by Angel Payne
While it’s tempting to go there, I refocus all my attention to the monitors up top. Foley follows suit.
“As you can see, we’ve been busy,” he starts in. “Except Alex, who got ordered to quarters for R and R. Dude looked like burnt toast with chunky butter in his cracks.”
“Smart call.” And that’s that for craving toast anytime soon.
I tap a nod back toward the mystery satellite shots. They’re clearly what Foley came and got me for, since they’re blasted across all three of the large screens, but the guy’s dancing around actually answering me about them. “So what fucking gives?” I charge again. “I’m still looking at terrain that makes no sense to me, and you’re playing as coy as Taylor Swift with the details.”
In the moment I take to let the accusation set in, Emma squirms a little next to me. Then again. I look down, concerned she’s copied my barefoot state and is now battling the biting chill of the early morning. Negative. Unlike me, the woman was smart about slamming into a pair of pink Ugg-style boots. The footwear has floppy bunny ears sewn onto the sides, making it official: she’s sexy as fuck and cute as hell.
Even if she’s also clearly unnerved joining us in perusing the images across the monitors as well.
“Oh, holy shit.”
Astonishment drenches her murmur so thoroughly, I tug her closer and demand, “What?” I examine the harsh concentration etched on her gorgeous profile and grind my brows down before reiterating, “What do you see, baby?”
She wets her lips. “Better question is what I don’t see.” Unconsciously chews the inside of her lip. “And that answer is, nothing that’s unfamiliar.”
It takes a couple of seconds for her statement to soak all the way in. Or maybe not. “What?” I prod again. “I don’t get—”
“I know this,” she breaks in. “I think I know…all of this.”
“The terrain of the Castillian Coast?” I rebut.
“No.”
“No?”
She steps away, moving closer to the monitors. Takes a second to give encouraging shoulder squeezes to Wade and Fersh, who have barely glanced up from their decoding duties even after we walked in. Then pushes up into the unoccupied work bay between them so she can get closer to peering at the terrain on the screens. “That triangular jut into the ocean there,..” She points to the spot she’s referencing. “That’s Point Dume. North of it, this stretch here, is El Matador Beach. And this little bump… That’s Sequit Point, where Mulholland meets PCH at Leo Carrillo State Beach. Back over here…all this green…is Pepperdine. And here’s the market where Anya works, next to the yoga studio where her new stud is employed.”
Despite the somber angles beneath his amber stubble, Foley snarks, “Somebody had to get that part in.”
And me? I’m just damn glad there’s two empty recliners along the back wall—necessities for the guys on weekends with huge game releases and side-by-side play is a must—allowing for me to park my stunned ass on a cushion instead of the floor. I shoot an openly dazed gaze around the room, really wondering how twenty feet of a rock mountain just opened up to let a lightning storm in here. Yeah, the one that’s just jolted every inch of me.
Holy freaking fuck.
The words bounce off each other in the back of my head as I wrestle my front lobe around the ability to form words again. “That’s…the Southern California coast?”
Foley rocks back, shoving air out through his nose. “Seems to be the case.”
I really yearn to argue the point, but he’s not the one drawing the conclusion here. It’s my wife, the Southern California native. The woman who knows this coastline so well, she’s taken me to a bunch of its locals-only dive bars and hidden-secret burger joints. Who knows the nicknames for all the coves and the best beach access points like the back of her hand. Who now stands there between her friends, staring at the satellite images with as much stiffness in her spine as the guy who carried out the damn Thunder Cats entrance on our upstairs office—nursery—a few minutes ago.
Now, Foley’s behavior has a much clearer explanation. A much more troubling motivation.
Troubling?
Who the hell am I kidding?
Troubling is for shit like flat tires on the way to the airport or employees making out on the job.
This is full-blown terrifying.
But the truth, nonetheless.
A reality that needs to be verbalized. By me. Right now.
“So…I let Trestle hit me with those paddles, twice, to carry back maps of our own fucking backyard.”
