Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  “I might if you had the first clue how to do it—”

  Buddy called the sheriff again, abruptly ending the pissing contest between him and Diggs. When Jennings was gone, Diggs sat back down. His body was humming, anger coming off him in waves.

  I shook my head. “I know I’m hardly one to talk, but I’ve gotta tell you: your interpersonal skills could use some work.”

  “Bite me.”

  “I rest my case.”

  <><><>

  When we got to the car, Diggs blasted the heat and pointed us back toward the Durham homestead. He hadn’t spoken since we’d left Jennings at the tent.

  “You don’t think Danny had anything to do with this, do you?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.

  He shook his head. “Of course not. Jennings was just trying to piss me off—he knew that would do the trick. Every idiot and their brother has a red truck around here. Trust me, that’s the last thing I’m worried about right now.”

  I let it go. There was still a long line of cars parked along the side of the road, barely visible in the darkness. In the rearview, I saw one of them pull out just seconds after we had. It U-turned after us and was soon no more than a car length behind.

  As we passed by the flashing lights, I checked behind us again. My heart sank like a stone. The same dark blue sedan I’d spotted on the way to the funeral was back.

  Diggs caught my reaction, glancing behind us at the same time.

  I thought once more of the scenes I’d flashed back to when we were in the tent: baptisms and prayer meetings, my father on his knees, women crying, a child screaming… All of it part of the Payson Church and the mystery of my own past. My theory had been that the Paysons were innocent victims, murdered for reasons I still didn’t understand by a nameless man in a hooded cloak who visited my darkest dreams on a nightly basis—a man I’d hoped to see the last of when I told him I’d stop asking questions if he would just let Diggs live.

  I’d known then that it was too easy. He’d be back.

  “Do you think it’s him?” I asked quietly.

  Diggs didn’t answer, but I had no doubt he knew exactly who I was talking about. I waited for him to hit the accelerator—to keep moving, as fast and as far as we could go.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “I think you’re a liar,” I said. “He’s the one who’s been following us since we got here, and you know it. With you and me here together, he thinks I’m digging into my father’s past again…”

  I hated the weakness in my voice—that little shred of panic I couldn’t shake. My entire life, I’d been fearless, willing to take on anyone, anything, for the truth. For the sake of the almighty story. That had changed last summer, with Diggs by my side while we ran for our lives. I felt the same cold dread that had all but paralyzed me for the first two months out of the hospital after our escape.

  “It might not be him,” Diggs said. He’d never sounded less convincing.

  He drove for another two minutes before he glanced at me, muttered “Screw it” under his breath, and slowed down. The car behind us got closer.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  His eyes were steady on the road. “If it’s him, I’m not running. And neither are you. I’m done.” He hit the brake, hard, and jerked the wheel to the left.

  Whoever was following barely avoided hitting us.

  Diggs got out and slammed the door, striding toward our pursuer. If I hadn’t been so pissed, I would have been terrified. As it was, though, Diggs seemed to have annoyed the fear right out of me. I bolted from the car and ran after him.

  The hooded man stood outside the driver’s side when we got there, waiting for us—as though he’d known this was exactly how the night would turn out. He wore blue jeans and a yellow rain slicker. His hood was up, but rain still tracked down his thin face. It didn’t seem to bother him.

  He smiled when he saw me. We stood close enough that I could see details I’d never noticed before: blue eyes; laugh lines; a scar above his left eyebrow. He didn’t look like a man who’d killed men, women, and children in droves over the years.

  “We meet again, Ms. Solomon,” he said pleasantly.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “This thing with Barnel—”

  “Is quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” he said. “But I’m more interested in the reunion between you and Mr. Diggins at the moment. Heartwarming, you two together again. I also wanted to remind you of our terms, lest you’ve forgotten.”

  “You didn’t need to do that,” I said. My mouth had gone dry. “I haven’t told anyone what happened last summer. I gave up looking for my father. Trust me, I remember the terms.”

