by Jill Cooper
Jeff thought of the morning and everything he would have to do: make Marie’s lunch, get her to the bus, head to work, grab the weekly rations. It all seemed so normal and relaxed. He should have been happy, but there was a hole inside him. Almost like a growing wound and the longer he ignored it, the larger it seemed to get.
He didn’t know what it was, but when he thought of Susan, he felt angry. Sad. But, he shouldn’t be. Jeff needed to snap out of it. For Marie, for everyone. Jeff had to be the caregiver now and he couldn’t do that without a level head on his shoulders. Work would notice if his performance was anything less than perfect.
Heading back to the door, something under the vanity gleamed in his sight. Probably a piece of trash, he thought, so he went down on his knees and stretched his hand under the vanity. Jeff was surprised to see Susan’s engagement ring in his hand. Delicately he stroked the small diamond and then it all flooded back at him and knocked him over onto his butt.
Taking Susan out for their first float date at the malt shoppe.
Kissing her beneath the glow of the moon at the monthly open square sock hop.
The pleasure of taking Marie, and then Jake, home from the hospital as tiny newborns.
Before her death, Susan had been scared. Jumpy. But she always put on a brave face and Jeff knew. He knew, and for his part, he ignored it. Pretended nothing was wrong. Even when everything was wrong. Susan knew then, what Jeff knew now, they were nothing more than pawns. And Susan, his girl, had been used by New Haven to kill Lawrence Stark. And then they killed her.
Jeff squeezed a fist around the engagement ring so tight it caused the stone to dig into his flesh. Finally he felt something other than calm. It was like fire in a pit, beginning to smolder.
A look of anger, of determination, of revenge, fell upon his face.
Chapter Twenty-Four Jenna
When they arrived at the Summerset cabin, the sky was twilight and the air was cool. Jenna inspected the perimeter while Dirk investigated out front.
The comm in her ear chirped with his findings. “Someone’s been here, Jen, and it wasn’t Santa Claus. They left in a real hurry. Two set of tire tracks. Big trucks. And overlapped on top of them is a third set.”
“Let me guess,” Jenna said dryly. “A van, right?”
“Bingo, the lady wins a prize.”
“Damn, we’re still two paces behind.” Jenna sighed, her eyes sweeping across the terrain. The cabin had a great view of the town and the harbor. It was far enough away so if there were trouble, the neighbors probably wouldn’t have heard anything. It made her anxious. “I’m going inside to see if there’s anything left. Anything that will tell us where they’ve gone.”
Dirk’s sigh had argue written all over it, but Jenna didn’t wait around to hear it.
The door squeaked as she went inside. Downstairs was orderly, as if everyone would be back after running errands, but things were different upstairs. Dresser drawers were half open and the closet hangers were askew as if clothes had been ripped off them in a hurry. One room had a few traces of medical supplies and saline, and there was an old blood pressure cuff on the bed. Maybe they had prepared for Wendy to give birth here, or maybe she was having medical problems due to the glistening in her womb.
Jenna thought that more likely and moved to the room across the hall. It was decorated in blue with a bassinet, a gentle mobile, and a half-hung wall border with stuffed teddy bears. She felt bitter about Wendy’s innocence, that any adult had allowed this to happen. She was just a kid. To be thrust into the middle of a war between those who supported glistenings and those who didn’t wasn’t fair.
Jenna knew Wendy would never be allowed to keep her glistening baby. Either the government would take it for experiments, for its “protection,” or someone would make sure no one ever knew the baby ever existed, and wipe them all off the map. They were playing with a young girl’s life. And the ones who t pursued them? Threw the chief away like he was nothing.
Damn glistenings. If the baby had been aborted, or miscarried before anyone knew, no one would be in this mess. But it was real now, a heartbeat and limbs. Probably a soul. Jenna was going to need to protect it and Wendy. If she could just catch them.
