Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  I was advancing on him fast, my eye on the briefcase. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do—Juarez taught me a couple of nifty moves if a second-rate thug jumped me in the street, but he sure as hell hadn’t schooled me on how to lift a briefcase of deadly secrets from a world-class assassin.

  Cameron picked up the case when I was still a couple of feet away. For a second, I thought I saw a flicker of sadness in his eyes. Regret, even.

  “I can’t help you, Erin. It isn’t my place.” He buttoned his trench coat and nodded toward the window, indicating the spot where my magic J had been. “Don’t do that again—it was very stupid. They watch me, just as I watch you. A private meeting between you and me would not be received well. Particularly now.”

  “Right,” I said numbly. “God forbid.”

  He got as far as the door before he looked back. There was no mistaking his inner conflict.

  “Do you ever watch magicians?” he finally asked.

  I shook my head, confused. “Like Houdini? Not really.”

  “Their secrets are all the same—there’s no such thing as magic, of course. You’ve heard the phrase ‘smoke and mirrors’?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s all about misdirection: having the audience focus in one direction while the magician does his thing somewhere else.”

  “Precisely.” I started to ask another question, but he shook his head. “That’s all I can say. And trust me, it’s far too much. I’m sorry about your friend… I’ve come to like him. The fact is, I’ve come to like both of you. That’s not a good thing in my line of work.” He stopped, torn. “Don’t contact me again, Erin. I’m not an ally in this.”

  He slipped out the door without another word.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  DIGGS

  00:50:02

  “All right, Professor. Your turn,” I said. I scooped another handful of dirt onto the pile and set back to the task. My arms ached and my wrists were bleeding—which would teach me to ask a tweaker just coming off his drug of choice to set me free. But I was making progress. The professor looked flummoxed.

  “Top twenty-four…” he began.

  “Records, Munjoy,” I said. “Albums. The music that rocked your socks way back when.”

  “Probably some classical shit,” Biggie said.

  “Shut it, Nickelback,” I said. “Let the man speak.”

  “I don’t really listen to newer music,” the professor said. “I’m partial to the groups I liked in high school.”

  “No shame in that,” I said amiably, already mentally forming the list: Tony Bennett, Burt Bacharach, The Four Tops. We’d been playing this game for the past half hour while we tried to dig ourselves to freedom. So far, everyone had proven predictable in their tastes.

  The rest of the group was more subdued now, focused as they were on our imminent escape. Even Glenda had settled down to a quiet, rhythmic rocking, still crouched against the wall with her head down. I was working with Danny, Sally, and Biggie, whose buddy Riley’s tremors were debilitating by now. We’d decided to limit everyone else’s involvement in the actual digging, just in case someone was watching. Besides which, you can only have so many people digging one damned hole before efficiency is significantly compromised.

  “Come on, Doc,” I said again. “This isn’t a hard question.”

  Actually, I’d been going back and forth on the question for nearly twenty-four hours now, but he didn’t need to know that. Your top twenty-four records of all time isn’t a list to take lightly.

  Finally, the professor took a deep breath. “Licensed to Ill,” he began. I looked up. Biggie stopped digging. “Uh—that’s the Beastie Boys,” he clarified. “Nothing’s Shocking—Jane’s Addiction, of course. Darklands… The Jesus and Mary Chain. Though I do love Psychocandy,” he admitted in his proper British voice.

  “Where the hell did you go to high school?” I interrupted.

  “And when?” Biggie added.

  He looked at me innocently. There was a twinkle in his eye that made me suspect I was being toyed with.

  “I didn’t say I was partial to the groups I liked when I was going to high school,” he said. “Just when I was there. I used to teach; always found music to be a good way to reach my students. And their tastes just rubbed off on me, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” Biggie said, mimicking the professor’s accent. “If that’s your record collection, Doc, I reckon you can party with us anytime.”

  “Now that’s a party I’d come to,” I said.

  “We make it out, and everybody here’s invited,” Biggie said seriously. “We’ll do it up right.”

  Beside us, George swayed slightly. He leaned against the wall, his color worse now. I looked at Sally, crouched beside me.

  “Will you take a look at him?” I asked.

  “She’s not comin’ near me,” George said. “I don’t need no baby killers touchin’ me.”

  “Well, that’s intelligent,” Sally said dryly. She straightened, wiped her hands on her pants, and pushed George back against the wall.

  The issue of who was bound and who wasn’t had been a contentious one. We finally agreed that only a few of us should be loose—everyone had to be able to get back into the zip ties quickly when Jenny came back, and the more people expected to do that, the greater the chances that someone would screw up and we’d all be caught. We’d also been going back and forth on whether or not to simply take out Jenny and her man when they came calling next, but I had a strong feeling the only thing that would accomplish would be getting a slew of us killed a little sooner than midnight, while the rest of us were tied up so tightly there would be no hope of escape.

  And it didn’t hurt that the threat of violence wasn’t quite so immediate when everyone was tied up, of course.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Sally said to George, unbuttoning and removing his shirt. “But it looks like the bullet just grazed you… It would be nice if we could clean it. How long ago’d this happen?”

