They ate in silence.
Watched a Sandra Bullock movie on DVD.
Went to bed.
When Jack finally fell asleep around 2A.M., Phin got up and did a line of coke. His nose started to bleed, and he went into the kitchen to look for paper towels. Found several rolls in the cabinet under the sink, next to an old Polaroid camera and a box full of instant snapshots. Phin wiped away some blood, then packed his nose with two strips of paper towels. Against his better judgment he flipped through a few of Harry’s photos. As expected, they were sexual in nature. Lots of crazy stuff, including several naked selfies. Phin congratulated himself on his correct assumption; McGlade did buy the punt gun as overcompensation. But at least the dude was getting some.
He left the kitchen and searched through McGlade’s extensive collection of adult movies, found something not-too-weird, watched ten minutes and jerked off, thought about playing some pinball but figured it would wake Jack up, sniffed more coke, did a hundred pushups, ate some leftover chili, and set up the table to shoot some nine ball.
After he broke the rack, Jack wandered into the game room. She was wearing one of his old tee-shirts, and looked half asleep.
“I got up to check on Sam,” she said.
“Sam’s not here.” Phin sunk the one ball.
Jack yawned. “How long have you been playing?”
“Just started.”
“So, what have you been doing?”
“Ate,” Phin said, lining up the two. “Exercised. Watched some porn. Whacked off.”
“That all?”
Phin sniffed, wiped his nose to make sure the bleeding had stopped. “That’s all. You up for a game?”
“No.”
“This used to be our thing.”
“I know.”
“We used to have fun together.”
“I know.”
Phin missed the shot, and sank the cue ball. He chalked the stick, and without looking at his wife he said, “I’m trying real hard, Jack. But I’m not liking you very much lately.”
“I don’t like myself very much lately.”
He placed the cue, sunk the two in the corner. “If you aren’t going to make an effort, why did you come up here with me?”
“I don’t know, Phin. If you don’t like me, why are you staying with me?”
“Because I love you.”
“I’m… broken. And I don’t know if I can be fixed. It’s like I’ve been putting my feelings on hold, and now all the pain and horror of the past has finally caught up with me, and I have nothing left for anyone but my daughter.”
“She’s our daughter. I’m in this, too.”
“How am I supposed to care about you when I don’t care about myself?”
“Start small.” Phin held out the cue. “Play a game with me.”
For a moment, Jack seemed like she was going to accept the offer. There was a hint of it. In her eyes. In her posture. But instead she said, “Your nose is bleeding,” and then left the game room.
Phin blew his nose into his tee shirt, snorted more cocaine, missed his next four shots, then broke the cue over his knee in frustration.
He marched into the bedroom.
“I know you’re going through some shit. I’ve gone through some shit, too. And now, you’re putting me through more of it. You can’t even play a goddamn game of pool? Really, Jack? After all we’ve been through, that was too much to ask?”
Jack shifted in bed, but didn’t respond.
“I’m hiking into town. I’ll be staying there until you decide if you want to be a part of this marriage, or if you’re so far gone you’re willing to throw it all away.”
Jack remained quiet.
“I’m leaving. Don’t you have anything to say?”
Phin listened to her breathe. After several long seconds she whispered, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” Phin said. “The woman I fell in love with left me over a year ago. And she didn’t fight hard enough to come back.”
Phin found his jacket, pocketed his cell phone, and left the house, heading toward Spoonward. He walked to the main road, saw a sign for a motel eight miles north, took another bump of coke, wiped the tears off his cheeks, spat on the ground, and went to find a room for the night.
He’d left in such a rush of bad feelings and cocaine impulsivity, he’d forgotten to take his .45 with him.
T-NAIL
Spoonward was his.
The two roads leading in and out of town were covered. Law enforcement had been removed. They had formed a wide perimeter around the cop’s cabin, watching her with night optics, planning the final details.
At 4 A.M., T-Nail had been ready to give the attack order. Then the cop’s husband, Phineas, walked out the front door.
Should we take him down? Del Ray texted.
T-Nail despised texting. He was willing to admit he’d fallen behind, technology-wise, while in the slam. But the amount of time these kids spent on their mobile devices was infuriating. T-Nail believed he could single-handedly murder half of his team before any of them looked up from their cell phones to see what was going on.
Still, texting was silent. They were out in the sticks, no one around for miles, but ringing phones and talking could alert the enemy of their presence. So as much as he loathed it, T-Nail texted a reply.
No. Follow him.
Del Ray’s response came so quickly, T-Nail wondered if he’d already written it and was just waiting to press SEND. Do we take the cop?
T-Nail glared into the darkness. He wasn’t sure where Del Ray was, but the General was overstepping his boundaries. T-Nail alone would give the order, and no one was to question him. Had Del asked that question while in the same room, T-Nail would have broken his nose.
We wait to see where the man goes. T-Nail texted, his fingers too big for the touch screen, hating how long it took to make sure there were no typos.
Got a team on him. We’re waiting on your signal.
Insubordinate moron. Of course they were waiting on his signal.
