MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel

by Lisa Marie Rice

  But right now, Jacko didn’t have any enemies. Lauren didn’t either. All they had around them were friends, people who cared about them. Who’d care for their kid, too.

  Jacko had never seen the need for families. As far as he could tell, families were there to fuck people up. Shrinks wouldn’t have a job if families weren’t so crappy. Jacko had made the Navy his family and it had worked out just fine. So a family of his own hadn’t been in the cards. Hadn’t even been on the horizon

  And then Lauren had come along and changed everything.

  It was dark outside. It was barely four in the morning. He had a little under twelve hours of driving to go, but Jacko lay in bed, totally relaxed, staring up at the dark ceiling and letting the thought of their child wash over him. He saw scenes—holding a little newborn. Her first steps, running into his arms. He’d measure his life not by how old he was getting, but by how much she was growing.

  A whole lifetime of love, with Lauren and their kid. More kids, too. Why the hell not? Yeah. A big family. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass? Jacko Jackman, head of a clan.

  Well, stranger things had happened.

  The thought was weird but not repellant. Nothing was repellant about his life, actually. He had a great woman, a great job. He had plenty of money and was surrounded by friends. And he was going to be a father.

  None of this had been even remotely in his head when he’d joined the Navy. He’d enlisted as soon as legally possible, hoping only to get away from his mother, get out of Cross. Mostly he’d been hoping to be among people who weren’t killing themselves slowly. He wanted to be among people who weren’t messed up. The bar was low as far as his ambitions went.

  Get out of Cross. Stay alive. Have three squares a day and a bed. Three hots and a cot, as they used to say.

  And now look at him.

  The future didn’t just look bright, it beckoned to him. Good times ahead and people with him to share the bad times. A family. A nuclear family that was all his. And a broader one, of people who cared for him.

  There were no shadows left in him at all. Not even the ones he’d carried with him all his life. He felt freed of ancient hurts, like slipping off handcuffs and chains that he’d been dragging around since childhood.

  For the first time in his life, he felt safe. Not because the world had become a better place, no way. The world was shitty. Always had been, always would be. He felt safe because he had people to love and who loved him and he had people at his back, just as he had theirs.

  It was still dark but he was raring to go. There was a coffee machine and vending machine selling pure crap in the lobby. He’d grab a bad coffee and something filled with chemicals and get going. Lauren would have a heart attack if she knew he was loading up on carbs and chemicals, but it would shave some time off the trip. Later he’d stop at a drive-through and get a burger and fries.

  Nothing like the spectacular food he got at home. But still, he had the rest of his life to eat healthy. Right now, all he wanted was to make good time.

  Jacko was revved to the max.

  Time to go home.

  Green Orchards Retirement Home

  There was a whole goddamn weather system in his head. Sometimes it was foggy and rainy and sometimes the sun came out. This morning, the sun was out and he could see clearly. Think clearly. He’d been agitated last night and they’d upped his dosage of the pills they thought kept him calm, but they didn’t. They just made him confused.

  Kurt Pendleton knew when to take the pills and when not to. Last night, he didn’t. And this morning he could think straight.

  Yesterday had been a shock that rocked him. The man he’d known and admired so many years ago, here to see him. But damn, it wasn’t him. Dante Jimenez. Pendleton couldn’t figure it out. The man was right there in front of him but…not. And he wasn’t responding the way he was supposed to.

  Pendleton admired Jimenez, always had. A law enforcement legend and the best agent the DEA ever had. The man had had a dangerous job and had cojones big as boulders to go in undercover and rise through the ranks until he became old man Villalongo’s right-hand man. And Carlos Villalongo had spent so many years trying to get revenge. He’d kill—and he had killed—to get a bead on Dante.

  If he’d had even a breath of suspicion that Dante had a son…

  Pendleton had worked hard, trying to protect Dante all these years, hadn’t he? He’d hid Jacko from the Villalongo clan and then rushed Jacko away from Cross as soon as he could legally join the military. And here Dante was. Except he wasn’t. Dante but not Dante.

