The Wallis Jones Series Box Set - Volume Two: Books Four thru Six

by Martha Carr

  “Wonder if we should put on costumes, slip out the back,” said Charlie, trying to make a joke.

  “I thought that sense of humor was gone forever,” said his father. “Hold on to that. Mine has gotten me through more scrapes.” The phone in his hand started vibrating.

  “They’re already here?” asked Charlie.

  “Looks that way. Get your mother and Maggie. I’ll get the other two bags and meet them at the back door. Go as fast as you can without looking like there’s a problem.”

  “I know protocol, Dad.”

  “Right, right,” said his father, giving him a gentle push. “Now, go. I’d like a smooth transition, if possible.” His father started up the stairs, taking some of them two at a time.

  Charlie turned toward the front door and took in a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, he thought. Maybe there was a way to get Maggie to go in first.

  “Hey,” he said, crossing the front porch and sitting down next to his mother and Maggie. “How’s the candy freeloading going?”

  “The crowds haven’t even started to thin. Mom says we’re almost out of candy? How is that possible? I thought we bought enough to fill a trash can.”

  “We did,” said his mother, sounding a little indignant. She knew how to put on a good show. “Who’s going to make the grocery run? There’s still a lot of time left and I don’t want to be washing egg off the windows tomorrow.”

  “We’ll go,” said Charlie. “Shouldn’t be gone long. Come on, Naomi,” he said, using the only name he could say out loud in the small town. “Give us a chance to take a breather from the ankle biters.”

  “Fine, I’ll go,” she said, handing the bowl over to her mother. “But I’m only getting the chocolate kind, this time.”

  “Fair enough,” said their mother.

  Charlie smiled at his mother, using the moment as an excuse to look past her and scan the crowd. He did the same thing as he was standing up and turning to go inside. It was too hard to tell who belonged on the street and who was sent there to move in on the Foyle family.

  He followed Maggie into the house and down the hallway toward the back door and the end of this life they had started just a handful of months ago. Still, it would seem to Maggie like she was giving up some very precious things all over again. Charlie wondered if she could survive the constant change. He was glad to see his father had moved the go bags already.

  As they got to the kitchen Charlie grabbed his keys, going through with the ruse, keeping Maggie calm just a little longer. Their father was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Dad?” asked Maggie, looking around the room.

  Charlie shrugged. “Must be upstairs,” he said, as he went to open the back door. He could hear his mother coming in the front door, shutting it and locking it. She came down the hallway at a fast trot.

  “What’s going on?” asked Maggie, worry coming over her face.

  “Time to go, my daughter. I left the bowl on the front porch. That’ll only buy us a few minutes, at best,” she said, looking at Charlie. “Come on, move it,” she said, pushing Maggie toward the back door, ignoring her protests.

  “No, no!” Maggie was practically shouting. Her mother suddenly slapped her hard across the face, silencing her where she stood. Charlie flinched, taking a step back. He had never seen his mother raise a hand at anyone before.

  “We’re not going to make this worse and let you act like you’re somehow different from the rest of us,” said their mother in a low, determined voice. “Get on board and move it. We’ve been burned and it’s time to go. This is the family you were born into, just like your brother,” she said, getting very close to Maggie’s face as she said it. “There are no other options. Either look for reasons to be grateful, like we’re all still breathing, and not something every family in the Circle can say, or at least be quiet. But either way, move it.”

  Maggie was frozen in place, her hand against the mark that was quickly turning a bright red on her face. Charlie grabbed her arm and pulled her out the back door. Their father was waiting in the alley with two men outside of a dark SUV.

  “I thought these cars were more Management’s style,” said Charlie, as they got into the backseat of the car.

  “A dark car is good for a lot of things besides obsessively watching people,” said his father. “What happened there,” he said, looking back and forth between Maggie and his wife. “Who hit who?” he asked.

  “Mom got us all moving a little faster,” said Charlie. “She’s going to be mad at you for a good long while,” he said, leaning in to whisper to his mother.

  “May she have all the time in the world to be angry,” she said, “along with the rest of us. But may she figure out how to get mad at the right target one of these days.”

  The driver rolled the car down the alley without the lights, crossing over Sixteenth Street from the alley at University Avenue. Just ahead was a bright red roof of a Mexican restaurant whose parking lot was filled with cars even though the restaurant was closed. More parents driving their kids in to see the decorations along what was usually a very quiet Main Street.

  Charlie heard the all too familiar whistle and pushed Maggie down toward the floorboards as he reached for his mother to pull her down as well. She gave him a hard shove as she reached down to her ankle, pulling out a silver handgun Charlie immediately recognized. It was her Colt Defender he’d seen her use at target practice more than once. That was one good thing about Texas. No one ever questioned their time spent at the gun range as a family.

  She wrapped her hand with the perfect pink manicure around the gun and leaned forward on the seat, lowering the window in one fluid motion. Most of the time his mother looked like she belonged to some southern women’s club and Charlie forgot a lot of the time that she had been a trained operative for far more years. She never talked about previous missions, which made it even harder to remember his mother had probably had to shoot her way out of somewhere before tonight.

