The Pawn

by Steven James

  The governor stepped around the couch, walked up to me, and stood close enough for me to smell his minty breath. “Dr. Bowers, have you ever been fishing in the ocean?”

  “I’ll find out, Governor. It’s just a matter of time. I already know about Trembley, that you sent him to follow me.”

  He turned, walked over to the fireplace where the giant fish hung above the mantel. “Swordfish. Or maybe marlin, or like this tarpon here,” he said.

  “Governor, did you hear what I said?”

  “Of course, tarpon tend to stay closer to shore than marlin or sword.” He stepped back to admire his fish. “I caught this one off the coast of Tampa. Didn’t even realize it at the time, but we were fishing in the most densely shark-infested waters in the world—even more so than the Great Barrier Reef. Most people don’t know that.” He turned to face me. “Dr. Bowers, do you know what the most dangerous shark in the world is?”

  Enough games. Enough banter. “Things spun out of control, didn’t they? The place was a time bomb, and you dialed it to zero. Jones imploded after the assassination, and you needed to give your supervisors proof that you’d cleaned things up. But why did you leave the tape behind? That’s the one thing I can’t figure out.”

  “The shark, Dr. Bowers. Try to guess the shark.”

  “I don’t know,” I said through my teeth. “The great white.”

  He smirked. “Yes, you see, most people think so—that’s what everyone says, that or the hammerhead; but no. It’s the bull shark, actually. Likes to stay near shore, and it can live in both salt water and fresh water, very adaptable to different environments. That’s what makes it so deadly.”

  He turned to me. His eyes narrowed, became bullets. The change was stunning. “They tell me that around there people don’t always catch what they expect,” he said. “Sometimes the fish at the other end of the line turns out to be a bull shark. Not something you’d want to pull up to the boat.”

  I cocked my head. “Are you threatening me, Governor?”

  He stepped even closer, and his voice leveled off into a flat, metallic whisper. His eyes, cool black stones. “If you’re going to go trolling through these waters, you better be ready to reel in whatever fish decides to bite.”

  “I’m ready,” I said. “Bring on the sharks.”

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  “Neither do you.”

  Just then Ms. Banner and Tessa appeared at the doorway. “The young lady is anxious to get going,” said Ms. Banner. My guess was that Ms. Banner was anxious to get rid of Tessa and get back to personally assisting the governor. I watched Governor Taylor’s eyes track across the room, and come to rest on Tessa.

  I swear, if he even looks at her the wrong way I’m going to take him down.

  “And who do we have here?” he asked.

  “My name is Tessa. So you’re Governor Taylor?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She scanned the room. “Nice tarpon.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  The governor smiled. “Well, thank you.”

  Her eyes flickered from one painting to the next, scrutinizing them. “So,” she asked at last, “how come you only have paintings of battles that the South won?”

  OK. Now that’s just plain impressive.

  He hesitated for a moment. “That’s . . . very astute, young lady. You’re a bright girl. I’m sure your father is very proud of you.”

  “Well,” Tessa said, “you’d have to ask him about that.”

  My heart squirmed inside my skin. “C’mon, Tessa. I’m done here. Let’s get going.”

  The governor grinned. “Dr. Bowers, if you and Agent Jiang can’t make it to the luncheon tomorrow, I’ll certainly understand.”

  “Oh, we’ll be there,” I said. “I’ve heard they’re serving fish.”

  He breathed out through his nose like Margaret tends to do. Good. I’d annoyed him.

  “Ms. Banner,” he said, “please give our young guest one of the signed photographs.”

  And with that, Ms. Banner led us outside without a word, handed Tessa a picture without a word, and ushered us to the car without a word.

  As soon as I started the engine, Tessa crinkled up the picture and tossed it out the window onto the governor’s meticulously manicured lawn. “I don’t like the way he looked at me.”

  “You’re a good judge of character,” I said. “Keep that up.”

  Amazing. We actually agreed on something.

  63

  All the way back to Asheville, Tessa rode in silence, her iPod plugged into her ears.

  I grabbed my stuff from the hotel, checked out, and drove to the safe house.

  Tessa and her iPod rode along in silence.

  The safe house Tessa and I would be staying in was a dun-colored ranch-style home on the outer fringe of the city, near the French Broad River. Sheriff Wallace had assigned Officers Jason Stilton and Patricia Muncey to guard Tessa. They were waiting for us at the house when we arrived. I recognized them from the briefing I’d given on Friday.

  “Getting colder,” said Officer Stilton as he tossed his cigarette into the grass and led me inside the house.

  Tessa and her iPod walked past us in silence.

  “Yeah,” I said watching her step past me. “Guy on the radio said something about snow tomorrow morning.”

  Officer Stilton grunted, which I guess meant he agreed.

  “Don’t mind the toys,” said Officer Muncey as we stepped into the living room. “Haven’t quite cleaned up from the last occupants yet.”

  The living room smelled vaguely of cat litter and baby powder. Toddler toys lay scattered across the floor, making the simplest trek through the living room a challenge. But the bigger challenge appeared to be avoiding stepping on one of the two cats that lurked relentlessly underfoot or appeared out of nowhere and sprawled in front of you, waiting for you to scratch them.

