by Roger Weston
CHAPTER 15
With Neil at her side, Meg walked up the wooden ramp along the waterfront, clinging to the open envelope. The water of Elliot Bay glittered brightly. A crew of fishermen worked eagerly to get their boat in gear for a late start on the season. A young couple strolled among the yachts holding hands.
Meg smiled, the kind of smile that starts small from deep within and emerges naturally. She realized that her life would never be the same, but at least now she had hope. She stopped and opened the envelope again, removing the contents to see if it was all real.
As if understanding her need for a moment of privacy, Neil walked out onto the nearest pier and looked down at the water.
In one hand Meg held a key. In the other was a slip of paper with a note written in Eric’s writing. It said,
“Go to the house at this address. You will be safe there as long as you don’t tell anyone where you are going. If you’ve made it this far, you are doing well. You’ll be alright as long as you do what I tell you. At the house you will find the answers that you need in order to remain safe. Meg, I love you. You were the one bright spot in my life. You made my life worth living. Don’t ever forget what you gave me. I needed you and will love you eternally.”
She smiled and brought the note to her lips. Eric’s voice had emerged and told her that everything would be alright. He had foreseen what she might have to go through and provided a way out. She was happy because it meant Eric had really loved her.
As Neil strolled back over to join her he asked, “What’s on the back?”
Meg turned the note over. It was written on the back of a Seattle Seahawks roster that had been torn in half. The names and numbers of eight players were circled, five from the offense and three from the defense.
Meg knew that John Lomax and Eric had played ball together in college. They even played high school ball together. After college, Eric had joined the Navy, and Lomax went on to form his humanitarian organization. Eric stopped corresponding with Lomax until recently.
“Maybe it was just scratch paper,” Meg said. “Eric was extremely frugal. Didn’t waste a thing.”
Meg turned to Neil. “Anyway, thanks so much for your help. I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Hopefully now you can return to your quiet vacation in Idaho City. I’m sure your brother will be glad to have you back to feed his animals. If you don’t mind dropping me off, I’m sure I can manage by myself now.”
Neil shrugged. “Maybe I should hang out a day or two to make sure it’s safe.”
Meg shoved the papers back into the envelope. “He told me I would be safe there, and I believe him.”
Neil frowned. “I’d really feel better going along.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary.” Meg hesitated. “But I guess a few more days would be alright.”
They turned and walked along the waterfront toward the car.
CHAPTER 16
For the first time in days Meg relaxed. She leaned her head back and soaked up the sun shining through the open sun roof. She was so relieved. She had a house to go to and money to live on, all provided by Eric. He had truly loved her. She would be okay.
She looked over at Neil, whose face was brightened by the sun.
“It looks like it’s all over,” she said. “I can finally rest and grieve my husband properly.”
Neil smiled but kept his eyes on the road as he took a corner and turned up a hill. The car noticeably slowed as it neared the crest.
“Why are you slowing down?” Meg asked.
“I’m not. This car’s got no power.
Meg thought for a minute. “My car did that once on my way back from Montana. I could barely get over Lolo pass. I had no idea what the problem was. Turned out it was the spark plugs. Seventy-five dollars later the car was good as new. Let’s stop and get some. You can put them in when we get to the house.”
Neil shook his head. “I’ve never been good with cars. I’ll take it to a mechanic tomorrow.”
The car picked up speed as it glided down the hill. They continued along the road that clung to the shore of Lake Washington.
Meg thought back to when she first saw Neil. He was sitting at the campfire with the hood of his Jeep up. Didn’t he tell her that he had been working on his car? After a moment of silence she said, “Sure, we can take it to a mechanic tomorrow.”
The twisted road along the shore of Lake Washington led them past well-spaced multi-million dollar houses. The homes lined the waterfront, hidden down long driveways obscured by trees and vegetation. Black numbers on a brick pedestal matched the address Meg had in her hand. The brick pedestal’s twin stood across the driveway supporting a wrought-iron gate that hung between them. Meg double-checked the address to find the mistake, but there was none.
Neil pulled into the driveway, stopped at the gate and whistled. “Meg, it looks like your husband was living in style behind your back.”
Meg got out of the car and ran to the gate. Breathless, she grabbed the pedestal. She looked at the huge home down the driveway. What answers would she find here? Who had she really been married to? And how could she even open the gate to find out?
Then on the brick pedestal, she saw a keypad for a gate code. She stood there for a moment not knowing what to do. Then she remembered the football roster on the back of the note from Eric. He didn’t do anything without a reason, and apparently he wasn’t so frugal either. She punched in the numbers of the first five circled players from the offense into the alarm key pad. The gate opened automatically.
Meg got back in the car without looking at Neil. He drove down the long driveway which was lined with thick giant firs and underbrush tangled with vines. At the huge, ornate front door Meg found another keypad. She punched in the jersey numbers of the three remaining players. The alarm light turned green, and she pushed the heavy doors open. The home was barely furnished. What furniture there was obviously came from a second hand store. It comforted Meg. At least she knew Eric a little bit. He really was frugal.
