by Ben Follows
"What do you mean?" said Curtis.
"I don't know," said Melanie. "My mom doesn't seem to think that it's anything to worry about, but I just want to be certain. You know what I mean."
"Yeah," said Curtis. "I know what you mean." He leaned over and grabbed Sophie hands, helping her bounce up and down. "Isn't that right, sweetie? You got a little cough and mommy's worried?"
Sophie giggled and kept bouncing, and Melanie and Curtis smiled.
Chapter 11
Natasha rubbed her eyes and sipped at her cup of coffee, which must have been her twentieth of the day. She had spent the last ten hours reading everything she possibly could about General Mavis, and she had spoken with her publisher, who had agreed that if it was related to her book, they would add a few more chapters for the books second printing.
As she had researched Mavis extensively, she had been able to create a portrait of the man, a great warrior and respected among all branches of the military. He was extremely well-liked. All the men and women who served under him seemed to like and respect him.
He had never had a family, and there had been rumors about his sexuality, with one anonymous forum post alleging he had been caught coming out of a few different gay bars, but nothing had been confirmed.
Not that Natasha cared. She just needed a way to prove that this was connected to her book about Curtis and Frankie, in which she was a victim who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She leaned back in her chair and looked around the coffee shop where she was working. She needed more information, some other angle she didn't have just yet.
Then a thought occurred to her. She had thought of it before but hadn't wanted to do it unless it was necessary.
Now, she saw the necessity.
She had to go and meet with the one person who wanted to destroy Curtis more than anyone else on the planet.
She took out her phone and called the Florida Department of Corrections. She was going to set up a meeting with Sam Marino.
Chapter 12
Ralph Lawton was sitting in his movie room. It had gotten dark outside while he had been sitting there.
A glass of cognac was in his hand, and it shook as he lifted it to his mouth. Almost an entire empty bottle sat on the ground beside him. He was watching The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, because he had wanted to see his favorite movie once more before he was killed. After all they had done, he had difficulty feeling sorry for himself.
"Sir, don't you think that you've had enough?"
Ralph looked up at Barry, one of his gardeners, who was sitting in the chair beside him. He was a young man not yet out of his twenties. Ralph had asked Barry to join him for a movie so he wouldn't feel so alone. He had just wanted a friend, yet Barry didn't treat him as a friend.
Ralph was alone, no matter how hard he tried to solve it.
He finished off his glass of cognac and looked over at Barry.
"Why don't you head home?" he said. "I'll be fine for the rest of the night."
"Are you sure, sir?" said Barry. "I can stay until the end of the movie."
"No," said Ralph. "It's fine. Tell the rest of the work crews to head home for the night as well. They've earned the night off."
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Tell them I appreciate all their hard work."
Barry stood and nodded to Ralph. "Thank you, sir." He walked to the doorway, then looked back. "Sir?"
"Just call me Ralph. Stop with this 'sir' shit."
"Okay, um, Ralph. Did you know that General who died this morning?"
Ralph looked up. "Why do you ask that?"
"One of the other gardeners said you seemed broken up about it. I know you were in the military. Did you know him?"
Ralph looked back at the screen, where Clint Eastwood was in the middle of a stand-off in the climax of the movie.
"Yeah," he said. "I knew him."
Barry nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss, sir. I mean, Ralph. I'll see you in the morning."
"Thank you," said Ralph.
He sipped at his drink and looked at the screen until he was sure that Barry was gone and he could hear the cars departing his large, empty house.
He was alone. In his big empty house with too many rooms that he didn't know what to do with. His entire life he had worked toward this. He had assumed that once he got all the money and the big house and the fast cars that everything would make sense and he would be happy.
But he wasn't.
He sat and watched until the end of the movie, then put on another Clint Eastwood Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales. He sat back down with a fresh bottle of cognac and sipped straight from the bottle.
The men in these movies, he thought. These were men. These were men who had been respected and revered. Nowadays, if you asked him, that kind of man was gone.
Once he had thought he was one of those men.
What a great lie that had been.
It was almost midnight when he heard the tell-tale creak of the floorboard in the main hallway.
It was the steps of someone who didn't know the house or where the creaky floorboards are.
Ralph didn't look back. He stared straight ahead. He felt a shadow come over him. Someone was standing in the doorway. He could hear the click of a gun and the loading of a chamber, as Clint Eastwood smirked on the screen in front of him.
"Going to say anything?" he said, trying to channel his Hollywood hero into some sort of strength and some final words.
"I didn't want to interrupt your movie."
Ralph turned his head.
Jason Wilson leaned against the doorway. He had stubble covering his face which he had always claimed was a beard. He was a few decades younger than Ralph, but they had been through the same things.
"Why?" said Ralph, standing, using the back of his chair to steady himself. "Why did you kill Henry?"
"I had no choice," said Jason. " They want the money."
"Who is they?"
Jason shook his head. "Look at you, man. You were once someone I looked up to. What are you now? A lonely old rich guy?"
"I'm not lonely. I'm not."
