Rainhorse smiled, “You know me well.”
“It’s taken a while, I’ll admit,” she continued. “I made a mistake last time, thinking I could keep you pinned down in some nine-to-five job at my beck and call. I know better now. You are . . . Rainhorse.”
“I am a rolling stone,” he interjected.
She nodded and smiled, “If this experience has taught me anything, it’s that the world needs more men like you, not fewer.”
“Well, thank you. I . . .”
“I’m not finished,” she interrupted.
“Oh . . . sorry.”
“You’re too young to retire. You aren’t happy unless you are . . . uh . . .”
“Up somebody’s ass?”
“What’s with you and the ass stuff? There’s a five-year-old in the house. No more ass talk. I meant you are restless; you’re an action addict. You crave the adventure, the challenge. I decided the only way I could keep you in my life is to provide a fresh set of challenges.”
“Challenges within your reach?”
She shrugged, “A First Nation reservation in Canada seemed logical to me.”
“I know of the res.”
“Neha told me you’d been keeping up with some of the issues there,” Lindsay said.
“They have lots of problems,” Rainhorse admitted.
“Oh yeah. Murders; sexual assault; fraud, drugs; prostitution; violent crime . . . the list goes on.”
“Like I said, lots of problems.”
“Think of the things that can be done . . . outreach . . . recovery centers . . . education . . . building schools . . . homeless shelters. You can do a lot of good, in much the same way you did good at UNICEF,” Lindsay speculated. “And this way, I get to keep you in my life.”
“I’m not really following,” Rainhorse said. “Canada is still Canada. It’s not like you can get in your car and drive a couple of blocks to have dinner with me.”
“Oh, I guess I haven’t quite told you . . . everything,” she said. She smiled at him nervously.
“Holy shit,” Rainhorse grumbled. “I knew there was another shoe about to drop.”
Her smile turned a little mischievous.
“When Matty came out of his coma, he and I had a lot of time to discuss things,” she continued.
“Things like . . .?”
“What’s important in life.”
“Am I going to like this?” he asked.
“You can let me know later. Matty and I decided to move to Canada with you and Neha,” she said. “We’re bringing Jackie, too, of course.”
“That’s preposterous,” Rainhorse balked.
“It’s actually quite practical,” Lindsay said. “You are going to need support, resources to identify problems on the res and to figure out solutions. I can provide those resources.”
“You have a life here,” Rainhorse insisted. “There is no need to uproot . . .”
“I’ve only lived in Ft. Peck a short while,” Lindsay insisted. “Jackie hasn’t started school yet. Matty is ready to leave Ft. Peck, too. It all works, Jackson.”
“What about the Foundation here on the res?”
“I’ve already appointed Red Feather as the new CEO and his wife, Summer Rose, as his Chief Counsel. Ska Long Ghost is going to be Red’s COO. She has a master’s degree in Business, you know.”
“I have heard. So, you intend to live on the res?”
“No. There’s a wonderful town in southwest, Ontario, called Brantford,” she said. “They have a wonderful school for Jackie there.”
“You’ve put some thought into this.”
“I have. So, what do you think?”
“It’s a lot to take in,” he admitted.
“You know, Jackson, we make a pretty good team,” she asserted.
Rainhorse let out a long breath and smiled, “Yeah we do, but I should talk to Neha about all this.”
Lindsay scrunched her face, “Well . . . I kinda already did it.”
Rainhorse sighed, “Why am I not surprised?”
She nodded, looking somewhat nervous again.
“And?” he continued.
“She’s on board . . . with all of it. Think of it, Jackson. Lindsay and Rainhorse, the superhero team, together again.”
“You mean Rainhorse and Lindsay,” he countered. “In this team, I am Batman. You are Robin. That means, I call the shots.”
“That’s bullshit,” she said, “and sexist. Why do you get to be Batman? I would make a really good Batman.”
