by Jack Slater
“Your mom was right, okay? Maybe I’m easy to read, I don’t know. But I’ve been running for longer than I can remember. Not from the law, or anything like that,” he said, suddenly worrying that this sheriff’s daughter might get the wrong impression. “From myself.”
He fell silent again, struggling to formulate words that simply would not come to his lips. A pocket of resin exploded on the campfire, causing a light show that sent sparks sizzling across his vision. One fizzed across his eye line, bouncing off his shoulder and almost singeing Shea’s silky hair before he batted it away.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
Perhaps it was that that did it. Such a little kindness, but more powerful for it. The sluices on the dam in Trapp’s mind opened, and the words started spilling out.
“I didn’t grow up like you did, okay? My dad… He wasn’t a good man. My mom, she tried to be, but he broke her, and he used me to do it.”
“I’m sorry, Jason,” Shea whispered, her voice heavy and halting. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t,” Trapp said, and it was the truth. He’d only spilled his guts about his childhood to one man before, and though Price was practically a brother, this was different. Back then it had all felt so raw. Hell, he’d only been a few weeks removed from the hell house of his childhood, and basic training didn’t exactly provide the best opportunity for a heart-to-heart.
“He liked to hurt us, my mom and me. Guess it distracted him from whatever was hurting him. Wish he’d found something else to take out his anger on,” Trapp said, wearing a weak smile that wasn’t fooling anyone. Shea grabbed his arm and squeezed it tight, and it kind of helped.
“It was all I ever knew, okay? But at the start, when I was a real little kid, I guess my mom was still able to protect me. Shelter me from the worst of it. And maybe something in him understood you couldn’t go that far, not with a boy of five or six.”
Shea gasped, but he carried on, too far gone now to stop. “The older I got, the more he hurt me, but after a while it was like the script got flipped. He figured out that I was trying to protect my mom, realized he could use me to wound her. It went on like that for years, until I was about seventeen.”
“What happened then?” Shea asked, her voice taut with a horror that she was unable to mask, no matter how hard she tried. Even so, Trapp somehow understood that she was prompting him to continue not because she wanted to know, but because he needed to tell.
“He killed her,” Trapp said simply, looking directly into the fire, but seeing instead his mother’s body sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, no spark left in her eyes. He felt the heat of that rage coursing through him again like it was the very first time.
“Oh my God,” Shea said, involuntarily lifting her hand from his shoulder and covering her mouth. “Jason, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he replied, not entirely listening. “It was a long time ago.”
Both of them fell silent for a few seconds, perhaps even minutes, it was hard to tell. Time only passed in the form of the logs in the fire burning down to glowing embers.
Shea finally broke the quiet. “What happened to him, your father?”
“He went away,” Trapp spat, his voice cold and hard as he pictured his father tumbling backward down the stairs, grasping at a banister for support before the rotting wood sheared away. The elation he’d felt when he saw the stillness in the man’s chest, and the unnatural angle of his neck.
Part of his mind worried what Shea would think of him for his tone, but mostly he didn’t care. Whatever he said, the rage still burned inside him as intensely now as it ever had.
The silence descended again, and Trapp wondered if he had gone too far. He lifted the bottle again, unscrewed the cap and drank deeply, barely tasting it now. He passed it over to Shea, who did the same before resting her head back on his shoulder.
Guess you didn’t scare her away entirely, a tiny part of him thought wryly.
“You probably didn’t notice, but my parents like you, Jason,” Shea said at long last, the tiny vibration caused by her lips moving making her hair tickle his ear. He resisted the urge to brush it away, because for all the pain and hurt it had uprooted, a part of him wished it would never end.
Trapp opened his mouth to respond, but Shea cut him off. “Shut up and let me finish, Jason.”
So he closed it, figuring it was the safer option.
“They always wanted a son, you know. Maybe you guessed. Especially my mom, after what she went through. It just never worked out that way.”
She trailed off, considering what to say next, and Trapp took the opportunity to wedge his foot into his mouth, instead of just listening. “They love you, Shea. Hell, they’re damn crazy about you.”
Shea’s lips parted as she started to reply, before she shook her head and started giggling. “I know that,” she wheezed, gulping down a deep breath of wind-swept smoke at precisely the wrong moment. That prompted a fit of coughing, and when she was done, the tears in her eyes glittered from the dancing firelight. “But you should see the way Mom looks at you.”
Trapp—wisely—decided not to interrupt. Not this time, anyway.
“I wasn’t their first, you know,” she whispered, nestling down on his arm again now that the hysterics had subsided. “My parents, I mean. My mom was pregnant twice before, with boys both times, or so they were told. The first one was over before she even started showing, but it took a couple of years before she was ready to try again.”
“And the second?” Trapp ventured, sure he didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Seven months,” Shea said simply, her voice laced with an aching sense of regret for a brother she’d never known. “And then it was over. Mom went to the ER, but he came out stillborn. He’s resting in a plot at the churchyard in town. So by the time I came along, I guess Mom had kind of given up hope. Dad too, but he had to be there for her.”
