Chapter 3: The Dorian Collective
The Secret of All Secrets
Harvey sat opposite the elevators in an empty hospital lobby, shooting all of his nervous energy into the fidget of his right leg. The waiting room felt unusually empty for a Saturday in the city, even more so because of the unbearable heat outside. Blood always stirs mad on days like these.
But, apparently, not today.
The smell of antiseptic lingered in the air like smoke warning of fire. It filled his nostrils with every breath he took, tightening the nerves and amplifying the headache simmering behind his eyes. Not even the vending machine coffee could focus his scattered thoughts.
“Harvey?”
A middle-aged man in a tailored suit coat echoed his name through the waiting room. He unbuttoned his coat as he exited the elevator, keeping his eyes fixed to Harvey’s hunched frame. “Harvey Divvy? They said I’d find you here.”
The haze of his own thoughts consumed Harvey. He found it impossible to answer the man, even when the clean-cut Italian stood over him in a halo of overhead fluorescent lighting.
“I’m Detective Manetti, Boston Police.” He introduced himself as though he were a household name, flashing a badge hidden in a worn flap of leather. “I hate to barge in like this, but I’ve been assigned to this case and I wanted to catch you before things go...cold.”
“I didn’t know cases were opened for accidents,” Harvey answered.
“Boston P.D. doesn’t like to leave stones unturned, but honestly, it’s more of a formality. I’m just here to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
Harvey sipped at the tepid coffee from his paper cup, sensing the weight of Manetti’s casual tone in each and every word he spoke. His slicked-back matte of hair was enough for skepticism in itself, but the routine-like aura of his drooped shoulders and right-over-left crossed legs only made Harvey hesitate longer.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Harvey turned the paper cup between his fingers, then motioned for Manetti with a shake of his head.
“Why don’t you start by telling me what happened,” Manetti began.
Harvey swallowed hard—albeit quietly—enough to keep the ball of tension in his throat from changing the tone of his voice.
“I guess Dom was cooking something in the kitchen and took a spill with the knife in his hand. I don’t know. I only saw the aftermath, really.”
The detective scratched the jet-black stubble at his chin, processing Harvey’s flyby narrative.
“So how did he get into the hallway? There wasn’t a trail of blood leading out there. Not that I saw, at least.”
Harvey thought about confessing—surrendering the lie right then and there—but he was too deep into it now, head below water and out of sight.
“Like I said,” Harvey buckled, “I only saw the end of it.”
Manetti scribbled a few lines of notes into a wirebound notebook, then flipped its cardboard cover into place before returning it to his pocket.
“The medics mentioned a group of people passing them in the stairwell. A group that large seemed suspicious to them. Do you know who they were, by chance?”
“It could’ve been anybody.”
“But they weren’t, were they?”
For the first time, Harvey glimpsed ulterior motive in the detective’s question. It surfaced so quickly that Harvey widened his eyes out of reflex.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harvey asked.
Manetti fell back against his corner chair, every bit of him emotionless. His stare shifted from Harvey to the door and back in a flurry of swivels.
“I think you know what I mean.”
Be careful, Harvey spoke inwardly. Outwardly, though, he remained silent.
“Okay, Mr. Divvy. I get it. You’re not the first to keep their secrets and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
Manetti’s voice suddenly felt unfamiliar, fading against the backdrop of Harvey’s own raging heart. This wasn’t taking a statement, as he said it would be. This was an ambush.
“Tell me,” Manetti continued. “They said something to you—something strange. What was it?”
He knew exactly the words of which Manetti spoke, but couldn’t find it within himself to project them. He felt trapped.
“Let me guess. It went something like this.” Manetti propped himself up so that his diaphragm unlocked a push of breath only he knew he had. “Some things are more precious because they don’t last long. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Harvey’s beating heart revved to a new level, now draining the blood from his face.
“They’re ghosts, Harvey, and I’ve been chasing them for a long time—longer than I’d care to admit. Still, after all this time, that line they fed you? It’s the only evidence I have.”
“I wish I could help you, Detective, but—”
Manetti raised a hand to stop Harvey’s nervous chattering.
“Just let me finish, Harvey.”
He nodded, temporarily defeated.
“I’ve seen what these people can do. I’ve seen it up close,” the detective continued. “It’s not pretty. If they’ve threatened you, it’s probably best if you keep your mouth shut.”
“I—”
“I don’t think you understand. Whatever it is, it’s not worth it. Not here, at least.”
He stood from his chair and offered his hand.
“That’s it?” Harvey asked.
“That’s it.”
Manetti clutched Harvey’s hand with a clasp that could shatter knuckles. He smiled while Harvey grimaced, but as he pulled away, he noticed a folded corner of paper about the size of a fingernail huddled in the crease of his palm. He slid it into his pocket as Manetti disappeared behind the elevator doors.
“I thought he would never leave.”
Three bodies—four counting the off-duty nurse at the coffee machine—hunched in seats across the room.
“You did well, Harvey. I’m proud of you.”
Ms. Roark stood before him—his elderly neighbor, but not as the old woman he’d talked to back at the apartment. She had taken on a new persona now—one more lively, youthful. She had changed into a well-ironed cardigan and a knee-length skirt adjusted nicely to keep the skin of her legs concealed behind a layer of technicolor leggings. The hunch in her posture had all but corrected itself, her gait now direct.
