by Jason Winn
Why does Madison always have to do that? How was Dana supposed to meet people when she was cooped up in that stupid bakery all day? She should be out there like Madison, telling people what to do. Dana’s buzz melted away, replaced by frustration and anger.
“Miss Dana,” said a trembly voice.
The crowd of people between her and the street parted, held back by the quiet, bearded men, and Dana could see Mr. Hugo Durden standing by a limousine. Dana liked his sort of British accent. She’d seen him several times with Madison, coming into the bakery to pick things up. He was always nice to her.
“I say dear girl,” said Hugo, “Can I offer you a lift?” He waved his hand in a come-hither gesture.
“Hey Hugo,” said Dana. She got up and walked down the phalanx of beards. People were starting to take out their cameras and take pictures.
“Come on, there you go,” said Hugo as he politely took her bags, so she could get into the car.
“Were you at the game?” asked Dana.
“Oh, sure,” said Hugo as he sat across from her.
“Those guys with you?”
“Well, they help me out from time to time.”
The six men got into the limo. Two up front and the other four on the long bench seat that ran down one side of the limo. They nodded politely to Dana and proceeded to sit with their hands in their laps.
“Dana, I’ll get right to it,” said Hugo as they pulled into the street. “Some of the others and I are worried that your sister is becoming,” he thought for a minute, “unhinged.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The pressure of the situation is causing her to react irrationally.”
Dana still didn’t quite understand what Hugo was getting at. She just nodded.
As if he could read her thoughts, Hugo clarified even further. “She’s going to go crazy if we don’t help her.”
“Oh,” said Dana. “Help her with what?”
“Well, she needs to delegate more. Perhaps let others make the product, while she focuses on other, more important things.”
“Isn’t that the most important thing?”
“It was, but—and I don’t know how much of this she’s shared with you—the organization is,” he paused and put his finger to his lips, tapping it gently, “expanding quickly, and we need to focus on increasing our capacity to meet customer demand. Now, I realize my meeting with you seems to be a bit rash and a breach of protocol, but I just want to see Madison be successful.”
“No, it’s cool.” Dana felt important all of a sudden, as if she’d been promoted from behind the cash register. “What can I do?”
“Well for now, just let me know how she’s doing from time to time.” Hugo reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. “I’ll contact you on this occasionally.”
Dana took it.
Hugo continued. “We just want the best for your sister. And I have to say that mentioning this discussion to Madison would only upset her further. So, I think it would be best to keep it between us for the time being. Until things are a bit more stable.”
Dana thought about that for a minute. She considered all of the things Madison probably kept from her. Now she had a secret to keep from Madison. And it was all the better that it was for the greater good. She wouldn’t be stuck on the sidelines anymore, becoming part of the game—a player.
Chapter 28
“Oh, my god,” Sarah gasped.
“What?” asked Madison. She’d always been told that Roy Mosby was hiking the in the Smokey Mountains and fell down a hill, breaking his neck.
Margaret pursed her lips and nodded. “It was a failed hit on Nancy. They got Roy instead. I don’t know all the details, but he was on a private jet that went down in Arizona. Nancy was supposed to be on the plane, but something came up at the last minute, so she never got on it.”
“How do they know it was a hit?” Sarah asked. “Planes crash.”
“It was a former client of Nancy’s. A man named Quinton Shupe, I think it was. He wanted to join the White Union and Nancy said no. I remember her saying once that the man thought a bit too much about himself and that he was actually pretty incompetent. He had a lot of power, and not a lot of brains.”
“How did he take down a jet?”
Margaret stuck out her hand flat, flipped it over and dropped it onto the table in the middle of the three chairs. “Gravity. He could manipulate gravity. The plane was coming into Phoenix or Flagstaff—I’m sorry, I can’t remember which—and Quinton was able to flip it over, right before it landed. Poof.” She made an explosion with her fingers.
Madison’s buzz faded, and she immediately wanted to find Quinton Shupe and kill him for this. She could feel her hands clinch into fists for a moment, until Sarah’s hand fell on hers. She flashed Madison that “calm down, you can’t fix everything with a machine gun” look.
“Where is he now?” asked Madison.
“Dead,” Margaret said matter-of-factly. “Nancy killed him a month later. And his family, and his business partners. “It wasn’t pretty, Maddy. Nancy…” She paused, tapping her chin. “I think your grandmother almost went mad over that. I really do. She was never the same.”
“Who gave up Nancy Mosby to this Quinton?” asked Sarah.
“Gave up?” asked Madison.
“Yeah,” said Sarah. “Someone had to tell Quinton that Nancy and Roy were going to be on that plane.”
Margaret wagged a finger. “That, Miss Sarah, is the 64,000-dollar question. I’ve always wondered that myself.”
“Wait,” said Madison, catching up, “so there’s still someone out there who was involved?”
“Could be,” said Margaret. She yawned. “Anyway, I thought you’d like that book.”
Margaret got up, kissed both of the girls on the head and shuffled off toward her room.
“You can’t let her go back to work for your mom, when she gets back from her trip,” said Sarah.
