by Jen Blood
Whatever it took, I just needed all of us to survive this.
Chapter Two - Solomon
Three rocky hours later, Diggs and I pulled in at the Bar Harbor-Yarmouth ferry terminal. It was just past five o’clock in the morning. The storm had let up, but it wasn’t exactly a night I’d choose for island hopping. We still hadn’t heard from Cameron.
Jamie was waiting inside the ferry terminal, her blonde hair pulled back and hidden beneath a purple ski cap. Jamie is one of those women who looks good no matter what: no sleep, no makeup, zombie apocalypse, whatever… She’s tall and slim and vaguely southern, and if I didn’t like her so much, I would definitely hate her. A German shepherd and a white pit bull lay peacefully in crates in the waiting area, while a woman with a Smurf-blue crew-cut slept stretched across three plastic chairs. Otherwise, the place was deserted, the lights low.
Jamie greeted Diggs and me with a perfunctory nod, saving a more effusive greeting for Einstein. The dog gets all the love.
“I wasn’t sure how much you had a chance to pack,” Jamie said. “I brought clothes if you need them.”
Diggs was fine, but I’d left Littlehope in flannel pj bottoms and a Night Ranger t-shirt. I took the stack of clothes Jamie offered, then excused myself and headed for the bathroom with Einstein trotting beside me.
By the time I got back, Diggs and Jamie were deep in conversation off in the corner. Together, they were an Arian’s wet dream: tall, blond, blue-eyed… I’m smaller, with red hair, green eyes, and a predisposition for pig-headedness. I’m not a leper, don’t get me wrong, but there are a few things I’d change given the opportunity. Jamie, on the other hand, has no visible flaws. Diggs said something, and Jamie laughed like he was the funniest thing since Gallagher.
Einstein bumped against me impatiently, waiting for me to make a move. A lean, well-muscled teenage boy guided the shepherd and the pit bull toward the loading ramp, which of course made Stein that much more impatient.
“I know, buddy. We can make friends later.”
I took one more look at Diggs and Jamie laughing it up, stuffed down the green-eyed demon rising in my chest, and strode toward them.
“Nice look,” Diggs said when I reached them.
I was wearing Jamie’s bright red ski pants, rolled half a dozen times since she is about a foot taller than me, and a neon green jacket. If stealth was needed on this mission, we were all in trouble. I shot Diggs a withering glare and focused on Jamie.
“Have you been able to reach anyone out on the island yet?”
“Not yet, but that’s not unusual considering the weather. The team at the station did check in with the college yesterday, though. They didn’t report any problems.”
“Well, that’s something. So, when do we leave?”
“I’ll let Diggs fill you in,” she said. “There are a couple of things I need to take care of.”
I nodded and watched in silence as she walked away, headed straight for the teenage boy. She waited until the dogs were loaded and he was back on shore, then pulled him aside.
“What’s that all about?” I asked Diggs.
“She was planning on bringing Bear out with us—I told her it might be smarter to leave him behind this time. It’s one thing risking her team’s life, but there’s no way I want her kid out there with us.”
“Smart.” I did a double-take, looking at the two of them together. “Hang on; that’s her son? She can’t be much older than I am.”
“She’s not,” Diggs agreed. “She had him when she was pretty young—sixteen, maybe seventeen, I think. It was quite the scandal back in the day.”
“Huh. Interesting.” I filed that away as something that might have relevance in the future but clearly had none now, and focused on the issue at hand. “So, what were you two talking about over here? It looked like you were getting pretty cozy.”
He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Jealous?”
“You wish.” I ignored the rising heat in my cheeks. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not giving away state secrets while I’m out of the room.”
“Nope—no state secrets. I was just filling her in on what we can expect out there. Jamie has a couple of guys who’ll be coming out with us.”
He nodded toward two very well-built black men helping to load the boat. One was about 5’8”, the other towering above him at well over six feet. Based on the way the taller one was standing, arms crossed over his chest, his face completely blank, I was guessing they weren’t just for show.
