Patience, My Dear

by Bower Lewis

  “And that’s when he knew he was all in, no matter what it took? And he knew I’d see it in his eyes if he tried to talk to me about it. Christ, Biz, what the hell has he—?”

  She caught herself and wiped a sleeve across her forehead. Then she stood up and brushed her hands off on her jeans. “My part’s coming up pretty soon. Thank You for the talk.”

  The phone was quiet now. He’d said all that was needed for the moment.

  • • •

  John was about two-thirds across when she rejoined Ed and Rutherford at the ridge. She hid her damp palms in her pockets, more grateful than ever for The Biz’s distraction, particularly when she noted the twitch at Ed’s jawline. Every pass of her uncle’s hands seemed a catastrophe in the making.

  She turned her eyes down, but they flew up again as there was a stoic, collective straightening on the roof. The hook had shifted and John dropped a few feet as Patience swallowed a cry and Ed’s attention turned brittle. The air was still as stone as the hook found new lodging and John began to settle. He resumed his journey, more slowly this time, and gained about ten more feet before the hook shifted again. He eased his emergency line through its clip, working steadily and calmly to pull the line taut, and then the hook broke free of the ridge.

  Ed threw his arms around Patience, stifling her cries with his unbroken hand, as her uncle plummeted in a screaming trajectory toward the side of the house below them. John gripped the rope as he yanked on his emergency line, wrestling to get it pulled firm again. He pulled back with enough force, finally, and came to a stop about halfway between the houses, where he hung suspended between the lines, performing violent feats of acrobatics forty-five feet above the ground. Patience doubled over as Rutherford gripped her arm with his eyes still locked on her uncle. She watched through her hair as John did his thing up there and waited for the lines to settle.

  “He’s okay.” Ed exhaled and drew her back to standing, then released her and stepped away. “He’s okay.”

  The men on the ground spread out with their guns drawn as the men on the roof dropped into position to cover them, but there was no response from the house. Ed held his good hand to his forehead for a moment while Patience stood paralyzed beside him, watching as John lowered himself parallel to Rockwell’s house and then scaled up the emergency line to the roof.

  Rutherford finally let go of Patience’s arm as her uncle threw his leg over the rain gutter. He stood up and pointed to Mason, with a piece of the emergency line in hand, and then he flashed them all a double thumbs up before grabbing the rope from his harness and retrieving the wayward hook. He crawled up the shingles to the chimney and Ed turned away. Patience just looked to the sky for a few minutes and tried not to think.

  The only one present who seemed not to require a moment to recover from the incident was John, so he got to work on the zip line. Patience couldn’t be certain at their distance, but it appeared that he might be whistling.

  The chief of security stood at the ridge with his broken hand in the air and a hollow expression on his face. Rutherford Ellison, the ruler of his empire, hung back behind the men he employed and tried not to get in their way. Patience stared across the treetops at her uncle, with his head full of secrets and his heart full of storms. She was coming for Zane with a mismatched army of damaged heroes, but maybe that was right for the matter at hand. They were driven and adrift, and they were, each of them, not what they’d been when they’d awoken that morning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Ed hooked his harness to the line and, without a word of farewell or final instruction, slid to the roof next door. He came down easily on the shingles and John pointed back to Patience.

  Mason grabbed her and clipped her harness to the trolley, and then he lowered her into the air. She ignored the bitterness of the adrenaline and her slipping palms, hoping the agents wouldn’t notice her trembling as she gripped the harness straps. Mason gave her a push and she squeezed her eyes shut. The world turned into a whirring rush of air and momentum, captured in a continuous loop, until it ended abruptly at an enormous pair of arms.

  “You did good, Pax.”

  She glared at him as he set her down, then slapped his hands away. She unfastened the harness herself and unhooked it from the trolley.

  “Don’t speak to me.”

  He grinned back at her with a slight shrug. “That’s fair, I suppose. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as it looked though, kid. I promise. I had that emergency line for a reason. It’s not as though I was totally unprepared for something like that to occur. Now, how are you doing? Still afraid of heights?”

  She dropped the harness onto the shingles and shivered at the cold air passing over the skin of her neck. John pulled her hair back on one side and passed her the receiver to her new earpiece. She looked away as she fastened it into place.

  “I can’t be afraid tonight, now can I?”

  He connected the cables and switched the unit on with a wink. “That’s exactly right, kid. You can’t be afraid tonight.”

  He started up toward the window and Patience looked down at Ed, crouched at the base of the chimney as he checked his weapons after the flight. He appeared serious about the task, and perturbed that it wasn’t effortless. He didn’t return the look, but she could tell that he was paying attention.

  She tied her hair back and wished it didn’t require so much effort just to breathe.

  “Will you hold it against me if I cry?”

  Ed paused for a moment with his eyes still fixed on his revolver. Then he glanced at John with a wry smile and raised his splinted hand into the air. “Will you hold it against me if I do?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. What do you say we both just suck it up for now?”

  • • •

  Patience dropped from the window to the attic floor and nodded back at her uncle. Then she turned toward the stairs, but paused as her eye caught a corner of light on the ceiling, a beam of moonlight reflected by a diamond of broken glass. She bit down on her lower lip and nodded at it.

