There was no point, though, in keeping Esa’s name off the list of the dead.
A list that, for Tom, would be too long if it contained only one name.
He would keep that paper with him always, and he would never allow anyone but Stella to see it.
Others had left Shelter Island without Tom’s knowledge, some departing while he had been unconscious, some slipping away without saying goodbye to anyone.
Tom learned that Slattery had left not long after Hammerton and his men, and he wondered how long she would have to wait before being reunited with the father she barely knew.
Were they together now, the two of them, in that secluded and secret house? Tom remembered the empty hospital bed waiting in the room off the living room. He hoped she and her father would have time together before he was confined to that bed.
Tom tried not to imagine her tending to the man in his final days, being required to watch him slowly die.
Tom had had to endure the loss of only one father, but Slattery was now facing the loss of a second.
But if anyone was strong enough to survive that, it was she.
J. D.’s departure had also occurred while Tom was unconscious, and he’d left in a manner that, when described to Tom by Stella, pleased them both.
One morning, J. D.’s room was empty, his bed made and his gear gone.
Not even Carrington knew when his onetime bodyguard had left or where the young man might be headed.
But Carrington did point out that if the need ever arose, there was a system in place that would allow him to reach J. D.
Stella expressed regret that she hadn’t been able to say goodbye, though she understood the desire to just disappear.
“I think he was a lot like us in that regard,” she said to Tom.
Carrington and Cahill came and went during those three weeks, sometimes for hours at a time, other times for days.
As Tom became more aware of the happenings in the house, he mentioned the activity to Stella.
“I think they’re tying up loose ends,” she said.
Tom thought about that for a moment, then said, “Raveis.”
Stella nodded. “He’s still out there, right? He all but hand-delivered you to the Colonel.”
A full month passed before Sandy Montrose released Tom from her care.
“You’re Stella’s problem now,” she teased.
Tom would need to take it easy for a while, but he and Stella were free to go.
Tom thanked her and made his way from the med bay to the back porch where Stella was waiting for him.
It was a brisk day in early November, the sky cloudy and the water the color of steel. Stella was wearing one of Cahill’s coats. She and Tom owned nothing more than the clothes on their backs, carried with them only what could fit in their pockets.
“Well?” Stella said.
Tom’s response was a smile.
It was later that day that Cahill’s Mustang turned onto the property, passed the manned gatehouse, and headed down the long gravel drive toward the house.
Tom and Stella were asleep in their bedroom. Hearing the noise, Tom got up and stepped to the window.
Something told him to get dressed and go downstairs.
His jeans and sweatshirt and boots on, he left the room. Stella, naked under the tangle of sheets and blankets, was still asleep.
Downstairs, Tom opened the front door as Cahill’s vehicle came to a stop in the wide circle at the driveway’s end.
Cahill and Carrington emerged, and Tom knew by the looks on their faces that something was up.
He stepped onto the front porch and asked what was going on.
Cahill said, “We need to talk.”
They gathered in the study with the door closed.
The hospital bed had been moved back to the med bay in the basement a week ago.
Everything in this room was as it had been when Tom and the Colonel had first met here.
“What’s up?” Tom said.
“A month ago, after we got you here, we checked the cloud account that Raveis gave you the access info for,” Carrington said. “He never changed the username and password. We immediately downloaded the documentation, made hard copies and digital backups, and stored them in a number of locations, real world and online.”
Cahill said, “It’s unlikely that Raveis would forget to change the log-in info, so it’s possible that he’s dead. He tended to make enemies.”
Tom nodded. “That he did.”
“But I keep thinking about how he gave you a Kevlar vest, not once but twice,” Cahill said. “And yes, he sent you to that factory, where he knew the Colonel had a recon team waiting, but he also gave you a better weapon. In fact, it seems that he did everything he could to help you without tipping off the Colonel.”
“It’s even possible that he knew I was there,” Carrington said, “in an overwatch position right across the street, in case you did come back. He had sent a recon team to Ansonia prior to sending you in. I may have been spotted by them. For that matter, Raveis may have known all along that I was there. One of his kill teams might have found me, but he held back the execute order.”
“Why would he do that?” Tom said.
Carrington answered. “The Colonel always said that Raveis saw opportunities in everything, that he collected them. Maybe his sparing me was another way of possibly helping you.”
Tom said nothing.
“The documents and audio files and videos, they served as a form of détente between Raveis and the Colonel,” Cahill said. “Maybe by letting you gain access to them after the Colonel’s death, Raveis was making the same deal with you. Maybe he’s telling you that he’ll grant you the professional courtesy of leaving you alone if you grant him the same courtesy.”
Carrington said, “Raveis didn’t show it because he couldn’t—it was his job to be an asshole—but he had a lot of respect for you. I’m thinking he knows you’d be smart enough to recognize a peace offering when you see one. You could destroy him, just like he could destroy you. If neither of you does a thing, then everyone gets to live the rest of their lives in peace.”
Tom thought about that, then said to Carrington, “No one knows where he went, right?”
“He could be anywhere in the world,” Carrington said. “If you prefer, if it will make you sleep easier, we can turn everything we have over to the feds. Raveis wasn’t the man who killed your father, but he did put him in the room with his killer.”
Tom shook his head. “No,” he said. “Raveis knows we’re here. He’s had an entire month to come after us, if that was what he wanted.” Tom took a breath, let it out. “I’ll take the peace offering, for everyone’s sake.”
Cahill and Carrington nodded in agreement.
“There’s something else,” Cahill said. “With Slattery’s help, we checked into whether or not the NYPD were looking for you. And for Stella, too, considering what she did in Madison Square Park. I even had one of my family’s attorneys standing by to get involved, just in case.”
