Once a Hero

by Jan Thompson

  “That’s your plan?” Jake asked.

  Kenichi ignored him.

  “If the drones find something weird, we won’t go in, okay?” Kenichi asked Beatrice.

  When Beatrice didn’t reply, Kenichi asked again, “Okay?”

  Beatrice nodded.

  She was the only one not sweating in her uniform. She was drinking cold water. Maybe that was the trick.

  “I’m going outside. Everyone stay here and watch my back.” Kenichi exited the van.

  Through the passenger side window, Jake watched Kenichi go until he disappeared behind the trees. Pretty soon, the drone took off across the pond.

  It was loud.

  Since the forest was quiet, Jake was sure everyone could hear it. He glanced over to see what Beatrice was doing.

  She was at the laptop, watching the live camera attached to the drone. She scooted over the bench seat to let Jake have a look at the laptop.

  “If the windows are closed, there’s no way for the drone to get inside,” Beatrice spoke into the microphone.

  “I’ll send it around the back and see what we can find,” Kenichi replied.

  “What do you hope to find in the cabin?” Jake asked.

  “You said it. Memories.”

  “I don’t think the third brooch is there.” Jake realized he had brought up the brooch collection with that thoughtless statement.

  “Are you looking for the third brooch then?”

  He could smell a light fragrance that reminded him of springtime and flowers in the meadow. “What is that perfume?”

  “Is that how you avoid answering questions?” Beatrice shook his head. “I don’t know you from Adam, but you’re something else.”

  “On the contrary, I think you know me a lot more than you’re saying.”

  “I meant what I said, Jake. I don’t know you personally. Data on paper are not the same as in person, but you knew that.”

  “May I ask you something?” Now was as good a time as any.

  “What?”

  “Were you the person who called Helen in Cannes?”

  Beatrice didn’t reply.

  “No comment? Or pleading the fifth?”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?” Beatrice turned her attention back to the laptop screen.

  “I think that answers it. You didn’t want me to die at sea, did you?” Jake asked.

  Beatrice drew a deep breath. She looked at Jake directly and said, “My regret is that we couldn’t find you sooner.”

  “Thank you.” Jake’s heart warmed. He had met his rescuer. “You didn’t have to help me.”

  “We’re on the same side, aren’t we?” Beatrice asked.

  Jake nodded. “We are. Someday, I’ll return the favor.”

  “No need. You helped many by infiltrating Molyneux’s camp. You sacrificed three years of your life doing that for the benefit of the world at large.”

  “How did you know all that?” Jake’s mind went everywhere.

  Beatrice seemed hesitant to answer him. Then she sighed. “You have a mole in the FBI.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your brother know?”

  “I don’t speak for my brother. You can ask him, but he may not speak with you.” Beatrice drank more cold water. “All I can say is that you need to find that mole or you will always be one step behind Molyneux.”

  “Okay, lovebirds,” Kenichi said through the speakers. “No more chatting. Class is in session. We’re going around the back.”

  They watched the drone circle the cabin. There was dense forest by the back porch. The deck floor looked damp and was rotting in some places.

  “I don’t think anyone’s lived there in a while,” Beatrice said. “Are you sure it’s the right cabin?”

  “Unless Philomena gave us false information—which can happen,” Jake said. “After all, why would she tell us where she lived if she didn’t have to?”

  “Yeah. Treasure hunters like us might want to check it out—Whoa! Did you see that?” Kenichi navigated the drone back to one of the windows that was less clouded over.

  The camera zoomed in.

  On the kitchen floor, next to the butcher block, was a body. Very dead.

  Still sitting next to Jake, Beatrice shrieked, and the bottled water fell from her hand.

  Cold water spilled all over Jake’s lap.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kenichi hightailed away from the pond like a bat flying out of a cave. He leapt inside the van, still clutching his drone. Sweat had drenched his shirt. He slid the door shut. “Go go go!”

  “Someone call 911.” Beatrice sat down in the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt.

  “Not staying to talk to the police?” Jake asked.

  “They will ask why we’re here. A plumber’s van just passing through, huh? That’s going to raise more questions—especially when they find out we’re the same people who were in the forest last night.”

  Raynelle must’ve stirred from her painkiller-induced nap because she started talking. “What’s happening?”

  “I saw a ghost,” Kenichi said.

  “No, you didn’t.” Beatrice shook her head. “You saw a dead body.”

  “It was dried up.” Kenichi raised his voice. “Mummified.”

  “We don’t need details.” Although an old body would mean it wasn’t anyone they were looking for. Beatrice felt better. “Who’s calling 911?”

  “I am,” Jake said. “I have a burner phone. They can’t trace me.”

  Kenichi laughed. “All phones are traceable.”

  Except Earl’s phone. Beatrice didn’t say it aloud. “Ken?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Was it a man or a woman?” Beatrice prayed it wasn’t a man—because it could be her dad. A long shot, yes, but there had been no evidence that his body was ever found.

  “Woman.”

  Whew. “Age-wise?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t expect you to know. I was just asking, is all,” Beatrice said. Ahead, the road forked. “Which way should we go?”