For the lives of her crew and for the Chief, she needed to make things right. But she didn’t know how much of their lives would be intact when this was over. The vids over the Net made it seem as if Congress was two breaths away from destroying the New Havens.
No one gave her an award for doing it. But she was sure that government suits would pat each other on the back for saving a few budget dollars. The New Haven projects would be bulldozed for new mini-malls. People would forget. Makeup and plastic surgery would come back. And then maybe one day, it would all happen again.
Jenna sighed. She hated it when she thought too deep about this stuff. She wished she could just have a few bottles of beer and veg on the sofa downstairs. But every minute they were there was another minute that the police closed in on them. She didn’t want a confrontation yet. Not before they knew where Wendy was. And why they had suddenly left. Leaving all of her baby’s stuff behind.
She couldn’t help but stroke the small blankets. They were so soft, for delicate skin, and made Jenna wish for simple times. How wonderful it must have been for Wendy, still excited about the future and everything it would bring. Jenna remembered too.
Her comm buzzed. It was Jameson. “Come around to the back. We found an old shed. There’s a stench.”
Jenna’s stomach tightened. “On my way.”
She sprinted down the steps and out the back door off the kitchen. The backyard, set up for sunbathing, had a nice view of the summer harbor. Far off was the padlocked shed, with enough distance from the house to keep people from wandering off to it.
A nearby ax for firewood made quick work of the door. Jenna and Jameson pried the boards free. They were old and splintered, so dry that even through black gloves Jenna felt the sting of wood shards piercing through her leather.
With the boards free, they were assaulted by the smell of death, thick and consuming. Jenna covered her mouth on instinct while Jameson coughed. “Wendy?”
Jenna shook her head. The smell was so foul that whoever—or whatever—was there had been there longer than a few days. She bent and pushed some gardening tools out of the way.
Not really surprising from the smell, there was a dead body, but Jenna was surprised that it was a naked woman. Her arms were bound behind her back and her vacant eyes stared up. Jenna recognized them, even through a river bank of dried blood. It was Sally Winters. The middle-aged woman who always aided her mother. The one who helped Jane Morgan give birth to Jenna Morgan.
In secret. In hiding.
“It’s the nurse,” Jenna said.
“If that’s the nurse, then who’s with Wendy and her glistening lover?”
Jenna didn’t think she was going to like that answer.
Dirk’s footsteps rustled the grass behind her. “Lots of local chatter online. Looks like the family running the local store, the Millers, threw a baby shower for a young couple, who flipped out when Wendy’s photo was featured on the afternoon news. Before you know it, people at that party were calling the hotline. FBI’s already mobilized. Once the red tape clears, they’ll be here.”
“Guess that explains why they left in such a hurry.”
“News?” Jameson asked. “Who watches the news?”
“It’s a fishing port, Jameson. Not exactly on the cutting edge.” Jenna said. “So,” her mind spun as she tried to piece everything together, “Wendy hightails out of there and comes here. Tell her nurse imposter what’s going on and the nurse forces them to move. To cover her tracks and to keep that baby for herself.”
“Who do you think she works for?” Jameson asked.
Dirk stuck his head into the shed. “Damn. I hope when I go, it’ll be with more dignity than that.”
“It probably won’t be.”
Dirk gave her
a look. “I already said I was sorry.”
“Sometimes sorry doesn’t cut it.”
Jameson sighed. “Can we work on your issues later? Laurel’s goons will pick up our track soon. I’d rather not have them find us here having a lover’s spat.”
Jenna agreed. “Let’s head to the Millers’. If they were friends to these kids, they might have more information than they know.”
“Let’s get moving before our photos are cast all over the evening news. Armed and very dangerous.” Jameson grinned, but it lacked all humor.
“With a potato shooter? Mini-marshmallows?” Dirk asked with a trace of laughter.
But there was no laughter left in Jenna’s heart. There were only hot stinging tears in her eyes. “Time for jokes is over.”
