The White Iris

by Susanne Matthews

  “It’s great that he can get beyond it,” she said. “Unlike us.”

  He stared at her. “You need the truth, but does it have to be now?”

  “The sooner we get it out in the open, the sooner we can deal with it and move on together. Trevor, you’re a tough, competent FBI agent with thousands of people relying on you. All I need is the truth about Carson Creek and why you couldn’t come to me. We’re alone. There’s no one here to overhear or interrupt, so whatever state secrets you have to divulge…”

  Defeated, he sat in the chair across from hers. “There aren’t any state secrets. My reasons were personal and had nothing to do with the job. I know I let you think they did because I was too ashamed of the real reason. My feelings for you have never changed, Julie. I need you to believe that. I’ve never spoken of this to anyone.”

  “Loving someone means being honest with them. When Nana died and you wouldn’t come to the funeral, I was hurt and angry. Maybe I overreacted, but you kept lying to me…”

  “Not lying, just avoiding the truth.”

  “It’s the same thing,” she said stubbornly.

  “No, it’s not,” He bit his lower lip, praying she wouldn’t hate him when she knew about that day. He hated himself enough for both of them. “Three years ago, you asked me what happened the day my brother and father died. That’s when I lied to you, not when Nana passed away. When I told you I couldn’t go to Carson Creek, I was telling you the truth. I just didn’t explain it. I haven’t been able to set foot in Colorado since it happened.”

  “What happened? Tell me everything. I deserve honesty. If you care for me, you’ll tell me why you threw us away.”

  He nodded, hoping he could actually tell the story. He’d tried so hard to forget it.

  “My brother and father died because I shirked my responsibilities. I was angry at Mom for leaving and at Dad for refusing to go after her. I loved them both, and I was caught between them. Instead of going to get the heifer in the lower pasture that morning, the way Dad had told me to, I went over to Lyle’s house to play video games with the guys from my class. They were all so lucky—living in town, not having to do chores. Going after that damn cow should’ve been Nick’s job anyway.”

  “You were just a kid,” she said. “Kids don’t always do as they’re told. Ellie and I certainly didn’t.”

  “Yeah, but no one died because of it. Let me finish, and you’ll see what a stellar individual I am, nowhere near the hero people claimed I was. It was past noon by the time I hitched a ride back to the ranch. I grabbed a snack and went out to the barn to saddle my horse and ride down to the pasture, but when I got there, the heifer was dead, eviscerated by an old cougar. I went back to the house, grabbed my rifle, and, heedless of the storm clouds moving in, went after the cat. I should’ve waited for Dad and Nolan and faced up to my punishment. Dad would’ve been mad, but he and Nolan would still be alive. Instead, knowing they were out in the east pasture mending fences, I decided to be a man and fix my own screw-up. Some man! Fourteen-year-old idiot is more like it. Thank God Nick was in Denver that day. Otherwise, he might’ve died, too. One case of fratricide and patricide is enough for any man to live with.”

  “Be reasonable. You didn’t kill them.”

  “Maybe I didn’t deliver the coup de grâce, but they’re dead because of me. It’s the same thing.”

  He reached for the bottle of bourbon, poured some into his glass, and downed it. Who said confession was good for the soul? This was killing him.

  “It got dark far sooner than I’d anticipated, and the storm came out of nowhere. Terrified, I turned to go home. When I passed the old elm tree for the second time, I realized I’d been walking in circles. Empress slipped and hurt her leg, forcing me to get down and lead her. By the time Dad and Nolan found me, I was all but frozen. What none of us realized was that the cougar had been stalking me. Dad had just put me up on Clyde’s back, getting ready to get up behind me, when the cougar pounced and ripped open Empress’s side. The horse shrieked and reared, knocking Dad to the ground. The big cat saw the free meal and moved in.”

  “My God, you could’ve been killed.”

  “I should’ve been. Coward that I was, I froze, unable to do anything but watch. The cougar’s snarls and Dad’s cries echoed in my head. The minute Nolan had a clear shot, he took it, wounding the animal, forcing him away from Dad’s bleeding body. The cat turned, and Nolan fired again, killing him, but not soon enough.” The interior of the plane vanished, and he was on the mountainside again.