Jason smiled sadly.
"What's going on?" Ralph managed to say through his drunken haze. "You don't want to do this. I can tell."
"They want their money back," said Jason, "and they got to me first."
"Who does?"
Jason shook his head. "You know who. You're just too drunk to remember."
"Oh," said Ralph.
"You don't remember, do you?" said Jason. "Just tell me where the others are, and I'll leave."
"Just like you left Mavis alone? How did you get him to hang himself?"
Jason gestured to the chairs in front of the movie screen, where the movie continued to play. "Can we sit?" he said. "You look like you're one second away from collapsing."
Ralph was about to make a retort, but his stomach rolled over, and he nodded.
They took seats and Jason grabbed the remote to pause the movie. It froze on a landscape shot of the old west, the desert unmarred by human intervention.
"Why?" repeated Ralph.
"They have her," said Jason. "They have Gillian."
Ralph raised an eyebrow. "What happened to Janet?"
"She died," said Jason. "You were at her funeral, Ralph. What the hell has happened to you? Gillian is our daughter."
"Oh," said Ralph. He stood and stumbled over to the sink behind his custom oak bar, poured himself a glass of water, and then he downed it. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"It's fine," said Jason. "They want all of us dead. They got to me first. If I go to the authorities, they'll kill my daughter. I have to do what they say."
"They want their money back." Ralph leaned forward, blinking a few times to clear his head. "I don't have it. I spent my share. This house, the cars, the women. All of it I spent."
"Where is the rest?" said Jason. "There was more. Much more than could be put into our accounts in one g
o. It was meant to be distributed over decades so no one would know about it. Who has it?"
"You'll kill them if I tell you."
"They'll kill my daughter if you don't."
Ralph looked at the screen, at the still image at the red sand of the desert. He sighed. "I always wanted a child, but I suppose it just wasn't meant to be."
Jason looked like he was about to say something, then stopped himself, like he didn't want to psych himself out for what he needed to do next.
"Who has the rest of the money?" said Jason.
Ralph sipped at his drink and chuckled. "She was here earlier. If you had come a few hours ago, you could have asked her yourself."
"Who?" said Jason. "Who are you talking about? Coleman?"
"No," said Ralph. He chuckled to himself. "Lauren Mavis."
"What?" said Jason, almost in disbelief. "Who the fuck is that? Henry's wife?"
"No," said Ralph. "His sister. We recruited her because we needed a tech expert."
"I thought you were the tech expert," said Jason. "All this time I thought you were the one who was distributing the money."
"No," said Ralph. "We knew you and Coleman wouldn't have liked the fact that we brought in outside help, so we kept it quiet. She's the one who distributed the money, and she's the one who has it."
"Where is she now?" said Jason. He stood and raised his gun. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," said Ralph. "She was here, and now she's in the wind. She'll know that either you or Coleman are coming for her."
"Shit," said Jason. "Why would you do that? You've doomed my daughter to death!"
"Go to the FBI," said Ralph. "They're involved. Just explain to them what happened and they'll understand."
"Who else knows? Who else have you told?"
"No one," said Ralph. "It's my greatest shame. Why would I let anyone think that I got my wealth through less than legal means? Do your duty. Kill me like you promised them you would and go after the money. I'm sure they insisted you kill me."
Jason lowered the gun. "I don't want to. You were like a father to me. I can't do it." He lowered the gun. "I'll give you twenty-four hours to get out of the country. Then you'll leave."
Ralph looked up at him. Jason looked like a scared child. He had lowered the gun to his waist and was looking at Ralph with a look that bordered on begging.
"Please," said Jason. "I don't want to kill you. Take what you can and leave. I'll tell them I couldn't find you."
Ralph smiled at him. "Do your duty," he said. "Save your daughter. I remember your wife's funeral now. I met her a few times. She was lovely. You have more to live for than I do. They'll never believe that you couldn't find me. They'll talk to the gardeners and the maids. They'll know you lied. Kill me."
"Don't," said Jason, a single tear running down his cheek. "I'm letting you live."
"I'm ready to die," said Ralph. "I've done enough damage. Does your daughter make you happy?"
"She means everything to me," said Jason. "If I didn't get her back, I don't know what I would do."
"Then do what you have to," said Ralph. "How about we have one last drink together, for old times sake?"
Jason nodded and walked back to the bar. He grabbed a bottle of scotch from behind the bar, as well as two glasses, and walked back around to Ralph. He handed him a glass.
Ralph's hands shook as he held out the glass and Jason poured the fifteen-year-old scotch into the glass. Then he poured himself a drink.
They sat side by side, sipping at the glasses of scotch in silence.
"You know," said Ralph, "I always imagined I would do this with my son. I suppose this is the closest I'm ever going to get."
Jason put his hands on his knees. He still held the loaded gun in one hand, the glass in the other. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," said Ralph. He finished his glass and placed it on the ground beside him. "Go on then, do it."
Jason finished off his glass and placed it on the ground. He stood a few feet back from Ralph and pointed the gun at him.
