“I’ll make some calls,” Harriet said. “And we’re going to cross our fingers.”
“You sound worried.”
“Just a little. Morgan’s willingness to give up the money should have solved the problem. For some reason, it didn’t. And the list of possible reasons is very short.”
“What should I tell him?”
“To stay calm. Let me handle it. Eat some chocolate ice cream.”
I chuckled. “What’s eating ice cream going to do?”
“Does wonders for me when I’m having a bad day. Nothing like a sugar high to smooth things over.”
“Ice cream, I’ll remember that.”
We said our good-byes.
I found Morgan sitting on the steps of the back porch. “Do you mind if I join you?”
He didn’t answer so I did.
Morgan’s wayward hand fluttered next to his temple. The movement was slower than usual. Like even the tics had been worn out by the day’s events.
Except for the weak light coming from the house, the night surrounded us. Crickets chirped and tree frogs sang. It was getting late in the year for both, but the night was warmer than usual, so I guess they figured it was safe to spend one more evening out.
For a very long time, there was just us, the stars, and the darkness.
When Morgan finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I thought I told you to not come back.”
“You did.”
He nodded. Then he found my hand and held it. “Thank you.”
I kissed his knuckles. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should have thought about what I was going to say before I said it. I should have never said it.”
He tightened his grip. His fear, his worries, his desperation sang loud and clear in that simple contact. If I’d only had words to comfort him.
“I don’t know what to do.” Morgan drew his knees up. “I don’t even understand why I should have to do anything.”
“I know. And to tell you the truth, I don’t understand it either. But I’d still like to try to get you some help.”
“Your lawyer friend?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand. “Is that okay with you?”
Morgan nodded, then after a long stretch of silence, he said, “That FBI guy, Jeff.”
“You mean the douche bag in a suit?”
“Yeah, him.” Morgan snorted. “He did this to get back at you for something, didn’t he?”
“Pretty much.”
“What?”
“He wants me to give him information on my clients so he can build a case against them.”
“Why?”
“He’s probably hoping threatening them with jail will get him to some bigger, more important people. Then he can arrest them. Get his picture in the paper. Further his career. Hell… I don’t really know.”
“You loved him.” Morgan made it a statement.
I let go of his hand. Not because I wanted to but because holding him when thinking about Jeff, or more precisely what we’d had, felt wrong. “Yeah, I think I did.”
“What about now?”
“No.” I didn’t even have to think about the answer.
“He’s still in love with you, though.”
If anyone else had said it, I would have told them it was a figment of their imagination, but Morgan didn’t see things not there. He just saw things no one else could. “He’s got a funny way of showing it, doesn’t he?”
“Are you going to do it?”
“What?”
“Give him the information.”
I leaned back on my elbows. A vast carpet of stars made bright points on a black sky. “I don’t think he’s going to give me much of a choice.”
“Because he’ll arrest me if you don’t.”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to feel like I was putting the blame on Morgan. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t even my fault. Not really. But Morgan was in the middle so Jeff decided to use him.
“Don’t,” Morgan said. “Don’t tell him.”
If I didn’t, Jeff would make Morgan suffer. I knew the charges wouldn’t stick. A half-assed lawyer could make the whole incident look like a joke. But Jeff would make good on his word and take Morgan in. For any other person, it would’ve been an inconvenience. For Morgan, it would’ve been devastating.
“I’ll try to think of something.” I had a few aces up my sleeve, but they could easily detonate and take me with them. “If I can’t, then I’ll have to tell him.”
“But if you do, something bad will happen, won’t it? That’s why you don’t want to tell him.”
Bad was probably the best case scenario. “A lot of people have trusted me to help them with some very private… situations. I’m less worried about the FBI finding out what some of those things were, than I am private interested parties, who might have had a financial loss due to those situations.”
Morgan sighed.
“Don’t worry. It’ll work out. We just need to concentrate on this problem with Mr. Day.”
Morgan moved closer so I took it as an invitation and wrapped an arm around him. He rested his head on my shoulder. “She started sending me letters after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I recognized the name on the envelopes because Lori had told me about her. But I never opened the letters.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Because I didn’t want to know her.” Morgan touched my jaw and danced a path to my chin, around my lips, to my forehead with small taps of his fingers. “Then one day, she showed up at my door. She was very sick. All her hair was gone. Her clothes looked too big. But she’d driven for three hours to come see me. She came alone because she didn’t want my father to know. We sat at the table and drank iced tea. She told me she was sorry and begged me to forgive her.”
He danced his fingers to the empty space in front of me. Pale highlights turned each digit gray and the movement blurred in the darkness. When I stared hard enough, shapes emerged from the shadows like those born from clouds.
“I told her there was nothing for me to forgive. She said she gave me up, that she’d abandoned me. She was so angry with herself for it. But she didn’t abandon me. She gave me to Lori.” He dropped his hand to his lap. “Mrs. Day gave me a folder with some bank information. Then she left and I threw it out. A week later, her lawyer called me and told me she’d died.
