by J N Duncan
They had got a hotel in Dubuque for the night to be nearer Shelby, and it gave McManus direct access to them while things in Thatcher’s Mill got processed. He told them to keep as low a profile as possible, and Jackie was more than fine with this arrangement. By the time they had checked on Shelby in the hospital and got checked into a double bed hotel room, it had been well after midnight, and Jackie was asleep in the ten minutes it took Nick to shower. It was eleven AM by the time she woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon.
Nick’s sowing of confusion among those on the scene had done its job and it was going to take days or longer to sort out exactly what had happened. So McManus told them to just head home and wait, which was great news until he added the part about Belgerman meeting them at their office for a debriefing on the events. When they arrived, and sat down around the conference room table just before dinnertime, Jackie was surprised by the extreme lack of anger coming from him.
Jackie sipped at the wonderful coffee Cynthia had made for her. After a couple days of diner and hotel coffee, it was like heaven in a cup. “I was expecting the Belgerman scowl,” she said, with a flippant smile. “This did not go down exactly like we had in mind. We’re sorry for that, sir. Six casualties is unacceptable.”
“Given what you were up against,” he said, “I don’t believe casualties were to be unexpected. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. It would have been worse had you failed, Jack. Honestly, it was just lousy timing. If those townsfolk had arrived just a few minutes later, we might have avoided casualties entirely.”
That was true, but still, casualties of any kind were not acceptable in Jackie’s book. “They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
“We’re lucky that whole town didn’t go down,” Shelby said. “That girl may have looked cute and cuddly, but she was a tough little bitch. We had to play at a disadvantage, too, but that’s beside the point. And Jackie here should get a fucking medal. She saved my ass.”
“Miss Fontaine,” Belgerman replied, “you don’t have to cover for Jack, not this time anyway.” He smiled at Jackie’s disconcerted look. “We’ll get things covered well enough on this one. Nick, you did wonders for us with whatever it is you do. There are so many conflicting stories about the events that nobody will ever be able to sort out truth from fiction.”
He gave a little shrug. “Least I could do, considering. We’d both be dead and Charlotte would be gone if it hadn’t been for Jackie’s big gamble.”
“Speaking of gambles,” Belgerman said. “I want to know about this thing that got brought back from the other side. What are we dealing with here?”
Jackie sighed. “Wish we knew. It’s not dead, that’s for sure—or human for that matter.”
“So, we have an alien presence walking around Iowa somewhere,” Belgerman said.
“If it’s still there,” Jackie said. “Nix said he was going exploring.”
“Nix?” Belgerman cocked an eyebrow. “You spoke with it?”
“It’s been following me since I went to Deadworld,” Jackie replied. “It wants my help with something.”
“You?” He sat up straighter in his chair. “What could an alien being want with you, Jack?”
“Wish I knew. It thinks I’m the key to opening something, but apparently I’m not ready to do it.”
Belgerman frowned at her. “I don’t understand.”
She shrugged. “I don’t either.”
“We need to track that thing down, then, so we can keep an eye on it,” he said.
Nick, Shelby, and Jackie all snorted with laughter at that. “Sir,” Jackie said, “the only reason to know where it might be is so that we can stay as far away from it as possible.”
“Just how dangerous is this thing?”
“It makes Drake look like a trip to Disney,” Jackie replied. “But it doesn’t appear to have any sort of agenda here.”
Belgerman raised his eyebrows at that and nodded. “I see. Don’t poke the caged tiger, in other words.”
“I still wouldn’t mind knowing where it’s at,” Nick said. “We’d know when it was coming back then.”
“I’ll look into that,” Belgerman said. “Regardless of how dangerous you believe this thing to be, we can certainly locate it without engagement. Shouldn’t be too hard; just follow the news reports.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jackie said. “Let the damn thing explore. Someone gets on that thing’s bad side and they are dead, no questions asked.”
