by Greg Herren
Teresa Sobieski Wheeler was a rather short woman who bore no resemblance to her brother Frank. The only similarity was the same clear, almost round, heavy-lidded gray eyes. She couldn’t have been much taller than five feet, and the fact she was roundish made her look shorter. She was carrying maybe an extra twenty pounds, which softened her chin and filled out her cheeks. She was wearing more makeup than necessary—blush and eye shadow and lipstick, powder and eyeliner and mascara. Her shoulder-length gray hair was tucked behind her ears, and small diamonds sparkled on both lobes. Her long gray winter coat had faux fur trim at the neck and wrists. If not for the extra weight, her chin would be as sharp as Frank and Taylor’s, and she’d have the same cheekbones. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin lines, her nose long and crooked, her lips thin. She looked like that nice lady who lives next door and is always making cookies on every family sitcom aired since the dawn of television—the one who always wears a nice dress and pearls and pumps while she cooks and cleans and whose entire life revolves around her family, whose entire existence was built around her children.
So how could she have just turned her back on her youngest the way she had?
What kind of parent does that? What kind of human?
And somehow thinks they’ll still go to heaven?
I may not be a Christian, but I went to Catholic school. My takeaway on Christianity—all religion, really—was you were supposed to love people no matter what, and always be kind.
Frank took her coat and hung it on the track in the hallway. She was wearing a fuzzy pink sweater, imitation angora, over loose-fitting mom jeans with a high waist. Her gray eyes twinkled when she smiled tentatively at me.
Since Taylor had come to live with us, I’d rehearsed in my head any number of things I wanted to say to her should I ever get the chance.
But seeing her in the flesh…no matter how much I thought she deserved it, I didn’t want to be cutting and mean.
I took a deep breath. She held out her hand as Frank introduced us, and after a pause I took it, giving it a little shake, wanting to let go as quickly as possible. Her hand was warm, soft, and damp. But she wouldn’t let go of my hand, clamping her other one over the top of mine. “Thank you for taking in my son,” she said. “It’s been a real load off my mind knowing that Taylor is here safe with you both.”
You wouldn’t have to worry if you were a better parent.
Frank gave me a warning look as I opened my mouth, and instead of saying what I was thinking I replied, “Taylor’s a great kid and we’re lucky to have him staying with us.” I smiled back at her. “If anything, we should be thanking you.”
A gay can always say something that can be taken two ways, like it’s somehow hard-wired in our DNA.
She had the decency to look embarrassed, dropping my hand like she’d been burned.
“And these are our friends Rhoda and Lindy,” Frank said, gesturing at the dining room table. Neither had looked up from their computer screens, but both waved when he said their names.
“Is Taylor here?” Teresa asked, sitting down in one of my wingback chairs without being invited to sit.
Go ahead and make yourself at home. I bit my tongue, reminding myself, She’s Frank’s sister, and no matter what, she’s Taylor’s mom, so you be polite and find out what she wants.
It’s not a coincidence that he’s missing and she just shows up out of the blue.
I cleared my throat, but Frank gave me a warning look.
“No, Taylor isn’t here,” Frank replied, and when I saw the muscle in his cheek twitching, I realized he was just as furious as me, but controlling himself. “As you well know, Teresa. You didn’t just suddenly decide, after almost twenty years, that you needed to see your brother. So why don’t you tell us why you’re really here?”
Twenty years?
She looked stricken, putting her hands to her face. “So, Ron did get here before me?” Her voice shook a little. “I’m so sorry, Frank, I really am. As soon as I…” Her voice trailed off. She looked at me. “I tried,” she said finally in a very small voice. “I tried to talk him out of it. I told him it was wrong. You have to believe me.”
“Where is he?” I heard myself asking. “What have you people done with him?”
“Taylor is over eighteen,” Frank said. “You know Ron and his buddies can be charged with kidnapping. That’s a minimum of fifteen to twenty in federal prison, Teresa. It doesn’t matter if he’s Taylor’s father. You can’t just fucking kidnap someone off the street.”
