by Lisa Henry
He studied his company.
Strange. These three weren’t related—there was none of the easy intimacy between them that there was between family members or even close friends—but he’d asked about the car and the woman had answered. Not the driver. Why was she letting this man drive her car? If they weren’t friends or family, if she was the boss and he was her driver, then why wasn’t she sitting in the back?
Suddenly they didn’t seem to fit the conference mold at all.
“Where are you guys headed?” he asked the big guy sitting in the backseat with him.
The guy didn’t answer.
They passed one Fort Wayne exit, then another. “So not Fort Wayne?” he tried weakly.
The woman turned around. “We’ll take you all the way to Altona.”
“I’d, uh, actually like to get out here,” he said.
She curled her lips. “Oh honey, you’re still miles from where you want to be. Just relax. We’ll get you home.”
Adrenaline spiked through him.
Run!
He didn’t care how fast the car was going. He grabbed for the door handle. The guy beside him hauled his seat belt tight, slamming him back against the seat. Henry scrabbled with the door handle.
Fucking child locks.
The goon wrenched on the seat belt again, dragging out the slack so he had enough to loop the excess around Henry’s neck. He pulled, and Henry choked. He tried desperately to get his fingers between the belt and his neck.
Oh fuck.
He was going to be strangled to death by a seat belt.
Really? Seriously?
His vision blurred. He kicked out at the seat in front of him, but the driver didn’t even flinch. Just kept his eyes on the road.
Well, safety first.
He moaned, thrashing. His chest hurt. He needed to breathe, damn it. He needed air. He kicked again. His vision grayed out, and he panicked. No. He couldn’t die like this. It was too ridiculous.
“Chuck,” the woman said, and the goon released the seat belt.
Henry leaned forward, choking and spluttering, trying to drag air into his burning lungs. His eyes were streaming, his nose was running, and he was suddenly too weak to do anything except loll there, the seat belt the only thing holding him in place.
Then, ludicrously, Chuck began to pat him on the back as he coughed.
Henry squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think.
Nothing. He had nothing.
No quick wit. No elaborate lie. No Shakespearean quote. Just cold emptiness inside him.
How could he talk his way out of this if he didn’t know what this was? How could he talk at all when he could hardly breathe? How could he keep from crying?
“I don’t know what you want,” he rasped at last, lifting his face to look at the woman, “but you’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I don’t think so.” The woman shifted in her seat so that she was facing him directly. Her gold drop earrings swayed and caught the light. The smile on her face was almost serene. “We’ve never formally met, but I believe you knew my husband. Jimmy.”
Henry froze, his breath coming in loud, sharp bursts.
“I’m Flora Rasnick. Jimmy’s wife.”
Henry had to fight a hysterical laugh. Because of course ghosts were real, and the past always came back to bite you. And of course all of it—Mac, the farm, the promise that all Henry had to do was be honest, and everything would turn out all right—was too good to be true.
“Nothing to say, Mr. Page?”
The laugh escaped. High and a little hysterical. Even Chuck, the goon, flinched.
“Shh. Sh, sh.” Flora sounded disapproving, but she was still smiling. She held out a phone. “When he answers, make sure he hears your voice. I’ll tell you what to say.”
“Who?” Henry choked, but the sick feeling in his stomach told him he already knew.
“Flora?” The name was so unexpected that for a moment Mac couldn’t even place it. Flora Rasnick. A thin woman, with platinum-blonde hair the last time Mac had seen her. Which had been at Jimmy’s trial. He’d thought her naïve, a little bewildered. The sort of woman who didn’t know where the money was coming from, and didn’t think about it. “Flora Rasnick?”
“Yeah. Jimmy’s little woman.” Frank kept glancing at his phone on the desk.
“Are you sure?” Mac couldn’t imagine it. Flora Rasnick was . . . forgettable.
