Karl straightened up, but didn’t come closer. “Where is it? All this proof.”
“I found where you hid it, Karl. I’ve seen and I’ve heard it.”
He turned on his heel and dashed toward the girls’ room. Maggie went after him as he disappeared through their door. She heard the closet flung open and the soft avalanche of blankets and linen falling to the floor. He reappeared, and the artificial calm in his face was utterly gone. He stepped toward her, and reflexively Maggie stepped back to keep distance between them. “What did you do with it, Maggie?”
“It’s safe.”
“Safe? Who has it? Where’s the video? Where’s the evidence?”
She heard something else in his voice now, something she didn’t hear in the tone of a guilty man. Her response was slow. “I’ve been talking to Mike,” she replied.
“Mike? Mike!? I knew it. Oh, my God, Maggie, what did you do? Why didn’t you come to me? Why couldn’t you tell me?”
He came at her. She backed off fast.
“I need a drink!” Maggie shouted. “I need a drink!”
Chapter 28
Karl backed her into the bedroom. “You’re wearing a wire,” he said. “Jesus Christ, Maggie, don’t you understand what’s happening?”
She put the corner of the bed between them. She didn’t reach for the Detective Special yet. “You were having an affair with her. You were paying her, Karl, and you were taking money from Bryant Gibbs.”
“No! I mean, yes, I was seeing her. I needed an outlet, something that was just sex. It wasn’t complicated. But I never took money. Not once. But I knew someone was. Gibbs talked to his wife. His wife talked to Carole. They had their ideas and I looked into it. I need to know, Maggie: did you give it all to Mike?”
“He’s the only one I could trust to keep it quiet.”
“That’s because he’s the one!”
Maggie froze. She remembered Gibbs whispering in her ear. At that moment it had been Karl in front, but he wasn’t alone. There was a uniformed cop with him. And Mike. He’s the one.
Karl moved closer. Maggie kept a gap between them, but she was running out of bedroom. “If you looked in the ledger, then you know Carole had a regular. The initials MC. I know you saw it. MC. Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
She didn’t know where Mike was. This was taking too long.
“I’m KD. You know that. I’m not denying it. But MC? Mike Cooper. Mike Cooper! They thought it was a cop putting pressure on them. They’d seen it before, but they didn’t know who. First they thought it was me, but I told them I’d help if they kept things quiet for me. Mike was a regular, Maggie. He was with Carole before I ever was. Philip was right in the room with them! They would have known his face. They’d let him into their house if he called for a date. That’s how he got in and out without a problem.”
Maggie faltered. Karl’s closed face had fallen apart. She saw all of him now. “How did you get her blood on you?”
“I slipped. I told you I slipped.”
“But it’s bullshit, Karl!” Maggie exclaimed. “No more bullshit!”
“She was still alive when I got there! I went into the bathroom and I slipped. I got my hands dirty trying to stop the bleeding, and when she died I put her back the way I found her. It was too late to get the blood off me.”
“You are lying,” Maggie said. Her voice shook, and she couldn’t stop it. “You’re a liar, Karl!”
“I’m telling you the truth! I knew there were recordings. I needed to get them before they disappeared. But you gave them to Mike, Maggie. He’s probably destroyed everything with him on it already. We have no way to show he’s connected to them. All the witnesses are dead. He’s gonna get away with it. Don’t you see? He’s gonna put it on me. He’s already put it on me. You helped him.”
“She’s the chief. She knows how to put a case together.”
Mike was at the door of the bedroom. His weapon was out, ugly and black in his hand. Karl turned, reaching for his gun at the same time. Mike shot him once and Karl fell. His Glock tumbled away.
Maggie rushed forward, but Mike turned his weapon on her. “Stay right where you are, Chief. Don’t make this difficult.”
Karl made a sound. He breathed, but roughly. Maggie felt her heart clenching in her chest. “Mike, he’s down. It’s over. All I want to do is make sure he doesn’t die.”
