Moon Mourning

by J. R. Rain

  Grr! He’s on the express to Crazy Town, but I can’t let him punch that little girl’s ticket. “All right. Calm down, Joey.” I let the Glock roll back on my finger and lower my arm.

  “Toss it,” he says, pulling her higher so her head obscures most of his face.

  “Ow!” she wails, pedaling her legs in the air and jerking at the handcuffs. “Put me down! Joey! Please stop!”

  I toss the Glock into the dirt nearby with a soft thump. “Leave the child out of it, Joey.”

  “Oh, no way, bitch. This kid’s the only thing keeping me alive. You took the keys, didn’t you? Give me the keys, then it’s your turn to hug this tree.”

  “The FBI is already on the way, Joey. You won’t get far. It’ll go easier for you if you give up.”

  Joey pushes her head sideways with the gun and screams, “Keys! Now!”

  Eva wails.

  Even if I do what he wants, he’s probably still going to shoot her. Or kidnap her. Child plus interstate car chase is a worst-case scenario. Guess watching me jump on Dale and suck blood from his chest wound snapped the last straw of a brain overloaded with conspiracies.

  Eva whimpers and begs him to let go of her, but her protests only make the crazy in his eyes flare brighter.

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Shattered

  Eva strains to stretch her legs toward the ground, toes missing the dirt by inches. Her hands turn red from her struggle to slip out of the cuffs.

  Joey keeps staring at me. One good thing about this condition of mine, I can do ‘corpse-still’ really damn well. He’s probably expecting me to leap on him and rip his head off or something; after all, he saw me feed on a dead man, so I don’t even twitch an eyelid. He also saw me take a bullet with the best of them.

  “What are you doing?” yells Eva. “Stop it! I thought you were my friend!”

  “He’s not your friend, Eva,” I say, in as soothing a tone as I can. “I’m sorry, but you’ve been lied to your whole life. These people aren’t your friends. All they know is hate. They’re only nice to you as long as they think you are a benefit to them.”

  Shaking with fear and rage, Joey shouts at me, spittle flying from his teeth. “Hurry the hell up. Keys, now, or I’m gonna kill this kid. You wanna live with that?”

  My eyes narrow. “Eva is your only ticket out of here, Joey. If you shoot her, there’s nothing stopping me from pulling your arms off, one after the other.”

  Motion in my peripheral vision draws my attention. Terrell slips out of the root cellar, eyeing me. He creeps toward Joey, circling around, angling to approach from behind. I knew investigative reporters had balls, and this guy is living proof of that.

  “All right, Joey,” I say. “Do you want the keys to the Ford, the Chevy, or the van?”

  “Uhh.” He glances past me at the cluster of vehicles.

  Terrell edges closer.

  “You might want to go with the van,” I say. “It’s enclosed, so you can hide Eva in the back. I mean if you’re going to kidnap a child, better no one can just look in the window and see her, right?”

  Joey blinks. “Uhh, yeah, okay. The van… and gimme the keys for these cuffs, too.”

  I shrug. “Suit yourself, but you’ll probably need them. Instead of chaining me to that tree, you should probably leave them on Eva so she doesn’t run away. In fact, you guys have a whole box of them down in the cellar. Better chain her ankles, too, so she doesn’t get away.”

  Joey twitches, his eyes shifting right and left. Guess his brain can’t handle too many things going on at once.

  Eva gives me a what-the-hell stare.

  “On the other hand,” I mutter, my stance going casual as I tap a finger on my chin. “Vans get poor gas mileage. Not that trucks are much better, but if you’re going to be eluding the authorities, every time you stop for gas is a chance to get caught. What if Eva makes a run for it and asks the clerk for help?”

  Terrell’s eyes lock on to Joey’s gun arm. He’s three steps away.

  “Uhh, you’re confusing the shit out of me,” says Joey. His face goes red. “Keys now or I’m gonna kill all three of us!”

  “Well, two of us would die tonight. I’m kind of hard to kill, remember?”

  “Give me the goddamned keys right the hell now, or this kid is going splat!”

  “All right. I’ll give you the keys. Just, do me one little favor?”

  “What?” he rasps.

