Trigger

by S. G. Redling

  She sure wasn’t worried about Dani stealing anything though. Restless and exhausted from running the fight over and over in her head, and unable to get comfortable with the implant she swore she could now feel pulsing in her shoulder, Dani had given up any hope of sleep. She prowled about the cluttered living room, mindlessly searching through the piles of books and maps and knickknacks on every surface.

  Knickknacks was probably not the right word for some of this stuff.

  There were solid jade eggs, statuettes made of precious metals, paintings and sketches that looked original. Dani felt safe assuming each item she picked up was worth more than the entirety of her personal possessions.

  None of which she had handy.

  She didn’t even have a toothbrush. After waking up from an uneasy doze, Dani felt as if the grilled cheese from earlier now coated every surface of her mouth. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hold Choo-Choo down and demand he listen to her.

  She wanted to go back to Florida.

  She tried not to dwell on the question of whether or not Choo-Choo would go with her.

  When the phone in her pocket buzzed with a call, she stupidly imagined it was Choo-Choo calling to make up with her, to tell her he was sending a car to get her and that they would head straight to the airport and fly back to Redemption Key, leaving all of this nonsense behind.

  Of course, it wasn’t Choo-Choo. He didn’t have the number to this phone. Only one person did.

  “Hello, Tom.”

  “Hello, Dani.”

  It was a testimony to her state of mind that she didn’t hate having someone, anyone, to talk with. “Have you found out if Choo-Choo has an implant?”

  Booker’s breath rattled in the phone. “Are you alone?”

  She nearly said yes but caught herself. Letting Tom Booker know she was alone wasn’t necessarily the best strategy for staying alive.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’d like to talk with you.”

  “Okay,” she said carefully. “Let’s talk.”

  “Can you meet me? Can we talk in person?”

  Dani stared at the ceiling. “I can talk freely here. Nobody can hear me right now.”

  More breathing and the sound of traffic. “I’d rather not do this over the phone. I need to show you something.” Well, that didn’t sound at all sketchy. Before she could counter, he cut in. “I know this is unusual. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, but this is very important, Dani. Do you remember where you got out of the van this afternoon? By Riverside Park?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m parked there right now at the top of the hill. Can you come down?”

  “Because, of course you know where I am. Because you are also tracking me with this phone. I forgot.”

  He sighed. “I know this is a lot to ask but I promise I am not wasting your time. Give me five minutes. Hear me out. If you don’t like what I have to say, I will leave, and you will never hear from me again.”

  Dani glanced around the room. She could hear Olivia snoring lightly down the hall. Choo-Choo was miles away and out of reach. Almost nobody on Earth knew where she was, and even fewer cared. At this point, what did she have to lose?

  “I’m on my way.”

  She found him on the corner across the street, sitting in the driver’s seat of the van. Was that a logo for a senior citizen’s community on the side? She decided she never wanted to know the story behind that. He watched her approach, his face unreadable under the streetlight, and she heard the door locks click when she reached the passenger side.

  A small part of her noticed that these encounters were becoming less surreal. She decided not to think about that right now.

  “Hi, Tom.”

  Booker scanned the area around the van, checking the side mirrors. “Are you alone?”

  “I am.”

  “Where is your friend?”

  Dani worked to keep her tone neutral. “He went back to his family’s house.”

  “In Connecticut.”

  “Yeah.” She almost asked how he knew that and then realized she didn’t care.

  “Dani, do you know a woman named Cara Hedrick?”

  That took her off guard. “Yeah. She’s the security liaison for Choo-Choo’s sister. I met her at the family house in Connecticut.”

  “Tell me what you know about her.”

  “I just did.”

  He studied her face and she held his gaze. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe she had finally gone around the bend, but Dani couldn’t help but admire the blue of Tom’s eyes. Maybe there was something to Choo-Choo’s insistence that there was something unhealthy between her and Tom Booker.

  “And ISOC?”

  Dani frowned. “Eye sock? I don’t know what that is.”

  His eyes never left hers, no doubt watching her for signs of lying. Let him stare. Dani had nothing to lie about.

  “ISOC. It’s an acronym for a government agency. They were the agency behind Rasmund.”

  A sharp anger stabbed at her gut. “So, they’re your boss.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. So is Cara Hedrick.”

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  He let her protest hang in the air, watching her. It was impossible. There was no way Cara Hedrick would do business with the likes of Tom Booker. Sure, Dani’s life had somehow bent and twisted to the point where meeting the killer in a van at dawn made sense, but Cara was a professional. She worked to keep people safe. She was a trusted security advisor. She had…

  She had federal security clearance.

  She was one of them – one piece of the massive machine that moved behind the curtain of this world. The FBI, the CIA, whatever the hell ISOC stood for, it was all just limbs of the same, ravenous beast that had torn Dani’s world apart.

