I nodded.
“I need to—” I could see that she needed a moment. She hurried from the room, leaving me to stare out the window and wonder what the hell was going on with the universe. The call from Albert and Wallace’s death—they were all bad omens. It was as if an evil season had begun.
“I don’t like getting pushed around,” someone said sternly.
Say what? I heard a man’s voice and spun around. Stone, the bureau deputy director, was standing in the doorway. “Sir,” I exclaimed as I jumped up. I practically stood at attention and saluted. I guess old marine habits die hard. “I didn’t—”
“Easy does it, Agent Mather. You’ve already displayed fidelity, bravery, and integrity up the ass,” he proclaimed with a broad smile. “As you were.”
I felt the tension slide off my shoulders. Stone was an old naval intelligence man, an impressive soldier with executive officer written all over him. I imagined that back in the day one scowl from him would send the enemy running for cover. “Nice of you to stop by, sir.”
“Cut the crap, Mather,” he said as he entered the room. “You took a bullet for me and saved my old weathered hide. Nice has nothing to do with it.”
“It was just a reflex, sir.”
“That was one hell of a reflex you displayed. I still can’t believe you noticed that those toy guns were real weapons.” He looked me over. “I see they’ve immobilized your arm.”
“They said my shoulder would heal faster this way—hurts a hell of a lot less as well.”
He smiled a bright and charismatic smile. “I figured an ex-marine like you would’ve rubbed some dirt on it and checked herself out of this gulag.”
“That was the plan, but my mother and boyfriend had other thoughts, and I figured I owed them both a little peace of mind.”
“And don’t you dare forget it—family comes first.” He checked his watch. “Bill’s going to be laid to rest day after tomorrow in the morning—I’d like to send a detail to pick you up.”
I answered immediately, “Fine,” but I could tell he had more to say. “Is there something else, sir?”
“I’ll come straight to the point, Mather. I’d like you to move up and take Wallace’s spot.”
I froze. “B-but …”
“You don’t strike me as the type of woman who’s usually at a loss for words. I’m sure you’re viewing this as a betrayal, but you’ll have to get over it because I think you’re the best person for the job. Bill must’ve told you how impressed I was with the way you handled the Israeli case. I spent most of last night going through your bureau and military records. Officially we’ll have to post for the position, but the job is yours if you want it. So take a day or two and then get back to me.” He turned and started for the door. “Oh.” He turned around. “Some of the more senior guys may have sour grapes about being passed over, but that shouldn’t be a factor in making your decision. You’ve got a bright future at the bureau, Mather. This is only the first step.” He had a grin on his face as he turned away. “Star Wars blasters. Huh.” He chuckled. “Good goddamn catch, young lady.”
I still had a smile on my face when Grace walked back into the room.
“What’s with the goofy smile?” she asked. “Did the nurse give you one last hit of morphine for the road?”
I shook my head absentmindedly, and then out of nowhere a notion popped into my head. I visualized the precise moment the Stormtroopers had attacked us, but I had seen the garrison marching Chewbacca away in handcuffs just before they attacked us. Grace must’ve thought I was crazy when I blurted, “Holy shit! What happened to the Wookie?”
Chapter 7
Simone stood naked in front of her full-length mirror, admiring the gifts God had given her, a slender waist, shapely legs, an apple bottom, and firm breasts that seemingly defied gravity. The ebb and flow of her contours were as much evocative as they were provocative, yet her physique wasn’t compelling enough to compensate for the face God had given her—ultimately she always turned away from the mirror feeling incomplete and unhappy. The bridge of her nose was flat, and her eyes wide and uneven. Her forehead protruded steeply, although she could cover it with her bangs, and her nose could be somewhat fixed. Her eyes … there wasn’t a cosmetic surgeon alive who would touch her. She would carry around her wounded self-image as long as she lived.