Trapp wriggled his arm free from underneath Shea’s cheek and rested it on her shoulders, pulling her in tight. He said nothing, just let her know that he was there. This wasn’t her trauma, not exactly, but it was plainly one of those events that scars a whole family. An invisible hand that reaches out and shifts the road from underneath their feet, setting them in another direction entirely, toward a place that’s neither better, nor necessarily worse.
But always different.
“Anyway,” Shea said more brightly after a few seconds had passed, “after that the doctors said it wasn’t safe to try again, and since she had me I guess Mom accepted that. And then…”
“What?” Trapp asked, though he sensed he already knew.
“You had to come along and give them hope.” She smiled sadly. “That the son they thought they could never have was there after all. Not in the same way, I’m not saying that. Maybe I don’t even know what I’m saying. Just… They might never get that son they wanted. But a son-in-law? I guess that’s the next best thing.”
Trapp held his breath, his heart aching, and not just from the melancholy embedded in Shea’s tone. He knew what she was offering: redemption. And not just for him.
“I’m not squeaky clean, Shea,” he whispered, picturing his father’s body one last time, and the family in Iraq, and the trail of all those he’d hurt or failed to protect. “If I stick around, maybe someone gets hurt. Maybe it’s best I leave before—”
She shushed him, first with a warning glance, then a finger on his lips. “You don’t get to make that choice, Jason.”
Then the finger was gone, replaced by her own lips. And he forgot his pain for a while.
And a little longer after that.
The fire popped, and Trapp’s head whipped around—but in precisely the opposite direction. He ignored a spark that had danced out from the flame and was even now caressing his jeans and stared into the darkness that surrounded them, cursing the damage the flames had done to his night vision. When he squeezed his eyelids shut, a bright orange glow appeared in th
e place of darkness.
“What is it?” Shea asked, her tone curious but not concerned.
Trapp replayed what he’d heard in his mind. It had sounded like a man’s boot snapping a twig underneath it. Little compared with the acute immediacy of that sound. He kept his voice low. “I heard something.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she grinned.
He didn’t reply, reaching down for the flashlight, then standing up tall with his next breath. He flicked the power switch and swept the beam of light left and right into the darkness. “Do you get cougars around here?”
“Not this far north,” Shea replied. “And not this time of year, even if we did.”
“Wolves?”
“Nope. And no bears, either. It’s probably just a raccoon, if you’re not hearing things.” Shea grinned, picking up a stone and hurling it into the darkness. “There—I’ve scared it off. Now, if you’re done freaking out, I think we had some unfinished business that needs attending to…”
Trapp turned back and saw her curling a strand of hair with one hand as the fingers of the other traced their way down her top. He consciously forced himself to relax, allowing his shoulders to drop as the hoodie came off Shea’s. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
18
The safehouse was a dilapidated shack about 10 miles from the center of Goodmorning and was not fit for animal habitation, let alone human. At least, that was Mike Lee’s opinion.
Still, it at least had the saving grace of being cheap, and since he’d rented it from a drunk who he’d paid in cash for the full month, there was effectively no chance it could be traced back to either him, or just as importantly, Odysseus.
The old farmer’s eyes had been drawn to the thin wad of greenbacks to the exclusion of all else, almost certainly dreaming of the liquor it would be parlayed into, which gave Lee the additional comfort that even if things went wrong, and law enforcement was alerted, there was no possibility of a police sketch being created. Not a good one, certainly.
The shack was now a little more presentable than it had first appeared a couple of days earlier, and although he initially started cleaning to avoid catching anything contagious during his enforced stay, Lee had spent the past couple of hours tidying over and over, just as something to do.
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate, he allowed. The truth was, he was nervous. He suspected he had an idea of the identity of at least one of the men who had been sent to meet him. And that individual was not the kind of man you wanted to meet anywhere other than a very public place. Just in case.
The grumble of an engine and the patter of stones hitting the underside of a car’s chassis informed him a second later that company had arrived. Lee walked toward the front door and then hid behind it, somehow unable to summon up the confidence to open it without prompting.
Though he did not know it, that kind of cowardice has a scent.
The car slowed, then stopped.
Nothing happened.
Then a door opened, and another. The crunch of boots on the ground. The rear doors opened, then they slammed shut. Footsteps built until they hit the porch, their timbre deepening on the timber.
And then came the knock on the door.
Lee gulped, scrunched his eyes shut, and finally built up the courage to open it. When the door swung open, two men stood on the other side: one with a thick ginger beard, tied with a woman’s hair tie at the tip, and one with no hair at all, just a thick stubble, who stood just behind. Both men carried large black duffel bags on their right sides.
He stretched out his hand at the man with the rust-streaked beard. “The name’s Mike. Mike Lee. You’re Eric Finch, right?”
“My reputation precedes me,” Finch said without raising his own arm in greeting. “Don’t say that name too loud, you hear?”
Lee shook his head dumbly, and once it finally dawned on him that Finch had no intention of reciprocating the gesture, he dropped his outstretched hand. “No, no—of course not. Come in.”
“You’re the guy who found him?” Finch asked, dumping his black duffel bag to the floor, where it landed with a heavy, metallic thud. Behind him, the big guy followed suit.
