Coming Back

by Marcia Muller

  Sounds as the woman crawled across the floor, gripped Adah around the knees, and began crying.

  Adah put her hand on the woman’s head, felt long matted hair. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s gonna be all right now. Come on, get up. We’re leaving this place.”

  “No! They’ll kill me—”

  “Nobody’s here but us.”

  “J.T. and Ryan were here. J.T. shot Ryan. I think he killed him. I don’t know, though. I ran.”

  The shots she’d heard. But now was not the time to sort it all out.

  “Come on,” she said, trying to ease Piper to her feet.

  But before she could manage that, new sounds caught Adah’s attention: somebody moving around on the deck. She crouched behind the fountain’s bowl, pulled Piper down too. And listened.

  The footsteps had gone toward the rear of the ship. Adah stopped holding her breath; they had time. Beside her, Piper tugged on her arm. “I know a place we can hide. Where I’ve been for hours.”

  Adah followed her. By the far inside wall, where the main desk had been, Piper stopped and dropped down. Adah followed.

  The hiding place was a hole where the floorboards had been ripped up. Piper lowered herself, then reached for Adah’s hand. The space was small and smelled of dry rot; there were probably the remains of asbestos insulation lurking in there, and Adah wished she had a face mask. She and Piper were crammed in there, shoulder to shoulder.

  From aft the stealthy footsteps came on.

  “They’re on board,” she whispered.

  In the darkness she felt Piper nod. “What’re we going to do?”

  “Stay quiet and still. They’ll search and be gone. They won’t find us.”

  Yeah, sure.

  She listened as the footsteps came closer. Three people—one large, one medium, one smaller. None of them spoke.

  Piper was breathing hard now, and Adah was afraid she’d hyperventilate. She linked her arm with hers, held her tight. After a moment Piper’s respiration slowed.

  The people had entered the main salon now, only yards from this hiding place. Overhead Adah saw light sweeping around. A whisper. Another. She strained to hear.

  “C deck?”

  “… what’s on the key…”

  “Got to find her.”

  She knew that whisper. Had heard it a thousand times. Knew it better than her own. Her pulse rate leaped.

  “Craig!”

  Piper jerked and clutched her arm. Adah could feel her frantically shaking her head.

  “Adah? Oh, God, where are you?”

  She freed herself from Piper’s grip and poked her head up. Momentarily a flashlight’s beam blinded her. Craig called her name again.

  “Down here,” she called. “Piper’s with me. We’re both okay.”

  Running footsteps now and then Craig reached down to her, pulled her up, and they held each other, as if trying to fuse their bodies into one.

  SHARON McCONE

  Poor Adah. She didn’t get any of the things—shower, wine, steak—that she told me she’d fantasized about while locked up—and she certainly didn’t get laid. Instead Mick had the paramedics standing by at World’s End; they checked her and Piper over and transported them to John Muir Medical Center in nearby Walnut Creek. There they were cleaned up, hydrated, and put to bed. Tomorrow they’d be eating haute cuisine à la hospital. And probably be plenty pissed off.

  Adah and Piper had related what had happened to them aboard the derelict ship in Leon’s boat on the way back. It was pretty much as we’d theorized.

  “Ryan… my husband.” Piper paused, pressing her hand to her closed eyes. “He was killed in Iraq, but then he showed up on the ship this morning.”

  “Looking for you?”

  “Yeah. I was the bait.”

  “Verke is the one who took you?”

  “He and a woman named Melinda Knowles… She came to my apartment, said she was an old friend of my mother’s.” Piper’s breath caught, and she coughed, then continued, slurring her words slightly. “She must’ve… drugged me. I think at one point you were there, but I can’t say for sure.”

  “I was. You were out of it.”

  “Not as… out of it as I feel now.” She shook her head. “It’s a… blur.”

  “She was the same woman who drugged me,” Adah said. “Only the man upstairs called her Eva.”