“Then we have a problem, because I kind of need him to die to close all this out.”
He said it flatly, and in that moment Maggie understood it all. “You are the one,” she said.
Mike shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
He walked over to retrieve Karl’s Glock, and when Maggie moved toward the door, he regripped the gun he was aiming at her, as if to say, “Don’t try it.” But now he had his back to Karl.
Karl was still moving. He was reaching toward his toes, and it broke Maggie’s heart to see him moving with such slowness, in such agony. Maggie couldn’t breathe, watching him. Mike didn’t turn around. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not going to work,” Maggie told Mike. “How are you going to explain it?”
He didn’t take his weapon off her. “It won’t be hard. I’ve got the book, I’ve got the recordings. You confronted him. He shot you. I shot him. It all goes in the report, and I walk away.”
The carpeting beneath Karl was soaked with crimson. Maggie tried not to look at him. She wanted Mike’s eyes on her. “Don’t do it, Mike. I’ll back you.”
“Why would you do that, Chief?”
“I have kids. I have the girls. I don’t want them to go without a mother or a father. They won’t even remember Karl. He’s gone all the time. But they need me, Mike. They need their mother. Don’t make them grow up without me.”
Karl finally managed to reach his ankle. Maggie braced herself. She raised one hand high, and the other only halfway.
“Let me raise my girls,” Maggie said.
She saw hesitation in Mike’s face for the first time. The muzzle of his weapon dropped two inches. “Chief—” he started.
Karl shot him in the back with the .32 automatic he kept in his ankle holster. Mike cried out, reeling. Maggie drew in the same moment. The Detective Special came up smoothly. She closed one hand over the other. She sighted without conscious thought and unloaded the weapon into Mike’s chest at a distance of six feet.
Chapter 29
Maggie stood looking out the window of the front room at the white truck parked on the curb. It was heavily laden with wooden L-frames, and as she watched, the driver finished using a post-hole digger to make a place for the one he’d put in front of her house. The whole process was quicker than she expected, only ten minutes from start to finish, and at the end he hung a metal sign from the frame showing the name and face and number of a Realtor. He wiped his dirty hands on his jeans, got into his truck, and left.
“Is it done?”
She turned away from the window. Karl sat on the floor with Becky balanced on one leg while Lana chased a ball around the carpeting near at hand. He had a cane to help him walk, and she still had to assist him when he got up or sat down, but the doctor said it wouldn’t be long before he would be able to do everything himself. He peered up at her now with the sun casting down from the window onto his face, and the room looked warm and golden and perfect. It was moments like this one that brought them to the Parish in the first place, but they had no real hold anymore.
“Hello? Earth to Maggie.”
“Yes, it’s done.”
“Good. They say we’re asking a good price and it’ll move quickly. We won’t be here much longer.”
Maggie nodded absently before sitting down on the carpet opposite him. “Are you going to like the west coast?” she asked.
“I guess I’ll find out. That’s not really what’s important anymore.”
She didn’t disagree. She looked at him and he at her, and after a moment Karl put out his hand for Maggie to take. They
held on tightly for a long time, saying nothing, until Becky squalled, demanding to be allowed down. Karl laughed softly and did what she wanted.
Maggie’s mother appeared in the doorway to the hall. She had on an apron and looked so much like a housekeeper Maggie felt suddenly guilty about what she demanded of her. “Lunch is almost ready,” Susan said. “I hope you two are hungry, because the recipe’s supposed to serve six.”
“I could eat,” Karl said.
Susan regarded them without saying anything. She looked about to speak, but she didn’t, turning away and disappearing again.
“She wants to follow us out there,” Maggie said.
“Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’ll be good to have someone to be close to.”
She saw the hurt in his face, but he didn’t put it into words. Their counselor said everything would take time, maybe more time than either of them expected or realized. If they were willing to put in the work. Karl said he was. Maggie agreed. The end seemed like a long way away.
