by Sharon Sala
“Yes, sir, I’ll get right on it,” Shelly said, but her eyes were already welling. Desperate for a reason to escape, she reached for her coffee cup. “Excuse me. I need a refill,” she said, and all but ran toward the break room.
Willard saw the tears at the same moment he realized how the news would strike her. He walked away, shaking his head at his own stupidity. It was her account, so she had to know, but he could have delivered that news with a little more finesse.
Shelly hit the break room and sank down onto the sofa, set her cup onto the coffee table and buried her face in her hands. It was the mention of the grieving wife that had been the trigger this time, but these days she was primed to lose it on a daily basis.
She cried until she heard footsteps, then jumped up and ran into the bathroom and shut the door.
“Shelly, it’s me. Are you okay?”
Shelly sighed. Mitzi didn’t miss a thing.
“I’ll be out in a few. I’m alright, but thanks for checking.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Mitzi said.
“Yes, I will. Don’t worry, Mitzi. This has to happen. I have to let these tears out or they’ll drown me. Just let me cry. I’ll be okay.”
She waited until she heard Mitzi leave, then grabbed a handful of tissues and began cleaning up the mess she’d made of her makeup.
Talking to Mitzi had been the distraction she needed to regain control of her emotions. By the time she came out of the break room, she was carrying a fresh cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate. She slipped into her cubicle, popped the candy in her mouth and set the coffee safely out of reach of her keyboard. She finished up what she’d been working on before Willard’s arrival, then began working on the Graze account. After a while, the numbers pulled her in, searching what needed to balance, and getting info ready for final payroll.
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
Jack rolled into their neighborhood just after 9:00 a.m., took a quick turn down the alley behind their house and killed the engine.
With privacy fences in the backyards of all these houses, he felt somewhat secure. He knew Shelly would already be at work, and he had stashed his duffel bag in a numbered locker at the bus station until he could find another place to live.
He slipped around to the side gate and then darted into the yard, unlocked the back door and ran to disarm the security panel before it could alert.
The scent of lemon from her shampoo was still in the air as he ran through the living room to the office. He went straight to the wall safe hidden behind the bookshelves.
He already had a different identity stashed here that he could use, but it had come from the Bureau. If he assumed that identity, the social security number would immediately activate, notifying the powers that be he was still alive. Gut instinct told him that would be a mistake. He needed more information about Ito and he had to find out who put Ritter into the bust. It had to be someone from the Bureau who knew Jack had once used him as a snitch, and the only reason for that to happen would be to create a diversion that would give Adam Ito time to escape.
He set the what-ifs aside and went straight to the shelves, removed some of the books to reveal the safe in the wall behind them, then entered the code into the keypad. The lock clicked and the safe door swung open.
Jack pulled out a small bag first and dumped the contents out onto a desk to make sure everything he needed was still there. A different birth certificate, a driver’s license for a man named Shane Franklin, passport, social security numbers, an address book and everything else he might need to assume an identity the Bureau knew nothing about.
He put it all back in the bag and then opened the bottom drawer on the desk, rummaging around until he found a larger bag and took it back to the safe. He removed his official FBI badge, and an iPhone registered to Shane Franklin, which would be his new identity. The phone was loaded with Jack’s contacts and all the info he’d used in normal life, and at the bottom of the safe, nearly twenty thousand dollars in untraceable bills. He put it all into the larger bag along with a phone charger.
When he left Paul’s house, it had not occurred to him to see if they’d kept his shoulder holster, but he had another one on the top shelf of the closet here, so he stuck the loaded Glock 17 in the back of his jeans, bagged two more loaded clips and a box of ammo. The last thing at the bottom of the safe was a license tag for the Indian that matched this new identity.
After he’d taken everything out, it dawned on him that Shelly might need to get into the safe at any time, thinking that money was her cushion until widow’s benefits kicked in. He didn’t want to scare her, leaving her to believe she’d been robbed, and now he was second-guessing his reasons for not telling her.
He shut and reset the safe and then looked around for his laptop and finally saw it on the top of the bookshelves. He grabbed it and the charger cords and headed for their bedroom.
It wasn’t until he walked in and saw the neatly made bed that he was overwhelmed with memories of the last time he’d been here. They’d made love in desperation and without caution. He ached for what she was going through, and being back in their home was swiftly changing what he’d thought of keeping her in the dark. He needed to find a better way to keep her safe without breaking her heart.
A car honked outside, which made him jump. He ran to the window to look out, then saw it was the Realtor and more prospective buyers at the empty house next door. But it reminded him to quit daydreaming and do what he’d come here to do. He went inside the walk-in closet to get his gym bag and the shoulder holster, and dumped the laptop and the bag inside of the gym bag, then grabbed an extra leather jacket that he used when he rode the Indian, and headed out of the bedroom on the run.
He got all the way back to the kitchen when conscience struck him again. Did he leave her to believe she’d been robbed and scare the hell out of her to add to her grief?
