Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  There was nothing in his face or voice to indicate that this bothered him. Maybe it didn’t. She’d known Mitch Cameron for a long time now, but Kat had never really been able to read him.

  “And she couldn’t see your side of things?” she asked.

  He barked a laugh, a soft burst of air that was barely audible in the stillness. “Jenny only sees her side of things. She doesn’t let silly things like family get in the way—even with her father.”

  “Smart girl,” Kat murmured.

  Cameron had no response for that.

  They traveled fast from there, low to the ground, through a thick forest that didn’t slow Cam down in the least. He’d always been like that. Adam used to call him The Ghost. Kat remembered being terrified, the first few times her ex-husband mentioned him:

  If he comes for us, you’ll never know it. He’ll be on us, and it will be over… I’ve seen him do it.

  He was more legend than man, back in those days. She knew better now: Mitch Cameron was as human as the rest of them.

  Ten minutes later, they reached a clearing at the top of the island. A little twin-engine plane waited. Both boats were out of sight. Kat waited for an explosion on the horizon or a burst of gunfire, but there was only silence now. She felt an unexpected surge of hope at the thought.

  She followed Cameron into the plane.

  Maybe they would make it out of this alive after all.

  Chapter Nine - Solomon

  Without stormy seas and spitting snow to battle against, Diggs and I made the trip back to the mainland in just over an hour. When we got to the other side, the silver Camry was parked exactly where Cameron had promised it would be. Diggs slid into the driver’s side before I could beat him to it, which is typical of Diggs. The man does not like to be driven.

  “Check the glove compartment,” he said once Einstein was settled and Diggs and I were both safely buckled in.

  All three of us were wet from the boat ride, and beyond frozen from the cold. And exhausted, which seemed to be my default setting these days. I opened the glove compartment while Diggs started the car. There was a sealed yellow envelope inside.

  “What have you got?” Diggs asked.

  Jesus. What didn’t we have? “Passports. Fake IDs.” The pictures showed me with dark hair, and Diggs with a buzz cut and glasses. “There’s a key card for a hotel. The note here says we should go to the hotel first. And apparently there’s luggage and a laptop in the trunk of the car.”

  I looked at the names on the passports: Nick and Danielle Winston. Along with the paperwork were two simple gold wedding bands in a plastic pouch. Apparently, Diggs had made an honest woman of me in this alternate universe Cameron had created.

  “Where’s the hotel?” Diggs asked.

  I directed him back to Route 1. Within three minutes, Einstein was passed out in the backseat. Within five, we reached a series of cabins set back from the road. It was secluded and dark, three a.m. post-snowstorm quiet.

  “This is it?” Diggs asked.

  “Apparently. The perfect place to be murdered in our sleep.”

  He turned off the car. “Nice. You know, when I’m dying, I really hope you’re the one by my bedside whispering words of comfort in those final moments.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Diggs grabbed the luggage while I took Einstein for the final walk of the night. I steered clear of the woods and the road and basically everything but a small strip of grass within sight of the cabin—partly because Diggs had asked me to, and partly because bad things tend to happen when I walk Einstein at night.

  Even though I’d stayed close by, Diggs still reappeared within a couple of minutes.

  “I’ll be right in,” I said.

  “I know. I just figured I’d stretch my legs.”

  “Sure.” I noted the bulge under his jacket; Diggs was packing. He would probably always be packing, from here on out. I suspected it would be a long time before I’d be able to go for a walk without worrying about what was waiting in the shadows. “Is the place nice?”

  “It’s fine.”

  I turned to find him staring into the darkness, his shoulders tensed. I wanted to go to him; to reassure him that everything was okay. We would be all right. I didn’t, though, uncertain in a way I’d never been when we were just friends. When we were just friends, I’d make some asshole, off-the-cuff remark, and he’d make some asshole off-the-cuff remark back, and that would be the end of it. Even when we were sleeping together, I could handle it because I knew what I could expect at the end of the day: Great sex, great conversation, a shoulder to cry on when the going got rough. But, ultimately, I knew not to get too attached because he would, without a doubt, be gone at the first sign of daylight.

