Truth and Consequences

by Sarah Madison

  “Wrong answer. Either it’s here or it isn’t. If it isn’t, well, we’ll be taking Mrs. Flynn with us, and you can persuade her son to bring us the artifact when he returns.”

  “Don’t give these people anything, Lee,” Jean demanded, her color high. “They need to get out of my house before I lose my temper.”

  Christy gave Magazine Man a nod, and he approached Jean, took her roughly by the arm and hauled her to her feet.

  “Wait.” I reached for Jean and took a step forward to stop him. Helpful Guy grabbed my arm and held me back. I shook him off angrily. “No, wait. None of this is necessary, okay? I’ll give it to you. You want that stupid museum piece? Fine. Here it is.”

  I brushed past Helpful Guy and went straight for the fireplace.

  “Stop,” Christy warned. “I don’t trust you. Tell us where it is, and we’ll get it ourselves.”

  Making sure she could see I’d rolled my eyes, I sighed heavily. “It’s inside the chimney. Or at least, that’s where I saw John put it. I don’t know if it’s still there.”

  With a little nod, she directed Helpful Guy to reach up inside the chimney. He ducked his head into the flue and scrabbled around within. “Got something.” He sputtered and cursed when soot fell, sprinkling his face and clothing. He brought out John’s fake, still covered in bubble wrap. He brushed the soot off his clothing and gently felt his nose. Then he wiped his hand on his shirt and offered Christy the package.

  She handed him the gun so she could unwrap the box. I noted she took care to see it stayed within the plastic. She studied it for a long time, turning it carefully in her hands as she examined the glyphs—which suggested she knew what she was looking for.

  “Well?” Magazine Man said. He must have tightened his grip on Jean because she shot him a look of pure loathing. “Is it the right box or what?”

  Pursing her lips, Christy appeared not to have heard him. Cautiously, she touched the box with the tip of one forefinger.

  “Are you nuts?” Helpful Guy asked, disbelief patent in his voice. “You know what those things can do to you, right?”

  Ah, so Christy was the Celtic truffle hound. I could have told her that this real version of this particular box hadn’t activated when John picked it up the first time, that it was only when he passed it to me, and we both held it at the same time, that the shenanigans took place. But then, that would be a dead giveaway that I knew more than I was letting on.

  “It’s a fake,” she said tightly, still studying the artifact. “A good one, but still a fake.” She held up her fingers to reveal a slight blue color to the tips.

  Well, crap. If John had said something to me about it, I could have told him that leaving the bubble wrap on was going to slow down the drying of the paint. I still had a chance of salvaging this, though. “A fake? Let me see that.” I stalked over to Christy and took it from her, inspecting it for myself.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know this was a fake.” Christy was cool in her disappointment, which didn’t bode well. I could see her mentally going through her options.

  “Hey, I saw John hide the piece. He told me it was from the museum.”

  “This isn’t from the museum. They would have spotted it as a fraud right away. Where is the real artifact?”

  I shrugged. After glancing around as though for some place to put the artifact, I folded the bubble wrap over it and stuck it in my back pocket. “I don’t know.”

  That much, at least, was true.

  “Fine. Mrs. Flynn will be coming with us. You find Agent Flynn and tell him we want the artifact. We’ll trade his mother for it.”

  “Hold on now, all this for a stupid trinket box? Don’t you think that’s a little excessive? Tell you what. You’ve got a buyer for the box? Well, John Flynn’s not above selling it. I’m sure we can work out a deal that’s mutually satisfactory to all parties.”

  “Lee.” Jean was both horrified and livid.

  I just hoped she would get what I was trying to do. “You don’t know Flynn the way I do, Jean.” With any luck, she’d pick up on my use of her given name and act accordingly. “But then, how could you? The two of you aren’t exactly on good terms. You heard him at dinner the other night. Working for the FBI is a crap job with long hours and little pay. Your son’s not as snow white as you think.”

  Jean gaped at me, her cheekbones, so like her son’s, flushed with color.

