by Anita DeVito
His eyes were distant, his body stiff. He didn’t buy what she was selling. “You have no idea what’s personal. Hard to keep friends that way.”
The arrow pierced her heart. She blinked through the pain. He could hate her if he wanted, from the safety of his man cave. She could live with his anger; she couldn’t live with his death. “I guess that says it all.” She spun on her heel and hightailed it to the door.
His footsteps ran after her, stopping her at the door. “What I meant was—”
“Tom, I’m done. I’m not mad. I’m used to being on the outside. It’s been a long day, and I’m going to have a longer one tomorrow. I need to get some sleep.” She left the room without looking back.
Thursday, April 13 five-thirty a.m.
Peach stood at attention in her dress uniform, her unruly hair tamed by a French braid that ended with a coil at her neck. An officer marched down the line, inspecting the soldiers. She kept her eyes straight ahead even as she felt scrutiny go up and down her body. The officer walked past her, down to the end of the line, and then came back to stand directly in front of her. “Morales, as you are. The rest of you, dismissed.”
The nameless, faceless bodies in identical colors faded from her vision. As ordered, she stayed as she was. Sweat beaded and ran down the column of her spine, down the back of her legs. The command came at last. “At ease.”
She changed positions, shifting her gaze to that of her father.
There was no warmth in the green eyes that matched her own. There was only disappointment. Only regret. “I expected more,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she shouted.
“A daughter of mine should be strong—”
“I am strong, sir.”
“—and courageous—”
“I am courageous, sir.”
“and honorable.”
“—I, I—”
“I what, soldier?”
She lifted her chin. “I did what I had to do, sir.”
“Ah. I’ll put that on your grave. Esmeralda Morales. She died alone, doing what she had to do.”
She flinched at her name, at her fate.
“This is not what we wanted for you,” a female voice came from behind her. Her mother walked into view. Her dark skin was still flawless, her milk chocolate eyes wet with tears. Her own hair, curlier than Peach’s, was cut close to her head. “We raised you to be a soldier. What we got was a thief.”
“I was a good soldier,” Peach said, her voice wavering.
“You were generally discharged,” her mother shouted.
“The bastard had no right to touch her like that. It was rape, no matter what the file says.”
“It was none of your business,” her mother shouted again, this time an inch from Peach’s face.
“It was everybody’s business. I was the only one who took care of it. I was the only one who stood—”
The sharp slap came out of nowhere and knocked Peach into morning. She woke on her feet, her heart racing as it burned the endless supply of oxygenated fuel hate provided. The alarm on the table with its pretty lace top began to beep. She pivoted and silenced the damn thing with her fist.
She threw her body into automatic to go through the morning routine while she focused her brain on the details. Hawthorne’s computer. Carter’s money. Her uncle’s body.
She calmed as she packed her travel bag, the image of her uncle talking to her, laughing, that moment before… She would walk away if she could find her uncle. Tom had enough already to ensure her uncle wasn’t the scapegoat. That and bringing him home was all she cared about. Everything else was a means to that end.
She checked her bags one last time. The messenger bag had her computer, phone, and the gadgets she would need for Hawthorne’s computer. Her travel bag had the accessories she would need to meet the grieving widows. She had left so much behind in Poppy’s house, but there wasn’t time for a side trip. She would have to make do with what she had.
The sun hadn’t yet risen when she stepped out of the room, careful to close the door silently. She looked at Tom’s closed bedroom door. It was a metaphor for the night before. She had moved without realizing it; her hand on the door, she searched for words.
“Don’t…don’t hate me.”
Tears burned her eyes, and she ran from them. Pausing at Poppy’s door, she brushed her fingertips across it and blew a kiss. She wouldn’t come back empty handed. She wouldn’t.
In the garage, Jeb waited with the motor running. He had packed the SUV with everything he promised and a Go-Cup of coffee. This was good. Maybe it was a sign of things to come.