  He had to think about it. “Wednesday, I guess. Maybe Thursday. I was headed up to the cabin and got jumped. A car run me off the road, and a couple fellas pulled me out of the truck. They tried to put a needle in me, but I don’t hold with none of that. I got a couple jabs in and took to the hills. Didn’t get far before they took me down, though.”

  “You didn’t see anyone’s face?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “Like I said—everybody’s in black. But they knew what they were doin’, for sure. Ow—dammit, woman, stop that.” He pulled away from Sally, who was tying an awkward bandage using the shirtsleeve of his discarded flannel.

  That left George in his undershirt. When I looked at him, my eye was drawn immediately to a too-familiar scar just under his collarbone. I’d never seen it before.

  He caught me staring and scowled. “What the hell are you lookin’ at, boy?”

  I nodded to his chest. “That cross.”

  “What about it?”

  “You got it from Barnel?”

  “I know what you’re thinkin’, but it wasn’t what it is now,” he said, his voice rough. “He’s got one, too. We come up together; went to school together. Took a vow, together. It was all voluntary—nobody was holding the other one down, forcing ‘em into something they wasn’t ready for.”

  “And Billy Thomas?” I asked. My voice didn’t sound quite right. “Did he take that vow?”

  Biggie continued digging, but the others were looking at George and me with great interest. George looked down. It took some time for him to tamp down his emotions.

  “We vowed to follow the Lord. Accepted that brand over our hearts—it was a sign of our faith. Our devotion. Our willingness to endure hardship, to stay on the right path.”

  I wet my lips, fighting a wave of revulsion. “You killed him,” I said.

  Danny looked up sharply. George shook his head. “He turned his back—violated something holy. The things he did to those girls…” He looked at m
e, his eyes dark with conviction and despair. “You think a man like that deserves to live? A monster like Billy Thomas deserves hell.”

  “And you and Jesup Barnel sent him there,” I said. I waited for George to deny it. He didn’t.

  Footsteps approaching cut the moment short. I pulled myself back together, quickly grabbed Biggie’s zip tie and cinched it around his wrists, then did a half-assed job of binding myself again. We situated ourselves in front of our escape route just as Jenny opened the door. The Giant shined his light in. The crowd shrunk back.

  Jenny looked at each of us, appraising us like we were cattle. Then, she began pointing at individuals among the ranks.

  “Him, him—the junkie,” she said, nodding to Biggie. She singled out the professor and both grad students, and then set her gaze on Casey. “And her,” she said. Danny stepped in front of Casey and looked at me desperately, begging me to do something.

  “She’s hurt,” I said. “Badly. Whatever you’re doing, she’ll only slow you down.”

  “We’re not running a marathon, slick,” Jenny said easily. “She’ll be fine.”

  Casey struck me as the kind of girl who could hold her own in most situations, but the bombing and the circumstances had taken their toll. Danny didn’t move, shaking his head.

  “If she goes, I go,” he said.

  Jenny shrugged. “Fine. Come on.”

  I stepped between them, lowering my voice. “Hang on. I had a deal with Barnel… just pick someone else, all right?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “But Barnel doesn’t have the authority to make deals right now.” She nodded to The Giant, and he grabbed Casey. Then, she pressed her gun to Danny’s temple. “Come on, lover boy. You wanna play Romeo and Juliet, be my guest.”

  She stepped aside, nodding to the door. I watched as the kids walked out, Jenny behind them. I’d never felt so powerless in my life.

  Chapter Thirty

  SOLOMON

  00:40:35

  Something clicked as soon as Cameron left my room. I grabbed Diggs’ portfolio of photos and flipped back to the prom picture. One look was all it took to confirm what I should have recognized when this whole thing began: The Goth girl beside Danny in the photo was Sophie. Rick’s date was the one I was interested in, though:

  It was Jessie Barnel.

  I found Agent Keith in the lobby and forced him to surrender his satellite phone, since cell towers were still down and reception minimal.

  “It’s a misdirect,” I said as soon as Juarez picked up.

  He didn’t say anything for a second. “I need more than that,” he said when I didn’t elaborate. “What’s a misdirect?”

  “This whole thing. They’re not in Justice.”

  “We have to go,” I said to Keith.

  “Go where?” Juarez asked.

  “Not you—you meet me at Ashley’s. We need to talk to Rick Durham. But I’m telling you: they’re not here. If they were here, we would have found them by now. The reason they keep disappearing is because, somehow or other, they’ve found a way out of Justice.”

  It was still raining outside. I followed Keith out to the car, chafing at the thought of sitting idly in the passenger’s seat while someone else took the wheel yet again.

  “Erin—” Juarez started.

  “I don’t have time to explain, okay?” I said. “Just… start looking at other targets—ones that Jenny Burkett has ties to, rather than just Barnel. It won’t be too far off, because it has to be within driving distance; someone would have noticed if they were flying people out of here. Two or three hours away, max.”

  I heard him shout something to Blaze. Relieved that I wouldn’t have to fight him on this, I said a quick goodbye and told Keith to put the pedal to the floor, half expecting a fight. Instead, Keith got a gleam in his eye, hopped in the driver’s seat, and glanced at me.

