Truth and Consequences

by Sarah Madison

  I helped her put away the refreshments and then showed her how to arm and disarm the alarm system. When she finally went upstairs to read, I went back to the living room to find John sitting in one of the armchairs, staring moodily into the blackness of the front yard. It was as though he didn’t see me at first. I stood in the doorway for a long moment, until he looked up.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Got a lot on my mind.”

  “Your gift for understatement never ceases to amaze me.”

  I got a flicker of a smile for my effort.

  “I don’t know how to keep her safe. Not without bringing the FBI into it. Not without letting everyone know why this is such a big deal. Why we need to catch this guy.”

  I sat down across from him. “Which would expose your telepathy.”

  He nodded. “I know we agreed that we should keep it a secret, but maybe I was just overreacting. Maybe we can trust a few people with the information….” I didn’t need to say anything. He knew even better than I did how people would react to his telepathy. For all I knew, he’d been testing the waters with “hypothetical” discussions and knew exactly how his colleagues would respond.

  “It’s been a long day. We’re both whipped. I suggest we set the alarm and go to bed. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and look at this from every possible angle before making the kinds of choices that we can’t unmake and might regret later. My granny always used to say not to make any major decisions without a good meal and at least seven hours sleep. So what do you say? We clean up and go to bed?” I would be glad to get out of clothes that smelled like charcoal.

  “You are a freaking genius.”

  “I know. I keep telling you that, but somehow you never seem to listen to me.”

  I let John shower first, knowing he’d blitz through it. I needed to take my time. Messing with protecting the cast took longer, my neck was cursing at me, and my back was so tight it almost hurt to breathe. I stood under the stinging, scalding water for a long time, willing my muscles to relax.

  Part of me wished John would join me, and together we’d find the one sure way to make us both relax. Part of me was too weary and sore to even think about getting it up. Worried too. I knew my fears would only make things harder for John, and they wouldn’t change a damn thing. I could have shoved them into the soundproof booth, but like dirty laundry, they’d still be there, stinking up the place, needing to be dealt with at some point. I forcibly put it out of my mind, the way I had to do sometimes with gruesome crime scenes or painful memories. I’d had a lot of practice at that. It made me a little detached at times, a bit too quick to see John’s side of things, but damn it, he needed someone looking out for him.

  I came downstairs to find the overhead light off and just the light from the open door to the bathroom to keep me from tripping over one of the cats. John was in bed, curled on his side under the blankets. I pushed the artifact we’d taken into the open bag of cat litter. I thought it extremely unlikely anyone would look for it there.

  I switched off the bathroom light and carefully made my way in the thick darkness. As the bed springs creaked underneath my weight, I could sense the tension emanating from John. I eased my way under the blankets and lay very still while the cats settled themselves around us.

  I felt John shiver once, and then again, a few seconds later—like aftershocks from a big quake earlier in the day.

  “I’m cold,” he said. His back was to me, and his voice muffled, but he sounded miserable.

  John hated being cold. Always had. Someday I’d get him to tell me why.

  Keeping it light, I said, “Fortunately, rumor has it that I put out heat like a nuclear reactor.” I waited a beat, turned onto my side, and curled around him, wrapping my casted arm around his chest and pulling him into the curve of my body.

  He shivered once more but said, “Thank God.”

  His hair was still damp, and he smelled of soap and clean skin.

  “You say that now, but in two minutes, you’ll be throwing me off and complaining how hot you are.”

  He chuckled and drew my arm closer around him. As I felt his body melt into mine, Phoenix padded her way between us so she could nest in the tangle of our legs. I smiled as she began kneading the soft blanket. And I fell asleep to the sound of her soothing purr.

  I woke with a start, vaguely aware of a chill on John’s side of the bed. For once, the utter darkness of the room wasn’t peaceful. It felt tomb-like. With a terrible sense of foreboding, I fumbled for the lamp on the table, disturbing the cats as I rolled. Oliver got down with a huff. Phoenix let out a plaintive mew but settled herself again. She squinted at me when I turned on the light.

  John wasn’t there.

  I picked up my watch. It was almost six thirty. John could have gotten up to go running, but that would be just stupid. Surely he’d forgo running this one time. His running shoes were still there, as were the shorts he typically wore. But his boots and his jeans were gone. Couldn’t sleep? Maybe he got up so he wouldn’t disturb me. I dressed as rapidly as possible and headed upstairs—ignoring the cats, who put in a bid for breakfast.

  He was in the kitchen, seated at the table with an empty mug in front of him. The coffeemaker was bubbling and singing to itself as it brewed a pot of ambrosia. John sat staring at his cup, with much the same blank expression as he had the night before, in the living room.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  He glanced at me, his eyes looking old and tired. “I got a text.”

  He pushed the phone across the table toward me. I picked it up.

  We need to talk.

  “Is that who—? Oh no. No, no, no. No way in hell are you going to meet up with this guy.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Lee.”

  “You can’t plan a meeting with this guy. It’s bound to be a trap.” The phone vibrated in my hand, and I jumped as though it were a rattlesnake.

