She dips her head.
“I’ll stay here with Anthony. Until they tell me where to go.”
“Don’t leave him.” Her voice is tight in her throat. “Promise me...”
“A lot of officers work protection...”
“They’re not you.”
He lets his gaze sit, unfocused, on the middle-distance. “The doctors say he needs to rest up, eat, stay warm.” He shifts toward the door of the house.
“There’ll be enough,” she says, “when this is all over.”
He lets her words run. Doesn’t answer.
“You stayed,” she says.
He stops, looks into her face. Feels the pull in his gut, the shard of something.
“When Kinawa was shot,” she says. “You could’ve taken him out. But you didn’t. You stayed.”
“That’s it?”
She places a hand on his shirt front. Blonde hair, eyes intense, a smile at her mouth. A sad smile. “That’s all there is.”
A single set of headlights washes over the blackened land. Flecks of ice are blowing under the porch roof, the marshal watches the slow sweep of the beams.
The vehicle is turning, leaving the long, straight stretch of road.
Anthony steps forward from the shadows on the porch deck. “Do they really have to take her tonight?”
“Trial starts in the morning.” Whicher checks his jacket is open, loose—he feels for the Glock at his hip. “McBride called. He was off of eighty, south of the interstate corridor. He said to be ready.”
The sound of the motor carries, now, above the soft moan of the wind.
“What about us?” Anthony says.
“We stay here tonight.”
“We stay, Lauren goes?”
Whicher looks at him.
The vehicle makes another turn, coming closer now, approaching the farm.
Anthony shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“This all was set in train a long time ago,” the marshal says.
The young man watches the headlights a moment longer. “I better go tell her.” He steps back from the rail, crosses to the door. Disappears into the house.
The vehicle slows, pulls in from the road. It steers up over frozen gravel in the yard—a Ram pickup, black and chrome.
Rolling to a stop in front of the old barn, the driver shuts off the motor—Whicher sees McBride in the yellow glow of the dome light.
He eases forward on the porch.
McBride steps out of the truck. He breathes the cold air, eyes the dark expanse of land. Grabs his coat from the passenger seat, slips it on.
“You see anything out there?” Whicher says.
“About two vehicles since I left the interstate.” The inspector crosses the yard to the raised porch. He climbs the ice-covered steps.
“Where y’all fixing for her to stay tonight?”
McBride shrugs. “Wherever the DA’s office tell me. Cells maybe, at the courthouse.”
“Come on inside,” Whicher says. He leads the man into the farmhouse, down the hallway, footsteps sounding from a room upstairs. “I get you something?”
McBride shakes his head. “I need to get her into the city, they’re getting nervous in Chicago.” His eyes cut to the ceiling.
Whicher turns from the hallway, shows McBride through into the kitchen.
The lights are out. It’s warm, still, suffused with the smell of home-cooked food.
Beyond the kitchen window, the dark is unbroken.
The marshal pours himself coffee from a pot on the stove.
McBride studies the night beyond the window. “Lonely place,” he says.
Whicher nods.
“But safe.” The inspector crosses his arms on his chest. “WITSEC—in its essence.”
The marshal leans against the countertop. “She wants to relocate,” he says. “Her and Anthony.”
“Together? She told you that?”
“Could she?”
“She could.” McBride exhales. He turns back to staring out of the blackened window.
“It’s all she wants.”
“What they want,” the inspector says, “what they all want, is their old lives back.”
Whicher takes a sip from the cup of coffee.
“Family,” McBride says. “Friends. Their roots. An end to all the lies.”
The marshal glances across the room at the older man. “They ever get it?”
“Some of that,” the inspector nods. “Some of that WITSEC will allow.” He unfolds his arms. “Family contact’s something we have to manage, but it happens. Matter of fact, we think she called her grandmother—in San Francisco...”
The marshal looks at him.
“Before she set out for the trial. We think that’s how Coletti’s people knew...about Lauren, about how we’d be moving her.”
“Y’all think that’s how they knew about the train?”
McBride studies the backs of his hands.
Whicher thinks of Lauren—in McCook, in the waiting room, at the deserted station—she’d been calling her then.
“We knew about her,” the inspector says. “Her mother’s mother. She lives out in San Francisco, North Beach, the Italian-American community. She probably let slip something, some small thing—to somebody she thought she could trust. We’re checking phone records from Lauren’s apartment.”
Footsteps are on the stairs in the hallway now, two people descending.
“FBI say the Coletti’s have folk out there,” McBride says. “They knew Lauren had to be in Chicago; the trial’s about to start. All they needed was the departure point.”
Whicher pushes up off the countertop.
The inspector looks at him. “You did good.”
Lauren reaches the foot of the staircase, Anthony behind her.
“You kept them both alive,” McBride says.
Lauren stops. Turns around. Still the question in her face.
The marshal squares his hat, rubs a hand across his jaw. He sweeps open the jacket of his suit, leads the way outside.
Anthony stands on the porch in the light from the house.
McBride descends the steps, crosses the yard—he opens up the Ram, puts the truck keys into the ignition. He starts the motor, takes a pace away, checks his watch. “Two hours to Chicago,” he says, “we better get moving.”
Whicher takes a long breath, holds it.
Lauren brushes by him, walks over to the passenger side of the pickup, still wearing the ranch coat—his coat.
She puts a hand to the collar.
He shakes his head. “Keep it.”
Her eyes hold his.
She breaks off. Opens up the door, steps into the cab.
McBride crosses the yard to stand at the foot of the stairs. “Once the trial is done,” he says, “WITSEC will make her disappear.”
For the longest time Whicher doesn’t reply
McBride studies him. Finally he nods. “Only way to protect her is to let her go.”
Whicher stands silent in the raw air.
The inspector walks to the pickup, swings open the driver’s door, climbs up behind the wheel.
He backs the Ram out, brakes, straightens onto the road.
The motor rumbles beneath the hood.
He hits the gas, steers the truck forward, headlights bright at the edge of the snow-bound fields.
The marshal watches.
Minute after minute. Till the light is finally gone.
Wind and the cold returning, seeping in.
To silence.
At the edge of a darkened world.
Also by John Stonehouse
An American Outlaw (The Whicher Series Book 1)
An American Kill (The Whicher Series Book 2)
Wildburn (A Whicher Series Novella)
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About the Author
John Stonehouse is a writer who's spent a lot of time traveling, both in the states and overseas. Interested in history, literature, music and poetry he's drawn to wide-open spaces; places few people go, inside or out.
His debut novel, An American Outlaw, gained widespread acclaim - earning a place among 50 'successors to the greats' in contemporary crime fiction. (forensicoutreach.com). Both it, and the follow up, An American Kill went on to become bestsellers at Amazon, Apple i-Books, Barnes & Noble and at Kobo.
An American Bullet is the latest in the series.
Also available is Wildburn, (a Whicher Series novella).
For more information, to follow, connect or get in touch…
@JohnStonehouse2
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johnstonehousewriter.com
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About the Author
John Stonehouse is a writer who's spent a lot of time traveling, both in the states and overseas. Interested in history, literature, music and poetry he's drawn to wide-open spaces; places few people go, inside or out. His debut novel, An American Outlaw, gained widespread acclaim - earning a place among 50 'successors to the greats' in contemporary crime fiction. (forensicoutreach.com)
Both it, and the follow up, An American Kill, went on to become bestsellers at Amazon, Apple i-Books, Barnes & Noble and at Kobo.
The latest in the series, An American Bullet, is out now.
Also available is Wildburn, (a Whicher Series novella).
Read more at John Stonehouse’s site.
An American Bullet Page 24