When Darkness Builds (The Caldera Series)

by M. C. Sutton

  Sam dodged Phoenix’s hail of bullets, one whizzing dangerously close to his head. He popped through the door of Harley’s shop and didn’t look back.

  Inside the store it was eerily silent, the familiar scent of old cigars and gunpowder now floating with the dust kicked up by all the IRS agents scuffling through. Sam knew exactly where to go. He’d climbed the stairs to the storeroom dozens of times over the last few months. He locked the door behind him and pushed a shelf over in front of it before heading up.

  He found Phoenix perched just inside the window like a cat ready to pounce on a moth.

  “Phoenix Rankin,” said Sam. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

  Phoenix didn’t take his eyes from the street. “‘I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.’ Thomas Jefferson. 1787.”

  Sam took a deep breath and one slow step forward.

  Phoenix popped off another round out the window. “You can stop right there, Mr. Hackett.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Sam. “I won’t come any closer.”

  “No, you’ll get on out of here. I don’t wanna have to shoot ya.”

  Sam prayed he hadn’t already hit someone. “Listen, Phoenix. You can still get out of this. Right now, all they want are the guns.”

  “‘To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.’ George Mason. 1788.”

  Sam rubbed the back of his neck. He could tell he’d need to take a different approach. “You could have killed me out there, you know.”

  Phoenix lowered his head, and his gun, only slightly.

  “Your mother is out there. Your father, too, probably. And other people’s mothers. Other people’s fathers, and brothers, and sons, and daughters. A lot of people out there, just trying to do their jobs so they can go home to their families. All this could have been over in a few hours. But not with you up here like some kind of glorified Lee Harvey Oswald. You really going to get someone killed over a bunch of old boxes of ammo?”

  Phoenix finally turned to look at him. “What do you expect me to do? Just sit back and watch? I’m sorry, Mr. Hackett. You’re a good man. Like my daddy. I know you believe in this country as much as he does. I’ve heard you talk about it myself. But you also know that in war, sometimes you lose good men.”

  “War? Boy, just what do you think is going on out there?”

  “What do you think is going on out there? Maggie Wilkins died last night, did you know that? Of an asthma attack. A friggin’ asthma attack. Her family hasn’t been able to afford the medicine in months. They found her in her bed this morning, stone cold and gone. She didn’t want to tell her parents that her asthma had been actin’ up, because she knew they didn’t have the money. So she did nothing. She was eleven years old, for Chrissake, and she was my friend. And now she’s gone. Because no one did anything!”

  Sam stared at him. “I’m so sorry, Phoenix.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t be,” he answered, sniffling and rubbing a hand across his nose. “Not for me.”

  “Look,” said Sam, lowering his voice and stepping closer. Somewhere downstairs he heard glass break. “You’re only twelve, son. You have your whole life ahead of you. Why don’t you just come down out of that window and let us handle this, okay?”

  “My whole life?” Phoenix turned from the window and stepped toward him, pointing the gun at Sam.

  Sam stopped and held up his hands.

  “‘When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people’s weapons.’ Ronald Reagan. Today it’s our medicine and our guns. Tomorrow it’ll be our shops and our farms. What else are they going to take from us before someone finally does something about it? What kind of life do any of us have to look forward to?”

  “You sound just like your father,” said Sam.

  “Good! It’s about time somebody did!”

  “Yeah? And look where it’s gotten him! What kind of life do you think he’ll have now?”

  Phoenix turned his eyes to the floor.

  The sound of boots echoed in the stairwell.

  “Kid,” said Sam, “if you don’t hand me that gun right now you won’t have any kind of life.”

  Phoenix stood and aimed the gun at the door. “‘It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ Emiliano Zapata.”

  That’s when Sam noticed the laser sights shining through the window, dancing across the dust in the air. “Get down!” he shouted.

  But it was too late.

  The shots were clean and quiet, but unmistakable. For a moment, Phoenix looked confused. He stared down at his chest, at the bright red seeping through the dirty white of his T-shirt. Then he looked up at Sam.

  Sam stood frozen. “Phoenix,” he whispered.

  “Mr. Hackett?” Phoenix answered, in the broken voice of a child. Then his eyes rolled upward.

  Sam rushed across the room, but not fast enough. He watched helplessly as Phoenix slumped backward out the open window and slammed onto the concrete below.

  His mother screamed and rushed to his side.

  “Oh, God,” Sam whispered, fighting to breathe. His hands gripped the windowsill, his arms shaking. “Oh, dear God.”

  Sanchez appeared silently beside him.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people?” Sam said quietly, his eyes beginning to blur. “He was just a little boy.”

  “Not anymore, he wasn’t,” said Sanchez. “The moment he decided to point a gun at the federal government, he was no longer a kid.” He picked up the AR-15 from the floor and narrowed his eyes at Sam. “He was a threat.”

  Sam was too numb to reply.

  “This is a crime scene now, Mr. Hackett,” said Sanchez, turning for the stairs. “I suggest you go home.”