He glared at her, “Listen to me. You’ve already pre-arranged everything else in my life. I’m going to be Batman and that’s final.”
Lindsay sighed in faux exasperation, “Oh all right. I’ll be Robin, but I am not wearing the stupid yellow cape.”
“Deal,” he said.
“Then you’re on board?”
“I am.”
Lindsay leaned over and hugged him. The hug was warm and lasted an eternity. When the embrace finally ended, it was Rainhorse who spoke first.
“Do the Tribal Police at Six Nations have any idea we’re coming?”
“Andrews arranged for your Tribal membership through his contacts with the Canadian Security Intelligence. Matty has applied for membership already. Since I am his wife . . .”
“No,” he interrupted. “I mean do they have any idea who we are?”
“No,” she said. “I can safely say it will all be a big surprise.”
“Oh my god, they have no idea about the hurricane ready to blow through their community.”
“C’mon Jackson, you’re not that bad . . .”
“I meant you,” he said.
She froze for a moment and then chuckled, “Touché.”
“You know, when Rattling Thunder shot me, I thought I was dead. The only things I could think of were Neha, my daughter, June Ann, and you—that I would never get a chance to say goodbye. Then when I woke up in the hospital bed, I thought I’d never walk again. Then, when they told me I would recover, I thought I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. Now, with all this . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m humbled and overwhelmed. Maybe . . . just maybe, my time is not yet at an end.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“It’s not the end,” she agreed. “It’s the beginning. I can’t wait to show you the bat cave.”
~the end~
For a free excerpt to Jesse Jacobson’s new book, Murder in Tranquility, scroll to the next page.
Murder in Tranquility
Jesse Jacobson
Chapter 1
Sunday mornings in Tranquility were incredible. This particular one was unseasonably mild, meaning for this time of year in southern Georgia, the temperature was projected to be in the low eighties. I’d recently developed a solid workout routine which included morning and afternoon runs, and I'd managed to eat healthier over the last month as well. I’d lost four pounds and decided to treat myself. When meeting with my friends later this afternoon, I intended to have a humongous burger from The Lick Skillet Diner. They have the best burgers on the planet.
I'd just finished my run and was cooling down on the park bench looking out over the lake. I enjoyed watching the geese just after sunrise and I loved the way the clouds chewed away at the peaks of the distant rolling hills. The wind created a soothing rustle as it whipped through the trees.
I pulled my phone to text my friends that I was running a little late—no luck. My battery was dead.
My name is Mikaela Petroski. It’s the name I was provided when I became a card-carrying member of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, or WITSEC, for those in the know. It’s a Russian name although I have no Russian background. A Federal desk jockey who decides these things seemed to think my blonde hair and freckles made me look Russian. Thus, I became Mikaela Petroski.
Why am I in WITSEC? It’s a whole different story for another time. For now, let’s just say I saw some very bad people do some very bad things while wor
king undercover as an officer for the LAPD. I testified against them, but they got off anyway due to some mishandling of physical evidence. The bad guys were back on the street and my butt was twisting in the wind.
As it turns out, mob leadership takes strong exception to people who infiltrate their organization with intent to destroy it. They put out a large contract on my life. Within days, news of the bounty on my head went street-viral. Every low-life in LA knew they could make some good cash to end my life. The fact that I was a cop made the prospect all-the-sweeter. The LAPD did the only thing they could do to protect me and voilà, here I am.
Everyone in town calls me Mickey. Although Mikaela is not all that hard to pronounce, it seemed to be quite a mouthful for the residents here. I’m thirty-one years old and now live in Tranquility, a small Georgia town about ninety miles north of Jacksonville, Florida. It’s a quaint little community of around three-thousand where the average age is about sixty, though it feels like the number should be higher.
