Eyes downcast, Luke turns away from her. So he got the message. But he didn’t like it one bit. Should she be surprised?
“A meeting sounds great,” Charley says, “but I’d like to ask for something else, too.”
“OK,” Cole answers.
“Maybe you could devote some of your considerable resources to finding Lacey Shannon. Obviously she wanted to present this material herself. Maybe she could help explain it to all of us.”
Luke opens the refrigerator, takes out a beer.
“I’m not sure that’s obvious, but I’ll consider it,” Cole answers.
Luke wedges the beer bottle against the edge of the counter, then loudly pops the cap off with the side of one fist.
“Stay where you are,” Cole says. “I’ll land in about a half hour and then I’ll call with a meeting place. Somewhere close to you, of course.”
29
“What are these?” Cole finally asks. He’s looking up at Charlotte from behind reflective sunglasses that make it impossible for her to read his expression.
Next to her, Luke exhales in a loud huff. They’ve walked Cole through everything on that damn flash drive. In great detail. And now he’s going to act like he didn’t hear any of it? This is going to be harder than she thought.
Most of the Lake Patrick boat launch is open-air, except for a metal bench at the very end of the dock. That’s where Cole first took a seat, leaving Charley, Luke, and Marty to stand between him and the dock’s edge like knights delivering reports to their king. They’re all inside the halo of shade cast by several rusted metal umbrellas. As always, there’s something about the sight of these umbrellas, with their sculpted details and flaking white paint, that makes Charley a little sad; they’re evidence someone once thought Lake Patrick would become a recreational haven, not a spot for jerks to dump their trash and unwanted pets.
And for shady CEOs to meet with their secret test subjects in private.
“You really want us to go through it all again?” Charley asks.
“No.” Even though it was Luke who gave the presentation, Cole looks straight at her. “I want you to tell me specifically what I’m looking at on this screen. What types of files are these?”
“They’re screen caps,” Marty says.
“So you haven’t been able to follow this link?” Cole asks.
“I thought we said that,” Luke says, impatience building. “Didn’t we say that? Because I could swear that we . . .” Charley places a hand on his shoulder; he falls silent. But he’s right. Cole’s being an obstinate jerk, and if he keeps it up, there’s only going to be so many more times she’ll be willing to silence Luke with a look.
“Screen captures,” Cole says again, as if this entire thing is a waste of his time.
“Yes,” Charley says, “what did you expect? She doesn’t work for the CIA.”
“Of course not. She’s his on-again, off-again girlfriend with a history of drug addiction who told Luke a lie so he’d arrest him. How could we possibly suspect her motives are anything but pure?”
“We don’t know her story about the beating was a lie,” Luke says.
“So we know she was beaten up?” Cole asks.
“Or Jordy threw her face-first into a tree by the scruff of her damn neck. Knuckle patterns aren’t the point, and you know it.”
“No, the point is, Charley needs to be resting and recovering, and instead you’ve got her all caught up in amateur detective hour.”
As soon as Luke’s mouth opens, Charley cuts him off. “They’re screen caps because she was afraid and didn’t have experience with what she was doing. She just grabbed what she could off his computer and ran.”
“Screen captures can be altered,” Cole answers.
“OK. So we can’t trust her because she’s not CIA, but now she’s able to alter screen caps?” Charley asks.
Her question hangs over them for a few seconds, during which Cole sets the laptop on the bench next to him and folds his hands over his lap. “I am recommending patience and deliberation. That’s all. Due process. Remember it? It’s something we used to have before social media.”
“Due process, huh?” Luke asks. “Awesome. So you’re taking this right to the feds?”
“I don’t want any of you starting forest fires because of the crazy ramblings of a young woman who lies, abuses drugs, and drops something like this in your lap and then runs for the hills. This flash drive is . . . is a jumble of I don’t know. Take away your interpretation and it’s nothing.”
“Fine,” Luke says, “let’s find her and talk to her.”
“Perhaps I will,” Cole says with a smile. “I’ve already started looking for her.”
Marty and Luke look as surprised by this news as Charley feels.
“All right,” Luke says. “Good, I guess.”
“You guess? I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Well, it’s part of it,” Luke says.
“Part of it?” Cole asks.
“I’d like to interview her myself, but something about your tone tells me that’s not going to happen. What with your concern for due process and all.”
“I’m sorry, Luke, but if this is really what you describe, how long do you think the Altamira Sheriff’s Department is going to be able to handle it on its own?”
“Well, at least we’d end up contacting the right people. That’s probably why she came to us in the first place. But you, on the other hand, you’ll probably just . . .”
Luke falls abruptly silent.
Cole raises his eyebrows and smiles. “I’d just what?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Throw them all in a cell in some lab somewhere.”
“Right. Just like I did Charley when I found out she was the only person in whom Zypraxon actually worked. Could you maybe give me a little more credit here?”
Marty says, “You could stop talking to us like we’re nine and see how that goes? Just a thought.”
“Ah,” Cole says, “Marty and his thoughts. Look, I realize this is a highly unusual arrangement, and that it’s also new, which means we’re sort of figuring things out as we go. So allow me to say, quite clearly, good job! This was the perfect way to handle this.”
