Mira had already apologized about the plastic, like it had actually mattered. She was used to wine without stems, or even glasses. She was used to inferior wine enjoyed in less-than-stellar settings. Though this, even with the awkwardness, was better than her cargo ship cabin. Anything was better than that—well, except for sliding through the darkness of secret-processing-plant chutes. She could go a whole lifetime without having to experience that again.
Maybe Mira’s sunlit terrace wasn’t so bad.
Maybe the wine would help her forget about lying face down in garbage. Maybe it might even be possible to carry on a conversation with a woman she’d never had to be alone with before.
But what could they talk about that wasn’t all about Jackson?
Was there anything else they had in common?
“How’s work?” Annica said, instinctively floating out a thoughtless prompt for small talk.
“Work is . . . busy.”
She suddenly pictured it, at Jackson’s downtown D.C. office, Mira working directly under his supervision, and perhaps under him literally.
She leaned back in her chair, downing the rest of her wine.
“I think they’re here,” Mira said.
“Oh,” Annica said, perking up. “They?”
“Your boy,” Mira said. “Your intern or whatever.”
It didn’t make any sense. Her boy?
Mira said, “You were supposed to pick him up at the airport?”
“Ethan!” Annica cried, standing up from her chair. “Oh, my God. I totally forgot.” She followed Mira back up the steps onto the main floor of the pole house, each step filling her with a tinge of guilt. Not guilt for leaving Ethan stranded, but for thinking of no one else but Jackson for the past hour. It was the only thing that would force visions of Sharky and that cold, dark tunnel out of her head.
Voices boomed through the high ceilings, through the open-concept beachside dream house where he and Mira had already, undoubtedly, fucked in every single room.
“Hey, Babe,” Jackson said.
Annica had to wait until she turned the corner before she could know, conclusively, that he’d not been talking to her. It was a stupid and perhaps half-drunk expectation. She had still not eaten anything today, and the wine had already warmed and dulled her. Were it not for the excitement of Jackson’s arrival, she might have been dozing off, letting the ocean breeze play with her hair, her mind drifting along with it.
Jackson pulled away after Mira’s embrace and kiss, and he smiled at Annica. She felt him light her up, warming her, his eyes doing more than the wine.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, coming nearer. “I was worried. What the hell happened?”
“Nothing,” Annica said, moving in for a quick, polite, and utterly lifeless hug. “Well, something. But I’ll explain later.”
He gave her an odd look, brows pitched inward.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Well, it’s something.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “What is it?”
She looked over to Ethan, her shaggy blond, twenty-something intern fresh from J-school. He looked glad to see her.
“Hey? Annica?” Jackson was scowling at her. “Don’t make me dangle you off the railing out there.”
“Later,” she told Jackson, moving past him to greet Ethan, who, as evidenced by that hungry look in his eyes, wanted to grab on to her for yet another hug. But Annica had enough of those already, especially a hug from Ethan, the hopeless romantic. He’d seemed hopelessly crushed on her from the beginning, his eyes always following her around the office. Eyes that lit up a little too brightly when he’d heard about his opportunity to travel with her to Hawaii. For work, she’d told him. Not play. For work, and not the kind that he was hoping for.
“You forgot about me,” Ethan said, brushing a lock of hair from his eyes. He seemed to be playing it off like nothing, but she was more than sure he’d eventually revisit the topic later when he’d require sympathy for some snub or another. At least, that’s the extent of what she would ever lend him. It would be the best she could do, a genuinely warm apology. That was all she had warm for him.
Annica looked at this shaggy, cute boy, and she smiled softly. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Jack gave me a tour.”
“Who?”
“Um . . . Jack?”
Annica laughed. “Jackson?” It was almost precious, Ethan already assuming that type of familiarity.
“I’m not supposed to call him Jack?”
“Call him what you want,” Annica said. “I’m just giving you a hard time. Like today. Sorry again, I just totally got wrapped up in the story.”
She thought again of her soft landing on a tangled mess of garbage. She got wrapped up, to say the least.
But Ethan didn’t seem too impressed. “Just don’t forget that I’m supposed to be in there, too.”
“In where?”
“The story,” he said. “Wherever you were today.”
“Trust me, you didn’t want to be there.”
Jackson said, “Be where?” giving her a dirty look as he passed by.
When Annica looked back at Ethan, he’d barely broken his gaze from her. “You okay?” she asked him.
“Yeah. What?”
“Staring at me like that.”
Ethan glanced her over again and said, “You look a little . . . You look messed up.”
“I’ve been drinking.”
“I’m serious.” He was looking along her arm. “Are those bruises?”
“Maybe.”
“Are those for our story or for something else?”
“What are you talking about?”
He frowned. “I just don’t want you to leave me out of it.”
“I know,” Annica said. “I won’t.”
“Dean sent me here for a reason.”
