by Ethan Cross
A warrant had been issued for his arrest, and they barely heard anything from or about him for the next couple of years. Everything they did hear was negative. Then they heard nothing at all. A part of her had hoped that he was dead.
One moment of anger. One split second decision. And her father was gone from her life forever. Or at least, he was, until now.
Forcing herself to move, she climbed from the rental and floated dreamily toward the sidewalk. Children shrieked in delight amid the sound of pool splashes and the smells of a backyard barbecue. Maggie trembled as she pressed the little off-white button beside the door and listened for signs of movement inside.
A young girl—maybe eleven or twelve years old—opened the door, and Maggie had more trouble keeping her reaction from showing than if she had come face to face with a mass murderer. The little girl was dressed and coifed in modern styles, but besides that, she was a dead ringer for one of Maggie’s school photos. Bronze skin, blonde hair, blue eyes…just like her father.
The pre-teen had her nose buried in her cell phone and barely looked up as she asked, “May I help you?”
Maggie wondered briefly if this was all a dream. If Marcus had been present, he probably would have geeked out that this situation was similar to a scene from Empire Strikes Back. Or at least, the old Marcus would have. She missed him, almost as much as she missed her brother.
Thankfully, the words came automatically as she cleared her throat and asked, “Hello, are your parents home?”
The girl’s thumbs danced over the screen, seemingly oblivious to the question, but she screamed, “Dad!”
Maggie was grateful for the fact that the young girl had answered the door and provided a few seconds for her to react and process. Now, her expression could be one of cold indifference instead of confusion when her father arrived to greet her.
He looked better than Maggie had ever seen him look. It was obvious he had been sober for some time, and he appeared to be in better physical shape than he had in the pictures from his high school year book, except for a head of hair that was stark white instead of sandy blonde.
“Sorry about my daughter. She’s—”
Maggie had already removed her sunglasses. She wanted him to have a clear view of her when he approached, hoping that he would recognize his other abandoned and forgotten daughter. The way his eyes went wide at the sight of her indicated that she had gotten her wish.
Removing a special germ-resistant leather wallet that Marcus had purchased as a gift from the pocket of her suit jacket, she flipped open to her credentials, and trying to maintain the same tone she would have used with any interviewee, she said, “Special Agent Maggie Carlisle. I have a few questions to ask you.”
Her father’s hands shook, and his eyes looked as if they might pop from his skull and roll away. He stepped toward her, crowding her away from the front door as he pulled it closed behind him. With that simple movement, he spoke volumes. He had closed the door between his new life and his eldest, forgotten child.
Rage fueling her, she proclaimed, “You have a beautiful home here, Mr. Carlisle.”
“Mags, I’ve thought a lot about what I would say—”
“Don’t call me that. I’m here because I need information. So let’s be clear, you’re nothing more to me than any other random asshole that might cross my path.”
He nodded and met her gaze. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve a lot worse than that. What do you do for a living, Mr. Carlisle?”
“I run a trucking company. Listen, Maggie, now is not the best time. Maybe we could—”
“Now will do just fine. There have been some new developments in Tommy’s case. You remember him? Your son, Tommy?”
“Let’s get coffee later. There are a lot of things you don’t know. You have a lot of reasons to be angry at me, so you might as well be angry for the right ones.”
Maggie dug the nails of her left hand into her palm to focus her anger and remain in control. “You’re going to answer a few questions, and then I’ll be out of your life, just like you want it.”
“I never wanted that, Mags. Listen, your grandmother threatened me. She—”
Raising both hands, she interrupted, “I don’t care. I only need to ask you a few questions about the day your son, Tommy, was taken.”
“Mags, dammit, that’s why I want to explain. Tommy was your brother, but he wasn’t my son.”
Employing a technique for dealing with rage that Ackerman had taught her, she imagined herself hurting her father in her mind in order to fight the urge to hurt him in real life. She asked, “Are you remarried?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Teresa.”
“Does she know about the wife and kids you abandoned?”
“Dammit, Maggie, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“How many kids?”
He lowered his eyes and ran a hand through his white hair. “Two boys and a girl.”
Maggie closed her eyes and imagined herself pistol-whipping her progenitor. Her father had remarried. She’d been prepared for that, but for some reason, the possibility that he might have more children had never occurred to her. If he didn’t want the kids he already had, why go make more?
Sticking out her lower jaw and breathing hard, she said, “So tell me what I don’t know?”
“I can’t right now, but meet me later, and I’ll—”
“Either you talk to me now, or I haul you into your local police station for questioning. Think that would get your new family’s attention?”
“I’m sorry, Mags. I really am. Is that want you want to hear? I’ve been through a lot too, and I’ve tried to move on and learn from my mistakes.”
“So that’s what we were to you? Mistakes?”
