by Erik Carter
Dale shook his head. “No. Not like this. Give me your hand.”
He reached out and took Hendrix’s wrist. Hendrix wrapped his hand around Dale’s wrist and looked at Dale with that expression of deep defeat.
And then the expression morphed, the corners of his lips sliding up his face — it became a look of pure malice.
“Yes, Dale, I’m going out on my own terms. And those terms involve taking you out with me, the asshole who ruined everything for me.”
He dug his fingers hard into Dale’s arm, five points of sharp pain pushing into Dale’s muscle.
Then he yanked violently.
Dale stumbled forward, his stomach smashing into the barrier wall. Dale’s free hand had been on the guardrail atop the wall, and he removed it to go for his gun, in the holster behind his back.
This just made the situation worse. Hendrix’s weight pulled him farther down, and Dale reached out to grab the handrail again. He caught himself, stopped the descent. He was bent halfway over the wall now, his waist hooking the guardrail.
“I bet you never thought it would end like this, did you?” Hendrix said. “Falling off an overpass in Tennessee outside a damn bus station?”
Hendrix laughed and gave Dale’s arm another solid tug. Dale went farther over the edge. His feet were no longer touching the ground. He was holding on solely with his free arm and the strength in his abdominals.
“Join me, Dale. It’ll be fun! Come on, now!”
Hendrix tugged again.
Dale slid more. His weight teetered over the crest of the guardrail.
He kicked desperately, trying to pull his weight to the other side.
But it wouldn’t go.
He slid over.
A wave of panic swept over Dale’s flesh. A cold sweat. He and Hendrix began falling toward the traffic.
And then they stopped.
There was a jolt. A sudden halt. They weren’t falling. Something was latched onto Dale’s legs. He glanced back over his shoulder.
It was Penny.
She had her arms wrapped around Dale’s thighs. Her eyes were closed, grimacing, as she dug her feet into the concrete, fighting the combined weight of both men.
Dale put his free hand against the wall, stabilized the swinging.
Below, Hendrix yanked again.
Dale and Penny stumbled forward.
Another tug from Hendrix.
Penny lost her footing. Dale slid out of her grasp until she squeezed tight again, securing him by the calves. Both she and Dale started going over the edge along with Hendrix. Penny’s feet shuffled on the sidewalk.
Dale looked up at Penny, struggling, and back to Hendrix, then to the traffic zipping by on the highway below.
The situation was critical.
And critical situations called for drastic measures.
He looked Hendrix right in the eye.
“You always told me I needed to use my head,” Dale said.
He swung his head down hard. Hendrix’s eyes went wide just before Dale’s forehead made contact with his.
Crack!
Hendrix’s face whipped back. His hand slipped. And he fell, limbs flailing, to the road below. He hit with a solid thud and some very sickly snapping noises. A pair of broken legs.
There was a tiny bit of life left in him. Still. His head slowly looked back up toward Dale …
And then a screeching semi truck smashed right into him.
Absolutely splattering him.
Dale turned away in disgust.
Yikes.
There was a tugging at Dale’s legs. Penny was pulling him back up. When his body cleared the guardrail, Dale’s ab muscles finally stopped straining. They screamed at him, and refused to contract again. He collapsed onto the sidewalk beside Penny just as she fell in next to him, both of their backs leaning against the wall.
There was the sound of sirens in the distance.
Penny, panting, turned to him. She shook her head.
“You saved me,” Dale said.
“I owed you one. You saved me first.”
“Well, you know what they say—a penny saved is a penny earned.”
Penny groaned. “Horrible pun. Doesn’t even fit the situation.”
“It was charming, though.”
Dale winked.
“If you say so.”
Penny released a long breath, clearly shaken by all her misadventures with Dale, the sort of things a person like her was never supposed to see. She scooted closer to him. He put his arm around her, and they sat there against the wall, silently, catching their breath as the sirens grew louder.
Chapter Eighty-One
The following afternoon.
Dale sat at a bench at the edge of a city park, facing Gay Street. The sun was bright, and the sky was blue. There was a calm demeanor to the traffic on the road as well as the foot traffic on the sidewalk. It reminded Dale of the mood that had been on Gay Street during his first night in town, when he’d sat in the cool nighttime air waiting on Penny to return.
It was warmer now, the warmest it had been during Dale’s Tennessee assignment. About seventy degrees. The sun felt fantastic. Not too hot, just perfectly warm. He closed his eyes and turned his head to the sky, feeling the heat on his cheeks.
A green Cadillac pulled up in front of him and stopped. There was a woman in the passenger seat, hunched over, concealed.
Becker stepped out of the car and walked toward Dale. He limped badly.
Dale stood and pointed to Becker’s ankle as he approached.
“Battle wound, huh?”
“No one ever said it was gonna be easy.” He looked at Dale for a moment, nodding his head slightly like people do before they say something deep. “Listen, Conley, Y-12 owes you a debt of gratitude. I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
Dale shrugged. “Pfft. Don’t sweat it.”