  “Don’t just sit there, shrimp. Go get help,” Nolan says, jumping down from Patches. “I’ll stay with Dad.”

  “But I can’t leave you and Dad here…” he answers, his voice clogged with tears.

  “Trevor”—Dad’s voice is weaker than normal but firm—“you need to get help, son. This isn’t your fault. I should’ve gone after that bugger back in September when he killed Swenson’s mule. I knew where he was holed up. That’s why we found you. We’ll be fine. We’ve got warmer clothing than you have, and we’ll hunker down beside Empress and Patches. There’s an extra pair of gloves in the left saddlebag. Nolan will build us a lean-to and a fire. Clyde knows his way home. When you get there, tell Isaac we’re on the edge of Murphy’s.”

  “Murphy’s,” he repeats through chattering teeth. He’s never been so cold. “You look hurt bad, Dad. Maybe you should go.”

  Dad chuckles weakly. “I need some tending to before I can get up on a horse. Tell Isaac I’m gut-hurt, and he’ll know what to bring.”

  “I’m sorry, shrimp,” Nolan says, using the pet name he and Nick have given him since he hasn’t had his growth spurt yet. “I’m going to have to put Empress down. She’s hurt real bad and suffering.”

  “I’ll get you a new horse in the spring,” Dad adds.

  Tears ran down Trevor’s cheeks. “I turned Clyde away, giving the horse his head, and when the crack of the rifle announced Empress’s death, I bawled like a baby. But I’d been cold when Dad and Nolan found me, and the trek home in the storm took longer than it should have. By the time Clyde reached the farmhouse, I was out cold on his back. They’d trusted me to send back help and I failed them. By the time they found them the next day, Patches was dead, too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Trevor. I had no idea you carried this secret with you, but I don’t understand what it has to do with not coming to Nana’s funeral.”

  “Don’t you see? I can’t go back there. I just can’t.” Slowly, deliberately, he told her what it had been like in Tacoma, living with the guilt until it got too great. He talked about his fear of the cold and the PTSD, and all the physical symptoms he experienced each time a severe winter storm rolled in.

  “If I could’ve gone to Carson Creek two years ago, I would’ve. I still have the damn plane ticket. I wanted to go to your grandmother’s funeral, but I couldn’t make myself get on that plane.”

  Julie lifted her hand to caress his face. “Trevor, no matter what you think, it wasn’t your fault. You were a kid. No one would’ve blamed you if you’d told the truth. What you just told me really isn’t a whole lot different from what you said before. The fact you went out alone looking for the cougar shows how you tried to make amends for shirking your responsibility. Was it a smart thing to do? No, but none of this in any way diminishes you in my eyes. I’m sure if you told Nick, it wouldn’t change the way he feels about you, and if your mother had known, it would’ve been the same.”

  “I doubt it. I let them down. Dad and Nolan relied on me, trusted me, and I screwed up. Mom and Dad never got to work things out. She died of a broken heart, and it was my fault, and I can never fix that. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to make amends. As an FBI agent, I’ve saved people. If I stop the Prophet. I’ll save millions and that should help assuage the guilt.”

  “I’m not in any way minimizing your PTSD or your cold phobia, but I don’t think you’re being honest here. There’s something else keeping you from
going home. Think about it. You’ve been functioning in Boston for two winters. You’ve come to Alaska to protect me—Alaska looks a lot like Colorado.”

  “You think being here, surrounded by snow-covered mountains is easy?” he asked, angry that she could dismiss what was so important to him so effortlessly. “Of course I’ve coped in Boston. I’ve had to. I’m an FBI agent. People rely on me, and I’ll be damned if I let them down.”

  “And I think that’s the crux of your problem. You don’t want people to rely on you because you’re afraid you’ll do just that. What happened on the range is only a small part of what keeps you from going home. You were angry at your mom and dad because their marriage fell apart and you were caught in the middle. You’re afraid to commit to someone. Afraid to have them rely on you and trust you. That’s why you couldn’t tell me this two years ago. If you had, we’d have dealt with it, found a way to cope. I might even have accepted your inability to come to Carson Creek. By now, we might even be married, but would it have worked out? I don’t know.”

