by Robin Lamont
“So, what’s the word from Tim?” he asked, getting down to business.
“Says he’s got something for us,” she replied, keeping her voice even. A taut, humming metal wire felt like it was tightening around her chest. She’d prepared what she was going to say but was afraid she might stumble.
“Do you know what it is?”
Jude shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll tell me tonight.”
“The testing is finished soon, isn’t it?”
“A week from Thursday.”
“What about his mental state?”
“The job’s gotten to him a little, which isn’t a surprise,” she hedged. “He’s become attached to the dogs. We expected that.”
“Anything else?”
Jude stared at the ceiling as if trying to summon up concerns she didn’t necessarily have. “A few weeks ago, he hinted that he’d met a girl. I warned him not to get involved. I think he heard me, but maybe … I don’t know.”
Gordon frowned.
“We’ll be talking tonight,” Jude reassured him.
Eyeing her sternly, he said, “Make sure he gets the message, Jude. Getting involved with civilians on the job is bad news all the way around.”
“I know, I know. I’ll press it home.”
“I thought he had a girlfriend here in D.C.,” said Gordon.
“I … don’t know,” replied Jude innocently. “He never said anything to me.”
Gordon looked at her before saying, “Okay, let’s talk first thing in the morning. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
The rest of the day dragged as Jude obsessively checked her cellphone, convincing herself that there would be a message from Tim next time she looked. She prodded him a few times with a breezy text from his “sister” Emily – their signal to phone in right away – but he wasn’t responding. She could feel his resentment resonate in the silence. He’d give her the evidence she wanted, but by God, he was going to make her pay for it. Before she left, she almost went into Gordon’s office to show him the photos. But then, she’d have to explain Tim’s surly lack of communication and where it was coming from, which would mean revealing their affair, and she didn’t want to do that. Not now, not ever.
CHAPTER 3
Tim didn’t call.
When she finally dozed off, she fell into a fitful chase dream. Seeing Tim round a corner in the distance, she’d run to catch up with him. At some point, he turned into Rocky and she knew that she had to get to him before Animal Control did. Both were always just out of reach.
It was still dark when she finally gave up the idea of sleep and got out of bed. She padded barefoot into her apartment’s small kitchen and brewed a pot of strong coffee. Her cellphone never more than a few inches from her hand, she drank enough to make her teeth feel tight. At one point, she began tapping out the text that would end the assignment once and for all: Dad’s back in the hospital. Need you home. Emily. But she couldn’t get herself to hit the send button. Maybe, just maybe he’d make contact before she had to talk to Gordon. Her dog Finn gazed up at her with liquid brown eyes, knowing she was troubled but unable to help other than to insert his nose under her hand.
Just before dawn, she took him out for a run. It was going to be hot again today, and it was better to get out before the Arlington joggers and bicyclists descended on the park. Jude trotted the two sparsely-treed blocks from her building to Four Mile Trail. Hardly a wilderness footpath, it was just a stretch of pavement that wound alongside a dirty creek. Nevertheless, there were some leafy spots that felt cool, and after the first mile, the strain of Tim’s silence began to fall away.
Jude tried to put things into perspective. Okay, Tim screwed up. It wasn’t her fault. Probably it was this girl he met – a girl he seemed to delight in telling her about. None of my business, she told herself; there was never any real future for us. And maybe there was some other girl involved when he bungled the undercover in Minnesota. If that was the case, his days with The Kinship were over. For now, though, hopefully he had footage of the big thing he promised, and if they had to yank him, not the end of the world. With Finn on a loose leash trotting beside her, Jude rationalized herself into a mood that bordered on hopeful.
And then it happened … again.
Patches of black appeared at the outer edges of her vision. They crept in toward the center creating a tunnel-like effect, squeezing the lines and shapes still visible into waves. Jude stopped and lowered her head between her knees. It had worked before. The first time, she shook off the episode, convinced it was dehydration. The summer had been brutally hot. But the same thing happened a few weeks later.
She went to an ophthalmologist who promised there was nothing wrong with her eyes. A long overdue checkup followed, at which her general practitioner said her blood tests had come back fine, but just to be sure, recommended that she get a work-up done by a neurologist. Earlier in the week she’d received the good news: her MRI was clear, he could see nothing wrong. The last few minutes in his office, though, had unnerved her. She could still hear him.
“Have you been under particular stress recently?” asked Dr. Amin, seemingly out of the blue.
“Nothing other than thinking I might have a brain tumor.”
He glanced at her open file on his desk. “Mmmn. It says here you’re an investigator with an animal protection group.”
“So? You think the eyesight thing is related to my work?”
He made a noncommittal wag of his head. “How many times did you say it’s happened?”
“A couple,” she lied. “I don’t think I was drinking enough water.”
“Your work must involve some pretty dark stuff. I can’t imagine what it must be like.” When Jude didn’t respond, he added, “Probably very stressful.”
“Are you saying that my job is making me go blind?”
