Say Goodbye

by Karen Rose

  The aroma of bacon hit her nose as soon as she walked into Rafe’s apartment. Gideon offered his chair, but Liza waved him away, sitting on the floor instead.

  “I have eaten in far worse conditions,” she assured him. She felt her phone buzz and tensed, instantly thinking it was Tom.

  But it wasn’t and she had to scold herself for being disappointed.

  “Who is it?” Abigail asked, peeking at her screen.

  “It’s a text from the eye doctor,” Liza said with a smile. “Our glasses are ready.”

  “No,” Gideon and Rafe said together.

  “Mercy isn’t going anywhere near that place again,” Rafe added.

  Amos had grown pale. “Neither is Abigail. Neither will you.”

  Liza sighed. “I didn’t say I was going to pick them up. Can one of the agents go?”

  “I’ll go,” Sasha said. “Erin and I need to pick up some groceries and we aren’t on anyone’s hit list. But won’t the glasses need to be fitted?”

  “They took our measurements when we picked out the frames,” Mercy said. “And we called them with our credit card information that afternoon, when everything calmed down. I really want to get glasses on Abigail. She’s been getting headaches. Besides,” she added fondly, “we’re going to do a movie marathon later and it will be more fun for Abigail if she can see the TV screen.”

  “We’ll leave after breakfast,” Sasha promised while Rafe served the pancakes. “And, once you can see better, we’ll catch a movie on a big screen, like in a real movie theater.”

  “When it’s safe,” Abigail said matter-of-factly, and Amos looked stricken.

  So did the other adults in the room. No child should ever treat danger like it’s normal, Liza thought, more determined than ever to help put DJ Belmont away forever.

  “Yes,” Amos managed. “The minute that it’s safe.”

  “What was the last movie you saw in the theater?” Daisy asked Amos, to change the subject.

  “Batman,” he answered after a moment’s thought.

  “Which one?” Daisy countered.

  Amos frowned. “What do you mean, which one?”

  “Oh wow,” Daisy breathed when she realized he was serious. “We need to Netflix you up.”

  They spent the rest of breakfast telling Amos about all the Batman movies he’d missed during his thirty years in Eden while Abigail listened, eyes wide.

  “I think the Batman movies are too scary for me,” Liza said, picking up on the child’s apprehension. “Maybe we’ll look for a new Disney flick.”

  “I like Disney,” Abigail whispered, relieved.

  “So do I,” Liza whispered back.

  Amos mouthed a Thank you and Liza gave him a wink.

  Breakfast was finished and they were drawing lots for who would do the dishes when Liza’s phone rang. Her pulse picked up because she knew this number. She’d hoped for a return call and dreaded it all at once.

  “Sorry, I have to take this,” she said, leaving Rafe’s tiny studio apartment to sit on the steps in the foyer. “This is Liza,” she answered once she was alone.

  “Miss Barkley, this is Portia Sinclair from Sunnyside Oaks. I hope I haven’t called too early on a Saturday.”

  “Oh no, ma’am. What can I do for you?” she asked, trying to sound calm and collected.

  “We’ve completed our interviews and would like to offer you the nursing assistant’s position.”

  Liza didn’t have to fake her enthusiasm. “Thank you! That’s wonderful! When do I start?”

  Miss Sinclair chuckled again. “Don’t you want to hear the salary?”

  “Oh.” Liza hoped she hadn’t blown the opportunity. “Yes, please.” Sinclair said a number and Liza’s eyes widened. “That’s . . . more than I was anticipating.” It was double what she’d made at the veterans’ home.

  “We get that a lot,” Sinclair said smugly. “Can you start on Tuesday? Your shift starts at seven thirty a.m., but we’d like you to arrive an hour early for orientation with your supervisor.”

  “I’ll be there. Who should I ask for?”

  “Nurse Innes. She’s one of our charge nurses. She’ll be training you.”

  Innes. The one person Liza had planned to avoid. “Should I bring my own scrubs?”

