by Kyle Mills
Beamon fired another round, this time without giving it much thought. Sines was already dead. It just hadn’t registered with him yet.
Beamon ran down the stairs as Sines fell to his back for the last time and caught Sara by the collar before she could make it to her feet.
“Let go of me, you sonofabitch!” she screamed as he dragged her toward the plane and handcuffed her to the bar that supported the stairs.
Beamon stepped away from her and looked down at the pilot’s motionless body. “Stupid asshole,” he said, quietly reprimanding himself. Watching his life come crashing down around his ears was fucking up his judgment. Eleven million members and what, the church is going to use a Mormon to transport a kidnapped girl?
The pilot looked like he’d probably wake up with nothing more than a baseball-sized knot on his head, but he couldn’t say the same for Sines—he was just going to lie there staring up into the rain. Beamon didn’t feel a great deal of remorse over Sines’s demise; what concerned him was why the man was dead. It was because he was allowing lapses in his concentration and getting sloppy.
Sara lunged at him, her unwounded hand twisting into something that resembled a claw. The motion brought Beamon back to the present and he watched her body jerk to a stop as the handcuff around her wrist went taut.
“Be careful you don’t hurt yourself now,” Beamon said, scooping Jennifer up from the puddle she’d landed in and cradling her in his arms. He could feel the warmth of her body seeping into his chest as he pulled her to him.
“Take these off me!” Sara screamed. “You will not do this!”
“Looks like I already did.”
She grabbed the chain between the handcuffs and pulled mightily but pointlessly against them. Blood had started to flow from her wrist and was mixing with the rain to run pale pink down her hand.
“It’s just you and me now, Sara. None of your lackeys are around to accuse me of child molestation or alcoholism. No computers to fuck up my credit cards. It looks like your God’s abandoned you and come over to my side, doesn’t it?”
She suddenly froze and looked up at him, a forced calm registering on her face. “Put her down, Mr. Beamon. It isn’t worth it. If you take her I’ll destroy you and everyone you’ve ever known.”
Beamon flipped Jennifer over his shoulder, drew his gun, and aimed it at Sara’s head.
“No!” she cried, throwing her hands in front of her face and shrinking back as far as the handcuffs would allow. Beamon kept the gun trained on her as she crouched down and averted her eyes toward the pavement, stoking his anger until he couldn’t feel anything else—not the cold, not the weight of Jennifer on his shoulder. Nothing.
He knew he should do it—she would come after him and the girl with everything she had. He should do it for Jennifer, for Goldman, for himself.
But he’d already gone far enough across the line. He took a deep breath and holstered his gun. “You don’t look like much when you’re not surrounded by your church.” Beamon patted the unconscious girl on the backs of her legs. “Thanks for screwing up and letting me get Jennifer back. I reckon she’ll go a long way to straightening out my life.”
The desperation in Sara’s voice warmed Beamon’s heart as he started walking back to his car. “You talked about five million dollars last time we met, Mr. Beamon. What if it was ten? Twenty?”
Beamon paused and turned around so he could enjoy the full effect of Sara’s panic.
“Twenty million? Is that the number?” She pointed to Sines’s body. “No one has to ever know about this.”
She smoothed the damp folds in her dark suit and raised herself to her full height. “You don’t have anywhere to take her anyway, do you? Who can you trust? The FBI? I think you know better than that.”
He took a backward step away from her.
“Wait,” she said in a tone that would have been appropriate for talking a jumper out of leaping from a tall building. “You’ve proven what you can do—I have a hundred times the resources you do and you beat me. You beat me. Now put her down and unlock these handcuffs. Do that, and whatever you want is yours.”
Flattery, no less. He really would have liked to stick around and let her kiss his ass some more, but it was about time to get the hell out of there. The pilot was starting to twitch and somebody at the tower had to have heard the shots. They were probably up there trying to decide which one of them would get to brave the rain.
Beamon turned and started for his car.
“Stop! Wait!”
He quickened his pace.
“You’ll never get out of this,” Sara screamed. The calm, persuasive tone she’d been trying to ply him with was gone. “You’re alone now—we put the old man out of his misery and that little fanatic can’t help you anymore.”
Beamon slowed and finally stopped, still within earshot.
“How could you have left her alone like that? A helpless woman in a wheelchair. How was she supposed to defend herself?”
57
THERE WAS NOTHING THE FIREFIGHTERS could do at this point—other than make sure the blaze didn’t spread to the other homes in the neighborhood. Even the sheets of rain lashing the house could do little to contain the jets of flame gusting from the broken windows and into the dark night.
Beamon parked almost a block and a half away from the bonfire that a few hours ago had been Ernestine Waverly’s house, not wanting to be spotted by the men who had set it. He looked over at Jennifer, whose only movement for the last hour had been prompted by the rocking of the car. Her head was propped against the window and her mouth was open, though Beamon had to concentrate to hear her breathe.
He checked her seatbelt again for no particular reason, then leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. “We got her, Ernie,” he said quietly. “We won.”