“The brain can have a very powerful effect on our physiological–”
Jude stopped him right there. “Look, I’ve been doing this a long time and nothing like this has ever happened. I love what I do. I’m sure I was just dehydrated. I mean, I take my dog out twice a day no matter what, and it’s been incredibly hot.”
“Miss Brannock, the problem you’ve been experiencing is not from dehydration.” He gazed at her with stern tolerance. “I recommend that you see somebody.”
“See somebody?”
“There are a few other neurological tests we could do, but frankly, I don’t think they’re necessary. Everything I see so far tells me you’re a physically healthy young woman. I’d like to give you the name of a psychologist.”
As her mouth dropped open, Dr. Amin wrote a name on his prescription pad, then tore off the page and held it out. “Ruth Harris is very good. She’s in Arlington. You’d like her.”
Jude took it but had no intention of calling. There was nothing wrong with her. She stuffed the slip of paper into her pocket, relegating the psychologist’s name to an inaccessible part of her consciousness, tucked away with certain memories of her childhood that, as far as she was concerned, were best forgotten.
“Is everything okay?”
Jude straightened up to find the shimmering pavement of Four Mile Trail coming back into focus. A middle-aged man stood a few feet from her with a small white terrier who was growling at Finn. Her dog, all ninety pounds of him, looked down at the terrier indifferently. The wavy lines and the tunnel vision were gone.
“Thanks, I’m fine. Just a little light-headed, I guess.”
“Happened to me the other day. Really easy to get dehydrated these days,” he said.
See? She wasn’t the only one.
* * *
By the time she got to the office, she knew she couldn’t put Gordon off any longer. Jude steeled herself as she grabbed her coffee and laptop and headed to his office. She was surprised to see that fellow
investigator Lucas Matz was already there. She hesitated at the open doorway. “Hi,” she offered tentatively.
Gordon called her in. “We’re talking about Tim,” he said.
Her stomach turned over. Lucas flashed her a guileless smile through his scruffy five-o’clock shadow. It was a smile he reserved for her, the one that seemed to say that it was always just the two of them in this fight. With straightforward features, he wasn’t particularly handsome but had an intensity that belied his casual, slouchy demeanor. He was dressed in his usual attire: a black t-shirt, perpetually frayed at the neck, and army-issue cargo pants.
She smiled back, but it felt forced. Why was Lucas conferring with Gordon about her case?
“I was just filling him in,” said Gordon.
“Oh yeah, of course,” Jude said, as if bringing Lucas in had been her idea all along. She set her coffee on the desk and took the seat next to her co-worker, who was comfortably sprawled in his chair, his runaway, dirty blond hair tied back in a ponytail.
“Anything to report?” Gordon asked her.
Jude shook her head. “He didn’t call in last night.”
“When is the last time you spoke to him?”
“Well, his communication over the last few days has been spotty.”
“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” accused Gordon.
“I was sure I’d hear from him,” replied Jude defensively. “On Tuesday morning he sent me an email that said he had something big on Amaethon. And he attached these.” She pulled up the photographs that she’d put on her laptop.
Gordon lifted his hands in bewilderment. “What are they? They make any sense to you, Jude?”
“Not really. He used to talk about wanting to fix up a house in the country someday, and a couple of times he sent me photos of a house or barn for sale. But I don’t understand why these photos with that message. I thought he would explain everything when we talked, but … no word.”
Gordon looked over at Lucas. “How much do you know about Tim Mains?”
Why is Gordon bringing Lucas into this? thought Jude. Because I’m being pushed out, right? He doesn’t want to confront me directly, but he wants me out. A wave of resentment broke over her.
“He’s at a place called Amaethon Industries,” Lucas was saying. “They’ve been cited before, I guess.”
“Two last year and at least one before that,” interjected Jude, needing to take the reins again. “According to Tim, he’s only seen two principals. There’s the Chief Scientific Officer who’s running the protocol and another guy who’s there a lot. He thinks he’s involved in financing the project, but it isn’t clear.”
“How’d you get him in?”
“As a vet tech.”
“Don’t you have to be licensed to do that?”
“CJ … uh, found his state license. But Tim got all the basics from the vet, and so far, he’s simply been monitoring them for this test.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-four. A standard number of canines for a protocol like this.”
“They’re just testing on dogs?” asked Lucas.
“No, mice and rats, too.”
“What name is he using?” Lucas asked.
“Tyler Jeffries.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Sounds like he’s on a prep school rowing team.”
“He picked the name, okay?” Jude bristled.
“How big is Amaethon? I never heard of them ’til now.”
Gordon answered, “It’s a pharmaceutical start-up. Everyone’s getting into the game right now, hoping to get bought out by one of the bigs.”
“The lab’s in Vermont, right?”
“A place called Half Moon. It’s a farming town, a few miles outside of Montpelier. Jude, yesterday you said that the job was getting under his skin. How bad?”
“He was upset that a few of the dogs were severely distressed. They’re probably the group on the highest dosage.”
“Dosage of what exactly?” Lucas demanded, although his clenched jaw said he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“They don’t tell the techs much, but Tim said he thought it was a drug for stroke or heart attack patients. They put it in the food.”
