Shelter From the Storm

by Peter Sexton

  They stood in silence for a long time. Gillian could only imagine what Edward’s reaction would have been when he discovered they had stolen his work. Some of the things she had loved most about him were his passion, his drive, and his integrity.

  “I’m not going to let you hurt Miranda,” Gillian said, with a confidence that surprised even herself. “I lost her once. I’m not going to lose her again. I’ve already missed too much of her life.”

  “She knows what Edward knew,” he said. “We believe he transferred copies of everything to her before he was killed. And then the crazy girl broke into my office. I don’t even want to think about what she got then.”

  “So now what? Now you’re just going to kill her,” Gillian said, “simple as that.”

  “Don’t make it sound like this is easy for me, Gillian. It isn’t. Miranda’s your daughter. If there was another way, believe me, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Gillian said nothing. She took Anderson’s empty glass to the sink, washed it, and returned it to the cupboard. She wiped down the counter with a damp dishtowel.

  “You haven’t asked me about the package your people were looking for in Oak Hill,” Gillian said.

  Anderson looked as though she had just slapped him hard across the face.

  “So did you find it?” she asked.

  He gave her a sour, troubled smile. “I guess you must already know the answer to that.”

  She nodded. “I guess I must.”

  “These aren’t pleasant people I’m mixed up with, Gillian. Miranda, you, me; they won’t think twice to adding another person to their body count if they have to. They’ll kill each and every one of us.”

  Gillian believed Anderson spoke the truth. She stared at him for a time.

  “The years have treated you well, Robert,” she said finally, as though they hadn’t just been dis- cussing an imminent and very real threat. “I could have fallen in love with you. Who knows, maybe I did.” She stared at him for several moments before leading him to the door. “Take care of yourself.” She opened the door and waited for him to start out. “And take care to leave my daughter alone.”

  “I can’t do that,” Anderson said. “You know I can’t.”

  Gillian gently shook her head, then she stared Anderson straight in the face. “Let me tell you why you’re going to do exactly that.”

  Fifty-Three

  “Keep going,” Miranda said, “don’t stop.”

  She watched the front of her mother’s house as Lawrence drove past.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Who is that?”

  “His name’s Anderson. He’s the guy my father worked for at Earth’s Own.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lawrence jerked the car to the curb as he said, “Gillian!”

  He was pushing the gearshift into park when Miranda grabbed his arm.

  “She was standing just inside the door,” Miranda said. “She looked fine.” Miranda was going to add that it looked as though they had just pulled out of an embrace, but decided that fact wasn’t presently relevant.

  Lawrence sat back in the driver’s seat.

  “So now what?” he asked.

  Gillian hurried out onto the porch and looked down the street, as Miranda and Lawrence let themselves into the house. She was obviously looking for Anderson. A look of relief came onto her face when she didn’t see him.

  “It’s all right, Mother. He’s gone.”

  Gillian turned to face Miranda. “What?”

  “We watched him leave. He’s gone.”

  “Did he see you?” Gillian asked, fear and concern bleeding from her voice.

  “No,” Miranda assured her.

  Gillian stared at Miranda and Lawrence for a long, awkward moment. Then: “I’m glad you’re both all right.”

  “We’re fine,” Miranda said.

  They all walked back into the house and made their way to the kitchen, where they stood together through a long silence.

  No one seemed eager to speak. Then Gillian said, “So what’s going on, Miranda? How much deeper have you gotten yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” Miranda admitted. “Pretty deep, I think.” She weighed her next words carefully, trying to figure out the best way to deliver them. The aroma of fresh brewed coffee filled her nostrils, almost distracting her. The hum of the refrigerator seemed to grow to a ferocious growl. Then she simply said, “Maybe you should tell me. How much deeper have I gotten, Mother?”

  “And how should I know that, Miranda?”

  “It looked like you were having a nice little chat with Dad’s old boss. What did he tell you? How deep am I?”

  Gillian considered Miranda’s question. She picked up her empty coffee mug and rinsed it in the sink, then turned and rested her weight against the counter. “Pretty deep, Miranda.” She looked from Miranda to Lawrence, and back again. “Maybe too deep for me to be able to help you.”

  Lawrence said, “What did that man tell you, Gil? Why was he here? Why did he come to our home?”

  Miranda saw tears creep into the corners of her mother’s eyes. She wondered about the embrace she thought she had witnessed a few minutes ago. What the hell was going on? Who the hell was this man?

  “Mother?” Miranda pressed.

  Gillian tilted her head, nodded. “Robert and your father and I knew each other a long time ago. Back before you were born. We all met in college.”

  Lawrence stared expectantly at his wife.

  Gillian continued. “I saw something in Robert today that I have never seen in him before, something that truly frightened me.”

  “What?” Miranda asked.

  “Fear. Dread. A profound and utter uncertainty. That, more than anything, is what frightens me. He looked desperate. I don’t remember ever seeing him look like that.”

  “Why was he here?” Lawrence repeated.

  Miranda heard confusion and desperation in his voice, maybe even a little fear.

