Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  15:20:02

  I thought when she first answered the door that Ashley would slam it in my face. She debated it for five seconds, clearly, before she turned around and walked away.

  Juarez and I crossed the threshold.

  When we’d been together, Ashley had a gassy boxer named Winnie who followed her everywhere. There was no sign of the dog now, though. The walls had been repainted and new furniture replaced what had been there before. With the power out and the day shadowed by clouds, it was dim inside. Not so dim that I couldn’t tell the place was in a hell of a lot better shape than it had been when I was living there.

  Crying came from the kitchen. Ashley looked over her shoulder at us. “I was in the middle of giving Angus his breakfast. Come on.”

  The kitchen had always been a good spot for us—maybe the only one in the house. Like the rest of the place, it had been completely refurbished since I left: new appliances, stylish backsplash, trendy paint job, the works.

  “It looks great,” I noted.

  “Terry’s good with his hands.”

  Terry: the new husband. “Where is he, anyway?” I asked.

  She looked at me like I was trying to start something. I really wasn’t. “He works out toward Paducah. He’ll be back by six. He’s committed to his job, but he won’t let it keep him from us when it matters.”

  That may not have sounded like a jab at me, but I knew it was. She sat down in front of Angus, who was in his high chair with a cup of Cheerios, a waffle cut into tiny squares, and a plastic Sesame Street train.

  “Sit,” she commanded Juarez and me.

  We sat.

  “What do you want, Diggs?”

  “I need to ask you about Wyatt,” I said.

  Her eyes flickered to me, then back to the kid. She was good at lying—I’d learned that over the years. I’d also learned her tells. “What about him?” she asked.

  “I want to know why he was targeted for this. Why Barnel turned against him six months ago.”

  She popped a waffle square into Angus’s mouth and pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. Angus chewed amiably, blue eyes watching me.

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said.

  “You’re lying,” I said. Her eyes flashed. “The hair thing, Ash—remember? This is me. We know he was into something. Was he having an affair?”

  “You’ve been gone way too long if you think something like that. There wasn’t another woman on the planet for him but Mae. You know that.”

  I did. I was unaccountably relieved to know that hadn’t changed, though.

  “I’ll tell you what I think, then… You can just tell me how close I am to the mark.”

  Angus picked up a yellow train car with Big Bird in the driver’s seat and smashed it into his Cheerios. The cup went flying. Ashley righted it without so much as a grimace, moving the food safely out of reach.

  “What do you think, then?” she asked me. There was no mistaking the challenge in her tone.

  “I think Danny was in a band,” I said promptly. “His bass player—Casey Clinton—got knocked up. She couldn’t go to her father, and she didn’t know where else to turn. So, I think Danny took her to see Wyatt.”

  Ashley didn’t argue. She didn’t look at me, either, her attention focused on Angus.

  “I think Wyatt probably started out with the usual spiel on the subject,” I continued. “She was young, sure, but she could always put the kid up for adoption. Life is precious. Et cetera, et cetera.”

  Her mouth tightened at my blasé treatment of a subject I knew she took very seriously.

  Juarez took over. “I can understand your perspective,” he said. “I was raised Catholic. I feel the same way that you do—trust me on that. But sometimes there are circumstances that can shift your perspective.”

  To my surprise, her eyes filled at that. She sighed wearily. “A year ago, Danny got a girl pregnant.” She looked at Angus like she was afraid he might somehow understand the words. I took the toy train cars from him and crashed them into one another gently. He giggled, his attention successfully diverted. Ashley continued.

  “Danny didn’t tell anybody about it, of course. But the girl was new around here—didn’t know much about anything, and I guess she panicked. She went to old lady McCintock—she’s still doing those abortions out in her back shed, even though Sally Woodruff’s threatened everything short of stringing the old bat up. So, Sophie ends up on the old lady’s table, and she almost died—it was an awful mess. Danny’s a pain in the butt sometimes, but he’s got a good heart. It shook him up; he came to me later, and we talked. He said he would’ve kept the baby. Married the girl, even, the romantic little fool.”

  The name rang a bell immediately. “Sophie… That’s the same Sophie who was killed in the explosion the other day?”

  “That’s the one.” Her eyes clouded. “I wasn’t crazy about the girl myself, but she didn’t deserve that.”

  “So, he must have been pretty upset when Casey came to him and told him the same thing happened to her,” I said.

  “I thought the boy was gonna have a stroke,” Ashley said. “I never did figure out who the baby’s daddy was, but Danny was fit to be tied… I think he would’ve taken her to Sally himself, but she started to miscarry.”

  “So he brought her to Wyatt,” I guessed.

  “He didn’t have time to do anything else—she was in bad shape. Wyatt called Sally, and she came to his office. They did the whole thing right there.”

  We sat there in silence. Ashley put another waffle square in Angus’s mouth. Her hand was shaking. He spit it out, focused on her now.

  “Afterward, Wyatt came to me,” Ashley continued. “He was torn up—you know how he was. I can be reasonable about this stuff, but his heart was just too big. He wasn’t sorry, though; I think that’s what confused him more than anything else. After that, he went out to Sally’s place, and he started helpin’ out. Just doing some chores around the house, taking care of stuff that needed fixin’. All quiet as could be, of course, but you know there are no secrets in this town.”