  “Let me check my laptop,” Kenichi said.

  Beatrice slowed down the van.

  “Go right,” Kenichi finally said. “I think.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.” Beatrice put the blinker on. It was then that she spotted a vehicle in the rearview mirror. “We have company.”

  Beatrice heard Jake ask Kenichi if there was a window they could look out the back.

  “No, but we have a camera on the back of the van. See here.”

  “I don’t think it’s a family on vacation,” Jake said. “Unless it’s a family thing to carry shotguns.”

  “What?” Beatrice wished she wasn’t driving.

  “Here we go again.” Raynelle’s voice sounded groggy. “Next time we hunt for something more benign than the Amber Room, all right?”

  “Charleston, we have a problem,” Kenichi said.

  “Should I go faster?” Beatrice asked. “I need some directions too. There’s another fork in the road coming up.”

  “Go left. There’s a big road—”

  Boom! Boom!

  Flap! Flap!

  Beatrice lost control of the van. She wanted to slam on the brakes.

  “No! Keep your foot on the gas,” Jake said. “Of they blew out a couple of tires—”

  “Help!” Beatrice lurched forward as the vehicle behind them rammed the van and pushed it off the road.

  The van flipped over on its side.

  Everyone screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Beatrice squinted, adjusting her eyes to the dim light of the space that looked like a musty basement. She found herself tied to a chair so tightly she couldn’t feel her arms and legs. Some sort of tape sealed her mouth shut.

  In another chair, Jake seemed to have passed out. His face looked bloodied. His shirt was soaked through with something. Water? Blood? The tape ov
er his mouth looked like duct tape, which made Beatrice think the same type of tape was also over her own mouth.

  In front of them, a flight of stairs led one floor up to a closed door.

  Where were Raynelle and Kenichi?

  Beatrice tried to remember what happened to them after the van flipped over on the side of the road. She recalled trying to crawl out of the van, only to be met by armed men, who sprayed her face with something.

  Beatrice passed out and woke up here.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened, creaking on its hinges.

  A man in black leather pants and vest came down the stairs, brandishing a dagger in a sheath. He was accompanied by another man.

  Ignoring Beatrice, the man went straight to Jake. “Wake him.”

  They splashed water on Jake.

  He stirred. Gasped.

  “Grady Northcutt, what a surprise,” The man said to Jake. “I’ve been wondering what happened to you since we left the Smoky Mountains.”

  Of course, Jake couldn’t answer with the duct tape over his mouth.

  “You infiltrated our team to get to Molyneux. How did that work out for you? Ah, I forget. You can’t speak.” The man pulled the dagger out of the sheath. “Recognize this?”

  Beatrice saw Jake’s eyes widen. At the dagger or at being called by another name? She wondered if that had been his undercover name.

  “Molyneux told me to finish you off.” He flashed the dagger in his face. “This dagger wants to scrape your bones.”

  Jake’s body shook.

  Beatrice made noises under the duct tape. “Mmmm! Hmmmph!”

  The man turned to her. Ripped the duct tape off her mouth.

  “Oweee!” Beatrice winced.

  “What?” His face was awfully close to hers. So close that she could smell his breath.

  “You can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” The man plunged the dagger into Jake’s thigh. “Here we have a doomed man—once a hero, now a zero.”

  The duct tape muffled Jake’s scream.

  “No!” Beatrice didn’t know what else to do. She prayed for God to deliver them. “It’s me she wants, not Jake.”

  The man turned to her again. “Who are you?”

  “Molyneux has been looking for me for twenty-five years,” Beatrice kept talking, hoping to distract him away from Jake.

  Jake stared at her, as if to say something to her—to stop her, perhaps.

  “I’m Chisolm Wright’s daughter.”

  “Who?” Slowly, he pulled the dagger out of Jake’s thigh. “Next thing you’re going to tell me that Molly’s looking for him too.”

  He pointed his dagger at Jake. “How did you end up with him? He should be dead six months ago.”

  “We’re together.” Poor choice of words. Then again, businesswise, it was true that they were both on the same side.

  “Together how?”

  “God brought us together,” Beatrice said. That was true, she felt.

  “Like marriage?” The man looked baffled.

  Beatrice blushed. “Business.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “We’re treasure hunters.”

  “Really?” Dagger pointing toward Jake again. “I thought he was a bona fide FBI agent.”

  “Was. He got fired.”

  “They don’t want him either.”

  Beatrice tried not to look at Jake.

  “You want us to let both of you go?” The man asked Beatrice.

  The fact that he said us instead of me told Beatrice that he wasn’t in charge. “On the contrary, take me to Molly.”

  Now Jake’s grunts got louder and more intense. He was shooting daggers at her with his stare.

  She ignored him. “We’re due for a cup of tea.”

  “You’re as crazy as…” The man lost his words.

  “Molly?” Beatrice tried to help.

  “No. no.”

  “I’ll tell her what you said.”

  The door open again, and sounds of boots hit the stairs. Emerging in the light was a big man with a small goatee.

  “What’s going on in here?” Big Man said. His voice was surprisingly low.