  He stared at her. He’d bared his soul and she claimed he was still hiding something from her? Damn her.

  “I need to sleep and I think you should, too,” he said, retreating behind his FBI mask, realizing he was running away again.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Trevor. Now that this is out in the open, it doesn’t change the way I feel about you, but it puts our trust issues right back where they were. I want us to work, but until you confront what’s really at the bottom of all this, you’ll never be able to overcome it.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re right. Let’s get some sleep. We can talk about all this once the Prophet’s behind bars.”

  • • •

  “We’re here,” Trevor said, rousing her, not a trace of the broken man who’d bared his soul on his face.

  How would his inability to look beyond his phobia and PTSD for the real reasons he’d acted as he did affect their future? Somehow, she had to make him see it, because this time, she wasn’t going to be the one throwing them away.

  “Fasten your seat belt. Owens will taxi over to the hangar, where Jacob and Lilith are waiting.”

  It took only minutes to land and exit the plane.

  “How was the trip?” Jacob asked, coming toward them and removing his glasses. “I was surprised to get your call. I thought you’d need another day or two after getting those vials before you’d find something.”

  Julie looked up at him and gasped, the smile on her face turning into a grimace. Jacob’s eyes were the same blue-green as Dalton’s eyes that had fascinated her.

  “You’re related,” she blurted out. “You have to be related.”

  “Who’s related?” Trevor asked, stepping beside her.

  “Dalton Rush and Jacob. Their eyes are the same strange color. Now that I see him without his glasses, the familiarity is far more striking. I told you I’d seen him before,” Julie said smugly.

  “When am I going to learn to listen to you?” Trevor said, shaking his head.

  Was he thinking of what she’d said on the plane as well?

  Julie shrugged. “I did say he looked familiar, but I don’t think you’ve ever seen Dalton. He has a thing about having his picture taken.”

  “My cousins and I all have some variation of the same eye color from my grandmother,” Jacob said. “It makes sense that Duncan would entrust his son and not a stranger with his great plan. He’d need someone whose conscience wouldn’t interfere with his destiny—someone who’d believe right was what he was told, not what was true.”

  “I saw that portrait of Iris Hamilton. Her eyes were unusual, but I didn’t put it together. I mean, it was an oil painting, so allowing for pigment … I’m an idiot,” Trevor said, smacking himself in the forehead, making her giggle at the incongruity of it.

  He seemed so composed, so in his element when he was working, and yet he held himself back. She’d noticed it in the briefings, even in the way he was with Miles and Luke. Funny how she’d simply let it go. There was no way he didn’t give a 100 percent commitment to this case—any case—so it had to be a personal issue, and she’d bet her bottom dollar it was all wrapped up in his mother and father’s separation just before his dad’s death. Too bad he couldn’t see it.

  “Not an idiot, Trevor, just a man who overlooked something. It happens,” Julie said, hoping he’d see beyond her words.

  “If Dalton Rush’s eyes are the same color as mine, then odds are he’s my cousin Adam,” Jacob said. “We were the only two with this exact shade. He’d be around thirty.”

  “That fits,” Trevor said. “No doubt his camera shyness has to do with his resemblance to James Colchester. His father would’ve realized how dangerous that similarity could be. D.L., Duncan Lucius—L.D., Lawrence Donald. He didn’t even change the letters, but then James Colchester kept his first name when he became Jimmy Farley. I guess we know where your grandmother’s body is. Your uncle must have dug her up and brought her to her parents when she died, but how did he know?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacob said, his anger tightly under control, but his clenched jaw told Julie it wouldn’t take much to set him off. Maybe he wasn’t as ready to forgive as Trevor thought.

  “I’m looking forward to that conversation, as well as one with your cousin,” Trevor said. “Julie tried to convince me he’s doing this against his will, but if his father’s calling the shots, that’s unlikely. He probably believes your uncle’s bullshit and thinks he’s on his own mission from God.”

