Killing Chase

by Ben Muse

  “I know you have as many questions for me as I have for you. I’ll answer three questions first as a show of goodwill and appreciation for your restraint back there. Make ’em count.”

  “Okay, obvious question: what do I do if I’m attacked or provoked with something a little more lethal than a pitcher of beer? You can’t expect me to sit back and do nothing, and you can’t flash your FBI creds if you’re with me.”

  “We can cover for you one time, but if you feel threatened, run. We know your release has ruffled feathers, so try to stay out of the public eye and go about your business. We’ll be following, and if you are attacked, we’ll do what we can.”

  We’ll be following.

  “Is Jenna Brighton your real name?”

  “Yes,” she said, though I doubted her veracity. “I grew up in upstate New York, all-American family, graduated third in my high school class. College at Duke, law school at Duke, joined the FBI three years ago. Next.”

  “Why do you think my father’s company is involved in this?”

  “Several classified databases have issued alerts on Sergei Durov. As a former sub commander for the Soviet Union, he has unique access to certain weapons and certain weapons dealers. And there is no love lost between him and our country. That we know. When we combine that information with his two scheduled trips aboard your father’s yacht, less than one month apart, we have to take it seriously. May be nothing, but we have to follow up on it.”

  “Does my father know about Sergei’s dislike of America?”

  “We’re not sure; he does know Sergei’s unhappy that he can’t mine off our coast.”

  “But my father loves this country. He may have been a shitty father, but his loyalty has never been in question.”

  “And that’s why you’re here, dear Chase. To help clear things up.”

  Jenna spent the next three and a half hours squeezing information out of every pore of my body. We sat on separate ends of the couch and consumed cup after cup of coffee while she threw questions at me in a rapid-fire format. Sometimes she would phrase the same question a different way to see if my answer still rang true. I repeatedly replayed every waking moment of my existence since my release over four days ago. It was mental waterboarding, and I almost wept for joy when we finished around two a.m. She emailed the video and audio of the entire interview to someone in FBI land.

  Before I fell asleep on the couch, I asked her one more question.

  “How is this romance thing supposed to work between us? So far, this feels like the relationship my mother and father had. Emotionless and dull. Doesn’t there need to be some authenticity to it?”

  She walked over in the low light of the apartment and kneeled by the couch.

  “Guess we should get this out of our system, Chase. After tonight, only public displays of affection. If we are alone, then we are all business.”

  Her lips found mine, and my heart briefly skipped a few beats. There was a lot to like about Jenna Brighton.

  Without a word, she stood and walked away.

  “Do you want me to continue seeing Anna?”

  “Of course. She’s tied to Durov,” Jenna said quietly with her back to me.

  “How do you propose I date two women? I don’t want to lead her on. She’s . . . nice.”

  Jenna turned back to me. “Chase, you aren’t in this for love or a relationship. You’re in this to do a job. If being with Anna benefits you in any other way, then fine, but the job comes first. You may have to bug her home. Are you comfortable with having to do that?”

  “Not entirely, but I’ll do it.”

  “I’m sorry if this offends you, but you signed up for this.”

  “Going back to prison is not an option for me, Jenna.”

  “Yeah, I heard you loud and clear at Shooters. Goodnight, Chase,” she said simply, and closed the door.

  ***

  Safely inside her room, she locked the door and chided herself for that little display. Her superiors allowed her some leeway in this role, but a kiss like that wasn’t in the handbook. Holding hands would be as far as she’d let it go in the future. He was good looking and charming, and the kiss turned her on, but she was also running him, and there needed to be boundaries.

  ***

  Two sets of eyes, seventy-five yards apart, watched the apartment—both unaware of the other. The owner of the dark and brooding set had followed the three vehicles from the pool hall to the complex and had driven past the Avery Gardens entrance along with the two motorcyclists. After a minute, the vehicle slowed, turned into a strip mall, and reversed course, entering the complex and backing in to a spot that offered a clear view of the black Mustang.