  I said, “Both were probably aliases. These covert operatives assume so many different identities, it’s a wonder they can keep them straight. You don’t have to worry about her anymore—she’s dead. I think it wasn’t in their plans to take anyone other than Piper, but Eva overreacted to Verke’s news that an investigator was in the building. Drugging you was a bad mistake, and organizations like TRIAD don’t put up with people who make mistakes.”

  “So Verke killed her in the building?”

  “Yes. There was a bullet hole in the second-floor apartment.”

  “And then he transported her to his ex-wife’s house? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It was a place he had access to, where he could hide the body till it was more convenient to get rid of it. Admittedly, not great thinking, but he probably knew from when he took the van that the ex and her boyfriend were gone and assumed Gwen was with them. He didn’t count on her finding and opening the tarp. Or me showing up right after.”

  I turned to Piper. “What did Verke want from Ryan?”

  “A microchip he’d smuggled out of Iraq. But he didn’t have it… said it must’ve been shipped to me along with his other stuff. I told Verke I’d given it all away. He wanted to know to who, but I wouldn’t tell.” Her words were coming slowly now. She was slipping away from us.

  “He got angry… called me names… hit me. A struggle and he shot Ryan. I ran and hid…. Couldn’t involve the people at the hospice thrift shop or…” She dozed off, chin dipping toward her breastbone.

  J. T. Verke, ex–CIA op, currently working for TRIAD, was on the loose, and I was sure he wouldn’t stop looking for the chip. He was a dangerous man who hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He’d try again sooner or later.

  Hy met us at John Muir, where he posted operatives from RI outside the doors of both Piper’s and Adah’s rooms. Some influence must have been brought to bear, because the police were not summoned. Hy told me later he’d spun a yarn about two friends out for a boat ride on San Pablo Bay capsizing and getting marooned, and Leon backed him up. I wouldn’t have believed it for a moment.

  “What about Middleton’s body?” I asked. “We can’t just leave it there.”

  Hy’s smile was grim. “Why not? He’s already dead and buried in Colma.”

  One man left as coyote fodder in Marin. Another consigned to rot in a derelict ship that eventually would sink into the oily waters of that deserted marina. I shook my head, wished I could close my mind against the knowledge. And what about the family of the man buried in Middleton’s grave? Didn’t they deserve some consideration?

  When I voiced my objection, Hy said, “Adah took a wallet off Middleton’s body. The guy who died was Specialist Jay Winters. I’ll ask a contact with the military to phone the next of kin and tell them where he’s buried.”

  It still didn’t feel right, to abandon a human being’s remains to the elements.

  But that was probably what Middleton would have done to Adah and Piper.

  Not an excuse, but a good reason.

  We had to think about further security for Piper until Verke was apprehended, perhaps at RI’s safe house near Balboa and Twenty-eighth Avenue. A shabby old apartment house masking high-tech security measures and luxury accommodations for clients in fear for their safety. I’d taken shelter there myself a time or two.

  Most of all I was concerned for Piper’s emotional state: after she’d been admitted and was in her room, she asked for me and tried to talk, but broke down in tears, spoke incoherently, and had to be sedated. I’d withheld the information she had no home to go back to, no possessions. I wa
s afraid it would break her.

  By the time Mick and I returned to the city, it was midmorning. Craig had remained at the hospital, but would be on the phone scheduling a meeting with the regional director of the FBI. Time to come clean and ask their help in locating Verke; with Craig paving the way, he claimed, no proceedings would be brought against the agency. After all, we’d done the majority of their work for them.

  From the car I’d called my house to see if Gwen Verke was okay. No answer. I called Chelle’s cell: voice mail. Called her home and got Trish.

  “No worries,” she said. “She and Chelle are out shopping.”

  “How come?”

  “Gwen’s got no clothes with her except for what she had on the other night, and she doesn’t want to go back to the house in Cupertino.”

  “But she had only ten dollars. Where’s the money for this expedition coming from?”

