by Glenn Meade
Tanner smiled and nodded. “You got it.”
Courtney peered ahead again, pursing her lips in thought. “If Dr. Kevin Borovsky is here, being a veteran and a farm dweller, chances are he’s going to be prepared for unwanted visitors. I don’t want to charge in anywhere without some kind of plan. Let’s take a look around. Keep the flashlights off for now, but leave the headlights on, dipped.”
“With you on that one.” Tanner switched on the headlights, and the woods around them were softly illuminated for a few dozen yards on either side.
Courtney took a flashlight but left it off as she stepped out of the car.
Tanner followed her. They walked farther along the dimly lit track. Not a sound intruded. Tanner took a deep breath. The piney smell drenched the air. “What’s on your mind?”
Courtney stood with her hands on her hips, thinking as she looked around the landscape, with distant house lights visible through the trees. “A few things. You got a flasher in that car, Tanner?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Might be better if we put it on and drive right on up to the house. That way, no one’s under any illusions.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Got a carbine?”
“Yeah, a full-auto Colt AR in the trunk and six loaded mags. In a rifle bag, with my armored vest, next to yours.”
“You came prepared.”
“Always like to be.”
“How about you drive and I ride shotgun, just in case? Unless you want to toss for it?”
Tanner grinned. “Being a betting man, why not?”
He took a quarter from his pocket and tossed it. In the soft wash of the dipped headlights, he watched the coin spin in the air. As the quarter landed in his palm, he looked up, and his jaw went slack.
Courtney’s Sig pistol was out, and she racked it, the barrel pointed right in Tanner’s face.
His mouth fell open like a dead fish.
“Sorry, Tanner. We’ve got a change of plan, big man.”
97
* * *
“Why? Why did you kill her?”
My eyes flooded. My hands tightened into fists. I saw the struggle in my father’s face as he stared at me, and I imagined there was a battle going on inside him between self-preservation and honesty. It was a while before he answered.
“Kath, there’s a lot you don’t understand.”
“You can say that again.”
“Maybe you’ll never understand.”
“Try me.”
My whole body felt cold. I wanted to ask again why he did it. But nothing came out. The words just stuck in my throat.
“I killed her. But not in the way you think.” My father’s eyes were moist.
“I know about the massacre. I know about the missing money and artifacts. So just tell me the truth this time. No more lies, no smoke screens. I’m done with those.”
I saw Jack and Kevin look at me, register my anger. But they said nothing.
My father just sat there, his hands clasped together in the cuffs. He shut his eyes tightly. Shut them so tightly it seemed as if he was trying to shut down all his senses. When he opened his eyes again, he looked up at me.
“In the weeks before Kyle tried to hang himself, your mom had been drinking heavily. The son who went to war wasn’t the son who came home. She was finding it hard.
“It didn’t help that things hadn’t been good between us once I was retired. I was crippled, my career gone. It all only added to your mom’s woes. She had a lot to deal with. Kyle’s PTSD, her own disappointments, a life squandered with alcohol. We argued a lot. And the more we argued, the more she hit the bottle. Until one night, I hit it hard, too, we had a raging argument, and the truth came out.”
He met my stare. “That’s when I told her what had happened at Red Rock. Told her everything. About the massacre, the money, the reasons for Kyle’s disillusionment and depression. I told her the truth. That our son went to war believing it was an honorable thing to do to fight for your country. Honor was in our genes. And sure, sometimes war can be honorable. Sometimes there are still causes worth fighting for.”
He shook his head. “But Kyle didn’t find it so. All he found was sheer brutality like that little flower girl being mowed down, a callous gun battle that killed dozens of women and children, and a question mark over his father’s integrity because I was a party to hushing it up.”
“He knew?”
“Kyle wasn’t dumb. He had ears. And we talked. I didn’t tell him everything, I didn’t tell him the whole truth, I didn’t tell him about the money, but then I didn’t have to. The truth was, I was ashamed. Me, I was done with the Army—they’d used me, scapegoated me, thrown me aside. The Medal of Honor was the last straw.”
He sighed. “But Kyle was a righteous kid. He hadn’t grown cynical like me. He still believed in truth and honor. He still believed in the code. That a good officer does not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
“You took the money?”
“Yes, I took it. When I heard they screwed me out of the medal, I almost felt I was owed it. If that makes any sense?”
I couldn’t answer that.
My father took another deep breath, let it out slowly, as if it almost hurt. “That’s war for you. It changes you. Makes you a cynic. But I knew I couldn’t ever tell Kyle. I knew the truth would have been a total heart-ripper. Everything he grew up believing would have been a total lie. He’d always idolized me. But I told your mom. And that was my big mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“A while before Kyle tried to hang himself, your mom took herself a bottle and went to talk to him.”
I looked at him, waiting.
“She had a little drunken chitchat.”
“About what?’
“About everything. About Kyle’s problems, the massacre, the little flower girl, the missing money, and his fine, upstanding father being a criminal. She told him everything I told her. In her sad, disillusioned way, she thought talking about it would help. Big mistake.”