“Dammit...no,” he muttered.
He thought for just a moment how to let her know without leaving his handwriting on anything, then set the bag on the floor and began opening cabinets until he found the spice shelf, and searched until he found what he wanted.
His stomach was in knots for what he was about to do, but he couldn’t do this to her anymore. Shelly knew the ropes. He’d talked to her too many times about the dangers of saying the wrong thing or saying too much to the wrong people. Even if he revealed he was alive, he was satisfied she wouldn’t talk.
He got a notepad, a pen and the box of spice and started drawing. When he had finished, he left the note and the spice container on the kitchen table, knowing she’d see it as soon as she got home.
He grabbed his bag, gave the kitchen one last look and then reset the alarm on his way out. He stopped in the garden shed to get a screwdriver and took it to the alley to switch out the license tags. When he had finished, he returned the screwdriver and the other tag to the shed.
Within minutes, he was riding out of the alley and back onto the streets. His next objective was to make his appearance match the picture on his new ID, and he knew where to go to make that happen.
Makeover Magic was a hair salon in a strip mall about a mile from their house. He and Shelly had laughed more than once at the clients coming and going there, most of whom sported hair the color of Easter egg dyes. He wasn’t going for purple, but he needed that kind of transformation.
He wheeled the Indian in and out of traffic until he reached the mall, then drove into the parking lot and rolled up to the curb at the salon. He was carrying his helmet as he walked toward the entrance when he caught a glimpse of himself in the window. He would be leaving that guy inside.
A buzzer sounded as he entered, and when the four stylists heard the thump of men’s boots up front, they all turned to look and were immediately sorry they had customers in their chairs.
Rho
nda Brewer was at the front behind the counter. She’d had clients who were skinheads, bikers, Goths and a multitude of everything in between, but she couldn’t remember the last time a man like this had walked into her shop. Her heart skipped a beat as he strode up to the front desk.
“Good morning. How can I help you?” she asked.
Jack read people easily and could tell this woman was living a rough life with no excuses.
“I need a haircut.”
“Trim or—”
“No, ma’am. Off,” Jack said.
Rhonda grinned. “Are we shaving it?”
“Not quite. More like this,” he said, and pulled out his new ID. “I haven’t cut my hair in nearly two years and it’s bugging the hell out of me. I want me back.” He showed her the driver’s license picture.
Rhonda noted his name. “Okay, Shane, are you ready to get this party started?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She took him back to her chair and caped him up, then took him to the shampoo station. She washed his hair longer than she had to, just because she loved the feel of all that thick black hair between her fingers. Finally, she took him back to her chair and combed out the tangles before she started to work.
Jack watched his hair falling to the floor, waiting for the man his enemies knew as Judd Wayne to disappear and Shane Franklin to emerge. It didn’t take long for him to realize that Rhonda’s shop was aptly named. She was making magic happen. Thirty minutes passed. The length was long gone and she was still shaping and clipping, blending the three-inch length into the beard he was growing.
“Is that short enough?” she asked.
Jack ran his fingers through the spiky strands. “Perfect,” he said.
“Great,” Rhonda said, and began working product into the short, stubby strands. Then she turned him around to face the mirror.
Even Jack was impressed at the transformation.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Jack grinned at his own reflection. “Hello, Shane. Where the hell have you been?”
Rhonda giggled. “So we’re good here?”
“Yes, ma’am. That we are,” Jack said.
Rhonda removed the cape and whisked away any lingering hair from his neck, then he followed her back to the counter.
“That’ll be thirty dollars,” Rhonda said.
Jack gave her forty. “Much appreciated,” he said.
“Y’all come back anytime,” Rhonda called, as he headed out the door.
He gave her a thumbs-up but kept moving.
Rhonda was still watching as he climbed onto that motorcycle and fired it up. The first rumble of the engine made her girlie parts ache, and when it went from rumble to roar, she squeezed her legs together and moaned.
“Lord have mercy, that is one fine man,” she said, and went to get herself something cold to drink.
Unaware he was still the focus of Rhonda’s attention, Jack rode away, very much relieved. For the first time in days, he was anonymous again.
All he lacked now was a place to call home.
Eight
Shelly’s day at work finally dragged to a halt at 5:00 p.m. She logged out of the computers at her workstation and left the building, hurrying to her car before anyone else was out of the building. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to listen to music. She just wanted to go home.
About halfway there, traffic began to slow. She groaned.
“Dang it. Not this evening,” she said, guessing it was because of a wreck. They happened daily on the Loop and in varying numbers. Depending on the time of day, and despite the five lanes of traffic, it always snarled.
Sure enough, the traffic finally came to a dead stop, which meant the wreck had just happened somewhere farther up, and they were waiting either for rescue or for wreckers to clear bodies and cars before releasing the traffic.