  She jammed a dark ball cap on her head and looked out the window at the silver truck that was now chasing them down University Avenue. She leaned out of the window and took several shots, blowing out their left front tire as the shooter from the car kept trying to aim at them. The truck spun out in the middle of traffic, hitting a car in the opposite lane as several other cars started honking.

  “We need to move a little faster,” said his mother as she held her gun at the ready in her lap. Charlie helped a dazed Maggie off the floor and back into her seat, strapping her in with a seatbelt this time.

  “Don’t do that,” said his father, shaking his head. “It holds her in place. Dangerous if someone starts shooting again. She’ll need to be able to duck quickly. Nice shooting, dear,” he said, patting his wife’s knee.

  “Practice helps,” she said, looking at Maggie. “Welcome to the family business,” she said. “Get on board or get dragged behind us. Enough is enough.”

  “We’ve got it from here, ma’am,” said the hulking figure in the front seat. “You can rest up. It’s going to be a long night. We’ll keep a look out.”

  “We have been doing this for a while, young man, and we don’t leave our safety up to complete strangers,” she said, still holding the gun in her lap. “We’ll do this as a team.”

  Chapter 6

  “Do we put out something to nosh on?” asked Norman, his hands on his hips, surveying the empty dining room table. He was wearing what he called his casual khakis and a long-sleeve black and gold VCU Rams t-shirt with loafers. Wallis knew that was as relaxed as her husband managed to dress. She figured it out the first time he referred to jeans as dungarees.

  “I know you make jokes when you’re nervous,” said Wallis, “but I’m not sure if that’s helping.” She looked around, checking her watch. “Maybe you’re right. Do we even have anything?”

  “I can’t believe you still wear a watch,” said Norman. He was already at the refrigerator door, searching around inside for somethi
ng to serve. “We have hummus and I think some of those whole grain crackers your mother likes. Those may make people violent trying to chew them. It’s like chomping on seeds.”

  “That’s because they’re made of seeds glued together with something. And you know why I wear a watch. Can’t take a phone into family court. Makes me itchy not to know what time it is for hours on end. A watch is the only working instrument they let you keep with you,” said Wallis. “Hang on,” she said, getting out the step stool from the laundry room. She put it in front of the refrigerator and slipped out of the maroon heels she was wearing, stepping up and leaning forward to open the small cabinet above it.

  “Nobody ever thinks to look up here,” she said, pulling down a box of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of chips from behind an assortment of glass vases.

  “Salty, sweet and a little bit conniving,” said Norman, “my favorite recipe. Now, if you’re hiding soda anywhere we may be able to give them all a sugar high and make this whole discussion a little easier.”

  “You are that nervous?” asked Wallis. She got off the stool and stepped back into her heels, just coming up to Norman’s height, which wasn’t terribly tall either. She gave a short rub to her husband’s back, pulling the bag of chips away from him. “You’re not eating these now. Everyone will be here any minute and this is it, unless you have your own stash, which really isn’t like you. Mr. Honest.”

  Norman reached into the back of the refrigerator, opened up the vegetable crisper and moved aside a large clear plastic bag of green beans. Underneath were two smaller plastic bags with roast beef and swiss cheese in each one. He pulled them out and slapped them on the counter, looking a little sheepish.

  “No,” said Wallis, trying not to smile, “you didn’t! I didn’t think you had it in you. Good for you,” she said, trying to grab the bag with roast beef in it. Norman moved them both out of her reach.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, “I won’t mention that yours are all empty calories if you don’t mention mine have a lot of fat.”

  “Deal,” said Wallis. She let out a short sigh and looked at her husband. The curly hair he had left had gone almost completely grey since he had returned home from being kidnapped and the lines around his eyes seemed to have deepened. “Have a cookie,” she said, offering the bag. “Life is short and cookies are meant to be mindlessly eaten.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Hold on, hold on,” he said, trying to eat a cookie over her shoulder. Wallis could feel a few crumbs dropping down her back. She laughed and took a step back.

  “I didn’t realize what an occasion it would be to give you a cookie. These aren’t even the expensive kind. We should really get the good stuff if we’re going to do this.”

  “What, hide food from each other?”

  “I’m hiding mine from my mother,” said Wallis, “and a growing teenager. It’s the only way I can ensure I’ll get a second helping.”

  “This sort of thing is what helps me to feel like a normal family,” said Norman. “We also keep the usual things to ourselves, like snacks.”

  “There’s an obvious joke to make here but I’m going to resist,” said Wallis. “Guns and Watchers and plots to overthrow mankind are just not funny these days.”

  “Maybe in a year or two,” said Norman, taking another bite. He pat-patted the back of his head. His old tell, thought Wallis.

  I have to bring him more fun surprises, she thought. This is all grinding him down and I don’t think I’ve noticed how much.

  “I long for a nasty divorce to argue in court,” she said, wistfully.

  “That’s a good one,” said Norman, his mouth full, crumbs spilling down his chin and onto the front of his favorite t-shirt. He tried to shake off the crumbs without creating a chocolate smear. “I’m sure someone will walk out on someone before the weekend.”

  “Probably even someone I’ve represented before. Why aren’t you wearing a suit? Don’t you have court today, too? Where’s your red power tie?”