He shook his head. “It was the worst thing she could have done. Kyle didn’t want to remember, he wanted to forget. It just brought it all back. Made him relive the terror and the pain of it all. It all came back and hit him like a swinging bat. And your mom telling him about me taking the money, that shook the life out of him. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t face up to that. He just couldn’t. But your mom was drunk and angry.
“And when she was drunk and angry, there was never any reasoning with her or stopping her. To make things worse, she confronted Kyle, cussed him out, called him a coward for not facing up to whatever it was he needed to face up to. Kyle took it badly. The confrontation sent him over the edge. That’s . . . that’s why he drove to the park.”
His voice softened to a hoarse whisper, and he looked me in the face. “And that’s why your mother decided to end it all. Not because she could never forgive me but because she could never forgive herself about Kyle. I guess I couldn’t, either, because I didn’t try to stop her when she put the gun to her head.”
“You . . . you were there?”
“I went looking for her when she disappeared on your wedding day. When I didn’t find her in her favorite bar, I drove on home and found her in the bedroom with a gun in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. She told me she wanted to kill herself.
“She’d threatened it before. This time, I knew she really wanted to do it, and nothing I could say or do was going to stop her. I knew she couldn’t live without Kyle, and I knew she’d had enough. Of her own life, of mine, of everything . . .”
His voice trailed off, became hoarse. “And she was afraid. For all the dreams she had of wealth, she didn’t want a penny of it. Tainted money, she called it. I tried to justify it. Told her lots of others had pr
ospered doing the same. Military personnel, American businessmen and politicians. It was hard not to, there was so much money flying around. But she said I was a fool, that I’d be found out and disgraced.
“That played on her mind, too—the fear of disgrace. The fact that I might be court-martialed, our name dragged through the mud. She couldn’t have handled that. She was already broken. All those high-class dreams, all those hopes that dirt-poor little girl from Temperance once had, they had all come to nothing in the end. At least, in her mind.” He looked at me, his eyes wet. “You understand?”
I did.
I felt my eyes become wet, too.
I looked at Jack. He said nothing. Just stared back at me blankly. Whether it mattered to him or not, I couldn’t say, but I figured he knew I needed to hear this, that I was owed it, so he kept his mouth shut.
My father said, “I walked out of the room and left her there with that gun in her hand. And to tell the truth, I didn’t care if she pulled the trigger or not. Maybe I even wanted her to. Because I figured at last she’d find some kind of peace.”
He was crying.
I knew then, right then, that he was telling me the truth. Real honesty tastes and smells like nothing else, has a flavor all its own.
Something else. The rock I once clung to, the solid granite that was always my refuge, my sanctuary—I felt my fingers finally loosen their grip and slip away, as if I were letting go of a ghost.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?” I asked him.
“How would that have helped? If they started probing, looking into everything? God knows what they would have found.” He shook his head. “I did the sensible thing and kept my mouth shut.”
“The police found the word Red scrawled on a page from her diary . . .” I left the statement hanging in the wind.
He shook his head. “I never figured on that. She must have written it all down in her diary, everything I told her, and kept it in her safe. But before she killed herself, she must have torn up the pages and burned them. Maybe that piece of torn paper just slipped away and she didn’t see it. Or maybe she left it there deliberately to cause me trouble. I like to think not. But I don’t know.”
“What happened to the money?”
“I never even touched a penny. Every cent is in an offshore account for Kyle, if ever he needs it.”
My father’s phone rang. The electronic music jangled harshly and caught everyone off guard. It kept ringing until Jack grabbed it and looked at the number. He showed it to my father. “Who?”
“Tarik.”
“What does he want?”
“What I told you. But first he wants to talk.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s not all there is to it, Frank?”
My father said nothing, but I sensed there was more, too, something he wasn’t saying.
Jack stared at my father. “For all I know, you could be on Tarik’s team, working with him, playing this out for all it’s worth.”
“You’re wrong, Jack.”
Jack hit the answer button and punched the speaker symbol. “Tarik?”
“Jack!” Tarik’s voice boomed. “Welcome back to the land of the living, old friend. It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough, Tarik. And if I have my way, you’re headed to hell.”
Tarik gave a laugh. “That’s what I like about you, Jack. Direct, to the point. I’m here to tell you we can talk this out. Settle our unfinished business in a peaceful manner so that nobody gets hurt and everyone walks away happy as pigs in dirt.”
“If you think I can believe that, you’re nuts, you scumbag.”
“I mean it. I want this settled peacefully, no trouble. That’s why I’m coming in to talk. One minute. And I’ve taken precautions. Better hold off on any inclination to shoot. You use any guns, and you’re all dead. The colonel will explain.”
Tarik let his words hang. “Try to run, try to hide, and that would be unfortunate. And don’t even think of trying to call 911 for help. It’s a waste of time. After we end this call, your phones will only work when I want them to. One minute. The clock’s ticking. Can you feel the tension, Jack? Just like the old days in Iraq, isn’t it? See you soon, old friend.”
