Then all at once, the movement and the whispering stopped as suddenly as it had started.
VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE
The house had become silent as the breakfast hour passed without further incident. The group of people that had arrived late the night before had remained in the bedroom after their unsettling incident in the early morning hours. The security personnel were already weary of the newcomers and stayed as far away from them as they could.
Gabriel looked at his watch and then the cold cup of coffee in his hand. He placed the cup down, stood, and stretched. He went over to the far corner, and after excusing himself to the black-clad FBI security man, he leaned over and tapped John on the shoulder. The large man looked up and then eased Jennifer’s sleeping head from his shoulder and stood, softly placing her head on the arm of the small love seat where she had finally dozed off. As John moved away with Kennedy, they were joined by both Julie Reilly and Kelly Delaphoy. George had excused himself some time before eight that morning to see if he could find the liquor cabinet and, with a warning look from Gabe, went to find it.
“How is she doing?” Gabriel asked John as they stood by the bathroom door.
With a look at Julie, John nodded. The move was overexaggerated, and Kennedy noticed it.
“She’s—”
“She’s been exhibiting signs for months now,” Julie said, cutting John’s overly enthusiastic answer off at the knees.
“That right, John?” Gabriel asked.
He nodded silently as his eyes went over to a sleeping Jenny. “Yeah, she stares at herself in the mirror more than she should. She hums and sings songs when she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.”
“You have to have more than that,” Kennedy said, growing frustrated at having to dig answers out of Lonetree.
“Hell, I don’t think Bobby Lee ever left her. He’s just been lying low, and the stress of being on the run has made it nearly impossible for her to hide the fact anymore.”
“Is that what you think?” Gabe asked Julie, who nodded.
“She also talks in her sleep when she thinks John’s out. I heard her more than once. It’s nothing threatening. Bobby just comes out and talks. It seems like she enjoys it, if you ask me.”
“Well, we differ on that point. I want the bastard out of her.”
Kennedy walked over and looked down on Jenny as she slept. “Does she sleep well?” he asked.
“You mean does Bobby Lee drive her to insomnia?” John said, shaking his head. “No. It’s not like before; he doesn’t force her to sing or lie awake at night with his incessant complaining about how unfair his life and death had been.”
Gabriel turned away and nodded at both John and Julie. “I’ll talk to her later. The only reason I’m concerned is the fact she refused to tell me about the reoccurrence. And she obviously didn’t feel confident enough to inform you of the truth.”
“Maybe we should—” Julie began to say, but the deep male voice stopped her cold.
The voice was so different that the FBI hostage rescue team man took a sideways step when he realized the man’s voice was once more springing from the small woman lying on the love seat.
“Maybe you should leave her the hell alone, Dr. Schweitzer,” said the voice from the perfect face of Jenny, whose eyes were moving at a rapid rate underneath her eyelids.
Gabriel turned and went back to the love seat where Jennifer lay with her small feet and legs curled up like a sleeping child.
“Bobby Lee, I thought we had a deal,” Gabriel said as he stood over the diminutive anthropologist.
“You had a deal, man, not me.”
The four hostage rescue team men exchanged looks as the deep male voice came from the small woman lying there. The heavily armed men took another step away.
“Bobby Lee, we may be into something here that could cause Jenny trouble. We need her alert and awake.”
“You have more of a problem than that daddy-oh on that bed. I think that nutjob has an enemy you don’t want to meet, that’s what I think. I think my Jenny girl will need me. No offense, Chief Red Cloud.”
John angrily shook his head. He and the old rock-and-roller had more than just a casual dislike for each other; it was almost as if they were romantic rivals of a sort. Gabriel turned and shook his head at Lonetree, that now was not the time to get into an argument with a tormented spirit.
“Why do you say ‘enemy’?”
“I’m sayin’ enemy because that’s what this dude is facing, whoever this nutjob is. And I’m not sayin’ that this McCarthy-type asshole doesn’t deserve it.” On the love seat, Jenny’s brow furrowed. It looked as if, at least to Gabriel, she was trying to follow along with what tormentor was saying. “I don’t know who’s the bad guy here, man. It’s not like your last adventure in that house of horrors you sissies called Summer Place.” Jenny’s arm raised from her prone position and pointed, first at one of the Nomex-clad security men, who moved farther away, and then at the bed and its occupant. “I get the vibe that this bastard is worse than even the men that killed me. You want to talk about ghosts, that dude has ghosts.” The arm flopped down until the movement made Jennifer’s eyes flutter open. She quickly sat up and looked at President Hadley as his chest rose and fell in a calm sleep. She blinked and looked at the four people standing over her.
John went to her and sat down. “How you doing?” he asked, taking her much smaller hand in his own. She shook out of it and stood and went to the bed. The doctor and the two nurses came out of their stupors of the early morning and stood from their chairs as she approached. When they saw she wasn’t a threat, they backed away.
Jennifer stared down at the president, and then she turned to face the others. “Bobby Lee doesn’t like him very much.”
“How long, Jenny?” Gabriel asked as he joined her bedside.
