House at Road's End

by Peggy Staggs

  “Which one do you want?”

  “None of them. I’d kill for some water. Besides, we need the heat packs in case we need to blow something up.”

  I gathered snow. It didn’t take long to melt. I helped him sit up and handed him the meager amount of water. “I’m sorry this is all there is right now. I’m melting more.”

  His smile was weak. “This is champagne compared to...it’s fine.”

  I melted several more batches.

  The shack had warmed enough so I wasn’t shivering much anymore. I’d hung our jackets on office chairs to dry.

  After putting more wood on the fire I laid on the floor. My sweater was soaked. If I took it off to dry I’d be what? Colder. I was pretty sure that wasn’t possible. Still it was a barrier between me and the rough floor.

  “Doc, take off those wet clothes.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “I’m fine.”

  “You can’t sleep down there. You’ll freeze.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I lied.

  “Have you ever slept on the floor of an un-insulated shack in the cold?”

  I figured this was a trick question. “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. If you had you wouldn’t be willing to do it now.”

  The floor held a kind of cold I’d never felt before. It soaked through to my bones. “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you consider shivering all night without sleep fine.”

  I sat up. “What choice do I have?” The minute the words were out in the icy air I knew what he was going to offer. I couldn’t come up with a medical reason to refuse. It sounded like a great idea. Because, it was. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  “I have a good side. See? No busted body parts on my right side.”

  I shivered and tugged my now ratty sweater off. I hung it over a chair to dry.

  “That, too.”

  I considered my wet cami. Logically, he was right. With our walk through the rain and snow to get here and all my trips out for firewood, it was past damp.

  “If you don’t, we’ll both be wet and cold. You’ll be warmer when you’re dry. Besides.” He lifted the blanket. “You’ll be sick with hyperthermia in those damp clothes.”

  »§«

  The gloom of morning seeped through the window.

  Jack woke me. “Doc, don’t move.”

  Seriously? I didn’t have any plans of leaving the warmth and security of his arms.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I sat up, reached for my now-dry but much worse-for-wear cami. Our jackets were dry, and completely unsuited for the situation. My blazer was totaled, just like my sweater. The arms were ripped at the shoulder seams. One pocket was gone. I pulled on my bedraggled sweater.

  Jack’s attire had fared far better. Except for the left shoulder of his t-shirt. It was ripped from the bullets and stained with his blood. I had no idea how we were going to get down the mountain without severe frostbite.

  “Jack, what are you doing?” I couldn’t help but marvel at his recovery. He still limped.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I joined him at the window. “There has to be a foot of snow out there.”

  “That’s not the problem.” He pointed. “Up there. See that glint?”

  It didn’t take long before I saw a flash.

  “What is it?”

  “Sunglasses most likely. Armatures.”

  “You mean they’re back?”

  “Yes.” The gray light of morning gave his pale skin a deathly pallor. “First we find what Ralph left up here for us.”

  A dense dread started in my stomach and spread to every part of me. It was a combination of fear for our lives, fear of the futility of our situation, and fear of the thought that we’d burned the very things we’d come for. The papers Jack had started the fire with. The empty stove could have held the very thing that would have brought Dad’s killers to justice. “Justice.”

  He turned and looked at me.

  “There’s no justice,” I said.

  “We make our own justice and struggle against what we can’t change.”

  I gazed into his crystal hazel eyes and knew if there were any way, he’d make this right. “I trust you.” I don’t know why I said it.

  He smiled.

  I went to the spot where the papers and sticks had been. The floor was bare. I refused to believe my dad would have put something so important out in the open. Same for the stove. Of course, they were the two places no one would look.

  “Jack, why was there a credit card application in the letter?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” He scanned the room. “It couldn’t be that easy

  “What couldn’t?”

  “Identity theft. Most of it comes from overseas. But, what if they’d found a way to route it around enough that it would get muddled in the internet? The list of names and numbers, the credit card application. It all fits. And look at this place.”

  “It’s a construction shack.

  “No.” He went to the window.

  “Could you fill that out a little?”

  “It’s a command center. Besides, I don’t think that’s all there is to it. This has a structure about it I don’t like. If it were simply identity theft ring, why go to all this? You can do that from your basement. I get that most of the names on the list were military, but why the deception on Ralph’s part?” He hadn’t turned his attention from the window. “I’m waiting for Brad Hughes to get back to me on the rest of the names.”

  I looked around. “That makes perfect sense.”

  He turned from the window and pointing to a broken electronics box he said, “That’s a communications module. A new one.”

  “I know what we’re looking for.”

  “What?”

  “Something electronic. You said he never did anything without a reason. There was a computer cord in the suitcase with all the money.” I kept coming back to it. “Why?”

  He didn’t say anything. Instead, he scanned in every inch of the room.

  “With an almost empty room, where would you hide evidence?” I asked as I searched for a hiding place. The cot. It was basic. Canvas stretched over a metal frame. I marveled at the fact it had supported the two of us all night. By all rights, it should have collapsed. In the morning light, I discovered the shack wasn’t as empty as I’d thought. The stove sat in the middle and two built-in counters ran nearly the length of the room. The chairs I’d used as makeshift clotheslines and the cot in the back, those I’d noticed last night.

