by Margaret Kay
“Take your time on preparing her, will you? I need a few days to sort a few things out with her murder.”
Allen nodded.
Sherman followed Sloan from the embalming room. He followed him to an alcove in the hallway and watched Sloan move a piece of the wood paneling. A narrow set of stairs led up. Just then Sherman’s phone buzzed. He checked it, Garcia.
“Step outside to take that,” Sloan told him, pointing to the back door just down the hall. “I don’t want Allen to hear your call. Then meet me upstairs. I’ll show you my old shag-pad.” He chuckled.
Sloan went up as Sherman went outside. The temperature increased with each step he mounted. He supposed that someone had closed all the vents up there long ago. At the top of the stairs was a door to the left and one to the right. His apartment was the one on the right that led into the smaller of the two attic areas.
He pushed the door open and stepped in. The door automatically closed behind him. The air was hot, stifling, and smelled of feces and urine. He immediately assumed an animal must have taken up residence in this area. The curtain was drawn over the one window at the far end of the room. He flicked the light switch on, illuminating the space with the one lamp that sat beside him near the door, surprised it still worked. He moved cautiously, keeping an eye out for whatever wild animal might be living in there, raccoons he guessed.
“Gary,” he heard a voice, faint but familiar.
His head snapped to his left, to see a still form lying on the bed he’d set up in the room. “Shit,” he cursed and rushed over. He gazed at the woman, in disbelief. “Kennedy?”
“Am I delusional or are you really here?” She asked weakly. “Or maybe I’m dead.”
He took hold of her hand. It was clammy. “How long have you been up here?”
“What’s today?”
“Friday.”
“Since Monday night. The door locked when it shut. I couldn’t get out. You’re trapped now too.”
Sloan rushed back to the door. Sure enough, it was locked. Then he returned to Kennedy’s side. “My partner is downstairs. I’ll call him to come let us out. And I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Don’t, please, they’ll kill me too. Help me. Hide me.” Her voice trailed off, and she lost consciousness.
Sloan stared at her for a second. He checked her pulse. It was weak. And she was burning up. He looked around and saw no food, no water. “Fuck,” he cursed aloud. Then he dialed Sherman on his phone.
“I’m on my way up,” Sherman answered.
“Listen to me. The door up here closes and locks by itself. Kennedy is up here, in bad shape. I need you to come up and open the door so I can get her out.”
“On my way,” Sherman replied.
Sloan lifted Kennedy from the bed and carried her to the door. He heard the footsteps quickly mounting the stairs. He called to Sherman through the door and then the door was opened, and he carried her through. “Go down first and be sure Allen isn’t nearby. He can’t see her, not yet.”
Sloan knew no one could see her, not until he got some fluids in her and got her conscious long enough to find out what was going on.
“Where are we taking her?” The Cajun asked.
Sloan’s first choice would be an emergency room, but that option was out. His second choice would be his hotel room, but he didn’t want anyone to see her at all. So that left a room here in the funeral home. The most comfortable place would be in a casket and he could hang a bag of saline from the open lid. Reality hit and he knew that no, he couldn’t do that. But he could put her in a box and slide her into the back of his SUV and then bring that box to the hotel.
“Find Allen and see if he still keeps empty boxes in the basement. We need one big enough to put her in that will fit in the back of the SUV. We’ll bring her to the hotel.”
Sherman reached his hands to Sloan. “Let me take her. You get the box.”
An irrational need to hang onto Kennedy swept over Gary Sloan. He didn’t want to hand her off, not even to Brian Sherman, his partner and best friend.
It was as though Sherman could read his thoughts. “Dude?”
Sloan reluctantly handed her over. “Stay here.”
Sherman nodded.
Sloan took the stairs to the basement and picked through a few boxes, finding the perfect size, the outer box to a small, child-sized casket. She’d have to lay a bit curled up, but it would work fine. They had her loaded in it and it taped shut when Allen found them carrying it to the back door.
“What’s going on?” Allen asked.
“Just borrowing a box,” Sloan lied.
“What’s in the box?”
“Just something from my shag-pad apartment I decided to keep.”
Allen shook his head and gave him a ‘whatever’ look. He didn’t understand why his brother always had to be so damned secretive.
“Oh, and hey, can you help get the door?” Sloan asked, pushing it. Allen followed them outside. “And open up the back end of my SUV for me, will you?” They slid the box in. “And by the way, that attic door closes on its own and locks. You need to get that fixed.”
“I’ll get right on that,” Allen said sarcastically. “I’ll see you later for dinner.”
“Yeah,” Sloan agreed, though he had already forgotten about it and doubted he would be going.
Once Sloan pulled out of the funeral home parking lot, he dialed Garcia. “We’ve had a development.” He filled Garcia in on Kennedy’s presence. “Before she passed out, she begged me to help hide her, said they’d kill her too.”
