Junior blew out a breath and scratched the back of his head full of dirty-blond hair. “The guys do believe we have a purpose, that’s for certain.”
“And there’s a damn good reason for that, wouldn’t you agree?”
Junior nodded. “You’re right. I just get…uncomfortable with how we’re going about it.”
“We thought long and hard about this. We didn’t just wake up one day with a hair up our asses. Remember, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The world will take notice, mark my word.” He found himself jabbing the table with intensity, his teeth clenched.
The brothers locked eyes for a good ten seconds, and then Junior responded with a nod, his posture now full of strength and defiance.
Long live the cause.
“Here you go, mister.”
The man turned his head just in time to see the waitress with the obscene underbite carefully removing his glass of Jameson from the tray, which was also filled with beers.
“Thank you,” he said.
As the glass touched the table, one of the beers slid to the side of the tray, and the waitress hooted out loud while throwing up her hand to catch the glass before it fell off. She saved the beer, but the sudden movement sent about a dozen napkins flying in the air, fluttering to the grimy concrete floor like leaves on a fall day.
“Let me get those for you.” The man twisted his torso and reached to the floor to gather up the wayward napkins.
As he used his opposite arm to pull himself upward, he heard the woman say, “Good Lord, man, what the hell happened to you?”
He followed her eyes to his opposite hand and he quickly shoved it back into his coat pocket.
“It’s a work injury. Life is tough at the railway yard.” The man shifted in his seat, suddenly ready to leave Finnegan’s Tavern.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.” She shifted her eyes over to Junior. “Another beer?”
Junior raised a finger, then looked at his brother. “I think we’re ready for the tab.”
“Suit yourself.”
The man tossed a twenty on the table, then lifted from the booth in quick order. His brother caught up to him at the door. “Bro, you okay about what just happened?”
“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Junior. Besides, we’ve got our eyes on a much bigger prize. All it takes is work and ingenuity.”
“Damn straight, bro. As our leader always says, ‘If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.’”
A smile split the man’s hardened face. “Now you’re learning, Junior.”
6
A swirling wind whipped the trees into a fury as sweat hardened against my face. And I hardly noticed. I chugged up a steep incline—the fourth small-hill climb of my morning jog—and while my heart thumped against my chest, it felt refreshing to flush some of the fat from my clogged arteries after our fast-food fest the previous night. At least that was how I’d convinced myself to get out of bed extra early.
Normally, I’d be more inclined to clean the dust off my tennis racquet and drag my daughter on the court for a different type of workout. But in my first three attempts to convince Erin to join me, she begged out, using homework as her excuse. Her fascination with tennis was relatively new, but she’d made the junior varsity at school in the last couple of months. Given my success in the sport in high school and college, I understood her apprehension. I only wanted to be there for her with anything she was passionate about. Hell, I still had issues recalling much of that time in my life. And then last night when she got home from her “tennis thing,” she didn’t say two words as she dragged her backpack up the steps, her chin almost touching her chest.
Kids. About as predictable as the Boston weather. I’d figure out a way to connect with Erin, get her to open up.
Rounding a bend on the trail, I spotted a spindly tree branch directly in my path not even four feet away. One leg up, then the other, and I cleared it, as if I’d planned the spontaneous hurdle. I glanced over my shoulder and spotted charred, jagged spikes jutting off the tree, the ripped branch obviously a result of the overnight storms.
I quickly regained my breathing rhythm, and as I jogged through the middle of a thick canopy of trees, I could see my breath corkscrew in the frosty air. Despite all my protestations against the breadth and depth of Boston winters, I knew I couldn’t continue to function mentally without some cardio release. And it wasn’t going to happen any other way—like between the sheets—at least not anytime soon.
Maybe I’d get another cat or two. I almost chuckled thinking about how my FBI colleagues would view me: a gun-toting cat lady. And who was I kidding? Did I really think Pumpkin would share the house, the affection, and especially the food with any other four-legged creature?
I wiped sweat off my forehead, and earbud wires crossed my vision. I’d been so intent on pushing myself, I forgotten to start my playlist. I tapped the phone screen four times and then regained my stride, the sway of my arms matching the rhythm of the song, a tune that Erin had introduced me to—“Locked Away” by Adam Levine of Maroon 5 fame.
I followed the winding trail toward the road, the halfway point of my five-mile run, doing my best to grunt out the chorus while keeping my breathing cadence in check.
I hopped onto the road as the tune changed, and my thoughts jumped to Ezzy. Thankfully, she was at home, resting. Yesterday had been rough on her.
“The reality of my life and my health hit me like someone had just slammed a shovel on my head,” was what she’d said when we finally sat down to drink some tea after the kids went to bed.
She told me she’d purposely been avoiding the doctor for years. Why? Both of her parents died at a young age, and she frankly didn’t want to deal with the messiness of sickness, getting older. “I used to think that if the good Lord wants me, he’ll take me, and I’ll have nothing to say about it.” She admitted her method for dealing with her health issues was nothing more than an excuse to ignore reality.