“I know. I told him it was wrong, it was a mistake.” She was wringing her hands. “I know you won’t believe me but he’s…Ron…well, he’s doing this because he loves Taylor.”
“Taylor,” I said, “can do without that kind of love.”
Frank licked his lips. “I have security footage from the bar on the corner, showing Ron and some other thugs grabbing Taylor and forcing him to get into a van. We were just about to call the police when you arrived.” He folded his arms, biceps bulging. “I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t go ahead and call them.”
“Please, Frank, don’t do that. Ron…it’s wrong. What we did was wrong, I know that, I’ve always known that…I begged him not to do this.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Frank, I don’t know what to do here.” She wiped at her eyes. “He’s my son. I love him. But Ron’s my husband…”
“And one should always choose one’s spouse over one’s child.” Frank nodded. “It’s the Christian thing to do, right?”
“I said I was wrong—”
“The license plate is registered to a Duncan Fairchild, from some small town in upstate Mississippi,” Lindy interrupted without looking up from her computer. “And the van does have satellite service.” Her tone got a little smug, a smile playing at her lips. “So, we should be able to track it down easily once we hack into the company’s signal. Shouldn’t be long now.”
Teresa Wheeler looked confused. “What…what’s going on here?”
“Do it, Lindy,” Frank commanded before turning back to his sister. “Do you know Duncan Fairchild?”
She exhaled heavily, wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief she’d retrieved from her brown suede purse. “I told Ron this was a mistake and to leave it alone,” she said, her voice shaking. “But you know what he’s like, Frank. Once he gets an idea in his head…there’s no changing it. He’s always been that way.”
“You mean like disowning your son?” I couldn’t stop myself. “Throwing him out with just the clothes on his back?”
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She swallowed. “I—” She paused, looked down at her hands. She took a deep breath and looked at me. “You probably think I’m a terrible person.”
I didn’t look at Frank. “You’re right, I do.”
“I’m sorry to have to meet you like this, under these circumstances.” She looked from me to Frank. “I’m happy you’ve found someone, Frank, I am. It’s just—”
“You love me, but you can’t approve of my sinful lifestyle,” Frank said tonelessly. “I’m very aware of how you feel, Teresa. You’ve always made that clear.”
“Frank, I’m so sorry. I never…I never should have said those things to you.” Teresa started twisting her handkerchief into knots. “I know I was wrong, Frank. I was wrong,” she said softly. “I love you and I want you back in my life, Frank. I’ve missed you so much.”
“We can talk about that later.” Frank dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He was being much nicer than I would’ve been. “Duncan Fairchild. You need to start talking.”
“Duncan is a deacon of our church, he’s only been in Corinth for a couple of years now. He’s a good man, just misguided.” She cleared her throat. “He…well, when Taylor left…”
“When you and Ron threw him out,” Frank corrected her.
She nodded slowly. “When we threw him out, after…after he left, we weren’t sure if we’d done the right thing or not.” She look
ed around the room before continuing. “I didn’t want to throw him out, Frank, you have to believe that. I…I couldn’t agree with his sin, with his lifestyle choice—”
“The only choice is whether to live a lie to please people who should love you no matter what, or to be true to yourself and be happy,” Frank snapped. “You’d rather he’d be miserable.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do you want me to tell you about Duncan or not?”
“I will interrupt and correct you every time you say something insensitive, insulting, and offensive,” Frank replied evenly. “I’m gay, your son is gay, my partner is gay, Rhoda and Lindy are lesbians and they’re in love. You’re outnumbered here, sis. You’re not in your backwater church in your judgmental little town now, and you don’t have to be here. You came here. Anytime you want to leave, the door is right there.” He smiled. “We can find Taylor without your help.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her hands. “After Ron blew up and Taylor left, I called Duncan to come over to our house, to counsel us and to pray with us. I was hoping Duncan would convince Ron he’d been wrong, that the right thing to do was bring him home and accept him and pray for him, but that—that wasn’t what Duncan thought we should do.” She took another deep breath. “Duncan told us he knew of a place…a place in Mississippi, a church camp he was part owner of, and that lots of kids like Taylor went there to get help, to turn their back on their sinful choices, and came out as good strong Christian men.”