  But I didn’t know how to do this. There was nothing witty or off-the-cuff about this. We were running away together. Assuming the fake identities of Nick and Danielle Winston, who probably traveled together and ate breakfast together and gave each other foot rubs.

  I’d known Diggs for seventeen years, and not once had I touched his friggin’ feet.

  He glanced back at me, almost like he’d forgotten I was there. He seemed as uncertain as I was, which didn’t make me feel any better. One of us should really know what the hell we were doing.

  “I keep thinking of the Sanctuary—that place Will Rainier kept us,” he said. “Not that this is the same. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Perfect: one more thing to worry about.

  “I don’t think we are, though,” Diggs added, as though he’d read my mind. “Cameron has enough on his plate—I don’t think he has time to listen in, necessarily.”

  “Maybe.” The doubt was plain in my voice.

  “We should go in,” he said. “Figure out what comes next, according to the puppet master.”

  I followed him inside, neither of us touching. And all I could think, endlessly, was: This is a mistake. It’s a mistake to take him from his life, just because I can’t return to mine. And this is a mistake we can’t come back from, once it’s made.

  The cabin had a tiny kitchen, living room with a sofa and TV, and a bedroom with a king-sized bed and an old, scarred dresser. Diggs had left the unopened luggage—two black suitcases, worn enough to appear well-used but hardly threadbare—by the sofa.

  “Check this out,” he said when I sat on the sofa, handing me a high-end leather briefcase. Inside, I found a slim, state-of-the-art laptop that couldn’t have weighed more than a couple of pounds. “I think I’m going to like Cameron footing the bill,” he said. “That thing must have set him back a few pesos.”

  “I don’t think money’s a big worry for Cameron.” I paused. “I think he might be a robot. Do robots worry about money?”

  “No more than the rest of us, I guess. Do you still have the envelope?”

  I handed it to him, then laid the first suitcase on the floor and opened it. “This one is yours,” I said at sight of the men’s jeans, sweater, and boxers. There was a folder on top with NICK WINSTON written in bold letters. I moved to the next suitcase, curious despite myself. Diggs was looking over our passports, getting to know the couple we were about to become.

  When I opened the second suitcase, my jaw dropped. “Uh… Diggs.”

  He looked up. “What is it?”

  I nodded to the suitcase, now open. Stacked along the side, in between my clothes and the dossier for my new identity, were several neat stacks of cash.

  “Holy shit. How much is in there?”

  I counted while Diggs went through his own suitcase. When I was done, I noted a box of hair dye and some hair clippers that he’d set on the sofa behind us. Not a good sign.

  “Fifty grand,” I said. “Five thousand in small bills, the rest in hundreds.”

  Diggs scratched his head. “Jesus. So… he’s serious about this. These people he wants us to become.”

  “Nick and Danielle,” I said.

/>   “Dani,” he corrected me. Where I was ready to jump ship at the nearest port, Diggs suddenly looked surprisingly at ease. “Nick and Dani.”

  “Of course. Nick and Dani—what was I thinking?”

  “It could be worse.” I noticed he didn’t say how, though. “He wants us back on the road tomorrow morning. There are plane tickets to Melbourne, business class out of Allentown, Pennsylvania. We leave Sunday afternoon.”

  Australia: Where the men are men, and the spiders are as big as Shih Tzus. Jesus.

  Diggs got up from the floor and held his hand out to me. “Come on, ace. Bathroom. We’ve got some work to do if we’re going to make this happen. Time for a makeover.”

  I groaned. After a moment’s hesitation, I took his hand and let him pull me up. He handed me the hair dye, picked up the clippers, and pulled me along behind him.

  “You really think we need to go this far?” I asked. “Because, honestly, this seems like overkill.”

  The bathroom had a tub/shower combo and very limited sink space. Diggs plugged in the hair clippers.

