Go-Between

by Lisa Brackmann

  He would have made her pay.

  That was the only advantage she had right now.

  So, act normally. Whatever “normally” was for a person in her situation.

  She poured out one last glass of the Chateau Montelena. While she drank that, she dumped the rest in the sink and washed the decanter, rinsed out the bottle and put it in the recycling.

  After that, she took a quick shower and changed into a fresh T-shirt and the light pair of slacks she’d worn on the trip from Houston, and layered on the hoodie. Went back into the kitchen and put on some coffee. She drank a half a cup and poured the rest into a travel Thermos for the drive to the airport.

  It was 3:15 a.m.

  Now for the logbook.

  The ruck and the tote were still sitting by the bed, the tote between the bed and the ruck.

  Make the bed, she thought. You wouldn’t want to leave the house with the bed unmade, would you?

  Since she’d slept on top of the covers, she wouldn’t need to do much, just tidy the sheets and blankets and put the comforter on top. She tossed the pillows onto the floor, the two on Danny’s side, and then the two on hers, first the extra and then one she’d slept on, and with that, the logbook.

  She tugged and straightened the covers, spread out and smoothed the comforter over them. Retrieved Danny’s pillows and propped them up against the headboard. Then went to her side of the bed to do the same. She stood close to the wall and prayed that if anything was watching, her body hid what she was doing.

  She grabbed the top pillow and put it on the bed, against the headboard. There was the logbook, sitting on top of the other pillow. As she grabbed the pillow with one hand, she picked up the logbook with the other and slipped it into the laptop compartment of her leather tote. Took in a deep breath and placed the second pillow on the bed.

  3:22 a.m. Still too early to leave, unless you had a reason to flee.

  She forced herself to drink some more coffee. Brushed her teeth. Walked into the living room. Every creak in the house seemed magnified. She could hear the wind in the redwoods, the seeds and needles falling from the canopy to the ground, sounding almost like rain.

  Enough. It was time to go.

  She was early, even after stopping at an ATM to deposit $3,000 to her Emily account and dropping off the rental car. Arcata/Eureka was a small airport, looking something like a Holiday Inn lobby version of a rustic lodge, and there wasn’t much of anything on the post-security side to do. The one restaurant here was on the second floor pre-screening. But she wanted to get this over with, now, while there wasn’t much a line.

  She carried Danny’s logbook in her tote, $4,376 cash in her wallet.

  Her Michelle phone in its signal-blocking bag, her Michelle driver’s license and two credit cards, the two fresh passports, one of the $10,000 bundles of cash, all those were stashed in the interior pockets of the Patagonia jacket she’d packed at the bottom of the ruck.

  If they searched her bags …

  You got through Gary, she told herself as she approached the TSA officer. You can get through this.

  She smiled at the TSA officer, a young man who looked very bored. “Good morning,” she said, and handed him her Emily license.

  He looked at it, looked at her, scribbled something on her boarding pass and waved her through.

  The x-ray line.

  She put the ruck down first, then her shoes and hoodie, her iPad, and finally, her tote. She didn’t want to be separated from that tote any longer than she absolutely had to.

  Don’t stare at the woman stationed at the x-ray monitor, she told herself. Just walk into the scanner when they tell you to. Stand on the yellow footprints. Raise your hands above your head, like a criminal, as the curved plastic door slides shut.

  Wait.

  The door opened, and she walked out the other side.

  “Ma’am?”

  It was the TSA officer stationed on the other side of the x-ray machine.

  “I’m going to need you to open this bag.”

  The ruck.

  Oh Christ, she thought. Her heart pounded. She was sure that if he looked, he could see the pulse in her throat.

  “Sure,” she said.

  She unzipped the main compartment. He gestured at the camera bag, packed on top of the jacket. “Open that, please.”

  She did. Oh, Christ, the money in the camera bag. Why had she packed it? Why couldn’t she have just let it go?

