by James Hunt
Lena knew they could go round and round and round in their Mexican standoff, but eventually one of them would have to give. “This is what’s going to happen. I’ll call the DA, and he’ll work with you on mounting evidence. Once you have a deal worked out I’ll take it to New Energy’s CEO and use it as leverage. If they don’t give me what I want, I renounce the bill and make the charges public. But until that happens we need a smoke screen, something to keep the kidnapper believing that they’ll get what they want. I’ll have my assistant send out a press release. It won’t say much except that I will be speaking about my daughter’s abduction. We’ll schedule the announcement right before the deadline, which will allow us to maximize our time.”
“You think you can get the DA to agree to establish a deal with the feds for this guy without giving them the inside scoop on what’s happening?” Jake asked.
“The DA knows a few people with the FBI,” Lena answered. “And he owes me a favor for getting him the job after I left the department.”
“And what will you be doing while Ken and the DA are working on the case?” Mark asked.
“There is one good lead in Bismarck,” Lena answered. “The guy who sold the bullet that killed Jake’s deputy that was watching Kaley. Jake and I will go and look into it. It’ll take a few hours for Ken and the DA to work everything out, so we’ll have the time to make the trip.” She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “If the DA backs out for whatever reason, or what Ken says is no good, or we can’t get any further information from the lead in Bismarck, then I go ahead with the announcement. That’s our failsafe.” She leaned forward. “We keep all of this under the radar. We can’t let the press catch wind of what we’re doing. The moment New Energy finds out, Kaley will be in trouble. But if we can go to them in private, if we can show them what we have out of the public eye, it increases our bargaining power while keeping Kaley’s life out of danger.” She pushed herself up from the seat. “I need to make a call. Jake”—she motioned to the door—“I need to talk to you for a second.”
Once they were out of earshot, she spoke but still kept her voice low. “When we go to Bismarck, we can’t return with nothing.”
“I know.”
Lena tapped her foot and studied the stoic expression on her brother’s face. “We need the smoking gun. That means doing what we need to in order to get an answer.”
Jake placed a hand on Lena’s shoulder. It was lighter than she expected, but when he pressed his fingers into her skin she felt the same sturdy hand that helped guide her to get clean. “We won’t come back without a name.”
Lena exhaled, her breath rattling. “We should leave soon.” She looked over to the deputies, both of them watching her. “You sure they won’t give us up?”
Jake kept his eyes on her while he spoke. “You see the taller guy with the short-cropped hair?”
“Yeah.”
“I helped deliver his firstborn. We can trust them.” Jake leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to grab a few things from the gun safe. The combination still Mom and Dad’s anniversary?”
Lena nodded and watched Jake enter the house, or what was left of it. The front was still peppered with the bullets from the attack, and all but one window had been boarded over with plywood. The house was wrecked, and so was her family. She lingered outside by the truck, gritting her teeth. She knew what needed to be done, but if the pieces didn’t fall together perfectly, then they’d be in more trouble than when they started. And it would be Kaley who suffered.
“Hey.” Mark snuck up behind her. There was still a red mark on his cheek from the scuffle with Ken. “You and Jake leaving soon?”
“Yeah, I want to get there and back as soon as possible.” She paused, unsure of where to navigate next. She’d done most of this without him in hopes of protecting him, even though she knew it wasn’t what he wanted. “What do you think?”
Mark crossed his arms, and his stance grew rigid. “I think it’s dangerous. What if we’re wrong, Lena? What if it’s not New Energy? What if it’s a woman like Carla Knox who went off the deep end and snatched our kid out of some misguided fear that it would keep her family afloat? What if Ken’s just playing both sides? What if—”
“What ifs don’t help us.” Lena stepped forward. “If there is anything I learned in the courtroom, it’s that you stick with what you know. I know that New Energy has used dangerous tactics before in the effort of self-preservation. I know that Ken had high-level access to private information, and I know that we now have less than twelve hours before the deadline hits. And even if I’m wrong about all of this, it still gives us time to make the announcement.”
“As long as no one finds out about what we’re doing,” Mark said.
“They won’t.” They couldn’t. But she kept that thought to herself. It implied that there was still a shred of doubt in her mind, and if she let that doubt fester, it would rot away what resolve she had left. “This will work.”
Mark dropped his arms to his sides, his shoulders sagging. He looked tired, more tired than she’d ever seen him. “I trust you. But…” He rubbed his forehead until the patches of skin turned red. “If this fails… will you be able to handle it?”
The past week had been the hardest of her life. It surpassed law school and the fight against New Energy that took up two long years of her life. It eclipsed the campaign and the past several months she’d worked on getting her piece of legislation passed by her community, and it certainly was harder than rehab. If she could have chosen right then and there to have her daughter back or go through all of them again, it wouldn’t really be a choice at all. “It won’t fail.”
Chapter 6 – 10 Hours Left
The heat from the gas flares on New Energy’s property was nearly as hot as the afternoon sun. Despite the chaotic recent events, the rigs were still running at full capacity. Scott made sure of it. He paced the trenches like a bulldog, barking at anyone not toeing the line. “Hurry up, boys! You want the money, you got to show me you want it!”