Tranquility has a charming Victorian-era Old Town Historic District with humongous oak trees, a half-dozen or so gift shops for the tourists passing through, nearby resorts, and a golf course. There are restaurants, a community hospital, a number of schools, a movie theater, library, courthouse and various other businesses you’d find in a small town. The Things to Do in Tranquility visitor’s guide is a four by eight-inch pamphlet. Actually, it’s more of a single page than a pamphlet, with print only on the front. The Tranquility Putt-Putt Golf Course is the featured attraction. Actually, it’s pretty nice.
Before my exile, I served as a police officer for six years, primarily patrolling the Skid Row District with my partner. Skid Row has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Some five to eight thousand people reside on the streets at any given time. I’ve seen poverty, drug-addiction, alcoholism, mental illness and suffering others can only imagine.
None of the residents in town knows I am in WITSEC—no one. Not even my new boyfriend, who is a local law enforcement officer. He’s had a tough time buying my cover story, I can tell. The WITSEC charade has been tough to keep up. I hated lying—I wasn’t good at it.
The transition from L.A. to a sleepy Georgia town has been . . . rather unusual to say the least. My new job is nearly as exciting as the town where I live. I’m a front-desk clerk at the Tranquility Hotel. Yay, me.
How about this for contrast? Instead of yelling, “Stop! This is the police. Lay down your weapons,” I’m smiling and asking people if they want to upgrade to a king-sized bed for only ten-dollars more.
That’s when I’m actually working, of course. The hotel is temporarily closed for renovation to preserve its historic value. It was built prior to the Civil War and is considered to be a historic landmark. The renovations are expected to last two more months and the hotel is scheduled to reopen when it’s complete.
That made me currently unemployed. Fortunately, in my previous life I managed my finances well. I saved a little and still had over half of the money my mom left me when she passed away. I’m certainly not wealthy but have enough to keep me comfortable, especially in a small town like Tranquility, where you can still rent a house for eight-hundred-dollars a month and eat yourself into a coma at the local diner for seven bucks. To help fill the void of unemployment, I began volunteering at the Tranquility Library.
I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but I realize things could be worse—a lot worse. If I’d stayed in LA, I’d be dead by now. Tranquility, for all its quirks and oddities, is actually a very nice place to live. I could have done much worse.
Many people in Tranquility don’t like me. I’m an outsider and I’ve been told many times, ‘people around here don’t cotton to outsiders much.’ I do have a boyfriend and three wonderful friends, however. That’s two more than I had while living in Los Angeles, a county with twelve million people. My boyfriend is Noah Whitmore, a Deputy with the Flynn County Sheriff’s Department, which serves Tranquility. Our relationship is best described as complicated. It’s cliché to say, I know, but it is what it is.
We’re working things through.
I pulled into the parking lot of The Lick Skillet Diner about three o’clock. The parking lot was nearly full. The building was designed to look like a humongous train caboose. The inside décor was right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, only with duller colors and less attractive people. The table tops were chipped and worn, made of faded brown Formica. Lined up alongside the counter were nine green swivel stools mounted to the floor on tarnished chrome pedestals. The tiled floor was a dizzying pattern of black, white and orange squares. The owners painted the walls in mustard yellow and burnt orange, adorned with black and white photos of Georgia sports stars. The only one I recognized was Dominique Wilkins.
Our usual spot was a green leather booth that had seen better days, and those days dated back to when The Marshall Tucker Band rode through town on their way home to one of the Carolina’s—I forget which one. The place was unnervingly quiet. Attached to the wall was a mini-jukebox. I skimmed through the titles: no Katy Perry; no Taylor Swift; no Pink; no Beyoncé. I pulled out a quarter, selecting the only song I recognized as being from this century, “Boys Round Here,” by Blake Shelton. The contraption ate my quarter and produced no music—typical.
I saw my friends right away, sitting at their usual rounded corner booth. Anna, Julie, and Liam were engaged in a serious conversation when I walked up. They barely gave me a passing glance when I arrived and sat.