“I waited for days to feel something. Anger, sadness, anything. But it wasn’t there, not like it is when you lose someone you know and I still didn’t know her. I didn’t even regret not knowing her.”
“Why not?”
“If I’d regretted not having time with her, then that meant I regretted my time with Lori. And I didn’t. Not one second.”
“A lot of people wouldn’t feel that way about being given up.”
Morgan shrugged.
“They’d be hurt by the idea.”
He returned his hand to his temple. The tossing movement was slower. “But if Mrs. Day had kept me, if she hadn’t done the right thing and given me up, I wouldn’t be who I am. I’d still be lost.”
Morgan was right, and the idea of never knowing him left behind a chill.
“You cold?” He scooted closer.
“I’m good.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Grant. A terrible liar.”
“I’m not cold, at least, not on the outside.”
Morgan sighed. “The inside cold is always worse.”
“Why do you say that?” I laid my cheek against the top of his head.
“Because you can put a coat on to stay warm, but there isn’t much you can do for your heart.”
I hoped one day I’d be as wise as Morgan.
********
I stayed the night at Morgan’s place.
He didn’t ask me, but he didn’t tell me to leave either. So when he headed for bed, I followed him. Morgan undressed. I undressed. Then we slipped under the covers. He held me. I held him. And
the tree frogs trickled away as the night grew colder.
It would be winter soon. For the first time in a very long time, I actually thought about Christmas.
What would Morgan like?
I didn’t have a clue. I thought about getting him a computer, but I didn’t know if he chose not to have one or if he couldn’t use one in the same way he couldn’t drive, tie his shoes, or tell left from right.
I had a feeling it was the former. Although I can’t say why. Maybe it was because he didn’t even own a TV.
Somewhere between petting his back and fondling the locks of hair at the nape of his neck, I fell asleep. I rarely remembered my dreams, but that night the strangeness of the images in my head stuck with me.
Light surrounded me. Not like the nontangible source of energy I was used to, but solid pieces hanging in the air like bits of glass. All shapes, all sizes, but always geometric and never three-dimensional. As each shard turned, it would disappear only to reappear as it completed a rotation.
Nothing held them up, but they were unmovable. And there was no space for me to get through.
In the gaps between the twirling light, Morgan stood at the edge of the world. I don’t know how I knew what it was. There was nothing to suggest it was the edge of the world. Just a flat surface ending at a horizon of black.
Seeing him there filled me with a kind of fear I’d never known, and I was overwhelmed with the need to get to him. If I didn’t, something terrible would happen. But the twirling fragments wouldn’t move and when I tried to get past them, they left behind deep cuts.
Then my fear coalesced when Morgan looked at me and the sadness in his eyes sent me to my knees.
Morgan gave me an apologetic smile, as he stepped off the edge.
I think I woke up crying, although I couldn’t be sure because I was soaked head to toe in sweat.
The cold chill that had run through me that evening turned to ice.
********
I woke up before dawn, even before Morgan, and snuck out.
There wasn’t going to be a happily ever after if I gave Jeff what he wanted. I’d wind up running for the rest of my life, either from people I betrayed, people I put under the FBI’s radar, or the FBI.
There was only one solution to the problem. I had to make Jeff go away. I had to make him want to go away. I had to make the threat of opening Pandora’s Box so real it bypassed even his ingrained sense of self-preservation and went straight to the soul.
I needed him to know real fear.
Because fear is a powerful motivator. And for the first time, I knew just how powerful it could be. Not because I could lose everything—my freedom, my life, my money—but because I could lose Morgan.
Without him, the rest was meaningless.
I found a convenience store about fifteen miles outside of town and grabbed two disposable cell phones, then hid in their bathroom to make the first of two calls.
It rang twice, and Rubio’s sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
“I’m changing my plans.”
He grunted, and sheets rustled in the background. “Good or bad?”
“Good.”
“Then you call because it’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“Do I need to get you a lawyer?” Rubio didn’t mean the law book quoting kind.
“No. It’s bad but not that bad.” Yet. It didn’t need to be said out loud. He’d been in the same dark corner I’d occupied more times than any man should.
“But bad enough.” As in bad enough to call him.
“Yeah.”
“Who do they have?”
“A friend.”
“Is that why you’ve changed your vacation plans?”
I chuckled.
“Perhaps you could bring him to visit sometime?”
“He’s not the traveling type.”
“Then I will miss getting to see you and kick your ass at chess.”
I laid my head against the bathroom door. My fear, frustration, and worry must have carried on my exhale. Or maybe Rubio just knew. He always seemed to know.
“What has the FBI done to your friend?”
I told Rubio what happened.
“Then things are getting dangerous for you.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“You know it’s not.”
“What is your alternative?”
“You mean what can I do, besides kill him?”
Rubio sighed. “Even honorable men sometimes have to do not so honorable things.”