*****
“We’re here to help the kids,” Jenna explained to the guarded couple at the door. The home was quaint. Again she felt herself jealous for a simpler life. Wouldn’t it be nice to forget this all and retire to a fishing village or maybe become a surf instructor off the coast of Hawaii? She always did like warm climates. “We want to help them and we can’t, without some direction.”
The woman’s stance softened, but John Miller stared her down, his arms crossed his chest. “I feel lied to, taken advantage of. Why should I trust you enough to tell you anything?”
They always started with the tough questions. “Because it’s my job to help people. I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to track Wendy here. I need to get to her before others do. Her life and her baby’s are worth a little risk, don’t you think?” Using kid gloves wasn’t her usual tactic, but when you were a fugitive, choices changed.
John grunted. “You’re with New Haven police, aren’t you? And if I don’t tell you what you want, you going to come in here? Bust up my home?”
Jameson cringed. “Some stories get embellished. We’re not above the law. We just run perpendicular to it.”
Jenna gave him a quick elbow. “What Officer Jameson is trying to say is, don’t believe everything you hear. A few bad officers don’t make us all bad. We’re here to help.”
Something about what she said, softened him. John nodded. “Was she being held here against her will?” he asked, and Jenna wondered why. What made him think that she was in trouble?
“Not that I’m aware of, but that doesn’t mean she’s not in trouble. If you know something, tell us. Before something happens to her and her baby.”
“What about Larry?” Mary asked. “I mean, Jake. Why don’t you care about him?”
“Wendy is our first priority, Ma’am.” Jameson said.
“He’s one of them, ain’t he?” John asked. “Glistening.”
Jenna really didn’t want to answer that question, but to earn his trust, she did. “Yes. But he’s not a threat.”
Mary gasped and covered her mouth while John only nodded. “Suspected, once everything came out. How good he was with fixing stuff. Polite. Almost something old-fashioned about him. I liked him. Good kid.” John sighed. “You gonna harm him when you find him?”
“No, just bring him back. His parents miss him.”
John nodded again and Jenna felt like she had him where she wanted, soft and pliable thanks to Twenty Questions, nineteen of which she didn’t have time for. “All right,” he sighed. “We went to the cabin to try to stop them. It was quite the scene. Wendy, Jake, neither of them looked like they wanted to leave, but they forced them into trucks.”
“They?” Dirk asked and the nervous twitch in his voice made Jenna’s stomach tighten.
“The nurse and the guy. He’s only been in town a few months. Seems fishy to me. Thomas Crane, he calls himself. He took Jake with him. He,” John swallowed hard, “threatened us.”
“How?” Jenna asked.
“He had a big shotgun, that’s how.” Mary’s cheeks lit up red with anger. “He said he’d kill our kids if we talked to the FBI. Well, he didn’t say it, but he inferred it.”
That explained their reluctance. Jenna wanted to know who this guy was and fast. Jameson looked at her and took out his phone.
“We wanted to help them,” John said. His eyes were warm and he wore worry lines on his face. “If they are in trouble, if they need a place to hide, I want to help them.”
“Oh, John,” Mary whispered.
They were good people. Honest and noble. Jenna forgot good still existed and her heart felt warm in their presence. “I’ll do my best to help them. I’m sure you’ll hear from them again one day. Right now, we have to find them.” Jenna tried to make them feel better, but wasn’t sure she had. Wasn’t sure she could. Instead they headed back to their van, still shiny black and brand new from where they picked it up the night before, and for the main road.
“Marksmen?” Dirk asked.
“Sounds like it. A professional, whoever they are and whatever they want, we can bet it’s not to knit booties for Baby Glistening.” Jenna felt that they posed no immediate danger to Wendy, not until she gave birth to the baby, but the men following them wouldn’t hesitate to take them out.
Whoever this marksman was, Jenna hoped he was good enough to protect Wendy, but hoped he didn’t kill the only men who could clear her name.
Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. “Hello?”
“They haven’t made it to your mother’s compound yet. Any sign?” Rebecca’s voice was a tight rope of stress.