She slipped on a floppy-brimmed fedora, which concealed her prominent forehead. Large knockoff Prada Baroque sunglasses hid her eyes, but her nose … not great, she decided and pulled down the brim on her fedora until it touched the top of her sunglasses.
You’re lucky to be alive, she told herself. The memory of the police altercation haunted her thoughts and poisoned her sleep. She could picture her friends dying in the street as she fled. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw them fall one by one until all of them were gone. The image of blood running over their white armor would haunt her like a frightening tableau from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
She pried off her dark glasses, rubbed her eyes, and then the torrent came. Her heart ached as the faces of her friends filled her head. They were birds of a feather, sad souls united in Sand’s vendetta, a quest that was not their own. Why? she wondered. Why did we go along with him? They had only targeted murderers up until then, tainted minds and souls devoid of a functioning conscience, deviant killers who deserved to die. Somehow Sand had convinced them that the female FBI agent had to die, but … they were not killers. They were participants, yes, enablers for sure, but it was only Sand who took the lives, yet he convinced them that they needed to murder, that Mather was an obsession-driven FBI agent who wouldn’t rest until they were all in prison. She was angry for allowing herself to be coerced, angry for not having been the voice of reason, as was her role in the group.
She picked up the large duffle bag that contained the Chewbacca costume she had worn the day of the attack and left her apartment. All the people she knew and cared for, her tight band of brothers were all dead, and she was a wanted fugitive. The only one left with her was Sand. As she descended the stairs, she wondered why she had agreed to help him in his crusade and was furious with herself for not breaking his hold on her. When she hit the street, she unfolded the scrap of paper she had used to jot down the address of a commercial incinerator company. She had evidence to dispose of, so the mighty Chewbacca had to die.
Chapter 8
“Ha! This is the life.” The wound on my back and the wound from having lost Bill Wallace still hurt like hell, but for a brief moment I was able to put my pain and woe behind me. Liam lifted my legs and propped them up on an ottoman. Grace was preparing lobster newburg in the kitchen. I was home, surrounded by loved ones, and riding high on the ego pump I’d gotten from Deputy Director Stone. The air was pungent with the aroma of freshly baked bread and scalded sea creatures. What more could a wounded FBI agent ask for? “I feel like a big shot.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Liam teased. “I’m only buttering you up so that you’ll lavish me with extravagant gifts after you get that big raise.”
“Don’t go ordering a Bentley just yet. I’m at the top tier for a G10. The bump to the lowest tier G12 won’t amount to much more than ten grand a year in take-home pay.”
“That all?” he asked disappointedly. “Lift your feet. I’m taking the ottoman back.”
“Do so at your own risk,” I warned with peaked eyebrows. “Sand only put my left arm out of commission—the right is still in top form, and I needn’t remind you that I’m a crack shot.”
“I figured your boss made a hell of a lot more than that.”
“The salary range for an SIS is $73,000 to $95,000. Wallace wasn’t a rookie. He was probably at the top end.”
“My God, how do you expect to keep a man with my esoteric demands satisfied on that mere bag of shells? When am I going to start leading the life I’d like to become accustomed to?”
“I’ll sell my string of polo ponies.”
Liam caught o
n immediately and imitated Jackie Gleason. “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
“You’re a riot, Liam, a real riot, but enough with The Honeymooner’s shtick. Do you think I should take the promotion or not?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I like being out in the field.”
“Of course you do,” he said sarcastically, then shrugged. “Put yourself out in the open where lunatics have a clear shot at you? Better to spend a little time at the helm of the ship, don’t you think? Chart your own course. Who knows who you might end up taking orders from if you don’t step up and take the promotion. You could end up working for a real horse’s ass.”
“So you’re saying it’s better to be a horse’s ass than to work for one.”
He smiled. “Correct. Let me confirm that as someone who knows first hand. My show producer is a real SOB. He lives to bust my balls.”
“Yeah. I figured there was a good reason why you always speak about him with such fondness, but the promotion will just mean more bureaucracy and more meetings.”