“Took over the business when Jimmy was in prison.” Frank shrugged. “Sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
Frank laughed. “Well, when I say took it over, I mean took it back.”
“Back?”
“Jimmy was a two-bit fucking dealer before he met Flora. Who the hell do you think was the brains behind that operation?”
“Bullshit.” There was buzzing in his skull. “We wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Wouldn’t have overlooked that.”
“Oh, everyone overlooked the little woman.”
Impossible. He wouldn’t put it past Frank to be having a laugh at his expense. Pretty elaborate fucking laugh, though.
“So what? She hired Lonny to set me up, then had someone kill him?”
“She killed him herself,” Frank said. “Cold as ice.”
“Jesus.” He felt dizzy. “I gotta call the office.”
“Hold on.” Frank slid his own cell phone across the desk. “In a minute, that’s gonna ring. And it’s gonna be for you, McGuinness.”
“What are you talking about?” He stared at Frank, and then back down to Frank’s phone as it began to vibrate. Something prickled up his spine. “Frank?”
“Cold as ice.” Frank nudged the phone closer to Mac.
Mac tapped the screen and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Mac?” Henry’s voice was sharp with panic. “Mac, I’m in trouble!”
“Why Altona?” Mac asked harshly. “Why Henry?”
Five minutes after listening to Henry’s panicked voice, Mac could still hear the buzzing in his skull. His throat was dry. Of everything he’d worried today might bring, hostage situation hadn’t even made the list. And Flora fucking Rasnick? Seriously?
“I don’t know.” Frank tapped the steering wheel as he drove. “Cold as ice, I told you. You fuck her up, she fucks you up twice as bad. And you, McGuinness, you really fucked her up.”
“I didn’t do shit to her except put Jimmy in jail where he belonged.” He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He’d volunteered his burner when Frank had asked, and Frank hadn’t looked for a second one. Hadn’t searched him at all, in fact. Mac had never thought he’d thank God for homophobia.
Shit. This was almost impossible one-handed.
He slid the back cover off and pushed the battery inside. He didn’t think he could risk trying to enter the passcode to make a call, but shit, he hoped that someone, somewhere pinged the phone. Hell, at this point, he’d take OPR over his present company.
But he was sure praying for Val.
“Where he fucking died.” Frank wrinkled his bulbous nose. “Sit back, McGuinness. Hands where I can see them.”
He remembered Flora’s complaint about the alleged brutality of her husband’s arrest. Remembered how innocuous she’d seemed all those days the FBI was watching her. A simple woman. Mac had pitied her.
“I thought you might come looking for me.” He glanced out the side window at the gathering storm. “Flora asked me if I knew anything about you. If we were still in contact. I said, ‘Not for a while. But this shit can you’ve opened, he might come to me. I might still be his go-to guy.’”
“I thought you hated Rasnick.”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Does Flora have something on you? ’Cause if she does, Frank, and you help Henry and me get out of this—I can help you.” Too desperate too soon, but he had to try. Anything to keep Flora from hurting Henry. Keep her away from his family. Christ, he couldn’t even think about Flora touching Co
ry or Vi.
“You’ve got to do what they tell you, Mac,” Henry had said. “You’ve got to go with Frank, or they’ll kill me.”
“Come on, McGuinness. You’re better than that.”
Not really.
“It actually worked out good,” Frank said. “Flora and them thought they’d take you two together. Then Page bolted, and I got called in to nab you while they went after him. It’s no big imposition, you know? It’s not like I gotta use force to get you to cooperate. I got—what d’ya call it?—collateral.”
Mac closed his eyes, trying not to hear Henry’s voice. “I’m in trouble.”
“It’s okay, Henry.” He hadn’t given a shit about the obvious lie. Hadn’t listened to whatever Henry was trying to tell him on the other end. “It’s going to be okay.”
He didn’t even know if Henry had heard him, because Frank had yanked the phone away.
“Shit, Frank. Call her. Let me talk to her. If it’s me she wants, she can have me.” But not Henry. Not my family.