  Beatrice had never seen him before. “Having a chat.”

  “Finish the job and send the video to Molly,” Big Man snapped. “How hard can it be?”

  The first man pointed to Beatrice with his dagger dripping with Jake’s blood. “She says she’s Chisolm Wright’s daughter.”

  “Seriously?”

  Beatrice realized that she had outed herself. All this time, Molyneux had been after Jake and Earl, sending assailants to Northern California after those two men. It was entirely possible that she had no idea that Beatrice and her team had also been following Jake.

  Soon, Molyneux would know the secret that had been kept from her for twenty-five years.

  And it would be Beatrice’s fault.

  However, if Beatrice hadn’t stopped Mr. Dagger here, who knew what he’d have done to Jake?

  “She wants to have a cup of tea with Molly,” Mr. Dagger added.

  Big Man laughed. “Take me to your leader and all that?”

  Beatrice nodded.

  Roll with it. All I can do.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Call her.” Beatrice maintained a calm voice. “Let her decide if she wants to see me.”

  “No one who sees her lives to tell the story,” Big Man said. “Unless you work for her.”

  “We don’t, but my business partners and I have two of the three brooches she’s looking for,” Beatrice replied. “However, if any one of us dies, the secret is lost with us.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “She will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Was Molyneux trying to soften her up for the kill? It felt that way as Big Man led Beatrice up the stairs and through what turned out to be a log cabin. Two armed men flanked them.

  Her hands were tied behind her back, but she was grateful for the opportunity to stretch her legs, although she did not want to leave Jake behind in the basement with Mr. Dagger there.

  The afternoon sun shone in through the clearing on the side of the house, casting shadowy lights into the family room and on furniture that looked like it hadn’t moved in years. Mostly leather, the brown and terra-cotta earth tones of the decor shouted male, from the pictures on the wall on one side to the stone fireplace against another wall.

  On the stone fireplace were photographs.

  Beatrice drew a deep breath. “May I take a look at the photos?”

  Big Man grunted.

  “Please? Aren’t you the least bit curious why Molly picked this cabin in particular?”

  Big Man raised his bushy eyebrows. He motioned for one of his men to take Beatrice to the fireplace. “Let her have her last request.”

  There were old photographs of teenagers whom Beatrice did not recognize, but she recognized one photograph.

  Philomena without the scar on her face. Sitting on the lap of…

  Chisolm Wright.

  The air whooshed out of her lungs. She wanted to cry but no tears came.

  She reminded herself that it might not be Dad. After all, there were few photographs of Dad, and they were all at least twenty-five years old. Some years before, Benjamin had tried putting Dad’s photographs through an aging software to see how he might look.

  Well, he looked like the older man in that photograph.

  “Whose house is this?” Beatrice asked.

  “Why don’t you ask Molly?” Big Man said. “This way.”

  He yanked her back in line, and they marched down the hallway. Outside the bank of French doors, a wraparound deck spread out with Adirondack chairs facing the sunset.

  Beatrice wondered how many times Dad had sat there in the evenings with Philomena, looking at that lovely view of tall trees and California skies.

  And without his children.

  Beatrice felt abandoned.

/>   So abandoned.

  Quietly, she felt a warmth in her heart. A light feathery touch and a reminder that she wasn’t truly alone. Her heavenly Father God was still with her, even if her earthly father had forsaken her.

  Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

  That Hebrews 13:15 should pop into her mind at such a time as this!

  Beatrice blinked as she stared at the distant sky where the sun was about to set.

  And God was still there.

  She hung her head.

  “Move, woman!” Big Man jerked her forward.

  Beatrice’s shoulders slouched, as tears pooled in her eyes.

  Why am I like this?

  How many times must I grieve my dad?

  She thought he had died twenty-five years prior. Come to find out, he had lived on for another twenty-three years or so—according to his long-time girlfriend. And now was he truly dead?

  A heavy wooden door opened into what looked like a home office. More earth tones. Right in the middle of the octagonal room was a heavy desk.

  Big Man jerked her forward. He motioned for someone to untie her.

  Beatrice ran her finger on the smooth wood on the surface of the heavy desk. It was redwood, probably hewn from the forest nearby.

  Beatrice felt sorry for the tree that fell to make this desk and the entire house.

  “Sit down.” Big Man pointed to an old chair on the other side of the desk.

  “Why?”

  “Molly wants you to sit down at the desk when you talk to her.”

  Over the years that she had hunted down treasures to return to their rightful owners, Beatrice had met numerous eccentric people. Thus, she wasn’t surprised by this request.

  From her knowledge of Molyneux, she had her own tics and quirks.

  As long as none of them caused her death and that of her team, she would put up with her eccentricities.

  Beatrice sat down at the chair.

  Was this Dad’s desk?

  The desk was practically empty except for a blotter that took up half the desk top. It had ink stains on them. The way the blotches spread on the blotter, Beatrice suspected that the ink had come out of fountain pens.

  Benjamin had often told her stories of how their dad liked to write with fountain pens. Sometimes the ink wells spilled and stained the table and his fingers.