“You’re angry and you should be. Nothing I can say will take that away, but I need to tell you about my last mission in Vietnam. It concerns you. You see, I knew who you were before you knew Billy Bell existed.”
He handed Rainey a handkerchief and began his tale.
“I was on a special mission. Your father and six other soldiers were my escorts. The mission was highly classified due to the fact we were crossing into a country we had no legal right to be in. The facts don’t matter now, other than you have to know we were not going to be rescued if something went wrong.”
“Something went wrong, I’m assuming,” Rainey commented.
“Yes, very wrong. I’m pretty sure it was a trap from the get go, that our information was compromised, but that wasn’t my main concern after getting shot in an ambush. Four out of the seven of us survived the initial assault. We managed to lay down enough fire to escape into the jungle, but I was shot up pretty good. I figured I was going to die there and my wife would never know where or how, but your father wasn’t about to let that happen.”
Rainey smiled for the first time in days, when she said, “He used to tell me, ‘As long as you’re breathing, there is always hope.’”
Captain Wise nodded. “He said that to me that day. He patched my wounds and, although the other two guys wanted him to leave me, thinking I was dead already and going to slow them down, he refused to give up on me. I’ll never forget what he did. He looked those men in the eye and smiled. I kid you not, we are about to die, me especially, and he’s grinning like the Cheshire cat.”
Rainey chuckled. Her father’s laughing face appeared in her memory. “He always did that. He’d survive something that would kill another man and he’d laugh, like it was just a twist in the game of life he was playing.”
“He did have that air about him,” Wise said. “He told those boys, ‘Y’all go on, if you need to. Me and the Captain, we’ll be right along. If you get to base before me, explain how you left us here to the brass, ‘cause I’m sure I’m gonna want a beer rather than deal with that shit.’ ”
“Did they stay?”
“Yes, but only because I think they truly believed he really would make it out alive without their help, but they weren’t so sure they could make it out without his. For two days, they carried me, until we reached a point we could be air lifted out. For those two days, when we would stop, your father would show me a picture of a baby with a mass of thick dark curls on her head. He told me stories of where he wanted to take her and the things he wanted to teach her, how special she was, and how he knew he was still alive because of her, because she needed him to be.”
Rainey choked on the emotion welling inside.
Captain Wise put his hand on her shoulder. “That was you, Rainey. When I saw him again, many years later, the first thing we talked about was you, how proud he was, and how it had been true—he survived because of you.”
The voice at her side snapped her back to the present.
“Are you Agent Bell?”
Rainey looked up to see a tall man who looked a lot like Wellman Wise. “Yes, well, I was. I’m just Rainey Bell, now.”
“I’m Bill Wise. My mother wanted me to ask you to be sure to come by the house. I know with the weather coming you’ll want to get on the road, but it seems important to her.”
Rainey stood up. “I’m so very sorry for your loss. Please tell you mother I’ll be happy to stop by.”
The man smiled, reminding Rainey of his father. “Just follow the processional back to the house. I’ll make sure Mom knows you’re coming and we’ll get you back on the road as soon as possible.”
Bill Wise walked away and as the crowd of mourners thinned, Rainey stepped up to the coffin. On her way to the tent covering the site, she had been handed a long stemmed white rose. She placed it on the top of the coffin with all the others.
“Say hello to Billy for me,” Rainey said. “Godspeed, Captain Wellman Wise.”
#
10:30 a.m., Overcast, 28oF, Windchill 18.6oF
“Katie, I was at a funeral. I had my phone turned off.”
Rainey called home on the way to the Captain’s house. Katie had become an amateur weatherman and was reporting all the reasons Rainey should already be on her way home, and scolding her for not answering the phone. The state of North Carolina was in a panic, stirred up sufficiently enough by the snowfall predictions to cancel school before the storm arrived. Katie, in her fatigued and emotional state of late, had gotten caught up in the constant weather bulletins and dire warnings of a historic blizzard. Calling home, Rainey thought, may have been a mistake.
