Fatal Harvest

by Catherine Palmer

  Jill couldn’t deny the tug of resentment down deep in her stomach. Why had Penny thought it was all right to twiddle her thumbs until now? Why hadn’t she come to help the minute she knew Matt was missing?

  And why did Jill even care?

  “I’m not sure when we’ll arrive at the ranch,” she told Penny finally. “But I’d suggest that maybe…well…”

  “Maybe what?”

  “I’m not comfortable talking about this on the phone. Drive down if you want, but I’m just not sure…the thing is, Cole might not be around for long.”

  “Where’s he going? Does he know where Matt is?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Listen, I understand your discomfort in revealing too much, but you can at least tell me that. Has Cole found Matt?”

  “No.” Jill glanced at the man by her side. His eyes were open, watching her. “No, not really. We might have an idea…but, no…”

  “We might, huh?” Penny was silent a moment. “You know, I appreciate your help, Jill, but you’ve taken a lot of ownership in a situation that’s really not your affair.”

  “That’s true. I operate under a philosophy that says if a man asks for your shirt, you give him your coat, too. If he asks you to carry his burden for a mile, you carry it two.”

  “Who came up with that brilliant concept?”

  “Jesus Christ.” Jill again glanced in the rearview mirror. “Look, Penny, Cole insisted I go to Amarillo with him. He needed my computer expertise in order to stay in touch with Matt. I went along to Mexico because I wanted to support him. And I care about Matt a great deal. So I’ve done my extra mile. Now I’m going home so I can get back to my life. Drive down if you want. This is between you and Cole.”

  “I’m glad you can see that. Cole is—” she paused “—he’s special to me. My feelings for him run very deep. I love him.”

  “Love is more than just a feeling, Miss Ames. It’s toughing it out through thick and thin. Listen, I’d be happy to talk to you again sometime, but I need to concentrate on the road. I’ll tell Cole you called.”

  Jill hung up before Penny could continue her saccharine professions of love. The sun was setting, and Jill had noticed a pair of headlights behind them from the time she answered the phone. She glanced at Cole. One of his big shoulders was wedged against the gap between the door and the seat, and he looked uncomfortable.

  “Do you want me to stop?” she asked. “Need something more for the pain?”

  “Thank you,” he said. He reached across and laid his good hand on her arm. “For the extra mile.”

  Jill shivered at his touch and made herself focus on the highway. She hadn’t wanted to like Cole Strong at all. At first, he had been distant and wooden and demanding. But then she began to see other sides to his character. Things emerged, like green leaves unfolding after a long, harsh winter. His love for his son. His devotion to his mother. His pursuit of justice. His willingness to fight for what he wanted.

  It didn’t help that Cole had begun to look good to her, too. She had become fond of the small curve his mouth made when he didn’t want to smile but couldn’t help it. She liked his hands—great big strong hands, now scarred in his battle for his son. Cole moved slowly and spoke with deliberation, but his eyes flashed with an inner blaze. He had a lot of life in him. Passion. A man didn’t take a bankrupt farm and bring it back to vitality without grit and fire and stubborn determination.

  Jill liked Cole’s eyes, too. So blue. She glanced again at her passenger, and their gazes locked. Her heart thudded. Morphine, she reminded herself. That look he’s giving me right now means nothing.

  Moistening her lips, she stared at the road. She had dated a lot of men in college, and she’d been involved in a longstanding relationship with a football coach at the high school for a couple of years. But he hadn’t shared her zeal. Though he professed to be a Christian, his life didn’t show much evidence of it. Finally, Jill had realized that he didn’t really love people the way she did—not enough to lay down his life.

  Cole, she thought, might be different. Though he didn’t truly understand his son, he loved Matt. But Jill was beginning to think Cole might actually understand her. He might even like who she was and the way she chose to live out her faith. That was a rare thing.

  She looked at him again. He wore that little curve of a smile. “I like your hair,” he said. “It’s pretty.”

  Drugs, she told herself. The man is on drugs.

