Meredith laughed.
He smiled too even though he didn’t get the joke. She had the best laugh. “What?”
“I don’t think you understand my job,” she said. “It’s easy for you. All you have to do is be a genius.”
His smile faded. “I make it hard, don’t I? Your job would be plenty tough enough with anyone else, but it’s something extra with me, isn’t it? Probably not what you bargained for at all.”
“Oh no, I … I mean, I’m not complaining. Please don’t think … I mean—”
“I know. I just mean I get it. I want you to know I couldn’t do it without you. Thank you. Now, am I the boss or not?”
“You’re the boss.”
“Then I say you can enjoy a cup of coffee and put work on hold. You don’t even have to drink it fast. Then when you’re finished, you can go back to being a frantic crazy person.”
With exaggerated slowness, she set aside the smartphone, her eyes still on Middleton. Then she took up the coffee cup and slurped loudly.
“You’re very funny.”
She smiled, craned her neck to look around as if seeing the kitchen for the first time, white except for the gleaming stainless steel appliances. “Everything is so white.”
“Blank.”
“Blank?”
“I don’t really think of it as white,” Middleton said. “I think of it as blank. I didn’t want to live in a place that felt … cluttered.”
“Do you like it?”
“Like what?”
“Your new house.”
It was such an obvious question that Middleton felt stunned by it. The house hadn’t been built to be liked but to serve his specific and peculiar needs. Wherever possible, the house had been automated. No live-in servants. People would come to clean or make repairs when he was out. They would be gone before his return. Likewise, he would find his kitchen magically restocked when he wasn’t looking. Gourmet meals would be assembled elsewhere and stored in his walk-in freezer and prepared with all the ease the most technologically modern kitchen could provide.
All so Aaron Middleton would not have to see or talk to or interact with any other human being he didn’t want to.
That he might like the house would be a bonus, he supposed. But the point was to preserve as much of his sanity as possible.
“I think I like it,” he told Meredith. “I’ll need to live with it a little while.”
She sipped coffee.
“Two things.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“First, arrange to have Mable brought out. I should have thought of that before now, actually.”
“Of course.” Meredith reached for her smartphone.
“After you finish your coffee.”
She jerked her hand back dramatically, refocused her attention on the coffee cup.
“Second, I believe I saw some kind of blockhouse across the lawn on our way in last night.”
“Ah. Yes. Well. I’ve been assured you won’t be able to see it at all once the shrubs fill in.”
“That’s not really the point.”
“It’s not?” That innocent look on her face, so cute.
But Middleton refused to be diverted. “I don’t remember authorizing that.”
“Oh no. No, no. You did.” She started reaching for her smartphone again as if it were a security blanket but stopped herself. “You don’t remember?”
“I do not.”
“Well, you know. You maybe didn’t notice.” She squirmed on the stool, not looking at Middleton now. “I mean, there was so much stuff, so much paperwork for this house and permits and everything, it was probably just stuck in with a bunch of other stuff and you signed it without even realizing.”
“I see.”
“This coffee is really good.” She sipped.
“What’s it for?”
“The blockhouse?”
Middleton frowned. “What have we been talking about?”
“It’s for the security guards.”
Middleton felt the rising anxiety like a knot in his chest.
“There is a path on the other side of the blockhouse that leads to a separate parking area,” she said hastily. “You won’t even see them come and go.”
“Why do they need to be there at all?” He’d spent millions of dollars to get away from people only to discover there was a building full of them across his front lawn.
Meredith sighed. “You still don’t understand who you are. Do you know what happens to the corporation’s stock if something happens to you? And the insurance company won’t sign off on our keyman policy unless you have appropriate security.”
Middleton still couldn’t believe how fast it had happened. Founding the company with almost no start-up capital, incorporating, going public. He’d been on magazine covers. Television. The public knew his name now alongside Gates and Jobs.
Too much. Too fast. The knot in his chest twisted. So much that could be taken away. It had all been so much simpler when he’d had nothing.
Meredith lay a cool hand on his forearm. The stress leaked out of him.
She squeezed. “You are okay.”
Yes. He was okay. The blockhouse and the security guards were nothing, really. As Meredith had explained, he would never see them, or, if he did, then that meant he had bigger problems, right? It was the idea that he hadn’t known. That it was out of his control.
But Meredith had explained. She was right. She was always right. If he had her, he’d be fine. She must never leave me, he decided. Never. He made a mental note not to say that out loud in exactly that way. It would come off a little creepy. Still, it was true. His world would cease to function without her.
But she wouldn’t leave him. Middleton trusted her as he trusted no other person on the planet. Others had betrayed him. Even those closest to him. Meredith never would.
“Well, then,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just have another cup of coffee.”
That crooked smile, the one when she was being playful. “Maybe more caffeine’s not what you need right now, champ.”
14
They arrived for their layover on time in Minneapolis. Emma walked ahead of Francis as they disembarked, a tight grip on the alligator suitcase.
Francis scrambled to catch up. “The connection is the other way.”