  “Domestic abuse case with a city council member,” said Officer Muncey. “They brought his wife and kids here to protect them.”

  “Took the kids,” grumbled Jason Stilton. “Left the cats.”

  Tessa pulled out her iPod ear buds and knelt down to pet the pumpkin-colored furrball. “Oh, they’re so cute! What are their names?”

  “That one’s Sunshine and the black one’s Midnight,” he said.

  I knelt down to pet Midnight.

  She clawed at the air and hissed at me.

  “You have to reach out toward her with your hand open,” said Tessa, demonstrating. “And do it more slowly. That way she knows you’re not going to hurt her.”

  I wondered if Tessa was really talking about the cat.

  Midnight purred, rolled onto her back, and let Tessa scratch her stomach. “See?”

  “I never would have pegged you as a cat person, Tessa,” I said.

  “I love cats.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said flatly.

  I was beginning to realize just how true that was.

  “Hello, there.”

  I turned toward the voice and saw that Ralph had stepped into the room.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “Just wanted to say hi to the brains of the family.”

  “Thank you,” said Tessa.

  “You remember me, right?”

  She nodded. “Special Agent Ralph Hawkins.”

  “Uncle Ralph.” He gave her a hug.

  So I made her cry, but Uncle Ralph got a hug. Wonderful.

  She pointed at his pocket. “What’s that?”

  “Um, nothing.”

  She feinted to the right and then leaned left, stuffed her hand into his pocket, and produced his PSP. “Sweet,” she said.

  “Hey, give me that!” He tried to snatch it away from her, but she stepped back just in time.

  “I should have warned you, Ralph,” I said. “She’s good.”

  “Why are you playi
ng video games?” she asked. “I thought you were supposed to be like solving murders or something.”

  “Everyone needs a break sometimes. Now give me that.” He reached for it again, missed. Sighed.

  “So what are you playing?”

  He gave up and leaned an arm against the wall. “Sorcerer’s Realm IV. I can’t seem to make it past the crypt on Level Five.”

  “No prob. I can help you.”

  “You play?”

  She did that sarcastic teenage girl jut-your-head-forward-and-tweak-your-voice thing. “Yeah.”

  “Oh,” said Ralph. “Right.”

  She flopped onto the couch, and he positioned himself next to her. Then she began to maneuver the game controls like a pro while he watched submissively. “See that cave?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there’s a secret passage in there, but you need to behead the ogre first.”

  “I didn’t know you could behead him. I always just beat on him with the club.”

  “No, beheading is definitely better.”

  I watched them for a few minutes, Tessa pointing. Ralph nodding, his head bobbing up and down above those massive shoulders. Watching Ralph trying to use his thick fingers to press the tiny control buttons made me think of trying to type wearing a catcher’s mitt. No wonder he couldn’t beat Tony.

  And every once in a while Tessa would laugh. For the first time in months I actually heard my stepdaughter laugh.

  As she showed my friend how to behead ogres.

  64

  Before Ralph left he pulled me aside. “Tucker’s on disciplinary leave,” he told me. “Until they can figure out exactly what went down last night.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I expected that. Any word on Vanessa?”

  He shook his head. “Last I heard she was the same. Bullet matched, though. It’s the same weapon as the mall. Listen, I gotta go, have a good afternoon with Tessa. She’s a darling girl.”

  Darling wasn’t exactly the word I would have chosen. “OK, I will.”

  Then he said good-bye to Tessa and took off. I hung out with Tessa and the cats for about half an hour, and then I checked my messages. Three voicemails from Margaret. Huh, that was even faster than I expected. One message from Lien-hua.

  I called Lien-hua.

  Maybe I should have been surprised when she told me that two hours ago they’d found the rest of Jolene’s body in the home of Reggie Abrams, retired FBI agent, but I wasn’t. Maybe I should have been surprised when she told me Abrams had been shot execution style in the head or that he was the former head of FBI in the state of North Carolina, but I wasn’t.

  The only thing that really surprised me was that Ralph hadn’t mentioned any of this when he was with me at the house.

  Weird.

  “Did we find out any more about this cult in New Mexico?” I asked her.

  “A little. The leader’s name is Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid. He used to own PTPharmaceuticals but dropped off the map after selling the company a few years ago. I’ll email you his picture and bio. Oh, and I have an address. We just called it in to the local police about ten minutes ago. They’re heading over to check him out.”

  “Give me the address,” I said, flipping open my laptop.

  “What are you doing?” asked Tessa, picking up Sunshine.

  Yeah, this is good. She likes video games. “Watch this,” I said and booted up F.A.L.C.O.N.

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” Lien-hua said. “Here’s the address: 19654 Walnut Road, Taos, New Mexico.”

  “What’s so significant about that?” I typed in the address, and Tessa watched the screen tilt and then zoom in on the coordinates. First the planet. Then the hemisphere. Then North America. The west. New Mexico. Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

  “Sweet,” she said.

  “Well,” said Lien-hua, “the phone number for Peoples Temple was Walnut 1-9654. It was retired after the tragedy. It’s never been reassigned to another customer.”

