Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Me? Why?”

  “He likes you. And you seem to appreciate him.”

  “I do.” Hammett stared at her for a good long while, only Kirk’s happy tail thump marking the time. Finally she spoke again. “Did you tell Chandler?”

  Julie knew they were no longer talking about Kirk, that Hammett understood what her gift of Kirk meant, what Julie was about to do. Although she’d just talked to Chandler, Julie wasn’t sure her friend would ever consciously accept what had to happen.

  “No. She wouldn’t understand.”

  Julie already felt her resolve slipping, and what she was about to do was too important to let herself back down now.

  “I’ll give him a good home,” Hammett said.

  Julie was just about to walk away when Hammett drew in a breath.

  “You know, when I first met you,” Hammett said, “I thought you were worthless and whiny. I’m never wrong. But I was about you.”

  Julie had the feeling this was as close to a compliment that Hammett ever gave. She pressed her lips together in something she hoped Hammett would interpret as a thank you. “Take care of Kirk, OK?”

  “Anyone tries to hurt him, they’re dead.”

  Julie nodded. She’d made the right decision. And although she felt sad about leaving Kirk, she had a sense that she could trust Hammett with him. That as strange and abrupt and unlikable as Hammett was, she wouldn’t see Kirk as a burden, but would appreciate the unconditional love and companionship he offered.

  She picked up her sweet dog’s leash and handed it to Hammett, and without another glance back, she walked away.

  The house was quiet, only the chimes from a grandfather clock in the study breaking the stillness. Julie climbed the stairs and continued down the hall, her footsteps so light she almost felt like she was dancing.

  She wondered if she should feel sad about what she was going to do. But instead she felt peace, a full-body calm that she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Maybe ever.

  Julie ducked into the room she’d claimed as hers, a large guest suite with a sitting area and a private bath. The window was set in a little alcove with a window seat and had a gorgeous view of the ocean, the crash of the waves as soothing as a lullaby. The Atlantic Double Dunes Preserve on one side of the property and the Amagansett National Wildlife Refuge on the other made for a serene setting. Natural. Peaceful. Julie couldn’t ask for anything more.

  She walked into the bathroom and ran a glass of water, then took the bottle of codeine she’d stashed in the back of the vanity, behind the towels.

  Staring at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, she thought about the note. After all, a note was mandatory. Julie had told Chandler thanks, but she wasn’t sure her friend really understood that Julie was most proud not of what she’d done, but of what she was about to do.

  The most heroic thing she’d ever done in her life.

  She carried the pill bottle and the glass back to the window seat and set them on the sill. Grabbing a notebook and pen, she stared at a blank page. And stared. Seconds ticked into minutes, but nothing poignant or witty came. Whatever words popped into her mind didn’t seem enough.

  Setting the notebook on her lap, she picked up the bottle, opened the cap, and dumped several pills into her palm.

  Might as well begin.

  She gagged a little on the first handful, chasing them down with the water. After that, it became easier. Another handful. Then another.

  It only took a few minutes to register the effects. Sleepy. And, ironically, she felt like giggling.

  All the loneliness of the past years faded away. The burden of knowing what she was, the lives that her blood had taken, the inability to change her future—one by one all the pressures and frustrations and fears melted into the rhythmic crash of the waves.

  Julie laid back, closing her eyes, wondering what she should be thinking about. Was there more than just this life? A heaven? Would God understand why she was doing this?

  He must. She was saving lives.

  Blurry from the codeine, she reached for the notebook. The pen was tough to hold, the room starting to spin and fade at the same time, but she managed to write her suicide note. And as she set the notebook on her lap and let the pen fall from her hand, her last thought was that though the note was brief, it was certainly apt.

  THIS IS MY GIFT TO THE WORLD.

  Death took her gently, leaving a small smile curving her lips.

  Chandler

  “Listen to your instincts,” said The Instructor. “They will recognize the truths your mind refuses.”

  I had no idea how many hours I slept, but when I finally opened my eyes, light slanted through the west-facing window. Almost sunset.

  My stomach felt tight. After all the rest I’d finally gotten, I wasn’t sure why I felt so uneasy, but I couldn’t ignore it. Something wasn’t right.

  I found my sisters, Bradley, and Kirk in the expansive great room in front of a bank of windows overlooking the ocean. The dog raised his head and thumped his tail. Hammett was asleep on a couch, and I didn’t see a sign of Harry—a good thing, as far as I was concerned.

  “Harry gone?” I asked Fleming.

  She nodded. The gesture was natural enough, but I could sense a tightness in her movement, and little lines of tension bracketed her mouth.

  The sense of unease that I’d awoken with clamped down on the back of my neck. “What is it?”

  Bradley glanced at Fleming. He looked as if he was about to cry.

  “Fleming?” My voice rose with panic, and it wasn’t until that moment I realized who else was not in that room.

  And then I knew.

  “Where is she?”

  My throat closed, making it hard to breathe, and I felt like I was choking…drowning.

  “Where’s Julie?”

  Kirk lowered his head and whined.

  Hammett opened an eye, but didn’t say a word.

  Bradley glanced at the staircase.

  “Chandler…” Fleming started.