  What I hadn’t seen were the all the plugins, the wires snaking over the top of the counter and down the front. The little office supply junk left behind. The walls were jip boarded and the floor covered with sheet vinyl. What I’d mistaken for rough wood last night was simply dirt and pine needles.

  “I’d put it somewhere that wasn’t obvious, but accessible,” Jack said.

  “What about that?” I went to the broken electronics box and put it on the counter. We took it completely apart.

  “Not in here,” Jack said. He limped back to the window.

  “You can get a lot of information on a thumb drive. And they’re so small.” Without paper I was going to have to list this out loud. “And if it’s only an inch and a half or so long it would fit in a—”

  Jack had abandoned his vigil.

  “The outlets along the wall are strips not the regular kind. Those are out. He wouldn’t put it where it would melt. The stove is out. Or wet. Not outside.” I bent down and peeked under the counter. The outlets down there were the same as the ones above. “Wouldn’t put in something that could easily be hauled away. Not the chairs. What else is there?” I remembered Sophie. “Sophie’s dad.”

  “Who is Sophie?” he asked.

  I shook my head. That wasn’t important right now. “He is an architect. She used to say one of the first things he noticed about the inside of a building was the ceiling.”
/>   He sat on the edge of the counter, his good arm cradling the damaged one.

  “It has to be in the light fixture or the switch by the door.”

  Jack shook his head. “Amazing.” He pulled out a knife, got to his feet and went to the only normal switch in the room. A second later, the cover plate was off. “Nothing.”

  I pointed. “It has to be up there.” I pulled a chair over and climbed up, unscrewed the glass cover and there it was. Tucked in the fixture. “It’s here.”

  I climbed down and handed the drive to him.

  “One problem solved.” He looked out the window. “Now all we have to do is get it to Brad.”

  “Brad?”

  “My old C.O. He retired and joined the FBI. He comes up once a month on his way to or from Boise for a poker game.” He stopped. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “He was transferred to the Salt Lake Office six months ago.”

  “Can it be that easy?” I asked.

  “It makes sense. Seeing Brad coming through town on a regular basis has to be it.”

  “I went to Mullen the other day. I was after boots.”

  He smiled.

  “Anyway, I talked to a woman who owns a dress store there, and she told me her father was the foreman up here. He said after they built this place, they mostly pushed dirt around.”

  “Earl Clearly. I talked to him a few months ago.”

  “You know my dad, he’d never disclose anything until he had all the facts.”

  “I wish we had a computer. There’s got to be more to it. This is too elaborate for that uncomplicated a scheme.” He held out the drive to me. “Keep this safe.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” I looked from his shoulder to his leg. “You have to get to a hospital.”

  He ignored me. “That’s why they went to all this trouble. They’ve probably climbed all over this place searching.” He pointed to the drive. “They were waiting for us to find it.”

  “So what do we do?” This was his world.

  “We need a diversion.” He scanned the room again. “If it were me I’d have one man in back out of sight,” Jack said as he took stock. “One out front who’s hopefully still wearing his sunglasses.” He picked up his rifle.

  Granted his right side wasn’t hurt, but he still had to shoot.

  He pulled up a chair and steadied his weapon. “Now, we wait.”

  I sat by the stove. Tending the fire.

  Finally, Jack moved. He took his time and fired. Then, a second time. I scrambled to my feet. “Did you get him?”

  “I did. There at the top of the cut near the fallen tree hanging over the edge.” He pointed. “See the branch sticking up?”

  A figure slumped over the bare trunk.

  “We wait again.”

  “For what?”

  “To see who crawls out of their hole next. They heard the shots. Their buddy is hanging over a tree. They’ve got a limited number of options.”

  A minute later he said, “There you are.” He fired off two more rounds.

  “He’s down.” I heard the burden in his voice.

  “Is that it? Do we just walk out of here now?”

  “I’d like to be sure we got them all. Overconfidence is a killer.”

  I went over and began packing the things in his pack.

  “We’re only taking the small aid bag,” he said. “Neither of us is in shape to carry the whole thing.”

  “What if we need something? I can carry it.”

  “Ens, I saw your shoulders. You’re not carrying it. I’m taking the bag. You carry the weapon.”

  Seriously? “Are we going to go through this again? I was pretty sure you got that stubborn trumps...everything.” I hoisted the pack to my shoulder. I was already to say, see. The strap dug into my bruised shoulder with the sharp teeth of agony. I steeled myself against the hurt. I could do it. I hoped. “See.” I tried to move it to a place that didn’t hurt. I couldn’t. “I’ll drag it.” That could work. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  “No.”

  “We’re leaving it here. I’ll get it later.”

  “What? No. What if you tear your stitches?”

  “Take the butterflies.”

  I took everything out of the pack I’d need and stuffed it in the small bag.

  “How does it look outside?”