“I’m sorry . . . what?” Charley asks.
“Bringing this to me like this.”
“We didn’t bring this to you,” she says. “You eavesdropped on our conversation and made us bring it to you.”
“Either way, the end result’s the same.”
“How’s that?” she asks.
The only things she can see in his glasses are her own reflection, the blue sky overhead, and some of the expanse of glittering black water behind her. But she’s pretty sure he’s staring right into her eyes.
“I’ll handle it,” Cole says. “You don’t need to worry about it anymore.” Only then does she realize he’s got the flash drive in his right hand. When he notices her looking at it, he closes his fist around it. “I want you to get some rest and find some pleasant, quiet ways to occupy your time. Do you have any hobbies? Sketching? Knitting? Kickboxing? You know, when you can’t accidentally kick someone’s head off, I mean.”
Charley just glares at him.
“There she is,” Cole says with a smile, “there’s the Charlotte Rowe I know and love. OK. Everyone. Good talk! I’ll be in touch.”
When Cole stands and starts back up the dock, Charley feels the men on either side of her go tight as guitar strings. She doesn’t blame them. The sudden tension in her own chest feels like it’s headed for her throat.
“That’s it?” Marty calls out.
It’s enough to stop Cole in his tracks.
“You’re just going to leave him like that?”
“Leave who like what?”
“Luke,” Marty says. “Exposed.”
“Exposed?”
“Henricks is working for these people, and Lacey’s missing. Where do you think that leaves him if they ever figure out Lacey left a gift behind at the sta
tion?”
Cole turns to face them, but he doesn’t move to close the distance. “You all are safer here than you know. Safer than most people are . . . well, anywhere. I know it sounds cold, but Charley is very valuable to me. And I protect what’s valuable to me.”
“Maybe,” Marty says. “I mean, I think you think that. But what I also think is you brought a terrorist network into our backyard, and you don’t want to admit it. Now whether you meant to or not, I don’t know you well enough to say. But right now the truth of this thing’s staring you in the face, and you still won’t admit it’s real. So how’s that supposed to make us feel safe? It’s not, is what I think. That said, here’s a suggestion, Mr. Graydon. If you really want to be the lord of this town, start acting like it.”
“Or else what?” Cole asks.
“Or maybe your board finds out about everything you’re up to here.”
“I see. You’re threatening me. Well, that’s interesting, Marty, because what happens now is if you threaten me, you threaten the lodge, and if you threaten the lodge, you threaten the tunnel, and if you threaten the tunnel, you threaten Pearsons Road, and once all those things are threatened, you’ve threatened pretty much everything I’ve done for Charley.”
“Aw, hell, no,” Marty says. “You didn’t buy that resort for Charley.”
“I didn’t? Who’d I buy it for, then?”
“You did it to show her how goddamn powerful you were before you’d even met. You did it to scare the crap out of her and show you were watching her every move, and now you’re stuck with it.”
“Give me a break. I could off-load it tomorrow if I wanted.”
“Why don’t you?” Charley asks.
“Because I’m investing in all of you, and that means investing in your town.”
“Or creating a lot of activity that distracts from your spies,” Luke grumbles, “and giving yourself a legitimate reason to set up shop here.”
“Charley’s not a legitimate reason?”
“One you can actually talk about, I mean,” Luke says.
“If this town’s really an investment now,” Marty cuts in, “you can’t just let this cancer grow here because you made some backroom deals to get that tunnel built. I mean, dammit, Cole. These psychos are probably going to target your people along with Muslims and women with their own thoughts and whoever else makes their dicks feel small.”
“My people?” Cole asks. “Marty, there are only ten of my people in the world, and I barely get along with any of them. Spare me the identity politics, old straight white guy.”
“I wasn’t talking about you being a goddamn billionaire. That’s just a lottery number, and personally I’d always hoped the winners would be more grateful than you seem to be, but apparently not.”
“Do I need to stand here all day and listen to insults you thought up in the shower? I’ll do it, if it means I never have to hear them again.”
Marty laughs bitterly.
“No, seriously. Are we done?” Cole asks. “Because it’s not going to change anything I’ve said. I will handle this. You can go back to your comfortable, normal lives. Lives I guarantee the continued safety of. In the meantime, consider that if there’s a gratitude shortage on this dock, it’s on that end.”
Charley tells herself not to, but she looks at Luke anyway. His expression shows a battle between shell shock and anger. He’s staying quiet for her, and it’s tearing him up inside.
He senses her gaze, looks into her eyes. There’s a flash of something there that’s pleading and frightened and guilty all at once. It makes her remember that moment back in his kitchen, when she put her hands on his chest and stared into his eyes, silencing him with silence. If she doesn’t speak up, that moment will leave a wound that will start to fester in no time.
“We don’t believe you,” she finally says.
“You don’t believe what?” Cole asks.
“We don’t believe you’re going to do anything about this,” Charley says.
“Define this.”
“Jordy Clements is building a network of domestic terrorists across the country, and he’s going to use the tunnel project to supply them with bomb-making materials. Lacey Shannon found out, and now she’s missing.”
