Trigger

by S. G. Redling

  And yes, the dress was starting to itch.

  Dani didn’t even know where her clothes were. She had nothing and nobody.

  Except Tom. Tom Booker had been thoughtful enough to give her a phone. Wasn’t that a nice flashback to their first encounter? When he was just a terrifying voice on the phone hunting her down. She wanted to throw the cheap cell phone hard against the white stone facades of the building in front of her. She wanted to watch it shatter and scatter, adding to the grit and trash clogging up the cracks in the sidewalk.

  But there weren’t many cracks in the sidewalk up here, were there? Not much trash either. Here on 111th Street and whatever park this was, the sidewalks were wide and maintained. This was the world of the Charbaneauxs and Wrens, and all the other strangers Dani had been forced to mingle with. Now she was going to have to find her way back to that world, or at least to a few members of that world.

  Dani turned her back on the greenery behind her and started walking toward what she hoped was the direction of the cathedral and Choo-Choo. More sirens wailed and, while the number of people on the street increased as she walked, nobody seemed to pay any mind to any commotion that might be growing.

  The driver had said something had happened at the funeral. “All kinds of shit going down.” That would make a decent title to her autobiography. Dani crossed Broadway, one direction of it, going uptown? Downtown? It looked nothing like any of the postcards she had seen of the famous street. There were no theaters up here at 111th Street, just grocery stores and cafes and drugstores. But down the street, Dani could see the gothic façade of the cathedral filling the skyline. She was close.

  Then the motorcade approached.

  A phalanx of police cars – some black-and-white, some dark SUVs with cherry lights in the windows – rolled her way. Traffic moved aside and a uniformed officer stood on the corner, waving pedestrians away from the curb.

  The VIPs were evacuating.

  And Dani didn’t have a ride.

  She stood on the corner, taking it all in. SUVs with blackened windows passed on the street. The mix of the pedestrians around her changed from uncurious New Yorkers to badly disguised (to her) undercover security. Car after car turned onto Broadway going in the direction she had just crossed. Downtown, it was probably safe to assume. Black-and-whites stopped the traffic in all directions waving the string of black windowed vehicles through the intersection.

  One vehicle stopped before turning. The black glass lowered, and Dani wondered if this was the time a muzzle would flash, and she would drop dead onto the dirty concrete. In a heartbeat she saw it all play out – the crackle of the bullet leaving the silencer, which didn’t actually silence but merely lessened the sound. Would they use a silencer now? Would they have to? Surrounded by like-minded security forces who would have agreed that She of the Oversized Dress and Questionable Pedigree deserved to die in the street like the terrorist they had deemed her to be, there would be no need to hide the deed?

  She wondered about how many times she had imagined this scenario, pictured it on wooden piers, concrete bridges, D.C. streets that looked so different from this other East Coast city. She wondered if she really minded that it was finally happening. She wondered if she should think of it as a relief, a delivery from anticipation. If they thought she welcomed it, would they withhold it? Make her wait? Sadistic fucks.

  She closed her eyes and stood there in voluntary darkness, not struggling to translate the barrage of strange city sounds and smells swirling around her. She stood there waiting for a bullet, waiting for whatever came next. She was tired of trying to predict their moves.

  “What the hell are you doing? Dani, get in the car!”

  Choo-Choo leaned half his body out the SUV window, reaching as if his long arms could cross the dozen feet between them. Before she could smile or exhale or call to him, strong hands dug into her armpits, lifting her onto her toes and propelling her toward her friend.

  “Put her in the car! Put her in the car!” Choo-Choo climbed down from the vehicle, yelling at the two uniformed cops dragging her.

  “Is this who you were looking for?” Radios squawked and sirens chirped in a staccato alarm, alerting the motorcade to the disruption. The cop in her right armpit jerked her toward him. “Are you Danielle Kathleen Britton?”