“Ms. Roark?”
“Please,” she said, “call me Annette. Ms. Roark just seems so...old.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Keeping an eye on you, of course.”
Suddenly, Harvey felt trapped, but not the same trapped that Manetti had summoned. This was much more acute. This felt premeditated.
“Usually we don’t spend so many resources on someone as green as yourself,” she continued, “but we had to make sure you’d keep quiet. It wasn’t as much of a guarantee as we’d initially hoped.”
“Wait. You’re one of...them?”
Annette lined her thin lips with a fruity balm she produced from the purse slung across her shoulder.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Cowboy,” she smiled. “You don’t even know what you’re asking.”
Harvey breathed in, but its choppy frequency just proved how nervous he was to continue the conversation. It was something that brought a wry smirk to Annette’s otherwise stern face.
“You can call us believers,” she said. “No, scratch that. Believer’s too strong a word. We’re more like...gatekeepers.”
Harvey tasted bile in the base of his throat. His mouth filled with spit to counteract it, enough of it to make him—not only look nervous—but sound like it, too.
“So this was some kind of test? Manetti? All of it?”
“Four hours,” she answered, unencumbered by his panic. “That’s all they needed to get the job done. We were that close. Five years of planning out the window, just like that. If you and your impulsive friend in there would’ve just kept quiet for four more hours, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Harvey didn’t know what to say, how to act.
“All I know is that the people I work for are not happy with me and that’s not good for you, Harvey.”
“So you send a fake cop to interrogate me?”
Annette shrugged her shoulders and sighed.
“I wish it were that easy, but Manetti’s another problem you’ve brought back from the dead. He’s anything but fake. In fact, he’s exactly who he says he is.”
Harvey stood from his chair in an anxiety-induced panic, pointing towards the elevator with a stiff pointer finger, muscles in his forearm flexed.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” he said, “and take your friends with you. I don’t know who you think you are, but this isn’t normal. You can’t just threaten innocent people like this.”
Annette remained seated. Her elderly frame sat unsettlingly calm against the backrest, as though she’d experienced this exact conversation thousands of times before.
“We will leave in due time, Mr. Divvy, but do yourself a favor and sit down. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Harvey surrendered unwillingly to the buckle in his legs, despite his desire to flee. He would’ve done so even if Annette hadn’t suggested it. The fight-or-flight mechanism in his brain had shut off, leaving the room in a tailspin, colors bleeding down the walls. He blinked away the dizziness and focused all of his energy on Annette, who rolled her eyes while she sighed another.
“You’re not going to ralph, are you?” she asked. “I’ve seen that look before and I just had this outfit dry-cleaned.”
“I’m fine.”
“At least take some water. It’ll make me feel better.”
She gave a nod to one of the men at the far edge of the room. He wasted no time following orders, drifting to the bubbler to fill a miniature paper cup under its spout. It wasn’t until the man tapped Harvey’s shoulder that he noticed his presence. Harvey flinched, taking the cup as cautiously as a man in such a predicament could.
“Just tell me,” he asked, eyes fixed to Annete. “Are you going to kill me?”
Annette’s lip curled at the corner as if she were contemplating it.
“We’re not in the business of murder, Harvey, but we must only when it’s absolutely necessary,” she answered. “In your case? No.”
“Then why won’t you leave me alone?”
“It’s not you that we’re worried about,” she explained. “It’s your friend in there.”
“Dom? Why?”
“Violence does something to a person, especially the egregious kind. Agatha sowed those seeds in your friend the moment she slid that blade into his side. Whether Dom is a vengeful kind of person or not, we’re worried this grudge won’t fade,” she explained, “which is where you come in.”
Harvey sipped at his water, making ripples on the surface as he brought it to his lips.
“We need you to keep your friend in check when he wakes up. It’s imperative you keep this incident under wraps or—”
Harvey leaned in, elbows digging into the tops of his legs while Annette rose from her seat and motioned to the men around them to do the same.
“Or what?” Harvey asked.
“Or we’ll be forced to do what is necessary.”
Her words crept across his skin like ice. The threat was real, just as Manetti had foretold, cemented in the way she kept her hardened eyes fixated to his. She snapped her fingers in the direction of a crooked-nosed shadow of a man who pivoted into motion and slipped her arms into a thigh-length navy peacoat. It made her look more regal than she was.
“I know it all seems bleak right now, but there are advantages to this kind of situation should you prove your loyalty,” she continued. “The people I work for, they look highly on those who follow the rules.”
Harvey paused, mild curiosity riddling the worry wrinkles in his forehead.
“What kind of advantages?”
As soon as the words slipped from his mouth, a heavy ball of regret sunk deep into his chest. The question was everything he wanted to avoid from this strange interaction, yet here he was, asking for more. It was as if a voice inside of him—his voice—craved a certain clarity he knew he would never find.
“They’ll share the secret of all secrets with you,” she said. “The secret that’ll change your life forever.”
The shaking in Harvey’s hands dispersed into the depths of his chest. He could feel it buzzing around in him. He managed to keep himself upright long enough to see Annette’s smile fade.
“Remember what I said. Keep your friend quiet.”
And before Dom could look up over the rim of his soggy paper cup, Annette and her cronies had slipped into the elevator and out of sight.