  “I think he came here to kill me.”

  Lawrence: “What?”

  Gillian ignored her husband and continued. “I asked him how he got Edward mixed up in all this mess. I asked him about the baby food, and what his involvement in all that business was.” She took a moment for a long breath, brought her hands to- gether and held them that way for a time before she continued. “You see, Robert manages to gravitate toward causes. I knew there had to be something he was mixed up in, something he got Edward mixed up in.” She shook her head. “All he told me about was an email he had accidently sent to Edward.”

  Miranda nodded. She remembered how upset her father had been about the email.

  Gillian looked at Miranda. The tears were in full force now.

  “Robert’s in way over his head, Miranda. He couldn’t tell me who’s running the show, but who- ever’s pulling his strings is tugging pretty damned hard. I think he’s about to fall apart.”

  Lawrence: “Gil?”

  “I think now he believes his only chance of getting out of this alive himself is to make sure you’re dead, and hopefully destroy whatever evidence you might have.”

  “Is that where he went?” Miranda asked, “to look for me?”

  “I’m not sure. Yes, I suppose. Maybe not. I don’t know.” Gillian grabbed Miranda’s forearm gently, held it as she stared at her daughter. “I think I might have been able to buy you some time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He asked about the package your father sent to Your Postal Partner. He believes it contains copies of the evidence Edward was gathering before he was killed.”

  “He doesn’t know you destroyed it?”

  “Wait here,” Gillian said. She left them in the kitchen for a moment and returned with a medium size brown wooden chest.

  “What’s this?” Miranda asked, though she had a pretty good idea.

  “I’ve been going through some things from my past, things that I think you should have now.”

 
She handed the chest to Miranda. Inside Miranda saw a small box wrapped in brown packaging paper. She picked it up and read the destination address printed on the face of it. She recognized her father’s mechanical writing, the address and box number at Your Postal Partner.

  “You said you threw this into the fire,” Miranda said, taking the small package into her hand.

  “Before Robert showed up here today, I had actually planned to do just that. I thought it would be better—safer—for you if this package simply didn’t exist. But then he showed up on my doorstep, and I realized it might be better if you have it.” Gillian frowned. “I’m sorry, Miranda. I genuinely hoped this whole mess would just blow over.”

  Miranda ran her fingertips along the edges of the box.

  Gillian said, “I told him I gave this package to my lawyer, and that he has been instructed to take it to the media if anything happens to any of us.”

  Lawrence asked, “You think he believed you?”

  Miranda looked up from the package and stared at her mother, waiting for the answer.

  Gillian frowned. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Fifty-Four

  Major Toni Lee entered the house through the back. Quietly. Invisibly. Her presence at the home of Gillian and Lawrence Blackwell served a singular purpose, and she expected to be here less than five minutes.

  She progressed through the house, room by room, Beretta 9mm in hand, the sound suppressor extend- ing three inches beyond the end of the barrel. The living room and kitchen were empty. The house itself utterly soundless. She stood in the kitchen for a moment and heard the steady tick-tick-tick of the battery-operated clock hanging over the counter on the north wall. She moved to the sliding glass door and peered outside, but found no one along the side of the house.

  The next logical room to check was the guest bedroom. Empty. So were the laundry room and both bathrooms. She followed the Beretta upstairs, plac- ing her weight on the outer edges of the steps in order to avoid the telling report of loose, creaky boards.

  She went through each second-floor room without finding any sign of Gillian Blackwell. Lee knew the woman couldn’t have known she was coming, so it was unlikely that she would be hiding. But Lee checked the attic anyway. Still nothing.

  The only room left to check was the garage. It didn’t surprise Lee to find it void of vehicles. Gillian Blackwell simply wasn’t home. So where was she? Where had she gone? Lee glanced at her watch and wondered how much time she was willing to spend waiting for Gillian to return. Certainly not much. There was no way of knowing where she had gone or how long she would be. Still, Gillian Blackwell would have to be eliminated, as would her husband.

  No loose ends.

  Lee was exiting the garage back into the house when her eyes fell on two cardboard boxes resting on the ground next to the kitchen table. She rifled through them and found letters and photographs and various knick-knacks. She picked up a program for a symphony concert, then a copy of a book called Looking For Mercy written by Lawrence Blackwell. Lee opened the book and found the inscription: For Gillian, My greatest pleasure was meeting you today. I hope to see you again very soon. It had simply been signed Lawrence. No last name. As she dropped the book back into the box, a black and white photo- graph caught her eye.

  The photo had a white border around it and one of the corners had been dog-eared. Of the four people in the picture, Lee recognized three of them. One woman she recognized as Gillian Blackwell. She’d never seen the other woman before. One of the men was Edward August when he was younger and had more brown in his hair. But recognizing the second man was what gave her pause. Even though he sported a full head of hair back then, and had obviously been slimmer and more fit, the man with Edward and Gillian was none other than Robert Anderson.