  “I bet you were a cute little girl.”

  “And I’m not a cute woman?” she shot back.

  “Nah.”

  “Ah, well—”

  “Beautiful.”

  “So anyway, that was Penny on the phone.” Jill kept her focus straight ahead. She couldn’t let him continue like this. He would say things he didn’t mean, and she would like them. And then it would hurt. “She’s driving down to the ranch to see you.”

  “You didn’t tell her about France.”

  “I didn’t think I should. We don’t know how much access Agrimax has to our conversations. Obviously, they’ve gotten into the computers and some of the phones. I’m wondering if they have some kind of government approval to invade our privacy. Or maybe they’re doing it through—”

  “It’s your hair,” Cole said, the words slightly slurred. “I don’t know how it does that.”

  Jill swallowed. “It just grows this way.”

  “I mean…I don’t know how it makes you look like that…like you have a halo.”

  “It’s not a halo. It’s frizz.”

  “You’re a holy person. Righteous.”

  She wished he would fall asleep and let her drive in peace. This intimacy wasn’t good. It wasn’t safe. “I have many flaws, believe me. I annoy a lot of people, including you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. In case you’ve forgotten, you don’t like me. You blame me for Matt’s interest in Agrimax.”

  “You help me. I like that.”

  She glanced over at him, willing him to stop talking. “People say I’m too single-minded. I butt into things all the time. I’ve even been called boorish.”

  “But your lips are soft.”

  Jill smacked her palm against the steering wheel. “Stop this right now, Cole Strong.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  “Yes, I do. I didn’t at first, but now I do. I like you—okay?”

  “Really…how come?”

  “I don’t know.” She let out a breath. “I admire you. There.”

  He tapped her arm. “I admire you, too. You’re cute.”

  “You said I wasn’t cute. You said I was…”

  “Beautiful. Yeah, that’s true.” He hummed tunelessly for a moment. “Beautiful, beautiful halo in the moonlight. Green eyes looking down at me…like emeralds…glowing—so, so beauti—”

  “Listen, Cole,” Jill cut in, “you have a fiancée who’s driving all the way down from Albuquerque to see you.”

  “Emeralds,” he repeated.

  “Penny has deep feelings for you. She loves you. Now go back to sleep.”

  “Dormez-vous?” he sang under his breath. “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, lovely Jill, lovely Jill? Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? I love you…I love—”

  “Cole, you don’t even know what you’re saying. It’s the morphine talking. So would you just be quiet? I’m going back to teaching, and you’ll find Matt and then marry Penny. And I don’t want to have any memories of…of…”

  She looked across at him. Eyes closed, he had rolled his head back against the door and was breathing deeply. Sound asleep.

  Jill glanced in the rearview mirror. The headlights were gone. The car she had feared was tailing them must have turned off down some country road a few miles back. She studied her reflection for a moment—the riot of curls, the lips, the green eyes, the face she had always considered plain. Then she focused on the highway once again.

  ELEVEN

  “Look older,” Mat
t whispered. “Try to look like we’re in college.

  Seated beside him on a chrome-and-vinyl chair, Billy bit into a bagel. “It says right in our passports that we’re sixteen, dude. There’s no way we’re going to fool anybody.”

  “I’m not talking about the airline people. The other passengers. They could be them.”

  “I hate these things,” Billy said, eyeing his snack. “They don’t have any flavor. Why do people eat them?”

  “They’re low fat or something.” Matt pressed his hand over the USB key in his front jeans pocket.

  Things weren’t looking too good. Early that morning, he and Billy had driven away from Great-Aunt Thelma’s house, leaving Granny Strong there. They had told her they were headed to the doughnut store. They had omitted the fact that they were also going to the airport.