“And more money, and more status, and more perks, and another rung up the ladder.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Reading between the lines, what you’re really saying is that you don’t want me getting shot again.”
“Guilty as charged. You have a problem with that, tough girl? Mamasiits and I did a lot of talking the last few days. It was a close call, but we weighed it back and forth and decided that we’d like you to hang around a while longer.”
“Aw, the two of you are so sweet.”
“Yeah, we’re funny that way. Besides, between the two of us we don’t have enough dough socked away to give you a decent funeral.” He plopped down next to me. “So I’m guessing that you haven’t made up your mind?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t imagine being Cabrera’s boss.”
“You’re his boss now. He just doesn’t know it.”
Liam wasn’t half-wrong, but there’s a difference between official and unofficial, and I didn’t see Cabrera happily reporting to a woman, even one like me. “That’s not fair. Besides, it would be different.”
“You also have to think about the consequences of turning down the offer. You’re Stone’s fair-haired girl at the moment, and he basically told you that you’re being fast-tracked up the ladder. Saying no could come back to bite you in your rock-hard ass. Maybe he’ll make Cabrera your boss.”
“Yikes! I didn’t think of that.”
Liam peaked his eyebrows to communicate, “How’d you like them apples?”
Grace called from the kitchen, “We can eat in two minutes.”
“You’ll feel different with a full belly,” Liam postulated. “Sleep in your own bed. Take your time. You’ll make the right choice.”
“Meaning I’ll accept the promotion?”
He shrugged and offered his hand to help me up. “I’m hungry and you’re in an aggressive mood. Let’s gorge ourselves on the treasure of the sea and hoist a mug of grog.”
“Now you’re making sense.”
Grace had set the kitchen table as if it were a holiday with the good china, a linen tablecloth, and fancy cloth napkins.
“Are we expecting a head of state? A wealthy visitor perhaps?”
She set a steaming casserole dish of lobster newburg atop a trivet. A Waldorf salad was already on the table along with homemade cottage fries and sautéed broccoli rabe. “A hero’s dinner,” she cooed.
“Who’s the hero?”
Liam reached into the magazine basket and produced a copy of the New York Post. “I guess no one showed you the newspaper.” He held it up so that I could read the headline on the front page: FBI Agent Takes Bullet To Save Colleague. A bystander had captured the moment on his smart phone in all its appalling glory. Cabrera and Stone were crouched and firing from behind the front and rear fenders of a parked car. I was lying on the ground firing at Sand, and Wallace was down, bloody and … I felt the ache in the pit of my stomach return. It was as if I were reliving the tragedy all over again. I felt my face tighten and the muscles begin to ache.
“Hey, you all right?” Liam dropped the newspaper and rushed to my side. “Sorry, babe, I didn’t think …”
“It’s okay. I just need a minute.”
“Stupid,” he said, criticizing himself. He poured me a glass of water. “I thought the headline would make you happy but … Take a drink, okay?”
I shook my head woefully. “I still can’t believe Bill’s gone.”
Grace pulled up a chair and rubbed my good shoulder. “Take your time, sweetie. There’s no rush.”
I sipped some water. “I think I’m going to lie down for a while.”
Liam and Grace exchanged worried glances.
“Sure, honey,” Grace said. “I’ll keep dinner warm until you’re ready for it.”
“Don’t wait on me,” I said as I stood up. “Eat while it’s hot.”
Liam put his arm around me and walked me out of the kitchen. We had just made it into the foyer when the doorbell rang. “Now who the hell could that be?”
Chapter 9
I was the one who’d taken a bullet, but Grace was the one who looked as if she’d been shot.
Albert Mather stood in the doorway, beaming like King Richard returning from the crusades anticipating adulations from his loyal subjects. His face was puckered with deep creases and his eye sockets sunken. Amazingly his hair was still mostly dark except for two shocks of grey that ran parallel to each other back over his head like Pepé le Pew’s tail. He looked like a WASPy detoxed version of Keith Richards, sallow and weathered, a dead man kept alive with blood transfusions, a poster boy for alcohol abuse. He opened his arms to welcome the first of his loyal subjects only to drop them to his sides again after seeing our reaction.