“No, no.” Frank shook his head. “No good. What’s done is done.”
“Nothing’s been done yet,” Mac pointed out.
Frank made an odd humming sound.
“Fuck you,” Mac said tonelessly.
“I’m surprised you didn’t put two and two together. I remember we all used to be scared of you. You were a legend, the way you hunted guys like me down. Like someone off a TV show.” Frank grinned. “Brom-brom.”
Mac turned slowly to stare at him. “Are you doing the Law & Order sound?”
Frank chuckled.
“It’s duhn-duhn,” he muttered. “Why does no one understand that it’s duhn-duhn?”
“Yessir,” Frank said, as the first crack of thunder echoed over the fields. “This worked out good.”
“That’s sweet.” Flora smiled bitterly at Henry. Her lipstick had smudged onto one front tooth. “That’s sweet that he’ll cooperate so nicely with Frank just because he thinks it might save you.” She turned to the goon beside Henry. “Isn’t that sweet, Chuck?”
Chuck grunted.
“It won’t save you, of course.” She faced front again. “But I still think it’s sweet.”
They drove through the town of Altona and out into the country, where the clouds were gathering darkness.
They turned onto Holloway Road.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, no.
They were heading for the farm. And he couldn’t beg them not to. Didn’t dare, because if he let on that he was afraid for people other than himself—if he let on that Vi was there, and Cory, and Mac’s parents—he’d make this whole situation so much fucking worse.
Because maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they didn’t know about Vi.
“Jimmy was that way.” Flora’s voice was soft, a little wistful. “Would have done anything for me. Took the fall when I was the one who really should have been arrested.”
Did she know? Had she known about her husband’s thing for underage boys?
Flora adjusted the rearview mirror so she could meet his gaze. “You know, for such a miserable little man, you’ve got at least a couple of people who’d risk their lives for you.”
Sickness swamped him again. He’d said the wrong thing. “You’ve got to do what they tell you, Mac. You’ve got to go with Frank, or they’ll kill me.” Always looking out for himself. He should have told Mac not to worry about him. To do whatever was necessary to get free, and then go help his family and Vi.
I should have told him to let me go.
“Your friend.” Flora glanced at the mirror again. Wiped the lipstick from her tooth with one finger. “You know what he was doing in Harris’s apartment?”
“Don’t,” he warned, but his voice sounded far away, and everything looked blurred, like it was being blasted about—like he was inside a storm.
“He thought he could find the recordings Lonny made. He thought he could save Agent McGuinness. For you. So you could be happy.”
He didn’t have to listen. He could let the storm whisk Flora’s voice away.
He felt disjointed and cold, the way he usually did during a storm, helpless against a panic that didn’t spare any part of him. But there was something new this time—an anger that beat against the helplessness, that kept him sharp.
Flora kept talking. “Of course, I already had the recordings. And I’d already killed that piece of shit Harris. But you know what? He wouldn’t tell me where you were. Not even when I gave him the chance to live.” She shook her head and smoothed a twisted section of her seat belt. “My goodness, Mr. Page—or can I call you Henry? I think I’ll call you Henry. There must be something about you, because I know my husband was quite fond of you as well.”
Henry lunged forward and grabbed at her throat. Didn’t give a fuck if someone shot him, or strangled him with a fucking seat belt. If he was dead anyway, he might as well die ripping this bitch’s damn head off.
Chuck clouted him so hard in the temple that Henry’s head thunked against the window. Dazed, Henry tried to lash out again, but Chuck was quicker. Henry saw the man’s fist in his line of vision suddenly, and then saw a flash of white when it connected with the bridge of his nose. Something in his face made a cracking, grating sound, blood was pouring down the back of his throat, and then Chuck hit him a third time, hard enough that things went black for a few seconds.
“Chuck, handcuffs?” Flora sounded calm.