“Knock yourself out, Frankie,” she said. “I’m going this way.” She followed a sign that said GROUND TRANSPORTATION.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought we were going to Los Angeles.”
“And that’s what everyone else will think too,” she said. “I chose the flight based on the layover.”
“Wait, so you’re not getting on the next flight?”
“What a good listener you are.”
He followed her through baggage claim and out to the sidewalk at the loading zone.
Emma turned on him abruptly. “This is where we part ways, Frankie.”
“Just like that?”
“Like I told you,” she said, “you weren’t supposed to come with me. Go home. Tell the police your story. They’ll see you’re harmless enough. They’ll believe you. I’m sorry I got you into all this. Really. Go home.”
She turned and walked toward long-term parking and didn’t look back.
Francis stood a moment, thinking she might turn around, not even sure if he wanted her to. He tried not to feel foolish and failed. He’d made one bad decision on top of another, starting with a suitcase that was none of his business and ending with trying to help someone who didn’t want to be helped.
Francis slowly lowered himself onto a nearby bench. Every man secretly yearns to be called harmless, he thought sarcastically. She’s right. Just go home.
To what? Enid was gone. Emma was probably right that he’d be able to explain himself satisfactorily to the police, but what about work? Would Resnick fire him, and if he did, would that be better or worse? There was not really so much to go back to after all.
A r
umble of an engine. A car pulled up and parked right in front of Francis’s bench. It was an automobile from the early 1980s, an ugly green, the word Oldsmobile on the grille. The window was down. He looked inside. Emma sat hunched over the wheel, looking straight ahead. She glanced reluctantly at Francis, then looked forward again, shaking her head. She sat like that a long ten seconds.
She looked back at Francis finally, sighed, and said, “Well, shit. Get in, then.”
Francis didn’t need to be asked twice. He jumped in and closed the door. “I didn’t know you were from Minneapolis.”
“I’m not.”
“Why is your car here?”
She put the Oldsmobile into gear and pulled forward. “Not my car.”
Oh … just … hell.
* * *
“What do you mean they weren’t on board?” Gunn stood in the number 5 terminal at LAX. He’d expected his agents to be coming toward him with the girl and Berringer in handcuffs. Instead, he was on this irritating phone call.
“They weren’t there,” said the agent on the other end of the line. “Agents boarded the plane to double-check. A quick call to the ticket desk at MSP International confirms they didn’t board the connecting flight.”
Gunn cursed a blue streak inside his head. Stupid, stupid, stupid. There was no excuse. He’d been foolish and lazy. When the girl had booked the flight to California, Gunn had naturally assumed she was on her way to address unfinished business with Aaron Middleton. Gunn thought that in her haste, she’d finally slipped up. But he was the one who’d botched it. He didn’t intend to let it happen again.
“Find them,” Gunn said. “Check into anything she might be doing in Minneapolis, but obviously she could be headed anywhere. Check the bus and train stations and all the car rental places. Just find them.”
* * *
The 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme glided down Highway 169 to Highway 60 and took a turn west on Interstate 90 toward Sioux Falls. Stops had been quick—bathroom and fast food.
“Because older cars are easier to hot-wire,” Emma had explained.
“Oh.” It had occurred to Francis that if a person had decided to take up auto theft, then why not steal something that was actually a little more stylish? Or at least comfortable. The Oldsmobile rattled loudly. The AM/FM radio didn’t work. A vague odor of old cigarettes.
In Sioux Falls, they took Interstate 29 south. Lots of farm country. Cows.
Francis dozed.
The car hit a bump and jostled him awake sometime later. They’d left the interstate far behind, and the Oldsmobile now rattled down a dirt road. Trees had risen up on both sides of the road.
Francis sat up, rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”
“Almost there.”
The road ran alongside a stream that was almost big enough to be called a river, but not quite. Another dirt road even narrower and bumpier broke away from the stream, and Emma followed it into the forest, poking along under ten miles per hour. This went on for a few minutes until the road curved, then opened into a wide clearing. There was a two-story clapboard house with a wraparound porch, a large barn with faded red paint beyond. To one side of the house was a line of junk cars, rusted from the decades, weeds growing high around deflated tires. An assortment of hubcaps leaned against one side of the porch, and on the porch itself was the husk of an old motorcycle, either half-stripped or half-assembled, depending on your point of view.
Emma parked in front of the house and got out, taking the suitcase with her.
Francis stood a moment, taking in his surroundings. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Really? What were you expecting, exactly? The Waldorf Astoria? Sorry we can’t all be sophisticated New Yorkers like you.” She headed for the house, shaking her head.
He sighed, following after her. “I’m from Ohio.”
15
Francis and Emma followed the porch around the corner to a side door, stepping over motorcycle parts as they went. She pulled a single key from her jeans pocket and unlocked the door, led Francis into a large kitchen.
It felt stuffy and still, like a place uninhabited for a long time. Mismatched appliances, an iron potbellied stove next to a range from the 1980s and a fridge ten years older than that. Kitchen table with lighthouse salt-and-pepper shakers in the middle. Lots of Formica. Last year’s calendar showing an old-time sailing ship. It was stuck to the side of the fridge with a SEE ROCK CITY magnet.