“I’ll loop Shepherd and the team in and give you a call back with a decision on how to proceed.”
“Roger that,” Sloan acknowledged. Though he knew regardless what the decision was, he would remain and help her in any way he could.
They carried the box into the hotel through the back door which their room was near. After lying her on the bed, Sloan got his medical bag from the car and started an IV to get some fluids in her. She was clearly dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion or heat stroke. He turned the air-conditioning to a cooler setting. He elevated her feet and had Sherman dampen towels with cold water, which he laid over her.
Then he sent Sherman down the hall to get ice from the hotel machine, and then gave him his car keys and sent him out to get bottled water with electrolytes and some food for all three of them. He sat beside her, held her hand, and gazed over her features. The years had been kind to her. She was still as beautiful as she was when he first held her hand at the age of fifteen. She was a tad too thin, the L.A. lifestyle he assumed. Of course, the gaunt appearance her face had could have been from lack of food and water for days.
He raised her chin and saw the scar beneath it. He rolled her just enough to be able to pull the left side of her pants down her ass. The butterfly tattoo was where it should be. Relief flooded him. This was Kennedy. His mind though did wander to that poor girl waiting to be embalmed. He wondered who she was and why she was killed.
He found himself staring at Kennedy in silence, willing her to wake. He had to know what kind of trouble she was in. For a brief second he had wondered if she’d been the one who killed her look-alike. But when the first thing she spoke was a pleading to hide her, or they would kill her too, that thought was dispelled.
His phone vibrated. Shepherd. He stood and moved near the door. “This is Sloan,”
“I’ve got Cooper, Garcia, and Lambchop on the line,” Shepherd said. “What do you know?”
“Not much more than earlier. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Does anyone else know she’s alive?” Cooper asked.
“Negative. The girl laying on my brother’s prep table could be her twin, but I knew it wasn’t Kennedy due to the lack of a tattoo, a scar, and a birthmark. Until she comes to and can tell me what’s going on, I won’t have anything. Garcia, have you had any luck?”
“That’s a negative as well. Neither your girl nor her doppelgang
er has their prints on file anywhere. I’m running Kennedy’s face from her California Driver’s License through Social Media facial recognition now to see if I get a hit on our mystery girl, but this could take a while.”
“It’ll probably be best just to get the story from her. How long till you think she’ll be conscious?” Shepherd asked.
“Within an hour or so, I’d imagine,” Sloan replied.
“Mother and I are flying out to assist you,” Lambchop said. “We’re leaving for the airport now.”
“I’ve sanctioned this as a mission for now. They’re coming on the Lear and I’ve had Angel book them a car. They’re bringing out full gear, just in case you need it.”
“Thanks, Shepherd. I appreciate the back up. I just have a gut feeling this is something substantial. I don’t think Kennedy just pissed off the wrong jealous wife or anything trivial like that.”
“See how it plays out. We’re kind of in a lull for a few days anyway with Doc still in Houston visiting his family and Cooper training BT on some of the mission lead protocols. Cooper’s brother, Michael, checks in tomorrow. I’ll have him with Garcia the first week but will want him to complete his training with Lambchop and Trio. We got a bead on a possible medic for Echo Team, but we’ll wait on Doc to return to pursue that possibility, and Miller is running down a few loose ends on the final team member we may want to recruit, another female.”
Sloan was surprised by how fast the building of Echo Team was progressing. He was still astounded by the changes that were on the horizon. Alpha Team was to become more of a part-time field team. He wondered how Cooper felt about that. This move would have more administrative and training crap put on Cooper’s plate, something he knew Cooper didn’t want. The others welcomed more time at home. It made sense for Jackson and Doc who were now both fathers, and also for Garcia because his wife, Sienna, was pregnant, which didn’t surprise anyone. It had to make him happy he’d be away less.
Charlie Team would have their time split between the Power Grid Project and more traditional cases to pick up some of the load left from the change in Alpha Team’s status. Bravo Team would still do the twenty-four-by-seven personal security missions as Shepherd explained those jobs provided the daily operating capital for the agency. As for his team, Delta, he still wasn’t sure what that held for them. He assumed they would be in the field more than the eighty percent they already were, picking up some of the slack for Alpha as well.
With three new hires, Shepherd had said they needed to increase revenue to afford to pay them. He insinuated he’d be looking to take on additional private revenue cases. Sloan didn’t want to be anyone’s bodyguard. Those weren’t the cases that got his blood pumping. He liked things as they were and never even minded the missions back to the Middle East or Africa. Even the cases working with the DEA were fine by him. The drug epidemic in the U.S. was a crisis. If they could help stop some of the shit making it to the streets, and thus keep more people from his family’s prep table, all the better, as far as he was concerned.