  Matt felt lousy about that. He wished he could get his hands on a Bible to see if anyone ever lied in the name of doing God’s work. He knew lying was forbidden in the Ten Commandments. Most of the time when people in the Bible lied, things went from bad to worse. Like a roll call, the characters Matt had studied in Sunday school stood to attention in his mind. First, there was Samson. After he lied to Delilah, his enemies cut his eyes out and made him a slave. Then, there were Ananias and Sapphira. They lied about selling their property, and they both dropped dead. And what about the apostle Peter? At Pilate’s house, Peter lied three times about knowing Jesus, and look how that turned out. Jesus knew exactly what Peter had done.

  On the other hand, Rahab the prostitute had lied to save two spies, and she wasn’t punished at all. In fact, Matt recalled that Rahab wound up being one of Jesus’s ancestors. David and Jonathan had cooked up a lie to save David’s life. They told Saul that David had gone to Bethlehem when he was really hiding out in a field. And David became king of Israel after that. If the end result was for God’s glory, did it make lying okay?

  Matt stared at the tile on the terminal floor. Either way, what choice had he and Billy had but to lie to Granny Strong? She never would have let them go to France.

  After leaving Great-Aunt Thelma’s house, they had driven to the Oklahoma City airport and found an ATM. The credit card Matt’s father had given him when he got his driver’s license came with the strict instructions that it be used only in an emergency. Well, Matt rationalized, if this wasn’t an emergency, what was? Still, he felt guilty as he gathered up the bills from the machine.

  Lying. Stealing. What was next?

  He’d almost forgotten he was skipping school, too. Here it was Monday evening, and he was on his way to Europe. Who knew when he’d get back home?

  Using the credit card, Matt purchased two round-trip tickets to Paris. The airport there was called Charles de Gaulle, a name that didn’t ring any bells with either boy, and that was all they knew about where they were headed. They didn’t have a hotel reservation or French money. They didn’t even know where the food conference was taking place. All this was causing Matt some anxiety, and he couldn’t figure out how to calm down.

  Their first flight took them to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Wandering around inside a terminal, they bought bagels, sodas and Cubs ball caps. Then they loitered for a couple of hours in the international waiting area, Billy snacking and Matt getting more and more nervous. Now they were ready to board the jet that would take them across the Atlantic.

  What if Agrimax people were on the flight? Matt found something else to fret about. What if they decided to destroy the USB key in some desperate act like blowing up the plane?

  Was he becoming irrational? Was he losing his mind? Maybe he was slowly turning into some kind of schizophrenic—

  “Low fat, ha,” Billy muttered, regarding his bagel with disdain. “Low taste is more like it. These things need a big spoonful of peanut butter or a slab of ham or something. You eat them plain like this, it’s a mouthful of foam rubber.”

  At last the announcement of their flight number echoed across the terminal. The other passengers perked up, grabbing purses, magazines and carry-on bags. Matt realized belatedly that he and Billy should have purchased some luggage, even though they didn’t have anything to put in a suitcase. Two kids standing around with nothing but a pair of tickets could attract unwanted attention.

  “So when are you going to tell me what they’re after, Mattman?” Billy punctuated the question by slam-dunking the rest of his bagel into a trash can. “Have you got a CD or something?”

  “Shh!” Matt elbowed him in the stomach. “They’ll hear you, dude. You don’t know who’s on this flight with us. It might be them.”

  “Well, it’s not Mr. Keeling and Ted, that’s for sure. I’d recognize them in a second.”

  “It could be anybody! And you’re just blabbing about whatever you feel like.”

  “Are you going to be this grouchy the whole way to Paris?”

  “I’m not grouchy. I’m just nervous, okay? My dad’s going to go ballistic when he finds out I’ve been running up his credit card. You’re only going to get in trouble for skipping school, but I’ve done all kinds of wrong things.”

  “Yeah. A murder rap is nothing to joke about.”

  “Billy, good grief! Why don’t you just tell the whole world who we are, huh?”

  “Sorry, dude! Don’t get so bent out of shape.”

  Matt stared down at his ticket. He hadn’t intended to be irritable with his best friend. How many times had he wished for Billy’s companionship in the past few days?

  “You’re right,” Billy admitted in a low voice. “Sheriff Holtmeyer probably told the authorities to look for you in airports. I’m kind of amazed we got through check-in.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Agrimax might have found out where we’re going, too.”