So the woman who’d provided me with more sage advice than anyone in my life couldn’t bring herself to look in the mirror. Until now. We hugged, and I told her, “Thank God you’re human, Ezzy. I was beginning to wonder.” We laughed and even shed a few tears as she told me about the doctor’s diagnosis.
When she told the doctor she’d been suffering chest pain off and on for almost a year, he had a pretty good idea of the issue. After some tests, they confirmed she had a mitral valve prolapse, which, apparently, is when the valve that allows blood to flow from one chamber of the heart to the other slips backward, or leaks.
Ezzy described it as “the little flapper goes limp.” She held up her pinkie, and we both broke into another round of laughter.
The treatment was pretty simple, as long as she was diligent. Take a heart pill every day for the rest of her life and exercise regularly. There was a small chance that, over a period of time, the condition could create weakness within the heart muscle, developing into congestive heart failure.
I pumped my arms up another rolling hill. Even against the gray morning sky, I could make out the Atlantic Ocean on my left. The closeness to the salt water had apparently always felt calming to me, and as more memories infiltrated my frontal lobe, I recalled more and more times of playing in the ocean water as a kid, or just lying on a float, staring into the blue sky as white cotton-ball clouds sailed overhead.
Ezzy had been afraid to deal with her life. I was beginning to wonder if, before my crash, I’d taken the same stubborn stance, and instead of confronting Mark about his infidelity, I’d chosen to ignore it, pouring every ounce of energy into putting bad people behind bars. It was hard to imagine myself as weak. I guess I’d always thought I was either born with, or had developed early on in life, a thread of courage. But after the double helping of humble pie in the last few months, I knew I was just as flawed, just as human as the next person. Yet, even amongst the tragedy and sadness, I felt buoyed by my love for my kids and—even as teenage-dom stalked
my youngest—love from my kids. Throw in Ezzy and somehow I felt like a new foundation was being built. Maybe that was why I’d gone on just one date in the last few months, and that one was a dud. Luke’s recreational-league coach had a calm, dignified exterior, but he was a mess on the inside, still trying to find a way to move on from his wife’s death a year earlier. I didn’t need a man to complete me, to build me up only to let me down at some point in the future.
A diesel truck motored around me, causing my pulse to flinch. In the bay of the pickup were lawnmowers and weed trimmers. It seemed someone had managed to grow some grass in this unseasonably cold weather. As the truck plowed up a hill, it chocked out a blast of gray smoke, and within seconds, the plume was on top of me. I literally pinched my nose shut, flapping my arms until I ran through it and could take in clean oxygen.
“Fix your frickin’ muffler, nimwad,” I yelled, knowing I was out of earshot.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a four-door sedan pull up just behind me. With music blaring through my earbuds, I glanced over my shoulder and waved the guy to go around me. He inched forward, but didn’t pass.
Not in the mood for playing games with a two-ton piece of metal, I stopped on a dime and yanked the buds out of my ears, hoping my stare-down would force the guy to make up his mind.
He stopped almost as quickly as I did, and the car rocked a bit. I then noticed the driver’s stoic expression. As I stepped toward the driver’s window, he and another man on the passenger’s side jumped out of the car.
Realizing my gun was back at home, I lowered into a defensive position. The driver held up his arms. “I’m not armed, Special Agent Troutt. I’m one of the good guys.”
“FBI?”
He paused, then said, “I don’t know if you have any pepper spray on your person, but I’m going to slip my hand into my pocket and pull out my creds, okay?”
I nodded, and he produced them.
“Looks legit, Special Agent Woodhouse.” He was clean cut and had a mole just under his left eye.
“It is legit.” He pointed to his partner rounding the front of the extra-long sedan. “That’s Special Agent Greer.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
The back window slid down, and I could barely detect a man’s face, mainly his temples lined with gray hair.
“Alex, I apologize for their manners. Please join me.”
“Who is that?” I asked Woodhouse. Before anyone could respond, I moved closer and spoke to the man in the car. “I’ve seen your mug shot.”
The man chuckled as he scooted across the dark leather seat to the other side of the backseat.
“Assistant Director Barry Holt. Nice to meet you.” He waved me in, as his eyes narrowed to slits in the dark car. “Please join me.”
I looked up and down the street. “Hey, my home is about a half mile down that way. Why don’t you just drive there, and I’ll meet you? We can sit in my kitchen and have an adult conversation.”
Woodhouse spoke. “We need to take this off the street before we start drawing unwanted attention. Will you do us the courtesy and hop in the backseat?”
I could feel the hair on my arms stand up. Something was wrong, very wrong. I’d heard stories—well, more like myths—of a secret unit within the FBI, or possibly a small agency outside the Bureau, that would clean up anything or anyone the FBI couldn’t.
Anchoring my hand against the frame of the door, I addressed Holt. “Is this official FBI business?”
“I didn’t come all the way up to Boston to visit the Salem Witch Museum.”
I glanced to my left where Woodhouse seemed fidgety, or maybe just annoyed at my lack of trust.
“You don’t have to say it. You’re legit, I know.” I slipped into the back of what I realized was a stretch Cadillac.
“Water?” The assistant director extended me a bottle.
I paused a second as Woodhouse closed the door, and he and his partner got into their seats in the front.
