Dark Web
Page 30
“Just two days prior to the explosion, Darring contacted Tricia Eggleston. He never really corresponded with Tori directly, but through the girl. He convinced her that the cops were closing in. And then he gave her the location of a safe house for her and Tori to run to. She was supposed to join him, but she never did. Wanted out, I guess, no matter which way.”
“So you’ve never heard of William Simpkins?”
“No.”
More photos were pulled out. One showed Mike’s father standing beside a dark woman with gypsy hair and eyes, in a group photo. It was hard to be sure because of the other people crowding the picture, but it looked like Mike’s father had his hand around her waist. Mike stared at the woman, her eyes, the Mona Lisa smile on her face in the grainy photo. The first agent placed his finger on the face.
“This is Pamela Falcone. Know her?”
Mike swallowed. It took him a moment to find his voice — when he tried to talk all he produced at first was a scratchy grunt. “Yeah, I remember her,” he said. Then he looked out through the windows and into the snow where the tree shadows morphed into memories rising up from his past. “I went down to the bar once where my father spent just about every night. I remember seeing her standing near him, the way she looked at him. I was only fifteen or sixteen. And that’s when I understood. That’s when I knew. But, then, my mom got sick.” Mike looked down at the floor, at the pictures, at one showing Mike with his father and mother in Battery Park. He didn’t even know where it came from — maybe a passerby had snapped it. Mike was Hannah’s age, just a tot. He looked at his mother, her thin face, her small mouth, her large, baleful eyes. “I think I was even relieved she got sick,” he said, his voice dangerously close to cracking. “Because then he stayed. He let the other woman go and he stayed with my mom, but I always knew it. And I never forgave him for it.”
Mike pulled in a deep breath and looked away from the photos, anywhere but at those faces. He put his head in his hands for a moment, ran shaking fingers through his hair, and finally looked up at the agents, both of whom watched him intently. The second one asked, “Maybe just like Robert Darring — William Simpkins — never forgave you for being the son your father raised? Watching you all of these years, resentment eating away at him, hatred? Forming his plan? How he could hurt you the most?”
Mike let out a breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been waiting to exhale. The two sets of eyes were watching him extremely closely. Now they blinked, all four of them, in eerie unison. Mike could smell Dial soap on the first agent.
“I raised a gun to my father when I was a kid. That’s probably in your file, too. When I found out about his affair. And he stayed. After that, he stayed with my mother. I don’t know if it was because he was afraid, I don’t know if he just . . .”
They were looking at him with detachment.
“You realize this is a formality,” the first agent said.
“We have to be thorough,” said the second.
Mike nodded, swallowed, and said, “I understand.”
He thought of Swift. I understand.
The two agents stood up, collected their files, and proceeded to the door.
Mike had remained seated, not sure his legs would support his weight if he should try to stand.
The first agent had opened the door and the second agent looked back over his shoulder. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Simpkins. We’ll be in touch. Good luck in Florida.”
And they had left.
When his turn came he filed down the aisle with his single carry-on duffel. He had checked no baggage onto the airplane. He only had the duffel and a box, about the size of a bowling ball case, handsome bound-leather, black, with silver edges and rivets.
He nodded at the captain and stewardess, bid them farewell and stepped off the plane, leaving its chilly recycled air and into the balmy blast of a Florida spring. The humid air blanketed him with wet, fuzzy nostalgia; all the years that had passed down here in the sunshine state. And here he was again. For a moment, his stomach turned viscous as he remembered what he had lost, what his family had lost. But Braxton was home now.
As he had expected, they were waiting for him on the other side of security. Callie was wearing a pair of short-shorts that showed her long, smooth legs. Those legs had never quite lost their tan. Her bra strap was showing under a soft tank top, her dirty blonde hair piled up and pinned behind her head, her eyes wet, her mouth quivering with a smile. The girls were in their cutest outfits, Hannah in a little one-piece jumper thingy — Mike didn’t know, didn’t matter — Reno in jean shorts and a t-shirt that read Aloha!, a salutation from the wrong state that filled him with love and longing. And standing behind them, almost lost in the crush of passengers exiting and preparing to board, was Jack Simpkins.
As he walked towards them, Mike shot a glance at his father. Jack nodded back, and Mike felt something loosen in his chest. He dropped the duffel bag, almost running, like a guy in some frigging movie. He didn’t care. There would be nothing hidden in his life ever again, no withholding. He grasped the box, saw Callie’s eyes rest on it, saw her quivering lips part, as a heavy sigh escaped her, and she put the back of her hand to her mouth and looked at Mike.
He reached them, and set the box down. Braxton’s ashes, there, in the middle of his family, Braxton who had bound them all together, who had been at the heart of these four people’s lives, who now stood arm-in-arm, laughing and crying a little.
Mike pulled them all in tight. The crowd bustled around them; he caught one brief frown and one bright smile among the faces.
People were the same wherever you went.
THE END
TJB
Etown
February 12, 2014 — January 22, 2015
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Other books by T.J Brearton:
THE TITAN TRILOGY
HABIT a #1 best-selling thriller that you won’t be able to put down, BOOK 1
A young woman, Rebecca Heilshorn, lies stabbed to death in her bed in a remote farmhouse. Rookie detective Brendan Healy is called in to investigate. All hell breaks loose when her brother bursts onto the scene. Rebecca turns out to have many secrets and connections to a sordid network mixing power, wealth, and sex. Detective Brendan Healy, trying to put a tragic past behind him, pursues a dangerous investigation that will risk both his life and his sanity. Habit is a compelling thriller which will appeal to all fans of crime fiction. T.J. Brearton amps up the tension at every step, until the shocking and gripping conclusion.
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SURVIVORS BOOK 2 of the Titan Trilogy
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BOOK 3, REVOLUTION, coming 2015
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A riveting suspense thriller with a supernatural touch. Time is running out to save a little boy and stop the waters rising
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Detective Tom Milliner is racing against time to save the life of a unique little boy. He needs a blood transfusion and only one person matches. But first Milliner must solve the mystery at the Kingston house, where Liz Goldfine may have committed a heinous crime, and the dark depths of the lake harbor teenage secrets.
Groups of strange young men are gathering on the roads, the old house holds many mysteries, and the waters are rising fast. What lurks deep in the lake and can anyone stop it?
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James and Elle Eversman are a young couple travelling through the Mojave desert on their way to a new life. When their car mysteriously breaks down they are stranded in the middle of nowhere without much water and no cell-phone reception.
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THE INFINITY TATTOO: a suspense thriller with romance and mystery
A suspense thriller you won’t want to put down
Meg Goodwin’s best friend Alex disappeared when they were reporting the unrest in Honduras. But Meg thinks her dangerous life as a journalist is behind her when she settles back in Arizona. Then a mysterious bleeding man turns up in her barn, and her life will never be the same again.
In this absorbing thriller, Meg must face not only drug cartels and corrupt politicians, but also an international cover-up. And if she survives, and solves the mystery of her lost friend, can she also find love?