by Rachel Caine
I haven’t been paying attention to the journey, but I’m dragged out of the dark places in my mind when the car slows down for a barrier. We’re at the airport, and then we’re through and onto the airfield. I’m familiar with small places like this; when I was a teen, I hung out at one, helping out with repairs and maintenance just so I could be around the planes. Once I was old enough, I built engines. Learned to fly. This place feels, unexpectedly, like home.
It’s a little bit of sanity, just when I need it.
I finally risk a glance at Gwen. Her face is as pale and smooth as marble, but I’m struck by the fact that there are tear tracks on her cheek. Damp spots on her shirt collar. She’s been silently crying, and it’s a rare sign of weakness from her. If she senses me looking at her, she doesn’t respond. She stares straight ahead, looking—at least, from her expression—into nightmares.
In that moment, she looks more like Gina Royal than I’ve ever seen before. All of Gwen’s certainty and fierce, hard-won confidence is gone.
The car stops at a private hangar, and I get out. Take a breath of air tinged with the sharp, nose-burning smell of jet fuel and oil. I have that wild urge again to just turn my back, walk away, let my long-nursed rage bleed off into the cool air and start over. That video called everything into question. Everything I thought I ever knew about Gwen, and myself.
But it strikes me, as I hear her door open and turn to look at her, that Gwen is having the same crisis, only hers must go even deeper. All the way to the bone. She looks like she’s seen into hell, and hell’s leered back.
“You should go somewhere else,” she tells me. “You can’t trust me, Sam. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t know what to think, either.”
I ask her, point-blank, “Have you been lying to me? Were you helping him?”
She’s violently shaking her head before the first few words are in the air. “No. No! I don’t know what that was, but . . . no!” Her voice sounds unsteady, but fierce. She takes a deep breath and angrily swipes tears from her cheeks. “I’m going to find Suffolk. Are you coming or not?”
I look over at the sleek private plane that’s waiting for us, a uniformed pilot standing by.
And I say, “For now.”
I’m not surprised to find that the interior of the G-7 is top-of-the-line custom work—leather recliners, polished wood tables and trim, original artwork on the walls. Rivard didn’t name his company Rivard Luxe for nothing; he clearly likes his comfort. The plane holds, at most, twelve passengers; there are six recliners, and two sofas set facing each other that could hold another six comfortably. The pilot vanishes after telling us the flight time; another uniformed officer from the hangar scans our IDs, in case of emergency, and wishes us a good journey. Then a flight attendant I’m almost positive is a famous runway model boards and shows us menus. We have a choice of steaks from Bone’s, or a custom lunch from Cakes & Ale, with dessert from Alon’s Bakery. I’m not from Atlanta, but I was stationed close enough to know big-name restaurants.
I order the steak. Gwen just shakes her head. I reach out to stop the flight attendant and say, “Bring her something; she needs to eat.” It isn’t that I care, I tell myself. It’s that she does me no good if she collapses. We’re both running on adrenaline and anger and shock right now—well, to be fair, for me it’s mostly anger—and that’s not a good way to go into a situation that will probably turn out to be dangerous. I don’t believe for a second that Rivard sent us because we’re convenient. He could—and maybe has—hired others to do this job.
He’s sending us because we’re expendable. The cost of the best airplane food in existence and the jet fuel to get us there is the equivalent of buying us coffee to him.
My cell phone rings, and I flinch hard enough to pull a muscle. I’m strung too tightly. I hate that Gwen saw it.
“Yes?” I answer.
“Thought you’d want to know, possible sightings of Melvin Royal reported in Texas.” It’s Mike Lustig’s voice on the other end. “You still in Atlanta?”
“Just leaving,” I tell him, which at least has the benefit of being true. “Is it credible, you think?”
“Shit, you know nothing’s credible until we have surveillance photos, fingerprints, or DNA,” he says. “Trouble is, we’ve got a body in Texas that’s surfaced with a similar profile, and it fits in geographically to the reports. Could be him.”