He pulled the SUV within throwing distance of the plane. “Don’t be a hero. Call if you need help. Got it?”
He was being big about the whole thing, making it easy for her to be too. “Got it. Thanks for everything. I’m going to find him today. I know I am.”
She loaded her bags into the cabin that sat eight and made herself comfortable. It felt like luck was on her side. For once.
The pilot boarded, and the door was closed. The engine started, and the co-pilot removed his headset. He staggered into the passenger area as the plane began to taxi.
Luck had stabbed her in the back. “You dirty dog.”
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday, April 13 six-thirty a.m.
Tom sat on the cushioned leather seat, enjoying the beauty sitting across from him. Her arms were folded over her chest and her foot tapped impatiently, but he knew what she wouldn’t say. She was happy to see him. It had shown in her face, that first instant she saw him, before she got pissed.
“Is this the way you operate?” she snapped. “You don’t discuss, you just do?”
“I don’t argue, and that’s what would have happened if I tried to discuss it. There was no point either way because I was going. Period.”
Her foot bounced faster. She rolled her lower lip between her teeth. Bounce. Bite. Bounce. Bite. She started to speak twice then changed her mind. They were thousands of feet in the air, probably over Kentucky by now. He was confident; her options were limited.
Suddenly, her feet planted on the floor, and she leaned into the space between them, elbows on her knees. “It’s not like I don’t want you here.”
He mimicked her pose. “Then what’s it like?”
“You’re an engineer. Sure, you have an amazing body, but it’s built for a gym. Being out in the field…it isn’t predictable. You have to have an edge, a sharp one, and, you know, be willing to push boundaries.”
He did not like where this was going. She thought him staid, conservative. A man who didn’t rattle chains or stir pots. “And you are?”
“Sometimes, yeah. If the situation warrants. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I’m saying it’s bad to be a good man.”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying.” He said each word distinctly, not hiding his insult.
She backpedaled, her hands up, palm out. “I’m not. I’m saying someone has tried to kill you four times. They know you’re with me and I lose my advantage. Plus, what if I’m not fast enough next time? No offense but even a cat only has nine lives.”
Anger burned deep in his gut. Each affront added a log to the fire. She considered him a liability. Worse, incompetent. “You should stop talking now.”
“Tom, look—”
“It isn’t a long flight, and I have some reports to review, as predictable as that is.” He retrieved his bag from the storage closet and moved to the seat as far away as possible. He couldn’t escape the awareness that she was close, but at least he didn’t have to see her with every glance.
The words on the paper swirled as through the lens of a kaleidoscope. The letters and numbers blurred until they resembled a bar code. Images faded out of focus; a child’s watercolor painting was clearer. He was angry and insulted. He couldn’t see past either.
Being the intelligent and reasonable man that he was, he didn’t expect her to jump into his arms, welco
ming. She treated finding her uncle as a mission. He had had a glimpse into that mind set living with Jeb. She was confident, self-reliant, and singularly focused. That was what worried him. If the Coast Guard hadn’t found Rico yet, would she really be able to accomplish it with fewer resources? She took risks but didn’t have anyone to watch her back. If she went into the lake, who would pull her out?
She needed him, even if she was too stubborn to see it.
He turned away from pretending to look at the paper. Out the window, clouds stretched like pulled cotton to the horizon. The simple beauty gave him peace for a moment before his thoughts invaded again.
The question he couldn’t answer was…why did it matter so damn much what Peach Morales thought of him? He had perfected the art of infuriating people by not caring what they thought. There was a time when he cared. As a kid, he worked his butt off to have his father and uncle praise his work. In high school, he wanted each and every teacher to be proud of him, to name him top in the class. With success came privileges. Selection for special opportunities, forgiveness when he did falter.