  Sam’s eyes stung as he stumbled across the room and down the stairs. He could still hear Selena’s desperate and broken wails as he stepped through the shop’s back door and into the alley. His head spun as violently as the bullets that had just torn through Phoenix’s chest. He dropped to his knees and vomited onto the cold, hard concrete.

  Zach was waiting for him by the time Sam made it to the truck.

  “Sam! Are you okay?”

  Sam looked down at his hands. He didn’t want to answer that question. “What’d you find out?” he asked instead.

  Zach lowered his voice. “There wasn’t anything in the shop left for them to find. Harley moved it all out a couple of days ago.”

  Sam nodded at the ground.

  “But now we have a different problem,” said Zach.

  Sam looked up to meet Zach’s gaze.

  “Burt Wilkins is out. You know his little girl died last night?”

  Sam glanced over his shoulder at Harley’s shop. “Yeah. I heard.”

  “He’s not the only one, either. A lot of the others are spooked now. Mackenzie says he can replace them with some of the guys he knows, but I’m not exactly sure I trust him, let alone a bunch of people we’ve never even met. Especially for something like this.”

  Sam didn’t trust Damian Mackenzie as far as he could throw him. But they were quickly running out of options.

  “Both Burt and Harley gone? I don’t know, Sam,” said Zach. “This sure does change things.”

  An ambulance pulled up into the street between the truck and Harley’s shop behind them. Sam and Zach watched as they loaded Phoenix’s body into the back.

  Sanchez noticed them watching. He tipped his head and smirked.

  Sam slipped his hands into his pockets, his fingers closing tight around Cole’s rejection letter.

  He narrowed his eyes. “This changes nothing.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU bother to knock,” said Matt, just as Jon raised a hand to knock on his open bedroom door. “It’s not like I have a girl in here or anything.”

  Jon crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Well, you’re legally an adult now. I think the least I can do is respect your privacy.”
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  Matt turned a page. “What do you need, Dad?”

  Jon hesitated, slightly hurt that his son would think the only reason he’d come to his door was if he wanted something.

  Matt sighed and closed his textbook. “I’m sorry, Dad. That was rude. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, Matt, it’s okay. I know you’re busy. I just…” Jon ran a hand through his hair, unable to remember the last time he had come to Matt’s room for a reason other than needing something. “Have you seen your mom?”

  “Yeah. She’s been here for a few hours, but she hasn’t said a word to me. In fact, as soon as she got home…” Matt took a deep breath. “Dad, she grabbed the peanut butter and went straight up to your studio.”

  Jon closed his eyes and bowed his head. Oh, no.

  His studio was the most secluded room in the house. Hardly anyone ever went up there, even him. Emma had always been adamant about staying out of there herself, because she insisted she had put it in the house design specifically so that he would have somewhere to go to be alone. Which was exactly why he never went up there. Jon had never liked being alone. Between being raised in boarding schools and locked up as a POW during the war, he had already spent enough time alone to last him the rest of his life.

  And the fact that she was now sitting up there with a jar of peanut butter made it a thousand times worse.

  Jon opened one eye, peering at Matt through the locks of dark hair that fell in front of his forehead. “Did she take a spoon?”

  “Yeah, Dad. She did.”

  Jon dropped his shoulders. He thought he’d fixed this. After spending over twenty years together, he could usually work out what was bothering her. He seldom understood it, but he could at least get close enough to help. If using the sleeping pills to make sure she was getting plenty of rest and busting his tail around the house so she could work on her presentation over the last month wasn’t enough, then Jon was out of ideas. Which meant there was only one thing left to do if he wanted to know what was wrong with Emma.

  Ask Matt.

  “Matt?” said Jon, sitting down at the end of his bed across from him. “Is your mother… okay? I mean, over the last few months has she… I don’t know… talked to you about anything?”

  Matt sighed and looked out the window. “Dad, I really don’t think it’s me she needs to be talking to.”

  Jon had tried to talk to her. Plenty of times. But there were some things Emma just wasn’t comfortable discussing with him. The same things he wasn’t comfortable discussing with her—or anyone else.

  “And, no,” Matt continued. “She’s not okay.” He opened his book and started reading again. Jon guessed that was his way of saying he wasn’t the person Jon should be talking to either.

  And he was probably right.

  Jon rubbed his hands across his jeans and got up. He stopped just inside the doorway. “Hey, Matt.”

  Matt looked up.

  “If you did have a girl in here, who would she be?”

  Matt grinned and shook his head. “I have a lot of reading to do, Dad.”

  Jon smiled as he left the room.

  He took a deep breath as he crossed the living room toward the stairwell that ran behind the fireplace and up to his studio above the garage. Okay, Jon, you can do this, he told himself as he reached for the doorknob. After all, it was just peanut butter, which meant the good old-fashioned kind of stress he could deal with. The going head-to-head with administrators, working out budget cuts, and arguing with Leah over dating habits kind of stress. It wasn’t like Emma had come home and tried to figure out where he’d hidden the chocolate again.