  “Please take the gun away from her head, so you don’t accidentally destroy your ticket out of here. My gun’s way over there. I’ll never get to it before you can shoot her, so it’s okay to stop pressing the gun to her head. No one wants an accident, right?”

  “Uhh.”

  Eva wails, hanging limply in his arm. “Please, Joey! Please!”

  I reach into my jeans pocket and pull out a random set of keys from one of the vehicles behind me. “Here’s the keys. Just move the gun away from the side of her head.”

  Joey relaxes his weapon. The instant the .45 is no longer pointed at Eva, Terrell lunges. At that, I rush forward. Joey and Terrell grunt in a twisting struggle. Terrell pushes him away from Eva, who falls to her knees as he shoves Joey away from her. Joey spins at Terrell; the weapon goes off with a sharp bang and a flash.

  The men fly apart, Terrell collapsing on his side, clutching his shoulder. Joey spins back to face toward me/Eva, but screams like a schoolgirl at finding me right on top of him. Before his brain can even process how I covered twenty feet in a second, my fist mashes into his nose.

  He doesn’t make a sound, other than the dull thud of flesh and bone colliding. His floppy body flows over backward and lands a good ten feet away, skidding and sliding. He’s clearly out cold, blood streaming from both nostrils. The urge to kill him rises up inside me, but… not in front of a child. And… I’m still a federal agent. An unconscious man isn’t an imminent threat.

  “Terrell!” I run to his side and slide to a stop on my knees. “How bad?”

  “Shoulder.” He cringes. “Hurts like hell, but I’m still here.”

  I grab his hand and put it over the wound. “Keep pressure on it. Help is already on the way.”

  He nods, wincing and gasping.

  Eva’s simmered down to faint whimpering. She’s scooted around the tree to the other side so she can watch us, and stares at Terrell with an expression of abject shock. Joey’s .45 left a red mark on the side of her head behind her right eye.

  “Thanks for holding on to these for me,” I say while grasping the handcuff chain. “Joey needs them now.”

  She glances up into my eyes. Her lip quivers, but she neither cries nor speaks. Oh, screw it. This kid’s going to have enough problems without me putting it in my report that she fired a weapon at me.

  “Make you a deal, ’kay?” I ask, while inserting the handcuff key. “I unlock you, and you behave like a nice normal little girl and don’t run off, grab a gun, or do something crazy, all right? And I won’t tell anyone you tried to shoot me.”

  She manages a mute nod, and stares at my chest. “I did shoot you.”

  “No, sweetie. If you hit me, I’d be hurt, right? And I’m not. You missed.” I unlock the cuffs, staring into her eyes, wanting with all the willpower I can summon that she forgets shooting me. Not that I expect anything to happen, but, maybe God is listening. “You’re going to have enough challenges ahead of you without having to worry about attempted murder of a federal agent. Behave yourself, and as far as my report will say, you didn’t even have a weapon.”

  Eva shies away from me as soon as I free her, and sits curled in a ball at the base of the tree. She stares over her knees at Terrell. “He helped me. After all that mean stuff I said.”

  I tromp over and cuff Joey’s hands behind his back. “Terrell is not ‘unclean,’ Eva,” I say. “He’s a person, like you. Your parents lied to you. They live in a world of ignorance and hatred, but you don’t have to.”

  The crunch
of tires on dirt reach my ears. Guess backup’s coming in quiet―no sirens. I pull out my cell phone again and call Nico.

  Amazingly, Eva crawls over to Terrell. Her own parents are injured in the cellar, but she chose to go to Terrell first. He lifts his hand and she grasps it. They have a silent moment. Perhaps understanding, or at least doubt glimmers in her eyes. I don’t expect that kid to ever like me. She might never forgive me for sending her parents to prison. Still, I’ll call it a win if she can learn to think for herself.

  Nico answers. “Talk to me, Moon.”

  “I’m pretty sure the area is secure. I hear cars approaching. Where’s that ambulance?”

  “Look up in about two minutes,” says Nico. “A medical bird is inbound.”