  If I’d been there, I thought, Wyatt would have told me. We would most likely have done the whole thing together. Wyatt was like that: If he thought something was right, he’d make it happen. No matter the personal cost.

  “Did Mae know?” I asked.

  “No,” Ashley said shortly. “You know how she feels about this. I’ve got my opinions, but I can at least see both sides. With Mae, this is one of those sins you can’t get around. It would’ve killed her.”

  “What about your father?” I asked. “Did anyone tell George?”

  She paused. Her hands were still trembling. “Wyatt didn’t want to, but somebody let him know—I always suspected Reverend Barnel was behind it. That maybe he told Daddy just to hurt him. He and Wyatt fought. Didn’t talk for close to a month, before Daddy finally gave in. After that, they’d still play cards, have a drink or two at the end of the day, but I know Daddy didn’t get over it.”

  And neither did Jesup Barnel, apparently.

  “One more thing,” I said before we left. Ashley actually smiled—a sad smile, the one I’d seen the most during our marriage.

  “There always is, Diggs. What else?”

  “Who else knew? I mean—knew for sure.”

  “Barnel, of course…”

  “But how did Barnel find out?” I pressed. “Sally never would have said anything. And I can’t imagine Danny or Casey would breathe a word about it.”

  “I never figured that out,” she admitted. “Far as I know, the only people who knew were Wyatt, Danny, Casey, and me. Sorry. I wish I could be more help.”

  “No,” I said. “This was good—thanks. I should have come to you from the start.”

  She laughed. Angus grinned, watching her like she was the center of the universe. “Well, I don’t know how likely I would’ve been to talk to you if the world weren’t ending.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Good point.”r />
  Juarez and I stood. “If they’ve already killed Wyatt and Sophie, we should make sure someone’s watching Casey,” Juarez said—something I’d just been thinking myself.

  He excused himself to get on the horn with the hospital. I rested my hand on Angus’s downy head.

  “He’s a beautiful boy, Ash,” I said. “Terry’s a lucky man. I always said you’d make a good mom.”

  “You did,” she agreed. “I never thought I’d say this, but one of these days, you might even make an all right father.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said with a laugh. I shuffled my feet, and with some effort managed to hold her eye. “I’m sorry about that crack earlier—if I made it seem like I’m just dismissing what happened to Sophie and Casey. You and I will never see eye to eye on the issue, but I don’t take it lightly.”

  “I know that. Try as you might to make people think otherwise, there’s not much you take lightly,” she said. She took a breath and nodded toward the door. “And that’s enough mending fences today. Now I need you to go out there and figure out what the hell is happening—and stop it—so this isn’t all the time I get with my boy here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Lay low today, okay? Keep the doors locked, and try to get that husband of yours back before curfew tonight. Mae mentioned she might be coming over with the kids later?”

  “They should be here soon,” Ashley agreed. Juarez returned, looking pained.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Casey’s not in the hospital—someone claiming to be her father checked her out about an hour ago. And I talked to Blaze: they started looking out past the old property lines and found something at Barnel’s camp. We need to get over there.”

  We said a hasty goodbye and were soon on our way. I was almost out the front door, leaving behind this strange house that had once been my home, when I heard Ashley call after me.

  “Take it easy, all right, Diggs?” I looked back at her, standing in the living room we once shared. “You’re not my favorite person, but I still like the world a little bit better with you in it.”

  “It’s mutual, Ash,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  SOLOMON

  15:05:00

  It was clear from the start that Agent Blaze and I would never be BFFs. My first clue was when she insisted we leave Grace and my “mangy sheepdog” at the hotel, because she had enough to worry about saving the town and keeping my ass out of trouble without adding a bunch of mutts to the mix. I would have argued that Einstein was neither mangy nor a sheepdog, but… Well, Blaze scared the living bejeezus out of me. And I could actually see her point—I’m not completely irrational all the time, contrary to popular belief. We settled the dogs at the hotel and I left them with extra biscuits and a stern warning not to raid the mini bar, then I got in the back of Blaze’s SUV with another of the agents, and we set out.

  By nine a.m., it felt like I’d been up for a month instead of just a couple of days. This is what happens when you start taking care of yourself—your tolerance goes straight to hell. We’d been driving aimlessly for hours, tracking down Barnel’s followers and putting out fires—literally. We were inthe midst of doing just that when Buddy Holloway called saying he’d found something at the Barnel compound.

  My adrenaline surged. We’d just gotten word that Casey Clinton and a couple of the other kids in the explosion had disappeared from the hospital. If Barnel’s people were behind that, we assumed they’d taken their hostages into the woods somewhere. The energy among the other agents—including Agent Keith, sitting just a little too close beside me—had been flagging, but the news got everyone jazzed. Blaze pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, and we headed off in the opposite direction to rendezvous with Buddy.

