by JJ Pike
The last picture was the hardest to look at. He’d taken them all to the Oink & Flapper for breakfast. The kids had always loved the restaurant’s mascots: a cartoon pig in a top hat standing upright with a pancake dressed in her shimmering flapper’s dress. Then there were the crayons and the paper tablecloth, though the twins were too old for crayons and Aggie wasn’t inclined to draw. He’d made the mistake of thinking a meal together would send a signal that they’d put their troubles behind them and would move forward. Alice was doing great in therapy and he and Aggie were joined at the hip. But Aggie had been silent, unwilling to eat her Lumberjack’s Surprise and Alice had encouraged too much and the whole thing had ended in tears. It was going to be a long road back to normal. Or, as Dr. Moore kept reminding him, “Your new normal.”
The plane doors shut and the flight crew prepared the cabin for takeoff. His new normal? His new normal was executioner, not murderer. Bill smiled and closed his eyes. He slept for the whole flight and if he dreamt, he didn’t remember those dreams. He’d taken the trash out. That was all. That garbage was no more. He could breathe again. And now, so could Alice.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jo wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt. She thought he’d be more disoriented, but Michael Rayton had come back from death and hit her with a hard question right off the bat. That didn’t mean she had to answer. She’d wait.
He took off his shirt and wrung it out. It gave his hands something to do. She was right. He had training. He’d been throwing in false tells and misleading behavior on purpose. He was good. No, he was excellent. Keeping his hands busy stopped them from over-signaling. Excellent technique.
She watched him gathering himself, coming back into his body, realizing he’d messed up and blown his own cover by 1) using his mantra and 2) asking if she was a federal agent. She had no idea what he would do next.
He put his t-shirt back on, coughing all the while, then shook his head to clear the water from his ears. He held his hand to his side and winced. He had a broken rib. That was going to hurt. She had no supplies, couldn’t tape him up. He was going to have to take shallow breaths and hope he hadn’t punctured anything.
“I’m freezing,” he said. “We should get back to the house.”
So that was the way he was going to play it. Pretend it hadn’t happened. She could do that. She held out a hand to help him up. He might have broken cover, but that didn’t mean she should. She would be the same cranky, demanding Jo she’d been since she met him. “We’re going to have to come back and take care of this tomorrow.”
Rayton nodded. What was going on in his mind? What was his game? They trudged in silence towards the path that wound along the side of the quarry cliff, back to the house. He let out the occasional gasp and pressed his hand to his side, but he was otherwise uncommunicative. Worked for Jo. She needed time to think.
Michael Rayton was a friggin’ CIA Agent. It cast everything in a new light. She wanted to scream and shout. How had they not known this? How was he on their list? How was it possible that the FBI didn’t know that the CIA had an agent working directly inside K&P? What in the actual hell? She kept all that on the inside. If Rayton had looked over at her, all he’d have seen was a pleasant-enough looking woman who was having some trouble on the steep slope. She wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know how fit she was. Disinformation. Always the best option. Fly low and quiet and don’t let people know what you’re capable of. That way, you have the element of surprise on your side should anything go down.
Jo didn’t look right or left. She kept her eyes on the path. She needed to get back to Jim and Betsy’s place, collect Reggie, dump Rayton for the time being, and get her boss on the phone so they could get their investigation back on track. It wasn’t simply that they’d gotten the wrong end of the stick or even the wrong stick, they’d targeted the wrong damned tree. No, the wrong forest. Different continent. Total bust. She couldn’t think about it. There were too many puzzle pieces that were missing. Once the Bureau knew he was a freaking Company man, they would be able to coordinate and get more intel.
Not that the two agencies were particularly good at sharing information. It was the age-old problem. The CIA thought the FBI was filled with Keystone Cops, whereas the Bureau thought the Company was stacked with paper pushers. Neither of those appellations were strictly true, but that didn’t matter. It was culturally ingrained. They came at the world with fundamentally different philosophies. The FBI was stacked with law enforcers, the CIA with information-gatherers. One operated in the land of the black and white, the other in the gray.
Truth was, Jo would have worked for the CIA if there had been suitable jobs back in the day. But intelligence gathering for women included a high probability of “between the sheets” work that wasn’t part of her wheelhouse. She was as good at seduction as she was making soufflés, which was to say not at all. She could lie until she was blue in the face, unless it was to do with matters of the heart. There, in the sand, was where she’d drawn her line. So, she was funneled from the regular Army ranks to the Marines and then into the Bureau, which wasn’t a typical career trajectory for someone of her talent or training, but she’d become accustomed to the Bureau’s ethos and kept her own predilections to herself.
Jo Morgan was predisposed to look at the world as a complex organism, filled with interesting people who came at their daily lives with a bundle of contradictory impulses. She didn’t see things in black and white as so many of her colleagues were apt to do. She saw things on a continuum, which was why she’d managed to keep Wolfjaw Ridge stable and out of trouble. There were a hundred agents who’d have gone charging in there with the smallest provocation, looking for weapons or weed or anything they could use to trip the secessionists up. But the way she looked at it, seeking secession wasn’t against the law. It wasn’t going to happen in Upstate New York—they might have to go to Texas if they were serious about separating themselves out from mainstream America—but as long as they kept to themselves, Jo found it best to protect them.