  “I am,” she answered but he wasn’t listening. He barked something into his radio, all codes and protocols. Dani didn’t bother trying to get loose of their grasp. She would have bruises under her arms. She wondered if they yanked her hard enough, would they damage the implant? Who would punish them for that?

  One of the undercover security agents came over – a middle-sized white guy in his forties so nondescript he may as well have a badge tattooed on his forehead – and spoke to the armpit assaulter on her left. Between him and the one barking into his radio, Dani bounced and stretched, ignoring the stares of the now-curious New Yorkers around them.

  Choo-Choo moved past the undercover security agent. “Where were you, Dani?”

  “Get back in the car, please, sir.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Undercover moved in between them. “I’m going to need you to get back into your vehicle, sir, for your safety and the safety of my team.”

  “This is who I was looking for,” Choo-Choo said and then glared at the cop on her right. “Do you mind? She’s not that tall. And she’s not going to run in those shoes.” The cop lowered, but did not loosen his grip. The cop on her left did the same but not quite as far, forcing Dani to bend in a bad impression of a casual slouch.

  Undercover tapped his earpiece and held up a finger for silence. “Yes, ma’am.”

  A siren whoop-whooped and a black-and-white cut through the stopped traffic, pulling up at the corner of the median where Dani stood suspended. Cara Hedrick climbed out looking annoyed. Undercover’s posture broadcast submission.

  “Is she okay?” Cara said, brushing off the cop on her right like so much lint. She grabbed Dani’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  The unexpected rush of relief surprised Dani, making her throat thick with emotion. “There were too many people. I tried to –”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.” Cara slipped her arm through Dani’s and guided her toward Choo-Choo’s SUV. “All that matters is that you’re here and you’re okay. We’ll sort through everything else later, alright?” She handed Dani into the vehicle and stepped aside as Choo-Choo joined her. “You just go to Olivia’s. We’ll have security there. We’ll talk about everything later, okay?” Everyone in the vehicle nodded, like obedient children. Dani noticed even the thick-necked driver nodded at Cara’s authority.

  She shut the door and tapped on the hood. Cops waved their arms, sirens whooped once more and the motorcade started to move. Rather than turn with the rest of the vehicles, however, Choo-Choo’s SUV went straight, continuing down 111th Street in the direction Dani had come from. A black-and-white followed them.

  Only as they inched along, retracing the steps Dani had taken moments ago did she remember what she had been doing prior to this – being grabbed, the van, Booker, the phone in her hand. How would she explain that? Fortunately, Choo-Choo’s attention lay on the chaos around them, on getting through the security barrier, and on whatever chaos he had just left. On the other side of her, cousin Olivia sat with her head against the seatback, staring in blank misery at the roof of the vehicle.

  Dani did the only thing she could think to do. She stuffed the phone into the cup of her bra, wedging it under her left breast. She hoped the dress was loose enough that nobody would notice. She hoped it wouldn’t fall out between the car and wherever it was they were headed.

  She didn’t have long to worry. The SUV stopped one block later, pulling up to the curb in the exact spot Booker had let her out, where she had imagined smashing the phone against the white stone buildings.

  They knew. Choo-Choo and his cousin and the cops and the drive
r knew she had been there. They had to. Why else would they stop here?

  “Here we are,” Olivia said, opening her door. Before she could step down, a uniformed officer pushed against the door.

  “Ma’am,” the officer said, looking over the roof of the SUV to someone on the other side. “We’re going to need to secure the entrance before we can let you enter. Wait here please.”

  Olivia sank back against the seat. Choo-Choo and Dani did the same. Only the driver maintained a tense alertness. Seconds ticked by as Dani tried to keep her shoulders pulled in under the pretense of giving the other two passengers room. In fact, she was painfully aware of the square corner of the phone jutting out at her chest.