  The Barnel compound was deep in the woods, the only path to get there a virtually impenetrable dirt road. From there, it was another half mile or so along a damp, well-traveled trail with National Guardsmen leading the march and Agent Keith and me bringing up the rear. The woods were cool and wet, new leaves on the trees and the fresh air sweet enough to taste. We reached a muddy clearing where half a dozen ramshackle one-room cabins were built close to one another, a well and a fire pit at the center. A wooden sign hanging above read, “Let Jesus Lead You Home.”

  I turned at a particularly nasty stench off to our left, and quickly switched direction once I realized the source: a pigpen, one sow and three piglets dead inside. Their throats were slit, flies buzzing over the open wounds.

  Lovely.

  A few yards farther down another path we found what I assumed was Barnel’s version of a meeting house—a massive octagonal building with a sign reading “Redemption Hall” above the stately double doors. A soldier sat on the steps waiting for us—Private Abbott, I recalled from the briefing earlier. He was a redhead in camouflage with a buzzcut and an overbite who barely looked old enough to vote.

  “We’re set up inside,” Abbott said.

  He gestured for our crew to go on ahead, which we did. I followed Blaze up five wooden steps, then through the double doors.

  The rest of the compound might seem like the set for some bizarre Appalachian reality show, but Barnel had pulled out all the stops for Redemption Hall. Bleachers all the way around passed for stadium seating, with a red-carpeted aisle leading to a round pulpit in the center with a podium, speakers, and a baptismal tank.

  The pièce de résistance was an archaic-looking dentist’s chair outfitted with straps to restrain Barnel’s unlucky subjects. Behind that was a large wooden box that I didn’t want anything to do with; the mesh windows and a padlock were the only thing that kept more of Barnel’s fanged “babies” from escaping and having their way with the lot of us. I’d never been a fan of snakes, but Diggs’ encounter the other night had really sealed that for me.

  Juarez, Diggs, and Buddy Holloway were gathered around the podium with half-a-dozen soldiers and a couple of agents when we arrived. We joined them and got the rundown on what they’d found: an occupied cabin about a mile into the woods that had been spotted by helicopters. Soldiers had already been there and back, and so far hadn’t come across any surveillance, security, or weird bear pit booby traps designed to keep people away.

  “You didn’t find anything at all?” Diggs asked skeptically.

  “Maybe Barnel was counting on being well hidden enough not to worry about that kind of thing,” Juarez said. He didn’t sound convinced.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Abbott said. “I can’t give you the why—only what we’ve found. Or haven’t, as the case may be. And these woods are clean.”

  “And the cabin?” Blaze asked.

  “That’s more of a problem,” Abbott said grimly. “It’s a mile into the brush, due east. Infrared shows four armed on the ground floor—we’ve had eyes on two. Both female.” He looked uncomfortable.

  “That’s a problem?” Juarez asked.

  “One’s just a kid—not more than fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. The other one is maybe seventy.”

  “Barnel has a big extended family,” Diggs said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to use them out here. Could be his wife in there with the girl.”

  Blaze frowned, but made no comment. “Is there any sign of Barnel?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Are there others in the building?”

  “That’s where the problem comes in,” Abbott said. “There’s a fortified cellar with ten that we’ve seen so far—kids mostly, and an elderly couple guarding them with rifles. Deputy Holloway helped us find a back way in, so we’ve actually been able to get inside to see what we’re dealing with.”

  “Inside how?” I asked.

  “Tunnels,” Buddy said. “I took a gamble, figured the reverend would be paranoid enough to want a second way out.”

  “But no one was guarding that exit? You don’t think that’s a little weird?” Diggs asked.

  “I won’t look a gift
horse in the mouth, but it does seem like if he went to the trouble of building this place, he would have put a little energy in protecting himself. We’ll proceed with caution. Happy?” she asked Diggs.

  “Yes. Thank you,” Diggs agreed.

  “Good. So, what did you find?” she asked Abbott.

  The soldier took out a camera and started scrolling through the pictures, starting with the people on the ground floor they’d be squaring off against. The first was of a little old woman with her hair back in a bun, a hard stare in her dark eyes. It took me a minute before I recognized her as the one who’d started singing just about the time Barnel was shot in Miller’s Field two nights ago.

  Blaze flipped to the next picture, showing a teenage girl in the by-now-familiar ankle-length dress, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She held a rifle in one hand. She looked vaguely familiar—I assumed also from the tent meeting. Diggs studied her for a minute.

  “I think that’s Jessie Barnel—one of the grandkids. He’s got a whole posse of them. Smart girl; she made National Honor Society this year. She’s the last one I would have expected to be involved.”

  I didn’t ask how, exactly, Diggs knew that. If I stopped to question half the seemingly irrelevant facts Diggs has floating around in his noggin, we’d never get anything done. From there we moved onto the cellar, and the real problem we were up against.

  The basement itself wasn’t noteworthy, just a large room with a dirt floor, stone walls, and a low ceiling. A bare bulb hung from a wooden beam. There was a wooden table at the center with a plastic pitcher, a half-eaten plate of sandwiches, and a deck of UNO cards. Just as Abbott had said, an old couple stood guard, keeping track of the kids—eight of them.

  “That’s Ray Barnel and his wife, Etta,” Diggs said. “Ray is the reverend’s brother.”