by John Hart
Michael handed her a five-dollar tip. “Maybe some other time.”
“You sure?”
Her fingers brushed his, and they were soft.
“Only that I will curse myself in the morning for missing an opportunity such as this.”
He winked, pushed outside; and through the glass he saw her smiling.
* * *
The road out to the orphanage was nearly empty. Michael passed a few cars going the opposite way. No headlights behind him. When the tall gates drew near, he slowed and turned, the big car smooth and nearly silent. The dome light engaged when he opened the door, then went off as he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust.
The night was dark this far out, a warm blackness that collected between the mountains. There was no moon. No streetlamps. The stars seemed too high and colorless to offer much light, and even the town, four miles off, seemed to keep its glow dim and low to the ground.
Michael walked to the gate and listened to the night sounds, to crickets and wind and the slide of the river. It took a full two minutes to understand what Ginger had meant when she spoke of coming here after dark. The moment came as Michael took his gaze off the giant black ruin and let it wander the grounds. He saw buildings and dark, a hint of fallen stars where the river went smooth enough to shine. There was nothing, he thought. The place was as black and barren as the far side of the moon. Then his eyes snapped back to one of the small buildings at the rear of the grounds. Thin light shone from a ground-floor window. It was only a sliver, a blue glow through half-drawn curtains, but it was enough.
Michael went over the fence.
He landed lightly, gun in his hand. Under his feet, the drive felt cracked and loose. Small weeds scraped his shoes, and as he walked he felt the past rise up again. He pictured Andrew Flint and contemplated if he were, indeed, an evil man. He was a weak man, yes, incompetent and uncaring. In the end, it didn’t matter. Michael knew it like he knew his bones. Evil or weak, Flint had left the prison to be run by the prisoners. He’d turned his back on the smallest, failed in the most basic manner, and Michael felt an anger stir down deep, a tight fist that thumped harder as familiar shapes gathered in the dark, as old hurts rose and memory crowded close.
Ten years of hell.
Of pain and fear and want.
Michael sucked night air deep and let the emotions run as he moved light and fast over ground that he remembered with shocking clarity. He passed trees he knew, leapt a drainage ditch without seeing it. The building piled up beside him, put a taste in his mouth as he pictured Julian weeping in his narrow bed. He slid along the east wall, reached out to touch brick and found it unchanged. There was ruin here, and strength; that should mean something, but did not. He gave himself the time it took to pass the main stairs, then tightened down the valve of resentment, so that when he reached the window with the television glow, he was himself again, cold and keen and eager.
He put his back against the wall, scanned the open ground and saw nothing out of place. The building was two stories tall, redbrick with shutters that had been green when he was a boy. It had been housing then, a collection of rooms for the few staff that chose to make Iron House their home. It had always been off-limits to the boys. One more rule. One more place to avoid.
Not anymore.
Michael looked through the window and saw a small room with poor furniture. A television flickered in the corner. The TV was old and small, sitting on a trunk. There was no one in the room, but through a door Michael saw yellow light from another room. He made a slow circuit of the building. In the back, he found an old car and empty windows. The light came from a room near the front door. Michael found more curtains partly drawn, bare hints of the interior. He saw a coal-burning fireplace and a tattered wingback chair beside it, two books on the mantelpiece, wooden floors and an area rug worn threadbare on one side. He thought about the gun in his hand, then tucked it away.
He knocked on the door, knocked again and then rattled the knob as something scraped inside. He put his ear close to the wood, fingers spread. There was stillness at first, then he heard the ratchet of metal—an unmistakable sound—and jerked back as the door blew apart at chest height.
Light spilled through the hole.
Gun smoke.
Michael heard another round racked into the chamber. He saw fingers of shadow as someone moved toward the door, then rose himself, his back against the brick, forty-five heavy in his palm. He removed the safety, finger inside the trigger guard. He slipped closer to the door: two feet and then one. Breathing sounds came from beyond the hole in the door. Erratic. Forced. Footsteps dragged as the muzzle appeared in the hole. Black metal with a red bead sight, it trembled as it broke the plane of the door. Michael didn’t screw around. Moving fast, he grabbed the barrel, pushed it away and yanked hard. The weapon discharged a tongue of fire. Michael heard a small cry, and then it was his: hot metal and a walnut stock. Large bore shotgun. He pulled it through the hole and tossed it down, bringing up his own weapon and sighting on an old man inside who was loose-skinned and white. His hands were up and in front of him as if still holding the shotgun, mouth open. A bathrobe hung to his knees, bare legs beneath and worn, red slippers on his feet.
“Open the door.” Michael kept the gun steady. The old man—Andrew Flint—stared, but seemed unable to move. Patchy hair covered the dome of his skull. His cheeks were sunken, his hands liver-spotted and veined. He peered through the hole as if he had no idea what it was. “Please,” Michael said, and his voice came cool and calm as Sunday morning. It seemed to have an effect, because Flint put his hand on the dull, brass knob. The door swung open, and Michael stepped inside. When light landed fully on his face, Flint squinted, his lips pulling up.
“Julian Vane?” Something like hope moved his features. A knobby finger rose, and then the recognition died. He shook his head. “No. Not Julian.”