  The puzzle kept him awake most of the night. And then the clouds parted and he could see the entire picture.

  Not Jimenez. His son, Jacko. All grown up and the spitting image of his famous father. Who knew nothing about him.

  That secret that had burned a hole in his heart for the past—how many years was it? He tried to calculate it but gave up. A long time, that was the answer. He’d kept the secret a long time.

  Maybe too long.

  Maybe the son coming to see him was a sign that he should let go.

  He knew that the clouds in his head came more often now, created a thicker fog every time they came. The time would come when—Pendleton looked at it clearly for the first time—when he wouldn’t have the option of telling Jimenez because he wouldn’t remember.

  Pendleton was the only one who knew. The only one in the world who could unite these two after so many years. The only one who could right a wrong decades old. Once he was gone, it would be lost. Jacko would never know who his father was. Dante would never know he had a son.

  In the years during which he’d sheltered the young boy, Pendleton had been certain he was doing the right thing. The boy would have been in deadly danger if it was known he was Dante Jimenez’s son. But the man he’d seen, the man who was the spitting image of his father, looked tough as nails. A hard man to kill, just as his father was.

  Already he could feel the encroaching darkness at the edges of his mind. By this afternoon, he would be lost. How many times could he come back? Maybe this was his last shot at clearheadedness, the last time he could do this.

  And if not today, soon. Because soon the clouds would eat him up and there would be only darkness.

  A tear tracked down his weather-beaten face. That was something else about this goddamned thing he had. His emotions—they were all over the goddamned place. At times it felt like he was drowning in feelings he couldn’t control. They shook him like a hurricane, blinding him to the outside world.

  Shame, fear, panic—they roiled inside him, an unstoppable storm.

  He came to in his chair, starting awake. The storm was over, the clouds gone. Peering at his watch, he saw two hours had gone by. The periods of clarity were becoming shorter and shorter. Soon, he knew, they would be gone forever.

  Use this time while you can, he thought. Because maybe he’d been wrong about keeping the truth from Jimenez. The boy had suffered, that was for sure.

  Though the man who’d visited him didn’t look like he was suffering. He’d turned into a fine man, just like his father.

  It was time they knew.

  He had to do this while the clouds were gone.

  There was a number he could call. Jimenez had given it to him a long time ago. Pendleton hadn’t left the number with his successor because there was the reward floating in the air for any news regarding Jimenez. The man who became sheriff after him would have sold his best friend down the river for half a million dollars.

  Constable, the one who came after his successor, was even worse. He would have sold his mother down the river for half a million dollars. Nobody could have the number he was about to call.

  He still had it. A crumpled piece of paper Dante Jimenez had thrust into his hand at the last minute. Call me any time you need something, man.

  Pendleton had never needed to use that number. But now he did. He needed to help his old friend.

  All these years, h
e thought he’d been protecting Jimenez. Villalongo was a monster. But Jimenez was smart and tough and his son looked like he could handle himself, too. It was a risk, but then life was a risk. And soon he wouldn’t be able to do this.

  Let them sort it out.

  The crumpled piece of paper was in his wallet, had been for over thirty years.

  Time to tell the finest man he’d ever known that he had a son, and that Pendleton had kept that info from him.

  His hands shook as he punched in the number. It was a secret number at the DEA, the number for the case officers directing undercover agents. Three generations would have passed through that office. Pendleton didn’t even know if Dante was retired. But everyone would know Dante. He was a legend.

  “Hello,” he said when someone picked up the phone at the other end without identifying himself. Pendleton hated how his voice shook. Onset of Parkinson’s his doctor had said. “I have a message for Dante Jimenez. It’s urgent.”

  Portland

  As the sun set behind the oak trees lining her street, Lauren closed the door with a sigh, punched in the alarm codes and leaned her back against the wall.