“I’ll want a report as soon as she is conscious and you get her statement,” Shepherd said, winding the call down.
“And if you need anything, let me know,” Cooper added.
“Roger that. Thank you both.”
“See you in a few hours,” Lambchop said. He nodded to Danny Trio. They were in the Team Room and had just finished packing their weapons. They were ready to roll.
When Sloan disconnected the call, and he gazed back at the bed, Kennedy’s blue eyes were open and focused on him. He wondered how much of the conversation she heard.
Delta
“I didn’t, piss off someone’s wife,” she said softly.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, crossing the room. He sat beside her.
“I can’t believe you found me,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“What were you doing up there?”
“Hiding. I couldn’t think of anyplace else to go.”
“You need to tell me what happened and who is dead that the authorities have identified as you.”
“I’m cold,” she said, her eyes scanning the wet towels on her chest, shoulders, and arms. She pushed them off. Then she noticed the IV in her arm. She purposely ignored his request.
“You were burning up in that attic. It had to be over a hundred and fifty degrees up there. If I hadn’t come up, you would have died up there. As it is, you’re dehydrated and have heat exhaustion or heat stroke.”
“Who were you talking to on the phone?”
“My boss and my team.”
He saw the questions behind her eyes to that statement, but she remained quiet. He prompted her to suck on some ice chips. Her eyes scanned the bag of fluid.
“I’ll let that run through then take it out.”
“It’s not embalming fluid, is it?” She asked with a small smile.
Sloan laughed. “No. I’m a medic now, not an embalmer. Well, a medic amongst other things.”
“Are you still in the Navy?”
Just then the cardkey being slid through the door was heard. The door clicked and before it opened inward, she watched Gary Sloan come to his feet. A shiny silver handgun with black grips appeared in his hand that was aimed at the door. Kennedy laid motionless, her eyes fixed on Gary and his gun and at the man who came in. She reminded herself that Gary Sloan was someone she had loved, but he was a stranger to her now.
She watched Gary put his gun away, sliding it into a holster in the small of his back. Her eyes returned to the stranger who now had the door closed and relocked. He had dark hair and an unshaven face. His hair was on the longish side as was Gary’s. He had grocery bags in his hand.
“I see our girl is back with the land of the living,” he spoke in what Kennedy identified as a southern hillbilly accent. “I brought you food.”
“Kennedy, this is my partner, Brian.”
She nodded at him, still unsure who he was or what he was doing there. “I need a shower and to brush my teeth. I feel disgusting.”
Brian Sherman smiled and held up a toothbrush in its packaging that he removed from one of the bags. “I anticipated that.” Then he pulled out two small travel sized bottles. “And shampoo and conditioner too.”
“I’m not sure who you are, but thank you,” she said in surprise.
“First, you tell us what the hell is going on and who that girl is who was executed in your parent’s house. Everyone thinks she is you,” Sloan demanded.
“It’s better for you if you don’t know. These people aren’t anyone you want to mess with.”
A gaze passed between Sloan and Sherman that she saw but couldn’t decipher. There was meaning in it. Something about it caused her stomach to clench. She said nothing else.
“Listen momma,” Sherman said. “Right here, right now, we’re all you got that’s keeping you hidden and safe. That’s contingent on your cooperation. There is a dead girl that everyone thinks is you and that just ain’t right.”
Tears filled her eyes and her lips quivered. “I know.”
“And what about your momma and daddy? They think you’re dead,” Brian Sherman added.
Sloan waved his hand at Sherman. “Enough. Kennedy, I promise you we can handle ourselves with whoever they are. Brian is right though, your parents think you’re dead and that poor girl who was murdered in your parent’s house, her family doesn’t even know that she’s gone. That isn’t right.”
“She doesn’t have any family. And as far as mine goes, it’s better for them that they believe I’m dead.”
“My God! How can you say that?” Sloan demanded.
She didn’t answer. She just stared defiantly at Gary. “Get this out of my arm and let me take a shower.”
“That’s not the way this shit works,” Sloan said. His eyes slid to Sherman. “Mother and Lambchop are on their way. Big Bear sanctioned this as a mission, for now.”
Sherman nodded.
“Gary, what does that
mean? Who’s on their way and why? You don’t understand what you’re dealing with. No one else can know I’m still alive. My life depends on it!”
“Make me understand what we’re dealing with, because you haven’t said jack shit to tell me.”
She shook her head no. Then she helped herself to more ice chips. Whatever Gary’s friend Brian had in the bag smelled good. Her stomach was completely empty. “I’m hungry. You said you brought food.”
“Ice, then Gatorade first,” Sloan said. “Baby steps.”
“I’m starving.”
Sherman handed the bottle of Gatorade over.