Lee swallowed hard, unable to draw his eyes away from Finch’s unnamed companion for very long. Something about the man was truly terrifying. He looked like he could crush a human head between those two meaty paws of his without breaking a sweat. More than that, he looked like he might even enjoy it.
“Um…”
“Spit it out,” Finch cursed.
“Yes. Sir,” Lee added belatedly.
Was that how he was supposed to refer to his superiors—since Finch clearly numbered among those? It was easier in the Army, where everyone wore their rank on their sleeves, and even if they didn’t, a wise soldier would salute a fire hydrant if in doubt, reasoning that at least that way they definitely couldn’t land in any trouble.
“I followed up the lead headquarters sent down, anyway. It’s definitely Trapp.”
Finch grunted dismissively. “So you’ve been watching him?”
“Yes,” Lee said, deciding to keep his answers short and sweet from now on.
“So why isn’t he dead already?”
Lee’s tongue flicked out and tracked across his lips anxiously, and he cursed himself a second later for doing so. “I’m not usually a field operative,” he explained.
Finch sneered. “You served, didn’t you?”
“Yes sir. Eric. But I was intelligence, not infantry.”
The powerfully built mercenary flicked an imaginary piece of fluff from his fingertip. “You and all the rest. Fine. Show me what you got.”
Lee glanced at the big brute behind Finch, catching the man’s eye and immediately wishing he hadn’t. There was nothing in those orbs. Not intelligence, not soul. Just…
Emptiness.
He shivered, doing his best to disguise the automatic reaction, but immediately sensed that he hadn’t succeeded. “Of course. Please, follow me.”
Lee led the two men to a wooden dining room table. When he’d first entered the safehouse, he’d found it on its side and missing a leg. It now stood the right way up, one corner propped on a window ledge, which was better than nothing. He’d already placed a map of the area on the table, along with a thin stack of black and white photographs of the target, which he now spread out on the face of the table.
When he’d imagined this briefing earlier, before Finch arrived, he had thought of himself as slightly debonair. Not now. His palms were soaked with sweat. “Don’t worry, I developed them myself,” he said.
Of course you did, dummy. He instantly cringed.
“That’s him?” Finch asked.
“Yes.”
“Big guy,” the man commented. Lee didn’t react to that. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say.
Finch spent a few minutes studying the photographs, at one point lifting a close-up shot of Trapp’s face and holding it only a few inches from his eyes, as though he was shortsighted or something. His bald companion neither moved nor spoke.
Finally, Finch spoke. “You said you were in intelligence, right? Well—what’s your recommendation?”
Lee’s mouth was bone-dry, and he swallowed in an unsuccessful attempt to secrete some moisture. “He rides a bike,” he said, half-coughing as a little saliva drained down the wrong pipe. “A Harley.”
“So?”
“It’s better if we make this look like an accident, right? Fewer questions that way.”
“Uh huh.”
“So,” Lee began, his stomach falling away as he properly considered the implications of what he was saying for the first time. “I… suggest we knock him off. It’ll look like a hit and run. A lot of questions, but if we do our job right, not a lot of answers.”
Finch nodded thoughtfully, allowing Lee to breathe a sigh of relief. “And if the crash doesn’t kill him?”
Lee’s hands met each other behind his back, where he wiped his
damp palms on the back of his pants. He knew what he was supposed to say, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words.
Finch’s pet strongman made a sound for the first time, a barking, derisive laugh. The big man stepped forward and clapped Lee on the shoulder. “He doesn’t have the balls. Don’t worry, little man. If it comes to it, I’ll snap his neck for you…”
Eric Finch looked on impassively. “Anything else?”
Lee wondered whether he should say what was on his mind. As before, it was easier in uniform. A good officer always wanted an accurate assessment of the enemy’s strength. But did this mercenary feel the same way? “Maybe.”
“Stop wasting my time,” Finch spat, banging his fist against the rickety wooden table for emphasis. It swayed, but didn’t quite collapse.
“Okay, it’s just a hunch,” Lee mumbled.
“But something about this guy worries me. It’s like… it’s like he knew I was watching him. Not consciously, I mean,” he hastened to add. “Just… instinctively. Like he’s some kind of predator.”
The bald thug met Finch’s eyes, and the two men turned away without saying another word. But they didn’t have to speak for Mike to know what they thought of him.
After what seemed like an eternity of dismissive silence, Finch said curtly, “Get ready. We’ll hit him tonight.”
19
“Hey, Lenny?”
The old bartender merely grunted in response. Trapp grinned. “You mind holding the fort this evening? I got a date with a girl. You might know her.”
“You think you could’ve given me a little warning?” the older man grunted. “Maybe I’ve got things to do, you think of that?”
“Cut me some slack, all right?” Trapp grinned, gesturing at the empty bar. “It’s Tuesday. This place won’t see a soul for the next six hours, and you know it.”
Lenny sucked on his teeth and grumbled a little to himself, but Trapp thought he detected a smile on the old man’s lips.
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” he chuckled. “Oh, and can I ask a favor?”