  “Do you?” he asked, looking directly at Diggs. “Because I feel as though I was very fair. Very clear. There won’t be another pass like the one I gave you in Black Falls. We can’t allow that.”

  I looked from him to Diggs, my head spinning. The central figure in my nightmares was here, talking to us like we were a couple of teenagers caught tagging the local playground.

  “We haven’t done anything,” I insisted. “I haven’t even seen him in six months—and when the funeral’s over, we’ll go our separate ways again. He’s not a threat. Neither of us is.”

  The hooded man looked at me, and for a second it seemed there was genuine sadness in his eyes. “I do hope that’s true.”

  We were still in the road, in the rain, in the middle of the night. The hooded man surveyed the scene before he turned his attention back to me.

  “I should be going. But if you don’t mind a friendly word of advice: This isn’t a good place to be right now. Jesup Barnel had some odd ideas about the world. He’s set some things in motion that won’t be good for this town. Or anyone in it.”

  We were being dismissed—like he was the one who’d arranged this meeting, rather than nearly crashing into us because Diggs had gone nuts and decided to turn the tables. I was willing to go along with it, though, if it meant we got to live a little longer.

  Diggs wasn’t so amenable. He caught hold of the hooded man’s arm before he could leave.

  “I know you think you hold all the cards right now,” Diggs said. The man said nothing, his eyes never leaving Diggs’. “But that won’t always be true. This isn’t over.”

  What came next happened in one of those fast-forward blurs usually reserved for movies about superheroes or sparkly vampires. Barely a split second passed and Diggs was on his knees, his arm twisted behind his back.

  “I hope you’re wrong about that,” the hooded man said. He stood above Diggs, his eyes suddenly dark. “I truly do.”

  He let Diggs go without another word, got into his car, backed up, and drove away.

  I was too pissed to speak when we got back in the car. Diggs glanced at me.

  “You should call Juarez and see if he can use his resources to get some info on that blue sedan. I’ve got the plate number.”

  “Isn’t that the exact opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing?” I asked. My voice was tight, but it was nothing compared with the way my body felt. “Maybe you didn’t get what he was telling us.”

  “No,” Diggs said, his own voice just as tight. “I was the one on my knees, remember? Trust me, I got it. How much have you told Juarez about what went down last summer?”

  I stared out the window into the pure black night. I was caught back in the woods of Maine again—standing above the earth while Diggs lay down below, bleeding, a lunatic standing over him with a very big knife.

  “I never told him anything,” I said quietly. “They’ll go after him if I do. You already know everything… the best I could do for you was walk away. The best I can do for anyone else is keep my mouth shut.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out, then,” Diggs said. There was no mistaking the bitterness in his tone. I chose to ignore it.

  He glanced at me periodically during the rest of the drive, his forehead furrowed with concern or fru
stration or outright anger. I paid very little attention, too busy checking behind us for some sign that my worst nightmare was about to come true.

  It was two a.m. by the time we got back to the Durhams’ that night. Contrary to Sheriff Jennings’ threat, there was no sign that the cops had been there. According to Barnel’s prophecy, Armageddon should be in full swing by this time, but so far things looked pretty peaceful. The porch light was on, the rest of the house dark. Einstein and his pack of hounds greeted us with a few half-hearted woofs, but thankfully no lights came on inside. Diggs followed me into the house. It was eerily quiet. Hard to believe upwards of thirty people had been crammed in the place just a few hours before.

  I went upstairs to my attic hideaway with Einstein by my side, anxious for some space and a little time to think. Diggs retired to his room—I assumed for the night. When I got to my door, however, he was back. This time, he had his duffel bag with him.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “I don’t want to wake the boys up,” Diggs said. “And I need to talk to you.”

  “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the past twenty-four hours?”

  He made a face at me and pushed the door open, nudging me inside. Once we were in, I sat on the end of the bed, on the alert once more. The room was small—barely big enough for the double bed and a bureau. Diggs paced the three feet or so of space half a dozen times before I snapped.