  After waiting a couple of minutes, the person observed a man and a woman exit a ground-floor apartment and approach the Mustang. The man knelt down and put his arm up in the wheel well of the right rear tire while the woman acted as a lookout. They left in a blue sedan one minute later.

  The person picked up a disposable cell phone from the passenger seat and made a long-distance call. The tampering of the Mustang could only mean one thing, and the man on the other end would not be happy about that.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday, March 21, 2012

  I walked into a third-floor conference room at Aquatic, thinking I was meeting with a production manager to discuss job options. Instead, I entered to an x-ray propped up against a dry erase board with my father sitting in a black leather executive chair, hands clasped in his lap and a neutral look on his face. Ambush.

  “I know I’m the last person you wanted to see, but we need to talk, don’t ya think?”

  “I knew things were going too well between us on the Bahamas trip, Hank.”

  “It’s Hank now, huh? There could be worse names, I guess.”

  “Selfish prick. Asshole. Adulterer. Narcissist. Yeah, it could be worse.” We both just looked at each other for about thirty seconds. “How could you let your own daughter grow up without knowing who her real father was? Her life could have been so much better. I honestly don’t understand how she can stand to be around you.”

  “Her life has been pretty extraordinary, given her circumstances. Sometimes, adversity can be the biggest motivator of all, although I imagine a part of her will always be angry with me. We are all together now, and that is all we should care about. The decisions I made in the past were done for my family. For you,” he rationalized.

  “That’s bullshit. You kept it a secret so you wouldn’t be labeled and that grand image everyone has of you wouldn’t be tarnished. I would’ve welcomed Bailey with open arms. You kept it a secret so mom couldn’t take even more money with her to Colorado.”

  He sat there, nodding his head, and I was just getting started.

  “Hank Hampton could never feel ashamed. By God, that’s not in the Hampton DNA. Fess up to mitigate your son’s prison sentence? Hell no.” And then I stopped, because it hit me. Did I need to exact my pound of flesh from this dying man? It would serve no purpose. I was tired of being the angry person. That wasn’t me, dammit.

  “I can only say I’m sorry, Chase, and ask for your forgiveness, especially since—” He paused and pointed to his fallback position: the x-ray. His out. A grenade to toss and destroy the anger that was quickly leaving me anyway.

  “And what are we looking at?”

  “An anaplastic thyroid tumor spreading throughout my neck. The least common and most deadly type of thyroid cancer. I’ll need a tracheostomy in three months and a coffin by the end of the year.” His voice sounded even hoarser and I thought to myself, how tough it must be for such a proud man to know his own body is betraying him.

  In my anger-deflated voice, I said, “Dad, what can I do?”

  “I want you to come work for me.”

  “That’s what I’m supposed to be meeting about right now, I thought.”

  “I know. I don’t want you working in production. Bailey’s head was in the right place, but I want you working up her
e with me, with us. You’ll have plenty of time to spend in production in the coming months. I don’t want my remaining time on this earth spent here with you tucked away in some yacht down at the production docks. Me never seeing you. I want you to understand the business, and I want to try to make amends for all my transgressions. Your sister is not a people person, and this company will need a people person when I’m gone. What do you think?”

  You want an ex-con as the people person for your company? I think you’re nuts, I thought to myself.

  Instead I said, “Okay, but just know that I’m taking this seriously. You need to teach me the business and not just spend time focused on the past. I’ve never had a job, for chrissakes, nor do I have a college degree. I have zero skills, except an ability to survive in harsh conditions, and these conditions do not look harsh.”

  “I can have you ready to help Bailey run the company in four months, if I’m able. Is that a yes?”

  I nodded and we shook hands. “That’s a yes.”

  “Be here at seven thirty tomorrow morning, and we’ll get started. You’ll spend the morning going through an orientation class, and we’ll have lunch afterward. Then I’ll give you a tour of the shipyards to show you a couple of yachts we are currently building.”