The line went dead.
Kevin said to my father, “What’s Tarik talking about?”
“He’s got electronic equipment that can block any cell-phone signals. No one can make a call within a few hundred yards’ radius without him allowing it. Same with any security system—it gets interfered with. He’s also got a drone up in the air, with an infrared camera that can see in the dark. He can see everything move on the farm.”
I could see the pressure was getting to Jack, and he was still grimacing with pain, sweat glistening on his face as he said to my father, “Anything else we need to know about?”
“In Tarik’s mind, you’re still the weak link. The loose cannon. I think he wants you gone. Gone for good. Maybe me, too.”
“Why you?”
“Because he doesn’t have a hold over me anymore.”
“Explain.”
“I don’t care if this thing falls apart and we all go to hell together. Tarik knows that now. Knows he’ll need leverage.”
“I’m finding it hard to believe you, Frank.”
“Look at my cell phone. Go to the photo gallery. Look at the last photo stored there.” My father gave me a look, and something about it made my heart plummet.
His hands and jaw were trembling.
Jack fiddled with the phone. He must have found what he was looking for, because he stared at my father and then at me.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned the screen around to show me.
I almost choked as I sucked a breath into my lungs. It was a photo of Kyle. My brother looked beaten, his face was bruised, and he was tied up, his head tilted to one side. He looked pitiful. Sweat glittered on his face, and his hair was wild. Tears streamed down his face, the skin of his cheeks raw from crying. Silver duct tape was wrapped tightly around his mouth.
“Tarik has Kyle. He abducted him, Kath. There was nothing I could do.”
Outside, we heard footsteps mount the patio and move heavily across the wood, as if to announce their arrival.
Tarik.
My father looked at me, then at Jack and Kevin. “If he doesn’t get what he wants, he’ll kill Kyle. And then he’ll kill us all.”
98
* * *
The footsteps echoed on the wooden porch, and then the doorknob twisted. A second later, it was pushed in.
Tarik stood there.
I was surprised. Gone were the dark suit, white shirt, and black tie. Instead he wore a black leather jacket, a pale linen shirt, and jeans that made him look younger.
The fact that Jack and Kevin had firearms pointed at him didn’t seem to bother Tarik in the least as he surveyed the room. He nodded to my father, then the others. “It’s like old times again. A reunion.”
“Get to the offer, Tarik. Let’s hear it.”
“All your guns on the floor first. Kick them forward, away from you.”
Nobody did anything, and Tarik said calmly, “I have my people outside. They will kill Kyle. On the floor. Now. I will not say it again.”
Kevin and Jack placed their firearms on the floor and kicked them away.
“Stand up, and turn away from me. I want to frisk you for weapons. I won’t warn you again what will happen if you don’t comply.” Tarik looked at me. “You, too. Turn around, hands up high.”
Kevin and Jack turned around. I followed. I heard a scraping noise, their firearms being swept away. I glimpsed Tarik starting to pat down Kevin and Jack, and then he snapped at me, “Look away.”
I obeyed. Seconds later, I felt his hands as they slid everywhere over my body, in the area of my br
easts and between my legs, leaving nowhere untouched. I recoiled.
“You can turn back around now.”
We turned.
Tarik smiled, pulled up one of the chairs, and sat, taking out a slim cigar as he did so. He lit it with a gold lighter, blew a coil of smoke to the ceiling. “Sit.”
“You going to get to the point, Tarik?”
Tarik smiled back at Jack. “Just as soon as our next guests arrive. Then it will be time to put all our cards on the table.”
* * *
“Keep your hands high, Tanner. Right up, high as they’ll go.”
Tanner obeyed, his jacket far above his waist, his shirt lifting, too, showing his stomach. “You mind telling me what in the name of insanity is going on?”
“You and I need to have a talk, big man.”
“You been smoking something funny? Taking any pills you shouldn’t?”
Courtney raised a querying eyebrow.
“You’re probably a tad young to be nutty menopausal, but you never know.”
“I’m coming over to take your firearm, Tanner. You move any which way, you get a bullet. Your choice.”
“I’ve made my choice. Go ahead and take it. All I want is an explanation.”
Courtney inched forward, stretching her free hand out to flick off the thumb break on Tanner’s leather holster, then gripped the Glock and removed it. She stuffed it into her pocket.
“Now do I get an explanation?”
“Open your trousers belt, loosen the buttons or zipper. All real careful and slow. Drop your trousers, then turn around. Put your hands on the hood of the car.”
“I already had my prostate exam six months ago.”
“You’re sure a funny one, Tanner.”
“Here’s something even funnier. I figure there are a lot of guys who’d pay good money for an experience like this. But sister, I ain’t one of them. Are you for real?”
“I want to make sure you don’t run anywhere or make any sudden moves. Trousers down around your ankles always help in that regard.”