  “Diggs, seriously? Spit it out, or get the hell out so we can both get some sleep.”

  Abruptly, he set his bag on the bed, unzipped it, and pulled out a file. He tossed it on the bed beside me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “You don’t run,” he said shortly. I picked up the file, completely confused.

  “What?”

  “You don’t run. You never run. You fight. You get answers, or you die trying. You don’t just sit back and let some nameless monster take over your life.”

  I opened the file. My hands were shaking. “What did you do?” I asked hoarsely. I already knew, though. I knew exactly what he’d done.

  There in front of me, keen eyes staring up, was a sketch of the hooded man. The angel of death. My nightmare, come to life. And beneath it, in bold letters, was a name.

  Chapter Nine

  DIGGS

  The attic bedroom where Solomon was staying used to belong to Ashley, when we were still kids. I remembered sneaking in there one summer night when I was staying with Wyatt, sure she’d secretly been up waiting for me to come along. It hadn’t worked out that way, though: She’d screamed bloody murder, and Wyatt’s father sent me packing early that summer. It would have saved everyone a lot of heartache if I’d just seen the writing on the wall that night.

  The room seemed smaller now. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating, and the bedroom ceiling was so damn low I could barely stand up straight. My leg hurt like hell, as did my jaw. I had a headache, too, but none of that held a candle to the beating my ego had taken in the past twenty-four hours.

  Solomon looked at the sketch I’d handed her, then back at me.

  “What did you do, damn it?” she asked a second time.

  I swallowed hard and wet my lips, nodding toward the file. “His name is Mitch Cameron. I had a friend of mine do a composite sketch based on my description, then I put his face through every database I could think of until something came back.”

  She closed the file. When she looked at me, her eyes were burning. I’ve been on the receiving end of Solomon’s wrath more than once—the truth is, it’s kind of a turn on. But not this time. Anger is one thing, fear another entirely. And Solomon was positively terrified.

  “Where the hell do you get the right?” she hissed at me. “I asked you—”

  “No,” I said. My voice was raw. “You told me—late one night when you could barely breathe, a month after Cameron held the gun to my head, you called and told me not to look into it. You never asked. You never talked to me about any of this shit. And by then it was too late, anyway—I’d already started.”

  She ran her hand through her hair, turning her back to me. “And now, he knows,” she whispered. She shook her head. “That’s why he’s here—he knows you’ve been looking.”

  “I don’t think so. I covered my tracks,” I said. “The very model of the modern paranoiac. I swept for bugs, used burner phones, tapped only my most trusted sources. He’s here because we’re together, just like he said—that’s it. He would’ve just killed me otherwise. He’s just making sure we stay scared.”

  She laughed. The sound was a hollow echo of the one I knew. “Well, mission accomplished. Goddammit, Diggs.” She wheeled on me. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”

  “Because this isn’t you,” I said. “You can’t let this bastard break you like this. Your father’s out there. A killer is out there, and they’ve waged a friggin’ war. And you’re letting them get away with it.”

  She looked me in the eye, her chin tipped up, her jaw hard. She pushed me lightly in the stomach, her anger mounting again. “You’re the one who begged me—the one who tried to drive us in the opposite direction of all the trouble back in Maine, all the while telling me it was all too dangerous. We sat in that cave and you ran me up one side and down the other for being so selfish. You said I needed to back off, and I did. So why now—”

  “Because I won’t lose you over this,” I shouted. The words felt like they’d been wrenched from somewhere deep; somewhere I was powerless to cap. Solomon looked at me with those brilliant green eyes, and I could smell her shampoo and the cinnamon on her breath and the fear that rolled off her in waves. “If you don’t want me, that’s one thing,” I said. It was too late to go back now. “I’ll handle it. I’ll let it go. Wish you and Juarez the best. But I’m not saying goodbye with the lame friggin’ excuse that you’re being noble; that you have to walk away to save my life.”