Every snarl Scott wore was masked within a smile. There wasn’t a man on the rig that didn’t fear him, and it fueled the beast inside. He should have gotten into this business a long time ago. Sweat, oil, and blood. It was everything he was made of. He’d spent years working for an array of different people and companies. The job was always the same, but this was the first time he’d ever felt connected. He’d always been drawn to violence. And this industry had it in spades.
Scott’s phone rang, and he retrieved the device from his pocket. He pressed the phone to his ear, waiting for the usual confirmation, but was instead blasted with a frantic rant. “Calm down!... Where are you now?... Well then, get there!” He snapped the phone shut and clenched it in his massive fist. The plastic casing creaked from the pressure.
He turned on his heel and headed for Ken’s office. Heavy thuds pounded the steps up to the door, and he thrust it open. “We need to—” His eyes fell to the lamp on the floor and the hastily scattered papers strewn about the desk. The snarl returned, this time with no smile to mask it.
Scott opened the desk drawers, searching for Ken’s personal documents, but found them gone. He also noticed the picture on the desk had disappeared as well. He flipped open the phone and dialed Ken’s number. Straight to voice mail. He snapped it shut. His muscles tensed.
With his left hand he smashed his fist through the portable wall. When he yanked his hand free, dust and wood splinters fell to the floor. He stormed out of the office, again calling Ken, and headed for his car. The call went to voice mail once more, and he tossed the phone into his passenger seat, peeling out of the parking lot and heading down the road.
If Ken wanted to run, that was fine. Scott knew he wouldn’t get very far. He sped down the highway and reached for the bag in the backseat. He removed a laptop and flipped it open. He balanced the wheel with one hand and entered his password with the other. His eyes drifted between the road and the screen as he cli
cked on a folder titled Surveillance.
Recordings, documents, and an HTML link rested inside. He clicked the link. A map opened up with a blinking cursor, which was the tracking bug he’d planted in Ken’s car after he was brought on. Scott squinted at the map, his foot slowly easing off the gas. Ken’s car was just up the road.
Scott scanned the horizon but saw nothing except for the rolling hills on either side of the highway. He pulled off the road and parked his car on the shoulder. He zoomed in on the map to get a better read and saw that Ken’s car was off the highway, not moving, only four hundred yards away.
He reached into the glove box and removed a pistol then shifted the car into drive. His tires screeched as he sped down the highway, watching his location in comparison to Ken’s car, and continued until he was parallel. Tire tracks marked the road, and the grass was matted and torn up from what looked like two vehicles. He swerved off the pavement and followed the trail.
It led him up a hill, and when he reached the top he saw two wrecked vehicles parked next to one another. He recognized Ken’s BMW easily enough but wasn’t sure about the second vehicle until he moved closer. It belonged to Lena Hayes’s husband.
Scott parked and examined the wreckage. No bodies. He returned to his car and reached for his phone in the passenger seat. He dialed Mr. Alwitz and waited for the bristly CEO to answer. “We have a problem.”
***
Lena paced around the living room, the cell phone glued to her ear, where it had been for the past thirty minutes. “What about trying your contact over with Homeland?”
“I could try, but the more people we bring into this, the harder it’s going to be to keep it quiet.” Danny had a point. And considering he was the North Dakota DA, she thought it best to listen to him. “With the national spotlight your town has been receiving, it’s going to be hard to find anyone that won’t want to brag about it to their superiors. It’s quite the promotion bait.”
“I don’t need them to be quiet forever,” Lena said. “I just need them to keep quiet for the next twelve hours. Once I have Kaley back I don’t care who they tell or what they tell them they did.” She rubbed her forehead. “Look, this won’t work without your official seal. I go to New Energy with anything less, and they’ll know I’m bluffing.”
The silence on the other end only added to Lena’s anxiety, which immediately broke the moment she heard Danny’s long sigh. “All right. But I’m not going to be quiet after this. And if push comes to shove and you have to give credit to one person, and one person only, then it’s going to be me.”
“Danny, you help me get my daughter back, and I’ll recommend your appointment to the United States Attorney General’s office.”
Danny chuckled. “Now I need to get that in writing.”
Lena walked over to Ken, who had passed out on the couch. She shoved his arm, and he frowned when he opened his eyes. She extended the phone and raised her eyebrows. “You’re up.”
Ken took the phone, covering the mouthpiece as he spoke to her. “He’ll get me and my family out of here?”
“The moment it goes public,” Lena answered.
“And I get that in writing?”
“When I get mine in writing.” It was the best either party could do under the circumstances, and Lena left Ken and Danny to their business. She knew it was a risk trusting him, but it was the only way this would work. Lena found Mark in their room. His back was turned to her, and he sat on the edge of the bed. She walked over and joined him. “Danny said he’ll do it.”
“He’s a good man.” Mark had his fist closed around something.
Lena scratched the crook of her arm and felt the distance between the two of them. “If you’re upset because I didn’t include you in all this, I was just trying to—”
“Do you remember the night that I asked you to marry me?” Mark asked the question as though he’d forgotten the night himself.
