Fallon's Flaw

by Dale Mayer

  *

  Baking was something she could do blindfolded. Lindsey hated to admit just how much seeing Fallon again affected her. They’d had this truce, where she allowed him to look at her as a little kid and to bug her the same way, but she was damn tired of it. She’d lost her virginity a hell of a long time ago and had spent time with somebody who she thought had been important, only to realize afterward that he had been a blip on the radar, when her focus had come back to that damn Fallon—the one guy she couldn’t stop thinking about.

  She was hug-friendly with everybody else here, but, with Fallon, they kept a wary distance. She figured it was because, one day, they would go up in flames together. She couldn’t wait for that day, but he seemed determined to keep her at arm’s length.

  She had talked to her uncle about it a couple times, and he’d explained how Fallon struggled with some things—one being breaking up a family unit by having a relationship with somebody close to the family. She didn’t quite understand that but figured that it went along with stepbrothers not wanting to have relationships with stepsisters or not having a relationship with your best friend because you were afraid of losing that initial friendship. And she understood that, but, at the same time, they were adults, and, if this was something they both wanted, they should certainly go for it.

  But then the woman inside her was desperate to have this relationship. She felt like she’d been waiting and waiting since forever. She kept coming back here after her semesters, if she wasn’t doing various trainings, though it seemed like her entire world was training.

  She needed to take as many breaks as she could because her medical school schedule was deadly. But she was struggling with that as would anybody. She could only do what she could do, but it was hard sometimes. Still, seeing Fallon here was one thing, but realizing that he didn’t want her here was another.

  She understood that the company was in turmoil, with Bullard missing and presumably dead, not to mention the assaults against other team members. They were trying to keep a lid on the news globally, as far as she understood from her uncle. It was easy to see that tension in the air when she came home this time. Her uncle was visibly rattled, and, though he was holding it together, when he gave himself a moment to unwind, the grief he felt was evident.

  It was too early for everybody to determine that Bullard was gone, gone, but she understood that their business tended to make the disappearances seriously hard accept. The fact that two men had survived the plane crash was enough to keep hope alive, though, in this case, she wasn’t sure hope was something they should keep alive.

  How many more trips like this would her uncle make? Always looking for that one threadbare line of hope that he could tug to see if, by any chance, he found Bullard there. She then realized that Uncle Dave was nowhere near ready to walk away. She understood that she really did, but it was just so damn hard to see anyone suffer; and they were all suffering here.

  This had been one of the things that had always amazed her about this “family” because they were all so damn close. She had only ever seen one other like it, and that was at Levi and Ice’s compound. Linny had gone there once, or maybe twice, though she had to think about that. She had seen them here several times. She’d been doing a practicum in Houston and had stopped in for a few days. She’d thoroughly enjoyed that visit, meeting friends again, old and new.

  She knew that they were working as hard as anyone to find Bullard too. Theirs was a weird relationship, which she didn’t quite understand—between Bullard, Levi, and Ice. Uncle Dave had just smiled and said that love took many forms. She wasn’t sure whether that was a cop-out or Bullard really had been in love with Ice. Yet she absolutely adored Levi, so it was kind of hard to see how that would all work. But Linny felt sorry for Bullard, if that were the case.

  Sometimes though, one had to force the hand of what was going on in their world in order to make progress happen. While she was busy rolling out pie dough, feeling eyes on her, she looked up to find Fallon leaning against the doorway. “Well, did you solve the problems of the world?” she asked, as she turned her attention to a bag of apples.

  He watched as she peeled and sliced them. “That looks really good.”

  “Yes,” she said in a dry tone. “Amazing, isn’t it? I can actually bake.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve always pulled off wicked desserts.”

  “I’m not just another housewife in the making,” she said in a dry tone.

  “No, according to Dave, you are one hell of a surgeon.”

  “Well, I will be,” she said, “but I’ve got a lot of surgeries to get through first.”

  “And I thought you were about to become a doctor.”

  “No, that was two years ago,” she said cheerfully. “I am a doctor already. Now I am trying to get my surgical practicum completed as well.”

  “What kind of surgery?”

  “Not sure yet,” she said. “An awful lot of choices are out there. But I’ll probably specialize in general surgery.”

  He nodded. “Interesting choice.”

  “Well, it’s not as if I haven’t seen my fair share of gunshot wounds,” she quipped.

  “And we appreciate your service,” he said more formally.

  She studied him quietly. “You do know that there’s not a very good chance of Bullard surviving, right?”

  “Sure. We all know that,” he said, his tone easy and relaxed. “But we also know him, and we’re holding out hope.”

  “That’s the problem with hope,” she said. “It keeps things alive, well past the point that they probably should be.”

  “I think it’ll take a lot longer than a few weeks for us to walk away from this.”

  “Got it,” she said. “I just feel bad for my uncle.”

  “He’s pretty affected by it, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I’d forgotten how close they were.”