  Whatever they had been watching for had not materialized or had moved on. Olivia’s door swung open and meaty arms passed Olivia, Dani, and Choo-Choo from the vehicle, across the sidewalk, through a cool foyer and into a waiting elevator like so many buckets of water in a silent fire brigade. Dani kept her mouth shut, following the lead of her companions who seemed less unnerved by the goings on. Were they used to this sort of thing?

  It wasn’t until the security team finished their sweep of Olivia’s apartment and shut the door behind them, that Olivia broke the group’s silence.

  “Never let it be said we don’t know how to throw an exciting funeral.”

  Choo-Choo flopped down on a what looked like a leather sofa. It was hard to identify the material from the small patches that weren’t covered in blankets and newspapers and books. He adjusted his head against a lumpy canvas bag and crossed his feet atop the Sunday New York Times Book Review. Dani removed a stained canvas tote back from a cozy looking brown corduroy chair and perched on the edge of the seat. She made a point of keeping her shoulders hunched to hide the presence of the cell phone, which now seemed like the evidence of a string of ridiculous decisions. She shouldn’t have the phone. She should tell Choo-Choo about the phone, about being grabbed by Booker, and certainly about the presence of the tracker in her body and probably his.

  Not exactly the easiest conversational gambit to launch under the circumstances.

  Instead she looked around the apartment while Olivia headed into the kitchen. Dani didn’t know much about New York City, but she knew they were not in the slums. The prewar building had all that old money, Old World feel the Charbaneaux house had in Connecticut but that was where the similarity ended.

  This space wasn’t decorated in that tasteful Charbaneaux manner. It had a more eclectic vibe. On nearly every inch of wall hung photographs and maps, certificates and drawings, charts and tapestries and scarves and even the occasional stuffed bird.

  There were a lot of birds. Pictures of them, dioramas composed of bird feathers, statues and carvings of birds big and small on walls, tables, the floor, the mantel. It looked like Indiana Jones’s library had exploded and been taken over by a relentless race of bird gods.

  Olivia came back into the room with a bottle and three glasses.

  “Is it safe to assume we’re all drinking?”

  “Good God, yes,” Choo-Choo said, pulling himself upright and sending a stack of glossy newspaper supplements cascading to the floor. He ignored them as did Olivia. She joined him on the couch where his feet had been, and the Book Review still was. She set the three glasses in a row and uncorked a slender bottle of brown whiskey.

  “Ice, water, and mixers and comfortable clothes come after the first shot,” she announced, pouring a scant two fingers into each glass. “You do drink bourbon, right Dani?”

  “At this point,” Dani said, taking the glass from her, “I’d drink paint thinner.”

  “Amen,” Choo-Choo said, raising his glass. “To Uncle Mondy.”

  They downed their drinks in one swallow, all but Dani flopping back in their seats with relief. Olivia squinted at Dani. “I can’t believe you’re wearing that dress. My friend Margo calls that The Dress That Will Not Die. I keep leaving it places and it keeps making its way back to me. I even left it at a hotel in Egypt and they sent it back to me.”

  Choo-Choo cocked a disapproving eyebrow. “You packed a wool dress for Egypt?”

  “It was winter. I’d been in Vienna.”

  They both eyed Dani as if making a tough decision.

  “The real question is, if you hate that dress, why do you pack it at all?”

  “Because Mom always says I need to pack a dress. That one always seems like the easiest choice. Look, it doesn’t wrinkle. Blue goes with everything and it’s always appropriate.”

  “Meaning it looks equally hideous for all occasions.”

  “That’s exactly what Margo said.”

  Dani felt sweat pooling up beneath the phone in her bra. Under the cousins’ weird scrutiny, she couldn’t adjust herself in any way. Plus, the bourbon was making her hot.

  Olivia seemed to come to a decision. She sat up, slapping her knees.

  “I’ll tell you what, Dani. I will give you something more comfortable to wear, which in this case could be a Zabar’s bag, if you promise to take that dress with you and never return it.”

  “Deal,” Dani said, immediately calculating how exactly she was going to transfer the contraband phone without it being discovered.