“What’s this all about…uh, sir?” I grabbed the water, cracked the cap, and chugged almost half of it before coming up for air.
“Drive, Special Agent Woodhouse,” Holt said, tapping his hand on the leather seat and the car pulled away. “I apologize for startling you while in the middle of your jog. That’s not how I like to conduct business.” With his legs crossed, I could see his black wingtips up close. They appeared to have been recently shined. His suit was subtly powerful—a thin, red stripe against a charcoal gray backdrop—and the fit was flawless.
I picked up a strong waft of aftershave and instantly had the urge to smell my armpits, or at least wash off the salty layer of dried sweat and snot from my face. But I was trapped in Holt’s mobile office. “But here you are. And I’m sure you just happened to see me while on your way to my house.”
Holt hesitated and I wondered if he understood sarcasm. He then reached for a plastic bottle sitting in the door’s cup holder and drank what appeared to be orange juice. After dabbing his mouth with a napkin, he uncrossed his legs, set his elbows on his legs, and eyed me. He held the gaze for a few seconds. His eyes were penetrating…so dark it appeared he had no pupils. But I didn’t blink.
“Like I said, it’s not how I prefer to do business.” His voice was measured, precise.
Okay, I guess he didn’t do sarcasm.
I felt a light rumble of the tires, and I glanced out the window. We’d crossed the bridge over Congress Street, and off to the east I could see the small Salem wharf and, just beyond that, the maritime historic site jutting out into the ocean, where the blue choppy water bounced against the morose sky.
“Why are we driving away from my home?”
“No worries. Woodhouse has instructions to keep us moving. We’ll drop you at your doorstep as soon as we’re done.”
Another alarm sounded in my mind. “Are you worried about us being followed?”
He pursed his lips, which seemed surprisingly red.
“You’re astute. And that’s why I’m here.”
I decided to forgo the sarcastic response. “Thanks for the compliment. Now I’m really curious.”
“Let me start by saying that I’m taking a huge risk by meeting with you.”
“I thought the FBI didn’t take risks.”
“Normally, yes, but sometimes when we’re left with few viable options, we have to take calculated risks. This is one of those times.”
I ran through every data point my mind could reach in about three seconds, trying to identify a case or a perpetrator that would create such a stir in DC. I found myself staring at the bottle of orange juice.
“You’re baffled, I can see.”
“Intrigued is more like it. Okay, hit me.”
He moved his hand inside his suit coat and pulled something out of his pocket. He popped the top off a tube of lip balm and ran it across his lips. Now his red lips were shiny.
“You’re delaying,” I said.
“It’s just that once we go past this point, there’s no turning back.”
“I think we’re already at the juncture where there’s no turning back.”
“Fair enough. Alex, I’ve read your complete file. Every case you’ve worked, feedback from your peers and management. Even went back and reviewed your file from your training at Quantico. To me, what really stands out is that you always want to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t popular with your squad leaders. Is that a fair assessment?”
“That’s a positive way of looking at it. I think if you asked at least a couple of the men I’ve worked with, they might say my desire to do the right thing wasn’t the best move at the time.”
“We all have detractors.” His lips extended ear to ear, and we shared an awkward smile.
I opened the water bottle, tipped it upward, and only a couple of drops fell into my mouth.
He handed me another bottle of water and said, “Alex, the FBI, your country, has the need for you to do the right thing.”
&nbs
p; “And that is?”
Dipping his head slightly, he kept his gaze right on me. “I need for you to gather intel and track the whereabouts of a colleague of yours.”
I could feel my shoulders stiffen, and I let my mind skim through a slideshow of people I worked with. I couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would be on the radar of the DC brass. I scratched my forehead. “Who are you thinking needs to be watched?”
“Your boss, Jerry Molloy.”
Uncapping the bottle, I took another pull to give my mind a few seconds to process what I’d just heard.
“Jerry Molloy,” I repeated. “This is a joke, right?”
Holt rubbed a thumb into the palm of his opposite hand. “Alex, I wish it were, believe me. This is not a part of the job that I enjoy. But above all else, we can’t risk the security of this country, even if it means we have to investigate one of our own.”
The area from my neck down to my shoulders felt like petrified wood, and after a few seconds, I could sense my chest lifting rapidly.
“I’m assuming this is a shock to you.”
“I’d like to know what you think you have on him.”
“I’m happy to share it with you.” Out of the door pocket, Holt pulled a manila folder with the word Confidential stamped across the front. He handed it to me.
“Feel free to read through everything in that folder. You won’t be able to take it with you, so it’s good if you can memorize it.”
For a brief second I wondered if he was aware of my recent memory issues, but I let it ride.
I thumbed through about twenty pages, including pictures of Jerry both on the job as well as in his private life. I saw one with him and his wife, Tracy, both of them laughing while sitting at some type of outdoor café.
“They look like a happy couple,” I said, lifting my eyes.
A slow nod of his upper body. “Nothing has told us otherwise. In case you’re wondering, as of now we have no data to suggest that Mrs. Molloy has any knowledge of what her husband might be involved in.”
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 56