  “What does it say?” John tried to take the phone back. I snatched it out of reach.

  “He wants to make a deal,” I said and rolled my eyes for good measure as I read the text. The phone buzzed again. Obviously this guy had unlimited texting. “How did he get your number, anyway? Oh look. He wants to meet in the park down the road from your mom’s. How original.”

  “Christy probably saw my number when I called you yesterday. He must have gotten it from her. Where and when does he want to meet?”

  “Near the pavilion where the outdoor grills are. He says you can’t miss him. You can’t be serious about this, John. It’s suicide. You know he wants you dead.”

  In one of those catlike strikes, John snagged the phone out of my hand almost before it registered that he was moving. “I don’t have a fricking choice,” he said as he scanned the texts.

  As he typed his response, I said, “He’s already at the park now. If you insist on doing something this imbecilic, then I’m going with you.”

  “No.” John shook his head. “You need to stay here with Mom. What if his goal is to get both of us out of the house and her alone?”

  “Your mother is armed and she has a panic mode on the alarm system. I showed her how to use it last night. We’ll wake her before we leave, but you aren’t leaving without me.”

  “If I sneak out while you’re waking Mom, you’ll just follow me later, won’t you?”

  “Not only will I follow you, but I’ll be furious with you for days. And I’ll bring it up in every fight we have, for the rest of our lives. Oh, and I might even bring your mother with me.”

  John lifted his hands in mock surrender. “You win. I’ll go wake Mom and tell her what’s going on.”

  We had a hard time persuading Jean that she needed to stay. She was ready to come with us, brandishing her Colt Peacemaker and letting “Bas” know exactly what she thought of him, the irony of which didn’t escape me. I finally convinced her that she could be used against John, so she relented. We left her minding the coffee and reassured her we’d want breakfast on our return. />
  I certainly hoped that would be the case.

  WE RODE in silence to the park. It wasn’t very far, and it wasn’t very big. In fact, John typically ran there in the mornings, which made me uneasy about its choice as a meeting ground. Bas seemed bent on showing us just how much he knew about John’s life and how easy it would be for him to find us.

  There were more people there than I expected. Joggers mostly, getting their exercise in before work. I looked around but saw no one suspicious hanging about the sidelines, looking to shoot us with a sniper rifle. Still, I didn’t like it. Rule number one of any rendezvous of this nature was to not let the perpetrator set up the meet at a place and time of his choosing.

  But I had an idea.

  “There he is,” said John, nodding toward the man walking in the direction of the grills. He was dressed in black and his blond hair gleamed in the early morning light. Jean was right. That couldn’t be his natural color. John started toward him, but I put a hand on his arm.

  “Call him,” I said. “You don’t need to get any closer. You can talk to him from here.”

  John’s curving smile told me he got it. He made the call, speaking into the phone when Bas answered on the other end. “That’s far enough.”

  I concentrated on creating a blanket shield, not just around me, but around John as well.

  “I see you brought your pet encyclopedia with you. Doesn’t it get boring, listening to that utter drivel all the time?” His voice was rich and lustrous, like the veneer on a piece of fine furniture. John had the cell on speaker, so I could hear every word.

  “What do you want?”

  “Aside from you dead? Well, I would like to have my box back, but I know that’s not happening. Have you touched it yet? I’d advise against it.”

  “Still waiting to hear something interesting,” John said. He stood facing his nemesis—almost like duelists on a field of honor—though, instead of twenty paces, it was more like fifty yards.

  “Wow, you’re really no fun. Perhaps you’re not a morning person. Well, it’s like this. You’ve been a pain in my side, and you’ve fucked up my plans. And for that, I’d like nothing more than to ruin you. I could report you to your superiors, but provided I could even convince someone you’re telepathic, I would end up exposing myself as well. And that doesn’t suit me at the moment. But I can’t exactly leave you free to tag around behind me either.”

  I tried not to tense at that, to focus on maintaining the larger shield, instead.

  “And?” John drawled.

  Bas laughed. “Parker is good. I’ll give him that. Normally if I’m within sight of someone, I can pick out their ‘voice’ among others. At the moment, I can only telepathically sense your general location, and I’m looking right at you. Perhaps if I’d had better help, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

  “Is this conversation going anywhere?” John glanced at his watch. “Because I need to go to work at some point.”

  “Very well. You destroyed two boxes. You have one box, and there is another one out there somewhere. I’m leaving the country for a while. I have a lead on the final box, and I intend to follow up on it. I want you to leave me alone. You won’t try to capture me, or bring me up on charges of theft or murder. In fact, as far as you’re concerned, I don’t exist at all.”

  “And in return for my being such a nice guy?”

  “I give you my word I won’t harm anyone you care about. Not your mother. Not her friends. Not your old girlfriend. Not your current boyfriend. Hell, not even your cats.” You could hear the amusement in his voice. It made me want to stomp over to where he stood and punch him.

  “Oh for chrissake, what makes you think we’d trust you?” I couldn’t help it. I had to say something.