“Step backward, please.” Michael used the same Sunday morning voice. He knew from experience that it kept people calm, even when they understood, deep down, that Michael had come for a reason. The voice lulled them because it sounded nothing at all like the end of the world. It was too reasoned and too calm; it gave people hope.
Flint backed up until his knees struck a small coffee table. Michael checked the room, saw the cold fireplace, the wingback chair. A bookshelf dominated a wall that had been invisible from outside. On the right, a wide hall ran off into shadow. The television glow came from a room halfway down. “Is there anyone else in the house?” Michael asked.
A head shake. “No.”
Michael kept the gun on Flint. “What made you think I was Julian Vane?”
Flint’s hands moved, fingers spread, toward the bookshelf. “I have his books. All of them.” He took a step toward the shelves. “Here.”
“That’s enough.” Michael stopped him two feet from the books. He could see a row of books, spine out, which bore the name Julian Vane.
“His picture is on the back…”
Flint moved another foot, reached out and Michael cocked the forty-five. Flint froze and Michael said, “A dangerous man might have a weapon behind those books.”
“No…”
“Nevertheless.” Michael wagged the muzzle at the chair.
Flint looked at the wingback.
“Sit.”
“Please, don’t kill me.”
Flint collapsed when his knees hit the back of the chair. In the sad, brown robe he looked like nothing more than a bag of old bones. Michael dragged the coffee table so that he could sit across from Flint, three feet between them. He kept the gun on Flint, one eye on the dark, empty hall. “Do you know who I am?”
“The hand of God come for vengeance…”
He sounded insane when he said it, the words a bare whisper, his eyes shocked wide and yellow-white. Michael smelled liquor on the man’s clothes, his breath. He saw a worn, leather Bible on the floor beside Flint’s chair, noticed that the man’s nails were chewed to the quick
, his hands as horny as alligator skin.
Michael leaned closer into the light. “Do you know me?”
“I … don’t.” He turned his head but kept his eyes on Michael. “No.”
“But you can guess.”
Flint nodded, and light caught in pale, pink crescents at the bottoms of his eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Kill me.”
“All I want at this moment is for you to say my name.”
Flint stared at the muzzle of the gun.
“Say it.”
“Michael…”
“Why do you think I’m here to kill you?”
“Because everyone else is dead. Because I knew it would come back to me. Because taking that money was a sin. Selling those boys out…” His voice broke. Michael released the hammer and shifted the barrel until it was pointed five degrees left of Flint’s gut. Flint followed the movement, then said, “I never blamed you for killing that Hennessey boy. He was a rotten child.”
“Is that right?”
“So many rotten boys back then.” Flint’s eyes darted to the open door. “So few like your brother. But this, now…” His eyes were pinned to the floor, head shaking sideways. “This now.” His gaze came back up, and his soul was tortured. “It’s been twenty-three years. Why would you kill those boys now? After all this time…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said.
But Flint’s head was still shaking, eyes distant and damp. “Evil and vengeance and God’s chary eye…”
Michael edged the muzzle back three degrees, and it got Flint’s attention. “Why did you blow a hole in your door, Mr. Flint?”
“I put a motion sensor at the gate.”
“So, you knew someone was coming. That doesn’t tell me why you put a round through your door.” Michael waited for Flint to focus. “Did you even look to see who it was?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Just figured I was next. Been waiting. I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Don’t pretend.” Flint’s voice thickened, his face suddenly hard. “I may be an old man and afraid, but I’m smart enough to know what’s what: you, here, with your calm voice and shark eyes, those other boys, gone and so silent they got no choice but to be dead. All that money with no price to pay…” He rolled his eyes, sucked in a sudden breath. “I know now what I’ve done. And I know what you are.”
“You don’t, actually.”
“Well, I don’t have the money, if you came to get it back.” He dragged an arm across his mouth, looking sly and angry. “It’s gone with the rest of it. Damn Indians. Damn Cherokee with their cheap booze and rigged casinos.” Flint’s eyes flicked left, and Michael saw a bottle of whiskey and a glass down to half a finger. Flint scraped a palm over white whiskers, then tore his eyes away. “It makes sense, now I think on it. You being the one.”
“Why is that?”
“You’re the only killer come through this place. Killing as a boy, killing as a man.” He nodded. “Like rain in springtime.”
Michael stood. “You know nothing about me, Mr. Flint.” He walked across the room, picked up the liquor bottle and the glass. “And I know less about you. Not your needs or weakness, not those other boys you say are gone and silent.” He sat back down and sloshed three inches of brown liquid into the glass. “But you’re going to tell me.”
“Why should I?”
The pistol barrel tracked right and settled squarely on Andrew Flint’s forehead. “There’s nothing I won’t do for my brother, Mr. Flint. If nothing else, you should remember that.”
Flint watched the glass, licked sandpaper lips. “And you won’t kill me if I tell?”