  “Turn on the camera.”

  She switched it on, and it booted up.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Relief flooded through her like cool water. She turned off the camera, replaced it in the Hadley bag and zipped up the ruck. Grabbed her hoodie and started slipping on her espadrilles as she waited for the iPad and tote to emerge on the conveyor belt.

  iPad. She picked it up. Tote.

  “Ma’am?”

  Oh, fuck. “Yes? Do you need me to … to … ?”

  “You don’t have to put your tablet through separately. Just laptops. That’s a tablet, right?”

  “Right,” she said. She managed a smile. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  She sat in the small waiting room on the other side of security and wondered: What should she do with Danny’s logbook?

  What had he said that last time in jail?

  I wish I could protect you. I don’t have a lot of options.

  Maybe this book was one of them. A weapon she could use.

  There was no place she could think of that felt safe to hide it. If she kept it with her at all times, that carried risks as well.

  She had the one flash-drive copy, on the same drive to which she’d copied the Safer America tax-disclosure documents.

  Maybe I should make another copy, she thought. Mail it to someone before I get to Houston. Gary might be watching her, might be watching mail going out of her apartment or Safer America, but dropping something in a mailbox while in transit between two terminals in an entirely different city seemed like a pretty good bet.

  There were all kinds of electronics stores at San Francisco International. Surely she could buy another flash drive and maybe a cheap tablet to use to copy it. Maybe the iPad she carried was safe, if she turned off the WiFi. But maybe it wasn’t. She couldn’t be sure.

  Who to mail it to? Who did she trust?

  The problem was, anyone she trusted—her sister, for example—there was no way she wanted to put them at risk by sending them this thing. She had to assume that Maggie was monitored anyway.

  Sam?

  Danny might trust Sam, but she didn’t. Since she’d gone to him for help, he’d done exactly nothing for Danny or for her, at least so far as she knew.

  And thinking of that last jail visit, it wasn’t until she’d said she hadn’t heard back from Sam that Danny told her to get the book.

  Maybe Danny didn’t trust Sam either.

  There was no way she was going to pull that trigger until she talked to Danny.

  Who, then?

  Derek?

  He’d always done a good job for them. He seemed to be representing Danny to the best of his ability. But he was so close to it all. She didn’t know who else he worked for, where his ultimate loyalties lay. The information in that book might be more than enough to make a deal to get Danny out. Or it might be something he wouldn’t want anyone ever to see.

  There were plenty of people who wouldn’t want anyone to see it.

  Maybe Danny wanted to come clean, let the world know all about what he’d done. But the logbook was also a bargaining chip. One that might get them both out of this mess.

  What if she tried to make a deal with Gary?

  The thought made her shudder. If he knew she had the logbook, he’d kill her. He’d kill Danny, too.

  If he thought he could get away with it.

  When she’d met Gary in Houston, she’d tried that bluff, that Danny had valuable information, that they’d made “arrangements” to get it out there if something ha
ppened to either of them. Gary hadn’t bought it then, but it seemed that he was still worried enough about what they knew to make a better deal with her.

  Now, she really did have the goods. If she could actually make those arrangements …

  She shivered again. Pulling that off with Gary would be like swimming up to a hungry shark with a bucket of bloody chum and hoping she could get out of the water fast enough.

  First things first. Make another copy. Figure out who to send it to.

  There was a Best Buy vending machine not far from her gate at SFO’s Terminal 3. It actually dispensed iPads, iPods, cameras, chargers, smart phones, noise-cancelling headphones, gadgets costing hundreds of dollars.

  And flash drives.

  She used her Emily ATM card and bought an iPad, two flash drives, and a portable charger. There was a United Club in this terminal, and she had a pass from a credit card. Gathering her purchases and luggage, she made her way there.

  The club didn’t have great food, but it had bananas and bagels and coffee, views of the airplanes and runways, and plenty of electrical outlets. “Do you have any stationery, anything I could write a quick letter on?” she asked one of the agents at the club counter.

