Cries of Penance: 5 (Chronicles of Surrender)

by Harte, Roxy

  An unlocked iron gate leads into a front courtyard surrounded by a low stone wall. A gnarly olive tree looks right at home with its gray-green foliage, tucked as it is between stone wall and fountain. The fountain is dry and obviously hasn’t been used in years.

  Not knowing what to expect, I knock on the front door, though it’s fairly obvious no one is or has been here in a very long time.

  Hektor joins me carrying his littlest sister. “She’s wet.”

  Atso reaches for me and as I take her I realize she’s soaking wet. “Oh!”

  Prepared, Hektor hands me the diaper bag and together we manage to get her changed without having to lay her on the rocky ground to do it.

  “Are we staying here?”

  “Yes. I just don’t know how to get inside.”

  Hektor points to a combination lock similar to the one at Sea Cliff Road. I try Sea Cliff’s combination and it works. “Well, that doesn’t seem very safe. Your father should have them programmed with different numbers.”

  Hektor laughs at my censuring tone as we go back to the car to get the other children. It doesn’t hit me until we’re settled inside the house that I don’t know if Thomas is okay or not. We haven’t heard from him. I am hiding out in the middle of the desert with four small children, waiting for him to come and save the day, but what if he never shows up?

  And we only have enough food for a few days.

  And I don’t have a cell phone.

  What was I thinking?

  * * * * *

  “I’m a damn good shot,” Hektor announces.

  “Watch your mouth!” I look up to see that he is unpacking the bag I loaded with guns and ammo. “And put that down!”

  I hurry across the room and put all the weapons back into the bag. Hektor looks as if he is going to cry.

  Pulling him against me, I hug him. “I’m sorry I yelled. I don’t want you cursing and I don’t want you to touch these guns. I shouldn’t have brought guns. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  He hugs me tightly. “I want to protect you. I will not let anyone put a bullet in your head like they did my grandfather.”

  I sit in a chair and take his hands in mine. “Oh Hektor. This has been so hard on you.”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “No. Your father has gone to rescue your mother.”

  He shakes his head and walks away, leaving me overcome with emotion. The boy obviously believes his mother isn’t coming home. God damn it, Thomas. You should be here with us. What is taking you so long?

  I can’t fault the boy for his fears. I’m worried too. I never dreamed Thomas would be gone so long. Or Garrett. If I hadn’t spoken with him yesterday I might be worried something had happened to Garrett too, but I did, and I can’t afford to let my imagination make me start thinking the worst.

  Thinking quickly, I rally spirits with a game. “Let’s search the house.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything. Everything. Let’s discover its secrets.”

  It’s a very small house. There is a main room that doubles as living room and dining area, a small kitchen with a wood-fueled stove, two bedrooms, one with a full bed, one with bunk beds, and a shared bathroom.

  I sit on the lowest bed, ready to cry. Staying here seems absolutely impossible. Maybe if it was just me…but kids need stuff. As I watch the four of them investigate each nook and cranny with wonder, I realize they might be better equipped for this adventure than I am. Hektor discovers a door in the floor. A quick look reveals a below-ground cistern. There is no electricity and no refrigeration, leaving us to rely on kerosene, battery-operated lanterns and a few candles.

  Outside I find an electrical panel, generators, batteries and cables leading to solar panels. Inside, there is no refrigerator. Why? I do find an ice chest. And an ancient web-and-aluminum lawn chaise, which I drag from the cellar to the front courtyard. Sitting in the sun always makes the most dire of circumstances seem not quite so bad.

  Time ticks by very slowly in a desert, and it’s too quiet. Aside from the delighted squeals of the children chasing small lizards around the courtyard for entertainment, we are surrounded by a most strange silence. Even the light breeze that comes through at midday offers only a soft stirring of the leaves. After four hours I’m going stark raving mad. Worried about what happens after nightfall, I’m not entirely certain we can stay. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so isolated. Are there bears here? Coyotes? Rattlesnakes? Crap. I don’t know anything about Nevada.

  I won’t allow the children to explore beyond the stone wall.

  After taking stock of our dwindling supplies—kids eat a lot—it appears a trip back into the small town of Ely seems paramount to our ability to stay here. I wish I’d have thought of that while I was pumping gas, but then I had no idea where I was going.

  Honestly, we could get by for a few days but I tell myself we need stuff, and we do. If nothing else, for my own sanity I need to feel prepared for anything and right now I don’t. Once in town I realize my shoppable list is fairly short—rice, beans, canned goods, apples, bananas and granola—not because they don’t have more to offer, but because without refrigeration I seem at a loss. I make up for lack of variety with vast bottles of juice then as an afterthought add olive oil, salt and some bottles of spice. Just because I’ll be making simple meals doesn’t mean they have to taste bad. For me I add herbal tea because my nerves are shot. Several different types of crackers, cereal, powdered milk and peanut butter are added to the cart at the last minute.

  We hurry in and out, but still, a pregnant woman with four kids in tow and paying cash gets noticed. I regret drawing attention to ourselves, but also know I couldn’t have left the children in the wilderness. I thought we were scot-free, but then the checkout girl asked, “New to these parts?”