Henry struggled, but anything resembling spatial awareness had been knocked out of him. Chuck quickly secured his arms behind him, the cuffs snapping tight.
He tried to focus on Flora, but wavering shadows were pushing his vision into an increasingly narrow band. He couldn’t stop swallowing blood. Flora sighed. “All over my nice leather seats.” Gravel crunched under the tires. She tapped the window suddenly. “Look, Henry. Look where we are.”
Henry didn’t want to look. But he forced his gaze out the window, where she was pointing.
Underneath a seemingly endless black cloud sprawled the McGuinness family farm.
Cory stuck her head up over the old sewing table. “Is that a car?”
Vi crossed to the windows. It was starting to rain, and a low rumble of thunder sounded. Vi thought of Sebastian and hoped he wasn’t frightened.
“Maybe we should get back to the house before the storm,” Cory said, but didn’t get up from the floor. She sounded nervous.
“It is a car.” Vi watched as it flashed between the trees. A shiny black car.
Nobody was supposed to find Viola here. Sebastian had said that. What if it was someone from St. Albinus, sent to bring her back? Or what if it was the FBI, since they thought Mac was a bad guy?
Cory scrambled to her feet. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses.
“What should we do?” Viola asked as the car slowed. It didn’t stop at the main house. Instead, it turned onto the gravel road toward the old house.
Cory gripped her hand tightly. “We have to hide!”
Henry was woozy, but he registered that they had driven past Mac’s parents’ place and were on the gravel road leading back to the old house.
The clouds were still rolling in, pressing low onto the earth, blanketing the day in a gloomy pall. Hadn’t he always been afraid he’d die under the unrelenting fury of a storm? And hadn’t he always known he’d fail Viola in the end?
He shouldn’t have gotten Mac involved. Shouldn’t have come to Altona and turned the eye of the storm on Mac and the people he loved.
I’m sorry, Mac.
My stars shine darkly over
me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps
distemper yours.
And it has, Mac. It has.
A storm. Altona. Viola and Mac. His past and his present, and a future so uncertain he hadn’t even dared hope for it, clashing in a barrage of thunder and lightning that would rip the world apart.
“Yes, this looks better,” Flora said as they reached the old house. Her driver parked under the
same cluster of trees where Mac and Henry had stashed Penny’s car two days before. “We’re less likely to be interrupted here, don’t you think?”
Neither goon answered, so Henry did. “Depends on what we’re doing.” He’d made an effort over the last few minutes to bleed as much as possible on the leather seats. Because he might not be able to avoid his fate, but he could meet it however he chose. He could fight it. And because fuck her. Seriously, fuck her.
The goons and Flora opened their doors, and he was dragged from the car. He stumbled as Chuck shoved him toward the house. His head was throbbing, his eyes streaming, and when he looked down, his shirt was covered in blood.
Inside the house, he imagined he smelled mustiness and a hint of Mac’s aftershave. Something quiet and comforting, instead of just blood. Chuck hurled him onto the floor and pointed a gun at him.
Great.
Flora pocketed her phone. “They should be here soon.”
And though Henry felt guilty for thinking it—knew he ought to be wishing Mac was somewhere far, far away from this mess—he was glad Mac would be here. Was glad he’d get to see him again.
Thunder rumbled, and he shivered reflexively.
You fucking idiot. Don’t you have more important things to be afraid of right now?
Flora looked down at him. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”
“So is this the part where you tell me your evil supervillain plan?”
“Perhaps.” Flora stepped forward and nudged Henry with the toe of her high-heeled shoe. “If you want to hear it.”
Henry wasn’t so sure he did want to hear it.
“You weren’t a part of it. Not at first. Originally, I was only interested in Agent McGuinness.”
But then Agent McGuinness and I started shaking the sheets . . .
“But the more I thought about it,” she continued, “the more sense it made. Agent McGuinness took the man I loved from me. Now I have a chance to do the same to him.”
