Tempest (Playing the Fool #3)

by Lisa Henry

  “We’ll see you soon,” Henry said. He closed his eyes. “Love you too.”

  Mac stared at the wall and wondered what those words would sound like directed at him. He thought back to the hospital. “Sebastian’s crazy about you. He loooves you.” Well, okay. Mac wondered what those words would sound like directed at him when Henry wasn’t drugged out of his mind and talking about himself in the third person.

  Henry set the phone aside. “Says he needs two days. He’s gonna see what he can get together.”

  “Is he really gonna get something together? Or is he gonna bolt?”

  Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’ll run. He’s, um, he’s probably more fucked up than me, though. Just FYI.”

  Mac rubbed his back again.

  “I told myself, after my mom, that I’d never get mixed up with an addict again.”

  “But you did.”

  “We, um, we hung out on the same street. When it was cold, to keep his hands warm, he did card tricks and coin tricks. Tried to teach me the three-card monte, but I was too clumsy.”

  “You? You couldn’t pull off a con?”

  “I work with my mouth, not my hands.”

  “Apart from the occasional picking of pockets.”

  “Apart from that,” Henry agreed. “Theft is easy. You wait until people are looking the other way. The three-card monte though, people know that’s a con. They’re looking for the trick, because they think they can outsmart the dealer.”

  “But they can’t?”

  “Of course they can’t. It’s a classic for a reason. And, even if they can, well, Remy can run pretty damn fast.”

  “You’re pretty quick when you want to be too.” He rubbed his thumb over the knots in Henry’s spine.

  “Job requirement,” Henry whispered.

  “Not anymore.” Mac made his tone firmer. “When this is done, you’re through running.”

  “Yeah, I’m through running.”

  “And conning?”

  Henry stiffened. “Gotta make a living, Mac.”

  His throat ached. “Well, I’m willing to date a man with a criminal history, but not one with a criminal future. So it’s up to you.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It is.” He tugged gently at Henry’s hair, twisting little elflocks together. “You said your life would have been different if you’d had a family stashed away on a farm. If you’d had somewhere you could go when you needed help. Well, how do you know you don’t have help, if you never ask?”

  Henry turned his head to look at him. His face was pale in the moonlight. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m not sure of anything, Mac.” Henry turned away again.

  “You’re the one who said we’d get Val in trouble if we went to her,” Henry pointed out. He was in his underwear, sprawled in the yellow velour armchair near the bed, trying to have an argument with Mac that lost steam whenever he focused on Mac’s dark chest hair, the healing wound on Mac’s ribs.

  Fuckin’ got shot. Saving me.

  “I said we couldn’t ask her to harbor us.” Mac pulled up his pants—shame—and fastened them. “But I’ve got to talk to her.”

  He shook his head. How Mac had survived as long as he had was beyond Henry. Mac had done the same thing when they’d hidden in the cabin in Altona—had wanted to call Val, and Henry had talked him out of it. Because when you were in hiding, you didn’t phone your known contacts. And you didn’t hide out at your family’s old fishing cabin, or at their current residence.

  He did have to give Mac some credit, though. For agreeing to go into hiding at all.

  And it was true that Mac didn’t really have anywhere else to go except home.

  He had racked his brain for other places he could take Mac and Vi, but with the Court out of the question, he’d come up short. Stacy had friends in Richmond—Henry had been on his way there three weeks ago, when he’d fled Mac’s crime scene. But he didn’t know anything about those people. And Mac needed to stay close to Indianapolis.

  The stupid thing was, Henry wanted to be here. He trusted Mac’s parents, even though he’d interacted with them for all of an hour. And Mac’s niece was adorable, and the house had one of those fucking “Travel East, Travel West, After All, Home Is Best” cross-stitches, and Henry almost felt safe here. Almost.