  “Well, you don’t. Unless you’re willing to drop the shields and let Flynn here meet with me, mind to mind. Have you ever connected with someone on that level, John? I can tell you, sex pales in comparison with the intensity of a mind bond like that. Of course, sadly, not everyone is mentally stable enough to handle it. I’ll tell you something else too. You and me? We’re the next step in the evolutionary chain. One day people will look back and see the difference between us and everyone else as great as that between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals. You could come with me, you know.”

  “No thanks,” John said. “I’ve seen what happens to your partners. I’m kind of fond of breathing. Back to the deal, then.”

  “Tell Parker to drop the shield, and you can see I’m telling the truth.”

  “No need,” John said. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You’ll… what?” For the first time, Bas sounded uncertain.

  “You heard me. You keep your end of the bargain, and I’ll keep mine. One caveat. If I find the last artifact before you do, it’s mine.”

  There was a short pause, and then Bas made a little humming noise. “Interesting. A challenge. I like it. You’re on.” He coughed pretentiously. “I confess, you accepted the terms of this deal rather easily. I would have pegged you for one of those die-hard Mountie types. You know, the kind that swears to always get his man?”

  “You break your end of the deal, and you’ll find out exactly what kind I am,” John promised with deadly intensity. “You haven’t left me much choice. This time.”

  “Oh, you really are an amusing man. I look forward to any future conversations. But then, if we both keep our word, there won’t be any. Good-bye, Agent Flynn.”

  The call disconnected. Across the field, we watched as Bas turned and walked out of sight into a line of trees. John took me by the arm and pulled me in the direction of the car. “Come on,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “Keep shielding. We’ll talk in the car.”

  We practically jogged back to where we’d parked. John started the car and was pulling out of the parking lot before I’d even gotten my seat belt on.

  “Well?” I asked as the car sped away from the park.

  “You were right. He’s better at reading people at a distance because he doesn’t try to shut anyone out. He wallows in what he hears around him because he uses the information to blackmail and steal. He’s spent months selecting one voice out of the air and following it back to its source. He’s also worked on dropping those psychic sonic booms, like the one he used on you last night.” John paused, and a little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “But you were also right about him not being able to read people over the phone. With you shielding us both, he couldn’t get a clear line on me, but I could pick him up just fine.”

  “Then you got some good information on who he is and what he wants.”

  “You know it doesn’t work like that. I could read what he thought about while we were talking, like regretting having to kill Christy. I think maybe she was the one he had the telepathic bond with. Only something went wrong. It either didn’t stick or he knows how to reverse it.”

  He went silent and stared out of the windshield, practically vibrating with anger. The whole thing stank to high heaven, but for someone like John, it had to be eating him alive.

  “Anyway,” he said, slowing down to make a turn, “he was serious about calling a truce. But even if I had gotten more information about him, my hands are effectively tied.” He slammed the steering wheel hard enough to make me wince in sympathy. “Goddammit. I’ve made a deal with the devil. This guy isn’t just completely ruthless about using his ability, Lee. He believes it’s his right to do so. And I can’t touch him.”

  “For now. We’ll find a way to catch him somehow. In the meantime, everyone is safe. So yay, right? We can celebrate with some pancakes when we get home.”

  “Not everything can be solved with food.” He practically growled, and not in a good way.

  “I know that. You know that. But most things can be made a little bit better with food, so what do you say? Pancakes or french toast?”

  There was a long pause while he came to terms with the deal he’d just made. Fo
r the moment, our adversary intended to keep his word. It would buy us time to regroup, to figure out how to protect the ones we loved.

  When he spoke, his voice was almost its normal lazy drawl. “Can you make bacon?”

  “Yes, you caveman, you.”

  No sooner had we pulled into the driveway, than John’s phone rang again.

  “Fuck. This can’t be good,” he said. “No one calls this early just to chat.” He killed the engine and answered the call before it could roll over to voice mail. “Flynn here. What? Are you sure?” He listened for a long moment. I had a very bad feeling. “Yes sir. I can, but—” Another pause. “What about the inquiry with the shooting incident board?” John glanced at me, locked gazes while he listened. “Parker is still on medical leave, sir. No, sir, but we are a pretty effective team.”

  I was really not liking the sound of that.

  “I see. Yes, sir. As soon as possible. Yes sir. I have a few things I need to wrap up with the Richmond office and then—” John clenched his teeth. “Very well. Yes. I’ll let you know.” He disconnected the call.

  “I miss the old days when you could slam a receiver down on the handset. It was very therapeutic, if a bit hard on the phones.”

  “They want me back in San Francisco. On the next available plane.”

  There could only be one reason they would send John out there while he was still on administrative leave and working with the Richmond and DC offices. Especially on a “drop everything and go now” basis.

  “The Grimm Fairy Tale Killer has struck again,” I said.

  “Yes,” John ground out his words. “And they want to assign me a different partner while you’re on leave.”

  Well, fuck that shit.

  It wasn’t until John began laughing inexplicably that I realized I might as well have said it out loud. “Come on,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. “I’ll be your moral support when you tell your mom.”

  He caught my hand when I would have opened the car door. “Not just then,” he said, ducking his head a little. He gently rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. “Always.”