not having issued more precise instructions.
A few years later, Daryl’s family was struggling financially. With real estate prices going through the roof, there was no way he could afford a home on the salary of an engineer. Even renting was a challenge.
Rin was tempted to leave him swinging in the wind, so he could experience firsthand what it meant to be a modern slave. It would be a good lesson for the boy. Let him try to pay off his student loans, support a family, and make rent. If he wanted to be normal, he’d learn what normal really was like. Then he would realize what a kind mistress Rin had been and what he had lost by abandoning her. But it would be too late. He would be the world’s whore until it tired of him and cast him aside to slowly rot into senectitude.
Daryl already had been recruited by one of Rin’s companies. She had decided this was the best way to ensure that his hard work would be properly rewarded. All her employees were treated well, so she wouldn’t need to show blatant favoritism. The company even had gotten him a green card, completely unbidden.
A promotion to upper-middle management or above would have relieved Daryl’s financial woes, but he didn’t deserve one. He wasn’t incompetent, but he certainly wasn’t stellar. Such a promotion would be detrimental to a company Rin had spent a great deal of effort cultivating. Rewarding mediocrity would encourage it in others, and the perception of favoritism would reduce morale. She did not wish for another reason to resent Daryl. Even worse, he was acutely aware of his own limitations and would have grown suspicious of inexplicable advancement.
Rin weighed her other options. An inheritance would have her fingerprints all over it. If some mysterious benefactor materialized whenever Daryl faced a crisis, he would connect the dots soon enough. The last thing either of them needed was for her involvement to be discovered. She would look pathetic and he would feel pathetic, questioning whether he had accomplished anything on his own or just been handed it. This would be terrible for her self-respect and for his. She would get over it, he probably would not. Rin decided that if she was going to do this, she would do it right.
Daryl was encouraged by a coworker to apply for a special home-loan program through a bank affiliated with their employer. The loan officer was very accommodating and even recommended a little-known assistance program for engineers of his ethnic background. Daryl’s student loan quickly dissipated, and a home loan came through soon after. If Daryl was suspicious, he didn’t show it — at least not in any way that made it into Rin’s reports. Even if he did harbor doubts, they would remain vague and unconfirmed. Rin carefully managed her vast array of holdings, and neither Daryl’s employer nor his bank could be traced to her.
Over the years, Rin followed the growth of Daryl’s family. She didn’t care much for the baby photos but kept them in her file for reference. One never knew when such things could come in handy. As for the countless reports that followed, she savored or scoffed at them according to her mood of the moment. Despite her contempt for normality, Rin felt a certain warmth that that such a thing really existed and somebody from her world got to experience it, even if he was mortal and not really from her world until she made him part of it.
Rin had no concern that Daryl would divulge her secrets. She would know if he did. The packet would include a photo of him in a straitjacket. She wondered if he ever thought about her. She always reprimanded herself when such sentimentality took hold. Of course he thought about her. How could anybody forget Rin? Then again, everyone did forget her. That was the downside to being unrecognizable, and it only took a month to happen. Of course, they didn’t really forget her. They simply could not recognize her. She wasn’t expunged from their memories or hearts, though Rin often wondered whether that would have been a better protection. Being loved was terribly burdensome, and Rin detested burdens. Fortunately, mortals expired — along with the burdens they imposed.
The first sign that something was amiss came when Rin’s investigator, a man named Walter, warned that Daryl may be employing counter-surveillance measures. This saddened Rin immensely. As long as she could pretend he was harmless and clueless, she was content to watch from afar. If he was aware of the cameras, then the spectacle he presented — tepid as it may be — was no longer genuine. Maybe he had been playing to his audience the whole time. But to what end?
No, this was new. Something had alerted him. The question was: to what? If he knew about her, then Rin no longer was a mere spectator. As a participant, she would feel compelled to return to her original plan. It was the boy’s own damned fault. Detecting her was one step from reconciling with her, and he knew exactly where that would lead. She supposed she could warn him and then thrill in the chase. It had worked before. But what of his family? They did not know her. They probably didn’t even know of her.
