Hoodwink

by Rhonda Roberts

  The sheer cruelty of today’s oh-so-formal funeral overwhelmed me. Troy had stood between us, his face like shattered glass as he watched Earl and Susan slide into place in the same family vault that already enclosed his grandmother, Justine, and mother, Meryl.

  The boy should’ve been able to vent his grief instead of having to put up with the smarmy glibness of Reverend Beal and the coldly appropriate speeches from the family elders. Senator Milhouse Curtis had insisted on giving the eulogy but it’d come off more like a campaign harangue for more votes than anything Troy should’ve had to listen to today of all days.

  Why couldn’t any of them have just tried to comfort him?

  But no hugs, no tears, no displays of anything as unruly as affection.

  Seeing that, I’d clasped Troy firmly to my side for the rest of the service.

  This morning Shelby and I had plotted out Troy’s future. He may’ve lost a great-grandmother but he’d gained an uncle and a big sister.

  We’d look after him …

  We’d make sure he’d have a good life — that he was loved.

  ‘I just wish I’d known …’ Troy whispered. ‘Mom had no idea why Suzie was hanging onto Earl’s memory like that. If only I’d had more time with her.’

  Shelby patted Troy’s shoulder. ‘I know, son. I wish you had too.’

  ‘But they’ve all left me, I’m the last one. I can’t do this alone.’ Troy buried his face in his hands.

  Reaching up to enclose the tall boy in his kind embrace, Shelby murmured, ‘You have me now, son … and I won’t let you slip away.’

  Troy bent and cried into the older man’s neck, at first heartbroken and then in relief that here, finally, was a safe harbour.

  Shelby looked at me over the boy’s heaving shoulders. This was a watershed for them both. They needed each other badly.

  I stood with them as they said their goodbyes to the dead and made their pact with each other. Shelby promised he would take care of Troy and that, no matter what Senator Curtis threatened, Troy would live with him. And Troy promised to stay sober and make a life for himself.

  Both sad and happy for them, I had to turn away, the tears slipping down my cheeks.

  When all had been said that needed to be, I walked the pair back to the waiting limousine. My hire car was parked behind.

  Troy slid in and lay boneless against the leather seat. I hugged him one last time. ‘I’ll be back again soon. Remember, I’m teaching you to surf Aussie style — so you’d better get fit.’

  He gave me the glimmer of a smile. Troy knew I’d stand by him come what may.

  I studied Troy’s tired young face. This day had changed him. Yes, he’d lost nearly everything but there was the gleam of something new in his gaze …

  Hope.

  And I knew then and there Troy was going to make it.

  I hugged Shelby goodbye too. He felt stronger, more certain. Susan had gone but now he had a new purpose: building a healthy life for Troy.

  ‘Kannon …’ Guilt replaced the grief. ‘I know this case has caused you no end of trouble and I’m so very sorry for forcing you into this —’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t worry, Shelby, I’ll be okay. Brigham knows that if he tries anything I’ll have nothing to lose by telling all.’

  And by sending copies of the evidence I’d brought through the portal with me to every news organisation in town … evidence that was now stored in a safe place, along with my complete report.

  Just in case anyone got ideas …

  The NTA and the FBI had joined forces to keep the whole Curtis-Gibson scandal locked down and away from the media. The NTA were desperate to keep their murky beginnings off the front page … and the FBI were rightly paranoid about their part in a deal made with a psychopath who’d come dangerously close to overthrowing the government.

  ‘Remember, Kannon, if things don’t work out for you with the NTA — if you do decide to leave — come and work for me.’

  ‘Thanks, Shelby, but this is what I want to do.’

  This was what I was born to do.

  I waved them goodbye and headed for the airport …

  For home.

  Constan had just left, taking Des Carmichael with him. They were going to have dinner in Half Moon Bay at the Pumpkin Patch Café. They’d both jumped at the chance to gorge on the café’s homemade raspberry pie … and they knew we needed some time alone.

  Now Victoria and I sat with our legs dangling over the cliff behind the beach house. The wind was chilly and we were both freezing but also too delighted to be sharing this moment to think of going inside. We were watching the sunset do its glorious fan dance and Victoria had me tucked so firmly to her side it was hard to tell where she finished and I began.

  We both liked it that way.

  ‘You should’ve called me as soon as you came back through the portal, sweetheart. I would’ve —’

  ‘Yes, Mum, you would’ve taken the NTA apart for me, I know. But I handled it, didn’t I?’

  I gave her a quick glance.

  I’d just managed to talk her down from marching into Brigham’s office and I wanted to keep it that way. But Victoria was still simmering over Brigham’s perfidy. Well, the very little that she knew of it anyway.

  There was no way I was telling her the whole story.

  She’d lost me once already … when I was two years old. And now every day Victoria had to steel herself to give me the wide open space that I needed to live the life I wanted.

  I wasn’t going to make that any harder for her than I had to.

  ‘You’re too headstrong, Kannon,’ she said with affection.

  ‘Yeah, I wonder where I get that tendency?’

  She chuckled, content.