  Lee flipped the photograph over, looking for a processing date. There was none. She flipped it back and studied it some more. She guessed it had to have been taken in the late 60s or early 70s. The two couples, if indeed that’s what they had been, ap- peared happy and carefree. Their whole lives ahead of them, the world at their fingertips.

  “You never actually mentioned just how far back you and Edward August went,” Lee said to the picture of Anderson. She slipped the photograph into her back pocket and walked out of the house, glancing up at the red sky created by the setting sun. She returned moments later with a black duffel bag retrieved from the trunk of her car. She glanced at her watch, allotted herself an additional twenty min- utes, and began working.

  Just under her deadline, her task had been completed and she was ready to leave. The house was now rigged with enough C4 to blow it completely off the map. The explosives were connected to trip wires attached to every door leading into the house, in- cluding the garage. Lee made a final inspection pass through the home to check her work. Satisfied, she exited through a rear window.

  Anderson either wasn’t answering his cell phone or had turned it off. Lee thought about this as she drove south from Santa Barbara toward the Earth’s Own laboratories in Camarillo. She had to locate him as soon as possible. He was becoming possibly more of a liability than she had initially believed.

  But first she needed to take care of the girl.

  She dialed another number and the call was answered on the second ring.

  “Trammel,” the voice came back instantly.

  “It’s Lee. Where are you?”

  There was some hesitation before he said, “Trying to locate Miranda. Where are you?”

  “I mean geographically, where are you?”

  Still more hesitation. “Santa Barbara. Why? What’s going on?”

  “I’ve found her,” Lee lied. “I want backup when I take her out. There’s no more room for error. This has to be done right once and for all.”

  “Where is she?”

  “There’s activity in the lab in Camarillo. I got a video feed off one of the remaining security cameras. It’s her.”

  “Are you already there?” Trammel asked.

  “No. I’m about an hour away.”

  “It’ll take me about forty-five minutes,” Trammel said. “Don’t do anything until I get there.”

  Fifty-Five

  Lee watched Trammel exit his car and hustle across the parking lot. She caught the look of concern on his face as he passed beneath one of the sodium vapor lights. She waited for him by the front door to the facility. The smell of fresh-mowed grass was in the air. As he approached, Lee pushed her key into the lock and let them in.

  “What’s going on?” Trammel said immediately. “Where’s Miranda?”

  Lee shrugged. “Gone. She left about fifteen min- utes after I talked to you.”

  “What? How’d she give you the slip?”

  Another shrug. “Anderson called wanting an update, wanting to know where the girl was and what I was doing to locate her. I turned my attention from her no more than a minute, and she was gone.”

  “Where’d she go?” Desperation and concern hov- ered in his voice.

  Lee led them into a conference room that sported no windows. She flicked the switch and made her way around the large, industrial table and sat down and waited for Trammel to sit as well. When he finally followed suit, Lee spread a map out before them. After studying it for a moment, she looked up at Trammel and said, “She couldn’t have gotten far. Any idea where she might be headed?”

  Trammel scanned the map closely. “I don’t know. She could be going anywhere.”

  “You’ve been on her tail, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So where has she been?” Lee asked. “Tell me some places I can cross off my list so I can narrow my search.”

  He hesitated. “Her mother’s house. I was just leaving there when you called.”

  “What did you find?” Lee asked. She watched him carefully, expecting to hear some blatant lies. Had he truly just come from Gillian Blackwell’s home, then she would have seen him there.

  “Gillian Blackwell was alone at her house. I c
hecked it out thoroughly, but the girl wasn’t there.”

  Lee nodded, glanced at her watch.

  “Listen,” she said. “I think we have a problem. I think someone on the inside is helping the girl.” She paused a moment for dramatic effect, watched Trammel to gauge his reaction. “I think this person might even be feeding her sensitive information about our movements.”

  Trammel looked confused. He glanced down at his empty hands. When he looked back up there appeared to be concern on his face. “Someone on the inside?” he asked. “Any idea who?”

  Lee nodded. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and index finger. “Yeah. And if I’m right, it’s definitely disturbing.”

  Trammel’s shoulders rose and his jaw tightened. “Tell me.” He looked ready to flee or fight.

  “I think it’s Anderson.”

  She watched an amalgam of several emotions wash over Trammel’s face. She thought they were followed by the hint of a smile, only to be quickly hidden again.

  “Anderson? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I know,” Lee said. “I don’t want to believe it either. But that’s why it’s imperative that either you or I find the girl first. It might already be too late.”

  Trammel said nothing.

  “If you hear anything from Anderson,” Lee said, “call me immediately. And if you happen to run into him...” She made eye contact with Trammel and held it through several beats of silence. “Be careful. I think he has a new agenda, and we’re not privy to his reconfigured plans.”

  Trammel had been gone from the lab facility for no more than five minutes when Lee exited the building to find a young soldier leaning against her car. He pushed himself away from it and took a black metal briefcase off the trunk.

  “You take care of it?” Lee asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the soldier said. “The tracking device is in place. You’re good to go. And even if he suspects anything and sweeps the car, he’ll come up empty.”