Unthinkable

by Brad Parks

  With the ladder under my arm, I walked across the hallway again. This time, Jenny followed close behind me.

  “Okay. Just stall for me a little more, and I’ll be out of here,” I said when we reentered the bedroom.

  “Got it,” she said.

  She poked her head out of the door. “Just a few more things,” she called out. “Give me another minute or two.”

  “Okay,” Rogers said from downstairs.

  Jenny went to my dresser, which had some wedding photos and pictures of the girls as babies, and started scooping frames into her bag indiscriminately. I took one last look at her and tried to tamp down the thought that this might be the last time I’d ever see her.

  Then I pushed forward. On my way back through the bedroom, I spied the gun that had come so close to being the instrument of my death. It was still lying on the pillow, exactly where Jenny had left it.

  I thought about grabbing it and stuffing it in the waistband of my pants. It might come in handy. And I was pretty darn sure it wouldn’t be loaded with blanks like the other one had been.

  But somehow I just didn’t. Really, what was I going to do, shoot it out with Rogers’ goons?

  No, the only thing I took from the bedroom was the PR key card I had stolen from Rogers, which I slipped into my pocket—because it struck me as something I just might need.

  I continued into the bathroom, then raised the blinds, which were wooden, plantation-style, and, most importantly, silent. Next I eased open the window, thankful that, unlike the front window frames—which we couldn’t change, because we were in a historic district—the ones in back had been replaced by sleek, modern, quiet vinyl.

  The screen was already up, so there was now nothing between me and my getaway but a few feet of cool night air. I unzipped the bag and pulled out the ladder.

  Then I triggered the release latch. The ladder’s steps unfurled like they had something more than gravity propelling them, falling straight to the ground with a soft thud.

  I couldn’t see the man on the back porch. Did he hear the noise as well? Would he come to investigate? I listened for a moment, my breath held.

  But there didn’t seem to be any change below me. It was just our little patch of fenced-in grass, same as ever.

  I didn’t dare wait any longer. Rogers would be expecting Jenny any moment. I eased one leg over the windowsill, my foot groping around for a ladder step, which it soon found. I squeezed my body out next, ducking under the window. My other leg followed me through.

  My body was now completely out of the window, thoroughly exposed. If anyone looked up, they would see my bulk dangling against the side of the house.

  I turned my head toward the porch. Sure enough, there was a man sitting there. He was staring straight ahead, and he seemed relaxed, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his ankles crossed. I was perhaps two dozen feet over and another dozen feet up.

  All he had to do was glance up and to his right, and I would be busted. I was relying on his obliviousness, my stealth, and all the luck I could scrape together.

  Gingerly, I began climbing down, moving one foot, then the next. I was a little concerned about falling. I was more concerned with noise: the ladder steps were metal, and I was sure they’d clang against the brick of the house if I went too fast.

  When I dared, I snuck occasional glances to the side, toward the man on the porch. Though mostly I kept my focus forward, pouring my concentration into making each movement as smooth and noiseless as possible.

  It was all going well. Except, about halfway down, I felt this weird wiggling, almost like someone was trying to shake me off.

  Then I looked up and saw what was actually happening.

  Jenny was coming down the ladder too.

  What the hell is she doing?

  That was the only thought in my head for a good three seconds, which was longer than I really had to spend pondering anything at the moment.

  Was she abandoning the plan and trying to flee with me, or . . .

  Really, I had no idea. But this wasn’t the time to ask. I put my head down and continued my descent, which had only become more difficult now that the ladder was jiggling so much.

  And that, I think, was my undoing as I entered the final six feet. I didn’t want to just drop—that would make too much noise—but, at the same time, I was no longer as smooth. What had once been a fairly compact motion was now a herky-jerky, knee-and-elbow-flailing exercise. This, just as I was entering into the peripheral vision of the guy on the porch.

  The first indication that I had been made was when he stood up.

  Then he shouted.

  “Hey . . . hey!”

  I let go of the ladder, shoving myself away from the wall as I did so. There was no longer any need for furtiveness.

  The guy ran toward the edge of the porch and stopped at the railing. I landed maybe ten feet from him, my legs bending from the impact after a short fall, such that I was sort of crouching. His hand was going for something on his belt.

  Like a gun? I couldn’t see for sure, but I also wasn’t going to gawk at him while I figured it out.

  “Nate! Get out of the way!” Jenny shouted from somewhere higher on the ladder.

  I started running across the yard, in the direction of the back gate.

  “Hey!” the man said again.

  Then, from above me, there were two gunshots.

  Jenny, who’d obviously had fewer misgivings about the pistol on the pillow than I did, was firing at the man on the porch.

  He was now scrambling for cover. Forget action movies, where the bad guys bravely return fire, heedless of their own safety. This was reality. I heard him crashing against my barbecue grill on his way over the side of the porch.

  “Go to your car,” Jenny shouted.

  I was already headed that way. Now on the ground, she fired off another shot. I didn’t know if she was really trying to hit the guy, or if she was just trying to keep him pinned down. I was now at the gate, which I threw open.