  I am in.

  I wondered what my new roomie would think.

  “Shall we go tell your sister?” he said, reading my mind.

  Bailey took the announcement in stride, though I sensed a little friction. The three of us working in close proximity could be a challenge. We went downstairs for lunch and dined on grilled shrimp salads in the atrium dining area, and Dad introduced me to some members of Aquatic’s management team. Some I had met before prison.

  The common denominator I sensed from the five division heads was an undercurrent of animosity. I’m sure they all had eyes on moving up the food chain when my father died, and now they had to contend with the owner’s son. The undertrained, undereducated ex-con, I pictured them saying to their spouses at the dinner table. I wasn’t under the illusion that I would be accepted by them. More than likely, I would be planting listening devices in their offices. I would work hard. If they accepted me, fine; if not, no big deal.

  “How did it go after I left Shooters last night?” Bailey inquired.

  “You two were at Shooters last night? The rats don’t even hang out there.”

  “Maybe you should come out one night with us. We could shoot some pool—” I began.

  “And rent out the velvet-roped VIP section,” Bailey finished for me.

  “The evening went fine. I’m seeing Jenna again tonight,” I advised her.

  “What about Anna? You two seemed to be hitting it off in Nassau,” my father asked.

  “She’s cooking me dinner Friday night at her place.”

  “Good for you. But if you break her heart and Sergei backs out of buying a yacht, I’ll have to demote you to the mail room,” he said jokingly.

  “Why would Sergei care about Anna and me?”

  “Well,” he stammered, coughing, “she is one of his most loyal employees.”

  I got the sense my father was holding back something, though what it could be, I had no idea.

  Chapter 26

  I called Jenna after lunch and told her I was free for the rest of the afternoon. I suggested we go to the beach and she told me to pick her up around two. I wondered what she did all day. I had no doubt that a Jenna Brighton was enrolled in class at UNC-Wilmington; I just didn’t know if she actually went. She was alone when I arrived and dressed in khaki shorts and a St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt.

  “Bathing suit’s on underneath. We’ll need to wait for Jessica; she’s covering the apartment while I’m gone.”

  “Is someone always here?”

  “Always.”

  “Wouldn’t that make your neighbors suspicious, seeing different people coming and going from the same apartment?”

  “We’re college kids, Chase. Didn’t you have people in and out of your—” she began then stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I was speaking without thinking. Of course, you didn’t have an apartment in college, because—”

  I cut her off midsentence. “It’s okay. I could tell you weren’t being mean, Jenna. No harm, no foul. I do have news. I start working with my dad tomorrow, after a morning of orientation.”

  “Great. Where will you be working?”

  “They are adding a desk for me in his office. It’s quite large, his office; it has to be to fit his ego, though I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to continue to work. His voice is gravelly, and the pain from the cancer is getting worse.”

  “I’m sorry, Chase. I know you two aren’t particularly close, but maybe you being here is a comfort.”

  ***

  Jenna knew all too well how much it hurt to see family members in pain. She’d lost her father to a heart attack when she was nine and watched lung cancer slowly kill her mom over the course of eighteen months.

  Twenty-seven-year-old Elizabeth Gibbons had been on her own since her freshman year at the University of Virginia. She had no brothers or sisters to speak of. Aunts, uncles and cousins were scattered on the West Coast, but she had little interaction with them, save for the occasional birthday or Christmas card. After law school at the University of Virginia, the FBI became her family. Her dream job. She had friends from college, but as time marched on, they faded into their own lives and careers.

  The past two years working out of the Roanoke field office had been a tedious grind of all-night stakeouts, investigations, and arrests. She loved every minute of it, but when Special Agent Rollin Schmidt showed up two months ago, she jumped at the opportunity he presented.

