by Heskett, Jim
This was one of her favorite things about Zach Bennett: he could go from bashful and uncertain to assertive and confident in 0.2 seconds. It was a real turn-on. She loved his ability to surprise her.
After the kiss, he pulled back and said, "I'm going to break off here and go back to my car. I'm really glad I got to see you. Hopefully in a few days we can meet up again."
“Want me to walk you?”
He grinned and shook his head. "No, thanks, I think I can manage. We already said goodbye."
“Wait.” She reached around him and gave his butt a squeeze. “There. Now I’ve said goodbye.”
He gave her one last kiss on the cheek before breaking off the trail, up to the parking lot near Scott Carpenter Park. She headed for the turnoff trail that would take her back to her condo. At first, she shoved her hands in her pockets, then, she remembered to take her left hand out so it could swing at her sides while she walked. Without the arm swing, she’d get no credit for the steps on the trail. She still needed another thousand steps for the day to hit her goal.
Close to 28th Street, the whirr of cars entering Boulder filled her ears. The air smelled like bread due to a nearby deli. Little lights glittered down from the smattering of houses in the foothills. She hadn’t been sure about this town when she’d moved here at the FBI’s request, but it had grown on her. Even only three years in, she now considered it home.
Five minutes into her walk to her condo during this cold and dark late October day, her pocket buzzed. She took her phone out to find another unavailable number on the screen. But, she had no doubt about who was on the other end of the line.
“I’m glad you called,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after last night. You disappeared on me all day today.”
Quinn laughed, a wet and uncomfortable sound. “Oh, no, Ember Clarke. I’m not disappearing on you. I’m like a ghost or an astral projection, hovering right above you. I still have three more days to play. Now, tell me: where is my Beta?”
“You’re using names now?”
"I figured since she's out and about, it's probably not a big secret any longer. Gamma has already left us. But, I'm not too worried about Beta. She'll come home, eventually. Once before, she did get out, you know. That was back when I was sloppy, not taking care to treat my guests with the attention they needed. But, I brought her back home. As I said, I'm not worried."
“You don’t sound like you’re not worried, Quinn. You sound rattled to me. You’re speaking faster, which tells me your heart rate is up. How long have you had these guests?”
“I’m not going to discuss that with you. And I am not rattled. I think you’re the one who’s rattled.”
“You’re losing your edge, Quinn. You can pretend all you like, but you are not winning this battle.”
He grunted. "You took me by surprise when you sent your tattooed friend to rescue her. That won't happen again."
Ember walked, keeping her mouth shut. She didn't need to let Quinn know she and Layne weren't working together. Maybe Quinn knew they were neighbors, or perhaps not. But, Ember had to assume Quinn didn't know Layne by name, or he would have said it, instead of 'her tattooed friend.' Quinn liked to say Ember’s full name as a show of dominance. She had encountered his type before.
“If you’re not going to answer my questions,” Ember said, “then what can I do for you?”
“In Broomfield,” Quinn said, “there’s a little park with a baseball diamond. It backs up to open space, on top of a hill. I’m sure you can find it.”
“Okay, what about it?”
“The day after tomorrow. At sunset. You be there and we’ll have it out. I’ll bring Alpha with me. She’s my favorite, so you have to understand, if anything happens to Alpha, I will be very upset.”
“I’m not going to hurt her. If she ends up hurt, it’ll be your fault.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ember Clarke. What happens to her is entirely within your control. And if anyone besides you shows up, she dies. I won’t let you surprise me again.”
“How do I know you’ll be there? Twice you’ve promised me, and twice you’ve disappointed me. I’m starting to think you’re not a man of your word.”
“I guess you’ll have to show up and see what happens.”
The call ended as Ember made the turn under the bridge to reach her condo. Cars whizzed by. A group of students nodded at her as they passed her on the trail.
She checked the parking lot once she was on the other side of the bridge. Layne's car was still gone, and as she ascended the steps to the second-floor walkway, she could see there was also zero activity in his apartment.
Layne was a mystery Ember didn’t know how to solve. But, dealing with Quinn was much more urgent. Two more days until this ordained showdown. Two more days to find him and kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ZACH
Day Five
Zach sat up when he heard something out in the living room. He stared at his closed door for a few seconds, waiting for another sound, and also letting himself fully wake. His LASIK-adjusted eyes sometimes had trouble focusing on things far away for a few seconds.
Going to see Ember last night had settled his mind a little, and had led to marginally better sleep. Still not great. He'd woken up probably half a dozen times. Perhaps his night's rest would have been better if he had told Ember everything that was going on with him and Thomas, but, for some reason, Zach hadn't been able to do it. He was holding back.
Maybe he was doing it because he didn't want to get her in trouble, too. Or, perhaps he didn't want Ember to see that he had been so far unable to handle the situation by himself.
He thought about Ember and smiled, considering the contrast between her black hair and milky skin, the way it offset her blue eyes like crystals gleaming on her face. She had to be one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen: top five, no doubt about it.
A clang came from the living room, then the sound of feet shuffling. Zach squinted at the door, trying to decide if he’d actually heard something, or if he was still in the land between dreams and real life.