  “No, dear. We have uniforms for you here. Wear comfortable shoes, of course.”

  “Of course. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

  Liza ended the call, her hands now trembling. She’d done it. She was in.

  With any luck, she’d meet Pastor and be able to talk to him. With any luck, he’d be in pain, on meds with his guard down, and he’d tell her where Eden was. Or at a minimum she could plant a few bugs so that the FBI could listen to anything Pastor and DJ discussed when the younger man came to visit. And, with any luck, both Pastor and DJ Belmont would go to prison for a very long time and would never be able to hurt Mercy or the others again.

  Clenching her teeth, she steadied her hands enough to type out a text to Special Agent Raeburn. I was offered the job. Accepted. Starting Tuesday. Please advise.

  She looked up from her phone when the door to Rafe’s apartment opened. Mercy stood in the doorway, looking anxious. “Is everything all right?”

  Liza mustered up a smile. “Everything’s good. I just got a new job.”

  Mercy frowned. “Then why do you look like you lost your best friend?”

  Because I did.

  Seeing Liza’s expression, Mercy winced. “That wasn’t what I meant to say.”

  “It’s fine. Did I get the short straw on the breakfast dishes?”

  “No. Sasha did. She’s appealing the decision, saying that the straws were rigged, but Erin’s already got most of the dishes in the dishwasher. Abigail is asking if you’re coming back. We’re getting ready to watch The Little Mermaid.”

  “Better than Batman for a seven-year-old,” Liza agreed. She stood up. “I can watch one movie, and then I need to go home. I’ve got laundry to do.”

  “Would you consider staying here for one more night? We’re worried about DJ. Especially after what he did yesterday.” The evenness Mercy had displayed since she’d heard the news began to fracture as Liza watched. “If Gideon hadn’t been wearing that vest . . .”

  Liza shuddered. “Yeah. I get that. I’ll be fine, though. He doesn’t want me.”

  “You don’t know that. You were there on Wednesday, too. Will you humor me?”

  “Sure.” She slid her arm around Mercy’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “It’ll be all right.”

  Mercy’s smile was sad. “You don’t know that,” she repeated.

  She was tempted to tell Mercy the truth—that Pastor was in a rehab facility and she’d just gotten a job there so that she could help Tom put him away forever. But there was no way she was saying any of that, so she went with what was in her heart.

  “But I do know it’ll be all right, because a seven-year-old told me so when I had a nightmare last night. Have faith, Mercy. I have a feeling things are going to get better very soon.”

  GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA

  SATURDAY, MAY 27, 11:00 A.M.

  The man was a motherfucking ghost. DJ had spent most of the morning trying to locate Roland Kowalski, which, of course, was not his real name.

  It would be easier to search if he could think. Which would be easier if he didn’t have the fucking hangover from hell.

  This was why he didn’t drink often. He’d woken to find he’d thrown up on Smythe’s floor, the empty whiskey bottle next to him in bed. Not a drop remained.

  He didn’t remember finishing the bottle, which was alarming. He’d quickly checked all of his devices to be sure he hadn’t e-mailed or texted or posted anything damning, nearly wilting with relief when he saw that he had not.

  He was never going to drink agai
n. Which wasn’t going to be a problem if he didn’t figure out a way out of this mess. Right now, he was one guy with a bum arm, a rifle, and a handgun. And a laptop, which wasn’t worth jack shit, because Kowalski didn’t show up in any police reports, and according to the Internet, he owned no land or vehicles. He did, of course. He owned several vehicles, but DJ had never seen a legit license plate on any of them.

  Not a surprise. Kowalski had been the one to teach him to use a 3D printer to make fake license plates. None of the addresses DJ had visited with Kowalski were registered to any real people. Like DJ’s house in Yuba City was owned by “John Derby.”

  He hit dead end after dead end. None of Kowalski’s associates were traceable, because none of them used real names, either.

  The cell phone charging on the nightstand pinged with an incoming text. DJ grabbed it to silence it but stopped when he saw the screen.