  I didn’t let her finish.

  Spinning around, I went for the staircase, grabbing the banister and propelling myself up the steps two at a time. Julie loved the ocean, and if she was up here, she would be in a room with an ocean view.

  I reached the landing, ran down the hall, and threw open the first door.

  Empty.

  I did the same with the next bedroom and the next. Finally I focused on the farthest door, a room set off by itself, and my whole body started to tremble.

  The hall blurred, tears welling, overflowing, coursing down my cheeks. I didn’t want to go near that closed door, and yet I had to. I had to see her.

  I heard a creak on the stairs behind me, but I didn’t turn back to see who was following. Instead I forced one foot to move, then the next, until I was standing with my hand on the doorknob.

  I thought back to all the difficult things I’d done in the past couple of weeks. None compared to turning that knob, pushing the door open, forcing my eyes to focus on the window seat.

  Julie lay back against the cushions, her blond hair spread over damask, the orange sparkle of sunset on cresting waves her backdrop. She looked as if she was asleep. Her lashes half-moons on pale cheeks, her cheeks relaxed, a slight smile on her lips.

  A piece of paper rested on her lap. I picked it up, the page shaking so badly I could barely read it.

  Julie’s gift to the world.

  My breath jammed in my throat, caught in a stuttering sob. I knelt beside her, touched her forehead, already starting to cool. Then I lowered my face to hers and kissed her cheek.

  How long I stayed there, I wasn’t sure. But I was aware of Fleming coming into the room long before I finally spoke. I looked at her, leaning on her crutches, her face pinched.

  “She thanked me, you know. She said I helped her to be brave. I didn’t understand.”

  “It was for the best, Chandler.”

  “How can you say that?”

&
nbsp; “You know Julie couldn’t live. You knew it the night you flew her to that island.”

  I shook my head. “I should have been able to change things.”

  “I don’t know how you can say that. You did everything you could to save her. But the threat was in her blood. She knew it. She took care of it.”

  I looked back down at the note. Her gift. Julie’s gift. A gift I didn’t want her to have to give.

  “I thought about killing myself,” Fleming said in a hushed voice.

  I sat back on the carpet and turned to look at my sister, my strong sister, far stronger than me. “When?”

  “The first time? After I fell. I dragged myself to the street, to get help. But after they patched me together, and the real pain started, I thought about it. Every damn day.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. Because somehow I knew that it would be selfish. That I would be doing it to save myself pain, to save myself the humiliation of being in this chair the rest of my life.”

  I had no idea what point she was trying to make, so I said nothing and waited for her to continue.

  “I thought about it another time, too. Almost did it.”

  “When?”

  “In the prison, under the Badger Ammunition plant.”

  I swallowed, my throat as parched as it had been in the Sonoran Desert. “The pain?”

  “The pain was bad. And if I’d done it, if I’d slit my throat, no one would have known the transceiver’s self-destruct code. The president would still be alive. Ratzenberger wouldn’t have succeeded a good man, and The Instructor would still be on a leash. So I probably should have killed myself. But I had a selfish reason for staying alive.”

  Fleming was the most unselfish person I’d ever known. “What?”

  “I thought they had you. And I wasn’t going to let them hurt my sister.”

  I let that sink into my brain. The irony of it—how I had then given The Instructor the code to save our skins—must have been bitter for Fleming indeed. “You must hate me.”

  “No.”

  “I hate me.”

  Fleming shook her head. “I’d do it again. But Julie didn’t kill herself for a selfish reason, Chandler. By doing what she did, she saved millions of lives. Maybe billions.”

  I looked back at Julie. As much as I wanted her in my life, as selfish as my need was, I knew she was right to do what she did. I wanted to hug her once again, pull her close, tell her how amazing she was.

  Instead I turned back to Fleming. “Julie was a hero.”

  Fleming looked at me and nodded, and although I’d never spoken to her about heroes, I could tell she understood the significance of my statement.

  “She sure as hell was.”

  I wasn’t sure how long Hammett had been listening, but now she stepped into the doorway behind Fleming.

  None of us spoke for a long time, the sound of the waves outside and the ticking of a grandfather clock the only noise in the house. Finally Fleming broke the stillness.

  “None of us measure up to Julie in the hero department, but we can contribute to the security of the world in another way.”

  Hammett frowned. “And what would that be?”

  “I have The Instructor’s home address.”

  “Hot damn,” Hammett said. “How did you pull that off?”

  “Seems POTUS would like to keep recent events under wrap.”

  “I’ll bet,” Hammett said. “You up for settling the score, Chandler? And remember, he’s mine.”

  Once upon a time, I would have felt as elated at the prospect of paying The Instructor a visit as Hammett did, but now all I could manage was a somber nod.

  “We have something to do first.”

  The smile fell from Hammett’s lips. I hadn’t known my psycho sister to give a rat’s ass about any human being, but even she seemed to recognize that Julie deserved respect.

  All the respect in the world.

  We wrapped her body in sheets, and the blanket from her bed. Even as I worked, I didn’t have a sense that this physical flesh was Julie anymore. The spark that was the real her was gone. To a better place, I hoped. If anyone deserved to be in a better place it was Julie.