  “If You could help me to find just a speck of Dick’s skill, or my uncle’s passion for the fight, or even Rutherford’s misguided determination, Biz, I’d appreciate it for Zane’s sake, not to mention the world’s. Please, don’t let me screw this up too badly.”

  She hurried to the staircase without awaiting any response. As she reached the bottom, her phone chimed softly and she froze before the door. She touched a button at her sleeve and scrambled back up again as John’s rifle cracked down on the window frame above at her summons. The door flew open and she was caught two-thirds of the way up, staring into the startled eyes of a SolarTech guard.

  He raised his gun as she turned back to dash up the last few stairs, and then glass shattered above and Ed leaned in through a window kitty-corner to John. Both their weapons were trained on the guard as Patience spun back. He rushed up toward her, and without thinking, she leapt. A torrent of wind from the second open window meeting its match from the first bent a path around her and drew her forward. She hung suspended over the staircase for one miraculous moment as the shaft of air completed its arc around her body and her foot connected with the man’s gun, sending it flying as he crashed through the open door and onto the floor below. She landed on top of him and pulled her revolver from her belt.

  He took a swing, but to his credit, he seemed to catch that Patience was serious when she ducked it and cocked the hammer of her gun. She collected his radio and revolver and escorted him up the stairs to Ed, who seemed the less lethal of her options. She passed the radio through the window as John appeared behind him with his rifle raised and a pained expression on his face. He shook his head at his niece before turning his full attention to the guard, who shrank back from the ravenous look in his eye.

  John nudged Ed’s shoulder as Patience’s phone chimed. “More of Rockwell’s men are on the move now, courtesy of the ruckus. What’s your call, G-man?”

  Ed stared
at the guard for a moment, and then passed the radio back. He raised his weapon so it fell in line below John’s. “What’s your name?”

  “Stevenson.”

  “Okay, Stevenson, I’d hate to shoot a man who just showed up for work on an unfortunate day and found himself trapped in a bad situation. Assuming that’s what’s happened here, I’ll give you one second to spare me the disappointment.”

  The guard didn’t hesitate. He clicked the button on his radio with shaking hands. Patience reached up to help him hold it steady.

  “Mr. Rockwell, Sir, this is Stevenson. A freaking owl’s just flown in through a window of your attic. The thing is huge. Do you want me to take care of it for you?”

  There was a pause and they all stared at the silent radio. Stevenson swallowed and flinched a bead of sweat from his face as it crackled at last.

  “Everyone, hold your positions!” The radio clicked and the air was dead. Then it crackled again. “What the hell were you doing up there, Stevenson?”

  The guard glanced at John and then quickly turned back to Ed. “I was looking for a place to take a leak, Sir. I was on the second floor when I heard the crash.”

  The radio was silent again for another beat. “There are four johns on the first floor.”

  “Yes, Sir, it’s a big house and I was closest to the stairs at the time. It seemed like the quickest way to get right back to my post. Like I said, I heard the crash and figured I’d better check it out. But, about this owl, Mr. Rockwell… What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I want you to shoot the goddamn thing and get back down here! As for the rest of you, return to your posts, and don’t anyone else get any ideas about going sightseeing while on duty.”

  Stevenson exhaled and Ed took the radio back. “I take it you guys are here for the kid?”

  Patience’s ice cold skin ignited and she pulled him back from the window. She pushed him against the wall and rose up onto her toes.

  “You’ve seen Zane? How is he?”

  Stevenson nodded. “Mouthy.”

  John reached past Ed to pull the guard from her clutches. She turned back, but Ed raised a hand with his eyes set to stun. The guard didn’t appear to bear her any ill will, though. He just looked back toward the staircase.

  “I didn’t sign on for this. We all work security for SolarTech Industries, and a few days ago, the big man offered per diem pay to anyone interested in beefing up security for the Forsyth campaign. It was good money for easy work, so a bunch of us agreed. And then today, a more select group was offered better money to come here and do private work for Mr. Rockwell. We weren’t told anything about him bringing that kid here, though. Nobody ever said a word about that.”

  “All right,” Ed said. “So what were you really doing up here?”

  He looked the agent directly in the eye. “I was searching for a way out of here. I was going to call the police. I didn’t sign on for this.”

  John stared down at him, then crossed his arms. “He’s telling the truth,” he said. “He was trying to squirrel out.”

  Ed gestured toward the stairs. “How organized is it down there? Will Rockwell miss you if you don’t return?”

  Stevenson paused and then he nodded. “He’ll notice. I wouldn’t call it organized, but he’s pretty worked up about security. He’ll notice.”

  Ed considered this information and took the guard’s gun from Patience. He ejected the clip and passed the weapon back through the window with the radio. “I’m sure you understand.” He pocketed the clip. “We’ve got the house wired, Stevenson. If you mention anything about our presence to Mr. Rockwell, or to any of the other men, it will end badly for you. The second anyone down there begins acting differently from what we’ve come to expect of them, we’re coming in and we’re coming in hard. I give you credit for telling me the truth just now. You could have lied about whether or not Mr. Rockwell would miss you, in the hopes that we’d have let you continue on your way. We wouldn’t have, but I give you credit, nonetheless. We need you to go back to work now, as if nothing’s any different from before. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  The guard nodded and reattached the radio to his belt. John reached for his arm as he started toward the staircase. “The other men down there, are any of them loyal to Rockwell or do they feel the same way you do?”