They walked into the high-end but empty kitchen. “Your husband didn’t have much style after all,” Neil said, opening the refrigerator. “If I had a bag of cash worth millions, I’d deck this place out.”
Meg looked at Neil, puzzled by his comment. “Where did you get the idea that Eric had millions of dollars?”
“I thought you told me that.” Neil looked around.
He knew about the money? He didn’t change spark plugs? Meg’s shoulders tensed. Then she sighed and reminded herself, he watched the news. Everybody in the northwest knew about the money by now. And maybe he really didn’t know how to fix cars.
Then she remembered Neil shooting two men in her driveway. She put her hand on her stomach to hold back the feeling that was swelling within her. Neil was a cold-blooded killer.
“Let’s take a look around,” Neil said, opening a mineral water he’d found in the refrigerator.
No, no. Neil had been nothing but good to her. He had saved her life. He’d been thrust into this situation just like she had.
Neil opened a door in the kitchen that led to the garage down a narrow stairway. “Let’s bring the car in,” he said. They walked down the stairs single file, Meg leading the way. At the bottom of the stairs, Meg pushed the garage door opener. The doors opened slowly and Neil walked to the Prius and drove it in. Meg pushed the remote to lower the garage door, and they walked back up the stairs, Meg still in front. A row of keys hung on hooks that lined the stairway landing. A set of large black keys caught her eyes. She touched them and said, “I wonder what these are for.” She picked them up and held them in front of her. “They look like they could open up a fortress.”
“I don’t know, probably nothing.” Neil grabbed the keys and put them in his pocket. “Come on, let’s take a look around.”
They started on the main floor. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall and contained only a small mattress with a sleeping bag over it.
Neil gestured toward
the open walk-in closet. “You first.”
Meg hesitated. How did Neil know about the money? And whatever happened to Neil’s brother? Shouldn’t he have been in contact with Neil by now?
No, Neil was here to help her. Eric had sent her to Hagerman’s. Neil was taking care of her just like his brother would have if he had been there. It had only been a couple days. His brother probably didn’t even know he was gone yet.
Meg slowly entered the walk-in closet, pushing the door open wider. The door was thick and solid. This was no ordinary closet. She continued further in. Neil walked in behind her, the huge door closing slightly behind him. The hinges squealed like pigs at a slaughter.
“Do you mind pushing the door open a little more? I can’t see very well.”
“Sure, Meg, no problem.”
Not only was the closet huge, but so was the wardrobe. Meg was confused at first. Could this all be Eric’s? It reminded her of the costume room at the university. There were no period or historical pieces, but the variety surprised her. She stood in front of pressed military uniforms of at least four different countries and every branch of the US military. A variety of sport jackets hung together, neatly organized. Shirts also hung in groups, evidently arranged by country, bright, bold tunics, linen tropical shirts and woven ponchos among others. In one section, she flipped through a large selection of Middle Eastern robes. There were a few business suits that must have cost over a thousand dollars apiece and probably hadn’t even been worn more than once or twice. In one section, she found trade uniforms including one for a plumber, a cook, a construction worker. Then there were cop uniforms from several jurisdictions and a black-belt karate outfit. The strangest piece was a chicken costume—the kind a restaurant uses for its employees to wear on street corners to attract passing traffic. Meg’s eyes followed several metal runners up to the ceiling. They were lined with dozens of hooks that held fedoras, sombreros, cowboy hats, berets, fezzes, bowlers and more. The shoe selection was equally impressive. This closet would be the envy of all the drama professors she knew.
Meg looked over at Neil. He was flipping through hangers.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Meg said. “I’ll be right back.”
Neil looked at her with a smile.
“Yeah, hurry back.”
He started pulling racks of clothes back and looking behind them.
In the bathroom medicine cabinet, Meg found a variety of drugs. Some prescribed, some not. She held back a gasp. At home Eric wouldn’t even take an aspirin for a headache. She hadn’t known him at all.
The bathroom door rattled on its hinges. Meg jumped and stiffened. She glared at the handle.
“Come on,” Neil said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“Coming.” She gently closed the medicine cabinet. Neil led Meg upstairs where they found three rooms. The walk-in closet of the first was locked.
The room next to it was a spacious office with a large Mexican rug hanging on the wall and a set of solid bookshelves, each eight feet high and wide, side-by-side. A glance at the book titles revealed a wide variety of biographies of foreign leaders and presidents. It seemed like Eric had read books by every published Washington insider, and Meg suddenly realized why he’d occasionally had surprising insight. But she also recalled him saying that he was mainly ignorant of politics and not that interested. There were books on intelligence and Vietnam and Afghanistan. There were entire shelves devoted to weapons, survival, explosives, escape and evasion. Other shelves focused on topics like uniforms, merchant marines, foreign customs, culture, and espionage. Meg saw one of her books on costumes that she thought she’d lost.
The next room they walked into was darker than the others. Black-out blinds covered the windows and a single leather recliner sat in the middle of the room. A dated television and a simple DVD player rested on a cart against the far wall. Propped in front of the television was a DVD case with MEG scrawled in permanent marker on the front cover.