Normally the three of them greeted me warmly, even when I was fashionably late. This afternoon was different, however. Their look was dour. Something was wrong.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
“No, of course not, Mickey,” Liam replied.
Liam Whitmore is a loveable thirty-five-year old nerd, one of Tranquility’s two EMTs, operating out of the Flynn County Fire Department. When he wasn’t working or hanging out with us, he was playing Mortal Kombat 11. He was also the cousin of my boyfriend, though you’d never know to look at them side by side. Noah and Liam could not be more different. Liam was cute in a dorky way, sweet, talkative and affable, three adjectives that you’d never use to describe Noah. My boyfriend is gorgeous and hunky as hell, but often quiet and guarded.
Liam was head-over-heels in love with Anna, who either never noticed or didn’t care. She considered him a friend and nothing more. I know this not because either of them actually told me about their feelings. I know it because . . . well . . . I’m a woman and a former cop, that’s why.
Anna and Julie had been best friends long before I arrived in Tranquility. Anna Pinsky was smart, mature and street-savvy. She was also very guarded about her personal life, even with her friends. Over time, I found out she graduated with honors from the University of Georgia. She worked as an executive in an advertising firm in Atlanta but quit and moved home to Tranquility when her mother was diagnosed with liver cancer. Her father died when she was only sixteen.
Anna dutifully took care of her mother until the poor woman died about a year before I moved to Tranquility. Rather than moving back to Atlanta, she decided to remain, living in her mother’s house and working in an administrative capacity in the Flynn County Courthouse.
Why she chose to stay in Tranquility and work in a capacity where she is grossly overqualified and equally underpaid is anyone’s guess. I found out early on that it’s a sensitive subject and as far as I know, no one, not even Julie, knows the details.
Anna is also gorgeous—as in super model gorgeous. I was always used to being the ‘pretty one’ in the circles I hung out in, but when Anna became my friend, all that changed. Don’t get me wrong, I scrub up pretty well, but not Anna Pinsky well.
“What’s with the long faces?” I asked. “You all look like you just got bad news from the dentist.”
“We’re just processing the sad news,” Anna added.
“Oh, dear, what happened?” I asked, embarrassed by my ‘dentist’ re
mark.
“You mean you haven’t heard?” Julie asked.
“No.”
“Mickey, I tried calling you four times,” Anna sighed.
“My phone battery is dead,” I replied.
“Daisy Danner was found dead yesterday afternoon,” Julie announced. “Heart attack.”
My heart sank. I gasped, “Oh no! Are you serious?”
I felt ill; blood was rushing from my face, making me slightly lightheaded.
“I'm afraid so,” Anna said.
I used my hands to cover my face and took in a big breath and held it, trying not to hyperventilate. I moved my hands to exhale knowing my face was beet red.
Daisy Danner was an elderly widow, a retired history teacher at Tranquility High. Anna, Julie, Liam and Noah all had her as a teacher and held her in the highest regard. They remained in contact with her through the bad times in her life and there were a few. I’d met Daisy through my friendship with Anna and Julie. She was a sweet woman and I grew to enjoy her company.
Daisy suffered personal tragedies in her life that no one should ever have to live through—the loss of a husband, and the death of a teenaged daughter. When she retired, she went into a deep depression and became a recluse, leaving her house only occasionally to purchase food and necessities.
Anna, Julie and me all visited her once a month and brought her things, sat with her and talked. Since I didn’t go to school here, I didn’t know her well at first. For a while, I just tagged along quietly. I’m not sure whether it was because so few people in town actually liked me or that she reminded me of my own mother, but I grew very fond of her and the news of her passing hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Liam, were you on the team called to the scene?” I asked.
He shook his head, “No. I was off, but I just saw her a few days ago,” he explained. “She looked fine.”
“How about you, Mickey?” Anna asked. “You saw her more than just about anyone over the last few months. Did you see this coming?”
A Good Samaritan Page 15