  The darkness of the narrow stairwell gave way to sunlight when Jon reached the top. Emma sat slouched on the massive sectional sofa, her arms crossed and feet resting on the coffee table, staring silently out the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran across the dormer overlooking the lake below. It really was a great room, despite its seclusion. He wasn’t sure why she didn’t just claim it for herself. Jon had never understood Emma’s occasional need for solitude. Mostly because she loved being alone for the same reason he hated it.

  Because being alone meant no one needed you.

  “Hey there, stranger,” said Jon.

  “Hi,” answered Emma quietly, without looking at him.

  Jon picked up the half-eaten jar of peanut butter from the coffee table. “Extra crunchy, huh? Must be serious.”

  Emma didn’t answer. She just stared into the distance, mindlessly sliding the dove pendant on her necklace back and forth like she always did when she was nervous.

  Jon put down the jar and sat next to her.

  “Jon,” she said without turning her head, as if she were talking to the trees across the lake rather than to him, “do you ever wonder who you really are?”

  Jon wrinkled his forehead. Who I really am?

  He looked down at the silver ring on his right hand. The inscription Tolle Super Nobis Nomen Et Memento was engraved around the gemstone in the center. The stone wasn’t a birthstone like it would be for anyone else who wore one, but a yellow star sapphire with a dark circle beneath, like a great eagle’s eye. It was the only one of its kind like it.

  And so was Jon.

  The ring was a symbol of his commitment to the Order of the Golden Eagle, an organization that was more like a country club than a secret society. It was also an organization that Jon had sworn he’d never have anything to do with. Until the day he needed their help.

  After Emma got sick.

  Since then, he’d attended the classes, participated in the fundraisers, sworn to the code. He’d even held offices and looked out for other member families. So far, nothing the OGE had asked him to do had ever interfered with his own responsibilities. In fact, they had taught him how to be a better father and husband. Something he’d never learned from his own dad.

  So no, Jon didn’t have to wonder, any more than Emma did. They’d both been told, years ago, exactly who and what they were. From what Jon understood, the OGE had nearly condemned their marriage because of it, for fear Emma would be a bad influence on him.

  Ironic, considering that unlike Jon, Emma had been born and raised a believer. It wasn’t until they let her down that she lost faith, and it was a long time before she got it back again. But by then it had become more like a bone that had been broken in too many places, never healing to as strong as it was before.

  “My grandfather would say,” Jon answered, “that we are the choices we make.”

  Emma closed her eyes. “What if I made some bad choices? What if I could have said something, or done something, differently? Something that would have made things better? Made everyone’s lives… easier?”

  Her words echoed inside Jon’s head. Not so much what she said, but how she said it. With an incredible tone of finality. He reached for her hand, and only then did she look at him. For the first time, Jon saw the shimmer of tear stains on her cheeks.

  Emma had been crying.

  “Something,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, “that would have changed… everything.”

  Jon pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. She was hurting, and he could feel it. He had no idea why, and it drove him nuts. Please, Emmy, just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Just tell me so I can do something about it!

  Emma was scared, though, and he didn’t blame her. This stuff made him nervous, too.

  “Is this about the convention?” he asked.

  She sighed. “The convention,” she said, as if it were the furthest thing from her mind. She rubbed a hand across her face and sank back against the cushion. For a while she just stared blankly at the ceiling. Then she got up and walked over to the window.

  He followed her.

  “I just…” She crossed her arms. “I just don’t know if I can do this.”

  Jon smiled. “You said the same thing when the boys were born.”

  “Yeah, and I’m still not so sure I can do that either.”

  “Emmy.�
�� He put his hands on her arms. “You are an incredible mother, and a freakishly persuasive speaker. You’ll do fine.”

  “It’s not the speaker I’m worried about, Jon,” she said quietly. “It’s the listener.”

  Jon shook his head and let go of her. “Oh, come on, Em.”

  “Maybe if I just showed them? Made them understand.”

  “But that’s not what we’re here for, Emma.”

  “Then what are we here for, Jon?” she practically screamed at him.

  Jon stared at her. He knew she was on edge, but he’d had no idea it was this bad. What in the world was happening inside her head?

  Emma took in a long, deep breath and turned back to the window. “To watch it all fall apart?” she said quietly to the lake. “To pick up the pieces?”

  Jon watched her as she closed her eyes and rested her head against the glass. Emma was the strongest person he had ever known. He had seen her break down countless times, after losing everything from children to almost each other, and every time she bounced back. Every time, she fought it and moved on. But this time, whatever Emma was up against had her so worried she couldn’t even bring herself to talk to him about it.

  This time Emma wasn’t recovering. She was getting worse.

  “Honey,” he said quietly, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  She rested her head back against his shoulder. “I can feel it, Jon,” she said, “screaming inside of me. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  He wanted to say “nothing.” That there wasn’t anything either one of them was supposed to do besides live their lives, raise their kids, and grow old together. The entire world could fall apart around them and it wouldn’t faze him one bit, as long as they still had each other. But the point of him coming up here was to make her feel better, not push her further away.

  “Em…” he said, pulling her around to face him. “You just have to be patient, okay? When the time comes, we’ll know. You probably even before the rest of us. Until then, don’t get so focused on the distance that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

  “You mean like you? My incredibly wonderful husband?”