  “These people have never heard the term overkill. Sorry, kid. Red’s out; brunette’s in. For now, anyway.”

  I turned on the water with a heavy sigh.

  If I ever saw Kat again, she was a dead woman.

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  “There are things you need to remember, and things you need to forget. You understand?”

  I sit on the ground, my knees to my chin. My father is across from me, cross-legged like a true-blue yogi. He’s very serious. I nod. He opens his mouth, his eyes blue like the ocean, but nothing comes out. Somewhere far off, someone screams. I look away, trying to figure out how I know that sound. When I look back, my father is gone.

  And then suddenly, in a nonsensical flash you only find in dreams and art house flicks, I am in the woods. Allie is with me. We’re both running—fast, far, trying to get away from something I can’t see behind us. Allie isn’t limping. I want to ask her why, but I can’t get my breath.

  “Things to remember, things to forget,” I hear my father say again.

  We’re almost safe. Another few feet and we’ll be out of the trees and the dark, and back in the light. We’ll be safe if we can get out of the woods. I don’t want him to keep us in the woods.

  Three more steps.

  Two more.

  The light is on me, I can feel the sun, when I hear Allie scream.

  When I turn, she is on the ground. Bleeding. Isaac stands over her.

  “You’re safe, Erin,” my father says. “Just forget the dark spots, and nothing will hurt you.” I can’t see him, though. I can’t find him.

  Isaac looks up. He’s spotted me—he knows I’m here, and we weren’t supposed to be. Allie is crying.

  “Forget the dark spots,” my father whispers.

  Isaac leaves Allie on the ground, and comes for me. His eyes are angry and dark and full of something I don’t want to see.

  I bolted up in bed, breathing hard, damp with sweat. The cabin was still dark. Diggs slept beside me, snoring softly. Forget the dark spots. What the hell did that mean? I sat still for a minute, torn between trying to call up the images and trying to stuff them as far back down in my subconscious as they would go.

  I didn’t have that luxury anymore though, did I? Something had happened on Payson Isle when I was a kid… Those shiny, happy memories I’d clung to my entire life weren’t the whole story. They couldn’t be. What had Juarez asked me the night before, when we were at the Melquist house? Are the memories whole, or just flashes?

  Just flashes—more and more of them, in a patchwork I couldn’t make any sense of.

  Gradually, my heart settled back to a reasonably normal rhythm. The desire to crawl out of my own skin faded. The clock by the bed said it was 5:30. Diggs and I hadn’t turned in until almost four, when we’d passed out on opposite sides of the bed, like the old married couple we now were.

  Now, I lay back down beside him, careful not to wake him. I’d cut his hair, shearing the golden locks I loved until all that was left was a half-inch of peach fuzz. He’d shaved his face clean for the first time in years—I couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t had at least some scruff, if not a full beard. He looked younger. More innocent. A different man than the one I knew and loved and had come to rely on, despite my best efforts not to.

  I slid a little closer and ran my index finger along the furrow in his forehead. He sighed, but remained asleep. Risking everything, I leaned in and kissed his temple. Breathed in the only safe thing I had left.

  Then, I got out of bed before he woke up.

  There were no cars on the road when I took Einstein out for his first pee break of the day. A few seagulls flew overhead, shrieking about whatever it is seagulls shriek about at daybreak. It was cold and clear outside, a thin crust of ice coating the snowfall from the day before.

  When I went back inside, I retrieved the laptop Cameron had left for us and set myself up on the sofa with Einstein. I pulled up the home page and typed ‘Jonestown’ into the search engine.

  It wasn’t like I’d never seen the material before: the articles on Jim Jones and his People’s Temple; Jones’ history as a religious leader and semi-respected member of society in Indiana and, later, California; his decline into paranoia and drug addiction after he’d led his followers to the jungles of South America, in a supposed attempt to get away from capitalism and corruption in the United States. I had read it all before.

  Now, I looked at it with new eyes.

  Forget the dark spots.