  “None of them are loyal to Mr. Rockwell,” Stevenson said. “Some are loyal to SolarTech, to varying degrees, and we’re all loyal to the money. It’s not a brotherhood down there. I’m sure there are others who feel the way I do, but I couldn’t point them out to you.”

  John released his arm with a nod and the guard turned toward the door. He paused halfway across the attic and looked back.

  “Whether or not Mr. Rockwell knows it, I don’t believe any of those men down there are killers. I’ve met some pretty scary guys working security for STI, and to a man, they were also selected for special overtime today. But, they were all stationed around the streets of Wellesley. The freakiest among them were sent to something happening out on Cliff Road.”

  Patience raised a hand to her forehead as Ed stared down at her. Then the agent stepped away to report into his sleeve. The guard disappeared down the stairs and John turned his face from his niece’s.

  “Don’t speak to me.”

  She smiled and pulled her shirt aside to check out some of the better welts she’d sustained during the tussle. The Biz’s trick with the wind had treated her to a rougher landing the second time around. Then she just shrugged back at her uncle.

  “It wasn’t as exciting as it looked, Uncle John. I promise. Anyway, I’ve been tossed around by more than the wind since The Biz showed up. It’s not as though I was totally unprepared for something like that to occur.”

  She stopped talking as she realized that what she’d just said was actually entirely true. She’d turned on an armed man twice her size, without hesitation or regard for the fact that only one of them was willing to fire the gun in his hand, and she’d leapt without a shred of evidence that The Biz would save her from a broken neck or bullet in the chest. She’d leapt as though no other outcome was possible.

  “Holy hell,” she muttered. “Now You’re just messing with me.”

  A smiley chirped onto the screen and she was grateful that there was no time to talk.

  Her uncle was still staring when she looked up again, and his expression seemed even less certain than before. Then glass crunched beneath Ed’s shoes as he rejoined them from down the roof.

  “Things have settled back into to a steady paranoia, now that Stevenson’s been accounted for and no one’s come crashing down on Rockwell’s head. He’s still pretty twitchy, but he’s stopped threatening to shoot anyone who clears his throat without permission.” He turned to Patience and paused a moment before speaking. “Are you all right to do this, Miss Kelleher? That was a nasty tumble you took at the bottom of those stairs.”

  “I guess that depends, Dick. Is Zane still down there?”

  John held a hand up to the agent and pointed his niece back toward the staircase. “Save your breath, G-man. Pax can’t back away from a fight, no matter how hard she might try to. Now, let’s do this thing. There’s something about the sound of breaking glass that always revs me up for a fight.”

  And with that, Ed O’Brien did something he’d likely never done before in his life.

  He sighed.

  • • •

  The rest of the agents followed Mason across once Patience had the line secured. The second-in-command checked her work as soon as he landed, then raised an eyebrow up from the intricate knots tied through the industrial-grade hooks she’d driven into the doorframe.

  “My uncle taught me.”

  “Nice.”

  Ed and John watched the first few crossings from Rockwell’s roof before rappelling to the ground and stealing back across the yard. They climbed up in time to help get Rutherford over safely and then they packed up the last of their gear before
coming over last.

  Ed landed on the balcony and looked up at his men, crowded still and silent in Rockwell’s bedroom, and then his eyes fell to the small green light at the alarm panel beside the door. He turned to Patience as Collins and Mason released the line from the frame.

  “You know something, Miss Kelleher…”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “I do, Dick. I really, really do.”

  He raised his uninjured hand between them. “I believe you’ve finally cured me of ever wanting to know the source of your information. At this point, I think I’d probably put a bullet in the kneecap of anyone who tried to tell me.”

  She looked up at the chief of security, and her smile at him was genuine.

  “That’s the spirit!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  They kept low as Ed and John led them down to the second floor. The hall ended at a wide landing above the foyer, where they hung back to the strains of a Tom Jones tune floating up from the study. Patience rested her battered torso against the wall for a moment, doing all she could not to imagine what might be happening below, and then Zane’s voice cut above the music. She dug her fingernails into the carpet to keep from lunging after it, and her uncle took hold of her arm.

  Ed leaned in to update him about the latest from the parabolic mic. Rockwell had been unable to shake the owl incident and required nearly constant reassurance from his guards outside. Ed’s men were only too happy to oblige via their confiscated radios, but time and inactivity had stoked the fires of his paranoia. He’d left a man at each of the ground-floor doors and moved the rest into the study with him. This development made things much less complicated for the rescue effort, and a hell of a lot trickier.

  John nodded and he and Ed reached for their goggles. The men followed suit as Mason passed a pair each to Patience and Rutherford. When all were in place, Ed spoke low into his sleeve.

  “Okay, Kirby. Kill ’em.”