  Fleming located a crematorium for pets twenty minutes east, much easier to break into than one devoted to humans. I suppose some people might think taking Julie to a place for animals was disrespectful, but that was only because they didn’t know Julie. I was certain she would like the idea.

  The crematorium was joined with a cemetery and funeral chapel. It had closed at five p.m., and by the time we arrived, after nightfall, the place was deserted. The crematorium housed two furnaces, and one was still warm. We slid Julie inside and, in silence, turned the heat to high.

  After her body was ash, we put her into an urn and sprinkled her off the Long Island coast.

  Our last errand was dropping off Bradley. He’d bought a carrier for his fox and insisted on taking the late train out of New York. Fleming had let him, deciding it was best he not be any part of what we were about to do. He stood on the curb, giving Fleming a long kiss through the open door.

  “Come on, you two. Get a room,” Hammett said. “Or let us join in. A threesome with triplets, Brad. What do you say?”

  Bradley’s cheeks turned red.

  “I’ll call you,” Fleming told him.

  Bradley closed Fleming’s door, gazing at her the way Kirk used to look at Julie, the way the dog was looking at Hammett now.

  Fleming waved.

  I stared at the city lights through the windshield, folding my feelings and memories and putting them gently back into that compartment in my heart. I would never be the selfless hero Julie was, but there was something my sisters and I could do to make the world a better place. “Let’s go.”

  Chandler

  “Eliminate enemies when you can,” said The Instructor. “You don’t want to be looking over your shoulder the rest of your life.”

  We left New York and drove west, stopping to drop Kirk off at a dog boarding kennel and stealing plastic sheets from a construction site for the back of the van. At the Hamptons house, Bradley had discovered a bundle of clothing including coats waiting to be donated to charity, and the three of us now had new, warm threads.

  Finally after a long drive we came to a nondescript house in a nondescript suburb, practically identical to every other one on the block. Upper middle class, but far from a gated community. The only swimming pools were aboveground, the cars in the driveways Hondas and Chevys.

  “This is it?” Hammett asked.

  Fleming frowned. “Unless the president is lying to us. And I don’t think he would. He understood that we could ruin him, even if he killed us.”

  “But it’s so…ordinary,” Hammett said.

  I agreed. Two stories tall and covered in beige vinyl siding, the house had a garage facing the road, a bank of windows overlooking the street, a row of Japanese yew underneath. Just looking at the front, I could see the entire floor plan in my mind’s eye. Ordinary upon ordinary. The Instructor had loomed large in my life—in all of our lives—and ordinary was the last thing I’d been expecting.

  Fleming passed the house and continued up the street, coming to a cul-de-sac rimmed with similar houses in varying shades of beige. “Do you think he has bodyguards?”

  I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe he thinks anonymity is enough.”

  Hammett opened the side door of the van. “I’ll go around back. You cover the front.” She pressed her earpiece, the radios left over from supplies Harry had provided to Fleming. “Check, check one.”

  I heard the delayed echo of Hammett in real life and in her radio.

  “Check two,” I said.

  “Check three.” Fleming nodded at me. “Be careful, ladies.”

  Hammett hobbled out, a crutch under one arm, her bag in the other, fading into the darkness across the street.

  I went behind her. The night was chilly, and I was glad Bradley had discovered th
e coats. As I walked down the street, I slipped into the mind-set of a suburban girl walking home from a day at the office. Tired, oblivious to the surroundings, anxious to get home and have a glass of Pinot Grigio and watch a little TV. I approached the front of the houses slowly, casually, as if I belonged there.

  “He’s there, in the dining room, eating,” Hammett said.

  Damn she was quick, even with a crutch.

  “No signs of any guards, or even an alarm system. And check this out—there’s a woman and two kids eating with him. I think it’s his family.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that information. It was all so incongruous to what I was expecting. All The Instructor’s preaching about avoiding personal ties, and yet the man had a wife and children? Could that be legit?

  “Hold position, one,” Fleming said. “Two, what’s your twenty?”

  “At the driveway,” I answered.

  “Plan?”

  “I’m going to ring the doorbell.” It was a simple plan, ordinary, and it seemed to fit the situation.

  “Copy. Proceed. Over.”

  I stuck my hand in the pocket of my trench, gripping the 9mm. A flutter moved through my stomach, my palms as sweaty as if this was my first hit. Then, summoning up more courage than I’d ever needed to on any other mission, I rang the bell.

  A few seconds later, The Instructor opened the door.

  “Well,” he said, a dab of red sauce on his chin. “This is a surprise.”

  It hadn’t been long since I’d last seen him, and he looked the same, despite the house and kids. At least the familiarity of those steel-blue eyes and hard face made this experience feel a little less surreal.

  “Follow me,” I told him.

  “Can I tell my family good-bye?”

  “No. Keep your hands at your sides and walk out the door. Anything else, and they watch you die. Then I let Hammett go in and shoot them all.”

  “She’s here, too?”

  “Step outside. Now.”

  He followed orders. I shut the door behind him and gave him a quick pat down, finding him weapon-free. Then I marched him back toward the van.