“He never left, Gabe. I didn’t want to tell you, or you,” she said as she faced Lonetree. “I wasn’t sure at first, but then I knew, either in dreams or while doing research. He was always there. Hell,” she said as she ran a hand through her short hair, “maybe I even wanted him there. When I thought he had left that night in Summer Place, I felt I would be fine with it. I felt I wasn’t whole any longer.”
John closed his eyes, and then Jenny saw it and went to him. He smiled, a false gesture.
“Easy, John. Bobby Lee has no romantic interest in this haunted vessel you call your girlfriend; he’s always been interested in others,” she said as she turned and faced both Julie Reilly and Kelly Delaphoy. They exchanged horrified looks.
“We need to know what drove this man to the point it opened him up to this attack,” Gabriel said to change the sore subject, at least for John’s sake. He couldn’t help but give a teasing smile to both Kelly and Julie over Bobby Lee’s choice of romantic possibilities.
“Leonard should have a starting point for us by now.” Kennedy faced Jenny. “Is Bobby Lee going to be a hindrance, or is he going to help us?”
“Who in the hell knows? Remember the last time the little bastard skipped out right when the going got tough?” Lonetree said as he held Jenny’s hand.
Jennifer’s eyes flared bright momentarily, but then they settled as she squeezed his hand.
Kennedy gestured that they should leave.
As they started for the door, Gabriel noticed that Kelly Delaphoy stayed behind as she slipped on her sweater. He saw that it was intentional. She smiled, lost it, and then attempted it again.
“What is it?” he asked as he waited by the door.
With a wary glance at the others in the room, she took a step closer to Kennedy. “I’m so sorry for letting you down and getting the rest of them caught.”
“You said it wasn’t intentional; we can all live with that.”
“Still, I wasn’t as tough as I, or you, thought I was. I’m out of my league here. At least Julie has a track record of research and reporting. What am I? I’m a television producer who has screwed up everything I have
ever touched in my life.”
Kennedy understood that Kelly felt she wasn’t much help to the team. He had found that her insight into how to sham a television audience had become invaluable in their work. Without her expertise, they would have been hard put to disprove any of the hauntings they had declared as hoaxes.
“You let me worry about who is valuable and who isn’t. What do you want me to do, replace you with Bobby Lee McKinnon?”
Kelly smiled as she hugged Gabriel and then patted his belly. “You go ahead; I think I’ll stay and keep an eye on our Mr. Wonderful for a while. One of us should be with him at all times.”
Kennedy smiled and then adjusted his glasses. “Okay, I’ll have someone relieve you in a while. I sent Damian on an errand, and he should be back by tomorrow morning. We’ll have more eyes to help then.”
Kelly watched as Gabe left, and then she looked over at the man in the bed. The hostage rescue team members were watching her as well as the two nurses and one doctor. She went over to the love seat that had been previously occupied by Jennifer and sat down. She again adjusted the sweater to the morning chill and then watched and listened to the heart monitor as it gave out its steady beeping.
* * *
Leonard wasn’t tired. He went from one computer to the next and then read what was there. When he got what he needed, he would hit the Print button, and the copier set up in the corner would come to life. The computer genius was in his element, and he was determined to get as much information as he could. Kennedy always pushed him for more, and acting as though the request had always been too much, Leonard always smiled and dove into his work. If there were any people out there who thought they could hide information from him, they usually found out the hard way that they were wrong. He had only been disturbed once, and that was by Catherine Hadley as she stepped in to see what Leonard was up to. He eased the woman out of the study and then closed the door behind her. She was Gabe’s problem and one he didn’t have time for. He barely glanced up from his work when the others entered the room. George Cordero entered from the opposite door with a croissant in his hand as Gabriel pulled the sliding doors closed.
“Sorry, but I was starving. Did I miss anything?” he asked, finishing off the last of the croissant and then going to the coffeemaker in the far corner. John and Gabriel took a seat at the long table as Leonard continued to piece together his first report. “Do you know those people are eating steak and eggs out there? And you wonder why our budget deficit is so out of control.”
“I’m sure that the supercarriers and out-of-control costs on fighter planes, coupled with overpaid members of Congress, have nothing to with it,” Lonetree said as his animosity for federal spending came to the forefront.
“Reserve your opinion until you see the size of those steaks,” George said as he too sat down with his coffee.
“Maybe with the situation you could say they are eating well for the simple reason it could be their last meal,” Jennifer said not too jokingly as she and Julie Reilly sat down. “How many deaths are attributable to this event now—eight?”
George stared at the small woman and nodded to indicate that, indeed, he had not thought of that.
Finally, Leonard looked up and noticed everyone. He shook his head and then went to the coffee station and poured himself a cup. This was strange because the small computer man never drank anything but Mountain Dew. They saw three large binders sitting in front of Leonard as he sipped the bitter coffee. He made a face and then dumped at least half a dispenser of sugar into the black liquid.
“What do you want first—possible motive or the fact that everything we’ve been told about our illustrious leader is a lie? With the exception of his military and college records, everything has been falsified and done so in the most ingenious ways.”