“Nobody turns the phone off. They put it on vibrate so they know someone is trying to reach them.”
“They should tell someone they are attending a funeral so that someone will leave a message and wait for a return call, like this one.”
“Whatever, Rainey, just come home.”
“I will, but first I have to stop at the house. Captain Wise’s wife asked to see me.”
“She didn’t see you at the service? Doesn’t she know the weather is going to get bad?”
“Katie, chill out. I’m sure Mrs. Wise had other things on her mind while putting her husband in the ground.”
The phone went silent for a few seconds. Rainey could hear the kids in the background, loudly banging pots and pans, a favorite nerve-racking pastime. As patient as Katie had been with the triplets and their demanding needs, rarely appearing overwhelmed, the first months of age two had begun to challenge her limits. Rainey waited to see what sort of reaction her “chill out” comment would bring. She was pleasantly surprised when Katie spoke again.
“I am so sorry. My whining must be getting on your nerves. Of course, do what you have to do. Please be careful and call me before you leave.”
“I will. Is Molly back yet?”
“No, but she’s on her way. She went home to change cars. She’s bringing Joey and his friend, Theodore. Leslie didn’t want Joey to have to stay at Molly’s alone, if she can’t get home tonight. You might be missing a slumber party, if you can’t make it back.”
“Who’s Theodore?” Rainey asked, not liking strangers in her home if she wasn’t there.
“You remember him. He worked on the computers at the women’s center with Joey.”
“Oh yeah. Man that kid’s weird. Who actually goes by the name Theodore? You’d think he would have given himself a nickname, if no one else did.”
“Rainey, you’re terrible. Theodore is eccentric, not weird. I thought you liked him. You talked about computers for an hour.”
“I talked about computers. He wanted to talk about the BAU. He’s a “Criminal Minds” junkie.”
“So are a lot of people. Does that make them all weird?”
“No, just naïve if they think that’s how it is, jetting from one crime scene to another. And the dress code is not quite that sexy.”
“How would you know if you haven’t seen it?”
“Sometimes there isn’t much on the tube when a baby is teething. It was either Shaun T or Derrick Morgan. I mostly just marveled at the team’s ability to be so many places at once.”
The car in front of Rainey braked and then pulled to the curb. A steady stream of people exited cars and formed a line walking up to a small, restored Victorian home.
“Well, it looks like I’m here,” she said to Katie, and pulled the van over to park.
Katie’s end of the call went silent again. Rainey assumed she was preoccupied with a toddler, but that wasn’t the case at all. When she spoke, Katie’s voice was soft and loving. This was the Katie that knew all Rainey’s secrets, the wife and lover, not the mother of their children. This was the woman who knew the losses of Rainey’s life and loved her through the recovery.
“Rainey, I know that service was hard on you. I’m sorry you had to do it alone. I wish I could have been there for you. If we had more notice, I could have come with you.”
“
I know, honey. Thank you. I’m okay. Besides,” Rainey laughed to lighten the conversation, “we wouldn’t want us both stuck in the snow.”
“It’s a good thing you’re cute,” Katie said. “Hurry up and get home. It’s supposed to start snowing after noon. You just might make it before it gets bad.”
“I will do my best,” Rainey promised.
“Be careful. I love you.” Katie’s voice grew fainter and Rainey realized she was now on speakerphone. “Tell Nee Nee bye bye.”
A chorus of bye byes rained down on her from the speakers.
“Bye, bye,” Rainey replied. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Three
The Home of Captain and Mrs. Wellman Wise
10:58 a.m.
Overcast, 28oF, Windchill 17.5oF
Rainey flipped the collar up on her full-length, black wool coat and pulled the white silk muffler a little tighter. This was her first winter without long hair and she had yet to grow accustomed to the cold on her neck and ears. She looked up at what had been a clear but crisp day to see menacing gray clouds closing in. The further south she had driven from home, the more blue sky she had seen and thought maybe she had been correct about the weather prognosticators exaggerating again. These clouds suggested that Katie’s forecast was closer to the truth than Rainey’s doubts.