  Norman was back in the refrigerator pulling out mustard and mayonnaise and rooting around for bread. “I thought it would make this meeting go faster if I came casual and we could all remember we’re like family and on the same side. This is all hard enough, as it is.”

  “Normally, you love a suit in negotiations,” said Wallis.

  “Very true. Tends to keep some of the corporate types who get themselves in hot water from telling me how they’re going to get themselves out.”

  “I thought you liked to let them talk till they’re worn out, the longer the better. Help us buy that vacation place in Tappahannock,” said Wallis, relieved to be talking about something mundane, at least for them. No threats of bombs, or a body count of who had died or a mention of how to protect themselves from Watchers.

  “At two hundred dollars an hour I do love to do that but eventually they have to listen. If I lose it looks bad so, eventually I’m forced to use my courtroom voice.”

  “Oooh,” said Wallis, taking her husband back into her arms, “what does that sound like?”

  Norman held her close and Wallis could smell the sweetness from the chocolate on his breath. She laughed as he blew on her neck.

  “So, this is what turns on a pair of lawyers.” It was their old friend, Helmut Khroll standing in their kitchen doorway. Wallis laughed and blushed, still holding on to Norman who took the opportunity to grab another cookie.

  “You two inspire me,” said Helmut, smiling. He didn’t start out as a friend, even if he was trying to help Wallis evade Management’s drones, known as the Watchers. She had thought he was a spy and found out he was an old-school journalist chasing only one story, George Clemente.

  Wallis noticed Helmut had let his beard grow into a scruffy brown.

  “To do what?” asked Norman, his usual lack of a smile, and dry sense of humor, making him sound all the funnier to Wallis.

  “What’s with the beard? You undercover?” asked Wallis.

  “To actually believe in love,” said Helmut, pointing at Norman, “and this thing,” he said, pointing at Wallis, “is a leftover from being in a very cold place, closer to the top of the world. Anything to get a little warmer. I was doing a little journalistic leg work and I’ve been putting some things together. Where is everyone?”

  Norman quickly kissed Wallis on her neck, squeezing her waist for a moment, making Wallis smile. He always had a way of letting her know how important she still was to him, even during the worst of times.

  “Things are bad, aren’t they,” asked Wallis, glancing back at Helmut as she got out a tray for the food. She piled on what they had managed to gather and headed for the large dining room. Norman was still rooting through the refrigerator, pulling out more odds and ends.

  “How long are people staying?” she asked, as she set the tray down, looking at what was becoming a substantial spread.

  “Things are not good,” said Helmut, grabbing a pickle spear. “But we already knew at least that much. What we might know better is exactly how bad. Don’t worry, there’s good news too, at least that’s what I hear.”

  The doorbell rang and the front door opened as Esther Ackerman came in, followed by Father Michael and Father Donald.

  Wallis wondered, yet again, just how involved Father Donald was in the Circle operations. Somehow he always dodged her questions to a significant degree.

  “Esther, who’s your friend?” asked Wallis.

  “That’s right, you’ve never met Father Michael,” said Esther as Wallis put out her hand to the elderly minister. He was wearing a black suit that was shiny at the elbows from wear with a pristine white tab collar. One side of his jacket hung heavier than the other and Wallis could see there was a small book inside of the pocket.

  Wallis gently shook his hand, noticing the thick scars across the back, crossing over his knuckles. He gently took her hand between both of his and stepped closer.

  “My dear, such an honor to finally meet you. You are th
e only person I’ve ever known to best George Clemente at his own game,” he said, smiling. “I’ve tried for two generations and with a lot more planning and didn’t manage to frustrate him nearly as much as you and your family have done. Bravo.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Wallis.

  “Because you’re still alive, dear.” Wallis’ mother, Harriet, the other Keeper of the Circle’s greatest secret till she was outed last year and stepped down from her post, came cautiously walking into the dining room, taking small steps. She was still recovering from the stroke that left her lying in a cemetery trying to protect the precious key and the ancient diary that told too much about Management’s origins.

  Thank goodness someone found her in time, thought Wallis, so I could learn to appreciate her. Harriet was dressed in a suit, neat as a pin with a triple strand of large pearls around her neck, carrying a coordinating purse even though she was only traveling from her bedroom upstairs.

  “I don’t think Clemente saw you as still being with us at this late date,” said Harriet, as she settled heavily into the chair at the head of the table. The engagement ring from Wallis’ late father, Walter, sparkled on her hand. She let out a tired sigh as she adjusted herself in the seat. Father Donald helped her scoot closer to the table where she could rest her elbows.

  Wallis had never seen her do that before and had been told more than once in her life that young ladies don’t lean. She looked back and forth between Norman and her mother, wondering where the breaking points were and just how close they were standing to them.

  “We need a vacation from all of this,” she said.

  “Good luck finding a place in the world where this isn’t happening and they won’t follow you,” said Helmut.

  “So, the usual encouragement, Helmut,” said Father Donald, rubbing his chin. “Norman, you have food, thank goodness.”

  “It’s weird how this seems like a party but we’re here to talk about stopping a madman,” said Wallis.