“And if I find out there’s any truth to that wild theory, Altamira will be rid of Jordy Clements, I can assure you.”
“That’s not enough, Cole,” she says.
“It isn’t?”
“No. He has to be stopped, and whatever network he’s built has to be exposed. And we’re afraid you won’t do that.”
“Why?”
Because you’re afraid of exposing all the other shady stuff we’re all doing up here. But Luke speaks up before she can give voice to this thought. “Because you told me to let him go,” he says.
Charley feels a combination of relief and anxiety. She’s been giving voice to his suspicions, she’s sure, but maybe she’s also given him permission to speak for himself. Or permission to hang himself in front of their new overlord. Either way, it’s his choice to make.
“Did you even know why I’d arrested him?” Luke asks. “Or did one of your spies just call and tell you I’d dragged him out of the Gold Mine and, well, he’s a Clements, so I had to let him go?”
“You have a tendency to overact,” Cole says. “It got worse when Charley left.”
“Really?” Charlotte asks. “I asked you to send him a text while I was recovering, and you acted like you couldn’t even be bothered to say his name. Now you’re saying you monitor Luke when I’m out of town?”
Before Cole can answer, Luke says, “You didn’t, did you? You had no idea why I’d arrested Jordy, and you still told me to let him go.”
“There were no reports of shoot-outs or bar fights or any kind of violence in Altamira that night. There hasn’t been a homicide investigation here in seven years. My assumption was reasonable.”
“The report was sitting in the station, and she wasn’t going to talk until I had Jordy in a cell,” Luke says.
“I had nothing to do with Lacey Shannon walking out of that station,” Cole says, but Charley can already see where Luke’s headed with this.
“No, you were the reason Jordy walked out a little while after she did. And, guess what? No one’s heard from Lacey since.”
For a while, the only sounds are the water lapping against the end of the dock, the distant drone of a jet plane flying overhead, probably LA-bound, then the insistent buzz of a circling fly that none of them can bring themselves to swat away. Cole’s sunglasses still hide his eyes, but his mouth is a tense, set line.
“Before you hold me responsible for a murder,” Cole finally says, “we should probably be sure there was one.”
“Well, you’re about to get right on that,” Luke says, “right?”
She’s not sure if Cole’s stillness is that of a predator waiting to strike or a man trying to hide that taking a single step might send him off-balance.
“Cole?” Charley finally asks.
He turns his head slightly, which makes it clear he’s been glaring daggers at Luke from behind his sunglasses.
“I want three,” Charley says.
“Three what?” he asks.
“You know what.”
“You must be joking.”
“I’m not,” she says. “We need to protect ourselves. I need to protect us.”
“You have plenty of protection. Trust me.”
“See, that’s just it . . .”
“You don’t trust me. Yes, I know. And it’s very distressing, I promise. But the answer’s no. I’m not giving you Zypraxon so you can weaponize a vigilante mission I don’t approve of.”
“I’m talking about self-defense, Cole.”
Cole removes his sunglasses. The look in his eyes frightens her. “I’m afraid,” he says with deliberate enunciation, “that it’s not always possible to control everything that happens once you’ve been triggered.” She doesn’t need skywriting t
o get his point. He’s talking about Richard Davies. “Zypraxon is not a precision-guided missile. It’s a cannon. And we must be cautious and responsible with how we use it.”
So he’s not mentioning the incident—the murder!—specifically. Fine. She’ll thank him later. Once she stops sweating. He must be satisfied she got his point, because he slides his sunglasses back on.
Next to her, Marty grumbles, “The only reason you don’t approve of this vigilante mission is ’cause you can’t profit from it.”
“Oh, shut up, Bernie Sanders.”
“Quite the opposite, in fact,” Marty adds. “This little mission might expose who you’re really in bed with.”
“Since it’s clear all of you believe I’m incapable of caring for another human being or following anything one might call a principle, might I suggest the following,” Cole says. “Put your faith in the idea that I won’t allow anything bad to happen to any of you for the very simple reason that it would entail a colossal waste of my money and my time. When Charlotte isn’t working, I want her happy and relaxed. However, it remains to be seen whether the two of you will ever allow her to be either, no matter what I do.”
Cole turns and heads off down the dock.
30
Once the Suburban pulls away from the boat launch, Cole asks, “You got everything?”
Next to him in the back seat, Scott nods. He’d already removed his earpiece by the time Cole got back to the vehicle, so Cole wants to be sure he really did listen to the entire conversation via the matching earpiece worn by Cole, the same one Charlotte refused to wear when she took out Davies.
“Tell me about the operation here on the ground,” Cole says.
Their driver, Fred Packard, is older than Scott. He’s the security director here in Altamira, and he’s said very little since their arrival. Paunchy and balding with a wide, easily sunburned nose, he was also one of Ed’s old cop friends, hired by Ed, so the fact that he might be pissed about Ed’s unexpected retirement has Cole on guard. “We’ve barely got an operation here on the ground,” Fred says.
Cole’s too shocked to say anything.
Scott clears his throat. “In a pure manpower sense, it’s . . . it’s light, sir. Apparently Ed wanted it that way.”
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