  The girls had come out in force and had spent lunch here, bless them. Felicity, Isabel and Summer. Metal, Joe and Jack were out of town for the day on ASI business and their women had come over for an extended brunch that lasted all afternoon. Isabel had brought a pasta casserole and a chocolate and pear cake, and Felicity and Summer, who didn’t cook, brought cheeses and grapes.

  They’d eaten until the sun started sinking and then had broken out a bottle of Pinot Grigio Summer brought. Lauren refrained but had fun watching them. Isabel, Felicity and Summer had gotten a little sloshed and had laughed a lot.

  Lauren’d had a good time but she was glad to be alone once more. The only person she wanted now was Jacko.

  She’d put up a brave front but the truth was, she was worried.

  Jacko hadn’t called in twenty-four hours. Those calls where he couldn’t talk? With hindsight they were reassuring. He was keeping in touch in his own way. But now it was like he’d disappeared off the map and the last tenuous tie she had with him had severed.

  Felicity had gently taken Lauren aside and murmured once again that she could track Jacko, find out where he was. But that felt wrong. It felt like cheating, like admitting she didn’t trust Jacko. She did. She trusted Jacko with her heart and with her life.

  So she’d said no and Felicity had simply nodded her head. “Okay, no tracking,” she whispered. If Felicity said she wouldn’t track, she wouldn’t.

  For the first time, Lauren wondered whether she should just let Felicity do her thing. What would it hurt? Just to know where Jacko was, to reassure herself?

  But then, what if she didn’t want to know the answer? What if—what if Jacko was gone? Really truly gone? What if he’d left her? A couple of days ago she would have sworn in blood that Jacko would never leave her. That he was hers for life. But that was before she’d seen his face when he’d discovered that she was pregnant.

  That hadn’t been joy she saw in his face. He looked stricken, almost wounded. Jacko—the strongest man she’d ever seen—looked like he’d been brought to his knees by one blow.

  Strength wasn’t always enough. Her Jacko wasn’t indestructible. Her Jacko had demons in him. When he’d said he knew peace for the first time with her, she’d believed him. But demons had a way of rearing up from nowhere.

  What if his demons chased him away from her?

  What then?

  She was sitting on her kitchen chair, looking down at the pretty tablecloth. Felicity, Isabel and Summer had cleaned up, loaded the dishwasher, put things away, bless them. She should get up, turn the dishwasher on, put some music on, put some soup on for later. Look at the book cover design that was three days overdue and which she hadn’t touched. Go over her accounts for her business’s bookkeeper, way behind on that. Answer the emails of two families who wanted watercolors of their homes and were willing to pay premium rates.

  So much to do. So little desire to do it.

  Lauren felt drained of all energy. Maybe it was the baby. All the books said that the first trimester was the worst. She hadn’t had morning sickness but she was tired all the time. So sure, that must be it. The pregnancy.

  No, that wasn’t it. The truth was—she missed Jacko and she was terrified that she had lost him.

  Was he coming back?

  Or was he gone?

  The living room was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen. She was closed up in her cocoon, something she loved. She especially loved it when she was closed in the cocoon with Jacko. But he wasn’t here.

  He’d never liked staying home, he told her once. Four walls made him feel trapped. Rather than stay home, he’d go out no matter what the weather. Go to some bar and drink and play pool. Go hiking. Take his bike out. Anything.

  He didn’t say, but she understood that he hadn’t liked staying home as a child because he’d lived in a trailer that was a chaotic mess with a crazy drug addict mother. As an adult, he’d had no clue how to create a home. Man, his place had been a study in sensory deprivation. Huge bed, huge couch, huge TV. Stove and fridge and table and two chairs. That was about it. She’d never told him that she found his place profoundly depressing.