  Why was she surprised?

  Dani felt that old rage. She would never be free of them. She would never be out from under their thumb. They were everywhere. They were inside Choo-Choo’s house. Hell, they might even be a part of Choo-Choo’s family.

  Images and impressions of the past few days rained down on her like radioactive hail. All those people, all those names, all those odd stares and gracious smiles. Cara and her giggling asides and friendly glances, assuring Dani that she was not alone in this weird world of theirs.

  She wasn’t alone, was she?

  She would never be alone. They would always find her.

  Her mouth tasted like pennies and she realized Tom continued to watch her, his expression softening as hers no doubt hardened.

  “I can get you out.”

  “Bullshit.” She couldn’t dare believe him. She couldn’t bear to let him, or anyone know how badly she wished he was telling the truth. Out. What would that look like? What would it be to not see Feds at every turn? To not always fear that insidious power that could never be satisfied, would never let her rest?

  “I can.”

  “How? You work for them.”

  “I’m getting out. I have papers. Good ones. The best.” He licked his chapped lips. Dani saw that blush rising again.

  “And how does that help me?”

  “I have them for you too.”

  “You do? Why?” The tiny shock around Booker’s eyes showed Dani her misstep. Shadowy government agencies aside, there were few things more dangerous to a woman than embarrassing a man. She hurried to correct the question. “I mean, how did you do that? How did you get a picture of me? The information?”

  “I had a file on you. From before. And the Paper Sisters did the rest.”

  “The Paper Sisters. PS. That’s who you texted me about. Kaneisha? She’s a Paper Sister?” Dani babbled, hoping to distract Booker and give herself time to think.

  Tom Booker had made a set of identification papers for her. What did he imagine? That they were a team, that she would leave with him? He was telling her about the Paper Sisters, their network and some of the
services they supplied. Dani pretended to listen, the thought boxes in her mind springing open, running scenarios, asking questions.

  In his mind, Booker saw them on the same team. Choo-Choo seemed to think the same thing. Nobody had asked her where she stood or what she wanted. Dani had gotten painfully accustomed to that. She had learned to work other’s assumptions to her advantage, however slight. Having Tom Booker on her side was a definite advantage in this upside-down world but she wasn’t so naïve as to believe there weren’t conditions.

  There were always conditions.

  Would he expect her to sleep with him? An uneasy jolt flashed through her body. She had slept with men for worse reasons than staying alive. Did he think he loved her? The guy literally cut people into little pieces for money. Odds were good he didn’t have a well-developed emotional landscape. Did that work in her favor or against it?

  She wasn’t exactly the poster child for emotional balance herself.

  Those were problems for another day. Right now, she had to find out what Tom Booker wanted from her, how she could get the tracker out of her body, and what it would take to get her hands on that new identity he had made for her.

  She wished she had Choo-Choo to talk this over with.

  That would also have to wait. Maybe forever.

  Thought boxes open. Thought boxes closed.

  “Can the Paper Sisters get this tracker out of me?”

  He nodded. “Kaneisha got mine out. She said yours wouldn’t be difficult where it’s located. We can go there right now.”

  “And Choo-Choo? Does he have one?”

  “He does.”

  “We have to get his out too.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  Booker turned away from her, staring out through the windshield. Dani braced herself for a difficult discussion. Whatever feelings he might have for her, however complicated her relationship with her friend had become, she would not walk away and leave Choo-Choo tagged like some animal in the wild. They had been through too much together.

  Thought box open. Thought box close.

  She would get Tom Booker to help her get that tracker out of Choo-Choo even if she had to blow, fuck, or marry him. Or all three.

  “If we’re going to get out of this,” Booker spoke softly, “we need to go now.”

  “Then I’m not going.” He snapped around to stare at her. She didn’t flinch. “He’s my best friend. I’m not leaving without him.”

  “There are things going on that you know nothing about.”

  “What else is new?”

  Booker grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. Dani expected to see his knuckles whiten in his grip, but they didn’t. He just sat still and soft, staring into the darkness.

  “Something very bad is going to happen.”

  “Again, Tom, what else is new?”

  “Your friend is not going to make it.”

  All the air inside the van vanished in a heartbeat. Dani’s mouth went dry, her skin hot.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Cara Hedrick has something planned. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it involves your friend and what’s inside his body.”

  “The tracker?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not a tracker. It’s an explosive. And I think it’s going to go off in about two and a half hours.”

  All of her composure, all of her cool calculations and plans for negotiations fled her brain with that statement. Hot rage and panic flooded her, making her want to punch and flail, to kick out the windshield, to strangle the blue-eyed maniac sitting beside her. It took every fiber of her being to contain that reaction, to keep her hands folded in her lap, her nails drawing blood against her palms.

  She was going to lose Choo-Choo. Not in an argument. Not to his family. She was going to lose him forever. There was no reality in which she could survive that.