  This was Nelson Smythe’s cell phone and the man had missed at least five calls and twenty text messages from his wife while DJ slept. This latest one read: Answer me or I’m calling 911. Did you have a stroke? Are you there? ANSWER ME!!!!

  “Shit,” DJ muttered. He’d been good about keeping up with the woman’s texts, providing one- or two-word replies, such as Yes, No, Maybe, I’ll check, and Love you. Those were pretty typical of Smythe’s replies over the past six months, so DJ felt pretty confident that the woman hadn’t been suspicious.

  Except then he’d drunk an entire bottle of whiskey and missed a whole assload of texts.

  Groaning, he descended the stairs to the garage, where he grabbed a hair dryer and lifted the chest freezer’s lid. Ice crystals had formed on Smythe’s face, just like they had every day after he melted them off the day before.

  Turning the hair dryer on, he blew warm air over Smythe’s frozen face until it was ice-free, then held the phone over his face until the screen unlocked. He hadn’t been that concerned about the texts until now, but if she called 911, it would suck. He needed a little time to pack his printers and the few belongings he’d taken from the Yuba City house.

  I’m fine, he texted back. Not dead. 24-hr bug. Feeling better. Love you.

  Glad u r not dead! The message was punctuated by heart emojis. Will call tonight. Miss u.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. If she called and he didn’t answer, she might call 911. That was what he needed to avoid. Miss u, he replied.

  He’d get the truck loaded up with his stuff, just in case. But he’d use some of the time to print more license plates. What he hoped for was to get Kowalski to back off and stop trying to kill him, but he didn’t think that was likely. So now he was focused on finding Kowalski’s hangouts. What he really wanted was Kowalski’s weapons stash, but if he stumbled on a vehicle along the way, he’d take it, because the Lexus was too dangerous to drive now. The BOLO on him listed the car’s make, model, and color along with the note that it would have fake plates.

  Assholes. He was putting the blow dryer away when another text arrived on Smythe’s phone. It was a photo of some really cute kids all lined up, mouths open like birds. They were singing.

  The next text read: Liam was the very best!

  Liam, DJ had deduced, was the couple’s grandson, the event a concert at the kid’s school.

  Send video, DJ typed back, because that was what Smythe usually said. DJ had wondered why the man hadn’t gone with his wife, but had realized through reading their texts that Smythe and his son-in-law did not get along.

  He was lowering the freezer lid when a memory tickled his brain.

  Concerts. Children.

  “Oh,” he breathed.

  Kowalski had a kid. A little boy, around six years old. On Wednesday, the kid had done a recital at his school. It was a private school, because DJ remembered Kowalski complaining about the cost of tuition when they’d been negotiating with a customer who’d wanted a break on the price of the kilo of coke they were selling.

  This could work. He knew what the kid looked like, kind of, having once seen a photo of the boy while peeking at Kowalski’s phone. He’d taken every opportunity to spy on Kowalski because, while he’d trusted him to a point, Kowalski was all about himself. As are we all.

  He’d wanted to learn, wanted to know the important details, so he’d risked looking over Kowalski’s shoulder. Therefore, DJ had a decent recollection of the boy’s face.

  Schools had Facebook pages and websites. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

  SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

  SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1:15 P.M.

  King Triton embraced the newly wedded Ariel, drawing a happy sigh from Abigail, who cuddled between Mercy and Liza on the floor of Rafe’s apartment. The place was small and its TV tiny, but they’d all congregated there because, even though last night had been a “girls’ night,” no one wanted to exclude Gideon and Rafe, who couldn’t climb the stairs.

  “Ariel’s gonna be okay now, right?” Abigail asked.

  Mercy kissed the top of the child’s head. “She is. And she and Prince Eric are going to live happily ever after.”

  “Even though she’s only sixteen and kind of a brat,” Gideon commented dryly from the sofa.

  Liza thought that Abigail would object to this, but the girl surprised her yet again.

  “She really is,” Abigail said. “She should have obeyed her papa.”