“You’re right about that. Know any old, white help that doesn’t mind getting yelled at every five minutes?” Although she’d never admit it, Helen Cross, Madison’s mother, was a bit of a racist.
“No.”
Madison opened the book. Inside were page after page of handwritten notes, in Nancy Mosby’s perfect cursive. “Holy shit,” she whispered.
“What?” asked Sarah. She had put her joint down and was craning her neck to see what had captivated Madison.
“This looks like a ledger of everyone she ever sold Moonmilk to.” She looked up at Sarah, her mouth agape. She went back to the book, flipping pages. “And look, these are people in New York, Chicago, Dallas, London, Tokyo. Oh my god.” The mother lode sat in her lap. She’d been winging it with the couriers that Langston had set her up with before he went off the grid.
“I’m going to assume we’re going to keep this under our hats.”
“Bet your ass.” Madison filled her glass this time, not the piddly two fingers she’d been pouring before, but a full ten ounces. Her hands trembled and a bunch of the vodka spilled over the lip of the glass and pooled on the glass table.
“Now,” said Madison. “We’re going to have to figure out what to do with all of this.”
And just like Langston had told her outside of the Preens’ floral shop, Madison announced, “We’ll need an army.”
“And a way to brew a hell of a lot more Moonmilk,” said Sarah as she reclined and lit her joint again. “You should put Sean on that list. He’ll be able to find them, if they’re still alive.”
“You’re right. Think he’s up now?”
“Worth a shot, but the first thing I think you need to do with that is make a copy and save it somewhere. No telling if that’s the only one. Don’t want to lose it.”
Sarah made a good point. Tomorrow, Madison would scan the notebook and then call Sean. In the meantime, they also needed to get prepped for Cedric’s new customer. That deal was going down tomorrow, and any trepidation Madison had about it had been wi
ped away with the latest discovery. Either way, she needed to give this new treasure the attention it deserved.
Chapter 29
The FBI old-timers’ happy hour was legend. They migrated from bar to bar every Tuesday night. Any bureau alum was welcome, as well as the current staff, looking for advice or someone whom they could just bitch to after a bad day.
It was a welcome retreat for any G-man or woman. Conversations stayed strictly confidential, even if it meant violation of security protocol. The bureau chiefs turned a blind eye to this tradition, because in the end it was a resource for active personnel.
Shelby had been to a few of these happy hours, made some solid contacts and found the group rather enjoyable. Today however, she was there to pick only one brain. She made polite conversation with the old guard, laughing at their stories and telling a few of her own, like the time when she blew a stakeout because she forgot to silence her cell phone.
By 11:00, the group had thinned to three people: Harold Colton, a former special agent, specializing in Army liaisons—the folks who shared resources with the Department of Defense when they needed some investigative backup. And Amelia Stonewall, who had worked under Hoover as a damage control specialist. The irony of her name was not lost on people, when her actual job had been to stonewall the media when they started asking too many questions.
Harold still sported a high and tight haircut, died orange, which was probably supposed to look brown. His body had stayed strong, with arms so thick, they looked like he could flex them and rip his shirt sleeves. Amelia, on the other hand, was a virtual skeleton. Old age had withered her body, but not her mind, which was faster than a computer. Her clothes hung off her as if she were a coat hanger.
“So what’s up, Shelby?” asked Amelia. “Jacob got the kids tonight?”
Wow, thought Shelby. She hadn’t spoken to Amelia in almost a year and she still remembered her husband’s name. That’s the way these people were though, old school: memories like magnets.
“He’s home with the twins.”
Harrold squinted his eyes, “Ethan and...”
“Jackson,” said Amelia.
“I was going to get it,” said Harold.
Eager to get this over with and get home, Shelby cut to the chase. “I need to know if you all remember an old project.”
The two old-timers stopped smiling and put on their game faces, as if they hadn’t been drinking for the last six hours.
“Does the word Moonmilk or Rose Widow, mean anything to you?”
“Can’t say that it does,” said Amelia.
Harold’s face went white and he looked like he was about to throw up. He set his beer down on the bar and looked over at Amelia. “We need a minute on this,” he said to her.
Shelby got excited. Her brain forgot about its exhaustion.
“I think I’ll go to the little girls’ room.” Amelia put down her drink and shuffled off to the back of the bar.
“Where did you hear that?” Harold asked in a low tone.
Shelby took a step back. She’d never seen him like this. He looked angry. His jaw twitched. He had all the body language of a man about to throw a punch. Instinctively, Shelby threw up her hands.
“It was in a report one of my contacts in the Maryland state troopers’ office brought me. I can’t find anything on it.”
“Good. That’s the way it should be.” Harold made a quick scan of the bar to see if anyone was looking over at them. “I don’t know everything, but there’s a lot of bodies attached to that word.”
The word “bodies” caused a chill to roll down Shelby’s spine. Her stomach muscles shivered. “Is it drugs?”
“Why do you want to know? And Shelby, before you answer, know that you’re opening a can of rattlesnakes on this one.”