“That’s good,” I said. “You think we’ll need them? I mean, maybe Jenny doesn’t know where Kat is yet.”
“It’s possible.”
“But not likely.”
“I don’t know. I just know that right now we’ve got a shit storm brewing, and I’m glad to have whoever we can get on our side.” He hesitated. “She’s also given the Coast Guard the heads up about where we’re going—” I bristled, but he held up his hand to keep me quiet until he could finish. “She didn’t use your name… Just told them where she was going to be, and when, so if there’s trouble they know where to find us.”
I grudgingly agreed that probably wasn’t the worst idea on the planet. Before I could say anything more on the subject, however, a tall, dark, well-groomed god of a man swept into the ferry terminal, jaw clenched and shoulders tense. I clamped my mouth shut and stared at him. Diggs turned, following my gaze. I didn’t miss the flicker of apprehension that crossed his face.
“Shit,” he said softly at sight of Jack Juarez.
“You called him?” I demanded. “After I specifically asked you not to—”
“Yes,” he said, his own voice tight. “I did. Whatever reasons you have for keeping him out of this, I care more about keeping you alive. I called him early this morning. I didn’t know he’d fly out here, though.”
Jack Juarez is an FBI agent. He’s also my ex-boyfriend, as of about two and a half weeks before, when he dumped me because he was convinced I had “feelings” for Diggs. And Diggs had “feelings” for me. And while, yes, he may have been onto something there, that was all the more reason why I didn’t want him thrown into the middle of the madness all over again. Especially when I still wasn’t totally clear what this madness was. I shook my head, piping mad, and left Diggs in the dust while I strode off to confront the Fed.
Juarez looked like he knew exactly what was coming when I reached him, his dark eyes reflecting a quick hint of worry before he recovered.
“I know what you’re going to say…” he said.
“Oh? That’s good, because I hadn’t figured it out yet. What the hell are you doing here?”
Diggs reached us a second later. He and Juarez shared a quick, manly nod hello. They both looked at me like I was a bomb about to go off.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said.
“I figured you’d see it that way,” he said, unperturbed. “But I was concerned—especially after some of the things you told me last night,” he said to Diggs. My blood pressure edged upward. Diggs gave Juarez a quick Shut-the-fuck-up-I-haven’t-told-her-anything-yet look, and Juarez clamped his mouth shut.
“And what did he tell you, exactly?” I asked.
Jamie got in on the action before he could answer, giving Juarez a warm hug hello while I stood there seething.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked Diggs, turning my back on the others. Before he could refuse, I grabbed his arm and pulled him into a side room where the vending machines lived. A nautical map was tacked to the opposite wall. I stared at the coordinates and lines and symbols for a second while I tried to calm down.
“Are you going to talk?” Diggs finally prompted.
“What did you tell him?” I demanded.
“I’m not apologizing for this,” he said. He wasn’t that calm himself. “We need some help here—I’m done trying to do this alone. Before, our silence was Cameron’s condition: If we stopped digging, if we didn’t tell anyone about him or Jenny B
urkett or any of the countless friggin’ secrets we’ve uncovered in the past year, he would let us live. But Cameron said it himself last night: The leverage Kat had is gone. They blew up her house, and they nearly did it with both of us in it. They have a vested interest in seeing you dead now, Solomon. I’m not sitting idly by to watch that happen when there are resources we could be using.”
“But if Cameron finds out you gave his name to the Feds, how do you think he’s going to react to that? How do you think the people he’s working for will react?”
“I don’t know—they can’t try to kill us anymore than they already are, can they?” He lowered his voice, taking a step toward me. “Look, you need to trust me. We’re in this together, and I’m doing everything in my power to make sure we come out of it the same way.”