He whipped back the covers and slipped on a shirt, then he picked up the baseball bat, the same one he’d carted from place to place since little league. Blinking, trying to make his eyes open all the way, Zach pulled back his bedroom door and hoisted the bat.
Standing in the living room, holding a cardboard box, was his roommate, Alec.
“Sorry if I was being loud,” Alec said, “but are going to break my head open for it?”
Zach lowered the bat until it touched the carpet below his feet. “What are you doing here? I thought you were staying down in Denver for a few days.”
Alec sniffed and clutched the cardboard box a little closer. “Shit changed.”
Zach noticed a few things in quick succession. First, there were several boxes on the floor. Many of them had Alec’s name written on them. Alec was out of breath, a panic-filled expression on his face. And finally, that Alec had a black eye.
“What are you doing?”
Alec set the box on top of the others and ran a hand through his short hair. “I’m moving out. I know we haven’t had a chance to talk about it, but this is happening today. Right now.”
“What?”
“Sorry, bro, but I gotta leave.”
Zach had a flash of twenty-four hours ago, sitting in the living room with Alec while he installed new laces in his shoes. And how he’d spilled his guts about all the garbage going on right now. Zach himself didn’t understand all of it — who Firedrake or Draconis really was, what Thomas Milligan was really working toward, why he walked around with an armed bodyguard — but he sensed that it was all something he wanted to get far away from.
And he just realized he’d told Alec way too much.
“Where did you get that black eye?”
Alec scoffed. "Oh, this? It's nothing. I was, uh, playing handball at Northside Aztlan with those LASA guys, a
nd I caught one in the face. You know how hard they play. It's no big deal."
“Bullshit.”
Alec pursed his lips and moved the stack of boxes closer to the door. Zach noted he was walking with a limp now, which he hadn’t had yesterday.
“You got all that playing handball? Since when do you hang out with the LASA crew?”
“Whatever, Zach. Save it. It is what it is. Believe me, or don’t — I can’t force you to see reason, so I’m going to keep putting my shit into boxes.”
“Did one of the handball players also hit you in the leg to give you that limp?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alec, stop.”
“Stop what?”
“You can’t move out. Rent is due in less than a week. I can’t cover you. I can barely make my half this month. If you disappear, I’m so screwed. Please.”
Alec set the boxes down next to the door and wiped sweat from his brow. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. But me moving out is not up for discussion. I can maybe find someone to move into my old room, but that’s going to have to wait until I’m settled somewhere else. Right now, I have to get out of here.”
“What did they do to you?”
Alec shrugged, avoiding eye contact with Zach. “Nothing. Nobody did anything to me. And, I don’t really appreciate the interrogation.”
"Come on. I know what's going on here. Let's talk about this. These same people are harassing me, so I know exactly what you're going through. I should never have come to you yesterday morning to tell you about it. That's on me, and I'm so sorry. But you can't just pick up and leave. We have to do something. I can't keep letting these people win. I can't let this problem spread to everyone else around me."
Alec plucked his keys from the hooks next to the front door. Now he did meet Zach’s eyes, and Zach could see a tremendous sadness there in his roommate’s gaze. An expression of sincerity he had never before seen Alec wearing.
“I have to go pick up the truck. If you don’t want to move boxes, I understand. Derrick and Madison are coming over in about an hour to help me load shit onto the truck.”
“Wait…”
“I’ll be back in a little bit. If you’re not here when I get back, then… take it easy.”
Alec shut the door behind him, and Zach stood there in his underwear, holding the baseball bat. All alone. The silence in the apartment was like a deafening blast in his ears.
Zach dropped the bat so he could ball his fists, and then he slammed one into the wall behind the couch, leaving a row of dimples with his knuckle indentions.
This had to stop.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ISABEL
Isabel Yang opened the rental car door on Church Street in Lincoln, New Hampshire. The cold humidity in the air smacked her in the face immediately. For some reason, it was much worse here than it had been at the airport. Her dad had once coined the term moogy to describe this weather. Cool and muggy at the same time.
She pulled her jacket close and looped the scarf around her neck to form a shield against it. Still, the cold cut through. The chilly months on the east coast were the worst.
Isabel glanced around at the houses. All of them were white wood, with porch columns and chain-link swing sets and with the numbers written in small lettering on their painted porches. She surveyed around until her eyes landed on the number 1624.
Gloveless fingers picked up her purse from the passenger seat and locked the door, then crossed the street. There was exactly zero traffic in this tiny little town. Pretty here, too. The mountains around the valley were littered with trees in the late stages of their fall transition, yellows and reds creating a quilt of technicolor foliage in all directions.
Up the stairs, she knocked on the door. Wooden floorboards creaked across the interior, and the door cracked open. A face appeared in the door as the person inside leaned closer. The oldest man Isabel knew, the retiree Jacob Wood.
The lines around his face intensified as his mouth dropped open, with white hair stretched tight across his scalp. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Hey, kiddo. If you’re here, then it can’t be good.”
“Let me in? I’m freezing my buns off out here.”