She joined the mourners walking quietly toward the Wise home, hands jammed in their pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. There were whispered words between a few, but for the most part the processional into the house was somber. As she moved with what appeared to be the bulk of the town’s population, Rainey noticed that the Mayor’s prediction of the suburbs catching up to Hominy Junction had been correct. The once dying town had rejuvenated with the influx of new blood. Fresh coats of paint and a bit of remodeling replaced the decrepit and falling down. A glance over her shoulder toward Main Street showed vibrant village shops now surrounding the still operating drug store in the middle of the block. Hominy Junction was reborn, but today it laid one of its native sons to rest.
“The circle of life,” Rainey whispered to herself.
Nearing the porch, she began to hear music. When the front door opened, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle” poured out to the street. Rainey didn’t know what she expected, but this wasn’t it. Upon entering the Wise home, Rainey saw wall-to-wall people, most holding paper plates with little white-bread ham sandwich squares and a pickle slice. She smiled, remembering the Captain saying he snuck off to the diner for white bread so his wife would not know. It was sweet that she was serving his favorite at what Rainey now understood was a celebration of his life and not meant as a memorial for his loss.
Rainey handed her coat and scarf to a vaguely familiar looking man in the foyer. She checked to make sure her concealed holster was still clipped securely to the back of her slacks and covered by her suit jacket. Funeral or not, life good or not, Rainey Bell went nowhere unarmed. Yes, maybe she was a little paranoid, as Molly liked to point out, but so far it had served her well. The thing about criminals was they did not wear signs stating their intentions. If they did, it would be so much easier to see them coming.
Rainey’s recent history proved she was no better at picking the murderer in the room than anyone else, at least not until they gave her a hint. The fading scar on her cheek and the permanent one on her chest and torso were daily reminders of how close evil could get, before tipping its hand. It was a common misconception that behavioral analysts could “read” people a la Sherlock Holmes, but even Sherlock had his Miss Adler, who outwitted the great detective.
After the cheek scar-causing incident last spring, Rainey had to explain to Katie why she did not see the danger coming until it was almost too late.
“I’m an analyst, not a psychic. What I did for the BAU was an after-the-crime activity, based on developing a criminal profile from crime scene analysis and other evidence. It takes a different skill set to interpret the behavior of a known person as opposed to that of an unknown subject. I wasn’t looking for a psychopath, and even if I was, I saw only what I was allowed to see. I can see more at a crime scene of a criminal’s true personality than I can across the dinner table from them. Hence, the reason I am always armed. You just never know.”
Weapon secured, Rainey went in search of Mrs. Wise. One of the first things Rainey learned, as a behavioral analyst, was she never really knew a person until she saw where they lived and what they held sacred. As she wandered from room to room in Captain Wise’s home, she saw that family, God, and country were his sacred things. He and his wife lived in an uncluttered, restored Victorian. Pictures of the family were placed tastefully around the rooms. A few pieces of art depicting old farmhouses hung on the walls. The furniture appeared soft and inviting, meant to be lived in. This was a family home, nothing showy, or frilly.
Making her way to the food table, Rainey recognized the woman serving. She was fourteen years older, but definitely the girl named Leda from the diner. She was smiling now, her head held high, shoulders back and proud. Rainey could only guess what had turned a sad, browbeaten teenager into a blossoming young woman, but she imagined it had something to do with not seeing her hostile mother anywhere around. She took a plate and exchanged smiles with Leda, while thinking, “Good for you.”
Rainey found a corner to stand in, hoping to spot Mrs. Wise or her son in the still growing crowd. Creedence was now singing about being born on the bayou, while she ate her sandwich and people watched. She noticed the guy that took her coat standing with a tall ginger-haired man and then it dawned on her where she had seen them both before. These were two of the basketball players she had seen at the diner. She wondered if the one named Skylar set the record that night. He and the ginger-haired man, she thought they had called him G, were coming toward her and the opportunity to ask him was about to present itself, when a very pretty blonde stopped them just a few feet from where Rainey stood. She listened to their conversation, because there was nothing else to do but wait for Mrs. Wise to appear.