  “Perhaps Flynn is willing to deal. However, having his mother as a bargaining chip will keep the negotiations favorable to my boss. I’m sure you understand.” Christy was back to being the charming girl next door. You could almost overlook the whole being held at gunpoint thing.

  I waved a hand in Jean’s direction in disgust. “You don’t want to take her anywhere. The old biddy has a bad heart. She could crap out on you any second.”

  To do her justice, Jean did her best to look frail, though that didn’t come easily to her. “The old biddy, as you say,” Christy drawled, “just chased a man twice her size around the room with a poker.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s look at this another way. How about we just contact Flynn? Tell him you want to purchase the museum piece.”

  Christy chewed at her lower lip briefly, the first indication that maybe she wasn’t as calm as she appeared. Or maybe it was all outside the scope of her instructions. Yeah. That was probably it. She’d been told to force us to hand over the box and then to go. This was already getting way too complicated for her to make decisions on her own. “Text him. Tell him to come home now, that it’s important.”

  I shrugged, even as I pulled out my cell. “I can text him, but if he’s in interrogation, he probably has his phone turned off.” I began punching in letters.

  Christy held out her hand. “Let me see the message before you send it.”

  “Like I’m going to be able to give him any significant information in a text.” Damn it. That was exactly what I’d been planning to do. I typed in the message and handed the phone over to her.

  She read the text aloud. “Come home. People at house looking for artifact. Found fake. They want the real one.” She pressed the send button and put the phone in her pocket. “Now we wait for him to bring us the artifact.”

  Magazine Man seated Jean on the couch again, and Helpful Guy waved me toward it with the gun, still blotting his nose.

  “What about the guests?” Magazine Man frowned, nodding toward the living room windows.

  “I’m sure Parker was lying to get rid of me. We’ve had a run-in before.” She smiled sweetly at me. I hoped her foot still hurt from me stomping on it.

  Would they cut and run when Jean’s friends started showing up? Or would they take us all hostage? I was betting on the former, but it was a mighty big gamble. If we all stayed there, waiting for a text from John that might not come, the ladies of the book club were going to become involved, whether I liked it or not.

  I exchanged glances with Jean and gave her a subtle nod.

  She narrowed her eyes at first, frowning slightly, before raising an eyebrow. Turning toward Christy, she asked, “While we’re waiting for my book club to arrive, may I offer you something to drink? Sweet tea? Or perhaps lemonade?”

  It was perfect. A Southern lady at her finest, our Jean Flynn.

  “A book club? Shit, we should just take Parker here and go.” Magazine Man was decidedly unhappy at the news.

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Christy snapped.

  The decision was taken out of my hands. A ringtone emanated from Christy’s pocket, and it wasn’t from my phone.

  “Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’? Really?” I questioned as Christy fished out the phone and looked at it as though it might bite.

  She shot me a quick glance that might have been just a little scared. She accepted the call, held the phone to one ear and a finger in the other, and turned away so she could speak. “Yes?”

  “Tubular Bells? I don’t get it,” Jean said.

  “T
he theme from The Exorcist. Not exactly a happy association.” I strained to hear what Christy was saying, but she was keeping her voice down.

  She ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket. “That was the boss,” she said to her henchmen. “He wants us to bring Parker with us. We’ll have Flynn meet us there.”

  “What about the old lady?” Helpful Guy asked, even as Jean bristled.

  “She stays.” Christy was abrupt, as though she were leaving something out. “Come on. We don’t have much time before the others arrive. We’ll text Flynn again on the way.”

  “You know,” I said carefully, “if you put that gun away, I’ll come with you voluntarily. That would take the charge of kidnapping off the table and prevent this from being a matter for the FBI. Just a nice, friendly negotiation for the transfer of property. What do you say?”

  She fixed her eye on me. “Your word you won’t try anything stupid.”

  “My word.” It was easy enough to give. After all, I wasn’t speaking for John.