“Of course,” he said as he stepped back and waved her inside. She crossed the threshold into what looked like a hoarder’s paradise. Stacks of newspapers and magazines everywhere. Multiple cats running around, old pizza boxes piled up like the leaning tower of Pisa, at least a half-dozen remote controls on the coffee table.
“I’d ask how you found me,” Jacob said, “but since you still work there, I suppose I don’t need to.”
Retired Special Agent Jacob Wood pointed her toward the couch, and she sat while he disappeared into the kitchen. She moved a couple of blankets and a basket of folded clothes to the floor to make room.
A moment later, he came back with two mugs of coffee. “I hope black’s okay. I’m all out of cream.”
“Black is fine,” she said as she accepted the mug and set it on the coffee table in front of her. The liquid within was as dark as midnight. She hated black coffee and had no idea why she’d claimed it would be fine.
Jacob shooed a cat off a nearby stool, then he set it across from her. He let out a groaning sigh as he descended onto it. “How is your knee?”
“Overall, it’s good. It aches a little in the cold and wet.”
“Goodness. I’ll bet New Hampshire doesn’t agree with it, then.”
"You could say that. I started running again a couple of years ago, and that was slow going at first, but I can do a 5K without too much trouble now."
“Good, good,” Jacob said, slurping his coffee and eyeing her over the top of his mug. “No basketball, though?”
She shook her head. Isabel usually grew annoyed at these questions, but she would tolerate them from Jacob. He got a pass.
“And you’re liking life up here?” she asked.
“I liked my solitude, which I thought was absolute, before today.”
Isabel grinned and rolled her eyes.
“You know I’m teasing,” he said. “What happened to bring you to my door?”
“Do you know the name Allison Campbell?”
His brow knitted. “From the Bureau?”
Isabel nodded and sipped her coffee, which was so bitter she had to force her facial muscles not to contract in horror. She managed to swallow it down, but she set the mug on the coffee table in front of her and wished she’d brought gum to erase the lingering feeling in her mouth.
“I think so,” Jacob said, musing as his jaw clicked back and forth. “Wait. Yes. About your age, caucasian, long black hair, on undercover assignments a lot. Pretty, but not as pretty as you, obviously.”
Isabel couldn’t help but giggle. “You old charmer.”
He paused, then his mouth hung open as his eyebrows climbed up onto his forehead. “Oh, yes. Campbell. Oh, yes, I remember her. When I retired from the FBI, I put all that stuff into little thought boxes in the back of my brain. But, yes, I remember Allison Campbell. Quite a stink she caused.”
“That’s why I’m here. She’s currently undercover in Denver, operating under the name Ember Clarke.”
He frowned. “Should you be telling me this?”
“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t be here at all, but I’ve run out of options.”
“Desperation in any career field is rarely a good sign,” he said. “Desperation in the FBI is suicide.”
“This is about her and Marcus. I found a report in his desk, heavily redacted, that lists the two of them in a disciplinary infraction. I don’t even know when the incident took place, but I have a feeling you have answers. I need to know what happened with the two of them.”
Jacob leaned back on his stool, making it creak as his eyes searched the ceiling. “I remember. Six years ago, maybe seven or eight, I don’t know. This must have happened before you t
ransferred to DC, but I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it later.”
Isabel frowned. “I’m not. People don’t tell me things. I’ve never been up on the news.”
"We used to gossip constantly, so it sounds like it's changed there. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, what led to that report was ugly, and no one was better off for it. I think a lot of people wanted to pretend it never happened."
When he paused and his eyes went blank, Isabel leaned forward. “Please, Jacob. I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Marcus was an up-and-comer in the Bureau. He had that shark smile and always knew the right thing to say. Allison was a hot young thing, fresh out of the Academy, but just as ambitious as he was. The chemistry between the two of them was inevitable. Everyone saw it coming.”
“Saw what coming?”
“They had a fling.”
“They what?”
He paused to cough into a handkerchief he’d brought out of his back pocket. “Yes, they had a fling. Problem was, Marcus was married at the time. I think they got caught bumping their uglies in his office, or somewhere else in the building. Real nasty stuff. Not the fling, I mean, but the fallout from it. Some people tried to cover it up, which ended in chaos. He got divorced not long after, too.”
“I can’t believe this.”
Jacob clucked his teeth a couple of times. "What does he have to do with her now? Is Marcus her case agent?"
Isabel shook her head. “No, that would be me. But he’s my boss.”
“He’s your boss? Oh, kiddo, I’m so sorry. He’s a real piece of work.”
“I’m beginning to see how much. The point is, she’s gone rogue in Denver. I’ve been trying to bring her back into the fold, but Marcus has done everything in his power to sabotage me. I was thinking he wanted to pin this mess of an operation on me when it failed, but with what you’re telling me now…”
“Allison Campbell had a promising career. But, as you’ve guessed, after she and Marcus were disciplined, their paths went in different directions. He somehow parlayed the whole event to move up, and she got the proverbial shaft from the FBI. It’s not fair, but that’s how the gender politics shake out, most of the time.”