  Why do people in small towns have to be so damn friendly?

  “Just passing through,” I lie, smiling widely. “Going home to be with my family. You know, for when the baby comes.”

  She nods, still scanning items, and pops her gum. “You’ll need some help.”

  I laugh, lying through my teeth. “Between my mom, two aunts and three sisters, I’ll have plenty of help.”

  She laughs too, handing me my change. “Well, good luck!”

  I force myself to walk slowly and nonchalantly to the car, and then drive the wrong direction on Interstate Fifty for ten miles to make certain I’m not being followed before doubling back. By the time I get to the safety of the adobe I’m a nervous wreck. Sitting in the chaise, I spend the rest of the late afternoon watching the surrounding hills. I don’t know what I expect—the closest people are almost an hour’s drive away and no one followed us from town—but still I watch for any movement.

  Fortunately the kids’ internal clocks seem set with the sun and they are all sound sleep by dusk. After driving all night and a stress-filled day I am more than ready to fall asleep, but anxiety keeps me on edge and awake.

  I take a shower and change into one of Lattie’s caftans. It’s silk and flows around my ankles, making me feel pretty and feminine despite my girth. Making a cup of tea, I take it with me out into the courtyard.

  The chaise is a comfort, supporting my weight in a way furniture doesn’t. Sipping my tea, I realize again just how alone we are out here. As the stars come out against the black night sky there isn’t a single other light for as far as I can see. I feel like I’m floating in space. It’s an utterly peaceful feeling. Still, I’m watchful and don’t fall asleep.

  Strangely the howl of coyotes is a comfort. Their soft yips back and forth are a conversation. I don’t think they’d be making such a racket if there were any other humans near. Maybe I’m wrong about that but for a while it brings me peace. But by dawn I feel as if a leaden mantle cloaks me. I’ve felt this way before, much like the physical and emotional letdown following a death. I experienced this feeling when my mother died, and to some extent when my father died, except
no one has died now. Wrapped in an agony I don’t understand, I allow myself to cry.

  I know it was important to leave the cell phones behind, but having no way to call out I’m afraid. I need to hear Garrett’s and Thomas’ voices. Apprehension greater than I have ever known tells me that Garrett is the one in danger, and it makes me angry that he scoffed at my fears. I can’t stand the thought of him being in jeopardy, and it’s taken all night for me to realize paranoia didn’t put me here, real menace did, and Garrett has to be warned he could very well be in peril too. I feel stupid for not considering it before. I have to drive back into town and find a pay phone.

  I debate with myself about whether I will tell him where I am and finally decide I’m not going to. I trust him, but I don’t trust whoever was following me and the children, and now that we’re safe, hidden, I can’t risk being found.

  Thomas charged me with the care of his children until he returns, not Garrett, and I feel the weight of the responsibility.

  What if Thomas never comes?

  “No, no, no. I refuse to think that.”

  Inside, I hear the children rising and hurry to wipe away the evidence of my sadness. As I stand, a sharp pain tears through my groin. God, no, not this, not now.

  “You know how often the turning down this street or that, the accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and pre-determined end?”

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters

  Chapter Twenty

  Garrett

  “Your father’s brain is shrinking at an alarming rate.”

  Doctor Graham, my father’s neurologist, lays out the most recent brain scans as evidence, pointing with his fountain pen into the empty spaces between skull and brain matter in an assumption that I have no idea what I’m looking at. I appreciate the fact that he is trying to help me understand why the medications he has prescribed aren’t providing my father any relief from his symptoms.

  “How long does he have?”

  The doctor is taken aback by my question but answers, “Months. At this current rate of decline, weeks.”

  Stunned but not surprised, I nod and leave his office. This isn’t the news I wanted to take to my mother, but she needs to know. There is much she needs to prepare for.

  My mind is distracted as I leave the Physicians’ Center but not so distracted that I don’t notice a dark sedan tailing me. I tell myself I have an overactive imagination fueled by Celia’s nonsensical fears, but as I make two unnecessary turns and both are shadowed I know I shouldn’t have dismissed her qualms so lightly.

  I don’t meet my mother at her attorney’s office. Even though I’m running late I keep driving, jumping onto I-275 then driving fast, too fast, waiting until the last possible second to cross three lanes to whip onto the I-71 exchange that will take me into the city. The sedan flies past the exit, unable to negotiate the turn.

  I sigh, but not with relief. Fear leaves me cold as I try Celia’s cell and she doesn’t answer. I call the landline phone at the new house, but it goes straight to voice mail. I dial Enrique, both his cell and his number at the penthouse, only to get voice mail at each. I call the club, speaking first with my secretary and then with George, neither of whom have seen or spoken with Celia. What did I expect, her to drag four children to Lewd Larry’s?

  I call Jackie but she hasn’t spoken with Celia for several days. “Have you tried?”

  “What?” She sounds distracted and confused by the question.

  “Have you tried calling Celia and she didn’t answer or have you just not bothered calling for a few days?”