  “Well, Bullard pulled your uncle out of a really bad patch way back when,” he said. “So it makes sense.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but death is death, and grief and loss are hard on us all.”

  “I think it’s harder on civilians because they feel helpless to do anything, not having been trained, like us,” he said. “I would love to see Bullard step through those doors, as hale and hearty has ever,” he said. “But it’s hard to imagine at this point.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I see death on a daily basis, and that’s pretty damn hard to deal with too.”

  “And yet you chose it. How come?”

  She appreciated the questioning tone in his voice; it wasn’t a complete judgment call. It seemed like he was trying to understand.

  “I did choose it,” she said, “because, so many times, we pull people back from the brink of death or improve the quality of their lives. I feel like I’m doing something constructive to help the world out there, and I don’t want to stop.”

  “Do you ever think you’ll get tired of it?”

  “I’m sure I will,” she said. “But hopefully there’ll be another case, where I feel like I can make a difference.”

  “And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” he said, with a quirk of his lips.

  She looked up in surprise, as she tossed sugar and cornstarch and cinnamon over her apples. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s all about making a difference in the world,” he murmured.

  “Isn’t that why you do what you do?” she asked.

  “It is, I suppose,” he said. “I just don’t usually put it in those terms.”

  “Maybe you should,” she said, with a smile.

  “Maybe, but again it’s not necessarily something I think about.”

  “It would have put you on this pathway a long time ago,” she said.

  “The question is, what difference would it have made at that point?”

  Chapter 2

  Fallon had long since left to go do whatever it was that he did, and Linny sat, hovering over a pi
e, wondering at how different her world was every time she came here. Suddenly a security alarm sounded, and she spun around and stared.

  Fallon called to her, “Don’t open the door.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” she murmured, as she stared at the front door.

  “Come into the back, please.”

  “What is it?”

  “One of the outside alarms has been triggered.”

  “It happened a few days ago too,” she muttered.

  He gave her a hard look.

  “I didn’t know what it was,” she said. “They told me it wasn’t anything important.”

  “I wonder if they would agree with that now,” he murmured. Just then his phone rang. “Quinn, where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m about ten minutes out,” he said. “Just before I left Dave, he told me something had been going on with the alarm system.”

  “Like what? Because it’s just gone off,” he said. “Any idea what it is?”

  “No,” he responded. “He just said that it’s been going off at odd hours.”

  “A short in the line?”

  “Or somebody testing it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like the sound of that,” Fallon said.

  “No, I don’t either. I’m booking it now, so about seven minutes out.”

  “Okay, I’ll go check it out,” he said.

  “Or you could wait until I get in,” he said.

  “That’s the problem with just the two of us here,” he stated. “I need to go check this out now, but I don’t want to leave Lindsey alone.” He heard her, as she gasped. He turned and glared at her.

  “Well, the cameras should be up and running, and he’s also got a new system,” Quinn said.

  “I was just trying to figure that out, when the alarm went off. It seems like we have two cameras outside, and one more at the north end of the driveway. That’s new.”

  “Right. Have you checked them to see what’s going on?”

  “I’m trying to bring them online, but they’re not coming up.”

  “Well, give me five more minutes to get there, and we’ll do a full check.”

  “I also need to check what the armory is looking like now. I think Dave’s struggling, keeping up with everything.”

  “I’m sure he has,” Quinn said. “Almost there.” And he hung up.

  She looked at him and said, “You’re not blaming my uncle for this.”

  “I’m not blaming your uncle for anything. Maintaining a place like this is a ton of work in the best of times,” he said. “So I can’t really say who, what, when, or anything else about what’s going on, but, if we have an intruder, I want to make sure he doesn’t get in through the normal methods.”

  “You want him to get in another way?” she asked curiously.

  “I don’t want him to get in at all,” he said, with a half smile. “But I also don’t know how the armory is stocked right now.”

  “Is that really the most important issue?”

  “No, it sure isn’t,” he said. “What is important is that you stay safe. So I’ll check the armory, and then I’ll do a full sweep outside.”

  Just then the alarm stopped.

  “You see? I don’t like that,” he said. “Anything creepy like that just gets my back up.”

  She turned to glare at him, but he was gone. She returned to the kitchen and checked her pie, thinking about it. Uncle Dave had explained that a bunch of glitches were going on, but, with everything else, the others were more edgy over a security system that wouldn’t stop sending out alarms. It didn’t mean that any answers were here to be found, but she also couldn’t be sure that there weren’t, either.

  As she pulled out the pie and set it on the counter, she looked out and thought she caught sight of somebody walking outside the building. She frowned, took off her oven mitts, and walked to the window to take a closer look, but nobody was there. She pulled out her phone, checked the contacts that she needed—because, of course, she had everybody’s just in case, and always had. That was Uncle Dave’s doing, making sure she was safe and had other resources besides him. She sent Fallon a message. Are you outside the kitchen?