  The Range Rover was just a few steps away. I had the keys in my pocket.

  Then I heard another gunshot, this time not from Jenny’s direction. The guy was returning fire from behind the porch.

  Could he see what he was aiming at? Or was he just firing wildly too?

  I yanked open the driver’s side door to the Range Rover and got in the seat, starting it as I slammed my door shut. From the back seat, Parker said, “Daddy, what’s—”

  “Shh,” I said. “Everything is fine, honey.”

  Just then, Jenny appeared at the gate. She fired off another round in the direction of the house, though she was shooting behind herself without even looking. It was as I expected: she was just trying to keep that guy from feeling like he could expose himself.

  She slammed the gate closed and dashed to the passenger side of the Range Rover.

  “Go, go, go,” she said as she got in.

  I didn’t need further encouragement. I already had the car in reverse and was mashing down the gas as she shut her door. Then I shifted into drive and sent us hurtling down the narrow back alley behind our house.

  When I reached the street, I turned right, because that was the easier way to go, and accelerated, putting distance between us and the house as quickly as possible.

  “Okay, what now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  There was a siren in the distance. Neighbors must have heard the gunplay and called the police. I wondered if they’d be able to figure out it had been coming from our house. What would they make of the scene—two bodies in the dining room—if they did?

  Jenny obviously heard it too.

  “Just keep driving,” she said, then twisted in her seat to look behind us. “Is anyone following us?”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual behind us.

  “Not that I can see,” I said.

  “I’m sure that will change.”r />
  “I don’t know,” I said. “I removed a tracking device from my car earlier this week. I don’t think they bothered to put on another one. We might have—”

  And then I remembered the drone footage. The one allegedly shot by Jenny’s so-called private investigator.

  “What?” Jenny asked.

  “That drone. That wasn’t really you, was it?”

  “What drone?” she asked.

  “The one that shot that footage of me driving to Hunter Matthews’ house.”

  “Yeah, that was Rogers,” she confirmed. “That was part of how he convinced me you were really in bed with CP and L. Why did you go out there, anyway?”

  I briefly explained to her how I’d come to believe that Rogers was an agent for CP&L. I was just getting to the end when Jenny’s phone rang.

  She swore softly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s Rogers.”

  CHAPTER 40

  JENNY

  Jenny looked down at the phone. It rang a second time, then a third.

  Just before the call went to voice mail, she answered with a calm “Hello.”

  “Where are you going, Jenny?” Rogers asked.

  Jenny didn’t actually know. They seemed to be out of immediate danger, so Nate had slowed to where he was driving only a little over the speed limit. He kept checking the rearview mirror but didn’t seem to see anything that alarmed him. They were pointed east, toward the dodgy side of Richmond she had learned so well during her many trips to sign up plaintiffs. It was as good a place as any to attempt to disappear.

  “You really think I’m going to tell you?” she asked.

  Rogers sighed. The background noise on his phone made it sound like he was on the move. In a car, perhaps. Was he already coming after them? Was his drone already shadowing them overhead?

  Almost certainly yes.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Jenny,” he said. “You lied to me about Nate.”

  “Yeah? Well, you lied first. Nate wasn’t offered any kind of twenty million dollars by CP and L.”

  “I suppose not. But at least I lied for a good reason.”

  “What, so I would kill my husband?”

  “To be honest, yes. You have to see the big picture here, Jenny. The Praesidium’s work is not the idle hobby of some wealthy man. It is incredibly vital. We save hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives.”

  “Yes, but at what cost? How many people have you killed in the process?”

  “I know our methods make you uncomfortable. But anyone who has ever studied ethics for half a second would tell you we’re on the side of right here. It’s why I always start with the same question: Would you kill one person to save five? The answer is always yes. Our work has to continue. And you have to join us.”

  “Look, I’m just not interested in your math.”

  “You’ll change your mind. This is your destiny. Mr. DeGange has foreseen it.”

  “Mr. DeGange can bite me.”

  Rogers sighed again. “I understand that you love your husband. Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement here.”

  “How? You’ve been very clear that the Praesidium has its rules and it always follows them. Neither Nate nor I could take the Praesidium’s oath, because we haven’t killed anyone.”

  “These are exceptional circumstances. You’ll eventually be the new leader. The rules will be different for you. I’ll convince the members that you don’t have to go through the same process.”

  “Really,” Jenny said, the incredulity plain in her voice.

  “Yes, really. Let’s just slow down for a moment. Why don’t we go somewhere that’s neutral ground? A nice hotel, perhaps. Paid for by Mr. DeGange, of course. We can relax, discuss this all in a more leisurely fashion, and come to some kind of arrangement. Hang on a moment.”

  In the background, someone asked Rogers a question. Jenny couldn’t hear what it was, but he told them, “Yes, go ahead.”

  “What was that about?” Jenny asked.

  “Nothing. I just wouldn’t think of running to the police if I were you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Those men in your dining room? The police will easily be able to find the guns used to kill them. And those guns will have your husband’s fingerprints all over them.”