  She motioned for Helpful Guy to lower the gun, which he did with obvious reluctance. Still feeling that blow to the face, no doubt. I hoped I’d broken his nose. Sadly, he did not put the gun down, but instead stuck it in the back of his pants.

  “Lee.” Jean made as if to follow as the four of us headed to the front door.

  “Everything will be fine, Jean. Just a small business transaction. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” I hoped at some point I’d be able to apologize to her for acting like a jerk.

  My captors kept me in the middle as we headed to their car, a big black SUV. Magazine Man took the wheel, while Christy got in the passenger seat, leaving Helpful Guy to take the backseat with me. No sooner did I get my seat belt fastened, than the first of Jean’s friends arrived. Hazel looked at me curiously as she got out of her car. I gave her a little wave as we drove past.

  “Damn, the old broad wasn’t lying about company coming.” Magazine Man sounded as though we’d gotten out of there just in time.

  “No,” Christy said, her voice soft. She glanced back over her shoulder at me.

  “That would have gotten messy, fast,” Magazine Man said, the master of understatement.

  “We still left someone behind who could identify us.” Helpful Guy really needed a new name now.

  “Like she’ll be able to describe us,” Magazine Man scoffed. “You worry too much.”

  “It’s not me who worries,” Helpful Guy said, his accent suddenly stronger. Must be feeling stressed. My own accent, smothered all these years, tended to pop out when I was under pressure. “The boss won’t like it. You know how he is.”

  “So, we were supposed to deal with the entire book club? Christy made the right call. We’re not in the system, there’s nothing to connect—”

  “If you don’t both shut up,” Christy said in a voice that could cut diamonds, “you might both wind up being considered a liability.”

  That was a conversation stopper if I ever heard one. It didn’t speak well for my chances of survival, once my usefulness to them had ended. Well, what did I expect? John and I knew how potentially explosive those boxes would be in the wrong hands. We’d certainly speculated what someone might force him to do if they knew about John’s telepathy. Give that kind of power to someone without scruples and there was no limit to the ways he could abuse it. There’s nothing more dangerous than an amateur criminal. They make stupid mistakes and then panic to cover them up. I hoped Christy and Co. would buy the groundwork I’d laid—that John was mildly crooked. All I could do was continue to play ignorant and hope that it carried the day.

  Since I had nothing better to do, I imagined myself talking to John, describing in detail my captors and where we were headed. As usual driving into the city took forever. We drove right through the Fan district, where John and I had stayed just a few nights before, and out toward Shockoe Bottom. Then we passed the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, the one Nancy had told us about before I was attacked by Cunningham. In that part of town, urban renewal had given a fresh look to some of the older homes and renovated warehouses. Soon we turned off the main street and up into Church Hill. The higher the street numbers went, the seedier the neighborhoods became. It occurred to me that no one there would notice or report a gunshot, and just what the hell was I planning to do about it?

  Hey, John? These people that I’m with? I’m pretty sure they’re going to kill me.

  That was sure to be useful.

  Once again I was going to wind up a victim, and I was starting to get downright tired of it.

  We slowed down at last and came to a crawl as MM looked for parking. We circled the block several times while MM and Christy debated going to one of the public lots and walking back. Just when it seemed that this was what they’d have to do, a car pulled out from the curb, and MM snagged the spot. We got out. HG took the gun out from his waistband and motioned me on ahead of him. MM locked the car while Christy waited on the sidewalk, tapping her foot impatiently. The sun was slipping behind the buildings in a fiery red ball.

  “Let’s not waste any more time. Inside.” She led the way to a short, squat building with a narrow door that was wedged between what looked like a home that had been converted into cheap apartments and what seemed to be another old home converted into an office building. Most of the buildings looked like they’d been built in the nineteenth century, with a few 1950s monstrosities thrown in, presumably when something else had fallen down.