  “I’ve been busy. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m in Cincinnati and she isn’t answering the phone.”

  “What are you doing in Cincinnati?” Her voice is shrill. I don’t have time to explain so I hang up on her and try Celia’s cell again. A sickening feeling fills my gut as I ditch Mom’s car and take a city bus across town. Riding, I try to piece together what I know, try to make sense of what’s happening. Who would be following me and Celia?

  Exiting the bus and catching a taxi, I ride back to Indian Hills and my mother’s attorney’s office. She is waiting impatiently in the lobby. “Where’s my car?”

  “Downtown. I parked it in a garage downtown.” I hand her the parking stub so that she can locate it. “I need to get back to San Francisco.”

  “What?” she demands. “You can’t leave now. “

  I steer her out of the main lobby into a small waiting area that is made private only by the distinction that we are the only ones using it. A wall of palms separates us from the reception area. I take my mother’s hands and with no delicacy tell her, “You don’t need a divorce. I doubt Dad lives long enough to make it to the court date.”

  She pales.

  “When you speak to the lawyer, explain the situation. Your husband is dying, rapidly.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You saw him this morning. He’s irritable, cranky as an old bear.”

  “The neurologist hasn’t given you all the facts you needed. As Dad’s brain continues to atrophy he will lose body functions. His major organs, control of his muscles. He will reach a point where his heart and lungs stop.”

  She stares at me, not wanting to believe me.

  “Your lawyer will explain everything that needs to be done.”

  My mother gapes at me. “You’re really leaving me to deal with this?”

  “Yes, Mother. My family needs me.”

  “There is a tide in the affairs of men/Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;/Omitted, all the voyage of their life/Is bound in shallows and in miseries./On such a full sea are we now afloat;/And we must take the current when it serves,/Or lose our ventures.”

  William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thomas

  We are taken to a privatized military base in the desert—not as prisoners, as allies. The building is a single-story mud brick as long as a city block and as deep. We are taken through a maze of corridors and the room we end up in is no more than a carved-out cave. Dirt floors, bare light bulbs, roughly hung, and lack of windows take me mentally back to assignments I wish I’d never been part of. Outmanned and outgunned, my entire team is on edge, waiting. Maybe I’ve been in similar circumstances so many times in the past, I’m immune to the threat, not the danger. I no longer react to pompous assholes carrying bigger guns than mine. I’m armed, well-armed, and as long as I have my guns, knives and body armor I’m okay with their show. Puffed chests, pumped biceps and crude jokes aside, I know we’re equals even if they want me, us, to believe differently. Now if anyone tries to take away my weapons, that ups the ante and I might have to prove who has the better-trained team.

  It helps that I know most of the soldiers escorting us, recognizing them as Glorianna’s men. Still, I’m surprised when she arrives on-site.

  As far as I knew she was still in Washington, DC, playing her role as Republican presidential hopeful, but the woman standing in front of me is a far cry from Senator Abigail Wainwright-Fuller. Glorianna is tough as nails, battle-ready. Glorianna has the ability to scare me. She stalks toward Nikos, pushing up his chin with two fingers. Narrowing her gaze, she says icily, “Your locator says you are safe and sound in the United States. Imagine finding you here.”

  He turns around, showing her the back of his neck. It is jaggedly scarred, well-healed. He probably hasn’t been implanted since his first day at Lewd Larry’s. He explains, “Bar fight. Got hit over the head. Must have popped out.” Shrugging, he turns back around, meeting her gaze with sincerity and the bit of cocky arrogance that makes my brother so charming to women and so threatening to men. “Sorry.”

  “We’ll discuss this later,” she promises, still frosty, but I recognize
the look in her eyes as pure lust. My brother’s first mistake—challenging her. His second—catching her eye.

  Careful, brother. I hope he understands the look I give him when she turns her back on us to address the entire group. It doesn’t pass my notice she intentionally avoided my gaze, and for some reason that bothers me. “There’s been an incident. What we thought was an isolated territorial event in Sudan has proven to be much more. There have been four assassinations and a dozen kidnappings across the world, which at first glance have absolutely no connection. However, on closer inspection, they have proven to be a direct attack on the Guardians.”

  She opens an envelope and scatters photos across a table for dramatic effect.

  “You may not recognize all or any of the faces, but let me assure you these people are important to everyone standing in this room.”

  My heart skips a beat and I am overwhelmed with dread, seeing that both Celia and Garrett’s photos are among the scattered.

  She pins a photo to a tan corkboard. “The first assassinated was Charles François Charbonneau, an arms dealer, though had this woman,” she hangs Lattie’s photo directly beneath his, “not been kidnapped, the assassination itself would not have warranted the Guardians’ involvement. However, she was, which drew one of our top agents into the intrigue.” She meets my gaze before hanging my photo directly beneath Lattie’s.

  The muscles in my jaw tighten as I nervously wait for her to drop the other shoe, but she leaves Garrett’s and Celia’s photos on the table in favor of picking up the photo of a man I don’t recognize.