“No, I just meant that I’m trying to be a better husband and father now. But I’m not the only one at fault in all this. Your mother… Well, did you ever notice that Tommy seemed really…dark-complected?”
“The whole family has naturally dark skin! What the hell are you saying?”
With a sigh, her father replied, “I had a DNA test ran. Tommy was your brother, Maggie, but he wasn’t my son. Your mother had been sleeping around. That’s when I started drinking. I was trying to work up the nerve to run a test on you too, but it would have broken my heart if it had turned out that you—”
“Don’t say another word.”
“Your mother blamed me when he was taken, and your grandma threatened to tell the police that I—”
“Shut up!” she screamed.
Her father recoiled and looked toward the windows of his perfect house, not wanting his perfect new family to ask too many questions. Somehow, Maggie had accepted being abandoned, but she wasn’t prepared to discover that she, along with the rest of her father’s first family, had been replaced.
Closing her eyes and breathing deep, Maggie counted to ten and said, “This was a mistake. Looks like you have a nice life here. Sorry to interrupt.”
She turned to leave and had made it halfway to her rental when he called out, “Wait! Why don’t you come inside?”
Maggie dug her fingernails into her palms until she felt her flesh tearing, but she didn’t turn back. Instead, she willed herself forward to the driver’s side of the rental. Sliding behind the wheel, she sped away with an unintentional squealing of tires. Then, driving until she could no longer see through the tears, Maggie Carlisle pulled to the side of the road and wept.
44
As Liana watched Frank with fascination, she was struck by the strangest thought. What would her grandmother think if she brought him home? But then, thinking of Grandmother made her wonder what Grandmother would think of her thinking about what she would think about this strange man…. All her thoughts seemed cloudy like she was in some kind of strange dream state. A fugue state. Like she had become as spectator in her own life.
She felt like she had went to work that evening in
one dimension and had now stumbled into another. But as Liana observed, she was reminded that, in reality, she was less than fifty miles from where she was born. This was her territory. She had patrolled these hills. She had made arrests out here.
There was really only one new detail from a different world with different rules. The outsider. The man calling himself Frank.
His virile command of the situation had caused her to momentarily forget that this was a man who was grievously injured, but whatever reality he called home, she was certain he had to be running on nothing but fumes.
She watched as Frank allowed Toby to say a few words to his father and then ordered Canyon and his men to come no closer. With his message delivered and his adversaries momentarily held at bay, Frank left Toby tied to the chair and headed for the back room of the trading post.
As he walked, he looked to Liana and said, “Keep an eye on our guests for a moment, dear. I need to freshen up.”
Still floating in the surreal haze, Liana moved to the window and observed Canyon and his mercenaries through a pair of binoculars. As she watched them scurrying about, fortifying their positions, blocking off the road, she hoped this was all just a bad dream. If it wasn’t, then she had basically self-destructed her own life in one night. Hell, in one second, in one small choice. She had never truly understood how easy it was to find yourself on the wrong side of something horrible, until now.
Toby Canyon was quite a bit younger than her, but she had still seen him around and even spoken to him on a few different occasions. Most of them involving some sort of less than legal trouble. With his gag now removed and Frank in the other room, Toby looked to her for help. He mouthed the words, “Kill him… Help us…”
But Toby’s young eyes only echoed the sentiments of the latter statement. There was no real rage in him, only fear. And maybe he was right. Maybe she had chosen the wrong side. John Canyon and his group certainly weren’t on the side of righteousness, but this newcomer seemed to be on the wrong side of insanity.
With a finger to her lips, she told Toby to be quiet, and with a look of authoritative reassurance, she told him to remain calm. She tried to convince him of something she herself didn’t really believe: that everything was going to be okay. Because the fact was that she wasn’t sure anything would be okay ever again.
Not wanting Toby to see her tears, she stepped toward the back room, but hearing muffled gasps carried her forward for a peak around the corner.
Illuminated by the light of the moon and a pre-dawn sun coming in through shattered windows, Frank pulled off his black long-sleeved shirt, which was soaked with his own blood and sticking to the side of his abdomen. He looked gaunt and pale.
As he pulled the shirt free, she saw blood oozing from several puncture wounds on his left side. He seemed not to register her presence. He examined the injuries and muttered something under his breath. Then he turned to her, and in his usual calm baritone, he said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve caught you staring at my scars.”
Without thinking, she blurted, “I wasn’t actually looking at the scars.”
“Ahh, so you were admiring my physique?”
“No, no, I was just…,” she stammered, “We have to do something about those wounds.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. The body has many wonderful mechanisms in place to expel foreign objects. Unfortunately for me, that means that the several small pieces of metal shrapnel that have pierced my body are also preventing the paths of entry from clotting themselves shut. I thought of cauterizing, but I’m not sure that would even help with as much metal seems to be lodged in my side, and perhaps one even growing annoyingly close to my spine.”