  Airline logo stationery in hand, she took a seat in a club chair by the window.

  As the iPad charged, she sipped her coffee and thought about who she should write.

  Maybe her Michelle lawyer in Los Angeles, Alan Bach. She’d found him to be honest and straightforward, and he’d done what he could for her. And he wasn’t involved in Tom’s business, so she had to hope that when Gary had cleaned up her late husband’s mess, Alan hadn’t been on his radar.

  She liked him enough that she almost didn’t want to send trouble his way.

  Too bad she didn’t know anyone she hated whom she could also trust.

  Finally, she started writing.

  Dear Alan,

  It has been a while since we spoke. You handled my situation after the death of my husband, Tom Mason, 2 ½ years ago. I’m

  She stopped writing. She really couldn’t say she was “doing well.” She crossed out “I’m” and wrote:

  I’ve had a number of changes in my life. The enclosed is something that I’d like you to hold onto for two weeks. Please don’t open it before then. Sorry to sound mysterious, but I’m in transit and it’s complicated to explain. I’ll be contacting you shortly and will send you a retainer for your trouble within the next few days.

  Many thanks—I’ve always appreciated how helpful you were to me during a very difficult time.

  If that first note came across as melodramatic, she could only imagine what he’d think of what she had to write next.

  Dear Alan,

  If you are reading this and you haven’t heard from me otherwise, the flash drive contains very sensitive information. I know for a fact that it’s all true, and that it’s dangerous information to have. I’m sorry to have put you in this position but I couldn’t think of anyone else to give it to. For your own safety please send this information to as many news outlets as you can. Use a VPN if you email it. Send it to some hackers if you know any, to those sites that publish classified information. The best way for you to be safe is for as many people as possible to have this information too. I know how crazy this sounds but please believe me and do what I’ve said as quickly as you can.

  All it needs is a tinfoil hat, she thought.

  The airport post office was about a mile from the airport; a bus ran every half hour from the BART station, she was told, or she could walk from the BART in 15 minutes. Normally, she would have liked to walk, to get some air and stretch her legs, but she was afraid of being seen, afraid of being followed. Maybe it would be safer to try and hide in a crowd than on a frontage road where hardly anyone was likely to be walking.

  She hadn’t noticed anyone following her. The Embraer turboprop from Arcata only held about twenty-five passengers, and she’d scanned them as carefully as she could during the flight. If any of them had tailed her through the airport, followed her into the United lounge, she hadn’t spotted them.

  That didn’t mean no one was watching.

  Maybe she should wait and mail it in Houston.

  Standing by the entrance to BART, watching the people drag their suitcases up and down the long escalators, she thought, this is pointless.

  All of it. Switching identities, putting phones in signal-blocking bags, trying to calculate risks, not knowing if anyone was watching … it was impossible. Hopeless.

  There was no way she could fight back and win against these people.

  Might as well mail it here, she thought. Maybe the flash drive would make it to Alan. Maybe they wouldn’t find out. And if they killed her, maybe he’d do what she said, release the information to the entire world and cause these homicidal assholes some embarrassment, at least.

  It wasn’t much consolation.

  By the time she’d finished at the post office and got back to the airport, she had an hour and a half before her flight on American to Houston. Time to check in. Time to become Michelle again.

  In a restroom stall before security, she sat on the toilet, opened up the ruck, fished around until she found the jacket pocket where she’d stashed her Michelle driver’s license and credit cards. Switched those out with Emily’s. Took her Emily phone in its signal-blocking bag and stuffed it in the bottom of the ruck. Got out her Michelle phone and put it in her tote, taking it out of its signal-blocking bag to go through Security, because she thought that might look strange, going through the x-ray machine—a normal person wouldn’t have their smartphone in a bag in her purse. The phone was turned off, and it wouldn’t be out of the bag for long. She hoped it was enough.