  That feeling from yesterday, the too quiet and the overfamiliarity, kept coming and going. He knew he was being ridiculous. After the chaos of the city, returning to his hometown, with its open fields and three to one goat-human ratio, was bound to be disconcerting. But in certain moments, he could see himself getting used to it. And then the house creaked, and a cold dread slithered past him like a snake in the shadows—not inhabiting his body, but skirting him, making him sweat.

  They weren’t safe here, not by a long shot. But when Henry thought about moving Vi to some strange hideout with “friends” he didn’t really know or trust, he felt sick. He wanted Vi here, playing computer games with Cory. He wanted to drink Mac’s dad’s “famous” instant coffee—with honey instead of sugar, and with whole milk “instead of that skim crap.”

  He wanted these people, this place, to be as perfect as they seemed. Not for him—he didn’t fit perfect. He soured it, cheapened it, ruined it by getting too close—but for Vi. He wanted this to be her life. A haven. A farm with goats and chickens. He wanted her to belong somewhere like this, with people like Mac’s family, and maybe then Henry could just slip away, as insubstantial as a ghost. A leaf on the breeze. A shadow in the rain. And Vi, safe and happy, her life full to the brim with good things, wouldn’t miss him at all.

  He watched Mac button his rumpled shirt. Wondered if Mac’s mother would offer to iron it for him. Or his father. Henry didn’t want to assume just because Ana wore the apron meant she automatically did all the housewifey things.

  “I’ve got to talk to her,” Mac repeated, in the sort of voice that said he wasn’t prepared to argue about this.

  Poor, naïve Mac.

  “Then I’m coming too.” Henry felt like the plucky kid brother in some movie. The one who got told he was too young to come on the adventure, but he tagged along anyway and ended up having some random skill that saved the whole group and won the grudging respect of the older guys.

  Predictably, Mac shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Mac hesitated with his fingers on the top button. “You know why.”

  “Couldn’t your parents watch Vi just for the day?” He ignored the jolt of guilt. Yes, they were the perfect family in their little perfect goat-and-chicken world, but Vi wasn’t perfect, was she? She might get scared. Might get angry. Might lash out. But maybe today would be a good day. He was still allowed to hope for those, wasn’t he? For her sake. “It’s just . . . Remy’s not gonna meet you without me there.”

  Henry thought he saw Mac’s face tighten at Remy’s name. “Talk to Remy. Get me a meeting with him for tomorrow. Today I want to focus on finding out what Val knows.” Mac grabbed his phone from the bedside table and stuck it in his pocket.

  “She didn’t know jack shit yesterday. Wouldn’t we all know a lot more if you got Remy’s story on Lonny?”

  “Yes. But I need to talk to Val about how to proceed. You have to understand, Henry, that the word of someone like Remy isn’t necessarily going to hold up.”

  “Someone like Remy?” Henry couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “And yet someone like me, I’m worth chaining up so I’ll stick around to testify against Maxfield? And someone like Lonny, his word’s enough to get OPR into your office with a search warrant?”

  Mac glanced at him sharply. “These aren’t my rules. I’m pissed OPR took Lonny Harris’s claim seriously. And if you want the truth, there’s a chance we might not get a conviction for murder in the Maxfield case. But I work with what I have. So yes, I want to meet with Remy, but first
I want to talk to Val so I can figure out what to do with whatever I learn from him.”

  “You think you’re gonna lose Maxfield?” Henry was surprised. He hadn’t really given much thought to how the Maxfield trial would go down. But since he’d seen Maxfield pull the trigger that night in Gloria’s kitchen, and had seen Pete O’Flannery’s head explode like a tomato, he had sort of assumed that once he described the events in court, the good guys would win. Then the bad guy would go to jail, and the guy who existed in a massive gray area—Henry—would be on his way, never to be heard from in Indianapolis again.

  Mac yanked his shirt straight. Henry tried not to focus on where the fabric hugged Mac’s body. Tried not to remember kissing warm skin—or Mac’s hands on him, comforting him as he’d talked to Remy. That was something separate from the relationship they normally had. Most of the time they argued and bantered and tried to stay a step ahead of the bad guys. Only in some bizarre realm that opened itself to them on occasion did Mac worship Henry, make him feel like more than a criminal.