  He never felt trapped in this house. It was super-feminine but he could do his things just fine. He tinkered with his bike in the garage, where he had a complete workshop with tools she’d never even seen before. The kitchen-dining room was big enough to contain his friends when it was their turn to host the poker parties where Jacko inevitably lost to Joe Harris.

  He could listen to all the heavy metal he wanted with his headset. The back room was fitted out to be a gym and he spent hours in there. Preferred it now, he’d said more than once, to the gym he used to go to.

  They had their own little world in this house and it was like a kingdom for just the two of them.

  How could she stand it if their kingdom was lost, shattered? In such a short time, Jacko had filled her life. How could she live without him? How could she raise their child without him?

  Something wet splashed on her hand and she looked down. It was too dark to see what it was but she knew anyway. It was a tear, followed by another one.

  God, she’d cried plenty when she was on the run. She’d spent those two horrible years in a succession of cheap motels and rented rooms. Until Felicity made her rock-solid IDs, she never stayed where she had to show ID. So she’d spent days and nights in cheap, depressing places, lonely as hell. Sometimes not speaking to anyone for days, feeling like the only human left alive on earth.

  That could never happen now, because she was going to have a child. The only human related by blood to her on earth. It would be Jacko’s only blood relation, too.

  Had he thought of that? Of this child being his flesh and blood? Neither of them had any family. They were each other’s family. And now they would be linked by blood.

  Unless Jacko couldn’t bear it.

  Unless Jacko was gone.

  His ASI buddies wouldn’t let him disappear. They’d track him down wherever he went and would go after him, but Lauren didn’t want that. She didn’t want a resentful partner who’d been dragged back to her.

  She wanted her loving Jacko back, the one who said he’d rather be with her than with anyone else in the world.

  Another tear dropped on her hand.

  Maybe that Jacko was gone forever.

  She dropped her head in her hands, tears trickling through her fingers. This was breaking her heart.

  “Don’t cry, honey,” a deep voice said. The kind of voice that was so deep it reverberated in her diaphragm. The voice that reverberated in her heart.

  Lauren lifted her head, saw a dark, broad shape. Her heart thumped hard in her chest.

  “God.” Jacko sat down beside her, pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it. Don’t cry honey, please.”

  It wa
s like opening floodgates. Lauren’s chest contracted as if someone had punched her and she couldn’t breathe. Another sharp pulse in her chest. All her pain and desolation and—yes—fury came boiling up from deep inside her. Tears sprang from her eyes and she trembled and shook as sobs overcame her.

  Jacko folded her into him, rested his cheek against the top of her head and held her through the storm.

  He was here. Jacko had come back to her. Everything she had repressed—all the anguish and fear—came bubbling out in sobs that racked her body, shook her bones. There was no controlling it; she could barely breathe as she cried her terror out. Jacko didn’t say a word, simply held her tightly, one big arm around her waist, one big hand holding the back of her head.

  The storm finally passed, leaving Lauren limp in his arms. He was still dressed for the outside; she could smell the cold air and rain on him. Her tears wet his leather jacket, mixing with the raindrops.

  She lay against him, spent. Oh God, she’d forgotten how broad he was, how strong. How leaning against him felt like leaning against a mountain, something immovable and forever. She shuddered at the thought that if he hadn’t come back, she’d never hold him again. When Jacko felt her shudder, he tightened his hold.

  Lauren’s head was against his massive shoulder. She turned her head slightly and kissed his neck gently. Her eyes were closed. If this was a mirage, she didn’t want to know.

  “I was so afraid you weren’t coming back,” she whispered against his skin.

  “I know.” His voice was so deep, she felt the vibrations more than heard the words.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come back,” she confessed. In college, she and her girlfriends had always played it cool. They had rules and they stuck by them. Never ever let the guy know you cared. She used to go out of her way to avoid talking to someone she slept with, and be unavailable for a few days. Showing your emotions was vastly uncool and Lauren—who was Anne Lowell back then—was never uncool. She knew how to play the game.