Leonard looked up and saw that his announcement was met with shock and a bit of skepticism. He picked up the first paper bundle that had been bound with plastic covers. He slid the report down to Gabriel, who made no move to open it. His eyes went instead to the rear doors of the study, and then he fixed Leonard with a look. He slid the first report back. Sickles caught his meaning with the look at the back doors of the room.
“Ah, our lovely Mrs. Hadley.”
“Let’s find out first if we have roadblocks to the truth before we delve into the whys, hows, and whats of it.”
“Well, the president, as you know, has to place his personal holdings, which are vast, into a blind trust before he takes the oath of office. His net worth three years ago was staggering. Fifty-two point seven billion dollars.”
“That’s with a B?” John asked as he stole Jenny’s cup of coffee and sipped, ignoring her glare at his blatant theft.
“From what sources do these riches come?” Gabriel asked.
“Inheritance, mostly. It seems Hadley’s father was the real entrepreneur here, not the son.” Leonard sipped the horrid coffee again and then made a face but continued. “Although a lot of the accumulation of wealth came after the sixties and early seventies, it was from a diversified and well-guarded portfolio of stocks, bonds, and real-time companies that are nearly impossible to trace back to the Hadley family. Look at the bottom line on some of these companies and you’ll find names like Lockheed Martin, HP, and others just as impressive. Dig deeper underneath those bottom lines, you get the name Hadley buried deeper than any name. Hadley Sr.’s start was the manufacture of specialty gauges, meters, and temperature readers for the federal government, and it expanded from there into other areas of manufacturing.”
“Did Dean have a direct working relationship with his father?” Julie asked, beginning her methodic note taking as was her habit.
“Not at all beyond cashing checks, at least until the old man passed away in 1978. Then he took a cursory interest in the company, but no more than that. He liked being the fat cat but didn’t like working for it. After Vietnam, not many people who knew him would blame him for not caring.”
“What do you mean?” George asked.
Leonard reached behind him and came away with a folder and opened it. He held it for a moment as if he were about to show them a surprise. “That man up there in that bed was a stone-cold killer.” He opened the folder and slid an eight-by-ten glossy to the middle of the long table. Everyone stood to get a good look. It was Hadley in his far younger years. He stood with four other men who were similarly dressed in green battle fatigues. Hadley was shirtless, and though the other three men smiled somewhat, he did not. The green beret on his head was tilted at a jaunty angle as he stared into the camera’s lens. It was a trick of shadow, of course, but the eyes on Hadley the younger looked blank, dark, and distant.
“Fifth Special Forces Group. He was on detached service in 1968 and 1969 to the Ninth Infantry Division.”
“What was his duty?” Gabriel asked as he studied the young face in the photo.
Leonard opened another file and then read from his report. “The army is going to come knocking at any time, by the way”—he held up the flimsy sheet of papers—“because all of this was buried so deep in the St. Louis record archives division they thought it was safe.”
“Classified, I take it.” John said as a statement rather than a question.
“Labeled by the army and the Ninth Infantry Division’s S-1, he had the highest clearance. It seems our boy was on detached service to the Ninth because of his specific set of skills. This cat was good at infiltration and killing people our government thought were unworthy to keep breathing—behind enemy lines and also on the friendly side south of the DMZ.”
“An assassin?” Julie asked as her pen stopped moving on her notepad.
“Our boy was far more than that. His debrief in Washington and recovered hospital records both noted the fact that the man never even had a rise in heartbeat when he killed. In other words, he enjoyed it.”
“How did all of this not come out when his party vetted him when he declared to run for office?” Lonetree asked.
&n
bsp; “How could they know or find out? Along with his military duties, his records before college were all falsified.”
“By who?” Gabe asked.
“As far as I can see, it started with the father, Robert Hadley, and the old man’s influence was such that he had his golden boy’s exploits in Vietnam hushed up.”
“It sounds as if—” Julie began.
“His exploits would have been in the way of an eventual goal.”
“Are you suggesting, Leonard, that his father was grooming him for his eventual higher office pursuit even at that age?”
“Suggest, no. Prove? Yes.” Leonard opened the second folder. “Here is a list of high school classmates.” He slid this over to Julie Reilly and Kelly Delaphoy, the team’s best researchers outside of Leonard himself. He also slid a copy of a newspaper report over. “That is from the small newspaper in Ontario, California, the same town where Hadley went to high school. When Hadley began his bid for the California Senate seat that eventually led to the presidency, this newspaper could find no one in the Chaffey High School graduating class of 1963 that could remember Hadley. You would think that someone with that much money and clout would have been remembered, but not one classmate does. For the times, it was one damn big high school, but come on, no one?”
“Yearbooks?” Jenny asked as she retook the coffee from John’s hand.
“Got them all online. Every year from 1959 to 1963; it lists Dean Hadley as absent the day of class pictures. It says it in the captions of every yearbook. But get this—only online versions of the yearbooks; the actual hard copies have no mention of him at all, including being absent for picture day. No pictures of activities but lists everything he accomplished. Then I started checking area high schools, because you always choose somewhere close to where you really lived for ease of memory if asked. I went through all the local high schools. Claremont, Upland, Pomona, then I hit on Chino High School in Chino, California. I broke into the Chino Valley Unified School District records office, and guess what?”
In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II Page 14