“A conversion therapy camp?” It took all my willpower not to jump across the room and strangle her. Just the thought of Taylor being in one of those torture chambers… “You were going to send him to conversion therapy?”
“I didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” she replied. She sounded miserable, and I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
“But I’d already called you, and Taylor was on his way down here,” her voice shook a little bit, “and so I didn’t think I’d have to worry about the camp anymore, you know? But Ron…I guess Ron and Duncan kept talking about it. Without me there.”
To her credit, she was convincing. She sounded like a confused mother, torn between her religion and doing what was best for her son.
Which, of course, is how they fool you.
This was the woman who’d not only denied her brother but happily gone along with her husband when he threw out her youngest son. Now she was saying she didn’t think conversion therapy camp in rural Mississippi was the best thing for Taylor.
I supposed I should give her some credit for coming around at last.
If we could trust her.
“Well, Ron started bringing it up again lately, you know, about how Taylor was living a life of sin down here and going against God, and Duncan was sure if we just had him spend a week or two at the camp, he’d see the light and—”
Enough with the crocodile tears, lady. Get to the point.
“And he kept saying that if we took Taylor to Camp Cedars of Lebanon, we’d get our son back. So, when that woman called us on Saturday to tell us about the trouble he was in—why didn’t you call me, Frank?”
“You know damned well why I didn’t call you,” Frank replied. “And what woman called you?”
“She didn’t tell me her name,” Teresa went on. “She just told me to look up Eric Brewer’s murder online, and when I saw that there was an unnamed young man in his hotel suite with him when he was murdered, it was Taylor.” She started crying again.
I am a sympathetic person—sometimes maybe too much so for my own good. But her tears didn’t move me at all.
I felt nothing listening to her cry. Nothing at all.
Who was I turning into? How could I listen to a woman cry and not feel anything?
“So, you know, there we were, worried and not knowing what to do. And then Ron got the bright idea that we needed to come down here, get Duncan to come down here with us, and convince Taylor to come home and spend some time at the camp, you know? None of this would have happened if he wasn’t gay.”
“None of this would have happened if you and your husband hadn’t thrown him out for being gay, like a piece of garbage,” Lindy said from the dining room table. She was still looking at the computer screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “So, it’s actually kind of your fault, isn’t it? He’d still be going to school in Tuscaloosa, wouldn’t he?”
“I deserve that,” Teresa said softly. “I deserve worse. Frank, you have to believe me, when I looked up what a conversion therapy camp really does, I knew I had to come down here and stop Ron and Duncan. If it means he’s gay and goes to hell, then fine. Fine. I don’t want them torturing my son.”
“I’ve got them,” Lindy said triumphantly. “Their vehicle is parked at a motel out on Airline Highway, past the airport. And I’ve run Ron Wheeler’s credit…he has booked two rooms at the Kingfish Motor Lodge.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Shall we go retrieve Taylor?”
“Maybe we should call the police,” Frank said. “Let them handle it.”
Rhoda gave him a terrifying smile. “Or we can handle it ourselves and then turn the video over to the police, let them handle it. Kidnapping is like twenty years minimum, isn’t it?”
Teresa gasped as Frank nodded. “Something like that.”
“Frank, please…”
“You want us to retrieve him?” Rhoda asked. “You and Scotty can wait here, Frank. Plausible deniability.” She cracked her knuckles. “Besides, I love nothing more than humiliating these kinds of men.” Her smile curdled my blood. “Nothing like having their ass handed to them by two women to make these real men types understand they are little men.”