Karl changed the subject. “I heard from Chief Collins today.”
“I thought he wasn’t speaking to you anymore.”
“Me, neither, but I guess he wanted me to hear it direct from him. The DA’s officially closed the case. They found no wrongdoing on your part, like I told you. I’m the one they hung out to dry. I was hoping he was going to tell me I could still get my pension, but that’s not gonna happen. But there’s plenty for ex-cops to do out west. I could be a security guard at the mall.”
He smiled as if it didn’t bother him, but Maggie knew it did. She couldn’t smile back, even though she knew it would make him feel better. Everything in time. Everything in time.
“I’m going to see if Mom needs any help,” Maggie said.
“Okay. We’ll be here.”
She left him in the front room and went to where her mother was washing out the kitchen sink, her hands clad in rubber gloves. Susan turned to her when Maggie stood beside her. Her mother didn’t smile, either, and Maggie was glad of that. “You know it’ll get better,” Susan said. She took off a glove and squeezed Maggie’s arm. “It always gets better.”
“I can’t forget what he did,” Maggie said without looking at her mother. “I know I’m supposed to keep trying, but I can’t forget.”
“No one says you have to. The important thing to remember is in the end he loves you. He loves those girls. And he may have tried to save his own skin, but he also wanted to protect you.”
Maggie looked her mother in the eyes for the first time. “I don’t need to be protected. I want to be trusted.”
Her mother made an expression that might have seemed like a smile but didn’t quite get there. “He knows that now. And the fact that he’s still here and you’re willing to have him…that’s going to make all the difference.”
“So where do we go from here?” Maggie asked.
“Wherever feels right. But you’re making a good decision to leave this place. It’s no good for you. It never was. You’re not a homebody. It’s not the kind of thing that fits you.”
“What does?”
“Being a cop.”
Maggie let her gaze slide toward the window over the sink. “So that’s all I was ever good at?”
“Of course not. You’re a mother, too. And a troubled man’s wife. You’re going to see him through. It’s only that people don’t see that the way they see a uniform. The decorations you get, you don’t wear for everyone to see.”
Maggie had no reply for that. She continued to look out the window at the serene and sun-splashed neighborhood. It had all seemed so ideal once, but now she saw the falsity of it, from the brick façades to the people who called it home. No one was quite right. No one was wholly honest. In the end it was like everywhere else, every dark place she’d ever gone, but the darkness had never gotten inside before. Not into her own home. And she wasn’t going to let it happen again.
“Are you going to be okay?” her mother asked.
“I think so,” Maggie said.
“Try again. Be a mother. Be a wife. But don’t forget who you are when somebody steps out of line.”
“I could get into trouble again.”
“Then get into trouble. And if they say you can only be a housewife, you tell them—”
“I was a cop first,” Maggie cut in.
“You were, and nothing’s ever going to change.”
They hugged. Maggie felt a wet glove on her shoulder. “I am a cop,” Maggie agreed.
And that was all right.
Absolute Zero
James Patterson
with Ed Chatterton
Chapter 1
Thurston’s been down too long. Thanks to the hypersensitive security sonar in place, the use of standard-issue dive gear has been ruled out for this mission. Thurston’s operating on lung power alone.
Lieutenant Hardacre, the whites of his eyes flashing against the night camo makeup, glances at Green at the tiller of the rigid-hulled inflatable boat. Green shakes his head and checks his watch.
“Seven minutes twenty. Not looking good, sir.”
Hardacre glances across the water at the black mass of the target vessel. They’re less than forty meters from the Karachi Naval Yard perimeter. Their target—Thurston’s target—is the Khan, a Pakistan Navy Tariq-class frigate whose captain has distinct al-Qaeda leanings. US Intelligence suggests in no uncertain terms the rogue officer is contemplating a major attack on US assets in the Gulf. Exactly what those assets might be, nobody is too sure. But with the frigate packing as much firepower as it does, no one back at Command is taking any chances. In normal circumstances, a black ops team might make the captain disappear, or a drone could disable his ship from the comfort of a bunker in Washington.