Foley tilts his head back, letting the long blond layers fall backward out of his face—and while he’s at it, likely seeking a little guidance from the big guy upstairs or whatever higher power he communes with on a regular basis. He must have somebody looking out for him in that regard. Nobody maintains that kind of Dalai Lama vibe when hit with this level of a Joker-style twist, especially after staying up all night after days of dealing with their boss’s newly pregnant wife. He’s got a giant dose of metaphysical help, for sure.
My helping isn’t as large.
Admittedly, that’s due to a self-inflicted distance—God wasn’t my favorite guy even before my time at the Source—but a good chunk of my soul is calling out to the big man now, an inner combination of desperation, exasperation, and rampage, as I jolt to my feet in a furious rush. Then, because it’s there and I can, I send out a pulse to raise the other easy chair to waist height and give it a not-so-easy death against the cinderblock wall.
In the silence that follows, all I seem to hear are my own breaths. Shallow. Shaking. Protesting the confines of my chest as my mind counterattacks a vision of my ass on a platter—which is about what’s just been handed to me.
By my own father.
“Mother. Fucker.” The syllables burn my throat worse than a surge of bile.
The nausea worsens when I widen my thinking about this fuckery.
What if Dad fed us this file…on purpose? Knowing all the while what was really on it? What if his rage, his remorse, and his bid for redemption were just devices to keep me in the room without killing him first? What if the meeting in Barcelona, and the whole story about needing to shock the files into me, was just a way to get something else into me too? Some other form of tracking device? Some ability to spy on us in another way?
What if my father faked his death…
Because of Faline Garand, not in spite of her?
“So.” Foley wheels around, hair dropping into shaggy waves around his face again. His face, emblazoned with an obvious and open scrutiny—as he tucks his arms in, conveying the exact opposite message. “About this ‘solid’ resource of yours…”
So much for wanting to squabble with him anymore. I full-on yearn to deck the wiseass, but there’s the not-so-tiny issue of admitting he’s right. And that every inch of my fuming face probably already betrays that—before I spin around, patting myself to locate whatever secret stash I’ve found for my Spanish burner phone this time. I should have ditched the damn thing before we even took off out of El Prat, but a tiny schism of instinct had warned me not to. Had known, despite the crazy risks Lawson Richards had taken for me, that snagging the golden goose he’d promised wouldn’t be as easy as a mental download and a transatlantic flight.
Because the golden goose always comes with a giant to take down too.
Why didn’t I keep my eye on that goddamned caveat? Why had I let Lawson talk me into accepting those files as one easy zipped doc instead of demanding to see every damn one of them first?
I already know the answer to that. And have myself to blame for it.
We hadn’t asked because it had been my fucking father. Because for once—for the first fucking time in my life—I wanted to be the kid who looked at his dad and saw the guy he could ultimately trust. The guy who had told him the truth. The guy who had made him a promise and kept it.
The guy I didn’t have to hang on to the cell phone for.
But th
e reason I did anyway.
I find the device in my left pocket and swipe the screen hard and fast. “I have to make a phone call.”
But as I say it, the phone buzzes angrily against my hand. The screen flashes to even brighter life. An incoming call from a number that causes Emma, who’s now slid up beside me once again, to gasp like she’s leapt from a pond after being submerged for ten minutes.
“Reece?” she sputters. “Why the hell does that say an L Richards is calling you from Barcelona, Spain?”
There’s the five-million-dollar question. I can’t give it to her because I’m doused by the same perplexity—which feels like an acid rain shower at the same time. If I can see the name, number, and location of the caller, then so can a lot of other people. A lot of people who supposedly think my father is dead.
Supposedly.
Screw the acid rain. The stuff is now the flow of my bloodstream, turning my fingers into neon rods as I stab at the green button on the phone screen to answer the call.