“I’m coming with you,” I replied. “Frank, you stay here with your sister and keep an eye on her. Take her phone.”
Frank grabbed her purse from her and removed her phone.
“You don’t have to—” Teresa started to say before Frank cut her off.
“I don’t trust you, Teresa,” Frank said. “And you’re not going to warn your asshole husband or his asshole friends that we’re coming.”
She didn’t reply.
I grabbed my coat and followed Rhoda and Lindy down the back stairs. They had rented a black SUV with tinted windows. I got into the back but leaned forward between the two front seats as Rhoda started the car. “I know you can handle yourself,” Lindy said as she buckled her seat belt, “but let me and Rhoda do the heavy lifting, okay? We’ll take out the kidnappers, you focus on getting Taylor out of there.” She opened the glove box and removed a Glock with a silencer attached to the end. She made sure it was loaded, slipping it into her waistband. She then did the same thing with another Glock before handing it to Rhoda, who dropped it into her coat pocket as we headed out of the Quarter. We got on I-10 at the Orleans street on-ramp and were soon flying through traffic.
Which of course came to a complete stop right where we reached the I-10 and I-90 interchange.
“American traffic,” Rhoda growled in her thick accent. “Your highways don’t make sense anywhere, but the ones in New Orleans…” She shook her head.
“Have you two heard from Colin lately?” I asked, trying to make it sound as casual as I possibly could.
They looked at each other before Lindy turned to look at me. “Not for a few days. Why?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know what he’s working on, would you?” The traffic had started moving again at a glacial pace, but at least we weren’t sitting still. “Have you heard any rumors or chatter?” Saying chatter made me feel silly. I wasn’t an international agent, nor did I really know how any of that worked…which was kind of how I’d always liked it.
Until recently.
“What’s going on, Scotty?” Rhoda asked as she changed lanes, cutting off an eighteen-wheeler who blew his horn at her. She flipped him off in the rearview mirror, shouting, “You wanna try me, dough boy?” She shook her head. “Sorry. Road rage. I know I should not let idiot drivers get to m
e.”
Lindy patted her leg. “You’re doing fine, honey.” She turned back to me. “We’ve heard that he’s—that Blackledge—is trying to infiltrate a part of the Russian mob that launders money for a terrorist gang causing some trouble in the Middle East, especially in Syria. Syria is such a mess.” She shrugged her shoulders. “We hear these things, you know, because anything involving terror is of interest to our country. It almost always comes back to Israel, at some point.”
“If we didn’t treat the Palestinians so badly,” Rhoda glanced in the rearview mirror and changed lanes again, “they might not be so open to terrorism.”
“Yes, yes, but this has nothing to do with the occupation,” Lindy said. “We assumed Colin would be working on that, as their top operative. Why do you ask?”
If I couldn’t trust Lindy and Rhoda, I couldn’t trust anyone. I quickly sketched out what I’d walked into when I got home from the party on Friday night.
“Bestuzhev?” Rhoda whistled. “He’s a very bad man, Scotty. We shall all sleep better tonight knowing he’s in the grave. Colin saved many lives by killing that monster.”
“So, when Taylor disappeared…”
“Oh, God.” Lindy went pale as we took the Williams Boulevard exit. “You must have thought some of Bestuzhev’s cohorts had taken him!”
“How safe are we in the apartment?” I asked. “If his cover is blown and the Russians know where to find him—”
“Bestuzhev might have been the only one who knew,” Rhoda pointed out. “You can’t do covert ops if you’re constantly reporting back in. It’s always need-to-know, which is why these bastards are so hard to catch. He might have found out about Colin’s private life, came to New Orleans to check it out, but Colin found him and took care of the problem.”
It wasn’t as reassuring as I would have liked, but it was still a relief.
“I’ll check in to see if there’s been any chatter,” Lindy said, pulling out her satellite phone, her thumbs flying over the keyboard. “If anyone has compromised Blackledge, that news won’t be kept quiet for long. I’m so sorry, Scotty.”