  Liza glanced at Amos, smiling at the contented look on his face. But anything she was about to say fled from her mind when someone started knocking impatiently on the outer door.

  A moment later, everyone relaxed. It was Sasha and Erin returning from doing their errands.

  Rafe’s cane thumped as he walked to his apartment door in irritation. “Why didn’t you just use your key?” he demanded. “Instead of knocking loud enough for the neighbors to hear?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” Sasha said. “I wasn’t the one who made all that racket. I have a key.” She leaned around Rafe, a plastic bag with the optometrist’s logo dangling from her fingers. “Glasses, anyone?”

  Liza pushed to her feet, crossing the room to retrieve the glasses. “Thanks, but who—”

  She sighed. Dammit. Tom stood on the front stoop, his blue eyes flashing. Liza had no idea what he was angry about now.

  “You knocked?” Liza asked him. “Loudly?”

  “I didn’t realize I was being loud,” Tom said, penitent. In fact, someone who didn’t know him well wouldn’t be able to tell that he was angry at all. “May I speak to you, Liza?”

  She smiled to put everyone at ease even though her heart was pounding. “Of course.”

  She crossed the foyer into the garage, once again not waiting to see if Tom followed.

  He did, of course, closing the door behind him and walking right up to her, getting in her space. His body filled out the tight T-shirt he wore and his jeans were dirty, like he’d been working outside. She didn’t care that he was filthy and sweaty. Hungry for the sight of him, she drank him in.

  Until he spoke. “You didn’t think to call me?”

  “About?”

  His expression was forbidding. “Sunnyside Oaks? Were you going to tell me that you got the job? Were you going to tell Raeburn?”

  “I already did. I texted him as soon as I got off the phone with Sunnyside Oaks.”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched as he ground his teeth. “But you didn’t text me?”

  Okay. “I . . . didn’t know I was supposed to.”

  Hurt flashed in his eyes. “Supposed to?”

  She hesitated. “I was under the impression that Raeburn and Molina were my contacts.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “They are. Because you went over my head.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  She wasn’t sure what he expected her to say. “Because you weren’t willing to support me
.”

  His fingers tightened in his hair, yanking on it hard. He was hurting himself and she needed him to stop. But she said nothing, waiting for the flood of words that she could sense coming.

  But when he finally spoke, it wasn’t in a shout, but in a hoarse whisper. “Why are you doing this? Why is this so important?”

  She told him the same thing she’d told him Thursday night. The same thing she’d told Molina and Raeburn. “If I can make contact with Pastor, I might be able to get him to tell me where Eden is. Then, once everyone in the compound is safe, you can use Pastor to lure DJ to the rehab center and arrest them both. Then this will be over. I can help Mercy this way. I can keep Abigail safe.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides, looking defeated. “Because you couldn’t save your sister?” he asked quietly.

  Her mouth fell open in stunned surprise. “What? No.”

  “Yes,” he said, shocking her further when he gripped her upper arms, his hold firm yet gentle. “You couldn’t save Lindsay. You couldn’t save your mother. You couldn’t save Fritz. So you’re saving Mercy and Abigail. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong.”

  She started to tell him exactly that, but the words wouldn’t come. Was he wrong? Was she trying to play savior because she’d failed so many others?

  “Do you know when I saw Mercy for the first time?” she asked instead.

  He frowned. “That day we saw Burton’s mother at the nursing home.”

  “That was the first time I met her. I saw her for the first time a few days before that, on the news. She’d nearly been abducted by Burton at the airport when she returned to Sacramento.”

  He nodded, not sure where she was going. “She was in shock.”

  “She was terrified.” Liza swallowed hard. “I saw the look in her eyes, the knowledge that someone she feared had just tried to hurt her again, and I thought of Lindsay. Of how terrified she must have been.” Her voice broke. “Of how she died alone, because nobody was there to help her. So, yes. I’m doing this because I couldn’t save my sister. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m doing what I believe is right.”