It all changed one semester with a hardnosed engineering profession. His tests were ridiculous. Average scores were in the thirties. Morale in the class was subterranean. Still, Tom tried, going to the professor’s office hours, asking prepared and intelligent questions. He ended up with lectures on time management and priorities and considering all sides of a problem. It came to a head during finals. There were four questions, any one of which would take the entire allotted time to complete. Tom swore. Out loud. When the professor asked if he had something to say, he did. He faced the professor as a man in his full power and laid it out. After the diatribe, the unmoved professor simply said if he was going to take the test, sit. If not, leave.
That’s when Tom understood the control that came with self-confidence. He sat and took the test, using assumptions and every other trick he knew to finish it in three-quarters the time. He picked up the test two days later. He got an A and a note. “Being a good engineer isn’t about knowing the answers. It’s about knowing how to find the answers. Nothing is impossible if you can see past human constraints.”
That note haunted him all summer. He had defined himself as the guy who knew the answers. Now he wanted to be the guy that saw past human constraints. What did that mean? At nineteen, it was little more than big words. But he grew into it, doing the work because he loved it. Playing with concepts and models and numbers because it was fun. He didn’t care what people thought. It was the first step in the evolution of Dr. Thomas Riley.
So, back to the point, why did he care what Peach thought?
Because…because…the answer was out there, just beyond his grasp.
Thursday, April 13 eight-thirty a.m.
The plane landed at Burke Lakefront Airport. Upon disembarking, Peach had a one hundred and eighty-degree view of the lake. The water was smoother today, the waves bouncing along contentedly. The water brought her uncle to her mind. She could see the thin lines of the failed structure to the west with the horizon far beyond it. How far was she seeing? Five miles? Ten? She swallowed hard at the thought she was looking over Rico’s watery grave.
She turned as Tom came down the stairs, strength and confidence in each step. And anger. The last hour they had spent in mind-shattering silence hadn’t changed that. They both wore black, but where Peach was slick, Tom was menacing. Maybe she’d underestimated him. The black hat he wore low on his head put his eyes in the shadows, making that hard set of his jaw the first thing people saw. As he walked by, Peach laid a hand on his bare forearm. “I’m in charge. What I say goes.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear. Where to first?”
“To the job site. I want to search Hawthorne’s office and retrieve my car.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘your car?’ Didn’t Jeb arrange a rental?”
“I told him I didn’t need it. Rico took my car to work on Friday. I had my grandfather’s truck. When I left to follow Fabrini, I took the truck because I didn’t have my keys. We’re going to need to be creative. My spare is at Poppy’s house.”
The cab delivered them close to the front gate. The place was something out of an old west ghost town. Equipment stayed where it had stood. The edges of plastic pinned to the earth flapped in the constant breeze. Wood, steel, and random scraps laid about forgotten and unwanted. It looked as if the entire crew just walked off the site in the middle of a day and didn’t come back.
Oh, wait. That was what happened.
The lone inhabitant was parked in an F&F truck, manning the gate. He was kicked back with his feet on the dashboard, his jaw hanging open.
Tom had the cabbie lean on the horn. Sleeping beauty bounced his head off the steering wheel, then got out of the cab, leaving the door open. “Stay here, look sad, and be ready to play along.”
“No—” Too late, he was out of the cab. She slid across the bench seat to the open door, uneasy, knowing whatever he was planning was to retaliate for what she said. She should have kept her mouth shut. She knew how fragile men’s egos were. It would have been smarter to smile and nod, and then keep him in the background where no one could hurt him. Instead, he was walking to the gate like he owned the place.
The man in the truck met him at the fence. “Can I help you?”
“My wife,” Tom said, nodding his head toward the cab, “is Rico Morales’ niece. It’s her car that he drove to work last Friday. We’re here to pick it up.”
“You have ID on you?”
He beckoned Peach from the cab. “Bring your ID,” he shouted.
She stepped from the shelter of the car like a fawn onto a grassy field. The breeze from the lake swirled her unbound hair around her like a Maypole. She dug in her purse for her wallet and pulled the state ID out. She held the card out to the man at the gate.