It was calming thinking about her real operation, and if there were Wolfjaw Ridge personnel watching her march up the side of the quarry with Michael Rayton or had seen them burying Arthur and getting rid of his car, let them think what they wanted. They’d never ask. What you did was your business. As long as it didn’t encroach on what they thought of as their “liberties” they’d leave you alone.
The doubt crept in, like an oil slick on the ocean. There was no way it wasn’t going to get into everything. She’d misread Rayton, what if she’d misread her Wolfjaw secessionists, too? No, that couldn’t be. She’d been studying them for too long. She knew what they were about and what made them tick. She was solid on that score. Her mind reeled and turned and twisted and stung. Wolfjaw Ridge. Michael Rayton. Alice Everlee. MELT. Round and round they went, like a whirlpool waiting to drag her down.
The hike back to the compound was endless. By the time they reached Jim and Alice’s place, the moon had moved clear across the sky. The lights were still on inside. No one was sleeping. Three rabbits hung by the back door. Aggie had been there. The fact that they were hanging outside rather than in the kitchen meant she’d come and gone.
Jo pushed the door open and was met with a bank of worried faces and a slobbering, tail-thumping dog. Mimi hovered over Sean, who looked more alert than he had for a day or more, and Petra was right behind her. If Jo hadn’t known what had gone on in this place—missing parents, a critically injured teenager, a house fire, a shootout, a dead man, and now a bungled car dump—the three of them would have made a pleasing domestic tableau.
“All done?” said Mimi.
“All done,” said Jo. The less they knew about what she’d done with Arthur’s body, the better. She kneaded Reggie’s head to calm herself.
Mimi was already headed to the kitchen. She’d been busy. The house smelled of beef and onions, garlic and tomatoes. They’d be fed and watered and put to bed if she had her way.
Jo needed to make her excuses and get going.
“We didn’t hear you come back,” said Petra.
“The Jeep’s a write off. We walked,” said Michael. “Can I set the table, Mimi? Something smells delicious.”
Now that she knew who he was, Jo could see the expert training in play. He played the part of a mildly-bumbling scientist, full of concern and a willingness to help out. She’d been drawn in, but Aggie hadn’t. Aggie had his number. Jo pulled up her mental “to do” list and added, “Search for Aggie and bring her home.” The list was long and getting longer. She honestly needed to head out.
“Any news from the hospital?” she said.
“Midge is out of surgery. No brain bleed, thank God.” Mimi knocked on the table for luck. “Betsy’s still in surgery.”
Jo nodded, one hand on the door knob. “Look, I’ve got to go to my place and get some clean clothes. Go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for me. I’ll grab something when I come back.”
Mimi smiled and nodded. If she knew anything was bugging Jo, she didn’t let on. As for Rayton, she couldn’t even look at him. The shame of getting it so, so wrong was crushing. She needed some time to get her head right with that one. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d bungled it this badly. Well, she could, but she didn’t want to.
She let the door shut behind her and set off into the dark. Reggie raced ahead and came back with a stick. He dropped it at Jo’s feet, then play bowed. She threw it for him as hard as she could and plodded along behind him. Reggie didn’t know the world was spinning out of control. All he knew was he was with his bestest pal and she was throwing his favorite toy. Every stick was his favorite, every time. Big, small, in-between, didn’t matter. If it was a stick and Jo threw it, it was the most excellent stick ever. Usually she’d have ramped it up to at least a trot, but she couldn’t manage it. She was spent, wrung out, in need of a bath and glass of Glenfiddich. She was going to call her boss, download what she knew, and request a briefing in the morning. Her brain was mush. No way she was good for anything tonight.
The walk from Jim and Betsy’s house would normally be a pleasant country hike. Tonight it was a funeral march, with Jo traipsing over the memories of her fallen comrades, her beloved husband, her long list of failures. With each step her mood darkened until finally, with her heart heavy in her chest, she rounded the corner to her house.
Reggie hadn’t come back. Probably pawing at the back door to get to his food bowl. Jo heard him before she saw him, growling low and menacing. Not a sound he often made. He was facing the house, leaning back on his haunches, his hackles raised. Jo grabbed his collar and pulled him back towards her car. If Arthur’s wife had come back, she didn’t want him charging in and getting shot.
She pulled off her belt, looped it through Reggie’s collar and tied him up at the side of the house. It wasn’t the most secure knot, but she didn’t have a leash with her and she wanted him to remain.
“I’m armed,” she said as she drew her weapon. “If you’re in my house, you’re trespassing. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you don’t reveal yourself immediately.”