T-Nail took a deep breath. The air had an unfamiliar taste. He missed the smells of Chicago; car exhaust and Lake Michigan and garbage in alleys. Gunpowder. Crack smoke. The sour, oily scent of the El train when it passed. Wisconsin smelled wrong. Too clean. Too foreign.
Pressing the button on his chair, he extended himself to a standing position. The men around him cast surreptitious glances, trying not to stare. He moved forward, his wheels easily navigating the forest floor, crunching over pine needles and rocks and dead branches. T-Nail stopped when he had a clear line of sight on the cop’s house. He raised up his night vision goggles and zoomed in.
The house was still
He switched to thermal. It didn’t work as well as Del Ray had boasted. But he eventually found a small, pink line in the eastern corner of the house.
Jacqueline Daniels, lying in bed.
It had been twenty years since he’d last seen her. A long time. She’d be an old lady now.
That made T-Nail an old man. An old man, about to settle an old score.
For two decades, she’d been allowed to live her life, while he’d been denied living his. Free to go where she wanted. Do what she wanted. Eat what she wanted. Fuck who she wanted.
Walk where she wanted.
Enjoy your legs, cop. They’re going to be one of the first things I take from you.
But they won’t be the last.
How much suffering could T-Nail inflict on Jacqueline and her family to make up for all he’d gone through?
T-Nail had no idea.
But he was anxious to find out.
DEL RAY
His thumbs were a blur on his touch screen.
He went into town.
Del waited for T-Nail’s response.
Waste him.
Del Ray texted the team that followed the husband, giving them the go ahead.
And the cop? he texted back to T-Nail.
Kill th
e signal. We take her. Now.
JACK
The phone woke me up.
Phin wasn’t in bed next to me, so I grabbed my cell, hoping to see his name come up. But instead of Phin, it was Tom Mankowski, a detective at the 26th who used to work for me. I blinked at the time. 7:16 A.M.
An emergency?
“This is Jack.”
“Loot, sorry to call you so early. It’s Tom Mankowski.”
“I’m not a lieutenant anymore, Tom. What’s up?”
“I just found out about it, and haven’t been able to get in touch with Sergeant Benedict. Did he call you already?”
“Herb’s on a staycation. He turned his phone off. Found out about what?”
“Last night, Terrence Wycleaf Johnson escaped from prison.”
That was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. “T-Nail.”
“Two guards and three paramedics are missing.”
“What happened?”
Tom ran it down for me.
“Sounds like he had help. Has the ambulance been found?”
“No.”
A chill ran over me as the paranoia took root. I’d been so worried about being visited by Luther Kite, I hadn’t given much thought to other monsters from my past who might come calling. T-Nail was a very bad man. No conscience, no boundaries, as ruthless as a person could get. But unlike the other serial killers I’d dealt with in my former job, T-Nail was also a chief member of one of the largest gangs in the country. If he wanted to make a play for me or my family, he’d have unlimited resources.
“Have you talked to anyone in the gang unit? Are they making a move?”
“I just heard about it on the blotter, immediately called. Want me to send a car over?”
“No need. We’re up north. Harry’s got a place near a lake. I’m pretty sure we’re okay. T-Nail never even learned my name. I testified undercover.”
“Where are you? Wait, don’t tell me. I’m working a case, and electronic security is a lot less secure than I had thought.”
“The Snipper?” I asked. I’d been following the case in the papers.
“Yeah. Got me and my partner running in circles. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s been a second murder.”
“Describe the scene,” I said.
Tom ran through the highlights. Or, more accurately, the low points.
“It sounds like a sex crime,” I said.
“No semen. No evidence of rape.”
“Were her breasts mutilated like her mouth and vagina?”
“No. Untouched. Like the last one.”
“Was the bra left on?”
“Yeah.”
I thought it over. “Men sexualize the female breast. Unusual that the killer left hers alone.”
“Are you thinking the perp might be a woman?”
“I’m thinking that even though it looks like a sex crime, the killer may have an agenda that isn’t sexual. Have you run a ViCAT report on the vic’s name? You can also run an alert to inform you automatically if anyone inputs new data. It’s likely the killer is looking for a new victim. If the pattern is followed, there will be harassment first. Maybe you’ll catch a break.”
“Good idea. You have a second to spitball?”
“Sure.” This was a lot easier than talking about relationships.
Tom gave me his theory on who the killer might be. I admired his insights. Tom was a good cop.
“Identity is more than how we view ourselves,” I added. “It also colors how we view others. We’re pack animals. We tend to want to be around people like us.”
“And what if we can’t find anyone like us?”
“Then we try to change them so they are.”
It felt good to be talking shop, but when I spoke those last words, I realized the obvious.
That was what I’d been doing to Phin. I was unhappy, so I was trying to make him unhappy. By pushing him away, proving I was unworthy of his love, I could justify rejecting myself.
Maybe I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Or postpartum depression. Or a midlife crisis, exacerbated by a new baby and a drastic job change.
Maybe I had all that, and even more.
But making Phin hate me wasn’t the way to deal with it. I should have been doing the opposite.