Emma walked straight to a cabinet over the sink, opened it, and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. She opened it and titled the bottle back, gulping loudly. She coughed, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes slid to Francis’s face. “Long drive.”
“A long couple of days,” he said.
She thought about that, nodded. “Yeah.” She held the bottle out to him.
“I’m really more of a cabernet sauvignon kind of guy.” A weak smile, half joking.
“Could you just not be a pussy right now, please?” She thrust the bottle at him again.
Francis took it. He hadn’t much experience with hard liquor. Maybe if he just gulped it quickly, he could get it over with. He tossed back a mouthful, then swallowed, but it went down wrong, scorching the back of his throat. He spasmed, almost coughing it up, but clamped his lips tight to keep from spitting it all out. Doing that made him gag and choke, and he coughed it out through his nose instead. It burned and splashed down his chin and the front of his shirt mixed with mucous. He coughed and coughed until he finally got control of himself, then wiped the whiskey snot from his chin and lips with his shirtsleeve.
Emma stared at him with her mouth hanging open. For a second it could have gone either way.
Then she threw her head back and laughed loudly and long. It was the first time Francis had seen her like this, carefree, all the pent-up stress leaking from her. Not a prissy, demure laugh. Full-throated and uninhibited. She wiped tears from her eyes, blew out a long cathartic sigh.
“You really know how to wow a girl, Frankie.”
“Francis.”
“Listen, there’s no delicate way to put this,” she said, “but you stink.”
“You mean that literally, don’t you?”
“Don’t take it personally,” she said, “but you slept in those clothes, and I think you know I’m right.”
He looked down at himself. “Yeah, I can’t really argue with you.”
“There’s a shower down the hall. You look like you’re about Dwayne’s size, so we can get you some clean clothes. His room is next to the bathroom, and you can help yourself.”
“Dwayne?”
“The guy my sister started seeing when she left her husband,” Emma told him.
“Is this somebody who’s going to walk in while I’m trying on his clothes and beat my ass?” Francis asked. “Because I’d like to avoid that.”
“No,” Emma said. “He’s dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “He was an asshole. Towels on the rack over the sink.”
Everything in the bathroom was old—chipped pedestal sink, small toilet, and a clawfoot tub with a floral shower curtain that circled the whole thing. The pressure was good, and the hot water stung his skin in the best way possible. Francis hadn’t realized how gross he’d felt before until he was suddenly clean.
He dried off, wrapped the towel around himself. He opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out. Then he felt self-conscious about being self-conscious. He’d seen her in a towel, after all, so what was the big deal? He still felt self-conscious.
He darted quickly from the bathroom to the bedroom with the dead man’s clothes.
It was a small room with two windows that overlooked the barn. As in the rest of the house, the furnishings were old without quite being antiques. A double bed, neatly made with a patchwork quilt. A scuffed and scratched desk covered with baseball trophies ranging from high school to someplace call
ed Kilian Community College. Posters, cheaply framed in plastic, hung on the wall, generic scenes of various natural wonders, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Yellowstone.
There was also a framed eight-by-ten photo of a couple in their early thirties sitting together on a Harley-Davidson. Maybe it was the motorcycle now in pieces on the front porch. Francis assumed the guy on the Harley was the asshole. Dwayne. You couldn’t tell it from the picture—a big smile, hands gripping the handlebars, close haircut, three-day stubble. Maybe a couple of years older than the woman who had a reasonable resemblance to Emma. The sister, Francis guessed. Yellow sundress hiked up, flip-flops. One hand went around Dwayne’s waist, the other up for a shy wave. But compared to Emma, there was something softer in the face, the eyes less intense, as if she were still willing to give the world one more chance. There was some kind of drive-in burger joint in the background, and Francis felt like this photo was maybe taken on some vacation.
He went through Dwayne’s dresser and small closet for clothes. Faded Levi’s jeans, white socks, and Nike sneakers. Emma had been right. He and Dwayne wore the same size. Finding a shirt was a bit more of a challenge. Dwayne really liked flannel. Francis didn’t. There was also an assortment of black shirts with various hair metal bands. He couldn’t bring himself to wear a Poison or Ratt T-shirt. A guy had to draw the line somewhere.
And then he found it, all the way to one side in the closet. An unworn western shirt, the tag still on it. It looked like something from a Brooks & Dunn music video. Black with red piping and red embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs. Mother-of-pearl snap buttons. It was terrible.
Francis couldn’t resist.
He slipped it on, felt himself grin as he buttoned it up.
His eyes slid to the door. Hanging on a hook on the back was a leather jacket. He took it down, looked it over. Francis guessed this might have been Dwayne’s pride and joy, that he knew just exactly how cool he looked zooming down the road on his motorcycle with the jacket on. It was just worn enough to look cool, a simple collared jacket with a zipper up the middle. He shrugged into it.
A knock at the door. “Decent?” Emma’s voice from the other side.
No Good Deed Page 10