“If this is another Mufasa and Simba moment, save it.” I grit my teeth until they hurt, my only way of holding back the fucking asshole addendum. At the moment, Lawson Richards isn’t worth it. I can barely believe I’m wasting breath on him as it is.
“Reece.”
“I said save it, asshole.” Fine; it slipped. I slipped. Trouble is, it’s just the plug in the dyke. There’s a torrent of other things I long to roar and snarl and spew but must shove back. Shove down. Turn off. Just like it’s always been with Dad.
Except worse.
So much worse.
Especially because the bastard doesn’t let a second go by before his gritted return.
“Listen to me!”
Well, shit. The triple syllables help me hear what I didn’t before. The hoarse grit of his tone. The urgent speed of his delivery. The muffled rustlings that surround both, as if he’s calling me from a zipped-up snow parka. “You need to listen to me!”
“The same way I listened and helped you dump all the data off that USB?” I whirl to face the wall, focusing on my rage instead of the stunned stares from my wingman and my wife. They’ve started putting the details together despite barely believing it for themselves. While I understand their reactions, I have to deal with this shit one fire at a time. “I bet you and Faline enjoyed a few laughs about this last night, yeah? Maybe even cracked open a bottle of sangria and then had some steaks, celebrating how you snowed your own son once again by feeding him shitty intel?”
There’s a sharp hiss from Dad’s end. I’m too worked up to interpret what the fuck it means. “If I was still in league with her, would I have even let you leave that room at the Museo?” he spits back. “Then would I have called in every favor I have with every connection at El Prat just to help you leave the country so fast? Would I have done all of that, Reece, if that bitch still had her hands on my dick?”
I slam the wall with my free hand while my mind swims in deeper confusion. With my head ducked, I finally snap, “You remember the way Mom used to take out those ant colonies in the garden? Rather than trying to kill the bastards that were right in front of her, she had those traps with the poison in them. They’d swarm the thing, thinking it was the best gift they’d ever gotten—only to find out they’d brought the killing blow back to the nest with them.”
A louder hiss through the line. I recognize the sound is actually part of Dad’s frantic breathing pattern, as if the parka is buttoned and zipped up all the way and suffocating him. “The…The keys were switched—”
“Thanks for the news flash. I’ll let the ants know.”
“But I swear to you, on your mother’s life, I didn’t know until a half hour ago. I swear to you, Reece—”
“Do not fucking qualify that with Mom’s life again, or I swear to God, I’ll hang up.”
Why the hell haven’t I done that anyway? Why the living hell am I giving this son of a bitch one more second of my time and attention? But I am and I do, compelled to stand here with my stomach full of bile, my spirit full of betrayal, and my system full of fire. My eyes burn so badly, I’m sure my irises are about to bore holes through the concrete wall. Even tears would be better than this agony, but I’m beyond the ability to shed them. This hurts too much. Worse than every afternoon the man had to cancel out on playing catch with me. Deeper than every school pick-up he sent the driver to instead of going himself. Harsher than the times he growled that I’d be transferred to a new school instead of taking the time to look into why I had disciplinary problems at the current one.
“Don’t hang up!” And just like that, he supplies the reason I’m still gripping the fucking phone. The choppy urgency in his voice…the real fear vibrating through every syllable… Shit. Shit. Even if he didn’t relay the truth about the material on the USB before, he’s too terrified to be lying now. Either that, or the man missed his calling in life and should be a goddamned actor.
But right now, he doesn’t sound concerned about his life’s calling.
He sounds like a man about to lose his life.
Though I probably sound like a bear in a trap myself, I force my emotions into a mental lockbox and then weld the damn thing shut. Whatever Lawson’s going through, I can’t directly help him—and for whatever reasons he has, he’s calling to help me. I have to focus on the questions that’ll assist him.
But first, the most necessary inquiry.
“How did you find out about the switched keys?” I demand. Not-so-subtle subtext: how the hell did you not know about that to begin with?
“Because I killed the bastard who did it.”