“Fuck, man,” muttered Lucas. “Who does this to animals?”
Jude let out an exasperated sigh. “Testing on animals is not breaking news, Lucas. Can we move on?”
For a moment, he looked slightly hurt, then marshaled a comeback, delivered with his usual unhurried drawl. “What makes you think he’s still there? Maybe he bailed.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” said Jude flatly, pulling her laptop toward her and snapping it closed.
“It’s a lot of pressure, and he’s inexperienced,” offered Gordon.
“He was ready. And why would he tell me he had something on them and then leave?”
“I can think of one reason,” Lucas threw in. “He witnessed violations but couldn’t get it on video and he knew you’d be disappointed.”
Gordon swiveled in his chair. “Maybe we made a mistake with him,” he sighed.
“He was ready.” Jude leaned forward to press her case, and as she did, she knocked over her Starbucks container, spilling coffee which spread in a rapidly growing pool on her boss’s desk. “Oh, shit. Sorry, I … I didn’t see it there.” She jumped up and ran to get an armful of paper towels.
On her return, she continued to defend Tim and, in some respects, herself while she sopped up the mess. “Really, he wouldn’t quit without telling me. Maybe he was a little stressed out, but he was prepared for that.”
Lucas, trying to see all angles, pitched in, “It’s possible he got made. Look what happened in Minnesota.”
The lift of Gordon’s eyebrow said that he saw some sense in this, prompting further commentary by Lucas. “I got the feeling Tim had a reckless streak.”
“Undercover work doesn’t generally attract the safe, timid type,” Jude pointed out sharply.
Gordon pinched the bridge of his nose and Jude could tell that he was re-thinking his decision to hire Tim. Finally, he asked, “What about this girlfriend you mentioned?”
“I don’t know who she is.” Jude busied herself cleaning up the coffee to forestall further questions on that topic.
“Okay, listen up.” Gordon had made his decision. “I’m pulling him. Jude, text him now. And Lucas, I want you to go to Half Moon and see if there’s a way to get him out without burning his bridges. If they buy the deceased father story and things aren’t as bad as I think they may be, he might be able to get back into Amaethon. Can you leave this morning?”
“No,” cried Jude. “He’s my trainee. I’ll go.”
“Lucas should go.”
“Gordon, please,” exclaimed Jude. “I can handle this.”
“You look tired to me, Jude.”
She suspected that might be code for, you fell asleep at the wheel. “Please, Gordon. I’m fine,” she pleaded. “Listen, I’m the one who’s been handling him. It’s probably this girl. They’re hooking up and he’s afraid to tell me about it. I know Tim. I mean, I’ve got a good sense about him. I’m the one who should go up there.” Drops of coffee dripped through her white fingers clutching the wet paper towels.
The boss mulled it over for a moment and relented. “All right. Get whatever you need and head out. I want to hear something by tonight.”
Jude and Lucas left the office together, tension between them palpable. He gave her a long, hard look as she deposited the paper towels in a waste bin. She felt it through her back and glanced up. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course, I’m all right,” she said, unable to keep her annoyance with the whole situation out of her voice.
“It wouldn’t be your fault if he pulled up stakes. It happens. Not everyone is cut out for
this work.”
“He’s fine, Lucas.” And that was that.
Except that Lucas was waiting for her in the hall. With the office’s open floor plan, it was often hard to get a word in private.
“How was New York?” he asked.
“Good.”
“What’s Alice up to these days?”
“Same old.”
“Listen, I’m not tryin’ to muscle in on you,” he said. “You know me better than that.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied.
“So why the cold shoulder?”
“I’m just worried about Tim.” She started down the hall toward the stairs and Lucas kept pace with her.
“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“But you always thought he was a lightweight.”
“I never said that.”
“You thought it.”
Lucas laughed. “Okay, I thought it. I’m only sayin’ that I don’t want you to be hard on yourself. Gordon hired him; you just got tagged to train him. And knowing you, the CIA couldn’t have done a better job. The people who come to us because they want to help animals, they bring a lot of passion and idealism. And he had balls, I’ll give him that–”
“What’s your point?”
“Going ‘undercover,’” he said, putting finger quotes around the word, “sounds like romantic spy novel stuff. But it isn’t. You know that, and I know that. On edge every minute of all the grunt work that makes you sick for how the animals are treated. Tim was there for a long time, as these things go. It’s no disgrace if he couldn’t take it anymore.”
“That’s not what happened,” Jude insisted.
“If it did, he probably doesn’t want to have to face you. Everybody in this movement looks up to you.”
Jude shrugged him off but cringed inside. Lucas was probably her best friend and she should have told him the truth. God knows, he deserved it.
More than once she’d wondered if she needed to keep her relationship with Tim a secret because of an ego-driven need to hang onto her status as a seasoned, no-holds-barred investigator. What would her colleagues make of the fact that Jude Brannock – intrepid animal welfare luminary – was sleeping with her young male trainee? But more than that, it was nobody’s business.