“I know.”
“For more than just getting coffee,” he said, sounding slightly wounded. “I want to help you. Really help you.” His eyes softened on her, still grazing across her body, until looking down and away from her like he was suddenly overcome with embarrassment. It was a worrying sight. Just what kind of help was he trying to offer?
“I’m sorry,” Annica said, “If I made you feel . . .” She trailed off.
What was it?
What the hell was this kid feeling?
She finally guessed with, “Unwanted?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, not used to your full potential.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, yeah.”
“You’re right; you’re here for a reason.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“This isn’t some little local piece,” Annica said. “For that kind of stuff, the only thing you could do was get coffee. But this is a little more substantial.”
“Good,” he said. “I just finally want a chance. I need it. I’m trying to get hired next year.”
Annica had to pretend that she didn’t know about Dean’s plans of testing him. The kid was good, in his limited opportunities. But they were also easy opportunities. She knew now that Hawaii offered more than either of them bargained for. “Maybe that’s why Dean sent you,” she said. “A test.”
“Yeah, I was kinda wondering why. Like, why not someone with more experience?”
“That’s what you’re here for. Experience.”
Ethan nodded. “Thanks, Annica.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “You’re also just here because you’re young.”
He smiled at that. An innocent, youthful smile.
“By young, I mean foolhardy,” she said. “And stupid.”
He was still smiling.
Annica made a polite getaway when her pocket buzzed with a new message. She waited until she was sufficiently alone, near the front doorway, before she looked at the screen.
It was her old pal from the cargo ship, the cook, Frankie.
She read the message, holdi
ng her breath the whole time, needing for it to be about Sharky. Was she right? Was he Cole?
He’s trying to contact you.
9
Annica
“So you just walked in there?”
Annica turned away from the ocean view, leaning the small of her back against the deck railing to face Jackson. He took another sip of his drink, but it did nothing to sweeten the soured expression on his sunlit face.
“Right?” he said. “You just decided, ‘Hey, I’ll just put everything on hold to investigate this random building.’”
“It wasn’t random,” Annica said. “He went in there.”
“This random guy . . .”
“No.”
“Okay, so you followed a random guy to work, and then just waltzed right in after him.”
“Well, I looked around first,” she said. “But no one was at the front desk, so . . .”
“So you trespassed.”
“I took a risk.”
“A really stupid risk.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Jackson said. “That’s why it’s a risk. That’s the nature of it.”
“It paid off, didn’t it?”
“We’ll see.”
She took a deep breath, watching him contemplate it.
“You almost died in there,” he said.
“All the more reason for you to take this seriously.”
“That’s the problem,” Jackson said. “I’m taking it too seriously. You’re lucky if I let you out in the field again.”
Her eyes widened. Let her? “You’re seriously that hung up on the trespassing?”
“That doesn’t help either.”
“Jack, trespassing is nothing compared to what’s going on in there.”
“Okay,” he said, “So why don’t you tell me about it? What’s their operation? Drugs?”
Her mind went back to the factory floor, the belt line, the glass vials in everyone’s hands. What were they? Fluorescent light bulbs? Fuses?
“What was it?” Jackson asked.
“Well, it had to be something major.”
Jackson huffed as he stepped up to the railing next to her, looking out to sea. They were staring in opposite directions.
“Something big enough to kill over,” Annica said.
“That’s another thing. They’ll find out you survived.”
“I made sure no one saw me.”
“Annica, you didn’t just lead a bunch of assassins to my nice rental house, did you?”
“No,” she said. “Your pole house is safe.”
He frowned and said, “We’ll see.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep making me nervous,” Jackson said, watching Mira climb up the stairs from their patio.
“Sorry,” Annica said, watching Jackson take a deep breath, and then watching his face freshen up to a smile for his girl.
“Sorry,” he said to Mira. “Annica here just dropped a bomb on us.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Annica said. “Not about the bomb, but about leaving you alone with Ethan down there.”
Mira smiled. “No, he’s cute. He’s almost giddy with being here.”
“It’s a long way away from Journalism School,” Annica said.
“It’s a long way from anywhere,” Jackson said. “That’s why I like it so much. Well, used to. Annica’s about to ruin it forever with her damn investigative reporting.”
“So that’s what you’re calling it now?” Annica said, smiling. “I thought I was trespassing.”
Mira smiled. “What’s good journalism without a little trespassing?”
“She got caught,” Jackson said, his face deadly serious. “They wanted to shoot her in the head and dump her body in a garbage bin.”
Mira’s mouth hung open. And then finally, it produced a quiet “Oh.”
Jackson said, “I’m not sure if that’s good journalism, or good anything, if you can’t survive to tell the story.”
“I survived,” Annica said. “And I’ll tell the story.”
“With our help,” Mira said to Jackson. “Right?”
“Of course,” he said. “We’re already on it.”