  “So this is your ego?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re gonna get us all killed because of your goddamn male pride? Juarez and I talked about this. He agrees—it’s time for me to let this go.”

  “Juarez doesn’t remember the first thirteen years of his life. And he’s fine with it. I don’t care how much time you spend with the guy, kid, you’re never gonna be that zen.”

  She pushed me again, harder this time. For the first time, fury outweighed the fear in her eyes. “Fuck you.”

  “Nice comeback.”

  “Juarez is a good guy,” she said. She advanced on me, pushing me toward the wall. “He’s nice, and he’s stable, and he’s not tortured by every freaking mistake he ever made. He—”

  My blood was boiling, and I knew she was just getting warmed up. There were things I could say, arguments I could make, but words had never seemed so pointless before. And so I grabbed her—one hand at her side, the other at the back of her neck—and pulled her to me. My mouth crashed down on hers. She fought me for a second, no more, before she fisted her hands in the front of my shirt, her body moving against mine.

  I pushed her back against the wall, my tongue pressing past her lips, and for three miraculous seconds, she gave as good as she got: her teeth nipping at my lower lip, her hips pressed to mine. And then, she came to herself. Her hands flattened on my chest and she pushed me away so hard I stumbled. Her eyes were wide. We stood there, silent, our breathing ragged, for another quarter of a second before her hand came up. I caught her just before her palm made contact with my cheek.

  “No hitting,” I said quietly. “It’s bad form.”

  She lowered her hand. Pushed me one more time, hard, and grabbed her bag. “Drop it, Diggs,” she said again. “All of it. Get on with your life. But do it without me.”

  And she left.

  <><><>

  Solomon slept in the car that night. Because I was feeling spiteful, I let her—something Jack Juarez sure as hell never would have done. In the morning, I brought her a cup of coffee. It was cold outside, a dismal gray dawn ju
st breaking on the horizon. Solomon was cocooned in her sleeping bag in the backseat with Einstein, wearing half her wardrobe and a purple ski cap. She hid her head when I opened the driver’s side door and got in.

  “Go away,” she said. Her voice had that whiskey rasp to it that I love about Solomon in the morning.

  “Good news: we’ve kept the Four Horsemen at bay another day. And I brought you coffee.”

  “I don’t care.” She burrowed more deeply into the sleeping bag. “I’m not speaking to you.”

  “Because of Mitch Cameron, or because of the kiss? Or because you liked the kiss?”

  She sat up. Einstein scrambled out of her arms. She opened the door and let him out, then closed it again and pulled the sleeping bag up around her. I looked at her in the rearview mirror, blinking in the harsh light of day.

  “We’re not talking about the kiss, all right? The kiss didn’t happen. I’m with Juarez—you know that. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

  “Well, it’s hard to argue with that logic. Let’s just pretend it’s not there and maybe it’ll go away. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

  “You spent the first fifteen years we knew each other pretending it wasn’t there, you asshole,” she said, the fire back in her eyes. “You should be pretty good at it by now.”

  Touché. “All right, fine. I didn’t kiss you last night. You didn’t kiss me back. What about Mitch Cameron? Are we pretending he doesn’t exist, either?”

  She rubbed her forehead. I’d seen Solomon exhausted before, after days of not sleeping and emotional turmoil and serial killers… but I’d never seen her this bone weary before. “I don’t know. That was the plan.”

  “Come on, Solomon. Were you really planning on going through life calling him ‘the hooded man’? ‘The guy in the cloak’? He has a name. A past.”

  She took the coffee from me. “Let’s just drop it for right now, okay? Put a pin in it.” It was clear she’d spent the better part of the night coming up with that. “Can we focus on one mystery at a time? I’d still like to figure out what the hell happened to Wyatt—and what Jesup Barnel had to do with it. Or is that no longer a priority?”