  The one in the ruck she could say was a spare, was a friend’s, was … something.

  Hopeless.

  One more time through Security. A long line this time. More time to get nervous. Just don’t think about it, she told herself. You’re Michelle. You’re going back to Houston to your apartment and your job. You haven’t done anything wrong.

  One more time standing in a glass booth with her arms above her head.

  She stepped out.

  “Ma’am?”

  She closed her eyes. Took in a deep breath and let it out. Turned toward the TSA officer standing by the x-ray conveyor belt.

  He pointed at the ruck.

  “You got a laptop in that bag?”

  “No. It’s an iPad.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “We’re booked at Lotus. It’s just off Union Square.”

  “Oh, that sounds lovely,” Caitlin said. She sounded distracted.

  Tuesday morning. Michelle glanced up from her laptop. Caitlin stared at her phone, thumbs flying on its virtual keyboard.

  Texting someone, it looked like.

  “You’re scheduled for the CIAC convention in Anaheim,” Michelle continued. “That gives you an extra day to relax in San Francisco.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The chime of an incoming text. Caitlin smiled. She seemed to study it for a moment, then set the phone down on the coffee table.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to set up a few things for San Francisco.”

  “Oh? Anything I can help you with?”

  “I don’t think so. Besides …” Now she focused on Michelle. “You seem to have enough on your plate right now. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Michelle flushed. “No, it’s … fine, really.” The last thing she needed was Caitlin asking questions about her problems. She wasn’t ready to make up some bullshit story right now. She could barely keep track of the lies she’d already told.

  “If you want to talk about it, hon …” Caitlin looked at her with what seemed to be real warmth. “I know it’s been all about me and my problems since you started working here, but it doesn’t have to be.”

  Michelle shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. The kindness made it worse. “Thanks,” she fin
ally managed. “It’s just … it’ll work itself out.”

  From the office, she could hear a muffled ringtone. “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

  Derek, on her Emily phone.

  She started to rise. “Do you mind if I—?”

  “Go,” Caitlin said, with her off-hand wave. A new text had come in, and she stared at her phone again, smiling.

  “Emily, it’s Derek. Listen, has anyone been in touch with you from the DEA?”

  Great, she thought. Just what she needed. “No, not yet.”

  “Well, expect that they will be. They called me, trying to find you. I guess they went by your house and the restaurant yesterday.”

  “I’ve been in transit,” she said.

  “Good. I don’t want you talking to them without me.”

  “Is there a warrant?”

  “We’re not even close to that yet. Jeff’s been very protective of you, and as long as your finances are as separate as he says they are, odds are you’re going to be okay.”

  “So there’s no warrant.”

  “No. As I said—”

  “Okay. Great.”

  “Emily, listen, I’m convinced this is more about putting pressure on Jeff than it is about rolling you up in the indictment, but we shouldn’t delay this too long—we don’t want to give the appearance that we have something to hide.”

  She exhaled a chuckle. She couldn’t help it.

  “No. We wouldn’t want that.”

  Helen called from Evergreen not long after.

  “Hi. So. These two men came by? Earlier today?”

  “I know,” Michelle said.

  “Oh. They left cards. Should I … ? Should I give them your number, or … ?”

  “That’s okay. I’m already making arrangements.”

  A pause. “Um … I don’t really know how to say this … but … is the restaurant … ?”

  Would they close Evergreen? Would Helen and Joseph and Guillermo and everyone else still have jobs?

  “It should be fine.” Of course, she had no idea if it really would be. And if Emily disappeared … what then?

  “Tell you what,” Michelle said. “When you’re doing the payroll this week … pay everyone an extra week’s salary. Um, a week and a half if the receipts look good. Pay yourself two. Call it a bonus. In case something happens … well, in case something happens. Not that I think it will,” she added quickly. “It’s just a misunderstanding. Things should be back to normal soon.”