“If I thought…” What? If I thought it would solve the problem, I would? I feared the answer. I feared the truth in that answer. I’d play my last hand before I went that route. “Do you remember the file I sent you for safe keeping?”
“You mean the file you sent me so you wouldn’t do something you would regret?” There was laughter in his tone but no happiness in it.
“Yeah.”
“What about it?”
“There’s a family photo in there. I need you to fax it for me.” I told him where and when. “Make sure it gets to Agent Jeff Shaldon, and only Jeff. And make sure the number can’t be traced.”
“And if it doesn’t get his attention?”
“Then he’s less of a human being than I ever pegged him for.”
“And?”
“It will work. It has to. It’s the only way out I have left. It’s the only way to save what I have.”
Rubio would know what I meant by that. Not the exact details, but we spoke the same language. We just learned it from different sources.
“It is good to know you are happy. I will be sure to let everyone know you won’t be here for the holidays.”
“Thank you.”
“Call me, Grant. When.”
He hung up.
I flushed the sim chip and smashed the phone under my heel. Anything that looked like a memory board was also flushed. The rest went into the garbage. The young guy at the counter didn’t even look up from his e-reader when I walked out.
By the time I got back to Durstrand, pink and blues traced the horizon. There was a small shack on the county line advertising homemade breakfast. I stopped and bought four biscuits, as well as a cup of coffee.
While I sipped my drink, I thought about everything that had happened. Between Morgan and me, my past clients, Rubio, and Jeff.
I didn’t want to admit it, not to anyone, not even to myself, but I had loved Jeff. Really loved him. If anything makes you sloppy and stupid, it’s love. Kills brain cells faster than alcohol and annihilates your instinct for self-preservation.
There is one good thing that comes from loving someone. Your courage shoots through the fucking roof. Which honestly isn’t always a good thing when you’re thinking like a dumbass. Only one other emotion can come close to the power of loving someone and it’s not hating them. It’s revenge.
Seems the same thing as hate, I know, but it’s not. Revenge is calmer, cold, and calculating. It has a plan. It’s willing to wait. Sometimes it only has to simmer for a couple of days, sometimes weeks or months. The longer revenge cooks, the more potent it becomes. Unleashed at a toxic level, it can take the carrier with it.
When Jeff did what he did to me, revenge set up a cancer in my soul. I had every intentions of destroying him in a way I’d never wanted to do to a person.
After two months, I knew everything there was to know about Agent Shaldon, right down to work evaluations. I mean, I already knew his intimate habits. But he’d been Jeff Meyers then. A petty thief with a short rap sheet and an easy to read history. Not too easy, mind you. The FBI had made me work for my breadcrumbs, but I’d still failed to realize that’s what they were.
In my defense, Jeff Meyers was a real person. So was everything about his life, right down to his high school report card. Even his ninth grade photo looked like a younger version of Jeff.
The FBI might suck at a lot of things, but they are mas
ter liars.
What I failed to realize was Jeff Meyers had been dead for five years. A fact I’d missed because he’d died in Canada and he’d gotten there on a fake passport.
Time is funny. While it usually festers the negative, on occasion it gives the body time to heal. As I dug through Jeff’s life, my revenge cooled to anger, then the anger cooled to humiliation.
I could practically hear Eugene’s voice in my head calling me a dumbass. Even as a memory he was right. I’d fucked up. I’d broken the rules. I’d gotten stupid. And I’d survived.
Instead of testing fate again, I'd chosen to walk away. To not become the thing I hated. I left Chicago to find paradise, only to my surprise it wasn’t the island of my dreams.
Facing the darkness again was no longer a matter of pride; it was a matter of Morgan. It my last-ditch effort to remain the man I was so I could be who he deserved. Or at least as close to what he deserved as I was able to give.
Between sips of coffee, I dialed information, found the number for the Hyatt and rang Jeff’s room. I could have called his personal cell, but doing so would bring things too close to home. I needed to detach myself, and I needed Jeff to feel the rift expand right under him.
The phone rang, and I hoped to God Jeff was having the best fucking dream of his life.
He answered with a barely intelligible, “Hello?”
“Late night?” He’d always been a night owl. If he was following his usual sleep schedule, he hadn’t been in bed more than two hours.
There was a clank in the background, then a thump. “Shit.”
“I hope whatever you broke is irreplaceable.”
“Nothing broke. I just knocked the clock off the night stand.”
“Pity.”
“Is there a reason you’re calling me at… six a.m.?”
I checked my watch. “Six fifteen a.m. and yeah, there is.”
“We had an agreement.”
“Who says I plan on breaking it?”
The relief in his sigh was tangible. If this worked, it wouldn’t last. No, Jeff would learn a new me, hell, even I would learn a new me.
“What’s going on, Grant?”
“Nothing yet, but sometime this afternoon I’m going to wind up in a little room with some FBI men who have an interest in my business log. They want me to hand over names, dates, times, you know, information that was entrusted to me in confidence.”
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