If I just stopped fighting and let him love me, maybe I could learn to love myself again.
I needed to call Phin. To apologize. To beg him to forgive me.
I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Tom, I gotta run. Thanks for the call.”
I waited for a response, but didn’t get one.
“Tom? You there?”
I looked at my cell, saw the call had ended. Did Tom hang up? Had the call been dropped?
I dialed Phin.
Nothing happened. I squinted, looking closer at the screen.
No Service.
Getting up from bed, I began to walk around, holding my phone in front of me like Diogenes, searching for a signal.
No matter where I walked, bars refused to appear.
Then I heard a beeping. A beeping that wasn’t coming from my cell.
It was coming from the control room, where Harry had all of his security and surveillance equipment. I jogged over to it, going inside, focusing on the glowing monitors.
I counted thirty armed men, with guns, moving toward the house. Harry’s cameras were hi-definition, and in the dawn’s early light I could see the colors they wore.
Purple. Orange. Green. Caps and bandanas tilting right.
Eternal Black C-Notes.
T-Nail had found me. And he’d brought an army.
Fear squeezed me all at once, making it hard to breathe. But my first concern wasn’t for my safety. My first concern was Phin. Why had I let him leave? Did they have him?
Was he already dead?
I checked my cell phone again. Still no service. I’d had some experience with cell phone jamming before, and I knew I was being shut out. And Harry, in his infinite wisdom to keep his secret hideout a secret, didn’t have a land line or Internet access. There was no way I could contact my husband.
But Phin was a badass. Except for an old mob guy named Tequila, and a spy named Chandler, Phin was the toughest person I knew. He wouldn’t go down easily.
I pushed him out of my mind, convincing myself he was fine until I learned otherwise.
Then I pushed the fear deep down and went to go arm myself.
I knew what T-Nail wanted.
He wanted me.
And he wasn’t getting me without a fight.
PHIN
It had taken him two hours to get to town, and less than five minutes to walk through it. Spoonward’s Main Street could have fit neatly inside of Soldier Field. It consisted of a bait shop, a tiny police department, a library, a diner, a gas station, a post office, and a tiny building only open Tuesdays and Thursdays that housed a lawyer, two doctors, and a dentist.
Phin attempted to use his cell map to find a motel, but couldn’t get a signal for the GPS. So he followed a road sign to the twenty-four hour Walmart, hoping it would have a payphone.
His immediate not-very-profound thought was why the hell did this small town need a Walmart? Maybe it was one of those cases you read about where a Walmart came in and drove all the mom and pop stores out of business, making it the only place left to shop. Phin admitted some surprise when he approached the parking lot, which held close to a dozen cars. Some had to be staff, but even a few customers at five in the morning in a town this tiny suggested that maybe Sam Walton was onto something.
Upon entering the first set of doors, Phin saw a soda machine, a Redbox for movie rentals, and one of those claw games where you wasted fifty cents to try to grab a stuffed animal worth a quarter.
No pay phones.
Apparently the universe didn’t want him to find a motel.
Phin didn’t believe in fate. He rejected destiny the same way he rejected religion; it was baseless superstition with no em
pirical proof. But for some reason he was penetrated by the fear that something terrible was about to happen to Jack.
Something that would be his fault. Because he’d walked out on her.
Phin quickly wrangled the feeling, trying to make sense of it. Which was easy to do.
This wasn’t some ungrounded premonition.
It was guilt.
Since leaving Harry’s cabin, all during his long walk on dark, empty roads, Phin had been hating himself and his actions. He’d allowed his temper to get the better of him.
No, that was actually a lie. Phin had been angry with Jack for months. He’d always managed to maintain his cool.
The problem wasn’t anger. The problem was cocaine.
He’d reached for it out of unhappiness, and it gave him the false bravado to leave the woman he loved, when she needed him most.
Yes, Jack was broken. And maybe she’d never be fixed.
But he was the King of the Assholes for giving up on her. She might have had a few personal issues making her tough to deal with sometimes, but Phin had more than a few issues; he had a lifetime subscription to the Bad News Gazette. His life was a photo essay of bad decisions and sketchy actions. But Jack still loved him. Trusted him. Stood by him. Had a baby with him.
And he’d gotten high and walked out on her.
Why? Because she’d been distant? Because their sex life had dried up? Because she wasn’t the Jack he used to know?
Sure, all of that was true. But it was easy to love someone when everything was going right.
A strong relationship, the kind Phin wanted, meant still loving someone when everything went wrong.
He needed to tell this to her. To apologize. To beg forgiveness. Jack hadn’t been the same since Sam was born. But as long as Jack would have him, Phin would support her and be there for her and love her.
Phin dug the vial of coke out of his pocket, dropped it in the nearest garbage.
I’m going to be the man Jack married.
I’m going home.
He turned back toward the parking lot, and was so into his own thoughts he failed to immediately notice the seven armed men converging on the front door. Five black guys, one white, one Latino, each of them with bandanas up over their faces and automatic weapons in their hands.
Rum Runner - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 9) Page 8