“You talk about that so calmly. Like it’s tomorrow’s forecast or a recipe for tuna salad.”
“How am I supposed to talk about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe like a person who’s talking about their own death.”
He chuckled, and it caused him to cough as he said, “You need to be more optimistic. This isn’t going to kill me. It’s merely an inconvenience. Perhaps I was a bit overconfident. Or, more accurately, I misjudged Mr. Canyon’s abilities. He’s quicker than I imagined.”
She said, “We’re going to have to surrender.”
He chuckled and coughed again and said, “Stop making me laugh.” Then, after catching his breath, he added, “Despite the Russian fleet signaling for Surrender in the Battle of Sashimi, the Japanese navy didn’t get the message and continued firing because they didn’t have the word Surrender in their codebooks.”
She replied, “What the hell does that have to do with anything? I know, I get it. You’re a big tough guy and you don’t know the meaning of the word surrender, but you better understand that you’re about to learn the meaning of the word die.”
He seemed to consider this for the first time and a strange look passed over his face, as if the idea that he might die had never occurred to him. He said, “You’re right. I’m going to need you to perform surgery and remove the shrapnel. Then assist me in closing the wounds.”
“Oh hell no!” Liana replied. “I’m a cop. I can deal with the sight of blood. But that’s a whole different thing than digging around inside somebody and performing surgery. Even under ideal conditions, and these are far from the best conditions. We don’t have lights or tools or anything we would need to do any of the things you just said!”
The more she talked, the more she noticed he wasn’t listening.
Frank swayed back and forth like a drunk, and a haze had fallen over his normally bright and captivating eyes. His voice grew raspy and decreased in volume as he said, “We can do this, Officer Liana. See how well it worked out that you were here to help me? I probably could have tried to get young Tobias to perform the surgery, but I’m not sure that would have worked out so well.”
“There’s no way I can perform any kind of surgery.”
“Well, what I have in mind is not quite what I would call surgery. I only need you to retrieve a couple of components for me. Just a few simple items and a few simple instructions.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she said, “Okay…”
“The first item on the list is one of those milk crates. Because I’m about to fall over.”
Seeing him about to stumble forward, she quickly rushed over and helped him sit down.
He continued, “Okay, onto the second item. Behind the building there’s a heap of some worthless old scrap metal.”
Not sure where he was going with this, Liana said, “Okay…”
“I saw a broken microwave oven out there earlier. I need you to get it and bring it in here for me.”
“And how exactly is a broken, rusted out old microwave going to help save your life?”
Frank growled deep in his throat, and then with a wheezing cough, he said, “Can we just skip a step this time?”
“What do you mean skip a step?”
“Can you please just trust me and bring me the damn microwave? Or would you rather me waste my last breaths giving you a science lesson?”
Unsure if Frank was delirious from pain and blood loss or once again about to do something that would confuse and astound her. She decided that it wasn’t worth arguing with him and rushed to the junk heap to search for a microwave.
45
For some reason, Ackerman had been thinking a lot recently about his trip below the border. Specifically, his Rainbow Goddess, whom he had met along the road to Cancun. As he sat atop an old wooden crate, waiting for Liana to return, he wondered to himself why he would be thinking of those days now. Perhaps it was the connection between John Canyon, the king of the Navajo nation and New Mexico, and his business associates in the Mexican cartels.
Over his shoulder, Thomas White whispered, “You’re thinking of those days because you’re dying and your life is flashing before your eyes. Your brain is trying to replay all of its memories and latch on to something happy to send you off with, but in your case, those memories are
few and far between.”
Ackerman said, “That’s not true. I consider myself a very happy person, with many fond remembrances.”
“Oh, come now, Junior. We both know that there’s a difference between true joy and the excitement you get from a kill.”
“I’m not dying. There’s no need for my life to be flashing.”
Thomas White laughed. “There you go, Junior. Try to shrug off death himself. We’ll see how that works out for you. Perhaps, when you grow weak enough, the grim reaper will allow me to come in and take control.”
“I don’t know why you keep saying that. That’s never going to happen.”
“Oh, my boy, it’s already happening. You’re always standing right on the edge. All you need is a little push.”
“I’m not listening to you anymore.”
“Yes, that’s right. Don’t you have some kind of rule about not talking to the delusions. Something about A Beautiful Mind and intellectually rejecting your own psychosis…”
“Thanks for reminding me. You may cease your ignorant ramblings now. I will no longer be acknowledging you.”
“You should take the time to listen to me, Junior. I know you better than you know yourself.”
Ackerman said nothing.
Thomas White continued, “For example, you’re thinking of your perfect woman—your little Rainbow Goddess—because of your proximity to Officer Liana.”
Ackerman considered that observation, despite not acknowledging it outwardly.
His father laughed. “You always forget that I’m in your head. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t overanalyze it. She’s a very attractive young lady, and you’re a…young-ish man.”