“All assets were contained last night. And our investigation into Hendrix’s spies in the facility has already begun.” Becker paused. “I couldn’t have handled this without you. I want you to know that.” He looked left and right, searching the area around them. “Your friend isn’t here yet, I hope? We don’t want to interrupt.”
“Not yet,” Dale said.
Becker took a deep breath then pointed toward the Cadillac. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
Becker nodded and turned back to the car. He opened the passenger side door and leaned inside, speaking to the woman. After a moment she slowly stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Joan Becker had dark hair, streaked with gray, frazzled and unkempt. Her complexion was extremely pale, and there were bluish bags under her eyes. She wore a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. She blinked rapidly against the daylight, threw her hand over her eyes.
Becker kept his arm around her and led her toward Dale. She moved just as slow as Becker, even with his hobbled ankle.
When she stopped in front of Dale, she squinted, looked up at him. After a moment, her mouth opened. She gasped, stared at him slack-jawed.
Then she brought her free hand up, slowly, toward Dale’s face. She placed it on his cheek.
“Bertie …”
She rubbed her thumb over his skin and brought her other hand up to the opposite side of his face.
“You look so much like my Bertie.”
A tear fell down her cheek. And she smiled.
She threw her arms around him, began to cry.
Dale hugged her back and looked at Becker.
He remembered his earlier thoughts on stoicism. Like Becker, Dale tried to wall off as much of his emotions as possible. What begins as an exercise in hiding one’s feelings — lest the outside world mercilessly taunt you, which it would — quickly changes to shutting down one’s tender side altogether. This had happened to Dale long ago. It was a de facto requirement for his line of work. But there were still moments like this that yanked violently at his heartstrings.
He let his eyeli
ds close, and he squeezed Joan tighter.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Penny approaching from the opposite end of the block. She wore a bright blue shirt dress with sleeves to her elbows, white buttons running down the center, a wide collar, and a little belt cinching it around her waist. There was a matching blue plastic bracelet on her wrist, an orange scarf around her neck, and a pair of wedge heels on her feet.
Becker noticed Penny too. He put his hand on Joan’s shoulder.
“Come on, Joan. Time for us to go.”
Joan stepped away from Dale as Penny approached.
Dale ushered Penny over.
“Penny Whitworth, please meet Roy and Joan Becker.”
Penny smiled her standard, radiant smile. “Hello.”
“Pleasure,” Becker said and motioned his wife toward the Cadillac.
Before she turned to the car, Joan took Dale’s hand, squeezed.
“Thank you.”
Dale bowed his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
Becker helped Joan into the car and shut the door behind her. He then stepped up to Dale and shook his hand.
“I appreciate everything, Conley.” He looked at Penny. “You kids have fun.”
Becker went to the car.
Dale turned to his date. “Hey-a.”
“Hi, handsome.” She gave him a look, one of playful suspicion. “So, the front desk at the hotel rang me this morning. Said they had a package for me.”
She stuck out a leg, rotated her foot, showing off her heel.
“I couldn’t find the exact same shoes,” Dale said. “Those were pretty close.”
Penny’s original pair that Dale had destroyed had been block heels, but these new shoes were wedge heels. They did have similar glossy white straps, though. They were the best Dale could do on short notice that morning.
“I love them. Thank you.”
Dale gestured to the sidewalk before them. “Shall we?”
Penny smiled brighter, bounced once, then squeezed up beside him, taking his arm. She seemed truly, completely excited.
Dale recognized then that this individual was just about the most resilient person he had ever encountered. When he first met her, it had been immediately apparent that Penny’s beaming smile was genuine, but it took time for him to realize that it was also incorruptible. Since Dale had breezed into her life two and a half days ago, she’d been put into some of the toughest situations one could possibly imagine. And still she smiled.
The world needed more of that, smiling in the face of anything that life throws one’s way. Everyone could stand to be a bit more like Penny Whitworth.
“What do you want to do?” she said, her voice bubbling with excitement. “There are so many options in this city. I’m already learning my way around. We could go down to the river, we could go to one of the museums …”
She trailed off. She’d spotted something on the opposite side of Gay Street—a gelato shop. It was a small, cozy place. The walls were turquoise. Two little tables sat outside, and planters full of flowers lined the windows.
“Oh! Gelato! Why don’t we just sit down and chat for a while. We never really got to know each other. I warn you, though, I’m a talker. Once I get going it’s blah, blah, blah. Is that okay? Do you mind if I talk your ear off for a while?”
Dale was already leading her across the street. He smiled at her.
“Not at all, Penny. Not at all.”
- Be Still -
Copyright © 2019 by Erik Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Hot Springs, Arkansas
The 1970s
Chapter One
The woman stared at the projection, squinted her eyes as she gave things one more moment of consideration, then turned to the others and said, “Eliminate Dale Conley.”
Nash Harbick had heard enough.
“No!” he shouted.
The woman took a couple steps away from the projector screen, toward the conference table, eyes on Nash. The projector’s bright light illuminated the edges of her gray-white hair—straight, parted, and shiny. She gave him a cold smile.