Belgerman gave her an oh, really? look. “Jack, if you were in my shoes and had an alien on the loose, would you sit back and let it just wander around?”
She huffed. “No. Still a bad idea. It can do ... things, you wouldn’t think possible.” She gave him a wan smile and absently reached up to touch the tiny scar in the middle of her chest.
He gave her a concerned look. “What things?”
“I’ll put it in the report, sir,” she replied. It was not something she wished to relive at the moment. “I will say it pretty much lifted a house off the ground to save Nick and Shelby.”
“Jesus.”
Nick nodded in agreement. “It’s more than we can handle, and then some.”
“OK,” Belgerman said. “We’ll make sure to leave it alone, but I cannot let it just be out there in our world, when we don’t know what it is or wants.”
It only wanted her, and Jackie hoped it would stay that way. “Understood.”
He folded his hands together on the table and gave Jackie a hard look. “Why do I think this concerns you even more than anyone else here?”
Jackie cleared her throat. “Because ... it’s hard to explain, sir. Let’s just say I have a better sense of what it can do more than anyone else and leave it at that.”
Belgerman put his hands down on the table. “All right. You all are probably ready to get home and sleep for three days, though I doubt McManus will let that happen.”
“We’re done?” Jackie wondered, a bit baffled by the brevity of the meeting.
He shrugged. “Investigation is still ongoing. We’ll have more meetings, I’m sure, but honestly I just wanted to see how you were doing and hear about the green-eyed alien McManus was rambling on about. I wanted to know just how serious this was, and now I do.” He smiled and got to his feet. “Go home. Try to rest. We’ve got a good couple of weeks of this stuff to deal with.”
Jackie walked him to the door, where he stopped and put a hand on her shoulder. “I mean it about the rest, Jack. Get some. You look more than just beat.”
“I’ll get some,” she replied. “Thanks. It was rough.”
“I can see that,” he said. “Your team did a great job with an impossible situation, Jack. I know we lost some people, but you should be proud. This is what your team is all about. Let’s hope the next one isn’t quite so bad.” He chuckled and gave her shoulder a fatherly squeeze. “We’ll talk again soon. Good night, Jackie.”
“Night, John. Oh. What about the girl, Jessica? What’s happening with her?”
“We have her in a secure location for now,” he said. “At this point I’m not sure what’s going to be done. Nick’s company is giving her that synthetic blood, and I believe Tillie is going to try and work with her.”
“Guess that makes sense,” Jackie replied. “I hope she will be OK. I wish her the best, though at this point, I don’t think she appreciates that too much.”
“In time, perhaps,” he said. “Hopefully Tillie can undo some of the brainwashing that poor kid went through.”
“If she can’t, maybe Nick can, with his, you know, powers and such.”
He smiled. “Yes, and such. I’ll make sure Tillie is aware of that option. Take care of yourself, Jackie.” He waved once and stepped out through the door.
Other than generating a lengthy report, which thankfully Cynthia took on the task of actually writing up, Jackie did nothing but rest for the next two days. She curled up with Bickerstaff on her couch, sipped on tequila, and slept through half a doz
en movies. The only consolation they got over the next couple of days was a retraction article from Margolin, claiming his original story had come from poor sources and not been accurate. Of course, he’d left the actual accuracy of the story out of his follow-up.
Each night, she thought about Nick, picked up the phone to call, and played out the conversations in her head, but Jackie could not bring herself to go over to his house. She wanted to, but everything turned into visions of Hyperventilation Girl and yet another episode of Tales of Bad Sex.
Tillie called on the second day, two different times, and left messages, wanting to know how Jackie was doing. Belgerman had informed her to some degree about what had happened. The terror of Nix, however, was not something that she felt was even in Tillie’s realm to deal with. Jackie dreamed of it, though, with its long glowing needle, watching it inch its way into her chest, piercing her heart. She would wake up gasping, hands pressed to her chest. After the second night, Jackie thought that maybe chatting with Tillie would help soothe the nightmares or at least she could get some good meds that would make them go away.