10
Cole
He’d be a dead man if he couldn’t come up with that phone. He knew it. And so Cole had spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding Captain, the whole time feeling a return of that dark, heavy cloud descending upon him. Blackness choking out what was left of the light. It wasn’t like the kind of blackness he’d felt while climbing over the rails of the cargo ship. It wasn’t a cloud of his own emotional weather system, of whatever he had going on in his head. This time the doom was coming from outside his body, from somewhere else. From someone else.
He tried his best to shrug off its icy touch, and to leave work casually like nothing had happened. Like he wasn’t being spied on. But it was hard to keep his head from swiveling at every odd sound, from checking behind him every few minutes. Even after he’d left the building, and the block, and that whole half of the Hilo.
The Hele-On public bus Cole was riding, with all of its witnesses, seemed like the safest place in the world. He sat there as the streets rattled by, finally relaxing just a little bit. And finally he had time to think about his last few days. The ethical blurriness of it all. He thought about being on the Batchewana, regretting how he’d skipped out on his interview with her—even if it had been some sort of trap. Cole had always felt that way, but now the idea of it almost crushed him. Here he was in the same danger he thought he’d be avoiding. Only now he’d have none of the advantages of coming out and airing his story, his truth. He would have none of the protections that a whistle-blower would normally enjoy. He didn’t even have the satisfaction of coming clean to another human being. And to have that person listen. It could have changed everything, the catharsis of confession. It could have saved him.
Looking back, he could see it as just another wasted opportunity. He might not ever have the chance for one again.
Mentally and physically drained, Cole ambled up the steps to his single-story bungalow. Cheap temporary housing he’d been sharing with Tommy, an islander. A cheap front door that offered hardly any security benefits, except against the weather. But he was expecting much worse than the weather. He’d have to warn Tommy about that.
He walked through the house with his hand on his holster, clearing each room systematically before he finally made some noise about it. “Tommy?” he called, making his way to the rear of the house, the backyard. Tommy had a habit of crushing beers in the backyard after work—an activity that Cole usually enjoyed when he wasn’t fearing for his life.
“I’m out here,” Tommy said.
“Here” meant two half-busted lawn chairs next to a crumbling Styrofoam cooler. And a sloppily dug fire pit, their BBQ, a blackened grill laid over a hole in the ground.
“Grab one,” Tommy said, knocking the lid off the cooler. “They’re cold.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“What?” Tommy almost looked offended. “You’re definitely not good if you can turn down a cold one.”
Cole stood next to his chair, eying its most recent damage, wondering if he had time to sit. He also wondered if it would even support his weight at this point.
“You alright?” Tommy finally said.
“I’ve got to take off for a while.”
“Huh?”
“But I need to warn you about something.”
“The hell’s goin’ on?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Cole said. “There’s some shit going on.”
“Like what?”
“Like you might have to not be here for a while. I’ve got some guys looking for me.”
“Lookin’ here?”
“Probably.”
Tommy sat up in chair, scrambling straight. “Fuckin-A . . . Like how soon?”
“Maybe as soon as tonight.”
“Fuckin-A, man . . .”
He felt bad about it, leaving his friend in the lurch like this. Possibly leaving him forever, depending on how bad things got.
Maybe he should sit down with Tommy for a minute.
But just not on that lawn chair. When Cole touched it, he could almost feel the impending collapse. Instead, he went for the cooler, grabbing a can of beer out of it before replacing the lid, and then—
“Dude!” Tommy cried. “Are you fucking nuts doin’ that?”
Cole froze up. “What?”
“You really think that cooler’s gonna to hold you up?”
By this point, Cole’s fatigue had become almost unbearable, his brain itself feeling like the Styrofoam he was just about to crush.
Yet Tommy continued ripping on him. “You’re almost better off using that damn chair, man.”
Cole decided to go with nothing, plopping down on the hard-packed dirt on the other side of the BBQ pit. He cracked his beer and blew off the foam, and began wondering how he’d survive the next few days without the reporter’s phone.
The naturally skeptical Captain, especially with the suspicions he’d already had about Cole, made his survival chances seem unbearably slim. He could normally talk his way out of anything. But this might require a little more than talk.
“Cole . . .”
“What?”
“Are you gonna talk to me about this or what? What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“I think I might have made some enemies at work,” Cole said. “That’s all I can say.”
“Really? That’s all?”
“And those enemies might be coming here,” Cole said. “I’d hate for you to get wrapped up in it.”
“Well, it’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” Tommy tossed his empty can into the cooler, groaning with disgust. “What do I gotta do? Move out now?”
“No, just take off for the weekend. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal’s gonna get you killed?”
“I’m trying to be smart about it,” Cole said. “And I’m trying to get you to do the same.”
“I was gonna bring Patty over.”
Dark Salvation (DARC Ops Book 7) Page 7