  “I let them take my credit card.”

  “I’ll pay you back—it’s on the agency.”

  “Thanks. You know, Gwen’s a nice girl. We could use another one of those around here.”

  “Then you’ll have to protect her.” I explained about her father.

  “Good God!” Trish said. “Does she know what her father is?”

  “I don’t think so. They haven’t been in touch in quite a while.”

  “Should I tell her?”

  My inclination was to say no, but Gwen needed to be aware she was in danger. “Yes. But first, do this: take her to the RI safe house on Twenty-eighth Avenue. Here’s the address.”

  I waited till she wrote it down. “It’s a comfortable place. You’ll enjoy it. I’ll call security there and alert them that you’ll be arriving. Do you mind—just for a couple of days?”

  “My husband and child will be perfectly okay without me. I’ll consider it a vacation.”

  By late afternoon the FBI was searching for Verke. Craig told me he’d had to call in many a favor to keep the agency out of trouble. Adah was doing fine and clamoring to go home; she’d sent him out for a steak and said she’d never go near a Mickey D’s again.

  Piper was another case: they’d transferred her to the psychiatric unit for observation. She’d emerged from the sedation agitated and incoherent; the only thing clear to anyone was that she wanted—no, needed—to talk with me. But when I phoned the charge nurse on the unit, he said that she couldn’t have visitors for at least twenty-four hours.

  I caught up on some paperwork, talked with Thelia about the upcoming Andersen appeal. Got up to speed with Ted, and looked over Patrick’s flow charts. Hy was at home, nursing his wounded shoulder; I’d promised to bring him barbecue takeout—protein, he claimed, was what he needed.

  Gradually the pier grew quiet. Patrick left to take his boys to a basketball game. Mick’s new woman friend picked him up and they went off in the night to… whatever. Thelia said she was going to go home and sleep round the clock. Derek had called to say he’d be back tomorrow and was sorry he hadn’t been here to help out. Julia was due in on Monday. Ted and Kendra were inventorying supplies and going over paperwork in their offices: working late, because tomorrow they were respectively taking a long weekend.

  And I was exhausted.

  Six, even four, months ago I would have never dreamed I could survive days like these last few. Then I’d dreamed only of coming back to some approximation of my former self. But early Wednesday morning, Hy had put it together for me:

  “You’re all the way back, aren’t you?”

  “Ripinsky, it feels as if I’ve never been away.”

  Yes and no: I’d still have to monitor my health, try to live sensibly. I’d always have the memory of those dark, locked-in days and the fear of never being normal again that had gripped me. But maybe I’d become the new, improved McCone. Imagine that!

  Down on the pier’s floor a car horn beeped—the squeaky, wimpy horn of a boring, sensible rental car. I gathered my things and went down there; Chelle had arrived to drive me home.

  McCONE INVESTIGATIONS

  Adah Joslyn

  She stirred, came awake, lay listening to the late-night hospital routine. Rustling of garments, rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the floor, hushed voices soothing the occasional complaint of a fellow patient. Craig slept in the chair next to her bed, his mouth open, snoring lightly.

  Tomorrow she would go home. Tomorrow life would resume its usual rhythms.

  Or would it? Why did she feel there was something about the case she’d forgotten or overlooked?

  Ted Smalley

  He watched Kendra leave the office, having turned down his offer of a ride. Heading for the apartment she shared with two other women near the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park? Or meeting friends, perhaps a lover? He didn’t know much about Kendra; he hadn’t gotten her to open up. Strange, because he usually knew people’s life stories within hours of meeting them. Another case for the armchair detective.

  If only he were completely convinced this current case was closed….

  Mick Savage

  He sat on the sofa with Alison, wineglass in hand, wearing the new maroon bathrobe she’d bought him. Rain pelted the windows and through the drops the city lights were fractured. Alison held his hand.

  They’d really clicked in bed, but Mick still had the sensation the relationship was going too fast. It was a pleasurable feeling, unfamiliar to him, and a little scary.