  Did the dark spots in my childhood have anything to do with Jonestown?

  My father had been there.

  Growing up, my dad hadn’t had a happy childhood—I knew that much from reading a diary my aunt had kept when they were kids, before she was killed. Dad hadn’t gotten along with his parents. He’d been a rebellious kid who caused more than his share of heartache in the small Maine town where he spent his teen years. When my aunt was killed during Dad’s fifteenth summer, everything must have changed for him. How could it not?

  That was when he ran away.

  Kat had said his family had known the Jones’ family back in Indiana, so Jim Jones would have already been on his radar. Alone and traumatized, my father would have been searching for something—some reason to keep going after he’d witnessed the brutal rape and murder of his little sister.

  That was in 1970.

  Jones was already in California by then; the base in San Francisco would be established in the next few years.

  In the other room, I heard Diggs get up. A few minutes later, the toilet flushed. The water ran. When Diggs came out, he was in boxers and a t-shirt, his feet bare. He still looked like a stranger. I checked the clock. It was just after seven a.m.

  “How long have you been up?” he asked.

  “An hour, maybe,” I said. “Did you know there was a big dinner honoring Jim Jones in 1976? All the political heavy hitters were there: Jerry Brown and Mervyn Dymally… Walter Mondale was a fan. So was Rosalynn Carter. Hell, Harvey Milk stood in the way of a full-fledged investigation into Jonestown when people started saying things had gone bad down there.”

  He sat beside me, forcing Einstein to the floor. The mutt hopped down unhappily, circled, and resettled in front of me. I shifted to give Diggs more room, but he curled his hand around my ankles and pulled my feet into his lap.

  “Does it say anything about the Red Brigade?” he asked.

  I typed in ‘Peoples Temple Red Brigade’ and scanned the results. “Most of the hits are from conspiracy theorists. The gist is that the Red Brigade was a group of armed security guards… The catalyst for the mass suicide at Jonestown happened the day before, on November 17. A group of Americans known as the Concerned Relatives arrived in Guyana to interview members of the Temple and check out the facilities…”

  “That group included Congressman Leo Ryan,” Diggs said, clearly familiar with the details. “At which
point, people started slipping him notes saying Jones had gone off the reservation and could they please get help getting back to the U.S.”

  “Not so much, actually,” I corrected him, still reading from the screen. “By the time Ryan and his Concerned Relatives were ready to leave the next day, the Congressman said he thought reports of abuse were unfounded. He was prepared to file a favorable report when he got home. Jones still freaked out, though.”

  “So, the next day when Ryan and his delegation got ready to leave…” he prompted, looking at me expectantly.

  “They were gunned down at the airstrip,” I completed. “Supposedly by members of the Red Brigade, sent there by Jones to do whatever was necessary to keep everyone in Guyana.”

  I stared at the computer screen for a long time, trying to imagine all of this. It all seemed too fantastical to have actually happened: a village of nearly one thousand Americans, living in a third-world country their leader touted as the ‘New Utopia.’ I searched Google images for photos from Jonestown, but only came up with the shots that had become synonymous with the tragedy: layers of bodies lying face down outside a collection of huts deep in the jungle.

  Diggs took the computer from me and set it aside. “You really think your father was there, then?”

  “Yeah,” I said after a minute’s thought. “I do. And Kat didn’t disagree with it… I just can’t figure out why anyone is trying to shut him up now. Or why they have been, all along. Even if Dad was part of the Red Brigade, it’s not like Jones’ crimes aren’t public knowledge at this point. Investigators uncovered the money, they knew about the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse… I mean, what the hell could my father possibly have told people?”

  “I don’t know. But it must be pretty friggin’ damning, to justify the bloodshed we’ve seen.”

  I didn’t argue. Silence fell. Diggs reached out and tugged a strand of my hair, curling it around his finger. “This isn’t so bad, you know. Brunette… It could be worse.”

  “It looks stupid. My complexion, my freckles… Anyone will know it’s not my natural color, the second they see me.”