Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  “So,” he finally prompted me. “What are you going to do?”

  “About?” I asked, though I knew what he meant.

  “Are we still pretending Mitch Cameron doesn’t exist?” He looked at me seriously. “Because if that’s what you want to do, I’ll do it. We’ll pretend we never heard the name. Never saw his face.”

  “And all those people you watched die three days ago?” I asked. “Glenda Clifton and the professor and your druggie friend? The boy soldiers and all the other men, women, and children… Casey, who almost lost her leg? The families I knew from Payson Church? What do we do about them?”

  His eyes held on mine, eyebrows up. “I don’t know. This is your call, ace.”

  I bit my lip, considering that. “I can’t drop it this time,” I said softly. Even saying the words was terrifying. He leaned in and kissed me, light and fast.

  “Okay,” he said. “Then we’ve got work to do.”

  He nodded to the drawer in the nightstand by his bed. “Open that up and hand me the envelope inside there, would you?” Suddenly, he was all business. I almost got whiplash at the shift. “And grab my laptop.”

  He all but pushed me out of bed. Ah, the joys of dating a newspaper man.

  “I thought you were supposed to be resting.”

  “I’ll rest in a minute. First, I need to show you something.”

  I fetched the envelope and his laptop. He pulled a memory card from the envelope and fired up his computer. A jumble of meaningless numbers scrolled endlessly across the screen as soon as he put the card in.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It’s encrypted.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I got that part. But where did you get it? What’s the relevance to what we’re doing here?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure. But that professor I told you about? When I found his body, he was clutching this in his hand. When we were talking, he told me he studied Christian fundamentalism and cult behaviors. My focus at first was the fundamentalism, but what if that was a smokescreen? What if J. Enterprises—and whoever they represent—is more focused on the cult side of things?”

  “The senator found murdered in Washington last spring—Jane Bellows,” I said. “She did a lot of work around legislation regarding cults. And obviously my father and the Payson Church…”

  He nodded. We were on the same page. “The professor and his grad students were the only ones at Kildeer who were shot. As though Jenny needed to make sure that, whatever else happened, those three didn’t get out, and that the building went up in flames…”

  “You think all this was over a professor in a third-rate college in Kentucky and his thesis on cults?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. I caught just a hint of a tremor there and stood, taking the laptop from him.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re gonna talk about this later.”

  “Why? I’m fine.”

  “No.” I shook my head firmly. “You’re not fine—you got blown up. A lot.” I took out the memory card, returned it to the envelope, and put the computer away. Diggs scooted back down in his bed. The fact that he didn’t fight harder told me he really wasn’t quite as unaffected by all this as he’d like me to believe.

  “I’ll go and let you sleep.”

  I caught a flicker of vulnerability on his face before he could hide it. I thought of the boy I’d seen on Barnel’s tape, with the Bugs Bunny boxers and the will of steel; the kid who wouldn’t be broken.

  “Unless you’d rather I stay,” I said.

  “You can if you want,” he said. God, he was a pain in the ass. “I mean… you know, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “It’ll only make me feel better if you actually sleep.”

  He patted a spot beside him. “I will if you will.”

  I kicked off my shoes and returned to the bed. We lay down facing one another.

  “So…” he said.

  “So…” I said.

  He rested his hand on my side, niftily finding the hem of my shirt with little to no effort. I quirked an eyebrow.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I want to take you out.” His fingers moved lightly along my bare skin. It wasn’t doing a lot for my concentration.

  “And I repeat: I thought you were sleeping.”

  “Not now,” he clarified. “When we get home. We’ve never really gone on a date before.”

  I curled my hand around his roving digits and returned them to the outside of my clothes. “You know I just broke up with someone, right?”

  I expected him to make a joke. Possibly disparage Juarez’s manhood or something. Instead, he stayed serious, a line at the center of his forehead.

  “I know that,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, Juarez gave us his blessing. He even wished me luck; I think he might be under the impression that you’re more woman than I can handle.”

  “And what do you think?”

  He grinned. “I think I’m gonna have a lot of fun trying.”

  I fell silent again. I was completely on board with the fact that Jack and I weren’t meant to be; really, by the end it couldn’t have been clearer. But that didn’t change the reality, which was that I still had a bunch of his shirts in my dresser and his spare toothbrush beside mine back home. Diggs may have made a habit of bed-hopping for the past twenty years, but that had never really been my M.O.

  “Well, I’m glad you guys have it all figured out for me, then,” I said. Diggs smiled, amused at my indignation. Somehow, his hand had made it back under my shirt. Tricky bastard.