Who noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
Her eyes grew large, filled with tears. “Oh my God. Honey. My wedding ring. I don’t have my wedding ring on.”
Tom pulled her under his shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. I saw it on the dresser.” He lifted her chin with his index finger. “Don’t go thinking you can flirt. Ring or no ring, you’re a married woman.” He kissed her.
Just that light touch of lips had her head in a tail spin. He didn’t taste mad. He tasted…like hers.
The man handed Peach back her ID. “Sorry about your uncle. He was a good man. Still no word?”
She gave him a tearful smile, not faked. His sincerity was written in his sad eyes and somber expression. “Thank you. He was a good man, and no, they haven’t found him.”
“We put his things in the office. The police didn’t take them, and seeing as they’ve cleared the scene, I guess you can take them if you want.”
When she nodded, the helpful guard led them into the trailer. The small collection waited patiently on a vacant desk in front of Jack Hawthorne’s open door. The man quickly read the Post-It notes that held names in a messy scrawl. “Here you are, Miss.”
Cold washed over her as she accepted the Coleman cooler. With shaking hands, she removed the lid. Inside was her uncle’s hat, his wallet, and the dip he was addicted to. Tom leaned over and looked. “No keys?”
She shook her head then covered her face. “I…I need a few minutes.”
“Do you have a coat hanger? I need to open the car,” Tom said, leading the guard away from Peach.
She had planned to look shaken, but this…this wasn’t part of the plan. Sniffling, she wiped tears away as quickly as they came. This wasn’t right. Her uncle forgot his cooler at Poppy’s. And why wasn’t his wallet or his dip with him but his keys were?
She shook her head. “Get in the game.” Inside Hawthorne’s office, with the door closed, she heaved and sobbed a few times in case anyone was close. These tears were the result of practice. She climbed onto his desk and popped her head up into the suspended ceiling.
Nothing up there but wires and co
bwebs.
She searched through the drawers she already knew were empty.
She crawled on the floor and looked under the desk. That’s when she saw something unusual. A plate of metal was stuck onto the side of the desk, against the wall. Peach hauled ass back to her feet and moved the stack of papers away from the wall. Her fingers found a metal frame welded to the side of the desk.
And in it was the laptop.
She hugged the black box to her chest, weeping for real. It felt like the first right step in a long series of missteps.
But she needed to get it out of there without the very helpful guard seeing them.
“Honey?” Tom’s voice echoed from around the corner, warning her. “The keys were in the car. Where are you, baby?”
“Here,” she called, letting her voice crack. She sat on Hawthorne’s desk, her back to the door. She sat hunched over, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her hair veiling her face and body.
Tom opened the door wide enough to stick his head in. “You doing all right?”
“She need some water or something?” the guard asked from behind.
“Yeah, thanks,” Tom said. He came around to the working side of the desk and lifted the curtain of hair. Underneath, he found the missing laptop. “Nice.”
A cough came from outside the door and then heavy footsteps.
“Pick me up,” she ordered, wrapping her legs around his hips and arms around his neck. When she was airborne, she positioned the laptop between their chests and leaned against Tom to hold it in place. She shook her hair out, letting it fan out and cover her torso. “Get us out of here.”
“Here you go. Sorry we don’t have any ice.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she wept.
“I know, baby. I know. Let’s get you home.” Tom looked up at the guard. “Would you mind carrying Rico’s things for me?”
“’Course. No problem. None at all.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Her car was parked along a chain link fence, a lonely straggler where there had once been a line of cars. It was poetic in a way, an image that reflected the circumstance. Tom carried her to the car, opened the passenger door, and set her inside. The car was running with the heat on full blast. The air was still cool. She curled into a ball, turning her back to the open door. The door behind her was quickly closed. Over her shoulder, she saw his body blocked the window.