Fuck. I was afraid of that. “A death throes confession?” I snarl. “Did he even cackle it in glee as you twisted the knife in?”
“Something like that.” He’s still rasping heavily.
“And you believed him?”
“Didn’t have any reason not to.” He pauses, but only for a few seconds. “He was the friend who helped me sneak away in Paris, after I faked the death in the catacombs.”
“So he was Consortium,” I spit.
“Yes, but one who shared my revulsion at how far Faline was taking things.” He huffs hard, and there’s a rustling as if he’s impatiently shifting. “Or so I thought.”
For a long second, I offer no feedback except my leaden silence. There’s no use in calling him names anymore or even tearing him down for choosing to trust the “friend” he had to kill. I’ve been in similar spaces before, on all fronts. Believing people based on the “sincerity” of their word. And yes, even having to drive a life-ending stab into a friend. “So he was likely reporting back to them on everything you did since the events of Paris.”
“Like the good little minion he was,” my father grates back.
“And they let you relax, lulled into thinking you’d really given them the slip,” I go on. “Knowing that eventually, you’d try to get that stolen drive to me.”
As soon as I utter the last of that, Dad’s breathing hitches. I almost don’t believe the sounds that replace his petrified gasps. Sobs. Heavy, tattered, desperate. “I’m sorry, son. I’m so, so fucking sorry.”
I grit my jaw tighter. Punch fingertips against my eyelids, attempting to order the lasered lightning away from my stare. Don’t call me son. But at this moment, I’ve never longed to embrace my father tighter. He’s doing the right thing—or at least he’s fucking trying. So little, so late…
Why couldn’t you have just tossed a ball with me in the backyard?
“So…” I clear my throat, shoring up my composure. “All the intel we’ve been pulling apart for the last ten hours…”
“Is probably bogus.”
I whoosh out a breath. Okay, so bad news that’s expected is still crap on a stick.
“But Reece—” Dad’s voice rushes into a different octave, accentuated by more restless scuffs and rattles than before. “Son…there’s more.”
“More?” I retaliate. “Than that?”
No more tea
ry sighs from him. Not one stressed huff. Definitely no more jittery shuffles. Just his instant reply, hardened to the point that I’m reminded of the punishing speeches he did take the time to dole. “There are satellite images on that disk. Ones you probably recognize.”
“You really think this is the freshest intel I’ve got, James Bond?”
My gritted spew earns me his silence. Right now, that’s probably for the best.
I’m silent again—but this time, only halfway because I want to be. Air is passing up my throat through a fucking pinhole of space, and my lungs have shrunken into raisins. Worse, I don’t even want to know what it would feel like to take a normal breath again. That would mean fully confronting what he’s just told me.
It would mean having to grasp what he tells me next.
“You’ve been damn good about hiding out so far, son—but I guarantee you, they’re getting closer by the day. They’ve narrowed down the search. One day, likely soon, they’re going to pinpoint it.”
And now the fucker takes a second to readjust himself inside the parka or wherever the hell he is… As I stand here, airless and motionless and senseless, he’s taking a moment to get more “comfy?” God damn you, Lawson.
Finally, he clears his throat. At least that’s what his thick gurgle sounds like. Shit. There’s a chance, a damn good one, he might not have emerged unscathed from the confrontation with his “comrade.” But that can’t matter right now. I have to focus on what he’s telling me, not on the price he’s paid to do so.
“They’re…they’re going to find you, Reece,” he finally stammers on. “If…if you’ve heard nothing else I’ve said r-r-right now, then hear this. Faline…she won’t…she’ll never fucking stop. She will find you, where you live, and then—”
He cuts himself short with a brutal snarl, which is in turn interrupted by a brutal creak of a sound. I push off the wall and spin around, as if my motion here in California will stop the intruder on whatever hiding space he’s in.
“Dad?” Once more I obey instinct, muttering it instead of yelling it—only to swallow against saying anything more because of the sounds that pierce the receiver next.