  The sunset was peaking into deepest vermilion slashed with gold.

  ‘So Leonard Brewster escaped custody?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied dryly. ‘But I can’t imagine how a man who’d just emerged from surgery managed to climb out of a hospital window and down seven floors.’

  Someone was busy tying up loose ends …

  The Iron Key conspiracy had involved people in high places, possibly people who were still perched there and wanted to keep it that way.

  Gibson’s crew — Purcell, Muller, Elden Brewster and the rest — had all died years ago. So, as far as I knew, that only left Leonard Brewster … and I imagined he was now no longer in a position to blab.

  I had my insurance cache of evidence and other such weapons fully primed. If anyone came after me — or mine — I was more than ready for the brawl.

  Victoria frowned. She was still coming to terms with the whole Gibson – NTA connection. She loved the NTA and didn’t know how to think about it all.

  ‘Kannon, I can’t lobby Congress to fund an organisation that’s built on lies.’

  I’d searched for Dietrich Schiller, the man Gibson claimed had started the NTA, but there was no trace of him on any lists of German scientists brought to the USA after World War II. And Schiller hadn’t been a member of the Nazi Party either, unlike Von Braun, the scientist and SS officer who’d started NASA. So who was he? And where was he now?

  But that mystery would have to wait its turn.

  I gripped her hard. ‘Mum … you can’t throw out the good stuff too. I won’t let you! There are too many people we can help.’

  She wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I know the NTA’s beginnings are murky … but to give up this chance to do some good is wrong. You know what time travel did for us.’ I nuzzled her cheek. ‘It gave me you back.’

  ‘Kannon.’ She dropped her head to my shoulder and sighed. ‘How did you get to be so wise?’

  I grimaced.

  Oh God, I hoped she never found out about half the things I did!

  54

  LETTERMAN ARMY

  HOSPITAL, THE PRESIDIO,

  SAN FRANCISCO

  ‘But didn’t the NTA surgeon go through this with you, Dr Jarrat
t? He was here only last night.’

  ‘You know what bureaucracies are like, Nurse …’ I checked her name tag, ‘Wentworth. The paperwork backs up and no one ends up knowing what’s going on. But we all just want to make sure our boy is okay.’

  Letterman Army Hospital was more than a century old but, like the rest of the place, the nurses’ station was spotlessly clean and saturated by an almost visible mist of industrial-strength disinfectant.

  Nurse Wentworth was sympathetic. ‘Of course, Doctor.’ She consulted the chart she was holding. ‘Marshal Honeycutt suffered a penetrating chest wound with a haemo-pneumothorax —’

  ‘The bullet went straight through, didn’t it, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, it just missed his heart but hit a major artery and collapsed his right lung. He still has a drainage tube attached but that should be taken off later today. The marshal’s doing surprisingly well, considering he died as they were taking him out of the ambulance.’

  I fought to keep my expression clinical. ‘Marshal Honeycutt had to be revived?’

  ‘Yes, he flatlined. They had to work on him on the hospital steps, just out front. They’d just given up on resuscitation when he made it back by himself. They don’t really know how …’

  The nurse pitched me a considering glance. My concern had leaked through.

  ‘I’m guessing Marshal Honeycutt survived that, and the seven hours of surgery, because he has amazing stamina, Dr Jarratt. His basic fitness must’ve kept him alive. Still, as the other NTA surgeon was told, he won’t be on active service for quite a while.’

  Nurse Wentworth paused. ‘And then of course there are the nightmares …’

  She gave me a puzzled look. ‘Patients who have experienced such kinds of trauma tend to have psychological difficulties in recovery but —’

  ‘What are the nightmares about?’ I was afraid I already knew.

  ‘Marshal Honeycutt won’t say. But he wakes up without fail at midnight … fighting to get free of the drainage tube and yelling that he has to go. Something about finding his brother. We’ve had to strap him in at night so he can’t hurt himself any more.’

  Kyle.

  Oh God, he was dreaming about saving his brother, Kyle.

  ‘Is Marshal Honeycutt awake now?’

  I looked over at Honeycutt’s door. The chairs on either side were empty; Brigham’s guards had been summoned back to Union Square for an emergency meeting.

  My imitation of Brigham’s deputy had done the job — still, I couldn’t waste time.

  ‘Yes, Doctor, but probably not for too long.’

  Nurse Wentworth let me into Honeycutt’s room and shut the door as she left.

  Daniel was alone, lying with his eyes closed. His face was thin and pale with strain. A tube was inserted directly into his bandaged ribcage and connected to a glass jar, mainly full of water with some blood, underneath it.

  I sat next to him, tears blurring my vision.

  I softly touched one tanned hand. He was all right. Honeycutt was going to live.

  A sob welled up but I caught it.

  How could I ever thank him? The bullet that had just missed his heart and ripped out part of his lung had been meant for me.

  He stirred.

  Jade eyes blinked once and looked over at me with a complete lack of recognition.

  I was wearing a short black wig, an NTA navy-blue uniform with the silver infinity symbol on my breast pocket and a heavy layer of make-up. I looked twenty years older and now had a very bad case of acne.