But these are not normal circumstances.
Because the captain of the Khan is the nephew of an extremely high-ranking and well-connected family. For reasons far too complicated for all but the mandarins at Langley to comprehend, this must look like an internal attack: there can be no traceable links back to the US. Hence the use of an Australian team as the pointy end of a dirty spear. None of Hardacre’s team are wearing uniforms. This mission is as off the books as it is possible to be. Get caught here and there’ll be no trial, no covert handover at a checkpoint in the Sinai. It’ll be a long dusty trip to some Pakistan Intelligence torture camp and the distinct possibility of starting World War III. All three men wear cyanide capsules on a chain around their necks and none would hesitate to use them. They’ve seen the results of concerted torture before.
“Jesus Christ, Thurston,” mutters Hardacre.
Green looks up at his boss. “Eight minutes ten.”
“He’s dead. We’ve got to cut and r—”
“There!” Green points at a spot of black water some twenty meters away. Hardacre can’t see a thing but Green is part owl when it comes to night vision.
They paddle the RHIB toward a flurry of rising silver bubbles and arrive as Thurston’s head breaks the surface. He throws open his mouth and sucks down a lungful of air. Hardacre leans over and pulls Thurston aboard.
“All good?” says Hardacre.
Thurston, unable to speak, raises a thumb.
“Go,” says Hardacre.
Silently, Green paddles the RHIB out of the dock, past the Pakistan Naval Academy and out into the main channel. Only when the boat is out of earshot does Green start the muffled engine and head slowly and quietly down toward the Marho Kotri Wildlife Sanctuary where they have established a camp. After a switch into civilian clothes they’ll sink the RHIB in the mangroves and slip into Karachi in a day or two to resume their cover work as liaison officers at the Australian embassy.
They’ve just turned the first corner when the blast comes.
“Nice work, Thurston,” says Lieutenant Hardacre.
Thurston nods. “Thanks, sir.”
“Nine minutes,” says Green. “You were down nine fuckin
g minutes, mate!”
“Seemed longer,” says Thurston, as the sky erupts behind them.
Chapter 2
Theoretically, a temperature of absolute zero is a physical impossibility. But rounding the corner of Hackney Road and copping the whip of the sleet-streaked wind directly into his face, Cody Thurston is pretty sure he’s found it.
Jesus, London in January. It never gets any easier.
Not for a boy brought up in Byron Bay anyway.
Thurston tucks his chin deeper into the cowl of his North Face and conjures up memories of a seemingly endless parade of sun-kissed January days on the far north coast of New South Wales.
He checks his watch. Eight o’clock on a dog of a night in Hackney, five in the morning Down Under. The first surfers will already be in the water at the Pass or down at Tallows. Thurston allows himself a brief moment of wishful thinking before shouldering his gym bag and picking up the pace.
Screw that nostalgia shit. The teenage Cody Thurston who surfed like there was nothing else worth living for is long gone. This Cody Thurston is right here, right now. And all he’s got to look forward to is another shift at The V and the usual sh—
“Motherfucker!”
Thurston feels a sharp pain in the back of his kidneys and looks down to see a young guy in a wheelchair cocking his fist for another punch. Thurston swivels out of the way and gives the guy a slap across the back of the head. Not too hard, but enough to let him know Thurston’s there.
“Hittin’ a cripple, hey? Nice fuckin’ work, man! You smack every disabled person you see?”
Thurston shakes his head. “Only you, Lenin. Only you.”
Lenin smiles, brushes some sleet off his dreads, and swings his chair next to Thurston. “You goin’ to The V?”
“Same as every night. How about you?”
“Same as every night, man.”
Lenin puts on a spurt. “Race you!”
Thurston watches him go. “Fuck you. You hurt me.”
The Moores Are Missing Page 18