“No. They’re not headed there. The nurse you put in charge, Sally Winters, is dead.” Jenna wished she could relish in shocking Rebecca, but couldn’t.
“What? That’s impossible!”
“Tell that to the stashed cold body in a storage shed out back. When was the last time you spoke with her?”
“Over the phone? In person? We sent her there six weeks ago to prep everything. Her last report was yesterday morning. Said Wendy was fine. All her stats were good. It’s better than we expected because—”
“Because?” Jenna prodded with urgency.
“Because when we examined Wendy at our offices here, her blood pressure was already high. We thought the medicine was working. We thought—” Her voice was rushed, like a girl trying to get out of punishment.
“What you thought doesn’t matter. Those e-mailed documents to you were forged by what is most likely two highly trained mercs, or assassins, or worse. Designed to keep you far away from the cabin.” Jenna’s anger flamed. “You should have been here. Checking on her in person. That baby is your prize, so why weren’t you here, Ms. Seers?”
“I have appearances to keep up. Do you have any idea what’s going on? In the House? Congress? I have my work cut out for me already. The lobbyists trying to keep our country pure are pulling out all the stops. Meanwhile the Glistening Rights and Protection Act is under attack. If one more thing happens, that casts a bad light on the glistenings—”
“I know,” Jenna said softly. “I can’t stop that, but I can protect this kid. But first I have to find her. Do what you can to help the glistenings and mobilize your people at the compound. They have to be ready for when I take Wendy in. We don’t know what her condition will be when we find her.”
“And Jake? What about him? Do you give any thought to him at all?”
Not since his mother went apeshit and killed Lawrence Stark and three of her fellow officers. But she didn’t want Rebecca to know that. “We will do everything we can to save all three of them.”
“Maybe I misjudged you, Ms. Morgan. Do your best and I’ll do mine.”
“You sure forgive easily, considering I questioned you under gunpoint.” Jenna had a lot on her mind and couldn’t keep it to herself anymore. “From the looks of it, Wendy dreamed of the three of them being a family together. I’m pretty sure you always knew that wasn’t going to happen. Too bad you let Wendy believe it.”
Rebecca stammered. “It could too work. At a protective facility. The child is going to need love. Its mother is the best thing for that.”
“While you run your test
s and parade it in front of the press, politicians, showing them how ‘human’ it is, right?” Jenna didn’t really want an answer and slid her phone shut.
Jameson gave her a sideways glance. “Don’t forget to put your comm back on group.”
“You have something to say?” Jenna asked, and not nicely.
“I’m just being paranoid, right? Since we’re all one big happy fugitive party, if you’re keeping secrets, I’d like you to stop. For reals, Jen.”
“I’m not keeping anything you need to know. Nothing that matters to this mission.”
“Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”
A wave of nausea hit her. Jenna closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Listen let’s head to the cabin and make one final sweep. We’re going to need to make tracks before the FBI gets here.”
“Is there food somewhere in your plan?” Jameson asked. “We can eat from the road. I saw a drive-thru on our way in.”
“Burgers?” Jenna asked with hope.
“Burgers.”
“Awesome.”
Jenna didn’t find much in the cabin. Her eyes lingered on the baby’s nursery, even though it was Wendy’s room that ached her the most. In her dash to safety she left behind mementos that were usually important to teenagers. Necklaces, pictures of friends, some makeup. She wasn’t a kid anymore, not really. Now her mind was reeling with worry about her half-breed kid and how it led to her father’s death. Jenna remembered how Wendy looked at Travis. It was the same way all girls looked at their father. The way she looked at hers, even after everything.
The way—
Jenna sighed and moved to the next room. Inside there were lacy bras strewn about and a pair of soiled work boots in the corner. Looked like Sally’s impostor and her partner frequented the same room. She wondered if the teenagers knew or cared. Or were they too busy playing house to notice? The first nights, she bet, were exciting, but by now the novelty probably had worn off.