  Daniel focused on my hand touching his and then took a closer look. His face lightened. ‘Kannon?’ he said weakly.

  ‘Yep. I’m just practising a new disguise for my next field trip, Honeycutt. Do you like it?’

  I wasn’t going to trouble him with either the crap storm that was still whirling around the Earl Curtis case or Brigham’s orders to keep me out.

  ‘They told me you made it back all right …’ A spark of the old teasing Honeycutt showed. ‘And that you’re still in the training program too. What did you do to Brigham to make him keep you in?’

  ‘Nothing I can be arrested for.’

  It was the truth.

  I was back in the training program because Brigham had too much to lose by alienating me any further — but Honeycutt was too sick to hear the whole dirty story.

  Daniel gave a faint grin. It was gone before it could even reach his dimples, as though the effort had drained him.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Honeycutt. You did a really good job back there.’

  Before he could ask for more details I said, ‘How do you feel? The nurse said you’ve been having nightmares.’ I regretted asking as soon as I said it.

  He dropped his gaze, his face shuttered. ‘It’s nothing, Kannon. I used to have the same dream when I was a teenager. It’s just come back, that’s all.’

  I’ve never believed in ghosts or hobgoblins or any of that … The cruelty that humans are capable of more than fills the suffering quota for this planet. We can be a scary enough species without needing to add any supernatural flourishes.

  But that séance in Merlin Jones’ tomb made me wonder …

  Was Honeycutt right? Had Matz just been one of Bumstead’s tricks gone wrong?

  Honeycutt was too quiet.

  I nodded at the window. ‘Isn’t the Presidio some kind of old army camp, Honeycutt? Are these army nurses giving you a hard time for being a Marine?’

  That brought a light back to his eyes and his voice was a little stronger. ‘I’m not stupid enough to let them know that, darlin’.’

  ‘What will you give me if I don’t tell them?’

  He grinned. ‘Dinner … to start with.’ This time the dimples showed.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I laughed. ‘I don’t think you’re sick at all, Honeycutt. You’re just malingering here in this holiday camp.’

  Daniel smiled but faintly this time. He closed his eyes and melted back into the bed.

  I waited for a while but he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

  How could I ever repay him?

  I softly kissed one tanned finger goodbye and left him there.

  At the front doors of the hospital I stopped to gaze upwards. On this spring day the sun wasn’t strong enough to prevent the shadows from feeling cold and deep.

  I hadn’t noticed going in, too intent on my plan, but there was a gnarled and twisted giant thrusting up from the garden right next to the front steps.

  The ancient tree towered over the old army hospital, probably a dozen centuries its senior. This tree had been here before us …

  Before anything that stood inside the Presidio had been created.

  It was a ceiba tree, and its great clawing branches reached out over the steps where Honeycutt had flatlined.

  I stared up at it, one fist now clenched around my silver Tree of Life necklace.

  Nothing — and no one — was ever going to hurt Honeycutt.

  Not while I was around.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My grateful thanks to …

  The California Lawyers for the Arts, especially Greg Victoroff and Gary Goldberger.

  The Arts Law Centre of Australia, in particular Suzanne Derry.

  The custodians of Hollyhock House in LA.

  Rowena Lindquist, Marianne de Pierres and Sean Williams, for their generous support.

  Sara Paretsky, for leading the way.

  Jolie and Adam, for help with the website, and Janet Roberts, for her great feedback.

  Abigail Nathan, for her incisive notes.

  My brother, Dr Owen Roberts, the resident medical expert. (All the dramatic twists are mine, of course.)

  James Cella, President and CEO of the Culver Studios, who graciously arranged for my tour of the sound stages where Gone with the Wind was filmed, and Stage Manager Sean Spindler, who patiently answered my questions.

  My agent, Richard Curtis, for his keen insight and efforts on my behalf.

  The wonderful team at V
oyager and everyone else at HarperCollins. Particularly the hard-working account managers who go out and sell the books, Darren Holt for such a gorgeous cover, and Kate Burnitt, Natalie Costa Bir, Sarah Barrett and Lara Wallace for all their efforts in bringing this book to fruition.

  Stephanie Smith, Associate Publisher — Voyager, a brilliant editor and a delight to work with.

  Jill Keys, for her wisdom.

  Richard Caladine, my love and fellow adventurer.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rhonda Roberts was a lecturer at the University of Wollongong for eleven years, specialising in the formation of knowledge systems in different cultures and historical periods, in particular Japan, Australia and the USA.

  She is very interested in martial arts and trained in Aikido for four years in Japan and Australia. She now learns Tai Chi, Qigong and Chinese sword.

  Rhonda lives in the Illawarra with her husband and two dogs and swims in the ocean every day that she can.

  www.rhondarobertsauthor.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY RHONDA ROBERTS

  KANNON DUPREE

  TIMESTALKER

  Gladiatrix (1)

  Hoodwink (2)

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperVoyager

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2012

  This edition published in 2011

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Rhonda Roberts 2012

  The right of Rhonda Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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