Rin decided she would not harm them without cause. They were his, and she would not deprive him of his fleeting happiness, however pathetic it may be. She owed him this for their time together as comrades in arms and for her time in his arms, whatever his motivation may have been. He deserved that much, but this would be her only concession. However, the question remained: had he actually detected her?
Maybe he was worried about something else, though Rin had a hard time imagining what. She had lubricated his life well enough. If he couldn’t find normality with the deck stacked in his favor, it was a lost cause. But it would be his lost cause, and she would leave him to contend with the consequences of his failure. It all boiled down to one crucial question: would she need to get involved? This was not a decision to be taken lightly. She needed more information, but acquiring it would be tricky — especially if he now was vigilant.
A few days later, Rin had made little progress toward coming up with a plan. Then the detective reported that he was mistaken. What he had taken for counter-surveillance was, in fact, additional surveillance. Somebody else was watching Daryl.
There were a number of obvious possibilities, several pertaining to the detective himself. He wouldn’t have reported the surveillance if he had been bought, but he could have been compromised in some other way. It was quite possible that Walter was playing some sort of game, perhaps as banal as trying to wring more business out of her by concocting a fictitious threat.
After a short heart-to-heart, Rin concluded that he was not culpable. The man’s vehement denials made no difference, of course. What else would he say? Instead, she studied his reaction as she showed him before-and-after photos of the last employee to betray her. Walter didn’t have the crafty look of someone desperately searching for the right lie. He had a resigned air, the expression of someone who realizes they have become prey, yet prefers an unwinnable fight to wheedling and begging. She liked the man.
Rin fired him. Walter’s tenure had been nearing its end, and she decided she had other plans for him. He was a suitable candidate for a permanent employee. As for the detective role, she already had a replacement in mind — an ex-cop from Baltimore named Merin. Rin had casually broached the topic with the woman before, but now doubled her offer. Merin accepted and promptly dove into her work.
Her body was found in a used car lot four days later. Rin resented that somebody had killed her investigator but wasn’t foolish enough to take the bait. Whoever did it would pose no threat to her person, of course. However, if Daryl was being used to lure her into the open, he could be in grave danger. Rin decided to cease her surveillance, at least until she learned whom she was dealing with. Her first thought was Karkov, but she quickly dismissed that possibility. He had no need for such tactics, and this wasn’t his style anyway. Besides, why would he get involved now? If he had been watching Daryl all along, her investigators would have noticed. This had to be something new. Regardless of who it was, the key question was: why now?
Rin spent the next few days vacillating between wanting to kill Daryl and save him. It was his own problem if he got caught up in something, but she did feel somewhat responsible if he was being used to get to her. She decided that she had to do something, without deciding what. At the very least, she would have to make herself known to him. There simply remained no way to avoid this.
Rin had been starved of surveillance information for almost two weeks, but she doubted that Daryl’s life had changed much in the interim. He had grown into a creature of habit and wouldn’t shake those habits unless there was a threat. Even then, would he? The younger Daryl had no habits, but who could tell how a middle-aged has-been would respond? Especially, one with a wife and litter in tow.
Something felt off. Even if they were after her, who would run surveillance on a civilian? Had her interventions on Daryl’s behalf come to light? She had been somewhat … forceful … with certain State Department employees.
On the other hand, it could be private. Companies sometimes watched employees, though they rarely killed them without a compelling reason. The drawbacks simply were too great. Although Rin owned the company in question, she couldn’t rule out an operation like this taking place without her knowledge. She left her companies a great deal of autonomy.
She had issued strong instructions not to mistreat Daryl, but only with certain senior executives. Perhaps one of her other employees was a toxic combination of zeal and ignorance. What could Daryl have done to become a target? Maybe this wasn’t an accident. She had left instructions regarding Daryl, and this marked him as special. Was somebody trying to use him as leverage? Even if the executives didn’t truly know who Rin was, they knew there was somebody in charge. Somebody who had ordered them to protect a random low-level employee.