When he looked out the windshield again, the chance of the fire spreading seemed pretty remote. The firefighters had abandoned their vigil over the other houses in the neighborhood and were moving through the small knot of rain-slickered people who had braved the elements to see the little house consumed.
He flipped his headlights back on—not that they were necessary, the glow from the fire had lit up the entire neighborhood—and put the car in reverse.
She was dead, he knew; all he could hope for now was that it had been quick. He tried to convince himself of it, but he knew that he was lying to himself. Sara’s Guardians would have undoubtedly wanted to know were he was and what he was up to.
Either she hadn’t told them at all or she’d held out long enough that they hadn’t had time to make it to the airport. Thank God there had never been a reason to tell her where Goldman’s apartment was.
That was it. The last of his patched-together team was dead. And once again, it was his fault. He’d been able to stave off the feeling of guilt about Goldman—at least temporarily. The old man had known what he was doing. Hell, he’d probably been breathing longer than he should have or wanted to.
Ernie was another story. He should have cut loose from her a long time ago. But he hadn’t. He’d been blinded, as he had been a hundred times before, by the problem. Solving it, beating his opponent, proving management wrong. Those things had become everything to him. He’d used her and left her to the wolves.
As the glow in his rearview mirror faded, Beamon couldn’t help thinking about Ernie’s God and her unshakable faith. He’d never believed. He’d never really wanted to. There was something about the concept of a Supreme Being that made him uncomfortable. It robbed the universe of the free will and chaos that made it so interesting. And for that, all you got was an eternity of peace and tranquility. He’d always thought it was a bad trade, making life just a pointless, painful blink of an eye in an eternity of bliss.
For the first time, though, he actually hoped he was wrong and Ernie and the others like her were right. He hoped that in death Ernie would find what she had been looking for in life.
58
BEAMON PULLED HIS SHOTGUN OUT OF THE back seat and leaned it against the side of the car. He looked around him at the rundown apartment complex that had become his new home, but didn’t see any movement. Other than the muffled sound of yet another pre-coitus spat coming from the apartment next to his, the complex was silent.
Fortunately, it was also pretty dark. Most of the bulbs in the parking area’s floodlights were burned out and none of the residents seemed interested in paying for the power necessary to keep their carriage lights on.
Beamon pulled Jennifer’s limp body from the car and slung her over his shoulder. He looked around him one more time before picking up the shotgun and beginning across the icy walkway toward Goldman’s apartment.
The snow in front of his door had been washed away by the rain, making it impossible to look for telltale footprints. The curtains were still closed and it looked to be dark inside the apartment, but that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. He unlocked the door, took a deep breath, and pushed it open with the barrel of the shotgun.
Empty.
No doubt thanks to the seemingly endless supply of phony IDs under which jack Goldman had transacted nearly all his business.
Beamon kicked a couple of boxes off the sofa and dropped Jennifer onto it, then fell into a chair and turned on the TV. Unscrewing the cap from what was left of the bottle of bourbon next to him with one hand, he flipped to a local station with the other. Ten more minutes until the eleven o’clock news.
He’d gotten what he wanted so badly, he reflected, taking a long pull directly from the bottle. The infamous Jennifer Davis was now gracing his sofa at the low, low cost of three lives. Three and a half, if he counted what was left of his own.
Beamon took another shot from the bottle and then screwed the cap back on. It wasn’t over yet. Four more days until Jennifer was scheduled for her promotion to godhood. Four days for Sara to correct her mistake. And with the FBI after him and Ernie and Goldman dead, holding onto the girl might prove more challenging than finding her had been. By now there were probably a thousand Kneissians scouring every apartment complex and hotel for three hundred miles looking for him. Not good.
He looked over at Jennifer. Except for the bare feet, she was dressed in the same clothes that she was reported last seen in—the pair of shorts and sweatshirt she’d donned after her fourth-place finish in Phoenix. She looked thinner than she had in her photographs and the calculatedly obvious dye job that kids seemed to favor these days had grown out a bit, revealing an infinitely prettier natural brown. The ring was gone from her slightly swollen nose, and dark circles had painted themselves under her eyes. ?ll in all, she looked like the only person on earth who had had a worse month than him.
The local news opened with dramatic scenes of the blaze at Ernie’s house. Interviews with firefighters suggested that they hadn’t yet investigated the cause of the fire or whether anyone was inside when it started. They said they were just going to let it burn out and would know more tomorrow.
Beamon watched the rest of the program, his eyes darting nervously to the door every few seconds. There was still no mention of Goldman’s death and nothing on the shooting at the air terminal. He suspected there never would be.
When the weather came on, Beamon turned the old TV off and lit a cigarette.
What now?
If he could keep Jennifer alive for the next four days and get her story on record, she should be safe. Sara struck him as vindictive but certainly not stupid.
Staying at the apartment was out of the question. It was possible that the church’s people would never find this place—the threads leading to it were pretty thin—but he couldn’t risk it. And that left very few options.
One: Dump the car and hole up in a motel somewhere.
Not exactly ideal. It still left him alone against the combined forces of the church and the way his luck was running, he’d end up in a Kneissian-owned hotel. But even if he didn’t, they’d sure as hell be looking for him at all the hotels in the area and would be watching all the roads out of town.