I bristled, anger, fear, and adrenaline riding over me like a razor’s edge. “This is my family’s life at stake, not yours, so don’t tell me how I should deal with it. No one said you have to stay. It’s my fight—I never asked you to go to war with me.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I was the guy in the passenger’s seat beside you when your mother’s house went up in flames last night,” he shot back, his voice rising. “I watched dozens of people die two weeks ago—people I knew; people I’d been trying to save, for Christ’s sake. I was right there when a lunatic looped a belt around your neck last summer and slowly tried to strangle you. I’ve watched this thing play out for the past year from the front lines, so don’t tell me this isn’t my fucking fight, too.”
“Right now, you have the chance to walk away,” I said, refusing to back down. The references to all his near-misses in the past year thanks to me didn’t help things. If anything, they just freaked me out more. Reason went out the window, replaced with cold, calculating fury. “Maybe you should take that chance. I don’t have that luxury. I know Kat isn’t much, but she’s all I’ve got.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. I could practically see his brain working, pulling him back to some kind of reason. “She’s not all you have,” he said, quieter now. “The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better off we’ll all be.”
He took a deep breath. When he spoke again, it was with that cool Diggins logic that has been driving me nuts since I was a teenager, way back when Diggs was my mentor at the local paper. Back when life made some semblance of sense.
“Now,” he said with maddening calm, “we’ll be heading out in a few minutes, so I’m going over there to talk to Juarez. You can stay here and stew, or you can come with me and find out what he knows. Your choice.”
“I don’t stew.”
“No, actually,” he agreed after a minute. Sensing weakness, he took a step closer. “You don’t. Your bursts of temper are more flash-in-the-pan, everybody-take-cover rages. Ninety-eight percent of the time, it’s sexy as hell.”
“And the other two percent?”
He leveled an even gaze at me. “Not so sexy.”
Diggs isn’t an easy man to stay mad at. I bit my lip and took a step in his direction, meeting him halfway. “I do trust you,” I said after a minute. “I’d just rather keep Juarez out of things right now.”
“Well… tough shit. He’s in it now, and he’s proven more than once that he can be discreet. He has resources and he has firepower. I’m not apologizing for this. If it means the difference between you surviving or getting killed, I’m okay with pulling your superhero ex-boyfriend into the mix.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s very evolved of you.”
“Well, you know me.” He pulled me to him. I resisted, but not that much. When we were toe to toe, he locked his hands at the small of my back to keep me close. “I’m an evolved kind of guy.”
“You once punched a man because he said he liked my t-shirt. You’re one of the least evolved men I know.”
“I’m a work in progress.” He leaned down and kissed me lightly. “Also? You were seventeen when I punched that idiot… and it wasn’t because he said he liked your shirt.”
Jamie cleared her throat from the doorway. “If you two have pulled it together, we’re boarding. Unless you have more surprise guests on the roster.”
“No,” Diggs said. “I think this should do it.”
We went back to the waiting area to find Juarez leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. For the first time, I noticed the shadows under his eyes. Juarez is just this side of superhuman; he almost never shows those pesky frailties the rest of us are burdened with. The fact that all of this was wearing on him, too, was ultimately what got to me.
“Sorry I went a little nuts back there,” I said.
“A little?” he said, straightening.
“She’s queen of the understatement, our Solomon,” Diggs said.
“Screw you both. I’m apologizing, all right? I know you’re trying to help—I just didn’t expect you.”
“No problem,” Juarez said after a second or two, still keeping his distance. “I know it’s been a rough night. I’m sorry I caught you by surprise.”
“You know, I won’t spontaneously combust if you two want to hug it out,” Diggs said.
I shot him a wilting glare, which he happily ignored. Juarez pulled me into his arms for a quick, utterly awkward hug before he pulled back.
“Happy now?” I asked Diggs.
“Ecstatic.” He clapped Juarez on the back. We may have been uncomfortable, but Diggs didn’t seem bothered in the least. “Now... What the hell are you doing here?”
“There are some things I want to go over with you,” Juarez said. “I didn’t want to do it over the phone.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“We’ll talk on the boat,” he said.