  “Subtle,” I said. But as the screen zoomed in closer, I began to regret my decision to let Tessa watch.

  “What’s that?” asked Tessa.

  Deep billows of black smoke churned from each of the six buildings. “The ranch is on fire,” I whispered. “The whole place is.” I maneuvered the cursor around the screen, tilting it, zooming in and out to observe the buildings from different angles. A fierce desert wind from the west whipped the flames into a white frenzy.

  “Are there any people in there?” Tessa asked softly.

  I flipped the laptop closed. “Tessa, wait over there for a minute ’til I’m off the phone.”

  “But—”

  “Please.”

  “Patrick—”

  “Now.”

  She let out an annoyed sigh but finally stepped back.

  “What’s going on?” asked Lien-hua.

  “They torched the whole thing,” I said. I zoomed out and saw four police cars racing down the road toward the ranch. Two fire trucks followed closely behind them. I told Lien-hua what I saw.

  “How old is the video?” she asked.

  I checked the data timer. “About five minutes. We’re between satellite passes. Hang on a minute.” I zoomed in on something in the corral. An animal. A whole herd, actually.

  I zoomed closer.

  None of them were moving.

  Zoomed closer. Closer still.

  It looked as if the livestock were covered with sores. At first I thought it might be insect activity.

  No, not that high in the mountains. It’d be too cool this late in the year.

  “Listen, Lien-hua, have the police call in a Hazmat team and tell them to avoid the dead livestock in the meadow. If Kincaid is planning another White Night, he might have developed some kind of drug or contagion. We need to isolate it ASAP.”

  I heard a shuffle of movement behind me and turned around. Tessa was staring down at the screen. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  I closed the computer again. “Please, Tessa, I’ll be off the phone in a minute.”

  She didn’t move.

  I pointed to the couch. “Work with me.”

  She shook her head, slouched away, and situated herself on it with her arms folded tightly.

  I heard Lien-hua call out for Dante Wallace to get in touch with the New Mexico state patrol and regional Hazmat teams. Then, her voice came through the phone to me again. “Pat, we’re at the Abrams’s scene now. Can you meet us here?”

  “I need to hang out with Tessa this afternoon.”

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Tessa.

  Lien-hua continued. “Well, I guess we can email you the files.” You really should swing by the crime scene. “Are they done processing it?”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded. Then I caught myself. “No, I really don’t think I can come.”

  “Come where?” asked Tessa.

  “OK,” said Lien-hua. “I guess I’ll just brief you later on what we find.”

  Then again, maybe I could leave Tessa here for a little while, let her play with the cats . . . “What’s the address?”

  “To where?” asked Tessa. “Where are we going?”

  I held the phone to my chest for a minute. “We are not going anywhere. I have to go to a crime scene.”

  “I’ve never been to a crime scene.”

  “I can’t take you.”

  “I thought you wanted to spend time with me.”

  Oh man, she was good. She was way good.

  “I do but—look, it’s against the rules.”

  “But if the cops are done, what would it matter?”

  “How do you know the cops are done?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You just asked the woman on the phone if they were done, and then you nodded—hello!—you wouldn’t have done that if she said no. So if they’re done, why can’t I come?”

  “How did you know I’m talking to a woman?”

  “Are you kidding me? Tone of voice.”


  OK, it was official. So she was a better investigator than most of the FBI agents I’d worked with over the last nine years.

  “Well,” I said. “I’m not taking you, and that’s final.”

  I pulled to a stop in front of Abrams’s house on Cedar Point Avenue and turned to Tessa. “Stay in the car.”

  “But then I can’t see—”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “How are we supposed to spend time together if you’re in there and I’m out here?”

  “Ha. That’s not going to work this time.” I pointed to the two FBI agents who were stationed on the porch. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe. I’ll be back in a couple minutes, and we’ll go grab some supper. Maybe steaks or something.”

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, I like meat. Nice, juicy catburgers whenever possible.”

  “That’s not even funny.”

  “Wait here.”

  She set her jaw and slid down into her seat. As I stepped outside the car my phone rang.

  Margaret.

  She didn’t waste time. “Why aren’t you returning my calls?”

  “I’m a little busy, Margaret.”

  “You went to see the governor today?”

  Wow. Word travels fast. “I needed some advice.”

  “On what?”

  “Fishing.”

  “Well, listen,” she said. “I’ve looked over all the reports from last night, and I’m satisfied.”

  I almost dropped Ralph’s phone. “You’re what?”

  “Satisfied with Tucker’s response to the situation,” she continued. “Of course, it will have to go through all the official channels, but he really had no choice but to fire his weapon when the attacker refused to comply. You, on the other hand, did not respond appropriately.”

  I shifted the phone in my hand. “Excuse me?”

  “When the assailant was waving the guns in your direction and in the direction of your fellow agents, you did not fire. Standard operating procedure clearly indicates that—”

  Anger rising. Rising.

  “The man was holding toy guns,” I interjected. “And he couldn’t have dropped them even if he wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t know that at the time, now did you?”

  Don’t lose it, Pat. Don’t lose it.