“And?”
“It turns out someone with influence made it clear to the police commissioner that you and Stella were operatives of the United States government, and that any and all courtesies that could be afforded to you both should be afforded.”
Carrington said, “Someone’s looking out for you, it seems.”
“Raveis?” Tom said.
“Maybe. Or maybe it was someone else. Someone you haven’t even met and who might one day want to cash in on the favor he or she did you.”
Tom felt as if a cloud had suddenly moved in over him.
But his freedom wasn’t his only concern.
“What about Hammerton and his men?”
Cahill smiled and said, “It turns out they were security personnel attached to the British embassy in New York. Or at least that’s the word that came from London a week after their return to the UK. It looks like they have friends, too.”
Tom nodded, lo
oked at both men. “Thanks for all this.”
“It’s time for you to go now, Tom,” Carrington said. “You can go anywhere you want without having to look over your shoulder. You can start over again, as yourself or as someone else, whichever you choose.”
Tom thought about the possibilities.
Then Carrington added, “Maybe this time don’t answer your phone, no matter who’s calling, stranger or friend.”
Carrington left that evening.
Tom and Stella and Cahill and Sandy Montrose were the only remaining occupants of the house.
After dinner, Stella and Sandy went out to sit on the back porch, and as Tom and Cahill were cleaning up, Cahill made Tom an offer.
Later that night, in their room, Tom passed the offer on to Stella.
She thought about it for a few moments. “It’s funny,” she said finally. “My father was a marine and then a state cop. My mother was a doctor, back in the days when most towns only had one. So it kind of feels right, doesn’t it? Cahill and Sandy moving in. I mean, Sandy’s a damn good doctor, and Cahill was a marine and is what he is now, you know, this . . . protector.”
“He’s willing to pay whatever you want for the property.”
“Fair-market value is fine with me.”
“He asked me to help him get the downstairs space ready. It would probably take two weeks for us to do that.”
Stella looked at Tom. “You joined the Seabees because you wanted to build things. I can’t think of a better use of those skills now.”
“So it’s a yes.”
Stella nodded, leaned in, and kissed Tom.
Leaning back, she said, “Yes, it’s a yes.”
The renovations ended up taking ten days.
Cahill was clueless, like he’d once said he was, but he caught on fast, and as the project moved along, he and Tom picked up momentum to the point where they were taking breaks only for meals and to sleep for a few hours.
While they transformed the unused ground-floor retail space into a physician’s office, Stella and Sandy painted the apartment above, finishing their work just as Tom and Cahill had completed putting the wall frames and Sheetrock in place.
Once the downstairs painting was done, they put down floor tiles and carpeting and then brought in the furnishings and equipment.
It was eight in the evening on November 15 when they finished.
They shared a meal of Chinese takeout, toasted their efforts with glasses of red wine, and in the morning, an hour before dawn, Tom and Stella were ready.
Cahill had given them both backpacks, each one loaded with everything they might need—emergency medical equipment, survival gear, burner phones with a single number programmed into them.
“I’ll see you around,” he said to Tom. Then he smiled. “Or maybe not. It’s all up to you.”
He and Tom shook hands.
Sandy and Stella embraced.
Sandy kissed Tom; Stella kissed Cahill.
It was a cold morning in Canaan, and it was time for Tom and Stella to go.
The pickup truck was a ten-year-old Chevy Colorado, a gift from Cahill and Sandy for all the work Tom and Stella had done on the property.
At first Tom had refused the vehicle, said they could get their own, but Cahill had insisted.
Tom was steering the pickup north on Route 7, taking the same two-lane road out of town that he had taken into it two and a half years ago, on that chilly spring day when he had stopped for an early lunch at a converted railcar diner and found the reason to cease his five years of wandering.
But that hadn’t been the end of his wandering; he knew this now. It was merely a stopover to pick up a passenger who would one day travel on with him.
Someone to watch over, and to watch over him.
“So where are we going?” Tom said.
Stella waited a while before answering.
“We’re coming from where I grew up, and we’ve been to where you grew up, so how about someplace neither of us has been before? What do you think of that? Someplace in the middle of nowhere.”
Tom smiled and reached over to touch the side of her face, his eyes on the open road ahead.
It was good, he thought, to be moving again, and to be free.
“Nowhere sounds perfect,” he said.
Acknowledgments
Much appreciation for the hard work (and patience) of the following kind souls, in order of appearance:
Scott Miller, Alison Dasho, Gracie Doyle, Liz Pearsons, Caitlin Alexander, Sarah Shaw, and Sarah Simone, RN.
Thanks also to:
Lenora Martorelli, Theresa Schwegel, Audrey Terry, Brian Dewey, and Janet and Chris Antilla.
About the Author
Photo © 2012 Tracy Deer-Mirek
Daniel Judson is the Shamus Award–winning (and four-time finalist) author of The Temporary Agent, The Rogue Agent, and The Shadow Agent in the Agent Series, as well as Avenged, The Poisoned Rose, The Bone Orchard, The Gin Palace, The Darkest Place, The Betrayer, The Water’s Edge, The Violet Hour, and Voyeur. Judson’s immersive research method lends his work a distinctive authenticity and has fostered an ever-expanding eclectic skill set that includes Vipassana meditation, Filipino knife-fighting, and urban-evasion techniques. A Son of the American Revolution, former gravedigger, and self-described onetime drifter, Judson currently lives in Connecticut with his fiancée and their rescued cats. For more information, visit Daniel at www.danieljudsonbooks.com.
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