  “I told you: I just want to take you on a date.” He leaned in and kissed me, very lightly, his hand migrating a little higher up my shirt. He nipped my lip before he moved back again. That devil spark was back in his eye. “I’ve decided to sweep you off your feet.”

  I laughed, though the look in his eye and the thing he was doing with his hand was really making me rethink my policy on bed-hopping.

  “You have, huh? I don’t know that I’m ready for that.”

  The spark faded, just a little, replaced with an intensity that Diggs rarely showed the world. “I’ve been half-assed about being in love with you for too long,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. I forgot how to swallow. “I plan on making up for that.”

  “Okay,” I said. Or croaked, really. He looked infinitely amused, the intensity gone as suddenly as it had come.

  “And that starts with a date,” he said simply.

  “All right,” I said. His eyes drifted shut, but he was still smiling. I leaned up and kissed him, fast, then snuggled in with his arms around me.

  Finally, an apocalypse with a happy ending.

  Epilogue

  Three days later, Diggs and I were ready to hit the road for Maine. The Durham’s yard was overflowing, as Mae seemed to have had some kind of epiphany when Danny survived Barnel’s end times. She’d even invited Danny’s band, including a wheelchair-bound Casey Clinton and Casey’s brother and sister, Dougie and Willa. At the moment, the littlest Clintons were hanging out with Grace and Einstein: Einstein and Dougie chased each other around the yard while Willa sat quietly beside Grace, gently brushing the dog’s silky fur.

  George Durham was smuggling out paper cups of rotgut whiskey, and Buddy Holloway—who in all likelihood would be crowned sheriff before long—was pretending not to notice. The rest of the Durhams were also in attendance: Rick and Ida; Ashley and Terry and the Nordic toddler, Angus. Sally Woodruff had threatened to make an appearance, but Diggs assured her that while Mae might have turned over a new leaf, there was no way in hell she was ready to embrace a godless abortion doctor. At least, not yet. Sally had been surprisingly gracious about that.

  “You sure you had enough to eat?” Mae asked when Diggs announced that we were heading out.

  I was so stuffed I’d never button my jeans again. Diggs looked at me. “We should probably pack another couple of cookies for the road.”

 
I didn’t argue.

  Diggs went over to say goodbye to Rick and Danny, who were hanging out together on the sidelines with the band. It seemed even they had gotten closer since the whole end of the world thing. The fact that Rick had nearly gotten everyone killed by falling for a Bible nerd with a crazy Apocalyptic grandpa had apparently endeared him to Danny; he said it took his brother down a couple of pegs. It didn’t hurt that Danny’s recollection of Rick’s project on the tunnels and catacombs beneath Kildeer Auditorium had saved everyone’s lives, either.

  “You guys can come visit us in Maine anytime,” Diggs said. He seemed to be talking to the whole band. That was definitely their impression, anyway.

  “Sure,” Danny said. “We could do a tour of New England.” His hand rested on Casey’s shoulder.

  Of everyone, Casey was the one I worried about the most—for the obvious reason that, according to doctors, she was in for months of physical therapy and potential surgery before she was back on her feet. Beyond that, though, there was a weariness about her that I hadn’t seen when we first met. It was inevitable after what she’d been through, but I hoped that somehow she would make it through everything intact.

  While Diggs was chatting with the boys, I pulled Casey aside and gave her my card again.

  “If you need anything, this is how you can reach me. Even if it’s just to talk. Or bitch about dating a music geek.” She laughed at that. I smiled, then got serious. “If you have any problems with the dog, or anything else… Medical stuff with your leg, even—you can call me. My mother and her partner are both surgeons. If you feel like you’re not getting what you need down here, just pick up the phone.”

  “I will,” she said with a nod. “Thank you.”

  I thought of everything she had stacked against her: an abusive father, no money, two kids depending on her, and now the physical issues she’d be facing with her leg. Then, I thought of Mitch Cameron again. Right now, Casey was relying on her father’s crappy insurance to handle her medical bills. Which meant that added to all the other problems she had, she’d be fighting with insurance companies for at least the next year or so.

  Whoever was in charge of J. Enterprises had seemingly limitless resources.

  If no one else got it, Casey Clinton deserved a little justice in all this.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I told her earnestly. She looked at me in surprise, clearly caught off guard at my intensity. “I don’t want you to worry about things, all right? There’ll be a lot coming at you, but you’re not alone in this. People will be looking out for you.”

  “Uh…Okay.”