The third day was the first trip back to Thatcher’s Mill to talk with some of the county law enforcement. It was to no one’s surprise that they were upset about the lack of a coherent story. When people died in your jurisdiction, you wanted the facts to make sense. Jackie, Nick, and Shelby did not do a lot to help their cause, following up the ghost hunter story with how they’d uncovered some weird inconsistencies in the town, like the Thatcher girls not existing, and then getting in over their heads as they tried to expose the girls as fakes, finding out Jessica may have been kidnapped, and then calling in their FBI friends for assistance. It was not a great story, but nobody else was offering a contradictory story to go against them, so they stuck with it.
That night Shelby had Jackie and Cynthia over for dinner, with the topic of conversation being Christmas presents. How could the woman even be thinking Christmas after the recent events they had gone through? They spent the evening eating hors d’oeuvres—little puff pastries filled with crab that Jackie decided she could eat until she got sick—singing Christmas songs, and decorating Shelby’s tree. Why they had to do it in the middle of the week was beyond Jackie, other than Shelby saying they would have done it Thanksgiving weekend, until all of that “vampire shit” got in the way.
At some point, after a dozen crab puffs and a couple glasses of wine each, they got around to the what-to-get-Nick question.
Jackie responded to this as any sane person would when asked what to get a guy who had been around for nearly 200 years and had millions of dollars stashed away. “How the hell would I know what to get him? The guy has everything he wants about ten times over. How about some new boots? I think his got trashed by Charlotte.” That actually sounded like a decent idea to her. “You know what size shoe he wears?”
Shelby shook her head. “No good. He gets them handmade by this guy in Italy. Nothing compares.”
“Of course not,” Jackie replied. “OK, I’m out of ideas.”
Pfft! Shelby waved Jackie off. “You suck. Get creative. Think out of the box. What kinds of things did you get Laurel?”
Laurel chuckled softly. “Why don’t we move on to another question?”
“Hey! I got you things ... most of the time.” What had she got her for last Christmas? It was something small, like jewelry or something.
“Most of the time?” Shelby looked shocked. “You mean you actually forgot to get Laur a Christmas present?”
“It only happened once,” Jackie started to say. Laurel held up two fingers. Jackie frowned back at her: Really? “OK, twice. I just ... I don’t know! I don’t pay much attention to holidays.”
Cynthia made a tsk-tsk sound, and Shelby looked like her eyes were going to explode out of her head. “How the hell do you not pay attention to Christmas? It’s the best fucking day of the year. It’s goddamn glorious! You get to celebrate all of those you love the most on one day and eat freaking fabulous food until you’re comatose, and sing songs, and you get to unwrap pretty little presents given to you by those you care about the most.”
Jackie looked away from them. Well, who was the biggest loser in the room now? “Jesus. Guess I’ll figure out a damn gift for Nick.”
Shelby laughed. “You’re trying too hard, babe. There’s only one thing our cowboy would like for Christmas, and that is you.”
Jackie felt heat flushing into her face. “You’re all bitches, you know that? Totally unfair.”
“Hey,” Shelby said, grinning ear to ear, “when you forget a Christmas, you’re indebted for life.”
“OK, I get it,” Jackie replied. “I’ll figure something out. What about you guys? What do you all want for Christmas? And don’t you make me come up with shit out of thin air. Give me ideas.”
“Go to Ethereal Lane,” Cynthia said. “Anything you find there will be lovely.”
“I’ll make it easy on you,” Shelby said. “Go to Ernesto’s—you know the place?”
Jackie nodded. “Yeah, hard to forget.”
“Tell Ernesto that Ms. Fontaine would like a bottle of his glorious red. He’ll know what you mean.”
“I can do that.” Jackie looked up from the sofa at Laurel, who smiled affectionately at her, and Jackie’s positive mood plummeted into the muck of memory. “Laur? I’m sorry. I have no clue. I wish I could get you something.”