I look at Gwen. Can’t help the instinct. She knows I’m talking to Mike but doesn’t know what it’s about. Yesterday, she’d probably have asked.
Today, with the shadow of what just happened lurching between us, she says nothing and averts her gaze.
“Hey, Sam, you still with me? You got any reason to think he’s got some support in Texas? Specifically, East Texas, up near the Louisiana border?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, can you ask her?”
“Not right now,” I say. “Is this recent?”
“Recent enough. Girl was abducted about six days ago. Body dumped in a bayou, found because a gator severed her leg where it was chained to a block. Gave the hunters who spotted her a hell of a shock. Last time she was seen alive was at a shopping center. Her ex liked to pick women off from places like that, didn’t he?”
Callie was abducted from a local shopping-mall parking lot. I say nothing. Mike knows Melvin Royal’s MO as well as I do.
“This vic had stun-gun marks,” Mike says. “Same as most of his victims did. So it tracks. But Texas is a long way off from where we had other reports. Feels like a decoy to me. Not that we aren’t looking into it; we are.” He’s quiet for a moment, waiting for me to say something. I still don’t. “You don’t sound right. Everything okay?”
“Sure,” I say. “Just thinking. You talk to Ballantine Rivard?”
“I called. He’s not available, air quotes and all. Got a feeling I’m going to have to go get court paper to open up the pearly gates.”
“Don’t think you’ll get too much even if you do get inside,” I say.
“Probably not, but I deal with rich asshole sociopaths all the time. I checked him out: the usual lawsuits for underpayment, improper dismissal, contract violations, that sort of stuff. I don’t imagine anybody who runs a company this big has cleaner hands. His son was a damn mess, though.”
“Yeah, I know.” I’m distracted by the reappearance of the flight attendant with a cart. It’s chock-full of ridiculously indulgent, high-priced liquor. “Listen, I’ve got to go. You be safe, Mike.”
“You, too,” he says. “You’re not doing something stupid, are you?”
“Probably,” I say, then hang up.
I order another scotch.
Gwen sticks with water. No ice. I suspect the taste of scotch is now associated with the memory of that video, and now that I think of it, the shimmering taste in my own mouth turns a little sour. I down it in a gulp and hand the tumbler back.
The flight attendant smiles at me without any real warmth and reaches beneath the cart to take out a sealed manila envelope. She hands it to me. “From Mr. Rivard,” she says. “With his compliments.”
She wheels the cart away, and I look across at Gwen. She sips water and says, “I suppose he likes you better.”
Inside the envelope is a file folder. It’s full of photocopies, and I glance at each page before I pass it on to her. Carl David Suffolk’s Kansas driver’s license, reproduced in color, doesn’t do him any favors; he’s a puffy, pale man with a receding hairline who’s chosen to cultivate a goatee to cover up what’s probably a weak chin. Beneath the license are his personal details: single, no kids. His bank account balance, which is healthy but not impressive.
The next page is a copy of his employee ID, in which he looks even less prepossessing. He works at a place called Imaging Solutions—copy shop, print shop, something like that. The rest of the file is a list of phone numbers he regularly calls and texts, and most of them have names beside them, as well as addresses. A few don’t, which means
they’re disposable phones. Rivard’s also included a list of screen names that Suffolk uses, along with the specific sites that they’re associated with. Most are innocuous.
A few raise the hair on the back of my neck. Suffolk visits chat sites that mainly host children and teens. At his age, and childless, it’s a pure red flag.
At the very end of the file, there’s a handwritten note. It says:
In this envelope I have a sealed message, which I trust you to hand to Mr. Suffolk. It contains the details on payment I will make to him upon his agreement to go with you. If he does not agree, I suppose you should use your discretion.
As agreed, I have made the offer to buy the video from the dark web and remove it entirely. However, there is a significant complication. It seems the video has already been delivered to another untraceable buyer, and that, I cannot control.
There may not be any way to stop the video from seeing the light of day.