  He replied with No.

  Somebody just walked by, she texted.

  Immediately he sent a message. I’m on it.

  She moved from window to window, searching to see if she could catch sight of the stranger again. But nothing. She got a message back a few moments later.

  Any other sign?

  She texted back, No.

  Coming in.

  She walked back to the kitchen, frowning. Was it possible she’d imagined it? Would they really get attacked here? Nothing seemed sensible about it. As she turned around in the kitchen, she almost shrieked. Standing in front of her was Quinn. He grabbed her shoulders and said, “It’s okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You might not have meant to,” she told him, “but you sure as hell did.”

  He smiled again and said, “Sorry.”

  “We thought we saw somebody outside,” she said. He looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. “Fallon’s out looking.”

  He spun around. “Where?”

  She pointed to the window and said, “I thought I saw somebody. It wasn’t you, was it?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll go out and take a look.”

  “Or not,” she said, “because Fallon already is.”

  “Yeah, well, I think I’ll go take a quick look anyway.” And, with that, he disappeared.

  She stared out the same kitchen window, until she saw him approach the spot where she thought she’d seen somebody. He did a quick search around and kept expanding the area. She appreciated his thoroughness, but then she hadn’t even heard him come inside. And that bothered her more. It’s like he had gliders on his feet or something. She sat back, a little more on edge than she’d expected.

  When the two men both came in together, she looked up and asked, “So was it just my imagination?”

  “Don’t know about that,” Fallon said, “but no sign of anyone out there now.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing,” she murmured.

  “It is, but, at the same time, we have to be vigilant. If anything like this happens again, make sure you tell us.”

  She shrugged.

  Fallon glared at her. “No, don’t brush it off,” he said. “Bullard is missing. So far five of us have been attacked. We’re at war. We don’t know with whom, and we don’t know why. But somebody is out there and is coming after us.”

  “No,” she corrected. “They went after Bullard and what? Five team members? But the initial plane crash was about Bullard and Ryland and Garret. You still don’t even know yet whether the attackers were after the team members or Bullard.”

  “We’ve looked at the issue of Garret or Ryland being the target and didn’t find anything,” he murmured.

  “So you’ve narrowed it down to just being Bullard?”

  “Yes,” they both said.

  “But there have been threats against the whole team as well, so we don’t really know. This kind of work creates enemies,” Fallon said.

  “Damn,” she said. “Because it would be nice to think that other hypothetical options were here.” She paused a moment. “More than that,” she snapped, after a moment of frustration. “I hate to see that somebody might have succeeded.”

  “We’re not too thrilled with the concept either,” Quinn said, “but we don’t know what the end game is.”

  “Well, if they take out Bullard, this property still belongs to whoever is in his will, right?”

  “In theory, yes,” Fallon said, with a glance at Quinn, “and we don’t know the information around that legality. Also, if no body is found, Bullard must be declared dead, and that can take many, many, years. Especially in a situation like this.”

  “So maybe the end game is confusion and chaos, ultimately bringing down the company?”

  “Quite possibly, yes.” Fallon nodde
d. “It could also just be somebody who wanted him gone and doesn’t give a shit about anything else.”

  “I get that,” she said. “It still sucks. Also, by the way, I’m only supposed to be here for a couple days. Then I’m heading back to New York.”

  “Got it,” he said. “I’m sorry you can’t spend it with your uncle.”

  “Me too,” she said. “He would have stayed, if I’d asked him to, but I can come another time.”

  “Understood,” Fallon said, as he looked at her. “And you don’t have to leave because he’s not here either, though.”

  “Good,” she said. “And that’s not why I’m leaving.” But she didn’t offer anything else.

  *

  Fallon refused to ask any more questions. If she wanted him to know something else, she would have said more. But, at the same time, he felt his heart sinking at the thought of her leaving again. It seemed like they were always like this, ships in the night, but never actually sitting at the same dock long enough to really get to know each other. He felt Quinn’s intense gaze, but he refused to look at him. “I’ll go see if we have any alerts and what comes up on the cameras,” he said.

  “Didn’t you have cameras up while you were out there?” she asked in surprise.

  He shook his head. “I was trying to get it all fixed up, before I went out. I don’t know if it worked or not.” He headed to the control center, Quinn at his side.

  “You didn’t see anything, did you?” Quinn asked.

  “I didn’t, and that kind of bothers me too,” he said. “None of this makes any sense. But then I’ve said that a million times already.”

  “Got it, and, just like the rest of us, you’re frustrated.”

  “We all are,” he murmured.

  “Interesting though,” he said, “that you have the relationship you do with her.”

  “What relationship?” he asked bluntly.

  At that, Quinn chuckled. “Exactly. The two of you keep dancing around each other, but neither one of you is willing to take that step.”

  “It’s not good business,” Fallon said.

  “Bullshit,” Quinn said. “You’re well past that stage.”