“I don’t need anything except what’s here right now,” she said. “That’s enough.”
No, it was not enough. Jackie knew exactly what she wanted, seeing how Laurel looked at Shelby when Shelby’s smile turned upon her.
“Love you, baby,” Shelby said and blew Laurel a little kiss. It was as close as they could get without crossing over, but even that was not quite there for them.
Watching Laurel blow the kiss back, Jackie had an abrupt flash of what she would give Laurel for Christmas.
“What, hon?” Laurel looked at her curiously. “What’s that look for?”
Jackie smiled. “Nothing. Just figured out your Christmas present, I think.”
“Oh! What is it?”
She laughed. “Really? No way I’m answering that. Besides I’m not sure I can pull it off, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
Shelby pursed her lips at Jackie’s words. “Now I’m intrigued. What could Ms. Anti-holiday have in store for you, sweetie? A shiny, ripe apple perhaps?”
Jackie chuckled along with them at that. She had it coming. “Up yours. Maybe I’ll change my mind now, if you’re going to give me shit about it.”
“Can’t go back on it now,” Shelby said pointedly. “It’s out there. You put it out there, so you have to get it.”
“Yeah, we’ll see how it goes,” Jackie said. God help me.
Chapter 32
The Thatcher’s Mill case had come to a close, as much as they were concerned with it anyway. There would still be questions asked, but reports had been filed, and the Omaha branch was now handling anything on the FBI’s end of things. Margolin had become respectfully quiet about the entire affair. Perhaps the broken jaw would keep him quiet for a long time.
Tillie prescribed Jackie some sleep medication for the Nix nightmares, and offered her sympathies, but as Jackie suspected, there really was no relief from such a violation other than time. The nightmares would fade and time would heal at least that part of her wounded psyche. Meanwhile, Jackie got to wait for Nix’s eventual return when she was deemed ready, whatever the hell that was. The nightmares would never end until that day arrived, and Jackie was not sure which would be worse.
Nick called every day to check on her, since they were doing nothing Special Investigations related until after the holiday. No, there was no sign of Nix. No, she did not feel like doing much of anything besides letting life settle back down so she could regather herself. He made it quite clear that he would be more than happy to help her settle things back down, but Jackie only thanked him and took a rain check.
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nbsp; Shelby took her shopping every other day it seemed. The woman was a Christmas whore, likely responsible for keeping half the businesses in Chicago afloat during the holiday season. She had a list of people to shop for and things to buy that must have been three pages long. Jackie was sure that Shelby only brought her along to help carry the bags out to her car when done. Still, after a while, Jackie found times when it was actually fun, and Shelby made sure to give her no end of shit for it.
Shopping with Nick for Shelby and Cynthia was a one-day affair and may have been on Jackie’s list as a top five best days of her life. They went to six area spas, testing out services from each, and by the time they were done, Jackie was loose, relaxed, scrubbed, buffed, exfoliated, and smelling better than she likely had in her entire life. They stopped by Ernesto’s for dinner, where they were fawned over like royalty, and Jackie was sure they would walk out somehow engaged. At the end of the night, though, Jackie chose to go home instead of accepting Nick’s invitation to come over, where the inevitable expectation to stay the night would occur, and Jackie would have to figure out how to have sex without freaking out again.
For his part, Nick did not pressure her at all. He seemed all too happy to spend the time together that they did, but the subtle interest was made apparent on a regular basis with an arm on the shoulder or a squeeze on the hand or if they had dinner, the kiss goodnight at the end. It was in those moments that Jackie knew his interest was not going anywhere. Nor was hers, for that matter, but her reluctance made her feel guilty. Nick deserved something. At some point she would have to suck it up and either try again or just break it off. She could not leave him dangling in the wind. It would not be fair. And as much as her cowardly self wished to tuck tail and run, Jackie had a feeling Shelby might actually track her down and kill her for it..