I don’t like it. Instinctively, something tells me that Rivard is playing us, but I have no idea how, or why. Rich men don’t look at people like us as human beings; we’re pieces they move, levers they pull to get what they want.
There’s a sealed, expensive-looking envelope at the back of the file with Suffolk’s name written on it. I strongly consider opening it, but I don’t. Yet.
We need a backup plan. So I text Mike Lustig. Hate to ask you for another favor, but what are the chances you can give me some backup?
Mike’s reply is, Pretty good, but your debt is earning compound interest, my man. I fucking hate Wichita.
How the hell . . . I stare at his words, then text back, simply, ???
Did you really think I didn’t know where you were, Sam? Come on. I’ve had eyes on you the whole time. How’s that Rivard jet? Smooth? Hope so. Had to buy a goddamn economy-class middle seat. Flight out in half an hour.
I don’t know whether to be angry that he’s spied on us, or relieved that he hasn’t kicked us loose. Right now, probably the latter. Where do we meet you?
You don’t, Lustig says. After that, I get no response at all.
In ten minutes we’re in the air, traveling as smoothly as gliding on ice, and the sky outside the oval windows is a fresh-washed blue, all the clouds below us.
I don’t tell Gwen what Rivard has said in the letter, and I don’t tell her about Mike Lustig. I let her enjoy the temporary peace, the expensive steak dinner, the fancy dessert, because I know that when we land, the peace will be over.
And the war may never stop.
13
LANNY
When I asked for the Internet, I really just wanted to check social media, see how everybody was doing. I wasn’t going to post or anything, just lurk. Because I was bored.
And then I saw Dahlia’s picture, and all of a sudden, I felt something crushing me inside. I missed her so much it hurt. I wanted to call her. I wanted to hear her voice and tell her what’s happened, and I wanted . . . wanted all kinds of things, wild things that raced through my head while staring at her picture that made me uncomfortably warm inside. I’d been feeling that way before everything blew up out at our old house, and I’d been trying to figure out what it meant, and what to do about it. Now I think I know. But I can’t do anything.
I’m so close. But not close at all.
Connor making fun of me is the last straw, and when I blow up at him, I mean it so hard. I race off to my room and cry into a pillow for a good fifteen minutes. By that time, I still feel wretched and alone, but I also am too exhausted to care. I curl up hugging my damp pillow and stare off into the distance. Outside the window, it’s a cold afternoon, and it’s chilly in here, too. I turn on the space heater and put on fuzzy socks and climb under the covers on my bed. My lower abdomen is aching. I check my calendar, but it’s still a week until my period. I have enough tampons for this time, but I’m going to have to ask Kezia to get me more. I can’t ask Javier. God, no. Number fifteen million of things my brother doesn’t have to put up with.
It’s an hour later when I get up, shuffle across the floor, and pick up the piece of paper that’s been shoved under the door. I know it’s from Connor, and his sharp-pointed printing makes me smile a little.
Dahlia’s picture makes me want to cry all over again, but I put it on my nightstand, propped up so I can look at it. Maybe I can find a frame for it.
The lure of Rice Krispies peanut butter chocolate treats finally gets me to unlock the door and slump into the kitchen. Javier eyes me from where he’s working on the computer. I can tell he’s thinking about what to say, but I don’t want to talk to anybody. I get my snack fast and start back to my room. But not fast enough.
“Hey,” he says, “your brother’s asked for more stuff to do. How do you feel about learning to shoot at the gun range?”
I nearly forget about feeling bad. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Mom hasn’t taken us.”
“I’ll clear it with her first. But would you be interested if she agrees?”
“Hell yes, I would!” The idea makes me feel about ten thousand times more in control. “When?”
“When I get her okay. Slow your roll, gunslinger, you’re not shooting anything for a long while even if she says yes. Tell you what: we’ll go to the range after it closes, and you’re going to pick out a gun. I’ll give you a choice of three. Then you’re going to learn how to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together.”
“Wait, that’s all? I already know how to do that!” I’ve watched my mom clean hers a hundred times. He doesn’t reply. I nibble on the treats. “Oh, come on. Really?”