  “Of course, we live in Florida,” Choo-Choo said, warming Dani’s heart with his choice of pronoun. “I suppose we could turn it into a hammock.”

  “Is that a fat joke?” Olivia called over her shoulder as she headed down a hallway off the living room. “It’s a size 8. That’s a normal human size. I don’t need that shit from you, Choo-Choo. I get enough ‘sporty’ comments from my own family, thank you very much.”

  “That’s what they called me too. Sporty.” Dani risked rising from the chair to follow Olivia. The phone slid wetly against her skin, nearly sliding out from its hiding place. She hoped it was moderately water-resistant or all this stealth would be for naught. The jumbled world-traveler décor continued through the hallway and into the bedroom where Olivia pawed through dresser drawers. Over the dresser hung a teak carving of a mythical looking bird. It matched the mobile of wooden filigree birds dancing before the window.

  “You like birds, don’t you?”

  Olivia snorted. “Not as much as you might imagine. With a name like Olivia Wren, the gifts I receive tend to have a theme. I’ve given up fighting it.”

  “You travel a lot.” Dani caught a pair of lightweight olive-green hiking capris thrown her way. Olivia turned and held up a red t-shirt covered in cartoon giraffes. It wouldn’t be snug by any means, but it would be less roomy than the wool dress. Most importantly, the capris had pockets in which to stash the phone.

  “This should work for now.” She tossed her the t-shirt and headed for her closet. “I travel a lot for my foundation. It’s an ecological education endowment.” Her voice grew muffled as she changed out of her funeral attire. “I mostly travel around for the scholarship events and to hear the lectures. I don’t get to do as much field work as I’d like.”

  The snarky ‘must be tough’ thought died in Dani’s mind when Olivia reemerged from her closet looking like she had just fallen out of the kayak shack on Redemption Key. Her curly dark hair stuck out in every direction. Her orange Aruba Bibi tank top clashed spectacularly with turquoise harem pants, and her deep dimples had no room for any of the Charbaneaux’s chilly distance. She held up a lime green Guayabera shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.

  “You think Choo-Choo will have a heart attack if I give him these to wear?”

  Dani laughed. “You’d be surprised how his fashion sense has changed since moving to Florida. That’s practically formal wear for him now.”

  “Good,” Olivia said. “I’m glad he got away. Living with this family isn’t good for him.” She tossed the clothes over her shoulder and headed back toward the living room but not before Dani caught the rest of her comment that came out on a breath. “It isn’t good for anyone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

&nb
sp; “What the hell happened?”

  Cara drew in a deep breath, counting off the seconds that kept her from strangling the next person who asked that question. It had been a valid question an hour ago. Now it had been answered and answered again to the point of absurdity. Well, an answer had been given with sufficient repetition that, in her opinion, it should now be held as fact. That’s how crowd-think worked. This repeated questioning was only a vestige of the belief that truth could be had, some small part of the collective mind that could sense bullshit but couldn’t quite pin it down.

  There had been no fatalities and that was the most important fact. Cara made sure that point got hammered home with twice the frequency of the demands for information. It was an effective strategy in large part due to its simplicity. Equate the insistence for more information with a vulgar lack of appreciation for the lives saved.

  That no lives had been in actual danger was beside the point.

  She supposed someone could have been injured in a trampling incident. Crowds of humans spooked just as easily as herds of cattle. And some perceptive hero could have zeroed in on Hatfield, the ill-tempered head case who had tossed the smoke cannister and taken it upon himself to restrain him. Cara knew from her interactions with the man that Hatfield would happily fight to the death with anyone who tried to pin him down, either in a lie or in a chokehold. That would not have been the worst-case scenario. There would be a perpetrator to blame. There would be a hero. It would have been nice.

  Cara folded and unfolded the linen napkin from her purse.

  Should she have done that, set up Hatfield to take the fall and tie the event up?