  “He was one of my uncle’s most faithful followers. If the Prophet had decreed the sky was green and the grass was blue, Adam would’ve cried ‘amen’ in an instant.”

  “With a Nobel prize in chemistry or medicine as a further incentive,” Julie added, angry with herself for refusing to believe Dalton could purposely have engineered what she’d seen under that microscope slide. “When do we go to the facility?”

  “In a few hours,” Jacob said. “Today’s Day Two of Halloween in Reno, and around here the event goes on twenty-four hours a day, so the police are stretched pretty thin. Susan and Micah are watching the facility. Rush went into work early this morning, like he always does. Normally, he doesn’t leave until around seven. We’ve got a tactical team on standby for a five o’clock raid. Right now, we’ll take you and Lilith back to the hotel for a couple of hours. You can unpack and get some rest. It’s going to be a late night.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Julie said, knowing she wouldn’t be able to rest. “I just want to get the serum secured and put Dalton and your uncle out of business once and for all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Where are we going?” Trevor asked.

  “Just before we left, I got a message from Larson’s secretary that he needed to see me. I expect he wants to go over the protocol for the raid,” Jacob said. “He told me you guys worked together a few years back.”

  “We did. We can brief the others later. Owens was up all night and then flew us here. He could probably use some sleep. Lilith can fill Julie in on what you’ve got in place so far. I don’t want to put her in danger, but she needs to secure that virus. The last thing we want to do is give Dalton a chance to release it into the atmosphere when we take him down. Dying doesn’t mean much to these guys if they’re serving the Prophet.”

  Jacob led the way to an SUV. Lilith and Julie climbed into the back, Owens in the center seat, and he got in front with Jacob.

  “How did it go in Henderson?” he asked. “I thought you’d call.”

  “It was a false alarm. We pretended to be census takers. The girl is Hispanic. But I’m not giving up. There were two more names on that list.”

  Trevor nodded.

  Fifteen minutes later, the vehicle stopped in front of one of the fancier casino hotels. Jacob handed Owens a key card.

  “We’re in the southwest penthouse. There are four on the floor. Lil, I assume you want your daily fix?”

  She smil
ed. “I do. Come on. We’ll go inside and have the best coffee you’ve ever tasted. Owens can take up your bags.” She turned to the bodyguard. “Your fellow Guardians, Evans and Diego, are with Susan and Micah. They should all be back shortly. We’ll be up in about twenty minutes. How long will you be?”

  Jacob scowled. “Not long. I can’t figure out what he wants. I thought we had it pretty much settled.”

  “Okay,” Lilith said and kissed his cheek.

  As Jacob pulled away, Trevor watched Julie enter the hotel. He’d told her the truth about Carson Creek, but she wasn’t satisfied with his explanation. She was like the psychologist his mother had taken him to in Tacoma. Always digging, always wanting to know more. Commitment issues? Bullshit.

  • • •

  “Do you want anything?” Julie asked the bodyguard as she followed Lilith to the coffee shop.

  “Just a couple of hours of rest,” he said. “This takedown could get messy. I’ll talk to the boss. Maybe we should go in and secure the package first. I suppose I don’t have to remind you to stay with Agent Munroe?”

  “Don’t worry, Owens. I won’t let her out of my sight. Now, you go up to bed while we have the most delicious caffeinated concoction on the planet. I’m only allowed one a day, so I make the most of it,” Lilith said and her cheeks pinked.

  “You’re pregnant,” Julie said.

  “Shush! I don’t want to jinx it. We won’t tell everyone until the case is over, but I’m resigning and going back to Australia with Jacob.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” Julie said. But she wasn’t. Envious was closer to the truth. “Did you find Rose in Henderson?”

  “No, but we have two more names to look into. I’m not going to give up. Jacob has a number of resources we can use. Now, let’s get that latte.”

  Julie had to admit the chocolate mint creation was the best she’d ever tasted.

  “If I lived here, I’d have a least one of these a day,” she said taking another sip. “So how will this work?”