  Good job, Solomon: Freak out the girl in the wheelchair. Well played. Diggs looked at me, nodding toward the car.

  “You ready to go, ace?”

  I nodded. Definitely ready to go. We hugged the rest of the crew and then Diggs slipped his hand in mine as we headed for the car.

  With our goodbyes behind us, Einstein hopped into the backseat without too much coaxing, then promptly settled his fuzzy chin in the back window with his mournful brown eyes on Grace. The retriever had reclaimed her place beside Casey, with Dougie and Willa at her feet. Grace looked at Stein once, then reached out and tentatively licked Willa’s face. The little girl giggled.

  Diggs leaned in with his arm around my waist and his lips at my ear. “You really think Stein will make it without her?” he asked.

  Grace lay down and offered her belly to the Clinton trio. “Honestly? I don’t think he has much choice.”

  Einstein whimpered once, then circled in the backseat before he settled in for the ride. I was selfishly pleased I wouldn’t have to share him with another woman, but I chose not to acknowledge such pettiness.

  I took the wheel for a change this time out, since Diggs was still under the weather. Once we hit the main stretch headed for Maine, I checked the rearview. Diggs followed my gaze.

  “See anything?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t really expect to, though,” I said, thinking of Cameron’s words to me. I’m not an ally in all this. Ally or not, I knew he was out there. And there was no doubt in my mind that we would be crossing paths again. “We’ll need to be careful now, you know. No more charging into the fray. We know they’re watching. Cameron already said he’ll kill you if we don’t stop.”

  “So, we’ll be careful,” Diggs said. He squeezed my hand. “We just won’t back down this time.”

  I expected him to turn on the radio once we were on our way, if only for a final fix of Crazy Jake Dooley. Instead, he settled in with his feet on the dashboard and looked at me speculatively.

  “All right,” he said, serious as a heart attack. “You’ve put me off long enough. Let’s have it.”

  “Let’s have what?”

  “Your top twenty-four, Solomon. From the top.”

  It was gonna be a long ride home.

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  ALL THE BLUE-EYED ANGELS on Amazon

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  Other Erin Solomon Mysteries

  The Payson Pentalogy

  Book I: All the Blue-Eyed Angels

  Investigative journalist Erin Solomon sets out to solve a mystery that's haunted her since childhood: a fatal fire at the Payson Church of Tomorrow, the isolated fundamentalist community where Erin lived with her father for the first ten years of her life. When what was presumed to be cult suicide turns out to be anything but, Erin returns to her hometown to find the truth behind the tragedy. Now, isolated on the Maine coast with an old flame and a handsome newcomer with his own dark past, Erin will risk everything to uncover the secrets of Payson Isle - secrets someone will kill to keep buried.

  Book II: Sins of the Father

  A convicted murderer desperate to prove his own innocence, and a serial killer with a list of victims dating back to the 1970's. The only thing the two seem to have in common is their link to investigative reporter Erin Solomon's own father. When she and fellow reporter Daniel Diggins are forced into the northern Maine woods during their investigation by someone intent on making them pawns in a diabolical game of cat and mouse, it will take everything they have to get out alive, and finally learn the truth about Erin's father's past -- and the trail of bodies in his wake.

  Book III: Southern Cross

  Diggs and Solomon travel to Kentucky to look into the bizarre ritual murder of one of Diggs' oldest friends. But that single death is hardly the only bizarre occurrence in Justice: soon, power outages, explosions, standoffs, and conspiracy rock the small town, and fundamentalist preacher Jesup T. Barnel claims he knows the reason for the madness: The end times are upon them, and judgment will be fast and furious as the clock winds down.

  Book IV: Before the After

  (To be Released August, 2013)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Daniel Schnopp-Wyatt, who gave me background on the backwoods of Kentucky from the perspective of a wild man and a poet; to Jan Grivois, who provided feedback, read last-minute revisions, and cheered me on through the final pieces of this novel; to Missy Staunton, whose critical eye and stellar editorial sensibilities ultimately made this book shine; and to my mom, who provided critical feedback, stocked the cupboards with chocolate when my morale was flagging, and generally signed on to love Erin, Diggs, and Juarez nearly as much as I do.

  Appreciation also goes out to Michelle Hannan and Annette MacNair, who’ve provided such stellar canine models and inspiration for Einstein and Grace, respectiv
ely.

  And to those who have read, commented, reviewed, and fallen in love with Erin Solomon, I offer my most profound thanks for your support. I’ve loved hearing from each and every one of you, and look forward to getting to know you all better as Erin, Einstein, Diggs, and Juarez continue their journey.