  And during those times, he figured Mac was dreaming of someone else. Was letting his mind rewrite Henry.

  You’ve done some bad things, Henry, but I can save you.

  You graduated from the School of Hard Knocks with a degree in getting the shit kicked out of you, but that’s over now. Come into the light. Be a good boy. Come on, Henry.

  How do you know you don’t have help if you never ask?

  “On the murder charge.” Mac tucked his shirt in. “It’s possible.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Because guys like Maxfield are slippery.”

  “So because of me.”

  Mac didn’t answer.

  Henry sighed. “So what am I supposed to do while you’re out having a super secret meeting with Val? Milk the goats? Check the rabbits for ticks? Help your mother make her famous corn pone?” He started humming “Dueling Banjos,” just to see what Mac would do.

  “They’ve always got fresh eggs in the kitchen. Straight from the henhouse.”

  Henry stopped humming. “Are you serious?”

  “Would I lie to you about eggs?”

  He loved eggs. Had never explored the reasons why, beyond that they were fucking delicious. Mac had once offered some incisive commentary on the parallels between Henry’s endless disguises and the myriad ways eggs could be prepared. But Henry thought that was reaching a bit.

  No, if he was going to do any impromptu introspection, he’d say the egg obsession had something to do with old memories of his mother preparing breakfast for him and Vi on Saturday mornings. She’d been an expert at sunny-side up. Never turned the eggs into a runny, yellow mess like Henry had. In her last few years, she’d been useless. If she was at home, she was passed out on the couch or throwing up in the bathroom or in her bedroom with a boyfriend. Henry had tried to take over Saturday breakfast duty, but for a long time had sucked at making eggs. Vi had helped him improve.

  He could remember one day, a few months before Viola’s accident, when his mother had been sober enough to make breakfast. Could remember standing beside her while she did the eggs, enthralled by the perfect roundness of the yolks, the evenness of the white borders. She’d put a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t shrugged it off. Hadn’t hated her. In that moment, he’d just been so fucking grateful to have her back.

  “You’ve never lied to me about eggs,” he agreed.

  Mac stooped and kissed him. “So I’ll go meet with Val. And I’ll try to track down my old informant. You stay here, eat all the eggs you want, and figure out a secure location where we can meet Remy tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” He wondered at Mac’s ability to show casual affection. Mac, who Henry couldn’t imagine ever having had a boyfriend, or even using the word “boyfriend,” for that matter. Mac, who was generally disliked by his coworkers, who wore an eternal frown, who talked about being able to overlook Henry’s criminal past yet thought Henry was too much of a fuckup to help the FBI nail Maxfield.

  Mac was now kissing him on his way out the door like they were a married couple. And Mac had held him several times when he was close to breaking. There was a warmth, a depth to Mac that he’d failed to notice in the beginning. He was supposed to be so good at reading people, yet he’d missed the fact that Mac knew how to protect others. A skill Henry could only fake.

  “And hey.” Mac cupped his chin. “It’s not that I don’t want you around. But Vi needs you. And I need . . . I need to see Val as a friend. You know? It’s not just about figuring out the next move. I want to talk to her. I gotta know she’s on my side.”

  He nodded. Same reason he called Remy sometimes, even when he didn’t need help with a disguise. Mac didn’t have friends beyond Val. He needed to vent about what a bullshit mess he was in just as much as he needed to sort the bullshit mess out.

  And probably the less time Henry spent around non-Mac feds, the better.

  But I’m on your side too, Mac.

  “You’re not staying for breakfast?” he asked.

  “Sooner I go, the better.”

  “All right. But hurry back, or your omelet will get cold.”

  Mac grinned. “Be back as soon as I can.”

  “And don’t get caught.”

  The grin slipped. “I don’t plan to.”