Less than a hundred yards ahead, she saw an exit ramp, and because she was on the outside lane, she had the freedom to take it. It would add a good half hour to her drive to go this way, but she might sit longer than that on the freeway, so she pulled out of line and drove down the shoulder to the exit ramp, grateful she was moving again.
She was so tired and beat down by the day and the extended drive that she began crying a few miles from home. By the time she pulled into the drive and hit the remote to open the garage door, she was nearly blind with tears. She made it inside the garage and then gathered up her things, disarming the security alarm as she went inside.
The house looked the same, but as Shelly went down the hall to her bedroom, the hair crawled on the back of her neck. Something felt off.
She went into her bedroom and immediately saw the closet door open and the light inside it still on. That was unlike her to do that, but it had happened before. She didn’t think much about it as she changed out of her work clothes into shorts and a T-shirt, then walked barefoot into the living room, picked up the mail from the floor in front of the front door and moved into the kitchen.
She started to toss the mail onto the table as always, when she saw a notepad, a pen and a box of spice from her spice rack. She turned in sudden fear to see if she was alone, and she was, but it was obvious someone had been in her house.
She moved closer to the table, saw the notepad and what was on it, then saw the box of mustard seed and gasped.
The message on the notepad was impossible to mistake. There were no words. Just a drawing of a woman’s lips that had been padlocked shut. She grabbed the mustard seed and clutched it to her heart, trying to remember the verse in the Bible—something about having the faith of a mustard seed, and moving mountains.
“Oh my God, oh my God, Jack! You’re alive!”
Then she thought of the safe. That would be the last bit of proof she needed. She ran down the hall and into the office and could already tell someone had been in here. The books were not in order as she moved them aside to get to the safe, and her suspicion was confirmed when she found it empty.
She was crying again, but this time for joy, and shaking so hard she could barely function. She started looking around to see what else he’d come for, but it took her a few minutes to realize his laptop was missing, too.
This was like something out of a dream. She was overjoyed, and at the same time, beginning to realize the seriousness of his situation. If he’d come back to retrieve money and a new identity, and he’d left her a most explicit message not to tell, then he was in danger and didn’t know who he could trust...except her. He trusted her.
Shelly began putting everything back the way it was supposed to be, then ran into the kitchen, grabbed that notepad and shredded the drawing before putting her mustard seed back in the cabinet. This was why they hadn’t been able to find his body. She couldn’t imagine where he’d been hiding, or how badly he might have been injured, but he was obviously well enough to be on the move.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen and then put both hands over her heart and whispered just loud enough for only God to hear.
“Thank You, Lord, for giving him back.”
* * *
When Adam was growing up in Tokyo, he wanted nothing more than to one day step into his father’s seat at the cartel. The fact that would no longer be possible had eroded his purpose and his plans for the future. In the old days in his culture, a man who has lost face with his peers or shamed his family took his own life. Yuki might be the kind to lean that way, but not him. He was bent on revenge. He needed to make sure Judd Wayne was dead, and then he was going back to Japan to take down the cartel, beginning with his father. And, since he and his brother had come across the border into Laredo, Texas, early this morning under false identities, they were moving on to the next step.
“What are we doing now?” Yuki asked, as they left the café where they’d just eaten breakfast.
“We’re going back to Houston,” Adam said. “And don’t forget...you call me Lee. I’m Lee Tanaka. You are Soshi Yamada. We aren’t related, just traveling together.”
“Yes, I understand,” Yuki said, as they headed North up I-35 to San Antonio.
Adam was taking care not to speed so he wouldn’t give the Highway Patrol a reason to stop him, and it was past noon by the time they reached San Antonio. They stopped to eat again and stretch their legs, then took Interstate 10 and drove straight into Houston.
It was night by the time they arrived. Adam chose a La Quinta Inn for the night. His steps were dragging by the time they got into their room. They washed up, then went down to the restaurant to eat dinner.
When the waitress came to take their orders, she gave the men a quick once-over and then started talking.
“Do you guys know what you want?”
“I’ll have the blackened tilapia and hot tea,” Adam said.
“Y’all want fries with that?”
Adam kept his head down. “No, thank you. I’ll have the rice.”
“And what about you?” she asked, looking at Yuki.
Uncertain about some of the offerings, he chose the safety of his brother’s order.
“I will have the same,” he said.
She wrote it all down and picked up their menus, then walked away.
When their meals finally came, they were anything but an epicurean experience. He tried not to think of all the fine dining he was accustomed to, and ate the food for sustenance, signed the ticket to have it charged to his room, and then they left the dining area and returned to their room.
Because he let Yuki shower first, Yuki was already in bed and snoring by the time Adam emerged from the bathroom. It was the quickest shower he’d ever had, and he was just as tired as his brother. He barely remembered pulling up the covers.
The next time Adam woke it was morning, his brother was in the bathroom and a waiter had just dropped a tray of someone’s breakfast in the hall outside their door. It was after 8:00 a.m. and time to find a better place to stay and then start his search for Judd Wayne.