  Maybe, though, it was in the Savage blood: his father had been with his mother since the night he spotted her from the bandstand where his group was playing a dance at her high school. And when Ricky had come together with Rae, it was an explosive spur-of-the-moment high-profile romance. Dad’s first marriage had lasted fifteen years and produced six kids. His marriage to Rae would probably last forever.

  So why not go for it with Alison?

  She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, but his mind had already started to wander to less pleasant thoughts.

  J. T. Verke was still out there. This case was in no way finished.

  Craig Morland

  He jerked in his sleep and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Adah. The soft curves of her body under the hospital blanket, her bedraggled cornrows, her shining eyes…

  Watching him. Awake in the darkness.

  Craig got up from the chair and sat on the bed, held her hand. She pulled him down beside her. Laid her head against his chest and relaxed, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping. That she was worrying about the same missing pieces of the investigation that were bothering him.

  Hy Ripinsky

  His shoulder pained him, so he got up and took one of the sedatives the doc had given him. Strong—it would knock him out for a good eight hours. Upstairs he heard McCone moving about in the kitchen, getting a glass of wine or a snack, he guessed.

  She’d come back to him, to all of them, and he’d never let her slip away again. Life would be good. They’d travel to Touchstone and the ranch. Soon she’d be able to ride King again. And fly. And drive. Before she’d been shot, they’d talked about vacation possibilities: New Zealand, Greece, Istanbul. Now they could really plan….

  The sedative was carrying him off when he wondered if she’d manned the house’s security system. Of course she had, and would continue to until the threat of J. T. Verke had been neutralized.

  SHARON McCONE

  Hy was restless—a dull ache in his shoulder, he said, but more likely from consuming an unseemly amount of barbecue—so I let him have the bed and curled up fully dressed on the sitting room couch in front of the fireplace. It was raining hard, and after a few minutes I adjusted the damper, then went to the kitchen for some wine. I was in that state of exhaustion where your mind refuses to shut down, keeps jumping around and denying you sleep.

  I sat back down on the couch, stared into the flames.

  Adah and Piper were safe, J. T. Verke would soon be in FBI custody, and life would return to what passed for normal.

  I touched Piper’s pendant. I’d meant
to show it to her, explain how it had become a talisman, but that didn’t seem right at the time; she’d been so disoriented that I wasn’t sure it would compute.

  The stone felt smooth and warm, like its fiery colors. I’d fingered it so often this past week, it was a wonder I hadn’t worn it thin. But it was thick, thicker than other opals I’d seen. I took the pendant off and examined it. The stone was set in gold, its backing flat, scratched on one edge.

  Something flickered in my memory: “It was a present from an old love,” Piper had said when she gave it to me. “He bought it intending to win me back, but he wasn’t the man I thought he was. Not possible now.”

  At the time I’d thought she was speaking of a boyfriend, not a husband, but suppose it was Ryan Middleton who bought her the necklace? Wanting to reconcile after the divorce papers were served on him?

  Or for another reason? Of course! He left the microchip in his personal effects, faked his own death, and somehow got back into this country with the intention of retrieving it from Piper. But he didn’t want to reveal himself to his wife, and TRIAD wanted the chip too.

  Why had Verke and cohorts gone to the extremes of taking Piper and wiping out all evidence of her existence? Why not continue holding her in her apartment, rather than the derelict ship? To get Middleton into a situation where they had absolute control, of course. And once they had the chip, they would kill both him and Piper. After all, he was officially dead, and they’d erased her existence.

  Piper had told me she’d given away her husband’s things. They were mostly junk. But she’d probably kept the pendant because it was pretty, had given it to me because I’d admired it.

  I forced a fingernail into the space where its back was scratched. The nail tore but the pressure forced the back off.

  Inside was the chip. Similar to but smaller than a chip from a digital camera.

  Ironic: I’d been openly wearing what everybody had been looking for all along.