  “How did you get my husband’s fingerprints?”

  “Oh, I have my ways,” he said. “Let’s just focus on the issue at hand. There’s a resort I just adore in Martinique. You and Nate will love it. So will the girls. The weather is . . .”

  He continued talking. Jenny had tuned him out.

  Shortly after he had said “Martinique,” a thought had appeared in Jenny’s head. It came on suddenly: one moment it wasn’t there; the next moment, it was.

  It might not have seemed all that different from how anyone else got an idea—where did those things come from anyway?—except this one was about the future. She had been getting these kinds of thoughts since she was a little girl, and she had always ignored them to a certain extent, even when they turned out to be unerringly true. She thought everyone had occasional premonitions.

  She really hadn’t thought she was anything special.

  But now, ever since Rogers had approached her two months ago and explained to her that she had this strange gift, she had started to pay more attention to her thoughts.

  Especially this one.

  She was at a luxury hotel. Was it Martinique? She didn’t know. She had never been there.

  It certainly could have been the Caribbean. Through a window, she could see a palm tree leaning over a pristine white-sand beach, with the azure ocean stretching beyond. It was beautiful.

  And yet the overwhelming emotion of this thought was shock and disbelief. Rogers was there. He had just explained how Nate had died in an accident. A diving boat had capsized. Nate had drowned.

  She knew instantly—both in the vision, and in the present moment—that it wasn’t an accident. Diving boats didn’t go any great distance from land. Nate was far too good a swimmer. He had attended college on a swimming scholarship and still swam four, five times a week.

  This wasn’t part of the vision. But Jenny could guess it all the same: Rogers would tell the other members of the Praesidium that Jenny had secretly arranged the accident. They shouldn’t mention this fact—it was too painful for her—but she was now eligible to take the oath and—

  “You’re lying,” Jenny said, interrupting whatever Rogers was in the midst of saying. “You’re lying again.”

  “No, I’m not, Jenny. I’ll float this idea past some of the members and they’ll—”

  “Stop lying,” she shouted. “I’m not going to Martinique with you.”

  The moment she said it, the strangest sensation came over her. The thoughts that had been so powerful mere moments before—the images of that tropical island, the raw pain of Nate’s death, the devastation of Rogers’ duplicity—began to fade, almost like they had never happened. Jenny could still access the information, as though it were a memory. Except it now struck her as more like a daydream, not as the hard reality it had been moments earlier.

  “Now, Jenny, be reasonable about it. All I’m proposing is—”

  She ended the call. She had heard enough.

  Because she knew—and this was not a thought appearing suddenly in her head, just cold logic—that Rogers was never going to let Nate live.

  Even though she’d shut down the Martinique proposal, Rogers was going to continue scheming, conniving, and manipulating. Nate would never be truly safe.

  She reached out and grabbed his thigh, just to feel his body heat, his very undrowned vitality. Even as a daydream, the memory of his death was still traumatic.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s Rogers lying about now?”

  “Everything. As usual. Did you give him a set of your fingerprints by any chance?”

  “No, but . . . oh, man.”

  “What?”
r />   “When I first woke up after he had kidnapped me, my hand had this astringent smell, like very powerful soap. He could have made a cast of it while I was asleep.”

  “And then he used that to make a glove or something?”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen it on YouTube. People do it to hack into phones with fingerprint protection.”

  “Oh that’s just perfect,” she said.

  Jenny balled her fist, then released it. She was the one who could supposedly see the future, yet Rogers always seemed to be a step ahead of her.

  “Okay, we’ll worry about that later,” Jenny said. “Let’s figure out where we’re going first.”

  “I was thinking we’d find a hotel or something.”

  “And then what?” she asked. “I have six bullets left in this gun. That won’t last very long once Rogers finds us with his drone.”

  “What did you have in mind, then?”

  Jenny gazed out the windshield, willing herself to think rationally. Who could she really trust? Where did she turn when she was in trouble? Who had her back no matter what? It was suddenly obvious.

  “My parents’ house,” she said.

  “Isn’t that exactly where they’ll expect us to go?”

  “Maybe. But think about the setup there. The house is up on that little knoll. It has a hundred acres of open land around it. There’d be no surprising us. Plus, Dad has half a million guns, probably some dynamite left over from blowing up stumps, and who knows what else.”

  “I don’t know, I just—”

  Jenny watched as Nate’s eyes again flicked toward the rearview mirror.

  “Oh crap,” he said. “I think we’ve got company.”

  CHAPTER 41

  NATE

  The headlights were bright and high, like they belonged to a van or light truck; and they were perhaps a hundred yards behind us.

  But they were coming on fast, closing the distance at a determined clip.

  I pressed down the gas. I didn’t know what they were driving, but it looked boxy and slow. I felt good about the Range Rover’s V8. It had enough power to outrun anything that was as large as whatever went with those headlights.

  That’s if we were on a track, or a straightaway. The problem was, we were winding through neighborhoods with lights, traffic, and a smattering of late-night pedestrians.