"In the chest," said Ralph. "Right in the heart. I don't want my face to get messed up."
Jason nodded. He breathed through his nose and pulled the trigger.
As the bullet hit his chest, Ralph felt a strange peace. He smiled and looked past Jason, at the screen behind him, depicting a sunset in the middle of the desert. The red sand seemed to stretch to eternity.
He had seen this movie so many times and had never seen its beauty.
And as the world around him began to fade, he looked across the dessert and smiled.
Chapter 13
Frankie was sitting on her couch, a cup of herbal tea in her hands. She was waiting to hear back from the FBI tech teams about Mavis's bank accounts.
Will was in the kitchen, making stir-fry for dinner. The way he was whistling was irritating her. Somehow his happiness and joy were aggravating in a way she couldn't explain.
She wanted to talk to Curtis about it. He was her best friend, and she wanted his opinion. However, Curtis had so many of his own issues that she didn't want to worry him.
She sipped at her tea and looked at Will.
"Almost ready," said Will with a smile. He was an inch shorter than Frankie with a naturally broad frame and short hair.
Frankie smiled back at him, wondering what had happened to the brave and ambitious man she had graduated the academy with. Maybe he had never really existed.
The first night Will had been out on assignment, he had been confronted by a meth addict, who had panicked and sprinted at him, full speed, with a knife raised above his head. Will had pulled his gun and demanded that the meth addict stop.
The addict's mind was so far gone that nothing but a bullet would have gotten through his head.
But Will couldn't pull the trigger. He kept stumbling backward, screaming at the addict to stop. Those hundreds of hours on the shooting range meant nothing in the face of a crazed meth addict running at him.
His partner, a seasoned agent of 25 years, had taken a thirty-foot shot from the other side of the street, putting a bullet through the addicts head.
If not for that perfect shot, which the older agent had insisted was nothing more than luck, had been even a few inches in either direction, Will would be dead.
Some people, like Frankie, took opportunities like that to learn, but not Will. He had chosen to interpret the event as proof that he didn't have what it takes, and he had taken a job as a teacher at the academy. No matter how much Frankie had pushed him, he had shown zero interest in going back into the field.
"Dinner's up!" Will said.
He carried a tray of food out of the kitchen and placed it on the ottoman in front of Frankie. It was chicken stir fry with a glass of cranberry juice on the side.
"Thanks," said Frankie. She took a few bites to be polite, but she wasn't hungry. Will took a seat beside her, but there was a distance between them.
Frankie's cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and she was thankful for the distraction.
She stood and took her phone from her pocket. She looked at the caller ID and breathed a sigh of relief. It was Johnson. She wondered whether he ever left the FBI offices, or if he had any personal life. The only times she had ever seen Johnson outside his office were when he had duties that required his presence.
She gestured to the phone and walked into the kitchen to take the call.
"Lassiter," she answered.
"Get Mackley and get in here," said Johnson. "As soon as possible."
"What happened? Did you find Lauren Mavis?"
"No, she's still in the wind. Ralph Lawton is dead."
Frankie recalled the name of General Mavis's second-in-command. "Suicide?"
"Gunshot to the chest. He was shot in his house. I'm sending you the address. Meet the local police there."
"I'll head out now."
"Good," said Johnson. He ended the call without another word.
Frankie looked down at her phone. She
let out a deep breath. Although she hadn't believed it, part of her had been hoping it was just a suicide. Those cases were easy and could be wrapped up within a few days.
This, however, was something entirely different.
"Have to go," she said to Will as she passed him, grabbed her jacket, and walked out the door. She didn't wait for his response.
Chapter 14
Curtis was sitting on his bed, staring down at his phone. Melanie was asleep a few feet away, snoring with her face in the pillow.
His finger hovered over the call button. Frankie had gotten him Amber's phone number almost a month earlier, but he hadn't called her. He had told himself it was because he was too busy, but the truth was that he was scared. He had loved Amber once, and he was scared that contacting her was going to complicate everything he had with Melanie.
He had spoken to Melanie about it, hoping she would tell him not to contact Amber. Instead, she had told him to call.
"Damn it," said Curtis, unable to force himself to lower his finger just an inch further and push the call button.
There was a knock at the door. Curtis's head popped up. It was almost eleven at night. There was only one person who knocked at his door at this hour.
Something had happened.
He turned off his phone and walked to the front door
"Someone better be dead," he said, smirking as he opened the door.
Frankie rolled her eyes at him, not taking the bait. "Let's go. The car is waiting."
Curtis nodded. "Give me a second."
He wrote a quick note and left it on the counter.
He locked up the house and walked out to Frankie's car.
As they pulled away, Frankie brought him up to speed.
"So, what does this mean?" said Curtis, thinking out loud as they drove along the highway. "This doesn't necessarily rule out that Henry Mavis killed himself. It's possible, but unlikely, that they're unrelated. It's also possible his suicide prompted someone else to attack Ralph Lawton."
"And there's still the Lauren Mavis problem," said Frankie.