“I remember.”
Mark smiled. “I was so nervous. I kept checking the inside of my pocket for the ring to make sure it was still there. I actually dropped it twice when you were in the bathroom at dinner. You nearly caught me putting it back under my sleeve.” He twirled the golden wedding band around his finger. “I carried that thing around with me for over three months.”
“Three months?” Lena asked. “Why?”
Mark shrugged. “I kept looking for the perfect moment. That one frozen piece of time that would be ours forever. I thought maybe I’d see you wake up in the morning, after a really fun night we had, and surprise you with it. Or on a stormy night where we stayed home and binged on movies and junk food and laughed until we cried. But something always happened. We would argue over something stupid, or one of us would be in a bad mood, had a long day, were sick.” He spread out his fingers. “And then I realized something, and I felt so stupid for it taking me so long to get there, but it didn’t matter how I proposed to you. It didn’t matter where, or who was with us, or what we were wearing. The only thing that mattered was your answer. And if it was a yes, then we would get to spend the rest of our lives together, and that is the most perfect moment I could have ever hoped for.”
Lena reached for Mark’s hand. “I’d still do it all over again.”
“Me too.” They kissed, and Lena rested her head on Mark’s shoulder. After a moment Mark frowned. “I still don’t think we can trust Ken.”
“Neither do I. But I trust his interests. If he thinks the best chance for his survival is to help us, then that’s what he’ll do.”
Jake knocked on the door, holding the rifle bag. “You ready?”
Lena nodded, and both she and Mark stood together, hand in hand. Gwen was in the living room, and Lena gave her daughter a kiss and a squeeze. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Mom.” Gwen pressed her face against Lena’s chest and closed her eyes. Lena didn’t want to let go. She didn’t want to leave them. She didn’t want to go to Bismarck. She didn’t want Kaley to be taken, but if the long road Lena had traveled so far had taught her anything, it was that the world would do whatever it could to keep those wants away from you. So you had to fight for them.
Chapter 7 – 8 Hours Left
Lena shifted on the old truck bench, trying to keep her ass from growing numb. Buildings had sprouted on the sides of the highway now, and in the distance she saw the Bismarck skyline. The car ride over had been quiet, but every time Lena looked over to her brother it looked as though he meant to rip the steering wheel from the dash. “We should talk about your case.”
“After.” Jake kept his eyes on the road, his knuckles blanched against the old black vinyl of the steering wheel.
Lena kept her voice as steady as she could. “You said you moved the body because you wanted to hurt the oil company. Because you wanted to try and help me.” Lena placed her hand on his shoulder. “Was that the only reason?”
“Kelly and I never had a future.” Jake’s voice cracked to an octave so low it sounded as if it hurt to speak. “Was there an attraction? Yes. But that’s where it ended. For me at least. I know she wanted something more.”
“And how long are you going to keep that up, Jake?” Lena shoved him in the shoulder. “I know you, and you’re not built for the short game, no matter what you tell yourself. You don’t become the sheriff of a county because you have commitment issues. What are you protecting yourself from?”
Jake stayed quiet for a moment, and Lena didn’t think he would answer. But she was surprised when he did. “Do you remember when Mom and Dad went through their divorce?”
“Yeah. It was brought up quite a bit in my sessions at rehab.”
“All of the arguing, all of the madness, all of the bickering and back and forth and blah, blah, blah.” Jake worked his hand like a puppet. The hum of traffic had picked up the closer they moved to the city, and the truck rattled from a semitruck that barreled by. “They were just so angry all of the time. That’s all I remember from them being togethe
r.”
“They weren’t angry all of the time.” Though Lena conceded that their childhood wasn’t the most peaceful upbringing. But if either of them had used their parents’ marriage as a role model for their real life, then it was her. “You can’t blame Mom and Dad for your commitment issues.”
“I don’t. In fact, the only thing I remember more vividly about them arguing all of the time was when the divorce finally happened,” Jake said. “They were so happy. There wasn’t any more fighting or bickering. They were better alone, standing on their own two feet. That’s the way I am, Lena. I’m just better on my own. I’m happier that way.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s not an easy truth, but it’s mine. And that’s the way I like it.”
The words resonated with Lena for a moment, pinging around in the depths of her mind. She thought of all the times she got high, alone, with other people, when she was pregnant, when Gwen was just a baby. She did it because it made her happy. She felt good. She felt alive. There wasn’t anything else like it in the world.
Lena ran the tip of her finger over the diamond of her wedding ring. She remembered what Mark had said about finding the perfect moment to ask her to marry him and realizing that moment didn’t exist. And that what was most important was a future together and creating something perfect out of the imperfect. “Just because something makes you happy doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I’m living proof of that.”
“You had an addiction. That doesn’t—”
“Everybody has an addiction, Jake.” The city’s skyline sprouted on the horizon, and they’d entered the outer limits of Bismarck. Lena looked out to the street corners, where they passed hundreds of people. All of them in a rush to get somewhere or meet with someone. She saw a few of the homeless people crouched and hiding down alleyways—the only ones that didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. “It just comes in different forms.”