Neil offered Meg the recliner and turned on the power with the remote. He stood behind Meg with his hands on the recliner, above her shoulders. He pushed play, and Eric’s face came up on the screen.
Meg could tell that the video was taped recently because Eric had shorter hair and she remembered him coming home from a business trip recently with that same shaving cut on his chin.
In the video, he wore a white t-shirt. His eyes were glazed and his facial features sagged. He looked directly into the camera and spoke clearly, but in a tired voice.
“Meg, you need to be alone when you watch this.” Eric stopped talking and just looked at the camera in silence.
Meg turned and looked up at Neil.
Neil shook his head. “I’m here to help you, Meg.”
Meg settled back into the recliner. Eric had said to go to the Hagerman’s.
“Okay,” Eric said after a long pause. “So now you’re alone. Since you’ve found this, I assume the worst has happened. I am no longer alive. I’m so sorry. You can never know how much I love you or how painful it has been for me to keep certain things secret from you over the years. Please forgive me for that, Meg. I was involved in a hazardous game before I even met you. I couldn’t discuss these things with anyone, but I fell in love, and I couldn’t resist you either. I compromised. I have suffered for that, but I have also enjoyed the best times of my life with you. There was also something called duty, and I did it. That was my burden. For years I felt I had no choice—that it had to be done. I thought about telling you the truth every single day, but I never could. The deception had gone on so long that…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you. It was wrong. I was so selfish. I can see that now. I was a weak man. But please know that I loved you. You were my life and my joy.” His voice cracked with emotion and he looked down for a moment, then straight into the camera.
“Meg, if you’re watching this, you’re in great danger. You must now contact a man named TOM SIKES. He’s a private investigator on Orcas Island in the San Juans. He’s an old friend of mine, and he can help you stay safe.
“The bookshelves in my office are on rollers. If you slide back them back, you’ll find a safe. Use the football roster again for the combination. Inside, you’ll find $7 million in cash.”
“Okay, game’s over.” Neil paused the video. “Give me the note.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Pass it over.”
Meg jumped up and screamed, “You liar. You filthy bastard. You knew all along, didn’t you?” Meg grabbed the remote and threw it at him.
Neil dodged the flying object and walked toward Meg. “Give me the paper.”
“No, get out. Now. You’re not Bill’s brother, are you? Where is Bill?”
Meg reached into her pocket and withdrew a handgun.
Neil’s forehead wrinkled, his eyes widening with surprise. “Meg, come on, you can’t do it. You’re a drama professor. You don’t know what you’re doing. Your husband may have known what he was doing, but you don’t have a clue. I know all about you.”
“Turn around and walk,” Meg said.
“Don’t forget I’m the person who saved your life.”
Meg gestured with the gun. “Go.”
CHAPTER 17
Meg led Neil to the costume closet. She grabbed a pair of handcuffs from a police uniform and made Neil cuff himself to a large clothes rack.
“Meg, you’re going to get yourself killed. You don’t have a clue what you’ve gotten yourself into. You need me. We can use the money and get lost. I’ll help you. I promise I will.”
At the door, Meg looked back in and said, “Thanks Neil, but I won’t be needing your help anymore.” She held the door with two hands and pushed it shut with all her strength.
She locked him in, double checking the lock twice. She was satisfied that the door would keep him secure.
In the office, she rolled back the bookshelves, exposing a six-foot high safe. She worked the combination dial and pulled down the handle
. The door swung open slowly on big hinges that supported hundreds of pounds of steel. The safe’s interior was ten-by-ten with built-in metal shelves and three file cabinets.
Meg stepped in. She approached four duffle bags on the shelf and unzipped one. Her hands came out of the bag with bundles of fresh, musky smelling green bills.
She dug through the bag. It was all cash—bundles of hundred dollar bills. She opened the other three bags. They were full of cash—stacks of hundred dollar bills, some of which were tightly bound in plastic wrap just like at the hotel.
Meg got the first bag of cash. She crept up the stairs, nervous about Neil, but reminded herself that a silverback ape couldn’t get out of that closet. She walked through the living room, carrying the duffle bag to the garage and put it in the car.
When she came back through the house, she heard banging and kicking. Neil hadn’t given up. She wasn’t worried, though, because the door was so thick that there was no way he could get out of there. Meg put the last bag in the car and was about to turn the ignition when she decided that she needed to go back inside. She needed to watch more of Eric’s DVD.
The volume blared and Eric’s image popped up on the screen. Meg quickly turned down the television and paused the DVD. She sat listening for Neil. He was still making a racket. After a minute, she pushed play again.
“Don’t worry about the money yet,” Eric said. “There are much more important matters to consider. I’m serious about this. As I said, you’re in great danger. There are people who want you dead. You’re a liability because they’ll assume I’ve told you things. But I didn’t. I wanted to protect you. One of my aliases has been called the most hunted person in the world. You’ve just assumed that burden. You must do exactly what I say. If you do, you have a good chance of making it. ”
Meg paused the DVD. It was quiet. Neil must have given up.
Meg pushed play again. On the screen, Eric resumed talking, telling her that she must not contact anyone she knows, especially family. That much she had already figured out.