  I jog over and collect Joey’s .45 as well as retrieve my Glock. “Great. Let them know I’m in here, huh? Don’t wanna get shot. Four suspects in custody, one with bullet wounds. Terrell Summerlin, the missing reporter, has a bullet wound to the shoulder. I’ve got a minor child here as well… Mitch Gallagher’s daughter. She’s gonna need CPS… and a therapist.”

  The whud-whud-whud of an approaching helicopter drowns out the cars. Headlights wash over the front gate compound a second or two before a convoy of black SUVs roll in. “The king’s men are all here. Gotta go.”

  “Right.” Nico lets out a resigned sigh before hanging up.

  Yay. This is going to be fun.

  I make sure my badge is clearly visible on my belt and walk out toward the approaching trucks.

  “I hear a helicopter,” says Eva.

  “Yep. That’s an air ambulance for Terrell and your parents.”

  Agents in black and body armor spill out of the trucks. A cluster of laser sight dots swarms over my chest for a second until the guys notice my badge.

  I smile. “You boys are a little late to the party. All the cake’s gone.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Guilty

  When I get home at four in the morning, I pluck Anthony from his bed, carry him to Tammy’s room, and sit there holding them both while they sleep.

  Danny finds me sitting in Tammy’s bed at 5:54 a.m. He always wakes up right before the alarm goes off. “Bad night?”

  “Yeah… something like that.”

  He drifts over. “What happened?”

  “Busted some bad guys last night.”

  The color drains out of his cheeks. “Serious? What happened?”

  “Tell you later.”

  “That bad?”

  I nod. “Pretty bad.”

  “Did anyone, ah, get killed?”

  “Not that I know of. Still, I’m probably going to get fired today, Danny.”

  I kiss the kids one after the next atop their heads. The sun’s coming up. I can feel it as surely as, well, as surely as anything. The drowsiness is hitting, and it’s hitting hard. Despite my exhaustion, I say, “Stayed up late doing research. Found where the guy was hiding out. Maybe I went in without getting approval.”

  “Cripes, Sam.” Danny runs a hand up over his head.

  “Well.” I half smile. “I wasn’t exactly told not to go in.”

  Tammy stirs. “Good morning, Mommy.”

  I squeeze her. “Good morning, Tam Tam.”

  Is it fair that my children still have their parents while Eva’s are going away for a long time? No, it isn’t. But this existence of ours is not based on fairness. Truth be told, if I stretch technicalities, my children have already lost their mother. I’m just too damn stubborn to accept that. And, though I’m sure Eva disagrees, she’s better off being away from them.

  Eventually, the weight of the rising sun is too much, and I lose about ten minutes. By the time I can force myself to function again, I’m alone in Anthony’s room. Clinking spoons tell me they’re all in the kitchen having breakfast. All talk of my midnight foray has to wait. I stumble off the bed and trudge down the hall to the kitchen with the closest thing to a smile I can conjure in my current dazed state. We go through the motions of a normal family breakfast, except I drag my barely-conscious butt to the fridge for a ‘special milkshake.’

  Danny takes the kids in the Beemer, now with car seats, on his way to the office. I stand in the doorway, inches away from sunlight, and I can’t figure out what I dread more: going through the sunblock and makeup routine or facing Nico.

  Well, whatever I do with my unlife after this, termination for not showing up won’t look good. Being late, though, screw it. I take a hot shower to get rid of the smell of gunpowder and blood. There’s a little bit of red skin around where Eva shot me. If recent events mean anything, the red skin will be gone in days, if not hours. I nearly fall asleep twice in the bathroom, but force myself to keep going.

  Much sooner than preferable, I’m painted up in sunblock and foundation, and out the door.

  I don’t even make it to my desk before Nico’s in the aisle between cubes giving me the look.

  As soon as his office door shuts, he almost shouts, “What were you thinking?”

  “Sorry.” This moment has been the substance of my nightmares for years. In the boss’ office getting chewed out for screwing up. Even in training, I’d have bad dreams of my career going down in flames like this. Every single cop movie/TV series has the protagonist butting heads with their boss. I guess I thought real life wouldn’t be like that. It hadn’t been… until now.

  “Jesus, Sam.” Nico walks a circle around his desk twice before falling into his chair. “I spent two hours on the phone with Strickland getting reamed out, and then had another half-hour tag-team bitch-out session with ATF Frank and DeLuca from the FBI. My ass has been chewed so much, I’m going to be missing pieces for a month.”