The front door was ajar. She leaned her back against the jamb and eased her way inside, making sure she had as much cover as the fridge would afford her. She slid from the side of the fridge, back against the kitchen cabinets, towards the front room. There were dishes and cornflakes and sugar and coffee grounds all over the floor. The place had been trashed. Good luck to them. There was nothing here to find.
But who would come looking? And what did they think she had? She used her foot to open the living room door. Same in there. Someone had gone to town on her furniture, toppling tables, ripping open the couch cushions, emptying her drawers. “I’m armed.” Jo knew how to project her voice so it would reach every corner of the house. If they’d locked themselves in the bathroom or hidden in the basement, they’d still be able to hear her.
She inched her way around the front room and headed for the stairs. It was the liminal points you had to watch out for: blind corners, doorways that opened into a room that wasn’t visible from where you were standing, the stairs. She swung around, her gun pointed towards her bedroom, ready to pull the trigger and end whoever had invaded her sanctum.
She was now at a disadvantage. They knew she was in the house, but she had no clue where they might be. She pressed her back against the wall and took each step gently. She had her breathing under control and the adrenaline made everything sharp and close and threatening. She was damned glad Reggie was outside. He’d have gone bounding up the stairs and tried to make friends with the intruder.
Two shots, one high and wide, the other close to her right arm. She hunkered down low and sprinted to the top of the stairs and dove into the bathroom. They were in her guest room with the door slightly open. They’d had all that time to line up a shot and they’d missed her at close range. This wasn’t a pro. She could rule out her Wolfjaw Ridge guys. Not that she’d seriously given that idea much quarter. If they wanted to know who she was, they’d have come and gone and no one would have been the wiser. Trashing the joint wasn’t their style.
She crept to the bathroom door, her gun at the ready, and waited. “I know what you want. So why not put the gun down and talk this out?”
“Where is it?”
Perfect bluff. Now she knew she was up against a woman and that woman had come here searching for something. The disorder downstairs told her that there was a physical “thing” that was being sought. She played the odds. Information is power. No one knew that better than she. “You didn’t find it, so chances are it’s not here.”
“Liar.”
Another shot whizzed by the door. Jo took her chance. No one expects you to walk towards gunfire and the way this shooter handled her gun indicated she was a novice at best. Jo shot at the guest bedroom door right around the height of the handle. No need to kill someone if you didn’t have to.
There was a heavy clunk. The gun hit the floor first, then the body.
Jo pushed the door hard, her weapon still drawn.
It was Arthur’s wife, bloodied and crying, lying on her rug. Jo kicked her weapon away and hunched down to inspect her wounds. She’d winged her, just as she’d hoped.
Jo got in the woman’s face. “What were you looking for?”
The woman didn’t answer. Her eyes were wide, sweat breaking out on her forehead.
“I am within my rights to shoot you dead, right here and now,” said Jo. She had no intention of killing an unarmed woman, but she didn’t need to know that. “Tell me what it is you’re here for.”
“The money.” Arthur’s wife had her hand clamped over the wound on her arm to staunch the flow of blood. She checked it, groaned, pressed her hand down again. “Arthur said there was money up here. Money and silver.”
Silver? What the hell?
“Go on,” said Jo.
“Arthur said Bill was some kind of nutjob, preparing for the end of times.”
Jo had to hide a smile. How wrong Arthur had been. Of the five of them—her, Jim and Betsy, Alice and Bill—Bill was the least nutty. In fact he was downright lax when it came to serious preparedness. He had some damned fool idea that his kids should be protected from harsh reality. That would all have to change when he got home.
“With Bill’s cabin burned down, Arthur said you would have moved the silver…”
Could it be true? Could Bill have been stockpiling alternate sources of income? If he had, how would Arthur know? Jo leaned back against the door. Didn’t sound like Bill. Sounded more like Arthur was the nutso spinner of tall tales.
“I need a hospital.”
Jo was done with hospitals. Too many questions, too many eyes. “It’s superficial. You don’t need a hospital and you don’t need stitches.”
“How can you know for sure?” The woman struggled to sit up. “You a nurse?”
“There’s not enough blood. It’s a flesh wound, nothing more.”
Jo had
one eye on her, the other on her gun. One wrong move and this would all be over. She took a deep breath. That wasn’t how she wanted her day to end. She wanted the woman to leave and never come back. Killing her was not the answer. Jo inched forward and dug her hand into the woman’s pocket to retrieve her wallet. She flicked through the credit cards until she found a driver’s license. “I have your name and address, right here, Gail. I know where you live, understand me? I see you again or hear that you’re within twenty miles of my place, I’ll come for you.”
Gail nodded, her eyes never leaving Jo’s face.
“Roll up your sleeve and let me take care of this scratch.”
Jo was exhausted. A small voice in her head told her this was possibly not the best way to deal with the intruder, but she’d worked so hard to get rid of Arthur’s body without alerting the authorities, she didn’t want to mess with that now. Weird that Gail hadn’t once asked after Arthur, but as wife number four—or was it five? he’d cycled through a lot of wives, she knew that much—perhaps Gail didn’t care so much about her dead husband as she did this alleged silver.