  She rarely dated, even before her undercover job started, though not for the lack of offers. She was doing what she wanted; settling down with a family was not a career advancer. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t lonely. She had her team here—Ash, Jessica, Christian, and Micayla—but they were always working when they weren’t sleeping, and one of the five in their little group was always sleeping.

  She moved to Foggy Harbor in mid-January and began to insert herself into the community slowly. She signed up for classes at UNC-Wilmington, made friends, played intramural sports, and even attended church, all the while waiting for the person standing in front of her to be released.

  “Jenna, where’d you go?”

  “What?”

  “You kind of blanked out for a minute. You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Was I? she wondered.

  ***

  “You grew up . . . here,” she said, awestruck, as we drove down the estate’s blacktop drive.

  “I did. Welcome to the most dysfunctional home on the Eastern Seaboard. Would you like to see my silver spoon?”

  We made a pit stop in the kitchen to load a small cooler with bottled water and fruit. I wanted to introduce Jenna to Pops, but he was nowhere to be found (probably napping . . . he’s ninety-three, remember). Instead, we took our cooler and made the trek to the cabana. The temperature had climbed into the middle seventies, and the sky was a deep, southern blue. Thin tendrils of clouds slid lazily by. Our stretch of beach was empty, and even looking north and south there were only a few people visible.

  “Feel free to take a nap in the cabana or lay out here on the deck. I’m going for a run. Be back in about forty.”

  “Why did you bring me here, Chase?”

  I considered her question. “Because I thought you might want some fresh air, and . . . well, for better or worse, you are the only friend I have in this town. I know we aren’t really friends, but at least we have to pretend to be. Gotta count for something, I guess.”

  “And what makes you think I want to just lay out instead of going for a run with you?” she said in her syrupy-sweet voice.

  “I saw you running on Monday and you almost killed yourself.”

  “That was an act, you moron,” she said, playfully punching my arm.

 
“Well, it was convincing. Ms. Brighton, would you like to accompany me on a nice little beach run?”

  “Think you can keep up with me?” she challenged, as she produced a hair band and deftly put her hair into a ponytail.

  “That shouldn’t be a—” I started, when suddenly she came at me, grabbed my right hand with her left, and pushed me off balance with her right arm. The next thing I knew she had swept my legs out from under me, and I was on my back. She took off as I lay there in the sand.

  “Catch me if you can!” she yelled, already with a thirty-yard head start.

  “Women,” I said, as I made my way to my feet, ripped off my shirt, and took off after the ponytailed gazelle.

  On and on we ran, right at the water’s edge where the sand was compacted and sloped slightly. I thought I’d overtake her easily, but fifteen minutes in, I was still ten yards behind her. She glanced back every once and a while and grinned as if to say, sucker.

  At the twenty-minute mark, I told her to turn around and head back when she got to a single piece of driftwood that had found its way to shore. I thought about payback for her little act, but I didn’t. Her lead increased to fifteen yards at the thirty-minute mark. It was time. I switched gears, passed her three minutes later, and mimicked her “catch me if you can” phrase from earlier. I had a five-yard lead with the cabana getting larger and larger in my view when I heard her cry out in pain. I stopped and ran back to her. She was on all fours, and her face was looking at the sand.

  “Jenna, are you okay?” I said, alarmed.

  “Damn. Heard something pop, and then I went down,” she said, breathing heavy. I leaned down to her.

  “What do you think it was?”

  “The champagne cork I’m popping after I beat you,” she said, as she pushed me over and took off. She was in a runner’s stance and faking injury all along, and I had underestimated her, again. I watched her get farther away as I just stood there. She was a competitive little vixen, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Congratulations on your hollow victory,” I said when I got back to the cabana. She was pouring a plastic bottle of cold water over her head and had already taken off her shorts and t-shirt. The water ran in rivulets down her neck and between her breasts. She had a toned, tan body, and the green and blue bikini she wore made me weak in the knees.