  “I’m sorry. I… listened to my gut.” Strickland is Nico’s immediate supervisor. No one really likes him, but no one dislikes him either. The man has raised bland to an art form. He’s basically a policy and procedure manual that evolved sentience. “I had a hunch they’d be gone before the FBI found them.”

  His eyebrows go up. “Your gut.” Nico drums his fingers on the desk for a moment. “I’ve got five people in the hospital, the two from the house plus your shooting spree in the cellar. You nearly made an orphan on top of it. At least tell me she didn’t watch.”

  I cringe. “No, sir. She was waiting for me outside. They brainwashed her, too. Kid was ready to kick my ass but, she’s still a kid. Didn’t do anything. I talked her down.”

  “And…” Nico tosses a newspaper at the front of his desk. He tried to land it so I could see the headline, but it flopped wrong. Grumbling, he flips it over and points at an article.

  Militia Groups Rally―Waco II?

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I mutter. “It was hardly a massacre like that. No one even died.”

  “Still, there are at least six militia groups in the western United States using this raid of yours as a springboard for recruitment.” His expression softens―a little. “At least you managed to get that reporter out of there alive.”

  “How is he doing?” I ask.

  “He’ll live. Be in the hospital longer than Chad, but he’ll live.” Nico gives me a long, weird stare. “What exactly did you do to the suspect, Sam? The young guy, Joey? He’s stark raving mad. Claims you’re a demon or something that won’t die.”

  I shrug. “He was already sanity-challenged. I guess he tried to shoot me and missed, but he thinks he hit me. Who knows how this nutjob’s mind works?”

  “What happened in there, Sam? Off the record. Between me and you. What the hell happened out there?”

  Hmm. Just how much should I tell my boss? I decide the poor sucker isn’t ready for the truth. Hell, who would be? I say, “I went in there attempting to verify that Joey Bell was at the location. The idea that Terrell Summerlin might still be alive crossed my mind.” I explain finding word of his going missing during my investigation. “I observed one of the suspects kick the root cellar and taunt Terrell, so I decided to try and sneak in and get him out. My o
bjective was not to engage any of them, sir. I wanted to slip in and out, but before I could leave with Terrell, I was confronted in the cellar. I identified myself as a federal agent, but Mitch, Ted, and Joey thought that, due to the remoteness of the area, they could kill me and no one would ever find out… when they pointed their weapons at me, I had no choice but to react. Mrs. Gallagher then entered the cellar, observed her husband and his friend wounded, and picked up a weapon.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her from picking up a weapon?” Nico taps his pen against his left hand in a repetitive gesture. The hollow plastic clicking pounds into my brain.

  “As soon as he recognized me, Joey ran away and dropped his rifle by the stairs. She was too far for me to get to her, and I didn’t want to shoot her. However, she moved to kill Mr. Summerlin, but I’d managed to get close enough to jump on her before she could shoot him.”

  “This is a giant goddamned mess, Sam.” He grumbles to himself for a moment, shaking his head at the desk. “I realize I didn’t specifically order you not to pursue it, but I thought that implication had been clear when I told you the investigation had been handed off to the FBI and ATF… and I really hope you’ve got a good explanation for why you had a military-spec M16 in your personal vehicle?”

  “I confiscated it from Renton Chase. He’s a paroled felon. You know me, sir, I had every intention of turning it in.”

  “I know you, but it doesn’t look great. HUD agent with a Rambo complex. You know how the FBI people are. They think we’re all just a bunch of underachievers who couldn’t make it in the big leagues.”

  “That’s not who I am, sir. Nor you, or Chad. Or anyone I know here.”

  He rubs the bridge of his nose. “You don’t need to convince me of that.”

  “Those people threatened me. They had Terrell locked up for days, torturing him.”

  “That’s no reason to conduct a solo raid. Even if they are a pack of monosyllabic bigots.”

  I sit straighter, shaking off a bit of the day-fatigue trying to drag me off to sleep. I’m really starting to hate the smell of sunblock. “They were going to kill me, sir. And Terrell. And, later, Joey was inches from killing the little girl.”