  “They’re still down. Let’s go.” He shouldered his rifle. “You stay behind me. You do what I tell you without any arguing. Got it? Good. Let’s go.”

  Outside, the snow swallowed every sound. Instead of heading back to town, he went to the man who lay in the snow.

  I bent down to check for signs of life.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.” I pulled back his jacket. Sticking out from underneath his waffle-weave shirt, I could see a large bandage. “I think this is one of the guys who killed my dad.”

  Jack reached down and ripped back the tape and gauze. “That’s about a week old.”

  “Good guess.”

  We turned to find a man holding a rifle on us. It was huge. But when someone points a weapon at you it never looks small.

  “You’re the son-of-bitch who killed my truck.” I had to marvel at the fact that Jack never raised his voice. It made what he said so much more threatening.

  The guy laughed. “That would be me. Throw the gun down.”

  With no other option, Jack tossed the M4 in the snow.

  He motioned for us to go back to the shack.

  Jack didn’t move. Instead, he pushed me behind him.

  That was all great and heroic, but I wasn’t going to be the mouse that hides. Then, I saw the pistol tucked in the back of his jeans.

  “It doesn’t matter to me where I shoot the two of you. I didn’t want to have to dig around in the snow for the evidence. I assume you found it.”

  “We did. And I don’t think you’re going to have to go to all the trouble of digging around in the snow,” Jack said.

  “Don’t tell me you think the cavalry is going to come driving up the road. I took care of that. No one is coming.” He leveled his gun at Jack’s head. “You first. Then your little girlfriend. It may take—

  Bang.

  “Little girlfriend, my ass.”

  Jack took the gun from me. “Thanks for not killing him. Someone needs to go to jail for Ralph’s death.” He walked over picked up the man’s gun, checked to see if he had any more then said, “Get your sorry butt off the ground.”

  The man struggled to his feet as he clutched his shoulder.

  “She’s a doctor. Isn’t she going to help me?” the man said as he examined his bloody arm.

  “You’re lucky I’m a good shot.”

  The sound of an engine reached us.

  “How many of these guys are there?” I said as I retrieved Jack’s gun from the snow.

  “This way.” He pointed to one of the large pieces of machinery.

  We slipped behind the scoop.

  “This is what you’re going to do,” he said to me. “Get down, stay down. If anyone other than me comes around the blade of this cat, shoot them.”

  “Oh, wow, the big hero—”

  “Shut-up or I’ll shoot you again.” To Jack I said, “You can’t go out there. They’ll kill you.”

  “Ens, they’ll see our tracks. This is your only chance. For god’s sake, please do this for me.”

  “Oh, like hell. I’m not a coward. I’m not going to hide while they kill you.”

  “FBI, come out with your hands up.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  They took us down to where the explosion had created a massive pile of rocks and fractured mountain. There, several emergency vehicles were parked on the downhill side of the slide.

  One of the EMT’s helped Jack remove his jacket. At some point he’d started bleeding again.

  I heard a cell phone ring.

  Oh, sure now there was cell service. “Ho
w?”

  “We set up a relay.” Lyle handed me his cell phone. A puzzled expression wrinkled his young face. “It’s for you.”

  “Me? Are you sure?”

  “He asked for Doctor Markus.”

  “Thanks.” I tried to smile, but all I could concentrate on was Jack sitting in the back of what looked like a regular SUV. The EMT was cutting off Jack’s shirt. “Hello?”

  “Ensley, I understand you’ve had a bad day.”

  Really? Did he have a drone keeping an eye on me? “Don?” I pulled the phone away and reached for the end button. No, I was going to deal with him once and for all. “How did you know?”

  “Now, Ensley, don’t get excited.”

  I’ve mentioned before how I don’t take well to people telling me to calm down. Well, don’t get excited is right below it on the list. Besides, he had no idea how bad it had been. My head nearly exploded. “Do not—”

  “I called to talk to Jack earlier. And I had a very nice conversation with Phyllis.”

  I made a mental note to have a conversation with Phyllis.

  “She told me you and Jack were missing, but they’d found you safe.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “I’m looking out for you.” I could hear the trepidation in his voice. “I know I was wrong. If you’ll come back, I’ll make it up to you. I still have your ring.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Don March expressing remorse? No. He had to have a motive.

  “After everything you’ve done...no wait.” I paused and glanced over at Jack. “Don, thank you. You’ll never know what you’ve done. If it weren’t for you—” I winced as the EMT ripped Jack’s pants. The guy was in for a surprise.

  “Ensley, are you still there?”

  “What? Yes. I am still here. Your supreme act of selfishness changed my life.” Well, that and Dad’s death. “It brought me here and I’m not leaving. I’m home. So, good-bye Don March. I’d say have a nice life, but you don’t know how. And for that I am truly sorry.” Click. And Don March was out of my life for good.

  I walked over to the rescue truck.

  Jack stopped telling the EMT what to do and focused his attention to me. “You okay?” He turned to the EMT. “I want you to check her ankle. She had a nasty abrasion from her boots.”