Rin wanted to kick herself. Despite trying not to draw attention to Daryl, she had done just that, painting a big bullseye on him in the process. The logical conclusion would be that either this was a case of nepotism or the job was Daryl’s cover as an agent of some sort. Both could invite surveillance, though for different reasons. Neither felt likely.
It was exceedingly improbable that this came from the company, but Rin could not rule it out altogether. She made a note to liquidate the entire senior management. Giving Daryl a job was a mistake, and this was the price she had to pay for that particular piece of stupidity. The company would suffer a serious setback, but it would serve as a valuable reminder to Rin. Spare one naive boy, and a dozen diligent, loyal servants get killed. This wasn’t the first time she had employed such a calculus nor the most egregious, but it still stung.
There was a more innocuous possibility. Maybe Daryl just got mixed up in something. But wouldn’t she have been alerted to it? For a moment, Rin suspected that he actually had detected and bribed all of her investigators over the years. Maybe there was no family, just a carefully-engineered fiction. The thought thrilled her, casting Daryl in an entirely new light. Her little apprentice, all grown up. She would relish the man he had become, even as she punished him for having deceived her. She wished it were true but knew it was not. Nor did it affect the course she must take. She could decide what to do with him later. First, she had to find out what was going on — and maybe save him if she felt like it.
Rin decided that it had to be a government. There was only one government which would operate with such arrogance and potentially care about Daryl. Well, two, but the other was run by Karkov and she already had discounted that possibility. From the U.S. government, such surveillance could be something relatively innocuous or something quite dangerous. For all Rin knew, Daryl was caught up in a corporate espionage investigation or the whole thing was just a case of mistaken identity. But that didn’t explain Merin.
What bothered Rin most was how quickly her P.I. had been spotted and killed. That seemed more like the reflexive response of a government agency, and a particularly nasty agency at that. This didn’t tell her much. In her experience, all government agencies were nasty enough when push came to shove. That was the nature of power and the people who courted it.
Rin decided that all this speculation was pointless. There was only one thing to do. Whatever the culprit and whatever the cause, Daryl needed to be warned. Otherwise, the choice of what to do about him would no longer be hers.
The walk to his house was uneventful, which was not surprising. Nobody would have recognized Rin, even if they were trying to draw her out. Part of her hoped that it was Daryl who killed Merin. It would mean he hadn’t become completely boring.
Rin stopped as she turned onto his street. She would have to be delicate about this. Neither Daryl nor his family would know who she was, unless and until she made that clear. But she still needed a plan, something to say. It probably would be best not to identify herself at all. If Daryl had not told Katrina about his past, the revelation could damage their marriage. Despite her contempt for the life he had acquired, Rin had no desire to sabotage it. Even if he had told Katrina, Rin doubted the woman would be thrilled to have a homicidal ex-girlfriend show up at their home.
On the other hand, it was two decades later. This gave Rin a major advantage. Katrina probably would not suspect a twenty-two year old woman, though that depended on how much she had been told. Did she know about Rin’s unrecognizability? At the very least, Daryl would be suspicious. It just was impossible to guess how things would play out.
Rin was frustrated that she didn’t know what to expect. Maybe she should have performed proper surveillance. Full surveillance. Then she would know everything. Rin stopped herself. Had she become that ex? It was bad enough to spy on the boy from afar, but she wouldn’t start leaving dead rabbits on his doorstep. She would discreetly poke her head in, ascertain what was going on, and quietly dispose of the threat. Ideally, the couple would never learn it was her.
Even if Katrina didn’t know about her, Rin needed to tread carefully. A beautiful young woman would invite other suspicions. She inadvertently could sow the seeds of jealousy and destroy Daryl’s family. If she’d wanted to do that, she just would have killed them all. Death always was better than drama. Even so, it would be easier to allay suspicions of infidelity than persuade Katrina of the truth.
All this was racing through Rin’s mind as she traversed the front yard. Before she could stop herself, her finger was on the the doorbell. She cursed herself for having been so hasty and hoped nobody was home.