  “How could they? Did you tell anybody?”

  “I didn’t find out about France until this morning, remember?” He shook his head. “It is kind of freaky how they know everything we’re doing, though. Do you think Josefina would have told anyone about the passports?”

  “No way. She promised.”

  “What about your dad? She might have told him.”

  “He’s looking for me down in Mexico.” Matt pushed his fingers through his hair. He needed a shower. “Billy, I feel so bad about all this. He’s gonna kill me…if Agrimax doesn’t do the job first.”

  “Don’t worry, Mattman. If somebody wants to hurt you, he’s gotta go through me.”

  Matt nodded, relieved. Billy had always been his protector—all the way up from grade school, when other kids were teasing him or trying to push him around.

  “So what are we supposed to be doing?” Matt asked. “Are we supposed to go through the gate now, or what?”

  “They’re calling us onto the plane in groups.” Billy pointed to a spot on Matt’s ticket. “You and I are in group five. Look, why don’t you just give me that? You’re going to bend it, and then it won’t go through the machine. You need to relax, buddy.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “This is an adventure, okay? It’ll be fun.”

  “It hasn’t been so far.”

  Matt pictured little Luz down in Juarez. No doubt she was out of money by now—probably forced back into prostitution to feed the other kids. And buy their glue.

  He thought of Mr. Banyon, too. His life on earth was over, and his ranch would be sold.

  Matt’s pickup was in a police lot somewhere in El Paso. Hernando’s truck was abandoned in Oklahoma City. Granny’s best friend had broken her hip. Nope, this had not been fun at all.

  “Here’s the deal,” Billy said, giving Matt a gentle push to indicate that their group finally had been called to board the plane. “Some heavy stuff has happened to you, but you’re going to be okay. You’re doing the right thing, aren’t you?”

  “Well…”

  Billy halted and took his friend’s elbow. “Look, Matt…I don’t want to doubt you, but the stuff we’re doing is pretty extreme. This whole food thing isn’t one o
f your obsessions, is it…like tectonic plates or Latin? This is God’s will. Right?”

  Matt edged forward, his Nike runners moving in little baby steps toward the ramp. The woman in front of him wore bright red high heels with long pointy toes. Weird. He wondered if she was French.

  “Mattman?” Billy asked. “We are going to Paris because you believe God is leading us, aren’t we? You told me you knew this was something you had to do.”

  “I thought that, but…”

  “But what?”

  Arriving at the front of the line, Matt showed his ticket and passport one more time. The agent ushered him onto the covered ramp that led down to the plane. Billy came up beside him and grabbed his jacket.

  “Matt Strong,” he said, “this better not be some wild-goose chase, because if it is—”

  “No, no. But it’s just that sometimes—” pausing, he looked into his friend’s eyes “—sometimes it feels a lot more rational not to listen. Not to pay attention to God. Like it’s smarter to be safe.”

  “Smarter, yeah, I buy that. But remember what our youth pastor always says—God doesn’t ask us to be smart. He just wants us to obey. And that’s what you’re doing.”

  Matt felt relief pour through him. “‘I was hungry, and you fed me.’”

  “Yep, that’s it.” Billy slapped him on the back. “Get on in there, and let’s find our seats. I wonder how soon they serve up supper.”

  “We’ve pinned the boy,” Mack Harwood said.

  Vince gripped the phone in his hand. “You caught him? You have the CDs?”

  “He’s on his way to Paris.”

  “Paris? Are you kidding me?”

  “We have this under control, sir. My men in France are already on it.”

  Rubbing his forehead, Vince glanced across the restaurant at the table he had just left. His two counterparts—the CEOs of Progrow and Megafarm—were engaged in an animated discussion. The three men planned to meet for most of the next day to finalize plans for the merger. The others looked tense, Vince noted, and he wondered if he appeared equally anxious. The biggest deal in the history of global commerce was just eight days away, and he must not let on that anything was amiss.