Two: Take her to the press.
But who in the press? Obviously, the church had contacts there or he’d still have a job. Besides, they’d be watching for him there, too. And that didn’t solve his problem of keeping Jennifer’s head off the chopping block until the Easter season was safely over.
Three: Take her to the FBI.
Probably his best option, but still less than ideal. He wasn’t really ready to go in yet—there were some loose ends that he wanted to tie up before he condemned himself to six months in endless conduct hearings, and probably three to five in any number of conveniently located local penitentiaries.
Chet Michaels was the answer. Or at least the lesser of the evils. They could meet somewhere a few miles from the Phoenix office and Michaels could drive them in, with Jennifer, Beamon, and his shotgun keeping out of sight.
Even if Layman was involved with, or being blackmailed by, the church, what could he do? Jennifer would be standing in the middle of a crowded office and would become public property. From then on, the whole thing would be someone else’s responsibility.
59
BEAMON JERKED AWAKE AT THE QUIET creak of the sofa. He was confused for a few moments—by the weight of the shotgun lying across his lap, by the young girl unconscious on the couch.
The events of the prior week started replaying themselves before his mind was completely back on line. His suspension, Carrie, Jack’s and Ernie’s deaths, and finally, the girl he’d taken possession of last night. Along with a whole host of other problems.
Jennifer was still more or less in the position he’d left her in, Beamon noted as he stood and stretched his back. The apartment was silent, except for the low drone of the computers that surrounded him. The only thing that had changed was the sun filtering through the dusty blinds.
Beamon leaned the shotgun against his chair and walked over to the sofa. He reached down and gave Jennifer a gentle shake. Her muscles tensed for an instant and then went slack again. Faker.
He shook her again, this time a bit harder. “Come on, Jennifer. Rise and shine. I know you’re awake.”
No reaction at all this time.
He went into the kitchen and filled a rusty pan halfway with ice from the freezer. “Wake up, Jennifer. Last chance,” he warned as he filled the pan the rest of the way with water.
Humming quietly, he put a ltd over the pan and walked back to the sofa, slowly swirling the mixture. He could see Jennifer’s neck stiffen almost imperceptibly as she tried to decipher the unfamiliar sound of ice rolling against metal. Beamon moved the lid so that there was about a three- quarters-inch gap and began pouring the contents of the pan on her face.
The first splash of water had barely reached her before she was off the couch and diving over the old coffee table toward the chair Beamon had slept in that night.
It was quite a show, really. By the time Beamon had tilted the pan back up to check the water’s flow onto the now-empty sofa, he had a very scared- looking fifteen-year-old girl pointing a loaded shotgun at him.
Beamon screwed up his face and closed his eyes hard. Nearly two decades of putting some of the most notorious criminals in the world behind bars and an adolescent girl was the first person to ever get ahold of his gun. In the unlikely event he survived long enough to write a report on this investigation, he’d probably leave this part out.
Beamon slowly opened one eye. “Looks like you got the drop on me, Tex.” He opened the other. “Jesus, I don’t remember ever being young enough to move that fast.”
“Freeze!”
“How ‘bout I sit instead?” He placed the pan on the coffee table and plopped down on the sofa.
“I’ll shoot!” Jennifer said as Beamon reached into his pocket. He slowed the motion of his hand and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Tapping one out into his hand, he said, “I believe you, kid. But let’s make sure that if you do shoot me, it’s because you want to.” He held his ligh
ter to the end of the cigarette. “What would you say about moving your finger off that trigger a little bit?”
He patted what remained of the stubborn roll of fat that wouldn’t release his waistline. “I think you’ll agree that I’m in no condition to get all the way across the room before you can move your finger half an inch.”
She looked at him suspiciously but finally moved her quivering finger off the trigger. “Who who are you?”
“Mark Beamon. I’m with the FBI.”
“You don’t look like an FBI agent.”
He assumed she meant his casual clothing. People seemed to think FBI agents slept in their suits. “Thank you.”
“Let me see your ID.”
Beamon frowned. “Actually, saying that I’m with the FBI is a bit of an exaggeration. I was with the FBI until I got suspended last week. That’s your fault, actually.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Beamon shrugged. “What’re you going to do, then?”
Jennifer chewed her lip for a moment, then moved toward a haggard-looking sideboard and began pulling open the drawers. She found a phone book in the third one she looked in and flipped through the first few pages, keeping one eye trained on him.
“Oh. I’d rather you didn’t do that,” Beamon said as she reached for the phone on the sideboard. “Could be traced here. Use this one.” He slid his cell phone off the coffee table and rolled it across the floor to her.
She looked at it like it might explode but eventually picked it up and dialed.
“Hello? Hi. Uh, I’d like to speak to Mark Beamon, please.” She looked him up and down while she waited to be connected. The gun was shaking less now and the barrel had dipped a bit from its previous position pointing directly at his face. Not that it really mattered.
“Hello? I’m trying to reach Mark Beamon … No, I don’t want to leave a message, it’s pretty important… Oh. Really? Could you hold on for a second?”