  “Buckle up.”

  I did. The thought crossed my mind, suddenly, that as much as Juarez might trust this guy, I didn’t know a damned thing about him. And if Cameron’s people were watching me, who was to say they didn’t have someone on the inside? Or Barnel didn’t have someone on the inside? In fact, that seemed likely—through this whole thing, it seemed like Barnel and his people were three steps ahead of us.

  “How long have you been with the Bureau?” I asked, trying to sound casual as we squealed out of the parking lot.

  “Twelve years,” he said promptly.

  “So you’ve been around the block, I guess.”

  “A few times.” He glanced at me, then back at the road. “You have something you want to ask, Ms. Solomon?”

  I hesitated. “How long have you known Agent Juarez?”

  “About a decade.”

  Not the answer I’d expected, but I should have known Juarez wouldn’t just send me off into the night with some stranger. I looked at my watch again. It didn’t make me feel better about life. I decided to use the time to my advantage.

  “So you knew his wife,” I said.

  He nodded. So far, he didn’t seem all that surprised at my questions. “I did.”

  “Did he ever mention his… childhood to you?”

  “You mean those missing thirteen years?” he asked promptly.

  That was a surprise. I took a second, trying to figure out how to pose my next question. “But he’s never really talked about looking into that, huh? It’s just kind of an accepted fact?”

  He glanced at me again, with a small smile. “Not everyone wears their obsessions on their sleeves,” he said. “Doesn’t mean they don’t have ‘em.”

  We fell silent after that, since I had no idea how to follow it up. While Keith continued hurtling us toward Ashley Durham’s house, I rummaged in my bag for a notebook and pen. Keith eyed me warily.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to think,” I said. “I think best when I write shit down.” Instead of my notebook, however, I came up with a dog collar. I vaguely remembered stuffing it in my pocket when Diggs and I first found Roger Burkett, then tossing it in my bag when I was packing at the Durhams’ place. That felt like a lifetime ago.

  I pulled it out and started to set it aside in the possibly fruitless search to find a pen in the bottomless pit that is my purse. A dozen pudgy penguins trekked single-file across a winter snowscape on the frayed collar. I recalled a conversation I’d had with Diggs when we first hit Kentucky:

  Why does a Kentucky college have a penguin for a mascot?

  I snagged the sat phone and dialed Juarez again. Keith glanced at me. “You have something?”

  “Yeah. I think I do.”

  Juarez picked up immediately. I spoke before he could say anything.

  “I know where they are.”

  We pulled into Ashley’s driveway and pounded on the front door until Ashley’s husband appeared, his wispy hair standing straight up. His pajama top was unbuttoned and his glasses were askew.

  “I need to talk to Rick,” I said.

  Ashley appeared behind him. She took one look at my face and apparently decided arguing would be futile. Before she could go rouse the kid, however, Rick appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked exhausted, and hardly the pious, put-together teen I met when Diggs and I first hit town.

  “Your mother said you did a project on Smithfield College that got you in early. What was that on?”

  He came down the stairs gnawing on his bottom lip, forehead furrowed. “I did a project all over the state, mapping out tunnels and passages for the Underground Railroad. Smithfield played a big part in gettin’ slaves up north in those days.”

  “Did you ever tell Jessie Barnel about that? Maybe show her the project?”

  He hesitated. “I took her out there,” he said quietly. “They gave me a key—said I could go wherever I liked, lookin’ at some of those old places while I was mapping them out. I took Jessie.”

  “And there were passages no one knew about?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. Slow realization da
wned. “You think Jessie told the reverend about it? That maybe that’s where they’re holed up now?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  He turned around at the bottom of the stairs and ran back up. “Hang on—let me grab my stuff. We gotta get out there.”

  00:30:45

  “Smithfield,” I said as soon as I got Juarez back on the line. “I’m sure of it, Jack. The whole thing’s been a diversion, making us think whatever Barnel was planning would go down in Justice.”

  Juarez didn’t say anything for another second—long enough for Keith to pull out of Ashley’s driveway and back onto the highway.

  “What makes you think that?”

  I told him about the classes Mae had mentioned Jenny teaching at the college; about the secret tunnels and the connection between Rick Durham and Jessie Barnel.

  “But what does he have against the school?” Juarez persisted, still not sold.

  I asked Rick, who shook his head. “I dunno—it always seemed like he thought they was godly enough. They got a clinic there, and some of the students run a residential home for the mentally ill right on campus. He had a lot to do with that stuff.”

  “How many people are on campus right now?” Juarez asked. “What’s security like?”

  I put him on speaker and made him repeat the question. It was dark on the road—profoundly so, with no other vehicles, no streetlights, no houses lit up in any direction.

  “There’s no security there,” Rick said. “It’s a low-residency program. It used to be a full-time college, but they couldn’t afford it no more. Now, they just run a few ten-day residencies every semester. They rent Kildeer Hall out for special events, concerts, that kind of thing.”

  I looked at the clock. It was eleven-thirty. “How long does it take to get there?” I asked Rick.