  Christy unlocked the door and let us into the building. She switched on the lights, and we made our way down a long passageway with highly polished wood floors toward an open room in the back. It was kind of gorgeous, to be honest. The few pieces of furniture were white. Tasteful blue and silver accents made the whole thing seem like a room in Elsa’s castle. It was glassed in on the far side, facing a small, exquisite garden where flowers gently nodded their blooms in the fading sunlight. Above there was a loft, attainable by a set of steep stairs, and the room was lit like a museum.

  In a glass case against the far wall, sat two of the Boudica Boxes on small pedestals, highlighted by a brilliant spotlight. There were two empty spots beside them. Their spotlights beamed down on gleaming ivory stands. I recognized the first box in the case as being the one from the Weir. The one that John touched. The one that made him telepathic.

  “So your boss is some kind of nut-job collector?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” Christy looked at me curiously. “Do you really not know what they’re capable of doing?”

  I shook my head slightly. “Do they actually do something? Like play music? The first I heard of them is when the agents from the Art Crimes Team showed up asking questions. Seems like a lot of fuss over nothing, if you ask me. If I’d known where the real one was, I’d have handed it over.”

  As if on cue, The A-Team theme blared out of Christy’s pocket.

  “You might as well give it to me,” I said, letting resignation seep into my voice. “He’s going to want to talk to me.”

  Twisting her lips into a sour grimace, Christy handed me my phone.

  “Flynn,” I said into it, when I answered the call. “Can you hear me?”

  One of the reasons John avoided taking Jean’s calls after he developed telepathy was that sometimes, if the connection was strong enough, he could pick up someone’s thoughts over the phone. Before I pushed him to get back in touch with his mother, John was afraid of finding out what she truly thought of him. Now I was relieved to hear him say, “Loud and clear.”

  “Good. I take it you got my text.”

  “I got everything.”

  Interesting. I didn’t know if that meant he picked up on the internal monologue I’d been conducting during the drive, or if he’d been able to track me from the beacon on the fake artifact in my pocket. But either way, I felt like maybe I wouldn’t end up in a body bag after all. “Well, then you know the setup. There’s a buyer for that stupid box you got from the mu
seum. Not going to take no for an answer.” I fed him as much information as I could in the pause for breath—the layout of the apartment, the presence of two of the boxes, the unthinking dullness of the henchmen, the more intelligent-but-having-reservations Christy. I pictured everything in the kind of detail only someone with my memory could do and hoped it would be helpful.

  “Are you okay? This buyer, is he willing to deal?” His voice was clipped, angry. Barely under control.

  I glanced at Christy and then spoke as though answering John. “I don’t know for sure. I haven’t met him yet. But his representative seems to think that you’ll take the deal you’re offered.”

  Christy held out her hand for the phone. I handed it over silently.

  “Agent Flynn? My boss is only willing to make one sort of deal. You give us the box and we’ll release your partner to you. I suggest you come directly over with the artifact. My boss will meet you here.” She gave out the address and disconnected the call.

  “I thought we were downplaying the whole abduction angle,” I said mildly. “Wrath of the FBI, and all that.”

  She ignored me. “Flynn said he was coming from his mother’s house, in which case, he should be here in about forty minutes. I don’t necessarily believe him. He could have called from somewhere downtown, and then we’re talking more like twenty. Rick, I want you out front, keeping an eye out for the boss’s arrival, as well as Flynn’s. Take a gun. I don’t want any screwups.”

  I looked around to see who she was talking to, only to see Magazine Man nod and walk to a bureau that doubled as a bar. Tall bottles of whiskey and bourbon, along with several tumblers, stood on its surface. He ignored the bar and took a gun out of the drawer. He checked to see if it was loaded and went out the front door.

  “You, check out back. Don’t be gone long.” She glared at Helpful Guy as though he’d already been delinquent in his duties.

  HG’s lips tightened, but he said nothing. Instead, he crossed through the small kitchen underneath the loft. He removed a metal rod from a sliding glass door, which had served as a lock, so he could enter the garden. The light was fading, but I could see him moving about the bushes on the other side of the window.