We were all too mortified to speak. Even Liam, who only knew of the old lout by reputation and family photos, appeared aghast.
I expected Grace to bare her claws and go for his throat like a bloodthirsty savage, but she didn’t. She shut her eyes and began to sob.
“What’s with all the tears?” Albert said as if he had no memory of the damage he had done to his family.
Liam had opened the door and was still standing in place with the doorknob in his hand.
He looked Liam up and down, making no pretense that he was doing anything other than performing an inspection. “Albert Mather.” He offered his hand. “Who the hell are you?”
“Liam,” he replied soberly and turned to me for direction.
“You with my daughter?”
Liam responded with a cold stare. While his head was turned, Albert walked past him toward me. He looked at the sling around my arm and said, “What happened to you, little girl?”
He had always called me little girl, from the day I was first old enough to understand his words until the day he left us all for good. At first I didn’t know whether to cry or knock his teeth out, but his introduction said volumes. It told me that he had not come because he had heard about the Manhattan firefight and my getting wounded. Why, in fact, he had come was still a mystery, but one thing was certain, he hadn’t come out of his concern for me, and I just didn’t know how to respond.
“Little girl,” he implored. “Cat got your tongue? What’s wrong?”
Looking at him, you’d think nothing had ever happened between us, that he was a loving and nurturing father who had always been there for his family in good times and bad.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, anger pushing its way to the surface.
He shrugged in a cavalier manner. “Can’t a man stop in to see his wife and daughter?” He leaned in to give me a kiss, but I recoiled—I couldn’t bear the thought of his lips on my cheek. “Geez.” He pretended to shiver. “It’s cold in here. You’d think it was mid-February and the furnace was out of oil,” he said and abruptly walked over to Grace. “Hello, beautiful.” He attempted to kiss her and got the cold shoulder from her as well.
> “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not welcome in this house,” Grace spat. “How did you get this address?”
“I’ve got my ways,” he said, most matter of fact. “I’ve come a long way—think I could have a drink? Nothing fancy, just something to moisten my parched mouth.” He sniffed the air. “Smells good in here.” His eyes widened. “Lobster newburg?” he asked when the aroma registered with him, and then turned to Liam. “Son, this woman makes the best lobster newburg this side of Nantucket. Jesus, the aroma brings back memories—my mouth is watering just thinking about it.”
“Albert, your daughter’s not feeling well,” Grace said coolly. “She was just about to go to bed. Maybe you should leave and we’ll call you tomorrow.”
“It’s not like I didn’t try to call.” He admonished me with a frown for not returning the call I’d received moments before being wounded. Astonishment became visible on his face. “What’s wrong, little girl? My pretty little marine has never gotten sick before.”
I was in agony from the pain in my back before he rang the bell, and now I was nauseous as well. “Nothing much. I took a bullet in the line of duty. Of course, you wouldn’t know that or anything else that’s happened to this family, would you?”
“Aw, lay off the guilt trip, Chloe, you don’t look so bad.” He threw a mock jab at my chin. “You’re a rough tough FBI agent, aren’t you?”
“You’d better go.” I turned and began to walk away but stopped when I saw that he wasn’t moving. “Or do I have to throw you out?”
“All right, all right. I’m going,” he said, making light of my ability to follow through on my threat. I’ll go find some flophouse to crash in. Give me a call when you’re feeling better.” He signaled to Grace. “You look good, honey.” He turned to me, putting his thumb to his ear and his pinky to his mouth. “Give me a call, little girl. We’ve got business to discuss.”
Business to discuss? What the hell? I watched in silence as he sauntered toward the door that had never closed behind him, wondering what the hell he meant.
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