“Good plan,” Jamie interjected. “It’ll take a good hour to an hour and a half to get out there. You’ll have plenty of time on the high seas to catch up.”
Juarez didn’t look thrilled at the thought. I wasn’t dancing on the rooftops over it myself.
◊◊◊◊◊
At six o’clock that morning, we boarded the Hurricane—a big old commuter boat with more power than a ferry and considerably less seating. It had a kickass GPS, a dead fish smell, and no crew to speak of—apart from Jamie’s blue-haired pal, who was piloting the thing. Diggs, Juarez, and I took a paint-chipped bench off to the side, Einstein winding his leash around my legs like a friggin’ sea serpent.
Monty and Carl—Jamie’s security detail—sat across from us. According to Jamie, they were both former military, now inexplicably doing private security in the backwoods of Maine. They weren’t the kind of guys eager to answer a lot of questions, but my keen reporter’s nose told me there was one hell of a story there. Common sense convinced me now wasn’t the time to pursue it.
As soon as the boat took off, Diggs indicated the hatch leading below deck with a nod. “This might be a good time to get up to speed?”
Juarez nodded, following us down the stairs to a narrow cabin with two bunks and a worn wooden chest. Diggs and I parked on one of the bunks; Juarez chose the chest. With the hatch closed and the roar of the diesel engine to ensure no one would overhear, Juarez dove in.
“Do you have any idea why Jenny Burkett would be in Maine right now?”
I shot what I hoped was an appropriately withering glare at Diggs, not sure how much he had told Juarez the night before. Based on his reaction, I was guessing he hadn’t mentioned Jenny.
“How do you know about that?” he asked.
Juarez pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and scrolled through several photos until he found what he was looking for. “Does she look familiar?” he asked.
It wasn’t a flattering picture—grainy and black and white, clearly a screen capture from a traffic cam. Jenny Burkett smiled into the lens like she knew perfectly well she’d been caught on film.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“After everything in Kentucky, I’ve been keeping tabs on her,” Juare
z said. “It hasn’t been easy, but yesterday she showed up on a couple of traffic cameras in Portland. When Diggs called, it set off some alarms.”
“So you decided to come to Maine in the middle of the night to tell us?” I pressed.
He hesitated. For the first time, I got the sense that he wasn’t telling us the whole story. “I have some connections,” he said. “I was worried… which meant I wasn’t above using those connections to book a flight so I could get to you quickly.”
I could tell Diggs wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Neither was I. Juarez plowed ahead before either of us could ask any follow-ups, though.
“Listen,” he began seriously, “the Bureau has been… monitoring you, a little. You made some purchases recently; used some websites—”
“I’m sorry—what?” I demanded. Any semblance of calm I might have been feeling vanished in an instant. “How the hell do you know what purchases I’ve made or what websites I’ve visited?”
“Calm down,” he said evenly, his gaze never wavering from mine. Diggs stayed quiet, but I could feel the sudden tension radiating from him. Neither of us are big fans of the Patriot Act. “I told you: the Bureau has been monitoring you. You downloaded nine sophisticated decryption programs in the past week. You also spent some time with an NSA consultant named Jesse—”
“Stop,” I said. My voice shook. “What the hell do you want? What’s going on, Jack?”
“If you are working on something—Some kind of memory card or computer chip or… some piece of information that has to do with Mitch Cameron, your father, or J. Enterprises, then I need to know that.”
It took a few seconds before I answered, the quiver in my voice replaced with overt anger. “There was a memory card Diggs got from one of the victims in the university explosion in Kentucky,” I said. “The card was encrypted. I’ve been trying to break that encryption.”
“And where is that card now?” Juarez asked, intractable. “Have you gotten anything from it?”
“No,” I lied. “And it was destroyed in the explosion. We don’t have anything now.” I didn’t look at either of the guys, focused instead on the floorboards. As liars go, I may not be the best on the planet. “The card was with everything else when the house went up in flames. We couldn’t save it.”