“That’s all we’re going to do at first. Choose, disassemble, clean, reassemble. Okay?”
“But I want to do target practice!”
“I know.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because this is how I do it. If you don’t like it, we don’t have to go at all.”
He’s as bad as my mom. I seriously think about saying so, but I don’t, because I don’t see how it gets me anywhere except staying here for another round of Monopoly.
“Fine,” I say, but I say it in a way that makes it clear it isn’t. “Sure. Whatever.”
“Great.” Javier shuts the laptop. “This isn’t a game, Lanny. You understand that, right? A gun is a responsibility. The second you touch one, you assume the power of life and death, and you can’t take that lightly.”
“I know that!” His look says he doesn’t think I really do. I try to look calm and adult, because I know that’s what he wants. “Okay. I’ll pick a gun. I’ll learn how to do what you want. Then can I get to shoot?”
“When your mom says you can,” he tells me. “But not tonight. One step at a time.”
He’s carrying a gun on his hip right now. It looks like the one Mom carries, so it’s probably a 9mm semiautomatic. Mom’s extremely careful with her guns, but every once in a while, I’ve been able to pick one up, feel the weight of it. He’s right. There’s something that changes when you have a gun in your hand. It feels reassuring and exciting, sure. But there’s something else, too. I’ve never quite been able to say what it is. Maybe when he finally lets me fire one, I’ll know what I’m trying to tell myself.
It’s a start, I tell myself. Stop pushing.
I don’t like to be patient. I think I got that from Mom.
I lower my voice and say, “Have you talked to Mom in the past couple of days?”
“Yeah, for a little bit. She had to go before I could pass the phone on to you. She’s okay.”
“Did Mom say anything about . . . him?” I almost said Dad, but I know I shouldn’t call him that. Not out loud. We all know who I’m talking about.
Javier shakes his head. “Nothing yet,” he says. “There’s no reason to think he’s anywhere around here, but let’s keep on as we’re doing. Stay inside as much as you can stand. Stay offline. The longer we can keep where you are a secret, the better and safer for all of us.”
&
nbsp; “You could at least let me talk to my friends,” I tell him. I really mean Dahlia. “They won’t sell us out.” She won’t sell me out.
“And your friends tell other friends, and pretty soon everybody in Norton knows you’re back. You think your mom isn’t the best piece of gossip ever to hit this place? Nobody’s going to pass up the chance to talk about it.”
He’s right, of course. The friends thing is half-hearted. Javier takes his job seriously. So does Kez—who’s off at her real job as a cop right now, investigating some break-in around the other side of the lake. I hope it isn’t our house. I worry about that . . . about the kids from school who might break in, trash our house, take selfies in my bedroom humping my pillow. Go through my stuff, not that I have a lot of stuff after all the years on the run. It still hurts to imagine what little privacy I’ve ever had being violated.
But maybe it isn’t our house. Maybe the Johansens’ big-ass flat-screen TV finally got jacked. Or their Mercedes SUV.
Maybe someone’s ransacked Lancel Graham’s old house; after all, we might be killers by association, but Graham really did kill people. If Graham’s house gets trashed, I not only can’t be sorry about it, I approve. He was a sick, evil man, and if Mom and Kez and Sam hadn’t gotten to us in time . . . God only knows what would have happened. No. I know. It’s what happened to his other two victims, and to all the girls my dad killed.
I try not to think about it.
Connor comes in from outside. He’s been out awhile, because he’s wearing a coat and gloves, and he sheds the outerwear and slumps on the couch, where he immediately picks up a book. He glances at me but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he thinks we still aren’t talking.
Maybe we still aren’t.
“What time are we going?” I ask Javier, because at least it’s a distraction.
“I said we’d check with your mom first.”
“You also said I wasn’t going to get to shoot any guns. So there’s nothing to ask yet.”
He gives me a look. “I’m calling. If I don’t get her, I’ll leave a message.”