  “Just . . . you’re not always subtle.” He stretched in the chair, thrusting his hips up. “That’s why you need me. I’m subtle.”

  Mac stared at him for a moment, and Henry figured Mac was picturing him in Vi’s clothes and a wig. Picturing him slutting it up on the hood of the dealership car they’d “borrowed” for their flight to the cabin outside Altona. Picturing him leading the entire fifth floor of the FBI field office in “Happy Birthday” while Alex the accountant prepared to blow out the candles on the massive cake Henry had procured.

  All right, he wasn’t always subtle. But he was when it counted.

  “Yeah.” Mac sounded uncertain. “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “All right.” Mac headed for the door. Stopped and turned. “Henry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be good.”

  Someone should have told him that years ago. Not that he would have listened. Nobody fucking won by being good.

  “I’m not gonna say anything embarrassing to your parents,” he assured Mac.

  “And you’re not going to teach my niece three-card monte?”

  “No promises there.”

  “I really ought to cuff you to the bed.”

  He smiled and sat up. “That’s for later, Mac. When we have grown-up time. But yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask if we can do a role play with your cuffs and your gun . . .”

  “If only I was a cop. And had a nightstick.”

  Henry widened his eyes dramatically. “Agent McGuinness!”

  “See you later, Henry.”

  “Yeah.” He shifted a little to hide the growing bulge in his briefs. “See you.”

  Mac chanced a call to Val. He didn’t really have another option.

  Normally it would have been a challenge to pry the phone’s back cover off so he could slide the battery back in, but he’d dropped the phone a few weeks back, and now the thing collapsed like a house of cards if he looked at it sideways. He turned it on.

  This technology was how they’d found Henry, the first time he’d run from the FBI office. Henry had stolen Jeff’s phone and made the mistake of leaving the battery in. Even a powered-off phone gave off a signal the FBI could track.

  And that OPR could track.

  Val picked up on the first ring. “Mac.”

  He had a paranoid vision of Janice Bixler standing beside Val, forcing Val to pretend everything was normal, telling her to keep Mac on the line until they could trace the call. “Can we meet?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Cafe Patachou. Half an hour.”

  “Okay.”

  He hung up.

  They both arrived ear
ly. Mac stared at the jar of herbal tea, then at the coffee machine. Herbal tea. Coffee. Herbal tea . . . Fuck it. He bought a coffee.

  They sat in a far corner of the room, tucked away, but where Val could see the front door and he could see the back.

  “You’ve got to keep that phone off.” Val set her mug down, and coffee sloshed over the rim. “Christ, Mac, Bixler’s gonna—”

  “I know. But I had to talk to you. I need to know what’s going on. Why did Henry take me on the run?”

  Val recounted what had happened when Bixler had shown up at the office the previous morning, finishing with, “She found cocaine in your desk, Mac.”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  “No shit.” Val gulped her coffee, not even giving it time to cool. Lowered the mug and stared at him. “Though I can’t help thinking she might be on to something when she says you’re fucking your witness.”

  Mac had a feeling that technically he’s fucking me wouldn’t go over big with Val. She stared at him. He stared into his mug. “I, uh . . .”

  “Never mind. Nothing we can do now except keep you out of Bixler’s reach.”

  “So what’s OPR trying to nail me on? Fucking my witness or snorting coke?”

  “Or beating up your perps? I’m not sure. I think they’ll take anything they can get.”

  “I can’t believe you sent Henry to take me into hiding.”

  Val shrugged. “You evidently trust him . . . enough. He was there, and I couldn’t leave.”

  “So where does Bixler think I am?”

  “She’s bringing everyone in the office in for questioning—again. Thinks someone there tipped you off.”

  “Thinks you tipped me off?”

  Val nodded.

  “Shit.”

  “I’m not scared of that bitch.”

  Maybe you ought to be. “Good. Because she’s not going to let up.”

  “Neither will I. I’m looking into her.”

  Mac paused with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Looking into her? You mean . . .”

  “I think she has something to do with the setup.”