Shelby thought about that for a minute. She felt like she’d fallen into one of the bureau’s crypts that stored the bodies of coverups, assassinations, and political corruption. But, this was the last lead she had. There was nowhere else to go, except with an outside contractor, or rogue agent. Those resources were out there, but they were expensive and didn’t come with the guaranteed confidentiality of the happy hour group. Nothing ever left this group unless they wanted it to.
“I need to know. My…” She paused, her stomach dropping as if she were about to go over the top of a roller coaster. Here we go. “—sisters and I are mentioned in files that had that word in it.”
She waited for Harold to say something, but he just stared at her. “The files were found at the site of that explosion in Maryland six months ago.”
Harold swallowed. “Never heard of a Rose Widow, but the other word—I heard that word once.” He looked up at her with a stare that would cut glass.
Shelby shuddered. She wanted to back away from him, run out of the place and go hide.
“Go find a fella named Colonel Nathan Trask.”
Chapter 30
Madison took a deep breath and slumped back in her chair in the mansion library. Her cell phone glowed on the reading table in front of her. The new client was about to meet Cedric.
“They’re coming now,” said Cedric, through the speaker phone. “I’ve got to go. Call you back in ten minutes, after the deal is done.” The phone went dead.
Ten minutes? Not bad, old man. She’d be counting cash by sundown. Then it was off to meet her new almost-boyfriend, Wrench at the tapas place in town. She couldn’t wait. A date, a real date, a chance to sit and be herself for a little while with someone who was blissfully unaware of Moonmilk or sorcerers.
Madison returned her attention to the deal. She wished she could be there, but Cedric advised her against going. Exposing herself to new customers was a stupid idea anyway.
The client totems, the ones she’d stolen from the Preens, rattled in their glass-enclosed shelf off to her right. Watches, antique toy soldiers, dice, a compass, and a menagerie of other innocuous knickknacks all signaling their owners’ attempts to get a hold of Madison. The sorcerers were thirsty.
Thirsty, from doing god knows what.
They would have to wait a little longer though. Sarah and the cooks were filling the back orders now. Madison had stopped reassuring the clients. They would get their shit when she got it ready. New clients needed to take priority. Get them hooked, and they would come back on their knees, begging for more.
Just then a glossy book fell on the reading desk in front of her. Madison jumped in her seat. She hadn’t noticed Dana strolling into the library. The book cover had a huge yacht on it, with happy beautiful people lounging on the deck.
“We should get a boat,” said Dana. Her eyes darted to Madison’s cell phone.
“Jesus, Dana.” Madison stifled the urge to punch her sister. “No, we’re not buying a,” she picked up the catalog, “hundred and twenty-foot Nordic Star, whatever that is. Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s only six million dollars. The basement is full of money. I thought you’d like it.”
Teeth clinched, Madison fired back, “I’ll rent you a big boat for the week at some point. Now leave me alone, I’m in the middle of something.”
Yes, Madison did have money, a lot of it. But she wasn’t about to indulge Dana’s fantasy of being a baller. Dana was getting a little too cozy with the idea of spending her hard-earned cash.
“You know,” said Dana, “I did die for that money. I think you owe me a thing or two if you’re not going to promote me.”
Madison could feel her muscles tense into knots. Dana was one more comment away from being hit and then kicked out of the mansion. How quickly she forgot that Madison was almost killed saving her ass. But in the end, Dana was her little sister, and Madison was compelled to look out for her, in spite of herself.
“We’ll do something cool, soon,” said Madison. “Okay? But not now. All right?” Anything to get Dana out of here.
Dana picked up her yacht catalog and left the library in a huff.
In the resulting silence, M
adison’s stomach churned and the only thing in the world was her cell phone. It needed to ring and ring quickly to let her know the deal was done. Four million dollars made this one of the biggest deals to date. It would have been far less if she’d just sold it to Langston and Carl, like she promised them, but the new client was anxious to get a big batch quickly. Langston’s bag man, Kenneth, could leave empty-handed for once.
Cedric was good, Madison reassured herself. He’d been indispensable when the old clients started asking if the Rose Widow was back. He’d reassured them as she got her feet wet in the Moonmilk world, which allowed her to focus on the brewing and even more importantly, the counting of money. He wouldn’t let anything go wrong.
Calm down. Everything’s going to be fine. Just another deal. This will be good practice when we meet with the Miami and Chicago people.
And that was true. The old clients, the ones she’d connected with after she stole the totems from the Preens, were reliable. But they weren’t exactly making her Nancy Mosby rich. A jar here, a jar there, every week or so was gratifying, but not enough to break out.
Madison looked at her phone. It had been fifteen minutes since Cedric hung up on her. Maybe this new one was the chatty type. She didn’t care, she just wanted the deal to be over and done with. Then she could go out with Wrench.
Madison jumped to her feet and she started pacing. Her thumb dug into its familiar groove.
Come on, come on.
Most deals were fast, no more than twenty minutes, and Cedric always called.
Ten minutes later, nothing.
“What happened to ten minutes, Cedric?”
The scratching and jostling of the totems grew louder, as if the tension in the room was filtering through them back to the customers.
Madison’s phone finally rang. Her heart jumped at the sound.