“Hey, Sky,” the blonde said, a bit of flirtatiousness in her voice.
Skylar smiled, still possessing perfect teeth, only now bleached unnaturally white. “Ellie,” he said, and hugged her, “How’s life on the farm?”
She winked at him, “You’ll have to come out and visit again, now that the work is done on the house.”
G took his turn at hugging Ellie, bending down to the shorter blonde. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you, Gordon. Always the ladies’ man,” Ellie said, quite coquettishly Rainey thought.
She had also learned that G stood for Gordon, and apparently an initial for a name is only cool if you’re a rapper or a teenage baller.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been out to see you, yet. I heard about Burgess,” Gordon said. “What a freak thing to happen.”
The freak thing that happened to Burgess did not appear to distress Ellie at all. The explanation for her lack of concern came with her comment. “Burgess and I split up a year before it happened. Our divorce would have been finalized five days after it happened. I tell people I was one week short of being a divorcee instead of a widow. Timing is everything.” She punctuated her punch line with a little giggle.
The men chuckled uneasily at Ellie’s dark sense of humor.
Ellie seemed to realize how callous she sounded and attempted to recover with, “Of course, I was completely devastated. I still can’t understand how he ingested peanuts. He was always so careful. And the EpiPen not working has always been a mystery.” Her attempt to fake some emotion with her follow-up statement of, “I loved him a long time. I really miss him,” amused Rainey enough to force her to turn away to hide a smile.
Ellie, Rainey recalled, had witnessed her parents’ murder and the shooting of her brother. She had also pulled the trigger on another human being. Bad guy or not, shooting someone was traumatic to the average person. A certain amount of emotional disconnect could
be expected from trauma like that. Rainey thought it might explain Ellie’s apparent lack of emotion concerning the death of a man to whom she was married, or she was simply a cold-hearted bitch.
Skylar spoke next. “Yeah, Burgess was a good guy. So was your brother. Ely and I might have butted heads in high school over Cassie, but after he was shot, we became good friends. I couldn’t believe it when I heard he was dead.”
Gordon may have taken on an adult name, but his tact was still that of a clueless teenager. He proceeded to stick his foot firmly in his mouth. “How in the hell do you drown putting in a boat? I heard he was drunk as a skunk.”
Skylar looked up at his old friend and shook his head. “You know, you are never going to change. You are still a dumb jock. I’m going to get a beer. Ellie, you want one?”
Ellie said, “Sure,” but hung back long enough to pat Gordon’s chest and reassure him. “It’s okay, G. I wondered the same thing when Ely died. Come on, Skylar will get over it. Let’s have a beer for old time sake.”
So, Ellie wasn’t a total bitch, Rainey noted and looked for someone else to watch as they moved away. Leda had come from behind the table and was moving about the room, picking up empty plastic cups and plates. Rainey finished the last bite of her sandwich just as Leda approached.
“I’ll take that,” she said, smiling at Rainey and pointing at her empty plate.
“Thank you. It was delicious,” Rainey replied, handing it over.
“Mr. Wise loved those sandwiches, bless his soul. Were you a close friend? I don’t remember seeing you around here. I’m Leda, by the way, Leda Mann Janson.”
Rainey wasn’t the only person checking people out it seemed.
“It’s nice to meet you, Leda. My name is Rainey Bell. My father served with Captain Wise.”
“Well, you look lonely over here by yourself. If you need company, you can come chat with me over at the food table. I have some brownies I haven’t put out yet. Make sure you get one. It’s momma’s recipe. Mr. Wise loved them. I suppose she can cook them in heaven for him now.”
Colde & Rainey (A Rainey Bell Thriller) Page 5