Michael kept the gun steady, and handed the glass to Flint. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have questions.” Flint drained the glass. “And I expect you to have answers.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Eighty miles east of Iron Mountain, the helicopter raced along at two thousand feet. To the south, the city of Charlotte looked golden and compressed, a setting sun dipped in a giant, black sea. Abigail sat behind the pilot, the senator to her left. Jessup rode up front, his face all angles and lines, with deep shadows in the creases and a hint of pale whiskers. A few times, he looked back, and when he did his face reflected a quiet agony of things unsaid. But because the senator was there, he said nothing beyond the mundane. He consulted the map, spoke to the pilot. Occasionally, he radioed the estate with updates on their position and flight path.
After twenty minutes, Abigail tuned out. The cabin was warm, the noise soothing, even through the headset. She replayed the last few hours with Michael. His face at the gates of Iron House. His determination as they parted. She closed her eyes, and flinched when the senator put a hand on her leg, sat still as he flicked a switch that would isolate their headsets.
“I thought we could use a little privacy.”
His features were heavy in the dim light, his eyes wide-set and deep. She smelled the cologne he preferred, something French, and marveled at the strength in his thick fingers. “It’s a little late to whisper sweet nothings.”
“Do you doubt that I love you?”
“I’m no longer sure.”
“Don’t confuse the occasional dalliance for anything other than what it is. It’s just sex and ego.”
“You’re a man of appetites.”
She said it flatly, but he nodded as if she were preaching. “And honesty where it matters.”
“And does honesty still matter with me?”
He squeezed her leg, a dark twinkle in his eye. “You’ve never been anything but a perfect spouse—elegant and beautiful and poised. I knew the moment I saw you—”
“That I would look good on your arm.”
Vane frowned. “That you would be discrete and loyal to your husband. That you would know the value of the things I was building, and the many ways in which you would benefit from those things.” He shifted in his seat. “That as beautiful as you were, you would also understand how the game is played. That you were a pragmatist.”
“Perhaps I’m not as mercenary as you imagine.”
“Perhaps you are more so.”
“What are you saying, Randall?”
He showed his cold, politician eyes. “I’m asking if you know anything about these bodies.”
“I would never—”
“Let’s not pretend you’re incapable.”
“Of killing a man?”
“Of keeping secrets.” The senator glanced at the pilot and at Jessup. They were cut off from the conversation, oblivious. “Of protecting Julian, even if it meant lying to me.” Abigail touched her throat, but he was unflinching. “Dead people are turning up on my property, and I’m being crucified in the media. They’re calling me obstructionist, elitist and every other thing. It’s eighteen years ago all over again, and the election is in three months! I need to know what’s happening, Abigail. This is no time for reticence or misplaced loyalty.”
“I don’t know anything.”
The senator frowned. “I don’t pretend to know all of you, my dear, and have found you, in fact, as layered as any politician. But I know when you’re lying.”
“I tire of this game.”
“And I marvel at your depths; but I still want to know what’s going on.” His head moved, and she saw it reflected in the Plexiglas window. “Running back to Iron Mountain with Michael was neither accident, nor idle destination. You do nothing without good cause.”
“Nor do you. And this interrogation makes me wonder if there’s something you’re not telling me.” Vane glanced down, and Abigail said, “Oh my God. There is something you’re not telling me.” A pit opened in Abigail’s stomach. She thought she understood. “They’ve identified the bodies, haven’t they?”
The senator had connections
everywhere: men on the payroll, people who owed favors. He had at least one person in the local police department, and probably more.
Please, God …
“George Nichols went missing five weeks ago.”
“George Nichols…” Abigail repeated the name, appalled and suddenly nauseous.
“He runs a lawn service in Southern Pines.” Vane leaned closer. “He has friends, Abigail. Employees. People who reported him missing. The police found his car weeks ago, burned out and abandoned on a deserted lot in the far south of Chatham County, less than twenty miles from the estate. The license plate was removed, but the VIN number was intact. The police traced it as a matter of course, so his name was already on file, the missing persons report. Dental records were faxed in this afternoon, the body confirmed by dinnertime.”
Abigail’s mouth went dry.
“Does the name mean anything to you?” he asked. “George Nichols. White male. Thirty-seven years old.”
She shook her head, unfeeling.
“What about Ronnie Saints?”
“Ronnie who?”
The deadness spread to her arms, her legs. Vane nodded. “They pulled him out of the lake less than an hour ago. He’d not been in the water long. Still had his wallet in his pocket. I suppose that name means nothing.”
“Should it?”
The senator leaned back. “I think we both know that’s a lie, too. It’s been years, but I’ve heard those names. George Nichols. Ronnie Saints. I can’t remember where or the precise context, but I’m certain it had something to do with Julian. Something to do with Iron Mountain.”
Abigail looked away.
“Why did you go back there, Abigail?”
She said nothing, but felt panic well up in her chest. He took her hand, and his touch was surprisingly gentle.
“Can’t you see how dangerous this is?” He waited for her to turn. “Can’t you trust me?” Her head moved, and the senator looked crushed. “Why not?”
He was pleading with her, begging in a way she’d never seen. There were a dozen lies she could tell, and a handful he might actually believe. In the end, she told none of them. “You’ve never loved Julian as I have.” She lifted her chin. “You’ve never loved him enough.”