“Oh, so Mr. Harbick does have some backbone.”
Alberta Ventress had the look of a predatory bird—bright blue eyes over a slightly long, slightly curved nose. Her lips were tight and rather thin, naturally red, with small wrinkles pursed around the edges.
They were in a hotel board room. The white curtains drawn over the windows were sheer, allowing the gloom beyond to creep in. The weather was so dark that it almost looked like nighttime—there was only enough daylight to prove that it wasn’t. Rain pattered the glass loudly, violently, and gusts of wind rattled the window frames.
Nash sat at the end of a small conference table—made of dark wood, scratched and worn from decades of gentle use—which was centered in the room. Next to him, positioned at the table’s edge, was a small projector. Its fan hummed, breathing warm air onto Nash’s arm. From the transparency loaded on its glass surface, it blasted a short list of text onto the screen at the back wall:
Dale Conley
serial killers
victim: Mira Lyndon
Seated at the table along with Nash were three men in dress clothes and one in a park ranger uniform. In other chairs positioned against the walls were two small groups of people, sitting on opposite sides of the room. One was a trio of cold-looking men wearing tactical gear, and the other was a group of three Hot Springs police officers, in uniform—two men and one attractive young female.
Nash desperately scanned their faces, hoping to find anyone else who thought that the command to execute Dale Conley was madness. His eyes landed on Special Agent in Charge Walter Taft, Dale’s boss at the Bureau of Esoteric Investigation, an older guy with reddish skin and reddish-gray hair wearing a tacky short-sleeve-and-tie combo. If anyone in the room besides Nash believed in Dale, it would be Taft.
Nash leaned forward on the table, looking past Higgins, who sat between Nash and Taft.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” he said to Taft, throwing up his hands.
Taft waved it away. “Don’t worry, Harbick. I’m not going to let this lady kill one of my agents.”
“Oh, you’re not, are you?” Ventress said, swinging her gaze past Nash to her new target. “Your agent is the reason we’re all in this mess, Taft.”
“And you assembled us here fifteen minutes ago. It takes more than fifteen minutes to sign a man’s death warrant.”
“Not when that man is a federal agent who’s gone nuts and kidnapped a witness. The case’s only witness. A woman who was recovering in a hospital from being attacked by a serial killer. The same serial killer your man was trying to track down. Conley has lost his damn mind. The girl’s in danger, and I stand by what I said.” She looked at the men in tactical gear. “If you find Conley and the girl together, you bring that son of a bitch down.”
Nash wasn’t going to give up on this. He couldn’t.
“When he abducted Mira Lyndon from the hospital,” Nash said, “Agent Conley told me he had a new lead in the investigation.”
“Oh, yes. That’s right!” Ventress said, her words dripping with venomous sarcasm. “Conley purposefully left you behind when he kidnapped this woman and wouldn’t tell you why he was doing it. Yet, you’re the man who Conley handpicked as an expert consultant for the case.”
“He told me there were good reasons for what he was doing.”
“And you believe that?”
“Yes, I do.”
There was a cardboard box on the table to Ventress’ right, the kind used for file storage. She stepped over to it, grabbed a folder, and looked through the contents as she said, “Because you worked together in the past, on a case up around the Great Lakes. Is
that correct?”
“Yes. We were partnered together three years ago. When I was still an FBI agent.”
Ventress put the folder down. “Do you trust everyone so easily, Mr. Harbick, or is it just Agent Conley’s notorious charm that got to you?”
Taft slapped his hand on the table.
“Knock it off, Ventress! Stop grilling the guy. You’re treating him like he’s on the stand.”
She turned on him.
“Suck me dry, Taft. I’m here to do a job, to clean up the mess you and Fulton created,” she said and stuck a finger toward the black man wearing an immaculate suit. “Conley’s run amok, and neither one of you idiots did your jobs and stopped him. So since I have to do what you two couldn’t, I’ll do so however I goddamn please.”
She took a step closer to Taft, her heels tapping on the floor. Nash had observed how she floated about the room effortlessly, placing herself in the best positions. He was again reminded of a bird of prey, floating high in the sky, pinpointing its quarry.
“And you know what?” Ventress continued. “That’s not a bad idea. A little trial.” She looked at Nash. “You’re gonna answer some questions, Harbick, starting with, why the hell are you sticking up for Dale Conley after what he did to you?”
“Because if you don’t forgive someone, or at least move on, it’ll end up destroying you.”
“You must be a pretty forgiving person then. And you must be pretty impressed with Dale Conley, yes?”
Nash paused before responding. For just a second. But he wasn’t searching for an answer. It was a moment of remembrance. The answer had come to him immediately.
“He was the best agent I ever worked with.”
Chapter Two
Three years earlier.
Nash was in the passenger side of a snarling sports car, clinging to the black leather seat for dear life. It was a De Tomaso Pantera, a mid-engine car with its V8 positioned right behind the cab. Nash could feel the engine’s power surging through the seat cushion, and the deafening sound roared all around him.