  She had only one weapon left.

  “You have to help me save him, Tom.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.” She softened her tone, turning her whole body toward him. “You have to. Help me save him, Tom, and I will go anywhere with you. Anywhere you want.”

  She didn’t know if she could keep her hands from trembling, either from fear or rage or pure shock, but she risked reaching out for him. Her tan fingers stood out starkly on his crisp white shirt, her touch tender on the long, hard muscles of his shoulder. He twitched at her touch and then softened.

  “Please, Tom. Do it for me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  His stomach hurt. Booker worked to not clutch the steering wheel too tightly as they headed out of Manhattan towards his motel in Connecticut. Dani sat cross-legged in her seat; her feet tucked under her. She hadn’t said a word since he’d agreed to take her to her friend.

  I will go anywhere with you.

  Had he asked her that? He couldn’t remember making that leap in the conversation. Honestly, he had only imagined the road leading there in the quietest parts of his mind. He thought he would give her the papers, help her re-fashion her life. He thought she would be grateful. They would have something in common, something besides all this chaos.

  He didn’t know he had been making a deal with her.

  He didn’t know how he felt about it.

  His shoulder still tingled from her touch. He thought if he looked, he would see the skin glowing underneath the fabric. He wanted to peel off his shirt and look at it.

  He wanted her to do it again.

  Kaneisha’s words rolled through his mind – the one person who could block his instincts. Was she manipulating him? He tried to find the dark thoughts; the thoughts that would help him focus. This would be a brilliant play on Cara’s part, to get Dani to get him back to Connecticut, to be present when the countdown reached zero. It didn’t take a great deal of imagination to see how she could pin this whole disaster on him. The blond kid would be dead. Nobody could survive their chest exploding. Cara could create any narrative she liked.

  Dani could make it easier for her, filling in blanks with her own stories.

  It made a dark sense, an ugly theory that he had no trouble ascribing to Cara Hedrick. But Dani Britton was another story.

  He believed her. Not that she had told him much, but he believed her anger. He saw it when she found out about the bomb in her friend’s chest. It flashed over her face like a sunrise before being pulled back in and buried under a carefully neutral expression.

  That’s when she had touched him. She was desperate.

  He had two choices in that moment. He could continue to believe her and see if they could save her friend. Then he would have to see if she kept her promise. Or he could side with the suspicion of treachery and kill her before they left the expressway. His little knife sat warm in the small of his back, calling to him. It would take little strength, a quick strike into the soft spot above her clavicle. Drive the knife in deep, pinning her to the seat back.

  She would be dead in moments. He would be free to keep driving.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” Dani asked. “Do you know the address?”

  He looked at her, those deep brown eyes staring at him the way he always pictured her. “Cara texted it to me. But first I have to go by the motel where she thinks I’m staying. Pick up my tracker and my rental car. She thinks I’ve been staying there waiting for her call.”

  “You just left the tracker in the room? What if housekeeping had thrown it away?”

  “They don’t work like that. The trackers, I mean.” Something in his chest relaxed at the easy conversation. “One of the Paper Sisters is there, keeping the tracker active.”

  “How?”

  He thought of Tabitha’s lewd grin. “I don’t know.”

  Miles passed in a silence that felt more comfortable as they got deeper into Connecticut.

  “You said you had a rental car there. Did you drive up here?”

&nb
sp; He nodded.

  “From where?”

  “Home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Pittsburgh.”

  “You live in Pittsburgh?”

  The shock in her voice made him turn. “I do. Why does that surprise you?”

  She laughed, not in a mocking way but as if he had just amazed her with a magic trick. “I don’t know why that surprises me.” She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “I guess I never thought of you having a house.”

  “It’s an apartment.”

  “Oh.” He could see her watching him as he drove. He knew he should say something. This was the appropriate time for small talk, but his mind was blank. Dani was better at this. “Do you have roommates or a pet or anything?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not home much. I travel a lot. You know, for…”

  “For work. Yeah. I imagine you’re busy.”

  He glanced at her, trying to figure out what she was doing, why they were having this conversation, if that’s what it could be called. She chewed on her thumbnail.

  “Speaking of your work, Tom.”

  “Yes?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  Tell her the truth. Booker reminded himself that this was no time for lies.

  “Killing people? No.”

  “Did it ever?”

  He risked a look at her. Her eyes told him there was a lot in that question.

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. But I don’t think so.”

  “You just don’t think about it?”

  “I don’t not think about.”

  “Oh.” She nodded, turning to watch the green fields spreading out around them. After several miles of silence, she tapped on her window. “Cow.”

  “Yeah,” Booker said, as they passed a field of black cows. He should ask her about them, if she knew much about cows, if she’d grown up around them in Oklahoma. Instead, he asked, “Do you think about it? What happened on that dock? With the boat cleat?”